Commons Sitting of 1 November 1995

Preamble
The House met at Ten o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS

  Private Security Industry
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Conway.]
  10.4 am
  Sir Ivan Lawrence (Burton): I am grateful for the opportunity to raise on behalf of the Home Affairs Select Committee a matter of considerable concern in the country at present—the private security industry. I am pleased that some of my colleagues on the Committee have been able to raise themselves at this unusually early hour to take part in the debate.
  The Home Affairs Committee inquiry into the matter began a year ago, and we reported on 7 June of this year. The industry has grown so large that it is by common account larger than the entire police force in this country, and, by some accounts, twice as large. Yet there is great concern at the number of cowboys, rip-off merchants and villains involved, to say nothing of the industry's low wages and the danger to the public which is associated with some sections of the industry. There is also concern about whether the industry ought to be acting in the way it is by appearing to take powers away from the police.
  There have been calls for state regulation, which, until recently, have been resisted by the Government. The Government's position has been that problems in the private security industry can be dealt with by self-regulation within the industry, and that a licensing system would be expensive, bureaucratic and a burden on the taxpayer. The Government believed that matters concerning the quality of training and wages could be dealt with better from within the industry by the industry and its customers, and that that might be done by strengthening the existing regulations and mechanisms within the industry.
  The Committee took evidence from anyone who was interested in the matter, and we were told a number of things. First, we learned that many allegations about the quality of the industry were justified. There was a great deal of evidence about criminal behaviour, poor quality of work, poor working conditions and inadequate training, and we heard about private neighbourhood patrols which seemed to be little short of protection rackets.
  Secondly, we were told that there were a large number of self-regulating bodies which the Government had supported within the industry, many of high repute. Those included the International Professional Security Association and the British Security Industry Association, and a large number of established firms were members. Alas, not every firm had joined, and it was estimated that 80 per cent. of private security firms were not members
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  of one of the self-regulatory bodies. Not every employer required the private security firms which they employed to be members of such bodies.
  Thirdly, we heard that there were problems with ascertaining whether those who were involved in the private security industry had previous convictions. Fourthly, we were told that, whatever our feelings on the issue of non-intervention in business by the state, the state did have a duty to protect citizens from racketeers and villainy. We heard about one firm where 11 out of its 26 workers had between them 74 convictions, with one of the workers having 48 convictions.
  As a recorder, I tried a case not long ago in which a security guard opened premises at night to the other members of his gang. When that security guard was eventually caught, it was found that he had been appointed notwithstanding the fact that he had a substantial number of previous convictions for burglary and other forms of dishonesty. We were told that the state had a part to play in establishing minimum standards of employment, and that it certainly has a part to play where police work is involved. In particular, since there was nothing to stop villains and exploiters from setting up in business, the public had a right to expect the state to play some part in controlling the industry.
  Fifthly, we heard that the problems were in the manned guarding sector of the private security industry, where the service is bought on a cost basis rather than necessarily according to quality, and where competition is fierce. Those factors have meant that wages in that sector are low, sometimes as low as £1 an hour.
  We heard that a third of those in the industry were earning between £2.30 and £2.60 an hour, and that therefore the quality of the recruits was low. That has also meant that there is a high turnover, low training levels and excessive overtime; and that, from time to time, the difference in pay is made up by unemployment benefit. Such are the conditions in the manned guarding sector.
  Sixthly, we heard few complaints about the technology and alarm side of the industry.
  Mr. Chris Mullin rose—
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: I give way to my colleague on the Home Affairs Select Committee.
  Mr. Mullin: In the light of what the hon. and learned Gentleman said about appalling wage rates, does he agree that the introduction of a national minimum wage might be of benefit? Does he recall that one or two witnesses from the industry whom we interviewed said that a national minimum wage would not cause them any problems, and that it would prevent them from being undercut by the sort of cowboy outfits that the hon. and learned Gentleman has just described?
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: The hon. Gentleman knows my views about a national minimum wage. I believe that its introduction would harm employment prospects and would cost jobs in our communities. It is one thing to say that there are problems because of the exploitation of the work force in the private security industry, but quite another to take a large leap and argue that the Government must introduce a minimum wage. There is a space in between, in which some improvements to the running of the private security industry will secure much more acceptable wages for its employees. The Government

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  share my belief that it is not for the state to force the level of wages to the point at which large-scale unemployment occurs.
  Mr. Mullin rose—
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: I would like to make some progress. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will catch your eye, Madam Speaker, and be able to develop his argument.
  Mr. Mullin: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way just in case I do not get called?
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: I am sure that, if the hon. Gentleman is diligent and stays in the Chamber long enough to take part in the debate, he will almost certainly be successful.
  Seventhly, the Select Committee was told that, although the level of offending in the private security industry was no higher than it was among the general public, public confidence required the industry to be whiter than white. Eighthly, we heard that the industry was in favour of compulsory state regulation. Furthermore, to our astonishment, we heard that the industry was prepared to pay for it itself so that it should not be a burden upon the taxpayer. That was a significant comment, and I know that the cockles of the Minister of State's were warmed when he read that evidence.
  Ninthly, the Committee heard that there was a difference of view about how the vetting of employees should be done to discover their character and whether they had any previous convictions. By whom and to what extent should such vetting be conducted? What should be done about the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974? At the end of the day, companies do not have to check employees if they do not want to do so. They cannot ensure that no lies are told, and they cannot check identities if false identities are offered. Nothing much can be done to stop bent firms, especially if the employers are bent.
  Finally, the Committee heard that, if a regulatory system was decided upon, the necessary legislation could be introduced neither quickly nor simply. Provision must be made for laying down standards; the creation of criminal offences and the introduction of an appeals mechanism. There would have to be a method to distinguish between the size of companies to which certain rules would apply.
  Any legislation would have to include details governing conditions of work, including hours of work and pay; gender and equality and the introduction of permits by agencies. The powers of the police would also have to be specified, as would the powers of the Home Secretary. Such legislation would have to be so far-reaching that a truly terrifying list of necessary activities would have to be performed before it could reach the statute book.
  In short, the remedies suggested for the ills of the industry were of two kinds. First, tighter controls should be imposed on individuals working within it. That could be achieved by allowing access to criminal records or by licensing approved guards, or both. Secondly, only licensed companies should operate within the industry.
  It was clear that, if any of the traditional police roles were being transferred to private security companies, adequate safeguards would have to be provided for the
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  protection of the public. It was also clear that there needed to be firm action to tackle the growing problem of totally unregulated private local patrols, which prey on the fears of the vulnerable.
  The vetting procedures should also be tightened so that the wrong people do not become guards. At present, the private security industry is not in the list of categories in which anyone can have access to criminal records.
  What did the Committee recommend? First, we recommended that greater access should be given to national criminal records as part of the vetting procedures of private security industry companies; that vetting should not be done through the companies directly, but through a self-financing agency, which should be empowered to insist on proof of identity of the person to be vetted; that vetting should be limited to recordable convictions and cautions held on the Phoenix database that recently came on stream.
  Secondly, we recommended that the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 should not apply to the provision of private security services. Thirdly, we recommended that there should not be a blanket ban on anyone with a criminal conviction, irrespective of how long ago the act was committed or how irrelevant that conviction was. We concluded that a substantial reduction in the incidence of unsuitable people operating in the industry could only really be achieved by a licensing system.
  We recommended that, first, everyone working in manned guarding system only should have to be licensed to do so. That is where the worst examples of danger to the public occur. Secondly, we noted that the same problems did not tend to arise where companies employed in-house guarding as opposed to contract guarding. Thirdly, we recommended that the vetting agency should also issue the licences.
  Fourthly, we recommended that it should be a criminal offence for guards to operate without a licence and for companies to employ an unlicensed guard. We also said that, although a case had not been made for statutory regulation of the systems installations and alarm sector, if the industry did not improve its rules and regulations, or were standards to deteriorate in that sector, such regulations should be considered. The rationale for withdrawing from regulating that sector was the old-fashioned one: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
  We agreed with the overwhelming majority of the evidence that we received, that the advantages of regulation of the manned guarding sector to ensure quality of service and protection of the public, industries, customers and the work force outweighed the loss of commercial freedom. We recommended that a statutory regulatory system should be set up under that sector. That would entail legislation making it a criminal offence for an unregulated company to offer contract guarding services.
  It would entail the creation of a new agency, which would have to be accountable to Parliament through the Home Secretary. It is obvious that it should have strong links with the police, industry and commerce. However, it must be independent of the security industry itself. There would need to be time to work out the details, which we did not attempt to go into, and a transitional period to phase in the changes.
  Finally, we recommended that the licensing system should be sufficiently adaptable to allow its extension to cover other parts of the industry, such as door supervisors,

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  who we had always thought were called bouncers. Meanwhile, that sector should be the subject of close attention from local government and, in particular, the use of best practice in existing local registration schemes, some of which we examined briefly and seemed to be good and successful, should be encouraged.
  That was what we reported in June, and normally, we could have expected the Government to reply in about two months. Four months later, they have not yet replied, and I am not over-optimistic that we will have a response today.
  In fact, we have received a holding reply from my right hon. Friend the Minister. In a letter dated 25 July to the Clerk to the Committee, Mr. Crispin Poyser, we were told that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary regretted that
  "he is not yet able to offer a full response … He is considering with colleagues the wide-ranging implications of the Committee's recommendations and will reply in detail as soon as possible."
  However, my right hon. and learned Friend made a number of provisional observations. He agreed that the growth of the industry had given rise to concerns; that there was no question of transferring core police tasks to the private security industry; and that the Government shared the Committee's concern about reports of poor standards in the manned guarding sector. It was also clear that the vetting arrangements required further consideration.
  The letter added that the Government agreed with the Committee that self-regulation had worked well in the systems installations sector, and they would continue to observe the situation. The Government gave the issue of guidance on door supervisors a high priority and would look at the impact of the advice that we recommended. The central recommendations for access to criminal records for all parts of the industry, with an exemption from the provisions of Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and statutory regulation of companies and licensing of individuals in the manned guarding sector, were now being addressed urgently, and a formal response would be sent as soon as possible.
  We know that the Government's attitude to the matter has changed, because my right hon. Friend the Minister of State told the British security industry's annual luncheon recently, as he told the Committee, that a week was a long time in politics. We are greatly heartened by that.
  Mr. Walter Sweeney: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that, if the Government find the issue too complex to respond to in full at this stage, it would be a useful halfway house at least to grant that details of criminal records should be available to those seeking to employ people in the security industry, and that, in respect of such records, the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 should not apply?
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: Naturally, the workings of the Committee are so close and integrated that my hon. Friend has read my mind and anticipated the next and final part of my speech.
  We all appreciate that the length of the Government's consideration is due to the complications involved and the fact that we did not produce—nor could we be expected to produce—a detailed framework for legislation, which, of course, would have to be thoroughly worked out and tested. There would also have to be full and thorough
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  consultation with the industry. Therefore, we accept that it is unlikely there will any comprehensive legislation on the subject for some time yet.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Sweeney) pointed out, that does not mean that it is impossible to take action on parts of the programme. The most serious aspect of the matter is where crooks masquerade as bona fide security guards. That could be stopped by legislating to allow previous convictions to be looked into by the police, and by extending the operation of exemptions from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 to cover the employment of security guards.
  I therefore invite my right hon. Friend the Minister to make those changes as soon as possible, or at any rate to encourage hon. Members to choose such legislation if they should be successful in the ballot for private Members' Bills in the new session of Parliament, and to commit the Government to the support of such legislation.
  If the Government act on a problem that is both worrying and growing, and which is causing considerable distress to sections of the community, they will not only earn the thanks of a nation that has a right to feel trust in those who are guarding and protecting it and its property, but will gain the thanks and admiration of the private security industry itself, which I know my right hon. Friend the Minister once, in an earlier incarnation, graced.
  10.25 am
  Mr. Jim Cunningham: We all know that security and the fear of crime are at the top of the public's agenda, if not that of the Government. Home Office statistics alleging the reduction of the rate of criminal activity mean nothing to millions of people who are afraid to walk out of their own doors. In that atmosphere of fear and alarm, the potential for growth in the private security industry is huge, and the issue of regulation and licensing must be addressed constructively before it spins out of our effective control. As it is, the industry employs over 160,000 people—more than the police service.
  There are three main points that I want to make. First, regulation must be implemented to safeguard the public. Secondly, those working in the industry must have certain standards of employment so that they are not exploited. Finally, the issue of accountability needs to be addressed.
  The Select Committee on Home Affairs found overwhelming evidence that the industry contains a large amount of criminality. It is obscene that convicted burglars are allowed to protect homes from others who are pursuing their former occupation. Regulation is needed to ensure that those purporting to protect are themselves trustworthy and fit to give that protection. Nothing less than the safety of individuals, many of them extremely vulnerable, is at stake.
  However, it is not to enough to call for mere regulation. Self-regulation has palpably not worked. Protection rackets have sprung up, where cowboy outfits charge £1 a week or more—that has happened in my constituency—to protect a home. Responsible firms have taken steps to ensure decent standards. Many have developed membership of trade associations, training programmes and vetting procedures, but many have not, and will not unless they are required to by law.
  People who can afford high-quality security will get it, while the poor suffer at the hands of the unregulated and unscrupulous. The Home Secretary has been predictably

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  dismissive of the need for tighter control. He is relentless in his pursuit of a free market dogma that will place people at risk. Home Office Ministers have even sought to apply the principle "let the buyer beware" to the industry. That beggars belief.
  I stress the need for regulation, because without it we cannot be certain that those in the private security industry are responsible enough to wield the considerable power they hold. I am not calling for restrictive measures that would cause mountains of paperwork and bedevil effective operation. However, the freedom to operate should not be mistaken for a licence to prey on the fears of the public.
  The unregulated marketplace, which self-regulation unfortunately too often resembles, is an arena for the unscrupulous to drive out the responsible. As so often in commercial life, the good are tarred with the same brush as the bad. A licensing system must be introduced in conjunction with proper training. Companies and individuals must be subject to that procedure.
  I agree that the worst cases in the industry involve the manned guarding sector. Therefore, I accept that, for the time being, that sector alone should comply with any new laws; but there should be room in the legislation for those laws to be expanded to other sections should it become necessary.
  In addressing the issue of regulation, we must not be concerned solely with those whom the industry serves. Regulation will also protect employees, as standards of safety and pay are appalling in many companies. Many guards must work a disgraceful number of hours simply in order to take home a living wage. While at work, they are often vulnerable to attack and receive no support from their employers.
  Many guards are given no training in how to deal with the difficult situations they may face. I have heard reports of security guards who were attacked on site, taken to hospital and then sacked the next day because they could not turn up for work. That is what occurs under the free market of labour: lives are not valued, because irresponsible companies know that their employees can do little to protect themselves.
  Regulation would be the first step in halting exploitation of the guards. It would provide training and put in place standards of safety and good practice that would insure guards against putting their lives at risk while their employers go unchecked.
  10.30 am
  Mr. John Hutton: I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) on his good fortune in securing a debate on the private security industry. In doing so, he has performed a service both to the House and to the Home Affairs Select Committee.
  I do not intend to repeat the arguments that have been presented to the House already in favour of regulation of the private security industry. Anyone who heard the evidence submitted to the Select Committee and who read the Select Committee's report could only reach the same conclusion as the Committee. The arguments in favour of regulation are compelling. Without rehearsing those arguments, I shall summarise them under four headings.
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  First, voluntary self-regulation has clearly failed to establish sufficiently high standards in the industry. That is because more than two thirds—almost three quarters—of the companies involved in the industry are not party to any self-regulatory mechanisms. The practices pursued by the best companies in the industry are constantly undermined by the cowboys.
  Secondly, we have seen clear and disturbing evidence of criminality in the industry. The hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the case of a company that employed 26 people, 11 of whom had previous convictions. An even more astonishing example of criminality was revealed in the evidence submitted to the Select Committee by the Association of Chief Police Officers.
  It drew the Select Committee's attention to the case of one employee in the private security industry who had applied for a shotgun certificate. His employer endorsed his application for a shotgun certificate, stating:
  "I have known X for one year … he has worked for X (Private Security Company) this length of time. X has a sociable nature and a good, even temperament.
  I recommend him as honest and a very reliable person, who can be trusted".
  When the police inquired into that employee's application for a shotgun certificate, they found that he had 15 previous convictions for dishonesty and violence. One of those convictions was for a burglary that had involved the use of explosives. Even more disturbing was the fact that the employee had a conviction for the manslaughter of his wife, who had died when he attempted to perform an illegal abortion.
  It is not sufficient for the Government to say—as they have in their evidence to the Select Committee—that the evidence of criminality among members of the private security industry is the same as among the general public as a whole. I do not believe that that is the correct argument. The point is that the evidence of criminality among members of the private security industry is significantly higher than criminality among members of the police force. That is the comparison that the Home Office should have made.
  Thirdly, the Select Committee found unacceptably low employment conditions, appallingly low pay, a weak training record on the part of most of the companies involved in the industry, and abysmal career prospects for employees. Many employees in the industry must work very long hours under unsocial conditions simply in order to make ends meet.
  A job advertisement appeared today in the job centre in Barrow in my constituency. It offers £2.40 an hour, with no enhanced rates for overtime, for between 30 and 60 hours work a week. It is not possible to attract the kind of people that we want in the industry if they are employed under those terms and conditions. The Select Committee believes that a proper system of statutory regulation could make a significant contribution in that regard.
  Finally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Cunningham) said, we must reassure the public about who is performing those increasingly important services in our community.
  We must proceed carefully to a system of statutory regulation. I am sure that there will be full consultation among the police, the industry and others involved. We

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  must be mindful of the costs involved and the impact on the industry of any regulatory system. We must also be aware of the damage that will be done to the industry if we do nothing at all. Therefore, I believe that we should make the decision in principle to move quickly towards a system of statutory regulation as recommended by the Select Committee. That would end the current uncertainty, and allow progress to be made in agreeing the important details of the new regulatory framework.
  Sadly, there seems to be little immediate prospect of any progress in the field. Many people will conclude that the delay in the Government's response—which the hon. and learned Gentleman, the Chairman of the Select Committee, identified—may have something to do with the confusion that lies at the heart of the Government's industrial policy. It can be described succinctly as a policy of deregulation. The Government's problem is: how can they pursue a policy of deregulation in industry as a whole and embrace statutory regulation for the private security industry without looking foolish?
  I am not particularly concerned about whether the Government look foolish; they manage to do that without any help from this side of the House. The problem is entirely of the Government's own making. We need a little less ideology in this area and a bit more common sense in order to make the progress that we all want to see.
  10.36 am
  Mr. Piers Merchant: I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) on the work that he and the Home Affairs Select Committee have done in this area. He does the House a favour by debating the subject this morning. There is clearly a good deal of concern in the community about the private security industry, and the Select Committee has provided evidence of the industry's shortcomings.
  I am concerned to ensure that, in a society that is prone to hyperbole, we do not damn an entire industry because of the malfunctioning of part of it. We should be aware of the fact that the majority of the industry is honourable, honest and efficient. It is a large industry, that has grown considerably recently. It has high standards generally, and it would be a great shame if the whole industry were condemned because of the malpractice of a few. Nevertheless, we must address the existing problems, and I shall confine my remarks to three areas.
  The first is access to criminal records. It is very important that the industry should have the right to access criminal records. The effectiveness of the industry is reliant upon its ability to employ honest people who can be trusted under pressure. Therefore, people with records of assault or dishonesty should clearly not be employed in the industry. If industry personnel are to be trusted, employers must have the right to check the backgrounds of job applicants. It will be possible for employers to carry out checks via the Phoenix system when it is operating properly.
  It is important that such checks should be confined to convictions, rather than any other information that may be held by the police. Convictions are on the public record, in any case. It has always mystified me why so much fuss is made about criminal records. After all, the courts operate entirely in the public domain, and public records and press reports of convictions are retained. It is not too
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  difficult for an enterprising individual to search through press records—particularly with the advent of computerisation—and unearth any previous convictions.
  I therefore believe that there is unnecessary concern and caution in that respect, and I would welcome the opening up of those records to employers. The Select Committee recommends that. Even Liberty has said that it should be possible, so I strongly back that proposition.
  After all, if I may draw a comparison, any statement made by an hon. Member of the House that is recorded in the Official Report, be it 30 or 40 years ago—certainly in the past 10 or 15 years—is readily accessible. That is something that has been said in the public domain. A similar rule should apply to any action that has taken place that is recorded in the public processes.
  However, there should be a balancing right for an individual to be able to correct any error of recording, and to explain any detail that may be general or vague. A simple record of a specific conviction does not tell the whole story. A conviction for assault may result from a serious, unprovoked assault which may be part of some other criminal activity, such as a robbery; but the assault may be an example of youthful exhuberance.
  Perhaps a student, who had taken part in a demonstration, had been carried away in the heat of the moment and had been involved in an assault on the police when resisting a police instruction. That person would never do such a thing later in life, but they might be subject to condemnation along the same lines as for a serious criminal assault in the pursuit of some other crime if they did not have the opportunity to correct or explain the record as it was kept. It is important to have that balance right.
  Secondly, I support the Select Committee's conclusion that it should be right for the private security industry to be exempted from the requirements of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. I have always been dubious about that Act. It creates a legal fiction about which I feel uneasy. Although I would not want in any way to deter the right of a person to rehabilitate themselves after a crime after sufficient years have passed, when their conduct in society had re-established itself, nevertheless the idea that there should be a legal fiction that the crime never took place worries me in principle.
  There are exemptions from that concept. They have multiplied over the years, for good public reasons. They should be extended to the private security industry. The Select Committee is entirely right.
  Thirdly, I am uneasy with the idea of statutory regulation in any industry, unless it is proved to be absolutely necessary. Although there is a good deal of convincing evidence that it may be necessary in the private security industry, I remain cautious. I would prefer a proper system of industry self-regulation; there is evidence that that can work well in certain industries.
  I appreciate that self-regulation has been tried in the private security industry, and that considerable difficulties have arisen, that it has not turned out to be effective so far as a concept, and that the main trade organisations in the industry have now said that statutory regulation is necessary. I regret that.
  In the advertising industry, in which I worked for a while, there is a good and efficient system of self-regulation. I was involved in some of the early work

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  that resulted in the setting up of self-regulation in the direct mail industry. There are established examples of self-regulation operating. However, I accept that that is a different industry, and that the rights of the public regarding advertising, although important, do not bear comparison with the much greater protection that is needed in the security industry.
  I am three quarters of the way along the line to accepting statutory regulation, but I continue to have doubts. I hope that time will be given, before statutory regulation is introduced, for the industry to have one more chance—perhaps a short time—to try out the development of proper self-regulation, perhaps under the threat of statutory action otherwise.
  Mr. Mullin: The industry is begging to be regulated.
  Mr. Merchant: I am well aware of that—indeed, I said that a few moments ago—but that does not alter my principled objection to statutory regulation as a concept unless it can be proved to be absolutely necessary. I am not convinced that that is the case. However, as the hon. Gentleman heard me say, I am a long way along that route, and, if a final opportunity for self-regulation can be shown not to work, I would reluctantly accept the need for statutory action.
  Last year, I supported in some detail the Activity Centres (Young Persons' Safety) Act 1995, which introduced regulation in those centres. I hope that that shows the hon. Gentleman that I do not take a hard line that would oppose statutory regulation in every case; far from it. Nevertheless, it must be shown to be absolutely necessary in each example.
  The problem with statutory regulation is that, once introduced, it starts a creeping process. I read an article in The Guardian dated 8 June on that subject, which specifically said, referring to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary:
  "Let him start on the narrow front, leaving the regulations open so that wider areas could be included later."
  That is always the process with statutory regulation. One starts on a narrow field, and there is constant pressure to widen it, until one is regulating everywhere.
  I do not want a society that has unnecessary regulation or regulations extended into every aspect of life. If we must have statutory regulation, I would put in a plea for limited regulation—perhaps only the licensing of individuals, rather than the licensing of individuals and the regulation of companies.
  I leave the House with the following thought. If there is to be licensing or regulation in the manned guarding sector of the industry, applying to contract guarding, I fail to see the logic of confining it to that sector and not extending it to non-contract guarding. If it does not apply in both sectors, I envisage a strange anomaly developing.
  All those strict regulatory requirements will affect companies offering the service, but an individual company that wishes to recruit its own individual guard—not a contract company, but a person—will be able to do so without being subject to licensing requirements. That would be a route for contradiction and abuse.
  I hope that, if we must go down that route, it will be done more comprehensively, so that regulation covers the whole logical area of one sector of the industry.
  10.47 am
  Mr. A. J. Beith: The Liberal Democrats believe that regulation of the private security industry is essential and has been shown to be, and that that opinion is shared by all the most responsible people in the industry.
  That issue has been before us for some time. In 1990, the Defence Select Committee took evidence on the way in which private security companies were being used for defence installations, and expressed great unease about the way in which the pressure to keep the contract price down was leading to unsatisfactory regulation, in some cases by inappropriate organisations.
  The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) has introduced private Member's legislation with support from all parties, including the Liberal Democrats, to try to do something in that industry. In September 1994, the Liberal Democrat conference passed a resolution calling for regulation of the private security industry.
  We have before us the report of the Home Affairs Select Committee of May 1995—the Committee of which the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), who introduced the debate, is Chairman. It is an excellent report, which details the matter extremely well, brings together a great deal of evidence and makes an extremely cogent case.
  The report draws attention to the growth in the size of the private security industry, and especially the expansion in the role of the private security industry into areas that were previously the domain of the police, which, it said,
  "give rise to reasonable and increasing concerns about the industry's relationship with the public and about standards within the industry."
  Part of the background to that is concern that the private security industry should not be taking over police duties and responsibilities.
  We feel strongly that the job of policing and maintaining law and order is a job for accountable, disciplined and trained police officers. There have been too many instances lately in which communities and organisations have felt compelled to use private security, not for its proper role, which is extensive, but to provide services that they believe the police cannot supply because of a shortage of resources. The police service itself is anxious about that.
  The private security industry is expanding into prisons: first, it undertook prison escort duties, and it is now involved in the running of private prisons. We are unhappy about that, because we believe that the deprivation of the liberty of an individual, where required by the state in pursuit of the law, is a job for the state, not one that should be handed to private agencies.
  Despite all that, there is still a massive role for the private security industry. There are many responsible firms and people in that industry, and their leaders want a regulatory system. It is too easy for criminals to be employed in the industry, and it is too easy for criminals to set up their own businesses.
  There is absolutely nothing to stop someone walking out of Wormwood Scrubs, hiring a van—or, as someone said when I mentioned this before, stealing a van—acquiring a dog and setting up as a private security firm. That is not good enough, and it is of course a constant threat to the reputation and credibility of the responsible firms in the industry. They feel that especially strongly.

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  The door is wide open to criminal infiltration of the industry. Evidence given to the Home Affairs Select Committee contained many instances, some quoted in the body of the report, of how damaging that can be. The Association of Chief Police Officers produced a report for which the chief constable of Northumbria was responsible. It cited many instances of such criminal infiltration.
  In addition, the industry has worryingly low rates of pay. Associated with that must be the risk that people who fail to meet the necessary requirements will be hired. A constant complaint, echoed in the report, is that there is far too little training. Too many people working in the industry have no training at all. The public are being deluded into thinking that someone in a smart uniform is trained, disciplined and accountable in the way that a police officer is.
  The similarity of uniform perhaps leads the public to believe that, even if such a person is not the same as a police officer, he is similar. That may be so when the person involved is a highly trained security officer from a reputable firm, working on a specialist task. However, it is not the case with many people working in the industry. A uniform is not necessarily a sign of good quality training or careful recruitment and screening.
  The industry has tried to operate a system of self-regulation, but it has been proved repeatedly that self-regulation does not extend far enough and give reputable firms the protection that they require.
  During the last Home Office Question Time, I suggested to the Minister of State that it was not acceptable for the Home Office and its agencies to employ private security firms that did not belong to one of the industry's organisations. I was surprised by his reply. He said:
  "It would be contrary to European regulations to exclude companies … on the basis that they do not belong to a trade organisation."—[Official Report, 19 October 1995; Vol. 264, c. 472.]
  Of course, it so happens that, in this industry, the self-regulating bodies are part of trade organisations. The Government say that, because of European regulations, they and, presumably, other public agencies, cannot insist that the security firms that they employ are part of a self-regulatory system.
  If that is so—I hope that the Minister has reconsidered the matter since then—how much stronger is the case for statutory regulation. If insistence on self-regulation is precluded in the public sector, statutory regulation is all the more important.
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean): Did the right hon. Gentleman pick up the point that I attempted to make briefly at Question Time, that there is nothing to stop the Government or any other organisation setting their own quality threshold and standards for the employees whom they would take on from a private security company? One cannot use membership of a trade organisation as the sifting mechanism.
  Mr. Beith: The Minister said that, as with any contract, Departments can set their own quality standards. He has amplified it a little by saying that they could specify the employees. I take it that he means that the Government could insist that employees did not have any previous relevant criminal convictions, but the fact remains that it undermines the concept of a self-regulatory system to say
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  that one cannot take any, notice of whether a company is or is not a member of a self-regulatory body simply because that body is a trade organisation.
  That being the case, has the Home Office ever advised the industry to set up a self-regulatory mechanism separate from its trade organisation? I am not aware that it has ever encouraged the industry to find a way around that difficulty to ensure that that can be one of the usual standards and qualifications. We seem to be undermining the whole notion of self-regulation. If the Government cannot make use of it, what use is it? Clearly, we need a better system. It is also clear from the Home Affairs Select Committee report that too few companies chose to take part in a self-regulatory system for it to be effective.
  Closed circuit television is another problem. Much of the monitoring of closed circuit television is carried out by private security companies, some of which scarcely qualify to be called that. Closed circuit television is a valuable tool in fighting crime. Although the Home Secretary has occasionally sought to suggest that the Liberal Democrats are not in favour of it, he regularly opens such schemes in Liberal Democrat-controlled authorities which have set them up with the help of the Home Office.
  I hope that the Home Office will eventually cough up the money to install a closed circuit system in my constituency. We have been pressing for it for some time. We thought that the latest list was supposed to help the smaller communities, but it seems that too many of the larger places are at the front of the queue.
  There is no control over what happens to the video tapes produced by closed circuit television. There is evidence that such material is being obtained for the production of violent commercial videos. It is also possible to obtain it for blackmail and other purposes not related to its proper use. An unregulated activity is being carried out by unregulated companies.
  I would expect any system of regulation of security companies to cover their conduct in this sphere. The problem has to be dealt with one way or another. Otherwise, sooner or later, someone will start switching off closed circuit television systems because they are being abused, and the public's co-operation will be undermined.
  The product of closed circuit television is used to fight crime, but if it is going to finish up as a violent product on video shop shelves and seen by children, the whole exercise will be fatally damaged. We cannot allow that to happen.
  Another problem is that of bouncers. I believe that they are sometimes called door attendants, but they are bouncers in the Bigg Market in Newcastle. I do not know whether the hon. and learned Member for Burton visited the many night clubs in Newcastle to examine not only the bouncers but what went on inside—
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: I did not.
  Mr. Beith: The hon. and learned Gentleman tells me that he did not, but he established that there is a registration scheme, which is an example of good practice and should be encouraged.
  Mr. Mullin: What about the Serjeant at Arms?
  Mr. Beith: I do not think that the Serjeant at Arms will be required to register. The presence in the world of

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  bouncers of many people with criminal convictions and associations with violent crime was a serious problem on Tyneside. The registration scheme has been a help.
  I believe that relevant legislation should be included in the Queen's Speech. The Government should not have delayed as long as they have. It is wholly unsatisfactory that we should have to wait longer even for a Government response to the Home Affairs Select Committee report. We ought to be getting on with it. I know that there are issues still to be resolved, but there needs to be an agency to carry out any regulation. There also needs to be access to criminal records, exemption under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, and action to monitor closed circuit television.
  The Government must stop dragging their feet. The private security industry needs legislation in order to be able to carry out its important job properly, and the public need the assurance that when they see a uniformed security guard, they are seeing someone who has been subjected to a proper system of registration and control.
  10.58 am
  Mr. Walter Sweeney: The hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton) rightly stressed that Conservatives tend to be in favour of deregulation. We should certainly look carefully at how we can avoid regulating unnecessarily, and at how we can keep regulations to a minimum. But the evidence we received from some parts of the security industry was overwhelmingly in favour of some form of regulation.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant) said that he was 75 per cent. convinced by the arguments for some sort of regulation. I would say that it is no good giving the security industry one more chance for self-regulation when we know that we are not worried about the 20 per cent. of the industry which is responsible and which does regulate its own activities; we are concerned about the other 80 per cent., which does not regulate itself.
  The Select Committee bore in mind the need to restrict regulation to the areas where there are seen to be obvious problems. Although, for instance, there are problems in respect of the installation of alarms in people's homes and businesses, there is no clear evidence that the situation requires regulation. Current consumer legislation and breach-of-contract law would appear to be the appropriate remedies for people who are dissatisfied with their installations.
  The problem of corrupt or bent installers using the opportunity of visiting people's homes or businesses to case the joint and then tip off underworld colleagues can be met by regulating those who can be employed, and introducing a form of licensing based on access to criminal records.
  The Select Committee was also concerned about the possible growth of protection rackets. That is a worry in many countries, but here, too, I believe that the answer lies in licensing, both for organisations and individuals.
  We also briefly considered the question of bouncers. There is a need, I believe, for the licensing of people and organisations in this area. It is possible for self-regulation to be highly effective.
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  In September this year, I visited the Sin Bin, a nightclub in Medicine Hat, Canada. It is a place frequented by British troops stationed at BATUS, the British Army training unit in Alberta. Instead of employing large, thuggish bouncers of the type one often sees in this country, the club employs small, weedy bouncers with a very professional attitude. They are equipped with hidden radios, so that, if one of them is trying to get rid of someone, he is soon surrounded by a group of other bouncers. Numbers, not weight and size, soon persuade troublemakers to leave promptly.
  In the end, this debate comes down to the balance between preserving the freedoms of the individual and the costs and inconvenience of regulation. The Government need to negotiate with the industry over the right amount of regulation. Clearly, there are relatively inexpensive ways in which regulations can be introduced. Although no definite figures were produced, the Committee came to the conclusion that a criminal record check might cost £20. That seems little enough to spend on such an important aspect of security in our daily lives.
  The members of the industry who gave evidence made it clear that they would be happy to bear the costs of this regulation, so they will not be an additional burden on the taxpayer. The industry would welcome and pay for the sort of regulation that the Select Committee has advocated.
  As I say, I believe that the Government should negotiate with the security industry, if they have not already done so, with a view to drafting legislation. If it proves impracticable to deal with the whole problem in the coming Session, I would urge the halfway house recommended by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), who so ably introduced this morning's debate.
  11.4 am
  Mr. Alun Michael: I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) on initiating this debate. The Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee and his colleagues are understandably angry that we are debating the private security industry in private Members' time, instead of debating a Government response to his Committee's report in Government time. The need for action has been clearly spelt out by my hon. Friends the Members for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Cunningham) and for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton) and by the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Sweeney).
  The need for regulation became clear long before the Select Committee published its report, but there has been no sign yet that Ministers intend to take firm, positive action. The fudge of giving only employers access to the criminal records of employees—an idea that has been suggested—does not go far enough. It simply would not sort out the rogue employers—and rogue employers as well as rogue employees are certainly a problem, as illustrated in the Committee's report.
  Proper protection of the public requires the Government to introduce statutory regulation of the private security industry, and it is time for Ministers to stop dithering and prevaricating. The Labour party's view is shared by the police, the public, the industry itself—and even, I am glad to note, by the Select Committee. The Home Secretary has not yet leaked the slightest whiff of an intention to

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  grasp the nettle, which suggests that he intends to allow things to fester for another full Parliament. That is just not acceptable.
  I challenge the Minister this morning to give us straight answers to 10 straight questions. First, will he promise to introduce a statutory system of regulation for the private security industry—yes or no? Secondly, will legislation be announced in the Queen's Speech and introduced in the coming Session of Parliament? Thirdly, will the Minister specifically include manned guarding, patrol duties and door supervision in the legislation? Fourthly, will he agree that the regulation of those who undertake such tasks must include proper vetting procedures, through a publicly accountable system, together with high standards of training and supervision in the industry?
  Fifthly, does the Minister accept, in the interests of the companies in the sector which are well run and highly professional, that there should be strict regulation of all companies that undertake such activities? Sixthly, will he accept that these functions can be exercised, as the Chairman of the Select Committee said, by a self-financing agency, accountable to Parliament, through the Home Secretary, for both policy and operational decisions?
  Seventhly, will the Minister accept that, while these areas of activity require urgent regulation, many companies offer a wide range of related services, and that the agency should be capable of dealing with all such issues—as suggested also by the Select Committee's report? That might involve training, certification and registration requirements for those undertaking installation work, via systems already in place in the industry. In short, will the agency have the powers and flexibility to cope with a changing market?
  Eighthly, will the Minister make it a criminal offence for an unregulated company to offer services in the three fields of activity that I have mentioned? Ninthly, does he agree that there must be effective penalties for those who fail to follow proper procedures with regard to vetting and training? Tenthly, will he accept the necessity for the police to have the power to intervene in the interests of the public when they need to do so?
  Those 10 questions, clearly answered by the Minister, would help a great deal to ensure progress on a matter that has exercised the public a great deal in recent times. By answering positively, the Minister would introduce a system that would be practical and not excessively onerous, bureaucratic or costly.
  The fact is, I fear, that we are bedeviled by the Conservatives' obsession with ending regulation wherever it exists and avoiding it even where it is needed—except in the public services. I am the first to applaud the ending of red tape and the cutting of needless regulation, but an unregulated marketplace is a place where bad drives out good and worse drives out bad.
  The hon. Members for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant) and for Vale of Glamorgan have clearly moved some way on the important issues that we are debating, but at the same time they illustrate the reluctance of Conservative Members generally to grasp the nettle. With the Conservative lurch to the right, the playing field is tilted steeply against responsible and professional companies. Lack of regulation is not freedom, but licence in the worst sense of the word. Voluntary regulation clearly does not work. The Home Office does not insist that firms and their employees are registered under the present system.
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  Last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) introduced a private Member's Bill that focused on the private security industry. He said that, if someone wanted to be a tattooist, he would have to be approved by the local authority, but that an individual could set up a security firm and install alarms, or become a private eye, without any qualifications or experience, even after having been released from gaol in the recent past. Those who set up such firms do not have to have local authority approval. Self-regulation is not effective—indeed, it can be avoided. My hon. Friend was right to draw attention to those shortcomings.
  Companies are operating in sensitive areas of public life with a complete lack of accountability. Penetration by criminals is of serious concern, even if it involves only a minority. Wages can be low. The most recent trade union survey of security officers' wages that I have seen revealed average earnings of £2.23 an hour. Many employees are obliged to work 70 or more hours a week if they are to take home a living wage. These matters require the active involvement of government. Ministerial hand-wringing is not enough.
  It is about a year since we last debated these matters. I said during that debate that, sadly, we had reached the position where it was difficult to find opponents of statutory regulation, apart from Home Office Ministers and criminals who might be deprived of their work within security organisations. It is clear that Back-Bench Conservative Members have moved on regulation, and it is time for Ministers to move, too.
  Many people in different parts of the country have been approached by individuals who tell them that they operate a security system and look after homes in the area for a weekly payment. They may hint that homes might not be so secure if money is not paid. They may not always intend to break the law, but such hints are often interpreted by residents as a form of threat.
  Such an approach is sometimes close to operating a protection system, which is unacceptable. There have been examples of those developing a security system on an estate telling the police of their plans, then telling local people that they had the approval of the police when that was not the position.
  In a brief intervention, the Minister seemed to reflect ministerial comments last year that, first and foremost, for members of the public, it is a case of "buyer beware". That is not acceptable. Such an irresponsible approach misses the point. A Ministry or a large company that regularly buys in security services can make comparisons, test the market, insist that its objectives are met and have adequate legal and professional advice. At the same time, ordinary members of the public and those running small companies are seeking security services. They are rarely in the position of a Ministry or large company.
  Concern about the wrong people being involved in private security patrols and their management has been confirmed in different areas. Some of the examples are both frightening and similar in nature. A circular by one group offering patrols by staff free of criminal convictions bore the name of a director who had several convictions for both dishonesty and violence. A senior police officer told me:
  "I personally find it monstrous that people with convictions for burglary in dwelling houses are being allowed to run businesses and work for such companies whilst having strings of convictions for the offence for which they are purporting to protect the public."

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  Another senior police officer wrote to me about a new security firm as follows:
  "You may share my concern and dismay when I tell you that Mr. F (the person who formed the company) is a man with many previous convictions and is currently on bail as well as being a disqualified driver. Working with him in his security business is Mr. G, who has 23 pages of convictions on the Police National Computer … most of these convictions involve burglary and theft in domestic properties. He has only recently been released from prison and he too is a disqualified driver."
  Claims made by some companies have been exposed as entirely untrue. An organisation which claims to protect homes by charging £1 per week per household issued a leaflet stating that staff were experienced, had a forces background and were in constant communication with the police. It claimed also that all properties were logged on a computer and that the company was registered with the police. The local superintendent who told me about this wrote:
  "My view on having sight of this leaflet was that at best the company was misleading the public and at worst their promotional material was a criminal deception. Mr. A admitted that his staff were not trained, not in radio communication with the police, and not registered under the Data Protection Act."
  As for being registered with the police, there is no system of registration. When considering last year what were then the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill and the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill, we suggested that interim measures should be adopted. Our recommendations were not accepted, and a year has passed with no action being taken by the Government. A cry from the Minister of "caveat emptor" and self-regulation provides no answers. How do the public tell the difference between a genuine service and a virtual protection racket? The answer is that they cannot until it is too late.
  There are no controls on who can set up a security business. There are no checks on their criminal record. Invariably, staff are inadequately trained. No checks are made on employers. If the industry is to be involved in such work as patrolling the streets, staff must be trained and must follow a code of practice agreed with the police. That should be basic. The Government recognise that, where private security companies run prisons, the Government have the right to lay down standards of training. Yet for patrolling the streets, no standards are laid down.
  Last year, the British Security Industry Association's journal, Security Spokesman, highlighted the Home Secretary's claim during his speech to the BSIA that
  "there are no grounds for the Government to licence the private security industry because of the insufficient evidence of criminality."
  The editorial commented:
  "this argument misses the point in one crucial area, that of public accountability".
  Referring to the industry's greater public profile, the editorial stated:
  "equally inevitably, greater public accountability must follow as a consequence. It is this—not criminality as Michael Howard would have us believe—which is at the crux of the regulation issue."
  That is a responsible approach to the issue, and I welcome the fact that it comes from within the industry, which has given so much evidence to the Select Committee.
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  Over a quarter of a century ago, Philip Sorenson, then chairman of Group 4 Total Security, said:
  "It is the responsibility of the security industry to work towards statutory backing for a system of control. That system should allay any fears about the role of private security companies in our society."
  He was right 25 years ago, and his words are even more urgent and compelling now.
  The least we should expect from the Minister is a series of straight answers to the 10 questions I have put to him, and a promise that there will be legislation to deal with the issues to which we have drawn his attention in the forthcoming Session.
  11.17 am
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean): I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) for giving me the opportunity to explain the position that we have reached on the important matters to which he referred.
  In major parts of the security industry, there is little call for change. In the security system or alarms sector, self-regulation has proved highly effective. The in-house guarding sector has caused no problems. Difficulties in certain areas involving bouncers are being tackled by means of specially designed measures, of which the Select Committee on Home Affairs approved.
  That is not to say that the security industry is without problems. As in any other industry or business, there are areas of concern. Like the Select Committee, I think that these problems lie mainly within the contract manned guarding sector of the industry.
  According to a research report published by the Policy Studies Institute last year, that sector comprises about 24 per cent. of the industry's employees, not 80 per cent. as has been suggested. None of those employees has a police constable's powers. None of them carries out what we have identified as core police functions, and rightly so.
  Nevertheless, many of them will be seen in areas where they have frequent and close contact with the public. It is vital that public confidence in them should not be misplaced. It is important, therefore, to ensure that the bad reputations of a few unsuitable individuals or poor companies do not tarnish the reputation of the industry as a whole.
  There is little evidence of criminality across the board within the private security industry, but we have seen some alarming data from the police on various incidents throughout the country.
  Of particular note is the part played by bouncers. I am hopeful that the registration schemes for door staff, which are being set up by the police and local authorities in areas where there are problems, will meet that need. Both the police and the Select Committee believe that it could, and we shall shortly issue guidance on the setting up and running of schemes for those who wish to introduce registration arrangements. At the same time, we shall ask the police to help us to monitor the number and operation of the schemes.
  My hon. and learned Friend and his Committee offered us three options for improving quality in the manned guarding sector: licensing for individuals; regulation for companies; or to combine the two and set up an agency to run new arrangements for the licensing of individuals

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  and to ensure that companies fulfil certain minimum criteria. The Committee proposed that the licensing of individuals should be based on mandatory criminal record checks, and that there should be greater access to criminal records for a widely defined industry.
  I am well aware that one of the main concerns about the private security industry is the employment of individuals who have in the past committed criminal offences. Many see it as essential, therefore, that there should be a means of checking whether a prospective employee has a criminal record.
  At the moment, there is no legitimate method of obtaining that information, other than by putting pressure on individuals to exercise their rights under the Data Protection Act 1988 for access to the information on convictions that is held on police computer systems. The problem is that that circumvents the safeguards available to individuals under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, which aims to strike a balance between giving offenders a chance to reintegrate themselves into society and the need to protect society from those who might offend again. It allows convictions that have been become spent, through the passage of time and the individual's subsequent good behaviour, to remain unknown to prospective employers.
  There are groups, of course, who are exceptions to the Act, but they do not include any part of the private security industry. I know that that is something that parts of the industry would like to see changed, and it is one of the issues that the Home Affairs Select Committee's report recommended that the Government should consider. It is, though, an issue that needs to be put in the context of the more general question about pre-employment vetting.
  That whole subject has been of concern to the Government for some considerable time. At present, criminal record checks are carried out by the police only for certain groups of employees. Most checks take place to protect vulnerable people, such as children, while others are necessary for the purposes of national security or for probity in the administration of the law.
  The Government have therefore been reviewing very carefully the current arrangements for vetting. Towards the end of 1993, we issued a Green Paper, "The Disclosure of Criminal Records for Employment Vetting Purposes". It posed 12 questions that had arisen from the Select Committee's deliberations on vetting.
  In the light of the 180 responses that we received to that consultation exercise, the Government have been considering a new approach to vetting. We believe that a system of pre-employment checks of criminal records is needed that is more accessible and more open, and which will meet the needs of employers and other organisations who need to employ people in positions of trust.
  A White Paper will shortly be published setting out our views. Although I cannot go into details about its contents, I can tell the House that it will discuss ways of enabling a much wider range of employers to obtain relevant information about criminal records quickly and cheaply.
  Mr. Michael: The Minister has specifically addressed the issue of checks on employees. Will he now tell us whether the White Paper will also deal with checks on employers, and who will undertake those checks and be accountable to the public?
  Mr. Maclean: The hon. Gentleman will have to be patient and wait for the White Paper.
  As I said in evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee last December, the introduction of an easily obtainable criminal conviction certificate would be one way of achieving that. Developments of this kind will be possible largely due to improvements in technology, and particularly the development of a comprehensive criminal record database on the police national computer, which will provide access to a much wider range of information than was once the case.
  Those proposals would go a considerable way towards meeting the concerns of the police, the industry and others, but it is also fair to point out that criminal record checks on their own will not be enough; not everyone with a criminal record is necessarily unsuited to all jobs, and not all those who are unsuitable for employment in the industry will necessarily have a criminal record.
  If criminal record checks are to have a part to play in determining who may be employed as a security guard, the next question is whether unspent convictions should be revealed—that is, whether the industry should be excepted from the provisions of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. I believe that the Act has worked fairly well since its introduction 20 years ago, and we must be sure when considering any case for making a new exception that the purpose of the Act would not be undermined. It may be the case that, under new vetting arrangements, for example, sufficient information could in any case be made available within the current provisions of the Act.
  The Select Committee's report also outlined new criminal offences to lend teeth to the new statutory arrangements. We must be very careful to ensure that any new criminal offences, with all the implications that they carry for the criminal justice system as a whole, are created to deal only with a serious nuisance that cannot be dealt with otherwise. That may be the case here, and again it is something that we are still considering.
  Mr. Sweeney: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the best predictors of future criminality is when one has committed offences in the past?
  Mr. Maclean: It is certainly a clear predictor, but it is also the case that offences are committed by some in the manned guarding sector of the security industry and also by those who are responsible for children and have passed all sorts of security checks. It is an unfortunate fact of life that, despite some 600,000—perhaps coming on for 1 million—checks per annum, mainly involving people who may be working with children, many people who are involved in offences against children have never had a blot on their record before, so there is no perfect predictor of criminality.
  The private security industry is a large and diverse organism, and the question whether, and if so how, to regulate all or part of it does raise complex questions. I know that my hon. and learned Friend understands that we are giving very careful consideration to his report. The Select Committee has identified a range of issues and given a steer on how they might be tackled, but, as my hon. and learned Friend pointed out, he has not given us a detailed blueprint on how it could be done. I must say to him and to the House that it is not a matter of Ministers making a grand pronouncement in principle without having tried to work out some of the detail that might follow such a pronouncement.

