Commons Sitting of 26 March 1998

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT
  The Secretary of State was asked—
  EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

    Private Finance Initiative
    Mr. Bill O'Brien: If he will make a statement on the application of the PFI to the provision of new schools. [34894]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Dr. Kim Howells): Following the successful award of the first PFI contract to replace Colfox school in Dorset, the Government have not stood still. We have recently announced support for a further 10 schools projects with a total capital value of almost £200 million. In addition, we are currently assessing proposals from local education authorities for five large-scale public-private partnership projects to be supported with funding through the new deal for schools. Projects under way and being considered represent a mixture of new schools, replacement schools and the repair and maintenance of schools. In every case, value for money in meeting need is a prime consideration.
    Mr. O'Brien: I thank my hon. Friend for his reply and for the outline of what the Government are doing about the replacement of schools. I should like to take this opportunity to thank him for the many other instances of help that he gives to Back-Bench Members. May I put to him the position of Wrenthorpe junior school in my constituency? It is 100 years old, decrepit and falling down. It is in a terrible state and needs to be replaced. If we cannot replace it through ordinary funding to the LEA, would it be possible to consider using the private finance initiative to replace that school?
    Dr. Howells: Many local authorities are developing public-private partnerships to refurbish and repair their schools and many more are planning to do so. The projects range from individual primary school replacements to repair and maintenance schemes covering whole school estates. It is an exciting initiative and I welcome imaginative proposals from Wakefield LEA to use public-private partnerships to improve the standards in its schools.
    Mr. Gray: The heads of governors and headmasters in Malmesbury, Chippenham and Wootton Bassett in my
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    constituency who are currently working on a £21 million PFI bid will have been pleased to hear the Minister's support for the use of PFI in rebuilding schools. Will the Minister have a word with his unreconstructed socialist friends who run Swindon borough council and who are reported in the papers this morning as saying that they are wholly opposed to the Labour Government's use of PFI?
    Dr. Howells: They have not told us that and, if they do, I will have a few words to say to them.
    Mr. White: As the Minister will be aware, my local authority has to build 15 new schools in the next five years and such schools can be built only with the use of the PFI. Will my hon. Friend consider innovative ways of involving the private sector in a lifelong learning project that is not just about schools?
    Dr. Howells: That is an important consideration. We want schools that are rebuilt and refurbished so that they can meet the needs of the communities that they serve. That means we need all sorts of imaginative approaches to PFI and PPP schemes. The initiative can be a positive bonus and guarantee streams of funding for the schools. It can mean that schools will be built more quickly and tailored more precisely to the needs of their communities.

    Assisted Places
    Mrs. Lait: How many children whose assisted places have been withdrawn he estimates will return to the state sector in the academic year 1998–99. [34895]
    The Minister for School Standards (Mr. Stephen Byers): Fewer than 200 children currently in their last year of primary education will cease to hold an assisted place in the academic year 1998–99. With the money released from the phasing out of the scheme, we will cut class sizes this September for more than 100,000 five, six and seven-year-olds.
    Mrs. Lait: I hope that the Minister does not find that that is underestimate. Can he tell me how local education authorities whose schools are already full will be able to find places? Is he aware that, in Bromley, more than 900 pupils from out of the borough cram into already full schools? The trickle that started after the Greenwich ruling had turned into a flood long before selection was introduced a year ago. How can LEAs provide high-quality education when their schools are already at their limit?
    Mr. Byers: The hon. Lady will be aware—if she was with us during the long hours of Tuesday night and Wednesday morning—that one of the reasons for the difficulties experienced in Bromley is the system of partial selection that has been introduced by some schools in the area. The measures adopted in the House on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning will enable us to tackle the difficulties and chaos caused by partial selection, as we will be able to operate a fair admissions policy in Bromley and across the country.
    Mr. Hanson: Does my hon. Friend agree that those who choose to opt out of the state system should not do

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    so at the taxpayers' expense, and that the £22 million-plus that he will save by abolition of the assisted places scheme will benefit all the children of Britain and not only a select few?
    Mr. Byers: One of the key themes that ran through the general election campaign was that—unlike the Conservative party—the Labour party was prepared to defend the interests of the many and not the privileges of the few. The assisted places scheme was one of the prime examples of defending the privileges of the few. There is no doubt in the minds of most reasonable-thinking people that it is far better to spend public money on the needs of 500,000 five, six and seven-year-olds in large classes than to defend the privileged position of 38,000 people in private schools.
    Mr. Dorrell: Will the Minister confirm that his plans for ending the assisted places scheme make absolutely no provision for meeting the cost of providing maintained education for children who might previously have had an assisted place, and that the potential cost of that commitment is £100 million? Will he also confirm that his plans for delivering a maximum class size of 30 for five, six or seven-year-olds will necessitate employment of another 2,300 teachers, at a cost of £60 million? Will he also confirm that those plans for five, six and seven-year-olds will involve capital expenditure that has been estimated at £100 million? Has he yet worked out how to meet that bill for up to £260 million out of total spending on the assisted places scheme of £120 million—or is he planning on taking advice from the Liberal Democrats on how to spend the same money many times over?
    Mr. Byers: The right hon. Gentleman himself has clearly taken a leaf out of the Liberal Democrats' Treasury book, because he is playing with fantasy figures.
    Mr. Dorrell: Which one is wrong?
    Mr. Byers: I am afraid that it is not a matter of which one is wrong—all three are wrong. [Interruption.] If the right hon. Gentleman will listen, I shall explain why. I disagree with the £100 million estimated cost of educating in the maintained system young people who will not be able to use the assisted places scheme. I should be very interested to see his figures supporting that contention. As we said very clearly—as the Chancellor of the Exchequer said last week in the Budget—there will be additional capital funding for the assisted places scheme, and we will ensure that our pledge to deliver class sizes of 30 or fewer for every five, six and seven-year-old will be delivered from the money that we will get from phasing out the assisted places scheme. We are not fighting old battles; we are ensuring we can cut class sizes for all five, six and seven-year-olds. We will do it from the money that was used by the previous Government to buy places in the private sector.

    Child Care
    Mr. Quinn: What plans he has to increase child care provision in 1998–99. [34896]
    The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. David Blunkett): In the current year,
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    my Department will allocate an additional £42 million for child care provision, including £10 million for the out-of-school child care initiative—which will provide an additional 20,000 places in the coming year. I am pleased to tell the House that I have allocated £5 million to the Further Education Funding Council, to enable it to provide additional places for child care and creche facilities, so that people can have access to further education.
    Mr. Quinn: I welcome that reply. Will the Secretary of State give special consideration to sparsely populated areas, such as mine in Scarborough and Whitby? Those areas have to build infrastructure, and will require resources, which were not forthcoming over the many years of the previous Government.
    Mr. Blunkett: I am happy to give that assurance. The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Mr. Howarth), and I will examine ways of expanding child care provision in conjunction with nursery provision for four-year-olds—and later for three-year-olds—including the extension of the present disregard under family credit. That is being increased in June from £60 to £100 and will be extended until the September after a child's 12th birthday.
    Mr. Keetch: Does the Secretary of State welcome the establishment just a couple of hours ago of the parliamentary all-party group on child care? Does he agree that affordable, high-quality child care is essential for those who want to move from unemployment to education or training? Is he aware of the grave concerns in the child care industry about the lack of people able to provide adequate child care? What provisions are the Government making to bring more people into running child care establishments and to ensure that they are of good quality?
    Mr. Blunkett: The critical issue is quality. People must have adequate training. We have been working with voluntary and private organisations, as well as the further education sector, to develop what is sometimes described as the climbing frame of qualifications. The Pre-School Learning Alliance already provides basic training, which can be built on. We are also considering how the one-parent family initiative can help those who are gaining skills in child care as parents to extend those skills to enable them to take on further child care in their community, providing a service for others and a job for themselves.
    Mr. Derek Foster: The provisions in the Budget and my right hon. Friend's announcement this afternoon are welcome. The measures are crucial to encourage lone parents into work. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if the new deal is to succeed and those lone parents are not to be locked into the low-pay sector, education and training will be equally crucial?
    Mr. Blunkett: Yes. The £5 million that I have announced this afternoon for the Further Education Funding Council will help to make further education accessible, as will the extension of the disregard, which will be an essential part of the working families tax credit system. Together with the child care provision available

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    for job clubs and other activity with the Employment Service, our initiatives are giving new opportunities to lone parents throughout the country.

    Primary Schools
    Dr. Lynne Jones: If he will make a statement on the special needs of primary schools with a high turnover of pupils. [34897]
    Mr. Byers: Primary schools with a high turnover of pupils clearly face particular problems. The Department's draft guidance on education development plans encourages local education authorities to take account of those needs.
    Dr. Jones: I take it from that answer that my hon. Friend accepts that it is difficult to raise standards in schools in which the whole population turns over every three or four years. Will he consider looking at the formula for delegated budgets to provide additional resources for such schools?
    Mr. Byers: My hon. Friend makes an important point. Teachers in such schools face particular difficulties. It would be irresponsible of the Government to ignore their needs. I assure my hon. Friend that, as we examine the local management of schools and the delegation of budgets, we shall take into account the particular needs of primary schools with a high turnover of pupils.
    Mr. Bercow: How does the Minister hope to encourage more people into the teaching profession—which is a laudable objective—when the Government seem intent on weakening the ability of schools to expel the most disruptive pupils? Why does he appear to disagree with Nigel de Gruchy, the general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers, who has said that cases for expulsion should be judged on their merits, not on whether artificial targets will be met?
    Mr. Byers: I will not comment on whether I agree with the general secretary. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] There is a long list of questions on which I disagree with him and it would take far too long to rehearse them to the House.
    The hon. Gentleman raised an important point about exclusions. He will be aware that the Prime Minister established the social exclusion unit, which will make recommendations on the concerns about exclusions in a few days' time. Those will take into account some of the matters that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. It will be more appropriate to await those recommendations.
    As the School Standards and Framework Bill goes to the House of Lords we will have the opportunity, with their Lordships' agreement, to make changes as appropriate. The Government's view is clear: we want to ensure that children can have high-quality education that is not disrupted by unruly individuals.
    Mr. Allan: Will the Minister consider seriously the issue of the clawback of funds when turnover has led to fewer pupils than expected attending a school? At Greystones primary school in my constituency, a clawback of £14,000 has led to a proposed class size of
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    42. Does he agree that clawback is illogical, because one cannot save money simply because there are slightly fewer pupils? One cannot get rid of a bit of a teacher, so the clawback makes no sense.
    Mr. Byers: Obviously, I am not aware of the precise details of the school to which the hon. Gentleman referred, but I can assure him that we are taking action to introduce a far fairer system of funding for schools. A review is being conducted with our colleagues at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, to ensure that we have a fair, transparent and understandable system of funding from central to local government and then, as our local management scheme takes effect, from local government to individual schools.
    We are confident that, by taking that action, we can assure the school to which the hon. Gentleman referred, and schools throughout the country, that they will be treated as a priority and will be funded according to their needs, to help them to raise standards.

    Denominational Schools (Transport)
    Mr. Nicholls: What representations he has received concerning denominational school transport. [34898]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Ms Estelle Morris): My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has received a number of representations about transport to denominational schools from hon. Members, parents, and supporters of Church schools.
    Mr. Nicholls: The Minister will have received representations from Devon because the county council broke a consensus that has existed since 1944 and proposed this year to take away support for denominational school transport. I accept entirely that that is not the Minister's fault and that I could not fairly ask her to give a specific answer today, but I put it to her that the breaking of that consensus will trouble Labour Members every bit as much as it troubles Conservative Members. Will she take the opportunity, in due course, to consider whether we can devise ways of ensuring that no county council can ever do that again?
    Ms Morris: I have some sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman says, and my Department has been monitoring the situation in Devon carefully, and will continue to do so. I am pleased that the proposal has been deferred for at least 12 months. Local authorities have a statutory duty to take account of denominational preference when constructing school transport policies. It is important that they should continue to do that, within the framework of local decision making. We will continue to monitor the situation not only in Devon but in all local authorities.
    Mr. Dorrell: Does the Minister agree that availability of free transport is often the key to converting theoretical choice into a practical option for a family? Will she confirm that the Government are opposed to a reduction in the entitlement to school transport and that, if options such as the one proposed in Devon are considered in other

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    local education authorities, the Government are ready not only to monitor the situation but to take action to ensure that no such reduction goes ahead?
    Ms Morris: The right hon. Gentleman is right in saying that school transport is crucial in families' decisions about where their children should attend school, but it is a bit rich for him to say to the House—
    Mr. Dorrell: You are in government.
    Ms Morris: We are in government, and that is why Devon was able to defer its decision to cut school transport. It could defer the decision because it received £13 million extra from the Government. One of the reasons why local authorities have had to cut back on transport in the past 18 years is that, year after year, they have had to deal with reduced budgets. That has now changed, and we expect the attitude to school transport policy to change as well. We will take action if local authorities fall down on their statutory responsibility.

    Millennium Volunteers
    Mr. Hoyle: How many responses he has received on the consultation document on millennium volunteers; and if he will make a statement. [34899]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Alan Howarth): By the end of the consultation period we had received 533 responses to the separate exercises carried out in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The responses to our proposals were highly positive. I will publish a summary of responses to consultation in England at the end of April.
    Mr. Hoyle: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. What does he expect to be distinctive about millennium volunteers? When does he expect the schemes to start?
    Mr. Howarth: What will make millennium volunteers distinctive will be the provision of high-quality opportunities across the country for young people to make a sustained commitment to a programme of voluntary activity. That will promote active citizenship to the benefit both of communities and of young volunteers, who will learn, develop personally and receive recognition for their achievement. The first schemes will start, as we promised, in the summer.
    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many Conservative Members welcome the millennium volunteers initiative, which follows much of the "Make a Difference" work that we set in hand? Is he also aware, however, of the growing irritation among older people—who make a great contribution to the community and whose needs are not recognised in the new deal—that the Government have little concern for their interests or contributions? I do not want him to think that I have asked that question only because I have reached my own half century.
    Mr. Howarth: I strongly suspect that the right hon. Lady may be misleading the House on the last point.
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    Our commitment to encourage a culture of volunteering among young people in no sense disparages the voluntary activities undertaken by people of all ages and the contribution that they make to our society. In proposing a new compact with the voluntary sector, the Government are very fully committed to promoting voluntary activity right across society. We simply think that it is extremely important that we should, as a Government, take steps to ensure the provision of structures and high-quality opportunities for young people to undertake sustained voluntary activity.

    New Deal (Training)
    Mr. Sheerman: What measures he has introduced to ensure that the training element provided by employers in the new deal programme is of high quality. [34900]
    The Minister for Employment, Welfare to Work and Disability Rights (Mr. Andrew Smith): Quality is crucial to all parts of the new deal—one of the key aspects that sets it apart from previous schemes. I thank my hon. Friend for his close and supportive interest in the new deal and assure him that robust arrangements are in place through personal advisers, the Training Agency, the Further Education Funding Council and the Basic Skills Agency to ensure the high quality that the young and long-term unemployed people deserve.
    Mr. Sheerman: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. He will know of the tremendous enthusiasm for the programme, especially among employers. He will also know that there is a history of training and entry-to-work programmes very soon getting bad reputations, especially under the previous Government, who did not resource them well. Will he make every effort, week by week, to keep a check on quality and feedback from young people, because as soon as there is a hint of poor quality or poor opportunity, word spreads quickly in their peer group?
    Mr. Smith: I can certainly give that commitment. I shall be checking weekly, if not more frequently, in partnership with the bodies to which I referred—the Training Agency, the Basic Skills Agency and the Further Education Funding Council. I should add that—and this is most important—I shall be listening to young people's views. Young people will have drawn up with their personal adviser a personal training plan. Companies will have committed themselves by their signatures to a training agreement. We shall listen to the advice of personal advisers and the feedback from young people. I want to send a very clear message that any falling short of the high quality standards that we are demanding in the new deal will not be tolerated. Any provider that does not meet those standards will not be a new deal provider for much longer.
    Mr. Clifton-Brown: Can the Minister estimate the number of people qualified under the new deal who will enter further and higher education? Will he confirm whether the £5 million that the Secretary of State has announced this afternoon to go into that sector in respect of the new deal will fund the full marginal costs of further and higher education colleges? As the Minister will be aware, there is a considerable financial squeeze on such colleges.
    Mr. Smith: As the new deal is a demand-led and client-centred programme, the number of people who go

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    through the full-time education and training option and will be in further education colleges will depend on the assessment of their needs and on the choices that they make. Ample funds have been allocated within the new deal budget across the lifetime of the Parliament to provide for anticipated levels of demand and to meet the quality standards that I have just said are so important. That will mean something like an extra £400 million across the lifetime of the Parliament for the further education sector—direct provision of full-time education and training places—and about another £300 million for those completing the training part of the environmental task force and voluntary sector options. That is a great investment in the quality of training and education that those young people will receive and it will be a great help to the further education sector.
    Mr. Blizzard: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, a week tomorrow, the new deal in my constituency will be officially launched, and that locally based firms such as Sanyo, Bird's Eye and Shell are fully involved and welcome the insistence on high-quality training that my right hon. Friend has outlined this afternoon, just as the whole constituency—an area that still suffers more than 9 per cent. Unemployment—will welcome the new deal? We are fortunate to have our own delivery unit of the new deal for my constituency. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the same delivery unit will deliver the new deal for the long-term unemployed in a few months' time?
    Mr. Smith: I welcome the work that my hon. Friend and other hon. Members are undertaking to promote the new deal. He is right to bring that new hope and opportunity to young people. It is critical that we obtain the widest possible support from employers, the voluntary sector, environmental groups—indeed, the whole community. I wish him and other hon. Members well with the launch of their new deal locally.
    On the second part of my hon. Friend's question, we shall be consulting the national advisory task force and the advisory group and local partnerships on the most appropriate delivery as well as the design of the new deal for the long-term unemployed.
    Mr. Willetts: Is not the new deal supposed to help in creating jobs and also to minimise negative effects on other groups? Will he confirm that those two objectives have been proposed to him by the task force as a means of evaluating the new deal? Why have his officials told the Select Committee that they intend to reject those two objectives for the new deal? What do they know about the new deal that he does not?
    Mr. Smith: I am pleased to tell the House that the objectives of the new deal are to help into jobs young and long-term unemployed people, and lone parents and disabled people who wish to work, and to improve those people's prospects of staying and progressing in employment. The objective is also to increase the long-term employability of young and long-term unemployed people, and lone parents and disabled people who wish to work, thereby making a positive contribution to achieving sustainable levels of employment and to a reduction in social exclusion. The bottom line is
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    enhancing young people's employability; getting them skills; getting them into jobs; and tackling the dreadful social division that the country inherited from his party.
    Mr. Skinner: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind when he gets attacks or so-called assaults from the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) that he is the man whose second brain has forgotten what his first brain did?
    Mr. Smith: I am pleased to take my hon. Friend's advice.

    Rural Schools
    Mr. Tyler: I: If he will make a statement on his policy on the closure of rural schools. [34901]
    Mr. Byers: Rural schools are a vital part of their communities. We have decided to give them better protection. All proposals for the closure of a rural school will be called in by the Secretary of State for decision. In considering such proposals, there will be a presumption against closure. This presumption will also apply from September 1999 under the new system of school organisation committees and adjudicators.
    Mr. Tyler: As the Minister has just said, this provision will apply only until 1999. Does he recall that his statement, issued just before the countryside march, was labelled "an end to wholesale village school closures"? It is perfectly true that his predecessors managed to close 450 village schools—including many in Cornwall—during a comparatively short period, but there is not a permanent end. If, as it seems, the economic case for closure is his consideration, rather than the educational case, will the Minister confirm that the Secretary of State and the Department will supply the extra resources to LEAs to keep that school open?
    Mr. Byers: We made it clear when the statement was made that the announcement would affect the Secretary of State's role under the existing framework. Under the School Standards and Framework Bill, there will be a new framework for school organisation from September 1999. However, the Secretary of State will lay down guidance as to how the school organisation committees and the adjudicator will exercise their powers. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that guidance will make it clear that there will be a presumption against closure. The key fact must always be the quality and the standard of education that is offered in the individual schools. We believe that, by harnessing the benefits of new technology—and through the national grid for learning, which will ensure that rural schools go on-line—we can provide the breadth of educational experience that rural schools need to ensure and guarantee a continuing increase in the standards of provision in rural and other schools.
    Mrs. Dunwoody: Is my hon. Friend aware that Cheshire has lost large numbers of rural schools precisely because of the argument that there would be so few pupils that the school would not be able to reach the standard required? The very best computer is not a replacement for a teacher in the classroom.
    Mr. Byers: My hon. Friend makes an important point. No fewer than 450 rural primary schools were closed

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    under the previous Government. The key point of the announcement on 28 February was to ensure that there would be a presumption against closure. That does not mean that there will never be a closure of a rural school. It does mean that a strong case will have to be made by the LEA and only in those exceptional circumstances will the presumption against closure be rebutted by the LEA.
    Mrs. Browning: Does the Minister agree that, if he had gone on television on 28 February to announce that, from September 1999, his Government were abolishing the right of proposed closures to go to the Secretary of State on appeal—in effect, that is what he has said will happen—the announcement, on the eve of the countryside march, would have had a different effect? Will he confirm that, from September 1999, Members of this House will still be able to make representations on behalf of their constituents to the Secretary of State if rural primary schools are threatened?
    Mr. Byers: It is worth acknowledging that, at the rate of closure under the previous Government, in excess of 40 rural schools would be closed between now and September 1999. In the School Standards and Framework Bill, we are delegating powers to a local level in terms of school organisation procedure. We feel that that is wholly appropriate because those matters are best taken locally. However, they will be taken in line with the guidance provided by the Secretary of State, which will make it clear that there must be a presumption against closure.

    Child Care
    Mr. Jim Cunningham: How he intends to support the provision of child care in deprived areas. [34902]
    Mr. Alan Howarth: The provision of child care in deprived areas depends on parents being able to afford it. Last week, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the introduction of a new working families tax credit, including a child care tax credit worth up to 70 per cent. of eligible child care costs up to £100 per week for one child and £150 for two children.
    Coupled with our previous announcement of £300 million to expand out-of-school child care provision in every community which needs it over the next five years, and our packages to help lone parents and other unemployed people back into work under the new deal, this will make child care affordable and accessible for many more families, including those in deprived areas.
    Mr. Cunningham: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply, but will he set a time scale for the introduction of child care into deprived areas? Often, when lone parents are employed on low wages, two thirds of the family budget goes on child care.
    Mr. Howarth: My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. For the reason that he gives, we are determined that there should be accessible and affordable child care in every community. The rules that the previous Government drew up for the out-of-school child care initiative effectively discriminated against poor communities by insisting that subsidy for child care places could not be provided for longer than 12 months. That requirement failed to recognise the difficulties that there
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    are in developing and establishing child care provision in areas of disadvantage. We must ensure that potential providers of child care in deprived communities have not only the money but the time to establish themselves, and enough continuity of support to break through into sustainability.

    SEAX Training Centre, Colchester
    10. Mr. Bob Russell: If he will make funds available under the welfare-to-work new deal proposals for the SEAX training centre in Colchester. [34903]
    Mr. Andrew Smith: Last year, Essex county council announced that the SEAX centre in Colchester would close on 31 March 1998. There are no proposals for new deal funding to be made available. If the centre had been viable—I understand that a management buy-out is under consideration—it would have had the same opportunity to seek new deal work as any other local provider, but I cannot earmark funds for SEAX in the way that the hon. Gentleman seeks, because that is not the purpose for which Parliament has voted new deal money.
    Mr. Russell: I regard that answer as very unhelpful. Will the Minister confirm that, as of Tuesday next week, several of my constituents will be out of work? For them, it is not so much welfare to work as work to welfare. Will he confirm that it is the view of all political parties on Essex county council that, if the central Government money was there, the SEAX centre would continue? Will he also confirm that, for 20 years, SEAX has been operating within the democratic framework? Why cannot public money from the new deal find its way into the public sector?
    Mr. Smith: I have already explained that, if SEAX were viable, it would be able to bid for new deal money on the same basis as anyone else. Of course it is a matter of enormous concern when anyone faces losing their job.
    I mentioned the management buy-out. I have sought assurances that the training and enterprise councils will give advice and guidance to those who are pursuing that. I have also been in touch with the Employment Service specifically to request that everything possible is done to help those who may face redundancy. I understand that several of those people have already found jobs with other training providers, and that prospects are quite favourable for the rest. Of course they have my sympathy.
    The hon. Gentleman mentioned the political parties on Essex county council. He may do well to remember that the decision was taken democratically by Essex county council, by an education committee chaired by a Liberal Democrat, and that, when the matter was referred to the full meeting of Essex county council in April last year, the Liberal Democrats voted to block reconsideration of the closure.
    Mr. Rammell: The Minister makes an effective point. I believe that hon. Members are becoming disheartened by consistent attempts by Liberal Democrats first to agree to the new deal, then not to say where the money will come from, and then to disown policies that they have agreed with as a county council.
    In contrast to that, I ask the Minister to welcome the initiatives that are taking place in my constituency, Harlow, where, in a matter of weeks, the new deal is up

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    and running and every eligible young person has already undertaken an interview through the gateway process. That is transforming the life chances of those young people, who are now being given the opportunity of independence and dignity through work and training, in stark contrast to a life on dependency, as was often the case under the previous Government.
    Mr. Smith: I agree with my hon. Friend. He is right about the hope and opportunity that the new deal offers young unemployed and long-term unemployed people, in Essex as elsewhere. He is right about the considerable achievements in the pathfinder areas, and especially about the value of those initial interviews with personal advisers and the fact that young people appreciate that the programme is on their side and really offers them a future.
    Mr. Jenkin: Can I point out to the Minister how regrettable that closure is? The Conservatives on the county council initially opposed the proposal advanced by the Liberal Democrats—
    Mr. Bob Russell: And Labour.
    Mr. Jenkin: And by the Labour party. However, we were unable to reverse the decision because of the draconian local government settlement that the Government have inflicted upon the shire counties. If the Government were serious about keeping such projects going, they would not be robbing Essex of the grant to which it is entitled.
    Mr. Smith: The hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten who was in government when the decision was taken. I can reassure his constituents and others in Essex that, through the new deal and through other Employment Service programmes working with the 70 other training providers in Essex, we shall succeed where the previous Government failed by raising skill standards and getting people into jobs.

    Independent Boarding Schools
    11. Mr. Efford: What steps he is taking to ensure the welfare of children in independent boarding schools. [34904]
    Mr. Byers: All independent boarding schools are required by statute to safeguard and promote the welfare of their pupils, and are subject to regular inspection by local social services departments. We are currently consulting on the recommendations in the Utting report regarding safeguards for children living away from home. We shall then announce what further steps we shall take.
    Mr. Efford: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. In an attempt to minimise the likelihood of further damaged individuals arriving on the Opposition Benches, and following Tuesday night's historic vote to ban caning in private schools, will my hon. Friend join me in expressing concern about the findings of the 1996–97 Office for Standards in Education report, which found that many independent boarding schools have significant weaknesses in relation to pupil accommodation and welfare, and that one quarter of schools do not have sufficient arrangements for checking individuals who
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    have unsupervised access to pupils? Does my hon. Friend agree that parents who are considering sending children to those boarding schools should be made aware of those findings? In considering what future action to take, will he ensure that those matters are investigated properly and adequately?
    Mr. Byers: My hon. Friend raises several important points, some of which are contained within the recommendations of the Utting report. It would be inappropriate for me to say at this stage precisely what our response will be, as public consultation on the recommendations closes tomorrow.
    However, I can tell my hon. Friend that the Boarding Schools Association, which is the representative body of the independent boarding schools sector, is mindful of the adverse comments made in the 1996–97 Ofsted report and is making changes to the inspection regime to address those issues. I agree with my hon. Friend: all Labour Members were pleased to implement one recommendation in the Utting report and ban the practice of corporal punishment in independent schools.
    Mr. St. Aubyn: On 1 May last year, the Conservatives won control of Surrey county council by the largest vote in at least 18 years. Will the Minister promise that his Government will not—to borrow a phrase from the Secretary of State's speech yesterday morning—cock a snook at the democratic decision of Surrey county council to build bridges between independent schools and the state sector? With a new system of partnership provision that draws on money from charitable sources and does not use funding that is needed for teachers and primary schools, it will successfully replace the former assisted places scheme.
    Mr. Byers: Less than two hours ago, the hon. Gentleman raised that specific point with me. I offered him the facility of a meeting to discuss the Surrey plan. I said that I would take him through the Government's view and suggest any alterations to the plan that might be necessary in order to meet the Government's requirements. That offer stands, and I am pleased to make it on the record this afternoon. I hope that my word is good enough—even if it is not good enough for the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), I think it is probably good enough for the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn).
    We want to build partnerships, but the Government's view is clear: we do not build partnerships between the independent and state school sectors by funding places to take children out of the state sector. That enforces divisions and does not create a partnership.

    Millennium Volunteers
    12. Mr. Bayley: What discussions he has held with representatives of the voluntary sector on millennium volunteers. [34905]
    Mr. Alan Howarth: Representatives of the voluntary sector have been consulted fully on our proposals for millennium volunteers in separate consultation exercises held in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

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    We shall continue to work closely with the voluntary sector to develop the detailed criteria for the programme, which will be published in June.
    Mr. Bayley: Is not the willingness of people to volunteer to help others for love and not for money a mark of a decent and socially inclusive society? If social inclusion means anything, all people ought to have the opportunity to be included. Has my hon. Friend, as part of his consultations, been speaking to bodies that represent disabled people? Will he make sure that young disabled people will be able to participate in the scheme?
    Mr. Howarth: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that working for others in a voluntary capacity is the mark of a civilised, inclusive society. It is essential that disabled people should be able to be millennium volunteers. I much appreciate the positive and practical responses to our consultation that we received from leading disability organisations. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor's announcement last week that people in receipt of incapacity benefit will in future be able to do any amount of voluntary activity removes a major barrier that the benefits system that we inherited has hitherto placed in the way of the social inclusion of disabled people.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Does not the independent sector of education possess many voluntary groups that do a great deal of good work in society? Does the Minister agree that the independent sector of education, as well as the maintained sector, plays a full part in community life? The sort of remarks that have been made from the Labour Benches about the independent sector are unjustified, and he should pay tribute to the role that the independent sector of education has played in the life of this country and in helping people to contribute to the voluntary community, which is so important.
    Mr. Howarth: The hon. Gentleman is right—a number of schools in the independent sector, as in the maintained sector, have highly developed programmes to encourage voluntary activity among their pupils and students. We want to see much more of that. I commend, for example, the Changemakers charity, which is dedicated to encouraging voluntary activity in schools. If we are to strengthen the culture of volunteering in our society, it needs to begin in the schools.
    Mr. Winterton: After all, the Minister and I both went to the same school—Rugby.

    School Inspections
    13. Mr. Hope: What plans he has to ensure that teachers and parents have full confidence in the inspection of schools. [34906]
    Mr. Blunkett: As foreshadowed in the "Excellence in Schools" White Paper last summer, the chief inspector has agreed with me a programme of improvement, including a drive for quality, consistency and value for money. One of those proposals is the instigation of the new adjudicator or ombudsman, who will be available to deal with complaints relating to the inspection process.
    Mr. Hope: Most schools recognise that external inspections are an important part of the process for improving schools and raising standards. In a recent visit to a primary school in my Corby constituency, I heard staff expressing concern that, if an inspection is done badly, it can not only lead to bad results of the inspection, but can undermine confidence in the inspection system. Can my right hon. Friend reassure me that the external independent adjudicator announced by Ofsted will genuinely provide a means of redress for schools that feel that they have been treated badly, and that it will provide opportunity for greater fairness and openness in the system of school inspections?
    Mr. Blunkett: Yes, we are committed to independent inspection and to its part in the driving up of standards, which is so critical to the Government's objectives. I can give the assurances that my hon. Friend seeks. In addition, there will be a new duty on the chief inspector to maintain a list of accredited inspectors so that the teams can be properly monitored and, where there is inadequate inspection, inspectors can be removed from that list.
    Dr. Julian Lewis: Is not the single most important thing that the Secretary of State can do to assure parents that schools are being properly inspected to continue giving his full support to Chris Woodhead, the chief inspector, who has done more than any one individual to combat the anti-education doctrines that were so disastrously introduced in the 1960s? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with me also that Mr. Woodhead has shown a remarkable ability to function effectively in different political environments—almost as great an ability as the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Howarth)?
    Mr. Blunkett: All those who seek to join our agenda in driving up standards have my support, just as all those people give their support to us.
    Mr. Don Foster: If the Secretary of State has so much confidence in the chief inspector of schools, will he explain why he and his colleagues are not in favour of having an annual debate in the House on the chief inspector's annual report?
    Mr. Blunkett: We are in favour of the Select Committee on Education and Employment doing its job. As we said at some unearthly hour earlier this week, that is the process that we intend to follow.
    Ms Hodge: I hope that the Select Committee will do its job.
    I welcome the announcement of an ombudsman to whom people can go if they have any concerns about the inspection process. When will the appointment be made, who will make it and will Mr. Woodhead be consulted?
    Mr. Blunkett: My hon. Friend will expect there to be widespread consultation in the normal fashion. Appointments will be made under the procedures adopted within my Department to ensure that there is fairness, that there is no bias and, particularly, that there is independence.

    Commonwealth Education Ministers Conference
    14. Dr. Desmond Turner: If he will host the Commonwealth Education Ministers conference in summer 2000 in the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement on the bid from Brighton and Hove to host the conference. [34907]
    Dr. Howells: The Government have no plans to offer to host the next Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers in the United Kingdom. Britain will play a full and positive part in the conference wherever the Commonwealth decides that it should be held.
    Dr. Turner: May I remind my hon. Friend that all branches of the education profession are enthusiastically in support of the conference and would deeply appreciate it being held in this country, especially in millennium year? We think that this would send a good message to the Commonwealth and would be a hugely popular decision throughout it. Will my hon. Friend reconsider the question of hosting the conference in the United Kingdom?
    Dr. Howells: The Government have made their commitment to the Commonwealth clear. We demonstrated that in a practical way at a highly successful Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting at Edinburgh in October 1997. We think that we have played our part. There are 54 nations in the Commonwealth, and we think that the chance to host such conferences should be shared equally.
    Mr. Boswell: As a joint chairman of the parliamentary side of the Council for Education in the Commonwealth, may I ask the Minister to accept from me that his answer is extremely disappointing? Will he reconsider it in the light of the high-powered representations that he has received from the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals and others, including Professor Tim Brighouse, that there is a strong wish to bring the conference to the United Kingdom after 41 years? I am sure that lateral thinking will secure adequate funding. Will the Minister remember that, even if Brighton or Daventry are not acceptable, there are some strong and powerful higher education claims round Sheffield, which might just tip the balance?
    Dr. Howells: I am always interested in the hon. Gentleman's lateral thinking, especially on questions of funding. Perhaps we could have a cup of tea to discuss it later.

    New Deal (Young Unemployed)
    15. Mr. Bradshaw: What progress is being made in involving employers in the new deal for the young unemployed. [34908]
    Mr. Andrew Smith: The new deal is making good progress on employer involvement. Already, we have signed 2,600 new deal employer agreements, 46 of which are with leading national employers.
    Mr. Bradshaw: My right hon. Friend will be aware of some concern in Exeter and east Devon at the time that it has taken to find an appropriate local private sector lead for the new deal. Therefore, I welcome my hon. Friend's announcement today that a company has been appointed, but can he assure me that it will build bridges with the local voluntary, private and statutory sectors to ensure that the new deal is a success in Exeter and east Devon?
    Mr. Smith: The company which has been appointed, Action for Employment Ltd., is already the lead private sector body on the South Humber new deal delivery unit, where experience shows that it invests considerable time in building precisely those contacts which are so important. One of the criteria against which it was selected, as were other private sector leads, was its proposals for working in partnership with others in the local community, as is so crucial to the success of the new deal.
    Mr. Evans: As the new deal is funded by the one-off windfall tax, how will it be funded once that money is used up? When the minimum wage is introduced, with the resulting shakeout in employment with people being made unemployed, how will the Government make sufficient resources available to meet the costs of all those extra unemployed people so that they, too, can take advantage of the new deal?
    Mr. Smith: The new deal is in a much more fortunate position than most Government programmes in having assured funding for the whole of the Parliament, and greater flexibility to deploy funds from one year to the next, as is necessary to deliver the programme with the quality and efficiency which we require. As was clear from the Budget, the Government are about making work pay, and the minimum wage will help with that, just as it will help many other poor people make the transition from welfare to work.

