Commons Sitting of 12 January 1995

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  PRIVATE BUSINESS

    CITY OF WESTMINSTER BILL [Lords] (By Order)
    Order for consideration, as amended, read.
    To be considered on Thursday 19 January.

Oral Answers to Questions
  HOME DEPARTMENT

    MI5
    Mr. Winnick: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the Director General of MI5 is expected to retire.
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Michael Howard): As has always been planned, the Director General of the Security Service is expected to retire in February 1996, when she will have completed four years in the post.
    Mr. Winnick: Are there any grounds for extending her employment in that position? Does the director general of MI5 now accept that when she was in a responsible position in the organisation, but not yet director general, the decision taken under her supervision to target my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) and Patricia Hewitt was wholly unjustified? As I understand it, the Government no longer want to justify it.
    Mr. Howard: I have answered the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question. As to the second part, there is absolutely no substance whatever in his allegation.
    Mr. Fabricant: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that now is not the time to be discussing the retirement of the head of MI5? Will he accept the congratulations of this House on the vigilant work that she and her department have done, with the exposure of an individual who was asked to leave the United Kingdom in the past week and who is a citizen of the Russian Federation?
    Mr. Howard: We have a great deal for which every citizen of this country should be grateful in respect of the work of the Security Service.

    Security Industry
    Mr. McCartney: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will bring forward proposals for statutory regulation of the security industry.
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean): We have no plans for statutory regulations, but
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    I am looking again at policies in this area and await with interest the outcome of the Home Affairs Select Committee's current inquiry.
    Mr. McCartney: The Minister knows that for the past 10 years I have been involved in a campaign to expose the activities of those in organised crime who have been infiltrating the security industry, particularly in the leisure sector. Organised crime is involved in jobs, prostitution and protection rackets. Was it not extraordinary that just before Christmas Conservative central office, through its security company, recruited one Bob King who had just served 15 years for armed robbery to work as a security guard at central office? Does that not prove that infiltration of the industry has gone right to the top, including the Government?
    Mr. Maclean: If the hon. Gentleman has any suggestions of irregularity or criminality, the police are the appropriate body to which to make his complaints. I have given evidence on the security industry before the Select Committee. I repeat that I am looking at policies in this area, and I await with interest the conclusions of the Home Affairs Select Committee.
    Mr. Mark Robinson: Does my hon. Friend agree that the private sector has an important part to play in the security industry and is making a major contribution to the fight against crime?
    Mr. Maclean: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Crime is dealt with by the police in their public role, and the private security industry has a vital and major part to play in all the various sectors—technology, cash in transit, man guarding, and so on. Ordinary citizens, members of the public and local authorities working in partnership with the police and with the private sector also have a key part to play.
    Mr. Trimble: Does the Minister recall that it was because there was evidence that organised crime was penetrating security firms in Northern Ireland that the Government put legislation on the statute book to regulate private security firms there, so there can be no objection in principle to extending that legislation to the rest of the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Maclean: I am not suggesting that there is an objection in principle. We must look at the practicalities and try to pinpoint which sectors, if any, of the security industry face problems. I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that every facet of the security industry, including locksmiths and those who install alarms or closed circuit television systems—or indeed those who work in other areas of the industry where there has never been the slightest suggestion of irregularities or problems—should have a massive bureaucratic system imposed on them. That is why I am keen to find out whether the Select Committee has delineated any areas where there may be problems. I am also keen to see what options and solutions may be available to deal with perceived problems.

    Closed Circuit Television
    Mrs. Angela Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he proposes to announce which bids for closed circuit television funding will be supported.
    Mr. Howard: The successful bids for CCTV funding will be announced in March.
    Mrs. Knight: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware of the concern of many of my constituents in Erewash that bids from cities for closed circuit television will take preference over bids from towns—a concern emphasised on many recent occasions—which has resulted in funds going to the cities of Nottingham or Derby but not to the Erewash towns of Ilkeston and Long Eaton, which lie in between? Can he assure me that in this instance towns will not play second fiddle yet again to cities?
    Mr. Howard: I can indeed give that assurance and I hope that it will go some way towards alleviating the concerns that my hon. Friend has expressed. I know how resolutely she works for the interests of her constituents. We have made it clear that the needs of smaller communities will be given particular attention as we assess the bids, which will, of course, be dealt with on their merits.
    Mr. McWilliam: Does the Home Secretary accept that the funds available for the scheme—excellent though it is—are massively inadequate in terms of the demand for it? Is he aware that there is great concern among the business community of the Team Valley trading estate in Gateshead that its scheme should go ahead as it will not cost the Government or the local authority any money to run it once it is established?
    Mr. Howard: The private sector, local authorities and other agencies are becoming increasingly aware of the significant benefits that closed circuit television can deliver and are contributing to the costs themselves. It is a very cost-effective way of dealing with crime. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, who will know of the great success that has been achieved in the city centre of Newcastle, will be the first to accept that.

    War Crimes Unit
    Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to close down the war crimes unit at New Scotland Yard.
    Mr. Maclean: This is a matter for the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. The unit is currently funded until 31 March 1995. It is expected that police investigations will be completed by that date.
    Mr. Townsend: I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he not feel that employing 11 senior and experienced detectives under a chief superintendent at a cost of £5 million to look at alleged crimes in remote corners of eastern Europe more than 50 years ago represents a rather curious set of priorities?
    Mr. Maclean: No, I do not. The House voted overwhelmingly for the action that has been taken. I believe that, where alleged offences are committed, we are under a duty to investigate them and see them through
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    to the end. If there is sufficient evidence, the decision will be made by the Attorney-General, assisted by the Director of Public Prosecutions, on whether to prosecute. To put the cost into perspective, some £5.2 million over three years compares with Metropolitan police funding equivalent to some £5 billion over the same period.
    Mr. Janner: I thank the Minister for that answer, which I am sure will be accepted by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Will he kindly tell the House how many cases are currently under investigation, how many cases have reached the Attorney-General and when he expects a decision to be made as to who will be prosecuted?
    Mr. Maclean: Some 369 cases have been investigated by the Metropolitan police war crimes unit. The Crown Prosecution Service has decided not to prosecute in 236 of those cases, 112 people subject to investigation have died and 21 investigations remain with the police. Nine cases are currently with the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether prosecutions should be brought. I am afraid that I cannot tell the hon. and learned Gentleman when a decision will be made on those, nor would he expect me to be able to influence, speed up or delay those decisions in any way.
    Mr. Jessel: Is not the murder of 6 million people a completely different kind of crime from the murder of just 6,000, 600 or 60 people? Can my hon. Friend confirm that the overwhelming majority of the House to which he referred was in the ratio of about four to one?
    Mr. Maclean: If I were one of the 60 or the six I might not necessarily take that view. However, these are more like Second Reading questions which have already been settled. The House decided by an overwhelming majority to set up the war crimes unit and to pass the legislation and we are under a duty to see that through. The task is well on the way to completion and it would be erroneous to abandon it as we approach the final hurdle.

    Constitutional Reform
    Ms Quin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proposals his Department has concerning British constitutional reforms.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Nicholas Baker): We have no current plans for constitutional reform in Great Britain. We believe that our present constitutional arrangements serve their respective purposes well.
    Ms Quin: Does the Minister realise that there is deep public concern about the centralised quango-ridden system operated by the Government, and that by turning their face against any democratic reform the Government will win no friends? Would the Minister care to meet members of the Campaign for a Northern Assembly or members of the North of England Assembly of Local Authorities, both of which believe that regional government will not only be democratic and bring greater subsidiarity, but will help to bring about economic recovery and economic development in regions such as the north?
    Mr. Baker: The Government do not believe that constitutional reforms are either needed or wanted by the majority of the British people. As to the hon. Lady's

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    suggestions about regional devolved government, those are matters for my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] We take a very different view from that which has led to the proposals for regional government being put forward by the Opposition, which are based on the needs of the Labour party and would lead to the devaluation and subversion of the authority of the Palace of Westminster and the break-up of the United Kingdom: as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said—teenage madness.
    Dame Angela Rumbold: Does my hon. Friend agree that Britain already has sufficient in the way of local government and bodies which represent people at local level and that the only constitutional reform that is required in a country of this size—quite small—is to have rather more local local government and not to indulge in regional government and other constitutional reform which would inevitably result in nothing but further expense for the poor British taxpayer?
    Mr. Baker: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The devolution proposals put forward by the Labour party are, in the words of The Guardian, which is no supporter of the Government,
    "an earthquake set to ripple through the land."
    Mr. William Ross: Will the Minister give an assurance that, whatever constitutional positions may be arrived at throughout the United Kingdom, the authority will lie totally within the competence of the House?
    Mr. Baker: I can certainly agree with and give the answer yes to that question.
    Sir Fergus Montgomery: If we had devolution in Scotland and Wales, regional assemblies in England and a tax on the monarchy, would that not destroy the United Kingdom as we know it today?
    Mr. Baker: Yes.
    Mr. Salmond: Is not the Prime Minister, in his claim that the Union is the best possible arrangement, beginning to resemble the boy on the burning deck? What evidence does the Minister have for his claim that the majority of people in Scotland do not want constitutional change? Does he understand why there is such substantial irritation in Scotland and Wales with a Prime Minister who claims that this place knows better how to run those nations than the people of Scotland and Wales?
    Mr. Baker: These are matters for Parliament. Scotland is a matter for the Secretary of State for Scotland. I concur with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who described this as a most dangerous proposal and the most dangerous proposition to be put before the British nation.
    Sir Donald Thompson: Is my hon. Friend aware that the committee of the Council of Europe that deals with regional matters, which proposes the establishment of a regional assembly in Strasbourg, agreed on Monday that the current arrangements for the United Kingdom fit well into the pattern of regional government throughout Europe?
    Mr. Baker: I agree with what my hon. Friend has said.
    Mr. Beith: How can the Minister claim that Home Office Ministers are against all constitutional change when the Home Secretary is the biggest constitutional
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    innovator around? Was it not he who sought to centralise control of police authorities, but was stopped by the other place? Was it not he who sought central control of the administration of the courts, and is it not he who is trying to rewrite the doctrine of ministerial responsibility so that Ministers are merely accountable—not responsible—for matters for which even "Questions of Procedure for Ministers" states that they are responsible?
    Mr. Baker: My colleagues and I entirely reject that suggestion from a Member of Parliament who proposes a federal union in Europe which would have precisely the opposite effect.
    Mr. Batiste: Is not the real motive of those who argue for regional government in England connected with the fact that they are afraid to face up to the consequences of the West Lothian question? Is that not a very bad reason to mess about with English local government—just to retain extra seats for Scottish Members of Parliament?
    Mr. Baker: My hon. Friend is entirely right. Opposition Members have given no answer to the West Lothian question either before or now.
    Mr. Straw: May I invite the Minister to agree with the following words? The words
    "decentralisation to the provinces of England would result in local communities recovering a large measure of the responsibilities they have lost in so many spheres."
    were the exact words that the Home Secretary's predecessor, now Chancellor of the Exchequer, used in a Bow Group pamphlet that he wrote recommending elected regional councils. [HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] It was after he had been chosen as a prospective parliamentary candidate—[Interruption.] Conservative Members are now revealing a further constitutional novelty: nothing that people say before elections should be followed after they have been elected. As a responsible adult and a prospective Conservative candidate, the right hon. and learned Gentleman wrote a pamphlet backing elected regional councils all over England. He was right then, and the Government are wrong now.
    Mr. Baker: If the hon. Gentleman wants to be taken seriously, he will have to do better than dredge up 20-year-old quotations.
    Mr. Harry Greenway: Does my hon. Friend agree that the people of London give thanks every day for the ending some years ago of the unlamented, overspending, bureaucratic, wasteful Greater London council and do not want anything like it again, either in London or in the rest of the country?
    Mr. Baker: My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

    Crime Statistics
    Mr. Alan W. Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the accuracy of official crime statistics.
    Mr. Maclean: Two forms of official crime statistics are produced: crimes recorded by the police, and crimes measured by the British crime survey. Every effort is made to ensure that both sets of figures are as accurate as possible within their inherent limitations.
    Mr. Williams: What does the Home Office intend to do about the problem which affects efforts to cut crime

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    when police officers reclassify burglaries as criminal damage, thefts as lost property and car crime as tampering?
    Mr. Maclean: The hon. Gentleman should not give the impression that there is somehow a deliberate attempt to classify crimes in the wrong way. That is not the case. However, if in its annual round Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary comes across anomalies, it will instruct the force to apply Home Office guidelines, which have not been changed, to try to ensure that all crime is properly classified. If someone comes across a broken window in a garden shed, it must be difficult in practice for officers to know whether that is an attempted break-in, criminal damage or vandalism. I hope that the hon. Gentleman was not giving the impression that somehow there is deliberate changing of the figures, because there is not.
    Mr. Sykes: Is my hon. Friend aware that the so-called blip boy has been sent to a children's home in Scarborough? Is he further aware that North Yorkshire county council's social services department did not find it necessary to inform the police of his placement but instead said that the reason was a lack of secure accommodation? Does my hon. Friend agree that that enforces the need for new secure accommodation units as soon as possible?
    Mr. Maclean: Yes. That is why we are bringing two sets on stream—the proposals for new secure accommodation which we put in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which the Opposition opposed, and more local authority secure accommodation. We need both and it is appropriate to have both.
    Mr. O'Hara: Is the Minister aware of one area in which the explosion of crime has generated false statistics? In some places there has been so much burglary that people can no longer get domestic contents insurance. They therefore do not bother to report burglaries as they know that they will not be resolved anyway. In view of the Chancellor's recent Budget increase in insurance premiums, the misrepresentation of crimes will get worse in future rather than better.
    Mr. Maclean: I do not accept that there is misrepresentation of crime. The trend over the past 10 years has been for people generally to report more and more crimes. In 1981 some 31 per cent. of crimes were reported, according to the British crime survey. By 1991, the figure had risen to 41 per cent.

    Prisons (Satellite Television)
    Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the availability of satellite television in prisons.
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Michael Forsyth): Most prisons have access to satellite television, which is controlled. However, the costs are met by prisoners themselves and not by taxpayers.
    Mr. Marshall: First, may I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his appointment to the Privy Council? As most people do not have satellite television in their homes, will my right hon. Friend suggest to the lily-livered liberals
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    within the prison establishment that prisoners should not enjoy in individual cells facilities that they would not enjoy in their homes?
    Mr. Forsyth: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. In-cell provision of satellite television is limited to two prisons. I am sure that my hon. Friend will support the reforms that are to be introduced to ensure that privileges, of which access to television is one, are earned within the prison system. We hope to be able to announce those reforms shortly.
    Mr. Tipping: Has not the availability of personal possessions in Whitemoor and Parkhurst prisons led to the situation where cells cannot be effectively searched? Is it not the Home Secretary's own policies which are causing problems in our prisons?
    Mr. Forsyth: As the hon. Gentleman ought to know, the matter of the issue and quantity of possessions in cells was one of the topics that emerged from the Woodcock report. That follows the review of privileges which has been conducted within the Prison Service. I agree that it is important that prisoners' possessions should be limited to ensure that there is effective searching and I look forward to support from Opposition Members in ensuring that that policy is enforced.

    Criminal Justice
    Mr. Yeo: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received regarding the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.
    Mr. Howard: We have received about 2,000 letters from hon. Members, most of them covering representations from constituents, and about 2,500 letters from members of the public.
    Mr. Yeo: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Police Federation have warmly welcomed many provisions in the Act, including those to widen the DNA base and change the so-called rule of silence? Does he agree that politicians who opposed the measures in the House have proved that they are not only totally soft on crime but that, despite all the trendy sound bites, the modern Labour party still much prefers to protect the criminal rather than to prevent crime?
    Mr. Howard: I agree with my hon. Friend. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 will be seen as a landmark in criminal justice legislation. It will mark a great advance, first, in helping the police to prevent crime, to bring criminals to justice and to get them convicted before the courts, and secondly, in providing the courts with the power to pass appropriate sentences.
    If Labour Members believe that they have fooled a single citizen in this country by abstaining on Second Reading of the Bill but opposing the most important measures in Standing Committee and in the other place, they are grossly deluding themselves.
    Mr. Cohen: When will the Home Secretary get the police to use the Act against people who demonstrate against cruelty to animals?
    Mr. Howard: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I do not get the police to use the provisions of the Act against

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    anybody. The police decide what use they make of the powers given to them under the legislation and I have every confidence that they will use their discretion wisely.

    Crime
    Mr. Waller: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on current trends in the levels of (a) car-related crime and (b) burglary.
    Mr. Howard: In the 12 months to June 1994, the number of notifiable offences of vehicle crime recorded by the police in England and Wales fell by 9 per cent. Offences of burglary fell by 8 per cent. over the same period.
    Mr. Waller: Can my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that there has been a substantial improvement in the level of theft of and from vehicles as a result of the initiatives taken by motor manufacturers in fitting much better security devices? As there is clearly a better trend in the level of property-related crime throughout the country, especially in west Yorkshire, should not we congratulate the police and others responsible for that, rather than assuming that there is an inevitable rise in crime of all types?
    Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend is right. Both the vehicle manufacturers and, in particular, the police deserve our congratulations on the steps that they have taken to reduce car-related crime. It demonstrates that the new methods being employed by the police through more effective targeting can have significant success in tackling crime and bringing under control some of the increases of recent years.
    Mr. Flynn: Does the Home Secretary agree that as those who perpetrate crimes go to our five-star, drug-ridden prisons, where they spend their time eating lobster thermidor or using their escape kits to fashion master keys for use in escape, that makes the right hon. and learned Gentleman appear to be soft on criminals? Should not he reverse his decision under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act savagely to rob the victims of crime of the compensation that they deserve? He is soft on criminals and hard on victims of crime.
    Mr. Howard: I look forward to the hon. Gentleman's support for the proposals that I shall announce shortly to ensure that what have come to be regarded as entitlements in our prisons are no longer regarded as such and that privileges will have to be earned by good behaviour and can be withdrawn for misbehaviour. I look forward to his total support for those measures.
    Mr. Congdon: I welcome the figures given by my right hon. and learned Friend in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller), but does he agree that it is important to keep up the fight against such crime? In the light of recent events, does he further agree that it is important to ensure that prison continues to act as a deterrent? Therefore, is not it important to ensure that lax prison regimes are ruled out?
    Mr. Howard: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Although the reductions that I have announced are welcome—and we must congratulate the police and others concerned who have played their part in bringing them
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    about—the figures are still far too high. We must never cease in our efforts to do all that we can to help the police to tackle crime even more effectively in future.
    Mr. Michael: Does not the Secretary of State realise that people throughout the country are stunned by his complacency over burglary and car crime? Why is he ignoring the facts in the British crime survey, which shows that 6 per cent. of households were burgled in 1993, that 20 per cent. of households had their vehicles broken into during 1993, and that people's experience of crime is rising two and a half times as fast as the recorded crime figures? As the increase in the experience of crime is far higher than the increase in the recorded crime figures, what will he do about it?
    Mr. Howard: If the hon. Gentleman had listened to my previous answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Congdon), he might have had the wit to rephrase his question. Of course I accept that crime remains far too high and that we must never cease in our efforts to give the police the tools that they need to tackle it. That is why it is so absurd for the hon. Gentleman to rise at the Dispatch Box and ask such questions when he in Standing Committee, and his party in the House of Lords, opposed tooth and nail the measures that we have put into the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which will enable the police to act effectively.

    Police Pay
    Mr. David Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the level of police pay in real terms (a) at present and (b) in 1979; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Maclean: The minimum salary for a new recruit to the police service in 1979 was £4,086, while the minimum now is £13,992. In real terms, police pay has increased since 1979 by 46 per cent.
    Mr. Evans: I thank my hon. Friend for his reply. Does not it confirm that we are the party of law and order, which is in stark contrast to the lot opposite, who criticise the police and support rent-a-mob, rent-a-crowd and black flag on television? They oppose every piece of legislation that goes through this place. Is not it a fact that we are the party of law and order and that they are the party of no-hopers and law breakers?
    Mr. Maclean: The House would not expect me to match the excellent rhetoric of my hon. Friend, so perhaps I could rely on a few statistics. If it is legitimate for the shadow Home Secretary to quote from a Tory candidate's leaflet of 1958, perhaps I can quote from 1978, the last year of a Labour Government, when Lord Callaghan—who I understand was a former police adviser—was Prime Minister. In the last year of that Labour Government, 5,000 police officers resigned in disgust at the way that they were treated by the Labour Government. The first move of the incoming Tory Government was to recruit 7,500 police officers to bring us up to establishment and to recruit another 8,000 over and above that to give us today's number of police officers.
    Mr. Pike: What is Lancashire to do with the number of police and with police pay now that it has been told that the decimal point in the figure for its forthcoming

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    budget was in the wrong place and that the cut was not £200,000 but £2 million? What impact will that have on policing and police pay in Lancashire next year?
    Mr. Maclean: My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary secured an excellent deal for the police service in the public expenditure survey round. At a time when there had to be, and rightly so, tight constraint on Government expenditure, we achieved a settlement for the police of 3 per cent. under the formula that is distributed around the country. If there are any errors in the calculations, each and every force can, of course, bring them to the attention of myself or the Department of the Environment during the consultation period.
    Mr. Shersby: Does my hon. Friend agree that the determination of police pay using the mechanism of the Police Negotiating Board for the United Kingdom has served the country and the police very well? Can he assure the House that the Government's policy is that the PNB will continue to do its good work?
    Mr. Maclean: Absolutely.

    Victim Compensation
    Mr. Khabra: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on compensation to victims of violent crimes.
    Mr. Howard: The Government are committed to providing generous compensation to the innocent victims of violent crime as a mark of society's sympathy for such victims. It is a measure of this country's generosity that we pay out more in compensation than the United States and far more than all other European countries put together.
    Mr. Khabra: Will the Home Secretary admit that police officers, firefighters and ordinary people who are victims of the most horrendous injuries will lose out if his changes go ahead? Does he realise that some of them will have their level of compensation cut from £250,000 to a few thousand pounds, proving that the Home Secretary is not interested in the victims of crime?
    Mr. Howard: I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's strictures since, under the tariff scheme that we propose, 60 per cent. of victims will receive at least as much or more money than under the old scheme.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the generous package provided in the United Kingdom is only one aspect of dealing with violent crime? When one is addressing the problems of violent crime, it is important that the forces of law see that their actions are being upheld in this place and elsewhere and that the perpetrators of violent crime are dealt with in a determined fashion.
    Mr. Howard: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The best thing that we can do is to give the police the effective help that they need to bring to justice those who perpetrate violent crimes. I am determined to do all I can to achieve that end. The police take their duties in these matters extremely seriously and it is up to the House and the nation to give them their support in the sort of partnership for which I have called.
    Mr. Straw: Since it is now crystal clear that Ministers were planning these wholly unjustified cuts in
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    compensation for victims of crimes of violence well before the last election and that Ministers agreed the cuts within weeks after the 1992 election, why did the Secretary of State's party not mention a word about the cuts in its 1992 manifesto, but instead, in its 1992 campaign guide, congratulated the Government on the continuance of the old and much more generous scheme? Is not this yet another example of the way in which the British people were grievously misled by the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his colleagues at the last election?
    Mr. Howard: As I have made clear, our record in these matters is absolutely outstanding. The hon. Gentleman conceded in his question that no decisions had been taken at the time of the last general election, so he destroyed by his question the very premise on which it was based.
    Mr. Clifton-Brown: Will my right hon. and learned Friend accept that it has always been a fundamental principle of the benefit system in this country that only the poorest should be recompensed? Therefore, would not it seem sensible to recognise that the criminal injuries compensation scheme is wrong to compensate those on substantially higher than average earnings?
    Mr. Howard: It was necessary to reform the scheme for reasons which have been explained comprehensively to the House and to do so in ways which have been approved by the House on more than one occasion.

    Wheel Clamping
    Mr. Spellar: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress he has made to bring forward proposals regarding wheel clamping.
    Mr. Maclean: We are considering what action it might be appropriate to take. We will make an announcement when our proposals are ready.
    Mr. Spellar: Does the Minister accept that that is a ludicrously inadequate answer? Does he recollect that the Home Office consultation on wheel clamping ended in May 1993? When will he do something about it and rid the country of the menace of the cowboy clampers?
    Mr. Maclean: I also recollect that there was no clear consensus about what the future proposals should be. It is not good enough for the hon. Gentleman to accuse me of being late in bringing forward proposals when there is no agreement about what, if anything, should be done.
    Mr. Alexander: Regardless of that, is not it a fact that there are far too many instances of extortion and placing people, particularly women, in fear as a result of the activities of these clampers? Surely we must take some action to give people greater reassurance should their cars be clamped by one of these cowboys.
    Mr. Maclean: There is also a balance to be struck. We need to protect the legitimate interests of organisations such as hospitals and casualty departments which are sometimes affected by silly and indiscriminate parking. Of course, we must also protect the vulnerable and those who may be wrongly clamped but, as I said, I shall introduce proposals when I have come to firm conclusions on the right way ahead.

