Commons Sitting of 31 October 1994

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
Mr. Nick Hawkins: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker: I shall take points of order after questions.

Oral Answers to Questions
  NATIONAL HERITAGE

    Television Company Mergers
    Mr. Rooker: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage when he will next meet the chairman of the Independent Television Commission to discuss television company mergers.
    The Secretary of State for National Heritage (Mr. Stephen Dorrell): I shall meet the chairman of the Independent Television Commission on 2 November. I expect to discuss a number of broadcasting issues, including ownership.
    Mr. Rooker: It is clear that, following its purchase of Central Television, Carlton is asset-stripping it, with massive job losses and the abandonment of the commitment to keep two studios for regional programmes and news in Birmingham. When the Secretary of State meets the chairman, will he ask whether it was known when Central Television bid for the franchise that, with only £2,000 a year on offer and no competition, Carlton Television was waiting in the wings to buy it up and strip it?
    Mr. Dorrell: With respect, the hon. Gentleman is concentrating on the wrong issue. What matters to residents of the midlands region is the quality of television output that is available to them. The ITC is there to monitor the standards set out in the Broadcasting Act 1990 and in the licence, and that is what it will do.
    Mr. McLoughlin: When my hon. Friend meets the chairman, will he bear in mind the fact that BBC I and BBC2 can both provide nationwide services, as can Channel 4? Is it not about time that we had a radical review of the ownership of television companies, which are prevented from undertaking mergers at present?
    Mr. Dorrell: As my hon. Friend will be aware, a review of the ownership provisions for Channel 3 television companies is being undertaken. When we have had an opportunity to assess our views, and the responses that we have received from others in the industry, we shall publish our conclusions.
    Mr. Grocott: Cannot the Secretary of State appreciate that, six short years ago, there were four
    1194
    thriving studios at Central Television in Birmingham—three large ones and a news one—and a whole range of specialisms and professional groups covering the film industry? We now face the prospect of there being one small news studio, and there has been a haemorrhage of jobs. Surely it is common sense to review the decision that was made last year to allow the takeover of Central by Carlton. It is viewers and, indeed, people who work in the industry who matter, not those who seem to have been the only concern of the Government so far—the owners of the industry and a few people who have made a huge amount of money out of it.
    Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman was right in at least one respect when he said that it is viewers who matter. The ITC is there to police standards set out in the Act and the licence, and to ensure that all Channel 3 licensees observe those standards. That is precisely what it is doing. Of course, companies are much better placed to be able to deliver those commitments if their finances are strong and they are looking forward to a secure commercial future.
    Mr. Allen: I welcome the Secretary of State to his new duties. As I have been in my present position for all of four days, I shall ask what is perhaps a naive question—it may not happen again. When the right hon. Gentleman meets the chair of the ITC, will he discuss what seems to be an obvious trend towards coalitions of regional companies, perhaps resulting in one company only for independent television in this country? Is that something that the Secretary of State would facilitate, is it something that he would discourage or is it something that he feels should be left entirely to the free market?
    Mr. Dorrell: As I said in my original answer, we shall certainly discuss a range of broadcasting issues, including ownership. As the hon. Gentleman will know, even after the changes that took place earlier this year, there are still substantial restrictions on a trend, which he may fear, towards a single Channel 3 broadcasting combine. That is certainly not the direction in which the Government expect broadcasting to go.

    National Lottery
    Ms Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what assessment he has made of the progress of the national lottery.
    Mr. Dorrell: Everything is well on course for the launch of the national lottery on 14 November. The press advertising campaign began yesterday, and ticket sales are due to start on 14 November for the first live jackpot draw on 19 November. Money for the good causes that the national lottery has been established to support will flow through just a few days later.
    I have today issued directions to the distributing bodies for which I am responsible to ensure the proper financial management and control of national lottery proceeds. I can also announce that the Arts Council, sports councils, the national heritage memorial fund and the Millennium Commission have now established firm dates for the publication of their application forms and detailed guidance to applicants for national lottery

    1195
    funds. The first applications for funds will be invited on 4 January, and the first national lottery grants will be announced in early 1995.
    The National Lottery Charities Board is conducting widespread consultations to ensure that the procedures that it puts in place best serve the interests of the voluntary sector. The board will issue detailed guidance when that process is complete.
    The financial directions that I have issued today to the distributing bodies that fall within my departmental responsibility are also being issued by the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland.
    Madam Speaker: That was not an answer to a question but a statement.
    Ms Eagle: It was the first time I had ever listened to such a long reply from a Minister to such a simple question.
    Will the Secretary of State explain why, amid all this frantic activity, Mr. Nicholas Hinton, the chief executive of the Millennium Commission, was sacked? Who took that decision, and why?
    Mr. Dorrell: I apologise to you, Madam Speaker, if my answer took the form of a statement. I was asked what assessment I had made of the progress of the national lottery and I was anxious that the House should have a full impression of that assessment.
    Madam Speaker: I, too, am anxious that the House should have a full impression, but I am also anxious that questions and answers should be brisk and to the point.
    Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Lady asked who decided that Mr. Hinton's employment should be terminated. The answer is the Millennium Commission. She also asked why. The Millennium Commission believed that differences of opinion had arisen between itself and Mr. Hinton that would not allow his employment to be a success.
    Mr. Key: Will my right hon. Friend join me in sending good wishes to the thousands of lottery ticket sellers and operators throughout the country? Will he join me in congratulating the football pools on responding to the competition so magnificently, as a result of which we have better pools and a new national lottery? Will he join me in saying how pleased we are that at last we are beginning to take the guilt out of gambling?
    Mr. Dorrell: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The launch of the national lottery is a great success story. In the months since the lottery licence was awarded, almost 11,500 outlets have been prepared for the launch of the national lottery and almost 33,000 employees have been trained to ensure that it is a success when it is launched.
    Mr. Maclennan: Did the Secretary of State participate in the dismissal of Mr. Hinton from his position? Will he give us a clear understanding of whether he intends to maintain an arm's-length relationship from all the bodies that will be funded and the distribution of their funds?
    Mr. Dorrell: I am not in a good position to maintain an arm's-length relationship with the Millennium
    1196
    Commission, as I am its chairman. The answer to the question whether I was there when the decision was taken is yes.

    National Lottery
    Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what recent representations he has received about potential uses of receipts from the national lottery.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for National Heritage (Mr. Iain Sproat): I have received many representations from a wide range of individuals and organisations.
    Mr. Marshall: May I have an assurance from my hon. Friend that any advertisement placed by the national lottery in The Guardian will be neither a forgery nor placed on stolen newspaper?
    Mr. Sproat: That is a matter for Camelot and The Guardian.
    Mr. Skinner: What provisions have been made for those who make losses on the national lottery? I ask that question because I read in the paper today that, for that posh gambling den, Lloyd's, taxpayers in Britain will have to find £1.3 billion, including for 51 Tory Members of Parliament who made losses in that—
    Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is going wide of the question. I am sure that the Minister can deal with it.
    Mr. Skinner: If it is all right for the toffs—
    Madam Speaker: Order. I am sure that the Minister is capable of dealing with the first part of that question.
    Mr. Sproat: None.

    National Lottery
    Mr. Simon Coombs: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if he will make a statement on the issue of guidelines for applications for funds from the proceeds of the national lottery.
    Mr. Dorrell: As I have already said, I understand that most of the distributing bodies intend to publish their guidelines for applicants in November.
    Mr. Coombs: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree that the success of the national lottery is dependent on the widest possible spread of applications being made and, indeed, on many of them being successful? Does he agree that user-friendliness should be the key to the applications? When he reviews and gives his view on them, will he ensure that people are encouraged to opt in, rather than in any way to opt out, by making the guidelines on who may apply and be successful as wide as possible?
    Mr. Dorrell: It is obviously important that the guidelines communicate the purpose for which the lottery was established and the rules that the distributing bodies will apply in making their decisions. With that proviso, I agree with my hon. Friend that the lottery's success will be determined, in part, by the quality and range of the applications received by the distributor bodies. I would encourage any organisation that feels

    1197
    that it has a project that could benefit from lottery funding to get in touch with its distributor body and ensure that its project meets the criteria laid down.
    Mr. Maxton: When issuing guidelines to the various sports councils about how the money will be distributed, will the Secretary of State make it clear that they should not give money or grants to any sport that discriminates against women's participation?
    Mr. Dorrell: I am sure that it is the sports councils' policy not to distribute resources from the lottery or any other source to sporting bodies that engage in such discrimination.
    Mr. Jessel: Does my right hon. Friend think that more funds will be raised than was thought in the original, and apparently rather cautious, estimates?
    Mr. Dorrell: I have very good news for my hon. Friend. Our original estimates were quite cautious when set against those offered by Camelot in its offer for the licence. It estimates that, at its peak, the lottery will raise £1.6 billion a for the five good causes—an increase in resources for those activities in our national life on a scale that could not have been envisaged from any other source.
    Ms Hoey: Does the Secretary of State agree that the success of the national lottery will depend very much on whether the public feel totally confident that the maximum amount of money is going to good causes? Will he assure us that he will keep a careful watch on Camelot's profits, as other bidders wanted to run the lottery without making a profit? How will he monitor that?
    Mrs. Dorrell: Opposition Members have a unique capacity to focus on the wrong thing. In an earlier question, we discussed television ownership, and concern was expressed not about the rights of the viewer but about profits and shareholders. In the lottery, the key is not the profits earned by Camelot but the scale of the resources raised for good causes as a result of the lottery. The director general of Oflot is bound to apply that criterion when selecting licensees, and it is precisely the criterion that he applied when reaching the conclusion that Camelot offered the best deal to the distributor bodies of the various applicants for the lottery.

    National Lottery
    Mr. Carrington: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what proportion of the proceeds from the national lottery is to be used to retain in Britain more of the artistic heritage.
    Mr. Sproat: The allocation of lottery proceeds is a matter for the distributing bodies. The distribution of lottery funds to the heritage will be the responsibility of the national heritage memorial fund and it will be for it to decide which grants to make. It will receive 20 per cent. of the proceeds going to good causes, which could amount to more than £300 million a year when the lottery reaches its peak.
    Mr. Carrington: In view of the failure to retain many works of art that met the Waverley criteria, will my hon. Friend make it clear to the national heritage
    1198
    memorial fund that the retention of Waverley standard works of art in this country should be a priority use of lottery proceeds?
    Mr. Sproat: I know that my hon. Friend has a long and distinguished history of interest in and grip of the subject, and he is right to say that artefacts that the Waverley committee deemed should have a deferral whacked on them should be eligible for lottery funds. I will ensure that the fund understands that.
    Mrs. Anne Campbell: Does the Secretary of State share his predecessor's view that a substantial proportion of lottery funds should be used to support scientific projects and those that promote public understanding of science?
    Mr. Sproat: Yes, that will be taken into full consideration.
    Sir Anthony Grant: I appreciate the importance of purely artistic heritage, but will the guidelines be wide enough to include such excellent projects as museums—for instance, the imperial war museum at Duxford in my constituency? Will the Minister accept an invitation to come and see the good work that goes on there?
    Mr. Sproat: I certainly will accept such an invitation, but I gather that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has done so for tomorrow. The answer to the main part of my hon. Friend's question is yes.

    National Lottery
    Ms Hodge: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage to what extent the lottery distributors bodies have been required to consult his Department when setting up their operations.
    Mr. Sproat: The distributing bodies have kept my Department and other Departments with lottery responsibilities closely informed about the development of their systems. The bodies will be required to have their systems certified by the National Audit Office before they will be allowed to draw down lottery money to make grants.
    Ms Hodge: Does the Minister agree that publishing the financial regulations today—two weeks before the lottery begins—was too late? Will the financial regulations be made available to us, and not just to the lottery bodies? Does he further agree that publishing the regulations just two weeks before the lottery begins is mismanagement and incompetence on a par with the payment of bills at the Ritz hotel in Paris?
    Mr. Sproat: The answers to the hon. Lady's questions are no, yes and no.
    Mr. Chris Smith: Returning to the question of the millennium fund, is it not astonishing that the commissioners saw fit to sack Mr. Nicholas Hinton—who had an absolutely outstanding reputation at organisations where he had previously served—before he had even taken up his formal post? Surely that must suggest that something is seriously wrong with the way in which the commission is going about its work. Does

    1199
    not that bode ill for a process that, so far, has no ground rules, no application criteria, no proper guidelines and now, it would seem, no one in charge?
    Mr. Sproat: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new responsibilities.
    My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has explained the circumstances of Mr. Hinton's dismissal. The hon. Gentleman will know that an appointee of the Labour party sits as a commissioner. That appointee was involved not only in the decision to appoint Mr. Hinton but in the decision to terminate his contract. The fact that the position of chief executive is now being readvertised will not delay what the millennium fund will do.
    Mr. Barry Porter: Has my hon. Friend received any representations from the Opposition that would help us to understand why they are whingeing and griping about something that is clearly going to be a great success?
    Mr. Sproat: It will be a great success, and I welcome my hon. Friend's support.

    Central Television
    Mr. Mike O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage when he is next due to meet the chairman of the Independent Television Commission to discuss the future of Central Television.
    Mr. Dorrell: I shall meet the chairman of the Independent Television Commission on 2 November and expect to discuss a number of broadcasting issues. The future of Central Television is a matter for the company itself.
    Mr. O'Brien: Given the inadequacy of the Secretary of State's answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), does the Minister understand that there is deep concern in the west midlands, not only about the 180 redundancies but about the breach of the licensing application promises to build a new studio? Does regional television now mean nothing? Is Birmingham to be just an outpost of the lucrative empire that Carlton runs from London?
    Mr. Dorrell: No, it will not be simply an outpost of the Carlton franchise in London. It will be a separate and free-standing franchise, which the ITC will police. The key issue for viewers in the west midlands—and, indeed, for my constituents in the east midlands—is the quality of the output that is broadcast by Central Television. That must determine the future of the Channel 3 licence in the midlands.
    Mr. Anthony Coombs: I agree with my right hon. Friend that the quality of the output of regional television is extremely important, but is it not also important that production takes place within the regions and within the biggest city of a region? Is it not at least regrettable, therefore, that Central Television is now reconsidering its decision to site production at Birmingham rather than at Nottingham?
    Mr. Dorrell: My hon. Friend will be aware that the Broadcasting Act and the licence, granted to Central require the production of regional material, and that that material is produced within the region of the franchise.
    1200
    That is laid down in principle in the Act and in detail in each Channel 3 company's licence. That licence will be enforced.
    Mr. Fisher: It is breaking the franchise agreement.
    Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman says that Central is breaking the licence agreement. If that is true, the hon. Gentleman should report the matter to the ITC, which is responsible for enforcing the licence. If he can substantiate his charge, I have no doubt that the ITC will take appropriate action.

    Tourism (North-West)
    Mr. Hawkins: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what plans he has to encourage inward tourism to Britain, with particular reference to north-west England.
    Mr. Dorrell: My Department is providing a grant in aid to the British Tourist Authority of £33.2 million in the current financial year to promote the United Kingdom overseas as a tourist destination. It is an objective of the British Tourist Authority to encourage the distribution of tourists throughout the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Hawkins: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree that the most important tourist attraction in the north-west is the world-famous Blackpool illuminations? Will he join me in condemning the irresponsible action of Blackpool's Labour council, which has proposed to cut three quarters of a mile of those illuminations in my constituency? I thank my right hon. Friend for agreeing to meet me and my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Elletson) to consider a more constructive way of addressing the problem than that so far suggested by the Labour council.
    Mr. Dorrell: My hon. Friend makes his own point extremely effectively. Every Member of the House is fully aware of the importance to Blackpool of the illuminations and of their economic effects during the autumn of each year. I am sure that my hon. Friend will want to pursue that argument vigorously with his local Labour council.
    Mr. Pike: Is the Secretary of State aware of the tremendous industrial heritage of Burnley and north-east Lancashire in the north-west, which attracts many people? Will he consider promoting that industrial heritage as part of the campaign to attract tourists to the country?
    Mr. Dorrell: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that our industrial heritage is a tourist resource that could and should be more effectively exploited than it has been. I look forward to receiving his support in making economic sense of some of those proposals.
    Mr. David Nicholson: As someone who was brought up in the north-west, I naturally share the interest the House has shown in Blackpool tower and tourism throughout that region, but does my right hon. Friend recognise that those who are involved in tourism in my constituency in the south-west are extremely anxious

    1201
    that the English regions should be able to compete on a level playing field with Scotland and Wales to attract tourists? Will he address that important issue?
    Mr. Dorrell: I agree that every region of the country has an important interest in ensuring that its tourist industry is vigorously and successfully expanded. As I have told representatives of the industry, the key responsibility for doing so rests, of course, with the industry itself. It is an enormously successful industry, which accounts for roughly 7 per cent. of our national income, and it does not need a pension-taxpayer subsidy. What it needs is the clear and vigorous support of the Government, and that it will have.

    Sports Facilities (Hampshire)
    Mr. Denham: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if he will make a statement on the provision of sports facilities in Hampshire.
    Mr. Sproat: Provision of sport facilities in Hampshire is in line with that for other counties in the region.
    Mr. Denham: Is the Minister aware that planning permission has now been confirmed for a new community stadium at the northern edge of Southampton, which will not only provide a 25,000-seater stadium for the Saints football club, but an international-class athletics stadium, all-weather pitches and an indoor sports hall? As that project would make Southampton the sports capital of the south of England, does the Minister agree that everyone concerned in the project, especially the county council, should join in the efforts of the Saints football club and Southampton city council to complete it at the earliest opportunity?
    Mr. Sproat: I know that the hon. Gentleman has taken a keen interest in this matter for a long time. I was interested to see that the crowd at the Dell on Saturday was more than 15,000, which is jolly near capacity. That makes the point for moving to Stoneham. I hope that that important project will be successful and that all the complexities that have bedevilled it for so long will reach a conclusion so that Southampton football club can move to a new, decent ground with lots of athletics facilities for other sports for the wider community.
    Mr. Pendry: On the subject of sports facilities, was it not a bit rich of our supposedly sports-loving Prime Minister at the Tory party conference to deplore those who are selling off playing fields—
    Madam Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but this question relates specifically to sports facilities in Hampshire. Will he relate his question to Hampshire?
    Mr. Pendry:—including playing fields in Hampshire. Why did not the Prime Minister say instead that the Government would scrap the circular that allows councils to do just that?
    Mr. Sproat: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about Hampshire and the rest of the country. I am extremely keen to ensure that so many school sports pitches are not sold off in future. We shall look again at
    1202
    the 1980 regulation and the planning policy guidance note of September 1991, and see what we can do to improve matters.

    Tourism (Deregulation)
    Mr. Sweeney: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what steps he plans to take with regard to deregulation in the tourist industry.
    Mr. Dorrell: My Department has already taken up a number of regulatory issues of concern to the tourist industry and some progress has been made. We shall continue to seek the easing or removal of administrative and bureaucratic burdens that impair the industry's ability to compete effectively with other countries.
    Mr. Sweeney: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the relief that that will bring to many of my constituents given that tourism is important in the Vale of Glamorgan, where we have several miles of lovely coastline, some beautiful scenery and a number of beaches? Barry island has been much improved in recent years with the help of a grant from the Welsh Office. When an opportunity arises, would my right hon. Friend care to visit the Vale of Glamorgan and experience for himself some of the excellent hotels and guest houses available at a reasonable price?
    Mr. Dorrell: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his invitation. He makes an important point, because any industry that is subject to a regulatory burden is subject to costs being imposed on it by Parliament or the Government. It is essential that, before imposing those costs, we ask whether good value will be incurred as a result. That is the test that we shall apply to each regulation, existing and proposed, that affects the tourist industry.

    Rugby Football
    Mr. Hinchliffe: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what steps he is taking to deal with discrimination against rugby league players by the Rugby Football Union.
    Mr. Sproat: The regulations of independent and properly constituted governing bodies of sport are a matter for them, but I have met representatives from the Rugby Football Union, the Rugby Football League and the International Rugby Football Board to discuss the issue of discrimination, and I remain hopeful that there can be positive dialogue between the two codes for the benefit of the sport as a whole.
    Mr. Hinchliffe: In the course of the Minister's welcome efforts to deal with that matter, has he had an opportunity to study the comments of Mr. Mike Catt, the England rugby union international who is currently under investigation for receiving payments for playing rugby union? He is reported as having said this weekend that, if he is banned, everybody else will have to be banned as well. Given that the only real difference now between top league and union players is the fact that league players pay national insurance and income tax, is it not about time

    1203
    that the rugby union authorities recognised the utter nonsense of its proposed three-year ban on league players who choose to return to union?
    Mr. Sproat: I had the great pleasure and privilege this weekend of speaking to Mr. Mike Catt and the rest of the Bath team—and what a team, what a club! I agree that we have a serious problem with professionalism and amateurism. I pay tribute to the work that the hon. Gentleman did on the Sports Discrimination Bill, which concentrated minds on the matter and as a consequence of which we are making progress. I also saw Mr. Vernon Pugh, who said that we must all be "reasonable" about this matter. I hope that he will be. I am sure that the authorities will be and that we shall make real progress—it is to be hoped, next year, which is the centenary year of rugby league.
    Mr. Waller: Has my hon. Friend noticed recent legal developments in Australia which have evidently caused the International Rugby Football Board to consider a change in its position relating to those players who have formerly played rugby league? As the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) said, among the best-paid sportsmen in this country are some top rugby union players. Might it not be reasonable to conclude that a ban on former rugby league players would be a restraint on trade?
    Mr. Sproat: I have studied the cases of Brett Papworth, Tony Melrose, and Brett Iti in New Zealand, and it would be interesting if those were to provide precedents for what happened in our courts.
    As for restraint of trade, it is true that the Rugby Football Union allows rugby union players to make money—not directly from rugby, although obviously that money is made because they play rugby. Although I am no lawyer, I should have thought that, prima facie, the court would want to take that into account if someone such as Mr. Stuart Evans wanted to take his case to court.
    Mr. Bermingham: But does the Minister agree that discrimination between the two codes extends not only to payment but to investment? Perhaps he and his Department will bear in mind the needs of rugby league, and especially the effects on rugby league grounds of the Taylor committee's findings, which now restrict the sport.
    Mr. Sproat: I agree, and there is a basic unfairness about the central point that trouble at football grounds is mainly caused at soccer matches and soccer receives all the help, whereas no trouble is caused at rugby league matches and rugby league receives little help. I want to find a way of sorting that out.

    Encouragement of Sport
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what steps he is taking to ensure that sport plays a regular part in the life of every (a) child and (b) adult.
    Mr. Sproat: The Department of National Heritage supports the provision of sporting opportunities for both children and adults through the grant in aid that we give the Sports Council and the funding that we provide for
    1204
    Sportsmatch. The Department has also been responsible for the establishment of the national lottery, which will provide a significant new source of funding for sport.
    Mr. Greenway: Does my hon. Friend agree that, although it is most valuable for children to play games outside the school curriculum, in clubs where adults also play and enjoy them, it is extremely valuable and important for children to play games at school, in the school ethos, with all the civilising influences that that has? Does he agree that there is something in team games for every child at school, including the rabbit?
    Mr. Sproat: Yes. Nothing has been said in the House this afternoon with which I agree more. It is extremely important that team games be taught, not only through governing bodies and outside sports clubs—which is vital—but in the ethos of schools. Team games are just as beneficial for rabbits as they are for anyone else.
    Mr. Miller: Will the Minister discuss with his colleagues in the Department of the Environment the gap of provision that occurs in the context of medium-sized towns such as Ellesmere Port, where, because money has tended to drift towards the larger centres in and around the north-west, there are enormous gaps? The Minister can tackle that in consultation with his friends in the Department of the Environment and the Department for Education. It is about time that they did something about it.
    Mr. Sproat: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. At this moment, we are having extremely helpful talks with the Department for Education, which are advancing steadily. We also have a register of sports pitches for the first time—we got it at the end of last year. I would be glad to have a talk with the hon. Gentleman to discuss any detailed proposals that he has in mind.
    Mr. Haselhurst: In emphasising the importance of sport in school, will my hon. Friend accept that a sport such as cricket is especially difficult for many schools to handle out of hours because of transport problems and so on, and that it is therefore important, if that sport is to receive the boost that it deserves, that support be given to the voluntary clubs that are willing to play a part in coaching and encouraging youngsters to develop and extend their love of what is, after all, one of our most traditional games?
    Mr. Sproat: What my hon. Friend says is absolutely true. I have asked the Sports Council specifically to make recommendations as to how sports clubs can help young people—how they can link with schools more to achieve the ends that my right hon. Friend and I wish to be achieved with regard to cricket and other team games.

    National Lottery
    Mr. Ainger: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage which bodies will be responsible for distributing national lottery funds to organisations seeking to promote and assist children's play in England and Wales.
    Mr. Sproat: It is for all the national lottery distributing bodies operating in England and Wales to consider the eligibility of projects submitted by children's play organisations in the light of the requirements of the

    1205
    National Lottery Etc. Act 1993 and the policy directions issued by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State under that Act.
    Mr. Ainger: Does the Minister accept that, now that we are a fortnight away from the introduction of the national lottery, it is unacceptable that organisations supporting children's play still do not know which distribution body will deal with play? Is it not outrageous that, literally 14 days away from the start of the national lottery, those many organisations throughout England and Wales do not know to whom they should apply?
    Mr. Sproat: No, it is not outrageous. In practice, applications will be received from 4 January so there is plenty of time. The overwhelming majority of the 11 distributing bodies will issue their guidelines this month. The matter will then be clear. To be fair, a difference of opinion exists as to whether children's play comes under the Sports Council but it certainly comes under charities and the Millennium Commission. We shall sort out the Sports Council point in good time.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is gratifying that hon. Members on both sides of the House—even the Liberal Democrats—are keen to see money from the lotteries that have been set up by the Government being spent? Will he take the warmest congratulations of the House on pushing forward with that policy? All hon. Members look forward to having the opportunity on 14 November to buy a ticket and to donate to a charity at the same time.
    Mr. Sproat: Yes.

  ATTORNEY-GENERAL

    Matrix Churchill
    Mr. Mike O'Brien: To ask the Attorney-General what representations he has received in the last month about the impact of decisions he has made on the former workers at Matrix Churchill.
    The Attorney-General (Sir Nicholas Lyell): I have received only one representation on this matter. It arrived from the hon. Gentleman this morning.
    Mr. O'Brien: I just wanted to be sure that the Attorney-General did not forget, as national newspapers seem to have forgotten, that hundreds of Matrix Churchill workers lost their jobs as a result of his decision to prosecute the directors. If he has any sympathy for those workers, many of whom are my constituents, will he say that, if the Government are criticised in the Scott report, he and the Government will take steps to ensure that those workers and their families are compensated for the loss of their livelihood which arose as a result of their decision?
    The Attorney-General: Without being unsympathetic to the workers, I should like to say that the hon. Gentleman should not start rewriting history. First, he knows that Customs and Excise is an independent prosecuting authority and took its decision in that capacity some 18 months before I became significantly involved. Secondly, he has understandably already ventilated his
    1206
    views on the matter—in a debate on 14 April this year involving his hon. Friends, my hon. Friends and the Department of Trade and Industry.
    Mr. Matthew Banks: Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm and make it clear to the House that the decision to prosecute in this case was taken early in 1991 before any reference was made to my right hon. and learned Friend? Will he also confirm that, in any case, he would not normally be involved in such a decision to prosecute, given that Customs and Excise is an independent prosecuting authority?
    The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend is right on both of those two points. There was an 18-month gap between the two. Any future questions on this matter must await the views of the inquiry and Lord Justice Scott.

    Mr. Asil Nadir
    Mr. Spellar: To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement about progress in the case of Mr. Asil Nadir.
    The Attorney General: Mr. Asil Nadir remains outside the jurisdiction in circumstances which make it impossible at present to execute the warrant for his arrest or to seek his extradition. Interpol has been notified of the warrant.
    Mr. Spellar: Is it not about time that the Government started to progress with a little bit more enthusiasm and energy? Will the Minister accept that, if they do not, there will be considerable suspicion not just in the House but in the rest of the country that they do not want Mr. Nadir back because they are afraid that he will do the same to them as Mr. Al Fayed did?
    The Attorney-General: The Serious Fraud Office and I would welcome Mr. Asil Nadir's return at once to face trial on the charges on which he stands charged. The SFO is ready to prosecute him as soon as he returns.
    Mrs. Angela Knight: While investigating the case of Mr. Asil Nadir, will my right hon. and learned Friend also ask the SFO to investigate the case of the editor of The Guardian who has used a stolen letter heading—
    Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady must resume her seat. Her comments do not relate to this question.
    Mr. John Morris: Will the Attorney-General assure the House that—unlike what happens with many other wealthy defendants—there will be no question of legal aid being granted in this case? As the Lord Chancellor is investigating the whole question of criminal legal aid being granted to people with considerable resources, when the right hon. and learned Gentleman is consulted on this matter, will he bear in mind the criteria of fairness and efficiency in the courts on the one hand and the lack of civil legal aid for many of our constituents on the other?
    The Attorney-General: The right hon. and learned Gentleman—
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: That is disgraceful; biased.
    Madam Speaker: Order. If there is a point of order for me, perhaps the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) will raise it at the end of questions. I did not quite hear

    1207
    what he said, and I should like to hear it clearly then.[Interruption.] Order. I shall hear the point of order at the end of questions.
    The Attorney-General: As the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) knows, although legal aid questions used to be answered by Law Officers, they are now a matter for the Lord Chancellor. I have no doubt that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will want to raise his question on a more appropriate occasion.

    War Crimes Act 1991
    Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement about the operation of the War Crimes Act 1991.
    The Attorney-General: Police investigations in seven cases have now reached the stage where they have been referred to the Crown Prosecution Service to consider whether or not to seek my consent to prosecute. Investigations continue in these and other cases.
    Mr. Marshall: Will my right hon. and learned Friend assure me that those prosecutions will be brought speedily while the witnesses are still alive and that the war crimes unit will be retained until decisions are made in each of these cases?
    The Attorney-General: As my hon. Friend realises, these cases are extremely complex, but they are being pressed forward as fast as is reasonably possible. I shall certainly bear my hon. Friend's important points in mind.
    Mr. Janner: Will the Attorney-General recognise that what the hon. Member for Hendon, South {Mr. Marshall) has said is right? The longer time goes on, the more difficult it becomes to prosecute people even if there is sufficient evidence of personal involvement in mass murder. What sort of time scale does the right hon. and learned Gentleman have in mind for these cases to come to him?
    The Attorney-General: Of course I recognise what the hon. and learned Gentleman says. Not only did these events happen a very long time ago but those involved are necessarily quite old—and that does require that the cases be pushed forward as fast as they properly can be. That is how they will be pushed forward.

    Scott Inquiry
    Mrs. Roche: To ask the Attorney-General what requests his Department has received to give further evidence to the Scott inquiry.
    The Attorney-General: Since 12 May 1994 when I last answered a question on this subject, three officials in the Departments for which I have ministerial responsibility have been asked to give some further evidence in writing.
    Mrs. Roche: In consideration of that further evidence, does the Attorney-General now agree with Lord Justice Scott that it is unthinkable that public interest immunity
    1208
    was used to cover documents in the Matrix Churchill affair? Will he answer my question with a straight yes or no?
    The Attorney-General: The answer to the hon. Lady's first question is a matter for Lord Justice Scott, so I shall not answer that one. And I do not believe that she correctly quotes him in any event.

    Crown Prosecution Service
    Mr. Waterson: To ask the Attorney-General how many offices of the Crown Prosecution Service he has visited in the last six months; and if he will make a statement.
    The Attorney General: Since April I have visited four offices of the Crown Prosecution Service—in Maidstone, Newcastle, Chippenham, and Camberwell.
    Mr. Waterson: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for that answer. Is he wholly satisfied that the relationship between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service is all that it might be, particularly when it comes to preparing cases for prosecution?
    The Attorney-General: A good and close working relationship between the police and the CPS is essential if cases are to be brought speedily and efficiently to trial. I know from my visits that in most parts of the country that is well realised. The challenge is to bring the standard in both services up to the level of the best in both services. That done, we shall be doing very well indeed.
    Mr. Bermingham: Does the Attorney-General agree that in the 13 areas in which the CPS and its offices are contained there is a wide divergence of prosecuting policy? Quality control, for want of a better word, is not always the same in one area as in another. Would it not be a good idea to take steps to strengthen that side of the service, giving staff more input, so that people prosecuted in Newcastle and Exeter are prosecuted on the same basis?
    The Attorney-General: The hon. Gentleman is thinking along the same lines as the Crown Prosecution Service in the sense that it and the police are working to establish high standards of charging practice, to cut paperwork and bureaucracy to that which is strictly necessary for the task, and to see that high standards of liaison exist between the police and the CPS and vice versa. They are making significant progress in those directions.

    Lenient Sentences
    Mr. Hawkins: To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement about the recent extension of his powers to refer cases to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient sentences.
    The Attorney-General: My power to apply for leave to refer a sentence which I consider to be unduly lenient was extended in March 1994 to cover offences of indecent assault, making threats to kill, and cruelty or neglect of a child.

    1209
    My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has now announced the Government's intention further to extend my power to include sentences imposed in cases of serious or complex fraud.
    Mr. Hawkins: I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's answer. Can he confirm that, so far, sentences have been increased in 83 per cent. of cases referred to the Court of Appeal under the measure? The Labour party voted against that measure in 1991. So much far being "tough on crime". Will my right hon. and learned Friend further confirm that one of the sentences that it may be possible to refer is that for the crime of forgery? Will he look carefully at forgery offences, even those that are committed by editors of national newspapers?
    The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend is right to say that the Court of Appeal has increased sentences in about 83 per cent. of those cases for which it has given me leave to refer to it. It is also worth pointing out that the legislation has produced a significant increase in sentences in areas where it bites. That is valuable, and should be recognised by all hon. Members irrespective of whether they voted for the legislation.

  OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

    Bangladesh
    Mr. Hinchliffe: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the current level of British Government aid to Bangladesh.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Tony Baldry): I estimate that Britain provided more than £55 million in aid to Bangladesh in the financial year 1993–94.
    Mr. Hinchliffe: Is the Minister aware that, through the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, an all-party delegation went to Bangladesh in September and looked directly at the way in which that country is tackling some enormous problems? As a member of that delegation, I impress upon the Minister the crucial role of British aid for many of the projects that are helping Bangladesh to recover from some extreme difficulties. Will he look specifically at the impact of British overseas aid on Bangladesh and, in particular, will he defend our contribution in the current budgetary process?
    Mr. Baldry: I know that the hon. Gentleman takes a close interest in Bangladesh, which is the recipient of Britain's second largest, bilateral aid programme. That shows that we are focusing our efforts where they are most needed—on the poorest. That is why nearly 80 per cent. of our bilateral aid goes to the poorest countries.
    In Bangladesh we are helping to tackle the root causes of poverty by investment through Government and non-governmental organisations and through help with family planning, health, education and rural credits. We also support infrastructure projects such as the Dhaka power project and electricity distribution. That has meant that new workshops and factories for textiles and metalworking have sprung up to take advantage of newly available power supplies. We estimate that nearly 250,000 jobs are being created in that way, primarily for women.
    1210
    I fully support what the hon. Gentleman says about the quality of our aid programme for Bangladesh, which we shall certainly continue to support.
    Miss Emma Nicholson: What proportion of the aid for Bangladesh is spent on preventive health care? I am thinking particularly of the outcome in Bangladesh, with reference to British aid, of the recent world population conference in Cairo.
    Mr. Baldry: I cannot give my hon. Friend exact figures, but clearly the international conference in Cairo on population and development was a notable success. The conference agreed strategies for better reproductive health, which include access to family planning facilities. Over the next two years, we intend to approve 50 new health and population projects and commit more than £100 million to help to ensure that mothers are better able to have children by choice and not by chance. Some of those projects will certainly be in Bangladesh.

