Lords Sitting of 17 December 1992

Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Guildford.
Viscount Sidmouth Viscount Sidmouth— Took the Oath.

EC Trade Marks Office: Location
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have arranged for the EC trade mark organisation headquarters to be located in London.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Baroness Denton of Wakefield): My Lords, the location of the office to administer the Community trade mark regulation will he decided by a future European Council together with the locations of a number of other Community bodies. The Government's bid for London as the site of the Community trade marks office remains on the table.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, in thanking my noble friend for that reply, will she confirm that the Community has not been very generous to this country in the location of its various establishments and that the case for the organisation mentioned in this Question is therefore particularly strong?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, my noble friend draws attention to the fact that we have only one small Community institution, which is the Joint European Torus. I must pay tribute to other Community states for the help we received from them which led to our success in obtaining the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development although it is not a Community institution.
Lord Ironside: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that one of the qualifications for having an institution like the JET project at Culham was a European school there? Can she say whether there will be a requirement for having a European school in London if the trade mark organisation is sited here? Would that be one of the qualifications?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, as I said in reply to my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, that is a matter for the Council of Ministers. I am sure that it will bear my noble friend's comments in mind.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, would not one advantage of location here be the provision of new jobs? Is that not of particular importance in view of the unemployment figures issued today? Is the Minister aware that they show another substantial increase in the number of people without a job? As we start a four-week recess today, will the Minister take
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the opportunity I am giving her to tell us what new policies the Government intend to follow in order to reduce the appalling number of unemployed in this country?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, even on the last day the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, makes assumptions in stretching the Question. I cannot go anywhere near answering them.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, we all value the British hallmarking system, which is one of the finest of trade marks. Can my noble friend assure us that the Government are still pressing for the retention of that system?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, again I fear that that question does not directly relate to the Question before me. I assure my noble friend Lady Gardner that I am in consultation on that matter. I am very supportive of the standard which we have in this country.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, can the Minister say why this headquarters has to be in London? Could it not be located in the north—in Edinburgh or Glasgow —as government recognition at last of the importance of our manufacturing industry?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, the site proposed was originally suggested in 1987. I believe that the property market has moved somewhat since then. The discussion would be open. First, we have to try to persuade the Community to locate the office in the United Kingdom.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is perhaps a little premature to be asking for the location of the European Community trade mark office in this country if we have not even complied with the relevant European Community directive?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am delighted to tell my noble friend that of the four countries on the short list none has complied with the directive.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, while the Government are to be congratulated on getting the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development located in London, can the Minister bring us up to date on the proposed location of the central bank of the European Community? It is now said that it is going to be located in Bonn. Can she confirm that or otherwise?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, the noble Lord draws attention to one of the other organisations which is part of the package one hopes will be decided upon at the next summit meeting.
Lord Peston: My Lords, we seem to be covering almost every European institution on this Question. On unemployment, I am sure that the noble Baroness will agree that if the trade mark organisation were to be located here it would provide some employment at least for lawyers, which would be very dear to the hearts of your Lordships. The question of the noble

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Baroness, Lady Hooper, seems central. Is not the position even worse than that she described? It is not merely that we have not introduced the legislation corresponding to the European requirement on trade marks. Am I not right in saying that we have not yet even ratified the Madrid Protocol? What is the position with respect to the Madrid Protocol? Leaving the matter on the table is not the important thing. Does the noble Baroness agree with the view of almost all of the professionals in this area that the Government are doing nothing at all?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, perhaps I may say first that the professionalism of the people working in the trade mark sector is such that we believe that wherever the office is located they will attract American and Japanese business. That reflects the high standard of our industry. In respect of the other points which the noble Lord raised, I have nothing to add to my previous answer.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the premature signing of the Maastricht Treaty may be too high a price to pay merely to have those headquarters in London?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, my noble friend mindreads rather better than I could.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, will the Minister clarify a technical point? In her Answer she said that this was a matter that would lie upon the table. However, may I ask her on which table it will lie: the table of the Council of Ministers, which has powers under the treaty, or the table of the European Council, of which her right honourable friend the Prime Minister still has the presidency and, I presume, has some influence on these matters prior to 31st December?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am pleased to clarify for the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, that this matter of the package of offices is a decision that will be taken by the heads of government at a summit. Perhaps I may assure the noble Lord that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, as always, looks after the interests of the United Kingdom.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Peston, that the trade mark organisation would give employment only to lawyers is quite unfounded? The trade mark organisation is of the greatest commercial importance and the location of its headquarters here would support London as the commercial centre of the Community.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter is absolutely right to draw attention to the high professionalism throughout this area, not just in the legal sector.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, following my noble friend's answer to the question of my noble friend Lady Hooper, can she tell the House whether any countries have complied with the directive?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, yes. Two countries have implemented it—Denmark and France.

Taxation Policy
11.16 a.m.
Lord Monson Lord Monson asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they believe in the principle of "no taxation without representation".
The Minister of State, Department of Transport (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, it is a good general principle, but there are, of course, a number of people who pay tax in this country and who do not have the vote, including aliens, persons under 18 years of age, or of unsound mind, convicted persons during the period of their detention in a penal institution in pursuance of their sentence, persons found guilty of corrupt or illegal practices at elections and, at general elections, your Lordships.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that Answer, which gave us a good deal of information that we knew already. Does he agree that the overwhelming majority of people in this country, as in any democracy, have the undoubted right to vote out of office a government who impose taxes upon them if they consider them to be unjust, and that those who, like your Lordships, do not have that right—nor the right to vote upon fiscal matters in your Lordships' House—nevertheless have the right to speak out forcefully on such matters in the hope of influencing Ministers and honourable Members in another place? However, there are one or two unique individuals who are, in a sense, Olympian and totally above the party political battle. Because of their unique status they do not have the right—
Noble Lords: Question!
Lord Monson: My Lords, I am coming to it. Because of their unique status, those individuals do not have the right to vote or to express or even hold political opinions. If they are now to be subject to direct taxation, contrary to what the Chancellor of the Exchequer implied in another place on 3rd November, will that not breach the principle of "no taxation without representation" and, more importantly, be constitutionally dangerous—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Monson: My Lords, I am asking a question—
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Wakeham): My Lords, I think that the noble Lord is coming to his question and that the House will want to hear it.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Leader of the House for that. This is an important constitutional question. I asked whether that would breach the principle of "no taxation without representation". Would it not also be constitutionally dangerous in that anyone in that position, however hard he or she tried, would find it difficult to remain

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as totally impartial and detached as would have been the case in the absence of direct taxation being imposed?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, in the situation to which the noble Lord refers, I am sure that, as ever, the impartiality will be wonderful.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I am a little lost. Who is the noble Lord referring to?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, as I thought I heard the noble Lord, he was referring to somebody who does not pay tax but who has volunteered to pay tax in the future.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Earl has taken on board the full implications of the situation. Tabloid newspapers nowadays will pay anything to secure confidential documents, so is it not possible that if certain individuals now start to pay tax information relating to that will be leaked to the tabloid newspapers, just as the Access statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer has recently been leaked, and that this will cause all sorts of unpleasantness, which is highly undesirable?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord's supplementary question is a little wide of that on the Order Paper.

The Bloodstock Industry: VAT
11.20 a.m.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil Lord Peyton of Yeovil asked Her Majesty's Government:
When they expect to conclude their consideration of the damage likely to be caused to the British bloodstock industry in 1993 by the more favourable rates of VAT levied in France and Ireland.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, we have always accepted that the introduction of the single market could present difficulties for the bloodstock industry and that potential damage could be caused if solutions were not found to these problems. That is why we have been working and continue to work hard with industry representatives to help them find further ways to mitigate the effects they fear; we have set no time limits on these discussions.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, does my noble friend understand that to an outsider the sluggishness and lack of progress that characterise these talks suggest a competition in stubbornness, with the Customs and Excise enjoying a comfortable lead? Would my noble friend take this opportunity to endorse the report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons which calls on the Customs and Excise to show more understanding of and sympathy with the needs of the industry? Does he agree that the Customs and Excise create the impression of regarding the jobs that will be lost and the business which will go elsewhere as of little account? It would be nice, I think, if now we had another chairman in
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charge of Customs and Excise with the wit and understanding of Geoffrey Chaucer, who was chairman 500 years ago.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend would agree that Customs have made a great deal of progress. Let me explain what has been done in the past. The Customs have introduced export undertakings and negotiated the extension of time limits in relation to temporary importation arrangements; they have encouraged the Commission to take action against French use of carcass value for VAT purposes; and they have introduced other minor administrative easements for the industry's benefit. My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer cut betting duty by 0.25 per cent. in 1992 at the request of the industry. We have also introduced an agriculture flat rate scheme at the industry's request to help small breeders. We have explained new VAT arrangements so that no one is unnecessarily disadvantaged by them; and we are willing to consider any proposals on appearance money or sponsorship in relation to VAT registration and racehorse owners. I am sure that my noble friend would agree that Customs and Excise are well in the lead of being the ones to move.
Baroness Mallalieu: My Lords, does the noble Earl appreciate that many of us who have no connection whatsoever with the bloodstock industry, save for a love of racing, will not willingly forgive this Government if they continue to refuse to make some relatively minor changes in value added tax to allow this industry, which is a source of enormous national pride, to continue, unlike most other British industries, to remain at the forefront of world industries in this field? Will the noble Earl be good enough to indicate what his information is as to the cost to the Revenue of either adopting the Irish or the French VAT rates or indeed of allowing breeders here to register so that irreparable damage is not done before too long to this industry?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I gave a long list in my first supplementary answer—longer than I normally do—of things that have been done specifically to help the bloodstock industry and those who are associated with it. A comparison of the present VAT arrangements and the arrangements available after 1992 shows that they are broadly similar. That has meant quite a substantial move by Customs and Excise. I can also tell your Lordships that discussions are continuing. My noble friend Lord Peyton has been talking to my right honourable friend the Paymaster General recently. There are further discussions planned for tomorrow.
Lord Renton: My Lords, what is the significance of the meeting reported in The Times yesterday which is said to have taken place this week between representatives of the bloodstock industry and the Chancellor of the Exchequer? When will the outcome of that meeting be made public?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, there is a further meeting tomorrow. There was a meeting last Friday

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with the Horseracing Advisory Council where some progress was made. We look forward to hearing the propositions that we have asked the horse-race industry to put forward to us. But as my noble friend will be only too well aware, there are a lot of diverse parts with conflicting interests in that industry. We are awaiting submissions from them.
Lord Palmer: My Lords, does this situation not make a complete mockery of the single market when other Community members are able to charge different rates of VAT?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, an exemption has been made which has been to the enormous benefit of Britain. As the noble Lord will be aware, Britain was at the forefront of being able to keep zero rates for a lot of products. It is the very same agreement that has enabled the differentials in VAT which have existed to the present to be maintained in the future. But that is exactly why Customs and Excise have been talking to the industry and await further representations from the industry to try to mitigate the problem.
Viscount Allenby of Megiddo: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Treasury loses a great deal of revenue by the practice of shipping horses abroad because of the payment of VAT and then bringing them back to this country to be used for whatever purpose? Is it not high time that this practice, which is detrimental to the welfare of the horse, was stopped and that we really did see sense and had a level playing field?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, that is exactly one of the areas that we have addressed. As the noble Viscount will be aware, the arrangements post 1st January 1993 are rather better than the arrangements at the moment.
Lord Rees: My Lords, can my noble friend tell the House what representations have been made in Brussels about the ingenious French solution of charging VAT on the carcass value of bloodstock?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, as I said earlier, we have made very strong representations to the Commission. We have encouraged it to take action on this front. But as my noble friend will be only too well aware, the French treat their horses in a slightly different manner from the way we treat horses. They also eat them.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that any shift from a 17.5 per cent. VAT rate for one industry would be followed by a campaign by a number of other industries—for example, the tourist industry—which felt that they were disadvantaged? That would be very damaging to the Government's sensible policy of maintaining a zero rate and a 17.5 per cent. rate. Furthermore, if the Government are going to look at important industries with regard to even playing fields for taxation within Europe, it would be best to start with the Scotch whisky industry.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. There is a natural follow-on; and not just for leisure industries such as horse-racing. I know that people are waiting in the wings to bring forward submissions. I refer not just to those involved with pure bred race-horses but show jumpers, three-day eventers and ordinary people who have horses purely for enjoyment.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, in an earlier answer the noble Earl appeared to suggest that Customs and Excise had some discretion in whether to levy the tax. Can he clarify that point because it is my understanding that Parliament determines what the level of tax should be? If it is possible for Customs and Excise to vary the rate of VAT, will the Government advise them that they should reduce VAT on goods bought by pensioners in this country?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, as I said earlier, there are a number of ways in which Customs and Excise have been able to help the industry —specifically this industry—within the law. Customs and Excise abide by the law absolutely strictly. But they have helped in various ways. They will continue to have discussions and look forward to the further submissions which I am told are promised.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, I am sure the Minister will acknowledge the deep concern that has been expressed on this issue from all sides of the House over a long period. Does he not agree that the measures that have been introduced by Customs and Excise, though welcome, are not central to this problem and will not save the industry?
Is the Minister aware of the view of the Select Committee of the other place which was referred to earlier? Perhaps I may be allowed to refer to the report because some Members of the House may not have time to see it. The Select Committee states that it hopes that Customs and Excise will be directed by the Paymaster General to sanction a simple, broadly-based method of allowing owners to register for VAT. It goes on to say that unless action is taken to remedy the VAT disadvantages, the horse-racing industry, in which the UK is a world leader, could go into rapid decline, with the loss of thousands of jobs. That is the heart of the question.
In five minutes I am leaving to go to Towcester races. Does the Minister have any message of Christmas comfort for the loyal and, at Towcester resilient supporters of the horse-racing industry that the Paymaster General will boot the Customs and Excise and tell them to find a sensible solution to save the industry and all the jobs?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will wish to congratulate the noble Lord on having a good Recess, starting with an excellent day's racing at Towcester. I hope that while he is there he will spare a thought for the rest of us who will still be in our offices.
The problem the noble Lord raised was the one mentioned by the Horseracing Advisory Council at the meeting last Friday. There are a number of different problems relating to owners, because owners

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come in various different shapes—companies, large owners, medium-sized owners and small owners. This is again an area where we are awaiting representations and submissions from the Horseracing Advisory Council. As soon as they are in, Customs and Excise will be able to consider them. It is difficult for them to consider submissions when they have not yet received them.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, my noble friend enjoys widespread respect in the House. Does he realise how greatly he will enjoy its sympathy today on having to shelter behind that catalogue of rather piffling measures he retailed in his answer to my first supplementary question? Will he take the opportunity to tell those people that if they want to save jobs and this country's export business they had better get on and take the easy remedy of registering horse owners for VAT? It is easy. It is done elsewhere. It is sheer pigheadedness that it is not done here.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, my noble friend may think that the list I gave him in a very full answer was piffling, but I fear that his questions would have been considerably more abrasive if we had not undertaken the measures that we have. Of course the Government understand fully the anxieties relating to the industry. That is why the discussions are continuing at an intensive level. Indeed, my noble friend has been in direct contact with my right honourable friend the Paymaster General to raise the points that have been raised in your Lordships' House. As I said, we are waiting for the horse-racing industry to come back to us.

Mental Illness: Task Force
11.32 a.m.
Lord Mottistone Lord Mottistone asked Her Majesty's Government:
Who are the members of the Mental Illness Task Force serving under Mr. David King and what are its terms of reference.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, the terms of reference of the mental health task force are to increase the impetus towards the long established goal of creating effective and comprehensive local mental health services in place of long-stay hospitals. In addition to David King, the task force will be made up of three programme directors and a representative support group drawn from the key interest groups.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that "task force" is a United States naval term which means many ships? That can be reduced to task groups which are several ships. It could even be task units which are a few ships, and possibly even task elements which consist of one ship. As I understand it, so far this unit consists of one unit only. Does she think that one person may have a viewpoint which will not result in a balanced recommendation to my noble friend and her fellow Ministers.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that it is not just David King who will form the task force. It will be made up of three programme directors and a representative support group drawn from key interest groups. I am sure that noble Lords would want to wish that particular vessel a safe journey.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, bearing in mind the important role played by the voluntary organisations in the provision of mental health services, will the Minister say whether there will be representatives of any of the voluntary organisations—I am thinking of MIND in the first place—on the team, or what consultations there will be if they are not members of the team?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, all the key voluntary groups are associated with and involved in the support group: the National Association of Mental Health (MIND), the National Schizophrenia Fellowship, SANE and various other user groups.
Lord Thurlow: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the central problem is to relate the rate of closure of hospital beds to the provision of the alternative services to which she referred? Great emphasis has been placed by Ministers on the necessity for speed in shutting the old hospitals. Why the speed? Why not place emphasis on the reprovision of the alternative facilities which are desperately needed and of which we are short?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, there is enormous emphasis on reprovision, but I should like to point out to noble Lords that the cost of keeping a patient in a long-stay institution now is enormous. In Netherne Hospital, which is in the region I used to chair, it costs £46,000 a year. That is a huge amount of money. We could do magical things in the community with £46,000 per person.
Lord Finsburg: My Lords, how will the task force relate to the Mental Health Commission set up under the Mental Health Acts?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I should like to assure my noble friend that it will work very closely with the Mental Health Commission.
Lord Rix: My Lords, does the Minister recall that on 27th October a Question was put by my noble friend Lord Allen of Abbeydale which asked:
"Whether they will now appoint a task force comparable with that with mentally ill, to work with the national development team in encouraging good practices in services for the mentally handicapped".
He received this response from the Minister:
"My Lords, we have no plans to do so".—[Official Report, 27/10/92; col. 1011.]
In view of that disappointing reply, will the mental health task force be looking at action to improve the mental health of people with a learning disability, as required in Wales under the Welsh Office Protocol Investment in Health Gain, but apparently ignored totally in England under the Government's White Paper The Health of the Nation?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, essentially the task force will be looking at long-stay institutions for mentally ill people and not for people with a mental handicap. The Government have chosen not to set up a specific task force for people with learning disabilities because they believe great progress has been made in this area. Perhaps I may add that is not least due to the efforts of Mencap.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, will there be someone with an interest in prisons on the task force, because prisons such as Brixton will have mental health units for mentally ill people?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am sure that that is the case.
Lady Kinloss: My Lords—
Lord Hesketh: My Lords we have passed the 30 minutes.