Welfare Reform
3.31 pm
The Minister for Welfare Reform (Mr. Frank Field): With your permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the Government's Green Paper, "New Ambitions for our Country: A New Contract for Welfare".
The Green Paper sets out the principles of reform, based on the twin pillars of work and security: work for those who can; security for those who cannot.
Today, we set before the House a comprehensive review of the welfare system, an argument about why it has to change, the eight principles on which change will be based, the success measurements against which progress should be judged over the next 10 to 20 years, and the areas where legislation will be required in the short, medium and long term.
The Green Paper offers the prospect for pensioners of a decent income in retirement. It offers a fresh start to disabled people—civil rights, help getting into work for those who want to, and a better system for making sure money goes to those in need.
To all those of working age, the Green Paper offers greater help into work. It promises children and families greater support. It does that within a system radically reformed to make it more efficient, clearer, fairer and dedicated to rooting out fraud and abuse.
The Green Paper considers how social advance in this country is best achieved and how, at the same time, we can also lift people from poverty and dependence to dignity and independence.
For me, today's statement marks a milestone in a journey that has so far lasted 30 years. The Green Paper draws on my experience with the Low Pay Unit and the Child Poverty Action Group, and on the Social Security Select Committee, but, above all, it draws on what I have learnt from listening to my constituents in Birkenhead about the need for welfare reform. Those who rely on benefits for their everyday existence are the real experts here.
It is a particular honour, then, to play a part in translating ideas into practice. I have, however, learnt a few home truths over the past few decades. The first is that changes to the benefit system affect the lives of people in ways that many of us can only half imagine. The second is that the need for change is overwhelming. The system as it stands promotes fraud and deception, not honesty and hard work. It has led to growing poverty and dependence, not independence. It has fuelled social division and exclusion, not helped in the creation of a decent society.
The economy and society of today are profoundly different from the era when William Beveridge laid the foundation stones of today's welfare state. The world of work, the shape of families, the chances of a long life, and people's attitude to government have all altered in fundamental ways. At the heart of the Green Paper is a new welfare contract between Government and citizen. Together, we must break the cycle of dependency and insecurity, and empower all our citizens to lead a dignified and fulfilling life.
These changes are driven by the need for reform. What is more, the money that we spend must be spent in the best and fairest way possible. For a system to be durable
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and fair, it must have costs that are manageable and under control. We want to spend more in some areas, such as health and education, and on help for severely disabled people with the greatest needs, but we want to spend less in others, to get the bills for social and economic failure down by cutting unemployment, tackling low pay, raising skills, rooting out fraud and abuse, and encouraging greater self-provision where appropriate.
Our reforms are driven by principle. I now wish to deal with the eight principles in the Green Paper—the key clauses of the new contract. First, the new welfare state should help and encourage people of working age to work where they are capable of doing so. Work offers the best escape route from poverty and dependence, a platform on which to save, and a sense of individual purpose.
We already have the new deals, which are the biggest attack on structural unemployment for decades; a Budget which will make work pay; and a minimum wage to end poverty pay. In addition, the Green Paper shows how the Government will extend the new deal to partners of the unemployed under the age of 25, based on the principle that responsibilities and rights go together, and to all lone parents with school-age children, giving them the opportunity for an interview and help with job search and child care. We also propose to end the 16-hour limit on the amount of unpaid work disabled people on benefit can do; extend the period from eight weeks to a year during which disabled people can have a job and come back on to benefit at the old rate if their health fails; increase the number of personal advisers available to claimants providing individually tailored help; and introduce a single work-focused gateway into the benefits system for people of working age, sweeping away the duplication, waste and bureaucracy of today.
We shall modernise government to achieve closer collaboration between the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service, making it clear that the system's first objective is to get people back into work.
I shall now deal with pensions. The second principle is that the public and private sectors should work in partnership to ensure that, wherever possible, people are insured against foreseeable risks and make provision for their retirement.
In our manifesto, we said that the basic state pension will remain the foundation of pensions provision, and will be uprated at least in line with prices. That commitment remains. We do, however, need to get greater help to the poorest pensioners. The Green Paper shows how that will be done.
However, with an aging population, over time, more will need to be saved for pensions, but the share borne by taxpayers cannot go up, or the costs of the system will become unsustainable. We want everyone to benefit from a second pension, on top of the state pension. That is what our proposals for stakeholder pensions are all about. It is clear that, unless there is more saving towards retirement, we will continue to see into the next century far too many of our pensioners retiring on incomes that do not properly reflect the rising prosperity of the nation.
The Government have launched a review of pensions. We have received many submissions, as part of the review, that recommend an extension of compulsory second pensions to those who are currently not covered and an increase in the minimum compulsory saving rate. We are considering those proposals seriously. Later in the

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year, we shall publish the Green Paper on pensions. I can say today that the Government plan to bring forward legislation later in this Parliament.
An additional change is proposed in the Green Paper. Today, people can lose benefit if they have taken out insurance to pay off loans on their car or credit card, and then lose their job. We want more people to help themselves, so that is simply absurd. We will change the benefit rules to ensure that people who insure themselves will no longer be penalised for it.
The third principle is that the new welfare state should provide public services of high quality to the whole community, as well as cash benefits. We have already set out in detail our proposals for education reform, for changing the national health service and for improving the housing stock. I do not need to repeat them. However, in addition, we are proposing a major reform and expansion of the current system of child care in this country, on the basis that help with looking after children can be as important as any cash benefit.
From next month, we shall start the expansion of our network of child care clubs, providing a further 20,000 places across the country and laying the foundation for Britain's first national child care strategy. Our comprehensive programme will be set out in a Green Paper that we shall publish after Easter.
The fourth principle is that disabled people should get the support that they need to lead a fulfilling life with dignity. In our country, everyone has a contribution to make—and that includes, of course, disabled people. Today, I want to announce a substantial programme of reform in that area, based on the following key changes. First, we want better rights for disabled people. We shall bring forward legislation, at the earliest possible time, to establish a disability rights commission to protect, enforce and promote the rights of disabled people.
Secondly, more help will be given to those who can and want to work. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of disabled people want the chance to work. Thirdly, extra help will be given for those severely disabled people with the greatest need. Fourthly, we pledge that those benefits covering the additional costs faced by disabled people—disability living allowance and attendance allowance—will remain universal, national benefits.
At the same time, we shall be looking at ways to ensure that help goes to the right people. The recent report of the disability living allowance advisory board presented worrying information. It found that in two thirds of cases there was not enough evidence to support the claim, and that one third of awards made for life were made to people whose condition might have been expected to improve. Meanwhile, evidence from the forthcoming disability survey suggests that only around half of those eligible may be taking up their DLA entitlement. The current gateways clearly are not working and need reform. We propose, after consultation with disabled people and groups representing them, to legislate for new gateways that are clearer, fairer and easier for people to use
We all know that the previous Government used incapacity benefit to disguise the real level of unemployment. Since 1979, the number of people on incapacity benefit has trebled, pushing the cost of the benefit up to almost £8 billion, which is more than we spend on the whole police force in England and Wales.
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We accept that people currently on incapacity benefit have built a standard of living around it, but, for future claimants, we must fundamentally reform the benefit.
The all-work test for entry on to the benefit writes off far too many people. We want to move from the current focus simply on what people cannot do, to focus on what, with the right help, they can do; so we need reform. In place of the current test, we are looking instead to assess the scale of people's employability, and then give them the opportunity to get the help they need to return to work. Taken together with changes already made, the proposal will reduce significantly the numbers who come on to the benefit in the future, and will thereby produce increasing savings over time.
That will be a major reform. Savings will be found, which will allow us to give more help to severely disabled people with the greatest needs. I emphasise that, as with all these proposals, at every stage we shall consult disabled people and organisations that represent them. As a result of our reforms, disabled people will get a better deal with proper rights, opportunities to work and a benefits system that better reflects their needs.
The fifth principle is that the system should support families and children, as well as tackling the scourge of child poverty. It is unacceptable that nearly 3 million children grow up in households without a wage earner. Child poverty shames our nation. The Green Paper outlines a comprehensive package of help for families with children. That will build on our existing measures to help children: a child care tax credit, covering up to 70 per cent. of eligible child care costs; an extra £2.50 on child benefit and on the rates for younger children of families on income-related benefits; and parental leave.
In an ideal world, families would always stay together, but in real life some parents split up, and the children suffer in more ways than one. The Child Support Agency was intended to help children, but, as proper maintenance is secured in only a third of cases, it is clearly failing. We spend £200 million a year simply to run the CSA, and we secure only £500 million maintenance as a result. I can announce today that we will be bringing forward proposals for fundamental reform of the agency to make it administratively more simple, and fairer, and to get rid of a situation in which it is often the parents who keep in closest touch with their children who get hit the hardest.
The sixth principle is that there should be specific action to attack social exclusion and help those in poverty. Our attack on social exclusion will include a new deal for communities, offering targeted help to areas worst hit by economic change. For areas with multiple problems—crime, drugs, poor housing and educational underperformance—there will be an integrated programme of support and renewal. Action zones for education, health and employment will pioneer the innovation and co-ordination necessary to tackle what is a national problem.
In addition, in the next few weeks the social exclusion unit will present its first plans to tackle two of the root causes of social exclusion: truancy and exclusion from school, and sleeping rough on the streets.
The seventh principle is that the system should encourage openness and honesty, and the gateways to benefit should be clear and enforceable.
I have spent a good part of my parliamentary life urging concerted action to tackle benefit fraud, which erodes the whole basis of the welfare contract. Every £1 in the

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pocket of a fraudster is £1 less in the pocket of someone in need, so it gives me great pleasure to announce the Government's crackdown on fraud.
Today's report from the Public Accounts Committee shows the scale of the problem we face in just one area—housing benefit fraud. Almost £1 billion is lost in fraud, with suspected fraudsters having a 99 per cent. chance of getting off scot-free. That underlines the importance of the action we are now taking to tackle housing benefit fraud.
We have radically altered the focus of the benefit fraud inspectorate to inspect our own agencies as well as local authorities and ensure that they work together to crack down on fraud. We are strengthening the link between the Benefits Agency and local authorities to make sure that information on possible fraudulent claimants gets passed across quickly. There will be a new framework of guidance for local authorities to check claims for housing benefit properly, to prevent and root out fraud. The Government will use new powers to set targets for local authorities for improvements in tackling fraud and penalise them if they fail to take sufficient action. We are giving local authorities new powers to stop housing benefit getting paid directly to landlords who have committed fraud. Some of those measures may seem draconian, but I have no doubt that they are right.
The measures we are taking to root out housing benefit fraud are part of the comprehensive strategy set out in the Green Paper, based on earlier prevention, more effective deterrence and better detection. Our measures include improving the effectiveness of gateways on to benefit to make them less vulnerable to fraud, a thorough validation of the entire system of national insurance numbers to stop people using false or falsely acquired national insurance numbers to claim benefit and improved sanctions, including, for the first time, powers for the Department of Social Security to fine those defrauding the system.
The eighth principle is that the system of delivering modern welfare should be flexible, efficient and easy for people to use. Our aim is to revolutionise the delivery of front-line services with the creation of an active modern service that is built around the customer, makes best use of information technology and fits new services to new need and demands.
In a world of 24-hour shopping, free helplines and computer banking, people are entitled to a far better service than many of our public services are providing. As a result of our drive to ensure that the Employment Service and Benefits Agency work more closely together, we aim to provide a seamless service with personal advisers for everyone who is trying to return to work. The modern office should include touch screens with information on benefits, jobs, training and child care, as well as telephone information lines for claimants, and claim forms that are tailored to the individual.
At the same time, for those who are not able to work or the retired, we need an efficient and friendly service that is easy for everyone to understand and to use and provides benefits accurately, promptly and with the minimum hassle. Our aim must be to ensure that the services that we provide match the standards of the best companies in the country.
In all, the application of the principles in the Green Paper will break the traditional welfare mould in three crucial respects. There will be a move, first, from a focus
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on simply paying benefits to enabling people to move into work; secondly, from dispensing cash to also providing services; thirdly, from merely alleviating poverty to ensuring that each and every one of us has opportunities to develop our talents to the full.
Behind our principles and core values lies the idea of The Good Society, which has not only motivated British radicals for centuries, but drawn support from all sections of society. The Government, through an open and inclusive approach to reform, will strive not merely to sustain but to strengthen the appeal to create a better world to hand on to future generations. I invite everyone, wherever they are seated, to join constructively in that debate.
The Green Paper also sets out a vision of welfare in 2020, restructured around the new contract between the Government and individuals and families. The new contract is essentially about duty; duties of the Government are matched by duties for the individual. For example, it is the duty of the Government to provide a proactive, work-focused service, ensuring the easiest possible return to the labour market. It is similarly the duty of all individuals to seek work or training when they are able to do so. It is the duty of the Government to help parents to meet the costs of raising their children; it is the duty of individuals to support their children, and other family members, financially and emotionally. It is the duty of the Government to relieve poverty in old age and regulate pension provision; it is the duty of individuals to save where possible for old age.
There are two no-go areas for the Government. Our commitment to the vulnerable is not negotiable. Likewise, our commitment to reform is not negotiable. What is negotiable is how we can achieve our aims.
There are some people on the right of politics who want to dismantle the welfare state altogether; there are others who baulk at any change. The Green Paper represents a third way—not the end of the welfare state, or a defence of the status quo, but a welfare state to meet modern needs, which supports a decent and fair society founded on social justice.
The Green Paper sets a clear framework for a principled programme of reform. We all have a stake in the debate, but I pledge to the House and the country that we will not depart from the principles that I have outlined, and that, in the years to come, as the new welfare contract is established, we will have a new welfare state that is fit for a modern nation in the new millennium.
I apologise for the length of the statement, and I apologise for the fact that Opposition spokesmen did not receive a copy of it earlier, but, without reservation, I commend the Green Paper to the House.
Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: Today's statement is a significant milestone for the Government, as much as for the House, and it deserves some scrutiny. I welcome the fact that the Minister for Welfare Reform has made the statement. He knows that I and all my colleagues have been asking for a statement on the Green Paper for a considerable time. Without being churlish, we welcome its existence and the fact that it has been announced.
The Green Paper has been a long time coming and, therefore, it raises a series of questions. [Interruption.] It is remarkable that it has taken 10 months to arrive and

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that the Government say they have been consulting for 10 months. The real question is what have they been doing for 18 years. Have they had no consultation over that time? The reality is that the Green Paper represents not just the sum total of thinking over 10 months, but the Labour party's consultations and thinking over the past 18 years. That is the key point. Regardless of the delay, I welcome the announcement.
At the beginning of the year, we were increasingly worried that, despite all the rhetoric, there was an absence of structure about welfare reform. The reality is that it is important—and it was important—for us to be able to help the Government to create the right structure and to provide the right opportunity for debate. We wanted to be constructive. In January, we offered the Government the opportunity for a constructive dialogue and we laid out our criteria for reform. That was never done for the previous Government, but we did not look back on that with regret. We simply offered the Government the right to have the debate, and we do not shy from that.
We must ask how the Green Paper measures up to the main elements that we set for the Government. The first of the principles is that reform must strengthen the institution of the family. Secondly, it must strengthen personal responsibility and break the dependency culture. Thirdly, reform must strengthen alternative provision of welfare and break the state monopoly of provision, helping to focus welfare on those most in need. Underscoring all that is what the Minister said, which is that it must not depart from those most in need.
As the Minister knows, the late delivery of the Green Paper meant that we could look at it, but not to the extent that we would have liked. However, as I looked at the paper, I began to ask a series of questions about what we had been led to believe was likely to be in it.
First, let us deal with housing benefit. We were led to believe that the Green Paper would set a series of criteria by which benefit fraud, particularly housing benefit fraud, would be dealt with. In fact, there is nothing new in the paper that will suggest to anybody outside or in the House how the Minister intends to take the position forward. There is no specific position.
After so much coat trailing over housing benefit, why is there so little in the document that deals with it? Is it anything to do with the clash with the Chancellor's office after the right hon. Gentleman's article on Sunday? Was it lifted out because of that? Where are all the new proposals that the right hon. Gentleman said would deal specifically with how he intends to reform housing benefit? That underscores the whole change to welfare and the ability to cut costs.
Our second area of concern is disability benefits. We have had a series of scare stories, deliberate leaks and kite flying on disability benefits over the past six months. The Government should show shame, because they set out deliberately to scare a whole group of people without proposing anything at all. They simply set out to make them worried in the absence of any proposals. We asked for the Green Paper because that was happening, but the Government came up with nothing. However, what we have received today is a rehash of earlier announcements on incapacity benefit and other proposals.
As we understand it, the right hon. Gentleman said that the Government will rule out means testing of disability living allowance. I welcome that. However, why has it
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taken all these months to make that decision? Why could the Government not have ruled out means testing earlier, and made the position absolutely clear—rather than scaring people, at the Chancellor's bidding? I should like the Minister for Welfare Reform to tell us also whether he has ruled out taxing disability living allowance and other disability benefits.
Why raise the scare stories? Why worry everyone? The Government's welfare reform has been a series of missed opportunities. As today's newspapers have said, the debate on disabilities has to progress gradually and should not be subject to knee-jerk reactions and scare stories. Today, the Minister had the opportunity—he has had the opportunity—to make serious proposals for structural change in disability benefit, but there was little in his statement that had not already been rehashed in the Budget.
When the Government came to power, they acted swiftly on pensions. In their first Budget, they damaged prospects for pensions and pensioners. They raided pension funds, and created real problems for pension reform. Almost immediately, the pension brief was taken away from the Minister for Welfare Reform and handed to the Under—Secretary of State for Social Security, the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), who was to conduct a separate pensions review. A major part of the welfare reform process was therefore excluded from the welfare Green Paper.
The right hon. Gentleman's comments on pensions failed absolutely to deal with the changes to pensions that have occurred in the past 11 months. Why did he not take this opportunity to mention the dramatic changes—the decline in pension values—since the Government's first Budget?
The Government said, when they came to power, that they valued occupational pensions. However, since then—in the Budget hit—they have damaged occupational pensions, so that occupational pensions may be frozen and moved to group personal pensions. The Government endlessly attacked personal pensions, going on about personal pension mis-selling—yet they try to move occupational pensions to personal pensions. As the right hon. Gentleman and the Government support occupational pensions, what will they do to rectify that problem? They have missed today's opportunity.
The right hon. Gentleman said that he valued family structures, and realised that the family is important as the basic structure in building a stable society. We share that belief, and I welcome that statement. However, the Budget contained the seed of a serious problem for marriage structures raising children and looking after elderly relatives. In ending the married couple's allowance, the Labour party has sent a seriously damaging message to those who wish to raise children and look after elderly relatives. Taking money from them has very little to do with supporting those structures.
Why did the right hon. Gentleman, given all his previous views and commitments, not take the opportunity to deal with that problem, and send a serious message to those who look after elderly relatives—who now, after last week's Budget, wonder how they will make ends meet?
The right hon. Gentleman made some proposals on the Child Support Agency, and I welcome his comments about the agency. As he has said on many occasions

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CSA reform is a matter on which both sides of the House should agree. We look forward to hearing detailed proposals. Will he explain his specific proposals to deal with the problems in the CSA? We will take every opportunity to support those proposals.
I was intrigued by the right hon. Gentleman's comments on social exclusion. I should like him to explain how, after all his thinking on the matter—for which the Minister without Portfolio, who is on the Treasury Bench, is supposed to be responsible—the Government's sum total of knowledge and determination is in the phrase
"there should be specific action to attack social exclusion and help those in poverty."
Is that it? After 10 months, is that all that the Government have to say about social exclusion? Is that the sum of the thinking that is driving us forward? They have targeted tackling social exclusion as a means of combating poverty and that is all that they have to say about it.
What about means testing? Year after year, in papers and books, the right hon. Gentleman has said that he was opposed to means testing. He has said nothing today about how he intends to wind back that process or about the taxation of benefits. Where in the Green Paper or the statement is there a personal commitment from the right hon. Gentleman? Nowhere.
The Green Paper gives a series of benchmarks. The Government said in advance that they would set targets. The Green Paper gives only a series of general statements. They say that they want to be measured against certain criteria. The Prime Minister is fond of saying that the Government will be measured against their performance, but they do not want to be measured until after at least another two general elections. The Green Paper gives a target of 2020. The Government want to go to the next election saying, "Don't worry; trust us. We'll get this right not in this Parliament, but perhaps the next—or perhaps not even that but the Parliament after." That is the Government's target for measurement. They are telling the public that the issue does not matter and that they do not want to be measured seriously against their targets. Why does the right hon. Gentleman not tell us how he intends to be measured at the next general election?
The Prime Minister has said that the cost of benefit will be reduced. We have a right to expect that that commitment will be measured at the next election. I hope that the Prime Minister will lean over to his right hon. Friend the Minister for Welfare Reform to tell him that he has the authorisation to tell us that the Government will be judged on that at the next election.
The Green Paper represents a series of missed opportunities after 10 months of promises. Behind the scenes, there has been a battle between the Minister for Welfare Reform and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Given the vacuousness and avoidance of detail of the Green Paper, the Chancellor won. The Green Paper should have been published more than six months ago, but the Budget had to come first. For the first time in history, we have a Green Paper published after a White Paper—the Chancellor's White Paper. The Chancellor is running the show. The Minister has been taken prisoner.
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The Prime Minister appointed the Minister on his reputation, to bolster the Government, but he has imprisoned the man.
Mr. Field: May I thank the Opposition for approaching the issue so constructively? [Laughter.] I would not want to be on the receiving end if they were being destructive. I shall try to reply to the points that the hon. Gentleman has raised. Some of them are not well founded.
The hon. Gentleman said that there was the odd line about social exclusion; I have made three new announcements today. The lack of concrete proposals about the Child Support Agency says something about how we intend to conduct the process of reform.
We told the House that there would be a specific Green Paper on—
Mr. Duncan Smith: Another one?
Mr. Field: Yes, another Green Paper. The hon. Gentleman has an extraordinary viewpoint. He reminds me of Aneurin Bevan's comment on Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister. He said that listening to him was like a walk round Woolworth: everything is in place and nothing is priced over sixpence. The hon. Gentleman clearly thinks that every detail in a programme of reform that he acknowledges will take 10 or more years should be in a single Green Paper. That is an absurd view.
There will be a Green Paper on the Child Support Agency. We are anxious that, this time round, the pace of reform and the extent of negotiation should be such that we get it much more right than we did last time. It is easy to be bullish at the Dispatch Box, but if we fail, we screw up people's lives. We do not intend to do that.
The hon. Gentleman asked where was the support for the family. When he has had the chance to read the Green Paper carefully, he will see the careful declarations that we have made in favour of the family as the most secure building block for creating a secure future. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where are the policies?"] Some policies were in the Budget and others are still to come.
The hon. Gentleman said that the pensions portfolio had been taken away from me, but my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) had that portfolio from day one. Pension funds are more buoyant now than they were, thanks to what is happening to the economy.
The hon. Gentleman asked what was new in housing benefit. I mentioned the Public Accounts Committee report that was published today. It showed that 99 per cent. or more of those who commit housing benefit fraud get off scot-free. We are empowering the Benefits Agency and giving it the ability to fine. The Conservatives did not decide to do that when they were in government.
I want to mention two other matters that centre on the whole process of reform. I know that it is sometimes important for politicians to win the support of those behind them, but when the hon. Gentleman reflects on how he responded to our announcements on disability reform, he will realise that he has played a part not in damping down disquiet but in whipping it up. We made the clearest declaration that could be made, and all he wanted to do was to try to fan disquiet among disabled people.

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The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the nature of reform. We announced changes and reforms that will need legislation in this Parliament, and we have done something else that is equally important: for the first time, a Government have set out their principles of reform and a series of measurements so that they can lock on to those principles each part of their reform programme as it comes along, so that it can be judged. We want to be judged on that by the House and by the electorate. I guess that the Opposition will be similarly judged.
Mr. Terry Rooney (Bradford, North): I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and for the challenging document that has been published. He will know that staff morale in the Benefits Agency is at rock bottom. He has inherited staff who are underpaid, undervalued and under-resourced, but they will be needed to deliver the programme that he has set out. How will he proceed with staff development and training?
Mr. Field: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's question. There are two aspects to mention. I have written today to the heads of each agency, emphasising the importance that we give to the modern, active service that I underscored in today's announcement. Staff and others will see in the Green Paper that we regard our staff as one of our most valuable assets and that the 18 years of denigration of people who work in the public service, who have been made to feel that they are somehow a drain on public resources, are at an end. We wish to build up their skills, but, above all, we wish to use their expertise in taking the reform programme forward.
Mr. David Rendel (Newbury): My party and I welcome a great deal of the statement, as far as it goes. Does the Minister accept that, particularly given that the Prime Minister said welfare reform is such a fundamental part of his Government's programme, the statement and the Green Paper will be a great disappointment to many because there is not much either new or radical and there are very few specific proposals? Does he also accept that his statement that
"Our commitment to the vulnerable is not negotiable"
will seem a rather sour sentence to those who become lone parents this year, who will find that their benefits are lower than last year and that they will not gain for some time from the benefits that the Chancellor has promised them?
Does the Minister accept that, although he has talked about targets and has just mentioned measurement, in practice, the measures of success listed in the Green Paper are entirely unquantified? They are simply a question of a little more of this or a little less of that. Therefore, the targets at which the Government will aim are very feeble.
Does the Minister accept that much of the statement, particularly the eight principles, is simply a matter of motherhood and apple pie, which all three parties could easily have accepted a long time ago? Although he has tried to work out where the Government are aiming—we accept that many of the objectives that he has set are the right ones—he still appears from the Green Paper to have very little idea of how he will get there.
Mr. Field: If the charge is that our targets are mere motherhood and apple pie, I would have thought that we
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would get a warmer response from the Liberal Democrats. One of the tasks that we hope the Select Committee on Social Security will undertake is to look most carefully at the targets, realising that they are for general information and that we will need to move to a stage where they become technical targets that can be exactly measured. I look forward to meeting the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) on that very task.
When the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) asked what hope there is for lone parents, I thought that it might have been within him to have said that, in the recent Budget, there was the biggest-ever increase in child benefit and a substantial increase in what are called the applicable amounts for the younger children of those on income-related benefits. It is a pity that he did not find time to commend the Government on that
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Speaker: Order. Now that the official Opposition spokesmen have made their contributions, I want specific questions from Back Benchers.
Mr. Clive Soley (Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush): I congratulate the Minister on at long last putting the reform of the welfare state into the context of a changing economy and a changing family structure. That is what has been missed. The Conservative party introduced the Child Support Agency, bringing that area into disrepute; it introduced housing benefit, when it was warned that such benefit would spiral out of control—
Madam Speaker: Order. I asked for questions. The hon. Gentleman saw how many hon. Members rose to speak. There is no way that I can call them all and safeguard today's business. I want specific questions. Mr. Soley, will you come to your question?
Mr. Soley: The specific question was just this: will my right hon. Friend, unlike the Conservative party, consult everyone outside the House to ensure that we do not make such mistakes again?
Mr. Field: Yes.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Knowing the right hon. Gentleman well, I suspect that his statement was as much personal as it was Government led. I congratulate him on that. In respect of self-provision for pensions, which he stressed was so important, will he ensure fiscal encouragement on an on-going basis to enable people to make private provision for their retirement?
Mr. Field: Yes.
Mr. Malcolm Wicks: May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on a serious and significant statement? Given that our poorest citizens are often the very young, including one in three newborn babies, and the very old, including many people in their 80s, what are the key parts of the document that offer hope that, in the future, the young will not be born poor and the old will not be left in the cold?
Mr. Field: I thank my hon. Friend for that question. The document contains proposals on how we intend to cut

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the supply route to poverty in old age. Those proposals will be fleshed out in great detail in the pension reforms Green Paper of my hon. Friend the Member for Itchen. Much of what I said in reply to the first question and in my statement shows that we are trying to move welfare from a system that merely pays doles to one that cuts the supply routes to poverty in the first place and massively to extend the opportunities that those who are poor have to leave benefit. On both counts, over time, the Government will make progress on the two priorities that my hon. Friend has highlighted.
Sir Raymond Whitney: Given that we have had a statement without specifics, I am happy to ask a specific question. The Minister suggested strongly that the £8 billion currently spent on incapacity benefit would be reduced and, in a menacing phrase, that people would be helped back to work. By how much will the incapacity benefit budget be reduced?
Mr. Field: I am sorry that I did not put the statement more clearly so that the hon. Gentleman could follow it. What we have said is that those on incapacity benefit now are protected. The benefit is not working in the way in which the House wishes. The key to incapacity benefit is the all-work test. We wish to replace that with an employability test. We wish to accompany that with help for people who wish to work. It is possible to dress up that proposal in the worst possible light, or it is possible to receive it in the way in which I wish it to be received—as one of extending opportunities as well as protecting the vulnerable.
Ms Diane Abbott: Does the Minister agree that if we are to oblige people to make private provision for old age, unemployment or other contingencies, we have to examine the way in which the financial services and private pensions industry works? It cannot be right to oblige low-paid and middle-income families to put money into a private pensions industry that has a history of overblown commissions, overheads and general fraudulent and ramshackle practices.
Mr. Field: I am aware of my hon. Friend's interest and expertise on this matter. When she has a chance to consult the Green Paper, she will see that what she says is one of our targets.
Mr. David Davis: The Minister had a well-deserved high reputation as Chairman of the Social Security Select Committee for his robust attitude to fraud and waste. I thank him for his recognition of the Public Accounts Committee's report today. He knows that the total fraud and waste in the system is £4 billion or £5 billion of taxpayers' money a year. Does he recognise that that needs not simply to be managed but to be designed out of all benefits? Can he give the House an undertaking today that all new benefits, including those announced in the Budget, will be designed in such a way as to eradicate the opportunity for fraud and theft?
Mr. Field: I thank the right hon. Gentleman, both for his question and for the role that he plays in the House.
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I can give without reservation the commitment that he asks for. I underscore the point that he makes. Even on his estimate, fraud costs every family £500 a year.
Mrs. Alice Mahon: When my right hon. Friend talks about targeting those who are socially excluded, will he make a special case for children leaving care? They feature most heavily in truancy, exclusion, probation service and other figures. It is a disgrace to a modern society.
Mr. Field: I can happily give my hon. Friend that undertaking. When we are talking about social exclusion, we are anxious that, as our programmes evolve, people living in the area are main players in the programme.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: Will the Minister accept that one of the most difficult challenges is to try to get the balance right between disabled people who have access to the world of work, and those who, because of severe physical and mental disability, have no access to the world of work? He proposes to look again at important matters such as the all-work test. Will he make sure that disabled people are not subject to the same disgraceful lack of consultation as they were afforded when the benefit integrity project was put together?
Mr. Field: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's question. Given the size of our reform programme—which was not recognised by the official Opposition—the Social Security Committee may have to sit in continuous session to help us. We will be publishing proposals on this matter, and we are anxious to go before the Select Committee and other bodies to put forward our views, to listen to their views and to try to improve our original ideas.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: When the dust has settled on the Green Paper, my right hon. Friend and others will have to get down to the hard work of ensuring that where there is no work, work has to be found. Consistent with the Green Paper, will he ensure that he and his colleagues make it clear that in those large areas of Britain where shipbuilding has ended, where the coalfields are finished and where the textile mills have closed, and in many of the inner cities—where no work is available—all those who went on other benefits because they were pushed off by the Tories and others will not be left in the dark as a result of their failure to find work where they live?
Mr. Field: Indeed. When the key section of the Green Paper to which my hon. Friend referred was being written, I had him in mind.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Does the Minister accept that his statement has confirmed many of the worst fears of disabled people? Will he confirm that where there are two disabled people of identical condition, it may be that one will receive incapacity benefit and another will not? Will he be paying for better provision for those who are severely disabled by taking money off those who are moderately disabled?
Mr. Field: I respect the right hon. Gentleman, who plays an important part in the House on most topics,

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but particularly this one. I am concerned that he should have so misconstrued what I said to make that comment. I look forward to discussing those ideas further in exchanges across the Floor and elsewhere.
Mr. Alan Simpson: When the Minister deliberates following the statement, will he give the House the following assurances: in relation to the Child Support Agency, he will consider the option of scrapping the agency as unworkable, and replacing it with a family court system in line with the Scottish model; in relation to housing benefit fraud, he will consider the approach of the Minister he quoted so generously, Aneurin Bevan, and propose a return to rent subsidies, as a system less open to fraud; and, in relation to pensions, he will consider the option of raising the state pension and reconnecting it with earnings, which many in the House and the country would willingly pay for and vote for?
Mr. Field: On my hon. Friend's first question, he perhaps mistakes our approach to reform. We do not come to the reform process with a shopping list of ideas that we are intent on pushing through. Our aim is to have an effective agency to support children whose parents have split up. That is our starting point. The second stage is to consider the proposals and how they meet our objective. My hon. Friend's proposal will be considered along with others before we publish the Green Paper.
Mr. Edward Leigh: May I congratulate the Minister on the language in which his statement is couched? No doubt the Select Committee will enjoy looking at the devils which inevitably lurk below such visionary language. Given the length of time any pension reform will require, how open and inclusive will he be with the Opposition in the Select Committee? Will he consult them on all occasions? Will he ensure that our successful private provision has as much a place in future welfare provision for a second pension as does state or mutual and friendly society provision?
Mr. Field: I happily give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. We are beginning the process of starting to reform in a different way, by publishing a draft Bill on pension sharing and divorce. No doubt the Select Committee will wish to consider that, with many other proposals that we have. My worry is not that we shall not talk to the Select Committee, but that the Select Committee may get fed up talking to the Government.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Will the Minister recognise that the state pension is cheap to administer and efficient in its delivery; that relinking it with earnings would guarantee many pensioners an escape from the poverty in which they live at present; and that revaluation and promotion of SERPS would provide a very good support system for those who do not enjoy an occupational pension? Has he estimated the cost to individuals and to the state of the huge promotion of individual private pensions through the private pension industry compared to the efficiency of the state system?
Mr. Field: If it is possible to get together the data that would allow a proper answer to the second question, I shall happily bring them together and write to my hon. Friend. However, on his first question about relinking the
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state pension to earnings, it is important to realise that, this year, as a result of the issuing of the fuel bonus, which went to all pensioners, but was weighted in favour of poorer pensioners, poorer pensioners have had a bigger increase in their income than they would have had if we had returned to the earnings link.
Mr. Steve Webb: While I welcome the Green Paper, which looks forward to 2020 which is both necessary and welcome, will the Minister accept that virtually none of today's pensioners will still be around in 2020, and will he accept, therefore, that there is—on a cursory glance, at least—nothing new for today's pensioners in that paper?
Mr. Field: Let us consider what the Government have already done for pensioners. We have reduced VAT on fuel and, by now, we have paid every pensioner their winter fuel bonus. The previous Government did nothing in 18 years to find those pensioners who were eligible to, but did not claim, supplementary benefit—now income support—but such a programme is now under way. All that has been achieved in 10 months. I believe that that shows something about the priority that we attach to pensioners.
Ms Rosie Winterton: I very much welcome my right hon. Friend's statement, but I am sure that he will acknowledge that the prospect of welfare reform raises many genuine concerns. Can he tell the House how he intends to ensure that consultation is wide ranging and inclusive of people outside Parliament in addition to those inside?
Mr. Field: I thank my hon. Friend for that question. The aim of the Green Paper is to set the beginnings of a major reform programme. We hope that, in 10 years or so, people will look back and say, "That was the decisive moment when things began to change in this country, and it was managed in such a way that we all felt safe." That is the aim. It is, of course, crucial that we make our programme of consultation as inclusive as possible, not only to reassure people, but to improve the reform process and make the measures more effective, so I very happily give my hon. Friend the pledge that she seeks.
Mrs. Ann Winterton: Will the right hon. Gentleman rule out taxing disability living allowance?
Mr. Field: Given that the Green Paper not only sketches the immediate programme and says what legislation we shall introduce, but looks 20 years ahead, and does not mention that, I think that the hon. Lady should be satisfied.
Mrs. Anne Campbell: May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on a set of principles that is both radical and workable? I also welcome his support for information systems, such as the one launched by the Secretary of State in Cambridgeshire last July. Will he assure us that he will not go for the expensive

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infrastructure option, and will he take it from me that cheaper options are available, through the internet, which will give him a workable system very quickly?
Mr. Field: I am grateful to my hon. Friend not merely for that question but for the pioneering role that she has played in this area. Her points are well noted and, as the debate unfolds, I think that she will see her influence.
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Faversham and Mid-Kent): The Minister knows—because he was kind enough to meet a delegation—of my concern about seasonal workers. Such workers are indispensable to many industries, but particularly the soft fruit industry. Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the difficulties that those workers experience fitting into the benefit system will be a priority in his review?
Mr. Field: I must disappoint the hon. Gentleman. I cannot say, with all that we must consider, that it is a key priority. However, he is making plans for me to visit his constituency—he has presumably asked the question in order to put it on the record—where I shall see the problem at first hand. When I have that experience—I shall not pick the fruit, but I shall watch others do it—I shall take my ideas back to the Department and then inform the hon. Gentleman of what we can do.
Mr. Ian Pearson: Given that the Child Support Agency is wrecking the lives of many thousands of people, can the Minister assist those people by informing the House of his rough timetable for change?
Mr. Field: We shall certainly publish the Green Paper as soon as possible. It is important that the departmental team works up and discusses a whole range of ideas before we issue that paper. All hon. Members have families in their constituencies who are on the receiving end of the CSA which is not working, so we know the urgency of that task.
Mr. Simon Burns: The Minister will clearly remember that the Government have always said that their aim is to reduce the share of national income that is allocated to welfare. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that every concrete proposal in his statement will increase the social security budget? How will he seek to redeem that pledge, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) asked? When will the share of national income spent on welfare begin to be reduced? Will that occur during the lifetime of this Parliament?
Mr. Field: The position is clear: our aim is to reduce expenditure on economic and social failure and move it to creating opportunities. The hon. Gentleman clearly accepts that position as he, quite rightly, opened a new deal project in his constituency.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Speaker: Order. Thank you, Mr. Field. We shall now have the business statement.