    Rwanda
    Mr. Corbett: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assistance is being given to the new Government of Rwanda to help with rehabilitation and reconstruction; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Baldry: Since April, we have provided £60 million of emergency aid. Of that, almost £2 million has gone to non-governmental organisations involved in programmes for immediate rehabilitation in Rwanda, mainly concerned with seeds and tool provision, the restarting of health care services and tracing and registration of unaccompanied children.
    Mr. Corbett: That help is welcome, but can the hon. Gentleman confirm that the Government plan to cut bilateral aid to Africa by £60 million over the next three years? Does he understand that money invested now in long-term development will save lives and money in future emergencies?
    Mr. Baldry: The hon. Gentleman heard me say that we have just committed ¢60 million to Rwanda alone. British aid has grown significantly during recent years—by 10 per cent. in real terms since 1987–88. This year's budget is almost £50 million higher than last year's. Indeed, in 1993 the United Kingdom was one of only seven countries in the world to increase its aid in real terms. We are the sixth largest aid donor worldwide.
    The size of our programmes is by no means the only factor; quality is also important, and our programmes are practical and effective. The quality of our aid programme is recognised worldwide, and it is one of which we can all be proud.
    Mr. Waterson: Does my hon. Friend agree that the speed of reaction and the generosity of this country in responding to tragedies such as that in Rwanda is second to none? Is it not positively churlish to suggest otherwise.
    Mr. Baldry: I hope that our achievements in Rwanda speak for themselves. The United Kingdom can be proud of what we have been doing in Rwanda. We have provided considerable support to a number of voluntary and non-governmental organisations; ODA cargo-handling teams have been working in the region since the start of the crisis; and since mid-July the ODA

    1211
    has organised more than 30 relief flights from the United Kingdom to Goma, containing vehicles, blankets, high-energy biscuits, water tankers, plastic sheeting and specialist staff. The water tanker team daily provides a third of a million litres of clean, life-saving water to refugee camps around Goma. We have contributed £60 million to relief aid in Rwanda. Britain is playing her part in the reconstruction of Rwanda and is helping to save lives there.
    Miss Lestor: The hon. Gentleman referred to the need for water. Is he aware of the report in the Daily Mirror today, which has been confirmed by Oxfam, to the effect that a fleet of water tanker lorries intended for Rwanda and already painted in the United Nations white colours is rotting away on a disused airfield in Diss in Norfolk? The Minister must be aware, as the whole country is aware, that in Rwanda in July, 6,000 people a day were dying from lack of clean water. The use of those water tankers could have saved the lives of people who died from cholera and waterborne diseases.
    Will the hon. Gentleman authorise an immediate investigation into the truth of the report and the role that the UN played—or failed to play—in getting that water to Rwanda?
    Mr. Baldry: I welcome the hon. Lady to her new post on the Opposition Front Bench. We are investigating the allegations, as we want all humanitarian actions to be as effective as possible. However, she may have been misled. I have a copy of a fax showing that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees told the Daily Mirror on 28 October—some three days ago—that the UNHCR owns no water tankers in Britain, is not negotiating to purchase any in Britain and has never been in any negotiations to purchase any in Britain. My understanding is that the water tankers to which the hon. Lady referred were bought by an American firm from the Soviet army some time ago. That firm has never been in negotiations to sell them to the UN.
    On the question of action by the ODA, we made immediate arrangements to transfer water tankers from Bosnia to Rwanda to meet the needs there. As I said
    1212
    earlier, water tankers from the United Kingdom are daily providing a third of a million litres of clean water to refugee camps around Goma.
    Mr. Matthew Banks: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not the quantity of aid to Rwanda that is significant but its quality? In any case, the British overseas aid programme is one of the finest of its kind in the world.
    Mr. Baldry: I entirely agree. All independent assessments of overseas aid programmes have concluded that United Kingdom programmes are of high quality, and we are determined that they will remain so.
    Mr. Carrington: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what support is being given to help non-governmental work in Rwanda.
    Mr. Baldry: Since 6 April we have specifically provided£15.5 million to non-governmental organisations implementing emergency relief programmes to displaced and refugee Rwandans.
    Mr. Carrington: Does my hon. Friend agree that NGOs are providing effective assistance in Rwanda and that their work is the best way of getting assistance to the people in that unhappy country.
    Mr. Baldry: I entirely agree, which is why we have been providing considerable support to NGOs for CARE's emergency relief operations in south-west Rwanda, and have part-funded Oxfam's water provision programme in Goma and the Save the Children Fund's health and child-tracing programme in north-west and south-west Rwanda. Often, NGOs can get to areas that recognised Governments or Government bodies cannot reach, which is why we have increasingly been working with NGOs in Rwanda and elsewhere in the world.

  House of Commons Writing Paper
  Madam Speaker: I have a brief statement to make following accounts of the misuse of House of Commons writing paper by The Guardian newspaper.
  The House makes facilities available to the press so that our proceedings may be reported, not so that the name of the House can be used to give false authority to a newspaper's own activities. I take this matter very seriously indeed. I have asked the Serjeant at Arms to investigate all the circumstances, so that I can decide what further action it would be appropriate to take. I shall not have anything further to say until I receive the Serjeant's report.

Points of Order
3.30 pm
Mr. Peter Bottomley: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Legal aid is a matter for the Lord Chancellor's Department. On Question 31, there were three supplementaries. The first might be judged a smear. You, Madam Speaker, ruled the second out of order. The third was a lengthy question from the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris), who asked about civil legal aid. As the question went on, I accused him of bias and of moving away from the point.
If that was interpreted as a comment on your ruling, Madam Speaker, I apologise unreservedly. However, it is very exasperating when a right hon. Member is allowed to ramble on, away from the point, so that right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House are held up when they try to deal with points relating to your own statement. Nevertheless, I apologise if my remarks came out wrong.
Madam Speaker: I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Of course I am always willing to learn, but I do not think that I need any lessons from the hon. Gentleman. However, if he thinks that there are lessons that I can learn from that exchange, perhaps he will use the Order Paper to put down a substantive question.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: Further to that point of order—
Madam Speaker: Order. I understood the hon. Gentleman, and I certainly accept his apology, if he has apologised to me. That matter is ended now, and I would like it to finish right away. I have made my point.
Mr. Bottomley: In my point of order, Madam Speaker, I plainly explained what was in my mind, and I unreservedly withdrew my remarks if they were interpreted as criticism of the Chair. If I may respectfully say so, the remarks that followed were not called for.
Hon. Members: Order!
Madam Speaker: Order. All through Question Time, I have my ears riveted to what is being said, but I can also hear what goes on in other parts of the Chamber. I think that I heard clearly, but I accept the right hon. Gentleman's apology, which I believe is what it was, if there was any misunderstanding. I think that the matter should be left there.
Mr. John Hutton: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Have you received any request for a statement to be made in respect of the proposed acquisition of—Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd. in my constituency by GEC or British Aerospace? Six thousand jobs in my constituency are completely dependent on VSEL, and my constituents would welcome the opportunity for the Government to clear up any confusion about whether they would block either of those bids for VSEL.
Dr. John Cunningham: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. Is it not extraordinary, when many thousands of jobs are at stake, not only at Barrow-in-Furness but on the Clyde at Yarrow, when
1214
there are hugely important matters of national interest in warship building, and the taxpayer's interest facing the prospect of a single provider and a single purchaser—
Madam Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman must come to his point of order for me. We are not in debate.
Dr. Cunningham: Is it not extraordinary that the House is denied the opportunity to question Ministers? Will the Leader of the House assure us that a statement will be made to the House of the Government's intentions? [Interruption.]
Madam Speaker: Order. I can respond to those points of order. I should prefer that they had been put to me correctly. I have not received any request by a Minister to make a statement on these matters.
Mr. Oliver Heald: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Would it be in order for the Committee of Privileges to start a separate inquiry, in addition to your own, into the behaviour of the editor of The Guardian so that—[Interruption]
Madam Speaker: Order. I am on my feet.
As I think the hon. Gentleman and the House knows—if they do not, let me make it quite clear—I will always look at matters of privilege, which the hon. Gentleman is now raising, but they must be put to me in writing. I hope that any other hon. Member who wishes to raise such matters will first put them to me in writing, so that I may look at them and respond properly.
Mr. Tony Banks: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Are you aware that Westminster underground station has been closed for most of today, first because a scaffolding pole fell on to the platform, and now because it has flooded? Obviously that is to the inconvenience of hon. Members and others, but there is also concern about the amount of work that is being undertaken in that area.
We heard over the weekend that Big Ben, apparently, was trying to relocate itself—though somewhat slowly—from the building, and, of course, we know that Members of Parliament are very capable of digging themselves into holes, but I would not like us to fall into a hole dug by someone else. Can you call for a report from London Underground and those responsible for the construction that is going on, so that we know that the highest safety standards are being adhered to and that corners are not being cut on the grounds of expense?
Madam Speaker: I have been informed that, shortly after 9 am, a metal object fell through a glass roof on to the walkway leading to Westminster station. The station was closed and work on the Westminster station section of the Jubilee line extension suspended while a full inquiry was carried out. I understand that London Underground is working to reopen the subway under Bridge street and Westminster station at the earliest opportunity.
So far as Big Ben is concerned, no excavations have begun. If there are any, we shall be monitoring them, and let me tell the House that, as I am the one person who lives under Big Ben, I shall be the first to see that everything is in order in that area.
Mr. Roger Gale: Further to your statement, Madam Speaker. In addition to his unsavoury

1215
relationship with Mr. Al Fayed, which I understand goes back rather further than the House or the public have been led to believe, the editor of The Guardian, who has misappropriated paper from the House, has forged a letter purporting to come from a Minister of the Crown and has sought to impersonate a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defence. I have written to you, Madam Speaker, to ask that Mr. Preston be brought to the Bar of this House. Will you please arrange for that to be done?
Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
Madam Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman had looked at his mail, he would have seen that I have replied to him. I signed the letter before I came to the House this very afternoon. I will take no further points of order on this matter. I made it quite clear to the House, in a very carefully worded statement, what I was about to do, and I shall not have anything further to say until I receive the Sergeant's report. That is the way in which we proceed in this House.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: When the debate takes place later today, there will be a need for some hon. Members to declare their interests, as usual when debates take place in the House. In view of the developments over the weekend, when it was reported that 51 Tory Members of Parliament have benefited by having a tax write-off because they invested in the Lloyd's gambling den and lost money, will they have to declare that interest? Will they have to declare their interests in the debate this afternoon?
Madam Speaker: All hon. Members are fully aware of their obligation to the House. If there is any interest, they must declare it at the beginning of their speech.
Sir Nicholas Bonsor: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. The House will rise for a short period in four days' time. Can you give us an undertaking that the Serjeant-at-Arms will report to you before it rises, so that these serious matters can be examined before we leave?
Madam Speaker: As the House knows, the rising of the House is not in my hands. I am working every minute of the day on the issue.
Mr. James Wallace: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Have you received any request from a Minister in either the Scottish Office or the Department of Transport to make a statement to the House about the grounding this morning of yet another factory vessel in my constituency? I ask particularly in the light of Lord Donaldson's recommendation in May that, before the onset of winter, the United Kingdom's Fisheries Departments should state that they would not entertain an application for a transshipment licence unless the master showed adequate insurance and a minimum of safety standards.
Madam Speaker: I have not been told that a Minister is seeking to make any statement on the issue raised by the hon. Gentleman.
Sir John Gorst: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You made it perfectly clear that you were already examining the question of Mr. Preston. May I ask you whether it is within the competence of the Select
1216
Committee that has already been established to include an inquiry into that case in its terms of reference, without a further reference of a complaint from the House?
Madam Speaker: The answer to that is a clear no. As I tried to explain earlier—perhaps I did not make myself clear—if there are references of that nature, they must come to me in writing for examination in the first instance.
Mr. Peter Thurnham: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Further to your statement, should not the editor of The Guardian have asked you whether he could come here—
Madam Speaker: Order. The House is now carrying things too far. I have made a carefully worded statement, but I believe that hon. Members came here fully determined to put a point of order irrespective of whether I had made a statement. I ask them to respect the proceedings of the House, and to look very carefully at the statement that I have just made. I think that we should now make some progress on the important debate that is to follow.

Points of Order
  BILL PRESENTED
    PRIVATE SECURITY (REGISTRATION)
    Mr. Bruce George, supported by Mr. David Atkinson, Sir Nicholas Bonsor, Mr. Menzies Campbell, Mr. Don Dixon, Dr. John Gilbert, Mr. Keith Hill, Mr. John Home Robertson, Ms Glenda Jackson, Mr. Michael Shersby, Sir James Spicer and Sir Keith Speed. presented a Bill to provide for the establishment of a Private Security Registration Council and to give that Council powers and functions for the regulation of firms offering private security services and of persons employed as private security agents; to require the registration of such firms and persons with the Council; to impose requirements upon such firms and persons; to make provision for training of persons employed as private security agents; to make provision for compensation to be paid in respect of inadequately insured death or injury arising from the activities of such firms and persons; to define offences and specify penalties; and for connected purposes: and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Thursday 3 November, and to be printed. [Bill 170.]
Opposition Day
[20TH ALLOTTED DAY]
Opposition Day

  Committee of Privileges (Evidence)
  Madam Speaker: Before we embark on the motion before us, let me say that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister. I have not been able to select the manuscript amendment submitted to me by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), but, if he catches my eye during the debate, he will be able to deploy his arguments as he would have done had the amendment been selected.
  Let me make a plea for short speeches. This is only a half-day debate. I also remind the House of the terms of the motion, which are confined to a single issue.
  3.42 pm
  Mr. John Prescott: I beg to move,
  That, in the opinion of this House, the Committee of Privileges should exercise its powers under Standing Order No. 108 so as to secure that when examining witnesses it sits in public, except when for clear and compelling reasons, especially for reasons of natural justice, it is more expedient that press and public should be excluded and all or part of the evidence heard in private.
  I welcome your comments relating to The Guardian, Madam Speaker. While I accept that that investigation has clearly been in the public interest, the use of House of Commons writing paper on false authority is deplorable and must be fully investigated.
  This debate is not about the rights and wrongs of individual Members or individual cases; that has been given an extensive airing in the media. Nor do we seek party political gain from our deliberations. Far from it: it is clear from recent events that all of us—all hon. Members—are to some extent on trial. People should remind themselves that the television records such events, and the country at large will be watching to see how we handle the matter under discussion.
  This debate is about the public's faith in Parliament. It is about whether the public will be satisfied by private inquiries into very public allegations of how the actions of hon. Members should be held to public account. It would be absolutely absurd to continue to read in the press, hear on the radio, see on the television and hear in this Chamber allegations about Members of Parliament, but not be allowed to see, hear or read about the examination of those allegations in the Privileges Committee.
  Today's debate is about whether the public trust Members of Parliament to investigate other Members of Parliament, free from party political considerations. I fear that they do not, in the current climate. We should not fear open investigation and debate, as it is in the interests of all of us that malpractice is rooted out and guidelines are devised which are easily understood by both us and the public.
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: The right hon. Gentleman said that he would like the inquiry to take place in public. Will he publicly declare how much of the £800 fine that was imposed on three Labour
  1218
  Members by Customs and Excise for bringing in cameras which they did not declare was met by him, and how much was met by his two colleagues?
  Mr. Prescott: It is wrong to say that I smuggled in a camera. I paid the duty on the camera as required, and declared it when I went through the channel.
  I am trying to make the point that this debate should be about serious matters. You, Madam Speaker, have made it clear that matters of individuals will not be raised in the debate. We are dealing with the issue of the House—[Interruption.] That is what you said, Madam Speaker, and I respect that. There are no allegations whatever about individual Members in my contribution. Indeed, that is your ruling, Madam Speaker, in this debate.
  I shall address directly the point about the House dealing with individual complaints made against hon. Members. That is the point I make. In calling for the Privileges Committee to hear evidence in public, we are supporting a move that we believe is in Parliament's long-term interests. We must restore the esteem of Parliament, and this is the first step. It is not, as has been suggested, an invitation to peddle any old allegation in public.
  Madam Speaker, you must decide whether there is a prima facie complaint to answer, and the House has leave to debate a motion to refer a matter to the Privileges Committee. You have already decided that there may be a case to answer. That is why you referred the current matters to the Privileges Committee on 12 July.
  More recent allegations have led to ministerial resignations, so the Prime Minister is wrong to call them simply matters of "tittle-tattle". This is a serious issue of genuine public concern, which requires public examination, and I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree with that.
  This debate is about openness and standards in public life. It is about the nature and quality of our democracy. It is about whether we have procedures that will enable us to regulate ourselves. That is the issue that we are discussing today—and not for the first time. But let us be clear: the days when we could take those procedures for granted are over.
  The Privileges Committee is a major Committee of the House, which is convened to investigate serious matters of breaches of privilege. But it is the last major Select Committee to continue to sit in private. The House is aware that the members of the Committee are divided over whether it is proper to sit in private or in public to conduct the inquiry that was established on 12 July. The Committee was divided and voted to remain in private on the casting vote of the Chairman.
  I have been told by the Clerk to the Committee that I am not entitled to know that the Committee was even divided, and I am not entitled to raise the matter in the Chamber. However, we are aware that the Leader of the House, the Chairman of the Committee, made a statement about the issue when he left the last meeting of the Committee, so it is proper for the House to discuss the issue. It is already a matter of public knowledge, having been reported in the press.
  Society, democracy and Parliament are evolving systems. As society has changed, attitudes have changed. So must Parliament change, and it is changing. When the electorate demand greater accountability for our actions

  1219
  and intentions, we must be more accountable to them. The matter of the abuse of privilege is a parliamentary matter, and it is proper for Parliament to deal with it.
  That is why the Opposition have in the past few moments made the decision that Opposition Members will be allowed a free vote at the conclusion of the debate as our contribution to removing the party politics from this issue. I hope that the Leader of the House will accept that as a serious contribution to the House making decisions about Members of the House of Commons.
  Will the Leader of the House likewise remove the party Whip from Conservative Members, and allow them the freedom to vote according to their conscience? I hope that he will give us his response.
  The matters that have led my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition to table today's motion are of major public concern, and the public demand the right to hear the investigation of those matters. Concern has been growing for some time. It is concern about the growth of quangos, the influence of lobbyists, the practice of former Ministers joining the boards of companies they have privatised, and the recent allegations about Members of Parliament. Their proliferation has created a culture that has undermined public standards and the public's faith in those standards.
  Recent events show the seriousness of the matters. Two Members of this House are being investigated by the Committee of Privileges. Two Ministers have resigned. There is controversy about other Ministers. There is talk of blackmail and misleading information. All that has undoubtedly increased public concern about standards and the accountability of the House. It is not a simple party political matter.
  Even The Daily Mail, in its editorial on Friday, said:
  "What is at stake here is the reputation, not just of Government, but of our whole Parliamentary process. John Major must change his mind. And let the Privileges Committee work in public."
  If I cannot convince Conservative Members on whether the issue is about party politics or not, I assume that the Daily Mail editorial might persuade them that there is a proper issue to be considered in the question whether the Committee should conduct its work in public.
  In response to public concern and pressure from the Opposition, the Prime Minister has set up the Nolan inquiry into public standards. I welcome it, but it does not go far enough. It does not cover everything that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition requested last week. It does not cover the specific allegations that have been made, and it will leave many questions unanswered.
  1220
  The Government's handling of the whole affair has been questionable. The Prime Minister has dithered, been made to look foolish, been buffeted by events. Finally, he lost his temper in public. He has publicly supported Ministers—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Julian Brazier: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.
  Mr. Prescott: But he is the Prime Minister.
  Madam Speaker: Order. I appear to have a point of order.
  Mr. Brazier: I should be most grateful for your ruling on whether the alleged conduct of the Government or, indeed, the Prime Minister is relevant to the motion before the House.
  Madam Speaker: As I said earlier, the motion before the House is a very narrow one, but references of that nature are reasonably in order. I am sure that hon. Members will make similar references throughout the debate.
  Mr. Prescott: Thank you for that ruling, Madam Speaker. The way in which the House deals with these matters—whether it is the Prime Minister or the Committees of the House—is an important issue. The Prime Minister has made several statements to the House on that very issue, and it is obviously right to refer to him.
  Mind you, if I was a Minister in the Prime Minister's Government I would be a little uneasy— [HON. MEMBERS: "No chance."] No chance may be the case for those Ministers in whom the Prime Minister said he had full confidence, but whom he got rid of within 48 hours. If the right hon. Gentleman says that he has confidence in you, it is the surest sign that you should be clearing your desk.
  It is also not sufficient for the Prime Minister to instruct the Cabinet Secretary to prepare a report. Anyone reading about recent events cannot be satisfied that the Prime Minister has not compromised the Cabinet Secretary. It is clear from statements to the House that Sir Robin Butler's report is insufficient and incomplete.
  Sir Robin did not have all the information available to him at the appropriate time. In the absence of evidence, he was forced to accept the word of those he interviewed, and he was unable to interview the chief complainant, Mr. Al Fayed. He has already given the House a report, to which the Prime Minister referred. Some people may also feel that Sir Robin's meeting with the Conservative party Whips may well have compromised his role as the head of the civil service.
  The real question today is whether Parliament can regulate the actions of its Members. The issue under debate is whether the Select Committee on Privileges should meet in public.
  Mr. Barry Porter: It may surprise the right hon. Gentleman to know that I have taken some heart from his argument, apart from the party political rhetoric. Could he develop his argument about why the House should break with precedent in this matter? Is the free vote that he announced genuine, in the sense that it

  1221
  means that there has been some difference of opinion within the Opposition parties as to whether there should be such a vote?
  Mr. Prescott: The issue is very important, and events have developed, even over the weekend, sufficiently for us to say that we would like to contribute to the House making an honest decision about whether the Committee should meet in public. It is clear that things have developed quickly. I will come to the matter of precedent, as it is important. Other matters of accountability clearly involve the Prime Minister, and I dealt with those.
  I think that the hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter) will accept that the Cabinet Secretary was asked to undertake investigations and to report back to the Prime Minister. There has been considerable coverage of that matter in the press and a report to the Prime Minister, which was published in this place last week. Events have moved on since that report, which is why I referred to the different pieces of information and dates.
  You have ruled, Madam Speaker, that we cannot refer to all those matters, and I shall not do so, but I want to deal with the accountability of the House and of Members to it. The real question is whether Parliament regulates the actions of its Members.
  The issue under debate is whether the Privileges Committee should meet in public. It is not a question of whether it can do so, as we all know that it can. Standing Order No. 108 makes it clear that a Select Committee
  "shall have power, if it so orders, to admit strangers during the examination of witnesses."
  The question is whether it should, and that is the question posed in the motion.
  It is up to the Privileges Committee to take that decision, but as it is deadlocked, the House can guide it. There is much talk of precedent, but one precedent can give way to another. The evolution of the procedures of the House has required precedents to be set on several occasions. The admission of the press to report our proceedings in 1803, the admission of television and radio to provide live coverage of events in this Chamber and in Committees, and the opening of other Committees to public scrutiny, were all unprecedented and controversial decisions at the time. All those decisions made the House more accountable to the public, and they were all to the benefit of greater democracy.
  It is true that Privileges Committees have never sat in public before, but they can do so, as I have shown. The motion merely asks the Committee to exercise its powers under Standing Order No. 108 and to sit in public now, except when there are clear and compelling reasons why it should not do so.
  Last week, the Prime Minister said:
  "It is necessary to have an investigation in depth, without unsubstantiated allegations subsequently being made. That is a matter of natural justice."
  It is right that there are checks and balances to prevent unwarranted slurs being made, but those exist in the procedures of this House.
  Let me repeat what I said earlie: if a complaint is made by a Member of this House, Madam Speaker will decide whether there is a prima facie complaint before she will allow a motion of referral to the Privileges Committee. The motion of referral can be debated in this House, as it
  1222
  was some weeks ago on a recent referral, and the Committee can decide whether it wishes to hear evidence in public or in private.
  Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: If we assume for the moment that we accept the right hon. Gentleman's proposal that the Committee hears evidence in public and then allows itself to vote to go private on certain issues, will he now give an undertaking that, if the Committee voted to go private, the Opposition members of the Committee will not walk out and make a public spectacle of it?
  Mr. Prescott: The House is generally agreed that members of the Privileges Committee will make their own decisions on the matter. The issue here is that we have divided along party political lines. All the Opposition parties have opposed the Government Members on that Committee. The issue—if I am allowed to refer to it—is that a motion which would have allowed the Committee the possibility of sitting in public and taking certain evidence in private was not put before the Committee, and the Committee now finds itself deeply divided along party political lines.
  I should have thought that it was in the interests of the House not to have further debates along party political lines, and for the House to have this debate. We are trying on this occasion—[Interruption.] I have made it clear that we are not whipping the Labour members of the Committee, and I presume that the Government are not whipping their Committee members. But since the Government are so bitterly divided, we have said that we should debate the issue, and we have provided an opportunity for the House to do so.
  The Committee could have a public hearing of evidence, it could deliberate in private and—in those areas where the Committee so decided—it could take evidence in private. That applies to all of the Committees of the House. We do not dispute the rights of the Committee to hear evidence—
  Sir John Gorst: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way? [Interruption.]
  Madam Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Prescott: I shall not give way, because the hon. Gentleman does not have an intelligent intervention to make.
  We do not dispute the right of Committees to hear evidence in private when it is in the interests of natural justice to do so. We ask that there be a reasonable balance between public and private hearings—as there is already in the majority of our Committees—that the evidence be heard in public and the deliberations take place in private, that the conclusions be published and debated by this House, and that to sit in public should be the norm and in private the exception.
  Sir Jim Spicer: May I follow down the road of hearings being held in private where the interests of natural justice dictate that that should be the case? What would the effect be on the media if the Committee decided that some of its hearings would be held in private and some held in public? Surely the media will

  1223
  immediately focus on that, and ask what the Committee has to hide. Will not the media say that the Committee is covering up by having some hearings in private?
  Mr. Prescott: The obvious answer is that it depends on the reasons which are given. The courts and professional bodies often make such judgments, and the press has to live with the fact that it cannot observe matters because the agreement of that professional body—or the Privileges Committee—is that they believe it to be right to have private hearings.
  We disagree about the decision that has been made that the Committee will never take any hearings in public—quite contrary to the rest of the Committees. All we are saying is that the Committee members should make the judgment, and that that judgement should start from the proposition that evidence should be heard in public unless there are special reasons not to do so. That is the simple point which we are trying to make.
  Sir John Gorst: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Prescott: I must get on, as an awful lot of hon. Members wish to take part.
  Sir John Gorst rose—
  Madam Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Prescott: I am bound to say that, when the argument of natural justice is invoked, there are some contradictions in Government Members' arguments.
  Sir John Gorst: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I plead with you to find out whether it is possible to obtain information during this debate as to whether any Labour member of the Select Committee will address himself without party politics in mind when he is heard in public.
  Madam Speaker: That is not a point of order. Were the hon. Gentleman fortunate enough to catch my eye, he might employ such a point during the debate.
  Mr. Prescott: I was right the first time—the hon. Member for Hendon, North (Sir J. Gorst) is not capable of making an intelligent intervention: he has amply proven that.
  Some contradictions are apparent when the argument about natural justice is invoked. If it is in the interests of natural justice to suppress all the evidence from the hearings of the Privileges Committee until the report is published, why is it not equally in the interests of natural justice to suppress all the evidence given at a Crown court trial until the verdict is reached? On Thursday, the Prime Minister told the House:
  "I am not prepared to see confidence in elected or unelected public servants undermined by the public parading of unsubstantiated slurs and innuendo."—[Official Report, 27 October 1994; Vol. 248, c. 1002.]
  Why is he therefore prepared to allow the public parading of unsubstantiated allegations against defendants in a court of law? It is the central tenet of justice that, for justice to be done, it must be seen to, be done. If it is seen to be done in the courts, why will the Prime Minister not agree that it should be seen to be done in Parliament?
  1224
  We live in a different climate today, because professional bodies are becoming more open. The professional conduct committee of the General Medical Council meets in public; the solicitors disciplinary tribunal now meets in public, and the barristers disciplinary tribunal is now considering a report that recommends that it should also meet in public. Other Parliaments are moving towards greater openness, and some have even accepted the recommendation that to accept money is a criminal offence. That recommendation was made in 1975 by the Royal Commission on Standards of Conduct in Public Life, but the House did not accept it.
  The Government themselves are moving towards greater openness in their inquiries. Ten years ago, the Scott inquiry would never have been held in public. Now, the Nolan inquiry has been established, and we will be able to hear its evidence in public. The reputation of our public life is at stake, and only public examination will satisfy the public's concern.
  The House has nothing to fear from supporting the Opposition motion, but the public will assume that we have something to hide if we continue to investigate such matters in private. We need to display to our constituents the simple truth that we are here to serve them before we serve ourselves. That is best done by being open and by holding the investigations of the Privileges Committee in public. I commend the motion to the House.
  4.6 pm
  The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  'this House re-affirms the long established practice that decisions as to how a Select Committee once established should proceed are for the Committee itself.'.
  Before turning specifically to the terms of the motions and the amendment, I think it right to make as clear as I can, both to the House itself and to those who follow and comment on these matters outside, four very important points about the background to today's debate.
  The first is that the Committee of Privileges is not a Committee appointed by the Government, or with terms of reference determined by the Government. It is a Committee appointed by this House, on a motion moved by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East (Mr. Brown), following your statement on 12 July, Madam Speaker, and with a remit determined by what you said in that statement.
  Secondly, I am its Chairman not on the basis of having been imposed on the Committee by any group of members on the Committee, let alone by the Government, but on the basis of a motion moved, in accordance with precedent, by a member of the Committee and accepted without dissent by the Committee as a whole. It is in that spirit that I have sought to act as Chairman and it is in that spirit that I shall speak in the debate.
  The third point is one that takes me into somewhat more difficult territory, but which I nevertheless think it right to make, given that public reference has already been made to the fact that the decision to maintain the precedent of taking evidence in private followed a tied vote in the Committee, so that the matter necessarily had to be settled by my casting vote as Chairman.

  1225
  I need to make two things clear. One is that I had not intervened in the very full discussion that had taken place, except to assist in elucidating points made in the course of it. The other is that the vote I eventually had to cast was cast quite explicitly on the basis of the nearest parallel to what you, Madam Speaker, would be expected to do following a tied vote here in the House: that is to say, to maintain the status quo. In this case, it seemed to me that that meant my vote should be cast to maintain the established precedent, never before breached, that the Committee of Privileges conducts its proceedings in private.
  Mr. Bill Michie: On status quo and precedent, why did the Attorney-General, when writing to advise the Committee, say:
  "There are no settled rules governing the proceedings of the Committee of Privileges"—
  Madam Speaker: Order. We must be very careful in this debate. The hon. Gentleman is now bringing Committee proceedings to the Floor of the House. We should not use Committee proceedings in this debate because the Committee has not yet reported to the House.
  Mr. Newton: Without following the hon. Gentleman fully down that path, I can properly make the point that it is not in dispute that the Committee has the power, as it has accurately been stated, to take evidence in public if it thinks it right to do so. But the Committee did not think it right to do so and my vote was cast on the basis that I have just set out: to maintain the status quo, which, in this case, meant preserving a long-standing precedent.
  Mr. Tony Benn: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. When my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Michie) described what happened in Committee, you properly drew attention to the normal rule that proceedings are not mentioned until a Committee has reported. Understandably, the Leader of the House has described proceedings, including the fact that I moved the motion that he be in the Chair, according to precedent. [Interruption.] Well, of course I did. As the senior member, I convened the Committee on instructions from the Clerks.
  The point that I am making is that this debate is about the Privileges Committee while it is proceeding, so it must be in order for us to refer to what has happened. We would not be having this debate had there not been a vote in the House. I therefore hope that you will relax your judgment on the matter or those of us on the Committee will be unable to explain what went on and why we take a different view.
  Madam Speaker: The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Michie) was speaking about a deliberative meeting that is not mentioned in the motion. If he reads the motion carefully, he will see that it is about the Committee exercising its powers under a particular Standing Order
  "so as to secure that when examining witnesses it sits in public".
  The motion is extremely narrow and does not deal with what has taken place in Committee. I understand the point that the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) puts to me. It is difficult to debate this matter without making some reference to the Committee's proceedings.
  1226
  But we must be careful about how we proceed and keep in mind the fact that the Committee has not yet reported to us.
  Mr. Newton: I am grateful for your guidance, Madam Speaker. If the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) reads my words when they are reported in Hansard, he will find that I was careful not to mention which Member moved the motion to put me in the Chair. I simply said "a member of the Committee" and that I was put in the Chair without dissent.
  Mr. Benn: The precedent is that the senior Member moves the Leader of the House into the Chair. The Clerks told me to do that. It was not my desire to put him in the Chair, but it was my duty to convene the Committee and then perform that function. It is no good the Leader of the House saying that, in not mentioning my name, he was not reporting proceedings. He was, and the House must discuss the proceedings in the course of this debate.
  Mr. Newton: I cannot sensibly add to what I have already said on that point. May I make it clear, if it was not already clear, that in no sense was I levelling what the right hon. Gentleman has treated almost as an accusation. I merely recorded the fact against the background of the sedentary interventions in this debate suggesting that I was somehow imposed on the Committee by the Government and that I voted as instructed by the Government. That is simply not the case.
  The last of my preliminary points is another on which I hope that I will carry all members of the Committee, regardless of their opinions about the way in which evidence should be taken; it is that there is no equation between what has been called a "cover-up" and the hearing of evidence in private session.
  Every member of the Committee is determined that its inquiry should be conscientious and thorough. Its report and any recommendations that it may make will be published, and would be expected to be discussed and debated in the House. Most important of all, in that context, the evidence that it heard would be published in full with its report, for all to read. That is subject only to some very limited possible reservations, notably where publication of part of the evidence could clearly be held to be prejudicial in relation to legal proceedings that were taking place.
  Sir John Gorst: Will my right hon. Friend say whether any part of his reservations with regard to the Committee's meeting in public has to do with the fear that the opportunity may arise for certain members of the Committee to deploy party political arguments? That would seem to me to be a strong indication in favour of retaining the procedures that have previously prevailed.
  Mr. Newton: If my hon. Friend will allow me, I shall shortly make some of the arguments that I hope the House will bear in mind in considering the motion and the amendment.
  Let me now turn to the motion that the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) moved, which seeks to bring about a situation in which the Committee's hearings of evidence would be in public—that is to say, with press reporters, radio microphones and television cameras present.

