Lords Sitting of 1 December 1993

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of St. Albans.

Sellafield: Discharge Levels
Lord Jenkins of Putney Lord Jenkins of Putney asked Her Majesty's Government:
When they received the report from British Nuclear Fuels plc that plutonium 239 has been released over Cumbria in levels 200 times greater than previous estimates; and whether they will now end the production or separation of plutonium in the United Kingdom.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, in the autumn of 1992 Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of Health received copies of a report written by Professor Steven Jones of BNFL. The Government have no plans to end the production or separation of plutonium in the United Kingdom.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, will the noble Viscount comment on the report, which appeared in the Guardian and other newspapers, that the review which took place had revealed emissions from Sellafield 200 times greater than hitherto reported? Have the Government received such a report? If so, will the noble Viscount comment specifically upon it?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the report by Professor Jones reassessed the discharges in the early years of the Sellafield site by reference to records made at the time and current assessment procedures. The report has no implication for current or proposed future discharges from the site, which are specifically measured.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, perhaps I may press the noble Viscount further. According to the article in the Guardian—not denied hitherto by the Government—the report, which was officially received by BNFL and passed on to the Government, says that emissions from Sellafield were 200 times greater than previously reported. Is the noble Viscount denying that fact? Is he saying that the Government have not considered the matter? Alternatively, what is he saying?
Viscount Goschen: No, my Lords, we are not denying that fact. The report by Professor Jones is the most detailed study yet made of plant discharges of isotopes in the early years. Previous reports carried out in the 1980s used major simplifying assumptions to track back from modern measurements. The new work by Professor Jones shows that for certain isotopes, especially plutonium, such assumptions were incorrect.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, can the Minister say what are the levels of radioactive
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plutonium in sediment along the Cumbrian coast caused by liquid discharges from Sellafield? If the level is 200 times greater in air pollution, what is it in liquid discharges? Further, does the noble Viscount agree that the level of radiation exposure for people who eat fish and shellfish caught in that area could give rise to serious concern? What are the Government doing to monitor the situation?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the main source of plutonium in marine sediments is the emission of low-level liquid waste to the Irish Sea, especially emissions that occurred in the 1970s before, extensive improvements were made to effluent treatments in the 1980s. I must reiterate that the figure of 200 refers to an historic figure.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, bearing in mind the fact that pollution and emissions do not respect national boundaries and also the need for Britain to be a good neighbour to the countries that adjoin us, have the Government sent copies of the report to the Irish and Scandinavian governments and taken note of their responses to it?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the report was written by Professor Jones for BNFL. The report is not secret; indeed, it was given openly as evidence in the recent Reay and Hope leukaemia litigation case and, as I said, was made available to Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution and other bodies. The information contained in the report has been passed to the Committee on the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment. I also understand that Professor Jones is intending to offer the report for publication in a scientific journal in due course.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, although the noble Viscount now says that the report is not secret, it has been kept secret so far. Will he place copies of the report in the Libraries of both Houses so that Members can make up their minds about this difficult but important matter?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, as is customary with scientific research, publication of the report is a matter for Professor Jones as author of the material. I reiterate that the material is not secret. If and when the report is published in a scientific journal, a copy will he placed in the Library of both Houses.

Olympic Symbols
2.43 p.m.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will introduce legislation to protect the Olympic ring symbols in favour of the British Olympic Association.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, we remain committed to introducing legislation as soon as the parliamentary timetable allows to protect the use of the Olympic symbols and related terms and thereby to benefit the British Olympic Association.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that positive reply. But is she aware that the British Olympic Association receives no government grant and indeed relies entirely on sponsorship? Does she accept that it is therefore vital that the £10 million that the association hopes to raise from its sponsors to assist our athletes competing in the Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta is not jeopardised by the unauthorised use of the Olympic symbols?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, we are looking at all possible options to speed up the introduction of legislation. We are certainly aware of the demands faced by the BOA and by athletes in the run-up to both the 1994 winter games and the 1996 games in Atlanta.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, will the Minister give an undertaking that such legislation as the noble Lord, Lord Archer, has asked for is introduced as a matter of urgency because people who wish to make a racket out of selling the logo and other goods will soon start to do so unless legislation to prevent them is introduced quickly?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, we are actively considering, as I have said, all possible legislative options so that British sport may begin to reap the benefit at the earliest opportunity.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm or deny that the legislation to which she has just referred would be covered by the phrase "other measures" in Her Majesty's gracious Speech?
Baroness Trumpington: No, my Lords. I cannot do so.
Lord Elton: My Lords, presumably the legislation will have effect only in so far as the British jurisdiction extends. I presume protection is required worldwide for this symbol in so far as it relates to British teams. Is it not therefore also a matter for the British Olympic Association to take out patents worldwide in the normal way?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the intention would be to allow the British Olympic Association to market rights to use the Olympic devices more effectively by giving it exclusive rights in these devices which would generate revenue from the private sector to support British Olympic teams. British sport stands to benefit substantially from the extra fund-raising which this protection would facilitate, and a measure of this kind is required by the International Olympic Committee of countries wishing to stage Olympic games. Its adoption would greatly strengthen any future British Olympic bid.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, the Sports Aid Foundation does good work in raising money for sport, but the sponsorships in which it is involved have often required the use of the terms "Olympic" or "Olympian". Will the Minister assure the House that any such legislation giving monopoly rights would not damage the work of the Sports Aid Foundation?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord that the Sports Aid Foundation does excellent work in funding elite athletes to help them compete with distinction. The BOA has been discussing with the Sports Aid Foundation how its interests might best be safeguarded.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for all that she has said, but I stress the view that it would help if this important piece of legislation was put through as quickly as possible as the winter games, as my noble friend mentioned, will take place in only 18 months' time.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I hope I have made it as clear as I possibly can that we are looking at all possible options to speed this matter up. It is not for nothing that I am known as "Jeannie the Eagle".

NHS Supplies Authority: Audit Provisions
2.48 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the audit committee referred to by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health at col. 713 of the Lords' Official Report on 25th October has yet been formed, and, if so, who are the members.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, at its meeting on 16th November the National Health Service Supplies Authority agreed that its audit committee would consist of three of the authority's non-executive members. The members will be selected at its next meeting on 16th December, after which I shall write to the noble Lord giving him the membership.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful for the detailed Answer that the Minister has given me. But in view of the unhappy financial outcome of some dealings within the National Health Service, does she consider that the three people she has mentioned should be members of the audit committee? I believe they are already employed in another capacity in the health service on a quango and now they will not only be twin-tracking but treble-tracking. For this matter to be run on a correct financial basis the people appointed to the committee ought to be totally removed from the health service. That stricture should apply not only to the three directors, who are nameless at this point in time, but also to the chief executive and the chairman. Does the Minister accept that for this matter to be seen to be financially correct none of those people should be involved with the audit committee because if they are involved they will literally be examining their own books?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I should like to draw a distinction between internal and external audit. In this case we are talking about internal audit. It is quite right that the non-executive members involved with the organisation should be involved in the internal audit.

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We have received the Cadbury Report on the financial aspects of corporate governance. I understand that it is the first such report, and it has been very well received by a number of regulatory bodies. It is highly commended by both the private and the public sectors. We are in absolute accordance with the recommendations of the Cadbury Report. The non-executive members of this authority are composed of a company solicitor, the former chief executive of the John Lewis Partnership, a chartered engineer, a management consultant and a director of a freight company. They all have outside interests, which is important for non-executive members.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am sorry to return to the matter so quickly. I accept what the Minister said without reservation. However, am I correct in thinking that some of the people she mentioned are already employed in another capacity in other quangos in the National Health Service? I am not talking about the qualifications of those outside members. The Minister insists that it has to be an internal audit. The point that I made in my Question a few weeks ago is that, with a turnover of between £1.7 billion and £3 billion, there ought to be an element of outside investigation of the final end-of-year turnover to ensure that this is not another case where the National Health Service will lose millions of pounds because of a poor business approach.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, we have absolute confidence in the supplies authority. The external audit for the supplies authority is carried out by the National Audit Office, the Audit. Commission, Parliament through the PAC and the review system. This is an internal audit and, as I said, it is important to draw that distinction. I have been given a guarantee by the chairman of the authority that he will not be part of this small membership, and neither will the chief executive or other executive members of the authority.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation. Does it mean that none of those who will undertake this internal audit is in the payment of the National Health Service? That would he a proper move. Secondly, instead of using so many private audit companies, which come in and are paid by the National Health Service, would it not be more appropriate for the National Audit Office and the National Audit Commission to undertake these internal inquiries?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, those bodies do that. It is essential that every organisation has both internal and external audits. The internal audit is carried out by people within the organisation. In line with the Cadbury Report, they are non-executive members of the organisation. They keep a watching brief on a day-to-day basis. That is very important and one would not expect external auditors to do that.
As regards those who are involved in the audit, they are involved in the National Health Service. This particular authority is a supplying authority to the National Health Service. It is important that we have
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people on the authority who are not only beyond reproach but are also consumers of the service, in that it is a service industry supplying a service to them.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, my question was: are any of them paid by the National Health Service?
Baroness Cumberlege: Yes, my Lords. They are paid as non-executive directors in line with every authority and trust board within the NHS, and they also hold posts within the National Health Service as chairmen of health authorities or other positions. That is the consumer aspect of the NHS supplies authority.
Lord Carter: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House whether the findings of the proposed audit committee will be dealt with rather more openly than the original district auditor's report on the mismanagement, incompetence and possible fraud in the Wessex Health Authority? That report was delivered to the Secretary of State, Mrs. Virginia Bottomley, who took no action. The senior staff of the health authority were warned that approaching the press or the local MP would result in instant dismissal. The then chairman of the authority, Sir Robin Buchanan, having first disclaimed any responsibility, then had to admit that he had been involved in negotiations regarding the computer contract which was the subject of the district auditor's highly critical 77-page report. Can we expect rather more open government so far as concerns the proposed audit committee, and will the findings of that audit committee be available for debate in both Houses of Parliament?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, district auditors' reports on all authorities and trusts are published. They are in the public domain. With regard to the Wessex situation, I should like to point out that many of the irregularities which occurred in relation to that scheme took place before Sir Robin Buchanan became chairman in 1987.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the Cadbury Report recommended that the audit committees of public companies should be comprised of non-executive directors? My understanding of non-executive directors is that they have no other connection with the company concerned except as directors. It would appear, and can the Minister confirm, that the arrangements that are being set up for the National Health Service are not in line with the recommendations of the Cadbury Report in that the non-executive directors involved hold positions elsewhere within the organisation?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I should like to reassure your Lordships that the proposals that are being put forward by the supplies authority are in accordance with the Cadbury Committee recommendations. The Cadbury Committee stated that the board should establish an internal audit committee of at least three, non-executive directors with written terms of reference which deal clearly with its authority and duties. That is
exactly what will happen.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful for the very detailed way in which the Minister has answered the questions. However, is she aware that her reply that some of the people involved are already receiving two salaries or stipends within the National Health Service makes my case for me? They ought not to be given a third, on the grounds that they are already involved. They are the buyer and the seller and are now becoming their own auditor.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, as consumers of the service and of the National Health Service Supplies Authority it is very much in the interests of health authority chairmen, trust chairmen and whoever else is involved to ensure that they receive value for money. I believe that they will be keener than anybody else to ensure that there are no irregularities and, what is more, that they are receiving value for money from the NHS Supplies Authority.

Business
2.57 p.m.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Astor will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement which is to be made in another place on social security uprating.

Liaison Select Committee
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Ampthill): My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed to advise the House on the resources required for Select Committee work and to allocate resources between Select Committees; to review the Select Committee work of the House; to consider requests for ad hoc committees and report to the House with recommendations; to ensure effective co-ordination between the two Houses; and to consider the availability of Lords to serve on committees;
That as proposed by the Committee of Selection the following Lords be named of the committee:

L. Belstead,

L. Dormand of Easington,

B. Hylton-Foster,

E. Jellicoe,

L. Jenkins of Hillhead,

L. Richard,

L. Wakeham (Lord Privy Seal) (Chairman),

L. Weatherill.

That the committee have leave to report from time to time;
That the committee have power to appoint specialist advisers.—(The Chairman of Committees.)
On Question, Motion agreed to

House of Lords' Offices: Select Committee
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Select Committee on the House of Lords' Offices be appointed and that as proposed by the Committee of Selection the following Lords together with the Chairman of Committees be named of the committee:

L. Beaumont of Whitley,

L. Boston of Faversham,

L. Charteris of Amisfield,

L. Dainton,

L. Denham,

E. Ferrers,

L. Gibson,

L. Glenarthur,

L. Graham of Edmonton,

L. Hampton,

L. Hayhoe,

B. Hollis of Heigham,

B. Hylton-Foster,

L. Jenkins of Hillhead,

L. Kimball,

L. McIntosh of Haringey,

L. Mackay of Clashfern (Lord Chancellor),

L. Peston,

Bp. Peterborough,

L. Richard,

B. Seccombe,

B. Serota,

L. Stewartby,

L. Stoddart of Swindon,

L. Taylor of Blackburn,

L. Tordoff,

L. Wakeham (Lord Privy Seal),

V. Ullswater.—(The Chairman of Committees.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Procedure of the House: Select Committee
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I beg to move the third Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Select Committee on Procedure of the House be appointed and that as proposed by the Committee of Selection the following Lords together with the Chairman of Committees be named of the committee:

L. Allen of Abbeydale,

L. Belstead,

B. Blatch,

L. Boston of Faversham,

L. Carr of Hadley,

L. Denham,

L. Dormand of Easington,

L. Elliott of Morpeth,

E. Ferrers,

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L. Graham of Edmonton,

L. Harris of Greenwich,

L. Hesketh,

B. Hylton-Foster,

L. Jenkins of Hillhead,

L. McIntosh of Haringey,

L. Mackay of Clashfern (Lord Chancellor),

L. Morris of Castle Morris,

L. Mustill,

L. Pym,

L. Richard,

E. Strathmore and Kinghorne,

L. Strabolgi,

L. Tordoff,

L. Wakeham (Lord Privy Seal),

V. Ullswater,

L. Weatherill.—(The Chairman of Committees.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Deputy Chairmen of Committees
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I beg to move the fourth Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That as proposed by the Committee of Selection the following Lords be appointed as the panel of Lords to act as Deputy Chairmen of Committees for this Session:

L. Aberdare,

L. Airedale,

V. Allenby of Megiddo,

L. Alport,

L. Brougham and Vaux,

L. Cocks of Hartcliffe,

B. Cox,

L. Elliott of Morpeth,

L. Graham of Edmonton,

L. Grantchester,

L. Hayter,

B. Hooper,

E. Listowel,

B. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe,

B. Lockwood,

L. Lyell,

L. Murton of Lindisfarne,

V. Oxfuird,

B. Serota,

L. Skelmersdale,

L. Strabolgi,

E. Strathmore and Kinghorne,

V. Ullswater.—(The Chairman of Committees.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Business of the House: Debate this Day
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Wakeham): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. In moving this Motion perhaps I may pray the indulgence of the House if in my own speech I find it difficult to stick precisely to the five-minute limit which will apply to other speakers save for those from the Front Benches. However, I shall endeavour to be as brief as possible.
Moved, That the debate on the Motion in the name of the Lord Richard set down for this day shall be limited to five hours.—(Lord Wakeham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Government Policies: Confidence
3 p.m.
Lord Richard Lord Richard rose to move to resolve, That this House has no confidence in the policies of Her Majesty's Government.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am told that I am entitled to speak for 20 minutes. Perhaps I may say at the outset to the noble Lord the Leader of the House that I expect to take somewhat less than 20 minutes. Therefore, if there are a few minutes left and if the House thinks it right, I shall be happy to give the Leader of the House those additional minutes for him to seek to justify the policies of the past 14 years.
I am told that the Motion is somewhat rare. I have been unable to discover a direct precedent on when it was last moved in the House. Although rare, from time to time similar Motions have been moved. However, we believe it appropriate that the House should have an opportunity for a little stocktaking so far as concerns the Government's record. It enables the House to express a judgment on the policies of the Government after no less than 14 years of Conservative Party rule. At the end of the debate, of course, there will be a vote. I understand the pressures of time on many speakers in the debate. Indeed, it is interesting that the debate has attracted so many speakers; there are about 47. I understand the pressures on some noble Lords. The last volume which the noble Lord, Lord Archer, produced contained some 420 pages. It would be an act of unwelcome self-discipline on his part to have to condense his remarks to four-and-a-half or five minutes. We look forward to his speech with interest.
Perhaps I may say at the outset that I wound not expect the Government to fall if the Motion were to be carried.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Richard: My Lords, it would be an appropriate expression of opinion, but the precise constitutional effect of the Motion being carried is, to put it mildly, somewhat unclear. As I see it, there are three possible votes at the end of the debate. Those who have no confidence in the Government will of course vote for the Motion. Those who have confidence will of course vote against it. But there are bound to be many in this House—I do not refer only to the noble Lords sitting on the Cross Benches—in an intermediate position. When I considered that position before coming to the House today, the couplet from Belloc came to my mind which states:
"Always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse".
The debate is not upon the policies of the Labour Party. In many ways I wish that it were. Had we been in office for 14 years I would have welcomed a debate on the

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policies of the Labour Party. Nor, indeed, is it a debate in detail on yesterday's Budget. However, to those who take the Belloc position,
"Always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse",
perhaps I may say this. That is a doctrine not of confidence but of resignation. At best it is a doctrine of reluctant acquiescence in a Government about which one is extraordinarily unenthusiastic. As such it seems to me that if one is in that state of mind, the proper vote at the end of the debate should be an abstention.
I believe that the Government are culpable on four main grounds. In considering, as we are, the quality of government, if any one of those charges were proven it would be sufficient to justify a vote in favour of the Motion. If all four were proven it would make that an even more acceptable proposition.
We indict the Government, first, on their lack of integrity and veracity, their inconsistency, incompetence and the irrelevance of many of their policies. Let us go back to that day in 1979 when the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, got to Downing Street. Standing on the doorstep of No. 10, she set out the objectives of her Administration. In somewhat unlikely fashion she quoted from St. Francis of Assisi. I quote the words again. She said:
"Where there is discord may we bring harmony. Where there is error may we bring truth. Where there is doubt may we bring faith. And where there is despair may we bring hope".
I am content to take that as the text for the debate today. Is there more harmony and less discord in Britain today than in 1979? I fancy not. Is there less error and more truth? I shall come to that in a moment. Is there less doubt and more faith? Finally, is there more hope and less despair? I think not.
Fourteen years after that day in 1979, Britain is a more divisive and divided society. Certainly it is a much less law-abiding society. There is now an underclass in our society which did not exist in 1979. I do not recall hordes of people sleeping on the main thoroughfares of our capital city. Noble Lords on the other side may gesticulate, but I have lived in this city for a long time. In the 1970s I do not recollect the obvious signs of poverty and homelessness that now exist. If they are there now, one is entitled to ask why. In the past 14 years, the ranks of the alienated and marginalised in Britain have grown, not shrunk, and yesterday's Budget will add to that problem.
Nor is it any answer to say that it is happening elsewhere —as though that could ever be an excuse. The policy of blaming everyone except themselves—whether it is single parents, scroungers and now apparently even the Churches—is no answer. Responsibility for the state of Britain today lies fairly and squarely on the party that has been in government for 14 years. Even the Prime Minister recognised that when in an interview to the Los Angeles Times he said,
"We have been here for 14 years. There is no-one else we can blame for anything that has gone wrong".
How he must regret that moment of uncharacteristic candour.
The responsibility for the current state of affairs in this country is that of the Government—no excuses, no
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evasions. Let me therefore consider the first of my charges against the Government: that they lied to the British people; they lied about tax; they lied about public expenditure and thereby have grossly misled the electorate. On 28th January last year, Mr. Major said:
"I have no plans to raise … the level of national insurance contributions".
What has happened? From next April, national insurance contributions will go up by 1 per cent. to 10 per cent. for employees and to 7.3 per cent. for the self-employed. That will cost a typical family more than £3 a week. The majority in another place has still to vote for that tax hike. When it does, we shall take some pleasure in reminding Members that they are voting for an increase in income tax by another name.
Page 33 of the Conservative manifesto—we study those somewhat arcane documents in detail—states:
"We will maintain mortgage tax relief".
That is a straightforward, clear and unequivocal pledge put before the country at the last election. What is to happen? From next April mortgage tax relief will be cut from 25 per cent. to 20 per cent.; and in the Budget it is to be cut further to 15 per cent. Those are all taxes on home owners. Was that an honest prospectus to put before the country?
On 27th March 1992, the Prime Minister said:
"We have no plans and no need to extend the scope of VAT".
That seems specific, clear and unequivocal. The Tory Party 1992 Campaign Guide stated:
"Following a series of unfounded and irresponsible scares from the Labour Party, the Prime Minister has confirmed that the Government has no intentions of raising VAT further".
So we were being irresponsible, and scaremongering. We had said that the Government would raise VAT. What has happened? VAT is to be put on fuel bills at the rate of 17.5 per cent. by 1995.
The Conservative manifesto states:
"We are the only Party that understands the need for lower taxation".
In Channel 4 News on 31st March 1992 the previous Chancellor, Mr. Lamont, said:
"We will not have to increase taxes. I cannot see any circumstances in which that will be necessary".
Honesty? Veracity? I venture to suggest that rarely at any British general election has a prospectus been put before the country in such specific terms which have turned out quite so quickly to be quite so mendacious. On expenditure before the election, what did the Government say? They promised to maintain spending. After the election, they cut it. Again, I have a quotation from the Prime Minister:
"If we were going to cut public expenditure, we would have done it before and I don't believe it's economically right. I have said that in the past, and there is no need to do it whatsoever. So you can rule out any prospect of that".
He said that on 30th March last year. It is common knowledge that legislation announced in the manifesto of a prospective government will get an easier ride than legislation thought up later, almost on the hoof. It is equally common knowledge that what a government promise to do in their manifesto, they should adhere to. It is a matter of honour and a matter of integrity and on both those criteria this Government are wanting.
When the electorate vote for a particular package they do not expect it to be changed immediately after the election. The Government have broken promises on a