Business of the House
4.42 pm
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons(Mrs. Ann Taylor): With permission, Madam Speaker, I shall make a statement about the business for next week.

MONDAY 30 MARCH—Consideration in Committee of the Scotland Bill (seventh day)

TUESDAY 31 MARCH—Consideration in Committee of the Scotland Bill (eighth day).

WEDNESDAY 1 APRIL—Until 2 pm, there will be debates on the motion for the Adjournment of the House.

Remaining stages of the Regional Development Agencies Bill.

THURSDAY 2 APRIL—Opposition Day [10th Allotted Day] (first part). Until 7 pm, there will be a debate on the international arms trade on a motion in the name of the Liberal Democrats.

FRIDAY 3 APRIL—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the following week will be as follows

MONDAY 6 APRIL—Opposition Day [11th Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

TUESDAY 7 APRIL—Second Reading of the National Lottery Bill [Lords].

WEDNESDAY 8 APRIL—Until 2 pm, there will be debates on the motion for the Adjournment of the House, which will include the usual three-hour pre-recess debate.

Second Reading of the Crime and Disorder Bill [Lords].

The House may also wish to be reminded that on Wednesday 1 April, there will be a debate on renewable sources of energy and the energy framework programme, in European Standing Committee B. Details of the relevant documents will be given in the Official Report.
The House will wish to know that the House will rise for the Easter recess on Wednesday 8 April until Monday 20 April.
[Wednesday 1 April
European Standing Committee B—Relevant European Community documents: (a) 13035/97, annexes I, IV and VI—Energy Framework Programme (1998–2002); (b) 13035/97, annex V—Energy Framework Programme: SAVE II; (c) 5140/98, Renewable Sources of Energy; (d) Unnumbered, Renewable Sources of Energy: Council resolution. Relevant European Legislation Committee reports: (a) HC 155-xxi (1997–98); (b) HC 155-xxii (1997–98); (c) HC 155-xviii (1997–98); (d) HC 155-xxii (1997–98).]
Mrs. Gillian Shephard: I thank the Leader of the House for her statement. It is helpful to have the Easter recess dates confirmed. She also attempted last week to give some idea of the spring bank holiday recess dates, but, understandably, she had to be very circumspect about her promises in that regard.
I understand that the arrangements for the Rural Development Agencies Bill have been agreed by programme in accordance with the hopes and desires of the Modernisation Committee. I am delighted about that.

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I do not want to worry the right hon. Lady, but that debate will take place on 1 April—so let us hope that everything will be okay.
The right hon. Lady said that the House could expect an early statement on the Narey report on the prison service in Northern Ireland. Given the extreme seriousness of the situation in the Maze prison, I wonder whether the right hon. Lady is in a position to announce today when that statement might happen. I am sure that she will wish to consider when we might debate the contents of today's statement on welfare reform, as there is a great deal to discuss.
Will the right hon. Lady arrange for an early debate on the kaleidoscope of voting systems that the Government have introduced in different parts of the country? There are about six different systems at present, and the number appears to be rising. I wonder whether the Government realise that the salami-slicing approach that they are adopting to constitutional change is eroding accountability. That is the inevitable result of such an approach. I do not think that the Labour party pledged to do that before the election. I do not believe that the Government intend to weaken parliamentary democracy, and I think that a debate on those issues will enable the Government to clarify their position—not least perhaps to themselves.
I have had occasion in the past to raise the question of the disfranchisement of the people of West Renfrewshire as a result of the continued absence from the House of the hon. Member for that constituency. I believe that there has been a rare sighting of the hon. Gentleman this week. Will the right hon. Lady make a statement about how she views the plight of the people of West Renfrewshire? Does she intend to do anything to help them?
Will the right hon. Lady arrange for a debate on the responsibilities of Ministers? As she knows, a Transport Minister failed to turn up for a debate, an Environment Minister walked out of a debate half an hour before it finished, and an Agriculture Minister spent the entire time in the Smoking Room during an important debate relevant to his portfolio. It is also alleged that the Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs writes questions for hon. Members to put to him.
However, the Government's contempt for the House reached new heights on Wednesday. My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) had the Adjournment debate on farming in Ribble Valley. Imagine his surprise when not only could no Agriculture Minister be found to answer the debate—two of them had understandable reasons for not attending and I suppose that the other was still in the Smoking Room—but the Environment Minister pulled out at short notice and the response to a debate on agriculture was finally read out by the Minister for School Standards. It may be that the Minister knows more about agriculture than do Agriculture Ministers—he certainly knows more about that subject than he does about multiplication.
Such treatment of a Member of Parliament's legitimate concerns and those of his constituents is a calculated insult not only to those constituents but to the farming industry, to people who live in the countryside and, most importantly, to the House. I hope that the right hon. Lady will state her strong disapproval of that contempt.
Mrs. Taylor: I shall start with the right hon. Lady's first question. I announced last week when I hoped we
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would have a spring or Whitsun recess. I still hope that we can have a week's recess at Whitsun, but that is totally dependent on the progress of business. I am keeping the situation under review.
The right hon. Lady commented on the fact that we shall discuss the Regional Development Agencies Bill on Wednesday. We have been able to get agreement that it should be taken under a programme motion. That is another step forward in the experiment with programme motions, and I hope that, through negotiation and discussion with all interested parties, we can make a success of that day's debate.
I can confirm that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland expects to be able to publish the Narey report soon. I hope that it will be possible for her to make a statement to the House on that. The right hon. Lady will understand that serious and sensitive issues are involved, and that it is therefore not possible at this stage to confirm the precise arrangements.
The right hon. Lady asked me, quite reasonably, when we will have a debate on welfare following the excellent statement—which was very well received—from the Minister for Welfare Reform, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), a short time ago. There will be many opportunities to discuss aspects of the proposals in that Green Paper, and I shall bear in mind her suggestion that there should be a full debate in the House. Of course, it will be open to the Opposition to choose that subject for debate, as other hon. Members might be able to express their views better than the shadow Minister did today.
The right hon. Lady spoke about the erosion of accountability, but was gracious enough to say that she did not think it was intentional. When we have devolution for Scotland, devolution for Wales and a Greater London authority—proposals for which were, again, well received yesterday—we will improve accountability. Those proposals are generally welcomed.
The right hon. Lady referred to the absence of Ministers from the Ministry of Agriculture from the Adjournment debate on farming initiated by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans). The hon. Gentleman himself acknowledged that there were extremely good reasons why the Minister of State, who would normally have replied to that debate, could not be present. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and the Parliamentary Secretary had been in Brussels that day, representing the UK at the Fisheries Council. I know that the reply given to the hon. Gentleman was an excellent one, which is exactly what we would expect from the Minister concerned.
Mr. John Home Robertson: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the decision of the Scots Court of Appeal on the Vannet v. Milligan case, which seems to indicate that in certain circumstances the interim diet procedure may have no statutory basis? Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that that could affect up to 1,000 cases, and that some serious prosecutions may therefore fail on a pure technicality? Is there any possibility that the statutes could be amended to deal with the problem?
Mrs. Taylor: I am aware of the issue. The Secretary of State for Scotland and the Lord Advocate are urgently

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considering the implications of the judgment and what action may need to be taken as a result. We as a Government are consulting other parties so that we can take any action that is necessary as quickly as possible.
Mr. Paul Tyler: Can the Leader of the House confirm a persistent rumour that tomorrow the Government intend to interrupt business to make a statement about the merger of the Rural Development Commission and the Countryside Commission? Can she further confirm that it is intended to introduce amendments to that effect in the late proceedings on the Regional Development Agencies Bill, although the matter was not discussed in Committee at any stage? Can she explain why such an extraordinary rabbit-out-of-a-hat decision has been taken without proper discussion, particularly with the commissions concerned and all those in the countryside who value the work of those two extremely important agencies?
Can the Leader of the House tell us when she expects the Modernisation Committee to turn its attention to the treatment of private Members' Bills in this place, about which there is extreme concern in all parts of the House? I particularly draw her attention to the fact that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), to whom I have given notice that I intend to raise this matter, has set himself up as a one-man censor of all private Members' Bills. He proposes to block them all on principle, because he believes that the way in which the House deals with them is unsatisfactory. Although many of us may agree with him on that, it is extraordinary that he should, for example, be so dismissive of the case put by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which has an important interest in the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Bill.
Finally, can the Leader of the House tell us whether the frequent conversations that the Prime Minister, according to his own staff, has with Mr. Richard Murdoch, extend to the issue of media monopolies in this country? [Interruption.] I mean Mr. Rupert Murdoch.
Mrs. Taylor: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister dealt with that yesterday. I have nothing further to add to any speculation about conversations with any Murdoch, regardless of which one it might be.
There is no proposal to interrupt the business tomorrow with a statement of the kind that the hon. Gentleman suggests.
On modernisation and the important question how the House deals with private Members' Bills, the hon. Gentleman, as a member of that Committee, knows that we have spent some time considering what our priorities should be. In addition to the reports that have already been published, we have made our priorities electronic voting and European scrutiny, and then we will go on to discuss the parliamentary calendar—the parliamentary day, the parliamentary week, the parliamentary year. That will keep the Committee busy for some time, but we made it clear in our first report on the legislative process that private Members' Bills and perhaps private Members' time were matters to which we wanted to return.
Mr. Llew Smith: Will the Leader of the House consider a debate on the recent research
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findings of Dr. Andrew Wakefield linking problems of the gut and autism and a possible association with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination? I am sure she is aware that I and others were promised by the Department of Health that a seminar would be organised on the subject, and that parents of children damaged would be allowed to attend. She will also be aware that that did not happen.
This week the Medical Research Council still published its conclusions, which were open to scrutiny by the media, but Members of Parliament like me were initially refused permission to attend. After a major row, the organisers backed down, but said that, although as a Member of Parliament I could attend the press conference, I could not ask questions. Can the Leader of the House appreciate the irony of the situation, when the media can question what is in reality a Government statement, while Members of Parliament are refused the opportunity?
Mrs. Taylor: My hon. Friend will no doubt find opportunities to raise the issue, such as at Health questions. He asked for a debate on the matter, but I regret that I cannot find time for that. I can only advise him to try to get an Adjournment debate if he wants to pursue that interest further at this stage.
Mr. John Wilkinson: Can the right hon. Lady persuade the Home Secretary to make a statement to the House next week on the effect of the Schengen agreement and the Dublin convention among European Union members on the control of would-be asylum seekers and would-be refugees entering this country? Is she aware that, since the beginning of the year, some 900 have come via the Eurostar route through the channel tunnel without any documents? Such documents would be required by British law from passengers travelling on air carriers.
Unless the system is brought under control, people will get extremely upset, especially in the London boroughs that would have to accommodate the would-be asylum seekers. The Home Secretary is writing to his counterpart in Belgium, and representations are being made to the K4 committee of the European Union tomorrow. At the very least, we deserve a statement on the matter.
Mrs. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman raises a serious matter. We have been aware of the problem for some time. As he points out, the Home Secretary is seeking urgent solutions with the Belgians. It is Home Office questions on Monday, and I do not think that the hon. Gentleman would have too much difficulty in finding an opportunity for a question then.
Mr. Jim Dobbin: Is my right hon. Friend aware of early-day motion 1146, which highlights the serious problems caused by substandard builders?
[That this House deplores the activities of Kiely Homes also known as Kiely Developments, Manor Homes and Heritage Homes, 'new build' property developers who operate mainly around the Greater Manchester area; notes that they continually flout planning regulations, repeatedly fail to achieve the required quality of property development expected and indeed encourage unsuspecting homebuyers to purchase sub-standard homes; notes their

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policy is to offer free conveyancing to be done by a solicitor of their choice, paid for by them for doing the work; and urges that the law be amended to require mortgage providers to check with the planning authority that all planning regulations and standards have been met before a mortgage is granted on any new property in order to protect the home buyer and the law be amended to ensure mortgage providers require property developers to produce an up-to-date copy of the insurance policy and guarantees for the homes being purchased.]
The motion also refers to companies in my constituency and around the Manchester area, which are enticing first-time buyers, young families and retired people to purchase substandard properties on substandard developments. The principal directors of those companies are the Kiely brothers. There are seven, I believe. National insurance companies are refusing to offer insurance cover on those properties. Will my right hon. Friend possibly offer some time in future to debate this serious issue, with a view to encouraging legislation to protect first-time buyers from these cowboy builders?
Mrs. Taylor: I can well understand why my hon. Friend is concerned about this matter. He will be aware that all new homes must comply with the statutory building regulations. I understand that the firm in question has been removed from the registers of both the main providers of new home warranties, the National House-building Council and Zurich Municipal. That would normally mean that a mortgage lender would be unwilling to advance a loan on such homes.
My hon. Friend has raised an issue that I well believe concerns his constituents, and has asked me to find time for a debate on the matter. I cannot do that in Government time but my hon. Friend might like to apply for an Adjournment debate.
Mr. Nigel Evans: Is it possible to arrange an early debate on tourism in the regions so that I can talk about the importance of conferences to towns such as Blackpool, for instance, which is only 20 miles away from my constituency? Some disparaging comments have come from the right hon. Lady's party.
If Blackpool is good enough for 16 million visitors a year, surely it should be good enough for the people's party. It has a wide variety of hotels catering for people with all sorts of income. I admit that some of the rooms may not be up to the standard of the Lord Chancellor's apartments, but they cater for a wide variety of people.
If we have the debate for which I have asked, perhaps we could bring out all these matters. Perhaps as well we could seek an apology from the right hon. Lady or the Prime Minister. Some of the comments that have been made could damage the conference trade in Blackpool and cost some people their jobs.
Mrs. Taylor: I must take issue with the hon. Gentleman about his suggestion that disparaging remarks have been made by my colleagues on the Government Benches. That is simply not true. There have been criticisms of the conference facilities, but not of the town nor of the accommodation. Like many other people, I went to my first conference in Blackpool, and I hope to be going to others in Blackpool in future.
Mrs. Maria Fyfe: Are there any plans to have statements on either Monday or Tuesday of
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next week? If not, is it possible to avoid that happening? As my right hon. Friend will know, there is a great deal still to be discussed on the Scotland Bill, and only a short time to get through the remaining clauses.
Mrs. Taylor: On those days when consideration has taken place of the Government of Wales Bill or the Scotland Bill, we have been willing to consider injury time when there have been statements. That is what we have been discussing as a means of avoiding the problem to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention.
Mr. Keith Simpson: Will the Leader of the House explain why there will be no Defence questions in April? We shall have to wait until May. It seems highly unlikely that we shall have the usual single-service debates on the Army, Navy and Air Force. Will we have to wait for the defence review, which may or may not be published before the summer recess, before we have an opportunity rightly to question Ministers on the declining morale in our armed forces, which are awaiting the outcome of the review?
Mrs. Taylor: I think that the hon. Gentleman will find that he is wrong. My question paper shows that there will be Defence questions on 6 April.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: May I welcome what my right hon. Friend said about a statement on the Narey report on prisons in Northern Ireland? Would this be the opportunity for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to make a statement on the cases of Guardsmen Fisher and Wright, whose lives have now been threatened in a way that is regarded, rightly, by the Government, as very serious, by imprisonment in Northern Ireland?
Under the cloak of parliamentary privilege—I do not want to be sued, as The Daily Telegraph was threatened with being sued, and had to pay up money, as was the case with General Sir David Scott-Barratt—may I say that I have read the transcript of the trial of Guardsmen Fisher and Wright? I am absolutely appalled, as anybody would be, by the justice system in Northern Ireland, and by the behaviour of certain lawyers.
Is it not incumbent on people on Green Benches, who have sent troops to do a job, rightly or wrongly, in Northern Ireland, at least to ensure individual justice? Will my right hon. Friend take into account that it is not simply the generals and the "toffs", so-called, of the Scots Guards who are concerned? Many of the ex-warrant officers and non-commissioned officers, like one of my constituents, Jack Smith, are pressing that justice be done to these two individuals.
Mrs. Taylor: I shall make sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is aware of my hon. Friend's comments. I was talking specifically about a statement on the Narey inquiry.
Mr. Michael Jack: Following on from the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), I ask the Leader of the House to try to find time for a debate on early-day motion 1147.

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[That this House condemns the apparent decision of the Labour Party to abandon Blackpool as a venue for its Annual Conference; deplores the reported comments of a Labour spokesman alleging 'concern at the quality of the hotels of Blackpool'; applauds the commitment of the Conservative Party to the town as witnessed by the presence of the Conservative Conference there in every alternate year for the last 35 years; welcomes its continued intention to visit Blackpool regularly; notes the high quality and excellent value of Blackpool's hotels and guesthouses; and calls on the Labour Party to change its decision.]
The Prime Minister said during the election that Blackpool would be safe in Labour's hands. The announcement this week poses some questions on that statement.
Today, I spoke to First Leisure about the criticisms that have been made of the conference centre, and it rebutted them. It pointed out that £10 million has been spent over the past 10 years. It pointed out also that all the requirements of both parties with reference to improving these facilities have been put in place. First Leisure is at a loss to understand what the real reason is for Labour's decision not to hold its conference in Blackpool. I make a request for a debate so that we might ascertain the real reason for Labour wanting to go from Blackpool.
Mrs. Taylor: There seems to be some disparity between the information that the right hon. Gentleman has and the experience of many of us who go to conferences in Blackpool. While we might like the place and the people there, there are problems with the conference facilities, and all the requirements for improvements have not been met. I think that many people in Blackpool would like to see improvements in their conference facilities.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: If my right hon. Friend manages to find time for a debate on tourism, will she bear it in mind that I could make a contribution to it that would make it clear, as the only Member present in the Chamber who was present at the meeting of the NEC on Tuesday, that I battled on behalf of Blackpool? I lost temporarily by two votes, and as you, Madam Speaker, know, that caused me to be a little late for Question Time. I was battling away to win that little skirmish.
Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that, as a result of my efforts and of other efforts made yesterday at the parliamentary Labour party meeting, we shall be going
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back to Blackpool? We are going to Blackpool this year, and by 2002, after the second Labour election victory, we shall be celebrating at the Winter gardens at Blackpool.
Mrs. Taylor: I think that my hon. Friend has made the point, and that there is no need for any further debate.
Mr. Andrew Rowe: Does the Leader of the House agree that the shift in Government policy represented by the White Paper on development was considerable, and much trumpeted by her party? The responses to that White Paper have now been gathered in. Will she ensure that there is a debate in Government time, which would allow the nation to appreciate the quality and the substance of those responses?
Mrs. Taylor: I cannot promise at this stage that that debate will take place, and certainly not in the near future, but I shall bear the possibility in mind.
Mr. Michael Fabricant: May we have a debate on the growing politicisation of the civil service? May I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to a letter I received this morning from Brian Macklin, who is a pensioner and one of my constituents? He tells me that, in a round robin that all pensioners have received from the Benefits Agency, there is reference to the "unprecedented exercise" to help with winter fuel bills. It seems that such letters are being written by civil servants, but civil servants who have replaced the press officers who were fired in many of the agencies and Government Departments in Whitehall so recently by the Minister without Portfolio and his cohorts. Given that Parliament is being increasingly sidelined, can we ensure that such a debate takes place?
Mrs. Taylor: The letter was factually correct. Had the Conservative Government given pensioners the help with fuel bills that they have had this winter, the hon. Gentleman might have had a point, but the quotation to which he referred complies with the facts, so I see no problem with the letter.
Mr. Andrew Stunell: Is the Leader of the House aware that, on Wednesday, the European Commission imposed a temporary 15 per cent. anti-dumping levy on the import of greycloth into the EU, which is threatening jobs in my constituency, and in the past 18 months there have been two other attempts to impose that duty? Will the right hon. Lady ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to make a statement on this serious situation, which is threatening jobs in the finishing and fabric-making industry, not just in my constituency but elsewhere in Britain?
Mr. Skinner: You should not have voted for that Common Market.
Mrs. Taylor: Trade and Industry questions will be on Tuesday, when the hon. Gentleman may have the opportunity to raise the matter, but I shall bring his remarks to my right hon. Friend's attention.

Points of Order
5.11 pm
Mr. Bernard Jenkin: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Following my question to the Prime Minister yesterday about anti-corruption proceedings against the Lord Provost of Glasgow, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe) said that I had accused the Lord Provost of corruption, when in fact, as the Prime Minister confirmed in his answer, it was the Labour party in its proceedings which made that accusation. The hon. Lady said that I was saying things in the House that I dare not say outside for fear of being sued, and that my conduct was deplorable.
I know that you dealt with that point of order, Madam Speaker, but I want to draw your attention to the fact that I was not informed that the hon. Lady intended to raise that point of order, and I wondered whether you had dealt with that matter with her.
Mrs. Maria Fyfe: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. I want to put on the record an apology for any offence given to the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) in not notifying him that I intended to raise the matter. However, the Lord Provost of Glasgow has not been charged with or accused of corruption, but with impropriety under the Labour party's internal rules. Therefore, it was wrong to link corruption with the name of that man or my city.
Madam Speaker: I am not responsible for hon. Members' comments in the House, but I remind both hon. Members and the House that good temper and moderation are the characteristics of our parliamentary language, and that thought should remain with us at all times.
Mr. Nick Hawkins: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Have you had any indication of any inclination on the part of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to come to the House to make a statement about his advisory panel on the question of listed sports events? That is a matter of concern to all hon. Members. I and my fellow deputy chairmen of the all-party sports group from the Government party and the Liberal Democrats are all calling for a debate in Government time. In the light of the recent report to the Secretary of State, has the right hon. Gentleman given any indication of an intention to make such a statement, so that we can challenge the recommendations of that panel, with which we disagree?
Madam Speaker: No, I am not aware that the Secretary of State is seeking to make a statement. Had that been the case, we would have been informed earlier in the day.

Orders of the Day

  Government of Wales Bill
  [2ND ALLOTTED DAY]
  As amended (in the Committee), further considered.
  [Relevant documents: Memorandum from the President of the Council contained in the Twenty-Seventh Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, Session 1997–98 (HC 33-xxvii); First Report from the Welsh Affairs Committee, Session 1997–98 on The Impact of the Government's Devolution Proposals on Economic Development and Local Government in Wales (HC 329-I).]

  Government of Wales Bill
    Clause 62

      REGIONAL COMMITTEES
      5.13 pm
      Mr. Nigel Evans: I beg to move amendment No. 14, in page 30, line 35, leave out from 'for' to end of line 43 and insert
      'each of the regions of Wales.
      (2) These regions shall be the same as the electoral regions at the last ordinary election.'.
      Madam Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 242, in page 30, line 36, leave out from 'to' to end of line and insert
      'which the Assembly must have regard when deciding on matters affecting North Wales.'.
      No. 243, in page 30, line 38, leave out from 'to' to end of line 39 and insert
      'which the Assembly must have regard when deciding on matters affecting the region.'.
      No. 244, in page 30, line 41, at end insert—
      '(aa) Mid Wales, and
      (ab) West Wales, and'.
      Mr. Evans: This will be a relatively short debate because the guillotine falls at 6 o'clock. That reinforces our request for an extra day to debate the many issues necessary to ensure that the Bill is improved. It is a great shame that we have only 45 minutes in which to debate two groups of amendments.
      This is an important debate. I am interested not in point scoring, but in clarity and good legislation. I said yesterday that I am not a supporter of devolution in this guise, but I concede that it will happen, so we must make the best of it.
      No one denies that a major stumbling block to the success of the assembly is that it may fail to unite Wales. The referendum result showed the difference between the east and west of Wales, and we know that there is a distinct difference between north and south Wales. As a south Walian, I say that with some feeling. Nor must we forget mid-Wales.
      If the assembly is to have all-Wales support, a device must be invented that will give voice to and address all concerns. That might prevent the feeling that the south-east of Wales will dominate Wales: the fear that, with a twin-town axis—that was a movie about Swansea, but I am talking about Cardiff and Newport—that will have the loaf while the rest of Wales has the crumbs.

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      The Government have invented the concept of regional Committees, which is a step in the right direction, although they are pretty toothless. However, it shows that they recognise the need for some sort of body to give voice to the regions.
      The next question is how many regions there should be and how they will be made up. The Bill is vague. Clause 62(3) states that there should be a regional Committee in north Wales and in the other regions of Wales. That is vague. In some cases, vagueness is a help, but in this case I do not think that it will be, and it might turn into a bit of a nightmare.
      Clause 62(5) spells out the composition of the regional Committees. Paragraph (a) states that the members of a regional Committee will be the constituency Members of the Assembly—that is right—and paragraph (b) says that the members will also come from the top-up areas.
      If we asked 10 Welsh Members to divide a map of Wales so as properly to reflect the regions of Wales, we would probably end up with 10 different maps, so there will never be a perfect solution to the problem. We are simply seeking a common-sense solution.
      How did the Government approach the problem of the top-up candidates for the regions? They have adopted the old European parliamentary constituencies, which now mean nothing with regard to the European elections but are a handy device for deciding on the top-up Members of the Assembly, giving a regional flavour.
      We could not adopt the new European region of Wales, because five Members of the European Parliament will represent the whole of Wales. Those five MEPs might even all come from the south-east of Wales, giving no regional reflection. We might have suspected low turnouts in previous European Parliament elections, but at the next European election, the turnout might be even worse, because the Welsh electorate will have been marginalised.
      We want to ensure that all the regions of Wales have a voice on the new Welsh assembly. The Government have recognised the convenience of the old European parliamentary regions for the top-up candidates. Our amendment makes it clear, out of the muddle that will exist, where the regions will be, because we have used the same European constituencies. That also answers the problem of the top-up candidates who will be sitting on the regional Committees. There will be no problem of the old European constituencies straddling two areas.
      If we use four rather than the five regions for the Committee of the Regions, the top-up Members of the Assembly will have regions that straddle different areas. How can that be rectified? The assembly may elect top-up Members to the various regional Committees, but that would be rather messy and cumbersome when the device of the five old European constituencies is already at hand. Each of the top-up Members would therefore naturally fall into those regional Committees. There would be no confusion about where the loyalty of some of those top-up candidates should lie, and responsibility would certainly not be given to the 40 Members of the Assembly who have constituencies to vote on where the regional Members of the Assembly will sit.
      The way in which the five European areas are split may not be perfect, but if that system is good enough for the top-up for the Welsh assembly, it should be good enough
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      for the regional Committees. The proportion of the Welsh electorate in those areas varies from 17.9 to 21.6 per cent., so it does not differ widely, and the number of assembly seats is extremely comparable.
      This is a common-sense and constructive amendment, which would ensure that the assembly helped to alleviate one of the major problems that arose immediately after the referendum, when people said that they feared that the south-east would dominate the assembly. If anything, those fears have been exacerbated since Cardiff was chosen as the site for the assembly. After all other areas had been asked to put in their bids, the Secretary of State announced that he had chosen the capital of Wales, Cardiff, for compelling reasons.
      We must come up with a system that gives a voice to the regions via the regional Committees in a way that will be accepted by the whole of Wales. There must be no gerrymandering whatever. The European constituencies already exist, and I commend the amendment to the House.
      Mr. Richard Livsey: Amendments Nos. 242 and 243 would require the assembly to have regard to the decisions of regional Committees when taking decisions affecting the regions. In Committee, we discussed amendments that would have allowed the assembly to delegate functions to the regional Committees. I still believe that that is the best way to proceed if we are to allow some decisions to be taken locally, representing the interests and needs of local people.
      The Government have not adequately addressed the issue of regional Committees, which is why we tabled these amendments. In Committee, the Under-Secretary of State said:
      "The Regional Committees are designed to enable the regions to feed back specific advice to the Welsh assembly when it makes its decisions."— [Official Report, 2 February 1998; Vol. 305, c. 801.]
      There is no requirement in the Bill for the assembly to follow that advice.
      Amendments Nos. 242 and 243 would provide that the decisions of regional Committees had an influence on the assembly's decisions. The Government have failed to give any powers to the regional Committees. With appropriate powers, those Committees could be the cornerstone of an effective, inclusive assembly, representing the views of the whole of Wales. Page 27 of the White Paper says that the regional Committees
      "will ensure that the views of the different regions of Wales can be heard."
      I am sure that that statement was sincere. Our amendments would ensure that the views were not only heard but acted on.
      Amendment No. 244 would ensure that mid and west Wales, as well as north Wales, had their own regional Committees. It is vital that those areas have separate regional Committees, to ensure that rural Wales has a strong voice in the assembly. The Bill singles out north Wales as an area that should have a regional Committee, and we certainly agree with that. However, the claims of mid and west Wales are equally strong.

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      Amendment No. 14, tabled by the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), and to which the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) spoke, would create regions based on the current European parliamentary constituencies.
      Mr. Evans: What would the hon. Gentleman do about the appointment to regional Committees of Members of the Assembly in the top-up areas? Would he have some Members trying to sit on two Committees, or allow the assembly to vote in favour of those Members sitting on the regional Committees?
      Mr. Livsey: The hon. Gentleman asks a fair question. It is important that the Members on the regional Committees should represent those regions and be elected from within them, as that would give them democratic viability. That is the sort of set-up that we want.
      Mr. Evans: The problem lies in areas where the old European regional constituencies straddle two of the areas that the hon. Gentleman is discussing. How would he resolve that problem?
      Mr. Livsey: The answer is simple: we do not support amendment No. 14, because we believe that the configuration of the European constituencies is not appropriate. For example, the Wales Mid and West constituency covers a huge area—it goes to within 10 miles of Llandudno and includes Llanelli. That is not a suitable configuration. The hon. Gentleman and I are talking about different configurations.
      Mr. Evans: The hon. Gentleman is missing the point. Twenty Members of the Assembly will be elected via the European regions. If we use four rather than the five European regions for the Committee of the Regions, so that the regions have a voice in the assembly, how will the hon. Gentleman deal with the fact that some Members representing those regions will cover more than one area?
      Mr. Livsey: I should have thought that that could be simply dealt with by the fact that those Members would come within the new configuration—
      Mr. Evans: They do not.
      Mr. Livsey: They do not at the moment, but we want arrangements to be put in hand to ensure that they represent north, mid and west Wales. Members of the Assembly will be elected from those areas.
      We do not want a southern-dominated body. A National Assembly for Wales should structure its regional Committees to represent the whole of Wales. It might create regional Committees representing roughly equal numbers of people, but population is not the only factor that needs to be considered. The size of the region represented by the Committee is also important. If a region the size of mid and west Wales is created, it will be difficult for the regional Committee to represent the interests of all its residents, because it is such a diverse area.
      I therefore urge the Government to accept the Liberal Democrat amendments, to ensure that the regional Committees have enough influence and size to command the full support of the people they represent. Amendment No. 14 would not do that.
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Win Griffiths): Despite the strictures of the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) about lack of time, we have added time to these debates since the first timetable was agreed. To judge from the brevity of the arguments made in this debate, we shall make good progress despite the later than expected start.
      As the hon. Gentleman explained, amendment No. 14 specifies that the five European constituencies would be the regions in which to have the regional Committees. Amendments Nos. 243 and 244 would place a duty on the assembly to have regard to the regional Committees' advice in deciding matters affecting their regions. Amendment No. 244 stipulates that there must be regional Committees for mid Wales and west Wales, as well as for north Wales and any other regions of Wales. We have no proposals for the boundaries of those regions.
      The hon. Member for Ribble Valley said that clause 62 allows for a regional Committee for north Wales and other parts of Wales. We wish to make progress through taking advice, as this debate is followed across Wales, from the work of the assembly advisory group. After Easter, it will consult on its proposals for regional Committees. We could use either the four regions of the Welsh Development Agency—there would be a certain sense in that—or we could consider seven regions across Wales, as the advisory group proposes. All members of the Welsh Affairs Committee, including Conservative Members, recommended the WDA boundaries as the basis for the regional Committees. In such circumstances, we are not inclined to accept amendment No. 14.
      Mr. Evans: A map of Wales could be divided in all sorts of ways, and all sorts of bodies are probably lobbying the Minister on their preferred option. The WDA system uses four areas. I do not expect him warmly to embrace amendment No. 14, but I hope that he recognises that it is a serious attempt to solve the problem. I seek an assurance from him: will he consider carefully the fact that sensible representation would be achieved by ensuring that top-up Members represented their regions of Wales on the regional Committees?
      5.30 pm
      Mr. Griffiths: I was about to deal with the hon. Gentleman's point about the fact that the four WDA regions or the seven regions proposed by the advisory group would not be contiguous with the European constituencies that will be used for the assembly top-up. We realise that a little ingenuity will be required to decide how overlaps should be dealt with. I assure him that I do not think that it is beyond the wit and wisdom of humanity, and of the Government and other people who are concerned about those issues, to come up with a solution that makes sense for the assembly and for the regions.
      Amendments Nos. 242 and 243 are unnecessary because clause 62 creates regional Committees to ensure that there is a regional voice. They will report back to the assembly and regard will be taken of what they say. The regional Committees could not conceivably maintain their credibility if their views were disregarded in assembly decision making.
      Given that the Government are aware of the problems with representation mentioned by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley, and given our willingness to accept the

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      spirit of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey), I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.
      Mr. Evans: I listened carefully to the Minister. Hon. Members acknowledge that regional Committees are an attempt to deal with the problem of competition between areas. Wales is an entity, but there is tremendous suspicion between north and south Wales, and between east and west Wales. Newport and Cardiff have attracted the lion's share of inward investment in Wales, which has also caused suspicion.
      Mr. Win Griffiths: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because I want to reinforce what we have said on many occasions: we are very much aware of the need to spread economic development and prosperity further west in the south, in the north and in mid-Wales. I want to reassure the hon. Gentleman on that point.
      Mr. Evans: I am grateful to the Minister for that reassurance, because there are pockets where unemployment is much higher than the average in Wales. Such areas will be keen to ensure that inward investment, or even indigenous expansion, will take place not only along the M4 corridor, but around the A55.
      Mr. John Smith: The differences across Wales are not coterminous with European parliamentary seats. Therefore, it would be sensible to take that issue into account after the assembly is established and create regional Committees that reflect those differences.
      Mr. Evans: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that remark, but our starting point must be an acknowledgement that there is a problem. Following the referendum result, we must ensure that people are not afraid that the establishment of the assembly will result in a lot of inward investment being sucked to certain areas and in major decisions being made with an eye to Newport and Cardiff and not to other areas. The Minister mentioned the WDA and the need to ensure that inward investment continues in future. The previous Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), the leader of the Conservative party, recognised the importance of inward investment.
      The next step forward is to deal with representation on the regional Committees. The WDA, which operates on the economic front, has considered the issue, and we must ensure that there is a real voice for all the regions of Wales on the political front. We shall never reach a perfect solution, because there is no perfect solution. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) has experience of living in a certain area, and his map of regional Committees for Wales might differ from one drawn by me, because I was born in Swansea and lived around that area of Wales.
      We must decide on a starting point, but I fear that the assembly may not make the right decisions if it is left to draw its own lines on the map. We are trying to solve the problems of the role of the regions and of top-up Members, who must have a clear role on the Committees. Top-up Members of the Welsh assembly should represent
      714
      the region that they were elected to represent and should not straddle two areas or sit on a Committee that represents another region, which would be absurd.
      Hon. Members recognise the problem that I am discussing and know that we must be a little more determined and burn a lot of midnight oil before the problem can be solved. Therefore, I shall not press amendment No. 14. I hope that common sense will prevail and that the Minister will take my comments on board.
      Mr. Livsey: I thank the Minister for the spirit in which he responded to our amendments. I especially note what he said about the WDA regions, which have an attraction. We in mid-Wales are concerned about the smallness of the area should Meirionnydd be lost as part of it. The critical mass of population would fall under 200,000, which would be a problem. Meirionnydd's gross domestic product figures are similar to those for other areas of mid-Wales, and I should be grateful if he took account of that. Although we have discussed the matter, I cannot speak for the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd).
      Given the spirit of the Minister's response, we should like to withdraw our amendments.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. We need worry only about amendment No. 14 at this stage. Does the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) want to withdraw it?
      Mr. Evans: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

    Clause 65

      MAKING OF ASSEMBLY GENERAL SUBORDINATE LEGISLATION
      Amendments made: No. 133, in page 31, line 39, leave out
      'or the Assembly First Secretary'
      and insert
      ', the Assembly First Secretary or such other person as may be authorised by the standing orders'.
      No. 134, in page 32, line 3, leave out
      'by the deputy presiding officer or the Assembly First Secretary'
      and insert
      'otherwise than by the presiding officer'.
      No. 135, in page 32, line 17, at end insert—
      '() The Assembly First Secretary may not delegate his function of signing Assembly general subordinate legislation.'.
      No. 136, in page 32, line 18, leave out
      'to a committee of the Assembly or a member of the Assembly's staff'. —[Mr. Win Griffiths.]

