Commons Sitting of 20 October 1992

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  PRIVATE BUSINESS
    DURHAM MARKETS COMPANY BILL [Lords]
    Read a Second time, and committed.
    LONDON REGIONAL TRANSPORT (PENALTY FARES) BILL (By Order)
    Lords amendments agreed to.
    PRICE'S PATENT CANDLE COMPANY LIMITED BILL [Lords] (By Order)
    Read the Third time, and passed.

    CITY OF BRISTOL (PORTISHEAD DOCKS) BILL [Lords] (BY ORDER)
    Order for Second Reading read.
    To be read a Second time on Thursday next.

    SOUTH YORKSHIRE LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT BILL [Lords] (By Order)
    Read a Second time, and committed.
Oral Answers to Questions
  EDUCATION

    Student Loans Scheme
    Mr. Hanson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what is his latest estimate of the number of defaulters on payments granted under the student loans scheme.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Further and Higher Education (Mr. Nigel Forman): As at 30 September, 5,174 borrowers owed two or more monthly instalments. That represents 9.1 per cent. of those who should be repaying their loans on time.
    Mr. Hanson: Is the Minister aware that that figure is without doubt an underestimate for the future? There will be many more people struggling to pay and many people leaving their courses. Why do not the Government begin to scrap the scheme, so that people like me—who come from backgrounds that are not academic and who are not used to taking on debts in the family—are not dissuaded from taking up further and higher education? Many people will not take up higher education because of the Government's student loans scheme.
    Mr. Forman: There is absolutely no evidence that the student loans scheme has deterred participation in higher education—indeed, quite the contrary. The numbers have increased staggeringly during the past 10 or 12 years and will continue to do so while quality is maintained.
    Mr. Pawsey: Will my hon. Friend confirm that student support in the United Kingdom remains the most generous in the western world? Will he confirm that the number of students has increased, from a low point of less than 700,000 under the Labour Government, to substantially more than 1 million today? Will he further confirm that the target group of students was one in eight when Labour was in office, has fallen to one in four and is set to fall to one in three?
    Mr. Forman: My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the package of support for students in this country is generous by international standards. Grants and loans together are now worth about 40 per cent. more than three years ago when there were grants alone.

    Teachers' Pay and Conditions
    Mr. Skinner: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what recent meetings he has had with teachers' trade union representatives to discuss teachers' pay and conditions of service.
    The Secretary of State for Education (Mr. John Patten): I have asked the School Teachers Review Body to report on schoolteachers' pay and conditions in 1993–94. Teachers' pay is not a matter for negotiation between teachers' unions and the holder of my office.
    Mr. Skinner: Is the Secretary of State aware that, with mass unemployment growing like a cancer in every town and city in Britain, teachers have got one hell of a job to do in trying to motivate young men and women to do

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    better, because those young people see their brothers and sisters and friends without a job for three or four years? At this time, is it not totally wrong for the Government to say to teachers and their representatives that they are not fit to do their job and that they should have a pay freeze?
    The Secretary of State should take it on board that I believe that, instead of a pay freeze for teachers and assessment of teachers, this Cabinet should be assessed. If members of the Cabinet had to pass a test, they would not qualify to do The Sun crossword.
    Mr. Patten: The hon. Gentleman is certainly a very vigorous exponent of the National Union of Teachers' case. He is a much better exponent of it than many of its leaders—I increasingly think of the hon. Gentleman as a kind of thinking man's Doug McAvoy.
    I believe that teachers do an excellent job. Since 1979, they have received an increase in their pay of 46 per cent. in real terms. There is a minimum number of vacancies for teachers and people are crowding to join that very popular and successful profession.
    Mr. Rowe: Is it possible for my right hon. Friend to invent a better system for dealing with those teachers who, through either sickness or incapacity, need to leave the service? It often takes months and months for them to do so, which means that the schools of which they are a member of the staff are left paralysed as to whether to appoint another teacher. Frequently those schools have to appoint another teacher, to the detriment of their other expenditure.
    Mr. Patten: I am not aware of any recent complaints about this issue, but if my hon. Friend wants to draw any particular complaints to my attention I shall look at them. The average age of retirement for teachers is 59, but, occasionally, some teachers, for a host of reasons, have to leave the profession early. It is quite right that their departure should be part of a smooth transition, in their interests and those of their families.
    At the moment, many people wish to join the profession. This autumn we expected 24,000 student teachers to enter teacher training colleges for the first year, but 29,000 did so because the profession is so appealing and buoyant under the Government.
    Mr. Don Foster: Does the Secretary of State accept that his attitude towards teachers' pay and his many other recent attacks on teachers are lowering the morale of the teaching profession? What is his reaction to the comments made in an allegedly confidential document from the Conservative research department which, referring to the Secretary of State, spoke of
    "Too much 'fire and brimstone' and ill-defined attacks on education 'experts'"
    and said that he was doing little to raise morale in the education profession?
    Mr. Patten: In view of the personal attacks that the hon. Gentleman has made on me, I should like him to substantiate them by placing in the Library of the House any evidence of a single occasion when he can find attributed to me—in quotes or in any other form—attacks on the teaching profession. If he cannot do that, I hope that he will come here to apologise, because I greatly value the teaching profession. During our very successful party
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    conference in Brighton a week ago, we could see just how the teaching profession was applauded during my excellent speech.
    The boy who prepared the alleged report from Conservative central office was apparently a pretty inefficient character. He has now left the Department and he has resigned from the Conservative party. It is generally thought that he was a sleeper for the Liberal party.
    Mr. Anthony Coombs: I welcome the large increase in real pay given to teachers in the past 10 years and the fact that record numbers wish to join the profession now. Does my right hon. Friend agree that most good teachers welcome appraisal and incentive systems that are based on school needs rather than those of the local authority? As a result, most of them welcome the local management of schools, which gives them the opportunity to have their salary related more closely to their performance.
    Mr. Patten: Good educational standards such as those promoted by teachers underpin the values of our nation, and we should be grateful to them for that. The other side of that coin is to make it possible for performance-related pay to be available for the teachers in schools so that their performance may be recognised. The fact that there has been a 46 per cent. real terms increase in teachers' take-home pay since 1979, with the average salary for a teacher in England now being £20,630, speaks for itself.

    Two-year Degree Courses
    Mr. Cousins: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what is the Government's policy on the introduction of two-year degree courses.
    Mr. Forman: The Government believe that there is scope for providing some existing courses on a more intensive basis, including accelerated degrees. It is for institutions to decide whether to develop such courses. The Government have no intention of imposing a uniform pattern.
    Mr. Cousins: If the Minister really believes in quality and standards in higher education, he must face the fact that many vice-chancellors are telling their staff that they have a Government who do not understand their problems and do not support them. Is he aware that, in every institution of higher education, people are being told that they must expect during the lifetime of the present Government a doubling of student numbers, with no increase in real resources? Is he further aware that we are facing the prospect of standards and quality in higher education being gradually reduced to something like fourth-rate battery chickens, directly as a result of the Government's policies and their decisions on resources?
    Mr. Forman: I am not sure that that supplementary question deserves a reply, but, as I am in a generous mood, I will tell the hon. Gentleman that the funding of higher education will continue to attract a fair share of resources within public expenditure and that the expansion of higher education, which is viewed on the basis of projections rather than targets. is likely to continue in the 1990s, while quality is maintained. We intend to maintain quality by ensuring that proper arrangements are in place at the institutional level and the level of the funding council.

    Student Loans Scheme
    Mr. Battle:: To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many students applied for student loans during the last academic year.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many students applied for student loans in the academic year 1991–92; and what was the figure for the previous year.
    Mr. Forman: About 264,000 students applied for a loan in 1991–92. That compares with some 192,000 students in the previous academic year.
    Mr. Battle: Is the Minister aware that, even before the term begins, students in Leeds are forced to pay half their maximum loans—about £400—on securing their accommodation? How on earth does he expect students to avoid being in debt to the tune of about £2,000 before their courses end? It is all very well for him to say that they will have jobs and therefore will be able to pay that money off, but why will the Government not bring forward proposals so that students are not saddled with crippling debt?
    Mr. Forman: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has not discovered as a result of his investigation of the issues that regional variations in housing costs are among the factors taken into account when access funds are used. The hon. Gentleman was talking about hardship cases—a familiar cry from Labour Members. The vast majority of students are not in hardship, there is no evidence of such hardship, and my evidence for saying that is that the take-up rate of student loans in the last full academic year—the loans are available to all students who want them—was about only 37 per cent.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: Does the Minister recall that, when we debated the Bill applying to student loans, we were told that there would be a big reduction in the numbers taking degrees? What has been the reduction?
    Mr. Forman: There has been absolutely no reduction in the number of people taking degrees. Indeed, the number of degrees taken has gone up consistently under Conservative rule and the quality of those degrees has been maintained. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point.
    Mr. Rooker: Although we welcome the recently announced Government survey of student incomes, we argue that such a survey is not strictly necessary. The Minister claims that there is no hardship among students. I urge him to check at random among all the higher educational institutes throughout the country to see the true situation. Will he take it from me that at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 72 per cent. of students eligible for the full grant are on an overdraft, one fifth of students whose parents are due to pay a contribution do not do so, or do not do so in full, and two thirds of students receive no extra support at all from their parents? Is he further aware that 22 per cent.—more than one fifth of students—have had to consider leaving university because of the financial hardship which they are suffering?
    Mr. Forman: May I begin my reply in a conciliatory spirit by welcoming the hon. Member for Birmingham,
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    Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) to his new responsibilities on the Front Bench. Many of us on this side of the House think that he should have been there a long time ago.
    It would be good to know whether the evidence that the hon. Gentleman quotes includes students who have applied for a standard student loan. The first question that he should ask is whether they have done so. Access funds are targeted at students in greatest need and the hon. Gentleman will know from his research that there is provision in certain cases—mature students and those with dependants or disabilities—for special help to be available through the social security system. The overall package of student support is generous in this country; indeed, it is more generous than in most of our competitor countries.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Our excellent university of Lancaster has 10 applicants for every place available because we offer the courses that students want and have the fifth highest pass rate in the country. We are building more student accommodation.
    Mr. Forman: I congratulate my hon. Friend on always speaking up for Lancaster university. I can vouch for the fact that it is an excellent institution. It was the first university that I visited when taking up my responsibilities, and I agree with the main points that my hon. Friend made.
    Mr. John D. Taylor: Do students from other European Community countries studying at universities in the United Kingdom have a right of access to those student loans?
    Mr. Forman: I shall need to let the right hon. Gentleman know about that and shall write to him accordingly.

    Local Management of Schools
    Mr. Cohen: To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will alter the LMS budget formula.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Mr. Eric Forth): The local management of schools budget formula is a matter for each local education authority to determine within the statutory framework. We shall, however, be consulting later in the year on the need for revisions to the LMS framework to take effect from April 1994.
    Mr. Cohen: I welcome that reply, although I hope that the revisions will be brought forward to April 1993. Will the Minister assure us that there will be no Government-originated cuts next year in LMS budgets in schools? Does he understand that many experienced teachers are ending up on the scrap heap because the LMS formula discriminates against them?
    Mr. Forth: There is no evidence whatever for the hon. Gentleman's over-dramatic assertion. I assure him that the local management of schools systems is working extremely well and that all the heads and teachers to whom I talk say that they would never want to go back to previous systems. We believe in the system, in local school decision making, and we think that there is growing evidence that the more decision making is given to heads, teachers and governors, the better is the quality of education decision making at local level. We are fully committed to that.
    Sir Malcolm Thornton: My hon. Friend will know of my concern about certain aspects of how the formula operates, particularly with regard to the average in and actual out of teachers' salaries. Will he assure me that, at the end of the review period, the matter will be looked at in detail? The curious effect is that it does not extend choice to governors in their appointment of staff but limits it, if the formula continues to discriminate against that aspect of our budgets.
    Mr. Forth: I am well aware of my hon. Friend's concerns, which he has expressed frequently and most eloquently. I assure him that the review will cover all matters relating to the local management of schools, including the average actual that he mentioned. However, we must not lose faith with those authorities and schools that have demonstrated that they are well able to make the local management of schools system work, including the average actual salary matter. In our review, we shall take that very much into consideration. We must not penalise those who have made it work well, in an effort to bale out those who cannot or will not make it work properly.

    Access Funds
    Mr. Bill Michie: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what representations he has received regarding the criteria used for determining the allocation of access funds.
    Mr. Forman: Very few. The allocation criteria are a matter for institutions, provided that they are consistent with the Department's general guidance on the use of access funds.
    Mr. Michie: The Minister should be aware of the reasons for setting up the access fund. It was to provide financial help to students in further and higher education whose education was being inhibited because of financial constraints, problems and difficulties. The Minister must be aware of the problem that I brought to his attention—a lone parent with two children was refused an access grant to finish her degree course, and that jeopardised her course's future. Will he look at the criteria again to make sure that it does not discriminate against lone parents, who are mainly women? Will he also increase the measly £26 million a year? After all, the Government can afford it because they took £70 million from student housing benefit.
    Mr. Forman: As the hon. Gentleman says, he and I have corresponded about his constituent, Sheena Borthwick, who is a student at Sheffield Hallam university. As he knows, decisions in this case and in similar cases are best taken by the higher education institutions themselves because they are closest to the problems. Access funds are generous if properly targeted, and the £26 million for this year is perfectly adequate for the task if institutions manage the funds properly and concentrate on cases of real need.
    Mr. Nigel Evans: Does my hon. Friend agree that students appreciate the availability of access funds which are directed to those who are most in need? Does he agree also that, during the general election, the Labour party was callous to suggest that there was money for all, money for the mushrooming number of students who are entering further and higher education, because Labour did not say
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    where the money would come from and did not come clean and tell young people who wanted to enter further and higher education how many of them would have been deprived of the opportunity to benefit from that education?
    Mr. Forman: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Labour specialises in uncosted promises and unbankable assurances. There is no reason why we should pay any attention to Labour's higher education policy.
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: The Minister speaks about uncosted promises. Will he confirm that when the hardship funds were set up the Treasury saved £100 million on housing benefit and income support that students could no longer claim? Will he also confirm that many local authorities are no longer able to provide discretionary grants to students who want to enter further education? Yesterday, there was an announcement about pit closures. The nation and many of the people who will be thrown out of work could benefit from training and education. Has the Secretary of State been asked by the Department of Employment to make extra money available through hardship funds and discretionary grants in areas where unemployment will result from the closures?
    Mr. Forman: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new Front-Bench responsibility. The answer to his latter question is that the training and enterprise councils are taking a lead.
    The hon. Gentleman asked about discretionary awards and the position of local authorities. In 1992–93, local authorities enjoyed an overall increase in their education funding of some 7 per cent. Well-managed local authorities, of which many are Conservative, are able to manage within that sum and provide discretionary awards where they are justified.
    Mr. Hendry: Will my hon. Friend look into the unnecessary hardship being caused to students from Derbyshire where, for no reason other than budgetary and administrative incompetence by the county council, many students have not yet received their mandatory awards? Many others have been on their courses for more than a month and have not been told whether they will receive their discretionary awards.
    Mr. Forman: My hon. Friend mentions a regrettable fact which merely shows the typical behaviour of Labour-controlled Derbyshire council. I note what my hon. Friend says and urge all councils to pay mandatory awards as efficiently and swiftly as possible.

    School Governors
    Mr. Martyn Jones:: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what respresentations he has had about changes in governors' responsibilities following the passing of the Education Reform Act 1988.
    Mr. Patten: Many governors have told me of the considerable satisfaction their role brings. I pay tribute to them for the job they are doing in such large numbers.
    Mr. Jones: I am surprised that the Minister has not had representations on this matter or has not noted Denbigh high school in my constituency which is worried that under LMS, and possibly under grant-maintained status, it may well be penalised under any number of Acts, such as the

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    Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 and the Employment Protection Act 1975, because there is no provision for the protection of the corporate identity of governing bodies. Does the Minister propose to do anything about that?
    Mr. Patten: The hon. Gentleman should not be surprised that I have not noticed his letter because if he sent it to me, it was a mistake to do so. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales is responsible for education in Wales. Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman by telling him to whom to address his letters. On his other point, about the corporate identity of governing bodies, we shall be addressing this in the forthcoming education Bill. I shall draw the point made by the hon. Gentleman to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, who has responsibility for the school to which the hon. Gentleman refers.
    Mr. Harry Greenway: When my right hon. Friend looks at the responsibilities of governors, particularly in administration of LMS funds, will he see whether it is possible, in the review that has been announced to the House, to look at the cost of inspections under the admirable new system? Is he aware of a school not far from the House that is being required to pay £25,000 for a school inspection out of budget? Is that not an enormous imposition on a school in one year?
    Mr. Patten: Charging for school inspections will be a matter for Professor Stewart Sutherland, Her Majesty's inspector of schools and the head of the Office of Standards in Education. If my hon. Friend will give me the name of the school, I will draw his point to the attention of the chief inspector.

    Nursery Education
    Mr. Flynn:: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what plans he has to increase the numbers of children in nursery education.
    Mr. Forth: It is for local authorities to determine the scale and form of provision for the under-fives, but the House would wish to be reminded that 175,000 more under-fives attended maintained schools in England in 1991 than in 1979 and that 90 per cent. of three and four-year-olds now enjoy education or group child care or both.
    Mr. Flynn: That is a complacent answer. Is it not a continuing waste and a disgrace that 32 local education authorities in England provide no full-time nursery education whatever? Will the Minister congratulate the Welsh Labour-controlled local authorities which provide such splendid quality and such a high proportion of nursery education? Can the Minister explain why a child is far more likely to get a chance of nursery education if he lives in a Labour-controlled area than if he lives in a Conservative-controlled area?
    Mr. Forth: That illustrates the rather pathetic dogma peddled by Labour Members, which roughly runs along the lines of, "If it is not supplied by a local education authority, it cannot be supplied at all." Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that what we have seen develop over the past 12 or 13 years is a mixed and diverse
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    system which responds to the real needs of people in communities. Some of that may well be provided by local education authorities. A lot will be provided by the excellent other sources which make provision of the kind that parents want. I cannot accept what the hon. Gentleman said.
    Mr. John Marshall: How many European Community countries start compulsory education at the age of five?
    Mr. Forth: I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. The answer is, hardly any.
    Mr. Cryer: How many?
    Mr. Forth: It is difficult to be specific as the criteria by which the starting age is defined vary from country to country. However, we can be certain that this country is providing universal provision at age five and substantial provision before that in the maintained sector. That is well up with most of our European partners, and ahead of most.

    Physically Handicapped Children
    Mr. Jon Owen Jones:: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what steps the Government propose to take to help integrate more physically handicapped children into the general school system.
    Mr. Patten: It has been the Government's policy since the enactment of the Education Act 1981 that all pupils with special education needs should, wherever practicable, be integrated into the mainstream of school education. Our proposals for legislation will significantly improve all aspects of the arrangements for provision for these pupils.
    Mr. Jones: Will the Secretary of State note that before coming to this place I spent 10 years teaching in a school in which physically handicapped children were integrated? I can testify to the benefits of that experience both for those children and for able-bodied children. I am worried, however, about whether the Government will ring fence the money necessary to adapt schools so that physically handicapped children can be integrated, especially at a time when schools are being charged from their own finances. As I understand it, there is no extra funding for physically handicapped children but only for children with learning difficulties.
    Mr. Patten: I had not realised the hon. Gentleman's experience in these matters. I pay tribute to what he did in the circumstances that he has outlined. If ever he wants to talk to me about these issues, I shall be pleased to see him. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that in England—my figures are for England only and not for Wales—the numbers of handicapped children being educated in mainstream schools has risen from 15 per cent. in 1985 to 37 per cent. during the current year. The Audit Commission has recently drawn to the attention of local authorities in its excellent report entitled "Getting in on the Act" just how much more local authorities could and should do in this direction.
    Sir John Hannam: Is my right hon. Friend aware that part of the campaign against grant-maintained schools is that they will not provide places for children with special education needs? Will he allay that fear and the fears of the parents involved?
    Mr. Patten: I can certainly do that. All grant-maintained schools will have to take pupils with special education needs. I deplore the attacks by some on grant-maintained schools, including the claim that such schools will not take pupils with special education needs. That is a straight insult to the professionalism of teachers in grant-maintained schools. We have only to consider excellent secondary schools which have gone grant maintained, such as Bishopshalt school in Uxbridge and St. Helen's school in Bluntisham, Cambridgeshire, to realise what centres of excellence grant-maintained schools are in dealing with children with special education needs. The schools should be congratulated.
    Mr. Win Griffiths: Will the Secretary of State rectify an omission by his junior Minister? When his hon. Friend met the Spastics Society in September he welcomed the society's report, "A Hard Act to Follow", but somehow omitted to mention another report which found in favour of the Spastics Society and the National Union of Teachers on exactly the same subject, entitled "Within Reach: Access for Disabled Children to Mainstream Education". In both reports the underlying theme is that resourcing is crucial. Will the Secretary of State confirm that provision of resources for children with special needs will be made over and above the general education budget?
    Mr. Patten: I welcome any report made by the Spastics Society which is directed to this important area. The society has responded positively to the consultation document issued by my noble Friend Baroness Blatch, the Minister of State, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Schools. The response has been positive. Resources and available moneys are always important, but equally important is the way in which money is spent. In that respect, report after report has pointed the finger at local education authorities.

    Grant-maintained Schools
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement on progress with the development of grant-maintained schools.
    Mr. Patten: There are now 278 grant-maintained schools educating some 200,000 pupils. A further 30 schools are now approved. I announced yesterday that Sawtry village college, Cambridgeshire had become the 300th school to be approved for grant-maintained status. The applications of 179 more schools are currently being considered within the Department or being published. I am delighted that so many schools and parents have opted for this successful new way of managing themselves in such a short period.
    Ms. Estelle Morris rose—[Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. There is so much noise in the Chamber that I can barely hear what is happening. I ask the House to calm down so that I can call Mr. Jacques Arnold to ask his supplementary question.
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: My right hon. Friend will know that three of the schools that he mentioned are to be found in Gravesham, where parents voted by a majority of five to one, rising to nine to one, in favour of grant-maintained schools. Has my right hon. Friend noticed that since such schools were established, thanks to local decision taking
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    and local value for money, those schools are showing greater flexibility and providing better education for the young people concerned?
    Mr. Patten: The schools in my hon. Friend's constituency are beacons of excellence, providing improved standards while also looking after those children who need help and support, including those with special education needs.
    The point about my hon. Friend's question is that debate in his area about whether to go grant maintained was free and open and without political bias. I utterly deplore the tactics of a number of Labour party members, and particularly of some hon. Members in sending parents unsolicited letters on House of Commons writing paper making the most vindictive threats about education in their area.
    Ms. Estelle Morris: The Secretary of State made it clear in his White Paper that he wishes all schools to seek grant-maintained status. Will he explain to the House what evidence he had about the performance of grant-maintained schools before encouraging mass opt-outs? In particular, will he tell the House how many grant-maintained schools have been subject to a full inspection by and report from Her Majesty's inspectorate?
    Mr. Patten: The answer to the hon. Lady's last question is none, but they will be inspected shortly because all schools will be subject to full inspection under the four-yearly cycle. The answer to the hon. Lady's first question will be evident in November when we publish the A-level and GCSE results of all schools in Britain.
    I forgot to mention who had written the worst of the recent circular letters in Birmingham on House of Commons writing paper. For the avoidance of doubt, it was the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Spark brook (Mr. Hattersley).
    Mr. Wilkinson: Such problems as there are with grant-maintained schools are problems of success. In that regard, what steps is my right hon. Friend taking to reassure local authorities such as mine—Hillingdon borough—with a high proportion of secondary schools which have opted out, that there will not be a disproportionately large withdrawal of Exchequer grant from those local education authorities?
    Mr. Patten: We always look after Hillingdon as well as we can. The Hillingdon local education authority should be congratulated on the way in which it has promoted grant-maintained schools. It has done an excellent job. It has brought schools to maturity, to the edge of the nest as it were, and they have flown. They are now running themselves and producing excellent standards in an efficient and caring environment.
    Mrs. Ann Taylor: If opt-out was meant to highlight dissatisfaction with local education authorities, is it not clear that Conservative councils cause far more dissatisfaction? Is the Minister aware that there have been more opt-outs in Tory-controlled Kent and Essex than in all Labour authorities put together?
    Mr. Patten: I congratulate the hon. Lady on her appointment and I am glad that she got her question in before closing time. It is not surprising that in some parts of the country the number of schools opting to go grant maintained has thus far been small because Labour local

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    authorities have done everything possible to prevent ballots. However, within the past two weeks, in Bradford, Nottingham and Salford schools have balloted and have opted for the first time to become self-governing, seizing the chance given to them by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister during the general election campaign.

    Pre-school Education
    Mr. Gapes: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what is the national average of the proportion of three and four-year-olds in pre-school education in each local educational authority area; and what is the figure for Redbridge.
    Mr. Forth: In January 1991, 48 per cent. of three and four-year-olds in England attended maintained nursery or primary schools. In Redbridge, the proportion was 29 per cent.
    Mr. Gapes: Information that I obtained from the Library shows that in the current year the Government are giving nearly £745 for every three and four-year-old in Redbridge—yet the figures that the Minister just provided reveal that Redbridge, which is controlled by a Conservative council, has a deplorable record by comparison with the average local education authority. When will the Government ensure that the standard spending assessment paid by taxpayers to the Conservative council in Redbridge is spent on educating three and four-year-olds in that borough?
    Mr. Forth: That is rich coming from the Labour Benches. The hon. Gentleman has obviously forgotten, if he ever knew, that the last Labour Government inflicted—[Interruption.] Oh, yes! Labour Members will hear this, Madam Speaker, even if it is so long ago that they have forgotten. It was the last Labour Government who inflicted damaging cuts in the provision for the under-fives, which fell substantially from 440,000 in 1976 to 415,000 in 1978. We will take no lectures from Labour Members about provision for the under-fives.
    Several Hon. Members rose.—
    Madam Speaker: Order. Before we proceed, I ask for order in the House, so that we can hear right hon. and hon. Members' questions. There has been a great deal of barracking from the Benches on my right as well as from those on my left. I would like less of that from now on.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 20 October.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Arnold: Bearing in mind my right hon. Friend's commitment to putting Britain first, will he confirm that the Government attach priority to getting this country out of recession and creating jobs?
    The Prime Minister: All across Europe and beyond, economic circumstances are very difficult and in recent months have worsened noticeably in a number of countries. We are seeking the right policies to bring back not just recovery to this country but recovery with low inflation. The interest rate reductions that we have been able to make and the increasing competitiveness of the exchange rate will enable us to lead this country back to recovery with the low inflation and sustained growth that we need.
    Mr. Bell: In the light of the statements made by the president of the Bundesbank and by the chairman of the Italian central bank that a general realignment was available to the British Government prior to Black Wednesday, will the Prime Minister answer the question that his Chancellor of the Exchequer failed to answer when he appeared before the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee or at the Dispatch Box? Was there or was there not a general realignment—either formal or informal—on the table?
    The Prime Minister: I am happy to answer that categorically. No, there was not—formal or informal.
    Mr. Adley: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 20 October.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Adley: Referring to matters that are in the minds of right hon. and hon. Members, does my right hon. Friend accept that there is some linkage between electricity privatisation and the current problems in the coal industry? This morning I heard from British Rail that if the proposed mine closures go through, British Rail will face a bill in excess of £200 million in terms of lost revenue and redundancy payments. Will my right hon. Friend please give a clear assurance that if there are to be any further privatisations, either of industry or of the nation's transport infrastructure, a full cost-benefit analysis will be provided to the House so that it may assess the full national implications?
    The Prime Minister: Many of the problems faced by the coal industry—those that it faces at present and those that it has faced over many years—preceded privatisation. They have far more to do with the demand for coal and the changing energy market in this country. It is for that reason that there has been a severe contraction of the coal industry, not only in this country but in France, Belgium and Germany, and elsewhere.
    As for my hon. Friend's specific question about the railways, the White Paper published in July was preceded by a great deal of thought, discussion and consultation inside government, and consultation continues on all matters.
    Mr. Ashdown: Having been found out seeking to close down the coal industry quickly by rigging the market, are not the Government now asking to be allowed to close down the coal industry slowly by rigging a review? Is that not the proposition that their Back Benchers are being asked to swallow?
    The Prime Minister: No, that is not an accurate reflection of the policy that the Government are following—as yesterday's statement by my right hon. Friend the

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    President of the Board of Trade made perfectly clear. No one doubts, and no one has disputed, that over many years, under all Governments, there has been a continuing and severe contraction of the coal industry, owing to factors that were unavoidable.
    The Government now face the fact that, even at existing coal prices—which we are now aware will be noticeably lower in future—the market is contracting, and coal stocks are growing daily. The Government cannot ignore that problem. The sooner they deal with it, the sooner we shall be able comprehensively to establish assistance measures that will provide alternative employment and alternative security in areas where people know that existing jobs have at best only a limited life.
    Dr. Spink: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 20 October.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Dr. Spink: Will the Prime Minister join me in welcoming the 1 per cent. cut in interest rates that was made on Friday, which will do so much to help all the people who have to repay mortgages and to help businesses, large and small? Does he agree that the key to resolving our unemployment difficulties and taking us out of the teeth of the world recession is low inflation, which we are achieving?
    The Prime Minister: We have now achieved low inflation in terms of both the retail prices index and the underlying inflation rate, at a level that we have not seen for many years. It is undoubtedly helpful to British industry that it has been possible to reduce interest rates to 8 per cent. I was particularly pleased by the consequential mortgage rate reductions that were announced today.
    As my hon. Friend suggested, however, we must bear it in mind that it is not simply a question of low interest rates. It is also vitally important for our future prosperity to restrain any reinflationary surge that may follow. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made it clear that keeping inflation low—one of the essential ingredients for the sustained encouragement of jobs, prosperity and growth—remains central to the Government's policy.
    Mr. John Smith: It is crystal clear that, whatever else he did yesterday, the President of the Board of Trade did not announce a review of the pit closure programme. Will the Prime Minister now agree to establish a genuine and independent review before any pit is closed for ever?
    The Prime Minister: So that there is no dispute or misunderstanding anywhere in the House, let me make clear the position of the 10 pits identified by my right hon. Friend, and that of the others that he mentioned in his statement. In our judgment, the 10 pits that he specifically named have no sustainable economic future, but the full statutory review procedure will take place. I have no doubt that, during the moratorium on the other pits, the Select Committee on Trade and Industry will wish to hold its own inquiry, and the Government will give that their fullest co-operation.
    During the moratorium, the President of the Board of Trade will himself take views and evidence to consider alongside the information already available to him on all matters. In due course he will publish that material, in time
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    for consideration by the House and before any future debate in the House. His statement will be set in the context of the Government's energy policy and will set out the consequences of that policy for British Coal, the implications for individual pits and the employment prospects for the industry. It is after that debate that future decisions will he made.
    Mr. Smith: I remind the Prime Minister of the question that I asked him, which was whether he would establish a genuine and independent review. If the Prime Minister really believes that he has a strong case, what has he to lose from an independent inquiry? What is he afraid of?
    The Prime Minister: Let me refer the right hon. and learned Gentleman to the answer that I gave. When we have completed the consultation and the examination—which, I repeat, will be made public and which, I repeat, will also be laid before this House—there will be every opportunity for every view to be taken into account before matters proceed.
    Mr. Smith: Is it not now clear that the only satisfactory alternative to constantly shifting statements from the Prime Minister and the President of the Board of Trade, and to the unseemly Dutch auction which is going on among Conservative Back Benchers, is for this House tomorrow night to vote to refer the whole matter to our own Select Committee and for that to be the responsibility of Members in all parts of the House?
    The Prime Minister: It is clear that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was not listening, for I said that it was an assumption of the Government that the Select Committee on Trade and Industry would wish to consider this matter and that we would provide whatever evidence was necessary to the Committee. Notwithstanding the tremendous emotions that have arisen about this whole affair, it is bogus of the right hon. and learned Gentleman not to recall the vast number of mines that were closed by the Labour Government, the large number of miners who were put out of work by his Government and the activities of his Government in recent years that played a significant part in reducing employment in the mining industry from 700,000 down to the present level.
    Sir Patrick McNair-Wilson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the concern that is being expressed about the closure programme is very much bound up with the wider concern about the direction of our economy, post-ERM? Does he not agree that with a low value for sterling it really is essential that we have a policy of import substitution, of "Buy British", and that we should not build gas-fired power stations when we have already got 50 per cent. too much gas generating capacity? If my right hon. Friend were to put those facts into the review, he would find that he had the enthusiastic support of people like myself, who are deeply concerned about what is being proposed.
    The Prime Minister: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that the changing level of the exchange rate offers the most remarkable opportunities for British exporters and also offers a better incentive for import substitution than we have seen for many years. My hon. Friend also needs to remember that we are by instinct a trading nation and that we must bear that in mind in all the policies that we follow. As I made clear a few moments ago, what the Government are seeking to do and will continue to do in

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    the period up to and including the public expenditure round is to look at the difficulties that this economy faces and at the right possibilities and the right policies, in order to build on present economic circumstances a proper level of growth for the British economy and for British industry.
    Mr. Andrew Smith: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 20 October.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Smith: Can the Prime Minister understand that it is my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) who has spoken for Britain? Can the Prime Minister name one independent expert who is prepared to say that gas will produce cheaper electricity than coal? The President of the Board of Trade could not name one yesterday. Can the Prime Minister name one this afternoon—yes or no?
    The Prime Minister: If that were not the case, perhaps the hon. Gentleman could explain to the House why the demand for gas among consumers across the country is rising dramatically and shows signs of rising even further.
    Mr. Rathbone: Despite all the difficulties being faced at this moment by this country and by other countries, will the Prime Minister give the House and the nation reassurance that we shall continue our efforts to aid countries in the developing world which suffer even greater difficulties than we do?
    The Prime Minister: We have a very proud record indeed in that respect, in terms of the quantum of aid that we provide, in terms of the quality of aid that we provide, and in terms of keeping open markets in this country for the exports of those countries which, in many ways, is the greatest assistance that we can provide to the developing world. In my statement in a few moments on the European Council, I shall also set out some extra help to other countries which face particular needs at present.

