Lords Sitting of 24 June 1991

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Portsmouth.

BBC Services for the Visually Handicapped
Lord Constantine of Stanmore Lord Constantine of Stanmore asked Her Majesty's Government:
What consideration they will give when renegotiating the licence of the British Broadcasting Corporation to the needs of blind and partially sighted people for audio-descriptive services.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, consideration of the future arrangements for governing the whole of the BBC's services, including those for the blind and partially sighted people, will be included in the review which will precede the expiry of the present charter and licence in 1996.
Lord Constantine of Stanmore: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that reply. I am sure he is aware that the audio-descriptive services to which the Question refers are now available in the United States through more than 47 stations serving 52 million people. When the Government come to renegotiate the BBC licence I should not like to think that we shall be left behind Europe, Japan and America in the provision of these services to the blind and those who are hard of hearing
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, my noble friend is right that audio-descriptive services are in use in the United States of America. However, for technical reasons, those systems as they stand cannot be adopted in this country. The matter will be considered as part of the review before the licence and charter are renewed.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, is it not true that during the passage of the Broadcasting Act the Minister accepted at Report stage amendments on this subject tabled by noble Lords on both sides of the House? Under the amendments those applying for ITV franchises have to agree to take these proposals into account. Out of 40 applications, 38 have in fact so stated. Does the noble Earl not agree that there is an urgent need for the ITC and the BBC to develop the best technological and most economic common audio-descriptive service for use by the 1 million blind and 700,000 partially sighted people in this country?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Baroness is right that during the passage of the Broadcasting Act we accepted amendments to the effect that those who applied would have to state what they were going to do for the blind, the deaf and the disabled and that that would form part of their application. That is different from what happens with the BBC. At the
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moment it operates under a different system but it takes into account the need to help the disabled. The noble Baroness is quite right that if this service is developed we should make certain that the BBC and ITC develop it along the same lines.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, is any work being done to produce equipment that would make the American system suitable for use in this country?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, we are aware of what happens in America. It is a technical matter which at the moment precludes the system being of use in this country. I am not aware of the technical complications of it but I shall delve into it and let my noble friend know.

London Bus Services: Deregulation
2.40 p.m.
Lord Stallard Lord Stallard asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many responses have been made to the proposals to deregulate London bus services set out in the Green Paper on a new transport strategy for London, how many of these have supported the proposals and how many have opposed them.
The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Lord Brabazon of Tara): My Lords, we have received more than 200 responses to the consultation paper A Bus Strategy for London. Those responses are currently being assessed. An announcement on the Government's conclusions following the consultation exercise will be made shortly.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. Is it not a fact that of those 200 responses the vast majority were opposed to the proposals and that the fiercest criticism came from companies in the private sector such as Grey-Green Coaches Ltd.? It has told the Government that the proposals would involve large fare increases, worsening congestion and untold misery for millions of Londoners. Evidence from deregulated metropolitan areas outside London suggests that, although more road miles are travelled by buses, patronage has fallen. Is there not a certain amount of complacency in the noble Lord's reply? Is it perhaps that the Government have underestimated the scale of the opposition, or is it just that once again they are not prepared to listen?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I do not think that there was any complacency in the reply I gave. My reply was purely factual. It listed the number of responses that were received and went on to say that an announcement would be made shortly. Nothing in that could be considered to be complacent. The noble Lord will have to wait to see the conclusions of the consultation. It is true to say that more responses opposed deregulation than supported it. But that is no surprise, as radical change is often met with resistance.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, how many responses were received from the physically handicapped; and what was the reaction to their various questions?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am afraid that I do not have a breakdown of the 200 responses that were received.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, the Minister said something rather surprising when he said that in situations of this kind one might expect an overwhelming degree of opposition. Of course there is ample precedent for that—for example, with the poll tax, where the Government pigheadedly went on notwithstanding opposition. But what does the Minister say in response to the points made by Grey-Green Coaches Ltd. as rehearsed by my noble friend Lord Stallard? Does he say that there is anything in those allegations; or does he say that they are absolute piffle? What does he say?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, first, I must point out that I did not say that there was overwhelming opposition in the responses. Indeed, nowhere will the noble Lord find that those words were used by me. I said that there were more responses opposing the proposals than supporting them. I then went on to say that radical changes often meet with resistance. I recall that noble Lords opposite opposed the deregulation of long distance coaches some years ago. That has proved now to be extremely popular with the travelling public.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, the Minister has not even begun to answer the question that I put to him and that which was put by my noble friend. Even if it causes some offence to the noble Lord the Leader of the House, I must point out that Ministers are here to answer questions. Therefore, will the Minister answer the question put by my noble friend about the representations made by Grey-Green Coaches? The Government seem to be in a very temperamental mood today, judging by the behaviour of their supporters. Will the Minister tell us his response to the claims made by Grey-Green? They are extremely important. Moreover, they do not come from the Labour Party; they come from the independent sector.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, if I have failed to answer the noble Lord's questions it is perhaps because I normally answer two questions at a time, as laid down by the Companion to the Standing Orders. I in fact answered two questions and the noble Lord has asked me a third. That is fair enough. However, as I said in my original Answer, the responses to the consultation are being currently assessed and will be announced shortly.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, the Minister has said that there is a consultative document. I understand that fact. I should have thought that it was a very good thing actually to consult and talk about the proposals. However, can the Minister tell us a little more about when he hopes that the Government will make a decision on their future plans?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, our aim is to introduce new legislation to give effect to the proposals as soon as possible in a new Parliament.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, will the Minister accept that he has hardly answered any of the questions which have been put to him? For example, the point made by my noble friend about the needs of the physically handicapped has been widely publicised by the Consumers' Association. He must have a better reply than that which he gave to my noble friend. In all honesty, would it not be better to shelve this proposal and set up an independent review body to look at the overall picture of transport, not just in London but also in the deregulated metropolitan authorities?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I do not think so. Deregulation outside the London area has, on the whole, been a great success. I do not believe that anyone would wish to go back to the old system. We propose to extend those benefits to the London area. We have, therefore, issued the consultation paper, inviting comments on those proposals.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Phillips asked a specific question. It is the purpose of Question Time to elicit information from the Government. In his answer, the Minister said that he did not have that information. By giving that answer, is he undertaking to write to my noble friend with the information and, if so, will he put a copy of that information in the Library?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I said that there were over 200 responses to the consultation paper and that an announcement on the Government's conclusions following the consultation exercise will shortly be made. If that announcement does not include the specific point raised by the noble Baroness, I undertake to write to her on the matter and place a copy of the letter in the Library.

House Building: Local Authority Finance
Lord Stoddart of Swindon Lord Stoddart of Swindon asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will permit local authorities to use a greater proportion of their capital asset sales to revive their house building programmes.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, the balance between debt redemption and new investment is kept under review. Local authorities are required to set aside part of their capital receipts to meet outstanding loan debt and other credit liabilities. The remainder they may spend on new capital investment.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the Minister aware that that kind of Answer makes one almost want to stamp one's foot in sheer frustration? Is she also aware that in Swindon in 1979, when I was the Member of Parliament for that great constituency, people on the housing list were being rehoused within weeks? The council was also able to assure engaged couples that they would be rehoused when they married. However, is she further aware that in Swindon now, under a Conservative Government, there is a seven-year waiting period and homeless

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people are being put into hotel and hostel accommodation? That is happening at a time when the borough council has received £23 million from the sale of council houses which it could very well spend on solving its homeless problems and those of the people who are waiting for housing.
Therefore, does the Minister agree that it would be sensible at this time, when the building industry is suffering its worst slump for well over 12 years, for these funds to be used not only to help the homeless but also to help the Government dig themselves out of the slump which they have created?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, this particular Question has been answered many times. Moreover, the explanation as to why the system operates in the way in which it does has been explained many times. Where the receipts are the greatest is where the needs are the least; where the needs are the greatest is where the receipts are the least. That is why the Government choose to target resources on the areas with the greatest need. That is done by limiting the expenditure of capital receipts, using the surplus to reduce debt, and maximising credit approvals. That allows resources to go to the areas of greatest need.
Lord Gainford: My Lords, are there any schemes or systems available by which housing can be provided without people having to go through local authorities?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, it would take almost too long to catalogue the agencies involved in providing houses. One of the difficulties is that noble Lords opposite appear to believe that municipal authorities are the only providers of houses. They are merely a part of the system available to provide houses for people who need them.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the Minister aware that there are literally tens of thousands of families living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation and that the yearly cost of that accommodation would almost provide them with a home of their own? If the Government showed some initiative and asked local authorities to carry out some of the proposals suggested a moment ago by my noble friend, two things would be achieved: the stigma of having to live in bed-and-breakfast accommodation would be removed and people would be given a fair crack of the whip and helped to have a home of their own—something with which the party opposite agrees. Will the Government try to do something to achieve that aim so that people living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation will have a brighter and better future?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the Government's record for providing houses and addressing the difficulties caused by homelessness is excellent. It certainly compares favourably with that of the previous Labour Government. Mr. Gould is on record as saying that he will spend an extra £3 billion on housing construction, repairs and maintenance; that he wil1 extend the role of housing associations, with which we agree; that there will be no limit on local government expenditure; that there will be no capping
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for local authorities and no limit on spending receipts. How does that square with the fact that there will be no spending unless there is the money to provide for it?
Lord Molloy: My Lords, the Minister did not answer my question.
Noble Lords: Order.
Viscount Mountgarret: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the problem might be alleviated if the Government were to encourage some local authorities to adopt a more realistic and lenient attitude towards planning applications for the building of houses on private land? Such applications are often turned down. If some authorities took a more lenient attitude, we might find more houses being built.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my noble friend makes an interesting point. I have no doubt that there is some scope in relation to planning approvals. There is also scope in the better management of housing and in bringing empty houses back into use. There is much scope for improvement. The problem is not all about resources.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I hate to say it, but the answers the Minister has so far given have shown that she has not been doing her homework. Is she aware that only last week the Association of District Councils and the AMA submitted reports to Sir George Young, the Housing Minister, showing that in 1990–91 under the present system of allocation of capital receipts, local authorities will receive £1,891 million, as against £2,406 million in the previous year? That is a substantial drop of 21 per cent. Is she also aware that the vice-chairman of the ADC, Lady Elizabeth Anson, said that the decline in local authority housing investment had in recent years been so great that not only were councils now unable to provide low-cost houses for sale or rent but their ability to repair and modernise their existing stock was also under threat? Will the Minister undertake to correct that situation, in everyone's interests?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, credit approvals for local authorities have increased by £102 million to £2 billion for 1991–92; housing revenue subsidy has reached £3.5 billion; Housing Corporation expenditure will be over £2 billion by 1993; an extra £50 million has been spent on rural low-cost housing; £270 million has been directed towards estate action programmes; over £300 million for two years, in addition to mainstream funding, has been provided to help the statutory homeless in London and the South East; over £100 million has been provided to combat single homelessness and rough sleeping in London; home ownership has increased to 69 per cent.; and the housing stock has increased by 2 million since 1979. The Government's record stands up very well against that of the previous Labour Government.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, will the Minister tell us why in reply to the two associations that I have mentioned Sir George Young said that they had made

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out a most powerful case for extra resources and that he would take it on appeal to the Treasury? Will the Minister back her Minister instead of coming to the Dispatch Box and trying to mislead people?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I hope that I am not misleading people. All the figures that I have given are actual figures. Good cases for more resources can always be made out. No one is being complacent about the requirement to spend money on such an important need. We have a fine Housing Minister in my honourable friend Sir George Young. He is doing a good job for those who require homes and is making considerable progress in that respect.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, where are the areas of less need about which the Minister spoke? I know of no area in this country that does not need housing.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, when operating budgets one has to determine priorities. Receipts are highest in areas such as Surrey or Kent, whereas the need is greatest in areas such as Leeds or Liverpool.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, the Minister said that the Question has been answered many times, but does she accept that an inadequate answer has been given to the simple question of why councils are not allowed to spend more of their own money on replacing some of the units that have been lost? Is not the shortage at present in affordable rented accommodation, which in the main can be provided only by housing associations and local authorities? But they need resources. Why will the Government not accept the fact that they have the resources but that they need the Government's permission to spend them?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, it is not present policy to allow all local authorities to spend all their capital receipts. As I have said, receipts are greatest where the need is least; where the need is greatest, receipts are the least; and so a mechanism has been put in place which allows the Government to redistribute credit approvals to ensure that those areas in greatest need receive the greatest help.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords—
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, it is no good noble Lords moaning, I am going to make this point—
Noble Lords: Question!
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, the question will be answered more quickly if noble Lords opposite and on the sidelines stop heckling. Is the Minister aware that she is wrong when she accuses Members on this side of the House of not understanding the position? We understand the position perfectly well. First, we know—
Noble Lords: Question!
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I am answering the Minister's question. Is she aware that we understand that the Government's record is
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incomparably bad? Is she also aware that when the Government put forward their proposals to sell council houses one of the arguments used was that local authorities would be able to use the resources made available to build new houses? That is not happening. Will she please do something to ensure that it does happen?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I have given reasons why the mechanism is in place. The policy advocated by noble Lords opposite will be colossally expensive. It would cost taxpayers a great deal. That conundrum has yet to be answered by noble Lords opposite.

Fish Conservation: EC Rule
2.58 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether decisions have yet been reached, and agreed within the EC, on a conservation regime for United Kingdom fishing vessels to replace the present confinement to harbour for eight days in the month.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Scottish Office (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, no decision has been made by the Commission to replace the eight-day rule. However, the Commission agreed in February that United Kingdom vessels using 110 mm nets could be exempted from the eight-day rule, and approximately 200 vessels are taking advantage of that exemption.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his Answer. While conservation of fish stocks is essential, and must be the first consideration, I should like to ask whether he is aware that the present scheme of tying up boats for eight days is regarded by many British fishermen as the worst option among those available?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I entirely welcome the words of my noble friend that conservation is the most important aim. I also recognise that the eight-day tie-up regulation is of great anxiety to individual fishermen. At the end of last year we were faced with a situation where stocks of cod and haddock in the North Sea were found to be in a dire state. Therefore, the eight-day rule had to be introduced. We have always agreed that it is a blunt instrument; but it was the only course that could be introduced quickly to preserve the stocks.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the Government are hated and reviled in the fishing ports of Scotland for the way in which the eight-day tie-up scheme has been managed, and for their stubborn refusal to introduce a de-commissioning scheme? In view of the recent increase in the EC contribution to scrapping grants, how can the Government justify their refusal?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, at the end of last year we were offered a 10-day tie-up regulation by the Commission. It was because of the negotiations which

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we were able to continue in the Council of Ministers that we were able to reduce it to eight days. The Government have always maintained that decommissioning would be a poor use of taxpayers' money. However, given the great worry that fishing communities have, we have offered fishermen and their representatives the opportunity to come forward with schemes that would help conservation of fish stocks. If that included a de-commissioning scheme which was significantly financed by fishermen themselves, then we would look at it carefully.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, since more than one member state outside the United Kingdom habitually ignore EC regulations whenever it suits them, and bearing in mind the necessity for conservation, I should like to ask this question. What steps have Her Majesty's Government initiated to monitor the performance of other countries in obeying the regulations that they vehemently supported?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the noble Lord is right that vie view conservation and its enforcement as having a great deal of importance. It is up to the Commission itself to make sure that European laws are adhered to. A survey was recently carried out of the enforcement operations of different national states and the United Kingdom came top of the list.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, can my noble friend say what consequences will result from the conservation measure both to the fish stocks and to the catches? What will be the financial consequences to British fishermen?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, it is difficult to give a straight answer to my noble friend. On the financial consequences, he will know that over the past 12 months prices of white fish landings have increased by 15 per cent. That has a substantial effect. As to what has happened to the fish stocks, the eight-day tie-up scheme was designed to reduce the amount of discards, as will the measure the Government will bring forward on 1st July, to include 90 mm sq mesh nets in the cod end of fishing nets. We shall not know for some years how effective these measures have been.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, does the decimation of the British fishing fleet constitute one of the so-called benefits that we have received from membership of the EC?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, it is generally recognised that the common fisheries policy and its concept of relative stability has helped to maintain the British fishing fleet.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, will the noble Lord re-examine the answer given to me in which he pointed out that the Commission was responsible for the enforcement of the regulations? Normally, under Community law, it is the responsibility of the member state to enforce the regulations as agent for the Commission. Will the noble Lord again take on board
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the necessity for more effective monitoring of the performance of those states which habitually ignore regulations when they do not suit them?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I do not believe that the noble Lord and I are in any disagreement. He is right that it is the obligation of the member state. However, it is also for the Commission to make sure that member states carry out their functions the way they agreed to in the Council of Ministers.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I welcome what my noble friend has just said: that the Government are prepared to consider an orderly reduction in fishing fleets. However, does he agree that the fishing industry suffers from a special problem? Unlike other industries, the increasing productivity which fishermen have achieved to a great extent in recent years risks annihilating the product.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I recognise that. It is something which the fishermen themselves have taken on board.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, can the noble Lord name the countries which are not obeying the regulations on fishing?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, that is up to the Commission.

Ports Bill
3.6 p.m.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That it be an Instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the Ports Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order—

Clauses 1 to 20,

Schedule 1,

Clauses 21 to 30,

Schedule 2,

Clauses 31 to 42.—(Lord Brabazon of Tara.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Sunday Entertainments (Video Supply) Bill [H.L.]
Report received.
Criminal Procedure (Insanity and Unfitness to Plead) Bill
Read a third time, and passed.
Road Traffic (Temporary Restrictions) Bill
Read a third time, and passed.
Radioactive Material (Road Transport) Bill
Read a third time, and passed.