    Cannabis
    Mr. Whittingdale: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received about the legalisation of cannabis.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth: In the past year, the Home Office has received about 100 representations calling for the legalisation of cannabis.
    Mr. Whittingdale: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the fight against drugs remains at the heart of the Government's crime prevention programme? Does he agree that to legalise cannabis, which the Liberal Democrats voted to support, would seriously undermine that campaign? Will he confirm that he has no intention of adopting such a policy?
    Mr. Forsyth: I agree with my hon. Friend. Only the Liberal party could associate itself with something as stupid as the legalisation of cannabis. To do so would send the wrong message to the country about our determination to fight drugs. That determination is clearly underlined in the Green Paper which sets out a strategy to tackle this scourge, which affects every section of every community.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Colin Shepherd: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 12 January.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): This morning, I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Shepherd: Is the Prime Minister aware that his firm stance on the integrity of the United Kingdom is widely appreciated? Does he agree that if English Members of Parliament were unable to vote on Scottish issues, our constituents would want to know why Scottish Members of Parliament could vote on English matters which affect them?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend raises a question that has been raised in the House on many occasions when devolution has been discussed in the past. There has never been a satisfactory answer to that question and, indeed, there is no satisfactory answer to it. If certain matters were devolved to a Parliament in any part of the kingdom and that Parliament were to have exclusive responsibility for them, then Members of Parliament from that part of the United Kingdom could not vote in this House on those issues affecting other parts of the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Blair: If devolution is such a dangerous proposal, why did the right hon. Gentleman and his party stand on such a policy in the 1974 election?
    The Prime Minister: Our party does not stand on such a policy. It is dangerous and, as I have indicated, I believe that the nature of devolution, with a tax-raising Assembly, will play Scot against Scot, Scot against Briton in other parts of the United Kingdom; leave Scotland as the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom and leave Scotland losing inward investment—and Wales, too, were
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    it to have such an Assembly; and were Scottish Members of Parliament given the right to deal with, for example, education and health in Scotland, it would not be proper for Scottish Members of Parliament to come to this House and vote on education and health in so far as England and other parts of the United Kingdom are concerned.
    Mr. Blair: The Prime Minister says that he did not stand on such a policy. Let me read from the Conservative party manifesto of 1974. This is what the manifesto said—[interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. Would the right hon. Gentleman paraphrase, please, and not quote directly?
    Mr. Blair: That manifesto said that "devolution is our policy" and that it was the opposite of centralism. It said that it would free Scotland from the rigours of centralisation and went on to say that it was the opposite also of separatism. If it was right in 1974, surely after this passage of time it is right now.
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is being very defensive—and with good reason. He should look more carefully at those proposals. He will find that there was no proposal for taxation-raising powers for that Assembly and no executive power for that Assembly. He might also be aware, in terms of this Government, that I was not even in the House then. Every single aspect of what he now proposes will lead inexorably to circumstances in which the United Kingdom itself might break up. He can have an absolute guarantee that the Government will oppose his proposals lock, stock and barrel from this day forward.
    Mr. Blair: What is more, it was actually called in this manifesto a "Scottish Assembly". Is not the truth that the Prime Minister's anger is synthetic and that after 15 years of Conservative Government, 15 years of centralisation and the quango state and 15 years of anything and everything being run by unaccountable bodies stuffed with Tory placemen, it is time to bring government closer to the people it serves?
    The Prime Minister: I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman, whose latest sound bite is the quango state—
    Mr. Blair: It is.
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman says that it is his latest sound bite; indeed, it is. When he uttered it first last week, in the same paragraph he proposed extra quangos. Labour's so-called "quango count" includes grant-maintained schools and self-governing hospitals. In any event, the number of non-departmental governing bodies that the right hon. Gentleman calls quangos has fallen by 35 per cent. during the passage of this Government.
    The right hon. Gentleman seeks to hide the fact that he cannot answer any of the questions on devolution that we have put to him. He cannot explain why the Scots should be more highly taxed than anybody else. He cannot answer the West Lothian question. Indeed, he does not even understand what the West Lothian question is. Until he can find credible answers to that, it is no good his going back a quarter of a century and digging up, in a

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    mistaken way, old policies. He knows that he is wrong. He is on the defensive and he cannot win this argument for his policies are damaging to the United Kingdom.
    Sir Cranley Onslow: If my right hon. Friend heard the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) rabbiting on the "Today" programme this morning about regional government for England, did it occur to him that it might be time for the House to have another look at the unfair electoral quota system which results in serious under-representation of the English electorate?
    The Prime Minister: I did not have the pleasure of listening to the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) on the "Today" programme or, indeed, to his hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) who, I believe, was on morning television on the same subject. I did read the transcripts and I noticed that the hon. Gentlemen were unable to answer any of the questions that the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) has found himself unable to answer. What is undoubtedly the case is that if there were regional Parliaments with policies devolved to them, there would be bound to be an effect, unless the constitution was gerrymandered, on the number of Members of Parliament in this House from the parts of the United Kingdom that had such a Parliament with devolved tax-raising powers. That is the game that the right hon. Gentleman is playing and he is doing it because he is running scared of the Scottish Nationalists.
    Mr. Kirkwood: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 12 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Kirkwood: With the Prime Minister, quite rightly, being convinced of the merits of the concept of subsidiarity in the context of the European Union and of Northern Ireland, why does he set his face against using the self-same principles for the governance of Scotland when, in the 1992 general election in Scotland, 75 per cent. of the electorate voted for parties favouring a system of greater legislative control over Scotland's own affairs?
    The Prime Minister: The difference between the United Kingdom and Europe is that the United Kingdom is a single national institution—a national state. Europe and the United Kingdom—[Interruption.] Europe is not a national state. We are a single Government entity; we have been since 1707. I will not set us on a path where that may be broken up. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that that would be in the interests of Scotland, I suggest that he examines the matter more carefully, for he will find that it is not in the interests of Scotland and not in the interests of the individual Scot.
    Mr. Viggers: Has my right hon. Friend had time during his busy day to contemplate the identifiable Government expenditure on the different individuals within the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, which in England is £3,290 per head and in Scotland 20 per cent.
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    higher at £3,968? Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the Labour party proposals for devolution were to be carried through, it would inevitably lead to a questioning of that subsidy, which is well understood at the moment? Therefore, the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), the Leader of the Opposition, is right when he accuses some Labour politicians of infantile incompetence, but wrong when he restricts his comments to Members of the European Parliament.
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend makes a sound and important point. We are a single United Kingdom. I wish us to remain as a single United Kingdom so that we may direct our public expenditure across a single United Kingdom to the areas that most need it. That is what we have traditionally done. That is what I wish us to continue to seek to do. What concerns me is that for party political reasons a proposal is now being put forward by the Labour party which will unsettle those traditional arrangements and set one part of the United Kingdom against another.
    Mr. Gerrard: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 12 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave a few moments ago.
    Mr. Gerrard: Does the Prime Minister recall that just over a year ago the Minister for Transport in London promised that the travelcard would be protected not only in name and form but in price in real terms? With people in London facing fare rises this week of up to 11 per cent. and the cost of travelcards going up by two or three times the rate of inflation, how does the Prime Minister justify that promise being broken?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman should have a look at the policies on transport right across London, including the travelcard. He will find that the Government have a better record for keeping their promises on transport and other matters than any previous Government. I suggest that he looks right across the range at those promises that have been kept and the improvement in transport facilities that are available. What will damage transport facilities is—
    Mr. Tony Banks: Privatisation.
    The Prime Minister: Not privatisation, as the hon. Gentleman says. That has been the cry on every single privatisation that we have had and every single privatisation has improved the service.
    Mr. Booth: Is the Prime Minister aware that for every £1 spent on private schools coming through charitable status, £1.30 is given out through bursaries and scholarships by those schools? So, the Labour party's exercise is a vindictive, cynical manoeuvre.
    The Prime Minister: Well, I do not have the slightest difficulty in agreeing with my hon. Friend about that. Labour Members talk about choice and diversity. They

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    talk about the crusade for education. Their crusade seems to be to take away choice from as many people as they possibly can.
    Mr. Canavan: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 12 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Canavan: Will the Prime Minister have another go at trying to justify his ridiculous claim that the idea of a Scottish Parliament is a form of dangerous teenage madness? Bearing in mind that the idea of a Scottish Parliament has been supported, even by prominent 'Tories, such as former Prime Ministers Douglas-Home and Heath, and by the current Secretaries of State for Defence and for Scotland, what is the Prime Minister going to do about those dangerous teenage madmen?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman needs to engage in some grown-up politics. He may, for example, ask his hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) whether he would agree with his remarks. The answer to his question is the one that I gave a few moments ago. There was not a proposition for a tax-raising Parliament with Executive powers, dividing responsibilities and tax-raising authority between different parts of the United Kingdom.
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    The Labour party's proposition will put Scotland significantly backwards in its economic prosperity; will lose inward investment to Scotland; will increase taxation in Scotland; and will set Scots against other parts of the United Kingdom and some Scots against other Scots. That is not a wise proposition. It is, as I have said, very unwise.
    Dame Jill Knight: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Birmingham council women's unit has been wasting £300,000 per annum of ratepayers' money and that the head of that department has been suspended for many months on full pay of £44,000 per annum while she wasted a further £250,000 on an ill-judged housing scheme? As she has now been offered £11,000 to leave the council and to go away and keep quiet, does my right hon. Friend feel that that is a matter for the Audit Commission to consider in the light of its recent report?
    The Prime Minister: I was not aware of that particular matter. As the Opposition so often talk about waste in local government and elsewhere, they might conceivably have raised it. I saw the Audit Commission report which made the point that too often local government services are provided by a dramatically over-staffed service indeed. It seems to me that too often local government cuts services instead of staff and then takes the easy option of blaming the Government for underfunding it when it has cut those services. The Audit Commission report makes that clear and I am delighted that it does so.

Business of the House
3.30 pm
Mrs. Ann Taylor: May I ask the Leader of the House to give us the business for next week, and any further information that he can give us about future business?
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): Yes, Madam Speaker, the business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 16 JANUARY—Second Reading of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill.
TUESDAY 17 JANUARY—Second Reading of the Finance Bill.
WEDNESDAY 18 JANUARY—Opposition day (1st allotted day). Until about 7 o'clock, there will be a debate on through-ticketing under rail privatisation followed by a debate on access by Spanish and Portuguese fishing vessels to British waters on Opposition motions.
THURSDAY 19 JANUARY—Motion on the Legal Aid Advisory Committee (Dissolution) Order.
Motion on the Farm and Conservation Grant (Variation) (No 2) scheme and motion relating to the Farm and Conservation Grant (Amendment) Regulations.
FRIDAY 20 JANUARY—Private Members' Bills.
It may also be helpful to the House if I indicate—emphasising that it can be only on a provisional basis and could be subject to change—that the business currently planned for the following week is consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill on Monday 23 January and Wednesday 25 January, with Second Reading of the Disability Discrimination Bill, which is being published today, on Tuesday 24 January. I am not yet in a position, even provisionally, to indicate the business for Thursday 26 January.
I can also tell the House that, following its approval of the motions that I proposed on 19 December, I will be tabling later today a motion providing that the House will not sit on the following Fridays: 10 March, 12 May, 19 May, 26 May, 16 June, 23 June, 7 July and 21 July. As an additional bonus, I can also say that I do not at present expect the House to sit on any Friday in August.
In the shorter term, it will also be for the convenience of the House to learn that, subject to the progress of business, it will be proposed that the Easter recess will be from 7 April until 18 April and since 26 May is to be a non-sitting Friday, the House will rise for the Whitsun recess on 25 May and return on 6 June.
I understand that you, Madam Speaker, will be making a statement after business questions about the detailed arrangements for Wednesday morning sittings. The first such sitting will take place on 25 January.
Lastly, the House, particularly those who may serve on the Finance Bill Standing Committee, may like to know that, following discussion and agreement through the usual channels, it will be proposed that the Standing Committee, which has always hitherto sat in the afternoon and evening, and indeed often well into the night, should sit in the morning and afternoon. The spirit of Jopling appears to be spreading.
Mrs. Taylor: I thank the Leader of the House for that important statement. As he says, the spirit of Jopling will benefit all hon. Members in due course. In particular, I
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thank him for his information about non-sitting Fridays and the recess dates. I understand why the business for the week after next could be given only a provisional basis, but I am sure that it will benefit the House if the Leader of the House continues to give us notice of that kind. Opposition Members accept that that can be done only on such a provisional basis.
As the House has now decided to experiment with and modernise our procedures—we have heard of the benefits of that this afternoon—will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate on the accountability of Government to Parliament, especially in view of the vast expansion of enabling legislation in recent years?
Will the right hon. Gentleman arrange a debate on one important aspect of the loss of accountability—how the Government can sell off Railtrack, which is worth up to £6 billion of public assets, and which is expected by the public as well as experts to be an unmitigated disaster, without initiating a full debate on that issue in this House? The Leader of the House will be aware that the Opposition have facilitated a debate on Wednesday on one aspect of rail privatisation that is causing great concern—through ticketing. If selling off Railtrack is such a good idea, will the Leader of House guarantee, in Government time, a debate on that issue?
Mr. Newton: I thank the hon. Lady for her generous remarks about the additional bits of my statement. I note what she said, and I am grateful for her recognition of the necessary provisionality. I shall not always be able to be as forthcoming as I have been today, but the very fact that I have been forthcoming today is an earnest of good intentions and my continued willingness to use best endeavours to help the House.
As for the rest of the hon. Lady's questions, at present I certainly have no plans for a debate along the lines that she has suggested. Indeed, I was not entirely sure of the boundaries of the proposed accountability debate. I remind the hon. Lady that Ministers, as the Home Secretary has repeatedly made clear in recent weeks, remain accountable to Parliament for the performance of the agencies which are within the responsibility of their Departments.
As for Railtrack, the reason that there will not be a debate of the kind that the hon. Lady suggested is that Parliament passed legislation which did not require such a debate.
Mr. Bill Walker: Will my right hon. Friend arrange an early debate on the economic aspects of constitutional change and examine ownership of industry within the United Kingdom, particularly as we can now, apparently, write to Inverkeithing, the address of the shadow Chancellor, for advice on that ownership?
Mr. Newton: I will certainly consider the scope for such a debate, but some fairly extensive exchanges about it—I acknowledge, not amounting to a debate—have taken place in the past few minutes. I am sure that there will be further opportunities to advert to those matters.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: May I add my warm welcome to the progress that the Leader of the House has made in implementing the Jopling proposals? It is a credit to him. The House will find that benefits will flow. Since, following the question of the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker), and

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if Prime Minister's Question Time today is anything to go by, constitutional reform in relation to devolution is now very much on the public agenda, put there by no less a person than his own Prime Minister, will the Leader of the House recognise that by staging a debate in Government time?
Mr. Newton: Obviously I would always consider such points. Indeed, in the light of the increasing evidence, in exchanges in the House and on radio and television and elsewhere, of the inability of those on the Opposition Front Bench to answer any of the questions that arise from the proposals that they are allegedly floating, there could be merit in such a debate.
Mr. David Martin: Did my right hon. Friend note the significant statement on legal aid made yesterday by the Lord Chancellor, and if so, did he note the promise that a Green Paper is to be issued on the subject? Will my right hon. Friend use his best endeavours to ensure that that happens as soon as possible, accompanied by a statement in the House by a Minister, so that we can raise the question of the continuing injustice to civil litigants who win against legally aided clients yet do not receive their full costs?
Mr. Newton: I know that my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor is anxious to publish his Green Paper as soon as possible, and I shall communicate to him my hon. Friend's request that he should do so. The question of a statement can more appropriately be considered nearer the time.
Mr. Harry Barnes: Why will we discuss the Government's wholly inadequate Bill on discrimination against disabled people on 24 January, although the White Paper was published only this morning and the Bill itself will be published later, when a private Member's Bill—the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill, which has in the past had almost unanimous support in the House—is not to be discussed until 10 February? That Bill has tremendous support in both Houses of Parliament. Should we not have an opportunity to discuss the major piece of legislation first, rather than the inadequate Government shadow?
Mr. Newton: I propose that the House should debate the Disability Discrimination Bill on 24 January because it is now ready—it is being published today—and it represents the Government's view of the best way to make sensible, practical and realistic progress towards an aim that we all share. We want to get on with that as soon as possible. As for the White Paper and a statement, some weeks ago my hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People made a substantial statement covering all those matters, which will be fully fleshed out in the White Paper.
Mrs. Marion Roe: In connection with the debate later today on child care facilities in the House, in which many of us will be unable to participate because of previous engagements, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that many Members on both sides of the House believe that, in the best interests of the child, the most appropriate nursery is one near that child's home and not in the House of Commons, where facilities would not be suitable—
Madam Speaker: Order. Those are matters for debate later. The House has been anxiously awaiting the debate
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for some time, and we are grateful to the Leader of the House for arranging it today, but I cannot allow Members to debate it at this stage, during business questions.
Mr. Newton: May I simply say, in the spirit in which I am sure my hon. Friend intended her question to be taken, that I shall be here to listen to the debate, and I note that, unfortunately, she cannot attend. I was aware that she was not very keen on the proposals, and I shall certainly take note of the way in which she phrased her question.
Mr. Alfred Morris: Why are we not being allowed to see the Government's Bill on discrimination against disabled people until 4.30 pm today, when its contents are already being widely discussed outside this House? By 4.30, as the right hon. Gentleman must know, most Members will have left for their constituencies until next Monday. Why could we not have had the Bill at 3.30 pm, and was the right hon. Gentleman consulted about the timing of its arrival in the Vote Office?
Mr. Newton: I am sorry, I think that I misheard one word in what the right hon. Gentleman said—I thought that he said "insulting".
Mr. Morris: No—"consulting".
Mr. Newton: At any rate, so far as I am aware, the arrangements for publishing the Bill are entirely consistent with the normal arrangements for publishing such Bills. Frankly, I do not think it unreasonable to expect Members of Parliament to be here at 4.30 on a Thursday afternoon to attend to matters in which they are interested.
Sir Teddy Taylor: May we have a debate next week on the tragic situation in Sweden, whose currency collapsed yesterday and whose Government have today been forced to slash welfare spending, to force up taxation dramatically and to increase interest rates by 7 per cent.? Would it not be helpful for the House to find out why things are so different in nearby Norway, where the currency is strong and the economic indicators are better than ever?
Mr. Newton: In the same spirit with which I approached yesterday's debate, I shall respond to my hon. Essex Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) by saying that I take note of his question.
Mr. Hugh Bayley: In view of the Government's repeated commitments from 1989 onwards to the total modernisation of the Kent coastal railway services; and given the decision by the British Railways Board on Monday not to go ahead with any further modernisation after the first tranche of 64 out of 600 trains that had been promised, will the Leader of the House guarantee that the House will have an opportunity to discuss the consequences, both for Kent commuters and for the 750 people who work at the Asea Brown Boveri carriage works in my constituency and who will be out of a job, leaving the country unable to buy these trains in future unless it does so from abroad?
Mr. Newton: The fact is that British Rail has concluded that there was not a commercial case for new trains for the Kent coast before March 1999. Quite apart from the hon. Gentleman's views, I am well aware that

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many of my hon. Friends from Kent do not agree with BR's judgment. The fact is, however, that procurement decisions are for BR. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister for Railways and Roads is, or was—I am not sure which—this afternoon meeting the hon. Member for York (Mr. Bayley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway). I am sure that they will have an opportunity to express their views at that meeting.
Mr. Charles Hendry: Can my right hon. Friend arrange an early debate on the serious problem of overcrowding in offices in Scotland—particularly at 25 Church street, Inverkeithing? Is it not intolerable that the people who are seeking to force the leader of the Labour party to ditch his plans to reform clause IV should have to share offices with the shadow Chancellor? Cannot something be done about it?
Mr. Newton: I am happy to say that I have no responsibility for the allocation of space in Labour party offices in Scotland. I can say only that it was at the very least an interesting missive which was sent from that office to The Guardian.
Mr. Tony Banks: May I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to early-day motion 351?
[That this House congratulates all those who have been peacefully protesting about the export of livestock for slaughter from Shoreham; believes that the Government has failed lamentably to end this disgusting trade, or to secure acceptable journey times; condemns the Minister of Agriculture for allowing calves from his own farm to end up in veal crates and believes him to be entirely discredited in respect of farm animal welfare; demands that the Government bans the export of calves destined for veal crates and the import of veal produce in crates; and, if necessary, defends such action in the European Court under the terms of Article 36 of the Treaty of Rome.]
It concerns the exporting of live calves. Is it not nonsense that veal crates should be banned in this country, yet veal calves are exported and the veal is reimported? If we can achieve an opt-out on something like the social chapter, which large numbers of people in this country wanted, why cannot we get an opt-out on the export of veal calves?
Mr. Newton: I always well understand why the hon. Gentleman asks his questions about animal welfare, but he is asking for an opt-out from existing law, not from prospective law, which is what we were talking about with the social chapter. I believe that the Government have often been advised that we have no legal power to ban the export of animals, as the hon. Gentleman requests, or to ban the imports of veal, as he requests. We shall work very hard in Europe for the protection and standards that we exercise in this country and which have led to veal crates being banned here.
Mr. John Greenway: Notwithstanding what my right hon. Friend said in answer to the hon. Member for York (Mr. Bayley), can he not understand that Members on both sides of the House are deeply anxious about the future of the ABB carriage works in York and
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about the carriage works in Derby? Should not someone be answerable to this House for decisions taken by a public industry?
British Rail has published no figures on which its decision was based; it did not even have the courtesy or the good grace to put the figures to Transport Ministers or to the Treasury, to check whether there was a business case, under the private finance initiative, for financing these much needed trains for the south-east railway. Should we not have a statement in the House next week, so that we can put these questions to Ministers on behalf of our constituents?
Mr. Newton: I know that my hon. Friend will understand that I cannot add to what I said to the hon. Member for York. I know too that my hon. Friend will have the opportunity, if he has not already had it, to make his points direct to the Minister.
I cannot this afternoon promise a debate in Government time, but perhaps, when you, Madam Speaker, announce the arrangements for Wednesday morning debates, my hon. Friend may wish to consider seeking an opportunity on one of those occasions.
Rev. Martin Smyth: Can the Leader of the House assure us that the Disability Discrimination Bill, which is to be presented today, will include Northern Ireland, bearing in mind that I raised that question at the time of the Minister's statement; or will we be left to continue to support the private Member's Bill that will give further rights to disabled people in the whole of the nation?
Mr. Newton: I am certainly aware of the hon. Gentleman's point. He will be aware from earlier exchanges that the Bill will be published shortly, and that will give him the answer to his question.
Mrs. Jacqui Lait: Will my right hon. Friend find time in the near future for a debate on the Liberal-proposed MPs charter, so that we can benefit from the advice of the leader of the Liberal Democrats on an acceptable level of attendance in the voting Lobby?
Mr. Newton: That is a very tempting suggestion.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Can we have a statement on the arrangements for Ministers meeting people from outside the House of Commons? If the Leader of the House were to meet Mr. Ian Greer and discuss a matter of public policy, and I were to table a question asking the Leader of the House whether he had met Mr. Greer, would he answer me on the basis that it had been a formal meeting, or would he refuse to answer in so far as it may have been an informal meeting? What is the distinction between formal and informal meetings where they take place between Ministers and lobbying companies?
Mr. Newton: I really do not think that I should try to answer a question like that on a hypothetical basis without knowing what the subject is, the meeting or anything else. The last occasion on which I recall meeting Mr. Ian Greer—although I imagine that the hon. Gentleman's question is not particularly directed at me—was passing him in a corridor at the Conservative party conference, when we exchanged some brief words. [Interruption.] No,