European Council (Birmingham)
3.30 pm
The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): With permission, Madam Speaker, I shall make a statement about the European Council in Birmingham on Friday last. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I represented the United Kingdom.
I should like to thank the city of Birmingham, its leaders and its people—[Interruption.]
Madam Speaker: Order. I know that hon. Members who are leaving the Chamber have business elsewhere in the House. Will they leave quietly so that we can hear what the Prime Minister has to say?
The Prime Minister: I should like to thank the city of Birmingham, its leaders and its people for the effectiveness and speed of their organisation of the European summit.
Following the events in the financial markets a month ago, a number of EC member states asked for this meeting to help to restore confidence throughout the Community and to address the issues raised by the market turbulence. Amongst those concerns, clearly evident in the referendums in Denmark and France, was the unease that too many decisions were being taken centrally in Brussels. The summit conclusions on these and other issues are in the Library of the House.
Let me deal first with economic and monetary co-operation. At Friday's meeting we reaffirmed our commitment to pursue open market policies, to control budget deficits, and to reduce inflation. It was unanimously agreed that these are the basis for recovery and for the creation of new and lasting jobs here and in the Community as a whole.
The European Council also reaffirmed the necessity of the work set in hand by Finance Ministers after the recent turmoil in the currency markets. It was agreed that the work will involve Finance Ministers, the Monetary Committee, Central Bank governors and the Commission. It will cover recent economic and financial developments in Europe and the implications of changes in the economic environment in recent years. In particular, it will look at the impact of the increasing size and sophistication of financial markets and greater capital liberalisation.
One critical discussion concerned the negotiations for a general agreement on tariffs and trade Uruguay round settlement. Over the past two weeks, significant progress had been made between the Commission and the United States in all sectors of the negotiation. I asked Commissioner Andriessen to report to the European Council. At the end of our discussion, the Commission was given the authority to continue to negotiate with the intention of reaching a satisfactory conclusion within the next 10 weeks. Subsequently, further useful progress was made in talks in Canada over the weekend. A GATT settlement would make a vital contribution to recovery and would be very much in Britain's interest. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, it would lead to an extra $200 billion in annual world output.
In the Birmingham declaration we also took significant steps towards bringing the Community closer to ordinary people. The declaration agreed at Birmingham has a number of distinct elements. It recognises the importance of national identity. It acknowledges that the Community
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can act only where member states have given it the power to do so in the treaties. It lays down that action at the Community level should happen only when necessary. It calls for new guidelines, so that when Community action is taken it takes the lightest possible form. It introduces better consultation by the Commission before proposals are brought forward. It calls for a greater role for national Parliaments in the work of the Community.
The declaration provides, for the first time, a proper framework for the practical definition and implementation of subsidiarity. We agreed that, at the Edinburgh European Council in two months' time, we must make a reality of that principle. All members of the European Council agreed to take decisions at Edinburgh to make subsidiarity an integral part of future EC decision making. That change of attitude by the Council and the Commission is as important as the procedures and criteria to be introduced.
Prime Minister Schluter of Denmark reported to the European Council on the present state of discussion on the Maastricht treaty within Denmark. The Danish Government have published a White Paper and will produce specific ideas shortly. It remains their aim to ratify the treaty, and we plan to set in place at Edinburgh the framework that will allow them to do so.
The Birmingham Council also gave us an opportunity to review our action to relieve suffering in Somalia and Yugoslavia. The Community has given a lead in both countries. In Somalia we called for an immediate ceasefire to allow for the rapid deployment of United Nations troops and for the distribution of aid and agreed to try to expedite these deployments.
In Yugoslavia, at British initiative, a Community humanitarian force will be established. It will support the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in delivering humanitarian aid. The Community will speed up aid already pledged, which includes 120,000 tonnes of food. We have invited the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to hold a meeting of experts as soon as possible to make sure that that aid gets through without delay. There will be a follow-up meeting in a few weeks' time to ensure that effective action is being taken. Member states also pledged further staff and resources to strengthen the UNHCR effort. I can today announce a further £15 million of bilaterial aid to provide 22 more trucks, 10 Land Rovers, shelter, medical supplies and personnel. Deliveries will start very shortly.
A confident and successful Community is a vital interest of this country. Sixty per cent. of our visible trade is with the Community. Much of our external investment comes from the Community. Eight of our top 10 trading partners are in the Community. With less than three months to go to the completion of the single market, which could raise Community output by more than 4 per cent., it was vital to re-establish confidence in the interests of stability, recovery, growth and jobs in all our countries. The Birmingham European Council did precisely that.
Mr. John Smith: Let me make it clear at the outset that the Labour party welcomes the discussions and decisions on the former Yugoslavia and on Somalia.
We agree with the emphasis laid on providing winter shelter for the very large number of people who are now at

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risk in the former Yugoslavia and on the strengthening of support for the humanitarian aid and relief provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
We are glad that the seriousness of the situation in Somalia is recognised, but does not the fact that it is so widely accepted that more needs to be done illustrate how irresponsible it would be to cut overseas aid even further as the problems of famine spread, not just in Somalia but throughout east, central and southern Africa?
Although the importance of a GATT agreement was acknowledged at the summit, little progress appears to have been made towards achieving it.
Those important matters apart, is it not now clear that this was a summit conceived in panic after Britain's humiliating withdrawal from the ERM, a summit which should have had jobs, growth and investment at the top of its agenda but did not, and a summit which turned out to be another missed opportunity of the inept and fumbling British presidency?
As we were told that a principal reason for calling the summit was to make a major reform of the so-called fault lines in the ERM, why was that brushed aside in anodyne references to the need for further reflection and analysis? If the Government had a case on that matter, why did not they use their presidency to make it? Was it because if they had done so other participants in the events leading up to black Wednesday such as the German and Italian Governments would have exposed the gross incompetence displayed by the Prime Minister and his Chancellor of the Exchequer? Can the Prime Minister tell us whether during the presidency his Government have produced one initiative which tackles rising unemployment, falling investment and low growth?
In the context of the declaration on greater openness, the Prime Minister said:
"The Community must send a signal to the citizens of Europe that we will listen to their worries and respond to their needs."
If that is such good advice, why does he not lead by example? What evidence is there that he listens to the deep worries and real needs of British citizens as our economy slides from recession into slump?
When the Prime Minister agreed at Birmingham that promoting subsidiarity involved greater openness, a better informed public, decentralisation of decision-taking and better consultations before proposals were made, did it ever occur to him that those desirable characteristics of good government were signally lacking in his own Administration at home? Is to refuse an independent review of the pit closures consistent with his profession at Birmingham about the need for a more informed public debate and more open government? Is that an example of better consultation procedures before proposals are made?
When the Prime Minister said that his EC partners should give the Maastricht treaty what he described as a human face, did he not appreciate that the social chapter is precisely that part of the treaty which other member states see as its human face but which his Government reject? Does he not realise that the social chapter is essential in transforming a market for business into a Community for people?
In summation, was not the Birmingham summit typical of the British presidency as a whole—inconclusive and largely irrelevant?
The Prime Minister: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for occasionally touching on the
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summit, even though when he did so he showed how little he really knows or understands about the Community. On the few summit points that he made, I am grateful for his support for what is being done for Yugoslavia and the humanitarian aid that is being dispensed there. It is the British Government and British aid that is leading the way in Yugoslavia. It is British medicine that is reaching people in Yugoslavia, and it was largely British planes which led the way in carrying that aid into Yugoslavia.
On the GATT round, it is not the case that little progress was made at the summit. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman must understand as leader of his party that it is not normally always possible to state in public what has taken place in private among Heads of Government. But we have made progress towards a GATT settlement.
On the right hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks about the fault lines in the exchange rate mechanism, for market reasons that is a matter which needs to be discussed in private. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman is a former shadow Chancellor, I am astonished that he has no apparent understanding whatever of that. As for the summit being called, as he put it, in panic, it was demanded by France and other countries and not by the United Kingdom. So I trust that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will direct his remarks and criticisms to other sources rather than to us.
On the question of conversations with the Italian and German Governments, perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman should consult them. He would then be better informed about what they had to say.
On the question of openness and other matters, as I made clear in my statement a few minutes ago, these are matters on which detailed decisions are now committed for the Edinburgh summit in just 10 weeks.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman returned yet again to the social chapter, utterly failing to understand yet again the impact that he is told by every employer and business man that it will have on jobs, prosperity and employment in Britain. If he is to lecture us on unemployment and jobs, let him drop his affiliation to the job-destruction measure which we in Britain will not accept.
Sir Peter Tapsell: Following the Birmingham declaration, does my right hon. Friend feel that he can claim the prize of 200,000 ecu offered by Mr. Delors for the first person who can define subsidiarity?
The Prime Minister: The prize might have to be divided among all the Heads of Government, including the President of the Commission, who introduced a paper which dealt with subsidiarity—a paper of great clarity which moved the Community's position forward.
Mr. Paddy Ashdown: I understand that the summit is already known in Brussels as the summit that never was: called to discuss the exchange rate mechanism, it never discussed it; called to put pressure on the Danes, it did not do so; called to explain Maastricht to the people, it only briefly began that task.
I shall concentrate on the area that the Prime Minister said in his statement was a British initiative, an area that has been regarded by many as one of the successes in Birmingham—the action taken in Bosnia. We have to be grateful for small and for late mercies, but it was not the action taken too late at Birmingham which will cost lives

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in Sarajevo and throughout Bosnia; it was the lack of action during the past three months. I ask the Prime Minister to reflect on the fact that every measure taken in Birmingham was a measure that he told me in August was impractical. I ask him to reflect on the fact that, as a result of that delay, humanitarian aid will have to go over winter rather than summer roads in Bosnia, and that the failure to stockpile food in Sarajevo, which I and others called for in August and September, will result in miserable deaths in a European city which we shall see writhing in its agony on our television screens as we come up to Christmas.
The story of the Prime Minister's actions as leader of the European Community—he was not alone in the lack of leadership but had a duty of leadership as President of the EC—will be a story that will look miserable and tortured for the next six months, and the epitaph written on it will be, "Too little and too late."
The Prime Minister: I have rarely heard a more arrogant assertion of inaccuracies. As the leader of the party that barely is, the right hon. Gentleman ought to be better informed about what this country has done. He ought to spend less time running down the work that has been done by British aid agencies, pilots, individuals and Government. We were among the first to put planes and aid into Yugoslavia. We put in as much aid as anyone. We put troops in, against the opposition of many people, because we believed that it was right to assist people who will face difficulty this winter. The medicines that are treating people in Yugoslavia come from this country, and so do many of the doctors. The right hon. Gentleman would be better employed bearing in mind the work that we have done and the leadership that we have given rather than attacking on every occasion what this country has done.
Sir Peter Hordern: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the effectiveness of the European Community will be judged not by its internal institutions but by its relations with the outside world, and in particular in the GATT negotiations? Will my right hon. Friend give the House an assurance that no country in the European Community will be allowed to prevent a successful outcome of the GATT negotiations upon which so much hangs?
The Prime Minister: I shall certainly endeavour to ensure that that is the position. Once the Community's negotiators recommend an outcome to the Community, a decision can be taken by qualified majority. If there is an overwhelming majority in the Community, because negotiations were permitted to proceed last week, it is not now possible for one Community member to block an agreement, provided that the Commission reaches an agreement and that, as the Community's negotiators, it recommends that agreement to the European Council.
Mr. Alfred Morris: Did the Prime Minister refer at any time from the chair in Birmingham to the common agricultural policy? In that regard, if it is right to protect British agriculture against cheaper food from outside the EEC, at substantial cost to every British family, not to mention the food mountains, why is it wrong to protect British coal?
The Prime Minister: There was a very heavy agenda at Birmingham, as will be apparent from what I said a few moments ago, and on this occasion there was not a discussion on the common agricultural policy. We have had that discussion frequently and will no doubt return to it in the future, not least because of the reforms that have taken place, many of them led by the British Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
Mr. Nicholas Budgen: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, in Birmingham, he was congratulated upon his very interesting speech at the Conservative party conference in which he said that the Maastricht treaty was not about immigration? I wonder whether he would comment on page 84 of the treaty, article K.1.3, which appears to read:
"immigration policy and policy regarding nationals of third countries"
I wonder whether my right hon. Friend could confirm that he obtained the legal advice upon that speech from my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary.
The Prime Minister: I am sure that my hon. Friend is familiar with article K.4.3, which makes it clear that the Council shall act unanimously in this area unless it decides, unanimously, that implementing action is to be adopted by qualified majority.
As I made clear the other day, the only common interest in immigration in the European Community is the external girdle around Europe. The justification for that is that over the next decade a genuine difficulty may be faced across the whole of western Europe by immigration from Africa north into Europe and from eastern Europe west into Europe. British immigration policy is not damaged by anything in the Maastricht treaty, and I repeat that point to my hon. Friend in case he is in any doubt.
Mr. Peter Shore (Bethnal Green and Stepney): Is not the Prime Minister aware of the obvious contradiction in the Birmingham declaration between its passage about a Community close to its citizens and the passage that follows immediately which deals with proceeding, without hesitation, to ratify the Maastricht treaty?
Is it not a fact that the Danish people have said no in their referendum on the Maastricht treaty, that the French managed to get a majority by a knife edge in favour of the treaty, and that the British people have not even been asked? Can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that he has not gone back on the promise that he made to the House in his statement on 29 June after the Lisbon summit that we would not proceed with the Bill to ratify the Maastricht treaty until the Danish Government had made clear whether they would present new proposals to their people in order to obtain their consent? Is it not clear that the Danish White Paper is simply a consultative document and that, therefore, we have not reached that stage? May we therefore be assured that there will be no early move to reintroduce the European Communities (Amendment) Bill?
The Prime Minister: The fact is that the Danes are going to go hack at the end of their consultation period to seek the assent of their people in the constitutional referendum that is necessary. The Danish Prime Minister has made that clear. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the French result, but the fact is that the French won the referendum by the same sort of majority that the Danes lost by. In the United Kingdom the long-standing

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principle is that these matters are decided in this House, in the United Kingdom Parliament. In due course, after we have had the paving debate that I promised the House, we shall reintroduce the Maastricht treaty in this Session of Parliament.
Mr. Hugh Dykes: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the conference was a successful occasion as it showed further progress towards developing the European Community? Can he say a little more about the plans for greater openness by the Council of Ministers?
The Prime Minister: I can certainly say that a whole series of proposals are now being examined in the hope that they will be finalised by the Edinburgh summit. That is our intention. Among the matters we have in mind, for example, before decision making is done, is the much greater use of Green Papers, familiar to the House in our legislative procedures but less familiar to the House in terms of the European Community's activities. That is an illustration of the sort of matter that is at present under consideration.
Mr. John D. Taylor: Did the Birmingham summit advance the cause of European union?
The Prime Minister: The Birmingham summit was called not for that purpose but for the purposes I set out. European union—depending on its definition—[Interruption.] There have been many disagreements about the definition, from the time it was first set out in the treaty of Rome—is certainly not imminent. If by European union the right hon. Gentleman means currency union and a single currency, I have expressed the view that I have expressed to the House before: I believe that the required convergence of European economies will take far longer than is set out in the timetable to which others signed up at Maastricht but to which we did not, and I believe that current events make that clearer hour by hour.
Mr. Tim Renton: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the progress made at Birmingham, but can he ensure that by the time of the Edinburgh summit there is a list available, agreed by the Commission, of those detailed areas from which it will withdraw on the ground that such matters are better handled at national level? Is he aware that in that way we shall be able to worry not just about the meaning of the word "subsidiarity" but see how it will work in practice?
The Prime Minister: I can confirm that that is the intention.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Will the Prime Minister confirm that at Birmingham Chancellor Kohl put forward proposals on subsidiarity that are much more far reaching than those the right hon. Gentleman outlined today and were in line with the proposals put forward by the Germans to the Council of Ministers in Brussels? Are Her Majesty's Government actively considering those proposals put forward by Chancellor Kohl?
The Prime Minister: Chancellor Kohl's proposals were certainly far reaching, but they were not more far reaching than those put forward by the United Kingdom Government. We have been in discussion with the German Government for some time over the question of subsidiarity. We share the view that we need to move in that direction. That is no longer just the view of the British
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Government, as it was some time ago. it now has solid support from the German, French and other Governments. There has been a sea change in attitude among the European Heads of Government, brought about by a range of events over the past year or so, not least the continued advocacy of the case by the British Government. So that the hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Germans are in favour of greater subsidiarity, but he is incorrect in saying that their proposals are more far reaching and wide ranging than are ours.
Sir Ivan Lawrence: Will my right hon. Friend confirm, and not be too modest about it, that it is as the result of his personal intervention with our French partners at Birmingham that the dispute between Europe and America over farm subsidies is likely to be resolved and that there will be concluded a GATT agreement which will do far more than anything else for world trade and getting the economy out of recession?
The Prime Minister: It is absolutely clear that nothing could be more beneficial for world economic circumstances at present than a satisfactory speedy GATT agreement. I confirm that I have had a number of conversations with the Commission, with individual Governments in the Community and with the United States. I shall continue to do so for the reason I set out, which is that there is nothing more important on the economic agenda at present than the satisfactory conclusion of a GATT agreement.
Mr. Austin Mitchell: In seeking so unsuccessfully to put flesh on subsidiarity, did the Prime Minister draw to the attention of his fellow Heads of State the opinion of Lord Mackenzie-Stuart, the jurist and the former president of the European Court, that the definition as given in the treaty is gobbledegook? What is the right hon. Gentleman's reaction to that view?
The Prime Minister: My view is the same as that of the Lord Chancellor of this country, who does not agree with the noble Lord to whom the hon. Gentleman referred.
Sir Anthony Grant: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the greatest adverse consequences of failure to reach agreement in the GATT round is that not only would it be extremely damaging to ourselves but would be devastating for third world countries? Is he aware that agreement will be best achieved by the way in which he is proceeding rather than by silly megaphone negotiations? Does he accept that, generally speaking, the weird notion that we can solve Britain's economic problems independently of and in isolation from the Community is the greatest delusion since the Indian rope trick?
The Prime Minister: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's final point. In terms of economics and trade, nowhere in the world is an island these days and international co-operation is vital in the self-interest of jobs, prosperity, growth and our future.
My hon. Friend is also entirely right in saying that the principal gainer from a satisfactory GATT agreement will be the third world. On the one hand, it now receives aid from the west and, on the other, it must be deeply frustrated by seeing the west then close its markets to third world exports and products. The third world wishes to export, become self-sustaining and build up its own

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industries. That is vital, as is an early settlement of the long-running and damaging oilseeds dispute between the Community and the United States.
Mr. John Home Robertson: The Prime Minister has expressed his support for the principle of subsidiarity and a greater role for national Parliaments. How does he reconcile that principle with his refusal to allow the nations of Scotland and Wales to have Parliaments of their own? Before he goes to Edinburgh, will he recognise the overwhelming demand of people in Scotland that there should be a Parliament to serve the people of Scotland so that they may have a greater role under the principle of subsidiarity?
The Prime Minister: I am inclined to refer the hon. Gentleman to the 40 or 50 times that I have answered that question before.
Mr. Toby Jessel: Did the Danish Government say in Birmingham how soon they expected the completion of their inter-party talks on the conditions for a second referendum in Denmark? If those conditions are not acceptable in Brussels, does not that mean that the second referendum in Denmark will not take place and that the Maastricht treaty will be dead, regardless of anything that we do?
The Prime Minister: The Community is anxious to assist the Danes in the difficulties that they face at the moment. We hope to put in place at the Edinburgh summit a framework to do that. That was agreed at Birmingham a few days ago. The Danish Prime Minister is in the process of consulting the other Danish political parties and much wider. He then proposes to set out what he believes is necessary to enable him to put the treaty for consideration before his people again at a further referendum. It is impossible to put a precise timescale on that at present, but it is clear that the Danes wish to proceed with it as speedily as practicable.
Mr. Robin Corbett: On behalf of all my colleagues who are privileged to represent the city of Birmingham, may I thank the Prime Minister for his expression of thanks to the people of that great city and its city council for their efforts in making arrangements for the summit? May I also, on their behalf, invite the Prime Minister back to Birmingham as soon as possible so that he can explain directly to those people and their city council what positive results came from that summit, or what positive results he expects from the Edinburgh summit, which will get the people of the west midlands back to work?
The Prime Minister: On the hon. Gentleman's first point, I am grateful for his remarks. The organisation in Birmingham was remarkable and was dealt with at great speed. The convention centre there is of a high order and everything that was necessary was readily provided, including the striking of a remarkable memento coin that was handed to all the European Heads of Government. I reiterate my thanks to the people and council of Birmingham.
On the second half of the hon. Gentleman's question, I shall happily send a copy of the Birmingham statement
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immediately, but he will have to wait for a copy of the Edinburgh statement until after we have had the Edinburgh summit.
Sir George Gardiner: In the light of my right hon. Friend's experience at Birmingham, is he confident that the Edinburgh summit will produce not only a practical definition of subsidiarity but a precise legal definition that will stand up to tests before the European Court?
The Prime Minister: That is certainly our intention. The definition is already legally underpinned by article 3b of the Maastricht treaty. We must negotiate and agree a definition among all the 12 members of the Community, but I believe that there is a will among the Twelve to reach an agreement, and we committed ourselves to doing so in Birmingham.
Mr. Ron Leighton: Did not this jamboree prove to be a grossly embarrassing sideshow, a gross waste of public money, which served only to increase opposition to the Maastricht treaty? Is it not clear that there is no escape via subsidiarity because nobody knows what it means? If the Prime Minister knows what it means and puts it on a piece of paper, Jacques Delors is willing to give him 200,000 ecu.
The Prime Minister: I think that the hon. Gentleman's wish is father to the thought. I doubt that those people in Yugoslavia who have got extra aid, those in Somalia who will get extra help, people who see the prospect of a GATT agreement moving that bit nearer and people who can now see the changes that will clearly come about in terms of subsidiarity would recognise an iota of truth in what the hon. Gentleman has said.
Mr. Tony Marlow: In present circumstances arising from Birmingham, what is more important to my right hon. Friend—the good will of a couple of elderly European politicians intent on imposing their blueprint on an increasingly reluctant Europe, or the good will of his hon. Friends? If it is the latter, would not it be the height of political wisdom for my right hon. Friend to delay the return of the Maastricht treaty to this House until such time as the Danes have ratified it? God willing, they may never do so.
The Prime Minister: Surely there is no doubt about the good will of my hon. Friend. I for one have never doubted it. I look for his support now and in the future on the programme on which we jointly contested the general election. He mentions our colleagues in Europe. This country, as with their countries, always has to put the national interest first and always will. A part of our national interest must mean that we have a central say in the decisions taken in Europe that affect this country, its jobs, its industry and its prosperity, and that we are determined to do. It may be the ambition of some to see this country isolated as a sour little outpost of western Europe, but it is not my ambition.
Mr. John McAllion: Does the Prime Minister understand that the case for subsidiarity from Brussels to Westminster, which he supports, is the same as that for subsidiarity from Westminster to Edinburgh, which he does not support? As he has such poor understanding of the concept of subsidiarity, I advise him not to take up Jacques Delors' offer of a job in the

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Commission and 140,000 ecu for the first person to explain subsidiarity on one side of a piece of paper. Alas, as with his present employment, that is another job for which the right hon. Gentleman is uniquely unsuited.
The Prime Minister: I have no wish either now or in the future for a job in the Commission.
Sir Fergus Montgomery: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the role of national Parliaments will be fully recognised and reflected in the work of the Community?
The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir; and one of the agreements made at Birmingham was that we shall be looking for ways to agree at Edinburgh that will enhance, not diminish, the role of national Parliaments.
Mr. Doug Hoyle: Will the Prime Minister stop wringing his hands at the Dispatch Box in an attempt to explain to his Back Benchers the cosmetic changes to Maastricht? Why did he not seize the opportunity at Birmingham to sell British coal from the most efficient coal industry in Europe to our European partners instead of announcing last week plans to butcher that industry?
The Prime Minister: There is no hand wringing at all; the hon. Gentleman is mistaken about that. He spoke about British coal. If, for example, he had spoken about imports from Germany and German subsidies, I would have had to tell him that the scale of such imports to the United Kingdom coal market is .002 per cent. Much of it is anthracite and other coal that is not readily available here, and virtually none of it goes to power stations. The hon. Gentleman would be wise not to raise too many myths.
Mr. Michael Shersby: Did the Birmingham summit consider the serious situation that is developing as a result of the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia insisting on the continued use of that name? Is he aware of the great strength of feeling about this in our Community partner of Greece? Will he take all possible steps to avoid conflict in that area?
The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend raises a question that has been discussed on a number of occasions in the Foreign Affairs Council and in the European Council at Lisbon. It is a particularly intractable problem which the Community is actively seeking to solve. There were no discussions in the formal meeting, but I understand that there were bilateral discussions at the Birmingham summit even in the limited time that we were there.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: Reverting to the Delors prize for the definition of subsidiarity, would the Prime Minister be interested to know that I am putting in a 95-word attempt at that competition? Does the Prime Minister recall that, on a number of occasions, and particularly on 29 June at column 594 of Hansard, he asserted that there is a definition of subsidiarity in article 3b? Indeed, on that occasion he said that it was justiciable. Does this not mean that either the Prime Minister has signed a treaty containing an unsatisfactory definition of this concept or that all this kerfuffle is unnecessary? Which is right?
The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is probably too late for the award, although I am sure that he would
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be a powerful contestant. At the summit at Birmingham, Mr. Delors made a substantial presentation on subsidiarity, how it would be brought about, and how it would proceed. From that, the hon. Gentleman will find that a clear, practical definition, apart from the legal definition that is justiciable and that exists in article 3b, will be available. Therefore, he is too late for the prize.
Mr. Michael Spicer: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, in a speech on 7 September in the Queen Elizabeth hall, he said that he would not wish to bring the Bill ratifying Maastricht back to the House until what he called the "Danish difficulties" had been resolved? As Birmingham showed that the "Danish difficulties" have not been resolved, will he consider not bringing back the Bill until at least after the Edinburgh conference?
The Prime Minister: It is now clear from my discussions with the Danish Prime Minister and from what the Danes have said how the Danes will resolve their difficulties. They have set out alternative options on which they are negotiating. They then propose to come to the European summit at Edinburgh and then to proceed. Therefore, the way is open, at a time convenient to the House, for us to reconsider the treaty to which, on behalf of the country and with the consent of the House, I gave our name.
Ms. Clare Short: The Prime Minister said earlier that there was discussion of Government deficits. Later, he said that he did not believe that we would move to economic and monetary union in the timescale laid out in the Maastricht treaty. He knows, as we know, that the times for convergence imply an enormous cut in Government expenditure. As we in Britain are on the brink of a terrible slump and need to borrow to invest, and as there is a terrible depression spreading across Europe, was there discussion of modifying the terms of convergence so that the people of Europe can borrow money to invest, thereby creating jobs rather than furthering depression?
The Prime Minister: There was not a discussion of deficits as such in the way suggested by the hon. Lady. There was an agreement, based on discussions on deficits that we have had on many occasions, of the desirability of containing deficits as one of the essential prerequisites to growth and prosperity. As I said in an earlier answer, I do not believe that the convergence timetable is practical at the moment. With the possible exception of Luxembourg and France, none of the countries, including Germany, meet all of the convergence timetable, and some of them seem very far away.
On the basis of sound economic policies, quite apart from any convergence criteria set at Maastricht, these convergence principles are right for sound economic management—nobody doubts that, certainly among the European Heads of Government. However, as I said earlier, in the present circumstances it is becoming increasingly unlikely that countries will reach convergence conditions on the timetable set out in the Maastricht treaty. That is not a new judgment; I made it when I declined to commit the country to entering a single currency on the timescale agreed by our European partners.
Mr. Peter Viggers: With national economies in recession throughout the world, does my right hon.

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Friend agree that what we most need now is a restoration of trading confidence, which will most easily follow from agreement under the general agreement on tariffs and trade? Does he agree also that as a major trading nation we would stand to benefit greatly from such an agreement? Does he believe that there is now a genuine political will within Europe to achieve a GATT agreement?
The Prime Minister: I agree unreservedly with every word that my hon. Friend has spoken. I believe that there is a genuine political will across Europe. I hope that it extends in precisely the same measure to each and every country in Europe. Certainly the Heads of Government agreed on the desirability of securing a settlement. Our negotiators have been sent back to negotiate first with the Americans. When those negotiations are completed, they will return to the general negotiations in Geneva to reach a settlement. I fervently hope that that will be possible.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: Given that one of the stated objectives of the United Kingdom's presidency was the widening of the Community, or the speeding up of that process, will the Prime Minister accept that there is genuine concern among many of us on both sides of the Chamber that there seems to be an inability within the Community to resolve a European problem, which is that of Bosnia and the surrounding areas of that state?
As the Prime Minister has already said that there was not a substantive debate at Birmingham on the issue, will he tell us what diplomatic initiatives he envisages between members of the Community in addition to the humanitarian aid, which we all welcome while recognising the complexities of the situation? What is being done to ensure that refugees from what appears to be genocide are shown the hand of friendship by this country as well as by other members of the Community?
The Prime Minister: Many refugees—I do not have the number immediately to hand—have been admitted to this country in recent months. The London conference set out a series of objectives that few people expected to be met in terms of seeking to reach an agreement in respect of the tangled conflict in Bosnia. It is not an agreement that is readily available with the ancient hatreds—I can put it in
332
no other way—that have been reopened by the combatants in the dispute. United Nations negotiators are in constant touch to see what can be done. Progress appears to have been made time and again. It has then been broken, as it were, and the word has been broken of one or other of the combatants who put their hand to progress. That is a matter of great regret to me and everyone else.
There is a difficulty that the hon. Lady and the House generally must face. I share her view of the humanitarian difficulties that will be faced this winter, and that is why the United Kingdom has taken so much action, but I do not believe that it would be a practicable proposition for this country, or any collection of countries, to put troops into the middle of the dispute to hold the combatants apart. With great regret, I do not believe that that would be possible or practicable. I believe that there would be a blood bath of unprecedented proportions and that the troops who would be there would be there for an indefinite period. I do not believe, given the terrain and the circumstances, that such a move would be possible. That means that we are driven back to negotiations, and negotiations are being carried out on behalf of the United Nations.
We must rely on the good will of the combatants—to my great regret, it has not always been forthcoming. We shall have to continue to try to do that and in the meantime alleviate the hardship as much as we can. In terms of alleviating the hardship, there is a decision to send 1,800 British troops, who will stay there. There will be rather more initially to establish the troops in post. It is a difficult decision. It will not be an easy task for the troops, nor will it necessarily be a safe one. I took the decision because I share the view that has been expressed by the hon. Lady and by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), the leader of the Liberal Democrat party, that during the winter, whatever we do and whatever anybody else does, many men, women and children will die, quite apart from those killed in conflict, as a result of the terrible dispute in former Yugoslavia.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Madam Speaker: Order. On that note I am drawing this session of questions to a close—[Interruption.] I am always in a no-win situation when it comes to statements. We must now move on.