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  My hon. and learned Friend's debate today is both timely and helpful, and, as I said in my evidence to the Select Committee, we go a long way together in agreeing on the areas of prime concern, but we must ensure that we get the solutions right. The recommendations in his report touch on the interests of many, both within Government and outside, and, like the recommendations of every Select Committee, they merit close attention.
  Mr. Michael Stephen: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Maclean: I shall conclude now. My hon. Friend can reply if he gets the House's permission.
  We will give my hon. and learned Friend and his Committee a full reply when we have managed to give the report the full and proper consideration that it deserves.
  10.4 am
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: With permission, perhaps I might reply. The debate has been of a very high standard, and it has been across party lines. There has been a minimum of rancour, and the debate has shown the House at its best. It has brought out the important point: that the industry is honourable and is working well, in the main, and it is a sign of the maturity of its leaders that they are prepared to have Government restriction and legislation to control it, to take account of the relatively small section of the industry that is working badly.
  We have demonstrated that we recognise that the problem of immediate legislation is very difficult, but if the Government act soon on the question of criminality, that will provide a measure of satisfaction.
  Hon. Members have mentioned the conflict between the Government's well motivated desire to deregulate, and the fact that here we are calling for regulation; but the fact has been strongly made that, where the industry is itself calling for state regulation and where there is an outstanding need to protect the public—and where the industry is prepared to pay—this is not a question of relying on the shibboleths of political dogma. There is a practical need to introduce the kind of legislation that has been requested by the Select Committee on Home Affairs.
  We are, to some extent, encouraged by the Government's response. The public and the industry will also be encouraged. But we shall only be encouraged—
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. We must now move to the next debate.

  Manufacturing Industry
  11.30 am
  Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak about manufacturing, as I come from an industrial area. I am concerned about the human misery of unemployment—the sheer waste of people, many of whom are running out of hope.
  A third of my constituents receive some form of income benefit. That should be set against Bradford's proud industrial heritage. The town must now create 700 new jobs a year just to retain its present employment level. In the early 1980s, we lost 22,000 jobs in four years, and we have never recovered. Companies such as GEC, International Harvesters and Baird Television, employing thousands, have completely gone; other major employers have drastically reduced their work forces. Hepworth and Grandage, a leading engineering company that employed 5,000 in its prime, now employs fewer than 250.
  Bradford is not unique, however. Britain's industrial regions have been devastated by the growing cancer of long-term unemployment. We hear today that Britain has slipped to 18th in the league table of world prosperity; it is bottom of the league in terms of investment and job creation. I know that other hon. Members will want to share their experiences of the failure of Tory economic policy.
  The history of Britain over the past 150 years could be portrayed as the inevitable effect of the decline of manufacturing industry. In the Great Exhibition of 1851, Britain was clearly seen as the strongest and most dynamic economy in the world, whose strength was based entirely on the success of manufacturing. Our competitors then were Germany, France and the United States—which long ago outstripped us, along with many other countries.
  There are many reasons for our decline, but one of the most significant is the fact that in certain parts of the establishment there is still a feeling that to work in manufacturing is somehow inferior, confining employees to the tradesmen's entrance for life. There is a snobbish attitude to the industry. That attitude must be consigned to the dustbin. We are still a manufacturing nationjust—but we have a whole new series of challenges to face.
  The Conservative Government have presided over the two deepest recessions since the second world war. Our economy has not the capacity for strong growth. In August, a survey conducted by the Business and Technology Education Council showed that more than half the firms employing more than 100 people thought that their profitability would be affected by skill shortages among young workers. We heard yesterday that the Deputy Prime Minister is to call for a job skills audit: he, too, recognises that Britain is way behind other countries in terms of competitiveness.
  The rate of growth has been slowing seriously. Between 1979 and 1993, the economy grew at an average annual rate of only 1.7 per cent.; that is the slowest rate of growth in the United Kingdom since the 1930s. The Treasury forecast implies that the average growth rate between 1988 and 1998 will also be only 1.7 per cent., as against a pre-1979 post-war rate of 2.7 per cent. The United Kingdom's average growth between 1979 and 1993 has been the slowest in the 18 countries in the G7 and the European Union.

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  Manufacturing output rose by 0.5 per cent. in the first quarter, to a level less than 1 per cent. above that before the recession. Manufacturing output in 1993 was less than 1 per cent. higher than it was in 1973. In 1979, manufacturing output accounted for 30 per cent. of the economy, and more than 7 million people were employed in the industry; by 1993 the figure had fallen to around 20 per cent., and 4.3 million people were employed. Millions were unemployed in areas such as mine.
  It could and should have been different. Let us consider the Pacific rim countries. There is no suggestion in Japan, South Korea or Malaysia that manufacturing is inferior: it is seen as essential to the development and prosperity of those countries, whose financial policies are directed towards efficiency. They have decided what they are good at, and they pursue policies that maximise their effectiveness with complete dedication.
  The Asian tigers, as they are known, are increasingly involved in higher technology production, firmly based on a deliberate industrial policy. South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have established domestic semiconductor industries. A recent study carried out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development concluded that that was encouraged by Government support for start-up costs and research as well as by protection. In South Korea, the Government identified semiconductors as a strategic industry in 1983. They provided a $400 million support package, and the industry has now become the largest outside the OECD area.
  A planned economy can work. We must do the same: we must recognise that we can never compete with the emerging nations on a basis of low-added-value, low-pay processes. If we are to grow and develop as a nation, we must concentrate on what we are good at. We must realise that high-added-value, high-quality manufacturing is our future. If we try to compete by forcing wages and conditions down, we shall end up competing with Somalia and Bangladesh—and we shall lose.
  That is why Labour's policy of introducing a national minimum wage will help parts of industry that are committed to planning for the future on a realistic basis. They know that to pay their workers the rate for the job is not a waste of money, but an investment. They also know that training their staff is the most important investment of all.
  Mr. John Sykes: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am a manufacturer in the north of England. The policy of a large manufacturer in my area—a food processing company—is to produce and sell goods in the area that it supplies: if it wants to supply food products in England, it will build a factory there. It wanted to do the same in France, but because of the excessive costs—the minimum wage and other social costs—imposed by the social chapter, it could not afford to build a factory there; instead, it doubled the production line in Scarborough. Does that not prove the hon. Gentleman wrong?
  Mr. Sutcliffe: I do not think that it does. It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman should mention France: we should be competing with France, Germany and the other industrialised countries, rather than with third-world countries.
  There is a good deal of hype about what a national minimum wage should be. I hope that there will be sensible, planned discussion between the social partners—
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  employers and trade unions—to arrive at realistic figures that can be managed by industry. A good industrial strategy would ensure that the minimum wage set standards and promoted high self-esteem among the work force; it would not opt for a low-wage economy in which people competed for jobs priced at around £1 per hour. That would be totally unacceptable. I am convinced that a national minimum wage will boost Britain and its manufacturing base.
  The unskilled and the poorly educated have suffered most from the rise in unemployment. The Tories have failed to invest not only in new technology and industry, but in the skills of the work force. In an internationally competitive global economy in which investment capital is mobile, the key factor in competition is a highly skilled work force.
  Among the 21 countries in the OECD, the United Kingdom lags behind all but Turkey in terms of the proportion of 17 and 18-year-olds in education. Currently, 180,000 17 and 18-year-olds are not receiving education, work or training: that is a national disgrace. The Government have slashed the training for work budget by 29 per cent. since 1992. In 1994, the economic adviser to Lloyds bank warned that Britain was in danger of becoming a low-skill economy unless investment in training for manufacturing jobs was increased.
  Low skills will discourage industry from adopting better technology, further increasing the need for better training. That downward spiral is probably the greatest threat to the opportunities now facing the United Kingdom's manufacturing industry. All good companies know that working with their employees is important. That is why 47 of the top 50 manufacturing companies in the United Kingdom are trade union organised: good industrial relations set the scene and the environment for success, and we should try to help work forces to develop them.
  We must concentrate on innovation and design, yet the amount of money that we as a nation spend on research and development has consistently gone down. Today's research is tomorrow's product and, increasingly, major players throughout the world are committed to long-term development priorities as they realise that new products have longer and longer lead times and need more and more development.
  Britain is doing just the opposite. In 1990, our industrial investment in research and design as a percentage of industrial production was almost the same as it was 20 years before. In the same period, comparable spending on R and D in Germany, Japan and France had doubled, and in the United States of America it had increased by one third.
  Britain has no representative in the top 25 companies in the international table of research and development spending. That is partly because British companies pay out an increasing proportion of company profits in dividends, rather than use them for reinvestment. We need to ensure that the strength of our financial sector also becomes a source of strength for our industrial sector because, as a whole, investment has greatly decreased as well. From 1979 to 1993, the average investment level, as a share of the UK economy, was the lowest of the 18 countries in the G7 and European Community. As the Bank of England pointed out in its August 1995 inflation report, investment is 20 per cent. below its level in previous recoveries.

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  In Britain, investment per worker in manufacturing is 30 per cent. below that in Germany and the United States, and only one quarter of that in Japan. In its recent summer forecast, the Treasury revised down its forecast for growth in business investment from 10.75 per cent. in 1995 to 4.75 per cent. On OECD figures, in 1994, the United Kingdom had the lowest level of investment as a share of the economy at 15 per cent., compared with Germany at 22 per cent. That leaves the UK with an investment gap of £46 billion relative to the investment share in Germany.
  If we consider the past 150 years, every time it was possible for us to take the wrong decision, we did so. We have consistently placed barriers against manufacturing and, even worse, successive Governments have moved the goalposts at depressingly regular intervals. I think that we have had 12 Secretaries of State since 1979. We must create a level playing field by introducing policies that help with the consistent development of a sound manufacturing base and discourage the speculator, the dawn raider and the asset stripper.
  All the key players, especially financiers and industrialists, have roles to play in reversing Britain's consistent under-investment. We should shift the onus of proof in a hostile takeover bid and require the company seeking control to demonstrate that its success will be in the public interest. We could launch a business development bank for small businesses which would specialise in providing direct long-term investment in the expansion of the productive economy. When we have those policies, we must leave them in place so that businesses can plan ahead. Planning is vital for all businesses.
  The Government claim to understand and support business, yet everywhere I go in my constituency I meet businesses, small and large, that are depressed and outraged by the lack of understanding shown of their concerns at all levels of Government and of the civil service. An example of that was the business rate in Bradford, which went up by 40 per cent. The local authority would never have imposed such an increased burden on local business, but the Government, who have total control over the business rate level, showed no signs of understanding the potentially disastrous effect that such a rise would have.
  One measure that virtually every business person I meet advocates is the introduction of fiscal measures to reduce tax on profit retained in businesses, so that investment can be stimulated. It is not just businesses that want that. Every trade union with members in manufacturing wants such growth, as do all academic economists. I am proud of Labour's investment budget for Britain because it contains manufacturing investment incentives. It shows an ambition for the country that the Government do not seem to share.
  The only people who are against incentives are those at the Treasury, which perhaps comes as no surprise. The Treasury has never understood manufacturing and never will so long as recruitment and promotion is based on such a narrow and prescribed basin.
  There are many things that any Government should do to ensure that manufacturers can do their job effectively. Efficient transport policies must be pursued. In my region, improvement of the A650 is desperately needed. Such work has been on and off for the past 25 years.
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  Throughout that time, lorries have been sitting in traffic queues in residential areas while the firms they have been delivering to waited in angry frustration. According to the Automobile Association, one mile in every seven in our motorway network, and more than 4,000 miles of our primary roads, need urgent repair.
  The electrification programme has cost hundreds of millions of pounds. When it is finished, the Government will have created such a disastrous shambles in the railway industry that no one will want to run mainline trains on it. The example of the channel tunnel rail link sums up how Britain lags behind. French trains travelling at 185 mph from Paris on some of the newest track are forced to travel at little more than 50 or 60 mph from Dover to London. As ex-President Mitterrand said, the channel tunnel opens up two worlds of travel: high-speed through France, followed by a leisurely look at the English countryside.
  My constituency is even further disadvantaged by the increasingly poor links to London. Without a modern, integrated transport system, Britain's manufacturing industry is at a disadvantage as soon as the product leaves the factory gates.
  There must be a national ambition for Britain and a visionary economic plan to promote key industries, because no country of Britain's size can hope to survive without a strong home manufacturing base. Every opportunity that has presented itself in the past 16 years has been wasted. North sea oil was viewed as a great opportunity, and it should have been, but consider what happened. Because of short-term attitudes and incompetent financial management, the oil forced exchange rates up, which inevitably meant that the price of manufacturing goods rose in comparison with our competitors. The Government stuck their head in the sand and hoped that the problem would go away. The only thing that went away was a large chunk of our manufacturing base.
  The Government have always been driven by their relationship with the City, which has never genuinely supported manufacturing industry. That relationship has been the most damaging in modern British history. It has created a short-term approach that looks for the quick fix of privatisation, rather than the consistent support of manufacturing, which creates wealth and prosperity in the long term. The Tories have not understood manufacturing industry and in some sectors they have welcomed its decline.
  As we enter the 21st century, Labour recognises that the working environment has changed. New technology and new information networks need to be harnessed to promote an industrial development policy that uses the population's skills to their maximum, rather than allowing hopelessness and disadvantage to damage the fabric of society. Britain has a great history of manufacturing and, if we are not to sink into oblivion, it must be our future as well.
  In the past 16 years, we have had an industrial policy, or rather lack of one, characterised by incompetence, indecision and the short-term view. Two million unemployed people is unacceptable, in terms of the cost of unemployment both financially and socially. Regions such as Bradford, which I represent, do not deserve to be treated in the way that they have been. What are the Government doing about facing that challenge? They are looking to have tax reductions of 1 p and 2p.

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  The countries that will succeed in this new global marketplace are not only those that have sound public finances, but those that invest in the skills and technologies of the future. Many partnerships have been established between the public and private sectors and at our party conference I was happy to see the relationship with British Telecom. The fact that we are going to have laptop computers on every desk in the education sector is superb.
  Britain still has world-class companies, but few of them. We need manufacturing policies that are dynamic, thoughtful and consistent. Within 18 months, the Labour Government will deliver those. This debate is about not talking Britain down, but making certain that we develop and expand our economy so that manufacturing can regain its rightful place as part of Britain's future.
  11.47 am
  Mr. Matthew Banks: I am most grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye. It is a pleasure to be able to follow the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe). I agreed with one or two of his points. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will deal with the rest of the hon. Gentleman's speech in his usual robust fashion.
  Where I beg to differ in particular with the hon. Member for Bradford, South is in his remarks on a minimum wage. In an intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Mr. Sykes), who brings so much experience to debates on these subjects, referred to the experiences of his company. I welcome his presence and hope that he will speak in the debate shortly.
  The hon. Member for Bradford, South thought that a national minimum wage would be a boost for Britain. It would be a boost only for costs and unemployment.
  As right hon. and hon. Members know, I represent Southport, which is a seaside resort. It is not known for its heavy industry. It is a tourist resort and a major part of the local economy is the residential and nursing home sector.
  I recently had the pleasure of inviting my hon. Friend the Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs to Southport. When he visited my constituency, he had the opportunity to meet, over lunch, more than 100 local business men and women. He heard of their experiences, their concerns and their wish to see red tape cut further. He heard about their successes and we were able to draw attention, even in a seaside resort, to what is often called in Southport back-street development—it is that sort of town and that is where industry has to thrive.
  There are many businesses that employ only a few people; I can count them on several hands, not just on a few fingers. There are businesses in my constituency that employ just a few people, but which export to more than 30 countries. For too long, Conservatives have had to listen to Opposition Members claiming that British manufacturing industry is in decline.
  Mr. Sykes: The so-called experts.
  Mr. Banks: My hon. Friend knows, as I do—I mean no discourtesy to any Opposition Member—that Opposition Members do not have the experience that he has had. We shall, no doubt, hear from him later.
  Mr. Sutcliffe: I said that 22,000 jobs had been lost in Bradford in four years. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that
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  those jobs have not been lost and that we have not suffered from a large rise in unemployment in the area? Could the situation have been altered? Are the figures that show how far down the prosperity league table Britain is accurate? If not, why not?
  Mr. Banks: If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I said, he would know that I was not referring to Bradford or to job losses. If he is kind enough to pay attention over the next few minutes, he will hear me make a number of my own points. The House is a good judge of character. I recognise that the hon. Gentleman is battling for his constituency this morning and I know that he will not mind if I battle for mine too.
  I return to the so-called decline of manufacturing industry. It is a myth; nothing could be further from the truth. The myth of manufacturing decline has been expounded by those who take no account of qualitative economic indicators and who are unable to escape from their old socialist methods of measuring everything in terms of quantity. The percentage of our gross domestic product and employment accounted for by manufacturing industry has certainly decreased over several decades. That feature is, however, mirrored in other major economies and it is mainly a result of productivity increases and efficiency gains.
  It is true that, until the Conservative Government came to power in 1979, our manufacturing performance was poor. During the 20 years up to 1982, Britain's share of world manufacturing exports fell by half and our major industries were propped up by nationalisation and riven by strikes. For various reasons, on which I shall expand in a moment, the trend has been reversed. Not only did the number of manufacturing companies increase by 27,000 in the 1980s, but manufacturing exports increased by 66 per cent. in the decade, and the growth in import penetration was slower than in any of the other six major economies.
  The United Kingdom has also received far more inward investment, a third of which has benefited our manufacturing sector alone, than any other country in the European Union. The United Kingdom has attracted more than 40 per cent. of Japanese and United States investment into the European Union as a whole. Some 434 new investment decisions have been made in 1994–95 alone—we are barely into the 1995–96 financial year—creating or safeguarding almost 90,000 jobs. Companies such as Lexmark, Ford, Toyota, Nissan and Jaguar did not have to invest in the United Kingdom. They did so in no small measure because of what a Conservative Government have achieved.
  As a result of inward investment, we are already, for example, a net exporter of televisions. I confidently predict that we shall shortly become a net exporter of cars. The basis of this turnaround has been the promotion of genuine competition, which has been achieved by winding down import restriction arrangements and exposing our manufacturing to the rigours of the international market.
  Mr. Denis MacShane: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Banks: In other words, companies that could not cope with competition did not survive. The result was the great shake-out of the 1980s in which overmanning and other inefficient practices were banished. On that point, I give way to the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. MacShane: If the turnaround is due to the rigours of world competition, why did the Government feel it necessary to give a £80 million bribe or subsidy to Ford to keep Jaguar production in the west midlands? Without that massive Government subsidy, Ford would have moved Jaguar production to the United States. Is that an example of the competitive market?
  Mr. Banks: I am delighted by, and support, the Government's action in that respect. I have no doubt that, if the hon. Gentleman catches your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, and decries the Government's action, the employees of the company will listen to what he says and wonder whether he speaks for new Labour, old Labour or himself.
  I return to the inefficient practices which, I hope, have been banished as a result of the hon. Gentleman's intervention. The promotion of competition is still being carried forward relentlessly in the form of the second competitiveness White Paper. In addition, successive Conservative Governments have implemented a combination of policies which have created the right economic framework in which our companies can compete abroad and in which foreign firms can locate here.
  Privatisation, deregulation, the reform of over-powerful trade unions, investment in skills and training and tax reform have all contributed to the success story to which I am referring. The United Kingdom has low interest rates, low inflation and low taxation. We have a fairly sound transport infrastructure, we have skilled and hard-working labour and a work force unhindered, in comparison to the 1970s, by repressive trade union power. Let us not forget that we also have rapidly rising productivity. The only thing that we do not have is the social chapter, which would impose unnecessary costs and burdens on all British industry, not just manufacturing industry.
  In 1979, it cost the taxpayer £50 million a week to prop up the nationalised industries. I shall take British Aerospace as an example. Since privatisation, productivity has risen by 150 per cent., and it has become our largest manufacturing exporter. British Steel has at least doubled its sales over the past decade to become one of our largest exporters. We could also consider what has happened at Rover, Short Brothers, Rolls-Royce, Amersham International, Vosper Thornycroft and many others. It was the courage of the Conservative Government that made privatisation possible and, because of their work forces, those companies have been able to take advantage of the economic conditions to which I have referred.
  Mr. Sykes: My hon. Friend mentioned British Steel. Stones Bitter wanted to do a television advertisement in Sheffield which extolled the virtues of the steel and the beer. The company sent a team up to Sheffield to film what people might think of as a normal steelworks, but it found that there were no grimy men doing the work because the modern steelworks were automated and efficient. The film crew had to go to Czechoslovakia to film a steelworks where there were grimy men and things were done in the old-fashioned way. I make the point because British Steel is a completely revolutionised firm, although the policies that the Labour party is trying to introduce would destroy British Steel before one could say Jack Robinson.
  Mr. Banks: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for making a powerful point. He underlines what I was saying about improved efficiency and productivity.
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  It is clear, though, that the recession has taken its toll in terms of lost capacity. To underline the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough, that loss does not reflect poorly on our manufacturers. Lack of demand was largely the cause of it, not incapacity to supply. Indeed, sharp falls in manufacturing output have been mirrored abroad, especially in Germany and Japan.
  Recession can, of course, cause permanent damage, but the success of what the Government have done for manufacturing since 1979 in the United Kingdom can be measured by how well the industry has recovered after recession. Manufacturing output is back to record levels. The production of cars for export, for example, has almost trebled since 1988, and business surveys suggest that output and exports remain good.
  In the light of that achievement, I listened with great interest to what the hon. Member for Bradford, South said and I shall listen to what other Opposition Members say later in the debate if they catch your eye, Madam Speaker.
  Trying to decide what the Opposition stand for depends of course on to whom one is listening; whether it is the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) and his backroom boys or one or two of his hon. Friends on the Back Benches. It seems that all Opposition Members hanker after a sort of ludicrous Utopia, where manufacturing is everything and other sectors of the economy are overlooked. Their answer to improving manufacturing industry is to subsidise—they have no qualms about that word. They are antiquated—I am referring to subsidies, of course, not Opposition Members.
  Although it is an honest pronouncement of their party's policy, subsidy has no place in the new Labour vocabulary—just like "socialist" or any phrase with the words "pips" or "squeak" in it. No, the Labour party now likes to refer to assistance, or aid, or investment. I fail to see how throwing money at manufacturing industry, or at anything else, without a hope of ever seeing a return can be labelled an investment.
  Every policy which the Labour party recommends ought to be stamped with a sort of health warning. Imposing the social chapter on our firms, a minimum wage, opposing privatisation: such policies can seriously damage our manufacturing industry. Those policies may appease Opposition Members' sponsors in the trade unions, but they utterly fail to offer any help or hope to our manufacturing industry.
  The competitive position of British manufacturing will be improved by competitive exchange rates and the fruits of major inward investment projects. Combined with the promising economic outlook, it is likely that Britain's manufacturing base will continue to show growth and not a diminishing trend. It is typical of Opposition Members to run down British manufacturing industry. The real question in 1995, or as we move towards the 21st century, is whether manufacturing industry can survive without a Conservative Government. I ask it, I doubt it, and I sincerely hope that the sector never has to find out.
  12.3 pm
  Mr. Ian Pearson: The future of manufacturing industry is crucial to Dudley's future. Two out of every five people of working age in my constituency rely on the manufacturing sector for their jobs—almost double the national average. They cannot all

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  work at Merry Hill, one of the biggest retail complexes in Europe. Nor can they all work at the Child Support Agency, also located in my constituency—although judging from the time that that agency takes to reply to letters from Members of Parliament, a few more employees might help.
  We have a proud manufacturing tradition in Dudley and in the west midlands generally, and we mean and need to keep it. The country needs us to keep it and needs our manufacturing industries to grow and to succeed in world markets. There are some positive signs: the expansion at Rover, Fords's decision to build the new model Jaguar at Coventry, and plans for expansion at Toyota, to cite but a few.
  More west midlands companies have become world class, and I fully acknowledge that. The Japanese "transplants" have had a significant effect in bringing that about, not only in the automotive components supply industry, but in the manufacturing sector generally, through the demonstration effect that their modern manufacturing techniques have had. Company de-layering, cell manufacturing, the continuous improvement philosophy and benchmarking, for instance, have all produced benefits for British companies that have gone down that route.
  Nevertheless, we still do not have nearly enough world-class companies, and, according to the most recent quarterly survey by the Confederation of British Industry, manufacturers in the west midlands are gloomier than all others in the country about economic prospects. It is a salient fact that manufacturing investment in the second quarter of this year is still 15 per cent. lower than it was at the beginning of 1990. My local training and enterprise council is telling me that labour shortages are already affecting manufacturing industry in the black country.
  Only yesterday, the National Federation of Building Trades Employers warned that there would be 100,000 job losses over the next two years, and the Engineering Employers Federation reported that 8,000 engineering jobs were likely to be axed across the country over the next year.
  I acknowledge that Ministers are concerned about the manufacturing sector and are starting to say some of the right things, but they still have to do the right things. Since 1979, the manufacturing sector has seen its share of gross domestic product fall from 29 per cent. to 22 per cent. It has also lost 2.9 million jobs. That is a greater percentage of the work force than that lost in the United States, and the sector has lost jobs at a rate three times faster than in Germany. Research for the Government's second White Paper on competitiveness, published earlier this year, revealed that British companies are failing to match the productivity of United States firms in any of 12 key sectors of industry, and in only one are we exceeding German levels.
  After 16 years of Conservative Governments, views from the boardrooms of British businesses reveal a damning indictment of Government policy. An Association of British Chambers of Commerce survey in 1994 found that more than one company in five reported that red tape had inhibited growth and prevented them from taking on people. This year, an Institute of Export survey shows that 47 per cent. of companies expressed the view that banks did not meet their needs.
  Mr. Sykes: On the subject of deregulation, why did the hon. Gentleman's party vote against the Deregulation and Contracting Out Bill?
  Mr. Pearson: The Labour party is fully committed to the principle of deregulation, but we do not believe in the way the Government have been going about it. If I may, I should like to make progress.
  The CBI surveys have consistently reported that more than one in 10 firms employing fewer than 500 people consider late payment to be a problem. The chambers of commerce told the Select Committee on Trade and Industry that there was a
  "patchwork quilt of provision"
  of business support and that firms
  "perceive themselves to be at a disadvantage compared to their international competitors where different structures of business support exist."
  Small and medium-sized businesses in my constituency, of which I talk to many, confirm all of that evidence and more. They tell me that they want a stable macro-economic climate to give them the confidence to invest and to make sensible decisions. They want access to finance on appropriate terms, the ability to get their goods to market efficiently, to be free from unnecessary regulation and red tape, to have an effective business advice and support network if they need it, and otherwise to be left to get on with running their businesses and making profits.
  That does not seem too much to ask, but most of those businesses feel badly let down; they feel that the Government have not delivered the goods. They blame the Government for the recession. They still have problems with the banks. For more than a decade people have been waiting for the Government to put their hand in their pocket for the Dudley southern by-pass and the extension of the A4036—and they are still waiting. None of the business people to whom I talk believe that there is less red tape now than three years ago, and most, although they think that the business links scheme is a step in the right direction, are sceptical about whether that initiative could ever be of any use to them.
  Dudley's manufacturing companies, like those in the rest of Britain, deserve better than that from the Government, and I shall outline how a different approach could be taken. I shall then highlight three areas in which action is needed. Clearly there are more such areas, but other hon. Members wish to speak in the debate.
  At its heart, a new approach needs to take on board the facts pointed out by the business academic Michael Porter, who said:
  "while national government has a role in upgrading industry the role of state and local governments is potentially as great or greater".
  The Government need to recast regional policy completely. Competitiveness must run through it, with the Government recognising that in future the regions and cities across Europe will compete with each other as much as co-operate with each other to attract, develop and maintain high quality companies and industries.
  That is already happening now, and it will rapidly intensify. In the west midlands we compete head to head with Baden-Württemberg in Germany and Emilia Romagna in Italy. In terms of gross domestic product per head, recently published OECD figures rank those areas eighth and 10th respectively in the EU, while the west midlands is 46th.
  Regional selective assistance needs to be transformed into a strategic tool for assisting companies to upgrade their competitive positions. Regions should be required to

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  produce clear statements of their aims and objectives, and of their strategies for development based on improving competitiveness. For most regions, those strategies should focus more on developing and supporting indigenous manufacturing business than on attracting inward investment. They should look to broadening and expanding industrial clusters, harnessing new technologies and helping more companies to understand what it takes to be world class.
  The three areas that I intend to highlight are accessing finance, dealing with red tape, and late payment. I remain convinced that Britain needs a vehicle for channelling long-term loans to companies at reasonable rates of interest. Companies in Germany and Japan have been able to benefit from such arrangements for years, and we need something similar here.
  Simplification of tax legislation would be a major step towards cutting red tape, as anyone who has served on the Finance Bill Committee will recognise. The Government need to grasp the nettle firmly, as they do with tax collection, by forming a unified agency and merging the Inland Revenue, the Contributions Agency and Her Majesty's Customs and Excise.
  On late payment, I know that there are arguments both for and against the introduction of a statutory right to interest. On balance, I favour a statutory right on overdue commercial debt. I do not imagine that it would be used extensively, but if the Government and their agencies led the way by paying promptly, that could, over time, help to change the payment culture in business. Here one may cite the drink-driving legislation as an instance in which the law has played a part in changing attitudes. With the move to self-assessment of income tax, the Inland Revenue will have a legal right to interest on late payments: what is good enough for the business of government should surely be good enough for business itself.
  12.13 pm
  Mr. Stephen Timms: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe) on his success in obtaining the debate and on his excellent speech, which set out the tragic decline of British manufacturing, especially over the past 16 years, and eloquently described the steps that we need to take to reverse that decline. I am also pleased follow my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, West (Mr. Pearson) and during my speech I shall reinforce some of what he said.
  There is some scope for agreement across the Chamber in that we all agree that a strong manufacturing sector is vital to the British economy. We have not always been able to agree about that. In the early 1980s the Government seemed happy to see swathes of British manufacturing shut down as a necessary price for some greater economic benefit. In 1983 our national manufacturing trade balance went into deficit for the first time, but the Government did not appear unduly perturbed.
  I welcome the recent change in tone in Government statements about manufacturing—for example, last year's announcement of the London manufacturing initiative—and I hope that it heralds a real change in substance that will become apparent in the months ahead. It would be wonderful to see the imaginative proposals about
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  encouraging manufacturing investment made this morning by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown), the shadow Chancellor, taken up by the Government.
  In London, manufacturing employment has halved in the past 15 years, while the overall level of production has remained steady. That startling conjunction illustrates success in improving productivity but highlights the dismal stagnation in the volume of London's manufacturing. Manufacturing has fared badly in comparison with services, and since the mid-1980s London has de-industrialised more than any comparable city in the OECD countries.
  The effects of that decline have been devastating in the area of east London that I represent, especially through persistent sky-high levels of unemployment. None the less, manufacturing levels in east London are still twice the London average. East London, especially the Lea valley and the Thames gateway, remains London's manufacturing centre, and east London will be a key barometer for assessing the success of the London manufacturing initiative.
  In making my proposals, I want to be constructive and, I hope, optimistic about the future, without hiding the scale of the challenges that we face. There are four key areas in which Government action can support renewal of the manufacturing sector in east London.
  First, regeneration activity and support for manufacturing need bringing together. In the past—in the early days of docklands, for example—regeneration and property development initiatives combined to displace industry, by boosting land values and encouraging manufacturers to sell up and leave. Industrial land was developed for housing or offices, because those brought the fastest profits.
  It is time for us all to be clear that successful regeneration needs manufacturing, and that property development which sweeps away manufacturing is inimical to regeneration. Three quarters of London's development land is in the north-east quadrant, concentrated in the Lea valley and the Thames gateway, and the Government have identified those areas for targeted support. I warmly welcome that.
  The task now must be redevelopment for high-grade industrial purposes such as technology parks and modern manufacturing plants—modern locations for modern industries. English Partnerships should be instructed to invest strategically to support manufacturing regeneration. I welcome the new development being undertaken by the docklands development corporation in the royal docks, which will promote an international exhibition centre, a university college, a technology centre and high-technology manufacturing. Among the projects now being considered for single regeneration budget funding by the Government office for London is the royal docks technology centre, which would provide vital research and development support for east London manufacturing, in partnership with universities.
  Partnership between public and private sectors, as exemplified in that bid, is the key to attracting and creating the "patient money" that alone can achieve the long-term economic success that London needs. The result could be high quality locations for companies in the new and growing sectors, such as electronics, pharmaceuticals, information technology, biotechnology and environmental technology.

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  The Government's existing regeneration programmes can be used to achieve in east London the high-quality sites that those new sectors demand. It is astonishing that London has only 7 per cent. of the technology park floor space that Birmingham has. Elsewhere, technology parks have been developed by universities on their vacant land, but London's universities do not have that vacant land. It is not physically possible for them to follow the successful examples of Cambridge, Surrey and Heriot-Watt universities.
  Land is, however, available in east London. City challenge, assisted area status, urban development corporations, English Partnerships and regional challenge should all point in the same direction to achieve locations for modern manufacturing. As yet, they do not. There is no need for extra money, but there is a need for a more strategic application of the existing money. There are single regeneration budget bids before Ministers at present which aim—like the royal docks—to strengthen east London's manufacturing. Those bids deserve support.
  I also welcome the recognition of the importance of improving the links between industry and universities. That is obviously right. If the next industrial era is to be an information age, the extension and exploitation of the knowledge base is critical. Strong industry is best organised in clusters, whether in the potteries or in silicon valley. They allow firms to sharpen each other's competitiveness and pull in the skills and support services that firms need. In turn, that strengthens the cluster.
  In an information age, higher education is vital in enabling industry and clusters to develop. This is not just about providing links to research, but about investing to produce entrepreneurial graduates and young people whose study turns into business ideas and who are then actively encouraged to found new companies.
  Clusters are regional, as are the strongest industry-university links. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, West referred to the changes that are needed in regional policy, and he has drawn Members' attention to the increasingly impressive contribution of agencies such as Greater London Enterprise and others around the country. Colleges and universities must rediscover their regional roles inside society and the economy.
  The technology foresight programme and the White Paper on competitiveness—to which reference has been made—are right to envisage better bridges between universities and industry. A partnership between universities and innovative small and medium-sized companies will be especially important, as few smaller companies on their own have the resources for long-term research. Their well-being—and a large slice of our future prosperity—will depend on their ability to establish and sustain long-term partnerships with universities.
  Universities can stimulate the creation of the new companies of the information age as well. If we overlay the different trends in east London, we discover a high density of manufacturing employment and a high density of unemployment. We also discover that there are low levels of post-16 education take-up and low levels of jobs in the modern information-based economy. Those trends are accompanied by the highest birth rate in the United Kingdom, which portends a troubled future unless the relationship between education and training on the one hand, and manufacturing expansion on the other, is developed a long way beyond its current state.
  Mr. Sebastian Coe: The hon. Gentleman has referred to the importance of linking education to industry, and the dismantling of the binary divides certainly helped in that direction. If the hon. Gentleman is so committed to the right kind of technical education, why would his party—given half a chance—abolish city technology colleges?
  Mr. Timms: I see precious little evidence that city technology colleges are tackling any of the issues that I have raised in the debate. They are irrelevant, and they are not addressing the key issues.
  Local collaborations are emerging with enormous potential for good. The Government are still not focused and do not act to give incentives to such collaborations—no matter which Department or Minister is involved. That fundamental problem has not yet been tackled successfully, despite the establishment of the regional Government offices and the overarching persona of the Deputy Prime Minister.
  We need to create the right infrastructure, particularly in transport and communications. I start with a compliment. Much has been achieved in east London. In transport infrastructure, the docklands road system, the light railway and the Jubilee line extension are major and positive achievements. I was intrigued by the phrase used by the hon. Member for Southport (Mr. Banks)—a "fairly sound transport infrastructure"—to describe the position in the United Kingdom, but the key element in the transport infrastructure in east London remains uncertain.
  Mr. Matthew Banks: If the hon. Gentleman is so concerned about the transport infrastructure in east London, can he explain why the Labour party scuppered the crossrail project?
  Mr. Timms: I very much hope that crossrail will go ahead, and I believe that it will.
  The key element in the transport infrastructure in east London is what is to happen to the channel tunnel rail link. When the Government announced in 1991 that the channel tunnel rail link was to be routed through east London, they said that the link would be welcomed in east London for the economic regeneration that it would bring. That was correct. I was leader of Newham council at the time, and we welcomed the announcement for that very reason.
  Four years later, however, we still do not know for sure if there will be a station in east London. The Transport Select Committee rightly said that the station at Stratford was needed in the national interest, as well as in the interest of regenerating east London. We need the Government to confirm that they will allow the east London station to go ahead. East London faces Europe. It is the place where Europe reaches London, and the Government should join local authorities, training and enterprise councils and universities in exploiting it as an asset. We need both the east London international passenger station and a proper channel tunnel rail freight strategy.
  Good telecommunications are also vital, and we need a rapid development by the private sector of the new national communications networks mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South. Britain can become Europe's knowledge capital, but manufacturing requires high-capacity communications for computer-aided design. The networks will provide new highways for partnerships between companies, and

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  between companies and universities. The Government need to provide the right framework and the leadership to ensure that the investment that is needed is quickly achieved.
  Finally, the Government need to ensure the availability of high-quality research data. The absence today of a clear picture of the condition of London's industry in a European context is becoming a critical problem. The standard industrial classification fails to show how the industrial sectors are converging and new ones emerging. Small and medium-sized companies need market data to understand how to expand into Europe, where 60 per cent. of our trade is now carried out.
  We have tremendous needs in east London. Newham, with just over 200,000 inhabitants, has lost 50,000 jobs in the past 25 years. The Government have acknowledged that the regeneration of east London is a national priority, and manufacturing industry will be central to the success of that regeneration. Without it, we shall never create the decent long-term jobs that we need.
  Manufacturing regeneration will happen only with targeted support for new business locations which are fitting for modern manufacturing companies, with creative partnerships between universities and industry, with a world-class transport and communications infrastructure and with high quality market data. Those do not require immense Government spending, but they do require Government action. Inaction will mean decline, a rapid worsening of the already severe deprivation that we face in east London and the unforgivable loss of an opportunity to provide enormous benefits to the whole nation. I do not say that the Government have done nothing—I have made it clear that I welcome a number of their initiatives—but much more needs to be done, as we cannot afford to miss these opportunities.
  12.27 pm
  Mr. Denis MacShane: I shall try to keep my remarks brief, as I am looking forward to the winding-up speeches—particularly that of my old friend, the Under-Secretary. While preparing my thoughts on my short speech, I looked for some coherent policy—[Interruption.] [HON. MEMBERS: "She is walking out."] The right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) can read my speech in Hansard tomorrow. Now I can say what I really think!
  We are seeing in effect the devaluation "boomlet" following our exit from the exchange rate mechanism petering out. The latest CBI industrial trends survey reveals that business investment is down, and previous speakers have identified a loss of confidence and job losses. There has also been a rise in unit labour costs, a far more important measure than productivity.
  What worries me as a British Member of Parliament is that, when we talk about British manufacturing, we are talking more and more about foreign firms which happen to manufacture in this country. I have no objection in principle to that, but there is a problem that, for every pound of profit that Ford, Samsung or whoever makes in the United Kingdom, about 50p goes away to America, Korea or Japan.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Phillip Oppenheim): Does the hon. Gentleman know the proportion of British manufacturing that is foreign-owned?
  Mr. MacShane: What is most worrying—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] I am looking forward to the Minister's speech, because he should give a clear—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] Can the Minister name—
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. We cannot have a speech punctuated by various sedentary interventions.
  Mr. MacShane: I invite the Minister to name a single car or computer manufacturer—they are still the key component industries for our future—that is in British hands. That is why we are 18th in the world ranking of relative gross domestic product. We are out of the premier division and the first division. We have a third-rate Government, consisting of Ministers who, for the most part, are queuing up to join the National Westminster bank or GEC. When Amber Valley turns red at the next election, I wish the Under-Secretary good luck on his future job promotion prospects.
  Mr. Sykes: The hon. Gentleman is a well-known pan-European Member. Can he tell me why this country, of all European countries, has attracted 40 per cent. of Japan's inward investment in Europe? Is it because of our deregulated market or the socialist policies followed here?
  Mr. MacShane: The answer is simple—other European countries invest far more in themselves than we do. Investment per capita in Austria stands at 79.6 per cent.; in Belgium, 35 per cent.; and in Germany, 59 per cent. The equivalent investment in the United Kingdom is zero per cent. Even more alarming than the OECD's GDP per capita report is the report published in the summer by the World Economic Forum, which ranked the United Kingdom 35th out of 48 countries in terms of education and training in the world's manufacturing economy.
  Yesterday, we read that the Deputy Prime Minister has announced that he intends to set up a committee to consider why our industrial training is so poor. Frankly, he need only look in the mirror, because he and his Cabinet colleagues have presided over the destruction of apprenticeship schemes, the de-industrialisation to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe) referred and the de-skilling and de-waging of our society. He and his successor at the Department of Trade and Industry seem to think that McDonalds and Burger King can replace the sinews of British manufacturing.
  Do we have an identifiable industrial policy? That is certainly not evident at the Ministry of Defence. Its equivalent in other countries is a lead ministry in supporting the manufacturing sector. We have a Secretary of State for Defence who is so puffed up with his hatred of Europe, and so full of contempt for the necessary politics of international partnership, that he will sell Britain's defence manufacturing sector down the river. He will turn the British armed forces into demonstration teams for American arms dealers. The letters SAS on his office wall actually stand for "sell-off and scrap" what remains of the United Kingdom's defence industry.

