HL Deb 11 March 1981 vol 418 cc357-71

8 p.m.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Elton) rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 23rd February be approved.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the order is being made under paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Northern Ireland Act 1974 and provides for the appropriation of both the 1980–81 Spring Supplementary Estimates and the Sums Required on Account for 1981–82 by Northern Ireland departments. These spring Supplementary Estimates represent for the most part relatively small adjustments to the spending plans of Northern Ireland departments for this financial year. This is because the major augmentation of the 1980–81 Main Estimates was made by the autumn Supplementary Estimates, which were covered by the Appropriation (No. 3) (Northern Ireland) Order 1980. That order was debated and approved by your Lordships in December last.

Detailed information on the draft order is to be found in the Estimates volume and the Statement of Sums Required on Account, copies of which have been placed in the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office, and also in the explanatory memorandum which I have circulated to noble Lords who participated in the last appropriation order debate. There are, nonetheless, a number of important items in the present draft order to which I should like to draw your Lordships' attention.

First, I should like to mention some of the principal features of the supplementary provision which is being sought. Under Class II, Vote 4, Functioning of the Labour Market, noble Lords will see that additional provision of £7.7 million is being sought for the Temporary Short-Time Working Compensation Scheme. Expenditure on this scheme was originally estimated at £3.3 million but, due to the continuing difficulties experienced by Northern Ireland's industry, demand for grant assistance under the terms of this scheme has risen considerably, and it is now estimated that the scheme will cost some £11 million in 1980–81.

At this point I should emphasise that the decreases shown under Class II Vote 4 in the spring Supplementary Estimates volume are for the most part not reductions; they eflect earlier reallocations which could not be shown in full in the autumn Supplementary Estimates because of the conventions governing the presentation of the Estimates. The balance represents some internal reallocations within the programme of the Department of Manpower Services which have become necessary in order to meet changed circumstances.

Under Class VII, Vote 1, Protective Services, your Lordships will see that £100,000 is being sought for additional costs arising from the firemen's pay dispute. Your Lordships will recall that because of possible industrial action by firemen last November it was necessary to invoke emergency arrangements under which the armed forces would provide a skeleton fire service using the Green Goddess appliances which are held for civil defence purposes. The 30 appliances held in Northern Ireland were put in a serviceable condition and deployed to the army and the Supplementary Estimate is required to meet the costs involved.

On those Votes for which the Department of Education is responsible, token supplementary provision is sought to indicate the additional requirements for the pay of teachers in schools and institutions of further education. A reassessment of these costs shows an additional requirement of £1.6 million in Class VIII, Vote 1, schools, although no actual increase is necessary in the total voted provisions because of reductions in provision for capital grants to voluntary schools. Noble Lords will remember that these reductions were detailed when the autumn Supplementary Estimates were presented with the Appropriation (No. 3) (Northern Ireland) Order 1980, but again it has not been possible to incorporate them in an Estimate until now.

I have considered it particularly important to retain the number of full-time teachers in the current academic year and the supplementary provision sought is necessary to meet the cost of the original allocation of teachers. As noble Lords will, however, be aware, some marginal savings are being sought through a revision of the rules governing the appointment of substitute teachers, and these are currently the subject of detailed discussions with the teachers' unions. The revised assessment of the cost of teachers' salaries in institutions of further education, shown in Class VIII, Vote 2, Higher and Further Education, is £300,000. In this Vote, offsetting savings arise on student support, on which the uptake of awards has been less than expected.

Turning to the provision for health services, your Lordships will see that supplementary provision of some £9.2 million is sought under Class IX, Vote 2, Family Practitioner and Other Services. These services are, of course, demand-determined and are not subject to cash limits. The largest proportion of the additional provision sought relates to the payment of fees to medical and dental practitioners and pharmaceutical chemists. The increased expenditure on those services is partly offset by a reduction of £150,000 in the planned expenditure on welfare foods, for which demand has proved lower than anticipated.

In the social security field, the draft order incorporates provision for additional expenditure arising from an increase in the number of unemployed. An additional £5 million is sought in respect of supplementary benefits under Class X, Vote 2, Non-Contributory Benefits, while the additional £½ million included under Class X, Vote 4, Administration, reflects higher administrative and staffing costs.