Points of Order
Mr. Terry Lewis: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am not seeking to extend Question Time, as you will readily appreciate, but my point of order arises from education questions. At the end of questions, the Secretary of State for Education impugned the integrity of Salford city council, which I represent in this place. He suggested that Salford city council unfairly interfered in a successful ballot in which 70 per cent. of parents at Earlham community high school in my constituency voted last week and yesterday to stay with the local education authority. I have to place on record in this House that that ballot was carried out fairly, without interference, and the people spoke. The Secretary of State should not abuse the procedures of the House in the way he did at Question Time.
Madam Speaker: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will find other methods of making his point known.
Mr. David Winnick: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. One of the most essential democratic rights in Britain is the right to lobby Parliament. You will know of the demonstration and lobbying which is to take place on Wednesday as a result of the grave situation in the coal industry. Will every effort be made to ensure that as many as possible of those lobbying—obviously a limited number, we know that, and there is no doubt about it—will be able to see their Members of Parliament and that those involved in the coal industry will not be told at St. Stephen's entrance that they cannot get in? I hope that every effort will be made by the Serjeant at Arms and his staff—I am sure that that will be the case—and by the police to ensure that those exercising their democratic rights in Britain will be able to lobby just as others do and that there will be no form of discrimination because the people who happen to be lobbying are miners.
Madam Speaker: I am deeply concerned that British citizens who want legitimately to lobby their Members of Parliament should have access to these premises so to do. I am already involved in negotiations to ensure that as many people as possible will be able to do that tomorrow, although the House will understand that there are limits.
Mr. Paul Flynn: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I worked in the steel industry for about 20 years before I entered the House and I wish to raise a matter on which the House was seriously and inadvertently misled yesterday concerning that industry. Yesterday, the President of the Board of Trade said:
"I had to go to Corby in 1979 when the Labour party closed the steelworks".—[Official Report, 19 October 1992; Vol. 212, c. 209.]
On 1 November 1979, the then Member of Parliament for Kettering applied for a debate under Standing Order No. 9 on the urgent matter of
"the announcement by the British Steel Corporation today"—
1 November 1979—
"that it will begin a speedy run down of the iron and steel works in Corby."—[Official Report, 1 November 1979; Vol. 972, c. 1479.]
Is it not right that that matter should be corrected tomorrow by the President of the Board of Trade along
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with his other U-turn? Would it not be a good thing if he relinquished his responsibility for energy and concentrated on—
Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is trying to continue yesterday's debate, but he knows that there are ways and means by which he can do that, either by tabling a motion or by raising the matter, if he catches my eye, in tomorrow's debate.
Mr. Winnick rose—
Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has already raised a point of order. I have to deal with those of other hon. Members.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick). There is a story going around that members of the public will be admitted to Parliament square tomorrow—Parliament square, not the precincts of this building—only if they are in possession of a letter from a Member of Parliament saying that they have an appointment to lobby that Member of Parliament. [Interruption.] I am rather surprised that the Government Whip should be supporting that process.
Will you confirm, Madam Speaker, that the Sessional Orders carried at the start of this Session of Parliament make it clear that the public have a right of entry to Parliament square and have a right to lobby their Members of Parliament, as you have just explained to us? I should be grateful if you would make it clear to the police that any restrictions, such as that members of the public should carry letters from Members of Parliament, would be contrary to the Sessional Orders that we have agreed.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. With reference to the remarks of my hon. Friends, and particularly to those of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), Labour Members of Parliament are happy to send such letters to their constituents because they support the motion to save the pits. Some Tory Members of Parliament might not want to do so. The result may be an imbalance in the lobby, with members of the public who do not have letters from Tory Members of Parliament kept out.
I refer also to an earlier point of order raised during Question Time. You, Madam Speaker, know that there will be a close vote tomorrow. It is supposed to be an orderly vote, yet the hon. Member for North Down (Sir J. Kilfedder) was hauled out of the Chamber by the Government Whip, the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Knight), to be told how to vote tomorrow night. A lot of arm twisting, bullying, and intimidation is going on. We want to make sure that it will be a clean vote and a clean Lobby.
Madam Speaker: Right hon. and hon. Members will make up their own minds how to vote tomorrow. That has nothing to do with the Chair. I made it clear earlier that I am as keen as anyone here to see that citizens of this country who want to lobby their Members of Parliament are allowed to do so. Tomorrow will be an extremely difficult day for the House authorities and the police. I am already involved in talks, and I will do my utmost to ensure that as many people as possible have access to this place.
Mr. Winnick: I am genuinely grateful to you, Madam Speaker—as I am sure my hon. Friends are—for your remarks. However, if the position is that described by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn)—if British citizens who come to see their Members of Parliament are stopped by the police when they try to enter Parliament square-and if that information is communicated to you as quickly as possible, will you make arrangements to hear our point of view and to negotiate with the police accordingly?
Madam Speaker: The hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) began his point of order by using the words, "There is a story going around." I do not work on rumours; I work on fact. Perhaps right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House will leave it to me to deal with the matter as best I can.
Dr. Norman A. Godman: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Will you give serious consideration to allowing Prime Ministerial statements on European Community matters to run for one hour for the remainder of the United Kingdom's presidency of the EEC? Given that part of that presidency was, in a sense, lost to Parliament because of the summer recess, that is a reasonable request, particularly in respect of those right hon. and hon. Members who take a deep interest in all things European. I therefore respectfully ask that you, Madam Speaker, accede to my polite request.
Madam Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is always polite when making requests to me, and I hope that I am always polite in trying to dodge them. If I were to allow the Prime Minister to spend one hour on EC statements, I would next be asked to allow a different Minister one hour on another matter. The hon. Gentleman knows me well enough to leave the matter in my hands. I am not at the end of the line in which medals are given for the time allowed for statements. Yesterday, I allowed two hours on yesterday's statement, and I allowed just over three quarters of an hour on today's statement. I am in a no-win situation. The House will just have to leave it to me. However, I take the hon. Gentleman's point. I noticed that he rose in his place throughout today's statement—I know that he is very keen. [HON. MEMBERS: "And me." Yes, I am sure that is true of other right hon. and hon. Members as well.

Points of Order

  NORTHERN IRELAND
  Ordered,
  That the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1991 (Amendment) Order 1992 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Patnick.]

Regulation of Wheel-Clamping
4.29 pm
Mr. John Spellar: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to control the wheel-clamping of vehicles on private land; and for connected purposes.
Let me begin, Madam Speaker, by offering you my congratulations—and, I am sure, those of the whole House—on being made a freeman of the borough of Sandwell, together with my predecessor Peter Archer, now Baron Archer of Sandwell. I am sure that that is fitting testimony to the service that both of you have given your constituencies and our borough.
My Bill would regulate wheel clamping on private land. It is important in itself, because of the growing evidence of abuse by clampers; but it is also important in a wider sense. It is about time that we stopped treating the motorist as a second-class citizen. It is about time that we recognised the reality of the 20th century, and the role that the motor car has played in it.
Currently, in England and Wales, there is effectively no legal framework to regulate the clamping or removal of vehicles on private land. We talk expansively about "cowboy dampers", but the position is indeed somewhat akin to that in the old West: there is no law west of the Pecos that relates to clamping.
The motor car is probably the second most expensive asset that the motorist owns; in some cases, it may be the most expensive. Yet motorists can be deprived of its use: it can be forcibly removed without either due process or accountability. Furthermore, although I do not wish to tar all clampers with the same brush, there is definitely a disreputable element—people who have scented rich pickings, and are behaving in a very unprincipled way—and all the evidence that I have received suggests that the position is worsening.
They order things a little differently in Scotland; or, at least, they have done so since the summer. Faced with a decision on private clamping and a demand for payment, the Scottish courts observed, in a short, sharp and effective judgment, that such action was
"extortion and theft under Scottish law".
I have asked Scottish colleagues about the effects of that judgment. Has traffic ground to a halt in Scotland? Are Glasgow and Edinburgh gridlocked? Will the House be besieged by Scottish landowners seeking redress? None of that seems to have happened: the position seems to have remained fairly normal. It appears that the abuse has been rectified without the great problems that might have been expected.
As a result of the Scottish decision, I tabled an early-day motion which was supported by hon. Members on both sides of the House. After one or two abortive attempts in the early hours of the morning, I introduced an Adjournment debate on 16 July, just before the summer recess. I was supported by the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller), who, I understand, is chairing a Committee elsewhere. I hoped that we would make some progress with the Home Office over the summer; its representatives have been very courteous, and I am pleased to see that the Minister is present today. Unfortunately, however, we have not yet secured a definitive result. I hope that, as a result of our discussions, the Home Office now recognises the size and dimensions of the problem caused by private clamping.

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I also hope that those in the Home Office understand that the problem will not go away. Every day, more private citizens are wheel clamped, and more and more feel aggrieved. This is a constituency that is increasing in size. Accordingly, I hope that the Bill's next stage will not be blocked by the Government, and that the Home Office will try to work with us positively to achieve a satisfactory solution.
On 16 July, I drew the attention of the House to many of the abuses that have taken place. I mentioned cars being blocked in while their owners were still inside, with the engine still running, after which the clampers would emerge and clamp them. I mentioned cars being parked on empty land to entice motorists into believing that it was an open parking area, and the motorists' vehicles then being clamped. I mentioned the clampers who wait until someone has gone around the corner, and then come out to clamp that person's car. I mentioned the clamping of cars in inner-city zones late at night: motorists—often they are women—come back and discover that they must find a telephone and wait for perhaps an hour or two to be released.
The action of those who wait before clamping vehicles highlights one of the problems. If the clampers' concern was to stop illicit parking, they would tell motorists immediatly that they were parking in an inappropriate place. Instead, they let motorists park, wait until they have gone round the corner and then come out and clamp them.
It is all down to motivation, and the main motive seems to be to extort money from the motorist. I suspect that if a clamping operative does not catch enough victims, he loses his job. It is very much like the problem that has been revealed in regard to Westminster council, which is involved in a row with its traffic wardens because they are not issuing their quota of parking tickets. It all sounds remarkably Stalinist. Some clamping firms advise their employees to get the clamp off as quickly as possible so that other motorists will not see any clamps and will therefore be enticed on to the property. Some clampers offer landowners a profit-sharing scheme if they will allow them to clamp on their land.
The money involved is not insignificant—far more than is involved if one parks on the street and is caught by the public authorities. The minimum amount seems to have moved up to about £50. When I talked today to Radio WM on its Ed Doolan programme, I gathered that in the Birmingham area it has moved up to £70 if one pays straight away. If, however, one has to go away and come back the next day with the money, one finds that the amount has gone up by another £50. The record is held by Hebden Bridge. If one is clamped there, it costs £240. I am waiting for somebody to improve on that figure.
With such rich pickings, it is no wonder that dubious characters have been attracted into the business. All that one needs are a few wheel clamps, a van of whatever quality and a mobile phone. I have been warned that the only danger in mentioning these facts is that other people might be attracted into the business.
As a result, many hon. Members, of all parties, have been approached by their constituents who had been personally inconvenienced and aggrieved. A number of those hon. Members have passed correspondence to me, as have a number of broadcasting programmes and the national press, all of which have been running campaigns. I have handed to the Home Office a considerable number
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of letters that were received as a result of one of the broadcast programmes. Many of them make distressing reading.
The AA and the RAC, the two main motoring organisations, have also provided a long list of complaints from their members. Those two organisations tried to bring many of the complaints to court but, unfortunately, either the clampers settled at the doors of the court or they went out of business. Unfortunately, therefore, the AA and the RAC have been unable to obtain effective case law in the way that has been possible in Scotland.
We have to consider what clamping is trying to solve. Is clamping trying to solve the problem of obstruction? It strikes me that to immobilise the obstructing vehicle is the most bizarre way to deal with obstruction. Is it a misuse of parking space? I recognise that that can be a considerable problem and a major inconvenience where blocks of flats are involved, but is that the only way in which obstruction can be dealt with?
One of the problems with wheel clamping is that the clampers are judge, jury and court bailiff, all rolled into one. There is no redress. There is no effective due process. Sometimes, not even the landowners are able to provide redress. One example that has been drawn to my attention is that of a motorist who parked his car in a British Rail car park. He had a British Rail season ticket. He also had a season ticket for British Rail's car park. That person was clamped. British Rail accepts that he has a season ticket, but all it can do is to refer him to the clamper because British Rail has handed over its rights on that land. That is unsatisfactory. I doubt whether even the citizens charter will solve that problem.
The situation is a mess. It is unacceptable for things to muddle on as they are. It is not a sustainable position. Quite apart from whether clamping is desirable in itself—I do not believe that it is—far too many undesirable elements are being attracted into the industry. Furthermore, to leave vehicles immobilised late at night means that motorists, especially women, are vulnerable to attack. I do not want the Home Office to be forced into drastic action as a result of an incident.
We have, therefore, to look at the possible remedies. In such an easy-entry industry, self-regulation does not seem to be a practical proposition. We need to look at what happens in Scotland or at some form of licensing under the control of local authorities. We cannot leave the position as it is—a free-for-all.
A major abuse of power by private clampers is taking place that is causing considerable public concern, distress and cost to many members of the public. It has been going on for too long. It is time to close down the clamping cowboys. Accordingly, I seek leave to introduce a Bill to control the wheel clamping of vehicles parked on private land.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. John Spellar, Mr. Ian McCartney, Mr. Gary Waller, Mr. Gerald Bermingham, Mr. Tony Banks, Mr. John Battle, Mrs. Barbara Roche, Mr. Tom Cox and Mr. Alan Meale.

Regulation of Wheel-Clamping
  REGULATION OF WHEEL-CLAMPING
  Mr. John Spellar accordingly presented a Bill to control the wheel-clamping of vehicles parked on private land; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 22 January and to be printed. [Bill 65.]
Orders of the Day

  Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  Madam Speaker: I should inform the House that I have not selected the motion to recommit certain clauses.

  Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill
    New Clause 1

      Development and conservation of flora and fauna
      '.—(1) When managing the inland bay (including when doing so to comply with a direction given under section 12(1)(b) above) the Development Corporation shall have regard to the desirability of developing and conserving flora and fauna.
      (2) The Development Corporation shall consult the Countryside Council for Wales to seek their view as to ways in which the inland bay may be managed so as to develop and conserve flora and fauna.'—[Mr. Gwilym Jones.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Gwilym Jones): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Madam Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 11, in clause 1, page 2, line 3, leave out from 'to' to end of line 24 and insert
      'provide no less access to a range of pleasure craft and other vessels than at present and to participation and other open-air recreational activities for those of modest means in sailing, other water sports and other open air recreational activities no less than at present.'.
      Government amendment No. 1.
      Amendment No. 86, in page 2, line 16, leave out 'or expedient'.
      Government amendment No. 2.
      Amendment No. 87, in page 2, line 24, at end insert
      'or for the purposes of developing or conserving flora or fauna'.
      Government amendment No. 3.
      Amendment No. 16, in clause 2, page 3, line 1, leave out subsection (4).
      Amendment No. 93, in page 3, line 2, at end insert
      ',averting displacement of,'.
      Government amendment No. 4.
      Amendment No. 18, in page 3, line 6, leave out 'in' and insert before'.
      Amendment No. 20, in page 3, line 7, leave out 'develop and'.
      Amendment No. 21, in page 3, line 7, after 'conserve', insert 'and develop'.
      Amendment No. 94, in page 3, line 7, after 'conserve', insert 'and avert displacement of'.
      Amendment No. 22, in page 3, line 8, at end insert
      'and shall publish a report on the outcome of such consultations and shall publish detailed estimates of the general environmental impact of such works and of specific reductions in the populations of such flora and fauna as are present in the natural environment of the inland bay.'.
      Amendment No. 23, in page 3, line 8, at end insert
      '(5) Before executing the works authorised by section 1 above the Development Corporation shall have published proposals for mitigating works with respect of any adverse environment impact arising from assessments under (4) above.'.
      Government amendment No. 5.
      Amendment No. 45, in clause 9, page 5, line 45, leave out 'developing and'.
      Amendment No. 46, in page 5, line 45, after 'conserving', insert 'the'.
      Amendment No. 47, in page 5, line 46, at end insert
      'and developing new flora and fauna in it'.
      Amendment No. 48, in page 6, line 2, after 'Wales', insert
      'and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds'.
      Amendment No. 49, in page 6, line 3, leave out 'develop and'.
      Amendment No. 50, in page 6, line 3, after 'conserve', insert 'the'.
      Amendment No. 51, in page 6, line 3, leave out 'in' and nsert 'of.
      Amendment No. 52, in page 6, line 4, at end insert
      'and develop new flora and fauna in it'.
      Amendment No. 105, in page 6, line 4, at end insert
      'and on any area of land of special interest by reason of any of its flora, fauna or geological or physiographical features which may lie adjacent to any of the works authorised by section 1 above.'.
      Amendment No. 106, in page 6, line 4, at end insert
      'and displaced from it.'.
      Amendment No. 108, in clause 14, page 8, line 22, leave out 'desirability' and insert 'encouragement'.
      Amendment No. 109, in page 8, line 23, leave out 'enabling the local community' and insert
      'those residing within five kilometres of the inland bay'.
      Amendment No. 110, in page 8, line 24, after 'in', insert' and around'.
      Amendment No. 61, in page 8, line 25, at end add
      'and to avoid any reduction of access for such craft vessels, sports and activities by those of modest means.'.
      Amendment No. 62, in page 8, line 25, at end add—
      '(4)The Development Corporation shall make reasonable compensation to owners of pleasure craft presently moored in the inland bay, whose vessels are incompatible with the design of the lock gates.'.
      Amendment No. 121, in schedule 2, page 17, line 30, at beginning insert
      'Subject to sub-paragraph (5) below,'.
      Amendment No. 123, in page 18, line 15, at end insert—
      '(5)No reclamation of land for the purpose of creating islands in the inland bay under paragraph (g) of sub-paragraph (1) above shall take place without the express agreement of the Countryside Council for Wales and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.'.
      Mr. Gwilym Jones: The Government have tabled new clause I and amendments Nos. 1 to 5 to fulfil a commitment given in Committee. Indeed, the amendments go further than that. As I said in Committee, the Government and the development corporation recognise the need to develop new wildlife habitats in the impounded bay and attach great importance to doing so. That is why I gave the undertaking to table an amendment which put into effect the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan)to add the development or conservation of nature to the list of purposes for which the ancillary powers in clause 1(5) may be implemented.
      Amendment No. 3 has precisely that effect. The development corporation will be required to exercise its power to carry out ancillary work to develop or protect flora and fauna as well as to facilitate the use of the inland bay and outer harbour for boating, water sports and open air recreational activities. Amendment No. 3 relates to a clause different from the clause to which the amendment tabled in Committee by the hon. Member for Cardiff, West related, but taken with the consequential amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 5, the effect is exactly that which he sought to achieve in Committee.

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      As I have said, the Government intend to go further on the question of flora and fauna. The development corporation is already obliged to have regard to the desirability of conserving flora and fauna when it carries out any of the works authorised by clause 1, whether they are main or ancillary works. The corporation is also required to consult the Countryside Council for Wales and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds about the measures which should be taken to meet that obligation. It is an entirely appropriate provision which we do not seek to change. At the same time, we believe there to be a parallel need to ensure that any works carried out to that end are appropriate.
      Amendment No. 4, therefore, extends the consultation requirements specifically for that purpose. That will ensure that the development corporation has access to the best advice at an early stage so that nature conservation considerations are given the appropriate emphasis in the planning and execution of the works authorised by the Bill.
      The amendments are concerned with powers related to the works. The Government have taken the view that there should be some provision for nature conservation within the bay once the barrage is built. New clause 1, therefore, will require the corporation to have regard to the desirability of developing and conserving flora and fauna when managing the inland bay. It will also be obliged to consult the Countryside Council for Wales about the ways in which that could be achieved. If the corporation is obliged to carry out works in the inland bay to facilitate boating, water sports and open air recreational activities, it seems equally right that similar provisions should apply to the development or conservation of flora and fauna.
      Such provisions are consistent with the duties placed on the development corporation in respect of the operation of the barrage by clause 9(2)(c) and clause 9(3). I very much hope that hon. Members will welcome the new provisions as a positive step towards creating new and varied wildlife habitats within the bay.
      Mrs. Ann Clwyd: The Bill has been an immensely controversial proposal, even among Cardiff Members. It is extraordinary that, despite the amount of debate on the Bill and despite the time spent on it, the Government have still failed to address any of the critical issues contained in our reasoned amendment on Second Reading almost 12 months ago.
      The Bill started as a private Bill. As some hon. Members may know, I have an especial interest in private Bill procedure given that, during the debate on the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Bill, we managed to obtain a review of private Bill procedure. Although it has taken a long time, it is soon to be implemented.
      The Bill is now a hybrid Bill, so I maintain that proper consideration should be given to the Opposition's views. In Committee, the Government made only one concession on flora and fauna, and even that amendment was not tabled by Opposition Members.
      4.45 pm
      Let me stress from the start that at every stage our criticism of the Bill has not been to deny the need for economic regeneration. There can be no doubt about the need for urban regeneration in the docklands of Cardiff. There must be more jobs and an end to dereliction in south Cardiff.
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      There were three components to the Opposition's reasoned amendment, none of which was accepted in Committee. We called for public consultation on ground water and for adequate compensation for householders affected by rising ground water levels, and we drew attention—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. It would be for the benefit of the House if we reminded ourselves that the new clause and amendments are fairly specific. This is neither a Second Reading nor a Third Reading debate. We have clear grounds of debate here and I should be grateful if all hon. Members would now restrict themselves to the specific new clause and amendments associated with it.
      Mrs. Clwyd: We refer in one of our amendments to the plan to monitor the quality of the inland water to be created by the construction of the barrage. On water quality arbitration, which is very relevant and vital in deciding whether the development will create a popular amenity or a lake of sludge, the Secretary of State for Wales has reserved for himself the final decision on matters between the Cardiff Bay development corporation and the National Rivers Authority.
      On all the criteria relating to ground water—safety, technical and economic—the development corporation has put forward two methods of solving the problem, but the public has had no chance to consider either method. The question that we must put to the Government tonight is: why should the Secretary of State have the last word when there should be public debate on those matters?
      In Committee, the Government did not accept any of our amendments. We have tabled our amendments today because our criticisms of the Bill have not been met. The Government have given practically nothing away, although they did a deal with their own quangos, agreeing to provide an alternative feeding ground for waders such as redshanks and dunlin which, during the winter, use Cardiff bay.
      We cannot be sure that the deal will stand up to legal scrutiny and that is the matter on which we want assurances tonight. When the President of the Board of Trade was, in his happier days, the Secretary of State for the Environment, he sent the issue of the intertidal mud flats of the Severn estuary to Brussels for registration as a special protection area under the 1975 EC wild birds directive. However, on 1 November 1991, the Welsh Office announced that Cardiff bay was to be excluded from the SPA proposal, although it was designated a site of special scientific interest in 1980. We should like assurances from the Government that the deal will stand up to legal scrutiny.
      It is acknowledged by the Cardiff Bay development corporation that the barrage would destroy the entire SSSI, probably only the second time that such an action has occurred. That is why the Opposition have called and continue to call for an independent assessment of the environmental impact of the barrage development.
      We should also like to stress the need for local democracy. The environmental officers of the city of Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan will have to decide which water sports are permitted or refused, but every attempt is being made to marginalise the democratically elected councillors and yet again to concentrate decision

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      making on the quangos. In the end, however, the environmental officers of those councils will have to make the decisions.
      We are also concerned about the reduction of access for small sailing boats and in respect of sports and activities undertaken by those of modest means. All the artists' impressions of Cardiff bay give the idea that it will be possible to sail small dinghies there but, under the present proposals, many owners of small boats will probably be disqualified as the water quality of the lake is unlikely to be of a sufficiently high standard to allow water sports with high water contact. The classification of dinghy sailing is at present uncertain. I remind the Government that not everyone who enjoys sailing owns a yacht.
      Those are some of the reasons why we have tabled the amendments, and it is up to the Secretary of State and the Government to attempt to persuade us of the virtue of their case.
      The Bill may well set a precedent, as it is estimated that 48 of 130 estuaries in the United Kingdom are subject to some sort of development proposals, including proposals for marinas. There are several barrage proposals among them—some for amenity purposes, others for power generation—and the outcome of the Cardiff bay barrage proposal could influence the consideration of future barrage schemes. That is why we consider this matter to be crucial.
      Finally, I fail to understand why important documents such as the updated economic appraisal of the Cardiff bay barrage proposals arrived on our desks so late—in some cases, yesterday; in many cases, only today. Similarly, the large bundle of papers from the Welsh Office dated 24 June 1992 came to some of my hon. Friends in the post last night, to some of them in the post today, and to me, not at all. What explanation do the Government have for that? I consider it a slight on the House that the Welsh Office should have treated us in such a cavalier fashion, depriving hon. Members of an opportunity to give the Bill the close examination that such a hotly contested issue deserves.
      Mr. Ron Davies: First, let me agree with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) about the late arrival of the documents. I am sure that the Minister will understand that, in the interests of informed debate, it is important that all hon. Members should have early and prior sight of such documents. The late arrival of the documents is typical of the way in which the Welsh Office—although not the Cardiff Bay development corporation, which, on this count, is excused blame—has handled the matter. The Welsh Office has never taken adequate steps to ensure that we can have a properly informed debate—nor has it allowed us adequate time, either in Committee or on the Floor of the House, to discuss these issues. It is quite in keeping with what my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley described as the cavalier approach adopted by the Welsh Office that we should have been deprived of access—
      Mr. Alun Michael: We have had plenty of time.
      Mr. Davies: We shall certainly have plenty of time to discuss the matter today, and I shall be happy to give way to my hon. Friend if he wishes to intervene at this point.
      Mr. Michael: My only comment is that we have not done too badly over the months as regards time for debate.
      Mr. Davies: I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that we shall have plenty of time to debate these matters today. My point is that, if we had had prior sight of the documents, we should have been able to have a more informed debate—although as you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, pointed out, we are on Report and our comments must be very specific.
      I refer in particular to new clause 1. It is as well to remind ourselves that the Minister who introduced the new clause, professing concern about conserving flora and fauna and apparently recognising the importance of the bay, is the self-same Minister who, in 1986, used the anonymity of the Back Benches at 2.30 pm to kill the Bill that preceded this one—the County of South Glamorgan (Taff Crossing) Bill. Exactly the same arguments were advanced against that Bill as have been advanced against this one. In considering the political machinations of the Welsh Office, it is instructive to recall that, back in 1986 and from the anonymity of the Back Benches, the Minister saw fit to defend the interests of conservation, whereas now that he has responsibility for the matter and could put his concerns into practice, he has become party to a Bill, which—I believe for the first time ever, although my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) will correct me if I am wrong—will completely destroy a site of special scientific interest.
      The Minister is offering us new clause I in an attempt to offset some of the worst effects of the development. It states:
      "When managing the inland bay … the Development Corporation shall have regard to the desirability of developing and conserving flora and fauna."
      It says nothing about placing a responsibility on the development corporation and nowhere states clearly what its duties will be. Instead, a vague form of words has been:
      "developing and conserving flora and fauna."
      The Minister, in his brief introduction, referred several times to wildlife habitats. But "conserving flora and fauna" is a far cry from maintaining, developing or providing wildlife habitats: the two are completely different. "Flora" could refer to the flowers around the lakeside—the roses planted round the bay. "Fauna" could refer to the ducks—
      Mr. Paul Flynn: Rats.
      Mr. Davies: We shall come to rats when we deal with water pollution.
      "Fauna" could refer to seagulls or to swans or to the tame ducks feeding on bread thrown by occasional visitors. Wildlife habitats are something quite different, and the Minister has failed to understand the importance of the site of special scientific interest to national and international wildlife habitats. He certainly cannot appease us by saying that he will place on the development corporation a responsibiity to
      "develop and conserve flora and fauna."
      The new clause continues:
      "The Development Corporation shall consult the Countryside Council for Wales".
      It is a bit late for the development corporation to consult the Countryside Council for Wales. When it consulted the Nature Conservancy Council, the NCC told it not to proceed with the development. When, in an attempt to

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      exert political pressure and do away with the independent scientific advice coming from the NCC, the Welsh Office and the development corporation consulted the Countryside Council for Wales, they were told in no uncertain terms—even by the Government's own appointee as chairman—not to proceed. Yet the new clause states that the development corporation will have the responsibility to consult the Countryside Council for Wales. What comfort can we derive from a new clause placing responsibility on the development corporation to consult when we know that the Welsh Office and the development corporation will not consider the views of the Countryside Council for Wales for one moment? The new clause refers to the corporation's responsibility to seek that body's views—hardly an onerous responsibility—
      "as to ways in which the inland bay may be managed so as to develop and conserve flora and fauna."
      It is absolutely meaningless.
      I would have had more regard for the Minister if he had come to the Dispatch Box tonight and said, "I am terribly sorry but the site of special scientific interest will be sacrificed because we want to proceed with this development," rather than proposed this mealy-mouthed new clause which attempts to reassure us that he concerns himself with the need to conserve flora and fauna. He is a different individual from the one who was prepared in 1986 to say that the destruction of this site of special scientific interest should not be accepted.
      5 pm
      Those were my introductory remarks. I want to come to the substance of my comments on new clause 1. I have already described how new clause I and the amendments unsatisfactorily address the need to take into account the wildlife responsibilities of the Welsh Office. In 1980 the site which will be destroyed by the Bill and for which no protection is offered by new clause 1 was designated a site of special scientific interest. It was so designated because it provided a particular habitat, not for the swans and ducks that will, one hopes, be attracted by the new development, or the rats or chaffinches which will be around the site, or even the greenfly on the roses, but for a range of wildfowl and wild birds which depend for their very existence on the unique habitat of the Cardiff hay area. That is why in 1980 it was designated a site of special scientific interest.
      South Glamorgan county council recognised the designation and incorporated it in its structure plan for those purposes. The Welsh Office was certainly happy with that designation.
      Mr. Michael: I want to make one thing clear. Does my hon. Friend accept that, although the designation is accepted by South Glamorgan county council and others, the original designation was highly questionable and followed processes which would not be followed now? Indeed, it is highly questionable whether an SSSI designation would have succeeded if it had been subjected to the more careful scrutiny which must be applied now.
      Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend makes two points. The first is that the procedure was questionable. As I understand it, there were no objections in 1980. No one said that the procedure was questionable. Certainly, all that has happened subsequently, such as the qualification of the site under the Ramsar convention and the
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      recognition that it qualified for protection under the EC birds directive, suggests that the 1980 designation was appropriate.
      Mr. Michael: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Davies: Let me answer the points. Then I shall willingly give way to my hon. Friend. His second point was that it was doubtful whether the site would be designated today. I am perfectly prepared to accept that. We know how little concern the Government have for nature conservation. We know that they have presided over the wholesale destruction of sites which have been designated. We have seen them wriggle dishonestly and illegally out of their international obligations under the EC directive. So I fully accept my hon. Friend's second point.
      Mr. Michael rose—
      Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend is eager to undermine the SSSI status of the bay. I am happy to give way to him to allow him to make his point. It is relevant to new clause 1, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      Mr. Michael: I do not intend to argue with the criticisms that my hon. Friend makes of the Government's position on SSSIs. My point is simply that it is doubtful whether the bay would have been designated an SSSI under objective criteria. There were no objections to the original designation because no one was told that it was to happen. The designation was discovered after the event by many of those who were integrally involved in the environment and future of Cardiff. As one who was involved at that time, I assure my hon. Friend that the original designation had the shortcomings that I mentioned.
      Mr. Davies: I am not sure whether I understand my hon. Friend's argument. It is a matter of fact that South Glamorgan county council recognised the site and incorporated it in its structure plan. It is a matter of fact that there were no objections. So I do not know how my hon. Friend can speculate that the site would not qualify for designation now.
      Mr. Elliot Morley: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Davies: I wish to address the other point that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) made. I shall then happily give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth said that if objective criteria were applied the site would not be designated. He has no basis for saying that. The objective criteria apply. If they were followed, the site would have to be designated a site of special scientific interest. The site meets the requirements under the Ramsar convention and the requirements to be a candidate area for protection under the EC birds directive. The only circumstances which could lead to the site not being accepted would be if the Government applied their own interpretation. They did that when they considered developing the entire Severn estuary as a special protection area. They took it upon themselves to apply in a strange way the principle of subsidiarity. They said that they would take it upon themselves to exercise discretion and exclude Cardiff bay from the designation of the Severn estuary as an SPA.
      Mr. Jon Owen Jones: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Davies: I will give way to my hon. Friend in a moment. We must make it clear that the designation was valid. All that has happened subsequently supports that assertion.
      Several hon. Members rose—
      Mr. Davies: I give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe and then to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones).
      Mr. Morley: Does my hon. Friend agree that the original designation was made because the intertidal zone of Cardiff bay had nationally important populations of calidris waders and shelducks? Those numbers have since been confirmed by independent assessments and by other conservation bodies. The Government have never quibbled with those figures. So it is not necessarily true that the designation was wrong in the first place. The same criteria as those used then are currently used for new designations of SSSIs in line with both red data book guidelines and the Government's guidelines. It is not that there was anything wrong with the original designation.
      Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe is an elected member of the council of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. He is a well-known and respected ornithologist in his own right. We must accept his objective comment on the matter.
      Mr. Jon Owen Jones: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Davies: I know that my hon. Friend is desperately anxious to develop the debate and I have assured him that I shall give way to him. However, I wish to follow the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe. He brings expertise as both a politician and an objective observer. If my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth maintains that he cannot accept the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe, he must accept the advice of the Government's scientific advisers. Even if he will not accept our word for it, and even if he thinks that the RSPB is tainted as an organisation, he must accept the view of the Countryside Council for Wales. It was its unequivocal view that the site should be protected and that the barrage development should not proceed. That is the official view of the Government's wildlife advisers.
      Dr. John Marek: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Davies: I am more than happy to give way but I must tell my hon. Friend that he is in a queue. We have a stacking arrangement and he has booked his place in the queue. I shall come to him in due course.
      If my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth does not accept our view or that of the RSPB, he must accept the view of the Government's scientific advisers. That is the objective, authoritative view on the matter.
      Mr. Jon Owen Jones: One of the ironies about the designation is that there is an unusual density of wading birds in the bay because the mudflats are unusually nutrient-rich. Therefore, the small invertebrates which populate the mud feed the wading birds.
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      However, it is nutrient-rich because the River Ely and, to a lesser extent these days, the Taff are extremely well-nourished by sewerage. Were an ecologically friendly Government—if we had such a thing—to propose to clean up those two rivers, which they will have to do as a result of building the barrage, the nutrient level of the water, the amount of nutrient absorbed into the mud and thus the number of invertebrates will decline, as will the density of wading birds. If the designation—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is making a fascinating speech and may wish to catch my eye later, but that was a very long intervention and it was quite outside normal procedure.
      Mr. Davies: I was wondering whether my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central had quite finished.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I called the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies). If he does not wish to continue, a number of other hon. Members wish to speak.
      Mr. Davies: I have barely started, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I most certainly want to continue, but my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central was in an unusual position—he was semi-crouching. I intended no discourtesy to you, as I know that you have the respect of the whole House and that you make judgments with great authority and we shall respect them. I was tempted by my hon. Friend's semi-crouching position. He looked rather like a redshank searching for an early supper in the basin.
      The argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central is interesting. He suggested that if the water quality in the Taff and Ely rivers were improved, the value of the bay as a habitat would diminish. That has particular relevance to the amendment. I think that my hon. Friend was suggesting that I would oppose the cleaning up of those rivers because it would diminish the value of the bay for wildlife. That is entirely speculative, and we are dealing not with that but with new clause 1. If I were to stray from new clause 1, I know that you would call me to order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I have no intention of being led down the tempting and fascinating path suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central.
      Before I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek), I must tell the Minister that I do not think that he has any discretion. We know that the site qualifies under the Ramsar convention, which is an international treaty to which we are signatories. We also have a responsibility under the EC directive, as article 2 on wild birds states that when there is "irreconcilable conflict", priority must be given to "ecological needs". I should have thought that that was a crystal clear explanation of our responsibilities. If a proposed development would destroy an SSSI, it clearly conflicts irreconcilably with the wish to retain it. One cannot have half a barrage, or build a barrage and retain the environment that would thus be destroyed.
      The Government's responsibility is to give priority to ecological needs. The directive does not give any discretion to the Government but tells them that they must give priority to such needs. We know that the Government's scientific advisers have also said that that is what they should do. That is important. In the Minister's brief introduction to new clause 1, he gave no sign that he