  1227
  The right hon. Gentleman set out his arguments in favour of that proposal. I think that what I can best do is to set out as clearly as I can what I believe to be the anxieties that led those people who wished to maintain the precedent of private hearings to take that view, and which hitherto—I make no apology for repeating the point—have led all the Committee's predecessors to the same conclusion, believing that that was what was required in defence of natural justice.
  Mr. Tony Banks: The Leader of the House repeatedly talks about precedent. Will he accept that precedents are set and precedents end? The current situation is unprecedented—that is the whole point. Therefore, we are asking the Leader of the House to recognise the significance of what is going on, and the interest outside the House. We need the information to be in the public domain, for the public interest. That is what we should be thinking about—not the interests of Members to keep things quiet.
  Mr. Newton: As it happens, I do not accept the proposition that the circumstances of the moment are unprecedented. I shall return to that later.
  In essence, the anxieties of those who believe that the Committee should take evidence in private and publish that evidence only at a later stage arise from the nature of the Committee of Privileges, and especially of the parliamentary privilege under which it operates.
  Although one of the Committee's functions is to establish the facts in the case, it is not, as is sometimes suggested—and a parallel is sometimes drawn—comparable to a court. It has none of the protections that a court offers to its defendants. Witnesses who give evidence to it do not have the benefit of legal representation.
  The Chairman does not have the same powers as a judge to rule questions out of order. Witnesses can therefore be subject to questioning from as many as 17 people. Some of those questions, perhaps making allegations of which the witness has had no previous notice, asked under the protection of parliamentary privilege, could be highly damaging. Later in the proceedings—as has happened in the past—the allegations may well prove to be unfounded, but if the evidence has been taken in public, the damage to a witness would already have been done.
  Sir Jim Spicer: May I ask my right hon. Friend to amplify that subject? In those circumstances, surely the Committee could never meet without those people appearing before it employing, if they wish to do so, lawyers to sit alongside them, as happens in all courts in America.
  Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend raises an important point about what would be strongly argued for in the circumstances envisaged by Opposition Members. Undoubtedly, there would be pressure for what my hon. Friend has suggested, and it would dramatically change the nature of the inquiry that could take place, and hitherto has taken place.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: As one of the very few people who were unfortunate enough to be called in front of the Privileges Committee back in the 1960s, may I
  1228
  suggest that the Leader of the House should be a little careful on the concept of justice to witnesses? If giving evidence in public can be damaging, let me assure him from personal experience that giving it in private can be very damaging. I think I can now say that the then Chairman Elwyn Jones had great doubts before he died about the Privileges Committee acting in private.
  Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman knows that I have enough respect for him not simply to make a debating point, and I hope that he will not think that what I am about to say is a debating point. His argument, however, is rather more on my side than on his. I accept that it will not be comfortable or easy for people if suggestions that they have done something against the rules or order of the House are investigated by such a Committee. He talks about the damage caused when investigations are conducted in private, but it can hardly be other than that that damage would be compounded if the investigation were in full view of television cameras.
  Mr. David Ashby: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Newton: I shall give way, but I should advert to the fact that Madam Speaker has asked hon. Members to keep their speeches reasonably brief and that interventions are considerably extending this one.
  Mr. Ashby: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if proceedings were conducted in public, the person being investigated should have the right to have counsel cross-examining all witnesses and to call witnesses on his own behalf, as would happen in a court? Does he further agree that anything less than that would amount to a kangaroo court?
  Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend makes another important point which I am sure would be raised and many people would wish to pursue were the House to take the decision that the Opposition have invited it to take today.
  The effect of the potential prejudice to witnesses giving evidence in public could operate in two ways: on the one hand, it might result, as I have already said, in damage to witnesses; on the other, it could constrain Committee members from asking questions that they think should be answered. In either case, the Committee's objective of achieving a thorough and fair investigation and of reaching balanced and considered conclusions in the light of all the evidence would be gravely damaged.
  Moreover, we need to be clear that this cloak of parliamentary privilege would be available not only to hon. Members called before the Committee and to members of it, whom we would all expect to use its protection responsibly, but to any outside witnesses called before the Committee who could, if they wished, use the opportunity to make any allegation, however unfounded, against anyone that they chose to name. In the light of some of the things that we have read in recent times, I do not think that anyone can say that that is a negligible risk.
  If Opposition Members think that these arguments have been assembled only in the circumstances of today, perhaps I may remind them—this is why I said that I did not entirely accept that the circumstances are unprecedented, as the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) suggested—of the words of Lord Callaghan. I make no apology for quoting what was said

  1229
  by Lord Callaghan, then Prime Minister, in the debate establishing the Select Committee on the Conduct of Members in 1976 following the Poulson affair. He said:
  "There are important differences between the proceedings of the courts and those of a Select Committee. In the courts, there are specified charges, known to defendants beforehand. The evidence brought forward has to be relevant to those charges. In this case there are no specified charges, nor is the identity known of all those against whom allegations might be made. There are no rules of the House which say this or that evidence is inadmissible."
  There was a great deal of comment along those lines.
  Lord Callaghan went on:
  "It is our view"—
  that is, the then Labour Government's view—
  "that, if the Committee sat in public, evidence, whatever its basis—whether it was groundless or not—would be subject to daily public sifting. A lie can be half-way around the world before truth has got its boots on. We should have instant judgments on allegations before the Committee had been able to weigh them, before the reputations at stake could be properly upheld or cast down, which might do unnecessary harm not only to the individuals concerned but also to the standing of this House."—[Official Report, 1 November 1976; Vol. 918, c. 973–-76]
  I am bound to say that I see nothing that has happened in the intervening period to lead me to dismiss what Lord Callaghan said then; and the introduction of television, in my view, multiplies the risk.
  Mr. Prescott: The right hon. Gentleman will recall that the Poulson case involved Members from both sides of the House. There had already been an investigation by the prosecuting authority and a royal commission inquiry into standards of public life, and the Committee itself was specially set up for the circumstances. It was not related to the Privileges Committee.
  Mr. Newton: That point does not dent my argument one bit. I am of course aware that, in a sense, the motion recognises these problems by conceding the risk to natural justice. It has the air of attempting to suggest some kind of halfway house, in which the Committee might take part of the evidence from individual cases in private and part in public—or even perhaps move from one mode to the other in the course of a hearing. There is no evidence, either in the motion or in anything else that I have heard or read, to show that such arrangements could be made to work.
  In relation to the cases that have been referred to the Committee, I cannot see how it would be fair to hear some witnesses in public and others in private—perhaps the Members of Parliament in private and The Sunday Times in public, or vice versa. That would not be seen to be fair. Nor do I see how, in practice, the Committee could make judgments in the course of a hearing as to whether matter might be introduced that would more appropriately be heard in private. Even if it did, the result would all too readily become a form of complete chaos, with the public shuffling in and out of the Committee in accordance with what was going on.
  Mr. David Winnick: Is it not, however, of some interest to note that Lord Nolan observed to the press that a large amount of the evidence that he is to hear—much of it allegations—will be heard in public? Does not that show that times have changed and that people believe that such allegations should be aired mainly in public? Obviously, as the motion concedes, some cases should be heard in private, but
  1230
  generally the public should be satisfied that justice has been seen to be done. The secrecy that used to prevail must no longer be allowed.
  Mr. Newton: The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East has already effectively made the point that Lord Nolan's committee will not be looking into complaints against individuals. It will scrutinise general issues surrounding standards of conduct in public life—so the hon. Gentleman's parallel does not stand up.
  I very much doubt whether the difficulties of this halfway house can be overcome. I am sure, however, that unless it is sure that they can be, it would be very unwise of the House to pass the motion.
  There are also wider arguments for not proceeding as the motion proposes, and they are reflected in the Government amendment:
  "this House reaffirms the long-established practice that decisions as to how a Select Committee once established should proceed are for the Committee itself."
  The House is rightly firm in its defence of the integrity and independence of its Select Committees. I have to say bluntly that it seems to me no more acceptable for the official Opposition to seek to determine how such a Committee should go about its work than it would be thought acceptable for Ministers or the Government to do so.
  If we are to go down this path, I believe that we put at risk exactly those attributes of our Select Committees which the House itself most values and which is the basis of their public reputation: the fact that Members, once appointed, serve as individuals, not party representatives; not as part of a caucus, and not on the basis of voting in accordance with a party line. I believe that the House should think long and hard before going down the path to which the motion invites us, and I hope that it will instead endorse the amendment.
  Mr. Barry Porter: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. If, as has been claimed, this is a House of Commons issue and not a party issue, it does not seem to me to matter much whether the motion or the amendment is passed. Will it not still be for the Privileges Committee to determine its own procedure, regardless of what the House decides this evening? If that is so, it is a matter for the Committee to decide whether it is to be a party vote. I intend to vote as a House of Commons man.
  Madam Speaker: What meaning is attached to the motion is for Members to decide. It is not for me as Speaker to interpret for Members what is before them. They must make their own judgment as to what is in the motion and the amendment.
  4.29 pm
  Mr. Tony Benn: This is a major parliamentary debate, and it is appropriate that the Clerk of the House, Sir Clifford Boulton, should be in the Clerk's Chair for the last debate of his period of office. I am sure that his background advice will have been helpful.
  I declare my interests, as recorded in the Register of Members' Interests, as a writer, broadcaster and shareholder, but my real interest is as a Member of this House. I have been 10 years on the Privileges Committee, and I moved the Leader of the House into the Chair,

  1231
  which demonstrates a non-partisan inclination. I must be the only Member of Parliament who was expelled from the House by the Privileges Committee on a motion.
  When my father died, I was summoned to the Committee and ordered to produce my birth certificate and my father's death certificate. On the advice of the Privileges Committee, the House moved to declare a by-election in my room, which I won. I was subsequently removed by the House. I therefore have some interest in the workings of the Privileges Committee.
  I have been in the House for 44 years and have been elected 15 times because, by a coincidence, I have won four by-elections. I shall not go into those. My only interest in this matter is that of the people who sent us here. I do not accept the view that we are here to protect Parliament, as if Parliament were a little club. We are here to protect our electors. That is the basis of privilege, because it protects Parliament only in so far as it can do its business in the interests of our constituents. The word "privilege" is an unhappy one because it gives the impression that it relates to the privilege of hon. Members, whereas it relates to the privilege of an elected body to do its job without improper interference.
  The debate is not a trial of Members who may be involved in the matters that we are discussing. I am not by instinct a muck-raker and I do not think that the House should today consider who may have done what. It is not a trial of the Government because they are responsible for their own conduct. Happily, the electors will judge both Members and Government—all of us—at the next election. We are accountable to the electorate and the only consideration in deciding how to vote must be based upon that.
  Serious allegations have been made about individuals, hon. Members, lobbyists and the media. My argument is extremely simple: that the only way in which the electors' rights can be considered is for everything—evidence and deliberations—to be held in public. Otherwise, rightly or wrongly, there will be a feeling that the parliamentary club has got together to cover up what is happening so that Parliament's reputation can survive. Parliament must live on the confidence of the people or people will not have confidence in it.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: As my right hon. Friend says, the Privileges Committee has certain duties and powers in respect of the electorate. Notwithstanding that, does he agree that it would make much more sense if the Committee did not investigate Members of Parliament—that such investigations should not be undertaken by members of the club, as my right hon. Friend calls it—but by an independent body?
  Mr. Benn: By a strange coincidence, I have experience of that too, because after the House had thrown me out and when I reappeared and was kept out, I was referred to an election court. In the 19th century, the House used to deal with contested elections but, in view of the partisan nature of election Committees of the House, the matter was referred to a judge. In fact there were two judges, and they came to an absurd conclusion, which I need not go into, which kept me out of the House.
  The principle mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner)—that the House is not the right place in which to consider these matters—
  1232
  has been recognised. My point, however, is that not just the evidence but the deliberations should be heard in public.
  I do not know whether I will be on the Committee after I complete my speech, but some of the matters that we on that Committee will discuss are of the highest importance. What rules should there be? Why should not hon. Members be entitled to hear the views expressed by Committee members about what the rules should be, what the obligations should be, what the sanctions should be and what legislation is required?
  I have my own opinion, and I have expressed it already—that the rules should be similar to those that apply to Ministers and that those who do not adhere to them should be dealt with by the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975. Of course, that is just one view; others may wish to put their views. The whole Committee should be held in public.
  Mr. Peter Butler: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Benn: I shall do so only if it is a serious and important point; otherwise, I want to get on with my speech. I rely on the hon. Gentleman to assist me in that regard.
  Mr. Butler: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, but that is rather like the problem of deciding, before one has heard the evidence, whether it is in breach of natural justice for it to be heard in public.
  Will the right hon. Gentleman accept a serious point? It is that, as a new Member, one of my privileges in this House is actually being able to listen to him. Will he explain where any problem arises, as all the evidence, any motions—including defeated motions—and the report will be published and debated in full on the Floor of the House? Taking part in that debate will be members of the Committee as well as hon. Members who did not serve on it. How can that be secret, and in what way is the public interest not served? In what way is information hidden from the public by that procedure?
  Mr. Benn: The Clerk or the Attorney-General would be better able to give an authoritative view, but, as I understand the matter, and as the Attorney-General said in the Committee, the Committee is entitled to do as it likes and either hear evidence in public or refuse to do so. The Committee voted, for the reasons given by the Lord President, on his casting vote, against my motion that we should hear the evidence in public.
  Of course, the deliberations have never been heard in public in the Privileges Committee. My argument, to which I shall return, is that the deliberations are important because they will set the framework for the recommendations that I hope the House will pursue.
  I want to make a statement—
  Mr. Bernard Jenkin: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Benn: No, I am on a serious point.
  As Madam Speaker said earlier, I sought permission today to move a manuscript amendment in the following terms:
  "That the House instructs the Committee of Privileges to hold all its meetings, both when evidence is taken, and when it deliberates, in public."

  1233
  As I said a moment ago, I moved a motion in the Committee that the evidence be heard in public. The Lord President will recall that I argued that all the Committee's deliberations should also be held in public. That is because I am no longer prepared to accept the traditional practice of the Committee of Privileges that its proceedings, including the hearing of evidence, should be held in private. My first responsibility is to those who have elected me to Parliament and who are entitled to know what is being done in their names. In my judgment, that duty must take precedence over any conventions of the House.
  House of Commons debates were held in secret for many years. There was great resistance from some Members of Parliament to the public reporting of proceedings. From 1803 to 1811—a year or two before I came to the House—William Cobbett reported the proceedings of the House in the pages of the "Political Register" and was reported to the House for an alleged breach of privilege in the way in which he reported them. Cobbett, who later became the Member of Parliament for Oldham, was at one stage imprisoned for sedition for a pamphlet that he wrote, as was Thomas Hansard, who printed it. It was not until 1855 that parliamentary reports by Hansard were officially sanctioned.
  The secrecy of Committee proceedings raises exactly the same questions as the proceedings of the House, and the time has come when they, too, should be held in public and properly reported. I very much hope that the House will now intervene to change the existing practice of the Committees of the House, including the Privileges Committee, so that the evidence taken and the deliberations of those Committees are held in public.
  Whatever the decision of the House or the Committee, I am no longer prepared to accept the present restrictions, and if I return to attend future meetings of the Committee of Privileges, it is my intention to issue my personal report of those proceedings that I attend. My reports will be based on notes made at meetings of the Privileges Committee and they will be as fair and accurate as I can make them. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It will be For the House to determine how to deal with that matter, but I believe that I have a duty to make my own position plain in advance. I hope that the House will understand and respect my reasons for doing so.
  Sir John Gorst: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In view of the right hon. Gentleman's statement, will it be in order at some stage to table a manuscript amendment seeking to have him removed from the Committee?
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): No. That would be beyond the scope of our proceedings today.
  Mr. Peter Bottomley: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given the information shared by the right hon. Gentleman, may the House be told what Standing Orders say would happen if he does as he says?
  Madam Deputy Speaker: I trust that all right hon. and hon. Members are capable of reading Standing Orders.
  4.40 pm
  Sir Edward Heath: The Government's amendment refers to the long-standing
  1234
  practice whereby the Select Committee on Privileges makes its own decisions. That is absolutely right and is why I shall support the Government amendment tonight. Later, however, I will make certain suggestions about the Committee's consideration of the problem, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
  There are other long-standing practices of the Privileges Committee. One is that debates in the House on such matters are always treated with the utmost seriousness and on a non-party basis, for two reasons: first, such a debate can affect either side of the House—reference has already been made to some cases that have been heard by the Privileges Committee—and, secondly, such matters are of the utmost seriousness to the right hon. or hon. Members directly involved. We have heard little about them this afternoon, but we know from past exercises that an hon. Member's life can be at stake, as can the future of his family, his relationship with his constituency and other interests of a political nature.
  Mention was made of the Poulson case, which involved hon. Members on both sides of the House and a member of the Cabinet, who resigned. He was cleared, but that incident affected the whole of Reggie Maudling's life. I hope that debate on the Opposition motion and on the Government amendment continues with the utmost seriousness.
  I fully accept the four points made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House in opening, and I am glad that he made them. I am sure that he was perfectly justified in doing so.
  On the question whether the hearings should be in public or private, I served on the Privileges Committee in the 1968 and 1969 Sessions. I acknowledge that that was 25 years ago and that many changes have occurred since in not only the House but public life and in the presentation of politics and technology. Twenty-five years ago, the proceedings of the House were not heard on radio, let alone seen on television. Similarly, our Committees did not exist in their present form. Today, they are televised as well as heard on radio, and the press attend them. We must take account of that.
  All the signs are that the standing of the House in the eyes of the public has fallen in recent years, and that is a matter that we all want to redress. I do not place quite the emphasis on that as does the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), but it is essential that the House re-establishes itself in public high opinion. I should like the Committee to re-examine the problem and to consider again whether its proceedings should not be in public.
  Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is unnecessarily worried. Some newspaper leaders have already commented that, if people offer to give evidence in public, that would lead to some persons showing off—asking to appear and then using the Committee for their own purposes. When I served on the Privileges Committee, the Attorney-General attended—and I believe that he does so today. He is at the top of the legal profession, and is there to challenge any witness on anything that he says, at the very moment that he says it. The dangers foreseen by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House could be dealt with by the Attorney-General.
  I agree that we would have to face the fact that persons called before the Committee might request legal assistance, but there is a precedent. When Robert Maxwell's sons were to appear before a Select

  1235
  Committee, they asked to be accompanied by their lawyers, and the Committee agreed. Everybody knew that a case was to be taken before the courts, but that did not present any constitutional problem. The Maxwells' lawyers were there to advise them on the spot and to make suggestions to the Chairman of the Committee on how matters should be handled. We should have to face up to that with the Privileges Committee.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Does my right hon. Friend recall that, when the Maxwell brothers appeared before the Committee, they did not answer a single question? They merely said, "Our legal advisers have advised us to say nothing."
  Sir Edward Heath: The Committee drew its own conclusions, and the Privileges Committee would do the same.
  Sir Cranley Onslow: I suggest that there is an important difference between the Privileges Committee and run-of-the-mill Select Committees, if I may use that term. In any case, the Maxwell brothers were not accused of possible contempt of Parliament.
  Sir Edward Heath: My right hon. Friend says that there is a difference. The question is whether that difference should continue. In the present situation of public doubt about the House and the operation of politics, political parties and political systems, we must face up to that new situation.
  Another point that affects right hon. and hon. Members in particular is the inordinate length of time that the House takes to deal with such matters. The House sent the present case to the Privileges Committee before the summer recess. We are now heading for prorogation, followed by the Christmas recess, and no progress has been made. Change is essential. We cannot carry on like that in the modern world.
  A Committee dealing with matters of such personal importance to an individual Member of Parliament must be prepared to sit continuously until it has reached a decision. That must be taken into account by the Whips in regard to parliamentary proceedings. In fact, it should please the Whips because they would know that members of the Committee would be here in any case. The time factor is of immense importance for particular Members of Parliament.
  Sir Peter Emery: The lives of the persons who are under investigation and who are perhaps accused are of great importance. If my right hon. Friend's suggestion were adopted, does he believe, in absolute fairness, that the persons concerned should have legal representation to cross-question other witnesses, rather than leave it to the Attorney-General or to the Committee to protect their reputation? Would not that alter the structure of the Committee as we know it?
  Sir Edward Heath: That, again, will have to be decided by the Committee, but the Attorney-General could advise on the matter. If it means changing the structure, so be it, because I believe that it is necessary
  1236
  to deal fairly with Members who are brought before the Committee. I am dealing with the fair treatment of Members as well as with the status of the House.
  Sir John Gorst: Will my right hon. Friend address himself to another consideration—that some of the matters to be considered might be the subject of criminal charges at the end of the hearing? If they were, would not that prejudice the cases of the individuals concerned? Is it not better, therefore, that matters be considered in private until it has been decided whether any criminal charges might arise?
  Sir Edward Heath: Of course it must be taken into account, but that could not have arisen in most of the cases that have come before the Privileges Committee.
  I shall now deal with the last point made by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield about the Committee's deliberations and evidence being taken in public. In his years in politics, the right hon. Gentleman has made many persuasive and many important points, but again—it has characterised the whole of his political life, and I have known him since Oxford days—he went a bridge too far. Anybody who sits on an organisation that must reach final decisions knows that there will be a point at which one will want to discuss the matter informally and not take up a fixed position—to say, "I want to ask about this to clarify my own mind and decide exactly where I stand."
  That cannot be done in a public hearing; people have to take a fixed position. They are then accused of abandoning their previous positions and are asked why they have done so. I cannot see any difficulty in having private discussion. There is nothing that I regret more than people coming up to me after a meeting and saying, "Of course, what I really wanted to ask was so and so, but I didn't like to because I knew that it would then become known outside." That is a great drawback. In fact, it is a great loss not only to any Committee but to the individual.
  I ask the right hon. Member for Chesterfield to reconsider and agree that there can be such discussion—there will be in any case, because he cannot stop it—before people take up fixed positions, which they then feel they must justify in public.
  Mr. Benn: The right hon. Gentleman must recognise that the public are intelligent. They know that, in arriving at a new recommendation about a matter, views will have been put tentatively, and then a final view taken. He underestimates the extent to which people understand the tentative nature of deliberations leading to a recommendation.
  Sir Edward Heath: I have taken part in a good many tentative deliberations in my time, and I am absolutely convinced that they are necessary to reach a sound solution.
  I support the motion tabled by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I agree with its first four points, which are absolutely right, but I hope that the Committee will reconsider its position to permit public hearings, after which it could continue its discussions in private and publish its report, which would be discussed in this House.
  4.53 pm
  Mr. David Alton: The Father of the House has given us wise advice today. I

  1237
  particularly support his remarks about the wisdom of having deliberative meetings in private, as that enables members to move their positions should that be then- wish.
  We have listened to some interesting points, but it should be said at the outset that the motion that was moved by the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) establishes a clear principle, and it is on that principle alone that the House will be invited to vote this evening. I will be supporting the right hon. Gentleman's motion and I shall recommend my right hon. and hon. Friends to do likewise.
  It does, perhaps, illustrate the way in which the Committee has been proceeding that the points that were made, first, by the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East about there being a third way, and, secondly, by the Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) about the value of deliberative sessions, were put before it.
  Indeed, the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) and I suggested that there was a third option—that we should assert the value of meeting in public but be prepared to derogate from that. There would be times when we would want to meet in camera—for example, where issues of natural justice were involved; where we might be given compelling advice by the Attorney-General; or for whatever reasons we might sometimes wish to meet behind closed doors. But the principle should be that we should start out with the determination to meet in public wherever possible.
  That is not an unknown principle to the House or to democratic bodies throughout the nation. I was sorry that that compromise—if I may call it that—was not accepted. That was no fault of the Leader of the House. In fairness to the right hon. Gentleman—and without digressing too much into the meanderings of what happened in the Committee—it should be said that he took on board the voices in that Committee; that everyone put their view; and that there was a genuinely held difference of opinion. Those differences were arrived at for different reasons of principle.
  The issue tonight is whether any Conservative Members have changed their minds, because if they have not, I cannot see how there will be any change in the way in which the Committee should proceed. Perhaps the most interesting speeches this evening will be those of Conservative Members, who, having listened to the thrust of the debate, will recognise the importance of trying to re-engage Her Majesty's Opposition in the debate. It will be interesting to see whether they will be prepared to find any room for manoeuvre. If they are able to do so, it will serve the House well, not least for the reasons advanced this evening by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup: the reputation of this House has been damaged publicly and that reputation needs to be reasserted.
  Mr. Jenkin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Alton: Let me make a little progress first, because time is short and many other hon. Members wish to speak; then I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman.
  A week ago, the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and told the House of his intention to set up the Nolan committee. My right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) said that he supported that move—indeed, there was a general welcome for it throughout the House. The Prime Minister set out the terms of reference
  1238
  of Lord Nolan's committee and said that it would be established to look at standards, the level of integrity and the level of ethics in public life and the proprieties of lobbying. He said that, if it wants to, it can go on to look at accountability and appointments to quangos, perhaps the political honours system and the remuneration of Members of Parliament. In all those respects, the Nolan committee is long overdue and welcome.
  The Prime Minister also said in his statement that specific allegations concerning Members of the House or the conduct of the House would have to be met and dealt with by Committees of the House. That must mean the Procedure Committee or the Committee on Members' interests. So we have not only been charged with a responsibility by Parliament itself—the House of Commons having passed a motion establishing the Privileges Committee for the duration of this Session: we have been told quite clearly by the Prime Minister that the terms of reference, which have already been established for that Committee, must be continued and maintained as our inquiry proceeds.
  Mr. Winnick: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that, although this is not a matter for those outside the House, it is certainly a matter for us in the House, and that we must bear in mind the fact that much opinion outside is undoubtedly in favour of the Committee meeting in public, of which I am in favour? Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that, if justice is to be done, the Committee should meet in public, but that, if the deliberations are also to be in public, it could well be argued that that is a denial of justice, because the Committee should be in a position, as the Father of the House said, to deliberate? It will be extremely difficult to do that in public and could well be a denial of justice for the people involved.
  Mr. Alton: I agree. I made that point a little earlier in my speech. The hon. Gentleman makes a proper point. There are areas between which we much distinguish in determining the way in which we proceed.
  Mr. Ashby: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Alton: I will give way once more, but after that the House would expect me to get on with my speech.
  Mr. Ashby: The hon. Gentleman's party has always believed in justice. We have always heard that, if justice is to be done, it must be seen to be done. That is nonsense, because this is an inquisition. The Committee is not a court; it is conducting an inquiry. Once it has opened its doors, its procedures—which give defendants no rights whatever—will be exactly the same as those of the old Star Chamber courts that were hated by everyone because they were so unjust. The hon. Gentleman is opting for injustice, not justice.
  Mr. Alton: It is precisely because I believe in natural justice that I readily agreed to serve on the Committee. I used the very phrase that the hon. Gentleman has just used: I said that I would oppose any move to turn it into a Star Chamber or a kangaroo court. I believe that the Committee could consider many matters in public rather than in private.
  There is no question of the Committee's meeting in secret. All the transcripts will be made public eventually, apart from those relating to the deliberations. The issue is whether the proceedings should be transmitted

  1239
  simultaneously by television, radio, journalists and, indeed, members of the public who might wish to be present.
  Mr. Jenkin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Alton: No, I will not give way again.
  A longer-term issue is the question of self-regulation, and whether ours is indeed the right body to make such decisions and conduct such investigations. We should ask ourselves whether we ought to employ procedures that smack of the blackballing associated with the more prestigious gentlemen's clubs, or whether, in all cases such as this, we should invite someone from outside to sit in deliberation.
  The Father of the House alluded to the Poulson scandal. I was in local government at that time, and local government was a difficult place to be: everyone assumed that all those in local government were on the make, with their fingers in the till. Indeed, during my service as deputy leader of a city council and as its housing chairman, I often had to deal with contracts and tenders involving considerable sums.
  After the Poulson scandal, the House decided that it was not enough to expect local government to deal with its own affairs on a self-regulatory basis. A panoply of bodies was established—comprising the fraud squad, district auditors and local government ombudsmen—to be called in when a local councillor was thought to be in disrepute. The councillor might then risk criminal proceedings. I hope that Lord Nolan will examine the precedent of local government.
  In local government, people do not simply declare a pecuniary interest in advance; they must subsequently withdraw from all proceedings connected with that interest, and take no further part in them. That is a good precedent for the House of Commons to follow. We should be open to the same charges of dishonesty, fraud and criminal action. Many of my friends and colleagues who are still in local government do not understand why we exercise such double standards.
  For now, the Committee of Privileges is the body charged with investigating the most recent accusations levelled against Parliament. The first issue, on which I have already touched, is whether it should meet in private or in public. I believe that we should meet in public unless there are good reasons for us not to do so. Secondly, there is the question of precedent, which has been mentioned regularly during the debate. Precedents need not be slavishly adhered to; there are times when we can change the way in which we go about things.
  The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup was right: times have changed over the past 30 years. It is not a partisan issue. People expect our affairs to be more open—which is why the Prime Minister himself has identified a more open approach to many realms of Government life as one of the features that the Government can be proud of. I believe that, on the whole, such openness will be possible in this instance as well.
  Thirdly, there is the question of natural justice. Let me take up a point made by a Conservative Member. It can be argued that, when criminal proceedings are likely or writs have already been issued—we can think of one example immediately—the Attorney-General will in any
  1240
  event advise the Committee that that part of the proceedings cannot take place in the open. Any hon. Member who did not accept that, or who left the Committee and reported the circumstances, would prejudice the outcome of any court hearing that subsequently took place. In that context, I ask the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) to reflect on one of the points that he made in an otherwise excellent and thought-provoking speech.
  The fourth issue is reputation. That is the most important issue of all. Parliament's reputation has been damaged in an extremely high-profile way, and unless we put the matter right in a high-profile way, confidence in our institutions will continue to be sapped. Public cynicism about our institutions and politics has reached dangerous new depths: the Church, Parliament, the royal family, the City, financial institutions and publicly appointed bodies are all among the casualties of the new cynicism.
  Thoreau said, prophetically:
  "If you cut down all the trees, there will be nowhere left for the birds to sing."
  If our institutions are cut down one after another, we shall leave it to others with whose views we may strongly disagree to provide the answer to the new civic reckoning that is now under way.
  Another issue that arises—as it did in the Committee—is what should be done if the motion is rejected tonight. Before our Committee debate, we had already agreed a timetable and modus vivendi: the Committee's proceedings have already been put in motion. We met last week to listen to tapes, and it is no secret that two hon. Members will come before the Committee tomorrow to give evidence. It will continue to hear evidence as the House has charged it to do, come what may. The inquiry has been proceeding as we all agreed that it should, but it must now be deepened and widened.
  We need to hear from other hon. Members who have been named, from Mr. Al Fayed and Mr. Tiny Rowland, from the editor of The Guardian and from a number of others who have been mentioned—very publicly—in the media. I hope that members of the official Opposition will be present at tomorrow's meeting to support calls for the widening and deepening of the inquiry, but even if they are not, the Committee will be duty bound to proceed with the task entrusted to it by the House and by the Prime Minister last Tuesday.
  Mrs. Jane Kennedy: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Alton: No. I said that I was going to conclude my speech, and it is nearly finished.
  Until the House makes a resolution to do otherwise, it is the House's duty to proceed. That is why I, for one, will remain a member of the Committee until it has completed its task. That task is no more or less than what the public want and expect: they want us to clean out the Augean stables, and to put our own house—the House of Commons—in order. Political trench warfare would be a pitiful response to that expectation.
  Sir Edward Heath: Is it not possible for the Committee, when it next meets to discuss the proposal of

  1241
  one of its members, to reconsider the decision to hear all matters in private and to decide that it is prepared to hear witnesses in public?
  Mr. Alton: Of course that is open to the Committee. I should be happy to raise the issue, but, if the right hon. Gentleman could persuade one of his colleagues on the Committee to reflect on the issue, the proposal would be far better coming from that source. As the Leader of the House has told the Committee, the issue was determined on a single casting vote.
  In 1695, the House of Commons resolved, in not dissimilar circumstances, that
  "the offer of money, or other advantage, to a Member of Parliament for the promoting of any matter whatsoever, depending or to be transacted in Parliament, is a high crime and misdemeanour."
  Surely it is not too much to expect that, 300 years later, we may effectively circumscribe the malign effects of an industry that is suffocating Parliament and destroying its reputation. It will be a sorry reflection on the state of our contemporary House of Commons if we cannot find a common-sense way forward tonight.
  5.8 pm
  Sir Cranley Onslow: The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) made a typical speech; I rather agreed with the criticism made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath). The views that the right hon. Gentleman expressed about the results of a vote on deliberation in public are not the views that he held when he was last a member of the Privileges Committee. On that occasion, the question which he put to the vote was defeated; all three of his colleagues voted with the rest of the Committee against his proposition. I am glad to say that he attended at least two subsequent meetings of the Committee and I am not aware that he has divulged, except in the privacy of his diaries, the proceedings that took place. I hope that he will reflect carefully on the threat which he seemed to issue.
  To come back to the motion and the amendment, the House should remember that it has given the Privileges Committee two distinct tasks. One of them is an instruction to investigate matters relating to the conduct of two of our colleagues, and the involvement therein of The Sunday Times; to establish the facts so far as we can to give our opinion on whether they show that a contempt has been committed; and to recommend in a report the appropriate action to be taken by the House as a whole.
  I want to devote most of what I have to say to that specific matter, but the other wider-ranging remit contained in the Speaker's instruction to the Committee is much more general. It relates to matters which are complicated and involved; which may bring the Committee into a position of overlap with the Nolan inquiry; which may bring us into conflict with the Committee on Members' Interests; which we certainly cannot resolve in a hurry; and which will require a great deal of deliberation on all parts.
  Against that background, it is important that the Committee should be allowed to go on as fast as possible with the first part of its inquiry and try to get that out of the way as expeditiously as we can. My right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup knows, as I do, that it is not the Committee's fault that it has not been able to make more progress throughout the autumn. The
  1242
  Committee is not empowered to sit when the House is not sitting but perhaps it should be so empowered. That point could be pursued. As matters stand, my right hon. Friend must not blame the Committee; he must blame the House's rules of order.
  We must also bear in mind the requirements of natural justice. I am glad that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) referred to that; my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup referred to it as well. It may surprise hon. Members to hear that "Erskine May" is not an authority on the subject of natural justice. Even the law books are not especially helpful. I asked someone I know well, who is a lawyer, to see if he could provide me with any authority on the subject. I received a note from him which says:
  "The courts in the interest of fairness impose certain obligations upon those with power to take decisions affecting other people. These obligations arise from the rules of natural justice which, although 'sadly lacking in precision' have generally been subsumed under two heads"—
  the House will understand the rules when I read them in Latin—
  "the audi alteram partem rule and the nemo judex in re sua rule".
  I will not insult the intelligence of hon. Members by attempting to translate them. The note goes on to say:
  "By virtue of these rules decision makers must act fairly, in good faith and without bias, and must afford each party the opportunity to adequately state his case."
  I do not believe that if we met in public to consider the specific matters relating to the conduct of our two colleagues and The Sunday Times, it would be at all easy to meet the requirements of natural justice, even if we were a court of law, which the Privileges Committee is not. Not being a court of law, the Committee has no provision for legal representation, as my right hon. Friend and others have pointed out. There is no possibility of cross-examination and there are not even any charges set out—not even that old catch-all of section 40 of the Army Act 1955 with regard to conduct that is prejudicial to good order and military discipline. The whole situation is inverted, in that the Committee's task is first to establish what the rules may be and then to judge whether its opinion is that someone has offended against them.
  Sir Dudley Smith: Does my right hon. Friend consider that the Committee's task would be made much more difficult by the introduction of television and, to a lesser extent, radio? When the hearing takes place, the atmosphere in the Committee will be charged. Does my right hon. Friend realise that those who are accused cannot expect a fair trial or hearing? If he has any doubts, he should look at what is happening in America, where a celebrated murder trial is in absolute chaos because television cameras are giving it wall-to-wall coverage.
  Sir Cranley Onslow:I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who anticipates the very point that I was about to make. I do not need to look to America for evidence to support his argument and mine. It is essential that individual witnesses who come before the Privileges Committee should be protected when the proceedings may result in the Committee recommending a penalty against them, whether they are Members of Parliament or editors of national newspapers.

  1243
  We have a duty under natural justice to provide protection in those terms for those who appear before us. As my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir D. Smith) pointed out, to do otherwise—to meet in public—would be an absolute media circus. For a start, we should need to hold our meetings in the Grand Committee Room, if not in Westminster Hall, No room on the Committee corridor would be big enough to contain all those who want to come and listen to our proceedings and report them.
  As I said, we have evidence on our own shores of the way in which press coverage can frustrate the purposes of justice. On 15 June 1993, The Times Law Reports reported the result of an appeal hearing in an important case. The appeal was based on two grounds, the second of which was the concern that arose as a result of press coverage of the trial. I quote:
  "In granting the appellants leave to appeal the single judge described that coverage as 'unremitting, extensive, sensational, inaccurate and misleading'. Having had the opportunity of reading a substantial selection of the newspaper reports in question, their Lordships saw no reason to dissent… They were satisfied that the press coverage of the trial did create a real risk of prejudice against the defendants and for that second reason as well the convictions were unsafe and unsatisfactory and had to be quashed."
  We are not in exactly that position with regard to the offence or the forum in which it was heard, but we do not need to use our imaginations vividly to see that there might well be unremitting, extensive, sensational, inaccurate and misleading reporting of Privileges Committee sittings if they were held in public.
  Mr. Jim Marshall: I have a great deal of sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman's point of view, especially with regard to publicity. Can he explain who the publicity will influence? Clearly, in a court of law, there is a possibility that jurors can be influenced by publicity. How can the publicity which might attach to the right hon. Gentleman's illustration influence the members of the Committee who will, in the final analysis, make the judgment?
  Sir Cranley Onslow: The hon. Gentleman's imagination must be limited if he cannot see that. Even if he thinks that some of his colleagues may sometimes think that there is a compromise position to be adopted—a sort of halfway house where witnesses can be interrogated half in public and half in private—I recommend that he read the second leader in today's Evening Standard, which points out that it is disingenuous for Opposition Members to think that interviewing witnesses partly in private and partly in public would work. I quote:
  "Can they imagine the effect on press coverage if reporters were removed from the room for part, and only part, of the proceedings?"
  The leader goes on to recommend that the status quo—the traditional precedent by which the Committee meets in private—should continue.
  Whatever view one takes of that, it must surely be right that the Committee must make up its own mind as to how it does its work. It is not for the Leader of the Opposition to request the Prime Minister to allow the Committee to meet in public. It is not for the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) to blame someone else if we choose to meet in private. The
  1244
  decision depends on the individual views of members of the—and it is not members hunting as a pack or acting in concert but making up their own minds in their own way and in accordance with their own beliefs.
  The editorial in the Daily Mail, which the right hon. Gentleman quoted, was misconceived in its arguments. I have no sympathy with them. It is up to each of us to make our own judgment and to do so in the light of our interest in Parliament as a whole and our belief in the parliamentary process. I do not believe that we shall be able to retain the public confidence we need if we are to keep authority over our procedures unless we pass the amendment tonight.
  5.19 pm
  Mr. Alfred Morris: Happily, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir Edward Heath) took a much higher view of the abilities and standing of the Privileges Committee's membership than some of his colleagues have taken in their interventions today. As the right hon. Gentleman said, the legal profession is represented by some distinguished lawyers, not only by the Attorney-General but also, for example, by my right hon. and learned Friend and namesake the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris). He also is held in the highest respect in this House.
  I have no intention of exciting any avoidable controversy in the debate, and I know how seriously and conscientiously the Leader of the House takes his role and responsibilities in this extremely sensitive affair. In that spirit, may I ask him for a response, not now but before the debate concludes, to the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) about whether there will be a free vote for Conservative Members of Parliament as well as on this side of the House?
  I want now briefly to explain, as a member of the Privileges Committee, why I oppose the holding of its proceedings solely behind closed doors. In my view, secrecy is permissible only when there is a clear and compelling reason, more especially a legal reason, and even more especially any risk of infringing natural justice.
  For me, the issue is not one of party or parliamentary tactics. The accusation has been made that the Committee's Labour members acted like spoilsports, taking our ball home because we did not get our way. But we were not playing a game. The issue was one of very important principle and, for my part, I simply could not bring myself to say, when the vote for secrecy was decided, "That's fine. I will change my principles."
  There was no meeting of the Committee's Labour members to discuss its proceedings before the meeting on 18 October. Nor at any time have we met outside the Committee since then. Those are matters of ascertainable fact. We voted as individuals and were joined in opposing the motion for secrecy, as you heard, by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton), the representative on the Committee of the Liberal Democrats.
  Who in this debate can deny that, on 18 October, we acted in accord with the wishes of the vast majority of the British people? We put our votes where the Prime Minister's rhetoric was when he said that standards in public life should be