Agriculture and Forestry (Financial Provisions) Bill
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the order of commitment be discharged.—(Baroness Trumpington.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Road Traffic Bill
3.9 p.m.
Read a third time.
Clause 43 [Permitted and special parking areas outside London]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 41, line 27, leave out ("76") and insert ("78").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment corrects the reference in Clause 43. That clause is an introductory clause to Schedule 3 which contains the general power for the Secretary of State to make orders designating "permitted" or "special" parking areas outside London to which the provisions of the new decriminalised parking regime in London can be suitably applied. The references in the clause need to be expanded to include Clauses 77 and 78, which deal with the enforcement of unpaid penalty charge notices through the county courts and Crown application. This ground will need to be covered in the orders made under Schedule 3. The expanded references will enable that to happen. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 44 [Parking attendants]:
Lord Monson Lord Monson moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 41, line 44, at end insert:
("(3A) Whether employed directly by a local authority or otherwise, parking attendants shall not be remunerated on any basis which relates remuneration to the number of penalty charge notices issued.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment is a neater and greatly simplified version of an amendment that I moved on Report and later withdrew. That amendment received a great deal of support from various quarters of your Lordships' House. To avoid any misunderstanding let me say straightaway that this amendment is in no way an attempt to take advantage of the embarrassment and difficulties that Westminster City Council is currently facing. The amendment is based on important broad principles applicable throughout the whole of Britain.
The amendment is designed to ensure that parking
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attendants are paid on a normal weekly, monthly or annual basis, as is the case with most employed people in this country as opposed to self-employed people. The amendment specifically seeks to ensure that the attendants are not paid on results. By that I mean that their pay should not be linked to the number of parking tickets issued.
There is no need for me to repeat at length the arguments that were advanced in Committee and on Report against this deplorable practice. The practice is unnecessarily harsh on individuals, some of whom may be harassed mothers collecting their children, or temporarily disabled people, who may arrive at the parking meters only 20 or 30 seconds after their time is up or whose car bumpers may extend a few inches over the yellow line. The paying of parking attendants on the number of tickets issued will almost certainly engender contempt for the law and will lower the esteem of the police in the eyes of the public in so far as the police are linked in the public mind with parking attendants partly by virtue of their uniforms and partly by virtue of the role that the police play in towing away vehicles which are incorrectly parked.
The system of paying attendants on the number of tickets issued will also tend to bring authority in general into disrepute and that cannot be a good thing. I am sure your Lordships will agree that such a practice could open the way for corruption. A woman, for example, may arrive back at her parking meter and if she is a minute or less over her allotted time the attendant may say to her, "If I do not book you I stand to lose, but if I do book you, you stand to lose a great deal more. How about splitting the difference? Shall we say a fiver in cash"?
All in all, paying attendants on the basis of the number of tickets issued constitutes an unacceptable abuse of power. That is why this matter cannot be left to local authorities to determine. It is a matter for the country as a whole to determine. I beg to move.
3.15 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I support the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, as I have done previously. I hope that the Minister can comment on one or two points upon which he was unable or did not wish to elaborate when this matter was before the Chamber on 10th June.
The burden of the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, is that it is offensive in these circumstances for parking attendants to be paid by results. When we discussed this issue on 10th June the Minister said:
"I recognise the concerns that may be held about paying these attendants on a piecework basis and the abuses that that might encourage. However, it is not for legislation to tie the hands of local authorities in matters such as these".—[Official Report, 10/6/91; col. 984.]
If a local authority by reason of a contractual obligation does something which is contrary to the public good and perhaps even invades the liberties of the citizen, I suggest with respect that the argument that the Minister has adduced will not stand up. It is the job of Parliament to address abuses of that kind. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, has made a strong point on two occasions in relation to this form of

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abuse. Admittedly, the Minister has pointed to some slightly mitigating factors. He said on 10th June, again at col. 984, that provision is made for motorists,
"to make representations to the local authority concerned, and to appeal to an independent parking adjudicator if they consider their representations have not been dealt with satisfactorily".
With respect, that argument is only good as far as it goes. Often people will not take matters further—unless they feel strongly about a situation—as they believe it is inconvenient to go to such trouble, particularly if they are in business or carrying on an important occupation. While they may want to pursue the matter further, it is simply inconvenient to make representations and an appeal. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, is addressing a collective rather than an individual problem here. To say effectively that someone cart appeal to an independent parking adjudicator does not address that problem at all.
The Minister continued at col. 984:
"Provision is also made for an annual report on the parking adjudicators' activities to be published, so that any abuse of parking attendants' powers will rebound on the local authorities and will do so in a highly public manner".
However, such a report will probably mean that problems are dealt with a long time after the offending event has occurred. The Minister's reply does not begin to address the seriousness of the situation to which the noble Lord, Lord Monson, has referred. The Minister further stated at col. 984:
"If contractors behave badly as well, then the local authority will receive complaints and surely will discuss them with the contractor. If need be, the local authority can cancel the contract".
The problem with that statement—the noble Lord, Lord Monson, has not referred to this today but he did so on the previous occasion—is that a council such as Westminster City Council goes along with the idea of paying rewards on the basis of results. Therefore, it will be difficult to dislodge such a council from that ideological absurdity.
However, I believe that this is not a matter that should divide us politically. A perfectly reasonable proposition has been made that can be introduced into legislation without any undue difficulty. It concerns a mischief which affects many people. I hope that even at this late stage the Government will take this mischief into account. After all, the Bill will go to another place and government amendments have been tabled which will have to be considered. This amendment should be just such another amendment. I hope that the Minister will respond to my plea in a positive way.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I oppose the amendment but I do so not just because Westminster City Council has been mentioned and I have moved amendments on its behalf. I accept that that council has undertaken measures that have not been satisfactory. I oppose the amendment because in all walks of life people are being urged to earn productivity bonuses. The amendment is a contradiction of that principle as it proposes that parking attendants should not be paid on results. Since Westminster introduced a scheme of paying parking attendants on results, parking meters have been
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checked every 20 minutes. In the past one could leave one's car parked at a meter for hours without an attendant checking the meter.
I hope the day will come when parking meters are installed in the royal parks. The whole purpose of parking meters is to obtain a turnover so that people do not hog parking spaces. At the moment only the first 20 people who arrive at one of the parks can park there. No one else has a hope of parking there. That situation used to prevail in the streets of Westminster and all over London. The meters are intended to achieve a turnover of parked cars. I do not excuse the practice that prevailed in Westminster when the parking wardens were first subjected to a different system. Appalling practices came into being and wardens used to stand by meters almost waiting for them to tick the seconds away. They used to hand drivers tickets as the drivers put their keys into the doors of their cars. There was uproar because that was a scandalous thing to do. It is no longer the practice. However, to say that they should not be employed on the basis of being paid by results is contrary in general to most employment practice, quite apart from the specific case of parking. I must oppose the amendment.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I, too, am opposed to the amendment, but for different reasons from those given with great sincerity by my noble friend Lady Gardner. Like the noble Lord, Lord Monson, I think that it is wrong for traffic wardens to be paid by results. I must confess to having played a part in the introduction of traffic wardens some 30 years ago. At that time it was said that it was a conspiracy aimed at getting prostitutes off the streets and replacing them with traffic wardens!
If it is right for traffic wardens to be paid by results in this way, what about the police? Next we shall find that an incentive bonus is to be paid to members of the police force who get the maximum number of people convicted in court or the maximum number of thieves arrested. It is jolly good that the police should make as many arrests as possible, but for them to be rewarded on that basis is totally wrong.
Until the debate the other day I did not know that there was any question of traffic wardens being remunerated on the basis of the number of motorists they had managed to catch out. I still cannot believe that that is done on a very wide scale. Rather than legislate against it, if there is a danger of that happening I should have thought that all that is necessary is for the Home Office or the Department of the Environment to write to local authorities saying that that is not the right way to go about it and asking them not to do it any more. However, for us to legislate on that basis would be wrong.
Viscount Mountgarret: My Lords, I should like to lend my support to my noble friends Lord Renton and Lady Gardner, who have covered what I intended to say and far better than I could have. I believe that it would tend to lead to a number of people being encouraged to become peeping Toms and behaving like Mack the Knife, hiding behind bushes, waiting for people to commit an offence and then grabbing them.

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This is the only instance of which I am aware of such a provision in any Bill. My noble friend Lord Renton referred to the police. Let us take the case of a park attendant. Is he to be remunerated on the basis of the number of litter louts he manages to find in the park?
It is an appalling amendment. It is a disgraceful amendment. It is an indictment of the integrity of our countrymen. I do not think that we should allow it. The local authorities should be able to employ their staff on terms and conditions which they see fit. It is not for us to tell the local authorities on what terms to engage their staff. If people living in a particular borough find such things happening I suspect that at the next council election the members of the local authority would not hold their seats. I hope very much that your Lordships will not accept the amendment.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, perhaps I may ask whether the noble Viscount is for or against the amendment. He said that he was against it and seemed to suggest that it would lead to all kinds of things. That is exactly the tenor of our argument from this side of the House.
It is interesting that Westminster, my favourite local authority, was the first to react. It not only has the lowest poll tax. Why? Because it is closing schools and sacking teachers. It uses these twopenny-halfpenny exercises in order to raise money. It has a privatised system of rubbish collection which every tenant and every occupant of an office is forced to use. That is not the way we want local authorities to run our affairs. If everybody is to be paid by results, what kind of economy will we have?
I have been with people when the clampers have appeared. They obviously hover about. It is a well-known fact that certain people are paid by results. The principle is quite wrong. The noble Baroness defended it because that is the way the Government see everything. Presumably they will pay doctors more for performing more operations in a day; doctors will then be encouraged to take shorter operations which can be conducted more quickly. That is how the system works.
Thank God there are many of us in this country who still do not believe in such a system but believe in putting our best into the community and accepting the remuneration that goes with it. It would be a very sad day if every local authority were to copy Westminster.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I, too, should like to support the amendment because I feel that payment by results in this case could well lead to misuse of the powers of traffic wardens employed by local authorities.
When my noble friend answers the debate I wonder whether he will let the House know whether those who tow away vehicles because they are parked in the wrong place rather than clamping them or issuing penalty tickets at meters are likely to be paid for the number of vehicles they remove.
On a rather different point, can my noble friend tell the House what would happen if the amendment is not accepted, in the case of an operator who is paid by
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results and who accidentally makes a mistake and issues a ticket or tows away a vehicle when patently he ought not to have done and the owner is able to prove that? Will the amount he was paid for removing the vehicle be deducted from his salary?
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): My Lords, since I put my name to the amendment perhaps I may say two words in support of it. I support all that my noble friend Lord Monson said on the general principle. In particular, I support the amendment because I believe that this method of remuneration adds to the problems experienced by orange badge holders trying to park their vehicles.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I should also like to support the amendment from these Benches, having put my name to it. If the Minister were to accept the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, and give an undertaking that instructions will be issued by the Department of Transport to local authorities that that should not be the method of payment—
Lord Renton: My Lords, I am sorry if I gave the impression of there being instructions. I did not say "instructions". I said that the department should write to local authorities, in other words implying that it should give advice.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that clarification. If the Department of Transport were even to give an indication that this was something of which it disapproved we might go away happier. Otherwise, the matter needs to appear on the face of the Bill.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, I was slightly confused by the noble Viscount, Lord Mountgarret. He seemed to begin by supporting the principle that people should not be paid by results and then came down against the amendment.
I draw noble Lords' attention to the wording of the amendment. I have no objection to people being paid on the basis of doing a good job and ensuring that the law is obeyed, but the amendment is very specific. It says that people should not be paid on a basis:
"which relates remuneration to the number of penalty charge notices issued".
It is that which is offensive. People start to spread such notices around like confetti in order to improve their wages. That is the truly offensive aspect. As the noble Lord, Lord Monson, has rightly pointed out, it encourages all sorts of dubious practices by traffic wardens, who are, after all, not the most well loved of people, contrary to the other group of people to whom the noble Lord, Lord Renton, referred. They need to have a rather better image for the public. If the public have the impression that they slap notices on cars at the slightest provocation, their standing in the eyes of the motorist will go down even further.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, is the noble Lord suggesting in his last statement that parking attendants put notices on cars before drivers are in default?
Lord Tordoff: No, my Lords, I am not, but I am suggesting that the impression is given that people are

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being harassed by meter readers—the people with yellow hats on. That image will he reinforced if people realise that parking attendants are paid according to the number of notices that they distribute.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, with the except ion of my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes, practically all of your Lordships who have taken part in the debate have accepted that it would be undesirable for people whose job it is to enforce regulations to be paid by results or given a bonus for productivity. as my noble friend Lady Gardner described it. Generally speaking, your Lordships regard that as a dangerous idea which might be very unpopular with the motorist.
The question on which I admit that I have a more open mind is that on which the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, touched; namely, whether legislation by way of amendment to the Bill is the right way of dealing with the matter. It would be clear-cut and definite and would give a proper indication of the views of Parliament. On the other hand, I share to some extent the dislike of my noble friend Lord Renton for legislating on every detail. To my mind, therefore, it comes down to what line the Minister will take. If he is prepared to say that he will give—I use the word deliberately—guidance to local authorities to point out that this would be a thoroughly undesirable system and that, if they use it, they would do so against the disapproval of the department, that might clear most of our apprehensions. Therefore, everything—certainly the way that I would vote if there were a Division—depends on my noble friend's reply.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, we have had an interesting short debate on this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, warned us that he was not content with the reply that I gave on Report and he has duly come back with this amendment on Third Reading.
I have listened carefully to what has been said today about the possible dangers for drivers and owners if local authority parking attendants are paid partly on a salaried basis and partly on a commission basis. However, I must reiterate the view that I expressed on Report and say that the Government do not believe that i1 is for legislation to tie the hands of the local authorities in matters such as these. If that means that local authorities or their contractors see the need to offer an incentive to parking attendants as part of their salary, that will be entirely a matter for them. The Government have no business interfering with such contractual arrangements. Incentives may be a good thing in terms of the need to control parking. At the end of the day, however, effectiveness must be mean red by improved parking compliance, not simply by the number of tickets issued. My noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes made the point, but it has not come out in other speeches this afternoon, that, although many people curse parking attendants for giving them tickets, many other people are grateful
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to them. If turnover takes place at parking meters as it is intended to, we all stand a better chance of finding a parking place when we look for one.
Under the terms of the Bill, the local authorities will have full responsibility for enforcing the new local authority parking controls. They will be responsible for the consequences of that action whether they employ their own parking attendants or use attendants employed by a contractor. The local authority is responsible for the persons whom it employs. The contractor is an agent of the local authority and will be responsible to the local authority for the actions of its employees. All parking attendants will act under the instructions of their respective employers. It will be the responsibility of those employers to issue instructions to their employees as to how they carry out their duties under the Bill. The contractors will obviously wish their people to comply with what the local authority instructs, otherwise the contract will be lost. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, said, that is a powerful incentive. Attendants who fail to comply with instructions, whether they are directly employed by the local authority or contracted, will ultimately be liable to dismissal.
Parking enforcement practices are not matters for legislation, but for education and training. As such, they are more appropriate to be covered in the Secretary of State's parking guidance. In due course the London authorities may decide upon a code of practice for parking enforcement. That would be a welcome move. I can assure the House that the need for local authorities to exercise effective management of parking enforcement and the need for adequate training for the attendants who will enforce the new parking controls will be addressed in the Secretary of State's parking guidance under the Bill. Coverage of those issues will ensure that the attendants act with tact and sensitivity in the same way as the police are required to. That point was of particular concern to the noble Lord, Lord Monson, at earlier stages and was raised again this afternoon by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter.
I can also reiterate that the Government are against any abuse of powers by parking attendants, either now or in the future. We accept that there is a need to guard against over-zealousness. Provisions in the Bill do that. They provide for aggrieved motorists to make representations to the relevant local authority and, if they are not satisfied with the response that they receive, to appeal to a parking adjudicator to have that abuse rectified. The adjudicators will provide the objective and independent assessments to which the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, referred on Report. I do not think that it is any good the noble Lord saying that people will not be bothered to do that. That is not true. They will do so, especially if debates such as that which has taken place in your Lordships' House this afternoon raise some of the difficulties that have been experienced.
In keeping with the theme of incentives, there are two further measures in the Bill for a local authority to make sure that parking attendants get it right. First, Clause 72(18) of the Bill requires the joint committee