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      understood the responsibility placed on him. I shall now happily give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham.
      Dr. Marek: I am sorry that I have to interrupt my hon. Friend's train of thought, but he is relying a little too much on the Government taking cognisance of the views of the Countryside Commission or acting legally and obeying the Ramsar treaty. The Government have no mandate in Wales—they are a minority Government. They ride roughshod over everything that people in Wales want if, for political reasons, they want something else. If some form of compulsion exists elsewhere whereby we could bring the Government to account, I suspect that the best way to proceed would be by using it. Perhaps we should go to Europe, to one of the European courts, and find out whether anything could be done there. As my hon. Friend knows more about such matters than I, perhaps he could give the House his advice as to the best procedure.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Member for Caerphilly is tempted down that route, could we get back to new clause 1?
      Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham is a tricky customer. I saw the trap that he was laying and I am grateful that you have made sure that I stick to new clause 1, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, his argument can be used in the context of new clause 1, because the Government have a responsibility. They think that they are discharging it by talking about developing and conserving flora and fauna. They think that by so doing they will avoid their international responsibilities. I understand that the RSPB are to consider taking the case to the European Court.
      5.15 pm
      In framing new clause 1, the Government took into account the findings of the European Court in the Leybucht judgment, which they grievously misinterpreted when they decided to exclude Cardiff bay from the proposed designation of the Severn estuary as an area deserving and requiring protection under the birds directive. Even though that is a path that I cannot follow—much as I would like to do so—my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham may rest assured that the responsibility for exploring the need to safeguard the environment will be taken, even if it means having recourse to the European Court.
      We must ask ourselves why the Minister could scupper the predecessor of the Bill, from the anonymity of the Back Benches, by shouting out, "Object", and then come along with this wholly unsatisfactory new clause in an attempt to discharge his responsibilities.
      I view the changing attitudes of Ministers with fascination. We know that the Bill originated from a flight of whimsy on the part of Nicholas Edwards—now Lord Crickhowell—who was in Baltimore, saw the bay and thought, "That's a good idea. Let's have one in Cardiff." Every one of his successors in the Welsh Office has been seduced. It is almost as if there were some sort of disease there which rots their brains, or prevents them from exercising any objective consideration of the issues. However, if I go down that track I know that you will say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I am not referring to new clause 1 and the amendments grouped with it.
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      I must pursue the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central who mentioned the importance of mudflats. How on earth can the development corporation have regard to the desirability
      "of developing and conserving flora and fauna"—
      the very words of new clause 1—if we interpret those to mean wildlife? How on earth can it have that responsibility when the construction of a barrage will create a virtual desert for wildlife in the bay? That is the question that I want the Minister to answer. If he argues that flora and fauna are not the same as wildlife, I understand why the new clause fits the purpose, but if he believes that they are the same, can he explain how the development corporation can develop and conserve wildlife? It cannot do so, because a barrage will destroy the very wildlife that is of value.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central briefly mentioned the value of mudflats.
      Mr. Jon Owen Jones: I shall be brief this time, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall listen with great interest to any later arguments about how eutrophic the barrage will make the lake. Eutrophic lakes are quite the opposite of deserts—they are filled with wildlife.
      Mr. Davies: They are filled with life, but I am sure that you would rule, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the debate about water quality properly comes under the third group of amendments.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not need any guidance from the hon. Gentleman.
      Mr. Davies: I was not seeking to guide you; I was merely speculating about your ruling.
      I accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central has said, but we are entitled to ask about the quality of life in such eutrophic conditions, which would be far different from existing conditions in the bay. I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of the mudflats, which are rich in nitrates and provide a home for rich and varied invertebrate life, as a feeding ground for migratory birds.
      Apart from the fact that the mudflats are enriched by the downflow from the Taff and Ely, they are also intertidal. The interface between the sea and the land makes the mudflats of particular value. They are regularly flooded, so they are washed.
      The mudflats are also ice-free, which is particularly important to the birds from Iceland, Greenland or Eurasia which use them in the winter. They come to the Atlantic seaboard to seek the ice-free coasts for shelter and for winter feeding. If we destroy those mudflats, we will deprive the over-wintering birds of the opportunity to enjoy that special habitat.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central has speculated that if the barrage went ahead and the bay was lost, it would not really matter. That view is not shared by the Government's advisers or by any wildlife organisation. In my hon. Friend's constituency and throughout south Wales, an endless number of organisations are opposed to the development on the ground that the bay is an integral part of the Severn estuary. That is an inescapable fact. If the bay is destroyed, the entire Severn estuary would be damaged. The Government have had that argument put to them by the Countryside Council for Wales, but they have failed to discharge their international responsibilities to

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      designate the estuary as a special protection area—an SPA. It is important to consider the damage that will be inflicted on the estuary if the bay is lost.
      The Government talk about the glories of biodiversity. They lecture the third world on its responsibilities, they properly try to pressurise the Norwegians to accept their own and they lecture their European partners on their responsibilities and the need to conserve song birds in Italy and France. I applaud those laudable efforts. However, a commitment to conservation is not a hat that can be put on and taken off to suit one's convenience. If one is committed to the cause of conservation, one must accept that commitment even when it is inconvenient. The cause of conservation in the case of Cardiff bay is not convenient to the Government—that is the essence of the criticism of the Government's case. They have disregarded their responsibilities to conservation. It is worth stressing that when we consider the Cardiff bay development, which is highly speculative to say the least.
      Mr. Flynn: My hon. Friend may have received a copy of a letter sent to me from the Bristol section of Friends of the Earth about biodiversity and the Severn estuary. It stated that unique forms of flora and fauna in the estuary were liable to be destroyed by developments in the bay. I have written twice to the author of the letter for a list of those unique flora and fauna, but I have yet to receive a reply. Perhaps my hon. Friend can list them.
      Mr. Davies: It would be foolish of me to be tempted to comment on correspondence that I have not seen.
      Mr. Flynn: It is about biodiversity.
      Mr. Davies: I am talking about biodiversity too.
      Some time ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) made a similar intervention to say that he had written to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to ask about its views on the barrage. He tempted me to defend the RSPB, but that is not my job or duty. On that occasion, we were discussing the number of existing SSSIs, the number that had been destroyed and the displacement of estuarine birds.
      I accept that estuarine birds are not unique and I should be interested to find out which life forms in the estuary Friends of the Earth judge to be unique. I have not argued that the ecosystem in the estuary is unique, but it is rare and valuable and it will be damaged by the development. In a letter dated 18 December 1989, of which I have a copy, the RSPB put that point to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West. It stated:
      "The fate of estuarine birds displaced is complex and not fully researched. Experts advising both Promoters and Petitioners against the Bill agree that a large proportion of those displaced by a barrage would not be able to 'fit in' elsewhere, or would displace other birds in turn. The availability of suitable habitat is finite; areas of international importance, such as the Severn estuary, of which the Taff/Ely is a part, are to be treasured accordingly. Loss of an important part would cause an overall net loss in the world population of species affected. The Promoters accept that some loss will have to be compensated for".
      I would not argue that the estuary is home to unique life forms, but the bay is an integral part of it. It is a valuable over-wintering area for highly protected bird species for which we have international responsibility. I do not know whether my case is supported by Friends of the Earth in
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      Bristol. If my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West is prepared to let me see the correspondence, I shall write to Friends of the Earth. I shall certainly ask that group for a list of the unique life forms that it believes exist in the estuary. I shall even send a copy of my speech, which I am sure will be read.
      The RSPB is the primary voluntary organisation that has campaigned against the barrage. The House will be aware that it is the largest wildlife conservation organisation in Europe. It is highly respected and has about 1 million members, who base all their campaigning work on detailed, scientific, objective analysis.
      The work conducted by the RSPB is a lesson to us all. We must acknowledge its views and it is important to put them on record. They are particularly relevant because we can then test how the development corporation could comply with the requirements of new clause 1. It has stated:
      "The RSPB and other wildlife conservation bodies including the Glamorgan Wildlife Trust and the Royal Society for Nature Conservation are opposed to the barrage proposal since it will permanently flood the intertidal lands that provide important feeding grounds for 5,000–8,000 wild birds which regularly use Cardiff Bay in winter. Cardiff bay is of high wildlife importance and has been notified by the Nature Conservancy Council"—
      of course, that was before it was disbanded by the Government when they tried to impose political control over science—
      "as a Site of Special Scientific Interest under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. In biological terms, the bay is an integral part of the wider Severn estuary, which is of international importance for shelduck, redshank, knot and dunlin and meets the criteria for protection under the European Community Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds and the Ramsar Convention on the Conservation of Wetlands."
      That case is put against the barrage.
      I shall look briefly at the arguments again. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West has had some dispute with the RSPB because he argues, "I am not sure that it really matters, because the birds will go elsewhere." He has used the argument concerning Collister Pill, the area in his constituency or in that of his neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes). The argument in respect of Collister Pill is different because it was a different habitat and was not designated an SSSI.
      5.30 pm
      The argument that it does not matter because the birds will go elsewhere is flawed, because all the science involved tells us that there is a finite and restricted habitat, that the birds cannot go elsewhere and that if they could go elsewhere, they would displace the species in that other area, resulting in a net loss.
      As well as being scientifically incorrect, such an argument is politically irresponsible. It is a casual and dismissive attitude towards our responsibilities for conservation to claim that it does not matter because the birds will go elsewhere. It would be like telling the Japanese or Norwegians, "It does not matter if we go whaling," or telling the Brazilian or Equador Governments, "It does not matter if we destroy the tropical rain forests." Is it not equal to telling French hunters, "It does not matter if you shoot skylarks in their migratory passage"? It represents taking a casual attitude.
      I find it amazing in 1992, not only having had the idea of biodiversity accepted by the Government but with the

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      increasingly accepted attitude about global responsibilities for our shared natural heritage, that there should be such a casual dismissal of our responsibilities for what I believe would be at best a dubious and transient benefit, so far unproved, to the economy of Cardiff.
      Mr. Flynn: It is misleading for my hon. Friend to compare the estuary with the rain forest, where there are literally tens of thousands of unique species—in the Severn estuary there are none. As for the finite site available where the birds at Collister Pill migrated, that was a totally artificial, man-made site that did not exist previously. It was in the ash ponds of the Uskmouth power station.
      A decision must be made about birds that are rare and under threat. Here we are dealing with birds that are under no threat whatever. They exist in their millions. A balanced and common-sense decision must be made, reconciling what is required to protect and preserve those birds and the great advantages available to the population of Cardiff as a result of the barrage. My hon. Friend is aware that provision, which has been much praised, is made in a later clause in connection with the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East.
      Mr. Davies: The latter point made by my hon. Friend is doubtful, but we can look into it when we debate the clause to which he referred. I concede that the circumstances at Collister Pill were different. My hon. Friend claims that making a parallel with the rain forest is not valid because the birds in question are not unique. In terms of the environment of north-west Europe, they are. They might not be unique to Cardiff bay or to the Severn estuary, but they are unique to the ecology of north-west Europe. Therefore, a comparison should be made not between Cardiff bay and the entire equatorial rain forest but between the ecosystem of north-west Europe and the ecosystem of the equatorial forest.
      It is true to say that there are millions of unique species in the equatorial forest. By the same token, there are millions of unique species if the area of definition is the whole of the ecosystem of north-west Europe, and that should be the comparison. My hon. Friend is wrong, therefore, to say that the species in question are not under threat. They are. If he recognises that within the context of north-west Europe they are a declining species and are under threat, he must consider at what point we must call a halt.
      My hon. Friend is a sincere and committed defender of the rain forest and agrees that no further destruction should take place there. I do not see how he can reconcile that with saying, "We shall not protect Cardiff bay because man needs it." Is he not aware of the rightness of the comparison? We must stop at some point. We must not let it go on, with further estuaries being destroyed one at a time. We must say, "Now is the time to stop because we have international responsibilities."
      I have drawn my line and said that it should stop here. My hon. Friend may say that the line should be drawn somewhere else. I am entitled to ask where he would draw his line. Would it be somewhere after Cardiff bay, after Taff estuary, or after the Mersey, Morecambe bay or the Humber? At what point would he say stop? The point has arrived for me. We must stop here and care for our estuaries. I challenge my hon. Friend to say whether his line is after Cardiff bay, and then no further. He has a strong interest because a proposal for the Usk barrage is,
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      or would have been under other circumstances, coming forward. Would my hon. Friend have drawn the line there? I hope he will answer that question.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member may invite his hon. Friend to answer, but he is not in order in doing so.
      Mr. Flynn: In view of my hon. Friend's invitation—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) has been developing a speech to which we have listened with interest. Rather than challenging other hon. Members on certain issues, he should concentrate his remarks on the subject of new clause 1.
      Mr. Davies: I was not challenging my hon. Friend, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I got the impression that he wished to intervene and I was politely offering to allow him to do so. I accept your ruling and return to the subject I was developing, which is the argument that the development does not matter because the birds will go elsewhere. I hope that, in terms of our international responsibilities, that issue has been adequately dealt with.
      The next argument to be adduced is that 10 per cent. of the land area of Britain is covered by SSSIs. Cardiff bay estuary is an important part of that and new clause 1 would have recognised that, were it a meaningful provision. One view is that, because 10 per cent. of the land area is covered by SSSIs, it does not matter if we lose a bit here and there. My answer is again to ask where the line is to be drawn. If we are prepared to see one SSSI destroyed, shall we be prepared to see another destroyed?
      My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth feels strongly about the issue. I have questioned various people—including him when he was promoting the earlier legislation—the Welsh Office, the Government's advisers and the Department of the Environment because we can test the validity of new clause 1 against the evidence that is adduced in that respect. How many SSSIs are we prepared to see destroyed? Are we prepared to see partial destruction of them all or the complete destruction of some, or is there to be some arbitrary test which results in it being said, "We shall destroy this one but protect that one"? If we are to proceed on that basis, the Government must announce the parameters of that decision-making process.
      What criteria will apply? Do they have in mind a super triple SI—a quadruple SI—that will be protected? At what point will they stop destroying triple SIs?
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      Wales has 843 triple SIs, of which Cardiff bay is one. In the last year for which figures are available, from April 1991 to March 1992, 45 of them were destroyed. That is disgraceful because those sites were selected on objective scientific criteria and approved as worthy of conservation. They have been destroyed and the Government have done nothing to protect them. The Government are now sending out a clear message that, by Act of Parliament, triple SIs can be destroyed in their entirety. What message is that to individuals who want to destroy triple SIs? How can the Government have any credibility in trying to enforce the protection of triple SIs when they have piloted through the House of Commons legislation that destroys a triple SI? I am sure that I shall receive no answer to that question.

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      The third case that is put is that, although there will be damage—that argument was put by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West—we should think of the people of Cardiff. All my hon. Friends who have spoken in this debate have made it clear that we want Cardiff to be developed and are concerned about its prosperity and that of our constituents. We are not opposed to development of Cardiff that will benefit the people of Cardiff. We argue that the barrage is unnecessary for that development. In any case, the development is highly speculative and we have been asked to accept the destruction of a triple SI. Although new clause 1 attempts to offer a palliative, the effect will be the destruction of a triple SI for a temporary benefit.
      Mr. Rhodri Morgan: This is not, strictly speaking, an answer to the earlier question put to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn), but it is a kind of answer with an element of lateral thinking. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West asked what was unique about the flora and fauna of Cardiff bay. He did not get an answer because my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly had not seen the correspondence from Bristol Friends of the Earth. It is unique to have a triple SI in the middle of a large city of some 300,000 people, or so I believe.
      Mr. Davies: I am sure that it is. My hon. Friend is a master of the art of lateral thinking and I must be careful to ensure that he does not distract me from our debate on new clause 1. He knows that I would welcome any alternative proposals for the development of Cardiff, such as a mini barrage that would have the double benefit of providing a waterscape and, at the same time, conserve for future generations the marvellous reserve that is unique within the bay. If we had a development corporation and a Government who were more imaginative and were not stuck in an early 1980s time warp, they would be prepared to accept that. But they will not and we must accept that.
      The argument is that, although there will be damage, that does not matter because it will be outweighed by benefits. It is summed up by a letter that I received from the Minister's predecessor in the Welsh Office and the predecessor of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones) when he was a Welsh Office Minister. In reply to my letter putting that point to him, he wrote to me on 16 October 1989, saying
      "In relation to the Cardiff Bay Barrage, the environmental impact associated with the Barrage has been considered at length. In 1986 the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology undertook a study of the effect of the Barrage on over-wintering shorebirds. Further environmental studies, including the feasibility of providing alternative feeding grounds, have been commissioned by Cardiff Bay Development Corporation and South Glamorgan County Council. The results of all these studies have been brought together in an independent and detailed Environmental Impact Assessment carried out by Liverpool University's Environmental Advisory Unit in line with the recommendations of the Pearce report … The environmental costs have therefore been measured in detail, and weighed against the paramount importance of realising the economic, recreational and other benefits that can be expected to arise from the Barrage. The Government has concluded that in this case the economic benefits heavily outweigh the identified environmental and other costs."
      So we have an admission and an acceptance that there will be environmental damage, but all the other benefits are highly speculative. Later this evening we shall debate water quality. The Select Committee that examined the
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      matter when it was a private Bill concluded that the economic benefit was dubious, to say the least. We now know that, with the collapse of the property market, there is little prospect of it being of economic benefit to the people of Cardiff, yet we are being asked to accept environmental destruction for dubious and transient economic benefit. I cannot accept that.
      Finally, it is argued that alternative environments will be provided. Were that not funny, it would make me cry. In previous debates we were told that alternative feeding grounds would be provided. I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe, who was present for the previous debates, will remember the fact that we were told that a lagoon would provide a panacea. We would then not need new clause 1 because the lagoon would provide the answer to all our problems.
      Dr. Kim Howells: Is my hon. Friend referring to the lagoon that was supposed to have a magic barge on it, which would clear out everything from algae to wooden doors that came down the River Taff?
      Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend refers to the lagoon behind the barrage, which will destroy the natural environment. I am talking about the lagoon that will be provided some miles to the east of the lagoon at Wentloog. That lagoon was supposed to provide the solution to the environmental damage. When this was a private Bill, we were told with great authority by everyone concerned—my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth, the Minister and the development corporation—that that was the answer and that we need not worry about environmental damage because the lagoon would solve the problems.
      That lagoon was considered by the Select Committee examining the Bill and its findings have given rise to these amendments. The Chairman of the Select Committee made the following stunning argument:
      "Finally, I come to the question of the proposed lagoon at Wentloog. I do not think it will come as any great surprise to those who have been following the progress of this Committee's inquiries to know that we take a very unfavourable view of that proposal".
      That was the earlier version of the all-singing, all-dancing answer to all the problems. He continued:
      "But briefly, it is suggested that the lagoon should be built at a cost which in reality is likely to exceed £7 million capital cost and cost approximately £4–500,000 per annum in running costs, that these funds should be provided from public money and provided, therefore, by the taxpayer. The result of doing so would be to build a small artificial tidal mudflat at Wentloog".
      Dr. Kim Howells: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Davies: I know that my hon. Friend is excited, but perhaps he could restrain himself. I am coming to the end of the Chairman's remarks—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will address new clause 1 in which there is no mention of a lagoon. We are discussing the barrage, and I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman.
      Mr. Davies: I am sure that you are, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      The new clause is a Government attempt to offset the environmental damage caused by the barrage. I doubt the wisdom and the efficacy of that proposal and I am attempting to compare the Government's previous attitude to show that their case is built on shaky

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      foundations. Until early this year, their case was based on the lagoon and not new clause 1. The Select Committee Chairman said:
      "The result of doing so would be to build a small artificial tidal mudflat at Wentloog. The purpose of this exercise, we have been told, is to provide an alternative home for some of the birds which have been displaced from the mudflats of Cardiff Bay following the building of the barrage."
      It is said that new clause 1 is concerned about flora and fauna. The Chairman continues:
      "We heard evidence that the winter count of dunlin is 2,891 in the Bay and of redshank 486."
      If new clause 1 is accepted, those two species will have to be considered by the development corporation. The Chairman went on:
      "These are the two main species of birds which are considered to be under threat from the construction of the barrage. We were further told that the most optimistic forecast was that approximately one quarter of these birds might use the habitat at Wentloog. The proposal, therefore, is that some £10,000 per bird in capital terms, put crudely, and £600 per annum in running cost terms should be spent on these birds."
      My hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe and I have a great love for birds, but even we would share the scepticism of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West if we were asked to fork out £10,000 per bird in capital costs and £600 per annum in running costs. It does not cost as much to organise a pheasant shoot, and that gives people the perverted pleasure of killing the birds at the end of the year. The Chairman continued:
      "This would appear to be sufficiently ludicrous by itself, but worse information was to come. Firstly, we were told that the lagoon as proposed was far too small to be of any practical use. Secondly, we were told that there was absolutely no guarantee that any of the threatened birds would use it at all, although the likelihood was that some would. As I say, the most optimistic count was that a quarter of the population of birds currently in Cardiff would use it. Thirdly, we were told that there were potential problems from gulls, leaching from the nearby dumps and health hazards from a combination of dumps and gulls might render the lagoon wholly useless."
      That was the Government's solution less than 12 months ago, but now we are being asked to accept new clause 1 as the panacea for environmental damage. That is why I am a little suspicious about the wisdom of the Welsh Office in these matters.
      There are widespread objections to what is being done and to the suggestion that somehow the environmental damage is acceptable if new clause 1 is passed. A leader in The Guardian referred to the EC wild birds directive which, I believe, gives rise to new clause 1. If the Minister wishes to tell me that I am wrong, I shall give way to him. The leader is a trenchant criticism of the Government and I know that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, read The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph because you use a broad brush and form your own opinion. On 13 October, The Guardian said:
      "Not many people are going to defend the crow. Most tears over Britain's refusal to conform with a 1979 EC directive providing protection to crows may be tears of anger, not sorrow. Here surely is a supreme example of Brussels at its most absurd: defending a pest which feeds off the songbirds that provide such delight! Well, not quite. The matter is more complicated than Europhobes would have you believe. There are two separate issues wending their way to the European Court: the first protecting species, the second protecting habitat."
      Those issues are relevant to all the amendments. The leader goes on:
      "The first, and the more dubious, is the blanket protection of the 1979 directive which was breached by the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act. Under this Act, British landlords are
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      free to grant permission to sportsmen to shoot crows—and magpies, rooks, jays, woodpigeons, sparrows and starling—all the year round. The absurdity of a blanket ban should not be allowed to obscure the importance of a second issue: Britain's refusal to provide enough special protection areas for birds. This is not just a breach of EC law, but of the International Convention on Wetlands ratified by the UK Government in 1976."
      That charge is made time and again against the Government and they have not attempted to answer it.
      Mr. Win Griffiths rose—
      Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend is desperately anxious to intervene.
      Mr. Griffiths: I want to set the record straight because the Government are not doing so. The problem about the protection of birds such as crows arose from the faulty application of British law in putting the EC directive into operation. In July, before the House rose for the summer recess, the Government undertook in Committee to put that matter right. I do not want the House to think that that defect still exists. That will enable us to rest easily—if we get to sleep tonight.
      Mr. Davies: I am sure that we have every chance of getting a good night's sleep. All that the Government have to do is withdraw the Bill.
      My hon. Friend's question is slightly outside the terms of reference of the new clause. The decision that he debated in Committee is subject to challenge because in giving a blanket licence the Government contravene the provisions of the birds directive. My hon. Friend nods in agreement. The relevance of the new clause is not to shooting corbins but to protecting habitat. The Guardian leader continued:
      "For those people who think environmental issues should be left to national governments, the protection of bird life provides some salutary lessons. Under the E.C. Wild Birds directive, the UK was required to set aside special protection areas by 1981."
      That is precisely what we are talking about. The leader goes on:
      "'An irreducible minimum' list of 222 sites was identified by the Nature Conservancy Council. Eleven years on only 62 sites have been designated. So much for last week's claim by Michael Howard that Britain was always at a disadvantage `because we observe community laws while others flout them'. This is not just a question of protecting British birdlife. Many of the wetland sites are important resting, roosting and feeding places for migrating birds. The lesson could not be clearer: environmental needs do not stop at national boundaries. Just as industrial waste poured into a river poisons all fish and land further downstream, so one nation's refusal to provide sufficient special protection areas for birds can affect birdlife hundreds of miles away. Far from supporting calls for more subsidiarity, the environment reinforces the need for extra territorial policing. But for Brussels, the Dirty Old Man of Europe would have refused to clean up its drinking water or reduce its sewage disposals in the sea. It was Mrs. Thatcher who declared: 'No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we can have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease'."
      What the Government are now offering us is a substandard provision, in new clause 1, to meet these international obligations. Frankly, that is not good enough and nor are the other amendments.
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      Mr. Win Griffiths: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Davies: I am in a quandary, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I want to make some progress as the meat of what I have to say is yet to come, but my hon. Friend wishes to intervene. I shall give way to him.
      Mr. Griffiths: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I realise that he is anxious to push ahead so that we can get home at a reasonable time.
      Given the stress that my hon. Friend has laid on the habitat directive and the special protection areas, which are vital and a critical part of new clause 1, it should be said that the EEC directive was not imposed on us by Brussels. It was something that the British Government undertook to do. They have failed to do it and that has led to the crisis over the Bill.
      Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend makes a telling point on which there is no need to elaborate.
      Many other people take this critical view of new clause 1. I am sure that you will be fascinated, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by a recent study produced by the RSPB called "Important Bird Areas in the United Kingdom including the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man". I shall quote just two sentences from the introduction:
      "In this country, with its very rich wild bird heritage, the threats to coastal, wetland and migratory bird habitats are particularly severe. Drainage, pollution, disturbance and fishing pressure have already caused serious problems and I hope that the timely publication of this important book will help to ensure that the most valuable bird areas in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are given the effective and permanent protection that they urgently need."
      That clear message comes in the foreword by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, signed "Philip". If the Minister is not prepared to accept the views of other bodies, perhaps he will give at least some passing consideration to that view.
      The final authority that I shall quote on this matter is the Select Committee on the Environment, which looked at the problem of our coastline and our important estuaries and the threat of damage from developments. These are the conclusions of the Select Committee:
      "Coastal zone protection and planning cannot be reviewed in isolation; they are inextricably linked to the administration and management of the many activities and uses of the coastal zone."
      This is the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West and I were discussing earlier. We as a Parliament, as a society, as part of the Government of the day must make a judgment about how we use this precious environmental resource.
      We cannot go on making piecemeal judgments. We cannot go on saying that this or that development can go ahead, and at some time or other in the future call a halt. We know that we shall have to take a coherent view to protect our environment and discharge our international responsibilities. It is time that we accepted the view of the Environment Select Committee and decided that now is the time for this coherent view.
      Mr. Allan Rogers: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend is pressing me to give way on this matter, but you will be delighted to hear, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I am coming to my conclusion.
      Mr. Rogers: Before my hon. Friend does so, I hope that he will deal with the issues that arise from the movement of fish through the barrage and up the rivers. The National Rivers Authority, which can hardly be described as a body dominated by Labour supporters, as Lord Crickhowell, its chairman, was the Secretary of State for Wales who initially supported and developed the Bill when it was a private Bill, is called "The guardian of the water environment". In a pamphlet, it says:
      "The NRA takes the view that the barrage and the impoundment are likely to obstruct or delay salmonid migration and some mortality resulting from algal blooms or increasing predation may also occur."
      The promoters said that they would implement a scheme that would partly simulate the fish traps and barriers that would be involved in the barrage. Has this project been carried out? Have these tests been done? If so, what are the results?
      Mr. Davies: I would happily discuss that, but I think that the subject will arise in a later debate.
      Mr. Rogers: I was talking about fauna.
      Mr. Davies: I know that, but I am trying to follow strictly the terms of new clause 1. I have been referring to the Government's international responsibilities and demonstrating how the provisions of new clause I will fail to meet those obligations. I am a strong supporter of the case that we must ensure that migratory fish have a free and uninhibited passage. However, if my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) wishes to pursue that matter in this debate, he will have to use his own ingenuity and make his own speech. If he wishes me to refer to the matter in a later debate, I shall do so happily.
      There is now a growing consensus among all who are concerned about the conservation of our wildlife habitat and our environment. There is a growing realisation that we have to take a coherent, long-term strategic view. We are dealing with a washed-up relic of an idea from the last decade that has outlived its usefulness. New clause 1 does not mitigate those damages. The Select Committee also said that, in evidence:
      "Government officials stressed repeatedly to us that existing arrangements for coast protection and sea defence were all working 'extremely well'. The vast majority of witnesses in their submissions to this inquiry, however, takes a rather different view."
      In other words, everyone who took the trouble to come along told the Select Committee that the policy was not working. The Committee said:
      "From the evidence presented to us, we firmly believe that coastal protection"—
      that is not covered by new clause 1, but the next two subjects are—
      "planning and management in the United Kingdom suffer from centuries of unco-ordinated decisions and actions at both the national and local levels. We found that there are inadequacies in legislation, anomalies in the planning system, a lack of central guidance, and overlapping and conflicting policies and responsibilities (and in some cases a lack of action) among a host of bodies, with poor co-ordination between them."
      That is the view of the Select Committee.
      If there is anything that demonstrates more clearly the absence of any strategy on the part of the Government, it is the Bill. The enactment of the Bill would destroy a priceless part of our national heritage for an economic benefit that can be described only as tenuous. The cost to public funds would be enormous. There would be

