Lords Sitting of 21 April 1993

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

Legal Aid
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the estimated cost of legal aid in the financial year 1993–94; and what has been the cost in 1992–93.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, net expenditure on legal aid in 1993–94 is expected to be £1,284 million. Final figures for 1992–93 are not yet available but the total net cost is expected to be slightly more than £1,100 million.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for that interesting Answer. Is he not concerned at the tendency of this heavy load of expenditure to increase at a time when Her Majesty's Government are struggling in other areas, such as defence, to restrict expenditure? Can he say whether any further action is intended to secure that there will be a real reduction in expenditure this year?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, naturally I am concerned about the total of public expenditure, in particular about the part of it that is the legal aid budget. I have taken steps which in my view have the effect of controlling the rate of rise of the legal aid budget while still producing an increase in the total net cost. I believe that these arrangements are reasonable in all the circumstances.
Lord Morris: My Lords, has an analysis been commissioned as to why there has been such an alarming increase in legal aid? Is it because we have become a more litigious people or a more criminal people, or is it because the expense of providing legal services has risen so greatly?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, there have been increases in the number of acts of assistance offered under the legal aid scheme. That is one aspect of the increase. Another aspect is the unit cost. The unit cost has, generally speaking, gone up faster than inflation. Those two aspects have to be taken into account. The Legal Aid Board commissioned some research into the reasons for the growth in legal aid in magistrates' courts. It is very difficult to come to firm conclusions about these matters. So far as I am concerned, what I receive essentially are the bills from those who provide the services.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, can the noble and learned Lord help the House and perhaps even shed some light on the problem by telling us why in Scotland civil legal aid per case costs £800 and in England it costs £1,600? Can he tell us why that is so?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, it might be unwise for me to speculate unduly on this matter. It is a question of the total circumstances in which the legal aid is granted, the nature of the legal remedies available and, apart from anything else, the overheads that the profession has to bear. These matters are considered separately in Scotland and in England and Wales. My primary responsibility at present is in respect of England and Wales.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, would it not have been appropriate for the noble and learned Lord to have said in his Answer that there are now more poor people who simply cannot afford to get justice in a very unjust society? Is that not one of the factors?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I said that more people are receiving legal aid than before. There has been a growth in the number of those receiving legal aid. But I also pointed out that the unit cost is increasing. The noble Lord will not expect me to agree with his general observations on the state of justice in our society.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, is it not right that the chief reason for this increase is simply the increase in crime and that therefore money spent in reducing crime would reduce the cost of legal aid?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, the less crime there is, the better for all of us. No doubt that would have an effect on the legal aid budget. The budget for crime prevention is important and, where it is effective, it can help to contain the legal aid budget.
Lord Richard: My Lords, the Lord Chancellor will know better than most, if I may say so, that there is to be a judicial review of this matter. Will the noble and learned Lord consider suspending the proposed regulations until after that judicial review has taken place? Otherwise, irreparable damage may well be done to those people who have emergency applications for legal aid which they will not now be in a position to have granted.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, naturally, I am in a very good position to know that leave to move for judicial review has been granted in respect of the eligibility changes which I have proposed in regulations laid before Parliament. I have considered the question which the noble Lord has raised, but I have concluded that it is not appropriate for me to seek to amend those regulations. Apart from anything else, the total budget available to me is, as I have said, set for this year. If the regulations were suspended for any length of time I should have to find some greater savings as regards the rest of the year than are likely to ensue from the effect of these regulations. Therefore, in the light of all the circumstances, I am likely to make the position worse rather than better if I accede to that suggestion.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble and learned friend aware that, although this Question concerns legal costs, people who have been running

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small businesses for a number of years find that all professional charges, including those of the banks, are reaching a point where the pain is unbearable?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I well understand that various costs are rising. To some extent, of course, those who invite the services have to consider what they can afford and possibly seek competitive offers from those who provide the services.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, arising from that question, can the noble and learned Lord say whether there is any information about the increase in incomes in the legal profession compared with increases in comparable professions? Are those figures available? If they are, I believe that they would be of considerable interest.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, some figures are available, but they are not very good overall figures. For example, figures are made available by the Top Salaries Review Body in relation to its consideration of judicial salaries. That is a sample, as it were. I am not aware of very reliable overall figures for the legal profession as a whole.

Poverty: Aid
2.46 p.m.
Lord Judd Lord Judd asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their response to the estimate by Action Aid, in their report Bridging the Poverty Gap, that the number of people existing in absolute poverty could increase to 1.5 billion by the year 2000.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley): My Lords, reducing poverty, suffering and deprivation and improving the quality of life of poor people through sustainable economic and social development, is the overriding purpose of our aid programmes to developing countries.
Lord Judd: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the UN estimates that less than 10 per cent. of British aid is targeted to the poorest people? Can he explain why that is? Is he also aware that even under the World Bank's most optimistic forecasts, the outlook in sub-Saharan Africa is particularly grim with a doubling of the number of those in absolute poverty in the next seven years? How are the Government going to respond to that?
Lord Henley: My Lords, we are not entirely happy about the figure of 1.5 billion that the noble Lord quoted in his original Question. However, we entirely agree with Action Aid on the central importance of tackling poverty, but do not believe that precise figures are either possible or helpful. They do rely very much on judgmental choices. As I said, one of our priority objectives, set out in our 1993 departmental report, is to help developing countries to design and implement poverty reduction strategies. We have an expanding portfolio of projects targeted on interventions which tackle poverty directly. Those projects
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cover many sectors including agriculture, health, education, water supply and slum upgrading. In 1991–92, about 30 per cent. of our aid to developing countries, allocable by sector, was spent in those sectors.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, the Minister will be aware of the very heavy commitments which are being undertaken by the Government as regards assistance in Yugoslavia and in our responsibilities in responding to the needs of the Soviet Union. Can he give the House an assurance that the aid budget will not be diminished as a consequence of accepting those responsibilities?
Lord Henley: My Lords, there are no plans to cut the overseas aid budget to the developing world as a result of commitments to the eastern European countries and the former Soviet Union.
Viscount Craigavon: My Lords, will the Minister accept that Action Aid is completely right to include in its report some paragraphs on the crucial subject of world population which, by the year 2000, is expected to have increased by about 750 million? Will he accept the statement which Action Aid makes in its report that an estimated 300 million couples lack access to the services which they need and want to plan their family size?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I agree that high population growth rates, if they continue unchecked, will prevent many developing countries achieving sustainable reductions in poverty. The ODA has made extending people's choice about their fertility a focus for the aid programme. Past experience has shown that once family planning services are widely available, fertility levels drop dramatically. My noble friend Lady Chalker has produced, with the ODA, a document called Children by Choice, Not Chance, which explains just how the ODA hopes to play the fullest of parts in this process. I can assure the noble Lord that direct spending on population projects has risen by some 66 per cent. over the past three years to some £29 million.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, the Action Aid report is about the poorest of the poor—in most cases, people with no assets whatsoever and often no clothing. Since the Minister did not answer the question asked by my noble friend Lord Judd about the fact that only 10 per cent. of British aid goes to the poorest of the poor, will he answer that question now? Does he agree—and will he discuss this with his noble friend Lady Chalker—that it is time for a review of the priorities set by our aid programme given that such a small proportion actually goes to the very poorest of the poor?
Lord Henley: My Lords, in fact the figure is that some 80 per cent. of our bilateral country programmes are spent in the poorest countries. That was in 1991–92. I have to say to the noble Lord that the OECD development assistance committee has recognised the poverty focus and effectiveness of our aid programme and its high quality. But I think that the noble Lord certainly does have a point. The very point about aid is that it must be spent effectively. I

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can assure the noble Lord that my noble friend and the ODA will always keep the effectiveness of any overseas aid programme under review.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the figure quoted by Action Aid represents a little over six times the population of the USA? There just is not enough surplus food in the world to feed that population. Is it not ridiculous that we are taking 2 million acres out of temperate food production in this country when that necessity is so obvious to everybody who looks at the figures? May I ask the noble Lord one other question? Does he know that Intermediate Technology, which is a charitable body interested in and doing a tremendous job in helping such countries to develop, is worried that the Government will cut its grant this year? I hope that that is not the case.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I cannot answer the specific question on Intermediate Technology and the level of its grant; but I can assure the noble Lord that it is possible under the joint funding scheme for any non-government body to apply for 50 per cent. help with any specific projects to the ODA. As regards the first part of the noble Lord's question, I agree that obviously food production is very important. As regards the second half of the first part of his question, I believe that the noble Lord has a Question down on that very subject in two weeks' time and I think that the noble Lord can wait until then for an Answer.
Lord Rea: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that international debt and structural adjustment programmes are actually making poor people poorer in poor countries—and that is the great majority of people in those countries—rather than richer? Does not that result in a loss of important markets for our manufactured goods and services?
Lord Henley: My Lords, again, the noble Lord does have a point and I would not disagree with Action Aid's fundamental analysis of the debt situation. Current terms cannot meet the needs of the poorest, most indebted countries. We shall certainly continue to press other countries for further improvements on a case-by-case basis.
Lord Judd: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the recent 43 billion dollar aid package for Russia demonstrates what can be done when the will is there and that that compares with a mere 55 billion dollar programme spent by the main donors on aid to the entire third world? Is it not time for the Government to publish a White Paper setting out their strategy for dealing with world poverty so that we are not constantly overtaken by the latest crisis in the absence of a strategy?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend will note the suggestion that a White Paper should be published. But I do have to stress—and to some extent repeat some of the remarks made on the earlier question—that we spend as a country something of the order of £2 billion on overseas aid. These are very large sums of money indeed and they
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have to be viewed in the context of the whole of government spending and all the other priorities and demands on the taxpayer and taxpayers' money.

Fish Imports
2.55 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they are taking to help rationalise quantities of fish imports, so that supplies needed by processors are maintained without distorting the United Kingdom market.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, the Community responded to serious market disturbance in February and March by introducing minimum import prices for a range of third-country supplies, effective to 30th June, and stricter control over direct landings by third-country vessels. Some member states suggested more severe measures but the Government consider that the measures taken were an appropriate response given that imports were not the only cause of market disturbance, and that Community processors must import a high proportion of their requirements. A decision should soon be taken on revised terms for the Community quotas which contribute a significant part of the supplies for processors.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his Answer. While the concern of fishermen is understandable, will the Government give wide circulation to the facts to help to prevent misguided blockades and the destruction of fish aimed at the wrong targets? I refer to targets such as routine imports to processing plants which do not affect markets and where Britons have been put out of work, and foreign factory ships which provide an important service by providing a market for British-caught mackerel and herring.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, the Government have repeatedly explained the variety of causes for recent market disturbance. This is greatly attributable to cheap third-country imports, but there are other reasons also, such as unco-ordinated surges of fishing effort and consumer preference for cheaper foods such as poultrymeat and pork. The Government and the EC Commission have made a substantial response to the market situation and the Government are fully aware of the needs of processors and catchers. Equally, we totally deplore the misguided blockades and the destruction of fish.
Lord Parry: My Lords, does the noble Lord accept that among the reasons which are causing concern for our indigenous fishermen and which have led to troubles at the ports is the belief that exists among them that while our own fishermen are policed closely and observe rigidly the net mesh regulations, other countries (both European and third-world countries) are escaping that vigilance almost entirely?
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, I must point out to the noble Lord that those two

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issues are unrelated. The total catching effort of Community fishermen can supply only a small proportion of the fish required for processing in this country; for example, about 90 per cent. of the fish required for manufacturing fish fingers must be imported.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, what steps are the Government taking to secure the passage of our fish to French markets and to secure compensation for the exporters where that passage has been impeded by the unlawful use of force by the French?
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, the Government's strong and repeated representations finally elicited a very explicit confirmation from French Ministers that all possible measures are being taken to guarantee the specific passage of fish products, especially those from the United Kingdom. That has done much to ensure the effectiveness of the arrangements already set out for notifying details of consignments to the French police so that they can take action.
The noble Lady also asked about compensation. Officials are advising those who have suffered direct loss and damage on the details required by the French authorities to support compensation claims. The department will assist in the construction of claims and will pass them on, via the British embassy in Paris, to the appropriate French regional authorities.
Lord Carter: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is a ludicrous situation when British fishermen have to throw back into the sea large quantities of fish in order to stay within EC rules but then find when they get back to port that their market has been ruined by cheap imports of fish which are similar in size and quality to those that they have been forced to discard?
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, on the subject of discards, I should point out that if all fish caught were landed there would be no incentive for fishermen to observe their quotas. The result would be too few fish left to breed future stocks. Similarly, there would be no reason to respect minimum mesh sizes.
Lord Carter: My Lords, imported fish which replaces the discards has to be caught somewhere.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, indeed, but we have to respect and preserve our fish stocks in the North Sea.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, will the noble Earl explain minimum import prices to the House? Does he mean that he will force foreign suppliers to take more money than they are willing to take for the fish they land here?
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, it would make no sense to seek substantially to increase the price of fish when one of the fundamental problems is slack consumer demand. It is recognised that not enough is being done in some member states
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to enforce the existing minimum import price. The next step must therefore be to enforce the existing price effectively.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, in evidence to the Select Committee of another place, officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food forecast that the British fishing industry will decline even further in the next few years. Will the noble Earl confirm that evidence? Under such circumstances, is it not natural that British fishermen are bound to do everything possible to protect their industry, including the calling for bans on foreign fish, however wrong that might be?
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, as I have said, the Government and the EC Commission have now made a substantial response to the market situation and are committed to taking further appropriate action where justified, but not all action rests with governments. The fishing industry can phase its efforts better. Catchers and processors should work out how to exploit the available resources rationally.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that his subsequent answers do not fit in with the answer he gave to the noble Lord, Lord Parry, about mesh size being irrelevant? The size of the mesh and the stringency in applying it seem to me to be very relevant in view of the answers he has just given.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, if mesh sizes are increased, the size of the fish will similarly have to increase.
Lord Parry: My Lords, does the noble Earl agree that the loss of the hake fishing industry off the coast of Britain, a classic example of over-fishing, was brought about in part because in the process of raising an immature hake from its natural water level its balance sacs burst? In Britain we throw the fish back into the sea whereas French ships take home those immature hake in concealed refrigeration plant.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, with the greatest respect to the noble Lord, I believe that I tried to answer that point on discards when I replied to the noble Lord, Lord Carter.

Industrial Strategy: Budget Measures
3.3 p.m.
Lord Laing of Dunphail Lord Laing of Dunphail asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have assessed the likely consequences of the tax changes of the Budget for British industry, with particular attention to its effect on Rolls-Royce cars; and whether they will publish a statement of their industrial strategy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Baroness Denton of Wakefield): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer considered the overall impact of his Budget on industry and the impact of

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each measure with particular care. Rolls-Royce cars will of course benefit from the budget measures to help business and promote recovery.
The Government's industrial strategy is already clear—a long-term commitment to help British industry succeed in world markets. That involves all policies, including those pursued by the Chancellor in a Budget which cut the tax burden on business by £1 billion.
Lord Laing of Dunphail: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her Answer. However, do not the Government understand that the erosion of our manufacturing base has, to an important extent, been caused by sudden changes in government policy, including tax changes—in the case of Rolls-Royce of up to 400 per cent. —to which companies, however efficient, cannot respond quickly? Secondly, do they understand that that is aggravated by a financial system which will sell great companies to foreigners at the drop of a hat?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I hasten to reassure my noble friend that the Government consulted widely on proposals for change last year. On the issue of taxation on company cars, the great majority of respondents, including motor manufacturers, were against the banding of cars by price. I assure my noble friend that the Government continue to consider comments and suggestions. I am aware that my right honourable friend will be meeting senior representatives of Rolls-Royce in the next month. I assure him that we are working closely with industry. I am delighted that last month's increase in manufacturing output proves that we are being successful.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, will the Minister be implementing the last part of the Question? Will the Government publish a statement of their industrial strategy, as requested in the latter part of today's Question?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, we are operating an industrial strategy. We recognise the vital role of the private sector. We are working for a stable economic climate with an emphasis upon competitiveness and deregulation. We are supporting departments with critical interfacing with the wealth-creating sector and we are developing close links with business. Our aim is to provide services of the highest possible standard, properly co-ordinated and actively promoted. The figures show that we are achieving our aim.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, if the Government's industrial strategy is as clear as my noble friend suggests, why are the Government so unwilling to restate it for the benefit of those who do not have such a clear understanding of it? Is it just possible that the Government will not state their industrial strategy because it is difficult, if not impossible, to secure the consent, agreement and commitment to it by other departments?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, my noble friend ensures that I state regularly in the House the
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Government's industrial strategy. As I said in my previous answer, we work closely with other government departments which interface with wealth creation, and, in particular, he should note the help that the Treasury gives.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, is the Minister aware that, although she tries boldly to assert the Government's industrial strategy, she fails significantly every time she addresses the issue? Is she not aware that the alleged strategy is in absolute tatters? That could not be better exemplified (could it?) by the fact that in March alone the PSBR leapt by £9.5 billion; that the unemployment figures, despite the slight fall last month, are still devastatingly high; and that capital spending has been estimated in a recently undertaken survey not to rise significantly in 1993. When will the Government address those fundamental issues?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, we constantly address those fundamental issues. I am delighted to say that the other side of the coin quoted by the noble Lord is positive; this month we have seen growth in manufacturing.

Business
3.8 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, in the anticipation that your Lordships will agree to the Motion which is about to be moved by my noble friend the Leader of the House, I should like to suggest that in today's debate standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, it would conform with the spirit of our debates if, save for the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, opening and my noble friend Lord Strathclyde winding up, the length of speeches were kept within the 15 minutes maximum time limit recommended in the Companion.

Business of the House: Debate this Day
3.9 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Wakeham): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Motion in the name of the Lord Williams of Elvel set down for today shall be limited to 5 hours.—(Lord Wakeham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Procedure of the House: Select Committee Report
3.10 p.m.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Ampthill): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
In moving that the report should be agreed to perhaps I may draw attention to some of the committee's recommendations. The first section of the

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report deals with time-limited debates. The report recommends that when the maximum length of speeches in time-limited debates is calculated a minimum time should be set aside for the two closing opposition speakers. The committee considered that issue at length because, as the report points out, it will mean that the Back Benchers' allocations will be reduced in some debates. But the committee considered that the current rules allowing opposition speakers some leeway to use up spare time were too vague and therefore recommends guaranteed limits as suggested.
The report proposes two experiments in relation to time-limited debates. The first experiment seeks to reduce the occasions when the list of speakers for a time-limited debate is so long that only a few minutes are allocated by helping to tailor Motions for short debate more closely to the 2½ hours available. It is suggested that noble Lords should seek the advice of the Clerks on wording, with the usual channels acting as a longstop if necessary. I might stress that that advice will concern the scope of Motions and not their content.
The second experiment is of some Unstarred Questions to be limited to one hour so that they can be taken in the dinner break. That should allow more Unstarred Questions to be tabled at busy times of the year. Of course, no noble Lord would be obliged to table his Question as a time-limited Unstarred Question. Arrangements for Unstarred Questions held as now at the end of the day would be unchanged.
The other main issue considered in the report was the question of debates on Consolidated Fund Bills. The House will remember that the matter was discussed when the committee's second report was agreed to at the start of February. The committee considered a paper on the subject from the noble Lords, Lord Bruce of Donington and Lord Boyd-Carpenter, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. But as the report explains, the committee unanimously decided that there should be no change from the current guidance. One reason was that it would be odd for the Lords to debate Bills about public expenditure which cannot be debated in another place. But the main arguments used against debating such Bills were practical. Consolidated Fund Bills appear with minimal notice and in so far as debate is relevant it is relevant to the full range of publicly-funded activities. Debating such Bills, therefore, seemed to threaten ill-prepared, confused and unfocused debates. The committee concluded that it would not be the best way to use the time of the House.
I shall be pleased to respond to any matters which may be of concern to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the third report from the Select Committee be agreed to (HL Paper 76).—(The Chairman of Committees.)
Following is the report referred to:
TIME-LIMITED DEBATES
Opposition winding-up speeches
1. Current rules for all time-limited debates guarantee a minimum time for the movers of debates and for the
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Government spokesman, but make no specific provision for opposition frontbench spokesmen winding up at the end of a debate. It is accepted practice for opposition spokesmen to seek to sum up points made in the debate in their speeches. The Committee's 2nd Report, 1990–91, suggested that opposition winding up speeches could use up some of the time often left at the end of a debate. But the wording of this guidance was tentative, and it has not been easy for opposition spokesmen to put it into practice. The Committee has therefore concluded that time should be set aside for closing opposition speeches. The Committee recognises that this will mean that, in some debates, backbenchers will be allocated less time. But we believe that guaranteeing a minimum time for all closing speakers would allow a proper balance between the frontbenches, and ensure that winding up speeches can fully sum up the debate.
2. The Committee therefore recommends that opposition winding up spokesmen should be given a minimum of 10 minutes whenever the Government spokesman has 20 minutes for winding up, and 12 minutes when the Government spokesman has 25 minutes. When the backbenchers' time allocation is greater than this, there will be no difference between backbench time and that given to opposition spokesmen.
Length of debate when time limits applied by business motion
3. Traditionally, the length of time-limited debates in the House of Lords has been restricted to 2½ hours or 5 hours. In the Committee's 1st and 2nd Reports, 1990–91, it was agreed to have an experiment giving the House the freedom to apply other time limits. This has helped to tailor the length of debates more closely to the numbers of speakers taking part. The Committee recommends that the freedom to apply limits of any length should be confirmed.
4. In the Committee's 2nd Report, 1990–91, it was agreed that debates of 4 hours or more should have the same time allocations for opening and closing speeches as for 5 hour debates, and that debates below 4 hours should have the same allocations as for 2½ hour debates. The Committee recommends that if it is decided to hold 1½ hour debates, 12 minutes should be allocated to the mover of a debate, 15 minutes to the Government winding up, and 8 minutes to the final opposition speeches (see paragraph 2).
Scope of short debates
5. No freedom is available to change the time allocated to the 2½ hour debates chosen by ballot (short debates). Broadly drafted motions attracting a large number of speakers lead to the allocation of only a few minutes to each speaker. When short debates were first introduced, it was not intended that they would be used to raise broad issues of important national policy. The Committee recommends that the subject matter of short debates should be limited in scope, and should not seek to raise fundamental or wide-ranging issues which cannot be properly explored in the time allotted. Motions should be examined before the ballot takes place, to assess whether the scope of the motion seems appropriate. In the first instance, the advice of the Clerks on the wording of motions for

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short debate should be sought (Companion, p 51). In case of difficulty, it would fall to the usual channels to help to ensure that motions were appropriate to the time allowed. These arrangements should begin on an experimental basis.
Unstarred Questions
6. At busy times of the year, it is often difficult to find time for Unstarred Questions to be asked. The Committee therefore recommends that, on an experimental basis, Lords should be able to table Unstarred Questions to be asked during the one hour's dinner break. This would enable more Unstarred Questions to be asked, without extending the House's sitting hours. However, a time limit would have to be applied to the Question, to ensure that the legislative business was not delayed. The Committee recommends a time limit of one hour, with 10 minutes set aside for the questioner, and 12 for the Government response. No special provision should be made for opposition frontbench contributions. It will be important for the questions to be limited in scope. The Companion already states that in the case of a second Unstarred Question, "the Lord concerned should be prepared to postpone his Question to a later date" (p 83). It may be likewise necessary for a Lord to postpone an Unstarred Question intended for the dinner break if it becomes clear that a Question has attracted more interest than can be accommodated in one hour.
Speaking in the Gap
7. The Brief Guide to the Practice and Procedure of the House makes it clear that those Lords who have not put their names on a speakers' list, and who rise to speak just before the winding up speakers, should be brief. The Committee endorses this guidance, and recommends its inclusion in the Companion.
DEBATES ON CONSOLIDATED FUND BILLS
8. In the Committee's 2nd Report, 1992–93, the Committee endorsed the current Companion guidance concerning proceedings on consolidated fund bills:
"It does not offend the privileges of the Commons for the Lords to discuss or even to decide upon consolidated fund bills, but the House has habitually passed such bills without printing them and without discussion or dissent. It is now a convention that proceedings upon them are taken formally."(Companion, p124)
The last time that the substance of a consolidated fund bill was discussed was in 1907.
9. The Committee was invited to re-examine this guidance for a second time. Consolidated fund bills are in a different category to other public bills for three reasons. First, the timetable for such bills is both fast-moving and difficult to predict. Debates on these bills would therefore arise with little warning, and little opportunity for Lords to prepare. Second, consolidated fund bills exist to sanction the grant of finance for the full range of publicly-funded activity. If debate on the second reading was deemed relevant under the terms of Standing Order 26, it could therefore range across an enormous variety of subjects, resulting in an extremely unfocused debate. Finally, House of Commons Standing Order 54(1) prohibits debate on consolidated fund bills. Although
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the Companion makes clear that privilege is not an issue, the principle of comity between the two Houses would suggest that the House of Lords should not decide to discuss money bills on which there is no debate in the House of Commons. The Committee concludes that the guidance should not be altered.
10. On a related point, it was suggested that the House should have more opportunities to discuss economic and financial subjects. The Committee considered that this was a question of business management, not of procedure, for consideration by the usual channels.
WRITTEN ANSWERS FROM EXECUTIVE AGENCIES
11. In the Committee's 2nd Report, 1992–93, it was stated that parliamentary privilege, which confers freedom from legal proceedings on statements by MPs and Lords in Parliament, would not attach to written answers from executive agencies. The Committee are advised that, as answers are printed in the Official Report, they will be fully covered by privilege.
OWNERSHIP OF BILLS
12. The Committee's 2nd Report, 1988–89, stated:
"Bills once introduced are in the possession of the House, and not in the sole ownership of their sponsor."
The Committee endorses this guidance.
ALPHABETICAL SPLIT IN DIVISION LOBBIES
13. Analysis of voting figures in the division lobbies has shown that there are consistently more Lords whose names begin with the letters A to K voting than those whose names begin with the letters L to Z. The Committee therefore recommends that Lords should split on the basis of A to J and K to Z in the lobbies.
3.15 p.m.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, as one of those who demurred at the second report perhaps I may first express my gratitude that the matter of the Consolidated Fund Bills has been reconsidered. However, I fear that I must also express grave disquiet at the endorsement of the previous decision. It is contrary to the public interest and very definitely contrary to the interests of your Lordships' House.
As has been pointed out, a Consolidated Fund Bill, which turns into an Appropriation Act, covers the whole range of public expenditure. It is therefore particularly suitable as an agent for discussing the financial and economic situation generally. There are generally three Consolidated Fund Bills in each year; in December, in the Spring and in July. If we are to have, as now seems likely, an Autumn Statement followed by a Winter Budget there will be no real need for a Consolidated Fund Bill for discussion at the end of the year. But by this time of the year the situation is entirely different and it is still more different by July.
As was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, a moment or two ago, some of the forecasts for the Budget only one month ago have been falsified. The headline read, "Record surge in state spending". As the noble Lord pointed out the figure was more than £1 billion over and above that which was prognosticated only one month ago. Obviously the situation merits reconsideration and

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will still more merit reconsideration in July, for who can tell now what the economic circumstances will be then?
The second reason is that your Lordships bring unexampled experience and knowledge to the discussion of such issues. There are in your Lordships' House no fewer than seven former Chancellors of the Exchequer, four former Chief Secretaries, a number of heads of government departments with important financial influence, such as National Insurance and social security. Their advice and counsel is available. Your Lordships also have among their Members a former chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and the former chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, who would also have been chairman of the Committee of Supply. Your Lordships have as a Member the chairman of one of the biggest high street banks and his predecessor and a number of other Members with vast experience of finance, commerce and industry. No other deliberative body in the world can produce anything like that body of experience, knowledge and judgment.
There is no reason to hide such illumination under a bushel and every reason not to do so, particularly at a time such as this when your Lordships' role in the constitution is being questioned. Now, above all, is the time to show that your Lordships have inherited and can still maintain the position of the great council of state.
I said that because I wish to say a few words about the weight of the convention in this case. As your Lordships know, the British constitution depends as much on conventions which are not absolutely binding as upon laws which are binding. Those conventions can be very powerful; for instance, the convention that although your Lordships' House collectively is the highest court in the land it habitually leaves the judicial decision to the Appellate Committee of professionals. That committee has existed for more than 150 years and antedates the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary. It has powerful constitutional arguments in its favour. It is a powerful convention and it is extremely unlikely to be breached. If it were the jurisdiction would almost certainly be abolished.
As an intermediate convention, one can look across the Atlantic. There was the convention that the American president should enjoy only two terms of office. That was sufficiently powerful to disappoint the hopes of Grant and Theodore Roosevelt of a third term. But it was still a convention and it did not prevent Franklin Roosevelt having three terms and being elected for a fourth term.
As a still weaker convention, and very close to the convention with which your Lordships are immediately concerned, one can take the convention that a government should resign after defeat in an election. For many years the convention was that a defeated government should meet Parliament before resigning. That reflected the legal sovereignty of Parliament. But at the end of the last century the electorate had increased to such an extent that it was recognised that the political sovereign was the electorate. Both
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Disraeli and Gladstone resigned on being defeated at the polls. Their example was again followed for decades; but in 1923 there was a hung Parliament and the convention was found to be inconvenient. Baldwin met Parliament without resigning after defeat at the polls and I have little doubt that if we have again, as we may have, a hung Parliament, that may be found to be the convenient course.
The lesson is that a convention will be followed so long as it is convenient and will be rejected and departed from when it proves inconvenient. This convention is all the stronger for its renewed endorsement by the Procedure Committee but it still does not make much sense and may be highly inconvenient. Therefore, I venture to suggest that although it is prima facie to be observed, it will be departed from when it is inconvenient.
The more that government business managers provide an opportunity for a debate on economic and financial matters, the less there will be a need to depart from the convention; but at present there is little sign of that. Therefore, I end as I began by expressing very great regret at the re-endorsement by the Procedure Committee.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, I do not propose to follow the discussion of the noble and learned Lord on the Consolidated Fund Bill. The Chairman of Committees may find it convenient to reply to the House at the end of our discussions.
I want to raise specifically the question of short, timed debates. I regard those as rather precious in this House because it gives the opportunity for Back-Bench Members to contribute to the affairs of the House; and that is something we should protect. There is an obvious lack of flexibility in the arrangements as quoted in the report. Paragraph 5 of the report states:
"No freedom is available to change the time allocated to the 21½ hour debates chosen by ballot".
I thought that we were discussing the arrangements for short, timed debates; but the report says that there is no freedom available to do so.
There was an extremely interesting example last week of the present difficulties and inadequacies.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, the present arrangements do not allow for any alteration in balloted debates. Of course that does not mean that the House cannot change those arrangements if it so wishes.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, that is not what it says in the report. The report says, "no freedom is available". Surely the House should determine whether or not freedom is available to change those arrangements.
I wish to give an example to the House. Two years ago I put down my name for a balloted debate on forestry. I am not sure whether that will fall within the province of matters of great national importance which may be excluded in the future; I hope it will not. I came to the House the day before the debate and I discovered that the preceding debate on drugs had six speakers. The two and a half hour debate on forestry to follow had 21 speakers. I asked the Clerk whether

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it might be possible to make an adjustment so that the 21 speakers in the forestry debate might be allocated some of the time available from the other debate. I was told that that was not possible.
When the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh, gave our timetable on the day, he said that because there were only a few speakers in the preceding debate, there was to be no time limit on the speakers on that debate; but since there were 21 speakers in the debate on forestry, they would have only five minutes each in which to speak. Noble Lords who wish to discuss forestry in this House travel long distances to do so. Some of my fellow Scottish Peers travel more than 500 miles. On arrival they are greeted with the announcement that they have five minutes only in which to speak. I regard that as totally inadequate. I should have thought that the committee looking at those matters would introduce a measure of flexibility which would make for the better working of the House and would make available more time for Back-Benchers like myself.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I support strongly the objections raised by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, to paragraph 5 which frankly astonished me. To propose that short debates should not seek to raise fundamental or wide-ranging issues seems to me to beg every question before the debate starts. For it to go on to say that it should fall to the usual channels to help to ensure that Motions are appropriate, strikes me as being a positively soviet approach to your Lordships' affairs. I hope that your Lordships will reject that absurd suggestion.
Lord Aberdare: My Lords, I agree entirely with the report. I believe that it is an extremely good report. Although I hate to disagree with the noble Lord who spoke about Consolidated Fund Bills, I found the arguments adduced by the committee to be totally convincing. I very much hope that the House will agree to the report.
There is one question that I should like to ask my noble friend on Unstarred Questions in the Dinner break. I am not sure how that will work when there is government business in the Dinner break, as very often there is. Is it intended that Unstarred Questions should only be permissible when there is not government business or is it somehow intended to fit both into the one hour that is available?
Lord Parry: My Lords, I wish to underline strongly what has already been said by my noble friend Lord Taylor of Gryfe and the noble Lord opposite. However, I wish to speak on paragraph 7, "Speaking in the Gap".
It seems to me that in the 18 years that I have been in your Lordships' House, almost by accident the opportunities of the Barons' Benches have been cut back. In a sense it is a casualty of the organisation of the House properly to conduct its business. The more well organised the Front Benches on both sides of the House, the greater is the lack of opportunity for the Back-Benchers to record their important points.
I feel that a frustration is building up which arises from the fact that London-based Barons, who do a tremendous amount of work in this House, almost
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inevitably dominate each day's proceedings. It is perfectly possible to journey in from the peripheral areas of Britain with something to contribute on a specific issue upon which one has some experience and competence and find it talked out by people whom one has heard speak every day on every issue for their full ration of time, thus taking up the whole time of the House. While one respects their service and appreciates what they say, it is an awful frustration.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, perhaps I may bring the House back to the issue of debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill which, as your Lordships may recall, was the main subject of discussion in the previous report of the Select Committee and, I believe, the reason the Select Committee was good enough to say that it would have another look at the issue, as it has now looked at several others.
I agree very much with what was so well said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, about the constitutional and presentational importance of the matter. Reading through the report, I had the feeling that the Select Committee, understandably in the light of its composition, was really rather more interested in the mechanics of the operation of the House and the convenience of the work of the usual channels, than it was with the broader issue of the standing of the House and indeed of the function of the House which people will perceive outside.
After all, a Consolidated Fund Bill is one of the most important measures of the Session. As noble Lords know, it authorises the issue of public funds for the various purposes for which they have been voted under the Finance Bill. It is of enormous importance. For your Lordships' House deliberately to deny itself the right even to discuss it, seems to me to be a very serious matter and one which perhaps indicates a certain lack of confidence in the role of this Chamber. It may well be looked at in that way from outside.
Therefore, I hope even now, and notwithstanding the deliberations of the Select Committee, that your Lordships are prepared further to consider the matter. I, and quite a number of others, regard it as of very real importance. As I understand it, the report rejects the idea on the grounds that such debates would be inconvenient and awkward to arrange; for example, they would have to be arranged at the last minute, it would be difficult for the usual channels, and so on. On the previous occasion—although not I notice on this one—the Select Committee also relied on the highly specious argument that, as there is now no Treasury Minister in the House, apparently no one would be in a position to reply to issues raised in the debate. I am glad to say that that argument has not been put forward again.
I hope that most noble Lords will share my view that it is wholly wrong that there is now no Treasury Minister in the House. Of course, there was until a fairly short time ago in the very able person of the then Paymaster General. The absence of the appropriate Minister, who obviously would be the appropriate Minister to deal with the Bill, is the responsibility of the Government, and not this House, to put right. I

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ask noble Lords to think very hard indeed before deliberately voting themselves out of the capacity to debate possibly the most important of the year's measures. It is a very serious matter.
The mere fact that the debate may well be difficult and inconvenient is surely no conclusive argument; nor is it conclusive, as the Select Committee suggests, that another place has decided not to debate Consolidated Fund Bills. After all, in that case, they have ample—some may think excessive—opportunities to debate economics and finance. Indeed, they certainly do not lack opportunities. But, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, said, we have comparatively few opportunities in this Chamber. Therefore, either the Consolidated Fund Bill, or a debate in lieu of it, would serve a very useful purpose for bringing into the public view and into operation the immense body of expertise and experience which exists in this House on these grave, difficult and complicated matters.
I hope that the Select Committee will not be obstinate about the matter. If I may say so without offence, I am afraid that it suggests that the Select Committee is a little excessively interested in the smooth working of the work of the usual channels and perhaps a little inadequately interested in the standing, reputation and position of the House in the public view. I urge upon your Lordships the fact that we ought to be free to debate that Bill.
Finally, when my noble friend on the Front Bench replies, can he say what the effect of the guidance would actually be? In other words, if, when the Consolidated Fund Bill was called for a Second Reading, a noble Lord rose to speak to it, would he be ruled out of order or would he merely suffer looks of disapproval from his friends on the Front Bench? Would he in fact be stopped from speaking? If he were to be stopped, perhaps I may ask the alternative question: would he not then be perfectly in order in speaking on the Motion which they always have on such occasions; namely, the Motion to allow more than one stage of a Bill to be taken on the same day? So far as I know, that Motion is not excluded from any discussion. If the Government say that they would regard a speech in the ordinary way on the Second Reading of the Bill as being out of order and would seek to have it stopped—and I really wish to know whether they would do that—
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: They cannot!
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: Well, my Lords; I should like to know whether they would try to do so. If they would, I should also like to know whether the alternative lies in simply debating the Motion to take all stages of the Bill on the same day which would in fact enable the main issues of the Bill to be raised. In due course, when my noble friend the Chairman of Committees comes to reply, I shall be most interested to hear his answer.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I am most anxious not to stand in the way of the House by entering upon the time allocated for the very
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important debate to be initiated by my noble friend Lord Williams of Elvel. However, I fear that I must pass some small comment on the report which your Lordships are considering this afternoon. I should like to do so without duplicating anything that has been said either by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, or by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter.
When we consider the paragraph which deals with the whole question of the Consolidated Fund Bill, the explanation for the rejection of the suggestions put forward does not entirely agree with the explanation given in the document itself. If noble Lords refer to the document it will be seen that it says:
"Finally, House of Commons Standing Order 54(1) prohibits debate on consolidated fund bills. Although the Companion makes clear that privilege is not an issue, the principle of comity between the two Houses would suggest that the House of Lords should not decide to discuss money bills on which there is no debate in the House of Commons".
It is the first time that the principle of "comity" has been placed before us in that connection. I am all for comity with the other place—that is, whatever "comity" may mean —although I should like to observe in parenthesis that it certainly does not inhibit the other place from time to time demanding our reform or abolition. If there is to be comity, I suggest that it should apply both ways. In future, I intend to resist the temptation to point out to another place that they are not entirely without certain defects upon which, in the interests of comity, I need not elaborate at present. Surely the position between the two Houses, within the concept of comity, is well understood. It does not even need to be stated in the Companion.
It is accepted between the two Houses that it is desirable that your Lordships' House shall, for example, debate in Committee in detail items and amendments that have not been debated thoroughly in another place. That is one example of where there is a dovetailing of interest and where it is accepted that we have a certain valuable function to perform. I might add that that function has not always added to the friendly relationship between this House and Her Majesty's Government for the time being in Office because we do from time to time defeat amendments that are brought before us. On the principle that there is a certain dovetailing of interest that we in this House find convenient, and that we have the ability despite our ages to discuss matters adequately, surely this principle can be extended into the realms of finance and economics on a far more comprehensive basis than it has been up to now.
I shall not elaborate on the proposals that have been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter—as far as I am concerned they command some sympathy—but I can give another example. Let us take the case of the European budget. That budget comprises a voluminous document which in my experience is never thoroughly discussed in another place, even in the broadest outline. After all, the United Kingdom contributes £1.75 billion net into the Community budget every year. That matter could be discussed and an opportunity could be provided in this House for its detailed discussion. From my own