Welsh Language Bill [H.L.]
11.38 a.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to establish a board having the function of promoting and facilitating the use of the Welsh language, to provide for the preparation by public bodies of schemes giving effect to the principle that in the conduct of public business and administration of justice in Wales the English and Welsh languages should be treated on a basis of equality, to make further provision relating to the Welsh language, to repeal certain spent enactments relating to Wales, and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Earl Ferrers.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

European Communities: Select Committee
The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Boston of Faversham): My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Chairman of Committees, I beg to move the first Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper. In doing so I should, perhaps, for the sake of completeness and correctness, point out that the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, as it appears on the Order Paper unfortunately and inadvertently has an "h" missing. I apologise for that. I am very grateful indeed to his fellow Scot, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, for kindly pointing that out to me.
Moved, That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the Lords following be named of the Committee in place of those named on Tuesday, 19th May last:

B. Birk,

L. Bonham-Carter,

L. Boston of Faversham (Chairman),

L. Brain,

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L. Bruce of Donington,

B. Carnegy of Lour,

B. David,

B. Elles,

L. Ezra,

L. Hunt of Tanworth,

L. Lewis of Newnham,

L. Mackay of Ardbrecknish,

L. Nathan,

L. Pearson of Rannoch,

L. Renfrew of Kaimsthorn,

E. Selborne,

L. Slynn of Hadley,

D. Somerset,

L. Thurlow,

L. Varley.—(Lord Boston of Faversham.))

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Science and Technology: Select Committee
Lord Boston of Faversham: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Chairman of Committees, I beg to move the second Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following Lords be named of the Select Committee in place of those named on Tuesday, 19th May last:

L. Dainton,

L. Dean of Beswick,

L. Flowers (Chairman),

L. Gregson,

B. Hilton of Eggardon,

L. Howie of Troon,

B. Perry of Southwark,

L. Perry of Walton,

B. Platt of Writtle,

L. Porter of Luddenham,

L. Renwick,

E. Selborne,

L. Tombs,

L. Walton of Detchant,

L. Whaddon.—(Lord Boston of Faversham.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Consolidated Fund Bill
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time. —(The Earl of Caithness.)
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I rise not to initiate a debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill but to preserve intact the right of Back-Benchers in this place to raise matters in debate on the Bill.
Many noble Lords will recall the time when such debates took place. It is only in comparatively recent years that it has been taken as the practice to allow the Consolidated Fund Bill to pass through on the nod. I am aware that the matter has been raised on frequent

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occasions by my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby. In many respects all I am doing is to echo what he has said in the past.
I am sure that your Lordships will agree that it would be unfortunate if it became confirmed as a practice and established by tradition that the Consolidated Fund Bill always went through on the nod. Having said that, and I hope having asserted the right of Back-Benchers in this place to raise matters on the Consolidated Fund Bill, I say no more.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, from this side of the House perhaps I may say that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington—not for the first time. Certainly I recall debates in this House on the Consolidated Fund Bill, which is a fundamental measure on which we cannot vote but which we can discuss. It would be most unfortunate if the tradition were allowed to develop that speeches on the measure were excluded. Therefore I hope that your Lordships will make it quite clear that any of us who wish to debate the measure on future occasions are fully entitled to do so.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington and my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter recall the days when debate took place on Consolidated Fund or Appropriation Bills. However, my advice is that they have not been debated since 1907. There has been debate on a Finance Bill, which is a different matter. I cannot recall a debate on a Consolidated Fund Bill. Of course I was not around in 1907.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend arguing that debate on the measure is out of order?
The Earl of Caithness: No, my Lords. Under our procedure the House has habitually passed such Bills without printing them and without discussion or dissent. It has become a convention that proceedings upon them are taken formally.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, in the other place, which is primarily concerned with finance, a Consolidated Fund Bill is normally only the subject of general debate on any matter that any Member wishes to raise. Matters can be discussed that are raised specifically by those interested in the Consolidated Fund Bill or the Appropriation Bill.
It is undoubtedly open to any Member of your Lordships' House to raise any matter on a Consolidated Fund Bill. Although it may not have been done actually on such a Bill, I can distinctly remember it being done on a Consolidated Fund (Northern Ireland) Order. Therefore your Lordships are entitled to raise any matter within the compass of a Consolidated Fund Bill. However, it is not necessary in this House as it is in the other place, because your Lordships have so many other opportunities of raising matters of general importance as they arise. Moreover, undoubtedly your Lordships are entitled to discuss a Consolidated Fund measure from the point of view of the financial provisions, even though your Lordships are not entitled to vote on it.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord mentioned affairs in the other place. When I was there, there were occasions when a Consolidated Fund Bill was put forward and it was generally accepted without any speeches. In one instance the late Mr. Robert Maxwell stood and proceeded to make a speech which began to run on for around 20 minutes. There was booing from all sides. A Conservative MP rose and asked for Mr Maxwell to be ruled out of order. The Speaker said that he was not out of order.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, in reply to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, and the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, there was a time when there was discussion on a Consolidated Fund Bill in the Commons. But it may be appropriate to draw the attention of the House to Standing Order 54, which was agreed by another place on 19th July, 1982 and came into force from the beginning of the 1982–83 Session and which states that proceedings on a Consolidated Fund Bill or an Appropriation Bill are purely formal. The best I can do is to refer the whole matter to the procedure Committee. I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time; Committee negatived.
Then Standing Order 44 having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution of 16th December), Bill read a third time and passed.

Crown Proceedings (Armed Forces) Bill [H.L.]
11.47 a.m.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
I should like to take the opportunity to thank all those who have taken part in the various stages of the Bill for their support, and also my noble friend Lord Cranborne for the courteous way in which he has dealt with it. However, I shall be grateful if, when speaking to his right honourable friend the Secretary of State, he will particularly draw to his attention the contributions at Committee stage of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner. Perhaps he will also draw attention to the correspondence placed in the Library of this House from my noble friend Lord Cranborne to me of 10th December, copied to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, and a letter of the following day from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, to my noble friend. That may help the Secretary of State when considering the Bill in another place. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a third time.—(Lord Swinfen.)
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the House is grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, both for introducing the Bill and for carrying it through all its stages.
I intervene briefly to urge on the Government that they take the Bill seriously and do not simply kill it off

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in another place. We had certain objections to the Bill at an earlier stage but, as amended, it seems to me to do a job which is needed; to correct a wrong which many people felt should perhaps have been corrected earlier. I hope therefore that the noble Viscount will be able to give us an assurance that the Government are taking the matter seriously.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, there can be few noble Lords who have amended a Bill so drastically to meet the objections on Second Reading of the Government. The Bill deserves from the Government a great deal more support than I am afraid it is likely to get.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, this Bill was introduced in before I entered the House. However, I wish to say a few brief words to commend it before it leaves the House because I understand that the Government intend to kill it. I have a special interest because this matter began with my constituent Martin Ketterick and my campaign to abolish Section 10 of the Crown Proceedings Act 1947 in another place. The Bill introduced then was opposed vociferously by the Ministry of Defence. Defence Ministers said that under no circumstances could they allow the abolition of Section 10 of the Crown Proceedings Act as that would damage discipline and the measure would be unworkable. They gave other reasons also.
That Bill aimed to correct an injustice, and this Bill aims to correct an injustice, against members of the Armed Forces. Precisely the same kind of arguments are being used by the Minister on this occasion. I urge the Government to think again because if they kill the Bill great injustice will be perpetuated against active service personnel. That would be damaging not only to service personnel but also to the Government.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Viscount Cranborne): My Lords, I am sure that all of us in your Lordships' House are extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Swinfen not only for the courteous way in which he introduced his legislation but also for the persistence he has shown in pursuing the interests of service men and service women. I congratulate my noble friend. It is not given to many of your Lordships to introduce a Bill and pursue it through all its stages from the Back Benches between September and Christmas.
We have had the considerable advantage of listening to distinguished contributions from a gratifyingly large number of your Lordships. I recall the notably distinguished contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Mayhew and Lord Williams of Elvel, but I also remember contributions from a number of other noble Lords and noble Baronesses, notably the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, the noble Lords, Lord Henderson of Brompton and Lord Milverton, and, if it is not an invidious comparison to draw, the contributions from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, whose comments during the Committee stage of the Bill will be forever branded on my memory. I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, for the contribution that he made and also for the
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most helpful letter which he put in pursuance of the correspondence referred to by my noble friend Lord Swinfen, in the Library. That letter would repay further study on the part of all noble Lords who are interested in this important subject.
It is a constant source of satisfaction to me and the department that your Lordships act so very effectively as a welcome trades union for the Armed Forces. There is a more powerful and knowledgeable lobby in your Lordships' House for the Armed Forces and for their welfare than perhaps there is in another place. That situation arises from the considerable experience that a number of noble Lords have of the Armed Forces.
I was particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, for his intervention. As he said, he was not able to take part in the earlier stages of the Bill but I remember from my time in another place the leading part he played in the repeal of Section 10. That was a cause I found myself very much in sympathy with at the time, and I continue to be sympathetic towards it, particularly when I see the beneficial events and circumstances that have occurred as a result of the repeal of that legislation.
However, in spite of all the persuasive arguments deployed by your Lordships, and although we agree wholly with the objective behind my noble friend's Bill, we are still doubtful—in spite of the advice we have been given during the past weeks and months—about whether that objective can best be served by the Bill as amended by my noble friend. We shall, of course, study and take with the greatest degree of seriousness the remarks made by your Lordships. I can certainly give the noble Lord, Lord Williams, and my noble friend Lord Swinfen an undertaking that I shall draw to the attention of my right honourable friend, before the Bill appears in another place, the remarks that have been made.
On Question, Bill read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

Mink Keeping Order
11.56 a.m.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne rose to move, That the order laid before the House on 25th November be approved [13th Report from the Joint Committee.]
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the order on behalf of my noble friend Lord Howe. The order is made under the Destructive Imported Animals Act 1932. That Act is concerned with the control of animals which are not native to this country and which pose a threat to the countryside because of their destructive habits. Powers under the Act allow for either an absolute prohibition on the keeping of such animals or for licensed keeping. The Act is not concerned with welfare and does not allow for a prohibition on keeping for any reason other than the destructive nature of the species.
However, welfare is a subject of public concern and, no doubt, is also of concern to many noble Lords. I should therefore make the Government's position on

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welfare quite clear. There is a recommendation from the Council of Europe which advises on the welfare standards for the keeping of fur animals. The Government wish to see that standard improved upon and adopted on a Community basis.
The Mink Keeping Order 1987 prohibits absolutely the keeping of mink on all offshore islands of Great Britain where there are neither wild mink populations nor mink farms and in the Scottish Highlands where wild mink have not spread. Elsewhere mink can be kept under licence issued at the discretion of agriculture departments. The new order, which continues the policy of successive governments, renews the existing powers to control mink for five years. Mink farmers will continue to be required to meet the detailed and specific requirements of the Mink Keeping Regulations 1975, as amended, in order to obtain a licence from agriculture departments. They will also be visited at least annually to ensure they are still complying with all of their licence conditions. The maintenance of these arrangements will serve the interests of this small sector of farming and the interests of both other farmers with small livestock, which could be at risk from mink escaping from mink farms, and wildlife.
Licensing with an annual inspection will ensure mink farmers give sufficient priority to physical security of their animals. The Government are not complacent about the standards of inspections and intend to review the current arrangements as a matter of urgency. Changes will be made if any areas of weakness are identified.
There is one change in the new order covering the isle of Harris and Lewis. This isle is to be included as an area of the country where there is a total prohibition on mink keeping. Attempts, supported by Scottish Natural Heritage, are to be made to eradicate mink on the island. I understand that if successful this may be extended to other islands. The change was put to us by Scottish Heritage and has been supported by the RSPB. It therefore seems right to introduce a prohibition on mink keeping on the isle of Harris and Lewis.
If there are real problems in ensuring that mink can be kept securely these will be addressed either by additional security requirements on the licence, or, if that is not possible, the licence will be refused. Equally, if the annual inspection finds that security does not meet the required standard the licence will not be renewed unless the defect is remedied. I beg to move.
Moved, That the order laid before the House on 25th November be approved [13th Report from the Joint Committee].—(The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne.)
12 noon
Lord Carter: My Lords, the House is extremely grateful to the Minister for explaining the order. As he said, the order is concerned solely with the security aspects of the keeping of mink and not with whether mink should be farmed or the welfare aspect. While the keeping of mink remains legal obviously the security aspect is extremely important.
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I am sure we all agree that if mink are to be kept and farmed they should be kept under conditions which are properly secure and humane. The Minister knows the views of the Farm Animal Welfare Council on that aspect. I noted that Mr. Nicholas Soames, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the department, (at col. 798 of Commons Hansard) on 8th December in another place described the British mink as "a crafty little varmint". I suggest that it is also a particularly vicious animal which, if it escapes, can do a great deal of damage to both wild and domestic species.
As I said, the order is not concerned with the welfare aspects of the keeping of mink or whether they should be farmed for their fur. However, I should make it clear that it is my party's policy that mink farming should be ended at the earliest opportunity. I should like to ask why the Government did not take the opportunity when considering the renewal of the order to ban mink farming completely. There is no need for us to wait for the European legislation on this matter. There is the question of subsidiarity and this is the type of decision that we should be able to take for ourselves.
Since the Government decided against a ban we have to concern ourselves with the effectiveness of the order in front of us. If mink are to be kept in captivity they must be kept securely. Is the Minister concerned by the disparity between the very few reported incidents of mink escaping and the anecdotal evidence which suggests that there are a large number of escapes which are not reported by mink farmers, for understandable reasons? Do the Government have a view on the difference between the number of reported incidents and the anecdotal evidence on escapes?
Finally, we have heard about the arrangements regarding the Scottish islands. Why are mink allowed to be kept on the Isle of Arran but not on the other Scottish islands?
Lord Addington: My Lords, this order, though it is restricted to the keeping of mink, raises the question of the welfare of animals. Mink are predators and normally live a solitary life. As a result of farming to make money out of them a large number of mink are kept in a restricted space. Factory farming methods will be even more stressful for an animal whose natural predilection is for a solitary life than for the herbivores which are traditionally kept as farm animals, possibly because they are far easier to keep. I have no particular objection to the farming of any animal, but the welfare of the animals concerned should be taken into consideration.
I would not necessarily agree as a matter of principle that if one is prepared to wear the skin of a cow in the form of shoes the wearing of the fur of another animal in the form of a coat is acceptable. However, the fact is that many animals, especially carnivores, find it particularly stressful to be kept in such circumstances. The question of the keeping of an animal which will suffer even more stress from the factory farming technique is one which I feel the Government should he addressing. The choice between keeping carnivores domestically or trapping wild animals is another question. A whole array of questions arise.

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The order is concerned with security. Mink are far too efficient as hunters and killers to be let loose in our environment. There have been cases of mink wiping out almost the entire population of water voles in a particular stretch of waterway. That means that not only do they wipe out an indigenous species but they also break the food chain for all other species in the chain. Also, once they have wiped out the water voles in the area they will turn to other prey. Ultimately, if they wipe out an entire species their only other source of prey will be domestic animals.
Therefore, I suggest that we take very strong measures to control this animal, for the simple reason that it does not fit into our wildlife, such as it is. We have very little wild countryside left. Indeed, there is a strong case for saying that we have none and that it is all man made. We should take the strongest possible measures to ensure that where mink are kept they stay within the farms. We should also seriously consider eradicating the population of feral mink.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked me about a ban. In a statement made in April 1989 the Farm Animal Welfare Council expressed its disapproval of fur farming but it did not recommend that the practice be stopped. At about that time the Council of Europe was working on its welfare recommendation, which was adopted a year later. We expect that recommendation to be used as the basis for a Community standard. The Government's policy towards the welfare of fur animals is that we shall press for the highest standards to be adopted on a Community basis.
Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked about sightings of mink. Reports of sightings have been made by individuals and organisations. These have been investigated but have failed to confirm the origin of the mink or to highlight any deficiencies in the security of mink farms that need to be addressed. It is extremely difficult for the lay person to distinguish between a wild or a farmed mink.
The noble Lord's final point concerned the Isle of Arran. There has been some concern as to why the Isle of Arran has not been included as an area in which the keeping of mink is prohibited. Feral mink are present on that isle and there are no mink farms currently licensed. Therefore, the situation is similar to that on the Isles of Harris and Lewis. However, there is one difference in the situation in that, so far as I am aware, no plans have been put forward by those with an interest in mink control on the isle to mount a campaign to eradicate the animal from the area. Scottish Natural Heritage will obviously wish to see the results of the attempts on Harris and Lewis before considering future plans. Should such a scheme be proposed the Government would be happy to look again at the possibility of banning mink-keeping on the Isle of Arran.
As regards the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, I can only agree with the majority of what he said.
I hope that I have answered the points made by noble Lords. I commend the order to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992
12.8 p.m.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield Baroness Denton of Wakefield rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 1st December be approved [13th Report from the Joint Commit tee.]
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the regulations are intended to implement in UK law the EC directive of the same name. This is a consumer protection measure, and the regulations will mark an important step forward in the development of consumer rights in this field.
The directive and the regulations have three main objectives: first, to ensure that organisers and retailers of packages maintain proper professional standards in their dealings with their customers; secondly, to require organisers and retailers to take full responsibility for the proper performance of their contract; and, thirdly, to ensure that organisers and, in some circumstances, retailers have security for the refund of any advance payments made by consumers, including the cost of repatriation in the event of the insolvency of the organiser or retailer. Those objectives are reflected in the draft regulations now before your Lordships.
Although the directive is relatively short, the matters it deals with are complex and I hope that your Lordships will bear with me if I take a little time to explain how the requirements of the directive are reflected in the proposed implementing regulations.
Regulations 1 to 3 deal with definitions and application. Basically, the regulations would only apply to packages sold or offered for sale after 31st December 1992. However, the provisions regarding protection against insolvency affect all contracts in place on 31st December 1992 which remain to be performed in whole or in part. That means that organisers (and retailers if they are party to the contract) must on that date have security for all pre-payments that they hold. It would clearly be unacceptable if a tour operator became insolvent at the end of January, and those customers who had entered into contracts subsequent to 31st December were protected while those who entered into contracts before that date were not.
Regulations 4 to 6 deal with requirements as to brochures. Brochures must not contain any misleading information but must contain—in so far as it is relevant to the package—at least the information contained in Schedule 1, and will, subject to certain qualifications, be binding on the organiser.
Regulations 7 and 8 deal with information to be provided before the contract is concluded. This includes, among other matters, passport and visa requirements and details of travel arrangements.
Regulation 9 deals with the content of contracts. The contract must contain at least the elements spelt out in Schedule 2, unless these are clearly irrelevant to the package in question, and the consumer must be