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      considerable and continuing uncertainty. All that the Government can offer us in terms of the environment is the commitment that the development corporation must have regard to flora and fauna. The corporation will have to consult the Government's scientific advisers. But we know that those advisers have given the most important piece of evidence that they could ever have produced. They have presented the most important advice that they could ever have brought forward.
      The Nature Conservancy Council said, "No, don't do it." The Government then intervened politically and tried to sabotage the NCC's scientific independence and make it subject to political control. They created a quango, the Countryside Commission for Wales. Even then, the scientific evidence was so overwhelming that even the commission could conclude only that the proposals were fundamentally flawed and should be withdrawn. The new clause does nothing to offset my concerns and those of my hon. Friends about the environmental dangers.
      Mr. Alun Michael: I shall be brief, but I feel that I should comment on the new clause and the amendments because the entire area of the development corporation, the inland lake and the communities that live around it lie within my constituency.
      We all respect the interest of my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) in these matters and the strength of the views that he holds, which is perhaps reflected in no small way by the length of his contribution this evening. Sadly, I fear that he has the Bill out of proportion. That is my view, but I appreciate that he has his own. There is an assumption of environmental damage underlying his contribution, but there is an assumption underlying the views of many others, especially those of Members who are local in terms of the Bill, of environmental improvement. Those of us who have taken a strong interest over the years in environmental issues and have fought for them, and who believe that there is a need for a coherent strategic view, are to be found among the Bill's supporters as well as among its opponents.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly referred rightly to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds as the main organisation campaigning against the barrage. Personally, I am sad that it has taken that stance. I have great respect for the society and I believe that it was misled into entering the campaign. Initially it opposed the barrage because this was the first proposal to come forward which would affect an estuary in this way, and not because it had a good case. It felt obliged to become involved, I believe, because it saw a knock-on effect. It was mistaken both in terms of tactics and principle.
      Much has been made of the importance of the bay to wildlife. In my view, its importance has been overstated. For example, the bay was not shown on the RSPB's centenary map as an area of major importance. It seems that it is far from being of the importance suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly.
      I hope that the debate will continue in a way that is much more in sympathy with the positive contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd), who sought to improve the Bill and not to attack it. As I have said, the whole of the development corporation area is in my constituency. I welcome the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley, the shadow Secretary of State for Wales, and her colleagues in presenting amendments to improve the Bill.
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      They have sought to set out ways of triggering improvements in what the measure will do. The entire purpose of the Bill is to create a better environment, jobs and homes for my constituents.
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      I am sure that my colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench—I have great confidence in my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), for example—will bear in mind that Cardiff bay is a city centre area. My constituents have experienced the dirt and noise of heavy industry over generations, followed by the dereliction and unemployment that they are now suffering. It is those conditions that the Bill sets out to alleviate.
      Mr. Jon Owen Jones: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I hope that he will acknowledge that a small part of Cardiff bay falls within my constituency.
      Mr. Michael: Indeed, and I welcome the constructive way in which my hon. Friend has approached and regarded the development. There will be a knock-on effect on other areas, but there will be benefits for the wider area of Cardiff and south Wales to be gained by the building of the barrage.
      I support the way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley spoke to amendments tabled by the Opposition Front Bench. The amendments have been designed to improve the Bill so that the environment and the future can be improved for my constituents and many others in the region while proper consideration is given to flora and fauna. I hope that the Minister will respond positively to them.
      Mr. Morley: I am pleased to take up the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael). I have great respect for the sincerity of his concern for the environment. We have discussed these issues many times and I know that he will agree that there is an honest debate about the way forward while meeting environmental objectives. I am sure that he will accept that there are national implications stemming from the Cardiff bay project, and it is those implications which have caused me to contribute to the debate.
      The way in which sites of special scientific interest are being destroyed in terms of the Bill has an implication for the rest of the country. The Bill sets precedents which are of concern to conservation organisations throughout the country. It will have consequences also for the United Kingdom's reputation within the European Community. In that context, I feel that the new clause is a cynical bit of window dressing when it comes to concern for the environment. It is rather like running a motorway through a nature reserve and then offering to put up a bird table at a service station and a nest box on a garage support post. It seems that there is an attempt to claw back an important site after its destruction and to gain some sort of credibility. It is not good enough.
      I do not want to rehearse all the arguments put by my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies), who went into the issue in great detail. I merely say that I concur with his arguments. I shall make only a couple of brief points to reinforce the argument about the inadequacy of the new clause. It is not true—this has been inferred, but perhaps not deliberately—that Cardiff bay is not important in wildlife terms. I have a recent report by the World Wide Fund for Nature which states that the

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      Government's study—it was carried out by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, which is a well respected organisation—confirms that Cardiff bay is important in its own right as a feeding area for birds which are usually distributed throughout the southern estuary and that it holds populations of curlew and redshank exceeding 1 per cent. of the north-west European total. Such figures are recognised as being of national and international importance. They mean that the area qualifies for special protection under the Ramsar agreement and as a special protection area. When these issues arise, there must be trust in the Government and credibility for their position.
      I am concerned that the Government are on the verge of being taken to the European Court because of their failure to designate special protection areas on estuaries in line with European directives. We are discussing an area which meets recognised national and international wildlife standards; yet it is to be destroyed. The question is whether that destruction will bring any tangible gains to the people of Cardiff. That is the point which gives rise to honest debate between those who oppose the barrage and those who support it. There will be opportunities later to debate that issue.
      It is not good enough that new clause 1 should take into account the importance of wildlife only after the barrage has been built. A cosmetic lagoon, with highly polluted water, will have no importance for wildlife. An important feeding ground will be lost. Cardiff bay is special and important because it is an intertidal zone supporting populations of waders and providing an important wintering ground for wildfowl. If that area is flooded to make a lagoon, the depth of water will prevent it from being a feeding ground. Nor will an alternative range of species be attracted.
      The main advantage of such a barrage would probably be to wildfowl, but even they will have nothing to feed on. Some wintering wildfowl might shelter there temporarily, or the odd swan or mallard might be attracted which would respond to people throwing bread, but they would be insignificant and of little value to nature. With the best will in the world, not a great deal can be done with a deep-water, polluted lagoon to make it attractive to wildlife. Therefore, nothing is altered by suggesting that special attention will be given to Cardiff bay following its destruction behind a lagoon.
      Hon. Members have pointed out that the present habitat is polluted, dirty, smelly and not altogether pleasant. I would not dispute some of that, although I believe that the intertidal zone is far more attractive than any artificial cosmetic lagoon would be. However, the cost savings that would result from not progressing with a barrage could be directed towards cleaning up the bay, making it more attractive and accessible.
      It has been pointed out that the bay is an area of special scientific interest, surrounded by 300,000 people. This is a wonderful opportunity for making that natural feature an important and attractive part of any future development. I have no criticisms or qualms about the progress of the development corporation in attracting new industry, cleaning up the area, creating new jobs and building new
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      homes. However, I would question whether the destruction of this important intertidal zone area is necessary to that investment and development.
      I would argue that directing some of those funds towards cleaning up the area and making it more accessible and towards an interpretation centre, towards the kind of schemes that groups such as the RSPB have put forward in compromise proposals, would enhance and protect the area which is of national and international importance.
      We have heard the arguments about the wetlands site and whether that will go ahead. I thought that it was an intriguing idea.
      Mr. Ron Davies: It is worth putting on the record that the Select Committee deleted the wetlands provisions from the Bill and now it is suggested that an alternative site will be examined.
      Mr. Morley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That was originally regarded as a kingpin in the original proposal and as compensation for the destruction of the estuary. I shall not go over the point made by my hon. Friend. He clearly undermined that argument and showed that the alternative proposals would not have compensated for the destruction of Cardiff bay. They would have been extremely expensive and involved a technology and technique that is virtually untried. As I say, I am interested in such experiments, but this one would be expensive with no guarantee of success and would be no real compensation for the destruction of the bay.
      It comes down to whether the destruction of a recognised site of special scientific interest is acceptable and whether the Bill will damage the Government's already severely dented credibility in Europe. The Government are prepared to destroy the site but they would then have to sit in the Council of Ministers and argue within the European Court against the destruction of similar sites by other countries. This country is not alone. Wetlands in Greece and the Cota Donna in Spain are under threat. How can we criticise other member states in the EC when they can turn round and say, "What right have you to criticise us when you are destroying your own designated sites of special scientific interest? You, too, are ignoring EC rules. You are not designating areas which require special protection. You are ignoring the Ramsar convention."? We would have no credibility if we did that and there is no justification for the Bill.
      It is a question of balance. It is argued that the barrage is needed in the overall scheme of things and I accept that there is an argument there which has to be met. But the Government should consider carefully the huge expense of the barrage and the implications of destroying one of their own designated sites of special scientific interest. They should listen carefully to their advisers, both statutory and non-statutory bodies, who are unanimous in their opposition to the scheme. Then they should think carefully about whether they are missing an opportunity to utilise a natural feature in a way which will benefit not only wildlife but also the people of Cardiff, both now and in future generations.
      I accept that some people do not consider the present intertidal zone to be attractive, but I do and it may well be that in future many more people will share my view. Therefore, why should we destroy it? Let us pursue what is good and beneficial in the Bill and make the intertidal

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      zone an important conservation feature which will not only ensure that the Government honour their international obligations but also enhance an area in Wales for the good of all concerned.
      Mr. Morgan: As one of the Members most affected by the Bill, I want to make some additional points. My constituency has a long link with the proposed inland bay, with some 2.5 miles of the River Ely in my constituency fronting the top end of the inland bay to its western extremity and, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones), the other finger pointing northwards out of the main part of the lake towards Blackweir, dividing his constituency from mine in the centre of Cardiff. Therefore, this part of the Bill and the management of the inland bay are of enormous concern to my constituents.
      I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today. I thought that I had missed the opportunity earlier when I slipped out briefly to have a cup of tea. When my name went up on the annunciator I thought that I had missed my own speech. However, it was a mistake and it should have been my hon. Friend the Member fo Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley). I was able to boast to others in the Tea Room that I was performing the remarkable feat of having a cup of tea there and making a speech in the Chamber at the same time. Eventually, I realised that I would not miss my speech and that I would have the opportunity of putting it on the record in Hansard and having a cup of tea at the same time, for which I am grateful as I have something of a frog in my throat tonight.
      There are 34 new clauses or amendments in the group under consideration. That is reminiscent of a Third Reading, except that several aspects have not been touched upon—including how the bay is to be managed other than in respect of flora and fauna, which have received all the attention so far.
      I refer specifically to pleasure craft and water sports, and to the obligations that the Bill places on the developers as to the lake's future use. If it does not provide an amenity for the local population, it is not worth having.
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      The Government argue that the lake will provide facilities for pleasure craft, water sports, and other open air activities. Amendments Nos. 61 and 62 are aimed at strengthening the guarantee given to the population of Cardiff and the eastern end of the Vale of Glamorgan that they will be able to enjoy the use of dinghies, yachts, and other craft to no lesser extent than they do now.
      If the bay is locked off from the Bristol channel to create more of a marina environment, rather than one that can be used for weekend fun canoeing and rowing—as it is now, on a substantial scale, by members of local clubs—there will be a loss of amenity. We want the Government to tie down the development corporation to ensure that people of modest means continue to enjoy the same access to water sport facilities that they do now—and allegedly they are to be the beneficiaries of the cost of the barrage and of establishing the development corporation.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) will agree that sailing is not primarily a rich person's pastime in our constituencies. Many members of local clubs are of modest means. Some
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      club officers have made forceful representations to me about the importance of maintaining the present level of charges.
      Mr. Michael: My hon. Friend rightly said that I share his concern for protecting the interests of boat users. I agree with him entirely that the memberships of local sailing clubs represent a good cross-section, and that they are not just rich men's associations. I understand that those clubs have pursued positive discussions and have reached an agreement that will offer protection in respect of fees and access. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that that is the case, and that the final agreement with the two clubs in question will be signed, sealed and delivered in the near future.
      Mr. Morgan: We are not always advised to offer Ministers an opportunity to intervene, but perhaps the Minister will confirm later my hon. Friend's observations.
      Although the clubs, as corporate bodies, have conducted lengthy negotiations with the developers over the past four or five years in respect of alternative facilities, there remains concern about access and the cost of using water craft when the barrage has been built.
      Sailing small boats will be difficult. Unless a person wins the football pools, a dinghy is very often the first water craft that he owns. I understand that the sailing of small dinghies will not be permitted, on the ground that there will be an excessive risk of such craft capsizing. Dinghy sailing is defined by Cardiff city council and Vale of Glamorgan borough council environmental health officers as a water contact sport.
      The size of the lock and the strength of the whirlpool effect that it will create also present a problem. Small dinghies may therefore be liable to capsize within the lock, but I will return to that aspect when speaking to clauses 31 and 55. Sailing small dinghies alongside larger craft will also be dangerous because of the water pressures that will be created within the lock.
      Avoiding the yuppification of Cardiff bay concerns right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House. One does not want to alienate the local population by suggesting that they will be forced or priced out by Cardiff bay being transformed into a marina-like environment, suitable only for use by those having the income levels which existed in south-east England when it was a byword for regional prosperity. That is no longer the case, but it was true when the barrage was first conceived.
      The suspicion that marina time will shortly arrive must be dispelled if the loyalty and interest of the local population is to be maintained. That is particularly true when one considers the extent to which the development corporation has used jolly pictures of boats, motor boats and yachts bobbing up and down on Cardiff bay in its advertising and publicity campaigns. It would indeed turn out to have been a cruel deception were some of the people who had been depicted—in photographs or artists' impressions—in publicity for Cardiff bay to find that they could not afford its amenities in the event of the barrage being built.
      We would fail in our duty if we did not attempt to strengthen the existing provision by our amendments. I feel that that should be placed on record, because when 34 amendments and new clauses are grouped together it is easy to read some to the exclusion of others.

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      The question of charges, and how they will affect people of modest means, is dealt with in this group, and I consider it very important. I do not think that enough attention has been given to the issue of pleasure craft; although some of the Government amendments deal with it, they do not reinforce people's rights in the way that Opposition Members consider necessary because of their natural interest in what is, in the broadest sense, their constituency. I am talking about the kind of people who tend to vote Labour: it is not necessary to have a PhD in sociology to work that out.
      Let me turn to some of the details of a subject that has, admittedly, been given a fair old going over already. Do the Government know whether their proposals are proof against challenge in terms of the Leybucht bay judgment, and has that anything to do with the way in which they have framed new clause I and other proposals for change? New clause 1 is clearly part of a deal made by the Government with the Countryside Council for Wales to demonstrate that they were not environmental philistines—that they were "green", and that they had not ignored the importance of
      "developing and conserving flora and fauna"
      in the management of the inland bay. There may be some weasel words in that—or rat words perhaps: I am not sure which fauna the Government mean.
      The handshake agreement reached with the Countryside Council for Wales has aroused considerable suspicion about the way in which the deal was done simply because the council is not a body of long standing. Any deal done with it will require us to exercise our duty of scrutiny, given that one of its two predecessor bodies—the Nature Conservancy Council of Great Britain—took a different view of the barrage proposal. We must ask what pressures were brought to bear on the Countryside Council for Wales, and why it agreed to what amounts to a very mild understanding with the Secretary of State for Wales to the effect that the council has a right to be consulted, as provided in new clause 1(2), and that the development corporation is obliged to
      "have regard to the desirability of developing and conserving flora and fauna."
      We have heard of two possibilities. One is that the Countryside Council for Wales is no longer legally able to oppose a Bill in the name of the Secretary of State, because of its structure as a quango responsible to him—even if, professionally and scientifically, it takes the same view as that previously taken by the Nature Conservancy Council, namely that the barrage should be opposed. Welsh Office lawyers may have pressurised the council, advising it that it simply has not the right to express outright public opposition by petitioning Parliament.
      There is another, slightly less cynical view. The Countryside Council for Wales is a new body whose chairman was directly appointed by the Secretary of State: he is pretty pleased about his appointment, because it is nice to be in a quango. Such a person will tend to visit the Welsh Office fairly frequently to arrange his budget, and his inclination will be not to oppose schemes to which the Secretary of State may have given high priority, even if they have considerable egg-on-face potential in the event of anything going wrong. It is suggested that considerable pressure may have been imposed on the incoming
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      chairman not to petition against the barrage proposal, as the Nature Conservancy Council petitioned against the private Bill.
      6.45 pm
      We do not know the truth—it is impossible to repeat laboratory experiments in real life—but the new clause does look like some sort of admission that, in return for not petitioning against the Bill, the Countryside Council for Wales insisted on a right to be consulted. It is rather sad that a cosy club of quango chairmen should exist in Wales—and almost all of them are men, given the structure of society under the present Government. Let us suppose that the chairman of the Cardiff Bay development corporation rings up the chairman of the Countryside Council for Wales, and says, "You will not be opposing the Cardiff bay barrage proposal, will you? You will not do the same as your blasted nuisance of a predecessor, the Nature Conservancy Council." A good deal of persuasion will be possible, because such people will keep bumping into each other at dinners, Welsh Office budget-setting sessions and similar functions and get-togethers.
      It is rather unfortunate that the rejigging of the arrangements for scientific advice on nature conservation matters has dissipated the spirit of scientific independence for which the NCC was famous. The body has been broken up into English, Scottish and Welsh sections, and the merger between the Scottish and Welsh parts and the Countryside Commission has enabled the Secretary of State to appoint people who will naturally feel a debt of gratitude and loyalty to him. We are distinctly worried about that. We cannot rely on the NCC; we may or may not be able to rely on forces further afield.
      Let me use non-subsidiarity language for a moment. It certainly looks as though there is a prima facie case for suggesting that the barrage proposal at least contradicts the spirit of the Leybucht bay judgment in the European Court of Justice. The Government never give a direct answer about that, but we know that they were terribly worked up about that judgment. They sent a flock of lawyers winging their way to Luxembourg—rather like a flock of overwintering wading birds—to listen to the three different stages of the judgment, and they do not take such action for nothing. They took it then because they were keen to find out exactly what the judgment would be.
      The judgment stated a principle: if there is a conflict between economic development and nature conservation, the Government must give priority to nature conservation. Clearly, that principle is extremely damaging to the barrage proposal. We do not believe that new clause 1 meets the objections which might be made if the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds found it necessary some time next year—subject to the way in which the remaining parliamentary proceedings go—to challenge the validity of the proposal in the light of the area's previous designation as a site of special scientific interest. That designation has now been abrogated by the Government.
      We do not think that new clause 1 goes far enough by merely offering a weak duty of consultation, and of developing and conserving flora and fauna. It attempts to meet the obligation to mitigate loss, but does it mitigate loss in a way that comes within a million miles of meeting the clear provisions of the Leybucht bay judgment? The judgment states that if a choice has to be made between the economic objectives that the Government or a local authority may have and their nature conservation

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      obligations, the nature conservation objectives, not the economic development objectives, must be given priority. The Government will therefore be faced with great difficulties next year, and their new clause 1 and their other amendments will not save them.
      Our amendment No. 93 and a few of the other amendments point the way towards much stronger provisions. They would provide for an improved and independent version of the environmental impact assessment. We have attempted to do that, though perhaps not very effectively, in amendments Nos. 22 and 23 which have not so far played a major role in our deliberations. Environmental impact assessments are, we believe, very important. However, the existing ones are sloppy and do not abide by the spirit of the environmental impact assessment directive. It is all too easy for the promoters to control the content of environmental impact assessments. This proposal has not benefited from an independent environmental impact assessment.
      I intend to refer to what was wrong with the previous environmental impact assessment. Liverpool university carried out its environmental impact assessment without consulting the statutory bodies at any point. It did not consult the National Rivers Authority. It did not consult Cardiff city council's environmental health department, or that of the Vale of Glamorgan borough council. It merely read other consultants' reports which had been produced for the Cardiff bay development corporation. The omissions from that assessment were bizarre. It had no truck with the two statutory bodies which would have responsibility for the environment if the proposal were to go through. The two statutory bodies were not asked what they thought of the proposal.
      The National Rivers Authority's assessment, which was available to us in Committee, is a damning document in that it states clearly what the NRA thinks of the proposal. Had the environmental impact assessment team from Liverpool university been allowed to do its job properly by the Cardiff bay development corporation, it would have produced a very interesting report. However, the team was not allowed to speak to the NRA. Another assessment ought to be made. We should then have greater respect for the report and the development corporation and feel that the corporation had allowed the consultants to speak freely to those with expert opinions on whether or not the barrage should be constructed. Instead of that, we feel that there was a cosy club arrangement. The Government and the development corporation tend to rely on that arrangement, for fear of the truth coming out if people were allowed to get at it.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) made some excellent points. We are dealing in this group of amendments with the flora and fauna arguments and with how management could be tightened up. We are also dealing with whether the Cardiff bay development corporation can meet the objectives that all of us have the right to expect in 1992. After the Rio summit, we feel that the human race should try to live in harmony with the biosphere. Therefore, we have to ask ourselves whether it can be claimed that the barrage would result in the human race living in harmony with the biosphere.
      The Government love going to summit meetings. They love to lecture the lesser breeds without the law who are doing terrible damage to the environment. However, they cannot do that with much conviction if they do not abide by a coherent set of principles in their own back yard. The
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      Government's attitude to the barrage provides a test case. It shows whether they are really interested in achieving a balance between the economic development objectives that we all share and the environmental objectives that we also share. However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
      This proposal affects the environment, a point to which I referred in an intervention during the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly. Cardiff bay is a unique environment. The rise and fall of the tide provide what are known as the kidneys of the eco-system. Cardiff bay has the third highest or, as some people say, the second highest tidal rise and fall in the world. It reaches a site of special scientific interest. It penetrates almost into the centre of a city with a population of 300,000. Areas in the Canadian arctic, with huge areas of mudflats and salt marshes, as in Cardiff, also experience this huge tidal range, but they do not have a big city environment as well.
      New clause 1 provides that the development corporation should consult the Countryside Council for Wales and seek its views on ways in which the bay can be managed to develop and conserve its flora and fauna. The present flora and fauna constitute a unique eco-system, so how can the development corporation carry out that obligation after the barrage has been built without immediately breaching the terms of new clause 1? New clause 1 is almost a nonsense. The development corporation would destroy a unique eco-system, put some pretty ducks on the lake afterwards and then claim that it has conservation very much in mind.
      The development corporation intends to buy off environmental opposition to the barrage proposal by imposing the obligations that are to be found in new clause 1, but that will fool nobody. It will fool neither the Opposition, nor the people outside, nor the environmental lobby. They will not be fooled by the weak-kneed imprint of the Countryside Council for Wales in subsection (2) of new clause 1. New clause 1 does nothing, apart from providing a sop to the Countryside Council for Wales so that it can feel that its conscience has been salved as a result of withdrawing its opposition to the barrage proposal, even though its predecessor body, the Nature Conservancy Council, opposed it. The NCC enjoyed much greater scientific independence. Its chief executive was not chosen by the Secretary of State for Wales. Its funding came from another source. It had a long tradition of complete independence from the Government. That is why the NCC was shot down in flames.
      What does new clause 1 mean? The point about the development and conservation of the flora and fauna poses serious problems. If the Cardiff bay barrage were to lock off the estuary from the open sea and produce a freshwater lake, which would be highly eutrophic, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central said earlier, there would be an exceptionally rich although not necessarily desirable set of flora and fauna.
      One can put flora and fauna into three separate categories. One can say, "Would not it be awful if there were no flora and fauna in Cardiff bay post-barrage?" My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly referred to a desert, although I do not think that he meant literally a desert, with no flora or fauna. One can speak of "undesirable" flora and fauna. The area might become a breeding ground for huge quantities of midges. The estimate is that 11 billion midges will breed in the rich muds of the estuary which will cause something of a plague

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      in the summer months, as happens in amenity lakes in Scandinavia and in America. It is difficult to control midge populations in shallow, muddy amenity lakes.
      The preservation of such flora and fauna would comply with the new clause. Is that what we want? Almost certainly not. Many of the property developers, especially residential property developers, who may be thinking of building around Cardiff bay will want many guarantees that there will not be too many of such flora and fauna. However, the preservation of such flora and fauna would comply with the new clause, which is why we have doubts about whether it makes any sense.
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      Other hon. Members have referred to the question of algal blooms. They are a life form of a very low order. They are flora, but they are hardly desirable. As part of the area is in my constituency, I pay a lot of attention to the flora and fauna of the present flow of the rivers, which will be converted to an inland bay or lake if the barrage is ever built. One notices how critical the balance is between the desirable and the undesirable flora and fauna at the moment.
      Let us consider the algae that form already. There are substantial flows of sewage, both treated and untreated. There is already a nutrient-rich flow, especially in the summer months and especially during summers of low flow, of which 1991 was a good example.
      Dr. Kim Howells: I agree with my hon. Friend that the flow is nutrient-rich in the summer. Does he also acknowledge that it is nutrient-rich in the winter, especially during periods of high rainfall when the Welsh water authority still has a derogated right to put raw sewage into the Taff and the Ely? Those rivers will be impounded by the barrage.
      Mr. Morgan: That is a problem that still has not been dealt with by Welsh Water or by the Cardiff bay development corporation. There is the phenomenon of storm sewer overflows in the valleys which is an almost ineradicable problem of water quality management. However, that was not the primary issue which I was addressing. I was talking about the treated sewage in the summer which tends to create the algal life forms which are material to the new clause. We are talking about flora and fauna in the bay. No doubt the winter sewage flows emerging through the storm sewer overflows tend to impregnate the mud during the winter.
      As there is sunlight and warmth on the mud during the summer, the algae come to life and there can be huge quantities. Standing on Canton bridge in the summer of 1991, I noticed huge algal blooms of the strip variety known as cladophora which are then grazed by mullet which come in from the harbour. They are like cows eating grass. There are huge quantities of mullet in my constituency opposite the national rugby ground which I am sure that you have visited, Mr. Deputy Speaker, despite your affection for the thirteen-a-side handling code. Whether you were allowed in if people knew that is another matter. However, I believe that you have been to the national rugby stadium. Right behind there is the phenomenon in dry summers of large quantities of green algal weed being eaten by the mullet—the cows of the river—which come in from the harbour.
      If there is a barrage, the mullet cannot come in. Who will graze the cladophora if the mullet cannot come in
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      from the harbour? They will be outside the barrage and the cladophora will be on the inside. That is a serious problem. There was not a problem in 1992 because it was not a dry summer, as you are probably aware, Mr. Deputy Speaker. With the high rainfall after early July, by and large it has been a problem that is easy to control. Once every five or six years when there is a dry summer it is an almost insoluble problem.
      Under the new clause, algal infestation of the barrage would be considered a means by which the development corporation would have complied with the Bill. We have a nutrient-rich green pea soup environment in the river which is full of life. It is not the sort that we want because the river is full of rats over which there is no biological control. The air above the lake will be full of 11 billion midges so everyone around the lake will be scratching. Yet the corporation will say, "That is what it says in new clause 1."
      We need a system for defining what are desirable flora and fauna and what are not. The only way in which we can categorise flora and fauna as desirable or otherwise is to define whether they are natural or not. We might pick and choose, and say, "Ducks are nice. We can install a coarse fishery and that will be nice. We can charge people to catch coarse fish. The coarse fish will eat the midges. The coarse fish will be put back after having been caught." The corporation has such plans in mind.
      It is difficult to compare such a development with the natural environment today. The problem comes back to the fact that the new clause is a complete wash-out, either because the Countryside Council for Wales did not have the guts to oppose the Bill or was legally instructed by the Secretary of State for Wales not to do so. Instead, it will get the absolutely milksop compensation of the right of consultation, and the duty to develop and to conserve flora and fauna.
      The new clause does not satisfy us that the Secretary of State could honestly go to a future Rio summit. If Welsh nationalist Members ever have their way, the Prime Minister of Wales will have his own nameplate and glass of water at the United Nations. If he was signing a Rio summit agreement on biodiversity, but was the same person who had introduced the Bill, nobody from the third world would listen to his lectures with any respect. Nobody would say, "To be fair, that is how they do it in Wales." That is not how people do it in Wales.
      Despite the rather pathetic attempts to show green credentials in the new clause, we feel that the Secretary of State is abandoning his environmental obligations and is not in a fit position, as a member of the United Kingdom Government, to deliver lectures to anyone about how the human race should live in harmony with the biosphere.
      Mr. Peter Hain: A number of bird lovers in Neath who are members of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds have asked me to raise a number of issues. I hope that the House will give me leave to do so.
      It is obvious that there is great concern about the future of wildlife, especially bird life, as a result of the development. The Government have not yet addressed a number of the key points that have been raised by the RSPB which I want to draw to the House's attention.
      We need to note that the bay can hold up to 5,000 wading birds in the winter months. The birds come to Wales in the winter from summer breeding grounds in a range of northern European countries. Wales has a special

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      responsibility to take care of those birds which are part of the European heritage of wildlife. Cardiff bay is a critical area in that it is a component of the Greater Severn estuary ecosystem.
      The bay provides sheltered, high-level mudflats supporting an abundance of invertebrate organisms on which the birds feed. It is an important part of the chain of sheltered sites around the Severn estuary. The Government do not seem to recognise that or to be dealing adequately with it. The Severn estuary, of which Cardiff bay is part, qualifies as a wetland of international wildlife importance under criteria established in the Ramsar convention to which the United Kingdom is a signatory.
      The Severn estuary qualifies as a special protection area under article 4 of EC directive 79/409 on the conservation of wild birds. That resulted in a citation being deposited in 1990 with the Welsh Office and with the Department of the Environment by the Nature Conservancy Council.
      The Secretary of State has declared that it is not the Government's intention to include Cardiff bay in a future special protection area. I find that very worrying. The Government do not seem to me to have answered any of the major criticisms made by the RSPB, among others. There is a strong case for saying that, in pursuing their plans for the development of Cardiff bay, the Government are reneging on their responsibility to conserve the wildlife heritage of Europe. There are three key factors pertinent to this matter. First, the alternative solutions suggested by the RSPB and others have not been given much credence by the Government. Secondly, the Government have not paid serious attention to the need to satisfy the requirements of European Community law to declare special protection areas, including the Severn estuary and thus Cardiff bay. Thirdly, there is a strong case for suggesting that, in attempting to exclude Cardiff bay from the ecological unit of which it is a key part—the Severn estuary—Ministers have made a conscious attempt to circumvent both the spirit and the letter of European law.
      Bird lovers in my constituency and throughout the country, represented nationally by the RSPB, have argued their case on these serious issues with great force but have not received serious or convincing answers from the Government. Whilst that remains the case, we must fear the consequences of the barrage proposals for the future of wildlife, and of bird life in particular.
      I ask the Minister to address himself to those issues. If he is not willing to accept at least some of the constructive amendments tabled by the Opposition, he will have to answer the charges made by bird lovers and others who say that the barrage development will destroy the natural habitat of a very important section of European wildlife and bird life—a habitat of which Cardiff bay is an important part. The Government have not taken that on board, nor have they seriously addressed the concerns expressed by those most actively involved.
      7.15 pm
      Mr. Win Griffiths: One can only be amazed at the confidence trick that the Government appear to think that they can pull with hon. Members by introducing new clause 1. The remedial or ameliorative measures—I do not know precisely into which category they fall—in the new clause are clearly an afterthought on the Government's part. They have been introduced to try to placate those
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      who are concerned about our natural environment—in particular the Taff-Ely estuary and the tidal mudflats that stretch out beyond the city of Cardiff.
      The barrage will destroy for ever mudflats which the Government have declared to be important—even if they are setting aside their earlier judgments in proposing to build the barrage. The Government seek to convince us that the development corporation should be required merely to
      "have regard to the desirability of developing and conserving flora and fauna."
      It could be argued that that is merely the legal language in which Governments must express themselves. If we take the words literally, however, it would appear that the development corporation can choose—it may regard the development and conservation of flora and fauna as desirable; it may not.
      In any case, it is suggested that the development corporation should conserve flora and fauna. The truth is that, once the barrage has been built, the flora and fauna of the Cardiff mudflats will be destroyed. There will be no opportunity to conserve them because they will have disappeared under goodness knows how many metres of water.
      It is suggested that the Countryside Council for Wales should be consulted about ways in which the flora and fauna might be developed. The Government's audacity takes my breath away. They are trying to present themselves as being concerned about the environment of an inland bay created by a barrage that will already have destroyed an important intertidal mudflat enjoying a degree of protection. In a series of questions that I tabled last Session, I tried to get the Department of the Environment and the Welsh Office to agree that any area designated as a site of special scientific interest ought to be totally protected—that nothing should allow its destruction. Unfortunately, the Government took the view that, even if they had designated a site as being of special scientific interest, they could destroy such a site if it suited them.
      Mr. Gareth Wardell: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital to ask what constitutes desirability in terms of the development and conservation of flora and fauna? Given that the mudflats are to disappear, which species of flora and fauna will the development corporation consider it desirable to develop and conserve? Does my hon. Friend agree that, before we can accept the new clause, we need to know how the development corporation will establish which flora and fauna it is desirable to develop to replace the existing forms?
      Mr. Griffiths: My hon. Friend makes an interesting and telling point. I suppose that the Government may say that the purpose of new clause 1(2) is to deal with that very point: it will be up to the Countryside Council for Wales to advise the development corporation on the best way to manage, develop and conserve flora and fauna. It would be most informative and helpful if the Minister gave us the information that my hon. Friend seeks. The issue has been dealt with in the context of the rather ugly, uninteresting mudflats bordering the edge of Cardiff. We are told that it would be much prettier if they were submerged and we had an expanse of water behind the barrage. The people of Cardiff would no longer have to look at the mudflats, which look rather ugly and dirty when the tide is out.