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  The hon. Member for Southport (Mr. Banks) referred to subsidies. The haphazard policy of subsidisation, which does not seem to follow any coherent—
  Mr. Matthew Banks: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. MacShane: I do not wish to be discourteous, but I must make progress.
  Mr. Banks: But the hon. Gentleman mentioned me.
  Mr. MacShane: Very well, I shall give way for the last time.
  Mr. Banks: When the hon. Gentleman referred to the haphazard nature of policies, I presume that he was referring to the policies of his own party rather than to my remarks.
  Mr. MacShane: Thank you.
  We all know that £80 million has been given to Ford to keep Jaguar production in the west midlands and that £10 million was given to Samsung to expand in the north-east. I have no objection in principle to such funding, but such massive subsidies—more than £150 million offered to firms under the regional selective assistance scheme in the first three months of this year alone—make a mockery of the Government's efforts to outlaw the subsidies that are paid to certain companies in other European countries.
  In common with other Opposition Members with an interest in steel, I have always supported the efforts of British Steel and Ministers to bring pressure to bear on the European Community to stamp out such subsidies. When our own Government send multi-million pound cheques to Ford at Detroit and Samsung in Korea that makes us look foolish and hypocritical as we campaign against European subsidies.
  Mr. Oppenheim: What about Bridgend?
  Mr. MacShane: The Under-Secretary may like to know that Samsung is a Korean firm.
  This country has been offered the possibility of using European structural funds for the regeneration of steel regions such as my own, Rotherham. The European Commission steel area regeneration programme, known as RESIDER, had a budget of £224 million for 1988 to 1992. Because of Government inefficiency, we got only £4.14 million of that, despite the fact that our steel industry suffered the biggest job losses in Europe. The second stage of that initiative, known as RESIDER II, has been allotted reduced funds for 1997–99.
  That programme, together with initiatives on the textile and coal industries, and those concerning military conversions, have been allocated £394 million for 1994–97, and £315 million for 1997–99. We will get £50 million for those industries, but so far the Government have not said that that money from Brussels will be used to support the steel, textile and coal industries and the military conversion sector. Many in the steel industry fear that that money will be used to buy votes in marginal seats in the south rather than to support the conversion and re-industrialisation of the steel sector.
  I want to hear the Under-Secretary pledge that European cash for steel under the RESIDER II programme will be allocated to help conversion
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  programmes in Rotherham and other steel communities. It would be the most cynical corruption of that programme's money were it to be used for any other purpose.
  I look for some balance and equilibrium. We need a service industry and a healthy financial services sector, but we also need a new industrial programme. That is why I welcome the proposals announced this morning by the shadow Chancellor. Under Labour again, we need a one-nation manufacturing policy in which industry and manufacturing will once again be given their rightful place.
  12.36 pm
  Dr. Kim Howells: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe) on initiating this debate. I am sure that my congratulations reflect the admiration felt for him by everyone in the Chamber.
  We have had a good debate. I was especially glad that my hon. Friend saw fit to begin his speech by highlighting the cultural problem from which we still seem to suffer concerning the status of the manufacturing sector. I know from his previous speeches that the Under-Secretary is also concerned about that. I hope that he will address that issue today and tell us whether he has any new ideas to reward those employed in that sector; they would then receive the recognition that they deserve for their central role in our economy and society.
  I hope that the Under-Secretary will also address the critical questions raised by my hon. Friend about the extremely worrying slump in industrial investment. We have great firms—there is no question about that—and we should celebrate them a lot more than we do.
  We must also address the serious problem of under-investment, which was the theme of much of today's debate. As my hon. Friend pointed out, the average level of investment in the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1993 as a share of the economy was the lowest of the G7 countries. The August inflation report from the Bank of England noted that investment is now 20 per cent. below the level that it was in previous recoveries. That is a significant indicator, and I hope that the Under-Secretary will pay careful attention to it.
  The statistics quoted by my hon. Friend reinforced vividly the case made this morning by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown), who called for urgent Government action to arrest this country's relative decline in the league table of national income per head, which was published by the OECD. I have no doubt that the Under-Secretary will want to explain why the United Kingdom has slumped from 13th to 18th place in the league table.
  Mrs. Jane Kennedy: That is not likely.
  Dr. Howells: I hope that the Under-Secretary will do so.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South mentioned that in 1851 Britain had the most dynamic economy in the world. Like me and hundreds of thousands other others in this country, he bitterly regrets our relative decline as a manufacturing country. We are proud of our industrial heritage. Those who try to pour scorn on what we argue should realise that that is where we come from.

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  When I read tables that chart our continuing relative decline, it offends me. I do not want Britain to be outstripped in the prosperity league table by countries such as Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Austria, Hong Kong and Singapore—countries that have never enjoyed a fraction of the benefits that we have enjoyed of mighty natural resources of coal, gas and oil and our wonderful geographical location as one of the great trading nodes of the Atlantic and European economies.
  The Under-Secretary must tell us why we have slumped under his Government's management and why, with some of the world's finest scientists and greatest educational traditions, we continue to invest less in our manufacturing industries than do our competitors. He might try to explain how we can begin to educate and train our people and to modernise our welfare state so that it provides new incentives for employment and skills and the opportunity for Britain to tap the enormous creative potential of the 2 million people, many of them young, who are trying to find a pathway from welfare into work.
  Most important of all, perhaps the Under-Secretary will tell us when and how the Government intend to construct a modern competition policy capable of tackling the sort of monopolies and market rigging by vested interests that is holding the country back. He must know that competitiveness abroad depends on greater competition at home. It also depends, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Timms) said, on recognising the urgent need for the Government to be proactive and infinitely more energetic in transforming potential business locations such as Newham—and scores of other places the length and breadth of the country—where old industries have died and where there remains a crying need for properly targeted support for new business locations and, as my hon. Friend put it so well, for creative partnerships to be developed between universities and industries.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East said, the need to encourage high-quality research, and to collect and disseminate accurate data on that research, is of central importance if our universities, training and enterprise councils, business links, local authorities and all the other agencies operating in and around the sector are to succeed in playing a part in the transformation of our manufacturing industry.
  The great success of co-ordinated ventures, where they have occurred, should be replicated across the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, West (Mr. Pearson) stressed the need for the regions of England to have a greater say in shaping the economies of the regions in the way that we in Wales and Scotland have done through our development agencies. That would help to encourage that sense of belonging, identity and pride that was such an important component of industrial success a century ago right across these islands.
  As all my hon. Friends emphasised, there must be a sane and urgent assessment of our transportation and telecommunications infrastructure if we are to maintain our position as manufacturing producers and world traders. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South observed, congestion, whether in our airports or on our roads, railways or telecommunications highways can only waste our resources and energy as manufacturers.
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  Let the Government be under no illusion: the Labour party has no higher priority than to address the problem of how to arrest the trend of relative decline in investment and prosperity.
  As one who has been associated in various capacities with the coal mining industry in this country on and off over 20 years, I have few illusions about the performance and nature of publicly owned enterprises and what can happen as a result of overcentralised planning and management. I witnessed the meddling hands of Whitehall combined with the half-witted prejudices and dogmas of those on the Government Benches strangle what little spirit of initiative remained in the industry by the early 1980s. Nor do I doubt that, perhaps even by the late 1960s, the National Coal Board's management mechanisms for deciding production and investment policy were wholly incapable of responding to the demands of rapidly changing markets and energy technologies.
  Those short histories apply more or less equally to a range of industries, including key ones such as car and motor cycle manufacture. For those who were born and raised in communities that depended on those enterprises, the experience of the past couple of decades has been painful in the extreme. As we heard in the debate, no one understands that experience better than my hon. Friends.
  Labour has every wish to ensure that never again will our communities be forced to endure the rates of unemployment and social deprivation that resulted in no small part from the inability of those charged with managing our economy to understand the changing demands of the market, to help ease the pains of transition and to provide the infrastructure required by modern manufacturing.
  I recognise the strengths and benefits of a market economy but also the need to guard against market failure where the market is not delivering a solution that benefits consumers and customers. Where that happens, we should be able to design a minimum amount of intervention as a corrective so that the market works for the benefit of the many and not the few, if Government economic and industrial policy is to be designed to produce a better, more equitable and more prosperous society.
  We have had a helpful debate today. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Sykes) could not give us the benefit of his great experience by telling us how we should run the economy. I am sure that his interventions have been helpful.
  More helpful, however, have been the contributions of my hon. Friends. I hope that the Under-Secretary will take them seriously and give us some answers.
  12.46 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Phillip Oppenheim): I thank the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) for the spirit of his comments. He will be disappointed to learn that I agree with some of them and with some of the comments of the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), whose choice of debate I welcome. It is an important issue.
  The hon. Member for Bradford, South mentioned that too often in Britain manufacturing is regarded as a second-rate option. We have a cultural aversion to

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  manufacturing. Britain must be the only country in the developed world where, if people say that they are engineers, it is thought that they have come to mend the washing machine. That is not the job of an engineer—not that there is anything wrong with people who mend washing machines.
  The hon. Member for Bradford, South is also right to believe—this has pervaded the debate—that our manufacturing decline started not in 1979, as some people have liked to try and make out over the past 15 years, but in the 1850s or 1860s. We have had a long period of relative decline in manufacturing.
  Mr. Barry Sheerman: It is the Whigs' fault then?
  Mr. Oppenheim: It is the Whigs' fault. The hon. Gentleman has put his finger unerringly on it.
  Mr. MacShane: Where are they?
  Mr. Oppenheim: That is probably why they have not turned up, not that there are many of them. There is a difference between Whigs and Liberals. The hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) should read his 19th-century history.
  I disagree with the hon. Member for Bradford, South about the idea that the decline has somehow continued. In fact, as I hope to show, we have shown some improvement, not necessarily since 1979 but certainly since the early 1980s, and tribute should be paid to that. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Banks) mentioned some other points on which I disagreed with the hon. Member for Bradford, South.
  The hon. Member for Bradford, South talked about the ascent of the Asian tigers as being largely the result of protection and industrial policy. That is a little simplistic. For one thing, Hong Kong and Singapore have been very open markets, relatively speaking, and have had little in the way of industrial strategy. Between 1982 and 1994, those countries increased their imports four times but Britain's exports to those countries increased by five times. That shows that the picture is not only of decline; there are areas where we have done very well indeed.
  The hon. Member for Bradford, South also mentioned that we had to have a visionary industrial plan. Visionary industrial plans are rather easier to talk about than implement. I seem to recollect from my childhood and student days that we had a visionary industrial plan in Britain the 1960s and 1970s; I shall return to its results later.
  The hon. Member for Rotherham seems to want a policy of guns, not butter, and to believe that Britain should somehow pour money into an industrial strategy to encourage the arms industry, which sets him at odds with many members of his party. He also seems to think that inward investment is not a totally good thing because we lose control, and he said that the investment in this country by Samsung and by Ford was a mixed blessing. Inward investment has gone on for many years. In fact, one of the few successes in inward investment under the last Labour Government was a huge Ford engine plant in Bridgend that was financed from the United States.
  I thought that the hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Timms) made many very valid points about the link between education and industrial
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  performance. I shall return to that issue later. Many people are hung up on the idea of industrial strategy and Governments doing this, that or the other. We can assist industry by improving education and training. The hon. Gentleman should probably have given the Government some credit for the fact that the number of people in higher education has increased from 10 per cent. to 30 per cent. Although they need some fine tuning, the launch of national vocational qualifications is a huge step toward improving vocational education.
  The hon. Member for Rotherham or the hon. Member for Bradford, South—I forget which—referred to the British Telecom agreement as a great example of the way forward in leading edge industrial strategy. BT has pulled a fast one over the Opposition, and it will be laughing all the way to the bank. It appears that, in return for cabling hospitals and schools—many of which are cabled anyway—it will have a virtual monopoly over the provision of cable services nationwide. I must inform the hon. Gentlemen that cabling is free. However, the subscriptions paid afterwards are not free, and BT has not agreed to waive those charges. That is a classic example of the naivety of the Labour party when it comes to negotiating with organisations such as BT. It is the consumer who will suffer from carve-ups of the market by vested interests.
  I conclude my canter over the territory covered by Labour speeches by mentioning an advertisement that appeared this morning in The Times and possibly in some other lesser journals. It purported to show that Britain has slipped from 13th to 18th in terms of gross domestic product per head. There was one glaring mistake in the advertisement: it claimed that France had overtaken us, whereas in fact France overtook us during the period of the previous Labour Government.
  The hon. Member for Rotherham might also be interested to learn that the figures in the advertisement have been achieved by inserting Hong Kong and Singapore, which were not included in previous tables. It is true that Hong Kong and Singapore produce more per head than we do. They are great paragons of the relatively open market and low taxation. According to the World bank, Hong Kong and Singapore also rank above Germany, Japan and France—so we are not in bad company in that respect.
  Many Labour speeches have the pervading theme that markets are imperfect, and that therefore Governments should step in to perfect what Labour Members call "market failures". I am a free marketeer who agrees that markets are imperfect—very few things in this world are perfect. I am afraid that the idea that politicians and civil servants can step in and resolve market imperfections has been disproved by a long litany of failed interventions on the part of politicians and civil servants. Markets are imperfect, but unfortunately the decisions made by politicians and civil servants to try to correct market failures are even more imperfect.
  Politicians are at a disadvantage in that regard. The market is an aggregate of thousands, sometimes millions, of decisions by the people most concerned with it: investors, consumers, shareholders and workers. Their aggregate decisions are likely to be better than those decisions made by politicians and civil servants who almost invariably do not have access to the same information.

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  Even if they did have such access, as hon. Members who remember the 1970s will know all too well, the decisions of politicians and civil servants are distorted by vested interests. Politicians and civil servants are influenced by vested interests, and the most politically powerful vested interests will receive most of the money.
  Labour Members seemed to think that British manufacturing has done particularly badly in the past 15 years. The 1960s and 1970s were probably the nadir of British manufacturing under Governments of all political persuasions, not just Labour Governments. The performance of British industry during that period was so poor that many foreign observers genuinely wondered whether Britain had a real future as an industrial nation. Poor labour relations and low productivity in huge swathes of our manufacturing industry led to Britain's falling further and further behind our main competitors and to a steady decline in our share of the world market for manufactured goods.
  In the decades of the 1960s and 1970s, Britain was bottom of the G7 countries when it came to growth in manufacturing productivity and output. Growth in manufacturing output actually fell between 1974 and 1979. Let us not forget that those were the days of grandiose state-sponsored industrial strategies, when British Steel was the world's largest loss maker and British Leyland cars were, sadly, the butt of musical hall jokes—that is when the nightshift was not asleep or on strike.
  Mr. MacShane: Or both.
  Mr. Oppenheim: That is right.
  The hon. Member for Pontypridd correctly pointed out that the decline in manufacturing in the early 1980s proved very painful for many communities. Conservative Members must recognise that fact. Mining areas in my constituency suffered not just in the early 1980s but in the 1960s and 1970s when Labour Governments closed many pits. We must realise that mining communities underwent a painful transformation.
  However, Labour Members should also recognise that manufacturing output has expanded rapidly since the early 1980s to make up the lost ground. I think that Labour Members know in their heart of hearts that much of the industry that was lost in the early 1980s was inefficient and unsustainable capacity, which was kept alive on a drip-feed of Government subsidies and protection from foreign competition.
  Since then, the growth in Britain's manufacturing output has not only made up all that lost ground, and more, but put us on the G7 manufacturing output average. We have moved from the bottom to the middle of the league. A much more important figure is the growth in productivity. During the 1960s and 1970s, we were
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  bottom of the tables for productivity growth in manufacturing. During the 1980s and 1990s, we moved to the top of that league. British manufacturing productivity was higher than that of Japan, Germany, France and Italy during the 1980s and 1990s.
  A recent independent report has shown that we have made up three quarters of the productivity gap between Britain and Germany. In every decade since the war until the early 1980s, the productivity gap between Britain and Germany widened. Since 1980, we have made up three quarters of that lost ground. Labour Members should recognise that there have been some successes as a result of factors such as increased competition and privatisation.
  Companies such as British Steel, that were almost basket cases are now highly successful. British Steel is the fourth largest steel producer in the world. It is highly profitable, it exports half of its output and it supplies 80 per cent. of the domestic market. The Rolls-Royce aero-engines company, which was almost written off in the 1970s, doubled its share of the market for civil aero engines following privatisation. Privatisation and the hands-off approach has had an effect. I also believe that sounder monetary policy and lower taxes and inflation have created a more stable environment.
  We must improve our standards of education if we are to close the remaining gap between Britain and the best economies, such as Germany and Japan. We have not overtaken those countries; we have caught up a lot of lost ground, but we still have some to make up. Hon. Members on both sides of the House accept that education has been our Achilles' heel since the middle of the 19th century. I hope that we are about to reach some sort of consensus on the issue. We must improve vocational education and ensure high standards in education.
  In the past, Labour Members have opposed many of our education reforms. However, in their heart of hearts, I believe that they accept that many, if not all, of the reforms were necessary and worth while. Conservative Members accept that those reforms take some time to bed down. It takes time to change the culture of an education system that has been in place for 30 or 40 years. We must recognise that some disruption will occur.
  However, there are no magic solutions that will improve manufacturing performance. We must improve education and training, and ensure a stable monetary policy that maintains low inflation, which will allow manufacturing industry to invest for the long term and get away from short-termism. We must have a low-tax regime that does not crowd out the manufacturing sector.
  Although we continue to have differences, the opinions of Conservative Members and Labour Members about those issues are a great deal closer together than they were 15 years ago. I recognise that we have not done everything right, but I hope that Opposition Members will acknowledge that we have made significant progress in making our manufacturing industry more competitive and productive and increasing output since 1989.

  Motorway Service Area (Iver)
  12.59 pm
  Mr. Tim Smith: I am grateful for the opportunity to draw attention to the important matter of the proposed motorway service area at Iver on the M25 in my constituency.
  I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister for Railways and Roads will reply to the debate, not only because he is the Minister responsible for that aspect of policy, but because, as the hon. Member for Slough, he knows that part of the country as well as anyone, and is especially well qualified to make a judgment about that important matter.
  I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for the fact that he has agreed later to receive a petition that I hold in my hand, which was signed by nearly 2,000 local people and which gives some sign of the strength of feeling about this proposal. I am especially grateful to those people who have gone to great lengths and put in a great deal of hard work to collect all those signatures, especially Mrs. Eileen Sibley, who is secretary of the Iver Lane and district residents association, who personally collected about 800 signatures.
  An inspector appointed by the Secretary of State for the Environment has recommended that a motorway service area should be built on the M25 at Woodlands Park, Iver, in my constituency. In my opinion, that is one of the most perverse and indefensible planning recommendations that I have ever come across. I am grateful for the opportunity to explain to the House why it should not be allowed to proceed.
  There are three motorway service areas on the M25—one each in the north, south and east quadrants. It is generally agreed that there is a need for a fourth motorway service area in the western quadrant, as the distance between the one in the north and the one in the south is 63 miles. I do not disagree with that conclusion, although I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the fact that Woodlands Park is 24 miles from the one in the north but 39 miles from the one in the south, so it is by no means equidistant between the two.
  The history of that matter is, as my hon. Friend confirmed to me in a written reply last week, that the Department of Transport commissioned a survey of possible sites in July 1984. That led to an announcement, in 1988, that the Department would promote a motorway service area at Iver. However, that was not the Woodlands Park site, but a site on the other side of the M25, between Iver Village and Richings Park. In the end, for various reasons, no planning application was submitted.
  In 1989, the Department of Transport announced a fresh search for a motorway service area site on the western quadrant. Soon after, the provision of motorway service areas was deregulated, and the search for a suitable site was abandoned.
  We now move to February 1994, when Cape Plc and Corporate Land Ltd. submitted three planning applications for a motorway service area at Woodlands Park. Those were determined by Buckinghamshire county council, because that site is the subject of an existing minerals and waste disposal planning permission.
  When the applications were submitted, the Department was still proposing to build link roads along the M25
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  between the M4 and the M40. Since then, it hasabandoned that proposal, and instead proposes to build a fifth lane in each direction to accommodate the increased traffic. I believe that it was for that reason that the Department directed the county council to refuse planning permission.
  The Department gave two reasons. The first was that the development of a motorway service area would be incompatible with the link road proposals; obviously, that objection is no longer relevant. The second was that the motorway service area would be incompatible with the use of the motorway in its present state, as regards both the safety and function of the motorway as part of the national system for through traffic. I believe that reason to be as relevant today as it was last year. Indeed, I believe it to be a conclusive reason not to implement that scheme.
  Although the county council had no choice but to refuse the planning application, it considered all the other issues arising from it. It concluded that planning permission should be refused for those reasons, too.
  First, the council said that it had not been demonstrated that that was the proven optimum site in the western quadrant of the M25. Secondly, it said that it had not been demonstrated that the development on a former waste disposal site could be carried out safely during and after construction. Thirdly, it said that the proposed hotel was not a necessary facility, and might become a destination in its own right.
  Fourthly, the council said that the motorway service area, because of its excessive size and unsatisfactory siting, would be unduly obstructive and detrimental to the visual and residential amenities of the occupiers of neighbouring residential properties and to the character of the area. Fifthly, it said that the MSA would, according to the advice of the National Rivers Authority, be at direct risk of flooding, and would increase the risk of flooding elsewhere.
  Cape Plc and Corporate Land Ltd. appealed against the refusal of planning permission. Between 22 November and 9 December 1994, the inspector appointed by the Secretary of State to consider the appeal held a public inquiry at the Evreham centre, Swallow street, Iver. Evidence was given by the appellants and by Buckinghamshire county council and individual witnesses, included County Councillor Mrs. Audrey Bainbridge, County Councillor Mrs. Ros Wingrove, District Councillor Mr. Richard Worrall, and Mrs. Sibley, whom I have mentioned.
  Those individual witnesses said that, for many years, local residents had suffered the adverse effects of two previous exploitations of the site—mineral extraction and industrial waste filling—as well as those arising more recently from the addition of fourth lanes to the M25. Now, just as the site has been restored to a rural appearance, they are confronted with the prospect of further and permanent damage to their residential environment by the construction and subsequent operation of a massive motorway service area.
  Those witnesses told the inquiry that noise and air pollution levels in the locality, not least from the M25, are already high, and would be further aggravated by the appeal proposals.
  Those witnesses said that asbestosis and related diseases are well known at first hand in the locality, including numerous deaths, especially of former employees of Cape. I am pleased to see my hon. Friend

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  the Member for Uxbridge (Sir M. Shersby) in his place, since many of his constituents will be affected by that proposal. Later, he will say a few words about an aspect that we both consider extremely important—what will happen when the site is dug up and asbestos, which is buried in the site, is exposed.
  The local objectors also claim that the assessment of need for a motorway service area does not take into account the relative proportions of long-haul and short-hop traffic on the M25. Lastly, but by no means least, they said that the motorway service area, with its approach roads and its overbridges, would have a devastating visual impact on the present rural appearance of the site.
  I deal now with the inspector's conclusions. The inspector complains that neither Buckinghamshire county council nor South Buckinghamshire district council nor any other local authority has even mentioned an alternative site. What does the inspector mean by that? Is he saying that the planning authority is required to consider a planning application not only on its absolute merits but on its merits relative to the merits of a range of hypothetical alternatives? If so, he is talking nonsense.
  As the director of planning services of South Buckinghamshire council said in a letter to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Sir P. Beresford), dated 29 September, local authorities are not in a position to carry out a detailed analysis of propositions concerning alternative sites. Local authorities do not have the responsibility or the resources to do that. Councils have not been asked to do that by the Government; nor did the inspector state that that was required in this case.
  If an applicant seeks to demonstrate that an exception should be made to green belt policy, the onus must surely be on that applicant to prove that there are no suitable alternative sites. That was not done satisfactorily in this case. For the inspector to imply criticism of local authorities and to expect an optimum site to be put forward by them is wholly unacceptable. Given that the inspector has not been able to say that Woodlands Park is the optimum site suggests that the decision is flawed.
  The inspector's logic is as follows: we need an MSA in the western quadrant of the M25; the whole of the western quadrant is in a green belt area, so we must make an exception to green belt policy and put the MSA in the green belt; no one has come up with a satisfactory alternative to Woodlands Park, so Woodlands Park it must be. That is the logic of the madhouse, but it is, of course, partly due to deregulation.
  The Department of Transport abandoned the strategic approach to MSA site evaluation in favour of a more free-market approach. Although that may be acceptable generally, I doubt whether it makes a great deal of sense when there is a presumption against development in the entire area of search.
  As I said, the proposed site is 24 miles from the northern motorway service area on the M25, but 39 miles from the southern one. That suggests that the optimum site would be some seven or eight miles further south than Woodlands Park, somewhere to the south of the M4. However, it is not my job to propose alternative sites, nor
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  is it the job of local councils. It is something to which, in these exceptionally difficult circumstances, the Department of transport should once again turn its attention.
  The inspector also ignored the cumulative effect of development in the green belt. I am concerned that each planning application should be considered on its merits without reference to what is going on elsewhere. As I said, my hon. Friend the Minister for Railways and Roads knows my constituency well, so I draw his attention to the Eton college rowing lake and the National Rivers Authority's flood relief scheme. They were decided by planning inspectors without reference to each other, even though they impact on precisely the same area.
  The South Buckinghamshire district council gave evidence to the inspector on the proposed development but the inspector chose to ignore it. The fact is, however, that every month the fragile green belt is under further attack. This month, it is a proposal from the Central Railway company to build a new railway through my constituency, complete with a 100-acre marshalling yard in the green belt at Denham.
  Forty years ago, Iver was a delightful village in a genuinely rural area. Since then, it has endured the construction of the M4 and its subsequent widening, the construction of the M25 and its widening, mineral extraction on a massive scale, substantial dumping of waste, the threat of a large sludge treatment works to be transferred from Heathrow if the fifth terminal there is given to go-ahead—and now this.
  I suppose that Iver might today be described as semi-rural, but if the proposal goes ahead and the last piece of green belt between Iver and London is destroyed, a better description might be "suburban". At that point, one will be entitled to ask what is the point of having a green belt if we keep on making exceptions to it, because, in the end, there will be no green belt left.
  I believe that the inspector has seriously misdirected himself. He has concluded that Iver is the best site because no one has come up with anything better. He has gone out of his way to criticise local authorities for their failure to produce alternative solutions, although they have no obligation to do so. He has completely ignored the cumulative effect of development in the green belt. I hope very much that the Secretaries of State for the Environment and for Transport will throw out his flawed recommendations.
  1.14 pm
  Sir Michael Shersby: I am pleased to have the opportunity briefly to support my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith). My constituency immediately adjoins his, and the residents of the Cowley area of my constituency are especially affected by the proposal.
  I object strongly to the proposed development, which, as my hon. Friend said, would mean a further substantial loss of the green belt. As president of the London Green Belt Council, I share my hon. Friend's astonishment that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment could even consider allowing the proposal to go ahead. However, as my hon. Friend said, there is another reason for not allowing the proposal to continue—the danger to public health that would arise if asbestos

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  deposited on the site years ago were to be removed, even under what are reassuringly known these days as controlled conditions.
  The danger is the risk of mesothelioma, which is caused by the inhalation of minute asbestos fibres and which results in death many years later. This has been known to the Government and to the asbestos industry for many years. For example, in 1949, Dr. H. Wyers, who was then the medical officer at the Cape Asbestos Company, now Cape plc—the joint developer of the site—reported 115 fatal cases in which asbestosis was mentioned, and provided evidence of lung and pleural cancers accompanying it. The average age of death was 40.8 years. The late 1950s and early 1960s was the time in history when the ability of asbestos fibres to cause mesothelioma was finally and officially recognised throughout the world.
  The assessor who was appointed to advise the inspector who conducted the public inquiry was there to advise on technical aspects, with specific reference to landfill and the associated problems of gas and leachite production. With hindsight, it would have been much better had the inspector been assisted by an environmental assessor to help him consider the inherent dangers of developing the site, given that it has been used to dump quantities of asbestos.
  Paragraph 14 of the assessor's report states:
  "it is known that extreme precautions must be adopted by anyone handling the material in quantity".
  That statement is rather misleading, as the Health and Safety Executive Guidelines refer to the need for precautions to be taken by anyone handling asbestos, not only those handling it "in quantity".
  The assessor goes on to state that the fact that
  "it can be handled in safety is highlighted by the common practice now of the removal of asbestos from schools and many public buildings".
  I suggest, however, that it is very difficult to see the connection between such present-day practices and the very open site of some 44 acres being considered for a motorway service area.
  It is well known that the technique used to remove asbestos involves the creation of negative pressure, and the removal inside a plastic tent from which the air is sucked through a filter. That is the best way of keeping all the microscopic death-dealing fibres in the working area. However, those fibres are so small that they are not visible to the human eye, and are absolutely lethal when inhaled.
  I understand from the information at my disposal that all three of the common types of asbestos—chrysolite, which is white, amosite, which is brown, and crocodilite, which is blue—are present on the site. How would lorries enter and leave a 44-acre site under a plastic tent, going through the necessary airlocks? It is inconceivable. What about the danger to the workmen involved in carrying out such a hazardous operation? It has been suggested that a soil covering of 500 mm be used to cover the operation at night, but there is no recognition of the fact that the soil will then be contaminated, and will similarly have to be excavated and removed.
  I invite the House and the Minister to consider the dangers to the environment and to health inherent in any such work involving large-scale excavation and piling on land contaminated in this way. The assessor goes on to say:
  "This is by no means an ideal site".
  I completely agree.
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  I therefore tell my hon. Friend, and his colleagues in the Department of the Environment, that there will be a serious risk to human health if this site is excavated for the construction of a motorway service area. That risk is far too great, and should not be taken. I therefore hope very much that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will change his mind and refuse planning permission.
  1.20 pm
  The Minister for Railways and Roads (Mr. John Watts): I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) and for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) on the clear way in which they have expressed the case on behalf of their constituents. They will know that attempts to provide a motorway service area on the western side of the M25 have a long and complicated history.
  In November 1989, the then Minister for Roads and Traffic announced that existing plans for Iver were to be abandoned, and a fresh site search for an MSA on the western part of the M25 would be undertaken. The reasons for this return to the drawing board were summed up in the announcement as
  "the very complex problems which make the provision of a single-sided site at Iver very unlikely in the foreseeable future."
  My hon. Friends may well think that my predecessor's assessment got it absolutely right. They might equally wonder what has changed since 1989. The most important change was that, in 1992, the provision of new MSAs was deregulated. What this means in practice is that it is now for the private sector rather than my Department, as it was in the past, to identify sites for new MSAs, secure planning permission and acquire the land.
  It is therefore under these deregulated arrangements, rather than at the Department's instigation, that the present proposals have emerged. There were, of course, three applications for Woodlands Park; all were submitted by the same developer. All three applications were referred to both the Highways Agency and the planning authority. The agency's response was to object to each of them, on the grounds that development of an MSA at this site would prejudice the proposed M4-M40 link roads. That objection, together with the planning authority's own views on the applications, led to all three being refused.
  It was the developers' appeal against those refusals that led to the public inquiry which took place in November and December last year. At the start of the inquiry, the agency maintained its earlier objections to all three schemes. As the inquiry proceeded, however, the developer submitted revised drawings showing amended accesses.
  The agency's engineers discussed these revised proposals with the developer, and as a result were able to tell the inspector that the revised proposals met the technical standards for connection to the dual four-lane M25. But the agency maintained its objections to all three proposals, on the grounds that they would prejudice the provision of the proposed link roads.
  That was the position when the inquiry closed. There have, though, been some further developments since. In particular, we announced that it was not now proposed to build the link roads, and that we would seek instead to widen the M25 from four lanes to five in each direction between the M4 and M40.

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  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment considered that our revised proposals for this section of the M25 did potentially amount to a significant new factor which he ought to take into account in considering the inspector's recommendation. That is why he announced on 25 September this year that he was minded to allow two of the appeals, but that he would defer his decision for three weeks. The additional time was to allow interested parties to make any further representations to take account of the new factors.
  I now turn to some of the more specific points which my hon. Friends have raised. I have already made the point that the Woodlands Park proposal is in no sense a Government proposal. The Department has had plans of its own in the past for an MSA at Iver—although not in the same location—but never reached the stage of submitting a planning application.
  The Department's only view, which is set out in its advice to local planning authorities, is that MSAs should not generally be more than about thirty miles apart. That is not simply because we like to see regular MSAs for their own sake. It is important to safety that motorists should have a chance to stop every 30 miles or so. My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield has accepted that there is a case for a motorway service area somewhere on the western quadrant of the M25, although not at this location.
  Beyond that, the Department's direct involvement is limited to ensuring that the proposals meet our technical requirements for an MSA. In other words, we need to be satisfied that, if planning permission were to be granted, the MSA could be connected safely to the M25.
  A point which I know has been raised in this context is that we have recently begun the trial of a controlled motorway scheme for the M25 between junctions 11 and 15, a little to the south of the proposed MSA. The scheme is a response to the very heavy volumes of traffic using this part of our motorway network. One of the aims is to reduce the need for motorists to switch from lane to lane—weaving, to use the jargon term. Yet the agency is apparently prepared to agree to an MSA on this, another section of the M25 carrying very heavy traffic flows, even though the inevitable result will be increased weaving movements as motorists seek to get into and out of the site.
  This seems, I agree, an odd response, but there are two separate considerations. First, departmental standards lay down a minimum distance which must be preserved between successive motorway junctions. That distance is, to use a foreign measurement, two kilometres. On the latest agreed plans for the Woodlands Park MSA, at least this distance is available to all vehicles entering or leaving the MSA on either carriageway.
  The second consideration was whether, even though this technical standard had been met, the Highways Agency should continue to oppose the MSA simply because the extra weaving movements might affect the capacity of this part of the road. Clearly there is a balance to be drawn here.
  The aim of the controlled motorway experiment is to make more efficient use of the existing capacity by controlling speeds and encouraging drivers to stay in lane. There is no doubt that introducing a completely new
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  access point, as the MSA would do, means that some of the benefit that we might derive if the controlled motorway experiment is a success—I believe that it is—and is extended past the site would be lost.
  The Highways Agency therefore had to balance the extra weaving movements that the MSA would introduce against the benefits to motorists of having a new MSA on a very long stretch of motorway which currently lacks any services. This is a difficult judgment, but I have instructed officials in the Highways Agency to consider whether it is sensible to allow an MSA at this location, with the attendant disruption to traffic flow, when it may be necessary to impose permanent traffic management on this stretch of road when it is widened to dual five.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge has made very clear his own concerns and those of his constituents about the asbestos contamination which affects the site. He will not, I know, expect me either to comment in detail on the technical issues or to anticipate the outcome of the Secretary of State for the Environment's consideration of the inspector's recommendations.
  What I can do is remind my hon. Friend that it was because of the contamination question that the original planning application fell to be considered not by the district council, as would normally be the case, but by Buckinghamshire county council. He will also be aware that the inspector at the inquiry was assisted by an independent assessor appointed by my right hon. Friend specifically to consider the questions raised by the presence of asbestos on the site.
  I know that measures to deal with the contamination were discussed very thoroughly during the inquiry. I am assured that, if planning permission were to be granted, the Health and Safety Executive would be involved in considering detailed schemes for the disposal of asbestos, and will be responsible for ensuring that the operation is carried out correctly.
  That would be guaranteed by conditions which would be attached to any planning permission that might be granted. The conditions would cover, among other things, further site investigations to assess the degree of contamination; measures to deal with it; implementation of those measures; and monitoring of the disposal operations. That is a comprehensive list, which I hope will give my hon. Friends and their constituents some reassurance.
  To conclude, I must stress once again that the current proposals are from the private sector, not from my Department or the Highways Agency. Like any other proposals, they fall to be considered first by the local planning authority and then, in the event of a call-in or an appeal, as here, by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.
  A few days still remain during which interested parties can make representations to my right hon. Friend if they believe that the withdrawal of the Department's link road scheme and the replacement strategy of widening to dual five introduce new considerations which were not adequately aired during the inquiry. Further representations must relate to those considerations. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has not agreed to reopen the entire inquiry.
  I know that my hon. Friends will understand if I do not allow myself to be drawn any further into consideration of the merits or otherwise of the planning applications. It

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  would be wrong for me to do so. Nevertheless, I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will note the points that my hon. Friends have made. I have no doubt that he will want to ensure that they have all been covered adequately before he announces his decision.

  Fireworks
  1.30 pm
  Mr. Richard Burden: I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about firework safety. I am sure that we all want to see this year's bonfire night celebrations go ahead safely and enjoyably. We do not want to wake up on Monday to learn that the number of firework injuries has risen for the third year running. Last year, more than 1,500 people were injured in firework-related accidents. That was a 48 per cent. increase on the previous year. Over half of those affected were children. There have already been alarming reports this year of firework-related injuries.
  I am sure that the House would think that the Government should be tightening laws on firework safety. I have no doubt that Ministers will say that they are doing so, but I dispute that. As time is short, I shall bring to the attention of the House only two considerations that illustrate my argument. What I have to say will show that Ministers' zeal for what they call deregulation has made a bonfire of essential firework safety measures and has increased red tape rather than reducing it in enforcing the regulations that remain.
  First, I want to draw attention to the sale of fireworks to children under the age of 16 years. Secondly, I shall draw attention to the importing of dangerous fireworks into the United Kingdom. The seriousness of selling fireworks to children under 16 will be clear to anyone who has noted the increased number of "here today, gone tomorrow" shops that open to sell fireworks shortly before bonfire night, only to close soon after.
  In Birmingham, an operation planned by one of the local newspapers, the Birmingham Evening Mail, and the trading standards department found last week that nine out of 10 shops visited proved themselves to be willing and prepared to sell fireworks to a girl under the age of 16 years. Until this year, the firework safety regulations that were introduced in 1986 gave clear responsibility to trading standards departments to prosecute shops selling fireworks to under-16s. The regulations were swept away, however, because the Government said that they duplicated other provisions, and specifically those set out in the Explosives Act 1875. When the Government swept away the regulations, they also did away with the enforcement mechanism. Confusion now reigns over who is meant to be enforcing the law.
  Some trading standards departments, especially in metropolitan areas, do not believe themselves to be authorised to enforce the law.
  The Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs (Mr. Jonathan Evans)indicated dissent.
  Mr. Burden: I note the Minister's response.
  Ministers insist that the law is much clearer than I believe it to be. That being so, why, on 15 May, in answer to a written question that I tabled, did the Minister inform me that the police constituted the enforcing authority for the Explosives Act? When I asked a virtually identical question on 24 October, why did he present a different answer, to the effect that responsibility was sort of with the police, sort of with trading standards officers and sort of with fire authorities? If the Minister cannot make up his mind who is responsible for enforcing the law, how does he expect the law to be enforced?

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  Recent events suggest that the deregulation of import controls on fireworks from abroad is an even more worrying issue. In 1993, the Government scrapped the requirement that there should be specific licences for imported fireworks. Ministers and the Health and Safety Executive's chief inspector of explosives assured everyone that that would not mean that controls would slacken. A letter from Mr. G. E. Williamson, the chief inspector, to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths) of 30 November 1993 specifically stated:
  "Importers will still have to make application to HSE, but now for classification and authorization. They will still need to provide evidence that the HSE has classified and authorized the fireworks before the importation takes place, if challenged. Appropriate documentation will be provided. And the importer will need to ensure that the firework meets the British Standard or its equivalent at all times."
  Those sentiments echoed the ones in a letter from the Minister to my hon. Friend of 14 November 1993. I think that the letter was written by the Minister's predecessor.
  If all that is the case, how is it that seven container loads of fireworks bearing the label "Red Lion" came into the country at Southampton in the past few months? They were produced in China and imported by a firm called Kanash, which is based in Northern Ireland. Once they were on sale, Liverpool trading standards officers received a tip-off about the fireworks and seized some for tests. The found that, despite the fact that the fireworks had British standard labels, virtually none of them complied with the relevant standard. Indeed, some were not even eligible for it. The officers found also that six different lines of the fireworks contained sulphur chlorate, which has been illegal in this country since 1894. It can explode if dropped even if the firework has not been lighted. The address that was shown on the label for the fireworks, which was in Liverpool 6, did not exist.
  First, why was the problem with Red Lion fireworks picked up only when they were on the market? Secondly, is it true that Kanash, the importers, contacted the HSE in early 1995 and that the executive gave advice about how the firm could bring in fireworks before the HSE had conducted any tests on the products of that firm? Thirdly, why did the HSE not bother to monitor a brand new company, apparently with a non-existent address in Liverpool and a Belfast connection? Fourthly, is it true that the fireworks were held for several weeks, perhaps even months, at the Royal Ordnance factory at Chorley? Were any tests carried out there?
  Fifthly, has the HSE seen records of tests carried out on the consignment of Red Lion fireworks? If so, where and when were the tests carried out, what were the results and what was done subsequently? Sixthly, seven containers came into the country and only three have been located. What steps are being taken to find the remaining four, which we know arrived in Southampton? Seventhly, what attempts has the HSE made to trace customers and what records has Kanash provided to assist it? Eighthly, will anybody be prosecuting Kanash or the Royal Ordnance factory for importing or storing the fireworks? Ninthly, have any assurances been given to either organisation about immunity from prosecution?
  There are serious questions about Kanash and Red Lion, but the matter does not end there. Last Friday, Cleveland trading standards department informed Her
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  Majesty's inspector of explosives at the Health and Safety Executive of the presence of sulphur chlorate in the Thunderstorm firework produced by Black Cat Fireworks. That led to the HSE contacting the local radio station and, I understand, issuing a press release saying that Thunderstorm should be withdrawn from sale. Some important questions still remain about that.
  First, is it true that the HSE was informed of the presence of sulphur chlorate in Thunderstorm fireworks as long ago as the summer of this year by the managing director of Standard Fireworks? Secondly, what action has been taken on the basis of the information that was supplied? As far as I know, no action was taken. Thirdly, what action, beyond a call to the local radio station and issuing a press release, has the HSE taken to ensure the withdrawal of Thunderstorm fireworks from sale? Fourthly, is it true that Cleveland trading standards department has now found sulphur chlorate in a number of other fireworks produced by Black Cat, and that it has informed the HSE about that? What is the HSE doing about that?
  Is the Minister satisfied that Her Majesty's inspector of explosives in particular, and the HSE in general, are doing the job properly? If the Minister is satisfied on that, will he tell me today how many companies' products the HSE tested for sulphur chlorate before 1995, as it has had that responsibility all the way through?
  In the light of all of that, I invite the Minister to agree with me that several things need to be done urgently. First, the firework safety regulations of 1986, which were swept away by Ministers, should now been reinstated. Secondly, import licences for fireworks should be reinstated. Thirdly, there should be, for the first time, mandatory compliance with British standard 7114 for categories 1, 2 and 3, for all fireworks that are made available for sale to the public. Fourthly, all other fireworks should be regarded as category 4 and therefore available only for public displays.
  Does the Minister agree that there should now be proper vetting, by a licensing system, of all those seeking to import fireworks, and that it should include clear assurances about storage requirements and mandatory sample testing for sulphur chlorate, and that fireworks should comply with British standard 7114 before they are distributed? Does he agree that such testing should take place on licensed explosives sites, with proper independent monitoring and with trading standards officers being involved? Does he further agree that, where a container is shared by more than one importer, trading standards departments should be informed of the destination of all consignments, and not just be given a broad-brush generalisation?
  In the light of what has happened with Black Cat, Red Lion and so on over the past few months, I hope that the Minister will be able to give me those assurances today. If he is not able to do so, not only can we not be assured that Her Majesty's inspector of explosives is doing his job properly, but it may be the case that the Minister may not be doing his job properly either.
  1.43 pm
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths: The Minister has allowed me a minute, for which I am grateful. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Burden) for taking up this cause.