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we certainly did not. As far as I am concerned, the answer that I would give to such a question would depend on all the circumstances involved.
Mr. Tony Banks: It was a brown envelope job.
Mr. Newton: It was not.
Mr. Harold Elletson: Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on drug use in council housing? Does he realise that many local authorities continue to provide council housing for known drug dealers? Is he aware that the residents of the Queen's Park estate in my constituency are fed up with drug pushers in council flats who continue to sell LSD and crack cocaine to children as young as 11? Is it not time that Blackpool's Labour-controlled council was forced to stop sheltering criminals?
Mr. Newton: I would certainly hope that anybody concerned with the sort of problem that my hon. Friend described would look carefully at how they could deal with it, reduce it and, I hope, prevent it. As chairman of the group that produced the White Paper "Tackling Drugs Together", I hope that they would find the Government's proposals for strategy in that area helpful in achieving that.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: May I ask a question of which I gave notice to the right hon. Gentleman's office and to the Foreign Secretary's private secretary? In the light of the report of Claude Cheysson, which was broadcast at five minutes to eight this morning outlining the starvation situation in Iraq, and in which he gave his expert opinion as a former French Foreign Minister and European Commissioner—that, far from sapping the strength of Saddam Hussein, sanctions had rallied the Iraqi people to Saddam Hussein as nothing else—and in view of the report of Riad El Taher outlining the medical situation in Iraq, which is in the possession of the Foreign Office, could we have a debate on what amounts to the manipulation of the United Nations by the United States and Britain, and on the continuation of these counter-productive, indeed wicked, sanctions?
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman knows not only that I have considerable respect for the integrity of his position, even when I do not agree with it, but that we have great sympathy with the Iraqi people, and therefore recognise his concern for them. But the fact is that it is Saddam Hussein, not the United Nations, who is responsible for their suffering. We deplore the Iraqi regime for its failure to implement United Nations Security Council resolutions 706 and 712, which would allow Iraq to sell up to £1.6 billion of oil in return for humanitarian supplies. Since April 1991, Britain has contributed more than £66 million of aid to Iraq.
Mr. Raymond S. Robertson: Will my right hon. Friend consider holding an urgent debate on the implications for the workings of the House arising from the failure, according to the Official Report, of three Scottish Members of the shadow Cabinet—the hon. Members for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown), for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) and for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar)—to vote for the Opposition's amendment to the Government's motion on the Committee of Selection, despite the fact that they were available 15 minutes later to vote against the Government's motion? When the
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Leader of the Opposition tables an amendment on behalf of the shadow Cabinet and three senior members of it fail to turn up to vote for it, surely that raises questions about how the House operates.
Mr. Newton: I can only suppose that the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) was perhaps somewhere writing another advertisement for The Guardian.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: I listened carefully to the Leader of the House when he announced that Parliament would not be sitting for eight Fridays, and that we will have 11 days off for Easter and another 12 days off for Whitsuntide. Would it not be easier for him to come to the House and tell us which days we will be sitting?
Will the right hon. Gentleman understand that there should be a statement for those people outside this place who would like to have a four-day week? If we introduced a four-day week for the real wealth creators, the workers who provide goods and services, we could probably mop up those 4 million people who are unemployed. It is the unemployed we should be concerned about, not having days off in here.
Mr. Newton: I shall not go over all the ground again, but I do just wish, as I suspect virtually everybody else in the House does, that the hon. Gentleman would at least recognise that the suggestion that this is a four-day week is utterly ludicrous. What Members of Parliament wish to be doing is working in their constituencies in conjunction with their duties in the House.
Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood): Will my right hon. Friend invite the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make an early statement next week on the anomalies and uncertainties in the Value Added Tax (Transport) Order 1994 which were so glaringly exposed last night, not least by the inability of the Paymaster General to tell me whether children travelling on the Ruislip lido railway would be subject to VAT at the standard rate, a rate which, under European Union rules, cannot be reduced below 15 per cent.?
In that statement, will my right hon. Friend ensure that the Chancellor promises the House that never again will Her Majesty's Government move an increase of VAT from zero rate to standard rate without primary legislation?
Mr. Newton: I was not myself able to be present except briefly during the debate last night but, as my hon. Friend has said, the matter was extensively debated then. I shall not seek this afternoon to add to what was said then, but I shall certainly bring my hon. Friend's point to the attention of the Paymaster General and my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Is the Leader of the House aware that many people in London are thoroughly fed up with a health service that cannot deliver, a transport service that is expensive and serious housing shortages? The one place that could be a centre for regional government in London, county hall, is a centre of a huge controversy and inquiry about sleaze and corruption. Is it not time to have a debate about the nature

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of local government in London and the need for the capital city to have an elected authority like every other capital city in the world?
Mr. Newton: We do from time to time have debates on London, although I have no immediate plans to arrange one, but I shall bear the request in mind. However, in saying that, I should make it clear that I do not for one minute accept the hon. Gentleman's description of circumstances in London, whether on health, transport or anything else.
Mr. Harry Greenway: May we have a debate next week on early-day motion 43?
[That this House urges Her Majesty's Government to end the chaos and uncertainty currently surrounding the export of live animals by introducing regulations to require animals exported for food to be slaughtered in this country prior to their export.]
It has been signed by 75 Members from both sides of the House, and covers a matter of great concern throughout the country. It calls for animals to be slaughtered here before being exported as meat. May we have a debate on that important matter during the next week?
Mr. Newton: It is fairly clear that I do not plan to arrange a debate on that subject next week. My hon. Friend, however, may be among those who will bear in mind what you will say in a few minutes about Wednesdays, Madam Speaker.
I have already referred to the issue that my hon. Friend raised in responding to the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), and I think that my answer now must be much the same.
Mr. Eddie Loyden: At the risk of boring the Leader of the House, may I ask him again to ask the Secretary of State for Transport to come to the House—if not next week, at some time in the near future—to share the information that he has about the recent investigation into the loss of the Derbyshire? Does the Leader of the House agree that the bereaved families who have been waiting some 12 to 14 years for a response are entitled to that information, and that the Secretary of State alone should not be privy to it?
Mr. Newton: I believe that the hon. Gentleman asked me about that in December, when I last answered Prime Minister's questions. I cannot add to the reply that I gave him then, but I shall bring his continued concern to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: I seek some clarification of remarks made earlier by the Leader of the House. Was he making a clear, unequivocal commitment to provide Government time for a debate on constitutional change in the United Kingdom, given the current interest in the subject? If so, will those on both Front Benches please provide us with definitions of their terminology as applied to the words "nation", "region", "state", "sovereignty", "independence" and "co-operation"—and, of course, the principle on which they base referendums?
Mr. Newton: As I have said, I should certainly like to hear definitions of some of the Labour party's proposals.
I am afraid that the answer to the first part of the hon. Lady's question is no. I was simply being as friendly and helpful as I could—as I always am—without commitment.
Mr. Max Madden: First, may I press the Leader of the House further on the issue of Government time for a debate on animal welfare? Secondly, will he give an assurance that Ministers responsible for the several private Members' Bills relating to that subject will adopt a rather more positive and constructive approach than some Ministers have adopted in the past in regard to private Members' Bills?
Lastly, will the right hon. Gentleman consider using his good offices to persuade the Government to advise those responsible for Government purchasing policies—and, indeed, the House authorities—to announce that they are unwilling to purchase imported veal until the means of its production is acceptable? Those are three positive steps that the Government could and should take to assist in the matter.
Mr. Newton: Obviously, my right hon. and hon. Friends will consider the various private Members' Bills as constructively as they can when the details are available. I am not sure whether all of them have been published yet, but I am sure that they will be read very carefully. As for the hon. Gentleman's last question, if—as I take it—he is suggesting that the House catering authorities, for example, should cease to buy white veal, I am sure that the Chairman of the Catering Committee will consider his suggestion.
Mr. John Gunnell: Will the Leader of the House ask the Home Secretary to make a statement to the House about the death of Lee Bowen in Doncaster prison? Given that some 86 per cent. of those working in the prison had never been in prison before when it opened in June, I am sure that the Home Secretary will accept responsibility for this event, which was a direct result of his privatisation policy.
Mr. Newton: In view of the subject of the hon. Gentleman's question, I think that it would be appropriate for me to bring the matter to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary.
Mr. Greville Janner: Are we likely to have a chance to debate the work of the Overseas Development Administration? If not, will the right hon. Gentleman please ask for a statement about overseas debts owed to this country in general and, in particular, the debt owed by the kingdom of Jordan?
In view of the Jordanian Government's skilful, courageous and successful involvement in the middle east process, and given that they are in any event very unlikely to be able to repay the debt, perhaps this is the right time to write it off as a gesture of good will and good intent towards a very brave Government.
Mr. Newton: As the hon. and learned Gentleman probably expects, I cannot promise a debate on that matter. However, he has effectively made his suggestion, and I am sure that it will be looked at by my right hon. Friends who are responsible for such matters.

Wednesday Morning Sittings
4.4 pm
Madam Speaker: Under the new arrangements for Wednesdays there will be one or two general debates between 10 am and 1 pm and up to three short debates between 1 pm and 2.30 pm. Ballots for the subjects to be debated will be held under broadly the same arrangements as those which have hitherto applied for post-Consolidated Fund debates and last-day Adjournment debates. The first Wednesday morning sitting will be on 25 January, and applications should reach my office no later than 10 pm on Tuesday 17 January. A list showing the subjects and times will be published the following day.
Members may apply for both the general debates and the short debates, and each application should indicate clearly into which ballot they wish to be entered. Separate ballots will be held for each type of debate but, of course, in the same week no Member will be successful in both ballots. Similar arrangements and a similar timetable will apply in each subsequent week. The existing arrangements with respect to Adjournment debates at the end of each day's business will remain unchanged.

BILL PRESENTED
  DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION
  Mr. Secretary Lilley, supported by Mr. Secretary Portillo, Mr. William Hague, Mr. Secretary Glimmer, Secretary Sir Patrick Mayhew, Mr. Secretary Mawhinney, Mrs. Secretary Bottomley, Mr. David Hunt, Mrs. Secretary Shephard and Mr. Secretary Lang presented a Bill to make it unlawful to discriminate against disabled persons in connection with employment and the provision of goods, facilities and services; to make provision about the employment of disabled persons; and to establish a National Disability Council: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 32.]
Orders of the Day

  Town and Country Planning (Costs of Inquiries Etc.) Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  4.6 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir Paul Beresford): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The Bill is rather technical and in terms of its geographic spread it could probably be described as a wee Bill, but it has a clause 4!
  The Bill is extremely important because it proposes to remove a current source of uncertainty about who should pay for the services of a planning inspector appointed to hold an inquiry on a planning authority's behalf into objections to a development plan or other similar plan. It also applies to Scotland and Wales.
  The history of the matter is worth a glance. Since the 1970s, when the first local plan inquiry was held under the then Town and Country Planning Act 1971, the Department and local planning authorities assumed that it was lawful on the basis of an implied contract to impose a charge for making the services of the inspector available. That seemed entirely natural as the planning authority was statutorily required to hold a development plan inquiry and should therefore expect to pay for the expense involved in the process, including the expenses of an inspector whom the Secretary of State appoints independently of the authority.
  Some 21 years later, in 1992 and in the following year, Birmingham city council queried the amount charged by the Planning Inspectorate for the inspector appointed to hold the council's unitary development plan inquiry. Subsequently, the council questioned whether any statutory power existed to levy those charges. In support of the argument, the council cited the judgment of the House of Lords in the case of McCarthy and Stone (Developments) Ltd. v. Richmond upon Thames London borough council.
  That judgment held that there is no power for a public body to levy a charge for its services in the absence of an express or implied statutory provision. Moreover, I am advised that although the Planning Inspectorate and the local planning authority normally agree on the terms on which an inspector is to be appointed for a development plan inquiry, there is no implied power to charge the authority for this service on any contractual basis.
  When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and other colleagues were made aware of that legislative gap, the Government decided that the only reasonable course was to fill it as soon as parliamentary time became available.
  Mr. Jeff Rooker: I agree that the only reasonable course is to fill the gap, but surely it is unreasonable and wrong to apply backdating. I hope that the Minister will explain why the Bill has to be retrospective given that the supremely qualified staff of

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  Birmingham city council, which has constantly been maligned by the Government, brought this matter to the attention of the House and the Government.
  Sir Paul Beresford: I thank the hon. Member for that early and anticipated shot. I shall fire a reply in a moment or two. [Interruption.] I shall answer in a moment or two if the hon. Gentleman will just bide his time.
  My hon. Friend the then Minister for Local Government and Planning announced in a written answer on 17 February 1994 the Government's intention to legislate on the issue in order to put the matter beyond doubt. [Interruption.] For the benefit of those hon. Members who are squawking, it is worth pointing out that the origin of the problem was in the drafting of the Town and Country Planning Act 1968. If there was sloppy drafting then, it was the fault of the Government of the day in 1968.
  Following that announcement, we did not consult in detail with local authorities associations about the provisions to be included in the Bill, but no discourtesy was intended. There are three reasons to explain that. First, as my hon. Friend's written answer explained, the Bill simply restores the situation to what it was previously thought to be by all concerned in these matters. Secondly, the Bill will have no effect on public service manpower, as the explanatory and financial memorandum points out.
  Thirdly, the agency's chief planning inspector informed all local planning authorities last year that the inspectorate would collect no further charges for development plan inquiries until the proposed legislation had been enacted. In the meantime, any local planning authority wishing to claim a repayment of its charge will receive it, but authorities have been advised to make full budgetary provision for the amounts that would be due to the Department if the proposed legislation were eventually enacted. This is, in effect, consultation in any event. Having changed sides from local government to central Government, I can fairly say that I have never known local authorities to be slow in responding when finances, either positive or negative, were concerned. We have not been flooded with complaints.
  The sums at stake may not seem large in total local government public expenditure terms, but the underlying principle is important. In England and Wales, up to and including 1992–93, they amount to £4.5 million. For 1993–94, £1.4 million has been recovered from planning authorities and paid into a suspense account. A further £2.6 million is owing to my right hon. Friend's Department. In the current year—1994–95—approximately £3 million will be due to the Department. In future years, charges will amount to approximately £3.6 million, on average, while the present development plan work load continues.
  The Department has repaid some £2.8 million to 97 local authorities, along with interest payments of approximately £101,000. The principle on which this Bill is based is that authorities should pay for the services that these charges represent and for which provision is currently made in the annual local government financial settlement.
  Mr. Anthony Steen: Is my hon. Friend saying that it is not just Birmingham that has not paid, but that a whole raft of local authorities have not paid
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  and are deliberately avoiding paying, or is it simply that they have not been asked to do so?
  Sir Paul Beresford: It is not quite as simple as that. Local government, trying to be at its best in managing its finances, has perceived an opportunity. About 97 local authorities have had money repaid, along with interest payments. If the Bill is not passed, that backpayment will not arise again—it will return to Government.
  Clause 1, which applies to England and Wales, is the core provision of the Bill. It does two things. First, it enables the Department to recover from planning authorities the costs that we bear, through the Planning Inspectorate, in appointing an inspector to hold what is called a qualifying inquiry. That is an inquiry set up to hear objections to local plans, unitary development plans or simplified planning zone schemes, to consider objections to such schemes or to conduct an examination in public into structure plan proposals.
  Secondly, the clause enables my right hon. Friend to provide, by regulations, the standard daily amount and the travel and subsistence allowances that planning authorities are to pay to persons, other than inspectors, who are appointed to conduct an examination in public into structure plans. I regret that the provisions of clause 1 will inevitably seem lengthy and detailed. It is felt that that is necessary to ensure that the provisions do the job properly this time and, so far as humanly possible, do not leave anything to chance.
  Clause 2, which also applies in England and Wales, deals with retrospection. If the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) pauses in his conversation, he will hear that the Government are persuaded that, exceptionally, retrospection is justified on this occasion for two main reasons. The first is that clause 2 imposes no new financial burden on local planning authorities. It simply validates past payments that authorities made in good faith, believing—as did the Department—that they were sought and paid lawfully. In that context, it is important to remember that provision was made in the annual local authority financial settlement for the estimated sums that planning authorities expected to incur by way of charges for inspectors' services at development plan inquiries.
  Dr. Lynne Jones: The Minister said that arrangements had been made to allocate resources to local authorities for those purposes. Birmingham council's original estimate for an inquiry, based on information given to it, was about £30,000 yet the final bill was almost twice as much. The council is not aware that its grant from central Government has been increased to take that into account.
  Sir Paul Beresford: I am aware that a discussion has taken place, but I find that a little interesting. I decided to check and query the matter and to consider the costs.
  Mr. Keith Vaz: They were £68,000.
  Sir Paul Beresford: No, they were £63,508. The invoice is dated 3 November 1992. The inquiry lasted 35 inquiry days, five inspection site days and 112 working days for the inspector. I shall not go through the details. It is interesting that a similar inquiry involving a well-known authority that is dear to many of our hearts, Wandsworth, lasted 23 days with four site visits—making a total of 27 days. It had a similar number of objections—

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  51,455. On a day-by-day basis, which is not a fair way of doing it, Wandsworth has more reason to complain than Birmingham.
  The second main reason why retrospection is justified is that, without retrospection, the other provisions in the Bill would be unfair to planning authorities that, through no fault of their own, have not yet reached the stage of holding an inquiry as part of their development plan process. There is no good reason why planning authorities that have already passed that stage should receive a windfall financial benefit through not including retrospective provisions in the Bill.
  By arrangement with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who will reply to the debate, and for the convenience of the House, I shall say a few words about the Scottish provisions in the Bill. I understand that the position has not been tested in the Scottish courts. In addition, planning authorities in Scotland have not, so far, pressed for repayment of the sums paid in the past. I suspect that that is an example of canny Scots. Nevertheless, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland thinks that similar problems may arise, he considers it prudent to legislate now to remove any doubt about the basis of charges made.
  Clause 3 enables my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to set charges by regulations. It establishes a firm statutory basis for payment by planning authorities in Scotland. That will apply in the case of both local plan and simplified planning zone inquiries. Although that provides equivalent powers to clause 1, there are a number of distinctive Scottish features. First, reporters for local plan or simplified planning zone inquiries in Scotland are appointed not by the Secretary of State, as in England and Wales, but by the planning authority from a list provided by the Secretary of State. That list may include both full-time reporters and other suitably experienced people who are not officers of the Secretary of State.
  Secondly, examinations in public into structure plan proposals in Scotland are carried out on behalf of the Secretary of State, so the cost does not fall on the planning authority, as it does in England and Wales. Finally, the Scottish Office inquiry reporters unit remains part of the Secretary of State's Department and is not a next steps agency. Clause 3 reflects those distinctive elements but with the same underlying objective and effect as clause 1 for England and Wales.
  Clause 4 makes retrospective provision with regard to local plan inquiries, held under the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Acts 1969 and 1972. There have been no simplified planning zone inquiries in Scotland yet.
  As in England and Wales, neither of those clauses implies any new burden on Scottish planning authorities. They are intended to put on a firmer statutory footing the charging arrangements that have operated for a number of years.
  Mr. Steen: Can my hon. Friend assure me that the amounts that authorities have already paid in relation to their local planning inquiries will not be increased retrospectively?
  Sir Paul Beresford: That is absolutely correct. It is a bill that is related to set fees for time and services rendered.
  Mr. Rooker: Is it interest free?
  Sir Paul Beresford: I will have to check on that.
  Mr. Rooker: The Government have repaid some of the money to local authorities and, as I understand it, they have repaid some of the interest payments as well. Some of the payments must go back 20 years. The Government will now collect that money from local authorities. Will they insist on the return of the interest payments? It is bad enough for them to insist on the interest on the principal sum, but insisting on the interest on the interest would be unfair.
  Would not it be a good idea for the Government—I am sure that the Minister will have thought about this—if every time a Department levied a bill on any citizen or local authority, it had to print on that bill the statutory provision that allowed it to make that charge? It should have to give the legal authority that allows it to make that charge on everything, no matter what. With such a provision, this case would not have arisen. In addition, it would highlight any other cases lurking in Whitehall where the Government are illegally charging individuals or authorities.
  Sir Paul Beresford: This does not go back 20 years. It goes back to the discussions with Birmingham which were referred to by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones). We are talking not so much about a refusal to pay as the fact that the bills have not been collected. If the Bill becomes law, all the amounts due then will be recovered from the authorities owing sums for inquiries.
  Mr. Rooker: Without interest?
  Sir Paul Beresford: I believe so, but I will let the hon. Gentleman know.
  This is a technical and comparatively short Bill that provides formal charging powers that everyone had assumed existed for some 20 years. We are remedying uncertainty. Today we are concerned with the principle of the Bill and the Government are sure that it is soundly based on the principle that it is reasonable for the user of a public service to pay for it, including, as we have just discussed, an essential provision for retrospective payment. I commend the Bill to the House.
  4.22 pm
  Mr. Keith Vaz: What a shambles. The Minister has told us that he is announcing a new measure that will provide certainty. In fact, what he has said has created even more uncertainty. He does not know how many years it will go back. In answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) he said that it will go back to the discussions with Birmingham. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) he said that he does not know whether interest is payable and, if it is, he does not know whether it will be payable from

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  the time the money went back or whether it will be interest free. I hope that by the time his colleague the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland replies to the debate he will have studied the Bill more carefully than the Minister so that he can provide firm answers to the questions that we intend to ask.
  There is an old proverb about making haste and acting slowly. There is another equally well-known proverb about people paying for their mistakes. This extraordinary Bill is a combination of both. As the House knows, planning legislation is one of the most complex areas of law. Changes in planning law require the most careful consideration, the most diligent consultation with those most affected by the changes and the best possible briefing for Ministers. With this measure, the Government have unfortunately failed in all those areas. There may be two reasons for that. First, perhaps they made a mistake. Secondly, having made a mistake, perhaps they do not want to admit it. This is not the first time that the Government have made a mistake and do not want to admit it.
  The House waited in vain to hear the Minister take some responsibility for this legislative mess, but we did not once hear him say, "Sorry, we have made a mistake." There was no contrition and no apology. The Secretary of State could not find time to come to the Dispatch Box and take responsibility himself.
  Sir Paul Beresford: As the Bill refers back to the Labour Government's 1968 drafting, I should have thought that the apology ought to come from the hon. Gentleman's party. In addition, I have now had it clarified that where interest has been repaid that interest alone will be recovered by the inspectorate agency. I hope that that clarifies the issue for the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Vaz: We now hear from the Minister that it was all Harold Wilson's fault and that it is nothing to do with this Government. The Secretary of State could not come to the Dispatch Box to take responsibility for what had happened because he is the good news man who gets to go to press conferences and to launch new initiatives. The Under-Secretary of State is the bad news man who gets to come to the Dispatch Box when the Government get things wrong. It is ironic that that task should fall to a Minister who, of all the Ministers in the Department of the Environment, knows what it is like to be a local councillor and to carry the heavy burdens of a council leader—although he had privatised most of the council's functions by the time he left Wandsworth.
  The Minister knows that every spending decision taken by a local authority has to be set against carefully defined criteria. Local government has suffered immeasurably as a result of the Government's cuts in the past 15 years. The Bill will mean yet another burden on local councils, despite what the Minister says. Having discovered that a mistake had been made, councils will have expected to get the money back and to be able to spend it on the provision of local services. When local authorities make mistakes, they have to pay for them.
  The Bill is not only about mistakes: the Government have acted illegally, charging local authorities when they had no power to do so—and it has been going on for years. If local authorities had acted in a similarly illegal way, all hell would have broken loose. The Secretary of
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  State and his Ministers would have been flying around the country demanding that heads should roll. The councils involved would be harried, ridiculed and pilloried and their councillors would be politically persecuted. Yet when the Government are found to have acted illegally, we are supposed to keep quiet about it. The practice has been going on for years without anything being done about it.
  The Government seek not only to give themselves power to charge but to do so in respect of past charging errors—and they wish to perform the change "just like that", as Mr. Tommy Cooper used to say. Retrospective legislation is a very dangerous precedent. It is wrong in principle and sets an even more dangerous precedent when applied to local government. It should be used only very rarely. It should not be used when Ministers have flouted the law and the innocent—in this case the councils—are being punished.
  Caries, whom I am sure that the Minister has read in preparation for the debate, states in his writing on statute law:
  "A statute is to be deemed to be retrospective which takes away or impairs any vested right … under existing laws, or creates a new obligation or imposes a new duty."
  Referring to the case of Calder v. Bull, Judge Chase said:
  "Every law that takes away or impairs rights vested agreeably to existing laws is retrospective, is generally unjust and may be oppressive. It is a good general rule that a law should have no retrospect."
  Yet those persuasive authorities have had no effect on the Government. Despite the general agreement that retrospective legislation is undesirable, the Government wish to proceed with it in this case.
  The director of technical services of Durham city council, in a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg), who had hoped to be here this afternoon, spoke for many councils when he said that the Bill would
  "set an exceedingly dangerous precedent if payments which were made with legal authority could be legitimised by subsequent legislation."
  As the House knows and as the Minister has briefly explained, development plans, structure plans, local plans and unitary development plans have to be the subject of public scrutiny at public local inquiries, examinations in public and hearings. Objections to the proposals are aired at such inquiries. It is a right that the public should have; it is their opportunity to comment on local plans. Such inquiries are chaired by inspectors appointed by the Secretary of State and drawn from the ranks of the Planning Inspectorate. The inspector listens to arguments and makes recommendations to the local authority. As has now become clear, from the first inquiries, Ministers have illegally charged local authorities for the services of inspectors.
  The Planning Inspectorate's corporate plan for 1994–97 predicted that the demand for inspectors for development plan inquiries would remain at current levels. Since 1991, the development plans of local planning authorities have had enhanced status and planning applications are now determined in accordance with the plan unless material circumstances indicate otherwise. They are, therefore, very important parts of the planning process.
  In terms of the completion of the plans, there is a long way to go. A survey published by the Minister's Department in August 1994 showed that only 60 English