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examination of the matter I can assure your Lordships that such a discussion would be most rewarding where it is not humourous or even tragic. I hope that we shall not consider ourselves automatically bound to exclude from our agenda items which another place finds it convenient for its own reasons, procedural or other, to omit. Conditions of comity could in those circumstances operate fully.
It would be wrong for me to end upon a controversial note. I wish to congratulate the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees for the constructive way in which he and his committee have set about their task.
I have only one final observation to make which I sincerely trust will meet with your Lordships' general approval. My observation concerns winding-up speeches. I broadly concur with the decisions arrived at by the Select Committee but, just as the Companion can occasionally offer advice to Members on the way that they should proceed, I hope that I may presume to offer a little advice on this occasion to Her Majesty's Government on the matter of winding-up speeches. Most of us would find it convenient if winding-up speeches from the Government, instead of being prepared beforehand and then read, occasionally replied to the debate. I believe that would be most helpful to all Members of the House and would redound to the good reputation and the competence of the Government.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, may I say that I strongly dissent from the views put forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, and by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. It may be thought that as I was a Treasury Minister in your Lordships' House who was responsible for these matters for a period of years I am therefore prejudiced. But if I am prejudiced I fall only into the same category as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington.
Debating the Consolidated Fund Bill in another place provides an opportunity for Members to discuss constituency matters or to trot out their hobby-horses to exercise around the yard. It is not the opportunity on which the financial, economic, budgetary or expenditure affairs of the nation are discussed. The correct occasions on which those matters should be discussed are on the Budget, on the Finance Bill or on the humble Address. It is perfectly true—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, briefly touched upon this towards the end of his speech—that the usual channels have shown in recent years a singular reluctance to have these matters adequately discussed. They have been supported in that by the Opposition parties who no doubt have no greater wish to disclose their position, if they have one, than the Government have to defend their position whether they have one or not. But nevertheless those are the right occasions on which these matters should be discussed. In years past they were adequately discussed and we had many interesting and valuable debates in which many of the noble gentlemen specified by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon
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of Glaisdale, made significant contributions. I suggest to your Lordships that the right thing to do is to have adequate provision made for discussing these matters on the right and proper occasions and not to invent the wrong and improper occasions on which to discuss them.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, first I wish to address the question of debate on the Consolidated Fund. Paragraph 9 of the report states that Consolidated Fund Bills are in a different category for three reasons. First, the timetable is fast moving and difficult to predict; secondly, the debates are very diverse, wide-ranging and are extremely unfocused —that never occurs in your Lordships' House of course!—and, finally (this is the killer punch) the House of Commons Standing Order 54(1) prohibits debate on Consolidated Fund Bills. It is almost as if those provisions were cast in stone.
How did that provision in the Commons arise? I am pleased to explain the position to your Lordships from my personal experience. When my party was in government, on one occasion the then Opposition used the opportunity of debate on the Consolidated Fund to prolong the discussion to such a length that to get things on the move again the government had to make a concession for which the Opposition had been asking since the debate started. When we moved into Opposition I bore this ploy in mind and at a suitable time I sprang the same trap on the Government. I am glad to inform your Lordships that we not only got our own back but we obtained substantial interest into the bargain.
That was an example of exploitation of the Consolidated Fund for purely party advantage. Both sides did it and it was realised that, while it was a bit of good fun at the time and it was painful for one side and enjoyable for the other, it really was not the way in which the House of Commons should conduct its business. That is the reason why the Commons decided not to debate the Bill. There is absolutely no way in which those circumstances could be repeated in your Lordships' House. Therefore despite the reference to comity, or whatever it is—I am not sure whether amity, or cohabitation, is the correct word in this context—there is no question whatsoever of comparison. I ask the Select Committee not to grasp at this particular straw to buttress its rather weak position.
I wish to support the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, as regards his comments on the scope of short debates. When we are discussing whether an issue is an important matter of national policy we are entering fields of subjective judgment. We are asking the Clerks of the House to make a judgment. We are placing upon their shoulders the burden of saying yea or nay to someone who feels particularly strongly about something. That is unfair. If necessary we then go to the usual channels. My experience of the usual channels tells me that the decision may sometimes be made in favour of the establishment rather than of the individual Member who is making the application. Therefore, I ask the Committee to have a further look

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at the matter. In conclusion, I look forward to the day when the Procedure Committee comes to the House and says that it has no changes to report.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I should like to make a brief intervention to associate myself with everything that was said so well by my noble friend Lord Cockfield. Perhaps I may be allowed to point out in relation to the general debate on economic and financial matters or other matters of current moment which is sought in paragraphs 2 and 3 of the memorandum submitted to the Procedure Committee that there is no precedent or convention that on Second Reading in your Lordships' House there should be any such debate.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene. He will no doubt have in mind that the House habitually debates the Irish consolidated fund appropriation measure on the basis that all the expenditure therein is a matter which is open for debate. There is the precedent.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble and learned Lord. I shall spend no further time on that point.
These Bills are not debated in another place. With respect to the noble Lord, the reason matters not. They are not debated. The Bills reach your Lordships' House at very short notice or without notice. Usually, by custom, they pass both Houses within a week. The order of general debate sought in paragraphs 2 and 3 of the memorandum submitted, I believe, by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, and the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, would inhibit the customary passage of those Bills. It would disturb the comity between the two Houses and, as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, said, with his genial touch of eloquent humour, we all know what comity is. It is the way in which the two Houses customarily transact their business.
Thirdly, and perhaps even more importantly in view of the suggestion that this should serve as a way of remedying a want of time for such economic debates, a debate taken at short notice would serve little purpose as, without notice of questions to be raised, no satisfactory answer could be given. Indeed, if such order of debate is to ensue after the passage of the Bill, that is a matter for your Lordships to decide on its merits on any particular occasion. In that regard I say with respect to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, that that surely serves the public interest and also the interests of your Lordships' House.
There is no precedent for this proposal. To introduce the proposal in that memorandum would be a clear and distinct departure from precedent which would serve no useful purpose.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, we have had a good run round this course and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. Perhaps I may try to deal with some of the easier matters first.
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The point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Parry, about speaking in the gap falls into that category. There was much debate, as there always has been, about the word "brief" and whether we should be more specific about how long noble Lords should be allowed to speak. It is a matter of horses for courses, as is so frequently the case. It is unfair to those who have travelled long distances, as the noble Lord said. He said that he finds himself listening to a great many speakers from whom the House has heard a great many times. That is an impossible problem to resolve, but there is sympathy for the point that the noble Lord made.
Lord Parry: My Lords, I am grateful for that specific reference to my point. I also implied that in time-limited debates the gap disappears. Therefore, not only have we lost the time within the time but we have lost the chance to speak in other debates.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, the noble Lord is quite correct. However, if a debate is to be timed, that is a voluntary exercise and one has entered into an agreement that the debate should be timed.
I should like to deal next with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. I was naturally glad of his support on the matter of Consolidated Fund Bills. The noble Lord raised the question of one-hour Unstarred Questions. That is an idea which we have been mulling over for some time. It seemed to us that frequently, as was the case on Monday night, there is no government business of affirmative instruments to be dealt with and that it might please noble Lords to have the opportunity, provided they would accept that the matter had to be dealt with within one hour, to deal with Unstarred Questions at a more reasonable hour instead of the debates beginning at the end of Business, which can be a very vague time—as it will be tonight as a result of this discussion. That is a voluntary exercise and as an experiment it is to be commended. It will not suit everybody by a long chalk, but it may suit certain noble Lords. That would not in any way interfere with the Government's need to put their affirmative orders through the House, but there is not usually an urgent timescale about most such orders which could be packed together and dealt with on other occasions.
I turn now to the difficulties encountered by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe. We all had a great deal of sympathy for him a few days ago on the occasion to which he referred when there were 25 speakers in his debate which was limited to two and a half hours and there were only six speakers in the preceding debate. The report might perhaps have made the position a little clearer in paragraph 5, where it reads:
"No freedom is available to change the time allocated".
That could perhaps have been better expressed as "no freedom is presently available". The position has been left unaltered. Many changes have been made in respect of other timed debates. Debates of two and a half hours on an ordinary debating day have been changed to two hours and three hours. Many variations can be made in that respect.

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The Procedure Committee has not got round to considering whether it would be a good idea to make the same sort of variation in balloted debates. That raises rather more complex issues, curiously enough. I am sure that the noble Lord will agree that when one enters into a balloted debate one is gambling. The gamble extends also to whether the debate to be held on the same afternoon as one's own is more interesting. There is an element of risk attached to the matter and I do not believe that we could devise a procedure which would totally satisfy every situation which could arise.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but my point was that the preceding debate did not take up the two and a half hours allocated to it despite the fact that there was no time limit on speeches. Time was still available. I merely asked that the committee could consider some flexibility in that respect. Otherwise Back-Benchers are penalised.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I was about to say that that is a matter which the Procedure Committee has not gone into in detail. I shall be pleased to place it upon the agenda for the next meeting when we shall discuss it further.
I hope that I have dealt with all the points that have been raised other than the extremely important matter of Consolidated Fund Bills. As I have already said, I was delighted to have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. I was equally delighted to have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway.
I am quite certain that those three noble Lords are correct. However, a number of your Lordships do not feel the same way. It is the arrival of those Bills unannounced which means that the notice given will be extremely short. If one takes the last three Consolidated Fund Bills in this Session, the time between the Bill receiving a First Reading in the Commons and the receipt of that Bill for us to pass through all its stages has never exceeded a week. The Commons normally have a gap of three or four days between First Reading and taking the Bill through all its stages. It means that we could only be certain perhaps three days ahead that we shall have those Bills to pass through all their stages. That does not give an opportunity for a debate to be considered and the Motion (if there were to be a Motion) put down.
The suggestion has been made that one could have such a debate on the Motion that all stages of the Bill should be taken in one day. That would hardly be relevant. I am not certain that anyone will know what it was that people wished to speak about. It is the difficulty of constructing a well-focused debate that is my main objection, and the Committee endorses my feelings. It is the wrong occasion to have a big debate on a most important subject.
The key question therefore is whether the House has enough opportunities to discuss issues concerning economics and public spending.
4 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, I should be most grateful if he would deal with this matter. Has any contact been made with another place as to the giving of more notice of the arrival of those Bills? Has it been asked whether there is any real difficulty about giving a little more notice?
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I have not asked that specific question. However, it is my understanding that they do not know in another place when the Bill will arrive. It is in the hands of the Treasury. My noble friend may recollect whether he bothered to let the Government know sufficiently in advance of receiving a Consolidated Fund Bill. I do not know the precise answer. But I know that in the three instances in this Session there have never been more than seven days between the First Reading in the Commons and the receipt of the Bill in your Lordships' House.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I am sorry to press my noble friend further. Before coming to a final decision based on this difficulty, would it not be worth while at least to ascertain from another place whether there is any practical difficulty in arranging a convention, if you like, that they allow a few more days' notice? Before we took a decision based on this difficulty, would it not be as well to know the answer?
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I shall certainly find out the precise answer to that question. However, I am still filled with doubt as to whether that is the right occasion on which to have such a debate.
That brings me, I hope in conclusion, to the question of whether the House has enough opportunity to discuss issues concerning economics and public spending. I certainly echo the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, and other noble Lords who have pointed out that the House is blessed with great expertise in these fields. I do not believe that the Commons' primacy over legislation in such matters should in any way prevent the House of Lords from debating them.
However, it should be remembered that those issues are not neglected in the House. In 1992 there were four general debates on the economy, and another on unemployment. They were all given either five hours or no time limit. In addition there were two-hour or two-and-a-half hour debates on subjects such as industry and capital management, unemployment in manufacturing, the economy in the North West, the economy in the North East, and industrial policy. Unstarred Questions covered issues such as the Bank of England and export credit guarantees. Economic issues are often raised in Starred Questions and Ministerial Statements. Concern about public spending impacts on all our debates about major policies such as health, education and defence. A Second Reading of a Finance Bill is not the only occasion when legislation provides an opportunity to discuss these matters.
I believe that the House would wish to decide whether it would be right to single out debates on

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these subjects as requiring a special procedure or whether current arrangements are not generally enough to provide a reasonable balance of subjects.
The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, asked what would happen if a noble Lord chose to intervene on the debate. The answer is that it lies with the House to decide the fate of the noble Lord on that occasion. I do not believe—I hope that the House will concur—that we wish to embark on making more rules. The fewer the rules there are, the better. The House manages its affairs far better than anyone else is likely to. I hope that I have said enough.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, could the noble Lord deal with the issue of principle? I refer to the question of comity between the two Houses. The document states that,
"the principle of comity … would suggest that the House of Lords should not decide to discuss money Bills on which there is no debate in the House of Commons".
As has been raised by my noble friend and others, that gives the House of Commons a veto on what may be discussed in this House on Second Readings. I hope that the noble Lord will bear in mind that the House of Commons used to discuss Consolidated Fund Bills, as my noble friend Lord Cocks pointed out. Therefore its decision not to discuss Consolidated Fund Bills under this particular sentence would preclude this House, willy-nilly, from doing so. It surely must be wrong that the House of Commons decides our procedures.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I do not believe that there is the slightest suggestion that we should be bound by the procedures of another place any more than it should be bound by ours.
I do not even know with certainty how to pronounce that word "comity".
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, it is pronounced "comity".
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I am deeply grateful to my noble and learned friend. It is not a word that many of us use frequently in normal conversation. I believe that it means good relations between the two Houses. I see no reason why the tremendously good manners which prevail in this House among ourselves should not be extended to another place.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I understand what the noble Lord says and indeed appreciate his good will. However, the words are written down in this document; and the recommendation is what we shall pass, if we do so. It is not what the noble Lord says but what is written down that we shall agree to. It seems to me that it is a dangerous sentence which gives the House of Commons the right to tell us what we may discuss, and indeed what our Standing Orders may be.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I cannot believe that it could be interpreted in that way.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, perhaps I may ask this. He was good
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enough to answer one of my two questions as to what would happen if someone tried to speak on a Consolidated Fund Bill. But he did not answer the other question as to what would happen if someone desired to speak on the Motion to take the various stages of the Consolidated Fund Bill on the same day. Perhaps he could answer that.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, the answer has to be exactly the same. The House decides these matters.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, he did not deal with my objection to paragraph 5 which suggests that the subject matter of short debates should not raise fundamental or wide-ranging issues. Nor did he deal with my objection that the usual channels should ensure that Motions were appropriate. It was a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cocks.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I should perhaps have referred to the fact that advice can be given by the Clerks when Motions are being put down. That is advisory only. No one is inviting the Clerks to assume heavy responsibilities. The recommendation is merely advisory; a peer or a noble Lord is entitled to make his own decision, contrary to the advice which he may receive.
If the House now agrees that it is time that the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, was able to proceed with his debate, then I commend the Motion to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Local Democracy
4.10 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvelrose to call attention to the case for local democracy, and in particular to the role of local authorities in providing housing, welfare, educational and cultural services for the benefit of the communities which they serve, and to the financial constraints under which they now operate in providing those services; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg finally to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Motion calls attention to three themes, all of which, as I hope to show, are interlinked. The first is what I call the constitutional question of the relationship between different levels of democratic decision-making in a pluralistic society such as we have; the case, in other words, for local democracy.
The second theme calls attention to the services that local government can and should provide and I hope to demonstrate that the principle of subsidiarity applies just as strongly from Westminster downwards as it does from Brussels to Westminster. The third theme deals with local expenditure and local taxation and, as a consequence, with local accountability.
Let me start with the constitutional theme. It is, in our view, self-evident that local authorities, properly and duly elected, are a basic element in our constitutional structure; that central and local

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government must recognise their interdependence and conduct their relationship on the basis of consultation, openness and respect. I should have thought that those principles would command general acceptance, but the truth is that throughout the 1980s and early 1990s there has been a stream of legislation, Bill after Bill, attacking those very principles. We have now reached the point where a Whitehall spokesman can brief the press that the Prime Minister wishes to call an end to "head-butting" between central and local government; and where the Conservative chairman of the Association of County Councils—itself Tory controlled—describes the Government's attitudes as "obnoxious". There is, in other words, a crisis in local democracy.
Of course, the rhetoric is now starting to change, but I hope that I will not be accused of being unduly cynical if I note that we are coming fairly close to the county council elections, and on those occasions the children must be given sweets. But the Prime Minister would like to see a renaissance in local government: the Minister for local government confesses dismay—he would be very worried, he says, if he thought that the result of their reforms was going to be to centralise power. But the Prime Minister and the Minister are a little late. Local government has already almost been brought to its knees in the past decade. It will take more than a few kind words on the eve of local elections to restore what has been so recklessly smashed over a period of years.
Let me give your Lordships some examples of what I mean by that. In doing so, I come to the second major theme contained in the Motion: the services that local authorities should properly provide. I do not wish to go into the vexed question of local government reorganisation, although other noble Lords may wish to do so. I only say that sensible reorganisation starts from the point of asking where local loyalties lie; what is the nature of the community with which people can identify? The inquiry then asks what services are required, moves to the point of asking what is the optimal combination between economies of scale and local identification and moves finally to a decision. The community is the centre, the enabler, ensuring that demands for services are met, sometimes on their own and sometimes in partnerships, of which there may be a great variety depending on the nature of the service required. That is the way to proceed. In other words, not to put too fine a point on it, the process moves in precisely the opposite direction to that taken by the Welsh Office in its recent White Paper.
The Motion lists four headings under which local authority services may be grouped. I accept that those headings are in themselves arbitrary. I have no intention of listing seriatim all the services that local government can provide. I only refer those noble Lords who are keen to find out to Annex A of the second consultative paper on Scottish local government reorganisation, where a total of 69 different functions are set out. Not all of those can be performed without the close assistance of central government. There are obviously degrees of subsidiarity. For example, in order to avoid central authority
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poking its nose into every nook and cranny, if I may borrow that expression from the Foreign Secretary, it would be absurd for burials and cremations to be administered at anything other than the lowest tier of government. The same goes for community councils, food hygiene, street markets, and the collection and disposal of waste. Equally obviously, crime prevention, social services, transport, emergency planning, arts, leisure and recreation require an administrative infrastructure which is rather more developed.
The point is that all those services are essentially local authority functions and need to be performed or led by authorities who are sensitive, and compelled to be sensitive through the operation of the ballot box, to the communities that they serve.
What has happened over the past decade or so? What has happened is that more and more of those vital functions of local authorities have been taken over, either in whole or in part, by central government or unelected quangos. It is that process that has led to the demoralisation of local government that is so apparent today. Perhaps I may give your Lordships an example: housing. It is, I believe—and I hope the Minister will accept this—common ground right across the political spectrum that there is a severe need for social housing in the United Kingdom. Indeed, an Audit Commission report of May 1992 estimates the need at between 58,000 and 90,000 units per annum throughout the period up to the year 2000. The commission went on to write that the available resources would be more effectively used if there was a single, unambiguous national strategy for housing.
Since that report, it has become increasingly evident that despite the efforts of the housing associations, which play a valuable role, it is the local authorities which are the proper agency to co-ordinate and operate such a strategy, not least because of the responsibilities laid on local authorities for the renovation of the private sector housing stock.
In the face of that problem, in the face of the Audit Commission's recommendations, what has been the Government's response? Leaving aside the extent of resources made available, the Government's response has been one of sustained attack on local authority housing departments, in the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. Now we see it again in the Housing and Urban Development Bill before your Lordships' House; and an unelected, unaccountable body, the Housing Corporation, taking upon itself a role in strategic decisions about housing spending—cutting right across the role of local authorities responsible to their own electorate. No wonder the whole thing is in such a mess.
But not only is it a mess; it is a mess that appears to have been very carefully planned. The 1987 White Paper set it out all too clearly. Housing associations would be the new providers of social housing. Local authorities should, over time, divest themselves of a landlord role. Nevertheless, the White Paper argued:
"Local authorities should increasingly see themselves as enablers who ensure that everyone in their area is adequately housed".
It is quite simple. The Government say to the local authorities: "You have the legal responsibility, but we will pay somebody else the money".

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Nor did that very careful planning stop at the 1987 White Paper. It is, as I understand it, still the basis of government housing policy. Authorities are to develop "strategies", concentrating on the renovation of private and public housing stock and the need for new housing. At the same time, the Housing Corporation has as its principal aim, according to its own management statement,
"to secure, through housing associations, a supply of decent and affordable housing for people in priority need".
So there are two sets of worthy bodies trying to do the same thing but answerable to different masters and working on different systems of finance; and only one—the local authorities—has statutory responsibilities which bear heavily on the provision of housing, such as planning, community care and care of children. No wonder the Audit Commission concluded (in its delicate language) that:
"It is not clear that two separate channels for allocating resources are either efficient or effective".
Housing is only one area in which there is confusion, consequent inefficiency and low morale. Everywhere we look, new quangos have sprouted: 11 urban development corporations, their members appointed by the Secretary of State; 82 training and enterprise councils, managing local training and enterprise programmes, the chairmen appointed by the Secretary of State; some 180 district health authorities; 90 family health service authorities, all central government-funded with chairmen appointed by the Secretary of State; and some 300 NHS trusts, chairmen appointed by the Secretary of State. There is also the further education funding council; the new funding agency for schools and our friend the new urban regeneration agency, all presently under discussion in this House, chairmen appointed by the Secretary of State.
To whom are all those bodies accountable? They are accountable to the Secretary of State who appointed them. In the case of Wales, the Secretary of State for Wales, given that the Welsh Office is multi-functional, has the power of patronage in all central government activities within the Principality. So he appoints all the chairmen of all the Welsh authorities in the areas that I have mentioned. What a marvellous opportunity for jobs for the boys! And what a marvellous opportunity for corruption.
I turn now to my third theme: the financial constraints under which local authorities operate. I have no wish to bandy figures with the Minister; I regard that as a sterile pastime. I am much more concerned with the financial relationship between central and local government, since that lies at the heart of the general constitutional problem with which I began.
Noble Lords will recall—indeed who does not recall?—the monstrous fiasco that was known as the poll tax. It was perhaps Mr. Michael Howard, the present Secretary of State for the Environment, who predicted its effect most accurately. It would, he said in February 1988:
"give power to the people … . As local people grasp the significance of the new power we are giving them, they will not be slow to use it".
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He was absolutely right—though not, I imagine, in the way he intended. The "local people" that he referred to certainly used their power in a succession of by-elections that forced the dumping of a Prime Minister and a total climb-down by the subsequent Government.
Just over two years and £19 billion later we are landed with another conundrum. In the switch out of the poll tax the Treasury had to find large sums of money to fund the financial black hole that was left. The formula it devised, it must be said, was extremely ingenious. VAT would be raised and local authorities would be compensated for the loss of locally raised revenue by an equivalent sum from the Exchequer. But—and this is the important point—that process reduced the proportion of local authority revenue raised by local tax quite dramatically. Instead of being (depending on the type of authority) on either side of 50 per cent., as it was in the mid-1980s, it has become on either side of 15 per cent.
The effect of that change has been profound and, I believe, has not yet been fully appreciated. Put crudely, it means that the Treasury, through the operation of the revenue support grant and the distribution of the national business rate, now controls 85 per cent. of local government revenues. Furthermore, authorities are then told, through the mechanism of standard spending assessments and capping, how much they can raise from their electorate. So the whole of the cake is simply awarded by central government. The only decision that the authorities have to make is how to divide it up. To quote again the Conservative chairman of the Conservative Association of County Councils:
"The man who pays the piper calls the tune. The Government is paying up all the money. They are saying we have an absolute right to say what should happen".
What the chairman did not add, but I will, is that it is a system of which the old Soviet Union would have been proud. For the truth is that we now have a highly developed economic command system in the local government sector. But like all command systems, as Stalin's successors found out, there is a potentially fatal flaw. One can control the supply quite easily, but for the system to work one has to be sure what the demand is. It is no good delivering 10 tonnes of potatoes to a village where the demand is for only three tonnes. Equally, it is no good delivering three tonnes where the demand is for 10. In the first case, the result is a pile of rotting potatoes; in the second case, the result is inflation or rationing. That is why we are seeing cuts in services in local authorities.
What is the remedy to this situation? It so happens that part of the answer was provided by the Treasury itself, in a White Paper on public expenditure planning produced in 1988, when the present Prime Minister, as we know, was Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The idea was simple: central government planning totals should exclude local authority expenditure if it was financed by local authorities themselves. That, after all, is how others do it. Indeed, federal authorities such as Germany could not do it in any other way; so why should not we?
Next, we must increase the proportion of their own revenue for which local authorities are responsible.

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There seems to be no reason at all why the business rate should not be returned to local jurisdiction. After all, it will be in their interest, in an economic world as competitive as the one we live in, to keep that rate as low as possible to attract investment into their area.
Finally, we must re-establish the direct democratic link between authorities and the communities which they serve. In our view the best way to achieve that would be to ensure that there are frequent opportunities for the electorate to express its views on the performance of its representatives. There should be open debate on the trade-off—we have to accept that it is a trade-off—between level of local tax and the provision of local services.
Above all—and I return now to the constitutional question with which I started—we must all recognise that local democracy is about spreading power. Inevitably that means recognising that our political opponents, however much we disagree with them, are part of a healthy, democratic system with proper checks and balances. There has been far too much cronyism, far too many attempts to smash all opposition and far too much arrogance under the Conservative Governments that we have had. Local democracy is a vital element in the balance of forces that make for a truly free society. It must be nurtured and encouraged and not be killed off. That, I hope, will be the message of today's debate.
My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
4.30 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, I welcome the opportunity we have today to discuss this vital issue, to put the Government's view of local democracy and the role of local authorities in providing essential services, and to set the record straight.
I begin with a quotation.
"We are moving rapidly towards a system in which central government, by the final power of the purse, will have effectively destroyed the supposed, though admittedly limited, autonomy of the local authorities".
The noble Lord's opening speech, and indeed much that is said about local government, chimes with that view. It is a picture of central government bent on centralisation and increasing its control and of local government losing its independence and its functions, starved of funds, impotent and on the verge of extinction.
The quotation is from G.D.H. Cole just after the First World War. Charges of centralisation and the decline of local government are a constant theme of central-local relations since at least that time. And yet, for all that apparent 70 years of centralisation, stripping of functions, underfunding and all the rest, the one constant in local government is the inexorable rise in real terms in local authority spending. Even over the past 14 years, when the assault has supposedly been at its most intense, I see that local government spending in England has risen by 15 per cent. in real terms.
It does not square, does it? Local government is stripped of its functions and yet is spending ever more
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money. Our starting point in this debate should be to cast aside the myths and woolly thinking and begin at the beginning.
First, let me look at day-to-day control over local government and local authorities' freedom of action. We in Britain are probably unique in Europe in having no general system of state supervision of local authorities—no prefects, no governors, no commissioners, no voivodes, to approve, confirm or otherwise second-guess local authority decisions. We are also unusual in having no state approved manual which sets out how local authority officers and councillors are to act in any given situation. And we are unusual in having no hierarchy of local government, with one tier supervising the actions of the tier below it. In all this we differ from most European countries. Indeed, visitors to my department from overseas are quite staggered by government's lack of control.
We have government inspectorates, that is true, but their role is almost exclusively advisory. They do not generally have powers to impose their views on local authorities. We also have a few powers of appeal where central government can overturn local authority decisions, such as in planning appeals or school closures. But we clearly do not have the power and day-to-day control over local government that is the reality in much of Europe.
I can hear noble Lords opposite say, "But in many European countries the trend is now to decentralisation, while in Britain it seems to be precisely the opposite". It is often the case in Europe that there is a difference between theory and reality. I recall reading in the Local Government Chronicle a few months ago an interview with a French mayor who said that the apparently great changes in France were mainly theory. The reality was that he still needed the sous-préfet's de facto agreement to any action. It is as well to remember that heavily centralised states such as France or Sweden can decentralise and yet remain considerably more centralised than the United Kingdom.
But is the trend in Britain towards greater state control? It is often forgotten, particularly by noble Lords opposite, that one of the first actions of the incoming Conservative Government in 1979 was a bonfire of some 300 controls over local government. And they were detailed controls—the sort that are now being abolished on the Continent to the sound of warm approval from British local government. Let me give just one example. Before our bonfire of controls every local authority proposal for a capital spending project had to be examined in detail by the Government and approved by them. Take housing, for example. The Government set national house building standards—the Parker Morris standards. Projects had to satisfy those standards in every detail if they were to have a chance of being approved. The DoE had armies of architects, quantity surveyors, civil engineers and all sorts of other experts who were kept fully occupied poring over local authorities' plans, discussing detailed specifications with their experts and second-guessing local housing decisions.
What about financial controls? How much freedom do our local authorities have to decide their own

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spending priorities? The noble Lord, Lord Williams, explained the problems that he had with how the money was raised. What counts is the ability to spend. In 1993–94 local authorities in England will spend some £70 billion. Of that sum only £16 billion—nearly a quarter—is received in the form of specific grant and allocated by the Government to specific purposes. That means that local councillors themselves decide how the remaining £54 billion is spent. Local councillors decide the service and spending priorities of 77 per cent. of local government spending. It is worth remembering that that constitutes over a fifth of total public expenditure. Together with their planning and economic powers, it gives local authorities enormous potential power to influence the life and development of their areas and citizens.
The charge is sometimes made that capping is an attack on local democracy. Perhaps in an ideal world we could give local authorities carte blanche to tax and spend as much as they like and not worry about the consequences. But we live in the real world. We do not have infinite resources—quite the opposite. Local government expenditure is a major part of public expenditure and as such can exert a significant influence on the development of the economy.
This year's RSG settlement in England allows for a 3.5 per cent. increase in local government spending, taking account of changes of functions. That compares with inflation currently at 1.9 per cent. and a public sector pay restraint policy range of zero to 1.5 per cent.
There can be no doubt of this Government's commitment to democracy and in particular local democracy. But they, unlike the Opposition parties, do not equate local democracy with the protection and maintenance of vested interest. We believe that the functions of local government have been given to it because Parliament believes that those functions are best organised at local level. But central government has to set standards and be there to protect people when local government does not deliver adequate services. Time and again we have seen local authorities let down the people by whom they have been elected.
Central government is also responsible to Parliament and the country for the huge amounts of taxpayers' money that is spent by local government. We have a duty to ensure that the money is spent efficiently and effectively and in the provision of good and responsive services to the citizen.
That means our policy towards local government must be based on increasing value for money, responsiveness and accountability. We have therefore pushed forward the idea of the enabling authority—the principle that a local authority does not have to provide every aspect of every service with its own directly employed staff. Through compulsory competitive tendering we have ensured that authorities obtain services delivered from the most efficient, effective and economical source.
That does not entail any diminution of the power of the local government. On the contrary, CCT and the enabling authority have freed authorities from the conflict that is inevitable in the direct provision of
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services. We are freeing authorities to be unequivocally on the side of the citizen, to be the champions of the consumer and to secure value for money and responsive change in the whole culture of local government. We are now seeing a move towards a performance and consumer-oriented culture. The Citizen's Charter and performance measurement will act as a shop window to illustrate the progress that local government is making. It will spread best practice and it will help local authorities gain a new respect.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams, mentioned subsidiarity. In this context I prefer to call it "localisation". Parliament has given local government the services it now provides because it believes that those services are best organised at a local level. But sometimes even the best local authority can appear remote and unresponsive to the citizen receiving the service. That is why, when possible, such as with schools or services to council tenants, our policy has been to bring the organisation of services as near to the consumer as possible. That is localisation. It is all about empowering the citizen to have as much direct influence on services as possible.
Housing is one of the areas where we are particularly keen to develop local authorities' role as enablers. We want them to reinforce local democracy by working for local communities to ensure that housing need is met and not to turn themselves into monopoly providers like the worst examples of municipal socialism seen in the past. We want to get rid of the idea that the measure of success for a council's housing policy is the number of units that it builds itself. What matters is whether the needs of its local community are met, not who provides or who owns the homes. That is why the Citizen's Charter made clear our determination to make housing management less remote and insensitive. If tenants do not have the opportunity to set out their priorities, to tell an authority where it is going wrong and what it is doing right and to make their voices heard, then an authority can have little chance of securing their satisfaction in the long term.
If I may turn briefly to education, legislation throughout the 1980s progressively increased the accountability and responsiveness of schools to parents. The Government have strengthened the representation of parents on school governing bodies and have enhanced the role of individual governing bodies in the running of schools. Our experience is that just as the people best placed to take key decisions about the management of the school are its governors and head teachers, so they are the most responsive to parents' views and, when there are problems, to parents' concerns.
Local authorities also have important and wide ranging responsibilities for social services. During the past three years local authorities have been implementing a number of significant new initiatives: the Children Act, the new community care arrangements and the implications of the Criminal Justice Act. The Government have recognised the implications of all these and have fairly funded

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authorities to tackle them. Overall standing spending in 1993–94 for social services will be some £5.5 billion, an increase of a third in real terms since 1990–91.
In the cultural field, local authorities have a statutory duty to provide a comprehensive and efficient public library service. They too have been funded to do this.
In conclusion, it is not true that the Government are bent on centralisation and trampling local democracy underfoot. It is not true that we have increased and are increasing the controls over local government. It is not true that local authorities are impotent bodies with little control over services and little chance to influence their areas. On the contrary, the Government believe strongly in local democracy and local leadership. That is why we resist the temptation to make more use of specific grants. That is why our policy has been to encourage local government, through the enabling authority and localisation, to be more responsive to the consumer.
Much of the anguish and propaganda that we hear is the sound of vested interest whining because we have dared to put the interest of the citizen above that of a cushy life for providers. This Government are about empowering the citizen and empowering the local authority to serve the citizen better. Much of local government now shares that objective. This debate gives the Labour Party the opportunity to demonstrate that it too shares that objective. I regret and fear that, with the notable exception of the contribution of my noble friend Lord Prentice, the debate will disappoint me.
4.44 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, does not very often rouse my sympathy. He is not the kind of man who creates that emotion in me. But today I must say that I have never heard him or any other Minister have a worse brief to promote a worse case. He has no case to present and that is why it has been such a deplorable performance. He had to quote G.D.H. Cole, who, incidentally, got it wrong nearly every time. The noble Lord had to go back to him to support his argument.
I do not believe that the noble Lord understands what this whole argument is about and I do not believe that many of the people behind him do; or, if they do, why are they not here to support him? Either they know that he has an impossibly bad case and they agree with us, or else they cannot think of anything to say in his defence. I have great sympathy with them. There is nothing to say in his defence.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has, if you like, the advantage of me—but the disadvantage on this occasion—that he did not live through the rise of the despotisms in Europe. What made me a incurable Liberal was that I was in Germany in the summer of 1932. I am not saying that the noble Lord, despite his hair style, is in any way a budding Hitler, but what happened then was that bit by bit the countervailing powers which make it safe to have strong central government were whittled away until all power was at the centre. That is what happened and that is why the
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distribution of power is the most important central principle of any democracy. When that is undermined democracy goes out of the window.
One of the most important countervailing powers is local government—local government, with all its limitations and defects. Of course it is not perfect, but local government, however inadequate and however much in need of reform, is a very powerful countervailing power. In some ways I go along with the criticism of aspects of local government. After all, I live in Lambeth. The noble Lord cannot tell me anything about what goes wrong in local government. But let me say to him that people put it right themselves. Did he notice that in a recent by-election there was a most outstanding swing towards the Liberal Democrats in protest against what the Labour council of Lambeth had been doing? People take matters into their own hands when they need to. They do not have to be told by central government what they need to do.
The noble Lord gives the impression that he thinks that central government graciously allows local government to develop. It is the other way round. Real democracy comes from the ground upwards, not from the centre downwards. Running throughout the noble Lord's speech was the idea that powers were graciously given from the centre to allow people at local level to do what central government thought it was good and right that they should do. That is not the way democracy works, and the sooner the noble Lord realises that and the implications of it, the better.
There are a number of ways in which local government has been undermined. The noble Lord had the nerve to talk about housing. How many times in your Lordships' House have we asked that the money that local government already has be used for housing? We have been told that it is not allowed to use it. Is that giving local government control over its housing? How many times in recent debates have we made the point on education that local authority powers in connection with education are being whittled away? Is that the development of local government? Is that local democracy?
Why are there all these quangos? Why cannot these matters be left to the control of local people? On occasions there is a case for a quango. I am not automatically anti-quango. We have seen quango after quango developed, and who gets on them? Will the noble Lord tell us how many of the chairmen of quangos who have been appointed have been members of parties other than the Conservative Party? It will be very interesting if we can have an answer to that question. This countervailing power lies at the centre of the whole argument and it is vitally necessary that it should be maintained.
However, there are other questions about local government which need to be considered if local government is to be what it ought to be. Let us not forget that it is the training ground of democrats. People learn through taking part in local government what democracy is all about. In my own party—some of them will not be listening—I have seen some very odd young men and women elected to local councils. In six months one would not know them because the

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responsibility of having to make a decision—for example, that either one puts up the rates and makes oneself unpopular or one denies a scheme that one would have liked to have put into operation—provides training in which people learn what democracy is about. They learn what is possible and what is not possible. They also learn responsibility, and there is no other way of doing so.
If one discourages, by limiting what local government can do, ordinary citizens from giving themselves to the work of local government—it is a very heavy responsibility which they undertake in terms of time and commitment—then one is undermining the very springs from which democrats grow, which is a very dangerous thing to do. In any case, local people very often know best what is needed in their own area. Even if central government departments are as wonderful as we are told they are—and some of us have grave doubts about that—they cannot really know what is needed in local districts.
Local people can get at their local councillors, and that is what matters. The noble Lord will know, as everyone in this House knows, many people in all parties who have given a great deal of their time to local government. It is a very hard task because their constituents are around them all the time. If one is chairman of a local housing committee, one's telephone rings morning, noon and night—and, from my observation, especially at night. One cannot escape from it. Even a Member of Parliament can get away from his constituents in a way in which very few local councillors can, but that is democracy in action and how people learn what it is all about.
I agree that there are things about local government which are not right. We need two very important changes. We need local government to have more real responsibility for what is undertaken. That means raising a higher proportion of the money expense itself, and not depending on what the Government decide it should have. For that we need a sensible system of local government finance. We on these Benches have urged again and again that local government should be financed by local income tax, which is fair, and local voters can see—just as national voters can when it comes to voting for central government—how the money that they are asked to pay is to be spent. They can criticise that in terms of value for the money they have had to give to local government. Surely, that is the essential way of doing it.
We also need to have local government which is genuinely representative. One of the great troubles has been that under our electoral system, they are not genuinely representative. If we had proportional representation (we are not in Italy) for local government, we would never have had the extremist local councils to which the noble Lord has referred and which have given some slight colour to some of the criticisms which he has made.
I shall be very interested to learn whether the Labour Party, in its present consideration of proportional representation is prepared to commit itself to proportional representation for local
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government. There would be a much better representation of local interests if that took place. I am extremely interested to see the noble Lord nodding his head because what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and in this case the gander is central government.
4.55 p.m.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, we should thank my noble friend Lord Williams of Elvel for giving us the opportunity for this debate. I wish to commence with an essential service which was carried out with great competence by local authorities. I am talking about the provision of water. My noble friend Lord Howell is with me. Birmingham's water was some of the finest in the country. It was not provided by Labour, socialist municipalisation; it was provided in the first instance by Joseph Chamberlain.
At the moment public officials are showing very serious anxiety about hepatitis and dysentery arising from the serious action of cutting off the water supply to many households. I say to the Minister that last year 21,000 households in England and Wales were disconnected from their water supply, a rise of 17 per cent. on the previous year. I say to the Minister very sincerely that we have to recognise that the people who are disconnected have to live in the real world as well. Birmingham was one of the local authorities, with Bristol, Liverpool and Sheffield, where densely populated communities were without water for two solid weeks. Therefore, the real problem for the public health officials now is very serious.
As regards the seriousness of the disconnection of water, water prices have risen throughout Britain by an average of nearly 50 per cent. in the past five years. But that increase has not been matched by any increases in housing benefit or income support, so the people who are suffering are the poorest people. Perhaps I may remind the Minister that the Housing Act 1985 defines a house without an adequate supply of wholesome water and an effective drainage system, as a house which is not fit for human habitation. It will come about that local authorities will have to take legal action against water authorities because it is they who are breaking the law and making the houses in which people live unfit for human habitation. It is up to the Government to make quite sure that local authorities do not have to take on the water authorities. But drastic action is necessary.
The disconnection of the water supply has taken us back into the 19th century. It would never have occurred under the local authorities. I say to my noble friend Lord Howell that I am convinced that Birmingham would never have cut off anybody's water supply. I feel that that would be the same situation with Manchester, Liverpool and the other places. But there is a moral aspect to this.
Lord Howell: My Lords, I am much obliged to my noble friend.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, one minute!
Lord Howell: My Lords, I shall be 30 seconds. When I was the Minister of State responsible for water