I shall now turn to the other element in the draft order, the Sums Required on Account for 1981–82. These amount in total to £944,360,200. It is necessary to have these sums available to Northern Ireland departments by the beginning of the new financial year, so as to enable services to continue until the balance of the 1981–82 Main Estimates are debated with the next appropriation order. That will probably be in early July. The Sums Required on Account for 1981–82 are calculated on a standard formula of 45 per cent of the total provision for the previous—that is, the current—financial year. There are a few exceptions to this rule where it is known that expenditure plans will differ significantly from this pattern. They do not therefore give any indication of the total provision which will be sought for 1981–82. It is the Main Estimates that will provide the detail of the spending plans of Northern Ireland departments for 1981–82.

I believe I have now referred to all the most important features of the draft order, but I know that noble Lords will wish to raise other points. I am most grateful to those who have given me advance notice of matters of particular concern to them. I shall try to answer as many questions as possible at the end of the debate; those questions to which I cannot give an immediate reply will be dealt with in correspondence as swiftly as possible. I commend the draft order to your Lordships, and I beg to move.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 23rd February be approved.—(Lord Elton).

8.9 p.m.

Lord Blease

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for outlining this draft appropriation order in some detail. I should also like to thank him for a copy of the explanatory memorandum, which I always find very useful. I regret that it was not possible for me to give the Minister the usual due notice of the matters I wish to raise here this evening, but on previous occasions he has kindly dealt very expeditiously with matters I have raised by writing to me, and I would be grateful if he could reply suitably to those matters which he may not be in a position to answer here this evening.

Last March, when we considered a similar appropriation order, the noble Lord mentioned the late hour at which the House was sitting. He drew attention to: The custom of dealing only in general terms with money matters over which this House does not have power". That is from volume 406, No. 97, column 1279 of the Official Report. However general may be the terms we are expected to deal with in these appropriation matters, I consider this order to be important to the people of Northern Ireland. At the same time, I have no desire to give undue credence to an unhelpful if not a charade-type of ritual form of approval. The financial provisions in this order and in other appropriation orders govern crucial economical and social decisions concerning the wellbeing and self-respect of Northern Ireland people.

It is my opinion that these appropriation orders are not being dealt with in a manner considered conducive to the encouragement of responsible public accountability and attitudes. Both in this House and, more particularly and importantly from the elected representatives' position in the other place, the order-in-council procedure places us in a Catch 22 situation. We are boxed in and unable effectively to influence vital decisions already taken against the pronounced views of representatives of community interests in Northern Ireland concerning their livelihood and the prosperity of the Ulster people.

In the absence of a devolved assembly, I believe there is an urgent need to review the parliamentary procedures for dealing with appropriation and financial matters. I suggest there is wide support for a change, either by the appointment of a parliamentary Select Committee for Northern Ireland or by the establishment of a Northern Ireland Public Finance and Accounts Commission.

The Official Report of this House of Wednesday last, 4th March, records my view about chronically high levels of unemployment and the acute deprivation in the Province. It is not my intention to repeat tonight the detailed statistics of the plight of the unemployed, the aged and the young people in the Province. Sufficient to say that few if any in Northern Ireland consider that this appropriation order or the Budget yesterday will ease the crippling burden on Northern Ireland industry and the community. The headline of the Belfast News Letter this morning declares: "It is a vicious Budget: vicious, faulty and unsound".

This Budget, in the opinion of many persons in Northern Ireland to whom I have spoken by telephone today divides the Northern Ireland population and underlines and reinforces the difference between the poor and the rest of the population. We should be very conscious of the need to listen and care for minority groups for in this century when great injustice has been done to minority, violent consequences have followed. Today, the voice of the poor, who are the largest minority—40 per cent. of the population—has not been heeded. We will fail to listen to that voice at our peril. The Budget may have contributed significantly to the instability of society and it is little comfort to the people of Northern Ireland to know that further declines in living standards there may help to boost entrepreneurial activities in the South-East of England. That is the best that can be achieved, in the opinion of many, by the feeble measures introduced to assist new industry. Certainly, it will not assist industry in Northern Ireland.

When we considered the autumn Supplementary and Appropriation Order (No. 3) I stated then that the Government was widely off course as far as economic development strategy could be envisaged. This order confirms the view expressed then and demonstrates just how widely off course the Government are. How other can we explain the appropriation of £20 million? None of it is for industrial promotion or for economic regeneration or for productivity improvement. This £20 million is mainly to pay for unemployment through factory closures and short-time working. The Minister mentioned this in some detail.