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  districts—20 per cent.—had local plans in place by 31 March 1994. It showed that only 10 unitary authorities—15 per cent. of the total—had unitary development plans. More than 94 per cent. of English authorities are expected to have adopted plans by the end of 1996. In Scotland, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) will explain, about 81 per cent. of local plans had been adopted by the end of 1993. The Scottish Office, as I am sure the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland will tell us, expects complete local coverage by the end of this year.
  It was Birmingham city council that first raised the issue of the statutory basis for charging by the Secretary of State following, as the Minister has told us, the public local inquiry into the Birmingham unitary development plan. The House and the Government owe a debt of gratitude to the officers and members of Birmingham city council for their role in discovering the Government's error. I also commend the tremendous efforts made by my hon. Friends the Members for Perry Barr and for Selly Oak and by the other Birmingham Members who wrote to Ministers pointing out the error of their ways.
  The Birmingham inquiry lasted from November 1991 to February 1992. The inspector's report was received in October 1992, some months later. In November, as the Minister has said, the council received an invoice for £63,000 which exceeded its budgetary provision of £28,000. The reason was not that Birmingham had, in some way, done something to put up the bill. The reason was that the inquiry lasted longer than anticipated-38 days instead of 32. In addition, there was a unilateral 30 per cent. rise in the inspectorate's day rate charges of which the council was notified shortly before the inquiry opened.
  That bill was challenged on two counts: first, the size compared with what was estimated and, secondly, the statutory basis for the charge. On 24 June 1993, the assistant director of planning, Mr. Wenban Smith, wrote to the planning inspector, Mr. John, pointing out that as no regulations had been made under section 16 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 there was no statutory basis for the charge. It was further attested by Birmingham that had the charges been the same as those prescribed under the Fees for Inquiries (Standard Daily Amount) Regulations 1988—which I am sure that the Minister has studied—the bill would have been half the size. No reply was received by Birmingham city council to that letter. It was not until a year later, when Members of Parliament wrote, that the Minister's predecessor replied.
  The House would have expected that on discovering the error the Government would have ensured the widest possible consultation with the associations and with individual councils so that they could implement the proposed changes, going through in great detail any proposals of legislation—but not a bit of it. In February 1994, just under a year ago, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities received a letter from the Department of the Environment referring to "some doubts" over Ministers' powers to make charges. The letter also said that "to clarify the situation" the Government intended to introduce retrospective legislation shortly.
  The AMA, after consulting its members, sent a reply via Mr. Phil Harper, who wrote to the DOE objecting to the Government's proposals, especially their retrospective
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  nature, and arguing further that in future the costs of the inspectors should be borne by the Government. The AMA received the letter from the DOE on the same day as a written answer appeared on the same subject—17 February.
  More evidence of the Government's unwillingness to consult—the Minister has spoken today of consultation with the authorities—came in a letter from Mr. D. Donaldson who works in planning division 4. Mr. Donaldson was responding to a letter from the Association of District Councils dated 1 November 1994. It took six weeks to reply to that letter. Millions of pounds of local taxpayers' money has been illegally grabbed by the Government. Mr. Donaldson, no doubt under ministerial instruction, says in paragraph 2 of that letter:
  "While we understand the reasons for the Association's concern, the Department does not accept that there has been a 'significant legislative error'."
  If that is not regarded as a significant legislative error requiring retrospective legislation, I wonder what is. In paragraph 3, Mr. Donaldson says:
  "The proposed legislation would be retrospective in order to validate payments which authorities have already made and to achieve equitable treatment for all planning authorities, irrespective of the time when their particular local plan inquiry was held."
  So, the Government want to be fair and equitable to all concerned. They are not going to rob Peter to pay Paul—they are going to rob both Peter and Paul.
  In all the consultations carried out so far, not one local authority feels that the principle of retrospection should apply. If the Act is passed, they will want payment to start from the time when the Act is passed, not from a previous decade. The local authorities say that that is a fair and honest way to proceed and the Labour party agrees.
  The Minister has told us that in his view £4.5 million up to the financial year 1993 and £1.4 million up to the financial year 1994 was owed by local authorities. Just to set the mind of the hon. Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) at rest, it is not a question of Birmingham council not paying or refusing to pay up. There is no legal authority and there was no legal authority for the councils to pay at all. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not want to pay a bill when he had no legal authority to do so. The bills were sent when there was no authority to do so.
  I am glad that the Minister was able to take advice and tell us about the interest. But we are not talking only of a global sum of some £7 million. For local councils these are very large individual sums. For example, Chichester will have to pay almost £20,000, Rochester £17,000, and Reigate and Banstead £75,000. I have not chosen examples of hotbeds of socialism. However, I have to throw in my local area of Leicester, which will have to pay £40,000. Individual councils will have to receive and then pay back a very large sum of money.
  On learning that there was no legal authority, the Planning Inspectorate refunded payments to local councils, informing them that the money would be clawed back when the legislation was passed. It must have been like a scene from the Keystone Cops. Each Minister in the Department of the Environment must have been given the responsibility of going in a fast car full of cash to hand it back to the town halls. Bearing in mind the Minister's fondness for privatisation, they perhaps engaged Group 4, or even Mr. Damon Hill, all with the same instructions: drive fast, do not stop, and if apprehended, blame it on

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  the lawyers. I can just see the cartoon in next week's Municipal Journal. It would be farcical if it were not so tragic—what a way to run a Department.
  We are very concerned about the scope of the charging regime. The proposed new section 303A(4) would allow the Secretary of State to recover
  "the entire administrative cost of, or incidental to, the qualifying inquiry, so far as borne by him".
  That appears to go well beyond the "remuneration and allowances" provision in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It appears that the Secretary of State is seeking to recover costs other than for those of appointing an inspector. When the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland replies, I hope that he will give us the cast-iron assurance that there is no intention to make charges over and above those made in the past.
  Mr. Rooker: Perhaps my hon. Friend will press the point that, with regard to new section 303A(4), in addition to the amount for an inspector, the Government intend to charge for the overheads of the Department of the Environment. What on earth have the DOE's overheads got to do with appointing an inspector with a dedicated staff and a dedicated task in mind? Why should local authorities bear a share of the costs of the DOE's overheads?
  Mr. Vaz: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. I expected him, the hammer of the poll tax and the Opposition Member who did most to bring down that hated piece of legislation, to spot that. The proposal goes far beyond what was originally intended and far beyond the 1990 Act which refers simply to "remuneration and allowances". I hope that the Minister will give us the assurance that we need when he replies.
  I believe that there is a clear need to cut the costs of inquiries. Research commissioned by the DOE showed that local inquiries can cost as much as £170,000 for local plans and £300,000 for unitary development plans. The executive summary of the "Efficiency and Effectiveness of Local Planning Inquiries" stated that some of its recommendations were intended to
  "provide more certainty for local authorities and others in budgeting time"
  and ensure that a more businesslike relationship should exist
  "between the local authority and the planning inspectorate."
  The summary document was issued for consultation on 10 November 1993. The DOE said on 21 December 1994 that the full report would be published "imminently". When the Minister replies, I hope that he will tell us the date of the report's publication. He will know that one of his colleagues said on 17 February that the report was to be published "shortly". We await the proposals with interest and wonder why it has taken a full year from executive summary to the final report. We should like to hear how the Government propose to improve the local plan process. It should not be just a booking exercise; it should be much more substantial.
  Another and equally important argument goes to the heart of this matter and relates to the very principle of whether local authorities should have to pay in the first place. There is a view that, as a council is obliged by statute to prepare the plans and to hold the inquiries, the
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  financial burden should be borne by the Government—[Interruption.] I notice that that view has found favour among Conservative Members. I am delighted that they agree with the Association of Metropolitan Authorities which holds that view.
  Other organisations take a different view. The Royal Town Planning Institute considers that if the Government paid the cost of the inspectors that might lead to a return to the pre-1968 situation of central Government having the final say in the adoption of local development plans. The institute believes that that would not be in the interests of effective planning or local democracy.
  The point is that this legislation, far from being a "wee Bill", as the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment described it, to be shoved through when no one is watching, gives us an opportunity to examine carefully a very important point of principle. We should listen to the views of the interested parties before we take a final view.
  The Opposition believe that once there is a statutory basis for charging, the relationship between the council and the inspector should be formalised. It should be that of purchaser and provider. I am sure that the Minister recognises those words as he was very keen to push them forward in Wandsworth.
  At present, the basis of a council's dealings with the inspectorate are open-ended in favour of the contractor. The client—the council—has very little, if any, control over the outcome in terms of the delivery date or price. The inspectorate should be required to give, and abide by, its estimates. A written statement should be provided in advance based on the circumstances of the case with any factors affecting variability—for example, sitting days—clearly identified.
  There should be provision for arbitration which is binding on both parties. There should also be a mechanism for challenging a demand which a local authority considers unreasonable. Under the provisions in the Bill, the Secretary of State can merely recover the costs through the courts. There should be proper regulation to ensure that the contractor's position of power and monopoly is not abused. That is entirely in line with the Government's wish to see the inspectorate as a trading agency.
  We believe that there is considerable scope for improving the operation of the inquiry scheme with regard to the greater use of written objections and shorter reports and developing a more informal approach with the local authority taking the lead in bringing objectors' concerns forward more effectively. Because of the new-found importance of development plans, it is always possible for particularly well-heeled objectors to delay the process to get their point across because they can afford expert representation. The costs of the inquiry will therefore spiral.
  We believe that planning authorities should involve local people in preparing plans at a much earlier stage. It is essential that the public are able to participate as early as possible. I was very impressed by the observations of the Royal Town Planning Institute on the Government's initial proposals. I do not believe that any hon. Member would disagree with the comments of Jed Griffiths, the senior vice-president of the institute, who said:
  "We need to get local people involved right at the roots of the planning process so that they can play a real role in shaping the future growth of the places where we live."

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  I am announcing today the establishment of a Labour party review of planning law. I hope that we will consult widely with all interested parties to make planning law a much more consumer-friendly part of legislation and the planning function much more understandable by local people. I want to see planning by local people for local people and planning for prosperity—the prosperity of local people in local areas.
  Mr. Steen: In his interesting speech, which I have been following very carefully, is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that parish councils should have planning powers?
  Mr. Vaz: No, I am not. Far be it from me to stand at the Dispatch Box and reorganise local government. However, there is no reason why members of parish councils should not feel that they have a role to play as members of the public and go to meetings and participate in the process.
  The Government have been caught with their hands in the pockets of local authorities and we all know what happens to pickpockets. If the Government had charged the private sector without lawful authority, there would rightly be an outcry and Ministers would have to cough up and apologise. No wonder, simply to cover ministerial backs, the Bill explicitly states:
  "The Bill will have no effect on businesses as regards compliance costs."
  In our view, the Bill is bad and it has been drafted in haste. The Opposition have been given an assurance through the usual channels that before the Bill goes into Committee there will be a period of consultation with the associations and other interested parties. We shall hold the Government strictly to that promise. We shall therefore not vote against Second Reading today, but if we find that the Government are not prepared to consider their position on the issue of retrospection and are not willing to accept the reasonable proposals that we shall set out in Committee, I can assure the House that we shall be in a bare-knuckle fight with the Government in the later stages.
  It would be improper for the House to allow the Bill to pass before the Government are rightly condemned for their actions and are able to apologise for what has happened and it would be a negation of our duty as an Opposition if we allowed the measure to reach the statute book in its present unfit and unjust state.
  4.48 pm
  Mr. Anthony Steen: After the successful passage of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994, the Government's principal new year's resolution must surely have been absolutely straightforward: "We just won't introduce new, unnecessary legislation. We will positively discriminate against passing any new laws which are not proved to be absolutely necessary." After all, that would be entirely consistent with the recent resolution of the House to reduce the number of hours that Parliament sits. Surely, if the House sits for fewer hours, prima facie it should pass fewer laws. Unfortunately, this is only the third parliamentary working day of 1995, and the House, believe it or not, is scrutinising a seemingly additional piece of legislation and adding it to the thousands of edicts that we churn out every year, many of which are entirely unnecessary.
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  Rather like habitual smokers, too many Ministers and their officials seem unable to resist the temptation to participate in their favourite pastime—passing laws. In most people's eyes, that is the justification for Parliament's existence, for, if we are not passing laws, what are we doing, they say. Whether laws are necessary does not seem to be questioned. Passing laws has become an end in itself, and the lifeblood and justification for the existence of Parliament. If we do not pass laws and we do not debate, we cannot justify our existence.
  The addiction now has such a great hold that it seems to have affected not only Ministers of all rank but civil servants, whose modus operandi seems to be entirely dictated by how much legislation they can get their Minister to pass and how many columns of Hansard and how many lines on the statute book they can fill. Are the Government proposing a performance-related bonus for civil servants according to how many lines of legislation they put on the statute book?
  The Bill is about the Government recovering from local authorities costs attached to certain inquiries. The inspectorate and the reporters unit has always charged for the costs involved in development plan inquiries. Indeed, even without any statutory basis, local authorities have paid up without much problem, to my knowledge, other than in the significant Birmingham case.
  Why did Birmingham challenge the legal basis of charging? As I recollect, it questioned it because the planning inspector was extremely dilatory in delivering his report. Birmingham said, "If you are charging us for this report, we would like it promptly. If you do not give it to us promptly, we will withhold payment." That seems to be a perfectly legitimate argument.
  In short, the existing system has worked well, even without statutory force. Therefore, one must ask: "What are the benefits of moving from a successful consensual agreement to a formal legislative framework?" Why take up the time of the House? Why increase legislation on the statute book, with all the associated bureaucracy? Why do we not leave matters voluntary? That is what the Conservative party is all about.
  Has the Birmingham challenge led to a flurry of similar cases from other local authorities? I do not believe that it has. The Government, not local authorities, have reacted. If there has been such a flood, it may be because of unconscionable and unreasonable delays in producing reports. It is a bit rich to clobber local authorities with a statute compelling them to pay if, at the same time, there is no local authority charter.
  I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Minister will think about a local authority charter which would ensure high standards of practice and which must include the prompt production of reports. It seems perfectly right that a local authority, if it is asked to pay for such reports, can say that there must be a charter which says that reports must be produced in two months, or there will be a reduction in charges made—just as, under the charter, one receives 20 per cent. back if a train arrives more than an hour late.
  There is another question: should charges be imposed at all? The hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) touched on that point. Local authorities are obliged to prepare plans. That is the law. However, whenever plans are drafted, individual objections from local people are

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  bound to follow. That is our democratic process, which we encourage. An examination in public is therefore inevitable.
  I was a member of the Standing Committee which considered the Planning Compensation Act 1991. I was particularly enthusiastic about that legislation, which made it the statutory responsibility of every authority to draw up a local plan and to keep it up to date. Since 1991, such plans have had enhanced status, as the hon. Member for Leicester, East mentioned. The aim of local plans is to ensure that authorities develop their areas according to a rational process, with the fullest public consultation. That is what local accountability is all about.
  What happens? The Government actuaries in Holborn, using the most modern technology, analyse the demographic profile of regions and projects and see what is required in the next 10 or 20 years. They have what might be described as a crystal ball in Holborn. They look into it and ask, "What is required in each region of Britain? How many houses, schools, hospitals and roads are needed?" They produce a picture from Holborn—I do not know why it is from Holborn, but that is where they seem to be—and they present it to the Department of the Environment. Estimates are produced, based on their demographic profiles of births, divorces, deaths, employment figures and so on. At the end of the period—abracadabra—they say how much is required in each region of the country.
  For example, in respect of Devon—my area—the actuaries say, "We should have another 60,000 houses by the turn of the century." They then ask, "Why 60,000? Let's make it 90,000 houses." In the south-east of England—I do not think that anyone has an idea how many houses there will be in many Conservative constituencies—there will be nearly 1 million more houses by the turn of the century.
  That is what those people in Holborn are doing, looking into their crystal ball. In fact, if there are 960,000 more houses in the south-east of England by the turn of the century, it will be a continuous urban area. It will be a suburban area. There will be no countryside from London to Brighton.
  Mr. David Nicholson: I stayed in the Chamber to hear my hon. Friend, because what he says is usually good value. He raises an important subject. He will be interested to know that the Somerset branch of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, an organisation which would not oppose the traditional conservatism that my hon. Friend and I support, has written to me suggesting that the assumption that previous tendencies of people to migrate, particularly to retire to the south-west, should now be questioned and that housing and other developments should also be questioned. The south-west of England, which my hon. Friend and I represent, would otherwise be greatly disadvantaged by the developments that might follow.
  Mr. Steen: It was very kind of my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson) to make such gracious remarks about my contributions in the House. May I make, similarly, a comment about his interventions? They are well known always to be of very good value and of very good sense. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
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  The Government are advised by civil servants in Holborn, who are very brilliant, wear glasses and gaze into crystal balls, and who believe that there should be 60,000 more houses in Devon and nearly 1 million more in the south-east. At the end of the relevant period, they get the houses, because planners and politicians build the houses, and they say, "There we are, we told you that they were needed." That has been happening in Somerset, Devon and the south-east.
  I question the assumption that is made, and I also question the process. Planners and politicians do great disservice to our local communities by burdening them with more homes, schools, hospitals and roads than are needed. They distort migration patterns in this country by building those houses.
  Mr. Vaz: Does the hon. Gentleman consider that the Government should bear the costs of a local inquiry?
  Mr. Steen: That is the thrust of my argument.
  My modest local South Hams district council is one of the best in the country, and is regularly mentioned in dispatches as providing good value for money. I am questioning why, if the Government are committed to the democratic process and to consultation and have passed an Act saying that local plans must be drawn up, they do not pay part of the cost. I question that concept.
  Sir Paul Beresford: I have made it plain twice to the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) and others that, through the standard spending assessment and the RSG, the Government have done that, and continue to do so.
  Mr. Steen: I do not think that I should get involved in a discussion between the occupants of the two Front Benches as to who should pay. However, there is a point—
  Mr. David Nicholson: Would my hon. Friend be interested to know that West Somerset district council, which covers part of my constituency and is Conservative and independent-controlled, has written to me expressing the same concerns and suggesting that, if the costs of inquiries are to be changed as a result of the Bill, that fact should at least be reflected in the SSA? The council also made the same point as my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) about retrospection.
  Mr. Steen: Those are all good points, and I know that the Minister is aware of the issues, as he is one of the Ministers with the most experience of local government. Having heard what my hon. Friend said about West Somerset council, which is not a hotbed of left-wing socialism—at least, not at the moment—I am sure that, when the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland winds up, he will be extremely circumspect. With discussions through the normal channels, I am sure that some improvement can be made.
  What I am saying—I hope that it is of some help to the House—is that the Department of the Environment hands down the housing allocations it believes necessary for the county, rather like Moses with his tablets. The county then offloads the numbers on to the district or city council. There is then an argy-bargy between the district and the county about where the exact numbers are to go. Revised numbers are then sent back to the Department for approval.

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  The whole process is therefore triggered by the Government sending down a diktat that so many new homes and new roads are to be built, and so much new employment is to be found, and then that there must be so many schools to deal with the children who will live in the homes, so many hospitals to deal with the elderly and the ill who will live in them, and so on. Local inquiries arise because Government have initiated the process.
  If things were otherwise, local plans would be development programmes based on what local people felt could be managed locally. What we now have is the opposite—a reaction to a Government edict handed down to the county for consideration by local people. The flow is from the top downwards, not from the local people upwards. It is therefore not surprising that, when local people are faced with a Government proposal for an influx of new construction, they lodge objections and rightly demand an inquiry. Why should local authorities pick up the whole tab for that process, which has been instigated by central Government and their officials?
  The Government must think about that again—not only about the fact that local participation in matters for which the Government have been a catalyst is penalised, but about the wider attitude towards legislation. The beginning of 1995 should have been a time to signal that we have learnt the lessons of the past and we shall halt the passage of new legislation. Yet here we go again with more legislation. There is always a good reason for it, no doubt, but there is no point in passing a major Act of Parliament saying that we will deregulate and reduce the existing level of legislation if we then pass new legislation to take its place.
  There seems little inclination or inducement to get hold of this virulent disease by the short and curlies and stop the legislative machine grinding out more and more laws. The reason is simple: Ministers' careers depend on passing laws. The more laws they pass, the more credit they get, and they move up the ladder. That is how the whole system works. No wonder the deregulation process is in difficulties. If a Minister does not come to the House with legislation to pass, he is considered inept and unenthusiastic. "What is he doing?" people ask, and he will be out.
  The House is sitting for fewer hours now, but that will have virtually no impact on the growth of statute law that makes us one of the most over-governed, over-bureaucratic nations in the world. It is no good complaining about the nanny state if we do little to curtail its all-pervasive and all-embracing nature.
  5.4 pm
  Mr. Bill Olner: The Minister said that the Bill was merely technical, but for me it is much more than just a technical Bill. I speak as someone who was the chairman of a planning committee for six or seven years many moons ago, and I know the delicate balancing act that planning authorities, whether at district, county or city level, have to perform week after week and month after month. I am sure that the Minister, with his local government experience, knows it too.
  I well remember local plans being drawn up, especially in my constituency. That was a mandatory requirement on local planning authorities. Because of his local government experience, the Minister will also know that there are two conflicting forces acting in any planning
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  matter. One is the local population, who may not want expansion in their area; theirs is a legitimate grievance. The other force, which is becoming more difficult for local authorities to deal with, is that exerted by people with large tracts of land who want to develop them against local authorities' wishes.
  What brings some democracy and equity to the process is the fact that there will be a planning inquiry. I shall say more later about the retrospection, and whether a charge should be made in the first place, but I believe that it is an affront to the democratic process to charge anything for those due processes to be carried out. Among the facts to come to light at the planning inquiry will be the pressure that local authorities now have to face, especially from well-heeled planning applicants.
  When such a person makes a planning application, the local authority by due process may refuse it on legitimate grounds. I know that I am straying slightly off the point, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I shall attach what I am saying to the main theme. When a planning application is refused by the local authority, it may go to appeal and the inspector may approve it, overturning the local authority's decision. The local authority may then have to pay a considerable sum to the applicant.
  I hope that the Minister will understand that, in the planning committee, at the back of the ordinary local councillor's mind is the fear that, when a powerful person with plenty of money makes a planning application that local people do not want, it is getting more difficult to refuse, because in the end there may be a financial penalty for everyone else to pay.
  The planning system is based on democracy and on local people having an input. That is why the statutory mandatory requirement for local plans and unitary development plans should be funded directly by the Government. It has all come about because the Government, especially the Department of the Environment, have been found to be acting without due process of law. The Government should not have been charging what local councils had to pay for public inquiries in the past.
  It is ludicrous that the Government should seek to legitimise their errors of the past in this way. That goes against all natural justice. I do not know whether my own local authority has a financial interest in this or whether it has paid out money for this purpose, but it is incensed that the Government seem to be acting illegally by bringing before Parliament a Bill to legitimise their past actions.
  Even worse, the Government are trying to make the legislation retrospective. Until one of his colleagues pulled him up, the Minister kept talking about RSGs. I thought that the rate support grant went out with the poll tax—
  Sir Paul Beresford: Revenue support grant.
  Mr. Olner: Whether we talk about RSGs or SSAs, we would be hard pushed to find any local authority in the United Kingdom that could identify within its SSA any money given it for this purpose, so that it could pay the money back should there be a need for a local inquiry. I do not believe that any such money has been given to local authorities.
  I fear that this is the thin end of the wedge. The Bill details charges for the inspector and his officials and for other costs. All that breaches the principle of free planning