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      The truth is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To the dunlin and many other migratory and wading birds the mudflats are heaven. The birds certainly do not want the mudflats to be removed. If they had a voice, they would be here this evening putting the case. Unfortunately, they are not able to do so. We can make a small contribution on their behalf. We must try to broaden our horizons. The story developed by the Government is that these ugly mudflats can be transformed and made to look much nicer and that they can play a part in the further development of Cardiff. After all, it is a relatively small area.
      At one time the Government thought that the mudflats were worth designating as a site of special scientific interest, but they certainly will not give them the special protected status which they should have. The Government will destroy them. Of course, that argument is being used for half the estuaries in the United Kingdom.
      Reference was made earlier to the impending efforts to build an Usk barrage. Again part of the argument is that the dirty mudflats are exposed at low tide and it would be much nicer if there was a barrage and the mudflats were permanently under water. More than half of the estuaries around the coast of the United Kingdom are threatened with such developments. Only when we see the whole picture do we realise that the Cardiff piece of the jigsaw is absolutely vital. It is vital to retain the mudflats so that the migratory and wading birds can have the benefit of those feeding grounds.
      The United Kingdom has a long coastline. Our coastline and its mudflats are important to the ecosystem of north-west Europe and the world. New clause 1 seems to mislead us into believing that it will do something effective about preserving and conserving the flora and fauna which will be destroyed by the barrage. That will not happen. This important intertidal zone should be properly conserved. No one should be misled by new clause 1. A visitor from Mars or, say, Uruguay who happened to come through London this evening and read new clause 1 might consider that it was an effective way of protecting the mudflats, but the new clause is cosmetic because the mudflats will be destroyed.
      The mudflats in Cardiff bay are of immense international importance to wildlife. The intertidal zone between the land and the sea at low tide is important as a feeding ground for many migratory birds. It forms part of a biological chain which spans half of the globe. We must consider the global context of what the Government seek to do in new clause 1. The new clause does absolutely nothing to protect the flora and fauna of intertidal zones in the global context. We must ask ourselves why the Government even tried to provide such a smokescreen. Did they believe that Opposition Members would not notice what was going on?
      Mr. Gareth Wardell: My hon. Friend has made himself an acknowledged expert on beach pollution and the quality of bathing beaches throughout Wales. Could he confirm that one of our difficulties is that wildlife feed on the raw sewage discharged along the Welsh coast, which often finds its way into the mudflats? If we remove that biosphere and ecology of the mudflats it will cause a major problem. For example, I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that Liverpool bay is a classic example of a reserve of international importance—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker(Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. This is a long intervention.
      Mr. Wardell: I am coming to my question. Is it not the case that in areas such as Liverpool bay, which are similar in international importance to Cardiff bay, to clean up the coast for the human population can have a devastating effect by changing the habitat of the flora and fauna?
      Mr. Griffiths: My hon. Friend makes an important point which forms part of the case for keeping the intertidal mudflats intact. He rightly pointed out that over the years we have been lax in implementing European Community directives to which we have agreed. The 1976 directive to which my hon. Friend referred should have been complied with by 1986. It seems that the directive will not be fully complied with even by 1996. When the directive is fully complied with, less raw sewage will go on to the tidal mudflats.
      As you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if one does not put manure on one's garden one does not grow good crops. It is the same with the intertidal mudflats. If raw sewage is not put on them the teeming wildlife which the migratory birds find so attractive will no longer exist. The harvest of food on which the migratory birds rely will be reduced. The yield of the mudflats will fall because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell) rightly says, there will not he so much sewage about to encourage growth.
      The Government should be much more concerned about preserving the existing mudflats so that the loss of the lower forms of animal life on which the birds feed is minimal. Those forms of life will not exist in such profusion when we comply fully with the EC directive. There are a number of schemes around the Cardiff area. Some have been completed and others will be completed in the fairly near future. That issue is relevant to considering the conservation of flora and fauna, which is what new clause I seeks to do.
      The intertidal mudflats are a vital lifeline between the Arctic breeding grounds of millions of birds and their distant winter quarters to the south. The Severn estuary—to which Cardiff bay is of vital import—is where so many of those birds find a staging post. It would not be putting it too strongly to describe it as a lifeline for them as they migrate.
      7.30 pm
      Mr. Morgan: The real controversy, to which none of us knows the answer as we cannot carry out the experiment, is about what would happen if one were to remove all sewage from the flow of the Taff and Ely rivers. Would the bay still be important, or does its importance derive from its enclosed nature because it is a shelter? Most experts think that 90 per cent. of the benefit to migrating wading birds, which overwinter there or use it as a stopping-off place on the way to Africa, derives because it is a shelter rather from the sewage—star fuel for the remainder of the journey. I am not a scientific expert and I intend to leave the matter there, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      Mr. Griffiths: I thank my hon. Friend for an interesting suggestion for a research topic which the Government might like to fund before they carry on with the barrage. It is certainly well worth thinking about.
      If Cardiff bay were the only area under threat, we might be able to shrug our shoulders and say, "Okay, this time

      377
      we'll accept it." The truth is that more than half of the United Kingdom's estuaries are faced with a similar threat. The Government should not have produced a cosmetic new clause in which they seem to want to give an aura of respect to the barrage that will so damage the environment of the Cardiff mudflats. They give the impression that the development corporation will have hearts of green when managing the inland bay, and that by some miracle the flora and fauna will be conserved and developed. We are almost left with the impression that the result will be much better for the flora and fauna. The truth is that the natural state of things is best for the birds.
      I cannot accept that the new clause is a serious effort to meet the concerns of conservationists, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and of the many people in the Cardiff area who arc worried. Even at this late stage I should like to think that the Government could remodel the Bill so that there would not be a permanent barrage which would destroy the mudflats. I hope that, even at the 11th hour, they will give us a reprieve rather than the stay of execution that these measures seem to imply.
      Mr. Gwilym Jones: This has been a long debate. Hon. Members present, and some who could not still be here, might appreciate that there is a sense of déjà vu.
      The hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) mentioned several important matters that we have had to consider: the involvement of local councils, environmental health, dinghy sailing, ground water, adequate compensation and alternative feeding grounds. She also asked me for reassurance about legal scrutiny. I can give her the fullest assurance that we are confident that the Bill, as it stands and without further amendment, complies with the EC wild birds directive, in the light of the Leybucht judgment. I noted her complaints about the issuing of documents of economic appraisal. Only the economic appraisal was new, and it was issued last week because it was only completed then. I asked for the documents to be sent to her home—and to the other hon. Members involved—to try to ensure that it got to them with the least possible delay. The other documents had been available before and were only reissued to remind hon. Members of what was available and to aid this evening's debate. I am especially concerned to hear that the documents never reached the hon. Lady. I offer her my most sincere apologies for that omission, and I shall try to investigate what went wrong.
      The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) spoke at great length. I was touched by his reference to my powers in 1986. He should read what I said then, and perhaps he would better understand my contributions, then and since, to this important debate.
      Mr. Ron Davies: I was referring to the occasion when, from the anonymity of the Back Benches, the hon. Gentleman objected to the Bill at 2.30 pm on a Wednesday afternoon. There was no debate. He stopped the Bill and prevented it from having an unopposed Second Reading.
      Mr. Jones: The hon. Gentleman is right. Clearly I was not very anonymous, since he and everyone else knows that I shouted "Object". But that did not stop the Bill. It was debated further and the hon. Gentleman is welcome to read what I said in that debate.
      After listening to the speech of the hon. Member for Caerphilly for one hour and 19 minutes, I felt that his case was to maintain the present flora and fauna and the
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      existing environment. There was a lack of any wish to consider the alternative, the new environment or the future flora and fauna that would be brought about by a barrage and the creation of an inland bay. Of course it will be different. Such a creation would mean that much of the present flora and fauna could not continue, but that there would be new flora and fauna afterwards. There would be a new environment. The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) produced a most appropriate response to his hon. Friend's comments. He said that there has been substantial debate on the subject already, not least on the quality of environment that we want in south Cardiff. As the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth said, we are about an environmental improvement for the many. The absence of any consideration of that improvement has been most marked, apart from in his contribution.
      I listened closely, as I have done before, to the passion and concern of the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), a noted expert on matters ornithological. He echoed the concerns of the hon. Member for Caerphilly, as did the hon. Members for Neath (Mr. Hain) and for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths).
      The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) told us that he had achieved quite a remarkable feat. He had been in the Tea Room when the annunciator showed that he was speaking in the Chamber and he had been able to boast about it. We would have equally understood if he had told us that he had dreamt that he was speaking about the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill only to wake up to find that he was doing so. Perhaps his desire to be absent from the Chamber was because of his sense of déjà vu and his feeling—subconscious or otherwise—that it is about time that we started to make progress with this measure.
      The hon. Member for Cardiff, West referred to the amendments relating to the important matter of pleasure craft. I remind him that extensive discussions have taken place between the development corporation and the Royal Yachting Association on the access facilities to be provided. It has been agreed, to the satisfaction of that association, that three locks, 40 m long and 10.5 m wide, will be constructed. I am not aware of any pleasure craft currently in the bay that would not fit in such a lock. I therefore feel that amendment No. 62 is unnecessary.
      Clause 9(2) requires the development corporation to have regard to
      "the requirements of vessels in, or passing to or from, the inland bay"
      when operating the barrage. Clause 13(1) requires the development corporation to
      "manage the inland bay and the outer harbour so as to facilitate their use by pleasure craft and … water sports".
      The construction of the barrage is bound to change the accessibility of the bay to boats because their access will be gained through the locks rather than being unrestricted. However, those boats will be able to get in and out at times when the tide would now prevent them from doing so.
      I understand that slipway provision is being contemplated for dinghy sailors who would prefer not to use the locks. I anticipate that those sailors would prefer to use that facility instead, although the locks are intended to have features to reduce turbulence—there will be less turbulence in the new locks than there is in the lock to the Portway marina.
      The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth asked about agreements reached with the sailing clubs. I

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      understand that agreement has been reached on rebates, lock charges and the cost of moorings, but the issue of their premises is the subject of continued discussion.
      The hon. Member for Cardiff, West referred to amendments Nos. 22 and 23 which ask the House to place a requirement on the development corporation to publish a report of its consultations with the Countryside Council for Wales and the RSPB about the measures to be taken to
      "develop and conserve flora and fauna".
      The difficulty with the amendments is that they appear to regard consultation as a one-off affair, but consultations on measures to develop and conserve flora and fauna will be on-going. I believe that a formal report, as envisaged in the amendments, is not appropriate.
      It has also been suggested that detailed estimates of the general environmental impact should be published. I remind the House that the impact of the barrage scheme is already more than adequately covered by the environmental statement deposited with the Bill. That statement and the assessment of the environmental effects, which the House is now carrying out, render the amendments unnecessary.
      Mr. Morgan: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is unsatisfactory that the environmental impact assessment did not include any reference to the views of or discussions with the two main statutory bodies that will determine the water sports to be undertaken in the bay and the quality of the water in that inland bay, namely, the National Rivers Authority and the environmental health officers of the two riparian local authorities? Does he not regard that as an appalling state of affairs when one is trying to provide a proper, independent, environmental impact assessment?
      Mr. Jones: No. We have an appropriate environmental statement. None of the issues has been ignored in the full consideration that the House has given and is giving to this matter.
      Hon. Members will recall that provisions relating to alternative feeding grounds were removed from the Bill by the Standing Committee. The Government remain committed to seeking some form of alternative mitigation. The feasibility study into the suitability of the site on the Gwent levels as a bird reserve, which I announced in Committee, is expected to be ready by the end of the year. That is an appropriate response to the hon. Member for Neath, who suggested that we had not taken the RSPB's concerns seriously.
      The RSPB suggested that an alternative habitat could be erected on the Gwent levels. The Welsh Office, the development corporation, the Countryside Council for Wales and the RSPB are all co-operating on a study of that, funded by the development corporation. I hope that that will lead to the creation of an extremely valuable nature reserve. The RSPB has argued that that would provide much better value than the Wentloog lagoon. We will publish the results of the study as soon as they are available. We shall do so well in advance of carrying out the works authorised by the Bill and while the Bill is still before Parliament.
      The hon. Member for Cardiff, West and other hon. Members are wrong to suggest that new clause 1 is a response to Europe—certainly not. It is a response to the
      380
      hon. Member for Cardiff, West. Amendment No. 3 covers exactly the amendment that the hon. Member for Cardiff, West sought to introduce in Committee. Our other amendments, together with new clause 1, go further than he wanted in improving the management of the inland bay once the barrage is completed. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman has not welcomed the fact that we have not only accepted what he wanted but gone further.
      I do not accept the other amendments in the group and I hope that they will not be pursued.
      Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
      The House divided: Ayes 215, Noes 156.

      Division No. 74]

      [7.45 pm

      AYES

      Alexander, Richard

      Emery, Sir Peter

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

      Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

      Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

      Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

      Amess, David

      Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

      Ancram, Michael

      Evennett, David

      Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

      Faber, David

      Arbuthnot, James

      Fabricant, Michael

      Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

      Faulds, Andrew

      Ashby, David

      Fenner, Dame Peggy

      Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

      Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

      Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

      Flynn, Paul

      Banks, Matthew (Southport)

      Forman, Nigel

      Bates, Michael

      Forth, Eric

      Bellingham, Henry

      Fox, Dr Liam (Woodsprlng)

      Bendall, Vivian

      Freeman, Roger

      Beresford, Sir Paul

      French, Douglas

      Blackburn, Dr John G.

      Fry, Peter

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Gallie, Phil

      Boswell, Tim

      Gardiner, Sir George

      Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

      Gill, Christopher

      Bowden, Andrew

      Gillan, Cheryl

      Bowis, John

      Golding, Mrs Llin

      Brandreth, Gyles

      Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

      Brazier, Julian

      Greenway, John (Ryedale)

      Bright, Graham

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

      Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

      Grylls, Sir Michael

      Browning, Mrs. Angela

      Hague, William

      Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Burns, Simon

      Hargreaves, Andrew

      Burt, Alistair

      Harris, David

      Butcher, John

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Butler, Peter

      Hawkins, Nick

      Butterfill, John

      Hawksley, Warren

      Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

      Heald, Oliver

      Carlile, Alexander (Montgomry)

      Heathcoat-Amory, David

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Hendry, Charles

      Carrington, Matthew

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Carttiss, Michael

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Channon, Rt Hon Paul

      Hill, James (Southampton Test)

      Chaplin, Mrs Judith

      Horam, John

      Chapman, Sydney

      Hordern, Sir Peter

      Clappison, James

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

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

      Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ruclif)

      Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

      Coe, Sebastian

      Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

      Colvin, Michael

      Jack, Michael

      Conway, Derek

      Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

      Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

      Jenkin, Bernard

      Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

      Jessel, Toby

      Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

      Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

      Couchman, James

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Cran, James

      Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

      Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

      Key. Robert

      Davis, David (Boothferry)

      Kirkhope, Timothy

      Day, Stephen

      Knapman, Roger

      Deva, Nirj Joseph

      Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

      Devlin, Tim

      Knight, Greg (Derby N)

      Dover, Den

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

      Duncan, Alan

      Knox, David

      Duncan-Smith, Iain

      Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

      Durant, Sir Anthony

      Lait. Mrs Jacqui

      Eggar, Tim

      Legg, Barry

      Elletson, Harold

      Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

      381

      Lidington, David

      Spencer, Sir Derek

      Lightbown, David

      Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

      Lord, Michael

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Luff, Peter

      Spink, Dr Robert

      Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

      Sproat, Iain

      Lynne, Ms Liz

      Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

      MacKay, Andrew

      Steen, Anthony

      Maitland, Lady Olga

      Stephen, Michael

      Malone, Gerald

      Stern, Michael

      Mans, Keith

      Sumberg, David

      Marland, Paul

      Sweeney, Walter

      Marlow, Tony

      Sykes, John

      Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

      Taylor, Ian (Esher)

      Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

      Taylor, John M. (Solihull)

      Merchant, Piers

      Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

      Milligan, Stephen

      Thomason, Roy

      Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

      Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

      Moate, Roger

      Thurnham, Peter

      Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Moss, Malcolm

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

      Nelson, Anthony

      Tracey, Richard

      Neubert, Sir Michael

      Tredinnick, David

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Trend, Michael

      Nicholson, David (Taunton)

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Oppenheim, Phillip

      Tyler, Paul

      Ottaway, Richard

      Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

      Page, Richard

      Wallace, James

      Patnick, Irvine

      Waller, Gary

      Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Ward, John

      Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

      Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

      Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

      Waterson, Nigel

      Porter, David (Waveney)

      Watts, John

      Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

      Wells, Bowen

      Powell, William (Corby)

      Wheeler, Sir John

      Redwood, John

      Whittingdale, John

      Renton, Rt Hon Tim

      Widdecombe, Ann

      Richards, Rod

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

      Willetts, David

      Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

      Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

      Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

      Wood, Timothy

      Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

      Yeo, Tim

      Shaw, David (Dover)

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Tellers for the Ayes

      Skeet, Sir Trevor

      Mr. Robert Hughes and

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Mr. Nicholas Baker.

      Speed, Sir Keith

      NOES

      Ainger, Nick

      Corston, Ms Jean

      Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

      Cousins, Jim

      Allen, Graham

      Cryer, Bob

      Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

      Cummings, John

      Ashton, Joe

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      Austin-Walker, John

      Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

      Barnes, Harry

      Dafis, Cynog

      Barron, Kevin

      Dalyell, Tam

      Battle, John

      Darling, Alistair

      Bayley, Hugh

      Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

      Beckett, Margaret

      Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

      Bennett, Andrew F.

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

      Bermingham, Gerald

      Denham, John

      Berry, Dr. Roger

      Dixon, Don

      Blunkett, David

      Donohoe, Brian H.

      Boyce, Jimmy

      Dowd, Jim

      Bradley, Keith

      Dunnachie, Jimmy

      Caborn, Richard

      Eastham, Ken

      Callaghan, Jim

      Etherington, Bill

      Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

      Evans, John (St Helens N)

      Campbell-Savours, D. N.

      Ewing, Mrs Margaret

      Chisholm, Malcolm

      Fatchett, Derek

      Clapham, Michael

      Foster, Derek (B 'p Auckland)

      Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

      Foulkes, George

      Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

      Fyfe, Maria

      Clelland, David

      Galbraith, Sam

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Gapes, Mike

      Coffey, Ann

      Gerrard, Neil

      Connarty, Michael

      Godman, Dr Norman A.

      Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

      Graham, Thomas

      Corbyn, Jeremy

      Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

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      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      Moonie, Dr Lewis

      Grocott, Bruce

      Morgan, Rhodri

      Hain, Peter

      Morley, Elliot

      Hall, Mike

      Morris, Rt Hon A. (Wy'nshawe)

      Hanson, David

      Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

      Henderson, Doug

      Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

      Heppell, John

      Mullin, Chris

      Hinchliffe, David

      Murphy, Paul

      Home Robertson, John

      O'Brien, Michael (N W'kshire)

      Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

      Olner, William

      Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

      O'Neill, Martin

      Hoyle, Doug

      Patchett, Terry

      Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

      Pike, Peter L.

      Hutton, John

      Pope, Greg

      Illsley, Eric

      Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

      Ingram, Adam

      Primarolo, Dawn

      Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

      Raynsford, Nick

      Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

      Reid, Dr John

      Jones, Ieuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)

      Roche, Mrs. Barbara

      Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

      Rooney, Terry

      Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

      Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Rowlands, Ted

      Keen, Alan

      Simpson, Alan

      Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)

      Skinner, Dennis

      Khabra, Piara S.

      Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

      Kilfoyle, Peter

      Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

      Leighton, Ron

      Spearing, Nigel

      Lewis, Terry

      Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

      Llwyd, Elfyn

      Steinberg, Gerry

      McAvoy, Thomas

      Strang, Dr. Gavin

      McCartney, Ian

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

      Macdonald, Calum

      Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

      McFall, John

      Tipping, Paddy

      Mackinlay, Andrew

      Turner, Dennis

      McLeish, Henry

      Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold

      McMaster, Gordon

      Warden, Gareth (Gower)

      Madden, Max

      Wareing, Robert N

      Mahon, Alice

      Watson, Mike

      Mandelson, Peter

      Wigley, Dafydd

      Marek, Dr John

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Wilson, Brian

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

      Wise, Audrey

      Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

      Worthington, Tony

      Martlew, Eric

      Wray, Jimmy

      Meale, Alan

      Young, David (Bolton SE)

      Michael, Alun

      Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Milburn, Alan

      Mr. Ray Powell and

      Miller, Andrew

      Mr. John Spellar.

      Question accordingly agreed to.
      Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    Clause 1

      CONSTRUCTION OF BARRAGE ETC. AND OTHER WORKS
      Mrs. Clwyd: I beg to move amendment No. 82, in page 1, line 7, at beginning insert
      'Subject to subsection (8) below'.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I suggest that it would be convenient for the House to discuss at the same time the following amendments: No. 80, in page 1, line 18, at end insert—
      '( ) No such works shall be constructed until the Development Corporation shall have published proposals showing the maximum cost of constructing the barrage and associated and consequential works and an assessment of any adverse impact on the costs of industry and employment business in adjoining areas.'.
      No. 88, in page 2, line 35, at end add—
      '(8) Expenditure by the Development Corporation on the works referred to in this section and specified in Schedule Ito this Act shall not exceed a total sum arrived at by adding to the sum of £85 million a further sum reflecting inflation in the

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      cost of civil engineering works since November 1989, calculated on the basis of official figures published by the Department of the Environment.'.
      No. 91, in page 2, line 35, at end add—
      `(12) The Development Corporation shall not commence the works until after completion and publication of a cost-benefit analysis of the works as a whole, and of each work itemised in Schedule 1 separately based on the most recent cost data and market forces available.'.
      Mrs. Clwyd: I hope that the Government will be more reasonable with this set of amendments than they were with the previous 27 amendments that my hon. Friends and I tabled. It is important that amendments that the Opposition consider to be vital to the success of the Cardiff bay barrage are considered carefully by the Government.
      At every stage, our criticism of the Bill has not been about the need for economic regeneration, for we accept the necessity for the economic regeneration of the Cardiff bay area. There can be no doubt about the need for urban regeneration in the Cardiff docklands. It should be remembered—people sometimes forget—that unemployment in parts of the inner-city areas of Cardiff and on council estates such as Ely and Llanrumney is as high as in the valley communities.
      Today's debate is linked to the key political issues of the moment—the state of our economy and particularly the future of our coal industry. The Cardiff docks were at the centre of the coal economy of south Wales. Coal from the valleys made Cardiff the world's leading coal exporting area. There would not be a Cardiff without the valleys.
      8 pm
      Now the Government threaten to kill our coal industry and our coal communities. They threaten to plunge thousands more families in Wales into unemployment and poverty. They threaten to gamble our children's future on the spot markets of Rotterdam and in the gas fields of the former Soviet Union. Where was the Secretary of State when that economic absurdity was dreamt up? The self-styled voice of Wales in the Cabinet had to admit yesterday that he was not even consulted. So much for a Tory from the Wirral speaking up for Wales in Whitehall and Westminster. What more graphic an illustration of the absurdity of the Government's policy is there than the picture in The Guardian today of a ship unloading 500 tonnes of foreign coal, imported from Vietnam, at Swansea docks?
      We support the regeneration of Cardiff docklands but, despite all the time spent debating the Bill and its predecessors, the Secretary of State for Wales has still not answered many fundamental points. Where does the barrage fit into his overall strategy for Wales? The Government are in real danger of putting all their eggs in one basket. The case for economic regeneration in south Cardiff is clear, but what do the Government propose to do to help the south Wales valleys, blighted by some of the highest rates of long-term unemployment and deprivation in Britain? What about rural Wales, suffering from low pay, under-employment and unemployment? What about north Wales? Bearing in mind the iron grip which the Government have put on local authorities in Wales—county councils and district councils—regarding revenue and capital spending, I suspect that no public authority
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      would have got away with the enormous and still escalating costs in capital which the Cardiff Bay development corporation seems to be getting away with.
      The Government's plan to scrap the Barnet plan for public expenditure makes this even more critical. Make no mistake about the fact that public spending cuts may be hard in England but they will be even more brutal and savage in Wales. The Secretary of State for Wales must shoulder the blame because he has not fought his corner in the Cabinet to save the Barnet formula. The Welsh Office's budget will be slashed. The Secretary of State for Wales refused to deal with that issue at Welsh questions yesterday, but it still leaves a big question mark: what does it mean for the planned spending on the barrage, now estimated at £167.4 million based on construction starting in 1993? How does the Secretary of State for Wales hope to balance spending on that one project, important as it will be for south Cardiff, against all the other pressing needs in Wales? For example, what will happen to expenditure on roads, hospitals and schools if the barrage proceeds?
      It is amazing that the Wallace Evans technical report on the proposed wells and pumping facilities to deal with the ground water problem, which has been published and arrived in my office this afternoon, has not progressed beyond the desk study stage. The Government will not have details of its findings for another six months but they have still brought the Bill back to the House today. That is an insult to the House of Commons. It is yet another example of those involved with the project trying to steamroller the process of consultation and public discussion in the House and outside.
      I should have thought that the Government would learn a lesson from the outrage that has been expressed about the way in which they have dealt with the future of the coal industry in the past few days. However, as has happened in the past, they seem to have learnt nothing. Although the Minister has apologised for not making the documents available earlier, and I accept his apologies, apologies are not sufficient when we are expected to deal with two major reports and they arrive on our desks today—they have not arrived on some people's desks at all.
      That is why we are particularly concerned about cost and why we expect the Government to give us many explanations this evening as to what they intend to do about developing the cost of the development of Cardiff bay with public expenditure and the demands that undoubtedly exist for the rest of Wales.
      The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Sir Wyn Roberts): In view of the hon. Lady's belief in the regeneration of docklands, does she not accept that this scheme will contribute towards jobs in Cardiff, estimated at some 23,000 jobs and involving 4,400 houses? How can she say that she believes in the economic regeneration of Cardiff while at the same time opposing the Bill that will bring it about?
      Mrs. Clwyd: I am pleased to respond to the Minister's question, particularly as he places such heavy emphasis on jobs in Cardiff. Ministers have told us that there will be jobs for the valleys in addition to jobs for Cardiff. I wonder why the right hon. Gentleman did not emphasise that, or does he see those as jobs for Cardiff alone? I have made it clear that jobs for Cardiff are important, but so are jobs for other parts of Wales that are suffering from high long-term

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      unemployment. Does the Minister remember that the main aim of the valleys initiative was to create between 25,000 and 30,000 jobs for the valleys? Unemployment in the valleys is as high as it was in 1988 when the valleys initiative started. Will it be different in Cardiff?
      Sir Wyn Roberts: Will not the hon. Lady accept that many of the people who work in Cardiff come from the valleys, as has been shown in successive surveys?
      Mrs. Clwyd: I am glad that the Minister now stresses that there will be jobs for people from the valleys as well. But should we have more faith in that promise than in previous promises made by Ministers, given that the main economic aim of the valleys initiative has failed? I hope that the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill will be more successful in providing those jobs.
      Mr. Jon Owen Jones: I tried to catch my hon. Friend's attention before the Minister stood up. I should like to make her aware that, when authorities in Cardiff and south Glamorgan carried out a survey to ensure that we kept our area status—which the Government are reviewing at present—we found that between half and two thirds of the new jobs coming to Cardiff were taken up by people who lived outside Cardiff. When I recently visited Panasonic, which is the largest television producer in Europe on the outskirts of my constituency, I found that more than 50 per cent. of the people who worked there came from the valleys of south Wales.
      Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. I have just taken the Chair and I am having the greatest difficulty in relating the exchanges to the amendment.
      Mrs. Clwyd: Perhaps I may respond to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones). We are not opposed to the creation of jobs in Cardiff. On the contrary, we would like many more jobs to be created in Wales. However, we are worried about the implications for the rest of Wales of the current public expenditure round. It is reasonable to ask the Minister for assurances that any spending on Cardiff bay will not affect the demands by the rest of Wales which, I am sure he agrees, are equally important.
      Mr. Ted Rowlands: My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) has rightly presented the dilemma and the issues at stake. Legitimate arguments must be aired about public expenditure priorities and the spending implications of the Bill. During his winding-up speech when we last debated the Bill the Minister used the phrase "déjà vu" several times. I make no apology for returning to the issues that I have constantly sought to develop during debates on the Bill. An elderly parishioner in one of our Baptist chapels said to the minister at the door after listening to the sermon, "Every time I hear it, I enjoy it more and more." I hope that the Minister will once again enjoy my attempt to discover how much the scheme will cost.
      Our amendments seek to limit costs. We have every reason to seek to do that because we have watched the costs alter. One of the running issues in our debates has been the problem of discovering what the scheme will cost. There are two sets of costs—the barrage costs and the costs related to it. When the Bill left Committee the barrage-related costs were set out in a letter. Much of the information has been by correspondence, especially that
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      between me and two Parliamentary Under-Secretaries. In a letter of 30 June this year it was stated that the total barrage-related costs had risen from £547 million to £662 million and that the public expenditure component had risen from £335 million to £405 million.
      Mr. Ron Davies: My hon. Friend has followed the matter with special care. He speaks about barrage-related costs. What does "related" mean in terms of costs directly associated with the barrage rather than those which are indirectly associated?
      8.15 pm
      Mr. Rowlands: Table 2 in appendix Al in the January 1990 assessment shows that the figure of £547 million had risen to £662 million. It consists of the barrage at £125 million; the cost of a variety of improved accesses, the chief of which is the primary distributor route link at a cost of £95 million; other road schemes costing £33.94 million; car parking at £12.96 million; a light rapid transit system costing £10 million; and other environmental improvements totalling £25 million. Those are what we call the barrage-related costs. On 30 June the £547 million rose to £662 million using the GDP deflated market prices at 10 March 1992. The public expenditure element of that increased amount was £405 million. Those were the costs in June this year.
      Mr. Michael: It is always easier to follow figures on one's own piece of paper than to follow those quoted by a colleague. Has my hon. Friend included in the barrage-related costs the cost of the primary distributor route? May I say to him, not for the first time, that the PDR was to be constructed before the barrage and is not directly barrage-related. It is directed at the transport of the city and is for the benefit of constituents who have lorries using their roads. It is contained in the figures for technical, legal reasons, and I hope that my hon. Friend will make that distinction.
      Mr. Rowlands: I am happy to do that. We must compare like with like. Those were called related costs by Ministers and were so described in correspondence. I accept that the PDR link has other functions, but in every ministerial letter and reply and in every table and document issued to us the PDR link and other items have been described as barrage-related costs.
      Mr. Michael: I appreciate that in seeking to make his point my hon. Friend has to compare like with like. I am sure he will accept that a facility that has been long needed to open up the docks and remove traffic from domestic roads which have suffered devastation over the years is not related to the barrage. I argued with Ministers that it should not be included as a barrage-related cost. To argue that it is is to exaggerate the sum of money involved in the barrage. I ask my hon. Friend to accept that.
      Mr. Rowlands: My hon. Friend has obviously failed to persuade Ministers that it should be excluded because it has been perpetuated by being included in the latest document.
      Mr. Michael: As I have said several times, for the purposes of the legislation technically it has to be included in the figures. I ask my hon. Friend to accept that a road which was to be built anyway and which was desperately

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      needed in that part of Cardiff is not truly barrage-related although it may technically be brought into barrage-related figures.
      Mr. Ron Davies: I do not wish to become involved in what is developing into an intimate and interesting discussion.
      Mr. David Hanson: Force yourself.
      Mr. Davies: It will not be the first time that I have had to force myself. If my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) completely accepts at face value the comment by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) that the cost of the distributor road should be excluded from the barrage calculations, presumably it must be included somewhere else. Given the considerable distortion of expenditure on transportation in South Glamorgan, does not my hon. Friend agree that Mid Glamorgan, the county that he and I represent, would be even worse done by in terms of the proportion of expenditure on transport? That is the downside of the case presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth.
      Mr. Rowlands: Yes, it is, because whether we include it in barrage-related costs or not, it is just about one of the most expensive roads built since the Conway tunnel. In fact, the costs per mile are about the same. That expense comes out of the roads pool expenditure into which we all have to dip, whether we are in Brecon and Radnor, in Caerphilly, in my constituency or in Gwynedd. The cost is not modest—it is about £15 million per mile.
      Mr. Jon Owen Jones: Will my hon. Friends who represent Mid Glamorgan concede that it is more expensive to build roads through the middle or on the edge of large conurbations? There does not happen to be a large conurbation in Mid Glamorgan. The costs of building the M25 or roads in London is far higher than the cost of building roads through the countryside. The logic of my hon. Friend's argument is that the latter should not be built.
      Mr. Rowlands: No, I am simply pointing out that the cost of building a road at £15 million per mile comes out of the same roads pool and roads expenditure programme of the same Government Department from which the rest of us are seeking approval for road schemes. Therefore, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) said, the issue is one of priorities, and these must be discussed openly and fairly.
      Let me return to my case. I had not started to develop my argument. I wanted only to ensure that we were comparing like with like in costs. On 30 June 1992 when we came out of Committee, the barrage-related costs stood at £662 million, of which £405 million were public expenditure. We were then issued with a blue book that told us that barrage-related cost have become £497 million. I hope that the Minister will clarify this point and let us know where we stand. Are we talking about the same figure? What has changed? I have read that that is a 21 per cent. reduction. I am not good at arithmetic—I was literate but not numerate, like my daughter who got an A in English but failed her maths GCSE.
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      I hope that, as I speak, the Minister will be able to get some advice from nearby quarters and tell us whether the £497 million is the equivalent of the £662 million. The document explains that there is a 21 per cent. reduction in barrage-related costs. The chief cost is the PDR Bute Town link, which was to cost over £90 million but now is to cost £53 million. Is that because it has become cheaper to build? I should like a more detailed explanation than is contained in the allusions in the blue book.
      If the £497 million is related to the same costs as the £662 million, what proportion of it is public expenditure? On 30 June we were told that of the £662 million of barrage-related costs, £405 million was the public sector component. How has that dramatic difference of £162 million been arrived at? We have worked on these figures from the start, so we might as well see them through to the end.
      A second cost, and one that has changed for good reasons, year by year and month by month, is the construction cost for the barrage. That figure started off at around the £45 million mark. When this Bill came before us, the financial memorandum mentioned a figure of £82 million plus land acquisition costs of £2.5 million. It rose over the next 18 months to £125 million and now stands at £152 million using the mid-1992 prices. We are told, fortunately, that the real capital cost of the barrage has increased by only £9 million at mid-1992 prices or about 6 per cent. since the January 1990 appraisal, of which £4.63 million represents the increased cost of remedial work for ground water protection.
      Given the variety of figures that we have had and the changing costs that we have tried to follow, there must be a strong case for a form of expenditure that limits the continuing increase in expenditure that we have witnessed over the past 18 months or two years of debating the Bill and the scheme. The late Mr. Ian Grist—late in parliamentary terms—called me a one-man Public Accounts Committee on this Bill. I think that he meant it as an insult, but I took it as a compliment. Therefore, I shall return to the argument and ask the Minister, before we start discussing the comparative merits and priorities involved, whether we can have a definitive set of figures before we finish the debate.
      I shall now deal with the case being made for this expenditure. My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley is absolutely right. Whether we like it or not—I wish that there was room to accommodate every view—we all know that, as Aneurin Bevan said, politics is the language of priorities. We know that crucial decisions on public expenditure priorities will be made in the coming weeks. Therefore, a valley Member like me is right to ask whether we can justify the public expenditure costs involved both in the barrage itself and in the barrage-related projects, which are very large and must be balanced against the needs of the Principality and of communities such as those that I represent.
      The case made for such high levels of expenditure is repeated in the review of the January 1990 appraisal. As soon as I got my hands on it I read it avidly to see what case it made. It is what will come to be known in the language of politics as a Heseltine review. It is a review that comes to the conclusion that it intended to come to from the beginning—that a marvellous and fantastic benefit would accrue from building the barrage and