If we turn to page 2 of the spring Supplementary Estimate—Class II, 4, A7—we find that the original estimate of £3,283,000 has risen to £11 million (already mentioned by the Minister) for the temporary, short-time working compensation scheme. This is an unproductive form of expenditure and has been reallocated from other sources.

I should like to put this question to the Minister. Is it not a fact that some 25,000 people are now working short time under this scheme and that this number is likely to rise for some time to come? Is this not a hidden form of unemployment; and that the figures for unemployment in Northern Ireland are really much higher than those publicly portrayed because of this hidden form of the short-time working arrangement?

Page 3, Class 4, A3, "Enterprise Ulster". I think the Minister will know my view about the excellent scheme we had working for a number of years. Here is a transfer of £392,000 from the present provision and the reason given for the transfer is because of reduced activity. At this late hour I do not wish to go into details of points that I want to raise; but can the Minister say if there has been any decision taken to review and progressively improve the structure and objectives of "Enterprise Ulster" particularly in consultation with the trade unions? We realise that after a time of working of this experimental scheme, it may need some re-adjustment. I would certainly urge the Minister to ensure that there is no rundown of this "Enterprise Ulster" scheme.

On page 3, again, Class 2, 4, B: "Rehabilitation and Employment of Disabled Persons". We all know that this is the International Year of the Disabled. I think it is pitiful and pathetic if not ironical to read that the explanation for the transfer of £159,000 from this particular Vote is reduced activity. I have had a number of persons raise with me the inadequacy of the rehabilitation scheme; but to have it further curtailed I think is an indictment of the whole approach to the handicapped and disabled in Northern Ireland—if not to the unemployed.

I should like to ask the Minister to confirm whether the Government rehabilitation centres for unemployment for disabled persons are being run down and reduced. In "Industrial Training", under Sections C1, C2 and C3, we have a transfer of £1,006,000 from Government training centres. The Minister will know of a report issued within the last few days by the Equal Opportunities Commission which drew attention to the fact that the number of trainees in training centres has been cut from 1,150 in 1978 to only 343 in January this year. Of course, as the Equal Opportunities Commission naturally would, they draw attention to the fact that only five girls served apprenticeships in Government training centres out of a total of 1,963. This compares with the,situation in Great Britain as a whole where girls occupied some 45 per cent. of openings under the training opportunities schemes. Girls in Northern Ireland take only 11.3 per cent. of the places. I am concentrating on only one aspect of this particular report which deals with the training of girls; but I think that if Northern Ireland is to be regenerated and acquire new industrial skills we cannot afford to run down the industrial training schemes.

I should like to put two questions to the Minister. Can he indicate what consultations have taken place with both sides of industry in Northern Ireland about the reduction in Government training? Can he in any way indicate how many additional apprentices have been taken on by employers now that the training scheme has been more or less agreed to be operated by employers at employers' premises?

I have had a number of matters raised with me but the hour is late. The Minister will know my connection and concern over the years with the Youth Opportunities Scheme, and I should like to put a question to him. Is there a place now available for all unemployed school-leavers in the Youth Opportunities Scheme in Northern Ireland? He will also know of the criticism of the Government's decision about the payment of unemployment benefit taken by a number of educational boards. Just a few days ago the Belfast board condemned the change which could mean young people losing several hundred pounds if they stay on at school and take examinations and finish a course of education. The Reverend Albert Sleith said that the move would cause criminal vandalism. I quote: It is one of the most obnoxious pieces of legislation I have ever seen". The senior education officer, Mr. Bob Stewart, reported that the new rules could create a very unfortunate situation and could mean very real financial problems for families in the lowest income group.

May I ask the Minister whether he will look at this new arrangement for curtailing the payment of unemployment benefit to persons at the end of the school-leaving year? Regarding the arts in Northern Ireland, the Minister will also know of the concern that has been expressed regarding cuts in grants. In a report of 23rd February this year it was indicated that Ulster receives less money for the promotion of the arts than any other part of the United Kingdom. In England, grant aid per head of population came to £1.21. In Wales it was £1.77. In Scotland it was £1.61 and in Northern Ireland £1.14. That is below the national average of £1.28. In Northern Ireland, again we have been sacrificed and are again the poor relation of the whole of the United Kingdom in this particular field of the arts. I hope that the Minister will follow what I am saying in my garbled way but I am trying to be as quick as I can.

