Lords Sitting of 18 November 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 Chester.
Earl Spencer Earl Spencer —Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

Overseas Trade Forecast
Viscount Caldecote Viscount Caldecote asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the forecast deficit on the visible balance of overseas trade for 1993 and 1994.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley): My Lords, the deficit on the balance of visible trade is forecast to be £19½ billion in 1993. Forecasts for later years are not available.
Viscount Caldecote: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that clear but somewhat limited reply. Does he not agree that that figure of £19½ billion deficit for 1993 is a matter of grave concern? Will he give an assurance that Her Majesty's Government now accept that an increase in output of manufacturing industry is of prime importance if we are to achieve a situation of sustainable growth in the economy? Can he assure us that the Government will do everything possible to encourage that increase?
Lord Henley: My Lords, obviously I accept what my noble friend says. The figure is of grave concern but I emphasise that it is only an estimate. I accept what my noble friend has to say about the importance of manufacturing output, but I would also say that obviously the key to success in the world export markets must be for the United Kingdom producers themselves to keep quality high and costs low; that is, to produce goods which people overseas wish to buy.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, will the noble Lord give the House an indication as to how much of the £19½ billion trade deficit he has forecast will be incurred between ourselves and the remainder of the European Community countries, the deficit of which at the moment is running at £51½ billion per annum? Is the noble Lord aware that in the first six months of next year it will be difficult to determine what the total visible trade deficit is because we shall be without any statistics relating to our trade with the remaining countries of the EC?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not accept the noble Lord's figures. The latest full year figures which I have are the figures for 1991 and the deficit with our European partners is only £½ billion. It is estimated that our deficit for this year will be £2½ billion but not the £5 billion that the noble Lord is saying. As regards the second part of the noble Lord's question, I think
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we dealt with that quite adequately on 22nd June last year when we discussed the new statistics that will be coming out as from next year.
Lord Bruce of Doningto: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there is already a £4 billion deficit this year?
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, in view of the figures he has just quoted, does the Minister consider that import saving is of as much importance as exports? If so, will the Minister pay attention to the fact that we import timber and timber products to the extent of £6.25 billion per annum? In those circumstances, would it not be wise to have a more active forestry policy in this country?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am not going to be drawn into the question of a more active forestry policy. Obviously we would like to limit the amount of imports wherever possible, but without using any unfair methods. Clearly we cannot discriminate against imports due to our various EC and GATT obligations. We do not believe in protectionism.
Lord Morris: My Lords, arising from the question of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, why is it that fellow members of the European Community buy goods cheap from us and sell dear to us?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am not quite sure if I follow what my noble friend is getting at. I was trying to say that I did not accept the figures of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. Our estimate for this year is a deficit with our European partners of some £2½ billion. I have to say that the share of the United Kingdom's exports to the EC has been steadily increasing throughout the last 10 years and is now something of the order of 58 per cent.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, is it not true that that figure of £19.5 billion includes some success stories in terms of lowering the deficit? The very fact that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, brought the attention of the House to the forestry problem also makes me want to make the point that there is a deficit of £6 billion on the food account. Will the Minister confirm that the motor industry account, for example, is no longer likely to be in deficit this year and that that is a true success story?
Lord Henley: My Lords, obviously there are successes in the figures. I do not have in front of me the particular figures for the motor industry, but I am certainly prepared to write to the noble Baroness. Returning to the question of our trade balance with Europe, the deficit has been steadily falling since about 1988 and it is, as I said, this year estimated to be something of the order of £2½ billion.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that that figure is half the estimate of £5 billion put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce? The noble Lord's figure is hardly in accord with the actual figures for this year so far, which are on public record.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not have the figures my noble friend has, nor the figures quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. The figure I have in front of me is an estimated deficit for this year of some £2½ billion.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: My Lords, has the noble Lord observed that for the first time during a recession this country is running a deficit in its balance of payments whereas in all previous recessions within history we have run a surplus? Have the Government reached any conclusion as to why that should be so?
Lord Henley: My Lords, our share of world trade has stabilised in the 1980s after a steady fall in the years since the war. It has now stabilised at around 5 per cent. of world trade. That shows that United Kingdom exporters are competing successfully in world markets and it belies the notion of there being any structural problems in industry. I should have thought that the vast amount of inward investment we are receiving from both Japan and the United States is some indication that the hard-headed people making those investment decisions do not see the structural problems in British industry which the noble Lord implied.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: My Lords, the Minister did not answer my question. Have the Government reached any conclusion? Is it due to the rundown in our manufacturing industry that we are running a deficit instead of a surplus, which has always been the case in previous recessions?
Lord Henley: My Lords, what I was trying to say was that I do not think that the fact that there is a deficit during this recession, whereas in the past there has not been a deficit, indicates that there are any structural weaknesses in British industry.
Lord Annan: My Lords, could one answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, be that there has been a change in government policy, because it was not so long ago that we listened to the noble Lord, Lord Young, at the Dispatch Box saying that the level of manufacturing industry was a matter of indifference and what mattered was service industries? The noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, is quite right to ask this Question.
Lord Henley: My Lords, in answering my noble friend Lord Caldecote I emphasised that the Government do believe that manufacturing industry is of prime importance.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is not the Minister aware that in his supplementary question the noble Viscount put his finger on the most dangerous facet of what is taking place; namely, the reduction in our manufacturing base? Does not the Minister understand that the only target which has been hit so far is the prediction by all those involved in such matters that approximately 30,000 jobs a year would be lost in the manufacturing sector? That is the only target which the Government have hit so far. When is it going to end?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Lord is not correct. Export volumes are at a very high level. They reached their peak—at record levels—last May. That belies what the noble Lord said.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the accumulated deficit since 1990, including the forecast he gave, is over £50 billion and that the accumulated deficit since the general election of 1987 is over £80 billion? Is that not a barometer of economic mismanagement? Do the Government have any policies to bring trade back into balance, apart from massive devaluation?
Lord Henley: My Lords, obviously the change in the value of the pound will provide a great many opportunities for exporters, but we have never set that as the sole panacea in terms of encouraging exports and improving our trade figures. We already spend very large amounts of money, in both the Foreign Office and the Department of Trade and Industry, in encouraging exports. Some 2,000 staff are employed by the DTI on those very activities. As I said, the fall in the value of the pound will provide new opportunities for exporters, but it must in the end be a matter for British industry to produce the right goods at the right price so as to sell them abroad.

Minicab Drivers: Sex Discrimination
2.46 p.m.
Lord Blyth Lord Blyth asked Her Majesty's Government:
Why the Department of Employment refused a request by a women's cab firm that such firms should be exempt from sex equality legislation.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the employer sought to place an advertisement for minicab drivers with the Richmond jobcentre. It emerged that the employer was prepared to consider women only. It is unlawful discrimination, contrary to Section 6 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, to discriminate against a man in arrangements made for the purpose of determining who should be offered employment. Jobcentre staff therefore acted correctly.
Lord Blyth: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for that reply. But does he accept that the company involved, which I did not name in my Question, runs a two-tier firm, one section of which employs male drivers and the other section of which attempts to provide a minicab service operated with women drivers? Therefore it employs both sexes. Does he not agree that there is great demand among women for cabs driven by women because many women are afraid of minicab drivers, and every week one sees reports of rapes taking place in minicabs? Can the Minister help in this matter? Can the Government not make an exception in this case, which seems to be genuine?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the Government appreciate the concerns expressed but consider that a change in the sex discrimination legislation would not be justified. The requirement is for reliable drivers of either sex.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, is the Minister not aware that there have been a number of horrific attacks on women passengers by bogus taxi drivers? Is there not a case for more regulation in the area of minicab operations? Is there not a case also for looking at exceptions here because I understand that the EOC is sympathetic?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the Government deplore attacks on women and consider safety a top priority. However, we question the extent to which changing the sex discrimination law to permit employers to employ only women taxi drivers would address the more complex problem of women's safety.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, does the Minister agree that if the law is as he says, then clearly the law is an ass? Should it not now be amended to make the perfectly common sense amendment that women may be allowed to drive minicabs in small firms so long as the firm operates another part of the company to employ males?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, there are problems. The drivers gain or may gain some benefit from the jobs that they undertake. They receive a percentage of each fare charge, set a fee for each trip or passenger or may receive tips from passengers. The firm would contravene Section 6(2) (a) of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 if it chose a driver for a particular job on the grounds of that driver's sex.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, if Section 6(2) (a) of the Sex Discrimination Act does not make sense in those human terms, does the noble Viscount agree that it ought to be amended? Does he not feel that there ought to be some form of derogation? It is not a question of women drinking in the bar at El Vino's; it is a question of their security, is it not?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, what is at issue here is a recruitment practice which is plainly unlawful. We must avoid creating a false impression about the extent to which women are at risk.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, was the noble Viscount suggesting that women passengers might give smaller tips than men do? That is certainly not my experience. Is it not a fact that if a firm employs both male and female drivers, that firm is at liberty to deploy its staff so as to ensure the safety and security of women? Furthermore, does he accept that there are exceptions to the Sex Discrimination Act? If the Equal Opportunities Commission is favourable to an exception in this case, does he agree that it would be to the benefit of the community as a whole if the Home Office would consult with the commission about an appropriate amendment?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I draw the noble Baroness's attention to my earlier Answer with regard to Section 6(2) (a) of the Sex Discrimination Act. There are problems that would arise. As regards exceptions to the Act, Section 7 acknowledges that in certain very limited circumstances sex may be a genuine occupational qualification (GOQ) for a job;
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for instance, where a man or a woman is needed because of physical form, for example, as an actor or a model.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am sure that the House has understood the noble Viscount's interpretation of the law. Is not the question now whether he will ask his right honourable friend the responsible Minister to consider whether the law ought to be changed?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I shall draw the comments made on this Question to the attention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, at the risk of being hit on the head, does the Minister agree that if women want equality, which they now have, they must accept the disadvantages as well as the advantages?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the Sex Discrimination Act fulfils a very valuable purpose; namely, to promote equality of opportunity between men and women generally.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, if the Minister means it when he says that the Government are concerned for the safety of women, does he not agree that something should be done to protect women more when they use public transport? I am sure that I cannot be the only woman in this House who feels quite uncomfortable when using the tubes after a certain time in the evening. Will he accept that it is very disconcerting to find that there are not any staff around? Could that area not be looked at? Does it not require a change in the law?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I believe that that is wide of the Question on the Order Paper.
Lord Blyth: My Lords, does the Minister accept that, although I do not suggest anything about his sexual preferences, I would sooner be raped by a female minicab driver than a male one?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, if the noble Lord promises not to talk about my sexual preferences, I shall promise not to talk about his.

Grant-Maintained Schools
2.55 p.m.
Lord Lord Desai asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their estimate of the number of grant-maintained schools in 1994.
The Minister of State, Department of Education (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, current forecasts suggest that over 1,500 grant-maintained schools will have been approved by April 1994. Projections are based on term-on-term growth in numbers since the first schools were incorporated in September 1989.
Lord Desai: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Inasmuch as revenue depends upon the projection, if the forecast proves to be too optimistic, can she say whether there is a contingency plan to allocate funds differently from that predicted in the Autumn Statement?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, we have no reason at all to move away from believing that those projections will be met. There are already 342 schools either up and running or approved. We know that there are 158 ballots already that are "yes" ballots waiting for determination. We know that there have been 200 ballots in the past two months. We have every reason to believe that that target will be met.
Baroness David: My Lords, according to my figures, £61 million will be spent this year, £157 million next year, £294 million the following year and £446 million in 1995–96. If there are not a sufficient number of grant-maintained schools to justify those figures, as my noble friend asked, will some of the money go back to the LEA and to the schools, which will need the money desperately?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, there is no question of changing the system of payment. I do not know whether the noble Baroness refers to capital or recurrent spending. We expect on capital to spend £500 million over the next three years. Taking capital and grants together, it will be £900 million over the next three years. If those schools do not come on stream and grow in the numbers we expect, that money will not be spent; and it is a matter for the department to decide what to do with it. The system itself will not be changed.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the forecasts on the future numbers of grant-maintained schools are based on a continuation of the Government's policy of bribing local education authority schools to opt out by offering them higher capital grants than those received by schools which remain local authority schools? Does she consider it fair to either parents or pupils in schools which remain within the LEA?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I do not accept that that is a bribe. There are some schools now in the grant-maintained sector that have had years and years of neglect by the local education authorities. Therefore the burden is disproportionate.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister accept that satisfactory progress is being made with regard to grant-maintained schools, especially in the light of the very hostile attitude taken by many local authorities to parents wishing to have their schools opt out of the local education authority system? In particular, are there any steps she can take to prevent authorities such as Nottinghamshire from having its officials put out quite false and misleading information to parents?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my noble friend makes a very important point. Perhaps the local authorities should spend energy supporting grant-maintained schools instead of opposing them. Some of the opposition has been quite scurrilous. If he does not know it, perhaps for the record I should say that I called for a report from the chief education officer of Nottingham to explain just why it has been so hostile to two schools in particular.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I revert to the answer that the Minister gave to my question. Is she not aware of the fact that capital spending has always been determined not by the local education authorities but by the Department of Education and Science in the past and now by the Department for Education? If there is any neglect, is it not entirely a function of the Department of Education's core performance in this way?
Baroness Blatch: No, my Lords. Again, I do not accept the noble Baroness's point. In replying to her I was making a criticism of the priorities for spending in many local authorities.
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: My Lords, can the Minister give any figures for the number of opted out schools that were formerly grammar schools and schools which are threatened with closure? What proportion of those which have opted out or are proposing to do so are numbered among them?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, 84 per cent. of the schools that are grant maintained are non-selective; therefore 16 per cent. of them are selective. As for the schools that applied that were subject to both closure proposals as well as grant-maintained applications, there were 64 schools and 33 of them were accepted. The case for closure was accepted because it was a better case made for closure than for grant maintained. The rest were all accepted for grant-maintained status.

Electricity Price Increases and Jobs
3 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Chester The Lord Bishop of Chester asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will act to prevent the potentially substantial number of job losses which is likely to be incurred by ICI and other companies as a result of the increases in electricity prices since privatisation.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Baroness Denton of Wakefield): My Lords, electricity prices will no doubt be only one of the factors which ICI and other companies take into account in determining future plans. ICI has said that it is also facing significant expenditure for environmental and other reasons. Overall, average electricity prices to large industrial users have fallen in real terms during the past three years. All customers whose maximum demand is more than one megawatt can now shop around in a competitive market for their supplies at the keenest possible prices. That includes ICI.
The Lord Bishop of Chester: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Is she aware that my request for government intervention in this matter accords with the speech made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Guildhall on 29th October when he urged us to do everything to support industry? Is she further aware that, according to ICI's figures, electricity price rises since privatisation amount to 60

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per cent. and therefore Runcorn's ICI chlorine plant, which uses more electricity than the City of Liverpool, will close because it cannot compete in world markets if it cannot obtain electricity at a better price than at present, and that will have a domino effect on the chlorine-related industries in Runcorn, with the loss of 4,000 jobs at first and possibly 18,000 jobs? That will cause devastation to this important area of my diocese.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am pleased to inform the right reverend Prelate that we work to the same policy as the Chancellor. It has been our policy to open up the electricity market to competition wherever possible, to expose the utilities to private sector discipline and to ensure that customers' interests are looked after by an independent regulator. I quoted ICI's statement that there were environmental and other reasons for the expenditure at sites such as Runcorn. Furthermore, prior to privatisation of the electricity supply industry ICI and other large users received favourable terms for electricity under the QICS scheme. That scheme is essentially incompatible with a competitive market.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, will the Minister give the House an undertaking that the Government will give detailed consideration to the written evidence which I understand ICI will give the DTI's coal review, including proposals for a mechanism to resolve the problems of major energy users as regards pool pricing?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am pleased to assure the noble Lord that DTI officials are engaged in dialogue with the energy intensive users' group and the major users' energy council. After collecting all the relevant information we shall be able to consider this issue in future.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, is not the real problem the operation of the electricity generating pool? Why is it not possible for this particular factory to have an allocated power station from the National Grid?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, it is perfectly possible for companies to generate their own electricity, as indeed ICI does at Teesside.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is it not the case that the Electricity Act gave to the regulator regulation over prices for domestic consumers and even for small business users but not for large business users? Given that ICI at Runcorn consumes approximately 1 per cent. of all the electricity transmitted at high tension in the National Grid and given that with this extraordinary price increase closure at Runcorn would cause devastation in the area, is it not the case that there should be some change in the Act to make sure that Offer has the power to regulate prices to industrial consumers? Competition is simply not working.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I disagree with the noble Lord that competition is not working. Prices to industrial consumers, including
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some large consumers, have fallen in real terms since privatisation. Indeed, prices to industrial customers fell by about 12 per cent. in real terms between the second quarter of 1989 and the second quarter of 1992. Therefore, it cannot be said that competition is not working.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, how does the Minister respond to the report by Phillips and Drew that some £60 million has moved directly from ICI profits to the profits of the generators?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, as I said earlier, it is not for industries to subsidise certain other specific industries.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, if competition is working, why is it that competitors in Germany are able to buy electricity at more favourable prices than the British chemical industry?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, we are aware of situations in Europe in respect of these issues. Where we have specific instances and where companies have specific interests in incidents, they can and will be referred to the Commission. The Government are committed to the development of a single energy market in Europe.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, if the Minister believes that one industry should not subsidise the electricity prices of another, why is it that all of industry and all domestic consumers must subsidise the nuclear electricity industry through the nuclear levy?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I must disagree with that comment. The nuclear levy is imposed to cover the cost of decommissioning nuclear power stations. That levy is required whether or not stations are producing electricity.

Business
3.7 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I should like to say a word about this afternoon's debates standing in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Redesdale and Lord Mackie of Benshie. As the mover is allowed 15 minutes and the Minister should rise to reply not less than 20 minutes before the scheduled end of the debate, in the case of the debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, it means that all other speeches should be limited to a maximum of 14 minutes. If any noble Lord should speak at greater length he would do so at the expense of subsequent speakers in the debate. In the case of the debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, the number of speakers is such that it is not necessary to propose a formal time limit. However, I am sure that noble Lords will agree that it would conform with the spirit of these short debates if they keep their speeches within the 15 minutes which apply to the mover of the Motion.

The North East: Economy
3.8 p.m.
Lord Redesdale Lord Redesdale rose to call attention to the economy of the North East; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I wish to thank all noble Lords who are taking part in the debate. I also thank the many noble Lords who wrote to me saying that they would have liked to take part in the debate but were unable to do so. I am pleased in particular that the noble Baroness, Lady Denton of Wakefield, is to reply to the debate because she has a great deal of knowledge of the area.
In the North East during the past decade the transformation from reliance on the industries which were the backbone of the industrial revolution to an economy which has become very diverse is a remarkable achievement. The region is now a leading manufacturer of products ranging from cars and high-technology equipment to food products. Many are known throughout Europe; for example, Newcastle Brown Ale, a product which I can vouch for personally.
The developing industries have proved themselves to be ahead of the competition in many overseas markets. Indeed, the North East is now the leading exporting region in Britain with 40 per cent. of its GDP coming from exports. That basic change in the area's economy can be seen only as a long-term process that requires commitment and support from the Government.
The Government have proved over the past 10 years that they are committed to the growth of the economy in the North East. Indeed, the fact that the area has become a manufacturing success story is in no small part due to policies instituted by the Government; for example, the assisted area programme. Those have proved remarkably successful in drawing overseas companies and investments through organisations such as the Northern Development Company, which is able to market the region throughout the world, and the development corporations of both Tyne and Wear and Teesside which are seen as exceptionally successful in helping companies to establish themselves in the North East. Indeed, it is through the work of the development companies that many of the companies that were originally dependent upon the local market are now actively seeking markets abroad.
The cautious optimism which the second quarterly statement of the Northern Development Company's survey conveyed has been swept away by the NDC survey of the third quarter, which shows that the recession is now clearly beginning to bite in the North East. One area of policy which would be of supreme benefit to the region would be the retention and even the expansion of the assisted area status programme.
The North of England as a whole is faced with a serious unemployment situation. The figure is currently running at 11.5 per cent. which is worse than when the assisted area boundaries were last reviewed. The region has the highest rate of unemployment in Great Britain, a position that it has held for the past
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20 years. There are no indications in the medium term that that position will change. At the very least, the North of England needs to retain its present coverage of assisted areas and also needs coverage to be extended to those areas where unemployment is likely to rise significantly over the next year and where that rise in unemployment can clearly be identified as being both long term and structural in nature. It is essential that the North of England retains assisted area status, even in those areas where there have been some relative improvements in unemployment rates compared with the regional average, as it is those areas which typically contain many of the high quality sites and general infrastructure which are likely to attract inward investment.
The areas to which I refer which need development are the intermediate areas of the A.1 corridor, including Durham and Consett and the areas around Amble, Alnwick, Ashington and Morpeth. Their upgrading to development status would make them both eligible for regional selective assistance and EC grants—an enormous boost to these regions because they become immediately more attractive to companies investing.
The North East must continue to rely upon inward investment to provide the bulk of new employment opportunities in the manufacturing sector in the medium term. If the performance of the region over the past five years can be replicated up to 1995, even allowing for a poorer climate for international investment and more intense international competition, the North of England could expect to secure between 15,000 and 20,000 jobs through inward investment. That alone would provide immense benefits to the local business base and would ensure that the significant improvement that has occurred in the regional economy in recent years is not arrested.
To make the assisted areas even more attractive I hope that the Government will consider giving training schemes a higher priority. An important point to note is that one of the primary reasons that industries have established plants in the North East is due to their high opinion of the quality of the workforce and the exceptional record of industrial relations that has led to a very low loss of working days through industrial action.
Although seven years ago 35 per cent. of non-service sector workers in the North were employed in coal, shipbuilding and steel, and this has now fallen to 3 per cent., the heavy industries which remain are more competitive. A prime example is British Steel which is progressing with its £100 million investment on Teesside, having recently installed a new high-tech rolling mill. Although that rolling mill will lead to job losses, it ensures that the plant remains viable.
There are many large-scale successful companies which replaced the mass employers of heavy industry. A good example of that is Derwent Valley Foods. Ten years ago four local people formed that company. It was initially based in a Nissen Hut on the site of the former steel works at Consett in County Durham. Now the company occupies three sites in the town, employs over 250 people and has become the UK's

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leading producer of adult snacks. The company has earned wide recognition and numerous awards, including the accolade "Food Company of the Year". I particularly wanted to use that company as an example as its amusing and effective advertising stresses as a marketing ploy that the product is from Consett, County Durham.
Without detracting from the achievements of domestic companies, the region is proud of its record of attracting overseas companies. The best known foreign investment in the area is the Nissan car plant, which exhibited such impressive start-up speed. By the end of 1991, Nissan was spending approximately £150 million per annum in the North of England on components, supplies and services. Thirty-six local companies have component or material contracts with Nissan and up to £17 million is spent on local facilities and general service suppliers. In addition, since car production began in Sunderland in July 1986, 19 new automotive suppliers have moved to the region, bringing the current total to 23. Almost 2,000 employees are now in direct supplier companies dedicated to Nissan business.
The experience from Nissan's investment seems to show that inward investment can lead to local business growth and further inward investment. There has been a comparative lack of small firms and self-employed people in the region. I hope that that spin-off will do something to tackle this problem. The importance of inward investment to the region is apparent, and in the light of this I very much hope that both the GATT round is completed and the Maastricht Treaty is ratified with the greatest speed. For as protectionism would damage all regions, it would damage the North East in particular, with such a large percentage of the region's GDP being derived from exports.
Having said that the region is heavily reliant on income from exports, it is logical that the region should be well linked to its markets. The danger in not doing this is that the region will become peripheral within the European single market. The region's connection with the Channel Tunnel is of particular importance, as Germany and France are our two biggest export destinations, being worth £14.7 billion and £11.6 billion respectively.
I hope that the Government will look again at their transport policy concerning rail links. Not only must the links to the markets be upgraded, but they must also be geared to the needs of exporters who are not only centring their attention on the European single market but are also looking for new markets in the area of the northern arc. The Government have emphasised that they are committed to capital spending on roads. The main artery that connects the North East with Europe is the A.1. Considering the importance of this road, it is surprising that it has not already been upgraded to motorway status. I hope that the Minister will be able to give an assurance that the upgrading of the A.1 will be completed by the end of the decade at the very latest, because the scheme will not only improve the speed of passage of exports on the way to Europe, but it will also show the Government's confidence and commitment to the North East as a major developing and manufacturing
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area. I do not suggest this lightly because I travel the road frequently and I know exactly how much disruption the scheme will cause.
I also hope that the Minister will be able to clarify whether the A.1 north of Newcastle will be upgraded to dual carriageway throughout its length, or at least as far as Alnwick. I have personal experience of the delays that this section of the single carriageway can cause, as well as the dangerous nature of this section of road in its present form.
The north-south flow of traffic throughout the country is seen as the natural route for exports. This is unfortunate as the North East is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the northern arc. The northern arc is a geographical band that spreads from Northern Ireland through the North East on through Denmark, Scandinavia and into Eastern Europe and Russia. The concept is that this northern trading area could, with improved communications, become a valuable trading region. It is wasteful to assume that goods destined for Northern Europe should travel via the Channel Tunnel or Channel ferries and then be transported through Holland, Belgium or France. There is definite interest from northern companies to create new markets in the area of the northern arc. Indeed, a seminar planned to look at this area of developing trade was flooded by inquiries from northern exporters.
The Government could substantially boost this trading area concept by upgrading one of two trans-Pennine routes, namely the A.69 or the A.66. This upgrading would in the long term significantly increase the importance of the North East and help to bring it into the centre of European trade rather than enforce the image that it is an area on the geographical periphery of Europe.
That major investment in infrastructure, which I should like to see the Government undertake as soon as possible, would not only give the region adequate links to markets but would also give the economy an injection of capital which one would hope would lead to recovery from the recession. I hope that the Minister will be able to give some assurance on the status of the assisted areas and also be able to answer my questions on the A.1. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.23 p.m.
Lord Elliott of Morpeth: My Lords, I begin by congratulating with enthusiasm the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, on his very well delivered speech. Those of us who knew his distinguished father as a friend feel that he would be proud of his son today. I thank him also for raising the subject of the economy of the North East. He is a young man, just arrived in your Lordships' House, and in all probability this is the first time he has taken part in a debate on the region of the North East. Some of us here have taken part in such debates on many occasions, both in your Lordships' House and in another place.
I very much appreciated what the noble Lord had to say about the region, having known it and its problems for quite a long time. He is right to stress the remarkable achievement which the North East has