    Clause 68

      PRESERVATION OF ORDER
      Amendment made: No. 166, in page 33, line 30, at end insert
      'and for withdrawing their rights and privileges as Assembly members for the period of their exclusion.' —[Mr. Win Griffiths.]

    Clause 69

      OPENNESS
      Amendments made: No. 137, in page 33, line 34, leave out
      'in circumstances specified in the standing orders'
      and insert
      'where the standing orders otherwise provide'.
      No. 138, in page 34, line 10, leave out
      'in circumstances specified in the standing orders'
      and insert
      'where the standing orders otherwise provide' — [Mr. Win Griffiths.]

    Clause 70

      ACCOUNTABILITY
      Amendments made: No. 139, in page 34, line 20, leave out subsection (2).
      No. 140, in page 34, line 28, leave out
      'in circumstances specified in the standing orders'
      and insert
      'where the standing orders otherwise provide'. —[Mr. Win Griffiths.]

    Clause 71

      INTEGRITY
      Amendment made: No. 167, in page 35, line 18, at end insert

      ', and

      (b) for withdrawing his rights and privileges as an Assembly member for the period of his exclusion.'. —[Mr. Win Griffiths.]

  Schedule 4

    BODIES AND OFFICES COVERED BY SECTION 73
    Mr. Cynog Dafis: I beg to move amendment No. 53, in page 77, line 17, at end insert—
    '7A. The British Council.'.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 54, in page 77, line 22, at end insert—
    '12A. The Commission for Racial Equality.'.
    No. 55, in page 77, line 26, at end insert—
    '16A. The Economic and Social Research Council.'.
    No. 56, in page 77, line 26, at end insert—
    '16B. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.'.
    No. 57, in page 77, line 27, at end insert—
    ' I7A. The Equal Opportunities Commission.'.
    No. 58, in page 77, line 33, at end insert—
    '2IA. The Health and Safety Commission.'.
    No. 59, in page 77, line 33, at end insert—
    '21B. The Health and Safety Executive.'.
    No. 60, in page 78, line 3, at end insert—
    '27A. The Medical Research Council.'.
    No. 61, in page 78, line 12, at end insert—
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    '35A. The Natural Environment Research Council.'.
    No. 62, in page 78, line 13, at end insert—
    '36A.The Office of Electricity Regulation.'.
    No. 63, in page 78, line 13, at end insert —
    '36B. The Office of Gas Supply.'.
    No. 64, in page 78, line 13, at end insert —
    '36C. The Office of the National Lottery.'.
    No. 65, in page 78, line 13, at end insert —
    ' 36D The Office of the Rail Regulator.'.
    No. 66, in page 78, line 13, at end insert —
    ' 36E. The Office of Passenger Rail Franchising
    No. 67, in page 78, line 13, at end insert —
    '.36F. The Office of Telecommunications
    No. 68, in page 78, line 13, at end insert —
    ' 36G. The Office of Water Services.
    No. 69, in page 78, line 13, at end insert —
    '36H The Post Office.'.
    No. 70, in page 78, line 21, at end insert —
    '43A. The Teacher Training Agency
    No. 71, in page 78, line 21, at end insert —
    ' 43B. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.'.
    Mr. Dafis: The amendments would add those bodies to the list of bodies in schedule 4. I thank the hon. Members for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey) and for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) for adding their names to the amendments: that is much appreciated.
    One of the reasons for establishing the assembly was to make quangos in Wales democratically accountable. Under schedule 4, only some of the quangos will be covered by clause 73. They can be required to attend the proceedings of the assembly to give evidence and to produce documents that are in their possession or under their control.
    Will the Secretary of State explain why the list in schedule 4 does not include the bodies mentioned in the amendments? It is not because they need to be free from political influence: they do not belong to the same category as those listed in part IV of schedule 3.
    I have tabled the amendments to emphasise how important it will be for the assembly to have a serious influence over the activities of some of the powerful bodies referred to in the amendments. It is more important that the assembly should be able to influence the Rail Regulator, the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising or the water and electricity regulators than the Apple and Pear Research Council. We do not have a significant apple and pear industry in Wales. I should like to see it expand, but at present those other bodies are more important.
    It is much more important for the assembly to be able to call the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council than to be able to call the Apple and Pear Research Council. I have to admit to a glaring, inexplicable omission in our list: I have left out the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. That is the main funding body for the Institute for Grassland and Environmental Research, and it is the only research institute that is located in Wales. My contention that it should be on the list is now on the record.

    717
    The assembly will want to know why, apart from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, research council spending in Wales is so low. Is it because the standard of research in Wales is too low? If so, the assembly should know why, and it would be reasonable for the research councils to advise it on how that could be rectified. Is it because of cronyism? Research councils are, by and large, located in south-east England, so perhaps that has something to do with the fact that research funding in Wales is so low. It will be important for the assembly to check on the extent to which research priorities are relevant to Welsh needs.
    It will be essential for the assembly to maintain a dialogue with research councils to develop a strategy for high-quality higher education and research in Wales.
    5.45 pm
    Mr. David Hanson: Does the hon. Gentleman envisage circumstances in which, if asked, any of those bodies would not supply evidence or comment to the Welsh assembly?
    Mr. Dafis: I shall come to that issue.
    The assembly has a duty to promote equal opportunities, yet the Equal Opportunities Commission cannot be required to appear before it or its relevant Committee. It has a duty to have regard to sustainable development, yet it cannot require Opraf to appear before it, and that could be essential to the development of a sustainable transport policy. Other bodies also have a key role in sustainable development.
    The assembly can call the Sugar Beet Research and Education Committee, but it cannot call the Post Office, whose actions are crucial for accessibility and for the development of communications; the same applies to the Office of Telecommunications. The assembly will want to consult the British Council on how Wales is projected and Welsh culture is interpreted overseas.
    I imagine that, like the hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson), the Secretary of State will say that those bodies will be prepared to appear before the assembly, and that the assembly's status as an elected national body for Wales will give it influence. I want the Secretary of State to say what the hon. Gentleman almost said: that it would be unthinkable and unacceptable for those bodies, when it came to the crunch, not to behave in exactly the same way as those listed in schedule 4.
    If the assembly is to set about the task of building a new and successful Wales, it must have the power to influence the bodies that have, in turn, such an influence on life in Wales.
    Mr. Lembit Öpik: The Liberal Democrats support the amendments. They are not controversial, and the assembly's structures are such that we should expect it to call those bodies to give evidence. That would be helpful, because it would establish a coherent relationship between the assembly and the bodies in question. Some of them may find themselves in a difficult situation, and would welcome the fact that the assembly can invite them to important debates on topics such as the national lottery or the railways, which are
    718
    often controversial. The assembly would appreciate the importance of having the mandatory right to summon the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, given the tensions that that industry arouses.
    The Minister has shown great magnanimity in accepting Opposition proposals on a Cabinet structure, and we hope that he will show the same generosity of spirit, common sense and inclusivity and accept the amendments.
    Mr. Ted Rowlands: Has the hon. Gentleman's attention been drawn to clause 74, which gives the Secretary of State the power by order to add to this list as and when? The Food Standards Agency, which deals with matters of considerable concern to us, could be added at some future date. Does not that clause satisfy the aims of the amendments?
    Mr. Öpik: Yes, those bodies could be added at a future date, but we can add them now. None of them is controversial.
    Mr. Livsey: I am comparing yesterday's amendment paper with today's. The amendment referring to the British Waterways Board has somehow disappeared. I am sure that my hon. Friend would be concerned about that, because there is a canal in his constituency, as there is in mine. I am in dispute at the moment, because water is leaking into the houses of some of my constituents. I hope that the British Waterways Board will also be added to the list in schedule 4.
    Mr. Öpik: My hon. Friend simply reiterates the fluid nature of the debate. I hope that amendments on the important matter of water are not drying up.
    I applaud the Secretary of State for his magnanimity, which I hope stretches to accepting our proposals.
    Ms Julie Morgan: I understand the points raised by Opposition Members. The organisations listed in amendments Nos. 53 to 71 are of great importance to Wales and the effective functioning of the assembly. Organisations such as the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Commission for Racial Equality will be fundamental to its day-to-day work as they already work closely with local government and other bodies to provide equal opportunities for everyone in Wales. It is absolutely essential for the assembly to have a good working relationship with such bodies and, by tabling the amendments, Opposition Members have flagged up that point. No doubt, other bodies will participate in joint projects with groups within the assembly.
    As the bodies mentioned in the amendments are not the responsibility of the assembly and many of them have a wider British remit, it may not be possible to list them in the schedule. However, the amendments have flagged up the tremendous importance of the assembly working closely with such bodies as they will help determine the quality of the assembly and the way in which it will operate. Although I support the spirit behind the amendments, it may not be appropriate to add them to the schedule.
    Mr. Bernard Jenkin: There are 10 minutes left and I congratulate the hon. Member for

    719
    Ceredigion (Mr. Dafis) on introducing the amendments [Interruption.] I apologise for mispronouncing his constituency—this is not my lucky Report stage.
    The amendments add to schedule 4 a list of bodies, increasing the number of organisations subject to summons by the assembly. The Opposition share the objective that the assembly should have a good working relationship with all such bodies. However, it seems a curious way of starting a good relationship on the right foot to require the power to summons them by force to meetings of the assembly.
    I do not agree with the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) that the amendments are not controversial. In schedule 4, the Government have sought to ensure that bodies that are answerable or partly answerable to the assembly—those that fall under its competence—can be summoned to give evidence to the assembly, but that those that are answerable to the United Kingdom Parliament or are not in the purview of the assembly's powers should not be summonable. That seems a good principle to observe. The hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Ms Morgan) drew attention to the importance of the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Commission for Racial Equality, but seemed to agree that making them summonable to the Welsh assembly was not necessary in enabling them to influence the assembly's work, nor in enabling the assembly to influence their work.
    At no point in the White Paper is there any suggestion that the assembly should have the power other than to invite bodies to give evidence to its meetings. In that respect, the Bill seems to be a perfectly reasonable fulfilment of the White Paper; therefore, we shall not support the amendments.
    Mr. Win Griffiths: I well appreciate why the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Dafis) wanted to add to the list of bodies that can be summoned to give evidence to the assembly on their affairs and activities. The amendments propose that 19 or 20 bodies—or 20 or 21 bodies, depending on which day's amendment paper one has—should be added to the list. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Ms Morgan) pointed out, we have to bear it in mind that schedule 4 lists bodies for which the Secretary of State has a statutory responsibility, and which will therefore become part of the assembly's responsibility. As the bodies listed in the amendments are not the responsibility of the Secretary of State, they will not fall within the ambit of the assembly when it is created next year. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North pointed out, that is not to say that the assembly will not have an interest in their work or that bodies such as the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Commission for Racial Equality will take no interest in the work of the assembly.
    The hon. Member for Ceredigion challenged me to suggest that it would be unthinkable for such bodies not to respond positively to a request from the assembly to give evidence on their work in Wales. It is very likely that they would want to respond positively to show what they were doing in Wales and, in some cases, to offer the assembly advice on implementing policies to meet their needs and demands.
    720
    The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey) mentioned that the British Waterways Board seems to have fallen off the list, perhaps into the hole through which water is leaking into his constituents' homes. I am sure that we can retrieve it, but we cannot accept the amendments.
    Mr. Dafis: The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) suggested that bodies other than those in the amendments might be added to the list under the provisions of clause 74. Can the Minister confirm that that can be done and, if so, through what mechanism?
    Mr. Griffiths: As the House knows, over the years since the Welsh Office was created, various responsibilities have been added to its portfolio by Conservative and Labour Governments. If, at some future date, the Government of the day decided that other duties should be vested in the Secretary of State for Wales or the Welsh assembly, that could happen.
    Mr. Rowlands: Surely it would be done by order under clause 74(5).
    Mr. Griffiths: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was just passing me the relevant part of the Bill.
    The hon. Member for Ceredigion raised an important point about the spending of research councils. That is certainly a matter in which the assembly could justifiably take an interest.
    Although, for legal and technical reasons—despite the fluidity of the debate—I have to consign the amendments to a watery grave, I hope that the spirit in which we have debated them has demonstrated that the assembly is likely to receive a positive response in terms of inviting bodies to give evidence to it.
    Mr. Dafis: I am grateful to the Minister for his useful response to the amendments and his confirmation that, in future, bodies can be made accountable under the provisions of clause 74. That negates the point made by the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), who suggested that, if the assembly had the right to call upon certain bodies to give evidence, that would destroy the good relationship between the assembly and those bodies. Although some of the bodies already mentioned in schedule 4 have a UK-wide remit, that is no reason for not making them accountable to the assembly. That is a point to bear in mind for the future.
    The assembly should invite such bodies to give evidence not only to find out what they are doing, but in certain circumstances to tell them in no uncertain terms what they ought to be doing in Wales and to urge them to develop strategies that are compatible with those of the assembly so that it can implement policies accordingly.
    Dr. John Marek: I share the hon. Gentleman's concern. There are problems with Opraf, for example. Despite the fact that I and many other hon. Members pleaded about connection requirements, Opraf decided to do nothing. As a result, it is almost impossible to catch a convenient train between north and south Wales.
    Mr. Dafis: All that I would say is that the democratic legitimacy that the assembly will have as a nationally elected body will surely give it purchase on those bodies. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

  Clause 74

    WITNESSES AND DOCUMENTS: SUPPLEMENTARY
    Amendments made: No. 84, in page 36, line 46 leave out ', or fails' and insert 'or fails,'.
    No. 85, in page 37, line 5 leave out',or fails' and insert 'or fails,'. ——[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 79

    OFFICIAL SECRETS
    6 pm
    Sir Teddy Taylor: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 38, leave out lines 26 and 27.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 2, in page 38, line 26, leave out 'Assembly', and insert 'Executive Committee'.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: We have been told throughout the long debates on the Bill that these are important days for Wales, so I hope that the House will appreciate that this is a terribly important day for me—this is the first time in my 34 years in the House of Commons that Front-Bench spokesmen have joined me in tabling an amendment. The amendment is, therefore, obviously of great significance, and I hope that the House will listen carefully to my arguments. The amendment would remove clause 79, which states:
    "An Assembly member is a Crown servant for the purposes of the Official Secrets Act 1989."
    Hon. Members will have been reassured by the fact that I have tried hard not to speak in the debates on the Bill, as I appreciate that the people of Wales probably feel that a Member of Parliament representing Southend-on-Sea, who came from Glasgow, is not the best person to advise them on their constitutional welfare.
    I genuinely believe, however, that the amendment must be debated and considered, as it relates to the much wider issue of democracy and the rights of elected persons to safeguard their constituents' welfare and, equally important, to search out, identify and expose errors, misjudgments or even scandals of the Executive. Because of the importance of that function, the basis of our conduct in Westminster is that we have parliamentary privilege, which enables us to voice any opinion and to raise any issue that we think appropriate. There is no restriction on our conduct; the Official Secrets Act does not apply to us.
    Moreover, the Act does not apply to local government councillors, and it will not apply—perhaps because they are angrier—to Members of the Scottish Parliament. However, the Bill proposes that Members of the Assembly should be subject to it. That is a horrifying democratic restriction, which my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) believes must be removed.
    722
    Why on earth was the clause inserted in the Bill? In questioning the Secretary of State for Wales and his colleagues, the only answers that we have been able to secure are, first, that the officials did not want to leave out anything that might be necessary and, secondly, that the clause was designed to take account of the fact that the Welsh assembly would do important work. Even if that were the whole argument, is it really the case that the work will be more important than the work done in the Westminster Parliament, which is the elected body that handed over a limited part of its functions to the assembly?
    Before hon. Members dismiss my arguments, I hope that they will consider the full implications of the Official Secrets Act. Under section 3—which relates to information from international bodies, such as the European Union—Members of the Assembly could be prosecuted for revealing information that was marked restricted, confidential or secret. The previous Foreign Secretary—who was a Conservative—argued strongly in the House that there would have to be a "harm test" before the Act applied. That was a load of rubbish, of course. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge—Brownhills and I both pointed out, section 3(3) has two paragraphs, one relating to the damage test and the other stating simply, of the document or information,
    "the fact that it is confidential".
    Unless the amendment is made, if a Member of the Assembly came across a piece of paper from an international body, such as the European Union, that suggested to that person that there was an abuse, scandal or policy that was damaging to Wales, the Member of the Assembly would find that he was obliged to make no reference to it—he could say nothing. Other measures in the Official Secrets Act are so tight, restrictive and debilitating that to want to apply them to a democratic assembly seems little more than insult.
    Those are the views of a Conservative Back Bencher, to which hon. Members may not want to pay too much attention. However, I assure Labour Members that the views are not mine alone. In the debate on the Official Secrets Bill, some splendid Labour champions of liberty spoke. Roy Hattersley, the then shadow Home Secretary, said:
    "Under the Bill, anything remotely related to security, no matter how trivial, will be covered."—[Official Report, 21 December 1988; Vol. 144, c. 475.]
    The current Secretary of State for Health, who was then a champion of freedom and liberty, made a passionate speech, saying:
    "In Winston Churchill's words … the Official Secrets Act was
    'intended for spies, crooks, traitors and traffickers in official information.'
    The Official Secrets Act was not intended to protect the Government from scandal being revealed or to prevent them from being found out when they lie, deceive or disinform, as all Governments do. Surely we as a Parliament have not sunk so low that we want to introduce new laws to protect official wrongdoing."—[Official Report, 13 February 1989; Vol. 147, c. 79.]
    I hope that the Secretary of State for Wales will ensure that the Secretary of State for Health pins up that extract from Hansard on his ministerial wall.
    Lord Irvine, the Lord Chancellor—he was then shadow Lord Chancellor—wrote in a journal a complex, lofty and rather confusing article with the intensely democratic title.

    723
    "Law Reform for All". He said that the Act failed to recognise the public interest to know of Government abuses of powers, and argued that there was no public interest defence for whistle blowers. I am sure that, as a fundamentalist for civic liberty, he would have been as appalled as others have been about reports of public contractors being asked to submit themselves to the Official Secrets Act before they stuck the wallpaper on to the ceiling.
    Mr. Eric Forth: Will my hon. Friend analyse why Members of the Scottish Parliament will not be covered by such a provision, despite the fact that—I hope that no one will take offence at this —the Scottish Parliament will have much wider legislative powers than are proposed for the welsh assembly? Does it not seem bizarre that neither Members of the House of Commons nor Members of the Scottish Parliament are covered by such a provision, whereas Members of the Assembly will be?
    Sir Teddy Taylor: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, but I think that he knows the answer. The Scottish people—I am one—would not put up with that kind of thing. I am told that Welsh people have many good qualities—they tend to be more polite, to be less angry and perhaps to wake up to things a little later than Scotsmen, although they have plenty of wisdom and ability.
    Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: They play better rugby.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: They are very good at rugby, but they should do something when their democratic rights are threatened, as the Scots would have done. In Committee, we heard nothing about the provision. After I had tabled the amendment, the Welsh nationalists tabled a more limited one—I am delighted that they have noticed hat is going on. Frankly, we have to tell people that the matter is important.
    As the new Labour Government are, we are told, made up of passionate believers in free speech, in democracy and in the right of democratic representatives to go all the way, I can only think—especially as the Secretary of State for Wales is so courteous —that the inclusion of clause 79 in the Bill was a bureaucratic error. It must be removed.
    Colleagues will know that, throughout my parliamentary carrer, I have been wholly opposed to a devolved assembly. However, as on so many other things, I am afraid that I have been outvoted and am in a minority. The only thing that keeps me going in the house of Commons is the passionate hope that I am wrong and that the majority are right in their support for policies such as devolution, which I think is rubbish, Euro—integration, which I think is dangerous, agricultural support, which I think is wasteful, and proportional representation, which I believe is the destruction of democracy I am worried about all those things, I hope that I am wrong and the majority and right.
    Whether or not people agree with me—the great majority never seem to agree with me on anything here—we know that welsh devolution is going ahead. I hope that, despite my fears, it will benefit wales and its people. Surely, if we are to have a Welsh assembly and we believe
    724
    in it, its Members must be free. They must not be curbed or abused and they must not be restricted by the Official Secrets Act.
    I appeal to the House to look at this solitary and simple amendment, which is the only amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge—Brownhills and me, and accept that it is the right way forward for Wales and democracy. I know that hon. Members sometimes table amendments because they are funny, because they want to cause a political row or something like that. I can assure the Secretary of State, whom I respect as a courteous man, that there is a fundamental principle involved. If we do not take this provision out of the Bill, the Welsh assembly men will be deprived of their entitlement to look after their constituents, to look after Wales and to watch the Executive carefully and properly. I hope that the House will look carefully at amendment No. 1 and approve it, particularly since I have support from my Front Bench and from previous Labour Cabinet members who spoke in debates on the Official Secrets Act.
    Mr. Llwyd: I want to speak to amendment No. 2 which is in my name and that of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I agree, at least in part, with the comments of the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor), so this is also an historic day for me.
    By the way, I do not think that the difference between the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales is due to the character of the Scots or the Welsh and it ill behoves a Euro-sceptic to analyse characteristics of that kind. The true answer is that one is a legislative body and the other is not, and it need go no further than that.
    I was pleased to agree with several of the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East. I agree with the analysis that Members of the Assembly will be hampered to a great extent. That has to be wrong, because they will serve the people who have elected them.
    Clause 79 would make every member of the national assembly Crown servants for the purposes of the Official Secrets Act. As the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East said, eloquently, previous parliamentarians have looked carefully at that Act. When he was shadow Home Secretary, Roy Hattersley made some cogent and informative remarks which were quoted by the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East. The hon. Gentleman also referred to the comments of the present Secretary of State for Health who said, very stringently, that the Official Secrets Act was intended for spies, crooks, traitors and traffickers in official information. I do not think that Members of the Assembly will fit that bill. Therefore, the Bill is flawed to that extent.
    Sections 1 to 6 of the Official Secrets Act set out certain categories of information which are protected. Nevertheless, in this place we are protected by parliamentary privilege and by article IX of the Bill of Rights. In both those cases we are able to express any and all opinions that we see fit on behalf of our constituents and in the process of legislating. I believe that clause 79 is dangerous and I am at a loss to fathom why it is in the Bill.
    I pay considerable homage to the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan), who has assisted us by sending certain important letters to hon. Members on both

    725
    sides of the House. That has informed the debate and made it far easier for us to undertake it. I hope that the Minister will reveal the way in which the Government will be moving, because the current position is ridiculous. It means that Members of the Assembly will be bound by the Official Secrets Act. A Member who is bound by the Act is not worth a candle. They will be precluded from saying or doing many of the things that they would wish to say or do.
    One of the criticisms of the Official Secrets Act was that it failed to achieve its purpose. It did not increase public access to official information. Applying the 1989 Act in this case would close down any dialogue and would be a democratic abuse. I hope that the Minister will provide some form of safeguard when he responds to this short, but important, debate.
    6.15 pm
    Mr. Rowlands: The hon. Gentleman referred to the documents and correspondence in circulation. One of the points that he drew to our attention, rather interestingly, is that our privileges here are determined by article IX of the Bill of Rights. It says:
    "the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament".
    Might not the simple solution be to apply article IX to assembly men and women?
    Mr. Llwyd: The hon. Gentleman is right. If that were the case, there would be no problem. Perhaps my amendment and that of the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East are a rather convoluted way of going about things. If the Minister were to assure us that article IX would apply, as the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) said, there would be no problem. I hope that the Minister will make an announcement, because failure to do so will be challengeable in any event. There is a body of learned opinion to support—
    Mr. Owen Paterson: I remind the hon. Gentleman that the prospectus for the referendum was the White Paper, "A Voice for Wales". Page 28 of that document says:
    "The Assembly will operate under maximum openness and public accountability."
    Is this clause not a total contravention of that?
    Mr. Llwyd: I am afraid that it is. Again, I find myself agreeing with a gentleman with whom I do not often agree.
    Mr. Forth: It is a funny old world.
    Mr. Llwyd: Yes it is. The word "inclusiveness" is the big word in connection with the Welsh Bill.
    I shall come to a conclusion because I know that other hon. Members want to speak and there is a lot of work to be done today. However, I want to flag up one more important point, which was made by Liberty. That body said that clause 79 may be challengeable under article 10(1) of the European convention on human rights.
    726
    No doubt I part company here with the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East, who is already in a violent fit of temper. The article states:
    "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authorities and regardless of frontiers."
    Freedom of expression, as secured in that article, is an essential foundation of any democratic society. I agree with that. I hope that the Minister will give assurances that those serving in the national assembly will not be hampered in this way. I hope that we will be able to discuss whether to withdraw the amendment.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Peter Hain): I apologise for rising so early in the debate, but I thought that it might assist the House if I were to respond to some of the points now. As a long-standing advocate of the principle of freedom of information and a campaigner against official secrecy laws applied in a draconian fashion, there is no way in which I would have been party to any assembly Member being gagged; nor was it ever the intention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State so to do. He has been similarly committed to the principle of freedom of information for a very long time.
    I congratulate the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) on the way in which he moved amendment No. 1. I also note the way in which Opposition Front Benchers have signed up lock, stock and barrel to his position. That shows how far the Conservative party has moved recently on the matter.
    I also pay tribute to the work—in the House and elsewhere—on the principle of official secrecy done by the hon. Member for Aldridge—Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). He serves as an example on the issue to us all.
    Amendment No. 1 would remove clause 79 from the Bill, which would then say nothing about the position of assembly Members in relation to the Official Secrets Act. Conversely, amendment No. 2—which was ably spoken to by the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd)—would simply limit the category of Crown servants bound by the Act to members of the Executive Committee. That is an entirely different proposition, as I shall explain shortly.
    Ministers of the Crown and civil servants are Crown servants. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—like me and my hon. Friend the Under—Secretary—is bound by the Act in his official capacity. As we have explained previously, his functions are to be transferred to the assembly. It was thought appropriate that the position of assembly Members performing functions on behalf of the Crown, and in place of the Secretary of State, should be made clear. Clause 79 therefore declares that all assembly Members are Crown servants for purposes of the 1989 Act.
    Clause 79 reflected the committee structure that was proposed before acceptance by the House of the new clauses—the motions on which were moved by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—on a cabinet structure, which has created an entirely new situation. It is necessary to amend the Bill to reflect that new situation.
    Although I agree strongly with the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East that assembly Members must be free to express their views—it is a fundamental

    727
    principle of the House, as I am sure it will be of the assembly—his statement that the 1989 Act does not apply to Members of Parliament is not true. If an hon. Member discloses an official secret other than in proceedings in Parliament—such as in a newspaper article or in a speech outside the House—he or she may be subject to prosecution, like anyone else. That principle was established in the Duncan Sandys case, in 1938.
    Mr. Rowlands: I am following my hon. Friend's argument. The 1989 Act does not apply in this place. Therefore, why will it apply in the assembly?
    Mr. Hain: I shall deal with that point in a moment. However, I should make it clear now that the assembly is a Crown body and is, therefore, in a different position from the House.
    The Government are therefore inclined to accept in principle the thought behind amendment No. 2. We should like to examine technical ways in which the amendment might be recast, so that the underlying principle—on which we agree—is better applied. If the amendments in this group are not pressed, we propose to table our own amendment in another place to deal with the points, which we accept.
    I hope that hon. Members do not overstate the matter dealt with in the amendments. The 1989 Act covers information in spheres such as security, intelligence, foreign affairs, defence, crime or special investigations and international confidences—matters which, for the most part, are light years away from the assembly's responsibilities, as listed in schedule 2. Therefore, on only rare occasions might information covered by the Act go to any assembly Member, whether he or she was an Executive Committee member or an ordinary assembly Member.
    Mr. Oliver Letwin: Before the hon. Gentleman moves on, I should like to take him back to the moment at which he said that it was necessary to amend the Bill because of the change from committee to cabinet structure. Is he saying—following yesterday's comments by the Secretary of State—that he would wish to reintroduce the clause on official secrets if the assembly chose to return to a committee structure?
    Mr. Hain: If the assembly returned to a committee structure, Executive Committee members would be covered by the Act. Consideration might have to be given to extending by order the Act's coverage to subject Committee members, but that would be a matter for consideration by Parliament and by the assembly. I should have thought that the entire issue would be examined in an entirely fresh light—particularly given the manner in which this group of amendments has been tabled and spoken to.
    Sensitive information might be provided to an assembly Member, for example, on police investigations into allegations of child abuse in Wales. An assembly Member, perhaps with responsibilities for social services on a subject Committee, would properly have to have that information. However, he or she should be under an obligation not to disclose that information publicly. The idea is not a novel one. The principle that Back Benchers should sometimes receive sensitive information has been
    728
    applied in the House, where—under the Intelligence Services Act 1994—they serve on the Intelligence and Security Committee. Hon. Members who serve in that capacity are, of course, covered by official secrecy legislation.
    I should also distinguish between official secrecy legislation and confidential information—perhaps dealing with commercial matters, such as an inward investment project—which might be passed to an assembly Member. Such an assembly Member, perhaps in his or her capacity as a subject Committee member, would be expected to apply the principle of confidentiality.
    Sir Raymond Powell: I am trying to follow my hon. Friend's argument. Perhaps some hon. Members do not wish to become Members of the Assembly because they are confused about whether—in Cardiff, unlike this place—they will be covered by official secrecy legislation. I am confused when we talk about freedom of information and the freedom to express ourselves, whether in this place or in the Welsh assembly.
    Mr. Hain: I tell my hon. Friend that there is absolutely no confusion. Members of the Welsh assembly will be as free in their new assembly in Cardiff as he is in this place to express a view. Page four of the freedom of information White Paper "Your Right to Know"—a very important document, which will be followed by legislation in the House—states:
    "In Wales, the Act will cover the National Assembly for Wales (as a Crown body) and other public authorities."
    The freedom of information Act will have the principle of freedom of information at its heart.
    Now that we are moving towards a clearer division in the assembly between those with daily Executive responsibilities and those who will play a rather different role on the subject Committees, we will have to amend the Bill along the lines suggested by amendment No. 2.
    Mr. Rowlands: My hon Friend has been extremely helpful. However, only yesterday, we added to the Bill a new clause that will allow the assembly to delegate functions not only to the Executive Committee but to Committees of the assembly. Does that mean that the 1989 Act will apply to Committee members the moment functions are delegated to a Committee?
    Mr. Hain: No, because those functions would not infringe on the responsibilities covered by the Act. If they did, the principle would apply to any assembly Member, as I have already explained.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: Would I be remiss in thinking that something has to be done? Would not the sensible thing be to pass amendment No. 1, get rid of clause 79 and table a new, detailed proposal in the other place?
    Mr. Hain: In the nicest possible way, I remind the hon. Gentleman that that is what I have said. We shall table an amendment in the House of Lords to reflect many of the views that have been expressed this evening, because we agree with them. We have to devise the right form of words.
    The assembly will not hide behind the Official Secrets Act. It will be a new democratic institution of participatory democracy. The underlying principles will

    729
    be openness and "inclusiveness" to build a new, vibrant democracy in Wales. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) scoffs. We are introducing the democracy that he and his Government repeatedly thwarted during the 18 years of miserable rule from which Wales suffered.
    Those with Executive responsibilities in the assembly should continue to be regarded as Crown servants for the purposes of the Official Secrets Act, as Ministers are. We accept that the category of Crown servant for the purposes of the Official Secrets Act should apply only to members of the Executive Committee and not to ordinary Members of the Assembly. We shall bring forward amendments accordingly. Given that assurance, I hope that leave will be sought to withdraw the amendment.
    6.30 pm
    Dr. Marek: I signed amendment No. 2, which was tabled by Plaid Cymru Members. I am pleased that the Minister has agreed to do something about the problem. However, it will continue to exist because the assembly will be a Crown body. To the Treasury, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, a Crown body means a Government body. The United Kingdom Government decide what is an official secret.
    It is difficult to think of examples on the spot, but I shall try. Let us suppose that the Budget for a financial year is being decided in the UK Cabinet with the help of the Secretary of State for Wales. Will UK civil servants impart information about the Government's public expenditure programme and how much money will be passed to the Welsh assembly before the final decision is made, without being certain that the people to whom they pass that information will be bound by the Official Secrets Act? I suspect that they will not, but if I am wrong, I shall gladly give way to my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Hain: I hope that I can set my hon. Friend's mind at rest. The exchange of information outside the protected categories between Whitehall Departments and the assembly will be covered in concordats.
    Mr. Michael Ancram (Devizes): Oh!
    Mr. Hain: I thought that that would excite the right hon. Gentleman. If a party requires confidentiality, that will have to be written into the concordats and properly respected. Business between the assembly and the Government could not operate in any other fashion. A breach of a concordat's provision on confidentiality would not amount to a breach of the Official Secrets Act.
    Dr. Marek: Let us consider matters that would be subject to the Official Secrets Act, such as the disposition of defence facilities in the Principality. Even if the members of the Executive Committee of the national assembly decided, in the interests of the people of Wales, that the information should not be secret, they could not make it public because they would be bound by the Official Secrets Act, which would be interpreted by the UK Government. I foresee continuing problems.
    I thank the Minister for the effort that he has made. The national assembly will have a Cabinet form of government and will get classified information from time
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    to time, as do Members of Parliament. Members of Parliament treat such information with respect and use their judgment. I believe that Members of the Assembly will do the same.
    The Government have sought to tie down the national assembly as much as possible. The Bill is so tightly drawn that no Member of the Assembly will be able to speak up or use their judgment on any classified information. The Government have promised to table an amendment to alter that. As the Bill stands, the Executive Committee—the Welsh Cabinet—may not be able to make certain information public, even if it wants a debate or wants to receive representations.
    Sir Raymond Powell: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that the Bill will come back from the other place in the amended form that we would like?
    Dr. Marek: Yes. The Minister clearly promised to get rid of the clause. I have full confidence in him. There will be a clause restricting the operation of the Official Secrets Act to the Secretaries and the First Secretary of the national assembly. However, I am still worried that we have not sorted out this important issue. I pay tribute to those who raised it. I hope that the House of Lords pays careful attention to it.
    Mr. Öpik: Most of the arguments have already been made. If the clause remains in the Bill, it will set a dangerous precedent. A vital part of the role of any elected Member is to blow the whistle on corrupt or unacceptable practices. The danger of enshrining the Official Secrets Act as proposed is that a corrupt leadership could easily use it to cover bad practice. However willing some of the incorrupt Members of the Assembly were, their hands would be tied because they would have to break the law to bring forward issues of concern.
    As the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) said, clause 79 goes against the principles of openness set out in the freedom of information White Paper. He also referred to the White Paper "A Voice for Wales". The Government must realise that the debate is not merely academic. The amendment that they table in the House of Lords must be open. Unless political parties intend to field
    "spies, crooks, traitors and traffickers in official information"
    as candidates for the assembly, there is no need to be paranoid about who stands, even if the Conservatives return to politics in Wales.
    The Minister said that he shared the concerns underlying the amendments. I know that he is a great friend of freedom of speech. I am encouraged by his assurance that the Government have taken heed of the debate and will consider tabling an amendment in the House of Lords. We would prefer them to follow the principles of amendment No. 1, rather than amendment No. 2, and leave the matter open, because it is easier to protect information than to trust the public and Members of the Assembly to do so.
    We have repeatedly discussed the assembly as a new and inclusive form of politics that will leave corrupt practice behind and create a co-operative spirit in which people are assumed to be sincere, so we must ensure that the Official Secrets Act is not used in a way that tarnishes the high expectations.