I will omit a number of matters that have been raised with me as there is someone present who will probably wish to mention farming. However, I would say that the farming community has my whole-hearted support in this particular time of their difficulties. There is no doubt that the Northern Ireland agricultural industry is facing one of the greatest crises in its history. Whatever the EEC may come up with in the next few days, they cannot hope to meet their shortfall in income which is forcing so many small farmers to the wall. Someone has said that they have had a drop of 80 per cent. in their real income in the past two years. I think that is catastrophic for anyone attempting to carry on in the farming community in Northern Ireland.

My last point deals with the industrial development policy of the Government. The Minister will be aware that a number of representative bodies and responsible persons from Northern Ireland have put forward views to the Northern Ireland Office and the Secretary of State about the need to have more streamlined, co-ordinated and effective means of creating employment. I understand that a consultative forum involving industrial development institutions and the Northern Ireland Economic Council was established and held its first meeting in June of last year. May I ask the Minister whether he can indicate what progress has been made by this forum towards the agreed objectives for co-ordination and job promotion?

Energy and transport have been matters about which people have written to me. This was dealt with at some length in the Commons when this order was debated on Monday. One point was omitted and should like the Minister to consider it. During the summer months we have had the opportunity to purchase low priced coal. That helps to ease the burden a little for retired people. I shall not deal with Schedule 2 to the order: the sums requested on account. I look forward to taking part in the debate when the Estimates are more clearly known.

8.27 p.m.

Lord Hampton

My Lords, I also should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for his explanation of this order, and for his courtesy in supplying information in advance. Ever since I heard that these two orders for Northern Ireland had been held over to today, I have pictured the plane-loads of ex-Prime Ministers, Governors and MPs let alone the other distinguished people—pouring into the country to take part in this debate. However, for myself, I hope, if I can, to play a constructive part.

I believe that some speakers in the debate on this appropriation order in the other place fell into the trap of an indiscriminate attack on everything that the Government are doing in the Province, and I shall attempt to avoid that mistake. But let me voice criticism on two important points. The first is the Budget. I follow the noble Lord, Lord Blease, in much of what he has said. The Budget seems to have done little or nothing for the people of Northern Ireland. The harsh measures will bear down painfully where there is already poverty, and nothing has been done to level out energy costs throughout the United Kingdom. It can be argued that a country that has no indigenous fossil fuels—as Ulster has not—must bear the consequences. But surely today we have reached a stage where those least able to help themselves are not mercilessly sent to the wall.

Secondly, I should like to point out that, in an interesting debate on unemployment last week, a number of noble Lords—including the noble Lord, Lord Blease, and myself—referred to the seriousness of the economic situation in Northern Ireland today. However, the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, made no reference whatsoever to the problems of the Province when he came to his—in most ways—skilful winding-up speech.

The order that we are debating today appears to be just a series of figures; but of course it covers a depth of human problems. My party disagrees with the Government on some of their policies but in no way do we accuse them of heartless promotion of unemployment for narrow party ends. However, the suffering, as we read—and again the noble Lord, Lord Blease, has mentioned this—in many parts of the Province is still considerable. It seems somewhat cynical that those over here with job security and good conditions should strike when others have not even humble work with which to occupy their hands.

My own family will in the next few years be leaving school and university and I just hope that they will not be confronted by the dismal prospect of unemployment, with all the loss of confidence and lowering of morale that that can bring. But at least they live in an atmosphere that is little influenced by the terrorist, with the temptation of excitment that he can offer to idle hands. We cannot afford not to invest in the future and the rising generation. I know that the Government accept this. History will judge whether they did enough.

I was particularly struck, in the debate on this order in the other place, by a reference to the problems of remoteness for the farming community and the insufficient support in general being given to agriculture. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Moyola, will have personal experience in this field, but I submit that a swingeing increase in the price of petrol is hardly likely to help. And is it really keeping a sense of proportion to invest in the De Lorean car plant to the value of, I believe, £32,000 for every job provided?