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given a copy of the contract in writing. There is nothing in this regulation to prohibit the conclusion of telephone contracts or contracts which are concluded only at the last minute. In appropriate circumstances it could, for example, be as late as the moment when the customer arrives at the airport that he obtains his copy of the written contract.
Regulation 10 gives the consumer certain rights to transfer a booking.
Regulation 11 deals with the important question of surcharges. We have given a lot of thought to this, and have concluded that it would be unreasonable and probably not in the long-term interests of the consumer to attempt to ban surcharges altogether. But our regulations do not in any way "legalise" surcharges. The imposition of surcharges has always been perfectly lawful so long as it is provided for in the contract. What our regulations will do is for the first time place strict limits on the circumstances in which surcharges may be imposed. In doing so we have, exceptionally, gone beyond the strict requirements of the directive. Surcharges will be permitted only to deal with variations in the price of fuel, fluctuations in exchange rates or increases in certain dues and taxes. In addition the organiser must absorb the first 2 per cent. of any increase and may not impose any increase within 30 days of the date of departure. This mirrors the current requirements of the code of practice of the Association of British Travel Agents. We believe that this strikes the right balance between protecting the interests of the consumer and recognising what can be a genuine problem for organisers.
Regulation 12 permits the consumer to withdraw from the contract without penalty if there is a significant alteration to an essential term of that contract; Regulation 13 spells out the consumer's rights in this situation and also in the event of cancellation by the organiser. This is another area where we have had to strike a balance between the interests of the consumer and that of the organiser, since provision is included for cancellation by the latter if a tour fails to attract the minimum number necessary to make it viable. This reflects the directive, and we have thought it right to allow it, provided the fact that a minimum number is required is made clear to the consumer from the outset.
Regulations 14 and 15 deal with the rights of the consumer whilst the contract is being performed. Under Regulation 14, a duty is placed on the organiser to make alternative arrangements if a significant proportion of the services contracted for are not provided. It also provides the consumer with a right to compensation where appropriate and a right if necessary to be returned to his point of departure.
Regulation 15 makes the organiser, or possibly in certain circumstances the retailer, strictly liable for the performance of the contract. This means it will no longer be open to the organiser to disclaim responsibility if, for example, a hotel is not of the standard, or does not offer the service, which has been promised. There are certain qualifications. For example, the organiser is not liable for a failure due to an event which he could not, even with all due care,
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have foreseen or forestalled, and liability other than for death or injury may be limited so long as that limitation is reasonable.
That brings me to Regulations 16 to 22 which deal with security for pre-payments and against the possible need for repatriation in the event of insolvency. I would like to explain our approach to this important provision in the directive.
The first point is that the number of organisers or establishments in the United Kingdom that offer packages is extremely large. There are no statistics, and any estimate can only be an educated guess. But we believe the total number may be up to 20,000 and could be more, not counting the many people who organise packages on a voluntary basis. Many of those who offer packages are not tour operators at all but hotels, farms and similar establishments which offer a tourist service—for example pony trekking, golf, or fishing—in addition to accommodation. Among tour operators proper, the range varies from the giants of the package travel trade to one-person companies exploiting some niche in the market.
Faced with this diversity, the philosophy we adopted was to offer the widest possible range of choice for meeting the requirements of the directive. Those who have urged on us a more prescriptive approach in implementing the directive have in my view totally failed to appreciate the breadth of its coverage and the variety of companies, organisations and even individuals that fall within its scope. To try to force all these within a single framework of control would have been impossibly bureaucratic and restrictive. It would have put people out of business, and therefore would restrict competition and would restrict consumer choice. None of these would have been in the consumer's interests.
The options that organisers may choose are spelt out in the regulations. Regulation 16 is a general provision, and contains exceptions for packages covered by the existing Air Travel Organisers' Licence system, which will not be affected by the regulations, or by arrangements in force in another member state.
There are two particular points about this regulation. The first is that we have not provided how the requirement to have arrangements for repatriation should be met. This is because there are a great many possible ways of meeting this requirement, and it would have been over-prescriptive for us to try to list them all. The second is that we have provided that, for a period of three months following entry into force of the regulations, organisers will not have to have in place one of the specific forms of protection spelt out in Regulations 17 to 21, though they will still be committing an offence if they do not have sufficient security to protect consumers if they became insolvent. That is because the interval between approval of these regulations and their date of entry into force is likely to be very short and we needed to give the very large number of operators who currently have no protection time to make appropriate arrangements. The provision regarding other member states does not give operators a free hand to move offshore and avoid the requirements of the regulations. That is because the provision applies only

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if the rules of the other member state extend to packages sold in the UK and that member state has implemented the directive.
In addition to meeting the general requirement of Regulation 16, organisers of packages will need to meet one or other of the alternative provisions set out in Regulations 17 to 20 or, if they are not acting in the course of business, Regulation 21. Regulations 17 and 18 provide for an organiser who wishes to follow the well-established bonding system which is already mandatory for holders of Air Travel Organisers Licences and is operated on a voluntary basis by the main trade associations in the industry. It is envisaged that most, if not all, of those trade associations will become approved bodies.
Regulation 19 offers an alternative to bonding in the form of insurance. It is designed primarily for those organisers who are either unable or do not choose to join one of the "approved bodies" provided for in Regulations 17 and 18. Regulation 20 provides that organisers may if they wish meet the requirements of the directive by placing pre-payments in a trust account from which they can be withdrawn only on completion of the contract. That option is designed primarily for hotels and similar establishments which take only a relatively small proportion of the cost of a package by way of pre-payment. And, finally, Regulation 21 makes special provision for the voluntary sector. The effect of this regulation is that an organiser not acting by way of business need only ensure that any payments he receives are kept separate from his personal bank account so that they cannot be seized by his creditors in the event of his insolvency. The remaining regulations consist of consequential and general provisions.
The regulations have presented some difficult problems. To those who have urged us to go further and impose a central licensing and enforcement system I would say, "Have you really considered the cost and bureaucracy of what you are suggesting?". To those who have argued that we should provide this or that additional right for consumers I would say, similarly, "Have you considered what the cost would be to the industry and what price, therefore, the consumer would pay for his additional protection?". As in all things, there is a balance to be struck.
That does not mean neglecting the consumer interest. On the contrary, this is a consumer protection measure and in drawing up our implementing regulations we have been concerned to ensure that the consumer is indeed properly protected. But all protection has a price and it is the consumer himself who must ultimately pay that price. It is for that reason that we have followed, generally, the principle that the implementing regulations should offer sound protection for the consumer while placing the least possible additional burden on the industry consistent with proper implementation of the directive. We know that we shall not satisfy everybody but we believe that this way we have got the balance about right. I commend the regulations to the House.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 1st December be approved [13th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Denton of Wakefield.)
12.24 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, perhaps I may express the gratitude of the whole House for the care and attention to detail which the Minister gave to the regulations and to their background. No doubt she will need a moment or two to recover from what was, by any standard, a marathon speech of 14 minutes, when she did the House proud. We understand that it was her duty to deal with all the provisions, some of which are more important than others. I intend to concentrate on two or three of the issues, which will probably expand to four or five.
In 1982 the Commission first recognised that the state of the holiday industry and the jeopardy in which consumers could be put required attention. It produced some ideas and guidelines on Community tourism. In 1984, under the aegis within which it operated, the Community adopted a number of measures and principles. New proposals were published in 1988. The present proposals have been on the table, as it were, for the past two years. Your Lordships and consumers will recognise, therefore, that whatever other emergencies and imperatives may have existed—and there have been many —it has taken a long time to bring forward these regulations.
Last week I listened to the debate on the regulations in the other place and therefore experienced the atmosphere and the mood. The reaction of its Members was hostile to the case that the Minister put forward, although they were grateful to him for the care that he took. My task is made a little easier because so many questions were then asked and left unanswered that there are no questions that I can ask of which the department has not had notice from those in another place. Last night my honourable friend Nigel Griffiths asked me to invite the noble Baroness to throw some light on the department's failure to reply to his letter to her noble friend. He wrote two weeks ago inviting the Minister to name one bona fide organisation which approves of what the noble Baroness outlined today. I hope that those who assist her will be able to name more than one group, individual or organisation.
The first disturbing point that we must make is that the Government have been involved in a consultation exercise which has resulted in the charade. What is the purpose of consultation? It is not merely to circulate pieces of paper, receive them after completion and then give one's own views. The replies should be taken into account. The Consumers' Association is emphatic in saying that it does not approve of the orders. The industry and ABTA does not approve of the orders. Those involved in business travel do not approve of the orders. In the debate in another place Sir Anthony Grant declared an interest as representing business travellers and said:
"I shall continue to believe that the directive is bad for the industry, bad for business travel, bad for exports and therefore bad for Britain".—[Official Report, Commons, 10/12/92; col. 1083.]

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He was not one of the hostile speakers on the issue. Therefore, with friends like Sir Anthony Grant speaking on the matter the noble Baroness does not need any enemies.
The trading standards officers must enforce the regulations. They too have stated emphatically that they do not believe that the regulations are enforceable or will work. What organisations' views are so paramount that the Government have chosen to believe them rather than the consumers, the industry, business traveller or the enforcers?
The Consumers' Association said:
"The Government's proposals for implementing the Directive are fundamentally flawed. Tragically they represent a missed opportunity to ensure that all consumers get a fair deal when booking their holidays".
The Minister is quite right to say that she has sought to achieve a balance. However, I believe that the balance in these provisions means that the Government have done as little as possible. The Minister described this as a consumer protection measure, but I see no sign of that.
The Minister in another place, Mr. Leigh, said:
"When I was responsible for consumer affairs, which have subsequently become the responsibility of my noble Friend Baroness Denton, I was determined to ensure that while we carried out the spirit of the directive—if we did not do so, we could have been taken to the European court—we did not want to impose any more burdens on British industry than was absolutely necessary".—[Official Report, Commons, 10/12/92; col. 1077.]
I wonder which element of industry is supposed to agree with that statement. ABTA certainly does not agree with it. ABTA's members represent 90 per cent. of package holiday makers. ABTA has been prepared voluntarily to add to its burdens in order to protect consumers.
The Minister told the House that this is a consumer protection measure, and mentioned surcharges. I should like the Minister to be rather more specific as regards her assertion that this order does not legalise surcharges. My interpretation of the directive is that there is nothing wrong with companies increasing surcharges above the ABTA recommended limit of 2 per cent. A consumer may look at a holiday brochure in the autumn and see the price of the holiday which he wishes to take the following year. He then finds subsequently that surcharge after surcharge has been imposed. That is unfair. The Minister failed to state, and the industry has not been prepared to recognise, that currencies may fluctuate in both directions—up as well as down. A properly organised business should be able to set its prices fairly in advance.
We know what the directive says about liability as regards providing holidays. However, what happened about the implementation and enforcement of that liability? For example, the regulations state that an organiser shall be responsible for the services he has sold. That is laudable. However, the organiser is not obliged to take out insurance. Therefore, many consumers will suffer loss and will thus have a right to sue. They will find that although they have rights, the holiday company cannot satisfy those rights.
I am sure your Lordships will remember the company, Land Travel. Last year 40,000 consumers failed to get either their holiday or their money back.
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Does the Minister realise that to lay an obligation on such a company is laughable? The Government need to see proof of enforcement.
The Minister did not mention the licensing scheme. Originally, the Government favoured a licensing regime, but subsequently they have dropped that. On the basis of whose evidence have they decided they no longer wish to have a licensing scheme? It is not on the basis of evidence from consumers, the industry or ABTA. Why have the Government dropped that scheme and why are they making such heavy weather of bureaucracy? They do not mind the bureaucracy involved in the ATOL scheme.
I strongly recommend the ATOL scheme to the Minister as being beneficial to consumers. What does that scheme do? We have had great difficulty in finding out about costing. In that regard the evidence which the Civil Aviation Authority gave to the Government about the ATOL scheme was:
"The quantifiable cost to the passenger of the present ATOL system is the total of licence charges plus the amount levied and put in the back-up fund plus the cost to individual licence holders of the work in securing a licence and the sums payable in respect of getting bonds. All the figures which follow are at 1990 prices. The levy raised £51 millions: the Reserve Fund still contains £26 millions. Over the period since the levy was introduced 117 million passenger journeys under ATOLS have been authorised. The cost per passenger authorised in ATOL charges is about 16p".
Is that the punitive cost upon the industry of financing a licensing scheme? It continued:
"With a net levy cost per passenger of 21p, the cost per passenger of levy and licence charges combined is about 37p. This is equivalent to 0.14 per cent. of the current average passenger trip price. It is difficult to estimate the true cost of bonding".
Other details are then given and the comment is made that the cost of a licensing system, which would give teeth to the regulations, would be between £1 and £1.80.
The Minister and her colleagues have run away from inviting consumers—never mind the industry —to add the cost of £2 to the price of package holidays, whereas in fact consumers would welcome it. When there is a tragedy, as there will be next year and the year after, the Minister and her colleagues will know that they are responsible. These regulations are not the responsibility of Europe or of anywhere else; they are the responsibility of the Minister and her colleagues. When I come back to the House next year or the year after with the details of a tragedy I shall say to the Minister, "Minister, you declined to add a marginal cost onto either the industry, which is willing to bear it, or onto consumers, who are willing to pay it". What a terrible price consumers will have to pay for that mistake on the part of the Minister.
The Minister should recognise that she has failed to convince anyone that what she has done is in response to the needs of the industry or consumers. This would have been a golden opportunity but it is now a missed opportunity.
I forgot to mention the trading standard officers. They have said that they will be called in, but that will be when it is too late, after the stable door has been closed. From her wide experience the Minister knows

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that there is now a shortage of trading standard officers. They are overworked now and yet they are to be asked to police these matters.
Everyone who goes on a holiday knows that certain risks are taken. This directive could have put their minds at rest. People could have gone on holiday knowing that the Government had set in place either an extended ATOL scheme or an additional scheme which mirrored it to protect the consumer. I fear that because of doctrinal stubbornness the Minister is saying to consumers, "Hard luck. We have given you what appears to be a good package". This package is flawed. When I come to the House with details of tragedies I hope that the Minister will have a good explanation, not only for me but for the country as a whole. If I can persuade the Government to recognise that these regulations are not what consumers, the industry, business travellers or local government want, then I believe that I shall have done the House a service.
12.38 p.m.
Lord Finsberg: My Lords, several years ago I was a director of one of the major tour operators in this country, but for the past three or four years I have had absolutely no connection with the industry. I should like to ask my noble friend some questions and make one or two comments about these regulations.
First, I am certain that no scheme, however gold plated, would satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Graham. I have known him for many years and he will never be satisfied. Frankly, I do not believe that any better compromise could have been put forward than that proposed by my noble friend. It is a compromise, as she rightly said. One must not assume that the Consumers' Association speaks for consumers. It is a professional body. The overwhelming bulk of people who travel on package holidays are satisfied. But we do not hear from them. I accept that we hear all too frequently from those who have suffered. It is of course possible for individuals to take out their own insurance. Why should everybody have to pay the additional costs that would be incurred if the industry were to gold-plate all the safeguards and all the guarantees?
On the issue of surcharges, of course none of us likes to pay a surcharge. The brochures and the costings are worked out many months ahead. So it is impossible ever to guarantee that there will be no surcharges unless we are prepared to say to the tour operators, "You build in whatever you like to cover yourself for this", and then there will be no surcharge; but most of us would be paying much too much to have that already covered. I put it as gently as I can: let us have no more of this nonsense about surcharges. What is in this proposed set of regulations may be the lowest common denominator, but it is an advance on what we have at present.
I should like to ask my noble friend two specific questions. Can she assure the House that nothing in this set of regulations has been added by the Ministry? We have heard in the past three or four weeks from my right honourable friend the Prime Minister that some
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of the regulations and bureaucracy that bear down on this country are not the result of Brussels but are the result of our civil servants saying, "Minister, this is a rather nice little thing. Let us just slip it into this particular set of regulations." I know from my own ministerial experience how easy it is to fall for this syrupy language, but if one is firm it can be stopped. Can my noble friend assure us that there is nothing in here that satisfies a whim of the third assistant secretary in one of the ministries?
Secondly, my noble friend spoke of a significant change in Regulation 12 that would enable certain things to happen. Can she explain what is meant in this instance by "significant"? Does it mean, for example, that the plane is going to depart from Gatwick instead of Heathrow? Does it mean that the plane is going to depart at 5 p.m. instead of 7 a.m.? These are matters of real importance to those who are going on package holidays. I have suffered from that sort of change. I would regard it as significant, but I should like to know what advice my noble friend can give to the House to explain what exactly the safeguard is.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Graham, that of course something is going to go wrong; it always will. That is human nature. My noble friend need have nothing on her conscience when the noble Lord comes back, if he does come back, on a future occasion, because one has to work the art of the possible. It is not possible to produce Utopia, which I think was what the noble Lord opposite was trying to get. If my noble friend can satisfy me about Regulation 12 and can assure me that the regulations contain no excess baggage that is the whim of a civil servant in the United Kingdom, I should be most grateful.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down would he care to consider one of the central points that he made, that the organisations that I quoted do not necessarily speak for the consumer. These are the bodies that have been created by the Consumers' Association. I have been a member, but not a professional. The noble Lord said that there was a professional organisation. It is an organisation, but the members are certainly not professionals. Does the noble Lord think that if the total cost of ensuring the kind of provisions that a consumer wants amounts to £2 that the ordinary consumer would jib at that?
Lord Finsberg: My Lords, what I would say, having 98.5 per cent. sat down, but not 100 per cent., is that I am not sure that I necessarily accept the figure that the noble Lord quoted of as little as £2. To achieve what he wanted would have cost substantially more. I do not necessarily believe that consumers would want that.
I have just recalled another point I wanted to make. There is always a problem about consultation. Those of us who have had to indulge in consultation know full well that one will be given totally conflicting views, depending on which side of the fence one is sitting. A consumer has one set of requirements; a provider has another. It is not government's job to listen to consultation, advice and then accept it all. It is the job