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    We must begin by acting in good faith, and whatever the Government come up with must be framed in that spirit, or they can expect fierce conflict with supporters of free speech, the resistance of Opposition Members, and the cynicism of the Welsh public.
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: This is Pandora's box, a can of worms, or whatever one cares to call it. Imagine an Official Secrets Act trial taking place in Cardiff, Swansea or somewhere else. I do not know whether the Minister has ever sat through an Official Secrets Act trial. For 11 days at the Old Bailey I attended the trial of a present resident of Wales, Clive Ponting. One has to see it in operation to believe how complex such a trial can be and how many extraneous matters can be introduced.
    I offer this warning: given the politicians that the Members of the Assembly will be, and that there is another Parliament—the British Parliament—there will be an overwhelming temptation to leak, at the expense of the Treasury in Great George street, to further political grouses and dissatisfactions. That temptation will lead to the cutting of corners. I predict that, sooner or later, there will be flagrant breaches of official secrets legislation.
    We are not discussing something up in the air, in fairyland, but a grave reality that will come about. In those circumstances, I beg my right hon. and hon. Friends to be careful.
    Mr. Hain: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not unknown for Whitehall Departments to leak against one another?
    Mr. Dalyell: It certainly is not, and I suspect that my hon. Friend knows more about that than I do.
    Mr. Hain: To set my hon. Friend's mind at rest, let me assure him that I was talking about the previous 18 years of Conservative rule.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I apologise for intervening in the debate. One has some reticence about getting involved in a matter that is so important to the land of my fathers. Because the matter is so fundamental, and the clause is so obviously wrong, might not it be more comfortable for the House of Commons if the Minister were to withdraw the clause altogether, with a view to introducing something else? I am one of those depressing people who, like my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), have been here a long time and fought a few battles, and I know that hon. Members are sometimes told that they did not object when they had the opportunity.
    Mr. Dalyell: It is the first time in 33 years that my hon. Friend has been reticent. She expressed my thought so eloquently that I shall leave it at that. She has made the point better than I could.
    Mr. Evans: It is a tremendous privilege to follow the hon. Members for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody). She may be reticent, but there is nothing depressing about her. Both hon. Members were absolutely right. As the Minister said, there may be a temptation to leak that goes alongside the necessity to spin in Whitehall under new Labour.
    732
    We have had some revelations today. Apparently, Whitehall Departments leak against one another; I am sure that that does not happen in the Welsh Office. Given all his campaigning in various parts of the world on behalf of openness and against tyrannical and oppressive regimes, why has it taken the Minister four months to realise that the clause, in a flagship piece of legislation, is wrong? Did it come to him as a complete revelation—as happened to the Secretary of State when he realised after 40 years that Cardiff was the capital of Wales—that the clause ran counter to everything that he believes?
    6.45 pm
    Mr. Letwin: Does my hon. Friend agree that we could help the Minister by explaining that this reveals something deep about the Bill? The reason why he introduced such a clause, opposed as he is to any constraint on freedom, is that the assembly was conceived in the first place as a substitute for the person of the Secretary of State, without the slightest idea of its being an ordinary democratic body holding the Executive to account. On the contrary, it was conceived as an Executive organ. That is a confusion which the removal of the clause, much though that may do, will not entirely remove.
    Mr. Evans: We are trying to be as helpful as we can to the Minister, and my hon. Friend's contribution followed exactly that line. In many respects, we understand why the clause was included; my hon. Friend hit the nail on the head.
    I was interested to hear what the Minister said about the Secretary of State's intentions. If I remember rightly, he said that the Secretary of State would never want to gag Members of the Assembly or anyone else, but I remember what happened in the referendum campaign, when the hon. Members for Ogmore (Sir R. Powell) and for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Smith), who were opposed to devolution, were gagged. They were prevented from making a full and free contribution to the debate. There were all sorts of threats, including a controversial dialogue between the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent and the Secretary of State.
    We will put that to one side and say that a line has been drawn in the sand and that Ministers have had a revelation. The clause is to be taken away, as the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich suggested. The amendment would achieve that, and allow the Minister and his Department to consider carefully the privileges of Members of the Assembly.
    The hon. Member for Ogmore suggested that the confusion about what rights and privileges Members of the Assembly are to have may explain why so few hon. Members want to go to Cardiff. I am a bit of a cynic, and I think that there may be all sorts of other reasons why Members of Parliament—with the notable exception of the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan)—do not want to play a part in the Welsh assembly.
    Mr. Livsey: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Evans: No, because I intend to make a short contribution, and I know that other hon. Members want to speak.

    733
    My right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) spoke yesterday about the Cabinet structure that will come into being in the Welsh assembly. The change that is in process, with the Cabinet structure and the Members of the Assembly underneath it, means that the clause is no longer needed. The problem is what will happen in future. The proposed structure is not a complete Cabinet structure, and powers may to and fro between the Cabinet and the assembly. We therefore need to know exactly what the relationship will be. The Minister may remember the quacking dog and barking duck. The imprecise nature of the proposed Cabinet means that the Official Secrets Act may need to be reinvented.
    We in this House all hold dearly our privilege of freedom of speech. We are here to speak up on behalf of our constituents and address any wrongs. We would be very aggrieved if we thought that we would be gagged in any way and prevented from being able to speak up properly. Yet clause 79, unamended, would have done just that.
    The Minister mentioned "Your Right to Know". In the preface to that White Paper, the Prime Minister says:
    "The Government is pledged to modernise British politics. We are committed to a comprehensive programme of constitutional reform. We believe it is right to decentralise power; to guarantee individual rights—"
    and stresses—
    to open up Government".
    He continues:
    "The traditional culture of secrecy will only be broken down by giving people in the United Kingdom the legal right to know."
    Clause 79 would have been completely against that.
    The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) spoke about article IX of the Bill of Rights; he made an interesting suggestion. Members of a Welsh assembly will not have exactly the same freedoms and privileges that we enjoy in the House of Commons.
    Mr. Rowlands: Just to test the water, I wonder whether a resolution of the House simply saying that freedom of speech and debate in the procedure of a National Assembly for Wales ought not to be impeached would be sufficiently powerful, given that the House is the supreme court of Parliament.
    Mr. Evans: I do not mind at all being the conduit of that message. It will be interesting to see whether the Minister is able to respond to that suggestion.
    The debate has been very instructive. We know that there has been much controversy over the inclusion of clause 79. We are somewhat reassured by the Minister's saying that the Government are prepared to look again at the matter and table amendments in the House of Lords, but we need to know a little more about Welsh Office thinking. It has had four months to address the matter since the Bill, including clause 79, was presented. It is only because Opposition Members and Labour Back Benchers have kicked up a fuss that the Welsh Office ministerial team has been forced to think again. What assurances can the Minister give that the team will come up with the right solution for the Welsh assembly?
    Mr. Rhodri Morgan: We have been only partially reassured by the Minister's remarks. I have
    734
    taken a considerable interest in this issue. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Aldridge—Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), who originally gave me material as a fellow member of the Select Committee on Public Administration, which I then circulated to all Welsh Members. I did not send it to any Conservative Members because none of them represents a Welsh constituency. I assumed that the Conservative party would have its own network. I am glad that Conservative Members have a copy of the hon. Gentleman's informative material. He probably gave it to me before he disappeared to Canada because he thought that if he sent it to all Welsh Members they would dismiss it as material from a Conservative Member. As a Welsh Member, I was able to suggest that the material was of considerable interest.
    The material is fundamental to the Welsh assembly's ability to work and the way in which its Members will be able to scrutinise what is being done in the name of the people of Wales, who elected them. If any parliamentary assembly cannot scrutinise what the Government of the day—if that is what one wants to call the Executive of the Welsh assembly—are doing, it is not able to carry out its fundamental duty. Clearly, there will be times when the Welsh assembly acts in an executive capacity, and times when it scrutinises. It cannot scrutinise the Executive unless its Members have the right to free speech conferred by the 1688 Bill of Rights.
    It is not stated that article IX of the Bill of Rights applies to the Welsh assembly; we have assumed—perhaps too comfortably—that it will apply anyway. There are cases of people in Commonwealth Parliaments being accused of disclosing material. I think that a Member of the Canadian Parliament was accused of disclosing in a speech official secrets relating to where uranium was stored in Canada. He took the case—presumably—to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and it was declared that article IX had supremacy over the Canadian official secrets Act. He was told that he was in the clear because he was carrying out his duty as a Member of Parliament.
    We just hope that article IX applies to the Welsh assembly. Perhaps we should consider whether it should be stated that it applies. If there is no need to include it in the Bill, why is there a need to include the Official Secrets Act 1989, which would apply even if the assembly reverts to a committee system? It is not sufficient for the Minister to say that the Official Secrets Act clearly applies to Ministers because they carry out ministerial roles and that, if the powers of the Secretary of State for Wales are transferred to the Welsh assembly, the same duties not to disclose information under the Official Secrets Act are also transferred to all 60 Members of the Welsh assembly.
    Not all the Secretary of State's obligations and responsibilities are automatically transferred to the Welsh assembly. For instance, not all 60 Members can turn up at No. 10 Downing street at 9 o'clock every Wednesday morning and say, "Hello Tony, we have turned up for the Cabinet meeting." They will not have one 60th of a little red box. The package of duties and responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Wales transfer to the Welsh assembly only as far as common sense dictates.
    It is noticeable that the powers, duties and responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Scotland are transferred to the 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament, yet I can find no reference in the Scotland Bill to the Official Secrets Act applying to any Member of the

    735
    Scottish Parliament, Ministers or anybody else. There is reference to the promissory oath and the oath of allegiance—also, coincidentally in clause 79 of the Scotland Bill.
    I ask the Minister to strengthen his assurances to recast the contents of clause 79. We want the principle behind it to disappear from the Bill. Perhaps something needs to be inserted about oaths, along the lines of the Scotland Bill. If I am wrong about there being no reference to the Official Secrets Act in the Scotland Bill, I would be happy to be corrected. There is no reason why we need it in the Government of Wales Bill. It is not the detail of clause 79 that is wrong but its fundamental principle. It restricts freedom of speech and the ability to carry out a primary role of scrutiny that any parliamentary assembly must have if it is to be taken seriously by the electors.
    Mr. Gareth Thomas: I agree with the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) in his very good-natured and cogent speech. His remarks were echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan).
    In the light of the Government's programme of constitutional reform, which includes the very important freedom of information legislation, which will give the public a statutory right to know, and the Human Rights Bill, clause 79 is entirely incongruous, and something must be done about it. I am pleased that the Minister has given assurances. Clearly, a great deal of work has to be done to strike the correct balance between the right of individual Members of the Welsh assembly to scrutinise and the public interest in ensuring security of information.
    Public security requires on occasion that the Official Secrets Act bites. I am pleased that the Minister has said that an amendment will be moved in the other place. It is an interesting fact that had the Human Rights Bill that is now going through Parliament been in force, it is likely that the Secretary of State would have had to declare to the House that nothing in the Bill was incompatible with the European convention on human rights. Clause 79 is incongruous and more work needs to be done.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: In the light of the clear assurance given by the Minister, for which we are grateful, I have confidence that, in view of the strong feelings expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House, something will be done, I will with reluctance—
    It being Seven o'clock, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order [15 January] and the Resolution [25 March], put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair.
    Amendment negatived.
    MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.

  Clause 84

    DESTINATION OF RECEIPTS ETC.
    Amendments made: No. 86, in page 40, line 14, leave out from beginning to 'received' in line 18 and insert—
    '() Sums received by the Assembly shall be paid into the Consolidated Fund (but subject as follows)
    736
    () Sums received by the Assembly—

    (a) under section 80 or 82, or

    (b) under any other provision of this Act or any other enactment for the making of payments or loans to the Assembly by a Minister of the Crown or a government department,

    are not required to be paid into the Consolidated Fund.
    () Sums'.
    No. 87, in page 40, line 26, at end insert—
    '() Sums received by the Assembly shall not be paid into the Consolidated Fund if they are required by any provision of this Act or any other enactment to be dealt with in some other way.
    () Sums received by the Assembly are not required to be paid into the Consolidated Fund if they are authorised (but not required) by any provision of this Act or any other enactment to be dealt with in some other way (and are so dealt with).
    () The Treasury may direct that sums received by the Assembly which are, or are of a description, specified in the direction are not required to be paid into the Consolidated Fund.'. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 92

    STAFF ETC.
    Amendment made: No. 88, in page 43, line 32, leave out subsection (3) and insert—
    '(3) No arrangements shall be made—

    (a) for any of the functions of the Auditor General for Wales or of the Assembly to be exercised by the other or by a member of the other's staff, or

    (b) for the provision of any administrative, professional or technical services by the Auditor General for Wales or the Assembly for the other.'. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 94

    AUDIT OF AUDITOR GENERAL'S ACCOUNTS
    Amendments made: No. 141, in page 45, leave out lines 11 to 13.
    No. 168, in page 45, line 16, leave out from '1989' to 'his' in line 17 and insert
    ', or
    (b) he is a member of a body of accountants, established in the United Kingdom or another EEA State, which is for the time being approved by the Assembly;
    and "EEA State" means any State which is a Contracting Party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area signed at Oporto on 2nd May 1992, as adjusted by the Protocol signed at Brussels on 17th March 1993.
    (3A) The Assembly may delegate to the Audit Committee the function of approving bodies of accountants, or of withdrawing approval from such bodies, but may not otherwise delegate those functions.
    (3B) If a person appointed as the auditor ceases to be a person who could be so appointed,'.—[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 97

    PREPARATION AND AUDIT OF ASSEMBLY'S ANNUAL ACCOUNTS
    Amendment made: No. 89, in page 48, line 9, leave out from 'that' to 'in' in line 10 and insert
    'the expenditure to which the accounts relate has been incurred lawfully and'. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 98

    ACCOUNTING OFFICERS
    Amendments made: No. 169, in page 48, line 28, leave out 'under section 139(3)(a)' and insert
    'in pursuance of any provision of this Act'.
    No. 90, in page 48, line 35, leave out
    'in the instrument by which he is designated'
    and insert 'by the Treasury'.
    No. 170, in page 48, line 37, leave out 'under section 139(3)(a)' and insert
    'in pursuance of any provision of this Act (other than this section)'.
    No. 91, in page 48, leave out line 39 and insert
    'the responsibilities which are from time to time specified by the Treasury.'. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 99

    ACCOUNTS OF ASSEMBLY SUBSIDIARIES ETC.
    Amendment made: No. 171, in page 49, line 30, leave out
    'in which the Assembly holds an interest'
    and insert
    'or other undertaking (as defined in section 259(1) of the Companies Act 1985) of which the Assembly is a parent undertaking (within the meaning of section 258 of that Act)'. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Schedule 5

    HER MAJESTY'S CHIEF INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS IN WALES
    Mr. Hain: I beg to move amendment No. 106, in page 79, line 5, leave out
    'as the Chief Inspector, or'.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): With this it will be convenient to consider Government amendments Nos. 107 to 109.
    Mr. Hain: These amendments are merely designed to remove any doubt over the employment status of Her Majesty's chief inspector of schools in Wales and the English equivalent.
    The current chief inspector in Wales was appointed as a civil servant. That arrangement has worked well. Accordingly, schedule 5 originally provided that future incumbents of that post were also to be civil servants. However, the current chief inspector in England is not a civil servant, and both appointments were made under the School Inspections Act 1996. An express provision to the effect that the Welsh chief inspector must be a civil servant could call into question the power to make an appointment on non-civil service terms as in England.
    The amendments effectively preserve the status quo, and leave the issue of civil service status to be decided not by statute but by the terms of the chief inspector's appointment, allowing flexibility in both Wales and England to choose the best approach in each case, and removing any obstacle that might otherwise preclude the most suitable individual from being appointed to the post
    738
    of chief inspector. Furthermore, the amendments do not affect the status of the chief inspector's staff, who will remain civil servants in any event.
    I might add that amendments Nos. 108 and 109 mirror with respect to the chief inspector the provisions of amendments Nos. 89 and 180, which the House debated yesterday. They are needed here as they were needed there. We need to clarify the duties of the Auditor General for Wales as regards the chief inspector's accounts, which is the purpose of amendment No. 108. We need to allow the assembly Audit Committee to take evidence for the Public Accounts Committee from the chief inspector's accounting officer—hence amendment No. 109.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Amendments made: No. 107, in page 79, line 6, at end insert—
    '() Whether service as the Chief Inspector is service in Her Majesty's Home Civil Service shall continue to be a matter which falls to be determined in accordance with the terms of the Chief Inspector's appointment, but the Chief Inspector shall in any event be a person to whom section 1 of the Superannuation Act 1972 (superannuation schemes for civil servants) applies.'.
    No. 108, in page 79, line 35, leave out from 'that' to 'in' in line 36 and insert
    'the expenditure to which the accounts relate has been incurred lawfully and'.
    No. 109, in page 80, line 10, at end insert—
    '() If requested to do so by the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, the Audit Committee may—

    (a) on behalf of the Committee of Public Accounts take evidence from the accounting officer for the Office of the Chief Inspector, and

    (b) report to the Committee of Public Accounts and transmit to that Committee any evidence so taken.'. —[Mr. Dowd.]

  Schedule 6

    FORESTRY COMMISSIONERS
    Amendments made: No. 110, in page 81, line 44, leave out 'an order' and insert 'any subordinate legislation'.
    No. 111, in page 81, line 46, after second 'the' insert 'revoked'.
    No. 180, in page 83, line 20, at end insert—
    '() If requested to do so by the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, the Audit Committee may—

    (a). on behalf of the Committee of Public Accounts take evidence from the Forestry Commissioners' accounting officer for Wales, and

    (b). report to the Committee of Public Accounts and transmit to that Committee any evidence so taken.' —[Mr. Dowd.]

  Clause 110

    POWERS TO VARY RETROSPECTIVE DECISIONS
    Mr. Jenkin: I beg to move amendment No. 21, in page 53, line 17, leave out 'or limiting'.
    This is a probing amendment, to enable us to have a discussion about a major innovation in the arrangements for court scrutiny of decisions and actions of the Welsh assembly. The traditional role of the courts has been to decide what the law is, and no more; to establish the intentions of Parliament as expressed in statute.

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    One assumes that, with the Welsh assembly passing orders and the Scottish Parliament passing primary and secondary legislation, the courts will continue to play that impartial role.
    We had a debate before 7 o'clock that uncovered something of a fog and a muddle about the overlap between the Official Secrets Act and the status of the Welsh assembly as an extension of the Executive rather than a legislative body. We have in clause 110 a major innovation in the nature of administrative law. It is quite usual for orders that are passed by the House to be subject to judicial review.
    For example, it is common for the implementation of social security legislation by the Benefits Agency or the Government to be challenged by someone claiming entitlement to benefits to whom the Government never intended the benefit to be payable, and for the courts to decide that the construction of the legislation means that the applicant is entitled to the benefit. Benefits are often claimed retrospectively. The applicant may appeal for benefit going back to a start date years before the court decision. By deciding in favour of the applicant, the court effectively places a liability on the Government to pay the applicant back to the start date.
    The court decides what the law is since the order came into force and what the law was, and implements the effects of that decision. Some people regard that as a decision with retrospective effect. The court would simply say that it decides what the law is and that the fact that it has retrospective effect has nothing to do with it. The question of what is a court decision with retrospective effect and what is not is a subjective judgment.
    It is a matter of concern that the retrospective effects of court judgments have crept into this legislation. It will be for people interpreting it to decide what is meant by a court decision with retrospective effect. It could be argued that, by giving the courts the power to limit or remove retrospective effects, we are giving them precisely the powers that they do not have at present—the power to change the state of the law retrospectively with regard to decisions they make.
    The point about judgments with retrospective effect is that they are a political matter requiring political judgment. We have seen the effects of retrospective court judgments on the law of this country in the decisions of the European Court of Justice. The classic and most disruptive case that we have suffered in Britain so far is the Barber case, in which judgments were made about sex equality in pensions provision that had huge consequences for the funding of pensions in Britain. It was only because the previous Government—when renegotiating the Maastricht treaty—decided to incorporate new legislation to limit the effects of that decision that we did not have to change the entire structure of pensions in this country retrospectively. That was a political decision.
    In the case of social security orders, Governments will often produce an order quickly to trammel up the consequences of a court judgment, arguing from a political standpoint that it was never the intention of the Government or of Parliament to legislate in the way that the court has interpreted.
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    The clause transfers the judgment, usually made by Ministers in Parliament, about limiting or dealing with retrospective effects to the courts. One could argue that an obligation is placed on the court to make that judgment. The clause states that the court has the power
    "to make a provision of subordinate legislation".
    Dr. Marek: I do not want to appear rude, but it would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman could say whether he is in favour of his own amendment or not. Ministers are subject to judicial review, and it is right that that should be so. Equally, the assembly—acting through Committee or Government—ought to be subject to some sort of judicial review. He is seeking to narrow the scope of judicial review by removing the words "or limiting". I should have thought that the court ought to keep as much power as possible.
    Mr. Jenkin: I fear that the hon. Gentleman is mistaken. We have no desire to limit the scope of judicial review applicable to Ministers of this Government, the Welsh assembly or anywhere else. It has become a fixture of the United Kingdom constitution that everyone making administrative decisions is subject to review by the courts. The clause is not about whether there should be judicial reviews or not—that is dealt with by clause 109 and schedule 7.
    We are discussing whether the clause gives additional powers to the courts not just to interpret the law and to establish what it is, but to change it so that the effect of their decision may have retrospective effects. That is an innovation in terms of judicial review, except with regard to European Union law, where the European Union courts have that discretion. Therefore, in a matter of EU law, our courts have that discretion.
    The anomaly that the clause is in danger of creating is that the same orders passed through this House with regard to England, and through the Welsh assembly with regard to Wales, will be subject to different methods of interpretation. The assembly might decide to take the text of an English order and translate it into a Welsh order, with identical wording and legal effects. In two identical cases of judicial review, the English courts might make a decision without the ability to remove or limit the retrospective effects. A decision under the proposed procedure might have a completely different effect, because the court could decide to make a provision of subordinate legislation which might remove or limit the retrospective effect.
    In principle, we think that legislation should be advanced on the basis of rational argument, debated between accountable and elected people and decided by legislative authorities, not the courts. This provision removes the right of redress from the original litigant. An appellant in a case related to a social security order who wins the right in law to claim 12 years' back payment of a particular benefit may find that the court arbitrarily decides to remove his right to have it. It is one thing for Parliament and Ministers to decide who should receive money and who should not, but that has never been the role for our courts.
    In an area of shared competence such as agriculture, cases may emerge involving farmers applying for hill livestock compensatory allowance. The order for the renewal of the payment may be made in the future for

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    England with an order through this House and, for Wales, with an order through the Welsh assembly. Identical law could be interpreted differently with differing effects, which could be to the advantage or disadvantage of Welsh people.
    It is incumbent on the Government to explain why they think the courts should have legislative discretion in these matters. If the courts are going to have it, why should not all courts in the United Kingdom have the discretion to deal with the retrospective effects of decisions of this nature?
    7.15 pm
    Mr. Denzil Davies: I congratulate the Opposition on tabling the amendment. Some of us tabled a similar amendment in Committee, but the guillotine prevented us from debating it.
    This is an important clause. A litigant who brings an action and succeeds in persuading a court that the Welsh assembly has acted unlawfully—that is, outside its power in relation to subordinate legislation—could normally expect to receive damages or the restitution of any money paid to the Government. However, clause 110(2) enables the court to deny potential litigants who would have litigated but did not because the initial litigant took the matter to court. It denies the consequences of the initial judgment. The court can say, "Although, in principle, you are right, in this case you cannot have the money." There may be other consequences, and a lot of money may have to be paid to others who may be able to claim.
    I suspect that the antecedents of this part of the Bill lie in the Barber decision of the European Court of Justice. That was a special case, because, if the court decides whether there is a retrospective effect or not, possibly hundreds of people can claim. There is no legislature standing behind the European Court of Justice, so a legislature cannot overturn the decision—in other words, this House could not have overturned the decision of the European Court of Justice in the Barber case, because the court extends beyond the competence of this House. Quite properly, it was agreed at Maastricht that the Council of Ministers could limit the Barber decision in this way.
    Mr. Jenkin: The difference between the European Court of Justice and our courts is that the European Court of Justice must fill in the gaps of vaguely worded legislation, so that situation arises more often. There is not the same need for a measure of this nature in our very detailed law as there is in European law, which is so vaguely drafted.
    Mr. Davies: I do not think that that was the problem in the Barber case. Not long ago, there was a case in which the House of Lords held that people who deposited money with a building society could recover some tax. That would have caused the British Government to pay out vast sums of money.
    I believe that, following the judgment in another case that would have cost the British Government a great deal of money, the House legislated in a Finance Bill in effect to deny that consequence. The House had the power to do so, but the House has no power to overturn decisions of the European Court of Justice. Therefore, it was necessary
    742
    for the Council of Ministers to come up with an arrangement that enabled it to limit the consequences of a decision of the European Court of Justice; that was done by treaty.
    I suspect that clause 110 has its origins in the clever way that things were done in respect of the Barber Case. I am not arguing against that. As the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) said, it is right from time to time for the House to legislate and, in effect, overturn the decision of a court—perhaps not in respect of the litigant, but in respect of all the other potential litigants. That is perfectly proper, and it has been done.
    However, that is a political decision, taken in the House by elected representatives, who openly overturn the decision of the court. As the hon. Member for North Essex said, in this case we are being asked to pass a measure that would enable a court to say: "Yes, Mr. Jones, plaintiff, we hold for you; but no, Mr. Jones, plaintiff, you will not get the money, because we, as a court, have determined, in accordance with section 110, that we are allowed to remove or limit whatever is meant by 'retrospective effect-.
    I would not wish to go into an Austinian discussion of the jurisprudential position of courts—whether they always decide retrospectively, by plucking out of the air law that has been there all the time. I do not know what "retrospective effect" means, but I believe that the intention is to deny other potential plaintiffs, or even the plaintiff in the case, the money that they would otherwise be given.
    That can be done. It is distasteful if a democratic assembly does it, but I understand that, because of the effects on public money, it might have to be done from time to time. However, I see no reason why a court should be allowed to do that.
    There is a good subsidiary point. As I understand it, if a court in the United Kingdom decided that an order of this Parliament was unlawful, there would be no power for the court to deny the litigant or other potential litigants the money; but if the order was an order of the Welsh assembly, apparently, section 110 could be prayed in aid, and the "Attorney General", no less—the Attorney-General of England and Wales, presumably—could come along and say, "Please do not apply the Welsh order, because it will cost us a lot of money."
    This is another nonsense. I hope that the Minister will tell us that he will go away and reconsider the clause, with a view to doing something in the House of Lords.
    Mr. Letwin: Mr. Deputy Speaker, by your leave, before I make my remarks on amendment No. 21, I should like to place it on the record that I made a factual mistake last night. Many schools in English postal districts do indeed, as the Minister suggested, lie in Wales. As the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey) pointed out to me, they lie in his constituency, so I apologise to the House.
    Amendment No. 21, to which my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) drew attention and on which the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) spoke with his customary acuity, draws attention to a point that goes beyond the scope of the points that my hon. Friend raised.
    It has sometimes been said during our debates that those of us who are not Welsh Members should hesitate before speaking about some aspects of the Bill.

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    Amendment No. 21 brings out extremely clearly why English Members should attend very closely to the contents of the Bill and to each clause in it; for if clause 110(2)(a) were to remain, the precedent effect of the Bill on English legislation would be very great.
    I am convinced that the right hon. Member for Llanelli is right to say that, somewhere in the bowels of the Government legal machinery, a great guru enunciated some general principle that clauses of this type were henceforward to be inserted wherever possible, to prevent the repetition of Barber. It is of the utmost importance, therefore, that we place on the record in this debate the fact that there are profound objections to such a provision.
    It must be admitted that the phrase used in the governing clause, so to speak, of subsection (2) is permissive rather than compulsory. It says, not that the court or tribunal must make an order, but that it "may" make an order. The Minister might—I want to fend off that possibility—be tempted to argue that there is nothing constitutionally objectionable about the clause, because it leaves it open to the discretion of the court whether to take advantage of the permission. However, if he were tempted to do so, he should resist the temptation, because it is objectionable that a court should be put in a position where it would have even the discretion to deprive people who had a legitimate expectation, which had been falsified by the incorrect application of an order, of that expectation, as the right hon. Member for Llanelli said.
    Mr. Jenkin: As my hon. Friend will see from the amendment paper, in amendment No. 19, which was not selected, we toyed with the idea of removing the discretion to make the clause read "shall", not "may", precisely because the courts are being put in the position of deciding whether to let the Executive off the hook. That seems extraordinary. In a heated and controversial case, judges might be under severe political pressure to decide in a certain way.
    Mr. Letwin: I entirely take that point, and I suppose that that would have been the ultimate probing amendment, which would have pushed the Government into acknowledging what they were, in effect, doing to the court.
    I take the argument a step further, because something is happening that is even more remarkable than my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex or the right hon. Member for Llanelli made out. In this case, what is being provided for is not that a court should take a view about the implementation of an order in a judicial review, but that it should take a view about the vires of an assembly, a legislative body, having made a statutory instrument in the first place.
    Mr. Hain indicated dissent.
    Mr. Letwin: The Minister shakes his head; perhaps I mistake. I thought it was clear from clause 110(1), to which subsection (2) obviously refers, that we are talking here about
    "where any court or tribunal decides that the Assembly did not have the power to make a provision of subordinate legislation".
    Therefore it seems clear, on a layman's reading—I am happy to give way if the Minister wants to correct me-that the court is being asked to decide not whether the
    744
    subordinate legislation has been applied appropriately by an executive agency but whether the subordinate legislation is within the vires that have been granted to it by the primary legislation, and presumably, the transfer of functions order, under which the Welsh assembly operates.
    Unsurprisingly, because it follows clause 109, which deals with devolution issues, clause 110 is part of the bizarre and byzantine structure with which we are confronted in many aspects of the Bill, but especially in clause 110, in which the courts—ultimately the judicial committee; in this case, any appropriate court—have been prayed in aid to determine whether a quasi-Parliament is acting properly.
    That is emphasised by the retrospection issue. It is of great importance whether the Minister, in his closing remarks, is willing, first, to defend the proposition in subsection (2)(a), to which amendment No. 21 refers; secondly, to defend the general proposition that the courts should have been put in the position of making judgments about the propriety or impropriety of legislation; and, thirdly, to grant that that should never be seen as having a precedent effect.
    Mr. Denzil Davies: I do not know whether I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument. The courts do it all the time—in fact, they do it to the House. Some of us have always had reservations about judicial review and the lengths to which it can go. The courts may strike down subordinate legislation of this place if they believe that it is unlawful and not within the ambit of the primary legislation.
    Mr. Letwin: There have been such cases. However, in those circumstances, if Parliament did not agree with the import of the court's decision, it could produce new primary legislation to contradict the court. That option is not available here.
    We are saying that the court is being placed between the assembly and Parliament. There is nothing objectionable about that, so long as the Minister is willing to make it clear that that will not set any kind of precedent for subsequent English legislation. The Minister must deny specifically that the retrospection limitation will have a precedent effect for English legislation. It would be even better if he would accept the amendment and remove that effect from Wales, and hon. Members who represent Welsh constituencies should be concerned about that.
    7.30 pm
    Mr. Hain: I begin by accepting the graceful apology offered by the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), although I must admit that the sight of him scampering out of the Chamber in search of a Welsh school in Herefordshire was a delicious one. I caught my breath for a moment for fear that he might discover one for which I had responsibility.
    In moving the amendment, the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) made some fair points. I shall also reflect upon the detailed points raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies). I think we shall find that there is no reason to alter the clause, but I shall consider his comments nevertheless.