I would end by questioning whether people are entitled to call themselves "loyalists" when they react to the authority of Westminster as they have done recently. There is, alas! no magic wand to put matters right in the Province, but there is some encouragement to be drawn from an article in the Economist of 10th January, which said that a sense of proportion was returning and that people in Northern Ireland were now more worried about the state of the economy than about protests in the Maze Prison. I believe that that is progress, even if the economic situation is still critical. I believe that it is most important to be optimistic.

8.32 p.m.

Lord Moyola

My Lords, I should like to start by offering my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on his succession to the Department of Agriculture, which has given many of us great pleasure. We wish him well there and hope that he will have a profitable and enjoyable time. I would add, as an afterthought, that I hope the farmers of Northern Ireland will also have a profitable and enjoyable time during his term of office there.

It is the farming side to which I should mainly like to address my remarks tonight. I want to say to him, if he does not know it already, as I am sure he does, that in Northern Ireland farming is in a very serious situation indeed and something urgently needs to be done to help. I know there have been over recent weeks discussions between the Secretary of State and the Farmers' Union. The first question I should like to put to him is: is there any hope that the outcome of those discussions will soon be announced? Even if there were no details available, if a promise was there and the intention to help, it would do an enormous amount of good.

The noble Lord knows the difficulties only too well and therefore I shall not labour them in any great detail. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has already touched upon the subject which I think is the important one at this moment: that is the problem of remoteness. I feel that, because of our remoteness, the present agricultural system works unfairly. It works unfairly simply because of the strip of water which divides us from the mainland and because that strip of water turns us into a small and somewhat isolated community.

If we look at the more important commodities, I would hope to be able to demonstrate this point. To take milk as one example—it is probably not the worst or the most difficult of farming problems in Northern Ireland, although it is difficult enough—milk for manufacturing commands a bad price throughout the United Kingdom and the Government, in order to help farmers, subsidise the liquid market. Whether success can be achieved depends on where the bulk of the milk goes: does it go to manufacture or into liquid? In England about 50 per cent. goes to the liquid market, but unfortunately in Northern Ireland the figure is only 20 per cent.

I will not attempt to go into details as to how the end product is arrived at because I should certainly get confused if I tried and I should confuse the House even more; but the fact is that the English farmer is benefiting to the tune of something around 10p per gallon as a result of this particular subsidy, whereas the Northern Ireland farmer is benefiting only to the tune of 4p. So that is a substantial difference, and on top of it, of course, the Northern Ireland farmer has the extra cost of fertiliser, feedingstuffs and so on.

Turning to feedingstuffs, in Northern Ireland, we produce only about 20 per cent. of what we need. The rest has to be imported through the United Kingdom and bear the extra cost of transport across the Irish Sea: something between £12 and £15 per tonne. It has to be remembered, too, that because we are a small community and therefore cannot consume anything like what our farmers produce, a large portion of the farmers' produce has to go out across the Irish Sea again and incur more transport costs. So, while theoretically we are on the same basis as Britain, I think it must be plain that we are enormously handicapped by that strip of water and, so far as feeding-stuffs are concerned, we need a minimum of £12 per tonne of help in order to put our farmers on equal terms as regards profit or farmers' incomes.

Take beef: the returns are bad. They are bad everywhere but I think they are particularly bad in Northern Ireland. I may be wrong but I personally blame it on the fact that the breeding herd has been reduced in numbers; it is down by something like 30 per cent. in the last five years. That is probably due to the abolition of the calf subsidy and the breeding herd subsidy. As a result of that, there are fewer stores on the market and therefore they are more expensive to buy and, when the animal is finished, the farmer simply does not make as much profit. But again, without going into the sums, I am told that if we farmers in Northern Ireland had been farming in Great Britain during the last year, the overall return for farmers on an equivalent number of cattle would in fact have been an extra £12 million. That is fine, my Lords, but I say that the system is operating unfairly and we need in Northern Ireland some special form of help.