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of London authorities to publish its annual report on the discharge by the parking adjudicators of their functions. Thus, abuse of the kind described this afternoon will come to light and in a public manner.
Secondly, Clause 72(12) (i) of the Bill provides for the Secretary of State to make regulations which will in particular make provision for the award of costs by parking adjudicators in relation to proceedings before them. If parking attendants abuse their powers and treat motorists in an unfair manner and those motorists use the representations and appeals procedures, parking adjudicators will be able to award against the local authority the costs of bringing the appeal. That point was raised by my noble friend Lord Swinfen. That will be a powerful incentive to the authority to ensure that abuse does not occur. I hope that it will also improve the image of traffic wardens, a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff.
I hope that that explanation will convince noble Lords that, although the Government believe that there is no place in legislation for the kind of controls suggested by the amendment, alternative provisions have been made or will be included in the Secretary of State's parking guidance to prevent abuse. In summary, the terms of the Secretary of State's parking guidance will lead to effective management and proper training for parking attendants and the representations and appeals procedures in the Bill will provide a safeguard for aggrieved motorists. Both actions will be backed up by the threat of adverse publicity and the award of costs of bringing appeals against the local authorities if attendants do not behave properly.
Lord Renton: My Lords, before my noble friend goes any further perhaps I may raise one point. Throughout the debate we have referred to parking attendants, but it is clear from what he says that his comments should apply also to traffic wardens, whose duties overlap with those of parking attendants. Does he include traffic wardens in what he says?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, both in the amendment and in the Bill we are talking about the new arrangements for local authorities to take over the control of parking in their areas. They will employ people who are known in the Bill as parking attendants and who will be to all intents and purposes, as the noble Lord knows, the same as traffic wardens.
My noble friend Lord Swinfen asked about the towing away of vehicles. Under the new system, that will be the responsibility of the local authorities. As I said, it will be for them to make the necessary arrangements.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, perhaps my noble friend will allow me to say that he has not made entirely clear in his answer whether people who are responsible for towing away or otherwise removing vehicles are likely to be remunerated according to the number of vehicles that they remove.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, my point was that that also will be a matter for the local authorities who are responsible for those areas. It will be up to them to decide what system to use. I hope that I have
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answered most of the questions and persuaded noble Lords that the safeguards written into the Bill and under the new arrangements will guard against the type of abuse which it is alleged occurs under the existing system but which will not happen under the new system as proposed in the Bill with its safeguards. I hope, therefore, that I have convinced the noble Lord that he should withdraw the amendment.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down he has given us a number of useful and important points but has not replied to one important question. He mentioned that the guidance will lay down that there must be no abuse. But will the guidance refer to this specific matter about which noble Lords are very concerned?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I did not say that the guidance would specifically prohibit the types of arrangements that might be made by the local authorities. I was quite clear in not saying that.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, can the Minister explain a little more fully? So far as I understand, there will be an ombudsman to whom one can complain, but how on earth would one prove such a case? These days one has enough trouble proving that someone has bashed one's car when there is clearly a big crack in its side. How on earth would one ever prove this case? It is all very well for the Minister to suggest that we do not need this provision in the Bill because everyone will receive one of the marvellous little guides, but to whom they will be issued? Will one be given to every motorist? Will they be available at every parking place? It all sounds very glib and easy but I suggest that in practice it will be very difficult to implement.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, clearly, as in everything, mistakes are sometimes made by parking attendants or traffic wardens. If those mistakes become obvious and the motorist feels hard done by he will be able to appeal to the parking adjudicator. The parking adjudicator will then decide whether or not that is the case.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, and the noble Lords, Lord Tordoff and Lord Swinfen, for their valuable support. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, for his support in principle, slightly qualified though it was. As the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, said, it proves that this is not essentially a party political matter.
I am somewhat puzzled by the quixotic intervention of the noble Viscount, Lord Mountgarret, who said that it was not for us to tell local authorities what to do. That view was echoed in a rather less intense fashion by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, and, indeed, the Minister. Do they also suggest that we have no right to tell police authorities what to do? For example, suppose the Metropolitan Police authority, the West Midlands Police authority and the Thames Valley Police authority had the necessary power and decided to pay the police—as suggested by the noble

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Lord, Lord Renton—not on an annual salary basis but according to the number of arrests that they made. How horrified the general public would be. I believe that I can say with all confidence that the Government themselves would be horrified. Yet, there seems to be no difference of principle. They both consist of people in uniform who have been given a power over the ordinary citizen. What applies to one should apply to the other.
I should have preferred not to press this amendment to a Division. The trouble is that although the Minister said that traffic wardens will be encouraged to act with tact and sensitivity that seems incompatible with the powers that they are given by, happily, the very few local authorities—I think that so far there is only one—which pay them on a commission basis. The Minister was asked from various quarters of the House to give an undertaking that the Government would encourage local authorities—they can do no more than encourage because they cannot compel them to behave—at least not to employ that method of remuneration. However, the Minister felt unable to do that. Effectively he said that the Government must maintain a position of neutrality. I do not honestly believe that that is good enough.
Let me repeat, payment by results on a quasi-commission basis would be unfair on individuals, would lower the esteem in which the police are held by the general public because of their association with traffic enforcement, would bring the law into disrepute, would open a door to the possibility of corruption and would constitute an abuse of power. For those reasons I feel that we must give the other place a chance at least to have a look at this amendment. If they reject it, so be it. I should certainly not dream of carrying it any further. I must test the opinion of the House.
3.45 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 92; Not-Contents, 99.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Airedale, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Ampthill, L.

Ezra, L.

Ardwick, L.

Gainford, L.

Attlee, H.

Gallacher, L.

Aylestone, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.[Teller.]

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Blackstone, B.

Grey, E.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Halsbury, E.

Bottomley, L.

Hanworth, V.

Brain, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Brightman, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Broadbridge, L.

Holderness, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Jenkins of Hillhead, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Craigavon, V.

John-Mackie, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Kinloss, Ly.

David, B.

Lawrence, L.

De Freyne, L.

Leatherland, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

434

Longford, E.

Seear, B.

Lytton, E.

Sefton of Garston, L.

McFarlane of Llandaff, B.

Serota, B.

MacLehose of Beoch, L.

Shackleton, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Shannon, E.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Shaughnessy, L.

Merrivale, L.

Stallard, L.

Milverton, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Molloy, L.

Swinfen, L.

Monkswell, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Monson, L. [Teller.]

Tenby, V.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Tordoff, L.

Munster, E.

Turner of Camden, B.

Nelson, E.

Underhill, L.

Ogmore, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

White, B.

Phillips, B.

Wilberforce, L.

Portsmouth, Bp.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Quinton, L.

Willis, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Wilson of Rievaulx, L.

Rea, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

Renwick, L.

Winstanley, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Wise, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

NOT-CONTENTS

Arran, E.

Kimball, L.

Astor, V.

Kinnaird, L.

Auckland, L.

Kitchener, E.

Beloff, L.

Knollys, V.

Belstead, L.

Long, V. [Teller]

Bessborough, E.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Boardman, L.

Lyell, L.

Borthwick, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Mancroft, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Margadale, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Marlesford, L.

Caithness, E.

Marsh, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Mersey, V.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Middleton, L.

Carnock, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Cavendish of Furness, L.

Morris, L.

Cayzer, L.

Mountevans, L.

Clanwilliam, E.

Mountgarret, V.

Colnbrook, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Newall, L.

Cox, B.

Norfolk, D.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Davidson, V.

Orkney, E.

Denham, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

Oxfuird, V.

Effingham, E.

Pender, L.

Elibank, L.

Plumb, L.

Elles, B.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Pym, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Reay, L.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Renton, L.

Ferrers, E.

Rodney, L.

Flather, B.

Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Strange, B.

Gridley, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E.

Harmsworth, L.

Terrington, L.

Henley, L.

Teviot, L.

Hesketh, L. [Teller.]

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Hives, L.

Trumpington, B.

Hood, V.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Hooper, B.

Waddington, L.

Howe, E.

Wade of Chorlton, L.

Ironside, L.

Wedgwood, L.

Jeffreys, L.

Westbury, L.

Jellicoe, E.

Whitelaw, V.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Wynford, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
3.53 p.m.
Clause 46 [Tramcars and trolley vehicles]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 43, line 12, leave out ("9,").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 3, which is a technical amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 4:
After Clause 46, insert the following new clause:
Applications for licences to drive hackney carriages etc.
(".—(1) Part II of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 (including that Part as it applies in any area at the commencement of this section) shall have effect with the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (1) of each of section 51 (licensing of drivers of private hire vehicles) and section 59 (qualifications for drivers of hackney carriages)—
"(1A) For the purpose of satisfying themselves as to whether an applicant is a fit and proper person to hold a driver's licence, a council may send to the chief officer of police for the police area in which the council is situated—

(a) a copy of that person's application, and

(b) a request for the chief officer's observations;

and the chief officer shall respond to the request."
(2) Where any local Act contains a provision requiring a district council to be satisfied as to the fitness of an applicant to hold a licence to drive a private hire vehicle or a hackney carriage, the council may send to the chief officer of police for the police area in which the council is situated—

(a) a copy of that person's application, and

(b) a request for the chief officer's observations;

and the chief officer shall respond to the request.")
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 4 in the name of my noble friend Lord Brabazon of Tara. The amendment is the result of the consultation which my noble friend promised during the debate at Report stage of the Bill. The effect of the amendment is that, when a district council has to decide whether an applicant for a licence to drive a taxi or a private hire vehicle is a "fit and proper" person, the council may copy the application to the local chief officer of police with a request for his or her observations; and the chief officer must respond to that request.
The significant difference between this clause and the one suggested previously by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, is that the onus to seek the views of the police rests with the licensing authority and not with the applicant.
This is an important subject on which I should like properly to explain the Government's views. There are three practical reasons why the responsibility should rest with the licensing authority. First, it is in the interests both of reducing the work load on the police and of maintaining the privacy of the individual. If every applicant were to have his record vetted by the police one could well have a situation where there may be, say, eight applicants but only one licence granted. The system then becomes clogged up with the police unnecessarily checking seven records. The Government consider that applications should be sent to the police only when a licensing authority is satisfied that, in all other respects, the applicant is worthy of a licence.
The second reason why the licensing authorities
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should retain the responsibility for checking records with the police is this. If the onus were on the applicant to send his application to the police and the licensing authority had received no observations within a reasonable period, the licensing authority would have no way of knowing whether that was because the applicant had failed to send his application to the police, whether the police were being dilatory or whether the application had simply become lost in the post.
Thirdly, if the application forms make it clear that the licensing authority intends to check with the police the information which has been put on the form, that fact will go a long way towards ensuring that the applicant declares his previous convictions when completing the form. That will be particularly so if licensing authorities decide to make the provision of false information, or of failure to disclose unspent convictions, a reason for refusing a licence.
I hope that your Lordships will realise that the Government, by moving this amendment, are very concerned about the realities of the situation which were so graphically presented from all sides of the House at Report—anxieties which I happen to share.
But I have to express a word of caution. It would be wrong for me to pretend that this amendment answers the immediate worry which has been expressed by your Lordships, and indeed by others. There are substantial difficulties in getting these provisions to operate immediately. They will come into force on such day as the Secretary of State may appoint by order made by a statutory instrument.
The practical reasons why the Government have been, up to now, reluctant to go down this road still remain valid, but I assure your Lordships that that should not eclipse a real will on the part of Government to overcome the problems. I am, however, anxious that your Lordships should not under-estimate them.
To start with, there is the question of the additional work load on the police. I understand from the Department of Transport that there are approximately 35,000 taxi drivers and 50,000 private hire vehicle drivers in England and Wales outside London. Most district councils renew their licences annually, so in theory we are talking of about 85,000 checks each year. Obviously the initial check would be the major one and renewals would require a check only on the preceding year. Even so, this is a pretty substantial increase in work.
There is no centrally imposed manpower ceiling on civilian staff, so forces could—again, at least in theory—increase their staff to do the work. The associations may agree in principle to such an increase, but whether they could, or would, find the money to finance it is, of course, another matter. Similarly, there is no guarantee that staff for this purpose would be regarded as a priority in every police area. If we are going to achieve a reasonable level of service it is essential that we should consult the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, the Association of County Councils and the Association of District Councils as to the increase in civilian strength and the general methodology which should be adopted.
Charging fees sounds an obvious solution to the manpower problem. However, I am advised that it would probably be unlawful for the police to charge a fee for fulfilling what can reasonably be considered to be a proper police function. It may well be that legislation could overcome that difficulty, but we would be breaking new ground and we think that it would be unwise to introduce the concept of the police charging for vetting, in the relatively narrow context of a Road Traffic Bill, without full consideration of the implications for all other kinds of vetting.
If the police had to make observations on applications for licensing without any additional staff, I know that the police service would do its best to do so. But I equally know that it is also being asked to meet the increasing demands which have been imposed upon it since the introduction in 1986 of the vetting of teachers, social workers and others who work closely with children, and since 1988 of health workers too. Without limitless resources it would have to pick its priorities—and without limitless resources backlogs would grow. Already we have received complaints about the backlogs being too great.
We are of course not just considering the capacity of the police to check a record but also—and this is vital—the capacity of the system both to cope with a large increase in demand and the ability of the staff to keep the information in the system up-to-date. Obviously, the results of the checks when they are made must be accurate and prompt.
Recently a Home Office scrutiny was made of criminal records. It states quite clearly that the present records are fragmented, that they differ from force to force and that they vary greatly in quality. The scrutiny recommends that there should be a central computerised system of recording criminal offences. That should be based on a general agreement as to which records should be included and what procedures should be followed in disclosing them. The scrutiny states that until then no new categories of vetting should be added to those which have already been agreed. I am bound to tell your Lordships that the introduction of this new clause is directly contrary to the advice which the scrutiny offers.
The Government have not yet reached decisions on the recommendation in the scrutiny, but the acceptance of this amendment means that very careful consideration will need to be given to seeing how we can overcome the deficiencies which exist in the present system—or at least how we can reduce them—before the new central computerised system comes into operation.
In advising licensing authorities and the police on the implementation of this amendment, the Home Office would wish to ensure that the standard of vetting throughout the country is reasonably consistent. We need to be as sure as we can be that all members of the public are receiving broadly the same standard of service. That is obvious but it will be necessary to consult licensing authorities in the hope of reaching agreement on matters such as how far back the checks should be made, whether certain types of conviction may be ignored for the purpose of these
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licences and whether other types of conviction should mean automatic refusal. These are matters on which there is a wide variation of opinion.
We must also bear in mind that a force may have no record of an applicant's wrong-doing. However, the applicant may have recently moved from an area where the police force had a record of his wrong-doing. There is no way of checking this at present other than by individual contact with other forces. An applicant may, therefore, receive a clean bill of health from his own police force which would be totally misleading to the licensing authority.
Those offences which are recorded centrally are held on microfiche at the National Identification Bureau at New Scotland Yard. As regards those who have first come to notice since 1st January 1981 conviction details are held on the police national computer. But the work associated with —to use the awful jargon word—inputting the convictions onto computer means that the record is about three months behind the facts. A clean bill of health from this source might not indicate therefore what had happened to the applicant in the past three months.
Those are the problems. I felt bound to rehearse them to your Lordships in some detail because it may easily appear that the Government are just not interested in going down this path. I was acutely aware of the general and legitimate anxieties that were expressed on Report. We have tabled this amendment which I hope will go some way towards meeting the immediate worries. However, for the reasons that I have stated, it will not be possible to bring the new clause into force immediately. It will be possible to bring the provision into force by a commencement order by the Secretary of State. I beg to move.
4 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I welcome the noble Earl to our debate. However, I did not welcome everything that he said. When I saw the new clause on the Marshalled List, I was enormously encouraged. I then heard the noble Earl's reservations. He appeared to say that massive problems arise to the extent that the Minister will introduce the proposals when he thinks appropriate. In view of the weight of the objections adduced by the noble Earl I infer from that comment that if the Government were to remain in power, that might be never.
I wish to pay tribute to noble Lords who participated in the debate on Report, in particular to my noble friend Lady Hollis who is abroad. Her persistence and eloquence and her probing of this issue has been invaluable in developing the opinions of the House and in creating some change of heart on the part of the Government. As has been mirrored by the noble Earl's comments, it appears that the Government have been markedly reluctant to act for a long period of time. Indeed, in reply to a Question tabled on 16th May the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, said that he could not promise to do anything immediately. That is now manifestly plain.
There has been little reason to be optimistic about the way that the Government have tackled the matter judged by ministerial responses in another place. Yes,

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the department was sympathetic. Yes, it had received many representations from organisations active in this field; for instance, the National Association of Taxi and Private Hire Licensing and Enforcement Officers; the National Federation of Taxicab Associations; the Association of District Councils, the Association of County Councils; the Association of Municipal Authorities and so forth. I wonder what view those organisations will now take about the halfway house —if it is as far as that—that the Government have offered to your Lordships this afternoon.
It is fair to say that on Report the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, promised to look at what had been said by a number of noble Lords in support of the proposition then before the House. He promised that he would take the matter away and examine it before Third Reading. He has honoured that promise and I pay tribute to him. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, or the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, will respond to the debate on behalf of the Government. I wish to know with whom they consulted following the debate that took place on Report and the questions that were asked. The noble Earl referred to the Home Office scrutiny team. Do I understand that the team still remains opposed to the proposal and that the Government have put forward this proposition notwithstanding that advice? Is the Minister saying that he does not believe that the scheme can operate effectively? That was one of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, when the issues were discussed previously.
Looking at the wording of the new clause, I assume that it is not intended that it shall operate in London in respect of minicabs. Why is that? If I am wrong, no doubt the Minister will put me right. Why is there a change of pattern or an inconsistency in the requirements applying to minicabs outside of London, and those within London? I can understand the position as regards taxis because there is a clear and precise way of invigilating people who apply for taxi cab licences. That works very effectively. Indeed, it works as effectively, if not more so, than anywhere else in the world and we should be proud of that.
Has the Association of Chief Police Officers relinquished its stand against this proposal within the past few days? Is the Minister saying that no new funds or resources would be made available to ensure the effective operation of the system and that it would be left to the local authorities to procure those funds, although here we are dealing with a matter which relates to policing?
I believe there is a deficiency in the proposal because there should be a provision concerning appeals on the part of people who may be prejudiced as a result of being mistakenly alleged to have a criminal record. I know that your Lordships who have practised in the criminal courts will know that in certain instances—and it is true that it is a minority—records of previous convictions have been mistaken. Therefore, it is right that provision of this kind should be accompanied by a power to redress the situation if that were to arise.
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The noble Earl said that this would come into force only upon a date appointed by the Minister as a result of statutory instrument. I believe he carefully chose not to give any indication as to the timescale which the Government have in mind. I sense that we shall have to undergo a considerable delay. Will that be a matter of months or years? Perhaps the Minister has decades in mind.
In the light of what the Minister said, I fear that there is a risk that the Home Office is seeking to negate the effective implementation of this matter by raising all those objections. I do not believe that that would be within the mood of the House. This is a continuing problem which has given rise to very serious anxieties on the part of many people. That has been reflected in the incidents to which the Association of District Councils has referred in its earlier representations to your Lordships. There have been serious cases of people who have not declared previous convictions for grave assaults against women, serious acts of dishonesty and major driving offences. Those matters will continue. The mischief needs to be cured with some urgency. The Minister gave no indication whatever of that.
If the Minister is concerned that there could be disparities of practice or that certain objections could arise, then it would be possible for the Home Office or the Department of Transport to issue guidance as to the way in which the provisions of the new clause should be dealt with.
I do not wish to appear churlish towards the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, because he has honoured his undertaking to the House to consider the matter and we should be grateful for that. On the other hand, if the effect of the new clause is to be so long delayed that it is hardly likely to take effect, then we have grave cause for concern. There are objections but surely the Minister can give us an indication of a timescale within which we can expect this provision to operate.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, has been exceedingly grudging in accepting the amendment. It may be that it does not go so far as many of us would wish it to go but it represents a significant breakthrough in the Government's attitude to the debate which we had on Report. I am grateful to the Government and in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, for pursuing the matter and to the noble Earl for bringing forward an amendment with the backing of the Home Office.
Noble Lords will remember that it was a powerful debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, is to be congratulated on pursuing the matter, as indeed are those noble Lords who advised the noble Baroness at that stage that she should not push the matter to a Division on that occasion. The wisdom of that has been shown by the fact that there is now an amendment which, although it may not go the whole way, breaks through on the broad front of the principle of the matter.
I was interested to hear the noble Earl saying that he had great personal sympathy with the reasoning