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for five years, I forbade any water authority to cut off water supplies. I insisted that they negotiated with the social services department to overcome the problem.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, this is a moral issue. While on the one hand the poorest are having their water cut off, on the other hand, the highest salaries ever are being paid to the people who manage the water supply. Those people never put anything into the building of the water supply, but just happened to be around at the time of privatisation. Their salaries are a disgrace in view of the moral issue. In fact, some of them could pay off the water bills of those whose water supplies they are disconnecting.
I turn now to another of the Government's schemes, the assisted places scheme. Again, the Government thought that that would be a laudable scheme, but it overspent its estimated budget by more than £10 million in 1991–92. Many of the pupils receiving places under the scheme now have all of their fees paid because the cost of the places has increased and there may be unemployment in their family. I repeat that there has been an overspend of £10 million. If a local authority had overspent by £10 million, down would come the big chopper well and truly, and the Government would say that education was being wasted, but they do not say that now because they are overspending.
I turn now to another small example about which local authorities are crying out all over the country. I cannot be the only Member of your Lordships' House who has found that my largest postbag over the past three weeks has reflected the fear that is felt all around the country about nursery schools being closed. I have received literally hundreds of letters about that. I do not know much about Hounslow, but I should think that practically every parent in Hounslow has written to me about this. On the one hand therefore the assisted places scheme is allowed to overspend; but, at the other end of the scale, nursery schools, from which everybody knows that children benefit, are suffering. We can see those two sides and we understand why there is a difference and that one group of people is being given greater benefits than the other.
I do not think that the Government have any housing policy at all. When they go to bed at night they think that somebody will come up with a good scheme. But what have we found? Perhaps the Minister can tell me how many tenancies have been created over shops. He spoke at great length about a terrific number of thousands of homes being created over shops; but can he give us any information about the number of people who now live over shops? Has it increased?
Do housing associations charge affordable rents? Is it not true to say that too many of the local authorities which thought that they would form their properties into housing associations have been passed over? The Minister is now having to say, "Only a few at a time". Why? Because the cost of housing benefit went right out of the window. When the Government agreed to that policy, they did not realise that the cost of housing benefit would rise so much because they did not realise that, under the most recent housing legislation, local authority tenants have to pay so
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much towards housing benefit. Those who can afford to pay have to help those who cannot. However, that does not apply to the tenants of housing association properties. The Minister is now saying, "We cannot have that—it costs too much money". Again, that is a scheme that went completely wrong.
I am not entirely sure, but I believe that there has recently been a Question in the House about the number of properties being held by Her Majesty's Forces. I believe that they are to be transferred to a new, non-profit-making body in the private sector. Does the Minister know anybody in the private sector who does anything for no profit? I do not. But the mind boggles.
I turn now to housing policy for the elderly. In the past, local authorities recognised that elderly people were living in houses that were much too large for them and so they created nice residential homes for the elderly. But the Government said, "No, we cannot do that. We must have some private homes", so private nursing homes started up. I was not against private nursing homes; but, here again, expenditure on them rose by £20 million a year because their charges could be claimed as social security benefits. The Government did not realise that at the time, and they have now clamped down. After April of this year, residents in such homes will be allowed to have only a certain amount of the charges paid under social security benefits and then, if they are new to the property, they will have to ask their relations to pay the rest.
Another problem which the Government did not fully appreciate at the time was that involved in transferring people from mental hospitals into the community. That is another burden that is being placed on the local authorities. A report in the British Medical Journal only a fortnight ago referred to the fact that the money that should be accompanying patients into the community in the form of dowries is not being paid. About 850 people went out into the community from such hospitals in the previous 12 months and £300 million should have been passed from the hospitals to the local authorities for their care, but just £12 million was passed over. That is another burden that has to be picked up by the local authorities.
The Minister may think that there is local democracy, but it is being eroded. We must recognise that, as others have said, local authorities do not comprise elected councillors only, but that many of the officers whom they employ live in the local area. Therefore, when local councillors draw their attention to something, such as holes in the road, they can quickly say, "Yes, I travel down that road every day myself, and I know what you are talking about". That means that people do not have to emphasise their points because the officials are aware of the problems. One cannot expect civil servants at Westminster to know what is going on in Bradford, Leeds, Birmingham or Manchester.
It is important that we understand what local democracy means and that the disciplines of control are being challenged. Those disciplines are being broken down by the Government who move in people

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to serve on what the noble Baroness referred to as "quangos", but what other people call "appointed bodies". Instead of democratically elected persons serving on such bodies, we are now getting what has been described as the "new lay elite"—people who are being chosen by the Government. The Minister may well look up, but it was only two or three days ago that the Home Office Minister discussed the new set-up and said that he would appoint the chairman. Once the Government have appointed the chairman, they will be home and dry, will they not?
As a result of such people being appointed to quangos, we are not finding that in response to Questions on the Order Paper, Ministers say that certain matters have been passed over to Mr. So-and-so and that he will reply to the Member concerned. So, in Hansard, we are getting not the voice of the Government, but references to some man with some job somewhere—perhaps in Manchester or Glasgow—who will reply to the Question. Ministers do not even bother to look at the Questions on the Order Paper now. They simply say, "Send that up to So-and-so", and could not care less what answer is given. That means that democracy is being lost to parliamentarians in both Houses.
I close by referring to what the Prime Minister said after Christmas. I listened to him with great interest when he started to project his own agenda for the future. He spoke about the new relationship that he would like to have with local government. One hopes that he will take notice of the real fear about centralisation in government policies and of the moral issues that arise when one gets rid of local democracy. That can lead to a breakdown of all services, all thought and all morals in the community. It is as well that the Prime Minister should be thinking seriously about his new relationship with local government.
5.10 p.m.
Lord Bottomley: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Williams on raising the subject for today's debate, and, in particular, on the clear and concise manner in which he presented the case for local democracy. I am pleased to follow my noble friend Lady Fisher. We served together in the other place for many years. Like me, she started her public life in a local authority. I was a member of the Walthamstow Borough Council for over 20 years and its mayor. The town clerk of Westminster, Parker Morris—reference was made to him and his work on housing by the Minister—and I, as an organiser for the National Union of Public Employees, started the first fire watching scheme in the country without any help from central government.
In 1941, as a result of that work, the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, appointed me deputy regional commissioner for the South East region. I, and a commissioner, together with a deputy commissioner, were responsible for co-ordinating the work of 96 local authorities. The local authorities were responsible for running local government services, including the ARP. The South East region was bombed constantly during the 1939–1945 war. The
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towns of Dover and Folkestone, and surrounding districts, were shelled continuously from the French coast by the German long-range guns. The South East region also suffered from the flying bomb attacks, which destroyed many villages and killed hundreds of people. If local government could provide services during our darkest hours, why weaken its efforts today?
In 1945, when I became a Member of Parliament, the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, appointed me as a junior Minister in the Dominions Office. When I could speak to him freely I said, "Why did you make me a Minister in the Dominions Office when I had so much knowledge of local govcernment". He said, "Arthur, first of all, it was time you got away from drains and dustbins. Secondly, I want a young Minister who will concentrate on helping to build a new Commonwealth". In due course I became Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs. To this day, I continue my friendship and association with most of the leaders of the Commonwealth.
Britain today needs strong local government more than ever. Democracy rests not just upon a national Parliament; it needs vigorous political debate locally. Instead of strengthening local government, the Government have imposed an unprecedented squeeze on council spending. That squeeze amounts to at least £500 million on the education and social services. The damage done to local government reflects the wider story of 13 years of Tory misgovernment.
I feel that only locally, democratically elected representatives know what are the needs of their areas and what amenities and services they require. Many local government services have been taken over by private enterprise. In many places, those private enterprise organisations have failed and the services have returned to local government. Many more private enterprise undertakings will fail local government. Local government will be given the task of rebuilding the ill-equipped services vacated by private enterprise.
In Cleveland, where I represented the parliamentary constituency of Middlesbrough for 21 years, the Government's fixed system for introducing council tax means that the county has lost out to the tune of about £5 million, which is equivalent to £31 for every council tax payer there. Cleveland received the lowest increase of any county in its SSA—just 1.4 per cent. compared to almost 7 per cent. for Tory-controlled East Sussex. Despite that, Cleveland has the highest ratio of police to population of any police authority in the country. It also provides more money for what is a more efficient nursery school service than that provided by most counties. Further progress in other services has been stopped or restricted, and as a result Cleveland's hopes of building up more efficient local government services have been destroyed by the Government.
5.18 p.m.
Baroness Hilton of Eggardon: My Lords, I wish to address the crisis for local democracy referred to by my noble friend Lord Williams in relation to the police service, particularly in the light of the Home

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Secretary's recent announcement that local authorities, through their police committees, will no longer be responsible for the police service in their areas. Police accountability has always been a thorny issue, with the Metropolitan Police accountable only to the Home Secretary and not at all to the elected representatives of the citizens of London.
Police forces elsewhere in the country have sometimes had difficulty in agreeing the exact nature of their accountability to police authorities which have been composed in the past of two-thirds local councillors and one-third magistrates. Some chief constables have had stormy relationships with chairmen and chairwomen of police authorities who, they felt, were taking too close an interest in day-to-day operational police duties. However, the essence of the democratic accountability of the police service is surely a dialogue that achieves a balance between the drive for greater efficiency and what is acceptable to the local populus.
An efficient police service, detecting all crimes and prosecuting all offenders, would not just impose enormous financial and bureaucratic burdens on the country. The methods needed to achieve that would be so draconian and unpopular that they would destroy the fabric of society.
During the past few years, relationships between the police and local authorities have been much more harmonious, and creative partnerships have been formed by the police, local authorities and local communities. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, referred to the London Borough of Lambeth. It is in another borough, Brent, which has had a troubled history for various reasons, that an especially fruitful partnership has been formed by the local police, probation officers and the local authority. They have effectively tackled problems of crime and drugs on their local estates in a way which can only be achieved through local knowledge, local partnership and local respect.
One of the grounds for the Home Secretary's desire to reorganise the police service—apart from his notorious passion for confrontation—is the oft-repeated assertion that the police service has become more inefficient because the clear-up rate for crime has fallen or remained static. Here he displays his usual shallow analysis of the problem. A glance at the clear-up rates for the Metropolitan Police —a quarter of the country's crime is committed in London, so this is a reasonable sample—during the past 10 years shows that for all recorded crime between 1981 and 1991 they remained at a steady 17 per cent. However, as recorded crime during those 10 years rose by almost 46 per cent. and clear-up rates also rose by 46 per cent., that is effectively an increase in police productivity of nearly 50 per cent. rather than a decline in efficiency. Similar figures can be calculated for the rest of the country.
The Home Secretary is of course reluctant to examine the real nature of crime and the reasons for its increase in a divided and impoverished society in which greed and selfishness have had official encouragement for the past 14 years. Instead he prefers to use the police service as a scapegoat for the
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rising crime figures and alleges that police management is in need of overhaul. He ignores the fact that during the past 10 years there has been an enormous cultural change in the police service. There has been a change internally, with devolved management systems, reductions in the number of higher ranks and headquarters and administrative staff and more sophisticated appraisal systems. There has been an annual reporting and appraisal system in the police service for the past 40 years. I find it astonishing that the teaching profession, for example, sees it as a strange innovation. During the past few years promotion and recruitment selection have been greatly improved, with objective, structural and practical tests as well as interviews.
Externally, the police service has worked extremely hard to develop closer ties with the local community, to be responsive to criticism of police methods and to develop partnerships with local authorities and other agencies in order to tackle serious problems on a local basis. Of course, problems remain. Some police officers have found it difficult to accept a more socially-aware style of policing and there will always be the few who are racist or corruptible. However, one welcome offshoot of the recession is that there are now few vacancies in the police service and in consequence the overall standard of recruits has become much higher.
None of that is acknowledged by the Home Secretary. Last month he announced that in future police authorities will consist of 16 members of whom three will be magistrates, eight will be local authority councillors and five will be government appointees. The most sinister aspect is that chairmen will be appointed by the Home Secretary and will have a casting vote. If the other rumours about amalgamations are true, the local councillors will inevitably be drawn from more than one local authority area and all local accountability and democratic representation will be lost. Moreover, as in current joint police authorities—for example, Avon and Somerset—there will be tension between those representing different local authority areas with different policing problems, as with the city of Bristol and the county of Somerset.
Who, one speculates, will the Home Secretary appoint as chairmen? Is he likely to appoint barristers such as himself whose only contact with the police is in relation to cases of serious crime which come before the higher courts and who have no concept of the broad range of ordinary police duties? Seventy per cent. of police work has nothing to do with crime. In fact, most crime is local, petty crime, often committed within housing estates where people prey on their neighbours. It is not the kind of crime which barristers encounter in the higher courts.
It seems extraordinary to me that this Government have, first, the arrogance to assume that their appointees will produce better policing than locally-elected representatives with an intimate knowledge of the communities they serve and, secondly, that they do not see the danger of having a police service centrally controlled by political appointees. If the Government were out of power I wonder how they would feel about chairmen of police authorities appointed by a Labour

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Home Secretary. Our schools and hospitals are now run by government appointees and there can be more than one view about the wisdom or effectiveness of that. But to extend the principle to the police service is surely to strike at the heart of democracy; not only of local democracy but of the country as a whole.
Perhaps I may say in parenthesis that if the Home Secretary is in need of a challenge and seeks to improve police efficiency he should look at court boundaries, which are often, especially in London, coterminous with neither police nor local authority boundaries. When I was at Chiswick I had to send police, prisoners and process papers to three separate courts and to respond to three separate systems and personalities of clerks and magistrates. A great saving and efficiency could be effected in police time in London at least if the boundaries were coterminous. Tackling the Lord Chancellor's Department should be a worthy challenge for Mr. Clarke.
I return to my main theme. If Mr. Clarke's plans for amalgamation go ahead and the police service in England and Wales is reduced from 43 separate forces to about 20 or so we shall be in great danger of the police service becoming a tool of government. We saw the bitter consequences of that during the miners' strike when the precious neutrality of the police service was lost and it was made to appear to be supporting then government objectives. The then Prime Minister's references to "our policemen" and to "a thin blue line defending the right to work" were not helpful, to say the least. They made the task of policing in mining communities much more difficult at the time and for many years afterwards.
It is not at all clear what the Home Secretary's objectives are in setting out to create fewer and larger police forces. It is notoriously in the larger forces, such as the Met and the West Midlands, that the worst examples of corrupt practice have occurred. Of course, 20 forces mean that a convenient number of 20 or so police authority chairmen, all of whom would be personal appointees of the Home Secretary, could be gathered around a table to be given instructions by the Home Secretary. That secretive and centralised system of control of the police service would be wholly disruptive of local democracy and could jeopardise democracy at the national level as well. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, spoke of despotisms in Europe before the last war. In some ways control of the police is the first step along the road to tyranny. The Home Secretary appears to be setting out to achieve nationalisation of the police service by stealth and by politicisation. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, spoke of elected dictatorship. I greatly fear that that is now being replaced by dictatorship by appointment.
5.27 p.m.
Lord Parry: My Lords, Mr. Anthony Eden, who later became the Earl of Avon, once wrote an interesting book, which is worth re-reading in the light of my noble friend's Question. It pointed out that we in Britain had never achieved a democracy; all that we had succeeded in doing was broadening the basis of
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the oligarchy. The point from which I wish to begin is that it is clear from our debate that we are talking in oligarchic terms about a narrowed base to the pyramid of local government under which most of the Members of this House received their education and their opportunity to become whatever they are today.
During the 18 years in which I have been a Member of your Lordships' House this debate is the most curious in which I have ever taken part. With the exception of the noble lad —I mean noble Lord—on the Front Bench many noble Lords taking part were at some time members of the party in opposition. The noble Lord, Lord Prentice, learnt many of his skills, arts and abilities in the ranks which he now faces from the other side of the Chamber. Therefore, we are obtaining an Opposition view of democracy in Britain in 1993. That is being given almost without response from the Government side, as was pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, in her characteristic speech. We are looking at the democracy that we shall hand on to our children and we are doing so on the basis of no presentation of the Government's case, except the prepared argument elegantly and well put by the Minister. I make that point sympathetically, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Seear.
When in 1944 the Education Act was being hailed as a great move forward in the creation of new opportunities within democracy in Britain, central government was probably stronger than any there had ever been. There was a settled pattern of local government which had become used to central government's systems and had within it people educated in the service, in the university of life and in the university of local government. Therefore, when the changes came to be made, a strong, newly elected government with a huge majority having access to orders in council, which would never have been provided to them in a peace-time situation, were able to change the nature of the education service and the truly advanced democracy of this country in a way that no other government have been able to do since.
The changes that came about in education at that time were implemented by a local government system that was understood, reasonably well funded and for which new funds were made available. The situation is vastly different today. One of the problems which the Government have made for themselves, or have historically inherited, is that they have caused changes to be made in almost every aspect of the community. While those changes are being carried through, they are proposing a mighty shake-up of the basis of local government. Therefore, if the Government are successful in getting their policies through the House, and are successful in putting them to the country, they would be trying to implement them in a broken-up system of local government in a series of changes which are far from complete and which will take three, six or even nine years to settle down.
The challenge to Ministers in office is immense. I do not believe that they have begun to realise what those challenges are. I do not say that in a party political sense. I say it as one who, 60 years ago, saw his own father enter local government. My father took his place as an independent Liberal in the local

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government of Pembrokeshire. Eventually he became chairman of the education authority. Twenty years later at 22 years of age I went into local government believing—and it is generally still believed today—that someone who has done fairly well out of the community and who has received a reasonable education should put something back into that community. It was a pleasure and a privilege to be elected to local government as a youngster and to be playing a part, as I thought, in implementing ideas and ideals that were worth implementing.
I have never said that those sitting opposite would have any lesser view than I have myself of what society is about or what their place in it should be. However, I believe that we have a tendency to rewrite history every time that we rise up in our places. One of the great aspects of local government of the past 50 years, over the period I have known it, has been that it has attracted to its ranks men of all parties and conditions who have given their time and energy to implement policies which they believe are for the general good.
In the clash of opinion there has been a refinement of policy. There has always been the knowledge that once every five years the whole system could be shaken up. One of the great things of our competitive democracy is that every now and again governments are "democked". That is George Brown's phrase. He was asked what had happened when he lost his seat. He said, "What happened? Democracy "democked". It is the very essence of our democracy that from time to time governments who might well have been good are thrown out by a populace which is fed up with them.
This Government continue to refuse to accept amendments to their policy on the basis that they know best. We have had examples of that. I wish to cite one or two examples that I take from my huge mail bag. I received one letter which states:
"We are concerned that we do not sufficiently ensure the continuation of opportunities for young people in maintained schools to take part in youth orchestras, bands and choirs whose quality and internationally acknowledged successes are an educational achievement of which the UK is justly proud".
The writer of that letter believes that the proposals that are being made might accidentally rather than purposely cull and eventually kill off the opportunities for musical education that have long been built into our education system and have been a matter of great pride for the country.
That does not only lie within the Education Bill, which can be argued stage by stage. It lies within the Motion which my noble friend Lord Williams of Elvel has laid before us. One point which concerns the Association of County Councils is that the new local government system will not be in place in time to safeguard those very matters which the Government believe they are safeguarding. There will be local unitary authorities—I come from Pembrokeshire and we never believed that we should have been amalgamated with Dyfed but we understood the need of Cardigan and Carmarthen to join with a proud and upright county like ours—but those unitary authorities will of necessity take between five and 10 years to
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learn again the skills and to develop the processes which will give them confidence within the new situation.
Your Lordships know my preoccupation with special educational needs. I have received six, seven or eight letters on that subject including one from the Government on the implementation of proposals for the integration of children with special needs into the general system. This side of the House agrees with the other side that there should be an integrated schools service and that all children should be integrated except those who will never be able to be fully integrated because of their particularly serious special needs. We are agreed on that. But what will happen is that those children will be transferred now in anticipation of local government reorganisation. Psychologists and the educational support services are no longer referring to the special schools but are putting children directly into the integrated system because they know that that is what will happen. Therefore, by accident again, pressures are imposed on a well-tried and trusted system which has worked in advance of making certain that the new system will be able to accommodate properly those people whom it is moving.
I am giving a series of helpful warnings to the House and to the Front Bench opposite. The WJEC—the Welsh Joint Education Committee—has briefed Members of this House on its anxieties. It is not necessarily opposed to the general wishes of the Education Bill but it is worried that matters will be left in mid-air, stranded between systems and unable to operate adequately.
The whole purpose of the Motion before the House is to discuss local government. Low morale can frequently be found in the local government service. That is not helped by the general state of the economy and factors occurring outside the control of the nation which affect it. However, it is essential for the Government and for the systems of government of this country to change the mood of the nation for good.
I should point out to the young noble Lords on the Front Bench that in 1945—when the Clement Attlee Government gained power, when tremendous changes for the common good were put in hand—it seemed almost perverse that a Minister who has already been mentioned in this debate, Herbert Morrison, should have instituted the Festival of Britain. That was at a time when Britain was in great economic difficulties and all its systems had been strained by a world war. The Festival of Britain somehow changed the mood of the nation and focused the eyes of the country on new opportunities that were occurring. I only introduce that point at the end of my remarks.
I believe that it is absolutely essential that within the education system the children of our country should continue to receive the kind of opportunities that gave us the chances to do the things that we have done with our lives. I issue in general terms a warning against a country that fails to do that because it is too mesmerised with economic indices or too concerned—although perhaps it is not possible to be too

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concerned—about the economy. If it neglects the education of its children by accident, with the best of intentions, that is as bad as if it was done on purpose.
5.40 p.m.
Lord Prentice: My Lords, the House owes a debt of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, for introducing a debate of great importance. I hope that he will not be too embarrassed if I say that I go along with part of what he said on the constitutional problems. It seems to me to be a pity that that argument was somewhat overwhelmed by the kind of routine partisan points that he made against the Government. However, the devastating arguments of my noble friend Lord Strathclyde disposed of all that, and if they are not going to be repeated from this side of the House by me or by anyone else, it is simply because it would be superfluous. My noble friend did that job. The day-to-day criticisms on such matters by the Opposition are falling very flat.
But, having said that, I should like to return to the constitutional point. I believe that that strand runs through the debate. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Parry, spoke about it to some great effect a moment ago. Of course, the trouble did not start in 1979. I shall not go back as far as G. D. H. Cole, but I shall go back to my own entry into Croydon Borough Council as a very young Labour councillor in 1949. I listened to my elders and betters on both sides of the council complaining about the extent to which the Labour Government was taking away powers and responsibilities from local authorities. In particular, the councillors in Croydon, and throughout the country, were very upset by the removal of their hospitals (which they had run very well and of which they were very proud) from their control into the machinery of the new National Health Service.
On that point, I think that the House may be interested in a certain quotation. I am indebted here to Peter Hennessey and his book Never Again which is a history of Britain from 1945 to 1951. He quotes from a Cabinet paper (now, of course, public property due to the passage of time) put before Cabinet by Herbert Morrison on 12th October 1945. Herbert Morrison was opposing Aneurin Bevan in relation to the future of local authority hospitals. The point he made has been relevant to many issues since, including those still facing the country today. The quote reads:
"It is possible to argue that almost every local government function, taken by itself, could be administered more efficiently in the technical sense under a national system, but if we wish local government to thrive—as a school of political and democratic education as well as a method of administration—we must consider the general effect on local government of each particular proposal. It would be disastrous if we allowed local government to languish by whittling away its most constructive and interesting functions".
Herbert Morrison lost that argument in Cabinet. In subsequent Cabinet meetings, both under Labour and Conservative Governments, that same argument has been lost several times. Perhaps, worse still, it has gone by default.
I shall cite just one or two obvious examples, though there are many others. In the 1970s the Labour
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Government (of which I was a member) introduced legislation to compel local education authorities to produce plans for reform along comprehensive lines. They did not leave it to discretion. They were not content with the circular for which I had earlier been responsible, but followed it up by compulsory legislation. A few years later a Conservative Government compelled local authorities to offer council houses for sale to tenants. They did not leave that to the discretion of each local authority; they said, "This must be done".
I move on now to other examples which bring us to the present time, including some aspects of the Education Bill currently before the House, the proposals of the Home Secretary for the reform of the police to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hilton, referred, and many others. My point is that such things have happened under governments of both parties and that they have involved both large and small matters. I have to concede that very often there has been a good ad hoc argument for a particular proposal. Some of those policies have been matters of election manifesto commitments upon which a government was elected; for example, the Conservative Government in 1979 was committed to the right-to-buy legislation. They had a reasonable argument to say—and I speak as someone who voted for it in the Division Lobby—that they could not tolerate the opposition of local Labour-controlled councils preventing that promise from being fulfilled.
I admit that we are in a very complex field here, just as Herbert Morrison versus Aneurin Bevan was a complex argument in which there were genuine points to be put on both sides. The trend of the past half century or so has been to reduce the power of local government vis-à-vis national government. The trend was not to reduce its work; indeed, the work of local government has perhaps increased as has its expenditure. But the scope for making local decisions of real importance to the locality has, on the whole, diminished. Somehow or other that tread ought to be reversed.
Perhaps I may put a few general propositions to the House upon which I shall not be able to expand because of the time limit. First, it seems to me that democracy requires some degree of pluralism. It is not sufficient for people simply to have one vote for one national assembly every five years or so. Secondly, in a country which is not federal but which has a unitary constitution, the main instrument for that pluralism must be local government. In a country which is not a federal country it is therefore all the more important that it has strong local government.
Thirdly, the complex social problems that we face today are better tackled if there are a variety of authorities, each with their own responsibilities, and tackling them in varying ways so that when dealing with housing or social service problems, and so on, local authorities can learn from their own and one another's successes or failures. That comparative exercise can produce better answers than simply a code of practice issued from Whitehall.
Fourthly, it seems to me that good candidates will only come forward for election and good officials will

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only stay in post if they have a real job to do. If they become simply more and more the local instruments of national administration, the job will not be worthwhile; and, as regards councillors, it will not be worth all the sacrifice of time and effort involved.
Fifthly, our Government have successfully argued the case for subsidiarity in the relationship between the nation states and the European Community. That principle surely applies to today's discussion, and in my view is one that has not been sufficiently applied by this Government—nor, I repeat, by previous governments.
My final point is that there is inevitably therefore a morale problem among Conservative councillors. Here again I should like to add a personal note. I must keep showing that if I am a rebel against my own side I was also a rebel against the Labour Government when I was a Labour Member of Parliament. When I was a Labour Minister, I remember Labour councillors saying exactly the same thing to me that I now hear from Conservative councillors. They are saying, "Look, we have the experience. We have been at the sharp end of these problems for many years. Why do they not listen to us a little more? Why are we sidelined in policy making"? That applies particularly to the Education Bill that is in front of the House at this moment. I personally support the general purpose of that Bill. I believe it will help to raise standards, and that is vital. However, I believe those same objectives could have been pursued while placing a greater emphasis on the role of the local education authorities.
Throughout the country there are experienced Conservative chairmen of local education authorities in the shires and in the better London boroughs. The local examination results tables have shown that those authorities have achieved results that are well above the average. I am thinking of some authorities in particular but I shall not mention names. Those experienced people could have been consulted on the Education Bill. They should have been included in discussions at the formative stage of the legislation because of the input they could contribute.
In the recent past we have carried through reforms of local government finance. They were controversial reforms; but I shall not go into that. We are proceeding towards changes in local government structure. However, I believe something more is needed. We need some kind of initiative on the part of central government to improve their relationships with local government and to indicate the way in which those relationships can develop in the future. The Prime Minister's recent speech in which he spoke of a renaissance pointed in the right direction.
We should be encouraged by the fact that Mr. Major is the first Prime Minister for over 40 years who has had personal experience as a councillor. I am sure he will want to build on that speech. I believe that process could take the form of some kind of government statement—possibly a Green Paper or something of that kind although I do not wish to be dogmatic about that—which sets out the philosophy of that relationship and which emphasises the need to restore the stature of local government in Britain. The
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measure should be written in a tone of partnership. It should be followed up by a dialogue between national and local government on how to put flesh on to those bones and how to bring the proposals forward in practice.
That would constitute partly a process of formal consultation through the usual channels; but the consultation should be carried on informally too within each political party. The proposals could be discussed in many forums throughout the country. Our democracy will be richer if we can restore the status and the real power of local government and reverse the trends of the past half century. I plead with my noble friends on the Front Bench to work out these matters with their colleagues and to take new initiatives in that direction.
5.53 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, back home in Wales professors, poets, preachers and peasants tell us that there is no English equivalent of the Welsh word cynefin. It derives ultimately from the same root as the Latin domus, meaning a home in the sense of a dwelling place or a family seat, but it goes much wider. It refers to the totality of the place where one belongs, where one feels one's roots are, and it carries geographical, cultural, linguistic and familial connotations. This partly explains why local authorities and local democracy have for so long been deeply rooted in Welsh political life. It helps to explain, for example, why the Government's drive for grant-maintained schools has simply not taken off in Wales. Local authorities have been the providers and the nurturers of education, culture and the arts for a long time. It is about local authorities and the arts that I wish to speak. Indeed, local authorities have recently fulfilled the role of providers across the entire United Kingdom. However, the cultural health of the nation is now most gravely threatened by the Government's manifest intention to weaken local democracy and to limit the activities of local authorities at every opportunity. Yet local authorities are still the major supporters of arts activity throughout the country. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy leisure and recreation estimates for 1992–93 indicate that local authority expenditure on the arts and museums in England and Wales amounted to £325.7 million compared with an Arts Council budget of £198.8 million, of which more than £62.5 million went to the five "national" companies—ROH, ENO, RSC, RNT and the South Bank.
The pre-eminence of local authorities in arts support has not happened by chance. In local elections the public have voted for parties and policies which brought it about. It is clearly what the people want and what they are prepared to pay for. To be fair central Government have acceded to that demand since the Local Government Act of 1948, and especially in the 1972 Local Government Act, which lifted the restriction on the sum local authorities were permitted to raise from the rates to support arts and entertainments. That enlightened move was made

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under a Conservative government who deserve great credit for it, and it enabled local authorities to become the leading force in arts development.
Sadly, the intention of those enabling measures has been reversed by the assault on local government powers since 1979. Local authority arts funding remains discretionary. With the introduction of universal capping and continuing central Government restriction on overall expenditure, all areas of discretionary spending are prime targets for so-called savings.
It is not just the well-being of arts organisations which is put in jeopardy by this state of affairs but also the entire principle of local democracy. Many local councils stood for re-election on a platform in which support for the arts was by no means a minor pledge. They are now forced to renege on their promises as they have to comply with central government spending decisions through the Department of Environment. The threat to arts development, particularly at grass roots level, comes from a number of directions: first, from the reduction or the withdrawal of grant aid to independent arts organisations and projects—not merely from leisure services but also from education and social services budget headings. A silent battle is going on all around the country as councils wrestle with their appalling budget problems for 1993–94 and arts organisations continue to negotiate for the best level of support they can hope to secure. In many cases the combatants are all on the same side. Many of the most supportive authorities of recent years are forced by capping restrictions to consider cuts which they have absolutely no wish to impose.
Secondly, the threat to arts development comes from the reduction or the withdrawal of arts education support and services in response to the demands of the Education Reform Act, local management of schools and now the Education Bill. I shall mention one small instance of that. LEAs traditionally supply schools with library services, peripatetic music teaching and local advisory services on drama, arts and music. The staff inform, co-ordinate and liaise with schools and artists. Under the Education Bill that provision looks unlikely to survive at all.
Thirdly, the threat to arts development comes from the continuing decline in the availability of such things as discretionary awards to drama and dance students seeking training at the accredited schools offering vocational courses. More than one-third, 35 per cent., of all drama students and one-third of all dance students entering schools in 1992–93 had no grant towards their fees; 14 per cent. of local authorities are making no discretionary awards to drama students, and not because they do not wish to do so. All these measures endanger local authority provision for the arts and imperil the nation's culture.
I wish to illustrate the national danger from the particular position of the local authority in the city of Sheffield. I declare my interest as an unpaid director of its famous Crucible Theatre.
In 1992–93 Sheffield's expenditure per head on arts and museums was one of the highest in England. At
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approximately £10 per head Sheffield's spending on cultural facilities covered art galleries, museums, theatres, a concert hall and a wide range of directly provided activities, in addition to capital expenditure incurred in supporting major arts buildings. There are two great theatres side by side in the middle of Sheffield, neither of them in the red, but in the black.
Support from the private sector has been growing throughout the past 15 years for the arts in Sheffield. However, in 1993–94, with an SSA which provided approximately £40 million less than the city council believed it needed to continue supporting the current level of activities some hard choices had to be made.
That is the nub of the matter. Is it reasonable to compel local authorities to choose between, for instance, social services, education and cultural provision when any civilised society requires all three?
In Sheffield's case the city council decided that it had no option but to reduce expenditure on arts and museums. That cut strikes at the heart of the city's cultural activities. Opening hours of museums will be reduced; support for the famous Crucible and Lyceum Theatres will diminish, with all the dangers of a more conventional and safer programme of plays; art galleries will cease to purchase works of art; and the physical fabric of many buildings will remain unrepaired.
While it is right and correct in any democracy for local priorities to be determined, it cannot be right for the essential cultural fabric of a major industrial city in this country to be reduced in that way despite everything that its local authority can do.
I wish that I could feel confidence in the Government's oft-repeated assertions that they want a creative partnership with local authorities. There is remarkably little evidence of it. If we consider the nation's museums and galleries the truth is all too clear. In 1991 the Museums and Galleries Commission, the Government's principal adviser, published a report—Local Authorities and Museums—from a working party chaired by Professor John Last, who is not a member of the Labour Party by any means. May I ask the Government how many of the Last Report's recommendations have been accepted and implemented since 1991? One of those recommendations was that every local authority should have a policy for museums. The MGC sought government help to produce a simple circular to encourage implementation. There was no such help. The MGC had to distribute its own pamphlet—Building on Success—to take forward the proposals of the Last Report. The Government did not want to know.
The Last Report included a most careful and well-informed discussion of the question of whether or not provision of a museum service should be made mandatory on local authorities. That question has been with us a long time. The committee came down against the idea. Yet in the 1993 White Paper, Local Government in Wales, in section 4.19 on museums and galleries, we read:
"Authorities will be required to produce plans for the provision of these and other services and the Secretary of State proposes that he should, for the first year of the new

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authorities, have reserve powers which he would use if the local authorities' proposals would not safeguard these important services".
Similarly, in Scotland, since the Local Government and Planning (Scotland) Act 1982 a duty has been imposed on districts and islands to ensure "adequate cultural provision". The Scottish Museums Council has found that phrase very useful in discussions with Scottish local authorities.
But what do the Government intend nationwide? What is good for Wales and Scotland is surely sufficient for England. When are the Government going to make clear their policy, if any, for some 800 local authority museums and galleries? At present there is none.
Strong local authorities are essential to democratic government, as every speech today has emphasised. In The Times last Monday Professor Norman Lewis of Sheffield University wrote about the new best-selling book Reinventing Government by Osborne and Gaebler. That is a book which should be on all our bookshelves. I recommend that the Minister goes out tomorrow and purchases a copy, at his own expense. In his essay Professor Lewis said:
"To reinvent government is to decentralise government. A revitalised and more autonomous local government, which will need greater financial autonomy, is central to the delivery of improvements in choice and community self-expression".
I could not have put it better myself.
6.5 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I rise to offer strong support to my noble friend Lord Williams and the many eloquent speakers who have followed him. Partly but not entirely for reasons of prudence I shall single out the two sitting next to me, my noble friend who has just spoken and my noble friend Lord Parry.
If I understood my noble friend Lord Williams aright, he entertains a view, which I share, that this Government—I do not say all Conservative Governments but certainly the Conservative Government of today and those which we have had in recent years—dislike local government. If anyone doubts that, they might read the speech made by Mr. Howard, the Secretary of State for the Environment, on 3rd February when introducing the financial settlement. It includes a long string of taunts at the Labour Party. That is very unlike this House. I do not know what goes on in the other place: I once tried to get in and did not make it, and therefore cannot speak about the House of Commons. However, undoubtedly if Mr. Howard had made that speech in this House someone would have moved that he be no longer heard; he was so insulting to such a large number of Members.
Mr. Howard referred to the Member for Sheffield and asked whether he recalled that he was chairman of the council when Sheffield lost £10 million on the World Student Games. I suppose that everyone was too polite, even there, to rise and ask how many billions of pounds the Government had lost as a result of devaluation. However, I do not know whether that or anything would have stopped Mr. Howard. His dislike was very evident.
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I do not know whether that dislike is shared by the noble Lord opposite, who is such an acceptable speaker. He will forgive me if I recall an experience of mine last Friday, which is not included in any points of which I have given him notice but to which he will be able to reply. Owing to the rail strike I had to travel by coach. I do not know whether other noble Lords have travelled by coach instead of by train or by car, but I do not recommend the experience. We were supposed to reach my destination, which was between Tonbridge and Hastings, in an hour and three-quarters but it took three-and-a-half hours. After we had been travelling for some time and were not making progress the driver turned round and with a beatific smile—almost as beatific as the smile of the noble Lord opposite—said that he appeared to have missed the way. I asked him if he had any idea where we were and he said that he could not be too sure but he suspected that we were somewhere on the A20. Anyone who knows the road to Hastings will know that the A20 does not get one to Hastings.
Lord Harvington: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me?
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, may I finish this sentence? Personally I am in favour of interruptions in these time-limited debates and I give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Harvington: My Lords, I simply wished to ask the noble Earl if he could make sure that we hear what he says because some of us on this side of the House cannot hear everything that he says. Perhaps he could speak a little more slowly and a little higher. That would be of great advantage to us all.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, it is very difficult to know how to cope with that request, even coming as it does from a co-religionist. I do not think that I can do anything. We have the microphones. Perhaps the noble Lord should sit on the Front Bench. Meanwhile, time is passing.
The gist of the story was that the driver had completely lost his way but kept on smiling. As I understand it, that is the position of the noble Lord.
The noble Lord, Lord Prentice, made a thought-provoking speech. I do not know whether to be sad or glad that he has left us. I miss him, but at the same time he could do more damage to the Government from where he sat; he could be a real thorn in their flesh.
The distribution of functions between local government and central government is an eternal issue. Let us take an example of a situation in which it is not right to do what the Government propose—although it could be reversed—in transferring a responsibility to local government. The EFFRA Trust has done unique work for mentally disordered ex-prisoners. It was funded by central authorities; but most of the money is now supposed to come from local authorities. However, those involved are inmates from all over England. How will they raise the money from local authorities throughout England? It is unlikely. I can only hope for the best. I give that example because I do not wish to give the impression

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that it is always right to transfer responsibility to the local authority. But where movement has occurred, I usually welcome it if the resources go with it.
However, let us take the treatment of those moved from mental homes. Such homes have been steadily closed over the past years. The main responsibility for those people falls on local authorities under the so-called community care arrangements. But what is the situation? In the area in which I live in Sussex there were 1,400 patients at Hellingly Hospital. The hospital has almost closed. Where are those 1,400 patients now? According to information, 80 per cent. are in their homes. Who is looking after them? The answer is, virtually no one. Those great responsibilities are cast on local authorities but the resources are not made available.
I refer to a statement issued by a number of organisations involved in the issue—Age Concern, MENCAP, Mind, the National Schizophrenia Fellowship and others. Those organisations issued a statement in which they call on the Government to match the principles of community care now enshrined in law with actions that will guarantee effective care. That is the actual situation with regard to community care. The Government have raised great expectations but there is no sign whatever of their being honoured under present arrangements.
I wrote a book which was published last April called Prisoner or Patient. It was about mentally disordered offenders. It was praised by a high authority; namely, the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. In the book I stated that community care is a farce. Community care will remain a farce unless something very different is done by the Government.
I can give many other examples. I read an article in The Times recently about the youth service. Two thirds of local authorities are cutting their youth services. That has led to strong protests from at least one chief of police. That is at a time when it is generally considered that the youth services are one of the few bulwarks against the alleged youth crime rate. Many other examples have been given in the debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Williams, stated at the beginning of the debate, the truth is that the Government do not like local authorities. When they transfer functions, they transfer responsibility without resources.
What is the present situation? The noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, had a favourite expression in this House—a dog's breakfast. The present situation with regard to community care is a dog's breakfast. I hope that the Government will bear those anxieties in mind. They come not only from me—they may or may not take me seriously—but from all the organisations involved.
6.14 p.m.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, when the noble Lord introduced the Government's case, he stated that he was about to be disappointed by all noble Lords on this side of the Chamber but thought that he would receive some comfort from his one noble friend on that side. I do not believe that he received much
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comfort from his noble friend. The debate seems to have been completely one sided. However, I was extremely glad that we were treated to a quotation from G. D. H. Cole; it implied that the Minister had done some reading on the post-war situation. I have no doubt that he read G.D.H. Cole's Great Britain in the Post-War World although some of his statements do not seem to indicate that. However, I wish to recommend some further reading. Perhaps the Minister will take time to consider the proposals of Beveridge. His views may well change on the health service. Perhaps he will peruse Buchanan's Traffic in Towns which dealt with the major problems of congestion in the cities of this country. The noble Lord, Lord Prentice, knows all about that.
Perhaps when the noble Lord utters the statement that there has been no centralisation, he will consider London, where the Government abolished the only directly-elected authority which could possibly have carried out the plans envisaged in Buchanan's Traffic in Towns. It was not because that particular authority was not doing a good job. It had already started on a very intensive programme of getting people back onto buses and the Underground. Since then everyone knows what has happened. London is in a wonderful state! Even the Evening Standard continually talks about the necessity to have a London authority although it does not go so far as we go and say that it should be a directly-elected local authority.
I do not wish to deal with any particular point but seek to indicate why we should restore local democracy to what it was, in the interests of the nation. I refer to the period during the war when local democracy was called on to mount all the emergency services. The whole country was dependent upon the work of local authorities for preserving the safety of the nation. The Minister stated recently that I was wrong when I said that local government has continuously lost power; he said that it had not. Let us consider the position in 1945. We had our hospitals and our electricity, gas and water undertakings. All of those were constructed because we had a consensus in Liverpool. I do not claim credit for the Labour Party with regard to that situation. Those organisations were established at great odds by a Conservative/Liberal alliance. That alliance used to run Liverpool, and I pay tribute to it. It is not the time to make party points.
I was extremely glad to hear the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Prentice. It went a long way towards expressing an ideal system. The organisations to which I referred were not achieved without cost. For instance, we had to ensure that when the water undertaking was built in Wales, we had the agreement of the people of Wales. We were conscious of that. The whole of the working class in Liverpool were conscious of it; and so was the ruling party. By and large, Liverpool was half built by Welsh people. They were coming off the land and because of their experience in building they built the whole of South Liverpool. Under its own steam, Liverpool City Council handled an influx of Irishmen from Ireland after the famine. I do not believe that any other single institution ever handled such a problem.