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number of important issues and yet still they expect the electorate to trust them. They have taken shamelessness almost to the bounds of incredulity. I think, too, that we should be rather careful about accepting yesterday's Budget at its face value.
Secondly, I now turn to the Government's consistency. I do not need to spend much time on this. The memories of the Criminal Justice Bill and the Railways Bill are fresh in the House's mind. The main characteristics of this Government's legislative approach seem to be that it is short term, ill-thought out and bulldozed through Parliament and is then repealed later on when the defects of the legislation have become apparent. In one respect, however, the Government have proved consistent, and did so again yesterday. When in trouble they go for the vulnerable, and yesterday's Budget is no exception. The relief for pensioners is approximately half the VAT increase on fuel. The unemployed will have their entitlement to benefit cut from 12 months to six months, although I gather the benefit will have a new name. There have been a number of new names for various benefits over the past 14 years, but the effect is the same. The benefit will be cut and that will impose increased burdens on the most vulnerable section of our society. There are to be harsher qualifying conditions for people on invalidity benefit and they are to be taxed. When the details become clearer, the savagery in these cuts will begin to appear.
Thirdly, let me look at the Government's competence—their economic competence. A once proud and prosperous nation is now industrially virtually on its knees. We are the only member of the Group of Seven major industrial nations where output is lower now than it was in 1990. Ponder that for a moment, before noble Lords heckle me. The Conservative boast is that inflation is now less than it has been for years. The last time inflation was at this rate was in 1967, when we had a Labour Government. Not only did we have a Labour Government and that rate of inflation, but the economy was growing at 2.2 per cent. a year. We had a manufacturing trade surplus and unemployment was less than 350,000. I would not describe that as a golden age, but it was certainly much better than the one we have now.
Although, of course, I welcome the recent fall in unemployment, it still stands at almost 2.9 million, well over 1 million more than it was when the present Prime Minister took office. Investment in Britain as a share of national income is at a 40-year low and since 1979 the economy has grown at an average of only 1.7 per cent. per year. Every Labour Government since the war has had a better record than that.
Even I am beginning to weary of these depressing figures which, in the final analysis, rob too many people of their humanity and individual worth. The human cost of this economic failure is, frankly, too high. We have housing estates in this country where 60 per cent. of males now have no jobs. What effect will that have upon the children of those people out of work?
Finally, there is the ethos with which the whole of the Government's policy seems to be imbued. The Conservative Party's appalling record on law and order, their attacks on the welfare state and the divisiveness of
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much of their approach have placed a terrible strain on the social cohesion of the nation and, at the end of the day, that perhaps matters more than any other single issue. The greater the number of our people who feel themselves detached and alienated from society as a whole, the greater the dangers. It is this that is the most damning indictment of 14 years of Conservative rule.
So what have they produced after those 14 years? A country more, not less, divided—perhaps more so than at any time since the 1930s. So much for St. Francis! Conservative rule over this time has been characterised by high unemployment, a high rate of crime, de-industrialisation, a collapsing infrastructure and the gradual dismantling of the welfare state and the National Health Service. The effect and the impact have been devastating and the full extent of the effect on our people is only gradually beginning to emerge.
Inevitably, when a new Prime Minister takes over, he receives, and is entitled to receive, a period of probation. I have to tell the Prime Minister that his probationary period is now more than up. He has broken promises, isolated this country within the European Union and cast miners and others onto the scrap heap. He has backtracked in principle on reforming the criminal justice system and, most seriously, he holds ultimate responsibility for damaging the country's economy and damaging the social cohesion of our nation. We have no confidence in him and his Government. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House has no confidence in the policies of Her Majesty's Government.—(Lord Richard.)
3.15 p.m.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I almost always enjoy the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and he has not disappointed us on this occasion. He has put before the House an interesting, even curious, Motion—so curious that I racked my brain and, indeed, the more expert brains of the House authorities, for a precedent within living memory. The nearest I can find is a Motion moved by Lord Wells-Pestell, deploring the Government's social and economic policies. That was on 9th March 1983. It was not a Motion that found favour with your Lordships. It was followed, less than three months later, by a general election in which the Government increased their majority by more than 100 seats. In slightly longer order, the years after that saw seven years of uninterrupted growth which led to a huge rise in the average family's living standards and the creation of 1,300,000 new jobs in this country—more than any other European country.
Today, with that same impeccable sense of timing, the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition has moved his Motion when the economy has been growing for 18 months; when that growth is due to be the fastest of any big league EC economy; and when unemployment has fallen by 137,000 this year while it is rising virtually everywhere else in Europe. I am happy and proud to speak to any aspect of this Government's policies. But, in the time available to me, I would like to concentrate on three major issues. The first is the economy and employment. This is not a matter of narrow party politics. It is vital that we do not fall into the trap of

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short-term solutions which will simply throw the problems, accentuated and multiplied, into the laps of our successors. That means building on the supply side changes this Government made in the 1980s, which enabled the economy to emerge from the recession with firm foundations for recovery.
There are, of course, still dangers and problems. It would be complacent to deny them. One of the biggest dangers to our recovery is the weakness in the economies of our major trading partners across the Channel. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, as a distinguished former commissioner, knows better than many how interdependent our economy is with that of the rest of Europe and how similar are the problems which face all European governments.
Perhaps I may remind your Lordships' House of how we fare compared with our European colleagues. Inflation is lower than in almost every other EC country. Unemployment here is below the EC average and falling. Our industrial relations are excellent. Our unit wage costs—a key determinant of competitiveness—are falling; elsewhere in Europe they are rising. In France, with a similar sized working population, unemployment is 3.25 million and rising; nearly one in four of that country's young people is without work. In Germany some 3½ million are out of work. In Spain, the unemployment rate is 23 per cent.; 1,000 more people are joining the dole queues each day. Against that background I think that many of our European partners would view the Motion moved by the noble Lord today with some puzzlement.
The second set of problems which faces all European countries is the high and rising cost of social provision. That is why the Netherlands is reducing disability benefits, France is raising contributions, Italy is raising its pension age, and Germany is proposing to reduce unemployment benefits. The current social disorder in Belgium illustrates the magnitude of the task which that government face. Other countries have taken even more stringent action. Australia, Canada and New Zealand are moving from a universal to targeted family benefit. Sweden, long heralded as a model for welfare states, is having to cut benefits radically.
Oppositions have the luxury of being in favour of all being for the best in the best of all possible worlds; or perhaps delegating their responsibilities to the Commission for Social Justice. But governments do not have that option. They have a duty to make difficult choices to protect those most in need.
Edmund Burke said that it is necessary to reform if we are to conserve. Our programme of modernisation of social provision rests on three principles: first, to ensure that help is increasingly focused on those in need; secondly, to discourage dependency—in that respect I fully share the concern of the Opposition's official spokesman in another place who acknowledged that one of the tragedies of the present system is that it does encourage dependency; and thirdly, we must develop and improve the welfare system to improve incentives to work and save, and to take responsibility for our own families.
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We have taken action to protect the most vulnerable through the recession. The amount that the taxpayer spends on social security has risen by £24 billion since 1990. Even excluding increases directly related to the recession, expenditure has risen over that period by around £20 billion. It now amounts to no less than £80 billion a year. That is £13 for every working person every working day. And it will rise significantly over the coming years.
The Government remain committed to a strong, modern welfare state. Yesterday's Budget, and the far-reaching reforms that is contains, will take that commitment forward. The Budget has tackled the rising cost of our social security system. In particular, it has set out our plans for equalising the pension age at 65. My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced reform of the present, complicated, system of unemployment benefit. The Government's reform will keep the unemployed in touch with the world of work, tackling that terrible and debilitating social evil, long-term unemployment.
The Budget also put forward measures to reform invalidity benefit, the cost of which has continued to grow significantly, even as we as a nation have become healthier. And the Budget tackled—imaginatively—the problem of single parents trapped at home, unable to work, by creating a new childcare allowance, within family credit, worth up to £28 a week. The Budget was also a reaffirmation of the basic economic values for which the Government stand: sound money, prudent public finance and the encouragement of enterprise. That is the basis for sustained growth in the long term.
Reductions in interest rates alone are worth some £12 billion a year to the cash flow of businesses, and some £40 a week to the average mortgage payer. My right honourable friend's measures provide another boost to business, especially small businesses, and to exports. They reduce the cost to firms of taking on new workers. The new apprenticeship scheme will further develop the skills Britain will need in the coming century. The Budget has clearly addressed the question of putting the Government's finances on a sound footing for the rest of the decade and beyond. The successful restraint of public spending has contributed as much as the resource side to restoring sound public finance.
Yet within that restraint we have been able to expand spending on key areas such as health and education. We have virtually met already our target for the end of the century of one in three young people in higher education. We have also been able to maintain the fight against crime. I do not expect to satisfy noble Lords opposite. It is easy to speak with eloquence of public investment. That is taxpayers' money to you and me, my Lords. But being responsible in government means cutting one's cloth according to the nation's ability to pay. That is why we have brought forward new initiatives to involve the private sector in partnership with the public sector in major infrastructure projects.
The third issue that I wish to address is the creation of a safe environment in which we can live. Crime, lack of respect for the law and, as a result, fear of violence, are only too prevalent in our society. Academics can analyse the reasons. I welcome such analysis. It is a

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matter of concern to us all. At the same time, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has made clear, we must also address the concerns of those affected by crime. We intend to take decisive action against crime and the criminal and to make sure that our laws, and the criminal justice system as a whole, protect the public. The balance of the criminal justice system has tipped too far against the protection of the legitimate interests of our citizens. We have responded quickly to rectify those defects. We are taking that initiative forward in a wide-ranging Criminal Justice Bill this Session. In addition, the police will be given new freedom to apply their resources most cost-effectively against the criminal. The administration of magistrates' courts will he reformed. All these measures will yield direct benefits to those most vulnerable to abuse of the law and of the criminal justice system.
We have had four days of debate on the gracious Speech. We have a full legislative programme before us. It is right that our policies should be tested in the fire of debate and that in taking those policies forward we should listen carefully to the voices of experience and wisdom with which this House is so richly endowed. As a government, it is our duty to put such policies, and the choices which we have made, to your Lordships to consider. There is much work to be done. Let us get on with it. I urge the House to reject this Motion.
3.28 p.m.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, this debate provides an opportunity for an overview of the Government's general performance, especially and particularly in the context of yesterday's Budget. The nation regularly gives such a view through opinion polls, local elections and by-elections. That view has been consistent: from within a few weeks of the last election the Government have experienced historically low support. Clearly the nation has already lost confidence in them and we on these Benches simply represent the national view.
Yesterday's Budget was simply a reflection of the Government's failure. The Budget was almost wholly concerned with clearing up the economic mess that the Government had created. The noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, referred to difficult choices, but he must admit that too often those difficult choices were created by the Government's own incompetence.
Some of the financial numbers presented yesterday are quite mind-blowing. At 8½ per cent. of GDP, the PSBR is far, far higher than in 1976 when my noble friend Lord Callaghan called in the IMF. The total tax paid as a percentage of GDP now rises from 36½ per cent. this year to 40 per cent., as forecast by the Chancellor, in 1998. Both of those figures are way above what they were under the previous Labour administration. The total tax increases in the two Budgets this year accumulate to £30 billion over the next three years. So much, we say, for the Conservative Party's 1992 election promise and claim to be the party of low taxation; and so much for its claim to competence in economic management.
I feel that the Government's economic failures are reflected very seriously in the national heritage area with which I am departmentally concerned. I have never
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known such anxiety and trepidation in the arts world, where fine theatres, dance companies and orchestras are threatened with closure. Yesterday, the grant to the Arts Council was cut by £3¼ million, or 1.7 per cent., in complete breach of the Conservative manifesto pledge. The chairman of the Arts Council said:
"This is a black day for the arts and a national disgrace".
He is not known for frequent criticisms of the Conservative Government—or he would not have been given the job in the first place.
Perhaps even more important to the arts i the terrible squeeze on the local authorities, which overall are the most important supporters of the arts at all levels and especially at community level. The local authorities will now have few resources for discretionary grants to local arts. That is very bleak news indeed. It is a similar story in the sports area. The Sports Council has also suffered a cut in cash terms for next year.
It is not just a question of money. The whole organisation and administration of arts and sports in this country is in constant change, uncertainty and disarray. I believe that the Sports Council has undertaken its sixth or seventh review. The Sports Council is given instructions which are then revoked; it takes measures which are then opposed and it has to renege.
A similar situation exists in the media. The 1990 Broadcasting Act arguably was one of the silliest Acts in our history. It is already being dismantled. The latest announcements about regional television have created fresh uncertainty. So the 1990 Broadcasting Act joins a long line of measures: the poll tax, the criminal justice Bill, the destruction of the coal industry and railway privatisation.
The evidence for this Motion, as my noble friend Lord Richard so clearly set out, lies unarguably, clearly and very sadly in the records of each year of this administration. I believe that to vote against the Motion is to vote against the history through which we have lived.
3.33 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, my noble friend the Leader of the House began by telling us that the Motion before us is unprecedented. I go further and say that it is not only unprecedented; it is totally unnecessary. We have had four full days of debate on the Queen's Speech, four days on which it has been possible to criticise every single aspect of government policy were we so minded. Now we are to have another debate which is simply a repeat performance. This afternoon I have heard nothing which seems to me to have added anything to what has been said over those four days.
However, I accept the challenge of the noble Lord, Lord Richard. I listened with great interest to his speech. He said that we should go back to 1979 when we would see that we had a more discontented state. Did he say discontented? We had just lived through the winter of discontent. Do noble Lords not remember the rubbish in the streets and the people who could not be buried? Practically every industry was out on strike. One could not take a train or go about one's business. We were beset by almost every difficulty that there could have

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been. I am the first to admit that not every difficulty has been put right, but we are certainly not a more discontented nation.
Indeed, I believe that the effect of 14 years of Conservative government has been to a very large extent to change the opinion of this country. In fact it has shifted opinion right round the world. Even now I recall with astonishment some of the conversations that I had in rather unexpected places when I was a Minister at the Foreign Office about how to privatise national industries. Everyone was looking to us for a lead.
Let us look at some of the things that have happened. My noble friend the Leader of the House set out clearly some of the great achievements in industry. Perhaps I may give one example from the area in which I live; namely, Rover cars. The Rover 800 motor car is made in Oxford. The motor car industry was on its knees. It had vast government subsidies. Having been taken over, it is one of the few manufacturing industries selling and making a profit. I believe that the Rover 800 has an enormous waiting list and hundreds more workers have been taken on in Oxford. That is a success story. Only three weeks ago I visited one of the most up-to-date factories in Europe. It was a food factory —part of Northern Foods—making recipe dishes. We are a European leader in this area.
Looking at one's personal life, one can appreciate the effects of an improved telephone system and the deregulation of long distance coaches, the latter having made travel vastly better, particularly for young people. Take even the privatisation of the water industry, which was fought over so strongly. If my local paper is to be believed, Thames Water has managed to stop the leaks so that it is no longer necessary to build an extra reservoir. When there is privatisation and competition one puts first things first.
Let us consider some of the other areas of criticism. I believe that the National Health Service was mentioned. I hope that I am correct in saying that for every 100 patients who were treated in 1990–1991 we are now treating 116 patients. The idea that there have been cuts in the health service is ridiculous. The money spent on it has increased every single year. The question is how the money is spent. The money has certainly been there.
It is very necessary to realise that we have brought a great deal of common sense and efficiency into industry, so that we now have some of the most efficient industries in the Community. I hope that they will be the basis of our sustained economic growth in the future. We have also taken care of the vulnerable. The health service has been improved and huge efforts have been made with education and training. Raising standards will take a very long time but it is extremely important.
As the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, pointed out, there will never be as much money available as everybody in the world of the arts and sport would like. But we have looked for other sources of money. A sequence of legislative measures has enabled far more charitable giving to take place, much to the benefit of all kinds of organisations. The national lottery will also help both the arts and sport in the future.
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Therefore we look to see how we can make the best use of the money that we have, so that we can maintain and support those who need help and at the same time improve the economy and improve the standards of living of everyone. I hope that the Motion will be overwhelmingly rejected.

Social Security (Up-rating)
3.38 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Viscount Astor): My Lords, with the leave of the House I would now like to repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Security. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Madam Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on social security following from my right honourable friend's Budget Statement.
"Spending on social security this year will amount to over £80 billion. It will increase over the next three years to £83 billion, £87.8 billion and £91.8 billion. This is the largest increase of any department and demonstrates our commitment to the needy, the elderly, and sick and disabled people.
"Despite the intense pressures on public spending we will keep our commitment to up-rate benefits, keep our pledges to families and the elderly, and keep our promise to give extra help with fuel bills.
"Although inflation over the last 12 months was low, the cost of up-rating all benefits just to offset it would have cost around £2 billion next year. I am grateful to my right honourable friend the Chancellor for going beyond that and providing very substantial extra funds to help people with fuel bills. This brings the total cost of increasing benefits next year to nearly £2½ billion. And by the time the full rate of VAT has fed through, the total help will run at £1¼ billion a year. Over three years the total additional help for VAT on fuel amounts to £2½ billion. That will be a permanent increase in the value of benefits going to 15 million people.
"The Chancellor explained that I plan to give everyone on income support (except pensioners and disabled people) extra help next April before the higher heating bills arrive. So their benefits will be uprated by 3.9 per cent. That is higher than most people in work will receive. A further 2 million people above the income support level who get housing benefits or family credit will receive a similar increase.
"I was also determined to help those who have worked, saved and earned modest pensions and normally get no extra help. So from next April, on top of up-rating for inflation, all pensions will be increased 50 pence a week for single pensioners and 70 pence for couples. The following year extra help for VAT on fuel will be £1 a week for single pensioners and £1.40 for couples. From the third year onwards that extra help will be as much as £1.40 a week for a single pensioner and £2 for a couple. And

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all those on widows' benefits, invalidity benefit, severe disablement allowance and disability premium will get the same extra help.
"In addition I will increase cold weather payments by 25 per cent. over two years. To help those with high heating bills, the scheme to help insulate homes and improve fuel efficiency will be virtually doubled in value and extended to all pensioners and disabled people. Also, the Chancellor announced yesterday a new National Savings pensioners' guaranteed income bond which will provide regular monthly payments at a fixed rate of interest. By any stretch of the imagination that is a substantial package. It far exceeds what most people expected and fulfils our promise to help those most affected.
"We are determined to maintain proper support for all those the welfare state exists to help. But, given the relentless growth of spending, we have to make sure the money is spent to best effect. That is the aim of my long term review.
"My first priority is to make savings which do not affect benefit entitlements. That is why operational costs have been kept within last year's cash limit despite the extra workload. And that is why I am intensifying the battle against fraud. I have created a new fraud board to step up prevention, deterrence and detection of fraud, chaired by my noble friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Social Security. I am cracking down on order book fraud. The order book has been redesigned to prevent forgery. We have introduced secure delivery methods to prevent theft and we are rewarding vigilant Post Office employees who stop false encashment of stolen books. I am continuing to look at new ways of tackling fraud.
"I am also stopping a number of abuses. I shall discourage local authorities from paying housing benefit for unnecessarily expensive property. I shall stop councils paying housing benefits to people who entered this country on the express understanding that they will be no burden on public funds. I am bringing in regulations today to prevent employers avoiding national insurance by paying their employees in commodities like gold bullion. These measures should save half a billion pounds over three years.
"But we also need to make sure benefits concentrate help on those Parliament wishes to help. I have been examining the social security system sector by sector. I am now able to introduce a fundamental reform of sickness benefits. The number of people on statutory sick pay, sickness benefit and invalidity benefit has almost doubled since 1979, from just over 1 million then to almost 2 million now, even though the nation has been getting healthier. Britain has the second highest level of sick leave of any EC country. The level varies between companies even in the same business. Those differences reflect management's success or failure in motivating employees, caring for their health and monitoring absences.
"At present the Government reimburse each firm 80 per cent. of the cost of statutory sick pay. That
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largely removes the incentive to reduce sick leave. So from April next year I propose to abolish reimbursement, except to small employers.
"Small employers usually have less sick leave but are harder hit by prolonged illness. So I intend to increase the help to small employers and extend it to more of them. So far we have been helping employers whose national insurance bill was £16,000 or less a year. I am raising that limit to £20,000. So far we have been reimbursing 100 per cent. of SSP for absences longer than six weeks. I shall start giving 100 per cent. help after four weeks. This will help an extra 50,000 employers at a cost of £25 million. The new arrangements will help two-thirds of all employers.
"At the same time I am cutting employers' national insurance rates by substantially more than they were spending on statutory sick pay. Indeed, the cut in national insurance will also offset the future extra cost of statutory maternity pay which employers were expecting to have to bear. So employers as a whole will be no worse off. Indeed, employers' net costs will be reduced by over £100 million. And those who respond to the incentive to improve staff health will benefit even more.
"There has been a particularly marked increase in the number of people claiming invalidity benefit in recent years. The number on this benefit has more than doubled in the last 10 years and trebled in the last 15. This growth is particularly surprising, given improving health and better health care. So I propose to introduce from April 1995 a more objective medical test of whether people can work. I am issuing a consultation paper today, copies of which are available in the Vote Office. And I am forming a panel of medical experts and representatives of disabled people. They will be asked to help define what constitutes incapacity to work and how it should be measured. The new test will apply to new applicants. Those drawing invalidity benefit are already subject to regular review. Under the present test about 100,000 people each year are found to be fit for work and have their benefit withdrawn.
"After April 1995, those on the highest rate of DLA, those with terminal illnesses, those on a list of specified severe or chronic conditions, and those currently on invalidity benefit, who are then 58 or over, will no longer be subject to any review. But the new test will be used in reviews of other existing claimants. No one who is genuinely unable to work for medical reasons has any cause for concern.
"I am also simplifying the structure of all sickness benefits for new claimants from April 1995. At present there are two rates of statutory sick pay. I propose to abolish the lower rate. This means that lower paid workers will receive the higher rate of benefit—worth an extra £3.70 a week. I will also replace sickness and invalidity benefit by a new incapacity benefit. This will be payable at three rates—the longer the period of sickness the higher the rate. The lower rate will apply during the first 28 weeks, the middle rate for the rest of the year, and the highest rate after a year.