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behind the need for the amendment. That must go a long way in comforting those of us who wish that the provision could be brought in tomorrow but know that it will not be brought in tomorrow.
The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, is right to ask the Government to give an indication of the sort of timescale of which they are thinking in bringing this into operation, because it is a serious matter. People are at risk while this loophole is still present in the law where local authorities are not able to obtain the information which they need in order to issue the licences properly.
Also I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, that it would be helpful if this provision could be extended to minicabs. I understand that at present there is no licensing of minicabs and, therefore, that this provision cannot apply to them. Would that there were such a provision! That subject has been raised from these Benches by my noble friend Lord Winchilsea and Nottingham, who has pursued the matter at length. Doubtless we shall return to it. However, as I understand the position, this provision will not cover minicabs. If I am wrong, I shall be glad to be corrected about that.
Basically, the Government are to be congratulated, as is the House, on having done a good job on this issue.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I was delighted when I saw this amendment on the Marshalled List. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, that the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, seemed to be unduly ungrateful, or at any rate disparaging of it.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I was not disparaging. I began by saying Clinton-Davis that I was very gratified to see this amendment. I am concerned about all the qualifications introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers. He gave us no indication of the timescale which the Government have in mind.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I can only suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, that he reads his speech in Hansard tomorrow. If he does not regard that as disparaging then I am horrified at the idea of what he may regard as disparaging.
I was delighted when I saw this amendment because it seems to me to reflect, first, the great value of debate in your Lordships' House. We had a very impressive debate on the amendment on Report. I share the views of other noble Lords that that debate was admirably handled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, not least because she had the sense to accept the advice of those who suggested that she would spoil everything if she pushed the matter to a Division. Very wisely she accepted that advice, which has resulted in the present amendment.
The other encouraging point is that it shows that the Minister listened to the debate and allowed it to impress him. He then took the trouble to discuss the matter with the Home Office and this amendment is now before us. Perhaps my noble friend will allow me to say that that is an excellent example of good
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parliamentary practice and, although my noble friend will not thank me for saying it, I hope that he will follow that practice frequently in the future.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I too am grateful to my noble friend the Minister; not only for the trouble he took in negotiating with the chief constables and others to work out something that he could present to your Lordships but also for the candour with which he explained the difficulties and indicated that there may be some delay.
Perhaps I may refer to the problems in regard to delay. Naturally it passes through the minds of all noble Lords whether the provision will come into operation this year, next year, some time or never. I should think that there need not be too long a delay. In saying that, I refer to the two main problems mentioned by my noble friend. He necessarily referred to the fact that we must wait for the chief constables and other members of the police to establish the necessary administrative arrangements. That must be done, but should not take more than a few weeks or months. Therefore, from that point of view, there is no reason why the provision should not come into force this year.
My noble friend placed a great deal of weight on the need for the police to have a centralised computer. Scotland Yard already possesses a centralised computer for the more serious offences. As my noble friend pointed out, there is sometimes a delay of some weeks before the conviction and sentence passed by courts throughout the country reach that computer. But my noble friend wants all conceivably relevant offences to be brought on to the computer and that will indeed take some time. That would not enable the clause to be brought into force this year; it may be said not next year either, but I hope not.
I implore my noble friend not to wait for the computer. Every chief constable must answer the request from a licensing authority for such information as he has. The fact that he cannot obtain every single piece of information that eventually, in some years' time, might be available should not excuse the chief officer of police from giving the licensing authority all the information he possesses. If he does not have the information, that is too bad and some cases may slip through the net. But we must not wait a long time for this important clause to come into operation. It is an important piece of crime prevention. To that extent it will appeal to the police as well as to my noble friend and to all your Lordships.
The general secretary of the National Federation of Taxicab Associations happens to live at Huntingdon and, living only five miles from there, I know him very well. The members of that organisation are perhaps more concerned than even the rest of the public. The position affects their general reputation. Not only do they want this clause on the statute book—they are thankful that it soon will be—but also they want it introduced as soon as possible rather than waiting until there is perfection.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, like other noble Lords I am delighted with the amendment. However, I am

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extremely surprised that it does not cover London. This matter was mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Tordoffand Lord Clinton-Davis. I wrote to my noble friend Lord Brabazon asking what the Government will do in regard to the minicab situation, and the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, mentioned his noble friend Lord Winchilsea and Nottingham in that connection. I mentioned this subject when we discussed the London Local Authorities (No. 2) Bill 1990, introduced by my noble friend Lady Gardner.
My noble friend Lord Ferrers referred to a vast number of people—private hire car and hackney carriage drivers. However, there are 40,000 minicab drivers in London who appear to escape scrutiny. It has now been established that there is a need for scrutiny of taxi drivers and I should like to hear the Government's plans in that respect. Licensing of minicab drivers may be too cumbersome. However, a scheme existed, which it may be too late to discuss in detail now, for licensing minicab owners. I believe that scheme has a place. Can the Minister tell the House whether the Government agree with that scheme? Perhaps legislation which is contiguous should follow on quickly and perhaps be introduced at the same time as the arrangements made by my noble friend. We must face the situation in London.
Lord Renton: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down perhaps he will allow me to intervene. I am sure he appreciates that the clause refers to people applying for licences to drive private hire vehicles. Minicabs are private hire vehicles and, as I understand it, they will therefore be covered by the provision. If that is wrong perhaps my noble friend on the Front Bench will so indicate.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, to answer my noble friend, perhaps he will bear with me for a moment. My noble friend will see that paragraph (1A) refers to a "council". That is a licensing council and London boroughs are not licensing councils. In London the authority issues the licence. If the amendment said, "licensing authority" that would be splendid. However, I am afraid minicabs do not come under the provision, so perhaps my noble friend will respond.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I hope that it is in order for me to say that the clause does not refer to the metropolis, which has different arrangements. These provisions refer to what happens outside London and hence the reference to the "district council".
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): My Lords, my name was added to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, in regard to her amendment which made a brief appearance on the Marshalled List and was then replaced by the Minister's amendment. I welcome Amendment No. 4 and I hope there will not be too long a delay before its implementation. As a woman, as a mother with daughters and as a disabled person I consider the amendment to be extremely important.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I too support the amendment, to which I spoke briefly at Report stage. The sooner it comes into operation the better. At
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Report stage most of the anxieties were in regard to attacks on the person, particularly children and disabled people. I should have thought that anyone convicted of such a crime would be sentenced to a term of imprisonment. Therefore, the three-month delay in putting the records on the computer, as mentioned by my noble friend when moving the amendment, in all probability will have well and truly passed by the time the miscreant is released from gaol. There should therefore be no difficulty in that regard. I see no real reason for delaying implementation.
Several noble Lords put forward different suggestions, but let us not forget that the Bill must return to the other place once again. It is the right of the Members of another place to disagree with the amendment if they so wish and to table an improved version if the Government so choose.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, in welcoming the amendment I must follow the point made by my noble friend Lord Teviot and the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, concerning my anxiety in regard to London. Private hire vehicles, or minicabs to most of us, are not covered in any way. I was rather impressed and surprised in that I had not remembered the exact title of the Bill to license minicabs that I attempted to introduce last year.
It was revealed that there were about 40,000 minicab drivers. Not only do we not know whether they have criminal convictions, but we do not know whether the vehicles are licensed, insured or anything else. Quite a story has come to us about attacks on people who travel in such vehicles. I think that the amendment is to be welcomed, but there is still a huge gap in the provisions for London. The black cab drivers, with their expert knowledge, rightly protect their right to ply for hire, which applies nowhere else in the country. But because they are so protective of the valuable interests that they have, they are leaving Londoners exposed to the great weakness of the other 40,000 or more minicabs in which passengers have no protection whatever. That causes concern.
I ask my noble friend whether subsection (2) of the new clause—namely,
"Where any local Act contains a provision requiring a district council"—
means that if in due course we have an Act for London which licenses minicabs or private hire vehicles, all the provisions will automatically come into force or whether certain provisions will still have to be dealt with by primary legislation.
4.30 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, for being kind enough to welcome me to the proceedings on the Bill. He said how enormously happy he was when he saw that the amendment had been put down. But the more he listened to what I had to say the more unhappy he became. I am sorry about that. It shows the trouble that one can get in to when one tries to be as frank and open as possible. Many people believe that noble Lords should make short speeches and I am one of those, but it is quite different when it applies to oneself. I deliberately made my speech longer today,

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which I knew would antagonise many of your Lordships. I made the speech longer in order to cover the points of anxiety which were expressed.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, because he congratulated the Government. My feathers rose a little, but I appreciated his help. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, said that the Government had been reluctant to go down this route. It was not a reluctance arising from a wish not to follow the route but because of the physical ability to do so. That is the reason why I spent a certain amount of time in my opening speech trying to explain what the complications were, not why we were not minded to go down a certain route. I hope that the noble Lord will relax a little and realise that we are trying to meet his concerns and those expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis.
The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, said that he believed the amendment might not come into operation for a few months, a few years or even a decade. I was trying to explain to him that the arrangements will come into operation under a statutory instrument made by the Secretary of State. That applies to every part of the Bill. If the noble Lord addresses himself to Clause 83 he will see that it states:
"The preceding sections of, and the Schedules to, this Act shall come into force on such day as the Secretary of State may appoint by order".
In that respect the amendment is no different to any other part of the Bill.
I have tried to explain to your Lordships that all our sympathies are with your Lordships and also with the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), who also expressed her anxieties. I understand those anxieties, the great problem is to find how they can be dealt with. It is all very fine for Parliament to pass a Bill saying that certain measures should be put into effect, but if the provisions do not work or it is difficult to put them into operation, that is another matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, asked a string of pertinent questions. I shall try to answer them. He referred to the scrutiny team and asked whether we were going against its advice. The team was set up by the Home Office to look into the problems of criminal records and so forth. It found that a great deal was needed before the system could reach perfection. The report of the scrutiny team has been placed in the Library of the House for your Lordships to read. It states that no more vetting procedures should be undertaken until the whole problem has been looked at.
By tabling the amendment we are acting contrary to the advice of the Home Office scrutiny team. I thought that that might endear itself to your Lordships, but not a bit. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, said that we are seeking to negate the purposes of the amendment.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, no. I said that delay of a serious character would obviously negate the purpose of the amendment. I am hoping to hear from the noble Earl some kind of timetable that will prevent that.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord will find that I am coming to that point. In tabling this
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amendment we are going against the advice of the scrutiny team. That is being done in order to meet the concerns which have been expressed. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, and my noble friends Lord Teviot and Lord Renton referred to minicabs. We appreciate that it is a difficult issue. The fact is that neither the Metropolitan Police nor the London boroughs have the power to license London's minicabs. One begins with that premise. London's taxi cabs are licensed, but not minicabs. In the amendment we are trying to assist the licensing system for minicabs and improve it in England and Wales. Minicabs have been licensed since 1976.
We are not introducing a new regulatory system but improving the vetting procedures. The new provision will apply to England and Wales, but not to London for the reasons which I have given; namely, that minicabs are dealt with under separate legislation. We are funding a research project carried out by the Suzie Lamplugh Trust which is looking at the incidence and perception of serious crime in relation to minicabs in London. We look forward to seeing what it produces.
The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, asked whether ACPO has relinquished its stand against the vetting procedure. ACPO has been concerned only because of the resources involved. We have been in touch with the Association of Chief Police Officers and we expect to be so again.
The noble Lord asked whether new resources have been made available. I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the public expenditure survey round, but whatever it is, one cannot pre-empt the way in which local authorities spend their money. Even if the authorities had an influx of additional men, I cannot say whether they would prefer to put them in the field to catch robbers, to carry out other duties or to check records. That must be a matter for the local authorities. That is the reason why we wanted to consult with the Association of County Councils, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and the association of London district councils. We want to find out what their priorities are: what questions they want asked, what answers they expect to receive and how it can all best be done in order that the Association of Chief Police Officers will be able to respond correctly.
The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, referred to an appeal procedure for anyone aggrieved by a decision. Provision is already made for that in the general licensing legislation. The noble Lord and my noble friend Lord Renton referred to the fact that the provision is introduced by statutory instrument, and they wanted to know how long the delay would be. I cannot say how long the discussions will take, but it is our intention that the measure should be completed by 1st April 1992. That is the timescale that we have in mind.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, that is perfectly reasonable. But that matter was not dealt with in the noble Earl's earlier remarks. As far as I am concerned (and I believe also my noble friends) we would regard that kind of delay as perfectly acceptable, taking into account all the matters referred to earlier by the noble Earl.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, or stands up—I am not sure which—it would be important to put on record that a point that he made was not quite accurate when he said that the minicabs in London were dealt with under other legislation. The point we have all been making is that they are not dealt with under other legislation.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, if I said that, then that was an error. My noble friend is quite right: they are not dealt with under legislation; it is taxis that are dealt with under legislation. However, the vetting of London taxis is different from that which applies in the rest of the country.
I hope that I have been able to disarm those anxieties that were still retained by your Lordships. If I did not give that data at the beginning, I apologise if it has discomfited the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis. He will realise that one does not always shoot all the bolts out of the quiver at one time, and I thought that he would have been satisfied with the explanation that I had given him.
I would re-emphasise—and it is important to re-emphasise this—that this is a matter that the Government consider of great importance. We want to see it work, but we want to make quite sure that it works effectively and that one does not impose on people things that will not work properly. When my noble friend Lord Renton said, "Don't wait. Let the chief officer give what information he can give", I understand that. But he must also be reasonably certain that the information that he gives is correct and that it is not erroneous information. That is why we want to go through this as carefully as possible. With that explanation, I hope that your Lordships will see that this is a matter that we have treated with great concern and we want to see it work.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 52 [The Director's network plan]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 47, line 5, at end insert ("and to the needs of people with a disability.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 5 and, with the leave of the House, I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 9, 10 and 11. The House will recall that during Report stage the Government fulfilled undertakings given at Committee and moved a number of amendments relating to the needs of people with a disability. Upon further detailed consideration of those amendments, it has become clear that some of them were not always carried through to their logical conclusion. The present amendments therefore complete the process. I beg to move.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the Minister. I cannot recall whether there is any provision in the Bill—I think not—to deal with a report as to the nature of the activities carried on with regard to consultations of this kind. Will there be some annual report issued in order to inform the public of the organisations so consulted?
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I should like to welcome these amendments, and in particular my noble friend's efforts to continue to improve the Bill in this respect.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, it would be discourteous of me not to express satisfaction and thanks to the Government for these amendments which have been taken with the ones that were passed at Report stage. As noble Lords know, I have spoken at various times in recent years and recent months in our debates on the question of disabled drivers and the modifications and improvements that some of us think need to be made to the existing schemes.
I have been a disabled driver for more than 40 years, and in another place I was a sponsor of the 1970 Act that brought in the orange badge scheme. Then in the same year I found myself, as Secretary of State, responsible for bringing in that new scheme for the first time. When I was chairman for Scotland of the International Year of Disabled People in 1981 we were monitoring the orange badge scheme all over the country to see how it was working, and again made suggestions as to how it might be improved.
I thank my noble friend for what has been done in this Bill, because in the early stages I was told that it might be difficult to do very much during the Bill as we were awaiting the replacement scheme for disabled drivers to replace the orange badge scheme, whereby the orange badge will be abolished and each individual disabled driver will carry a document that will be a kind of passport. That will be the major improvement, and I ask my noble friend whether he can give us any later information as to when that scheme is likely to come into operation.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am grateful for the reception that these amendments have had. These amendments merely tidy up what has already been decided in the Bill. Unfortunately from the week since I last spoke on these matters I cannot give any further information to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, asked whether the matters of consultation would be published in any way. Under the Bill the traffic director has to produce an annual report to Parliament, and it will of course cover this issue of consultation and the measures taken regarding the disablement provisions in the Bill. I hope with those assurances that the House will approve this amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
4.45 p.m.
Clause 54 [The Director's trunk road local plans]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 50, line 12, leave out ("their") and insert ("the").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment and Amendments Nos. 7, 8, 14, 17 and 19 to 21, which I should also like to cover, are all technical drafting amendments. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 55 [The Minister's trunk road local plans]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendments Nos. 7 and 8:
Page 51, line 3, leave out ("he") and insert ("the Secretary of State").
Page 51, line 26, leave out ("their") and insert ("the").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 58 [Variation of local plans]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendments Nos. 9 and 10:
Page 53, line 40 after ("Transport;") insert:
("( ) such organisations representing the interests of people with a disability who may be affected by the plan as appear to the authority to be appropriate;").
Page 54, line 6, after ("Transport;") insert:
("( ) such organisations representing the interests of people with a disability who may be affected by the plan as appear to the Director to be appropriate;").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 60 [Intervention powers]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 55, line 31, after ("Transport;") insert:
("( ) such organisations representing the interests of people with a disability who may be affected by the plan as appear to the Director to be appropriate;").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Swinfen Lord Swinfen moved Amendment No. 12:
After Clause 65, insert the following new clause:
("Removal of vehicles displaying disabled persons' badge
The Secretary of State may make such regulations as appear to him to be necessary or expedient in relation to the removal of vehicles displaying a disabled persons' badge by local authorities or their contractors.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 12 in my name. We are returning to this subject for the third time on this Bill. When speaking to Amendment No. 2, my noble friend confirmed that local authorities who indulge in the practice of towing away vehicles that are parked dangerously or so as to cause an obstruction may pay their contractors on the number of vehicles removed. I think that is what he said. No doubt he will correct me if I am wrong. To my way of thinking, this makes my amendment all the more important.
The disabled fraternity have no objection to their vehicles being moved from a position where they are causing a danger or an obstruction to a more sensible position close to the position where the disabled driver left them. Bearing in mind the nature of many disabled drivers' disabilities, it is a considerable burden for them to have to go to the pound to collect their vehicles. Some of them physically cannot do it, particularly if they are on their own—and many disabled drivers are on their own. Added to that there are many vehicles specifically adapted for use by disabled people that cannot be driven by anyone else in their families because of the nature of the adaptations. This again makes it much more difficult for a disabled driver if the vehicle is removed completely.
No one has any objection to the repositioning of a vehicle in a safer and less obstructive position. The amendment has been drafted in such a way that it is not compulsory for the Secretary of State to make regulations. It is an enabling amendment. It allows him, should he so wish to make the regulations, to make provision for the necessary removal of a vehicle when security is involved rather than just traffic safety
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or traffic flow. This is a particularly important matter, reinforced by my noble friend's remarks when answering questions on Amendment No. 2. I beg to move.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I support, as I have done previously, the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, in part of his campaign. That campaign has been remarkably successful on the whole and the Minister is to be applauded once again for listening to the arguments put forward in our debates. It is a great credit to your Lordships' House that that has been the case.
The amendment is couched in extraordinarily wide terms. It could not have been made more flexible for the Minister. What I suspect the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, is saying is that, as the Minister on other occasions listened patiently to what the House said and responded to many of those concerns, we have confidence that in this regard—I qualify the praise that I may heap on the Minister by saying "in this regard"—he will use his best endeavours within the department to ensure that progress is made. That, in effect, must be the meaning of the amendment, as the Secretary of State,
"may make such regulations as appear to him to be necessary or expedient in relation to the removal of vehicles displaying a disabled person's badge".
The Minister will have listened to the eloquent pleas of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, and others. He has not so far been able to satisfy the House on the specific question of the removal of vehicles which display the disabled person's badge. One can only hope that on this occasion he will demonstrate that he is still prepared to come forward with a suitable provision, although I suspect that he will be unable to do so today. I shall not complain too much about that. However, I shall be looking for that general intent in the future development of policy in this area. I conclude where I began by complimenting the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, on his diligence and devotion to this cause. The whole House is grateful to him.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): My Lords, I support the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, has put the case very clearly. I thank the Minister for Amendments Nos. 5, 9, 10 and 11. They are most welcome and a logical follow-up to the amendments that he brought forward at an earlier stage. Like the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, I am delighted that the Minister has listened, reflected and given so much. However, the towing away of vehicles is a separate and important issue.
I am sorry that to date the Minister has not been able to agree with the solution put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen. In a letter to the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, dated 19th June, the Minister said:
"I believe local authorities have generally shown that they understand the needs of disabled people and I have no doubt that their interests will be properly served in this way. I am, however, happy to offer that we will watch developments closely; and, if the need arises, we will bring forward regulations necessary to ensure uniformly good practice on vehicle removals by local authorities and their contractors".