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It would not be a bad idea to cast our mind back to those problems. Through a consensus of the Tory and Labour parties in Liverpool, we finally laid plans for the redevelopment of Liverpool after the loss of the docks. We began demolishing some 3-storey Victorian houses. Some of the younger elements on the job were amazed to find when they demolished the top of the house that the basements were full of sand. Why was it there? Because the influx of Irish had led to such bad conditions that the Irish people had literally to be taken out and the basements loaded with sand to prevent them flooding back. That was a major problem for Liverpool then.
It is amazing to me, with my experience in Liverpool, that because of the division in the field of religion we did not have repeated there the same kind of situation as exists in Northern Ireland. It is dangerously near. No one else claims credit for the peace except the local authority in Liverpool. It carefully established neutrality between the two sides and they managed to exist in a friendly and tolerant fashion. Let that be for ever to the credit of Liverpool and the local democracy that functioned by consensus.
When the economy started growing we found that other things had to be done. The issue then was whether local government should remain democratic and have powers or whether central government should take over some of the powers. The noble Lord, Lord Prentice, is right, the Labour Government were at fault on some matters. The first inroad of any serious proportion was the Bill applying to the police. The Government had already tried in a gentle fashion to remove police powers from the hands of the directly elected authority, the watch committees. They were rubbed out. Now all these years later, the Government accept the view that perhaps their way of administering the police in London is not the best way to do it and the trend is going the other way. I never tire of saying that if we talk about the way that police forces operate, fundamentally where they operated under the control of a watch committee we rarely heard of corruption. But, my goodness! As soon as we centralised power in London, the most corrupt police force in this country was the London Metropolitan Police Force. That is perhaps a reflection of what happens when one takes away the democracy which local authorities should have.
When we set up the water industry, we were praised in Wales, they did not accuse us of robbing them of the Welsh water. There was co-operation between the two, and if anyone goes to the Lake Vyrnwy estate from which Liverpool and Merseyside draw their water, he will see a well-managed estate, in spite of all that has been done since Liverpool left it. The same applies in the scrubland near Capel Celyn where we flooded a village; but the locals were pleased. We did it because we could sense and we knew that Liverpool and Merseyside were part of North Wales. It was necessary that Liverpool should contribute to North Wales, and we did so.
The electricity industry which we set up was the forerunner of Manweb. Without the electricity industry, we would never have had electricity in the Welsh hills and the farmers would have been deprived
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of power. Of course, it was sensible because the produce from North Wales was sold in Liverpool. When Liverpool people exercised their freedom, they went to North Wales, it was one area and it is a great tragedy that the boundary runs down the middle of the Dee. I have made many a plea that we should abolish the boundary and plan a local authority on the basis of the economic needs of the region. We should not allow borders to exist which were established many years ago because two barons fought over a field and then finally decided that the boundary would be there. It is cockeyed.
It is cockeyed when electricity is divorced from gas and electricity and gas are divorced from water. They are all necessary parts of our lives and we should have a local authority able to control them all. I shall give an example. People will know that Merseyside has a narrow estuary and wide basin with many sandbanks. There were complaints from people who used to go out in a boat and found sewage deposited upon the banks. They made their voices heard and wanted it cleaned up. I was the leader of the council and had a difficult task determining priorities. At that time we were responsible for the social services, so I called in the medical officer of health and asked: "What is your attitude to the terrible pollution of the River Mersey?" He said: "It is bad, Sir". I said: "Yes, I go down there myself and I can see that it is bad. Has anyone lost their life from it?" He said, "No". I asked how we stood in the hypothermia stakes, and that year 15 people had died of it. So I put the question to him: "Where should we put our limited amount of money?" That is the kind of priority that only a local government can decide. There is no need for me to tell the House where the priority was and where the money went. The rest had to wait. Those are the kinds of priorities that impinge upon the community. They cannot be dodged and they impinge upon the health of people within the local authority. I defy any civil servant in London to decide that kind of issue. They just cannot do it, it is an impossibility.
Now we shall lose education, to all intents and purposes, let us not be kidded about that. The Minister mentioned houses and the bonfire of controls. All I ask is for people to open their eyes and see what is happening in the land. I travel a lot. I like travelling in the country; I do not go abroad. There is no better place than North Wales. Yet, I see all around houses being deposited on little bits of land there. It is now completely understood in the building and farming industries that if someone has a bit of land and wants to put a house on it, if the local authority says: "No, that's not proper planning", it is all right; he can go to the Minister.
Of course, there has been a bonfire of controls. When we talk about housing, look at the municipal housing that was built between 1945 and 1950; then look at the municipal housing that was built 10 years afterwards.
Lord Parry: Rabbit hutches!
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, I am not talking about rabbit hutches at the moment; I shall come to them later. The difference is that some houses were

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planned and built under Nye Bevan; and the others were built under Macmillan. Nye Bevan insisted that if working-class homes were built, the men or lads in the household would go in the garden. They were entitled therefore to an outside toilet. Then they would not have to go in the house and go upstairs to the toilet. So the houses all had two toilets. They all had something that was sneered at previously—Parker Morris standards—because the planners at that time insisted that working-class houses should have the best that could be afforded. Go to any estate, go to one which I know very well and the one which I represented for many years as a councillor: Speke, in Liverpool. Go down Damwood Road: on one side there are the Macmillan homes; on the other, Nye Bevan's. One can see which are the best.
The noble Lord mentioned rabbit hutches. Let us get bang up to date: a bonfire of controls with new towns and local authorities which were all persuaded to build what were called new starter homes. For those noble Lords who do not know what they are, they are one-block buildings which, normally, two houses would occupy. I am watching the time. I have a little time left and I shall finish on this point.
What occupies the site now? Four houses. When I went to see the first one, which was built under the magnanimous influence of Margaret Thatcher, I said to the man who showed us round (who was, of course a member of the Party): "What happens if somebody comes from abroad who has collected a lot of things? Where does he put them?" No account was ever taken of storage. I would bet that if the Government made inquiries as to how many starter homes are still in the possession of and rented by, or bought by, the original owners, they will find a tremendously high figure. The truth is that once decisions come under central government, local choice is decimated. This Government hate local government. It is about time things shifted. If we do not remove that detestation of local government and come round to accepting the idea that we need local government and local participation, the country is finished.
6.31 p.m.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, it is good that the noble Lord, Lord Williams, has raised the question of what is happening to local government. As we have heard, the subject arouses considerable passion. I find it useful to look at my local area, Orkney. Orkney is a very small authority. It is one authority. The community is reasonably homogeneous. One can see to some extent, as in a laboratory, the effect of local legislation on a fairly normal set of people.
The first point to be made about local government is that it has become positively enormous. It grows and grows. Not only does its staff increase to carry out what used to be its traditional functions, but it has spread into all sorts of new occupations. We have for instance an economist. Goodness knows, one would think that there is enough economic advice available without employing a full-time local economist. We have an archivist. We have a legal department, which I believe contains five fully qualified lawyers. When I
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first went to Orkney and Shetland, five fully qualified lawyers did all the legal business, private and public. There were only five qualified lawyers in the whole of the two islands. Now there are five in the local authority alone. On top of that, the authority constantly employs consultants. So there is no question—as indeed the Minister pointed out—of local government withering away. It is very expensive. It occupies tremendous new buildings and it employs a great many staff. Orkney has all that for the benefit of a total population of 20,000.
What is the result? There has not been a great improvement in efficiency. On the contrary, over the scandal of the local children and over the short sea route into which £30 million has been sunk in the Pentland Firth our record for efficiency has certainly not improved. Furthermore, it has the effect of deterring people from going into local government. Nobody who is reasonably busy and who has some sort of outside life to lead will spend hours and hours reading agendas, documents, minutes and the reports of consultants and attending innumerable committees. There are still many public-spirited people who do. But it becomes progressively more difficult to attract anyone of reasonable youth who is reasonably fully employed into local government. When a recent vacancy arose, it was quite difficult to attract any candidates. As a result local government is falling into the hands of those who are bureaucratically-minded, of those who are retired, and of a few people who find the allowances quite useful.
The changes are having a bad effect on the community, which has given up doing all sorts of things. For instance, many of the problems concerning the children in Orkney would have been solved in the old days by the pressure of the community. But now such matters are the business of social workers and others. So there are certain positively damaging effects.
Are we to accept that? There are two things to be done. One, which I shall recommend, is vastly to reduce the amount of work—not the responsibility, but the amount of work—which is now laid upon local councils and local councillors. If we find that impossible, then we must face the fact that being a local councillor is now a full-time job. That is what happens in Parliament and it may well happen in local government. If so, one has to pay councillors a full wage. I believe that that is contrary to the whole tradition of local government, and I am rather surprised that it is the direction in which a Conservative Government are driving us. But it is certainly the logical conclusion.
The other possibility is entirely to change the constitutional set-up in local government. It differs from parliamentary government. In parliamentary government one has an Executive. One has a clearly-defined Opposition and people supporting the Executive. One has party conflict. One has all sorts of other signs of the British constitution. The tradition in local government was that local councillors took decisions and to some extent implemented them. They had a small bureaucracy, but they were not divided into political parties. They were not divided between

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what one might call Parliament—which exists principally to protest and to criticise the Government—and the Government. Perhaps we have to give up that tradition. In a great many local authorities it has been given up. It does not seem to me, however, that the machinery has been brought into line with what we now expect local councillors to do. That is the first task.
Another development is that of quangos. They are not elected but they have enormous power. To the ordinary person the power of the quango is in many respects as great or greater than that of government. If one is a farmer, one is very much at the mercy of quangos. Any of us may find that our house is raided at the behest of a quango. There is no election to quangos. I do not know whether noble Lords read an article in the Sunday Telegraph by Matt Ridley the week before last: they certainly ought to. All that it said is true, and it is very alarming.
Part of the trouble arises from the general development of the country. But part lies squarely on the shoulders of the Government. Year after year the Government produce a rag-bag of stuff which they call a local government Act. That lays more responsibility firmly on the local authorities, whether they like it or not. That is partly the reason why local councillors become so bored. They are not interested in carrying out over the year the thoughts of the Government or the Civil Service. They are interested in innovating and in improving their communities, not in being dogsbodies for Whitehall. I beg the Government to give that up; to deny themselves the pleasure of producing a local government Bill every year; and to deny their civil servants the pleasure of laying on local authorities more and more responsibilities covering an enormous rag-bag of occupations which many of them do not consider are of prime importance. To do that is not to apply subsidiarity. Surely subsidiarity does not mean that everyone else is turned into a servant. Surely it means that one encourages initiative at lower levels, not simply that one operates through them. But that is what is happening in this country.
As already mentioned, some American academics have published a very popular book which has apparently received great acclamation, not least in this House. I must say that when I read it it seemed to be a glimpse of the obvious. I thought that everybody—at least, all Liberals—had known for years and years that we should not ask the Government to do things that we can do ourselves; that we should not force bureaucrats to do things which, by getting together and forming local associations, we can do ourselves. That realisation apparently has been rediscovered in America and is thought to be the great thought of the new presidential era. I am very glad to hear it. I thought that in this country it was well known about 1850 if not before. However, by all means let us press on with it.
However, if we are to do that, we must make a better distinction between the sort of public goods which it is thought that people can provide for themselves and those which it is essential that the Government or local authorities provide. So far as possible we should allow people to provide them for
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themselves, or if that is impossible we should encourage co-operation between them. Some time ago I went to Bologna, which is run by the communists. I visited an old folks' home where the old people were doing what business they could. The drink was passed around by the old folks; the chianti and martini were flowing. The old folks were bounding about dispensing it. In this country when one goes into an old folks' home one finds them all tucked up in blankets and waited on with coffee. Not a bit of that in communist Bologna. I suggest that we ought to get a few communists from Bologna over into this country and introduce that sort of thing here.
The same happens in other areas of the community. The Government seem to think that there are only two alternatives. One is that we have the present bureaucratic control; the other is that we privatise. It is the same in education or in the case of prisons, as in everything else. Some of these services are totally unfit for privatisation. Their whole raison d'être is quite contrary to the commercial ethic of today.
One has to get people to co-operate, to take part and to participate in running services. That is what they used to do and are willing to do so long as it is reasonably simple and their responsibilities can be discharged in a reasonable time. One cannot expect to spend all day every day in administrative and bureaucratic work.
The Government should not only cut down demands on local authorities. They should encourage participation. The charters are all designed to give the ordinary citizen some means of attacking or stopping the Executive. What is wanted is a means by which the ordinary citizen can feel that he has more power over the decisions of the Executive, whether local authority or government. The Government need to take a fundamental look at the organisation of local government. They should see how much responsibility local councillors can discharge and whether they need to be paid. Perhaps they do, although I should object to it. If they do not, a reduced local government must be so organised to enable democracy to function. By democracy I do not mean merely a few retired members of the upper middle class; I mean ordinary working men. The ordinary working man should be able to take some part in running the affairs of his community. Far too much government is tailored in this country to suit the middle classes and particularly the retired middle classes, of which no better example exists than the House of Lords.
6.42 p.m.
Lord Howell: My Lords, what this country needs at this moment in time is a conservative government. Whenever I go round the country I am told so by industrialists and other people. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. Indeed, having regard to the havoc, the destruction, the bankruptcies and the despair created in industry and among individuals everywhere, I would settle for a Conservative government (with a capital C) for a few months. However, I am not speaking in that sense. I speak of a government that will proceed (as did all previous

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governments before 1979) to change the institutions of the country by discussion, agreement and, so far as possible, consensus.
I once said at a Cabinet committee meeting that all the best Conservatives were socialists and all the best socialists were conservative. I think that there is some truth in that statement. I say that in the presence of my old friend, who is now the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon. We were discussing at that time his appointment, at my invitation, to look into problems on Exmoor where farmers were ploughing up the country's national heritage. There was some astonishment expressed, particularly by Mr. Michael Foot, at my suggestion that the noble Earl should undertake the job on my behalf. "Isn't he a Conservative?" I was asked. I said, "I do not know if he is a Conservative but the fact of the matter is that if you want any change undertaken in this country, especially in the days of a Labour Government, you need a good Conservative to carry it out." I can only say that the good Conservative or near-Conservative, the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, did a splendid job for us on that occasion.
The point I want to make is that if one wants change it must be done by consent and agreement. People must be carried along with it. We do not have anything like that today. My noble friend Lord Williams, who is to be congratulated on raising this matter, said that we were moving to Soviet-style government. I have a lot of sympathy with that proposition. We now have departments of state which are constructed on the Soviet principle. They are little soviets. Heading each one of them is a commissar whom we describe as the Secretary of State. Those Secretaries of State or commissars are governing by diktat—their diktat —not in any way by agreement with local government or anyone else.
It seems that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has a lot of sympathy with that view. Throughout the whole of his extraordinary speech he showed great joviality, laughing and indicating—or so I thought—that he did not believe a word of the brief that he had been called upon to offer the House. Indeed, he concluded by saying that the Government believed in local leadership. He was not able to give a single example of anybody in local leadership anywhere in the country who supports his or the Government's view. He certainly could not find one today on his own Benches. There has only been one speech, apart from the Minister's, from that side. It was a striking speech from my old colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Prentice, who gave an extremely thoughtful speech on which the Government, if they had any sense (if I might say so without embarrassing the noble Lord) should build, especially having regard to the declared intention of the Prime Minister to try to move forward in terms of local government action. That is the one hopeful sign that we have at the moment.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams, mentioned the arrogance of power that we now see in the behaviour of Ministers. That is causing much alarm throughout the country right across the political spectrum. It is seen every day in the way in which they approach their
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work. It comes from the total, absolute power that they have given themselves. Lord Acton's dictum was never more appropriate than today. It is almost a text for this debate; all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I might also add, in reference to the arrogance of Ministers, that this is an opportune moment to recall the words of Henry Kissinger who reminded us that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. I am bound to say that Ministers behave as if the power that they possess is an aphrodisiac. It always was, and it is a matter of great concern to us. All the things that they do, all these acts of personal and political arrogance, eventually come unstuck and have to be thought through again.
The poll tax is the obvious example. My noble friend Lord Williams reminded us of the speech of Michael Howard at the Basingstoke Conservative Supper Club. When I read what he said I assumed that he had had a very good supper indeed before addressing his audience. He told them that the poll tax would give power to the people. As has been said—one does not need to repeat it—that has in many ways happened.
Wherever we look we find the growth of quangos. Some of us have been involved in quangos. But today it is impossible to find out how one can make them publicly accountable. Whatever anyone says about local government, local government elections happen year after year and local councillors are called to account. That is a fundamental principle of tremendous importance. All the capping restraints, all the various government circulars imposing conditions on local government, the standard spending assessments and so on, are undermining local government democracy.
I have been a Minister in a government who themselves have had to say to local government, in the words of the late Tony Crosland, "The party is over". Governments have to have regard to public expenditure. I do not disagree with that. But today the Minister did not relate anything that he told us to the people who are being governed. At the end of the day it is the effect of government legislation on the quality of life and on the government of the people that is of tremendous importance to us.
I want to turn to one or two examples which are perhaps rather different from some of those that have been given in the debate. Perhaps I may start with my own great love of sport. We have had the Government dictating to local authorities the terms and conditions on which sports centres can be operated. We have had the Government responsible for a situation in which they are pricing out of sports centres around the country the very people who, especially at this time, we should be attracting into sports centres. We have had the Government instructing local authorities and education authorities to sell off playing fields at the very time we have trouble on our streets and in our communities and we should be opening up more and more playing fields and getting people involved in healthy pursuits. I am convinced that most of the trouble that comes under the heading of juvenile delinquency and football hooliganism originates from

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boredom in society. Unless we provide opportunities for people healthily to engage themselves in this way we shall not solve the problem.
With the opt-out of schools we now have a ludicrous situation in Birmingham. The local authority has put £1 million into a school which it is very content should become grant maintained. However, the local authority will now be totally dominated by the school governors and the headmaster on the question of whether the facilities provided at great expense by the local authority can be used by the people for whom they were provided or whether they are used exclusively by the school's narrow population. That is one aspect of what is happening.
Commissioner Patten, who is the commissar at the head of the Department for Education, is wreaking havoc wherever he turns his attention. School sports, the base on which all British sport is built, have been almost destroyed as a voluntary activity in this country. Such is the feeling that has been generated in the teaching profession, one cannot find teachers who will turn out on Saturday mornings or afternoons, or after school hours, in order to take school cricket teams, football teams or athletics meetings, all of which are the foundation of British international sport. It is a serious matter.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, mentioned the Sheffield student games and quoted what Michael Howard said in a derogatory manner about Sheffield. Can we have a clear philosophy from the Government? Sheffield, to its great credit, went in for the World Student Games at great cost. It has had to find every penny itself and it has not received a dime of help from the Government. Edinburgh staged the Commonwealth Games and built facilities without any help from the Government. Birmingham has built the national indoor arena for the nation without a penny from the Government. However, all of a sudden the Government have discovered Manchester and think, for reasons which can only be described as political, that it might be a good idea to get the Olympic Games in the year 2000. I am in favour of the Government giving help to Manchester—let there be no misunderstanding about that—but the question I ask is how it can possibly be ethical or fair to offer help to one city in the hope that it gets the Olympic Games in the future but deny help to people who provide facilities for international sporting festivals and whose ratepayers have been left for years to come to carry the can in that respect.
This arrogance of power is now assuming extraordinary proportions in the health service. Dudley Road Hospital, of which I was chairman for 15 years—my noble friend Lady Fisher knows it very well—has gone through the process of consultation at every stage about building a new eye department, a new oncology department and a new pediatric department. The scheme has gone through and has ministerial approval. Suddenly, and very furtively, a body called the outbranch department, set up by the Ministry in Oxford, is reviewing all these procedures. The building of the eye hospital should have gone out to tender last Christmas in order to get it built by 1995,
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which is absolutely essential as the present eye hospital building will no longer be available. Now all this is to be reviewed. I want to say this to the Minister and I should be grateful if he would report it back. If the Government are to start reviewing procedures which have gone through in a statutory manner and have been approved by the Secretary of State, no alterations will be possible without that statutory procedure starting all over again. Everyone will have to be consulted and there will be a hideous delay of another two or three years. That is an example of what is happening as a result of this arrogance of power. We have a new Secretary of State who may change the procedures. The department will not consult anyone. It will not consult the local authority, the area health authority and so on.
I hope that out of this debate and the Prime Minister's new resolve, which is to be welcomed, that they the Government start talking to local government. One can do nothing before first talking. The Secretary of State for Education talks to nobody and listens to nobody. He does not meet teachers or parent teachers. When he came to Birmingham recently he did not meet representatives of the local authority or anybody else. He had a furtive, private meeting in an hotel to which he invited a few of his mates and no doubt hoped that nobody would hear about the meeting. It is for those reasons that I hope that this debate will help to move us towards a greater consensus in the politics of this country and that we get back to consultation, talk and consensus over the direction in which local government should move.
7 p.m.
Baroness White: My Lords, I believe that we have had a fairly generous helping of hype from the Minister. I shall not endeavour to analyse that in any detail. I have one particular concern which I wish to bring to your Lordships' attention. As we all know, in May we are due to hold local authority elections on a countrywide basis. But I doubt whether even now Members of this House realise that for some areas the elections in 1993 will enable successful candidates to hold effective office for one year only. I refer of course to the proposals of the Secretary of State for Wales to reorganise the entire system of local government in the Principality, with full effect from 1st April 1995, but with an elected shadow organisation to be in place by May 1994. In other words, there will be further local government elections in Wales in about 12 months' time.
To quote the Welsh Office White Paper:
"elections to shadow authorities are to be held on a convenient day in 1994".
From that time the Secretary of State proposes that the shadows will exist pari passu with the present local government councils until the shadows take over in April 1995.
The Secretary of State has endeavoured to persuade existing local authorities to take preliminary action on the basis of the White Paper, without their having an opportunity even of seeing a draft Bill. However, I understand that in this endeavour he has not met with very much success. In the present state of government

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legislation it is difficult to see how the necessary Bill, when it is produced, can be given adequate attention in both Houses in time to justify the administrative timetable proposed. The White Paper appeared only a few weeks ago—needless to say, on 1st March which is St. David's Day.
In his foreword the Secretary of State expresses the hope,
"that as many people as possible will take the opportunity to read"—
his proposals, for—
"they deal with a vital issue".
Ordinary people might be more likely to study the proposals if the price of the White Paper had been, shall we say, £5 instead of the £11 which is charged for 36½ printed pages in English. In Welsh it is a slightly better bargain because we take rather longer to say things and one gets 37½ pages for £11. I have always thought that the way in which Her Majesty's Stationery Office has been organised in the past decade or so is an enemy to democracy.
Naturally, there had been some prior consultations, but from such evidence as one can glean, most of the responses, including some of those from the local authorities, were based on self-interest rather than the common good. The Secretary of State criticises previous local government reform in Wales as unsuccessful. He nevertheless calls in aid the example of his predecessors in the Welsh Office for not entrusting the preliminary investigations to an independent commission. A number of us believe that that would have been a much wiser procedure to follow. However, unlike England, the constitutional proposals and disposals in Wales are all in the hands of the Secretary of State, which makes scrutiny and discussion of the prospective Bill all the more vitally important.
Outside the Welsh Office, I do not believe that there is any feeling of desperate urgency in the Principality to turn the whole structure of local government upside down. There are serious reservations about some of the geographical entities proposed, the most obvious being the retention of the county of Powys as an area quite out of keeping with the general scheme. In those circumstances there can be no rational objection to Montgomeryshire reverting to independent status if it so wishes. I observe that the noble Lord, Lord Hooson, is not in the House. He is leading a campaign in Montgomeryshire with which I sympathise, having been a former resident there, that Montgomeryshire should be allowed to manage its own affairs as other former counties are allowed to under the proposals.
At the other end of the scale, as Ystradgynlais has indicated, by a well-supported local referendum, it does not want to be switched as is proposed, for fairly obvious political reasons, by the Secretary of State. If local wishes and opinion mean anything, Ystradgynlais should be allowed to remain as it is. The Secretary of State said that, without wholehearted public support, the structure of local government cannot be effective. In Ystradgynlais the people's voice should therefore be heard.
This is not the occasion to examine the White Paper in detail, but we are genuinely faced with a very
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serious situation. Small, unitary authorities—I am not speaking of the cities—do not necessarily solve the domestic problems of Wales. Nor will 21 relatively small authorities be strong enough and united enough to stand up to central government when and where that may be required. For strategic planning in its broadest social as well as physical sense, do we not need an all-Wales directly or indirectly elected body? That matter is pushed aside entirely by the current Administration which is happy to depend on a subservient Welsh Office and an ever-increasing regiment of personally appointed quangos and other centralised agencies to which reference has already been made in this debate. I have had it confirmed today by the Welsh Office that the number of such appointed bodies in Wales—which is a small country with hardly 3 million population in total—is no fewer than 160. That seems rather a large ration for what is after all a fairly small community. But there they are. To some extent they are all —I do not like to use the expression "creatures of the Secretary of State"—dependent on him.
I do not believe that we should abandon the present structure of local government in Wales before we have thought these matters through much more thoroughly. Hardly surprisingly of course, they are not dealt with at all in the White Paper. Nor, with all the current financial pressures, should we unthinkingly embark on an exercise, the cost of which was, I believe, at first estimated to amount to between £60 million and £150 million, but for which the current estimate is said to be much nearer £300 million. That is a luxury which our small population may find it difficult to afford. We can do a great deal with that amount of money in some of our poorer areas.
It is far from clear how far the proposed unitary authorities will in fact have to engage in elaborate collaborative activities and come to the conclusion that joint services will be necessary. It is difficult to rely on estimates from interested parties, among whom the Secretary of State for Wales easily ranks first. But, in any case, is it really local government which is foremost in his mind or are there some other even more predominantly political considerations which influence his train of thought? One can only surmise, but before very long we shall have to consider local democracy in Wales at length and in considerable detail.
When I jotted down my notes, I did not know that we should have such a relatively lengthy amount of time for this debate and, as a few moments of the time allotted to me are left, I hope that I may have your Lordships' indulgence to read a brief appendix to the eloquent plea for public support for the arts given my noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris a short time ago. I owe this quotation to an officer of the Development Board for Rural Wales who 10 days ago attended a seminar of the Prince of Wales' Committee which was held in that very agreeable seaside resort of Llandudno. His account reads as follows:
"A company Chairman was given a ticket for a performance of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony. He could not go so he passed on the invitation to the company's Quality Consultant. The next morning the Chairman asked him how he had enjoyed it … he was handed a memo which read:—

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(a) For considerable periods the four oboe players had nothing to do. The number should be reduced and the work spread over the whole orchestra—thus eliminating peaks of inactivity.

(b) All twelve violins were playing identical notes—this seems unnecessary duplication—the staff of this section should be drastically cut. If a large volume of sound is really required—this could be obtained through an electronic amplifier.

(c) Much effort was absorbed in the playing of demi-semi-quavers—This seems an excessive refinement. It is recommended that all notes should be rounded up to the nearest semi-quaver. If this were done—it should be possible to use trainees and low grade operators.

No useful purpose is served by repeating with the horns the passage already handled by the strings. If all such redundant passages were eliminated the concert could be reduced from 2 hours to 20 minutes.
If Schubert had attended to these matters he would possibly have been able to finish the Symphony after all. In the unfinished symphony of life, we live in a society of work study consultants. Our lives are increasingly measured by yardsticks of quantity rather than quality … we have to determine whether we are lesser people for it."
I am sure that we all know the answer.
7.13 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, at this late hour, I hesitate to follow the previous speaker, my noble friend Lady White, because I am sure that I shall not do half as well as she did. I must first declare an interest as a member of Manchester City Council. I am not sure whether it is a vested interest, but I do have an interest in local democracy as a result of that position.
I should like to give your Lordships a few examples of local democracy, then say a few words about the financial constraints on local government, and then give an explanation of how local government has come to the aid of the nation during the past 15 years and of how it is being prevented by the Government from coming to the aid of the nation now. Perhaps I could begin with a very local example. In my ward, Brooklands Road extends for some two miles. It is a dead straight road. Half of it is in the City of Manchester and half in the Borough of Trafford. As your Lordships may appreciate, there is a tremendous tendency for motorists to barrel down dead straight roads at a great rate of knots. When such a road is a major highway, it bears a lot of traffic. In fact, this is one of the busiest roads in Manchester. The net result is that it is very difficult for pedestrians to cross it because enormous numbers of vehicles travel down it at fairly high speeds and one has literally to take one's life in one's hands, or feet, and dash like mad to get across.
The point of the story is that on Monday Manchester City Council opened, or switched on, the second pedestrian crossing across that road within the Manchester portion of it. There is not one pedestrian crossing, however, on the Trafford portion of the road. That is a little example of the diversity of local democracy. It has been pressure by local councillors on the Manchester side (in response to the local people) that has caused two pedestrian crossings to be constructed there. There is not the same degree of pressure on local councillors on the Trafford side so there is no pedestrian crossing on that part of the road. Different communities have different priorities.
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Another example (in a slightly less local atmosphere) is the difference between high schools in Manchester and in Trafford. Trafford has a system of selective education. At 11-plus the children are segregated into those who are deemed worthy of a grammar school education and those who are not deemed worthy of benefiting from a grammar school education. Those are the sort of words that are used. Trafford actually says that a proportion of its children will not benefit from a grammar school education. That is mind boggling. In Manchester, we have a comprehensive system of education. There is no segregation. Parents send their children to the school of their choice. Most children in Manchester go to their local high school.
Over the past few years one of the interesting results of the interference of central government in local government has been the ability of schools to opt out of local authority administration. The net result of that interference by central government in local government affairs on the education front is that no schools in Manchester have yet opted out. We have had one ballot which was enormously, decisively in favour of the school staying with the local education authority. In Trafford, in contrast, three schools (all secondary modern-type schools) have determined to opt out of local education authority control. Effectively, the parents, staff and governors of those schools have determined that they want nothing to do with the selective system of education. I suppose that that is a mechanism of local accountability, but I am not sure that it is terribly beneficial in supporting the Government's view of the way in which education should be conducted in this country.
Bringing matters onto a higher—or perhaps a wider—level, I know that Members of your Lordships' House have good memories and that quite a number go back a good number of years. I am sure, therefore, that your Lordships will remember the existence of the metropolitan counties which this Government abolished in 1985. One of the interesting things about the metropolitan counties was that because they covered different geographical areas and different urban conurbations each had different problems, and different solutions were available to resolve those problems.
We need look at just one area—waste disposal—which was a responsibility laid upon the metropolitan counties. In South Yorkshire, the waste disposal problem was resolved relatively easily and cheaply because as a result of the abstraction of minerals there were many holes in the ground which could be filled with waste. The Greater Manchester conurbation did not have such a plentiful supply of cheap holes. So the waste disposal authority investigated and developed the conversion of waste into oil. That was coming to fruition at the time when, unfortunately, the metropolitan county was abolished by the Government. That is an example of how two different authorities tackled a problem which had local and distinctive variations.
The last example I give relates to an area where there is virtually no democratic accountability. That is, unfortunately, the NHS. There are two distinct

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communities in the southern part of Manchester. There is Wythenshawe which is the urban conurbation to the south of the Mersey and the M.63 motorway. To the north of that boundary is Withington. They are two distinct communities which form the South Manchester Health Authority. For good reasons, there are two hospitals. There is the Withington Hospital and the Wythenshawe Hospital. The South Manchester Health Authority is currently engaged, and has been for the past two to three years, in effectively closing one hospital and relocating all the services to the other. That is being done in the teeth of local opposition. Every councillor, every MP in the area, and virtually every member of the community, realises that it is a nonsense and wrong for the community of southern Manchester.
Because the health authority is not democratic—it is effectively controlled by Whitehall—the decision is being made in the teeth of local opposition. That will mean that the people who live on the wrong side of the boundary between those two communities will be deprived of a local hospital. Enough of examples.
I shall touch now upon financial constraints. In the mid-1980s local authorities, broadly speaking, could borrow money on the capital markets and raise local revenue through the rates, which were a progressive form of taxation. By that I mean that the wealthier people paid more and the poorer people paid less. Unfortunately, the Government saw fit to interfere with that system of local government finance. Apart from reducing the revenue support grant, the Government introduced first, the poll tax, and then the council tax. Both were capped. They are both regressive forms of taxation, although the council tax is slightly more progressive than the poll tax.
Central government places strong constraints on local government capital borrowing. As a result, local authorities have little flexibility when it comes to raising additional revenue and spending it locally. They are effectively circumscribed by central government in those areas. Consequently, we cannot come to the aid of the Government during this recession. We are currently going through the deepest and longest recession since the 1930s. That is almost as long as living memory. At least, it is longer than my living memory. I am aware that many of your Lordships lived through the 1930s and experienced the horrors of that time.
In the early 1980s the Government instituted policies similar to those which caused this recession and we suffered a similar recession. But in the mid-1980s local authorities borrowed money, raised rates and generated economic activity. That helped pull the country out of recession. We cannot do that now, so the responsibility for getting us out of the recession lies with the Government. They must take action to deal with the problem. One of the ways in which they can do that is by relaxing the existing constraints on local government and relaxing the capping of the council tax to enable local government to raise revenue and capital to spend in productive
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economic activity, rather than by the Government borrowing money to pay people to be unemployed and on the dole.
7.27 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, at the core of the debate is what local government is and what it is for. Local government, the Government believe, says too much; does too much; spends too much; and, above all, is Labour too much. Central government wishes that local government was unnecessary, but even in centralised Britain not everything can be done from Whitehall. Therefore, they believe that local government should function, not as local, and not as government, but as a business enterprise subject to the market discipline and competition—never mind the fact that British business which local government is supposed to emulate is among the weakest in Europe, or that the traditions of public administration that local government represents and is required to abandon, are among the most respected in Europe; never mind that local government, required to function as a business, is being asked to do so without being allowed by the Government the basic rights of any business to plan, to invest, to manage its own financial affairs, to recycle its assets and to respond to its customers. They are skills without which even a winkle stall in Great Yarmouth would not survive the season.
Why not, my Lords? Because the Government insist that local government exists to administer locally the policies that the Government have determined centrally—the Minister said so himself—with as much uniformity, as little discussion and as cheaply as possible. Therefore, democratically elected councillors, as my noble friend Lord Longford said, are rather a nuisance. So, to bring them into line, we have had something like 152 Local Government Acts since 1979. Do councillors spend too much? Then control and cap their finances. Do they do too much? Well, remove many of their responsibilities to central government and quangos and privatise the provision of the rest. Do they say too much? Well, sack them from bodies such as health and water, whose services should interlock with local government and, under the Widdicombe rules, silence their dissent. Is it Labour too much? That is the deepest sin of all. Harangue it; subvert it; ultimately marginalise it.
Perhaps I may explore those points. "It spends too much", say the Government. The Government's first argument in coming into power in 1979 was that local authority expenditure was rising, was out of control and was displacing private-sector investment. Not one of those arguments is true. Local government expenditure as a percentage of GDP was falling while central Government expenditure was rising and, as we now know, was out of control. As a percentage of GDP, local government expenditure is one of the lowest in Europe.
Nor was local government displacing private investment. On the contrary, every job created in local government creates a job in private-sector supply industries. The infrastructure which local government provides—for instance, roads, training and housing

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—is essential to healthy industry. But that did not stop the Government controlling our borrowing or cutting our grant by £25 billion during a decade. Rates rose to compensate for the loss of grant. Had they not done so, rates would have risen by less than the rate of inflation during the period of Tory Government.
So in the mid-1980s the Government moved to their second argument about finance; that central government needed control of local government finance as part of macro economic policies. Again, that argument was revisited by the Minister tonight. They nationalised the business rate thereby ensuring that central government controlled 85 per cent. and not 45 per cent. of local authority revenues. That was an act of supreme folly because at a stroke it broke the link between the business community and local authorities. There was nothing that a local authority could do to improve its business revenues as a result of the Government's nationalisation of the rate, so why should they bother? That was quite perverse.
But still local voters voted Labour so the Government's policy was to make what was left of local revenues even more painful. They invented the poll tax, an Act of such supreme statesmanship that it had to be reversed within a couple of years. By the late 1980s local government raised only 15 per cent. of its money. The Government could therefore no longer argue that it was a burden on the private sector and that it deformed government economic policy. Therefore, they hit on a new argument; that we needed a further centralisation of finance to protect the local taxpayers from the Labour councils which they so foolishly persisted in electing. The Government introduced universal capping based on standard spending assessment criteria. That regarded Kent as more educationally deprived than Barnsley; as Brent having more snow than Cumbria and ignoring unemployment altogether. And as it so happened they each and every year gave more money to Westminster and Wandsworth; one year because Westminster had too many extra people as a result of tourists coming in by day, and the next year because it had too few people as a result of commuters going home by night.
Those standard spending assessments were used to determine not only grant but capping. With capping, the Secretary of State finally overcame the problem of voters electing Labour councils. For whatever and whomever they voted, the Secretary of State would determine what they received. Whatever the majority vote or view only one vote and one voice would prevail; that of the Secretary of State. Whatever people voted for, whatever they were willing to pay for and whatever they were willing to raise from local revenues was irrelevant. Voters, citizens, were to be protected from their own democratic judgment.
As a result, we now have in the field of finance grant fixed by central government; we have the business rate fixed by central government; we have capital borrowing limits fixed by central government; we have housing borrowing fixed by central government; and we have our own local council tax revenues fixed by central government. So much for local government. We see the consequences around us. We see them in housing with social housing starts only a fraction of
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the 100,000 starts per year needed. We see young people sleeping rough. We see families waiting months in bed-and-breakfast accommodation rather than just for the crisis weekend. We see elderly people waiting for the sheltered housing which will never be built.
Meanwhile, the housing stock deteriorates. My own local authority saw its housing allocation cut from £17.5 million to £9 million and can barely repair its own stock. It certainly cannot meet the proper demand for mandatory repair grants in the private sector. As a result, housing stock falls into serious disrepair—probably a quarter has already done so—and we face decades of slum clearance. Those problems are not inevitable. The housing problems were constructed by the Government. They are housing problems which we do not need to have and which no civilised society should tolerate.
As regards social services, we see that community care has been so underfunded that the government chief inspector has to warn local authorities not to tell the disabled and the frail what they are entitled to in case they should happen to ask for it, which would take the counties through their capping limit. My noble friend Lord Parry described educational cuts and my noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris described the effects of the cuts on the arts. Your Lordships will not need me to repeat that. My noble friend Lord Howell mentioned what is happening in sport and my noble friend Lord Bottomley spoke of the effect of the cuts in Cleveland.
In my local authority of Norwich, there were two swimming pools; one outdoor and the other indoor. As a result of the cuts, the outdoor pool has had to close and this year children will not learn to swim. To turn to amenities, the city's glass-houses, which since the 17th century and the Dutch emigres have made the city a garden of flowers, have had to close. There will be no flowers provided by the city on the roundabout nor in its public buildings. As regards economic development, one sees sheltered workshops for children and young people with special needs at risk of closure. That is just in one city.
Why is such suffering necessary? Is our national economy really the stronger because a young man with special needs no longer receives training? Is our manufacturing base really the stronger because an elderly couple do not obtain central heating or sheltered housing? If we cannot answer yes to those questions, as I believe we cannot, the Government have no moral authority to require local authorities to inflict such damage on our services.
But over and beyond the cuts, the controls and the centralisation—that is centralisation of finance and the cuts in services which I have mentioned—a more serious challenge was mentioned by almost every speaker today. It is the removal of local government responsibilities to unaccountable private agencies and unelected quangos. In the field of housing, as was said by my noble friend Lord Williams, while local authorities retain all the statutory responsibilities for housing, housing associations are to be the main providers and the Housing Corporation seems increasingly reluctant to work with local authorities in determining the strategy.