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"Those who are incapacitated early in life will receive extra help because they will have had less time to make any personal provision for ill health. Additional payments will be made to those whose spouses are caring for children or are over 60. New claimants will no longer be entitled to a state earnings related addition. Incapacity benefit will cease at pension age. Those already drawing invalidity benefit at the time the new incapacity benefit is introduced will continue to draw their benefit at existing rates and will not be taxed on it. Only those who come on to incapacity benefit from April 1995 will be liable to tax.
"I am making a number of valuable changes for sick or disabled people. First, people on incapacity benefit will be free to do up to 16 hours voluntary work without losing their benefit. This will be widely welcomed by potential volunteers, voluntary organisations and those they help. Secondly, from April 1995, people taking jobs with the help of disability working allowance will automatically qualify for free prescriptions and free dental charges. Thirdly, I am increasing the level of support to Motability whose help for disabled people is so extensive that it now runs the biggest car fleet in the country. I am making a £1 million increase in the grant to the Mobility Equipment Fund, which adapts vehicles for use by severely disabled people.
"Overall, these reforms of sickness benefits will curb their rapidly growing cost, provide a more rational structure of benefits, encourage employers to improve the motivation and health of employees, and concentrate benefit on those genuinely unable to work. I believe they will command widespread support.
"The incapacity benefits are for people who cannot work. I now turn to benefits for people who are capable of work. Clearly, the best answer is to help people find jobs. But sometimes the rules lose sight of this aim. At present we have two benefits for the unemployed; unemployment benefit and income support. They overlap. Some people are entitled to both. Many switch between the two. The benefit levels leapfrog, because they are up-rated by different indices. So this year single adults on unemployment benefit will get 65p more than on income support. Next near they will get 25p less. The two benefits cover different periods. Unemployment benefit excludes Sunday. Income support includes Sunday. They have different rules, requiring different bureaucracies, different offices and different computer systems. The result is confusion for unemployed people, complexity for staff, and expense for taxpayers. It is time for reform.
"I propose to replace the two benefits with a new jobseeker's allowance starting in 1996. It will be more clearly focused on helping people into work. The longer people spend on benefit the more their motivation, skills and attraction to employers may decline and the less chance they have of finding a job. So all unemployed people will be required to enter into a jobseeker's agreement at the start of their
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claim. It will commit them to a plan of action to seek work. And we will have a single set of measures for those who fail to take the necessary steps to seek work. But we shall give extra help to those who make the effort to find a job.
"The new jobseeker's allowance will have a single set of rates. We will provide help to unemployed people and their dependants according to their needs. This will be paid for as long as they need it. People who have paid national insurance contributions will receive a personal rate for six months irrespective of their capital or their partners' earnings. Currently, unemployed people cannot get income support if their partners are working for 16 hours or more. This problem emerged as a by-product of improvements in family credit last year. We shall retain the current beneficial rules for family credit. But we will restore the limit for partners of unemployed people to 24 hours.
"Going back to work can involve extra costs, for example, for clothing and transport. We will be testing a jobfinder's grant of up to £200 to help people, who have not had a job for two years, with these costs. We said that we would do this in our manifesto, and I am pleased that we are now implementing the pledge. I shall also give very significant help to people with family responsibilities who want to return to work. Many find it unattractive to leave benefit for a low-paid job, especially if they need to pay for child care. So I propose to allow families with a child under 11 to offset up to £40 per week of child care costs against their earnings when claiming family credit and related benefits. It will be worth up to £28 a week; it will start next October; it will be available to couples, where both are working or one is incapacitated, and to lone parents; and it will cover the costs of registered child minders or nurseries. The change will give a powerful new incentive for parents to move into work. It will provide help for up to 150,000 families, including 50,000 whom we expect to take up work as a result of the change. This measure has been widely welcomed.
"I am today publishing a White Paper on the equalisation of state pension age at 65. Copies are available in the Vote Office. The difference in state pension age for men and women is the last glaring inequality in our benefit system. We are committed to phasing it out. It is essential to do so to provide a clear framework within which occupational pension schemes can comply with the European Court ruling requiring them to equalise their benefits for men and women.
"It is right to equalise at 65 for three reasons. First, women are increasingly playing an equal role to men in the economy. Women live longer and increasingly expect to be able to work for as long as men. Secondly, people are living healthier, longer lives. As a result, the number of pensioners will increase by half by 2030—and there will be fewer people of working age to support them. At present there are 3.3 people of working age for each pensioner. That ratio was set to decline to 2.2 to 1 by 2030. Equalising at

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65 will improve the future support ratio to a more sustainable 2.7 to 1. Thirdly, throughout the world, countries are equalising upwards or increasing pension age for both sexes. The majority of EC countries have or are planning a state pension age of 65 or higher. The United States is moving up to 67. We cannot afford to reduce our competitiveness by lowering our pension age. Equalising at 65 will eventually reduce the pension bill by £5 billion. It is the key to ensuring that the state retirement pension remains affordable.
"Our proposals contain a number of features which will make that decision widely acceptable. We have given women and employers plenty of time to plan for the future. Equalisation will be phased in between 2010 and 2020. So no women now 44 and over will be affected. Only those now 38 or under will have a state pension age of 65. Furthermore, the pension entitlements of millions of people—mostly women—will be very significantly enhanced. We plan to extend home responsibilities protection to SERPS. That will enable women (and men) who take time out of the labour market to care for children or disabled people to build full SERPS entitlement in as few as 20 working years. That will be a very substantial benefit enhancing the value of women's pensions by around £2 billion by 2020. In addition, to help those on low earnings, family credit and disability working allowance will count as earnings in calculating pension.
"Finally, we are extending the period of flexibility during which people can choose to start drawing their pension. At present people can defer drawing their retirement pension for up to five years and for each year of deferral their pension increases 7½ per cent. In future the increase will be 10 per cent. and people will be able to defer for as many years as they like.
"The best support for an improved social security system is a vibrant, free enterprise economy to create the wealth to pay for benefits, to generate jobs, and to provide opportunities for people to support themselves. To nurture economic growth we have to curb borrowing and make sure that the social security system does not outstrip or undermine the nation's ability to pay for it. All the reforms I have announced are intended to strengthen our welfare state, to adapt it to modern needs and to make it affordable into the next century. In doing that I have been able to announce a generous package of help for those most affected by VAT on fuel; reforms to concentrate help on those genuinely unable to work; incentives for employers to improve the health and motivation of their staff; a more rational structure of help for those seeking work; help for working mothers to cope with childcare costs; an equal state pension age; and help for women and the low paid to build up better pensions in the future. I commend these measures to the House."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.59 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, we thank the Minister for the most significant Statement for years. But perhaps I may put in a plea that it is a little hard to be given a major Statement of such significance about three quarters of an hour before we are due to debate. There can be no reason why the usual channels should not ensure that such Statements are given to us at, say, 10 o'clock in the morning so that we can properly prepare. There is nothing secretive about these things.
I am sure that the House will forgive me if I do not comment in detail on the proposals to equalise the pension age. It needs a fuller debate than is possible today, except perhaps to record the position of these Benches. We are in favour of a flexible decade of retirement based on choice for both men and women alike.
The Statement is significant, less because of the up-rating details which reflect the agreed formula of the Rossi index but more because, within the context. of yesterday's Budget, it profiles in detail the £2.5 billion cuts over the next three years which the DSS budget will bear or, more accurately, the sick, disabled, unemployed, elderly and poor will bear as a result of government economic mismanagement. Social security expenditure is driven not by demographic changes, certainly not by malingering or scrounging, but by unemployment.
It is clear that what floats people off benefits and poverty, as the Minister made clear in his Statement, is work if it is available. That is why we on this side of the House welcome the restoration of help with childcare to those on family credit which of course takes us back to where we were before the Government abolished such childcare help in 1988 and locked then lone parents into dependency. But why are the Government, while sensibly recognising that we need pathways out of poverty for lone parents—a positive response which we welcome very much—being so punitive to the sick and disabled?
Perhaps I may now turn to the proposals for invalidity benefit. The numbers have grown. The Government insist that that is because of malingering, possibly because GPs have been too lax with medical certificates and possibly because the benefits are too generous. On the contrary, as the Government's own research shows, and as Ministers know, none of that is true. Half of those on invalidity benefit have worked with a previous employer for 10 years or more. Far from malingering, they want to work. But they are infirm. As to the medical test, already half of those on invalidity benefit under the age of 50 are double checked by the benefits office medical service. The GP's assessment is upheld in six cases out of seven. Many of the rest are mental health cases which are notoriously difficult to determine. Even where the claimant is removed from benefit, in over half the cases that benefit is restored on appeal. So if the assessment is already accurate, as it is, and already tough, as it is, where is the saving? Will the Minister give more detail of how many and how much? Already only one in eight from whom invalidity benefit

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is removed, namely, the fittest of them, find work. The rest are merely displaced on to other benefits. So what will the net saving be?
The second argument which the Minister adduced in his Statement for cutting invalidity benefit and rejigging it as the new benefit and incapacity benefit is that it is too generous. Therefore, he is proposing, first, to cut the additional pension to which people have contributed in the past. Secondly, he is proposing to tax it. Invalidity benefit already replaces less than half the earnings of more than half the claimants. It is worth about 17 per cent. of average earnings to people whose living costs, in terms of need for special diets, heating and physical appliances, are more expensive than for most of us.
The leaked DSS document actually suggests that no savings will come from taxing because the needs of these groups of people will be displaced on to other benefits such as housing benefit. Can the Minister say whether that is true? Will he say how many and how much? The core of the problem is that when employees suffer ill health, 75 per cent. of employers now do nothing to help them keep their jobs and often encourage them to leave. Once they have lost that long-standing job, then, with poor health, advancing age and a broken employment record, few other employers will take them on. That is why they cannot come off invalidity benefit. Surely, Ministers will agree that the right response is to do everything possible to enable employers to keep on their infirm staff for as long as possible. Once they leave, it is hard to re-enter the labour market, much as they wish to.
If the Minister agrees—I am sure he does—why, then, is government policy driving in precisely the opposite direction? Why, in Access to Work, are we now to require employers to pay half of the bill for work adaptions for the disabled? Why, in this Statement, will employers have to pay the statutory sick pay rather than be reimbursed by the state? As Price Waterhouse say,
"It will encourage employers to be much tougher on employees claiming sick pay".
This provision is not about improving employees' health, as the Statement says. It is an incentive to sack. It is perverse. The Government are encouraging employers to add to the very problems they are seeking to reduce and at real pain to human worth and dignity.
I wish to move on to the job seeker's allowance which the Minister presented in his Statement as simplicity—the integrating of unemployment benefit and income support. That is hypocritical. It is about cuts. What the Statement does is to cut the contribution-based unemployment benefit from 12 to six months and then displace claimants on to means-tested income support. So at the very time when national insurance contributions are being raised from 9 per cent. to 10 per cent., people are paying more. The contributory benefits, such as unemployment benefit, which flow from them, are being sharply cut. The claimants will get less. That is fraudulent.
Those with modest savings will be penalised when they are means tested (is that what we want?) as will formerly employed married women with husbands in work who have paid in their contributions as individuals
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but who, after six months, will get nothing because their husbands and the household income will be means tested. These measures are about cuts and undermining the contributory principle upon which the welfare state is based and which the Chancellor said yesterday he was pledged to maintain. They are about massaging the unemployment figures, which, at a stroke, we estimate will fall, just by altering the name of the benefit, from 10.2 per cent. to 9.5 per cent. while claimants are simply displaced on to other benefits. Will the Minister confirm those figures and tell us how many and how much?
Finally, I turn to VAT on fuel. In the Budget and in the Statement, it is clear that next year single pensioners will get an extra 50 pence and a married pensioner couple 70 pence to pay for an 8 per cent. increase on VAT, and double those figures the following year when VAT doubles. We all know that pensioners need more heat and for longer hours because they are at home. Yet if a single pensioner is in future to spend more than 89 pence a day on gas and electricity that pensioner will be worse off. It is clear that the rebate meets barely half of the increased bills that will fall on pensioners and families on benefit. At least they get some help. Will the Minister confirm that those who perhaps need help most of all—that is to say, those on the disability living allowance with often greater heating needs and lower incomes, and also those receiving the disability working allowance, appear not to be eligible for any rebate on VAT at all? I cannot believe that that is true, and I hope that I am wrong. I ask the Minister to tell us explicitly.
All of these measures are presented to us because DSS expenditure, as the Minister said in his peroration, is allegedly growing too fast and is out of control. But is it not the case that in our welfare spending in Britain, compared to the rest of the industrialised nations, is relatively low and that we are rated 17th out of the 21 OECD countries; and that in the EC only Portugal spends a lower proportion of its GDP on welfare? Is it not the case that in the next century we shall have the best support ratio of workers to non-workers in Europe? Is it not the case that the additional cost of the elderly will add less over the next 50 years to social security expenditure than the rise in unemployment has cost us in the past three? Is it not the case that if unemployment falls by 100,000 a year—the Government's own medium level target—then social security spending as a percentage of GDP will actually fall?
As was said earlier today by the Leader of the House, Ministers are pleased—as we are—by the fact that unemployment is falling. But if it is falling and if it continues to fall, such cuts should be unnecessary. If, however, it does not fall it is not right that the unemployed, the victims, should pay for them. I repeat that social security expenditure is not driven by the malingerer on invalidity benefit nor by the scrounger on unemployment benefit. It is driven by the Government's own mismanagement of the economy, their failure to build jobs, and their failure to build growth. The sick and the unemployed will pay.
These are not financial choices in today's Statement but political choices: of who pays and who gains. It is about our moral priorities. The Government have decided in today's Statement that those who will pay are

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those least able to do so: those without a job; those in ill health; those who are poor; and those who are often cold. It really is not decent, and we should all be ashamed.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I welcome the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, to the social security brief and to one of the ritual occasions of the social security year. I should like also to express my sympathy with him because he has come to this ritual occasion at a moment when it has been, by circumstances beyond our control, somewhat downgraded. The new unified Budget, so far as I can judge at present, seems on the whole to be a procedural success, but one of its consequences is that today's Statement is inevitably to a large degree overshadowed by yesterday's. Indeed, the Chancellor said yesterday that he was leaving the Secretary of State simply to fill out the details of the Statement. In fact, the Secretary of State is reduced to playing Sancho Panza to the Chancellor's Don Quixote. The mind behind the Statement—and it is a fertile and sometimes unpredictable one—is that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who by turns, with each revolving moon, was chemist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon.
I am fascinated in studying the Statement by the task of keeping ideological balance within it, and whereas the Prime Minister tends to preserve ideological balance by seeking equilibrium in immobility, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State have sought to preserve it by rapid movement left and right, both in the same direction.
There are two dominant themes. The first is the theme of back to work and the elimination of poverty traps. The other is the pursuit of scroungers. That is where I see the rapid movement both ways. Now that is not necessarily impossible. If one looks, for example, at an eightsome reel, one sees rapid movement in both directions which achieves a pattern, but everything here is in the timing and the co-ordination, and those are the points on which I think that we need to test the Statement. I am afraid that it is relevant to observe that what we have here is an eightsome reel danced by Englishmen. There are some extremely good things in the Statement, and in welcoming them I shall not complain that the Chancellor shot my fox, but on occasion I shall say that his aim was not very good and that he should put it out of its misery.
What I welcome most warmly is the disregard for child care, for which I was asking as recently as last Tuesday, and I am very glad indeed to get it. Both in ideological terms and in practical terms, it represents a major and entirely welcome shift in government thinking, but in passing I should like to ask the noble Viscount—when he is ready—whether there is to be any taper for the withdrawal of the benefit. If there is not to be any such taper and if one loses it all at once when one's earnings rise to a certain level, we shall have a new poverty trap. It was, I suppose, to be expected that the benefit would be passported through family credit, but since that is so, it forces us to look again at family credit because it is no good having a benefit unless its passport is in order.
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Family credit is an unpopular benefit. It has, I think, a lower take-up than most other means-tested benefits. Very recently, Gary Craigï's study of the Child Support Act for the five children's societies has again confirmed a very widespread reluctance to go on family credit. If we cannot overcome that, this very welcome innovation will not achieve the designed effect of getting people back to work, as it should. At present, only 10 per cent of lone parents-130,000 out of 1.3 million—are on family credit.
I should like the Government to look at three things relating to the administration of family credit. The first is the procedure by which it is reviewed only once every six months. It is in the nature of part-time work that it is available only part of the time, so if one gets it and loses it and one's family credit is not reassessed, one may find oneself in the soup. People on benefit are well aware of that danger. The second is the loss of passported benefits —notably, free school dinners. Again, that is a considerable disincentive. The third is the loss of help with mortgage payments when one goes on to family credit, which deters a very great many people. In examining that, I hope that the Government will again look at the case for a mortgage benefit.
I must welcome the increase in cold weather payments, which is much needed and very timely. I should like also to pay tribute to the work that has been carried out by my honourable friend Mr. Kirkwood on the calculation of those payments. I warmly welcome the help with insulation, and again pay tribute to the work done on that by my noble friend Lord Ezra.
On national insurance, I am pleased to see the reduction in employers' lower rates which will do something to give an incentive to provide low-paid jobs. That is vital. However, I wish that at the same time the Government had looked at the tapers for housing benefit and had applied the same principle there.
On the state pension, our policy (like that of the Benches on our left) was in favour of a flexible decade of retirement, but we are very much happier with equalisation at 65 than we were with some of the ideas that had been floated recently by the Chief Secretary. This seems to be a much more constructive route along which to go. I was interested in what was said about deferment and should like to know whether there is any more that the Minister can tell us about flexibility within the system for those who may want to retire a year or two early. I see that that flexibility already exists for those who want to work longer, and I welcome that.
I also am considerably distressed by the proposed changes in statutory sick pay. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, who remembers our last Bill on statutory sick pay very well, will understand the points that I am making. The provisions risk making everything that the Government said during the Maastricht debates about the need to keep down business costs look somewhat hypocritical. It looks as if the Government are concerned to keep down business costs when otherwise workers might benefit, but are not concerned to keep them down when otherwise the Treasury might benefit. One knows that the Treasury is absolute, but it does not have to make it quite so obvious.

