Lords Sitting of 29 June 1992

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

Central European Time
Viscount Mountgarret Viscount Mountgarret asked Her Majesty's Government:
When Central European Time will be considered for adoption in the United Kingdom, particularly in view of the positive reaction to their survey last year.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the options for future summer time arrangements are under consideration. We shall need to take account, among other things, of a review of summer time which we understand is soon to be undertaken by the European Commission.
Viscount Mountgarret: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that this matter has been under consideration for a considerable length of time? Would it not be desirable for it to be considered firmly and then dispensed with one way or the other, so that we at least know where we all are?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, negotiations with our European partners on a directive for dates of summer time for 1995 and beyond are expected to begin around the middle of next year. We understand that, prior to that, the European Commission intends to conduct a wide-ranging review of possible options for future summer time arrangements in Europe. Therefore, it would be premature for us to take any final decision on the way forward until we know in what direction the Commission is moving.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, does the noble Viscount agree that his noble friend did not quite get that right? We would not know where we are—we would know when we were.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, that might easily be the case. But at the moment we know that we are Greenwich Mean Time plus one hour.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, apart from representations from the agricultural industry, whose interests are concerned in this Question, have the Government received any strong representations from other organisations or influential bodies in this country advocating an immediate change?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the responses to the Green Paper showed significant support for a move to single double summer time in England and Wales. However, strong feelings were expressed against the move, particularly in Scotland.
Lord Monson: My Lords, does the noble Viscount agree that the main argument against our adopting Central European Time is that Britain is by no stretch of the imagination geographically located in central Europe?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, there are arguments both ways, as your Lordships have pointed out. There are advantages in terms of business and communications. There are also disadvantages in that in the winter it would be somewhat darker in the mornings.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, does the Minister agree that if it is impossible to get people to rise an hour earlier in the morning and make use of the daylight there is no other option but to put the hour on at the other end?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, there are as many diverse opinions on this matter as there are on any such matter. That is why we are conducting a considerable review on the subject.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, my noble friend mentioned the advantages to business of moving to a common EC time. Can he tell me why this has not been done already under the Treaty of Rome; in particular, under the arrangements for 1993?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, as I said, we published a Green Paper and there has been substantial further public discussion. We understand that the Commission will review its summer and winter time arrangements. Therefore, it would be premature for us to take action until we knew what the Commission was doing because the result might he that our timetable would have to change perhaps twice a year against European time as opposed to once a year.
Lord Annan: My Lords, can the noble Viscount explain how it is possible for the European Community to know what to do until it has some inkling about what we want to do?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, we shall certainly be making strong representations to our partners in Europe on this subject. We shall certainly not take any rushed decision on what time it is in London, in Brussels, or wherever.
Lord Constantine of Stanmore: My Lords, is the Minister aware that since the publication of the Green Paper there have been many representations from very substantial bodies ranging from the RAC to British Airways—from the ground upward—requesting some decision to be made on this issue to enable them to plan at least for next summer, if not for this one?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, we shall not take any action that will affect summer time for next summer because people need substantial notice; for example, people who produce diaries. Road safety is one of the many aspects that have to be considered in the light of any possible change. It was suggested by evidence in the Green Paper that road safety might improve. But there was concern in Scotland regarding the dark mornings.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that the north of Scotland in particular is a very long way north of central Europe? Does he recollect that when double summer time, as we called it, was tried in Scotland on an experimental basis some years ago it was extremely unpopular?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I understand that it was not popular in some places. We believe that Scotland and England should have the same time. The Standard British Time experiment took place between 1968 and 1971 and there were arguments for and against the system.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that Greenwich Mean Time is a matter for subsidiarity?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, not necessarily.
Lord Elton: My Lords, if Europe expands to the east, is the prospect that the centre of Europe will also move to the east and that we shall have to rise earlier and earlier the more successful the Government are with the policy?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, there is not just one time in Europe; for example, this country and Portugal are on Greenwich Mean Time, most other EC countries are on Central European Time, but Greece is on Central European Time plus one

Classified Information: EC Proposal
2.45 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington Lord Bruce of Donington asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, as a Member of the EC Council of Ministers, they will withhold approval of the European Commission's proposal for a Council regulation on security measures applicable to classified information (COM(92) 56 final of 29th February 1992) until and unless the proposal, with any amendments, receives the approval of the United Kingdom Parliament.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey): My Lords, the normal procedures for parliamentary scrutiny of proposals for European Community legislation will apply. In its present form, the regulation is neither well targeted nor workable. An early decision on the proposal is not in any case expected.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that partially satisfactory reply. Can she say whether the Government are aware that, if the proposal were adopted, it would enable the Commission, and indeed other institutions, to cloak in secrecy any items of correspondence or memorandum that they find inconvenient to publish, as indeed is outlined in Article 3 of the proposal? Further can the Minister give the House a completely unequivocal statement or assurance that the Government will in fact completely oppose the whole question of giving the Commission some protected status in regard to its documents and correspondence?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, the House already knows that I am not in favour of giving the Commission any protected status. It is not a rare animal; it has to be a working body. I believe that this particular regulation (which has actually been around now for about four years) will not make progress either in its present form or indeed in any form which would lead to more secrecy. We want greater openness in government, not only at Westminster but also in the European Community in so far as its moves affect government of this country. There are grave shortcomings in the regulation. We are pointing them out to fellow member states. The proposal is only being discussed informally. I do not see it making any progress whatever.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, does not the very fact that such a proposal has been put forward show that within the Commission there are people who are bent upon forming in Europe, and setting up in Western Europe, a super-state, complete with all the trappings of such a state including a law of secrecy?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, it may occur to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, as such. The answer is that many matters are discussed in the European Community which stem from a genuine need to have sensible rules covering, say, Community institutions. I see no reason why this particular draft should make progress. It certainly should not cover our interests. We would welcome proper arrangements for handling EC classified documents. However, I really question any need for a regulation which is not in our interests. Therefore, I have made it quite clear that it is not our intention that the draft regulation should proceed.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, in order to button up the whole matter, will the Minister give the House an assurance that Her Majesty's Government will ensure that instructions are sent to Sir John Kerr (the Government's representative on COREPER) that on no account should COREPER permit this item to be sent to the Council in List A, which means that it can be passed through on the nod?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I can assure the House that there is no way in which the draft regulation will be put forward as an A point. It is quite clear that our priorities are to ensure that any new procedures apply only to information that genuinely warrants specific protection and that they are workable in practice and do not impose an excessive administrative burden on member states and institutions. Sir John Kerr is aware of that fact. The draft regulation in its present form will not be introduced as an A point.

Light Rail Projects: Funding
2.49 p.m.
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill asked Her Majesty's Government:
What are their proposals for funding the Midland Metro project and other future light rail schemes.
The Minister of State, Department of Transport (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, it will not be possible to provide funds for construction of line one of the Midland Metro in 1993–94. The case for funding will be carefully considered next year in the light of the availability of resources. Some £50 million a year is at present available by way of government grants and credit approvals towards the funding of light rail projects.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, do the Government agree that light rail transport is environmentally friendly in so far as it helps with congestion and the relief of pollution? In the light of that, would it not be advisable for the Government to make funds available for light transport schemes, if necessary by diverting funds from costly road schemes? As funds for light rail schemes derive from Section 56 of the 1968 Act, have the Government in mind the merging of those provisions with finance for road transport so as to give local authorities freedom to determine which type of scheme they wish to adopt?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord is correct when he says that a light rail scheme can be beneficial. There are of course other ways of controlling traffic and improving congestion. With regard to the noble Lord's last point, we look forward to studying the package that is being considered in the West Midlands, but further legislation would be required to bring into effect what the noble Lord wishes.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the funding problem may have arisen because the precept which used to be given directly to passenger transport authorities now goes to the boroughs? The boroughs have not received money earmarked for transport. If the precept were returned to the PTAs it might help to fund light rail schemes.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, as I said, the taxpayer, via the Government, is spending some £50 million this year, and the figure will be roughly the same next year.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, have the Government received a request from Cleveland County Council about a light rail system for Teesside? If so, what reply has been sent?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, there will be no funds available for Teesside in the next financial year.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I am sorry to intervene again, but will the Minister explain why the funds necessary for these desirable schemes are not available? That was the point of my previous question.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the reason there are no funds available, although everyone would like more money, is that we are talking about taxpayers' money. We must keep a strict control on public expenditure.

Ministerial Salary Levels
2.53 p.m.
Lord McCarthy Lord McCarthy asked Her Majesty's Government:
What plans they have to relate ministerial salary levels to individual performance.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, none.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, in the light of the Minister's Answer, for which I thank him—
Noble Lords: Reading!
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, it is necessary to read because it is in the Citizen's Charter, and I want to ask the Minister about it. The Citizen's Charter advocates performance-related pay. I want to know why performance-related pay does not apply to Ministers. It states:
"The ways in which people are paid can have a powerful effect on improving performance".
That must be the case with Ministers. They should not be so pessimistic. It continues:
"Pay systems in the public sector need to make a regular and direct link between a person's contribution to the standards of service provided and his or her reward".
It goes on to talk about those principles being applied to doctors, general managers in the NHS, school heads, classroom teachers and civil servants. All those have been covered already. Why should not the principle of performance-related pay apply to Ministers?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, we encourage performance-related pay whenever the circumstances are suitable. The noble Lord might be aware that Ministers form one of the few groups with no security of employment and they can therefore spend a great deal of time with their families at very short notice.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that adoption of the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, would, in view of the high standard of performance achieved by the whole of the present Government, involve a massive increase in public expenditure?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I can assure my noble friend that many sitting on this Bench would welcome that increase in public expenditure, but it might not be appropriate in the present financial situation.
Lord Wyatt of Weeford: My Lords, if any committee is needed to evaluate the individual worth of Ministers the noble Lords, Lord McCarthy and Lord Hatch of Lusby, should be appointed to sit on it.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I think, on reflection, that a committee is not needed.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that there are others in the community whose salaries are much larger than those paid to Ministers and whose careers are strangely uncoloured by success but who nevertheless receive rewards which do not reflect that fact?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend can think of one or two, but in this Question we are talking about Ministers.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, if the Government were ever to adopt this interesting proposal would they ensure that the highest paid Ministers are those who produce the least legislation and the fewest orders? Am I not right in thinking that upon that criterion the Minister who should have reached the highest level of payment in recent years is the erstwhile Mr. Peter Walker, who was a satisfactory Minister for many years and who introduced no legislation?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, as I said in my original Answer, there are no plans.
Lord Peston: My Lords, will the Minister accept that I agree partly with the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter? I assumed that the Question was directed entirely to Ministers in the other place. We are all agreed that Ministers in your Lordships' House perform outstandingly and are grotesquely underpaid, as are the principal Opposition spokesmen. A genuine question has been asked. It is one which applies much more broadly as to what one means by individual performance. Is not the problem that in many organisations it is not individual performance but group performance which matters? For the Government to be pressing performance-related indicators to the level of the individual is a mistake. That is the nature of the problem which in a sense was alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, because if one were trying to judge this matter one would judge the Government as a whole rather than individual Ministers.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, our performance as a group is assessed. It was assessed at the general election, which is why we are sitting on this side of the House and the noble Lord is sitting on the other.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I was about to suggest that the principle might apply to Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition? However, after listening to my noble friend I am inclined to doubt it.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, I must explain matters to the Minister and ask him another question. He must understand that all the answers he has given as to why it would be ridiculous, foolish and fatuous to apply performance-related pay to the Government have been argued with equal force in relation to it being applied to civil servants and National Health Service chief executives. Everyone believes that it should be applied to everyone but them. The Government must be consistent. Either they accept that there are large numbers of chief executives and
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other senior officials for whom performance-related pay is ridiculous and take it away, or they should apply it to themselves.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I cannot follow the noble Lord's argument. In order for an effective performance-related pay system f o be put into place clear objectives, a robust performance appraisal and a performance management system are needed, for the very reasons I have given. In answer to the noble Lord's first supplementary question, there is a wide difference.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is the Minister implying that Ministers have no targets or criteria for performance by which they are judged?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, we have targets and our performance was vindicated at the general election.

Business
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, after the Committee stage of the Education (Amendment) Bill my noble friend the Leader of the House will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement on the European Council in Lisbon that is being made in another place.

City of Bristol (Portishead Docks) Bill [H.L.]
2.59 p.m.
Read a third time.
Clause 6 [Sea-defence functions of Council]:
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Ampthill)The Chairman of Committees (Lord Ampthill) moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 4, line 26, at end insert ("parts of").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, perhaps I may speak also to Amendments Nos. 2 to 8. Amendment No. 1 is a drafting amendment to Clause 6. Amendments Nos. 2 to 8 are amendments to the schedule. They have the effect of saving from repeal certain enactments which the British Railways Board considers to be relevant in connection with its existing railway undertaking.
The amendments do not affect the substantive provisions of the Bill, which are intended to permit the city council of Bristol to discontinue its statutory harbour undertaking at Portishead Docks. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Chairman of Committees The Chairman of Committees moved Amendments Nos. 2 to 8:
Schedule [Enactments repealed]:

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Page 6, line 7, column 3, leave out ("The whole Act") and insert—

("In section 2, the words from the beginning to "1860,'"; the words "and 'The Harbours, Docks, Piers, and Clauses Act, 1847,'"; and the Proviso.

In section 3, the words from "the Expression "'the Undertakers'" to "incorporated;"; and the words from "as the Pier" to "therewith".

Sections 5 to 18.

In section 19, the words "Pier or Jetty,".

In section 20, paragraph 1.

Section 22

Section 26

Sections 28 to 30.

In section 31, the words "Pier or Jetty,", in each place where they occur.

Sections 32 and 33.

Sections 35 to 37.

Section 39.

Sections 41 and 42.

Sections 48 to 60.

Sections 64 to 76.

Section 78.

Schedules B to E.").

Page 6, line 9, column 3, leave out ("The whole Act") and insert—

("In section 2, the words from the beginning to "1860,"'; the words "and 'The Harbours, Docks, and Piers Clauses Act, 1847,'"; and the proviso.

Section 3

In section 4, the words from "and the Expression 'the Undertakers,'" to "the Company;".

Sections 6 to 8.

Sections 10 to 15.

Section 20.

Section 23.

Sections 32 to 41.

Sections 44 to 68.

The Fourth Schedule.").

Page 6, line 16, column 3, after ("1") insert (", 7").
Page 6, line 35, column 3, leave out from ("to") to end of line 38 and insert ("'1871 and'; the words 'and 14'; the words 'subsections and '; and the words 'and the Portishead undertaking'").
Page 7, line 9, column 3, leave out from ("words") to end of line 12 and insert ("'pier and'").
Page 7, line 16, column 3, leave out ("in both places where they occur").
Page 7, line 20, column 33, leave out ("Section 51.") and insert ("In section 51, the words 'pier and'.").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(The Chairman of Committees.)
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

Education (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
3.1 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Campbell of Alloway.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Assessment of special educational needs]:
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 10, at end insert (", wherever possible,").
The noble Baroness said: I am aware that under a Private Member's Bill it is not normal practice to group amendments. However, I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 1 and 6 together because they are clearly linked. I hope that that will be acceptable to the Committee.
To begin with I wish to repeat what I said at Second Reading. There is no sense in which we on this side of the Committee wish in any way to let local education authorities off the hook on speedy resolution of the problems that parents face in obtaining statements for children with special needs. Any parent faced with the need to obtain a statement about their child's special educational needs wants the matter to be resolved as soon as possible. It is unsatisfactory that there should be long delays and it is now apparent that there is need for considerable improvement in this respect.
At Second Reading we did not have available the report of the Audit Commission and HMI on provision for pupils with special educational needs. It is now available to us. One point that emerged from the report is that in the 12 local education authorities that were surveyed in the study there are unnecessary delays and we must do something about them.
Perhaps I may quote paragraph 54 on page 26 of the Audit Commission/HMI report:
"The deficiencies in the processes of assessment and issuing statements mean that some of the principal provisions of the 1981 Act are not being implemented. In particular, the concept of a timely, meaningful assessment of a child's needs, followed by a clear statement and guarantee of help has largely not materialised. Out of 12 LEAs, the implementation of the statutory procedures has broken down almost completely in one, has been virtually ignored in another, and in a third the level of demand is out of control. Most of the remaining LEAs are falling far short of an adequate performance in most of the measures detailed in this section".
Clearly this is a highly regrettable situation which must be rectified. Thus it is even more important that we should try to make the six-month requirement stick which is already contained in government guidelines to local education authorities.
However, as I said at Second Reading, there are clearly exceptional cases where it may be difficult because of their enormous complexity and because of the problems of local authorities in obtaining both evidence and advice from a wide range of agencies beyond the local education authority, and it is important that we build in a little flexibility in handling matters. Local authorities may have to go to