  1245
  "seen and recognised to be beyond criticism".—[Official Report, 25 October 1994; Vol.248, c.759.]
  That cannot be achieved on the basis of total secrecy.
  Urgency is now extremely urgent if we are to allay mounting public disquiet at the failure of this House to deal effectively with allegations of malfeasance. The public resent being kept in the dark.
  Mr. Patrick Cormack: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I am listening carefully. The proceedings will not be secret. They will be published in full. Therefore, every member of the public who wants to read the whole transcript will have the chance of doing so.
  Mr. Morris: I am glad to have an opportunity to correct what the hon. Gentleman says. It was said also by some other hon. Members earlier in the debate. Let me make it clear that it will be for the Committee of Privileges to decide whether the evidence is published in total, just as it was for the Select Committee on Members' Interests to decide, as it did, that large sections of the evidence given in the case of our former colleague, John Browne, the then Member for Winchester, would be deleted from its report.
  Sir Jim Spicer: It is not a matter of dispute—certainly with me—that the evidence should be given in total at the end of the proceedings. The only exception would be that, where criminal prosecutions might follow from the proceedings, of necessity and on the advice of the Attorney-General, the evidence would have to be debarred from going into the public domain. That surely negates half of what has been said in the Chamber tonight.
  Mr. Morris: The hon. Gentleman has already entered his own caveat. I repeat that it would be for the Committee of Privileges, not for any individual member of the Committee, to decide whether or not the proceedings were to be reported in their entirety. I am certain that the Committee will consider in due time very carefully whether it is legally proper for it to publish every aspect and detail of the evidence.
  Sir John Gorst: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Morris: I must proceed. The hon. Gentleman has intervened several times previously. I must proceed because I have been asked, as we have all been asked by the Chair, to speak as briefly as possible.
  I was saying that the public resented being kept in the dark: "They have lost faith in their leaders."
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: No.
  Mr. Morris: The hon. and learned Gentleman says no. They are not my words. They are the verdict given last Friday by Lord Nolan, appointed by the Prime Minister to chair the committee which will review standards in public life. His verdict makes it all the more important that all Committees of this House should now meet in secret only where sensitive or potentially prejudicial evidence makes it essential for them to do so.
  The Prime Minister has repeatedly insisted that the Privileges Committee must meet only in private because it has always met in private, but other important Committees have already dragged themselves into the 20th century while there are still a few years of it left.
  1246
  Until fairly recently, the Defence Select Committee always met in private, but today, like other Select Committees which always used to meet in private, it now very often meets in public.
  There has been a sea change since my book "The Growth of Parliamentary Scrutiny by Committee" was published in 1971. Then it was almost unheard of for Select Committees to meet in public, but millions of people of all persuasions now find it incomprehensible that the Prime Minister is insisting on secrecy. Not only The Guardian and the Observer, but the Daily Mail and The Sun, among many other national newspapers, most strongly back the motion for this debate.
  The Prime Minister must presumably have known since 18 October of the suggestion to allow the Committee to meet in camera if, for any legal or other compelling reason, more especially one of natural justice, it was proper for it to do so. The same balance is struck between open and private hearings in thousands of courtrooms up and down this country every week. It is the British way. The Prime Minister must also know that Select Committees and other important Committees of the House would still be meeting by lamp and candlelight if precedent had been all that mattered.
  Why then is he so obviously angry, notwithstanding the safeguards available, about all suggestions for open sittings of the Committee? The anger of his response to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) last Tuesday, and again in replying to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) last Thursday, was seen by huge audiences. Perhaps the most charitable way of describing his behaviour in this House on both occasions is to say that he blew in, blew up and blew out.
  In 16 years as a Privy Councillor, I cannot remember a moment when the need to improve Parliament's standing with the British people was more pressing than it is today. Not only is the conduct of Ministers and Members of Parliament under attack. Parliament as a whole is demeaned and diminished by the widely held conception now that the democratic process can no longer be trusted. That was why I wanted, and want now, the compromise between total secrecy and meeting only in public that I suggested on 18 October.
  A question put to me at the weekend was why, in the very week when the Government ended the right to silence by means of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill, the Prime Minister should so strongly have insisted on secrecy for proceedings in this building. There is public concern as well that the majority of 9:8 for allowing the Privileges Committee to meet only in private—as revealed in the statement by the Leader of the House to parliamentary journalists after the Committee's meeting on 18 October—included two senior members of the Government. Had they left the non-Ministers on the Committee to decide the issue, the Committee would now be meeting in public.
  This debate provides all of us with the opportunity to restore confidence in this House. Let us grasp the opportunity without either individual or party animus, as our contribution to improving standards in public life.
  5.30 pm
  Sir Terence Higgins: I agree with all those hon. Members who have said that this ought not to be a

  1247
  party political matter, and that in a very real sense the public's faith in Parliament is at issue. Having said that, we must recognise that the public expect things to be done in public. Since I support the amendment and believe that the existing arrangements for the Privileges Committee should stand, I have a responsibility to explain why the Committee should not sit in public. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House put forward the usual fundamental, traditional and entirely valid arguments as to why that should be so.
  I shall elaborate on those reasons, and I hope to persuade even those hon. Members who have spoken—perhaps even the Leader of the Opposition—why the amendment to the motion should be carried and the matter left in the hands of the Privileges Committee. I hope that it will continue to press for the traditional view, which successive Committees have set out.
  I am Chairman of the Liaison Committee, and have for a long while been heavily involved with Select Committees. The fact that those Committees take evidence in public has been of tremendous importance in holding the Executive to account. Very often, the evidence given in public and on television has been more important than the reports produced, or even than debates on the Floor of this House. Having said that, I go along with the traditional view that the Privileges Committee ought not to sit in public.
  One thing that one learns in this place is that our proceedings might seem old-fashioned, anachronistic or strange, but it is only when one changes them that one discovers why they were as they were in the first place. It is therefore worth while setting out the reasons for the precedent—which is not to say that the Committee cannot change it if it so wishes, as that is its right. None the less, the traditional arguments why the Committee should sit in private are very strong.
  The Leader of the Opposition exemplified some of the confusion when he said:
  "the normal procedure in courts of law is that hearings are held in public… Why will the Prime Minister not allow the investigations"
  by the Privileges Committee
  "to be held in public?"—[Official Report, 27 October 1994; Vol.248, c. 1003.]
  First, it has nothing to do with the Prime Minister: it is a matter for the Privileges Committee. In any case, the Committee is not a court of law, and none of the protections of natural justice that people have in a court of law exist in that Committee.
  The Opposition motion refers to "natural justice" and the need to preserve it. The dilemma is that it is difficult to understand how the Committee will be able to ensure that natural justice is preserved if the hearings are held in public. To elaborate, the Committee will have to make some difficult choices about which evidence to take in public. The decisions will undoubtedly create a furore. If we have a problem at present because people ask why the Committee sits in private at all, there will be constant questions in the press once it is decided that some matters are to be discussed in private and others in public.
  Even if the Committee makes that difficult choice, it is still far from clear whether the protections of natural justice will apply overall. Some of the people who give evidence and are discussed and examined in private might
  1248
  be protected, but they will not be protected from what other people might say in public. It is not merely a question of protecting the accused, even if they have been accused only in very vague terms: it will also be a question of protecting them from what witnesses may say in public.
  To recap and elaborate on some of the arguments of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House—
  Sir John Gorst rose—
  Sir Terence Higgins: With great respect, my hon. Friend has interrupted the debate about four times, which is quite enough for one sitting. If he will excuse me, I will continue.
  As was said earlier, no formal charges are laid before the Privileges Committee. There is also no legal representation. The Attorney-General is a member, and other members—for example the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris), who is on the Opposition Front Bench—have legal experience, but they are not appearing as counsel for the accused; that is the case where cross-examination is concerned.
  In the Maxwell case, it was possible for legal counsel to appear on behalf of witnesses. Of course, that would be possible in this case, but it would fundamentally alter the way in which the Committee operates, leaving aside the question of who would pay for counsel.
  There are other arguments. Witnesses would not normally appear on oath, although there is some precedent for that. If they lied, it would be a contempt of the House, but there is virtually no limit to what anyone could say or what allegations he or she could make—whether he or she was a newspaper proprietor, editor or whatever—under the protection of parliamentary privilege. If someone made false allegations or lied, it is not clear what sanctions could be imposed on them, as it is not set out clearly in our proceedings. Witnesses could make wild allegations to the Committee.
  All those reasons—the traditional reasons why the Privileges Committee sits in private—seem overwhelming. Having said that, some hon. Members have argued that it is important for justice to be seen to be done. I fear that, if the hearings were held in public, justice would be seen not to be done. People would be open to false allegations, with no effective defence.
  We must take into account another fundamental change—the advent of television—which is important. If the Committee decided to sit in public, it would have no control over whether it was televised. That is a matter for a separate body. It would be inconceivable that it would not be televised if it decided to sit in public—a vastly different situation from that described by the Father of the House when he quoted Lord Callaghan. We have a very real problem.
  Worse than that, the end result would be trial by television, but trial of a very distorted sort. The O. J. Simpson trial is on television in the United States, but at least there are some legal restraints on what is said, and some legal protections. Someone appearing before the Privileges Committee would not have that same protection. Allegations could be made, which would appear on television and be reported long before anyone could rebut or deal with them.

  1249
  That is a very dangerous path down which to go. In particular, we know perfectly that we would not see the entire interview or session of the Committee. A quick sound bite from Mr. Al Fayed, the editor of The Guardian or whoever is making an accusation against a Member of this House would appear on "News at Ten" or "Newsnight" totally out of context. If that is likely to be justice, I take leave to doubt it.
  I believe, for all those reasons, that there are strong arguments against the Privileges Committee sitting in public. Having said that, it is a matter for the Committee to decide. I hope that, in making a very difficult initial decision, the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) and others will take into account the points which I have just made. It is a very dangerous road down which to go.
  Four Opposition Members so far, who appear to have expressed the view that the matters ought to be taken by the Privileges Committee in public. I hope that they will reflect carefully before they continue to go along that particular route, and that they will realise some of the dangers which that would involve.
  I agree with the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), that it is crucial that the matter is proceeded with as rapidly as possible. The law's delays—even though the Committee is not a court of law—ought not to apply in this affair, and we must reach a rapid conclusion. I believe that it is right that the Committee should examine the matter and deliberate in private, and that it should then publish very carefully the evidence that it has received and the conclusions which it has reached.
  5.41 pm
  Mr. Bill Michie: I shall remind the House of my interests, which are declared in the Register. I am sponsored by the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union, I have a subsidised office in Sheffield which is provided by the council and I receive other small donations.
  I admit that I never imagined that asking the simple question whether the whole or part of the sittings and investigations of the Privileges Committee should be made in public would create such a gnawing and gnashing of teeth. I find it incredible; it is not as if the evidence that will be presented is not already in the public arena. Nor did I ever imagine standing in the House and being restricted from making relevant points because I happened to be serving behind closed doors on the Privileges Committee. I intervened earlier during the speech of the Leader of the House, and I was slapped down for being out of order.
  There is a vacuum in this debate as to how the decision was reached, and whether it was creating a precedent for the Chair to have a casting vote and for the Attorney-General to be offering advice every five minutes when hon. Members were raising points. We are in a very difficult position. I do not know exactly how I should put my case, but I shall do my best.
  I shall give one instance where it seems that I was creating precedent, although I did not know it. I phoned the Clerk of the Committee to ask whether I might see the minutes of the meeting on 18 October. There was silence for a time—basically because I do not think that
  1250
  an hon. Member had ever asked for the minutes of a meeting of that nature. I was told bluntly that minutes were taken and recorded, but that they were not for the eyes of Committee members until the final written report was published.
  That means, of course, that not only can I not speak on what happened in the Committee, but I cannot even read the minutes until months later to see whether they are accurate. If that is not a good argument for opening the Committee up to the public from day one, I do not know what is. My experience of the Committee—limited though it may be—has convinced me that that should be the case.
  When I decided to withdraw from the Committee, some of my hon. Friends reminded me that it was a very big step to take because some hon. Members had served on the Privileges Committee for 30 years. My answer to that was, "That is their decision. I have been on it for 30 days, and I'm off." I did that because I felt that I was under a tremendous strain.
  I do not blame people outside who ask what is going on here. We are talking about the most powerful Committee of the House and it does not even have to accept the vote tonight if it is in favour of the Opposition motion. The Committee does not need to take any notice, and there are no instructions that this place can give to the Committee. I have always argued that the more one has an inner sanctum of power, the more essential it is for democracy that that sanctum be opened up to public scrutiny. I feel that very strongly.
  The issues have already been in the public eye. The very hon. Members who are likely to be interviewed by the Committee have already been in public themselves and made their contributions in front of the cameras. There is nothing that has not already been in public view, and I do not understand why we should suddenly close all the doors and make sure that nothing is said or done in public.
  Today, the public demand far more information than they have ever done before. There is a bad taste which I believe must be washed away, and we cannot wash it away in secret. I was not elected—my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) said the same—to come down here and to sit on secret Committees of this nature. The longer I am in the House, the stronger I feel that we should open up the doors even more to clear the air. That means opening the doors of the Privileges Committee to the public.
  It has been argued in the Committee and since the Committee first sat that we cannot trust the broadcast media or the press. If we think about it, the argument goes further than that—it means that we cannot trust the public, and that we must leave it to right hon. and hon. Members to do the job for us. It has also been said that we are all right hon. and hon. Members, and that surely we can trust ourselves. It is said that we trust one another across the Committee, although I am not sure whether we do to that extent. But even if we did trust each other, that is not the issue. The issue is whether the public trust us.
  Following the leaks and innuendoes which have come out of this place during the past few months, if not years, the public are less inclined to trust us on issues of this nature. That is the real issue, and hon. Members cannot run away from that. It is no good the House threatening the press, or threatening hon. Members if they say anything untoward, try to break ranks from the so-called

  1251
  "traditions", create precedents, start a whole new ball rolling, and cause problems that will embarrass the House more and more. I say "threatening hon. Members", because to some extent I feel threatened by the fact that I must be careful what I say, and I cannot present my feelings about the procedures of the Committee.
  I almost feel as if I were a little naughty boy who is talking out of school, out of turn and out of class. I do not mind being treated like a little boy who cannot be trusted. I would rather have that than the public thinking that I was a bent big boy. I will always do my best to make sure that the people who elected me get as much information as possible. If the Committee insists on remaining secret, its report will not have credibility among the public.
  Mr. Andrew Rowe: I do not think anyone would object to the public's being given information, but the anxiety is that the public could be given misinformation of a kind that damaged someone's reputation—I do not care whether that person is a Member of Parliament, a journalist or a hotelier. Someone could appear before a Committee and, under the guise of parliamentary privilege, say something that was manifestly untrue. Even if that statement was believed by a handful of people for just five minutes, it would do enormous damage.
  Mr. Skinner: Ministers do it every day at Question Time.
  Mr. Michie: I take the point made by the hon. Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe), but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) has just said, such statements are made in the House every day at Question Time and in other Committees. After all, some scandals that have been reported in the media for years finish up as a ding-dong argument between spokesmen at the Dispatch Box. There is nothing new in that. There is no difference between such behaviour and the protection offered under privilege.
  The argument put by the hon. Member for Mid-Kent about the media misinterpreting information was also put to the Privileges Committee. We were told that if the media were allowed to attend the Committee we would end up with a media circus. I do not know where those hon. Members who argue that have been for the past few months, because we are in a media circus already. It exists because the media do not really know what is going on; they are putting two and two together and are sometimes getting five. When that happens, the press is accused of inaccuracies.
  If the House does not allow information to be recorded verbatim and truths to be published, the result is bound to be inaccurate reporting and speculation that damages the House and hon. Members, both those who are involved and those who are not.
  The conclusions that the public and the press arrive at may not always be correct, but they are the best that they can reach given the amount of information that they are allowed to glean from leaks, conversations behind closed doors and little whispers here and there. I do not blame the media and the public for getting things wrong; I blame the House, because it is hiding behind secrecy on issues that should be debated in the public arena.
  1252
  I feel strongly about this matter and that is why I withdrew from the Committee. I will not attend any further sittings if they continue to be held in secret. I have no doubt in my mind about that. I therefore plead with the House to show a little bit of common sense today. It should accept the Opposition motion because times have changed. We have television in the House and more and more members of the public walk around this building in the morning because they have an interest in the place—an interest created by the press and television. If we take away the public's right to have more and more information in this modern day and age, this place will be looked on not only as quaint but as strangely out of touch with reality. Such a decision would do a disservice to the House.
  Therefore, I repeat my plea to hon. Members—let us open the doors, let us have the truth and let us have no misleading statements. Let the public judge and not just peers of the House.
  5.52 pm
  Sir David Mitchell: It is right to declare my interest as a member of the Committee of Privileges.
  In my view, it would be quite wrong if the Committee sat in private and produced a recommendation to the House and kept its proceedings secret. That is not in accordance with precedent, however, which dictates that the Committee sits in private and publishes a full transcript of everything that is said and done.
  I have in my hand the report of the Committee of Privileges for the 1989–90 Session. The table of contents includes the Committee's report; its proceedings; the list of witnesses; the list of memoranda included in the minutes of evidence; the minutes of evidence, which give hon. Members' contributions word for word; and an appendix to the minutes of evidence. That is not a secret document; it is a full and complete account of what happened in the Committee.
  I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) is not still in his place, because he said that the Prime Minister had insisted on the Committee's proceedings being conducted in secret. That was not the Prime Minister's decision, but the decision of the majority of the Committee. Labour Members have left that Committee en bloc because they have refused to accept the democratic decision of a majority on that Committee.
  There are three cogent reasons, hallowed by time, why we should sit in private but publish everything afterwards. First, I do not want a witness to come before the Committee with his account of a conversation having had the benefit of hearing someone else's account of that same conversation. I want the pure water of the evidence as to how that witness recalled events, without having been nudged or fudged by his having heard someone else's account of the same conversation. Secondly, I do not believe that we will have an objective approach through a televised, American court, Perry Mason type public hearing. I remind the House that the Press Complaints Commission does not sit in public and if it does not, why should we?
  Thirdly, I fear that the Committee's proceedings will be turned into a media circus. I can just imagine the full television coverage. The editor of The Sunday Times

  1253
  might be asked to appear before the Committee and asked why he published the story. No doubt he would say that he did so because the paper is a great British institution, which holds the high moral ground in leading the campaign to improve ethics in Parliament. He would no doubt also claim that his was the only paper with the courage to expose the full horrors and that it was his determination to bring his readers the full story; and so on and so on.
  We would present a marvellous media opportunity to a particular national newspaper. There is no way in which we could stop that from happening, because the editor is almost certain to be one of the witnesses called. We would offer that newspaper prime advertising time and no doubt it would follow that up with its own suitably selected report of the Committee's proceedings.
  I have been in the House for 30 years and, from time to time, people ask me whether things have changed much. I reply that they have not, but that what has changed are the media, and the press in particular. Thirty years ago, one used to know that the news and the facts would appear in one part of a newspaper and the editorials and an editor's views in another. Now we have an amalgam and it is very difficult to distinguish the views of a newspaper, depending on what campaign or crusade it is running on a particular day, from the facts. They are no longer kept sacrosanctly separate.
  I am interested in the Opposition's motivation in wanting to change precedent. Put simply, they want to ingratiate themselves with the media in the hope and expectation of a quid pro quo—that the press and other media will repay them with favours in the years to come. For that reason, I hope that their grubby little motion is thrown out.
  5.57 pm
  Mr. William Ross: I should like to put the Ulster Unionist party's point of view, on behalf of my colleagues.
  We noticed that the motion is intended to allow public access to the Committee of Privileges, in the belief that that will restore public confidence not only in Members individually but in Parliament as an institution. We came to the conclusion that the reason for a lack of public confidence in this place and its Members is the various allegations of misdemeanours and "sleaze", to use the popular term which has been bandied about in the past few weeks. Those allegations have tarnished the reputation of Members and the standing of Parliament in the public mind.
  There is an old truism that hard cases make bad law. That would appear to fly in the face of the reaction of most people whenever they are confronted with a hard case. The truth of that saying remains, however, because changes in law in response to a particularly bad case normally result in bad law. Those changes are normally forced by the emotions aroused rather than because of a careful consideration of the facts relating to the general class of evils that that change in law is intended to correct.
  In recent years, two examples have passed through the House. The first was the community charge legislation, which, although it appeared to have, a sound base, red to all sorts of horrendous uproar. In a more recent example—the Child Support Agency legislation—a whole field full
  1254
  of dragon's teeth is now sprouting. No one foresaw all that would follow the passing of those two pieces of legislation.
  The current procedures in Committees of the House, especially the one that we are discussing, were arrived at after considering how best to deal with allegations made to the Privileges Committee in a calmer atmosphere than has prevailed in recent days.
  The motion is an effort to give a measure of direction to the Committee, and it would set a bad precedent if we followed that line. It applies pressure on the Committee to follow a certain course and if, for any reason, the Committee failed to follow that course, what a hullabaloo would then arise. A considerable number of hon. Members who have spoken in this debate have already alluded to that fact in some form.
  My party believes that the Committee should be free to make up its own mind at all times, for if it followed the motion, it would make matters much worse. It is not a court of law and the normal rules do not apply. There is no way in which the Chair could prevent allegations being blasted out and broadcast on radio and television as if they were the gospel truth. We all know what has happened about the allegations that have already been made. They are presented as proven facts and some are in the process of court action.
  Moreover, whenever the Committee moved into private session, even greater suspicion would be aroused, much inflamed by the media if their behaviour to date is anything to go by. I foresee endless allegations that the juiciest bits of the scandal under discussion in the Committee were being covered up. In those circumstances, we also have difficulty with the fact that if a criminal wrongdoing became evident, no prosecution could follow because the whole matter would already have gone through a kangaroo court in the press and the Committee.
  May I end with some advice that originated from America: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." That is sound advice to follow in this instance.
  6.1 pm
  Dame Jill Knight: Although the Privileges Committee, of which I am a member, has never sat in public, that is not the major reason why it should not do so now.
  Allegations made against hon. Members must be thoroughly investigated for three reasons: first, so that the House may know precisely what happened, without innuendo or suspicion; secondly, so that the public may also know; and, thirdly, in fairness to the Members concerned. The question now before the House is whether those three objectives, which are entirely equal in importance, can be better met by the Committee meeting in camera or publicly. I have no doubt about the answer.
  If the proceedings are held in camera, the House will know precisely what occurred. I could not believe that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) could think that there would be no report. The whole point is that the public and, particularly, the House want to know, and the Members concerned want justice. It is nonsense to say that, at the end of all the proceedings, the full details of what was discussed, who answered what questions, put by whom, will not be made public. Nothing will be secret or withheld unless there are clear legal

  1255
  reasons why certain sections of the proceedings should be withheld. The Leader of the House has already alluded to those.
  Broadly, no member of the Committee would want to keep the proceedings secret once conclusions have been reached. When the Committee report is published, the public will be able to see, read or buy the whole report, and Parliament will debate it. How could Parliament debate it if no report is published?
  Sir Peter Emery: The important fact that my hon. Friend has missed out is that the evidence will be published. Thus, all the evidence will be known at one time rather than in dribs and drabs, as it would be if the Committee were held in public.
  Dame Jill Knight: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I was coming to that point, but I shall not reiterate it because of the lack of time. All the Committee's deliberations will be published at the right time. The public will then know what has happened and be able to judge, not in fits and starts from sound bites, headlines, Jeremy Paxman, Rupert Murdoch, screams and yells, bias and innuendo, and daily mudslinging, but the complete and balanced report will be there for everyone to see.
  The Members concerned will be able to answer questions freely, speak in their defence, and have their words noted, although they are certain to have to face extremely tough questioning. There is no doubt about that, whoever attends the Committee.
  If the proceedings are entirely public, with television cameras and radio microphones, the matter will undoubtedly become a media circus. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, North-West (Sir D. Mitchell) made that point. We all know how grossly unfair the media can be. The public will have no chance of getting a balanced or accurate idea of what is going on. Somebody once said, "Why look in the crystal ball when you can read the book?" I would say, "Why read the book when you can call on your own experience?"
  Most of us know perfectly well what often happens when we agree to take part in a television programme and put forward a certain point of view, or explain or justify why something has happened or why our party is not culpable in the way described. Along we go and put our point of view. Then what happens? When the programme is broadcast, it has been chopped about and altered because it does not fit the picture that the producer wants conveyed. That has happened to me countless times and I know that it has happened to hon. Friends, too. "I have made up my mind," say the producers. "Don't confuse me with the facts," and on they go. All too often, they do not produce a fair and balanced report.
  Over the weekend, a national newspaper carried a letter from a member of the public saying that he had written to a different national newspaper making what he considered an important point. The editor had phoned him and said, "I will print your letter, provided that you chop out the middle of it because that is not the story that I am trying to put forward"—[Interruption.] Some of my hon. Friends have clearly seen the case, too. My point is that editors and producers of radio or television programmes have no conscience. They want to put a certain picture to the public, never mind the facts.
  1256
  Only today on the front page of The Daily Telegraph, broadcaster and writer Jonathan Dimbleby said that his words in a book about Prince Charles were
  "distorted and misinterpreted to the point where they became lies"
  and
  "reported…around the world as if they were true".
  If they can do that to the great Jonathan Dimbleby, and the possibly even greater Prince Charles, and members of the public, is any of us safe? We live in a world of sound bites, and if the Privileges Committee proceedings are filmed and broadcast, the words on the evening television news or the front page headlines will—there is no doubt about it—convey an entirely inaccurate impression of what is going on.
  Picture the scene. A Member puts a question to the accused: "You took other money from other sources, didn't you?" Next day, we will read, all over the front pages: "Fresh allegations" or "Other bribes were taken", when nothing of the kind has happened. Every hon. Member knows quite well that that will happen. Is there anyone, even on the Opposition Benches, who thinks that that would be fair to the Members concerned?
  Mr. Prescott: It is happening.
  Dame Jill Knight: If the deputy leader of the Labour party has any doubt that I am well aware, I am pleased that he is aware that that is happening.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. We cannot have one Member aving the Floor and other hon. Members, including Front Benchers, making seated interventions.
  Dame Jill Knight: My argument is absolutely clear—there is no hope of any hon. Member who appears before the Privileges Committee obtaining a fair hearing and a balanced judgment if the television cameras are present.
  We all care deeply that the reputation and honour of the House should not be compromised. There is no question of keeping any misbehaviour or dishonourable action hidden—none of us wants that—but the honour of the House also demands fair treatment for those who are accused. They will have no hope of fair treatment if the wolves and hyenas of the fourth estate are unleashed while the Committee is sitting.
  In the past few weeks and months, we have watched the press and broadcasters lie, cheat, forge and distort to obtain a story. Make no mistake—when they do, all of us are diminished by the process. It is no news to say that the overwhelming number of Members on both sides of the House are honourable men and women, but it is true. It is not, however, headline news. What is headline news is the very few who do not match up to the House's standards. We must guard our reputation, especially our reputation for fairness to colleagues.
  6.12 pm
  Mr. Bill Etherington: Most of the debate has involved procedure, which, I admit, I do not find especially interesting in many respects. I may be heavily criticised from both sides of the House, but I want to suggest that we look at the state of affairs that has brought the debate about.
  We need to be a little more profound than to decide who is right, who is wrong, who is honourable, who is dishonourable, how a certain Committee should work and whether things should be held in public or in private. If

  1257
  we examine the underlying problems that have brought all this about, we will find that the underlying problems do not lie with the law, but with what the public perceive and the morality that they would like us to observe.
  I am conscious of what the Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), said when he spoke about our moving with the times. What was probably considered satisfactory under Lloyd George, and possibly later still under Clement Attlee, would not be acceptable today. We live in an era when the public are much more conscious of what goes on in this place and are much more conscious of the activities or inactivity of Members.
  Until such time as we tackle the underlying problem, all the procedural alterations in the world will not make an iota of difference. What is required is that when people come here as Members of Parliament, that is their only source of employment and their only source of remuneration.
  If it is said that Conservative Members are heavily involved with business and receive payment for advice, consultancies, or any other activity, there is almost sure to be the riposte from the Government Benches: "On the Labour side, the trade union movement has a heavy involvement and it too makes a financial contribution to the Labour party, and indeed to Labour Members". If any Conservative Member wishes to say that, I would accept that argument.
  It will not make me popular with Opposition Members, but I believe that the only way that Members of the House will regain the respect of the public is to be seen not to have any vested interests, and not to be involved with paid remunerative work purely because they are Members of the House of Commons. Few hon. Members would be considered to be good consultants or advisers if they were not Members of the House. If they were simply members of the public, they would not be considered, and the various companies and organisations would not want their services, and would not be prepared to pay them.
  Until that problem is tackled, and until Members of Parliament are solely paid for the job that they do here on behalf of the public, the public who put them here—with great trust, because they respect them—there will be no improvement. We might get the present problems out of the road, but they will recur. They will continue to recur until such time as there is a radical appraisal of the responsibilities and duties of a Member of Parliament.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I would point out to him that the purpose of the debate is to decide whether the Select Committee on Privileges sits in private or in public. He is now going very wide of that.
  Mr. Etherington: I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
  I have got out what I wanted to say, but I wish to make the following argument about private versus public hearings. No one should fear evidence being taken in public, and no one who has to make a decision on that evidence should be afraid to explain why they made that decision. That is what the public send us here for—to consider things, and to make decisions. They have the right to have the evidence in the same way as we have, so that they can decide whether we are doing a good job.
  1258
  I have said all that I wish to say on the subject. I hope that all Members in the House will consider a more radical appraisal of the present situation, because the present situation is a symptom of a malaise that we are not tackling.
  6.17 pm
  Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: Many of the arguments that I wished to make have been made by other hon. Members, but some were made over and over again. There is a danger, with the time running so short, that it will prevent some hon. Member presenting a new argument.
  I briefly ask the House to consider the debate in the context of the experience of the Select Committee on Members' Interests. I have been its Chairman for more years than I care to remember but, during that time, we have had to consider some delicate issues concerning Members on both sides of the House. That has led, in some cases, to public inquiries; inquiries that have led to public reports, which have led to considerable controversy. We have also considered Members' complaints, not only in private and oral hearings, but by correspondence.
  In referring to our experience of the Committee, it is not my wish, nor would I presume, to tell the Select Committee of Privileges how to go about its business. Its current terms of reference are much broader than those to which we, in the Select Committee on Members' Interests, are accustomed.
  Whenever possible, our attitude has been that we must try to make our affairs, and the decisions that we arrive at, as transparent as possible. That is why, when we consider evidence as to what action one should take about a specific issue such as lobbying, or the effect that outside interests may have on Members' behaviour, we have brought in the public to listen to the evidence that we take. That has contributed to the public's better understanding of the manner in which we carry out our duties, but we have drawn the line and we were right to do so.
  I have not heard anyone complain publicly outside the House about the manner in which hon. Members conduct their proceedings privately, although one complaint has been made in the House. We consider a complaint against an hon. Member privately. For various reasons that have been adumbrated mainly by Conservative Members, we believe that there are occasions when respect for the public deserves a balance of view—we must also respect the right of hon. Members to privacy and to natural justice.
  The arguments have been fairly well rehearsed. Hon. Members all recognise the points that have been made about the advent of television and the media and the instant reporting of often difficult questions to hon. Members who come before my Committee and who have no opportunity, as they would in court, to receive legal advice about whether they should answer a question that may be incriminating. Appositely, people have talked of the risks that exist when Committee Members give an account of what they are doing that is fair to the people who come before them, let alone to themselves. They are the subject of instant reporting by the media.
  That is the media's job. I used to work in the media. I know their responsibilities. There is no reason why they should be put in the difficult and impossible position of

  1259
  being openly invited to a Committee that they wish to report and that they have been given permission to report but which they cannot report in the depth that is demanded or with considered, mature reflection. Reporting is bound to be instant and there are bound to be instant judgments. Many of my hon. Friends have advanced those arguments very well but we should not forget another point.
  I was involved in a libel trial. If I had lost it, I would have been a liar and lost a lot of money. When an hon. Member comes before a Select Committee, certainly the one of which I am the Chairman, he faces serious charges. It is not pleasant to know that that experience awaits him. However nice or kind one may be, he knows that his reputation, his conduct and, in some cases, his career are on the line. It is wrong, therefore, for the press to give immediate publicity to what he says when he does not have the legal advice that he can obtain in a court, which also imposes restrictions on press reporting to ensure that justice is done and that a trial is not prejudiced. That seems obvious. I should have thought that the practical lessons that we have learnt from such cases justify the attitude that we have taken in Committee.
  As I said earlier, I have presided over a number of complaints. It was not a pleasant task or something that anyone could enjoy but I have always been much impressed that my colleagues in Committee from both sides of the House have responded with objectivity and fairness and have faced up to their responsibilities honourably, as we would expect. Our private hearings have never been regarded by Committee Members as a hole-in-the-corner exercise designed to cover up an hon. Member's misdeeds. If they were, that would have been apparent when the House considered our published reports, the evidence that goes with them and the votes in Committee.
  If hon. Members do not have the confidence to express confidence in the integrity of our procedures, how on earth can we expect the public to share that confidence? One of the more unfortunate things that has happened in the past few months has been the constant nit-picking by some people, who are not at all friends of the House, about the integrity of its procedures. How small the voice has been from time to time of hon. Members standing in our defence. When it comes to matters affecting hon. Members, we have an honourable tradition of upholding fairness and justice and of being courageous in dealing with such matters as we think fit.
  As I mentioned earlier, one doubt has been expressed about the way in which we conduct procedures concerning complaints. It was first made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence). Some hon. Members have suggested that we should pay closer regard to the practice of the courts, that we are not always as fair as we might be because we do not have the experience of learned counsel, and that people who come before us do not have the benefit of counsel. I understand those arguments. The Committee should always be prepared to listen to arguments that could strengthen the Register of Members' Interests, its enforcement—I shall not go too wide on this, Madam Deputy Speaker—and above all the way in which we handle complaints.
  If we go too far down the legal path and adopt legal practices, that would give rise to the question whether the rules governing hon. Members' interests should be
  1260
  embodied in the law, which would then be enforced by the courts. The matter was raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) in a debate on 7 March 1990 in column 926. He rejected that view, and I agree with him. We cannot wash our hands of such business and leave it to judges. In the end, hon. Members should shoulder the responsibility for how the Privileges Committee, the Select Committee on Members' Interests or any other Select Committee go about their business. We should not leave it to others.
  6.26 pm
  Mr. David Winnick: The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) was critical of the media. Labour Members have some experience of the media, especially at election time, when almost the whole of the national press is against us, so we know what it feels like to be the subject of harsh criticism. When she was speaking, I reminded myself of all the arguments that have been used in the long past against reporting of the House and against televising the House, a more recent debate in which hon. Members were involved prior to the last election. They stood up and said that televising the House would change its character and that it would be quite wrong. It is interesting to note that some voices I hear now say that those criticism were justified. We have not reverted back, however, and we are not likely to.
  After opening our doors and allowing the public to listen to our debates—reporting of the House was once a crime—hon. Members did not decide to revert back to previous practice. Likewise, we decided that it was right to continue radio coverage and the televising of Parliament—we did not go back on that decision either. Some right hon. and hon. Members will remember that it is almost 28 years to the day that the motion that the House should be televised was lost by one vote.
  When I spoke in the debate on 13 July that decided to refer the allegations to the Privileges Committee, I expressed concern that the public were already getting the feeling that all hon. Members were on the make. Hon. Members on both sides of the House should be concerned about the reputation of the House, not because we are concerned about a club for privileges and rights, but because this is the very place that sustains our democracy. If the electorate form the view that they can have no confidence in Parliament, that in itself is a grave matter that will affect parliamentary democracy.
  We do not join this place because we want to be members of a club. Despite all the great differences between us, first and foremost our concern must be to sustain the parliamentary democracy that has served the British people so well. I find it almost impossible to believe, given the serious allegations at stake, that Conservative Members really think that the public will have confidence in the outcome if the Privileges Committee decides to sit in private. Here I strongly disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn). It would be wrong, however, if the Committee held its final deliberations in public. Like a jury, the Committee should decide these matters in private, given that the fate of certain hon. Members is in the balance. But I see no reason otherwise—apart from a few compelling circumstances—why sittings should be held in private.