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The provisions will be an incentive to employers to police the health of their workforce. There are quite a number of people—to take just one example among many—who are in the grey area between having a drink problem and suffering from alcoholism. Some of those, kept on for a while by a generous employer, may pull out of it and become full working members of the population, as we would wish. If they are dismissed, they are cast upon the tender mercies of care in the community. They tend to use up the extra money allocated for care in the community, and provide us with yet another case of running to stand still. So here again the attempt to get people off income support might be counteracted by other measures which push them back onto it. I shall say again in passing what I said last week: if the same ideas are applied to statutory maternity pay, we have a lively argument in front of us.
On VAT on fuel, I am glad that there is compensation. I am glad that the compensation extends to the body of pensioners as a whole, but the Social Security Advisory Committee calculated the compensation needed at £700 million. We have £400 million. Well, half a loaf is better than no bread, but it will still leave many people very cold. Also, the compensation for people on benefit is not matched by anything for people on low wages. If one comes off benefit and goes into work, one loses the compensation. Here, we have another poverty trap created. So, once again, the measures have undone with one hand the effect that they created with another. The pattern is unfortunate.
On invalidity benefit, we shall need a great deal of care in its administration or else the name "incapacity benefit" may acquire an uncomfortable ambiguity. I was distressed to see that the Chancellor said yesterday that many of those involved were not genuine invalids. I do not know whether he is aware, as are other people, that one of the effects of unemployment is a rapid deterioration in physical and mental health. I do not believe that we have an accurate base line suggesting that in the past that benefit was picking up all those entitled to it. That is the sort of remark, if it were made by one Front Bench about another, that would lead to an apology. Made to those who cannot answer back, it should all the more lead to an apology.
In particular, the Government are wrong to think that they can have a medical test which is tighter and more objective. If it is more objective, we do not know what the doctors will say. It is also wrong to think that there is a single clear dividing line which separates capacity for work, on the one hand, from incapacity on the other. There is a grey area, especially in the field of mental health. I should like to think that there will be discussions with the Department of Health before anything is done about this matter.
On the job seekers' benefit, I see the administrative reason behind it. But I should like to know what is in the job seekers' agreement and what will be the single set of measures, about which we were told, which will happen to those who do not live up to it. Here again, we have to accept that there is a grey area between capacity and incapacity for work, as all those of your Lordships who have back injuries know well. We have also to consider
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whether we are prepared to use starvation as an instrument of policy against those whose job seeking we are not satisfied with.
In many ways, these measures will end up contradicting themselves. If they fall apart under their own internal weight, then in the medium term we may be wondering whether the Chancellor deserves the title of England's answer to Kim Campbell.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I am grateful for the welcome given to some of the measures announced today and yesterday by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in particular, of course the disregard for child care. We shall have an opportunity to discuss all these measures in great detail when the Bills come before your Lordships' House in this Session and afterwards. I am sure that your Lordships will then examine carefully all the proposals.
Perhaps I may deal with some of the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. She asked whether compensation for VAT on fuel applies to DLA and DWA. Help with VAT on fuel will feed through into DWA. The vast majority of those receiving DLA and attendance allowance are compensated directly through other benefits; for example, IVB and SDA. They add to the compensation in those benefits. Disabled people not on income-related benefits will be able to obtain help to insulate their homes via the home energy efficiency scheme. Previously, income-related beneficiaries only received that help.
The noble Baroness also asked about the proposed invalidity benefit and the test. We want to ensure that the genuinely sick receive benefit, and reduce abuse. The difficulties faced by GPs in exercising their role, as it were, as gate-keepers to the benefit system are well known. The Government believe that developing a test based upon the effects of the medical condition will focus incapacity benefit upon those who cannot work. A test based upon information provided by the claimant about their capabilities, backed up, where appropriate, by medical advice from the Benefits Agency medical service will reduce tensions in the doctor/patient relationship and relieve GPs from taking decisions which many consider to be outside their professional expertise.
I was asked also about statutory sick pay by the noble Baroness. We shall introduce a Bill before your Lordships' House. I do not believe that employers will fire sick staff, and of course nine out of 10 workers belong to occupational pay schemes which usually pay more than SSP. If financial costs were a factor, employers would have already let those employees go. The reduction to 80 per cent. reimbursement in 1991 did not cause employers to sack workers. It is important to stress again that, overall, business will not be out of pocket due to the compensating national insurance reduction, and we have greatly extended small employers' relief.
The noble Baroness also asked whether anyone would pay tax on invalidity benefit. Benefits which replace earnings should be taxed. That has always been

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our intention. Existing IVB claimants will not pay tax. Almost half IVB claimants have occupational pensions. Others have savings.
The noble Baroness and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked about VAT on fuel. I do not accept what the noble Baroness said about pensioners being compensated for half their loss only. In the first year (1994) the average compensation for single pensioners (that is, extra help) will be over 70 per cent. of the average of their VAT fuel bill. That will rise in the third year to over 80 per cent. extra help with VAT on fuel. I can do no better than quote the Chancellor yesterday when he said:
"On average, pensioners are likely to find that, after taking account of falling real fuel prices, the extra help they receive will broadly cover changes in fuel bills, including VAT, over the course of this Parliament".—[Official Report, Commons, 30/11/93; col 923.]
Overall, fuel bills have fallen by about 4 per cent. since the last election. They are likely to fall further.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, they will go up.
Viscount Astor: No, my Lords.
I am grateful to the noble Earl for his welcome for the child care proposals. I noted when I read his Question on child care that his noble friend Lady Seear asked that I pass the message on to my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer between then and Budget day. I am delighted to tell the noble Earl that I did, and it worked. I do not guarantee to be able to do it again, but it was certainly a help.
The noble Earl asked whether there would be a taper in respect of child care. The answer is, yes, the 70 per cent. family credit taper will apply. That is why in practice £40 per week earnings disregard in child care costs is worth up to £28 per week. The noble Earl also asked about family credit, the proposals for change of circumstances, passporting benefits and help with mortgages. I note his suggestions but they go beyond the substantial changes which come before your Lordships. I do not guarantee to do as well with the Chancellor in respect of those.
I welcome the noble Earl's remarks about cold weather payments. He then asked about sick pay. It is not only an incentive for employers to police sick pay but also to help their employees. I know that the noble Earl is worried about the issue because during our debate on the gracious Speech he reminded the House that the last time a statutory sick pay Bill came before your Lordships the Minister stood at a burning Dispatch Box whence all but he had fled. I am glad to tell the noble Earl that the Dispatch Box at which I am standing does not appear to be on fire and I appear to have a lot of support behind me.
The noble Earl commented on the medical tests for the sick and disabled. The more objective medical test will be based on the effects of disabilities on a person's capacity to work. Those who have functional limitations which prevent them from working will not be penalised.
That answers a substantial number of questions asked by the noble Baroness and the noble Earl. I accept that they will ask many more questions when the Bills come before your Lordships.
4.31 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for repeating the long and complicated Statement and for explaining it with such admirable clarity. The House is indebted to him. It is encouraging to someone who sits on these Benches to see that, despite the difficulties of the time and the real economic problems; which face the Government and the country, it has been possible to bring about a considerable number of real improvements. That is an indication that despite the present difficulties we have an active Secretary of State for Social Security and that he and his colleagues are prepared to bring about the improvements which experience has shown are required in the working of our system. That is extremely encouraging.
I wish to ask my noble friend about two issues. The first is about the age of retirement for women. He will be aware, as am I, that the subject has been under discussion in the department for 35 years. For those of us whose recollections of the department go back that length of time, the reappearance of the issue is like meeting an old friend. Of course it is right to go for equality. As my noble friend said, women's expectation of life is four years longer than that of men. It is absurd that they should draw their retirement pension five years earlier.
Will my noble friend explain in a little more detail how the changeover, which has always been regarded as the difficulty, will be effected? Will it be done one year at a time, then a gap of two years and then another year, moving gradually to the age of 65? Is it contemplated making a slashing change so that one year women retire at 60 and the next it suddenly changes? How are the mechanics to be handled? My noble friend will know from reading departmental files that an enormous amount of work has been done on this important issue.
I was pleased, in particular, to hear that provision is to be made for indefinite opportunities of deferral of pension. I do not think noble Lords have referred to that. The limit of five years was always illogical. If people have a good job and can remain in it, it is always right to leave them the option of accumulating a better pension for as many years as they feel disposed. It is a belated but extremely sensible provision to make.
Finally, I wish to ask my noble friend two questions about the procedures that are being followed. He indicated that the measures would involve legislation. Is a Bill to be introduced in this House or in another place? If it is to be introduced in another place, when is it likely to reach this House? We must have an opportunity to debate the issues in the near future. As my noble friend knows—
Noble Lords: Question!
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, your Lordships' House has many Members with great experience in these matters. They will be able to contribute advice on the handling of the details, which clearly the Government need. Will my noble friend indicate that we shall soon deal with the Bill or that we shall have a debate in the near future?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I am grateful for my noble friend's support. He is right in his comments about the changes in the state pension age. The subject has been under discussion for a long time and it is right that we have been able to reach this decision. It is in line with what other countries are doing, in particular member countries of the EC.
My noble friend asked me about the phasing-in period. It will be between 2010 and 2020. During that 10-year period a gradual change will take place when the pension age for women will rise from 60 to 65. In simple terms, it will be one month in two over the 10 years. Between those dates some women will retire at 61 or 62 but that will cease to happen after 2020.
My noble friend asked when the Bill will be introduced in this House. I must make it clear that we intend to introduce a Bill as early as possible but not during this Session.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, not in this House or not in this Session?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, not in this Session. I cannot tell my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter where it will be introduced, but I am sure that my right honourable friend will take note of the points that he made.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I promise not to make a long speech. Is the Minister aware that the Government's proposals for medical tests in respect of invalidity benefit imply widespread cheating, which is disputed by research carried out by disability organisations? Will the Minister tell the House on what evidence he has based the supposition? Will he reply to the questions put by my noble friend Lady Hollis about the number of people involved and the amount of money that will be saved?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the changes represent a fundamental reform and they are intended to achieve a more coherent approach to incapacity provision and a more affordable system. While incapacity lasts the flat-rate benefit will continue to be paid as of right if contribution conditions are satisfied. It can be topped up by private provision. The key aim is to focus benefit on those who are genuinely incapable of work —that is, the people for whom it was always intended—through a more objective medical test of incapacity. I think that there will be welcome debate on the detail of the test. As I said, we have today published a consultation document containing the medical test details. It is quite difficult to be clear about what the impact and the savings will be until we have the test and the Bill. However, I have made clear that there will be some. We believe that perhaps 70,000 cases a year will be disallowed following the test of incapacity. We estimate that about 250,000 existing cases may be disallowed on review over the first two to three years. But that is quite a long period in the future.
I believe that I should also make it clear that there is absolutely no criticism of GPs or of their professionalism. They are not experts on complex social security
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rules and research confirms that they are experiencing difficulty with their present role. We want to make it much clearer and easier for them.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, in view of the rather brisk interchange that I had with the noble Lord, Lord Henley, on 16th July (at cols. 422–5 of Hansard) I should like to say just a few words of appreciation for the announcement made today—that is, as I understand it—that an individual will be able to do up to 16 hours of voluntary unpaid work (for example, with the citizens advice bureaux) without affecting his entitlement to incapacity benefit or invalidity benefit, call it what you will. It is important for the voluntary sector and I am most grateful. However, will that change have to await legislation or can it be put into effect by administrative means?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, we shall be coming forward shortly with a Bill as regards the incapacity benefit. It will arrive in your Lordships' House during this Session. The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, asked when the hours rule would come into effect. I am not sure whether we will be able to bring it in before the passage of the Bill. However, I can say that we hope the Bill will be introduced this Session.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, can the noble Viscount give the House an indication as to whether the revision of the rules regarding the payment of unemployment benefit (now to be called jobseeker's benefit) after six months will lead to any change of definition for statistical purposes as regards the unemployed and those claiming benefit? Quite clearly, if the period is reduced to six months there will ostensibly be a once-and-for-all possible decline in the real unemployment figures. In considering his reply to the question, the noble Viscount will doubtless be aware that if unemployment were to be recorded and stated on the same basis as in 1979 it would now be 4 million rather than some 2.8 million.
Similarly, when considering his reply, will the noble Viscount take careful note of what his right honourable friend in another place, Mr. Alan Clark, recorded when he was in the Department of Employment? I shall quote from his diary relating to 15th June 1983, which reads:
"Faster than I can digest them. Great wadges of documentation are whumped into my 'In' tray. The subject matter is turgid: a mass of 'schemes' whose purpose, plainly, is not so much to bring relief to those out of work as to devise excuses for removing them from the register. Among my other responsibilities are 'statistics', so it will be me who has to tell the House each month what is the 'jobless' total".
Will the noble Viscount give the House an unequivocal undertaking that the figures published after the scheme comes into operation will accurately reflect the true position with regard to unemployment?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, by giving us that little extract, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, actually proved why one needs to bring in a new system. Indeed, he proved my point that it is wasteful and absurd to have two inconsistent benefits for the unemployed, with different rules, different offices and different systems. Therefore, his argument was most helpful in explaining why we need a new

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system. The purpose is not to massage the statistics of the unemployed: the purpose is to improve the system for those who need benefit and to help people to go back to work.
Perhaps I may deal with one point that the noble Lord made about the effect of changing the period from 12 months to six months. At present, the unemployment benefit rate is slightly higher than that for income support. Therefore, those in the first 12 months will be receiving slightly more. Although we are shortening the period to six months, people with an entitlement to the benefit will be eligible for the same amounts which apply to the means-tested rate and the contributory rate will he the same; that is, one rate. However, the statistics will remain the same. What we are changing is the ability to give people benefit and to help people get back in to work.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the noble Viscount has not answered my question.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, perhaps I may suggest that we now return to the debate. In doing so, I should like to announce that the five-hour time limit will now expire at 9.10 p.m.

Government Policies: Confidence
4.47 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, the history of the present Government's incumbency has been a lamentable tale of incoherence and myopia. The background to their regime has been generally rising unemployment, social decay, rising crime and falling confidence. To those problems the Government have made the approach of measured consistency which one would expect from a half-demented weathercock. That really, perhaps, was not entirely unforeseen by many of us. However, what we did not foresee—neither can we accept, nor shall we forgive—is the wilful demeaning of a great office of state—the Home Office.
I thought last night about some former occupants of the Home Office; for example, the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, the present Foreign Secretary and the noble Lords, Lord Callaghan and Lord Merlyn-Rees. None of those holders of that Seal left the office diminished. I suggest that no one could have listened to the remarks of the present Home Secretary at the Conservative Party Conference, and later and often, without a feeling of infinite sadness and distaste.
After 14 years of Conservative rule, what do we find in the field of law and order? According to a poll that was published yesterday morale in the Crown Prosecution Service has never been lower. There is dismay in the organisation about abandoned prosecutions, investigations in vain and victims left without redress. The frustration of the police service in this country has never been greater. I suggest that the citizens of this country have not been so uneasy in their liberties since the end of the last war. But what do the Government do? They look for a slogan here and a
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totem there. They say, "We shall crack down on bail bandits". It is always a case of cracking down on something. However, if you crack down on bail bandits, you need prison places but there are none; they cannot be provided overnight. What will happen if the Government send those people to prison? Presently, of course, people are unconvicted, by definition, if they are on bail. If the Government send those people to prison, there will be further overcrowding of a system that is grossly overburdened; or a return to the old discredited system, bitterly hated by police officers, of keeping remand prisoners in police cells overnight and over the weekend. At the same time as this marvellous crackdown the provision for bail hostels is being savagely reduced.
The Government say they will limit cautioning. However, it is this Government who have presided over and colluded in the system of repeated cautioning for offences, among others, of domestic burglary, sexual offences and—the curse of our present time—gratuitous violence in public places. There is another slogan—"prison works". It seems that it does not work for white collar City criminals because they do not have the opportunity to see whether or not it does. Mr. Cole, Mr. Ramsden and Mr. Levitt have not been sent to prison. However, a single mother who fiddles a few pounds on state benefits out of need and not greed goes to prison for 28 days. Where are the Attorney-General's appeals on those sentences which have caused such public derision, unease and shame? As regards the slogan "prison works", the Home Office's own research material states:
"Prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse".
A significant number of people in prison are petty criminals. They spend lives of waste, idleness and boredom. The inspectorate under that admirable man Judge Tumim produces reports on what would have been a scandal 100 years ago, but no one resigns. The indictment against this Government is: gross negligence in the conduct of public affairs. A fair review of the evidence leads to one conclusion only: the verdict is "guilty".
4.53 p.m.
Lord Rippon of Hexham: My Lords, I deplore this Motion. I think its sweeping terms are unprecedented, and rightly so. In my view, it is for the other place to express confidence in the government of the day and not for us. Moreover, I regard it as wholly unhelpful to try to polarise the position of political parties in this House. However, as the Opposition have chosen this battleground, I am glad to declare my support for the Prime Minister and the Government. I believe that, looked at as a whole, the policies of the Government are right and in the interests of the nation. That is certainly true of our foreign and commonwealth policy which I consider has been brilliantly conducted by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary.
I felt during the Maastricht debates that some noble Lords opposite were considerably embarrassed and slightly caught up in the behaviour of their counterparts in another place who subordinated our European future to rather shabby, discreditable manoeuvres regardless of

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the national interest. No doubt they judged that few people in the constituencies would understand that their alliance with the so-called "Euro-sceptics" was defended on the Opposition's view that the treaty signed did not go far or fast enough towards European union. That is something that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, the Leader of the Opposition, inferred earlier today. For my part I believe that the opt-outs, skilfully negotiated by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, over a common currency, economic and monetary union and the Social Chapter are increasingly accepted as right and realistic, although of course they may not last as long as the opt-outs negotiated so skilfully by the Scots in the Act of Union.
As regards the economy, inflation is under control. By contrast, I remember only too vividly, not one statistic in 1967, but the damage inflicted on pensioners and other people living on small fixed incomes by the long-term rampant inflation endured under Labour governments. Of course there are great problems to be tackled, including the high level of unemployment. But even here it must be acknowledged that, while our unemployment is falling, in almost every country in Europe it is rising. We are pulling steadily out of the recession. We are the only country in Europe whose industrial production is rising not falling. We have now had a Budget which I believe is calculated to safeguard the future long-term interest and well-being of every section of society.
However, we must look beyond one Parliament in considering difficult economic and social issues. I believe that this will require our working together in seeking long-term solutions. For this we need compromise and not confrontation. The Labour Party consistently refuses to look at these problems in a sensible long-term way. Short-term party political considerations seem to be its only priority. Sadly, I am bound to say that socialist policies today belong to the past and not to the future. It has been well said that the only difference between the rut and the grave is that the rut is longer. It seems to me that the Labour Party wants to remain in the rut to the bitter end.
Finally, it is my belief that the strength of the House lies in the fact that we can vote on important matters across party boundaries and from time to time defeat the Government as regards improving the form and content of legislation without that being a vote of confidence. I believe this Motion to be ill-conceived and misplaced. I hope it will be defeated decisively.
4.56 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Rippon, I welcome the Motion. It is about time we got the gloves off in this place. The Motion, in referring to the Stalinist gang which occupies the seat of power as Her Majesty's Government, does them a kindness. They do not deserve everything that is stated in the Motion. Indeed, everything they do and say is tainted and everything they touch turns to dust.
Even Her Majesty and the Royal Family are not exempt from their baleful influence. For the first time in recent history the Queen is required to pay tax. Her
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Majesty has been reduced in status by this Government to a citizen of the moribund and disreputable European Union. Her laws are increasingly made, not by her Parliament but by a polyglot junta sitting in a foreign capital. I do not believe Tory supporters out in the country like that very much. The Prince of Wales, God bless him, has been asked by the police not to visit the Principality because they cannot protect him as the Government are not able or are not willing to provide the money for the police to keep law and order which has so badly slipped during the Government's 14 years in office.
As we heard, the Government have ruined the economy. The public finances are in ruin due to their lack of proper financial control and profligate expenditure. If a Labour government had dared to spend 45 per cent. of GDP they would have been hounded out of office with ignominy by noble Lords opposite and their counterparts in the other place and in the City. Yet this Government are spending 45 per cent. of money that people earn.
However, this clinging on to power and imposition of unprecedented tax burdens is typical of the Tory Government of the past 14 years. They have imposed high taxes on the very people who trusted them, voted for them and worked for them at the previous election. My right honourable friend the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday in another place that the Budget was a vicious attack on the welfare state. It most certainly is, but much more than that it is a vicious attack on the living standards of every man, woman and child in the United Kingdom, and in particular those people in the income group who usually vote Conservative. Indeed, they have been betrayed as never before. I hope that that will tell at the next general election.
This so-called Government pretend to stand for the family. Yet their policies are pushing more and more mothers to work to make ends meet. Only yesterday the value of the married couple's allowance was reduced. The Government's solution to teenage pregnancy is to cut benefit and lower the age of consent to 13. Those are the proposals of this Government in relation to family values.
Finally, I turn to democracy. The insidious undermining of every democratic institution in favour of centralised power is a danger to our freedoms. In local government, the health service and elsewhere power and decision-making have been transferred either to central government itself or to expensive quangos, which are the creatures and servants of government Ministers. The Government are still not content. The Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill is yet to come before us. Once again more power will be transferred to the centre. I believe that the lay magistracy itself may be under threat from this Government.
The Government have great contempt for the British people. But if they are not careful they will find, as the Conservatives in Canada found, that at the next election they too can be wiped out.
5.1 p.m.
Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, the debate in which we are taking part becomes curiouser and curiouser. It is curious that such an unprecedented Motion should have been chosen for debate, particularly at a moment of unprecedented opportunity to affirm our confidence in the Government.
The most manifest sign of confidence is the Budget introduced by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday. He has made the most of the opportunity presented by the first unified Budget. I am happy to say that his first job in the other place was as my Parliamentary Private Secretary. That gives me added reason for confidence in the skill and courage with which he has addressed himself to the task. He has set himself the right objectives to sustain the recovery which has been under way since the first half of last year.
To hear the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, speak, he might have been speaking about another country. He may have failed to notice that, unlike any of our European partners, we live in an economy of dramatically falling inflation, dramatically falling interest rates, dramatically falling unemployment and substantially rising growth. His speech must have been addressed to a different audience on a different occasion. The same can be said of the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. It is right that the Chancellor should be determined to put public finances on a sound footing on a long-term basis. To hear the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, speak one wondered how on earth his party would ever address itself to that agenda.
The noble Lord spoke of a vicious attack on every taxpayer and a vicious attack on every beneficiary, all sustaining a Budget deficit which he also described as vicious. What does he propose to do about it? One cannot run an economy and tackle a deficit which is larger than it should be simply by saying "We wouldn't start from here". Where would they start? What would they do? The Chancellor is doing the right thing, not making a vicious attack on common sense. The vicious attack has been made by the party opposite, which is against any opportunity whatsoever.
The Chancellor is making long-term changes, broadly in the right way, in the structure both of taxes and of expenditure. He is addressing himself to the reduction of mortgage interest relief, the enhancement of the duty on tobacco and the prospect of higher duty on road fuel on a long-term basis which is calculated to generate revenue for the future. He is addressing himself to a proper appraisal of the welfare state. Therefore, far from launching an attack on the welfare state he and his colleagues are looking at the best way of preserving it in the most effective fashion possible by making measured and sensible long-term spending reductions of the kind that are necessary if the Budget balance is to be restored in a sensible fashion. Unemployment benefit is being reshaped; invalidity benefit is being reshaped; university grants are being reshaped by extending reliance on the loan system; there is to be a long-term change in the pension age; there is to be a proper reduction in the burden of public expenditure; and,
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finally, there are proposals for the introduction of private sector finance in infrastructure expenditure. All those measures are grounds for confidence in the economic management of this Government, not the reverse.
There is one further point to be made about those proposals. The Chancellor is committing himself to achieving those objectives over a long term. As I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, will agree, he has the wisdom to say, "Beware of forecasts". I said the same thing and I am sure the noble Lord did the same.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: My Lords, I certainly agree. However, in view of the record of every government, I find it surprising that a Chancellor can go on record as proposing that the deficit shall be reduced to £2 billion in seven years' time. With all the changes which are likely to take place in that time, I simply do not believe it.
Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, I was going to make precisely that point. It was the one qualification that I wanted to make and I am grateful to the noble Lord for anticipating me. If one needs to beware of forecasting one needs to beware of over-confidence. I am glad to see a confident Chancellor, but I hope that he will not be misled so far as to disregard the need for keeping his target in sight.
In view of all the ways in which the Government are addressing themselves to these problems I believe that we have every reason for confidence in the Government. I am dismayed by the way in which this Motion was tabled by this Opposition in this House. It diminishes my confidence in the party opposite even further. I hope that this House will have nothing to do with it.
5.6 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, it has evidently escaped the attention of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, that the debate this afternoon is not on yesterday's Budget but on the record of the Government as a whole over the past 14 years.
To take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rippon, across the House generally, there are a number of factors in common. We are all Members of the same House of course and we are all members of the same nation. The objective should always be to find out how much agreement we can achieve. But there are difficulties in that because noble Lords on the other side of the House, many of whom are known to me as very nice and kindly people, live in a different world altogether from the world which they describe. They represent people in this place, very rich and powerful people, who do not understand how the other half live and have never experienced how they live. In this country there are great extremes of wealth and poverty. A democracy as a system of developing laws and the welfare of the whole country cannot survive where great wealth confronts great poverty.
The Government claim on the one hand that the economy is strong and the nation is prosperous and then on the other hand say that they are in dire straits. It is notable, and it has been the same over the years, that whenever the Government find themselves in difficulty