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of the government to listen, to see what is sensible and practical, and then to achieve a balance. That is what my noble friend has done.
12.45 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Graham, I too should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Denton, for explaining the regulations with such clarity and patience. Having said that, I must oppose the regulations, not because I am against increased safeguards for travellers in principle but because both the EC directive and the enhanced obligations added later by the Government go too far.
I agree with the honourable Member for Cambridgeshire South-West, Sir Anthony Grant, cited by the noble Lord, Lord Graham, who suggested in another place a week ago that the directive was bad for the travel industry, bad for business travel, bad for exports and hence bad for Britain. In my view the regulations are excessively paternalistic, even maternalistic. Secondly, they impose excessive burdens upon businesses, especially upon innovative entrepreneurs who lack massive capital backing. That will eventually rebound upon consumers whose choice will be restricted and who will have to pay more, possibly much more, for their package holidays. At the moment package holidays in Britain are among the cheapest, if not the cheapest, in Europe by a wide margin.
Thirdly, the regulations breach the principle of subsidiarity in so far as they have been extended to embrace holidays sold almost exclusively in one country and not seeking to attract people across frontiers from other EC countries. Finally, although some of the principles that motivate the obligations now to be imposed upon business are admirable, they are inconsistently and illogically applied.
May I deal with this last point first? When we originally debated the matter a great many months ago, I think well over a year ago, the emphasis then was on protecting people who had flown out to another country and risked being stranded hundreds of miles from home should anything go wrong. Illogically and inconsistently the protection was not extended to people who travel other than on a package basis, whether by air, sea or long-distance coach: I do not think that railways go bust very often. There are many students, for example, who travel as far as Athens by coach in order to catch cheap flights to the Far East, and many of those coach companies are not companies of great financial substance. I suppose that the EC Commission reckons that people capable of booking their own accommodation have the nous to get themselves out of a tight spot, whereas package travellers are thought to be too simple and unsophisticated to be able to do so.
Subsequently, it would appear that the draft directive, which I have not been following, was altered to embrace all sorts of holidays, including those that do not involve flights overseas and which are not generally thought of by the public as package holidays. The emphasis shifted from the repatriation of stranded travellers, for which there is a great deal to
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be said, to protecting deposits. That is much more ambitious, admirable though it may be. Here the inconsistencies and illogicalities multiply.
There are a number of transactions in this country where people often have to pay substantial deposits in advance—those involving hotels, holiday cottages, caravans, boats on canals or on the Norfolk Broads, central heating systems, double glazing, furniture (a three-piece suite nowadays costs more than many a package holiday) and of course builders, who often require substantial staged payments during the course of a large conversion and who can go broke later, leaving the householder with an uncompleted extension, and so on.
In all these cases the seller or provider is just as likely to go bust as is the provider of a package holiday, yet the public simply have to accept the risk. Moreover, the proposal throws up some extraordinary anomalies. As I understand it, trans-Atlantic crossings by the QE2 are not covered by the directive but cruises by the QE2 are covered, even though the amenities and services provided are precisely identical. Again, if a hotel simply provides bed, breakfast and dinner it is not caught by the directive but if it offers a "special weekend", where a series of special wine-tastings are thrown in, or tickets to an opera, concert or theatre, then it is caught.
This brings me to the extra burden imposed upon businesses. A small but hitherto successful Scottish company, in which I must declare a very modest interest as a BES shareholder, runs cruises along the west coast of Scotland, giving employment to 50 people and bringing many benefits to what is an economically depressed area of Scotland. It is demonstrating Scottish enterprise at its very best; but it believes that it may collapse as a result of the implementation of the directive. Instead of being able to receive and utilise payments made eight weeks before the cruise, as is normal with shipping companies, it cannot now touch a penny until the last passenger has disembarked down the gangplank. In the present economic climate, additional bank borrowings to make up for the lost working capital are almost, if not wholly, impossible to obtain. The company is not old-established enough to be able to obtain insurance readily. This seems a crazy way to encourage initiative and the revival of business confidence which this Government rightly seek.
The question of subsidiarity also comes in here, inasmuch as 95 per cent. of this company's clients come from the United Kingdom, approximately 34½ per cent. come from North America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, just over half a per cent. come from non-EC countries and less than 1 per cent. come from other EC countries. If only 1 per cent. of the clientele comes from other EC countries, why should the EC interfere, since the whole purpose of the directive, as I understand it, is to protect people who cross frontiers in search of better value package holidays?
In order not to run the risk of being accused of elitism, I will restrain myself from saying all that I had intended about the excessive paternalism of the directive. But this much must be said. The directive

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apparently covers fly-drive holidays—the sort where one travels to, say, Lyon, Marseilles, Lisbon, Malaga, Rome or Izmir, usually by scheduled flight, with a week's car-hire thrown in for virtually nothing. Yet as this technically constitutes a package holiday a representative evidently must be provided at the other end. Are we really to believe that people on this sort of holiday need a representative to take them by the hand as they descend the aircraft steps and guide them to the desks of Messrs Hertz, Avis, Budget or Eurocar?
I have two final questions for the noble Baroness. The first more or less repeats what the noble Lord, Lord Graham, asked: why do the regulations extend to business travel? Business travellers are surely more than capable of looking after themselves. Secondly, I should like to ask whether it is indeed the case, as I have been told, that of the 12 EC countries only the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland are on the point of implementing the directive? If so, is it not a pity that once again Britain and British business are paying the penalty for being virtually the only people to obey EC rules?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I should like first to thank your Lordships for your patience in listening to my explanation of the regulations. As you will recognise, they are important regulations. May I say also that it is an unexpected pleasure for us all to hear the noble Lord, Lord Graham, at the Dispatch Box. But I am sorry that on this occasion I cannot agree with him.
First, I do not think he would hold me responsible for the speed at which the European Commission works. I hear his point about how long the matter has been discussed, but it is obviously a matter of European concern and it would not be helpful to go ahead of European legislation when it was coming towards us and when we have supported this legislation from the moment of its introduction.
I also apologise as the noble Lord said that his friend had not received a reply to the question of who was in support of the organisation. Perhaps in answer I may quote the submission made by the Institute of Trading Standards Administration:
"Overall, the institute is very pleased with the changes which have been made to Article 7 with reference to the surveillance by trading standards departments of the bonding or insurance provisions. We think think that this is now a realistic approach".
We acknowledge that it has been impossible to keep everyone happy. It is not, as my noble friend Lord Finsberg said, the purpose of government to keep people happy: it is the purpose of government to legally implement directives and to ensure that there is security for the consumer. We believe that we have done that. We have listened and consulted very extensively. That is why we are today discussing these regulations. We have taken on board all the facts we have heard, but a major point I would make is that we are not talking about an industry in the same way as we talk about the work of ATOL—
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, will the noble Baroness allow me to intervene? Is she really
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putting forward as a defence to the argument that no one is in sympathy with what the Government are doing that one observation by the trading standards institute? Quite frankly, that is puny and tiny. I have a letter here from one officer there to another officer, ridiculing the manner of implementation. But may I come back to the main point? Could we have a long list, as I have produced a long list, of organisations and bodies that have actually said, "We not only approve of the principle but we are happy with the orders"?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I was trying simply to cover the matter raised by the noble Lord in his point about the letter. I was explaining that it is not the purpose of government to ensure that we have a list of supporters of our activities: we take our decisions on legislation that we believe will look after the consumer, having consulted many organisations.
There is an enormous difference between ATOL and the number of companies it is responsible for—around 160—and an industry with some 20,000 or more operators. The costs on these operators, as opposed to large companies, would indeed be very high out of licensing. This is where we have moved; and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Monson, because in introducing his point, he gave us a defence of not becoming over-bureaucratic in instituting these directives but of trying to ensure that we keep in the marketplace the small and innovative company. It is quite often such companies which provide employment and family holidays. It is important that we recognise that ABTA, which has done a very good job with its members, is not a major part of the market. It has a view.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. I hope that this is my last intervention. What puzzles people outside the House is the question of cost, but no costing has been provided. The Government have decided that the provision is too costly. The figures produced by the CAA are ridiculed; namely, 16p, 21p and 37p and the global figures of £1 and £1.80. Can the Minister give the figure that the Government have which it is said will be far too dear? We believe that for doctrinal purposes the Government do not wish to add what they say would be another layer of bureaucracy.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, perhaps I may clear up that point. I have no knowledge of the strength of the CAA figures. However, I am not ridiculing them. As regards the very small but large number of operators in this area, I do not believe that the figures are relevant. It is not a doctrinal matter. There are only two sources of money: one is the taxpayer and the other is the customer. It is wrong to ask the customer for a small family holiday to carry the burden which, as my noble friend said, is unnecessary for the majority of holidaymakers. We should recognise that the industry comprises mainly companies supplying customers with a very satisfactory product. That is the Government's view.

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I now turn to the question raised by two noble Lords about the inclusion of business travel. We have no alternative but to implement the directive as presented. I believe that if business travel had been exempted, the whole industry would have suddenly consisted of business travel, and those who are specialists in that sector would have found themselves with a large number of new competitors. In that area we have no choice. In another place we removed the surcharge limits from that market sector on the basis that it deals with customers who understand the market.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Finsberg for the practicality, realism, past knowledge and experience which he brought to the debate. He rightly said that if one is not to allow a surcharge, then the obvious reaction of the marketplace would be to include belt and braces on some things. The cost could then be much greater. I also support his point—which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Graham—as to whether insurance should be taken out as a matter of personal choice. Many people now have comprehensive insurance cover. That is not part of this directive. Whether there should be an upper limit on the surcharges is related to the meaning of the words "occasionally" or "significant" in the regulations. The regulations have closely followed the wording of the directive. Any interpretation that we might place on such words would have no authority. It would be for the courts (ultimately the European Court of Justice) to interpret the directive, and any regulation which the court determined was not in accord with the directive could also be overturned.
I have every sympathy with those who have called on the department to define the words "significant", "occasionally", and other such words. In some areas, such as the definition of "pre-arranged", we have felt bound to offer an opinion. That will be set out in a guidance note. It is important to remind your Lordships that our view carries no particular validity.
Lord Finsberg: My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend is accurate on that. As I understand it, on 26th November the Law Lords gave a ruling that it is now possible for courts to take into account what Ministers have said as reported in Hansard. If that is so, is my noble friend prepared to say what view she takes on the one or two points that I raised as regards significance?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, this is obviously an area in which I would not claim to have expert knowledge. I suggest that the ruling of the Law Lords was not about an EC directive. I shall take advice and write to my noble friend on that matter. He also suggested that officials approached one with syrupy words which resulted in excess baggage. In many ways it would have given me great pleasure to assure him that there was no excess baggage. There is a minimum of excess baggage. We have aimed to keep additional burdens to a minimum, consistent with proper implementation of the directive. The main area is the regulation dealing with surcharges which we brought into line with the current practice operated by
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ABTA; namely, no surcharges in the 30-day period before departure and a requirement on the operator to absorb the first 2 per cent. increase.
If we had not done that, the protection which the United Kingdom consumer currently enjoys could be lost. We have also stipulated that brochures should contain a description of arrangements if the consumer is delayed at the outward or homeward point of departure. In addition, we have made it a requirement that the brochure should include a statement of the arrangements in place to protect the consumer in the event of insolvency and that that information should be given to the consumer before the contract is concluded. I hope that my noble friend will not think that I was too subject to syrupy words.
The noble Lord, Lord Monson, identified in the company operating in Scotland exactly the kind of operator to which we felt it was important to give alternative ways of meeting the directive requirements. We wanted to establish very clearly that, although there are many strong and effective high street giants in the industry, there are also individual companies running holidays which offer great attractions to people. That was one of our reasons for trying to walk the tightrope of balance which these regulations have done.
They are important regulations and it is an important market. It is one which represents for many people an important part of their quality of life which very often involves families with young children. We are extremely aware of that. We have endeavoured to ensure that they have not only protection under the directive, but also choice. It would not be my wish that we should bring regulations before your Lordships' House that ask the consumer to pay more for less.
Lord Monson: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, can she say whether any EC countries, other than the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, are implementing this directive as from 1st January 1993?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, the noble Lord will appreciate that it is important that the United Kingdom Government observe the legal requirements. So our decision is made irrespective of what other countries are doing. As we have the presidency, we should lead from in front. We understand that France and the Netherlands have implemented the directive.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries (Repeals) (Northern Ireland) Order 1992
1.11 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (The Earl of Arran)rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 19th October be approved.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this order repeals the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries (Northern Ireland) Order 1979 in so far as, first, it provides for financial assistance to Short Brothers; and, secondly,

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it repeals certain duties of the Department of Economic Development in relation to Harland and Wolff.
Following the privatisation of Short's and Harland and Wolff in 1989, the Government consider that there is no need to continue to make specific legislation for them. On their privatisation, the Government made it clear that both companies would be treated similarly to other private sector industrial companies in Northern Ireland. Therefore, the legislative basis for any future financial support to either business will be the Industrial Development (Northern Ireland) Order 1982.
The privatisation of Harland and Wolff was achieved by a sale of the business to a new company, Harland and Wolff Holdings PLC. The Department of Economic Development retained ownership of the old company, Harland and Wolff PLC, and is responsible for its remaining liabilities. In addition, the department retained responsibility for those subsidiaries of Shorts which had financial obligations relating to aircraft sales financing. For technical legislative reasons, the relevant companies were made subsidiaries of Harland and Wolff. In view, therefore, of these continuing obligations of Harland and Wolff PLC, there may be a need for the department to provide assistance to this company and only those articles of the 1979 order which are no longer relevant are being repealed at this stage.
A complete repeal of the 1979 order will be effected when the remaining obligations of Harland and Wolff PLC have expired. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 19th October be approved.—(The Earl of Arran.)
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining so clearly the meaning of the four articles in this order. However, he might also have mentioned that this is a hybrid order. When he replies, I am sure that he can confirm that there were no petitions against the hybridity of the order, or otherwise that they have been resolved.
I should like to ask a question about Article (3), which refers to Short Brothers PLC. It is this: is the department prudent to abandon its power to give financial assistance to Short Brothers in the future? I appreciate that, as is pointed out in the explanatory note, Short Brothers will still be eligible to receive financial assistance under the Industrial Development (Northern Ireland) Order. As far as it goes that is fine, but we know from experience that circumstances may yet show that the assistance which may be required by the company may be outside the range of assistance which is at the disposal of the Industrial Development Board—or that the IDB budget might be inadequate to meet that burden without distorting the remainder of its programme. Therefore, I ask again: should not the department have retained the power to give assistance if circumstances dictate that such assistance is necessary and appropriate?
I ask this question because Short Brothers, which is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bombadier, a Canadian company, is still of vital strategic importance to the whole economy of Northern
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Ireland. It represents about 10 per cent. of Northern Ireland's manufacturing capacity. It employs about 8,000 people in and around Belfast. In addition, it provides employment directly or indirectly for at least another 8,000 people throughout Northern Ireland. Again, we return to my question: is it prudent for the department to preclude itself from giving assistance to the company if changing circumstances dictate that such assistance is necessary and desirable? I wonder whether I would be far off the mark if I were to suggest that the true author of Article (3) is not the department but Her Majesty's Treasury.
I have one or two questions about Article (4), which relates to Harland and Wolff. The Minister explained very clearly the distinction between Harland and Wolff PLC and the trading company, Harland and Wolff Holdings PLC, and I am extremely grateful to him for the clarity of that explanation. The trading company, Harland and Wolff Holdings PLC, was created as a result of the privatisation, which offered so many juicy fruits to the people of Northern Ireland.
The effect of this order is that the department is abandoning the five powers specified in Article (4) in relation to what I might call the "shell" company, Harland and Wolff PLC. What powers will the department retain in relation to that company, for how long, and why will they be retained?
The order does not deal at all with the present trading company, Harland and Wolff Holdings PLC. May I ask the Minister, as we approach Christmas, what message of comfort the department brings to the trading company and to the men and women who are employed by it at the end of what has been a very bleak year for that company? The Minister knows very well that there are deepening anxieties in the air of Belfast about the financial and employment situation in this very famous dockyard. During the first six months of this year Harland and Wolff Holdings PLC made a loss of £6 million. I understand that five out of six shipbuilding options, which were much talked about at the time of the privatisation, have now been cancelled by China Navigation Limited, of, I hasten to add, Hong Kong. I believe that only one ship is currently under construction in the yard, but my information on that point might not be correct. Not so very long ago Harland and Wolff employed 10,000 people. The number is now down to 2,000, and, sadly, within a week another 400 people will have been made redundant.
What is particularly significant about this latest round of redundancies is that it includes a substantial number of staff who undertake the skilled work; the scheduling of the work programme and the highly skilled design work which lies at the core of ship construction. To many people the loss of these core workers suggests that before long Harland and Wolff Holdings will be just another UK assembly point for a thrusting Far Eastern company trading with Continental Europe. Of more immediate concern are the employment prospects of the core workers who are being made redundant before Christmas, bearing in mind that Northern Ireland has no other shipbuilding capacity which can offer employment to the core workers. Where will the core workers find alternative