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a variety of health service professionals. They may have to go to the social services department, to the courts or the probation service when a somewhat older child has been in trouble with the law. The purpose of Amendment No. 1 is to insert "wherever possible" into the provisions of the Bill.
Having said that, I have considerable sympathy with what the Minister said at Second Reading. She suggested that:
"The Government have decided, therefore, that there should be comprehensive provisions for regulating the time and way within which authorities carry through the whole process from initial notification to the LEA that an assessment might be necessary to the issue of a final statement… but [the Government] believe that the precise provisions should be set out in regulations rather than primary legislation". —[Official Report, 11/6/92; col. 1409.]
We on these Benches accept that. I believe that it is the most appropriate way of handling rather difficult and complicated issues of this kind. However, if we are to amend primary legislation, we should like to ensure that a little flexibility is built into the provision. Hence our proposals for something along the lines of Amendment No. 6. Again, we are not wedded to the precise words of the amendment and it is possible that other Members of the Committee or the Minister may wish to bring forward an improvement.
However, we seek something that ensures that local authorities cannot be neglectful and dilatory in dealing with these cases. We want something which forces them to inform parents of any delay in their procedures and to produce a clear timetable as to how they will deal with the problems.
The amendment also requires a local education authority to make interim arrangements for the child's educational provision so that parents are not left with no specific provisions available while statements are being finalised.
I hope that these two amendments will be acceptable to the Committee. They are designed to leave the six-month requirement in the Bill but to allow for some exceptions, which I believe ought to be few, but within a structure which puts pressure on the LEAs to get on with the job and to inform the parents. I beg to move.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: As the noble Baroness said, Amendment No. 1 is related to Amendment No. 6. Paragraph 54 of the Audit Commission report, published by the department, sets the seal of approval on all our endeavours in this Chamber on the Bill.
I am concerned with the discipline of the drafting of the Bill. Amendments Nos. 1 and 6 could be treated as an alternative to Amendments Nos. 2 and 4 in my name. However, the hope is that that is not the noble Baroness's intention. Strictly speaking, as a matter of drafting, Amendments Nos. 1 and 6, together with Amendments Nos. 2 and 4, could be carried into the Bill without any form of inconsistency. If any tidying up process were to be needed —and it is thought that there would be none—the matter could be dealt with at Report stage.
Both sets of amendments, Amendments Nos. 1 and 6 and those in my name, Amendments Nos. 2 and 4, seek to import a degree of extra flexibility in
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accordance with the view of the majority of your Lordships expressed on Second Reading, including, I seem to remember, my noble friend the Minister. However, there are some objections to Amendments Nos. 1 and 6 as they stand. Perhaps further consideration might be given to the drafting for although such is by no means the intention—as the noble Baroness has said, she wants to make the measure stick—these Amendments Nos. 1 and 6 could well remove the spur of urgency and provide an all too welcome feather-bed for procrastination. I ask the question, who will decide what is possible; presumably the LEA with a quiver full of excuses, and eventually the court on judicial review? However, by then there will be further delay and the expense that is inevitably involved in all litigation. Litigation must be the last resort.
I should like to ask another question. As regards Amendment No. 6, who will decide how long it must be after the period of six months has expired before the letter to the parents is to be written? Again it will be the LEA, and the same problem arises. I ask the Committee respectfully whether this extra concession to the LEA, by means of Amendments Nos. 1 and 6, is either appropriate or indeed requisite in the light of Amendments Nos. 2 and 4 which stand in my name. It is most respectfully thought that that is not the case. At all events, before Amendments Nos. 1 and 6 are carried into the Bill, perhaps the noble Baroness would consider—she has generously said that she has an open mind on this matter and she is not wedded to any precise form of words—the objections that I have raised in the two questions that I have asked. I take the same point as the noble Baroness took. There should be a clear timetable and no more of this dilatory attitude. There should be interim measures. The Government suggested on a previous occasion that there might be a comprehensive regime of regulation. Well, we shall have to see about that. However, at this stage my hope is that, in their present form, these amendments should not be carried into the Bill. However, I would welcome them if they were made to bite a little harder.
Lord Elton: We shall no doubt have to deal with the mechanics of this matter in detail on Report. As my noble friend has said, we may have to resolve the matter on Report. However, something more should be put on the record with regard to the admirable report published by the Audit Commission and Her Majesty's Inspectorate. I may be ignorant in this field, but it is the first report that I have seen in which the Audit Commission has teamed up with another group of specialists to provide a joint report. It is an excellent piece of work and it is most lucidly presented. It is thoroughly supportive of my noble friend's proposed legislation. It adds force to the arguments of both my noble friend and the noble Baroness on the urgency of pressure being applied, particularly to local authorities.
Paragraph 26 of the report states:
"The length of time it takes to complete the assessment and issue the statement is the principal reason why the process is not valued".

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The report then gives what I consider a perfectly horrific illustration of what happens in real life. This passage is not in italics, but I consider it to be horrific. It states:
"In the worst case, the parent of a seven year-old-child will not, on average, receive the details of the assessment until the child is 10 years old, by which time most of the information is out of date".
I should have thought that by that time all of the information would be out of date.
We are also told that the main delay arises in the administrative processes of the LEA. The lack of management information in LEAs on the time taken to complete the process illustrates the lack of priority given to the process. The report continues:
"The situation is exacerbated by the in-built financial incentive to delay the completion of statements … some LEAs are likely to continue to regard the issuing of statements as an administrative task which does not warrant management attention, instead of seeing it as the cornerstone of the rights of parents and children".
My noble friend rightly holds the latter view and he has sought to express that view in the Bill.
As regards whether the two proposed routes forward are in sympathy, I daresay other Members of the Committee will have had little time to consider the way the machinery interacts in the Bill. I am warmly supportive of my noble friend's proposal. I wonder whether the drafting of Amendment No. 1 in the name of the noble Baroness may not have been done with a slight eye askance to the Marshalled List, as the earlier one strikes in a Bill the better one's chances of getting the first amendment in the business. That is a nice place to be. If the noble Baroness has achieved that object and put her point forward now, she could perhaps, by amending her amendment for a later stage of the Bill, return to this matter with an amendment which is more specifically in sympathy with the view of my noble friend. In that case she would be helping us all.
3.15 p.m.
Lord Addington: I support the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, on this matter. I believe the noble Baroness has blunted the teeth of this Bill. I can understand why she has proposed her amendments. I also understand that there are anxieties about this issue. There is always, too, the problem of funding in this area. That must be borne in mind, but a child who has the problems we are discussing must be dealt with as fast as possible. Every time a delay arises the problems of that child will be compounded. In the end one will probably waste more money and resources than if one deals quickly with the problem. To delay taking action is false economy. Overall, costs will be saved by dealing with these problems quickly. That moral applies to all parts of the Bill.
A child's future will be far better served by rapid treatment. There is the possibility of schools becoming more selective. Therefore it is quite possible that a pupil who receives insufficient help early on will find his entire educational career is ruined through being put into the wrong school. We need to offer help to pupils as rapidly as possible. I am possibly talking about the whole ethics of the Bill rather than the
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amendments that we are discussing, but when we consider the rest of the Bill it will help us to remember those ethics.
It is never easy or cheap to deal with the problems that we are discussing. However, in the long term it is much cheaper to deal with them quickly and this Bill allows for that. The amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, are flexible enough to allow the problems to be dealt with quickly. The amendments of the noble Baroness would soften the Bill and allow the provision of incorrect assistance.
Lord Rix: Whenever I see the words "wherever possible" my blood runs cold as they mean that a coach and horses can be driven through legislation. The words "when resources allow" also make my blood run cold. Those words often lead to ineffective legislation. I hope that the noble Baroness will reconsider these amendments. We understand the problems facing LEAs but we also understand the far greater problems facing parents and children. For far too long parents and children have been denied their right of access to this form of statementing. If the form of education that children require is missing in their early years, their future prospects are ruined.
Baroness Faithfull: I, like the noble Lord, Lord Rix, am worried about the words "wherever possible". I understand the desire of the noble Baroness to obtain flexibility but those words can be so widely interpreted that the process we are discussing might go on for a long time.
I should like to raise a second point. I believe that the work can be done within six months. If a child appears before a court in another context the court asks for a report on the child as to why he or she has come to court and what will happen to the child afterwards. Social workers in the social services department have to make that report for the court within about four weeks. I believe that local authorities can make the assessments within six months and I do not believe that they should take longer.
The Earl of Radnor: I am in complete agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Rix. I believe that a strong line should be taken here and that possibly the noble Baroness might think again about her amendments. She said herself that the six-month period must be made to stick. Then in her amendments she provides the means for it to come unstuck. The words used in the amendment seem to provide an opportunity to make excuses. That is surely what has been happening since 1981. There have been endless excuses. I accept that there have been problems with funding but I do not believe that such problems will ever be overcome until the matter is faced. It is a serious position for a child to have to wait for ever for assessment. As my noble friend Lord Elton said, it is utterly ridiculous and totally wrong for a child to have to wait from the age of seven until it is 10. The time has come not only to wave the big stick but to bring it into action and to leave the Bill broadly as it is presently printed.
Lord Elton: I not only say that it is wrong: it is cruel. The state and the local education authority are

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under a duty to provide a suitable education for the child and for three years the child may have been receiving the wrong education, which must be a disaster.
Baroness David: I agree with all those who have spoken that it is desirable that the assessment and the statement should be made within a period of six months, and preferably in a shorter time. However, I remind members of the Committee that at Second Reading a great many pleas were made for flexibility. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, himself, the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, my noble friend Lady Blackstone, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and I all made such pleas and the Minister said that we should not be too rigid.
I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to Amendment No. 6 which states that if the authority does not provide the assessment within six months it must give reasons. The amendment provides that:
"the authority shall write to the parents specifying a date by which the assessment shall be completed and offering guidance as to the educational provision that the child may receive".
Therefore, it forces the authority to take some action at that point.
The Audit Commission report points out that it is not always the local authority which causes the problems because other agencies such as the health authority, psychologists, social services etc. may have to contribute. Therefore it may not be entirely the fault of the LEAs. I hope that those points will be taken into consideration.
Lord Elton: Perhaps I may come to the aid of my noble friend, should he need it. I did indeed suggest that there should be flexibility because I recall as a Minister always being anxious when no alternative was given where one was needed. The problem is controlling the alternative. If the noble Baroness will look at Amendment No. 4 in the name of my noble friend she will find that there is a degree of flexibility. It is very tight, and she may think it too tight. I do not believe that it is too tight. The circumstances must be exceptional but one must provide for the exception. My noble friend has done that. Therefore, I do not think that we need to be worried about flexibility.
What is attractive about the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, is the idea that the authority should be under a duty to do something when the circumstances are exceptional to mitigate the results of those circumstances. I see that slender part of her group of amendments adding to the effectiveness of the amendments in the name of my noble friend rather than working against them.
Lord Rix: Am I not right in saying that until such time as a definitive statement is made and acted upon the cost of educating the child in terms of providing the additional equipment falls on the school? Therefore, there is every reason for the LEA to delay such a statement by making half-hearted promises. I believe sincerely that the amendments are contrary to the spirit of the amendment Bill.
The Minister of State, Department of Education (Baroness Blatch): I rise in the expectant silence in the Chamber simply to say that this is a Private Member's Bill and that I made very clear that the Government are addressing many of the points which have been raised and many others which are not before the Committee today. The combination of the Audit Commission report—and I agree with my noble friend that it is a very positive report and is very helpful at this time—and the efforts and determination of my noble friend Lord Campbell has done much to further the debate and to give it the impetus which this Chamber has been calling for for some time. We shall be addressing all of those points both in a consultative paper and in a Bill later this year. For those reasons I shall neither oppose nor support the amendments.
Baroness Blackstone: Of course we should be very happy to work to try to improve on the amendments between now and the Report stage of the Bill. In my earlier remarks I made it clear that we are not wedded to any particular aspects of the drafting of the amendments. All we are trying to do is to ensure that there is some flexibility and we are not too rigid.
I accept entirely that there is a case for further defining what is required both in Amendment No. 1 and Amendment No. 6. However, I should like to reiterate that there is no intention on this side of the House to try to reduce the pressure on local education authorities to deal with these cases as fast as possible. That is not their purpose. We are concerned to avoid poor and inadequate assessments of certain very difficult cases where all the information is not available because local authorities have not been able to get all the agencies concerned to provide it. There is nothing in the Bill which gives the local education authority the power to obtain from a health authority professional or a social services department important information that may be required. Therefore, we are being a little harsh on the local authorities in making the requirement. That could lead to the danger of a poor assessment of a child who is then inappropriately placed because the case has not been adequately considered.
I was somewhat surprised by what the noble Lord, Lord Rix, said. I can see that he might be worried by Amendment No. 1. Other noble Lords have also suggested that it might be too open ended. However, the purpose of Amendment No. 6 is to try to make sure that local authorities which go over the time limit in exceptional cases, for very good reasons, should explain why they have done so and make interim arrangements. I should have thought that that was helpful for the parents.
I do not believe that most local education authorities will want to delay. If the Bill goes through there will be a great deal of pressure on them to avoid doing so. There may be some sense in asking local authorities to publish statistics giving simple data concerning the number of cases which were not dealt with within the six-month period. It would be easy to do that and to find out quickly which local authorities were failing in their duties because there were too many such cases. It would then be possible to ask HMI to investigate those authorities which had failed

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in that way. There are other measures which could accompany the amendments to ensure the flexibility and lack of rigidity which are needed and at the same time ensure that the local authorities are not delaying unnecessarily.
I shall he happy to take away these two amendments and reconsider how we can improve them and perhaps put their positive aspects together with those amendments that have been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway. In the light of those comments, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Campbell of Alloway Lord Campbell of Alloway moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 11, leave out ("within six months of the expiry of such period").
The noble Lord said: I have spoken to this amendment, which received a measure of support in this Chamber. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Campbell of Alloway Lord Campbell of Alloway moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 1, line 12, leave out ("educational needs of") and insert ("special educational provision that should be made for").
The noble Lord said: This is a formal correction, spoken to on Second Reading. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Campbell of Alloway Lord Campbell of Alloway moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 1, line 12, at end insert:
("(a) within six months of the expiry of such period, or (b) in exceptional circumstances within such extended period as shall have been granted by the Secretary of State prior to the expiration of the six month period by a reasoned decision which has been brought to the attention of the parent before the expiration of the six month period.").
The noble Lord said: I have spoken to this amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness Blackstone: I wonder whether we could consider this amendment in the light of what I said earlier. We might want to incorporate some aspects of our Amendment No. 6 and see whether we can come up with a slight improvement to what is now on the Marshalled List.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I welcome that suggestion and shall deal with it with an open mind. Perhaps we can consider it on Report.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness David: I understood that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, intended to withdraw the amendment so that we could discuss his amendment and the amendment of my noble friend Lady Blackstone together before Report stage.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: No, I am not prepared to withdraw the amendment.
The Chairman of Committees: Amendment No. 4 has been settled.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Rix Lord Rix moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 1. line 12, at end insert:
("( ) If, after making an assessment of the educational needs of a child, the local education authority decide to determine the special educational provision that should be made, the authority shall, within the period of six months referred to in subsection (6) above, make a draft statement for discussion with the parents of the child concerned.").
The noble Lord said: The intention of this amendment is to require local education authorities to produce, within the six months mentioned in the Bill, a draft statement of the special educational needs of the child for discussion with the parents. It is my understanding that, as the Bill is currently written, the LEA will only be obliged to assess the child to decide whether or not it will determine the educational needs within the six months written into the Bill.
While that is indeed welcome, it does not deal with the main problem which parents contacting MENCAP or RADAR are experiencing; that is, receiving the statement once the need for one has been agreed. During the Second Reading debate I mentioned the plight of a family which received agreement from the LEA within a month that a statement should be produced but did not in fact receive a statement for over three years. That is clearly unsatisfactory. By incorporating this amendment I hope to ensure that the Bill remedies that problem.
I am sure that the Committee is aware that the problem was highlighted only last week in the joint report of the Audit Commission and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools, which states that even the best performing local authorities are taking 50 per cent. longer to assess special needs than the Government's guideline of six months. Since no LEA is meeting the Government's deadlines, there is a clear problem which must be addressed. One of the key recommendations is that statutory time limits for the completion of assessments and statements should he set with redress for parents if LEAs do not complete them on time. I agree.
I also welcome the statement made by the department in response to the report and the statement today from the noble Baroness that the Government intend to issue regulations on this issue and to consult widely on the subject. I look forward to seeing the regulations. This amendment may be premature but the debate is long overdue.
I understand the concerns expressed at Second Reading with regard to placing too strict a time limit on LEAs for the production of assessments. I am aware that this amendment may be seen as only adding to their burden. The reality has not changed! and will not change for those children unless some pressure can be brought to bear on both those who carry out the work, the LEAs, and those with resources, that is to say, the Government.
I do not claim that this is a definitive amendment to rectify the problem. However, I am wary of get-out clauses which could allow the authorities to postpone this procedure. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: I wish to support the amendment moved with clarity and strength by the noble Lord,

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Lord Rix. To my mind the need for it arises to a very considerable extent from the fact that local education authorities—one cannot blame them—always have to experiment. They experiment in bringing children with special needs into ordinary schools and they experiment in setting up special schools. They tend to take their time over doing so.
It is right, as the noble Lord said, that there should be a statutory time limit of the kind set down in this amendment. I know of one case of a special school, which had been running very well for a good number of years, where the building happened to be in need of physical reconstruction. There were no plans to build another special school so it was decided to do a dispersal job. It was intended to send most of the children to an ordinary school (hopefully but not wisely) and to disperse the children who obviously could not be placed in an ordinary school to a special school some distance away from the children's homes. That was clearly an unsatisfactory situation. I am glad to say that the local people who were involved made strong representations to their Member of Parliament, who happens to hold a very high position in our society, and to others. The local authority was persuaded to change its mind.
There was nothing in the law as it stood which required the local authority to make assessments within a specified time, or to discuss and implement them. This amendment goes a long way toward achieving that. It is my hope that the Committee will accept it.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: In view of the two authoritative speeches that have just been made by noble Lords who know very much more than I on this subject, I welcome this extension to the general intendment of the Bill. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rix, in managing to get this measure within the scope of the Bill. It is of great practical significance. It brings parents at a much earlier stage into the arena of discussion as to the welfare and interest of these children.
As for the burden on the LEA, the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, put forward—as she always does—a totally reasonable and logical argument on the problems facing the LEA. At this stage I merely point to my Amendment No. 18 which is designed for implementing regulations to be issued. One but only one of the reasons for this implementation provision is to deal with this kind of problem: how the LEA is to get its information and so on.
I hope that the Committee will accept this remarkably useful amendment.
Lord Elton: Reading this text I am becoming anxious. As I understand it, the critical moment is not the moment at which the local authority decides whether or not a particular provision is needed, but the moment at which it issues a statement to that effect. Everything that my noble friends and others are trying to do at the moment is encouraging them to make the decision. That is what they have to do within the six months.
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The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, proposes that the local education authority:
"shall … make a draft statement".
But the statement is only in draft and it is only for discussion with the parents of the child concerned and that discussion can take place at any time. Therefore he has not put an end to the process at all. He has carried it out of the six months and into some undefined period during which discussion may take place. It is when the statement is issued that administrative action has to flow and money has to be dedicated or spent. That being so, will my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Rix, consider whether changes are needed both to the amendment and to the Bill as drafted so that the provision focuses not on the assessment, the decision or the discussion, but on the issuing of the statement? That is when action has to follow.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): Perhaps I may support my noble friend Lord Rix and the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I agree that we are talking only about a draft statement. Therefore there is room for considerable time lapse before the definitive statement.
I consulted the Independent Panel on Special Education Advice (IPSEA) which is very experienced in such matters. I had wondered whether one should include in the Bill a second date by which the definitive statement should appear. IPSEA believed that while it is right that parents should have time to question and discuss the draft stage, it would not be appropriate to set a time limit in the Bill.
However, it might be helpful if in guidance the department could emphasise that LEAs should be businesslike in their discussion and aim for finalisation of the statement within another three months. IPSEA said that nine months from the decision, the making of an assessment and the finalising of the statement is a reasonable length of time.
Lord Elton: I beg noble Lords to turn their face against guidance. Guidance is easily ignored. What we need is legislation on the statute.
3.45 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: I was appealed to directly. I shall therefore respond to my noble friend. Perhaps he will understand that I do so without prejudice to my own position on the Bill and the fact that the matters will be addressed.
My noble friend is right that what we want is all possible haste to a full determination of the provision for a child. It is also worth considering an even faster track when the diagnosis is relatively straightforward and there is full agreement with the parents and all the agencies concerned with the child. One can then proceed with all haste to a decision on a faster timetable.
The timetable to which we refer today relates to delays for whatever reason. My inclination is to agree, without prejudice, not to guidance but to secondary legislation. I take the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, made. She agreed with the argument for not moving such matters into primary legislation