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attained with regard to its exports. It is right also to emphasise that the region has known enormous government support, from governments of both parties.
The recession is biting, but it has been pleasing for many of us who have known the region's problems closely for a long time that it was longer in biting the North East of England than in other parts of the country. This was not least because of the success we have known in diversifying our industry in recent years.
The noble Lord talked of the region having the highest rate of unemployment. It often has had the highest rate of unemployment, and has now. And no wonder! The northern region, in terms of recasting its industry and recasting its means of employment, has had a mountain to climb. That is putting it mildly. It may surprise your Lordships to know that I can remember when North-East England, which for a long time now has known a considerable employment problem, had, in the definition given by the late Hugh Gaitskell, full employment. In the late 1940s there was full employment. Believe it or not, at that time we had 188 coalmines in east Northumberland and County Durham. There are five today, only two of which have any hope of a future.
We had full employment on the Tyne and Tees in terms of shipbuilding, with full order books. Consett Ironworks was booming. I can even remember in the late 1940s a great trade union row blowing up in County Durham when there was the suggestion that Italian labour be introduced into one of the mines there.
By the late 1950s the storm clouds were gathering with regard to employment; and the obvious signs of a major industry declining were there. Since the late 1950s, our major industry has declined. Goodness me!, think of that, my Lords. There were 149,000 men and boys employed in the pits in the North East of England. Now it is down to possibly one pit remaining open. The shipyards on the Tyne have all gone except one, and that is struggling for orders. There are no shipyards at all on the Wear, or in the once-proud shipbuilding town of Sunderland. It was the saddest thing possible that just when the shipyard had been modernised to make it one of the most modern not only in Europe but in the world, there were no further orders. The shipyard had to be closed and dismantled.
We climbed the mountain; what is more we are still climbing it. There is still much to do. As the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, outlined in his interesting speech, a great deal of new industry has been brought into the region and encouraged to come there. It employs an enormous number of people, many ex-mineworkers, ex-shipyard workers and ex-steel workers. What a blessing that is! There is still a great deal of unemployment and we must continue to work on it.
I interject that much of the new employment is far better than the old. Perhaps I may tell the noble Lord, who is a young man, that I have two memories of my youth. One is of visiting Consett Ironworks with a group of students. It was a dark November evening,
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and I still remember the flames, the heat, the unbelievable noise. I thought at that time that if there was a hell on earth anywhere, it must be a steelworks. The Consett Ironworks is now closed and many of its employees are in modern industry.
The second memory I have is of accepting a challenge, when I was a prospective Parliamentary candidate, to work a half shift. Thank goodness it was not a whole shift, I should never have recovered from it. The half shift was in the Duke Pit in Ashington. I did it, I worked at the face—or rather I did not work, I was there at the face, looked after by a splendid senior deputy. It was a two-foot seam and those good-humoured men, so far as I was concerned, were shovelling coal on to a moving belt underneath. At that time I thought what a terrible way it was for men to have to make a living.
So it is a great pleasure to me to know that there is much nicer and healthier employment now in so many areas of the North East than there was then. But the problem which the decline of major industry in that region brought about was an enormous one. It was a mountain that we had to climb. The great providers of jobs for generations—mining, shipbuilding, steel, heavy engineering—had gone. So it has been that over a considerable period of time now new industry has been encouraged to replace the old. We have known remarkable success. We have now got a varied industry with varied forms of employment in the region. That has come about in the periods of both Labour and Conservative Governments. I pay due tribute to both.
The debate which I recall in another place occurred after 35 years had elapsed since the end of the Second World War. As I was preparing a speech in another place for that debate, it occurred to me that 17½ of those years, by chance, had been with Labour Governments and 17½ years with Conservative Governments. Our score has gone up a little since then and that pleases me enormously. There were 17½ years of each government at that particular point 35 years on. I say in all sincerity that both major parties have done their best to restore the North East of England to a state of reasonable prosperity where it can contribute to the national good.
Of course mistakes were made. I do not suppose that any of us who know the region remember the regional employment premium with very great pleasure. That premium injected a great deal of money where it was needed: it also injected a great deal of money where it was not needed. So we learnt and we have been on a learning curve ever since.
I well remember the Labour victory of 1964. The Minister who became responsible for regional development was the late George Brown. What enormous energy and enthusiasm he had! I remember him saying in a speech that the Conservatives did not really know how to plan. He abolished development districts. We called them growth points then. He turned the whole region into a growth area. It was not very long before we were back to the growth points. The growth areas in turn developed into the highly successful enterprise zones which have done so much in recent years to restore our well-being.

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A very large part of the success of recent years has come from training. I can remember entering another place as a duly elected member and when the Newcastle upon Tyne polytechnic was not there. Now happily it is there. It has recently become, under the distinguished chancellorship of the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, the University of Northumbria. We wish it well. Since it has been in being so many people have gone through the polytechnic, as it was, and gained some training for life on which they could earn a modern way of living. So training in general has played an enormous part in the recovery which our region has known. It must go on doing so. I repeat: we are not yet to the top of the mountain. We still have a great deal of unemployment and we still have a great deal to do. But a great deal has been achieved.
In our various agencies there have been consider-able successes. The noble Lord mentioned the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation. That is one of the more recent attempts by a Conservative Government to assist the area into a state of prosperity again. It is five years old. I understand that it has a prospective life of 10 years. In five years it has achieved a very great deal. The other day I looked at the annual report of the development corporation and I quote from it. In the past year:
"Land reclaimed-350.8 acres; jobs created 3,752".
There is more about the number of housing units completed, and so on.
When we had the recent announcement about the package associated with pit closures given by my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade, it was most pleasing that included in that package was an extra £2 million for the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation. That will help the corporation enormously to further extend the Sunderland and Viking Enterprise Parks. The enterprise park in Newcastle has been such an enormous success and has created quite a number of new jobs.
I sum up by always believing that the North East of England has a great future. We are an ingenious and adaptable people. We have known enormous employment problems. In common with all other areas in the country—here again I do so agree with the noble Lord—the region would benefit enormously by the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. Without a single market heaven help the North East of England. I am sure we shall get that ratification.
Let us continue the encouragement of enterprise zones. How successful they have been! It is a concentration on areas to which businesses wish to come and in which businesses will naturally develop. That has been very important to us and let us continue with it. Let us also continue with the encouragement of English Estates with its headquarters on the oldest trading estate of all at Team Valley in Gateshead. The English Estates has done much to help the region. We must continue that encouragement in the widest sense with all forms of training.
I was born in the North East of England. I claim to know its people. They are proud people. The main thing which the people of the North East of England
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wish is that they shall play their fullest part in the establishment of national prosperity. I believe that they will.
3.37 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, I too wish to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, not only on his most admirable speech but on his good fortune in winning the ballot to have this debate today. He may remember that I said informally to him yesterday that he had anticipated me by about a month. I had hoped to raise the same topic in an Unstarred Question, but it is much better to have it as a balloted debate because at the very least we are having it at prime time.
I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me if I sometimes refer to the North rather than to the North East. He referred to the North himself on several occasions. I do so because the North is an official region. I say that because many of the official facts, including statistics, are related to the northern region and not just to the North East. The noble Lord will also know that the northern region is the North East plus Cumbria. The features and problems of Cumbria are in fact very similar to those of the North East.
The noble Lord, Lord Elliott of Morpeth, will not expect me to agree with everything he said. He and I are old adversaries both here and in another place in debates about the northern region. However, I must agree with him that there has been substantial progress. I intend to make reference to some of the features of that progress in the course of my remarks. It must not be forgotten—I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, mentioned it—that the northern region remains the region with the highest unemployment. He referred to 20 years, but the period is longer than that. Ever since records were kept the northern region has had the highest rate of unemployment.
At the moment that rate is 13.1 per cent. There is presently a total of 139,800 people unemployed in the North East. In the past four months there has been a net growth of 4,400 unemployed, and what is even more disturbing is that announcements have been made in recent weeks—indeed, within the last month—of a further 6,000 redundancies, excluding those that will arise from the pit closures. That will add considerably to the problems of the North East. As the Minister knows, within the last week the Confederation of British Industry has issued its regional trends survey. That shows that output will fall in every region except three—and the North is not one of them.
The latest blow to the North East is, of course, the proposed closure of more pits. It is impossible to be optimistic about the outcome of the review. It is highly likely that within a year only one pit will remain in the North East. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, referred to one in County Durham. There are five pits there at the moment, but I am sure that only one will be left in 12 months' time. Some 4,500 miners' jobs are involved, and if we accept the usual multiplier figure, an additional 9,000 jobs in related industries and

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services will be affected by the closures. These figures will cancel out the gains which have been made in the region in recent years.
I hope that the devastating effect of all these figures will be seriously considered by the Government when they assess the grant to be made to the Northern Development Company. The NDC continues to do splendid work in the region. It enjoys the support of employers, trade unions, businesses, local authorities, small businesses and others—indeed, of everyone. The NDC received £1.41 million from the Department of Trade and Industry for its inward investment work this year. I hope that the Government will agree—I am sure that they will—that the company made excellent use of every penny of that money. However, there must be not only an increase next year because of the continuing substantial increase in the number of jobless, some of which I have just spelt out, but also an addition because of the problems which will arise from the further pit closures which in my view will undoubtedly come.
Every effort must be made to stimulate manufacturing industry in the region. As the noble Lord said, the workers of the North have a tradition of work in heavy industries such as coal, steel and shipbuilding, so they are well fitted to adapt to the newer manufacturing businesses, provided—and it is an important proviso—that proper and adequate training facilities are made available. I have to say to the Minister that I am not entirely convinced that the variety and depth of the training provision needed are available. I hope that the Government will examine this matter closely.
Some time ago the Minister admitted in answer to a Question from me that there has been a transfer of training money from the North to the South. Figures published on 11th November show the extent of the budgetary changes for the training and enterprise councils. The biggest loser is the northern region where the TEC budgets have been cut by no less than £21 million. In the region with the highest rate of unemployment, how on earth can that be justified? If the North is to make economic progress, adequate training is absolutely essential. We must remember that, in addition to the figures that I have given, 3,513 businesses failed during the first nine months of this year, an increase of 36.8 per cent. on last year. It takes little imagination to realise what a massive task faces the training and enterprise councils, internal training programmes and, of course, the colleges and other educational institutions if they are to meet those training needs.
I make a brief, but important, reference to the splendid work being done by the two urban development corporations in the North East. Both have been mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Redesdale and Lord Elliott. Perhaps I have one advantage in that I am deputy chairman of the Teesside Development Corporation, so perhaps I should spend the rest of my speech praising what we have done. However, all that I will say is that in the five years since we started we have created 7,000 new jobs and have met our other objective —the objective
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of all UDCs—which is to clear the dereliction. The place is transformed. As deputy chairman I offer an open invitation to any Member of your Lordships' House who would like to come to see what we have done and what we are doing.
The same story can be told of the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation where a transformation of the banks of the Rivers Tyne and Wear is taking place. Perhaps I might advise the noble Lord, Lord Elliott—and I am being helpful here; he knows that I am always helpful—that, although I believe he said that 3,000 jobs had been created, I had a brief from the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation this week which says that it has created 9,000 jobs
Lord Elliott of Morpeth: My Lords, my figure was for the past year.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, I hope that I am right and I am sure that the noble Lord joins me in that.
The Minister will be aware that UDCs receive their core funding from the Government. Speaking for Teesside Development Corporation—and I think that I can speak for the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation also—I can say that the Government have been very co-operative in recognising the needs of both areas. I am not just saying that in the hope that our next application will be favourably considered, although if it has a spin-off, so be it. Eventually, of course, the areas covered by the UDCs must return to democratic control. In the meantime—and I make this point quite genuinely—I hope that the Government will allow both corporations to complete their tasks. Those tasks have been defined for some time now and if, as the noble Lord said, it takes another five years, perhaps that is the length of time that is needed.
I have argued for many years that the North's greatest asset is the quality of its people, and of its workforce in particular. They are hard-working, fair, amenable to suggestion—and that certainly includes training—and responsible, but I often wonder whether those qualities are sufficiently advertised not only in this country but abroad. When I was a Member of another place and doing my bit to try to attract industry to my constituency, I soon discovered that employers were primarily concerned about the quality of the workforce. Although they wanted to know about the grants and other incentives, it was that factor which in many cases—perhaps in all—finally decided them to come to a particular area of the North or the North East in order to meet the needs of their companies. I am not sure that the Government have a role in this matter, but others certainly have, such as the CBI, the chambers of trade and commerce and the training and enterprise councils. I hope that more will be done in this respect.
I turn to tourism. The North East has a great deal to offer and the Northumbria Tourist Board plays an important role in increasing the number of visitors to the area. The board has over the years taken some important and imaginative initiatives and has been strongly supported by many of the local authorities. It must be said, however, that, in spite of its many attractions, the North East is still not regarded by

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most people as a holiday area. Tourism is Britain's biggest export and it is sad that an area like the North East is not earning its fair share of it.
I am deeply concerned to learn that money for the English Tourist Board, which includes funds for the 11 regional boards, is to be progressively cut over the next two years. It will get £13.9 million in 1993–94 and £9 million 1995–96. If the Minister tells me, as she probably will, that the allocations to the regional boards is a matter for the English Tourist Board, is there not a case for intervention when one realises the difficulties and the problems of the North East? I hope that the Government will have a close look at the position.
I conclude with a fervent plea—and underline what the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, said—that the Government retain and indeed extend the present coverage of assisted areas. It is clear from the evidence of past investments that the North will not attract the necessary inward investment without this status. Had time permitted I could have produced a battery of statistics on this matter but presumably the Government themselves examine what effect assisted area status has. If that happens in this case, the noble Baroness will find that the North's case is absolutely unanswerable.
While much has been achieved in the North East in recent years there is still a great deal to be done. What worries me in particular is that some of the structures which have helped—this point was referred to by both previous speakers—are being dismantled. I suggest to your Lordships that we are at the end of an era in the North East and we could be on the threshold of a new and perhaps even more exciting era. I stress the words "could be" because so much remains to be done and some government policies frankly are not helping. A good start has been made by the degree of diversification, by attracting and retaining world class companies, by exporting more than we have ever done in the region's history and by the development of effective partnerships between public and private sector interests. All of those and other features demonstrate that the North East is not a begging bowl economy. We are a self-help and cohesive community. But the Government have an important role to play and I hope that they will act on the many useful and constructive suggestions which have been made in this valuable debate today.
3.51 p.m.
Viscount Ridley: My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, for introducing this debate today. He will not mind my saying that he is a relatively recent graduate of the University of Newcastle, but a distinguished one. I am also delighted to see that he now shares a peg in the cloakroom with my noble brother. Whether or not he shares his views, I have yet to find out.
I was reluctant to take part in this debate because I am anxious to avoid any trace of party politics. I do not want to join the chorus of those who want more public money for this part of England. We are all aware that there is not going to be much more public money for anything for quite a long time. But in
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North-East England, where I have spent all my life, and which has probably always had a relatively high level of unemployment and sadly probably always will, there are indeed some worries. I shall refer to only one of those today, and that concerns the aluminium industry, which is, as your Lordships will be aware, intimately linked to the coal industry. The issue was raised at Question Time yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Williams.
I do this because I was deeply involved more than 20 years ago in the successful attempt to attract Alcan to Lynemouth in Northumberland. I am still emotionally attached to that period. At that time I was chairman of the Northumberland County Council. We had important help from the government of the day. We were jointly able to provide for the needs of Alcan to establish a large smelter on the coast linked to its own power station and Ellington Colliery. There were then four smelters: this one, in England, one in Wales and two in Scotland. Invergordon has now permanently closed, and British Alcan, as it now is, remains the largest one in Britain. It was a large investment and it created a great many jobs. Now, British Alcan's smelter is threatened, and already half its production has ceased. To reopen that half, and to modernise the pollution control equipment to meet EC regulations, will cost £80 million. In order to justify this money, British Alcan has to have a guarantee of supplies of raw materials for at least 20 years. The key to this is the cost of fuel, because aluminium is only produced by electricity, and to compete on the world market, the cost of electricity must come down—below £1 per gigajoule. I do know what a gigajoule is. I am sure that your Lordships know too so I shall not weary the House with a description of it. It is an important thing. If this is not done, British aluminium will not be competitive and the smelter may have to close, probably for ever.
I do not need to paint the picture which the loss of the smelter would produce. We are not talking of a few hundred jobs but of more than 4,000. There would then be a loss of jobs in the colliery, the last in Northumberland, and fatal damage to the port of Blyth, through which the alumina is shipped, and to the power station as well. The port was the largest coal port in the country 30 years ago. I am not exaggerating. It would be a very serious setback for the North East. The jobs that would be lost would be far more than those that have been produced by the Nissan factory in Sunderland.
What has to be done? I believe that British Alcan is desperately keen to continue production and to play its part in keeping people in work. It has a good chance of success if fuel costs can be reduced. At the moment, the cost of deep-mined coal fed straight to the power station is too high. In time, perhaps costs from this colliery can be reduced, if there is a will to do so, which I believe there is. Nor do I think it relevant to argue whether this is done by a public or a privatised industry. I do not know. I do not think anyone knows. But much more important is that the people doing this should have regard to local interests.
There are alternative possibilities. One would be to import coal. As British Alcan needs at least 20 years'

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guaranteed supply of fuel at the right price, it does not believe that this is a realistic option; nor does it think it right to add to our already disastrous balance of payments situation by importing coal. We should all be glad that British Alcan takes that view.
Secondly, it could use another form of fuel, but again, it would not wish to put so many people out of work in the coal industry, and the investment already made would be wasted. British Alcan rejects this solution as impractical. There is a third option, which is hopeful, which is that it should be able to get for 20 years a supply of deep-mined and opencast coal mixed in about equal proportions. British Alcan needs in the order of 1.3 million tonnes per annum. With this 50:50 mix, it is probable that it can compete in the world market; otherwise it cannot. So what I have to ask is that, in the interests of thousands of jobs, we should, as a nation, accept the continuing need for opencast coal. It is approximately 25 per cent. cheaper than deep-mined coal. I do not know the exact figure because British Coal is not keen to publish it, but I think that that is about right, and it is a fact which cannot be ignored.
However, opencast mining arouses deep passions. I should know, having lived on top of it and among it for at least 50 years, since it started during the Second World War. It can devastate people's lives. It can ruin agricultural land. It is dirty, noisy, smelly and often dusty; but the land eventually recovers. Anyway we do not need any more arable land at the moment or for a long time to come. The environmental lobby hates it. My father fought the Opencast Coal Act 1958 in this House bitterly at the time. He would not enjoy what I am saying now. It is a rape of the countryside and I too have hated it as much as anyone else. But we have to bring ourselves to accept that we must have cheap coal if we are to preserve jobs in the aluminium industry and that we stand to lose far more than the landscape or hedgerows. We shall suffer far worse than mud on the roads, the disturbance of heavy lorries during the night and so forth if we cannot have it.
This is not a new idea. Opencast coal is not a new thing. It has been around for a long time and no doubt will continue in one way or another. It is exploiting what is one of the North East's most important assets. As the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, said, the quality of the workforce is very much another one. I hope that the review which the Government are rightly conducting into the coal industry's future will take note of all this and will explore the real cost of coal from above and below the surface. I do not view opencast coal as a threat to deep-mined coal. It will supply a cheaper fuel while the deep mines adjust to the new competitive world which they have to face.
It has been suggested that there is no need for opencast coal while the stocks at pitheads from the deep mines are so large. Of course it is possible that those stocks could be, for a limited period, made available before they completely deteriorate. I do not know, but they certainly would not be available for the 20-year period which is necessary. This would also need a massive distortion of costs in the price of coal,
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which is not open to us. I noted with interest a report in the Financial Times the other day that the German Government can subsidise the German coal industry to the tune of 3 billion deutschmarks a year. We could do that but I doubt whether we have any deutschmarks left to do it with.
We need a long-term commitment by planning authorities and government departments. In this field development area status for the area would be enormously helpful, a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, yesterday. We also have to suffer a sacrifice of amenities, albeit temporarily. But I believe that this has the real merit of not asking for much more public money, if any, only a sense of realism in facing what is a frightening threat to jobs in north east England. I end by saying that this matter is urgent.
4 p.m.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, I should like to add my own tribute to those already paid to my noble friend Lord Redesdale for choosing this topic for debate today, and for speaking in the way that he did. Since the days of the hunger marches, the distressed areas, and indeed Team Valley, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, the problems of the North East have been a proper subject for debate in Parliament. I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, when he said that substantial progress had been made, but I agree also with the general sentiment—and it is important to emphasise this—that whatever progress has been made there is still a long way to go.
It is true that the North East finds unemployment a chronic condition. Therefore, in a recession as severe as this it sometimes appears able to ride it out more comfortably than the South East. But the plain fact is that in the northern region as a percentage of the workforce as a whole 11.5 per cent. of men and women are out of work but in the South East even today that figure is 9.7 per cent., which is substantially lower. If we look at pockets of unemployment, particularly on Teesside, in County Cleveland the level is 14.1 per cent., but pockets of male unemployment are far more acute than anything found in any other part of the United Kingdom and without doubt there is nothing worse to be found in London and the South East. Let us have the perspective that the problems faced by the North East are still in large part unchanged in relative terms and that it remains the duty of Parliament and successive governments to redress the balance in favour of the North East and the northern region, so far as they can, as a matter of priority.
We must beware of false dawns, because there have been many of them. I remember—and the noble Lord, Lord Bottomley, will remember it well—that on Teesside 20 years ago there were many of us who believed that the future was ours. I remember making a speech in which I referred to "an escalator of progress". Whatever the problems elsewhere, in the North East we had overcome them. ICI, which had an important role in Britain's export performance, was employing 25,000 men and women, mainly men, at Billingham and Wilton, and British Steel, which had

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just constructed its new plant at Redcar, also employed some 25,000 men and women. I am glad to hear from my noble friend Lord Redesdale that new plant is coming into operation today.
Nevertheless, on Teesside today, instead of 25,000 men and women employed by ICI, there are 11,000. Instead of 25,000 in the steel industry, there are 5,500. Where we were optimistic, as we believed with good reason, 20 years ago things have not worked out quite as we then anticipated and hoped. We thought that the final elimination of heavy engineering, including marine engineering, and the run-down of the coal industry were almost complete, and that therefore employment would grow. The process of change has been much extended, and there is a great deal of hardship on the way. Prosperity in the North East, perhaps more than anywhere else in the United Kingdom, still remains precarious.
I referred to the contrast between the North East and the South East and to the problems of the North East being chronic. We may see this reflected equally in the construction industry. It has been of much concern to this House, particularly when some 450,000 men have been laid off over the last two years. But the problems of the construction industry and all those associated with it are certainly as acute in the North East as in the South East. The only difference is that the North East did not enjoy the boom of 1988 and 1989, and had less distance to fall.
I should like to believe, as all of us must—and perhaps the noble Baroness will refer to this in her remarks later —that the Autumn Statement will do something to transform the problems of the North East as elsewhere. But I have to say with reluctance that so far there is very little sign that this is the case. We know that there has been no perceived return of confidence, and I am not aware that most of the manufacturers of the North East believe that the Autumn Statement will have a significant impact upon them.
As for capital receipts, something to which the Government have attached considerable importance and from which we hope much, we must not forget that capital receipts that local authorities will be able to spend have to be earned from sales between now and the end of 1993, which means that any part of the recovery expected to come from that quarter will not occur soon, and will occur only over a period of time and probably not before next year. When we look at what the Autumn Statement could have contained, we can reflect on the fact that a quarter of all dwellings in the northern region, 24.8 per cent. of them, were built before 1918. They and many others would benefit from a major programme of rehabilitation, especially to raise them to new energy and environmental standards. Alas, there is no proposal to spend the money necessary in the North East and elsewhere to achieve such desirable objectives.
I referred to false starts. I was much involved in 1964 and thereafter with the establishment of a new economic planning framework for the North East. Since that time not only has the Northern Economic Planning Council been disbanded but economic planning has gone, as things will from time to time,
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out of fashion. I hoped at that time that the tentative steps that were taken in establishing the Regional Economic Planning Council and the Regional Economic Planning Board might develop in due course into a form of regional government. Alas, this did not happen, and a good deal of the impetus that we acquired at that time petered out and much of the machinery was disbanded. I am alarmed to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, that some of the existing structure for the rehabilitation of the North East is still being taken apart today.
There were, however, some positive gains. Despite the proper remarks of my noble friend Lord Redesdale about the need to improve transport, particularly the A.1, I believe that the North East has been given by successive governments a much better transport network than hitherto. If I may in that context make a modest claim of my own, I was responsible as Secretary of State for Transport for improving the A.19 through Cleveland and the A.66, and I saved the Tyne-Wear Metro at a time when it was much under threat following the visit of the International Monetary Fund in 1976. Although we have still further to go with transport improvements, I think we can claim that one factor that we have inherited from those years of the 1960s is a better transport network.
Secondly, we have inherited the ability in the region to speak with one voice. Those of us who were conscious of the importance of Parliament in persuading the government to play their part in these matters were always aware of the role of the Secretary of State for Scotland. At a crucial juncture in a Cabinet meeting when the Cabinet was likely to make a decision which he as Secretary of State would find unfavourable, he would bang on the table and make clear how many seats would be lost in Scotland by whatever government it was if such and such a course rather than another one was adopted. Those of us who had some role in the North East were aware that there was nobody who could do the same for us. I have never been persuaded, although we have had some admirable Ministers of State performing this role, that anything less than a Cabinet Minister banging the Cabinet table is likely to have that impact for the North East, or for anywhere else.
Nevertheless, during that period the region began to speak with one voice, which is what the Scots had always done. They had argued that new investment had to come to Scotland, and whether it went to Strathclyde or to Tayside was only a secondary consideration. For a long time that was not the case in the North East, but from the middle of the 1960s men and women in the North East began to argue that it was important that there should be inward investment to the region and whether it went to Teesside, Tyneside, Wearside, Durham or Northumberland was of secondary importance. That too is something that we carried over.
The third thing we have carried over is a willingness to accept change. There was a time when the outside world thought that the northern region was all whippets and Andy Capp. There was a great yearning for a past which was slipping away and sometimes an