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employment—in the United Kingdom or further afield in Japan or Korea? So approaching Christmas and a new year, I ask the Minister what comfort, if any, the Government can bring to the privatised shipbuilders of Northern Ireland and, in particular, to the men and women who are employed by the company.
I have underlined as best I can the significance of the order for Northern Ireland and for two of its major companies, one of which is of strategic importance to Northern Ireland. I shall listen with great interest and some concern to the Minister's response.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reaction to the order. I shall do my best in the brief time available to me to answer the questions that he has asked. I can tell the noble Lord that no petitions were received. The point of the order is that it repeals the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries (Northern Ireland) Order 1979 in so far as it provides for financial assistance to the new privatised Short Brothers PLC and in respect of certain duties of the Department of Economic Development in relation to Harland and Wolff PLC, the company which the department has retained within its ownership following the sale of the shipbuilding business to a new company, Harland and Wolff Holdings PLC.
The noble Lord went on to speak of the future of Short's. We are satisfied that adequate resources will be available if they are necessary under the industry's development provisions in order to assist where necessary the future development of Short Brothers PLC. Under the business plan prepared by Bombadier for the development of Short's the Government are satisfied that Short's will continue to operate as a separate entity and that its headquarters manufacturing capability and research and development activities will remain in Northern Ireland, the point made by the noble Lord concerning the core activities of that company.
The noble Lord also asked about the powers being retained. They include, for instance, the power to fund Harland and Wolff PLC, to provide guarantees and to fund the cost of taking professional advice. Furthermore, so far as concerns Harland and Wolff Holdings PLC, I can confirm that the company had already indicated its intention to make some 94 redundancies before the end of 1992. This will bring the total number of redundancies announced since the end of 1991 to some 400. That will not be of comfort, as the noble Lord has said, but the company has at the same time indicated that it very much regrets having to take this action but concluded that it was necessary in order to improve its overall competitiveness.
Finally, I can say to the noble Lord that Harland and Wolff Holdings PLC is the newly privatised company set up to acquire the shipbuilding business. Harland and Wolff PLC is the company which has been retained in government ownership in view of the continuing financial obligations not acquired by the two privatised companies, Short's and Harland and
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Wolff Holdings. I hope that I have been able to answer the questions put to me. In those circumstances, I commend the order to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Firearms (Northern Ireland) Order 1981 (Amendment) Regulations 1992
1.25 p.m.
The Earl of Arran The Earl of Arran rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 30th November be approved [14th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Earl said: My Lords, these draft regulations seek to give effect to the requirements of the EC directive on control of the acquisition and possession of weapons. Corresponding regulations covering Great Britain were approved by your Lordships on 10th November.
The EC directive lays down the minimum standard which all member states must achieve in their national firearms controls. But individual member states may have stricter controls than this minimum standard. On the whole, firearm controls in Northern Ireland are stricter than the directive's minimum requirements. But there are a few instances where this is not the case. Consequently, we need to make some minor adjustments to the Northern Ireland legislation.
The most notable change is the extension of our existing category of prohibited weapons and ammunition to include those items which the directive say must be banned in all member states. Regulation 4 brings this into effect. However, since most of these controls are already applied in Northern Ireland through the exercise of the chief constable's discretion there are no significant implications in practice.
Special exemptions from the prohibition have been made for collectors and for those who sell or use expanding ammunition for the purposes authorised by the directive. The directive requires that these exemptions be reflected in our firearms legislation. They will not, however, take precedence over the chief constable's duty to protect public safety in his decisions to approve applications for firearms.
We already have a firearms purchasing scheme which will be extended to cover newly prohibited weapons. Anyone legally in possession of such a firearm on 1st December 1992—the day after the regulations were laid—will be able to apply for a payment under the firearms purchasing scheme.
Perhaps I may briefly take your Lordships through some of the main features of the draft regulations. Regulation 5 introduces the new European firearms pass. From 1st January 1993, Northern Ireland residents will need a European firearms pass in order to be able to take their firearms to another member state; for example, on a shooting trip. Firearm certificate holders will automatically be entitled to a European firearms pass in respect of the firearms covered by their certificate. This will be issued free of charge by the chief constable.
After 1st January 1993, any Northern Ireland resident who wishes to purchase or acquire certain firearms or ammunition in another member state will

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have to show that he has the agreement of the Northern Ireland authorities. This agreement will be given by an "Article 7 authority" issued by the chief constable. Again, this document will be issued free of charge.
In the same way that Northern Ireland residents will need a European firearms pass to take firearms abroad, so we must ensure that EC visitors bringing firearms to Northern Ireland have a European firearms pass issued by another Community state. At present all overseas visitors who wish to bring firearms to Northern Ireland must apply for a Northern Ireland firearm certificate. We intend to retain this system.
Regulation 6 requires a prospective visitor from the Community either to produce his European firearms pass, or to show that he is exempt from the need to have one, when applying for a firearm certificate.
Regulation 7 implements the directive's requirement that a resident of one member state, who purchases or acquires certain firearms in another member state, should inform his own domestic authorities of the purchase or acquisition. This regulation requires a Northern Ireland resident to inform the chief constable of the RUC of such a purchase or acquisition.
Regulation 8 sets out the punishment for the new offences created by the implementation of the directive.
The directive requires the member states to set up an information exchange system to inform each other about transfers of firearms between their respective territories. Regulation 9 ensures that we shall not be prevented by confidentiality obligations from supplying such information to other member states.
From this brief summary I hope it will be clear that the draft regulations do no more than amend the 1981 firearms order to give effect to our Community obligations. The existing strict controls over firearms in Northern Ireland will continue to apply. I commend the regulations to the House.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 30th November be approved [14th Report from the Joint Committee].—(The Earl of Arran.)
1.30 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, once again I thank the Minister for explaining the background to the order and its detailed regulations. I am sure that it is my mistake and not the Minister's, but I thought that he described the piece of legislation as an Order in Council. I may have misheard him. We should make it clear that it is a statutory instrument. I am pleased to give the approval of this side of the House to the instrument. However, we should remind ourselves that this statutory instrument is another example of primary legislation being amended by subordinate legislation. In this case, the legislative-making power is derived not from a Henry VIII clause in the primary legislation, which I believe is the Firearms (Northern Ireland) Act 1981, but by virtue of the European Communities Act 1972. Will the Minister confirm the
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fact that the regulations do not go an inch beyond the implementation of Weapons Directive No. 91/477/EEC?
The Minister delivered a speech which closely resembled that delivered by his noble friend Lord Ferrers on 10th November when he introduced to the House the Firearms Acts (Amendment) Regulations 1992 which were supported from our side of the House by my noble friend Lady Hilton. It is not surprising that the Minster's speech reflected what was said by his noble friend Lord Ferrers, because both sets of regulations have been produced to give effect to the EC weapons directive in the UK as a whole. That prompts me to ask the Minister to explain why it is necessary to have two separate regulations—one for Northern Ireland and the other for the rest of the UK. Why is it not possible in such a situation to have one instrument which would apply the directive to the whole of the UK?
It is of interest to note that the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland last year issued some 86,907 firearms certificates authorising some 127,459 individual firearms, of which I understand about 65 per cent. were shotguns. I understand that there were no more than 38 appeals to the Secretary of State against the chief constable's refusal. At times, when we read of the unlawful use of firearms in Northern Ireland, one just wonders whether more could be done to tighten up the controls, not that that result could necessarily be achieved by this order for the reasons that I have given, and nor do I have any particular recommendation to make in that respect. Perhaps the Minister will assure the House that the adequacy of firearms control in Northern Ireland is a matter which is reviewed constantly by the Secretary of State, and that there are no known or apparent gaps in the controls which need to be closed.
The unlawful and widespread use of firearms in Northern Ireland is explained, sadly, by the unresolved political difficulties. Yesterday's very carefully worded message by the Secretary of State, to the IRA in particular, could of course be relevant in this context. It must be our hope that those to whom the message is addressed will reflect upon its meaning, to the extent that we understand its meaning, and will take it into consideration. I believe that that point is worthy of mention when we are discussing firearms in Northern Ireland. I can think of no objective —I believe that this is the view of the House—which can possibly justify the horrendous violence of the past few years. That at least must be our message as we approach Christmas and the threshold of another new year.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, will my noble friend kindly clarify a point for me? Will he explain the new paragraph (2A) in Regulation 3 in relation to the use of any firearm or ammunition for a purpose not authorised by the European weapons directive? I see that there is a concession that the directive shall be taken to authorise the use of a firearm or ammunition for purposes (a) or (b) relating to sporting purposes and shotgun cartridges, vermins competitions and such things. Am I right to think that the concession,

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or perhaps a derogation from the directive, has the full approval of the RUC and that it understands what is meant by (a) (b) and (c)?
My noble friend mentioned the European firearms pass. Am I right in thinking that that covers citizens of the Community? Will he confirm that those whom I call Europeans, those from Switzerland, Norway and Scandinavia, who wish to go to Northern Ireland for sporting purposes, would still be subject to the usual procedure; that the European firearms pass will be necessary for European citizens only; and that Swiss, American and other citizens will still be subject to the usual regulations enforced by the RUC? I am grateful to my noble friend. Perhaps he will write to me, because the matter may be too complicated for a reply today.
Earl of Arran: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies for his comments. He asked why the European Communities Act 1972 was being used. There are two points on that: first, Section 2 (2) of the European Communities Act 1972 is used to allow us to meet our Community obligations. Secondly, the use of that subsection is controlled by the need to have the Secretary of State designated for the specific purpose, and because regulations made under that section are subject to scrutiny before Parliament.
That subsection is an example of what is sometimes referred to—as the noble Lord did—as a Henry VIII clause. It involves a delegation by Parliament to a designated Minister of the power to amend primary legislation. Regulations made under that power may be subject to the affirmative or negative resolution procedure at Westminster. The current regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure and therefore allow Parliament fully to supervise the exercise of that power by the Secretary of State.
The noble Lord asked why there were two separate regulations —one for Northern Ireland and one for Great Britain. It is to preserve the fact that Northern Ireland has, for constitutional purposes, a separate corpus of primary legislation.
The introduction of the European firearms pass will facilitate the movement of individuals with their pass for firearms throughout the Community. That will be achieved by using the pass as confirmation that the holder is suitable to be entrusted with firearms. It will apply equally to Northern Ireland residents visiting other member states and to EC visitors coming to Northern Ireland. In response to the question of my noble friend Lord Lyell, the pass covers only EC country nationals. Switzerland, and so forth, are still subject to ordinary controls.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked whether we consider that the rules in general in Northern Ireland are tight enough and whether they are any different. First, it will be noticed that there is no reference in the regulations to the acquisition and possession of firearms by persons under 18 years of age. The reason is that in Northern Ireland the 1981 firearms order already prohibits possession of firearms by minors other than in specified circumstances. However, that is not to say that they will be denied the
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opportunity of learning how to handle firearms safely. That can be done at any approved firearms club and the directive does not change that arrangement.
In general, I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, that firearms controls are definitely tighter in Northern Ireland because of the security situation. To name two examples, the Firearms (Northern Ireland) Order 1981 gives the Chief Constable the power to call in any legally held bullet-firing weapon for ballistic or other tests. Secondly, there is a general power for a constable to seize any firearm or ammunition which he believes to be held in contravention of the 1981 order.
I hope that the answers to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, meet with his approval. I hope that it is clear that the regulations do no more than meet our Community obligations.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Environmental Information Regulations 1992
1.42 p.m.
Viscount Goschen Viscount Goschen rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 8th December be approved [15th Report from the Joint Committee]
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, the regulations give the public new legal rights of access to environmental information. As long ago as 1984 we accepted a recommendation by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution that there,
"should be a presumption in favour of unrestricted access for the public to information which the pollution control authorities obtain or receive by virtue of their statutory powers".
The Government have consistently supported the principle that the public should have rights of access to environmental information and we have demonstrated our commitment by establishing public registers of environmental information through successive legislative provisions. The regulations provide additional rights of access to environmental information not held on public registers as well as implementing European Community Directive 90/313 on the freedom of access to information on the environment.
The regulations refer to the bodies covered as "relevant persons". They include a wide range of public bodies with environmental responsibilities and bodies controlled by them with public responsibilities for the environment. The Department of the Environment, for example, is a relevant person as is the National Rivers Authority, English Nature and all local authorities with environmental responsibilities. The range of bodies covered is therefore very wide. It is impracticable, however desirable, to include a full list of bodies in the regulations themselves.
The basic approach followed in the draft regulations is to apply their requirements to environmental information which is not already required to be provided on request under any existing statutory provision—essentially information not currently required to be kept on statutory registers. Any person may request that environmental information from bodies covered by the regulations.

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Environmental information is widely defined, and includes information about the state of any water or air, flora or fauna, soil or the state of any natural site or other land. The regulations will apply to all such environmental information held by a body once the regulations are in force. There is no requirement for bodies to collect information for the sole purpose of meeting a request. If they do not hold the information, therefore, they are not required to take steps to provide it.
Retrieving and supplying information involves expenditure by the bodies concerned. There is therefore a discretionary power in the regulations which may be used to make a charge in respect of the costs reasonably attributable to the supply of information. The payment of a charge can be made a condition of supplying information. Holders of information can therefore make a charge to cover their costs and those requesting information may only be charged a reasonable amount. Inspection of statutory public registers will remain free of charge.
Relevant persons will have a discretion not to provide certain types of confidential information. That covers such matters as information relating to internal communications or to commercial or industrial confidentiality matters, or relating to matters affecting international relations, national defence or public security. Relevant persons will be under a duty to protect other types of confidential information. That includes any of the types of information which may be treated as confidential under the regulations and which are already the subject of restrictions on disclosure. Other types of information which must be protected include personal and volunteered information, unless the supplier of the information agrees to its disclosure or it is otherwise authorised.
Finally, let me briefly deal with the question of the rights of redress for a person who is refused information. Under the regulations, everyone refused information has a right to that refusal being in writing and the reasons for the refusal to be specified. That should establish clearly why the information has been refused but it will also provide an opportunity to resolve any misunderstandings that may have arisen. If, however, a person requesting information believes he or she has been wrongfully refused then he or she may seek judicial review of the decision concerned or pursue the matter through a private action in the courts. It should be of some reassurance to suppliers of information who feel that they have been financially damaged by its disclosure that they could if they wish pursue a claim for damages by a private action. It will be the responsibility of every relevant person to be open and fair in the way requests for information are dealt with. They must do everything possible to explain why, if it really is necessary, information cannot be supplied.
I said at the beginning of my remarks that the Government have taken many positive steps to follow up the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution recommendation in 1984 for greater public
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access to environmental information. The regulations represent another positive step by increasing the public's rights of access. I beg to move.
Moved, that the draft regulations laid before the House on 8th December be approved [15th Report from the Joint Committed].—(Viscount Goschen.)
Baroness Hilton of Eggardon: My Lords, we welcome the regulations and I thank the Minister for his detailed description of them. It is a small increase in access to information on the environment and is perhaps a tiny step towards more open government. We particularly welcome the obligations on relevant persons to reply within two months at the maximum and also to give reasons for their refusal. However, I ask the Minister to give more details of the manner in which that may be pursued through judicial review or through the courts.
There are specific areas which concern us. For example, the vagueness of the reasonableness of the amount that may be charged to enquirers leaves open the opportunity to level charges so high that they may deter individual enquirers. I am familiar with the way that the Treasury insists that one loads overheads, costs of buildings and other factors on to what it considers may be a reasonable amount. Can the Minister say who will ultimately determine what a "reasonable amount" will be? Is that, again, a matter for judicial review or for the courts?
There are even more substantive reasons for concern about the regulations. First, the excuses that may be tendered for refusing to disclose information include, among other matters, commercially confidential information, information relating to international affairs, matters subject to a local planning enquiry, or a hearing to supply information. The last is an extension of the European directive which seems to apply only to matters which relate to criminal or civil actions in the courts. I ask the Minister to explain in that respect why they have extended the provisions of the directive. These exceptions are set so wide that almost any refusal to supply information could be justified as reasonable and the breadth and number of these loopholes make it all the more serious that there is a lack of a structured appeal system.
Article 4 of the European Community directive requires that there should be a "judicial or administrative review" if a person considers a request for information has been unreasonably refused or ignored. The Government have allowed for the possibility of judicial review pursued through the courts. But, as we know, judicial review is enormously expensive and lawyers have made fortunes already in the past out of definitions of what might be considered "reasonable" or "unreasonable".
As I understand it, judicial review cannot summon witnesses and is restricted to examining procedural fairness. It does not go to the substance of the case. As issues of environmental protection are so vital, it would have been preferable if the Government had set up an administrative review system as the first stage at least of an appeal. Overall these regulations are welcome and they are a first step towards greater openness on environmental matters. But I hope the

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Government will consider that this should be the thin end of a wedge that will begin to prise open further information about these vital matters.
Lord Addington Lord Addington; My Lords, I have two points to make about these regulations. First, we on these Benches are very much in favour of more openness but are rather sorry that it requires regulations to have open government and freedom of information.
My second point concerns the appeals procedure. The appeals procedure is inadequate for the majority of requests which will arise under the directive. Appeals will take the form of a judicial review. This form of review is immensely expensive and time consuming and it does not allow the court to examine whether a request for information was,
"unreasonably refused, or ignored or … inadequately answered".
In an action for judicial review all that is determinable is whether the authority's refusal was procedurally unfair; in other words, the court can decide only whether the procedure followed by, for instance, a Minister in deciding to refuse access to information was fair. The court cannot investigate whether the information requested actually fell into one of the exceptions. The central question of whether a request was unreasonably refused, ignored or inadequately answered cannot be addressed under these criteria.
Furthermore, judicial review does not allow in the majority of cases for cross-examination of witnesses or the discovery of documents. It will be impossible for an applicant to bring sufficient evidence to oppose a claim, for example, of commercial confidentiality which is felt to be groundless or suspected of being an attempt to cover up embarrassing information.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, unless I am mistaken—perhaps when he replies the noble Viscount will tell me whether that is the case—this type of legislation is treated on exactly the same basis as if it were a statutory instrument stemming from an Act which had passed through all the normal procedures which an Act has to go through. That is to say, we have to accept it or reject it. We are not permitted to amend it.
Reading through the debate that took place in another place last night it seems to me that there was a strong wish to amend which could not be found room for. I share that wish this afternoon. Indeed reading through the debate held in another place last night it seems to me that there were points on which the Government—I may be wrong about this —would not have opposed amendment, if any amendment had been moved. We know from our ordinary legislation that it is not at all unusual for the Government to accept such amendments.
I am not sure whether I am in order in making these points but I hope I am. I am expressing doubt as to whether there is not a gap in our procedure which we ought to re-examine arising from this legislation. Although the legislation itself is eminently satisfactory and entirely acceptable to the House in general principle, the exceptions which can be made and the amount of things which can be kept secret, and which
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ought not to be kept secret, are surprisingly large. Therefore, although the legislation must be welcomed in generality on all sides of the House, there are particular aspects of it which I should have thought should have been improved. I shall give an example of that.
Last night in another place Mr. Chris Smith, MP, speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, said:
"Let us take another example, that of the contracts that British Nuclear Fuels Limited had for the reprocessing of nuclear wastes in the new thermal oxide reprocessing plant at Sellafield. The nature and content of those contracts have never been made public, and yet, arguably, they have a considerable impact on the future running of the plant and are crucial to an assessment of the case as to whether that plant will have an environmental impact. In that instance, it is unclear whether that counts as environmental information. We need to have the broadest possible definition, but will that be what the regulations mean in practice? There is a serious question mark about that, and it ought to be addressed".— [Official Report, Commons; 16/12/92; col. 509.]
I can see that if I do not sit down fairly quickly I shall be requested to do so. To avoid that eventuality, if possible, I shall conclude by saying that I hope in replying to the debate the noble Viscount will take this matter into consideration and will perhaps be able to give us some assurance on this point. That point was not replied to at the end of the debate in another place. It still remains open and I should have thought perhaps this is an opportunity the noble Viscount might wish to seize to set at least one of these concerns at rest this afternoon. I am now completely out of order, but I believe the noble Viscount may wish to consider the whole general question on some other occasion.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, it is not normal in this House for any Member from any side of the House to quote from Hansard in another place. That could be a dangerous precedent unless one quotes from what a Minister has said. Nevertheless my noble friend has made a point and, if we follow the procedures that are normally accepted, today the Minister should at least give an undertaking to take note of what my noble friend has said and bring it to the attention of the appropriate Minister in another place.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, it is important to recognise that these regulations give the public new legal rights of access to environmental information. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hilton, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for their general support, albeit with some reservations, of these regulations.
To answer the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hilton, there is a strong principle that information relating to the environment may be withheld if it concerns matters to which commercial or industrial confidentiality attach. We recognise and understand the anxiety that overzealous application of this principle could prevent environmental information being released which is in practice of no real commercial value. But there is no reason for relevant persons to accept bogus claims for commercial confidentiality. The relevant persons remain under a duty to provide environmental information if it can be