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      impounding water. We must analyse the report in a reasonably critical fashion because it contains the latest, hot-off-the-press levels of expenditure being advocated.
      Mr. Morgan: I merely wanted to draw to my hon. Friend's attention, in case he had not noticed it, the fact that there are two models of review. He has referred to one as the Heseltine review—that which comes to the conclusion that it intended to come to at the beginning. The other kind is the Wakeham scheme, which was revealed to the other place today. This one puts forward the idea that all 31 pits should remain open and that the review on that should be carried out independently. Is that the kind of review that my hon. Friend has in mind for this project as well?
      8.30 pm
      Mr. Rowlands: There should certainly be an independent review of expenditure of this sort. To borrow a phrase from the Minister, the document before us produces a sense of déjà vu when it comes to assessments. The argument is that the proposed additional expenditure will create about 23,000 permanent jobs in addition to the many jobs that will genuinely be created by the marvellous organic development of the dockland area. I have been to the area, as have many of my colleagues, to see it for myself. What is happening now without the barrage is impressive.
      Mr. Michael rose—
      Mr. Rowlands: I shall make my case and then give way to my hon. Friend.
      The Western Mail headline told us that 23,000 new jobs will come to the area. When we read the KPMG document, however, we are told that that figure is not a forecast. It is based on the assumption that if so many tens of thousands of square feet of office space are built and all that accommodation is filled there will be that number of jobs. What will happen if the offices lie empty for 12 months, 18 months or two years?
      I shall show my age now. If a number of Centre Points are constructed—
      Mr. Morgan: Or Canary wharves.
      Mr. Rowlands: Yes. If they are dotted around the area and they lie empty, presumably it will be claimed that 23,000 jobs have been created. The KPMG document states that if so many thousand square feet of office accommodation is built and we assume that there is one typist in X square feet, there will be an additional 23,000 jobs. That is merely an assumption based on new build and occupation.
      There is a mighty lesson to be learnt from the past 18 months. It has been demonstrated by the Canary wharf development and elsewhere that assumptions or forecasts of the sort that I have outlined must not be made.
      Mr. Michael: I hope that we can treat south Cardiff rather differently from places like Canary wharf. One of my reasons for saying that is that there is co-operation between elected representatives and central Government.
      My hon. Friend has been careful enough to visit my constituency to see what is happening. I am grateful for the revelation of his interest in what is happening in south Cardiff. Presumably he noticed the close relationship between the places where jobs have been developed and
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      located as a result of work that has not been confined to organisations such as the development corporation. Account must be taken also of what has been done by South Glamorgan county council and Cardiff city council, the economic development committee of which was chaired so recently by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones). I am sure that my hon. Friend noticed the relationship between water in the docks and full accommodation. I appreciate the need for him to question closely the assumption of Ministers and those that are related to the figures which stem from the Bill, but there are realities to be seen and considered in the constituency. We can learn from them as well as from theories or developments in London.
      Mr. Rowlands: Yes, of course we can learn from them. What is going on in the docks without the barrage is extremely impressive.
      Mr. Michael: With the water.
      Mr. Rowlands: Much of what I saw had nothing to do with water. There has been development on land that has been cleared.
      We are expected to assume and believe—this was taken up by the Western Mail—that 23,000 permanent jobs will be created. When we read the document we find that that estimate is not based on an assessment of demand. It is merely an assumption that is based on what would happen if every new office block were occupied. I have a right to query whether that is a reasonable assessment or judgment. A recent Public Accounts Committee report on the Welsh Development Association's job assessments showed that it is possible to get things hopelessly wrong. I am not convinced that the intellectual rigour that went into producing the document before us would stand up to investigation of the sort conducted by the PAC.
      Madam Deputy Speaker: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will favour me with his face rather than his back.
      Mr. Rowlands: I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was interrupted by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael), who sits behind me, and I was determined to respond. I should say that he intervened in an extremely civilised fashion. I shall, of course, Madam Deputy Speaker, take note of what you have said. I shall not be sexist and say what a pleasure it would be to press a comparison.
      I question seriously the justification that is being used for such large sums of public expenditure, which is that many permanent jobs will be created by the scheme. I have every right to query it. There is no detailed assessment of demand. Indeed, the very reverse is the case. It is interesting to read the 1990 appraisal. Even the county and the district did not believe that the proposed extra office space was justified. On page 4 of the 1990 assessment there is the following passage:
      "The demand for office space … in Cardiff bay will probably average"—
      this is what the supposed job creation figure is based upon—
      "about 23,000 square feet per annum, which is around 70 per cent. of Cardiff's total."
      A beautiful understatement follows:
      "This is a considerable increase on the city's own target. This is most unlikely, however, to occur."
      It is then argued in a woolly fashion that the extra expenditure can be justified.

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      It is claimed that one of the great benefits to emerge from the proposed expenditure will be about 23,000 new jobs, which will become available in office space in particular. Again, I have a feeling of déjà vu. I had the privilege of serving Cardiff in the 1960s, when a similar grandiose scheme came forward. It was claimed that if the development took place a huge number of jobs would be created. The scheme was rightly and democratically rejected at local level. We now have a successful organically developed city centre. Cardiff is one of the finest retail centres in the Principality as well as in the country. It is a privilege and pleasure to walk through Cardiff. The development of the city centre was the result of skilful planning by the city council and South Glamorgan county council. The authorities rejected the grandiose development that was proposed, which is related and somewhat built into the proposed developments in and around the proposed barrage scheme.
      Mr. Ron Davies: I wish to follow carefully my hon. Friend's argument, and I have before me page 22 of the economic appraisal. He has talked about 23,000 additional jobs. That assumption must be set against the 13,000 jobs that will be created without the barrage. I share with my hon. Friend a degree of suspicion about the assumptions, but it seems that the barrage would be responsible for only 10,000 additional jobs and not the 23,000 suggested in the economic appraisal.
      Mr. Rowlands: Yes. In fact, these are theoretical assessments. They are not based on a rigorous analysis of demand. It is assumed that if construction takes place the office space will be filled.
      We have every reason to doubt that development of the sort that is proposed will be achieved in anything like the timescale that is being talked about. There is much genuine questioning taking place. The only hope of achieving such development lies in the Government relocating Government Departments. Has the Minister any announcements of such dispersal? It is rumoured that the Lord Chancellor's Department will be shifted and I should like to know whether the move will take place. If there is dispersal, will Government Departments move only to Cardiff? We are talking of the need to diversify the economies of neighbouring communities such as my own. As a part of a diversification programme it should surely be considered as part of a Government Department dispersal programme.
      I read in one of the Sunday newspapers this weekend that, as a result of the collapse in the property market, London rents have fallen dramatically and Government Departments and others who had talked about dispersal now plan to stay in London at much cheaper rents. The property balloon has finally burst, but one would not think so from this document.
      Chestertons has come to the conclusion that the changes in property prices and property development have in no way affected the long-term forecasts for the scheme and that has been used to justify the additional expenditure involved which our amendments seek to limit. I doubt whether any independent economist would argue that there has not been a sea change in attitude towards property and land and rental values as a result of the drama of the past 18 months or two years. Yet Chestertons
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      blithely continues to assert, with no firm foundation, that all its valuations in the original document, published before the property crisis, are still valid.
      Modest adjustments have been made. Chestertons now expects an annual increase in rentals and land values of 6.5 per cent. No one seems to have told Chestertons that we are supposed to be heading for zero inflation. Property inflation in the Cardiff docklands area is supposed to rise by at least 6.4 per cent. each year for the next 15 or 20 years. We have every right to doubt that.
      The people who make such assessments are estate agents and surveyors. About 12 months ago, my mother wanted to sell her house. It was something of an emergency and the local estate agent quoted me a price. I said I wanted to sell the property, not stand there. There was a look of horror on the estate agent's face when I suggested that his figure was not right. Twelve months later, not one interested party had looked at the house, so the price had to be dropped by a phenomenal amount. Chestertons has the same mentality. It cannot believe that the property world is changing around it. The same outfit gives the advice in this document that property values will rise by 6.5 per cent. a year, year after year.
      Mr. Jon Owen Jones: My hon. Friend mentioned that rising property values as a result of inflation are no longer tenable. My hon. Friend may have noticed that south Cardiff has changed dramatically and is still changing. It is in a state of flux. Anyone renting property next door to a scrapyard would expect to pay less for it than if it were next to a major development. Therefore, property prices will go up regardless of inflation because land values have gone up.
      Mr. Rowlands: The proposition is that such values will rise for the next 20 years at the rate of 6.5 per cent. per annum. Such assumptions are less valid than they used to be. They are made by people who do not realise that a sea change is taking place in attitudes.
      The best test would be for the Minister to tell us the rental agreement with the Welsh Common Health Services Authority but he has refused to do so. What assumptions were made about rentals in the docklands area and what did the Government negotiate?
      I was talking to a firm which intended relocating in the Cardiff area. I was appalled that it should because I thought that, given the nature of its business, it should be in my community. It told me that it had been offered something in the Cardiff area at £4 or £5 less per sq ft than it had originally been quoted.
      Rents are going down. The property balloon has burst but one would not think so from this document. It carries on blithely making the same assumptions. Therefore, we have a right to question the boom that the barrage is expected to result in.
      8.45 pm
      Mr. Michael: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Rowlands: In a minute. I do not wish to be discourteous to Madam Deputy Speaker. I am not sure whether to incur the wrath of my hon. Friend or you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
      Mr. Michael: I assure my hon. Friend that he does not have to look at me to listen to my words. We can both look in the direction of Madam Deputy Speaker.

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      I suggest that my hon. Friend takes to heart the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones) that we need to look not simply at inflation-related figures but at the change of environment that is taking place. Obviously there will be fluctuations. At present, property is going at lower prices than it was 12 months or two years ago. That is manifest. But there are changes in the whole area which is benefiting from the experience of the two local authorities which, over the years, have shown how to bring economic benefit to the area, despite the fact that there has been a bleeding of jobs from the area. Again, as has been said, we desperately need the continuation of assisted area status. It is not just on the report but on the experience of the two local authorities that we must base a proper assessment of the benefits to the area in terms of employment and the value of the barrage.
      Mr. Rowlands: It is proposed to build 23,000 sq ft of new office space every year for the next X years. I am simply questioning whether Cardiff will remain immune to what has happened not only this year and next year but for the next 15 or 20 years. There has not been just a little blip in the market. Most independent experts that I can find believe that there has been a sea change in attitudes. As these guides have been hopelessly wrong in the past two or three years, we have a right to put a question mark over the whole scenario that has been described to us to justify the levels of expenditure.
      That is not a particularly grandiose point although it seems to have made my hon. Friends jump up and down. It seems a rather modest point to make that, given the changes, we have every reason to doubt the rosy scenario for jobs that has been portrayed in the latest document. The jobs scenario on page 26 shows that the one area in which jobs would be lost if a barrage were built is the industrial and manufacturing sector. That is why I query the scheme. It is fascinating that without a barrage the number of manufacturing and industrial jobs would be much higher than with a barrage. In other words, the barrage would produce yuppy service jobs at the expense of industrial manufacturing.
      I question whether, in Cardiff or in communities such as mine, the age of growth in service employment is coming to an end. Technological change in the Hoover factory in my constituency has led to a drop in jobs from 5,400 to 1,100 and that will eventually penetrate the whole service sector. All the assumptions for job creation based on office accommodation will be knocked askew as a result of technology. The new diversified service economy is the déjà vu economy of the 1980s, and I hope that it will not be the economy of the 1990s. It is astonishing that there should be no increase in the one area where I should have thought that we needed new jobs, whether in Cardiff or in our communities—the industrial manufacturing side.
      Table 11 of the KPMG report shows that 550 industrial jobs will be created by the barrage, but 1,782 without it. The thinking is that manufacturing and industrial employment is somehow dirty—that dirty jobs are not wanted in the vicinity of a yuppie marina and that they must be moved elsewhere to make way for the potted plants and atriums. That is a fascinating insight into the 1990s.
      Mr. Michael: Does my hon. Friend not accept that some of those living near to the East Moors steel works who regretted the loss of jobs when it closed have noted an improvement in the cleanliness of their environment?
      Mr. Rowlands: I dare say that the people of Merthyr noticed an improvement in their environment when the pit there was closed. The same is true of deep navigation. However, that is not a case for closure and for turning one's back on industrial manufacturing jobs. They will be needed in the 1990s, but we are being asked to support a Bill which will produce fewer jobs in the barrage area.
      Mr. Rogers: I do not think that my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) is being fair to those of our hon. Friends who represent Cardiff constituencies, who obviously want to attract jobs to their areas. Is my hon Friend saying that if a barrage is built with mooring places for yachts, more jobs will be created? My understanding is that the barrage will not add one square inch of land to the amount available for industrial, commercial, or housing development. If it did, I would support it. I cannot follow my hon. Friend's logic.
      Mr. Rowlands: The assumption is that 10,000 new jobs will be created if water is impounded to make it possible to look out across a nice lagoon. I spent the last quarter of an hour doubting that assumption, and if my hon. Friend has not understood that point by now, I will repeat it.
      Mr. Rogers: I still cannot understand the logic. My Conservative opponent in the elections to the European Parliament, Dr. Ann Robinson, who is now a policy adviser to the Institute of Directors, said that one way forward in south Wales would be to flood the coal-mining valleys. Is it suggested that areas of impounded water must be created to create industrial development? If so, I must tell my hon. Friend that he is not going to flood the Rhondda. We do not have the boats to cope with that.
      Mr. Rowlands: In March 1959 a report was published that suggested closing down Merthyr completely and moving that community of 60,000 people to the River Usk. If that had happened, we would all be middle-class yuppies now. I am glad to say that the people of Merthyr rejected that proposal, and they no more desire their community to be flooded than the Rhondda. If my hon. Friend is asking whether manufacturing jobs are created by flooding lagoons, the answer is no. Even the KPMG report reaches that conclusion.
      Public expenditure is about priorities. We are fishing in the same pool and making claims on the same finite amounts of money. To borrow a phrase from the President of the Board of Trade, we know that we are confronting a pretty bloody review of public expenditure. Crucial decisions must be taken about the ways in which public money is to be spent.
      The census returns of the communities that I represent reveal that 25 per cent. of the men of workable age there are economically inactive. I am supposed to accept that the trickle-up or trickle-down effect of the building of the barrage will be to create employment for those men. Male unemployment in my constituency exceeds 20 per cent., and our last pit is to be closed within the next 90 days. Every penny of public expenditure is needed to create jobs

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      in a community such as mine, where there is rising unemployment of a kind and character that I never expected to see during my political lifetime.
      I wish that it were not necessary to make a choice, and that enough money were available to build a barrage as well. Some of my hon. Friends have other good reasons for opposing its construction, but I do so because in the language of public expenditure priorities there should be a positive discrimination in favour of constituencies such as mine which, by any indices or census returns, are shown to be infinitely worse off even than Cardiff, relatively speaking.
      The building of a barrage comes lower on my list of priorities than the creation of a new manufacturing base that will provide jobs for the 25 per cent. of the potential work force in my constituency. While Dowys Toft and Merthyr Tydfil produced the coal and the wealth that created Cardiff in the first place, we do not want a return to the trickle-up or ripple effect. I do not want to spend the rest of my political career allowing my valley to become a dormitory town for a Cardiff dockland development. In supporting the amendments, I seek to control and to limit the public funds to be devoted to constructing a barrage, knowing the tremendous needs which exist in the communities that I represent.
      Mr. Morley: My hon. Friend argued the case for his own community and for the money being spent in other ways. I spoke earlier of the environmental issues, and there is a link between them and the financial amendments before us. If we are to pay the price for the environmental destruction of Cardiff bay, will the financial input be worth the damage that will be done?
      One must question a number of the assumptions made in the figures that have been provided. The latest outturn cost of the barrage scheme is £167.4 million. This autumn, we face a very difficult public spending round. Given the huge amount of money involved, surely it is reasonable to ask whether it will secure a good return in the form of benefits to the Cardiff area and the national economy, or whether the money could better be put into capital projects in other parts of the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) has suggested that it should be invested in the Welsh valleys. It might be possible to obtain a better return—more job creation, for instance.
      I am worried by the assumption that inflation will remain at a constant 2.5 per cent. after 1995–96. I do not know who produced the figures, but they may be based on the Treasury model, and we all know the record of the Government and the Treasury in predicting inflation and outturns. Any major scheme of this kind is bound to overrun. The Channel tunnel project, for instance, has overrun its budget many times—although, of course, no public money is involved. The Humber bridge scheme, which was publicly funded, did the same, and has caused considerable problems ever since.
      What chiefly worries me about the barrage scheme is the calculation of the leverage—the argument that the leverage in terms of jobs and investment is 3.6 times higher than the leverage that would exist without the barrage.
      9 pm
      Mr. Michael: Is my hon. Friend saying that he would have argued against the building of the Humber bridge?
      Mr. Morley: Absolutely not. I think that the bridge was worth building, and that it has brought advantage to the community. The problem is that, because of its massive overrun, its debts cannot be serviced by income, and that is a major difficulty for the local people. I merely used the bridge as an example of major public works programmes that dramatically overrun their budgets and cause problems. The Cardiff bay barrage scheme has the advantage of receiving not a loan but a grant. I wish that the Humber bridge could be treated as generously.
      Mr. Rogers: My hon. Friend has made a valid point. Evidence provided by the consultants to the Cardiff Bay development corporation reinforces his view. As soon as the water is impounded, water levels will rise. Initially, it was said that there would be no ground water impact in Cardiff, but Hydrotechnica now proposes to set up a pilot scheme to dewater the ground water, before building some 64 bore holes that will need to pump water continually to carry out that task. I do not know where it will go; water tends to come back in. [HON. MEMBERS: "The river."] From the river it will go back into the wells. It will be a wonderfully circular process. I think that I have practised as an engineering geologist for a good deal longer than my hon. Friends have practised as politicians, and I can tell them that the scheme is likely to cost a huge amount.
      Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to stop the flow, but this is supposed to be an intervention rather than a speech.
      Mr. Rogers: That is true, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was merely referring to the imponderables of calculating the total engineering cost.
      Mr. Morley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who speaks with some authority and whose comments should be noted.
      I would like the Minister to give us some positive examples of the way in which the leverage has been calculated and the way in which it will work. Some of the assumptions are very optimistic. According to the report, there will be a 78 per cent. increase in the number of jobs if the barrage is built, and there will be a total leverage of 7.5 on the investment—as against 3.9 without the barrage. The report says that the informal leverage target for the Welsh Office is 4. Without the barrage, the scheme certainly meets the target. The report makes massive assumptions about extra leverage and extra jobs. That point has been made all too clearly by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers).
      I should like the Minister to give examples of companies, investors and retailers who have said, "Without the barrage and the lake, we will not invest in Cardiff." I do not recall any great emphasis being placed on the fact that Canary wharf was surrounded by water and docklands. The main criteria for schemes such as Canary wharf were its cost and convenience and whether it could attract investors. The fact that Canary wharf is not attracting investors demonstrates that the environmental impact of the development does not matter as much as the economic strength of the country, the convenience of the development, rents and other factors. I suspect that the

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      key to investment in Cardiff or anywhere else will be not the barrage scheme or any other scheme but the prevailing economic circumstances. They will encourage private investors to move to Cardiff and elsewhere and invest in development schemes.
      I query whether the case put in the report has been proved. I strongly query the concept of leverage and the very optimistic figures that have been produced. I should like the Minister to tell us just how that leverage has been calculated and to give us examples of companies that have made it clear that the barrage is vital to the scheme, if they are to invest in Cardiff. I know that a number of investors have made it clear that the barrage is vital to the scheme, if they are to invest in Cardiff. I know that a number of investors have made it clear that the barrage is not important to them. Tarmac Homes is a case in point. That major private sector developer said publicly that it would be willing to invest in the Cardiff bay area without the barrage—that the barrage was not important to it.
      I ask again whether this is good use of public money, whether the figures are reliable and how the leverage has been calculated. A natural phenomenon such as an intertidal zone—a site of special scientific interest with a community of 300,000 people—has its own benefits. Those benefits are just as great as the ones that would be provided by means of an impounded bay of polluted water; they may even be stronger. If I had to live and work in the Cardiff area, I know which one I should prefer. I should prefer a living estuary rather than a dead and polluted bay.
      Mr. Hain: When I became a Member on 16 April 1991, I was escorted by my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) and for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells). The significance of those two supporters is that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth was my boss in the by-election campaign—a very successful one, for which he was largely responsible. His primary duty was to keep me in order. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd's primary responsibility was to be my minder—to keep me swimming vertically through the rain which drenched that by-election. The same day as they escorted me into the Chamber they fell out in the debate on the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill, then a private Bill. The House sat all night debating it. My hon. Friends kindly advised me immediately prior to the debate to go home and spend the evening with my wife. They believed that my political virginity ought not to be lost during the debate on the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill. I gratefully took their advice. Therefore, I intervene now with some trepidation.
      I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth for the diligence with which he has defended his case and for the way in which he has sought to attract an important development to his constituency. It is understandable that he should have done so and I would not deny his right to do so, or the persistence and energy with which he has pursued his case. There are many issues, however, that I as a valley Member of Parliament in south Wales and as someone who is concerned with the general impact of policy throughout Wales—in particular on the south Wales valleys—need to raise on this Bill.
      There are important environmental questions, some of which we shall debate later, some of which we debated earlier. I refer to the effect of the barrage on the flora and fauna. The real issue, which I want to address and which is addressed in our amendments, is the cost. In terms of the
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      economy of Wales, and even more in terms of the economy of south Wales, huge costs will be absorbed by the development—perhaps as much as £500 million in direct costs. The figure is movable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) has demonstrated eloquently. Nevertheless, the figure is of that order and, on one estimate, it may increase to as much as £1 billion over the years.
      The issue that we are entitled to put to the House and on which we are entitled to have an answer is the question of priorities. I can think of communities at the top of the valleys in my constituency which are becoming increasingly deprived as jobs are stripped out of them almost weekly—no, certainly weekly. I think of communities such as Cwmllinfell, Gwauncaegurwen, Banwen and many others.
      Those communities ask me, "Where are we being looked after? Where are our interests being protected in the overall strategy being developed by the Welsh Office or by the Government this parliamentary Session?" Those communities look at the substantial costs being borne by the public sector—a point to which I shall return. They ask what the Government's priorities are and whether they are to have more investment so that, as one resident rather cynically said to me at my surgery on a Saturday morning in the little village of Tairgwaith, which feels itself to be forgotten and isolated, the people in those communities can sail their yachts and moor them in the new marina which will be set up around the Cardiff bay barrage. Anyone who knows those communities knows that that is a fanciful notion, to say the least.
      Those residents raise the question of priorities and ask whether the priority is for development in the Cardiff bay area or for those huge sums, or their equivalent, to be directed towards valley communities which have suffered more than any others from the impact of Government policies, especially over the past 10 years.
      When we consider the valleys and the costs that will be incurred under the Bill, if it is enacted, we should bear in mind that regional preferential assistance to Wales has been cut by almost 60 per cent. at constant prices between 1979 and 1991. The valleys initiative programme, which was launched in 1988, has brought little new funding to the valleys; it has been a question more of recycling existing programmes.
      I will quote from the important study commissioned by the Neath conference which was recently held on the future of the valleys. The study was carried out by the Cardiff univerity lecturers Kevin Morgan and his assistant Adam Price, and is entitled, "A New Agenda for the Valleys". It is pertinent to our debate that they discuss the resources being channelled into the valleys compared with the resources being channelled into the area around the M4 corridor and into the relatively large conurbation of Cardiff, which we are discussing this evening, and Swansea.
      The study says:
      "While the aims and values of the Valleys Programme were laudable enough, the initiative was essentially a marketing exercise in the sense that it packaged together a host of policies and projects that were for the most part already in existence. Indeed, little or no extra funding was contained in the programme, even when the initiative was extended for a further two years".
      Those of us who represent valley communities would heartily endorse that statement.

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      The study points out that, as things stand, the valleys programme expires next March. The Government have not said that they will introduce a new programme which has anything like the scale of the resources that are being channelled into the Cardiff bay barrage development. There is talk of a new policy being unveiled and we shall have to wait and see what it is.
      9.15 pm
      The valleys initiative—which, as I said, expires in March next year—was intended to bring 25,000 to 30,000 new jobs to the valleys. In practice, its impact on employment levels in the valleys has been virtually nil. In 1988, when the programme was launched, the male unemployment rate for the valley areas was 18.9 per cent. In 1992, it is 18.7 per cent. Incidentally, those figures are much greater than those for Wales as a whole-—in 1988, 13.5 per cent. and now 13.1 per cent.—and for the United Kingdom as a whole—in 1988, 10.8 per cent. and now 13 per cent. We are talking about a major failure of Government policy.
      While we sail blithely on, channelling sums which, in Welsh economic terms, are huge, into the Cardiff bay development, we are ignoring the plight of the valleys. The central valley areas—Aberdare, Rhymney, Merthyr, Pontypridd and the Rhondda—have male unemployment rates of 19 to 22 per cent. As my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney said, the figures are increasing all the time and, with the closure of the pits, they will rise even more steeply. We are talking about an important principle. My major reservation about the Bill—a reservation that the amendment seeks to address—arises from the huge sums that are being channelled into the Cardiff bay development at the expense of other more deserving and urgent priorities elsewhere in south Wales, in particular, in the much-deprived valley communities.
      There is another linked issue. Supporters of the Bill—particularly those who represent the constituencies affected, whose view I can well understand—argue that the development will involve a huge injection of capital and of public sector investment which ought to be welcomed. But there is an opportunity cost in all this—an economic factor which it is important to take into account. If one channels investment, whether public or private sector investment—and we are told that, over the years, the bulk of the investment will come from the private sector—into a given area, it will be at the expense of investment elsewhere.
      We are advancing that central argument in the context of another argument which I find very worrying indeed: the conventional wisdom surrounding policy making in Wales at present is that we must always talk of a greater Cardiff or a greater Swansea. Although it is understandable that people in Cardiff should seek to defend their interests and attract new investment and capital if they can, I challenge the whole notion of south Wales depending on a greater Cardiff or a greater Swansea. The valleys are forgotten backwaters in all this—at best, dormitories or commuter belts for the greater Cardiff and Swansea areas—and all investment is channelled to the M4 corridor. We have deprived working-class communities hidden at the top of the valleys, with very poor infrastructure and pathetic transport facilities.
      Let us address the question of unemployment in the valley communities. My hon. Friends have said that many
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      people who work in Cardiff come from outside it. The logic is that if one channels more jobs and investment into the Cardiff area, there will be more opportunities for workers to commute to it. But many unemployed people cannot afford to commute. Many of the people living in remote villages such as Seven Sisters and Banwen cannot afford to commute because the bus fares are prohibitive—where buses run at all—and they certainly cannot afford to purchase cars. They are locked into a vicious circle of unemployment and trapped in communities from which it is impossible to escape. To my mind, the logical solution to that is not to introduce massive new job and investment opportunities around the M4, greater Cardiff or greater Swansea areas but to invest in valley communities and provide the manufacturing opportunities for those communities that they have traditionally enjoyed.
      In support of my argument, I quote again the important study by Morgan and Price. It says:
      "With the long and painful decline of the coal industry the Valley communities have been forced to seek an alternative economic vocation, principally in manufacturing and service industries. This economic transition, which is still far from complete, has triggered enormous changes within these communities. In labour market terms perhaps the two most dramatic changes in the post-war era are the decline of a male-dominated workforce on the one hand and, on the other hand, the growing 'dormitory' status of the Valleys, reflecting the fact that new job opportunities tend to be biased towards the south, in Cardiff and along the so-called M4 corridor."
      That issue is not being addressed by the Welsh Office, and is certainly being ignored in the context of the enormous investment that is contemplated for the Cardiff bay barrage development. The whole issue is thrown into sharp relief by the threat and the reality of pit closures piling one on top of the other. Taff Merthyr in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney and Betws in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) have gone. What future is there for those valley communities? None, as far as the Welsh Office is concerned.
      Against the background of the position in the valleys, I now turn my attention specifically to the costs of the Cardiff bay development, about which there is some dubiety. In a debate in the House, the then Under-Secretary of State for Wales, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, said:
      "we will ensure that sufficient funding will be made available to enable the corporation"—
      that is, the Cardiff bay development corporation—
      "to carry through its task".—[Official Report, 19 December 1989; Vol. 164, c. 308.]
      That is an interesting statement. I wish that sufficient funding was being made available to valley communities to carry out the necessary regeneration and provide the investment that those areas so desperately need. It is almost as if the Government were willing to write a blank cheque for investment in the prime development by which they have set so much store in Cardiff bay.
      The figures have changed and there is a certain mystification around them.
      Mr. Rogers: The Government's support for the scheme seems rather surprising. I do not wish to argue the merits of the scheme vis-a-vis the needs of the valley communities. Does my hon. Friend agree that one reason why the Government are investing so much money in the Cardiff bay development may be their close, almost incestuous relationship with Associated British Ports, which owns substantial areas of land which will be developed under the