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because of the rigidity and poor flexibility that that entails, but the issue needs the backing of some kind of legislation. I prefer to go for secondary legislation. I say that without prejudice because we shall address the matter in a consultation paper and with legislation in the autumn.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I thank the Minister. That is music to the ears of those of us who have striven. It is a great step forward that the issue should be dealt with by secondary legislation. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness.
Lord Renton: I confess that I have some doubt about the matter. We have control over the expressions used in primary legislation. We cannot amend secondary legislation. When such legislation comes before Parliament, we in this Chamber do not vote against orders. We are obliged to accept them, especially if they have been through another place.
It is a practical matter; but it is an important matter of principle that the practice should be right. I confess that I cannot share the enthusiasm of my noble friends Lord Campbell of Alloway or Lady Blatch for secondary legislation as a way of dealing with the issue. I prefer the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, or something on those lines. Even if the drafting does not appeal to my noble friend on the Front Bench, I should have hoped that she would keep an open mind about the desirability of making provision in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Rix, suggests.
I should have thought that in the circumstances the best plan might be for the noble Lord, Lord Rix, to suggest—I hope that I do not presume too much in mentioning it—that he is glad that the principle is accepted but, rather than agreeing here and now to the issue being provided for in secondary legislation, that he and the Government should get their heads together and make provision for it in primary legislation at Report stage.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: There has been a total misunderstanding, so far as I am concerned. Either I failed to explain myself with any form of clarity or I have been misheard.
The position from my point of view is this. I agree that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, in its present form or some similar form, should be in primary legislation. I have already said so; and I have already stated that I support it. Therefore let us leave that source of confusion alone.
The question then is whether implementation of the principle should be undertaken, for example, along the lines of my amendment, Amendment No. 18, by implementing regulations, or, as has been suggested by the noble Baroness, by guidance. Guidance is a form of anathema to me. Therefore I was delighted to have in this context what I understood to be music to my ears: that the matter would be dealt with by implementing legislation.
That is my understanding of the situation. When my noble friend Lord Renton rose, it appeared that I had made a total muddle of the whole situation. I therefore am extremely grateful to the Committee for allowing me to put it right.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): Before the Minister replies, perhaps I may clear up a matter in case I too was misunderstood. I started out to make a speech totally in support of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Rix. However, I became slightly diverted by the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Elton.
I am totally in support of my noble friend's amendment. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said about arriving at a final statement within a period. I believed that it was perhaps not right to incorporate that provision in the Bill but in guidance. However, I am totally in favour of my noble friend's amendment.
Lord Renton: Perhaps I owe an apology; I am not quite sure, but I shall try to make one.
I had misunderstood the meaning of the intervention of my noble friend Lady Blatch. We shall read Hansard with interest tomorrow. I had thought that she was saying that instead of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, she was going to rely on Amendment No. 18 and have secondary legislation in order to achieve those provisions. But if it be the fact that we shall have the best of both worlds, then that is music also to my ears.
I hope that with that clarification, any misunderstanding may have been removed.
The Earl of Radnor: The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, was tempting at first. However, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and the noble Baroness on the Front Bench are right. We want to keep our eye on the main chance. We do not want drafts and suggestions. We want the assessments to be accomplished within six months. Then the parents will know the position for certain.
Lord Elton: Perhaps the noble Earl will forgive me. We keep referring to assessments. The executive moment is the statement that embodies the assessment. We want that on the record.
The Earl of Radnor: That is now on the record. Finally, because I hate it in principle, let us have as little secondary legislation as possible.
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Rix, will forgive me. I know that the noble Lord will have a right of reply when winding up on his amendment, and what I say may be helpful. I shall also do what I said this afternoon that I would not do: that is, to get involved in the detail of some of the amendments.
I wish to point out to my noble friend Lord Renton an important distinction. Any secondary legislation that flows from a subsequent Bill, whether this Bill or the Government's Bill to be introduced in the autumn, must be linked to a principle in primary legislation. The provision needs to be set out. The issue that is continually emphasised by my noble friend Lord Elton is worth re-emphasising. The point from which executive action flows will be the definitive statement. In debating the amendment we are talking about an assessment and saying that within six months something shall happen. There will he a further period of time beyond that before a definitive statement is

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obtained. I believe that we are all speaking to the same objective but that we are somewhat confused about the means to the end.
Lord Rix: I thank the noble Baroness for her remarks. I wish to crave the indulgence of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway. He said that guidance was anathema to him. Perhaps he will offer me some guidance now because, being a new boy to the Committee stage structure, I am at sixes and sevens. Shall I now withdraw my amendment so that the noble Lord can strengthen it or shall I leave it standing?
Lord Campbell of Alloway: As the noble Lord asks me, I say move the amendment.
Lord Rix: In that case, I hope that the amendment will be accepted—
Lord Elton: In order to protect that position I give notice that I shall seek to amend the provision when incorporated on Report in order to dispense with the weakness that I pointed out.
Lord Rix: I should be most happy about that. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 6 not moved.]
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 2, line 3, at end insert:
("(8A) Where a new assessment is made, special educational provision determined or an appeal dismissed under subsection (8) above, the parent may appeal in writing to the Secretary of State.
(8B) On an appeal under subsection (8A) above, the Secretary of State may, if he thinks fit, direct the local education authority to reconsider their decision.").
The noble Baroness said: As Members on these Benches said on Second Reading, the introduction of a local appeals procedure under the terms of the Bill would be a great improvement. The right of appeal to the Secretary of State should remain. The amendment mirrors the original right of appeal available under the 1981 Act. The Audit Commission/HMI report has been rightly praised by various Members of the Committee and I wish to endorse that praise. The report is excellent, although it is a little glossy and a great deal of money may have been spent on its production. I am surprised about that because the Audit Commission is always concerned with value for money.
The report makes clear that the role and responsibilities of local education authorities under the 1981 Act should remain unchanged, although overall implementation has been slow, bureaucratic and cumbersome. Therefore, a local appeals committee would be a significant improvement. However, as the Audit Commission report recognises, ultimate responsibility for the success of special educational provision in the UK must rest with central government and with the Department of Education.
The 1981 Act does not define triggers to implement an assessment leading to a statement. The Audit Commission report also argues for national guidelines on the threshold for formal assessment. On occasions
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there will be a need for the Secretary of State to take an overall view on an aspect of need which will provide a useful precedent for the whole service. Even where judicial cases arise as a result of a decision of the Secretary of State the cases benefit from the national view of the Department of Education. Therefore, a right of appeal to the Secretary of State is needed and should be maintained. The amendment reflects the Bill's intention to improve parental rights of appeal and it is entirely in the spirit of the Bill.
The amendment also raises the question of the right of appeal by local education authorities to the Secretary of State. Under the 1981 Act an LEA can only be directed to action by the Secretary of State for Education. It can present evidence that is specific to an individual case and relate that to the wider resource implications of a directive. The Bill as presently drafted allows the appeal committee to direct the LEA. The appeal committee could then make its decision on an individual case without having an overview, either political or economic, of the LEA's resources. Therefore, an appeal committee's decision might, for example, have the effect of skewing a whole band of provision away from the level which the LEA had determined for the pupils in that band. There is a case for the LEA also having recourse to the Secretary of State, given the wider implications of any appeal committee's decision. I wish to give notice that on Report we may wish to bring forward a further amendment allowing LEAs to appeal against an appeal committee which has altered the special education that was earlier determined by the LEA and its advisers.
The amendment is tabled in order to allow parents the right to a final recourse to the Secretary of State should they consider that their appeal to the local authority had been inadequately dealt with. I hope that it will be acceptable to the Committee because it is wholly within the spirit of the Bill to allow a parent to appeal in this way. I beg to move.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: This is the only matter on which I join issue with the noble Baroness because it runs counter to one of the main principles of the Bill. With the leave of the Committee I wish to speak briefly to Amendment No. 15, which also stands in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone.
The effect of the two amendments is designed to ensure that the aspect of the right to appeal should remain. They are designed to ensure that the existing appellate structure to the Secretary of State provided for under Section 5(6) of the Act remains and that under Section 5(8) the Secretary of State has power only to direct the local education authority to reconsider. The reference to that aim appears at col. 1382 of Hansard of 11th June 1992. On Second Reading the storm cones were gently hoisted because it was apparent that that would be an issue of contention.
I have taken a view on the matter based on my practical experience in the courts. My experience is limited to that extent because I am not a social worker, nor do I know a great deal about local education authorities. My experience is purely practical. From my narrow standpoint this procedure is cumbersome

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and unsatisfactory. It operates on paper representation. There is no real hearing or legal representation and the parents are not able to attend. For that reason the Bill seeks to abolish the aspect of the appellate structure concerned with assessment and to give the reconstituted appeal committee power to amend the statement.
Originally the Bill provided for no appeal against the statement. But in deference to what was said in particular by the noble Baroness, Lady David, and other Members of the Committee I have had drafted into the Bill a new provision. Amendment No. 16 provides an appeal from the appeal committee to the Secretary of State in such circumstances. That is in deference to the views expressed on Second Reading by certain Members of the Committee that the appeal committee should not have the final say. That provision now appearing in the Bill, and having met the wishes of noble Lords to that degree, I hope that Amendments Nos. 7 and 15 may be given further consideration. As a result of my experience, limited as it is, I cannot conceivably accept that the Secretary of State's present appellate powers quoad assessments should remain.
4 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: I am sure that the Committee will accept that I am in something of a difficulty attending to the detail of the Bill. During Second Reading I foreshadowed all the points which the Government will address. I recently announced proposals to improve parents' access to the present arrangements for conducting assessments and making statements for children with special educational needs by regulating the time and way in which authorities carry out their duties. We are also planning to give the parents of a child with a statement the right to express a preference for their child's school. I also foreshadowed our thinking on the development of national criteria on assessments and statements. We shall be consulting on the development of such criteria and guidance as regards the 1981 Act.
At Second Reading, I also said that we were aiming to provide for a more coherent and comprehensive set of rights of appeal for parents who were not satisfied with the decisions made by local education authorities. The three main issues that we were tackling were: quicker redress; a more open and independent system in line with the Parent's Charter; and whether a single appeal body should replace the present two stage process. I can now announce that the Government will be bringing forward proposals to establish a new, independent tribunal to hear appeals from parents of children with special educational needs.
We have concluded that a tribunal system, rather than an enhanced appeal committee system, would better meet the aims that I set out, and better meet the legitimate expectations of parents to deal promptly and fairly with their appeals. A tribunal would offer a simplified structure by limiting the appeal process to only one tier while keeping the system relatively local. The time taken to consider an appeal should be reduced and that can only benefit the child and the
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parents. The legislation would make clear that the tribunal could not make decisions which involve the provision of services by health authorities or local authorities' social services departments.
We envisage that the tribunal would be established under a president and would sit as a number of tribunals having the same jurisdiction under regional chairmen. Membership would comprise a legally qualified chairman and two other members, one of whom would need to have expertise in special educational needs and the other one of whom might have experience in local government. In setting its remit, we propose to amend the 1981 Act to extend parents' rights of appeal. The tribunal would determine appeals against a local authority's refusal to assess or reassess a child; against an authority's decision not to determine the provision for a child in a statement; against the special educational provision specified within a statement. It would determine a new specific right of appeal against the school named in the statement; and against an authority's decision to amend or to cease to maintain a statement.
We propose that the legislation would enable the Secretary of State to make rules about the way in which appeals should be made to, and decided by, the tribunal.
On Second Reading, I foreshadowed our thinking on the development of national criteria on assessment and statements. Those national criteria would inform the tribunal's decisions, which is a point about which the noble Baroness was anxious.
As I promised before, we shall be consulting widely about all our proposals, including the establishment of a special educational needs tribunal. We shall shortly be issuing a consultation paper which will set out all the proposals for legislation in more detail. Our forthcoming White Paper about the future structure of the education service will also take account of pupils with special educational needs.
In the light of this statement, I shall neither support nor oppose amendments set out on the Marshalled List. I would prefer that noble Lords await the publication of a consultative paper and subsequent legislation in the autumn and that meanwhile the Bill should be withdrawn. I thank my noble friend Lord Campbell for his patience, determination and hard work which have gone into the preparation of this Bill. What happens now must remain a matter for the whole House. However, it needs to be said that there has been no public consultation on the detail of the Bill. The Bill needs to be withdrawn at some stage to allow wider consultation on its details and also on other details which concern not only Members of this Committee but also members of the public outside.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: Before the Minister sits down, when does she estimate that the tribunals will be operational? With all the consultation and so on, it seems to me that it may take rather a long time.
Baroness Blatch: We envisage that a consultation paper will be published next month. That will be followed by legislation which will come from the House of Commons to this Chamber round about

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November time. Those are the dates for which we are aiming. A reasonable implementation date would be one year following the passing of the Act.
Baroness Faithfull: Will the Minister clarify whether that means that the appeals committees will be abolished and there will just be a tribunal or does it mean that the appeals committees will stay and if there is confrontation, the matter will go to the tribunal?
Baroness Blatch: The intention is to sweep away the appeal system as it stands and to replace it with a one-tier appeal system which will be carried out through a tribunal system.
Lord Rix: Those of us from the all-party disability group and MENCAP —and I am sure other voluntary bodies also—welcome the idea of tribunals. We all welcome the announcement which the Minister made. Will the tribunals work from papers or, as I hope, will the people concerned be able to be present at the tribunals, because it is important that all parties concerned should be represented or should be able to speak for themselves?
Baroness Blatch: The noble Lord, Lord Rix, presses me on detail which properly belongs to the consultation process. The purpose of going out to consultation on the principle of setting up a tribunal is to allow interested parties to come back with the kind of information which the noble Lord is trying to elicit from me. The Government want an extremely effective system to enable people to receive a definitive statement as smoothly and as quickly as possible so that proper provision can be made which will benefit everybody.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: Perhaps I may try to help the Committee. The time element is important. It may be some time before the Government can act. However, it is a matter for the Committee as to whether it feels that the Bill should be withdrawn at this stage or whether it should go forward to Report stage so that the Government might have the benefit of further discussions. They can then produce something which is at least intelligible and which represents a tidying-up of the Committee's view. As a result of what I have heard, I accept that the Bill will have served its purpose and must be withdrawn. That is my view. However, I should prefer that the Bill goes to Report stage and that we should continue with our discussions. If it is your Lordships' wish, the Bill can then be withdrawn.
Lord Elton: As my noble friend says, this is a matter of timing. One must think when the Report stage will be. Presumably it will be either in the middle of or towards the end of the period of public consultation in October.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: The date provisionally given for Report stage is 15th July, before the House rises.
Lord Elton: I am obliged to my noble friend. Members of the Committee will wish to consider how
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much more wisdom we can contribute to the process. I regard my noble friend as a kind of Hercules who has picked up the Bill as a type of club. He has found the great rock of government movement poised on the edge of the hill; he has placed the Bill under it; he has manoeuvred it and it has started bounding down the slope. I believe that a great deal of what can be achieved has been achieved but I do not wish to impose my views upon the Committee nor to underestimate in any way the way in which my noble friend continues to add to our views on this complicated issue.
Baroness Blackstone: I support what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said. I believe we have achieved a great deal already. We should all be extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, for introducing the Bill. Perhaps it has helped to put a little pressure on the Secretary of State and the Government to bring forward legislation as soon as possible.
The timetable seems to me to be reasonable, if there is to be a consultation paper some time in July. That will allow people to express their views about what should happen as regards the new proposals for a tribunal. This side of the Committee welcomes that proposal but, of course, we have not yet seen all the details. We shall of course want to see much more of the detail.
My feeling is that we had a good debate at Second Reading and have now started to raise some of the issues of detail in the Bill. To continue with the Committee stage and proceed to Report stage in the light of what the Minister said does not make a great deal of sense. It is difficult for the Minister to give us a reply in terms of what the Government are or are not prepared to do with the Bill. It must be withdrawn at some point in the light of what the Minister said. It seems to me, if I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, that it would make more sense to withdraw it now. To continue would be a waste of the Committee's time. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 7.
Baroness Faithfull: I too support what has been said. In the light of the remarks of my noble friend the Minister some of the amendments now do not apply. One would not be able to discuss them or, if one did, it would be a pointless exercise. I therefore agree with my noble friend.
Lord Addington: I suggest that we have covered much of the ground we had in mind to cover. I do not believe that we can put much more into the Bill at this point. The fine detail prepared by most of us has run into a brick wall of government co-operation. Although I am not legally trained in any way, I suggest that we have probably done as much as we can.
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps my noble friend will forgive me for intervening. I say this in advance of not knowing what he is going to suggest and simply to deal with a matter of process and procedure from here on. If the Committee decides to continue then we continue. If so, we should take the Statement

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following Amendment No. 7 and then resume the Committee stage of the Bill. However, if your Lordships decide that the Bill should be withdrawn at this stage, it is important that those who have tabled amendments on the Marshalled List should systematically withdraw them. The House should then resume and the Bill should be withdrawn at that point.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I am a servant of the Chamber. I believe that the view expressed is right. I am prepared to withdraw the Bill, it having served its purpose, subject to the formalities required and the withdrawing of the amendments.
Baroness Blatch: I am grateful to my noble friend and can promise him that if he wishes to have personal involvement with my department and officials in talking over some of the detail of the Bill, I can explain that to him and to any other interested parties in the Chamber.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Strabolgi): If your Lordships agree, I intend to take the Committee rapidly through the Bill in a couple of minutes and dispose of it in that way. We cannot abandon it halfway through.
Clause 2 [Composition of appeal committee]:
[Amendments Nos. 8 to 12 not moved.]
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Extension of parental rights of appeal]:
[Amendments Nos. 13 to 16 not moved.]
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Variation of statement: provision of information]:
[Amendment No. 17 not moved.]
Clause 4 agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 18 to 20 not moved.]
Clauses 5 and 6 agreed to.
Schedule [Sections 5 and 8 of the Education Act 1981, as amended]:
[Amendments Nos. 21 to 25 not moved.]
Schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Bill.
Bill, by leave, withdrawn.