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We could look at education and training. From opt-out schools to TECs, and to the new funding agencies we see the incremental destruction of local educational authorities. We could look at planning. From enterprise zones to UDCs, and to the new urban regeneration agencies, we see the removal of planning powers from local government. Therefore —and this is what it means—the power of local government to ensure that new development benefits the local community in which it is sited. That is to say nothing about the removal of local councillors from health authorities, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Monkswell, at the very time when community care requires that very interconnectedness which the Government have destroyed—or their removal from water authorities or, as my noble friend Lady Hilton so powerfully described, from the police authorities themselves.
Who replaces them? Why, businessmen, of course, thus meeting the three objectives of the Government; they are business methods, government policies and, as the DTI Minister said of the appointees, "never knowingly Labour", in a phrase which will come back to haunt her. One might ask why, if those business skills were so impressive, the country is in the mess that it is and if businessmen have all the spare time why is that not being applied to the rebuilding of British industry rather than to the wrecking of local government?
We have a new unelected magistracy, as so many of my noble friends have said. They are men—they are nearly always men—whose quangos spend more than local government spends in its entirety. There has been a threefold increase since 1979; as my noble friend Lady White said, 160 of those in Wales. There are many in East Anglia and in London.
Gladstone, Chamberlain and Salisbury spent the final quarter of the 19th century coralling the unelected quangos, the improvement commissioners, the health boards, the metropolitan board of works, the school boards and the JP poor law guardians into accountable local government. Why was that? There are two reasons. The first was that they recognised the problem of the democratic deficit. As Margaret Simey has said:
"Of those to whom responsibility is given, an account of their stewardship shall be required".
In a similar fashion, Professor John Stewart said:
"Those who exercise public power in society should be answerable for it because the power does not belong to those who exercise it, but it belongs to the citizens on whose behalf it is exercised".
Quangos are not locally accountable and are not even locally known. After all, they do their damnedest to keep the press out of their meetings in case what they do and say should be scrutinised by the people who pay for them. Without that scrutiny, quangos make poor policy, which is the second reason for bringing them back within democratic local government. By definition they are single service bodies confined to and blinkered by their boundaries. Inevitably each quango seeks to lower its costs by exporting whatever problems it can to others. My noble friend Lady Fisher powerfully described what
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happened with water authorities. They disconnected 21,000 houses last year. Therefore, there was a threefold increase in dysentery and hepatitis. Houses become unfit and families become ill. The bill for housing, social services and health authority rises but so do the water authorities' profits.
In a world of individualised quangos, pursuing their narrow interests and maximising profits, who has an eye to community need and the community interest? If local government does not perform that role, no other body can.
As I said at the beginning, we know what this Government require local government to be. It should be local administration—not local government—by local Tory businessmen (not elected councillors) of central government policies. That is the difference between us as the debate makes clear, although we have heard no arguments to the contrary from noble Lords opposite, apart from the Minister's opening speech.
What do we believe local government to be? We believe that it is a means by which a community defines and meets its local collective needs for those services like parks and libraries, which only the wealthy and worldly can buy for themselves. It also provides those services like travellers sites or special needs housing which only the altruistic and the worldly would provide. It also provides services like planning and policing which only those without original sin do not need.
Local government constructs the social and physical infrastructure of our lives. It helps in part to distribute life chances of the most disadvantaged so that just because you are poor does not necessarily mean that you live in an unfit house. Local government does not have to do all that itself, nor should it. It knits together partnerships with voluntary and commercial sectors but local government is what enables it all to happen.
If the primary function of local government is to define and meet local needs, the second function, in defining those needs and priorities, is a political process. That is the second reason that we value local government: it is about democratic values and enlargement of citizen's rights. As the noble Lord, Lord Prentice, and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, have said, local government represents pluralistic values which extend participatory democracy to, for example, tenants committees, decentralised offices and residents' associations in ways that allow people to own their lives and to become active citizens in their community.
The third reason that we value local government is that, unlike the Minister, we recognise the distinctiveness of local government. Norwich is not Nottingham any more than Cleveland, as my noble friend Lord Bottomley said, is Manchester. Local government is precisely about those local differences. It speaks for its place—whether a mining community, an ageing seaside resort, the Orkney Islands of the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, an ancient cathedral city or a deprived inner borough—as no other body can. Yes, local government has customers for its services and it has constituents when defining needs, but above all it has

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citizens to whom it is accountable and to whom it offers choice. Perhaps the Government need reminding that government is about choice. Central government find it easy to forget that it is about a choice of policies, priorities and service levels. Local government offers that choice to its community. That is why this Motion has been moved today.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, it is one of the great privileges of being in your Lordships' House—and perhaps more so being one of the younger Members of the House—to be present in a debate which has certainly been steeped in history, experience and knowledge. We have heard mention of Herbert Morrison, Clement Attlee and the Labour Government of 1945. The noble Lord, Lord Bottomley, told us of how he became a Minister and secured his job as Secretary of State for the Commonwealth. My noble friend Lord Prentice recounted his experiences in 1945 when he became a local councillor for Croydon. He clearly has a tremendous perspective of how local government has changed over the course of the past 50 years.
The noble Lord, Lord Sefton, guided us through Beveridge in 1944 and Nye Bevan. The noble Lord told us about how the Welsh had built Liverpool. He forgot to tell the House how entrepreneurs had also built it, how free trade had built Liverpool and contributed so much to the wealth which was then lost by Labour local authorities during the 1970s and 1980s.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, told us why she became a Liberal and told us about the rise of Hitler in 1932. That reminded me of why I became a Conservative. That was because of the dark decade of the 1970s when the noble Lord, Lord Howell, was in office. Or was he? His Government abdicated power not to quangos, which are accountable to the Secretary of State and, therefore, to Parliament, but to what became the United Kingdom's national disgrace—the abdication of power to the trade unions which dragged us to the feet of the IMF and, most despicably, led to the Bills on devolution for Scotland and Wales which tried to break up the United Kingdom.
We heard about local democracy and decentralisation. That comes from a party that still has Clause 4 in its constitution and still has a commitment to nationalisation. It is a sham to have heard the noble Lord, Lord Howell, speak in the way that he did. That is why he and his party have been out of office for four consecutive elections; because they have not been forgiven by the people of this country for creating the disastrous economic conditions of the 1970s. That is repeated in every Lambeth, in every Liverpool and every Haringey local authority that is run by the Labour Party.
Lord Howell: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I can only say that most people in this country, certainly in industry, wish that they had a Labour Government at present. In view of what the noble Lord said about nationalisation, will
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he tell us why his party nationalised water without paying compensation, which is something that the Labour Party never would have done?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I believe that the Labour Party are still committed to renationalising it. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, has a very short memory. He complained about local authorities being bombarded by government circulars. That is a bit rich. In the last year of a Labour Government there were 1,873 government circulars issued to local authorities. By 1981–82 that figure had been reduced to 592 and it has stayed at that level ever since.
As to the detail of the controls, I shall give noble Lords some examples of the pre-1980 detailed controls on local government—they include those on appeals concerning bus shelters, bridge restrictions, street lighting and even arrangements for the provision of children's PE clothing. That came by direction of central government and yet noble Lords opposite talk about local democracy and decentralisation: it is all piffle.
Even the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, complained about capital controls on local government being too strict. Let us compare that with the Labour capital controls in the 1970s. Indeed, it was then a very tight squeeze. In the five years spanning 1975–76 to 1979–80 the real terms year-on-year changes in local authority capital expenditure were minus 12.9 per cent., minus 17.4 per cent., minus 21.7 per cent., minus 12.5 per cent. and minus 1.9 per cent. That is the record of the noble Lord's party.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, I do not think that at any time during the 1970s unemployment went above 1.5 million. However, twice during the period of the past 15 years it has been over 3 million. I believe that that says something.
Lord Strathclyde: Of course, my Lords; it was because the Labour Government ran a policy with the trade unions which meant that they were not able to shake out British industry in a most necessary way, which every other developed country was doing at the time. That led to the recession of the early 1990s as has been recognised time and again. I give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me to intervene. He opened his remarks this afternoon by quoting G.D.H. Cole. He has accused us of going back into history but now, as I am sure he recognises, he is himself returning to the 1970s. Can we please get on to the subject of the debate and get back to the 1990s?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I shall get on to the 1990s, but I have sat here listening to noble Lords opposite talking about the golden era of the 1950s, 1960s and the 1970s. I have listened to them and now they will listen to me.
Several speakers talked about the philosophy of local government. That philosophy is central to today's debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, talked about the difference in approach between her party and mine. She said that local democracy should

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come from the ground upwards rather than from central government downwards. I believe that possibly there is an irreconcilable difference between us on the matter. Modern local government is the creation of Parliament. It is for Parliament to decide the powers, functions and responsibilities of local government. The functions of local government are not immutable. There has been an ebb and flow of functions over the years. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, reminded us of our gas, our electricity, our hospitals and our water. They were all local authority functions. But no one really suggested that they should be so again.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, I merely wish to remind the Minister that he told me in this Chamber that local government did not lose those powers.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, local government has clearly lost those powers and no one is suggesting that it should regain so many of them. For example, local government has just lost education; but, at the same time, it has gained care in the community which is a major new responsibility.
It is for Parliament to represent the nation as a whole—elected, if I may say so, by a far higher percentage of the electorate than the 35 per cent. to 40 per cent. that turn out in a good year for local elections—and to decide the role and functions of local government. That leads me on to something else mentioned by the noble Baroness as regards proportional representation. I do not think that we need go into that debate, but it will be interesting to see how the Labour Party dig themselves out of the hole that they have created on proportional representation.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams, accused me of going back in time, but I believe that much of what I have heard today has been out of date. It has been out of date because more and more people on the ground in local government now accept that CCT is necessary and that it has provided much needed improvements. They accept that the "enabling authority" is the model for the future. In May last year, Councillor Jeremy Beecham, the leader of the Labour-controlled Association of Metropolitan Authorities, said:
"Local government should be ready to admit that CCT has brought cost effectiveness and genuine savings that might not otherwise have been achieved".
I suggest to noble Lords that they are also out of date in criticising the state in central-local relations. They do not seem to be aware of the very real progress in that area over the past few years. It is the result of much hard work by both sides to build up co-operation and understanding and thereby create a new understanding relationship. Perhaps I may give the House just a few examples. There are now regular two-monthly meetings between the Secretary of State and the chairmen of the three local authority associations at which problems can be anticipated and defused. At those meetings, the views of local authorities are taken on board at an early stage and in
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an informal way. There are also regular seminars for senior officials from both sides. Moreover, a year ago the Secretary of State and Association Chairmen jointly launched the secondments initiative programme (SIP). That is a major initiative aimed at achieving 140 new secondments between central and local government over three years. Those secondments of executive and policy officers will greatly increase mutual understanding and co-operation and the flow of new ideas and best practice between the two sides.
But the best and most concrete example of successful central-local government co-operation must be the way in which the council tax has been introduced. That allows me to turn once again to the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, on local income tax. The noble Baroness knows perfectly well why this Government regard local income tax as not workable. If taxpayers were required to make the same contribution as they currently do to local services through a local income tax, it would mean either an increase in the income tax rate of four pence in the pound, or £600 extra on an income of £20,000. That excludes all the terrible related problems of tax evasion, the self-employed, local brain drains, and so on. But I am sure that the noble Baroness has thought the matter through.
I turn now to the question of local taxation and business rates, which was raised both by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. The existing system ensures that a very fair and even distribution of the resources is derived from the business rate without placing areas with a high concentration of business at an unfair advantage over others. The Government also seek to protect businesses from excessive burdens. Between 1979 and 1990 the business rate poundage set by the local authority so admired by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, rose by nearly 40 per cent. more than inflation and that, incidentally, was paid by businesses that have no direct vote under the current system. Under the current system the poundage cannot increase more than inflation. If the business rate had not been introduced, business would have paid a full £1 billion more in 1990–91. I see that the noble Baroness wishes to intervene. I give way.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I am most grateful. Is the Minister challenging my assertion that, had government grant remained constant and, therefore, there is no need to raise rates to compensate for its reduction, rates would have risen by less than inflation?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, that is simply not the point; the point is that business rates in the hands of local authorities represented by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, squeezed their businesses to get more money from them. Forty per cent. higher than inflation cannot be something about which the noble Baroness is proud.
In 1990 in the UK, local government expenditure as a percentage of GDP was 11.3 per cent. In Belgium it was 6.6 per cent.; in France 8.5 per cent. and in Germany 5.8 per cent. Clearly, United Kingdom

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expenditure was the highest. The noble Lord, Lord Williams, asked about the lack of co-ordination between the Housing Corporation and local authorities. As the noble Lord correctly pointed out, local authorities are charged with the preparation of housing strategies. These strategies cover not just the need for renovation of its own and private sector stock but also deal with the need for new, affordable housing. I would be most surprised if a local authority were to achieve that aim without close co-ordination and discussion with local housing associations and with the Housing Corporation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, made a heartfelt plea on the question of the disconnection of water. Under the Water Industry Act 1991 water companies have powers to disconnect non-paying customers but they must first obtain a county court order. This gives them the protection of county court scrutiny of the circumstances. In assessing income support and other benefits the increase in water charges is taken into account by reference to the Rossi index. But the point about water is that currently the water companies have to put right decades of under-investment in the water infrastructure of this country. It is that that costs so much money.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, does the Minister not accept the figure I have, which shows that during the past five years water charges have increased by 50 per cent.? Also, does the Minister not accept that many companies in the water industry that were formerly public authorities are now investing in projects in other parts of the world, many of which do not even concern water? Those companies are using the assets of what were former public authorities to increase their profits so that they can increase the salaries of their personnel.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I cannot confirm the figure the noble Baroness gave as regards the increase in water charges. However, I can confirm that when local authorities controlled water authorities the necessary investment to maintain the infrastructure of the water industry was breaking down. We introduced privatisation to solve that problem.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, complained that community care was a dog's breakfast. We have matched action to theory in community care. We are transferring to local authorities all the money the DSS would have spent had the previous arrangements continued. By 1995–96 this will amount to more than £1.5 billion in England alone. To that we have added a further £140 million this year to help local authorities take on their new responsibilities. Incidentally, they were keen to take on those responsibilities.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, asked about the pressures upon local authority funding. The Government accept that partnership with local authorities is vital to secure the health of the arts. For that reason we welcome the fact that the Arts Council and regional arts boards work so closely together with local authorities. While we recognise that currently there are constraints applying to public expenditure at both a central and local level, the
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Government hope that local authorities will continue to recognise that arts and cultural spending represents good value for money. As well as improving the quality of life it has significant economic benefits and can raise the national and even the international profile of an area.
I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, did not listen to my opening speech. I hope he will read it because it concentrates very much on the effect that local authorities have on people and on how we believe that people should control more aspects of their own lives. The Opposition parties talk about local democracy but they have no vision of the future role of local authorities. They can only envisage a return to the tired, sterile and unresponsive provider-centred, municipal socialism of the past. That does not work. It does not work in Monklands and Hackney. It did not work in Liverpool and it certainly does not work in Lambeth. The Government's vision of local democracy involves people having as much influence as possible over the services they receive.
Local authorities will continue to decide spending priorities for huge sums of public money but our aim is that local services should be organised as closely as possible to the consumer. We believe they should be as responsive as possible to the consumer. The Government's vision is of efficient, effective, performance-orientated authorities. We envisage authorities whose performance gains them the respect and the support of their communities. Because of that respect those authorities will be able to provide vitally needed local leadership. The Government's policies are bringing about a revolution in the quality of local services and they are strengthening and deepening local democracy. That is the democracy that is the reality of the many and not just the slogan of the politically active few.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It has been an interesting occasion and I am most grateful to the Minister for his heroic response. I thought he adopted a slightly high tenor in the early stages of it, but nevertheless we much enjoyed his performance. I shall do no more than ask leave to withdraw the Motion. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Disabled Persons (Services) (No. 2) Bill [H.L.]
8.6 p.m.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
For years a number of severely disabled people have received direct payments from local authorities to allow them to buy and organise their own personal assistance services which enable them to preserve their dignity and independence and to live as normal a life as possible. When Westminster discovered this splendid arrangement during the Committee stage of

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the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, the congenital snag-hunters soon went to work and the direct payments were declared illegal. It is high time that matter was put right, and this Bill will do exactly that.
I wish to illustrate the problem by asking each of your Lordships to imagine yourselves as a person who is so severely disabled that you are unable to get up in the morning without someone entering your home to help you. You are unable to get out of bed, to attend to your toilet requirements or to dress yourself and do everything else that is necessary to get yourself ready for a day's work. There are two ways of coping with this state of affairs. The first way is to have the local authority provide you with a personal assistance service. You are not sure which assistant will arrive or the time she will arrive. The assistant may have been delayed with another client and she could not arrive early enough to get you to work on time because local authority employment provisions prevent her from coming at the hours that you would prefer. Nevertheless you just have to put up with that.
The personal assistant who arrives may be the one you do not particularly like and she does not appear to like you. Nevertheless she has to take you to the loo, wash you, dress you, get you up and carry out all those intimate and personal tasks you would prefer to be able to do yourself. However, because of your physical disability you are unable to do so. There are other small tasks you would like to have carried out but that is not possible because they are outside the given remit. You are just one of many and even though you tell the assistant what you want to have done, the assistant is an employee of the local authority and is ultimately responsible to that authority and not to you. There is no doubt that you are not in control.
The other way of dealing with this problem is to receive direct payments from the local authority to enable you to arrange your own care and to choose your personal assistant yourself. In fact, you could have two so that if one is unexpectedly ill and cannot come you have another to call on. You know and like the person who is coming to get you up. If you want another small task done you can just ask and it will be done. If you need to get up particularly early one morning that can be arranged. Most important of all, you know that if things do not work out, you can employ somebody else.
There is no question of negotiation with the local authority. There is one relationship, which is between you and your personal assistant. There are none of those complicated tripartite arrangements which are cumbersome and ultimately unsatisfactory. You are in complete control and you have the privacy, security and confidence of knowing that everything will be done in the way that you require.
I have no doubt that your Lordships, and my noble friend the Minister, would prefer to receive direct payments, which, surprisingly, are cheaper and certainly less bureaucratic. They provide the
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independence which is essential for your Lordships to live as normal a life as possible. That is the essence of that Bill.
This is not a new issue to your Lordships' House. It has been raised on many occasions. Whenever it has been discussed there has been overwhelming support for the proposed measure from all sides of the House. It is eminently in line with the Government's stated community care policy. It is at the heart of empowerment, choice and independence. It gives disabled people real control over their lives. It has also been shown to be cost effective and efficient. Rather than costing the local authority more money, it will produce significant savings.
This is a policy which has been called for by disabled people up and down the land, by local authority associations, by users and professional experts in community care, by the Audit Commission, the Prince of Wales' Advisory Group on Disability, the British Association of Social Workers and the Association of Directors of Social Services.
Such direct payments have been made for a number of years. The proof that they work is out there for all of us to see. A survey by the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation in 1990 revealed that 23 per cent. of local authorities were making direct payments.
It also has considerable support from Government Ministers. Indeed, every time we hear a health Minister speak on the issue we seem to get nearer to agreeing that this is the way forward. The most recent words were from the Minister for Disabled People, Nicholas Scott, during the Committee stage of the Disability (Grants) Bill. He said:
"No one who has stayed in close touch with the work of the Independent Living Fund can be unaware of the importance of cash, as opposed to services, to empower disabled people to have control over their lives".—[Official Report, Commons, Standing Committee A, 25/3/93; col. 52.]
Speaking during the Second Reading debate on the same Bill Alistair Burt said:
"The Government have given careful consideration to local authority payments and we have decided that at this stage it would not be wise to introduce such provision. However, I see no reason for that to be an irreversible decision".—[Official Report, Commons, 15/3/93; Col. 115.]
So what exactly does the Bill propose? It empowers local authorities to make direct cash payments in place of services. It has no cost implications. Indeed, as I have mentioned, it saves money. A person is assessed as needing a given level of personal assistance and instead of providing the services a cash payment is given. The Bill amends the National Assistance Act 1948, which is interpreted by the Department of Health as currently preventing local authorities from making cash payments.
In the Committee stage of the National Health Service and Community Care Act in another place, Virginia Bottomley said:
"Frankly, there is a lack of clarity in the way in which some authorities have been experimenting in what is an innovative but … valuable approach … I shall reconsider the proposal because the issue is complex. The basic commitment is there, and we may table a clearer and more specific amendment when the Bill is in another place". —[Official Report, Commons, Standing Committee E, 22/2/90; col. 1230.]

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However, the amendment never materialised. Previously supportive Ministers said that they had been unable to come up with an amendment.
The final bombshell came when the Department of Health advised local authorities in its guidance that direct payments were illegal. That firm advice is now having repercussions in the community as some local authorities are having to change their direct payment schemes into schemes where payments are made through a third party. That adds unnecessary bureaucracy and administrative costs rise. It is an intrusion into an individual's private life.
Perhaps I could give the case of Mr. A. as an example of the sort of tripartite arrangement the Government envisage in their policy guidance to local authorities. Mr. A. employs the staff and manages them on a day-to-day basis, but the staff are paid by the local authority and are therefore subject to the guidelines and employment practices laid down by that local authority. That restricts the hours they work and the length of shifts. It means that they are ultimately responsible to the local authority and not to Mr. A. It leaves Mr. A in the position where the authority says that he has control but in practice he does not have the flexibility and real control of the direct payments arrangements. He cannot even decide when he goes to bed. The fact that it does not work is hardly surprising.
The Bill would change that and allow the schemes to continue and flourish. The Bill restricts the scheme to people who are in receipt of attendance allowance or the care component of the disability living allowance. They are by definition severely disabled. That was done for two reasons. First, the ability to control one's own cash and therefore one's personal assistance is more critical to someone who is heavily dependent. Local authority services, however excellent, are not geared to providing the high degree of service provision necessary, even though the number of people requiring it is small.
Secondly, it has been done in response to concerns that such provision would open the floodgates, which has always been the way to sink a new idea. The Bill is phrased in such a way that there is no compulsion on the part of an individual to receive direct payments. That is to prevent the scenario arising where local authorities no longer provide services of any kind but simply administer cash, a situation which no one could support.
The administrative procedures are simple. A person requiring services is assessed under the National Health Service and Community Care Act. It will become apparent whether the person wishes to receive direct payments and is capable of doing so. If he is willing to take on the intricacies of employing his own staff that option is open to him.
The proposal is merely an empowering one. The local authority does not need to make a payment to anyone it considers unsuitable. However, research has shown that with support from friends, relations and sometimes social services departments, the success of coping with direct payments brings a considerable sense of achievement and self esteem, often to the whole family. Ann Kestenbaum's Report Cash for
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Care discusses that aspect. It contains the following typical comment from a disabled person in receipt of direct payments:
"It makes us feel in control of our lives. Gives us back the feeling of being people and not a pathetic handicapped family".
That comment was made by a lady with rheumatoid arthritis.
The Bill is modest in its proposals, yet the policy of direct payments has been described as the litmus test of the Government's commitment to independent living. The Bill is eminently conservative in its approach and has the widespread support of all shades of political opinion.
What about its cost-effectiveness? When the costs of the proposal were first considered fears were expressed that they would grow like Topsy, as has happened with the Independent Living Fund. I hope that I have made it clear that the only cost implications are savings. What is proposed is nothing like the Independent Living Fund, which required new money. This is simply a different way of delivering a given level of agreed service provision. A number of excellent publications have shown just how cost-effective direct payments are. The overwhelming evidence is that often a cash payment to someone living in his own home would be much cheaper than a place in a residential care home.
Let us take Mrs. D., for example. She is young and married. She works as a training director and pays taxes. She receives a cash payment from her local authority, makes her own personal assistance arrangements and employs whom she likes and the hours that they work. A place in a residential home would be considerably more costly and it would not give her the flexibility that she needs in order to work, let alone to allow her a proper family life, choosing her friends, when she sees them and allowing her to live a fulfilled and dignified life in the community.
There are a number of reasons why the scheme is cost effective. First, it gives the best value service as it provides exactly what the disabled person needs and not the local authority's view of what the disabled person needs. In a particularly helpful contribution during the Second Reading of the Disability (Grants) Bill, on 15th March 1993, Mr. Alan Howarth, stated:
"Notwithstanding the personal commitment of local authority staff, bureaucracies are always liable to fit the client to the service, rather than the other way round".
He continued by quoting the disabled woman, Elizabeth, who said,
"Yes, sometimes they're very patronising. They're overbearing and they want to do more than I actually need". [Official Report, Commons, 15/3/93; col. 63.]
Secondly, the scheme boosts morale. That was revealed in Ann Kestenbaum's report. I quote one of the disabled people involved who stated:
"If you have a carer you feel safe with, you know your quality of life is better. It opens things up. Your personality changes. You laugh".
Direct payments are a great boost to morale, and having a high morale directly enhances the body's defences against illnesses of all kinds. As a result people have fewer illnesses and thereby save the National Health Service money.

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Thirdly, direct payments reduce costs by circumventing considerable administrative and bureaucratic procedures. One of the direct consequences of the Government's advice on direct payments has been to force some local authorities to make payments through a third party. That creates even more unnecessary bureaucracy. As the country is already knee deep in the thick treacle of bureaucracy we really need less and not more.
One social worker charged with changing a direct payment scheme to an indirect payment arrangement said, "They are paying me to push bits of paper around and set up meetings to sort things out when my time would be far better spent on much needed direct case work. It will probably cost a further £700 a year for the scheme in our authority".
Fourthly, there is also the cost benefit of having one person who is flexible enough to do any of the many tasks that need to be carried out. A fifth reason why direct payments are so cost effective is that the degree of empowerment and flexibility often makes the difference between the person being able to work or not. Many of your Lordships have been sent details of individuals receiving direct payments, and for the majority of them it has meant that they have been able to work and to contribute to society. They also pay taxes which is a very obvious, tangible cost benefit.
An evaluation of the Greenwich Personal Assistance Scheme by Mike Oliver and Gerry Zarb suggests that Greenwich Council could have purchased just under 66,000 hours of home help with its £5 million - plus budget. However, for the same amount the personal assistance schemes could have purchased nearly twice that amount: just over one million hours of home help. Similar comparisons can be made for the employment of care attendants.
I wish to quote from the foreword to the evaluation by Mr. Nicholas Scott, Minister for Disabled People. He states:
"This report on Personal Assistance Schemes in Greenwich shows that as well as being cost effective, such schemes offer disabled people a greater degree of independence when compared with traditional forms of provision".
There is not a single organisation or individual who has experience of direct payment schemes who does not believe that they must be the way forward in the development of independent living for disabled people. The case is overwhelming and the time will come when the necessary empowerment will be put in place. I should rather like it to be this Government which make that empowerment sooner rather than later. That would give a clear message to disabled people that when the Government talk about empowerment, they mean choice, independence and freedom from the shackles of bureaucracy. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord McColl of Dulwich.)
8.24 p.m.
Lord Murray of Epping Forest: My Lords, not only noble Lords but disabled people generally will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, for his
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initiative in bringing the proposal before your Lordships' House. I hope that before the debate is finished, those who like me warmly support the proposal will have persuaded the Government that they too should be grateful to the noble Lord for the initiative.
He has established beyond question the desirability of the proposal in terms of benefits to disabled people; the enlargement of their choice and their control; the enhancement of their dignity; and the benefits to carers—both professional and family carers. Experience under the Independent Living Fund has shown how direct payments enormously improve the relationship between disabled persons and their carers. There are benefits too to the Government, and to the taxpayer, if you like. As the noble Lord pointed out, more disabled people in that situation are able to earn and to pay taxes.
Research and experience have shown that local expenditure in this way is more cost effective. The Kingston research and research by the ADSS has demonstrated that. Therefore I should have thought that the desirability of the proposal would be common ground between the Government Front Bench and the remainder of the House. Indeed, as the noble Lord reminded us, Ministers have recognised that common ground. The noble Lord also stated that the proposal was very much in line with Government and Conservative thinking. I hope that my noble friends will not think less of the proposal for that, in particular in the light of the wide range of supporting opinion of disabled persons' organizations—the ADSS, district councils, the Audit Commission, and so on—to which the noble Lord drew our attention.
With regard to desirability there is no further case to argue beyond that which the noble Lord has argued already. If there were an issue, it turns on the question of practicability. When one considers the range of organisations which support the Bill, one wonders who is opposed to it. Who is opposed to this universally acclaimed proposal? Frankly, the only body that I have been able to find is the Treasury on the grounds of practicability. So far as I can understand, the Treasury has used three arguments to which the noble Lord adverted. I wish to concentrate on those.
First, the Treasury argues that there is a distinction between social service provision for local authorities on the one hand and social security payments for the DSS on the other. But what is the basis of that distinction? At the most, it is a historical convention stemming from the 1948 Act and time moves on. It is a convention which is,
"More honoured in the breach than in the observance".
I hope that I use that quotation in the true sense in which Hamlet used it. The convention has been breached in principle by the availability of local authority payments under the Children Act 1989 to children and families. It has been breached in Scotland by payments by local authorities under the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, to say nothing of the local authority payments, before the Treasury discovered

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them and ruled that they were illegal. As the noble Lord, Lord McColl, documented so well, we know the excellent results of those activities by local authorities.
If that distinction on which we are told the Treasury makes its judgment ever were valid, the wall of principle has long crumbled and it is time that it should now be demolished.
The second argument which apparently the Treasury uses is that it is difficult to decide who should be given the cash payments and who should receive services and that it is difficult to control and administer them. As the noble Lord told us, the basic assessment by local authorities will establish what the needs of the individual are. Thereafter, we suggest that it should be open to the disabled person to opt for cash rather than services in kind, unless he or she is manifestly incapable of doing so. Some people may not be able to do that; some may well not want to. But if they opt for payments, then thereafter they can be made fully accountable, as experience has shown under the Independent Living Fund and in schemes run so far by local authorities. If there is evidence that the person cannot cope or is abusing the scheme, the answer is simple: the payments will be stopped.
However, what I find worrying is that underneath that general attitude and argument appears to be the belief that disabled people cannot cope. Insisting that disabled people must have their support services provided for them by local authorities or by other providing agencies, as opposed to giving them the cash equivalent to buy in the services for themselves, is as little defensible as a decision that people over the age of 70 should not receive their pensions in cash but should be issued instead with tickets for clothing, heating and groceries.
The Treasury's third objection, to which the noble Lord adverted, is that the cash payments would escalate. It reminds us of what happened in the case of the Independent Living Fund. Cash payments escalated, as needs were discovered which no one had previously guessed at. However, as the noble Lord said, this situation is completely different. The cost will be based on assessments; and whether the money is spent in providing services or is paid in cash form, it will be nearly the same with two possible qualifications. First, to the extent that payments enable disabled people to work—and it is shown that in some cases it enables them for the first time to work—then they will pay taxes. Secondly, to the extent that the system is more effective than direct provision at keeping people out of institutional care—and experience shows that is so—then it must reduce the cost to the local authority or the cost to the state.
Therefore the proposal on balance can only save money. It cannot cost more than direct provision. Thus, the taxpayer —nationally, locally or both—would receive a benefit from the Bill. However, I conclude on the point that the fact that the taxpayer would benefit should not be the reason for adopting the proposal. That would be doing the right thing for the wrong reason. We should adopt it because it would enable disabled people to control their own lives. That is right for them, as it is right for all of us.
8.35 p.m.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): My Lords, I wish to give a very warm welcome and wholehearted support to this small Bill to which the noble Lord, Lord McColl, has given such a clear, convincing and comprehensive introduction. It is a small Bill but it will make an enormous difference to the lives of some severely disabled people. It is an issue in which I have been involved for some time, but I shall not repeat what the noble Lord, Lord McColl, said about how we started with high hopes, with Ministers being helpful and hoping that they would be able to change the law with an amendment, to the time when the department issued its guidance. It said that those people who were already receiving direct cash payments were in an illegal situation.
We have taken several steps backwards and it is essential that we now move forward. The noble Lord's Bill gives us an opportunity to sort out the unsatisfactory and muddled situation by empowering, not obliging, local authorities to make direct payments to those very severely disabled people who choose to take over the management of that aspect of their lives. As the noble Lord, Lord Murray, said, it is not everyone who will wish to do that.
There is no doubt whatever about the value of direct payments and the noble Lord, Lord McColl, has already quoted several Ministers in favour of them. I wish to add two quotes. In the debate on the Independent Living Fund on 7th March 1991, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, said:
"the fund … has been a success not least because it has addressed a real need in the community in giving disabled people the opportunity to exercise control over their lives rather than having to submit to choices made on their behalf by experts. It allows individuals largely to choose the nature and extent of the care that they need in order to remain in their homes".—[Official Report, 7/3/91; col. 1504.]
Again, the Minister for Disabled People, when announcing the changes in the Independent Living Fund in November 1992, said:
"The new fund … ensures the continuation of one of the most significant features of the ILF—an element of cash payments to individual disabled people to enable them to control provision of … their care".
However, unless local authorities are empowered to make direct payments, this "element of cash" will have little significance for most disabled people because of the proposed arrangements for the ILF, now to be the Independent Living (1993) Fund. The new arrangements have, I believe, broadened the need for direct payments and added weight to the arguments. I think that it is a new element. Before starting on the new element, I wish totally to support what the noble Lord, Lord Murray, said, in all his arguments that rebutted the Treasury's objections.
Under the proposed arrangements for the ILF, new claimants will look to the local authorities for the first £200 worth of provision which will be in services. Above that, they may apply for up to £300 from the ILF, making £500 in all. The Government's figures show that about 1,500 people will qualify, as opposed to about 6,500 now who receive direct cash payments from the ILF.
For most of those people the ILF money, cash, will only be a small part of their total care package. The

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Spinal Injuries Association reckons that its average care package is worth £300 in all, so it would mean that under the new arrangements £200 worth would be in local authority care and only £100 in cash. That is one-third of the package. I think we can take it that SIA members are among the most severely disabled people, so that most eligible recipients will receive a good deal less; a smaller percentage of cash in the package. It will therefore be impossible to control and design arrangements of care with just one-third cash element and the rest in services.
The Association of Directors of Social Services, the AMA and the ACC have said that it will lead to muddled personal assistance provision. They have called on the Government to empower local authorities to make direct cash payments. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, has already given examples and quotes of the difference that direct cash payments have made to people's lives. I am sure that others will give more so I shall say no more on that, except that people do seem to be healthier and happier. What the noble Lord, Lord McColl, said is very interesting. It is stressful to have a lot of different people coming in and out of your home and doing things to you. The noble Lord spoke of the highly personal nature of this care. I do not think that we should mince around with euphemisms. In the case of tetraplegics we are talking about catheterisation and manual evacuation of the bowel. I think that you should be allowed to choose who invades your body.
Surely this is the answer to the worry about whether recipients will misuse the cash and spend it all on gin, or lie in bed all day. If they did, they would very soon be very ill. They would get pressure sores and urinary tract infections. They would suffer renal failure and would have a very nasty death. So most of all, it is about freedom to do the things that most people take totally for granted: to get up or go to bed when one wants to, to go on holiday or to a conference, or whatever.
When the Member of another place, Andrew Rowe, who has doggedly pursued this issue from the first, went a year or two ago to argue the case with Mrs. Bottomley, he very kindly took me, together with some advisers and a number of very severely disabled people. The only reason why one of the tetraplegics was able to be flexible and rearrange his life to travel down from the North, to stay overnight and to explain the situation to Mrs. Bottomley, was precisely because he was receiving direct cash payments. Otherwise he could not have come here to argue the case. It is illegal.
So the case for direct payments is compelling in its own right. I believe that the new ILF arrangements that are going ahead make it all the more important that it is implemented alongside the new arrangements. Direct cash payments are acknowledged to be the cornerstone of independent living. I urge the Minister to respond positively to this small but crucial Bill and not only give it a Second Reading but wish it well and assist its passage.
8.41 p.m.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, this short but eminently sensible Bill has my full support. My noble friend Lord McColl is to be congratulated on introducing it to the House. I trust that my noble friend the Minister, and the Government in general, will assist its speedy passage through both Houses of Parliament. I can see no reason why not, as it is entirely consistent with the aims of the Government as set out in paragraph 1.8 of their White Paper Caring for People, as giving people a greater individual say in how they live their lives and on the services they need to help them do so.
The principle behind the Bill is already enshrined in law. The Government already make direct payments through the Independent Living Fund and by way of social security payments. Under the Social Services (Scotland) Act children are entitled to receive cash and to make their own arrangements. Also, under the Children Act, local authorities may make direct payments to children and young people. The precedent is already in place. This Bill provides enabling powers; it is not compulsory. The Government appear to trust children and able-bodied people who are in receipt of social security payments. Why do they not trust those who have the misfortune to suffer from a physical disability? I wonder whether, when she responds to the debate, the Minister will answer that direct question. I think it is important.
No additional funding is required under the proposals set out in the Bill. Indeed, as others have already said, it may well reduce costs by cutting out some of the inevitable overheads of local authorities. Giving individuals control over a sum of money will in most cases mean more cost-effectivness in its use.
A few local authorities already pass cash to voluntary organisations for the needs of particular disabled people, after having assessed those needs. The voluntary organisations have to make a small additional charge to cover their costs. The Bill will obviate that requirement and so save money.
I understand that the new Independent Living Fund, as already mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), is already arranged so that the first £200 a week of assistance to the disabled recipient must be in the form of services—services that the local authority are prepared to provide, not necessarily those that the client disabled person sees as most beneficial to his or her needs. However, the balance of benefit to the disabled client may be in the form of cash. That seems to me to be very muddled thinking.
An example of the wisdom behind the Bill is contained in a letter that I received recently. With the permission of the House, I shall quote from it:
"I have a friend who is totally paralysed and can only move her electric wheelchair with a suck-blow device and controls her environment by Possum equipment. Her husband died suddenly and her sons have now married. I was at a case conference with the Social Services and Nursing Services. The Nursing Officer said that it was costing £70 or more each evening when a nurse and an assistant had to come in to put Margaret to bed and deal with her toilet needs, although it took less than twenty minutes. This in addition to all the other elements of care that Margaret needs during the day.