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  Is the Minister aware that Lyn Williams, the general secretary of the Police Federation, wrote to him less than three months ago, saying that previous legislation
  "seemed to work well in practice ensuring that the law was well enforced and that many youngsters were, no doubt, prevented from injuring themselves"?
  He continues:
  "I doubt whether any Chief Officer will have the resources available to deal with this problem in the way it has been dealt with over the last fewer years … At the present time it seems that there are attempts to 'plug the gap' by seeing if powers under the General Product Safety Regulations 1994 can be used … We do not consider this satisfactory."
  Is the Minister further aware that the Home Office wrote to the Association of Metropolitan Authorities last week, saying:
  "We have not been able to establish whether the DTI consulted the Home Office before revoking the Fireworks (Safety) Regulations 1986 and we are … unaware of any consideration which may have been given to the implications of the revocation for enforcement. The present position is that we are consulting the DTI and they are now looking into the question of enforcement responsibility"?
  That was written less than two weeks before fireworks were put on sale.
  It is quite clear to some of us that the right wing of the Conservative party seems to want to sweep away any laws. They do not care which laws, as long as they can reduce the number. In this case, the victims are likely to be the children and those who have previously had the enjoyment of fireworks, whom the Minister and his party are now putting at risk.
  1.45 pm
  The Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs (Mr. Jonathan Evans): I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Burden) on his choice of subject, as it gives me the opportunity to draw attention to the Government's efforts to highlight the issue of firework safety—an issue with which, in fairness, the hon. Gentleman began his speech—and there are many important messages there. It also gives me the opportunity to respond to a great deal of the misinformation that there has been concerning the controls that apply, some of which we have heard in this debate.
  For the Government, there are two important matters, the first of which is the misuse of fireworks. The vast majority of injuries—the hon. Gentleman rightly said that more than 1,500 injuries require hospital treatment—result from carelessness and stupidity rather than from the composition of the fireworks themselves. That does not mean, of course, that the Government do not also take seriously ensuring the safest possible structure for fireworks. Indeed, we take measures to ensure that unsafe fireworks do not find their way on to the market. If they have done, we warn the public, in circumstances that have come to the public's attention in recent days, as the hon. Gentleman has already outlined.
  It is true that there has been a rising trend in relation to firework injuries. Having said that, that trend may well reflect an increase in the number of fireworks that are sold. The retail value of fireworks sold has increased by more than 30 per cent. in three years to £43.5 million in 1994. Well over 100 million individual fireworks are sold on to the market, so in those circumstances, the accidents, when taken as a proportion of the number of fireworks on
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  the market, pale to a figure in which there is just about one accident for every 65,000 fireworks that are let off. It is very important that the Government take action to try to reduce that still further. However, it is also important that we should set that matter in context.
  Mr. Barry Sheerman: Will the Minister give way on that point?
  Mr. Evans: I shall do so, but very briefly, because I have already allowed the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths) to speak.
  Mr. Sheerman: What proportion of those fireworks are made by the one remaining British firework manufacturer, Standard Fireworks, which operates a plant near my constituency; and what proportion come from places such as China, whose standards many of us are worried about?
  Mr. Evans: We have looked at whether imported fireworks have any role to play in terms of the increase in figures. We have no evidence of that at all. Our evidence is that most of the injuries, sadly, are down to complacency, foolishness and stupidity, the illegal use of fireworks and not following the instructions that have been given. That is why I am pleased that Mr. John Woodhead, the public relations director of Standard Fireworks, joined me for the launch of the firework safety campaign a couple of weeks ago and, in fact, endorsed the remarks that I made.
  Let me deal with the important point that the hon. Gentleman made about the sale of fireworks to those who are under the age of 16. Let me make it clear that the retail sale of fireworks to under-16s is prohibited in law today. It has been prohibited ever since 1875 by section 31 of the Explosives Act.
  The supply of fireworks to the general public is also subject to the requirements of the General Product Safety Regulations 1994. Although both Opposition Members and some trading standards officers have expressed doubt, when I spoke to Warwickshire trading standards officers earlier today, they were in no doubt that they had power to act under the regulations. Moreover, it has been stated on national television today that they have decided to do precisely that.
  Mr. Burden: The issue is section 31 of the Explosives Act 1875, not the General Product Safety Regulations. What authorises trading standards officers in metropolitan areas to enforce that legislation?
  Mr. Evans: The law was clarified to spell out the fact that the police, in conjunction with the Crown Prosecution Service, have the clearest role in enforcement of the Explosives Act. However, there is also a well-established responsibility for safeguarding the safety of consumers, and that has been vested with trading standards officers over many years. The penalty for breaches of section 31 and the General Product Safety Regulations is already there, and is enforceable.
  Mr. Chris Davies: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Evans: I have given way a number of times, and the hon. Member for Northfield has asked me a number of important questions to which I must respond in the short time that remains.

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  My point is that the legislation is there to govern the sale of fireworks to those under 16. The hon. Member for Northfield said that fireworks had been sold to people under 16 in nine out of 10 shops; I hope that that information will be given to the police and trading standards officers so that action can be taken.
  Implicit in the hon. Gentleman's remarks was the suggestion that such shops mushroom overnight. Trading standards officers have requirements in relation to the licensing of shops that sell fireworks, primarily because of the requirements for storage of those fireworks. I know from contact with my trading standards office that it is enforcing those measures, and my discussions earlier today with Warwickshire trading standards officers suggested that they were enforcing them as well. If there is evidence that shops have started up without the knowledge of trading standards officers, they should be drawn to the attention of both trading standards officers and the police.
  Let me deal with some of the hon. Gentleman's specific points about import controls. More than 100 million fireworks are sold in this country each year, and it is clearly not practicable for each firework to be checked. Apart from anything else, the ultimate test is to let the firework off. In the circumstances, it is simply not logical to expect such a degree of control.
  Much has been made of the fact that the position in relation to the licensing of imported fireworks changed in December 1993. Those changes were made to comply with our obligations under the single market, and had nothing to do with the Government's more general deregulation initiatives. However, much misinformation has been disseminated about the changes. Before December 1993, fireworks could be imported only under an import licence that served as a means of authorisation and required fireworks for consumer use to meet British standard 7114. That system has been replaced by an alternative system based on controlling the supply of fireworks, together with reinforced legal provisions for their authorisation.
  The essential point, however, is that under both systems there are tight import controls. Imported fireworks supplied in the United Kingdom must meet the same safety standards as those produced domestically: all fireworks must comply with British standard 7114. Under the new system, as under the old, the applicant must apply to the Health and Safety Executive supplying information about the items that he wishes to import; the onus is on the importer to ensure that safety standards are met. The HSE requires fireworks to meet British standard 7114, and, if satisfied, subsequently authorises them. The HSE continues to enforce the requirements for authorisation of fireworks under the Explosives Act 1875.
  I was asked some specific questions about the position regarding Red Lion fireworks. I have been in touch with the HSE. Three applications were made, dated 21 and 27 April and 22 May, in relation to seeking classification and authorisation of samples for importation. On 25 May, an authorisation was issued; but its purpose was to limit importation for evaluation and test purposes only. Furthermore, it required evidence of compliance with the conditions for authorisation of explosives in Great Britain before the fireworks could be released to the market.
  On importation, the importer arranged for samples to be tested by an independent laboratory. I understand that
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  the laboratory in question, which is known as Hayley and Weller, is established as an independent laboratory. The HSE received the first test results from the laboratory on 28 September.
  Subsequently, the HSE raised further questions specifically in relation to an issue that later came to public attention, concerning the possible presence of any sort of prohibited mixture such as sulphur chlorate in the samples. There was an initial response; a certificate was provided from China. The HSE, however, required a certificate from an independent source. Following the provision of independent documentary evidence, authorisation was given for the fireworks to be released for retail sale.
  The hon. Member for Northfield suggested that action taken by Liverpool's trading standards office brought the matter to public attention. A public statement was certainly issued by the office, but the HSE had been undertaking a range of tests relating to fireworks that had reached the retail market—quite apart from the mechanisms to which I referred earlier. As part of that process, some 70 samples were received by the HSE, and two relating to Red Lion were found to contain prohibited substances.
  The action of which we have heard subsequently was initiated because that information was brought to the HSE's attention. It is certainly also true that the Liverpool trading standards office, acting on information from another manufacturer, conducted its own tests. That suggests that the system contains many more import control elements than the hon. Member for Northfield suggested.
  Mr. Burden rose—
  Mr. Evans: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will excuse me if I do not give way. I am running out of time, and during the three minutes that remain I want to concentrate on what the Government consider to be important messages.
  Given that 100 million fireworks are to be set off during the next few days, it is important for the general public to be aware that the vast majority of accidents are caused by carelessness and complacency. Sadly, we have seen examples of that in cases that have come to public attention in the past few days. A child in South Shields has been injured by a banger which was thrown in a public place—that was in itself a criminal offence—and in Northern Ireland children have been injured by sparklers.
  Last year, 150 adults—I repeat, adults—were taken to hospital with injuries caused by their own misuse of sparklers. That underlines my point that complacency, stupidity and carelessness are mostly to blame for injuries of this kind. I am grateful to the BBC's "999 Lifesavers" programme, which this Friday will highlight such issues to remind parents of the need for safety at a time when families will naturally want to enjoy their firework celebrations, but must be aware of the accompanying dangers.
  The Government are also obliged to Mr. Derek Thompson, the character Charlie from the BBC's "Casualty", and the lead character in the campaign of the Department of Trade and Industry. During the press conference that I launched on the firework safety campaign, he said that, if we were to keep children out of casualty on 5 November, we had to ensure that we followed the messages on following the firework code. I hope that all parents will take that on board.

  Betting Tax (Horse Racing)
  1.59 pm
  Mr. Richard Spring: I am most grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to introduce this Adjournment debate and I also thank my hon. Friend the Paymaster General for being here to reply.
  The horse racing industry faced a real crisis over national value added tax differentials with the introduction of the single European market in January 1993, but the opportunity to owners to register for VAT threw a vital lifeline to the bloodstock industry. The entire horse racing industry, and my constituents in Newmarket in particular, was most grateful for that crucial concession from the Treasury.
  Unfortunately, the national lottery's very success in the space of one year has produced fresh difficulties for racing. I remind my hon. Friend that, during the passage of the lottery legislation, a commitment was made that the actual impact of ticket sales would be monitored and reported to Parliament.
  Together with the betting industry, racing employs some 100,000 people in Great Britain. The betting industry generates £4.5 billion in turnover and operates 9,300 betting shops. General betting duty produces some £355 million per annum for the Treasury. Although it is true that betting in real terms has declined over the best part of 30 years, clear evidence exists that it is now falling in absolute terms as well. Bluntly put, the long-term viability of racing is now imperilled. Unquestionably, the arrival of the national lottery and of scratchcards in particular has everything to do with it.
  Betting duty produces an exceptionally good deal for the British taxpayer. Racing receives back just over £50 million from the betting levy and the tote. General betting duty stands at 7.75 per cent. If, however, one takes total turnover and subtracts prize moneys, one comes out with an effective tax rate of 34 per cent.; by comparison, for the national lottery, it is only 24 per cent.
  That tax burden is manifestly unjust. It is threatening not only the profitability of the bookmaking industry but the crucial level of prize money available to competing race horses. It is also beginning to affect greyhound racing.
  My hon. Friend will be aware of significant changes going on in the pattern of racing and of training. Although Britain can claim to be the historic centre of equine activity, new owners and new breeders are taking a much more global view. Some owners now winter their horses in sunnier climes—that would appear to be paying off handsomely. Race meetings outside Europe offer much larger prizes. It has become a cliché to talk of global markets and global communication, but it is happening in horse racing now.
  The prize money available in Britain is looking even more increasingly paltry by international standards. Taking prize money per horse expressed as a percentage of keep and training costs, in Hong Kong it is 100 per cent., in Japan 92 per cent., in France 49 per cent., in the United States of America 47 per cent. and in Germany 43 per cent. In Britain, it is only 21 per cent. and looks set to diminish even from that low level.
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  So what, if anything, can be done by owners and breeders? Clearly, it is difficult to reduce the day-to-day costs of owning a race horse. If the risk-to-reward ratio is so poor, and so poor by international standards, it is unsurprising that up to 30 per cent. of owners leave racing each year.
  I alluded to the increasingly international movement of race horses. In a three-year period up to 1994, the number of British-trained horses that successfully competed abroad rose by 75 per cent. For precisely the same reason, foreign-trained entries to British races fell by 30 per cent. The Horserace Betting Levy Board has said that, if the decline in betting activity continues because of the national lottery, it will cause a cut of £6 million from the 1995–96 levy scheme of £55 million. Clearly, the future projections of £57 million for 1996–97 and £59 million for 1997–98 look unattainable.
  In other words, the lack of prize money will discourage new owners, and inevitably cause more British-trained horses to compete abroad and fewer foreign-trained competitors to come here. Sooner or later, that will begin to affect the fixture list. All that is disturbing for employment, tax generation and the industry in general, which is increasingly underfunded by any objective standards. Although underfunding has been a feature of racing for many years, it is now tipping into a chronic state of underfunding.
  The Bookmakers Committee commissioned a report from the Henley centre which estimated that, this year, the reduction in betting turnover resulting from the introduction of the national lottery is fully 8 per cent. More and more national lottery terminals are being installed and a midweek game is planned. In those circumstances, some 15 per cent. of the 40,000 people employed in the betting office industry could lose their jobs and numerous shops could close, with the inevitable consequences of a decline in taxation income.
  I should add that, at the time of the national lottery's introduction, a decision was made not to allow betting shops to offer betting on the national lottery—that is despite the experience in the Irish Republic. That at least would have softened the revenue loss blow. Equally, shops were not permitted to sell lottery tickets. Surely, there is now an opportunity to consider liberalisation.
  That is an unnecessarily oppressive restriction on business. Camelot certainly no longer needs such protection. Such moves could restore turnover to off-course betting activity and would certainly be a deregulatory measure. I urge that contact be made between the Treasury and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage; that could be the basis for at least a partial solution. That deregulatory measure would help the industry to compete on more equal terms. Nobody could have forecast the national lottery's tremendous popular appeal. However, it has a unique competitive edge on other forms of betting. Newspapers have also introduced scratchcards, thereby compounding the problems.
  Simply put, a certain number of punters who might have had a flutter on the races are buying lottery tickets or scratchcards instead. I mentioned the redundancies and shop closures that have already begun. There are other clear signs: there has been a doubling of

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  cancellations by betting shops of satellite information services; equally, race sponsorships by bookmakers have been cancelled.
  To sum up, we are caught in an unvirtuous circle: betting turnover diminishes, betting duty revenues fall, the prize money pool shrinks and, at every level, there is ultimately an employment impact. In the bookmaking industry, shops will close and employees get laid off. In the horse racing industry, the direct impact will be on jockeys, trainers and stable staff.
  Of course, I welcome the arrival of the national lottery. I applaud its tremendous success and popular appeal. No other industry, however, is being more directly and clearly hit than horse racing. I have the honour of representing in the House the world's racing capital. I cannot be silent about the impact that the position I have described will have on many of my constituents and their livelihoods. Despite an admirable record of self-help in the industry, only the Government can practically resolve this problem.
  How can that be achieved? Clearly, the level of betting duty must be reconsidered. I have already said that the effective tax burden on punters compares unfavourably with the national lottery. A cut in betting duty would give a considerable and essential boost to racing.
  I need hardly mention that many of the jobs under threat are in rural areas where alternatives are hard to find. A cut in duty would stimulate betting turnover, although, in my view, it is vital that part of that cut finds its way via the levy directly into racing. I hope, therefore, that if my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor in his Budget decides to reduce betting duty, he will express his expectation that part of that reduction should go via the levy into racing. My right hon. and learned Friend could, of course, say that the reduction would be contingent on a suitable agreement to enable that to happen.
  The racing industry is overwhelmingly financed by owners, at about three times the total levy and tote contribution. Without a reasonable spread of owners, especially new owners, the industry's financial liability will become impossible. We come back to the unvirtuous circle: diminished prize money reduces the desire of individuals to own race horses, fixture lists become smaller, attendances fall and revenues decline further.
  Racing has an unassailable case for increased investment. The levy provides capital for upgrading facilities at race courses, not only for spectators but for jockeys and horses. Race courses need to be upgraded continuously to attract increasingly demanding race goers and to provide proper safety arrangements. By international standards, the integrity of British racing is extremely high, and this too requires money.
  Other less obvious benefits flow from the proceeds of the levy. Breeders are rewarded for improving their bloodstock and equine veterinary research in Britain needs to be supported. It is probably the finest in Europe and we have been mercifully spared strains of illness that have cropped up elsewhere in the world. Of course, private capital finds its way into all those activities, hut, at the minimum, funds from the levy can
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  be used to complement those important endeavours. While prize money continues to remain at the heart of racing's financial problem, there are numerous ancillary activities and projects that provide the backdrop to race meetings themselves.
  It is, of course, the race horse itself that is the linchpin of the industry. A decline in horses in training ripples out in negative ways which I have sought to describe. In a recession, people hold on to their possessions longer. With racing, the unfavourable prize money to cost ratio manifests itself in a current reluctance in Britain to purchase younger horses. Indeed, the number of horses in training is below both the peak 1989 level and even the level of 10 years ago, despite the undoubted attractiveness of VAT registration for owners and the growth in the number of horses in multiple ownership. Only 5 per cent. of new owners and only 7 per cent. of the more long-standing owners cover their costs.
  I do not wish to give the impression that it is only owners who are beneficiaries of prize money. About a quarter of the pool is distributed among stable staff, jockeys and trainers. That, in turn, spills over to a whole spectrum of individuals, such as vets, insurers, farriers, feed merchants, transporters and saddlers. There is an extraordinary misconception about the true and substantial size of employment that racing helps to create.
  At 7.75 per cent., general betting duty is punitive in a uniquely harsh way. The Select Committee on Home Affairs produced, in 1991, a yardstick that there should be the possibility for a race horse to cover its costs, of from £1,000 to £1,500 a month, if it won three races. At present, that is pie in the sky, and it has become even more clear since the inception of the national lottery.
  An urgent cut in general betting duty of an appropriate size is required to restore the industry, at the minimum, to its pre-lottery state. My hon. Friend the Paymaster General has had specific representations and recommendations on that score. My own clear view is that any cut should be divided between the punter and, through the levy, racing.
  Millions of people enjoy racing; it is part of our national heritage. Millions of people participate in the national lottery. The two are now inextricably linked, but to the great disadvantage of the former. Any fair-minded person would conclude that the high level of tax currently imposed on betting turnover is unreasonable. Racing can be stimulated and prize money increased only by a decisive reduction in the cost of betting. I ask my hon. Friend the Paymaster General to give the matter his fullest consideration in the lead-up to the Budget.
  2.15 pm
  Sir Fergus Montgomery: I praise my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring) for bringing this important subject to the House today. I declare an interest in that I am a consultant to the National Association of Bookmakers. I want to draw attention to the effect of the national lottery on the betting industry. The Government did, after all, do something for the football pools to help them with the problems that they encountered with the national lottery.

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  As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds pointed out, betting duty is at present 7.75 per cent. of turnover. The bookmakers are asking for a reduction of 2 per cent. because they feel that, if they get that reduction, they can pass it on to the punter. That would be very helpful to the people who use betting shops and there would, therefore, be an increase in turnover. I realise that my hon. Friend the Paymaster General can say little today in the lead-up to the Budget, but I hope that he can assure us that such a reduction is being carefully considered.
  2.16 pm
  Mr. William McKelvey: I too congratulate the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring) on a first-class speech. He has obviously studied the issue and all the points he raised are ones that anyone who is interested in the betting industry would support.
  I want to expand on the case for the greyhound industry which is also viewed by millions of punters and which provides thousands of jobs. I also declare an interest in that I own five greyhounds which run at Shawfield.
  Ms Dawn Primarolo: And they never win.
  Mr. McKelvey: They win regularly, but I am still poverty-stricken. Owners have a difficult task, as do trainers.
  I now turn to the levy and the portion of it that is meant to go to greyhound racing. Unfortunately, it is a voluntary contribution and, although the big, respectable bookmakers have paid their share of the levy, a percentage of the others have not; there is always a shortfall. If any reduction in betting duty, which I support, is to find its way to the greyhound industry, there must be some mechanism by which the voluntary contribution is collected.
  I know that the Paymaster General knows a great deal about this subject. Many of us have written to him and we shall go to see him next week. Although he is knowledgeable, we need to work out a technical way around the problem of voluntary contributions. If we do not, the shortfall will wreck the greyhound racing industry.
  2.17 pm
  Mr. Robert G. Hughes: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring) on initiating this debate. I recognise that, this side of the Budget, my hon. Friend the Paymaster General cannot respond to points relating to the Budget. However, I simply make one point in echoing what has already been said.
  We are all pretty tired of people saying, on fairly thin evidence, that the national lottery has hit either the money they raise or the business they run. It is clear to me from the evidence, however, that the betting industry, especially off-course betting shops, has been extremely hard hit because of the similarity of its business and the scratchcards. People make a direct choice to buy scratchcards rather than to go into a betting shop. Clearly, the industry needs help.
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  Whatever methodology of the revenue impact the Treasury accepts, I simply ask it to look at the methodology it has used before when it has believed that there would be a gentle decline in revenue or even an increase in revenue by leaving tax at existing levels. I refer of, course, to the withholding tax for American film stars, which was a disaster for the film industry and in terms of revenue.
  There could be a rapid decline in revenue unless something is done. If such a decline happens, it will hit jobs across the country, particularly in Ladbroke Racing Ltd., which is a major employer in my constituency. I very much hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend the Minister will look at that point when considering the Budget later this month.
  2.19 pm
  The Paymaster General (Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory): My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring) introduced this debate with knowledge and eloquence. He has already become an effective advocate of horse racing and its associated industries. He will have been pleased, as I am, by the speeches of other hon. Members and the interest that they have shown in this debate.
  I would be the first to acknowledge that horse racing is part of our sporting heritage. It adds excitement and colour to our national life. It is also, as my hon. Friend pointed out, a substantial employer and important as an industry.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds fairly mentioned that the Government have introduced several helpful measures in recent years, such as the opportunity for owners to register for VAT and thereby recover that tax. There have also been a number of separate deregulatory measures such as those enabling betting shops to open in the evenings and the advent of Sunday racing and betting.
  There has also been a further relaxation of restrictions on betting shop facilities—resulting, for instance, in the opening up of betting shop frontages. More recently, my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has proposed that amusement machines should be allowed in betting shops. He hopes to put a draft order before the Deregulation Committee soon, with a view to the proposal being introduced and coming into effect next year.
  Of course, some of those deregulatory measures have been somewhat two-edged in their effect, and I am aware that some bookmakers consider that, for instance, Sunday racing and the opening of betting shops on Sunday have led to higher overheads, which more than cancel out the corresponding increase in revenue and profit. But that must be a commercial decision for them. In general, we seek to remove restrictions unless they are justified.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds asked that betting be permitted on the national lottery. It is true that, under the law as it stands, bookmakers cannot accept bets on the lucky numbers. That is a matter not for the Treasury but for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage. I hope that she will consider my hon. Friend's arguments carefully and I shall ensure that his remarks are drawn to the attention of Ministers in that Department.

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  The question of duty rates was central to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds and was also brought up by other hon. Members. My hon. Friend referred to a study which claims that the very success of the national lottery has caused a marked switch of expenditure away from betting shops. That same point has been made to me in representations from the betting industry and the British Horseracing Board.
  As the House will understand, with the Budget only a few weeks away, I cannot comment on what my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer might say in his Budget speech. However, I can assure the House, hon. Members who have spoken and those who are listening that my right hon. and learned Friend and I will make decisions in the light of comments made today, and that all representations will be very carefully considered before the announcement on 28 November.
  2.24 pm
  Sitting suspended.
  2.30 pm
  On resuming—
  It being half-past Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, pursuant to Order [19 December].

  DEATH OF A MEMBER
  Madam Speaker: I regret to have to report to the House the death of Derek Anthony Enright, esquire, Member for Hemsworth. I am sure that Members on
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  both sides of the House will join me in mourning the loss of a colleague and in extending our sympathy to the hon. Member's family and friends.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

  CITY OF WESTMINSTER BILL [Lords].
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That the Promoters of the City of Westminster Bill [Lords] shall have leave to suspend proceedings thereon in order to proceed with the Bill, if they think fit, in the next Session of Parliament, provided that the Agents for the Bill give notice to the Clerks in the Private Bill Office of their intention to suspend further proceedings not later than the day before the close of the present Session and that all Fees due on the Bill up to that date be paid;
  That, if the Bill is brought from the Lords in the next Session, the Agents for the Bill shall deposit in the Private Bill Office a declaration signed by them, stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill which was brought from the Lords in the present Session;
  That, as soon as a certificate by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office, that such a declaration has been so deposited, has been laid upon the Table of the House, the Bill shall he read the first and second time and committed (and shall be recorded in the Journal of this House as having been so read and committed) and shall be committed to the Chairman of Ways and Means, who shall make such Amendments thereto as have been made by the Committee in the present Session, and shall report the Bill as amended to the House forthwith, and the Bill, so amended, shall be ordered to lie upon the Table;
  That no further Fees shall be charged in respect of any proceedings on the Bill in respect of which Fees have already been incurred during the present Session;
  That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
  Hon. Members: Object.

  LOCH LEVEN AND LOCHABER WATER POWER ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  Read the Third time, and passed.
Oral Answers to Questions
  TRADE AND INDUSTRY

    Assisted Areas
    Sir Roger Moate: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the timetable for the next re-examination of the assisted area status map. [38649]
    The President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Ian Lang): When the present map of the assisted areas was introduced in July 1993, the Government made clear that it would remain in place for at least three years. Areas need time to take full advantage of assisted area status, and frequent changes to the map could create uncertainties for potential investors. The Government have no plans to review the map during this Parliament.
    Sir Roger Moate: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reassuring reply. In my constituency, in the travel-to-work area of Sittingbourne and Sheerness, assisted area status is much appreciated and has already produced several hundred jobs. However, the unemployment level is still 10.8 per cent, and it must be clear that areas such as mine and many others take longer than three years to gain the full benefit of such status.
    Can my right hon. Friend give some assurance that the general tendency would be to favour renewal of the three-year periods where unemployment remains high, and furthermore that there will be no automatic cut-off at the end of the three years, and that cut-offs, if they are to occur at all, will do so only when the House has reviewed the orders and passed new ones?
    Mr. Lang: I am happy to assure my hon. Friend that there is no question of a cut-off. The map will remain in place until it is changed. The previous map remained in place for nine years. I am glad that assisted area status is helping my hon. Friend's constituency. I understand that 34 offers of assistance have been made in the Sittingbourne and Sheerness travel-to-work area, worth £2.4 million, and associated with more than 650 jobs.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Why can there not be an urgent review of the assisted areas map, especially in the light of the decision of Campbell's Soups of America to close its Homepride plant in my constituency? That was a profitable operation that made £3.9 million last year, and it has one of the most modern canning plants in western Europe. Is it not an outrage that a foreign predator can move into a small town such as Maryport, destroy jobs and create such anguish and concern in that small community?
    Mr. Lang: I recognise the hon. Gentleman's protectionist instincts, but the assisted area map can operate effectively only on a long-term basis. If changed periodically at a whim, in the light of temporary economic circumstances, it would not have the intended impact of enabling mobile investment projects to be decided upon in the context of a secure and stable economic background.
    Mr. Nicholls: While assisted area status may be helping the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir R. Moate), it is not helping my
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    constituency of Teignbridge. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that there are proper safeguards to ensure that, when a business locates in an assisted area, the jobs created there are real and have not been pinched from elsewhere?
    Mr. Lang: I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend that the effect of the assisted area status map and regional selective assistance is primarily to create new jobs. The attraction of inward investment to the United Kingdom is a result of a number of factors, but the assisted area map certainly helps in that direction.
    Mr. Wigley: Will the President of the Board of Trade give urgent attention to west Gwynedd, north Meirionnydd, Dwyfor and Arfon and give them full development status? When the assisted area map was last drawn up, the Transfynydd nuclear power station was open, but it has subsequently closed and employment in the area has fallen. The Government's plans to provide an enterprise zone in the area have now been abandoned. In the light of that, unemployment is now at an unacceptably high level, and the area desperately needs help to attract new industry.
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman knows that the Government are keen to help attract investment to areas of high unemployment, and that and there is a range of ways in which that can be done. Regional selective assistance, through the assisted area map, is only one method but, as I said, the map does not benefit from frequent changes. It benefits only from stability, which allows decisions to be taken on a proper long-term basis. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman any encouragement that a review will take place in the near future.
    Mr. Michael Brown: Will my right hon. Friend reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir R. Moate) on the basis of what happened in my constituency after the Government decided—correctly—that we no longer needed assisted area status? Will he assure my hon. Friend that there is more inward investment and that more jobs are being created now, without assisted area status, than before?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is also the case that the financial assistance offered under the arrangement is substantially less than that offered in many other countries. We are able to win inward investment because of the other qualities that Britain has to offer. Among the major inward investment projects which have come to this country without assistance are Nissan, Toyota and Samsung Heavy Industries.
    Mr. Bell: The President will know that those inward investment projects were assisted by Labour-controlled local authorities throughout the country.
    The hon. Member for Faversham (Sir R. Moate) reminded the House that the assisted area scheme has been extended to areas that have known prosperity and then known mass unemployment. Even the Deputy Prime Minister admitted at lunchtime that the UK is 21st in the international league table of investment per capita, and 18th in the league table of national income. In a moment of honesty, the right hon. Gentleman might also admit that Britain has halved its level of investment since 1979.
    The House will welcome the assurance from the President of the Board of Trade that the assisted areas map will not be rewritten in the short term. That will

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    obviate the suspicion that existed last time—when the map was redrawn by the right hon. Member for Hove (Sir T. Sainsbury)—that it was written in blue pencil to help the Tory party, and not the country.
    Mr. Lang: I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that the figures used in the Labour party's advertisement in The Times today were taken from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which recently described Britain's performance as "impressive", and added:
    "The United Kingdom's sweeping structural reforms are yielding dividends in a more flexible, competitive and less inflation-prone economy".
    The OECD endorsed our approach to deregulation and a flexible labour market and adopted all of the policies that we are supporting in the face of fierce opposition from Labour.

    Midlands Electricity
    Mr. Robert Ainsworth: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has received in respect of consumers regarding the PowerGen bid for Midlands Electricity from the Midlands Electricity consumers committee. [38650]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Jonathan Evans): None.
    Mr. Ainsworth: Is the Minister aware of the Midlands Electricity consumers committee chairman's concern that the proposal will not be in the interests of consumers? Is he aware that the centre for the study of regulated industries has shown that, while the cost of generating electricity since privatisation has fallen by 6.8 per cent., bills have fallen by only 1. 6 per cent.? The interests of consumers have certainly not been protected to date. Is it not about time the Minister started doing so? Will he refer the proposal to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission?
    Mr. Evans: The interests of consumers have been served by the privatisation of the electricity industry in terms of the price to domestic and industrial consumers. I remind the hon. Gentleman of the structure that relates to these matters. It is a matter for the Director General of Fair Trading first to produce a report, which will then be passed to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. At this point, any representations should be directed to the Office of Fair Trading and the director general so that they may be incorporated in the advice that he will tender in due course to my right hon. Friend. My advice to the hon. Gentleman is that he should ensure, if he has not already done so, that his representations are passed to that quarter.
    Mr. Harvey: Without anticipating the Budget, can the Minister tell the House whether the Government are still opposed in principle to a windfall tax on the electricity companies?
    Mr. Evans: Yes.
    Mr. Harry Greenway: Does my hon. Friend recall that electricity prices rose by 2 per cent. every six weeks in the midlands and the rest of the country under the Labour Government? Labour has no right to lecture this or any other Government about electricity price rises.
    Mr. Evans: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Opposition were then determined to ensure that the
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    electricity industry remained a 100 per cent. state-owned monopoly. In those circumstances, the great benefits that are now pouring on consumers would not have been possible.

    Shipbuilding
    Dr. Godman: To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many merchant vessels of 500 gross registered tonnes or more were constructed in United Kingdom shipyards in each of the past four years. [38651]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Ian Taylor): The number of merchant ships of 500 gross registered tonnes or more completed by United Kingdom yards between 1990 and 1994 was 18, 17, 14, nine and 11 respectively. The total tonnage of the completed ships almost doubled over the period.
    Dr. Godman: The Minister knows that, on the Clyde, we have witnessed a decline from 32 shipyards to three. Even though Kvaerner Govan won a tidy little order recently, those three shipyards are in a perilous condition. Will the Minister seek a reappraisal of the decision to end the seventh directive of the shipbuilding intervention fund? Should he refuse to do so, will he urge upon the European Commission the need for fair competition in the Italian and Spanish yards, against which our yards bid for European contracts?
    Mr. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman slightly underplays the small order to which he referred, because Kvaerner Govan has won a £60 million contract to launch communication satellites from a platform in the Pacific. I am sure that he welcomed that order in his constituency, so I hope that he will also welcome it in the House.
    The agreement within the European Union on the OECD shipbuilding agreement effectively means the end of the shipbuilding intervention fund. The hon. Gentleman must know that. That will, however, benefit his yards and others, in the sense that there will be a fairer basis of international competition. At the moment, we compete against highly subsidised yards elsewhere. It is in Britain's interest that that agreement should come into effect as soon as possible, and that we should continue to improve the competitiveness of ships carrying the red ensign.
    Mr. James Hill: May I congratulate my hon. Friend on his roving commission along the south coast? We were pleased to see him in Southampton. As he roves along the south coast, he will find many small shipbuilding yards that would appreciate orders. Some years ago, there was a scrap and build scheme operated by the European Union, but I am afraid that we did not take it up. When my hon. Friend is in Brussels, he may have reason to raise that scheme. Any more support for our small shipyards would be welcome.
    Mr. Taylor: I understand my hon. Friend's concern for the yards along the south coast. I am delighted to be the sponsor Minister for those south coast towns. I have recently visited Southampton, Portsmouth and Hastings, and I am aware of the local difficulties. I shall look at my hon. Friend's proposal, but there is no substitute for our competing with the rest of the world for contracts. I therefore welcome the fact that other countries are having to abandon their subsidies.

    Exports By Heavy Goods Vehicle
    Mr. Rendel: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what was the approximate value of the goods exported from Britain in heavy goods vehicles in the last financial year. [38652]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Phillip Oppenheim): The latest figures for the value of exports broken down by mode of transport are for 1992. Since then, the abolition of relevant customs documents for intra-EC trade has resulted in no figures being available.
    In 1992, the value of seaborne exports carried by vehicles was £40.4 billion.
    Mr. Rendel: Does the Minister agree that the extremely valuable trade carried by heavy goods vehicles can cause considerable environmental damage, especially where it is forced, on its way to the ports, on to roads that go through old market towns? Can he assure the House that he will do his utmost to ensure that the Government go ahead with the Newbury bypass as soon as possible?
    Mr. Oppenheim: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's constituency concerns, but he would do better to address his remarks to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.
    Mr. Atkins: Is my hon. Friend aware that an increasing proportion of the heavy goods vehicles that are used to improve our export trade are made in my constituency by Leyland Trucks? Does he recognise the achievement of the reformed Leyland Trucks in terms of its share of the heavy goods vehicle market, which is a direct result of the Government policies with which my hon. Friend and I have been associated for many years?
    Mr. Oppenheim: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. UK commercial vehicle manufacturers took nearly 60 per cent. of the UK market last year. They export nearly 40 per cent. of their output. He is right that the policy of the Opposition was to intervene and pour in Government money, which would have created another disaster along the lines of the one that they created with British Leyland in the 1960s and 1970s. Our policy has allowed the company to recover not only in the domestic market but so that it is exporting at record levels.

    Scotch Whisky Exports
    Mrs. Ewing: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what recent representations he has received from the Scotch Whisky Association on improving the promotion of Scotch whisky within international markets; and if he will make a statement. [38653]
    Mr. Oppenheim: We fully recognise the importance of the spirit drinks industry and its contribution to UK export performance and to our performance in general. We have wide-ranging contact at all levels with the Scotch Whisky Association and we give it extensive assistance towards its export effort.
    Mrs. Ewing: Does the Minister recognise that the best international promotion that could be given to this vital industry would be to recognise at home the value to
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    domestic industry of the Scotch whisky industry? As more than 45,000 jobs in Scotland are directly and indirectly dependent on the Scotch whisky industry, is it not time for the excise duty levied on Scotch whisky to be put on an equal footing with the rest of the spirit industry throughout the European Union and the rest of the international community? Can the Minister give us an assurance that the DTI will make such representations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
    Mr. Oppenheim: I appreciate the hon. Lady's concern. In fact, excise duty on spirits has fallen by 15 per cent. in real terms during the past 10 years. If we were to halve excise duty on spirits, and that reduction were fully passed on, the result would be a fall in price for consumers of only about 20 per cent. It is worth remembering that. I expect that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has been known to enjoy the odd glass of whisky himself occasionally, will take the hon. Lady's comments into account at the end of the month.
    Mr. Quentin Davies: Does my hon. Friend agree that the present excise system for taxing alcoholic drinks is not just discriminatory and distortionary as between alcoholic drinks and other drinks or products, but distortionary within the alcoholic drinks business? It would be logical and desirable to move to taxing alcohol content, irrespective of whether it occurs in Scotch whisky, beer, wine or any other alcoholic product. I know that it cannot be done overnight—any reasonable person would accept that—but should we not try to move towards it as a strategic objective?
    Mr. Oppenheim: There is much validity in what my hon. Friend says, but he would not expect me to pre-empt my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement at the end of the month.
    Mr. Graham: The Minister will not be aware that Chivas Regal is building a massive plant in my constituency which will create a wide distribution network. I therefore have a strong interest in Scotch whisky, as well as enjoying it. Scotch whisky is one of the most popular drinks in the world. Why do the Government not take steps to tackle measures such as those taken by the Japanese Government, who have put massive charges on to Scotch whisky and thereby created further unemployment in our country? We welcome Japanese products, but our products should be welcomed in Japan without being subject to punitive taxation. The Government should do their best to ensure a level playing field.
    Mr. Oppenheim: I fully recognise the hon. Gentleman's enjoyment and extensive knowledge of the finer things in life. I assure him that we have referred the Japanese taxation system to the World Trade Organisation disputes settlement procedure, and we hope for a favourable decision before too long.

    Export Promotion
    Mr. Mark Robinson: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps his Department is taking to promote British exports overseas. [38654]
    Mr. Lang: British exports have been breaking new records. This may be due in part to the recent White Paper which announced more support for companies attending

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    trade fairs and missions abroad, more commercial staff at embassies and high commissions around the world, and improved local help through business links.
    Mr. Robinson: Given the excellent performance of British companies overseas, does my right hon. Friend agree that they have every incentive to go out and win even more orders in the coming year?
    Mr. Lang: I do indeed. My hon. Friend will be pleased to note that the volume of our exports has risen by no less than 91 per cent. since 1979. We are breaking records in a wide range of new markets around the world.
    Mr. MacShane: While we welcome any increase in British exports, is not the real problem the fact that our trade balance continues to widen in favour of imports? What are the Government doing to address that problem, particularly in light of today's very disturbing news that we have slumped to 18th in terms of gross domestic product per capita? Britain is going downhill: we are importing more and not exporting enough.
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman seems to have overlooked the fact that our recent trade figures show that the trade gap is relatively narrow, taking no account of invisibles. Our trade gap last year was the narrowest since 1986. The export component of that figure, excluding oils and erratics, was a record. Why does the hon. Gentleman not welcome that fact?
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the best way to assist and promote United Kingdom exports is by providing incentives to investment, improved training, low interest rates, continuing low inflation and the continuation of a Conservative Government?
    Mr. Lang: I am happy to say that, as is almost always the case, I agree with my hon. Friend. The economic policies pursued by the Government have led to that very satisfactory outcome. It is only by continuing to pursue those policies, rather than espousing those of the Labour party, that we will be able to sustain it.
    Mrs. Beckett: Surely the Secretary of State is aware that the Confederation of British Industry reports increased anxiety among exporters. Today's figures not only reveal a deficit—and a growing deficit—in our balance of trade, but include the forecast that that deficit is set to grow wider still. That shows our lack of competitiveness after 16 years of Conservative government. Does the Minister deny that the trade figures reveal our lack of competitiveness and the fact that Britain has slumped from 13th to 18th in the prosperity league behind France, Germany and Italy, when we had the oil?
    Mr. Lang: I welcome the hon. Lady to her new responsibility for trade and industry matters. I regret that I disagree with almost everything she has said, including the accuracy of her figures—particularly in relation to France. The hon. Lady asked primarily about exports. I must point out, lest she has not noticed, that our exports are breaking records. We are exporting more now than at any other time in our history. She should recognise that achievement. If she takes account of invisibles, she will realise that the export:import balance and the balance of
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    trade is very much more favourable than she allows. It is certainly vastly more favourable than it was under Labour Governments.
    Mr. Batiste: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one way to assist British exporters is by bringing to an early and final end the Arab boycott of Israel? If he agrees, what action is he contemplating to bring that about?
    Mr. Lang: Of course I agree with my hon. Friend that it is desirable to achieve peace and harmony in that area on a long-term basis. That would certainly lead to increased trade, and probably more exports for the United Kingdom. However, my hon. Friend will recognise that that is primarily a matter for my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary.

    Nuclear Safety
    Mr. Hanson: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what assessment he has made of the projected standards of safety to be applied in the nuclear industry following privatisation. [38655]
    The Minister for Industry and Energy (Mr. Tim Eggar): The Health and Safety Commission made it clear in its evidence to the nuclear review that the current regulatory regime is a rigorous system which ensures that a high level of safety is achieved. The same high standard of safety will apply after privatisation.
    Mr. Hanson: Is the Minister aware of the recent statements by Scottish Nuclear safety expert Dr Richard Killick, which say that privatisation will lead to a massive reduction in safety and will have long-term implications for the safety of the industry at large? Will he now abandon privatisation or, at the very least, reconsider safety—or will he allow dogma to influence his decision at the expense of the public's health?
    Mr. Eggar: I read about Mr. Killick's allegations in the newspapers and I asked for a full report because I take safety extremely seriously.
    I can tell the House and the hon. Gentleman that at no time while Mr. Killick was employed by Scottish Nuclear did he ever mention those anxieties to the company, or to the chief inspector of nuclear installations, or to the relevant nuclear installations inspectorate staff, or to my Department. Those anxieties have surfaced only since he left the company.
    Given Mr. Killick's background, he is well aware that, if he has genuine anxieties about safety, the first place to go to express them is to the independent regulator, the NII. Apparently, instead of doing so, he has spoken to the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) and to the press. That is irresponsible behaviour and, if I may say so, it is irresponsible of the hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson) to mention those anxieties as he has.
    Mr. Neil Hamilton: Did my right hon. Friend read the evidence that Greenpeace gave to the Trade and Industry Committee on precisely that subject? Specifically, it said that there was no reason to believe that
    "the management of a"
    privatised
    "nuclear company should … be"
    any

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    "less sensitive to safety concerns. For operating power stations … ownership is less important than strength of regulation."
    It is obvious that that should be so, because a shut-down nuclear station will earn no revenue, which would be to the commercial disadvantage of a privatised company.
    Mr. Eggar: I noted what Greenpeace said. Post-privatisation, safety concerns will of course be at least as important as, if not more important than, they are at present, and they will be guaranteed by the independent nuclear inspectorate.
    Mr. Battle: Can the Minister confirm that the Treasury expects to receive less than £3 billion from the proceeds of the nuclear privatisation deal, and that it cost the Government more than £3 billion to build Sizewell B power station alone? Does that mean that the Conservative Government are prepared to give away seven power stations for nothing? On those terms, will not that prove to be a shabby, short-changing deal for taxpayers and consumers alike?[Interruption.]
    Mr. Eggar rose—
    Madam Speaker: Order. There should be only one debate in the House at a time. There is some cross-questioning going on below the Gangway and there should be only one lot of questioning—to Ministers at the Dispatch Box.
    Mr. Eggar: I welcome the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) to his new role. To the last of his questions I answer, "No."