    745
    Clause 110 deals with cases where a court or tribunal decides that the assembly did not have the power to make a provision of subordinate legislation that it purported to make. It provides a power for the court or tribunal to remove or limit any retrospective effect of the decision, or to suspend its effect. The Government believe that it is important that courts and tribunals have the power to vary the retrospective effect of such decisions. That is necessary, because the court or tribunal will be declaring invalid legislation which, until that point, had been considered to be perfectly valid on the advice of counsel when it was tabled.
    Clause 110 affords a court or tribunal the power to protect those who had been acting in a straightforward manner on that basis. It also allows the court or tribunal to preserve the legal effects of anything already done in reliance on the erroneous legislation. The hon. Member for West Dorset asked whether it is permissive, and to that extent it is. However, the court or tribunal must be given the discretion to consider when—not whether—to exercise that power.
    Clause 110(3) already offers protection to persons who are not party to the proceedings, by requiring the court or tribunal to have regard to the extent to which they would otherwise be adversely affected by its decision. I do not want to offer predictions about when it will be necessary for a court or tribunal to use the power conferred by clause 110, but it might help the House if I give a hypothetical example.
    Mr. Jenkin: The Minister said very emphatically that the clause allows the court to decide when—not whether—to limit or remove retrospection. However, clause 110(3) states:
    "In determining whether to make an order under this section".
    It is perfectly clear that it is whether and not when. I do not know why the Minister believes that it is when rather than whether.
    Mr. Hain: I was trying to explain that discretion in respect of retrospection is about the precise timing of any compensation. I shall give an example.
    Let us assume that the assembly makes some regulations. Some two or three years later, a court may rule that the regulations were not within the assembly's powers. The court might then have to decide whether it should make an order declaring that the assembly's regulations were ultra vires, but only from the date of the application made by the person who brought the case as opposed to the date on which the regulations were made. That is the sort of practical problem that clause 110 seeks to address. I assure the hon. Member for North Essex that it is not a question of letting the assembly—or any assembly Members responsible—off the hook. It is simply a question of applying this matter sensibly.
    Amendment No. 21 would restrict the discretion of a court or tribunal in its ability to vary the retrospective effect of its decision that subordinate legislation of the assembly was ultra vires. It would mean that the court or tribunal could remove the retrospective effect but not limit it. Amendment No. 21 ties the hands of the court or tribunal to an all-or-nothing approach, which I do not think is sensible. I appreciate that this may be a probing
    746
    amendment, but I believe that its outcome would be highly undesirable. I should add that clauses 93(2) and 93(3) of the Scotland Bill use wording similar to clause 110.
    Mr. Denzil Davies: My hon. Friend has explained that the court will be allowed to limit the ultra vires effect of the order to the date of the court's pronouncement, and that the ultra vires effect would not go back to the date of the promulgation of the order. I understand that. That will be the case in relation to subordinate legislation or an order made by the Welsh assembly.
    The Minister has now said that that will also be the position in respect of Scotland. Does he agree that that would not be the position in respect of subordinate legislation made by this place that is considered unlawful by the court? The situation is different so far as the House is concerned. Do the Government propose to introduce the same sort of legislation to limit the ultra vires effect in the case of this place?
    Mr. Hain: No, for the reasons that I am about to give. My right hon. Friend may come back to me if he wishes. I must clarify one comment that he made. The declaration that the assembly's decisions might be ultra vires in respect of a regulation applies not simply, as my right hon. Friend suggested, from the date of the court's decision, but from the date that the application was made.
    The hon. Member for North Essex asked why that power is not available to all courts. I shall answer that question, and then deal with the points raised by my right hon. Friend.
    We must recognise that the constitutional changes in this legislation and in the Scotland Bill demand innovative arrangements for settling disputes about the powers of the assembly or of the Scottish Parliament. Schedule 7 introduces the concept of "devolution issues" on which the assembly's use of its powers can be challenged. The assembly's subordinate legislation will be a matter for the assembly, but we accept that it should be subject to review by the courts.
    As the hon. Member for West Dorset said, the position in England is different, because the Government could promote an Act of Parliament to cure the problem caused by a court's decision that subordinate legislation was ultra vires. That answers my right hon. Friend's point. However, the assembly would not be able to take such action, so clause 110 is a sensible response to the chaos that could otherwise reign if the assembly's subordinate legislation were found to be ultra vires.
    The amendment is unacceptable because it fetters the courts' discretion in a way that could have undesirable and unforeseen effects for individuals. Therefore, I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw it.
    Mr. Jenkin: The more I listen to the Minister trying to justify the clause as it stands, the less happy I become. In his argument, he declared that the clause was necessary to give the court the power to remove or limit retrospective effects of decisions, because the court has the power to declare invalid an order. That is the meat and drink of judicial review. That is what the courts do in many cases of judicial review when, for example, people are claiming payments—the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) referred to Mr. Jones, but it could be Mr.

    747
    Smith in London, or Mr. McTavish in Scotland. That has been the case for as long as there has been judicial review. There is no distinct justification for the clause, simply because that is what the court might do in this case.
    The Minister says that it is necessary for the court to decide whether the payment should be made at all, whether it should be made from the date on which the application was made, or whether payment should be available to all litigants from the date of the promulgation of the order. That discretion does not exist in other courts. That is the extraordinary innovation that we are creating in the Bill and, as the Minister points out, in the Scotland Bill, in which we have not reached the relevant clause, so we have not yet raised the matter in that context.
    Mr. Denzil Davies: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the right way of dealing with the matter would be to give power to this House to overturn the retrospective effect of the court decision? I am sure that that could be done. My hon. Friend the Minister said that the problem arose because the Welsh assembly would not have legislative powers, but Parliament could do that, as it does now, from time to time.
    Mr. Jenkin: The more I consider the matter, the more the logic of the right hon. Gentleman's argument is apparent. The entire clause should be removed from the Bill. This House is responsible for the legislation that we put through. If the court decides that the assembly is using powers that Parliament has not given it, it is a matter for this House to decide, along with the other place; it is not for some hybrid court in some hybrid decision to create extra powers for the assembly that this Parliament never intended.
    Mr. Letwin: Does my hon. Friend agree that the critical difference between the provision as drafted and what is proposed by the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies), towards which my hon. Friend is clearly inclined, is that if Parliament were making the decision, it would be made on the basis of national interest—a political judgment, in the best sense—whereas the court is, so to speak, at sea? The court has no guidance on the basis on which it is to make a decision.
    Mr. Jenkin: What would happen is what is beginning to happen in judicial review cases, where we might feel that the courts are becoming involved more in political issues. Political and judgmental arguments are increasingly being put to judges. The classic example in European law is the case of objective tests of justified or unjustified sexual discrimination, which are economic and political arguments, not matters of law. We think that courts should be concerned with matters of law, not with matters of economic and political judgment.
    Another of the Minister's comments raises alarm. It makes me wonder whether such a provision will appear not only in the Scotland Bill, but in English legislation—whether it will pop up in other Bills where it is more convenient for the Executive to put the onus on the courts for mistakes of administration, than for the Executive to have to come to Parliament to seek powers to deal with the incompetence that they have demonstrated.
    We shall withdraw the amendment for the time being—
    7.45 pm
    Mr. Alan Williams (Swansea, West): Before the hon. Gentleman does so, may I make an appeal through him to my hon. Friend the Minister? He has got it wrong. I do not see why my constituents and his should be disadvantaged in the process through which law is made, as against constituents in England. Please, please take the clause away and bring back a different solution to the problem.
    Mr. Jenkin: I shall give way to the Minister if he wishes me to do so.
    The right hon Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) makes clear the disadvantages. It is to the disadvantage of the citizens of Wales, as opposed to the citizens of the United Kingdom, that the provision appears in the Bill. I come back to the hill livestock compensatory allowances, for example. Why should a Welsh farmer be subject to the decision of a court or tribunal that can say, "Yes, Mr. Farmer, you are right. We should have paid you this amount of money, but we are under pressure from the Welsh assembly, which is in hot water over the matter, not to create a political crisis. For convenience, we will not pay you, and we will deny other farmers in the same position the right to apply for the same moneys. The courts in England are not subject to the same pressures, because they do not have the power to limit or remove retrospective effects"?
    Mr. Hain: As in many other cases, when the hon. Gentleman or his colleagues have intervened on aspects of the Bill, he is creating a mountain out of a molehill. There is no intention to do anything of that kind. This is a sensible response—in the context of devolution, which is a new constitutional settlement for the United Kingdom—to deal practically with the issues raised by possible regulations that might be ultra vires.
    Mr. Jenkin: I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention, because we have noticed a pattern of behaviour on his part. When we make points that he finds it difficult to answer, he thanks us for the courtesy and graciousness with which we have advanced our arguments, instead of just slagging us off, but when he comes back and says that we are making a mountain out of a molehill, we know that we have hit the jackpot and that he has run out of things to say.
    I repeat that the Minister's justification for the clause is that the court or tribunal in these cases has the power to declare invalid an order. That is what courts do in judicial review cases. He says that it is not a matter of letting the assembly off the hook, but that is what the courts will be doing if they limit or remove retrospective effects. They will be making matters easier for the assembly, by saying to it, in effect, "Don't worry, you have been using a power that you did not have, but we will deal with the consequences for you." That would work to the disadvantage of ordinary people in Wales who were doing no more than claiming their rights under the law.
    Mr. Alan Williams: In my days in government in the 1970s, I withdrew an order that was due to come before the House the following week because three people producing a particular version of a product—it was a

    749
    consumer safety order—appeared. They had not been consulted, they should have been consulted and they would have had the right to take the Department to court because we had not gone through the proper processes. It was right that I withdrew the order, but if I were in the assembly, I could be told that it was wrong, but I could still go ahead and introduce the order, in the knowledge that there was a chance that the court might rescue me from the consequences of that action.
    Mr. Jenkin: We can all think of cases. For example, when the Lambeth and Lewisham health authority was suspended in the early 1980s, and it was decided that that was ultra vires, what sort of pressure would a court be under in those circumstances, if the Secretary of State could make a case that the ultra vires nature of the order should not invalidate the suspension of the health authority? That is what I mean by the possibility of the provision letting the Executive off the hook.
    I give notice that my noble Friends in the other place will want to return to the matter. We shall certainly raise the matter in the Scotland Bill, and keep a watching brief to make sure that the Government do not surreptitiously slip this constitutional innovation into other legislation for their own convenience.
    I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

  Schedule 8

    RELATIONS WITH LOCAL GOVERNMENT SUPPLEMENTARY
    Amendments made: No. 150, in page 89, line 28, leave out from 'Council' to end of line 30.
    No. 151, in page 91, line 16, leave out from '(5)(b)' to end of line 18.
    No. 152, in page 91, line 43, leave out from 'scheme' to end of line 45.
    No. 112, in page 92, line 2, leave out 'specified' and insert 'set out' —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 112
    RELATIONS WITH VOLUNTARY ORGANISATIONS
    Amendment made: No. 92, in page 55, line 11, leave out 'specified' and insert 'set out'. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]
  Clause 115
    SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
    Amendment made: No. 142, in page 56, line 14, leave out from 'scheme' to end of line 16. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]
  Clause 117

    PROVISION OF INFORMATION TO TREASURY
    Dr. Marek: I beg to move amendment No. 226, in page 56, line 42, at end insert —
    '(2) 'The Treasury shall reimburse the Assembly for any costs in providing information under this section.'.
    750
    There are about 10 minutes available to us and another three groups of amendments on the list. Let us see whether we can deal with more than one amendment, because the next two are worthy of some debate.
    Amendment No. 226 seeks slightly to curtail the power of the Treasury, and its influence is all-pervasive in the Bill, which we have been considering over nine days. This straightforward amendment seeks to place a responsibility on the Treasury to pay for the work and effort that will be required in acceding to Treasury wishes when it asks for information. Of course, the Treasury could ask for all sorts of information in many ways. Indeed, it probably does so now.
    I suspect that the Treasury probably tries to moderate its demands, to ensure that the information that it requests will be valuable and that disproportionate cost will not be involved. However, that may change once we have a national assembly whose responsibility will be in Wales. Once the Treasury has given a block grant to the assembly, it may say, "This information may be useful to us, but it will cost a lot of money. However, the assembly will have to pay for it, so let us ask for the information anyway."
    As good parliamentarians, we should try to curtail the Treasury's powers, which are all-pervasive. It rules our lives every day, from morning to evening. I hope that the amendment will find some favour at least on the Back Benches, if not on the Front Benches.
    Mr. Evans: I have read the amendment, and I am not awfully keen on it. It would place the onus on the Treasury. I suspect that there are rather busy people in the Treasury who will not invent work for themselves merely to create a raison d'etre for being there. They have other important things to do.
    We have heard so much about how reasonable everybody will be, to ensure that the assembly will work. I suspect that those involved will not ask for information from the assembly, apart from information that is absolutely necessary for the proper scrutiny and proper working of the assembly.
    I suspect—I am a suspicious sort of fellow—that we see the first inkling of what will happen when people start to point the finger at the assembly, wondering whether they are getting value for money or whether the money is being spent here, there and everywhere. The hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) and others may be saying, "Part of the problem is the Treasury. It is the Treasury again that is to blame, because it is asking for so much information and not making a contribution for all the extra work that that involves."
    I fear that, if accepted, the amendment could cause a precedent, in that we shall all have to start to bear the cost of all the work that we create. I have in mind all the parliamentary questions that we table—we understand how much it costs to table a written or oral question. If we have to bear the cost of all the information that we want, I suspect that the office cost allowance will increase so disproportionately that it will hardly be worth asking the questions in the first place.
    Mr. Hain: I am not sure that the office cost allowance comes within the terms of the amendment and the debate upon it. I shall let that point pass, eloquently though it was made.

    751
    The Welsh Office provides a range of information to the Treasury, which supports the Treasury's management of public finance and its responsibilities for macro-economic policy. For instance, the Welsh Office supplies information about the split of its expenditure and that of the public bodies that it funds, between capital and revenue, information about European Union receipts and information to confirm figures held on the Treasury's database.
    To ensure that the Treasury will continue to receive that information after devolution, we decided exceptionally to include a provision in the Bill to require the assembly to provide information to the Treasury that it needs for the exercise of its functions.
    I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek), who takes a keen interest in Treasury matters—I know that he was an eloquent Opposition Treasury spokesman—that the Treasury will not impose greater burdens on the assembly in requesting information than it now imposes on the Welsh Office. The cost of providing that information is already provided for in the administrative costs of the Welsh Office. It is unnecessary to provide for the Treasury to reimburse the costs of providing such information, as my hon. Friend suggests through his amendment.
    I think that we want to get on with an arrangement between the assembly and the Treasury that is practical common sense and not bound up with the quasi-contractual framework that my hon. Friend suggests for the provision of ordinary information. I invite my hon. Friend to withdraw the amendment.
    Dr. Marek: If the Treasury sought to ask only for information that was necessary for it to carry out its functions, I would not have any problems. However, the clause is drawn more widely than that, and allows the Treasury to cause a great deal of time and money to be spent by the national assembly if it, the Treasury, so wishes.
    First, I invite my hon. Friend the Minister to look at the clause again. If he wants in another place to suggest that the Treasury ask only for information that is necessary for it to carry out its functions—in other words, to narrow the clause—I shall be happy. Secondly, as I am not in a position to insist that my hon. Friend should adopt that approach, and as we want another few minutes on St. David's day, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

  Schedule 9

    MINOR AND CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS ABOUT ASSEMBLY
    Amendment made: No. 113, in page 92, line 21, leave out from 'paragraph' to end of line 26 and insert
    '2(2) (excluded departmental records), at the end insert "or
    (e) to Welsh public records (as defined in the Government of Wales Act 1998)."
    (3) In Part I of the Table at the end of paragraph 3 (boards and establishments under government departments)—

    (a) at the end of the entry relating to National Health Service Authorities insert "and Authorities for districts or localities in Wales, or for areas in or consisting of Wales (including National Health Service trusts all of whose hospitals, establishments and facilities are situated in Wales)",

    752

    (b) at the end of the entry relating to Family Practitioner Committees insert "for localities in England", and

    (c) in the entry relating to health service hospitals, after "1977" insert ", in England".

    (4) In paragraph 5 (Chancery records), after "England" insert ", other than any which are Welsh public records (as defined in the Government of Wales Act 1998),".
    (5) In Paragraph 6 (records in Public Record Office), at the end (but not as part of paragraph (c)) insert—
    "other than any which are Welsh public records (as defined in the Government of Wales Act 1998)."
    (6) In paragraph 7 (1) (power to add further categories of records), after "provisions of this Schedule" insert "and not being Welsh public records (as defined in the Government of Wales Act 1998)".'—[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]
    Mr. Llwyd: I beg to move amendment No. 182, in page 92, line 32, at end insert—
    'The Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 (c.80)
    In section 1 to the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 (bank holidays), after the end of subsection (5) insert—
    "(5A) Subject to subsection (5B), the powers conferred on Her Majesty by subsections (2) and (3) above may, as respects Wales, be exercised by the National Assembly for Wales ('the Assembly').
    (5B) A proclamation by the Assembly in reliance on its powers under subsection (5A) shall be made by order.
    (5C). Section 66 of the Government of Wales Act 1998 (disapplication of procedural requirements) shall not apply to an order under subsection (5B).".'.
    As well as the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), the amendment is tabled in the names of the hon. Members for Wrexham (Dr. Marek), for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey) and for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik). Even for those of us who do not have an intimate knowledge of the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971—we are few, I appreciate that—this is simply an amendment to enable the national assembly to declare a bank holiday when it decides to do so.
    I have in mind a campaign that was run successfully about two years ago by—this is for Hansard—pupils of the ysgol y Morlwyn, Blaenau Ffestiniog, in the constituency of Meirionnydd Nant Conwy. They brought to the previous Government's attention—extremely effectively, although the then Minister could not give in at the time—a persuasive argument.
    I shall be brief, because I know that others wish to support this excellent amendment. I submit it seriously because I think that it is right and appropriate that a national assembly should have the power of decision over such matters. We are in some circumstances celebrating various feasts in Wales that are entirely irrelevant to us as Welsh people. St. David's day, for example, should be a bank holiday, among others.
    Mr. Evans: I can imagine why the people of Wales would like to have a bank holiday on St. David's day. Does the hon. Gentleman envisage the assembly saying—he talked about bank holidays that are irrelevant to the people of Wales—that it would replace 1 May with 1 March as a bank holiday?
    Mr. Llwyd: That is a ticklish question. I do not know the answer. It is up to the national assembly, in any event. I will not prejudge what that august body will do in due course.

    753
    I have dealt with the purpose of the amendment. I hope that it gains some support. I also hope sincerely that the Minister will be able to give me an assurance in due course.
    Mr. Paul Flynn: I warmly support the amendment. Two years ago, Wales, on one of the rare occasions in its history, spoke unanimously with one voice, and councils representing the entire Welsh population said that they wished to have St. David's day as a national holiday, for the very good reason that St. David's day has been celebrated in every corner of Wales as a major event for many years now.
    I remember being shocked by an entirely untrue story told by a famous broadcaster, whom I shall not name, who attended the same school as I did where we celebrated many saints, including St. Patrick. He claimed that St. David's day was an important event because that was the day when we made our preparations for celebrating St. Patrick's day three weeks later. That was grotesquely untrue. St. Patrick's day was an entirely religious affair and St. David's day was the day when we had fun, dressed up in the morning and had plays and pageants, and the great pleasure in the afternoon of a half day off. St. David's day is recognised in Wales—
    It being Eight o'clock, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order [15 January] and the Resolution [25 March], put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair.
    Amendment negatived.
    MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.
    Amendments made: No. 114, in page 93, line 14, leave out
    'In section 163 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988'
    and insert
    'The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has effect subject to the following amendments.
    . In section 49 (copying of public records not to constitute infringement of copyright), after "1923" insert ", or in Welsh public records (as defined in the Government of Wales Act 1998),".
    . In section 163'.
    No. 181, in page 93, line 18, leave out
    'or of a committee of the Assembly or'
    and insert
    'including proceedings of a committee of the Assembly or of'.
    No. 115, in page 93, line 22, at end insert—
    '. In paragraph 10(1) of Schedule 2 (copying of public records not to constitute infringement of rights in performances), after "1923" insert ", or in Welsh public records (as defined in the Government of Wales Act 1998),".'—[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 124

    CESSATION OF FUNCTIONS
    Amendments made: No. 93, in page 58, line 9, leave out 'amends' and insert '(amendments of'
    No. 94, in page 58, line 10, at end insert ') has effect.'. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 126

    TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS
    Amendment made: No. 95, in page 58, line 42, leave out
    ', so far as is required for continuing its effect,' —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 132

    TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS
    Amendment made: No. 96, in page 61, line 34, leave out
    ', so far as is required for continuing its effect,'.—[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Schedule 13

    HOUSING FOR WALES
    Amendments made: No. 116, in page 112, leave out lines 9 to 30.
    No. 117, in page 123, line 43, at end insert—
    'The Audit Commission Act 1998 (c.00).
    . The Audit Commission Act 1998 has effect subject to the following amendments.
    .—(1) Section 40 (power of Secretary of State to direct carrying out of programme agreed between the Corporation and the Audit Commission) is amended as follows.
    (2) In subsection (1), for "Corporation" substitute "Relevant Authority".
    (3) In subsection (2), for "Corporation" substitute "Housing Corporation".
    (4) After that subsection insert—
    "(2A) Where the Secretary of State and the Commission fail to agree a programme proposed by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State may direct that the programme be carried out either without modifications or with modifications specified in the direction."
    (5) In subsections (4) and (6), for "Corporation" (in each place) substitute "Relevant Authority".
    . In section 41(1) and (4) (provisions supplementary to section 40), for "Corporation" substitute "Relevant Authority".
    . In section 42 (functions of Audit Commission in relation to accounts of registered social landlords), for "Corporation" (in each place) substitute "Relevant Authority".
    . In section 43 (interpretation), for "Corporation" substitute "Relevant Authority".'—[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 136

    TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS
    Amendment made: No. 97, in page 64, line 8, leave out
    ', so far as is required for continuing its effect,'. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 139

    ACCOUNTS, AUDIT AND REPORTS
    Amendments made: No. 172, in page 66, line 6, at end insert—
    '() the preparation by a body of accounts extending to financial affairs and transactions of any undertaking (as defined in section 259(1) of the Companies Act 1985) of which the body is (or, if it were an undertaking as so defined, would be) a parent undertaking (within the meaning of section 258 of that Act),'.
    No. 173, in page 66, line 7, leave out from 'granting' to end of line 10 and insert
    'to auditors, and persons considering reports by any auditor or body, of rights of access to documents and of rights to obtain information, explanations and assistance from persons holding or accountable for documents,'.
    No. 174, in page 66, line 13, at end insert—
    '(3A) The Secretary of State may by order make provision for designating accounting officers of any body specified in Part III of Schedule 14 and specifying their responsibilities.'.
    No. 175, in page 66, line 14, after '(1)' insert 'or (3A)'.
    No. 176, in page 66, line 18, after '(1)' insert 'or (3A)'.
    No. 177, in page 66, line 18, at end insert—
    '() If requested to do so by the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, the Audit Committee may—

    (a) on behalf of the Committee of Public Accounts take evidence from a person designated in pursuance of subsection (3)(a) or (3A) as an accounting officer of a body specified in Schedule 14, and

    (b) report to the Committee of Public Accounts and transmit to that Committee any evidence so taken.'. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 141

    TRANSFER ETC. OF FUNCTIONS OF COMPTROLLER AND AUDITOR GENERAL
    Amendment made: No. 98, in page 67, line 18, leave out
    'make any provision that may be made by'
    and insert
    'include any provision that may be included in'. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Schedule 15

    REPEALS
    Amendments made: No. 118, in page 125, line 2, at end insert—

    'PART

    WELSH PUBLIC RECORDS

    Chapter

    Short title

    Extent of repeal

    6 & 7 Eliz.2 c. 51.

    The Public Records Act 1958.

    In the First Schedule, in the Table at the end of paragraph 3—

    in Part I, the entry relating to the Welsh Board of Health, and

    in Part II, the entries relating to the Countryside Council for Wales, the Curriculum and Assessment Authority for Wales, the Further Education Funding Council for Wales, the General Teaching Council for Wales, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and the Qualifications, Curriculum and Assessment Authority for Wales

    756

    and, in the entry relating to any body established for the purpose of determining the boundaries of local authorities in England or Wales, the words "or Wales".'.

    No. 119, in page 125, line 9, column 3, leave out 'to 24.' and insert—

    'and 23. Section 24(1) to (5).'.

    No. 120, in page 125, line 44, at end insert—

    '1990 c. 11.

    The Planning (Consequential Provisions) Act 1990.

    In Schedule 2, paragraph 34(2).'.

    No. 121, in page 130, line 48, at end insert—

    'S.I. 1996/ 2325.

    The Housing Act 1996 (Consequential Provisions) Order 1996.

    In Schedule 2, paragraph 4.'.

    —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 148

    ORDERS AND DIRECTIONS
    Amendments made: No. 99, in page 68, line 40, leave out 'the Secretary of State' and insert
    'a Minister of the Crown'.
    No. 100, in page 69, line 6, after '96(5),' insert
    '(Transfer of responsibility),'.
    No. 178, in page 69, line 6, after '139(1)' insert 'or (3A)'.
    No. 237, in page 69, line 18, after '26,' insert
    '(Polls for ascertaining views of the public)(5),'.
    No. 101, in page 69, line 18, after '96(5),' insert
    '(Transfer of responsibility), (Meaning of "Welsh public records")(1)(f),'.
    No. 179, in page 69, line 19, after '139(1)' insert 'or (3A)'. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 149

    INTERPRETATION
    Amendments made:No. 143, in page 69, line 37, at end insert—' "delegate" includes further delegate,'.
    No. 144, in page 69, line 42, at end insert—
    'and related expressions shall be construed accordingly.'. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 150

    DEFINED EXPRESSIONS
    Amendments made: No. 145, in page 70, line 14, leave out '52' and insert
    '(Assembly First Secretary and Assembly Secretaries)'.
    No. 146, in page 70, line 18, leave out '57(6)' and insert
    '(Assembly First Secretary and Assembly Secretaries)'.
    No. 147, in page 70, line 25, at end insert —

    757
    'delegate section 149(1)'.
    No. 148, in page 70, line 30, leave out '58' and insert
    '(Executive committee)'.
    No. 149, in page 70, line 44, leave out '56' and insert
    '(Subject committees)'.
    No. 102, in page 70, line 48, at end insert—
    'Welsh public records section (Meaning of "Welsh public records")'.
    —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

  Clause 151

    FINANCIAL PROVISIONS
    Amendments made: No. 103, in page 71, leave out lines 7 to 9.
    No. 104, in page 71, leave out lines 13 and 14.
    No. 05, in page 71, line 19, leave out from 'Ace to end of line 22 and insert
    '(apart from any required to be paid into the National Loans Fund).'. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]
    Order for Third Reading read.
    8.1 pm
    The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Ron Davies): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
    The Bill is a landmark piece of legislation. It is an integral part of the Government's long-overdue modernisation of the British constitution. It discharges both Labour's manifesto promises and our referendum mandate, giving Wales its first ever democratically elected and accountable Government.
    Since last December, when I moved Second Reading, we have spent considerable time on the Floor of the House examining the Bill in detail. We have demonstrated that the Bill that we introduced was fundamentally sound, and that it was capable of significant improvement in its detail.
    I and my colleagues have repeatedly emphasised that the assembly must adopt a new and more inclusive style of government. In that spirit, we have listened to the persuasive contributions from both sides of the House and from interests outside it. I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their role in scrutinising the Bill and thereby helping to make the assembly work.
    I pay particular tribute to right hon. and hon. Members sitting below the Gangway on the Opposition Benches, from the Liberal Democrat party and Plaid Cymru, for their constructive role in examining the Bill. I also pay tribute to the Conservative party, because I understand that, as a result of our deliberations it has now accepted the Bill's legitimacy and will support it on Third Reading. That is a welcome development, and I am sure that, when the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) replies, he will say that his party fully supports the principle of devolution.
    The result of our deliberations is an improved Bill that reflects a wider range of interests and concerns than when it was introduced. I attach great importance to that.
    Devolution is now becoming a reality. The Bill will mean that the people of Wales will have the assembly for which they voted and for which they have waited for a long time. There is a constructive spirit in Wales today
    758
    that runs across the political spectrum. It is a mood which says that we must seize this opportunity to make absolutely sure that we are creating the best and most effective institution that we can. This is our one chance and we must work together to ensure its success. That is the feeling in Wales. That has also been the feeling in most—unfortunately not all—of our debates in this House.
    Constitutional change is vital if we are to achieve constitutional stability. If the Union is to prosper, it will surely be on the basis of bringing government closer to the people whom it serves, not on the basis of an unbending and devoted reverence for constitutional traditions.
    That approach lies at the heart of the Bill, as with the Government's other constitutional reform proposals. Our plans will extend to the assembly the trust and responsibility appropriate to a democratic body. If and when it makes mistakes, it will rightly be solely accountable to the Welsh electorate at the ballot box. In the long run, what results will be a system of government that better understands and responds to the wishes of the electorate. That is the essence of devolution, and if it is a constitutional novelty, it is none the worse for it.
    We have heard much in our debates about the result of the referendum. I believe that it serves one vital purpose. It reminds us of the need, in establishing the assembly, to reach beyond the majority who voted yes to the substantial number of people in Wales who did not. That is what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister pledged that we would do on 19 September and that is what we have done.
    We have listened to what Opposition Members have said—for, example, in relation to the Cabinet system. We have listened to what the national assembly advisory group said about the advantages of a Cabinet system for the assembly. We have listened to what the CBI said about consultation with business in Wales. We have also listened to what environmentalists have said about sustainable development. In each case, and in others like them, we have acted to amend the Bill.
    I freely admit the importance of a listening and responsive Government. This is unusually complex and wide—ranging legislation, and it is vital that the assembly carries with it the support of all interests and opinions in Wales if it is to represent them properly. We need to get the detail right now, both in the Bill and through the advisory group, which is doing sterling work on the assembly's internal procedures.
    The Bill's principles are clear. Wales needs and deserves its own form of government, reflecting its own particular demands, and the Bill delivers that. The Bill's progress through the House has allowed us to take into account many valid points from hon. Members on both sides of the House, and elsewhere. It has allowed us to clarify points of doubt and to lay to rest concerns and misapprehensions.
    What we now have is a Bill that delivers what the people of Wales want in a way that will best ensure that their needs are properly and fully represented. It is a good Bill, and I commend it to the House.
    8.6 pm
    Mr. Ancram: This major constitutional Bill is coming to the end of its journey through the House before it moves on to another place, and I have to agree that it will fundamentally alter the constitutional landscape of Wales.

    759
    I fear that, despite the Secretary of State's enthusiasm for the Bill, it has not exactly fired the imagination of the Welsh public or their journalistic representatives. Each day, I have opened the Welsh newspapers to read the Secretary of State's pearls of wisdom, but I have yet to find them. If the Bill is landmark legislation, it is rather surprising that only half the right hon. Gentleman's supporters from Wales have bothered to turn out on the Benches behind him tonight.
    I begin by thanking you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and your fellow members of the Chairmen's Panel, for the way in which you conducted the Bill's Committee stage on the Floor of the House. We are grateful to you for the courtesy and firmness with which you dealt with all our problems. I ask you to pass on our thanks to your colleagues and to the Clerks of the House for the help and advice that they have given us during the course of the legislation. Once again, we are grateful to them.
    I should also have liked to thank Ministers, but I fear that I have little to thank them for. I do not think that I have ever come across anyone with such an obstinate, intransigent belief in the infallibility of their draftsmen. Even where there have been clauses which Labour Members have told them are wrong, they have simply not been prepared to move on them, as we saw a moment ago on amendment No. 21. They have been a strange mixture—a version of the three wise monkeys who could see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil about their Bill, with the posture of the school playground bully, who takes all criticism personally and regards any admission that he might have been wrong as somehow a weakening of his virility.
    I should like to award one or two points. For charm, to the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths), I give five points; to the hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) I give two points; and to the Secretary of State, as the Prime Minister might say, I give "nul points". For response to the arguments that have been put forward, to the hon. Member for Bridgend I give one point—he has listened to some of the points that we have made; to the hon. Member for Neath I give no points whatever; and to the Secretary of State I give almost one point as a result of yesterday's debate—unfortunately, he blew it.
    Mr. Dalyell: For charm, how many points is the right hon. Gentleman awarding himself?
    Mr. Ancram: The first time that I came across the hon. Gentleman was when I fought him in his then constituency of West Lothian in 1970. I was 24 years old and he was a little older. I remember that, when I sought to shake hands with him during the course of the campaign, he looked at me carefully and said, "I never shake hands with my opponents until after the votes are counted." So I have always taken a lesson from him in respect of charm.
    We almost made progress on the experiment of an agreed programme, until, much to my regret, the Government cynically hijacked the time that we could spend on Report and refused to make up that time, thereby breaching the spirit of the agreed programme. They have thus added considerably to the work load that will have to be undertaken in another place.
    We also nearly made progress on the Cabinet structure. We moved the Government from a position of "won't" at the beginning of our proceedings, to a position of
    760
    "will" some 10 days ago when they announced that they would adopt such a structure, to a position of "possibly, if that is what the assembly wants" when we started the debate on it yesterday, to what I understood at the end to be a system consisting of partly Cabinet and partly Committee, if that is what turns out to be popular. It was another example from the Secretary of State of leadership by dithering indecision. That characteristic has become fairly familiar to us in this devolution process, not least in respect of deciding where the assembly will eventually find its home.
    We approach the Bill on the basis that the principle of establishing an assembly in Wales was confirmed by the Second Reading vote. As hon. Members know, the referendum was indecisive. It was conducted on a small proportion of the poll and the majority was very small. However, as constitutional democrats, we accept that the Second Reading vote established the principle of an assembly. We did not like the form of the proposed assembly in the Bill. We were aware of the fears expressed by the Welsh people through the votes that they cast in the referendum. We sought constructively to amend the Bill and I must admit that we have pretty well failed. We are now saying a temporary farewell to an unsatisfactory scheme and a deeply flawed piece of legislation, which does not bode well for the National Assembly for Wales.
    I was amazed to read that, on Monday, the Secretary of State went to Belfast to tell Northern Ireland politicians how to do it.
    Mr. John Smith: That is a outrageous assertion.
    Mr. Ancram: The right hon. Gentleman went to Belfast on Monday, having told the Western Mail that he was going, to explain to Northern Ireland politicians what they could learn from his experience. I know a little about Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland needs institutions that unite rather than divide; schemes that protect minority rights; financial security; strong representation in both the United Kingdom and Europe; and certainty rather than doubt. So, in different ways, does Wales. On Monday, the Secretary of State told Northern Ireland politicians about a scheme that fails on all those requirements.
    Far from learning from the divided nature of the referendum result, the Bill creates an assembly that will entrench regional division in Wales and do nothing to help the north in relation to the south, or the east in relation to the west. The Government studiously refused to accept any measure that could protect permanent minorities. Indeed, they dismissed with disdain amendments that would have introduced safeguards of the sort that will almost certainly be in any scheme that comes out of Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Hain: The comments that the right hon. Gentleman has made in the past few minutes are extremely degrading and not worthy of him. My right hon. Friend was invited to Northern Ireland by those seeking peace there—an objective that the right hon. Gentleman should support. My right hon. Friend was asked to talk to participants in the peace process and everyone concerned regarded his contribution as very valuable. The right hon. Gentleman should withdraw his dishonourable remarks.
    Mr. Ancram: I am merely making the point that, if we are to find a solution to the problems in Northern Ireland,

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    the same devolution requirements apply throughout the United Kingdom. One of the Bill's fundamental flaws is that it fails in the requirements that I set out. I said that it fails to provide assurance to those who fear divisions within Wales, and gives no assurance on financial security or the provision of finance. The right hon. Gentleman dismisses attempts to insert references to relative need in the Bill, despite the fact that Wales would have benefited from those. The Bill asks Wales to rely on unenforceable and valueless concordats, which we learnt last night can be breached unilaterally. It rests its case on the argument that nothing has changed when the whole point about devolution is that things have changed, and in future there will be not one unitary Government but two Administrations—one in Cardiff and one in London.
    I find it strange that, at the same time as assurances on finance in Wales are given, we get a nod and a wink to England that, in time, the Barnett formula will be changed. My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) received a letter from the Home Office about the Referendum (English Parliament) Bill. The letter was originally sent to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell). To my surprise, the letter does not say that there will be no review of the Barnett formula, which was our understanding during the course of this Bill, but says that the Government
    "see no case for reviewing … the Barnett formula now."
    The word "now" is underlined. That type of nod and wink to the English, contrary to the assurances given to the Welsh people, who have been given no statutory provision for financial security, is totally unsatisfactory and a flaw in the Bill.
    Mr. Öpik: Would the right hon. Gentleman entertain the possibility that, far from being an objective analysis of what we have spent so much time debating, his assessment simply belies the Jurassic non-acceptance of the importance of devolution to Wales? It is because we have done something of great significance within the United Kingdom—and done it very effectively—that the Secretary of State's visit to Northern Ireland was of such interest to the people of Northern Ireland and such a great success in sharing valuable and constructive experience from this Chamber with those seeking to do something similar in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Ancram: I give the hon. Gentleman seven points for charm but 10 points for fantasy in respect of how he has dealt with the Bill.
    Mr. John Smith: I understand why the right hon. Gentleman wants to make speedy progress, but in respect of the deplorable remarks that he made earlier, will he now say for the record that he was not trying to compare divisions in Wales with the tragic religious divisions that exist in Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Ancram: The hon. Gentleman will remember that, when I raised the subject of Northern Ireland at the beginning of our proceedings, I was told that the subject was not applicable and that I should not refer to it in the context of this legislation. I am perfectly entitled to point out that the Secretary of State went to Northern Ireland, publicly and with a great deal of fanfare, to talk to
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    politicians there about the experience of this Bill. I set out four requirements: the need to unite; the need to protect minority rights; the need for financial security and strong representation in Europe; and the need for certainty rather than doubt. Those are requirements for Wales as well, and if the hon. Gentleman says that they are not, he is doing his constituents a disservice.
    Mr. Flynn: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, but what shocks us about his grotesque remarks is the contrast between the way in which the Conservative party ran Wales—despite holding only a handful of seats, it insisted on exercising power not only through national institutions, but through the quangocracy that it created in Wales—and the essence of the Bill, which will spread power throughout every corner, every community and every political party in Wales through a strong element of proportional representation. The Bill is not a grab for power, which the Labour party has traditionally held in Wales with a democratic mandate, but an attempt to spread power—the reverse of what the right hon. Gentleman claims.
    Mr. Ancram: The hon. Gentleman has not been a great attender of the debates, and obviously did not hear those on concordats and the other unsatisfactory ways in which the Bill will be applied in Wales.
    I shall continue to describe the Bill's fundamental flaws, because before it leaves the House people must understand that it is not the great and glorious project that the Secretary of State says it is. There is no reassurance on Europe and nothing in the Bill even remotely suggests that Wales will have a continuing voice in the Councils of the European Union. Even the pathetic words "may assist", which appear in the Scotland Bill, have not been used. All that we are promised are concordats, but we learned last night that they are not worth the paper that they are written on; indeed, if they are worth the paper that they are written on, they are not democratically accountable to the House or to the assembly. Concordats are an unsatisfactory way of dealing with the European interest.
    Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: The right hon. Gentleman referred to a continuing voice for Wales in Europe. What voice did Wales have during 18 years of Conservative rule, and exactly how many times did Conservative Secretaries of State for Wales deign to visit Brussels?
    Mr. Ancram: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point: I tabled a question to hon. Member for Bridgend, asking when he was next attending the European Council of Ministers; he will attend next week. That facility exists, but it will no longer exist after the Bill has been enacted. The interests of farmers in Wales, who are in crisis at the moment, will suffer as a result, which is another fundamental flaw in the Bill.
    The Bill offers no reassurance on the means of avoiding the marginalisation of Wales within the United Kingdom and does not set out a role for the Secretary of State for Wales. It does not even suggest that the term "Secretary of State" refers to the Secretary of State for Wales. There is every possibility that the role of the Secretary of State will be reduced to what it once was, when a junior Home Office Minister dealt with the interests of Wales.