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inability to adapt to a different world. That has now gone. The response to Nissan's investment, to which my noble friend, Lord Redesdale, referred, is one measure of the adaptability which the North East, and the northern region as a whole, has achieved in recent years.
There is still much further to go. I was looking the other day, for example, at the number of school leavers going to university and higher and further education. The percentage of school leavers in the northern region going to university is lower than anywhere except East Anglia. We have 10.2 per cent., compared with a national average of 12.1 per cent and 13.6 per cent. in the South East. If we take the percentage of school leavers going to higher and further education other than universities, at 30.8 per cent. we have the lowest percentage in England and Wales, and we had the lowest percentage 10 years ago.
When I and, I think, the honourable Member for Motherwell put forward a proposal in 1963 for a university of Teesside it received little local support. That was a great disappointment to us. It is good news that, as I understand it, a combination of Durham University and Teesside Polytechnic has now proceeded to create what will be known as the University College of Teesside. I repeat that we still have some distance to go in the North East towards ensuring that a sufficient number of our young people have all the advantages that others possess and have taken the opportunity to use.
There are other areas where one must hope that progress will be made. My noble friend Lord Redesdale and other noble Lords have referred to the role of the North East within the European Community. In the referendum of 1975, 62.9 per cent. of the people of Tyne and Wear voted for Britain's membership of the Community; in Durham it was 64.2 per cent; in Cleveland, it was 67.3; and in Northumberland it was 69.2. That was the verdict of the people at that time. The North East will not prosper if Britain is seen to be half in and half out of Europe. The Government will have my full support not just in maintaining but in perhaps accelerating the momentum of their commitment to Europe if for no other reason than that it is so important for the steady prosperity of the North East and the achievement of many of the goals that the region has set for itself.
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Given a favourable wind from government, and given the long-term commitment to which my noble friend referred, there is a brighter prospect for the North East than we have seen before. If this Government, and successive governments, get their macro-economic policies right, and if they give regional development policies their due weight again, we can look back at the changes of the past 25 years and look forward to rather better changes in the next quarter of a century.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, the recession that we are now experiencing has been particularly noticeable to the South of England to which it has come as an unaccustomed shock after years of prosperity. Against
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all previous experience, early indications were that the North was going to avoid the full impact this time round. As recently as this Spring, surveys by local chambers of commerce were pointing to continued optimism in Cleveland's local economy. However, over the past six months, business confidence in Cleveland has fallen to an all time low. Companies are reporting cutbacks, not just in orders but in equipment replacement, training and recruitment. That does not bode well for future commercial development in the sub-region.
Cleveland's economy remains dominated by the traditional manufacturing industries—steel and chemicals—and they remain the largest employment sectors. The move to contract out many of their operations has resulted in the formation of numerous new small companies which depend entirely upon the prosperity of their customers—British Steel, ICI and other large firms. Heavy industry therefore is for ever the key to the local economy and its continued commitment is vital. That commitment has been seen in the past. For example, ICI has done its best to attract new investment into the area, has itself made major investments in new plant, and has contributed to the formation of new business parks which have created over 600 new jobs. But times are difficult even for it at the moment, and it has had to restructure to keep in the game.
Many small businesses were started in the' eighties; but there have been many failures. In September, one consultant described the recession as being just two months away from catastrophe. It is to be hoped that the recent drop in interest rates will belie that possibility. Many firms moved into the area with their head offices rather than branches which could be easily closed down when things became tough. That has been a healthy development. However, if new firms are to bring wealth to the area, they must sell not just to their local customers but outside the area, just as, nationally, we have to sell abroad.
Among new firms, 78 per cent. of sales were made within the county and only 1 per cent. abroad. That is not a strong basis for the long-term development of the county or the country, and perhaps the Government could give more encouragement to export out of the region and out of the country.
There are many vital linkages that must be appreciated, and a successful manufacturing economy must recognise them. First, there is transport. Having seen the success of the Japanese philosophy of "just in time", firms now rely upon moving components to and from manufacturing plants to a tight schedule, and that requires highly efficient transport links. The county roads, still with certain gaps, are acknowledged throughout the country; but once the area is left, transport meets the endemic delays of the A.1 which were referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. Thus, the decision to upgrade the A.1 to motorway standard has been welcomed warmly by the county and it cannot come too soon.
Another linkage is education. Links between education and heavy industry were looked down upon for a long time, with industry seeing little relevance in the theoretical and academic approach within higher

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education. Likewise, education saw little reward in getting one's hands dirty on machinery, and engineering was not therefore seen as a proper academic qualification. Consequently, Britain has not fostered the environment for research and development so vital for the diversification of its manufacturing base.
In Cleveland, in the past 12 months BASF and ICI have opened major new research establishments, and they are warmly welcomed. For the county to achieve a period of sustained recovery, a commitment to research over a whole manufacturing spectrum will be required. That provides the only chance for entering the 21st century with any degree of hope; but there are good signs. The University of Teesside has started to reap the benefits of its newly-acquired status, while Britain's newest university—University College, Stockton-on-Tees—has just opened its doors to students who are studying the environment.
Having restructured to meet the streamlining of heavy industry, the North East is facing yet another economic problem—that is, massive cut-backs in the coal industry. That will require new investment and support in addition to that already in place. The recent review of assisted area status has demonstrated conclusively that any downgrading of the Cleveland area will put in jeopardy all the benefits that that status has brought in recent years; namely, the creation and safeguarding of over 10,000 jobs through regional selective assistance. All the good work undertaken by various councils, the chamber of commerce, Teesside Development Corporation and other agencies, will have been in vain. Despite those efforts, Cleveland remains among the bottom two or three counties in terms of its rate of employment. Where would it be without that assistance, my Lords? One in six of the workforce is without a job. That figure rises to one in three, and even higher in certain inner urban areas. There is no sign that a ceiling has been reached. This is a terrible waste of resources, particularly as some of the unemployed have skills that are a vital ingredient of economic recovery and are in danger of being lost for ever. The jobless situation is very serious and leads not only to great hardship, waste of resources and personal depression, but also to crime as unemployed youngsters have nothing to do but get into trouble. In one of the most wide-ranging surveys recently undertaken, it transpired that 29 per cent. of unemployed people aged between 18 and 24 had never had a regular job, and 37 per cent. of those who had been unemployed for more than six months had no skills. Yet mobility has increased; more people are prepared to travel to their jobs than the average in the region. Not all is despair. Fifty-seven per cent. of the unemployed had education and vocational qualifications, while 56 per cent. had been on training courses.
Homelessness in Cleveland has recently been reported in very vivid terms. For example, in Stockton the number of homeless single people applying for housing is 633, or the equivalent of 13 double-decker busloads. In the past 12 months, 387 families have been re-housed on the grounds of homelessness. At
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present there are 70 families who must wait three or four months to get homes; and some 9,000 people are reported to be on the waiting list.
Cleveland is not used to just sitting back and suffering when the going gets tough. Massive redevelopment projects continue to be initiated, and there is close working between the private and public sectors. The university I mentioned earlier has been built as part of the largest project for the reclamation and redevelopment of derelict land in western Europe. Over the past 10 years the county council has contributed to attracting some £78 million of European assistance. Cleveland is an example of infrastructure spending having a real and rapid impact. The Government must be well aware of the effect of their own direct activities. There was great joy when it was decided that the Quality Assurance Directorate would be moved to that area from Woolwich with 1,700 jobs and, as a knock-on effect, several hundred more. Sadly, the project was cancelled. But hope now lies in current discussions about the threat to 180 jobs as a result of the Royal Navy spares department being moved from Eaglescliffe to Bath and the possible creation of 1,700 jobs at the unified Army personnel centre.
The TDC is spending £4 million on converting 200 hectares of derelict land into a largely self-sustaining nature reserve which will be one of the largest and most sophisticated environmental projects in the country. Stockton made a successful bid for City Challenge. There will be a £20 million town centre redevelopment scheme together with a dramatic and exciting upgrade of the river Tees and a training scheme for the unemployed to build houses for the homeless. At Hartlepool there is a new marina, a fine waterside housing development and a branch of the Imperial War Museum that will be a great benefit to the area. There are many other multi-million pound projects in the county.
But Cleveland needs a sustained period of confidence to encourage would-be industrialists to put the area at the top of the list for new projects. New arrivals find to their amazement that in a few minutes they can travel along the motorways from their homes to the countryside, their offices and the town centres. And five times a day they can take a 40-minute flight to London. For recreation indoor tennis courts, first-class theatres, walks in the national park, racing, cricket and every other sport are available. I remember when the area was smoggy and unhealthy with hideous old industrial buildings belching smoke. All of that has gone. The industrial area is now clean and very often impressive in its own way. Now we look only for continued confidence from the Government in return for which the county and region will be able to make a positive contribution to the economic rejuvenation of the country as a whole.
4.26 p.m.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to Lord Redesdale for initiating the debate. By so doing he has done a service to the North East, and I hope that we hear him frequently in this House.

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The north east of England is a quadrilateral: the Tweed is to the north, the Tees is to the south, the Pennines are to the west, and the North Sea is to the east. It is a clearly defined geographical area that contains over three million hard-working, intelligent, excellent people who have served Britain well both in peace and war. For six years I served in the Durham Light Infantry. The Durham Light Infantry was recruited mainly from the mining industry because (as the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, said in his "half-shift") miners worked in the dark and in confined spaces. Those are the qualities required of infantrymen. The mining industry produces the best infantrymen in the country. But, as one would expect, the Government have abolished the Durham Light Infantry. They have either abolished or privatised almost everything. They are now going to privatise the castles which are so important to the tourism to which the noble Lord, Lord Dormand referred.
The North East was the crucible in which was forged the Industrial Revolution on which our country's prosperity in the 19th century and early 20th century was based. Even as late as 1975, as Lord Redesdale, said, a third of our non-service jobs were in steel, shipbuilding and coal. Today, 17 years later, that 35 per cent. has dropped to 3 per cent. Those two figures illustrate the problem facing the north east of England. Of course, the heavy industries had to run-down but the problems associated with that run-down have been greatly exacerbated by this Government's policy.
I shall mention one or two examples. First, there was the shameful betrayal of Sunderland in collusion with the EC. Not only did they close down shipbuilding in Sunderland—the oldest shipbuilding centre in Europe, maybe in the world —but they made an agreement with the EC which forbade any further shipbuilding in Sunderland at any time in the future. Secondly, the Government privatised the steel industry. Now, the only criterion for the siting of steelworks is profit for shareholders. According to my philosophy there should be another criterion in addition to profit: the provision of employment. Thirdly, the latest step is the appalling betrayal (that is not too strong a word) of the coal industry. Let us face the facts. The purpose is to prepare the coal industry for privatisation.
Another example was mentioned today and came from an unexpected source—a right reverend Prelate. The noble Baroness replying to his Question, pointed out the effect that electricity prices charged since privatisation had had on industries such as ICI. I just wonder how many of the job reductions mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, in ICI on Teesside are due to the same cause as the redundancies in Cheshire; namely, the astronomical increase in energy prices since privatisation. The result of all this, as almost everyone has said, is our unemployment figures announced today of 11.6 per cent. and of 15.3 per cent. male unemployment.
I implore the Minister not to tell us we are doing better than other areas. The Government have tended to do that simply because in one or two years our rate
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of increase in unemployment in the North East has been marginally lower than elsewhere. The figures that came out today, which I checked, show that our rate of increase is a little higher, at 0.1 per cent., than most other areas. I hope the Minister will not tell us we are doing better than other areas. Not only do we have high unemployment, but we have far more than our share of deep-seated, long-term unemployment. The North East has 12.5 per cent. of the national total of people who have been out of work for three years or more. Just imagine that. The North East has 5 per cent. of those employed but 12.5 per cent. of the total of those who have been out of work for three years or more.
The noble Baroness knows quite well that the longer people have been out of work, the more difficult it is for them to get jobs. All the evidence up and down the country points to that fact. What chance have those unemployed people, who account for 12.5 per cent. of the total unemployed, of getting a job? What chance have the 16 per cent. of people who have been out of work for two years or more of getting a job? What chance have the 35 per cent. of people in the North East who have been out of work for one year or more of getting a job?
There are 10 travel-to-work areas in the North East with assisted area status. I am glad they have that status. I shall not trouble the House by reading out the names of those places, but I shall read out the male unemployment figures in those 10 areas which cover most of the North East. The figures are 16.8 per cent., 15.9 per cent., 24.3 per cent. in South Tyneside, 18.5. per cent., 11.9 per cent., 20.9 per cent., 12.3 per cent., 15.2 per cent. and in my noble friend's area of Middlesbrough the figure is 19.8 per cent. The final figure is 15.5 per cent. Those figures are not only unemployment statistics but they also show up in other statistics too. They show up in the statistics about poverty.
At the weekend the Daily Telegraph published a table of family incomes by regions. The North East was well down at the bottom. I believe that is a direct result of this appalling unemployment, especially the deep-seated, long-term unemployment. We have this reservoir of unemployment and poverty. I think that that is quite appalling after 13 years of Conservative rule which was supposed to be doing great things for this country. We have heard about miracles and all kinds of things but this is the state of affairs after 13 years.
I should have thought that when the Prime Minister stood up in the Guildhall—that citadel of the classless society—the night before last he might have devoted just a few sentences to the plight of the 3 million of his fellow citizens who are out of work and their 3 million dependants. I should have thought he might have mentioned the 6 million Britons who are living either in poverty or on the very verge of poverty. However, they did not receive a mention. That omission from the Prime Minister's speech, plus the brutality of the coal closure announcements, plus the Chancellor's statement that unemployment was a price worth paying, to me are clear evidence that unemployment is

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not exactly uppermost in the minds of Ministers. I could put it more bluntly and say it looks as though they do not care tuppence about unemployment.
As everyone has said, there has of course been a great deal of inward investment, especially from abroad, and we are delighted about that. Thank heavens for the Japanese. Nissan is not the only Japanese company in the North East. The Japanese have brought with them many companies and they have provided excellent employment. We are grateful to our ex-enemies for that. Thanks to the excellent work of the Northern Development Company and the local authorities—I do not think anyone has paid tribute to them; I know this Government do not like local authorities, but they do splendid work in the field of industrial promotion—who have co-operated with the Northern Development Company and with government agencies inward investment has been brought into the area.
It would be churlish of me not to admit that the assisted areas policy has achieved a great deal. We are grateful for that. Nissan has been mentioned by a number of speakers. It is a unique example of how one firm can regenerate a whole area. Its investment and the excellent employment which it provides are important, but also a multiplier effect is created in the local economy. Nissan is a good example of inward investment. What of the future? There have been a number of medium-term models of the British economy and they seem to show that by the year 2000 our unemployment will rise to 185,000. I believe it should be everyone's job and everyone's concern, especially the Government's, to ensure that that dreadful target is not reached.
I wish to mention two areas of special concern. The first concerns coal. It took the North East, the Northern Development Company, local authorities, the Government and everyone else four-and-a-half years to attract 4,500 jobs. If Mr. Heseltine had had his way those 4,500 jobs would have been wiped out in one afternoon because he proposed to create exactly that number of redundancies in the coal industry in the North East. But of course his plans would not merely have resulted in 4,500 redundancies. There is also the knock-on effect of that to be considered in technical support industries such as mining machinery, in the transportation of coal and in the possible effects on our two coal-fired power stations. The multiplier effect of the loss of one job in coal has been variously estimated at ratios of 5:1 and 3:1. But let us suppose that it is a factor of 2:1. That would mean that if Mr. Heseltine's plans are carried out, a total of 9,000 redundancies would be created in the North East; that is, 4,000 in coal and 4,500 elsewhere.
The second area of concern is the offshore industry. That has been one of the great success stories in the North East in recent years. It currently employs 20,000 people, but there are great fears about the future. There are fears that a reduction in orders could put much of this employment at risk. AMEC has already talked about 1,500 redundancies, but 10,000 jobs could be at risk in this industry. So the outlook is not exactly rosy in spite of all that has been done and achieved.
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I wish to make three pleas to the noble Baroness. First, I know an inquiry is taking place at the moment—we referred to that point yesterday or the other day—but I plead with the Minister to retain, and if possible improve, the assisted areas policy. If possible, please can it be extended to the areas of the North East where it does not apply at present and where unemployment is projected?
Secondly, please will the Government increase the funding from the DTI for inward investment work, which costs a great deal of money, beginning with 10 per cent. of the level of funding of similar work in Scotland and Wales? I do not suggest for one minute that they get too much; they do not. But we get far too little. Please try to provide more resources for that work.
Thirdly, I have heard from a number of people in the North East over the past year or so that there is a need for more co-ordination of government efforts in the region. Individual government departments in the region appear to be running their own programmes and doing their own thing, with little concern for what other departments are doing. We hear that complaint from many places. Therefore, will the Minister please try to co-ordinate what the Government themselves are doing?
The North East is a marvellous area of the United Kingdom. It is a beautiful area, a hard working area and an innovative area. It deserves better from the country in the future than it has received in the past.
4.40 p.m.
Lord Crathorne: My Lords, speaking at this point in a debate one usually has to cross out much of what one had intended to say. It would be pointless for me to repeat many of the points and statements which have already been made. I should like to concentrate on my own particular area of the North East—Cleveland. That is still thought of as Teesside by many people. I should like to focus on one or two points in relation to that area. Therefore, I hope that there will be little repetition.
As we have heard, the area has to some extent bucked the trend, but it started from a low base. It is clear from the debate today that we are considering the position of the North East at a particularly critical time when its economy is delicately balanced.
The geological make-up of the Cleveland area has meant that the economy has always been bound up with iron, steel, shipbuilding and chemical manufacture. The success of the giants—ICI and British Steel—is vital to the area. It is good to know that ICI has committed another £159 million to the area. Many smaller companies owe their very existence to the industrial giants.
The traditional image of those giants conjures up a picture of pollution, which, thankfully, is not nearly as bad as it was. However, we have to overcome that in order to attract businesses and people to the area. I should like to register two caveats to the Government. The first concerns the erection of the chemical waste plant at Seal Sands. It is clearly needed, but I gather that large additional amounts of chemical waste will

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be imported into the area. That seems unsatisfactory. I am not clear as to how the dioxin emissions will be monitored and I have some doubts on that aspect.
My other point concerning pollution relates to the use of North Sea gas and the problems which spring directly from the lack of a coherent energy policy. A pipeline which is to bring 1,400 million cubic feet of gas per day into Teesmouth is nearing completion. Experts tell us that that irreplaceable fossil fuel should not be burnt in power stations and sewage sludge chemical incinerators but should be used as chemical process feedstock in the production of plastics and the endless other products of gas.
One of the consumers of that gas will be the ENRON power station currently being built on Teesside—the largest of its kind in the world. It will supply 3 per cent. of Britain's energy needs. In retrospect it appears that insufficient thought has gone into considering how to direct that energy to where it is required. Only a small percentage will be required on Teesside. The National Grid's plans for linking the electricity created into the grid system threatens our area with a proliferation of pylons, which is seen by all of us living in the area as unacceptable. That has led to a public inquiry which reports to the Secretary of State next year. My noble friend the Minister should be in no doubt about the strength of feeling on that issue. Indeed, there is to be an adjournment debate on the subject in another place this Friday.
We in Teesside, and in the rest of the North East, do not want to become a visual or chemical dumping ground. The Government have a role to play here. I understand that there is a rumour that further power stations will be built on Teesside. That would be unfortunate. First, that is not where the electricity is needed. Secondly, I understand that soon there will be massive overproduction of electricity—more than we can consume. I also understand that if those new power stations are not built the new pylons would not be required.
Having made that plea to the Government in relation to environmental pollution I should now like to be more positive. The Teesside Development Corporation has been and continues to be a great success. It is good to know that the Government have agreed the TDC's budget in full for next year in these difficult times. The noble Lord, Lord Dormand, was very modest about the achievements of the corporation and about his own achievements. He has contributed enormously to the success of the TDC.
I should also like to pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Blatch, who is the sponsor Minister for the Cleveland area with responsibility for the Cleveland Action Team and the City Challenge programmes in the county. She has shown great commitment to the area. I know from my attendance at discussion meetings that her efforts have been admired and appreciated right across the political spectrum.
The Teesside area has been particularly successful with City Challenge. There is about a one-in-three chance of success for those who enter the scheme. Last year Middlesbrough was a winner and this year both
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Stockton and Hartlepool won. This has attracted funding of £37.5 million over five years for each winner.
There are also numerous other innovations in the area. To mention just one, the new task force for Stockton, with an annual budget of £1 million from April 1993, will help inner city residents into work.
I turn now to tourism. In addition to the North Yorkshire Moors national park, Teesside has a wide range of tourist attractions. As noble Lords have said, we do not yet have enough tourists there. It is particularly good news that the Imperial War Museum is to have a permanent exhibition at Hartlepool based on 20th century naval heritage. The decision to locate this prestigious facility in that area is a great vote of confidence.
I should also like to mention a much smaller attraction—the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum in Stewart Park, Middlesbrough. I have always been fascinated by Captain Cook and I am pleased to be a member of the museum's trust board. I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Bottomley, our chairman, in the Chamber today. We are now embarking on a major development. Already new environmental controls have been provided allowing a wider range of exhibits, particularly very fragile ones. A three-phase development costing around £750,000 is about to start. The initial financial package of £140,000, including contributions from the borough council, Cleveland Action Team, the European Regional Development Fund, the Museums and Galleries Commission, Teesside TEC, Teesside Development Corporation and English Estates, has been put together by the curator working with the Cleveland Action Team and others. I have mentioned all those who are involved because that is a marvellous example of the arts, tourism and urban policies all working together. There will also in that first phase be a new educational study centre, which will be particularly targeted on schools in the disadvantaged area, covered by Middlesbrough city challenge programme. We hope that visitor numbers will increase from 100,000 per annum to about four times that amount.
This is not a debate to discuss the arts in detail. However, to attract people and businesses to the area, the area has to be made as attractive as possible. Northern Arts has done its best to foster the arts in the area and has mounted a splendid bid for the area to become the visual arts region of 1996, fighting off particularly stiff competition from Bradford and Glasgow. Plans for that are progressing and it will be an all-year, all-region celebration of the visual experience. It will be managed by a consortium including the Northern Development Company, the North of England Assembly of Local Authorities, the Northumbrian-Cumbrian Tourist Board and Northern Arts. It is to be hoped that that will have a major economic impact on the area.
Sticking with the arts for a moment, we are still without a fine concert hall in the North East, which obviously inhibits what can be done. We are certainly better off with theatres, including the oldest theatre in the country, the Georgian Theatre Royal in

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Richmond, North Yorkshire. It is of extraordinary interest and beauty and I have been involved with it for a number of years.
It is quite clear from the speeches made today that the North East is doing a lot to help itself. It has to be said that the Government have played their full part in that. We now look forward to hearing what my noble friend the Minister has to say.
4.52 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, for winning the ballot and for introducing his Motion so effectively. In almost every case noble Lords who have spoken have some association with the North East itself. My association is extremely distant: my grandfather was rector of St. Mary's, Tyne Dock, for 23 years, and my father was born and educated in Durham. So in my time I have been called an honorary Geordie, though I would still say that I am an honorary Geordie from mid-Wales. I think I can compromise on that.
I was very glad that my noble friend Lord Glenamara mentioned the role of local authorities because this allows me also to declare something of an interest—again, it is an honorary interest as it is not paid—as president of the Federation of Economic Development Authorities. They are the development authorities run by district councils. They have played an enormous role over the years. This year the federation is celebrating its 50th anniversary—if I may put in a commercial plug for the association. The role of local authorities in the North East, as elsewhere, as my noble friend pointed out, is extraordinarily important.
The main theme in this debate has been that of a north eastern economy in transition. It is not a new problem, as the noble Lord, Lord Elliott of Morpeth, pointed out. The problem has been with us since the Second World War. Heavy industry—coal, steel and shipbuilding—is gradually running down. In some cases plants have shut down overnight, or there has been an attempt to shut them down overnight. But I think everybody recognises that, given the world market for ships and the difficulties in the steel industry, inevitably there will be a transition out of heavy industry in the North East towards some sort of lighter industry. Nevertheless, as the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, said, the result of this process, together with the recession, is now hitting the North East much harder than it has been hit before. It has resulted in what I take to be the major problem that almost every noble Lord who has spoken today has raised: that is, the problem of unemployment.
First of all, I would like to say that all your Lordships will have an opportunity to take part in a rather larger debate on unemployment because my noble friend Lady Turner has put down a Motion for a five-hour debate on Wednesday, 25th November. We look forward to responses from noble Lords opposite as to what they feel should be done about unemployment generally. Unemployment in the North East has a series of characteristics which we ought to look at in greater detail.
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Perhaps I may give your Lordships one or two figures. Since 1979—taking the period June 1979 to June 1991—the change in manufacturing employment is minus 36.3 per cent. The increase in banking and finance employment—although the gross figures are small—is 52.6 per cent. The decrease in production employment is 40.7 per cent. and the decrease in employment in energy and water is 52.6 per cent.; in metal manufacturing and chemicals it is 49.5 per cent. There is an increase in public administration, and defence is 5.1 per cent. Those are rather dramatic percentage figures. No other region in the United Kingdom has experienced such a large decline in employees in employment. That is an important figure to grasp.
There are various problems linked with the figures that I have given your Lordships. There is the problem of inward investment, however welcome it is. We accept the views of those noble Lords who have said that Japanese inward investment, for instance, has brought great benefit to the North East. Unfortunately the inward investment has not made up for the decline in employment in traditional industries. Furthermore, in manufacturing there is a continued dominance of large firms, many of them foreign owned. Small firms on the whole have not done all that well. I know that the noble Baroness is the Minister for small firms, but I hope she will agree that the North East has not been a particularly productive area for small firms, whatever has happened in the rest of the United Kingdom. On the whole the balance has not been good. As we heard from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, a point taken up by the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, employment is very much dependent upon that balance. If a large firm runs into trouble, the knock-on effects are absolutely enormous, both in terms of the firm itself and the downward multiplier in terms of employment of the supplying firms.
There is also the problem of emigration. We learn that there is to be net emigration from Cleveland and Durham, for instance, which are expected to suffer population losses up to the year 2001. Those losses will be among the younger, more able elements of the workforce and they are likely to continue to out-migrate, as it is called. For obvious reasons, employment opportunities in Cleveland and Durham are entering a period of great uncertainty—I shall come back in a moment to the point about confidence mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough—because quite frankly unemployment, whatever we do, unless we do something very dramatic, will remain above the national average, and long-term unemployment, as my noble friend Lord Glenamara pointed out, will remain a most serious problem.
Nonetheless, we find that training money—money to train people who are unemployed—has been shifted massively from the North to the South, with Tyneside and Durham TECs losing more than any other in the whole country. That leads me back to the point made by my noble friend Lord Glenamara. We wonder whether the Government care very much about what happens to the unemployed.