Years ago there used to be a grant known as the "remoteness grant" and that used to help to compensate for the strip of water. If I remember rightly, certainly in the time when I was in the Minister's shoes, it ran at about £3 million or £3,500,000 a year. The bill which would now be incurred, if it were based on the difference between farmers' returns for comparable quantities as between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, would be £12 million for beef, £15 million for milk and £15 million for feedingstuffs, making a total of £42 million in all, which is a sad reflection on inflation over the years. But the point is that our problem was recognised in those days. I would not say that the remoteness grant, as such, was always used to cover the specific problem of transport costs, but it was always of great benefit to farmers and I simply would like to remind the Minister that the Irish Sea has not dried up in the period in between. I hope that he will find some means of correcting this particular imbalance.

The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, touched very slightly on the political scene, and I hope it will be in order for me to say something very briefly about it. The main issue in Northern Ireland, at the moment, is the Dublin Summit of last December, and I do not exaggerate when I say that very many people have been worried about what took place then. A badly worded communiqué—and I make no bones about it—came out. It was a communiqué which could have been read in whatever way you wished, according to your political views. The Summit seemed to be surrounded by an air of secrecy, which made everybody suspicious, and, of course, by the time that the participants had put their own political gloss upon the whole thing, everybody in Northern Ireland was thoroughly confused.

Following on from that, I should simply like to say that many of us were enormously glad and grateful for the Prime Minister's visit last week, and for the reassurance which she gave that we in Northern Ireland were not about to be cast adrift. Of course, there are a lot of people whom those reassurances will not sway, but it should be said that, while many people in Northern Ireland would do a great deal to stay part of the United Kingdom, they do not relish the recent happenings under the guise of countering some kind of suspected sell-out—and I hope an imaginary, suspected sell-out—in Dublin.

Those same people know full well that, whether we have to leave the United Kingdom or stay, depends upon keeping the goodwill of our friends over here and, above all, the goodwill of people in your Lordships' House and in another place. They know perfectly well that the goings-on that we witnessed in recent weeks are losing us friends here, and losing us the support and goodwill which we have had in such abundance over the past troublous years. Because we want to keep our friends, I should say that many of us regret very much the happenings of the last few weeks, done on the pretext of protecting Ulster.

8.43 p.m.

Lord Elton

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their reception, or for a great part of their reception, of the order which I have moved for Northern Ireland. Your Lordships were kind enough to give me some warning of many points, but many others have come to me out of something resembling a clear sky, and your Lordships will, I hope, be patient with me if, occasionally, I hesitate and shuffle my papers.

The noble Lord, Lord Blease, made some interesting comments at the opening of his remarks about the way in which matters such as these are handled, and he is not happy with the way in which this is done. I think I might say, by way of an introduction to what I have to say, that it is because we have direct rule that the order which your Lordships are now discussing is available for your Lordships to discuss at all. Your Lordships will be aware that, for the rest of the United Kingdom, money is provided by Bills and not by orders and your Lordships cannot touch a Money Bill. So, to that extent, the Province has an advantage over the rest of the United Kingdom, at least as regards this House. The noble Lord may think that it is a tenuous advantage, but it is one which it is open to him to improve and make more valuable, and with great regularity he succeeds in doing so by his constructive and, sometimes, critical remarks.

The setting up of a Select Committee for Northern Ireland is not really a matter for this House, nor indeed for me. But it is a suggestion which I do not doubt will be noted in the places where it is proper that it should be considered. I should also say to him, and, indeed, to the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, that the subject of the present debate is not the Budget for the financial year 1981–82, which they spoke of with such vigour. It is the appropriation order to round off the financial year 1980–81 and to make provision, in no way proportionately related to next year's Budget, for that period of the next financial year which will have to elapse before the guidelines set down by the Budget can be implemented in the main Estimates which will be debated, as I said, in this House somewhere around the beginning of July. Therefore, if I appear to duck some of the issues which have been raised, it is simply because this is not the time to reply to them.

Arising out of that, I should also emphasise what I said in my introductory remarks, that many of the reductions which figure in this appropriation order are, in fact, the numerical expression of those reductions which were introduced by, described and, in the appropriate debate, discussed in the Appropriation (No. 3) (Northern Ireland) Order which we discussed before Christmas. I know that this is confusing. I find parliamentary financial proceedings confusing in the extreme, in any case; more so than private financial transactions.

But the fact is that the accounting procedures of Parliament did not permit the inclusion in the Commons' figures of the consequences of a number of the decisions which were expressed in the Appropriation (No. 3) Order. That will have to be my reply to one or two things about which the noble Lord expressed a resentment, which would be more understandable if what we were doing was a further round of reductions beyond those to which he reacted with such clarity on the last occasion when we debated appropriation in this House.