European Council, 27th and 28th June
4.15 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Wakeham): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister about the European Council on 27th and 28th June. The Statement is as follows:
"Madam Speaker, with permission I shall make a Statement about last week's European Council which I attended with my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. The conclusions of the European Council have been placed in the Library of the House.
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"This meeting took place on the eve of our own presidency of the Community and dealt with a range of issues which the United Kingdom will now carry forward. These include preparations for enlargement, the future financing of the Community, the issue of subsidiarity and the GATT round. We also discussed the deteriorating situation in Yugoslavia.
"We agreed to reappoint the President of the Commission for two years. Thereafter a new five-year appointment will be made of the whole Commission.
"On enlargement, we secured agreement that work should start immediately on the negotiating mandates for the EFTA countries which have applied to join the Community—Austria, Sweden, Finland and Switzerland in the first instance. Much of the groundwork has already been done. I hope that we can agree negotiating mandates by the end of our presidency so that formal negotiations can start at the beginning of next year. The Community has also agreed to step up its dialogue with the countries of central and eastern Europe in preparation for their membership. We plan to hold a meeting with the Visegrad 3 at head of government level during the presidency.
"The Council discussed the future financing of the Community. There was widespread recognition that the existing ceiling for the Community's budget will be adequate for at least the next two years. The agreed language in the communiqué on help for the poorer countries of the Community reinforces that view: it make no commitment to the doubling of resources that the Commission had proposed.
"All heads of government reaffirmed their commitment to the Maastricht Treaty. At Maastricht we won agreement to the principle of subsidiarity and its inclusion in the treaty. At this meeting we have taken that a stage further. Under our presidency work will go ahead on how to turn that general principle into reality in the working practices of the Community. The steps immediately envisaged include rigorous scrutiny within the Commission on whether new proposals are necessary—any such proposals must he justified —and examination of existing legislation to see whether it could be modified or even scrapped. The Commission and the Council will report to our European Council in Edinburgh on progress made.
"The European Council reaffirmed its commitment to negotiating a successful conclusion of the GATT round. The remaining gap between the European Community and the United States on agriculture issues is a narrow one. The OECD has calculated that a GATT settlement would give a boost to world growth worth 195 billion dollars annually in extra world income. Over 90 billion dollars of that would go to developing countries and former communist countries. I hope that those of our partners who are still hesitating about an agreement will reflect on the enormous advantages of success and the price of failure.

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"We discussed the deteriorating situation in Yugoslavia. I proposed that all member states should make an immediate pledge of aircraft and transport personnel for the Sarajevo humanitarian airlift; that with the help of the Commission we should start to assemble humanitarian material at a suitable base now; and that we should demonstrate our condemnation of Serbian actions by not allowing them to have part in any international organisations, including the CSCE.
"With the Security Council about to meet, we agreed not to rule out the use of military means by the United Nations to achieve our humanitarian objectives. However, the United Nations has rightly been cautious about organising humanitarian operations in the absence of an effective ceasefire, and about trying to interpose itself in a civil war.
"During the course of the weekend we have had discussions with the United States, the United Nations Secretariat and others. The prospects for a ceasefire and for a humanitarian mission look slightly better than they did. But the Serbian militia and others are numerous and well-armed. It would take only one ground-launched missile to cause serious loss of life. We stand ready to take part in a humanitarian airlift, but will want to be sure that it can happen with the minimum risk to British and other lives.
"Madam Speaker, we adopted conclusions on a number of other foreign policy issues. They are attached to the conclusions which are in the Library of the House. I draw the House's attention in particular to the Statement on nuclear safety in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The Community has committed itself to increase its help for improving the safety of nuclear power plants. Britain has taken a lead on this issue and will be seeking a co-ordinated initiative at the economic summit next week.
"I also draw the House's attention to the Statement on Southern Africa, which calls for all the parties to resume negotiations on CODESA. We continue to be in close touch with the South African Government and the ANC on this.
"Many of the conclusions on the Lisbon European Council constitute the agenda for our presidency which starts on Wednesday. They are a huge challenge for the Community and a great responsibility for the United Kingdom.
"All the issues on which I have reported to the House; namely, subsidiarity, enlargement, future financing and GATT, will fall to us to manage and, we hope, to bring to a successful conclusion. Yugoslavia too will be very high on our agenda. Many difficult matters must be resolved in the months ahead.
"The plain fact is that the future of Europe is at stake and it needs to be addressed with coolness, commitment and with careful calculation."
My Lords, that concludes my right honourable friend's Statement.
4.22 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement. It is clear that the Prime Minister and the Government have been left with a number of complex problems to deal with when they assume the presidency next Wednesday. It seems that very little progress was in fact made on the Maastricht Treaty or indeed on ratification. Although Danish Ministers were present at the summit, it appeared to me, looking at television, that the issue which raised most enthusiasm was the football match between Denmark and Germany. That was only for a very short moment.
The Statement dealt with ratification. Will the noble Lord confirm that ratification is impossible unless the 12 members are parties to it? Can he say whether the Danish Foreign Minister was able to indicate what further step his government were prepared to take to clarify the matter there? Unless they are able to sign, the treaty will have no further validity. Can the noble Lord say whether that is the position? I believe that to be the question which worries noble Lords in every part of the House.
It was reported by a commentator (again on television) that the 11 states could proceed themselves without Denmark to ratify the treaty. Does the noble Lord agree that that is a totally unrealistic position? The Statement further deals with subsidiarity. Can the noble Lord say whether there is any further clarification about that word? Last week I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, whether the Government had reached agreement on a clear definition. At that stage, I was referring to the meeting between the Prime Minister and M. Delors. At that time the noble Baroness was unable to clarify the position and I fully understood the reasons for that.
Will I be far from the mark if I say that subsidiarity means decentralisation or devolution? Subsidiarity is a totally inadequate word. Does the noble Lord agree that the true position is that neither the Government, members of the Civil Service nor the man in the street knows what subsidiarity means? If that is the case, does he agree that it would be far better for Ministers to concede that? The treaty's subsidiarity clause is virtually meaningless at present. It is essential that some progress should be made on its precise interpretation.
We note that the Prime Minister refused point blank to accept the need for an increase in the structural fund. Can the noble Lord say why the Prime Minister was so obdurate? Does the noble Lord agree that that attitude could close the door on any possible enlargement? The Statement refers to enlargement as if it were a fairly immediate prospect. The fact is that if the Government are unable to make any concession on an increase to the structural fund, I do not see any possibility of enlargement at all as an early prospect.
Can the noble Lord say whether the Government support President Mitterrand's initiative in visiting Sarajevo? That is not mentioned in the Statement at all. Does the noble Lord agree that, on the whole, it was a courageous and worthwhile exercise? Can he further say what further steps the Government

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propose should be taken as a consequence of the French President's visit? Furthermore, before any final conclusion is taken as to any participation in a military initiative involving British troops, does the noble Lord agree that United Nations agreement would be essential?
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord the Leader of the House for his kindness in repeating the Statement to us. In view of our debate on Thursday, I would not wish to go too deeply or at too great a length into these matters today. Perhaps not altogether unintentionally, the closing stages at Lisbon were rather overshadowed by the coup de théâtre of the President of the French Republic. Plenty of problems are left for the British presidency in the next six months.
I do not quarrel with the Government's recipe of coolness, commitment and careful calculation. I hope that the Government's full weight will be put on the second of those three nouns. It it is, they will certainly have my full support as regards Maastricht and that of my noble friends as well. If not, I believe that the Government will inevitably find that both the main proclaimed prongs of their European policy—Britain at the heart of Europe, and to proceed to the rapid enlargement of the Community—will be in ruins.
4.28 p.m.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, and to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead. Perhaps I may deal with the points that were raised. The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, referred to ratification. We are committed to it. The French referendum will clear the way for the Committee stage, which I understand it is proposed to resume in another place after the Summer Recess. The noble Lord is quite right in that the treaty has to be ratified by all 12 countries who signed it. However, that does not amount to the same as saying that it is legally impossible for it to be ratified. The Danes can put themselves in a position to ratify the treaty.
The Community agreed at Oslo that the door for Denmark's participation in the union remained open. It excluded a re-opening of the text agreed at Maastricht. It was made clear that ratification in the other member states would continue. That was the position at the Lisbon conference as well.
With regard to subsidiarity, while I agree that it is a pretty dreadful word, the concept is crucial. It is to stop the Community intruding into areas of life which must remain the responsibility of the nation state. It is not something that can be passed over as of no consequence. Article 3B is in the Treaty of Maastricht. There was no such article either in the Treaty of Rome or in the Single European Act. It is an important part of our strategy of stopping that intrusion into our affairs. The Lisbon Council has tasked the United Kingdom presidency to sort out the administrative methods of implementing this complex concept. That is what we intend to do.
On the question of the structure fund and the cohesion fund, the Council reaffirmed the statement in the Maastricht Treaty that a cohesion fund should be
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set up before the end of 1993 to help finance environment and infrastructure projects in the four poorest member states. We shall see that that is carried out. We see no reason to delay its introduction once the Maastricht Treaty is ratified. But M. Delors' proposal for a doubling of the cohesion fund was not agreed.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, mentioned Yugoslavia. As I indicated in the Statement, at Lisbon my right honourable friend the Prime Minister proposed that all member states should make an immediate pledge of aircraft and transport personnel; that, with the help of the Commission, we should start to assemble humanitarian material at suitable bases now; and that we should demonstrate our condemnation of Serbian actions by not allowing them to take part in international organisations.
With regard President Mitterrand's visit, I believe it was a courageous act symbolising his and our concern for the people of that city. I do not agree with those who suggest —I know that the noble Lord did not suggest it—that the President of France somehow should seek the permission of the EC to do these things. There is nothing in the Maastricht Treaty or any other treaty which would expect a President of France not to carry out an initiative if he believed it right, in just the same way as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister took a similar initiative last year over the problems in northern Iraq.
4.33 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, perhaps my noble friend can help me a little. It appears that the Danish people have rejected the present text of the Maastricht Treaty. Consequently, it has a similarity to John Cleese's parrot—it is dead, deceased, and has passed away. The only way we can get them to accept it, without renegotiation and without changing the words of it, is to put exactly the same question to the same people again. I completely support what my right honourable friend is trying to do because it is the right way forward; but are we not kidding ourselves by pretending that something is going to turn up on the day? It seems to me that it will not. Can my noble friend enlighten me? Perhaps President Mitterrand's trip to Yugoslavia was a decent example of subsidiarity.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I do not have the same gift of clairvoyance as my noble friend. I am not sure what is going to happen. What I do know is that this is a matter for the Danish people. They are the ones who must make up their minds. It is not for us to tell them what to do. All I can repeat is that there will not be ratification of the Maastricht Treaty unless all 12 countries ratify it. The Danes are in a position to put themselves in a position to ratify it if that is their wish.
Lord Jay: My Lords, are the Government still putting pressure on the Danish Government to have a second referendum? Would it not be an equally good idea if we were to have a second general election in this country to get a better result?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, the first question has the nature of "Have you stopped beating your wife?" about it. As we are not putting pressure on the Danish Government or the Danish people to have a second referendum, we can hardly be still doing so. With regard to a general election in this country, I do not believe we should hold one. The United Kingdom is a parliamentary democracy. The electorate was consulted on 9th April and it has delivered its verdict.
Lord Monson: My Lords, as the Serbian irregulars in the hills around Sarajevo hold most of the cards and certainly all of the heavy weapons, does the noble Lord agree that these irregulars have no interest whatever in a ceasefire, particularly as they are not the kind of people who will worry in the slightest about not being invited to international gatherings? If humanitarian aid is delayed until such time as a ceasefire is agreed, is it not clear that nothing will happen and tens of thousands of people will starve or die of disease? Can the noble Lord say whether the European Community or the United Nations have given any thought to the possibility of parachuting aid into the beleaguered areas of Sarajevo? That would be rather less risky than trying to open the airport.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I find it hard to go along completely with the noble Lord. All civilised people regret the bloodshed and suffering that is going on there. We all have to strive to find every way of stopping it. We also have to find every way of getting humanitarian aid to that area just as soon as we can do so. I am not saying that it will be possible to have complete peace and tranquillity before humanitarian aid gets there. We shall get it there as soon as it is judged that that can be done with the minimum of risk to British and other lives. Both those aims will be pursued at the same time.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the Statement falls far short of removing much of the confusion surrounding the situation in Europe? For example, at the beginning of the Statement there seemed to be an indication that enlargement would be on the way during our presidency. But reports from other sources which are equally authoritative seem to make it perfectly clear that there is no question of the rest agreeing to enlargement until the Maastricht Treaty has been ratified. Which is true? It is wrong to indicate that that course can be taken if the mood at the minute, as laid down in the words at the conference, is that that cannot happen until after ratification.
With regard to subsidiarity, my noble friend gave something of an indication as to what he thinks it means. He said that it is a way of letting things that should be dealt with by nation states be dealt with by nation states. But the words do not seem to imply that at all. Is it not a fact that at the moment subsidiarity has to be defined by the Council of Ministers and then the others have automatically to observe it? If it can be said that subsidiarity will be decided by each individual country and that the Council of Ministers
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has to prove a case to alter that, that would be a different matter. But the Statement does not indicate any clear decision or view on any of those matters.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, my noble friend has pointed to two of the major tasks of the United Kingdom presidency. Indeed, one of the conclusions of the Lisbon Council was to ask the United Kingdom presidency to sort out some of these matters in relation to subsidiarity. We have a clear statement in the treaty and we want to put some flesh and blood on those words. Work will take place between now and the Edinburgh Summit to have some conclusions as to the administrative methods of implementing what is, as I am sure my noble friend will agree, a complex concept.
With regard to enlargement, the position equally is that during the period of the British presidency there will be a series of negotiations within the EC to settle our negotiating mandate, which we hope will then he in a position to be approved at the Edinburgh Council. This will enable the discussions and negotiations to take place with the countries that wish to join the EC after the Edinburgh Summit in December. So everything is being organised in a practical and sensible way and—if I may refer to the remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins—in a cool and calm fashion. I think we are making good progress.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, can the noble Lord the Leader of the House first give an assurance that the Danes will not be put under any improper pressure, or made the subject of threats from the Germans in particular, to alter their view which was expressed through a properly constituted referendum? Secondly, can he give an absolute assurance that the British Government will not, in any circumstances, deploy fighting troops in Yugoslavia? That would very likely involve us in a Vietnam-type situation.
Thirdly, in relation to cohesion funds and bearing in mind the fact that pressure has been brought for additional cohesion funds (especially by Mr. Reynolds whose country receives £1.8 billion a year for between 3.5 million people) will the noble Lord give the further assurance that the British Government will not agree to an increase in such funds if that in any way increases the net contribution of this country to the Community? The United Kingdom is already in dire economic straits with a net borrowing requirement now reaching record proportions. Therefore, I should like an assurance from the noble Lord that the British taxpayer will not be expected to provide even more for countries that are already doing "very nicely, thank you" out of the Community?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, the noble Lord asked three questions. He asked, first, whether the Germans would put pressure upon the Danes. I have no knowledge of pressure and I am not party to any pressure; indeed, the British Government are not party to any pressure. Moreover, to my knowledge, the German Government are not exerting any pressure. However, that is not something that I can state categorically in the terms requested by the noble Lord because I just do not know. But, so far as the