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That is very encouraging, but I should like to read from another letter which was written to me, curiously enough on the same day, by the director of RADAR, who is himself a wheelchair user. He said that,
"on Thursday 13th June I was parked at a parking meter on Jockeys Fields, WC1. My car was displaying a current Orange Badge and City of Westminster badge. In addition RADAR had also obtained permission from PC Moles at the local (Holborn) Police Station for me to park at Jockeys Fields. A message to this effect was placed on the windscreen. Despite this, a parking warden employed by the London Borough of Camden placed a parking ticket on my car demanding that I pay a fine of £30.
I think the above incident shows that Local Authorities do not always exercise the same discretion to disabled people as the police who do at least have a Code of Practice. If Local Authorities are granted powers to tow away vehicles it is likely that many Orange Badge Holders will find themselves stranded when Local Authorities remove their vehicles without considering the consequences".
That shows that the regulations are necessary with regard to local authorities and their contractors. Does the Minister agree that, unless the amendment is accepted, he will not be able to introduce such regulations until another Road Traffic Bill is brought forward? I hope that he will be able to make that point clear when he comes to reply.
Amendment No. 12 specifically does not cover the police. At Report stage on 13th June, at col. 1245, the Minister mentioned the need for the police to have flexibility in matters such as security. The amendment is targeted at local authorities and their contractors. As the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, said, it is only an enabling amendment. I hope very much that, even at this stage, the Minister will feel that we have got round any problems and will be able to accept the amendment.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I should like to add to what has been said by my noble friend Lord Swinfen and the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth) by asking this question. If the Government are not able to accept the amendment, or something equivalent to it, will they be able to bring forward a provision when the new disabled parking scheme is introduced? When I referred earlier to that scheme, my noble friend said that he could not yet give a date for its introduction. The scheme should help to eliminate the present concerns about the abuse of orange badges.
Of course, there are cases of orange badges being used when a disabled person is not a driver or passenger in a vehicle. There is also casual misuse, where a member of the family leaves the badge on or forgets to take it off. In some cases the orange badge has not been removable, although most of us have been trying to insist that it should be in a holder from which it can be removed when the disabled person is not using the car.
When the new scheme is introduced the badge will come out of the disabled person's pocket and will be placed in the car where it will be visible from the outside. The scheme will restore confidence which has been lacking in the past because of the abuses that have occurred. The introduction of the new scheme should transform the situation. When it is introduced, will the Government be able to bring forward a
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measure of the kind suggested in the amendment, or will we have to wait—a point mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth)—for the next Road Traffic Bill? I hope that the Government will have powers to bring forward regulations when the scheme is introduced. That will be the moment when disabled drivers' parking should be very much improved.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I support the amendment. I compliment the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, on his work for the disabled and thank him for moving amendments on my behalf at previous stages of the Bill when I had to be abroad.
I support the amendment: it is an enabling amendment. The phrase "necessary or expedient" is desirable. In certain parts of central London—Camden, Westminster and possibly Kensington and Chelsea—a different type of disabled parking scheme has to be operated from the orange badge scheme; otherwise there would not be enough parking places to enable orange badge holders in general to use them. Those areas hope that when the Bill becomes law they may be able to make greater provision for disabled people. I hope that they will.
Without doubt the problems in some areas of London are different in terms of traffic congestion. The phrase "necessary or expedient" means that the amendment takes into account both the needs of the disabled and the traffic situation in the area in question. It would mean that if such a vehicle had to be removed at least someone would be there to ensure that the disabled person reached home safely. There would be ways of dealing with the problem other than by stating that such a vehicle must never be towed away no matter where it is. This is a good amendment. I hope that my noble friend the Minister can accept it.
Lady Kinloss: My Lords, I support the amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, said, no one would mind his vehicle being towed away a short distance. I beg, however, that it should still be in sight of the disabled person who may well be in a wheelchair. Would it not be possible to put a note on the windscreen to explain to the disabled person why he should not park there and to warn him not to do so again? Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, that my husband has just been given an orange badge by North Yorkshire County Council. It has supplied a plastic pocket so that we can take out the badge when he is not in the car.
5 p.m.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, we discussed at earlier stages the general issue of the removal of vehicles displaying an orange badge. I appreciate that the question of removals by local authorities and their contractors, the subject of the present amendment, was a matter of anxiety. I fully accept that, where local authorities assume control of parking enforcement in their areas, we must ensure that they are no less sensitive than the police towards the needs of disabled people. I accept, too, that guidance is needed to guarantee that.

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Noble Lords may recall that, following amendments introduced at Report stage, provision was made in Clause 62 of the Bill for the Secretary of State's parking guidance to have regard for the needs of people. with a disability. As the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), said, I have written to my noble friend Lord Swinfen on the subject. I am glad to repeat now an undertaking which I have already given to him. The Secretary of State's parking guidance will set out for local authorities clear criteria which will provide the same level of safeguards for disabled people. as are offered by the Metropolitan Police guidelines. I believe that local authorities have generally shown that they understand the needs of disabled people. I have no doubt that their interests will be properly served by proceeding in this way.
In fact, I can go further than that: I can assure the House that we shall watch developments closely. That is what the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), asked me to do, and I can give that undertaking. The noble Baroness gave us an example of where the present arrangements went wrong. However, I was glad to hear that the car was not actually towed away but merely had a ticket put on it. Of course, that is a matter which could be taken up in future with the parking adjudicator.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, he is paid by results!
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, says that the adjudicator is paid by results. Of course, as I understand it, the incident took place in the Socialist-controlled borough of Camden. I should have thought that nothing much could go wrong there. However, in that particular incident evidently it did.
Perhaps I may now return to the substance of the amendment. If the need arises, we will bring forward regulations to ensure uniformly good practice on vehicle removals by local authorities and their contractors. We do not need primary legislation to do that. The Secretary of State already has, under paragraph 33 of Schedule 4 to the Bill, the power to make just the sort of regulations which this amendment seeks. I hope that that answers the questions put by noble Lords, especially those from my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy. I would not necessarily say that we need to wait for the orange badge scheme to come into force for such regulations; if there is a problem, we can bring in regulations.
With those assurances I hope that my noble friend will realise that the amendment is unnecessary and that there is no question of local authorities ignoring, or being allowed to ignore, the interests of disabled people. In the circumstances, I hope that he will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I should like to thank all those speakers who have taken part in this short debate in support of my amendment. However, it is clear From what my noble friend the Minister said—and who am I to disagree with him, I am not a lawyer? —that it is his opinion that the powers in the Bill will meet the aim that I seek to achieve. I am also pleased
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to note that he said he will be keeping the matter under review so that, if necessary, regulations may be brought forward at a later stage. I am most grateful to him. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 66 [Recovery of vehicles or of proceeds of disposal]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 59, line 20, at end insert ("or, where paragraph (b) (ii) applies, as may be prescribed.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a technical amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 71 [Appeals to parking adjudicator in relation to decisions under section 70]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 63, line 42, after ("(6)") insert ("(b)").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Permitted and special parking areas outside London]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 79, line 11, at end insert:
("( ) with respect to the whole, or any part, of their area, by a regional or islands council in Scotland;").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment I shall, with the leave of the House, speak also to Amendments Nos. 16 and 18. These amendments seek to make provisions for the new local authority parking regime in London to be available to local authorities in Scotland, in the same way that they will be available to other authorities in England and Wales.
The Government did not bring forward amendments on Report seeking this wider application primarily because there was no clear indication of wide demand from the local roads authorities in Scotland, but that evidence is now available. For example, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has recently received an expression of strong support from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. We should have been pleased to accept the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, but for some minor technical difficulties with them. We have overcome these difficulties through drafting changes and these are incorporated into the government amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, has withdrawn his amendments, but I nevertheless thank him for his contribution to the debate.
The amendments which the Government introduced on Report, enabling appropriate authorities in England and Wales to apply for orders establishing decriminalised parking regimes, were widely welcomed. The Government are now pleased to make these enabling provisions available to appropriate authorities north of the Border. I hope that your Lordships will accept these amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for having rewritten the amendments in language which fits better into the Bill.

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The delay in putting down such amendments is unusual for Scotland. Indeed, the Scots usually keep up-to-date with such matters. I have received representations from Lothian and Strathclyde regions.
Perhaps I may put a further matter to the Minister, although I am not sure that there is sufficient time to do anything about it now. He has probably received correspondence from CoSLA in which the convention points out an odd part of Scottish law. I refer to the difficulty of enforcing regulations in respect of off-street car parks, especially as regards persistent offenders, because it is not possible to use wheel clamps. There are great difficulties involved in using other methods to deal with these people.
It has been pointed out to me that, if the sanction of wheel clamping cannot be used, it is difficult to tow cars away because the overhead space in many car parks is not sufficient. Moreover, there are also intruder alarms which could be set off in such circumstances. Is there any way in which the Minister can find out whether it is possible to use the sanction? I have been given legal advice through the authorities in Scotland. They have taken legal advice which states that wheel clamping is not possible in their car parks, although the sanction is frequently used in privately-owned car parks. Moreover, the car parks of businesses and hotels frequently use the sanction.
I told CoSLA and the local authorities that I would raise the matter with, I suppose I could say, "the fountain-head of all knowledge" in such matters. Therefore, if the Minister cannot do anything at present perhaps he will write to me on the matter indicating exactly what the position would be. Having said that, I should stress that I am very grateful for what he has done thus far.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I should simply like to confirm that, although Schedule 3 at present only applies to areas outside London in England and Wales, local authorities in Scotland have made it clear that it would be helpful for them to have similar powers. Therefore, I am glad that the Government have tabled these amendments in preference to those originally proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, though no doubt his aim was the same. I believe that he was right to accept the Government's draftsmanship. These amendments will be appreciated by local authorities in Scotland. It will give them similar powers to those which are to be given to local authorities outside London in England and Wales.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I am sorry that when discussing the extension of the power from London to the rest of the country at an earlier stage of the Bill we did not think of including Scotland. However, I believe that the man with the forked stick has been walking a little slowly with copies of Hansard north of the Border. Indeed, it was only at the end of last week that I received an intimation from CoSLA that people in Scotland felt that they had been left out. Like other speakers, I am grateful to the Minister for bringing forward the amendments, as will be the local authorities in Scotland.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their reception of the amendments. As the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, said, we did not wake up until recently to the fact that the Scots wished to have the provisions extended to them. I am glad that we had time to do so before the Bill goes back to another place.
The noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, asked about the use of wheel clamps at off-street car parks and the treatment of persistent offenders at those car parks. We debated that matter in relation to England and Wales at an earlier stage of the Bill. I hesitate to comment too much, but wheel clamping in off-street car parks is not covered by the Bill in England and Wales or Scotland. I am aware that Scottish law is different from English law in a number of respects. I had better take the opportunity which the noble Lord offered me and write to him on the matter in more detail. I have not seen the letter from CoSLA to which he referred.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 79, line 48, after ("council;") insert:
("( ) with respect to the whole, or any part, of their area, by a regional or islands council in Scotland;").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 80, line 11, leave out ("permitted") and insert ("special").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 80, line 22, at end insert:
("( ) section 129(6) of the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 (parking of a motor vehicle wholly or partly on a cycle track to be an offence);").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 6 [Parking penalties]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendments Nos. 19 to 21:
Page 104, line 18, leave out ("will") and insert ("may").
Page 105, line 46, leave out ("(2)") and insert ("(1) (c)").
Page 106, line 4, leave out from beginning to end of line 6 and insert:
("(d) the district judge shall serve written notice of the effect of service of the declaration on the person making it and on the London authority concerned.").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Schedule 7 [Minor and consequential amendments in relation to London]:
Baroness Gardner of Parkes Baroness Gardner of Parkes moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 107, line 33, at end insert:
("(5) In subsection (4) after paragraph (d) there shall be inserted—
"(e) If it appears to the local authority that for the time being it is unnecessary or undesirable to meet costs incurred in the provision or operation of, or of facilities for, public transport services or of projects connected with the carrying out of operations which constitute the improvement of a highway, the following purposes, namely—

(i) the construction of a new highway; and

(ii) the maintenance of existing highways.").

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the amendment seeks the power to apply parking places

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reserve account funds to all activities authorised by the Highways Act 1980 and the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. The amendment would allow that parking account money to be spent on new stretches of road, maintenance and improvements. The parking places reserve account is a special account in which a local authority must keep any surplus accumulated from its on-street parking operation. In the first instance, money must be spent on parking measures. If no further expenditure is considered desirable or essential, money may be spent on other transport, including public transport, or on highway improvements.
At the moment, expenditure on the creation of new highways and routine highway matters, principally maintenance, cannot be drawn from the parking places reserve account. Central London now makes a considerable surplus on parking operations. It is a handicap when money raised for one form of transport activity can be ploughed back into a limited range of highway or transport-related objectives only. After the Bill's passage, not just Central London boroughs, but many large authorities in cities throughout the country, will find themselves with a surplus in their parking reserve account after they have met all the requirements already listed. Controlled parking is spreading and the number of meter bays is likely to increase as authorities increasingly recognise the need to restrain the use of the motor car in the busiest areas. That applies throughout the country.
Many more authorities are therefore likely to accumulate larger surpluses in their accounts in the future. The reserve fund is a good way to fund new roads and road maintenance, because by using money from parking operations the user is paying directly for work from which he or she would benefit. The spirit of the proposed amendment means that the money may be spent only on the provision of new stretches of road and on maintenance, if no further expenditure—I emphasise this point because it was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, on a previous occasion—on parking-related measures, other transport or highway improvements is considered desirable or essential.
The amendment continues to limit the use of that money to items provided for under the Highways Act 1980 and the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. It is wrong; that councils should have money frozen in accounts and be unable to use it when surplus funds are not readily available and other sources of funds for maintenance are desperately short. I shall give an example. I asked a Question last week about Kensington High Street. A Kensington councillor informally told me that the council has to restrict use of the road because it is unsafe. The Minister's answer revealed that it was due to the covering of the London Underground tunnel which requires special reinforcement. It further emerged that the council is applying to the Department of Transport for a grant to carry out that work. If surplus funds from the parking reserve account could be used for that work it would benefit all traffic in London using what is a "borough" road. It is not a designated road. That case illustrates the
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need for the amendment. I hope that the Government will consider the amendment favourably. I beg to move.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I am pleased that the noble Baroness made it clear at the outset that the amendment applies to all authorities throughout the country. The heading of Schedule 7 reads:
"Minor and consequential amendments in relation to London".
That is not the fault of the noble Baroness; it is how the Bill is drafted. When I read paragraph 5 it became clear that the schedule relates to all parts of the country. I was deceived by the heading of Schedule 7. I always like to support the noble Baroness because she is so interested in transport matters and generally supports matters that I find I can support. I am afraid my attitude is the same as it was on the previous occasion to which the noble Baroness referred.
We naturally wish to see local authorities allowed the maximum freedom and flexibility in handling their finances, but I wonder whether the amendment is the right way to handle this matter. As the noble Baroness pointed out, Section 55 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 provides clearly how the surplus in the parking account should be used. As she said, it should be used first in connection with parking arrangements. It should then be used for the development of various aspects of public transport and for the maintenance of highways.
I find it difficult to believe that any authority could find it unnecessary or undesirable to spend any of the money in the parking account on aspects of public transport, bearing in mind that the Act relates to the provision and development of all public transport facilities, or on highway maintenance. I am worried that some authorities may see the amendment as an opportunity to divert money into the provision of new highways rather than to provide further parking facilities or the enforcement of parking regulations. The enforcement of parking regulations is important. I am trying to think of an authority which would find it unnecessary or undesirable—to use the words in the Bill and the amendment—to use the money on public transport facilities. I wonder whether every authority provides proper bus stops, halts, and seats. I am thinking specifically of the half-hourly service; sometimes I stand at the bus stop for a quarter of an hour before a bus comes along.
I understand the principle behind the noble Baroness's amendment, but I am concerned that it gives an opportunity to too many authorities to avoid doing some things that they should do and to divert some of the surpluses in the parking accounts to purposes for which the money should not be used.
Incidentally, I find it difficult to understand the difference in the wording. The Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 states:
"improvements of a highway".
Under the noble Baroness's amendment, the money could be used for,
"the maintenance of existing highways".