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The noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, mentioned the question of confidence. There is no doubt that during the past few months confidence in the North East has taken a sharp blow. Home market orders continue to fall. Export orders are not too bad, particularly after devaluation, but optimism about the general business situation fell after a short revival post-election. Output has declined further and employment continues to be reduced. That is not a happy situation.
In order to try to combat the effects of recession, which are now hitting the North East almost as hard as they hit the South East a year or two ago, I recommend to the Minister the prescription of my noble friend Lord Glenamara; that more money is required by government to fund inward investment work. There is no doubt that the workforce in the North East consists of good workers. They are solid, honest people who want to help and want to get on and work. But it is up to the Government to make sure that that can happen.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, that the economy of the North East is now at a turning point. That view was echoed by my noble friend Lord Dormand of Easington. Perhaps it is like the rest of the United Kingdom. As the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, said, either we are in Europe and at the heart of Europe or we are not. If we are, and I hope that we will be, the impact on the North East could and should be immense. But for that to happen the Government must make sure that the proper infrastructure is in place, that the ports are properly developed, that the Channel Tunnel does not lead to a corridor running up the western side of the country thereby neglecting the North East and that the North East reaches out to Europe. None of that can be achieved without help.
Perhaps I may give as an example the M.4 corridor. There is no doubt that the M.4 corridor, which now reaches from Slough to Swansea, has had an enormous effect on the economy of the South and of South Wales. If there is a high-speed link from the Channel Tunnel up the western side of the country to Glasgow in Scotland, there is a fear that in the long term the North East will suffer. That will be corrected only by the development of the north eastern ports so that the North East can reach out directly to Europe.
The simple fact is that the Government must be prepared to plan ahead for those events. It is not enough simply to lurch from one spending round to another. The planning must be long term. Furthermore, the Government must be prepared not only to plan but to lead. They must lead together with members of the community, organisations and institutions, many of which have been mentioned during the debate, co-operatively and with consensus in ensuring that the north eastern economy turns in the right direction rather than into further decline. That is the only way forward.
The essential point is that if the North East is to build on what has already been achieved—and I recognise that a great deal has been achieved—the Government must move forward. Either they are prepared to abandon the philosophy of the 1980s—that is the wholesale reliance on market forces—and
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join with everyone in the North East in a collective effort or they are not. That is their choice. I hope only that they make the right choice. If they do, there is no doubt in my mind that the North East will go from strength to strength.
5.5 p.m.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, has called for today's debate to draw attention to the economy of the North East. In doing so, he has rendered a great service to the region. I congratulate him on initiating a stimulating debate about a number of issues which are important not only to the North East but to other areas in the country. The North East is fortunate to have a young champion in this House who will continue to defend its cause for many years.
I hope that we shall not see a contest between Front Benches in claiming relationships with the North East. I wonder whether the claim of the noble Lord, Lord Williams, is connected with the state of Welsh rugby. My first job was in Newcastle and as a Yorkshire lady at least I recognise quality. There is a great deal of quality and there are many achievements in the North East. Perhaps I may first pay tribute to the partnerships there. They have made a great deal of difference to the work of the Northern Development Council and of local authorities in their co-operation in working with others. They have achieved a great deal. I refer also to central government's role and to my own regional office, which is well networked into those partnerships.
The North-East region has undergone a transformation. Indeed, that continues. There has been a transformation from dependence on the traditional industries such as coal-mining, shipbuilding and steel-making to a broader, modern industrial base. Some of the fears of the noble Lord, Lord Williams, will be protected by the diversity of those industries, although the automotive area is much to the fore. They include food companies and an environmentally-friendly bicycle tyre. The diversity is considerable. Ten days ago it was my privilege to open a £1 million extension of Mi-King, which symbolises all that is happening which is so good. There is a manufacturing steel strip activity; an inward investment, joint venture partnership with Japan; a large company with a small company; and of course it has an excellence. It was typical of the smaller to medium-sized companies which are supplying some of the large companies in the area.
The reduction in the dependence on traditional industries offers opportunities which the region has seized to restructure its industrial base. Despite the tough times—and I do not wish to under-estimate the situation—the area is more resilient against the cyclical fluctuations to which individual industries can be prone. Indeed, during the previous four or five years, the area has staged a significant recovery. Although recently an effect of the overall world recession has been apparent in the North East, unemployment, albeit the highest in mainland Britain, is significantly below the level prevalent during the mid 1980s. Regrettably unemployment rates were then

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between 18 and 19 per cent. Noble Lords from the North East must be pleased that the regional disparity between unemployment levels in the North and South is smaller than it has been for 25 years. A great deal of that is due to the efforts of people in the North East.
There has been a resurgence in local enterprise with more than 10,000 new businesses registering for VAT between 1980 and 1991. Your Lordships will appreciate that that was no mean transition from an employment culture which had not lent itself to breed entrepreneurial spirit but which had been used to an "employee" existence. Yet we saw the birth of 10,000 new businesses.
In opening the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, recognised that some of the activity in the area—for example, British Steel activity—does not necessarily create more jobs but it protects the jobs which are there. That is an important factor which we must bear in mind. The component industry supplying the car factories works to a standard which allows it to be competitive worldwide; that is important. I was delighted to hear noble Lords comment on the fact that it is crucial for the future of the North East and the rest of the United Kingdom that the GATT negotiations should be concluded successfully and that we should become a full partner in Europe.
It will not be easy to attract more inward investment into the North East because France and Germany have woken up to the fact that that is an area in which the United Kingdom took the lead. They are putting much more effort into pursuing inward investment than was ever the case before. I am delighted to say that the DTI regional office has launched a programme of aftercare for inward investors which involves making sure that we look for expansion from the companies which are already there and do not say, "Thank you for coming. Next one please". I believe that will prove to pay dividends in the future.
The region was the first in the country to have complete training and enterprise council coverage. I do not deny that there has been a swing elsewhere in some payments, but the combined budget for the North East training and enterprise councils for 1992–93 is £136 million. Of course, extra money is involved from the coalfield issue. The Durham training and enterprise council has already submitted a programme in that respect.
Many noble Lords mentioned the importance of the review of the assisted area map. I cannot go ahead of decisions yet to be made; but the choice is made by identifying the third worst part of the country based on unemployment figures. I stress that we are well aware of the need for speed in completing the review. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, that the current assisted area map review is not linked to European regional support programmes and European support is not conditional on assisted area status. I hope that that will reassure the noble Lord.
Several noble Lords followed the lead given by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, in identifying the key role which infrastructure plays in the North East. Roads are a matter for the Department of Transport, but I can confirm that the department has made it
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clear that it is desirable for the A.1 to be fully dualled from Newcastle to Edinburgh. There are dualling schemes in progress at Marshall Meadows and in Northumberland, design work has commenced on schemes to complete the Alnwick by-pass. There are also a number of schemes under way or at the planning stage in Scotland. In July 1990 the Secretary of State for Transport announced that over a period of time the 260 mile section of the A.1 from the M.25 motorway to Tyneside would be upgraded to a motorway. That announcement recognises the strategic importance that that road has for the economic wellbeing of the area.
The noble Lord mentioned also the A.69 trunk road. Following discussions with Northumberland County Council and Cumbria County Council in May 1991 the Minister with special responsibility for roads agreed to commission a study of the requirements of the A.69 trunk road. Although that was unfortunately delayed, I am pleased to tell your Lordships that the report is due to be published shortly. I hope that that will reassure the noble Lord.
My noble friend Lord Elliott of Morpeth always brings a positive view to the work of the area. While we all agree that there is a great deal of work still to do, what has been achieved sets a tremendous example and is an enormous tribute to the people involved. I shall deal with development corporations in a moment, but I hope that the work of English Estates with the new urban regeneration agency will be of continuing benefit to the North East.
Several noble Lords mentioned the role of development corporations. The two north-eastern development corporations have set examples which are to be followed by others. I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, and the Teesside development corporation which was totally innovative in founding University College. That must have a long term effect on the future of industry in the North East. The Tees barrage is one of the largest civil engineering projects in the country. That has created about 7,000 jobs, as the noble Lord said; but I understand that the forecast is that 12,000 jobs will be created in the area. That is much to be praised. There are large numbers from the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation but it is interesting that it has attracted over £450 million private sector investment in the area, which is the key to the work of the development corporation. The Tyne and Wear Development Corporation has reclaimed 806 acres of derelict and polluted land. That is the kind of effort which needs focus and is the kind of work which the development corporations are doing so effectively.
The noble Lord, Lord Dormand, referred to the CBI's survey of regional trends which has just been published. I know that we shall always look at matters through different glasses; but it is important that I should put on record that the survey recorded that export orders have increased for the first time for more than a year, and investment plans for plant and machinery point to an increase in expenditure. I believe it is a typically North East comment to say that

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that is motivated primarily by the need to raise efficiency. There is certainly no playing amateur in the North East.
I was delighted also that tourism was mentioned in our debate. Jobs in tourism in the North East have increased significantly in recent years from 59,000 in 1987 to 65,000 in 1989; that is an increase of 9.6 per cent. That is a good figure as regards tourism. A recent study shows that in the first seven months of this year, the Northumbria Tourist Board region was the only English region to demonstrate increased occupancy levels. I pay a personal tribute to the diversity and interesting type of tourism which is being developed in the North East. Tributes to the industrial heritage of the region are a great attraction and are very important.
Noble Lords would not expect me to prejudge the Government's review of the coal industry. The North East would be fully eligible to participate in the range of assisted measures announced on 21st October. They include incentives to enhance the prospects of inward investment. Consideration will be given as to whether enterprise zone status would be an effective means of helping particular areas. There is a local co-ordination effort from the North East under the direction of a local person, Danny Sharp, with a budget of £3 million over three years. The money is following the knowledge.
It is important that I should mention the activities of British Coal Enterprise in the area. We have often mentioned the number of jobs created; but I should point out that British Coal Enterprise has invested £2.4 million in work space in the North East and is seeking to build the first development on Wansbeck Business Park in Ashington, an area to which the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, drew attention. Having heard a Question asked yesterday by my noble friend Lord Peyton of Yeovil and the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, today, there can be no doubt that British Alcan has powerful allies. There can be no doubt that their anxieties will be heard. As the noble Viscount rightly pointed out, the linking of the industrial scene in the Wansbeck area is of crucial importance. My honourable friend met a delegation from the district council and my honourable friend Mr Eggar, the DTI Minister with responsibility for the area, is a full and active supporter of the Wansbeck initiative.
I was interested to hear of the noble Viscount's support for the contribution of opencast coal. I have seen an area of opencast coal restored in a totally operational state. With a residential committee, some of the problems were taken away and we did not have local protests. However, what is happening is that again we see solutions being sought by all parties working together, as is the tradition in the North East.
The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, is less optimistic about the effects of the Autumn Statement than I must be and am. The balance between keeping a grip on inflation and encouraging growth was well handled. I can certainly reassure him that although DTI regional Ministers cannot bang Cabinet tables, we look after our own regions. We shout loud and perhaps we
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whisper effectively in the right places. It was nice to hear my noble friend Lord Crathorne's tribute to the work of my noble friend Lady Blatch in the area, and as I said, of my honourable friend Mr Eggar in Northumbria. I am doing the same for Yorkshire, but not this afternoon. The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, is to be greatly thanked by the area for preserving the Metro programme which is still something which other regions admire.
One other point to which noble Lords drew attention is the importance of Europe. We must pay tribute to my right honourable friend who valiantly and successfully fought off attempts to keep cars produced in the North East out of Europe. We won that battle and it now affects the Midlands and Swindon.
I am pleased to reassure my noble friend Lord Gisborough, in view of his comments earlier this afternoon, that one of the forward-looking develop-ments which we can appreciate in the North East is the increasing role that women are beginning to play in the economy. There are several successful medium-sized firms which are run by women in the area. Probably one of the leading TEC chief executives in the country is a woman in Tyneside, and my own regional director is a woman. That is a personal remark which I hope my noble friend will appreciate. He rightly paid tribute to the contribution that ICI makes in the area which we should not underestimate.
I must be more positive than the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara. I think there is a danger that we might send a message about problems of social violence to which we all know unemployment is related. However, we must not send that message out to the rest of the world so that it stops bringing investment to the area. That is a key issue of which we must beware.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, I am not sure why the noble Baroness mentioned me. I did not refer to social violence.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I apologise, my Lord. We are aware of the problems that the area is facing but we must point out the benefits which so many noble Lords have identified today. We and the DTI are already working with the offshore oil industry on diversity of manufacture in which their skills can be used to find other markets. We cannot remake the market, but we can make sure that skills are re-used.
I must point out, as I did earlier today, that ICI generates its own electricity at Teesside. I regret that the Ministry of Defence did not move to Cleveland and understand the disappointment to local expectations. However, defence changed drastically as a result of the opening up of the East-West frontiers and the peace dividend is significant. But on the more positive side, there are large DSS offices in Newcastle, employing over 4,500. The Inland Revenue has an office in Darlington and the import licensing branch of my own department is at Billingham. There is a consciousness of the benefits that government relocation brings to the area.
The noble Lord, Lord Crathorne, raised the issue of the chemical waste incinerator at Seal Sands. The fact

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that the Department of the Environment recently approved plans for the construction of this incinerator at Seal Sands and that it followed a full public inquiry will indicate that all environmental questions, including pollution, must have been satisfied.
The noble Lord also drew attention to the contribution that the arts play in attracting investment to the area. Sometimes it is neglected because it is not easily quantifiable; but I think we all agree that it is a crucial part of the process of selling inward investment on the quality of life the area can offer.
I was therefore a little surprised that none of your Lordships mentioned the recent success of Newcastle United, sitting proudly at the top of the First Division. They identify the spirit of the area, as do the other sporting achievements: Durham County Cricket Club elevated to the first class game; the cricket stadium at Chester-le-Street, which is the first new stadium in the United Kingdom for 70 years. The Great North Run is now an official world championship, and Gateshead International Stadium is the host to major international athletics. Those attributes typify some of the activities which are positive in the North East.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams mentioned the lack of smaller firms in the North East. I am conscious of some of the issues, but I see evidence that "just in time" processes being used by the major manufacturers mean that they have to develop a circle around them of the smaller companies which become competitive again.
I wish to list the great success that the North East has had in inward investment. Since 1985, over 25,000 jobs have been created or safeguarded; £2 billion has been brought in; there are 340 overseas companies in the North East; and, with the highest concentration of Japanese companies in Europe, up to 10 per cent. of the region's workforce is now employed by overseas companies. They have brought a new culture, a new quality expectation and new management styles which will only be of benefit to the area in the times ahead which will not be easy.
Within the overall context of the UK, each region can point to aspects of its economy that call for action. We have heard much about the challenges that confront the North East. I use the word "challenges". They have been described as "problems", but "challenge" is how the North East has responded to the problems it has faced before. There are many positive factors that make the North East economy more resilient than ever before; but paramount must be the people. Their adaptability and attitude to change have made possible in the region the creation from scratch of a car industry. It is a car industry with extremely sound roots. The positive attitude finds expression in the agencies which have become adept in their task of economic regeneration of the region. As I said, nowhere else is there such an energetic and creative combination of agencies.
The noble Lord, Lord Dormand, rightly paid tribute to the Northern Development Company. It speaks for itself that it won the European Development Agency of the Year Award. The NDC has been instrumental in attracting projects to the area. With the after-care programme planned by the
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DTI now, I am sure that we shall continue to see the North East set an example which many can usefully emulate. Again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, for giving noble Lords the opportunity to air this very positive side of the scene.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. I do not believe that anyone who took part in the debate could go against her sentiments about the very positive aspects of the economy in the North East. I also thank her for the Government's commitment to the transport policy. I am a little disappointed that she could not have been more specific over the assisted areas. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

World Food Situation
5.31 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie Lord Mackie of Benshie rose to call attention to the world food situation and the state of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to open this debate in the knowledge that we are speaking about an immensely important subject. I am very grateful to those noble Lords who have put their names down to speak. I must admit that I am a little astonished that there has not been a greater response. However, I look forward with great pleasure and anticipation to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Geraint.
Perhaps I may give one of the reasons for putting down this Motion. For many years I had a great friend named David Lubbock. He was a close kinsman of the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot. For years he was secretary general of the FAO. He worked on missions all over the world for that organisation. On his death bed he was still working. He asked me to have a debate put down. He has since died after a lifetime of devotion to the cause of feeding the world. I am very glad that I am able to have this debate and to give the Government a chance to reaffirm their devotion to food production, to the feeding of people all over the world and also to stress the importance of the subject.
Over the centuries we have had various eras of expansion. It is very useful to look back at what happened at the time of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Industrial Revolution in this country sparked a tremendous demand for food which also sparked a tremendous advance in techniques and a big rise in the supply of food. That was done in an extraordinarily sustainable way which is the way of the modern world. The practices and rotations were such that the land was actually improved and not impoverished. That resulted in the four-course rotation in Scotland and Norfolk and the six-course rotation in my native county of Aberdeenshire. In 100 years they turned what was described by travellers as a "blasted heath" into one of the most productive areas of Scotland. That also included Angus but it had a better start.
Then the wretched Vanderbilts built railways across the prairies and enabled the land to be mined. The results were sent to this country and we were able to buy them. That was considered a great boon in that there was cheap food. Because we were an expanding industrial nation we were able to buy that food to the great profit of the industrial population of this country.
However, the lesson to be learnt is that it did not do much good to the great prairies. They turned into dust bowls and eventually required a tremendous revolution in the method of cultivation in order, not to bring them back to their previous fertility, but simply to hold a little the erosion of the soil which still takes place in very large amounts.
Therefore, we have to realise that although the green revolution has been enormously successful in many areas of the world, there are perils which we have to watch. The breeding of new strains of wheat short enough and strong enough to sustain the application of quantities of fertilizer has raised the production of wheat per acre enormously. In fact it has doubled in the past 20 to 30 years. It has enabled countries like India to make great strides and to produce a very large proportion of its own food. In fact it is exporting some of it, although there are troubles there which I have no doubt that my noble kinsman will be highlighting when he speaks next.
The fact is that the green revolution, the use of fertilizers and pesticides, and the breeding of new strains, has been enormously successful in the production of food. But we have to watch that we do not repeat the dust bowl in another way. Perhaps I may give a small illustration of the kind of thing that can happen. I used to grow a lot of strawberries. When the new herbicides came in, which enabled one to keep the strawberries clean over many years, I thought that was a tremendous boon. Instead of ploughing up the strawberries after three years I kept them down for five years or six years. I thought that that was a very smart thing to do.
However, when we ploughed up the plants after six years I noticed an extraordinary thing. After the plough there were no gulls or rooks at all. When I went to investigate this I noticed that the earthworms had disappeared. One of the points of this story is that we cured the problem without going back to basics. We did it by learning about the use of herbicides and reducing the quantities. We used new types of sprayers which give the same results but in much smaller quantities. The lesson is that one cannot discard scientific advance. One has to use it properly so that it can be of benefit and reduce the damage. In our case we had solved the problem because the soil continued healthy with large numbers of earthworms.
All these advances have enabled us to feed the world. The trouble is that we have not fed anything like all of it. We could do. The situation in many parts of the world is quite desperate. I shall concentrate today on Africa from where we have had the most incredible scenes reported on our screens and in our newspapers showing poverty and appalling famine. A
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great deal of it is caused by civil war, bad government and a whole range of other factors, quite apart from the ability to grow food.
All the voluntary bodies are very concerned; in fact they are dismayed at what is happening. For example, Christian Aid is saying that 480 million people face acute problems at every level; political, environmental, economic and social. Africa contains 32 of the world's 47 poorest countries. Christian Aid simply states:
"Sub-Saharan Africa's economic disaster has been well-documented… per capita real gross domestic product declined by almost 20 per cent. in the region between 1974 and 1984. That is the greatest sustained development failure of the century".
It goes on to show that the growing of cash crops for export is not always particularly beneficial to those countries. That can be illustrated by what happened in Nigeria where sudden wealth from oil enabled the Government to import large quantities of grain, most of which attracted a levy in the form of a percentage paid corruptly to the people who allowed the imports. That ruined the economy of the area around Kano where earthnuts used to abound in great piles and which used to have a substantial and reasonably well fed peasant economy. But that was simply ruined as a result of the buying-in.
When one looks at the whole question of feeding the poorer nations, one must realise that home production not only produces the sort of food that they want to eat, but also is absolutely essential socially because, unlike us who have had the Industrial Revolution, such countries have no growing industries where people can find better employment and better conditions. Errors have been made all over the world in the sort of policies that we have been advocating. I have illustrated the good policies which have had beneficial results in India and elsewhere, but in many cases the policies that we have been advocating have ruined the peasant economies and have displaced populations, with dire results for the cities to which the people have moved. If one wants an example of that, there is no question but that Lagos is the best example. It is the most dangerous city that I have visited because there is no employment, yet the displaced peasant population has flocked there.
So we must look at what we are doing and not simply take what appear to be the straightforward facts—that if one breeds a drought-resistant wheat and feeds it, one can produce more food in an area. It is not as simple as that. Oxfam and all the other voluntary agencies are absolutely convinced that we must make a major effort to protect such communities involved by using our scientific knowledge to improve their own methods. We should allow them to develop along traditional lines instead of causing the sort of destruction that can be wrought by introducing new methods which are totally unsuitable in those areas.
We must also consider the fact that we do not know what we are doing to the world's climate. Anyone of my age who flew over Africa 15 years ago and who flies over it again today can see that the expansion of man's activity is enormous—and not always beneficial. Various forecasts have been made about the rain forests and there is no question about the part that

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they can play in the climatic change which we have undergone and which we may undergo. If things continue at the present rate, the rain forests may disappear in 50 years.
All of these are facts which pertain to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. One of David Lubbock's main preoccupations was that the organisation which he loved and for which he had worked for many years was in absolutely dire straits. A lot of good people were still there and a lot of good work was still being done, but it was not the body that it should be. I have looked at the original constitution of the Food and Agriculture Organisation. It started off with high ideals, which were pursued by a great many able and dedicated people, starting with Lord Boyd-Orr, a former Member of this House.
The preamble to the FAO's constitution states that its purposes will include,
"raising levels of nutrition and standards of living of the peoples under their respective jurisdictions,
securing improvements in the efficiency of the production and distribution of all food and agricultural products,
bettering the condition of rural populations, and thus contributing toward an expanding world economy".
We are talking about 1945. The constitution continues:
"There shall be a Conference of the Organization in which each Member nation shall be represented by one member.
Each Member … shall only have one vote".
All this is important, although your Lordships may think that I am quoting at random.
The constitution also states:
"There shall be a Director-General of the Organization who shall be appointed by the Conference by such procedure and on such terms as it may determine.
Subject to the general supervision of the Conference and its Executive Committee, the Director-General shall have full power and authority to direct the work of the Organization".
This is very relevant to the situation that exists today.
This is the director-general's third term and he has been in office for some 15 years. There has been the most extraordinary amount of criticism from governments, magazines and the staff. The magazine, The Ecologist, not all of which I agree with, last year devoted a whole issue to an attack on the policies and personnel of and the work performed by the director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. It gave some quite interesting figures. Each year the FAO currently handles some 500 million dollars in core and extra budgetary funding. That gives it very great influence over the recipient nations. At the moment, as all your Lordships know, its headquarters is in Rome in a sumptuous building—nothing wrong with that. It has a staff of 6,483 people. If divided roughly, two-thirds of them work in desk jobs while one-third are involved in field work. When one gets that sort of proportion one begins to think,
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark".
The United States is the biggest single contributor and is very unhappy about its contribution. I believe that Britain contributes about 6 per cent. of the total. Indeed, only a few industrial countries—non-recipients of the benefits —contribute 70 per cent. of the budget.
The Ecologist's attack continues and includes the projects. One economist from the FAO's development department states:
"The quality of projects is not the concern here. We are expected to process projects as quickly as possible. What counts is quantity, even if that means funding a badly conceived operation".
The director-general insists on full diplomatic privileges and on being called "Your Excellency", which I daresay is a fine human weakness but is not, I should have thought, the kind of thing that adds to the efficiency of this great and important organisation. The contributing nations have been trying to do something about it but the fact is that the FAO dispenses favours. When one has a one nation, one vote situation, the director-general, if he is so inclined, can canvass his favours around; in other words, it is a kind of pork barrel operation.
I have made these criticisms because many people who are passionately interested in the work of the FAO have said this to me. It is the United Nations organisation which should be able to co-ordinate all the work and which should be able to assemble the information and to forecast where the trouble is coming from. This it has failed to do, certainly in Africa. Of course it will fail to do it unless the organisation is right, unless it can get the best people to work for it and unless people know that they are working for an ideal and that they are directed by someone who is also working for an ideal. Without a competent and absolutely upright organisation and leadership it cannot do its job. That is the criticism that I am making. I hope that the Government will be able to give us some answers as to what they are doing about it. I look forward now to hearing the rest of the debate. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
5.52 p.m.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, it is not often that I follow my noble kinsman in a different way. He did not have to declare an interest because he is now a political farmer and not an actual farmer. I am still in the business. I have just finished my 65th harvest and I am very much interested in what will happen in the future. When I came to the House today I expected to see a long list of speakers for the debate. I therefore made only a few notes because I expected to speak for not more than two or three minutes. I was horrified to see only four other names on the list. I have had to expand my notes considerably so I may be a little disjointed in what I have to say.
During the time I have been farming—I started in 1926—I have come through many a crisis. I always remember my old father, who also farmed for many years, saying that he also came through a good many crises—so many, he said, that he had begun not to believe in crises. I am trying to adopt that attitude as well. From 1926 through to the early 1930s there was a deep depression in the economy which affected agriculture to a tremendous extent. A huge number of farmers went to the wall at that time. I do not know the figure but I remember that things were bad and that a good few neighbours where I farmed went bankrupt. That era, from the late 1920s to the early 1930s, was a very bad time indeed.