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      scheme? The company will make enormous profits. Leaving aside the merits of the scheme in housing and social benefits for Cardiff, which I am sure will come, one of the greatest profiteers will be Associated British Ports. It is fairly significant that Lord Crickhowell, a former Secretary of State for Wales, is a director—not the chairman, as I once mistakenly said—of that company.
      Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. May I remind the hon. Gentleman again of my previous strictures, which seem to have been forgotten.
      Mr. Hain: I found my hon. Friend's intervention most helpful. I would add only that I think that the ports authority to which my hon. Friend referred has been a large donator to Conservative party funds over the years. Perhaps the two factors of its role in the development and the encouragement that the Welsh Office is giving are not unlinked.
      I wish to delve more deeply into the costs of the project; they appear rather uncertain. We are told that the latest direct cost of the barrage, at 1991–92 prices, is £152.76 million. As the background documentation provided by the Welsh Office shows, that makes a number of assumptions. For example, it assumes that inflation is based on the gross domestic product deflator at market prices dated March 1992—right the way through to 1995–96. We all know that since March 1992 a great deal has happened to the British economy. Even more has happened in the past month which renders all sorts of forecasts, assessments and calculations dubious to say the least, and it makes those who have been making the forecasts look extremely silly, not least the Chancellor. I am doubtful that that will turn out to be the final cost if the project proceeds. It also assumes inflation at a constant 2.5 per cent. after 1995–96. How can anyone project what inflation will be after 1995–96, especially with the pound bobbing up and down as it is? For the life of me, I cannot understand.
      I question whether even the basic ball-park figures given by the Welsh Office stand up. Nevertheless, the figure of £152.76 million is extremely large, although it appears that the total public sector contribution will be nearly double that amount, at about £300 million. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that for me at an appropriate moment. We are talking about a great deal of money for something that offers the Welsh economy—as opposed to Cardiff—very little return.
      Let us consider the details of the figures given by the KPMG Management Consulting report, which analyses the costs. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney has considered that report in some detail. It contains a series of questions that we need to ask. Page 12 of the report gives a figure of £34 million for public utilities with the barrage, and £25.5 million without it. Nowhere in the background documentation made available for the debate does it explain what those public utilities are, although it may be tucked away in files from some years ago. Do they include privatised utilities which are simply described under the generic heading of public utilities, in which case there is presumably no ultimate cost to the Exchequer? Do they include what few genuinely publicly owned utilities we have left, such as the Post Office or British Rail, in which case there would be an impact on the public sector borrowing requirement if nothing else?
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      There is a great deal to be asked about the detail of the report, which seems flimsy and skimpy to me. If the Minister responds to the debate, as I am sure that he will, will he answer those questions with greater precision than has been provided in the background documentation? We are entitled to question and challenge not merely the total cost involved but how it is made up. We are even more entitled to do so when we consider some of the assumptions in the KPMG report, which has been put before us as a bible on the background information to the discussion.
      On page 16, in paragraph 4.15, the report states that in making the assumptions about the return on the investment that the Government are contemplating and that the private sector will be invited to contemplate,
      "Whilst the key projected rental (and land value) growth rates have been adjusted downwards"—
      over the previous assessment—
      "the scale of this adjustment reflects the fact that Chesterton"—
      the consultants—
      "do not consider that the current recession in the property market has substantially undermined the growth rates incorporated within the January 1990 economic appraisal."
      What an extraordinary statement to make. The property market has almost collapsed and property values are spiralling downwards, but KPMG suggests that the Cardiff bay development will somehow pass by that phenomenon. On page 17 of the KPMG report, in paragraph 4.17, the consultants, Chesterton, are cited as saying:
      "The current recession and any decline in property values represents a shortterm downturn in the market and will have only a limited impact on longterm growth rates."
      I find that assertion absolutely staggering. As my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney has said, that is an ostrich-like approach. The consultants are burying their heads in the sand or the wastelands of the British economy.
      Judged by current economic trends in the United Kingdom economy, and certainly in the Welsh economy, the property market has collapsed and there is no prospect of it reviving and returning to the growth levels and the return on investment levels that were predicated in the report. The report is fatally flawed and, therefore, the economic case behind the Cardiff bay development is also fatally flawed.
      9.30 pm
      In the past few years we have witnessed the end of the grand property development era. Then, one could have a plan based on visionary, large-scale developments that centred on return on property rather than real economic indicators and forces. In this context one need look no further than the example of Canary wharf, which is relevant to the Cardiff bay development in terms of property values—I am not seeking to make wider comparisons about specific characteristics or objectives. Canary wharf carried a total investment of £3 billion. The original prospectuses for Canary wharf that drew in such investors as Olympia and York—at huge cost and its ultimate bankruptcy—contained all sorts of optimistic predictions of the kind now made in the KPMG report and by the Welsh Office on behalf of the Cardiff bay development project.
      The banks, predominantly British but some foreign, are now owed £1.2 billion by the Canary wharf developers and they have no prospect of getting it back. How many loan

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      financiers, capital venture sources and banks will be required to put in the significant sums of money, although not of the scale required by Canary wharf, needed to realise the dreams that the architects of the Cardiff bay development have advanced?
      It is also significant that 4.5 million sq ft of space is empty on Canary wharf and just 11 per cent. of the site has been filled. That has relevance for the Cardiff bay development when one considers the plans for its wider site. What is the likelihood of the Cardiff bay development filling all the office space that it is providing? That question has even greater importance when one considers the United Kingdom economy. In Cardiff, as much as 30 per cent. of office space is empty now.
      The London docklands project is similar in many respects to the Cardiff bay development. An independent corporation was set up which is not directly accountable to local authorities or to the local people. It was pushed through by the Government and displayed much of the same thinking as that for the Cardiff bay development because all the eggs were put in the property basket rather than being devoted to industrial and manufacturing development. The local economy in London's docklands has all but collapsed, with house prices having plummeted. Although the local people need housing, many of the houses provided as part of the docklands development—built at prices far greater than local folk could afford—are standing empty because they cannot be sold. About 40 per cent. of office space in London's docklands is also empty. All in all, we have much to question about the economic and industrial assumptions behind the Cardiff bay development project.
      It is also interesting to note that average unemployment in London's docklands now stands at 21.6 per cent., the level of unemployment to be found in the valley communities of south Wales. Yet London's docklands was intended to be a leading pace setter for the new Britain and was going to show the way for developments elsewhere in the country. Newham has an unemployment rate of 21.9 per cent.; Tower Hamlets, 24.4 per cent.; Southwark, 20.3 per cent. That is the position after all that money has been ploughed in through the London Docklands development corporation. When we consider the prospects facing Cardiff bay and the economic investment involved and then weigh up the pros and cons, we see the fundamentally flawed thinking behind it.
      I draw attention to an aspect of the KPMG report to which my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney referred. Table 11, on page 26, gives a calculation of direct employment effects. Not only does it show that with the barrage there will be 1,232 fewer industrial or manufacturing jobs, but it suggests that there will be 1,619 more retail jobs and 2,184 more leisure jobs than if the development proceeded without the barrage.
      Such prospects are greatly welcomed by local people, but I question the whole economic thinking behind the figures. I refer to the assumption that dominated the Thatcherite years, that is being continued in the Major years and is apparently being followed in the Hunt years in Wales. There is a belief that we can have retail, leisure and service industries without a manufacturing base. That thinking is flawed. It has led us into a situation in which we have a chronic balance of payments crisis throughout the United Kingdom economy and a chronic balance of trade crisis in the Welsh economy.
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      I do not believe, if the development goes ahead, that we shall achieve the creation of that level of jobs. The figures do not add up. Laid out for us in this initiative by the Government, along with all their other policies, is an attempt to turn south Wales into a low-skill, low-wage, low-quality assembly line service economy, diversified here and there but without any serious attention being given to the desperate need for investment in manufacturing industry which is capable of reviving our economy and providing the essential base and foundation from which all other developments could then derive.
      If the Cardiff bay development had been put forward against the background and within the context of a serious industrial strategy for Wales which was geared at reviving the manufacturing base of the valley communities—recognising that they are industrial villages with traditions and skills to offer which, if harnessed by Government support, could build a prosperous new future—I might be taking a more sanguine attitude towards the Bill. I still might have questions to ask about the essential fallacies of the property basis of the economics behind it, but I might be prepared to put such questions on one side because the Government were recognising the needs of the valleys, the need for manufacturing investment and the need to build a real economy as opposed to the flotsam and jetsam economy that is offered to us now.
      To find the essential flaws in the economic strategy underpinning the Bill, one need look no further than south-east England. Its economy was said to epitomise the success of Thatcherism, consisting entirely of services and retail and leisure developments—many marinas and peripheral, nice-looking developments but no serious economic development. In the past few years, south-east England has suffered even greater unemployment increases than the valley communities have experienced until now. That has happened because it is an economy built on shifting sand, with no real basis. I fear that the Cardiff bay development project will end up going down the same route.
      Mr. Jon Owen Jones: First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) for his thoughtful contribution in which he tried to set the Bill in the context of the whole Welsh economy. He largely moved away from the beggar-thy-neighbour approach which, unfortunately, I had been hearing. I also congratulate my hon. Friend on holding the Neath declaration in his constituency. I have already apologised for being unable to attend.
      I make one criticism of my hon. Friend's approach in Neath and in his speech. I do not believe that it is possible to divorce the economies of Cardiff and Swansea from that of the valley hinterland from which they originally sprung and in which the work force is totally immersed. There must be a south Wales strategy for the economy and, unfortunately, the Government do not have one. It must involve Cardiff and Swansea as well as the valleys. As long as we allow the Government to set communities against one another in the sort of debate that we have been having until now, we are doing our home communities and our party no good. A few comments have been made about deprivation in the valleys compared with that in Cardiff, which, it has been implied, is a wealthy yuppy area—[Interruption.] That has been implied in a number of speeches.
      The latest statistics published by the Library on 16 October this year show that, for the past two years, the

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      highest unemployment rate in Wales has been in Cardiff—in Cardiff, West—the second highest has been in my constituency of Cardiff, Central and the fifth highest has been in Cardiff, South and Penarth.
      Mr. Ron Davies: My hon. Friend will understand that those figures are based on the Government's present calculation of unemployment. That description of unemployment may show a high rate of unemployment in the Cardiff constituencies, but many unemployed people in the valley communities are excluded from the count by virtue of their previous occupations and because the figures have been massaged. I hope that my hon. Friend will take that point to heart and recognise that it can be misleading to use comparisons based on those figures.
      Mr. Jones: I thank my hon. Friend for drawing that to my attention. I was aware of it. My home village of Maerdy is a mining community with 33 per cent. male unemployment, two years after the pit closed. I know very well how depressed the mining communities are and I do not try to show disparities or make comparisons between them. I am trying to develop the argument that the south-west and central parts of Cardiff are in themselves depressed regions. In the Adamsdown ward, in my constituency, male unemployment is more than 30 per cent. In Butetown, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael), it is 56 per cent. I do not think that any area in south Wales approaches that level of unemployment. We must not pretend or be fooled into thinking that the valleys are the only depressed areas in south Wales. Hon. Members have spoken about development along the M4 corridor, but the geography of south Wales is such that that corridor lies between Cardiff and the valleys. It is not to the south of Cardiff where it is planned to build the barrage.
      9.45 pm
      It is projected that the barrage will create 10,000 jobs, not 23,000. I like to think that that number of jobs would be created, but I am sceptical, just as I am sceptical about the number of jobs to be created by any project. However, my scepticism has not in the past prevented me from supporting development in other areas even though I did not think that jobs would be created. If 10,000 jobs were created at the inflated costs mentioned by some of my hon. Friends, it would work out at £200 or £300 a job, which is enormously cheap. Even if 10,000 jobs are not created and costs are much higher, the jobs would still be value for money compared with the £800 million spent on the valleys initiative which has not delivered jobs. Even if the project did not deliver the number of jobs that we would like to see, it would not stop me from supporting any project in the valleys.
      Mr. Win Griffiths: I have been listening carefully to my hon. Friend and examining the report's assumptions about direct job creation. I cannot discover whether the jobs are already in the Cardiff bay area. Are they additional to the number of jobs in, for example, south Glamorgan, or will the jobs created in the barrage area be transferred from other parts of south Glamorgan or even south Wales?
      Mr. Jones: In so far as I understand the question, when a company locates in an area and creates jobs it tends to
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      attract people who are already in work. But there is a knock-on effect because people who move from one job to take up another leave vacancies.
      Mr.Rowlands: Will my hon Friend give way?
      Mr. Jones: I shall give way later.
      It has been said that the barrage will create jobs based only on property development. Before I was elected as the Member of Parliament representing Cardiff, Central, I was chairman of economic development in Cardiff. In that post, I met many business men and women who were either based in Cardiff or were looking to be based there. For them, as for me, the main argument in favour of the barrage in our negotiations with various companies that we were trying to attract into the city was that, it would give Cardiff the edge that would enable it to attract to the capital of Wales companies that would not otherwise come because other areas would be equally attractive. By that, I do not mean the valley areas to the north. Without the edge given by the barrage, those companies would not locate in Neath, much as I would like them to, or in Merthyr. They would go to Bath, Bristol or Swindon.
      Mr. Rogers: It would be incredibly stupid to argue about the valleys versus Cardiff, and I may have something to say about that later. The Cardiff Bay development corporation, the city of Cardiff and the county of South Glamorgan have done an admirable job in redeveloping the derelict area of the Cardiff docklands. My only objection to this project is that we would spend almost £500 million of public money on an exercise that will not accelerate that process, or make available a single square inch more of land. I will leave it at that because my interventions have been rather long.
      Mr. Jones: If you had been present earlier, Madam Speaker, you would have heard my hon. Friend make that point twice. I am not arguing for Cardiff against the valleys—quite the reverse. I am trying to counter the argument, put by several speakers already, for the valleys against Cardiff. The two economies are interlinked and cannot be divorced from each other. What would benefit one would benefit the other.
      Mr. Rowlands: I was modestly surprised that my hon. Friend gullibly quoted £800 million as the amount that came into the valleys as a result of the valleys initiative. I beg him not to use that figure because it has no basis in reality, truth or fact. It is Walker's figure.
      Mr. Jones: The £800 million was not new money coming into the area but money that was spent in the valleys.
      Mr. Rowlands: Do not say that. It is not true.
      Mr. Rogers: My hon. Friend is right. It is not true. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones) was born in the valleys. If he analysed that figure and counted the expenditure in the valleys as a result of that initiative, he would see that this talk of £800 million is absolute nonsense. The figure is peddled by Lord Walker to build up his reputation so that he gets jobs such as that which he got yesterday.
      Several Hon. Members rose—
      Madam Speaker: Did the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) make an intervention? If so, I shall call the Minister.
      Mr. Morganrose—
      Madam Speaker: Is the hon. Member for Rhondda seeking the floor?
      Mr. Rogers: I am, Madam Speaker. Thank you. I did not realise that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central had finished.
      I start with an apology. During our debate on these matters on 25 November 1991, I made some remarks about Associated British Ports. I am sure that hon. Members will know that I am not a great fan of ABP. However, I made some statements which were incorrect. Sir Keith Stuart, the chairman of ABP, wrote to me and I telephoned to him and apologised. It is appropriate, even a year later, to apologise to him in the Chamber and so put it on the record. I said that Lord Crickhowell was the chairman of ABP when, of course, he was not. Sir Keith Stuart is the chairman. The former Secretary of State for Wales, who is now Lord Crickhowell, was a non-executive director. My hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) committed the same sin.
      Sir Keith has told me that Associated British Ports has never made any contribution to the Conservative party. Many of us thought at one time that the parties which took place in connection with the development of ports on the east coast and to which Conservative Members were invited were funded by ABP. They probably were, but the company has made no direct contribution to the Conservative party.
      Mr. Hain: I take the opportunity to withdraw my earlier remark. I made it because I read the remarks of my hon. Friend in Hansard. As I take everything he says to be the veritable truth and cast in stone, I repeated what he said earlier this evening.
      Mr. Rogers: That is why I wanted to put my apology on the record in fairness to Sir Keith Stuart and Associated British Ports. ABP is obviously a company that looks after its own interests. That, of course, is what it is about. That is why it is in business. At least it has the sense not to make contributions to the Conservative party, which is very much to its credit.
      I said also—perhaps it was a loose phrase—that the company had its hand in many tills. Sir Keith Stuart felt that that was an allegation that ABP was involved in dishonest dealings. I did not believe that it was involved in any such dealings. I simply wanted to draw the attention of the House to the fact that it was involved in many schemes where it was making a lot of money, one of which was the Cardiff bay scheme.
      The scheme was initiated during the reign of Lord Crickhowell, who is a non-executive director of ABP. Oddly enough, he was the new chairman—he is now the old chairman—of the National Rivers Authority, and the job of the NRA chairman is to keep rivers clean. Over the years, during which the Cardiff bay scheme has been developing, many of us have felt that there has been a conflict of interest. So has Lord Crickhowell—he said that his position, on his instruction, was that anyone at the NRA giving advice on Cardiff bay must not refer to him. On the other hand, the dead weight of his authority and his position is there.
      One body which will make an enormous killing out of the development will be Associated British Ports. I have always thought that to build the barrage before the houses would drive up house prices. With due respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael), I have always wondered how he would explain that to his constituents. Recently, as a result of the Government's policies, house prices have been driven down, so that argument is no longer valid. I think that the original proposal was for 6,000 houses, about 1,500 of which were social houses—
      It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
      Debate to he resumed tomorrow.

Pitchford Hall
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lightbown]
10 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell: I shall be succinct, Madam Speaker, because I hope that the chairman of the all-party heritage group, the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack), will have an opportunity to catch your eye.
On Friday 25 September, just before the right hon. and learned Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) rose to make a personal statement, Hansard records that I rose to intervene on Pitchford hall. Had I persisted further, Madam Speaker, you would undoubtedly have ejected me from the House. It was, in fact, a last desperate attempt to focus attention, before it was too late, on the dispersal and auction of the contents of Pitchford hall. That leads me to my first point—that in such situations there must be some kind of holding solution, a breathing space.
The market place is not always the wrong solution. I am not saying that. I am saying that one cannot act sensibly under the shadow of Sotheby's or Christie's hammer. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, suggests that there should be an early warning system, possibly reporting to the House through the new Select Committee on National Heritage. The sale of Pitchford hall could not have happened at a worse moment in 600 years as the mind of the right hon. and learned Member for Putney, then the decision-making Secretary of State, was elsewhere.
Secondly, I quote, to put it as succinctly as possible, from Angus Stirling of the National Trust. He said:
"The historic entity has been broken up. Most if not all of the contents will disappear from the house and even though there were relatively few pieces that were very fine and valuable, it was the totality of the collection brought together over 300 or 400 years that made this thing so unique. It is a very rare thing to find in a house of that stature and age."
That is the considered view of the National Trust.
From personal experience of 48 years of cordial and harmonious relations with the Scottish National Trust I know that visitors who come to such a place like to see a lived-in, organic, growing entity of a house rather than a shell. In my view, Oliver and Caroline Colthurst could not have tried harder to prevent separation of house and contents.
My third point is to ask why the advice of English Heritage was ignored. It is a pleasure to see the Secretary of State for National Heritage in the Chamber and I appreciate his courtesy. We were fellow members of the all-party heritage group and I know that he cares deeply for these issues.
The chairman and senior officials of English Heritage have confirmed to me that Pitchford phase 5 could have been financed out of own resources and that no extra money was required. How much has already been spent from public funds? What is the situation in respect of the Getty money? Did the Department know of the possibility that there would be additional money from Getty funds? Does the Minister accept that version of events, and, if so, on whose advice did his predecessor act? Is it true that Pitchford was turned down because it was too far from a motorway?
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The Committee, of which I was a member, which considered the National Heritage Bill understood that extra money would be available in special cases. Georgina Naylor of the National Heritage Memorial Fund knows that I want to ask whether it is still policy to provide extra money as the Committee was promised—which pledge, to be fair, the Government have honoured in respect of Kedleston, Nostell priory, and Belton.
The Historic Houses Association is concerned about more fiscally attractive maintenance funds, which could be more effective in respect of day to day work and would avoid catastrophes such as Pitchford because the money would be tied up and invulnerable to a Lloyd's-type situation.
The protection of the heritage is not a rich man's hobby but a cultural reaction. When I was with the all-party heritage group in the Netherlands last week, we were struck by remarks by Doctor Vliegenhart of Het Loo and Doctor Van Staaten of the Kröller-Muller museum, that one of the glories of coming to Britain is visiting lived-in houses which have been entities for a long time.
I have spoken for only six minutes because others have the right to put their point of view.
10.6 pm
Mr. Patrick Cormack: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) for his courtesy in informing me that he had secured this Adjournment debate and for suggesting that I might contribute to it. I am glad to do so. I am grateful also to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage for being present on the Front Bench. It is unusual for a Secretary of State to attend an Adjournment debate, and for my right hon. Friend to do so is indicative of his commitment and interest.
I wish to emulate the constructive nature of the remarks of the hon. Member for Linlithgow, who in no sense is critical of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State or my hon. Friend the Minister. However, anyone who visited Pitchford and met the Colthursts must be saddened that that entity has been lost. It was the quintessential English house—not a great stately home, but a manor house with contents accumulated by generations of families and set in lovely parkland. It was architecturally distinguished and the largest black and white house of its type in the country.
It is a great pity, to put it mildly, that that entity was not kept together and a particular shame because there are not many houses like Pitchford in the country. In fact, it is a property that one could properly describe as unique. The owners had fallen on difficult times through no fault of their own, but were anxious that the house should be kept together with its contents and its parkland. It is sad that that could not be done, as the sums involved were small.
The contents, alas, have been dispersed and the house sold. That must be a good thing because for a house of that kind to be left standing empty and uncared for throughout the winter would create considerable problems. We must hope that the purchaser will choose to furnish it in a seemly manner, look after the parkland, and care for that bit of England. It also has a glorious church nearby, with one of the finest wood effigies in the country. I would love my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who has never

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been there, to spend a night or two with me as I live only 20 miles away and I would very much like to show him that place.
We can learn lessons from Pitchford. Recrimination will achieve nothing. I well remember, in 1976, in the House, asking the then Secretary of State for the Environment—the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore)—if he would receive a deputation to discuss a last-minute rescue attempt for Mentmore. He did receive it, with great courtesy, but although Lord Goodman and I and a number of others pleaded with him, he was unable to help. Mentmore went under the hammer, and its contents were dispersed.
Mentmore, however, focused attention on a problem. It was because of Mentmore that the National Land Fund was reconstituted as the National Heritage Memorial Fund, following an amendment tabled in Committee by the hon. Member for Linlithgow. We worked together on that. Out of a disaster came something very good, which has benefited the heritage ever since.
I hope that we have learnt some lessons from the Pitchford disaster. Pitchford could have been saved. The various schemes that were suggested were not perfect, but they contained the seeds of something that could have worked: I am convinced of that. We need a fail-safe mechanism, and I hope that at an early stage my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will call together those of us who have an interest in these matters—they will obviously include the chairman of the memorial fund and the chairman of English Heritage; perhaps they will also include the chairman of the all-party heritage committee and one or two leading Opposition Members—so that they can sit down and discuss how the solution to a future Pitchford can best be found. For future Pitchfords there will be: Pitchford itself has gone, but there are other lovely houses with fine contents, set in parklands, which are at risk. Already this year, Pitchford and Groombridge have gone.
I thank the hon. Member for Linlithgow for initiating the debate, and for giving me the opportunity to participate. I hope that my right hon. Friend will come up with a positive reply.
10.11 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for National Heritage (Mr. Robert Key): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) for raising the subject of Pitchford hall. The hon. Gentleman has always had a particular interest in preserving the national heritage on both sides of the border, and I know and admire his family's record and their long relationship with the National Trust for Scotland. I look forward to his continuing contribution to the work of my Department. I also welcome the opportunity to explain to the House in more depth the decision made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor), the previous Secretary of State, that English Heritage should not take over Pitchford hall.
I am grateful for the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack), right up to the last minute. We spoke on the telephone, on the motorway, and at my home at the weekend. I recognise the contribution that he has made to the debate.
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Let me begin by making it clear that Pitchford has not gone; it is not lost. Its case has gained a great deal of public attention, especially in the west midlands. My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Mr. Conway) has been in the House tonight, and has talked to me at length. He has explained that he is now detained elsewhere. He has made clear to me the feelings of his constituents, and he was quick to come to the Department to explain how strongly he felt on the issue.
Let me begin by answering the questions that the hon. Member for Linlithgow put to me before I refer to the background to the argument. The hon. Gentleman says that there should be a holding solution—an early warning system. It is important to remember that, although the sale of Pitchford hall took place in September, my noble Friend Lady Blatch first started to monitor the position last February. That was done by the heritage department within the Department of the Environment. Articles first appeared in the press then. It was from that moment on that heritage officials began to monitor the position.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow referred to Mr. Getty. Let me make it clear that there was never any approach to us to contact him and that he did not contact us about the issue. I understand that that was an entirely private matter between Mr. and Mrs. Colthurst and Mr. Getty which in the end, I believe, came to nothing. We were never involved in that issue, though following a telephone call from the hon. Member for Linlithgow I asked whether we had received any information about it. We had not.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow asked about the amount of public money that had been spent on Pitchford hall. English Heritage contributed about £230,000 over a period of about eight years for the fabric of the house. There was never any substance in the rumour that the reason that the Department of National Heritage was not interested was that Pitchford hall was too far from the motorway to be a tourist attraction. I do not know where that fairy tale came from, but it is most certainly not true.
As to the conditions for a grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the important point to remember is that at no stage did the fund seek any extra grant from the Government. We were not asked by the fund to consider that proposal.
As for the Historic Houses Association, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Putney and I have met representatives of the association on a number of occasions and discussed with them many of the problems that affect owners of historic houses. There are about 700 houses of Pitchford hall's quality in this country and about 1,400 members of the Historic Houses Association. Therefore, we were anxious to ensure that any action that was taken by the Government and English Heritage should not put in jeopardy the ability to look after that large number of houses that rely upon shared resources, which are pretty meagre at the best of times.
However, I take on board the point made by the hon. Gentleman about the significance of maintenance funds. The Department of National Heritage is addressing that issue. We have had positive discussions with the Historic Houses Association along those lines. Therefore, we are absolutely clear about what the association regards as potentially a new way forward that would help both the association and its members.
I can understand why Pitchford has appealed to so many people. Hon Members will have seen the photographs of that fine black and white timber-framed

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house nestling in a wooded valley, with a stream flowing past. As my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South said, it is quintessential Olde England—a reminder of less turbulent times. Pitchford hall is not, however, some idyllic fantasy. It is a house of real quality, comparable with Little Moreton hall and Speke hall, which are already cared for by the National Trust. It is that quality which has been recognised by according to it the highest statutory protection—a grade I listing. I emphasise the point that I made earlier: Pitchford hall itself is not at risk. The house appears, happily, to have found a new owner. The grade I listing applies to the new owner just as much as it did to the previous owners, Mr. and Mrs. Colthurst.
Mr. Dalyell: The Minister referred to Little Moreton hall, which is absolutely beautiful—my wife and I made a lovely visit there—but it is denuded of most of its original furniture. It is the contents, often bric-a-brac, which are so vital to a place like Pitchford.
Mr. Key: As they say, I am coming to that, but it happens to be true. I accept the importance of the accumulation, the accretion of family belongings, even if they are not of the first quality. The term bric-a-brac may indeed apply. As the hon. Gentleman says, one of the important qualities of the English country house is that it is lived in. That is why people appreciate the English country house so much.
If any alterations to Pitchford were ever proposed, either internal or external, which would affect Pitchford's character as a grade I building, the consent of the local planning authority would need to be sought. It would have to consult English Heritage and the Department of the Environment. My Department would be consulted if there were any disagreement between those bodies. Similarly, planning permission would need to be sought for any development or change of use, though our understanding is that the new owners wish to live in Pitchford as a family home.
Pitchford seems to be particularly suited to family ownership. It has been a private family home for over 500 years. Country houses were built to be lived in and are generally better cared for and retain more of their special atmosphere and quality if they continue to be lived in rather than treated as museum pieces. The preservation of Pitchford's unique character remains entirely compatible with residential use. This is in part a tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Colthurst, who did so much to secure the condition of the hall with the assistance of the grants from English Heritage. They have also in recent years opened Pitchford to the public during August to share their pleasure in the property. I have had many letters from members of the public who have enjoyed Mrs. Colthurst's tours of the house so much that they have written to me praising her hospitality. It is indeed sad that the Colthursts' losses in the insurance market have prevented them from completing their work at Pitchford and from remaining in the house.
Country houses are one of the great cultural achievements of our nation and we owe a debt of gratitude to all those who put their own resources into maintaining them, especially those who allow us to share them inside as well as out. It is neither possible nor desirable for Government to take over all such properties. One cannot simply buy for the nation the atmosphere of a house such
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as Pitchford—something would be lost, whatever. Taking over country houses should always be a last resort. I believe that properties that have remained in private ownership should, as far as possible, remain a living part of our heritage. But if the private sector fails in its responsibilities in caring for our common inheritance, we shall not hesitate to take action.
Only the other week I visited the Crescent in Buxton, one of the country's foremost Georgian buildings, also listed grade I, and now in a sorry state of disrepair. I have made it clear to the owners that if they fail to implement a satisfactory repair programme, the Secretary of State will, for the first time, use powers available to him for over 20 years to serve a repairs notice on them and, although I hope that that would not be necessary, ultimately to take compulsory purchase action.
Pitchford hall is not like Buxton. The Colthursts, with English Heritage's help, made great efforts to maintain the fabric of the house and it is thankfully not at risk in that way. So the case for intervention would have to be very strong.
The case was made first by the National Trust. It took the view earlier this year that, although the hall itself was not at risk, it would be desirable if the contents of the property, were to remain in situ. If the house were sold privately, the contents would be dispersed at auction and the family association lost.
The value of keeping a house and its contents together is always a more difficult issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South has referred to the case of Mentmore and to the outcry which followed that decision. After Mentmore, hon. Members of all parties—not least the hon. Member for Linlithgow—determined that new arrangements should be established and they were, as my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South outlined.
It was, therefore, to the National Heritage Memorial Fund that the National Trust quite properly looked for publicly funded support when considering taking Pitchford as the trust itself did not have the resources. The National Trust has a responsibility to its members and, indeed, to the nation to ensure that it does not acquire property which it could not afford properly to maintain and run. It therefore requires the establishment of an endowment fund, to which it might contribute from its own resources, which will produce a stream of income sufficient to fund any foreseeable expenditure. In the case of Pitchford, it would also need to fund works which could accommodate greatly increased numbers of visitors passing through its fragile structure, as public access would be greatly increased.
The National Trust bill would have been significantly more than £13 million, well beyond even the National Heritage Memorial Fund's increased resources without pre-empting virtually all other heritage expenditure.
However, the chairman of English Heritage, given the public interest in Pitchford, suggested to Ministers that if they gave the highest priority to keeping Pitchford and its contents together he might be able to secure that end by harnessing NHMF money with English Heritage money and private sector resources. That was a very different proposal from the one that the National Trust had put to the NHMF. It would be cheaper not only in the short term but, with luck—I repeat, with luck—in the long term, given that the level of public access would have remained at about one month a year.

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This, then, was the decision for Ministers. Pitchford hall itself was not at risk. Its contents, while not comparable with Mentmore's, had clearly had a strong appeal for visitors in their appropriateness to the house and in representing a single family's changing taste over the centuries, especially the 19th and 20th.
Against that was the pressure on English Heritage's own resources and the concern about the implications, even if everything went smoothly, for the priorities already established. Taking on Pitchford would have had a significant impact on major parts of the body's programme. Even if the house could have been successfully leased, English Heritage would have accepted responsibility for the full cost of the essential repairs to the historic fabric and other costs, which would have been a continuing drain on its resources.
Pitchford would have reduced English Heritage's ability to save important buildings actually at risk of destruction and to bring to a proper standard of repair properties already in its care. There is a backlog about which the National Audit Office has already commented. Pitchford would also have reduced the body's ability to help other private owners, as it had the Colthursts, to maintain important houses.
Mr. Dalyell: What puzzles those such as Lord Montagu of Beaulieu—who authorised me to say that, had he still been the chairman of English Heritage, he would have regarded Pitchford as a resigning matter—is where on earth the figure of £13 million comes from. The costs of running a house such as Pitchford should not be anything like £13 million. Where does the figure come from? How is it made up?
Mr. Key: That figure represents the cost of putting together the endowment fund. The National Heritage Memorial Fund would have been able to find something in excess of £3 million, but we estimate that it would have probably turned to the Government for in excess of £10 million to make up the balance. Those are not just my figures—they are the sums which would have been needed to form a fund sufficient to cover the running costs of the house and the repairs that would have been necessary.
Other houses on which work is done, and which would have been deprived of resources, may not have the same high and photogenic profile as Pitchford hall, but that work forms the core of the effort to preserve the best of the built heritage in England. We have increased the grant in aid to English Heritage by 35 per cent. in real terms between its establishment in 1983 and 1991–92 so that it can achieve its objectives in these areas. Even so, to divert resources from its priority tasks to Pitchford would have jeopardised its ability to carry out its statutory duties for years ahead.
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In its recent report, the National Audit Office focused on this very issue, spelling out the consequences for English Heritage's work of taking over Brodsworth hall in south Yorkshire, for which it had not planned.
In weighing up these issues, my right hon. and learned Friend and I had before us the views of our statutory advisers, English Heritage and others, including the National Heritage Memorial Fund, which did not apply for any extra Government grant and, of course, the views of informed and interested members of the public. In the circumstances, we had to conclude that retaining Pitchford's contents in situ could not take precedence over all else.
It is, of course, very sad for the Colthursts that they have been unable to continue to live in the house, but I trust that Pitchford hall will continue to flourish in private hands for centuries to come.
Lessons have been learnt on all sides. I welcome the suggestion by my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South that we should get together—indeed, I have an open door. I look forward to visiting Pitchford so that I can see for myself the glories of that particularly English country house.
Mr. Dalyell: I beg the Minister to be a bit careful about the Mentmore example. It so happens that the Roseberys are my friends and constituents, and there was a strong argument for bringing much of the beautiful furniture from Mentmore to Dalmeny, which is open to the public. I strongly agree with what the Minister said about the fragile structure of some houses, and that we should not have too many feet tramping through places such as Pitchford—otherwise one gets into the sort of difficulties that Craigievar has had, and people damage what they have come to see.
Finally, I beg the Government to reflect on the £13 million and consider whether they are not in danger of going for complete, end-of-century solutions, rather than for interim solutions. In dealing with fragile houses such as Pitchford, interim solutions may be the best policy.
Mr. Key: It is my clear intention and determination to ensure that our common heritage is looked after in a proper manner. It is clear to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and me that we have a responsibility to ensure not only that the heritage is looked after properly but that it is passed on to future generations in an appropriate state. We also bear in mind the fact that we have a responsibility to create the heritage of the future. That is part of the purpose of the new Department of National Heritage.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.