  1261
  The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) has already pointed out that, if the Attorney-General comes to the view that certain matters are unfairly being raised, he will advise the Committee accordingly. What if the Scott inquiry had been held in private? It too dealt with a great many allegations. Could anyone seriously believe that that inquiry would have come to just conclusions if its proceedings had been held in private? The public's confidence in the inquiry is largely determined by its membership and by its proceedings, televised and reported, being held in public.
  Mr. Rupert Allason rose—
  Mr. Winnick: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, but there is no time left in which to give way to him.
  Despite all the fears that have been expressed—no doubt genuinely—by Tory Members this afternoon, I find it difficult to believe that, if the Privileges Committee decides to sit in public this time, it will revert in future to private deliberation. Once it takes the decision to sit in public, it will keep doing so in future—and rightly so. I hope that the motion before us will be duly carried.
  6.32 pm
  Mr. Winston Churchill: I warmly welcome the establishment of the Nolan committee and the referral of recent allegations to the Committee of Privileges. It is vital that the standing of Parliament be restored to what we and our constituents expect it: to be.
  There can be few in this House who do not believe that, whenever possible, the deliberations of the House and of parliamentary Committees should be held in public—unless there are very good reasons to the contrary. The Father of the House rightly said that grave matters of the type that are before the Committee have always before been dealt with in a non-party-political spirit. Judging by today's debate, that will, tragically, not be possible this time. It is clear that many Opposition Members seek not justice but party political advantage.
  The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) admitted that it is unprecedented for the Privileges Committee to hold its deliberations in public, and there are good reasons for that. There can be few Opposition Members who believe in their hearts that those who stand accused before the Committee will be given a fairer hearing if its deliberations are held in public.
  So I repeat that it is for party political advantage alone that the Opposition are standing on its head the precedent that they pursued when in government. Quotations from Lord Callaghan and others repeated here today have reiterated the sound reasons why previous leaders of the Labour party have felt it important that the Committee sit in private. As the High Court of Parliament, we have, above all else, a responsibility scrupulously to ensure that Members of this House or outsiders—possibly from the press—be treated as innocent until proved guilty. They must be given a fair hearing. Our constituents would expect nothing less.
  The questions of probity at stake in this case go much wider. They include the press, notably that most sanctimonious of journals The Guardian. I trust that the curious behaviour of its editor will be considered by the Committee. Just what did Mr. Peter Preston think he was doing in allowing The Guardian to be used by Mr. Al Fayed as a pawn in his apparent attempt to blackmail the
  1262
  Prime Minister, and in his determination to destroy the careers of Ministers when the Prime Minister refused to bow to that blackmail?
  The editor of The Guardian got so carried away with the role vouchsafed to him by Mr. Al Fayed that he stole House of Commons letterhead and committed forgery, fabricating a letter purporting to come from a Minister of the Crown. By his own admission this was done to protect the position of none other than Al Fayed himself. How fantastic that the editor of a once great journal of high repute should resort to such devices and apparently engage in a conspiracy to bring down Ministers—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. I must respectfully point out to the hon. Gentleman that this is a very narrow debate and that he has gone beyond the bounds of the motion. Would he please return to it?
  Mr. Churchill: In our efforts to ensure that the standing of this House is restored to what it should be in the eyes of our constituents, it is also essential that the Privileges Committee safeguard the rights of those who appear before it. I happen to believe that that cannot be done under the glare of the television cameras and without the safeguards available to defendants in a court of law.
  Few people in this country regard the O.J. Simpson trial in the United States as anything other than a media circus and a travesty of justice. I trust that that is not what the Opposition are trying to bring about in the Privileges Committee. Therefore, although I think that the Committee's report must and will be debated in public, and all its evidence must be published, its hearings should be in private, except when it decides to the contrary. I shall therefore support the Prime Minister's amendment, calling for the Committee itself to be the judge of whether it deliberates in public or private.
  6.37 pm
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: This debate is held against the background of Members of Parliament being extremely well paid, and against the background of 4 million people being without a job and pensioners without two ha'pennies to rub together.
  For the past few hours, I have been listening to the Tory Members who have created all this havoc indulging in special pleading just because two, or possibly more, of them are to finish up before the Privileges Committee. It is high time we got rid of all this mumbo-jumbo about that Committee. It should not be the judge and jury of Members of Parliament. The Opposition complain about the police sitting in judgment on themselves. That is why the Privileges Committee should not examine the conduct of Members. There are millions of people outside who would welcome the opportunity of having their friends sit in judgment upon them. In the debate Tory Members have been saying, "We are special, we are above anybody out there. We want special treatment."
  Sir Peter Tapsell rose—
  Mr. Skinner: I should like to give way, but I do not have enough time.
  The Committee has nine Tory Members and eight Labour Members— [interruption.] Well, seven Labour Members and another hon. Member: I do not know what he calls himself nowadays. There are eight Opposition Members on the Committee. Tory Members say that It is

  1263
  a kangaroo court, but not only do they have a majority, they will have a casting vote by a member of the Cabinet. They have the cheek to talk about not getting justice, but all the cards are stacked in their favour.
  I do not think for a minute that the House will disband the Privileges Committee. Of course we will not: we will go ahead with it. I support my hon. Friends who have called for it to meet in public. What is wrong with meeting in public? All the other Select Committees meet in public from time to time, and many people are brought before them.
  In any case, in the House any hon. Member can refer to anybody, as many do from time to time, and cannot be pulled up for it. The debate is about Conservative Members protecting their own. My guess is that, if two Labour Members had to go before the Committee, Tory Members would be telling another story. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh no, they would not!"] Oh yes, they would. The remarks of Tam Dalyell were apt.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) was apt: we really need a Register that means something. We need to make sure that people do not register late, and that they register all their outside interests.
  Members of Parliament should not have any outside jobs. We are paid £32,000 a year, and anyone who cannot li.ve on that should not put up for the job. As well as all the outside interests, all the money attached to them should be put in the register. The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) said that he could not live on his parliamentary salary, and made £300,000 a year from outside interests. That was reported in a newspaper. It is a scandal that, when many people outside are having a job to live, we should be discussing the debacle that arises from Members of Parliament making money hand over fist. Only when that has cleared up will the debate mean anything.
  I support the idea of the Committee sitting in public, but the real problem is that it is high time we had a system in which there is no conflict of interests. If Members want to represent their constituents, they should do it every day of the week, and not represent outside interests—and not make a packet of money and line their pockets.
  6.42 pm
  Mr. Richard Shepherd: The raw, corrosive view expressed by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is the one that the House must address. There is a crisis of confidence in the workings of the House, and we must address that if we are to preserve the House's authority. We make the laws, and if we are disreputable or perceived as disreputable, what authority can the law of our land carry? That is fundamental to our system of government.
  The motion is reasonable, and I see nothing in the arguments against it. They gainsay public anxiety on a level that I have never before perceived. One does not lightly throw away the arguments of precedent, because they were argued and reasoned in their time. In the debate, we heard the echoes of yesteryear when they were reinforced again.
  1264
  Hon. Members have spoken about natural justice, but have not the cases of my two accused hon. Friends who will come before the Privileges Committee been splashed in the most malign way, insensitive to the sensibilities of their families, their constituencies and the reputation of the House? Have they had the might to defend themselves against that? Not one of my hon. Friends has argued, "Is there not a man who wants to shout out in front of a committee, 'I am innocent'? Have I not the right to ask that hearings be in public? Is there not an opportunity to dispel the more sleazy allegations that are laid against one?"
  The issue is of confidence in our system, and, as I have tried to emphasise, the outcome rests on our authority. The importance of the House, why we are here, is to attest to the respectability and responsibility of our people.
  I spoke earlier about the making of laws. If we are perceived as undesirable, as people on the make who are here only for what we can get, the authority of our laws will fall. What else are we, as a democratic people and as ordinary citizens, but the instrument by which we perceive ourselves—the House of Commons? It is fundamental to get that right.
  Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Shepherd: If my right hon. Friend will forgive me, I should like to continue for the few minutes left to me.
  There is now a watershed in our affairs. People outside do not perceive us as benign, but they have an intuitive feeling that Parliament is somehow essential to their well-being, and they are right. But if we are perceived as corrupt, that concept will be undermined.
  Why should the hearings be held in secret? It is because there is a fear that people will be traduced by headlines on each day's reporting. But who will write the report? Is not the judgment finally to be debated in the House, and will we allow ourselves to be traduced? We must speak up for ourselves.
  Mr. Garel-Jones: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Shepherd: I hope that my right hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not. I have sat through the debate, and I should like to finish my speech.
  I do not doubt that most hon. Members are absolutely honourable. I have no reason to suppose that anyone is dishonourable until that has been proven. Is that not the presumption that members of the Committee will have in their hearts when they hear the evidence, traduced as it may be by the despicable, low-life press in some parts of our society? Do we not know how to judge that? We must have confidence in ourselves and in our rights. We must go out and proclaim, "The House is decent and honest. We have nothing to fear".
  6.46 pm
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: No hon. Member has yet said that the Opposition motion will in practice require that nearly every sitting be in private. That is because the motion speaks of "natural justice" as an exception to the rule of having it open to the public. In this context, natural justice means fairness.
  How can it ever be fair to allow an accusation against an hon. Member which will affect his whole future livelihood to be made through trial by television—because

  1265
  that is what it would be? Not the whole case, but only part of it, would be presented. There would be summaries, sound bites and excerpts at the end of the day. How can that possibly be fair? That is as absurd as it was for the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) to say that there was no party political interest in the matter. The right hon. Gentleman smiled as he said it. Opposition Members should have been honest enough to say that the whole reason for the motion is to try to embarrass the Government. Instead, they made portentous speeches.
  How can it possibly be fair to make an allegation in public against an hon. Member without giving him notice of the details—a prior statement to which he can apply his mind? Is there any provision for that? How can it possibly be fair to try an hon. Member in public and not allow him the opportunity to be represented by a lawyer who can remind him of his rights, obligations and duties? How can it be fair to make an allegation in front of someone who is not a qualified judge, and who does not have the power to exclude evidence that may be intensely prejudicial and unfair? How can it be fair that a public hearing making a specific allegation of wrongdoing against an individual can stop him having the right to call witnesses in his defence if he so wishes? None of that is fair. It does not matter quite so much if the hearing is not reported all over the media, but it does matter very much if it is. At the end of the day, under the present procedures the report produced by the Committee can be sensibly doctored so as not to cause unnecessary harm and distress.
  What would be the guarantee that the day-by-day media reports of a public hearing would ever be fair, when the editor of The Guardian can flout the rules of the House, flout the laws of the land, flout natural justice and fairness and flout common decency?
  It must be patently clear from the events of the past few weeks that the media are interested only in witch hunts, and that they will go on extracting every single ounce of blood from the dissatisfaction, embarrassment or personal pain of someone in public life, provided that that helps to sell newspapers.
  The Press Complaints Commission is no defence—we cannot complain afterwards to that body. Of course, if we did, who would we find on the commission but the editor of The Guardian, whose judgment is so poor that, even in today's broadcast, he could not understand that what he had done was wrong. We cannot ask for the help of the law of libel, because these occasions will be privileged.
  It is absolutely naive of hon. Members to ignore the fact that most people believe that there is no smoke without fire. People believe what they want to believe, and if that belief can be fed by tittle-tattle and critical allegation, it will be. Where, in that, is the justice and fairness for which this House must stand?
  The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) said that we are here to serve the public, not to treat this place as a club. We serve the public by publishing the evidence and conclusions of the Committee. We serve them by ensuring that our proceedings are fair. If our proceedings to our own Members are not fair, what chance do we have of persuading those outside, whom we are here to serve, that when we deal with them we will be fair?
  1266
  We serve the public by having less and less, rather than more and more, of the daily news media—whether it be television, radio or the press—dealing with sleaze allegation after sleaze allegation, most of which are too trivial for words. In this real world, feeding the media hunger for scandal, however trivial, is not the best way to serve this nation or to protect the honour of Parliament.
  We are the least corrupt country in the whole of the western world. Unless we have confidence and belief in ourselves, and unless we ensure that our processes are fair to the people against whom allegations have been made and who stand accused, we have no right to be here.
  I shall vote for the Government's amendment, because it makes sense. The Opposition motion does not change anything, because once they concede that, if the proceedings are to be fair they must be held in private, they are acceding to the Government's amendment.
  6.53 pm
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) rightly said that the issues we are debating today are fundamental, and that it is important for the reputation of this House that we make the right decisions.
  I start by reminding the House of the motion that we are debating, and why the Opposition have tabled it. It states that the Committee of Privileges should sit in public, except in certain circumstances. In other words, there should be a presumption that the Committee meets in public, but that it is recognised that there may be compelling reasons why that cannot always be the case.
  We tabled the motion to give the House the opportunity to express its opinion—not to give an instruction—to the Committee of Privileges, so that it knows the feeling of the House on how it should proceed from now on.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) rightly said that the issue is not, and should not be, one of simple party politics. I hope that, when the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster replies to the debate, he will say that the Government have decided to follow the Labour lead and allow a free vote on this important issue.
  I very much regret the remarks of the hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill), because the Opposition have not sought to make this a party political issue—[Interruption.] If Conservative Members believe that we have, they do not understand the very real questions in the public mind about the workings of the House. These matters raise very real issues of confidence in Parliament itself. It is important that every hon. Member realises that that is not healthy for democracy.
  I agree with many of the comments made by the Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath). He said that the standing of the House has fallen and that we should all want to deal with that problem. We must establish public confidence in the House of Commons, and we must all be concerned about the recent allegations.
  Mr. Gary Streeter: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Mrs. Taylor: No. There is no time left, because some hon. Members have taken too long.

  1267
  We must all be concerned about the allegation that led to the specific reference to the Committee of Privileges—that Members of Parliament have taken cash for tabling parliamentary questions. I take issue with the Leader of the House, who said that that was not unprecedented. I most sincerely hope that it is. We have certainly not heard that sort of allegation before, which is one reason why there has been a loss of public confidence in our institution.
  Mr. Streeter rose—
  Mrs. Taylor: I am sorry, but hon. Members have spoken for too long.
  The House must find a balance between trial by allegation on the one hand, and cover-up and the impression of secrecy on the other. If the Committee continues to meet only in private, public confidence will not be restored. Surely that must concern every hon. Member.
  There is one point of agreement. It is clear—no one disputes this—that the Privileges Committee can meet in public. Standing Orders allow that. The real question is whether it would be wise for the Committee to do so. I believe that for the Committee to meet in public is the only way to quell public fears and to enhance the reputation of the House.
  I say that for three reasons. First, we must re-establish confidence in the House and in our deliberations. Secondly, there must be clarity in our deliberations, which again requires openness. Thirdly, there must be consistency between the approach of the Privileges Committee and that of the Nolan inquiry, whose meetings the Prime Minister says should be held in public as often as possible. Indeed, the chairman of that committee, without knowing what evidence would be put before him, has already decided that the committee should meet in public whenever possible.
  The public will have confidence in the findings of the Privileges Committee only if they also have confidence in its workings. We do not want trial by allegation, but public confidence will not be restored by the image of the House acting as a gentlemen's club, dealing with allegations behind closed doors. It would undermine public confidence even further if there were a feeling that we had joined forces to settle these questions between us in private. That would send the wrong signals to the public. This is their Parliament, not ours.
  The question is whether there should be a balance between the Committee sitting in private and in public. Various hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) offered suggestions for arriving at that balance. The Leader of the House said that individual members of the Committee might feel inhibited about asking questions in public, but it would be open to them to suggest that certain sittings take place in private—and the Committee itself could decide such matters. We could have a parallel arrangement to that for Select Committees. That must be the way forward.
  I was impressed by the speech of the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup and by the comments of other senior Conservatives outside the House, such as those of Lord Howe yesterday. They acknowledge that the world
  1268
  is changing, and that, since Select Committee procedures were adopted, the public have come to expect a new level of openness. We must make progress with that.
  I remind the House of the issues that led to the matter being referred to the Committee of Privileges. One was the question of hon. Members accepting cash for tabling parliamentary questions. Another, raised by hon. Members themselves, was the actions of individuals who apparently tried to bribe individual Members of Parliament as an experiment. Both matters are before the Committee of Privileges.
  I further remind Conservative Members that, when those issues were debated on 13 July, the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick), against whom allegations have been made, welcomed the reference to the Privileges Committee. He said on that and other occasions that he and other Conservative Members wanted to make statements about the role played by the press. Surely it is in the interests of those against whom allegations have been made for at least part of the hearings to be in public. Hon. Members facing allegations may want to have those allegations and their defence heard in public.
  In the July debate, one hon. Member who had been invited to table questions for cash and refused said that he saw no reason for the Committee not meeting in public. At least two of my colleagues, the hon. Members for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton), said that they would prefer the Committee's hearings to be in public.
  I hope that the Minister for open government will not defend the idea that the Privileges Committee should meet in private. I hope that he will accept our suggestion that there should be a free vote, agree that public confidence in the House has been shaken in an unprecedented way, and accept that serious allegations have been made. If politicians want to be treated as professionals and to earn any respect from the public, we must not only get our own house in order but be seen to do so.
  7.3 pm
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. David Hunt): I first welcome the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) to her new responsibilities. The hon. Lady must understand why she received the reaction she did when she urged the House to approach the subject in a non-partisan way. My right hon. and hon. Friends have been outraged at the way in which, outside the Chamber, many Opposition Members have irresponsibly sought to use trial by allegation.
  I concede that this has been a responsible debate, thanks to the opening speeches. My right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council, in a statesmanlike way, set out all the problems and obstacles that would lie in the way of accepting the Opposition's motion.
  The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) followed the theme of approaching this important subject in a non-partisan way. In one or two ways, he struck a new approach. He advised the House never to lose its temper in public, and never to engage in party political banter when discussing such issues. The new, biologically improved right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East is one whose progress we will watch most carefully.

  1269
  I do not have time fully to respond to all the important points raised, but I will comment on two in particular. The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) urged that the Committee of Privileges should deliberate in public—and he warned that, if it did not, he would attend and report its activities. That would be most irresponsible. I do not believe that any right hon. or hon. Member who has spoken in this debate supports the right hon. Gentleman's view. His proposal is certainly not allowed under the Standing Order that we have been debating, which allows for Strangers to be admitted only during the examination of witnesses, not during the deliberative process. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will rethink his position.
  I do not believe that many were persuaded by the arguments of my right hon. Friend the Father of the House that witnesses should give evidence in public, but we were persuaded that, very often, individuals coming before the Committee would have their very reputations at stake, and that matters should be dealt with as quickly as possible.
  My right hon. Friends the Members for Woking (Sir C. Onslow) and for Worthing (Sir T. Higgins), and many other right hon. and hon. Friends, gave cogent reasons why natural justice is so important in all the deliberations of the Committee of Privileges. It would be risky to set aside a precedent of many years that underpins a unique parliamentary privilege, and suddenly to dictate to the Committee that it should meet partly in public and partly in private.
  I took careful note of the words of the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East. He said:
  "The House is generally agreed that members of the Privileges Committee will make their own decisions on the matter.
  "So why have the motion, because the right hon. Gentleman is following the words of the amendment? I strongly urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to do the same.
  Question put, That the original words stand past of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 264, Noes 301

  Division No. 315]

  [7.08 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane,

  Blair, Tony

  Adams, Mrs Irene

  Blunkett, David

  Ainger, Nick

  Boateng, Paul

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Bradley, Keith

  Allen, Graham

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Alton, David

  Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Brown, N. (N'c'tle upon Tyne E)

  Anderson, Ms Janet

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  (Ros'dale)

  Burden, Richard

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Byers, Stephen

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Caborn, Richard

  Ashton, Joe

  Callaghan, Jim

  Austin-Walker, John

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Barnes, Harry

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Barron, Kevin

  Cann, Jamie

  Battle, John

  Chidgey, David

  Beith, Rt Hon A. J.

  Chisholm, Malcolm

  Bell, Stuart

  Church, Judith

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Clapham, Michael

  Bennett, Andrew F.

  Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

  Benton, Joe

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian}

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Berry, Roger

  Clelland, David

  Betts, Clive

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  1270

  Coffey, Ann

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Cohen, Harry

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Connarty, Michael

  Hutton, John

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Illsley, Eric

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Ingram, Adam

  Corbett, Robin

  Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

  Corston, Jean

  Jamieson, David

  Cox, Tom

  Janner, Greville

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

  Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

  Jones, Ieuan Wyn (Ynys Mofln)

  Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr John

  Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

  Dafis, Cynog

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

  Darling, Alistair

  Jowell, Tessa

  Davidson, Ian

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

  Keen, Alan

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Kennedy, Charles (Ross,C&S)

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)

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

  Khabra, Piara S.

  Denham, John

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Dewar, Donald

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil (Islwyn)

  Dixon, Don

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Dobson, Frank

  Lewis, Terry

  Donohoe, Brian H.

  Liddell, Mrs Helen

  Dowd, Jim

  Litherland, Robert

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Livingstone, Ken

  Eagle, Ms Angela

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Eastham, Ken

  Loyden, Eddie

  Enright, Derek

  Lynne, Ms Liz

  Etherington, Bill

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret

  MacShane, Denis

  Fatchett, Derek

  Madden, Max

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Maddock, Diana

  Fisher, Mark

  Mandelson, Peter

  Flynn, Paul

  Marek, Dr John

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

  Foulkes, George

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Fraser, John

  Maxton, John

  Fyfe, Maria

  McAllion, John

  Galbraith, Sam

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Garrett, John

  McCartney, Ian

  George, Bruce

  McFall, John

  Gerrard, Neil

  McKelvey, William

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  McLeish, Henry

  Godsiff, Roger

  McMaster, Gordon

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  McNamara, Kevin

  Gordon, Mildred

  McWilliam, John

  Graham, Thomas

  Meacher, Michael

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Meale, Alan

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Michael, Alun

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Grocott, Bruce

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll Bute)

  Gunnell, John

  Milburn, Alan

  Hall, Mike

  Miller, Andrew

  Hanson, David

  Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

  Hardy, Peter

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

  Harvey, Nick

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (Wy'nshawe)

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Henderson, Doug

  Mudie, George

  Heppell, John

  Mullin, Chris

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  Murphy, Paul

  Hinchliffe, David

  O'Brien, Michael (N W'kshire)

  Hodge, Margaret

  O'Brien, William (Normanton)

  Hoey, Kate

  O'Hara, Edward

  Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Home Robertson, John

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Hood, Jimmy

  Olner, William

  Hoon, Geoffrey

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Parry, Robert

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Patchett, Terry

  Hoyle, Doug

  Pendry, Tom

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Pike, Peter L.

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Pope, Greg

  1271

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Speller, John

  Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)

  Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Prescott, John

  Stevenson, George

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Stott, Roger

  Purchase, Ken

  Strang, Dr. Gavin

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Straw, Jack

  Radice, Giles

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Randall, Stuart

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Raynsford, Nick

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Reid, Dr John

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Rendel, David

  Timms, Stephen

  Robertson, George (Hamilton)

  Tipping, Paddy

  Roche, Mrs. Barbara

  Turner, Dennis

  Rogers, Allan

  Tyler, Paul

  Rooker, Jeff

  Vaz, Keith

  Rooney, Terry

  Wallace, James

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Walley, Joan

  Ruddock, Joan

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Salmond, Alex

  Welsh, Mike

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Welsh, Andrew

  Sheerman, Barry

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)

  Short, Clare

  Wilson, Brian

  Simpson, Alan

  Winnick, David

  Skinner, Dennis

  Wise, Audrey

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Worthington, Tony

  Smith, C. (Isl'ton S & F'sbury)

  Wray, Jimmy

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Snape, Peter

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Soley, Clive

  Mr. John Cummings and

  Spearing, Nigel

  Mr. Jon Owen Jones

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

  Carlisle, John (Luton North)

  Aitken, Rt Hon Jonathan

  Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

  Carrington, Matthew

  Amess, David

  Carttiss, Michael

  Arbuthnot, James

  Cash, William

  Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Ashby, David

  Churchill, Mr

  Atkins, Robert

  Clappison, James

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ru'clif)

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Baldry, Tony

  Coe, Sebastian

  Banks, Matthew (Southport)

  Colvin, Michael

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Congdon, David

  Bates, Michael

  Conway, Derek

  Batiste, Spencer

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

  Beggs, Roy

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Bellingham, Henry

  Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

  Bendall, Vivian

  Cormack, Patrick

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Cran, James

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

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

  Booth, Hartley

  Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

  Boswell, Tim

  Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

  Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

  Day, Stephen

  Bowden, Sir Andrew

  Deva, Nirj Joseph

  Bowis, John

  Devlin, Tim

  Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

  Dicks, Terry

  Brandreth, Gyles

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  Brazier, Julian

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Bright, Sir Graham

  Dover, Den

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Duncan, Alan

  Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

  Duncan-Smith, Iain

  Browning, Mrs. Angela

  Dunn, Bob

  Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Dykes, Hugh

  Burns, Simon

  Egger, Tim

  Burt, Alistair

  Elletson, Harold

  Butler, Peter

  Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Butterfill, John

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

  1272

  Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

  Lang, Rt Hon Ian

  Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

  Lawrence, Sir Ivan

  Evennett, David

  Legg, Barry

  Faber, David

  Leigh, Edward

  Fabricant, Michael

  Lennox-Boyd, Sir Mark

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Lidington, David

  Fishburn, Dudley

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Forman, Nigel

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Peter (Fareham)

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Lord, Michael

  Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)

  Luff, Peter

  Forth, Eric

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

  MacKay, Andrew

  Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

  Maclean, David

  Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

  Madel, Sir David

  French, Douglas

  Maginnis, Ken

  Fry, Sir Peter

  Maitland, Lady Olga

  Gale, Roger

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Gardiner, Sir George

  Malone, Gerald

  Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

  Mans, Keith

  Garnier, Edward

  Marland, Paul

  Gill, Christopher

  Marlow, Tony

  Gillan, Cheryl

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

  Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Gorst, Sir John

  Mates, Michael

  Grant, Sir A. (Cambs SW)

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

  Mellor, Rt Hon David

  Grylls, Sir Michael

  Merchant, Piers

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Mills, Iain

  Hague, William

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

  Moate, Sir Roger

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Hanan, Sir John

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Hargreaves, Andrew

  Needham, Rt Hon Richard

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Nelson, Anthony

  Hawkins, Nick

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Hawksley, Warren

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Hayes, Jerry

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Heald, Oliver

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Norris, Steve

  Hendry, Charles

  Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Hicks, Robert

  Ottaway, Richard

  Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence

  Page, Richard

  Hill, James (Southampton Test)

  Paice, James

  Horam, John

  Patnick, Sir Irvine

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Patten, Rt Hon John

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

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Pawsey, James

  Hunt, Rt Hon David

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

  Pickles, Eric

  Hunter, Andrew

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Jessel, Toby

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Rathbone, Tim

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Jones, Robert B. (W Hertfdshr)

  Renton, Rt Hon Tim

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Richards, Rod

  Key, Robert

  Riddick, Graham

  Kilfedder, Sir James

  Robathan, Andrew

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

  Knapman, Roger

  Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

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

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Knight, Greg (Derby N)

  Ross, William (E Londonderry)

  Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

  Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

  Knox, Sir David

  Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

  Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  1273

  Sackville, Tom

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Sainsbury, Rt Hon Tim

  Thurnham, Peter

  Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

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

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Tracey, Richard

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Tredinnick, David

  Shepherd, Rt Hon Gillian

  Trend, Michael

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Trotter, Neville

  Shersby, Michael

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Sims, Roger

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Viggers, Peter

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Walden, George

  Soames, Nicholas

  Walker, A. Cecil (Belfast N)

  Speed, Sir Keith

  Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

  Spencer, Sir Derek

  Waller, Gary

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Ward, John

  Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Spink, Dr Robert

  Waterson, Nigel

  Spring, Richard

  Watts, John

  Sproat, Iain

  Wells, Bowen

  Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

  Whitney, Ray

  Steen, Anthony

  Whittingdale, John

  Stephen, Michael

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Stern, Michael

  Wiggin, Sir Jerry

  Stewart, Allan

  Wilkinson, John

  Streeter, Gary

  Willetts, David

  Sumberg, David

  Wilshire, David

  Sweeney, Walter

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)

  Sykes, John

  Wolfson, Mark

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Wood, Timothy

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Yeo, Tim

  Taylor, John M. (Solihull)

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Thomason, Roy

  Mr. David Lightbrown and

  Thompson, Sir Donald

  Mr. Sydney Chapman

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments) and agreed to.
  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House re-affirms the long established practice that decisions as to how a Select Committee once established should proceed are for the Committee itself.

  Transport and the Environment
  [Relevant document: The Sixth Report from the Transport Committee, Transport-related Air Pollution in London (HC 506).]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
  7.23 pm
  Mr. Michael Meacher: I beg to move,
  That this House, noting the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution's condemnation of current Government transport and land use policies as unsustainable, calls on the Government to make a major strategic shift away from an obsessional concern with road building and road widening in favour of an affordable, safe and reliable public transport system to reduce pollution, accidents, noise and congestion.
  Last week's royal commission report is a comprehensive and authoritative repudiation of the Government's transport policies over the past 15 years. In the magisterial words of paragraph 14.51,
  "In the past, transport and land use policies have combined to promote life-styles which depend on high mobility and intensive use of cars, and which cannot therefore be regarded as sustainable."
  I emphasise the words
  "which cannot… be regarded as sustainable."
  Not one but two Government reports have now forcefully asserted what not only Labour but everyone with common sense has always known, but what the Government have always resisted: that it is impossible to build a way out of congestion. Even the Government's own standing advisory committee on trunk road assessment is thought to be telling the Government—it would help very much if the Secretary of State told us tonight when he will publish its report, which has been lying on his desk and that of his predecessor for some six months—that building more roads simply generates more traffic.
  The fact is that 15 years of the Government's policies have brought our transport system to breaking point. If we want proof that unbridled individualism does not work, we need only look at our highways and inner-city roads.
  Mr. Peter Bottomley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: I will, although it is rather early in my speech.
  Mr. Bottomley: My intervention may be helpful. Is it not true that, during the years when not a single extra mile of motorway was built, the growth in traffic seemed more related to the expansion of the economy? Is that not the dominant truth, although the report seems to exclude it?
  Mr. Meacher: The Government are as guilty as anyone else in that regard. Moreover, today's circumstances are very different: there has been extensive road building on a massive scale, and no alleviation of road congestion—in fact, the reverse.
  The need for a radical change of direction towards a new strategic approach is now overwhelming. The evidence is clear: the DTI's forecast that car use over the next 30 years will at least nearly double, and may even

  1275
  increase at a rate between doubling and trebling, cannot be handled through the building of roads to accommodate such a massive increase in the volume of cars.
  Like many hon. Members, no doubt, I recently saw a newspaper picture of a large stretch of the M1 as it was in 1959. There were three vehicles on it; no doubt that was bliss. We have all seen pictures of the M1 as it is now—indeed, I am sure that we all have experience of it—with hundreds of cars crawling for miles on end, bumper to bumper, at 5 mph. That is hell.
  Widening the M25 to 14 lanes is not the solution to motorway congestion; it is a demonstration of the ultimate insolubility of the problem through such means. If we reach the year 2025 and it is predicted yet again that the volume of cars will double, will we then be offered 28-lane motorways? Where will this madness end?
  In addition there are the environmental effects. The royal commission puts the quantifiable cost of air pollution—climate change, noise, vibration and accidents—at between £10 billion and £18 billion a year, compared with the £16 billion a year, or thereabouts, that motorists now pay in taxes, but that still omits the cost of congestion, which the CBI recently put at a further £15 billion a year.
  Mr. Peter Butler: The cost of congestion, in terms of pollution and delayed journeys, is enormous. The hon. Gentleman has argued that the M25 should not be expanded. May we logically conclude from that that he wishes that it had never been built? What effect would that have had on pollution and congestion in London?
  Mr. Meacher: We are saying not that the M25 should not have been built but that it should have been part of an integrated transport policy including many other forms of transport that have been neglected—in particular, light rail systems, the development of British Rail and proper investment in it. Of course London needs such an outer road network, but that need simply will not be met by investment entirely in extending an already huge motorway. We have now certainly reached an absurd point.
  The cost of the present policy also omits the unquantifiable but no less serious environmental costs—loss of land and access to the countryside, visual intrusion, disruption of communities and loss of wildlife habitats. As we all know from our constituencies—many Tory Members will be aware of this—the cost in urban areas has often been in terms of extensive demolition of housing, blight, as on the north circular road and the highly unpopular Hackney M11 link-up in east London, and sprawl, with growing out-of-town shopping developments.
  For all those reasons, which are familiar to the House, we are remorselessly approaching a transport nightmare. To be fair, the Secretary of State for Transport—I will be fair to him, compared with his predecessors—shows some signs of beginning to recognise that. He is starting slightly to mitigate some of the more extreme excesses of his predecessors.
  1276
  Our charge against the Government today is twofold: first, that there is no evidence that the Government seriously grasp the magnitude of the transport crisis facing Britain today and, secondly, that, even if they do, they are either unwilling or unable effectively to deal with it.
  This is the Government who, five years ago, promoted the great car economy with a mammoth road-building programme of £18 billion, which was later increased to £23 billion. They have cut rail grants by more than £2 billion since 1983, and are cutting investment in rail by two thirds between 1991 and 1996. Despite March's roads review, they are still powering ahead with plans to widen British motorways into United States-style super-highways and will spend £6 billion over the next three years on road networks. They are still spending three times more on roads than on public transport and are pressing ahead with rail privatisation, which will increase fares, reduce services and push more people on to the roads.
  Any Government who grasped the scale of Britain's transport crisis would change course on all those counts. This Government have changed course on none of them. They have shown an unswerving, visceral antipathy to the public sector since their first days of Thatcherite interventionism. [Interruption.] The Minister for Transport in London may laugh at the terminology. I am not worried about the terminology; it is the facts that count. I hope that the Minister will accept that we have seen a constant, persistent and destructive run-down of public transport. That is the key point.
  Mr. Nigel Forman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: I shall give way in a moment.
  Even today, Ministers continue to talk about investment in roads to meet demand while at the same time talking about subsidies for railways that must be rationed because apparently the nation cannot afford them. The Government still prefer to spend £270 million on widening the M62, rather than £170 million on electrifying the trans-Pennine network, even though that would relieve congestion on the motorway much more effectively.
  Tory Members may not like the suggestion, but they simply have never tried it. They have never examined what has happened with the development of public transport systems abroad. If they had, they would have pursued a different policy. They still prefer to spend millions of pounds on extending the congested M6 north of Birmingham before they start modernising the west coast main line, which would do much more to relieve congestion.
  It is not too difficult to see that the real reason why the Tories are so determined to continue building roads in perpetuity, despite mounting opposition across the country, lies in the link between the Tory party and some of the major construction companies. One company, Taylor Woodrow, has given more than £1 million to central office since 1979. Trafalgar House has given £590,000, Tarmac has given £389,000 and Wimpey has given £385,000. [Laughter.]
  If it is such a laughing matter, I wonder why Tory Members think that those companies did so. They did so because they believed that they would get a return—and, by golly, they did from this Government. As we have long

  1277
  known, the trouble with Tory transport policy is that he who pays the piper calls the tune. That is not the way to get the new forward-looking policy for Britain that is now needed.
  Mr. Forman: The hon. Gentleman said that he was interested in the facts, rather than anything more rhetorical. Is he aware of the simple fact that, although there was no new net investment in surface public transport throughout the International Monetary Fund cuts in 1976 to 1986, many of the problems that my constituents face are the result of a policy followed by Governments of both parties, who inadequately invested in surface transport over that period?
  Mr. Meacher: We are 15 years on, and the hon. Gentleman might look at his own record. The Government like to claim that they have given 40 per cent. of investment to public transport. Of course, that investment includes items such as the royal train, National Freight Corporation public pensions and the coastguard service. If we remove those items, investment in public transport has been about 26 per cent.—an extremely low rate. Three times as much is going to roads than to public transport. That is the point that the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) should be addressing to Ministers.
  Sir Roger Moate: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: No, I will not give way.
  Even if the Government were minded to make a change of direction, our second charge is that they are not in a position to deliver it. Their obsession with rail privatisation and bus deregulation is fragmenting services to an extent that makes it much more difficult to deliver a big expansion of public transport, even if they are minded to do so.
  Indeed, the Secretary of State may soon have to decide whether he favours promoting competition between rail and bus operators, or whether he wants to help rail and bus to compete with the car. If it is the former, he may have to put a stop, under competition rules, to integrated ticketing valid between different operators. If it is the latter, he may have to enforce integrated ticketing to attract people away from their cars. Perhaps he would like to tell us his choice, but the fact remains that, whatever it is, Government policy is now wholly unfitted for the agenda that lies ahead.
  What should be done? What is fundamentally needed in the United Kingdom is a genuinely sustainable policy that integrates different transport networks and provides real freedom of choice for the traveller and the commuter, not the present Tory policy, which is unsustainable and fragmented and which has distorted the Department of Transport into a ministry for endless road building and road widening. That is not only our view; it is shared by the royal commission, which is an across-the-board vindication of Labour's integrated policies.
  We believe that that requires a moratorium on new road building and road widening, a major switch of resources into extending and upgrading public transport, greater use of light rail systems in inner-city areas and a significant shift from road to rail freight. Having said that, I immediately make it clear what our policy is not.
  1278
  First, our policy is not anti-car. It is pro-car because it is not in the motorist's interests, let alone anyone else's, to build more and more roads indefinitely that, within a few years, will result in more and more people driving on more and more crowded roads and in an inexorable rise in delays and stoppages. We favour freedom of choice for the motorist. The problem is that he or she does not have freedom of choice at present because alternative public transport systems that are affordable, reliable and convenient and that he or she might prefer to use often simply are not available.
  Mr. David Nicholson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Sir Roger Moate: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: I will in a moment.
  Secondly, we do not suggest, and neither does the royal commission, that people should be required to get rid of their car. We do not even suggest that people should be encouraged to do so. All that we say is that the Government should provide a balanced and integrated transport system that will persuade people that it is common sense and in their interest to use the car less for certain purposes.
  Mr. David Nicholson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: I will not give way if the hon. Gentleman keeps jumping up.
  Our intention is to persuade the motorist to use the car less for particular purposes, such as driving into city centres with no passengers. We seek a cultural change, which is what is needed in Britain. We need a cultural change rather like the one that has occurred in the attitude to smoking and drinking and driving so that more socially responsible car use, such as I have suggested, becomes the norm of social acceptability. That requires a lead from the Government, but it is not being given at present.
  Thirdly, we do not suggest that the choice is between the car and the present system of public transport, run down and under-invested as it is. We say that the real choice is between the endless expansion of the car society, which is ultimately self-defeating, and a balanced system in which cars, buses, trains and other means of transport can all play their interconnected and optimal roles.
  Fourthly, let me make it clear that our policy is not to stop all future road building but to undertake a major review to decide what is in the wider social interest to build. Ironically, the Government have given the highest priority to certain major, hugely unpopular road projects, such as Twyford down, the Batheaston bypass and the M25 and M62 motorway widening projects, but have neglected certain clearly needed upgrading projects such as—I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) agrees with this—the construction of a dual carriageway on the A 1 north of Morpeth, and upgrading of the last few miles on the A2 into Dover and the A34 spine in the south-west.
  We would look afresh at priorities in the light of new criteria, which would include the likely generation of new traffic, pressure for green-belt or out-of-town development and the capacity of alternative public transport options to solve the problem.