The noble Lord, Lord Blease, drew our attention to a number of matters related to training and unemployment. I would draw his attention, if it has not already received it, to a new scheme entitled Action for Community Employment which is being funded from additional monies made available by Government towards special employment measures and which will commence on 1st April this year. The scheme will have the same objectives and be broadly similar to the community enterprise programme in Great Britain and, like it, will focus on the longer-term unemployed. It is estimated that 450 jobs will be created in 1981–82 under the ACE, at a cost of £1.7 million.

The noble Lord then referred to the reduction of £412,000 in the provision for Enterprise Ulster resulting from reduced activity, and also from a concerted effort by officials in that enterprise to reduce plant and material costs. This is a measure not only of a reduction of activity, but of greater efficiency, so that the reduction in activity is not commensurate with the reduction of money. The reduced allocation for Enterprise Ulster in the coming year, which has resulted in the announcement of some redundancies in the organisation, has been made in the light of Government policy to give high priority in public expenditure to promoting investment in viable employment in the private sector, thus strengthening the economic base.

I can sympathise when the noble Lord says that to anyone who is unemployed it does not matter whether a new job which occurs is a nationalised or a private sector job. It is our experience that the potential for growth and vigour at an early stage in the private sector is very much greater, partly because it depends on so much smaller units than nationalised enterprises, and I believe that the emphasis of Her Majesty's Government's policy is the right one. After redundancies of just over 3,500 employees on 1st April this year, the average number of Enterprise Ulster employees is expected to be 1,150 during the 1981–82 financial year. The noble Lord will appreciate that it is not possible to shelter Enterprise Ulster from the whole of Government measures to promote productive employment, particularly their support for industrial investment to strengthen the Province's industrial base. The additional sum of £9.4 million made available for special employment measures in 1981–82 has been earmarked for the continuation of job maintenance and support schemes, temporary short-time working, and job release, expansion of the Youth Opportunities Programme and a new scheme, to which I have already referred, targeted specifically towards adult long-term unemployment.

The total of 7,000 youth opportunities places is to be increased to 10,000. It is hoped that up to 350 additional Youth Opportunity Programme places will be provided in 1981–82 by Enterprise Ulster, for which additional monies will be paid as part of the programme.

In response to a request from the Government, Enterprise Ulster will endeavour to reduce the average cost of each job in their organisation from the present figure, which exceeds £7,000. This can be achieved by concentrating upon more labour intensive projects. Depending upon the extent of this reduction, my honourable friend the Minister for the Department of Manpower Services may examine, with the organisation, towards the end of the year the scope for Enterprise Ulster to participate in action for community employment.

I will probably write to the noble Lord in expansion of Enterprise Ulster and move on now to note his stricture that most of the measures noted in the appropriation order are remedial. Indeed they are. I repeat that the function of an appropriation order is in itself remedial. It is to adjust existing programmes to the targets and the target costs which are expected to be achieved when the main estimates are submitted and to correct any errors of judgment as to what the final demand in a particular programme will be, not merely in response to policy changes but also in response to cost. The uptake, for instance, of non-cash-limited services has to be met from the monies voted at this time.

I note the per capita comparison which the noble Lord made for the Arts, for which I am responsible. I suppose that this is the time to acknowledge what all noble Lords who will speak in the House on this subject always say: that things are worse, generally speaking, economically in the Province than they are in the rest of the United Kingdom. We have exceedingly high rates of unemployment, though not so much higher than in some other parts of Great Britain as would seem to be the case if one made the comparison only with the average for the whole of the United Kingdom, which is a common comparison. We have to respond to that. We have responded to it by very much higher per capita payments from public funds to the Province as a whole which even exceed the greater need, by some measurements, by a small amount. We have to do other things to speed our recovery. That means taking money from the non-economic—the social and educational—programmes and putting it into economic programmes. It is a hard decision but it is one which had to be done.