    Small Business
    Mr. Bellingham: To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he next expects to meet representatives of small firms to discuss Government measures to encourage start-ups. [38656]
    Mr. Ian Taylor: Ministers, my Department's officials and business links regularly hold meetings with small firms organisations. Support for business start-ups is regularly discussed. With a net increase of about 60,000 businesses in 1994 and a projected increase of about 100,000 businesses in 1995, Government policy is effective.
    Mr. Bellingham: Is my hon. Friend aware that one of the biggest problems that confronts small firms in my constituency is excessive regulation? Does he agree that the Government's small businesses litmus test scheme will help firms because they will be consulted first? Is not that yet another example of the Government helping small firms? It is all very well the Opposition sneering, but does my hon. Friend agree that, as long as they support the minimum wage and the social chapter, they cannot claim to support small businesses?
    Mr. Cummings: Henry, try to live on less than a minimum wage.
    Madam Speaker: Order. [Interruption.] Order. I am inclined to name Members and ask them to leave the Chamber if they are not able to contain themselves while we are at Question Time. Hon. Members below the
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    Gangway on both sides of the House must stop blaming each other and behave like the adults they are supposed to be in this Chamber.
    Mr. Taylor: My answers usually give rise to excitement after I have given them, not before. The key point about the small business litmus test is that all regulation will be considered in the light of its impact on small businesses. That is a welcome step forward.
    As for the minimum wage, it is important to ensure that when Opposition spokesmen talk to small businesses, small businesses understand what they are being told. The Association of British Chambers of Commerce had to correct a recent Labour press statement. It is clear that the Labour party has not understood the devastating effect that the minimum wage and social over-regulation would have on small businesses.
    Mr. Sheerman: Is the Minister not aware of the devastating effect of the cancellation of the business start-up grant on business start-ups? Training and enterprise councils, business links and economic development units across the country are already reporting a 25 per cent. drop in small business start-ups. If the Government are serious about small business, is it not about time they reintroduced that useful grant, and soon?
    Mr. Taylor: The grant is now part of the single regeneration budget, which is important in that local people come forward with partnership schemes which have, as part of their scope, the generation of small business start-ups. The announcement yesterday about the national network of business links will provide enormous help to those wishing to start up small businesses. The Department for Education and Employment's training for work scheme is also a great asset. I believe that the Government have in place a range of possibilities to which small businesses can look when they need help.
    Sir John Cope: Does my hon. Friend recognise that it is not only start-ups that are important but that it is important to allow existing small businesses to flourish and expand? In that connection, it is extremely good to see on the Order Paper the flow of deregulation orders following the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994. Will my hon. Friend and his colleagues do all they can to speed up the flow of those orders?
    Mr. Taylor: My right hon. Friend speaks from experience, having been a Minister with responsibility for small businesses. I know that the creation of a small businesses Minister in every Department will accelerate the interests of small businesses in relation to any proposals for regulation that come to the Floor of the House and will speed up ideas about what we can do to deregulate.
    Mrs. Roche: When the Minister next meets representatives of small businesses, will he explain to them in detail why the consultancy brokerage service has had to be axed before it was even launched, at a cost to the public purse of almost £3 million? Is not such incompetence yet another example of how, under the Conservative Government's management, Britain has slumped to 18th in the world prosperity league?
    Mr. Taylor: The slumping going on in the House is in the originality of the questions being asked by Members on the Labour Front Bench. The business links system,

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    which is now countrywide and which combines training and enterprise councils, enterprise agencies, universities and business interests, is the best business support system of any country. In those circumstances, I hope that the hon. Lady, who has just made her debut in the Labour Front-Bench team, will enjoy seeing what a Conservative Government are delivering in the field.
    Mr. Gallie: Is my hon. Friend aware of the start-up of flights between Prestwick and Stansted airports? Does he believe that it breaks the mould of expensive flying within the United Kingdom? Does he further believe that it gives a great opportunity to small businesses in my constituency to extend their areas of operation and that it will greatly encourage those who wish to start up new businesses?
    Mr. Taylor: My hon. Friend is an indefatigable fighter for the interests of businesses in his constituency. I am sure that the new airport arrangements will assist, and I wish the new venture the very best of luck. I am sure that Ministers at the Scottish Office and the Department of Trade and Industry will take a close interest in the progress being made.

    Electricity Industry
    Ms Coffey: To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he last met the electricity regulator to discuss regulation policy. [38657]
    Mr. Eggar:I hold discussions with the Director-General of Electricity Supply on a regular basis.
    Ms Coffey: Does the Minister agree that the proposed acquisition of Norweb by North West Water raises certain issues about the current regulatory system? Clearly, neither the water regulator nor the electricity regulator has in the past been able to anticipate the massive profits generated by those industries. The benefits have not been passed on to customers—shareholders have been the major beneficiaries. Does the Minister agree that it is now time to look again at the regulatory framework, to ensure that, in any future mergers, customers and employees as well as shareholders get a much better deal?
    Mr. Eggar: As the hon. Lady knows, that matter is shortly to be considered by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, so it would be wrong for me to comment on it at this stage.
    Mr. Riddick: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, since privatisation, the price of electricity in Yorkshire has fallen by 16 per cent? Will he further confirm that my constituents will enjoy the benefits of a £50 rebate next year as a result of the demerger of the National Grid, and that the regulator has stipulated that the distribution prices charged by Yorkshire Electricity should be reduced by 3 per cent. per year for the next four years? Does the Minister agree that that is excellent news for consumers of electricity—our constituents—and that the Labour party is desperately trying to divert attention from it?
    Mr. Eggar: Privatisation has brought enormous benefits to electricity consumers. Prices have fallen by 9 per cent. in real terms over the past two years, and next year prices for the average electricity consumer will be £90 lower than they were last year. My hon. Friend is right to say that further reductions beyond next year are in the pipeline.
    Mr. McWilliam: If electricity companies are so successful, why do I have to pay so much for my
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    electricity from Northern Electric while it keeps being the subject of predatory takeover bids from friends and bankers of the Conservative party or from American multinationals? Why can I not get my electricity at a fair price?
    Mr. Eggar: Assuming that the hon. Gentleman has lived in the Northern area of electricity provision for many years, I might point out that for the first time he will already have had, and will have in future, a real reduction in the price of his electricity—a feat never achieved before, and certainly not under nationalisation.
    Mr. Allason: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the electricity regulator has a role to play not just in protecting the interests of the consumer but in protecting those of the shareholders? Is he aware that during the recent merger involving South Western Electricity, some shareholders were denied the right to retain their shares in the company? Would it not be right for the regulator to take up that matter?
    Mr. Eggar: My hon. Friend is right to say that the electricity regulator must, under statute, take account of the interests both of consumers and of the financial situation of the companies that he regulates. It is a matter of company law, not peculiar to the electricity industry, that, once 90 per cent. acceptances have been received, there is effectively a compulsory right for the acquiring company to purchase the additional shares. That does not apply only to the utility companies; it is a general rule which has been on the statute book for a number of years.
    Mr. Ashton: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps he has taken to increase competition in the electricity industry. [38658]
    Mr. Jonathan Evans: Privatisation has opened the electricity industry to the disciplines of the market, and it has provided for increasing competition where previously there was none.
    Mr. Ashton: Is the Minister aware that that increasing competition has meant that the East Midlands electricity board closed 60 shops last year, putting hundreds out of work and providing a far worse service for pensioners and others who want to pay their bills? The money from that has gone to increase earnings per share from 12p to 78p and the chief executive has paid himself a bonus of £120,000. Is the Minister further aware that, when the National Grid is sold off, households will receive £50 each, while shareholders will be given £2 billion and the chief executive who handles this legalised theft will receive a bonus of £200,000? Is that competition?
    Mr. Evans: It is curious that Labour Members all spend their time deriding the regional electricity companies but then write to me saying that every proposed merger application should be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and that the companies should remain in the hands of those now in charge of them.
    Mr. Stephen: Does my hon. Friend agree that the electricity industry exists to provide electricity for consumers, not jobs for employees? Does he think that the electricity consumer would like to return to the old days of nationalisation, when a chief executive was paid rather less and electricity cost much more?
    Mr. Evans: As my hon. Friend has made clear, privatisation has ensured that the consumer's interest has

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    been to the fore. That is illustrated by the powers exercised by the Director General of Electricity Supply. I endorse my hon. Friend's remarks. Consumers would not have obtained the present deal under the old 100 per cent. state monopoly which Labour Members fought in the trenches to retain.
    Ms Eagle: Does the Minister not appreciate the anxiety in the north-west with the takeover of MANWEB by Scottish Power and the proposed merger between North West Water and NORWEB, with the possible loss of thousands of jobs, fat cat salaries for those who run the industries and poorer services for customers? There is no good deal, merely a privatised monopoly.
    Mr. Evans: With regard to the Scottish Power-MANWEB deal, the hon. Lady should know that the Director General of Fair Trading advised my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade that there were neither competition nor public interest grounds to warrant a reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
    The hon. Lady referred to the proposed merger between North-West Water and NORWEB. Had she been listening earlier, she would have heard my right hon. Friend the Minister of State say that the matter is on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's desk. It is therefore inappropriate for Ministers to comment.

    Military Equipment Exports
    Mr. Bayley: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what proportion of export credit guarantees last year were used to support the export of military equipment. [38659]
    Mr. Oppenheim: Eighteen per cent. of the value of guarantees issued by the Export Credits Guarantee Department in 1994–95 were for contracts for the export of military equipment.
    Mr. Bayley: Does the Minister realise that less than 2 per cent. of our total exports are of military equipment but that they receive more than 30 per cent, of all export credit guarantees? How does he justify that? Does he realise that, if United Kingdom manufacturers of civilian equipment received the same Government support as arms manufacturers, we would not have slumped from 13th to 18th position in the world prosperity league, and the York carriage works in my constituency would not have lost vital far east export orders to competitors in Germany and France, and would not, therefore, be closing, with the loss of all 750 jobs?
    Mr. Oppenheim: Let me put the hon. Gentleman's mind at rest on one matter. The Labour advertisement which appeared in this morning's press stated that France had overtaken us in the past 15 years. That is wrong. France overtook us when the Labour Government were in office. To fiddle the figures in its advertisement, Labour included Hong Kong and Singapore, which were excluded in the 1960s and 1970s. According to the World Bank, in terms of gross domestic product per head, Hong Kong and Singapore are also ahead of Japan and Germany, so we are in fairly good company.
    The hon. Gentleman talked about the Export Credits Guarantee Department. He should be focusing on the percentage of export credits relating to the export of
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    capital goods to non-OECD countries. Given the total figures, ECGD cover is the right proportion when compared with the overall proportion of exports. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that we should reduce ECGD cover for defence exports, he should make that absolutely clear, as such a reduction would have severe job implications for many people represented by Labour Members.
    Mr. Nigel Evans: Is my hon. Friend aware that, in my constituency, thousands of people are employed by British Aerospace in the military defence industry? Many small to medium-sized businesses are supplying British Aerospace. It is important that those businesses receive Government support through export credit guarantees, and that the Government support projects—as we have done—such as the Eurofighter 2000, which means that we are able to secure many thousands of jobs and manufacturing skills in the north-west, especially in the smaller industries to which I have referred.
    Mr. Oppenheim: My hon. Friend is right. The House should be aware that 400,000 jobs are dependent on the defence industry. Those jobs are concentrated in various constituencies, including those of the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) and the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett). If it is now Labour policy to cut back export credit support for defence sales, perhaps the Opposition will let us know. We can then assess the effect on their constituents' jobs.

    Manufacturing Output
    Dr. Lynne Jones: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what estimate he has made of the likely date by which manufacturing output will be at least 3 per cent. higher than in 1990. [38660]
    Mr. Oppenheim: My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be publishing a new forecast for manufacturing output later this month.
    Dr. Jones: I was—[Interruption.] I was taken aback by the fact that the Minister was not prepared to give any kind of estimate. Is not our manufacturing production only just about where it was before the recession began? It is no wonder, then, now that the competitive advantage of the devalued pound has faded away—[HON. MEMBERS: "Question."]—that we are back in the red with our balance of payments in manufacturing, which never occurred before the Conservative Government came to power. [Interruption.] What mark out of 10—[Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. The more the House calls the hon. Lady to put a question, the longer it will take her. Will the hon. Lady come to her question now?
    Dr. Jones: Yes, Madam Speaker. What mark out of 10 would the Minister give the Government for that performance?
    Mr. Oppenheim: If I could give them 11 out of 10, I would. Manufacturing output grew by 4 per cent. last year and it is forecast by the Confederation of British Industry to grow by 4 per cent. this year. It is at record levels. When the Labour party was in charge of the commanding heights of British industry, British Steel was the world's largest loss maker and British Leyland made cars that

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    were the butt of music hall jokes. Manufacturing output fell under the last Labour Government and growth in manufacturing productivity was bottom of all the main industrial countries.
    Since 1979, not only have we got record manufacturing output, but the growth in our manufacturing productivity and in our manufacturing exports has been 80 per cent. Manufacturing has done very well under the Conservative Government.
    Mr. Dover: Does my hon. Friend agree that it will reach the 3 per cent. extra above the boom times provided that the country is sensible enough to re-elect a Conservative Government? We are the only party that understands the needs of manufacturing industry.
    Mr. Oppenheim: The proof of the pudding is very much in the performance. In the 1960s and 1970s, Britain was bottom of the Group of Seven league of major industrial countries in terms of manufacturing output growth and growth in productivity. In the 1980s and 1990s, we were top in the growth of manufacturing productivity and ahead of Japan and equal to the average of the G7 countries in growth of manufacturing output. As I have said, manufacturing has done very well indeed under the Conservative Government, in stark contrast with the disastrous state in which the last Labour Government left it.
    Mr. Purchase: Did we not lose 350,000 jobs in manufacturing during the reign of the Conservatives in the 1980s? Did not imports of manufactured goods exceed exports in 1984 for the first time in Britain's industrial history? Is not manufacturing investment now lower than it was five years ago under the present Government? What has the Minister to say to that?
    Mr. Oppenheim: There is one very big difference between our trading performance and that of the last Labour Government. Under the Labour Government, there was a period of surplus, but it was declining very rapidly. Under the Conservative Government, the performance has improved and, for the first time in many decades, we have maintained our share of world exports in manufactures. I also remind the hon. Gentleman that under the Labour Government jobs in manufacturing fell at the rate of 700,000 a year, output fell and productivity was stagnant. Under the Conservative Government, output has risen and productivity is at record levels.
    Mr. Day: Is my hon. Friend aware that part of the improvement in manufacturing output in this country has been due to companies such as Avro International, which is based at Woodford in my constituency of Cheadle and has just recently made a marvellous export sale to Australia? Will my hon. Friend take the opportunity to congratulate the management and work force of Avro International on that breakthrough in the Australian market?
    Mr. Oppenheim: I will indeed take that opportunity. The performance of British Aerospace is indicative of the improved performance of British manufacturing since 1979. Looking back to the 1970s, companies such as BAe, British Steel, British Leyland—all the nationalised, monopoly industries—were almost dead on their feet; they were industrial basket cases, whereas now they are highly successful, exporting all over the world. Rolls-Royce has trebled its share of the civil aero engine
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    market, BAe is profitable again, and British Steel, which was the world's largest loss maker, is now one of the most profitable steel companies in the world—it exports 40 per cent. of its output, accounts for 80 per cent. of the domestic market and is once more a highly efficient industry. That is the story of what has happened to British manufacturing in the past 15 years.

    Scientific Invention
    Mr. Flynn: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what new proposals he has to improve the application of scientific invention to industry. [38661]
    Mr. Ian Taylor: The Government are committed to innovation and wealth creation through science and technology. The £40 million foresight challenge, the Office of Science and Technology and DTI competitions in industry/academic collaboration and technology transfer and the improved Smart, Spur and Link schemes are recent initiatives.
    Mr. Flynn: What sort of example is the Conservative party setting in regard to the application of scientific inventions on the Internet? The web sites of the Labour and Liberal parties are fully interactive, but the only way to interact with the Conservative site is by means of a game which features the Prime Minister playing cricket and invites the public to "spot the ball". Is not one of the reasons why this country has slipped from 13th to 18th in the prosperity league the fact that all that the Conservatives can offer it on high technology is balls?
    Mr. Taylor: I was in charitable mood and intended to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on putting a science question on the Order Paper following the transfer of responsibility for science to the Department of Trade and Industry, but he has mentioned a competition that Labour would constantly fail, because it can never spot the ball.
    We have done an enormous amount to advance all the technologies in this country and their application on the Internet and the super-highways. We have made possible new processes which help education, hospitals and schools. The Conservative party's Internet site is independently regarded as the most exciting of the political parties' sites, as indeed it must be, as I launched it at the Conservative party conference.
    Mrs. Lait: I thank my hon. Friend for coming to Hastings last week and visiting Instrument Technology Ltd.—a company which is applying industrial techniques to the sciences of vacuum generation and semi-conductors. Does he agree that there are administrative blockages in some of the international scientific programmes such as CERN? What action is he taking to try to help British companies win contracts?
    Mr. Taylor: I valued my visit to Hastings last Friday, and I was impressed by the company that my hon. Friend took me to see. There is no doubt that it is one of the leading companies in the vacuum generation part of the industry, supplying research to establishments such as CERN. Unfortunately, many of the procurement techniques adopted by CERN make it difficult for companies to tender properly. Having led a trade delegation to CERN about a year ago, I am engaged in continuing discussions with it.
    Mr. Ingram: Is the Minister prepared to accept that what is happening in the international prosperity league

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    table is mirrored in the league table showing percentage of gross domestic product spent on research and development? The United States spends 2.72 per cent. of its GDP on research and development and Japan spends 2.93 per cent. while Britain is much further down the league, spending only 2.19 per cent. Given those figures and the link between research and development expenditure and industrial performance, is it any wonder that Britain has slumped to 18th place in the world prosperity league table?
    Mr. Taylor: I am beginning to think that the record has stuck. Throughout Question Time the Opposition Front Bench has been given evidence of which it was not previously aware, but it has not yet adjusted its own records. Our science base is widely regarded as excellent. The research in our universities and the work done by the research councils is remarkable and our science and engineering base has grown by 10 per cent. in the past 10 years, so we need not suffer by comparison with other countries. Indeed, in many of our best industries—the pharmaceutical industry, for example—we are world leaders.
    I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his position shadowing me on science. When he has considered some of the establishments in this country, he will realise what the centres of excellence are. Nevertheless, I concede that we must do better: there is no question but that there are too many holes in our good performance and too many sectors where there is not enough read-out from the excellent science base into industry and where British industry is not examining the longer-term requirements of encouraging science, both applied and basic, for the benefit of competitive performance. The purpose of the DTI and the Office of Science and Technology is to try to remedy that, both by encouraging the science base and by increasing technology transfer and innovation.

    Trade with North America
    Mr. Fabricant: To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he next plans to visit his counterparts in North America to discuss bilateral trade with the United States and Great Britain's relationship with North American Free Trade Agreement countries; and if he will make a statement. [38662]
    Mr. Lang: I shall be visiting the United States of America and Canada next week to discuss the United Kingdom's successful trade and investment relationship with my counterparts in the American and Canadian Governments and with others in both countries.
    Mr. Fabricant: I am delighted that my right hon. Friend will be visiting the United States of America and a united Canada. Is he aware that British companies are the biggest investors—they invest more than companies in any other countries—in the United States, and vice versa? Is he also aware that the United States is our second largest trading partner? Does he not think that that is partly due not only to our historical connections, but to a common language, a common culture and a common legal system? Does he agree that talk from the Labour party that we should concentrate only—[HON. MEMBERS: "Get on with it.]
    Madam Speaker: We could have an Adjournment debate on that interesting topic. Perhaps the hon.
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    Gentleman would apply for one, but as this is Question Time, would he now put a direct question and resume his seat?
    Mr. Fabricant: I stand chastised, Madam Speaker. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is no mutual exclusivity and that we can trade well, not only with Europe, but with the United States of America and the NAFTA countries, too.
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is right in all his points. I appreciate his difficulties as there is so much good news to impart to the House and such a great need for education among those on the Opposition Benches. He is right that the United States of America is the United Kingdom's second largest market. Our exports this year are running at some 8 per cent. higher than last year so far and, at £16.8 billion, our exports last year were a record.
    Mr. Eastham: If it is so glorious to have our investments pumped into America, would it not be wise if some of that investment were pumped into Britain? Instead of the Tory Government swanking about the Japanese investing in Britain, why are we not investing in Britain ourselves?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman might like to know that investment in plant and machinery in the UK has risen by 50 per cent. since 1979, and that since 1981 investment has risen faster than throughout Europe.

    Isle of Wight Ferry Services
    Mr. Barry Field: To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he expects to publish the further report on ferry services and fares to the Isle of Wight. [38664]
    Mr. Jonathan Evans: I understand that the Director General of Fair Trading expects to announce the outcome of his review of the market for the supply of cross-Solent ferry services in December 1995.
    Mr. Field: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. There is no denying that there has been massive investment in all ferry routes to and from the Isle of Wight—in new vessels, better terminal facilities and improved timetabling—but the House will recognise that the Isle of Wight sees itself as a captive market whenever it wants to visit England. I hope that my hon. Friend will bear that in mind when he receives the report.
    Mr. Evans: My hon. Friend has always kept the position under close review on behalf of his constituents. He will know that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission concluded that, although there was a monopoly position, it could not be said to operate against the public interest. Nevertheless, it was decided that there would be a review after three years to ensure that the public interest was in no way damaged. That review has been undertaken, and I assure my hon. Friend that I will closely consider its contents when they are received.

    Nuclear Safety
    Mr. Foulkes: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to ensure that safety standards are being maintained in the nuclear industry. [38665]
    Mr. Eggar: The independent Health and Safety Executive's nuclear installations inspectorate continues to

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    monitor closely the safe operation of all UK nuclear installations. The Government will not permit any weakening of the existing regulatory regime, nor of the safety standards currently in force.
    Mr. Foulkes: Why was the Minister so dismissive earlier of the remarks by Captain Richard Killick, who has spent a lifetime in the industry? Should he not pay serious concern to the fact that Mr. Killick is worried about nuclear safety if the Government go ahead with privatisation? If the Government nevertheless press ahead with this crazy privatisation, will it not be further evidence of their frenetic lurch to the right?
    Mr. Eggar: I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has at least tried to produce a new soundbite. That is a relief to us. He should have a word with his hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) and must try to ring the changes rather more often.
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    On the substance of the question, I would take Mr. Killick's comments rather more seriously if he had raised them with Scottish Nuclear and if he had taken them up with the nuclear installations inspectorate rather than going first to the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) and the press. In my judgment, scaremongering about nuclear safety is highly irresponsible and hon. Members should have no part in it.
    Mr. Whittingdale: Did not the worst nuclear accident that the world has ever seen occur in a state-owned nuclear power station? Does my hon. Friend agree that we already have one of the toughest safety regimes in the world governing nuclear generation and that, if anything, that regime will be made still tougher once the industry is transferred into the private sector?
    Mr. Eggar: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. This Government will do nothing to imperil nuclear safety. The NII is the independent arbiter of the continuance of the extremely high safety standards which have been such a feature of the British nuclear industry.

Beaufort Dyke
3.30 pm
Mr. George Foulkes: I thank you, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity to request a debate under Standing Order No. 20. You will recall that three years ago, on the previous occasion that I asked for such a debate, in relation to Rosyth, you were kind enough not only to grant it, but to grant it on that very day, so I have my fingers crossed that I may get the double.
I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the danger to the public and the work force arising from the British Gas operations at Beaufort dyke off the coast of south-west Scotland."
The matter is specific, as, for the past three weeks, phosphorus incendiaries have been washed up on the shores of Ayrshire, Arran and Argyll. In spite of protests by local Members of Parliament, including my hon. Friends the Members for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Donohoe) and for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mr. Graham), and the hon. Members for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie), for Ayr (Mr. Gallie) and for Moray (Mrs. Ewing), and in spite of a meeting with the Secretary of State for Defence and a meeting with Cedric Brown of British Gas, the dangerous pipe-laying work is continuing.
For a few days, the Health and Safety Executive imposed a prohibition order on the work because of the concern expressed by the work force. The sub-contractors
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and the local people also expressed that concern. However, for some reasons, which have never been explained to anyone, the order was lifted by the Health and Safety Executive, and the work, which is already behind schedule, was allowed to recommence.
Today, we have the overriding reason for an urgent debate. The Scottish Daily Mail, in a three-page exclusive report, reveals that depth charges are now lying inches away from the gas pipeline, and that there are other explosives in the vicinity, so it would be quite irresponsible for British Gas to continue. The Scottish Office announced last week that there is to be a marine survey later this month. British Gas must suspend its operations until the results of the survey are known and until action is taken to make the munitions safe.
Ministers whom my colleagues and I have approached keep passing the buck from one to the other. It is only today that I realise that it is not those in the Department of Trade and Industry or the Ministry of Defence, but the Department of the Environment which is responsible for the Health and Safety Executive. Ministers in that Department should be brought to book before the House.
Local Members of Parliament have not had an answer. The only way in which we shall get answers from Ministers is to have an emergency debate. I request urgently, on behalf of my colleagues, that you grant it, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker: I have listened very carefully to what the hon. Gentleman has had to say. I have to give my decision to the House without stating my reasons. I am afraid that I do not consider that the matter which he has raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 20, and I therefore cannot submit the application to the House.

Points of Order
3.34 pm
Mr. Rhodri Morgan: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. It follows a similar point of order which was raised by the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Gallie) on 24 October, on which you ruled, and arises from the actions of the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones).
In the summer, the hon. Member wrote 18th birthday congratulations, in the form of a letter on his constituency notepaper, and claimed to be acting in a ministerial capacity. Unfortunately for the hon. Gentleman, perhaps, one of the letters went to a constituency activist of mine, who brought it to my attention and said that it had spoiled her 18th birthday. She would be very happy to receive a birthday card from me, but was not happy to receive a lot of Conservative propaganda from the hon. Member for Cardiff, North—to whom I gave notice at midday by telephone and by note of my intention to raise the issue today.
I was adding to the problems since I wrote to the hon. Member for Cardiff, North protesting about the matter when it was drawn to my attention three weeks ago. So far, I have not received a reply giving some explanation of why he was writing to my constituents. Indeed, when I spoke to him last night and asked him when I would get a reply, he told me that he did not intend to reply, which is why I have no option but to resort to bringing the matter to the attention of the House.
Not only is there the issue of writing to other hon. Members' constituents—the point made by the hon. Member for Ayr, on which you ruled last week Madam Speaker—there is a rule of the House, as I understand it, that birthday greetings from hon. Members must be no more than greetings, and must not include propaganda about Conservative achievements in Wales, and so on.
Thirdly, there is the fact that the hon. Member for Cardiff, North has not answered my letter, and, fourthly, he has claimed specifically that he was writing in his ministerial capacity, which he has no right to do in the form of birthday greetings to 18-year-olds in Cardiff, West.
Madam Speaker: The hon. Gentleman's principal concern is that one of his constituents has been approached by another Member. I can confirm his understanding that it is a clear convention that, unless otherwise agreed between the hon. Members concerned, the interests of members of the electorate can be represented only by their constituency Member—in this case, the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan). But as he and the House know, I, as Speaker, have no means of enforcing those conventions; I have to leave it to the good sense of Members to work out their problems between them.
Mr. Ian Bruce: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I know that you in particular are keen to defend both the reputations of this House and Members of it. I have a difficulty with The Independent. Several days ago, the Labour Research magazine, which is linked to the Labour party, did its usual accurate level of research in supposedly revealing a secret document about Members who belong to the freemason organisation. I might add that that secret document is available in most public
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libraries, and the magazine demonstrated only that it could not read it correctly, since it misnamed me as a senior official of the freemason organisation.
The article attempted to smear colleagues who are members of the organisation, which does a great deal of good charitable work. It presented the matter as something sleazy, which Nolan should be looking into.
The particular point that I raise is that, as we all know in this place, a lie is halfway round the world before truth has got its coat on. The item has been retracted by the newspaper in a piece which nobody could see if they did not have their glasses on—
Madam Speaker: Order. I cannot allow debates, or these lengthy statements by Members. I do not think that the House quite understands what a point of order is about. A point of order has to be something with which I, as Speaker, can deal. Now come to the point of order.
Mr. Bruce: The point for you, Madam Speaker, is whether, when Lobby correspondents refuse to put the record right as quickly as possible in a sensible way, you can remove the passes from those people and—
Madam Speaker: Order. An individual complaint that the hon. Gentleman has against the Lobby is not a matter for me as Speaker to deal with. He must deal with the Lobby himself, as I have done for the past 23 years.
Mr. Brian Wilson: On another point of order, Madam Speaker. During Question Time, I was astonished to hear Captain Richard Killick, who was formerly one of the Royal Navy's senior experts on nuclear safety, being defamed by the Minister for Industry and Energy. Will you confirm, Madam Speaker, that a constituent has an absolute right to raise matters of concern, both local and national, with his or her constituency Member of Parliament? The idea that a constituent should be prevented from doing that, and instead should have to go to the Government—the sponsor of the legislation about which he is complaining and wishes to express concern—is absurd, and extremely dangerous.
Madam Speaker: Any individual in this country has an absolute right and liberty to go to his or her own Member of Parliament to seek redress. That is the way in which we all deal with our constituents; there is a perfect right of access.
Several hon. Members: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker: Order. Just a moment. I can see hon. Members standing.
Mr. Jacques Arnold: I agree with you, Madam Speaker, that constituents have an absolute right to come to their constituency Member to raise matters on their own behalf. Could you therefore do something about the fact that the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson), who has just made that very point, came to my constituency without advising me in advance, in order to take a petition from constituents on a matter that they had not had the courtesy to raise with me in the first place? [Interruption.]
Madam Speaker: Order. I think that we could probably take up many afternoons with such matters.

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I have given many rulings on the subject, and I expect Members of the House to behave as adults. [Interruption.] Order. I have given my rulings, and explained to the House about the convention. I expect Members to observe that convention, and to arrange matters between themselves.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Will you let us know, Madam Speaker, whether the hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) has yet submitted any evidence in support of the allegations that he made yesterday?
Madam Speaker: I have not yet received any information from the hon. Gentleman.
Mrs. Alice Mahon: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will be aware that today Yorkshire Water is applying for a drought order for permission to introduce 24-hour rota cut-offs in Halifax and Huddersfield. If that happens, industry in my constituency could be desperately affected. Even worse, schools could close, and the elderly and sick in nursing homes could be put gravely at risk.
My point of order for you is to ask whether the Government have said that a Minister will make a statement on what, thanks to the mismanagement of the privatised utility, Yorkshire Water, is a grave crisis for my constituents and for people in Huddersfield.
Madam Speaker: No, I have not been told that a Minister seeks to make a statement today. Had that been the case, we should all have known about it, because it would have been on the Annunciator.
Ms Diane Abbott: Have you, Madam Speaker, any information about a Government statement on the case of Ken Saro-Wiwa, who has been sentenced to death on trumped-up charges by a military tribunal under the discredited military regime in Nigeria? Given the circumstances, severing diplomatic relations and severe economic sanctions are the least that people will expect from the British Government.
Madam Speaker: I refer the hon. Lady to the point of order and exchange that took place on the matter yesterday. No, the Government have not told me that they seek to make a statement.
Mr. Brian H. Donohoe: Although obviously I accept your ruling, Madam Speaker, on the application for an emergency debate under Standing Order No. 20 made by my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes), I wonder what other avenues are open to us as Members of Parliament to pursue the matter.
Madam Speaker: I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman had been in the House long enough to know that there is more time now for Back Benchers to raise such issues than ever before. If he does not know what they are, he can come to my office and I will give him a seminar.
Mr. Thomas Graham: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. I seek your guidance, too, because of my extreme concern for my constituents who live on the coast near the area where the explosives are being washed up. Our concern is environmental. Will the Government make a statement—
Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman seeks to raise the same matter again. There are many opportunities—through Adjournment debates, on the Loyal Address and in many other ways—for the matter to be raised in the future.
Mr. Gerald Bermingham: Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), Madam Speaker. If the hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) does not supply you with the evidence to which he referred in his spurious allegation yesterday, what steps—if any—can be taken to bring the hon. Gentleman back to the House to withdraw the allegation?
Madam Speaker: I cannot answer hypothetical questions.

Representation of the People (Amendment)
3.44 pm
Mr. Harry Barnes: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to extend and improve methods of electoral registration.
It is timely to be promoting a Bill which seeks to extend and improve the methods of electoral registration, because we are likely to have a general election using registers which will operate from February 1996 to 1997. If the election is not held with those registers, it certainly will be held with the registers for the year after that.
There is still time to register on the current electoral register, as the qualifying date for registration is 10 October in Britain and 15 September in Northern Ireland. People can still register even if they fail to do so before those dates, as long as they have qualified for the registers to be published on 16 February. Supplementary lists can be produced afterwards, so everyone who is not registered should make an effort to ensure that they are placed on a register.
They should ensure that they are on a register, not just because there is a legal requirement to do so, but because the franchise arrangements of this House have been based upon the struggles of the chartists in the 19th century and the suffragettes in the 20th for one person, one vote. One would have to look in a broom cupboard to see how the chartists and the suffragettes have been remembered, despite what they did to extend the electoral arrangements in this country.
Everyone should register, but help is needed to ensure that that is done. Money should be spent on advertising that goes beyond the recent advertising campaign on the subject, and a amount of money should be spent at least comparable to the amount spent on advertising the electricity and gas privatisations, to ensure that people are encouraged to take advantage of this fundamental right.
The best practices of electoral registration officers should be spread throughout the country, but the resources they require to do that are often far greater than are available to local authorities. An examination must take place of standard spending assessments and other provisions, to ensure that those funds are made available.
Political parties can also play a role in canvassing to ensure that people are registered. Keir Hardie said that, if Labour looked to the electoral register, it would surely achieve victory. Political parties must be aware of the importance of getting people on to electoral registers. Probably the best thing that could be done to encourage people to register would be for Parliament to make politics seem relevant to people. If people felt that Parliament expressed their views or that the Government were concerned with and linked to the people of this country, they would rush to the polling stations to ensure that they were on a register to exercise their franchise.
Even if we all do our best under the current arrangements to get people on registers, there are serious defects in how the system operates. If someone moves home today—or has done since 10 October—they cannot appear on the relevant electoral register in their area until 16 February 1997. They might not appear on that register even then, because they may have moved again to some
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other area. We are supposed to have an increasingly mobile society, but we do not have the electoral arrangements to deal with it.
In 1991, the Hansard Society reported that, by the time a typical constituency register was finished, 16 per cent. of the names on it were redundant, and were no longer eligible to vote in the area. The Office of Population Censuses and Surveys study in 1991 on electoral registration by Stephen Smith showed that non-registration in England and Wales amounted to between 7. 4 per cent. and 9 per cent. of those eligible to vote. The figure was especially high in inner London. Other OPCS publications on electoral registration show that similar problems exist within other cities.
The figure is high among the young—particularly among people coming up to vote for first time, known as "attainers"—among the black population, and among people who live in private rented accommodation.
The rate of non-registration is astronomically high among those living in furnished private rented accommodation—exactly the sort of people who move around. It is also higher among men than women. It is my modest claim that between 3 million and 4 million people are missing from electoral registers.
Following a dispute I had with certain people at the OPCS about that claim, Dennis Roberts, director of statistics at the OPCS, wrote an internal memo stating:
"Surely the estimate produced by Mr. Barnes MP is broadly correct."
If I had time, I could easily prove how at least between 3 million and 4 million people are missing from electoral registers.
My Bill would tackle the serious problem of under-registration by introducing a rolling register, so that people could be added to their local register when they moved into a new area, and deleted from it when they moved away. People who died would also be deleted front the register, to avoid electoral communications being sent by political parties.
The duty of the electoral returning officer would be to contact people as they moved into the area. They would do so by means of the information supplied to them from statutory undertakings, educational institutions, local authorities, Government Departments, and other electoral returning officers. They would also receive information from the registrar of births, marriages and deaths, so that the necessary deletions could be made as a result of death.
The EROs would then give people who had moved into their area the opportunity to comply with the registration requirements before adding those people's names to the register. The EROs could therefore check whether those people should be added to that register. The registers would cease to roll when an election was called, but it would still be possible for a person's name to be added, because the new qualifying date would then be the date of the announcement of the election. After the election, the registers would roll again. That requirement is included to ensure that no particular area is packed with people during a by-election.
A key element within the proposed system would be the early issue of polling cards, accompanied by the most extensive publicity possible. People who did not receive one would realise that they were probably not on the

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register. They would still have time to register as long as they qualified to do so on the date when the election was announced.
There is little time for my Bill to become law, but I offer it to the Government for inclusion in the forthcoming Queen's Speech. No doubt Ministers will tell me to get lost—much to their shame. I must stress that my Bill has all-party support—in fact, the list of supporters sounds like a coalition Government.
Apart from my Bill, the Government should also consider the work done by a non-party organisation, Full Franchise, which has argued in favour of my Bill. It has also argued for access to polling stations for disabled people. That proposal was included in the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill which I introduced this year, and which is still before the House.
Legislation should also be introduced to establish a register of homeless people to ensure that those people are given their full registration rights.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Harry Barnes, Mr. Robert Maclennan, Mrs. Margaret Ewing, Dr. Norman A. Godman, Mr. Dafydd Wigley, Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours, Mr. Richard Shepherd, Mrs. Alice Mahon, Mr. Roy Beggs, Mr. David Alton, Mr. Bill Michie and Mr. Paul Flynn.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (AMENDMENT)
Mr. Harry Barnes accordingly presented a Bill to extend and improve methods of electoral registration: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 10 November 1995, and to be printed. [Bill 186.]
Orders of the Day

  Gas Bill
  Lords amendments considered.
  Madam Speaker: Before I call the first amendment, I must tell the House that I have not selected the amendment to Lords amendment No. 211 in the name of the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham).

  Gas Bill
    Clause 1

      GENERAL DUTIES UNDER 1986 ACT
      Lords amendment No. 1 agreed to.
      Madam Speaker: We now come to Lords amendment No. 2. By leave of the House, I will put Lords amendments Nos. 2 and 3 together.
      3.55 pm
      Mr. John Battle: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I thought that Lords amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 4 had been moved as a group and I was waiting for Lords amendment No. 3, to be taken with amendments Nos. 13 and 22, to be called before opening my comments. I did not hear it called.
      Madam Speaker: I put it, but it is confusing to deal with Lords amendments, as the whole House agrees. If it is in order with the Minister, I am quite happy to go back to amendment No. 3 if the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) wishes to speak on that. I would have to have Lords amendment No. 3 properly moved by the Minister and we will debate also with it amendments Nos 13 and 22.
      Lords amendment No. 2 agreed to.
      Lords amendment: No. 3, in page 2, line 27, at end insert ("chronically sick,")
      The Minister for Industry and Energy (Mr. Tim Eggar): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
      If it would help, Madam Speaker, I shall comment on this group of amendments, which was made in response to a point made by my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter in Committee in a debate on an amendment that had been moved by Baroness David. My noble Friend suggested that we needed to look again at whether the Bill's definition of those who are disabled or of pensionable age as requiring special consideration or services need to be expanded to encompass those who had suffered very severe and prolonged illness. Having considered the point, we accept the broad thrust of that argument and, through this group of amendments, we are trying to answer the point made by my noble Friend.
      Mr. Battle: I am grateful to you, Madam Speaker, for allowing us to open the debate on this group of amendments.
      We welcome the return of the Bill at this late and perhaps non-controversial stage. It launches British Gas into the brave new world of domestic competition. Labour does not oppose the principle of opening up the domestic market to competition since British Gas has been privatised. It would have been better if the changes that

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      we proposed in Committee and on Report had been accepted, but it would be churlish not to accept and acknowledge that crucial progress has been made in the other place. We welcome the fact that the Minister is prepared to accept the amendment.
      Our concerns are still focused on the Bill's effect on consumers. The amendments introduce protection for the chronically sick as well as for those who are elderly and disabled. That is welcome. It is a broader definition. We would have preferred what I would call a fairer distribution mechanism to ensure, for example, that there is no regional discrimination. As the biggest and, perhaps, more attractive markets will be in London and the south-east, we need to be assured that less attractive markets will not be starved of what the Minister considers to be the benefits of opening the market.
      Even the Minister would not want a regime in which gas costs more for people in Newport than for those in Norwich simply because Newport is further away from the gas's landing point. I think that it is important that the Bill does not have a regressive effect, in that the more affluent customers are considered to be profitable to suppliers and therefore enjoy the benefits of choice and competition, while prices end up much higher for the elderly, the disabled and the chronically sick, who are more likely to suffer from fuel poverty.
      It would be churlish not to acknowledge that there has been some progress and that some common-sense amendments dealing with consumer protection have been moved in the other place. However, we do not think that they go far enough. We must ensure that those on lower incomes experience the benefits of competition rather than suffer its adverse effects.
      Mr. Ted Rowlands: Amendment No. 13 adds the word "disabled" to section 7A—the anti-cherry-picking provision. Does the Minister envisage that licences granted under the provision may discriminate on the grounds of social disability or sickness? I find it difficult to understand how a licensee could ensure that that does not occur. Will the licensee base his or her calculations on the number of people in a street?
      As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) said, there is a danger of a strong regional element. Licensees could look at the valley communities, for example, and try to avoid having to compete for gas in that area. How will we get around the issue of competition and discrimination on a regional basis, especially as one consequence of the Bill will be discriminatory pricing on a regional basis?
      Mr. Eggar: I shall pick up the rather wide point that the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) has raised. There will be a transportation charge differential. That flows not from the Bill but from decisions made by the Director General of Gas Supply before the Bill's introduction. We have never made any secret of that fact. That differential will not be more than plus or minus 2 per cent. of current consumer prices
      The Bill's structure—this point was raised in Committee—has potential benefits for the more remote communities that are perhaps not connected to gas. It will make it easier for local communities and individuals to take the initiative and many competitors of British Gas
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      believe that they will be able to connect consumers to gas at a lower cost than British Gas. The Bill also contains powers that will allow the connection costs to be spread over a number of years, rather than having one upfront charge, as applies under the Gas Act 1986.
      As to the hon. Gentleman's other point about what is loosely described as "cherry picking", the appropriateness of precise licence area is a matter for the director general. The various issues may be encapsulated by saying that the Bill's structure and the licences are designed to make it as difficult as possible to engage in cherry picking, however the cherries may be defined and however much people may want to pick them.
      Lords amendment agreed to.
      Lords amendments Nos. 4 to 13 agreed to.

    Clause 6

      LICENSING OF GAS SUPPLIERS AND GAS SHIPPERS
      Lords amendment: No. 14, in page 8, line 27, at end insert—
      ("(6A) If the holder of a licence under subsection (1) above applies to the Director for a restriction of the licence, or for the revocation of the licence in accordance with any term contained in it, the Director shall, subject to subsection (6) above, accede to the application if he is satisfied that such arrangements have been made as—

      (a) will secure continuity of supply for all relevant consumers; and

      (b) in the case of each such consumer who is supplied with gas in pursuance of a contract, will secure such continuity on the same terms as nearly as may be as the terms of the contract.

      (6B) A person is a relevant consumer for the purposes of subsection (6A) above if—

      (a) immediately before the restriction or revocation takes effect, he is being supplied with gas by the holder of the licence; and

      (b) in the case of a restriction, his premises are excluded from the licence by the restriction;

      and in that subsection 'contract' does not include any contract which, by virtue of paragraph 8 of Schedule 2B to this Act, is deemed to have been made.")
      Mr. Eggar: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
      Madam Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also Lords amendment No. 15.
      Mr. Battle: We welcome amendment No. 14. It underpins the guarantee of the security of supply, because it provides that, if a supplying company goes bankrupt, it will not be in a position to withdraw the supply until it has found a replacement. That adds some essential protection of consumers, who will not be subject to liquidation and therefore will not have their supply cut off.
      I was slightly surprised, when I approached the Bill at a late stage, to find that that amendment was not in the original Bill. Perhaps it should have been on the face of the Bill. It has been added by Lords amendment. I hope that it is welcomed by the Government, as it is welcomed by the Opposition.
      Mr. Rowlands: I wish to make a variation on that argument. As I understand it, that amendment will clarify what happens if a licensee decides not to continue to supply, and it clarifies the means by which that termination occurs.