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I am not sure but I do not think that the recession was quite as bad as the one we are experiencing at the present moment. We have had this terrible uncertainty. There has been no agreement on GATT and we are not sure exactly how the CAP review will work. I must admit that there are different interpretations of what is going to happen, but the main thing about farming—my noble kinsman mentioned this—is that it is a long-term business. If one is going to produce a field of wheat, it is a year's job. If one is going to breed cattle to sell as adult animals, it is a three to three-and-a-half year job. One cannot do what the motor industry does. If that industry feels that it wants to stop producing cars, it can stop producing cars. Production of a car can be stopped and then restarted a year later. Therefore I want to emphasise the long-term nature of farming.
Perhaps I may tell a story which I think I once told in the House many years ago. I think it is worth telling again. It is about a friend of mine who was giving his father and mother a golden wedding celebration. After the meal the bridegroom of all those years before was talking to his brother, who had been his best man. The brother said, "You know, George, you think you have been married for 50 years. You're wrong. You've been married for 51 years". "Nonsense", said John, "Arthur, my son, has the marriage lines". In Scotland we call the certificate the marriage lines. Arthur pricked up his ears and said, "Of course I have them. They are on my desk. I'll get them". While he was away the brother said, "Look, on the day you were married"—in those days everyone was married on Hogmanay because you were allowed one day's holiday in agriculture—"I was ploughing the lea at the back of the stable. And it's in turnips this year. Seven sevens is 49 and two is 51. Arthur can produce any certificate he likes". The certificate was duly produced whereupon it was found that the registrar had been careless. They were married in one year but registered the marriage in the next year. He put the same year for the marriage and the registration. That just shows what forward planning in agriculture was doing in those days.
During the time I have been in farming we have mostly been encouraged to grow more food. That policy was created by the two wars to a certain extent. Now we are discouraged from growing food, particularly by the dreadful set-aside policy. I am afraid that I disagree slightly with the figures of my noble kinsman on whether there is enough food in the world to feed starving people. I have received figures from several sources; some from the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who we all know was director of Oxfam for a long time; some from the FAO, which my noble kinsman does not have much faith in. Nevertheless, there are between 1 billion and 1.5 billion starving people in the world today. If we divide the difference between 1 billion and 1.5 billion the figure is 1.25 billion. That is five times the population of America. It is also four times the population of Russia. Is anyone telling me that there is surplus food in the
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world today to feed that number of people—to feed America five times? I do not think the food is there. That is why I think that set aside is a bad thing.
I have been trying to look at the situation. In the spring of 1981 a debate on the subject took place in which the noble Lord, Lord Renton, made a very good point. He said that there were people to feed, which was a long-term project, and there was the job of teaching them how to grow their own food, which was also a long-term project. Somebody else said that population control also came into the picture long term. The figures that were quoted then have nearly doubled over the last 10 years. It is an ongoing thing that we have not managed to tackle at all in the last 10 years. It is vital that it should be tackled in a strong way.
My noble friend Lord Judd gave some figures, particularly the dreadful one about a baby dying every two-and-a-half minutes, or something like that. I also have a friend who did a lot of work in the west of South America and in the north of South America with a charity that does not take out anything. They go out and try to teach the people how to develop. He said that the situation there was very bad indeed. I met somebody from India not long ago who said that along the foothills of the Himalayas there is an enormous scarcity of food. Whether they cannot get their surpluses there or not I do not know.
I have been trying to interest people in the whole of this dreadful situation. I wrote twice to the Independent. The first time I got just one reply, somebody wrote to me, and the second time there were only two replies. One was an interesting one. I wrote to The Times but the paper would not print the letter. There is a suggestion—and there have been suggestions; I got the reply from the other side not very long ago—that the food that we might have in surplus the starving people would not eat. Of course that is absolute nonsense. If you are starving you would not turn up your nose at our bread, our wheat or dried milk from our cows, but that point has been made.
The other point that was made to me not too long ago was what was the sense of sending out dried milk when the water is all stinking. For goodness sake, we are a manufacturing country and we make good water purifiers. Let us get them out there to help. This farmer who wrote to the Independent said that we should find out what foods might be suitable that we could grow on set aside and that we should go about growing that food especially for export to those countries. I cannot imagine starving people turning up their noses at any of the food that we may produce in this country and send there. I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that set aside should be stopped.
The other thing that I found by talking to a lot of people is that there is not much co-ordination in growing food for these starving people. If there was more co-ordination then proper food could be grown. There is no question but that there is an immense problem in getting the food to them. The tremendous work that the charities do is to be highly respected in every way. They deserve every help that we can give them. They are doing a good job. I have spoken to

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some of the people who have been out there in various places and they said that there is a grave lack of co-ordination and that there could be tremendous help here.
This country should give a lead either through the EC or the United Nations to get a co-ordinating committee of some description that could help the charities to the extent that they could double their work, as one person put it to me. Of course we have the old story of who is going to pay for it. About three weeks ago the Observer had an article putting the point that there were just short of 100,000 millionaires in this country. What about getting an average of £5,000 from each of them? That would be £500 million. That would help a bit, and I am sure they would not begrudge it. I know that the Government are not keen on any fresh taxation, but if they really understood the situation in these countries a lot of people would not object to being taxed to help the situation.
I do not think that I can add much more to what I have said, except to say that if we help these countries and help them to develop, when they become developed they may be of tremendous use to this country in trade. That is a practical point that we should remember. These people will not forget if we go ahead and give all the help we can to people who are starving.
6.6 p.m.
Lord Geraint: My Lords, it is with some trepidation that, after 18 years in the other place, I rise to speak for the first time in this House, having always admired the calm, reasoned approach to debate here and the knowledge and wisdom that informs the words spoken by so many noble Lords. After leaving the hurly-burly of the other place and its highly-charged atmosphere (rather sooner than I had planned, to be honest) I wondered how I would adapt to the more serene and dignified surroundings of your Lordships' House. I find that this has been accomplished with very little pain —indeed, much pleasure—and this is due to the warm welcome and ready friendship that has been extended to me by noble Lords on all sides of the House. I thank you for that.
Perhaps I may also express my gratitude to my noble friend Lord Mackie for introducing this debate on a subject that is not only close to my heart but should also concern every single one of us on both sides of the House. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute just a few brief comments.
I am a farmer from the Welsh hills. Many of you may have read George Borrow's book about when he walked Wales from one end to the other. When he came to our village, the village of Ponterwyd on Pumlumon slopes, he stopped and said:
"This is an area where men will live when crows do die."
I have spent most of my working life on the land, and my whole instinct is geared towards producing as much as I can from this land to help fulfil this country's food requirements.
Coming as I do from this background, I find it difficult to accept the situation where farmers like myself in the developed world are being offered good
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money to stop production, when hardly a day goes by without a harrowing report of famine and devastation in other parts of the world. In our affluent Western society food is thrown away or rots in intervention while, every day, in the poorer countries of this world, children are starving to death. How can we stand by and let that happen?
As a youngster many years ago, being a chapel goer—like many of your Lordships I profess to being a Christian—I remember listening to the minister's sermon on poverty. I remember his words:
"It is a great shame that politicians in this country and in America are keen to pay the farmers not to produce, while others die by the thousands in other parts of the world".
His message to us that morning was, "You have got to do something about it". But here we are, 30 or 40 years later, just talking about the subject. It is still in my mind that we should do more for those people who are less fortunate than ourselves.
As one report produced by the FAO rightly points out, famines very rarely come without notice. The report continues:
"Mostly they grow from steadily deteriorating conditions, the results of which can be anticipated and prevented through appropriate action. When governments—and the international community as a whole—fail to respond to such indicators, famines must be considered human-induced disasters".
The latest information is discouraging. While Europe enjoyed record harvests last year, global figures show a downward trend in food production. The FAO annual review for 1991 shows global cereal harvests down on 1990 (which was a record year); world output in 1991, estimated at 1.881 billion tonnes—a drop of 91 million tonnes (4.6 per cent.); wheat fell by 50 million tonnes to 551 million tonnes (down 8.3 per cent); coarse grains fell by 4 per cent; and rice (paddy) fell by 7 million tonnes (down 1.4 per cent.); developing countries' cereal production fell by 2 million tonnes (0.2 per cent.); and developed countries' cereal production fell by 89 million tonnes (9.6 per cent.). I turn to food aid. In 1990–91 it was 12 million tonnes (up 700,000 tonnes on the previous year, but well short of the 13.5 million tonnes in 1987–88).
I had the privilege of visiting Somalia and other starving countries a few years ago. When visiting the refugee camps, I found it impossible to convince starving mothers and children that our policy of cutting back food production is the right policy to pursue until we are able to help those people who are less fortunate than we are. Let us always remember that our wasted food belongs to the hungry and those with empty stomachs.
We talk about aid. We have the choice of food aid or financial aid. From my experience, what is wanted in the short term is food aid with financial aid later. Therefore, let us go forward to try to help those people in the undeveloped countries who need food aid. I believe in the old adage: "Where there's a will, there's a way". We can solve these problems only if there is a political will to do so. We in this country should look first to our own record. Why cannot we increase our official development assistance to 0.7 per cent. of GNP over the next five years, and aim to increase it further over succeeding years? That is surely possible.

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As your Lordships are aware, today is a crucial day in the GATT discussions. The results will have a profound effect on world trade and on the future of developing nations. It is not my intention to enter into the whys and wherefores of the dispute that has arisen, but merely to wish the negotiators well in their difficult task. However, I should like to make one point. I hope that the outcome of those talks will not result in such a fierce cutback in food production that we shall no longer be able to respond to emergencies by providing food aid in the short term to the countries that so desperately need our help.
I thank your Lordships for listening. Let us all, on all sides of the House, commit ourselves this evening to doing everything within our power to help those people in other parts of the world who are less fortunate than ourselves.
6.17 p.m.
Lord Palmer: My Lords, the noble Lord's speech was an emotional speech to have to follow but it is my great honour and privilege to congratulate on behalf of the whole House the noble Lord, Lord Geraint, on his excellent maiden speech. I echo much of what he had to say. He is, like myself, a farmer; but, unlike me, he is an expert. There is nothing that he does not know about sheep that is worth knowing. He was the Liberal Party's agricultural spokesman in another place for longer than most Members of Parliament can remember. He endeared himself to farmers, not just in his native Wales but throughout the rest of the United Kingdom. I feel certain that his emotional and brilliantly delivered speech will have endeared him to many of your Lordships tonight.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Palmer: My Lords, let us hope that we hear from the noble Lord again, and often.
It is not just your Lordships' House, but really I think the whole world, who should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, for bringing this important subject before us this evening. Like the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, and his noble kinsman Lord John-Mackie, I find it quite extraordinary how few people put their names down on the list to speak tonight. I am pleased to see at least one right reverend Prelate in his place. I thought that we would have a tremendous innings from the Members of those Benches. As the noble Lord said in his maiden speech, the timing of the debate is so crucial with the outcome of the latest GATT round just about to be announced.
I have already declared an interest, as I try to produce food, albeit not very satisfactorily. It was not long ago that we were told to drain the wetlands and grow more. A few years later we are told, "Stop, set it all aside". It is madness. It depends upon whose figures we believe. I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, will have another set of figures. I am reliably told that there are today 780 million chronically under-nourished people in the world. I stress the figure 780 million. In other words, that is 156 times the population of the native Scotland of the noble Lord,
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Lord Mackie of Benshie. This year, 11 million children will die from starvation; and yet, on paper, there is enough food in the world to feed everyone.
Surely, as the 20th century draws to a close, it is an international scandal that anyone should be starving, let alone die of starvation. It is a scandal of which we should all be bitterly ashamed. Of course, there is no easy answer. Like so much of life, it is itself a very delicate balancing act between providing urgent humanitarian aid and creating an environment of food security in the developing world. I am sure that many of your Lordships would agree that the western world simply is not doing enough, and surely this is where Britain should and must take the lead. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, is not here tonight as I feel sure she would agree.
As the EC strengthens its global, political and economic position we must, I believe, persuade it to accept the responsibilities and obligations pertaining to its power. It is no longer acceptable—even if it ever was—to treat the reform of the CAP as an internal matter to be decided during long, secretive discussions dominated by powerful domestic lobbies. Decisions taken in Brussels have profound implications for vulnerable communities and commodities in developing countries. I believe the interests of these communities must be included on the agenda for CAP reform. However, I have seen first hand how the vast Brussels bureaucratic machine works, and I still question whether bureaucrats well cushioned in Brussels can realistically decree what is to happen in the Greek islands and the Outer Hebrides, but that is the subject of another debate.
There is a gathering consensus in Europe that, despite the new reforms of the CAP, much unfinished business remains. Public pressure is building for a more sustainable form of farming geared towards lower levels of output, reduced inputs of agro-chemicals and higher levels of environmental care. This provides a fertile soil for a coalition of interests spanning the third world development agencies, environmental and consumer groups and, not least, organisations of small farmers to press for the debate on reforming the CAP to be reopened. The aim of that debate must not be simply to postpone the next CAP budget crisis, which is bound to be round the corner; it must, I believe, be to develop an alternative vision for European agriculture based on sustainability at home and justice for the developing world.
6.24 p.m.
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, I should like to join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, for giving us the opportunity to debate this subject this evening. I congratulate him on the speech he made in introducing it. If I do not follow him too closely in his strictures about the way in which the FAO is currently being administered it is because I believe he has stated the case clearly and concisely and it is now a matter for the Minister to say what is the reaction of Her Majesty's Government to that statement of the case.
The noble Lord, Lord Geraint, in a very fine maiden speech brought back memories of an

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excessively political boyhood when I used to spend time listening to political speeches rather than doing homework. His speech recalled for me the oratorical trick of the local Member of Parliament, David Kirkwood (then acutely Left-wing), who subsequently became a Member of your Lordships' House. The trick was to use a kind of leitmotif. Throughout a speech he repeated the phrase "poverty in the midst of super-abundance". In a sense I think that that is what this debate is about.
Lord Geraint also gave the FAO's figures for food production in 1991 which show that there is not the surplus of food in the world that we are sometimes inclined to think there is, especially in the context of the common agricultural policy. That point was echoed by the pleas of the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, about the unwisdom of reducing production as a so-called solution to our farming problems.
If food surpluses are measured against population growth, the figures are not as excessive on a world scale as we are led to believe. However, the availability of food is another matter, as is the question of distribution and price. The dominance of certain types of food production by groups of suppliers, usually to be found in the developed countries of the Western world such as North America, the European Community and the Cairns group of countries, is dangerous in economic terms. Yet it is vitally necessary in a global context to ensure that the world has the capacity to produce food.
In my opinion the food problems of the third world are made more difficult by the collapse of stability in Eastern Europe and the emergence there of nationalist and religious quarrels. Those quarrels do not bode well for the immediate future. For example, the resulting diversion of resources, particularly of the United Nations, to former Yugoslavia seems tragic in its own right but doubly so in the context that it exacerbates third world problems.
I also believe that a distinction needs to be made where food shortages arise from civil war, droughts, maldistribution, poor farming, fragmentation of land holdings, illiteracy, population explosions and poor government methods. Developing countries undoubtedly have a duty to assist, whatever the cause of food shortages may be. That point has been made by all speakers tonight; but in general it will be easier to convince people of that duty if the shortages are due to natural causes rather than civil strife, whatever justification may be made for such strife. It is also vital that food aid should reach the needy and is not hijacked by the greedy and the dishonest.
The Western world must take account of the effect of its food policies on growers in the third world. I believe that that point was well made by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer. High interest rates as a policy may help to reduce inflation but the ripple effect will make life harsh for even efficient farmers, let alone the subsistence variety. The common agricultural policy, like its counterparts elsewhere—and we are not alone in the world as protectionists in the production of food—is particularly unfair to growers, especially those in developing countries, even when allowance is
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made for easements granted by the EC to ACP countries on an individual commodity basis. EC food aid generosity is partly conscience money, bearing in mind the effect on world markets of what we are pleased to call restitution payments—a euphemism for subsidies—especially when certain food surpluses are drastically reduced by the Community over a short time.
The GATT talks are mainly considered in the context of possible consequential trade wars between developed countries if they fail. We must all hope that the talks currently taking place do not fail. Third world nations have a vital interest in trade and agricultural production provided that they are fair and free. GATT matters no less for them, and a consequential trade war in the event of failure is the worst possible scenario for the third world.
One of the consolations in all this is that distance from markets is not the debilitating factor for developing countries it once was; for example, food cargoes flown by air can reach the West in hours as opposed to weeks. This is an added reason for third world countries to market well. In a United Kingdom context our track record for both aid and assistance is good in my opinion. One would still wish to see it improve, even if the magic 0.7 per cent. of GDP is currently beyond us. It is vital to ensure that good use is made of the help that we are undoubtedly giving.
The ministry for overseas development once had an established post for an adviser on co-operatives. I knew both incumbents, who held the job over many years. They were well trained in the field having been officers in former Commonwealth countries, and for a time the ministry also had an advisory committee on co-operatives. Both those activities have now been discontinued on the grounds apparently that they were no longer necessary. Yet, as I see it, the need for co-operatives in agriculture, especially in the third world, is as great as ever, maybe even more so.
Co-operatives can contribute across the whole range of food supplies as well as in the important area of agricultural credit. A new body has been established in Britain entitled the United Kingdom Co-operative Council, and it now exists thanks largely to an initiative of the former registrar of industrial and provident societies, Mr. Keith Brading. It was formed, as I say, almost by accident when the Co-operative Development Agency was prematurely wound up by Her Majesty's Government. But now the United Kingdom Co-operative Council has its own role. It embraces all types of co-operative, which is very important; that is to say, consumer, agricultural societies, producer societies, credit societies and housing co-operatives, with representatives from national organisations in each case.
At the moment the council is mainly concerned with revising the 1965 Industrial and Provident Societies Act which is a near mammoth task, not least because of some of the difficulties in getting agreement between the parties as to what changes they would wish to see. I feel, however, that with modest help and encouragement the United Kingdom Co-operative Council could assist the ministry for overseas development in the promotion of agricultural societies

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and other types of co-operative, especially in Commonwealth countries. The need for this is there. The expertise is undoubtedly there and the ministry for overseas development could, I think, by acting as a kind of marriage broker, convert this body into a very important organisation, not excluding the status of a non-governmental organisation, on the world scene.
The year 1991 was the Food and Agriculture Organisation's conference year and some 161 member countries participated in that conference. They gave unanimous support for making people's participation a priority by reinforcing rural institutions, including, as mentioned in the report, farmers' unions and co-operatives. They commended the role of non-governmental organisations and promised an increase in the Food and Agriculture Organisation's collaboration with them. I applaud that. In this context, what help could the United Kingdom's national farmers' unions give to solve world food shortages in, say, third world Commonwealth countries? British farming is due to become less intensive. A 15 per cent. set aside, for example, with limits in certain cases on livestock headage, would seem to indicate, as the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, has said, some reduction in the intensity with which we farm in Britain.
Nevertheless the expertise of British farmers remains high and it would be a great pity in my opinion if, because of the solutions—if one can so call them—decided upon in order to solve common agricultural policy problems, this expertise were in any way to suffer as a result of under-use. I have never been able to decide, nor have ever heard anyone say very much, about what kind of farming policies third world countries should follow. Should they, for example, if they have a choice, farm intensively to boost supplies which are urgently needed in certain countries in the short term, or should they farm extensively in order to absorb labour and to stop the drift of population from the country to the towns? I must confess that I have yet to hear anyone say which of those policies is correct, or whether both are correct, but the circumstances in which they may apply are different and as a consequence it is impossible to be specific about the areas in which either policy should be applied. Nevertheless it is something which must be taken into account.
The United Kingdom, fortunately, has experience of both systems. We certainly know how to farm intensively and as a result, as I have said, of what has happened recently with the CAP, we are due to become—I am sure we will become—successful extensive farmers. Therefore I ask, could not this dual capacity encourage national farmers' unions to play some part whereby suitable British farms would take farm workers from developing countries, particularly Commonwealth countries, for, say, a year of practical training in basic farm work? I raised this as a supplementary question with the noble Earl the other day and he promised to have a look at it. I repeat it now in the hope of persuading him that it is worth an
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examination, even though one would be reluctant to claim that it represents either great originality or a suggestion of world-shaking importance.
Such workers, as I see it, could come to Britain, live on the farm and at the end, say, of a full year's cycle of farming return home with more basic skills than they came with. The cost of modest schemes of this kind would not overwhelm the overseas development ministry budget and even an experiment on a modest scale for two years would, I think, be worth while.
These are a few thoughts on this subject. No one is going to believe that this discussion tonight, or previous discussions, or future discussions, will come anywhere near solving a problem whose immense character is daunting and about which, if one were to think too much, the resultant mood would be one of bitter depression. Nevertheless, as I said at the outset, discuss it we must. We are in a position to assist and I hope the debate tonight will contribute towards that assistance. I look forward to the reply of the Minister.
6.37 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Howe): My Lords, this is a timely debate on a topic of importance to every man, woman, and child on this planet. We all need, and deserve, adequate access to food. Ensuring this is one of the major challenges currently facing the international community.
I begin with the world food situation. We must not be complacent. But the signs are that, following two bad years, things are beginning to improve. In a message to the recent session of the governing body of the World Food Programme in Rome, Dr Saouma, the Director-General of FAO, stated that,
"according to present indications world food production in 1992 would be higher than last year and cereal availabilities would be sufficient to meet the global demand".
This is confirmed by the most recent reports from the International Wheat Council.
Year-to-year fluctuations in production and stockpiles will continue. So far, technical improvements and economic incentives have defeated those who have repeatedly painted Malthusian pictures of overpopulation and famine. Many of your Lordships will vividly recall the despair that was felt 20 or 30 years ago about the prospects of India or Bangladesh feeding their people. Yet, thanks to its own efforts supported by aid from Britain and elsewhere, India has been on balance self-sufficient in cereals for some years, as the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, rightly mentioned. Bangladesh looks likely to be so for the first time this year. The Sahel also offers grounds for optimism, in that 10 years ago it seemed set into a pattern of permanent crisis, similar to that now affecting the Horn. Now, however, unless another climatic disaster occurs, prospects seem reasonable.
In the medium term, much will depend on the outcome of the GATT negotiations, as the noble Lords, Lord Geraint, Lord Palmer and Lord Gallacher, so rightly emphasised. Any increase in world prices that may result could encourage food production in importing countries, particularly in the developing world. But, at the country level, we cannot afford to be complacent. Chronic malnutrition is all

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too common, and acute food shortages persist, particularly in Africa. In many countries, particularly in the developing world, stocks of cereals have been sharply reduced in recent years and the expected levels of supplies this year will not be large enough to replenish these.
The Government remain deeply concerned about the risk of starvation in Africa and fully share the sentiments expressed by noble Lords this afternoon. No one can fail to be moved by graphic images of starving faces on the television screen of the kind referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie—the harrowing sight of hungry and malnourished children and helpless parents. My noble friend the Minister for Overseas Development, who has first-hand and recent experience in Somalia and elsewhere, is today chairing the EC's Development Council in Brussels, which is addressing some of these issues. I shall inform the House later of its conclusions.
We are all united in wishing to relieve hunger and suffering. Humanitarian aid is not subject to political considerations. Donors have made considerable efforts to help. For example, we have pledged more than 200,000 tonnes of food aid nationally this year and our total relief aid to Africa amounts to some £107 million.
The noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, referred to the UK's record. In 1991 the UK had the fifth largest aid programme in the world. In a difficult financial climate the public expenditure outcome is good for overseas aid. The ODA's overall budget is set to rise in cash terms by 1995–96 by more than £200 million compared with this year. The European Community is also providing some 1.8 million tonnes of food aid this year to countries with severe food shortages. The NGOs too, with help from the British public, are untiring in their efforts to provide much-needed food.
The real problem in many of these countries—in Somalia, Mozambique, Angola—is not so much the availability of food as grave security difficulties and problems of food delivery. That problem was rightly highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie. Ports are congested; there is frequently poor local infrastructure and transportation networks, a lack of sufficient vehicles and adequate fuel and spares. All these are aspects of poverty and underdevelopment. They take time and sensible economic policies to overcome, as well as aid and investment. Food aid operations are also complicated by the rapid movement and growing numbers of refugees—for example, in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia—and by the resettlement of demobilised soldiers, as in Mozambique. These factors all add to the pressure on already limited and near exhausted food supplies.
A significant development this year has been the establishment of a Department of Humanitarian Affairs within the UN, with a new Under Secretary General, Mr. Eliasson, in charge. This arose from an Anglo-German initiative within the General Assembly and reflected widespread concern about the need for improved co-ordination machinery to deal with emergencies.
The DHA and Mr. Eliasson have made a promising start, but much needs to be done. My noble friend the
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Minister for Overseas Development is flying to New York tomorrow to participate in this year's General Assembly debate on humanitarian assistance. She will be pressing, on behalf of the European Community as well as the UK, for the establishment of better lines of communication between the DHA and the executing agencies, closer co-operation with NGOs and the creation of a co-ordinated structure of relief and development.
I should like to commend in particular the contributions of the Global Information and Early Warning System of the FAO and the World Food Programme, which are of great value both to the developing countries and to donors in planning for food shortages. The Global Information and Early Warning System provides information on food needs and availability. The World Food Programme supplies a number of essential services to donors in the provision of relief food aid. An encouraging feature of 1992 has been the increased level of co-operation between FAO and the World Food Programme in, for example, the mounting of joint missions for crop assessment and relief needs. We very much welcome that development.
However, not all food aid is provided for relief purposes. We have considerable doubts about the value of much non-emergency food aid, which often seems a poor use of scarce development resources and which can in certain circumstances harm local production. In this connection I refer your Lordships to a speech made by my noble friend the Minister for Overseas Development to a meeting organised by the NGO CARE in London on 2nd November. In that speech she launched a campaign for "real food aid", arguing that greater priority should be given to meeting relief food aid needs and that, when non-emergency food aid is provided, much greater effort must be made to ensure that it is used wisely and well. Ministers and officials will be following up this speech, particularly within the European Community. A copy has been placed in the Library of the House.
The noble Lord, Lord Geraint, in a most thoughtful and inspiring maiden speech, recognised that food aid is not necessarily the answer to food shortages. We need to accept first of all that, except in circumstances of an almost total breakdown of civil structures, as in Somalia, food insecurity is normally one aspect only of the overall poverty problem. Even in drought-stricken areas it is unusual for food not to be available to those who can afford it. The problem is that, bereft of their livelihood through drought, few have the resources to buy food. Thus poverty-focused development programmes, aimed at improving the incomes of the poor, have the most direct impact on access to food and malnutrition.
In this connection I draw your Lordships' attention to the EC Development Council which took place today under the chairmanship of my noble friend the Minister for Overseas Development. As well as considering particular emergencies in Somalia and Mozambique, the Council is agreeing a substantial statement to guide development policy in the Community during the 1990s. That statement will