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it is not to the rich and powerful that they look to be sustained: it is the poor, the weak and the sick who always bear the brunt of the burden. We know perfectly well that in one day those who sustain the party opposite will spend on lunch what an ordinary person who is unemployed or in the poverty trap receives in a week. They live in a different world altogether.
The Government do not seem to realise that at least one-third of the population does not live in the world as portrayed in the colour magazine supplements of the Sunday newspapers. They live a life in which every penny matters. Even the changing of a small battery in a radio set represents a crisis. Every change in venue when they have to go to a hospital, so that they have to travel perhaps three miles instead of one, represents a crisis in the family budget because it means having to travel from one fare zone into another. That is what noble Lords opposite do not realise; nor can it be sustained for long.
We all have to face the fact that sooner or later democracy cannot endure where the fortunes of most of the people of the country who work and most of those who are out of work depend fundamentally on the complete and untouchable freedom of people who are supposed to provide the capital in order that manufacturing and other industries may run. That cannot go on. Either poverty using democracy will win the battle against property, or property fearing poverty will destroy democracy. That is exactly what is happening in the United Kingdom today. All over the country elected bodies are being replaced by quangos. Those quangos consist in the main—I shall prove it if necessary—of members of the Conservative Party and their hangers on. The democratic rule, progressive though it may be, is superseded by appointments made quite shamelessly without regard to the welfare of the people.
I have spent many days wandering around some of the hospitals that are the subject of the Tomlinson report. There is no time to give the results of my inquiries into those hospitals. However, I assure Members opposite that among the hospital staff who really care the Health Secretary's name is execrated. They do not like her in the slightest, or anything that she stands for.
In the time that remains to us we have to undertake those measures that have wide acceptance throughout the country rather than the measures accepted by those who hold the power.
5.12 p.m.
Lord Dean of Harptree: My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech. First, I thank noble Lords in all parts of the House for the welcome and kindness that I have received. I also thank the Clerk of the Parliaments, officials and staff for being so helpful. I have been made to feel very much at home and I am truly grateful for that.
I have a long-standing interest in pensions. I noted the statement in the gracious Speech that,
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"My Government will continue to develop their policies on social security so that help is concentrated on those most in need and expenditure is kept within affordable limits".
Hear, hear, to that, my Lords. The trouble is that those two points often conflict. It is reassuring to pensioners to know that they have a regular pension income, that pensions nowadays are increased each year and that the principle of benefit as of right on payment of contributions is firmly entrenched. However, the number of pensioners is increasing all the time and the cost of pensions increases as a consequence. We must therefore inevitably ask, "Is the cost becoming too great?" Are we asking future working generations to pay too much? Those are awkward questions which are being asked. I give the Government great credit for taking the lead in the debate on those important matters.
We also have to take into account the fact that the circumstances of a growing number of pensioners have changed for the better. We now have what the younger generation call well-off old folk with three sources of income: the straight retirement pension; an occupational or public service pension; and investment income. Those are wholly satisfactory developments but they have a bad side too.
As recent events have shown, the safeguards against dishonesty and cheating in occupational pension schemes have proved to be inadequate. For the most part, trustees are doing a good job. We welcome the new pensions ombudsman. The occupational pensions advisory service is doing valuable work in helping to obtain redress for those who have grievances. But the law needs to be tightened up. I am glad that the Government set up the Goode Committee to review the framework of law and regulation of pension schemes. I hope that the Government will take early action on the committee's wise and practical recommendations.
It has been said that this is an unprecedented debate. Therefore perhaps I may be forgiven for a somewhat controversial remark in my maiden speech; namely, that when the vote is called I shall vote with conviction and enthusiasm against the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Richard. I thank your Lordships for giving me the courtesy of your attention.
5.18 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, one of the most pleasant tasks in your Lordships' House is to be the speaker following a maiden speech. Today is no exception. The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Harptree, comes to us with a great reputation as a parliamentarian with expertise in particular on health and social security. His maiden speech has added to that reputation. I know that I speak for all noble Lords when I say how much we enjoyed his speech and look forward to his future contributions to our debates.
The Motion before the House refers to the lack of confidence in Her Majesty's Government. That certainly applies in the National Health Service and community care. There is increasing evidence that the reforms set in train by the National Health Service and Community Care Act are not working. As part of my duties in the health team, I spend much time in discussion with doctors, carers and nurses. I meet

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consultants who cannot wait to retire. I met a young male nurse in my home town. He is well trained. He and all his colleagues were engaged on six-month contracts. He was taken on in March and discharged in September, not because of inefficiency but because of a funding problem. He is now lost to the National Health Service. He is being trained elsewhere.
We could have avoided that situation. When we were considering the Bill in this House, my noble friend Lord Ennals moved an amendment which had the support of all the Royal Colleges. It asked the Government to try out the reforms in two regions. Instead the Bill was rammed through —it was ill thought out and ill considered, as referred to by my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition in his opening—in the mood of triumphalism which suffused the Government at that time. The reforms have cost over £1 billion. The health service now spends £25 million a year on public relations. The number of managers has tripled—like some of their salaries. The pay bill for managers is up by 108 per cent. in real terms. The pay bill for nurses and midwives is up in real terms by 2.2 per cent.
We are surprised by the increase in the salaries of the managers in the health service—the trust hospitals and others. It was like the salaries of the managers in the privatised industries. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, "A gravy train is a gravy train is a gravy train". A leading consultant in industry told me the other day that the internal market was the last but two in management theory in large organisations.
Of course it is important to find out the cost of operating the National Health Service—we used to call it organisation and methods—to find out the best practice and see the cheapest way of doing it. I believe it was Mr. William Waldegrave when he was Secretary of State who referred to the health service as "an administrative slum". You do not engage in slum clearance by submerging it in paper; and that is what has happened. We are now engaged on a vast paper chase.
There was reference recently at Question Time to the Royal Marsden Hospital, which seeks trust status. I am sure that it will get trust status and will not be closed. But while it remains open, it will have to turn its attention from its world renowned treatment and research into cancer to compete with other hospitals and for customers in the same way as Tesco's competes with Sainsbury's.
We shall hear at the end, I am sure, about the resources the Government have put into the health service and the number of patients who are treated. That is to do with resources. But of the 21 OECD countries, only four spend less on health care as a percentage of their GDP than the UK. We spend £100 less per head of population than the EC average. If we had spent the average of the EC from 1980 to 1990, it would have been worth an extra £40 billion for the health service. In that period our hospitals have gone down by 20 per cent. and hospital beds by 25 per cent. The hospitals in the private sector have increased by 50 per cent. and the beds in the private sector by 70 per cent.
We shall be told, I am sure, about the number of patients. When the noble Earl winds up, will he confirm that when the Government refer to the number of
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patients, they mean the number of consultant episodes? If a patient is seen by three consultants, it counts as three patients.
The Government rejected the gradualist, consensual reform that we could all have supported. They rammed through ill-considered, underfunded reforms which are based on a half-baked and out-of-date fad in management theory. The country is now paying and I am absolutely certain that the Government will pay eventually.
5.21 p.m.
Lord Sanderson of Bowden: My Lords, I also wish to associate myself with the words of congratulation to my noble friend Lord Dean of Harptree on his splendid, short and pungent speech. We look forward very much to hearing more from him in the days and months that lie ahead.
Listening to the Leader of the Opposition opening the debate, fulminating and saying that the country was on its knees, my mind went back to 1979. In those days we longed for interest rates at a low rate, 5½ per cent. and inflation at its present levels. That is what we were saying. Then I remembered, of course, that the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition was not in this country; he was the United Nations representative, living in New York. I suppose that that is a bit like Pooh-Bah. When the Mikado had him grovelling at his feet for having cut off the head of the heir apparent, Pooh-Bah said: "I knew nothing about it. I wasn't there".
The country on its knees! I have to say that I strongly disagree with the Leader of the Opposition in that remark. A recent survey by the Financial Times of the top 500 European companies, showed that, on profit, 10 of the top 20 are in the United Kingdom. Manufacturing output per head in the three months to September this year is up 4.9 per cent. Yesterday we had a Budget for small business. Deeds, not words; action, not words. The "son of BES" has indeed come to pass, with action to tackle late payment, particularly by large companies which are strangling small companies by holding up payments. I say to my friends on the Front Bench, "Do not give way; do tackle, if necessary by legislation, the late payment of accounts which is so difficult for a small business to counter".
I believe that the 1993 Budgets, in a difficult world scene, have rescued the United Kingdom from a possible plunge into fiscal unsustainability similar to that seen in some European countries such as Italy. I prefer the Government's approach to that of signing up for a social charter or a payroll tax so beloved of the party opposite. Levelling up of taxes is no good for business. It is bad for business and it is bad for Britain.
5.24 p.m.
Lord Palmer: My Lords, as only one of two Cross-Benchers to take part in the debate tonight, I shall be extremely brief. I should like to raise two points as words of warning for the Government. Both are related to the situation in Scotland.
First, there has been a gross miscalculation of the base area for Scottish cereal production at the Scottish

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Office. That has resulted in the fact that we farmers have been told to set a further 5 per cent. aside next year without compensation. That means that we shall now be setting nearly 21 per cent. aside. The same situation recently arose in Germany and the German Government fought long and hard in Brussels for their farmers. As a result of that great fight, German farmers are not being penalised. I have to say that the Scottish farming industry feels let down by Her Majesty's Government.
The second point I wish to raise is the Government's proposals to change the way we run local government in Scotland. I am not against the idea of single-tier local authorities, but what I am against is the Government's total reluctance to listen to local feeling. That has happened throughout Scotland and in our case the Government propose to take Berwickshire out of the Scottish Borders. Berwickshire has been part of the Borders for centuries but the Government propose to link it with East Lothian. Geographically, Berwickshire is separated from East Lothian by the Lammermuir Hills; the only road to the proposed new headquarters in Haddington is a B road which is partially blocked with snow from the beginning of October to the beginning of June. It simply does not make sense. I feel that the Government will earn the most enormous support if they look at both those issues and show a willingness to examine them. I am sure that they agree that they could do with more support from over the Border.
5.26 p.m.
Lord Alexander of Weedon: My Lords, like my noble and learned friend Lord Howe, I have confidence in the way in which the Government are managing the economic fundamentals. That surely must underpin all our aspirations on all sides of the House for the better development of society.
In the past, the "boom and bust" economic cycle has gravely harmed us. First and foremost, we have to seek economic stability and I welcome the fact that the Government are seeking steady, durable growth. We increasingly accept across the board that a long-term, low inflationary environment must be maintained. Low inflation is, of course, not just a goal in itself but it is fundamental as the foundation of long-term and sustained progress. In particular, there is no long-term trade off between inflation and unemployment. Employment prospects can only be underpinned by a sound economy. Some, I know, say that inflation is now dead, but in the light of the history of recent decades we should be vigilant to guard against it rising again. The aims of the Budget seem to me to reinforce that commitment. But, above all, I welcome the commitment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to long-term and not short-term success.
I am also heartened that the Government are now committed to a partnership with industry and business. We all rightly accept once again that manufacturing industry is vital to our future. Our service industry, into which the City of London chipped almost £19 billion last year, is highly important. But we need greater manufacturing success to export more and for our own goods to substitute for imports. I am glad that the
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Opposition approve of the Government's present policy. The DTI, under Mr. Michael Heseltine, is absolutely and clearly committed, as we see it, to working with industry to help it to achieve its goals. New export markets are not easy to win, particularly when our principal European markets are in recession. But the commitment of the Government to promoting and supporting exports, as the Prime Minister has done on several trade missions in the time he has to spare from Parliament, is really heartening. We are no longer afraid to talk, in simple language, of UK Plc as if we mean it.
Like many others, I see small businesses as vital to the future. They contribute 17 per cent. of our GDP but they also contribute 35 per cent. of private sector employment. Ninety six per cent. of businesses in this country employ fewer than 20 people, so I am very glad, for the sake of employment as well as growth, that their importance was recognised in the Budget. The raising of the threshold for VAT, the lessening of the accountancy burden and the creation of new vehicles for tax efficient investment in small businesses are all steps in the right direction.
However, as my noble friend Lord Sanderson said, we must also help small businesses with their cash flow. Late payment of debt is a disease in this country. At any one time, £15 billion of payments are overdue, and the problem needs to be addressed urgently. Most banks and many businesses believe that voluntary efforts to cure the disease have failed dismally and that it is important to create a statutory right of interest—not, although I speak as a lawyer, with a view to clogging-up the courts but with a view to changing the culture. I am very glad that the Chancellor acknowledged so positively the havoc which late payment of debt plays with so many small businesses. I welcome the consultative paper that he has issued, which fairly squares up to the problem and indicates that government departments will publish from 1994 their own payment record every year. Government, both central and local, has to set an example in this area. After all, we are only asking that debts should be paid on time.
Mention of time indicates that I must keep to time myself. The Government seem to me to be firmly committed to low inflation. They are seeking steady growth; emphasising the importance of manufacturing and exports and trying to help small business. I believe that this agenda ought to command all our support.
5.30 p.m.
Baroness Castle of Blackburn: Listening to the speeches from Members on the Benches Opposite, I have been irresistibly reminded, as they have held forth with their claims to credit for the Government trying to get us out of recession, of a nursery rhyme:
"Ding, dong, bell,
Pussy's in the well,
Who put her in?
Of course, it is this Government. Indeed, according to Mr. Norman Lamont, whom they were once cheering as Chancellor, the extravagances of earlier years led directly to the recession that we are in now. I see no signs that this Government have any chance of drawing us out of recession again.

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It is not only a question of having no confidence in what this Government have done before. We have no confidence in the direction in which they are moving or in what they intend to do. I very much hope that Members of this House will give careful thought to what is happening—because it is happening in a way that I do not believe they would like if they stopped to realise it. The Budget shows that this Government have been captured by the new Tory Right. They know exactly what they want to do. They want to privatise all the social insurance and health insurance provisions in this country, leading to the inequalities that we have seen in the United States of America. As evidence, I quote from a recent pamphlet by the "no turning back" Thatcherites, who, in talking about the welfare state, called for its total dismantling. I shall quote just two sentences. First:
"State benefit should be primarily for the poor";
and, secondly:
"the state may provide no insurance of its own".
That is their intention, and this Budget has taken us in that direction. That purpose was echoed by Mr. Peter Lilley. It was even echoed by the Prime Minister and by the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself in his Budget speech on the grounds that, as they have said, "the burden of the welfare state is something that we can no longer enjoy, and we shall collapse under the weight of it".
It is not surprising that some welfare expenditure has increased recently. We all know that unemployment has gone up and that we have to pay unemployment benefit. But there are other aspects of deliberately created government policy which have added to the cost of welfare payments. We heard them this afternoon. Welfare spending will go up—will it not?—in the next two years to compensate the pensioners for the new tax burden that the Government have put upon them. I suppose that we shall be told that that is the terrible growing burden of the welfare state.
Let us take housing benefit, one of the areas of spending that has increased. I rang up the Department of Social Security about the figures. When I was told that one of the increases was in housing benefit I asked why. "Oh", they said, "because the Government put up rents". So time and again the Government have precipitated the policies which require that kind of relief. They are creating the myth.
The Government say: "We have been lavishly generous to all the poorest and most insecure in the land". Let me tell them one thing as they rattle off all the things that they say they are going to do to alleviate the misery that they themselves have created. Let me remind them that the experts say that the biggest blow to pensioners in this country was dealt when this Government deliberately broke the earnings link, the income up-rating which the Labour Government had introduced. A figure was given recently by a social security expert who said that if that linkage purely with prices, and not with incomes, had obtained ever since 1948, the pension today would be worth £23 a week. Unless that earnings link is restored, then pensioners
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face slipping increasingly into poverty and all the alleviations about which we have heard today will be meaningless.
Therefore, I want to draw the attention of the House to a document which it is quite obvious the Government have not read. It is called The future of welfare: A guide to the debate, and was published recently by John Hills of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. As time is so desperately inadequate, I merely want to quote one of the conclusions in its summary—if I may just get my other specs, and I hope that that does not count against my time:
"Welfare spending is neither 'spiralling out of control' nor being inexorably 'rolled back'. As Figure 2 [of the document] shows, over the medium term Britain's welfare spending has been a stable share of GDP, rising and falling with the economic cycle. As Figure 3 shows, that share is smaller than in most other European countries".
Can we have an answer to that statement today?
5.36 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, the noble Baroness and I entered another place, along with several hundred others, in 1945. I well remember, and often admired, the spirited speeches that she made, although I generally disagreed with them. I am glad to find that she has lost none of her vigour, but, alas, I cannot agree with anything that she said so far as I was able to follow her remarks.
I recall also that the noble Baroness was employment Minister at a very difficult time with the trade unions. She issued a White Paper In Place of Strife, which contained some quite wise suggestions for improving matters. But her Cabinet colleagues would not let her follow it up with legislation. So strikes continued and multiplied, both official and unofficial, culminating in the winter of discontent when hospital patients were deprived of necessary services and some of the dead could not be buried when they should have been.
The trouble was that the trades unions—many of them, not all—were in the hands of left wing extremists. Union members were deprived of power and of a proper voting system for electing their leaders. Ballots were not secret and indeed were sometimes rigged. There were cases before the courts. That was the position the Conservative Government found in 1979. The situation caused disharmony among our people, to borrow the expression of the noble Lord, Lord Richard. It damaged the economy; one cannot get away from that. It did Labour no good. It was the Conservative Government who persuaded Parliament to give the unions back to their members, first, by introducing secret postal ballots for union elections, and secondly, by making strikes unlawful unless 50 per cent. of the members of a union voted by secret ballot in favour of striking. That is the position today. The result has been a dramatic fall in the number of days lost through strikes. There has been less interruption of production, less interruption of public services and much better relationships between management and labour.
The Labour Party strenuously opposed all that legislation but I understand that it has no intention of asking Parliament to repeal it. Indeed, although the noble Lord tried to find as many differences as possible