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      I assumed that the amendment was needed because the Government gave the impression, in some of the early undertakings that we received about competition in gas, that a huge, new, great, wonderful pool of entrepreneurial skill would emerge—that new companies would emerge that are capable of delivering that new competitive gas supply. Inevitably, if there is a new style of supplier, a risk arises that that company may go bust or go into liquidation or run into trouble. I therefore understand the aim of the amendment.
      I have read some troubling press reports. We now have an opportunity to ask the Minister to clarify matters. Will he tell us whether some of those reports are accurate? Is it true that the new suppliers are likely to be anything but new entrepreneurial skilful newcomers who will be exciting new players in the gas market? Recent press reports suggest that it will be Amoco Corporation of America, linked with Seeboard plc, the English regional electricity company. It will be BP and the Norwegian Statoil-Den Norske Stats Oljeselskap AS. It will be Total and Texaco Ltd., linked up with Calor Group plc. Those are huge oil moguls, which will dominate the market in supplying domestic gas as much as any of the new entrepreneurial companies of the type against which the amendment was presumably aimed to safeguard consumers.
      The Minister should try to give us a flavour of the type of new licensee that he expects to emerge—or is it that, as it appears from press reports, we shall have not a marvellous burgeoning of exciting new gas suppliers but huge new forms of concentrated power? Is it true that oil companies will drill, produce gas and deliver into the households of the United Kingdom? That is not exactly an image of a wonderful new spirit of competition. It is a huge collection of other big barons entering the market to compete with the baron British Gas.
      I believe that there is a serious issue as to what image and vision Ministers had when they went down that road of gas competition. I wonder whether the Amocos and the Totals and the Amerada Hesses and so on will reach Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney—that is why the amendment is important. Who will be the new competitor in our district? I have a horrible, nightmarish feeling that it will be the electricity company—perhaps even the electricity company taken over by the water company. It would be wonderfully rich if one of the consequences in our district was that we had somehow reconcentrated what were public monopolies into combined private monopolies in which the same company delivered gas, electricity and water.
      Those questions arise as a result of the pattern or type of new competition that may emerge. Certainly, if that arises, those amendments are unnecessary. However, if it does—if my interest and worry are proved right in the longer term—what would one have achieved if the result is that our water, electricity and gas are supplied by the same big brother, but privatised instead of public?
      Mr. Eggar: I deal first with the provenance of the amendment, which is essentially technical. Hon. Members who considered the Bill in Committee will remember that there are in it a number of protections to ensure that a licence is granted not only to financially viable companies but to companies that meet various other criteria set by the director general.
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      The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) referred to what he described as a concentration of power. I do not want to get too mischievous in what is, and has always been, a basically friendly debate, but the idea that the Bill will lead to an extra concentration of power is a bit rich, considering that there was previously an absolute monopoly supported by the hon. Gentleman. Under that system, one company bought all the gas produced in the North sea and supplied it to the consumers. The Government were determined to break that monopoly and to introduce competition.
      The Bill is an attempt to provide a framework within which different types of competitors can emerge. We are not thinking only of the type of companies to which the hon. Gentleman referred and which have so far publicly announced that they will supply nationally. We wanted to produce a framework within which regional suppliers could emerge. I have always been keen to safeguard opportunities for very localised producers.
      Let me describe a scenario that I have in mind and how it can come about under the Bill. Personally, I believe that a major source of gas supply to the United Kingdom will be coal-bed methane. We have to get the technology right but there is no reason why, over a period, we should not be able to produce it competitively, as the United States has managed to do.
      Because of the location of the major consumers of gas in the United Kingdom—they have historically been around the coalfields—there is a ready and nearby market for constant supplies of gas which are particularly appropriate to coal-bed methane producers. That might also apply to remoter villages in, for example, South Yorkshire, which are perhaps not on gas supplies but which are near mains gas supply systems and coal-bed methane supplies.
      I wanted to provide a framework in which, over time, localised suppliers could emerge, producing for perhaps three or four coal-bed methane wells and supplying to relatively few purchasers. I have never heard it suggested that there were tremendous opportunities in the south Wales coalfields because I have never heard it suggested that there was the same methane availability there as there almost certainly is in other parts of the country.
      The hon. Gentleman also asked whether people will want to compete in the valleys. I see absolutely no reason why they should not. I also see no reason why the Bill's provisions should not make it easier for communities that are not already on gas to be put on gas. There will be an average reduction in the price of supply.
      Mr. Rowlands: I am grateful to the Minister for the thoughtful way in which he has replied. However, I do not think that it would be much of an achievement if the overall effect is that the alternative supplier turns out to be our electricity company. Is that the type of company that the Minister envisages as British Gas's main competitor in areas such as mine?
      Mr. Eggar: It is probable that in most parts of the country the relevant regional electricity supplier will want to be able to supply gas. How successful and competitive it will be is another matter, but the huge advantage from the hon. Gentleman's constituents' point of view is that they will no longer have to buy from just one supplier. Whatever the alternative or alternatives—incidentally, I think that there will be more than one alternative to British

      317
      Gas—consumers will have a choice. The history of competition is that it drives down prices and improves the quality of service because it is only when that happens that consumers can be persuaded to move from existing suppliers. Whoever British Gas's competitors are, the hon. Gentleman's constituents are likely to benefit.
      Mr. Michael Connarty: I completed an Industry and Parliament Trust fellowship with British Gas, and therefore took a self-denying ordinance and did not seek to serve on the Committee scrutinising the Bill. I can assure the Minister, however, that much of the drive for competition came from British Gas, which felt that it would get the regulator off its back and that a free-for-all would ensue.
      As a former graduate of the dismal science of economics, I am reminded of the fact that all capitalist endeavour tends towards monopoly. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) was right about the small regional monopolies that will emerge as competitors, just as they have in the water and electricity industries. I cannot envisage many people making large amounts of money from, according to the Minister's vision, extracting methane, although I hope that some will take that technology forward.
      4.15 pm
      The Lords amendment has to do with the holder of a licence applying to have that licence restricted. The worry is that, when the licences are drawn up, there will be profitable, cherry-picking areas and also areas of marginal profit—for instance, when I was studying British Gas, a decision was taken not to run the pipeline to Gretna all the way across the border to the north of England, because it was thought that that would be a loss-making venture compared with a pipeline direct to Gretna. The same sort of scenario will recur with these monopolies. Some people will be supplied with gas; many more will be left aspiring to be supplied with it.
      My worry is that people will apply to remove from their licences areas that are not currently being supplied—and that would be allowed, because the amendment stipulates only that a person is a relevant consumer under the new section 6(B) if
      "immediately before the restriction or revocation takes effect, he is being supplied with gas by the holder of the licence".
      So people whose homes are not on the pipeline may be excluded from the licence holder's area and will never be connected. To change the licence, another supplier would have to be found. So many areas of Britain, under competition, will not be linked up, because all the competition will be about making money out of buying and then selling gas to end users. The companies will continually try to make profits from their regional monopolies, not to serve the needs of consumers.
      Thus, although the Government laud competition, the chances of people in the remoter parts of the United Kingdom getting a gas supply will diminish with this Bill, even if it includes the Lords amendment.
      Mr. Eggar: I am keen to be helpful. Two distinct issues are involved here. First, will customers already connected to a gas supply benefit from competition; and will there be more connections? All the evidence so far is that
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      competition will lead to reduced prices and improved standards of service and choice for consumers. Once people are linked up to the gas system, there will be no difference resulting from the Bill. The right to withdraw from the market is carefully circumscribed, and the interests of the consumer as regards supply are protected.
      The other issue concerns whether people and enterprises not currently linked up to a gas supply will have a better or worse chance of being linked up as a result of the Bill. I strongly believe that their chances will be improved, for a number of good reasons. The first is that, under the Gas Act 1986, it was in practice impossible for British Gas to spread the charge of initial connection over a period. If householders have to pay as much as £1,300 for connection, and have to buy boilers and so on on top of that, that will represent a considerable outlay. So that was a negative factor, which will be removed once this Bill gets Royal Assent.
      Secondly, it will be open to any competing transporter to link with the main gas supply, having regard, of course, to safety considerations. It may well be that competitors will be able to lay the necessary pipes at a lower cost than British Gas and therefore make things possible that would not otherwise be possible. Thirdly, individual householders will have the right, again subject to safety provisions, to link their properties—trenches will have to be dug and pipes laid, for example—directly with the nearest supply.
      For all these reasons, I think that it is likely that more connections to the gas supply will take place when the Bill is enacted. There is some evidence to support that. For example, under the 1986 legislation, competitors may compete to supply gas to certain new developments. There is some evidence that British Gas's competitors have been able to supply such developments at a cheaper price and have won some contracts.
      The Bill will help our constituents rather than harm their interests and meet the concerns to which the hon. Gentleman has drawn attention.
      Lords amendment agreed to.
      Lords amendment No. 15 agreed to.
      Lords amendment: No. 16, in page 8, line 38, leave out from ("no") to ("before") in line 39 and insert
      ("domestic supply licence shall authorise the supply of gas to any premises")
      Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.—[Mr. Eggar.]
      Madam Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also Lords amendments Nos. 17 to 21.
      Mr. Rowlands: I wish to know more about the context in which the amendments have been tabled. The Government have supplied helpful notes on the amendments, and I thank them for so doing. It would seem that, during the introduction of pilot areas, before there is full competition after 1998, there can be monopoly suppliers. A monopoly supplier can be British Gas or any authorised licensee. British Gas is to assume the responsibility of being a monopoly supplier in most of Britain between now and 1998, yet the director general, Miss Spottiswoode, has made the extraordinary statement

      319
      that British Gas's future is in considerable doubt because of long-term North sea contracts that have tied it to high prices.
      Perhaps the Minister will comment on the plight, as it were, of British Gas—I hold no brief for British Gas, and the Minister knows that I was a great supporter of Sir James McKinnon during the earlier part of his regulatory activities—as a result of entering into long-term contracts when it was a monopoly supplier. After all, it had a statutory responsibility to deliver a secure supply. It was willing to pay quite high prices because it expected to be the supplier for the next 20 years and beyond and responsible for domestic gas supply. That is the context in which some long-term contracts were entered into.
      There are questions to be asked. Miss Spottiswoode caused more than a flutter in the dovecote when she commented on the future of British Gas if long-term contracts remained around BG's neck at the end of 1998. We know that British Gas will be the monopoly supplier throughout most of the United Kingdom between now and the end of 1998.
      It is reasonable to ask the Minister how he thinks that any difficulties might be resolved bearing in mind the shadow that hangs over the future operations of British Gas because of the long-term contracts to which I have referred. Does he share Miss Spottiswoode's view that the survival of British Gas is in doubt given the structure of the Bill and long-term contracts? As I have said, it had a statutory role to play, a role different from that which it will play in future years.
      Mr. Eggar: I could not help but smile when the hon. Gentleman said that he holds no brief for British Gas. I remember when he was No. 2 to the now noble Lord Owen on the Labour Front Bench, and he did indeed read out a brief that was provided to him by Sir Denis Rooke, who at that time was the chief executive of British Gas, in order, as he saw it of course, to demolish a point that I was trying to make from the Conservative Back Benches. If the hon. Gentleman casts his mind back, he will see that from time to time there has been a slight liaison between himself and British Gas.
      The main justification of the amendment is, of course, to clarify the drafting. It is also to deal with an anomaly that has arisen. As I mentioned earlier, there are already provisions for suppliers other than British Gas to supply consumers, and they are fairly limited; they are for new developments. As originally drafted, the Bill would have made it impossible for those developments to be supplied with gas. That is the background for the clarification.
      My next point is a more general one about comments made, and which I have read, by the director general in the newspapers. I have made it clear on a number of occasions, going back a considerable number of months, and it is now widely accepted, that the contractual arrangements for gas purchases entered into by British Gas, in the context of the monopoly industry, are not appropriate for the new competitive world. It is therefore both inevitable and desirable that some degree of contract renegotiation should take place. I see that renegotiation as a matter to be pursued commercially between British Gas and the other companies involved. I understand that some preliminary discussions have taken place, and I shall continue to follow developments closely. It would not be appropriate at this stage for the Government to intervene.
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      The hon. Gentleman mentioned the director general's alleged concern about the financial health of British Gas. The director general made it clear that there was no immediate threat to British Gas. She was at pains, I believe, to point out that it is her responsibility as director general, under her statutory duties, to consider all possibilities, however remote they are. These renegotiation discussions are important and I have no difficulty with the director general drawing attention to the importance of the negotiations. I note that British Gas has also welcomed the fact that she had done so. I hope that that assists the hon. Gentleman.
      Lords amendment agreed to.
      Lords amendments Nos. 17 to 68 agreed to.

  Schedule 2

    THE GAS CODE
    Lords amendment: No. 69, in page 23, line 11, at end insert—
    ("Supplies of gas illegally taken
    8A.—(1) Where any person takes a supply of gas which is in the course of being conveyed by a public gas transporter, the transporter shall be entitled to recover from that person the value of the gas so taken.
    (2) Where—

    (a) any person at premises which have been reconnected in contravention of paragraph 10(1) below takes a supply of gas which has been conveyed to those premises by the public gas transporter; and

    (b) the supply is taken otherwise than in pursuance of a contract made with a gas supplier, or deemed to have been made with such a supplier by virtue of paragraph 8 above or paragraph 15 of Schedule 5 to the Gas Act 1995,

    the transporter shall be entitled to recover from that person the value of the gas so taken.
    (3) Each public gas transporter shall make, and from time to time revise, a scheme providing for the manner in which, and the persons by whom, the number of therms or kilowatt hours represented by a supply of gas taken in such circumstances as are mentioned in sub-paragraph (1) or (2) above is to be determined for the purposes of that sub-paragraph.
    (4) Sub-paragraphs (8) and (9) of paragraph 8 above shall apply in relation to a scheme under this paragraph as they apply in relation to a scheme under that paragraph.
    (5) In this paragraph—
    "gas supplier" includes a person authorised to supply gas by an exemption granted under section 6A of this Act or an exception contained in Schedule 2A to this Act;
    "value", in relation to any gas taken in such circumstances as are mentioned in sub-paragraph (1) or (2) above, means the amount which, if the gas had been taken in such circumstances as are mentioned in sub-paragraph (2) of paragraph 8 above, could reasonably be expected to have been payable in respect of the gas under a contract deemed to have been made by virtue of that sub-paragraph.")
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.—[Mr. Eggar.]
    4.30 pm
    Mr. Rowlands: The amendment inserts an entire new paragraph in schedule 2, allowing the supplier to claim the value of gas taken illegally. Is it a long-standing provision? Does it exist in any previous gas legislation? I foresee a good deal of argument about the value of gas

    321
    that is taken illegally, and about how that value is to be clawed back. I know of no such cases in my constituency, but I can envisage them in the future.
    Mr. Connarty: Will the Minister explain how the charge will be levied? Will it be levied on premises or individuals? I do not want the legislation to penalise a person who has been named in a formal contract as the recipient of the gas supply when someone else may have taken the gas when the premises were empty, for instance. The premises might be rented or sublet by the contracted gas consumer, or someone might be living there illegally. The commercial position may be easily explained, but what about individual gas consumers in domestic premises?
    Mr. Eggar: The Gas Act 1986 allows gas charges to be recovered by public gas suppliers, whether or not the gas was taken by arrangement. That is not a novel concept. The hon. Gentleman is right, however, to say that the amendment makes an additional provision in relation to the theft of gas. Paragraph 8 of schedule 2 provides that the owner or occupier is to be deemed to have contracted with the appropriate supplier when gas is taken without authority, but that the existence of that deemed contract will not provide a defence in any criminal proceedings for theft of gas. The amendment is therefore to plug a potential loophole.
    There are, however, other circumstances where gas might be stolen and where it is appropriate for the public gas transporter and not the gas supplier to be responsible for recovering the sums concerned. For example, where premises may have been permanently disconnected or where gas is stolen in the course of its conveyance—directly from one of the pipelines—there may not a supplier with title to the gas who is able to recover the money. If gas is taken from a pipeline, no one quite knows to which company the gas belongs and a deemed contract does not exist, one must have a way of taking action against the thief because, in effect, someone is stealing gas. That is the reason for all the provisions.
    Mr. Rowlands: Do the provisions apply only to the transporter? Do they not cover the gas supplier?
    Mr. Eggar: The scheme that is made under the new paragraph will contain provisions for determining who is responsible to the transporter for the taken gas. One must consider this in the light of the particular circumstances of a case. We are trying to cover every eventuality and ensure that there is a case to be answered for someone who nicks gas, in the colloquial term.
    Lords amendment agreed to.
    Lords amendment No. 70 agreed to.
    Lords amendment: No. 71, in page 23, line 42, after ("above") insert
    ("—
    (a)")
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.—[Mr. Eggar.]
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): With this, it will be convenient to discuss also Lords amendments Nos. 72, 73, 81, 286 and 287.
    Mr. Battle: In relation to the Minister's comments in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), today it was revealed that Clare Spottiswoode, Director General of Gas Supply, has taken a part-time job with Booker McConnell. That is surprising due to her high work load, to which she has often referred. I do not know whether ministerial consent was sought or needed, but it suggests that her work load would be more than cut in dealing with the complex and brave new world opened by the Gas Bill shortly after it becomes law. That she has time to take up a part-time job at this stage is surprising.
    Mr. Nick Harvey: Does the hon. Gentleman recall that the justification for the regulator's increase in salary earlier this year was precisely that she did not have time to take on other jobs, which had been the basis of her original contract?
    Mr. Battle: The hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, East (Mr. Connarty) share my surprise. We can simply note our surprise at this stage, but, in view of our debates today, it puts something of a question mark over the regulator's role.
    Amendment No. 81. deals with entry following discontinuance of supply. In the other place, Earl Ferrers tabled the amendment, which has serious implications for all gas consumers, and is of concern to the Gas Consumers Council and to us. The Lords amendment reads:
    "Any officer authorised by the public gas transporter or gas supplier"—
    after 24 hours' notice lo the occupier or to the owner of the premises if they are unoccupied—
    "may at all reasonable times, on production of some duly authenticated document showing his authority, enter the premises for the purpose of ascertaining whether the premises have been reconnected, or the supply has been restored, without the relevant consent."
    The amendment gives the gas supplier the right to enter the premises of a consumer who is not a customer of the supplier, perhaps because he has had his supply previously disconnected. As a result of the drafting of the amendment, the supplier will need to give no reason why he wants to enter the premises. He will not need to show the evidence that has led him to suspect that there has been illegal reconnection of the gas supply. The amendment could lead to an infringement of civil liberties and private property rights. We should know where we are. The amendment allows no redress for consumers who may have suffered disruption, inconvenience and perhaps even distress as a result of the operation of this power. The power could clearly be open to abuse.
    The amendment refers to
    "Any officer authorised by the public gas transporter or gas supplier"
    being able to enter the premises, which compounds the concern that meter service providers should be registered and subject to a code of conduct. Entering premises could be an additional service that metering companies could provide to the supplier who has subcontracted out the work to them.
    It is not clear whether, purely as a result of the authorised officer being able to produce a "duly authenticated document", he will be allowed to enter the

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    premises of a consumer even if the consumer is not there. The present requirement is to give 24 hours' notice; that is short notice, especially at weekends or in holiday periods.
    I have some recommendations for the Minister and I urge the Government to take them on board. We suggest that the supplier or the public gas transporter should be required to give at least 48 hours' notice, by recorded delivery, of the intention to enter the consumer's premises. The letter should clearly state who the authorised officer will be; any deviation should make the authorisation null and void. Any authorised officer, whether or not he is an employee of a public gas transporter or supplier, should be an employee of a meter service provider registered with Ofgas. We suggest that it should be spelt out in the Bill that the authorised officer must be an adequately qualified person to undertake the work and one in whom consumers have confidence.
    A clear procedure must be established as to the grounds on which a supplier or public gas transporter may enter a consumer's premises. The consumer must be informed in the letter. The procedure should also cater for redress for consumers suffering inconvenience as a result of a pointless visit, for example. We want to ensure that the new shippers, suppliers and transporters or their subcontractors do not use less qualified people than at present, thus lowering standards.
    Although we cannot make any changes at this stage, we ask the Minister to take our comments seriously and to use the delegated responsibilities that the Bill will give him to do something practical about our concerns.
    Ms Judith Church: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle). We are trying to ensure that the consumer is properly protected, but the amendment will not achieve that. Many consumers will be disconnected for one of several reasons, one of which obviously is non-payment of their gas bill. We must know who might go to their homes and with what authority. If the person coming into their homes is someone authorised to do so, rather than the gas supplier, how will consumers know about it? Will a requirement for proper communication be written into contracts to ensure that we know who is doing what? A problem could arise if an engineer from a rival gas company went into the home of one of my constituents. There are to be all sorts of reasons for such visits.
    The Minister told us in Committee that we were thinking of about 30 new suppliers of domestic gas; so rival companies will be trying to carve each other up in the competition for new customers. I do not suppose that they will be rushing to get as customers those people who have been disconnected—but that is another point on which I shall not expand, because it is not relevant.
    4.45 pm
    We are considering the most vulnerable of people, quite often not the most educated, who do not understand. At the moment, they know that gas from British Gas is coming into their homes, that there is a British Gas van outside their homes, that there is a British Gas maintenance or service engineer, with a British Gas uniform and a British Gas card. Yet we are talking of sending in anybody, with some other sort of card, which people will not have seen. People are warned all the time about allowing others into their homes, yet they would
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    have to admit people who might not be properly safety-conscious and who might not be there for the proper purposes.
    There are many dangers and people need the 48-hour period which my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West has pressed the Minister to reconsider. At least such a period would enable people to ring up to verify the letter that they had received about a forthcoming visit—presumably, it would have a telephone number on it—if they were in some confusion about who might visit their home to carry out work. A consumer could be put at risk, especially if representatives of companies are visiting homes on a fraudulent basis.
    Mr. Connarty: My concern is very similar to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Ms Church) but goes slightly further. Someone who has lost the gas supply because of financial difficulty may be in a stressed situation—not necessarily in relation only to the gas supply. When a person receives a letter to say that someone is coming along wanting to check if the gas supply has been reconnected, it is likely that that that person will not deal with it immediately—it would be one more thing behind the clock on the mantlepiece to be dealt with when such a person got his or her life sorted out.
    It worries me immensely that someone could visit homes without any reason to suspect a consumer—just to check that the gas supply had not been reconnected—and force entry. The Minister should consider the additional stress placed on someone who is already in some social, family and financial disarray in such a case. Tremendous safeguards must be written into the Bill.
    Perhaps the Minister could explain how original suspicions would be triggered and how safeguards would be provided. I am thinking especially of the parallel situation of wheel clamping. Wheel-clamping agencies are hired by councils and others to go around clamping cars. It appears that they do it in the most maverick way. When I lived in London, I regularly came across people who had been wheel-clamped in the areas where I liked to park as a resident. It seems that such agencies are in the business of trying to clamp as many cars as possible. They trigger the incident, and we know of the hue and cry among the public about that.
    Duly authorised persons who do not belong to a gas company at all but are part of an agency could be allowed to take on the spying and breaking into premises to try to cut the possibility of illegal gas supplies being reconnected. It is a frightening prospect for us to consider, but it must certainly be much more frightening to someone who is under stress and has financial and other social problems with which to deal.
    Mr. Eggar: I shall deal first with the first point raised by the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle). My understanding is that the director general's non-executive directorship is entirely consistent with her letter of appointment. No conflict of interests is envisaged. I understand that the hon. Member for Leeds, West did not cover energy matters at the time, but it was fully explained and anticipated then. There was publicity and an announcement by the Government about a salary adjustment for her. If the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for North Devon (Mr. Harvey) look back at the press cuttings, they will find that there

    325
    was an agreement, which was made clear at the time, for her to take up a certain number of days with a non-executive directorship.
    As for the other matters, I understand Opposition Members' concern, but we must put our thoughts in context. We are talking about cases in which it is suspected that somebody is stealing gas. That is the basic background. There are provisions now, effectively identical to those before us except that they rest on a right to inspect gas equipment. It was felt that, because we had a Bill before us, it was appropriate to make it clear in this circumstance that there is no concept of inspecting gas equipment, and that the inspector is looking for possible theft of gas.
    From a constituency point of view, we are making a legal change but not a practical change. It is a desirable legal change because we are making the background clear. There are concerns about forced entry, for example, and I assure the House that, as at present, that will require a magistrate's warrant. There is no change there.
    In Committee we spent much time discussing the various conditions that will be imposed in the licence to ensure, so far as possible, that there will be no impersonation. It is proposed that the licences will require authorised officers to be able to identify their authority, by methods including ID cards, badges, and so on. There will also be provision for special arrangements such as passwords for pensioners and the disabled, because we are concerned that they might be worried.
    The licences will also oblige licensees to safeguard the ID documents, and so on. They will be obliged to take steps to prevent impersonation. Some of the matters raised are fully dealt with in the next but one group of amendments, which we shall discuss with Lords amendment No. 82. I understand hon. Members' concern. What always worries us is the impact on our constituents, but in practice there will not be a substantive change.
    Mr. Connarty: While the Minister was speaking I remembered a Faraday lecture sponsored by British Gas last year at which was demonstrated an electronic device that could read the flow of gas in a household from outside. It was said that metering as we know it, whereby the volume of gas is mechanically controlled and regulated, with meter readings, would be a thing of the past in a few years' time.
    If we are moving, however slowly, into the future, the idea of someone's having to force entry to" a house to find out whether there is a flow of unauthorised gas is already a somewhat outmoded concept. The Minister said that a magistrate's or justice's warrant would be needed to make an entry. Can he assure me that those duly authorised persons will not be like the wheel clampers—agencies that go around making money out of breaking into people's homes and causing them distress?
    Mr. Eggar: I hope that I have made the position on forced entry clear. I have reservations about a period of notice because we are talking about investigations into people who are stealing gas. Almost by definition, if we give 48 hours' notice of such an investigation, we may find that a reconnected supply has been disconnected again.
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    Much work is being done on what is known as "intelligent metering" systems, including on a site adjacent to my constituency. It is believed that within the next decade or so, gas, electricity and water—if it is appropriate—will be remotely metered, but we are some way off that. The consensus is that, while it can be done from a technical point of view, it is not cost-effective in most situations. Most people believe that remote metering will become cost-effective before very long, but in the meantime we need some provision to keep the human race involved in the process.
    Lords amendment agreed to.
    Lords amendments Nos. 72 to 81 agreed to.
    Lords amendment: No. 82, in page 29, line 6, at beginning insert
    ("No officer shall be authorised by a public gas transporter, gas supplier or gas shipper to exercise any powers of entry conferred by this Schedule unless—

    (a) the transporter, supplier or shipper has taken all reasonable steps to ensure that he is a fit and proper person to exercise those powers; or

    (b) in cases of emergency, those powers are powers conferred by paragraph 19 above.

    (1A)")
    Mr. Eggar: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also Lords amendments Nos. 144 to 147, 177, 178, 197, 205, 216 and 217.
    Mr. Rowlands: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The amendments grouped with No. 82 include Lords amendment No. 197, to which I wish to address a few words. Should I do so now, or when we reach No. 197?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman should speak to the amendment now.
    Mr. Rowlands: Lords amendment No. 197 is designed to create a new offence for those who make false statements or bogus calls, and it is very welcome. The thing that slightly astonished me was that such acts may not have been serious offences hitherto. Has the sad growth in bogus calling and other similar acts led to this very important provision?
    I would be grateful if the Minister could tell the House what provision exists at present with regard to such acts. Are our consumers and householders far less protected than they ought to be? I welcome the amendment very much, although it may be a sad comment on the changing times and the increasing problems with law and order that our communities are encountering. Bogus calls and false statements have led not only to thieving and burglary, but in many cases to violence against elderly people. While I support the amendment in the strongest possible terms, I must ask the Minister whether householders have been left unprotected until now.
    Mr. Eggar: The hon. Gentleman asks a fascinating question, and the answer goes to prove that there is no new form of human trickery known to man. The common law used to provide for an offence of false personation, but apparently the House abolished that offence in England and Wales with the Theft Act 19.68, thereby creating a hole that the common law had filled probably for several hundred years. We are now refilling that hole.

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    That is the background to the matter, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising it. I was not aware of it myself.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Lords amendments Nos. 83 to 132 agreed to.
    Lords amendment No. 133 agreed to [Special Entry].
    Lords amendments Nos. 134 to 178 agreed to.

  Schedule 3

    OTHER AMENDMENTS OF PART I OF 1986 ACT
    Lords amendment: No. 179, in page 53, line 15, at end insert—
    ("Duty of Director to investigate certain matters
    .—(1) In subsections (1) and (2) of section 31 of the 1986 Act (duty of Director to investigate certain matters), for the words "an enforcement matter" there shall be substituted the words "a reserved matter".
    (2) For subsection (3) of that section there shall be substituted the following subsections—
    "(3) In this section and section 32 below "reserved matter" means any matter—

    (a) in respect of which any functions of the Director under section 28 above are or may be exercisable; and

    (b) which has not been designated by the Director as a matter which is to be investigated by the Council.

    (4) A designation under subsection (3) above may be made—

    (a) either generally or in relation to matters of a particular class or a particular matter; and

    (b) either unconditionally or subject to such conditions as may be specified in the designation.

    (5) Conditions specified in a designation under subsection (3) above may contain provision for the designation to cease to have effect, either generally or in relation to matters of a particular class or a particular matter, in such circumstances as may be determined by or under the conditions." ")
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.—[Mr. Eggar.]
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 180 to 185 and 293.
    5 pm
    Mr. Nigel Griffiths: The amendments relate to the duties of the Director General of Gas Supply and the additional duties that we would like her and the Gas Consumers Council to take on.
    Since the Committee's and their Lordships' deliberations on the Bill, figures are available to show that, sadly, and contrary to the predictions from Ministers, the number of complaints from gas consumers has reached record levels. In the first half of this year the number of complaints to the Gas Consumers Council totalled the same as those recorded for the whole of last year. I understand that the rate of complaints is such that in the first nine months of this year the Gas Consumers Council has received a record number of complaints—more than in any other year, even its peak year of 1988.
    The amendments are designed to give greater powers to the director and the Gas Consumers Council to track down the source of some of those complaints. There is no doubt that the deterioration in services of which we are aware and which has been evinced in a number of services offered by British Gas has led to an increase in
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    complaints. The closure of 160 gas showrooms has led to a deterioration in the services on offer in the high street. Those showrooms used to offer a number of services, including the important one of offering advice on the payment of bills. The Post Office cannot offer such advice. Because of those cuts in services, gas showrooms have been merely left to sell appliances. Those closures have led to an increase in reported complaints.
    Consumers have also complained because of poorer services to homes: 50 home service advisers have been axed, which must have had an effect on the speedy and essential help to which elderly and disabled gas users had become accustomed.
    At present I do not believe that the regulator has made any connection between those poor levels of service and the behaviour of British Gas, especially in the boardroom. Since our Committee concluded its deliberations, the Greenbury recommendations have been published on boardroom pay and the way in which salaries and share options should be handled. I am sorry to say that British Gas does not seem to be at the forefront of companies implementing those recommendations to the letter.
    At the same time as we have heard of bonuses of £1 million given to a few British Gas directors and record levels of complaints against it, the regulator does not have the power to make a connection between those facts, nor does she have the power to ask the Gas Consumers Council to investigate those problems and make the necessary recommendations. The amendments are designed to bring those functions together so that the director general herself has a duty to consider boardroom remuneration and evaluate the services offered by British Gas.
    British Gas has received a record number of complaints against it. Despite the threat that it may lose the charter mark issued by Ministers at the beginning of the year because of that, things have gone from bad to worse. I should be sorry to see it lose its charter mark. It has given us no pleasure to see a company that was a byword for safety, efficiency and helpfulness, and which had one of the best records on customer help, become in such a short time the subject of universal criticism. That criticism has been expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House, although it has been voiced by just one or two Conservative Back Benchers.
    Unless British Gas improves its customer services, it will, I am afraid, go from bad to worse and lose customers. Its ability to respond to the needs of its 18 million domestic consumers and several million industrial consumers will therefore deteriorate.
    Through the amendments, we want to send a clear message to the Director General of Gas Supply. She must take a greater interest in the concerns of gas consumers. She must not, as she has told Members at recent meetings, concentrate on fostering the competitive aspects of the industry.
    People in houses who feel that their gas service is deteriorating do not look to competition to solve those problems, but to British Gas. They want that company to ensure that it provides the services that it has always provided. People are particularly critical of the resources that those in the boardroom of British Gas have devoted to boosting share option schemes and salaries rather than getting down to running the core business and keeping British Gas customers satisfied.
    Mr. Rowlands: I agree with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths).
    I should like to know about the function of amendment No. 179. According to the useful note from the Government it is intended to revise section 31 of the Gas Act 1986 so as to
    "empower the director to designate matters to be investigated by the council either generally or specifically and either unconditionally or subject to conditions."
    That is plain enough language and it suggests that the Gas Consumers Council could become the creature of the director general. According to the amendment, it appears that the terms of reference of the Gas Consumers Council's work will be defined and designated by the director general. That is how I read it and, if so, should we be in favour of the amendment?
    As my hon. Friend has already said, the director general has made it clear that she sees her remit to be the development of competition. The Gas Consumers Council may find that the character of the competition that is being encouraged by the director general is having adverse affects in other respects on the interests of consumers. The roles of the director general and the Gas Consumers Council are not necessarily compatible or consistent. I have always assumed that those roles were separate. If they have the same function, why have both? We have always assumed that the Gas Consumers Council, as a representative body with regional presence and, therefore, with feedback from the grass roots consumer movement, has a role different from that of the director general. It is a different animal.
    It is not clear whether the amendment is inclusive or exclusive. Does it mean that the director general can limit, determine or define the investigative function of the Gas Consumers Council? That is what is suggested by the layman's language of the notes provided by the Government to accompany the amendment. The amendment talks of general or particular matters and of designations being unconditional or subject to conditions. What sort of conditions is it envisaged that the director general could impose on the Gas Consumers Council?
    Could the director general say to the Gas Consumers Council, "Thou shalt not investigate an activity," or forbid it to investigate her decisions? If the Gas Consumers Council found an activity it wanted to investigate or if gas consumers felt that the director general was letting consumers down in some way, would the council be able to investigate in an independent, free spirit? If the amendment does not make the Gas Consumers Council a creature of the director general, it certainly gives the director general power to investigate and define the work of the Gas Consumers Council. I do not like the sound of it and I do not know whether we should accept it.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South said, British. Gas in recent years has suffered one of the saddest declines in consumer confidence. One reason for that is that all the changes and convulsions that have happened have meant that the sense of identity that we had with, for example, Wales Gas, has been broken up. The regional structure of British Gas was significant. I know that the Bill and the Minister are not responsible for that. It stemmed from reports of the
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    Monopolies and Mergers Commission. One consequence of that upheaval has been that British Gas's feel and touch for consumer matters has declined.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South mentioned gas showrooms. The most vivid—dare I say, amusing—debate on the Gas Act 1986 was on what was called the Merthyr gas showroom amendment, with which I stoutly sought to defend my local showroom against what I saw would be the impact of that Bill. After all these years, my worst fears have come true, and the Merthyr gas showroom has been closed. Indeed, showrooms all over the country have been closed. That is a withdrawal from the community and from the important close contact points that British Gas had with consumers. The use of those showrooms as advice centres and contact points—not only for paying bills—was important. The staff who worked in those showrooms—this was certainly true of the Merthyr showroom—enjoyed respect and were highly regarded.
    The withdrawal of important contact points with consumers has led to the sad saga, vividly described by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South, of the rise in the number of complaints. Regionally, Wales Gas was an important part of the institutional framework of life in Wales and the capital. A remnant of it is still there, ably led by the local manager, but it is not the same. The result of the changes and convulsions is to be found in the figures that my hon. Friend quoted.
    5.15 pm
    I should like to know a bit more about the role that the Gas Consumers Council will have and its relationship with the director general. I hope that my worst fears about the wording of the amendment are not justified and that the role of the Gas Consumers Council will not in some way be restricted by conditions or definitions suggested by the director general. Those are serious points, but behind them lies the much more serious point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South about the sad way in which British Gas has lost touch with many consumers as a result of the convulsive changes that have taken place in the industry.
    Mr. Eggar: I shall deal first with the point made by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands).
    When we were originally consulting on the Bill's structure, we had to decide whether the Gas Consumers Council would be amalgamated with Ofgas. That had been the formula we had followed for Offer. We decided against that. It was a fundamental policy decision.
    The amendments were suggested jointly by the Gas Consumers Council and Ofgas to introduce an element of flexibility. The amendment deals with complaints and only with complaints. Under the Gas Act 1986, the Gas Consumers Council has to pass complaints about enforcement matters to the director general. There is no option under the terms of the Act. The amendment gives some flexibility.
    The Gas Consumers Council might very well decide that it thought that it could deal with a matter and the director general would say, "Fine, go ahead and investigate it." However—this deals with the point about the conditions that the director general might set—she

    331
    might then say, "If there is a breach of the licence, for which I am responsible, please refer it back to me." That was only an example. The amendment is designed to provide a better practical working relationship and is supported by both the director general and the Gas Consumers Council.
    Mr. Rowlands: I am grateful to the Minister for that example. It is reassuring that it is a joint suggestion. The Gas Consumers Council, then, can proceed to investigate what it wants but where that would infringe on the specific duties of the director general it would refer the matter to the director general. It will be a free agent in every other sense. Is that the assurance that the Minister is giving?
    Mr. Eggar: Not in the precise terms in which the hon. Gentleman puts it. He is talking about very wide-ranging powers. We are talking about keeping the existing division between Ofgas and the Gas Consumers Council but allowing some of what I would call practical flexibility. In other words, where there are matters which clearly fall to the Gas Consumers Council to be investigated, which it has a desire to investigate and which do not conflict with the overriding powers of Ofgas, the council can go ahead. It is a practical working relationship. The strict division originally imposed by the Gas Act 1986 has proved to be a hindrance in responding to reasonable complaints from the average consumer. This is therefore a significant step forward on behalf of consumers.
    The hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths) made the same speech as I have heard from him several times before. There was the odd wry smile among hon. Members on both sides of the House as they heard more or less the same phrases tripping out as tripped out on the first day of the Committee.
    Mr. Nigel Griffiths: What about September's results?
    Mr. Eggar: Garbage stays garbage, however often it is repeated. The hon. Gentleman seems incapable of understanding that, from the consumer's point of view, the advent of competition will be the ultimate spur for British Gas. If consumers are dissatisfied with the standard of service provided by British Gas, they will be able to go elsewhere. Nothing will concentrate the mind of British Gas or any other gas supplier more than consumer choice.
    I cannot comment on the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the charter mark. A review is being conducted involving British Gas, the Gas Consumers Council and other interested parties, and I expect that the results will be announced later this year. While it is true that the absolute number of complaints is at an historic high, we should also examine the way in which British Gas is meeting its service standards in the regulated market. Last year, British Gas met 36 of the 39 service standards agreed with Ofgas and came very close to achieving the other three. That performance matched the performance of British Gas in 1993, which the GCC had described as "excellent". I do not wish to dismiss the rise in the number of complaints, but if one examines the level of performance one can see that British Gas has met 36 of its 39 service standards.
    Lords amendments Nos. 179 to 192 agreed to, some with special entry.

  Schedule 3

    DUTY TO CONSIDER REPRESENTATIONS AND GIVE REASONS
    Lords amendment: No. 193, in page 59, line 7, at end insert—
    ("Duty to consider representations and give reasons
    . After section 38 of the 1986 Act there shall be inserted the following section—
    "Duty to consider representations and give reasons.
    38A.—(1) The Secretary of State may by order exercise any one or more of the powers conferred by subsections (2) to (4) below.
    (2) This subsection confers power to provide that, before the Director makes a specified decision in relation to a licence holder, the Director—

    (a) shall give to the licence holder a written notice stating—

    (i) that he is considering making the decision and the reasons why he is considering doing so; and

    (ii) that the licence holder may, within a period specified in the notice, make written representations to him or, if the licence holder so requests, make oral representations to a person appointed by him for the purpose; and

    (b) shall consider any representations which are duly made and not withdrawn.

    (3) This subsection confers power to provide that, where the Director makes a specified decision in relation to a licence holder, the Director shall as soon as practicable give to the licence holder a written notice explaining why it appeared to him to be appropriate to make the decision.
    (4) This subsection confers power to provide that, where a specified decision made or proposed to be made in relation to a licence holder will or may materially affect any specified person, any provision made by virtue of subsection (2) or (3) above shall, with any specified modifications, apply in relation to that person.
    (5) Nothing in any order made under this section shall require the Director to disclose any information the disclosure of which he considers would or might seriously and prejudicially affect the interests of a particular individual or body of persons, whether corporate or unincorporate.
    (6) An order under this section—

    (a) may make different provision in relation to different cases or different circumstances; and

    (b) shall be made by statutory instrument which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.

    (7) In this section

    'decision' means any decision under this Part, or under a condition of a licence, other than a decision to make a provisional order under section 28 above;

    'specified', in relation to an order under this section, means specified in the order or of a description so specified;
    and references to a licence holder include references to an applicant for a licence." ")

    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.—[Mr. Eggar.]
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also Lords amendment No. 194.
    Mr. Battle: Amendment No. 193 refers to the annual report that the director general must now make on the state of the industry. The amendment was put down in the other place by my colleague the noble Lord Peston, and the Government have agreed to require the regulator to

    333
    draw up an annual report which will be presented to Parliament. The report will assess the progress of competition and the extent of improvements in price and customer services.
    The Government have conceded considerable ground in allowing the amendment, not least because I understand that they repeatedly refused Labour amendments in Committee that required the assessment of competition in the pilot areas before competition was extended nationwide. I believe that the amendment is a good second best option.
    Some progress has been made with regard to customer protection, although we do not think that the Government have gone far enough to ensure that those on low incomes will not suffer the adverse effects of competition. The Government have had to introduce a large number of technical amendments to their Bill, particularly in the House of Commons, which suggests that the details of the legislation were not thought through properly before it reached the Floor of the House. That is water under the bridge, and I know that the Chairman of the Standing Committee commented on that point.
    The amendment connects the role of the regulator with competition policy. The relationship between the regulator and competition policy will remain an essential point of focus in the future brave new world. Labour Members intend to keep a very close eye on competition. If consumers suffer any deleterious effects when the Bill becomes an Act, it may be necessary to re-examine the arrangements and perhaps even the definition of the powers of the regulator and the director general.
    Although the Minister has given his assurances in that regard today—we are grateful for those assurances and we take them at face value—we do not always get every jot and tittle of legislation correct in this place, and we often underestimate the effects of legislation on our constituents. I hope that the Minister will agree to reserve the right to return to the issue if necessary, as the relationship between the role of the regulator and competition will remain central to any future debate on energy policy.
    Mr. Rowlands: I, too, welcome the amendment. At one stage I considered amending it, but I decided to accept the Minister's verbal assurance—he is an honourable man—that the Director General of Ofgas will get the message as to what should be included in the annual report.
    The amendment says that the report should include a statement about effective competition and a general survey of developments in respect of such competition. Will the report also explore the success or otherwise of the pilot areas? My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) touched upon that issue, although he might have pursued it a little further. Will the terms of the report cover the performance of competition in the pilot areas?
    I hope that the Minister will ensure that the Director General of Ofgas accepts as part of his remit in the next 18 months an investigation of the growing claims about potential price cuts in the first pilot area in the west country. I do not know whether the Minister's fingerprints were on the weekend press reports, which stated:
    "Whitehall sources now expect prices to fall by 25℅ in the West Country."
    334
    There is no reason why the director general or Ministers cannot report on whether that target has been achieved.
    Will the Minister say whether his Department is responsible for such assessments? The price cuts were first estimated at 10 per cent, but we are now talking of cuts of 25 per cent. in the west country pilot area. That is a very interesting benchmark against which to gauge the success of competition. Will the Minister say whether the press reports are, shall we say, reasonably inspired? If they do not have his fingerprints on them, does he endorse their estimate of the price cuts in the pilot area?
    The annual report should cover the impact of the pilot area projects, and it should deal also with regional pricing. I hope that the director general will include a special section in his report about the impact, not of this Bill, as the Minister chided me earlier, but of other decisions that will lead to discriminatory regional pricing. We shall need to know the consequence of those decisions—the amount of the differential in gas prices.
    The Minister has spent most of his parliamentary lifetime since I have known him, all those years—[Laughter]—over some years—attacking British Gas, but I repeat that, in fairness, British Gas produced in Merthyr Tydfil, in Rhymney and in many other parts of the country, a uniform, reasonably priced system of gas. That gas was securely delivered, with a tremendous record of safety and of bringing natural gas to our regions.
    I doubt whether that gas pipeline system, which will now be privatised, would have been built, had it not been by the public sector. It was the success story—a great technical achievement—of, yes, a public monopoly. That monopoly created a gas pipeline structure that is one of many things that we can be really proud of, in infrastructural terms. Let us not deride the historical contribution that British Gas has made.
    5.30 pm
    In addition, at least British Gas did not discriminate against us because we were a long way from the North sea. I hope that the Minister will ensure that the annual report of the Director General of Gas Supply includes an assessment of the regional pricing that emerges, not necessarily as a result of the Bill, but as a result of a combination of factors, of which the Bill may be one, contributing towards discriminatory pricing of one type or another.
    I assure him that we shall keep a vigilant eye on it, but it is hard to know exactly what tariff is being charged in place x, y or z. Such comparisons should be an integral part of the annual report that the amendment establishes for the Director General of Gas Supply.
    Mr. Eggar: It is inconceivable that any report would not specifically cover the pilot area performance. I will draw the director general's attention to the argument that the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) makes about regional pricing. It is interesting that, at present, British Gas is free to differentiate on a regional basis and it has chosen not to do so; who knows what it will do in future?
    I have read all sorts of comments about what might happen to prices, but it is interesting that, universally, it has been said that prices will decrease as soon as there is competition. Those decreases will be welcomed by consumers, whether they are 10 per cent., the 15 per cent.

    335
    that a company has spoken about openly, or the speculation about as much as 25 per cent. Consumers will ultimately benefit from the introduction of competition.
    May I gently pick up the remarks of the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle)? Yes, there are very many technical amendments to the Bill. I claim some foresight. I said on Second Reading that we would be revising the Bill extensively. The reason is that I have always been determined that we would consult, and respond to anxieties when expressed.
    The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney has been kind enough to comment twice on the yellow document that I have introduced. That is a feature at the present stage of consideration, at the previous Commons stages and at the Lords stages. It is an innovation—I believe that it has never been done before. It was designed deliberately, on a technical Bill, to help hon. Members through.
    I say this to the hon. Member for Leeds, West. I cannot claim that, even in spite of all that consultation and the further forthcoming consultation on licences, we shall not find that there are aspects that, with the benefit of practical experience, we would have wanted to do differently or that we need to amend—I think especially of the licences. Everyone must understand and appreciate that.
    So far, the way in which the House and the other place have dealt with the issue shows that we can, in a reasonable spirit, tackle a complex technical piece of legislation in a way that responds to the various different interests and, ultimately, the interests of consumers throughout the country and our constituents.
    I thank the hon. Gentlemen for the debate. It has been a useful exchange.
    Lords amendment agreed to.
    Lords amendments Nos. 194 to 201 agreed to
    Lords amendment No. 202 agreed to.
    Lords amendmeats Nos. 203 to 210 agreed to.
    Lords amendment: No. 211, in page 62, line 2, at end insert
    ("(2) In sub-paragraph (1) of paragraph 1 of that Schedule, for the words from "placing in" to the end there shall be substituted the following paragraphs—

    "(a) placing pipes, conduits, service pipes, cables, sewers and other works, and pressure governors, ventilators and other apparatus, in or under any street; and

    (b) from time to time repairing, altering or removing any such works or apparatus placed in or under any street (whether by him or by any other person."