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British Government are aware, I should have thought that it was extremely unlikely. Therefore, in so far as I can answer the question, I give him as categoric an answer as I am capable of giving.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, perhaps I may explain what I mean. It is reported that Herr Kohl told the Danes that if they did not ratify the treaty then they ought to leave the Community.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I do not know anything about that. I certainly have no knowledge of it.
With regard to the use of force in support of humanitarian aid in Yugoslavia, that is a matter that the United Nations is considering or will shortly be considering. Of course, it is something about which the British Government have, quite understandably, considerable degrees of reservation. However, if we send troops or humanitarian forces of any kind to the area where there is that type of conflict, there must be the possibility that they will need protection. We shall certainly work with the United Nations to find a solution to the question.
The noble Lord's third question related to the cohesion fund. I do not think that I can add anything further to what I have already said. The Council reconfirmed that the cohesion fund will be set up before the end of 1993 to help finance environmental and infrastructure projects for the four poorest member states of the Community.
Lord Elton: My Lords, in any further elucidation or enforcement of subsidiarity, will the Government keep very much in mind the considerable difference between a term which means leaving with member states "only what is necessary to their sovereignty" and one which means taking to the European Community "only what is necessary for its survival and proper operation"?
As regards my noble friend's reference to GATT, is he aware that if he harnesses the success of Europe to the success of GATT he is actually harnessing it to the survivability of the human race in the long term, which is indeed a powerful engine of persuasion? Finally, as the matter of Yugoslavia has already been broached, can my noble friend assure the House that the people taking the decisions will be aware of the past experiences all the way from Napoleon in the Iberian peninsula to the Americans in Vietnam, and of the dangers of interfering in circumstances where the indigenous population do not share the objectives of the invader? Therefore, will the Government ensure that all the participants in the conflict are clearly aware that no help, no subsidy—that is, other than humanitarian aid—and no recognition will ever be given to any authority regarding the constituent parts of what was Yugoslavia until all forces are withdrawn within their recognised borders?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, my noble friend's last question emphasises the complexity and difficulty of the position in Yugoslavia. In my view, it also confirms the Government's position in being extremely cautious as to what is practical and possible while, nevertheless, recognising the fact that we must do everything we can to get humanitarian aid to the
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area as soon as we can. I also noted what my noble friend said about subsidiarity. It seems to me that the important aspect is two-fold: first, that there should be procedures whereby rigorous scrutiny is carried out to determine whether new proposals are necessary and such proposals must be fully justified; and secondly, that an examination should be made of existing legislation within the Community to see whether some of it should be modified or even scrapped. I believe that both those objectives are an important part of the process of putting some flesh on to the concept of subsidiarity.
I turn now to the question of GATT. I do not think that it is possible for any of us to over-emphasise just how important it is that we achieve a GATT settlement. That is absolutely vital for the future prosperity of the world. The gap between us is now considerably less than it was. Therefore, those who are holding out should recognise their responsibilities.
Lord Hughes: My noble friend asked that no improper pressure should be applied upon the Danes. That might imply that there is such a thing as proper pressure. Do I understand that the answer given by the noble Lord the Leader of the House is that no pressure of any kind will be applied against the Danes?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, the Danish people and the Danish Government are fully aware of the serious nature of the issues before them. I have no doubt that they will make up their own minds in their own way. I look forward to that.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, we were delighted to hear that the discussions in connection with enlargement of the Community will proceed. However, can the Minister give me an assurance that such an enlargement is not dependent upon approval of the Maastricht Treaty? Can the enlargement proceed when the Maastricht Treaty ratification is certainly in doubt, with one member having rejected it and another about to hold a referendum?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, the process by which we start preparing for the negotiations on enlargement and the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty will continue together. Further decisions will be taken at the Edinburgh Council. By then it is very much hoped that the Maastricht Treaty will have been ratified by all the countries concerned. It is hoped that the European Community countries will agree to the negotiating mandate which it is hoped will have been negotiated during that period. I do not believe that I can go any further than that.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I welcome my noble friend's announcement that considerable emphasis is to be placed on working out the details of subsidiarity during the United Kingdom presidency. I urge him to consider the possibility of introducing a juridical rule of proportionality under which the Commission would be inhibited from imposing regulations where the cost of implementing them is greater than the benefit they bring. Does he agree that such a rule

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would greatly reduce the antagonism towards the Commission which has existed in member countries in the past?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, my noble friend's question is a sensible one. I am not sure that that is the way those discussions will take place. I shall draw his remarks to the attention of my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. It is a good principle upon which we should be able to operate, but it is not the only principle.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the noble Lord has dealt with the issue of subsidiarity. He will be aware that Her Majesty's Government have had the subsidiarity clause (No. 3B) before them for six months since the end of the intergovernmental conference. He has spoken of the administrative arrangements necessary to carry forward Article 3B. Will he —not necessarily now but in the debate on Thursday—give some indication of how the Government propose to do it. Is he aware that under the existing text of the Treaty of Rome —whether or not amended by Maastricht—it is impossible for the Council to act, save on a proposal from the Commission, and that even the Council, acting unanimously, cannot overturn existing Commission regulations unless the Commission itself assents?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, those are issues which, as the noble Lord said, may be better dealt with at some length in the debate on Thursday. I hope he agrees that Article 3B of the Treaty of Maastricht was a useful first move in the direction of defining such matters.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, it is gobbledegook!
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, the noble Lord is entitled to his view. These matters are important. I believe the spirit of them will be accepted by the Commission and the Council. Perhaps the noble Lord will give us all the help we shall need in passing the legislation so that we can ratify the treaty.
Lord Jay: My Lords, surely, according to the Lisbon agreement, enlargement cannot go ahead until the Maastricht Treaty has been ratified. Can we be clear about that, if not now, at the very least on Thursday?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Chalker says that the matter is much more complicated than that. There will be no enlargement until after the Edinburgh Council at the end of the British presidency. During our presidency, we shall proceed with agreeing the negotiating mandate. There is not likely to be any enlargement during that period.
I believe that 20 minutes has elapsed and so it may be time for us to move on.

Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1986 (Designated Countries and Territories) (Amendment) Order 1992
4.54 p.m.
Viscount Astor Viscount Astor rose to move. That the draft order laid before the House on 9th June be approved [2nd Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I beg to move the first order standing in my name and, with your Lordships' leave, speak to the others. The Long Titles of the orders are complex. Their aim, however, is simple: they are designed to strengthen still further our defences against drug trafficking.
As your Lordships know, drug traffickers are no respecters of international frontiers. That means that we must work closely with other countries and have the legal basis to do so if we are to make inroads into their criminal activities. We are determined to pursue very vigorously every available opportunity for practical and effective co-operation. A significant step toward that goal was our ratification last year of the 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. The main purpose of that convention is to encourage greater unity among states in many aspects of the anti-drugs strategy.
The United Kingdom's own strategy against drug misuse is as multi-faceted as the problem it seeks to address. It recognises that we cannot be short-sighted or insular in our efforts to stem the problem in this country. On the contrary, a major element in the strategy is to take an active role in international efforts. We seek to give a clear lead to other countries through our own example. We have demonstrated that we are prepared to pay more than lip service to that important initiative. The one thing which unites drug traffickers around the world is the quest for financial gain. Their profits are enormous, and they are becoming increasingly adept at manipulating the financial system—at the international level—to their own benefit. One of our first priorities must therefore be to secure effective co-operation with other countries in the enforcement of laws against such illicit financial gain.
The orders will lay the foundations for such co-operation. They extend the list of countries designated for the purposes of international co-operation against the financial base of the drugs trade and thereby strengthen our contribution to the international effort against drug trafficking. They are very similar in form to Orders in Council which enjoyed the unreserved support of this House last year and the year before. They will enable us to implement four further bilateral agreements which we have negotiated recently with Argentina, Germany, Guyana and Uruguay. They will also enable us to designate a number of countries which have ratified the 1988 Drugs Convention since the last orders were made, thus ensuring that we continue to meet our international obligations under the convention.
We expect these orders to make life more difficult for drug traffickers. We intend to make it still more so. I commend the orders to the House.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 9th June be approved [2nd Report from the Joint Committee].—(Viscount Astor.)
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, we on these Benches greatly welcome the action which the Government propose to take. Having participated on the margin in these debates previously, I understand the difficulties the Government face in trying to make progress. We know that their heart is in the right place. An extension of the coverage of action is to be welcomed.
I have one question only. Can the Minister tell us which countries have not yet signed and whether there is any reason why any country should not be prepared to join with other countries in stopping the dreadful trafficking and damage caused to the world's peace of mind? Some countries may be reluctant to sign. There may be an economic reason. We know that in some countries the economic reason sadly overrides the moral aspect of this matter. If the Minister cannot help me, I am sure that he will write to me. If some countries refuse to be a party to what is a laudable objective they should be exposed to the public. We on this side of the House warmly welcome the Government's action.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, under the existing arrangements, the United Kingdom's central authority has handled a total of 122 requests to and from other countries since the previous orders were introduced. We have about £5 million under restraint here under bilateral agreements. Only designated countries with which we have bilateral agreements and which are parties to the Vienna Convention come under the order. Many countries do not because we are in the process of negotiating and we are pressing them to agree. We are trying to expand the net. For example, we hope shortly to sign an agreement on the confiscation of the proceeds of drug trafficking and terrorist funds and an extradition treaty with India. It is something that we are constantly working on.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Confiscation of the Proceeds of Drug Trafficking (Designated Countries and Territories) (Scotland) Amendment Order 1992
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 10th June be approved [2nd Report from the Joint Committee]. (Viscount Astor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) Act 1990 (Enforcement of Overseas Forfeiture Orders) (Amendment) Order 1992
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 9th June be approved [2nd Report from the Joint Committee].—(Viscount Astor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) Act 1990 (Enforcement of Overseas Forfeiture Orders) (Scotland) Amendment Order 1992
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 10th June be approved [2nd Report from the Joint Committee].—(Viscount Astor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NHS Patients: Privacy and the Media
5.1 p.m.
Lord Carter Lord Carter rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to protect patients, including the mentally disordered, in National Health Service hospitals and other health care establishments from intrusion by the media.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of the Question on the Order Paper and this short debate is to draw attention to the need to protect patients, including the mentally disordered, who are in NHS hospitals or other health care establishments from intrusion by the media. I refer immediately to the use in the Question of the term "mentally disordered". I am not happy with it, but I am advised that it is technically correct. I see that in an adjournment debate in another place on Wednesday 24th June, the Minister of State at the Home Office, Mr. Peter Lloyd, referred a number of times to "the mentally disordered".
I ask the Minister whether the Department of Health and the Home Office could find a different term. I believe that she agrees with me that it is not a happy one, although so far as I am aware there is no generally acceptable term in use to cover the mentally ill, mentally handicapped, drugs-dependent and all those who are covered by the term which I have used, "mentally disordered". We all agree that it is unfortunate, although it is semantically correct.
The Question on the Order Paper refers to the media, which covers printed and broadcast material. I have no wish to overlap with the debate on Wednesday on the first report of the Press Complaints Commission. It is clear that the PCC has an important role in the area and I am assured by its chairman, the noble Lord, Lord McGregor of Durris, that the PCC is fully aware of its responsibilities in the matter.
We know that every day editors and others have to make difficult judgments on such matters as accuracy, the opportunity for and right of reply, the distinction between comment, conjecture and fact—during the general election, some of us thought that this distinction was not clearly made in certain newspapers — and such matters as the invasion of privacy, harassment and intrusion. Not even the most fervent defender of the freedom of the press would argue that the media always get it right. This debate may help to highlight the problems in a particular area of possible intrusion by the media—that of health service patients and particularly patients who are mentally disordered. I hope that we may help to ensure that there are sufficient safeguards in practice so that all patients are properly protected. As we know, there are people who are particularly vulnerable and whose recovery could be seriously delayed if media intrusion resulted in increased stress and tension.
Noble Lords may be interested to know that I was the recipient not of intrusion by the media but misreporting when I was a patient in hospital. Your Lordships will remember that in this House four years ago there was an outbreak of salmonella. I was a victim and went to hospital. It was reported in a tabloid newspaper that I was in hospital suffering from legionnaires' disease. I telephoned the deputy editor of the newspaper and explained that if his reporters were unable to tell the difference between viral pneumonia and acute vomiting and diarrhoea they were not particularly expert. He apologised and said that he would print a correction the next day. However, it did not appear as a correction, it appeared in a news story to the effect that Lord Carter was able to confirm that he was not suffering from legionnaires' disease. In other words, they subtly put the blame on me for misreporting.
How serious is the problem that we are discussing? I say immediately that it would be most inappropriate in a debate concerning matters such as confidentiality and privacy to refer to details of individual cases which would enable identification. I do not propose to do so. MIND—the National Association for Mental Health—has given examples of things which it says have gone on: intrusion into the lives of patients who are mentally disordered who wish to marry; the libellous description of a patient who had been given leave of absence from hospital; the publication of highly intimate and personal details of a patient's life, not known by the patient's family but which they first read about in a Sunday newspaper.
There is apparently real worry that sensitive information about individual patients has been revealed to the media. The Matthew Trust which concerns itself with issues relating to the mentally disordered in security hospitals and in prisons (besides other related issues) also claims to have received complaints from patients that details of medical records and treatment have been given to the media, often at the request of the media and for payment.
I ask the Minister: what are the safeguards against this happening? Is it a matter of the common law relating to breach of confidence, or is there a form of
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statutory protection for patients? I understand that before the formation of the Special Hospitals Service Authority (SHSA) release of such information by NHS staff was a breach of the Official Secrets Act. But now it would be a breach of an employee's contract of employment. Is this correct?
Can the Minister tell the House what is the exact legal position of the patient, the NHS employee and the Department of Health? Again I quote from MIND:
"the elements of an action for breach of confidence in a non-commercial and non-governmental context are not clear, if only because the decided cases have been concerned with the protection of valuable commercial information or valuable government secrets".
We immediately understand that patients who are mentally disordered would find it extremely difficult to initiate complaints. That would have to be done on their behalf.
What guidance is given to NHS staff to help them deal with inquiries from the media? I understand that the guidance given in 1956 is in the process of being updated. If that is so, will the new guidance include advice on how to deal with the media?
A wider issue relating to privacy will, I am sure, be dealt with at length during the debate on Wednesday on the Press Complaints Commission's first report. But it is not at all clear where the ultimate responsibility lies in the area that we are discussing. Is it with the Department of Health or the new Department for National Heritage with responsibility for the Press Complaints Commission and the broadcasting media? We also have to ask what is the role of the Home Office in all this. It would be helpful if the Minister would explain exactly how the various departmental responsibilities are allocated and where responsibility would lie if there have been intrusions into a health service hospital or other health care establishments.
I am sure that the Minister is aware of the report, The Media and the Mentally Disordered, prepared by the Matthew Trust. The report includes a number of recommendations for changes in the practice of the Press Complaints Commission, the national press ombudsman system and the BBC.
I appreciate that the governmental responsibility does not extend to the operations of those bodies, nor should it. However, I think that we are entitled to ask whether the Government broadly support the general thrust of the recommendations which were contained in the Matthew Trust Report.
Support is forthcoming from some organisations concerned with the problem such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists. It is concerned about the publication of reports in the press about hospital patients without their consent.
It states:
"This can, at times, amount to an unacceptable invasion of privacy which can cause extreme distress to patients and their families. People with mental illness are a particularly vulnerable group. They may, in common with other patients, have real difficulty in pursuing complaints against the press through the complex system currently in operation".
Also, the Special Hospitals Service Authority, to which I referred (SHSA), says that it welcomes any move that would help enhance and protect the privacy

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of patients within its care. The authority believes that an intrusion into patient privacy can be highly counter-productive to an individual patient's care plans. The authority's view is that the media should exercise extreme caution before the publication of personal information about the patients in special hospitals which, while it may have interest for a section of the readership, could have a devastating effect on the well-being of the individual patient.
Another area of anxiety is the way in which journalists and photographers try to gain entry into health service establishments and to gain access to medical records. There have been a number of well publicised cases of this in the recent past. Is the Minister satisfied that existing NHS rules are sufficient to prevent this kind of thing happening, or should they be strengthened?
I shall now turn to the broadcasting media. Broadcasters are certainly not without fault. They must have a woeful lack of basic knowledge in this area. The BBC, for example, refers to Broadmoor as a prison and repeats that statement after the error has been pointed out. Broadmoor, Rampton and Ashworth are of course special hospitals. They are not prisons and the inmates are not prisoners. They should be regarded as patients.
Broadmoor was an asylum for the criminally insane until 1959 when it became a special hospital as a result of the Mental Health Act. In April 1981, 22 years later, the BBC still referred to "the criminally insane" in the hospital. It retracted that blunder but in July 1991 it referred to Broadmoor as a prison. When that was pointed out the BBC admitted it had made an error but the statement was allowed to persist in news bulletins.
I referred earlier to the Adjournment Debate in another place on 24th June. The Minister of State at the Home Office, Mr. Peter Lloyd, gave some interesting and encouraging figures in column 363 of Hansard of another place. Those figures show the numbers of prisoners transferred to hospitals in certain years. In 1986, 137 prisoners were transferred to hospitals. In 1990, 325 were transferred, and in 1991, 470 were transferred. The Government expect that this year at least 600 will be transferred. Obviously that is an encouraging trend. I am sure we would all agree it would be ironic if mentally disordered patients were transferred from prison to hospital—that is a welcome policy—only to find that they were more liable to intrusion by the media there than if they had remained in prison.
I have tried to avoid polemics or overstatement on this sensitive topic but there is anxiety among the people involved with this problem that intrusion by the media continues. There is nothing new in complaints concerning sensationalism and trivialisation on the part of the media. That is bad enough when it involves people who may be able to complain or seek some form of redress. However, such action is almost impossible for a mentally disordered patient. Such patients must rely on other people to take action on their behalf. I hope when she replies the Minister
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will be able to assure the House that the Government are aware of this problem and they are taking steps to deal with it.
5.12 p.m.
Lord Butterfield: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for introducing this important topic. I greatly support the sentiments that lie behind all the remarks he has made. Like the noble Lord, I, too, hope the Minister will be able to tell us what steps are afoot to take care of this situation.
Also like the noble Lord, I, too, have had occasional difficulties with the media. I shall refer briefly to two such occasions. I simply wish to make it clear that all of us in this House, and those involved in the profession I try to serve, must realise that the ideal situation is one where we work with the men and women of the media.
I must relate what happened to me in a hospital ward when a ward sister brought a man to me who introduced himself as a member of the press. I shook his hand. This incident occurred exactly 30 years ago. The man said, "I believe Professor you have been carrying out a diabetic survey in Bedford and that you now know how many diabetics there are in the country". I said his first statement was true but the second was not. I told him we were doing a survey and we had an idea how many diabetics there were in Bedford. The man then said, "Surely you can tell me the results of the survey so I can put them in my newspaper and bring glory to your hospital for announcing there are I million diabetics in Britain today. Your results are out".
I told the man I had the results of the survey but that I did not know for certain there were 1 million diabetics. I said I was disinclined to give him a free headline as we had to confirm the results and were not sure that Bedford was typical of the country as a whole. The man then said, "Come on, professor. Just say there are probably 1 million diabetics". I said I could not do that and that was the end of the story as far as I was concerned. The man was not very pleased with me but we parted reasonably good friends.
I shall now relate the other side of the story. In the hospital where I worked there was the editor of a great newspaper who suffered from an undiagnosable disease. Consequently he was seen by many people in many different places. We did not send him quickly enough to be seen by specialists in tropical medicine, who unravelled his disease. However, he was seen by a great psychiatrist who was anxious to press the possibility that the man was malingering. That seemed a rather unwise line to take.
The psychiatrist took the man to his Friday afternoon main clinic which was held in a lecture theatre and was attended by about 150 students. He tried to unsettle the editor by revealing a little of his previous history to the students. He said to the patient, "Tell me, why don't you make an honest woman of your mistress and marry her?" In my view that was a pretty serious assault on the editor. However, I shall always remember the editor's reply as one to produce if one ever needs such a reply oneself. He was sitting in a wheelchair. He drew himself up