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    The Bill offers no assurance on a role for Welsh MPs in the House. We understand that the Grand Committee will wither on the branch and, if rulings from "Erskine May" on previous efforts at devolution are correct, so will Welsh questions. Ministers have rejected our attempts to give Welsh MPs a real role in co-ordination with the assembly; indeed, we tried to add to the Bill a mild clause reminding us of the sovereignty of Westminster, but it was rejected despite the patent inclusion of a similar clause in the Scotland Bill.
    On those counts, we have received no reassurance, which I believe is bad for Wales. On top of that, there is uncertainty about what functions and powers will be transferred to the assembly and how; uncertainty about the effects of cross-border authority on the rights of the individuals affected; uncertainty about abuses that could arise out of the electoral system; and uncertainty about how disputes arising out of devolution issues will be resolved. At the end of yesterday's debate, we faced further uncertainty about whether the assembly will have a Cabinet structure or a Committee structure.
    That uncertainty is dangerous, because it could give rise to conflict. The failure to provide reassurance on those uncertainties could create a focus for misunderstanding and resentment between Cardiff and London. There has already been conflict between the chairman of Cardiff county council and the Secretary of State about the assembly's location. We are in danger of setting Welsh people against Welsh people, and Welsh people against English people. Such conflict will serve only those whose interest is even greater division in the United Kingdom.
    The voices of the people of Wales, as expressed in the divided and indecisive referendum in September, have been cynically disregarded by the Government. The people of Wales will have noticed that. The Bill is deeply flawed; it started out a mess and, because of the obstinacy of the Secretary of State, it goes to the other place a mess. It weakens rather than strengthens the chances of stable devolution in Wales, and answers none of the fears and doubts expressed in the referendum result. If anything, it has created greater doubts, greater uncertainties and greater causes for fear.
    The Bill will set up an assembly that does not know where it is going, whether it will have a Cabinet or a Committee structure, what powers it will have, what will be its relationship to the United Kingdom and Europe or what money it will have. The assembly is a ship without a mast, without a compass, without an engine and without a rudder. It is also full of leaks.
    The assembly in its present form does no service to Wales. We have tried to rectify the faults before the ship is launched, and before it meets the storms into which it will inevitably run. The other place will have to do that work for us. I only hope that it is more successful.
    Wales can and must have a brave and bright future, within itself and within the United Kingdom. To give Wales such a future is our unflinching aim, and we shall never give up.
    8.26 pm
    Mr. Denzil Davies: I shall be brief, because we have had lengthy debates in Committee and on Report and many of my hon. Friends want to contribute.
    My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has rightly sought constitutional change that contributes to constitutional stability. None of us can foresee whether
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    that will happen, because it is in the hands of forces outside our control and outside the technicalities of the Bill, but we hope that it will.
    Those of us who have thought that the British state was overcentralised have always supported decentralisation. The worry has always been that this asymmetrical form of decentralisation may create instability: the Scottish Parliament will have legislative powers and some taxation powers; the Welsh assembly will be executive, but not legislative; and there is little or nothing for England yet, and there may not be for a long time.
    Some of my hon. Friends have visited Catalonia—indeed, debates sometimes sound almost like a homage to Catalonia—and others have referred to the German Lander. Devolution in Spain is more symmetrical, but I suspect that constitutional settlements were reached in those countries. My worry has been that we do not have a constitutional settlement that covers the whole of Britain. I shall leave Northern Ireland aside, and shall not venture to deal with that difficult issue.
    Will constitutional change create constitutional stability? I am worried about three matters, the first of which is the financial and budgetary stability, or lack of it, that may be created by the failure to entrench the Barnett formula in legislation. Many of my hon. Friends have expressed concern, and I suspect that most hon. Members are also worried about the issue. There is not a majority for a specific scheme and it is not easy to see how the problem can be solved. I should have preferred entrenchment in legislation, than to leave the matter as it is. There is a danger of future instability in the relationship between Her Majesty's Treasury and the Welsh assembly if the Barnett formula is merely an expression of intention.
    The second concern is with the transfer of power. The Secretary of State said that devolution was a process.
    Mr. Dafydd Wigley indicated assent.
    Mr. Davies: The right hon. Gentleman shows that he is pleased about that.
    The danger is that a process may go on and on, which would create instability. Nothing can be written in stone, but if powers can be transferred by order from the Home Office, the Department of Social Security or other Departments after a debate lasting only an hour and a half, cries may come from the assembly and from some right hon. and hon. Members for more powers to be transferred simply by order. The English may want to flex their muscles and may be happy to make orders to hand over more and more powers to the Welsh assembly. Perhaps the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) assumes that the English will resist every transfer of power from the British Parliament to the Welsh assembly.
    There should be a slowdown in the process, in the interests of stability and of the Welsh assembly. The assembly will have enough to do: it is a new body, and its work will not be easy. If there are constant calls for more powers to be transferred, that will destabilise the assembly and its relationship with the British Parliament and Government.
    The third concern is with the relationship between the assembly and Whitehall. The concordats are an heroic attempt by my right hon. Friend to solve the problems and to enable the assembly paradoxically to stick close to

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    nurse. I suspect that nurse will move on and will not be very interested in this child once the devolution process has begun.
    We have not had satisfactory answers on Europe: perhaps there are none. We have not had satisfactory answers on how Wales will relate to Europe and on bargaining in the Council of Ministers. It is an extremely difficult time for Welsh agriculture. The common agricultural policy will have to change, with what consequences we know not. It is a difficult time for the structural funds. However strongly my hon. Friends in the Welsh Office argue to maintain the present position, it cannot be maintained, given the enlargement of the European Union towards the east and away from the countries on the western periphery.
    The essence of devolution is that we should not be at the centre. We have not worked out the relationship between the Welsh assembly and the Council of Ministers, the Agriculture Council, the structural funds and the Department of Trade and Industry. Perhaps those problems cannot be resolved. I believe that Wales's position in Europe will be much weaker as a result of these proposals. That may be an inevitable consequence of devolution, but it is a bad one.
    The well-being of the assembly and of Wales will depend on the Welsh economy. I am sorry to say that the assembly will be peripheral to the Welsh economy, because the £7 billion will be a social budget. The assembly may bite the bullet and divert to economic matters the funds that currently go to local government, education, health and other worthy causes. I would not criticise the assembly if it did not do so, because it would cause a political row and a political clamour.
    The assembly will not be an economic powerhouse, nor will the Welsh Development Agency. The assembly's functions will be peripheral to the Welsh economy, which will face considerable difficulties. Sadly and unfortunately, we have the lowest gross domestic product per head in Britain. We have a far too heavy dependency on public expenditure. There is a massive transfer of funds from the Treasury. Let us not be romantic about this: those funds come from England. They will be topped up with funds from the European Union, which will possibly dwindle over the next five years. That is the reality of the Welsh economy, and the assembly will have great difficulty operating in that climate. The European Union and the European currency will exert pressure that will lower wages in Europe. That will depress further our GDP.
    I hope that the assembly works well. It should concentrate on its tasks and should not try to do too much. I hope that, in a spirit of inclusiveness, all the Members of the Assembly accept it as it is and do not try to make political points and to use it for the purposes of separation. If there is a spirit of inclusiveness, the assembly will do a good job for the people of Wales. I hope also that it will preserve and enhance the Welsh identity in a changing global economy.
    8.36 pm
    Mr. Wigley: I am glad to follow the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies). I noted his emphasis on inclusiveness. I listened to his significant contribution in
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    Committee and on Report, but I was not always sure that he took an inclusive approach to the assembly. The right hon. Gentleman and I shared platforms during the referendum campaign in 1979. I remember his enthusiasm for the cause of an elected assembly or Parliament for Wales. When he looks back on his contribution to the debate in recent weeks, and when he sees how the assembly is working in practice, I hope that he will not be tempted to say that he warned us that this or that was wrong. I hope that those of us who aspire to being Members of the Assembly and those of us in Westminster who watch the assembly as it develops can unite in our determination to ensure that it works.
    This is an historic day for Wales, although the assembly offers significantly less than my party wanted. That does not make the assembly not worth having: it is worth having for what it is. We shall play our part positively and constructively to the extent that we are elected. We have every intention of making the assembly work for Wales, notwithstanding the fact that it will not have all the powers that we believe are necessary to get the best deal possible for Wales. If weaknesses come to light, we shall of course argue for the assembly to have powers to deal with them.
    I listened to the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) with interest. The signals which we have received suggest that the Conservative party will not oppose the Third Reading. If so, I hope that it does that in a genuine spirit of acceptance. A decision has been taken and the people of Wales will have a national assembly, even though the Conservative party felt that it was not appropriate. The leader of the Conservative party gave the impression that the intention was to accept the decision and to build on it constructively. I see those on the Opposition Front Bench nodding in agreement. However, having listened to the debates last night, and during the past two or three weeks, it is difficult to believe that that was their positive intention.
    Mr. Jenkin: That is the right hon. Gentleman's opinion.
    Mr. Wigley: Yes. It is my opinion, and I have the right to express it in the House. If Conservative Members genuinely wanted an elected tier of democracy in Wales, they would have tabled positive amendments—here or in another place—to address the weaknesses in the Bill. With respect, the amendments that we discussed between 11 pm and midnight last night were totally spurious. I accept that the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) opened the debate in a perfectly reasonable way, but then we heard a cascade of arguments that did no justice to the cause that he might have been trying to advance.
    Mr. Ancram: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. It is important to put it on record that, on the two major flaws in the Bill which I identified—the first in relation to Europe and the second in relation to finance—we tabled an amendment to ensure that there was a voice for Wales in Europe and another in respect of the relative need to protect the position of Wales. In both cases, we were turned down by the Government.

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    I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that we made constructive attempts to amend the Bill in a good way.
    Mr. Wigley: Some of the proposed amendments would have been helpful. The Government took on board the point that was made in the context of Cabinet provision and acted on it. Had there been more such proposals with a positive intention, the debate would have been improved. Be that as it may, there will be further opportunity in another place.
    If the Conservatives are looking for a symmetrical model that is more stable and accept that there will be an assembly for Wales, a Scottish Parliament and a regional tier of government in London—they advocate that there should also be an elected assembly for Northern Ireland with law-making powers—I look forward to hearing about the balanced platform that they propose to provide that symmetry and stability for the future. As yet, they made no such proposal. I do not criticise them for that, as they may be in transition. However, if it is a journey of transition, perhaps they should have held some of their fire, rather than re-running the referendum campaign and divisive issues time after time. The right hon. Member for Devizes referred to division and fear and undermined the issues.
    Wales needs a new confidence to take the opportunity that the national assembly provides, albeit to a limited extent. It needs confidence not just in political terms but in economic terms, to enable the people of Wales—particularly young people—to take responsibility on their own shoulders, instead of complaining for ever and a day that London has not done this or Brussels has not done that. We need to start doing things for ourselves. In political terms, the assembly encourages us to take responsibility for our own communities.
    Of course there will be difficulties ahead. The assembly will have neither the power nor the resources to solve problems overnight. Some problems may not be soluble even in the longer term, but at least if we make mistakes within the limited capacity that we are allowed, we will be making them ourselves and we will have to live with the consequences.
    I hope that it is a process that, over time, will strengthen the national assembly which is established by the Bill. As hon. Members no doubt understand, although some may disagree, I should like the assembly to have primary law-making powers. The Bill provides for a secondary law-making function and a limited right to amend primary legislation. It is nonsense that the national assembly will not have a legislative role in respect of issues such as local government in Wales, the Welsh language and education, where legislation deals exclusively or in part with Wales. In seeking the symmetry and the stability to which reference has been made, and given that Scotland and Northern Ireland will have those powers, at some point Labour Members and even some more enlightened Opposition Members may address that issue.
    As the right hon. Member for Llanelli said, there is also a weakness in the Bill, which we may not be able to correct through legislation, in respect of the links with Europe. We had assurances on the publication of the White Paper, during the referendum campaign and thereafter that there would be a link between the national assembly and European institutions and that the Assembly
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    First Secretary would have the right to participate in the Council of Ministers as part of a United Kingdom ministerial team when relevant matters such as agriculture were discussed. Of course that is a step forward.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys MÖn (Mr. Jones) pointed out in an intervention, during 18 long years under the Conservatives, how many times did a Secretary of State go to Brussels to argue the case for Wales? I am not aware of a Secretary of State for Wales having addressed the Council of Ministers, although I remember an Under-Secretary going there once. Now at least there will be an opportunity for the assembly to have a role, but that is not enshrined in the Bill. Therefore, we are dependent on the assurances which have been given. I assume that those assurances still hold good, as they are extremely important.
    Likewise, in respect of representation at an administrative level, there should be a senior civil servant in the United Kingdom permanent representation office scrutinising working papers from the Commission before they are finalised so that the needs of Wales can be transmitted. The United Kingdom permanent representation office has said to Wales and Scotland that it is more than happy to facilitate that worthwhile step forward.
    Mr. Ancram: The right hon. Gentleman is referring to a point that is central to the working of devolution without being a matter of conflict and resentment. He has referred to what he hopes will happen, but does he agree that this should be in the Bill?
    Mr. Wigley: I would have been very much happier had our amendment on the issue been debated on Report. I accept that entirely and I hope that the other place will return to the issue. The question is whether it is possible to write those mechanistic provisions into legislation. Provided that there is a declaration of intent from the present Government, who will remain in office for another four years and perhaps longer—only time will tell—and the Conservatives accept that it is a reasonable way of working, at least we will have some assurance from Westminster of good will towards that procedure. I am sure that the national assembly in Wales and the Scottish Parliament will wish to avail themselves of those opportunities.
    Mr. Dalyell: I seek clarification, as I may have misinterpreted the right hon. Gentleman. Did he say that, on some occasions, a representative from the Welsh assembly should speak in Brussels on behalf of the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Wigley: Yes. I believe that should be the case. However, as that would be under the umbrella of the United Kingdom representation at the Council of Ministers, it would have to be with the agreement and consent of those leading the United Kingdom team. That is not altogether new, and I am glad to see the Secretary of State nodding in agreement. I recall the Secretary of State for Scotland taking the United Kingdom seat in the Council of Ministers at the fisheries meeting, although I accept that he did so as a United Kingdom Minister.
    We seek the right to have a voice in Europe. If Scotland in the context of its Parliament, or Wales in the context of our national assembly, considers that a dimension is

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    overwhelmingly significant to Wales or Scotland and may not be so significant to the United Kingdom, a representative from the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh national assembly should have the opportunity to express a view from within the United Kingdom team.
    The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) has maintained a very assiduous presence at our debates and, although we disagree, I certainly salute him for that. If he is saying that we should not have an opportunity to have that voice, he is doing no service to Scotland or Wales. Whether or not he agrees that there should be a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh assembly, if they articulate the wishes and hopes of Scotland and Wales respectively, that channel should be facilitated. If it is not, the tensions and disagreements about which he warned the House will arise. The channel will at least ensure that the message can get through.
    Mr. Jenkin: Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that the elected mayor of London should be afforded a similar facility? After all, he will represent an electorate of 8 million people.
    Mr. Wigley: I would not for a moment deem to speak for the good people of London, but I have not yet heard them aspire to national status—perhaps that will come in due course.
    As for Wales and Scotland, the interface with the European Union currently exists through the Welsh and Scottish Offices. Vital decisions are taken in Europe. Only this week, we have been talking about the effect of structural funds on Wales. I have no doubt that the assembly will want to have an opportunity at least to influence such decisions.
    Equally important, as I said, the assembly will want to have a voice in the UKREP office; I think that the Secretary of State has said the Bill could enable someone from the National Assembly for Wales to be linked with that office. The right hon. Member for Llanelli mentioned Catalonia. I know from meeting members of the Catalan permanent office that the benefits of its presence in Brussels really came to bear fruit when it started to see the working papers before they were finalised.
    The lack of flexibility to vary finance will be a serious problem. I know that this question was not put in the referendum, but I believe that such flexibility should exist in due course. If parish and county councils can vary finances, surely a national assembly should have some freedom to make financial decisions.
    I hope that there will be an opportunity in the other place—there was not one here—to discuss an amendment relating to the additionality of European funds. It is vital that funds from Europe reach Wales and are spent as they were intended to be, and that they are not purloined by the Treasury in London. I have no doubt that the National Assembly for Wales, like the Scottish Parliament, will keep a close eye on that.
    The argument for an elected all-Wales tier of democracy has continued for 100 years and more, during which time we have been warned that all sorts of bad things would happen if we took decisions for ourselves on an all-Wales basis—it would be the end of civilisation as we knew it. The same warnings were given a century
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    ago in the context of the disestablishment of the Church in Wales—we were told that it would be the end of Christianity in Wales.
    When the Church was disestablished, however, people asked what the fuss was about; they carried on living perfectly reasonably with the Church. The original leader of the campaign against disestablishment became the first Archbishop of Wales—he was, I think, the grandfather of a previous Secretary of State for Wales, Nicholas Edwards, who used to be the hon. Member for Pembroke.
    I believe that that will be our experience of the national assembly. In five or 10 years, people will be asking what all the fuss was about from those fighting a rearguard action. The establishment of the assembly will be the start of a process which must go further, but today we are taking an historic step down that road—we are determined to make it work.
    8.52 pm
    Mr. Rowlands: Devolution is about democracy and the democratisation of many aspects of our public administration and public life. I believe that the Bill will achieve its purpose and meet the democratic deficit that has grown up over the past 30 years in Wales. That is why I have supported the principle of devolution.
    It is important to make it clear that the Bill will democratise many of our decision-making processes in key areas of our life. The danger is that people will believe that the process that has been initiated will do so much more than it was intended to do that they will become disillusioned—they will not realise that the Bill has enhanced democracy. A careful balance needs to be struck—that has been a vital aspect of our discussions.
    As the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) suggested, the path to devolution has been long, and many who have been down that path have argued that the Bill represents a natural continuation of a process that began at least 40 or 50 years ago, with the development of administrative devolution and then devolution of the political executive in the form of the Welsh Office and the Secretary of State for Wales.
    For a large part of my political life, I believed that to be the case, but, as I have listened to and taken part in our debates—I think that I have been a reasonably assiduous attender—I have concluded that that is not a proper interpretation of what is happening. I no longer believe that the Bill represents a natural continuation; like my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, I believe that it is a radical constitutional departure.
    Because of the constant comparison with the Scotland Bill, the truly radical nature of the change on which we are embarking has unfortunately been masked. The Bill is a big constitutional step, which draws the line under the form of devolution that has been argued for during much of the past 40 and 50 years—devolution in the context of a Westminster-Whitehall structure.
    Although I believe that the Bill will meet one of the fundamental purposes of devolution—the democratisation of Welsh administration and decision making—I also strongly believe that we have not yet come to terms with the British dimension of the process, which is another major factor in the radical change. That has struck me forcefully as I have listened to our debates—I have grown more and more concerned about the issue. I do not need

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    to repeat the arguments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies), but I believe that, sooner or later, we shall have to return to the issue. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, this is a process, not an event. Therefore, the situation will not be stable, and there will be demands and pressures for further devolution. We must address the British dimension as well as our particular needs and wishes.
    I am a proud Welshman and also a British politician. I believe in the democratisation of our national life, but I also profoundly believe in the House of Commons. The longer I have been here—perhaps it is a sad sign—the more I have grown to believe in it. One of the great achievements of the House of Commons has been to provide political stability when, in all other parts of western Europe, there has been, for one reason or another, an inability to sustain democracy. The House of Commons has sat every year since 1690—no other assembly, Parliament, Cortes or Reichstag can make such a claim. We have managed to devise, in a curiously British way, an incredible political stability, which has enabled us to fight wars and raise taxes with public consent. That is the curious—I shall not say "magic"—quality and alchemy of the British Parliament.
    The die has been cast and we shall try to make our Welsh assembly and the democratisation of Welsh public life work in every possible way. However, I believe that we must also ensure that the British system continues to work, because of the role it has played in providing stability not only for England, for Scotland or for Wales but for us all. I believe strongly that those fine distinctions are not just marginal issues. As we have discussed concordats, the future role of Secretaries of State and the link between the assembly and Westminster and Whitehall, I have been concerned that we have not devised a proper, effective and stable relationship for the future link between a British Whitehall, a British Government and our own assembly and democratic institutions in Wales. That is the other big project which has to be undertaken.
    In a very personal way, I have been wondering what I should recommend to my sons or daughter, or perhaps my grandchildren, whenever they arrive, should they want to pursue the privilege of being an elected representative. Where should they go? I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that I would tell them to go either to the Welsh assembly or, sadly, to the European Parliament. That concerns me, not because I do not believe that those bodies have important functions, but because it is saying quietly to myself that we may have done a certain amount of damage to the role and importance of this place.
    I came here 30 years ago because I thought that, by doing so, I could help to change things. I still believe that, and I believe that we will also do that through the Welsh assembly. At the same time, I hope and believe that we will resolve the British-Welsh and British-Scottish relationship. In the next Parliament, if not in this one, that will have to be addressed.
    I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends feel a sense of satisfaction at having overseen this entire project, through the referendum and its translation into a piece of landmark legislation. The majority of the people in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney voted for devolution in the referendum, and my votes have reflected and will continue to reflect the wishes of my constituents.
    9.1 pm
    Mr. Livsey: I congratulate the Secretary of State and his team, together with the civil servants, on the enormous amount of hard work they have put into preparing the Bill and seeing it through to its Third Reading. The fact that we have the Bill at all is a considerable achievement and is the result of the close co-operation of all those who want to see progressive government for Wales. In an historic context, the people of Wales have waited a long time for such legislation, and there have been many false dawns.
    We can say proudly that the Liberals invented devolution, and we are glad that the Government have joined us in that crusade. Gladstone would be pleased, too, as we celebrate his centenary—he passed away in Hawarden in north-east Wales.
    Those of us in Welsh politics who have long championed this cause are delighted to see the legislation reach this stage. As Liberal Democrats, we can say with honesty that the legislation is not entirely what we wanted, but it encapsulates many of the principles that we should like to see. We would have preferred a Parliament with legislative powers, the ability to vary taxation and to achieve elections by the single transferable vote system, to name but three of our aspirations, but the Bill is a definite step in the right direction.
    The Government won a convincing victory in the general election, which gives considerable legitimacy to their proposals. I did not favour a referendum, but the Government made that decision and we were happy to join them and all those who supported the move towards an assembly. That was a combined effort, which we believe had considerable benefit for the future of politics in Wales.
    It could be said that the referendum may have hamstrung the Government with some of the proposals that were based on the initial White Paper. We have seen the recasting of some of the issues raised in the White Paper in the light of our debates during the passage of the Bill, and that is how things should be.
    In one sense, the Bill reinforces the control of Westminster over Wales, but it puts Wales into a far better democratic context than previously. As a federalist, I believe that many of the problems mentioned by the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) and the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) about the British relationship could be overcome in that way.
    The Bill outlines the boundaries of the assembly and its functions. Some might say that the legislation could have been more adventurous and given the assembly a sharper cutting edge. However, the Bill has been improved as a result of our debates, and the introduction of a Cabinet system will undoubtedly make the assembly much more effective than it would have been under the original drafting of the Bill.
    There is still a great deal of scope for securing the rights of minorities in Wales. The electoral system and the introduction of closed lists in relation to the additional member system is unproven and may have to be revised in the future to introduce greater proportionality in the voting system. I owe a debt to my former colleague, Alex Carlile. In Committee, it was said that should the result of the assembly elections not be proportional, the electoral

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    system would be reviewed before the second assembly elections take place. I am pleased that the Secretary of State has given us that assurance.
    The fact that the assembly can deal only with secondary legislation means that its teeth are drawn on its effectiveness to carry out many important functions. That may need to be reformed in time. What will soon become apparent is what the assembly cannot do, as well as what it can do. I trust that the expectations and optimism in Wales, which are running high, will not be dashed in the light of cold experience. The assembly must be an effective body and we must not be afraid of improving it as years go by. I am sure that we will see it evolve meaningfully.
    The need for all of Wales to be represented in the assembly means that a strong regional presence needs to be realised within the assembly's structure. We believe that that should be an essential part of the assembly. We must have the power to have influence from all parts of Wales, and to ensure that effective decision making takes place. The assembly must not be remote, but must be well informed of the needs of every corner of our country.
    There are places in Wales that need special attention. Some of our more remote declining industrial valleys are in desperate need of attention. The rural areas of Wales are in a dire situation, and agriculture's current needs should be paramount.
    We are on the verge of losing the bedrock of our rural economy and, indeed, of the possible flight of families from the land. The impact of that on the rural economy would be nothing short of devastating. Such is the urgency that action must be taken even before the assembly has started. Once the assembly commences, we will have to construct an integrated rural policy that will create balance in the rural economy and support business—whether it is in farming or in our rural towns and villages.
    Relations with Europe and the European regions will have an increasing impact on how Wales is governed. We must be outward looking and benefit from the type of constructive, sustainable policy making that has strengthened so many other regions in the European Union.
    We believe that the legislation will offer opportunities to all who live and work in Wales. The assembly must, first, boost work and wealth creation. Secondly, it will have to ensure that there is quality education and a high standard of skills training. Thirdly, it will have to deliver a first-class health service, and caring facilities combined with good housing. Fourthly, it will sponsor sport and the arts. Fifthly, and most important, it must encourage the younger generation to contribute and to get involved in the development of their own country.
    The aim is to build a new Wales of which we can all be proud. We believe that this legislation gives us a really good chance to do just that. I say well done to everyone who has been involved positively in the Bill's passage.
    9.8 pm
    Mr. John Smith: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me in a truly historic debate, to speak to a truly historic Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) said earlier that constitutional Bills such as this appear only once every 300 years or so. I therefore think that everyone in the Chamber should congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have tended to forget just how difficult it is guide a constitutional Bill through the House. My right hon. Friend and his team have done a marvellous job, with support from most hon. Members—although it has been very grudging support from some hon. Members.
    You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, can rest assured that tonight there will be a welcome for the Bill in the hillsides across Wales. I only hope that the Bill will receive an equally warm welcome in the Lobby and is passed with all-party support—to ensure that its passage through the other place is smooth and quick, and that what emerges from the other place is the fine Bill that we are debating.
    We should pay tribute not only to our Ministers and hon. Members who spoke in our debates but to staff at the Welsh Office and the parliamentary draftsmen and Whitehall officials who have worked on the Bill. The Bill has 151 clauses, 15 schedules and 135 pages, compared with—in that fine Welsh tradition—only 116 Scottish clauses, eight Scottish schedules and 88 Scottish pages. Work on the Bill has been a tremendous task, and we should express our thanks to everyone who has contributed to it.
    Mr. Dalyell: Are we to take it that the more the clauses, the better the Bill?
    Mr. Smith: In Wales, that is certainly the fact. If my hon. Friend knew the country as well as we do, he would know why.
    Our assembly will have so much to offer the country. To me and to most of my colleagues, the Bill is not a matter of draftsmanship or of constitutional niceties—although we realise that it must be properly done and provide the right framework to do the job—but a statement about Wales. It is a statement about our nation, and the confidence that we have in ourselves as a nation. Most important, it is a statement about our country's future identity.
    On Second Reading, I raised three points, which I should like to reiterate quickly. The first was that the new assembly will have to provide a sufficiently flexible structure of payments, terms and conditions for assembly Members, to ensure that we attract the widest possible support across the country and include everyone. We can do that with a payment structure that is modest but accurately reflects the needs of the people. I am confident that the new assembly will do that.
    Secondly, I mentioned establishing the right relationship between the assembly and business. That issue has been more than adequately covered in our debates, thanks partly to my hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Ms Lawrence). New clause 19, which was passed yesterday, will provide exactly the right

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    relationship for the future. Moreover, that new clause demonstrated the manner in which the Bill has been passed. The thinking on the Bill has not been rigid.
    Mr. Jenkin: It is a mess.
    Mr. Smith: Ministers have listened to the arguments, and they have made necessary, major changes to the Bill—not least on the framework for a Cabinet structure. [Interruption.] Ministers should be congratulated. It is outrageous that, even at this late stage, Opposition Front Benchers are still criticising.
    I remember, earlier in the debate, warning the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) that some hon. Members should be careful about the unconstructive and negative role that they have played in the debate, because they will pay the price for it—the ultimate price. He said that if the price of their behaviour was unfortunate electoral consequences, so be it. I say, so be it.
    Mr. Ancram: What other significant amendments have the Government made during the passage of the Bill?
    Mr. Smith: If I had more time, I should be delighted to tell the right hon. Gentleman, but others want to speak.
    My third point was about the location of the assembly. I felt that it was vital, largely because of the impact on business in Wales and the perception of Wales by businesses elsewhere, that the assembly was located in Cardiff. I did not express a preference for a building, but I am delighted that we are to have a new building in the capital city to house a new assembly for a new Wales.
    The Bill will transform the image and identity of our country. There have been major changes in our country, and we have started to transform our economy, but, tragically, that is not recognised outside Wales. My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) rightly said that gross domestic product per capita is slipping. We have to address that. The wage levels in manufacturing industry were the highest in the United Kingdom only 20 years ago—just before that shower on the other side took office—and they are now the lowest.
    We must not talk down our nation. Wales is one of the motor regions of Europe. It is one of the most attractive locations for investment in the world. It offers a unique combination of competitive prices, an unparalleled quality of life and easy access to the central consumer markets of Europe. The assembly will work on that.
    This is an historic occasion. I congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends, and look forward to the Bill receiving Royal Assent.
    9.17 pm
    Mr. Paterson: I am conscious that others want to speak, so I shall be brief.
    I am sad to have to be a Cassandra in this evening's euphoric atmosphere, but throughout our debates, I have been conscious of those who voted no and those who did not vote. Hon. Members have mentioned division. Wales is divided. There is no overwhelming enthusiasm for the project.
    Last night, the Minister said that water does not flow neatly. People do not flow neatly; society does not flow neatly; economies do not flow neatly. The project is being
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    driven through by the political class of Wales, which will gain enormously. It will not help the people I know in north-east Wales, who are very worried about the crisis in farming and about their businesses. The Bill has been driven through in the teeth of their apathy or their expressed opposition.
    Mr. Öpik: Apathy?
    Mr. Paterson: They were apathetic—and they still are. I talk to them whenever I am home at the weekends. There is no enthusiasm for a new Government agency in south Wales. Wales is still divided. North does not talk to south. The Bill will not heal those wounds.
    Mr. Öpik: The hon. Gentleman is obviously jealous because the Welsh border is on the wrong side, to the west of his constituency rather than the east. Is he not highlighting the fundamental difference between the Conservative party and every other party represented here: the difference between being progressive and understanding the basis of devolution, and' being regressive and centralist and failing to understand the wonderful gift of autonomy that the Bill gives to Wales?
    Mr. Paterson: Successful societies have fewer politicians and less government, bureaucracy and taxation. Sending one coachload of superannuated county councillors to an enormous and magnificent modern building three hours away in Cardiff will not solve the problems in north Wales.
    Mr. Öpik: The hon. Gentleman says that Cardiff is three hours away, but will he acknowledge that it is only about 40 minutes away if one flies from Welshpool airport, for example, and that such infrastructure building, which will be facilitated by the creation of the assembly, would never happen if we had to depend on people such as him and his party in Westminster?
    Mr. Paterson: The people I know in Welshpool and Oswestry have far better things to do than get in an aeroplane and fly down to Cardiff from Welshpool airport. That is a ludicrous suggestion, and shows how out of touch the hon. Gentleman is.
    The Bill as it stands is flawed. The assembly was conceived to replace the executive functions of the Secretary of State, we went through a muddled phase when it appeared to be some sort of county council, and it is now emerging that there will be a flawed Cabinet system in which the assembly cannot claw back powers to make the Cabinet Committees accountable to itself.
    The Bill has not been thought through. It is certainly not Madison and Hamilton working here. There have been muddle and fudge all along, and I foresee that the concordats that have been thrown in as a glue to make it stick together will come undone. They are not legally binding, and if they are, they are not democratically accountable.
    Serious flaws in clauses have not been discussed properly. I bitterly resent the fudge that we had late last night. The cross-border issue is critical to all those who live along the border, but, because of the outrageous guillotine that was slammed on the legislation, I, as the representative of a border constituency, was not able to discuss it properly.