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  inquiries. In future, they will have to be paid for when a planning inspector is involved. That will erode the democratic right of communities to lodge planning appeals. I therefore urge the Government seriously to think about the legislation again.
  I wish now that, when I told my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) yesterday that I wanted to speak in this debate, we had decided to force a vote on the Bill—especially having heard what other hon. Members have had to say about it since then. Few of them seem to favour this piece of legislation.
  5.12 pm
  Dr. Ian Twinn: We have heard a remarkable speech by the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz). He wrongly blamed the Government, who he said demanded illegal payments from local authorities. On the contrary: it was the Labour Government who brought in the original legislation, which was presumably carefully thought through and scrutinised by the House of Commons. For more than 20 years local authorities and the Department of the Environment have been implementing the will of the House, which was that local authorities should pay the costs of planning inspectors—
  Mr. Vaz: The hon. Gentleman has got it wrong. It was not the will of Parliament that the charges should be borne in that way. The will of Parliament was that no charges should be made.
  Dr. Twinn: The hon. Gentleman deliberately misunderstands me. It may be his job as a lawyer to play with words, but let us keep to the simple truth of the matter. At the time, Parliament thought that it was asking local authorities to pay these costs, since when the Department of the Environment has asked local authorities to pay them. They in turn believed that that was the law and were content with it—until Birmingham discovered that it was not the law. I do not blame Birmingham for finding out that what everyone thought was the law actually was not, and then exploiting that fact.
  Unless we pass this Bill, to restore the status quo ante, we shall have to adjust standard spending assessments to recoup the money that local authorities have been allowed against paying for these costs.
  I do not agree with Opposition Members who think that a point of principle is at stake and that it is right that central Government should pay the whole cost of the planning inspector; nor do I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen). He should beware of his own arguments—
  Mr. Steen: They were good though.
  Dr. Twinn: I do not agree. My hon. Friend is worried about civil servants in the DOE inflicting population growth on his area. I share that concern, because I represent a suburban constituency in London, restricted by the green belt, and development is thrust back on us because the shire counties do not want it. We have no choice but to become town-crowned because of that.
  I should like local authorities to have a certain amount of freedom to speak independently. He who pays the piper calls the tune. If my hon. Friend suggests that the DOE picks up the tab, I suspect that we shall gradually accept
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  the principle that the DOE has every right to dictate what the result of an inquiry should be. At the moment we have a nicely balanced system of local planning inquiries; the DOE Planning Inspectorate supervises it, but the process is independent. The DOE does not interfere with the contents of the reports, but inspectors report back their draft recommendations to local authorities, which then have a chance to feed through their views to the inspectors.
  This is a pleasant and useful system in which local authorities pay for the inspectors' time and in return expect to have some say in the interpretation and presentation of the reports.
  Mr. Steen: What I am really saying is that we do not need this Bill. We can simply rearrange the SSAs to deduct some money from local authorities. If we are the party of deregulation we must not pass more regulations.
  The independence of the process is not affected one way or the other, because either way the Government pay for it—by sending out the bill and getting the money back, or by deducting it from SSAs.
  Dr. Twinn: I always hesitate to discuss the complexities of local government finance, although I used to understand it when I taught it. I certainly do not understand all its details today. This week I went to see the Secretary of State at the DOE with the Labour leader of Enfield council to talk about this year's SSA, and I understood less at the end of the meeting than I did at the beginning.
  We should not make SSA calculations more complicated than they already are. I would rather stick with the principle that local authorities be paid a lump sum which they can decide how to spend. That sum should include an amount representing the cost of employing a planning inspector. This legislation is necessary to return the situation to what we thought it was before Birmingham discovered that it was not.
  If local authorities really are concerned about the rising costs of local public inquiries, perhaps they should look more carefully at how they develop their local plans—that might be more productive. I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Member for Leicester, East about the need for more public participation and consultation. If we involve more groups of people earlier in the planning process, it is much more likely that local plans will emerge with local consent and that there will be fewer objections to them. That will lead to cheaper inquiries.
  I also agree with what the hon. Member for Leicester, East said about the Royal Town Planning Institute, which has pointed out that we might have expected an earlier response from my right hon. and hon. Friends at the DOE, following consultations on the document, in respect of improving local plans. We might have expected the introduction of more formal agreements between local authorities and planning inspectors about the format and costing arrangements for inquiries.
  If that were something on which Front-Bench Members on both sides of the House would get together while we await the Bill's consideration in Committee, I would wholeheartedly approve. If something were put into the Bill to allow a new agreement between the Planning Inspectorate and local authorities, we could improve the system and address some of the concerns that local authorities genuinely have. For example, an inspector

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  might fall ill after his inquiry and not produce the report. The local authority might be faced with the cost of a second inquiry, which would be completely unreasonable. So there are concerns for my hon. Friends on the Front Bench to answer.
  The principle of the Bill is that local authorities should pay for the costs of planning inspectors. We should go back to what we thought that the previous Labour Government had passed in 1977. The Bill should be welcomed by the House and passed.
  5.20 pm
  Mr. David Rendel: I do not intend to detain the House for long, as I believe that most hon. Members are in agreement with the general principle that it is right that local authorities should pay the costs of plans and the inquiries that go with them. I also recognise that a number of the points that I might have made have been made already by other hon. Members; it is important that we should all learn not to repeat ourselves too frequently and I hope not to do that this afternoon.
  There are one or two points, however, that need to be added to the debate. One point that was mentioned by more than one hon. Member is whether there will be any extra costs as a result of the Bill. The Minister gave us some assurance that, as far as the inquiries that have already taken place are concerned, no extra costs will be added to those that are now charged to local authorities. He was, perhaps, a little bit woolly on the question of interest, but I hope that he will clarify that later.
  The Minister was fairly clear that there would be no extra costs, but was less clear on whether they would apply to all future inquiries as well. That point has already been raised and I ask the Minister to give assurance that, in future, perhaps as a result of the consultation that he has promised us between the Bill's Second Reading and its consideration in Committee, costs charged to local authorities for inquiries will be along precisely the same lines as those traditionally charged and that no extra costs will be added.
  It is, of course, true that plans and inquiries are becoming more difficult and complex all the time, partly because of the number of objections to them nowadays. That is not entirely unexpected, because the amount of money that is involved in development permissions is very great and we must expect that many people will be concerned to ensure that the inquiries produce the result that is financially beneficial to them; not only the small man who, perhaps, wishes to amend or improve his house in some way but some of the larger vested interests that have a lot of money that they can apply to the costs of getting involved in inquiries.
  It is also true that inquiries are about plans, which, every year, become more important as the Government insist on them being followed more strictly and give greater weight to what is in structure plans or local district plans. That means that the pressure on people to take part in inquiries, to involve themselves and therefore perhaps lengthen an inquiry, is growing all the time.
  Inquiries are unpredictable. It is difficult to tell how long an inquiry will take and therefore how much it will cost. That makes it difficult for local authorities to budget sensibly for the costs of their inquiries. One of the points made to me by several local government officers is that no choice is allowed in who is to be the inspector for any
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  inquiry. While I would not like to see local councils given the right to choose their own inspector so that they might, perhaps, choose one whom they knew would give them exactly what they wanted, there is an argument for saying that some element of choice should be allowed. After all, one would have thought that the Government themselves, with their reliance on market forces, might give some credence to the idea that, if local authorities were allowed to choose between inspectors, they would be more keen to choose one whom they knew to be more efficient and effective and who would run their inquiries well. Perhaps those who were found to be less effective in the past would be less likely to be asked to undertake inquiries in the future. Some element of market forces in that way might be rather attractive to the Government. I hope so.
  We need some form of guidance about what to expect from our inspectors. The Government are keen on charters at the moment. Perhaps there should be an inspectors charter, which would lay down some ground rules on how they would work and what local authorities could expect from them.
  The point was made by the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) that the Bill is a missed opportunity. He thought that there was a chance to include some ways of amending and improving the whole local planning process. I, too, would like to know when the Government expect to announce the improvements, which, perhaps, they hope to make as a result of the consultation. That has not yet been announced and we would very much welcome an early announcement.
  Perhaps most importantly, there is a great failing in the present planning system in that there is very little opportunity for the small man to have a real say. The large organisations, which are well funded and the local authorities themselves, which are comparatively well funded, have a much better chance of getting their way in an inquiry than the small individual who perhaps does not have the money or expertise of the big boys. That is a basic and fundamental flaw in the present planning system and we need to seek ways to overcome it. There is some opportunity for local authorities to do that, and I am proud and happy to say that my own Liberal Democrat-run authority in Newbury currently proposes that some money should be set aside to provide expertise for objectors to our local plan. It might seem a rather odd idea that one should try to help people to object to something that one is proposing, but there is a good argument for it, not only on fairness, as that is obvious, but on finance.
  One of the difficulties of local planning inquiries and one of the reasons why they cost such a lot is that some of the objectors are not good at setting out their objections. They do not really know how to make their objections well. As a result, it takes a lot longer than it might to go through them to work out whether they are valid. There is a good case for saying that it may save money in the long run if local authorities provided some means for the little man to gain expertise. That can be done now, but to make it more widespread the Government must recognise that need and the fact that it may increase costs to local authorities.
  The Minister has already given an assurance that the costs of inquiries will be met through SSAs and local grants. I believe that that cost of giving expertise—or the right to expertise—to objectors should also be met through SSAs and local grants. I hope that that and other

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  potential costs, as the costs of inquiries are met, will be fully met through SSAs. I ask the Minister to give that assurance today.
  5.27 pm
  Mr. Tim Smith: The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) thinks that the Bill constitutes a missed opportunity, as he would have liked to see attached to it various other rather vague planning provisions, whereas my hon. Friend the Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) thinks that it is unnecessary and should not have been introduced in the first place, because we should be deregulating and not adding to regulation.
  The Bill has the virtue of simplicity. It is clear, straightforward and necessary, because once we discovered that the Government might be acting ultra vires, we had to put matters right. Before Christmas, I sent a copy of the Bill to the director of planning services of South Bucks district council, to ask him for his views. He said that it was his professional opinion that
  "It seems reasonable for local Councils to pay a fair level of costs for the services of inspectors and I think it would be difficult to object to the legislation. I would hope, though, that the levels of charges subsequently fixed by Ministers reflect a reasonable balance between recovering the Inspectorates costs while not draining the limited resources of local authorities."
  If my hon. Friend looks at page ii of the Bill, he will see that it says that the Bill
  "will have no effect on public service manpower."
  It will also have
  "no effect on businesses as regards compliance costs."
  So its regulatory burden is relatively limited. However, I agree with my hon. Friend when he says that we should do everything that we can to ensure that we stop the great tide of legislation.
  The director of planning services of South Bucks district council also made a point about recent developments with local planning inquiries. He said that they
  "are becoming extremely long and costly as more and more people exercise their right to object (e.g. the Wycombe plan had more than 500 objections)."
  That raises an important point, to which the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) referred. I agree that we should involve local people as much as possible in the planning process and explain it to local people. They do not understand precisely how it works. For example, parish councils have been referred to. Their role is commonly misunderstood. They have no authority over planning matters, yet all the parish councils in my constituency have planning committees. They go through the planning applications and decide whether they should be accepted or rejected.
  People say, "Beaconsfield town council rejected that planning application. Shouldn't that be the end of the matter?" One then has to explain that the committee is there only in an advisory role. That involves local people, which is what we want, but it is the district council that is the planning authority.
  That planning application may then go to the district council planning committee. If it rejects it, it will then go to the Secretary of State, and his inspector, apparently considering the application on its merits against exactly the same criteria, the same planning guidance from the
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  Department and the same county structure plan and district plan, may come to exactly the opposite conclusion to the parish and district council planning committees. Such an application could relate to just one house, an infill in Beaconsfield somewhere.
  How does one explain that a district council planning committee can come to a completely opposite decision on such a matter judged against the same criteria? In the end, such matters become highly subjective. We need to do more to explain the planning process to local people as well as involving them.
  There is another aspect that I wish to mention to my hon. Friend the Minister. I have written to him about this, but I feel strongly about it. A number of major developments can be proposed in one relatively small area at the same time, but at the moment the planning process is incapable of taking into account the potential effect of all of them. Each one has to be considered individually on its merits and it is not open to an inspector to consider other applications that may be in the pipeline at the same time.
  I have an extreme example of that in the villages of Dorney and Taplow in my constituency. Those villages form a green lung between the conurbations of Slough and Maidenhead; a tongue of green between the two.
  Mr. Steen: That will not last long.
  Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend is right. It will not last long because of the tremendous development pressure. The Secretary of State has approved a planning application from Eton college for the construction of a rowing lake 2 km long and 0.5 km wide in the village of Dorney. He has also approved a new five-mile stretch of the River Thames that is to be constructed by the National Rivers Authority to benefit the people of Maidenhead who live on the other side of the river. Those two huge planning applications, both involving millions of pounds, were being considered at the same time, but one inspector could not consider the other. In the end, the two were approved.
  Now it is proposed to widen the M4 from three to seven lanes in each direction. Again, that proposal will be considered on its merits. The overall impact of all those developments will not be considered by any one inspector. That is a fundamental flaw in the planning system, which needs to be addressed. We need to explain to local people why it arises and what we shall do to address it.
  I am grateful for the opportunity to raise those matters because planning, the protection of the environment and the green belt are important issues in my constituency. I have given examples of ways in which people do not understand the planning process. We need to do more to involve them and more to explain the system to them.
  5.34 pm
  Mr. Jeff Rooker: I want to make only a brief contribution and I shall follow the example of the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) by not repeating points that other hon. Members have made.
  The more that I think about the Bill, the more I listen to the Minister and the more I study the notes on clauses, the more I realise that the Bill could equally be entitled, "Birmingham Catches the Tory Government Out Retribution Bill". That sums it up.

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  It has been said that the Bill is needed to put right mistakes made by Harold Wilson's Labour Government in the 1960s, when most hon. Members here now were probably at school. However, I remind hon. Members that the Bill amends the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Therefore, it is not all the fault of Harold Wilson's Labour Government in the 1960s. It is the fault of the way in which the House of Commons operates. We do not fully scrutinise or understand the consequences of the legislation that we pass. I hope that, with the new mood accompanying the Jopling reforms, we shall pay a little more attention to what we are legislating for.
  I should make it clear that Birmingham city council in no way objects in principle to paying for planning inquiries. There is no argument about that. It is an important part of local authority responsibility. A briefing note from Birmingham city council says:
  "However, the principle that the local authority should be responsible for its Development Plan is more important, and the City Council would not wish to argue with the principle of being charged for inspectors services."
  Another point which has been touched on and which will certainly be raised in Committee and on Report concerns the contractual arrangements between inspectors and local authorities. That matter should be considered in detail. The Bill does not address that, but it can be raised by way of amendment to the long title.
  For the local authority to pick the inspector is going a little too far, but there should be some competition. However, these days legislation allows schools to appoint their own inspectors. It is not like the old days, when they had no say in the matter. Therefore, there is an argument for bringing in, if not the full rigours of the market, a degree of competition, particularly in view of the way in which Birmingham suffered—I use that word in a general sense—a vast increase in the inspector's charges just before the inquiry took place. That point cannot be repeated too often.
  Furthermore, the inspector's charges on Birmingham, as on other authorities, for a day when visits take place are the same as for when the inquiry is taking place. I understand that that is done to keep the accounts simple, but there is an argument for differential charging.
  I regret that I shall not be available to serve on the Standing Committee on the Bill, so I shall make one point now on the detail of the Bill. I have referred to the Department's overheads, but new section 303A(6) in clause 1 suggests that local authorities could be charged for an inquiry that does not take place as if it had taken place. If an inquiry does not take place, it is fine to charge for the set-up and administrative costs, but to be charged on the basis of what an inquiry would have cost if it had taken place is outrageous. I shall leave that point to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench who are far more experienced than I am in such nit-picking and will have the opportunity to do so in Committee.
  I have some partisan criticism to make across the Chamber. I have detected some NIMBYism this afternoon. Listening to the hon. Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen), one could be forgiven for forgetting that he was once the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree. I was in the House when he was and he would riot have made that speech then. Then his constituents from Liverpool holidayed in the west country, bringing jobs into that part of the world. They are now being told, "You can't come and live here." That is what he is telling my
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  constituents—people from Birmingham and elsewhere in the west midlands, thousands of whom spend joyous periods in the west country. One of the problems is that the M5 gets blocked up. The countryside of Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Wiltshire is beautiful and much enjoyed by my constituents, some of whom decide to live in the area. That is their right as citizens, and I do not see why the hon. Member for South Hams wants to stop them.
  The issue goes beyond that, however. People who now live in the west country may want their children to have homes, so that they can remain in what has become their county. That will not be possible without new buildings—extra buildings and replacements, which are the same in some senses. At the present rate of replacement, every home in the country has to last about 900 years. Listening to hon. Members from the south-east, one would think that we wanted to concrete the area. Of course we do not. Hon. Members should not use such extravagant language when we are discussing people's homes: people should have a fair amount of choice about where they live, and the extravagant language of hon. Members from the south-east and south-west ruins their case.
  Mr. David Nicholson: My hon. Friend the Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) and I were merely questioning, and suggesting that the House question, some of the rather extravagant demographic predictions made by people in Holborn, which my hon. Friend graphically described.
  Mr. Rooker: I was Labour spokesman on housing and construction for about three years. During that time, I discussed whether the south-east and south-west should have new towns or villages, or whether we should go for infills to complete the circles of some of the villages. That arrangement, which would stop the linear flow, seemed much more sensible to me.
  When Birmingham first raised the issue early in 1994, the Department of the Environment did not respond. One Birmingham Member of Parliament does not like to be called a Birmingham Member, but nevertheless represents at least 70,000 Birmingham citizens. [HON. MEMBERS: "Name him."] I am referring to the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler). He does not appear on any list of Birmingham Members, because Sutton Coldfield is the only constituency in the city that does not include the prefix "Birmingham". That conveniently allows the right hon. Gentleman to give the impression that he is not a Birmingham Member. I did not give the right hon. Gentleman notice that I would mention him, but I did not think it necessary to do so; in any event, we have engaged in correspondence on the subject.
  Early in 1994, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield was masterminding a vicious Tory party political broadcast attack on Birmingham city council. It was proved that every point that the Tories made about the council was a lie. I am not surprised that a block was put on the Department of the Environment. It was a case of, "Well, Minister, Birmingham has caught us out on this planning matter. We must go to the House of Commons and secure a change in the legislation, because we have been illegally—criminally—charging local authorities all over the country money that we had no right to charge them." Ministers at the Department have slagged off Birmingham at virtually every opportunity.
  I pay tribute to the Prime Minister for not rising to the bait presented by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight), who invited him to attack

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  Birmingham city council again. The Prime Minister has learnt his lesson. When Ministers attack the council, it usually bites back, and we end up with more votes than we had before they began attacking us.
  I also pay tribute to my colleagues, the members and officers of Birmingham city council, for what they have achieved. They do not seek to wipe out what has happened in the past or to escape paying charges; they have no argument with what they understand to be a point of principle. They have, however, taken the opportunity to raise other issues, such as retrospection and the contractual arrangements between the inspectorate and the city council. For that, we all owe the council a vote of thanks.
  5.43 pm
  Mr. John McAllion: The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, who opened the debate, described this as a wee Bill. We have had a wee debate as well, in terms of numbers present rather than quality.
  Opposition Members have made excellent speeches, especially my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), for Nuneaton (Mr. Olner) and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones). I know that their speeches were especially appreciated by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz).
  Every speech has referred to clauses 1 and 2, which apply to England and Wales. As a Scottish Member, I dare not comment on those clauses in any detail. As Conservative Members may know, we in Scotland have a separate planning system and, indeed, a separate system of local government; we even have separate central Government machinery in the form of the Scottish Office, which spends more than £14 billion a year in Scotland—unaccountably—and employs more than 7,000 civil servants.
  We are so different that we have not only separate clauses in Bills of this kind but, in some instances, separate legislation and a separate Committee structure in the House of Commons. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who is present, knows that Scottish Office Ministers have even introduced a range of innovative procedures that demonstrate the distinctive way in which Scotland is treated in the House. I believe that all that justifies Opposition Members' case for a Scottish Parliament: clauses 3 and 4 should really be debated not here but in the Scottish Parliament that a Labour Government will set up after the next election.
  None the less, I welcome the opportunity to debate the Scottish clauses, especially clause 4. [Laughter.] Since I became a Front Bencher I have not had many opportunities to debate any variety of clause 4. I also thank the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland for the briefing with Scottish Office civil servants that he arranged earlier today, which I attended, about the Scottish part of the Bill.
  Will the Under-Secretary confirm that the only plans in Scotland that will be affected by the Bill are the local plans of district planning authorities? The Minister who opened the debate referred to structure plans in Scotland, but I should like a Scottish Office Minister to confirm that they will not be affected.
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  In theory, the Bill covers the proposals relating to simplified planning zones in Scotland. Will the Under-Secretary confirm, however—as there have been no inquiries about the provisions in that regard—that those provisions will not be affected either?
  The Minister who opened the debate said that clauses 1 and 3 would have the same underlying objective and effect—clause 1 in England and Wales, and clause 3 in Scotland. If that is so, will the Under-Secretary explain the different language used in the two clauses? Clause 1 refers to the entire administrative cost of the inquiry being recovered, but clause 3, which applies to Scotland, refers only to the Secretary of State for Scotland having regard to the general staff costs and overheads, and to general administration costs. According to the notes on clauses, the full cost to the Scottish Office will be recovered, but I should like the Minister to explain the difference in the language, and tell us whether that difference implies any difference in the application of the clauses to the respective countries involved.
  Paragraph 94 of the notes on clauses states that some Scottish local authorities have asked the Secretary of State for Scotland to repay the sums that he collected illegally from them. In his introductory remarks, the Minister said that that was not so. I should be grateful if the Scottish Office Minister would clarify the position: have any Scottish local authorities asked for that money to be repaid? If so, which authorities were they? If any authorities were to make such a request, what response would they receive from the Scottish Office? If the money was repaid, what would be outcome if the Bill were enacted? Would they be required to pay the money back to the Secretary of State for Scotland?
  Clause 4 requires Scottish local authorities to repay to the Secretary of State for Scotland any sums that have been returned to them by the Secretary of State. It appears that, unlike for England and Wales, there is no provision in clauses 3 or 4 for recovery in Scotland of that sum as a civil debt. If it was necessary to give the Secretary of State for Scotland the power to recover money from Scottish local authorities, why has it not been considered necessary to give him the means to recover it? Why is there no civil procedure for the Secretary of State for Scotland to recover that money, as there is in England and Wales? If he wants the money back, how will he set about getting it?
  The Bill's origins lie in a House of Lords ruling, which I suppose was within the context of English law. Has that ruling any force in Scotland? Is it likely to be tested in the Scottish courts? More important, if the ruling were contested by a Scottish local authority, how would that affect the Scottish provisions of the Bill? Would the clauses be suspended while that case was tested in the Scottish courts, and if the Bill's Scottish provisions were suspended would the provisions of the whole Bill be suspended? I should be grateful if the Minister could make that clear.
  The Bill confirms that since 1968 successive Labour and Tory Governments have acted illegally. The point is not to try to lay blame and say whether a Labour or a Tory Government were originally at fault. The reality is that Governments of both parties have made charges to local authorities for which there was no statutory provision.