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separated from information being withheld, and a person refused information has a right to challenge the decision in the courts.
These regulations cannot and do not go beyond what is provided for in the directive. We accept that there is the additional question of the grounds provided for in the directive for refusing information. We strongly believe that these regulations should at least provide discretionary powers to protect environmental information relating to such matters as national defence or commercial confidentiality. Personal or volunteered information should be provided even greater protection, with relevant persons being placed under a duty not to disclose it without the agreement of the original supplier.
I turn now to another point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hilton. Disappointed applicants will resort to court action only in exceptional cases. Where an application for information has been refused, it is open to the applicant to complain to the relevant person. The written reasons for the refusal should prove helpful in this respect. If the parties are unable to resolve their difficulties amicably, the mere threat of court action will cause the relevant person to consider his position very carefully indeed. We would expect court action to be a last resort in the enforcement of these regulations, as in any other case.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hilton, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, raised the question of judicial review. Judicial review is not merely procedural. Applicants can apply to the courts to compel the relevant body to release information where that is required by the regulations. Any challenge to a relevant body would involve some expense. The applicant may have adequate resources; alternatively, he might apply for legal aid. Judicial review is not the only remedy available to an applicant who considers that information has been withheld unlawfully. Regulation 3(6) places a statutory duty on relevant persons to release information. That duty can be enforced in the courts through a private action.
In relation to charging, a matter which was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hilton, it is quite normal to make provisions which include a test of reasonableness. Indeed, we believe that it would be foolhardy to attempt to prescribe charges which could be made by all the very different bodies to which the regulations relate. In the last event it is up to the courts to decide what is and what is not reasonable.
To answer another question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hilton, the third indent of Article 3.2 of the directive allows a member state to provide for a request for information to be refused where it affects matters which have been under inquiry. It is therefore consistent with the directive to provide for a request for information to be refused where it relates to any matter which is or has been the subject of a local or other public inquiry.
The regulations cannot restrict or modify existing arrangements providing public access to local or public inquiries or the information produced at such inquiries. The regulations merely give relevant persons
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the opportunity to withhold information of this kind. It does not follow that relevant persons will use that discretion in every case.
It was not considered appropriate to provide in the regulations for normal legal confidentiality to be breached. Relevant bodies may exercise that discretion where they consider that it would be appropriate to protect information and advice that they considered in the preparation of their case for a public or local inquiry. Similarly, where inquiries are held in private it would be wrong to remove the possibility, for example, of protecting information in the way necessary to ensure the security of premises.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, is right to say that we cannot amend the regulations. We would not wish to amend carefully drafted regulations which implement the directive in a considered manner. I shall, of course, take note of what the noble Lord had to say on that subject. I commend the order to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Royal Assent
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, I have to notify the House in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967 that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
Consolidated Fund (No. 3) Act,
Sea Fish (Conservation) Act,
Civil Service (Management Functions) Act.

Wymott and Lewes Prisons
2.4 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich Lord Harris of Greenwich rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their response to the report of the Chief Inspector of Prisons on Her Majesty's prisons Wymott and Lewes.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this debate is to enable the House to discuss two recent reports by the Chief Inspector of Prisons which were published last month. Both reports are critical, one severely so. I must make it clear at the outset of the debate that my intention this afternoon is not to criticise any individual. In my view, those issues are clearly matters for management. My purpose is to identify those areas which cause some of us serious concern and, I hope, to receive a satisfactory response to our anxieties from the noble Earl.
Almost inevitably when we have a debate of this nature we are discussing a situation in which something has gone wrong. Therefore, perhaps I may say at the outset that we all recognise the excellent work that is carried out in many prisons, often in the most difficult circumstances. As Judge Tumim recognises, that applies to much that is done both at Lewes and at Wymott.
I shall deal first with the report on Lewes, a Category B local prison which deals with inmates from Surrey and Sussex. In January of this year Lewes held 385 prisoners although its certified normal accommodation was only 301. Given the fact that

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there has been a reduction in prison numbers in the past few weeks I hope that that held at the moment is rather lower than that held in January. No doubt the noble Earl will be able to tell us the present complement at Lewes.
The Chief Inspector's report on Lewes can be summarised fairly briefly. He said that the prison was noticeable for the poverty of its regime. There was no evening association and, for the convicted, no sentence planning or pre-release course. Young inmates were not sufficiently separated from older prisoners. There was no personal officer scheme. There was poor accommodation. The convicted and unconvicted were locked up for far too long and there was a total absence of normal recreational facilities for the convicted. In addition, he said that considerable areas of the prison were dirty and ill kept. The visits room was squalid and the timing of meals, to say the least, appeared to be a little unusual. The last meal of the day at weekends is at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Most of us would regard that as most unusual, and I am sure that that is a view that the noble Earl will share.
The Chief Inspector and his team visited the prison in January of this year. Most of us would like to know what has happened since then to deal with this profoundly unsatisfactory situation. In particular, when it is said at Lewes—and sometimes elsewhere —that nothing can be done because of staff shortages, I am sure that the noble Earl will be quick to recognise, as does the chief inspector in his report, that significant improvements have been made in other local prisons, such as Bedford and Shrewsbury, and more positive regimes have been created. If that can he done with those two establishments, which are similar in many respects to Lewes, the question arises: why can it not be done in Lewes as well? So the next question is: what has happened since January to improve the situation?
Let me ask four questions concerning a number of clearly defined criticisms in this report. First, there are two matters raised by the Board of Visitors. Even though the prison was overcrowded at the time of the inspection, it is a little unfortunate that the Board of Visitors—a crucially important group of people, as we shall see in the report both on Lewes and on Wymott —had no room of its own, nor even a telephone for its exclusive use. Moreover, nor did it have a single filing cabinet. It does not seem unreasonable to ask what can be done to improve that particular situation.
It is also regrettable that the Board of Visitors did not consider that either adjudications or the complaints procedure were working satisfactorily. I hope that we shall hear an answer to those particular points from the noble Earl.
Second, the Board of Visitors considered that there were too many mentally ill people in the prison, and they doubted the effectiveness of the medical services department. This was an issue also commented upon by the Chief Inspector of Prisons. The question arises from the report: why are beds in the health centre still unused? Is it simply a question of a shortage of staff? If so, what steps are being taken to rectify the situation?
In the situation described in the report it is, to put it mildly, a little odd to find that the segregation unit had been placed in the health centre—a decision apparently taken when the senior medical officer was absent on leave and without any consultation with the area principal medical officer. Yet at the same time the inspectors found mentally disturbed prisoners in normal locations on the wings. I quote the chief inspector: "They should not be so located".
These are serious matters. The mentally ill should not be in prison in the first instance. Yet in January of this year they were not even provided with the accommodation that does exist because other inmates were being held there, and there appeared to be inadequacies of staff in the health centre. I believe that is unacceptable and we look forward to hearing what the noble Earl has to say about it.
Next, I am very sorry to see that there is no bail unit at Lewes. A number of us had the opportunity of meeting a senior officer from Holloway Prison the other day. We were able to hear from her a very constructive account of what had been done concerning the establishment of the bail unit at Holloway. As a result of the establishment of that bail unit, scores of women who would otherwise have been held in custody were released on bail. Yet at Lewes, an overcrowded local prison, there is no bail unit.
Ministers constantly tell us, and I am quite sure of their sincerity, that they want to reduce the remand population. If that is in fact their desire, I hope that we shall be able to hear that establishments such as Lewes will be pressed to have dedicated bail units of the kind that exist at Holloway and elsewhere.
Lastly, I come to the profoundly unsatisfactory situation of the library service at Lewes. That is a particularly important situation given the character of the impoverished regime there. "Impoverished" is not my description; it is the one applied by the Chief Inspector of Prisons. We are told that the prison library is staffed by a part-time professional librarian from the East Sussex library service and two prison officers; one of them normally acts as a relief. Both the officers were regularly called away on other duties. They had so little time available that not much was left to provide even a basic library service. Neither of the officers was trained. As a result, there were no formal opening hours for the library at Lewes prison. Sometimes it did not open at all. There was even a shortage of staff to take inmates to and from the library when it was open.
The chief inspector comments, and I quote him directly:
"Inmates were not receiving a satisfactory library service despite the valiant efforts of library staff … Responsible use of the library can play a role in rehabilitation as well as providing a way of passing time".
That latter consideration seems to me to be particularly important given the fact that inmates are locked up for such an immensely long period every day.
I hope the noble Earl will be able to tell us what can be done about this. It is, as Judge Tumim says, a waste of expensive resources to have a professionally manned, well-stocked library that is not fully exploited.
With that comment, I leave Lewes and move on to the situation at Wymott, which is a great deal worse. Indeed, to be blunt, the situation there is in a number of respects quite deplorable. Wymott has a number of apparent advantages as compared with Lewes. It is not more than a century old, as is Lewes. It was opened only in 1979 and is a modern establishment. At the time of the unannounced short inspection by one of Judge Tumim's teams it was not overcrowded. Its CNA was 816 and in March it was holding 733 prisoners.
The population at Wymott consists of young men who are serving short sentences. That is where part of the problem at the establishment begins. The staff told the inspectors that since the Strangeways riot that group of prisoners, primarily from the North West, had become markedly more volatile and confrontational. The staff described their own morale as "very low". Numbers in the workshops had dropped well below the effective minimum complement—the EMC —and they were concerned about the amount of bullying which was taking place.
I wish to deal with those issues and to ask the Minister to respond. He will be aware that I have given his private office notice of the questions that I propose to put to him. First the bullying, which takes place apparently in the four large residential blocks housing the inmates at the prison. The Board of Visitors told the inspectors that the night arrangements in the residential blocks were "very worrying". It was said that anything could happen to prisoners without staff knowing or being able to prevent it.
After the inspectors had paid a night visit they said that the inmates appeared to be in complete control behind secure gates. The prisoners appeared amazed that anyone should be trespassing on what they considered to be their own territory. It was suspected that drugs were in open use. After nine-o'clock at night the prisoners were locked together in groups of 24 and night staff rarely ventured through the locked gates. The inspectors reported that some inmates graphically described their understandable fears of being confined in such conditions.
When one reads the report their anxieties appear to be entirely justified. It is recorded that 104 inmates had to be treated in the casualty department of a local hospital within a period of only 11 months. According to the staff, 80 per cent. of them did so as a result of fights or assaults. Drugs were acknowledged to be freely available and inmates said that they were easier to obtain in the prison than outside. Staff said that the gangland culture of Manchester was being replicated on the landings of the prison. There was also a deeply disturbing level of staff sickness, which is in my view a commentary on the morale of the staff. That was 260 per cent. above the notional non-effective allowance. Those are striking figures. I hope that the noble Earl will respond to these issues which, I am sure, cause him and the department as much anxiety as they cause the rest of us. I cannot recall a single report from Judge Tumim on any prison establishment in this country which has disclosed a more serious situation than that at Wymott. The report states that the prison
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service's mission statement exhorts staff to look after prisoners with humanity and to help them to lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and after release. It adds:
"Currently Wymott is not meeting these objectives successfully".
I should be most surprised were the noble Earl to take a contrary view.
I wish to put two specific questions to the Minister. What is the department now doing to deal with the intolerable level of bullying and the frequent assaults by inmates on other inmates which are taking place at the prison? We cannot allow a situation to continue in which part of the prison is taken over at night by vicious hooligans and in which drugs appear to be freely available to anyone who wants them. What specific action is the prison department taking to deal with that situation?
What of the inspector's recommendation—and that of the governor—that two of the wings should be established as a vulnerable prisoners' unit? In the Home Secretary's statement which accompanied the publication of the chief inspector's report he said that he accepted that—and that is welcome—but he added the qualification:
"provided there are sufficient funds in the prison building budget".
Can the noble Earl tell us whether that work will be put in hand in the next financial year, for it is quite clear that without that work many vulnerable prisoners will continue to be beaten while they are in a Home Office establishment? That is a profoundly serious situation.
Secondly, what is being done about workshops? There is plenty of available work at Wymott and it is extremely well stocked with workshops. There is no doubt about that. However, many inmates are currently refusing to work. As the inspectors say, with wages averaging between £3 and £4 per week, there is hardly much of an incentive to do so.
It is more than a little depressing to read the judgment of the inspectors on that point. They say:
"Our tour of the six workshops was revealing. In the laundry we found some ten inmates asleep, certainly not through overwork but possibly because of the influence of drugs and/or watching TV through the night. A similar scene was found in the light textile shop".
Again, what is to be done to deal with that situation? What is the point of spending substantial sums of public money on building workshops and then allowing such a situation to develop? Clearly, something must be done and I hope today that we shall hear what that is to be.
Finally, the two reports confirm the wisdom of the decision of the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw, when Home Secretary, to accept the recommendation of Sir John May that there should be an independent inspectorate of prisons. Great benefit has been derived from these reports, particularly when they disclose a situation of the kind which we are debating today. Without an independent inspectorate, those facts would never have been drawn to the attention of Parliament.
In the final analysis, the success or otherwise of an independent inspectorate can be judged only by the speed and resolution shown by Ministers when glaring

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deficiencies are exposed. Such deficiencies have been exposed in the reports on those two prisons. We now await the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, so that we may know what action the Government propose to take.
2.23 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, not for the first time I rise to support the initiative taken by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. Those of your Lordships who have listened to him before may agree with me that he has never made a more deadly speech. I refer in particular to what he said about Wymott.
I am also very glad that the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, is to reply to the debate, again not for the first time. He is accepted by all of us as being a first-class parliamentarian. I hope that that is not regarded by him as a two-edged compliment but rather that it is given in a Christmas spirit; in other words, that he will make the best of this awkward situation.
I am glad too that my noble friend Lord Plant is to speak for the first time from the Front Bench. That is an awe-inspiring moment. I spoke from the Front Bench within five minutes of coming to your Lordships' House and I remember that I put my feet up because I was told that one did that in those days. No one seems to do that now. However, to speak from the Front Bench on behalf of an historic party is a great moment in one's life.
I am glad too that my noble friend Lord Plant is a political philosopher. I gave my noble friend a moment's notice—which is all that is needed if one is a distinguished academic—that I should be raising the question as to whether a political philosopher has ever contributed anything to penal reform. Did Jeremy Bentham do any good in the end? I see that the Minister is seeking assistance from the Box. I do not know what help they are going to give him. Who else? I do not think that Plato and Aristotle helped much, but the Minister will tell us. Karl Marx? No, I do not think so. Although I am glad that we shall be addressed for the first time for many years by a political philosopher from the Front Bench, we are bound to ask what he will say about these penal issues.
However, let us come to the question before us. This chief inspector is certainly one of my contemporary heroes. My contemporary heroine, apart from the ladies present, is the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. However, she is not here today. Among my contemporary heroes is Judge Tumim. He rates highly. He is a penetrating critic. Heaven forbid that he should ever investigate the affairs of your Lordships. Think of Judge Tumim coming here and looking into our arrangements, and asking why we have such an all-important debate as this at a moment when all the House has gone on Christmas leave. He would make about 50 recommendations here. However, so far he has confined himself to prisons.
I knew nothing about Wymott until I read this report. It would be of no interest to anybody except myself, but I suppose that I have to go to see this awful place. It is one of the duties that befall penal reformers to make their way to these spots to see. I am too old to visit them by night. I gather that the real time to go
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to Wymott is at night, because then the most appalling outrages occur, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. I shall have to go in the day when perhaps things look a hit better. In all my 50 years of visiting prisons off and on I have never heard of a story like this. I shall not try to add to the eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Harris. He spelt it all out.
At night there is a no-go area. The prisoners think it is appalling if some investigator or any member of the staff pokes his nose into their affairs. I agree with the strong line of questioning of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, asking what the Government are doing about it; and we shall he told that they have done something since last year. But how could this have happened? Are we to understand that, unless Judge Tumim actually goes to one of these places nobody other than the governor ever has a look? I have not given the noble Earl notice of that question, but how can this have come about without anybody from higher up discovering what was going on? Is it the first time that this has been brought to the notice of the Home Secretary? That is a different question from, what they propose to do about it, but it strikes me as being very significant. However, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, dealt with it so well that I shall not try to gild the lily.
I have visited Lewes many times over the years. It is within 20 miles of where I live in the country. From many points of view, if one was going to be in prison, one might as well go to Lewes because one can at least see out. One is not shut in, so there are some advantages to being in Lewes. But, as the noble Lord told us, this is a damaging report, although nothing like Wymott. It is not an iniquitous picture, but it is bad.
I made my way there and saw the governor last Friday. He is an excellent man. I am becoming a bit of a sucker for governors. They only have to tell me they are doing the most wonderful things and I am inclined now to believe them. I must not go too far that way, but I am bound to say that this particular governor made a good impression on me. I will just tell you a little bit about the conversation.
There is mostly an expert attendance in the House today, and the House will be aware of the general tenor of the criticisms of Lewes. The governor pointed out that all this took place almost a year ago; so a good deal has been done since then. To mention only one point now, the report says that on average prisoners are only 30 hours a week out of cells. In the report they are described as being only four hours a day out of cells. That is an appalling situation. I do not want to make a present to the cause of privatisation, because, as I have said before, I regard that as an obscenity. But in the private prison I went to they were out of cell for 21 hours a day. I hardly like to mention that, but it can happen. Four hours a day is an appalling thought, but by now it is more like six hours a day out of the cells. There has been a considerable improvement. I am sure the Minister will tell us that but it ought to be said clearly by someone who, like myself, in a small way has investigated the situation on the spot. There has been a considerable improvement and we must give credit to everybody: to the governor of course, to the chief inspector whose job it is to call