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Margaret was granted funds from the ILF and now has two Scandinavian girls living in who not only deal with all her care needs but also take her out, prepare her meals and do some of the light housework. Her life style is vastly improved and she is much happier and more confident".
I have done a few calculations. The letter quoted a cost of £70 each evening. After making inquiries, I elicited the information that each of the two girls who were employed by Margaret are paid £70 a week. That produces a saving of £350 a week, or £18,200 a year. Totalled with the many other people to whom the same or similar could apply, that will mean quite a large fund.
Arrangements made directly between the disabled person and the carers are far more flexible, as has already been said, and allow a much better quality of life to the disabled person. The Bill, once passed, will allow the disabled person to choose his or her own carers rather than have to accept those provided by the local authority.
Carers often have to perform extremely personal care for the disabled client. It can be most embarrassing for both people, particularly if the relationship is not good. The noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth) has already mentioned that point. It will be much more difficult to arrange to change an unsuitable carer if all the carers are provided for a particular disabled person by the local authority. If the individual disabled person has a grant to spend and can choose his or her own carers, it will provide greater privacy and a more comfortable situation.
I should like to leave noble Lords with one last thought. Let us take a situation where a disabled person—we can call that person Hilary, Francis or Phil, all names that may refer either to men or women, and there are many other similar names—needs to be bathed and toileted, and the regular cover is suddenly taken ill. It is late on a Friday evening and a replacement has to be found quickly. The social services department is about to close down for the weekend, and the local authority clerk on duty does not necessarily know whether that replacement should be male or female. If the disabled person is given a grant and makes his or her own arrangements, that difficulty would not arise. I support the Bill.
8.50 p.m.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I should like to offer my very warm congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, not only on bringing forward this important subject but also on his excellent and comprehensive presentation of the case. I am almost sorry that he did it so well because he has left us with nothing to say except to put in the odd comma, the random dash and possibly the occasional PS. It was a splendid speech. He has the reputation for being a fine doctor. I can only conclude that he may be wasting his time in medicine. Being able to deploy a case as he did, he should be a full-time politician. We are all grateful to him for the case he presented.
I should also like to congratulate Fidelity Simpson who is the adviser to the Spinal Injuries Association. She has provided many noble Lords with splendid briefs. After reading her briefings, there is no excuse
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for anyone not to speak like Demosthenes or Pericles. We should all speak at such an elevated standard that we should want to be here all night.
For me this is basically a simple issue. I shall listen with very great care to the noble Baroness who will wind up for the Government. As never before this is almost a yes and no case. The present position—the illegality of local authorities making cash payments—is an unjust anachronism. There is absolutely no justification whatever for it. It simply has to be removed because it denies to disabled people the cash that they need to control their own lives. It is as simple as that. It is a black and white issue. In my 26 years in the other place I have come across very few issues that have been so black and white and this is one of them. To deny this change is to deny to the most vulnerable in our society the freedom and independence which is most crucial.
We all know that there are some very good local authorities. We also know that there are some appalling local authorities. But whatever the local authority, its provision is bound to be patchy. Even where it is good, the provision will not be what disabled people want because their preference is for cash. Those who apply want to have cash for the services. That has been amply demonstrated.
I was very struck by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth). Those with personal experience of having to ask for things, being concerned about people coming into their homes and dealing with their bodies and coming in at different hours—they are the people who know. People who are severely disabled should not have to beg and plead and negotiate. They should be able to say what they want. They can only say what they want when they pay for it. That makes them masters of the situation and gives them the freedom that we all have. That is why, in my view, this change is absolutely unchallengable.
The noble Baroness who is to reply on behalf of the Government will no doubt have spoken to Mr. Andrew Rowe who has been active in another place. Mr. Andrew Rowe deserves great credit for having introduced a similar measure in another place. He is no extremist. He is known as a moderate Member of Parliament and a very loyal supporter of the Government. Yet he has criticised the Government as "stubborn" for their refusal to support change and has warned of a "bureaucratic nightmare". Those are strong words from a loyal government supporter. I hope that the noble Baroness will take them on board. I also hope that Conservative Members of this House, including Ministers, will endorse Mr. Andrew Rowe's views and press the Government to support the Bill.
I had a very impressive list of arguments against the objections put forward by the Treasury. However, they have already been raised by various noble Lords and there is no point in my repeating them. With regard to accountability, it is quite nonsensical to argue that, if disabled people are given the cash, it is difficult to make them accountable. That is absolute nonsense. There was no problem with the 22,000 payments made from the ILF up to March this year. The simplest and most reliable system of all can be

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used; namely, payments made into separate bank accounts with full access by the local authority to all the bills. There is no question there about accountability. It is total accountability.
The distinction between the social services providing services and social security providing cash has already been dealt with very adequately indeed, especially with regard to the precedents of the Children Act and the Social Work (Scotland) Act. It is absurd to equate with the ILF the increase from £1 million with which it began to £100 million in 1993. No comparison at all can be made with what this system will be when the Bill is enacted—enacted it will be sooner or later, as the noble Lord, Lord McColl, said—because we ask for cash instead of services. That is all. We do not ask for more cash and we do not ask for new money.
I conclude on this point. If the Minister who is shortly to reply, after hearing some more brilliant speeches no doubt, has any doubt about the value of the Bill, I suggest that she heeds the words of disabled people themselves. The people who have been supporting this Bill are powerful organisations such as the Association of Municipal Authorities, the Association of County Councils, the Association of Directors of Social Services and the BMA. But the most important people of all are disabled people—those who are suffering and have practical experience. The noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), spoke tonight with very great authority. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, will also speak with similar authority. What really counts is what disabled people want—not what Ministers or the Treasury want.
I commend to the Minister the words of a lady called Jane Campbell, who is herself very seriously disabled. She attended a meeting with the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and others who support the Bill. I hope that she is not blushing now. Her words are far more eloquent than any that I can use. She said:
"Employing your own personal care assistants places negotiation on a different plane. You are not asking for favours or desperately attempting to change the (statutory) home carers rota so as to enjoy another hour at that party. Instead you are setting your schedule for the day which you know will be adhered to by your employee, with whom you have agreed a one to one contract of employment".
That was the nub of the problem. But then Jane goes on to say:
"Whereas my traditional form of help gave me no privacy and was often loaded with what people thought was 'best for me', I now decide my routines and I feel I have an equal say in how my home and my family life is run. This is, I believe, fundamental to one's dignity and sense of belonging and contributing".
No one could put it better than that. There are many more wonderful sentences in that letter but I have spoken long enough. I want to commend to the Minister this splendid change, admirably proposed by the noble Lord, Lord McColl.
My final message to the Minister is this. Quite a number of us think a great deal of her personally and in her capacity as a Minister. I know that she cannot create policy. She is to some extent governed by the Treasury. But the job of a Minister is to argue with the Treasury and win. I hope that the message she takes
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back tonight is that every speaker in the debate is pressing very strongly—and presumably those who follow will take the same line—in support of the Bill. That is a very powerful message for the Minister to take to the Secretary of State and to the Treasury.
9 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich. I am not at all surprised by his clarity of presentation. He is a professor of surgery. I hope very much that he will be able to make a clear incision in the Treasury's thinking over this Bill.
So many changes have occurred in recent months, with the merging of certain benefits, the changing of the names of benefits and the complicated, long forms which disabled people or their representatives have had to fill in, that many people are now confused. This Bill, as far as I can make out, would cut out some administration and therefore be cost-effective. The people affected by the Bill will be severely disabled and will all have been assessed by their local authorities and therefore will be well known. They will only be the people who want to be responsible and are able to control their own lives.
I should like to give a few examples of the problems that severely disabled people have to endure. A person paralysed from the neck down, without use in his or her arms, will not be able to do their own bowel evacuation, as was said by my noble friend Lady Darcy (de Knayth). The bowel has a very delicate lining and rough handling can damage it. There could also be a problem of infection. The tetraplegic—the person paralysed from the neck down—has to have confidence in the person who performs the evacuation. They need to be compatible. These helpers are people coming in to the disabled person's private home. They must also be honest. Unless there is mutual acceptance of each other, you can imagine the breakdown of trust and understanding. This is a very personal matter, as has been said by several noble Lords.
The Independent on 1st April had an article about a woman who had been left paralysed when a drunken driver crashed into her car 19 years ago. Mrs. Dibdin had to stop teaching physics, stay at home and learn the humiliating realities of local authority care. She said:
"The home help came to me one day when my bed was wet and I asked her to change the sheets. She refused. She said, 'Today is not the day we change the bed linen'. I asked if she expected me to go to sleep in a wet bed. She said, 'Well, I'm not changing it'".
So often disabled people have to wait for strangers to bathe them, shave them, feed them and do all kinds of intimate tasks. If disabled people can hire their own help they can then organise the times to suit their own timetable and maybe that of a husband and children. As has been said so many times, a severely disabled person can mean a severely disabled family.
Even if organisations of, or for, disabled people administer the benefits for disabled people on behalf of local authorities, some of the money will be lost on administration. The fewer people involved, the better it is for the taxpayer whose money it is. The Government have approved care in the community. I

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agree that there should always be monitoring to see that money goes where it should go and is not wasted. I shall listen carefully to what the Minister says because I am a taxpayer. But I also know what indignities some disabled people have to put up with.
The Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, is the Minister for AIDS. Some people who will benefit from the Bill will be suffering from AIDS and in the last stages of the illnesses. The Bill, giving direct payments to clients, would help solve the difficult problem of confidentiality.
I hope that the Minister, who is more understanding of these problems than many people in government, will consider what has been said tonight and will have discussions with her ministerial colleagues, especially those from the Treasury.
9.6 p.m.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, like every other speaker I wholeheartedly welcome the Bill. I support everything that has been said by every noble Lord so far for many reasons, three of them specific. First, I believe that the Bill will enable disabled people to take greater control of their lives, thereby retaining human dignity. Secondly, the Bill will help remove the heightened level of anxiety which occurs when routine changes. Thirdly, the Bill will permit the establishment of ongoing relationships between carer and patient, which are so essential. I shall deal with each of those matters in turn, make two specific points on the Bill and, finally, make an observation on the future provisions for helping a probably increasing number of disabled people in the population.
My knowledge of the subject is nothing like as wide as that of some of the other speakers in the debate. It is, however, based on first-hand personal experience of being responsible for ensuring that the greatest possible amount of dignity, self-respect and confidence is maintained by a stroke victim who, although categorised as disabled, is still a whole, live, intelligent human being with deep emotional feelings and immensely strong awareness, yet unable to communicate other than by facial expression or gestures with the left hand. Disabled yes, but his needs and wants are quite different from those of many other disabled people.
As the noble Lord, Lord McColl, reminded us, Alan Howarth, in another place said:
"We should see support for independent living as, above all, a moral imperative. In a great many cases disability is less a function of physical impairment than a failure by us —family, friends, professionals, society and politicians acting on its behalf—to do as much as we can to enable the physically impaired person to take control of his or her life and to take his or her full place in society".—[Official Report, Commons, 15/3/93; col. 62.]
The Bill deals with "certain severely disabled persons". Sadly, "disabled" is a catch-all term. It is a collective noun of enormously diverse constituent parts. There is a danger of seeking a lowest common denominator solution to an immensely complex problem. The needs and wants of the individual disabled person are as varied as the needs and wants of the individual, able-bodied person. I am sure that practically each Member of your Lordships' House has needs and wants that are quite different from those
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of anybody else's needs and wants. I believe that this Bill provides for meeting the individual needs and wants of the disabled much better than is proposed under the withdrawal of the current situation.
I return to the human dignity aspect. If we can imagine it, let us put ourselves in the body of a person with MS. He suffers the indignity of all questions being addressed through a third person rather like the BBC Radio 4 programme, "Does He Take Sugar?" Under this Bill such a person could employ a person to help and care for him and establish at the outset that MS does not actually mean that he cannot take his own decisions.
Why do people raise their voices when speaking to a stroke victim? Just because a person cannot speak does not mean that his or her hearing is impaired. Under this Bill a stroke victim could employ a person for help and care and establish once and for all that deafness is not a problem rather than having to do it constantly when changing carers or helpers.
Why do we assume that the local authority support services know best when a patient should have his daily bath? As an aside, not all physically disabled people wish to be addressed on first name terms by somebody half their age. Informality is fine but sometimes patients should decide whether or not they are to be addressed in such a manner. It may not seem a major point. Again, it is the human dignity point and one that could be accommodated much more satisfactorily under this Bill.
A stroke victim who has exceptional organisational skills before the stroke does not necessarily lose those skills. Why not allow them to continue to use those skills by organising their own care and health? This Bill would permit that.
The second of my three points was the removal of the anxiety. So often, when a tragedy such as a stroke occurs, there is a massively heightened fear that something else might happen. Time, and the passing of time, become an obsession. If the help or the care does not arrive at exactly the time expected, serious concern, leading almost to a physical deterioration, can occur. If the patient calls the shots, so to speak —in other words, employs the carer or helper directly —the terms and conditions of employment can be agreed and, if not adhered to, as has been pointed out, another helper or carer can be substituted. In my experience, continuity of care with a consistent pattern of timed functions leads to a better situation both for the patient and for the carer. Again, this Bill would provide for that.
The third point which I mentioned is the establishment of relationships. Again, in my experience it sometimes takes a very long time to establish an efficient caring regime, particularly if the patient is a severe dysphasic case. People with communications difficulties present particular problems but problems which, over a period of time, can be understood, albeit imperfectly at times. That type of relationship needs endless patience and certainly requires a continuity of carer; otherwise serious misunderstandings can and do occur. The patient needs to be assisted by someone who is psychologically prepared to invest time in the comprehension process. That can only be achieved by

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choice and agreement—not by the allocation of a carer to a patient. Again, under the Bill, this situation would be helped immensely.
I turn now to specific points raised by the Bill. We are told that there is concern that if moneys were paid direct to patients, there could be a temptation to take the money and not spend it on the provision of help or care. Surely, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, said, that concern could be overcome by the operation of separate bank accounts which would be open to inspection by the local authority. That point should be rigorously pursued. As a part-time banker, I cannot see any reason why it should not work.
However, I have a worry that subsection (3) (c) might prove to be a problem. It states:
"A person covered by this subsection must … have signified to the local authority concerned his consent in writing".
Again, drawing on my personal experience, not every person who is disabled can write. Certain stroke victims who are completely competent to stay in their own homes, provided they have help, are unable to compose words and even unable to hold a pen. I am sure that the clause could be amended to permit those ultimately responsible for the patient (be that husband, wife, son, daughter or maybe the family solicitor) to signify the consent of the patient "in writing". It is a minor point, but I think that it is fairly important.
Exceedingly worthwhile points have been made this evening—points that all of us should take on board. I am sure that the Minister is doing just that. Our general level of knowledge of the needs and wants of the disabled is uneven at best and, indeed, worrying at worst. With the possibility of an increasing ageing population, we are likely to have an ever-increasing number of disabled people. These people have every right to as good a life as possible and we must be aware of our responsibilities in this area.
Our responsibility as a nation is not necessarily to provide more nursing homes; it is to ensure that as many people as possible can live in their own homes, surrounded by their well-loved possessions, and be given the dignity of ultimately being responsible for themselves for as long as possible.
I fear that our attitude towards this situation is often one of fire-fighting rather than fire prevention. Have we really thought through the financial implications of an ever-increasing number of disabled? How many cases are there of disabled people being put in nursing homes, financed by the Government and local authorities, when if even half the amount of what it costs to fund such a transfer were paid direct to the patients, they could stay in their own homes and buy their own care and help services?
There are also many people who put themselves in a difficult financial situation by providing live-in care for a disabled person because they want their loved one to stay at home for as long as possible. Other European Community countries have a more enlightened approach and permit such payments to be offset against tax. Perhaps that is something that we
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should consider in the longer term. As I said at the beginning, I welcome this Bill. I wholeheartedly support it. I hope that the Government will also.
9.17 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, as has been said, the Bill has received so much support tonight from all sides of the House that it is hard to find a voice or argument against it.
We have also heard the voice of the clients—of the disabled themselves. As one young woman said who briefed us only a short while ago—I hope that she will allow me to quote her:
"Direct payments have turned my life around".
At core, that meant that services were fitted to her needs rather than she being fitted to the needs of the service. It meant that she could hold down a full-time job as a training director travelling to workshops across the country. She said that she had discovered for the first time what is meant by "spontaneity"—the ability to stay on at a party or to go out on the spur of the moment without having to negotiate with the statutory providers whether it was convenient for her to do so. It meant that she could take on wider obligations and, for example, become involved with voluntary groups. Another disabled woman (middle-aged and with her own helpers) could, for the first time, care for her 80 year-old frail mother. Therefore there is a sense that disabled people can contribute back to the community as fully as in the past they have been dependent on it.
The new provisions mean also that, as the noble Lord, Lord McColl, said, disabled people can be confident that their intimate medical history and details of their life are known only to those whom they choose should know them—those employed—rather than the large, inevitably rather random succession of people coming from the local authority and offering different aspects of care but backstopping for holidays, sick problems and maternity leave.
As one young disabled man said, "Social services can send you anyone they like, whether you like them or not. I get worn out by it". A disabled person employing his own personal assistants means that he has control over their tasks and functions. It means that we can offer flexibility. They can do a wide range of tasks. They can interlock with informal and unpaid caring and not have the inevitable demarcation of tasks associated with statutory services: here a putter to bed; there a district nurse; and here a home help; and there meals on wheels.
Above all, the Bill would permit autonomy. "If someone else employs the help for you", said another disabled woman, "it is like turning your own home into a residential home". "But with direct payments", said a young woman called Maria, "it means that I can get up in the morning when I want to; go to bed in the evening when I want to; go out when I want to; and lead the kind of life that I want". Those are all things that we take for granted, and for which disabled people depend upon others to help with. Maria added that to her friends, it meant, "I am me, rather than someone who needs help".

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There is Catherine, who was quoted by the Rowntree Trust. She was told that she could have mobility help from social services in the 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. slot. It was not whether she wanted or needed it, that was what the department could provide. As another ILF client said, "If you are paying for it, you can get what you want".
I speak as someone who was, for a number of years, on a county council social services committee. It is inevitable that if one is employing staff to put people to bed, some people have to be put to bed at 8.30 p.m. Not everyone can be put to bed at 11 o'clock, even if that is their choice. That is the way one has to organise a statutory service efficiently. None of us would want that for ourselves; we should not want it for the disabled.
We can understand therefore that disabled people, especially those with spinal injuries, should want the power represented by the Bill; but, presumably, it is resisted by the local authorities. After all, it is their money. Do they not want the close control that services in kind permit? Are not local authorities so committed to bureaucracy that they are reluctant to see this diffusion and dispersal of power? On the contrary, once professional assessments have been made, and efficient accounting arrangements are put in place, local authorities much prefer to be able to offer direct payments where appropriate rather than services in kind.
As one director of social services is quoted as saying in the ILF's recent report, direct payment allows, "personal brokerage". Another county director of social services said that forbidding payments in cash was:
"a backward step away from self-care management".
Why do local authorities support the proposal? It reduces bureaucracy and dependency. Social services directors are the first to be uncomfortable with requiring disabled people to wait in line for their getting up and their going to bed when there are better ways of doing it. Noble Lords made the point eloquently that there are also directors of social services who are rightly influenced by considerations of cost.
We were told by the director of Kingston social services, which like other local authorities had got around the problem by setting up a trust, that he estimates that in Kingston and Greenwich it would cost about £55,000 a year to support eight severely disabled people in the community, but it would cost 10 times that to support them in residential care.
Even if those disabled people were not in residential care, services in kind, handled by expensive professional social work staff, inevitably carry additional costs. I was talking to social worker friends at the weekend. A typical social worker, specialising in disabled clients, might have a caseload of 30 to 50 such clients. Her time, at £25 to £30 an hour, is spent supervising half a dozen accounts: the getting-to-bed accounts; the home help accounts; the laundry service accounts; the day care accounts; the taxi accounts, all of which a disabled person requiring 20 hours help a week might need. That, she calculated, would add £20 to £30 per week to a service bill of £100.
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The noble Lord, Lord McColl, forcefully made the point that all research shows that it is up to 50 per cent. cheaper to allow disabled people to administer their needs for themselves and to have the services that they want rather than the services that they are told they need. Can they cope? Usually, yes, they can. But if not, one can devise an imaginative new scheme such as that which Norwich has set up. It is the independent living project within a trust fund financed by Norfolk social services. It will help up to 40 severely disabled people to handle their own accounts, to employ their own staff and to become skilled in financial advocacy.
This comes with the support of the director of social services; it comes with the support of the BMA; it comes with the support of the British Association of Social Workers; it comes with the support of the Audit Commission; and it comes with the support of the local authority associations. As was said tonight by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), the sad demise of the old independent living fund, and the still questionable arrangements for its successor funds, makes local authority direct cash payments even more desirable so that ILF and local authority resources can be most effectively integrated.
So where does the opposition come from? Clearly, the disabled want the legislation as do the professional and local authority organisations. Does the opposition come from the Government? As was said by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, Mrs. Bottomley has made it clear in debates on the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 that this was an innovative but in the right circumstances a valuable approach. She indicated that the basic commitment is there. But so far it is not.
So where is the hostility to the legislation coming from? Tonight noble Lords have fingered the Treasury. After talking with colleagues, as one does, I realise that they must be right. Apparently the Treasury are arguing that since the National Assistance Act 1948 local authorities provide services and the DSS provides cash and to transgress those boundaries is improper. That is all very well except that the boundaries are transgressed whenever it is thought convenient by the Treasury to do so. Noble Lords have given many examples but perhaps I may give a few more. Children leaving the care of local authorities can receive one-off payments from local authorities. Health authorities regularly make direct payments. Local authorities regularly give cash to a range of voluntary organisations which help disadvantaged and disabled people. Above all, every week of the year local authorities make cash payments to foster-parents for the care of children without any of the apparent anxieties about gambling, spending sprees, and so forth, about which we have heard from the Treasury.
The second argument which the Treasury appear to be employing is that of accountability. Is it really believed that disabled people who have the greatest interest in seeing that the money is spent wisely will be profligate and casual with it? After all, as my noble friend Lord Ashley rightly said, it is simple to set up ring-fenced bank accounts together with a dipstick monthly check of time sheets, pay slips and tax forms.

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In 1990 RADAR's survey showed that of the 65 local authorities which responded, two thirds were making payments directly or indirectly to disabled people. But because of the Government's, so far, folly most of them were having unnecessarily to launder—and I use the word advisedly—that at extra cost and extra bureaucracy through a holding trust. That is daft.
I am still trying to puzzle out the Treasury arguments. I have come up with a third argument which is still more cynical and which has not been mentioned tonight. I fear that it may be another reason why the Treasury are resisting this move. It is that the Treasury believes that cash payments are more visible than services in kind. Therefore they would be harder to cut, alter, rearrange or withdraw than services. It is that degree of disability and the difficulty of constraining or cutting payments should needs change that the Treasury seems to believe that local authorities cannot cope with in their relationships with local people. I hope that the Minister can deny that that is the Treasury's view. If it is its view, it is extremely cynical. I hope that I am wrong.
Perhaps I may make some comments in case that is the Treasury's view. First, the number of people who might receive cash payments as opposed to services is quite small. For example, in my own city of Norwich there are about 12,500 disabled people in a population of about 120,000, or about one person in 100. Only one-tenth of those under the age of 65 are receiving home care. That is about 1,000. And only one in 10 of those—103 to be precise—are severely disabled and receiving help from the ILF. Therefore, the potential client base is quite small and defined. The Treasury's fears about the explosion of cost and the cash kind implications are not well founded when one considers the substantial budgets of local authority social services departments.
Secondly, I suspect that the group which is most likely to benefit may well be younger people with spinal injuries. As I understand it, their medical condition is not that likely to fluctuate. Their needs are not that likely to change. Therefore, the need for the local authorities to adjust the cash package is a fairly remote possibility. Certainly, I cannot conceive that the individual client would resist that were that adjustment necessary. In trying to gather information over the weekend and today, I discovered that of the half a dozen or so local authorities which make direct cash payments, none has had any problem if it has needed to adjust the cash payments in the light of changing circumstances. I have no information that the ILF has had any problems, either, in that regard. After all, at the end of the day we are talking about a power and not a duty. The local authorities are in the best position, in consultation with disabled people, to make those judgments.
I hope that if local authorities believe that direct payments may save money, as they do, and that they will immeasurably improve the quality of a few people's lives, which they will, then their professional and financial judgment should be respected.
As another client, Jack, said, "I am a husband, a father and a breadwinner and 10 years ago I was in an
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institution where I could not even decide when I would go to the toilet". Or, in the words—more effective than those which I could use —of Peter Large of the Disablement Income Group, "This Bill means the difference between a life in which most of your choices are made by others, and a life in which you can mostly choose for yourself". I commend the Bill to the House.
9.33 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, the expertise and knowledge of your Lordships' House on this particular subject is recognised as being unparalleled. I should like to begin by thanking my noble friend Lord McColl for bringing this Bill before the House and allowing an informed and considered debate. My noble friend is extremely knowledgeable, having served as vice-chairman of the Disablement Services Authority as well as being closely involved in a number of organisations for disabled people.
For reasons that I shall outline later, I regret that the Government are unable to support the Bill this evening. I know that your Lordships will be deeply disappointed and I feel doubly sad because your Lordships have been so generous this evening. Perhaps this is the moment at which your Lordships should shoot the messenger. However, the Government's response will come as no surprise to my noble friend. I should like to pay a tribute to him and to the honourable Member for Mid Kent for their ingenuity in framing this Bill. It anticipates many of the objections which might have been raised against it—but alas, not quite all of them.
I must also thank other noble Lords who have brought weight and authority to this debate. Many, such as the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Darcy (de Knayth) and Lady Masham of Ilton, speak both with personal experience; other noble Lords, although not disabled, are closely involved with this subject and are energetic champions for the disablement lobby.
The effect of this Bill is to amend the National Assistance Act 1948. This was an important Act which laid a foundation for much of what survives today. However, since then we have seen a great change in attitudes to disability and disabled people.
Quite properly we have seen disabled people claiming rights for themselves: rights to live their lives independently and with dignity; rights to succeed or fail on their own merits, rather than on the basis of other people's perceptions of their abilities, or worse their disabilities; rights which others take for granted —for education, employment, leisure; or simply rights to live an ordinary life, in an ordinary setting shared with family and friends.
These rights have been won incrementally. Part of the credit must go to your Lordships' House, and to Members in another place, for forcing debate and bringing forward legislation which has helped move these issues forward.
No one could pretend that there are not more victories to be won. Society does not change that quickly. Even now there is a Private Member's Bill

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before another place, which seeks to ensure an end to discrimination. Again, though we disagree about the methods, I can assure your Lordships that the Government are in agreement with the aims of that Bill. Discrimination benefits no one. People have rights and those rights must not be ignored.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently published a report by Dr. Jenny Morris about people's experience of direct payments from the Independent Living Fund. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, picked some of the examples that she gave the House this evening from that research. The research found that some disabled people resented the attitude of some social service authorities which treated disabled people as recipients of charity. If disabled people feel this, then something is awry—not with the notion of statutory services, but with the way that they are delivered. The day of the passive recipient of care has passed. Services are there to serve. That means treating people as individuals with legitimate expectations of quality, rather than as lucky beneficiaries of public munificence.
Those are issues which the community care Act seeks to address. We fully support the aim of enabling disabled people to live independently and to exercise choice. We wish to give local authorities freedom and flexibility to meet those choices in innovative ways and to see disabled people placed at the centre of decision making.
The new Act is based on the conviction that people who are receiving care are entitled to say what support they would like, and that those views are given the weight that they deserve. Personal assessment, which is the bedrock of the reforms, must be a joint exercise carried out by equal partners.
Wider choice means increasing both the range of services, and the variety of organisations which supply those services. Authorities in England are obliged to spend the majority of their special transitional grant on services provided by other people. That should stimulate innovation and encourage agencies which are imaginative and willing to pioneer new approaches.
But the new arrangements for community care do not exist in a vacuum. Disabled people also have long-standing rights under the social security system. The Government have a good record on benefits. Spending has trebled over the past 14 years and currently stands at £14.9 billion. This year alone we plan to spend an extra £300 million over and above inflation, to help around 850,000 disabled people.
Currently, 149,000 people receive invalidity benefit. That is the major long-term benefit for people who are incapable of work. Moreover, 320,000 people receive the severe disablement allowance. That is more than twice the number who received it in 1978–79. Over 430,000 disability living allowance awards have been made and 235,000 people have gained from the introduction of the new rates. In 1992–93, 287,000 people received both components of DLA. When it is fully established, we expect 50,000 people to receive the disability working allowance at any one time.
The Independent Living Fund was set up in 1988 as an interim measure, pending introduction of the new
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community care arrangements. However, its success which was highlighted by your Lordships tonight has encouraged us to retain a fund to help those who are most severely disabled. The key strength of the ILF was that it could give cash, giving disabled people greater independence to determine how best to meet their own needs. It is right that that should be carried forward into the new arrangements.
The fund will operate in partnership with local authorities and will provide an additional option for the most severely disabled people. We expect that, each year, around 1,500 people will get a cash payment from the new fund as well as help from their local authority. Total funding for the new independent living arrangements—including the extension fund which will continue to help clients of the old ILF —is around £161 million. That is a massive increase from the expenditure of £1 million five years ago when the ILF started.
The noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth) suggested that the new ILF arrangements will mean that a smaller percentage of the package will be given in cash. Under the old ILF regime clients also received a mixture of services paid for by the local authority and cash from the fund. The new scheme shifts the balance of support but ensures that in future the two parts of the package are brought together so that the client receives a coherent package of care agreed jointly by the disabled person, the local authority and the new fund.
My noble friend Lord McColl, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hollis and Lady Darcy (de Knayth), and many other speakers spoke of the importance of people being able to choose their own personal care assistant to carry out what the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, described as intimate tasks. The noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, also spoke movingly of the importance of human dignity.
Local authorities are free to contract with anyone for the provision of care, including individuals acting as personal assistants. When the care plan is drawn up between the disabled person, the local authority and the ILF we would expect the local authority to make sure that the disabled person had as great a say as possible as to who is to be employed to provide the care. There is no reason why a care assistant should not be personally chosen by the disabled person.
The Government are doing a great deal, both through reforms to social services provision and through the benefits system, to ensure that people receive the support and care they need to live independent and fulfilled lives. That is right and proper. But this support comes from two sources: local authority social services departments on the one hand and the social security system on the other. Both have important roles to play and to a great extent they work to the same end, supporting an individual in the community. However, they are different roles. I hope that that picks up the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Epping Forest. Social services departments arrange exactly that—services. The Benefits Agency provides cash benefits. It is the business of the social security system to provide cash to support individuals in need. It is not the business of

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local authorities. They are providers, enablers and facilitators of care services. It would be difficult for them to manage a general system of cash payments, including defining eligibility, and to carry out the necessary monitoring to keep control over public funds.
Social services authorities do not work like the social security system. The concept of simply trying to match a cash amount to a particular set of needs is at odds with the idea of a flexible response to individual circumstances. There is a real danger that all that would be achieved is the creation of a separate social security system within social services, with its accompanying rigidity. That in turn would restrict authorities' flexibility to meet local needs and their ability to obtain value for money for all the people they serve. The payment of cash to individuals is not a responsibility that we think it right to add to authorities' already very full agendas.
I hope I have made it quite clear, however, that we support the view that disabled people should not be passive recipients of care but should be in control of decisions about their lives. The new community care arrangements are designed to facilitate exactly that. There is no reason, for example, why disabled persons should not take on the day-to-day management of their carers if they wish to do so, or to help to choose them in the first place. Many already do this and it could quite easily be written into contracts with care providers.
My noble friends Lord McColl and Lord Swinfen and the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Epping Forest, argued that disabled people get better value for money from direct payments. I do not doubt that in individual cases disabled people may be able to use money more effectively than certain authorities, but we need to look not only at the particular but at the overall effects of making direct payments part of the social services system. In our view there is a risk that over time they will lead to a degree of inflexibility and will adversely affect authorities' ability to match their resources to all local needs, not just those of people receiving direct payments.
The noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), gave compelling and practical examples as to why direct payments mean independence. It is important to distinguish between direct payments and care in the community. Of course a disabled person who is supported to live in his or her own home is more independent than someone in residential care. But people can and do achieve that independence without the need for direct cash payments.
The noble Lord, Lord Murray, mentioned direct payments in Scotland. Local authorities in Scotland do have a power to make cash payments, but it is a limited one. Cash payments may be made only in an emergency and where that would be cheaper than some other form of assistance or where aggravation of the individual's need would cause greater expense to the authority on a later occasion.
My noble friend Lord Swinfen, the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Darcy (de Knayth) and Lady O'Cathain, asked why the
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Government do not trust disabled people. I am glad to be able to say that our disagreement with the Bill is not because we do not trust disabled people. There is no reason to think that disabled people should be any more or less capable as a cross-section of society than any other. If the Government held the belief ascribed to us, we would not have a range of benefits for disabled people nor the 1993 Independent Living Fund. We do not fear that disabled people would misuse direct payments. What we fear is rather that the introduction of regular, direct payments into the rest of the social services framework will tend to imbalance arrangements and make it more difficult for authorities to discharge their other functions.
There is a great deal of agreement between us this evening. Disabled people have a right to live the ordinary, straightforward, independent life that so many of us take for granted. They cannot, must not and will not be denied that fundamental right. I believe that we are at one in our objectives; we simply differ in our estimation of the most appropriate and practical means of achieving them. Our community care reforms are all about independence. They have only just begun and it will take some time for us to see all the benefits that they will bring, but those benefits will come and individuals will receive the coordinated, high quality and appropriate care they need, want and deserve.
9.47 p.m.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I should like to thank all those who have taken part in the debate tonight. The contributions have been absolutely splendid. I feel a little sad that the Treasury has taken such a bashing. Whatever their faults the staff of the Treasury are highly intelligent people and I am sure that they would not have made the mistake of thinking that the condition of severely disabled people improves very much. Therefore, I am sure that they would not take the cynical view that it would be difficult to change the amount of cash provided because of improvements in the condition of a disabled person.
I should also like to echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, who thanked those outside this Chamber who have made such a contribution. I am thinking particularly of Fidelity Simpson who has been a tremendous help in all our endeavours.
Finally, I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Bicycling
9.48 p.m.
Lord Marlesfordrose to ask Her Majesty's Government how they propose to maximise the environmental, public health and cost benefits of bicycling as a means of personal transport in Britain.
The noble Lord said: My Lords I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

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When I put down this Question I did not realise that so many of your Lordships take an interest in cycling. Indeed, a number of other noble Lords who have been prevented by other engagements from being here tonight have expressed support to me for the cause of maximising the environmental, public health and cost benefits of bicycling.
I must report that there was some surprise and disappointment among the cycling community, which incidentally is most capably represented by the Cyclists' Public Affairs Group, that our own Transport Minister, my noble friend Lord Caithness, did not choose to reply to the debate.
However, unlike Lord Randolph Churchill, the Government have not forgotten Goschen. I have been able to reassure those outside the House that the decision that my noble friend, as a non-departmental Minister, should have been selected to reply underlines, I hope, the Government's recognition that bicycling is a wide-ranging issue which covers environmental, health and economic questions as well as transport. I have, of course, given my noble friend notice of many of the points that I intend to raise so that we may receive a comprehensive and satisfying reply.
I must, I fear, say at once that Britain's 15 million cyclists are not at present in a contented mood. They feel neglected, and even treated with contempt, by the Government. Indeed, I think that it would not be an exaggeration to say that their situation is not unlike that of disabled people 40 years ago. I suspect that some of us who are old enough to remember him wish that Ernest Marples, the last Minister of Transport who showed that he really cared about bicycles, were with us today.
That was 30 years ago. It was the time when Sir Colin Buchanan in his watershed report, Traffic in Towns, proposed as a fundamental principle the need to separate pedestrians from road traffic. I believe that the overriding need today is to separate bicycles from road vehicles. That is the only way in which the safety of both cyclists and motor vehicles can be improved. It is the only way in which the mutual antagonism between the two can be minimised. It is the means by which the greater use of bicycles can be achieved.
Few of our towns and cities were designed for either cycles or motor vehicles. Yet for years huge sums of taxpayers' money have been spent to redesign them for cars, often with catastrophic effects on the environment. When I refer to huge sums, that is what I mean. The one mile plus (1.8 kilometres) of road for the Limehouse link between Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs was contracted to cost £171 million. The latest estimate is £251 million. We all know that it is simply not possible to accommodate the free market demand for road traffic, especially private cars. Sooner or later we shall have to have road pricing.
Bicycles could have a huge role to play in reducing, or at least containing, traffic congestion. A large proportion of car journeys could be made by bicycle. In London 60 per cent. of cars carry only one person; 66 per cent. of car journeys are less than five miles, and 80 per cent. are less than four miles. In Amsterdam they have tried to accommodate the cycle, with great
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success. In Athens they have not. There are virtually none to be seen. I was there two weeks ago, and the traffic is a stinking disaster.
The evidence is that the Department of Transport has no proper plans to increase bicycle use. Do your Lordships realise that when traffic surveys are carried out the cyclists are not even counted? Can we believe wholeheartedly that my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport understands the environmental contribution that cycling can bring? Only last week he was asked in another place to list his environmental plans and achievements. He mentioned catalytic converters. That is good. He promised another £15 million to encourage the use of buses. That is good too. I then eagerly scanned Hansard for Mr. MacGregor's reference to cycles. It was in vain. His next reference was—wait for it, my Lords—the production of The Wildflower Handbook. I fear that I was reminded of the immortal words of Harry Lime and the Swiss cuckoo clock!
Therefore, what can and should be done? Let me say that I do not advocate additional expenditure. I am recommending a modest shift in resources. Treasury, please note!
First, the Department of Transport specifications should be changed so that all new road schemes are designed to take account of the need and potential of bicycles. Secondly, I should like to make it mandatory to include cycling in all traffic surveys, if the results are to be used to persuade the Government to spend public money on new road schemes. Thirdly, I wish to increase the provision of cycle lanes, especially in towns. Inevitably, that must mean some re-allocation of space away from private cars. Bus lanes, which are normally shared with bicycles, are a good thing and there should be more of them. It would be cost effective to put cycle lanes down the left hand side of many one-way streets where car parking is at present allowed on both sides. I also believe that the Department of Transport should at least investigate a proposal which I made earlier for a cantilevered wooden cycle shelf along the Thames from Chiswick to Wapping.
Fourthly, I believe that there should be hollowed out cycle tracks along the sides of many urban underpasses which do not have them. It is relatively cheap, they do not need to be the full height of the underpass and there would be few structural problems. A barrier would protect the cyclists from the motor traffic.
Fifthly, let us try to convert more wide pavements to shared use with pedestrians. That is a point which the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, would have mentioned, had he been able to attend the debate. I am glad that the long awaited report from the Transport Research Laboratory, published last week, says that there is much scope for increased shared use. I would just like to quote the conclusions of the Transport Research Laboratory, the Ministry of Transport's own outfit:
"The extensive observations made during this project have disclosed no real factors that justify exclusion of cyclists from pedestrian areas and indicate that cycling can be more widely permitted without detriment to pedestrians. It is important not to exclude cyclists from pedestrian areas and force them

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to use dangerous alternative routes. There are a wide variety of appropriate and satisfactory solutions (in terms of design and regulation) the choice of which will vary from place to place, and depend on local circumstances".
Curiously, the Department of Transport does not seem to have made any effort to publicise that important and encouraging news.
Sixthly, in London, could we give the Director of Traffic the same responsibility for the 1,000 mile strategic cycle route network that he already has for the Red Routes? Incidentally, even the Government do not know how much of the strategic route has already been completed. The best private bet is that it is 125 miles and most of that already existed before the Government made the 1,000 mile target their own policy five years ago. At that rate, few of us will be around when the 1,000 miles is complete.
Seventhly, tying in with the earlier point, I think we should review the cycling policy in the Royal Parks. Eighthly, I must mention safety although I know that others will go into it in more detail. My noble friend Lady Brigstocke is sorry that she could not be here tonight but she is most anxious to know what the Government intend to do to protect school children. Ninthly, let there be appointed a senior official—by which I mean someone like an Under-Secretary, Grade 3—in the Department of Transport to an interdepartmental committee, with an outside chairman, to recommend to the Government improvements in facilities and safety for cyclists in towns. That would probably need to be followed by a cyclists' unit to implement the plans, rather as there is already a disability unit in the Department of Transport. Finally, let there be nominated a Minister to see that there is action over the next three years.
In conclusion, I must point out something that may—just may—have escaped Ministers. Cyclists have votes—I do not know how many, but let us cautiously assume that for one-in-five of the 15 million cyclists cycling really matters. That makes three million votes, which is of more than marginal importance in any general election.
I hope that the Opposition parties will produce cycling proposals which will set the pace for government action. I expect to hear more about them tonight. Obviously, I hope that my own party wins this particular race and, of course, I have total confidence in my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport. I wait to hear from my noble friend that the Government are under starter's orders.
10.00 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, before I begin, I should like to ask your Lordships' forgiveness if I leave before the end of the debate. I have not been very well recently, though I am recovering now. Also, I was up until 3 a.m. taking part in the Committee stage of the Education Bill.
Noble Lords might have expected that I, as a doctor, would devote most of my contribution to the health aspects of cycling, both positive and negative. I shall not disappoint them. I put forward two additional claims to speak in this debate on the Unstarred Question. I am a cycling and a car-driving
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doctor, and, similarly, a cycling and car-driving Peer, when wearing the hat that allows me to speak in this House—not, I venture to add, that I ever attempt to cycle and drive simultaneously. I think that the health aspects of doing that would be somewhat catastrophic, both for myself and for other road and pavement users.
Measurable benefits to health result from regular moderate-to-vigorous exercise. They have recently been clearly spelt out in very well documented reports by the Royal College of Physicians and, before that, by the British Heart Foundation. There are plenty of other reports and papers which testify to that fact.
The health gains are particularly apparent in physiological measures which are relevant to arterial health and coronary heart disease, which is our number one killer. The effects are: a lowering of blood pressure; a lowering of low density cholesterol levels in the blood—that is, the cholesterol fraction associated with atheroma, which is the build-up of fatty plaques in the arterial wall that cause narrowing of the artery; an increase in high density cholesterol—the fraction of blood cholesterol that appears to mop up loose low density cholesterol and other factors which damage arterial walls, such as the latest villains called free radicals. I would not know which Peers in this House might be both free radicals and villains. It would perhaps not be appropriate to name them.
Regular exercise also helps people to lose weight, not merely through calories being used up in the exercise itself, but because the basal metabolic rate is increased even after the exercise is over. Weight is shifted from fat to muscle, giving a better physique and greater ease in daily tasks involving muscular effort. The body's insulin sensitivity is increased, thus resulting in less liability to late-onset (Type II) diabetes, itself a cause of arterial heart disease. There is also evidence that exercise is good for mental health. It leads to a greater sense of well being and relaxation.
All exercise is better than none, but it must be reasonably regular. Half an hour of fairly vigorous exercise three times weekly makes a measurable difference to health. By "vigorous" is meant: fast walking; serious swimming—not just going down the flume; jogging; rowing; competitive sport; sawing wood; shovelling earth; and, of course, cycling. There are numerous other ways of undertaking aerobic exercise, including dancing; but to do good they should make one slightly breathless and should double one's resting pulse rate.
The main advantage of cycling as an exercise is that it is partially non-weight bearing, so that it does not cause wear and tear on joints, unlike a number of other forms of exercise—I do not refer to swimming, which is, of course, par excellence the one for that.
The other main advantage of cycling is that it has uses other than simply for keeping fit. I am sure that, like the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, other noble Lords will point out that, far from taking up time, in fact it saves time. It is an activity which moves people around much faster than walking or running and it does not pollute the atmosphere, burn carbon, cost much or take up much space while doing so. It can be slotted into a day's work usefully and routinely.