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  The Government have been in power for almost 16 years and would have carried on making illegal charges to local authorities without the intervention of Birmingham city council, to which the whole country is indebted. Will the Minister confirm that if local authorities had acted in a fashion similar to that of successive Governments they would not have received the same sympathetic treatment? Would they have been allowed to keep or reclaim the money that they had collected illegally? Would they have had the benefit of retrospective legislation? The answers to the questions are obvious. Local authorities would not have been allowed to get any money back, nor would they have been given the benefit of retrospective legislation.
  Why do not the Government simply accept that central Government have made a mistake, that they should pay the price for that mistake and that they should repay to local government the moneys that they collected from them illegally?
  My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East spoke of the dangerous precedent that has been established in that respect. It seems that local government payments in Scotland, England and Wales can be legitimised by subsequent legislation. That means that retrospective local government legislation is now an acceptable way of handling that. If that is so, the Government are establishing a dangerous precedent.
  My hon. Friends have promised the Government a bare-knuckle fight in Committee and on Report. I accept that the Bill has much less serious implications for Scotland than it has for England and Wales, but my hon. Friends may be assured that they will have the support of every Scottish Labour Member in that fight with the Government.
  5.53 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Allan Stewart): The Opposition reply to this interesting debate was opened with considerable rhetorical flourish by the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz). I agree with the analysis of the Bill by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion). It is correct to say that for 21 years successive Governments have been working on a certain assumption, as have local authorities north and south of the border.
  As hon. Members have recognised, everyone was acting in perfectly good faith until the matter was challenged in the courts by Birmingham city council. I tell Birmingham Members that I certainly make no criticism of Birmingham city council for doing that: it had the right to do so. As a consequence of its action and as a result of the Government responding quickly and decisively, an area of considerable doubt will be clarified.
  I confirm the reference by the hon. Member for Leicester, East to consultations with local authority associations before the Bill goes into Committee. I understand that that is a matter for discussion through the usual channels. The hon. Members for Leicester, East and for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) and other hon. Members mentioned the scope of costs to be recovered by the inspectorate. I reassure the House that there is no intention of increasing the costs to be recovered from planning authorities. In England, the amounts recovered will be the inspector's salary, travel and subsistence costs and the
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  inspectorate's administrative support costs. Those sums will be specified at a composite daily rate in regulations to be made under powers in the Bill.
  The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) spoke about costs being incurred when an inquiry did not take place. That applies when a planning authority starts the process of a inquiry and then decides not to have one. The other detailed point was made by the hon. Member for Dundee, East, who said that the respective provisions north and south of the border differ. They differ not in intent or objective, but because the travel and subsistence costs of reporters in Scotland are paid under a different Scottish planning Act that does not apply south of the border.
  My hon. Friend the Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) spoke about the local authorities charter. In England and Wales, the Planning Inspectorate will begin to offer a service agreement to each authority after a draft agreement has been discussed with local authority associations. That will specify a certain level of service that the inspectorate will aim to achieve.
  My hon. Friend also made a number of points about the effect of the planning system in the south-east and the south-west of England. He said that he thought that I would be circumspect in responding to those points in my speech. He is correct. I propose to be extremely circumspect and will just say that the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Sir P. Beresford), has listened carefully to my hon. Friend and to other hon. Members who have rightly used the opportunity to make some more general comments on the planning system.
  My hon. Friend the Member for South Hams said that Ministers receive promotion based on the number and length of Bills that they introduce. I was sorry to hear that because I have no intention of introducing any Bills during this Session. I humbly say to my hon. Friend that the Bill is a short one of only five clauses.
  The hon. Members for Leicester, East and for Newbury and my hon. Friend the Member for South Hams and others raised the issue of local or central payments. All hon. Members have received from the Royal Town Planning Institute a briefing that puts the case for local payment, and therefore local control, very clearly and decisively. Interestingly, as the hon. Member for Perry Barr confirmed, Birmingham city council, which raised the legal action, is questioning not that principle but simply the legislative basis for payment.
  Mr. Vaz: Will the Minister enlighten the House on the question of interest payments from the date that the money was given back to local authorities during the last year to the date when it might be repayable if the Bill is passed? Who will be responsible for those payments? Will local authorities have to give back the interest for that short period or will they be allowed to keep it?
  Mr. Stewart: As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment made clear, if local authorities have received interest payments they will be required to pay them back.
  Mr. Vaz: I am sorry to press the Minister, but I am referring not to interest received but to interest from the time the payment is made to the local authority to the time

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  that it must repay the money to the Government following enactment of the Bill. I am concerned with that short period.
  Mr. Stewart: I am genuinely trying to help the hon. Gentleman. My understanding is that where the interest has been repaid on sums repaid, the amount of that interest will be recoverable by the inspectorate if the Bill becomes law. I hope that that makes the matter clear to the hon. Gentleman. If, on reading Hansard, I find that I have not made the position clear, I shall write to the hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.]—and to the hon. Member for Perry Barr, who is showing an interest.
  Mr. Rooker: I refer to my original intervention in the speech of the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment. I understand that some interest has been repaid. Will the Scottish Office Minister now say that the actual cash sum of the original principal plus the interest is the only money to be repaid? In other words, will he say that no one will claim that interest is due on that actual cash sum for the period between the payments?
  Mr. Stewart: That is correct. There will be no additional financial burden on a local authority as a result of the Bill.
  The hon. Member for Dundee, East asked me a number of detailed questions about the Scottish provisions. In answer to his first question, he was right to say that they relate only to local plans and simplified planning zones or inquiries in Scotland. That is because, in Scotland, examinations in public into structure plan proposals are carried out on behalf of the Secretary of State—who therefore pays the whole cost—and not on behalf of local authorities. The hon. Gentleman was right to say that there have been no inquiries in Scotland in relation to simplified planning zones.
  On the hon. Gentleman's third question, the matter has not been tested in the courts in Scotland. He asked what
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  would happen if it were tested before the Bill becomes law. I cannot anticipate the result of any court action, but I can reassure him, I hope, by saying that I do not believe that any local authority is anticipating taking court action—for the obvious reason that the Bill will make the position very clear in the reasonably near future.
  The hon. Gentleman asked me about outstanding accounts. In Scotland, the total is £104,000. He asked me about the local authorities involved, which are West Lothian, Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Perth and Kinross and Moray.
  I hope that in replying to this short debate I have been able to reassure the House on the perfectly legitimate points that have been raised. I hope that there will not be a bare-knuckle fight in Committee and thereafter on this Bill. Instead, I hope that we can look forward to a constructive discussion of what I believe the House generally has agreed is a necessary Bill. I commend it to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

  TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (COSTS OF INQUIRIES ETC.) BILL [MONEY]
  Queen's recommendation having been signified—
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Order [19 December],
  That for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Town and Country Planning (Costs of Inquiries etc.) Bill it is expedient to authorise—

  (a) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

  (i) any administrative expenses incurred by a Minister of the Crown in consequence of the Act; and

  (ii) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other Act; and

  (b) the making of payments into the Consolidated Fund.— [Mr. Burns.]

  Question agreed to.

  Child Care Facilities (House of Commons)
  [Relevant documents: Part of the Minutes of Proceedings of the Administration Committee on 1 March and 26 April 1994 (Extracts from House of Commons Paper No. 374 of Session 1993–94) and the Report on potential demand for child care facilities published by the House of Commons Commission.]
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Burns.]
  6.4 pm
  Mr. A. J. Beith: The purpose of this debate, which the Leader of the House has arranged at the request of the House of Commons Commission, is to sound out the views of hon. Members on child care provision for hon. Members, their staff and staff of the House. I hope that it will be helpful if I briefly set out the background to what has been a long-running issue, describe the options for a child care policy, and then leave it to other hon. Members to express their views.
  Under the system introduced following the Ibbs report, the usual way in which new or extended services are provided to the House is for the relevant domestic Committee to make a recommendation. The Finance and Services Committee and the Commission then consider the merits and costs of the proposal. As I said during oral questions on 24 October, that route has not been followed in this case because the relevant Committee—the Administration Committee—did not agree to support the provision of such a service.
  That decision occurred after the Committee had supervised a survey of demand at the request of the Commission. The survey, by RSL Ltd., has now been made available to the House on our authority and it provides some useful material for this debate. I shall discuss the results of the survey in a moment, but first I want to identify the different groups of people whom we need to consider in forming any policy on child care provision.
  I should say here that the Chairman of the Administration Committee, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin), intended to take part in this debate, but has been prevented from doing so because he has had to return to Scotland for the funeral of a close relative.
  Under the 1978 Act, the Commission is the employer of House staff, currently some 1,300 in number. The Commission's financial responsibilities in employment matters are limited to the provision of facilities for that group of people. However, it is well aware that the issue of child care is of equal concern to hon. Members and the staff whom they employ—of whom some 1,600 are now paid by the Fees Office. A significant number of Members' staff work not here, but in the constituencies. Although the financial implications of providing any child care service for Members and their staff are not the direct responsibility of the Commission, we feel that it would be better to have an agreed general policy that would include them.
  I come now to the options for a child care policy and to the survey of demand. There are three main options—an in-house nursery established on the parliamentary estate or nearby and run by the House itself or on its
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  behalf; the provision of places in an outside nursery, probably run as a joint venture with another body; or direct financial assistance to parents to help them in providing their own child care. The third option, using child care vouchers, is already used in the other place, as well as in the National Audit Office and many other organisations.
  The first option of an in-house nursery was the main basis for the original planning in the late 1980s. However, the former Services Committee soon encountered a major difficulty. The Accommodation and Works Committee advised that no space on the parliamentary estate would be available for any nursery until after the completion of the phase 2 building, which is now envisaged for 1999. In theory, existing space could be reallocated, but the location provided would need to be suitable, with sufficient play space, toilets and other accommodation.
  The Commission's view is that we must meet the standards which other nursery providers are required by statute to meet, and those are fairly exacting. Those difficulties led the Services Committee and its successor, the Administration Committee, to investigate a second option—that of taking some places in a nursery set up in conjunction with Whitehall Departments. One particular scheme was identified in Vincent square, but was turned down by the Administration Committee last year as inappropriate because of the lack of flexibility—only six places were initially available—despite a considerable requirement of capital and running costs.
  I come now to the third option of child care vouchers. Such a scheme would provide a subsidy towards the cost of child care arranged by the parents. The House of Lords uses such a scheme for its staff, although it is not available to Peers and I do not know what the demand would be if it were. As I made clear at the outset, the House of Commons Commission has direct responsibility only for staff of the House. Therefore, if this option were to be chosen, whether it was extended to Members and their staff would depend on whether the House resolved that there should be additional funding for that purpose or whether, in the absence of additional funding, Members were willing to devote part of their existing office costs allowances to providing child care vouchers for their staff. They are, of course, free to do that now, although I recognise that some hon. Members, like me, are finding some difficulty in meeting their existing office costs obligations out of their allowances.
  I should add that a claim for a voucher scheme has now been made by the trade unions representing House of Commons staff. In the other place, eligible staff receive a voucher worth £6 per day worked, per family, and the Commons unions are seeking similar treatment. Unlike workplace nursery places, the subsidy is a taxable benefit and it would be worth about £4.50 after tax to most staff. I have moved several amendments to Finance Bills in Committee on behalf of my party to try to widen the tax relief so that it would extend to vouchers and to other forms of child care, but we have not been successful so far.
  Those are the three options on which a survey of potential demand was carried out early this year. Questionnaires were sent to 4,220 people, including hon. Members, their staff, staff of the House and others. There was a 28 per cent. response rate, which is not unusual for such studies. The findings show no clear-cut preference

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  between an in-house facility and people making their own child care arrangements using vouchers, although the former was marginally preferred.
  The Commission has already made known its view in terms of its responsibility to House staff. It has said that, if a viable scheme for child care help can be devised, it would want it to go ahead. As a good employer, the Commission is aware of the arguments for assistance with child care. I know that many House staff make intricate and often expensive arrangements to have their children cared for, as was shown in evidence taken by the Select Committee on Employment in June 1994, where a number of hon. Members and House staff from various Departments gave detailed and clear evidence about the arrangements that they had to make. Any scheme would undoubtedly help in the recruitment and retention of staff. No less important, the introduction of a child care scheme would also firmly underline the House's commitment to a policy of equal opportunity.
  In deciding its policy, the Commission needs to take account of the practical possibilities and the cost. An in-house nursery, assuming that we could find suitable space for it in the near future, would be expensive both to the House and to parents, and might not provide value for money. For example, if parents received a 50 per cent. subsidy, in line with civil service practice, parental contributions could still be as high as £75 per child per week. A joint venture scheme would involve similar costs per child. It would also be hard to predict the number of places needed. Finding a suitable location will undoubtedly be a problem, as the Commission's discussions with the relevant Committee have illustrated.
  There are other drawbacks to an in-house or joint venture scheme. Opening hours would have to be either very long, adding to the cost, or unsuitable for parents who work late hours. In some cases, young children would have to be brought to Westminster by public transport in the rush hour. The demand in recesses would be difficult to predict. On-site facilities, however, would benefit some staff and could be opened to other groups who work in the building and are covered by the survey. such as the police, postal staff and press. There is also value in the House setting an example to employers in the provision of a workplace nursery. We might, however, be able to help more people at lower cost through a voucher scheme, which could also cover hon. Members' staff who work in the constituencies. We have received representations on that point.
  The Commission wishes the matter to be resolved as it has been under discussion for an unreasonably long time. We look to hon. Members for their views on whether a workplace nursery or a voucher system is preferable, on whether vouchers represent an interim solution until the provision of on-site facilities, and on any other consideration that we should bear in mind before reaching a decision.
  6.12 pm
  Ms Jean Corston: This debate on the provision of child care in the House of Commons and on the provision of such a facility generally has both a symbolic and practical importance. By the mid-1980s, 24 per cent. of women with children under the age of five
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  were working; by 1991, however, 45 per cent. of such women were at work. There is a national child care gap of 400,000 places.
  As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said, the House of Commons should set an example. Both business and industry increasingly recognise the need for child care provision and its importance to working mothers and fathers—and I stress fathers. I was speaking earlier to a Conservative Member who said that he would have liked to be here for the debate but that he was looking after his little boy and there was no child care provision. Obviously, therefore, some hon. Members need such provision and they are not necessarily women.
  Fifteen years ago, long before I came to this House, I raised the issue with an hon. Member and was told that the House of Commons did not need child care facilities because there were not many women Members. He said that most of them were past child-bearing age, so the problem did not exist. I pointed out there and then that hundreds of women worked in the House of Commons as researchers, secretaries, librarians, catering workers, cleaning staff and ancillary workers. He looked very surprised. It is all too easy for hon. Members to think that they are the only people here who have needs. We are talking about many people who make the operation of this Chamber possible.
  The Labour party is taking positive steps to encourage more women to come to this place and I understand that the Conservative party has a target of 50 per cent. women candidates for the next election. It is in the interests of the political parties and of democracy that we have more women Members of Parliament.
  I and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson) are the joint chairs of the parliamentary Labour party women's group. Since April 1992, it has considered child care and the attitude to children in the House and it has found some interesting facts. First, there is a family room in the House. When we asked whether it was possible for children to use the family room, we were told that it was for the wives of hon. Members and that children would disturb them.
  Secondly, we found that there was a rifle range. I found it extraordinary that it was acceptable for the House to have a rifle range but not a creche. I and my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ms Mowlam), who was the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson on women's issues, visited the rifle range and met the officers of the rifle club, who were somewhat alarmed at our asking to see it as they suspected that we were on our child care campaign. They assured us that one woman hon. Member was a member of the rifle club and they were a bit put out when we rightly guessed who it was—the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie). We pointed out to the officers that we were not trying to stop their fun but trying to make the point that if it was all right to find room for people to take potshots at targets it should also be all right to find room for children.
  My hon. Friends the Members for Peckham (Ms Harman) and for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) once tried to arrange for their children to visit them during a half-term holiday. They were told that they could not provide their own food and would have to pay for food that was provided. They were also told that there would be a charge for the room. Just trying to arrange to see their own children was a great effort.

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  I understand that, since 1989, Government Departments have been able to use existing budgets to subsidise child care. That is important in the House, where many staff are paid considerably less than hon. Members. We should think about the way in which costs would impact on people on lower pay. In 1992, I and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Ms Primarolo) visited the Ministry of Defence creche. In the culture of the MOD, many military people in their working life rarely have much contact with children. The fact that the MOD has a creche is to its credit. It is interesting to see buggies and wellington boots in the MOD foyer. If a creche can be provided in the MOD, I do not understand why it is impossible for us to have such a facility here. Clearly, the MOD venture is an unqualified success. Parliament should follow that example.
  I believe that the report, which has been quoted extensively, shows that a majority support an in-house facility rather than vouchers. Having spoken to people in the House who have parental responsibilities, I suspect that an in-house facility is what they would most prefer. The Parliamentary Nursery Campaign Committee issued a statement today. Its press officer said that the survey showed that there was a clear demand from hon. Members and their staff and House of Commons workers. As has been said, the survey was carried out by an independent research company. The press officer said:
  "A day nursery would be of considerable benefit to mothers and fathers who work in the mother of Parliaments. It would alleviate the isolation of children from their parents who work long hours. But it would also be in the public interest. A day nursery would help to reduce staff absenteeism and unnecessary staff turnover and consequent loss of expertise and experience. Given the growing demand on Members of Parliament this should help to improve their ability to represent the interests of their constituents".
  We have come a long way since 30 October 1979 when Mr. Patrick Jenkin, then a Secretary of State, said on the "Man Alive" programme on BBC television:
  "If the good Lord had intended us to have equal rights to go out to work, He wouldn't have created man and woman."
  I am pleased to say that such statements are not heard so often now.
  Mrs. Edwina Currie: They are heard on the Conservative side of the House.
  Ms Corston: Perhaps the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South should set up a women's group, as we have.
  Mrs. Currie: We have tried.
  Ms Corston: I suppose it might not get many members.
  I commend the House of Commons Commission for carrying out the survey and I pay tribute to hon. Members who have served on the Committee in the past and have made the survey a reality. I hope that we shall have an in-house creche of which we can be proud well before the next general election so that the increasing numbers of women who come here will know that the job is commensurate with a family life and so that women outside this place will be encouraged to think about a parliamentary career because they will see that they will not have to abandon their children.
  6.21 pm
  Dame Jill Knight: I wish to caution the House against the suggestion being mooted that we should set up a creche within the precincts of the
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  Palace of Westminster. I am surprised that we are having this brief debate at all, bearing in mind that the Accommodation Committee has addressed this problem on four occasions. On each occasion it reached the decision that there should not be a creche within the Palace of Westminster. What is the time of the Accommodation Committee used for if its decisions are overridden, or attempted to be overridden, again and again by the House?
  There are at least five reasons why I agree wholeheartedly with the Accommodation Committee's decisions. I have been in the House for a very long time and, over the years, I have learnt that room here is at a premium. For many years I had only a tiny office, and many hon. Members still have very poor accommodation. We should recognise that, even when the new building in Bridge street is finished, we shall still be in the same position, with enormous competition for the available room.
  Our work load gets inexorably heavier and most hon. Members need much more space than ever before for their filing cabinets, computers and papers. When I first came to the House, only a few of us had an office at all. Many of us used to work at a desk in one of the Lobbies. Some hon. Members will remember those days. Now we have more burdens than we had then and we could not possibly manage with a desk in a corridor. Many of us still share rooms which are far too small. It is extraordinary to suggest that there is some wide open space that could be used for a creche or creches—that is what we will need.
  Mrs. Currie: The same arguments were used about the establishment of the House of Commons gymnasium. It now has 600 members, including 60 hon. Members. It is an extremely useful and invaluable service for the entire community that works here. Is my hon. Friend recommending that it should be shut because we do not have enough space?
  Dame Jill Knight: Of course not. What a stupid suggestion. There is a great deal of difference between the need of hon. Members who work long hours in this place to have exercise, and the extra-curricular activity of bringing in all their children. It is a totally different matter.
  In spite of my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), I shall develop my argument and point out that this is not only an issue for Members of Parliament. Library staff are constantly asking for more space, which they need, as do our secretaries and many other staff here. We do not have enough room for good working conditions now, and it is useless for my hon. Friend to suggest that we have so much room that space can be made available for many other purposes. I do not know where an extra room for a creche or creches would come from.
  I love children, but I do not think that their place is here. We are talking not about older children but about babies and toddlers who would need many nurses and minders. Their presence here would be noisy, costly and continuous. Hon. Members must understand that we could not close the creche for the summer or Easter holidays. If we opened a creche, it would have to be open all the time that children need to be cared for.

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  The number of children who would have to be catered for would be far bigger than anyone has so far recognised. We are talking not only about the children of hon. Members. I am happy to see far more women Members than we have ever had before—
  Mr. George Mudie: Rubbish.
  Dame Jill Knight: Well, there have never been as many women in the House as there are today. That is a good thing, and I hope that there will be more.
  We are talking about the children of secretaries, Library staff, attendants, cleaners, kitchen staff and Post Office staff. There are many other offices, such as the Rediffusion office, the cook's office and many more. This morning I took the precaution of finding out how many female staff work in this place.
  Ms Janet Anderson: The hon. Lady mentioned the large number of staff, other than hon. Members, who work in the House and might wish to make use of this facility. Does she accept that many of those staff work during the recesses as well?
  Dame Jill Knight: That is exactly my point. The hon. Lady must understand that the recesses are used for intensive work in the Palace of Westminster. It would not be possible to close a creche during the summer months, so when would there be an opportunity to carry out all the necessary building work and refurbishment? To judge from what she said, the hon. Lady seems to recognise that, once open, a creche could not be closed simply because the House was not sitting.
  Does the hon. Lady wish to come back on that point? Does she contest it? We are talking not about a creche for the days, weeks and months when the House sits, but about a permanent creche all year round.
  Ms Anderson: I agree that we are talking about a permanent facility. My point was that there would be no need to close it during the recess, because plenty of people would still be using it. I do not see why a creche would have to be closed in order for building and refurbishment to be carried out in the rest of the Palace.
  Dame Jill Knight: With the greatest respect, the hon. Lady has not been here very long, and probably has no idea how much work is done during the recess. I am making a perfectly relevant point.
  Ms Anderson: The hon. Lady said that I am relatively inexperienced in respect of the House. She may not be aware that I worked in the House for almost 20 years as a secretary before I became a Member of Parliament, and therefore have a great deal of experience of its workings.
  Dame Jill Knight: There is all the difference in the world between working as a secretary and working as a Member of Parliament.
  Mrs. Currie: There is not a scrap of difference.
  Dame Jill Knight: If my hon. Friend thinks that there is not a scrap of difference, why is she not a secretary rather than a Member of Parliament?
  Mrs. Currie: Without my staff, who are absolutely marvellous and work very long hours, I could not be a Member of Parliament.
  Dame Jill Knight: There have been times when my hon. Friend has wished to be a Member of another Parliament; perhaps she will eventually leave us to attain that goal.
  My point, which I am sure that many hon. Members understand, is that we are talking not about a short-term facility which is open only when the House sits. We are talking about an extension of the House that would have to be available the whole year round.
  I took the precaution of finding out how many female members of staff would be eligible to use creche facilities. I found that there are 1,395. Even if only half of them—it might be more, but I was unable to find out the exact number this morning—are of child-bearing age, there could be nearly 1,000 children to be cared for.
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Dame Jill Knight: I will always give way to the hon. Lady.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: The hon. Lady has been extremely generous in giving way, and I apologise to her. As she knows, I have been here a long time. It has always struck me that, when the House wants to find accommodation, it will hire suitable buildings and go to considerable expense, as it has at Millbank and elsewhere, in order to provide suitable accommodation. The provision of a creche is long overdue, but it could be done. We face the hazard of wasting the assets of many women here because we do not provide something—the right to a creche for their children—that is regarded as absolutely elementary in most industrial units. We are being wasteful and fairly short-sighted.
  Dame Jill Knight: In all fairness, if those women had not found it possible to make arrangements for their children, they would not be working here.
  The House should carefully consider the number of children eligible for a place in a creche here. We should remember that we could have 1,000 children, babies and toddlers in this place.
  Mr. Alan Duncan: It would be pandemonium.
  Dame Jill Knight: My hon. Friend said that it would be pandemonium, and he is probably absolutely right.
  Dr. Lynne Jones: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Dame Jill Knight: This is the last time.
  Dr. Jones: I take the hon. Lady's point that there might be a large number of children involved, but surely the purpose of having an independently conducted survey was to establish the demand. There is a demand, and it is one for which we should be able to cater.
  Dame Jill Knight: I remind the hon. Lady that the Accommodation Committee, which knows far more about