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attention to these things and to the Home Office. However, there is still a long way to go, if you just take that simple index of possibly six hours a day out of the cells.
The governor wants to see 12 hours a day out of the cells. I asked him whether there was any hope of that. He is a sensible man and he is not going to make extravagant claims but they are working towards 12 hours a day. I asked how they were going to do it. Obviously there will have to be some important physical changes and perhaps the Minister will tell us about those. They have a five-year development plan and so perhaps in five years that side of it will be easier. But without any more staff, will anything happen in fact? I asked the governor whether he was aware of the views of the much-admired governor of Feltham: he has said that he cannot do the job without another 40 members of staff. Is one going to say that this cannot be done without more staff and, if so, will other staff be provided? The governor was too discreet to commit himself on that point. He said that all governors want more staff, and I am sure that that is true. In my opinion, he will need a lot more staff and fewer people must be sent to prison, whether to Lewes or elsewhere; otherwise, his aspiration of 12 hours a day out of cells is just a fancy.
Where do we find ourselves? I see a great penal reformer on the Benches opposite me ready to shoot the Minister in the back from the third row; I refer of course to the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull. For some reason she has been silenced on this occasion, although I do not know by what undue influence. As penal reformers of all kinds have said, far-reaching reforms are necessary. However, I do not think that anybody could say at this moment whether the Criminal Justice Act will lead to fewer people going to prison. Let us hope that it will. There are no signs of that so far because it has only just come into force so we cannot say whether or not it will. We can only have our opinions.
Many penal reformers on all Benches have said that we need a sentencing council. As is recognised, we send too many people to prison. That has been said many times in this House. Judges send them there, and unless we have something like an effective sentencing council the judges will go on sending too many people to prison, including Lewes Prison, and the hope of having them out of the cells for 12 hours a day will remain a fancy.
I will add one further point, which interested me for a special reason. As the House knows, not only I but many others, including the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and others have thought a good deal about mentally disordered offenders. A very important report has just come out and we shall be discussing that in the New Year. At a prison like Lewes, one of the problems —perhaps not the governor's biggest problem but a considerable one —is that there are a number of people in that prison described as mentally ill. What are they doing there at all? So far as the governor is concerned, whatever the
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reason, he is stuck with them and that is one of the reasons that we must go on thinking very hard about sending these mentally disordered people to prison.
In summing up I would put the matter this way: the situation as regard Wymott Prison is so appalling that one can hardly believe it. Occasionally one comes across a cesspool and one assumes that high-minded Ministers will clean it up. However, obviously there are very unsatisfactory features in the situation at Lewes Prison. It has not been put right within a year, although efforts have been made to do so. I believe that the aspirations of the governor, his colleagues and the Home Office are all good. One is bound to ask: when is all this change going to happen? In a sense there are two questions. I touched on one of them and the noble Lord, Lord Harris, touched on the other. How can this situation have come about without the Home Office even knowing about it? What will it do about it now?
2.35 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, once again it is my role today to follow two noble Lords who have made prominent names for themselves as regards prison reform. I believe that noble Lords owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for having tabled this Question and having dealt with it so thoroughly himself. His exposé of the two reports was so thorough that it does not leave a great deal for other people to say. However, from the general summing-up of the people involved one can say that the staff at both prisons were under-resourced, which obviously exacerbates the situation.
I shall deal briefly with Lewes Prison. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, dealt quite extensively with some parts of it. Some of the key points which were made in detail—and the noble Lord, Lord Harris, made the points himself—include the fact that meal times for prisoners were compressed within a seven-hour period, the prison visiting accommodation was very poor and the staff are described in the report as hard pressed yet willing. Young offenders were insufficiently segregated from adults and remand prisoners were insufficiently segregated from convicted prisoners. Both the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and my noble friend Lord Longford have referred to the fact that there are far too many mentally ill offenders in prison who should not be there.
Governors and staff firmly believe the prison to be under-resourced. The staff facilities are poor, but the staff are described as "patient, concerned and caring". The prison held a number of very difficult prisoners. On behalf of the Prison Officers' Association I must say that it warmly welcomes the report on Lewes. It acknowledges the problem of compressed meal times and the association is prepared to enter into serious discussion with the Prison Department in an attempt to resolve the problem. The POA branch at Lewes firmly opposed the compression of meal times last April which was a consequence of a shortened working week for prison officers. The association says that the Prison Department failed to provide extra

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staff to compensate for the reduced number of prison officer hours worked at Lewes. As a result the prison management saw no alternative but further to condense the prison day. The Prison Officers' Association urge the Government to act on the Chief Inspector's Report and to liberate prisoners and staff from a plainly unacceptable environment.
That is all I care to say about Lewes Prison, other than that I picked up a figure at page 96 of the report although I do not know its relevance. It is stated that the cost of keeping an inmate in Lewes Prison, according to the latest available information, is £315 a week compared with a national average of £385. Whatever criteria one uses, £70 per prisoner less than the national average in a prison such as Lewes can only indicate underfunding to a large degree. If the noble Earl—for whom I have the highest regard—cannot reply to this matter today, I hope that he will take the figure back to the department to see what can be done about the situation and whether the sum has relevance as regards the conditions at Lewes.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, said that he hoped that the Government would not regard some of these adverse reports as an excuse to propagate their philosophy of prison privatisation. I, too, hope that they will not do that because when it comes to the prison service and keeping people in custody, in my opinion, introducing the profit motive would result only in the further deterioration of services in those places.
The report refers also to Strangeways and to what happened there. Only two weeks ago I referred in your Lordships' House to what took place at Strangeways. Coming from Manchester, I know a little bit about it, and I know that if the Home Office had taken the advice of the prison officers working there and of those who were brought into Strangeways the riot could have been capped within two days. But the matter was taken completely out of the hands of the prison staff at Strangeways, and somebody from the Home Office—some gentleman, I assume, in a black coat and stripped trousers—took over. I understand that the final cost of rectifying the carnage at Strangeways was between £60 million and £80 million. That makes one wonder whether what happened at Wymott was a spin-off of what happened at Strangeways. I understood from people who briefed me on the evening of that debate in your Lordships' House two or three weeks ago that some of the ringleaders from Strangeways were later incarcerated in the mental hospital on Merseyside in which violent prisoners are kept. So perhaps what happened at Wymott was to some extent a carbon copy of what happened at Strangeways.
When one recalls that Wymott was built only in the late 1970s, it is extremely depressing to think of the deterioration that has taken place there since. It is beyond belief. Areas of the prison are literally battened down at night and nobody ventures in. We know what will happen in any situation like that—there will be mob rule and the toughest men in the prison will take control. I support the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, in his view that that situation cannot be tolerated any longer. A society
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that is supposed to provide a humane prison system cannot allow the physically weaker prisoners to serve their sentences by being locked behind bars every night at the mercy of a group of thugs and bully boys, but that is the situation there.
I repeat that the prison officers and staff at Wymott are commended for what they have tried to do in very difficult circumstances. They are saying that they will enter into negotiations and discussions with the Prison Department of the Home Office in order to eradicate this problem. However, if what I have described is the situation now, what ratio of prison officers to inmates will be required to put it right? I do not know what the average ratio of prison officer to inmate is—it will vary between establishments —but I should have thought that if we are to reverse and rectify the trend at Wymott we will need an extremely high ratio of prison officer to inmate, and possibly even a special type of prison officer.
As I have said before, the Prison Officers' Association at both national and local level welcomes and supports what is reflected in the report. It is most concerned about the lack of supervisory control that the staff can exert over inmates. The POA has pointed out that the nature of the prisoners held at Wymott has changed and, as the Inspectorate points out, many prisoners have become more aggressive, reckless and volatile since the Strangeways riot. Yet there has been no corresponding increase in staffing levels to reflect the more demanding prison population. Low staffing levels and inappropriate accommodation have been exploited by prisoners, with the consequential drug and bullying problems. The noble Earl will have heard enough from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, in greater detail than I have been able to give and from my noble friend Lord Longford to warrant a most serious consideration of these issues.
I was pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Harris, refer to the number of remand prisoners. This has always been a problem. We ought to try to bring down the number as quickly as possible. People should not be held on remand for weeks and even months in conditions where they are deemed to be guilty almost before they have been before a magistrates' court. Perhaps I take a contrary view to some noble Lords when I say that I am not overenthusiastic about reducing the prison population for the sake of it. I have heard the argument that burglars should not be sent to prison.
I happen to have been lucky so far in that I have never had my home burgled but it has happened to a member of my family. I can tell the House that the scars that it left with my sister are far more enduring than those left by any physical assault she may have had. Let it not be thought for one moment that we should go down the road of saying that certain categories of crime are all right and do not warrant a prison sentence. I can tell the House that that will not be too popular with those who find the burglar living among them, able to roam free and to do it again. That is just a sidepoint but I nevertheless think it should be made.

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Once again I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for giving us the chance to debate this issue. I hope that the Minister can give a positive response to the reasonable points and requests that have been made.
2.47 p.m.
Lord Plant of Highfield: My Lords, first, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for providing us with the opportunity for the discussion of these important points. As my two noble friends who have spoken have shown, we share the same concerns and support the noble Lord in his request for reassurance on the point that he has made to the Minister. My noble friend Lord Longford suggested in a slightly sceptical way that political theorists such as I am have probably little to contribute to this kind of debate. He may well be right about that, but all I can do is to say that I shall think about these things and try to learn about prison reform and prison circumstances from people like himself and from the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, who have obviously made a great study and a life's work of these issues.
Since this is the first time I have spoken on Home Office matters from this Bench, perhaps I may preface my remarks on the two reports by some general points which bear directly on the issues raised by them. I should like to say how much I look foward to debating home affairs with the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers. My only worry is that his mastery of the subject and his unfailing courtesy may well make it difficult for me to disagree with him vigorously without appearing to be totally unreasonable. I shall nevertheless try.
I should also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Judge Stephen Tumim and his colleagues for the thoroughness and indeed the fearlessness of their reports. In a period in which the role of inspectors in the public sector has come under attack—for example, in the context of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools —because they are thought to have fallen victim to vested professional interest groups and so forth, the reports of Judge Tumim and the inspectorate generally show the great value of independent and fearless inspectorates in the public sector and are a vindication of this approach.
It is right that punishment and prison regimes should always be kept under review and before our eyes. Punishment is the clearest peacetime example of the coercive power of the state which is exercised in our name. We owe it to those who are subject to that power to ensure that it is exercised justly and that regimes of punishment are exercised and implemented in a just and fair manner.
I start with that point because it seems to me that punishment regimes should as far as possible embody the rule of law. They should embody it procedurally; that is to say, in terms of ideas such as fairness, equity and treating like cases in like manner. They should also embody it substantively; that is to say, in terms of the values which the rule of law is supposed to serve: human dignity, humanity and individual rights. It would be morally paradoxical if punishment to uphold the rule of law were to be implemented in a
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way that undermined that. More than that, it would be penally ineffective, because how can we induce respect for the rule of law in those whose lives are not governed by it in their environment—in prison?
I am pleased that the Government have made a commitment to those ideas in that section of their White Paper Custody, Care and Justice which deals with the idea of what they call the just prison. That is a point made forcefully in a recent article by Joe Pilling, the director general of the prison service, in a government publication in which he says:
"Justice has to be seen to be done at every stage of the criminal process, including the period of imprisonment".
As a concept, that goes beyond having fair disciplinary procedures and proper channels for the redress of grievance; it goes to the heart of the prisoner's experience of how he or she is to be treated.
We believe that a just prison can best be attained by the standard-setting approach to which the Government have set their hand: setting out what are the basic standards of a prison regime and monitoring those standards via Her Majesty's inspectorate. That is the approach broadly adopted by the Government. It involves bringing into the prison service the Citizen's Charter approach which has been adopted in other areas of the public sector, as indeed Mr Pilling makes clear in a further part of his recent article.
Following the publication of the Woolf Report, there seems to be a wide degree of consensus about that matter. The POA has also given it its full support. It is because there is such a consensus about the standard-setting approach, combined with the monitoring of Judge Tumim and his colleagues in the inspectorate, that my noble friends and I believe that the whole idea of the privatisation of prisons is a way of becoming sidetracked from the main concern, which should be an urgent attempt to set those standards and to bring prisons up to them both in terms of their physical structure and the regimes within them. I do not know how a just prison—the Government's own term—embodying the values of the rule of law can be served by private, competitive market relations when those naturally serve entirely other purposes.
The reports before us show how far away from the ideal of a just prison, secured by basic, monitored standards, we are. I acknowledge that that is the fault of governments of all parties, but there is now a consensus about the way forward. The reports should not be used to urge greater privatisation but to increase the urgency of producing a statement of standards, emphasising the subsequent needs to meet those standards and the action required to do so.
I hope the Minister will be able to say something about when we can expect standards to be promulgated and the subsequent steps which will be necessary to secure those standards. It is clear that Wymott Prison, for example, is a long way from meeting even the basic standards of a just prison. As the Government themselves have made clear in their White Paper, and as Mr Pilling makes clear in the article that I have just mentioned, when inmates go to prison they do not lose all their rights as citizens. Surely one of the rights they should not lose is that of

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physical security. Yet in Wymott it seems to be primarily that right which is most at risk, with, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said, 104 inmates having been taken to casualty departments in a period of 11 months, with about 80 per cent. of those cases being as a result of injuries sustained from other prisoners.
When the inspectors visited the prison, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said and my noble friend Lord Longford pointed out, they had the impression that the spurs of the prison were not thoroughly visited at night. The Home Secretary's response to the report of Judge Tumim said that,
"night patrols have been increased from 3 to 4 per night as the Chief Inspector recommends".
It is not clear to me that that meets the need specified by the report. Patrols were already taking place and still the injuries occurred. The question the report seems to be asking is how thorough and detailed the patrols were and how far they penetrated into the spurs and exercised the authority that belongs to the staff. Can the Minister give an assurance that the increase in the number of patrols from three to four, which is to be welcomed, is to be combined with a more thorough exercise of authority by those patrols, if indeed I have understood the point made in the report correctly, as I believe I have.
The inspectors' report also found substantial evidence of drug abuse in prison. Apparently 16 cannabis pipes, £2,000-worth of heroin, and evidence of prisoners being under the influence of narcotics during the day was found. In Judge Tumim's report there is a specific recommendation regarding the frequency of searches in prison. The silence of the Home Secretary in the press release on his reaction to the report is slightly worrying in that regard. He said,
"I entirely accept the Chief Inspector's view that distribution of any illicit drugs within prison is a very serious matter. To put Wymott's problems in context, as a general rule finds of drugs within the prison are of minute amounts of cannabis. The prison's success in discovering drugs is testimony to the Governor's pro-active policy in this area and the skill of his searching teams".
I wonder whether that response is not a little on the bland side, given the fact that £2,000-worth of heroin and 16 cannabis pipes were discovered, and whether there has been any change, as suggested by Judge Tumim, in the degree and extent of searches. Judge Tumim made a specific requirement of a full search of the prison every eight weeks. Given the response of noble Lords to the deplorable state of the prison as revealed in the report, it is important that the recommendations should be clearly accepted.
The inspectors' report recommends the drawing up of a compact between the prison authorities and the inmates—something that has figured in various publications by Her Majesty's Government. That seems a potentially useful tool until adequate standards are promulgated so that proper monitoring of those standards can take place. When the noble Earl winds up or in a letter to me, perhaps he can say whether the compact idea has been taken up within the prison since the issuing of the report. And perhaps he can say something generally regarding how the Government see the role of compacts between staff and inmates.
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I want to say a word in regard to the report on Lewes Prison, which is disturbing in its own way. The prison falls a long way short of adequate standards, particularly in terms of the physical structure and the regime. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, explained the position and I do not believe that there is any need for me to reiterate the main points of concern. However, I want to stress my agreement with what other noble Lords have said regarding meal-times. To have breakfast at 8, dinner at 11, and tea at 4 on weekdays, and on Sundays to have the same times but with tea at 3, seems a rather arbitrary kind of scheme. It does not seem to me that it should be beyond the wit of the authorities to be able to provide a more civilised range of meal times. I confirm what my noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick said. The Prison Officers' Association has committed itself to entering into negotiations to see how the regime could be changed in the interests of prisoners as the association regards that as important.
Perhaps, finally, I can pick up what may seem to be a small point from the Lewes Report. However, it illustrates my general theme about the just prison and the role of fairness within prison. That ideal seems very remote from the reality painted in Judge Tumim's reports on the two institutions we are discussing. My point concerns the judge's own proposal that the visiting area in Lewes Prison should be turned into a no smoking area. The White Paper published by Her Majesty's Government states on page 14 that the necessary loss of many rights of citizenship need not normally prevent prisoners from knowing clearly what is expected of them, from having some choice over and being consulted about changes to their lives in prison.
The report from Judge Tumim suggests that the visiting area of the prison at Lewes should be turned into a no smoking area. I may be quite wrong but it seems to me that people who are experiencing a good deal of stress and strain in their lives, most of which may, no doubt be self-induced—this may apply to prisoners and their families—probably turn to smoking as some kind of relief. Visiting may well be a stressful time for many people. I hope that when a proposal such as this is made some regard is paid to the Government's own commitment to consultation with prisoners about changes in the regime which they have to endure. I hope that measures will not be taken as a matter of fiat. It is a small point. But it illustrates the point about a just and fair prison having some degree of consultation within it.
Overall, we are extremely disturbed by the two reports we have seen. We believe they should be linked and understood in the context of the Government's own philosophy of standard setting and monitoring. Far from these reports giving a strong impetus towards greater demands for privatisation—as some people have suggested—they should give greater urgency to the proper approach, which is that of standard setting and clear monitoring in relation to those standards. That is where the urgent action is needed. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for allowing this debate to take place today.
3.4 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Plant of Highfield, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for having given us the opportunity of discussing this matter of these prisons this afternoon, even if that has prevented Santa from filling his stockings quite as quickly as he might otherwise have done.
The previous occasion on which I followed the noble Lord, Lord Plant of Highfield, was when I congratulated him on his maiden speech. I now have the pleasure of congratulating him on making a speech from the Opposition Front Bench. I have no doubt that the next time I follow him I shall congratulate him on being the Leader of the Opposition. However, we shall take one of those steps at a time. The noble Lord is adequately qualified for that meteoric rise. I am delighted to see him on the Front Bench.
The noble Lord is, of course, an academic. The subject we are discussing is intensely practical. I have always had a great fear of and respect for academics and I have always therefore had a great fear of and respect for the noble Earl, Lord Longford. It always seems to me that academics start three rungs up the ladder and therefore everyone else has to swim like mad to try to catch up. I have spent most of my life with that scenario and I am quite content to continue in that vein with the noble Lord, Lord Plant of Highfield.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has made a devastating speech. We are used to him making that kind of speech. I shall try to answer some of the points he has made. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, was kind enough to make some nice remarks. I think that he said that I was a good parliamentarian. I am quite sure that he is wrong.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I said that the noble Earl is a great parliamentarian.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, that is better still! Then the noble Earl completely ruined it by saying that he was making those felicitous remarks just because it was Christmas. I shall have to take that in whatever spirit I think best. I am grateful for whatever crumb of comfort the noble Earl was able to offer.
These reports are helpful to the Government. Of course no one likes nasty reports, and I shall try to show your Lordships what we intend to do and what we have done. The reports are helpful to the management of the prison service and they often help to stimulate change.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, asked why the Government did not know that such things were taking place. All prisons undergo a constant process to monitor the régime which is provided. Wymott is not perfect, but the governor is aware of all the ways in which it could be improved. He had clearly begun to implement some of the changes before the inspector appeared and before the report was published. The management at Wymott is by no means complacent about the situation and constantly seeks to make improvements.
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The noble Lord, Lord Plant, was quite rightly concerned about standards. Work on the setting of a code of standards is being actively pursued. It is expected that a draft code will be ready for publication towards the end of 1993. An enormous amount of work is required to set just and fair yet achievable standards covering all the varied aspects of prisons. During 1993 consultations with interested groups will continue.
The noble Lord was concerned about Woolf's suggestion of a compact. That is only at the discussion stage. It has not yet been put into operation, but we are committed to putting it into operation in due course.
The report on Wymott Prison, which was published on 17th November, was the result of an unannounced visit by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector. Unannounced visits are exactly that—they are unannounced. No one in the prison service has any notion when the inspection team will arrive. That therefore gives the inspectorate the opportunity to see a prison in what one might call its natural state as opposed to in a state of anticipation.
Wymott is a modern, purpose-built Category C prison for men. Category C implies a relatively low security status. It means that within a secure perimeter prisoners are relatively free to move about and that they are given some degree of trust—to control their actions and to manage their own lives. That is the whole philosophy behind it. At Wymott prisoners have keys to their own cells. That gives them a flavour of the kind of daily choices and responsibilities which they will face in the community when they are released. Oddly enough, many prisoners find those choices and responsibilities difficult to accept when they are in prison. Many prefer not to have the responsibility of choice. It is therefore all the more important a part of a prisoner's preparation for release that he should be obliged to feel responsibility and use it.
Wymott is a testing prison, both for inmates and for staff alike. The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, referred to staffing levels. I can tell him that the number of staff at Wymott is at the required level.
As Her Majesty's Chief Inspector pointed out in his report, many of those who are in custody at Wymott are young men who are the products of inner city gangland culture. In the words of the report, these people can be:
"volatile, aggressive and reckless in their behaviour".
As such, they constantly test the system by confronting staff. That is the product of the system from which they come; it is not necessarily a reflection on the place in which they find themselves.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, said that gangland culture has been replicated on the landings. If that is so —and there may be a modicum of that—I would suggest that that reflects the places from where they have come. That is a difficulty with which any prison governor has to contend.
We treat very seriously the comments of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector on the bullying and violent