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ensure that the poverty focus throughout the Community's development programmes is strengthened.
It is also important to encourage governments of developing countries to introduce policies aimed at encouraging local production of food in a free market. All too often in the past heavily subsidised food for urban areas, supported by food aid donors who should have known better, has meant that prices for locally produced food have become so depressed that it has not been worth while for local farmers to grow food. The noble Lord, Lord Mackie, referred to that problem. Many of the structural adjustment programmes, supported by the World Bank and others, seek to correct this, and a successful outcome to the Uruguay Round which will reduce the dumping of agricultural surpluses on developing countries by the US and others will also help. Measures already being taken by the European Community under the recent reform of the common agricultural policy represent another helpful move in this direction.
The noble Lords, Lord John-Mackie, Lord Geraint and Lord Palmer, criticised the policy of set aside. We had a short debate on that subject recently following a Question tabled by the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie. I made the point then that even when EC surpluses have been reduced there will be ample food in the world. I just make the further point that most of the food in surplus is unsuitable for use as food aid. The quality and type of food does not always match what recipients need. Also it may not represent the best value for money. Surely it is better to provide food which people are used to. The Government's aim, after all, is to feed the starving, not to offload surpluses in the Community.
Having said that, the stocks that we have in the Community are used where possible and where they are cost-effective. But we prefer to see more triangular transactions or local purchase which reduces the risk of creating dependency on imported foodstuffs and has benefits for the country from which the food is purchased as well as for the recipients.
That view is underpinned by many of the voluntary agencies, including Oxfam in its 1987 paper entitled Common Ground: How changes in the Common Agricultural Policy Affect the Third World Poor. Oxfam stated:
"it is in the interests of the third world to reduce eventually to zero the EC's surpluses, leaving land fallow, and promoting alternative non-competing crops, such as trees, would be best".
It explicitly recognised that setting up aid programmes was more beneficial to poor people than exporting EC surpluses.
I now turn to the FAO. This is the largest of the UN specialised agencies and has a vital role to play in assisting countries in their endeavours to eradicate poverty. It is involved at every level of agricultural development from demonstrating to subsistence farmers new techniques for cultivating food crops to advising governments on how to achieve more stable and equitable trade in agricultural commodities.
It is not an aid agency, or an agricultural bank or indeed a global ministry of agriculture. The FAO is,
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however, a unique source of expertise and information. In addition it gives direct and practical help in the developing world through technical assistance projects in all areas of food and agriculture. It has four main tasks, and it is worth reminding ourselves what these are: to provide technical advice and assistance for the agricultural community; to collect, analyse and disseminate information; to advise governments on policy planning; and to provide an opportunity for governments to meet and discuss food and agricultural problems.
Britain joined the FAO in 1945 at its foundation. We pay an annual contribution to the FAO's regular budget of some £11 million. We will continue to provide such support.
We have also provided additional financial assistance to FAO to help it spearhead a campaign in North Africa to halt an invasion of the new world screw worm fly, the most dangerous insect pest of livestock in North America. This has been a highly successful programme to which we were pleased to have contributed.
At the same time, we have concerns about the effectiveness and management of the FAO. The noble Lord, Lord Mackie, expressed his concerns. Our concern, in common with his, is that it should do better what it was set up to do.
In 1989 the FAO undertook an extensive review of goals and operations. The resulting resolution and decisions did not in our view go far enough. There is still a need for the FAO to prioritise its programmes in line with the agreed priorities identified by the FAO conference and to curtail or stop completely those activities that are not identified as a priority or those which would be better undertaken by other organisations or institutions both within and outside the UN system. We, along with other like minded countries, continue to work towards those ends.
The FAO has the expertise and skilled people required to carry out those essential functions. Its expertise is not reflected sufficiently in its policies; for example, in the Tropical Forestry Action Plan where considerable improvements are required to allow it to fulfil the hopes placed in it. We want to ensure that, through effective leadership, it does so. We are working with other member states to pursue these objectives. The FAO needs to look again at its priorities in the follow-up to the Rio Earth Summit. It can only do so through the guidance, imagination and foresight of its new director-general, whoever he or she may be. We want to see Doctor Saouma whose term of office ends next year, followed by a new director-general who will rise to those challenges and lead the FAO effectively and imaginatively into the 21st century.
6.55 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. It was more satisfactory than many replies from that Bench. I should like to say again that the people of the world are very fortunate in the noble Baroness who leads the overseas aid programme. I hope that she will receive all the backing

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that she needs, both financial and otherwise, in her excellent work. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken.
My noble kinsman produced his expertise and the nice old story which I have used many times, just as he did. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, spoke enormously good sense. They agreed on set-aside. I also am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, who gave us the benefit of his expertise on the absolutely essential role of co-operation in agriculture. My noble friend's maiden speech impressed me greatly. One can always trust the Welsh to make a polished and rounded contribution. It is the envy of stuttering chaps like me when I hear a speech such as that delivered by my noble friend.
It has been a good debate. I thank all who took part in it. I wish that there had been more contributors. Nevertheless, I shall now do what I have to do and beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Gas (Exempt Supplies) [H.L.]
6.57 p.m.
Lord Cochrane of Cults: 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 Cochrane of Cults.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[THE VISCOUNT OF OXFUIRD in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Prohibition on unauthorised supply]:
Lord Cochrane of Cults Lord Cochrane of Cults moved Amendment No. 1:
Leave out Clause 1 and insert the following new clause:
Prohibition on unauthorised supply: exception and exemptions
For section 5 of the Gas Act 1986 there shall be substituted the following section—
"Prohibition on unauthorised supply.

5.— (1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3) and sections 6 and 6A below, a person who supplies gas through pipes to any premises shall be guilty of an offence unless he is authorised to do so under section 7 or 8 below.

(2) Subsection (1) above is not contravened by a person supplying, for use in a building or part of a building in which he has an interest, gas supplied to the building by a person authorised to supply it by or under section 6, 6A, 7 or 8 below.

(3) Subsection (1) above is not contravened by a person supplying to any premises gas which consists wholly or mainly of propane or butane if—

(a) the contract for the supply contains provisions empowering a person authorised by the supplier to enter the premises where in his opinion it is necessary to do so for the purpose of averting danger to life or property; and

(b) those provisions are in terms approved for the purposes of this subsection by the Secretary of State.

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable—

(a) on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum;

(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine.

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(5) No proceedings shall be instituted in England and Wales in respect of an offence under this section except by or on behalf of the Secretary of State or the Director."").

The noble Lord said: With permission I shall say a few words before I formally move the amendment. This Bill was read a second time on 8th July. The Committee stage was therefore caught by the unusually long and early Summer Recess.
First, I should declare an interest. I am chairman of a small private company which is authorised to supply gas under the terms of Section 8 of the Gas Act 1986. That supply of gas is, at under 2 per cent. of our turnover, incidental to our main business which is a caravan holiday park.
Former Clause 1 of the Bill has been divided and, with some changes which I shall explain shortly, has become new Sections 5 and 6A of the Gas Act. Those changes are before the Committee as Amendments Nos. 1 and 3, to which I shall return later. This amendment stands in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, who regrets that unfortunately he is unable to be present tonight. We are therefore deprived of his wise counsel.
I venture to remind Members of the Committee that my Bill as it stands replaces Section 5 of the Gas Act 1986 with a new clause. The amendment makes a further alteration at subsection 5(3) which provides that the supplier of propane and butane must have power to enter the premises supplied if:
"in his opinion it is necessary to do so for the purpose of averting danger to life or property".
That power to enter will be drawn from a specified condition in the gas supply contract—that is, the contract between the supplier of the gas and the user of the gas.
This provision replaces condition 4(b) in the Ofgas authorisation granted to suppliers under Section 8. However, the wording is taken from the Gas Act at Section 18(c). That condition in turn is based on Section 4(c) and Schedule 5, paragraphs 13 and 14 to the same Act, read together.
This new power is required because the exemption of the supplies means that the power so derived needs replacing. These changes fill that need. Subsection 5(3) (b) of the amendment provides for the contract term by means of a clause or clauses approved by the Secretary of State for the purpose of the preceding subsection. That procedure is often referred to as using model clauses. I beg to move.
7 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale Lord Skelmersdale moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 1, Amendment No. 2:
Line 12, at end insert:
("()) It shall be a condition precedent to the lawful exercise of an exemption granted under subsection (2) above that the exempted person shall provide the Health and Safety Executive not less than eight weeks' notice of any premises to be so supplied;").
The noble Lord said: It is a long time since the Second Reading of the Bill and a great deal of water has passed under the bridge. Not only has my noble friend been busy with—I am not quite sure what—perhaps his word processors but my noble friend the

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Minister has consolidated her hold on the Department of Trade and Industry. I must now declare an interest as a consultant to British Gas.
Members of the Committee will be grateful to my noble friend for his brief summary of the activities which took place on the word processor to which I have referred. He has split his original Clause 1 into two new clauses, the second of which is the subject of Amendment No. 3. The way in which that has been done is eminently suitable.
However, we need to know a little about subsection (3) (b); namely, that the provisions in the model clauses are in terms approved for the purposes of this subsection by the Secretary of State. The Committee will recall that on Second Reading it was agreed by all speakers that safety should be the main issue as regards this part of the Bill. My noble friend Lady Denton said:
"it is important to emphasise that, in deregulating this aspect, there will be no diminution in safety standards. Safety will remain of paramount importance".—[Official Report, 8/7/92; col. 1240.]
We were told that all would be well because the Health and Safety Executive would be in charge of that aspect. That is all well and good as far as it goes but I believe there is a problem. How, unless it is told, is the executive to know that a potential or existing supplier has supplied or intends to supply propane or butane gas? Presumably that will be one of the conditions referred to in my noble friend's provision in subsection (3) (b), to which I have referred. With the best will in the world, unless the executive is told it will not be able to investigate systems which clearly by definition they do not know about.
We know that the Bill cannot come into effect before the new health and safety regulations are in place. It would be useful if my noble friend could tell us the current state of play and confirm whether a draft has been circulated for comment. Indeed, will there be a second set of regulations on the subject of entry under the Health and Safety at Work Act?
It has been suggested to me that my amendment would be better placed at the end of line 23—that is, at the bottom of page 1 on the Marshalled List. That is quite likely the case. That said, however, I should be more that satisfied if the provisions to be approved by the Secretary of State under subsection (3) (b) included the concept embodied in my amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I assure my noble friend that we believe that the conditions for notification are perfectly adequate and do not need another layer of bureaucracy. Under Section 2 of the Pipe-lines Act 1962, caravan site owners wishing to construct a pipeline system to their properties must submit a notification to the DTI four weeks before construction is due to commence. That is then notified to the Health and Safety Executive to decide whether it can issue a safety notice.
The Health and Safety Executive plans to issue consultative documents in 1993, which I am delighted to say is not too far away. It hopes that during that year it will be able to bring the matter forward.
Lord Skelmersdale: I am grateful to my noble friend. It is a pity that during Second Reading that we were unable to appreciate that the Pipe-lines Act 1962 would govern the propane suppliers. We could have saved time tonight but that was not to be. I hope that my noble friend has no hard feelings about my moving the amendment which I now beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment to the amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 1 agreed to.
Lord Cochrane of Cults Lord Cochrane of Cults moved Amendment No. 3:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
Exemptions from prohibition on unauthorised supply
(" . After section 6 of the Gas Act 1986 there shall be inserted the following section—
"Exemptions from section 5.
6A.—

(1) The Secretary of State may, after consultation with the Director, by order grant exemption from section 5 (1) above, but subject to compliance with such conditions (if any) as may be specified in the order.

(2) An exemption may be granted either—

(a) to persons of a particular class; or

(b) to a particular person;

and an exemption granted to persons of a particular class shall be published in such manner as the Secretary of State considers appropriate for bringing it to the attention of persons of that class.

(3) An exemption, unless previously revoked in accordance with any term contained in the exemption, shall continue in force for such period as may be specified in or determined by or under the exemption."").

The noble Lord said: The amendment replaces Sections 5(4) and (5) of the Bill as it stood after Second Reading. It inserts a new section 6A into the Gas Act to allow the Secretary of State to grant further exemption (at his discretion) from Section 5 of the Gas Act. That reflects similar terms in the later Electricity Act 1989 and will avoid the need for certain gas suppliers, which in this context may well mean producers and manufacturers of gas, to be authorised under Section 8.
Typically, such exemptions could be sought for landfill gas, pithead gas from coal mines, by-product gas and even perhaps in the future that foundation of the gas industry, which I mentioned briefly on Second Reading, coal gas. It is now in eclipse but I am sure that it will shine again one day. Among the effects of Section 8 is the discovery that the Visiting Forces Act does not allow them to distribute gas and the US Air Force is now a registered gas supplier. If they distribute propane, they will be exempt under the earlier subsection with which we have dealt. If they distribute another gas, Section 6A could be applicable.
Clearly, Section 6A(2) (a) will be of great use where supply is by several persons in similar circumstances, whereas Section 6A(2) (b) will apply in unique or original circumstances. The rest of the section deals with publishing class exemptions suitably and with the duration, if required, of the exemptions. I beg to move.
Lord Skelmersdale Lord Skelmersdale moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 3, Amendment No. 4:
At end insert:

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("() Subsection (1) above shall not apply to natural gas got in pursuance of a licence under the Petroleum Production Act 1934 (including a licence under that Act as applied by section 1(3) of the Continental Shelf Act 1964;").
The noble Lord said: On Second Reading, and again today, my noble friend made it quite clear that there are to be three distinct sections of the Gas Act 1986: one dealing with propane and butane, which under this Bill are to be deregulated; one dealing with North Sea gas; and one, which is the subject of Amendment No. 3, dealing with any other sort of gas that one might possibly think of, not only coal gas but also methane from landfill sites and so on.
We all know that but anybody reading the amended Gas Act in the future will not know. I believe that it would be at the very least helpful to future readers if it could be made quite clear if the new clause after Clause 1 embodied in Amendment No. 3, were to state quite firmly that it did not apply to North Sea gas.
I have lifted that phrase from Section 29(11) of the 1972 Act, which I am sure is now out of date. Therefore, if my idea of clarity is to be adopted, I have no doubt that the words of the amendment are wrong. However, that does not detract from the force of my argument. I beg to move.
Lord Williams of Elvel: We are debating the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Cochrane of Cults. I have great difficulty in understanding what Amendment No. 3 means. Subsection (3) states:
"An exemption, unless previously revoked in accordance with any term contained in the exemption, shall continue in force for such a period as may be specified in or determined by or under the exemption".
I do not understand the word "previously". I could understand that there may well be an exemption which is specified and there may be a violation of the terms of the exemption. However, that is not "previous". I do not understand the drafting and perhaps the noble Lord will help me on that.
Lord Cochrane of Cults: I shall do my best to answer that question. The amendment certainly makes sense to me. It merely states that an exemption will continue in force for such a period as may be specified unless previously revoked.
Lord Williams of Elvel: What is the use of word "previously"?
Lord Cochrane of Cults: This is not a field in which I have any expertise. It may assist the noble Lord if I suggest that we may be looking for the word "already".
Lord Williams of Elvel: I suggest that the noble Lord might leave out the word "previously" from his amendment because that is causing the problem. It cannot be "previously" revoked. That is absurd.
Lord Skelmersdale: Before we pursue this argument further, it may be helpful to the Committee if we hear from my noble friend on the Front Bench.
7.15 p.m.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: Perhaps my noble friend will look at the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, and consider the matter before Report stage.
The proposed new Section 6A of the Gas Act is designed to provide power for the Secretary of State to alleviate future problems akin to the problem here without the necessity of troubling Parliament with primary legislation as and when any new problems emerge at the margins of Section 8 of the Gas Act. The amendment attempts to improve and tidy matters so that it will not then be necessary to take up the time of Parliament.
On Second Reading I assured my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale that we had no plans to utilise such powers. Since Second Reading the chairman of British Gas has approached my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade for an assurance that the Government do not intend to use that power to grab wide-ranging exemptions which would frustrate the purpose of Section 8 of the Gas Act and undermine the position of British Gas which it enjoys by virtue of that section. My right honourable friend has assured the chairman that we do not intend to use that power in that way and I freely repeat that assurance today.
I join my noble friend Lord Cochrane in urging the Committee to resist Amendment No. 4. While the amendment may cover potential problems—for example, as regards landfill gas and coke oven gas—it does not recognise that energy is a changing field and that more technology will create more answers.
Lord Skelmersdale: I am grateful for that answer but I am not sure that I totally understand it. It is fair enough to say that my right honourable friend has written to the chairman of British Gas saying that there is no intention to invalidate Section 8 by the use of new Section 6A. I understand that point. However, my noble friend goes on to say that she does not know by what methods gas will be produced in the future; nor does anyone else. The object of my amendment is to ensure that Section 6A could not be used for what is loosely and colloquially described as North Sea gas. I do not believe my noble friend answered that point.
Lord Williams of Elvel: I shall try to reinforce the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale. It is all very well for Ministers to give assurances from the Dispatch Box and to say that the Secretary of State has no intention of doing this or that. However, that carries absolutely no force in law. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, argues that, if that is the Government's position, why should it not be written on the face of the Bill?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I remind the noble Lord and my noble friends that I am trying to be helpful. I am trying to be helpful on behalf of the Government. This Bill aims to tidy up the situation as regards the supply of gas to caravan sites and similar operations. It is not a Bill to change energy policy. It is simply that methods of supplying the sites have changed from bottles to pipeline and we should

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recognise that and take away the bureaucracy of applying for a licence every single time. It is difficult to be absolutely certain that a mix of gas does not include some source or other. We believe that the flexibility here will be to the benefit of users on sites. That is what my noble friend Lord Cochrane is trying to achieve. That is the situation.
Lord Cochrane of Cults: Perhaps I may explain further. My noble friend Lord Skelmersdale has suggested that a restriction should be placed upon the origin of gas coming into the country. However, he proposes to apply that restriction at the point of use of the gas; that is, as downstream gas. I made careful inquiries yesterday and was told that, for example, propane or butane originates from at least two distinct sources. It arrives in its natural state as associated gases with a flow of oil or gas from an oil field or gas field. It is also a by-product of oil from oil refineries or similar undertakings. The oil used could have come from anywhere. Therefore, downstream it is impossible to say whether it came from the northern, southern, eastern or western hemisphere. There can be no knowledge of where it came from. That causes considerable problems in dealing with it as my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale suggests. I have a measure of sympathy with his proposals but, for the reasons I have outlined, the method appears to be wholly impractical.
Lord Skelmersdale: This is not the first time that I have been damned with faint praise in your Lordships' House, but that is certainly the case today. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Cochrane for saying that he thinks that there may be a need to distinguish between the three future sections of the Gas Act 1986, but clearly we cannot go any further on this distinguishing feature tonight. Perhaps we had better leave it for another occasion. I therefore beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment to the amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Amendment No. 3 agreed to.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Keeping of register]:
Lord Cochrane of Cults Lord Cochrane of Cults moved Amendment No. 5:
Leave out Clause 2 and insert the following new clause:
Keeping of register
(". In section 36 of the Gas Act 1986 (keeping of register), for subsections (1) and (2) there shall be substituted the following subsections

"(1) The Director shall keep a register of notifications and directions under section 6 above, exemptions granted under section 6A above to particular persons, authorisations under section 7 or 8 above and final and provisional orders at such premises and in such form as he may determine.

(2) Subject to any direction given under subsection (3) below, the Director shall cause to be entered in the register the provisions of

(a) every notification or direction under section 6 above;

(b) every exemption granted under section 6A above to a particular person and every revocation of such exemption;

(c) every revocation made otherwise than by order of an exemption granted under that section to persons of a particular class;

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(d) every authorisation under section 7 or 8 above and every modification or revocation of, and every direction or consent given or determination made under, such an authorisation; and

(e) every final or provisional order, every revocation of such an order and every notice under section 28(6) above."").

The noble Lord said: This amendment stands in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Ezra. This clause replaces Clause 2 with a new clause which makes the necessary alterations to accommodate the new Section 6A, about which I spoke earlier. This is a consequential amendment caused by earlier changes. I beg to move.
Lord Skelmersdale: Perhaps it would be appropriate for me to ask a simple question. My noble friend will move Amendment No. 8 to the Title of the Bill which is to:
"Leave out('sections 5 and 36') and insert ('section 5')".
However, the amendment which we are now discussing is an amendment to Section 36 of the Gas Act 1986. Why then in the Title does my noble friend need to leave out Section 36?
Lord Cochrane of Cults: I understand the reason for it, because I asked the same question. The reason is that it does not replace the whole of Section 36 of the Gas Act; therefore reference to it is not required. I trust that that answer is satisfactory.
Lord Skelmersdale: I am sure that it is right and I am grateful to my noble friend.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 [Short title, commencement and extent]:
Lord Cochrane of Cults Lord Cochrane of Cults moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 3, line 3, after first ("may") insert ("by order made by statutory instrument").
The noble Lord said: This amendment provides for the Secretary of State to make commencement orders for different parts of the Act on different dates. It is a usual provision in legislation of this kind and is the same as in Section 68(5) of the Gas Act 1986. I beg to move.
Lord Williams of Elvel: I do not wish to oppose the amendment, but has it gone through the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee of this House which has recently been set up?
Lord Cochrane of Cults: I have not the slightest idea. It may be that I have a let-out on the basis that this Bill was commenced before the committee was established. However, it is a new idea to me and I fear I was not present in your Lordships' House on the day when this new idea saw the light; otherwise I should undoubtedly have made suitable inquiries. I regret that I am unable to assist the noble Lord.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: Perhaps I may be of assistance to the noble Lord. I understand that the committee does not yet have a membership, therefore it would have been impossible to put the amendment to it.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Skehnersdale Lord Skehnersdale moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 3, line 4, at end insert:
("() The first order made under section 6A of the Gas Act 1986 shall be made by statutory instrument and no such order shall be made unless a draft of it has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament; subsequent orders shall be made by statutory instrument subject to annulment.").
The noble Lord said: I must apologise for putting down a rather complicated amendment to the Bill. However, it gives me the opportunity of drawing to the Committee's attention a subject which I believe is long overdue. The problem is that during any Parliamentary Session, time has to be allocated for the debate of affirmative instruments in which no parliamentarian has any longer any interest whatever. For all I know, my noble friend may have experienced debating one of these with the noble Lord, Lord Williams, in recent months. The noble Lord, Lord Williams, has certainly spoken so briefly that he might not have spoken on various orders during the time that he has been the shadow spokesman in your Lordships' House for the Department of Trade and Industry, because I have watched him do it.
That said, the issue often in question was topical at the time when the parent Bill was being debated, but over time this topicality has waned. I used to think that it would be sensible to have a quinquennial Act downgrading affirmative instruments to negative ones, but it has been pointed out to me, quite rightly, that no one would agree on which orders should continue to be affirmative and which orders should not.
That means that Parliament should be able to decide, during debates on a particular Bill, whether it wants affirmative or negative instruments for all time or whether, after a decent interval, the instrument can be debated only if an individual parliamentarian so wishes.
In the case of this Bill, the issue of the first Secretary of State's exemption under the new Section 5(3) would, I believe, be of great interest in the consumer, the safety and the gas worlds and must be debated the first time round. Any orders made after that would, I believe, be of considerably less interest and would probably need to be debated only if there were significant changes in the conditions attached to the exemption. I am sure that if that were the case, even if parliamentarians were not self-motivated, there would be plenty of advisers to tip them off and to get a particular subject debated.
It is a little unfair to spring this amendment on my noble friend. Nonetheless, she is speaking for the Government and before I pursue it with the committee that the noble Lord, Lord Williams, has just spoken about, I should like to hear the Government's view on it as a concept. I beg to move.
Lord Williams of Elvel: I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, feels that I have not given proper attention to orders which are placed before your Lordships' House. I hope that I scrutinise them with my usual diligence and ask questions. I should like the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, to listen to my argument before intervening. The problem is that it is difficult—and I use the word advisedly—to amend orders. We can have a debate; we can say what we feel about an order, but unless the Government—if it is a
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government order—withdraws the order and decides to amend it on the basis of the argument, it is difficult to move amendments.
There is a self-denying ordinance on behalf of the Opposition and, I think, the other Opposition party, on voting against orders on affirmative procedure. Under those circumstances, I have always taken the view that when orders come to our House under the affirmative procedure they should be analysed and properly debated; nevertheless there is not much one can do about them when they happen. So we can do the same thing under a prayer for annulment against a negative instrument procedure. I do not think that the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, is entirely justified.
7.30 p.m.
Lord Cochrane of Cults: While as a Back-Bencher I have a measure of sympathy with the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale, I do not think it is practical. It creates that dreadful thing called a precedent. The Committee will know that a Private Member's Bill is at the best of times a frail ship. It depends on a fair wind from the Government and not annoying this person or that who may know a great deal more about the matter than oneself. One then has to recruit enough of one's friends to make the subject look as though a great many people believe in it.
The affirmative resolution procedure is normally used where a charge or a cost is involved to those affected. In this case the words used have been cribbed from the Electricity Act 1989
Lord Williams of Elvel: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. Unless I heard him wrongly, he seemed to be saying that the affirmative procedure was used only when there was some kind of cost involved. That is not my experience. Can he justify what he has just said?
Lord Cochrane of Cults: Perhaps I omitted the words "quite usually". I am sure that anybody with experience of Whitehall street fighting will realise that it would not require much thought among officials to devise a first statutory order of impenetrable boredom and minimal importance. One could easily be moved to be adopted for this Bill. Therefore, I feel that it would perhaps overload this frail ship. Accordingly I hope that my noble friend will see his way not to press the amendment.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: Perhaps I may express the Government's view on this matter. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Williams—although I doubt that he needs it—that in the very limited time in which I have been a DTI Minister I have never doubted that he scrutinises everything which we are about to discuss. His questions indicate that he does that more than well.
My noble friend Lord Skelmersdale and the noble Lord, Lord Williams, have much more experience in this Chamber than I have. My noble friend may well be right that there are occasions when debates on consumer matters and safety are important. As consumer affairs Minister I would always welcome debates on the issue. However, I believe that this Bill

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is not the vehicle for it. As the noble Lord said, it is possible to pray against negative resolutions. As my noble friend Lord Cochrane said, it is unlikely that the first amendment will be a major matter and will just be a very straightforward regulation which would not be something on which to waste the time of the Committee. That would be our view.
Lord Skelmersdale: I never expected to get the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, smarting quite so loudly. I never accused him of not studying instruments which are to be debated in this Chamber before speaking. I suggested that, having so studied them, his speech could on occasions be only three lines long, or whatever.
Lord Williams of Elvel: I do not believe in wasting your Lordships' time.
Lord Skelmersdale: I am surely relieved to hear it, as will be other members of the Committee around the Chamber this evening, and perhaps wider than that. Nonetheless, I fully accept that this Bill may be the wrong place in which to pursue my particular proposal. But over time this is an issue which is not going to go away and should be referred to your Lordships' new Scrutiny Committee. I have referred the matter to various Members of the Procedure Committee over the years in various ways, to which answer has there come none.
I believe that the work of Parliament is beginning to get very clogged up. Unless we spend longer hours at the work of Parliament, then some measure such as that which I have suggested in this amendment will have to come sooner or later. Having said that, I take to heart the words of my two noble friends that the matter is not appropriate for this Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
In the Title:
Lord Cochrane of Cults Lord Cochrane of Cults moved Amendment No. 8:
Leave out ("sections 5 and 36") and insert ("section 5").
The noble Lord said: This is the last amendment in tonight's proceedings. Before I finish, I would like to thank noble Lords for their support of this frail ship. I hope that the forces of inertia do not pull the bath plug out on it and that it then gurgles away down into a dusty box labelled "a good idea but …". I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Title, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed, Bill reported with amendments.