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slightly and waited until he knew he had the attention of every student in the lecture theatre. He looked the professor in the eye and said, "Professor, in my view that is not the sort of question one gentleman puts to another in circumstances like these". The students roared and the professor never again got on top of the situation with that patient.
I have told those two stories as they represent two sides of the combative situation that exists between fact finders such as those involved in medical research and government affairs and the newspaper men. The remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, drew attention to the dilemma between those sets of people. Doctors desperately need the help of the press these days as regards getting the facts straight and reporting information clearly. We may need the help of the press as we begin to shift from what I shall call the cholesterol story to a new story about the possible causes of coronary heart disease. We call those who expound the latter story free radicals and they are in fruit at the moment expounding theories about orange juice and other such theories.
If we can, we must move away from the combative relationship that exists between those in the professions and those in the press. I remember a word which was current in the playground of my school when I was aged about nine. It was pax. I believe we have now reached a stage where it should be perfectly acceptable for people who have been assaulted by the press to look pressmen dead in the eye and say "pax" meaning they want a little peace. We must protect people in hospitals from intrusion by means of some new kind of approach to media personnel. I do not wish to lose the support of media personnel for the sake of all the good things they do. That is why I mention the possibility of introducing the "pax" concept when things get out of control.
5.18 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I do not possess the qualifications for speaking on this matter that the previous speaker possesses. My qualifications may also be inferior to those of the Minister. However, I have one or two reasons for speaking apart from my general desire to support blindly the noble Lord, Lord Carter, whatever he suggests.
It is many years since I first visited a special hospital. It was in 1940 to be accurate. Later I visited Broadmoor many times. I visited the hospital that is now called Ashworth and I also visited Rampton. I visited Peter Thompson, who was the founding spirit of the Matthew Trust, several times when he suffered a breakdown. He spent four years in Broadmoor. When he left Broadmoor he wrote two books about his experience for which I wrote the introductions. That all happened a long time ago and since then Peter Thompson has carried out some great work in founding, guiding and inspiring the Matthew Trust. That is the background.
Today I want in particular to call attention to a difficult aspect of the problem, although I do not believe that anyone considers this to be an easy matter. I wish to call attention to the all too
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ubiquitous presence of moles. Moles are not confined to special hospitals or mental hospitals; they are to be found everywhere in prisons. I cannot go to a prison without finding representatives of the tabloid press outside if I am visiting an "interesting" prisoner. Indeed, there are three prisoners with whom I remain on friendly correspondence terms who would rather not be visited by me because of what they call the hassle. The situation in the prisons is not unlike that in the special hospitals. There is a problem because of moles. No one ever seems to be able to put a finger on them and to unearth them. They are very active.
Some years ago I visited a well-known prisoner at Ashworth. Later the News of the World published a story saying that I had assaulted a security guard. Some people would say that to suggest that an octogenarian had assaulted a security guard was a compliment rather than a detraction. I would never dare to assault a security guard. In fact it was impossible because there was a pane of glass between me and the gentleman concerned. The hospital apologised and eventually the paper published my rebuttal, although it did not publish an apology.
I considered what I could do. I talked to my solicitor and after we had chatted for a few minutes I asked him how much it would cost. He said, "£100 plus VAT—so far". It would have cost £1,000 before the matter got anywhere near court. It is not easy to sue the media in those circumstances. We have to face the fact that there are such moles. My inclination is to suggest that somehow the institution concerned should be made responsible.
Perhaps I may give as another example the horrible scene when the media gathered round the Maxwells as they were arrested the other day. Clearly the press had been briefed by the police, but the top people in the police said that they do not authorise such behaviour. Hospitals do not authorise it. It originates with people lower down the scale. How do the authorities cope with them? It is very difficult.
A first step would be the one for which my noble friend Lord Carter is pressing—clarification of the law. That might make it easier to sue the institution or to bring criminal proceedings.
I wish to support my noble friend Lord Carter, the Matthew Trust and everyone who has spoken in the debate and to ask the Minister whether she believes that the law can be clarified and, if it is unsatisfactory, strengthened.
5.23 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, if my noble friend is not qualified to speak on this subject I certainly am not. My interest in the subject stems from 1965 when I was Member of Parliament for Putney. One of my constituents was Mr. Peter Thompson, who has just been mentioned by my noble friend. I was therefore in touch with his case from the beginning when Mr. Thompson, quite uncharacteristically, committed a violent assault, as a result of which, as my noble friend said, he had to go to Broadmoor for five years. Since then he has had a distinguished career and is now a prominent and leading member of the Matthew Trust.

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The trust has received many complaints that medical records of patients in special hospitals are given to the press by staff of those hospitals. It is suggested that that must sometimes be in return for payment.
Far from resisting press intrusion some hospital authorities, with the best possible motives, appear to co-operate and to accept the press plea of public interest. That presents us with a difficult problem. However, if it is in the public interest to conceal the secret service from press intrusion and the Government can plead the public interest in refusing to answer questions on such a subject, then surely the privacy of the afflicted should also be preserved in the public interest. We need to draw a line here. However, if we are to draw a line there is consequently a difficulty in determining where the public interest lies. I believe that in some instances that would have to be determined in the courts. However, I believe that the drawing of that line is an absolute necessity and we should not shrink from it.
I suggest that the public interest is not served when it is interpreted as giving a right to infringe the freedom of the sick. That cannot be regarded as being in the public interest, or at least one would want a very convincing case to justify such an intrusion.
It seems to me that two things need to be done. I suggest that the terms of reference of the review which I believe has already been embarked upon or is about to be embarked upon under the aegis of the Secretary of State for National Heritage should be extended to include an examination of the efficacy of the self-regulation of the press currently carried out by the Press Complaints Commission. I believe that we are to debate the commission's report more widely in a couple of days' time so I shall not pursue that item. However, it is relevant to the point that we are discussing this evening.
One of the problems is that the endeavours of the Press Complaints Commission to keep the lower end of the press under reasonable control do not seem to be effective. That matter needs to be looked at. Is that an area in which self-regulation can operate? It seems to me that the answer may well be at least in doubt. I suggest the replacement of the Press Complaints Commission by a genuinely independent body rather than one that merely claims to be independent but is not.
Since 1956 guidance has been give to the NHS. Equally, that guidance does not seem to be effective in this area. Perhaps that guidance should be reviewed, brought up to date and enforced. At present it seems to be observed more in the breach than in practice. When the Minister replies perhaps she can help us on that point. It appears that that guidance is either out of date or ineffective. The problem of its enforcement needs to be tackled.
I have nothing further to add to those two suggestions. Although I have spoken for only five minutes I shall now sit down.
5.28 p.m.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, I join with other noble Lords who have spoken in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for raising this debate on an important subject. It is a subject which has wide ramifications. As the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, said, those wider ramifications relating to the role of the Press Complaints Commission will be discussed more fully on Wednesday.
On the narrower focus of the debate dealing with media treatment of hospital patients generally and of the mentally disordered in particular, the whole House will feel that the mentally disordered are a particularly vulnerable group in society and require special protection in this matter. The problem was put very clearly, as reported in the Calcutt Committee, by Lord Justice Bingham, who referred to the case involving Gordon Kaye a few years ago, which no doubt noble Lords will remember. I think that the words he used in his judgment have a general application to anybody who is a patient in a mental hospital. He said:
"If ever a person has a right to be let alone by strangers with no public interest to pursue, it must surely be when he lies in hospital recovering from brain surgery and in no more than partial command of his faculties".
He went on to say that the invasion of this person's privacy:
"however gross, does not entitle him to relief in English law".
That still remains the position and we wait with interest to hear what the Minister has to say about the Government's approach to the matter of legal provision in this field.
Noble Lords will remember that the Calcutt Committee made two broad recommendations. One was that a new press commission should be set up and given a period of time to show that self-regulation can work effectively in the general field of relations between the media and the individual citizen. We shall come to that issue on Wednesday. The other recommendation, separate from the first and alongside it, was that a new criminal offence of physical intrusion into private property should be created. It sought to define private property and specifically included hospitals in that definition. I should be interested to hear the Government's views on that proposal, which might help in this situation.
But it is by no means the whole answer. Leaving aside the role of the Press Complaints Commission, about which I shall say a few words before I sit down, in terms of today's debate the main thrust must be toward looking at the arrangements made inside the medical profession and the hospitals to try to ensure that proper confidentiality relating to a patient is adequately protected. We all have stories to tell. I remember landing in intensive care on one occasion and was astonished to read about myself in the newspaper the next morning. It was not an inaccurate report, but as it happened, it was a great breach of confidentiality at that particular moment. I am sure that the reported allegation that in Broadmoor and Ashworth Hospitals the personal details of patients are given out by employees for money can be substantiated. That is a very serious allegation and demands effective action to deal with it.

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Beyond that, I do not wish to go into detail about the role of the Press Complaints Commission. It is undoubtedly true that a major aspect of relations between the media and the citizen concerns the relations between medicine and the media. It is an important and legitimate area of coverage by the media. One of the healthier developments of the past 20 years has been the greatly increased interest of the citizen in health matters and in maintaining health. The educational role that the media can play in these matters is important. Equally, the investigative role of the media can be important at times when the question of the best policies for our hospitals and the health service is at issue.
But speaking as a former chairman of one of the regulatory bodies of the media, the present fashion of the media, particularly the television media, of feeling that the intimate details of clinical cases, however harrowing, are a proper matter of public interest, can be carried a great deal too far. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, was absolutely right to raise the difficult question of how one defines the public interest in these matters. I rather like the definition given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, on one occasion, when he said:
"The media … are an essential foundation of any democracy … However they are peculiarly vulnerable to the error of confusing the public interest with their own interest".
That is part of the problem. We are all to some extent voyeurs, but an interest in other people's problems and troubles is not a general public interest. That requires a different and more responsible definition. How that is to be achieved is the subject of Wednesday's debate about the future of the Press Complaints Commission and the Government's attitude toward alternatives to self-regulation. I do not wish to trespass on those issues at this stage.
On the narrower and important issue of the media in relation to people suffering from mental disorders, I note that there is not a good relationship between the Matthew Trust, which has worked hard on this issue, and the Press Complaints Commission. The chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, with whom I have spoken about this matter, assures me that it is willing to investigate carefully, as is its duty, any specific complaints made to it. I hope that perhaps a fresh effort might be made to deal with some of the problems in that way.
5.36 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, I too welcome this opportunity to debate the very important issue of the media and its relationship with the NHS and hospital patients. I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and in particular the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for raising the issue and introducing it in such a measured way. I shall answer for the Government. But before I do so perhaps I may make some personal observations.
This Question particularly interests me as I have a long association with the NHS, chairing a national association health authority and trust working party
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which produced a report entitled Protecting Patients. I was also a member of the Press Council from 1977 to 1983. Although the Press Council is now much denigrated, I believe that it served a useful purpose. Perhaps it was a creature of its time but it was led by distinguished lawyers as chairmen, not least by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Shawcross, who was the first chairman under whom I served. It is perhaps right that the council was succeeded by the Press Complaints Commission, but the principles established by the council still hold good.
The press council guidelines have been adopted by the Press Complaints Commission. The latter's 15th point of their code of conduct reads as follows:
"Journalists making inquiries at hospitals or similar institutions should identify themselves to a responsible official before entering, except in very rare cases where information which ought to be disclosed could not otherwise be obtained".
I think the Press Council originally put the caveat rather better:
"There can be occasions when newspapers may rightly disregard this obligation and courtesy. They are when information which should be disclosed in the public interest cannot be obtained in any other way".
The general principle in dealing with the press in the NHS is that hospitals and everything about their organisation and services should be open and available to public scrutiny. Management must be accountable to the people it serves.
When I became a district chairman there was a rather secretive and defensive attitude towards the press. Some services were covered by Crown immunity, doctors when interviewed were not named and the Patient's Charter was unheard of. There was an incident in one hospital when a camera crew broke into the kitchen and food store to film. The authority was full of righteous anger in the knowledge that, if asked, permission would have been granted. But the incident nevertheless highlighted the inadequacy of the kitchen and that, like other hospital premises, it was subject to Crown immunity. Subsequently Crown immunity was lifted and the pressure on the NHS as a whole to conform to modern standards triggered a huge and justified investment in hospital facilities. With regard to this issue the media played a useful role, as it does in boosting local charity campaigns, informing the public about the spread of infectious diseases, promoting healthy lifestyles and educating the public about common clinical conditions and new and what can often appear frightening surgical procedures and drug regimes. In local situations, where relationships are good, it is because there is openness at the top and recognition that the freedom of the press is an essential part of democracy and in order to facilitate the media a professional public relations officer is appointed, who is known by all and who is trusted, accessible and honest.
There should be no need for the press to enter a hospital furtively. Journalists should be given access after having had the courtesy to ask. If they are refused they should seek permission from the highest authority. If permission is always refused without very good reason, there might well be something to hide which the press may feel it has a duty to expose.
There is of course another absolutely inviolate principle, and that is the individual person's right to

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privacy in particular in medical matters. It is embodied in medical ethics and the Patient's Charter and is the subject of the debate today. Patients in hospital are least able to defend themselves, and those who are mentally disordered and perhaps formally detained under the Mental Health Act are the most vulnerable of all. There have been occasions in the past when reporters and photographers have employed subterfuge to enter hospitals and have interviewed and photographed patients. This kind of behaviour, motivated solely by a prurient interest, is to be deplored, but the response needs careful judgment. There is clearly a legitimate public interest in knowing about certain aspects of the hospitals' work, in particular that patients are being properly and securely cared for and that the hospitals are making effective use of the resources entrusted to them.
However, as I have said, one of the most effective ways of countering negative publicity is to promote positive understanding of the hospitals and their work. The Special Hospitals Service Authority, which since 1989 has been responsible for the management of the hospitals, has rightly seen that as an important part of its work. Recently it has made some new press officer appointments showing its determination to improve relationships with the media. The Government support that approach, but also the firm line which the Special Hospitals Service Authority is taking in doing everything in its power to protect the confidentiality of information about the patients in its care.
I have referred to the Press Complaints Commission's code which is the general framework within which the NHS should work. But the department also has guidelines issued in a circular of 1956 and referred to by noble Lords in the debate. It states:
"Information should not be divulged to the Press without the consent of the patient beyond the statement that the person enquired about is a patient.
Where even this could be against the patient's interests"—
examples have been given today, especially with regard to a patient who is in a specialised hospital because from that factor his or her condition can be deduced—
"no information should be given without the consent of the patient and doctor.
In the case of well-known people, a brief indication of progress can be given, but only with the patient's consent".
On another occasion, I am sure that the hospital will seek the consent of the noble Lord, Lord Carter.
"In accident cases, the hospital should inform patients' relatives before any statement is given to the Press. Again, the patient's consent must be given before any information, beyond a general indication of [his or her] condition, is made public".
The guidelines clearly annunciate principles about confidentiality for the individual. However, the hospital may say on being asked that the person inquired about is a patient and that information may be withheld if the person is in a special hospital since, as I have said, it will allow the press to deduce the nature of the person's condition.
I do not wish to publicise individual cases and therefore I do not wish to quote from individual
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findings. However, I gain the impression that the Press Complaints Commission is perhaps taking a more pro-press attitude than its predecessor, the Press Council. Sir Louis Blom-Cooper, in an erudite speech to the annual meeting of the Royal College of Psychiatrists last year, cites the case of a well-known person being named as a patient in a special hospital which in itself identified his medical condition. Though the NHS guidelines prohibit that type of disclosure, it strengthens the case for new guidelines which should be accepted by all, including the NHS, the media, the Department of Health and other organisations which take a keen interest in the matter.
It is widely recognised that the guidelines are 36 years old and I am pleased to announce that new guidelines are being prepared and will be issued shortly for consultation. They will be more comprehensive and will cover a larger remit than just information to the press. They will cover the importance of preserving confidentiality, the responsibilities of all staff in the NHS for the management of health information and for controlling its use and disclosure and operational guidelines for preserving confidentiality and handling disclosures of health information.
The guidelines will thus build upon the existing common law requirements and take account of the ethical responsibilities of doctors and other health professionals. They will cover many of the detailed issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and others today.
We shall be consulting widely on the guidelines to ensure that interested parties have an opportunity to help shape the finished product. It is vital to have a policy of openness in the service, but of course the confidentiality of individual patients is of paramount importance.
I wish now to pick up on one or two points raised by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, gave me the courtesy of informing me of some of the issues that he would raise. I have spent the weekend trying to think of a different term than "mentally disordered". I believe that words are important. One sees how attitudes have altered by the change from the word "bastard" to the words "one parent family". The search for such a term will be a great challenge to wordsmiths. I regret that over the weekend I have failed to find such a term. I hope that others will succeed.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, and the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, raised the question of access to confidential records by those who work in hospitals, some of whom might be tempted to sell or give information to the press. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked whether those acts are governed by contracts of employment. They are, but perhaps I may suggest that such serious behaviour should be combated in three different ways. First, management in hospitals needs to maximise the information about the institution and to give adequate opportunities for press and public visits. Indeed, the special hospitals are beginning to do that. Secondly, it must be ensured that the establishment has efficient and open management. Thirdly, it is necessary to ensure that