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But there is the other side of the coin, which is the increasing danger of cycling not simply in cities but also on country lanes because of the relentless increase in motorised traffic and the speed with which it moves, especially on those country lanes. Although there has been an increase in cycle ownership in recent years—in 10 years it approximately doubled from 7.3 million in 1975 to 13.1 million in 1985–86, and the noble Lord has now given us the figure of 15 million—the proportion of all road travel by cyclists has decreased. The total number of kilometres travelled by bike has remained static. That is partly because of the cult of the car and increased car ownership but also because of the real dangers of cycling.
About 300 deaths and 30,000 serious injuries annually are suffered by cyclists in road accidents. The great majority of serious or fatal accidents is due to being hit by a motorised vehicle. I am sure that other noble Lords will take up that area of concern. The great majority of fatalities is due to head injuries, many of which could have been much less severe if the cyclist had been wearing a properly designed helmet. That again is no doubt a topic that other noble Lords will raise.
Having touched briefly on helmets, I should like to ask the noble Lord who is to answer to look at the possibility of exempting helmets from VAT, just as motorcycle crash helmets are exempt. The last time I raised that issue, I was told by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, that it was a European-wide issue and we could not do it alone. Motorcyclists were exempt because they were VAT-exempt before the EC rules were imposed. I still feel that we should make a case for that tax to be lifted throughout the EC. Price is a major deterrent. Now at £25 to £50 a helmet, it is a substantial proportion of the whole cost of the bicycle.
What is the balance of advantage? There are the years lost owing to death versus the life-years gained from increased health, even with cycling safety as bad as it is now. At this point I should like to refer to the last chapter in Mayer-Hillman's book written for the BMA and entitled Cycling towards Health and Safety, published last year. In 1989 there were 293 cycling fatalities with a total loss of 11,324 life-years—that is, expected years of life which the victims might have had, had they not been killed. That is an average loss of some 39 years of life per victim, since most of those killed were quite young. In that year there were some 15 million cycle owners, but most distance was covered by quite a small proportion of that total.
If one were to take an extreme view and say that all the fatalities were concentrated in only 10 per cent. of
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users (purely for ease of calculation)—that 10 per cent. of users who use their cycles regularly and therefore in fact could gain the health benefit from cycling—it could be simply calculated that the life-years lost would represent only two days for each of the 1.5 million serious cyclists. That is an exaggeration of the risk because many of the deaths occur among cyclists who use their cycles only occasionally and are not therefore experienced in the risks and the care that has to be taken in riding a cycle in traffic conditions.
It is quite difficult to calculate life years gained as a result of health improvements due to cycling, but a helpful study is that of Dr. Paffenbarger, who followed up 17,000 graduates from Harvard over a very long period—up to 40 years—and found that there was a big difference in life expectancy between those who took very little exercise, those who took moderate exercise and those who took a lot of exercise. The study concluded that those who cycled 60 miles a week from the age of 35 could add two and a half years to their life expectancy. I have not had the opportunity to look at the paper since I prepared my speech. He could be referring to all people who took an equivalent amount of exercise to that amount of cycling. Nevertheless, let us say that, if that is the only exercise as compared with people who do not have exercise, such as people who travel habitually by car, they have two and a half years' extra life—two and a half years added to life in comparison with a risk equivalent to the loss of two days' life, or even less, from an accident in regular cyclists.
I would not like noble Lords to take this figure and bandy it about as a truth. It is a thumbnail calculation. Many more careful statistical studies need to be done, and doubtless have been done, but I am afraid that I have not had time to conduct a full literature search before preparing my speech. Nevertheless, I think it is clear that even in today's conditions the gain to health, though less visible, far outweighs the danger of death, unacceptable though that is.
I very much look forward to reading other noble Lords' contributions which I am sure will fill in the picture and to which the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, will reply. I hope that the Government realise that they are on to a potential winner. Cycling can help to achieve the targets put forward in The Health of the Nation for reducing coronary heart disease by 40 per cent. by the end of the century. At the same time it will ease traffic problems, decrease atmospheric pollution and global warming and improve the balance of payments.
10.13 p.m.
Lord Broadbridge: My Lords, my wife and I have seven bicycles between us. To adapt a dictum of the American humorist James Thurber, you might say we have bicycles like other people have mice. But I hope that our bicycle bank at least indicates a dedication to this most important debate, to the introduction of which I am indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford.
The Question before us asks Her Majesty's Government how they propose to maximise the environmental, public health and cost benefits of bicycling. First, on the environmental benefits, everyone speaks of the environmental benefits of the process of cycling; but what—reverting for a moment to first principles—are the environmental benefits of its production in the first place? I claim relevance for this simply on the grounds of the scale of production. Since 1988 bicycles have consistently outsold cars, rising from 0.6 million in 1969, to 1.5 million in 1985, to 2.4 million in 1989, and forecast sales of 4 million for 1993. Motor car production is broadly comparable but smaller.
A typical bicycle weighs 30 kilos. The Palace of Westminster's pocket diary for 1993, in the section A Few Simple Yardsticks, says that a Mini weighs about 700 kilos. Assuming in a very generalised way that the manufacturing process of bikes and cars are broadly similar and not particularly user friendly, a 30 kilo cycle requires the processing of only 4.3 per cent. of the materials required for that smallest of cars, the Mini. If that seems an arcane statistic, my Lords, multiply it by 4 million and see where you come out. In use, the environmental disbenefits of motor vehicles are that, according to the DoE, they produce 90 per cent. of our carbon monoxide, 51 per cent. of our nitrogen oxides, 41 per cent. of volatile organic compounds and 19 per cent. of carbon dioxide. The bicycle produces only perspiration.
The motor vehicle wears out the roads; and the cyclist, to his peril, has to cope with the motorists' detritus, pot holes and, where poorly repaired, humps. Speaking from personal experience, a hump can be as destabilising as a hole. Although our new Highways Act may help deal with future roadworks, there seems to be a large backlog of unfilled holes. Indeed, in London, Bloomsbury is like the craters of the moon.
While still on the environmental aspect of this Unstarred Question, it is pointed out in the BMA publication about which we have already heard, Cycling Towards Health & Safety, that the physical exertion entailed in cycling requires deeper breathing, and its attractions are clearly influenced by people's perception of the quality of air that they breathe. The BMA states that ironically,
"an objection voiced by many potential cyclists, particularly those who would commute by bicycle, is the extent to which breathing air polluted by chemical components … may have adverse effects on their health".
Is it too late to make the plea, hoarse through its repetition, that Her Majesty's Government should subsidise and otherwise encourage public and
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alternative transport to motor vehicles and stop seeing the solution to all transport problems in terms of building more roads which simply and inevitably encourage greater car and lorry traffic and, importantly in view of their polluting emissions, discourage the environmentally friendly cyclist? Perspiration before suffocation, please.
Finally, on the environmental aspects of cycling, motor transport is both noisy and an eyesore. Cycling is virtually silent and 10 bicycles can be stacked in the space required by one parked car. Our second question relates to the public health benefits of cycling. The BMA report already cited refers to,
"the health and fitness aspects of cycling, perhaps the least researched area of policy on cycling although it may provide the most compelling reasons for encouraging participation".
As a result of the national fitness survey, the Sports Council and the Health Education Authority, but not Her Majesty's Government, there have been recommendations for taking regular exercise as an essential ingredient of healthy living. Cycling fulfils those recommendations perfectly. As we have heard from the noble Lord, regular cycling can improve one's health through improvement in strength, stamina, aerobic fitness and general muscle function. It can even help diet and giving up smoking. It lowers the risk of heart attack.
The BMA's coronary prevention group has listed 20 beneficial effects on health and fitness on page 13 of the publication referred to. It helps shed excess weight and reduces anxiety, stress and depression. If a drug were to come onto the market which did all those things, it would be widely prescribed and it would probably be available on the national health scheme. So why does it get such a low government priority simply because it is pedals rather than pills?
Thirdly, the cost benefits of cycling: a fully fitted new bicycle costs as little as £100 for a sound, basic model. Safety features such as a helmet and reflecting bands may add another £50—say £150 in all. That is about 2 per cent. to 3 per cent. of the cost of a new family car. If the car holds four people, then the cost of four bicycles is about 10 per cent. of the cost. The running costs are minimal. Indeed the bike costs little more than one year's road tax on a car, which is not spent on the roads anyway. A comprehensive insurance policy is a worthwhile addition, mainly to compensate for theft. It is a sad irony that this Aunt Sally of British transport modes is mainly at risk from other people trying to steal it.
And so to the pith of the Question; namely, how do Her Majesty's Government propose to maximise the environmental, public health and cost benefits of cycling? First and foremost, I think there is little point in setting targets for numbers of cyclists. This is simply pulling up one's policy by the bootstraps in the mistaken belief that utterance will become reality. What cyclists need above all are user-friendly conditions in which to cycle. As we have heard, there are 6 million regular bicycle users. But—and I stress this, my Lords—there are 15 million bicycles in ownership in the UK. That means that 9 million are in the garden shed, so to speak, and lying relatively

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unused. This, as it were, Pavlovian response is caused mainly by fear—fear of accidents and fear of breathing mainstream motor effluent.
Cycling is like gardening. The bicycle is fragile. Mulching and a little environmental sunshine will bring out thousands—perhaps millions—of these bikes. After all, the 1990 survey quoted in the BMA's Cycling recorded that 99 per cent. of men and 87 per cent. of women over the age of 15 claiming that they could ride a bicycle. The same survey recorded that 90 per cent. of both junior school boys and girls own a bicycle. These, and the 4 million expected to be sold this year, constitute a vast potential reservoir of cycling which, in my analogy with gardening, is all too often frosted in the bud by unfriendly facilities.
Her Majesty's Government, while overtly encouraging cycling, also overtly rely entirely on local authorities to implement friendly conditions. This is a radical difference, for example, to the USA where the promotion of cycling is part of federal transportation policy. Every state has to provide a transportation policy for walking and cycling. I ask the Minister who is to reply why Her Majesty's Government are so shy of doing something similar. It cannot be not wishing to be a nanny state, because this lady appears everywhere else in our lives. And nanny is needed because a majority of local authorities are totally devoid of cycling muscle.
The fact is that since the 1977 Transport White Paper local authorities have been informed that expenditure on provision for the needs of cyclists will be "eligible", but that the proposals must be aimed at reducing accidents and are only for roads of more than local importance. This "eligibility" is no substitute for a mandatory requirement. As a result, some local authority bids from Her Majesty's Government are derisively low—I believe £10,000 from one London borough—and the money does not have to be spent specifically on cycling but can be "lost" in the local authority safety budget.
Initiatives between the Department of Transport and local authorities have produced some startling results, as in the Greater Nottingham Cycle Route Network, completed in 1990. But I would have thought that the success of such schemes would urge on Her Majesty's Government to take on a much more dominant and demanding role on behalf of the cyclists they say they support. The Cyclists Public Affairs Group, an umbrella body, told me last week that it knows of only one or two civil servants in the Department of Transport with responsibility for cycling, and only for safety at that, and only part-time with other responsibilities at that. The BMA agrees.
The reorganised Road Research Laboratory has much reduced its research on cycling although I take the point of the quotation that was given by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, which indicated that, if much reduced, the laboratory is not entirely moribund. It has reduced its research on cycling to about £95,000 out of a £27 million budget and that, again, is exclusively on safety aspects. With the admirable exception of Red Routes, traffic surveys do not automatically include cyclists, so that with no requirement to monitor expenditure either, it is no
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wonder, but highly regrettable, that there is little meaningful local authority data on cyclists. Nearly all that there is emanates from private sector research organisations.
The Thousand Mile Scheme for a thousand miles of cycle lanes, after a good start with 125 miles by 1982–10 years ago—had reached only 170 miles last year. To encourage Her Majesty's Government, one might point out that the Netherlands allocates 10 per cent. of its capital spending on roads to cycling facilities and by 1986 had an impressive network of 13,500 kilometres of cycle lanes. "But", I hear your Lordships say, "the Netherlands is flat". Well, Germany is decidedly bumpy, and, while the ownership level of cycles in Britain in 1985 was about 24 per cent., in West Germany it was 74 per cent. As the BMA says in Cycling:
"these higher levels on the Continent are not explained by lower levels of car ownership there. Indeed, people in West Germany are about 30 per cent. more likely than those in Britain to own a car".
The BMA feels that government could take a much more positive role in using all the means at their disposal actively to promote cycling rather than treating it as a marginal form of transport. But their activities need to be co-ordinated—a director of cycling, perhaps, analogous to the Director of Traffic appointed to oversee the Red Routes organisation—so that cycling can be promoted as a means of travel and as a means of reducing road congestion (Department of Transport); secondly, as a means of health promotion (Department of Health); thirdly, as a means of conserving fossil fuels (Department of Energy); and, fourthly and finally, as a means of reducing damaging gaseous emissions from motor vehicles (Department of the Environment).
Finally, I have already said that cycling is like gardening. There is potentially an awful lot of it around, and in this respect it is like sowing grass seed: hundreds, thousands, millions of little green shoots. But like the grass seed, it needs watering to encourage it. Is it too much to hope that Her Majesty's Government might abandon their hitherto velvet glove approach, don their gardening gloves and get out their watering can?
10.26 p.m.
Lord Colwyn: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Broadbridge, made a valid point about the benefits of cycling and the analogy to the benefits of a drug. I hope that he will be able to repeat his thoughts in the debate on the pharmaceutical industry which we are to have in a week or so because I believe that it is important.
As a helpful response to comments I made at col. 1076 of Hansard on 7th February 1984 during discussions on the Pedal Bicycles (Safety) Regulations my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth sent me a copy of a statement made by the then Secretary of State for Transport on cycling policy which was issued in January 1982. That statement included an announcement that the Government,
"very much welcomes the revived interest in cycling which can bring benefits to the community in terms of reduced congestion, pollution and energy costs".

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The statement expressed hope that the growing recognition of cyclists' needs would lead to more widespread action to improve facilities which in turn would encourage more people to cycle. It went on to say that,
"the programme of innovatory cycle schemes will be extended to include one or two large-scale projects designed to monitor the effect on cycling demand of developing a continuous urban route or network".
The statement's conclusion was clear:
"The Government welcomes the evidence provided by the responses to the consultation paper that local authorities, other interested bodies, and cyclists themselves are giving careful thought to ways in which cycling can be made safer and more pleasant. The Government remains committed to the encouragement of cycling and will continue to support these efforts, without attempting to impose central direction upon the variety of local circumstances".
In answer to a Question from me in October 1992, my noble friend Lord Caithness said that the Government recognised the value of cycling and acknowledged its potential health advantages. He made a further commitment to safer cycling and stated that the Government were working to improve traffic conditions through publicity and by technical advice to highway authorities. What happened in the intervening years? I regret to say that little changed.
I have to declare an interest as a typical cyclist in a big city, doing an average mileage every working day—come rain, wind or shine—and I am not aware of any radical improvements, any real evidence, which my noble friend the Minister can honestly say has changed much in the nine years separating my Questions.
There was talk six years ago of a plan for 1,000 miles of strategic cycle routes for London. The plan was accepted by the Department of the Environment in its guidelines for London and boroughs were pressed during the unity development plans process. When my noble friend Lord Parkinson finally abandoned the assessment studies in 1990 he pledged that the Department of Transport would work with the boroughs to produce a network. By 1987 only some of the 130 schemes which had been implemented contributed to the continuous cycle routes envisaged and some cycle lanes have even been removed.
Today there are only 125 miles in place and 220 in preparation. The remaining 700 miles are still at the discussion stage and yet—as my noble friend Lord Marlesford said—we have evidence every day of new roads and traffic management schemes which continue to be implemented and which have absolutely no consideration for cyclists at all. We have heard of the relatively small cost of providing cycle lanes and yet despite assurances that cyclists will be given consideration they are consistently ignored. Progress has been very slow and the intended co-operation between the different authorities lacks the coordination that should be provided by a central agency. Even the new traffic director for London, who has set useful standards for considering the needs of cyclists and made the collection of data about cyclists mandatory preparation for all new schemes, does not have the jurisdiction to co-ordinate the overall development of the 1,000 mile scheme.
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A report prepared for the European Cyclists Federation by planners, politicians and cycle activists in 10 European countries has found that cycling conditions in the UK are the second-worst in Europe. Riding a bicycle in the UK is the least fun and cyclists are given the least respect by those around them. The UK cyclist has the least amount of priority over motor traffic and has the worst winter maintenance service for bicycle facilities.
The report shows that we are lagging way behind the rest of Europe in promoting and providing for cyclists. Surely we ought to be able to enjoy the same level of cycling as Denmark or the Netherlands and at the same time dramatically improve our urban environment.
I am well aware of, and cannot condone, the way in which some cyclists break some of the rules that exist for motor vehicles. But I can confirm that the majority of rule breakers do it entirely for reasons of self-preservation. There is a cycle route which goes through Hyde Park and crosses Knightsbridge into William Street, which is a one-way street going north. Travelling south the cycle lane suddenly ends about 10 metres into William Street. There the cycle lane is replaced with metered parking leaving the cyclist with no alternative but to continue down the one-way street to rejoin the correct line of traffic flow. I find it hard to understand the planning decision that caused such an obvious problem.
I should be grateful if my noble friend would comment on the likely effect of the New Roads and Street Works Act which was passed in 1991 but is not yet operative. Once the Act is implemented local authorities will retain final responsibility for road maintenance. However, with limited funds for this work and no general policy requirement to keep routes used by cyclists in a good state of repair the situation may not significantly improve. Your Lordships will not be surprised to hear of the dangerous condition of many roads in our capital. The area used by cyclists is often pot-holed and affected by obstructions which remain for months. Illegal parking, parking in bus lanes and general congestion are a continual problem. I should like the Minister to join me and cycle down Bond Street to see the virtual restriction of the street to one lane, with chauffeur driven limousines, engines running, and unattended parked cars taking up the space which should be available for free traffic flow and for cyclists.
Another major hazard is the debris deposited in the cycle areas by waste disposal lorries. There is something about the design of vehicles which take away household and street rubbish which allows any glass that is crushed to fall on to the street. Most cyclists would be able to point out the places in a road where those vehicles stop to load rubbish as each stopping place is marked by a line of broken glass. This presents a major hazard for cyclists.
Provision for the parking of cycles is also totally inadequate. It should not be too difficult or expensive to provide areas for locking up cycles at major railway stations and other sites in big cities. Some of your Lordships will have seen the splendid facilities at, for example, Oxford station, where there is space to lock

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up hundreds of cycles. In London there are very few areas for locking up bicycles and there is a growing trend for landlords to place signs on railings—the easiest and most convenient place to secure a bicycle—to the effect that cycles will be removed if left attached to them. I have heard that similar signs are now appearing on parking meters in some areas; namely, that cycles will be removed if locked to the meters. Will my noble friend remind me of the law on this? Are landlords or local authorities entitled to place these signs and to physically remove parked cycles? If they are, some action for alternative parking facilities is of the utmost urgency.
As president of the Arterial Health Foundation—a new charity formed to promote the prevention of coronary artery disease and about which your Lordships will be hearing more from me on another occasion—it is clear to me that cycling is more healthy than other forms of transport as well as contributing to a reduction in air pollution. Coronary heart disease accounts for about 80 per cent. of heart disease and is responsible for a third of all deaths in men and a quarter in women. Treatment of heart related conditions cost the NHS over £500 million in 1988 to which should be added an estimated 41.5 million lost working days, costing industry about £1.8 billion as well as the costs in terms of personal and family anxiety.
It is now thought that a 20 per cent. shift to bicycles could cut coronary heart disease by 4 per cent. Regular exercise, taken on a day to day basis, is the ideal way of preventing heart disease. Given safe provision, cycling as part of a daily routine could represent an ideal straightforward and much more widely available means of maintaining fitness and gaining other health advantages.
In conclusion, I am sure that my noble friend will be most sympathetic and agree with most of what has been said this evening, but we have heard this sort of response before. Those of us who feel strongly about cycling have had discussion with the Cyclists Public Affairs Group and have identified nine simple actions which the Government could take to encourage cycling. They have already been carefully explained by my noble friend Lord Marlesford and I am sure that they will be repeated again this evening. Now is the Government's opportunity to make a real commitment to cycling and to ensure that positive action is taken in the very near future.
10.37 p.m.
Lord St John of Bletso: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, for introducing this debate this evening which clearly focuses on the need for better facilities for cyclists. As a regular motorcycle commuter, I do not have the depth of experience and expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, who I understand is the most regular bicycle commuter of your Lordships' House. What has been established by several noble Lords who have spoken this evening is that there is an urgent need for the better promotion of cyclists' interests when decisions are made on the design of road improvements and the planning of traffic management schemes.
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There is also a requirement for more incentives to promote cycling; for example, the proposed 1,000 mile strategic cycle route network for London which, if ever completed—and from what I have heard from other noble Lords who have spoken this evening, one cannot believe that it ever will be completed—can only be seen as a model for other similar schemes which could achieve greater cycling in the urban areas around Britain.
With well in excess of 15 million bicycle owners in Britain, and with scarcely over 1 million daily bicycle commuters, it is well known that we are well behind our European partners in cycle use. From figures that I have recently received from the Cyclists Public Affairs Group, only 2.3 per cent. of journeys in Britain are presently made by bicycle compared with 11 per cent. in Germany, 18 per cent. in Denmark and 29 per cent. in the Netherlands.
In my brief contribution to the debate, I wish to focus specifically on four areas: first, the need for greater safety for cyclists; secondly, the desirability of reducing traffic congestion and thereby reducing exhaust emissions; thirdly, ways to reduce the risk of cycle theft—a point that has already been made by several speakers; and, finally, a number of incentives to promote more use of bicyles as a means of transport.
In raising the issue of greater safety for bicyclists, that encompasses not just the provision of better facilities such as cycle lanes and cycle priority routes, but also the setting of guidelines for cyclists themselves; for example, the wearing of helmets and reflective bands. Statistics have shown that most cycling accidents occur at junctions and that there is a real need for more advance stop lines which will provide more space at junctions for cyclists, making them more visible, to other road users.
With the current insufficient facilities for cyclists in most urban areas, there is a perception among many bicycle owners who may be keen to commute to work that it is not safe to do so at the moment. There is also a feeling among many cyclists that other road users do not take bicycle lanes seriously. The police should be far stricter about cars parking and, for that matter, obstructing bicycle lanes and also, on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, bicycle lanes should be kept clean from broken bottles and refuse.
One of the main submissions of the Transport Committee's cycling report of 8th May 1991 was that cyclists suffer badly from the inadequate enforcement of traffic law. I know that many would say that it is just as important for the police to enforce traffic laws on bicyclists as car owners. Traffic laws must be enforced on both. It is quite clear that the result of insufficient cycle lanes has caused a major problem for cyclists mixing with the traffic flow. That is both dangerous for cyclists and, obviously, for motorists.
While the costs of delays caused by traffic congestion to businesses throughout Britain are enormous, as I have already mentioned, there are the added problems of the increase in exhaust emissions from the increasing traffic flow into urban areas. As we all concur this evening, bicycling should and can play a major role in reducing the levels of urban traffic

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congestion. There must be considerable scope for encouraging more combined usage of bicycles and public transport which has, for example, been effectively implemented in Japan. Cities such as Cambridge, Oxford and, for that matter, York which have focused on improvements in cycle facilities, have shown that this has effectively increased the use of bicycles and reduced traffic congestion in those areas. It has been estimated that, with proper planning, 20 per cent. of non-walk trips could be made by cycles in a typical town in Britain. That would represent a 6 per cent. reduction in pollutants.
Cycle theft has been on the increase in the past few years. There is said to be a one-in-a-hundred chance of having your bicycle stolen each year. That compares to a one-in-50 chance of having your car stolen. Greater consideration should be given to the security of bicycles in part by the provision of more bicycling facilities in central areas. As the noble Lord, Lord Broadbridge, has already mentioned, 10 bicycles can be parked in one normal parking bay. Moreover, as the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, said, some stations already have extensive bicycling storage facilities. More stations should be encouraged to do this.
There are many ways in which bicyclists can be encouraged to use their bicycles to commute to work. I understand that several companies, for example, the Body Shop, have been offering incentives for their employees to commute by bicycle, such as offering large discounts on the purchase of bicycles, safe parking, as well as showering and changing facilities at work and other financial incentives.
As the noble Lord, Lord Rea, made extensive mention, it is well documented that Britain has a high rate of heart disease and strokes. Statistics have certainly shown that regular cyclists display a noticeably lower incidence of those diseases. Once the 1,000 mile strategic cycle route network is developed in London—if that ever happens—I am sure that it will act as a major incentive for more commuters to cycle to work rather than to drive.
As we all know, over the past few years there has been an increasingly higher rate of tax levied on the use of cars in the form of higher petrol taxes, but that does not appear to have reduced the levels of road traffic in most of the major cities around Britain. While it is well known that arrangements for cyclists fall under the auspices of local authorities, it is noteworthy that the Secretary of State for Transport has recently stressed that concern for the environment must be built into every aspect of transport policy and,
"an effective modern transport system is not an optional extra, it is a vital part of modern life".
It is certainly to this end that the need for better facilities around Britain for cyclists must surely be a major contributing factor in this policy. I note that the Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, was not able to give the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, a satisfactory reply to his Written Question of 4th February this year asking what the Government have,
"spent on facilities specifically for bicyclists in the last five years, and what they plan to spend in each of the next three years".—[Official Report, 4/2/93; col. WA23.]
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While I appreciate that local authorities are responsible for deciding on bicycle facilities, what is the Government's overall strategy to encourage the development of safe and convenient cycling networks throughout Britain's urban areas? In conclusion, I hope that this evening the Minister can give us some assurance that cyclists' interests will in future be given greater priority, thus promoting the call of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford,
"to maximise the environmental, public health and cost benefits of bicycling as a means of personal transport in Britain".
10.47 p.m.
Lord Vivian: My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lord Marlesford not because I am a bicycle enthusiast but because I live in London and see some distinct advantages in encouraging more people to ride bicycles and fewer people to drive cars. My noble friend has asked Her Majesty's Government how they propose to maximise the environmental, health and cost benefits of bicycling.
Before I propose some suggestions to encourage more bicyclists to take to the road, I believe it is worth looking at some of the advantages and benefits of bicycling. But I must emphasise that without proper conditions for bicyclists they are not only a danger to themselves but are also a danger to motorists. We have already heard that bicycling is a healthy activity. I am informed that bicycling for 20 miles a week reduces the risk of coronary heart disease and that a 20 per cent. move towards bicycling would cut coronary heart disease by 4 per cent., reducing the current National Health Service expenditure of £481 million on that disease.
As we have heard, bicycling keeps people fit, assists them in losing excess weight and for those using their bicycle as a means of personal transport it saves their travel fares. A second advantage of encouraging more bicycle riders is that it would lead to fewer motor cars on the roads and fewer demands on public transport, which should assist in an increase in the speed of London traffic flow and less pollution on the streets.
I now turn to how we can support and encourage the bicyclist. I understand that local government is responsible for bicycle lanes within its boundaries, but how do we get local authorities to ensure bicycle lanes are included in their planning and implemented during the construction phase? Bicycle lanes are an essential factor if present bicyclists are to continue to be bicyclists. Without properly and carefully planned bicycle lanes future bicycle riders will not be encouraged to take to the roads.
I should like to stress the importance of a carefully planned bicycle lane network within London linking the boroughs, local centres, main commuter working areas and the main line railway stations. On the 300 miles of Red Routes bicycle lanes should be mandatory. Local government should ensure that all future planning applications include secure storage areas for bicycles where relevant. British Rail should provide bicycle racking on its trains for commuters, who could then use their bicycles from home to station to place of work.

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In conclusion, I should like to ask my noble friend how local authorities can be persuaded to increase the number of bicycle lanes, construct an inter-London bicycle route network and ensure secure areas for bicycle storage at commuter places of work. I suggest that the London Traffic Director sets up an action group involving the Department of Transport and local authorities to determine what is required to construct a London network of bicycle lanes and consider means of overcoming the many difficulties involved in implementing those lanes.
It may be of interest to your Lordships to know that the bicycle flow at the Finborough Road-Kings Road junction is eight bicycles per minute between 08.25 hours and 08.30 hours on a weekday morning. That is 40 bicycles every five minutes.
In summary, I believe that encouraging more people to bicycle will reduce heart disease, reduce the number of private and public vehicles on London's congested roads, lessen pollution and speed up the traffic flow. It is for those reasons, and others, that I support my noble friend's Question.
10.51 p.m.
Lord Amwell: My Lords, we have heard tonight of the desire of noble Lords to see pedal cycling encouraged to become a practical means of personal transport, such that by modest expenditure congestion in towns might be reduced. While I agree with much of what noble Lords have said tonight, I believe that that fundamental concept is unrealistic.
We have to start from the fact that, apart from perhaps Oxford and Cambridge which have very special circumstances, there is little significant use of cycles for personal transport anywhere else in this country at present, even in those towns especially designed to encourage them. The noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, has told us that 1 million cyclists are daily commuters. I am surprised that the figure is so high.
Stevenage, one of the new towns of the 1940s, has an internationally renowned system of cycleways which completely separate the cyclist and pedestrian from the car throughout the central area of the town. It is renowned because it was the first example of its kind anywhere in the world, and it remains a first-class example of what should be done when planning a new town. Obviously that is not practical in an existing townscape. I drive through Stevenage every day on my way from my home to my office. Those cycleways are hardly used. The same can be said of the modern equivalent of Stevenage - the Redways of Milton Keynes. They are excellent as road safety measures, but they do not seem to be attractive as a means of getting to work.
Some noble Lords will know that I am a civil engineer and an inveterate road builder. They may think that my views are the incoherent ramblings of someone dedicated to satiating the needs of the internal combustion engine. I hope that that is not so. Engineers have to look very hard at cost-effectiveness and, notwithstanding what the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, said, it is easy to see that the provision of special cycling facilities in an existing townscape is
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likely to be very expensive indeed. The concept of hollowing out a way beside an underpass, in engineering terms, is very difficult. On the basis of cost-effectiveness many cycle provisions will be non-starters.
However, what I want to see—and here I am absolutely behind the noble Lord's Question—is an ever greater commitment to expenditure on road safety measures. As pedal cyclists are the most vulnerable of road users it is only right that the most urgent measures should be for them.
A couple of years ago, the Institution of Civil Engineers in its report on congestion observed that congestion increases the risk of accident for cyclists and pedestrians. While the lower speeds diminish the severity of the accident, congestion increases the frequency to the extent that 70 per cent. of all accidents occur in urban areas. One does not have to be a genius to reach that conclusion intuitively, but it is encouraging to see it written down in an authoritative report.
It was good therefore to see that the Department of Transport's TSG for local safety schemes rose from £31 million two years ago to £43 million last year. That is very good news indeed. But in the context of the department's total expenditure it is a trifling sum. The department should really spend far more in that direction and should encourage local authorities to come forward with enterprising schemes for road safety, secure in the knowledge that if their schemes are sound they will obtain the money. I am sure that they would respond if the department put that forward as a concept. I hope that the Minister may be able to give us some encouragement on that issue.
One area which is in urgent need of reform is that of how a cyclist crosses a road. It is legal for him to push his bike across a Pelican crossing on foot but it is not legal for him to cycle across. That law is widely abused, as we all know. I do not believe that the Government have yet stated their position on the experimental Toucan crossings. As they seem to be a good way forward, perhaps the Minister will be able to give us some encouragement on that issue too today.
The Department of Transport has said that its safety campaign for child safety helmets showed increasing awareness and that sales of helmets rose as a result. That is good news, but it was a little disappointing in the department's expenditure plans for the coming years not to be able to read that the campaign will continue. I do not know whether or not it will. It is my observation that the youngest cyclists now wear helmets as a matter of course, but older children and young adults do not. Having two teenage sons, I know that they will not be seen abroad in a safety helmet, even though they belt up on the front or back seat of a car without a second thought. Safety campaigns need to be continued for long enough to take proper effect across the whole age range, rather than to be set aside by the Government when the initial results have been seen to be encouraging.
Finally, perhaps I may comment on new roads, in particular town and village bypasses. We have heard noble Lords state today that they are dangerous to

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their most vulnerable users just because of the higher speeds. The road safety evidence does not support that; it denies it. Town and village bypasses are very much safer roads. Despite what has been said today, as someone who has been designing new roads for 30 years, and continues to do so, we make provision for cyclists. We make special provision, for example, for cyclists to cross the end of slip roads, the most dangerous place on a new road. Despite making that provision and signing it, we can all of us observe that cyclists do not take notice of such provision and signs. They continue to cycle across the most hazardous areas. I do not know what we can do about that; but we need to do something.
However, where a bypass has been provided, we should be reminding ourselves of the improved conditions on the old road through the town or village where conditions for cyclists and pedestrians alike will be vastly improved. That is the environment, close to the centre of gravity of the short trips which most cyclists undertake, where the greatest safety benefits will accrue. That is where local safety measures can be most effective. However, and despite the statistics, I believe that we all have a duty to discourage the young and inexperienced cyclists from using the highest speed roads. In their inexperienced condition, the highest speed roads place them at ever greater risk.
In summary, I am at one with the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, and others in everything that they have said on expenditure on road safety. However, I regret that I can never see the pedal cycle as a serious competitor for Ford or Rover.
10.59 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I wish to thank my noble friend Lord Marlesford for suggesting that I might make a contribution to the debate on his Unstarred Question. I was a trifle apprehensive when my noble friend admitted that he occasionally rode on the pavement. Having heard too from my noble friend Lord Colwyn of his experience of a particular cycle track which I often cross in a car when driving to the House, I can quite understand that there are difficulties. It was put most colourfully by my noble friend.
I shall try to concentrate on the environmental advantages of cycling and other health advantages which have been indicated by various noble Lords, not least by my noble friend Lord Colwyn. Of course, cycling is a clean, cost effective and space effective method of transport. As for public health, let alone the health of the cyclist, I have no specialist knowledge, but I try to keep to the average fitness of noble Lords, which requires not just exercise but also discipline in the amount of energy and calories we put into ourselves each day.
As regards the environmental aspects of cycling, I concur totally with everything that has been said about attempting to separate cycle traffic from motor traffic. The noble Lord, Lord Amwell, put it superbly and we are grateful for his professional views of how to design systems of transport so that cyclists and motor drivers may go about their business in the
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greatest possible safety. Noble Lords mentioned Hyde Park Corner. Anyone who rides a bicycle around there is extremely courageous as well as being fairly able.
In my career at the University of Oxford, I recall the A.34—if it has been renumbered, my noble friend on the Front Bench may be able to advise us—which leads out to Woodstock. Even in my time at Oxford it was dual carriageway. In Oxfordshire, there is plenty of space. So between the hedgerow, field and the ample dual carriageway, which was even at that time heavily used by traffic travelling between Oxford and the Cowley motor factories and the Midlands, there was an excellent pavement for pedestrians. There was also a nearly five-foot wide cycle path virtually all the way to Woodstock. It was an excellent track. I used it on a regular basis.
I wonder whether the Minister agrees that cyclists are to be admired and that cycling is an excellent method of transport in London. However, as a pedestrian and a motorist, I have been somewhat worried by the behaviour of a tiny minority of cyclists. They ride mountain bikes with fairly robust wheels and tyres and behave as motorists or wheeled transport until they come to a red light with motorists waiting. Quick as a flash, they change their attitude to that of pedestrians and cross with them, mount the pavement and set off again. I believe that it is a small minority of cyclists. It is in areas like Sloane Square or Hyde Park Corner that one sees such cases.
My noble friend Lord Marlesford was perhaps just hinting—I hope I understood him correctly—that cyclists might share space with pedestrians. I invite him and the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, to accompany me to Leicester Square, which is a fairly large pedestrian precinct. They might agree with me that there would be a certain amount of danger. We tend to regard noble Lords crossing the road outside Parliament as being either the quick or the dead. There might be the possibility of pedestrians not perhaps being dead but otherwise engaged if they had to avoid cyclists in going about their business.
I wish to draw noble Lords' attention to one aspect of the health and recreation of cycling. It may not surprise your Lordships that about 35 years ago I suffered a serious accident when ski-ing which caused a long-term fitness problem for me. It may not surprise my noble friend Lord Colwyn, who is a great supporter and adviser to many noble Lords on health aspects, that my orthopaedic surgeon jokingly suggested that I would benefit from cycling to rebuild my leg, ligaments, knees and ankles.
In that same summer of 1959 I obtained very valuable free French lessons from the radio and became an avid student of the Tour de France bicycle race and of cycling as a major sport. In 1960 I do not think that mountain bikes had even been invented. People had what one might call "proper" bicycles. The last time I saw my noble friend Lord Colwyn riding his bicycle he had what I think of as a proper bicycle with fairly large wheels and excellent brakes. I do not know whether it was multi-geared but he had what I call a proper bicycle.
In 1960, sports, lightweight and racing bicycles were available. Indeed, in 1993 the only difference

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seems to be that the price makes one gasp. Certainly, the price of racing bicycles that I was studying yesterday would have bought an E-type Jaguar in 1962 when I was at Oxford—£2,500 for a racing bicycle with graphite and Campagnolo gears and all the rest. So there have been technical advances as well as advances in price.
I admire cycling as an aid to health and fitness, but I am no zealot. Last summer I was advised, taking a day's respite in the Alps, that there was an easy cycle tour available. I rented a mountain bike, and I was told: "It's all right. You're only going 10 kilometres". What nobody explained was that there was a climb of 1,200 feet. I arrived at the end of my 10 kilometres in a state which would have given great pleasure to my noble friend Lord Colwyn. Back at the resort, when I told people that I had bicycled up there, they were genuinely concerned—not just about my physical health, but about my mental health too. I had attempted to do something which they said was foolhardy. I was used to it. I am used to many things in this House. I was certainly used to a cycle trip of that nature. It did me a lot of good and I enjoyed it greatly.
It is indicative of cycling as a recreation that the very day that my noble friend put down his Motion for debate in this House a photograph appeared in the press of my honourable friend the Minister for Sport, who was, with Bernard Hinault, five-times winner of the Tour de France, in Trafalgar Square with a racing bicycle. They were promoting the arrival next year, on 6th and 7th July, of two stages of the Tour de France which will race over roads—I understand they will be closed roads—in Kent, Sussex and Hampshire. I give notice to my noble friends on the Front Bench that whatever takes place, I shall be watching that great sport on those two days.
I reiterate everything that has been said by my noble friend and by other noble Lords this evening. Cycling is indeed an excellent and a very healthy method of transport. But I stress—I hope that my noble friend will agree with me and that the Minister will also agree—that cyclists have a great deal of responsibility both for their own personal health and fitness and the health of others. I look forward to hearing the views of my noble friend on the Front Bench and of the noble Viscount on the Liberal Democrat Benches. I was not aware that they were great fans of pedal cycles, although they possibly are of other forms of two-wheel cycling. Given the enthusiasm engendered by the debate, we look forward to hearing the reply.
11.9 p.m.
Viscount Craigavon: My Lords, I should declare my interest as a fair weather cyclist and fairly frequent motor cyclist. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, for raising the cause of cycling in this way. I hope that the House will allow me at this time of night to mention just a few points which I believe are important in the area of cycling.
It has been apparent this evening that progress in bicycling has to be made on a number of different fronts. There is no single solution. We should be
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particularly grateful for the energy and youthful enthusiasm of the lobbying group centred around the Cyclists' Public Affairs Group, which many speakers have mentioned. Against all the odds, it continues to look after the interests of cyclists. I say that, having been receiving for many years the excellent magazine of the London Cycling Campaign—it is called the London Cyclist—as well as the very informative and readable Cycle Digest of the Cyclists' Touring Club. The other member of this group is the Cycle Campaign Network.
I shall briefly mention, for those who may not know it, the existence at Westminster of the all-party group on Cycling. As the present Treasurer, I should be very pleased to enrol new members from those enthusiasts present this evening or, indeed, any noble Lords who would like to join. Although recently the group has been rather quiet, it may be that after this debate the all-party group could act as a focus for further follow-up of what emerges this evening. One of the advantages of being a member is that one should automatically receive the excellent magazines to which I have just referred.
As a Londoner all my life, I have always used bicycles for short journeys. I have recently noticed new cycle routes, markings and signs in Kensington where I live. That is a useful attempt to connect the central parks with Hammersmith and Fulham. I understand that in Kensington local politicians are taking cycling much more seriously and constructively.
I support what has been said so far about the 1,000-mile route and its problems. Personally, I would advocate a separate cycle traffic director for London with considerable powers to encourage co-ordination. As other noble Lords have said, I too believe that there is much that the Government can do in setting a positive framework and tone to encourage all aspects of cycling.
I commend to the House a successful charity called Sustrans (the name stands for sustainable transport) which designs and builds traffic-free routes for cyclists and walkers. These are for commuters as well as for recreation. It is based in Bristol and is probably best known for converting disused railway lines. I was able to see a presentation of its work at Westminster some months ago. Its methods are an example of what can be achieved with considerable skill and hard work. One of its almost heroic longer term aims is a cycle path from Inverness to Dover, which would include on it some minor roads. I hope that the Government will be able to give continued support to such enterprise.
There is a series of international conferences devoted to cycling called Velo City. I believe that much can be learnt from the experiences in other countries and I hope that the Government will encourage dissemination of the papers and information that are available in this way. This year it is the turn of this country. The conference is to be held in Nottingham in September. I hope that the Government will give it their full support and perhaps, as is sometimes the custom, use the occasion to launch some bicycling initiatives.