Ashworth Hospital
7.37 p.m.
The Earl of Longford The Earl of Longford rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action they propose to take following the report of the Committee of Inquiry on Ashworth Hospital.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, following the report on Ashworth Hospital of the committee
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presided over by the eminent Queen's Counsel, Sir Louis Blom-Cooper, I am happy to know that I shall be followed by experts such as the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod and others. I must apologise if I stick rather more closely to my notes than I believe is graceful, because I have to record some views which the authors will probably want to ensure are reported accurately.
The committee presided over by Sir Louis Blom-Cooper was set up in April 1991. It followed a Channel 4 television report in which very grave allegations were made about the maltreatment of several patients in the special hospital at Ashworth. The Special Hospitals Service Authority, which is often referred to as the SHSA, asked the Government for a full inquiry. The Secretary of State duly appointed the committee under Sir Louis.
The committee reported in August this year. It included many adverse comments, although it did pay a well justified tribute to those who gave much devoted work. There were 90 recommendations, nearly all of which were accepted by the management, which is now under the inspired leadership of Mr. Peter Green, who is a qualified social worker with 20 years' experience. I will not attempt to summarise the 90 recommendations.
I shall say a few words about Sir Louis Blom-Cooper's attitude to what I propose to say. I showed him the gist of my remarks and, although others may well expand his comments—I believe that he has made his views known to others—he thinks that at least six of his recommendations should be highlighted. I shall mention only their headings; others may well develop them. The first is, "the establishment of a patient advocacy service". The second relates to seclusion. Sir Louis and his committee were utterly opposed to the supervised confinement of a patient alone in a locked room. Thirdly, he makes important detailed recommendations in regard to medication. Fourthly, he wants the date announced by which slopping out will be abolished. Fifthly, he wants the removal of hateful literature. No one is more opposed to this hateful literature, of which there has been all too much in the recent past, than the leaders of the Prison Officers Association. Finally, he wants a much more effective method of what he calls "incident reporting".
I mention those because I think that Sir Louis would wish them to be mentioned. I should also say that nearly all the recommendations that I have mentioned have been adopted, except for that on seclusion. That recommendation has not been accepted. Sir Louis, however, thinks that insufficient priority has been given in several places. I asked him what he though about my attitude as revealed in the remarks that I proposed to make. He said, "Too optimistic". In speaking from these Benches it is not always my role to be too optimistic, but by Sir Louis Blom-Cooper's standards—and they are high ones—I am. I shall, however, remain too optimistic and shall set out the situation as I see it in a spirit of hope.
Although this is mainly for the record, I also believe that the House should know a little about the Park Lane Hospital. The House is probably aware that

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Ashworth Hospital was originally two hospitals: Park Lane, which is the more recent hospital, and Moss Side, which is the older hospital. I have often been to Park Lane to visit particular patients—in fact, nearly always one particular patient, who, I am sorry to say, now does not want to see me. The House may understand that. At any rate, I have visited the hospital often. In preparation for this debate, I had prolonged discussions with Mr. Green, his colleagues and a number of patients. In that sense, therefore, I am up to date. Although I am sure that all your Lordships will understand, perhaps I should repeat, in case other people do not, that we are talking about two hospitals dating from different periods. I think that one can say that Park Lane is much more up to date than Moss Side but they are now rolled into one, the Ashworth Hospital.
Again this is for the record, although it may also be interesting to the House if I describe the nature of the patients there. The patients in Ashworth are people who are suffering from mental disorders who require treatment in conditions of special security because of their dangerous, violent or criminal propensities. I shall not go into more detail about that, but the great majority have been convicted of crimes—in some cases, of very serious crimes. There are also some patients who have not been convicted of crimes but who are considered so dangerous and at the same time so disordered that they could not be safely left in an ordinary mental hospital.
Ashworth is a hospital with high ideals. It has always possessed high ideals which, according to the Blom-Cooper report, have not been realised in practice in all too many cases. It exists and its aspiration is to provide a safe therapeutic environment and a centre of excellence in forensic and other branches of psychiatry, psychiatric care and treatment with—I stress this next point—equal priority being given to the care and treatment of patients and the safety of the public. One is dealing with men who are ex hypothesi dangerous. One is aware of that but, at the same time, they are human beings. Each is possessed, like the rest of us, of an immortal soul of infinite worth in the sight of God and the hospital exists to carry out that terrible, difficult double task of treating them with humanity and of preserving the interests of the public.
Ashworth Hospital has an average patient population of 650 people. As I said earlier, all have mental problems and the majority are offenders. I need not describe all the various categories of mental illness, and I shall give just one illustration, although I could give many. On the last occasion when I visited the adolescent unit I met a very fine-looking young man. If I said that he looked like one of the younger members of the opposite Front Bench, they will understand what I mean. One would have thought that he was an hereditary peer, full of promise, young and vigorous. He was very good looking, well grown, and all the rest of it. In fact, he had been sexually abused when he was a small child. I asked him whether it was by his father and he said that it was not, so I do not know who was the abuser. At any rate, he had been sexually abused. He waited a long time—a dozen
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years or so—and when he reached his full stature (and he was a big young man, bigger than me) he decided to get his revenge. He tried to strangle his assailant, the man who had raped him when he was a small boy. He is now about 22 and he is just one of many patients who, in many cases, have had the most horrible background but who have also done horrible things. I hope that the time will come—there is no reason why it should not—when he will be set at liberty, and I hope that he will be looked after in one way or another when he is set at liberty. That is just one example of the kind of person with whom the staff are having to cope.
I come to the staff. It should be mentioned that nearly all the staff are nurses and nearly all are members of the Prison Officers Association as a result of what I think can be called an historical accident. They are not, therefore, like prison officers, who often have a short period of training before becoming prison officers. These are qualified nurses. They face the most difficult human problems imaginable and they need to be nurses who are also trained in proper prison security. I could not imagine being able to cope with their problems at any time in my life. I do not know whether many noble Lords think that they could make a good job of it. If so, they are fortunate, because they must have a lot of self-confidence.
I find it incredible that anybody undertakes this task at all, but somebody has to and these people dedicate their lives to this service. Every now and again they fall below the proper standards and then we have allegations of misbehaviour—perhaps justified—and then there is a big inquiry. We must all agree that, on the whole, good results follow such an inquiry, but we must always remember that when we talk of the staff we are talking about people who are coping with these human problems.
I am therefore very glad that the point of view of the staff will be put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick —and no one could do it better. I shall mention just a few headings that were given to me by someone whom I have mentioned before in this House (someone for whom I have special regard), Mr. David Evans, the General Secretary of the Prison Officers Association. He has given me four headings. The noble Lord, Lord Dean, is well qualified to explain them more carefully. Mr. Evans has asked me to explain the kind of thing that he has in mind. The staff is to be renamed to emphasise the role of care in a secure environment; they will set out to work with other nursing bodies; they will try to ensure that the association initiates a working forum with other trade unions; and they will seek to develop a forum for discussions on the clinical needs of patients in the special hospitals. I ask the House to listen carefully to what Mr. Evans has to say. As I told Sir Louis—I do not think that he liked this comment but he swallowed it—his impressive report has fallen short in only one respect. The committee tried very hard to be fair to the Prison Officers Association but I do not feel that it quite managed it.
I now come to what Mr. Green told me in my long discussions with him and what he has set out in letters to me since. This is where I must rely on my notes, because I want to be sure that Mr. Green's views are

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accurately placed before the House. Sir Louis may say that I am too optimistic. He did not say that I was much too optimistic—just too optimistic. I shall set out Mr. Green's aspirations, and from what I saw on the ground he has already taken some considerable steps to give effect to these aspirations.
Mr. Green was the first to recognise that many of the recommendations required an improvement in management ability. One cannot place the whole responsibility on the nurses if anything goes wrong. One has to think of the management and the medical staff. All concerned must share the responsibility for any shortcomings. Out of the many recommendations—I said earlier that the authority concerned, Mr. Green and the others have accepted nearly all of them—Mr. Green mentioned these priorities. Ashworth must become a hospital able to offer 24-hour care. He recognises that this has considerable financial implications. In all the discussions about improvement in the social services, we always come back to finance. One can mention improvements but one cannot expect them to happen overnight. At any rate, it must become a hospital able to offer 24-hour care. According to Mr. Green, this has considerable financial implications for night regimes but also carries with it the ending of slopping out.
Mr. Green agrees that there should be an active programme for the improvement of the so-called "culture". We know the word "culture" in this connection. It is very vague but one can call it "atmosphere" or "ethos". Everyone agrees that it could be very much improved. Speaking for myself, and without total knowledge but having been close to this in various ways, I think that most people would agree that the culture of Park Lane was a great deal more advanced than the culture of Moss Side. It should be said that Mr. Green has taken one step already in stopping the wearing of uniforms in Moss Side. They were not worn in Park Lane.
One can use many general expressions regarding improvement in the culture but I wish to put a few of them on the record. Ashworth is now setting out to provide a good therapeutic and secure working environment. The management now recognises that patients are people first and foremost. The fact that they are very difficult people to cope with does not stop them being people. Another aspiration which is very close to the heart of Mr. Green and his present colleagues is that every individual should be encouraged to develop realistic aspirations of his or her future opportunities and life style. There should be a comprehensive range of activities. There should be new and effective methods of communication and individuals should be trained in life skills and assured of adequate community support. In case I have not made it plain, it is also accepted that the staff require and deserve much more effective training than they have hitherto received. Mr. Green says that security should never be used as an excuse for not meeting any of the above objectives. Mr. Green summed up his ideal in this way. I am convinced that he means to realise it if he is given the chance. He said:
"If the appropriate finance is made available to Ashworth Hospital, we will become a true centre of excellence and provide a service in which the public can have confidence".
Before I conclude my remarks I must return to the question of the culture. One cannot do more than reiterate the phrase "a great improvement in the culture". If all these aspects of the ideal were given effect to, we should find a completely different atmosphere. It will take time and it will not happen unless the Government and all those who have any influence in the matter back up Mr. Green and his colleagues.
I shall not belabour the Minister with compliments tonight. I paid some last night and noble Lords might think that there was something sinister going on if I kept on congratulating her. I cannot imagine anyone who is better qualified to handle these difficult problems and I can only hope that she will have as big an effect on her colleagues as I know she would wish to have. I hope that the House will send out a message of encouragement to Mr. Green, his colleagues, all the staff and all the patients. I realise that in a way this is just the beginning of a long discussion and that there will be other debates. I am most anxious that the Government should be given the chance to say that they are placing themselves firmly behind the main recommendations of the Blom-Cooper Report and are determined to do all they can to support the present management in their efforts to bring about a great improvement in the future.
7.58 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, the hour is late but, despite that, all Members of your Lordships' House who have listened to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, will be grateful to him for the wise advice he gave the Government and those who are interested in the field. The noble Earl cares. He goes and he sees the hospitals and the prisons. He knows the people. He is one of the most caring people in your Lordships' House. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get to Ashworth, but it was very interesting to hear what the noble Earl found there.
I congratulate Sir Louis Blom-Cooper and his team on their detailed report. When I tried to bring the report into your Lordships' House I found that I could not carry it. I tried to read it. It was very long. I cannot therefore pretend, as some noble Lords may pretend, that I have read, marked, learnt and inwardly digested the whole of the report. But I found it of great interest. Only a highly-qualified lawyer could have led such an expert team and brought out such an impressive and immensely interesting document.
I shall be brief because, as I say, the hour is late. However, I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to two sentences in chapter XXXII, Recommendations. It has a bearing on something else I wish to draw to your Lordships' attention. It reads:
"the consequences that might be indicated as flowing from findings of criticism of individuals. Recommendations which are prompted by findings of misconduct might either constitute the foundation of a criminal charge or invite disciplinary action."
Many years ago I was national chairman of all the leagues of hospital friends and I had about half-a-million people working all over the country for

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the hospitals. I was asked to go down to Rampton Hospital because two-and-a-half years earlier, as a result of a discussion in the other place, the government of the day had ordered the police to go into Rampton Hospital. They were there for two-and-a-half years, overlooking the work of the dedicated staff. Needless to say, after two-and-a-half years the morale in the hospital at all levels was as low as it could possibly be. The chairman of that league of friends asked me to go down to see if by any chance I could talk to them.
I went there many times. Each time I was more impressed by the work that the staff of all grades at the hospital do for their patients. But the result of the inquiry that was started as a result of a television programme made by Yorkshire Television was that 22 nurses were suspended on full pay for two-and-a-half years. All 22 were taken to the local court at Retford. They went from there to the Crown Court, charged in every case with doing an injustice to their patients. At the Crown Court every one of the nurses except one was exonerated. After two-and-a-half years they were allowed, if they so wished, to return to their jobs. This was not only a terrible waste of precious nurses' time and effort but of course the cost to the country was naturally immense.
It took a long time for Rampton Hospital to recover from that disastrous episode. I am now told that they have recovered, that the board of management is doing very well, and that the morale, which was so low, is now up to the norm, which is high. I am interested in this aspect of it because, as I understand from the report, seven of the nurses at Ashworth have been suspended. Can my noble friend the Minister tell us what is happening to those nurses? I think the services of one were immediately withdrawn, but I am more interested in the seven nurses who might possibly face charges similar to the ones that I have described.
Chapter XIII, as the noble Earl also told us, is about the patients' advocacy service. There again, I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister could let us know when this is likely to be implemented. It is vital that patients should have people they trust—not necessarily staff, whom I am sure in the majority of cases they would trust, but people from outside the hospital. Perhaps, as has been hinted, members of that good organisation, MIND, might go in to listen to any problems that can be brought out by the patients. I wanted also to touch on chapter XIV, which deals with training the police in investigating and interviewing people who have grudges against each other. Special training is needed because one is dealing with people who do not always tell the truth. They can also elaborate on the truth, and do not always tell even a vestige of the truth, but it all boils up to problems within the hospital.
Ashworth and the other two special hospitals are ordinary hospitals. They are there to cure patients. If they are lucky in their cures then the patients go out of the hospitals. They are there to be treated and, we hope, cured. But the regime for these special patients whom I have met at Rampton on many occasions has to be different from the ordinary hospital because of
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the special needs. Ashworth is not just for special patients. All members of the community of Ashworth are special people. I want to emphasise that, because the nation owes them a great debt of gratitude for taking on this particularly arduous work of nursing and caring for people who, as the noble Earl said, are not the easiest to care for.
I was enormously impressed by the dedication of all the personnel in Rampton from the board of governors, the management teams, the medical staff, the nursing staff, the auxiliaries, down to the gardeners and everybody that I met. Can we from this House say a big thank you to all of them for undertaking and carrying out this particular branch of medicine, which is so vital to all of us.
8.8 p.m.
Baroness Mallalieu: My Lords, I am particularly grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for initiating this debate and thus prompting me personally to read this superb report of Sir Louis Blom-Cooper and his colleagues. Unlike both the noble Earl and the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, who both have enormous personal experience in this field, I have never as yet visited any of the special hospitals and have thus no personal knowledge of the regimes that apply in any of them. But as a member of the Bar, I have on a number of occasions in the course of my work come to know—sometimes well—people who have subsequently been sent on to them under hospital orders made by the courts.
Accordingly, I have often wondered about the way of life which lay ahead of them, the quality of treatment they would receive, and the nature of the care which our society provides for some of its most difficult and dangerous people. The answers to those questions as provided by this detailed and disturbing report are what I had hoped not to hear. The allegations of ill-treatment that were made in the "Cutting Edge" programme broadcast in March 1991, which the report deals with in some detail, have led to an inquiry which has laid bare in respect of this particular special hospital underlying difficulties which are clearly of long duration and which require a major review of the approach to the work of special hospitals and not merely cosmetic alterations in procedures.
The essential problem which seems to me to lie at the heart of what is wrong is an historical one. The special hospital system has its origins in the early 19th century with the foundation of the criminal lunatic asylums; and, later, the opening of Broadmoor in 1863. Those institutions—hospitals in name—have sadly remained outside the mainstream psychiatric services of the NHS. Whatever brave pronouncements of their objectives have been made over the years by governments, the prison service, the NHS and the special hospital service itself, those running them, and those responsible for staffing them, have never it seems to me—I shall be told if I am being unfair—made an unequivocal commitment to see them as hospitals and not as prisons.
I had hoped that the disturbed people whom I have seen in the courts over the years would be committed

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to hospitals where they could hope, in view of the seriousness of their conditions, to receive the best available treatment which would, if possible, fit them for eventual return to the community. So far as concerns Ashworth, the report shows—at any rate, at the time at which the inquiry took place—that that was a hope that was likely to be a vain one.
As a layman, the aspects of the committee of inquiry's findings which caused me the greatest anxiety were, first—despite all the tributes the report pays to many dedicated staff—the unacceptably low level of patient care. I found it frankly shocking that the report should feel it necessary to recommend that higher sights should be set in medical, social, psychological, nursing, education and occupational assessments when a patient is admitted. In other words, just about everything.
The general approach, according to the report, to a patient's prospects of recovery are pessimistic. I find it distressing that, contrary I understand to experience in other countries and with notable exceptions (thank goodness!) the more experienced and better qualified psychiatrists are not attracted into the special hospital service here. Further, I find it staggering that a hospital of this importance, dealing as it does with severely disturbed patients had—and, as I understand it still has —no pharmacist on its permanent staff. Surely, following the report the recommendation for a hospital-based clinical pharmacy service, suitably staffed with specially trained staff, must be a priority.
Secondly, I find it profoundly disturbing that conditions in a hospital into which a third of the patients are admitted, not because they have committed crime but through the civil process, should have living conditions which are, in some respects, worse than those in many of our oldest prisons. The continuation of slopping-out is a disgrace. So far as I am aware, no date has been given for an end to that practice in special hospitals. If the prison service can do it, then surely so must the hospitals.
Thirdly, I am worried about the staffing levels in so far as they affect the way in which staff can carry out their work and also the effects on patients. The absence of any proper night call system, with often one nursing assistant only readily available on duty, has serious implications for staff and patients in an emergency.
The continued use of seclusion—in effect, it is clear as a punishment—may, as the report illustrates in one case which was investigated, have tragic consequences. Yet I suspect that higher staffing ratios, as in the new unit at Broadmoor, would render that treatment unnecessary. I hope that the recommendation that it be discontinued will find favour as soon as possible.
I find it shocking too that a report in 1992 should have had to make a recommendation that mechanical restraints be no longer used. To retain the use of restraining garments and yet have no pharmacist on the permanent staff is all too clearly an illustration of what is wrong. Those procedures and practices are surely more fitted to the 1800s than to the 1990s, and graphically illustrate the prisoner rather than the patient philosophy.
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If attitudes are to change, hospital patients, even disturbed or dangerous ones—perhaps I should say particularly disturbed or dangerous ones—must have a voice which is heard in the running of their hospital, and access to advice which is independent and readily and promptly available to them. A properly staffed patients' advisory service would not merely enable misunderstandings to be overcome and avoid escalations into wholly unnecessary bitterness and resentment—especially between patients and staff—it would enable genuine complaints to be articulated properly and thus acted upon swiftly.
A proper system of reporting all untoward events is clearly essential for the protection of patients and staff alike in such an environment. Together with a proper complaints system, I hope that those improvements will go a considerable way towards dispelling the feelings which were widely expressed in patients' letters written to the committee of inquiry that they were treated as sub-human.
Nothing that I have said is intended to overlook or minimise the difficulties which management, nursing staff and doctors must face in hospitals such as this. I do not envy them their work. I can readily see how, faced with staffing difficulties, antiquated facilities and sometimes inadequate training for difficult tasks, what the report describes as the culture of denigration and devaluation of patients may develop, but it needs to be addressed urgently, if that has not been done since the report was published.
I am especially worried by that part of the report which deals with women patients where the current regime was described as, "infantilising, demeaning and anti-therapeutic". In ordinary language, it seems that by its culture instead of helping to make patients better and more independent, the way that the hospital tended to treat women patients may well have worsened their condition.
It may be that the actions of the committee of inquiry and the publication of this report in August of this year have already gone some way towards addressing some of the problems that were highlighted in it. I hope that that is so, and I hope that the Minister will tell us that that is the position.
Next spring, when I understand Dr. Reed's working party and the special hospital task force will report, I hope that we shall see a full review of the way our special hospitals will be run in future. I hope that the House will have an opportunity to debate fully the issues raised.
Those who have to be confined in special hospitals and deprived of their freedom should surely have a right to expect to receive the best treatment that we can offer them, and as good a quality of life as is compatible with the need to restrain them. The report has shown that much is wrong, but it has done more: in its recommendations, it shows vision and it points the way to begin to put those things right. I hope we shall hear from the Minister that the Government will be following its guidance and proposes to do so as soon as possible.
8.18 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I should like to join those who have thanked my noble friend Lord Longford, not just for asking the Question but for being his invaluable self. My noble friend does the visiting that some of us know we should do but do not do. He has the personal experience, while some of us—here I speak for myself—speak from what we have read or have been told. My interest in the matter has been sporadic.
When Frank (as I like to call him) asked me whether I would participate in the debate tonight I hesitated to do so because of my lack of close knowledge of the matter. But, as he knows, I came into contact with it fairly early in my political career in the other House when I had a constituent named Mr. Peter Thompson. Mr. Thompson had the misfortune to he (as he puts it himself in his book) mad at a certain period in his life. That is not a word we use now but Mr. Thompson was not afraid to use it about himself so I do not hesitate to use it here. He was mentally disturbed for a period. During that period he committed a grave offence. As a result he was found to be mentally unstable and went to Broadmoor. I am not sure whether Mr. Thompson would agree with what I am saying, but it must be something in the nature of a tribute to the institution, and above all a tribute to Mr. Thompson himself, that, having emerged from that institution he has become the director of a very valuable organisation called the Mathew Trust.
The Mathew Trust takes a close interest in these matters and has made recommendations concerning what action should be taken in relation to the current examination. I will not go into those in detail; they can be read. What I will say is that one of the chief concerns of Mr. Thompson and the trust is what happens to the prisoner on discharge. At the moment there is no satisfactory provision. There is no half-way house, which has been suggested as one possibility, between a person being in public life and being in close confinement. The idea that there should be a half-way house existence is one that I find attractive and interesting. I hope that when the noble Baroness comes to reply she may be able to say whether it is one that the Government are ready to accept.
The history of the attitude of mankind to the mentally ill among us has been pretty appalling, has it not? When one looks back in history discovering how people who were "mad" were treated sometimes makes one almost ashamed to be a member of the human race. But we went through a period of reform. I am told that at one time we were in the lead in improving the situation and beginning to cope with this difficult problem, but I understand that we are falling behind and are still operating systems and adopting attitudes—the report confirms this—that belong to the past rather than the present. There are many other more progressive countries which have overtaken us in that respect and are already implementing the kind of recommendations that the Blom-Cooper report highlights.
I must agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, said about the difficulties raised by the
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report. I have the report with me. I had to stagger in with it. The most readable and horrifying part of the report is volume II, which details what happened to four people in this establishment. One cannot read this part of the report without coming to the conclusion that matters are very grave and must be changed. That does not take away from the appreciation one also has of the fact that people who work in these establishments are doing work which most of us would neither be capable of doing nor would wish to do. Therefore they cannot be denigrated as a whole. That does not mean to say that we must not also concern ourselves with what happens to four patients and what happens to some other patients. My noble friend has referred to the "culture"—it is referred to in the report—which means there is a tendency to treat mentally ill patients as less than human.
If we come to the document itself, it is long, important, distressing and difficult to read. It raises many vital questions, one of which is what has happened since the publication of the report in August. I hope that when the noble Baroness comes to reply she will concentrate on that question. Have we made a start? I think we have. We want to know whether we have made a start on tackling those problems and how we are getting on with it. I believe my noble friend knows more about that than we do. Has a new procedure been introduced to deal with patients' complaints? Those questions have been raised by another valuable organisation: MIND. Is there a new system to ensure that there is proper monitoring of complaints so as to deal with issues that are of continuing concern to patients? Is there now the proper implementation of an incident-reporting mechanism to ensure that complaints see the light of day? Has an effective system been set up to monitor how the recommendations of the report are being implemented? The inquiry made a number of other detailed recommendations, some of which have already been mentioned. I hope that when she comes to reply to the debate the noble Baroness will be able to tell us that at least some of the problems are already beginning to be tackled. Is the hospital-based pharmacy being looked at? That must be important. There is also the question of the culture.
Since I do not know enough about the subject myself I have been studying what other organisations who do know about it have to say. The conclusion reached by the Royal College of Nursing is the following:
"Action is urgently needed to bring change in these special hospitals. Resources are needed to provide the highest standards of nursing care in a secure environment. A cultural change needs to be encouraged, alongside changes in nursing practice, education and industrial relations. The need for change demands resources and commitment. What happens at Ashworth will affect the future not only of the special hospitals, but of psychiatric nursing in every area of health care".
I believe that that shows the very great importance of the report, and I am sure that the noble Baroness and her colleagues are dealing with it with that sense of importance.
On page 84 of the report it is stated:

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"… it is the unqualified right of a patient to make a complaint about anything to do with his/her care and treatment and to obtain redress".
Again, that is important. It seems to he suggested in the report that there is difficulty in getting complaints heard. I wonder whether that point too has been looked at.
Mr. Blunkett, the Labour spokesman on these matters, referred to the review following the report. I am glad to say that that review is now taking place. I am sure that the noble Baroness will have something to say about it when she comes to reply. Mr. Blunkett urged that the review should consider the whole structure and management of the special hospital and prison medical service to avoid the narrow perspective of previous inquiries.
I am half way between the view which is taken that this problem is so grave that reform is almost an impossibility and the more optimistic view taken by my noble friend Lord Longford in introducing this subject. There are grave problems and grave difficulties here. There are grave difficulties which are tackled by people who on the whole do their best to tackle them within the culture and the environment in which they exist. We must ask ourselves about that culture and that environment. I am sure that in replying to the debate the noble Baroness will address herself to these problems. Once again I wish to say that all of us here and others outside this Chamber owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Earl for raising this issue this evening.
8.31 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I, too, wish to express appreciation to my noble friend Lord Longford for tabling this Question on the subject of this important report. My noble friend does us a profound service in doing so. However, the report is so long and protracted that I think we are only slightly opening the door on the subject today and we shall have to return to this matter to discuss how it has progressed, as it must progress.
I cannot approach this subject on the same basis as my noble friend Lord Longford, who has a tremendous history of showing interest in this field and working within it. He has long been interested in the fate of people who are in trouble and who have to be held in custody. Nor do I have the background of my noble friend Lady Mallalieu, who is a distinguished QC. I approach this matter totally from a layman's point of view.
During my political life, by a geographical accident I represented areas that contained two of the largest prisons in the United Kingdom. The report, in my view, concerns the prison service as a whole. When anything goes wrong, the nearest guy to kick on the backside is the one at the sharp end of the operation. Apparently it is not the Home Office which has made the mistakes, or the Government—whether Tory or Labour—who have not provided adequate funds. The guy who is kicked is the one who is trying to do his job.
I, for my sins, was the Member of Parliament representing Leeds, West where Her Majesty's Prison Armley was situated. I have visited that prison and I
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have seen prison officers in tears because they had to look after kids of six and seven years of age who were remanded in juvenile custody because the government of the day, whatever their colour, had not provided a proper facility in which those children could be held.
When I moved back to Manchester I was aware of the situation at Strangeways. I am perhaps speaking a little wide of the report we are discussing tonight. Before I left Leeds I was told that the overcrowding and the conditions at Armley prison were so bad that it was a power keg that could explode at any time. I went back to Manchester and the power keg exploded with a consequent cost to the taxpayer of £60 million. The people who had the least input in terms of dealing with that situation were the prison officers who worked there. They assured interested people like myself that they could take control of the prison in two days but that they were stopped by the Home Office. The Home Secretary who was responsible for that decision is now, I believe, sunning himself in Bermuda as the governor there.
It is essential that the people at the bottom of the structure should be able to express their point of view. I liken that situation to an industrial dispute. According to this Government, the faults in production in this country lie always on the shopfloor. According to the Government the fault never lies with management. I think one should also speak up for the staff.
I think there is a misconception as regards the type of patient that is held in the hospital we are discussing. I am told that about 60 per cent. of the patients are dangerous not only to themselves but also to other people and to the staff who look after them. I have discussed this matter with three members of the Prison Officers' Association, who incidentally are certificated nurses. They are not "screws" in the old fashioned sense. They are fully qualified medical staff. I do not think any of those three people would look amiss in the front row of a rugby team. I asked them whether they would be happy with nursing the inmates of the hospital on a one-to-one basis. They replied that they would not be happy with that situation and that they would not feel at all secure.
A short time ago I chaired a meeting in Manchester. The meeting concerned the privatisation of prisons. A Roman Catholic bishop, the Bishop of Salford, was on the platform at that meeting. He discussed the matter of society deciding to incarcerate people. Once the door is locked on prisoners, society is finished with them, but for other people the problem starts. In the normal course of events the staff of prisons will have to spend 12 hours a day incarcerated with the people they have to look after. That is not an easy job. In some prisons the position may be better than in other prisons according to the resources that are made available.
Only a few days after I visited Strangeways a headline in the paper said, "Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, Judge Tumim, condemns Strangeways". I assumed that the judge had visited Strangeways, but that was not the case. He had relied on reports from his staff who had visited the prison. Some two days' later he published a report of a prison

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that holds only 200 inmates. When Strangeways is rebuilt it will accept once again 50 per cent. more prisoners than it was built to accommodate. However, when things go wrong in a prison the authorities always blame those at the bottom end of the structure.
I do not accept that Sir Louis Blom-Cooper is right in every instance. I believe he infers, for example, that the staff are in the wrong trade union. I have been attacking this Government for the past 13 years for telling people which trade union they should join. Most of the staff employed in the hospital we are discussing are qualified psychiatric nurses and they chose to join the Prison Officers' Association. To try to equate the hospital we are discussing with what I would term a normal mental hospital in the widest sense is absolute rubbish. Most of the inmates of the hospital we are discussing are, unfortunately, murderous people to themselves and to the community at large and they must be incarcerated.
I was interested to hear the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, about Rampton. She said that a television documentary had been appallingly unjust in its treatment of the staff at Rampton. However, the other night a programme was shown about the House of Lords and noble Lords who featured in the programme were made to look like characters from "Spitting Image". Therefore one cannot take seriously a television programme made about any subject. Television programmes are just a joke.
The Prison Officers' Association—and I have no financial connection with the association—has made it quite clear that it is not prepared to defend members who behave badly. It is asking for a special complaints procedure. I am told that, since the report was issued, if a patient makes a complaint, whoever he may be and however serious or frivolous his complaint, a member of the staff is immediately suspended. So much for British justice. The Prison Officers' Association has assured me that it would be quite prepared to become involved in a complaints procedure so long as it had an input in order to protect the rights of its members. What is wrong with that in a democratic society? I am sure that noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, and Sir Louis Blom-Cooper himself, realise that the defendant is also entitled to the fullest protection. If he is able to be attacked, he should be able to be defended.
I do not believe that the present situation can continue indefinitely. I could give a list of the charges that have been made. There are underlying charges, which have been withdrawn from the report, about the political role of the POA. It is said that it is loaded with Fascists. I have a letter written by the secretary of that association, David Evans, in August which makes it quite clear that the Prison Officers' Association is totally opposed to any such people being in its ranks and that if they could be identified it was the duty of their branch to report them to the executive to deal with the matter.
The Prison Officers' Association is not insular. Perhaps I may mention some of the organisations with which it has affiliations. It is affiliated to the TUC. It holds the chairmanship of the European Justice Trade
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Group and of the Council of Civil Service Unions. The Prison Officers' Association structure includes a race committee and an equal opportunities committee. Its external activities include membership of the Trades Union Congress health committee, Liberty, the NACRO Committee for Minimum Standards in Prisons, the NACRO Community for Racial Equality and the Penal Consortium for Reform, which includes among others the Howard League, the Prison Reform Trust and NACRO. All the POA asks is that in any changes that take place it is consulted.
It is no good thinking that people can be stamped in the same way as an egg is stamped for inspection. They should not be told that although they used to be prison officers now they are members of another union and they must behave differently. That is grossly resented by the prison officers involved. As I said, most of the people involved are fully qualified medically.
Previous speakers have mentioned slopping out. That does not affect Ashworth alone. They have only just started getting rid of slopping out at Strangeways and Armley. It should have gone years ago, irrespective of whether it was a mental institution or one of Her Majesty's ordinary prisons. It is all a question of resources. Slopping out is part of the normal prison service. You could always tell when you were near Armley or Strangeways: your nose told you. You could smell it. But it had nothing to do with the prison officers. They worked for 12 hours with that situation. They suffered as well, and their families suffered.
I make no special plea. I ask simply that prison officers are respected for the job they do. Most of us would not want to do that job. Society has a right to remove from society people who go before the courts if they are a serious danger. We know that people who have been released from prison after committing rape have committed rape again. People have been released after committing murder and have committed murder again. What do the general public say? They say that we are too soft on crime. One should not get the idea that the general public are overwhelmed by passionate appeals such as the one Sir Louis Blom-Cooper has made. He may well be right, but the general public would view the matter with some disdain. People believe that prisons are for punishment, not for rehabilitation. I take the view that they are for rehabilitation, but in the case of Ashworth I dare to say—and I have no medical knowledge —that the possibility of rehabilitation of most of the people incarcerated there is virtually nil.
I understand that three of the ringleaders of the Strangeways mutiny are now incarcerated in Ashworth. Why were they ever in an ordinary prison such as Strangeways and looked after by prison officers whose own security was at risk? Prison officers were injured and people died as a consequence. That was an issue which the Government could not get away from.
I do not want to join the mutual admiration society for the Minister on the Front Bench tonight, dear though I think she is, but I know that she is a sympathetic listener. It is not the fault of this

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particular Government that such a situation exists. But, nothing will happen until we as a nation support a government, of any colour, which is prepared to see substantial sums of money spent on eradicating what has happened in this particular establishment. But they must take the staff with them. The solution must not be handed down as a diktat based on an independent report.
I hope that the Government will look at what Sir Louis Blom-Cooper has said. I do not agree with all of it but I go along with most of it.
I end by thanking my noble friend Lord Longford for giving us the chance of debating this subject tonight.
8.46 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, I should like to join my noble friend Lord Dean and other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Longford for giving us this opportunity to discuss the report on Ashworth Hospital. I thank him particularly because, unlike other noble Lords who have spoken, I have even less experience of the subject. I have not been a prison visitor; I am not a barrister; I have not been a Member of Parliament with either a hospital or a prison in my constituency; and I am not a voter who has had such a problem.
When I read the report it was truly a great education. At the core of the report, leaving aside the beginning and the appendices, there are about 200 pages which could be released in the popular bookshops. People could learn a great deal by reading the report. It is an eye-opener.
Many noble Lords have spoken of the details of the report. Perhaps I may quote from the report what I believe to be the crux of the matter. Of the four case studies which are laid out and which, as my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney said, make very serious reading, the report begins by saying:
"From our studies in depth of these four cases there is a wealth of evidence to demonstrate how, from the moment when society intervened in the lives of each of these four mentally disordered persons, there has been failure upon failure to care for and treat them properly".
Therefore, before we discuss what happened in Ashworth Hospital and what may be done, let us remember the broader social context in which such reports must be placed. It is not just one special hospital; nor is it even a system of special hospitals which is at issue here.
The problem of how to treat mentally disturbed patients who may have criminal tendencies and may have offended is one which starts long before those people come to such hospitals. No one is born a criminal. There is plenty of evidence to show that, if some of those people had had viable alternatives of treatment, analysis, diagnosis and advice, they would not have ended up so tragically. So, first, let us remember that the whole issue that we are discussing has a much broader social context. Indeed, not just our society but every Western society so far as I know has failed to treat the problem in a proper, broad
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social context. We are learning, but it still remains the case that far too often patients are treated like prisoners. That is the essence of the problem.
Many details of the report's recommendations have already been mentioned. I should just like to raise three issues. One is the issue of culture. Many people have already alluded to the problem of culture. What is it? It is not just a problem of ethos, broadly speaking, or a problem of attitude. The report makes disturbing comments—not being an expert in this matter I have to take the report's evidence as valid—about racism, sexism and homophobia. I take on board everything that has been said about the dedication of many members of staff. They do difficult work and are very committed people. I criticise no one individual or even the Prison Officers' Association. The issue clearly concerns the very disturbing attitudes of racism, sexism and homophobia.
In saying that the culture needs to be changed, we mean that it is those aspects which must be removed. They cannot be eradicated easily; after all, they exist in society generally and not just in Ashworth Hospital. We must make a start on whatever is needed to be done by way of education, retraining or whatever to ensure that, to the extent possible, those aspects of the culture are removed as soon as it is feasible to do so. That is my first point.
My second point concerns procedures. Many of the recommendations, such as advocacy for prisoners or a complaints procedure and so on, are matters of improvement to procedure. Improvement of procedure is not very costly. It is a matter of changing practices. It may cost something to implement but does not involve great expenditure. It will be interesting to hear from the noble Baroness what has been done about improving procedures, especially those concerning complaints. As other noble Lords have pointed out, when a person can complain any time that he feels that he has a complaint, for whatever reason, without fear and with the support of an advocate, then we shall be treating people as patients and not as prisoners.
Lastly, and this is tricky, there is the matter of resources. It is quite clear, for example, that if seclusion treatment is to be properly carried out, if slopping out is to be stopped and if many other matters are to be dealt with properly, there is a need for a 24-hour service with more than one person in attendance at night. That has already been mentioned.
The staff provision is clearly inadequate. It would be interesting to know, given all the stringency that is always present, how much in the form of additional resources will be put into this special hospital and special hospitals in general. We should like to be assured that such things will not happen again. I do not want to take up any more of your Lordships' time. Once again I thank my noble friend Lord Longford for having given us the opportunity to discuss this matter and for having given me the opportunity to educate myself.
8.55 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, as other Members of your Lordships' House, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for drawing attention to the report of the Ashworth Hospital inquiry. There can be no greater authority on this issue in your Lordships' House and few people in the country who have carried out so much research into the subject. We are indeed fortunate to have the noble Earl among our number. I should also like to thank him for his courtesy in sharing with me his approach to this debate and for his thoughtful speech.
The debate gives me the opportunity to explain to your Lordships how we are addressing the important issues raised in the wide-ranging and searching inquiry which was chaired by Sir Louis Blom-Cooper. I should like to pay a tribute to him and his colleagues for the enormous amount of time, energy and care they put into conducting the inquiry and into producing the final report. The findings have implications which go far beyond Ashworth itself and beyond the special hospital service. In replying to the concerns which the noble Earl and others have raised, I hope to demonstrate how seriously these are being regarded.
The inquiry report reflected some very disturbing aspects of life at Ashworth Hospital. Both the Government and the Special Hospitals Service Authority (which manages all three special hospitals) are resolved to deal with these as a matter of urgency. On publication in August, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health announced that the authority would immediately draw up a detailed action plan for tackling the report's recommendations. That action plan was submitted by the authority and subsequently approved by my right honourable friend. At the same time the authority set up a task force at the hospital which was charged with implementing the agreed action.
The task force is chaired by the hospital's acting general manager, Mr. Peter Green, who has obviously impressed the noble Earl. Mr. Green's commitment is beyond question and he is determined that the hospital should provide treatment, care and a quality service where patients' needs are paramount. The other four members of the task force are well qualified and experienced people from outside the special hospitals: a consultant forensic psychiatrist, a nurse manager, an industrial relations expert and a representative of patients' interests. They report to an authority-level steering group, which in turn keeps Ministers in regular touch. It is through this mechanism that progress towards achieving the report's recommendations will be charted. Like the noble Earl, I too have recently visited Ashworth and was able to see and hear at first hand the positive action that is being taken.
The overriding aim in following up the report must be to ensure that staff, patients and the public at large see Ashworth and the other special hospitals as hospitals. They are not part of the penal system and they do not exist merely to promote containment. The public quite rightly expects to be protected—that
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protection is one of the key objectives of the authority—but high security must be provided in the context of an essentially therapeutic environment.
We are anxious to promote professionalism in special hospitals and are committed to developing and maintaining the highest possible nursing and clinical standards. We do not underestimate the demands on those who work on a daily basis with extremely difficult and challenging patients; but abuse, degrading treatment, or neglect cannot he tolerated under any circumstances. The Special Hospital Service Authority has made it clear that disciplinary action will be taken in such cases. Indeed, that has already happened.
It is also important to recognise that, while the inquiry report illustrates some obvious failures in what should be a compassionate and therapeutic service, much good work has been and is being done by committed staff at management and ward level. The authority had already taken important steps to tackle many of the problems which confronted it when it was set up only three years ago. Indeed the creation of the authority itself stemmed from a determination to replace the over-centralised and bureaucratic management structure which existed before by a more open model on health service lines. The task ahead is a challenging one, but undoubtedly the introduction of general management and the identification of clear goals has generated an energy and enthusiasm which are accelerating the pace of change.
I would like to address some of the specific points raised by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, and other noble Lords. First, I shall deal with the question of a patients' advocacy service. That issue was raised also by my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve and the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu. This was one of the key areas highlighted by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State when she announced the publication of the report. In particular, she welcomed the proposal for a patients' advocacy service, which the Special Hospitals Service Authority strongly supports. The authority is working enthusiastically with the Ashworth task force to identify different options for advocacy and expects to make a choice early in the New Year. The preferred model will be piloted in Ashworth and, when established, the good practice spread to the other two special hospitals. A member of the task force, Miss Lindsey Dyer, from the patients' advice bureaux at the North-western Regional Health Authority and formerly of MIND, is taking a lead role in this area.
With regard to the grim practice of slopping out raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, I assure her that the Government share her view and that of the committee of inquiry that the practice should be discontinued as soon as possible. The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, was also concerned about that. I am sure that they will he pleased to learn that the Special Hospitals Service Authority has successfully piloted a scheme at Rampton Hospital demonstrating the practicality and benefits of increasing the level of night staffing and allowing the patients free access from their rooms to toilet facilities and, more importantly, to have regular contact with nursing staff

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during the night hours. It is the authority's intention from existing funds to introduce the same regime in a limited number of wards, at both Broadmoor and Ashworth hospitals before the end of March 1993. It would also be aiming to extend the arrangement throughout all 79 wards, but it is aware of the significant resource implications in the trebling, or in some cases the quadrupling, of the number of staff on duty at night.
I should now like to turn to the issue of seclusion. Your Lordships will be aware that the subject of seclusion is controversial. Those who support its total abolition tend to work outside the special hospitals, whereas those who have to deal with these difficult patients on a daily basis favour its reduction and strict control. The Government doubt whether the proposal to end seclusion entirely is realistic but they welcome the encouraging trend of its very selective use. I understand that the practice of secluding newly-admitted patients has ceased and over the past two years the number of seclusion hours has been reduced at Ashworth by one-third and the number of patients secluded halved. The authority is actively looking at ways of accelerating that change, a development very much welcomed by the Government.
The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, were concerned that there was no hospital-based pharmacy. The authority and the department support the establishment of a hospital-based pharmacy, and that will be implement-ed as soon as the necessary resources are available. I shall come to resources in a minute.
Perhaps I may raise the question of alternative literature. There has been a great deal of concern about the dissemination of unacceptable literature within Ashworth. At the request of the Special Hospitals Service Authority the retired deputy chief constable of the Cleveland Police Authority is conducting a thorough investigation into the circulation of this offensive and obscene literature. His inquiries are still in progress but his first report is due to be received by the authority in the very near future.
I should now like to turn to the issue of the complaints system, which was raised specifically by the noble Lords, Lord Jenkins of Putney and Lord Dean of Beswick, and other Members of your Lordships' House. A new complaints system was introduced by the authority on 1st April 1992 and I am pleased to be able to tell your Lordships that independent investigators have been appointed and are handling serious complaints. An initial review after six months shows that the new system has been effective in all key aspects. My noble friend Lady Macleod—
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way on the question of the complaints procedure. It may be acceptable to everyone except the person who is being complained of because there are circumstances in which frivolous complaints can be made. A marvellous example was given by the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, about a group of nurses who suffered substantially both financially and professionally by virtue of a television
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programme. I am saying only that the Prison Officers' Association is prepared to support any complaints procedure provided that it is given an undertaking that it can be part of it so that it is able to defend nurses who are members of the association. I think that that is only common justice.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I entirely endorse that view and I would be totally opposed to trial by television, which I think takes place in some instances. However, I have to say that in this particular case many of the reforms which I am now citing and which have been adopted by the task force were introduced before that Channel 4 programme. We should endorse the new complaints system, monitor it very carefully and, if there are shortcomings in it, clearly we shall have to make certain amendments to it. But I understand that after a review of the first six months it is proving to be very effective.
My noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve spoke from the considerable knowledge that she has gained over many years as a former president of the National League of Hospital Friends. She illustrated so vividly, as the noble Lord has outlined, the impact which inquiries can have on institutions. She went on to ask what has happened specifically to the nurses who were the subject of disciplinary action. Five nurses have resumed duty following disciplinary action where that was appropriate; one has been dismissed; and one is still suspended pending a disciplinary hearing next week. The cases are not being allowed to drag on as in the case of Rampton, which she quoted. They are being dealt with speedily under the procedures which the Special Hospitals Service Authority has developed.
The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, expressed her deep anxiety about the poor quality of medical staffing. That is an issue which is addressed in the Special Hospitals Service Authority's action plan. Medical members of the SHSA—Dr. Taylor, Dr. Higgins and Dr. Dick—are carrying out a personal review with all the medical staff to ensure that roles are clearly understood and support given where needed. Moreover, a medical audit is also being developed throughout the hospitals.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, cited one of the many successes of the special hospitals. I am grateful to him for stressing the positive aspect of much of the work which is undertaken. The noble Lord asked specifically about discharges from special hospitals. The report of the mentally disordered offenders review emphasises the importance of follow-up action and care. I shall be referring to that in a moment. That report has been chaired by Dr. John Reed. Action to speed up development of the regional secure units is one of the great keys to getting patients moved from special hospitals. The care programme approach, which is explicitly included for special hospitals, follows through a new placement in the community so there is a continuing responsibility that is going to be exercised in the future.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, outlined graphically the retribution meted out to those at the sharp end who trespass and transgress. It is right that sloppy practice, neglect, poor care or worse—abuse

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and brutality—at all levels are detected and speedy action taken. I make no apology for that but I do concur with the noble Lord that those who have let such a culture take hold must also bear their share of responsibility, as they have in this case.
It is untrue to say that members of the staff are suspended whenever a patient raises a complaint. That would happen only if the initial management investigation established a prima facie case of misconduct by a member of staff.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Desai, that this is a most difficult area and, in some respects, as society's attitudes change, it becomes uncharted territory. Forensic science is a relatively new medical specialism but I am extremely pleased that talented and committed people are entering the specialty. I hope that the leadership that they give will enhance that challenging area of care.
I turn now to the question of resources. Over the past three years resources have considerably increased for the funding of special hospitals. In 1989–90 £80.1 million was spent on this service. In 1992–93 £118.4 million is to be spent so that considerable investment has been made in special hospitals.
Your Lordships will be aware that it is essential that the special hospitals should be viewed not on their own, but as part of a much broader range of care for mentally disordered people, in the NHS and in the community. Because they have locked doors and many of their patients are referred from the prisons or the courts, they run the risk of isolation from mainstream health services. This clearly must be avoided for the very reasons which have been highlighted today about the poor quality of care which previously existed at Ashworth. The authority's priority is to strengthen outside links by building closer working relationships with the wider NHS, the universities, local probation and social services departments. It is also forging partnerships with the voluntary sector. We welcome these developments.
Because the special hospitals are just one part of a much wider pattern of services, my right honourable friend recently announced the formation of a working group to look in detail at the needs of people who need treatment in conditions of high security. As I said before, this is being chaired by Dr. John Reed, who also led the joint Department of Health/Home Office
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review of services for mentally disordered offenders that completed its work in July. It will report next Spring.
Earlier this year, the noble Earl commented in his book Prisoner or Patient on the interim report of the mentally disordered offender review. As he said, this was a "major document". I am pleased to say that the final summary report of that review is being published later this month. This report will pull together the key features of the nine earlier consultative documents, the broad thrust of which have already been widely supported by the various bodies involved in this field. At the same time we shall be publishing two further discussion papers; one on the needs of offenders with learning disabilities; the other, on racial and cultural issues.
One of the main points in the review is the need to provide services for mentally disordered offenders as near as possible to their own homes. This principle has implications for the centralised pattern of special hospitals—and my ministerial colleagues and I are aware of alternative models that have recently been suggested. Dr. Reed's working group will be looking closely at all the issues, including the level of need for high security and the implications for related services. The working group will be keeping in close touch with another group, also chaired by Dr. Reed, that is looking at services for people with psychopathic disorder. This has long been a difficult and contentious area, but one in which we are determined to see practical progress made. I am confident that both working groups will be able to build constructively on the good work already done by the main review.
I thank the noble Earl once again for his continuing and humane interest in the needs of this relatively small but often problematic group of patients. As he put it in his recent book:
"We owe a duty to those suffering from these grave handicaps and to those who dedicate their lives to helping them".
My right honourable and honourable friends and I are determined, for our part, to do all we can to ensure that these patients receive the best care and treatment in the most suitable surroundings for their individual needs, always bearing in mind the need to protect the safety of the public.
House adjourned at fourteen minutes past nine o'clock.