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behaviour of some of Wymott's inmates. That has obviously been a cause of great concern to your Lordships today.
Her Majesty's Chief Inspector's report on Wymott had extensive press coverage. Much of the press coverage suggested that the prison was some kind of hell-hole, which was out of the control of its staff and its governor. That does pretty rough justice both to the prison and to the report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector.
In fact, Wymott's staff have shown great resolve and firmness—as well as loyalty—to the prison. That is demonstrated by the report, which praised staff relationships with the men who are in their charge, and that is the keystone of all effective security in our prisons. There has to be a relationship between the staff and those whom they look after. Prisoners do not win their confrontations with staff at Wymott. Staff remain in control. That is clearly demonstrated by Wymott's record.
There has been no serious incident of concerted indiscipline at Wymott since 1986. Given the volatile nature of Wymott's population, the level of violence among inmates is not that high. It may be higher than it should, but it is not that high.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, referred to the level of violence among inmates. The figures I give are based upon empirical evidence about the number of assaults. They are not just an impression of members of the Board of Visitors or the staff.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich referred also to staff sickness. The level of sick absence at Wymott is higher than the governor would wish. The position has improved in the current year and a new system for the better management of sick absence will be introduced at Wymott and other prisons in the north west area with effect from 1st January.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, said that over an 11-month period prisoners from Wymott attended hospital for treatment on 104 occasions. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, also referred to that matter. That may be so, but it is important to realise that that bold statistic includes some who attended hospital on more than one occasion and it includes treatment for injuries which had been incurred while playing sport or while at work, or which had been self-inflicted. So the figure does not give an accurate indicator of inmate-on-inmate violence.
The number of inmate-on-inmate assaults over a similar 12-month period was 28. We would prefer these to be nought. But when one considers that Wymott has a population of 800, and that it has a fairly rapid turnover of prisoners, the figures are not unduly high, though they are higher than any of us would wish.
It is true to say that most of Wymott's inmates do not live in fear of their fellow inmates, and inmate-on-inmate assault is the exception rather than the rule.
I say that only because there has been a lot of criticism today, and it is understandable criticism. I say it in order to put the problem into perspective, and not to give the impression that there is no need to tackle the problem of bullying in prisons. It must be
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and will be dealt with wherever it occurs. The noble Lords, Lord Harris of Greenwich and Lord Dean of Beswick, were concerned about bullying and about prisoners at night. The governor of Wymott had put in hand measures to increase the personal security of prisoners before the inspection took place and further action has since been taken. The governor has launched a programme to protect prisoners from bullying and vandalism by strengthening their cell doors and door jambs. That means that inmates can stay in their rooms at night confident that they will be safe.
There are some who might say that it would be better if such prisoners were put in cells with iron bars. The whole philosophy of the prison—your Lordships may say that it is wrong—is that they should be encouraged to realise what life is like in normal society. That is the reason they are given cells with their own keys. If that privilege is abused, action must be taken, and action has been taken.
The work has so far been carried out in one-and-a-half wings of the prison and the whole prison is scheduled to be completed by the end of April 1993. It is also proposed to adopt two of Wymott's houseblocks in 1993–94 for the use of vulnerable prisoners. The governor also responded immediately to the recommendations of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector by increasing the frequency of night patrols through the cell units from three to four each night. That was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, who I am glad to see has reappeared. An additional governor grade has been posted to the prison in order to allow increased governor presence in the units. The noble Lord, Lord Dean, asked whether those measures will be sufficient. All I can say is that that is what has been done and we shall monitor the situation. If it appears that they are insufficient, action will have to be taken.
Most inmates at Wymott go to work. The governor has, therefore, introduced a scheme to reward inmates who work hard by giving them additional home leave. Early indications show that that is working. Since June of this year Wymott has been running a scheme in which groups of eight to 10 prisoners share a personal officer; that is, a nominated officer in their unit who will take particular responsibility for them and to whom they can go for advice. Men who are serving life sentences have individual personal officers. Together with probation officers, Wymott's staff have introduced courses in anger control. Individual drug counselling is already available and there are plans to introduce group therapy in the new year. A great deal is happening in that respect.
A great deal of attention has been given to the comments of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector about the prevalence of drugs at Wymott, about which your Lordships expressed anxiety. It is clear that the circulation of any illicit drugs in any prison is a serious matter indeed. But, again, it is important to keep the situation at Wymott in proper proportion. Apart from one isolated incident, which was mentioned in Her Majesty's Chief Inspector's report, when a tennis ball containing heroin was lobbed over a prison fence —of all the extraordinary things to do—I understand that

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drug finds at Wymott have involved only very small amounts of cannabis resin or smoking implements. Those amounts would not normally excite the interest of the courts but that does not mean that their prevalence is justifiable or excusable. It is not. I say merely that had the incidents occurred outside the prison, they would not have excited the interest of the courts too greatly.
The governor pursues a vigorous searching policy. He can draw on skilled staff and specialist dogs which are trained to detect drugs. The level of success in finding drugs reflects in part the governor's determination to root drugs out of his prison.
I turn now to Lewes Prison. That is a typical mid-Victorian local prison. It is a clear example of the conflicting pressures which can be placed on a prison when it is trying to meet its commitments to the courts at the same time as providing a stimulating daily regime and a decent standard of care for its prisoners.
Maintaining a programme of activities which will keep prisoners constructively occupied and out of their cells for a good part of the day needs careful planning as well as an element of constancy. Both those factors are frequently threatened by the need to respond at short notice to the needs of the courts and sometimes to the unpredictable fluctuations in the numbers of those who are committed to custody. Her Majesty's Chief Inspector put that conflict at the heart of the problems at Lewes.
The noble Lords, Lord Harris and Lord Plant, referred to meal times. The governor is aware that the present evening tea time is not as it should be. That is caused by the limited availability of staff because of the need to service the courts. However, the governor plans to move the main meal of the day to early evening which should enable prisoners to be in a better position throughout the night.
I was slightly amused—and I know that I should not be because there is nothing funny about these matters—because the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich said that it is not good to have one's last meal of the day at three o'clock. I thought that because of the generosity of the noble Lord in tabling his Unstarred Question today some of us had not had a first meal of the day at three o'clock. However, that is merely a passing reflection and does not have much to do with the debate.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred also to the numbers at Lewes. There are now considerably fewer inmates than there were at the time of the inspection. Today that number stands at 328. It is greatly to the credit of local prisons, which must cope with the difficulties of court requirements and so on, that almost invariably Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, in his report, speaks highly of the level of care and concern which is shown by all the staff towards the prisoners who are in their charge. I am glad that Lewes is no exception.
However, that is not enough. It is the Government's policy to bring down unacceptable levels of overcrowding which have beset our prisons. That will open up opportunities for men and women who are in custody to use their time constructively in
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preparation for their release and will ensure that they experience decent living conditions and treatment while they are in prison.
Over the years there has been constant and justified criticism of our prisons and the condition of them. We now have a substantial building programme, which sometimes, curiously, seems to escape the notice of the critics. There are 21 new prisons in the Government's building programme, of which 15 have already been opened. The programme will provide over 11,000 new places by 1994 at a cost of some £1,200 million. That is substantial by any standards.
In our existing prisons nearly 900 new places and over 1,000 refurbished places are also being brought into use during the current financial year. That is also a staggering figure by any standards. Lewes has benefited from that programme. One of our new prisons—Highdown—which opened this year has taken over responsibility since November for Croydon and Guildford Crown Courts as well as the Surrey magistrates' courts. Those were previously served by Lewes. As a result, staff will now be free to supervise more prison activities for prisoners out of their cells. The hours that prisoners spend out of cells at Lewes has increased since the inspection from 30 hours to 40 hours per week.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, referred to the segregation unit. That closed for refurbishment. The decision to take over eight hospital cells was taken by the senior management team of which a senior medical officer is a member. Thirty-one cells were left for hospital patients and during that time the hospital did not run out of cells.
The Governor at Lewes also has plans to convert an old reception and kitchen building into an activities centre. He wants, too, to expand the regime activities which young prisoners undertake out of their cells. He wants to involve them more in the life of the community outside the prison. A community and social skills instructional officer has just been appointed, and he is at present working with many small groups of prisoners. On top of that, much physical renovation is being done in Lewes. It is in the middle of a £14½ million redevelopment programme. I hesitate to say it again, but that is a considerable figure by any standards.
A new reception area was opened on 30th November. The previous reception area was old, badly designed and far too cramped for the staff to treat the prisoners as they would have wished. Work on the new kitchen is also almost complete. This will give Lewes one of the most modern and hygienic kitchens in the prison service. It is expected to be in use within the next two or three months.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, was concerned about evening association, library services and the bail unit. All prisoners get between 20 and 30 minutes of informal association, while unlocked, to attend to their evening requirements. Convicted prisoners also have the opportunity to attend evening classes on four days of the week. It is planned to increase the number of out-of-cell hours, eventually, to 12 hours a day. This increase will start when the refurbishment accommodation for convicted inmates comes into use

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in April or May next year, and it will expand to include remand prisoners as the refurbishment programme continues.
The library—another item to which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred—is being moved this week to temporary accommodation in the education area prior to a permanent move alongside education later next year. Even the temporary accommodation is larger than was available previously, and it will allow all prisoners access at least twice a week. We expect a bail unit to open early in the new year. The health care centre is presently being upgraded and it will soon be ready for reoccupation. Work will begin on refurbishing the wings in April 1993. Contrary to the report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, this work will include the provision of space for association.
Her Majesty's Chief Inspector rightly criticised the makeshift visits area in Lewes prison, and I am glad to say that work on its refurbishment is now well advanced. It has been redecorated and new floor covering and furnishings will be provided. A child's play area and a drinks vending machine will also be in place before Christmas. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, also referred to mentally ill prisoners. I think that the noble Lord knows that we do not consider prison to be a proper place for the mentally ill, and we have made strenuous efforts to increase transfers of the mentally ill from prison to mental hospitals.
I think that it is true to say that, never before in its history, has the prison service faced a period of such rapid and fundamental change. Nor has it faced such penetrating, public scrutiny on the scale which it does at present. It is a considerable achievement of the service that so many prison establishments emerge from this dual challenge with considerable credit. Inevitably, though, inspection findings which reflect that aspect seldom reach the headlines. I hope that I have been able to show to your Lordships that, despite the considerable criticism of Her Majesty's Inspector of Prisons and those of your Lordships, too, which none of us like, substantial improvements have already been made since the inspection took place, and more are planned to be introduced in the near future.
Perhaps I may be permitted on that somewhat more cheerful note than might have been prevalent during the earlier parts of the debate to wish those of your Lordships who have remained for this debate, and even those who have found it more convenient not to do so, as well as to the staff and the inmates of Wymott and Lewes prisons, a very happy Christmas.

Motion for the Adjournment
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, in moving the Adjournment of the House I should like on behalf of the noble Lords on these Benches to wish noble Lords from all parts of the House a happy Christmas, a refreshing Recess, and an equally happy and auspicious new year. I also take the opportunity to thank on behalf of the Whole House all those in the Palace of Westminster who serve us so well and make possible all of the work which we carry out in this
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place—all those in the Parliament Office, Black Rod's Office, the doorkeepers, the custodians, the Hansard reporters and editors, the secretarial staff, the Refreshment Department and, not least, the security service and the police. I offer our best wishes for a happy Christmas and our continued thanks for the courtesy, charm and efficiency with which they all in their own individual way discharge their duties.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, what a splendid address we have just listened to. On behalf of my colleagues on these Benches, and like the noble Lord the Government Chief Whip on behalf of the whole House, I should like to thank the long list of colleagues on the parliamentary scene whom he mentioned. We certainly extend our thanks to them too. I would only add that Ministers and their parliamentary colleagues have had perhaps a restful period up to Christmas. We know that that will speed up a great deal. Certainly I am very grateful to my new deputy Chief Whip, my noble friend Lord Morris, who is here today in that capacity and who would have deputised for me had I not been back from an engagement.
I was interested to hear the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, telling us that sometimes something called "anger control" had been exercised at one of the prisons. It seems to me that from time to time we need a lesson on that in this House; but not today, and not during the Christmas season. We are very grateful indeed for the words of the Government Chief Whip and we look forward to him and his colleagues coming back refreshed after a restful Christmas, ready for the battle in the new year.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, the happy duty falls to me, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Tordoff, to echo the sentiments that have been expressed both by the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh, and by the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton. I speak on behalf of all my noble friends on these Benches when I say that it is yet again a great privilege to be a Member of this House. We in this House may be able perhaps to counteract some false impressions that may have been spread through certain television programmes. We are happy to belong to a family, as it were, that, to me at any rate, represents a great deal that is best in our British life. It is courteous and thorough in the work that it does; it is good humoured without being soft when it needs to be combative. It is a great privilege also to work with such a staff as we have here. I have particular reason to be grateful, particularly to the security officers and the policemen, who have to raise and lower the barrier at Chancellor's Gate to let me and my motorcycle in on so many occasions. I think it is time that they were mentioned.
Having said that, it has been a fairly quiet year in relation to previous ones. I do not think that we will have a quiet year in 1993, but I am quite sure that the same qualities will prevail and that the same standard of service and the same goodwill as we get from all staff will continue. Let us hope that they do not have to come back during the Recess for two days, but let me hasten to add that, apart from a lack of bread in

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the Grill Room, everything seemed to be much the same as usual. It only remains for me to say "Happy Christmas" and to wish peace and goodwill to all. Perhaps that wish is more than usually appropriate at the moment.
Baroness Hylton-Foster: My Lords, the Cross-Bench Peers would like to add their good wishes to all those who look after us: upstairs, downstairs, inside and outside, seen and unseen. Especially we would like to thank the doorkeepers for so kindly looking after so many of the new Peers and also the Peers who come here only sometimes for debates in which they have a special interest. They all appreciate so much the way
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in which they are guided. I say thank you on their behalf. I offer best wishes for Christmas and 1993 to all other Peers.
Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to with amendments and with a privilege amendment; ordered that the Commons amendments be printed (H.L. Bill 55).
House adjourned for the Christmas Recess at twenty-six minutes before four o'clock until Monday, 18th January next.