  1279
  Above all, we would want to see a common cost-benefit approach to all investment in transport that took the environment much more into account. That is not a utopian policy—far from it. There are strong practical reasons for believing in its realism.
  There is scope for change in Britain today. Britain is the most car-dependent country in Europe. Public transport use is among the lowest. Where public transport has been improved, car owners use it: 40 per cent. of those using the newly reopened Robin Hood line into Nottingham are ex-car users and a similar proportion who use Manchester's Metrolink are well-off car owners from wealthy districts of Cheshire.
  The Secretary of State for Transport (Dr. Brian Mawhinney): We know.
  Mr. Meacher: If the right hon. Gentleman knows it, why has he been so slow to support the construction of light rapid rail systems in cities? Many projects have come to him and he has been sitting on them. There has not been the rapid development that was needed years ago.
  Pedestrianised areas in inner cities have been found to increase retail turnover, not to diminish it. Where cycling facilities are provided, many people use them; York is just one of many examples. Where local authorities have set targets to reduce city centre traffic, many have dramatically succeeded.
  The Minister for Transport in London (Mr. Steve Norris): We welcome that.
  Mr. Meacher: If the Minister is so pleased with the policy, why has he been so extremely lax and laid back about implementing it? If he thinks that he has made the change in direction that is really needed, I am astonished. The Government are still going substantially along exactly the same lines. Despite the sustainability policy and the car review earlier this year, very little has changed.
  Sir Roger Moate: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: I will not give way.
  Many local authorities have had remarkable success stories—for example, the City of London traffic management schemes or the Manchester and Sheffield supertrams.
  Mrs. Anne Campbell: Is my hon. Friend aware that one of the effects of the Government's transport policy is that when environmentally friendly infrastructure is available it is often not used? I have a good example in my constituency. Very narrow residential streets are being blocked by heavy lorries delivering equipment to Railtrack in the centre of Cambridge. Equipment is delivered by lorry instead of by rail. Does my hon. Friend think that that is disgraceful?
  Mr. Meacher: It is certainly extremely unwise and a good example—[Laughter.] One notices that every time a suggestion is made of an obvious, common-sense departure from the current inanities of the Government's unintegrated transport policies, they are simply greeted by a great deal of laughter. Transport is an issue about which many people in Britain care. They think that the Government should not simply laugh about absurdities
  1280
  such as my hon. Friend mentions but should make some real changes. What my hon. Friend says makes a great deal of sense. I hope that the Secretary of State will deal with those issues.
  Sir Roger Moate: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: I will not give way now. The hon. Gentleman can make a speech if he wants to.
  A great deal more could be done to switch freight from road to rail and to coastal shipping. In the United Kingdom only 7 per cent. of freight goes by rail while more than 60 per cent. goes by road. By comparison, about 27 per cent. in France and a third in Germany goes by road. If rail freight in the United Kingdom was doubled exclusively to replace journeys of more than 100 miles by the biggest lorries, total road freight could be reduced by more than a fifth and mileage by the biggest lorries could be reduced by half.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: I will not give way to the hon. Lady.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Did the signalmen's strike help?
  Mr. Meacher: The hon. Lady will not succeed in interrupting by making sedentary interventions.
  None of the problems to which I have referred need involve extra spending—[Laughter.] That just shows the extraordinarily closed minds that Conservative Members have. It is simple. If only a proportion of the money pledged by the Government for road building were reallocated, it would certainly be enough to provide much-improved, high-quality public transport systems, improved grants for rail freight and a wide variety of measures to cut inner-city traffic.
  Few issues on the political agenda today are more important than transport. The Opposition have a vision for Britain. It is not of a country sinking ever deeper into a morass of pollution, congestion and concreted countryside. It is of a country in which transport is the ally, not the enemy, of the environment and where all modes of transport play their optimal role within a balanced network. That is our vision and our agenda. We believe that it is widely shared by the people of Britain.
  7.49 pm
  The Secretary of State for Transport (Dr. Brian Mawhinney): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  "welcomes the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution's report on Transport and the Environment; recognises that its recommendations deserve thorough consideration and analysis; supports the significant measures already taken by the Government to improve the environmental impact of transport; endorses the Government's recognition stated in the United Kingdom Sustainable Development Strategy, of the need to influence the rate of traffic growth and its clear planning policy guidance which seeks to reduce the need to travel in the future; to that end applauds the Government's efforts to promote the development of public transport and its moves towards an effective partnership between public and private investment in transport; and believes that a balance must be struck between environmental concerns, economic growth and the freedom and choice provided by road transport.".

  1281
  I congratulate the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) on his promotion—I would call it that—and I look forward to debating with him across the Dispatch Box. I hope that he will enjoy his new responsibilities as much as I am enjoying mine.
  This debate centres on last Wednesday's report by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. With my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for the Environment and for Health, I welcomed that report—I do so again this evening—as an important contribution to the broader debate about how to balance the economic benefits and personal freedoms that transport can bring with the need for environmental protection.
  The report begins by looking back to the 1970s, so I thought that I would do the same and remind right hon. and hon. Members of the nature of transport in Britain in the 1970s and the changes that have occurred since. The hon. Member for Oldham, West may then agree that we are far from the breaking point to which he referred; moreover, in doing so I will endorse the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley).
  The mid-1970s were not our railways' finest hour. Only 14 per cent. of ordinary trains operating in 1977 were less than 10 years old—their average age was closer to 20 years. Today, the average age of similar rolling stock is 14 years and more than half is less than 10 years old.
  Mr. Peter Snape: I do not want to sound too churlish at this stage in the Secretary of State's career, but he should not rely too much on statistics of that sort prepared within his Department. The diesel multiple units that he described as being around 20 years old in the 1970s were deliberately built with a design life of 30 years, so they still had another decade to go at the time.
  Dr. Mawhinney: And today.
  In 1978, the fastest journey time between London and Newcastle was three hours and four minutes—it is now 24 minutes less. It took four hours and 52 minutes to get to Edinburgh; now it takes 47 minutes less. It took three hours and 33 minutes to get to Plymouth and today it takes 28 minutes less.
  Between 1978 and 1993, 775 miles of route were electrified. More than 160 stations have been reopened in the past 10 years. I hope that the hon. Member for Oldham, West will be listening to the next sentence. More than £15 billion has been invested in the railways.
  Today, many more people fly—for business or to enjoy holidays. Fewer than 53 million passengers passed through our airports in 1978. Last year, more than 112 million did so.
  On our roads, travel was often slower and more difficult. Since the late 1970s, we have opened more than 460 miles of new motorway and 160 new bypasses. In that time, more than £20 billion has been invested in our motorways and trunk roads to assist our nation's economy.
  Mr. Tony Banks: What about sedan chairs?
  Dr. Mawhinney: I know that it would appeal to the hon. Gentleman given his idiosyncratic views but the Department of Health is not going to provide him with a sedan chair.
  1282
  During the 1980s and 1990s, travel has become a more important feature of our lives. As incomes have grown, travel has grown—a phenomenon that is quite apparent to the royal commission, if not to Opposition Members, and which clearly presents challenges.
  The commission's report sets out those areas in which transport growth can threaten the environment, especially pollution, noise and effects on land. We ought not to assume, however, that environmental damage always and necessarily grows in proportion to the growth in transport. The Government have taken very seriously their commitment to environmental protection. Consider, for example, the progress that has been made in improving air quality in our cities.
  Mrs. Helen Jackson: I was anxious that, before he left the subject of the 1970s and stopped looking backwards, the Minister should recognise that in the 1970s and the early 1980s the public transport system in south Yorkshire was planned on an integrated basis. The system included some subsidy for the fare-paying passenger, but there was a year-on-year increase in the number of passengers travelling on public transport. Does the Minister recognise that that system—the best in Europe—was destroyed by the Government's deregulation legislation?
  Dr. Mawhinney: No, because it is not true. I was trying effectively to deal with the argument of the hon. Member for Oldham, West, which I guessed at although I did not get the words right. The change, development and progress in transport, which have benefited individuals and the nation's economy, are considerable and impressive.
  I shall turn to the future, as the hon. Member for Oldham, West wants me to, but we will inform our debate about the future by the facts of our recent history, which is what I have been doing.
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Could my right hon. Friend also remind the House about the fact that the Government's road-building programme concentrated on bypasses? The advantage of those is that they remove congestion from towns and reduce accident rates. The Opposition seem to be against bypasses, but may I put in a plea for some more to be built fairly quickly in my constituency?
  Dr. Mawhinney: As my hon. Friend rightly points out, there is widespread support for bypasses among the people whose lives will be relieved by them. Batheaston bypass may have attracted people with different views of environmental issues, but it was welcomed by the people whom it was going to aid, as the hon. Member for Oldham, West knows.
  Mr. Robert Ainsworth rose—
  Dr. Mawhinney: I must make a little progress before I give way again. The hon. Member for Oldham, West gave way four times and I have allowed three interventions.
  The acrid choking sulphur smog of the 1950s is no longer a part of London life. We have succeeded in halving sulphur emissions since the 1970s. In London, peak levels of sulphur dioxide have decreased tenfold.

  1283
  On 4 October, we lowered maximum sulphur concentrations in diesel by a third. In 1996, we will be lowering permissible sulphur levels by another three quarters, helping reduce further the levels of sulphur dioxide and also reducing particulate emissions.
  With lead, too, we have seen dramatic improvements. Airborne lead concentrations have dropped by up to 70 per cent. in urban areas since the mid-1980s. Lead affects the intellectual development of children. Reducing airborne lead concentrations is a major environmental achievement of which all of us should be proud.
  On that point, I welcome the royal commission's support for continued efforts to promote the use of unleaded petrol. The commission's report endorses the Government's firm advice to motorists that those whose cars can run on unleaded petrol and who are not using it should start doing so, and that those already using unleaded petrol should not switch back to using leaded petrol.
  The introduction of catalytic converters was a significant development in new technology. A new car driven from the showroom today will emit 63 per cent. less carbon monoxide, 83 per cent. less hydrocarbons and 87 per cent. less nitrogen oxides than its 1978 counterpart. New trucks and buses are more than 50 per cent. cleaner than their 1978 predecessors.
  Reductions in noise have also been impressive. Three modern cars make less noise than one 1978 model and 10 of today's trucks will make the same amount of noise as one 1978 equivalent.
  Progress has not been limited to surface transport. A modern jet aircraft is typically four times quieter than the first generation of jets and twice as quiet as the second generation.
  Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: This is not a part of the motion.
  Dr. Mawhinney: The hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position that this is not a part of the motion. It is absolutely at the heart of the motion because the royal commission report talks about environmental pollution and mentions emissions and noise. Unlike his hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West that is exactly what I am addressing, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will listen.
  Since the 1970s, emissions from aircraft engines have been reduced by 70 per cent. in the case of carbon monoxide and 90 per cent. in the case of hydrocarbons.
  Tremendous strides have been made in the past 15 years. We have sought to allow people the freedom to make their own choices and to create for our industry the conditions necessary for it to thrive at home and compete abroad. What we have not seen in this country is the appalling environmental neglect that characterised those eastern European states where freedom was stifled and transport decisions were the prerogative of the bureaucrat. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Oldham, West knows what is coming.
  On the contrary, we have seen increasing concern for the environment at all levels of Government and society. But, in spite of all the progress we have made since 1979—in spite of the revolutionary improvements to our national transport system and in spite of the revelation that freedom of individual choice is the key to economic,
  1284
  social and environmental progress—Opposition Members still cling to an obsolete belief that only the state can make acceptable changes to peoples' lives.
  The Government will work with the grain of the British people. We recognise that there is real concern about the damage that transport can do to the environment. But we also recognise that Government cannot put more freight on to trains or move more people on to public transport at a stroke. Unlike Opposition Members, we share with the British people a belief in choice. We will present the facts. We will provide incentives and where appropriate seek to persuade, but we do not and will not direct people off or on to roads.
  Our policy is clear, but the same cannot be said of the Labour party's. On 1 July the Evening Standard, presumably on the basis of a private steer, reported that an incoming Labour Government would
  "halt all new road schemes".
  The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith), who was then Labour's environmental protection spokesman, backed off that very quickly.
  In October, the Labour party conference was told that "much" of the £20 billion that Labour claims will be spent on roads over the next eight years would be redirected by a Labour Government to public transport. Last week the hon. Member for Oldham, West promised us a "moratorium" on road building, and he has promised us one again this evening. How confusing; it is not so much a policy, more a way of life. As ever, the Opposition are torn between trying not to offend the public on the one hand and their trade union paymasters on the other.
  The Labour party has not even considered the costs of imposing a moratorium—nor how much it would have to pay to the construction companies for breach of contract. [Interruption.] Let the House listen carefully. Our preliminary calculations suggest that the hon. Gentleman's gentle promise of a moratorium could cause a Labour Government to face claims for around £1.4 billion. Has the hon. Gentleman cleared that bill with his hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor? Of course not. What about the schemes undertaken by local authorities? Has the hon. Gentleman checked the legal basis on which he might force them to abandon their schemes? Has the hon. Gentleman cleared this with his right hon. and learned Friend the shadow Attorney-General? Of course not.
  The hon. Gentleman needs to understand that the roads budget—much of which he would like to redirect—does not just pay for new roads. It pays for maintenance, lighting, bridge strengthening, safety schemes and all the other things which are part of the road structure of this country. Would the Labour party's moratorium include those areas? The hon. Gentleman did not say.
  Has the hon. Gentleman told his hon. Friends—many of whom are keen for local road improvements—which schemes he would abandon? Has he told his right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) to forget about the improvement schemes in his constituency which he supports? Has he told his right hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Mr. Oakes), or his hon. Friends the Members for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), for Wansbeck (Mr. Thompson), for Wigan (Mr. Stott) or any of his other hon. Friends who write to my Department supporting their local road schemes?

  1285
  Has he told Labour local authorities what his plans for the roads programme will mean? Has he told councils such as that in St. Helens, where only last week my hon. Friend the Minister for Transport in London opened the M62 extension and was told by Labour councillors just how vital the project is to the town?
  As for the Liberal Democrats, you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will know that they oppose new road developments. You hear them say so in the Chamber week in, week out. But I have to tell you that it is a different story when they leave Westminster. The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) is in favour of the proposed road-building scheme in Yeovil. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) is in favour of the road proposals in Berwick—in fact, he would like us to go further.
  The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) is in favour of roads in North Cornwall—ditto the hon. Members for Truro (Mr. Taylor), for Bath (Mr. Foster) and for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones).
  Why cannot we all agree that the task of devising an acceptable roads and transport policy for the next century is complex and demanding, and that it will not be solved with slogans? The hon. Member for Oldham, West uses the phrase "integrated policy" without explaining what it means. He used it once in his speech, in saying that the Labour party did not want to expand the M25 but wanted an integrated policy of railways and light railways. But he did not tell us whether he wanted British Rail to run trains alongside the M25.
  Those slogans will not help us to make progress in determining what both he and I want—I shall come back to an area of agreement with the hon. Gentleman in a moment—which is a sensible policy which takes account of economic benefit, individual choice and environmental protection.
  Mr. Robert Ainsworth: Instead of throwing some red herrings into the debate, as he has spent half his speech doing, will the Secretary of State address the issue as it really is? We are not doing drivers, the car industry or anyone else a favour by failing to deal with the problems, particularly in the urban areas.
  When we talk about public transport in urban areas outside London, we are talking about buses. The Secretary of State answered my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson) by saying that he did not believe that what she said was true. But the Government have destroyed integrated bus services in metropolitan areas up and down the country. They have allowed ever-growing congestion, and fewer and fewer people travel by bus. Will he now reverse the deregulation policy and get back to some common sense in the urban area?
  Dr. Mawhinney: I must tell the hon. Gentleman that operating costs for bus services are down by one third, subsidies are down by a half and there are 20 per cent. more route miles. If there was a large element of truth in what the hon. Gentleman said, we would not be selling the London bus companies as easily as we are. All of them will be sold by the end of the year.
  Bold statements about Government spending priorities will not be sufficient to achieve genuinely sustainable transport policies. Anyone who believes that the answer lies in a simple shift of Government support from road to
  1286
  rail is ill informed. We need to make careful judgments about our ambitions for society, and then consider what measures will be necessary to achieve them. We also need to realise that, if people are to change their attitudes and behaviour, they will need to understand and accept the reasons with a good deal more clarity than is the case at present.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Oldham, West that we face some fundamental questions. We need to address the issue of how much traffic is generated by new road building and to face up to the challenges that traffic growth presents. The hon. Gentleman is right that the standing advisory commission report is at the Department. It was considered by my right hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. MacGregor) before I took over as Secretary of State. The hon. Gentleman would not judge it unreasonable that I, as the new Secretary of State, should ask a number of questions about that report. He will know that it is customary for the Government to publish the report and their response at the same time.
  My consideration of the report is drawing to a conclusion and I give the hon. Member for Oldham, West my undertaking to publish it and the Government's response shortly. I make no apology for the fact that I have taken my time to consider a report which I deem to be important and which, from what the hon. Gentleman said, which he also deems to be important. We will publish those documents shortly and we are making progress in their consideration.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: A few moments ago the Secretary of State said that the hon. Member for Newham, South supported the construction of new roads in his constituency. He should ask for a little more accuracy from his officials, because although I supported two improvements to the dangerous A13, which improved communications in Newham—it was not a new road—I am opposed to a third flyover at Canning Town. I consider it to be unnecessary. I hope that the Secretary of State accepts that that does not constitute offering support for new roads in my constituency.
  Dr. Mawhinney: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for confirming the truth of what I just told the House.
  Dr. Jeremy Bray: The Secretary of State has been unduly modest about one aspect of the Government's proposals—their commitment to implement a 5 per cent. per annum increase in the motor fuel tax. Does he dispute the arithmetic, logic or politics of the royal commission's recommendation that that increase should be upped to 9 per cent?
  Dr. Mawhinney: We have not yet even reached the point where we can understand the mathematics that was used by the royal commission to develop some of its recommendations, but we are studying it very carefully.
  I have already noted how, in the space of just a few hours' interviewing, the hon. Member for Oldham, West went from offering a heavy endorsement of the report's commitment to double the price of petrol to offering a heavily hedged endorsement. It took him just three television and two radio interviews to shift entire Labour party policy from A to Z. The Government have taken a

  1287
  more responsible and considered view. We intend to think before we speak, unlike the hon. Member for Oldham, West.
  Mr. Forman: My right hon. Friend may not wish to answer my question now, but perhaps something could be said during the winding-up speech about the interesting suggestion in paragraph 8.85 of the royal commission's report. It advocates further research on and support for hybrid vehicles and electric vehicles, especially in urban areas. I am sure that such support would be helpful from an environmental point of view. Will my right hon. Friend undertake to look carefully at that suggestion?
  Dr. Mawhinney: I will certainly undertake to look at that suggestion carefully.
  I have already mentioned one fundamental question that we must face together. We must also ask ourselves what level of congestion on our roads is acceptable and how we can make other forms of transport more attractive to people. We believe that rail privatisation will help enormously, but are there other things that could be done?
  In 1993, some 94 per cent. of all passenger transport took place on the roads; 63 per cent. of freight traffic moved by road, with 30 per cent. moving by water or pipeline and 6 per cent. by rail. I want to see more people and more freight travelling by rail but efforts to shift traffic in that direction will only alter the balance over time.
  A study published last week examined the effects on road and rail use of significant improvements to the midland main line between London and Sheffield. It was shown that investment of perhaps £125 million would possibly attract up to a 30 per cent. increase in use of the railway line. The hon. Member for Oldham, West referred to similar figures. The significant point is that the effect on road use of that investment was shown to be negligible—scarcely 1 per cent. of drivers using the M1 or A 1 (M) would be likely to switch from road to rail. In other words, £125 million would remove one car in every 100 from the queues that are already building on the M1.
  Similar conclusions flow from analysis of the effects of new light railways introduced in Manchester and Sheffield. Both are good schemes in their own right, but £140 million spent on the Manchester metrolink has resulted in a reduction in traffic in Manchester of around 0.3 per cent. So £140 million of good investment for the benefit of people who use metrolink has removed three cars in every 1,000 from Manchester's roads.
  From that and other research, it would appear that to transfer just 10 per cent. of car journeys nationally to rail would, on those figures, require an investment of some £140 billion. It is clear—[Interruption.] Opposition Members do not like it because they have not got beyond the superficial thinking that says that, if one puts some more money into rail, people will automatically follow that money.
  I wanted to make common cause with the hon. Member for Oldham, West; I hope that that will not damage him unduly so early in his career. The real issue to be addressed relates more, as the hon. Gentleman said, to the attitudes and behaviour of individuals than it does to the disposition of spending. The hon. Gentleman said that we
  1288
  need a "cultural change"; I have said that we need to address "attitudes and behaviour". I believe that, broadly, we are saying the same thing.
  If so, the hon. Gentleman must move beyond the simplistic idea that if one takes money out of one budget and puts it into another, people will automatically follow that changed disposition of investment. The evidence does not support that. That poses a serious problem for those who would wish to see a greater shift in transport policy. One of my regrets about the royal commission report is that it did not address that issue with the degree of fundamental concern that it warrants. We will all have to address it in debate and research in the months that lie ahead.
  I am pleased that much of the debate surrounding the royal commission report is not about whether we should seek a sustainable transport system but about how we should do so, and in particular, what are the costs of making changes.
  The commission said clearly that it expected some stiff price increases to be necessary if its targets were to be met. It suggested a doubling of fuel prices by 2005—as the hon. Member for Oldham, West said—in combination with other measures such as reduced speed limits.
  I wish the royal commission had given a little more attention to that area. Looking at the scale of some of the things it proposed—a 20 per cent. cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020, for example—I believe that much more stringent measures are implied even than a doubling of fuel prices. No doubt we will discuss that issue further in the months ahead.
  So, while a debate develops around how to persuade more people to use public transport, how to manage our road systems better, how to decide which parts of our roads programme are valuable and necessary and which are of less importance and how to advance 21st century engine technology, we will continue to pursue policies which attack the problem of air pollution, encourage the transfer of freight off the roads and on to rail or water, promote better use of land planning by local authorities, encourage local authorities to put together packages of measures to meet both environmental objectives and transport aims, promote road safety and foster increased use of cycling.
  The next time the hon. Member for Oldham, West is looking for a city that has a good cycle system that he can admire, I invite to come to my constituency of Peterborough. The hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) will be able to testify to that, as a result of his short sojourn among us in Peterborough. Incidentally, to that end, I intend to visit Holland to seek to understand why so many Dutch people take to the bicycle.
  During my first weeks in this office, I have asked a series of questions not only about existing policies but about the balance of those policies between economic well-being, enhancement of choice and environmental protection. I assure the House that, as with my announcement over regional airport liberalisation, I shall not hesitate to seek to change the balance if I consider it necessary.

  1289
  This week's edition of The Economist makes my final point when it says:
  "Cars are accused of being accomplices in the destruction of town centres … public transport is back in fashion—not as something to use … but rather as something to recommend that other people should use. This battle between what people want to do and what they would like other people to do risks getting out of hand".
  I am not interested in the sort of sloganising that that represents. I am interested and wish to see developed sensible and sustainable progress, and I am determined to work to that end.
  I commend the amendment to the House.
  8.20 pm
  Mr. David Marshall: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and my other hon. Friends for initiating this important debate. It is obvious that the Government would never have initiated such a debate.
  I hope to make a common-sense contribution and, first, I declare an interest as a sponsored member of the Transport and General Workers Union. During my time in the House, I, in common with many other Members, have attended a wide variety of meetings of different transport groups covering every aspect of transport: road, rail, sea and air.
  In the 1960s, the in-phrase was "to seek to create a co-ordinated, integrated transport system". Since the Beeching rail cuts, we have moved steadily further away from that still-desirable aim. [Interruption.] If the Secretary of State does not know what an integrated transport system is, he should not be in the job that he holds. Indeed, if past practice is anything to go by, he will not be in it for much longer anyway.
  Dr. Mawhinney: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell me what he means.
  Mr. Marshall: That will become obvious as I progress.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) was travelling in the right direction with his 1992 policy for a national transport plan. We simply cannot have a successful nationwide transportation system based on a piecemeal approach, as is now the case. The Government have never had a proper transport policy of any kind.
  Contrast that fact with what happens in other countries. From most parts of western Europe there is a high-speed rail service to Calais and the channel tunnel. Yet on this side of the channel we have far too little far too late, and a marvellous opportunity has been missed. When I went to Lille in northern France, for example, in January 1992 as the then Chairman of the Transport Select Committee, a brand new tramway system had almost been completed, together with a brand new suburban rail system, a brand new TGV high-speed rail link and a brand new bus station and road links, all connecting into a large complex with office and shopping facilities on a grand scale.
  That shows co-ordination, integration and common sense, and it is the type of integrated planning system that we want and need. It is a much less environmentally harmful system than the alternatives. With such essential infrastructure in place, it is no wander that Lille will attract thousands of new jobs as a result. Why, oh why, can it not happen here?
  1290
  Why have we never had a proper on-going investment programme in our railways, replacing rolling stock annually, and more electrification on energy conservation and environmental grounds, even to the unacceptable extent—unacceptable to this Government—of building new railway lines to meet the needs of shifting populations? Such investment would have created jobs, retained and increased passenger levels and avoided the sorry position that we are in today.
  The brilliant policy of changing to unmanned suburban railway stations has driven passengers away in droves. Sadly, due to the rise in crime under this Government, people are afraid to use unmanned stations, especially women, children, the frail and the elderly—the very people who depend almost totally on public transport. Let us reduce unemployment by returning to manned stations, and so increase the use of rail transport and reduce road congestion.
  The Secretary of State talks about transferring freight from road to rail, but the railway system can take only a tiny amount of such freight due to the lack of infrastructure caused by lack of investment by his Government during the past 15 years. Is it not ironic that, only a few years ago, Railfreight was withdrawing from the freight business because it was not making a go of it or delivering the goods? That is no way for any Government to run a railway system.
  On the problems of London, we cannot build our way out of trouble. That would be both unacceptable and far too expensive. Better public transport and traffic management will help, but some form of restraint seems inevitable. But no fair system of restraint has yet been devised. Some of my hon. Friends may be offended if I suggest that job dispersal would be a far better way to deal with the problem because, due to technological progress, there is absolutely no reason why many jobs in London could not be done in the provinces and in Scotland and Wales, which would benefit the nation as a whole. Perhaps we should start by moving Parliament to Manchester or some other place, and leaving this building to the tourists.
  Everyone wants a better environment and less pollution, but the danger is that people look not at the overall position but only at the bits they like. We all want less congestion so long as someone else's car comes off the road, not ours. Most people do not like lorries, but they want to buy goods from the shops to which lorries deliver, and they want to buy them as cheaply as possible.
  We must reduce congestion, improve public transport and reduce the number of unnecessary car journeys. Extreme punitive fuel taxation is not the answer. It could even worsen the problem, especially economically. It would also be unfair because business executives and many others would simply have the increased cost paid for them, eventually passing the costs on to the consumer. Yet again, the biggest losers would be the poor and those on low incomes.
  Let us not forget, too, that for many people, especially those with handicapped or elderly relatives, the car is sometimes essential, as I know from personal experience. Let us also not forget that the first ambition of young people is to have access to a car. We should allow them to do it legally and affordably, rather than have more and more of them resort to joy riding, with all that that involves.

  1291
  On the employment aspects, we must not get things out of balance and impose substantial fuel tax increases immediately, as the Government may do in the Budget. The manufacturing, sales and servicing of cars and trucks employs many hundreds of thousands of people. Lorry drivers and car drivers whose livelihood depends on their vehicle will be at risk, as will many associated jobs. Unemployment is far more dangerous to one's health and welfare than living beside a busy road. One has only to ask the thousands of my constituents who have been unemployed for many years.
  What will happen to prices, especially those of basic essential food stuffs? What about the effect on rural areas? What about tourism, not only in Britain as a whole but especially in Scotland, where it is now the largest industry? Scotland, especially the highlands and islands, could be hard hit, with disastrous economic consequences. All that shows that we must plan properly if we are to get it right. The Government will never do so because they do not believe in transport planning.
  May I take just one minute to refer to the position in my constituency and neighbouring constituencies? At the moment, the main arterial routes in the east end of Glasgow—Duke street, Gallowgate, London road, Shettleston road and Tollcross road—all carry exceptionally high volumes of very noisy traffic, made much worse when the M8 is choked, as it regularly is. The east end has a high accident rate, mainly among children and elderly people. It also has many hundreds of the 5,000 acres of vacant and derelict land in the city of Glasgow, and one of the highest levels of unemployment in Scotland.
  We desperately need to complete the M74 from where it comes to an end at Tollcross in my constituency, through to the Kingston bridge. I plead guilty to the Secretary of State's earlier charge about wanting new road investment where it is necessary and where it is proper, not where it is not needed and not where it is unnecessary.
  The completion of the M74 would relieve pressure on Kingston bridge, which is grossly overloaded and currently under repair. If that bridge ever has to close, Glasgow will grind to a halt, because one will not be able to move. The completion of the M74 would substantially reduce through traffic in my constituency, reduce road deaths and accidents, improve the environment and open up hundreds of acres of derelict land to investment, and the possible creation of thousands of desperately needed jobs.
  That project should go ahead as soon as possible. I hope that I have demonstrated that such projects are desirable and enhance the environment. To do nothing is to blight the area for decades to come, and to worsen the environment and quality of life in the area.
  Finally, how does one define environmental improvements? One example, in my opinion, is bypasses, which take traffic round towns and villages and, in so doing, greatly enhance the local quality of life. We need many more such bypasses.
  However, most of all we need to aim for a balanced integrated transport system; one that recognises transport as a social necessity and funds it accordingly; one that invests adequately in our railways and light rapid transit systems and provides more and better secure park and ride
  1292
  facilities, and, by using better traffic management schemes, encourages people to use buses. We also need a national transport policy that puts public transport back on the agenda as a first priority, not as a last resort.
  Dr. John Marek: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his fine speech, and I agree with almost every word. However, the Secretary of State was smiling when my hon. Friend spoke about an integrated transport policy. Let me give my hon. Friend an example from my neck of the woods.
  Before railway privatisation, there were connections from Wrexham to Chester and we could catch trains from Chester to London. Now that we have privatisation, Regional Railways competes with InterCity and it is no longer expedient to have connections when one travels from Wrexham to Chester, so that one may catch the InterCity service from Chester to Euston. Regional Railways wants one to sit in a Sprinter all the way to Birmingham, and take an hour longer over it.
  That is an excellent example of a way in which the Government's policy has introduced disintegration. I suspect that there are similar examples throughout the country.
  Mr. Marshall: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.
  I repeat my final remarks. What is needed is a national transport policy, which puts public transport back on the agenda as a first priority, not as a last resort.
  8.32 pm
  Mr. Matthew Banks: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall). I agree with several of his main arguments, and especially his final argument. The bypasses that he mentioned are needed in many districts throughout the length and breadth of the British Isles. I deeply regret the fact that it was necessary to slim down the road-building programme, for reasons that I shall discuss later. [Interruption.]
  I hear the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) moaning, but many of my constituents, and those of other hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House, wish traffic to be taken away from the centre of towns, as the hon. Member for Shettleston said. That is very important.
  We shall not witness those developments if the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) has his way and there is a moratorium on the road-building programme. He painted a depressing picture of Labour's roads policy. Throughout the "Roads for Prosperity" assessment of the decade between 1979 and 1989, which led to some of the road-building schemes that are taking place at present, it was obvious that many people throughout the country wished traffic to be taken away from their towns and villages. Although I would be the first to accept that many schemes are contentious and have been dropped for a variety of reasons, there are many others that I and many other people would like to be developed, not least in my constituency.
  If my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will take note, I wish that the A570 Scarisbrick and Pinfold schemes, linking my constituency with the national motorway network, might be carried out sooner, but I recognise that, due to a bit of assiduous lobbying, we were able to keep

  1293
  that scheme in the road-building programme rather than witnessing it drop off the programme, which might have been the case.
  As my right hon. Friend of Secretary of State mentioned, I do not believe that what we heard from the hon. Member for Oldham, West was a balanced view of the way that we should proceed. He mentioned the light rail systems. We have heard earlier about Nottingham, Manchester, Tyne and Wear and Sheffield. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister for Transport in London will draw attention to the substantial amount of money that Government, the private sector and local authorities have put into those important schemes.
  There was not a word from the Opposition Front Bench about the freight facilities grant scheme. Do Opposition Members realise how many millions of lorry journeys per year have been removed from the 1995 diary as a result of the freight facilities grant scheme? It has allowed companies grants of up to 100 per cent. of the cost of the infrastructure of transferring freight off our roads on to the rails.
  The hon. Member for Oldham, West does not realise yet that more than 90 per cent. of all freight journeys throughout the country at present are under 50 miles, so it is not practical for every company to invest, even if it could afford to, even with the help of the freight facilities grant scheme, to transfer more of its freight off the road on to the rails. That 50-mile limit for 90 per cent. of the freight that moves throughout the country is an important statistic, of which I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take note.
  However, the hon. Member for Oldham, West made several valid points about certain aspects of our culture. I agree with what the hon. Gentleman said about the changing attitude to smoking and drink-driving. I believe that, in our national life, we need a gradual change in our culture in relation to transport over several years.
  I recognise that many of my hon. Friends and Opposition Members wish to contribute to the debate, so I shall try to keep my remarks to the issues that have already been raised in the debate, and especially in relation to the remarks that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made about unleaded petrol. I shall return to that subject later.
  The Transport Select Committee drew attention to many issues in its recently published report on transport-related air pollution in London. I shall mention several. I feel strongly about many matters, of which I very much hope that the Government will take note.
  Although I would be the first to recognise that the use of the catalytic converter is, rightly, the cornerstone of Government policy in reducing emissions, because it is the best technical way of doing so at present, it is important that we recognise that it will do so only if the catalytic converter is working properly. It is important that, in the years ahead, as part of our Department of Transport testing procedure, we should have a section that is concerned with the maintenance and standard, at that moment, of the catalytic converter.
  Friends of the Earth has drawn attention to the fact that, during the average 10 km journey, 70 or 80 per cent. of the emissions take place in the first kilometre, which brings into question the importance of ensuring technical developments in pre-heated catalytic converters. I hope that the Government will enter as soon as possible into
  1294
  new discussions with the motor industry to try to set a target date so that all cars will be able to have new pre-heated catalytic converters, and that those catalytic converters will be the subject of MOT testing. I recognise that the Department of Transport has, rightly, tightened MOT testing procedure, but we must reconsider in particular the way in which emissions are checked, to try to produce cleaner cold starts.
  If hon. Members are concerned about catalytic converters and their use and about whether they are effective, it is important that they ensure that the industry takes on board the suggestions made by the Automobile Association, the Royal Automobile Club and the Select Committee on Transport. They said that we should encourage motor manufacturers at the point of manufacture to install in vehicles an electronic warning device that will show whether the catalytic converter is working properly, in the same way as a warning light tells a driver whether his brakes are failing. The Department of Transport should take that on board, and it should press motor manufacturers to install such a device as soon as possible.
  My next point does not have a direct impact on the responsibilities of my hon. Friend the Minister, but perhaps in his discussions with Home Office Ministers he might suggest that they should start compiling statistics. In particular, we should encourage our police forces to start taking a greater interest in enforcing the legal emissions limit.
  I am conscious that time is pressing on. I welcome the fact that the Department, in response to the Transport Select Committee's recent publication, has said that it will continue to review the use of super unleaded petrol. The Select Committee took evidence from some reputable individuals and companies, in particular Associated Octel, which estimated that in London premium unleaded fuels contain between 4 and 6 per cent. more aromatics than leaded four-star petrol and that super unleaded contains at least 16 per cent. more aromatics than four star. Associated Octel recommended that super unleaded be taken off the market or, at the very least, that it should lose its lower excise duty advantage over unleaded petrol. The Department of Transport must take that on board.
  Mr. Andrew Miller: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Banks: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I shall sit down in a moment. I hope that he will seek to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker. I recognise that he has a constituency interest in the matter and I hope that he will have the opportunity to make his speech in his own time. Although I welcome the Government's response in the matter, I hope that the review will be a little more substantial than has been suggested.
  I should like to comment on the policies of the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. I excuse the hon. Member for Shettleston from my remarks, but in the past few weeks Opposition Members, many of whom are sponsored by transport unions, have shown a knee-jerk reaction to the report. It seems to me, particularly from what the hon. Member for Oldham, West said earlier, that Labour party policy on the environment and transport is driven by the unions rather than by the need to have a more balanced approach.