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the Labour Party broadly agrees with the Government on some very important matters—for instance, Northern Ireland, Europe, the need to reduce crime and Yugoslavia. I believe, however, that the Labour Party remains fundamentally a socialist party, although it has not paraded its socialism much in recent years. Indeed, it has pretended to abandon much of it.
One must take note of a current political issue involving its socialist beliefs, namely, the Government's proposal to privatise British Coal. I wonder whether I may inflict on your Lordships a personal experience. Like several other Members of your Lordships' House, I was once responsible for health and safety in several hundred coal mines. I went down about a dozen coal mines in different parts of the country. The miners always gave me a good welcome, except in one area—Scargill country in south Yorkshire. Miners had to lead daily lives which were dirty, dark, dangerous and strenuous. Every year several hundred were either killed by accident or died from pneumoconiosis. I did not believe that in a progressive society that could go on indefinitely.
A further factor is that the burning, especially in open fires, of most forms of coal pollutes the air. It does not surprise me that the coalmining industry has run down. There are so few mines left that the case for retaining nationalisation, if there ever was a case, has gone.
We won the last four general elections because enough of the British people supported our policies. They were wise to do so and your Lordships would be wise to defeat the Motion today.
5.42 p.m.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, when I became a Member of your Lordships' House, I did not think that we should ever debate a Motion of this kind. It seemed to me that, as we are mainly a revising Chamber, such resolutions should never be contemplated, let alone debated. Over the past week I have thought about the debate and warmed to it. I have come to the conclusion that we should thank the noble Lord, Lord Richard, for giving us the opportunity to demonstrate our support for the Government's policies.
I wish to concentrate on what is perhaps the most important single policy of all. I refer to the control of inflation. The control of inflation is absolutely vital to create a stable environment in which the economy can flourish. If our entrepreneurs can rely on the Government to deliver low inflation, they can make plans for the medium and long term with confidence. They can focus their energies on winning world markets to the advantage of us all. For that reason, in 1979 the Government's top economic priority was to get inflation down.
At that time we had just experienced, under the last Labour administration, a period of horrendous inflation. Those in work were able to fight their corner to maintain their standard of living, even though they were pricing goods out of the market by doing so. But we can all remember people who suffered severely at that time. The elderly, the weak, the vulnerable and those on fixed incomes saw their standard of living dramatically
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reduced. I well remember when inflation reached 26.9 per cent. in 1975. Panic set in, with people buying today because tomorrow goods would cost more. I refer only to those who had the means to spend. Others went without.
Inflation causes three main problems. First, it brings about a re-allocation of wealth from savers to borrowers. In the four years of government leading up to 1979 the real value of the pound was reduced to just 47p. Secondly, between wage settlements inflation erodes the real value of incomes. That is disruptive and socially divisive. Unrest results, and large groups, such as trade unions, use their clout and muscle in every new wage negotiation. Thirdly, high inflation causes great harm to business, fuelling those high wage costs which are the largest component of industry's costs. The CBI has calculated that for every point of inflation the cost to business is around £5 billion a year.
The battle of inflation is never won. It is therefore imperative that the present specific target range of 1 per cent. to 4 per cent. for underlying inflation is adhered to. The Chancellor confirmed yesterday that we are set to stay within that target range. As he said, low inflation must now remain a permanent feature of the British economic landscape. By introducing tough measures to control spending and raise revenue, he demonstrated our commitment to sustained low inflation.
The determined pursuit of the Government's policy has resulted in headline inflation below 2 per cent. in each of the last 10 months, which has not been seen since 1960. Inflation in this country has been below the EC average every month since August 1991. It is now the lowest in the G7 as well as the EC.
Last Friday, interest rates were reduced to 5.5 per cent. The last time that interest rates were so low was in 1977. Yes, it was when a Labour government were in power. But it was a very different scene. Inflation was 13 per cent. So savings were losing 7.5 per cent. of their value. In addition, nearly 10 million working days were lost through strike action that year.
Under this Government Britain leads the discussion in Europe on how to create growth and jobs. This Government are committed to a prosperous future for Britain. I have the utmost confidence in the policies of this Government.
5.47 p.m.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, this debate is about confidence. I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to the low level of confidence that industry has in the Government. I have spent the whole of my working life in industry and strongly agree with earlier speakers that industry is the engine of our recovery. It is therefore in the interest of us all that the Government should earn and retain the confidence of industry and encourage it to undertake the necessary risk and effort needed for our recovery.
The Government are responsible for creating an atmosphere in which industry is able to progress and invest. Unfortunately, that is not the situation at present. Industry plans its progress and investments very carefully. The success of those plans rests on the ability of managers to make a reasonable prediction of the

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conditions in which their projects will operate. That is why the first page of any business plan is headed "External factors" and is largely about predicting the effects of the Government's words and actions on the projects to be undertaken. So long as the Government have policies which are reasonably predictable on the important elements which affect industry, such as monetary policy, labour relations, taxation or technology, industry will progress. It has great ability to adapt to most policies.
How do a government create that desirable atmosphere? They do it by observing two simple rules. Rule one is to give clear messages and ensure that members of the Government do not contradict each other. Rule 2 is not to say one thing and do another. Sadly, those simple rules have been breached not just in the past 14 years that the Government have been in power; nor in the past 14 months; but in the past 14 days.
Let me illustrate that. During the summer we were told that our managers were doing well. Exports were up and productivity was increasing faster than in Germany, Japan and the United States. In today's debate we have heard that we are the only country in Europe coming out of recession. How then is industry to interpret a speech made by the President of the Board of Trade—I am pleased to see him recovered and back at work—at the annual dinner of the Institute of Directors on 23rd November at which he rebuked British managers for unsatisfactory performance figures? Those figures show that our productivity is 25 per cent. behind that of our European competitors and even further behind that of the US and that our share of world trade has declined remorselessly. It is now half that of Germany. Who are we to believe?
There was then the episode when members of the Government contradicted each other over the declaration about work-sharing at the Congress of European Socialists. On 22nd November the Chancellor rubbished the idea in Brussels, yet on the same day the employment Minister, speaking at a seminar in London, praised it. What is industry to make of that contradiction? Particular encouragement was given to trade with our European partners. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, referred to that in his opening remarks. What conclusion is industry supposed to draw when a senior member of the Cabinet is seen on television at Blackpool doing sarcastic schoolboy impersonations of French, German and Italian citizens? They are the very people that industry is trying to persuade to buy our goods and use our services.
Looking further back, I remind your Lordships of the confusion regarding the Channel Tunnel rail link and the time, effort and money wasted by industry as a consequence of believing what the Government said in regard to urban light railway systems. Any member of the Government watching the "Money Programme" on BBC television on Sunday evening must have felt uncomfortable as the whole catalogue of broken promises and misleading statements was examined. The misleading statements and mishandling of our entry into
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and exit from the ERM also broke the simple rules and severely tested industry's confidence in the Government.
Industry is investing less now than in 1979. There are many reasons for that. One is the uncertainty caused by the Government's unpredictable behaviour. Perhaps that is one reason also why many of our companies are choosing to invest outside the UK, with the result that there is now more investment outward than inward. We on our side wish to see industry lead us into real recovery. We have been consistent in our policy statements. On the other hand, the Government are inconsistent and in confusion; that is why I shall be supporting the Motion today.
5.54 p.m.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: My Lords, what a curious Motion to bring before the House at this particular moment. As has been pointed out by several noble Lords, there is no precedent for such a Motion and, were it to succeed, one is bound to ask what would be the consequences. Are we to assume that your Lordships' House would be dissolved and the Queen would call for the noble Lord, Lord Richard, to form his first administration? If so, the new Cabinet would consist of nine academics, five lawyers, two social workers and a farmer.
No. The truth is that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, imagined that this Motion would be a way of gaining some damaging publicity for the Government the day after the Budget. Once again the Members of the Opposition got their timing wrong because, much to their disappointment, the Budget was well received by the pundits and the press.
Since he became Leader of the Opposition in your Lordships' House the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and his Front Bench have obviously failed to notice that Britain has its lowest interest rates for 16 years; the lowest inflation rate for nearly 30 years; GDP has risen for six successive quarters; retail sales were up in October by 3.2 per cent. year on year; and our exports to non-EC countries are also up by a staggering 28 per cent. in the three months to October year on year. And perhaps most important of all, when the Leader of the Opposition in another place claimed that unemployment would rise month after month after month, he was proved right—it did rise month after month after month in every other European country except Britain. In Britain it fell for six out of the past eight months, with an overall decrease of 137,000. But despite that, we are expected to believe that, if the noble Lord, Lord Richard, was suddenly passed the mantle of power, all our problems would instantly be solved.
I was delighted that the noble Lord began his speech by referring to the last Labour administration., because when I had the privilege of sitting in another place he supported that Government, and that Government's past record deserves a moment of your Lordships' consideration. That Government allowed the top rate of tax on earned income to reach 83 per cent. That Government allowed the top rate on unearned income to reach 98 per cent. In both cases this Government have brought them down to 40 per cent. But if those statistics

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were not enough to condemn them, let us not forget that the same administration that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, supported had an average rate of inflation of 15.5 per cent., rising to a peak of 27 per cent.—a far cry from the current inflation figure of 1.4 per cent.
And if your Lordships believe that the noble Lord and his friends are now reformed characters why have the Labour Opposition in another place voted against every single tax cut proposed by this Government over the past 14 years? I shall tell you why. They are traditionally the party of high taxation, and that is why they will traditionally remain the party of Opposition.
The truth is that this Motion should never have been brought before the House, and half the Members on the Benches opposite know that and are privately saying so. The Government's record does not call for a vote of no confidence. No, my Lords. While the rest of Europe is still deep in recession and we are the one country coming out of that recession, it calls for a massive vote of confidence in the present administration and their policies. The British people returned the Conservatives to power for four elections in a row. When the time comes to call the next election—and it will not be tonight—they will return the Conservative Party again.
I commend to your Lordships the defeat of this Motion and on their record to condemn the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and his friends to a further period in Opposition.
5.58 p.m.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: My Lords, no modern state can achieve sustained economic growth unless it is underpinned by a sound structure of education and training to provide the educated and trained workforce which the modern economy demands. I am pleased to applaud the Government's record in that policy area for a few short moments.
Let us reflect for a moment on what was left behind by the last Labour Government in 1979. We had a failing education system—failing both the young people of our country and the business and industry which were their future employers. Young people left our schools lagging behind the rest of the western world and our competitors in their literacy and numeracy skills, in their knowledge of science and technology and in the basic technical skills they needed for employment. Only one in eight of our young people went on to higher education; 60 per cent. left full-time education at the age of 16 with nothing to show for their 11 years' education. Teachers in the system were qualified by the study of turgid and irrelevant educational theory and in many cases had no knowledge at all of the subjects that they would teach.
Let us look at the situation now after 14 years of this party's and this Government's policies. In the 1988 Act we produced a national curriculum which all children now follow, giving them access to a broad and balanced range of knowledge and skills which they need in order to survive and achieve in adult life. They are tested regularly to ensure that they are learning the knowledge and the skills that the curriculum provides and so that
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action can be taken remedially to ensure that they catch up where the test results show that they are not succeeding.
The 1988 Act also introduced a common system of examinations at 16. I cannot tell your Lordships how important it is that schools no longer have to put young people into three miserable divisions: the O-level group, as it used to be, whose hopes of success in future life were fairly high; the CSE group, whose hopes of success were severely limited; and the dreaded non-examination group, who had little to look forward to in terms of adult achievement. Now all have access to an appropriate range of qualifications and the Government have set targets for 80 per cent. of our young people by 1996, which is only two and a half years away, to have achieved five GCSEs or their vocational equivalent. This target is achieved with the support, help and energies of the training and enterprise councils, which demonstrate a partnership between employers and education.
In 1984 reforms of teacher qualifications were introduced which ensured that they were not qualified unless they had studied the subject they were to teach and that they learnt their practical skills largely in the schools and in the classrooms. That is to be further extended by the Bill currently with your Lordships' House. In 1992 we debated long, as I remember, in this House the introduction of regular and tightened-up inspection arrangements to ensure that failing schools—failing not only the young people but the economic growth of our country—should be identified early and that appropriate action could be taken so that failure was turned round.
In 1993, this very year, we have passed through this House and another place the Act which will produce the greater involvement of parents in their children's schools. Everything we know about children's ability to succeed in schools emphasises the importance of their experience of unity and co-operation between their homes and their schools. No more powerful way could have been found than that measure of parental involvement in the running of the schools. The Parents' Charter has ensured that reality is given to this partnership.
The success of these policies is shown by the fact that the consumers are buying it. More than 50 per cent. of young people are now in full-time education at the age of 17 and one-third of the age group are now going on into higher education. The Government's target for 16 to 19 year-olds will ensure that many proceed through to A-level and its equivalent. All of this has been backed up with money—a 45 per cent. increase in spending per pupil since 1979. On the basis of these policies alone I shall have great pride in voting against the Motion today and I trust that your Lordships' House will do the same.
6.3 p.m.
Lord Varley: My Lords, I put down my name to speak to this Motion last week and I wondered over the weekend whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer would do anything in his Budget Statement yesterday to persuade me that my lack of confidence in the policies of the Government was misplaced. Sadly, I think that in

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what he said yesterday he rather reinforced my lack of enthusiasm for what the Government have been doing over the past few years. Nor have they improved the prospect, so far as I can see, of creating a fairer Britain in the foreseeable future.
The economic record of the past 14 years—other noble Lords have mentioned it during the debate—has been appalling. For any government the level of economic activity, together with our international competitiveness and wealth creating ability, must be at the heart of policy. But this Government have fallen short of that in all parts. I am sure that the Lord Privy Seal, in setting out that catalogue of selective statistics and platitudes, knows that that has not happened. I know that some noble Lords opposite know that it has not happened.
Since 1979 the average annual rate of economic growth in the UK has been only just over 1.5 per cent. Every post-war government formed by either the Conservative Party or the Labour Party prior to 1979 did significantly better than the miserable record of the Thatcher and Major administrations. The Lord Privy Seal failed to mention among other things in his selective statistics that the level of manufacturing investment this year will be below the level of 1979.
My noble friend Lord Haskel mentioned the speech of the President of the Board of Trade at the Institute of Directors on 23rd November and pointed out that he said some very interesting things about our twin deficits—our overseas trade deficit and our deficit in public finances. The President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Michael Heseltine, finished his speech on that occasion in this way. In talking about uncompetitive nations he said:
"They gradually slip down the league table of world prosperity. That is what has happened to us".
That is what the President of the Board of Trade said. It is a pity that he does not say that kind of thing in another place.
It is not only our public finances and our trade imbalance which embarrass our country. There is the shameful waste of 3 million unemployed people who would like desperately to contribute to the well-being and welfare of our country but cannot get a job. I find it particularly impudent for the Lord Privy Seal to say, as he did this afternoon, that unemployment is falling slightly from the level of nearly three years ago. The noble Lord, Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, made some play of that a minute or two ago. On the present basis of falling unemployment it will take 10 years to get back to the level of unemployment that the Government inherited in 1979. When I see the Lord Privy Seal and listen to him I ask myself whether he is the same John Wakeham who fought the 1979 general election under the Saatchi and Saatchi poster depicting a seemingly endless queue of unemployed with the caption "Labour isn't working" when unemployment at that time was only a third of the level it is today.
I am not at all uneasy about supporting the Motion—I know that some noble Lords wonder whether it is right—but the way the Government have betrayed the coalmining industry annoys me intensely and makes me quite angry. In another few years we shall be importing
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expensive gas to convert to electricity, at great cost to our balance of payments, from territories of the world which are not yet renowned for their political stability. But it does not seem to worry the Government. The Government are out of touch.
When I was a Parliamentary Secretary in 1966 I remember a schoolboy asking my noble friend Lord Wilson of Rievaulx "What do Ministers do?" Mr. Harold Wilson, as he was then, said, "They hold meetings". That is what has happened to this Government. They are holding far too many meetings and they are out of touch with reality. They ought to go on the Tube. They ought to see what is happening in some of the deprived areas of Britain. If they did so they would realise what a disastrous mess they are making of things. I have no hesitation at all in supporting the Motion.
6.10 p.m.
Lord Vinson: My Lords, we are all indeed indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, for instituting this debate. A vote of confidence, contrary to what he said, does imply that the Opposition, if elected, could do better. This debate therefore gives us the opportunity to expose the vacuity of the suggestion that noble Lords opposite have policies that in any way would be more appropriate at the present time than those of Her Majesty's Government.
It requires a triumph of self-delusion over reality to suggest that there are socialist solutions which need to be applied in a world which is trying to recover from the disastrous economic effects of that damaging ideology. Noble Lords will recall those stirring days four years ago when Russia—the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—started to throw off her chains. I remember being intensely moved by the interview comments of an elderly woman. She said, "Thanks to socialism my life has been wasted". That remark could easily apply to the damaging legacy of socialism worldwide.
So back here, nearer at home, the Government's priority over the past 14 years has been unscrambling the malign effects of that doctrine. The blight may not have gone as deep as in Russia, but it has certainly held back the economic development of this country, as one glance at the liberated, denationalised major industries now so clearly illustrates.
Worldwide, democracies are under great pressure as the unfulfillable demands of the ever-widening welfare dependency come up against the inescapable realities of inadequate resources. Cash is simply not there and the taxable capacity of the public to pay for it has reached its limits. But I count my blessings. My generation has been extremely lucky: too young for the last war; to have lived through the demise of socialism; 45 years of unprecedented peace in Europe; food coming out of our ears and an expectation of life, with any luck, 20 years more than our grandparents.
But such blessings bring with them the growing problem of demography. There will be fewer economically-active people to grow the rice for the rice bowl that will have to feed our ageing population. This is society's time bomb. All governments have to face

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these problems, as would the noble Lords opposite if they were fortunate enough, and the country unfortunate enough, to have them in power.
So it would be nice to hear constructive, realistic policies coming from the opposite Benches, and on rare occasions one does so. But in the main their criticism of the Government's policies are superficial, ill-considered and point scoring. Intellectually they struggle to make yesterday's strategies fit today's needs. That is all the more disappointing because we live in times of great uncertainty and change, where leadership is so desperately needed. We live in a world in which the great verities that this House took for granted even 30 years ago—the verities of God, King and Country—are under question.
But the present Government are really grappling with these problems. They recognise not least that technology is changing employment patterns, which in turn demand great changes in educational and training systems. They are really concerned in this and in other ways to create self-sustaining, unsubsidised jobs in what is an increasingly competitive world.
However, one glance at the changes in employment laws demanded, and indeed endorsed, by many noble Lords opposite, leads one to the inescapable conclusion that they are not really interested in creating jobs; rather in burdening the labour force of this country with additional regulations that would destroy them. The road to unemployment is indeed paved with socialist good intentions, as France and Germany so clearly show.
Our Government clearly recognise the damage that over-regulation is doing to the economy. It is not surprising that this problem is unrecognised by many socialists who have little or no experience of living outside the political world and who are more interested in spending wealth than creating it, with all the inflationary implications that go with that thought.
The Government are wholly right to tackle the problem of over-regulation. Noble Lords will need no reminding of Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels. No one silken thread held him down but a thousand made him immobile. When I was a boy Britannia ruled the waves. Now we are the only country in Europe that does not waive the rules; indeed, we embellish them.
If our national morality prevents us from waiving them, we at least must rewrite them. Much over-regulation destroys enterprise, destroys initiative and destroys jobs. If Dean Swift were alive today he would be the first to recognise the damaging Lilliputian policies supported by those on the opposite Benches.
Inflation is at an all-time low. The Government have realistic and practical policies, as so clearly shown by yesterday's Budget. They have policies that work with the grain of human nature; policies that recognise that in a less deferential world people want their own independence, want their own home and want, in so far as they can, control over their own lives.
What they do not want is a return to the failed socialist policies of yesterday, which is all that an alternative government can offer them. Socialism is the future that does not work. We could have no confidence
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in any alternative administration that embraced that failed dogma. We can have every confidence in an administration such as we have today that has realistic, workable policies for the future, and an excellent track record to go with it.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Stewartby: My Lords, nothing that I have heard this afternoon explains why the Opposition sought to table such a bizarre Motion for debate today. The only explanation that I can think of is the same as that of my noble friend Lord Archer—that is to say, they tabled it as a trailer in the hope and belief that the reception of the Budget would be very hostile and they would have an opportunity for some good old-fashioned Government bashing in your Lordships' Chamber this afternoon.
I am thankful that they have been disappointed and not just for party political reasons. I am thankful that the Government have brought forward, through the Chancellor, a sensible Budget of the kind that is actually needed by this country to sustain the recovery and to redress the imbalances which arose during the recession.
If one looks back at how the Labour Party behaved at the critical points in the economic development of this country in the past few years, one finds that on almost every occasion they have been advocating exactly the opposite of what it was necessary to do at the time. In 1987–88, after the stock market crash, interest rates in this country and in others were kept very low because there was a fear of serious recession at the time. In fact, with hindsight, one can see that interest rates should have been raised sooner and perhaps more sharply.
But that is not what the Opposition were recommending. They were recommending even lower interest rates. Not only that, they were recommending substantial increases in public expenditure at the same time, which would have made the problems of the following two or three years all that much greater.
When one looks at the other end of this economic cycle a couple of years or so ago, what were they saying then? Quite rightly, the Government were insisting that it was necessary to encourage enterprise in order to ensure the economic recovery of this country. But there was nothing like that from the Opposition. Again, they wanted massive increases in public expenditure and possibly some swingeing increases in personal taxation at the same time—the permanent recipe of Labour Governments and Labour Oppositions which is to have a high-spending, low incentive economy. That has never worked in the past and it never will.
Yet, when they were faced with the next problem—the policy issue of the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System—there were two options. There was the option for this country and sterling to stay in the exchange rate mechanism and to have the high interest rates which were necessary to sustain sterling in it, or there was the option to come out and to have much lower interest rates. But that was not the problem as assessed by the Labour Opposition. They said that they wanted a little of both. They wanted to stay in the exchange rate mechanism, but to have lower interest rates at the same time. Those are two absolutely incompatible policies.