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I fail to see the difference. I sympathise with the noble Baroness but I am afraid I cannot give her amendment our support.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the Government have some sympathy with the suggestion that local authorities should be able to use surpluses on their parking revenue accounts for routine highway maintenance, provided that there is no need for further parking provision to be made in their areas. Section 55 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 already allows them to use such surpluses for road improvements within the meaning of Part V of the Highways Act 1980, but that does not extend to maintenance.
The first part of my noble friend's amendment could specifically encourage the financing of new highways from parking revenues. That would significantly widen the scope of Section 55 of the 1984 Act and the present Bill. The case for such an amendment has not been put previously to the department and will need careful consideration. I believe that the best vehicle for that consideration would be the Government's comprehensive review of local government structures and functions which is currently under way. I drew attention to that review when responding to a similar amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Gardner in Committee in relation to highways maintenance works and work under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. The current restrictions on the further use of parking revenues will be one of the topics to be considered in the review. I believe that that is the right and proper way to consider the widening of the scope of Section 55. In such a review, the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, can be taken into account.
I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw the amendment in the light of what I have said and on the understanding that the matter is addressed in the review.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. I was not able to move the amendment at Report stage because he moved one which, when accepted, ruled out my amendments. For that reason, I brought them back today. However, his explanation is clear. I thank him for it and I hope that when the local government review takes place this item will be carefully examined. It seems to me very wasteful for millions of pounds to be locked away, unable to be used, when other local authority needs are great, including highway needs. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.25 p.m.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass. I assure your Lordships that I do not intend to speak at great length at this stage, which I am sure will be welcome.
The Bill deals with safety and efficiency in transport and the House has accepted that these are important matters for government action. I should like to extend my thanks to all noble Lords who have contributed to
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the stimulating and helpful debates that we have had, in particular my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham, my noble friends Lord Boyd-Carpenter, Lord Nugent and Lord Renton from the Privy Council Bench, who were helpful and supportive on various matters. I also thank noble Lords opposite, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Clinton-Davis, Lord Underhill and Lord Tordoff. Although we have not always agreed on everything in the Bill, I believe that we agree that it leaves the House in a better state than when it came here. That is in no small part due to the friendly exchanges that we have had across the Chamber.
I also wish to thank my noble friend Lord Swinfen and the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), for bringing to our attention the important problems of people with disabilities and the issue of the orange badge scheme. My noble friend Lady Gardner has brought other important issues concerning London particularly before us and I hope that we have been able to help the situation. I particularly wish to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, who was kind enough to write to me to say that she would not be here today. She brought up the important issue of taxi licensing, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Ferrers for having been able to respond on the matter, I hope satisfactorily.
Part I of the Bill should make a valuable contribution to achieving our road safety target of cutting casualties by one-third by the end of the decade. There have been many suggestions for further improvement in addition, but the Bill has received general support during our wide-ranging debates at Second Reading, in Committee, on Report and again today. I welcome that.
Part II of the Bill addresses the important issue of traffic congestion in London which everyone agrees must be tackled urgently. We have brought forward a major package of measures to help deal with the problem so that traffic can move around London more easily, reliably and safely.
Priority routes will free London's main arteries and provide the opportunity for local benefits; for example, by improving facilities for pedestrians and taking speeding traffic out of nearby residential areas. The new arrangements for on-street permitted parking will enable local authorities to develop and enforce coherent parking policies tuned to traffic policy objectives. They will allow the police and traffic wardens to concentrate on their primary traffic controls. We should be particularly pleased that in this House we have extended those measures from London to the rest of the country.
I have no doubt that we have before us a Bill much improved as a result of our deliberations, which will make a major contribution to road safety and the reduction of congestion and pollution. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Brahazon of Tara.)
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, at the outset of what will be an uncharacteristically short speech, perhaps I may echo much of what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon. He has shown courtesy

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to the House throughout our deliberations, particularly to Members of the Opposition, over a Bill that has not been disputatious, although it has given rise to certain controversy. That has not essentially been on party political grounds, because we are all concerned to meet the objectives to which the noble Lord referred. But the problems of injuries through accidents on the roads must be resolved. The toll is high. I can only hope that the purpose of the Bill, as demonstrated by the noble Lord, will be fulfilled, although in some respects I have my doubts.
I also wish to mirror what was said by the noble Lord in paying tribute to those who have ventilated the concerns of the disabled effectively through our deliberations over the past few weeks. No one could have worthier champions than the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, and the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (deKnayth), who attended the debates with remarkable regularity. They have taken the trouble to put down amendments which have obviously made a great impression on the Government. From the Opposition I thank them both.
I also agree with the noble Lord when he says that the Bill has been noticeably improved as a result of our debates in this House. The Minister has played his part in listening courteously and diligently to the representations that have been made to him. He has done more: he has responded positively to the concerns which have been expressed. That is the job of a Minister and he has done it well. He has also accomplished something else. He has engaged in a veritable torrent of correspondence, of which your Lordships may not be aware. I believe I should place that on record. Some of the letters have been incredibly long and it has taken me a weekend to read them; but, nevertheless, I thank the Minister for his courtesy.
I wish to pay tribute to my noble friends on this side of the House as well as to all those who have participated from the Cross-Benches and from the Government Benches. They have made the debates civilised and interesting. I wish to pay a special tribute to my noble friend Lord Underhill who has revealed that indefatigable patience, moderation and comprehension on the detail of the Bill—that often eludes me as I am sure the Minister will be the first to agree—which characterises his approach to affairs in this House. I thank my noble friend for his contributions.
I do not intend to create any controversy after that welter of compliments. However, I must mention my anxieties about Part II of the Bill. I am not convinced by any means that Part II of the Bill will produce great gifts for Londoners. Neither the Bill nor the Government's policies generally reveal a cohesive and coherent response to traffic problems. However having put those comments on the record, I had better reserve any further comment on that matter for another occasion when we shall be in a rather more controversial and disputatious mood. The Minister need have no fear on that point.
I apologise for the fact that I have not mentioned the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, so far. He has almost single-handedly from the Liberal Democrat Benches—perhaps that is not the right thing to say on this
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occasion—put forward the point of view of his party. He has been persistent in his attendance and contributions. Except for one brief moment today when he ceased to be complimentary to me, he has almost invariably been positive in his contributions. I thank him for his contributions.
We all wish the legislation to have the effect that all of us enunciated from the beginning of the debates on the Bill. It is difficult to believe, however, that any one piece of legislation will have a truly dramatic effect. I hope I shall be proved wrong about that. I also hope that many will be spared the death and injury that is the fate of far too many people on the roads at the present time. That is a blot on our nation.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I echo the final comments of the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis. Your Lordships' House is particularly successful in its dealings with transport matters as we start from the premise that we are trying to reduce the number of road casualties and traffic injuries that occur. I hope that the work we have undertaken on this Bill may in some small measure have helped to achieve that aim. I am proud to have been part of that process.
I shall refer to the contentious issues first and then pay compliments afterwards. I have been critical of the red route proposals from the beginning, mainly because I do not believe they are comprehensive enough to solve the problems that they were set out to solve. I do not wish to cover that ground again but I hope that when the traffic director is appointed and the system is running, the Government will ensure that in the establishment of the red routes the maximum sensitivity will be paid to the needs of the areas through which they run. At a very late stage I have received representations from Islington where the pilot study has been carried out. It is quite clear that people in Islington feel their local community has been damaged by the pilot scheme.
We must all bear in mind that the red routes are not just arterial roads. In many cases they run through the heart of communities. London was originally a collection of villages which have been connected by main roads. I hope that point can be borne in mind when the regulations come into effect.
Having said that, I am pleased to have taken part in the Bill. Road safety considerations will always receive support from these Benches. I personally wish to thank my noble friend Lord Falkland for the work he did during the early stages of the Bill in connection with two wheel traffic. I believe the changes that have been made have provided some help for cyclists and motor cyclists.
Finally, I wish to thank all those who have already been thanked. I thank the Minister who has been courteous and helpful, as he always is in his exchanges on transport matters. He is always anxious to understand what lies behind some of our amendments and to understand their principles. I also thank his officials who are perhaps a more listening bunch of people than the officials in some other departments of state. Perhaps it is improper to express that view. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, for his

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kind words. I am sorry that today I stepped out of my usual helpful mode towards the noble Lord. Occasionally one has to let it be known that we on these Benches have minds of our own and do not always follow exactly what has been said from the Labour Party Front Bench. However, I say that in the friendliest way.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, who brings to these discussions an expertise that none of us can seek to emulate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, and others who spoke for the disabled lobby. They are greatly to be congratulated for having once again tabled amendments to a Bill in this House. It has almost become a matter of honour that hardly any Bill passes through your Lordships' House without the disabled being given more consideration than is sometimes the case in another place. In general, I wish the Bill well. I hope that Part II succeeds better than I fear will be the case. Certainly the other parts of the Bill are to be warmly welcomed.
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, although I did not achieve what I wanted as regards driving standards, the revised Highway Code to be published next year may achieve something in that regard. I am pleased with the camera provisions which should go a long way towards reducing the offence of jumping traffic lights. The provisions of this Bill and those of the new Highway Code should go a long way towards reducing the appalling road accident rate. I am grateful to my noble friend on the Front Bench for the way he has introduced the Bill.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I must start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, for his kind remarks. I have been passed a note informing me that in my absence my noble friend Lord Brabazon and the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, also made kind remarks about me. It is probably a good thing that I was not in the Chamber at that time as my head is quite big enough as it is, and I do not want to have to buy a new hat. With the help of many noble Lords, we have improved the position of disabled people as regards the Bill's provisions. I am delighted about that. The indication that has been given that a revised disabled person's badge will be introduced as soon as possible will help matters considerably. I know that the majority of sensible disabled people look forward to that day even though it is likely that a number of them who already have badges may find they are no longer eligible for them. I thank all those who supported my efforts. I wish the Bill a speedy passage.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am grateful to the four noble Lords who have spoken on the Motion that the Bill do now pass. We all accept that the aim of Part I is to reduce the appalling toll of road accidents and to reduce the number of injuries that are suffered on our roads. Although I do not claim that Part I of the Bill will achieve that aim on its own, I hope it will go some way towards improving the situation. Similarly, I do not claim that Part II of the Bill will solve London's traffic problems overnight. However, I believe it will result in a considerable
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improvement in the flow of traffic in central London. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, that we shall introduce provisions concerning the red routes with sensitivity, concern and, as the Bill says, after a great deal of consultation.
I am grateful to noble Lords for their kind words. I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons with amendments.

Breeding of Dogs Bill
5.40 p.m.
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Cinemas (Northern Ireland) Order 1991
The Paymaster General (Lord Belstead)The Paymaster General (Lord Belstead) rose to move that the order laid before the House on 15th May be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this order introduces amendments broadly in line with provisions already put into effect in Great Britain by the enactment of the Cinematograph (Amendment) Act 1982. The main purpose of the order is to extend the definition of film exhibition to ensure that exhibitions given by means of video equipment are subject to the cinema licensing arrangements provided by the Cinematograph Acts (Northern Ireland) 1909 and 1959.
As your Lordships will be aware, premises used for the exhibition of films require a licence from district councils. Articles 3 to 6 of the order deal with the control of exhibitions and make very little change to the present procedures other than to place them on an equal footing with the licensing of places used for public entertainment. Essentially, the councils, acting as licensing authorities, have a number of important roles to perform. Under Article 5 they have a duty to ensure that appropriate fire and safety regulations are enforced in licensed premises and Article 4 gives them power to prohibit the admission of children to film exhibitions which they regard as unsuitable for children. They also have the power to attach whatever conditions they think fit to a licence and the type of films shown to the public, their decision being subject to appeal to the courts.
The 1959 Act provides for exemptions from the requirement to have a licence for film exhibitions to which the public are not admitted or are admitted without payment. That exemption was intended to apply to non-commercial exhibitions organised by private film societies and charitable, educational, church, political and sporting organisations which might wish to show films from time to time as part of their normal programme of activities. As your Lordships will be only too well aware, experience in Great Britain has shown that that exemption provision was exploited by cinemas operating a club system in order to show pornographic films and to escape the limitations and obligations which a licence would place on them. While it is true to say that Northern Ireland has not experienced problems in

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that respect on anything like the scale of London, the order will nevertheless provide councils in Northern Ireland with additional powers of control over such clubs and the conditions in which films are exhibited should a problem arise at some future stage.
Articles 7 to 10 deal with exemptions and introduce a "promoted for private gain" test which qualifies the exemptions whereby it will no longer be possible to claim an exemption by virtue of the fact that the public is not admitted to an exhibition. The new test will ensure that the licensing provisions apply to film and video exhibitions given by commercial cinema clubs whose primary object is to make money out of the exhibition.
The move towards a more stringent licensing requirement is designed to ensure that the exemptions which Parliament originally intended when introducing the 1959 Act will continue. Bona fide film societies which are not run for profit and from which the general public are excluded, exhibitions for which there is no payment for admission and other non-profit making organisations that hold an exemption certificate issued by the department will be able to give film shows for which they make charges so long as the proceeds are devoted to the wider objects and purposes of those organisations. Those exemptions are covered by Articles 7 to 10.
Article 11, which deals with exhibitions on Sundays, introduces a new provision for Northern Ireland which regularises the use of premises on Sundays for film exhibitions. It also affords special protection to those engaged in film exhibitions who are required to work on Sundays.
Articles 12 to 15 deal with the enforcement provisions of the order, the significant feature of which will be the increase from £200 to £20,000 in the penalty on conviction for promoting unlicensed exhibitions. A further important new provision is added whereby a court will have power to seize the equipment used in the offence. As with the law in Great Britain, opportunity has also been taken to extend existing powers of entry to officers of the fire authority to enter and inspect licensed premises in order to check that there are adequate fire precautions and to see whether the relevant provisions relating to fire precautions are being complied with.
Article 16 deals with appeals. As in other fields of licensing, it is customary to grant a right of appeal against a decision of a licensing authority. The appeals provisions contained in the 1959 Act are re-enacted and extended to allow for the automatic extension of a licence pending the outcome of an appeal. The remaining Articles 17 to 19 define the meaning of promotion for private gain and give effect to the provisions of Schedules 1, 2 and 3 which respectively set out minor and consequential amendments and repeals. I beg to move.
Moved, That the order laid before the House on 15th May be approved.—(Lord Belstead.)
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, we welcome the order. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for having explained its provisions so clearly. I intend to raise only three points, which I have already mentioned to the Minister.
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By virtue of Article 5(3), the district council, in deciding whether or not to grant, renew or transfer a licence, shall have regard to the observations submitted by the fire authority and by the sub-divisional commander of police. We have no doubt that their observations will be given proper consideration. However, if a district council fails to do so, will the fire service or the police have any right of appeal to the county court against the council's decision apart from judicial review, which I assume would apply?
My second question relates to the safety regulations which the Minister described. Those regulations will be made by the department and relate to film exhibitions and the health and welfare of children attending cinemas. One would be interested to learn who in practice will monitor the application of the regulations. Will it be left to the police and the fire authority under Article 15?
My final point is also a short one. The licence having been granted, one asks oneself what will be the position if the licence holder dies during the currency of the licence. In particular, will the personal representative of the licence holder have to apply for a temporary protection order? With those few questions, on behalf of these Benches I support the order.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, before my noble friend replies I should like to raise a point relating to Article 11 and exhibitions on Sundays. My noble friend raised the question of exhibitions on Sundays, particularly in relation to the employment of persons working in the cinemas. I hope that the Sunday Observance Act 1695 does not impose tighter restrictions in Northern Ireland than would apply in Great Britain. I was pleased that my noble friend pointed out that the regulations regularised the position in Northern Ireland where cinemas are a particularly popular form of entertainment.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and to my noble friend Lord Lyell for responding to the order. I am also grateful to the noble Lord for warning me of the three questions that he wished to raise.
On the noble Lord's first point, the order does not provide any right of appeal for the fire authority or the police. However, I can assure him that not only has it been the tradition over the years in Northern Ireland for district councils to pay due regard to the observations of both the police and the fire authority, but Article 5(3) of the order lays a duty on district councils to have regard to the observations of the police and the fire authority. As the noble Lord said, there is always lurking in the background the possibility of judicial review, on which I do not wish to comment. However, it is important for me to underline that there is a duty to have regard, although there is no right of appeal.
Secondly, the noble Lord asked me who would be responsible for monitoring. It is not the police and the fire authority under Article 15, although, like the noble Lord, that was rather my conclusion until I took advice. Regulations made under Article 6 will make