    (3) After sub-paragraph (3) of that paragraph there shall be inserted the following sub-paragraphs—
    "(4) The Secretary of State shall by regulations provide that, in such cases and to such extent as may be provided by the regulations, a public gas transporter shall pay, by way of compensation for any loss sustained by any person in consequence of the exercise of those powers, such sum as may be determined in accordance with the regulations.
    (5) No regulations may be made under sub-paragraph (4) above which amend, or re-enact with modifications, regulations previously made under that sub-paragraph."
    (4) In paragraph 3(2) of that Schedule, for the words "giving a supply of there shall be substituted the word "conveying".")
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.—[Mr. Eggar]
    Mr. Peter Thurnham: I am delighted that we have managed to place amendment No. 211 before the House, because my right hon. Friend the Minister will remember that the matter has a long history.
    The Minister just said that he was determined to listen, consult and respond, so that the Bill might be amended as appropriate, but perhaps I should congratulate him on his neat attire and dapper appearance at the Dispatch Box, because he might have given a slight appearance of having been dragged backwards through a hedge, kicking and screaming a little, because we have had a long history of battling to include the amendment in the Bill.
    The Minister may remember that I wrote to him initially, without success, and then brought delegations to visit him, when he said that he would be able to consider the matter further. It was not until we received a letter from the chairman of British Gas that we were aware of any progress.
    The Minister took that as being of some comfort, but the terms of the letter were something of a mass, in which the chairman said that, in the case of small businesses, British Gas would give
    "sympathetic consideration … on an ex-gratia basis."
    I did not feel that that went anything like far enough. We did not press the matter any further in this House, but I am pleased to say that, when the Bill went to the other House, strong feelings were expressed. I am grateful to Baroness Nicol and the eight peers who spoke about that issue at various stages in the other House.
    Strong anxiety was expressed by six trade associations, led by the British Retail Consortium, about the need for stronger action. I was delighted when Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, after the Government reshuffle and his appointment, was able to propose an amendment showing that there would be regulations. However, I wish to express my anxiety that those regulations may not go far enough—although, as they are couched, we cannot be too sure exactly where they do go.
    British Gas originally spoke about businesses with only a turnover of £250,000, and then said that they could go up to £500,000. That is far too low a limit, and I find it difficult to understand why there should be any limit. If one private company—we are now discussing private companies—causes damage to another private company, why should there be any restriction on the statutory right to compensate that other business? There is a lack of logic.
    My right hon. Friend the Minister will be aware that I wrote to him and sent on a letter from the British Retail Consortium on that subject. I hope that he will bear it fully in mind.
    Reading the Official Report of the debate in the other place on 25 October, I see that Lord Peston said:
    "we have moved seven-eighths of the way towards our destination. I am not sure whether it is a constitutional point or a point of honour but since the regulations are in response to your Lordships' demands it seems clear that the Government will introduce them corresponding to what we have discussed. It would be appalling if the Government, having introduced the regulations in response to what we have said, formulated them in a way which did not bite on the issues we have put forward."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 October 1995; Vol. 566, c. 1133.]
    That sums up my worries, because there are strong anxieties.

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    In my letter to the Minister, which I faxed the other day to his office, I drew attention to the fact that £500,000 by no means covers 90 per cent. of all small businesses, which I think he had been led to believe at an earlier stage. The British Retail Consortium says that many of its members would not be covered.
    Only a third of the members of the British Hardware Federation would qualify. Only half of the membership of British Small Shops and Stores would qualify. Spar (UK) Ltd, which works for most of the smaller retailers, estimates that only half of its members would be able to apply for compensation. Equally, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce is concerned that many of its members will fall outside the threshold.
    I do not think that there should be any limit but, if the Government are determined that the figure should be lower, I refer my right hon. Friend the Minister to the Companies Act 1989, in which a small company is defined as one whose turnover is not more than £2 million. If that definition is used in that Act, why can it not be used in the Bill? It is poor logic to say that there should be a limit.
    At the outset, my right hon. Friend was not overly keen on statutory compensation, thinking that it would be a burden that would be passed on to consumers. That perhaps reflects his Department's old-fashioned thinking about nationalised industries, in which all costs were passed on to consumers. We should instead consider it as an incentive to make firms avoid incurring costs in the first place.
    Representatives of North West Water came to see the Minister as part of a delegation. They told him that they try to conduct business in a way that led to the minimum amount of damage because they were aware that they have a statutory duty to pay compensation. If North West Water can regard the legislation as good in this respect, I am sure that it will be good for British Gas and any other utility that might be causing damage on such a scale.
    My right hon. Friend the Minister will be aware that local authorities can reduce a rate assessment when street work is undertaken. That is done without regard to the size of the company involved. If local authorities can be flexible, why does British Gas feel that there has to be a limit? After all, we are no longer dealing with a public utility but with a series of private companies. Why should they be immune from the damage that they inflict on others? Privatised monopolies should be just as accountable and subject to market rules as any other businesses.
    Water industry compensation has been on the statute book for many years, but I do not think that the public regard it as anomalous. Indeed, they believe it to be perfectly sensible. We should regard compensation for the gas industry in the same light. If we regarded it as an incentive for it to conduct its operations more profitably, we could all benefit as a result.
    I should like my right hon. Friend the Minister to accept in principle the notion that compensation is right. If he believes that there has to be a ceiling, it should certainly be much higher than £500,000. Whatever compensation scheme there is should be transparent, accountable and universal.
    338
    I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for having got the Bill this far. I understand that the consultation period will run for three weeks from this month, and ask him to confirm that, during that time, full account will be taken of the points made by the numerous trade organisations—the Country Landowners Association, the National Farmers Union, the Forum of Private Business, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce and the Association of Convenience Stores—about the need for a much higher limit so that we can draft regulations with which we can all be satisfied.
    I apologise for not having been able to table the amendment in my own name at an earlier stage, but it will be appreciated that it has been only a few days since the Bill came back from another place.
    Mr. Battle: I read the report of proceedings in another place and, having also listened carefully to the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham), I believe that he makes a cogent and logical case, which the Minister should answer. I hope that any response to the hon. Gentleman does not involve our getting stuck on the question of how small a small business is.
    The issue of statutory compensation is an important and practical one. I hope that we shall not see wrangles, with our streets dug up and left with holes, while companies have to produce accounts to prove their financial position. That would be intolerable and unacceptable. I hope that this important, local issue can be sorted out positively, and I look forward to the Minister's response.
    5.45 pm
    Mr. Eggar: I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) on his first change to Labour party policy. When the amendment was first introduced, I think I am right in saying that the Opposition spokesman was as sceptical as I was. I must say that the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) also listened to the arguments. In any event, I do not want to spoil the atmosphere of what has been a good-natured exchange.
    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-West (Mr. Thurnham) on his determination. As always, I listened carefully to the arguments. I had a major hand in the debate in another place. I shall not go over the arguments about the difference between gas and water or the reasons for deciding access to the public highway.
    My hon. Friend's substantive point related to companies with a turnover of £500,000. May I gently say to him and those who associate themselves with his remarks that it is not ideal to have the issue raised at this stage. The first that I knew about the definition, which we raised from £250,000 to £500,000, being queried was when his fax reached me on 31 October. His argument until now has consistently been on behalf of small businesses, so his present argument that there should be no limit at all seems slightly inconsistent. However, I do not wish to argue fiercely with him about that.
    There will be a limit, but I am willing to listen to arguments about what exactly it will be. Of course, problems arise with the percentage of small businesses that qualify, because retail businesses have higher turnovers than other small businesses. We are prepared to examine the issue, but need to do so rapidly. We have no time for formal consultation, and the various concerned

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    bodies that have not yet put their views to us need to do so quickly. Having said that, I support the amendment, and commend it to the House.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Lords Amendments Nos. 212 to 269 agreed to.
    Lords amendment: No. 270, in page 76, line 4, at beginning insert
    ("(1) Subject to sub-paragraph (2) below,")
    Mr. Eggar: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also Lords amendments Nos. 271 and 272.
    Mr. Eggar: As this is the last group of amendments, I should like to extend my thanks to the Opposition, my officials and the Clerks of the House for the way we have managed to get through a complex and technical Bill in a good spirit and with maximum co-operation, always mindful of the many benefits that will flow to consumers from the Bill.
    Mr. Battle: I echo the Minister's remarks. Although I came to this Bill at a very late stage, I know of the work that has been done on it by the Clerks of the House and others. I would also offer a word of thanks to the Minister for the book that his Department published, carefully setting out how the amendments relate to the Bill. If other Departments of Government followed that practice, it would greatly help us all—and perhaps improve legislation generally.
    Lords amendment agreed to.
    Lords amendments Nos. 271 to 298 agreed to.

    Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill
    5.51 pm
    The Secretary of State for Transport (Sir George Young): I beg to move,
    That further proceedings on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill shall be suspended until the next Session of Parliament;
    That if a Bill is presented in the next Session in the same terms as those in which the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill stood when proceedings on it were suspended in this Session—

    (a) the Bill shall be ordered to be printed and shall be deemed to have been read the first and second time;

    (b) the Bill shall stand committed to a Select Committee of the same Members as the Members of the Committee in this Session;

    (c) all Petitions presented in this Session which stand referred to the Committee and which have not been withdrawn shall stand referred to the Committee in the next Session;

    (d) any Minutes of Evidence taken and any papers laid before the Committee in this Session which have been reported to the House shall stand referred to the Committee in the next Session;

    (e) only those Petitions mentioned in paragraph (c) above, and any Petition which may be presented by being deposited in the Private Bill Office and in which the Petitioners complain of any proposed additional provision or of any matter which has arisen during the progress of the Bill before the Committee in the next Session, shall stand referred to the Committee;

    (f) any Petitioner whose Petition stands referred to the Committee in the next Session shall, subject to the Rules and Orders of the House and to the Prayer of his Petition, be entitled to be heard by himself, his Counsel or Agent; upon his Petition provided that it is prepared and signed in conformity with the Rules and Orders of the House, and the Member in charge of the Bill shall be entitled to be heard by his Counsel or Agents in favour of the Bill against that Petition;

    (g) the Committee shall have power to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report from day to day the Minutes of Evidence taken before it;

    (h) three shall be the Quorum of the Committee;

    (i) any person registered in this Session as a parliamentary agent entitled to practise as such in opposing Bills only who, at the time when proceedings on the Bill were suspended in this Session, was employed in opposing the Bill shall be deemed to have been registered as such a parliamentary agent in the next Session;

    (j) the Standing Orders and practice of the House applicable to the Bill, so far as complied with in this Session, shall be deemed to have been complied with in the next Session; and

    (k) if the Bill is reported from a Select Committee in the next Session, it shall thereupon stand re-committed to a Standing Committee.

    That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): I understand that with this, it will be convenient to discuss the following motion:
    That it be an instruction to the Select Committee to which the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill is committed in the next Session—

    (1) that it have power to consider—

    (a) alternatives to the provision which is now made in the Bill regarding the approach of the rail link to St. Pancras station from the west of Highbury Corner;

    341

    (b) the provision of rail sidings on the Midland Main Line on the western edge of the King's Cross Railway Lands;

    (c) the relocation of Tarmac plc's existing concrete-batching facilities to a site in the north-west corner of the King's Cross Railway Lands;

    (d) alterations to the provision which is now made in the Bill regarding railways in the throat of St. Pancras station in the vicinity of the Regent's Canal;

    (e) alterations to the provision which is now made in the Bill regarding diversion of the Camden sewer;

    (f) the provision of an additional road into the King's Cross Railway Lands from York Way, in the London Borough of Camden;

    (g) alterations to the provision which is now made in the Bill regarding ticket halls and subways of the London Underground Railways;

    (h) the provision of a sewer forming a diversion of the St. Pancras sewer;

    (i) alterations to the table in paragraph 1 of Schedule 7 to the Bill (buildings authorised to be demolished), so far as relating to the London Borough of Camden;

    (j) the running through a tunnel of so much of the rail link as lies between Barrington Road, in the London Borough of Newham, and Dagenham Dock, in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham;

    (k) works required in connection with the accommodation of the easterly portal of the main London tunnel;

    (l) the undertaking of additional overhead line diversions in the vicinity of the A13 in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and the London Borough of Havering;

    (m) realignment overground of the rail link and Tilbury Loop Railway in the vicinity of the Mardyke Park housing estate at Thurrock, in the county of Essex, and associated works;

    (n) the provision of additional roads in the vicinity of Crowbridge Road, Ashford, in the county of Kent;

    (o) the provision of sidings on the Ashford to Canterbury Railway to the east of the River Stour at Ashford, in the county of Kent;

    (p) alterations to the provision which is now made in the Bill regarding the junction of the rail link and the Eurotunnel Railway at Folkestone, in the county of Kent;

    (q) alterations to the provision which is now made in the Bill regarding planning permission for development authorised by Part I;

    (r) alterations and additions to the provision which is now made in the Bill regarding the compulsory acquisition of easements and other rights over land by the grant of new rights;

    (s) the disposal of land acquired for the purposes of or in connection with the works authorised by Part I;

    (t) the inclusion of additional land within the limits of land to be acquired or used; and

    (u) additional power to stop up highways in connection with the construction of the A2 and M2 improvement works;
    and, if it thinks fit, to make Amendments to the Bill with respect to any of the matters mentioned above, and for connected purposes;

    (2) that any Petition against Amendments to the Bill which the Select Committee mentioned in paragraph (1) above is empowered by that paragraph to make shall be referred to that Select Committee if—

    (a) it is presented by being deposited in the Private Bill Office not later than the end of the period of four weeks beginning with the day on which the first newspaper notice of the Amendments was published or, if that period includes any time during which the House is adjourned for more than four days, not later than five weeks beginning with that day, and

    (b) it is one in which the Petitioners pray to be heard by themselves, their Counsel or Agents;
    That it be an instruction to the Clerk of Private Bills that, on receiving an original copy of the first newspaper notice of any Amendments to the Bill which the Select Committee to which the
    342
    Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill is committed in the next Session is empowered by paragraph (1) of the above instruction to make, he shall publish the date of the notice in the Private Business paper.
    That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House.

    Sir George Young: There are two motions on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill to be debated today. The first is an instruction on additional provisions, and the second is a carry-over motion. It may be helpful to the House if I say a brief word about both.
    The channel tunnel rail link is one of the country's most important infrastructure projects of this decade, probably of this century. The House gave the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill an unopposed Second Reading on 16 January, with hon. Members on both sides expressing a wish to make rapid progress with the passage of the legislation and the implementation of the project.
    The carry-over motion takes forward that unanimous will of the House. It is simply a procedural requirement to allow the Bill to run from this Session into the next. It is a hybrid Bill, which therefore has to be considered by Select Committees in each House in addition to all the usual stages of a public Bill. Because of that, and because of the scale of the rail link project, the Bill will inevitably take more than one Session to complete its passage.
    Good progress has been made since the Bill's introduction on 23 November last year and its Second Reading on 16 January. The Select Committee, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Sir A. Durant), started work on 21 February. The Committee has spent 60 days so far considering the 993 petitions received, which is well over 250 hours. The House will, I am sure, join me in paying tribute to the Chairman, the Vice-Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Sir I. Patnick), and the seven other members of the Select Committee for the way in which they have tackled this daunting task. They have kept proceedings moving forward and have listened to petitioners with unfailing courtesy, concentrating on the important issues. They have already reached and announced a number of key recommendations and decisions.
    The Committee needs to complete its work in the new Session, and the carry-over motion provides for the Committee to continue on the same basis as approved by the House in the original committal motion on 16 January. The House has already made clear its support for the CTRL project, and carrying over the Bill is essential to bringing the project to fruition.
    The other motion, instructing the Select Committee with regard to certain additional provisions, is to give effect primarily to the Select Committee's own wishes, announced on 20 July, on changes to the route of the rail link. The procedures of the House require that the people whose interests may be affected by the new route changes must be afforded the right to petition and be heard by the Select Committee. This is achieved by a formal instruction of the House to the Select Committee that the Committee may consider the route changes, which then enables the Government to deposit the necessary additional provisions and notices to be issued to those affected.
    The major route changes are at Mardyke park in Thurrock, Barking and the approach to St. Pancras. Following the Select Committee's announcement in July, the route changes have been developed in sufficient detail

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    for plans to be produced, property to be referenced and environmental assessments to be undertaken. For Mardyke park, the route is being realigned and a viaduct moved away from the housing estate. For Barking, there is a longer tunnel than the Select Committee sought. For the St. Pancras approach, the Select Committee accepted the promoters' proposal that two options for changing the route should be considered, and the motion allows for that.
    I do not intend to run through other items in the motions, although the Minister of State will be prepared to respond to any particular concerns raised by hon. Members. Generally, the other items are minor alterations to works and land to be acquired or used, some of which are a consequence of the Select Committee's decisions. Others are tidying-up provisions, often to meet concerns raised by petitioners during negotiations.
    Mr. Tony Banks: I have a personal concern about blight: the tunnel goes immediately underneath my house. I am quite happy about that, but is there any compensation in this for me? My property, along with many others, has been blighted; its value has gone down. People do not want to buy a house over a tunnel.
    Sir George Young: As the hon. Gentleman will know, there are statutory compensation schemes, to which he, like other members of the public, is entitled. Union Railways is operating its own scheme for people whose properties are affected by blight. The best advice that I can give the hon. Gentleman is the advice that I would give my own constituents: to take legal advice if he believes that his property interests are affected.
    Mr. Banks: You are the Secretary of State.
    Sir George Young: I am not a solicitor. I do not have the relevant qualifications, and I would hesitate to give the hon. Gentleman any unqualified legal advice.
    Ms Margaret Hodge: I share my hon. Friend's concern. Hundreds of my constituents' properties were blighted by the original proposals, and they remain blighted. The Secretary of State said that it was up to Union Railways to come up with a scheme for voluntary purchase, but Union Railways tells me repeatedly that it works under directions given to it by the Department of Transport. We therefore seek tonight the assurance that the properties that will remain blighted—despite the revisions in the proposals—will be covered by a compensation scheme that will be fair to the people whose homes have been blighted for many years.
    Sir George Young: As I am sure that the hon. Lady knows, the Select Committee has not yet dealt with this subject. It will come to the matter, I believe. She is right to say that Union Railways is buying homes on request within the safeguarded zone for the CTRL. That includes all homes taken wholly or in part by the link. It also operates a discretionary purchase scheme for properties seriously affected by the construction or use of the CTRL in cases of severe hardship. Union Railways published new guidelines for the operation of the scheme on 19 July; they are broadly in line with the arrangements for the road schemes. In our view, widening the purchase schemes to less affected properties could worsen any blight.
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    The Select Committee, as I have said, is still considering property and compensation issues connected with the CTRL.
    The instruction by the House does not approve the additional provisions listed; it merely empowers the Select Committee to consider them formally, with the benefit of petitions from those affected. The Committee is not obliged to adopt all or any of the provisions.
    The Government's aim is to deposit the additional provisions in two batches: the first—including Mardyke and Barking—in a few days' time, and the second—principally the St. Pancras approach—in early December. This should enable the first batch to be considered by the Committee starting just before Christmas. The second batch should start in Committee after the Christmas recess. The House will, I am sure, share the Committee's wish to complete its hearings without delay so that the CTRL project can go ahead as soon as possible.
    6 pm
    Ms Clare Short: I shall begin by saying something personal about the Secretary of State for Transport. I hope that he will remember the time—it was some years ago—when we worked together in the project Re-unite, the purpose of which was to give more support to parents—usually mothers—whose children had been abducted. It was a worthy and important cause. I hope that the period during which we work together on transport matters will be as productive as our earlier work.
    I have made a comment about the Secretary of State behind his back that perhaps I should make in front of him. I know him to be intelligent and socially concerned, and that being so, I have a basic respect for him. As we begin our new transport relationship, I find it impossible to believe that the right hon. Gentleman judges the current rail privatisation proposals to be in the national interest. I am sure that we shall return to that issue. The more I see of the proposals, the more people I meet who are involved with them and the more of the detail that I come to examine, the more I become aware that they are massively destructive to our transport systems.
    I cannot believe that a man of the quality of the Secretary of State could possibly support the proposals. It seems—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not wish to intervene too strongly when there might be harmony. I hope, however, that we shall restrict the debate to the motions that are before us.
    Ms Short: I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wanted to get my compliments in first.
    Along with many other Members, I accepted an invitation about a year ago to travel to Paris from Waterloo on the new Eurostar service. I think that we were all invited to make the journey. I tried to register the journey in the Register of Members' Interests and was told that if something is offered to all Members, it is not necessary to register it. That is an interesting concept.
    I made the journey with my mother. It is interesting when people in their 70s travel by rail. For them, the smoothness of the ride is of great importance. I met my

    345
    hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and he, too, was taking his mother to Paris. We had a mothers' day out to Paris, in the rain.
    I found—many others have found since—that the quality of the service on the French side of the Channel was massively more impressive than that on our side. Some British people are ashamed about that when they make the journey. President Mitterrand, when he opened the French link to the tunnel on 18 May 1993, said:
    "Passengers will race at great pace across the plains of northern France, rush through the tunnel on a fast track and then be able to daydream at very low speed, admiring the English countryside."
    Speed and comfort are important. With a poor-quality service there is spilt coffee on the English side but not on the French. There are stops and starts on our side and it is difficult to walk through the train as it sways. I felt sad and rather ashamed that the quality of the service on the French was so massively higher.
    Dr. Robert Spink: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Ms Short: I shall give way to ascertain whether the hon. Gentleman's point is sensible.
    Dr. Spink: The hon. Lady will not be aware that I travelled on the Eurostar service today. I returned to Waterloo this afternoon. I can assure the hon. Lady that the service that I received was excellent on both sides of the channel. There was no difference in the service on either side. I do not recognise her description of the service. Again, our service is being berated at the expense of British Rail. That is deplorable.
    Ms Short: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was sleeping during the journey. No one is suggesting that the quality of service provided by the British staff is lower than that given by the French. I am merely saying that the train travels a great deal more slowly on the British side. That is fact. I am not berating anyone. If the hon. Gentleman did not notice the difference in speed, his sensitivity—[Interruption.]
    We support the motions that are before us. Given that it is possible that the Bill will be given Royal Assent during 1996 and that instructions for work to begin will be given in 1997, we, Labour, expect and intend to take over responsibility for the project and see it through to completion as early as possible in the new millennium. We are critical, however, that one of the largest civil engineering projects in Britain for a long time has progressed so slowly and that so much anguish and pain has been caused by planning blight because of the Government's mad ideological commitment to market forces and private sector control of all projects, rather than a partnership between the public and private sectors that would bring the best from both sides to the project. The Labour party is firmly committed to the latter approach, which would be much more strongly in the national interest than the Government's arrangements.
    Any review of the details and the history of the project—I have obviously engaged in such a review in preparing for the debate—makes enormously depressing reading. It is a story of delay, dither, blight and wasted resources. That stems from the Government's initial determination that no Government grant or subsidy should
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    be provided for the project. As a result, it had become clear by the end of 1991 that London's investment community was unenthusiastic. That error of judgment led to the big U-turn in March 1993, when the then Secretary of State for Transport said that the Government had decided that the project would have to go forward as a joint venture. We were told in January 1994 that the Government were willing after all to provide substantial public sector support for the project.
    We now know that the Government intend to hand over to the successful bidder as much as £1.7 billion in cash subsidies and asset transfers without taking any public stake or power to ensure public accountability in return for such massive public investment. That is deeply wrong, both morally and democratically. The tax burden is higher now as a percentage of gross domestic product than it was in 1979. The burden is more inequitably distributed with the result that those on lower incomes are paying more tax now than they have for a long time. It seems profoundly wrong to hand over massive public resources to private companies without ensuring that the public interest is secured. The Opposition object to that.
    It is to be welcomed that the Government have responded positively to the proposals that are set out in the report of the Select Committee on Transport. We are concerned, however, about the delays caused by the Government dithering over the best way in which to finance the scheme. We are also concerned about planning blight. We note that there is good news for those who live along some sections of the route. A pamphlet is being issued in Barking that states that there is good news at last. Many people will be comforted by the progress that has been made, and that is to be welcomed.
    Some extremely serious allegations were made in an article that appeared in The Sunday Telegraph on 27 August. It suggested that the Secretary of State and his Ministers had attempted to nobble the work of the Select Committee. It is such a serious allegation that I imagine that Ministers will want to respond to it. The article states:
    "Sir George Young, the transport secretary, has told Cabinet colleagues that the Select Committee has already accepted too many points made by objectors, especially in Labour-voting areas of London."
    I hope that the Secretary of State has not proceeded in that way. Citizens' rights to compensation and other matters should be protected regardless of voting behaviour.
    The article continued to the effect that The Sunday Telegraph had learnt
    "that Sir George is to send a discreet message to the two senior Tory MPs on the committee that it would not take much more to make the project no longer viable."
    That is interesting. The article stated:
    "Sir George and John Watts, the rail minister, intend to approach Sir Anthony before the committee's next meeting on October 17. They will urge him to resist widespread demands for a more generous approach to compensation."
    That is extremely serious and something that should he mentioned on the Floor of the House.
    Sir Anthony Durant: I received a letter from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport in which he outlined his views. He told me that he did not intend in any way to influence the Committee. I read out the letter to the full Committee at one of its

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    meetings. The Committee accepted his word, as I did. No attempt has been made to influence me in any way. I assure the House that if that were tried, I might go the other way.
    Ms Short: The letter seems peculiar. I think that the Minister, when he is winding up, might want to come back to that point.
    Another specific point that I would like the Minister to address when winding up is where things stand on the ombudsman's report, which found the Government guilty of maladministration leading to injustice over their refusal to pay compensation to some residents. As hon. Members may well remember, the report included some extremely distressing cases: a couple who wished to move because their son had hanged himself in the property; and another where a woman with a degenerative illness wanted to move closer to her family but was unable to do so. I understand that there is a meeting this evening. I also understand that there might be some suggestion that the Government will be rather more helpful than they have been about the ombudsman's report. I very much hope that that is true and that we can have some news on that.
    I should also be grateful to know what progress has been made to ensure that when passengers arrive at St. Pancras station the infrastructure can cope with the traffic, because one of the great worries about rail privatisation is that there will be separate writs breaking up the national network and that there will not be the necessary co-ordination of the system. I want to know whether those developments are in hand and, in particular, whether we can now have a firm date for the commencement of direct services via east coast and west coast main lines to the rest of the country.
    Our view is that the project is essential to the updating and strengthening of Britain's rail network, and we as a party are absolutely committed to the maintenance of a united national rail network that will co-ordinate transport services throughout our country and remain in public ownership. We also believe that it will improve comfort and efficiency for travellers and that our trade and business relationships with our European neighbours will be strengthened. We deeply deplore the terrible delays that the project has suffered because of the Government's ideological obsessions, but we strongly support it and look forward greatly to taking responsibility for it in government and carrying it through to success.
    Several hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is self-evident that a large number of hon. Members wish to speak. The debate must finish at 7.21, so I appeal for short speeches.
    6.11 pm
    Dame Peggy Fenner: I am grateful to get your help in this, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and will try to comply with your injunction.
    I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench two particular points. First, today on the front of a national tabloid appeared a report—I do not know whether it was leaked—which concluded that the M2 road widening between junctions 1 and 4 has been postponed. I remind my right hon. Friend that the Select Committee sought assurances that it would be completed within the same
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    construction period as the channel tunnel rail link. The Government themselves gave the qualification that if either were delayed for funding reasons, they would not delay the other indefinitely.
    I should make it quite clear about the widening of the M2 road that, as soon as I learned the price of building another bridge—hon. Members will be aware that we are to have two road bridges and one rail bridge adjacent to one of my villages, Borstal, near Rochester—I said that it was a bridge too far, and asked whether we could ban the road. I ask my right hon. Friend to look again to see whether that road really is needed, as it is a great imposition and additional noise to my constituents.
    Secondly, I had hoped to read in the instructions to the Select Committee—I accept that they cannot be too detailed—some instruction to look again at the mitigation of noise, because my constituents are certainly not satisfied with noise barriers that cover only one portion of each of these three confounded bridges. They want noise barriers that go right the way across. Their living environment must be balanced against the visual impact that the barriers would have. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider that some of the £13.6 million that was allocated from Brussels should be given to ensure the protection of the living environment of the people in Kent and in London who perforce must have this link running through their section of the country.
    I have read a rumour, but being a politician I do not believe much that I read in the newspapers, that the Select Committee, when it continues into the next Session—I hoped that this would be in the instruction—will look specifically at generic matters, such as blight, compensation, noise mitigation and construction, because in those matters hon. Members like myself are very worried about people who want or need to move. We are worried about construction—in the case of my constituents, not only of a rail bridge but of another road bridge, and all that that implies. My constituents hoped that building of the two bridges would run simultaneously, but they opened their paper today and learned that that will not be. Will they have 10 years of construction, as the bridges are built sequentially, one after the other?
    Part of my constituents' problem, in addition to this great burden on their environment, is that the construction will interfere with a tip that has had asbestos dumped on it for years. Nobody will give them any scientific evidence that it is safe to interfere with it. I warn my right hon. Friend that they require some scientific reassurance about the effects of moving the tip, and construction on and around it. I do so in respect of a recent finding in a court on compensation for people who are suffering because, as children, they played near a source of asbestos. People are naturally worried. We also had the same situation in the dockyard. Although proximity to the source of asbestos was many years ago, men have died 30 years later.
    I take it that hidden in this instruction are the detailed instructions to the Select Committee about its next work. I know that the Chairman of the Select Committee is a very independent character and that he and the Committee will do it their way, but I seek assurances on the fate of the M2 and its consequential co-ordinated building; the factory farm site and its asbestos; and the noise mitigation barriers across all two or three of the bridges, whichever it finishes.
    6.17 pm
    Mr. Paul Tyler: Some six hours ago I, too, emerged from the channel tunnel on Eurostar, coming back from meetings in Brussels, and I have to say that my experience was identical to that of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms Short) rather than that of the hon. Member for Castle Point (Dr. Spink). Indeed, other passengers in the carriage clearly thought that there was something wrong with the train. Those coming from Brussels who had not used it before, having had the smooth ride through Belgium and France, when suddenly faced with a remarkable reduction in speed, and much more rattle and swerve as they came through the Kent countryside, clearly did not relish the prospect of reaching London, as they feared, some hours late because the train obviously had something wrong with it.
    We know that there is nothing wrong with the train; it is a great institution, but the link is clearly totally inadequate. That is why I believe that hon. Members on both sides of the House will congratulate the Select Committee and express relief that it has made such progress so far. We are grateful to the right hon. and hon. Members who have undertaken this task, but it has to be said that already the likely cost of the link has risen by another £170 million as a result of the amendments. We are now looking at a bill of something in excess of £2.7 billion. The cost of delay is clearly the most difficult cost of all to face. How can we justify that to our constituents, who are already well aware of the considerable time that it has taken to get thus far?
    The instructions clearly are helpful in a number of ways, and I shall concentrate on one or two of them and their broad purpose rather than go into great detail, because I know that many hon. Members with local concerns wish to speak. The most important implications are for the provision of freight travel through the tunnel. I have always believed that to be the major justification for a rail-based fixed link across the channel. Indeed, I believe that that is already considered to be fully justified, and that its potential is extremely exciting.
    Last year, for the first time, freight shipments on the United Kingdom's rail network fell below 100 million tonnes. That has serious implications for the whole British economy, let alone for the balance between road and rail. I hope that both these instructions and the speed with which the Committee is able to make progress will result in increasing opportunities for the economic transport of freight by rail.
    A few weeks ago, it was suggested in the Financial Times that that would be the most critical issue in regard to future funding of the tunnel, and also that it would be critically important to our entire rail network. Given that few freight journeys of less than 300 miles are possible because of the loading and unloading costs at each end, the access given by the tunnel to the continental rail network is clearly of remarkable importance. We shall not have that opportunity again. More than 75 freight trains a week are making regular return journeys to a number of European countries; surely we should encourage that trend.
    Given that the inadequacies of the trans-European network from Britain's point of view are of our own making, we are clearly presented with another opportunity. According to a Railnews bulletin sent to hon. Members by Eurotunnel,
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    "taking the road to rail ratio and comparing to other countries, Britain could have got 750km of high speed rail but instead only got 80km, for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Sources in Brussels have said that Britain could have got very much more if it had applied; one wonders if there is a real government intention to spend a significant amount of money on improving the West Coast Main Line. Could not some of it have come from this TEN scheme? Even the modest £70 million required for the line upgrading between Glasgow and Folkestone for piggyback services could have been covered under the combined transport priority list.
    The Whitehall excuse is that projects, other than the CTRL, were not sufficiently advanced—who can we blame for this but the same people!"
    The CTRL is incredibly important in itself, but it should also be the pioneering project that leads to effective new investment—particularly in freight travel—on our rail network in other parts of the country. It is feared that the return that Railtrack will demand for access charges—not just for the CTRL, but elsewhere in the country—could hold that back.
    Of course noise insulation—to which the hon. Member for Medway (Dame P. Fenner) referred—and blight involve important considerations. Many hon. Members will wish to express their constituents' views on those subjects, but those are transitional problems, and I hope that the improvements that have already been hinted at will be seen as the Committee continues its work.
    I believe—as, I think, do many members of the public, as well as Members of Parliament—that the function of this link to the continental network to extend opportunities for the freight industry to convey more loads by rail will really make the difference. It will be able to remove from the hard-pressed roads of Kent, and southern England generally, a proportion of the heavy loads that they are currently carrying, and at the same time enable the road improvement programme to be seen in a different light.
    Finally, let me comment on future funding for not just the CTRL but similar projects. The French Government may not be perfect in other respects, but over many years, under different political leadership, they have seen opportunities for partnership between local authorities and national Government, and between public and private enterprise, as critical to such projects as high-speed rail links. The DATTAR scheme is by no means perfect in its consideration of environmental implications—we in this country would probably consider ourselves better at such things—but in other respects it leaves us standing.
    Today, not for the first time, I passed through the amazing station at Lille where the three mayors of the Lille conurbations—all of different political persuasions—worked together to create a magnificent focus for a TGV station, as well as for Eurostar and for an integrated nodal transport system. That project is already a great success: it has generated new business and retail involvement.
    I believe that we are missing an opportunity. I hope very much that the Committee's work will be successful, but I fear that we are still treating the project as a "one-off"—a project that can be attempted only in special circumstances—when it should be showing how we can bring private investment into the public-sector rail network as a whole.
    That is the Liberal Democrat recipe for the success of a 21st-century rail system. It is working successfully in other parts of Europe, and we should model the future of Railtrack on it rather than allow the cranks of the right to abscond with an important national asset.

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    The House will wish to congratulate the Committee on the work that it has done so far. I believe, however, that delay could prove extremely expensive, not just to the individuals who are blighted by it but to the whole British economy. With heartfelt emphasis, we add to our previous plea: the Committee has all our best wishes, and godspeed.
    6.25 pm
    Sir John Stanley: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Sir A. Durant) and his Committee. I do not know whether they are volunteers or pressed men—I do not think that there are any women on the Committee—but, in any event, they are devoting a vast amount of their time, and showing the utmost diligence, in dealing with a highly complicated matter.
    I want to make three points. The first relates to the old and continuing issue of blight, and the adequacy or otherwise of the discretionary powers of acquisition that are now applied by Union Railways. I welcome the fact that Union Railways is having a further stab at this, and has come up with a new voluntary acquisition package; but I am extremely doubtful about whether that package will be generous enough to meet the needs of people who, without any doubt, have experienced catastrophic blight. They cannot sell their main asset other than at sacrificial prices.
    It simply is not reasonable to put home owners in such a position. The limited number of my constituents who are in that position are making fresh applications under the new arrangements announced by Union Railways, and I earnestly hope that those applications will be successful. If they are not, I shall ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to change the rules and make them that much more generous, so that no one is asked to take a large knock on personal capital for a scheme pursued in the public interest. That financial burden should be borne by the public; it is not for individuals to accept a major financial sacrifice and not to obtain fair value for their homes.
    My second point relates to two of the detailed provisions of the second motion, (q) and (r). They appear to widen the Committee's instruction to enable it to consider open-ended changes for what will be approved planning permissions—and, indeed, extensions to compulsory purchase. We want to be assured that those wide new provisions will not be used to the detriment of the rights of individual land owners, and rights pertaining to easements. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will assure us of the limited and responsible use of what are wide extensions of both deemed planning permission and compulsory purchase powers.
    My third point concerns freight. I hope that my hon. Friend can assure us that nothing in the second motion will be used to constrain the freight use of the rail link; indeed, I hope that he will be able to tell us that freight use will be enhanced to the maximum extent. At present, freight users will be able to use the rail link to a considerable extent. They are also able to use existing lines to the channel tunnel. Given that two freight options are available, I earnestly hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will treat with the utmost scepticism the planned third option that is apparently being constructed by a company called the Central Railway Group.
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    In a letter that my right hon. Friend sent to me in the last week or sp, he tells me that Central Railway Group is planning to apply to him for the construction of a third rail freight line from the midlands, going along existing lines and through Tonbridge in my constituency, to the channel tunnel. On the proposals that I have seen so far, that work would have a serious impact on the centre of Tonbridge and on other regions up and down the proposed route of the Central Railway Group's new freight link.
    Given that hon. Members are planning to create a new railway line that will carry freight, and that existing lines already carry freight, it is superfluous to create a third freight route, with all the potential blighting effects under the Central Railway Group's proposals. I hope therefore that my right hon. Friend will be mindful of those points if, in the next few weeks, an order is put to him under the Transport and Works Act 1992 procedure.
    Mr. James Pawsey: Will my right hon. Friend give way before he sits down?
    Hon. Members: He has sat down.
    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. I believe that the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Sir J. Stanley) had already resumed his seat.
    6.30 pm
    Mr. Chris Smith: In this debate, the starting point for all of us must be that we want the channel tunnel high-speed rail link to be built not only as quickly as possible but in the right way. For those of us who represent constituencies along the route of the line, building it in the right way is terribly important. I do not, therefore, want either of the motions before us tonight to be opposed or defeated, but I do want to flag up one concern.
    The most intricate part of the proposed route is the approach to St. Pancras, which comes through the borough of Islington, across the east coast main line and into the St. Pancras railway lands. The Select Committee considering the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill spent considerable time on that matter, and I pay great tribute to its work. I am delighted to see its Chairman, Vice-Chairman and my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) here. The Committee deserves great credit for the assiduity of its work.
    In its initial conclusions just before the summer recess, the Select Committee recommended that, in the approach to St. Pancras, what has become known as "Alan Baxter's fully tunnelled option" should be adopted. There was rejoicing in my constituency at that recommendation because it was precisely what local people wanted. It removed the problems of blight, disturbance and noise that they had feared.
    Work is continuing on the working up of Baxter's fully tunnelled option but, alongside it, we have a second option developed by Union Railways, which the Committee will consider together with Baxter's scheme. The alternative approach will not be completely fully tunnelled. It will, however, contain more tunnel than in the original reference case. Both options under consideration are better, therefore, than the reference case. Local residents are in the process of examining in detail both options to find out which one they would prefer.

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    Those residents have gone through a rollercoaster of hope and despair on this exercise. Having been told that the Baxter's option was going to be adopted, suddenly they are faced with two potential options, one of which may not be as good as the Baxter's option. Blight has returned to the western part of Islington around Caledonian road as a direct result of the new uncertainty that has been created.
    There is a problem. The plans for the two options will, as I understand it, be deposited on 5 December. Local residents will then have only five weeks to prepare new petitions on the new proposals. Even worse, the people who have already petitioned must pay another £20 fee to submit their new petition, which, through no fault of their own, deals with new material.
    I hope that the Government, the Select Committee and the House will recognise that the procedure of having to petition fast over the Christmas period and of petitioners having to pay an additional fee above what was originally deposited is putting a great difficulty in the way of the petitioners. I flag up that concern. Petitioners are being put at a severe disadvantage, blight has returned, and there is continuing concern about what will happen in relation to the final approach to St. Pancras.
    I make two simple requests. The first is to Union Railways. It is that there will be a full and fair working up of both the options—the Baxter's fully tunnelled option and the Union Railways option. Local residents will be able to make a clear decision and put their representations to the Select Committee only with a full and fair assessment of the impact of the two alternatives.
    The second plea is to the Select Committee members, and I am sure that they will readily accept this: listen carefully to what local residents say when they have had a real chance to examine in detail the two options on the table as we are talking here, not just about the value of property, although that is important, but about people's lives for many years to come. People locally want the line to be built in the right way, but they want their lives to be damaged as little as possible in the process. I am sure that the Committee will want to listen to what they have to say in putting their case forward.
    6.37 pm
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: My constituency has been blighted since 1988. Every route that has been considered for a rail link has twisted and turned across my constituency and, therefore, we in Gravesham view with much concern the on-going considerations in relation to the rail link.
    I should like to draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister to item (u) in the second motion, which refers to the
    "A2 and M2 improvement works".
    Those works take place in an especially sensitive area of the green belt, which is strong on the natural environment. It contains Ashenbank wood and, in relation to heritage, Cobham hall. That region must be treated with careful consideration by the Select Committee when it returns to it.
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    Encompassed within the M2-A2 works is a junction for the so-called Wainscott bypass. If my hon. Friend the Minister is looking for vast savings to be made on the road programme, the best thing he could do is to scrap that bypass, and to simplify the A2-M2 junction.
    In those works, reference is made to stopping up various highways in the region. Select Committee members should pay careful attention to a number of accesses along there, especially to the Rochester and Cobham golf club. If that access is blocked, the golf club will be cut off and there will be major havoc to transport flows in the parish of Cobham.
    The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms Short) referred to work being started on the rail link in 1997. One of the first works to be done would be the initial work for the construction of the tunnel underneath the River Thames and the construction of the Ebbsfleet railway station. These works will be on either side of the ancient town of Northfleet. Heavy goods vehicles already thunder through that old town. If works start on both these massive projects under the rail link proposals, life for the residents of Northfleet will be made totally intolerable.
    I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to nag the highways authority—Kent county council—to ensure that, in its programme for 1996–97, it gives the Northfleet bypass the highest priority. I know that my hon. Friend has referred to it as a high priority, but our highways authority must make that its top priority. If my hon. Friend is worried about the finance for the Northfleet bypass, which is known as the south Thamesside development route phase 4, I point out that he can certainly finance it out of the considerable savings to be made on the Wainscott bypass.
    I disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Sir J. Stanley). The House has authorised expenditure of £1.2 billion for improving the existing railroads across Kent to cope with the increased traffic coming from the channel tunnel; passengers and freight now go along the southern routes. The argument in favour of the rail link is saturation of rail capacity across Kent. The construction of the channel tunnel rail link is to bring additional capacity across Kent. As it is new, the logical thing to do is to build it to high-speed qualities so that we do not have one or two problems that were referred to earlier.
    If one builds a brand new channel tunnel rail link for high-speed operation, the last thing one does is to put across it heavy carriages with heavy goods. The high-speed rail link should not have freight running along it, not least because residents along the high-speed rail link will not have had railways running past their properties before, and they should not have that added imposition.
    I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Mailing about compensation. We remain to be convinced that there are proposals adequately to compensate people whose houses are their principal investment and saving in this life. It is not fair to say, "We need the project, we cannot really afford it, so we will finance it partly out of the capital value of your house." That would be a shameful way in which to treat my constituents and those of hon. Members in Kent and in central London. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to give a lot of encouragement tonight, and that the Select Committee will also bear these points in mind.
    6.42 pm
    Ms Margaret Hodge: I join everyone in thanking those members of the Select Committee who did something that is rather unusual—at least for Conservative Members—and very welcome, which is that they listened. Those who attended the Select Committee sitting that I attended with my constituents were astounded to see Members of Parliament applauded by members of the public for their courtesy in listening. We very much welcome that.
    The original proposals were ill conceived and wrong; we have to say that today. They were led by engineers who had no proper concern for ordinary people. The original proposals were dominated by the view that short-term penny-pinching rather than the long-term interests of all the people along the route must be the essence of what was being considered.
    The original proposals brought enormous hardship to hundreds if not thousands of my constituents. There was one gentleman whose life was dominated by the issue and who suffered from terrible emphysema because of his proximity to the existing rail track. He died worried about his future.
    One family cared at home for a son who was severely handicapped. They wished to emigrate to Canada so that their other children could care for their son in the long term. They were unable to do so and have remained unable to do so because they cannot sell their property; it remains blighted.
    Another constituent was unemployed for a long time. He managed to secure a job elsewhere, but he could not take it because he could not sell his house and move to Chelmsford. Those are the real stories—not transitional problems—of the impact of ill-thought-out proposals on my constituents and on thousands of people along the line.
    I have three points for the Minister. First, we need some indication of the timetable for bringing in the new safeguarding directions to alleviate the blight. The blight has been there for many years and is still there. Secondly, I stress that the discretionary purchase scheme lies in the hands of the Minister and his Department. He cannot keep shifting the blame to other people, whether Union Railways or the Select Committee. If it turns out that people remain unable to sell their properties—if it turns out that people lose their freedom of movement, which is critical to them—the Government must take responsibility and must return to a more generous discretionary purchase scheme, along the lines of the French scheme.
    Thirdly, there will be increased freight. What we must ensure and what is of particular concern to my constituents is that the freight does not shift to the roads. They would then have the impact of the rail link and increased road traffic.
    My constituents are not well off. They will now have to make new representations to the Committee. Not only is there the £20 fee, but the fees incurred if legal advice is sought and the loss of earnings for the time that they have to take off work to make representations to the Committee. Those new costs should be met by the public purse because, if the Government's original proposals had been less incompetent, we would not have had the additional delay and further consideration by the Committee.
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    If the present Secretary of State had been in his position earlier, if the present Minister for Railways and Roads had had an influence earlier and if I had been able to make representations earlier, we should not have ended up with a compromise for Barking. I welcome the compromise, but it is not ideal. It does not tear the heart out of Barking as the original proposals would have done, but it leaves hundreds of people, both house owners and council tenants, with an uncertain future. They are unclear about whether they can move and whether the channel tunnel rail link will have a long-term impact on their lives.
    I hope that the Select Committee and the House can come up with sensible proposals to deal with blight and with the discretionary purchase scheme, to alleviate some of the suffering that has been caused in my constituency.
    6.48 pm
    Mr. Andrew Rowe: I congratulate the Committee on having worked so hard. I was a little disappointed to learn that a senior member of the Committee had said that the proposals from Kent had been well put by officers but not sufficiently supported by councillors. That is unjust, as all the representations made by Kent were made with the endorsement of the councillors. Indeed, in at least one case—and I think in several others—county councillors were not allowed to give evidence to the Select Committee on behalf of their parish councils. So if there is any sense that there is a lack of political will behind what the Kent people have been saying, it is misunderstood.
    I am of course going to support the motions, because, as many hon. Members have said, they are the only way in which to relieve my constituents from blight. But I do so with a heavy heart. It has been a lamentable story. We were told at the beginning, when the channel tunnel was first being devised, that there was no need for a railway; we were told that there would be no question of any form of public subsidy for the line; we were told that there would be four routes on the table, although it quickly became apparent that three of them were a complete whitewash and not ever intended to be worked. A whole series of undertakings have been given and withdrawn.
    My constituents are thoroughly cynical about whether they will even see what the Select Committee has recommended—and, indeed, has been accepted so far—happen in practice. It is perfectly clear, as many of my constituents who are much more numerate than I shall ever be have pointed out, that the economic viability of this line is very fragile. Ministers have made it clear in correspondence among themselves that they have anxieties on that score. Those anxieties are well founded.
    The worst possible outcome for any of us would be that all the proceedings on this Bill in both Houses of Parliament were completed and the line was not built for a considerable length of time. That would be a scandal and I hope very much that my hon. Friend the Minister will give us an undertaking—even though I am sceptical about some of the undertakings that I have had so far—that the line really will work.
    I thank my hon. Friend the Minister, however, for the letter that I have received this very evening saying that, on the authority of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration Committee, it has been agreed that the worst cases of hardship brought before that Committee will be looked at again. That is a welcome assurance.