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  the matter than people outside, has examined the position at least three or four times, and decided that it will not back the idea of a creche in this place.
  We are not talking only about the children of women Members of Parliament. We must recognise that there is such a thing as the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, and there is no reason why male Members of Parliament could not claim to use the creche, which could mean 2,000 or more children here. I am making a serious point, and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) should not regard it as funny. Coping with 1,000 or 1,500 children in this place is a more serious matter—
  Mrs. Currie rose—
  Dame Jill Knight: I am not giving way, even to my hon. Friend. I am making a serious point—[Interruption.]
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. I do not allow private conversations. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) has the Floor, and if she does not want to allow interventions, other hon. Members must keep quiet.
  Dame Jill Knight: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am cautioning the House— [Interruption.]
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. My comment applies to all parties, including Front Benchers.
  Dame Jill Knight: It is not a question of accommodating only a handful of children. We would be committed to making places available for about 1,500 toddlers and babies, which is a very serious matter.
  I am also worried about the cost. It is all very well to say that we have made money available for this and that, but we must remember that it is taxpayers' money. People outside are paying for the things that we demand.
  Mrs. Currie: This is a taxable benefit.
  Dame Jill Knight: My hon. Friend says that we can tax but, whether or not people are taxed, the cost of providing facilities for so many children would be very great. First, there would be the of renting a prime site in the most prestigious area of the city of London. The creche or creches would have to be kept in excellent decorative order. I can just imagine the scandal if the media were to discover a crack in a wall or that the paint was not in good condition.
  There would have to be an enormous amount of equipment such as sand pits, chairs, tables, potties, paddling pools, climbing frames, swings, seesaws, paints, toys, picture books and wendy houses. [Laughter.] The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) may think that that is funny. Perhaps she has not had the advantage of having children, as I have had. I know what it costs to have children catered for.
  Dr. Jones: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Dame Jill Knight: I was not referring to the hon. Lady.
  Dr. Jones: I should like to answer that point.
  Dame Jill Knight: I said that I would not give way again, and I meant it.
  The facilities that would have to be made available here are not cheap. Facilities would also have to be made available for cooking food and for serving it. There would have to be beds, cots, high chairs and staff.
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  I do not know whether any of the hon. Members who have backed this proposition have made the slightest effort to work out the cost. I reckon that it is only fair, when we are spending taxpayers' money, to consider carefully the cost we are imposing. One thing for sure is that employees in this place would demand subsidised child care and would be neither able nor willing to pay the extremely high cost that would be demanded for it.
  There are plenty of ways in which children can be cared for when one is a working mother. I strongly believe in systems whereby women who need to work, perhaps because they are lone parents, are given every help in having their children cared for in a nursery—but not in the House.
  6.41 pm
  Mrs. Diana Maddock: I understand that we have had discussion, debate and campaigning on child care facilities in the House for about 25 years. In that time, there have been many good intentions, as well as quite a lot of opposition. I had not expected to see quite so much opposition today. A number of surveys and studies have been commissioned on how we might move forward on the issue. As far as I can see, in those 25 years we have hardly moved a step forward.
  I had hoped that there would be consensus across the House on the issue. The past year has been the United Nations Year of the Family. There has been much discussion about how we can help and support families. There has been much cross-party consensus that good child care is part of that support, so I am especially disappointed to have heard comments today that seem to hark back to the old way of thinking—that we do not need to support families through child care.
  We are talking about recreation facilities. I find that being able to be with my family is a bit of recreation, as other people go to the gym for recreation; it is not somewhere I go for recreation. Listening to the debate, I am reminded of the time some years ago when I was a councillor. I was branded as being of the loony left because I thought that it was important to have child care facilities, or at least to discuss them. Memories of that time came back to me today.
  I hope that some of my points will answer criticisms made today. Child care is important for women to be able to fulfil their potential. It is important to families, and it is important that men and women are able to share in the responsibilities of looking after children. Outside this place, there is an increasing awareness among British companies that child care provision is good for business as well. Companies have realised that it is in their interests to keep their women employees once they have had children and to hold on to the skills of those employees.
  A couple of years ago, the Institute of Personnel Management studied a company with about 2,000 employees. It discovered that it was giving away about £500,000 a year without even realising it. It was losing about 50 women a year who were leaving the company—solely, probably, because they were not getting child care at work. It was a problem. Further calculations showed the company that that was costing it about £10,000 a head. The position is not quite the same in the House.
  There are various estimates of how many people work in the House. If we use the figure of 3,000, that makes the House a fair-sized business. It is not unreasonable to

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  assume that we have here a similar loss of trained and experienced women who leave when they have children. There are women who work for Members of Parliament, in the Library service, in catering, in finance and in other parts of the House, who have valuable skills.
  I know just how skilled many people here are. This week—the people involved were men—I have had to deal with the Public Bill Office. We could lose just as much as any company in the loss of women who work here. There is no doubt that it makes economic sense for us to provide child care assistance for people working in the House. I have not done the sums, but I cannot imagine that this place is so different from other businesses.
  When I arrived here, I was somewhat surprised to find a gym and a shooting range, but no nursery or creche. To a certain extent, we have got our priorities wrong. I know that space is at a premium. We have heard a great deal again today about just what a premium it is. I know that things have improved, but I also realise that we all work in difficult conditions. There are four people in my office, and I am sure that that is true for other people here. More offices are being built and planned. Surely we should at least be planning space for creches and nurseries in those buildings.
  We have a family room, which has also been mentioned this evening. I have not had the opportunity to use it, but I have been to have a look at it. I understand that children are allowed to use it at the moment. I am not sure whether, if there was a health and safety check on it, it would be considered absolutely suitable.
  There are some sofas and a number of small tables which have extremely sharp corners. There are some books and one or two toys, which are not complete. There is a small room where the children can wash and perhaps hang clothes, but there is no lavatory and there is no nappy-changing facility. Perhaps we could start with some nappy-changing facilities, a playpen for small children and some more suitable games and toys, not only for young children, but for older children who are here as well.
  Mrs. Currie: When I arrived in the House 12 years ago, there was no family room. I for one am very grateful that we got it. It is, however, worth pointing out to the hon. Lady that it is available only for Members of Parliament; members of staff cannot use it.
  Mrs. Maddock: I am grateful for that intervention. I understand that point. However, we could improve the family room facilities fairly quickly.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: While the hon. Lady is busy sneering at the toys and other facilities available in the family room, she might bear in mind that it was the families of Members of Parliament who organised it, got it together and provided it. She might bear that in mind when she is so contemptuous.
  Mrs. Maddock: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman thought that I was sneering; I was not. I was merely pointing out that I would like to see better facilities there. Perhaps we could help the people who have provided the family room to get facilities rather better than those at present. We have had quite a lot of surveys in the House. Perhaps we should ask people what else they would like to see in the family room.
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  The latest survey published in the long saga of trying to do something about child care facilities shows that more people would prefer to have in-house facilities than a child care voucher scheme. Despite that, because of the long history of inaction, we should do two things. We should try to set up a child care voucher scheme, such as the one operating in the other place, and we should allocate some space in our future plans for a nursery or creche on site. A lot of building is going on, especially around Westminster tube station, and we should do everything we can to say, "Here is the space; we will use it."
  Vouchers are often a better option for many people, because they provide a bit more flexibility. I have a personal view about the best way in which to look after young children. I spent some time living in Sweden many years ago, where I was very conscious of the fact that children could become institutionalised from an early age. The provision of child care vouchers gives people the opportunity to have their children looked after in a family-type environment.
  The scheme operating in the other place has been reasonably successful. I say to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) that in fact an enormous number of people have not been rushing to take up the vouchers. I tried to get the most recent figures. There are about 310 staff in the other place, and so far 17 have taken up the voucher scheme. If there are between four and five times that number of staff here, to start with, perhaps 100 people would try to take up the child care voucher scheme. Obviously, as Liberal Democrats, we would like the scheme to be even better value for money and child care vouchers to be tax free, but that is not part of the debate today.
  Labour Members have talked about what their party was doing to get women into Parliament. I think that all the parties have discussed that with their women members. We certainly have. We discovered that one of the reasons why women found difficulty in becoming a Member of Parliament or even in getting involved in politics was that often they were the carers, not only of children but of older people. We are obviously discussing an important point if we are serious about wanting more hon. Members in the House.
  Dame Jill Knight: I am following what the hon. Lady is saying. Is she saying that we want not only a creche but some facilities for older people as well?
  Mrs. Maddock: When I made the point about older children, I was talking about our family room.
  Dame Jill Knight: Just a moment ago, the hon. Lady mentioned that women looked after young people and were carers for elderly people as well. I am trying to get clear what she is asking for.
  Mrs. Maddock: Sorry: it did not occur to me that the hon. Lady was referring to that. I was merely pointing out that women care for other people too, but it is irrelevant to the argument today.
  Providing child care facilities for employees of the House is very important. It is important that we set an example to other people by being good employers. However, many people outside the House are ahead of the game. Even if we do not think that the provision of child care facilities is a good idea, when considering it from a

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  purely self-interested economic point of view, it would be worth our while. That has been proved by studies in the business world. We are a business here, whether we like it or not.
  We have procrastinated for far too long. I hope that, after today's debate, we will take some action, rather than having to come back again in another year to ask if we have conducted another survey and what we are to do about it. It is time we did something, and took some action.
  6.52 pm
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: In this debate, we should differentiate clearly between the idea of an in-house creche and that of providing vouchers. What seems to have been debated tonight is the provision of an in-house creche, which, in my view, would be mere feminist tokenism. I have listened carefully to the hon. Members for Bristol, East (Ms Corston), for Christchurch (Mrs. Maddock) and for Rossendale and Darwen (Ms Anderson). All of them are talking about the wonderful tokenism. Is it really sensible to expect women to drag very young children and infants across London, through the rush hour, to central London to a creche or child care facility here? It is wildly inappropriate to think of any such thing.
  Then, take that argument—
  Ms Corston: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Arnold: No, not for the moment. Take that argument a little further and listen to what the hon. Member for Christchurch said about the creches that she saw in Sweden and her concerns about institutionalisation of the children concerned. I know that it is not the Liberal Democrats' practice to carry forward their own logic. They did not with the carbon tax as they then opposed VAT on fuel. I ask the hon. Lady to take forward her logic. The place to bring up young people, especially infants, is in the home with their mothers.
  Mrs. Maddock: If the hon. Gentleman had listened carefully, he would have heard me propose two things—that we had a creche here and that we provided child care vouchers. It was precisely because I agreed with many of the points that the hon. Gentleman has made that I was talking of my experience in Sweden. Providing both gives the parent a choice. Parents can decide where they want their child to be and what is most convenient for them.
  Mr. Arnold: The hon. Lady outlined the disadvantages of bringing up very young children throughout the day in creches. So, let us not be under any illusion. Let us consider where that creche would be in Westminster. Let us look at our facilities. Mention was made of the rifle range. I wonder whether hon. Members have been down to the rifle range and seen it in the cellars of this place without natural light. Should youngsters be brought up in such Dickensian surroundings without natural light? That is a fatuous suggestion.
  Let us look further into the proposal to consider whether the facilities would be provided in the outbuildings or even outside the parliamentary estate. Committees of the House considered precisely that and came up with a cost liability of £234,000 to the taxpayer if we were to advance down that line. That was for only six children—admittedly, over a five-year period. Hon.
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  Ladies on the Opposition Benches are talking not about children, but about many hundreds of children. Have they begun to address not only the impact on the development of the children concerned, but the cost to the British taxpayer of their proposals?
  One of the hon. Ladies on the Opposition Benches said that she had been a councillor and had been involved in such matters. I should have thought that the hon. Ladies coming here from the weird and wonderful Labour councils would have looked at some of the weird and wonderful projects that they had carried out at vast expense to the council tax payer. The talk of an in-house creche in this ancient building in Westminster has more to do with posturing and posing for photo opportunities than much else. I can think only of the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman), who seems to have made that kind of photo opportunity into an art form.
  Ms Corston: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Ministry of Defence creche in Northumberland avenue is extremely successful and well supported? Clearly, staff in the Ministry of Defence—both men and women—feel that it is perfectly possible to take their children to that creche without it creating any problem whatever. Is he also aware that although nobody has ever suggested that the rifle range be turned into a creche, that range is surely symbolic of the priorities of the House of Commons?
  Mr. Arnold: The hon. Lady refers to a creche in the Ministry of Defence. If I believed that some of the hon. Ladies of the Labour party would submit their children to the proper, disciplined instruction that is to be found in the armed services, I might even favour the idea. But that is not what they are suggesting. They would bring in their weird and wonderful approach to child rearing, with all its disastrous consequences.
  What about the demand for child care? We should look at it properly. Indeed, it was looked at properly. The Administration Committee and the House of Commons Commission commissioned a report to go into that matter, and we have been able to consider that report in quite some detail tonight. Incidentally, what was the expense of that report? I asked the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith)—who, as a leading member of the Liberal Democrats, believes in open government—the cost of that report. His answer was that it was confidential and that he could not give that information to an hon. Member in this House. I must say that, when it comes to cost, there seems to be an extraordinary approach to matters such as the one before us.
  What did that report show? If the cost to parents were £150 per week, out of all the Members of Parliament, Members' staff and staff of the House, 38 only would take up the use of such provision and only 18 of them would do so immediately. Even if the price were only £75 a week to those people, the take-up would be 69 only.
  The matter has been considered very carefully by the Administration Committee under the genial chairmanship of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin). It is no coincidence that, after many years of consideration of the matter, the Committee turned down the proposal not once, but twice. It was turned down unanimously by the Labour members of the Committee and by the lady members of that Committee. They turned down the proposal because they looked into the matter,

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  used their judgment and then decided against it. The House should accept the judgment of that Committee and of those hon. Ladies and hon. Gentlemen.
  Mr. Beith: I explained earlier that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin) is attending a funeral in Scotland today. He would want me to point out that he moved a motion from the Chair, which was defeated by the Committee. As Chairman, he did not cast a vote on either of the occasions to which the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) referred.
  Mr. Arnold: Therefore, we cannot know the hon. Gentleman's view of the matter. However, that does not alter the fact that no members of the Committee were in favour of the proposal. That point is worth bearing in mind.
  The answer to the question whether we should give Members of Parliament vouchers for child care is a categorical no. The public already think that we are gravy-train merchants. If hon. Members had such vouchers, the public would think that we were once again helping ourselves.
  It has been asked whether vouchers should be provided to the staff of Members of Parliament. They can already be provided as part of the office allowance, as the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed said. I wonder how many hon. Ladies on the Opposition Benches can stand up, put their allowances where their mouths are, and say that they have already made that provision for their staff.
  With regard to the staff of the Palace of Westminster, in respect of their other pursuits and duties in this place, there is plenty of merit in a child care voucher system. However, that should be considered within the global employment package of the staff concerned. We should consider who are the most relevant and who are the least relevant. Any enlightened employer would make that consideration.
  We should be under no illusions: with widespread eligibility, many hundreds and possibly thousands—as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) said—would apply for vouchers. As usual, the poor infantryman—the taxpayer—would have to pick up the bill for the wild enthusiasms of the feminists in this place.
  7.2 pm
  Mr. George Mudie: I thank the Leader of the House for finding time for this debate. It has been long awaited and very gratefully received. It is about time that the issues were aired.
  I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight). Although I did not agree with a word she said, I admired her courage and honesty. I sit on the Accommodation and Works Committee with her—at least, I have had that pleasure for the past year or so; the membership keeps changing and I am not sure whether she is still a member of that Committee. At least she is honest and open enough to come to the Chamber to tell us what persuaded her to support the decision of that Committee. I point out to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) that the decision was
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  not taken unanimously. However, at least the hon. Member for Edgbaston expressed the honesty of her convictions.
  The House sometimes surprises us. Sometimes its generosity catches one's breath, but sometimes its meanness does the same. This is one of the latter occasions. When we discuss this issue, hon. Members may say in self-defence, "Well, I have survived for 20 years in this place, so I don't see that it's necessary." That view may be a reflection of the fact that there are so few women in this place.
  One can recount all sorts of reasons why the provision is unnecessary. However, I simply cannot understand why so many bars, a shooting range, a gentleman's hairdresser or a gym are necessary, but child care provision for the children of the staff—and for Members' children, if we wish—is not.
  In response to the questionnaire, only 12 per cent. of hon. Members—52—showed an interest in the proposal. Hon. Members are not pressing for the proposal. They do not seem to be anxious about it. There is not a majority in favour of it. However, the staff have expressed a very serious interest in the proposal.
  It is not simply a question of, "I want". More than 200 members of staff who replied to the questionnaire said that they were willing to contribute up to £50 a week for child care. The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) said that they would not be so keen to contribute if they had to pay £150. He should wander along the Corridor into the Tea Room and have a nice intimate talk with the Tea Room staff. He should find out how much money—
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Mudie: No, I will not give way. Many hon. Members wish to participate and the debate has a fixed time limit.
  The hon. Member for Gravesham should find out how much those dedicated staff earn. That is the approach that we should take. We are not talking about a perk for Members. Members of Parliament are not pressing for it. The proposal should be the response of an enlightened modern employer.
  From the moment hon. Members walk through the front door of this building, we are cosseted by first-class staff—the catering staff, the messengers, the cleaning staff and the Library staff. Wherever we go, we receive first-class treatment from the staff. However, we never step back and see them as individuals raising families, with all the problems that children create. So long as they are there and at our beck and call, fine; we do not care what they are paid and we do not care about their problems. That is what it is all about.
  More than 800 members of staff responded to the questionnaire and said that they were interested in the proposal as they had a need. What is so offensive about the Administration Committee's report is that it was aware of those details, but the Committee voted four-nil to pay no attention to that request.
  While all that was happening, the hon. Member for Gravesham may be aware that the Government sent out a document entitled, "The Best of Both Worlds". The views in that document are not those of loony left councils. The Government made space in that publication to say what Leicester county council is doing in respect of day care

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  nurseries. The document referred to the experience of the Midland bank and American Express, and said that there should be more of it and that that was best practice. However, when it comes to the staff of this building, we do not care. They are here simply for our convenience.
  Mrs. Currie: I wish to associate myself with the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the excellent staff in this place. I invite him to ponder the fact that almost the first action of the new Republican House of Representatives in the United States was to decide to remove from itself all the special privileges that exempted it from employment laws in the rest of the country. In doing that, it asserted that it was a normal place of employment.
  Mr. Mudie: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention as it gave me time to calm down. I would urge the approach described by the hon. Lady on the Leader of the House and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed.
  The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed ended by asking us for our views. He wanted to know what we thought should be done. The first thing that the Commission should do is to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) and his colleagues that one priority is not enough when one is doing a job: more than one priority can be handled. It is not good enough for the Accommodation and Works Committee to say that its priority is that every hon. Member should have an office to himself or herself and, until that is settled, it will not do anything else.
  The sting is in the tail if we listen closely to the hon. Member for Edgbaston. The Accommodation and Works Committee's priority takes us to the end of the century. Once that objective is reached, we know what will happen. Members' allowances will mean that there will be more staff in the House. It is no longer sufficient to have one secretary's desk; one needs one or, possibly, two researchers' desks as well.
  The dinosaurs in this building always have an excuse. It would be better, if the dinosaurs will not give way, to consider the capital works programme on the Floor of the House. All the money is not being spent on Members and their secretaries—far from it. Some very interesting money is being spent. I shall spare some blushes in the Chamber and in the building by not going into detail. Details would be—[Interruption.] I shall give one example.
  Why do we intend to spend a vast amount of public money moving the gentlemen's hairdresser from one side of the corridor to the other? Have hon. Members ever seen a queue in that barber's shop? If they have, they are at the wrong end of the building. The man is feared. I have parliamentary privilege, I hope. He is feared. I shall never go to him for a haircut—I have not gone to him for a haircut. We are going to spend that money when we say that we cannot find money for a nursery. We are going to build a plush new hairdressing salon—it is not even going to be unisex; it will be a gentlemen's salon—on the other side of the corridor.
  Mr. Jeff Rooker: Is that in the building programme?
  Mr. Mudie: Yes, it is in the building programme.
  The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed should look quietly at the building programme. He will find, as I have found, that there is sufficient brass in the budget to
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  build more than one day nursery. I should like the right hon. Gentleman also to tell the Accommodation and Works Committee that it is not good enough to wait until the end of the century for the new building to be completed.
  We want, either in the parliamentary estate or reasonably close to the building, suitable day care facilities such as those which we are urging private employers to provide. We should end the intolerable situation in which a girl in our Tea Room receives no child care vouchers, whereas a girl along the corridor in the other House receives child care vouchers. It is intolerable that staff in the Palace should be treated differently. The hon. Member for Edgbaston fears that 2,000 people will come out of the woodwork and demand such facilities. Child care vouchers would meet that demand without the need to find another building.
  As a modern employer approaching the 21st century, we need day care facilities on the premises, that is, on the estate or nearby. If that would take more than 18 months, the Commission should consider awarding vouchers to staff and Members. I would even settle for staff being awarded vouchers. If great cost were involved, the staff should have precedence. Staff should be paid child care vouchers equal to if not more than what is offered along the corridor. I would even shame the other place into raising the value of its vouchers, because the level is too low now. That would immediately assist the first-class staff who look after us. We should reciprocate.
  7.13 pm
  Mr. Alan Duncan: Time is precious. I know that the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) wishes to respond to this good-natured debate. I fear that I might incur the wrath of Opposition ladies by saying what I am about to say—it might be a high-risk strategy—but I hope that what I say will be reasonable. I have just a few observations which lead me to believe that setting up a creche would be not an enlightened move, as the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Mudie) suggests, but a regressive step.
  The hon. Member for Bristol, East (Ms Corston) said that the House should set an example. Indeed it should. It should set an example by not having a creche within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster or immediately nearby, as hon. Members have suggested. The position from which I start is not the jibe which some might level at me that a woman's place is in the home. That is not my view at all. I want as many women as possible to be active in the labour market and at work.
  By and large, it should principally be up to the individual family unit to decide how to afford the care of children, what arrangements should be made and how it should be provided. In essence, behind this matter is the principle that the state should pay and that the state should subsidise women in work for the care of children. I find that philosophically objectionable, by and large, except in respect of women Members of Parliament, to whom I shall return in a moment. This matter, in effect, is a plea for a job subsidy.
  Ms Diane Abbott: Why is it so terrible for the state to subsidise families but well and fine for the state to subsidise the hon. Gentleman's house in Westminster?
  Mr. Duncan: One might have expected such a comment from the hon. Member for Hackney, North and

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  Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott). I am sorry that it is not in the spirit of the debate from which she has largely been absent.
  The argument about the House of Commons not having space is not significant. If space is needed, it can always be found. The point about which I feel strongly is that it would be in the wrong place. The place where one needs child care is near one's residence, not one's place of work. It would be inappropriate to have a large creche in or near the Palace of Westminster, to which mothers—or fathers—have to bring their children, perhaps across London, at very peculiar hours because of the nature of the work patterns of this place. It is far better to have child care premises close to where the mother, father or parents live.
  Mrs. Currie: Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?
  Mr. Duncan: I can probably predict what the hon. Lady is going to say, but I will take the risk of giving way to her.
  Mrs. Currie: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his courtesy. As both he and I passionately believe in parental choice, is not the matter of where children may be looked after a matter for the parents? Some of us would take different decisions. At the moment, the problem which faces many such parents is that there is a lack of such provision, and the proposal that we are discussing tonight would improve it.
  Mr. Duncan: I am grateful for what the hon. Lady says, but I do not think that it is right—
  Mrs. Currie: I am an hon. Friend.
  Mr. Duncan: My hon. Friend, yes—even now. It is inappropriate for such a body to provide those facilities, although I have no objection to individuals being given the means to find such facilities for themselves. What I principally object to is the collectivisation of child care around the place of work. It would turn us into an Orwellian body of which I do not approve.
  There might be a good case for vouchers as part of a package of remuneration for those who work peculiar hours to care for their children and to assist the care of their children because they have to work peculiar hours. There is a good case for that for women Members of Parliament. The force of biology, whereby they are mothers and have the principal care of children, is a severe block on their ability to be Members of Parliament. I should like to remove as many barriers as possible to women being Members of Parliament simply because they are the ones who bear children. However, the way to do that is not to provide a central facility in or around the House of Commons or the Palace of Westminster; it is to give them, because of their peculiar circumstances, an allowance, much as hon. Members who live outside London are given one within our package of remuneration as Members of Parliament, for a second home or for travel to our constituencies.
  It is the institutionalisation around the place of work for child care to which I philosophically object. It is far better for parents to be given the means and the opportunity to choose for themselves the way in which
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  they care for their children. In the words of someone who brought up twins with no help from the state, I say to the proposal, "No, no, no."
  7.19 pm
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: When I hear the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) talk about the collectivisation of child care and the institutionalisation of work I wonder how many workplace nurseries he has visited.
  It is important that we have had this debate, although Thursday evening may not have been the ideal time for it. Nevertheless, it has been a long time coming and it is good that the House has had the opportunity to debate the issue, which is important to Members of the House and even more so to the staff of the House and the staff whom Members employ. It is also right that people outside the House should see that we as Members of Parliament recognise the importance of child care provision in general.
  The contributions to the debate—most of them from Opposition Members, regrettably—have been constructive in terms of the improvements in child care that not only the House of Commons, but women and men in the country as a whole, need. I have recently been appointed to the House of Commons Commission, so tonight I wanted mainly to listen to what others said. However, I shall make a few comments of my own, although after the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Mudie) I thought that other contributions might be superfluous. My hon. Friend said forcefully what many Opposition Members believe. I hope that Conservative Members realise that there are male Members of Parliament who advocate child care facilities too. It is not only what the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) abusively called the token feminists who are in favour of such improvements.
  Mr. Denis MacShane: As a male Member of Parliament, I strongly endorse what other Opposition Members have said. As the father of four children under eight, I would gladly swap one day in my life—a day of trying to look after them on a partnership basis with my wife, finding care for them and doing my job as a Member of Parliament—with any of the Conservative Members who have spoken against the proposals. If either the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) or the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) cares to take up my offer I shall meet him outside in the Lobby.
  Mrs. Taylor: I have seen my hon. Friend in the morning walking through the streets of Pimlico with his young children, and a touching sight it is. I know that he takes his responsibilities seriously, and I hope that many other hon. Members do so too.
  We had hoped that there would be a degree of consensus in the House about the case for making progress following the debate, but the speeches that we have heard have been a mixture of constructive suggestions from most people and staggering comments from a couple of Conservative Members, who do not seem to have taken on board any of the arguments, or the ideas, beliefs and needs that emerged clearly from the survey.
  The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) complained that it might be noisy if children were allowed into the House of Commons, but anyone