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Finally, I should like to touch on a matter that I know the following speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, will mention in more detail and which is in fact probably only partly relevant to this debate; namely, the problem of unfair dumping of Chinese and Taiwanese bicycles, leading to possibly severe damage to British manufacturers. The case has been argued for some time, but in my opinion it has not been adequately dealt with by the Government. I hope that the Minister can give us some hope that this issue will be resolved soon.
11.14 p.m.
Lord Mancroft: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Marlesford, to whom we should be very grateful for this evening's short debate, mentioned health, social, environmental and transport issues. For just a very short moment at this late hour I should like to widen the debate, as the noble Viscount did a minute or two ago, to the economic issues. I do not believe that I have ever heard in your Lordships' House so much consensus on a subject as I have heard this evening. It appears that everybody in your Lordships' House and outside it would approve of attempts to promote cycling as a recreation and a useful form of transport for all the different reasons that we have heard.
I would hope to count on a similar level of consensus if I were to ask noble Lords to join me in supporting the idea that the more people who ride bicycles the better, and the more of those people in Britain who ride British bicycles the better still.
The noble Lord, Lord Broadbridge, mentioned that 4 million bicycles are bought in this country every year. That is a larger figure than I have heard but it is undoubtedly a very large market. What is much more important, and what I should like to bring before the House today, is the fact that an enormous number of the bicycles coming into this country and indeed into the European Community are, as the noble Viscount has just said, bicycles from the Far East that have been dumped.
I do not want to bore the House with figures at this late stage but it is worth pointing out that in 1992 424,000 bicycles came to this country from China and 20,000 came from Hong Kong. Now 20,000 does not appear to be a large figure but it is very large when one considers that Hong Kong does not have a bicycle industry. We can assume where those bicycles have come from. The number from Indonesia was 114,000; Malaysia, 146,000; Taiwan, 554,000; Thailand, 252,000. Those add up to 66 per cent. of the bicycle market.
This would not in itself matter because I am, like many noble Lords, a free marketeer. I believe in competition. There is nothing wrong with people trying to sell their bicycles in this country, wherever those bicycles come from, except when it is not a free market and is not a level playing field. In this case it is not, and it is this that I wish to draw to your Lordships' attention.
China has been given the status of the general system of preferences. That means that the Chinese have preferential loans from the World Bank to set up
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their business. Set up their business, my Lords! They have 40 per cent. of the world market. They produce 60 million bicycles every year. I ask: do they need our help, if they can do that? Why should China have this status when it makes that many bicycles?
All bicycles are required to get in component parts—Shimono parts—from Japan. Our manufacturers have to pay 8 per cent. duty to do that. The Chinese, the Taiwanese and the other Far Eastern producers do not have to do that when they bring those bicycles into this country or into the European Community to sell. That is an unfair advantage. Why indeed should the Chinese Bicycle Corporation be given preferential Western loans when its owners have made such enormous profits on their share issue in the Far Eastern markets? That is not fair, either. The result of this will be unemployment in the United Kingdom and the European Community. The potential UK job losses are 3,000 to 5,000 in the bicycle industry itself and 12,000 throughout the country. The potential European Community job losses are 25,000 to 30,000 in the industry itself and 70,000 to 100,000 overall. I should not have thought that was desirable. I should have thought that the Department of Trade and Industry—I know that my noble friend on the Front Bench does not speak with its brief—would want to do all that it can to help our industry and not hinder it, as is currently being done by the rules and by Common Market rules.
We have talked about the consumer interest. It is worth pointing out that none of the bicycles coming into our country meets the British standards. Our manufacturers have conducted tests. They have done the fairest tests they can. Out of 15 imported Far Eastern-made bicycles that have been tested—perfectly fairly and openly—not one of them passed the tests for braking in the wet. That does not strike me as being safe for the consumer. I should have thought that Her Majesty's Government would have been interested in that fact. These are bicycles made in Far Eastern sweat shops with preferential loans from the World Bank. They do not have to have duty paid on them and they are not safe for our consumers. Furthermore, their arrival will lead to unemployment.
So this evening, when we turn our attention to trying to encourage more bicycling in this country and more people to get out for healthy exercise and easier commuting which is better for the environment, let us think of the economy, too. Let us hope that the Government will do all they can to make sure that those people ride British bicycles, but at the moment they are not. We are not asking, nor should we ask, for preferential treatment. That is not the idea and that should not be. I believe that the bicycle industry, like the bicycle rider, could do with a level playing field.
11.20 p.m.
Lord Swansea: My Lords, at this late hour I shall not keep noble Lords very long. We must all be grateful to my noble friend Lord Marlesford for introducing this debate. I have seldom heard such unanimity in a debate in your Lordships' House. As we all know, cycling is a very low-cost means of transport. It is beneficial to the health and, in modern

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parlance, it is "green". I am surprised that no one has used that word before in this debate. It is also economic of road space and parking space.
I have fond memories of my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham, before he attained the lofty heights of the Woolsack, pedalling happily along. I wonder how many of your Lordships can remember that. I hasten to disillusion your Lordships who may imagine that I am an ardent cyclist. On the contrary, I confess that I have not ridden a bicycle for many years. The last time I rode one in London I was scared stiff. I rode a borrowed lady's cycle from Fulham to Mayfair. It was only then that I realised just how many hills there are in London. The most alarming part was when I was cycling up Park Lane intending to turn right across the stream of traffic into Upper Brook Street. That experience put me off cycling in London for life. I am afraid that my cycling days are over. However, I am glad to say that my wife is a possessor of a bicycle which she sensibly rides only when the weather is fine. It stands in our hall and takes up rather too much space.
As has been said already, cyclists are very vulnerable. I am glad to see that many of them are now coming to realise that, but often too late. They are now beginning to wear hard hats, reflective safety harnesses and the rest, which we must all welcome. Their size enables them to infiltrate the traffic easily and in heavy traffic. Although they can be left behind on the straight between the lights, they can very easily weave their way through the traffic when it is held up at the lights.
However, many show a plain disregard for the traffic rules, going the wrong way down one-way streets, jumping the lights and riding after dark without lights. The worst habit of all is the developing custom of riding a bicycle along the pavement. Here I must take issue with my noble friend Lord Marlesford. He will remember that a couple of months ago when there was a debate on traffic in London he said happily that he often rides a bicycle along the pavement. It is a practice which I deplore. I have always looked on him as an upright and law-abiding citizen. I was very rudely disillusioned a short time ago and I am shocked. Although I am sure that he takes very good care himself, it is nevertheless a pernicious practice which is becoming more and more popular. My noble friend is probably well aware that it is against the law, but very few people are aware of that. On the rare occasions when I have dared to remonstrate with an offender I have generally received an answer in what can only be described as unparliamentary language.
My noble friend must realise that he is setting a thoroughly bad example. The pavement is for pedestrian traffic and for pedestrian traffic only. Cyclists on footpaths are a great source of danger, especially to elderly people and small children. I am tempted to refer also to skateboards and roller skates but I realise that they are outside the scope of the Question.
I should like to put one or two questions to my noble friend on the Front Bench. I do not expect him to answer them straightaway but, if he is unable to do
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so, I should be grateful to receive an answer in due course. First, are the Government aware of the increasingly dangerous practice of riding cycles on the pavement? Secondly, do they agree that it is illegal? Thirdly, what action do they propose to take about it? Fourthly, how many prosecutions have been brought for cycling on the pavement during the past 12 months? As has been said, we need to separate cyclists from the rest of the traffic. That cannot be done by allowing them to ride on the pavement, but it could be done by setting aside dedicated cycle lanes for their use. We also need a publicity campaign to encourage cyclists to obey the traffic rules and to stick to the cycle lanes. I look forward to a few crumbs of encouragement from my noble friend when he replies.
I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Tebbit is not in the Chamber but, had he been here, I am sure that he would have had good reason to use the well known exhortation, "Get on yer bike!"
11.26 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I have enjoyed the debate and thank the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, for giving me the opportunity to talk about a subject dear to my heart. In fact, being a restless soul, all travel is dear to my heart and I have come to this House on practically everything except a horse and cart. I have both a bicycle and a motor cycle in the House. But perhaps I should not have two means of transport parked here.
I am surprised at the tone of the debate. In a way, it has been very British. I have learnt a great deal, but I have not really understood a lot of what I have been told because the statistics and the health details have been so specific. As far as I am concerned, the main thing about cycling is that it is enormous fun. Perhaps it has become less fun, but I do not find it so. It has certainly become more dangerous, but it is still enormous fun - perhaps there is some fun in that danger.
I wanted to continue the fun of cycling when I went to school and I discovered that at my school, which was one of those establishments beset with rules, I could use a bicycle if I joined certain privileged societies. So I joined the natural history society, which enabled me to visit various cinemas, race-courses and - boys being boys - even a local nudist colony in the environs. I have continued to enjoy cycling although laziness besets one with age and today I tend to ride a motor cycle perhaps more than a bicycle.
As far as government action is concerned, I agree that the Government can do a lot more which affects cyclists, but I do not think that there is much that can be done specifically for cyclists. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Amwell, that many of the plans and dreams of cyclists are unlikely to be realised. However, a lot of the action which the Government can take affects all road users. The condition of the roads in London—for example, that of the roads just over the bridge from here—is deplorable whether one is on a bicycle, motor cycle or in a car. There are pot holes and the surface of the road is breaking up to an extent which I would have found surprising in Entebbe or

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Dar es Salaam. The Government need to take immediate measures to encourage local authorities to put that to rights as quickly as they can.
Although I found a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, said about health interesting, I would not go down the road that he mentioned. Having been through quite a tough battle recently with other motor cyclists on the subject of the European Commission meddling in motor cycling, I should be very careful about encouraging European participation in any decisions that we take here on cyclists. Heaven knows the kind of things it is trying to introduce for motor cycles without any evidence to support them. We may find the European Commission wanting to legislate for us all to wear fluorescent leotards and pointed helmets to match. Anything could happen. I would not bother too much about Europe at present.
It is boring to cycle in countries such as Belgium and Holland. I have done it. It is much more fun to cycle here. There is much more variety. There are hills, even in the London area. There is no fun in Europe. They know nothing about cycling through the beautiful British countryside. That is the kind of cycling we can enjoy here. The noble Lord, Lord Vivian, made the point about railways. I hope that if the Government's plans for the privatisation of the railways reach fruition, facilities for carrying bicycles on trains, and at stations, will be improved.
An interesting remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, is fresh in my mind. He talked about unparliamentary language. Cyclists are a very eccentric lot. Some of their language is strange. They do use unparliamentary language. Motor cyclists and car drivers do too. They usually refer to one's ancestry or call one things which are usually parts of the body below the belt. The other day a cyclist came alongside me at a traffic light. He banged my wing and my wing mirror. He then shouted through my window and told me that I was a divot. I am not sure what a divot is. I know what it is on the golf course. It is apparently a term of invective used by cyclists. It may reflect the higher education nature of many of the cycling fraternity. One can hardly take real offence at that language, but it is clearly not complimentary. Whether calling someone a divot is using unparliamentary language, I do not know. I remain to be advised.
There are charities which are trying seriously to improve the lot of the cyclist. I am not sure whether I should like to be able to cycle along a cycle lane all the way from Inverness to Kent, which I think was suggested by the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon. It is useful to have special paths for cyclists. Perhaps railways lines could be converted for cyclists to use. They could be used for families and to teach young children to ride. The charities working for cyclists—I believe that Sustrans is one of them—are admirable, although I should not like to see their aims carried through to the extent that the noble Viscount suggested.
Of course, cycling is healthy, but I do not particularly care whether it is healthy. I did not understand much of what the noble Lord, Lord Rea, said. Being a doctor whom I consult occasionally, I am
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sure that he is right. But I do not go out thinking about my pulse rate or my longevity and whether it will be improved as a result of cycling. I feel jolly good after I have cycled. I seldom feel stressed or irritated.
Those of your Lordships who are not cyclists should be aware of the dangers. The main dangers in London—if your Lordships see them coming, even in the distance, you should beware—are Post Office vans and diplomatic cars. If your Lordships see them coming, you should draw aside, let them pass, and then continue on your way, because they are a perfect menace. I would add to that—I do not want to be sexist here—Peugeot GTIs driven by attractive young girls between the ages of 19 and 25. The same goes for motor cyclists. I am sure that with experience they will find that going close to a two-wheeled vehicle is not a wise thing to do, but they do it, and it is extremely irritating.
I am not sure what the cantilevered cycle shelf described by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, means. It sounds interesting and picturesque. I can see all kinds of other uses for a cantilevered cycle shelf. It would be very good for racing because we could have an annual cycle race and perhaps raise a lot of money for London. However, I am doubtful whether one would want to use that shelf regularly.
I do not wear a helmet and I hope that we shall not have legislation to make that compulsory. I read in a magazine which was given to me before the debate that in New Zealand their wearing is compulsory. They look pretty idiotic. In fact, if I understand the word correctly most people who wear them look "divots". Maybe a more sensible-looking helmet will be designed but for the moment I shall wear my flat hat.
As I am the chairman of a motor cycle industry theft action group, I must point out that the theft of cycles has reached epidemic proportions. Mostly mountain bikes are stolen, which leads me to remark on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft. As he said, mountain bikes are extremely expensive and usually originate, if not wholly, in part from the Far East. Whether people are buying secondhand or new, I recommend that they buy a British bike. I have a 28-inch wheel policeman's bike made in 1948. It has a side stand and is beautifully equipped. It cost £45 and was advertised in a tobacconist's window. There is no need to pay £300 or £400 for a mountain bike which is badly welded and has none of the old British workmanship. I am sure that Raleigh continue the tradition of fine workmanship of British bikes. That is also happening in the motor cycle industry because Triumph has come back in a big way and is producing some of the best motor cycles in the world.
I shall continue to enjoy my cycling. I shall come to your Lordships' House and I shall take enormous care when I do so. I have been lucky thus far during my many years of cycling. Nothing serious has happened to me on a bicycle or on a motor cycle. I take immense care and I am extremely defensive. I urge all noble Lords who have children to urge them to do the same. I urge them to participate with their children in cycling because it one of the best family activities. Children love it and it is a good way to learn whether your

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children have road sense. It gives the family many opportunities to criticise their elders, which is always healthy.
This has been a good debate and once again I thank the noble Lord for giving me the chance of speaking in it. I hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, will have something cheering to say. I know he is sympathetic because both he and I are two-wheel fans.
11.37 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, for initiating an interesting debate. It has been interspersed with many interesting experiences and some humour. The noble Lord, Lord Swansea, wondered whether the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, had sparked the subject in the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford. I do not know about that but the noble Lord certainly spoke of his father getting on his bike in order to search for work. On the other hand, the subject might have been sparked by a Chilean politician called Viera Gallo—that will defeat the Hansard reporters because I am not going to tell them how to spell the name! —who said that socialism can only arrive by bicycle. I do not know what that meant, but there is an interesting contrast between that comment and the experience of Lord Tebbit's father.
In his opening speech, the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, made a powerful indictment of the Secretary of State for Transport when he urged him to alter his transport priorities to take account of cycling. I look forward to receiving help from him in no less an important transport debate dealing with the railways, when again it is a question of priorities which must be adjusted.
However, he was right to say that he searched almost in vain for any comment by the Secretary of State about the value of cycling and about its significance in relation to transport policy general. I too have made some search in that regard —and I shall return to that.
It is a neglected issue. It is neglected in terms of the environmental advantages, to which a number of your Lordships drew attention. It is energy efficient. It creates no pollution. It does not add to congestion. It has all those advantages. And yet overall, few, if any, incentives are offered to give any kind of encouragement to that form of transport. Indeed, the situation is more marked by the disincentives that prevail. It is certainly neglected in terms of safety and public health. Common sense standards and regulations should be applied as regards cyclists themselves—and I shall turn to that in a few moments—and some public provision should be made to support cycling on the part of the Government.
I thought it was odd that, having made that powerful indictment on the various grounds set out in the Motion, the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, should have concluded his speech by saying that he had every confidence in that silent Secretary of State when it comes to cycling. What grounds for confidence could there have been in the light of his own observations?
It is neglected too in terms of the cost benefits which cycling confers. Above all, it has been neglected by this
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Government who, in the detailed joint evidence given by the Department of Transport and Department of the Environment to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution significantly paid only the slightest obeisance to the importance of cycling. In the 68 pages of that document, which I commend to your Lordships, there is one short paragraph in the introduction, there is an even shorter reference in Annex D and there is a brief reference to a commitment entered into by the Prime Minister at Rio to encourage non-motorised modes of transport by providing safe cycleways and footways in urban and suburban centres. A fat lot of hope there is given by this Government when it comes to these matters because they always say—and one of your Lordships referred to it—that it is the responsibility of local authorities. They are suggesting that they have no responsibility whatever in these matters and it is the cash-starved local authorities which should pick up the burdens all the time.
There is all that, despite the fact that there are 15 million cyclists in the United Kingdom who are manifestly not properly catered for and who are poorly served by comparison with many other countries in North-West Europe. Some interesting statistics have been provided. Eleven per cent. of the journeys in Germany are undertaken by cycle, 18 per cent. in Denmark, 27 per cent. in Holland, and 2 per cent. in the United Kingdom. Therefore, the Government have not done very much to encourage the greater use of the cycle in this country.
The environmental advantages are self evident. I hope that when the Secretary of State says:
"it is the Government's responsibility to minimise adverse environmental effects as far as transport is concerned so far as is practicable",
or:
"I want to ensure that concern for our environment is built into every aspect of our transport policy",
it will prove to be more than mere rhetoric. I hope that the Secretary of State will turn his mind, however grudgingly, to the important issue of cycling in relation to transport policy.
We know that traffic pollutants represent a major danger to health. That has been touched upon by my noble friend Lord Rea. We all understand why he has been unable to wait until the end of the debate. I suspect that he did not want to hear from me and perhaps the Minister as well. But we do understand. Of course, it is a danger not only to cyclists, even if they wear a mask, but also—perhaps even more so—to car users who are exposed to all those obnoxious pollutants. There is no safe refuge from traffic pollution.
So far as concerns safety and public health—the second leg of the debate—subject to the caveats to which I have already referred it is incontestable that there are also advantages in that field. Some of the statistics that have been quoted in reports speak for themselves. In 1991, 125 people were killed on pedestrian crossings or on central islands by motor vehicles. In the same year, nearly 2,000 pedestrians—in fact, 1,862—were killed. I do no know how many were injured. Yet only one person was killed by a cyclist. One has to try to assess the terrible cost in

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terms of human suffering on the part of the victims and their loved ones, the working opportunities that are squandered and the burden on the health services that those statistics represent.
I shall not go into the benefits conferred by cycling as regards health; indeed, that has been dealt with by a number of speakers. But why, against all the background of the discussion that we have had this evening, should such scant regard be offered to cyclists? They are exposed to unnecessary perils on congested and dangerous urban roads, so why are such inadequate facilities provided? Why, with one or two exceptions—another point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford—are cyclists banned, for example, from Royal parks even though they could offer a haven from the kind of perils about which we have heard tonight. Indeed, someone cited the Marylebone Road and the appropriately named Kensington Gore. Why are they given such inadequate attention by highway authorities and planners?
Why do not cycle manufacturers recognise their responsibilities for the life and limb of the cyclists who buy their machines? Car manufacturers increasingly recognise such responsibilities. They know that their responsibilities do not end at the point of sale in relation to the safety and welfare of drivers and passengers. If British cycle manufacturers want to expand their sales—and that has been encouraged by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft—why do they not turn their attention to that aspect of the matter?
What about the responsibilities of cyclists themselves? It is all very well to talk about them having increased rights and to say that more attention should be paid to them—and I have already indicated my support for that—but those rights should also be accompanied by their bearing greater responsibilities. Those should include ensuring that their bikes are properly illuminated at night. It is quite a rarity these days to find a cyclist ensuring that his bicycle is properly illuminated both at the front and at the rear. Cyclists believe, I suppose with some justification, that the law will not be enforced against them. I wonder how many incidents there have been of prosecutions, successful or otherwise, initiated by the police to ensure that that law is properly observed. I suspect that the number is very limited.
Cyclists have an obligation to wear properly reflective strips. As to whether or not that is imposed by the European Community is by the way. We are talking about a moral obligation towards other users of the road. They should not weave in and out of traffic, thus putting themselves and others in jeopardy as too many of them do. They should not overtake suddenly and silently on the nearside of cars in the hope that they can get away with it. They should wear helmets, or "skid lids" as I think they are called, even though they may not be the most attractive form of headgear imaginable. They should avoid terrorising pedestrians by speeding along pavements, as some of them do. They should also observe the law and
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appreciate that policy to enforce the laws far more rigidly than is currently the case is a burden upon government which is simply not fulfilled at present.
Moreover, some of the cyclist courier companies that seem to be proliferating at a great rate should, in my view, bear some considerable responsibility for giving cyclists a bad name these days. I think their employees come under thoroughly undesirable pressures, operating as most of them do on piece rates, to take risks for the sake of speed. Perhaps those riders should be licensed in some way. That is a matter which needs further investigation.
What are the possible incentives and measures that might be considered? The Government would do well to consider the recommendations that have been made by the British Medical Association in its report entitled Cycling Towards Health and Safety. I only have time to summarise the recommendations that have been made. It suggests that measures should be taken to reduce motor vehicle speeds in urban areas. That is worth considering. Moreover, it recommends that consideration should be given to cyclists' needs when designing traffic calming measures. I very much agree with the point that I believe was made by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, and another speaker earlier on.
Cycle networks need to be introduced, it is recommended, to provide safer cycling conditions in urban areas. It is just not good enough, as I said before, to repose all responsibilities on local authorities. These actions should include the provision of dedicated cycle tracks. That point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Swansea. It is extraordinary that when Kensington and Chelsea took over responsibility from the GLC in 1986 for looking after roads it wantonly ripped up cycle lanes. Why on earth it did that, I do not know. That is hardly an encouragement to cyclists. Cycle lanes on all-traffic roads are obviously desirable. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Swansea, referred to that matter in his speech.
There are other matters that are dealt with in this report but I wish to draw particular attention to the special arrangements that need to be made at junctions and road crossings which are particularly hazardous for cyclists. It is recommended that the interests of cyclists should be given greater priority at every stage of the planning process for roads and transport routes. That means that cycling has to be given a far higher profile by the Government, who should take a pro-active role in improving the safety of cyclists.
A further recommendation is that local authorities should encourage cycle use in towns by providing secure cycle parks, as indeed is done in Sheffield. That is a real incentive. It is recommended that facilities should be developed to integrate cycling more fully with other means of public transport. That should be seen as complementary to the provision of other modes of transport. Better, more secure cycle parking at bus and train stations and improved arrangements for carrying bikes on trains are also important measures. All those measures represent real incentives. The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, made that point in his speech.

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It is stressed in the report that local authorities should promote cycling for utilitarian, recreational, economic, environmental and health reasons. It is further recommended that cycle manufacturers should assume greater responsibility for the safety of cyclists. That reinforces the point I made earlier.
I turn finally to the political response. It is high time that the Government elevated their sights to recognise that cyclists exist in large numbers and that transport policy is not just about piling more and more cars onto roads. That situation is simply unsustainable. In our policy document entitled London: A Strategy for Transport, the Labour Party specifically urged the importance of giving proper recognition and priority to cycling and to walking. I say that in response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, when he urged other political parties to do that. We have done it and we have done it repeatedly from 1990 onwards. We called inter alia for the implementation of the 1,000 mile strategic route network. Again, we did not merely suggest that that could be—irresponsibly, in my view—left to local authorities, which are hard pressed enough.
We pressed for improved provision for cyclists on trains and at stations. We pointed out, as a research report in 1988 had already pointed out to the European Commission, that Britain had the worst environment of any European Community member state in which to cycle. That report also called for more cycle parking facilities and for British Rail to undertake a systematic improvement of cycle parking at all stations in the London region and for new rolling stock to accommodate transportation of cycles. What have the Government done in terms of their discussions with British Rail in order to ensure that that sort of policy is carried out?
In other words, the Labour Party and the BMA in its report were marching hand in hand so far as concerns the provision of proper conditions for cyclists.
What have the Government ever done in any of their much-vaunted budgets to encourage cycling? They have had every opportunity to do so and they have done nothing to provide incentives, for example, for employers to offer cash alternatives to the company car for those using cycles. Cyclists have simply not ranked, largely because their lobby is not seen as powerful in comparison with the road lobby. That is the reality of the politics behind this matter.
The Government have a powerful case to answer. Some of your Lordships have let the Government off the hook much too easily, though implicit in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, were very potent criticisms, which he somehow allowed to be weakened in the peroration. That was a pity. Now the Minister has his chance.
11.56 p.m.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Marlesford for introducing this Question and giving us the opportunity to debate cycling issues. As has been said this evening, my noble friend has done much to raise the profile of cycling in recent months with a series of interesting Questions.
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The environmental, health and cost benefits of cycling are being recognised by increasing numbers of people. Best estimates are that there are at least 15 million bicycles in the UK. Around 11 million people cycle, nearly 4 million doing so regularly.
As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Broadbridge, the past few years have seen an increase in people's awareness of how their everyday decisions may have an impact on the environment. Nowhere has that been more clearly shown than in the area of transport. The Government recognise that cycling is an energy efficient and environmentally friendly means of transport. There is scope for cycling trips to increase, and if those journeys are made at the expense of the car, that in turn would lead to a reduction in traffic congestion and pollution. Increased bicycle sales over recent years show that there is potential interest in greater use of the bicycle.
The Government also acknowledge the health benefits, highlighted by my noble friend Lord Colwyn, the noble Lord, Lord Rea, and the noble Lord, Lord Broadbridge, which can be derived from cycling, in common with other sporting activities. However, we do not accept all the findings of the BMA report. In particular, we believe that road safety implications have not been given proper weight.
As the noble Lord, Lord Amwell, stated, cycling is essentially a convenient means of travel over short distances, though some cyclists cover considerably greater distances, particularly in sporting and recreational activities, as described by my noble friend Lord Lyell. It is not surprising, therefore, that the overwhelming volume of cycling takes place on local authority roads, which make up 96 per cent. of the national road network. It is for local highway authorities to decide on the scale of facilities for cycling on those roads, taking account of what they can afford. Rightly, therefore, authorities have a wide range of powers, without central government interference, to provide cycle lanes, cycle tracks and other traffic engineering measures which can enhance the safety of cyclists.
My noble friend Lord Marlesford suggested a number of potential traffic engineering schemes. First, I can reassure my noble friend that the Department of Transport takes the needs of cyclists into account when considering all construction, reconstruction or improvement to trunk roads, and it advises local highways to do the same. Modifying urban underpasses to give extra space to dedicated cycle facilities would indeed be an expensive undertaking and would be a matter for individual highway authorities to consider against particular local circumstances.
Local authorities already have a wide knowledge of technical means of providing better and safer facilities for cyclists. But it is for those authorities to judge the extent of the provision they make for cycling against other competing priorities.
To answer a point also raised by the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, I should add that the Department of Transport has already published technical advice on the use of advance stop lines and is undertaking further research which should result in

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additional guidance being published later this year. Also the conversion of footways and footpaths to cycle tracks is extensively covered in the Department of Transport Local Transport Note 2/86 entitled Shared use by cyclists and pedestrians.
But there is a wider role for central government. We are committed to helping overcome the practical difficulties faced by cyclists and those who might cycle, in particular on the major concern of safety, which has been raised by a number of noble Lords today. Thus we have concentrated on initiatives to improve the behaviour of road users through education and publicity and through traffic engineering, a policy which seems to have complete support from noble Lords who have spoken today.
The Government are spearheading a major campaign to encourage people to drive more carefully and at speeds consistent with the area through which they are passing. The strategy has been detailed in a publication Killing Speed and Saving Lives. The document stresses that the speeding driver is the major cause of death and injury on the roads. The problem of speeding is being tackled in a number of different ways—improved detection through radar devices, the admission of photographic material as sole evidence to convict speeding motorists, increased penalties in the courts to deter people from speeding, a long term publicity campaign to make drivers aware of the dangers of excessive speed, the introduction of self-enforcing traffic engineering measures to help secure compliance with speed limits, a requirement for speed limiters to be fitted more widely; and advice which encourages the setting of appropriate speed limits. Those initiatives are central to the policy of reducing road casualties by one third by the year 2000. They will bring benefits to all vulnerable road users, including cyclists.
To address the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Amwell, the Government have recently launched a road safety publicity campaign focused on child cycle safety. The campaign is fronted by a television commercial aimed at persuading children to wear cycle helmets. Its importance has been illustrated by the noble Lord, Lord Rea. It has been designed to encourage the participation of organisations and commercial companies. It will extend to other issues such as improved conspicuity, greater awareness by drivers of cyclists, improved cycle training and machine maintenance.
The Government have produced a wide range of technical advice on the design of cycling facilities which is available to local authorities and other bodies. Particular attention has been given to providing advice and guidance to highway authorities on ways of implementing safe cycling routes and crossings of busy roads. The results of our sustained programme of research are contained in our Local Transport Note series of publications, available from HMSO, the latest of which is called Making Way for Cyclists. Detailed information on specific schemes and facilities to enhance the safety and convenience of cyclists is contained in our Traffic Advisory Leaflets
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which are distributed free to all highway authorities. Some 30 or so of those leaflets have been published since 1986.
The Department of Transport encourages the provision of cycle networks and other features which can improve the safety of cyclists. We have assisted in the development of the 1,000 mile cycle network for London. However, since 96 per cent. is on borough roads, it is for them to determine the level of provision in their areas and to liaise with neighbouring boroughs where the routes are to continue over boundaries.
The department will provide cycle lanes and crossing points on those parts of the network that are on trunk roads. In answer to the point of my noble friend Lord Marlesford, the traffic director for London will fund those parts of the network which are complementary to the operation of Red Routes and crossing points of the priority route network.
As the noble Lord, Lord Amwell, highlighted, the transport supplementary grant is largely devoted to expenditure on roads of more than just local importance which carry a large proportion of through traffic. However, since 1991–92, local safety schemes, which could include low cost road improvements at accident black spots, on all local roads have been eligible for TSG because of the valuable contribution they can make to achieving the Government's target of reducing road casualties by a third by the year 2000. Specific cycling schemes, in addition to those which qualify as a local safety scheme, or as part of one, can also qualify for TSG support if they are intended to reduce accidents on roads of more than local importance. This can involve not only the construction of facilities on main roads, such as cycle lanes and cycle crossings, but also the development of cycle routes on minor roads which attract significant numbers of cyclists away from through routes.
The responsibilities of cyclists themselves have been a subject that has caused a great deal of anxiety, not least from the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis. Although there is much that central and local government can do, my noble friend Lord Marlesford will, I am sure, agree that cyclists can do much to improve their own safety by ensuring that their bicycle, their lights and their reflectors are properly maintained, and by wearing conspicuous clothing and, most importantly, by obeying road traffic laws.
In answer to my noble friend Lord Swansea, cyclists who ride on pavements, ignore traffic lights or who ride the wrong way down one-way streets are a danger to themselves and other road users. Cyclists must remember that the rules of the road apply to themselves as much as anyone else. The police take action against cyclists who ignore road traffic laws. In 1991, there were 1,207 successful prosecutions for cycling offences.
In addition to safety measures, the Government have sponsored and encouraged the growth of traffic calming measures in the UK. Last year support was given to the passage of legislation, resulting in the Traffic Calming Act 1992. The Department of Transport is now bringing forward regulations to provide a clearer framework for local authorities. It is proposed that a range of features will be covered,

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including chicanes, narrowings, rumble strips and gateways. The development of schemes over significant areas will have a marked effect on drivers' behaviour and will help constrain the speeds.
The introduction of 20 mile-per-hour zones has accelerated this process. Fifty such schemes have already been developed. The early indications are of a considerable reduction in both the number and severity of accidents. The benefits for cyclists, as well as for pedestrians and people living in and near such schemes, can be considerable.
To answer the points raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, the Department of Transport is well aware of the work of SUSTRANS, having commissioned the original survey 10 years ago of the potential of redundant railway lines in England and Wales to provide cycle routes. The department has assisted SUSTRANS in the past with crossings of the trunk road network and will continue to help where and when crossings can be justified.
The Department of Transport has been actively involved from the outset with Velo City 1993 to be held in Nottingham at the beginning of September. The department is represented on the organising committee and has made a significant contribution within the programme committee which has been putting together the business side of the conference. I understand that Ministers are likely to speak at the conference. Departmental officials will be giving papers, chairing sessions and helping with the organisation behind the scenes.
To answer the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Amwell, on Toucan crossings, the Department of Transport has been carrying out research to establish the crossings which allow cyclists and pedestrians to cross the road together under traffic light control. The department intends to publish guidance on the topic in the next few months.
I cannot agree with my noble friend Lord Colwyn that very little has happened with regard to action on cycling matters. As I said, the Government have already undertaken research and published a wide range of technical and administration advice to local authorities. Many authorities have recognised the part that cycling can play within the traffic matrix. Cities and towns across the country such as York, Nottingham, Cambridge, Peterborough, Milton Keynes, Bristol, Southampton, Manchester and parts of London can demonstrate a range of good facilities intended to help cyclists. In response to the question put by my noble friend, measures introduced by the New Roads and Street Works Act of 1991 will do much to alleviate the problems which road users generally, and cyclists in particular, encounter from the utility street works. These include making utilities fully responsible for the reinstatement of their excavations in the high road, and better signing and guarding of street works, including the provision of robust barriers.
In framing codes of practice under the Act, the specific needs of cyclists were given due attention, notably in the codes dealing with signing and
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guarding, reinstatement and co-ordination of street works and highway authorities' works for road purposes.
In answer to my noble friend Lord Vivian, the Government have given clear guidance to local authorities on the importance of providing well-designed and sensibly located parking facilities for cyclists. Signs attached to railings and private property are not the responsibility of government. It has to be remembered that cycles attached to railings can cause damage and can obstruct a public thoroughfare.
I thank my noble friend Lord Mancroft for referring to Chinese imports, which have caused concern in the industry. It is for the European Commission to consider complaints about cheap imports under the Community's anti-dumping legislation. The Commission is currently carrying out an anti-dumping investigation into imports of Chinese bicycles. Pending completion of its investigation, it imposed a provisional anti-dumping duty of 34.4 per cent. on these imports with effect from 12th March 1993. If that duty is confirmed in due course, it will last for five years.
The European Community, like most developed countries, operates a generalised system of preferences scheme, which allows duty-free entry for products, including bicycles, from developing countries as a means of increasing their export earnings, promoting their industrialisation and accelerating the rate of their economic growth. Although comparatively advanced and competitive in a number of fields, China's overall industrial development and GNP per head remain at a comparable level to those of most developing countries.
However, it is because it is recognised that beneficiaries of GSP may be highly competitive in specific product areas that the scheme allows member states to request a re-imposition of duty once a pre-determined level of imports has been reached, when it can be shown that those preferential imports are causing damage to domestic industry. Following consultations with interested parties, the Department of Trade and Industry has asked the European Commission to re-impose normal duty on Chinese bicycles for the remainder of 1993.
The Government have concentrated their efforts on making cycling safer. That policy is borne out by the statistics. In 1991 there were 25,042 reported accidents involving pedal cycles, in which 242 cyclists were killed, 3,946 cyclists were seriously injured and 20,650 cyclists were slightly injured. Total casualties and fatalities fell by 6 per cent. between 1990 and 1991. Compared to the 1981–85 average total casualties have fallen by 22 per cent. and fatalities by 32 per cent. Provisional figures for 1992 show that cycling casualties have continued to decrease: 204 cyclists were killed; 3,769 were seriously injured; and 20,803 were slightly injured.
It is for individuals to decide whether or not to cycle. We recognise that cycling has the potential to confer considerable environmental, health and cost benefits. However, a significant inhibitor to people's willingness to cycle is concern about safety. The

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Government have therefore promoted measures to improve the safety and convenience of cycling. We shall continue to seek an advancement in driver behaviour and conditions which can assist cyclists.
I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, and in particular my noble friend Lord Marlesford for giving us the opportunity to discuss cycling issues which have attracted such interest at this late hour.

Charities Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to.
Clean Air Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to.

Radioactive Substances Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to.
House adjourned at a quarter past midnight.