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    I say once again to my hon. Friend—he has heard me say it before, but it is essential to say it again—that the way in which we handle compensation on big public schemes is a scandal. It is not easy, but what happens is a scandal. For the permanent secretary to the Department of Transport to try to maintain that there are only two kinds of blight—statutory blight and the blight caused by uncertainty—is so far removed from reality as to be a disgrace. Member after Member in this short debate has pointed out that, although there is no uncertainty over large parts of the line, the blight persists and will probably persist for another decade.
    I do not believe that the line will be built as quickly as we all hope that it will be. I heard today that a potential tenant of Union Railways was offered a 10-year tenancy. When the tenant said that the company had to be joking because the line was set to go through the cottage, Union Railways is alleged to have said that there was no chance of the line being built in the time scale provided. I have not had time to check the story, but if it is true, it is a disgrace.
    I wonder what the real cost of the line will eventually turn out to be. There has never been a project on such a scale which has cost anything like the budget first projected. The only thing that would be worse than not having the line built after all the proceedings in both Houses would be to have half the line built and some future Government saying that they could not afford to finish it.
    I should like to make one detailed point. I am disturbed and distressed to discover that the thoroughly sensible way suggested of improving the amenity of the Boxley valley—one of the causes célèbres before the Select Committee—by the road going over the line, under the project described as 3A, has been thrown out by Union Railways. I very much hope that in this debate the Minister will allow us to hope that at least that alternative could once again be properly considered.
    I say to hon. Members on both sides of the House, that after the matter is resolved, the trauma of compensation and blight that we have all endured should not be forgotten. Could we not have a cross-party consensus that the present system of handling compensation is lamentably unfair and try to work out a better system for the future?
    6.55 pm
    Mr. Tony Banks: I join other Members in paying a warm tribute to the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Reading, West (Sir A. Durant), and the members of that Committee—not because I am a creep, although I am prepared to do almost anything to get the Stratford international station located in my area, but because I have chaired many a Committee on a private Bill and I know precisely how much hard work goes into it and how little credit is given to the Members who carry out the work.
    I also join with the hon. Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) and others who have referred to blight. I raise the matter in a slightly jokey fashion, but on the present alignment the tunnel would go immediately under my house in Forest Gate. I am quite happy for that to happen
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    if we can get the international station located at Stratford. Indeed, I do not care if the tunnel goes right through my living room so long as we get that station.
    Compensation and blight must be taken into account. One would always hope that Union Railways and the Government would be as generous as possible. Many people who want the project are living in properties which will be blighted, especially if, as has been suggested, the time scale for the project is way beyond 10 years.
    When the Chairman reported the initial findings of the Committee, he said:
    "It is our view that a station at Stratford capable of handling international traffic is desirable both in the national interest and in the interest of regenerating eastern London."
    In east London we say "Hear, hear" to that.
    The long box recommendation, which safeguards the possibility of an international station at Stratford, has been accepted by the Government, who will require the nominated undertaker to build it, but they are resisting the Committee's proposal that it should be done under the Transport and Works Act 1992.
    Mr. Stephen Timms: Given the Committee's strong endorsement of the Stratford station, which my hon. Friend has just relayed, given the support that the Government have given to the long box, given the fact that every local authority in London supports the choice of Stratford international, given that London First supports it, and given that everybody who advises the Government on regeneration in London supports it, does he agree that it is now time for the Government quickly to give firm support to the Stratford international proposal?
    Mr. Banks: Of course I agree with my hon. Friend, and many Conservative Members would also agree with him.
    I should like to ask the Minister a series of specific questions. Although the Government will require the long box to be constructed by the nominated undertaker, the nominated undertaker has not yet been chosen. When does the Minister expect to choose the nominated undertaker? Will the decision on Stratford be coupled with that choice, or will it be taken separately? If it is taken separately, when does he intend to take a decision on Stratford? That is the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Timms) has just raised. Will it be a final decision with regard to Stratford?
    Can the Minister confirm that the Stratford rail lands will not be sold off piecemeal prior to a decision? We have received some assurances from the Department of Transport, and a recent letter from the Department to the chief executive of Newham confirmed it, but a public statement from the Minister would be very useful at this point.
    In my area, we are alarmed that Railfreight is talking actively about reopening Stratford as a major freight terminal—in fact, as a railhead for freight—contrary to all previous assurances that Ministers and officials have given us that there will no freight railhead in east London. What is going on? Can the Minister tell us? Who is calling the shots? We need to know.
    The proposals that Railfreight is now talking about appear to be in conflict with the proposals for developments on the rail land, including the international station at Stratford. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East said, there is enormous cross-party

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    and cross-London support for Stratford as the location of the second international London station. I hope that the Minister will find time to answer the very specific questions that I have asked.
    6.59 pm
    Mr. Brian Wilson: I was interested to read in a biographical note about the Secretary of State that he once wrote a book called "Blessing or Blight?" It was on the tourist industry, but in his leisure years the right hon. Gentleman may be able to follow it up by writing about the channel tunnel link and rail privatisation.
    We have had a good debate. I add my congratulations to the members of the Select Committee who did the drudgery and, as has been said, listened to the many objections and concerns. I pay tribute, too, to my colleagues who have made such effective representations on behalf of their constituents.
    Perhaps the most interesting comments in the debate were made by the hon. Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe), who asked when and whether the link would be built. He said that the worst thing would be if "some future Government" said that they would not complete it. However, as the hon. Gentleman and everybody else here should know, under the present scheme it will not be within the gift of the Government to say that they will or will not complete the link. The intention is to hand over the works to a private company, which will decide whether to complete the link.
    Let us look at the scenario that Ministers are creating, and the trail of past Secretaries of State for Transport. It seems that an announcement will soon be made that the assets of European Passenger Services—almost £1 billion worth of public assets, every penny of which was paid for by the taxpayer, every brick and pane of glass in the Waterloo international terminal, and every coach and piece of livery on the Eurostar trains—will be handed over to a private company.
    From that day the revenue stream, the most lucrative in the history of the British railway network, will go to the private operators. If the Secretary of State wants to contradict me, he is welcome to do so. When the traffic reaches its expected peak, 15 million people a year will travel on the service and every penny of the money will go to the private operator.
    The trade-off for that is incredible; if the Mafia had suggested it, it would be regarded as beyond the dreams of avarice. At some future unspecified date, the private consortium will start building a channel tunnel link along a route not yet defined, within a time scale which, as the hon. Member for Mid-Kent rightly said, is undefinable.
    If one of the consortia were unscrupulous enough it would go round east London funding the objectors, saying, "Keep this going as long as possible. The last thing we want to do is to build a channel tunnel link. Why should we, because our revenue stream is guaranteed ad infinitum?"
    Will the Secretary of State contradict any of that? When the announcement is made will he tell us why the operator would have a vested interest in speeding up the process of building a channel tunnel link? More important, will the Minister who replies to the debate give me one reason why the assets of European Passenger Services should be
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    handed to a private operator before the Bill has completed its passage, and before a sod has been turned on the route that is finally decided?
    Why is it essential for the private operator to have the revenue stream before there is agreement on either the route or the financing of the rail link? Will the Minister answer that simple question, because it has never been answered? What precedent is there for giving an operator the money in return for an unspecified, and I believe ultimately unsustainable, expectation that the link will be built according to criteria laid down by the Government and the Select Committee?
    What is the rush to give away the assets, other than that which underlies all the activities of the Tory party? It is the desire to shovel as much wealth and as many public assets towards its friends in the private sector before the day of judgment when the Tories are finally turfed out. Why is it a matter of public urgency to give away the assets of European Passenger Services?
    Let us look back at the timetable for the process. Government is about more than rhetoric; it is about record. The Government should be judged harshly on what they have done to the constituents of many hon. Members on both sides of the House, and for what they have done to British prestige, leaving us with the poor relation, the national embarrassment of the slow line to the channel tunnel, where the French take over with a high-speed railway line.
    Let us look at the record of disaster and fiasco. The Channel Tunnel Act 1987 ruled out public funding to support passenger services. Not a penny of public funds was to go to support rail passenger services to or from the channel tunnel. In those days Parkinson's law ruled, under section 42(3) of the Channel Tunnel Act.
    In 1988 British Rail launched a competition for a public-private partnership. In those days the Tories hated even public-private partnerships because the word "public" was mentioned. In 1989 Cecil Parkinson reaffirmed:
    "It remains the policy of the Government that no subsidy will be given to channel tunnel rail services".
    In June 1990 the public-private idea was killed off. British Rail had done a deal on it and then it was killed off, throwing the whole thing into disarray—the ideological hammer blow. I shall return later to the figures involved at that time.
    In October 1991 a proud announcement was made at the Tory party conference. By that time it was the present Foreign Secretary, then Secretary of State for Transport, who made the announcement. The route had been definitively finalised and would go through Stratford, terminating at King's Cross.
    In 1993 it was the turn of the right hon. Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. MacGregor), who has now gone off to his merchant bank, where he belongs. He said that the decision was not final at all. Stratford was called into question and Ebbsfleet mysteriously appeared—the Rumbold memorial terminal. Stratford was no longer on the agenda.
    In 1994 the Bill finally got going—and here we are carrying it on into 1995–96. Thank heaven that, while the Tories blundered around and went to every conceivable length to take the project away from the public sector, the public sector was getting on and doing the job. That is

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    why we have that wonderful Waterloo international terminal, and the trains built and designed in the public sector. The whole job has been done by the public sector, and the public sector is proud of it.
    What were the costs? In 1990 when Cecil Parkinson killed the joint public-private sector venture, British Rail was requesting a grant of £500 million and a low-interest loan of £1 billion. For that, the job could have been started and the Committee would have been under way in 1990. The work on the link would have been well in progress by now; perhaps it would even have been completed.
    However, that was ruled out—it was far too much money. But look what the Government have done with taxpayers' money now. According to the British Rail annual report and accounts for 1994–95, the assets of European Passenger Services, now being transferred to the private sector, are worth £800 million. For Union Railways the figure is already £42.6 million, and cumulative expenditure on the railway project to date is £492 million.
    In other words, without a sod having been turned on the project, as much money has been spent as would earlier have been spent to have had the whole thing finished, with a link built and the national embarrassment avoided.
    Of course the expenditure continues. Will the Minister tell us how many hundreds of millions of pounds the Government now intend to hand over to the purchasers of European Passenger Services—or rather, "purchasers" is the wrong word, because they will be getting it for nothing? How much cash will they get, on top of the assets? What will be the total bill to the taxpayer for handing the enterprise over to the private sector? The Minister should give us some answers, because that is a fraud on the nation and on the taxpayer.
    7.8 pm
    The Minister for Railways and Roads (Mr. John Watts): I am tempted to follow the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) into his fantasy world, but the limited time available to me is better spent in trying to reply to some of the serious points made by right hon. and hon. Members. I remind the hon. Gentleman, however, that the previous Labour Government cancelled the project to build the channel tunnel, so some of his blusterings lack conviction.
    There is impatience in the House for the railway to be built and opened as soon as possible, and that impatience was shared by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms Short). The project has taken a number of years to develop, and the House is now rightly considering it in fine detail. Everyone directly affected has had the opportunity to petition and to be heard by the Select Committee.
    Justifiable tributes were paid by hon. Members on both sides of the House to the way in which the Select Committee—under the able chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Sir A. Durant)—listened carefully to the petitions and responded in a practical and sympathetic way. The Committee has
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    proposed many important changes. Where it has not done so, the matter must be regarded as settled as far as this House is concerned.
    Sir Michael Neubert: I am sorry to intrude on my hon. Friend when he is short of time, but I do so on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), who is away on ministerial duties. The Committee recommended that the route should be varied and should deviate 20 m south of the line proposed in the Bill as it passes through Rainham. That is not specifically mentioned now. Has there been an omission?
    Mr. Watts: All the matters on which the Committee made a recommendation have been covered by our response. The instructions before the House relate to matters that the Committee does not already have adequate powers to consider and take forward. I appreciate that a number of hon. Members would like more changes, but the suggestions have all had a fair run before the Select Committee.
    The Committee is quasi-judicial, which means that its decisions and recommendations carry special weight, but the promoters' approach to the Committee's announcements on 20 July was—as far as possible—to deliver what the Committee sought. In undertaking the further development work, new problems and opportunities invariably arise. It was therefore important to look not only at the letter of what the Committee sought but at the underlying explicit and implicit objectives. We were loth to reject decisions, and where problems arose we sought other ways of achieving what the Committee wanted. At the end of September, the Government published their detailed response to the Select Committee; it is now for the Committee to decide whether it is content.
    The hon. Member for Ladywood accused the Government of seeking to "nobble" the Committee. I commend to her the transcript of the proceedings of the Select Committee on 24 October—day 57 of the proceedings—in which the Chairman of the Committee quoted the Secretary of State's letter of 23 October to him. The letter reaffirms the Government's recognition of the quasi-judicial role of the Select Committee, of the chairman's independence and of not constraining the Committee's work. The Chairman said that he had no more to say on the subject; nor do I.
    The hon. Lady also raised the report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has written to the Chairman of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey), to give the Government's response to the Committee's report, which was published on 25 July. Copies of the letter were sent to hon. Members concerned and placed in the Library.
    The Government are prepared to consider afresh how a scheme might operate to implement the Committee's recommendation that redress could be granted to those affected to an extreme and exceptional degree by generalised blight from the CTRL between June 1990 and April 1994. We must look at the costs, which cannot yet be established. The response is out of respect for the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration Select Committee and for the office of the Parliamentary Commissioner, and without any admission of fault or liability.

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    The hon. Lady asked me about Eurostar services beyond London. European Passenger Services expects to begin these services in the first half of 1996.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Medway (Dame P. Fenner) mentioned the M2 proposals and their concurrency with the construction of the CTRL. I can tell her that there is no foundation to the report relating to the M2 in today's edition of the Daily Mail.
    Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: I understand that, if preliminary work has not been carried out on the Wennington-Mardyke section of the A13 before the channel tunnel rail link has been constructed, the Government will have to pay heavy compensation. Can the Minister clarify that? Will he write to me on the matter, as it is not clear whether the section will go ahead or what the consequences would be if it did not?
    Mr. Watts: I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are well seized of the significance of the A13 scheme to the CTRL project, and I shall write to him in due course on that matter.
    We recognise the advantages of a co-ordinated approach to the M2 schemes, to the construction of the CTRL and to construction of the projects within the same time scale. That is why the M2-A2 scheme was originally included in the CTRL legislation. I can assure the House that the Government will use all reasonable endeavours to ensure that the M2-A2 widening works are completed within the same period as the CTRL, and that the construction arrangements for the two projects are co-ordinated.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Medway also raised the generic issues that are to be addressed by the Committee, including those related to blight compensation. There is no instruction to the Committee on this matter because it needs no new instruction. The Committee already has the power to look at such matters and make recommendations. I understand that the Committee has heard a great deal of evidence on the matter already, and it is not ready to make recommendations. When it does, we shall consider them, but it would be premature for me to prejudge what the Committee might recommend.
    The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Sir J. Stanley) mentioned freight and the CTRL. The Committee asked for the freight loops at Charing and Singlewell and for the connection to the Dollands Moor freight yard to be constructed according to the same time scale as the main project to allow the rail link to carry as much freight as possible. We have accepted that recommendation, and given the Committee an undertaking that will be binding on the nominated undertaker.
    My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling also raised—he has done so assiduously on many occasions—the problems of blight, and he referred to the new voluntary, purchase arrangements introduced in July. For the first time, we are to bring the arrangements for new rail projects into line with those for roads. In fact, before these proposals were made, there was no provision for dealing with new rail projects in terms of voluntary purchase arrangements. Other matters concerning blight compensation are for the Committee to consider and to
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    make recommendations. We will respond to the Committee,, but I should not prejudge its recommendations.
    My right hon. Friend also raised the proposals of Central Rail Group to construct the new freight line, but that would have to be brought forward under the provisions of the Transport and Works Act 1992. If that happens, the House will have the opportunity to reach a decision on the principal project before it proceeds to any inquiry.
    Mr. Wilson: The Minister is coming towards the end of his remarks. Will he answer my questions about the value of cash and assets to be handed over to the private sector?
    Mr. Watts: No. I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman, as I shall write to any hon Member to whom I have not had time to respond in the debate. The hon. Gentleman's queries do not relate to the order, and I think that I should continue to spend my time on that.
    The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) mentioned the approach to St. Pancras. The Select Committee asked for a different arrangement for the approach to St. Pancras from that originally proposed in the Bill. It has now agreed to consider both the modified Baxter scheme, as it is called, and the promoter's developed scheme in the new year. We welcome that decision and we expect to introduce the additional provisions for both schemes in early December.
    I can assure the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury that both schemes will be dealt with in an even-handed way, so that both the Committee and those who may wish to petition it have the fullest possible opportunity to appraise their relative merits. I will also seek to make available as much information as possible as early as possible to assist the petitioners.
    The cost of petitioning was raised by the hon. Members for Barking (Ms Hodge), for Islington, South and Finsbury and others. It is not a matter that we can control, because the cost of it is standard and is set by the House.
    We believe that the Baxter scheme had some significant defects in operational terms, as well as it presenting some major difficulties in the construction phase. That is why Union Railways developed an alternative that we now believe to be better environmentally and superior in both its operations and construction. It also meets the key objectives of the Baxter scheme and, in particular, reduces the impact on Caledonian road and the traders and others who live there. It is also significantly cheaper than the modified Baxter scheme, although that is not an overwhelming consideration.
    It will be for the Select Committee to take a view as to which of the options should finally be chosen. I can assure the House that there will be no attempt at ministerial interference in the Committee's deliberations. I gave that assurance on Second Reading, and I am happy to repeat it.
    When the Baxter scheme was worked on sufficiently to prepare an additional provision, its construction and operational difficulties became more apparent than they had been during the Select Committee's deliberations. That was the driving force behind the production of the promoters' developed scheme.
    The hon. Member for Barking paid a well-deserved tribute to the Select Committee and its work.

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    My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) raised the question of Boxley valley. We have promised to continue consultation on the landscaping and mitigation for the route of the rail link through the Boxley valley, in line with the Select Committee's recommendation. I understand that Union Railways has had a series of discussions in the past few months with the local authorities and parish councils directly concerned—
    It being one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Order [27 October].
    Question agreed to
    Resolved,
    That further proceedings on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill shall be suspended until the next Session of Parliament;
    That if a Bill is presented in the next Session in the same terms as those in which the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill stood when proceedings on it were suspended in this Session—

    (a) the Bill shall be ordered to be printed and shall be deemed to have been read the first and second time;

    (b) the Bill shall stand committed to a Select Committee of the same Members as the Members of the Committee in this Session;

    (c) all Petitions presented in this Session which stand referred to the Committee and which have not been withdrawn shall stand referred to the Committee in the next Session;

    (d) any Minutes of Evidence taken and any papers laid before the Committee in this Session which have been reported to the House shall stand referred to the Committee in the next Session;

    (e) only those Petitions mentioned in paragraph (c) above, and any Petition which may be presented by being deposited in the Private Bill Office and in which the Petitioners complain of any proposed additional provision or of any matter which has arisen during the progress of the Bill before the Committee in the next Session, shall stand referred to the Committee;

    (f) any Petitioner whose Petition stands referred to the Committee in the next Session shall, subject to the Rules and Orders of the House and to the Prayer of his Petition, be entitled to be heard by himself, his Counsel or Agents upon his Petition provided that it is prepared and signed in conformity with the Rules and Orders of the House, and the Member in charge of the Bill shall be entitled to be heard by his Counsel or Agents in favour of the Bill against that Petition;

    (g) the Committee shall have power to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report from day to day the Minutes of Evidence taken before it;

    (h) three shall be the Quorum of the Committee;

    (i) any person registered in this Session as a parliamentary agent entitled to practise as such in opposing Bills only who, at the time when proceedings on the Bill were suspended in this Session, was employed in opposing. the Bill shall be deemed to have been registered as such a parliamentary agent in the next Session;

    (j) the Standing Orders and practice of the House applicable to the Bill, so far as complied with in this Session, shall be deemed to have been complied with in the next Session; and

    (k) if the Bill is reported from a Select Committee in the next Session, it shall thereupon stand re-committed to a Standing Committee.

    That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House.
    MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to Order [27 October], to put the Question on the second motion.
    Question agreed to
    Resolved,
    That it be an instruction to the Select Committee to which the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill is committed in the next Session—
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    (1) that it have power to consider—

    (a) alternatives to the provision which is now made in the Bill regarding the approach of the rail link to St. Pancras station from the west of Highbury Corner;

    (b) the provision of rail sidings on the Midland Main Line on the western edge of the King's Cross Railway Lands;

    (c) the relocation of Tarmac plc's existing concrete-batching facilities to a site in the north-west corner of the King's Cross Railway Lands;

    (d) alterations to the provision which is now made in the Bill regarding railways in the throat of St. Pancras station in the vicinity of the Regent's Canal;

    (e) alterations to the provision which is now made in the Bill regarding diversion of the Camden sewer;

    (f) the provision of an additional road into the King's Cross Railway Lands from York Way, in the London Borough of Camden;

    (g) alterations to the provision which is now made in the Bill regarding ticket halls and subways of the London Underground Railways;

    (h) the provision of a sewer forming a diversion of the St. Pancras sewer;

    (i) alterations to the table in paragraph 1 of Schedule 7 to the Bill (buildings authorised to be demolished), so far as relating to the London Borough of Camden;

    (j) the running through a tunnel of so much of the rail link as lies between Barrington Road, in the London Borough of Newham, and Dagenham Dock, in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham;

    (k) works required in connection with the accommodation of the easterly portal of the main London tunnel;

    (l) the undertaking of additional overhead line diversions in the vicinity of the A13 in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and the London Borough of Havering;

    (m) realignment overground of the rail link and Tilbury Loop Railway in the vicinity of the Mardyke Park housing estate at Thurrock, in the county of Essex, and associated works;

    (n) the provision of additional roads in the vicinity of Crowbridge Road, Ashford, in the county of Kent;

    (o) the provision of sidings on the Ashford to Canterbury Railway to the east of the River Stour at Ashford, in the county of Kent;

    (p) alterations to the provision which is now made in the Bill regarding the junction of the rail link and the Eurotunnel Railway at Folkestone, in the county of Kent;

    (q) alterations to the provision which is now made in the Bill regarding planning permission for development authorised by Part I;

    (r) alterations and additions to the provision which is now made in the Bill regarding the compulsory acquisition of easements and other rights over land by the grant of new rights;

    (s) the disposal of land acquired for the purposes of or in connection with the works authorised by Part I;

    (t) the inclusion of additional land within the limits of land to be acquired or used; and

    (u) additional power to stop up highways in connection with the construction of the A2 and M2 improvement works;
    and, if it thinks fit, to make Amendments to the Bill with respect to any of the matters mentioned above, and for connected purposes;

    (2) that any Petition against Amendments to the Bill which the Select Committee mentioned in paragraph (1) above is empowered by that paragraph to make shall be referred to that Select Committee if—

    (a) it is presented by being deposited in the Private Bill Office not later than the end of the period of four weeks beginning with the day on which the first newspaper notice of the Amendments was published or, if that period includes any time during which the House is adjourned for more than four days, not later than five weeks beginning with that day, and

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    (b) it is one in which the Petitioners pray to be heard by themselves, their Counsel or Agents;

    That it be an instruction to the Clerk of Private Bills that, on receiving an original copy of the first newspaper notice of any Amendments to the Bill which the Select Committee to which the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill is committed in the next Session is empowered by paragraph (1) of the above instruction to make, he shall publish the date of the notice in the Private Business paper.
    That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House.

    STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.).

    PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUENCIES (NORTHERN IRELAND)
    That the draft Parliamentary Constituencies (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, which was laid before this House on 16th October, be approved.—[Mr. Willetts.]
    Question agreed to.

    EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 102(9) (European Standing Committees).

    TELEVISION
    That this House takes note of European Community Document No. 7942/95, relating to television; and supports the Government's approach to the negotiations on the proposed amendment.—[Mr. Willetts.]
    Question agreed to.

  PETITION

    Ambulance Cover (Kyle of Lochalsh)
    7.21 pm
    Mr. Charles Kennedy: I wish to present a constituency petition to the House on behalf of constituents and residents in the area of Lochalsh in Ross-shire. They have collected nearly 700 signatures requesting that local ambulance cover should be maintained in the Kyle of Lochalsh with the establishment of a permanent base.
    The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons instruct the Scottish Ambulance Service trust accordingly.
    And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
    To lie upon the Table

    Mrs. Brenda Price
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Willeas.]
    7.22 pm
    Mr. Jerry Hayes: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to raise what I consider to be probably the worst miscarriage of justice I have ever encountered in my 12 years in the House.
    Mr. Brian Wilson: Since you were dropped from "The James Whale Show".
    Mr. Hayes: I hear the hon. Gentleman's jocular aside, but this is a serious matter, concerning my constituent, Mrs. Brenda Price.
    In 1991, Mrs. Price was accused by the Spanish authorities of being involved in drug smuggling. Some 18 months later, a warrant was executed, but the evidence, as far as we know what it is—the crux of the case—is flimsy.
    In 1993, the Spanish authorities wanted Mrs. Price to be extradited on the basis of the charges against her. The Spanish authorities acted rightly and properly, and within their rights—that is what the relevant treaty says. She was taken to Holloway prison and imprisoned without bail for several weeks. Eventually, because of the efforts of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Home Office, she was eventually granted bail. The trouble is that the Spanish authorities could not or would not get their act together.
    The charges were dropped, and Mrs. Price thought, understandably, that that was the end of the matter. She had been imprisoned in Holloway without bail, and accused of a serious offence, but the charges had been dropped by the Spanish authorities, and the warrant was cancelled.
    A few weeks ago, Mrs. Price and her husband went on a day trip to Calais. They crossed over to Belgium, but, on doing so, she was arrested under the old warrant issued by the Spanish authorities, which wanted her to be extradited.
    I find Mrs. Price's treatment extremely worrying, not least because of a letter from the then Minister of State, Home Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack). Incidentally, I am delighted to note that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State is to reply to the debate, because he is one of the most conscientious and able Ministers in the House.
    My right hon. Friend's predecessor wrote to me:
    "As you know Mrs. Price was discharged by the Metropolitan magistrate at Bow Street as the Spanish authorities had decided not to pursue Mrs. Price's extradition at this time. We share her Solicitor's concern that Mrs. Price was detained for so long in respect of an extradition request that was not pursued—although I must stress that in acting as they did the Spanish authorities did nothing that they were not entitled to do—and we will be registering this concern with them."
    Mrs. Price, as a free British citizen, quite properly felt she could go to France. She was subsequently arrested, however, and is now in gaol there. Her husband, Sam Price, has not been allowed to see her recently, and, as far as one can understand, will not be allowed to see her for the next three months.

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    It is not for any of us to determine whether someone is guilty or innocent. What the case is about is getting authorities, such as the Spanish Ministry of Justice, to get their act together. Why should a British citizen be languishing in a French gaol—she may stay there for a number of months to come—unless those authorities have the evidence to keep her there?
    I am not criticising the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or the Home Office, which have been extremely helpful. I urge my right hon. Friend, however, to say to the Spanish authorities, "If you have evidence against this woman, bring it to us now." Mrs. Price's lawyer in France has told me that she cannot make a bail application on her behalf until that evidence is furnished by the Spanish Ministry of Justice. That is as gross an affront to justice as any occurring anywhere in the world.
    I know that my right hon. Friend will do his utmost to get the Spanish authorities to act. He will remember the case of the British lorry driver, Roy Clarke, who spent 20 months in custody only to be acquitted. The case of Brenda Price is far worse, because no evidence has been brought against my constituent.
    Mrs. Price is not alone. It has been estimated by that splendid organisation, Fair Trials Abroad, which has compiled a fascinating report which I am sure that my right hon. Friend has read, that there are probably 15,000 Mrs. Prices throughout Europe.
    Why is that? It is because there is no concept of Euro-bail. People are languishing in foreign gaols simply because the authorities are unable or unwilling—or too incompetent—to get their act together, and they will not furnish the necessary evidence. That is a gross miscarriage of justice, and such cases happen all the time. I ask my right hon. Friend to raise the matter at the Council of Ministers. I know that the Home Office has been reluctant to do that in the past, but Euro-bail should be discussed.
    I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to a report by Fair Trials Abroad which says that the number of foreigners in serious trouble outside their own countries is surprising. In 1993, the figure was over 45,000, with over 15,000 on remand. A high proportion are EU citizens. The numbers will continue to grow rapidly as the full effects of freedom of movement and other factors come into play.
    Almost all the cases that Fair Trials Abroad knows of in which some sort of miscarriage of justice is likely to have occurred contain an element of discrimination. It is satisfied that the discrimination involved in provisional liberty, foreign evidence and lack of proper interpretation constitute the major current threats to the pursuit suit of justice for EU citizens.
    Bail discrimination is an affront to justice, because it involves prejudice. Council of Europe statistics suggest that there are thousands of EU citizens on remand in Europe's prisons at any one time who are affected. A foreign accused is invariably dependent on some form of foreign evidence during investigation and trial. For such evidence, he will be dependent on the procedures of European co-operation. Those procedures are ineffective. Up to 1,000 miscarriages of justice will occur annually in any one year from this cause alone.
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    Before my right hon. Friend moves too far towards to my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), I should say that I am about to conclude. I should not like to catch my right hon. Friend the Minister unawares, because I know that he has been listening most carefully. I ask him to do everything he can, in co-operation with the Foreign Office, to get the evidence from the Spanish justice department. If they cannot, this woman should be released.
    It is interesting that the Spanish representative, the President of the Council of Justice Ministers, has stated that the problem of Euro-bail needs to be dealt with as a priority. Even the Spanish are saying that. It is important that every channel is used to persuade these people to either put up or shut up.
    This is a grave miscarriage of justice. I urge my right hon. Friend to do everything he possibly can, not just for Mrs. Brenda Price but for the 15,000 or so others like her in the European Union, and for people like Roy Clarke who have languished in gaol. I ask my right hon. Friend to do what he can.
    7.33 pm
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean): I have listened carefully to what my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes) said. He raised a number of concerns about the extradition request made by Spain to France in relation to one of his constituents, Mrs. Brenda Price, who was arrested near Dunkirk on 5 October when travelling through France with her husband and son. I hope that my hon. Friend will understand if I reply in detail to the points he has made.
    Mrs. Price is at present being held at the Maison d'Arrêt in Loos. Before I turn to particular concerns, it may be helpful if I explain the general background to the case.
    Extradition is the mechanism for returning fugitives to the country where an alleged offence has been committed, for the fugitive to be tried in a court of law. Extradition among all European Union countries apart from Belgium is covered by the Council of Europe convention on extradition. The convention lays down a common standard and common procedures for handling extradition requests between European countries which have signed and ratified it.
    Under the convention, there is no requirement for a requesting state to make a prima facie case in support of an extradition request. All that the requesting country has to provide is an authenticated copy of an arrest warrant, a statement of the offences for which extradition has been requested, a copy of the relevant laws in the requesting country, and identification evidence. This material is usually considered by a court, in England and Wales a magistrates court, before a decision is made to issue an arrest warrant.
    Under the Extradition Act 1989, which implements the UK's obligations under the European convention, there is an alternative procedure which may be used in emergencies—for example, where a fugitive offender is likely to leave the country.
    Under the emergency procedure, the requesting country can, through Interpol channels, request the provisional arrest of a fugitive. The requesting country must provide evidence that a case exists which is sufficient for a Bow

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    street magistrate to issue a provisional arrest warrant. It should be noted that a decision by a court to issue a provisional arrest warrant is not a final decision. The requesting state has to back up the request with full supporting documents. If it does not, the arrest warrant will be discharged.
    Once the fugitive is arrested, the requesting country has to provide documents in support of its extradition request within statutory deadlines. In the case of European convention countries, the documents must be provided within 40 days.
    A country can issue an Interpol red notice, which alerts other countries that a person is wanted in that country to face charges, and should be arrested if located. The UK often receives such requests from other countries for British and other nationals. Indeed, the majority of requests we receive—around 70 per cent. of all cases—are initiated by an Interpol red notice and a provisional arrest.
    As my hon. Friend will appreciate, extradition requests, by their very nature, involve individuals who have already crossed international boundaries. It is an essential element in the success of the fight against crime internationally that those individuals wanted in connection with criminal offences in one country can be arrested before they have a chance to escape to yet another country.
    In this connection, my hon. Friend has questioned why he was not notified if the Spanish authorities had renewed their extradition request for Mrs. Price. He will appreciate that, by their very nature, extradition requests involve alleged offences against a person who has crossed international boundaries. Great care is therefore taken that the person is not alerted, in order to preclude any risk that he or she will flee the country. I make those general points by way of background, because they are pertinent to the case of Mrs. Price.
    Mrs. Price was the subject of an extradition request from Spain to the UK in 1993. The request from Spain was made through the emergency procedure for Mrs. Price's provisional arrest to face charges relating to the trafficking of 940 kg of cannabis. The Spanish provided information about the drug trafficking operation, and stated that an arrest warrant for Mrs. Price and others had been issued in Spain on 8 October 1992. That information was put before the magistrate at Bow street magistrates court, and he was invited to issue a provisional arrest warrant. He issued the warrant on 7 January 1993, and Mrs. Price was arrested on 13 January.
    As is usual in such cases, the Spanish authorities were notified of Mrs. Price's arrest, and were informed that they had 40 days in which to provide documents in accordance with the European convention on extradition in support of their extradition request. However, the Spanish authorities failed to send the necessary supporting documents within the 40 days, as required under the international convention, and Mrs. Price was discharged.
    I pause at this stage to make two points in answer to the concerns raised by my hon. Friend. As he is aware, the United Kingdom Government were concerned that what I have called the emergency procedure was used when there was, as it turned out, no evidence that Mrs. Price was an emergency case—that is, that she was about to flee the country—and when the Spanish authorities had not finished preparing the paperwork.
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    The then Home Office Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), informed my hon. Friend by letter of those concerns in the following terms:
    "We share her solicitor's concern that Mrs. Price was detained for so long in respect of an extradition request which was not pursued—although I must stress that in acting as they did the Spanish authorities did nothing that they were not entitled to do—and we will be registering this concern with them."
    We wrote to the Spanish authorities about that aspect of the case in May 1993, and received confirmation from Spain that our concerns had been noted, together with an explanation as to why the Spanish authorities had not followed up the extradition request. They decided to await the outcome of the trial of Mrs. Price's co-defendants, which took place in May 1993. Had they been found not guilty, no doubt the request for Mrs. Price would have been dropped. In fact, the four defendants were convicted and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment and fined 65 million pesetas—or £336,000 in real money.
    My second point is to stress that Mrs. Price was released from custody, and the provisional arrest warrant discharged, solely because Spain did not produce the necessary documents within the time limits. At no time was the Spanish request refused, and it was open to Spain to make a second request to the United Kingdom or to any other country where Mrs. Price was found. Those points were explained to my hon. Friend at the time.
    In his second reply of 22 April 1993 to letters from my hon. Friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde stated:
    "As you know Mrs. Price was discharged by the Metropolitan magistrate at Bow Street as the Spanish authorities decided not to pursue Mrs. Price's extradition at this time".
    I repeat and emphasise that the Spanish authorities did not drop Mrs. Price's case: they simply decided not to pursue it further at that time. I emphasise that point, because it appears from correspondence sent on behalf of Mrs. Price to the Home Office that Mrs. Price was under the misapprehension that the discharge of the provisional arrest warrant in 1993 was the end of the matter, and that the Spanish authorities had given up their intention to seek her extradition. That was and is not the case. If Mrs. Price was advised differently, I am sorry to say that she was badly advised. We, for our part, stated the matter clearly in the letter to my hon. Friend.
    The Interpol red notice for Mrs. Price's arrest continued to be in force, and it was on that notice that Mrs. Price was arrested in France on 5 October this year. As her extradition was not rejected by the United Kingdom, there was no reason why that should not have occurred. The United Kingdom police were not acting on that notice, because, as is usual practice in such cases, once a provisional arrest warrant has been discharged by the authorities of a state, the requesting authority must make a request with full supporting documents the next time it seeks extradition from that state.
    The French authorities were perfectly entitled to act on the Interpol red notice. Had the United Kingdom authorities been put in a similar position, they would have acted in the same way—and rightly so. It is in the nature of the emergency procedure that action must be taken on Interpol information. No consideration can, or indeed should, be expected to be given to detailed facts, such as whether a person is only on a day trip. All sorts of false stories could be given by those fleeing justice.

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    The procedure provides opportunities in court and, by way of representations to Ministers at a later stage, for deciding such issues. I put it to my hon. Friend that, if we were to change the procedures to accommodate those views, we would fundamentally undermine the workings of Interpol.
    In Mrs. Price's case, the next stage under the convention is for the requesting state, Spain, to submit all the necessary documents to the French authorities within 40 days, and for the French authorities to consider the request. I understand that the French authorities have received some papers from Spain, and are now in the process of considering them. If, for any reason, the Spanish request cannot be complied with, no doubt Mrs. Price will be free to return to the United Kingdom.
    However, I must emphasise that those matters are for the Spanish and French authorities. It is not for the United Kingdom to intervene, any more than a foreign country would attempt to intervene in or influence a request from a second country to the United Kingdom about a national of that country.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow has raised a number of other concerns in the past, and he did so again this evening. He is concerned that 18 months had elapsed since the date of the alleged offence to the date of the request from Spain to the United Kingdom in 1993. My hon. Friend may be aware that undue delay in making a request is a factor to which Ministers and the courts must have regard when considering whether to make an extradition order in any particular case.
    However, undue delay must take into account, among other factors, the time required for the police and prosecuting authorities to pursue their inquiries and go through the proper procedures. When the crime is serious or when, as in this case, a number of individuals are involved, the time for completing those procedures may be quite lengthy. In this case, Ministers and the courts never addressed the issue, because the warrant was discharged after 40 days.
    My hon. Friend has also expressed concern that Mrs. Price is being held in custody in France, and, if returned to Spain, may be held for some time in prison on remand there. The question of bail is, of course, a matter for the courts in those countries, in the same way that the decision whether to bail a French or Spanish national charged with offences in the United Kingdom or wanted for extradition would be a matter for our courts. A key issue, of course, is whether the offender will answer to that bail at the relevant time, but that is not the only issue. Courts will also have regard to the seriousness of the offence and any likely sentence if found guilty.
    What is called "Euro-bail" would be a benefit only in cases where the only reason for not granting bail is the likelihood of absconding. As such, it is of limited application, and raises more problems in relation to the harmonisation of judicial decisions across Europe than any remedy it might provide. Bail is at present a question for the French courts, and I do not believe that we should seek to interfere in their decision. We would resent it if they tried to interfere in any decision that we might make.
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    What the United Kingdom can do in this case—and what we are doing—is provide consular support to Mrs. Price and her family. I am pleased that my hon. Friend paid a generous tribute to the Foreign Office, which is often maligned in the House—at times, by this Minister. British consular officials became aware of Mrs. Price's arrest when her husband sought help from the honorary consul in Dunkirk. He was then referred to the British consulate-general in Lille.
    Mr. Price went to the consulate-general on 6 October where he was helped with the formalities of applying for a permit to visit his wife. On the same day, Mrs. Linda Trigot, the pro-consul, applied to the court for a permit to visit Mrs. Price. Later on 6 October, Mrs. Trigot was told by the social worker at the prison that Mrs. Price was very upset, and wanted to see a consular officer. On Monday 9 October, Mrs. Trigot contacted the Substitut General, Mlle Woyal, at the Court of Appeal, and asked for authority to make an early visit to Mrs. Price. That was exceptionally granted by telephone, and the visit took place later that day. During the visit, Mrs. Trigot handed over clothing for Mrs. Price that had been left by her husband.
    Mrs. Trigot delivered a second parcel of clothing on 17 October, and a third was delivered to Mrs. Price on 27 October.
    Mr. Price has contacted the consulate-general on numerous occasions since his wife's arrest. He has been given information on the French legal and prison systems. He was also told how he could send money to his wife for prison comforts, either through the FCO or direct through the French post office.
    On 20 October, consular staff checked with the Court of Appeal on whether Mr. Price's visit permit had been issued. Mlle Woyal said that she was not in a position to make a decision as she had not yet completed her study of the documents that she had received from Spain. She did, however, call back later that same day to say that she would allow the visit, which was arranged for 26 October. Mr. Price called the consulate-general on 26 October to say that he had seen his wife, who was well.
    I understand that Mr. Price is now anxious to obtain a permanent visit permit. As he has been advised by the consulate-general, that is a matter for Mr. Price's private French lawyer, Maitre Robert Thompson, to pursue. I understand that Maitre Thompson is in contact with Mrs. Price, and visited her on 20 October.
    I can assure my hon. Friend, as he will be aware from the catalogue of concern that has been displayed by the Foreign Office in its contacts with Mr. and Mrs. Price, that consular staff will continue to help where appropriate.
    I hope that my hon. Friend will be satisfied, from the full and detailed explanation that I have given him, that all the proper procedures have been carried out in the United Kingdom; that we believe that Spain and France are following the procedures in the European convention; and that the British Government, through our consulate-general's office, are giving every assistance to Mrs. Price.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Adjourned accordingly at nine minutes to Eight o'clock.