  1295
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State commented on Liberal Democrat policy, particularly in relation to its "Getting Britain to Work" document. The best that can be said about it is that it makes clear that it, too, would cancel all motorway improvements. That would lead to greater congestion, further pollution and damage to the economy. There is no greater example of the usual inconsistencies of Lib-Dem policies that are advocated in the House.
  Liberal Democrat Members talk about the environment in this place, but when they get back to their constituencies it is a different matter. The hon. Member for North Devon (Mr. Harvey) talks about the importance of the north Devon link road; the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) talks about the necessity of the dualling of the Al. The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel), who one rarely sees in this place, insists on having a Newbury bypass; and the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) insists on improvements to the A46. The Government are achieving the right balance, and I shall have no hesitation in supporting them in the Division Lobby.
  8.44 pm
  Mr. Paul Tyler: I shall not follow the hon. Member for Southport (Mr. Banks) in that diversion around the country, because I want to deal with the remarks of the Secretary of State for Transport, who I regret to see has left the Chamber. I agree with the Secretary of State on one important point. We are dealing with some complex issues. All hon. Members should be grateful to the royal commission for considering those complex issues with a great deal of expertise and experience—I notice that Conservative Members are nodding. There is room for consensus across the Chamber.
  Sadly, this place does not do justice to issues of this complexity, which have run through Governments for many years. Often the adversarial atmosphere does not give the best result. I hope that consensus will develop across party boundaries, and I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State appears to believe that that should be the case.
  It is easy to be wise after the event. It was less easy perhaps for Ministers in the 1960s and 1970s—not all of whom represented the Conservative party; some represented the Labour party —to ignore the warnings of Colin Buchanan, with whom I have had the pleasure of working, about many of the problems that the royal commission has brought before hon. Members. This is not a just a problem of the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s. It was identified by some of the more perceptive of our advisers in the 1960s.
  The Labour party may already be finding itself in some difficulty. I regret very much that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) has left the Chamber, because this weekend he appeared to rule out the use of all road-pricing mechanisms to deal with congestion in our major cities and towns. I am not sure whether that represented the policy of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) but I suspect that it did not. None of us can relinquish a useful carrot. We cannot rely entirely on sticks, and it was profoundly misguided of the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras to rule out all price mechanisms of that sort. With the exploding
  1296
  use of private vehicles, cars and lorries, it will be essential to find new mechanisms to enable and encourage people to travel by other means.
  No hon. Member is suggesting that we can uninvent the internal combustion engine—that is patently absurd. However, the hon. Member for Southport touched on the point that no magic formulation for fuel in internal combustion engines will suddenly make them totally environmentally friendly. Whatever is put in their fuel, they are inherently an environmental problem,.
  We can, of course, work towards reducing carbon dioxide levels in line with suggestions made by the royal commission and I hope the Government will make a commitment, when they have taken stock of the evidence, to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2000, and to 80 per cent. of 1990 levels by 2020.
  The Government should also firmly commit themselves to complying with the World Health Organisation's air quality guidelines by 2005. We do not want a lot more vacuous hot air from either side of the House about those ideas. We want some commitment to improving air quality.
  The environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions is highlighted in new research that shows that the soil in our cities is becoming contaminated and is unable to absorb water. That is the scale of the problem. It is not just the environment that is suffering. How much subsidy does the national health service effectively give to the roads lobby? It must treat those people who suffer from breathing difficulties, the levels of which are increasing, asthma, which received a lot of publicity this summer, and stress-related problems. How much does industry generally pay in days lost at work from those illnesses?
  We have to look at ways in which, with carrot or stick, we can encourage people to use public transport whenever possible. In some rural areas—my own constituency is a case in point—there is very little public transport left, and to imagine that it could suddenly be reintroduced overnight would be flying in the face of experience. Successive Governments—not just this one—have cut investment in public transport, leaving rural areas with no realistic alternative to the car. I know that some Conservative Members represent such areas.
  Where it is a viable alternative, however, public transport must take precedence—hence the need to set the targets which the royal commission has rightly put before the Government and the House. We could increase the use of public transport by 12 per cent. on 1993 figures, to 20 per cent. in the year 2005 and on to 30 per cent. by the year 2020—if that were declared a programme objective now. It would be feasible to aim to increase by 50 per cent. the number of urban journeys taken on public transport outside London by the year 2020, and, in London, to increase them by 30 per cent. In the next few days, planning guidance that can help that process is likely to be issued.
  The concentration of amenities out of town, causing people to abandon traditional urban centres, has caused enormous difficulty in this respect, and unless there is reversal of the trend, it will be difficult to ensure that people reduce their reliance on the private car.
  Decision makers are, almost by definition, people who depend on cars. Planners, business leaders, councillors, civil servants, Members of Parliament and certainly Ministers all depend on their cars. They assume that

  1297
  everyone else does, but even in comparatively well-off rural areas of Britain, where there is little public transport, a large percentage of the population cannot have daily access to private cars. The census in Wiltshire, a relatively well-off county, showed that 60 per cent. of women did not have driving licences and thus were automatically precluded from car transport for all the usual amenities of daily life. Other parts of the country could provide us with similarly sizeable numbers. Any action in this area could also assist the regeneration of our town centres; that would be an extremely useful by-product.
  I accept the Secretary of State's point that it cannot all be done over night; the shift will probably take the lifetime of a Government, given the magnitude of the U-turn, but we must start with some explicit and effective action.
  The commission has proposed increases in the price of petrol; so, we understand, have the Government. For several years now, Conservative candidates all over the country have accused Liberal Democrats of wishing to increase the costs of transport for those living in rural areas. A few hours ago, a Tory Member told me that we had been brave to propose tax rises some years ago. At the last general election, a large number of those Conservative candidates gave explicit promises that fuel taxes and costs would not be increased—but they have been, by successive Conservative Chancellors. Indeed, the rate of increase has been faster than even we dared suggest.
  Now, as we have heard this evening, the Government are threatening to raise fuel taxes again in the forthcoming Budget. The essential difference between what the commission proposes—we agree with it—and what the Government propose is shown by the ways in which the additional revenue is to be used. Ministers want to use it to help with their income tax cuts, preferably closer to the election. The commission and many of us would propose that the money be ring-fenced to pay for direct assistance for those who use smaller, more economical and more environmentally friendly vehicles, and for those who have limited access to feasible alternatives in the form of public transport.
  We plan a scheme that would not hit the private user with a low annual mileage and, typically, a small-engined car. Predominantly we want to ensure that the male business users—long-distance, heavy-duty users who commute from city to city in high-powered vehicles—pay the real costs of that activity. There must be an incentive for them to let the train take the strain.
  Surely all hon. Members accept that it would be much fairer to tax the use of the car effectively than just to tax its ownership indiscriminately. The Mini should not be taxed the same as the Jaguar. As the Secretary of State pointed out, the impact of any increase in fuel duty is far from clear, but the Department appears to suggest that a 9 per cent. increase in fuel tax would secure a petrol use reduction of only 2 or 3 per cent. That is not enough to make the sort of impact that the royal commission says will be necessary to satisfy its—and our—environmental aims. If it was a flat rate increase, without the mitigating measures that we suggest, it would hit all who need to use their cars, and those who can least afford to be without them would be hit just as badly as those with a viable alternative.
  With figures provided by the motoring organisations, we have concluded that a shift in this tax burden is called for. A cut in vehicle excise duty—retaining for the
  1298
  smallest engines only a nominal administrative charge—could be the most effective way of ensuring that those who are environmentally friendly in their use of motor cars benefit, while those who are least helpful in that respect carry the heaviest burden. The figures show that the average private motorist with a small mileage and a small car would benefit under this system.
  The commission recommends that action be taken to increase freight-carrying capacity by putting lorries on trains that will run on the rail link from Scotland to the channel tunnel, for instance. That is a high priority for all parts of Britain away from the south-east. We think that there are economies of scale on rail for journeys of more than 200 km. Is it not absurd that, in the very year our rail system links up, after hundreds of years, with the continental system, so that it becomes economic again to carry a lot of freight on it, rail privatisation threatens to disintegrate the rail network?
  The royal commission also shows that lorries pay much less than they cost us—they pay about half what they cost the national Exchequer and economy. We shall seek to transfer heavy long-distance loads to the railways—transferring about 22 per cent. of current total lorry mileage to rail. I hope that the Secretary of State means what he says in this respect. The mileage of the largest lorries could be cut by 45 per cent. too.
  I do not think that we have yet got to the kernel of this issue. There is widespread acceptance that we cannot build our way out of congestion in the south-east or anywhere else. One of the members of the commission, Professor John Lawton, suggested, that if the M25 is widened in line with present plans at a cost of £9 billion, it will be just eight years before the congestion results in the whole process having to start again. Incidentally, some Conservative Members who have actively campaigned in their constituencies against widening the M25 are conspicuous by their absence from this debate.
  Dr. Phil Goodwin, whose transport studies unit at Oxford university has proved such a pioneer of the new realism, said last week that an enlarged motorway and trunk road construction programme is counter productive. Irony of ironies, he quoted a British Road Federation report which shows that, if the programme is increased by 50 per cent.,
  "congestion on trunk roads would actually worsen every year, not improve."
  As we have heard, the Department of Transport's standing advisory committee has looked at that issue. I suspect that it will come up with the same answer.
  The inevitable conclusion is that a whole basket of measures—carrots and sticks—will be necessary to achieve a shift in balance. Dr. Goodwin also believes that
  "small, widespread improvements often give better results than prestige projects."
  That is why many of my colleagues and I have supported small-scale improvements to bypasses. They are cost-effective. However, none of us has supported the huge and enormously expensive expansion of the motorways programme.
  Dr. Goodwin spoke about the need for an emphasis on better maintenance, but that has not been mentioned much in the debate. One illegally overloaded lorry does more damage to a mile of motorway than 3,000 or 4,000 cars on it on one day. If we could deal with that problem—and so far the Government's initiative in that respect has

  1299
  not been effective—it would make a major contribution to the removal of many of the roadworks which themselves cause congestion.
  Of course there must be some investment in new roads: we cannot not wipe out the programme overnight. Talk of cancelling every contract is absurd. However, we should concentrate on bypasses to improve the environment of smaller towns and villages. The imbalance between road and rail is on the mega-schemes. I shall give an example that will be familiar to you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
  If the Government have their way, there will be another crossing on the River Tamar between Cornwall and England. If that happens, there will have to be a motorway connection between the present end of the M5 and the bridge, and huge expenditure on the access roads on the Cornish side. All the local authorities are dead against the proposal because of the increased cost to the motorist, quite apart from that to the taxpayer. They believe that the problem could be much more effectively dealt with through just some investment in the rail network to ensure that mainline trains continue into Cornwall and that freight can be taken out. A comparatively modest investment in the rail network would save huge sums on roads and could make possible an effective park-and-ride system and reduce commuter traffic.
  I hope that, in his reply to the debate, the Minister will specifically repudiate the comments by previous incumbents in his Department. I am delighted to see that the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) is in his place. I warned him that I would be referring to one of his trenchant speeches before he was relieved of his duties as a Minister. I have in mind his stirring address to the Auto Express awards dinner at the Park Lane hotel to an audience of 200 motor manufacturers and car fanatics—a roads lobby bonanza if ever there was one. At that dinner the hon. Member for Salisbury confessed his
  "love for cars of all shapes and sizes."
  He said that cars were a "good thing" and went on:
  "The car is going to be with us for a very long time. We must start thinking in terms that will allow it to flourish."
  I am not sure what the Government had been doing before that.
  The hon. Gentleman condemned the railways. He said:
  "If ever there was an environmentally unfriendly form of transport it was the railways. They played havoc with our countryside and it was outrageous the way Parliament allowed them to carve up the countryside and destabilise it by building tunnels. They spewed out polluting gases and turned buildings black. It makes me wonder if we've got our priorities right."
  Mr. Robert Key: That selective quote is proof, if proof were needed, that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing in the hands of the Liberals. Of course I was referring to debates in the House 100 or more years ago when the big issue which made Maastricht look like a picnic was the Railways Regulation Act 1883. The hon. Gentleman well knows that that was the subject of my speech. There can be no consensus as long as he seeks to deliver speeches like that.
  Mr. Tyler: I never thought that I would be so grateful for an intervention. I wish that the hon. Gentleman and Ministers would concentrate on the problems of the 21st century rather than those of the 19th. It is sad that the hon. Gentleman, who was at that time a Minister, thought
  1300
  that it was more important to re-run the rearguard action of the landowners of the 19th century than to look at what our fellow citizens will have to face in the 21st century.
  The royal commission proposals would cost money, but in true cost-benefit terms we should consider what could be achieved by reducing the £19 billion that is presently earmarked for the roads programme, and especially for the motorway improvement and expansion programme. For the benefit not of the roads lobby but of the individual citizen, we believe in giving people real choice, and in that we agree with the Secretary of State. But we want to give our future citizens the choice of cleaner air to breathe, a public transport system that is reliable and pleasant to use, and an improved environment for future generations.
  9.4 pm
  Mr. Quentin Davies: The House should be genuinely grateful to the Labour party and to the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) for tabling this motion and introducing this debate. It has been extremely revealing and instructive. Over the past few months, there has been a great deal of chatter throughout the country about the fact that the Labour party is now supposedly reformed and suddenly committed to the virtues of economic rationality, freedom of choice and the rights of the consumer and so forth, having abandoned its former attachment to promoting purely sectarian producer interests—largely trade union—and to the cause of state planning and intervention. This evening, the hon. Member for Oldham, West ripped away the veil. Behind it we saw a rather unattractive face—the face of the traditional Labour party. Already this evening we have heard one speech on behalf of a transport union.
  Let us consider the issues of consumerism and free choice. There was no evidence in the hon. Gentleman's speech that he has ever asked himself why roads are crowded and why new roads rapidly become popular and therefore crowded. It seems that it has never occurred to him that the reason is that people want to use roads. They need roads and they need more roads. In what other way can the motorist demonstrate that he likes a road and that he wants more roads than by using them? What is the solution to that? Of course, the hon. Gentleman referred to the traditional Labour party remedy of state control and intervention, preventing the consumer from doing what he wants.
  The Opposition motion makes great play of the need to reduce pollution, accidents, noise and congestion. Has the hon. Gentleman asked himself what causes them? It is bad and inadequate roads. The amount of pollution generated by traffic stalled in a traffic jam is a vast multiple of the pollution generated by traffic flowing freely along a new bypass or motorway. The figures show that far and away the most dangerous roads are the traditional roads and the safest roads are motorways and bypasses. If he were serious about dealing with the issues of pollution, accidents, noise and congestion, the last thing to do would be to introduce a moratorium on new road building.
  One may wonder about either the rationality or the sincerity of a party that complains about air pollution, but opposes nuclear generation of power—which is environmentally the most friendly form of generation. The pollution caused by CO2 and SO2 emissions by burning

  1301
  coal for power generation is three or more times greater than the CO2 emissions generated by traffic in this and other modern economies.
  Mr. Butler: Does my hon. Friend accept that electric vehicles and dual-powered motor vehicles are not pollution-free? Indeed, they are pollution-free only at the point where we put the plug in. Under Labour policies, the production of electricity could be highly polluting.
  Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend makes a good point. A large amount of the energy generated would be lost in generation and transmission.
  What price the economic rationality of the reformed Labour party? None of the contributions by Labour Members reflected the slightest evidence that any of them had thought for one moment about the negative economic consequences of congestion, or about the benign economic consequences of investing in new roads.
  When one improves the road system, one increases human mobility for all sorts of purposes. One increases also job mobility, because people can travel to a larger number of possible jobs. They can take up employment that is located outside the range of public transport. However elaborate that network might be, there will always be a large number of places that cannot be served by it. That will be especially true in rural areas.
  An improved road system also allows goods to be delivered more cheaply and rapidly, and provides greater consumer choice and competition. More transactions will lead to more specialisation and output, which will in turn create more jobs. To conduct a discussion of the consequences or otherwise of improving the nation's road system without mentioning the enormous economic stakes that hang on that decision reflects extraordinary unreality on the part of Opposition Members, including those on Labour's Front Bench, who should know better.
  I am much in favour of railways and of higher investment in them, but the hon. Member for Oldham, West and other Opposition Members did not say that they would spend more public money on railways. Labour opposes root and branch our proposal to enable more private capital to be invested in the railways, to improve the network and to make services ever more market-oriented—and therefore more consumer-friendly and likely to attract a higher volume of passengers and freight.
  What is one to make of a party that argues for a better balance between road and rail, yet opposes the proposal to extract a price for the use of motorways—which alone could create the sort of level playing field on the basis of which private capital will be induced to invest in new rail projects?
  It would be unreasonable flattery to term what we have heard in tonight's debate an argument, because it has been more a series of slogans and unthought-through prejudices and contributions full of the most elementary contradictions.
  Another reason that I am grateful for comments by Labour Members this evening is that their line on the road programme will give me several thousand votes in the next election in Stamford and Spalding that otherwise I would not have received. The people of the beautiful, ancient town of Stamford, with which I hope hon. Members in all parts if the House are familiar, and of The Deepings, an only slightly less well-known town, are
  1302
  desperate for bypasses. My hon. Friend the Minister knows all about that, as did his predecessor. I am confident that, with his support, we shall have those bypasses before too long.
  One thing that is clear beyond peradventure to my constituents is that, if Labour is in power after the next general election, there will be a moratorium and my constituents will not get those bypasses at all. I did not expect this evening to be given such a wonderful electoral gift, but the fact that it was given to me by the Opposition is not a good reason to be churlish, and I express my profoundest gratitude for it.
  9.14 pm
  Mr. David Clelland: I am pleased that the hon. Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies) is trying to keep his spirits up.
  I took part in the transport debate on 26 April, which may have been the last occasion on which we debated transport in the Chamber. I raised a broad range of transport issues affecting the north of England: the lack of efficient transport planning, the failure of deregulation and its effects on integration—particularly as it affected the Tyne and Wear metro system, although the Secretary of State's self-confessed ignorance of integration perhaps sheds more light on why the Government pursued that lunatic policy—the difference between opinion on roads policy in the region and the policies of the Department of Transport, which particularly affect the Al, A69, Al9 and the A66, the loss of free transport for senior citizens, directly resulting from the financial squeeze on local authorities, and restrictions on capital expenditure that prevent more rapid development of Newcastle airport.
  Hon. Members will be relieved to learn that I do not intend to rehearse those arguments this evening. I shall restrict myself to a local issue that affects my constituency—the severe congestion on the Al Gateshead western bypass and the various proposals for its relief, specifically the Department of Transport's plan to bypass the bypass. Given the comments that were made about the advantages of bypasses—in some instances they do have advantages—Ministers must answer why it has become necessary to bypass the bypass. Where will it all end? Will we have a bypass to the bypass to the bypass?
  Evidence showing that there is a significant problem in the area can be found in a reference in paragraph 12.21 of the royal commission's report. I understand that the commission met in Gateshead. In discussing the problem of congestion on primary routes, it said:
  "Sometimes local traffic on a primary route is the result of large-scale developments … The Al on Tyneside provides an interesting example. Congestion on this road, caused by predominantly local trips to and from the Metrocentre and a large industrial estate, led DOT to promote a controversial scheme for by passing what was itself in origin a by pass."
  That is a controversial proposal. Two groups of local residents in my constituency have organised a campaign. One is opposed to the Department's bypass plan on the grounds of intrusion into the green belt and property loss—the proposed route goes right through one of the designated north-east tranquil areas of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England—and the other is opposed to improvements to the existing road and is in favour of the bypass because it believes that the bypass would

  1303
  reduce the nuisance to residents living alongside the existing road, whereas improvements to the existing road would increase it.
  What does a Member of Parliament do in those circumstances? I can only examine the circumstances and try to reach what I believe to be the best all-round solution for not only the short-term but the long-term future welfare of people in the area.
  Having considered the problem, Gateshead metropolitan borough council has proposed a plan that deals not only with the problem of through traffic, which the bypass option does almost exclusively, but considers the overall problem of traffic movement on and around the road and in and out of the Metro centre and the Team valley trading estate.
  The council suggested various options, which are reflected in the royal commission's report: closing some of the access points to the road, at once relieving congestion points and creating a third lane; creating improved access and egress points to cater for the Metro centre and Team valley at peak-hour-traffic times; and restructuring traffic movements within the Metro centre and Team valley trading estate. Other options might include improving public transport by frequent links to park-and-ride facilities, creating bus priority lanes and extending links to the Tyneside metro system.
  All the available evidence, including the royal commission's report, suggests that continually building more roads and wider roads will not solve the problem—although, of course, some improvements to existing roads will be warranted, and I have mentioned some of them—and, as the report recommends, more effective use of existing roads should precede any plans to build new roads wherever possible.
  The royal commission also recommends a fundamentally different approach by the Department of Transport. We have heard from the Secretary of State that he favours a different approach; just how fundamental it is remains to be seen. To date, his Department has argued for the simplest—although, by its own admission, not the cheapest—solution to the Gateshead problem.
  Tomorrow I shall meet the roads Minister to discuss the problem with him. I hope that evidence of a shift in opinion may be forthcoming at that meeting. I have come to know the new roads Minister—the new Minister for roads, that is, not the Minister for new roads—through an interest that we share.
  The Minister for Transport in London (Mr. Steve Norris): A frequent Opposition error is to refer to any transport Minister as a roads Minister. One of the facts that I hoped the hon. Gentleman would note, it being very germane to the debate, is that there is no roads Minister. If he is referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr. Watts), he is the Minister of State responsible for rail and roads, reflecting our view that an integrated transport policy is very important.
  Mr. Clelland: It seems that the "fundamentally different approach" is already showing itself in the Chamber. In any event, I have come to know the Minister responsible for roads and rail very well—or, rather, rail and roads: the Government, of course, put rail first every time—through our common interest in working men's
  1304
  clubs. In my experience, his work in that field has shown him to be a fair and reasonable person, and I hope that he manages—against recent trends—to retain those qualities in government. If he does, there may yet be hope of a progressive change.
  I know that the Minister will not have an opportunity to answer in detail tonight on this specific proposal, but I shall put some points to him so that he can sleep on them. First, is it not true that the standing advisory committee on trunk road assessment has concluded that—contrary to the Department's thinking—new roads generate extra traffic? According to Oxford university's transport studies unit director, Phil Goodwin, who is a member of the committee:
  "a new road scheme would, on average, induce an extra 10 per cent. of its base traffic in the short term and 20 per cent. in the long term."
  When can we expect the report's publication? Does not Mr. Goodwin's conclusion make nonsense of the Department's traffic forecasts for the proposed bypass to the western bypass?
  Is it true that the Department has let the contract for ground investigations on the site of the proposed new road? Could not that money be put to better use on the alternative proposals? What will be the cost of a public inquiry, which, it is forecast, may take as long as six months?
  In short—in the light of all the information that is now available, the weight of opinion against further schemes of this sort, the fact that the Department has downgraded the priority of the scheme and the blight and suffering being caused to those now living in the path of the proposed route—is it not time that the Department cut its losses and sat around a table with local people to pursue a better, more effective and more rapid solution to the problem?
  Earlier this evening, the Secretary of State said that he wanted to encourage local authorities to pursue environmentally friendly transport policies. Let him begin by supporting Gateshead council's environmentally sympathetic approach.
  The answers to regional transport infrastructure problems will be properly deduced only if those who live in the regions are fully involved in the planning and decision-making process. The planned movement of Highways Agency operations from the north to Leeds is a further example of migration from the northern region, to the detriment of local involvement in decisions directly affecting the lives of people who live in that region.
  Ministers cannot continually abrogate their responsibilities by hiving them off to agencies and then claiming that decisions are nothing to do with them, when those decisions have implications for the people of this country. The decisions have everything to do with them, and they must intervene to protect the regional planning structure from fragmentation. I look forward to hearing from the Minister that he plans to do just that.
  9.23 pm
  Mr. Alan Haselhurst: I must first remind the House of my interest as an adviser to Johnson Matthey plc, which makes catalytic converters—not that I intend to dwell on that subject specifically.
  The Opposition motion accuses the Government of
  "an obsessional concern with road building and road widening".

  1305
  I can say only that that "obsession", if such it is, is widely shared. We do not help ourselves by failing to recognise that the public have a strong desire for good roads. A large section of industry is entirely dependent on roads.
  People cherish the freedom that the motor car has brought them. Over the past 40 or 50 years, whole communities have developed on the assumption of road transport in the absence of anything else, and not one Government are responsible for that. Therefore, in some places, to talk of shifting freight from road to rail is utter nonsense.
  When the emphasis is on economic recovery and job creation, this cannot be the right moment to suggest a total change of direction, as is implicit in Labour's motion, which could hugely disrupt commerce and industry and add to their costs. The obsession to which I referred is a serious matter that grips a lot of private and commercial people in the United Kingdom, and it is not hard to see why.
  Let me turn to the case for improving the A130 in Essex, which is the only strategic link between south-east Essex and the rest of East Anglia as all the other roads in south-east Essex feed into London and the M25. The proposed improvement will not only improve the quality of life in the villages that it bypasses but it is predicted to save some 17 injury accidents per year and make an annual saving of £1.2 million per year. There have been 152 such accidents in the past three years—five fatal and 22 serious. I have sympathy with the case for a major improvement to the A130.
  The words that I have used are not mine; they are contained in a letter from the chairman of the highways and transportation committee of Essex county council, which is a Labour and Liberal-controlled authority. The same council is pressing for the speedy construction of the Al20. What advice would Labour Front-Bench spokesmen give Labour and Liberal-controlled Essex county council? Is it that, instead of making an improvement to the A130 and the Al20, there should be a moratorium, or that there should be railways in place of the roads? The proposition that the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) put to the House is absurd.
  In its motion, Labour calls for a major strategic shift in spending. Apparently, it is not an increase in spending but a major strategic shift in spending. Instead of talking in generalities, Opposition Members would assist our understanding of their case if they spoke in specifics. Which roads would go, and which bypasses would be forfeited? The more one listens to the debate, the more one realises that everyone is in favour of some roads; it is simply roads in general that Labour is against.
  If one totalled up all the schemes we favour, there would be no diminution in the roads programme at all because we would all say—as the chairman of the Essex county council highways and transportation committee said—that there is an urgent case to have a particular road. We could do without the humbug that we hear from Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen. All of us know of roads that need to be built, which people want and industry needs.
  How would Labour deal with the problem of old cars that cannot be retrofitted with catalytic converters, which are mainly owned by elderly and low-paid people but which will still be a major polluting factor in our environment? Would Labour implement the royal
  1306
  commission package as a whole, including the proposal to increase the price of a gallon of petrol to £5, or would it simply pick parts of it? Labour Members have not assisted us at all; they have made a general swipe against Government policy without saying what they would do.
  We are entitled to know what Labour's priorities are for public transport schemes. Let us cost such schemes to see whether its claim is right that road schemes can be replaced by public transport schemes. Calling for a new strategic approach, as the hon. Member for Oldham, West did, is simply not enough. Labour should be reminded that new public transport schemes do not come cheap, that they are not always acceptable to people in whose areas they are to introduced, and that they are not always successful in drawing people from the roads, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made clear in his example of the imperceptible shift that has taken place in the Bury-Altrincham corridor as a result of the light railway in Manchester.
  Undoubtedly, there are serious issues to be faced, including those raised in the reports of the Royal Commission on environmental pollution and the Select Committee on Transport, but Labour's facile motion comes nowhere near addressing those issues. It will be an extremely difficult and sensitive exercise in an open, democratic society to persuade people away from vehicular transport.
  If we are honest, we cannot be absolutely sure that we know the whole story on environmental pollution and exactly what causes what particular illness, but we cannot ignore the main thrust of the evidence before us. We need the careful and considered approach that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State recommends. A great deal of public education will be necessary before measures can be put before the House that will command respect and support. It may require a combination of the carrot and the stick, to which the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) referred, if we are to protect our environment, decongest our cities and safeguard our health.
  Labour would earn more respect if it spelt out in detail what it expected the electorate to accept: parroting slogans is not enough.
  9.30 pm
  Ms Joan Ruddock: This has been an important debate. The Secretary of State and some of his colleagues responded in a manner that suggested that we lived in a monoculture of car owners and users. I remind the House that the percentage of our adult population who have a driving licence, let alone a car, is not 100 but 66 per cent. Almost half the women of Britain do not hold a licence. Among pensioners, women make up a mere 6 per cent. of those who hold a driving licence.
  The Secretary of State referred to London smogs as if they were a thing of the past. I remind the House that, in December 1952, 4,000 people died in London as a result of smog—a thick, swirling, stinking blanket of choking air produced by coal fires and heavy industry. Today, the smog is invisible. It is a cocktail of toxic chemicals produced by private and commercial motor vehicles.
  The warnings are all too clear. They include the report of the Royal Commission on Transport and the Environment, the Transport Select Committee report on

  1307
  transport-related air pollution in London, and the excellent briefings provided by Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Cyclists Public Affairs Group.
  Mr. Butler: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Ms Ruddock: It is very soon, but I will.
  Mr. Butler: I am grateful to the hon. Lady. Perhaps she can help me. The motion to which she is speaking says that this House notes
  "the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution's condemnation of current Government transport and land use policies as unsustainable".
  I have searched in vain for that condemnation. What I did find was paragraph 1.17, which says:
  "We endorse the general framework for a sustainable transport policy which the Government has put forward."
  Can the hon. Lady help me with that?
  Ms Ruddock: Page 242.
  Let me continue with my speech. Some 160 deaths in London have already been attributed to the photochemical smog in December 1991, and millions are suffering ill health nationwide. Nothing in the royal commission report comes as any surprise to those of us who have followed transport policies in recent years. Labour repeatedly warned the Government of the dangers inherent in their obsession with road building and road widening. Yes, we proposed a moratorium—a halt on new road schemes, while, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) said, we considered the most appropriate way to meet mobility needs.
  We never said that there would be a cancellation of all roads for all time. Nor did we ever suggest that contracts already let would be reneged upon. We warned of the adverse impact of road building on our countryside, of growing demand for and depletion of non-renewable materials and of traffic disruption to our communities. We warned of noise and air pollution, the threat to our health, particularly of the most vulnerable—children and the elderly—and the growing contribution that road traffic makes to greenhouse gases.
  We warned that no amount of road building could provide for the doubling of traffic predicted by the Department of Transport. In short, we warned—and we reiterate—as the royal commission warned, that the Government transport policy was unsustainable. On every occasion in the past five years, Ministers rejected and even ridiculed our claims.
  The hon. Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies) proved true to form tonight by entirely missing the central point of the royal commission's report. Even if the Government spent all their £20 billion on new road capacity, it could not cope with their predictions for the increase in traffic on those same roads.
  The Government behave as if they have played no part in what has happened, yet today's ecological crisis is being driven by their policy. Let us look at the record. We acknowledge that increasing car ownership—desirable in many ways—and road haulage
  1308
  is a Europewide phenomenon. Yet—as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) said—as other European Governments began to take steps to alleviate congestion by a large expansion in public transport, this Government embarked on an orgy of reducing investment and of privatisation, fragmentation and deregulation?
  While other European Governments, who recognised the environmental effects of increasing car use, agreed measures to reduce exhaust emissions, this Government fought to resist or delay them. While the decline in public transport produced further road congestion, the Government simply built more roads, and thus increased by one third the amount of land covered in tarmac. Yet congestion continued—total vehicle kilometres rose by nearly 50 per cent. in the past decade, while rail passenger journeys and rail freight decreased.
  The environmental consequences have been dire. Our towns and cities are noisy, dangerous and dirty. Despite its known benefits, cycling has declined by almost one third in the past decade, walking is hazardous, and while child pedestrian road casualties remain among the highest in Europe, parents are forced to drive their children to school.
  Our countryside has been despoiled. The latest affront is Twyford Down, and more than 300 sites of special scientific interest have been damaged in the past year, with the habitats of precious wildlife threatened.
  Ministers cannot evade their responsibilities any longer. They cannot hold that they are simply responding to public demand for greater car use when the public have no other choice. They cannot sit back in the knowledge that we are poisoning ourselves with petrol emissions and pretend that it is our fault alone. The nation's health is the Government's responsibility.
  Let us look at the record again. Since 1979, emissions of black smoke from motor vehicles have increased by 78 per cent. Black smoke causes respiratory problems and may cause cancer. Emissions of nitrogen oxides have increased by 74 per cent.—they cause lung irritation and bronchitis and can cause pneumonia, contribute to acid rain and, when mixed with volatile organic compounds, cause ground level ozone, which causes eye, nose and throat infections and headaches. Carbon monoxide is up by 48 per cent. Fatal at high doses, that pollutant produces drowsiness, and is especially dangerous to people with heart disease. All that has happened despite the Secretary of State's claims about improving air quality.
  Mr. Quentin Davies: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Ms Ruddock: I am sorry, but I have not got time.
  Surely the Government must now accept that, in the light of those two reports, ways must be found to limit the increase in car use and accelerate programmes to cut vehicle emissions.
  Has the Minister who is going to reply to the debate—I am sorry that he is not an Environment Minister—noted the report's finding that about 3 million people now have asthma? That is twice as many as were diagnosed in 1979. Does he know that hospital admissions for that disease have also doubled? One of his hon. Friends mentioned costs—the cost of that disease alone is £400 million a year.

  1309
  Does he accept, as the royal commission did, that 50,000 tonnes of benzene are expelled from motor vehicles each year? Benzene is a potent carcinogen, for which there are no known safe levels.
  The Minister for the Environment and Countryside (Mr. Robert Atkins): Not true.
  Ms Ruddock: I tell the hon. Member that that is evidence presented to the royal commission, which it accepted.
  Mr. Atkins: It is not true.
  Ms Ruddock: I will debate this with the hon. Gentleman in another place and on some other occasion, but he is saying that the royal commission has taken inaccurate evidence.
  The Government's complacency is literally breathtaking. They deny all the experts—
  Mr. Butler: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. This is the first point of order that I have ever sought to raise, so I hope that you will forgive me if I do not get it quite right. The hon. Lady said when she gave way to me that I would find the royal commission's condemnation on page 242. I have found no such condemnation, and the hon. Lady may be unwittingly misleading the House. I wish to give her the opportunity to correct that.
  Madam Speaker: That is barely a point of order for me. It is a point of argument for the debate. If the hon. Gentleman catches the hon. Lady's attention later in the debate, he may do something about that, but it is certainly not a point of order for me.
  Ms Ruddock: If the hon. Gentleman looks at the uppermost paragraph on page 242, he will see that the very policies which the Government have pursued are described there, and that the royal commission says that these
  "cannot therefore be regarded as sustainable".
  I do not believe—
  Mr. Matthew Banks: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.
  Madam Speaker: Order. I feel now that I am getting points of frustration, rather than points of order. If it is a point of order for me, of course I shall hear it.
  Mr. Banks: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Surely it is particularly important that during debates the House listens to accurate information. If we had time, I could draw umpteen examples from the last few minutes—
  Madam Speaker: Order. It is important that the House listens to information, but it is not for me to determine whether that information is accurate or otherwise. It is for hon. Members who are using the information to determine for themselves whether or not it is accurate.
  Ms Ruddock: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the policies described which the royal commission regard as unsustainable are indeed the policies which have been pursued by the Government, and we have heard nothing tonight to suggest that the Government will change those policies. I hope that they will, and I
  1310
  shall be asking the Minister to give us more information when he winds up. [Interruption.] If Government Members are not quiet, they will find that the Minister's time will be taken up by my speech.
  Do the Government accept, as we do—the Secretary of State failed to say—the royal commission's eight objectives and the accompanying targets for a sustainable transport policy? Will the Government match Labour's promises on the environment which were so ably developed by my predecessor, the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith)? [Interruption.] I can assure the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) that that was not a strategy that my hon. Friend proposed.
  The Secretary of State implied that he would try to find some common cause with my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher). If the Government are prepared to make some small shift in resources, will the Minister tell us whether any money that is earmarked now—but which subsequently is not spent on roads—will be invested in public transport and not grasped back by a greedy Treasury? Will he create new financial incentives for private motorists to retro-fit catalytic convertors, and for bus operators to clean up their buses?
  Will he make air quality monitoring a statutory requirement of local authorities? Will he ensure that when there are episodes when we are being poisoned that people are given the information speedily so that they can take some action? Will the Government, as the Secretary of State claimed, get rid of belching monsters once and for all; not by a few pathetic spot checks but by making more stringent MOT tests, as the hon. Member for Southport (Mr. Banks) proposed, and by helping local authorities to acquire and operate pollution cameras for long-term monitoring?
  Will he help to make the fundamental shift that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West proposed, or is he beholden, like so many of his hon. Friends, to sectional interests? If the Government will not respond to my hon. Friend's challenge, will they respond to the royal commission's challenge to
  "realise the benefits of a new transport strategy"
  or will he only respond to the vested interests of the British Road Federation, whose spokesperson said:
  "These costs"—
  the costs of making the shift—
  "cannot be justified."
  I suggest that it is the costs of inaction that cannot be justified.
  The reports of the royal commission and the Select Committee have offered every proof of the urgency of the tasks before us. Real freedom, real choice in mobility and economic well-being and quality of life demand Government action in line with our motion tonight. There must be action to shift from increasing road use to reliable, safe, clean and affordable public transport. Action must be taken on behalf of our shared community and our shared environment and it must be taken now.
  9.45 pm
  The Minister for Transport in London (Mr. Steve Norris): This has been an important debate. We have had some excellent contributions, particularly from my hon.