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That has been the fundamental weakness of Labour Party policies for as long as I have been following them. Having been in the Treasury myself in the 1980s we used to look to see whether there were any really good ideas that we had missed. I can assure noble Lords that it was almost impossible to find any consistency in the Labour Party's approach to economic management.
The one overriding factor which a country has the right to expect from its government is a responsible approach to economic management and a consistency in its tax and public spending policies. That is the one factor in recent years which has never been on offer to the British people from the party opposite. So when the Labour Party tables a Motion of no confidence in the Government on the day after a Budget which has addressed these matters seriously in a consistent and coherent way, frankly, it is behaving in a way which has brought its own reward.
The Labour Party has been a brilliant Opposition. If success in government is staying in government and winning elections, perhaps success in opposition is staying in opposition and losing elections. All that I can say is that if the Labour Party goes on like this, it will go on losing elections. This is not just a trivial point because a democratic country such as ours needs a viable alternative government in the form of the leading Opposition party, yet the Opposition have never presented a coherent financial policy or economic strategy which would enable the British people to see them in that light. They are letting the country down. They will never be elected to power until they realise that fact and do something about it.
I can say from this side of the House that a Conservative Government is always desirable, and I would say that unless and until the Labour Party realises that it has got to get its economic policies in shape and achieve some consistency, a Conservative Government is not just desirable; it is absolutely essential.
6.20 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, with the greatest respect I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Stewartby, should count his chickens. I think that he will be bitterly disappointed. All the evidence, such as the polls and the by-elections, clearly indicates that.
I was greatly touched by the assertion of the Leader of the House at the beginning of the debate of the Government's adherence to respect for the law. However, noticeably and perhaps understandably, the noble Lord did not comment very much—if at all—on respect for the truth. This is the Government who have massaged the unemployment statistics about 20 times since 1979. This is the Government who have indulged in the appalling situation at Matrix Churchill and in the Scott inquiry. The evidence given to that inquiry of distortions and evasions is scandalous. This is the Government who told lie after lie in their manifesto about 'VAT, as well as the litany of other falsehoods recited by my noble friend Lord Richard in his indictment. Frankly, I have to say that the attitude of the Leader of the House on law and the truth seems curiously indulgent.
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I shall try briefly to test the claims that have been made in two fields, transport and the environment. I turn first to transport and the plan to widen 600 miles of motorways. We were told by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, that that would cost £3.4 billion. The National Audit Office now reveals that the true cost will be twice that. One pictures a local authority finding itself in that situation and the Government's indictment of it that would ensue. And the Government still will not be able to tackle the greatest congestion.
The Government claimed that they were wedded to CrossRail, yet that plan is plainly in jeopardy. Then we have the cover-up by Ministers of a Whitehall report into road tax dodging by more than a quarter of a million drivers. The Government have displayed a deterrnination to frustrate an investigation by the National Audit Office. It is disgraceful.
Let us consider the position of London Underground. How often have we heard the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, assert that everything in the garden is fine for London Underground at the very time that we have an ageing infrastructure which is literally breaking down and which should have been replaced years ago—pumps, drains and cables? What is needed is not catching up but replacement if the system is not to be rendered totally unsafe. Citizen's Charters will not be the answer to that.
The Government's alleged commitment to the environment is a parody. Their road-spending policies plainly distort the Prime Minister's own Rio commitments—commitments now clearly incapable of fulfilment. Having prevaricated over implementation of the bathing and drinking water directive for years, the Government now seek to undermine the waste water treatment directive. It is an interesting exercise in manipulation of the truth. They now assert that the cost would be £10.5 billion as against the original estimate, which they themselves provided, of £2 billion only two years ago when the directive was unanimously adopted. Their conduct is wholly consonant with the characteristics that they have previously displayed in presenting four different sets of statistics in relation to the issue.
The Government's is a selective and eccentric view of the truth and of law enforcement, particularly when it comes to their friends with vested interests. Let us consider PowerGen. There is a concept known as BATNIEC—best available technology not involving excessive cost. That was waived for PowerGen in favour of another doctrine, CATNIP—cheapest available technology not involving prosecution. It happens over and over again.
I conclude that the trouble with this Government is that they actually think that they are doing well. They entertain illusions of adequacy. It is explicable because they keep three sets of statistics: one lot to deceive the public; one lot to deceive Parliament; and the other to deceive themselves. And they are wholly successful. This Government were clearly elected on a fraudulent prospectus. I believe that, like Mr. Roger Levitt, they should be sentenced to a long period of community service. And the greatest service that they could render to the community would be to go—and the sooner, the better.
6.26 p.m.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, as has been said many times, this is an unprecedented Motion. I should have thought that the Labour Party hierarchy in another place would not look too kindly upon the powers of that place being usurped. A vote of confidence really should come from Members who are elected to Parliament. As we know, we are selected in this place.
Apart from that, however, I think it is audacious of the Labour Opposition to introduce a Motion of no confidence when one looks at their record. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships that when a Labour administration were last in power they brought this country to near bankruptcy. They had to go to the International Monetary Fund with their begging bowl and from then on, the economy of this country —capital expenditure and all the rest—was taken over by the IMF. We had huge cuts in the health service, in hospitals, roads and schools. The audacity of anyone with that record to introduce a Motion of no confidence in the policy of this Government is unbelievable.
Perhaps I can give another statistic. When the Government took over in 1979, the number of working days lost was 29 million. Last year it was half a million. Obviously, therefore, the policies of this Government must be working if they can reduce to that extent the number of working days lost. As has been said, it is expected that our growth this year will be 2.5 per cent. and it is expected that that will give something of the order of £7 billion extra revenue to the Exchequer. As has also been said, our exports are up —not only to the European Community, but throughout the world. We have had the lowest inflation. For 10 months, it has been under 2 per cent.—not the 26 or 27 per cent. of the Labour government when people on fixed incomes saw their savings melt away like snow in the sun because of the inflation rate that was brought about by that government's policies. How can any government or any party with that record try to say that there is no confidence in our Government?
I remind your Lordships that the base interest rate has come down from 15 per cent. to 5.5 per cent., and I have no doubt that it will come down further. That drop has given a boost to industry of some £12 billion. I should have thought that one should take confidence from that, not criticise it.
My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced his Budget yesterday. It is true that the borrowing requirement is approaching £50 billion, but I remind your Lordships that nearly £30 billion of that is capital expenditure. So we should not overstress the amount. I get very sick of people, particularly the Opposition, always talking down the economy and achievements of this country. They seem to take a delight in bringing bad news about the economy and not looking at the achievements. Our industrial production is up 3 per cent. The Opposition do not compare that with the industrial production of Italy, Germany and Japan. It is no good the noble Lord, Lord Richard, shaking his head. Let me give him the figures. Our industrial production is up by 3 per cent. Italy's is
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down by 2 per cent. and that of France by 3 per cent.; Germany's is down by 7 per cent.; Japan's is down by 4 per cent. Those figures cannot be refuted. I remind noble Lords opposite that the Government have a good economic record. Unemployment is falling, and has been for some months.
Another factor to be taken into account and not so far mentioned is the Government's privatisation policy. In 1979, the nationalised industries were costing the taxpayer some £50 million a week in subsidies. Last year the privatised industries contributed some £60 million a week in taxation to the Exchequer. That is a turn-around of £110 million a week. It means that the Exchequer benefited by about £6 billion in one year as a result of privatisation.
The wording of the Motion is wrong. It should say that the House has no confidence in Labour Party policy. Its record was disastrous in the past. It would be catastrophic if it were again responsible for the administration.
6.31 p.m.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, I understand from the introduction by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that the purpose of the Motion is to express dissatisfaction with the actions and policies of the Government. He was supported fully by those Members who sit behind him. One of course has the right to criticise because, after all, we are a democracy, but this side of the House also has the right to know what would be the alternative if the Government were not following their present policies.
Luckily, I came across a document which may not be known by everyone, and I am certain cannot be agreed by all Members on the Benches opposite, entitled The Manifesto for Elections to the European Parliament of June 1994. That document was signed early in November by the Leader of the Labour Party, the right honourable John Smith. It was presumably supported by the majority of his party, although I cannot believe that it was supported by the noble Lords, Lord Bruce of Donington and Lord Stoddart of Swindon, who are not in their places at the moment. That manifesto was declared by Mr. Willy Claes, the president of the European Socialist Party, which incidentally includes the former Italian Communist Party, to be:
"the principal programme for all the Socialist parties. We will be united under the banner of the party of the European Socialists. Parties will be expected to observe and vote for these policies in the European Parliament".
I regret the fact that many people will probably not have had the opportunity to read that document.
I shall raise just one issue which I believe to be relevant to today's debate. It is the problem which is agreed by most to be of the greatest importance—unemployment. Many of the proposals discussed in Brussels, which incidentally are now being discreetly dropped, are set out in the binding manifesto. They recognise, as we all do, the high numbers of unemployed in Europe (17 million to 18 million) and the high costs of social protection. They are much higher than those of our competitors, as my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter said in the debate on the Queen's Speech on 25th November. The increase here over 10 years has been 50

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per cent.; about 10 per cent. in the US; and nil in Japan. But the manifesto contains no proposal for modifying or moderating the high cost of social protection.
So what are the remedies proposed in that socialist manifesto? They include possible shorter working hours (35 hours per week). We all know that that does not work. It has never worked in any of the major industrialised countries. Indeed, they work much longer. Then next, a minimum wage to be applied throughout the European Community; a recovery programme. Although there is no figure (luckily for them) in the manifesto, it is revealed by M. Pierre Cot, who will be known by many as the leader of the French Socialists in the European Parliament. He considered—this was supported by all the socialists—a reasonable figure to be £77 billion. That just about doubles the European Community budget. Finally, there is the application of the Social Chapter to the United Kingdom, bringing with it a further gamut of rules and regulations, contrary to the proof of a need for deregulation. That point is not recognised by other member states.
We recognise that those policies which threaten the labour market would threaten all the policies which our Government have introduced so successfully and brought to a head over the past years. Other governments are now recognising the folly of those outworn policies which have consistently proved to be a failure in job creation. Even the Commission is now backtracking. The White Paper, Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, is acknowledged not to be legally binding. It states categorically that each member state is to introduce measures according to its own circumstances. Where is the general socialist policy in that statement? The policies are already out of date. Anyone who travels on the Continent will see and hear people in other member states look to Britain with a degree of envy as they recognise the folly of the excessive cost of social protection and union power and the consequences for employment. They watch, also with envy, as we climb out of recession, and they are now beginning to imitate many of the policies set out in the speech of my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal and other of my noble friends.
conclude by expressing some degree of sorrow for the noble Lord, Lord Richard, for whom I have the greatest respect. I remember of course that he was at the UN at the end of the 1970s (before 1979) when those of us who travelled abroad do not remember the green grass growing. All I remember is being attacked the whole time. "What has happened to Britain? What is the British disease? What are you going to do to cure it?" It was the British disease which was recognised throughout the Community and the world that was one of the main planks upon which the Conservative Government returned to power in 1979.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, I would say only that we have no option but to vote overwhelmingly against the Motion.
6.37 p.m.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, much of the rhetoric we have heard this afternoon from the Benches opposite seeks to obscure what is in fact a serious attack
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on the welfare state. This time, Ministers are not using a battering ram; they are using a certain cunning upon which I am sure Machiavelli would have congratulated them. They are slashing no less than £2.5 billion from the social security budget, and they are pleading demographic factors as a reason.
I did not hear Ministers mention demographic factors when years ago they were handing out billions of pounds to their supporters. That is a new excuse being peddled by Ministers. In those early days, when they were giving that largesse to wealthy people, they were lacking in foresight or in fairness. My guess is that both are true. As a smokescreen for those policies, they are renaming some benefits. Disadvantaged people who are puzzling over the fancy new names that Ministers are giving them will soon discover the grim reality that lies behind the Government's policies. For example, disabled people who are landed with incapacity benefit instead of invalidity benefit and unemployed people who are landed with a jobseeker's allowance instead of unemployment benefit face cuts in family cash or may be deprived of statutory benefit and forced onto a means test. That is the reality which lies behind these fancy new names.
We should recognise that the means test of the 1990s is much the same as that of the 1930s. People will lose their hard-earned savings; they will have to sacrifice them. People will have to live in abject poverty and those without will have every aspect of their lives scrutinised. That is what the Government are forcing on poor people in Britain today.
Those people want to work. They are riot "work shy", as Ministers conveniently call them. It is simply that there are no jobs available. Much as I enjoyed the splendid speech of the noble Lord, Lord Archer—we all did—the piffling reductions in unemployment he mentioned are not good enough when we are confronted with millions of people unemployed. It is a major problem.
But, as usual, disabled people suffer the most. The rate of unemployment among them is three times greater than that among the able bodied. Now there is a further threat to their jobs, even though their rate of unemployment is so high. As was said earlier by my noble friend Lady Hollis, there is now a need for employers to provide 50 per cent. of the funding for the special equipment needed by disabled people. This is a direct incentive to employers to get rid of disabled people. Why should an employer take on those additional costs unless he is one of the few well-meaning employers? They are not in business for charity. It will have an adverse effect on the employment of disabled workers. Oddly enough, the provisions come under a new system called "access to work". It is a very oddly named system indeed. There is only one saving grace about the new system: it introduces communication help for deaf workers.
The prospects for disabled people are also hit because large employers will have to bear a larger proportion of sick pay. That is also an incentive to dismiss sick workers. The fact is that, like all disadvantaged workers

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and other disadvantaged people, disabled workers will suffer under the policies. That is a good reason why your Lordships should vote for the Motion.
6.43 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I wonder whether we can agree that after 14 years in continuous power the Tories must take most of the blame for the state and prospects of Britain today; and of course they must take most of the credit too.
I recently returned from a couple of weeks in America during which I exchanged views with American fund managers who wished to take the political and economic temperature of the countries in which they might invest. Not only did I go to New York but also to Boston and Philadelphia on the east coast, Kansas City, Minneapolis and Chicago in middle America and California and Oregon in the west. I was interested in their view of Europe.
They take, as do I, a sombre view of much of Continental Europe. First, there has been a failure so far—and I hope that "so far" does not become "too far"—of the post-communist system of the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe to deliver the goods to the people. Secondly, there is a lack of leadership in nearly all the Continental European countries. Thirdly, there seems to be political disintegration in Italy and perhaps in Belgium. Fourthly, there has been a deepening recession in France and Germany. Fifthly, there is the failure of France to face up to the need to restructure itself, shown in the withdrawal of the attempt to reorganise Air France and the reluctance to confirm the Blair House agreement on agriculture. Finally, there has been the disastrous effect of the social dimension of Maastricht, in particular on the poorer countries of the EC. When we consider that Germany has a GDP of about £16,000 per head, Spain has only £8,000, Greece has only £5,000 and Portugal has only £4,000, it cannot be fair on those countries to impose uniform social standards. It will cost them jobs.
While I was in the US, Americans were celebrating the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is totally different. They have 80 million Mexicans entering a new trade alliance; Mexico has a GDP per head of about £3,000 compared with America's £17,000. But there is no question of trying to impose American social standards and conditions on everyone in Mexico.
The Americans felt that Britain has a comparative advantage over most of Continental Europe. First, we are coming out of recession. I agree that we are subject to what is happening in Europe but we are coming out of recession and unemployment has stopped rising. Secondly, inflation, wages and money supply seem to be under tight control. Thirdly, and contrary to the fears of many people, we kept in the Budget low direct taxes. When people say how low our taxes are I must point out that our 40 per cent. rate comes in at an income of some £27,000 whereas even after Clinton's tax increases America's 40 per cent. top rate comes in at a level of £167,000 per year. Fourthly, we have a politically subdued trade union movement. I had hoped that, had
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she been in her place, the noble Baroness, Lady Castle, would agree that that at any rate is a tribute to the 14 years of Conservative Government. And of course we have a largely restructured economy.
Over the past 20 years employment in steel and coal has fallen by 80 per cent. I believe that to be a great plus for Britain. Even the number of British Rail staff has been halved during the past 20 years. The privatised industries are working well. I declare an interest as a director of Eastern Electricity, where since 1989 the tariff has increased by some 25 per cent. During the same period RPI rose by 23 per cent. and pensions by 29 per cent. The company has reduced its staff by 20 per cent., and is selling more units to more customers; they have increased by 100,000 to over 3 million. After talking to my American friends I believe that those are this country's real advantages.
The Labour Party has begun to recognise what it no longer believes in. However, although we heard from my noble friend Lady Elles a little of what Labour is proposing in its European manifesto, I do not believe that it is as yet under starter's orders. Of course, the poor Liberal Democrat Party has nothing much except the bushy-tailed charisma of Mr. Paddy Ashdown. It is important that people should recognise that the Conservative Government are a continuum from 1979. It is not a case of progress since Mr. Major became Prime Minister. The Conservative Government are a continuum which will continue to be a considerable success.
6.48 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, when the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition rose to address your Lordships' House he quoted from one of my favourite poems by Hilaire Belloc. Oddly enough, he advised your Lordships that it would not be appropriate to refer to Belloc's axiom:
"Always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse".
The noble Lord said, "In order to prevent your Lordships looking at the alternative to a Conservative Government". But, the inference of the Motion before your Lordships is that that would be preferable to what we now have. Therefore, in a moment I too shall look at what is in prospect. The alternative of holding on to nurse, in the case of Hilaire Belloc's poem, was being eaten slowly by a lion starting at the toes, and the lion's name was Ponto.
Like my noble friend Lady Elles, I have also obtained a copy of the manifesto of the European Socialist Party, which is decorated, in this case, with the rose of England adopted by the party opposite as their emblem. As I understand it, the document was signed on the 6th November by, among others, Signor Achille Occhetto, the leader of what was the Italian Communist Party until it changed its name quite recently, and by Mr John Smith. In that manifesto we find, first—and I point this out to endorse the fears of my noble friend —that the Labour Party and its friends would like to further develop the EC measures on clean water. Noble Lords

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opposite have already protested about the expense of directives. That makes their claim to be a party of economic management rather hollow.
However, much more important is the way that the manifesto reveals how the latter see the role of this country in Europe and in the world. In the fourth paragraph of the eighth section we find that they want majority voting within the Council of Europe. That means that this country would no longer have a veto on policies inimical to its own best interest. One might think that subsidiarity could be a hedge against it, and one is reassured to read later on in Section 8 that subsidiarity would be applied rigorously. But immediately afterwards we read in the very next paragraph that it must not be used to block progress in social policy. In other words, there should be a comfortable protection against Conservative-type policies; but there should be none against the policies espoused by the party opposite.
In my view, however, much more serious than that is the paragraph which deals with this country's role in the United Nations. In order to prevent the causes, and crises of conflicts we read on page 8 that,
"we want to strengthen and reform the United Nations… The UN must be given the ability to safeguard peace and enforce peace"—
we could have a debate about a standing United Nations army of some length, but I shall pass on that prospect—
"Once a common foreign and security policy is in place, the question of a seat for the EC on the Security Council can be addressed".
I think that those in the party opposite should come clean. First, can we know whether they believe that a United Nations seat on the Security Council for the European Community would be consistent with a United Kingdom seat on the council as a subordinate member of that body? Secondly, if it would not be—as I presume—are they or are they not actually arguing that we should vacate our seat on the Security Council in favour of a seat to be occupied by a representative of the European Community? That is a very major and important policy decision. We need to know where they stand They cannot stand anywhere else than the position described in the manifesto because it was adopted by the congress of the European Socialist Party on 6th November 1993, and they are signed up members of it. I believe that that adds another dimension to the anxieties expressed by my noble friends about the policies of the parties opposite. I believe that we deserve an answer in the reply to the debate.
6.54 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, knows by now just how much I respect him as a Christian and as a few other things, but he followed one of the oldest rules in politics in his speech; namely, when you have absolutely nothing to say in favour of your side, put some tricky questions forward. Indeed, he did not say a single word in favour of the Government.
As regards the Government, the first thoughts that come into my mind are so uncharitable that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, being a Christian, would not approve of them. However, what can one think of the Government? They will, I suppose, go down as the
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healthiest government, or the government of meaningless slogans—"back to basics" will be high on the list—or the government with a record deficit, or the most unpopular government in recorded memory. They are all those things. But I shall not use those expressions because they would shock the noble Lord, Lord Elton.
I turn now to my own summary of the Government, and all in a charitable spirit. I would call them a government of contradictions. Last week we dealt at length with those contradictions and I shall not go over the issues raised as regards their penal policy, which of course makes total nonsense. Perhaps we should take the question of Europe. We know that one moment they say that they are standing at the heart of Europe and then, at another, their spokesmen at conferences deliver many xenophobic speeches. However, in view of the shortage of time, I shall have to pass over the latter.
Perhaps I may try to deal with the more fundamental aspects involved. Years ago there was a famous book which some of the older Members of the House may remember. It was called Moral Man in an Immoral Society. We all know that Mr. Major is a moral man. Indeed, the only time I actually met him he did not squeeze my shoulder, which he did to the man in front of me in the queue, but he showed a positive friendliness which I found most appealing. Therefore, let us take Mr. Major as a moral man; but he is a moral man at the head of immoral policy. I should not say "an immoral government" because no doubt in their own way they are well meaning. But Mr. Major is a moral man at the head of this immoral government.
Why should I say that? If one takes a Christian stand, which would certainly appeal to the noble Lord. Lord Elton, one could bear in mind that in the years of Mrs. Thatcher she reversed the trend under various governments to bring about a more equal distribution of wealth and more social justice. Inequality of wealth was steadily increased under that government. Moreover, yesterday we had the Budget Statement, and so on, which was quite rightly attacked by my noble friend Lord Ashley and others. I see that today's edition of The Times, which is a very respected Conservative organ, carries the following title on its front page:
"Showman Clarke takes whip to public spending".
Who will suffer there? Certainly not the rich. There was a record boom on the Stock Exchange. So everyone must accept the fact that that inequality of wealth will be carried still further in the Budget.
How can one square that fact with any kind of social justice according to Christian principles or any kind of ethics? I can only take the House, and especially someone like the noble Lord, Lord Elton, who is an influential Christian Conservative, as are others on the Benches opposite, back to St. Luke's Gospel and what Jesus Christ said, which was,
"When you have a feast, don't call the rich neighbours: call the poor, the lame and the blind and you will be blessed".
Well, there is not much of that sentiment in this present government; indeed, none at all. Moreover., I am afraid that I cannot hold any hope that the leopard is likely to change its spots. I can only say what a Conservative