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both employees and journalists who buy or divulge confidential information are brought to account by their prospective employing authorities and appropriate disciplinary action is taken.
The noble Lord, Lord Butterfield, enunciated some interesting experiences. He portrayed so well the balance of the dilemma that we all face. In a perhaps more bureaucratic way our guidelines will encourage the "pax" philosophy. But I hope that they will go further: I hope that they will prevent the conflicts from arising in the first place.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, has a more prodigious knowledge of such hospitals and some of the unhappy people in them than perhaps any of us. He covered the point also by referring to the guidelines that we have drawn up. I hope that he will make a powerful contribution in the consultation period. I am most anxious that everyone interested in the subject should contribute and that we achieve the best guidelines possible.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, penetrated the issue surrounding self-regulation of the press. I am reluctant, as other noble Lords have been this afternoon, to pre-empt Wednesday's debate. Ours is a narrow issue which must be seen in a wider context and all the aspects of the subject need to be treated together.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth. I hope that I have addressed many of the issues and anxieties that he raised. I invite him as former chairman of the Independent Broadcasting Authority—an important regulating body—to take part in the consultation process.
I have also sought the views of Sir Louis Blom-Cooper on the issue because he is chairman of the Mental Health Act Commission. He is aware of the particular and morbid interest taken by sections of the press in people detained in secure hospitals. Those people should have the same privacy as everyone else. Sir Louis has assured me that the commission is taking a more active part as a channel for patients' complaints and in ensuring that information on the management and operation of the institutions is available and there is proper accountability in the running of the hospitals. He acknowledges that there is a problem with some special hospitals and there is certainly a requirement to update the 1956 guidelines governing patients' confidentiality.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, also asked about the change in the situation of staff who were previously covered by the Official Secrets Act. I believe he considered that a breach of that Act prevented many of them from divulging confidential information. I have thought a good deal about that, but I return to my first principle. We are trying to move from a secretive to an open society. I am sure that there can be no going back; we must be more open. Reverting to the Official Secrets Act as a measure to prevent staff from divulging confidential information would be a retrogressive step.
I am always nervous about what goes on behind the closed doors of any secure unit. The doors must be closed, but the higher the security the greater the
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necessity to monitor the conditions. I believe that giving the press access on our behalf is a good independent check. There should be nothing to hide except the privacy of individual people.
I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss what I believe to be a crucial issue, which the debate has provided. It is one in which I take a close interest. We shall ensure that consultation on the revised guidelines is wide ranging and capable of influencing the outcome. I hope that we shall again debate this important subject so that understanding is deepened and consensus is achieved in the interests of the patients, the media and the NHS.

Training and Enterprise Councils: Resources
5.53 p.m.
Lord McCarthy Lord McCarthy rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take to ensure that training and enterprise councils are provided with sufficient resources to support the investors in people scheme and other initiatives.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in asking the House to consider the state of our training provisions the Unstarred Question focuses on the present failure of the investors in people scheme and other initiatives. However, I do not want noble Lords to feel that they must focus only on that scheme —indeed, it would not take us very long. We should focus on the 17 other programmes and initiatives in the field of training in which the Government are involved. I wish to ask the Government a number of questions about the schemes and about the institutional arrangements. That is a vital element of what is wrong with government provision for training, especially as regards the investors in people scheme.
I take it that we are all pro-training and that we accept that we need more and better training in this country. I also take it that we agree that it is had that 52 per cent. of industrial workers have no training; that 20 per cent. of establishments offer no training; that we have about one third of the volume of training of Germany and less than half of that of France; and that that deficit in and low quality of our training provision is bad, should be remedied and is the key to our economic progress and survival. I take it that that is agreed by all noble Lords and that we do not need to debate those issues.
The question is, therefore, whether we have the right arrangements, resources and programmes. The Government do not appear to be confident about the arrangements which we have in general for training in this country. If they were confident they would not have made so many changes. During this Government's term of office almost every year, and perhaps four or five times a year, they have made changes in the training arrangements and in their involvement in them. They have abolished the MSC, the training commission, the training agency, virtually all of the ITBs and have given the rest very little to do. They have abolished one third of the skill centres and have privatised the rest. The Government are always

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changing the training arrangements, so perhaps I should first ask them why they ask us to believe, and whether they believe themselves, that the present training arrangements are right.
It strikes me and many others that the training arrangements are extremely fragmented and decentralised. We appear to have an indeterminate number of TECs with an indeterminate number of businessmen and other people serving on them. The latest figure I saw showed that one in 20 of those serving on the TECs were trade unionists but now the figure may he different. Therefore, perhaps I should ask the Government how many TECs there are. Exactly what the TECs do is also unclear, as is what their providers of training do and how they sub-contract down to different levels. The system is vague, imprecise and indeterminate.
During the previous debate the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, said that we want to move from secret to open Government. Had the bundle not been too large I should have brought to the House some of the reports of the Manpower Services Commission. It was responsible for training in this country and it produced more significant data than is available now. Today training is largely a mystery. Questions about the numbers, the volume, the policies and the programmes arise from the evidence given to the excellent Employment Select Committee of the House of Commons, and as a result of Parliamentary Questions and so forth.
There is no equivalent data as regards our training policy and strategy to that published in the annual report of the Manpower Services Commission. Instead we have a series of rumours and leaks to the press about dissatisfaction with the provision for training. The group of the 10 leading chairmen of the TECs leaked to the newspapers that they were confused and exasperated and that there was overlap. The latest leak threatened that businessmen were about to walk out. We do not know whether that is true but it is the kind of article that one reads in newspapers. From time to time the voluntary bodies write letters of protest stating that they have no money to carry out their responsibilities under the training programme. They also complain about the quality. National firms such as Dixons, Whitbreads, Habitat and Woolworths have withdrawn from the scheme because they state that they cannot deal with up to 100 different TECs.
We say that there is a general requirement, which has never been argued away by the Government, for a national strategy and body, whether it be bipartite or tripartite. There should be a national body for training which reports on strategy, monitors its own performance and is subject to parliamentary review in the way that most of the major bodies are in that field.
We also say something about resources. Again, the figures are extremely vague. We calculate that there has been something like a £1.5 billion cut in the provision of training from 1987 to 1992 but those figures are informal; they are not official figures because we do not have official figures of that kind.
One is forced to make informal contacts in order to discover how much and in precisely what way in
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different forms of training provision there have been cuts. The Shadow Secretary of State for Employment, Mr. Blair, in June of this year, in an effort to find out more information, got on the phone to three-quarters of the TECs. As a result of his calculation, he considers that this year, over last year, there has been a £17 million cut in the youth training budgets and a £47 million cut in the TECs' budget. Is that right? Are there official statistics to tell us how the 17 or so training programmes are spending their money and whether they have as much money as last year? If they do not, is that because there is not the demand for the various provisions made or have the Government cut the budget anyway?
Perhaps the best catalogue of disaster which we have is that relating to the employment training programme. That has been catalogued year by year by the excellent House of Commons Select Committee on Employment which has a Conservative majority. The record laid out in the various reports regarding ET is that of a continual reduction in the provision for ET. When the programme began in 1987–88, the Government were talking about 600,000 places to replace the community programme. We are now in a position in which we really do not know what is happening. I ask the Government how many people are undertaking ET and whether they think that there will be more or less next year. If there will be less next year, what is the reason for that? Is it that, as most people seem to think, employment training has become very largely a useless programme?
Your Lordships will remember that it was established because it was said that the community programme did not provide training and ET would provide training for the long-term unemployed. We now know that half the people who sign up for ET do not turn up and something like 70 per cent. do not complete it. The Government have cut back the provision for ET. As I understand it, they say that they have done so because the long-term unemployed do not need training. Yet, the Government do not find any alternative. They cannot really argue that the employment action programme provides an alternative to ET or any across-the-board provision for the long-term unemployed.
I turn now to the investors in people scheme. That suffers from much the same kind of structural and resource problems as the other programmes; at least that is how it looks. It appears to be in a bigger mess than YT, more unpopular than ET and less visible than employment action. The House will remember that the idea behind the scheme was that we should award a kind of training VC, a Rolls-Royce mark. If a company did virtually all that it should do in the field of training, if it provided lifelong training for all its employees and had that training independently validated and if the authorities were satisfied that the company was a Rolls-Royce firm as regards training, the company would receive a kite colophon which it could put on all its publicity to say that it had won the training VC.
We understood that that was intended to be an encouragement to everybody else so that they too would wish to become superior firms from the training

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point of view. At the beginning most of us said that we did not see the incentive and why firms—and many excellent companies spent a considerable volume of their funds on training—should go in for that competition. However, in November 1990 the Government said that the immediate target was that they hoped that there would be some 6,000 firms entering—they were not quite clear when—and qualifying under the scheme. Again, I do not have up-to-date figures because we cannot get them these days, unless one culls one's way through the very small print of the Employment Gazette where they may be found. As far as I understand the figures which I have, 38 firms have the kite colophon which means that the Government have 5,962 to go. If that is the case, what is the point of the scheme?
The chairman of the East Lancs TEC, Mr. Tony Cann, giving his explanation as to why the scheme has been a non-starter said that in his opinion it was an extremely expensive scheme. If firms sought to meet the targets set out under the kite scheme, it would cost them over 3.5 per cent. of their pay bill. What is happening to that scheme and what are the accurate figures?
I conclude with seven questions which I should like the Government to address either this evening or in the near future. Looking at the training problem, the criticisms of the training providers and participants in the schemes as well as the problems which individual firms find in operating with the highly decentralised, overlapping system which we have now, surely it is obvious that we need some kind of national training body. Surely that is so. We should have a representative national body with a publicly stated strategy monitoring the attainment of training targets.
Secondly, what is the Government's answer to those companies which say that they cannot deal with the 80 or more TECs? Why can they not deal with a national institution?
Thirdly, what is the present level of government spending on training and how does that relate to last year and the year before? Fourthly, can the Government say whether that money will be protected or cut next year? Do the Government expect to have another 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. cut next year? Fifthly, is Mr. Blair right to suggest that the cuts this year in respect of YT are worth a reduction of 7 per cent. and for ET 15 per cent. in real terms? Sixthly, what is the long-term replacement for ET? If the main reason that the numbers on ET are declining is that it is regarded as inappropriate and wrong, what is its replacement?
Finally, what is happening to investors in people, that Rolls-Royce programme? Is the problem that it is so costly to support the scheme and, therefore, firms cannot afford to become investors in people? Is it the case that large numbers are about to sign on or have signed on under the scheme and that my figures are grossly out of date? In the last general election the Labour Party said that investors in people should be the qualification mark for exemption from the training levy. The Government do not want to do that. What kind of incentive do the Government provide for good
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companies to reach the necessary international targets in training provision? What are the Government proposing to do?
6.10 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, I am extremely glad that the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, has given us the opportunity to talk on this subject and to raise the level of consciousness in regard to the seriousness of the training position or the lack of adequate training in this country.
In the early 1980s the Government seemed to realise that we were woefully behind in training and that we had done far too little in comparison with our competitors. Although in many cases the apprenticeship schemes had been good, they affected far too small a proportion of people leaving school and entering employment. Only around one-third of boys and one-twentieth of girls received any kind of apprenticeship training. The rest received practically nothing.
In the 1980s the Conservative Government seemed to be coming to grips with the problem. Many of us thought that not enough was being done straightaway. But we on the opposition Benches always think that. However, there was a beginning. The Manpower Services Commission, although one may criticise it on many aspects—and we all criticised it — was a start in trying to tackle the huge problem of training. The discussions we have had so often in this House on the subject do not reflect the seriousness and extent of the problem that confronts us.
The Government then saw fit to abolish the Manpower Services Commission and any kind of national responsibility for the development of training. I repeat that it had been a constructive Conservative Party policy and Conservative Party development. I never understood why they were so determined. The MSC had many defects, of course. There was a huge job to be done and a long way to go. But those of us who worked with it—I believe everybody speaking in the debate tonight worked with the Manpower Services Commission in one way or another—knew that despite its defects, it was contributing something. It was moving, however slowly, in the right direction.
The Government then saw fit to hand it all over to the training and enterprise councils. Whenever we raised a Question in your Lordships' House on training, we were told that it was now in the hands of the TECs. We were told they were controlled by employers, and employers knew better than anyone else what training should be given. We were never able to get past the reply given to us by the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, and others: leave it to the employers; they are the people who know and they will see that it is done.
One can make a number of comments about that. In the past those same employers did not do it. That is one reason, though not the only reason, why we had such a huge backlog of untrained people. The employers did not do it. A small number of extremely good employers did a remarkably good job of training. But they found all too often that they were

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training not for themselves but for other people. Why should they continue to do that? I once made a study of the training carried out by the Hoover Company. It had a first rate apprenticeship scheme; but at the end of it none of those apprentices stayed with the company. They were so good that other employers came along and took the lot. That is not the way in which one achieves an adequately trained labour force.
All kinds of schemes were introduced. They were not perfect. The levying grant scheme introduced by the Conservative Government became bureaucratic and clumsy. But it was an attempt to spread the cost. Many employers are not competent to give good training either because they do not know what it is or because the work that they undertake does not have the scope and depth that makes good training possible. We do not want everybody to train or to pretend that they are training. We want the people who know how to train and have the scope and facilities to do so, to do the training. Other companies can contribute a fair amount to the cost of training the people who they will afterwards employ, and they will benefit from the training given by the original company.
That was the way in which we were moving. All that has stopped. It has been said that employers know best; that employers and the TECs will see that all is well. As I say, we have every reason to doubt whether employers, without any national organisation to prod them along, will do that. One needs only to look at the construction industry. When looking at the history of the construction industry, we see that they stopped training whenever there was a slump. However, one only needs a 1 per cent. increase in GNP and the construction industry finds that it is running out of skilled people. That has happened not once but it has happened after every single recession and recovery.
If employers are the people who know about training, why does that happen with such unfailing regularity in the construction industry? I do not suppose for one moment that the construction industry is the only industry to experience that. We all know that companies tend to cut back on training when they go into a recession. From the point of view of UK Limited, that is the time that they ought to be training. They have the time and the resources—or could have the resources if the money were made available—and if they do not need the people, they can train and upgrade them for when the situation improves. That does not happen. Leaving training to employers does not produce that result.
Even if employers were prepared to do that working through the TECs, the TECs need sufficient money to stimulate and obtain the training that they want. The noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, has said on a number of occasions that the money is available. That is not what the TECs say. Before the general election, I was in discussion with the chairman of a TEC in Leeds. He said that sadly he had to cut out two whole groups of training, not because he wanted to do so but because the money had been cut back. He had either to cut a little off every training scheme or close
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down some entirely. That was not because he wanted to or because he thought it was the right thing to do; it was because he did not have the money to continue. In the face of that, how can the Government say that the TECs have the resources and know what they should be doing?
The TECs and employers generally are bound to be thinking of how to fill immediate requirements. The way in which they are paid encourages them to take a limited view in regard to the training needs of the country. We understand that the TECs' money depends on success in the way it is used and success in training. We are told that success is measured by the number of jobs obtained for people and the qualifications that people achieve in training. That means that if the TECs want to keep their resources up and receive the next slice of government money, they are bound to concentrate on the people who are easiest to place and who are brightest. They will be the most likely to obtain qualifications. That leaves little opportunity for the people lower down in the list and whose training needs in many ways are greatest.
Only a small number of employers can be expected to take a long term view in regard to the training needs of UK Limited as distinct from the training needs of their own specific organisations. But unless somebody looks at the training needs of UK Limited, we shall be in an extremely serious position.
At the end of the 1970s, before the YTS schemes were under way—with all their limitations—44 per cent. of school-leavers in this country went into unemployment or a job without training. The comparable figure in France was 19 per cent., and in Germany it was 9 per cent. Those youngsters are now adults in an untrained labour force. They swell the numbers of the unemployed. That is where they will stay unless something is done for them.
We all know that there is no future in this country for the unskilled—people who do not possess competencies that they can sell. We no longer operate manufacturing in this country alone: companies send their work to be manufactured all over the globe. A company with which I used to work has part of its work done in Argentina and part in Portugal. There is much to be said for that. But in this country it leaves the people who do the least skilled jobs with no openings at all.
The huge backlog of unskilled people in this country is going to be a tremendous weight on the community as a whole. What are we to do with them? We have approximately 3 million unemployed now and a large proportion of them are untrained. There is no escape for them. The situation is becoming more and more difficult. This morning I spoke to a person who had been dealing with companies in Korea. He told me about the level of pay and working conditions there. How are we to compete with them? Initially we can have a protectionist policy to keep their goods out but we do not advocate that. We have to compete with such a country. There is no future for the unskilled people of this country. I, and I am sure the noble Lord also, refuse to believe that among the 44 per cent. of school-leavers I have referred to there is not a large