  1311
  Friends the Members for Southport (Mr. Banks), for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies), who represents a delightful part of the country, and for Saffron Walden (Mr. Haselhurst), who put his argument extraordinarily well. Just as Churchill once remarked that we are all in favour of reductions in general and in public expenditure in particular, so we are in favour of curtailing the road programme, except in our own constituencies.
  It is a shame that this evening's debate is so short, but that, of course, is a reflection on the Opposition's priorities. Their great claim of initiating this debate is in truth a sham. The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) could not even finish the previous debate at 7 o'clock, so heaven help us if she were ever in charge of a timetable.
  The reality is that there is a huge amount on which we can and have to agree, as the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) said. He is right that we all have to address the serious issues that are raised by the prospect of limitless traffic growth. It is reasonable to consider that the ever-burgeoning volume of private motoring poses a real question over the sustainability of our lives as we move to the next century.
  The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we must address the consequences of greater general prosperity. I do not refer to that in terms of the immediate party political sense, but, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already demonstrated, as we have become a richer community, so our demand for transport, and particularly the attractions of motoring, have become greater. Many more people enjoy both the attractions and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden has said, the freedoms, that the car brings.
  I believe that we need to face an uncomfortable truth and it was one which my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) drew to the attention of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) in an intervention. My hon. Friend has probably forgotten it by now, but he emphasised the absolute linear relationship between economic growth and traffic growth. That is self-evident to anyone who is prepared to look at the issue seriously.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland) that we must look at the issue of traffic generation and the induction of traffic. That was raised in SACTRA—the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment—report which my right hon. Friend is currently studying.
  Dr. Bray: The Minister's argument about a so-called "direct relationship" between economic growth and transport used to be argued about electricity demand—until the oil price increase. Does he not anticipate the same thing happening in respect of roads?
  Mr. Norris: The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly good point, which is not that the demand for services in a developed economy powered by electricity or other forms of power generation has decreased but, rather, that we have concentrated our attention on addressing the finite nature of those resources, developing alternatives, and developing the kind of economies of scale and model about which we should be concerned.
  1312
  Incidentally, in addition to an analysis of the underlying problem on which we can all agree, in reality we all know, in broad and general terms, what the solutions to those problems must be. Although we heard remarkably little of it from Opposition Members, we all appreciate the fact that we need to create infinitely more sustainable communities.
  Recently, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Secretary of State for the Environment together produced policy planning guidance note 13 on sustainable development. Essentially, it said that one of the most useful things that Governments can do is plan the need to travel. But for a few people, travel is not an end in itself but a process that takes us from our home to our work, shops, leisure activities and so on. If we can build sustainable communities in which we combine housing, jobs, leisure, recreation and other amenities, we shall have a chance to break through the inevitable link between economic growth and travel.
  Mr. Andrew Miller: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Norris: No, I have very little time, and I want to move on.
  In addition to the policy of sustainable development, we clearly also need to ameliorate the effects of road transport. The Department of Transport is currently doing that in a number of ways. First, it is improving the standards of new vehicles, about which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made an important announcement in recent weeks. The hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms Ruddock) referred to the spot checks initiated by my right hon. Friend as "pathetic", but I suspect that that verdict will not be shared by those motorists who encounter them; on the contrary, my right hon. Friend is rightly responding to the proper concern about emission levels and, in dealing with standards of existing vehicles, is initiating an important improvement.
  Mr. Miller: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Norris: I am sorry, but I cannot. I have only eight minutes left, which is not enough for the notes that I have written.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Southport was right to refer to the need to continue to refine the technology relating to emissions. He made a perfectly sensible point. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) was also right to suggest that, in future, we shall need to look more closely at hybrid vehicles, electric power and so on.
  We need to encourage a modal shift. We must persuade people out of private cars and on to the railways, and freight out of trucks and on to the railways. In that regard, how sad it was that the Opposition supported the recent damaging industrial dispute in the rail industry, which has probably done more than any other single action to discourage potential investors in rail from taking freight on to that mode. It will take years to put right, and the Opposition stand condemned for their support.
  We must also encourage other modes, such as cycling and walking. Most sensible academics understand, however, that it is not good enough simply to spend huge sums on public transport because, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said—I do not know whether the point has embedded itself sufficiently in Opposition

  1313
  minds—spending large sums of money on public transport projects sadly initiates only a very small transfer from traffic using the roads to those modes of public transport. Public transport is well used in those circumstances, as the SPOTT research, such as that undertaken by Westminster university, shows, but, sadly, once that use occurs it is not accompanied by a corresponding reduction in car use.
  Mr. Clive Betts (Sheffield, Attercliffe): Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Norris: No; I will not give way.
  It is obvious that it is not enough simply to apply the carrot; one must also apply the stick, whether that be physical restraint on vehicles—park and ride, and local parking control, which is obviously important—or pricing, which is a vital component.
  We should investigate road pricing, as the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) said. I am sad that, although the Government have said that that is too important an issue to ignore, the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) has already set the face of the Opposition against it, in spite of the fact that it is a hugely important tool in the control of congestion.
  Yes, we have also accepted the need to price fuel. My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already stated the Government's policy of adding 5 per cent. in real terms to fuel prices, deliberately to achieve the reductions in road traffic and emissions that we seek. He has made that brave statement in order to achieve our Rio targets by the end of the century. The Royal Commission, on the other hand, has said that we should do more, and that is where the attitude between the parties clearly divides.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has said that we shall examine that proposition, because, difficult as it might be politically, we understand the severity of the problem. From the Opposition, however, as we all know, the hon. Member for Oldham, West has done nothing but to obfuscate and to retract from his original enthusiasm for the proposal as he realised the electoral unpopularity associated with it.
  The speech of the hon. Member for Oldham, West was a classic of its kind. I noted, among other things, that he said that he is not saying that the M25 should not be built. I presume that he is saying that it should have been built, perhaps with three lanes but not four, perhaps four lanes but not five. Perhaps five lanes are right but not six; perhaps four, five or six lanes are right, but no collector-distributor road. The hon. Gentleman must know that he cannot square that circle. It is no policy simply to try to nod in the direction of each lobby group.
  I notice that we heard about integrated ticketing as the key to public transport—no doubt sitting alongside post-neo-classical endogenous growth theory as another of the meaningless slogans that we shall be offered. We also heard about an integrated transport policy, defined in Labour's terms as any policy other than that practised by the Government of the day.
  To add insult to injury, at the end of a disappointing speech, the hon. Member for Oldham, West capped it all by saying that the link between the construction industry and the Conservative party was at the root of the great issue of congestion. It takes someone like the hon. Gentleman, with that extraordinary, twisted grasp on
  1314
  reality—that extraordinary, witchfinder-general mentality—to make such an assertion and to expect us to take it seriously.
  The reality is, ironically, that it is the Government who are bearing down on public expenditure and taking the flak for it, while the Labour party sprays promises in the way that Damon Hill sprays champagne.
  The reality is obvious; there are some serious issues. There is no free lunch. Yes, there will be some tough decisions on pricing: perhaps the £5 gallon—who knows, perhaps more. There will need to be other restraints on road use, in towns and possibly in open countryside, and no doubt they will inconvenience many people who would otherwise wish to make those journeys. Yes, there still will be a need for a road-building programme, for bypasses that can transform the quality of life for tens of thousands of people in the affected area, and for roads such as the M62 in St. Helens which can regenerate the whole town.
  In that context, the reality is clear. The difference between the Opposition motion and the Government amendment is the difference between fantasy and hard reality. I have no hesitation in commending the Government amendment to the motion tonight.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 259, Noes 299.

  Division No. 316]

  [10.00 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Cann, Jamie

  Adams, Mrs Irene

  Chidgey, David

  Ainger, Nick

  Chisholm, Malcolm

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Church, Judith

  Allen, Graham

  Clapham, Michael

  Alton, David

  Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Anderson, Ms Janet

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  (Ros'dale)

  Clelland, David

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Ashton, Joe

  Coffey, Ann

  Austin-Walker, John

  Cohen, Harry

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Connarty, Michael

  Barnes, Harry

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Barron, Kevin

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Battle, John

  Corbett, Robin

  Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Beith, Rt Hon A. J.

  Corston, Jean

  Bell, Stuart

  Cox, Tom

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Bennett, Andrew F.

  Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

  Benton, Joe

  Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr John

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Dafis, Cynog

  Berry, Roger

  Dalyell, Tam

  Betts, Clive

  Darling, Alistair

  Blair, Rt Hon Tony

  Davidson, Ian

  Blunkett, David

  Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

  Boateng, Paul

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Bradley, Keith

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

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

  Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)

  Denham, John

  Brown, N. (N'c'tle upon Tyne E)

  Dewar, Donald

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Dixon, Don

  Burden, Richard

  Dobson, Frank

  Byers, Stephen

  Donohoe, Brian H.

  Caborn, Richard

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Callaghan, Jim

  Eagle, Ms Angela

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Eastham, Ken

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Enright, Derek

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Etherington, Bill

  1315

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Madden, Max

  Fatchett, Derek

  Maddock, Diana

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Mandelson, Peter

  Fisher, Mark

  Marek, Dr John

  Flynn, Paul

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Foulkes, George

  Maxton, John

  Fraser, John

  McAllion, John

  Fyfe, Maria

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Galbraith, Sam

  McCartney, Ian

  Garrett, John

  McFall, John

  George, Bruce

  McKelvey, William

  Gerrard, Neil

  McLeish, Henry

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  McMaster, Gordon

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  McNamara, Kevin

  Godsiff, Roger

  McWilliam, John

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Meacher, Michael

  Gordon, Mildred

  Meale, Alan

  Graham, Thomas

  Michael, Alun

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll Bute)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Milburn, Alan

  Grocott, Bruce

  Miller, Andrew

  Gunnell, John

  Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

  Hall, Mike

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Hanson, David

  Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

  Hardy, Peter

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (Wy'nshawe)

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Harvey, Nick

  Mudie, George

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Mullin, Chris

  Henderson, Doug

  Murphy, Paul

  Heppell, John

  O'Brien, Michael (N W'kshire)

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  O'Brien, William (Normanton)

  Hinchliffe, David

  O'Hara, Edward

  Hodge, Margaret

  O'Neill, Martin

  Hoey, Kate

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

  Olner, William

  Home Robertson, John

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Hood, Jimmy

  Parry, Robert

  Hoon, Geoffrey

  Patchett, Terry

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Pendry, Tom

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Pike, Peter L.

  Hoyle, Doug

  Pope, Greg

  Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Hutton, John

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Illsley, Eric

  Purchase, Ken

  Ingram, Adam

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)

  Radice, Giles

  Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

  Randall, Stuart

  Jamieson, David

  Raynsford, Nick

  Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

  Reid, Dr John

  Jones, Ieuan Wyn (Ynys Mofln)

  Rendel, David

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Robertson, George (Hamilton)

  Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW)

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

  Roche, Mrs. Barbara

  Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

  Rogers, Allan

  Jowell, Tessa

  Rooker, Jeff

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Rooney, Terry

  Keen, Alan

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Kennedy, Charles (Ross,C&S)

  Ruddock, Joan

  Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Khabra, Piara S.

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Short, Clare

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil (Islwyn)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Lewis, Terry

  Smith, C. (Isl'ton S & F'sbury)

  Liddell, Mrs Helen

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Litherland, Robert

  Snape, Peter

  Livingstone, Ken

  Soley, Clive

  Loyden, Eddie

  Spearing, Nigel

  Lynne, Ms Liz

  Spellar, John

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

  MacShane, Denis

  Steinberg, Gerry

  1316

  Stevenson, George

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Stott, Roger

  Watson, Mike

  Strang, Dr. Gavin

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Straw, Jack

  Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Wilson, Brian

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Winnick, David

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Wise, Audrey

  Timms, Stephen

  Worthington, Tony

  Tipping, Paddy

  Wray, Jimmy

  Turner, Dennis

  Wright, Dr Tony

  Tyler, Paul

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Vaz, Keith

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Wallace, James

  Mr. Jim Dowd and

  Walley, Joan

  Mr. Jim Cunningham

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Aitken, Rt Hon Jonathan

  Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

  Cormack, Patrick

  Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

  Couchman, James

  Amess, David

  Cran, James

  Arbuthnot, James

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

  Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

  Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

  Ashby, David

  Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

  Atkins, Robert

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Day, Stephen

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)

  Deva, Nirj Joseph

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

  Devlin, Tim

  Baldry, Tony

  Dicks, Terry

  Banks, Matthew (Southport)

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Bates, Michael

  Dover, Den

  Batiste, Spencer

  Duncan, Alan

  Beggs, Roy

  Duncan-Smith, Iain

  Bellingham, Henry

  Dunn, Bob

  Bendall, Vivian

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Dykes, Hugh

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Eggar, Tim

  Body, Sir Richard

  Elletson, Harold

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Booth, Hartley

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Boswell, Tim

  Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

  Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

  Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

  Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

  Bowden, Sir Andrew

  Evennett, David

  Bowis, John

  Faber, David

  Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

  Fabricant, Michael

  Brandreth, Gyles

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Brazier, Julian

  Fishburn, Dudley

  Bright, Sir Graham

  Forman, Nigel

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

  Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)

  Browning, Mrs. Angela

  Forth, Eric

  Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

  Burns, Simon

  Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

  Burt, Alistair

  Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

  Butler, Peter

  French, Douglas

  Butterfill, John

  Fry, Sir Peter

  Carlisle, John (Luton North)

  Gale, Roger

  Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Gardiner, Sir George

  Carrington, Matthew

  Garnier, Edward

  Carttiss, Michael

  Gill, Christopher

  Cash, William

  Gillan, Cheryl

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

  Churchill, Mr

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Clappison, James

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Gorst, Sir John

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ru'clif)

  Grant, Sir A. (Cambs SW)

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Coe, Sebastian

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Colvin, Michael

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

  Congdon, David

  Grylls, Sir Michael

  Conway, Derek

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  1317

  Hague, William

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Nelson, Anthony

  Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Hannam, Sir John

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Hargreaves, Andrew

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Hawkins, Nick

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Hawksley, Warren

  Norris, Steve

  Hayes, Jerry

  Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

  Heald, Oliver

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Ottaway, Richard

  Hendry, Charles

  Page, Richard

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Paice, James

  Hicks, Robert

  Patnick, Sir Irvine

  Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence

  Patten, Rt Hon John

  Hill, James (Southampton Test)

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Horam, John

  Pawsey, James

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

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

  Pickles, Eric

  Howell, Sir Ralph (N Norfolk)

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Rathbone, Tim

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Renton, Rt Hon Tim

  Jessel, Toby

  Richards, Rod

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Riddick, Graham

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Robathan, Andrew

  Jones, Robert B. (W Hertfdshr)

  Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

  Key, Robert

  Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

  Kilfedder, Sir James

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Ross, William (E Londonderry)

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

  Knapman, Roger

  Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

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

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Knight, Greg (Derby N)

  Sackville, Tom

  Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

  Sainsbury, Rt Hon Tim

  Knox, Sir David

  Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Lawrence, Sir Ivan

  Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian

  Legg, Barry

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Leigh, Edward

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Lennox-Boyd, Sir Mark

  Shersby, Michael

  Lidington, David

  Sims, Roger

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Peter (Fareham)

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Lord, Michael

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Luff, Peter

  Soames, Nicholas

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Speed, Sir Keith

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Spencer, Sir Derek

  MacKay, Andrew

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Maclean, David

  Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

  Madel, Sir David

  Spink, Dr Robert

  Maitland, Lady Olga

  Spring, Richard

  Malone, Gerald

  Sproat, Iain

  Mans, Keith

  Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

  Marland, Paul

  Steen, Anthony

  Marlow, Tony

  Stephen, Michael

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Stern, Michael

  Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

  Stewart, Allan

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Streeter, Gary

  Mates, Michael

  Sumberg, David

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

  Sweeney, Walter

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Sykes, John

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Mellor, Rt Hon David

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Merchant, Piers

  Taylor, John M. (Solihull)

  Mills, Iain

  Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)

  Thomason, Roy

  Moate, Sir Roger

  Thompson, Sir Donald

  1318

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Watts, John

  Thurnham, Peter

  Wells, Bowen

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Whitney, Ray

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

  Whittingdale, John

  Tracey, Richard

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Tredinnick, David

  Wiggin, Sir Jerry

  Trotter, Neville

  Wilkinson, John

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Willetts, David

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Wilshire, David

  Viggers, Peter

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Wolfson, Mark

  Walden, George

  Wood, Timothy

  Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

  Yeo, Tim

  Waller, Gary

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Ward, John

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Mr. David Lightbrown and

  Waterson, Nigel

  Mr. Sydney Chapman

  Question accordingly negatived.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business),
  That, at this day's sitting, the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill [Lords] and the Drug Trafficking Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Willetts.]
  Question agreed to.
  Mr. Tim Rathbone: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I understand that you might consider accepting a brief intervention from me. This happens to be the last time that Sir Clifford Boulton will be sitting in the seat that he now occupies. There was a time earlier when plaudits were poured over his head, with every justification. However, one item was left out—the incomparable help that he gave to the appeal by your predecessor, Madam Speaker, for the rejuvenation and refurbishment of St. Margaret's. It would be a great mistake if he left that chair without that being put on the record.
  Madam Speaker: The hon. Gentleman's point of order falls into the category of the most bogus points of order that have ever been raised with me. But as it is the last night on which Sir Clifford will be sitting at the Table and because I am really a big softie at heart, that point of order is most welcome in this House.

Orders of the Day

  Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill [Lords]
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  Order for Third Reading read.—[Queen's consent, on behalf of the Crown, and Prince of Wales's consent, on behalf of the Duchy of Cornwall, signified.]
  10.14 pm
  The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Mr. John M. Taylor): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
  I want to give credit to the Law Commission, their lordships in the other place and the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) for fast-tracking the Bill to the statute book.
  10.15 pm
  Mr. Paul Boateng: The Opposition hope that this will be the first of many fast tracks for worthy Law Commission measures.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with an amendment.

  Drug Trafficking Bill [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  10.16 pm
  The Solicitor-General (Sir Derek Spencer): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  This is a pure consolidation measure.
  10.17 pm]
  Mr. Tim Rathbone: I am aware that the motion that I tabled was not in order, but I hope that it drew the attention of the House to something that I believe could have been incorporated in this consolidation measure. I am referring to allowing funds that are confiscated to be used and applied to the Government's efforts to tackle the horrible problems of drug misuse.
  The issue has been raised before. The last time that I did so was during the passage of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill, but unfortunately the Government missed that opportunity for incorporation. Even though I realise that the Bill that we are discussing is a consolidation measure, I am sorry that, again, the opportunity for incorporation has not been taken.
  Moneys that are seized by other Governments with the help of our marvellous officers, especially drugs liaison officers, are applied to the Government's efforts to tackle the problems of drugs misuse. Indeed, sometimes the moneys will not be paid to this country unless they are so applied. The tragedy is that they are relatively small sums—£3 million or £4 million a year—while the sums that are confiscated are 10 times or more that amount. If those sums were applied not instead of, but in addition to, the moneys spent and the efforts made by the Government to control
  1320
  drug trafficking, drug misuse and, in particular, reducing demand, everyone would gain. The drug takers, the families and the communities in which they live would gain.
  I hope that the Government will apply themselves to that point and incorporate my proposal. If it is not possible to do so in this consolidation measure, it should be done in other legislation as soon as possible.
  10.18 pm
  Mr. Paul Boateng: This is a consolidation measure, and a necessary and welcome one. We too feel some regret that the Government have not taken this opportunity to strengthen and, indeed, consolidate a national strategy against drug trafficking. [Interruption.] It is a pity that, when the House is addressing an issue this important, albeit relatively late at night, one particular Conservative Member should feel it necessary to interject from a sedentary position, saying, "Churlish." It is not churlish to ask the House to spend a little time considering an issue of real concern to our constituents, which threatens the health of the nation, is breaking up communities and families throughout the country, and requires a national strategy.
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: I did not say "Churlish." I do not know what the hon. Gentleman heard, but it was not that from me. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right—that, unfortunately, this is just a consolidation measure, and it does not allow us to take up the whole issue. I wish that it did, but there will be other opportunities and the hon. Gentleman will find that the House will give him its support.
  Mr. Boateng: I welcome that comment, but we have an opportunity to consider what we are consolidating. The Opposition will take every opportunity to raise on the Floor of the House the evil of drug trafficking, because we do not believe that parliamentary time applied solely to the issue of consolidating a drug trafficking measure, which this is, should pass without taking the opportunity to emphasise that much more needs to be done—particularly locally—if this consolidation is to have the impact on the drug trade that it is designed to have.
  That is why we feel it necessary to draw attention to the fact that when the House considered the Criminal Justice Bill and the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill, matters consolidated in this legislation were raised on the Floor of the House. We gave the Government an opportunity to give local authorities—in co-operation with the police, probation service and other appropriate agencies—a statutory responsibility to combat drug abuse and to educate young people as part and parcel of a national drug prevention strategy.
  Such a strategy, in conjunction with the measures in this consolidation Bill, would effectively bring into play the powers of the House and the responsibilities of the Home Office, the Attorney-General and the Lord Chancellor's Department, together with the police and local authorities on the ground, to end this evil trade.
  We give the measure a welcome, but feel able to raise only two cheers for the Government, because there remains much more to be done.
  10.22 pm
  The Solicitor-General: The only issue before the House is whether the existing law should be consolidated in the

  1321
  Bill or left as it is, in a number of different statutes. I did not hear the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) suggest that, but if he were to have his way and not approve the consolidation, we would be left with the Criminal Justice Act 1988, Criminal Justice Act 1993, Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) Act 1990 and Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill that is shortly to reach the statute book—all of which cover different provisions that are brought together in the Drug Trafficking Bill.
  I am always grateful for any suggestions from my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone), especially on this subject. However, if my hon. Friend were to get his way, we would not have the opportunity to make this consolidation and my hon. Friend would have been deprived of his opportunity to make the comments that he did.
  The hon. Member for Brent, South has not been paying attention to the national drug strategy that the Government have pursued for a considerable time, which was recently extended and to which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister referred in a speech only a fortnight ago.
  Mr. Boateng: We have been paying particular attention tothe national drug prevention strategy. Our concern is its inadequacy. Let me give the Solicitor-General an example, if I may, since he chooses—
  Madam Speaker: Order. This is, I believe, an intervention, not another speech.
  Mr. Boateng: I wonder whether I could draw to the attention of the hon. and learned Gentleman—[Interruption.] Well, I am asked to put my comments in the form of a question. I will do so. Is the Minister aware of the concerns of local authorities, throughout the country, including police authorities, about the failure of the Government to put their money where their mouths are in terms of the national drug prevention strategy? Without such money, such a strategy is worthless.
  The Solicitor-General: I am aware of the contrary position in my constituency of Brighton, Pavilion, where there is a very active drug prevention unit. In other parts of the country, where they are necessary, there are similar units.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Bates.]
  Bill immediately considered in Committee; reported without amendment; considered; read the Third time, and passed, without amendment.

  EMPLOYMENT
  Ordered,
  That Mr. Oliver Heald be discharged from the Employment Committee and Mr. Tim Yeo be added to the Committee.—[Sir Fergus Montgomery, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

  NATIONAL HERITAGE
  Ordered,
  That Mr. Patrick McLoughlin be added.to the National Heritage Committee.—[Sir Fergus Montgomery on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

  TREASURY AND CIVIL SERVICE
  Ordered,
  That Mr. John Watts be discharged from the Treasury and Civil Service Committee and Mr. Matthew Carrington be added to the Committee.—[Sir Fergus Montgomery on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

  Cockle Gathering (West Wales)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn—[Mr. Bates.]
  10.28 pm
  Mr. Denzil Davies: The object of this short Adjournment debate is to impress on the Secretary of State for Wales—I am glad to see the Under-Secretary of State in his place—and the Government the need to give serious consideration to bringing an order before the House, which can be done under the sea fisheries legislation, to designate an area that encompasses the estuaries of the Gwendraeth, Towy and the Taff rivers, and the Under-Secretary will know the area well, as a regulated and licensed cockle fishery. The estuary of the Gwendraeth river, which comprises the Gwendraeth Fawr and the Gwendraeth Fach, runs into the sea at Kidwelly in my constituency.
  The estuary of the Towy river runs into the sea between Ferryside and Llansteffan, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams); the estuary of the Taff runs into the sea around Laugharne, which is also in my hon. Friend's constituency. To the east of the three rivers lies the Burry estuary, which extends west of the Gower peninsula and almost towards Kidwelly and the estuary of the Gwendraeth. Most of that area is covered by my constituency.
  The Burry estuary is a licensed and regulated cockle fishery. That means that the south Wales sea fisheries committee is empowered by legislation to grant licences to individuals to gather cockles in the area. The committee can ensure that such licences are granted to those who have a substantial interest in the industry, and that the number of licences granted to gatherers can be controlled according to the stocks that are deemed to be available. The quantity of cockles gathered by licensees can also be controlled for purposes of stock preservation.
  Unfortunately—this is where the problem arises—there is no licensing in respect of the estuaries of the three rivers west of the Burry estuary, extending right around Carmarthen bay and down to Laugharne. The South Wales sea fisheries committee tries to control that area by making byelaws; the trouble with byelaws is that, at least in this regard, they are a very blunt and cumbersome method of control. They do not apply to the individual: all that they can really do is close a fishery for a period, should the sea fisheries committee deem it wise. Then the fishery is opened again, and when it is opened large numbers of what have been described as vagrant gatherers descend on the area—not only local people, but people from other parts of Wales—to extract as many cockles as they can before the committee closes the cockle bed again for a few weeks or months.
  There were real problems in the summer of 1993, especially at Ferryside. There was considerable violence as local groups fought with groups from outside to extract the cockles; the police had great difficulty in controlling and ending the violence, and there was a danger that deaths would occur.
  We are not talking about small sums. The cockles find markets not only locally or in the United Kingdom, but abroad. Many are sent to Spain, presumably to be
  1324
  put into Spanish dishes such as paella; I understand that the Dutch—who are well-known pirates and predators—are now moving around the coast and may well be acting as middlemen, taking the cockles all the way to Spain.
  Without licensing and control, there is a danger of violence and intimidation. A good deal of intimidation is occurring locally between different groups wishing to gain the greatest possible advantage. Moreover, experts in the industry tell me that, unless something is done, few cockles will be left, and the community may lose a small but important economic asset for ever.
  I have written a number of letters to the south Wales sea fisheries committee. It is a splendid committee. It produces marvellous reports which are extremely interesting to read, and it is diligent in its work. However, when it comes to the question of agreeing to licence or to draft an order for the purposes of licensing the area, the committee seems to have a blind spot. It has failed to come up with any constructive reaction whatever to the letters which I have written.
  It may be that the committee does not have the resources to operate a licensing system. It may be that it is concerned about the way to make a licensing system fair in the new environment. Indeed, there are instances on the east coast of England where licensing systems for fisheries have been announced by order. I do not think that the problem is an insoluble one. Whatever the reason, it seems that the South Wales sea fisheries committee does not want to do anything.
  Letters to the Welsh Office on the subject usually elicit the Pontius Pilate reaction that it is nothing to do with that office; it is all to do with the south Wales sea fisheries committee. However, that is not the case. As I understand it, the Welsh Office—if it is not the Welsh Office, it is the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food—has the power under sea fisheries legislation to bring forward, after consultation with the sea fisheries committee, an order to establish a licensed and regulated fishery in that area. That is what I want.
  In conclusion, I simply ask that the area west of the Gower peninsula encompassing the Burry estuary, which is already licensed, and extending round the Gwendraeth from the Towy and Taff estuaries, be a proper licensed and regulated cockle fishery, so that, first, we can ensure as far as possible that public order is not breached in the free-for-all for the cockles; secondly, an economic asset is maintained and is not lost in a few years; and, thirdly, the balance between economic exploitation and the need to conserve stocks is maintained. I suggest that that can be done only by having a proper licensing system.
  I hope that the Under-Secretary will not read out one of those tired briefs that has been written for him by the South Wales sea fisheries committee.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Rod Richards)indicated dissent.
  Mr. Davies: I am pleased about that. The Under-Secretary knows the area well. I hope that we will get a positive response from him, and that he will tell me that before long we will have an order properly to regulate the fishery.
  10.37 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Rod Richards): I welcome the opportunity to debate the cockle-gathering industry in west Wales. Cockle gathering holds a unique position in the life and history of west Wales. As the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) said, I have first-hand experience of that part of the world. I was born and brought up there. I swam and walked in the Burry estuary. It is a dangerous place to be when the tidy is out, but I survived that part of the world.
  My recollection of that part of the world is as a youngster and, indeed, as a student. Some of my happiest days were spent in that part of the world. I can remember as a young man spending the afternoon in Stradey park watching the Scarlets play and then having a pint of the local brew a little later. Sometimes it was Buckleys, sometimes it was Felinfoel. Inevitably, I would also have a jar of cockles. I understand the feeling locally for having a pint of beer and a jar of cockles, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows.
  Many hon. Members will be familiar with the evocative images of weather-beaten men and women with their horses and carts returning from a day's cockle gathering on the west Wales sands, sometimes from the southern part of the Loughor estuary and sometimes from the northern part of the Loughor estuary. Perhaps Penclawdd has received more notice than the northern side—I do not know.
  Few, however, will be aware of the vibrant industry which lies behind the imagery, an industry which for many generations has offered important employment opportunities in the area and one which has contributed greatly to the economy of the local communities on which the fisheries are based.
  Responsibility for managing the west Wales cockle fisheries, including the licensing of cockle pickers, rests not with the Government but, as the right hon. Gentleman said, with the South Wales sea fisheries committee. Sea fisheries committees, of which there are two in Wales, are responsible for the management and conservation of coastal fisheries, including shell fisheries, in England and Wales out to six nautical miles. They are statutory bodies of local government set up under the Sea Fisheries Regulation Act 1966.
  They manage the coastal fisheries by means of local byelaws which they are empowered to make—subject, of course, to ministerial confirmation. Their powers include regulating the method of fishing, restricting the taking of fish from specific areas or at specific times of the year, and setting minimum landing sizes and protecting breeding shellfish. Sea fisheries committees are responsible for enforcing their own byelaws.
  The South Wales sea fisheries committee has 20 members: 10 councillors appointed by the constituent county councils of South, West and Mid Glamorgan and Dyfed, one appointed by the National Rivers Authority and nine appointed by the Secretary of State. Ministerial appointees are chosen from a list of nominees provided by industry representative groups. The Act requires that ministerial appointees shall be
  "acquainted with the needs and opinions of the fishing interests of that district."
  1326
  My Department liaises closely with both Welsh sea fisheries committees, and the committees regularly seek advice from the Department on a range of fisheries issues, including the management of cockle fisheries. However, the Department has no role in the management decision-making process or the Committees' operational activities. The liaison process includes the exchange of information. In the middle of last year, the South Wales sea fisheries committee kept the Department fully appraised of the circumstances surrounding what became known as the cockle wars at Ferryside.
  There are several cockle fisheries in the west Wales area. By far the biggest is the Burry inlet fishery. Entry to the fishery is restricted to licence holders. Licences are free and anyone may apply, but the number of licences is restricted to ensure that the stock is not overfished.
  The Burry inlet cockle fishery is steeped in history, as I have already outlined. In its heyday in the early 1900s, there were an estimated 250 gatherers in the Burry inlet. They were mainly women. Each gathered some 200 to 300 cwt a day, while the menfolk were at work in heavy industry locally. The women placed the loads in sacks across the backs of donkeys and sold them to the local community.
  Cockles were sold either shell-on or, more usually, as boiled meats produced in local cooking plants close to the gatherers' houses. The markets at Llanelli, Swansea and Neath were famous for their produce. As I call back there fairly regularly, I can confirm that they still sell cockles at markets in Llanelli, Swansea and Neath.
  In the 1920s, development took place with the introduction of the horse-drawn cart, which enabled an individual to gather as much as 10 cwt per day—a considerable growth in productivity—and to return the catch to shore. Men were now drawn into the industry to gather those enhanced loads, and production took place on more of a commercial basis.
  In 1921, a minimum landing size was introduced by the South Wales sea fisheries committee to protect the breeding stock. In 1952, so many cockles were being taken that the committee was forced to set a limit to control the amount taken in any one day.
  The Burry Inlet Cockle Order 1965 was established to license the fishery and limit the quantity of cockles removed according to number of licences issued and daily quota. Since then, the number of licences issued has ranged from 43 to a maximum of 67.
  Cockle landings have stabilised at around 2,000 to 2,500 tonnes a year, but obviously are still subject to much natural variation. The licensing regime appointed by the committee has been aimed at ensuring maximum stability in the local industry. That has led to the most consistent cockle fishery in the United Kingdom, despite some wastage of cockles because of collection levels below theoretical maximum sustainable yield. That stability has placed the Burry inlet at a consistent third position in terms of cockle production, on a United Kingdom basis—behind the more intensive, but more variable, industries in the Wash and Thames estuaries.
  The Dee and Morecambe bay fisheries have occasionally crept in at third place. In those fisheries, vessel suction dredging and mechanical harvesting using tractors have been allowed, whereas in the Burry inlet, hand gathering, using rake and sieve only, has been the order of the day. The industry today is precisely as it was

  1327
  in the 1700s, except that donkeys were replaced by horse and cart, which were in turn replaced by motor vehicles and trailers in 1987.
  In recent years, the pace of change has increased. Since 1983, European Community legislation —or European legislation, as we now describe it—and markets have naturally become more important. The Europeans are great shellfish eaters, as the right hon. Member said. Vast quantities are consumed, especially in France, Spain and Portugal. Consequently, markets have increased and extra demand has fuelled higher prices.
  At the same time, new EC directives on bathing waters, municipal waste waters, molluscan hygiene and fish hygiene have meant huge changes to waste regulatory practice, pollution control and—for gatherers and merchants—new standards governing quality control and health requirements. Those changes have lead to recent requirements for investment to meet new standards.
  The benefits, however, have been top prices for quality produce and increased markets. No longer is the industry purely local in terms of gathering or selling. The licensing system has so far meant that the Burry inlet licence holders are still very much the same people and families who prosecuted the fishery tens of years ago.
  I congratulate the sea fisheries committee on its good management of the Burry inlet cockle fishery over the years.
  Mr. Denzil Davies indicated assent.
  Mr. Richards: I am delighted to see that the right hon. Member agrees with that remark.
  The three rivers cockle fishery comprises a number of fisheries along the estuaries of the Rivers Tywi, Taff and Gwendraeth near Carmarthen in south-west Wales. It is an opportunist fishery, which occurs on average once every ten years. Consequently, the South Wales sea fisheries committee, which manages the fisheries, has not considered it necessary to introduce a licensing scheme to restrict the number of individuals who may take cockles.
  Because of the opportunist nature of the fishery, local fishermen do not prosecute it regularly, and very few of them rely on it for a living. The fishery may therefore be prosecuted by any member of the public, subject to their observing the SFC byelaws, which restrict the times when cockles may be gathered, and set a minimum landing size.
  Last year, however, there were signs during the winter months that a very good spat fall—that is, entry of young cockles into the fishery—had occurred during 1992. In anticipation of a good harvest, a number of local fishermen linked up with a Dutch-owned, Merseyside-based processing company which was eager to supply the Dutch market.
  Once news of the extent of the fishery became common knowledge, a large number of cockle fishermen from other local cockle fisheries moved into the area. This
  1328
  influx of outsiders, or "offcomers", angered the Ferrysiders, who saw the fishery as "their" fishery, and a number of scuffles took place. The violence increased with the arrival of cockle gatherers from as far away as the Dee estuary in north Wales, and the police, who had been closely monitoring the situation, were called upon to deal with several serious breaches of public order. The situation improved, however, when an officer was assigned to patrol the fishery on a regular basis.
  The SFC continued to enforce its byelaws and to monitor catch uptake, but it concluded that, as there was no threat to stock levels, it had no grounds for restricting access to the fishery. SFC byelaws can only be made on conservation grounds, and any breach of the peace was and is the responsibility of the local police. At the time of these disturbances, it was also reported that the Department of Social Security and the Inland Revenue had been alerted to the possibility that some of the outsiders might be in receipt of unemployment benefits.
  As the Ferryside fishery thinned out, the gatherers moved to the neighbouring fisheries at Laugharne and Llanstephan, as the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. But with the onset of winter, activity decreased markedly, although some individuals continued to gather through to the spring. By this time, the South Wales committee were becoming concerned that juvenile cockles were not being allowed to mature, and the fishery was closed in April. It was partially reopened in August this year, with gathering being allowed on only two or three days a week, depending on the circumstances within each fishery.
  The SFC, with its mix of local authority representatives and fishing industry nominees with their knowledge of the local industry, is, I believe, well placed to manage the fisheries within its district. It has, over many years, responded positively to changing circumstances to maintain cockle stocks at suitable levels to the benefit of the local industry.
  I am confident that the committee will continue to meet its responsibilities effectively. Cockle stocks are monitored constantly and, if the committee identifies a need for any new management byelaws, I can assure the House that the Welsh Office will give them careful consideration. I shall ensure that this evening's debate is conveyed to the committee.
  I listened carefully to the right hon. Gentleman, and he seemed to suggest that central Government should interfere with a local authority in the prosecution of its statutory duties. I am rather surprised by that, because I know that the right hon. Gentleman is an advocate of devolution.
  Mr. Denzil Davies: The SFC is not a local authority. An order has been made to regulate the fishery in the Wash and, in 1965, the Welsh Office introduced an order to regulate the Burry inlet. All I am asking is that the Welsh Office should make another order to regulate the fishery. That has nothing to do with imposing on local authorities.
  Mr. Richards: I most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for clarifying his position. As he knows, and as I have already said, the Welsh Office is more than ready to listen to what the SFC wants. It would be for it to decide whether it felt that new byelaws were needed.
  Mr. Nigel Evans: In common with the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies), I have had the benefit of tasting those cockles. I was born in Swansea, and I regularly went to Swansea market to buy cockles, so I can speak for their high quality. Surely my hon. Friend is absolutely right. If, at any stage, the SFC felt that either the quantity or the quality of the cockles
  1330
  available to the local, or even the export market were being damaged, it would recommend the Welsh Office to step in immediately to regulate the industry.
  Mr. Richards: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct.
  All three of us have expert knowledge of the local cockle industry, and we all have its interests at heart. I would not wish anything to happen that threatened employment opportunities in that industry or impaired the taste of cockles that are enjoyed by thousands of people.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at four minutes to Eleven o'clock.