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  who has sat through some of our debates must put that objection to one side. But I have one point of agreement with the hon. Lady, in that she proved that there could be a considerable demand for the facilities in question.
  The hon. Member for Gravesham wanted to draw attention to the problems that women may have—he said women, but fathers could have the same difficulties—dragging young children across London to a creche. He should consider the difficulties that many people have dragging children across cities to find child care facilities simply because there are not enough of them.
  Dame Jill Knight: The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) has always been immensely careful in all the jobs that she has had. Has she yet had the opportunity to make an estimate of the money that we would have to find if large numbers of parents applied for places for their children?
  Mrs. Taylor: I know that the hon. Lady is concerned about such matters, and I suggest that she looks at some of the estimates in the survey that Opposition Members have mentioned. She should also consider the costs that many employers have because of absenteeism when their employees take time off work to look after their children, and because employees have to change their occupations, thereby increasing staff turnover, because there is no adequate child care provision.
  When I found out that the debate was to take place I was not sure whether I should declare an interest, because I have two children, one of whom was born while I was a Member of Parliament—although, conveniently, that happened in the summer recess in 1982. For me, as a northern Member who is not based in London, child care facilities in London are not especially pertinent to what I consider to be my needs. Members who suggest that the case for a creche or other facilities has been made on the basis that more women would be attracted to becoming Members of Parliament are short sighted. Such provision might help, but it is certainly not the be all and end all for attracting more women Members. The issue is far more complex, as I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends know.
  The decisions that have to be taken are important. Some hon. Members have suggested that there has been progress; others have doubted that. The family room in the House of Commons, which has existed since I entered the House in 1974, is sometimes used by children, but it is simply not suitable for young children; indeed, most of the facilities of the House are not suitable for them, as most Members realise.
  The provision of child care facilities is important to Members, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East said, it is probably far more important to the staff of the House and the people whom we employ. We should do all that we can to ensure that provision is made, and made as effectively and as usefully as possible.
  During business questions earlier today the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) said something in sweeping language that has been repeated by the hon. Members for Gravesham and for Rutland and Melton—that any child care facility should be near the parents' home, and that that should be the primary factor. It strikes
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  me as strange that members of a party that claims to be the party of choice are telling people exactly what child care facilities parents should choose.
  Mrs. Currie: It should be clear that there are Conservative Members, too, who feel as strongly as anyone in the House about the need to provide facilities. The figures given to us earlier about the number of women working in this place were inaccurate. It is true that 1,318 salary payments are made to female staff but there are also 596 women known to the personnel office who work for the Departments of the House. Of course there are also 62 women Members of Parliament. So we know of about 1,976, and that is a lot of women—including staff employed by Conservative Members—many of whom must have-small children.
  Mrs. Taylor: The hon. Lady probably represents a wider spectrum of opinion within the Conservative party than do the other Conservative Members whom we have heard. Her comments are valid.
  Time is running short. We, as employers of our own staff, and the House of Commons Commission which arranges for the employment of people in the House, have a responsibility not just to set an example but to do our best as employers. The points that I have made about absenteeism and staff turnover are economically valid as well as important in respect of acting as good employers. The options of vouchers and direct provision need not be mutually exclusive. Given the timetable difficulties associated with the provision of a creche, more progress could possibly be made in the meantime with vouchers. What suits one family's circumstances may not suit another's—that applies as much to hon. Members as to secretaries and Library staff. It would therefore be wrong to be too restrictive about the kind of help that might be provided.
  The one thing that we should all agree is that there must be some change—some movement. No hon. Member has defended the anomalies that prevail now. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East referred to the people who work in the Tea Room of the House of Commons. One of them has a young child who will be four in March. Eighteen months ago, her counterparts in the House of Lords were given child care vouchers. Had she transferred to the House of Lords then she would by now have had 18 months' worth of vouchers. It is ridiculous to treat staff in one part of the building differently from those in another. We cannot allow that to continue.
  There are many aspects to this problem. Provision for very young children is required. There is also the real problem of how to provide child care after school and in the school holidays. The hon. Member for Edgbaston proved to us that there is a demand, but her conclusions were quite wrong. Throughout the country there has been a growth in the number of school care clubs and holiday care clubs. I gather than in June hon. Members will have the opportunity to see at first hand what that means. It must represent the way forward.
  Figures that I have show that one in five children between the ages of five and 10 are left alone during the school holidays. That is dangerous and it cannot be right. People live further than ever before from their families; grandparents are not always on the doorstep to help with care. There is thus a greater need than ever before for child care facilities.

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  It is important that any provision that is made be flexible. As I said before, what suits one family does not necessarily suit another. This has been a useful debate even if there has been no clear consensus. Most hon. Members have agreed that there should be some improvement in child care provision—that must be the way forward. It is important that the Commission considers our opinions but keeps matters as flexible as possible so that we can provide the right kind of care, not just for Members' children but for those of the staff of the House and of the staff whom we personally employ.
  7.33 pm
  Mr. Beith: With the leave of the House, I should like to thank hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. The Commission will want to consider their views carefully. If there was a consensus it may have been centred on the idea that voucher provision has a part to play, either as a step towards something else or by itself.
  The figures that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) offered are way out of line with the advice that we have received. Our estimate of the number of those who might take up vouchers was only 82, and the numbers who might use a creche may be even smaller—so we are talking of figures of a very different order.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  Crown Prosecution Service
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Wells.]
  7.34 pm
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: One realises that justice is frequently portrayed in this country as blind. It is important, however, that it should not also be portrayed as deaf. This evening I want to raise the question of the identification of the general public with sentencing policy in the courts, particularly when horrendous and—one hopes—unique cases of murder are dealt with.
  I should like to set out the circumstances in which the case of a constituent of mine, a Mr. Ryan Keen, was considered. A young and active man, he was well known in the town of Nantwich as a footballer. He was very popular and had worked extremely hard building up the local football team. Among the people connected with him were two men who chose, although they were 10 years older than him, to try to enter into a friendship with him. Those two men lured Ryan Keen first into a tour of various pubs and then to an address at which he was doused in paint stripper, whereupon lighted matches were thrown at him. The result was a horrific death involving 95 per cent. burns. I ask the House to consider the agony that that young man must have endured before he died.
  I want to comment on some of the facts that were given during the trial because I think that they are relevant. Mr. Keen was said to have gone with the defendants to a pub where bar staff and customers alleged that they heard Card and Oliver, the two men initially charged with the murder, discussing setting someone alight. One witness said that as they were leaving the pub, Oliver told Card:
  "I'll set light and don't you help."
  The consultant pathologist who gave evidence in the case said:
  "Ryan had extensive burns covering 95 per cent. of the total area of his body. The only area not burned was his foot. There is no possibility of anyone surviving burns like that."
  He also gave evidence to the effect that Ryan suffered internal combustion, either by inhaling liquid which caught light inside him or by the fire passing down his throat. Traces of flammable liquid were found inside his stomach, an empty half-gallon bottle marked "white spirit" was found by the fire service officer on the floor and there was a powerful smell of the liquid in the house.
  I give the House these horrendous details not out of any desire to shock but because, when dealing with such appalling cases, it is vital to understand the reactions of the public. In my constituency, a great deal of attention was paid to the case. The day-to-day evidence was reported in considerable detail. It was therefore a matter of shock when, after some days of evidence being heard, the charge was reduced from murder to one of manslaughter. There were press reports of a Crown Prosecution Service spokesman saying that there were no plans to appeal against the sentences.
  The Minister will know that the sentences handed down, although commensurate with the charge of manslaughter, were fairly light—three and five years. The CPS spokesman was supposed to have said that they were
  "about what you'd expect for manslaughter."

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  I find it difficult to understand why the charge was changed in this way half way through the case. I am not a lawyer, but I understand that defendants frequently change their plea at the initial hearing. The strength of our jury system and its very foundation is that it should decide the facts of a case—whether defendants are guilty or not guilty.
  The jury was not permitted to reach such a conclusion. I have to ask, therefore: was there a plea bargain? If some kind of arrangement was reached, on what basis was it made? I have looked carefully at the official definitions of murder and manslaughter to try to relate those charges to what happened in this trial. Indeed, I have tried very hard to understand exactly why the procedure went as it did.
  I wrote to the Attorney-General, raising with him the conduct of the case. I hesitate to use the word "derisory", but the sentences were very light given the nature of the death. I asked whether there was any way in which the state would appeal against them and seek a rather more exemplary punishment for the two men concerned. He was courteous enough to send me a detailed reply, which set out not only the range of sentence appropriate in any case but the behaviour that the judge would normally be expected to follow and the conclusions that he reached. He said that the judge set out
  "the factual basis on which he passed sentence … He found that Oliver conceived a plan to punish Ryan Keen … "
  having lured him
  "to Oliver's house on the pretext of taking part in some form of dare and there to frighten him or injure him but only to some limited extent."
  Frankly, if one douses a human being almost from head to toe in paint thinner then throws lighted matches at him, I find it difficult to understand that that is regarded as something that would not do irreparable harm. When I helped to run a general practice, we had an appalling death of someone who suffered the same degree of burns. The coroners court accepted that such a degree of burning could not be an accident. Therefore, both the parents and the neighbours of this boy find that initial fact very difficult to accept.
  When I went further into the case, and even when I began to study the Attorney-General's letter closely, I found other things that I found difficult to understand. The Attorney-General said:
  "I have also considered your concern regarding the acceptance of the pleas to manslaughter. As you are aware, Card and Oliver were initially tried for murder. It was only after the court and jury had heard the whole of the prosecution's case and after Oliver had given evidence that the trial judge asked to see all counsel in his chambers."
  I have to ask: why at that point? Why were the pleas not changed initially? Why was so much of the case allowed to proceed? Is it true that there was not enough time for the whole of the case to continue? If so, why was it not adjourned? It would certainly have been difficult and expensive, but it would not have been impossible.
  Let me ask some other questions that concern me greatly. If the plea bargain took place half way through the hearing, by whom was the decision taken? Was an arrangement reached between the judiciary and those who were defending and prosecuting the case? Who investigated, and what were their conclusions? What reasons were given for the plea bargaining? Why did the Crown Prosecution Service agree to drop the case after four days of hearing evidence?
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  When one looks closely at the management of the case, one sees the difficulty that the general public has in accepting the decisions that were handed down in relation to the two men. Most people, on a commonsense basis, would have accepted that what the two men were being tried for—murder—was the charge that they should have faced. What most reasonable people would find difficult to accept—myself among them—is why the charge was reduced to manslaughter.
  I worry that the system may be moving away from a decision of a jury towards some form of Americanisation. Plea bargaining major sentences according to a number of factors—which, in this case, were not made clear in court or to the family, who were devastated by the decision—is an exceedingly dangerous habit to form.
  A jury was in court. It heard the evidence and it should have taken the decision. If there was to be a change of plea, why was it allowed at that stage in the case? If the executive are doing deals with the judiciary, we are getting into a very dangerous situation and one that will have a direct effect on what happens in our courts.
  The CPS must have believed that the evidence to charge the defendants with murder was sufficient otherwise it would not, I presume, have brought the case. So what happened four days into the hearing to change its mind?
  In some instances, that may be in the general public interest. In, for example, the Guinness case it may have been in the public interest to consolidate a number of charges and to go for only one charge, but that does not apply in this instance. I do not believe, given the rules, that there should be plea bargaining in a case of murder. A full explanation should be given and such decisions should not be taken between the judiciary and the executive in secret. In my view, the family has been the victim of a slide towards the Americanisation of the British system. If there was a problem, the case should have been adjourned. There is a proper procedure and we cannot allow this kind of thing to happen.
  I know that if the House of Commons ever gave instructions to judges about the decisions that they should take in relation to cases we would be sliding down an exceedingly dangerous slope. I do not seek to do that, but I wonder whether Ministers understand that ordinary people, knowing that they have lost a very loved child—a fit 20-year-old—in a heinous attack by two fit 30-year-olds, want a sentence that reflects the appalling fate that befell their child or a clear demonstration of why the system has failed them. They do not accept that the sentences passed on the two men were in any way commensurate with the crime. They do not accept that what happened during the trial was a true reflection of justice. They do not accept that a better fist could not have been made either of explaining openly what was happening or at least seeking to justify it. If that is their view, I have to tell the Minister that it is also mine.
  I am desperately unhappy about what happened in the case of Ryan Keen. It may indeed be too late to do anything about the sentences passed on those two young men, which may now be an accurate reflection of the final charge that they faced, but I must tell the Minister that there is a public interest in proper justice, in openness and in a belief that we have the jury system to deliver some decision. That did not happen and many, many people wonder why.
  7.49 pm
  The Solicitor-General (Sir Derek Spencer): I congratulate the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) on raising this important matter which gives me the opportunity, first, to set out in general terms the basis on which charges may from time to time be altered, and then to deal with the specific case that she raised.
  Justice is not blind. One can peer at virtually any statue of justice—in particular the one on top of the Old Bailey—and there is no blindfold around the eyes of justice. Justice has very sharp eyes and ears.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General and I were deeply concerned for the family in their sad and tragic loss. I have spent most of my life in the courts, principally in the criminal courts, and I am only too familiar with the anguish of parents in circumstances such as this. Ryan Keen had a most promising life ahead of him and it was a tragedy of the highest order that it was so dreadfully and wastefully cut short, as my right hon. and learned Friend said when he wrote to the hon. Lady on 16 November.
  As I promised, I shall first deal with the general principles which the Crown Prosecution Service adopts in its selection of charges in criminal cases. They are not just plucked out of a hat. They are not just a matter of convenience. They are not based on the concept of cost. They are based on the principle of seeing that justice is done on the particular facts revealed by the evidence in the case.
  Section 7 of the code for Crown prosecutors sets out the three principal criteria which are applied. First, the charge or charges must reflect the seriousness of the offending. Secondly, they must give the court adequate sentencing powers. Thirdly, they must enable the case to be presented in a clear and simple way. That latter factor is of special importance in cases of trial by jury, which this was.
  In an ideal world it would be possible for the custody officer, who initiates the process of prosecution when a suspect is brought to a police station, to alight on a charge which remains the charge throughout the life of the prosecution until a verdict is returned either by the magistrates, if it is a summary offence, or by a jury, if it is a case tried on indictment.
  But in the nature of things, that is not always possible. The custody officer may have only a limited account of what took place from the arresting officer who may have been unable to contact a number of important witnesses at that time. The custody officer must do his best on the facts as they are known to him to prefer an appropriate charge.
  I have had the advantage in recent months of going to police stations throughout the country to observe custody officers dealing with suspects in the lively environment of custody suites at police stations. It is an instructive experience. On two recent occasions, I witnessed one in south Wales and another in Manchester.
  The custody suite is not a place for peace and quiet or reflection. There may be tearful suspects, friends and relatives wanting their say, property to be gathered up and accounted for and other matters of a pressing nature with which the custody officer must deal. But he selects the charge at that stage on the basis of the facts as they are recounted to him. The astonishing thing is that so often
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  the custody officer's sensing of the true charge is subsequently borne out when more facts come to hand. That is the first step in the prosecution process—the preferring of the charge by the custody officer.
  The next stage is the consideration of the case by a lawyer in the CPS, usually a few weeks later when more evidence has been gathered together. It is hoped at that stage that the case will be complete or near complete. There may be much more evidence than that which the custody officer had the advantage of considering at the first stage.
  It is not surprising that at that stage, which I shall call stage two, the charge preferred by the police may need to be withdrawn, substituted or added to. But the purpose of that is to comply with the three criteria in section 7 of the code which I outlined at the beginning of my speech. That in turn is designed to ensure that justice, according to law, is done in each case as it proceeds on its way through the courts.
  Let me give a number of examples which may occur in the life of a case. It does not ossify after the lawyer in the CPS or after counsel has drafted the indictment, if he does, or if he approves the indictment drafted by a lawyer in the CPS. In the life of a case, sometimes the evidence changes dramatically.
  The defence may submit medical reports or medical reports may come to hand as the result of an initiative taken by the CPS or the barrister instructed in the case. That evidence might tend to show that a defendant is not capable of forming a specific intent which is an essential ingredient in the offence. A witness may become too ill to testify, leave the country or die.
  All those matters might put a different complexion on the case from that which originally appeared. It would be obtuse if those responsible for the prosecuting process did not take those changes in the evidential base into consideration in their framing of the charges or in their subsequent decisions on whether to accept a plea.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Will the Solicitor-General give way?
  The Solicitor-General: I shall give way to the hon. Lady in a moment, but I would like to complete this stage of what I have to say because it might assist comprehension.
  At some appropriate stage, either immediately before a defendant pleads to the indictment or at the end of the Crown case, or at any stage prior to a jury returning its verdict, the prosecution may decide to accept some plea to a charge lesser than the original one. That is not at all unusual. The decision may be based on the fact that the evidence on paper has not been borne out by the evidence given live by witnesses in the witness box, on oath. After that evidence has been tested in cross-examination and subjected to scrutiny and, possibly, witnesses have been called for the defence, it may become apparent that the view initially formed by the Crown is no longer borne out and that it would be contrary to the interests of justice to seek to maintain a case that is no longer supported by the evidence. The role of the prosecutor in such circumstances—whether that prosecutor be a Crown Prosecution Service lawyer in a magistrates court or a junior or leading counsel in the Crown court—is set out in section 9 of the code.

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  In those circumstances, the lawyer concerned should accept the defendant's pleas only if he concludes that the court will be able to pass a sentence that matches the seriousness of the offence. In no circumstances must the Crown accept a plea merely for reasons of convenience.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: I am sure that the Solicitor-General's Department has briefed him carefully, and that he has not come to the House unprepared. How many cases does he know of in which evidence was given to the court for four days and the judge then called counsel together and asked—presumably, though no clear statement was made about the matter—for a change in the pleas? If the Solicitor-General can assure me that that is not unusual but happens frequently, I think that the House of Commons should consider certain questions. I want him to tell me that what happened in this case was not unusual.
  The Solicitor-General: The hon. Lady has a powerful crystal ball. I made a note of what I would say on that subject before I came into the Chamber: I wrote that the procedure adopted by the judge in this case was not unusual. It is with no disrespect to the officials who briefed me that I tell the hon. Lady that I do not need to ask them whether the procedure was unusual; having spent more than 30 years in the courts, I know from my own experience that it happens from time to time. I have been personally involved—both as prosecuting and as defending counsel—in cases in which such a procedure has taken place.
  I hope that I can satisfy both the hon. Lady and the wider public that the procedure is not contrary to the interests of justice in the slightest; indeed, in appropriate cases it is very much in those interests. The objective is to ensure that justice is done—that a defendant is convicted of an offence of which the evidence shows him and no other to be guilty, and that that defendant is given a proper and appropriate sentence for that offence. Those are the twin purposes of accepting pleas in such circumstances.
  The case of Card and Oliver did not last for three or four days, as the hon. Lady said. In fact, it started on 5 October and continued until 14 October—the Crown case alone, that is. On Monday 17 October, the defence made a submission that the murder case should not go to a jury. On that day the judge gave counsel an indication of his view, having rejected the submission.
  On Tuesday 18 October, the judge gave a further indication. The defendants pleaded guilty to manslaughter, a plea accepted by the Crown, on Wednesday 19 October. The case lasted from 5 October until 19 October. Most of that time was occupied by the hearing of the Crown case in full and subsequently by the first defendant, Oliver, giving evidence in chief, being cross-examined by leading counsel for the Crown and then being re-examined. It was at that stage that the judge gave his final view.
  There was no question of secret justice or consideration of matters that were not ventilated to the public. All the evidence from those whom it was intended to call—with the exception of two minor witnesses—was given. I can tell the hon. Lady, if she does not already know, that although the first defendant—Oliver—gave evidence, it was not the intention of the second defendant—Card—to give evidence, so no additional light would have been
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  thrown on the case by his evidence. If memory serves me aright, the hon. Lady raised that point in one of the letters that she sent to us.
  Let me make another correction to set the case in its proper context. The sentences were not as the hon. Lady described them; they were of an entirely different order of magnitude. The principal defendant, Oliver, was sent to prison for eight years, and the defendant Card for six years. I venture to suggest that that framework is rather different from the account given by the hon. Lady, doubtless in entirely good faith.
  Let me explain in a little more detail how the case evolved. As the hon. Lady rightly said, the prosecution did not take the initiative in substituting a lesser charge or in any way seeking to compromise the case. The defendants were initially charged with murder and committed for trial on that basis; the Crown opened its case as a joint charge of murder, and conducted it in that way throughout. As I have said, at the end of the Crown case certain submissions were made.
  The hon. Lady asked how, if a jury had been sworn to give a true verdict according to the evidence, a judge could express his view of the facts—which was then accepted by the Crown—and the jury could never complete their hearing of the case.
  What took place was not unusual: I shall explain why it was entirely proper. The trial judge's function is to ensure that the quality of the evidence that is called justifies conviction. If, as in this case, the judge concludes that the nature and quality of the evidence are such that they do not justify conviction, he can convey that view to Crown counsel and defending counsel. Far from being improper, that is quite appropriate and the judge's duty as part of his supervisory power is to do just that.
  The judge heard virtually all the evidence before expressing the view that in his judgment it would be inappropriate for the Crown to press for a conviction for murder and that such a conviction would be contrary to the justice of the case as he had heard it.
  Leading counsel for the Crown was Mr. Anthony Evans QC, who is an experienced and robust counsel, and he did not rubber-stamp the judge's view. It would have been quite wrong for him to do that. He took the view into account and consulted those in the CPS who were instructing him. They concluded that in the circumstances of the case, it was right to accept pleas of manslaughter and not to continue to invite the jury to convict for murder because that would be contrary to the justice of the case.
  The hon. Lady says that the trial should have continued. However, that would surely have been quite improper. The Farquharson guidelines indicate that, at that stage, Crown counsel is in charge of the prosecuting process. He had heard all the evidence and in consultation with the CPS he was of the view, as was Mr. Justice Waterhouse, who is an extremely experienced Queen's Bench judge, that it would have been calculated to lead to a miscarriage of justice if prosecuting counsel had allowed the case to go on. Quite properly, he adopted a course which is not unusual and decided to accept the pleas of manslaughter. The jury acquitted the defendants of murder and convicted them of manslaughter. The defendants were in charge of the jury on counts of murder and that was the only process

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  by which the case could be terminated. In the circumstances that I have outlined, it was the jury's verdict.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Of course, the Solicitor-General means that the jury was directed to come to that conclusion. He has said that the man who lit the match and flicked it did not give evidence. Is he convinced that all the evidence affecting the case had been heard? I accept any criticism that the Minister cares to make about the way I presented the case. But I am not a lawyer and it would be difficult to persuade people who have read the details of the case that there was not much more evidence to be heard.
  The Solicitor-General: I fear that the hon. Lady is quite wrong about that. I have told her that there was virtually nothing more to be heard because Card did not intend to go into the witness box.
  When the judge sentenced the two defendants he set out most clearly, as prosecuting counsel had done when he accepted the pleas, the basis upon which he was sentencing them. First, he said that the two defendants had formed a plan to teach Keen a lesson for getting involved with Card's ex-girlfriend. Keen was lured to Oliver's house on the pretext of taking part in some form of joke or dare. He was there doused with turpentine and frightened or the defendants intended to injure him in a minor way by using a flame.
  With the greatest respect, the hon. Lady, who was not present in court, or anybody else who was not there, cannot second-guess the judge who heard all the evidence. Secondly, the judge concluded that Oliver was more
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  involved in planning the event and that to prevent the deceased from chickening out, he offered to sit with the deceased while Card poured turpentine on both of them. Card then set alight the deceased's clothing. What is more, he also set Oliver alight and Oliver sustained some burns.
  Thirdly, the judge found as a fact that both the offenders had much to drink and neither of them foresaw that the deceased would become a ball of flame or that his clothes were so combustible. Fourthly, and more importantly because it is crucial to the sentence which the judge subsequently passed, neither of the offenders had any intention of causing really serious injury to the deceased who was still their friend. Oliver attempted to extinguish the flames and Card's inactivity was a result of shock, not malice.
  In view of those findings by the judge, it is quite wrong to view this case as one of murder and to invite my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General to refer it to the Court of Appeal on the basis that the facts were other than the judge had found. In the circumstances which I have explained the prosecution accepted the plea to manslaughter. At the risk of becoming tedious, I repeat that it is not unusual for a trial judge who has formed such a clear view of the facts to indicate that view and it is wholly appropriate for the Crown to take notice.
  The sentences of eight years for Oliver and six years for Card were within the range of sentences for offences of manslaughter. They were not light or derisory sentences, far from it. In my view, justice was dispensed in law and in fact.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at eighteen minutes past Eight o'clock.