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number capable of learning something and making an effective contribution in a modern global economy. But that can only happen if they are given training.
It is a much bigger problem than just what is happening to the TECs. It is a matter of what is happening to the whole programme of training in this country for the unemployed and the large numbers of women of very considerable latent potential who are woefully under-trained but who want to get back into effective work. However, as long as they remain unskilled and untrained they will not be able to do so. Although it is not the group about which I wish to speak tonight, there are also the people with special needs who are right at the bottom of the list when it comes to training opportunities. Their opportunities for training are becoming poorer and poorer. It is not enough to say that they are in the group between the ages of 18 and 24 or 25. There are plenty of others who are not in that age group, and even those who are in that category are not getting training.
It is not true that the aim has been met in all areas as regards the people in these groups. I can understand why the TECs and employers take an inevitably somewhat short-term view because of the recession and other problems. Who can blame them? It is not their particular job to solve the problem. If we neglect the training of these people, in terms of unemployment, social problems and the cost involved we are building up for ourselves a very serious problem for the future. Indeed, we have it now but it is going to get worse rather than better.
We are not getting at the Government in this Question but urging them to think anew about how serious the issue is. I believe it is a subject on which an all-party group could do some useful work. In the past we have talked about the possibility of Select Committees in your Lordships' House. A Select Committee on this subject might be very fruitful indeed. I beg the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, not to give us the reply that these matters should be left to the TECs because they know best but to recognise that it is a much bigger problem than we have been prepared to accept in the past.
6.23 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I am sure that the House is grateful to my noble friend for introducing a debate on this important subject. Both he and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said this evening that everyone agrees that training is of crucial importance and that compared with other developed countries Britain's workforce is under-skilled and under-trained. The Government themselves have frequently said so and claim to he spending large sums of money in an endeavour to improve the situation. They also seem to believe that an adequate training programme is by itself the answer to the evil of unemployment. It certainly seems to us that they have been using the schemes as a way of taking people out of the unemployment statistics.
In 1989 the CBI published a report which advocated that Britain needed nothing short of a skills revolution in order to bring the competence of the
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British workforce up to the levels of our principal competitors. The report emphasised the need to provide a clear framework for all young people's learning from the age of 14 to 18 years. The framework suggested by the CBI drew on the experience of the German system of apprenticeships. In that model most 16 to 19 year-olds would undergo structured training with employers, involving day release at college and leading to vocational qualifications. Others would continue to study full time but with a broader curriculum, mixing academic and vocational courses.
In 1989 the TUC published its report Skills 2000. That report also drew attention to the failure of training in the UK as compared with our major competitors. It stated:
"We are failing to meet the tasks of a late twentieth century economy and are soon to be plunged into a twenty-first century economy without the protection of a sound national economy".
That is what the report said at that time and it still appears to be the situation three years on.
The main criticism of the TUC report still stands:
"the Government is content to leave training to the market, and the market fails to train. In some countries, markets are much better at delivering training, although in no developed economy is the market vested with such power over training as it is in Britain today".
Until the advent of this Government there was a measure of consensus around the old Industrial Training Act which was itself a product of an earlier Conservative Government. These initiatives resulted in the creation of industry training boards which were tripartite in character and in a national body responsible for overall strategy which was first called the Manpower Services Commission and later the Training Commission. In those days even Conservative administrations acknowledged the existence of trade unions and wanted to involve them and their members in training programmes.
No one, least of all on this side of the House, claims that these were perfect solutions. But certain of the industry training boards, notably the engineering industry training board and the construction industry training board, performed useful functions. Without them the situation would have been much worse. Then along came another type of Conservative Government intent upon tearing up everything that had previously existed by the roots and changing it whether it needed changing or not. The alternatives substituted were based on the assumption that there were no bodies representative of employees worthy to be consulted or involved at all. Training was to be employer-led, despite the fact that this concept had not worked that well in the past and there was still nothing to prevent the employer who would not invest in training from poaching staff from those employers who did. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, has said a great deal about that this evening and I agree with everything that she said.
So we have had the training and enterprise councils (the TECs). It is not my purpose tonight, nor is it that of my noble friend, to knock the TECs. I accept that many of them are anxious to do a very good job of work and are often led by people who are enthusiastically and energetically pursuing their

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objectives. But, as has been said, recent reports appear to indicate that all is not well with them. Reports have appeared in the press indicating that TECs lack resources and that they are on a knife edge, according to one report.
Reference is made in the Question—it has been quoted by my noble friend—that initiatives such as investors in people deliberately designed to encourage employers to provide quality training are not meeting with the take-up that was expected. The voluntary approach has brought little fundamental change to the training system that the TECs administer. I shall not go over the ground already covered by my noble friend. Suffice it to say that well-publicised initiatives of various kinds follow one on another in a confusing progression—yet we still do not seem to make the progress in training that we all want to make.
What particularly bothers me is that it is now reported that some TEC leaders are saying that the Government should not have given their famous youth guarantee because it simply cannot be met. That has important consequences for the Government's social security policies. As has been debated quite recently in this House, the Government's policies as regards social benefits for 16 to 18 year-olds have been based on the assumption that such young people will either be at school or be being trained since there would be a youth training place for every young person who wanted one. For that reason entitlement to social benefits has been removed from young people in that age category, although special hardship arrangements have been introduced. As the report of the Social Security Advisory Committee has indicated, however, the procedures for obtaining special hardship arrangements are so convoluted that very few people who are actually in need secure the benefits.
Clearly something has to be done about this. Additional resources must be made available and account should be taken of what the TEC leaders are saying. It is not that they are unwilling to co-operate, but according to their statements something more than government rhetoric is required to ensure that the scheme continues.
Then we have employment training, which is aimed at the unemployed. We are likely to have around 3 million people without work before the end of this year. Opportunities for employment in manufacturing industry continue to decline. I understand that we are to have a debate on the manufacturing industry within the next week, so I shall not go into that dismal subject today. But this is not the time, I should have thought, to cut back on employment training. I understand that the equivalent of 19,000 places are set to be cut from ET this year. If, as seems likely from what my noble friend said earlier, employment training is not fulfilling the purpose, there has to be some alternative to allowing people simply to moulder on the dole indefinitely.
TEC leaders believe that there must be proper public funding to meet the youth guarantee. They also urge tax breaks for companies meeting the IIP training standard. Altogether, as my noble friend has said, the present training system does not appear to be
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delivering results. Training in the United Kingdom gives the impression of lacking structure and coherence. With the disappearance of the Training Commission—this point was made both by my noble friend and by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear—there seems to be no national strategy. The quality of training is often low. Government expenditure seems to be spread around a wide range of administrative bodies responsible for training and for monitoring training. Manufacturing industry has suffered since the apprenticeship scheme was abandoned. It had many faults, it is true, but it produced skilled craftsmen and craftswomen—although far too few women. Clearly there is a need to revitalise the TECs and to evolve a training strategy based on adequate resources.
Unions are prepared to be supportive. I refer to a booklet entitled Training for Britain's Economic Success which has been produced jointly by the United Kingdom's two biggest unions—the Transport and General Workers Union and the GM B. They say:
"Our two unions will … stress that trade union bargaining is about building skills as well as about paying bills. We will broaden the emphasis of negotiations from pay to prospects".
They urge the Government and the CBI to support training rights for all employees.
It seems that the will is there. It is up to the Government to harness the enthusiasm that exists. So far we appear to have had a series of changing initiatives which seem more designed to remove people from employment statistics than to provide genuine quality training. I believe that there is a training crisis. I look forward with interest to what the Government have to say in response to the submissions made from this side of the House.
6.33 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Viscount Ullswater): My Lords, we have had an informative debate on a subject that underpins the economy of this country—training. As noble Lords will know, Her Majesty's Government believe that to acquire the skills to compete in a world economy we need all sectors of the community involved in training. It is in effect a partnership between government, employers and individuals, each having an important part to play.
It is the role of government to create the climate and framework to encourage training and direct funding support where it is most needed. It is the role of employers to develop the skills of people at work and to make the necessary investment in training. It is their role to set the standards for high quality training—standards like investors in people. Finally, it is up to individuals to take greater responsibility for their own training and development.
Based on these principles, the Government created a network of training and enterprise councils in which employers have the major controlling interest. That is only right as it is the business community which has the experience and knowledge of what is best for its local economy.
I believe that the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, knew the answers to all the questions that he posed to me—that is his style of debate—but he knows very

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well that 82 TECs in England and Wales are now operational. He also knows that more than 1,200 top businessmen are involved in the running of the TECs and that there are 20 LECs in Scotland. He knew the answers very well. I think he also knew the answer to another question which he posed at the beginning of his remarks. He asked where he could go to get the figures. I do not have to tell him because I am sure that he has examined the matter very carefully. The expenditure figures for three years ahead and for the past year are published in January each year in the departmental report. I believe that the noble Lord knows a little about where he can get the figures.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, what the figures do not give is the distribution between the programmes and the number of individuals who are expected to go on those programmes.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, if the noble Lord studies the report carefully he can glean the figures that he really wants.
The noble Lord and the noble Baronesses, Lady Seear and Lady Turner, said that the Government have changed things from how they were before. Yes, we do make changes because we seek to make improvements. They would expect a government who are interested in the development of their people, and especially the people in the workplace, to seek to make those improvements.
TECs are not just about running training programmes. They have a legitimate interest in all that bears on the development of their local area. That is why they are increasingly seen as the vehicle for bringing together the full range of local interests to work towards the common goal of a prosperous economy. That is why the Government are giving massive backing to TECs. Our provision to TECs amounts to £2.2 billion this year.
The original Question asked about investors in people. The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, was right to draw attention to that important initiative. Investors in people sets a framework for business. It is a joint exercise. Employers have set the standard and the Government are providing support and resources through TECs. Employer progress against the investors in people standard will provide an important measure of how they are developing and capitalising on the full potential of the people—the key asset for any business and for a healthy economy.
I shall update the noble Lord on the number of people and companies involved. Today we have 63 accredited investors in people and more than 1,000 organisations have now made commitments to their local training and enterprise councils—or to the local enterprise companies in Scotland—to work towards the standard, or the VC as the noble Lord put it. Those involved include major household names such as Unilever and GEC and small businesses, as well as the public sector. My own department is committed, and this morning I opened a conference for schools committed to taking advantage of the initiative. Unilever now has all its UK business working towards the standard; GEC is promoting investors in people
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internally, building on the achievements of Woods of Colchester, one of the first companies to be recognised as an investor in people. The managing director of another early investors in people—Appor Limited, which employs just 65 people manufacturing soap dispensers—has set a goal of doubling productivity in two years and says that investors in people is the key to unlock the vast hidden potential of British industry and people. That is something I firmly believe.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, does the noble Viscount agree that at the present rate of growth it will take about 95 years to hit the target?
Viscount Ullswater: No, my Lords, I do not agree at all. There are more than 1,000 organisations committed to that task. The noble Lord would not expect the figures to be instantaneous. If the figures were instantaneous it would mean that the standard was not difficult to achieve. It is important that the standard should set a high quality so that we are competitive internationally. I believe that the noble Lord and I would agree on that.
Therefore, employers have reacted positively to the standard based upon the best business practice and to an independent assessment system that measures them against that best practice, but which is also sufficiently flexible to recognise that all businesses are different. That says much about the professionalism of the assessors. This year, TECs have £35 million to support employers in working towards the "investors in people" standard. That, coupled with the increasing flexibilities that TECs now have over their budgets and the imaginative approaches that they are adopting, means that TECs have a substantial influence on employer behaviour.
Individuals must also he persuaded that training pays and that they should take more responsibility for their own development. That is one of the Government's priorities. Our approach was set out in the recent White Paper, People, Jobs and Opportunity, which illustrates the range of government action being taken on a number of fronts in partnership with TECs.
TECs are developing high quality information, advice, guidance and assessment services to help people understand their training needs and make sensible decisions. TECs are finding new ways to give individuals the purchasing power to put those decisions into effect. We have a very successful career development loans scheme which helps individuals to pay for training that they could not otherwise afford. TECs are also looking at ways for adults to make a financial contribution to their own training such as credits for training and individual training accounts as a means of encouraging individuals to see training as a lifelong investment. The Government have recently instituted an important tax relief for training, for people who invest in their own training. Since April, people who train towards a national vocational qualification at levels 1 to 4 are entitled to tax relief on their fees. They qualify for that even if they are not taxpayers, and even if the training is not linked to their present job.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, asked me how money is given to TECs. She also mentioned the

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problem about the difference in the number of people wanting to train and the difference in their aspirations. I have already spoken from this Dispatch Box on other occasions and said that it is really based on the contract between my department and the TECs to deliver the training needs of all sectors of the workforce. The funding is adjusted to make certain that those, for example, with special needs are included. The contract is reviewed and enforced as would be expected.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Viscount but he never answers me on this question. He always tells me that the money is there and that the TECs are doing the job. But how does he explain what the chairman of the Leeds TEC said to me? He said that he had to cut down on all his training schemes or even cut two of them completely because he did not have the money. He did not want to do it; he had to do so because he did not have the money. It is not good enough to tell us that it is all going beautifully. We are hearing the same speech tonight as we have heard over and over again from the noble Viscount: the TECs know what to do, they have got the money and the Government is backing them. That is not the story that we are hearing from the TECs. Where are the results?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, of course some TECs would welcome more resources. I believe that reflects the very success of our campaign investors in people.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, it is not a question of more resources; they are getting less. Of course, the TECs would welcome more, but they deplore receiving less.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I have to point out that the figures do not bear out what the noble Baroness has just said. I have indicated that TECs will actually receive more money this year than they did last year. There has certainly been rebalancing between a number of areas in the TECs. Therefore, I can understand that some of them are in a situation where their money has been adjusted. However, more money is going to TECs this year than was the case last year.
Of course, we are reviewing what is needed as part of the public expenditure round. But investors in people is a very important initiative and is, indeed, the subject of the Question tonight. It is about improved business performance and not about subsidised training. I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, wishes to intervene. I give way.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I am most grateful. Is the noble Viscount aware that it has been reported that one of the leaders of the TECs has estimated that achievement of IIP could add from 3 per cent. to 5 per cent. to a company's wage bill, which is a significantly higher investment than envisaged under a statutory levy?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, if I may say so, that is just a comment made by Tony Cann.
Baroness Turner of Camden: That is true.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, that comment is not necessarily based upon mere fact; it is based upon supposition. I say that because what the investors in people programme and initiative is all about is more effective training related to the needs of a business. Employers spend about £20 billion per annum on training—and so they should. The aim of the investors in people initiative is to make certain that that investment is wisely spent. I see that my noble friend Lord Stockton wishes to speak. I give way.
The Earl of Stockton: My Lords, I am obliged. Is my noble friend aware that as well as an obvious increase in costs, the estimates that have been undertaken to date by the companies that have pledged themselves to IIP have shown that, when it is in place, it will make a difference of between 7 per cent. and 9 per cent. on average to their profitability on the bottom line? That is certainly an experience that I have found in my own company.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I am extraordinarily pleased to hear from someone who has first-hand experience, not only in running a company but also as chairman of a TEC. Therefore, my noble friend has practical experience whereas many of us, unfortunately, are only talking about what we glean from other sources.
I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, mentioned YTs. Youth training is a success story. It is unmatched in Europe in its extent. The planned expenditure for this year is the same as it was last year despite the downward demographic trend; for example, the number of 16 and 17 year-olds is down 100,000 in the past two years, and increasing numbers are staying on at school. Moreover, 47 per cent of 16 year-olds were in further education in 1987–88, whereas the figure now is more than 60 per cent. I believe that those numbers demonstrate the value that young people place on YT. The value is also reflected in the outcomes: 300,000 currently on YT—vastly more than in structured training a decade ago; 76 per cent. of those completing the training go into jobs or further education; and 62 per cent. of completers obtain vocational qualifications.
Obviously the current economic climate is causing some difficulties. However, I must tell the noble Baroness that the Government are fully committed to making the guarantee work. No TEC would be prevented through lack of funding from meeting that guarantee. The department keeps in close touch with all the TECs. The speed at which suitable places will be found will vary from place to place and from TEC to TEC. But any problems in the supply of those places will be addressed as soon as we can.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, and the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, also talked about employment training. The planned expenditure for employment training this year is £807 million, offering some 250,000 opportunities. That is a substantial investment. But training is not always the most effective way to help people. The aim of employment training is to help those who are unemployed. The Government

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now have a wider and more comprehensive range of different forms of assistance such as employment action, with a budget of £178 million and 60,000 opportunities, and the employment services measures such as jobclubs. That is just an indication that the Government take seriously their duty to assist those who wish to keep their skills up to date through employment action or change them through employment training. The Government will of course wish to take stock of any programme that they run. I said a moment ago that the Government always question what they are doing to see whether they are doing the right thing.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, tried to show that because of the recession companies are not spending as much on training as they were when economic conditions were better. Of the employers surveyed by the department's Skills need in Britain Survey of 1991, 37 per cent. reported that the average number of off-the-job training days funded or arranged per employer was higher than in the previous year compared to only 6 per cent. who said it was lower. Employers are playing their fair part in ensuring that their employees are trained and upskilled.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, the Minister referred to 37 per cent. plus 6 per cent. That is 43 per cent. What about the other 57 per cent?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the others will remain at their previous level of training. That indicates that there is a balance of companies increasing rather than decreasing their spending.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, asked me a number of questions. I have answered one or two. He taunted me as to whether there is a national body for training. Of course there is one: the National Training Task Force upon which Bill Jordan, on behalf of the
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trades union movement, sits with leading businessmen. That offers strategy guidance and gives leadership. It is undertaking key studies with a commitment to publishing the outcomes, where appropriate. I believe that the noble Lord knew that.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, the Minister is well aware that that body has no executive authority. I am talking about a national body with executive authority to give a strategy to planning the country's training needs and to monitor the results.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I know exactly what the noble Lord is talking about. He talks not only about what he would like us to do; he talks disparagingly of the TECs' ability to achieve their task of building up Britain's skills. He hankers after an interventionist approach that has already been tried and found wanting.
"I have seen the future and it works",
said J.L. Steffens, writing of the Soviet Union in 1919. We now know that state-managed economies do not work. What is true of the economy as a whole is true pre-eminently of training. Training works when businesses manage it to secure business goals, not when governments intervene to create a straitjacket for businesses. That is why we attach importance to investors in people. The standard for business investment is skills set by business people to meet business goals.
Our approach is working. Training is now higher than ever on the business agenda. Business is investing more in training. Businesses are planning and budgeting for their training better, and people at work are better qualified. Government strategy has contributed to that major change in our training culture. Our investment in TEC programmes alone of £2.2 billion a year is substantial, and it is clear that our investment is paying dividends.
House adjourned at six minutes before seven o'clock.