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the district councils the monitors in their role as the licensing authorities. In practice that will mean the environmental health officers, except, I understand, in Belfast, where the council has its own licensing section which will do the monitoring for Belfast.
Thirdly, the noble Lord asked me about the transfer of the licence in the event of the holder dying. In those circumstances the personal representative of the deceased licence holder could apply to the district council for the transfer of the licence. Such a licence would continue in force until such time as the application for transfer was determined and thereafter, unless revoked, until the original date of expiry of the licence.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lyell for welcoming the provision in Article 11 on Sunday opening for the showing of films. I used the word "regularises" in my speech because cinemas have, de facto, opened and that puts the matter on a regularised basis. My noble friend will not be entirely surprised to hear that the 1695 Act has fallen into disuse in relation to Sunday opening of cinemas in Northern Ireland. Under the order it will be possible in law for premises to open on Sundays for the exhibition of films.
There was wide consultation on the order. Some 65 organisations were consulted and it is important that I record that there was no objection to Sunday opening from any of the consultees. With those few replies, I commend the order to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Access to Personal Files and Medical Reports (Northern Ireland) Order 1991
5.53 p.m.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 6th June be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the order makes provision for Northern Ireland corresponding to two Acts, both of which were introduced as Private Members' Bills in another place and piloted through your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff; namely, the Access to Personal Files Act 1987 and the Access to Medical Reports Act 1988. During the passage of both Bills, undertakings were given that similar measures would be brought forward for Northern Ireland. That briefly is the background to the order. As this is a harmonisation measure, I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I am brief.
Part II (that is, Articles 3 to 5 and the schedule) contains the framework for statutory rights of access for individuals to certain manually-held housing and social services records which are defined in the schedule and held by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and the Health and Social Services Boards. The principle of access to computer-based records is of course enshrined in the Data Protection Act 1984. Much of the detail of the statutory scheme for access to housing and social services files needs to be prescribed in regulations under Article 5. Before the regulations are made, there is an obligation on the
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departments involved to consult appropriate authorities and bodies. I assure noble Lords that consultation will be extensive and thorough.
Among the matters that regulations will provide for, two seem to me to be particularly significant in respect of the individual's rights to ensure accuracy in records relating to him or her. For instance, Article 5(2) (b) imposes obligations on the relevant authority to rectify or make erasures in records containing inaccurate information and Article 5(2) (e) provides for decisions taken by the relevant authority regarding access to or correction or erasure of information in records to be reconsidered or reviewed.
Part III (that is, Articles 6 to 14) gives individuals rights of access to medical reports on them sought by employers or insurers for employment or insurance purposes. The insurer or employer must have the individual's consent before applying for a report and the individual has a right to stipulate before the doctor supplies the report that he or she (the subject of the medical report) wishes to see it. The individual can discuss the report with the doctor and request him to amend it. If the doctor refuses, the individual has two options. He can either refuse his consent to the supply of the medical report to the employer or insurer or, less drastically, he can have a statement of his views appended to the report. There is also a right of access to a medical report in the six months after it has been supplied to the insurer or employer.
Much of what is in the order is regarded by those concerned as good practice. The order gives statutory effect to that and it has been welcomed on consultation in Northern Ireland. I therefore commend it to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 6th June be approved.—(Lord Belstead.)
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, on behalf of these Benches it is my pleasure to welcome this modest but virtuous order. As the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, explained, it applies to Northern Ireland the principles and detailed provisions of the Access to Personal Files Act 1987 and the Medical Reports Act 1988. I have read both Acts and the order faithfully mirrors their provision. However, I regret that the Northern Ireland citizen has had to wait three or four years for the order. I appreciate the need to protect the integrity of the Northern Ireland statute book, but I regret that the citizens of Northern Ireland have had to wait three or four years for identical rights to be enshrined in legislation.
My other regret is that the opportunity has not been taken to bring the law in Northern Ireland into line with the equally virtuous provisions of the Access to Health Records Act 1990. There is a growing recognition, and rightly so, that patients should have the statutory right of access to their health records as well as to their medical reports. I very much hope that the Minister will tell your Lordships that discussions are taking place with the medical profession and other health professionals and authorities with a view to introducing at an early date a statutory right to enable patients to have access to their medical records, subject to appropriate safeguards as provided for in the Access to Health Records Act 1990. Meanwhile, I

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welcome the order and hope that the professions in Northern Ireland will fully co-operate with the department in making the regulations under its provisions.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, I rise to support the order most warmly. I do so with some pride for, as the Minister so kindly reminded the House, it was from these Benches, in the shape of my noble friend Lord Tordoff, and originally in another place in the shape of my honourable friend Mr. Kirkwood, that we were able to demonstrate parliamentary leadership on these important questions of access to medical reports and personal files.
I believe that the Act deals effectively with those important areas in which openness is the remedy for potential misunderstanding and injustice. It is good to see it extended to Northern Ireland.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, I hope that we shall soon see the principle of greater freedom of information extended to health records. I believe that it is in those areas that one can develop the quality of life and the standards of administration which are so much needed in Northern Ireland. I support the order.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Prys-Davies and Lord Holme, for their reception of this order, which, as I said when I introduced it, is a harmonisation order. We are indebted to the Benches of the noble Lord, Lord Holme, for this legislation so far as concerns Great Britain.
Perhaps I may reply to the only question raised—the straightforward question put by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, of which he kindly gave me notice; namely, why the Access to Health Records Act 1990 harmonisation has not been included in the order. Both noble Lords hoped that something would be done about it.
This afternoon I can say that the Department of Health and Social Services in Northern Ireland is about to begin preparatory work on a draft order in council which will introduce provisions for Northern Ireland similar to those in the 1990 Act. Our aim is to have Northern Ireland legislation next year. I hope that we shall be able to achieve that aim. With that single reply, I commend the order to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

GATT Negotiations and Hong Kong
6.1 p.m.
Baroness Dunn Baroness Dunn rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is the current state of the GATT negotiations, particularly as they affect Hong Kong.
The noble Baroness said: I should at once inform the House that I am chairman of Hong Kong's Trade Development Council and a director of a number of companies involved in trade and services. Your Lordships last debated the important matter of the Uruguay Round negotiations on 23rd January, when the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, called attention to it. Many issues connected with those
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complex negotiations were aired, and this House was at one in expressing its hope that the Uruguay Round would be brought to a successful conclusion.
I ask this Question today for three reasons. First, since the last debate negotiations have resumed at the technical level and the American Congress has extended its fast track authority to the President. Secondly, at a time when we all rejoice at the decisive victory in the Iraq war, we may lose sight of the threat of a trade war. The risk of a trade war would be the inevitable result of another failure of the Uruguay Round. The implications—and this is my third point—would be far-reaching for Britain, the world and especially Hong Kong. At any rate, my experience in dealing with Ministers facing difficult issues is that it is no bad thing to prod them from time to time.
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade has facilitated the greatest expansion of world trade ever known. Its membership now includes 102 nations or territories which account for 90 per cent. of the world's trade. According to the GATT statistics, annual world trade in 1990 amounted to over 7 trillion US dollars, and Britain's trade amounted to over 409 billion US dollars. Since the GATT was founded in 1948 Hong Kong's trade has increased from a mere 1 billion to 164 billion US dollars. Hong Kong is now in its own right a contracting party to the GATT. Its negotiators actively participate in the wide range of subjects covered by the Uruguay Round. It firmly believes that it is in everyone's interest to see the GATT strengthened and world trade further liberalised by a successful Uruguay Round package.
Hong Kong shares with Britain a common interest in a successful outcome to the current negotiations. Like Britain, Hong Kong has an externally orientated economy. It allows unfettered access to its internal markets, and it depends on access to those of its trading partners. The GATT has been the cornerstone of its commercial relations policy and the guardian of its trading interests. As a result, Hong Kong has managed to climb from being a poor and economically backward entrepot, to a thriving, dynamic and broadly-based economy which now ranks 11th among world trading entities, and which gives Hong Kong a GDP per head as great as a number of European Community countries.
To me it is incomprehensible that such a demonstrably successful system should be threatened. Yet threatened it is, because the negotiating partners have been unable to reach agreement on many of the key issues. Four and a half years after the Uruguay Round was launched, it has become stuck on the mudflats. In the words of the Director General of GATT, Arthur Dunkel, it is:
"bedevilled by accusations, self-righteousness, mutual misunderstandings and inability to distinguish special interest pleading from the public good".
That sounds to me like the diplomatic equivalent of the death from a thousand cuts.
At stake is not just the round itself, but the whole system of world trade. In the absence of a package deal, the GATT system will be pushed to the sidelines; protectionist sentiment will gain ground; trade restraints under the guise of voluntary export restraints, orderly marketing arrangements and

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anti-dumping measures will increasingly be introduced; and the world will be drawn into a trade war with the United States, the European Community and others retreating behind separate barricades.
Such an outcome would hurt Britain and Hong Kong more than it would hurt the United States and Japan. For example, Britain's exports per capita last year in 1990 were worth 3,200 US dollars and those of Hong Kong were worth over 14,000 US dollars as against 2,300 dollars for Japan and only 1,500 dollars for the USA. Other Members of the House will know better than I how much poorer countries desperately depend on access to world markets.
It is not for me to comment on the merits of the Community's stance on agriculture in these negotiations. But I believe it is right to draw attention to the fact that farming accounts for less than 5 per cent. of output and jobs in the OECD countries. I do so because it was the inability to find an acceptable compromise on agricultural subsidies that caused the collapse of the Uruguay Round last December. Negotiations have since resumed, albeit at a technical level. I hope that Ministers can assure the House that when the matter once again comes up for high level consideration at the G7 meeting next month, Her Majesty's Government will use all their influence to ensure that the issue of agricultural protection is put in proper perspective and is not allowed to put at risk a successful outcome of the negotiations.
Unresolved differences remain in other areas where Britain and Hong Kong have a substantial interest, including services, anti-dumping measures and safeguards. I hope that in pursuing Britain's negotiating aims in these areas Ministers will work hard, hand in hand with Hong Kong's negotiators, to seek solutions that will maintain the integrity of GATT.
After four and a half years of discussion, time for a settlement is running out. We must be thankful that the US Congress has recently extended its fast track authority to the President by two years. That authority enables the President to negotiate a complete package for presentation to Congress rather than to submit each component of the deal for congressional approval. But we must not be lulled into a false sense of optimism by that; the longer an agreement is delayed, the greater the risk that it will become an issue in the forthcoming presidential election and the greater the risk of the package unravelling under pressure from the protectionist lobby. Can Ministers therefore disclose their timetable for completing the negotiations and assure the House that all parties are seized with the urgency? The United States and the European Community must be made fully aware of their pivotal position in the Uruguay round and their responsibility for its success or failure. It is time to demonstrate real leadership.
I have been at pains to stress the common interest between Britain and Hong Kong in a successful outcome to the Uruguay round. But the House will forgive me if I conclude by mentioning an additional reason why its success is so crucially important to Hong Kong. While Britain is in the throes of debating
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the benefits of sharing its sovereignty with its European trading partners, Hong Kong has only six years to run before one sovereign withdraws and hands over to another. The chance of that unique and awesome prospect working out well for its 6 million people largely depends upon the continuation of the remarkable prosperity that the territory enjoys as a successful trading economy. Loss of access to the world market would cripple our economy. Without a successful trading economy, Hong Kong has little chance of retaining its special value to China as a special administrative region, and that would jeopardise the concept of one country, two systems on which the Sino-British Joint Declaration rests.
Therefore an early breakthrough in the Uruguay round is of the utmost importance to Hong Kong in these years of transition. Whatever Britain's trading interests may be, and equal though Hong Kong's status is with Britain in the GATT, Her Majesty's Government in these negotiations must have clearly in mind their constitutional obligation to help maintain Hong Kong's prosperity, on which all our hopes for its future depend.
6.14 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I rise with particular trepidation to address your Lordships for the first time. One of my noble friends was good enough to seek to reassure me on the prospect. "Don't worry", he said, "the House is always indulgent and generous to maiden speakers. Whatever the maiden speaker says, he or she usually receives compliments". Then he added, "But it's what they think of you that matters".
I am particularly glad to have the chance to speak on Hong Kong, and especially to have the privilege of following the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Dunn. I have been lucky enough to know her for many years. Your Lordships will not need me to say that she is held in the highest esteem in Hong Kong. The noble Baroness made the point that a successful outcome to the Uruguay round of GATT negotiations is important both to Britain and to Hong Kong not only for trading reasons but also because there is now only six years before Hong Kong leaves the protection of the British Crown and becomes a special administrative region of China. It is on that aspect that I wish briefly to dwell today.
I believe that Hong Kong is by far the most important factor in Britain's relationship with China and is likely to continue to remain so for at least the remainder of the century. As many noble Lords will know, Hong Kong is one of those places which it is particularly hard to imagine. I first got to know it nearly 30 years ago when I was the Far East representative for the British chemical company, Fisons. I have been fortunate enough to visit it regularly ever since and for the past 14 years or so I have been able from time to time to write articles about Hong Kong affairs for the Economist.
It has changed out of all recognition during that period, except in one respect. The thread of self-reliance and entrepreneurial zest has remained throughout. It is not easy to understand what makes

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Hong Kong tick. Indeed I suspect that it is as hard for a Chinese from the mainland as it is for a European if neither of them has been a regular visitor.
I fear that today the political, and thus the economic, situation in Hong Kong is fragile. In the five years between the signing of the 1984 Sino-British Agreement and June 1989, it may perhaps have been reasonable to have put great reliance on China's economic self-interest as underwriting the success of the transition of Hong Kong from British to Chinese sovereignty. But that has now changed.
The top leaders in China do not themselves know Hong Kong at first hand. It is they, not the more junior officials who may know Hong Kong well, who are in the driving seat. Deng Xiaoping, who, although he no longer holds executive power in China, is most certainly the dominating influence over his government's policy, has, I believe, never visited Hong Kong. Nor, I think, has the Chinese Prime Minister, Li Peng. Both of them, particularly Deng, are deeply concerned at the political and economic instability which they see in the Soviet Union and which they feel to be a potential threat to the stability and integrity of their own country; and probably to their own political survival.
It was the first tremors of such instability which shook Tiananmen Square on 4th June 1989. Hong Kong shared the world's indignation at these events and showed it all too plainly. The result is that for China's leaders Hong Kong now represents a political threat rather than a potential economic asset. They view with apprehension and alarm the prospect of having to digest such an independently minded place and are worried that it could act as a focus for secessionist tendencies in southern China. That has been highlighted in the past few years with the increasing relative prosperity of Guandung Province, which has been described by some as the California of China.
I fear that sometimes the Chinese Government may now wonder whether the risk of one country, two systems is too great a price to pay for the economic benefits of Hong Kong and its capitalist culture. I believe that their fears are unjustified, first, because, as your Lordships know, open protest is usually a substitute for, rather than a stepping stone to, subversion. I am sure that the vast majority of Hong Kongers merely wish to be left alone to do what they are best at; that is, trade and business. Secondly, it is only in agriculture that the modernisation of China's economy has made real strides in the past decade. Progress in Chinese agriculture has been dependent largely on private enterprise.
Therefore, in the long term China must gradually absorb the benefit of Hong Kong's curious and complicated capitalist chemistry. It is not easy. That is why, perhaps, the attempts of China to turn its special economic zones into laboratories of capitalism have so far been rather disappointing. Had they been more successful the result might have been to make China less dependent upon Hong Kong.
The problem has been that China believed that the economic benefits of capitalism could be obtained by an appropriate mixture of capital, technology and
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management. It has never really understood the role of the entrepreneur. That is why there are now almost 2 million people on the mainland, most of them in Southern China, working for Hong Kong-owned companies. That is significantly more than the 1.4 million employed in manufacturing in Hong Kong itself.
Yet the management of many such enterprises—and I have visited several—still consists almost entirely of Hong Kongers, sometimes right down to production line supervision. If the Hong Kong companies were to withdraw it is unlikely that the enterprises would to be profitable and competitive. Therefore, there is a growing economic dependence of China upon Hong Kong. That has been reinforced since the check to foreign investment in China which followed Tiananmen Square.
There is one other aspect of Hong Kong that I venture to suggest merits your Lordships' attention during the coming years. The good government of Hong Kong, which has enabled the place to flourish economically since the war and to have standards of decency of which Britain can be proud, is not merely the result of the integrity and dedication of the Hong Kong Civil Service; nor is it due only to the participation of Hong Kongers such as the noble Baroness in public affairs there, important though all that is. It is that Whitehall, which has a direct responsibility for the proper conduct of Hong Kong affairs, has always been answerable to Westminster. In 1997 Peking takes over from Whitehall; but who is there to take over from Westminster? I do not pretend to be able to suggest the answer. It will, I am sure, have something to do with the introduction of local democracy and the responsibilities that that imposes.
As your Lordships will know, from September this year Hong Kong's legislative council will have its first directly elected component. Out of a council of 60, 18 members will be directly elected for geographical constituencies. Some might say that it is too little too late. Most of all, it depends on how we in Westminster, in both Houses of Parliament, are able to reassure the Chinese Government that in 1997, within a flourishing world economy to which the success of the Uruguay round must contribute, we shall be able to hand over to China a stable and prosperous Hong Kong with its people confident that their rights and liberties, in addition to their way of life, will be respected. I am grateful for your Lordships' attention.
6.24 p.m.
Lord MacLehose of Beoch: My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, on his maiden speech. I am sure that he was as pleased to deliver it as was the whole House to hear it. It was a most notable speech. His knowledge and fair-mindedness which are so apparent in his writings will be of great value to your Lordships' House. I am delighted that he has focused his maiden speech on Hong Kong. However, he is of acknowledged competence in a wide field of economic, political and social issues. I hope that we shall hear from him often.