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    The Minister showed the most crass obtuseness in refusing to understand the point I made, that currently, as an English Member in a British Parliament, I can discuss matters that affect my constituents that have been decided by agencies in Wales, but that once the assembly is set up, my constituents' vote will have less value, because the assembly in Cardiff will be able to change education policies, for instance; that could affect children coming over the border to a school in my constituency, yet I will have no recourse to a democratic assembly. That is wrong, and— [Interruption.]Is this an intervention?
    9.22 pm

    Mr. Dalyell: This is not an intervention: it is a speech.
    My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was right graciously to pay tribute to those in the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrat party and Plaid Cymru who disagree with him, but there was a lacuna or black hole, in that he might also have paid tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) and my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), who have been here throughout our debates and made educative, witty and extremely pertinent contributions.
    My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli said that the United Kingdom was being unbundled. That de-wiring and unbundling will be of great concern in time to come. I feel a bit of an intruder; I shall speak for only one minute more.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney referred to the British dimension. There will be great difficulty, and it will arise first on the question of money. If money is tight in the next two or three years, there will be trouble. If money is not tight, trouble may not arise for five or 10 years. But, sooner or later, discontented Members in Cardiff will attribute all that they have been unable to do in fulfilling expectations to the parsimonious Treasury in London. Therein lies trouble.
    Having sat through all the debates, I notice that another question that has not been answered is to whom the civil service is to be loyal. A civil service cannot serve two masters. In debate after debate, it has been clear that we are seeing the break-up of the British civil service. When there is agreement, it is all right; when there is disagreement between two separate institutions, civil servants will be a little bewildered about where their loyalties lie. In that, there will enormous difficulty.
    The issue of Catalonia has been raised throughout our debates. I understand that members of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs went to Catalonia, and were extremely well received in Barcelona and by the Catalans. I am not in the least surprised by that, because the prosperous Catalans may like the set-up very much. I also understand that Committee members were less well received—to put it mildly—in Madrid. That I very much understand. The rest of Spain takes a rather different view
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    of the set-up in Catalonia from that of the Catalans. Catalonia is at an advantage, because it is the economic powerhouse of Spain.
    Mr. Martyn Jones: Will my hon. Friend give way?
    Mr. Dalyell: No, excuse me. I will not, due to lack of time.
    I am concerned that, by our legislation, we do not inadvertently light the slow fuse of English nationalism.
    9.26 pm
    Mr. Desmond Swayne: The Secretary of State began the debate by saying that this measure was a landmark. The landmark to my mind is that, after all the many hours of discussion, we do not know precisely where the assembly will be. Many Welsh local authorities were led a merry dance on that. More importantly, we do not know what the assembly will be like. There was an extraordinary discussion late last night about whether there was to be a Cabinet structure, a Committee structure, or some combination of the two. It strikes me as extraordinary that we are still so imprecise about the very nature of the assembly that we are creating.
    Another thing that strikes me as extraordinary is the democratic deficit, the lack of legitimacy, with which the assembly will begin its life. We had all those tired discussions about the poor nature of the response in the referendum, and the fact that people voted against the proposals. Our debates on regional aspects of the Committee structure showed that those points simply had not got home, and that there would be no direct redress of those fundamental areas of weakness.
    The democratic deficit will persist and grow as a consequence of the extraordinary electoral system that has been chosen for the assembly. When we discussed the system in Committee, I pointed out that no one would understand the benefits of the system that owes so much to Mr. d'Hondt. The Minister replied that there was no requirement for voters to understand the electoral system. That is one of the fundamental weaknesses of the legislation.
    The Prime Minister announced that, as a consequence of the rather tepid result of the referendum, great sensitivity would be shown as the measure proceeded. Despite the euphoria that has been evident tonight, Opposition Members are left wondering precisely of what that sensitivity consisted.
    9.29 pm

    Mr. Martyn Jones: 1 for one welcome this historic Bill. Of the measures that I have seen come through the House, it alone justifies the 10 years that I have spent in this place. I admit to having taken little part in the Committee proceedings—not through lack of interest but because, like most of my colleagues, I had every confidence in the good will and competence of our Ministers.
    I should like to address most of my remarks, as Chairman of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, to our recent report entitled, "The impact of the Government's devolution proposals on economic development and local

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    government in Wales", which is pertinent to the Bill. The two key issues that the Committee considered were, first, the likely effect of the projected merger of the Welsh Development Agency, the Development Board for Rural Wales and the Land Authority for Wales into the enhanced WDA; and, secondly, the impact of devolution on the operation of local government, the relationship of which with central Government will inevitably change as a result of the delegation of the Secretary of State's powers to the assembly.
    Mr. John Hayes: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that not only the relationship between local and central Government but the nature and status of local government itself will be affected by the assembly? The assembly will draw down powers from this place, but will inevitably suck up powers from local government.
    Mr. Jones: That is not the evidence that we received, so I cannot comment on it. I want to restrict my remarks to the report.
    The Select Committee conducted the inquiry with the intention of informing the continuing debate on devolution—a debate that will go beyond the mechanics of the new system set out in the Bill, and will continue as the new institutions evolve.
    Great hopes are being placed on the enhanced WDA as a vehicle for continuing the economic regeneration of Wales. Many organisations would like to see the agency expand its activities in various directions.
    For example, the general secretary of the Wales Trades Union Congress pointed out to the Committee that, as heavy industry has contracted, the industry of Wales has undergone even greater structural changes than have the economies of England and Scotland. As a result, well-paid jobs have been lost, and replaced by jobs that are less well-paid and sometimes part-time. The Wales TUC would like to see growth in areas such as management, research, and the creation of supply chains in Wales.
    The Committee believes that devolution will bring greater democracy to public sector investment, and the Committee welcomes the project, although there remain several detailed issues to which thought will have to be given. Up to now, there has been a lack of democratic accountability in decision making about economic development in Wales. The Committee suspects that that may have contributed to the relative imbalance in investment between east and west Wales, and between the urban areas and the countryside, and to the emphasis on encouraging inward investment at the expense of support for indigenous small and medium enterprises.
    With the intent of informing the continuing debate on devolution, the Committee offers its recommendations and conclusions gathered from the inquiry. Many of them are directed to the enhanced WDA.
    With regard to the merger, if the enhanced WDA is to be a success, it will need to be adequately resourced, focused and funded. Therefore, the enhanced agency and the assembly will need to address the reality that the existing funds of the three uniting bodies may not prove sufficient for the tasks of regeneration when they are spread across the whole of Wales.
    The Committee also believes that the time has come for agriculture to be seen as an industry like any other, and an important one at that, and for economic development
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    policies to reflect that reality. The Committee also feels that devolution is important to the higher education sector in Wales. Devolution should not cause disturbance to that sector, which is important to the culture, economy and self-image of Wales as a modern, progressive society.
    With regard to the continuing economic health of Wales, the Committee holds that it is vital that the enhanced WDA maintain financial services for small and medium-sized enterprises throughout Wales. The Committee also acknowledges that it is vital that the problems of rural areas be tackled under the devolved system, and welcomes the vigorous rural development policy to which the Secretary of State and the chairman of the WDA are committed. However, the Committee recognises that there are conflicting pressures involved in a vigorous rural development policy.
    The Committee also believes that the positions of the Welsh Office Industry Department and the Wales Tourist Board outside the enhanced WDA are matters which may have to be re-examined by the assembly. Likewise, the concerns of small business in Wales will need to be addressed. The Committee recommends that further consideration should be given to the system of calling in planning applications and determining appeals. The Committee prefers the panel option—to make a small panel within the assembly structure responsible for the exercise of these particular powers—rather than a full Committee.
    At the very least, our opinion is that serious thought should be given to making proper medium-term transitional arrangements for the calling in of planning applications and the determination of appeals in the event of the transfer foreshadowed in the draft Transfer of Functions Order 1998. The Committee believes that this would be best achieved by the Secretary of State retaining a reserve power for a 12-month interim period.
    In addition, when those powers are transferred, the assembly's Standing Orders should provide clear criteria to govern appeals and the type of planning application which should be called in. In developing the criteria, the Committee hopes that the WDA will have regard to the need to promote sustainable development wherever possible—which it can now do, thanks to a Government amendment.
    The Committee also urges that the regional Committees of the assembly be established on the same boundaries as the regional structure for the Welsh Development Agency, training and enterprise councils, the regional economic forums and similar groupings. The Committee suggests that the Secretary of State should draw the matter to the attention of the national assembly advisory group.
    Under devolution, Wales will continue to need a strong voice in the Cabinet to ensure that its special needs are addressed in UK-wide policy making. The Committee believes that the continuation of the office of Secretary of State for Wales will provide that voice. It seems appropriate that there should be some formal mechanism by which the Secretary of State is able to attend meetings of the assembly. However, in the Committee's view, attendance should be only by invitation of the assembly.
    As the inquiry progressed, it became apparent that the debate over the most effective means of encouraging economic growth was not only the most important issue facing the enhanced WDA, but far too complex to address within the context of what had become a wide-ranging

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    investigation. The Committee is therefore conducting a further investigation into industrial investment in Wales. A report will be made available before the end of the year.
    During the Committee's visit to Barcelona last week, we looked at the policies of Barcelona and Madrid. I must correct my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell): it was not Madrid's attitude to Barcelona which was the problem—the attitude of the chairman of the financial committee of the Spanish Parliament to the Committee was the problem. We had a good response from the Spanish Department of Trade, who recognised the opportunities that devolution gave Catalonia in terms of gaining finance from Europe.
    Mr. Hayes: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Select Committee report is available for us to read. All we are getting from the hon. Gentleman is a verbatim account.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member for Clwyd, South (Mr. Jones) ought to remember that this is a Third Reading debate, and it is not really the occasion to debate the Select Committee report.
    Mr. Jones: I was coming to an end. I am gratified that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) suggests that he has read the report. If he had read it, he would know that this is not a verbatim account. I suspect he has not read it.
    I hope that the work of colleagues on the Committee from all parties has been justified by its use by the Government in the application of the detail of the Bill. I hope that it will also be of use to the assembly in due course. That is the pertinence of the report to the debate. On a personal note, I am delighted to be here tonight on this historic occasion as we create an assembly for my country.
    9.38 pm
    Mr. Letwin: I have two minutes, and I do not think that I need more. I wish to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), who spoke with passion and sincerity—although wholly mistakenly, in my view—and to Opposition Members, three in particular, who, throughout the debates, have contributed with similar passion and sincerity.
    I wish to pay tribute also to the Government Front-Bench team, who have done the impossible. They have taken a Bill that is the prisoner of its history, which started with one image—of an executive agency—and moved successively through various permutations, each a mess, and they have managed to carry it through the House. No doubt, their counterparts will manage to carry it through the other place and enact it.
    For us in this place, the Bill is a terror. I fear deeply that the Bill will become the model for similar Bills in relation to regional assemblies in England—heaven forfend. Let us at least hope that these debates, and the contributions of my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) and other Conservative Front-Bench spokesmen, and of Labour Members, will be looked back upon, and that when people come, if they do—I hope that they will not—to frame legislation for
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    regional assemblies, they will work out from the start what kind of animal they are creating, how it is related to this place, and how it is to act in a way that preserves the fundamentals of democracy and accountability, without creating an entity that can serve only to exacerbate every kind of division and strife, in the courts and elsewhere.
    If these debates have served that purpose, the frustrations that many of us have felt at Ministers' intransigence will, after all, not be so great.
    9.40 pm
    Mr. Evans: The Secretary of State for Wales did not like the speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram). He will not like this one either, because he said that the Bill was landmark legislation and he kept a straight face when doing so, so I assumed that he was serious.
    I have lost a lot of sleep in the past few weeks, during the Bill's passage, and it might have been worth it—especially if it saves me from many sleepless nights after the assembly becomes a reality. However, our view of the Bill is like the Downing street source's view of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—we think that it is psychologically flawed.
    At the end of our debates on the Bill, I am roughly where I began. I do not like this devolution Bill. I do not like the idea that 60 more politicians will be foisted on Wales. I do not like the new cobbled, fudged voting system. I do not like the sloppy way in which the three quarters of Wales that did not support the devolution proposals in the referendum has been treated. I do not like the fact that the proposals will fuel English nationalism.
    In short, I do not like the arrogance of the Government—a Government who have become grand in their approach to politics. They boast a Lord Chancellor with a panache for the finer detail of his own sumptuous surroundings—he knows what he likes, and is determined to spend our money getting it. Meanwhile, the Secretary of State for Wales is confused by the finer detail and is prepared to bequeath to Wales an assembly that was ignored by half of Wales in the referendum, and which split the other half of Wales in two during that vote.
    As a consequence of the referendum result, the understanding—the concordat—which Russell Goodway, the Cardiff Labour leader, and the Secretary of State had signed, became a worthless document. It led to a consultation sham, which involved local authorities squandering their limited money to save the face of the Secretary of State for Wales. It did not work. Dithering became an art form as the date of the final announcement was repeatedly put off, and then, with the full glare of publicity, the great announcement was made that the site of the assembly would be—er—decided at a later stage. Did we really need a press conference for that announcement?
    The dithering continued, to the embarrassment of Wales. Even members of the Labour party were embarrassed. We still do not know where the final resting place of the assembly will be. We know that Swansea, Wrexham and other areas outside Cardiff fought valiant battles, but it will not be in their area. They failed to win the bid because the Secretary of State discovered, late in the day and to his surprise, that the capital of Wales was Cardiff, and that was where the assembly should go. What a shambles. It is little wonder that the Secretary of State

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    cannot make up his mind whether to go to the assembly. The Prime Minister should make up his mind for him. Even the Labour party in Wales has caught the Secretary of State's dithering ailment: it was going to have twinning arrangements for its gender balance, but changed its mind.
    So powerful is the attraction of the new Welsh assembly that only one Labour Member has announced that he will stand for election to the assembly. We wish him well. At least he can make up his mind—he wants to be First Secretary.
    Ms Julie Morgan: The hon. Gentleman is hardly in a position to comment about the gender balance in the new Welsh assembly in view of the total lack of women or men representing Welsh constituencies on the Conservative Benches. At least women will have the opportunity to add their voices to debates in the Welsh assembly—and that has not happened here tonight.
    Mr. Evans: We have quality if not quantity on our Benches. I understand that the hon. Lady will not be going to the Welsh assembly, although her husband, the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan), has decided to seek election to that body. I wonder what conversations will take place between the hon. Member for Cardiff, West and the present Secretary of State for Wales if he decides to stay in this place. I can imagine the tussles that they will have. Who will speak for Wales?
    Mr. Rhodri Morgan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Evans: No. I have only five minutes left, so I must carry on. The idea that the Secretary of State may become First Secretary of the Welsh assembly is a chilling prospect.
    Mr. Morgan: Give way.
    Mr. Evans: I congratulate—
    Mr. Morganrose—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) has indicated that he will not give way.
    Mr. Evans: I congratulate the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies), who expressed his worries about the new assembly.
    Mr. Morgan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Does the hon. Member for Ribble Valley intend to give way?
    Mr. Evans: No, I do not.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: I therefore ask the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) to resume his seat.
    Mr. Evans: The hon. Member—
    Mr. Morgan: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You are the defender of Back Benchers' rights and thus
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    you will be aware of the conventions of the House even better than I am. If an hon. Member speaking from the Dispatch Box refers to another hon. Member who wishes to respond to the particular point that was made—the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) actually referred to me—and if that hon. Member who has been mentioned rises and seeks to intervene, almost without exception, the hon. Member at the Dispatch Box gives way.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I understand the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Cardiff, West. That is a convention of the House, but it is nevertheless entirely for the hon. Member who is speaking to decide whether he will give way.
    Mr. Evans: I suspect that it is not a convention of this place for Labour Members to waste time and abuse the procedures of the House by raising bogus points of order.
    The will of the Welsh people is unsettled, and the Bill that we shall send to the House of Lords is unfinished. Having had a difficult birth in the delivery room of this place, it is now on its way to the accident and emergency ward of the other place where, without the necessary surgery, it will grow into an obnoxious and troublesome object—some would say the spitting image of its parents.
    The financial aspects of the assembly are in a muddle. The regional Committees border on a riddle. The electoral arrangements are a fiddle and the work of Welsh Members of Parliament in this place will be a doddle. The Secretary of State for Wales will be a poodle because the First Secretary will be in the saddle. The people of Wales will be left in the middle—the middle of an enormous mess created by this Government.
    Only two things will help. First, the Government must look again at the Bill; they must listen to some of our suggestions and to the people of Wales who did not endorse it. The Government should consider the areas of geography and finance, which several Labour Members have mentioned. They should sort out the assembly Cabinet structure. Wales must have a proper voice in Europe. The Government should sort out the concordats and the retrospective legislation, to which my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) referred earlier.
    Secondly, the people of Wales—317,000 of whom voted Conservative at the general election, which is the second largest Conservative vote in Wales by a clear margin—will see what the Government have done to betray them in many areas, by attacking students, pensioners, lone parents, motorists and the countryside, which covers most of Wales. They will make their judgment on polling day.
    The Conservative party in Wales will do its utmost to gain seats in the assembly. It will fight to win the trust of the Welsh people and it will not fail them, because it believes in Wales and the Welsh people and supports the United Kingdom. The Conservative party in Wales and in the rest of the kingdom is united in its vital defence of the Union. We will never allow the Government, with their supine supporters in Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats, to break up the Union. The Government's numbers may be strong, but they know that they tamper with the constitution of this great country at their peril.
    Conservatives in the new assembly and Conservatives in the Westminster Parliament will work together and fight together and will be as one in their pursuit of the

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    same policies of low taxation, cutting away the burdens of unnecessary bureaucracy, attracting inward investment and allowing businesses to grow and prosper. We will fight hard for Britain's voice in Europe, not Europe's voice in Britain, as is the Government's wont.
    We in the Conservative party want a strong Wales, a strong Scotland, a strong England and a strong Northern Ireland, but we do not want a weak United Kingdom with warring, jealous factions talking only to themselves. Conservatives at Westminster, in this United Kingdom Parliament—this supreme and sovereign Parliament—will never let that happen.
    9.50 pm
    Mr. Win Griffiths: The Government of Wales Bill is a major, detailed and important piece of constitutional legislation. It will set the basis for the government of Wales for years to come. It creates a robust framework with sufficient flexibility—which obviously terrifies Opposition Members, who cannot get used to the idea of flexibility—to enable an elected institution to establish itself, to grow, to respond to change and, I am certain, to flourish.
    The Bill's fundamental effect is simple: to put our existing Welsh administration under the democratic control of an elected Welsh assembly. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) rightly pointed out that that is qualitatively different from all the change that has taken place since the creation of the first Welsh Office, and is a radical departure and improvement.
    During the debates on the Bill in the Committee of the whole House, there have been many constructive criticisms, to which we have listened and responded. There has been some destructive criticism—all too much of it, unfortunately, from the Opposition—but even so, that has had its use in testing the robustness and coherence of our proposals, and we have come through with flying colours. It has shown their fundamental soundness and resilience.
    As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in opening the debate, the passage of the Bill through the House has been a useful and enlightening process, at least for most of us. There has been a minority on the Opposition Benches who have found it difficult to come to terms with that. As a result of our debates, the Bill is now clearer and more representative of Welsh interests.
    During the debates, we have found a great new interest in the affairs of Wales among hon. Members representing constituencies in England. Let us hope that they will benefit from that knowledge and understanding, although this evening we have seen a continuing lack of understanding and lack of confidence in the ability of the people of Wales to take decisions and to govern themselves within the structure of a United Kingdom.
    It is appalling that at the opening of this Third Reading debate, the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), a man who can be quite affable, should so demean himself. We heard a disgraceful, negative and rather sour attempt to drag in important and fundamental issues relating to Northern Ireland, in connection with the fact that my right hon. Friend had been invited to come and speak about the way in which devolution in Wales was
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    intended to work out. That was a process in which my counterpart in the Scottish Office and I were also involved. The discussions took place in London. Hon. Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies were at those meetings. They asked us how we were coping with such a departure—a fundamental and important way of achieving a measure of self-government within the United Kingdom.
    The right hon. Member for Devizes demeaned himself and spoilt the reputation that he had had until that stage, of being a fair-minded person with a great deal of concern for success in the Northern Ireland project.
    The right hon. Gentleman's remarks and those of his hon. Friends can be characterised as being the last whimpers of colonialism from the old Conservative party. If there has been a ship of state with any leaks that have been evidenced in these debates, it has been the Tory Opposition sinking without trace in a miasma of confusion about matters relating to constitutional progress.
    I realise that the Tories have great difficulty in coming to terms with those matters. Every attempt to achieve constitutional progress in the United Kingdom, or in the old counties of England, Scotland, Wales and, in this instance, Northern Ireland, has been opposed from Simon de Montfort onwards. There has been consistent Conservative opposition.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney talked about the glory of the British constitution being its stability. I remind him that the stability of the United Kingdom's constitution has been its ability to change when there has been a mood for change in the United Kingdom. Simon de Montfort, John Hampden, Oliver Cromwell, Earl Grey, William Ewart Gladstone and Lloyd George would all realise that before us is a significant step forward in the way in which the United Kingdom is governed. I am sure that they would welcome the changes that we propose, because they are all part of constitutional progress.
    I hope that the House recognises now that in little more than a year, the assembly will meet for the first time. That will be a truly historic day. I am sure that the fears expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies), and by my hon. Friends the Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney and for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), will turn out to be entirely unfounded as the new assembly steps forward with confidence. It will be a departure for the British constitution, along with many others. For example, the Reform Act 1867 was referred to as a leap in the dark, but it worked. We had greater democracy. Therefore—[Interruption.] We had greater democracy. That was the only occasion that I can think of when some Tories accepted the need for change.
    We now have a great opportunity to establish a powerful Government in Wales reflecting the democratic voice of people in Wales. We shall be able to step on to the European scene with the other Governments in Europe within states—regional Governments—who have a distinctive voice and are able to speak in Brussels. We shall be able to do that as well.

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    The Bill delivers on our promises to Wales and on our election and referendum mandates. It will implement reforms that are long overdue, and it reflects the wishes of the people of Wales. On those terms, I commend this epoch-making Bill to the House, on what is truly an historic constitutional occasion for the United Kingdom and for Wales.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

  Rural Scotland (EU Aid)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]
  10 pm
  Mr. Archy Kirkwood: I am pleased to have the opportunity to move from the Principality of Wales to important matters north of the border.
  The Minister will be aware that, on 18 March, some important draft regulations were produced in Brussels. That is only a week ago, so I understand that the Government may not have had time to look at the fine print, but they are important draft regulations and I think that the Minister will agree that it is important that we spend some time trying to discover what, having had a first look at the proposals, is in the Government's mind, and what will unfold during the remaining months of the negotiations.
  The draft proposals contain a series of things, some of which were expected and so are no surprise, and others that were perhaps less expected. We know that the Commission is trying to concentrate resources, to restrict expenditure in anticipation of enlargement, and that is the background to the Commission's draft proposals. According to those proposals, the budget is to be held at 0.46 per cent. of European Union gross domestic product. The current seven structural objective areas are to be reduced to three under the new programme.
  Eligibility for objective 1 is to be set at 75 per cent. of EU GDP. The criterion for objective 2 is based substantially on unemployment figures. Some transitional arrangements are welcome. They are proposed to be set at six years for objective 1 areas and four years for objective 2 areas in the new regime, and a safety net is included in the draft proposals, to which I shall return in a moment.
  I want to concentrate for a moment on the changes to some of the proposed objective 2 categories of funds. As the Minister will know, the current objective 2 and objective 5b population coverage amounts to a total of 25 per cent. of EU population. The draft proposals reduce the population coverage in objective 2 categories to 18 per cent. of the EU population. One does not have to be a great rocket scientist to work out that we are contemplating a reduction of some 7 per cent. in population covered by objective 2. A 7 per cent. cut in 25 per cent. population coverage is a 28 per cent. cut, which is a cause for some concern to which I hope the Government are alive.
  In addition to the reduction in the numbers of population that are covered, the types of sectors to be covered by objective 2 funding will at the same time be expanded to cover new categories for the first time—for example, service industries and some other areas. That seems a bit perverse against the background of the objective of concentrating funds a bit more carefully. They seem to be concentrated on the one hand and expanded on the other. That will cause some difficulties.
  At the same time, rural areas, which can currently claim up to 8 per cent. of the objective 2 category funds, will find that figure reduced to some 5 per cent. That is a 3 per cent. reduction of an 8 per cent. Base—a 37.5 per cent. cut. One can play with the statistics and make them sound

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  dramatic, but those are big sums of money which have a profound and direct impact in the communities that have been able to take advantage of them in the past.
  The Commission's draft regulations for the structural funds programmes, which, as the Minister knows, will come in between 2000 and 2006, also contain an agenda for reform of the common agricultural policy and, on a wider basis, the future financing of the EU beyond the year 2000. We are therefore looking at the possibility of quite big structural fund cuts at the same time as the farming industry may face reductions in support under the CAP. The farming industry is already facing the continuing effects of the BSE crisis, and suffering from high exchange rates and dramatically lower farm gate prices. To contemplate reducing CAP support at the same time as reducing eligibility for EU structural funds compounds an already financially unsustainable situation in some rural areas of Scotland. The Minister should be aware of that.
  All hon. Members who represent constituencies north of the border will agree that it is crucial that Scotland continues to enjoy maximum access to its fair share of European structural funds under the new proposals. The draft regulations were published only last Wednesday. Although they are better than expected in some respects, they still cause great concern in areas of Scotland that are currently eligible for European Union funds, especially objective 1 and objective 5b funds.
  I need not remind the Minister that the United Kingdom is the fifth largest contributor to the European Union budget but the fourth poorest country in the EU, according to the EU' s own statistics. Our membership provides some £29 per head in regional and social fund grants compared with the EU average of £56 per head. Ireland receives eight times as much per head in structural funds, yet its GDP per head is much higher than that of the United Kingdom. That is perverse. It is difficult to understand why the Commission is not being a little more responsive to Scotland's needs.
  I acknowledge that we are at the beginning of the negotiations, which could be long, and that we need to talk to our sister European states. Some of the negotiations will take place to the Minister's advantage because he and his colleagues have the EU presidency for the next few months. Will he confirm that Scottish Office Ministers will dedicate themselves to improving the draft regulations in every possible respect to secure a fairer outcome for Scotland? If he can give that assurance, I, for one, will sleep a little more securely.
  The safety net proposals were surprising. I expected some concessions to the original Commission plans, but the safety net proposals are certainly welcome. Can the Minister tell us a little more about the detail and the precise effect that the safety net proposals are likely to have in Scotland? I appreciate that that may be difficult because they are only seven or eight days old, but the proposals appear to guarantee that no member state can now lose more than a third of the population coverage that it already enjoys under objective 2 and objective 5b combined. If the Minister can confirm that, we can bank it as an improvement and move on.
  Leaks about the draft proposals led us to believe that the Commission would set a ceiling for each member state under new objective 2, and that the criteria would be
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  extremely disadvantageous to the United Kingdom, which would suffer a big reduction in access to the structural funds. We were afraid that the situation would be dire. It now transpires that there will be a safety net, so some of our worst fears may be mitigated.
  I hope that the Minister agrees that we must press for further changes. The draft proposals will now go before the Council of Ministers and a consultation process will be carried out with the European Parliament. Although things would have been worse without the safety net, they could be made better.
  I want to concentrate the Minister's mind on achieving two improvements. When such decisions were last taken—in 1993–94—the highlands and islands and the Western Isles, an area with which the Minister is familiar, did not technically qualify for objective 1 status, but a political decision was taken to allow them to become eligible because of their population densities, which, even according to European Union statistics, are eight and nine persons per square kilometre respectively. Such tiny population densities suggest communities at the extremes of disparity, which makes it impossible not to consider them for objective 1 status under special consideration. It is impossible to accept that Merseyside and South Yorkshire should be the only areas in the United Kingdom to qualify for objective 1 help under current plans.
  Sixty-six per cent. of European Union structural funds are spent in objective 1 areas, so it is essential for Scotland that the highlands and islands and the Western Isles are granted objective 1 status. The word in Brussels is that that might be difficult to achieve—there are all sorts of excuses and ways round it, and objective 2 might be expanded to provide help—and that north Finland and Sweden are to be granted objective 1 status because, believe it or not, of disparity of population. It is unacceptable for Scottish Office or, indeed, United Kingdom Ministers to agree to a proposal that accepts north Finland and Sweden as areas of special disparity of population and not to argue robustly for the highlands and islands. That is the first target that I set for the Minister, and his heart will be in the fight.
  The second issue is how criteria for the new structural funds under objective 2 are to be set. My reading of the draft regulations suggests that member states will have wider discretion for disposing of structural funds within their own boundaries, albeit within the EU set ceiling. The Minister understands that more flexible and sensitive criteria for distribution of new objective 2 funds within Scotland must be developed. Core criteria such as gross domestic product per head must be given more weight to achieve fair distribution in Scotland. Unemployment figures prejudice the United Kingdom against other member states, but they are not reliable indicators of established local need. He must consider that matter if he is to achieve fair distribution of funds.
  The local economy of my constituency in the borders is extremely fragile. The textile industry is declining, with job losses being announced weekly in towns such as Hawick. There is evidence of depopulation and the people who remain are aging. The area suffers from geographical isolation, transport costs are inevitably spiralling after the Budget and the fanning industry is under the kind of pressure that I have not witnessed since being elected to the House in 1983.

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  Background economic conditions are not auspicious, and supplementary criteria—the economic factors—must be given more weight in determining eligibility for structural funds, which must continue to be directed to areas of Scotland such as the highlands and islands and south-west as well as the borders. I am more confident that, under the plans, the central belt will be able to look after itself, but I am deeply concerned that the draft regulations will cause difficulties for the highlands and islands, the Western Isles, south-east Scotland and south-west Scotland.
  The House will be looking to the Government for support. We shall need robust ministerial support over the next 12 months to guarantee that we have fair access to these funds. I look forward to hearing how the Minister intends to achieve that end.
  10.14 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Calum Macdonald): I congratulate the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) on securing this debate on an extremely important if complex topic, and on the way in which he dealt with the issues. I thank him for providing notice of some of the matters that he intended to raise.
  As a Minister and as the Member for a rural constituency, I share the hon. Gentleman's interest in the future of the European structural funds. Those funds have made an important contribution to economic development in Scotland in general, and to rural areas in particular. The forthcoming review is of vital interest to regions across Scotland. I agreed with many of the points that the hon. Gentleman made.
  The reform of the structural funds has come about partly because the current financial framework expires at the end of 1999, and partly because any future funding must take into account the proposed enlargement of the European Union. The reform process started with the publication of the European Commission's broad proposals for reform in July 1997. More detailed proposals were published last week, which were broadly as had been expected. The draft regulations form the basis of the detailed and complex negotiations that will start next week between officials of all the member states. Final decisions will be taken by the 15 member states in the Council of Ministers. The Commission has made proposals, but the long process of negotiation is yet to come.
  Doubts have been expressed, but it is hoped that negotiations will be completed and the new regulations will be in place by mid-1999. I emphasise again that the negotiations will be long and drawn out, so the proposals are simply the opening of the debate. The final result is likely to be different from the proposals that we start with, and the House can be assured that the Government will work very hard to ensure that the final regulations are more appropriate to UK needs.
  The Government's response has been to set out broad principles rather than to give specific negotiating positions on how we want the reform process to develop. Detailed scrutiny begins in the Council of Ministers' working groups.
  I can affirm much of what the hon. Gentleman said about the contents of the Commission's proposals for reform of the funds. It proposes maintaining the existing
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  budget limits during the next programme period, while reducing the proportion of the population covered by the funds. As a net contributor, the UK Government welcome that approach, but the concentration of funds must be fair to both established and acceding member states.
  The Commission proposes reducing the current seven objectives to three, and the 10 Community initiatives to three. That is welcome from a UK perspective, because it would reduce the burden on those who are involved in delivering the funds. It is proposed that the new objective 1 will adhere strictly to the criterion of 75 per cent. or less of the European Union average per capita gross domestic product. The new objective 2 will be formed by merging the current objectives 2 and 5b. The objective would encourage measures to support economic development in rural areas that are in serious decline, urban areas in difficulty and changes in industrial or fisheries sectors.
  The proposed objective 3 would concentrate on human resource development and training in order to combat unemployment. It would focus on areas that are ineligible under the other objectives. The Commission proposes transitional arrangements to compensate areas that lose eligibility. It proposes six years for objective 1 and four years for objectives 2 and 5b. We shall arguing that transition funding should be six years for all.
  The proposals aim to simplify the funding process and provide greater responsibility at local level. The Commission would also like the funds to be used more effectively. Officials at the Scottish Office are discussing with others involved in the current partnerships in Scotland new ways of using funding such as loan guarantees, revolving funds and access to capital to make the funds more efficient. I am keen to see a greater emphasis in the reformed funds on promoting competitiveness, employability and job creation in order to achieve sustainable economic development and social cohesion in our rural communities.
  Let me pick up a couple of specific points raised by the hon. Member. He mentioned the safety net which, as I have said, will guarantee losses of no more than 30 per cent. in objective 2 and objective 5b entitlement. That is most welcome, but it represents an admission by the Commission that the formula for distribution is faulty. If the formula was distributing the funding fairly, there would be no need for such a safety net. Although it is a welcome move, it is inadequate and we shall press the Commission strongly to think again so that the formula should include the criterion of gross domestic product rather than being based only on employment statistics.
  In respect of the highlands and islands, the Commission proposes that northern Finland and northern Sweden will be eligible for objective 1 status on the ground of sparsity of population. We believe that that should apply equally to the highlands and islands because the difference in sparsity is so small. The case has been pressed at the highest level by officials in the Scottish Office and others within the United Kingdom Government.
  During our presidency, the Government will have the task of making progress in obtaining agreement in negotiations across all member states, rather than concentrating solely on the UK position. We hope to use the informal ministerial meeting on regional policy to be held in Glasgow in June to progress the Commission's proposals and to reach firm conclusions on the principles of the new funds.

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  Although, the structural fund negotiations will not be concluded under the UK presidency, we wish to make significant progress in discussions on the effectiveness of the funds and the simplification of administration. 1 hope that the Heads of Government meeting at Cardiff in June will reach conclusions that provide a strong basis for further negotiations under the Austrian presidency.
  The Commission proposals are but a starting point. Together, we aim to produce regulations that will provide a clearer, simpler basis for the effective administration of the funds. It is essential that we make good headway before the end of June and set a critical path to avoid the dislocation between programmes that has been experienced in the past. We will all be disappointed if the hard work and achievement under the current programmes in the hon. Gentleman's constituency and elsewhere in Scotland are compromised by a lack of continuity.
  Having set out our position as the presidency, let me turn to what we hope to see from the reform process as a member state. The Government's top priority is the successful enlargement of the Union. If that is to be successful, there must first be agreement on a budget that is affordable and on spending plans that are fair and durable. By necessity, that means that the current funding structure must be reformed in such a way that it is fair and equitable to all states.
  Acceding nations must receive a funding package that is acceptable to existing member states. However, we recognise the depth of economic need of the acceding states; the established member states must be prepared to accept lower receipts as a consequence. I am sure that we would all agree that a poorer member state should receive more from the funds per capita than a richer one, but that does not always happen at the moment. For future funding to be fair and durable, and for enlargement to succeed, that profound change is needed—it must be accepted by the current EU Fifteen.
  The Government will work hard to secure such reform. The main argument that we will deploy will be fairness. Although we want to ensure enlargement and policy reform, we will not allow that to occur at the cost of an unfair settlement on structural funds to the United Kingdom. We must receive a distribution of the funds that is comparable with that of other richer states. Fairness extends beyond the fair share of resources; it embraces fairness and consistency of treatment. That is why we will continue to argue strongly for equivalent treatment of the highlands and islands in the context of the current objective 6 areas of northern Sweden and Finland.
  The Commission's proposals include two welcome points of detail towards establishing which areas will be eligible in the next round. We have long argued that the broad distribution of population coverage and funding between member states should be proposed by the Commission, but that the detailed definition of areas and allocation of resources should be the responsibility of member states, as the hon. Member suggested.
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  We will work hard to ensure that the practical effect of that principle gives the Government sufficient scope and flexibility to target funds, consistent with the relative needs and priorities of other areas in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. We want both to ensure fair distribution between areas and to concentrate on particular needs within areas. We will continue to argue that gross domestic product is a better indicator of economic weakness than unemployment, especially in rural areas where average wages are low.
  The proposed safety net and transitional arrangements will ensure that there is sufficient room for manoeuvre, but they are only the starting point in a long process of negotiation. We will work hard to secure a good outcome for the UK generally, and for Scotland in particular.
  Rural Scotland has benefited substantially over recent years—it has had substantial support from European structural fund programmes. The current round of rural funding programmes, which became operational in 1994–95, will deliver about £325 million of additional funding to stimulate economic development in rural Scotland. The highlands and islands, formerly an objective 5b area, obtained objective 1 status in 1994, and about £222 million of direct EC support was made available for a six-year period towards paying the cost of providing a wide range of projects.
  As the hon. Member knows, the nomenclature of units of territorial statistics classification is used by the Commission's statistical service, Eurostat, to establish reasonably consistent units across all member states from which to make comparisons of economic and other data. Following local government reform, the UK Government and Eurostat have been engaged in detailed discussions to take account of the changes. No formal agreement has yet been reached, so it is difficult to anticipate how the proposed selection criteria will affect the revised areas. Scottish Office officials are exploring a range a scenarios to establish what the implications might be, but it is not possible at this stage to speculate on how particular areas will be affected in practice.
  As we approach the lengthy period of negotiations, I am optimistic that Scotland is in a strong position. Not only are our programmes performing well in terms of commitment and spend, but our partnership arrangements for delivery of the funds are frequently held up across Europe as examples of good practice. The Scottish Office is also working closely with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Enterprise Network and other partners to develop a unified approach to the reform debate.
  I know that there is much concern about the implications of reform for Scotland. The Hon Member has expressed particular concern about the prospects for rural Scotland. Of course, we cannot give categorical assurances at this stage, but I can assure the house that ministers and Officials will work hard to achieve the best possible outcome for the UK and for Scotland.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten O'clock