I will deal with the noble Lord's points on agriculture when I come in a moment to the remarks made by my noble and very friendly friend Lord Moyola. I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Blease, was able to conclude by making friendly remarks about the cheap summer coal scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, referred to the question of electricity costs which are a matter of great concern throughout the United Kingdom, and perhaps of greater concern in the Province because there the cost is higher. May I remind him of the undertaking which was very recently given by the Prime Minister in the Province. She said that the Government accept that these tariffs are an unreasonable burden upon the Northern Ireland community and that they are a real obstacle to economic development and that the Government have been examining the best way of tackling the problem. She said that we have decided to bring Northern Ireland electricity tariffs more closely into line with those in England and Wales and to keep them there. The tariff increases due on 1st April will be reviewed in the light of this decision. I cannot say what the outcome of that review will be but it is clear what its intention is, and it seems to me to be one of the most heartening things which the Province has heard for some time.

The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, together with the noble Lord, Lord Moyola, whose benign face looks down upon my desk and is looked at with emotions which change according to what he last said to me when I was in this House, was kind enough to congratulate me upon my appointment to his seat. I am very glad to sit in it even if, as he put it, I am wearing his shoes. Both noble Lords referred to the geographical disadvantages placed upon the Province because of the expense of getting across the water. People tend to forget that not only does it cost around £12 per tonne to bring in raw material but that it also costs around £12 per tonne to take out the finished product. This is at all times a disadvantage when we are dealing with our closest large market. At a time when the punt is as weak as it now is—the noble Lord did not say this—of course it is a greater disadvantage because there is a greater pressure to sell in Great Britain and a greater obstacle to sales in the rest of the Province. That is not so simple as it sounds, because of the operation of the Monetary Compensatory Amounts. I have to say that I am very well seized not only of this but of many other disadvantages under which the Northern Ireland farmer—whether he be a small or a large farmer, whether he is in milk, or beef, or pigs or poultry, whether he is on the hills or in the valleys—is operating. It is a very difficult situation to be in. I have already made it my business to visit a fair number of farms and to meet a considerable number of farmers. It is a process that I shall continue with pleasure, though it leads me to meet constantly people who are most anxious to have some sort of succour.

The noble Lord, Lord Moyola, referred to the remoteness grant. This is a blanket grant of a type not favoured by the Common Market. I wonder whether a blanket grant is exactly what we want. It is no good ignoring for ever the fact that circumstances are different in different parts of the world and that one ought to tailor the industry to fit what the land will support and what the climate makes to thrive. In other words, simply to give equal encouragement to everything produced in an area is not the way to solve a long term problem. There are other ways to do it. The less favoured area schemes are already in operation in the Province and generate a considerable amount of budgetary support for the people who are farming within them. Indeed, we are at present preparing an approach to the Common Market to get those areas extended. This would be welcomed.

The noble Lord, Lord Moyola, did no more than express in very muted fashion the very real difficulties and concerns of the farming community in Northern Ireland, which he knows far better than ever I shall. I have to reassure him by saying that not only I but the Secretary of State are very well seized of these difficulties and have them under very close and urgent scrutiny. The fact that we have not yet been able to make an announcement should not in any way colour the expectations of the industry or of the noble Lord as to the outcome of those considerations. He will understand that, while I accept absolutely the desire for an early reply—and that reply will be given as early as it is possible for us to give it—it would be entirely wrong for me to give any indication of its contents at this stage. It would be difficult to find phrases sufficiently neutral to prevent their meaning being, as it were, invested with wildly exaggerated properties. I assure him and the industry on this occasion that the Government do realise what is going on and do realise the difficulties. They wish to assist and they are considering as urgently as may be what that assistance can be.

Both the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and certainly the noble Lord, Lord Moyola, adverted to political matters. Of course this is in fact a debate on financial matters but I am very glad that the visit of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister to the Province and the forthright phrases which she there uttered on the whole question of the status of the Province have registered. People realise that she means what she says and that, when she speaks, she speaks the truth. If your Lordships could have seen—and the noble Lord, Lord Moyola, and possibly the noble Lord, Lord Blease, did see—the astonishingly wet and windy weather in which the Prime Minister arrived at her gathering and the calmness and aplomb with which she addressed it, I think they would have realised that this was entirely symbolic of the lady who leads this country. I have the greatest confidence in her approach to this issue. I believe that those who feel, or have felt, themselves at risk, should take comfort from her sterling qualities. That is as much as I think I should say on political matters in a debate on finance. If I have omitted any points I shall write to noble Lords.

On Question, Motion agreed to.