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My noble friend Lady Dunn developed her Question in wide terms. She made a most valuable and thought-provoking speech. She remarked that from time to time Ministers should be prodded. As a former Governor who was often prodded by her, I can say only that Ministers should look out.
My noble friend mentioned two or three specific Hong Kong interests but she did not develop those. I wish to expand briefly on only two. I shall then pick up her valuable reference to the political implications of the Uruguay round on Hong Kong in its present political predicament and its relationship with China. That was so well commented upon by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford.
The first specific point is that a satisfactory agreement on textiles and clothing is of vital importance to Hong Kong. In January at the time of the previous debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, an agreement to liberalise world textile trade seemed within our grasp. However, it has yet to materialise and meanwhile the multi-fibre arrangement on textiles will run out at the end of next month. The uncertainty is highly damaging. Is the United Kingdom endeavouring to move the European Community to agree to an extension? If so, what prospect does the Minister see of success?
The second specific point is that no draft text has yet been agreed for a new anti-dumping code. On 15th June an article in the Economist, which I mention with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, described the present code as "already a protectionist's Charter". Our object should be to achieve stricter disciplines and clearer language in the code, in particular on determination of dumping and of injury. I understand that, on the contrary, America and the EC are seeking to broaden the code. I cannot believe that widening the GATT's scope for protectionist lobbies is in the interest either of the European consumer or of those who depend on the freedom of world trade such as the United Kingdom or Hong Kong. Therefore, will the United Kingdom stiffen the EC to resist?
I leave the specific points and return to the relevance of trade to Hong Kong's present predicament. Your Lordships' House has not stinted time for Hong Kong's affairs but in recent years trade has rarely been the immediate issue. Therefore, I am glad that my noble friend has asked her Question with particular reference to Hong Kong. In doing so she has gone to the heart of the matter because trade and all that accompanies it is the basis on which Hong Kong has been built.
The whole concept of "one country two systems", so well spelt out in the Joint Declaration, is excellent. It was an achievement by the Government and an act of statesmanship by China. But I wonder whether it would have been possible if Hong Kong had not prospered so consistently under the GATT regime or if China had not so wisely and rightly concluded that it would continue to prosper if it continued as a free port and a centre of international commerce. That prosperity could be made or marred by the Uruguay
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round in which Hong Kong is only one voice among many and naturally looks to the United Kingdom for support.
It is most timely that the political implications for Hong Kong should have been so clearly stated in your Lordships' House by my noble friend who, in addition to her other qualifications, is the senior member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I shall be very brief. However, I particularly wish to support the noble Baroness, Lady Dunn, because of the theme underlying her Question. Her persistence as regards this matter with at least one former Minister responsible for Hong Kong has had a belated effect.
Hong Kong is subject to enormous and diverse pressures. As my noble friend Lord Marlesford pointed out in his admirable maiden speech, Hong Kong is unique in that she has a peculiar development in her status in only six or so years' time. Many of the economic matters which underlie Hong Kong's relationship with China and worries about 1997 were addressed by my noble friend in his remarks.
Those anxieties are familiar to many of us who have been lucky enough to have a fairly close association with Hong Kong over the past few years. My noble friend mentioned representative government as one problem. There are others which are of much more local and immediate anxiety; for example, the Vietnamese boat people which worry me particularly. It is striking that only about two years ago I was in Geneva taking part in an inter-governmental conference on that subject. While matters improved after that, we now see a sad and debilitating degradation which affects Hong Kong in a very difficult way.
All those aspects damage and have an effect, to a greater or lesser extent, on confidence for the future. As the noble Baroness, Lady Dunn, said, trade has made Hong Kong what she is today. Up to 1997 and beyond, trading opportunities will allow Hong Kong to remain pre-eminent in the Far East as a gateway for goods to and from China as well as in her position in relation to the wider world. The figures which the noble Baroness gave in her speech say it all.
I always find matters to do with GATT extremely complex, and I cannot pretend to be any sort of expert on it. The noble Baroness explained the detailed arguments in relation to GATT affecting Hong Kong with great clarity. However, serious political consequences could follow from failure to resolve the current round. Those political consequences may be international but they are bound to have a more marked effect upon Hong Kong in her special circumstances.
Time is fast running out. I hope that my noble friend Lord Reay will accept that there are special features about Hong Kong and GATT which deserve particularly close attention; for example, textiles, safeguards, the GATT anti-dumping code to which the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, referred, and tariff reductions.

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As to solutions to the current impasse in more general terms, recent articles and commentaries point to the role of subsidies under the common agricultural policy being the one single issue which if resolved in a favourable way could unlock the problem. However, I realise that in Europe that is no easy matter, especially at present. When the Minister replies, I hope that h will address the theme underlying the Question asked by the noble Baroness; that is, the confidence for and of Hong Kong in her future. With her unique position, if Hong Kong is not adequately helped to retain her pre-eminence of trade, the very roots of her position are likely to be undermined and the damage very difficult to repair.
6.35 p.m.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, the House will recall that as recently as January we had a full and very useful debate on the subject of GATT. Nevertheless, we are greatly indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Dunn, for tabling her Unstarred Question this evening which gives us the opportunity of a short debate on an extremely important topic. It is important not only because of the central role which British Parliament must play in the years ahead in relation to Hong Kong but also because the question of GATT is one of the most urgent and fundamental issues in the world economy as a whole.
One could wish that the Ministers at the G7 meeting over the past two days had been as concerned with GATT as they were with trying to manipulate the short-term value of the dollar because it is in the liberalisation of world trade that we can hope for a re-animation and picking up of the world economy which is so desperately needed.
I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford. It seems particularly appropriate, given his connection with the Economist, that he should have spoken so eloquently on an issue relating to the cause of free trade to which that publication has made such a distinguished commitment over many years. On these Benches we share that historical commitment to free trade. It is a matter of great encouragement that the European Community—not least thanks to the efforts of the Commissioner for Competition Sir Leon Brittan—has resisted those siren voices which call for fortress Europe.
The real test for Europe lies ahead with the problem of the Uruguay round and GATT. Can the problem be surmounted, the Uruguay round fully resumed and the interests of European farmers put into perspective?
If and when the negotiations fully resume, in this country we must have a particular eye open for the interests of Hong Kong albeit that Hong Kong negotiates as a full equal in the round. After all, 80 per cent. of Hong Kong's manufactures are exported. As the noble Baroness reminds us, Hong Kong literally lives to export and exports to live. Therefore, I believe we should look out for the interests of Hong Kong in every way possible.
There is a natural tendency, even for liberalising measures such as the extension of GATT, to reflect the interests of the major trading blocs of Europe and the
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USA. We need to have regard to the developing countries and the strongly emergent parts of the world economy. Of course, Hong Kong is no longer to be classified as a developing country. The noble Baroness, Lady Dunn, reminded us of the formidable export record of Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a tiger, but even tigers need a leg up occasionally.
The noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, raised the one issue to which I should like to devote a few moments; that is the contentious and difficult issue of textiles. Hong Kong's position in the GATT negotiations is to seek "a meaningful liberalisation" of textiles. We should also want that in the United Kingdom.
We should recognise also that just as the textile industry is important to Hong Kong, so it is important to the United Kingdom. There are 500,000 people in the UK employed in textiles, which is not an obsolete industry seeking some sort of shabby protectionism but is a very go-ahead industry with a fine reputation and good products which is seeking a fair deal. It is not fair that South Korea subsidises its textile and clothing industries to the tune of £2.5 billion or that Australia imposes tariff rates of up to 50 per cent. on some clothing.
Yes, the multi-fibre arrangement should be integrated into GATT as the Punta Del Este declaration of 1986 required. However, let the MFA be phased out over a number of years to allow adjustment. Let there be clear linkage to the question of access to third world country markets allowing for British textile companies greater exports to compensate for what we should accept; namely, higher import penetration. Above all—and this is particularly true between Great Britain and Hong Kong—let us develop a common approach to the question of dumping rather than competitive definitions if possible.
I should like to echo the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, as to whether the Minister can give us some idea of whether there is likely to be an extension of the multi-fibre arrangement during this interregnum. The uncertainty is not good for the industry. I hope that we can help and work with Hong Kong, specifically on the textile question but also on the wider front. We are both trading nations and our prosperity, like that of the world economy, depends on the fastest possible resumption of the GATT.
6.41 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the House is grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Dunn, for tabling this Question. Perhaps I may say that in my experience in this House—I accept that it is relatively short—few people have come here with the reputation and esteem of the noble Baroness. Today she illustrated why she is held in such esteem. I am sure that I speak for all noble Lords when I say that we are glad to include her among our number.
I echo also what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, in his distinguished maiden speech. This is a problem not just for the generality of the world but politically and specifically for Hong Kong. As the noble Lord, Lord Holme, and indeed the noble

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Baroness, pointed out, we had a debate on the generality of GATT on 23rd January. Unless the Minister can say anything different, not much has happened since then. At that time, speaking from this Dispatch Box on behalf of my party, I advised the Government that we were wholly committed to the Uruguay round and its success; that remains our position today. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, that it would be a disaster for the world if this round were to fail. I cannot imagine the 1990s being other than a disaster in terms of world trade and possible United States protectionism if this round were to fail.
As the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, said, the issues are extremely complex. We must not blame one side or the other, for instance, for their rough negotiating tactics or inability to develop a proper reform of the common agricultural policy. Much work needs to be done to ensure that it is a success.
Speaking about the generality of GATT, I wish to emphasise two points. First, as the Minister will certainly remind us, it is a negotiation conducted by the Community; the United Kingdom is not negotiating in its own right. We are disappointed that the Community did not accept the Swedish proposal, which in our view was a compromise on the agriculture question. As I understand it, the United States would have accepted that had the Community been able to go that far. Secondly, there seems to be no real understanding in the Community of our responsibility towards the third world. I do not include Hong Kong in the third world. The noble Baroness rightly pointed out that Hong Kong is part of a thrusting new world. However, there are underdeveloped countries in Latin America and Africa which need the support of the European Community in the negotiations on the Uruguay round.
A point quite properly brought out by the noble Baroness and emphasised by the noble Lords, Lord Marlesford, Lord MacLehose and Lord Glenarthur, related to the political implications for Hong Kong should the Uruguay round fail. It is only necessary to realise the timescale under which Hong Kong and the Sino-British agreement is operating to see how important that problem is. Therefore it is vital that we get a move on. I join the noble Baroness and other noble Lords in urging the Government to ensure that the Community does that.
The points where interest in Hong Kong march with interest in the United Kingdom seem to be manifold. We want and they want a proper market in trade, financial services and intellectual property, proper settlement of dispute procedures within GATT and proper respect for copyright patents throughout the world. Those are all points on which we in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong can work together.
The noble Lords, Lord Holme of Cheltenham and Lord MacLehose, mentioned the multi-fibre arrangement. Areas perhaps exist where the interests of the United Kingdom and Hong Kong do not entirely march together; some areas may be different. As the noble Lord, Lord Holme, rightly said, in the United
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Kingdom there are 500,000 people employed in an efficient textile industry. The Labour Party does not intend to allow those people to be betrayed by any agreement which phases out the multi-fibre arrangement without proper safeguards and a long transition period. By "long" I emphasise what was said by my colleagues in another place: we mean a 10-year period and not the five-year period to which the Government have referred.
Having said all that, I join other noble Lords in stating that the political urgency for Hong Kong is the theme dominating this short debate. We had a debate in regard to the GATT in January. Nothing has happened since then which materially alters the conclusions to which we came. Noble Lords on all sides of the House supported the view that Her Majesty's Government should press the Community as hard as possible to negotiate a proper resolution to the Uruguay round. Since that time the United States Congress agreed to allow the fast track process to continue to the end of the year. Therefore the onus is on Her Majesty's Government and, through them, the Community.
Yet again I reiterate the plea I made in January of this year. It is time the Prime Minister sat down with other heads of government in the Community and got the Community's act together to bring about a breakthrough on the matter. If necessary, he should sit down with President Bush to achieve that breakthrough. Until there is agreement in principle at the highest level of government, however much civil servants talk about the matter they will never have a proper brief upon which to work.
I emphasise the theme of the Question tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Dunn. Let the British Government press as hard as they can for agreement, not only for our sake but for the sake of Hong Kong. I hope that the Minister will respond in kind.
6.48 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Reay): My Lords, we have had a short but interesting and distinguished debate, illuminated by a notable and stimulating maiden speech from my noble friend Lord Marlesford. He spoke from long personal experience of Hong Kong. I hope that he will speak in this House often and on many other subjects.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising this matter today. It enables me to explain the Government's intentions in the GATT Uruguay round negotiations, in particular so far as they concern the position of Hong Kong in those negotiations.
As is well known, the so-called Uruguay round in GATT—the eighth round of negotiations since GATT came into operation in 1947—was launched in 1986 and was due to be completed last December. In the event, the more than 100 countries participating in the Brussels ministerial conference in December could not agree on a package to complete the negotiations. A great deal of valuable technical work had been done by then and important agreements were virtually ready in several of the individual negotiating areas.

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But major differences remained in a number of key areas, notably agricultural trade, services and market access. That meant that no agreement could be clinched.
Work has continued since. There is agreement among all the main parties to the negotiations that the round must now be concluded as soon as possible and preferably by the end of 1991. That aim was clearly stated at the recent conference of Ministers from the OECD countries. A number of Ministers, including the United States trade representative, Mrs. Carla Hills; and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, have stressed the importance of making rapid progress before the end of July. If the round runs on beyond the end of the year the risk is that the current political impetus will be lost and, as the noble Baroness put it, the progress already made will unravel. I can also say to the noble Baroness that at the G7 meeting in London next month, I certainly hope that the heads of government will put their personal authority behind efforts to reach agreement.
It is not surprising that difficulties arose. The Uruguay Round is the most complex international trade negotiation ever, with simultaneous negotiations on 15 separate topics, many of them interlocking. But the Government, with all our main negotiating partners, including the other member states, firmly believe that we must get a successful conclusion. A successful round will contribute greatly to reducing trade barriers worldwide and will accordingly bring a major non-inflationary stimulus to world economic growth. Failure would not only mean loss of these gains but could lead to a loss of confidence in the GATT system itself. That would be extremely damaging for the whole world trading system.
To this end the UK's objectives for the round remain the same as when the round was launched. They are to get more open markets by further reducing tariffs and other barriers to trade; to extend GATT disciplines on an agreed basis to trade in services; to improve intellectual property protection worldwide; to tackle trade-distorting investment measures; to reinforce the structure of GATT, in particular its system for settling disputes; and to persuade developing countries, as they become richer, to observe more of their GATT obligations.
Perhaps most importantly of all, we need to bring agricultural trade for the first time within effective GATT disciplines on agriculture. The need to reform the Community's common agricultural policy is now widely accepted within the Commission and the member states. That process must be carried on in harmony with reforms of world agricultural trade agreed within the GATT round. It is encouraging that the Community has agreed to negotiate specific binding commitments to increase market access and to reduce internal support and export subsidies.
A lot of progress has been made in many of the different negotiating areas, and the Government believe that, given the proper determination, it will be possible to finalise an agreement which is so much in everyone's interest. We shall continue to work hard with our EC partners to bring that about.
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As to Hong Kong's future in GATT, since 1986 the territory has had the status of an independent contracting party. Hong Kong speaks for itself and does so very effectively. The Sino-British Joint Declaration provides that there will be no change to the position of Hong Kong in GATT after 1997. Hong Kong will continue to have its own independent and influential voice in GATT.
Hong Kong has as great an interest as any other participant in a successful outcome to the Uruguay round. We shall all benefit from more open markets. The territory is one of the most open economies in the world, and it is in its interests that others reduce barriers to trade to the greatest degree possible. I know that Hong Kong is playing a vigorous and constructive part in the negotiations and the personal contribution of ambassador Broadbridge in Geneva and of his predecessor, ambassador Cartland, has been very important.
I might also add that Hong Kong's position as a major trading nation is due in no small part to the excellent promotional efforts of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, of which the noble Baroness, as she told us, is the distinguished chairman.
The noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, raised the question of the multi-fibre arrangements. In that he was followed by the noble Lords, Lord Holme and Lord Williams. The integration of the textile trade into the GATT system is a major objective of the Uruguay round. All parties are agreed of the need to phase out the multi-fibre arrangements. At the ministerial meeting in Brussels last December we were close to an agreement on the terms under which that can be done over about 10 years. I hope that that progress can be built on now that the talks have resumed. In the meantime the extension of the round means that the current MFA, which expires in July, will have to be extended.
I know that Hong Kong and other major exporters share that view because of the importance of ensuring certainty for traders, as the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, mentioned. Our view, which has been agreed within the EC, is that that extension should be for no longer than 17 months which should provide time to complete the round and ratify the resulting agreement.
The noble Lord also raised the matter of anti-dumping. The United Kingdom is encouraging the Community to work for improvement of the GATT anti-dumping code so that it provides for more objective and transparent procedures while ensuring that anti-dumping remedies cannot be used for protectionist purposes.
I conclude by saying that I profoundly hope that we are on our way to success in the Uruguay round. Hong Kong stands as a shining example to economic dynamism and the benefits that open markets can bring. My noble friend Lord Marlesford spoke of its unchanged thread of self-reliance and entrepreneurial zest which, he observed, had lasted for 30 years.
Hong Kong has been created by free trade. But the United Kingdom, more than most countries, depends on an open trading system. As the noble Baroness pointed out, the United Kingdom has a higher value

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of exports per head even than Japan. So the United Kingdom and Hong Kong both share an interest in seeing the Uruguay round brought to an early and
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satisfactory conclusion. I therefore welcome the timing, content and style of the noble Baroness's intervention this evening.
House adjourned at three minutes before seven o'clock.