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statesman, the late Leo Amery, as he was at the time, said to another Conservative statesman, Neville Chamberlain:
"You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing… In the name of God, go".
6.58 p.m.
Viscount Addison: My Lords, one of the mainstays behind the British way of life—indeed, its backbone—is its agriculture. In the short time that I have to speak, I wish to underline my support for the agricultural policies of Her Majesty's Government. This Government have stood up for the interests of British farmers in Europe. No one denies that farming in the United Kingdom has been going through an incredibly difficult time.
When the fundamental but essential reforms of the common agricultural policy first appeared, it was evident that British farmers were being discriminated against. In May of last year, after a long battle, John Gummer won for the British farmer a highly beneficial and significant shift in the direction of the CAP, switching support away from the end product and directing it towards the producer. Those reforms are cutting prices and moving the CAP closer to world prices and, at the same time, easing international trade tensions. In turn, they reduce the role of intervention and make the CAP more market orientated, reducing the burden on customers. That fight for subsidies, payments and other concessions should not be forgotten as that has enabled us to maintain, and in many areas strengthen, our position in agriculture within the Community.
There has been great encouragement given to farmers by the most valuable increase in spending on the environmentally sensitive areas scheme from £10.9 million in 1992–93 to £43.5 million in 1995–96 and to £63 million by 1996–97 covering 15 per cent. of the United Kingdom.
The Government have lodged with the European Commission proposals to introduce a range of new schemes from protection of water sources from nitrate pollution to creating new opportunities for access to the countryside. Total expenditure on such schemes is expected to rise to £100 million in the United Kingdom by 1996–97. This will undoubtedly encourage farmers in their dual role as food producers and guardians of the countryside.
With the Food Safety Act 1990, and the placing of responsibility for all work on food safety now in the hands of the Food Safety Directorate, it is firmly established that our food safety standards are the highest in the world. Representatives of consumer organisations have been brought together to form a consumer panel to advise the Food Safety Directorate on consumer concerns and to monitor government policies.
No farmer is tarred with the same brush and each has a different problem to face; but that is nothing new. There are no simple answers, and no single answer is likely to be right for every farmer. The Government have supported agriculture at its heart; but no government can be expected to support the apron strings of agriculture for there is no bottomless pot of gold.
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However, low interest rates and low inflation have been a turning point in giving a bolster of renewed support for the farmer. Agriculture needs to be constantly reminded of its need to keep abreast of marketing skills. The Government are developing a broader marketing development scheme worth £6.4 million over the next two years while Food From Britain is concentrating on the key tasks of export promotion and speciality food, following an independent review.
It is worth remembering that 90 per cent. of humanity rely on only 15 plant species and only seven animal species for survival. Science has played a major part in creating food from our own resources; and science and technology, including responsible genetic engineering, will play a part in agriculture's future. This Government's support for agriculture will continue, and I have every confidence in the policies of Her Majesty's Government.
7.3 p.m.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, a number of my noble friends—my noble friend who has just spoken is one of them—have made extremely good use of this debate to make powerful speeches pointing out just what has been achieved in this country since 1979 and contrasting that with the 98 per cent. tax rate in the "winter of discontent" for which the previous government were responsible. It has been interesting to be reminded of these comparisons although my noble friend Lady Young and others—quite rightly in my view—have suggested that all this is entirely unnecessary as there is nothing that has been said today that could not have been said at the time of the Queen's Speech, or could not be said during debates in the coming months.
However, I do not believe anyone has yet seriously questioned whether it is proper that this unelected House, whose role in our modern democracy is that of a revising Chamber, should be discussing this Motion at all. I am bound to say it strikes me personally as rather strange, and I have detected that other noble Lords who sit in all parts of the House also find it strange that a straight Motion of no confidence in the elected Government of the day —a procedure which is, I believe, reserved even by the House of Commons for moments of crisis—is being used now by hereditary and appointed people not for the purpose of revision at all but simply as a mechanism of party political opposition. That seems to me an idea that is not just bizarre, as my noble friend Lord Archer suggested, but also highly unsuitable if not improper.
That having been said, what are some of the policies of the Government that most affect people's lives and have not yet come into the debate? The Motion is a condemnatory one. However, is it so wrong—the Labour Party has opposed these policies—that hospitals, GPs and local schools are taking increased responsibility themselves for how they spend their money and how they organise themselves to meet patients' and pupils' needs? Is that so wrong? Is it wrong that the Chancellor plans to put large extra sums of taxpayers' money into these areas precisely to back the changes? Is it wrong that the Civil Service is being

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asked to increase its productivity as others are having to increase theirs, and to yield no less than £1 billion in savings, which happens to be a sum which represents half the total sum being put into the health service and schools together?
Is it so wrong to alter the arrangements for those looking for work to make sure that those who can find work do find it? Is it so wrong to concentrate resources on encouraging job creation by increasing labour market flexibility and by helping small businesses, as has been said? We could all go on and we have gone on for rather a long time, but I would suggest that far from deserving censure, the Government's sense of direction in these and many other policies is closely in touch with what most responsible people feel in this country, and that this Motion deserves vigorous rejection.
7.7 p.m.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, I rise in philosophical rather than partisan mood this evening to draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that the current state of play between the parties has its precedent in what went on between about 1750 and 1850, starting with two relatively homogeneous parties each of whom had been in power for a long time leaving the other one out in the cold. Under the stress of the Napoleonic War and the American War of Independence, gradually some internal groupings arose. One was not just a Whig; one was a Rockingham Whig or a Portland Whig or a Foxite Whig. The same applied to the Tories. One was not just a Tory, one was a Pittite Tory or a Canningite Tory or a Peelite Tory.
Gradually, in the first half of the 19th century, all these ties and relationships liquidated. Following Robert Peel's repeal of the Corn Laws, there emerged a Conservative Party headed by Disraeli and a Liberal Party headed by Gladstone. I was much amused when my friend and neighbour Lord Bruce of Donington told your Lordships that one half of England did not know how the other half was living, because he was quoting from one of Disraeli's early novels although he did not know it at the time—at least I think he was.
This situation seems to me to be repeating itself at the moment. I turn first of all to the Conservative Party. There are Butskellites and Thatcherites. There may be Majorites and Heseltinians and so on. However, they emerge as having a certain kind of subordinate party loyalty among themselves. I now turn to the Liberals who have not taken much part in this debate. That is a pity. However, there is one noble Lord observing proceedings. I hope he will remember and report to his noble friends a remark of Bernard Shaw which is apposite to this matter. I believe it occurred in Back to Methuselah. The Liberal Party has admirable principles but Bernard Shaw's dictum was that principles without programme amount to no more than platitudes. I believe that is something the Liberals must learn.
I now turn to the Labour Party, which is in a state of preliminary dissolution. Marxism has let it down through the collapse of imperial Russia, Fabian socialism is no longer fashionable among the chattering classes, and its relationship with the trade unions is in a state of flux. Unless the Labour Party can produce a
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programme that matters to the nation at large it will continue to be a party of protest rather than of government.
It must be the fate of the party of government to become more and more stale through the inevitable elapse of time and the sense of self-sufficiency which goes with it. The Opposition's time will come. I will even make them a present of my programme. If it wishes to adopt it, I would not desert the Cross-Benches, but I would certainly say, "Hear, hear".
It is high time we kept the national accounts in such a manner of sanitary bookkeeping that we distinguish between revenue and capital expenditure. I shall riot enlarge on that theme because I have said that here dozens of times and no attention has been paid to it whatsoever.
The party in power has learnt partially how to cope with the Civil Service managing it and emerged with a grain of comfort at having sometimes managed the Civil Service. I said long ago that I am waiting for an earthquake at the Treasury which will accomplish what I have in mind. I make a present of that to the Opposition.
7.11 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I regret and resent the Motion before us. I welcome the opportunity it provides to endorse and promote the Government's policies; indeed, to celebrate them and to affirm my own commitment to them with particular reference to education, like my noble friend Lady Perry of Southwark.
The distinctively Conservative principles which motivate me to sit on these Benches include commitment to freedom of choice, diversity of provision and accountability to individuals; in the case of education, especially to parents comparing the situation now with that of a few years ago there have been fundamental changes in our education system which represent great achievements in all those respects, together with the "back to basics" policies designed to raise standards and to ensure that all pupils attain essential knowledge and skills.
The measures undertaken by this Government build on previous Conservative policies which were necessitated by a dire situation in education brought about by Left-wing ideologies and Labour policies. Of course there are many good schools and many dedicated teachers, and always have been, but the system in general had been failing to deliver an adequate education for far too many of our children and especially, as research showed, for those of average or below average ability.
Remedial legislation brought in by Conservative governments has opened up access to information needed by the public to assess schools and by parents to make the best choices for their children. I must point out that it is not parents who are leading the current anti-league table furore but the education establishment, which has tried to maintain a shroud of secrecy that can hide many faults in the system. It has been shown that far too many pupils have been getting a very raw deal.

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This Government's commitment to raising standards in its "back to basics" campaign must be seen as a very necessary response to that grave situation of falling standards of literacy and serious underachievement in mathematical skills, which was, for example, leaving British 16 year-olds two years behind their German counterparts. That was outrageous. Many HMI reports have shown serious problems, especially in urban schools, of a long-standing nature.
However, increasing freedom of choice, diversity of provision and more accountability to parents and the local community have all been achieved by measures brought in by Conservative governments through welcome policies such as local financial management of schools, freedom to opt out from meddlesome local authority control and, now, opportunities for new good schools established in response to parental wishes to opt in to state funding. The local management of schools is a very popular measure, and the vast majority of grant-maintained schools are already great success stories.
When I compare those initiatives with the sterile policies on education of parties opposite I am amazed by their complacency and negativism. I understand their arguments for increased nursery education, although I do not go all the way with them. But other Labour Party commitments, such as threatening to drag opted-out schools back into local authority control and to close religious denominational schools, are intimidating, backward looking and destructive.
I am not averse to criticising this Government when I believe that criticism is justified; but when I compare this Government's achievements with the dearth of ideas and policies on the Benches opposite I speak with passionate conviction in support of the Government's record in bringing in much-needed reforms and in opening up new opportunities for the fulfilment of those principles which underpin Conservative philosophy. In education that has meant that the Government have succeeded in achieving increasing accountability, freedom of choice and diversity of provision according to the needs and wishes of parents, pupils, local communities and a wider society. I therefore resist this Motion and wholeheartedly commend the Government on their many and historic achievements in educational reform.
7.15 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, as your Lordships know, I have frequently expressed disapproval of Her Majesty's Government. On almost every single occasion that I have done so or voted against the Government the Labour Party has trooped into the Lobby with the Conservative Party when the Conservative Party was at its most unwise. I agree that the poll tax is an exception, but the Government have now wisely earned their corn and changed their minds.
When we wanted the people to have a choice on a Maastricht referendum we had a 27-line Whip against us. All the Conservatives, Liberals and the Labour Party said that it was a bad idea. I thought that it was rather a good idea. Mr. Smith helped push the Government
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into the exchange rate mechanism. Look what a great success that policy was. It had the support of the Labour Party. In 1991–92 too much money was spent. What did the Labour Party say? They said that we should spend more. The Labour Party also voted for the confiscation of the assets of the noble Duke, the Duke of Westminster. I did not.
On occasions there are grounds for criticising Her Majesty's Government. However, it seems to me that such criticism is muted in contrast to the good things which they have done.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, compared 1979 with 1993. I seem to remember that in 1979 there was a firm called British Leyland which could not do anything. There was a gentleman who ensured that the workers were out on strike most of the time. The company was regarded as a joke and a laughing-stock among all motor industries. Is it not a contrast that Rover is now exporting to Japan and is taking on labour and increasing its share of the motor market? Contrast that with the position of Mercedes. What is happening to Mercedes? It is laying off workers and has large numbers of unsold cars. The idea that there could be such a Rover/Mercedes relationship in 1993 was unthinkable in 1979. British Telecom, now privatised, is one of the leading companies in the world. The same can be said of British Gas.
My daughter is now aged 16 and sitting GCSEs. The GCSE seems to me to be a sensible and hardworking exam for which she has to apply her mind. I accept that she attends a private school rather than a state school, but children all take the same exam and follow the same curriculum. It is a good exam and it stretches their minds. That is a Conservative improvement. A further improvement is that there should be choice for parents as opposed to regimentation.
I speak from experience of the National Health Service. Our local GP is better than any private GP. He is paid for by your Lordships, for which thank you very much indeed. I had reason to be referred by him to a specialist in the Royal Surrey hospital. I could not have been treated better. The health service could not be run in a more efficient and practical way.
This Government have a record of immense achievements. I find it a little difficult to compare the number of workers in the National Health Service with those in the Chinese Army, which I have always thought was not a Conservative thing to do, but nevertheless I am sure our health is looked after better now than ever before, with greater numbers of doctors, nurses, and so on.
I believe that at a Front Bench meeting of the party opposite the noble Lord, Lord Richard, announced that he had tabled the Motion. Everyone complained and he said, "It is too late; I have put down the Motion". A little bird told me that. I would not dream of disclosing who it was, but I believe that it is a reasonably reliable source. It shows what an intensely stupid action it was. It is not how we should behave in this House. This House is for revision and the discussion of serious matters. It is not to be an ape-like copy of the House of Commons. Let us consider that peradventure there was a Labour Government and that every week my noble

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friends on the Front Bench decided to put down Motions of no confidence in the Labour Government. Because there seems to be a slight preponderance of people who acknowledge the Tory Whip as opposed to those who acknowledge the Labour Whip, it is within the bounds of possibility that those Motions might be carried. It would be a waste of time. No one would pay any attention. The Motion has no more effect than if it had been moved in a parish witan in Ultima Thule.
7.22 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to hear the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, contributing in the House. It is so refreshing to hear someone who is prepared to speak his mind. However, unfortunately the problem is that he quite often seems to come to the wrong conclusions following his argument.
I remind noble Lords that the Motion before us is,
"That this House has no confidence in the policies of Her Majesty's Government".
It is not about whether we have confidence in some other form of government. The Motion is about whether this House has confidence in the present Government. I hope that there will be a free vote and that we shall all consider the facts and vote as our consciences dictate. That is one of the real strengths of this House.
I wish to refer to some facts and expose some myths. The Government came to power in 1979. In that year the country had balance of payments equilibrium. The figure for unemployment was about 1 million. Both unemployment and inflation were coming down. It is a myth that the dead lay unburied. That fiction of the popular tabloids is perpetuated by a number of Tory party members. Since 1981 we have seen a continuous trend of a worsening balance of payments with a current account deficit for the past seven years. The evidence is presented by the Government themselves in Chart 3.19 on page 48 of the Financial Statement and Budget Report for 1994–95, the Red Book. Effectively, we are consistently consuming more than we produce. I was interested in the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon. He suggested that we should think of this country as the United Kingdom plc. For the past seven years we have been trading at a loss. Since 1980 the value of sterling has continued on a downward trend. I refer to Chart 3.21 on page 51 of the Red Book.
The Government have perpetrated a big lie: that they have cut taxation. The noble Lord, Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare, sought to perpetuate it. The Government have not. Every year since 1979 the average British citizen has paid more in tax than in that year. What has changed is the burden of tax. The rich pay less. But those on average incomes and the poor pay more. And for what? A declining economy and mass unemployment. Investment in British industry is less this year than in 1979.
Another example of the Government's crass stupidity is the way that they have armed two nations which, during their period of office, have been involved in armed conflict with ourselves. The Government are dragging our country down. That is why I have no confidence in them.
7.25 p.m.
The Viscount of Oxfuird: My Lords, we have heard some most interesting points from all sides of the House although I am bound to say, with due deference to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that I find this a wholly unnecessary Motion. The problem that we face on the government side of the House is that inevitably memories are short and it is difficult to remember to what depths we as a nation had descended 14 years ago. We take for granted the benefits that have accrued from 14 years of sound government under my noble friend Lady Thatcher and latterly Mr. Major.
For much of my career I have been an exporter. I well remember the almost impossible task in the 1970s when it became more and more difficult to sell British goods abroad. From a sound base earlier this century when "Made in Britain" was recognised as a hallmark of quality and reliability, our reputation sank to an all-time low. The quality of our goods was perceived as poor. Our performance to contract was weak and, more often than not, industrial disruption at home meant that goods arrived late. Many is the time I have witnessed the arrival of goods in a far country such as India, Hong Kong or China, and the product did not work. Egg on whose face? Ours, my Lords.
How different things are today and how much easier is the job of the exporter. What this Government have created for British industry over the past 14 years is a framework for economic success. I shall not pretend that it has all been plain sailing. We live in a real world where no single national government have control over the vagaries or fluctuations in the world economy. What this Government have achieved is a framework within which business can thrive. Low inflation, low taxes on business, firm control over public spending, the freeing of markets by privatisation, deregulation and trade union reforms are all part of that successful framework.
Those are keys to our present and future industrial and commercial prosperity. I do not intend to bore your Lordships with a barrage of statistics. However, it is noteworthy that exports in the past three months to August were 15 per cent. up on the year. After decades of decline, Britain's share of world manufactured trade is rising. As a nation, we now export a higher percentage of our GDP than Japan.
It is sometimes better to forget statistics and to use simple yardsticks or rules of thumb. A simple indicator is British Rail car parks at our stations. If one thinks back 18 months they were half full, or half empty, depending on one's point of view. Today those car parks are nearly full. That is a simple but, I suggest, practical indicator that our economy is growing again.
Fourteen years ago, I, as an exporter, would travel on our national carrier, British Airways, and telephone my customers overseas using British Telecom. I confess that they were not always happy experiences. How different today! Both companies are recognised as world leaders and both are a living tribute to the success of the privatisation programme. How well I recall the gloom-mongers who opposed those privatisations back in the early 1980s. How similar were the arguments then to the arguments we hear now and have heard this

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afternoon, raised against the Government's current round of privatisations. Those arguments were wrong then and they are wrong now. We must not weaken in our resolve.
Let me urge noble Lords, in conclusion, not to lose heart. Fourteen years ago this country embarked upon a crusade. We are already benefiting from some of the successes of that crusade, but the job is not finished yet and will not be finished until all sectors of British industry have achieved world class status.
I urge all noble Lords to demonstrate their faith and confidence in the present policies of Her Majesty's Government by firmly rejecting the Motion this evening.
7.31 p.m.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, ever since I was privileged to enter your Lordships' House I have been struck by the courtesy, kindness and consensus which have existed between all Peers of all parties or political persuasion. Occasionally, like all friends, we have differences of opinion. Basically, we all seek the ultimate good of our country, although our beliefs as to how that may be achieved, or indeed what it is, may sometimes differ. Whether we are hereditary Peers or here under our own steam for services rendered to the country in another place or elsewhere, we are all parts of one body of friends.
We have our own ways and our own customs, which we preserve as jealously as our neighbours do theirs in another place. Having a vote of no confidence in the Government at this time is apparently without precedent. I can only say that it saddens me very much, as I expect it does many of your Lordships.
I have only two small short points to make. The first is that, speaking as President of the War Widows Association of Great Britain, I am absolutely delighted at the increase in the pensions of old age pensioners to meet the dreaded heating VAT. That is something which has been worrying some of my older members very much and I feel it will go some way towards alleviating their fears and, indeed, keep them warm through the winter.
My second point is that, as some of your Lordships may have observed, although I take the Conservative Whip, I have not always voted blindly for the Government. I have felt free to vote as my conscience impelled me. That I should not have been able to do under a government in whom I had no confidence. Only a true friend can tell you when you are wearing an unbecoming hat and remain confident that you will still be friends. It is that confidence and faith that I have in our present Government which give me this freedom and which now impel me also to vote for a government in whom I trust.
7.34 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, I think that the only way one can describe what has been said from the Benches opposite is as a mixture of naivety, forgetfulness, saying the opposite of what one means and conveniently
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forgetting the awkward facts. Then when one is caught out, one either changes the definitions or blames everyone else but oneself.
Perhaps I may begin with the economic competence of the Government, because some people think that the Government are economically competent. Incidentally, I believe the noble Lord, Lord Stewartby, mentioned consistency, he said that we lacked consistency. A government who, twice in 14 years, doubled the rate of inflation, increased unemployment permanently beyond the figure they inherited and changed their mind on practically everything from monetarism to the exchange rate mechanism and everything else several times cannot be accused of consistency.
People think that what the Chancellor did yesterday showed fiscal prudence. The Government have talked about fiscal prudence for about 14 years and done nothing about it; it would be nice if they had done something. We have to understand that what happened yesterday was a smoke and mirrors trick. What the Chancellor did was to move £4 billion from the reserves, slap a bit off defence—which is welcome—and savage local authorities. Then suddenly he predicted a decline in the PSBR for next year of about £6 billion or £7 billion. But beyond that date, beyond 1995–96, the balance is achieved by assuming a growth rate of GDP of 3 per cent., which the economy has never consistently achieved for three years, and that the tax take will continue to be high, which is also very dubious.
The only reliable figure in the Red Book would be that in 1995–96 the Government will continue to have a 4 per cent. budget deficit as a proportion of GDP. Beyond that, every figure is a fake number because, if we assume a realistic target which is given in the Red Book of what is called a lower growth variant—a growth rate of 2¼ per cent.—let me remind the House that over the past 14 years the Government have not achieved that figure and it would therefore be a miracle if they achieved the 2¼ per cent. They have just about achieved it this year. With a 2¼ per cent. growth rate, the deficit would continue to be high, and even by 1998–99 a budget balance would not be achieved.
Thus what the Chancellor did yesterday was to produce a nice number and more or less said, "I know what will happen up to 1995–96. Beyond that it is all fiction and I don't really care beyond 1995–96 because we shall have an election", and, as is usual and as he has done in other offices of state, he will have moved elsewhere. That is what the Budget showed.
The Budget also shows, by the Government's own admission, that the decline in the inflation rate has stopped and the rate will be slightly higher next year than this year. There will be no drop in unemployment, and by the Government's own definition it will stay at 2.8 million for the next three years. There will be no improvement in the deficit in the balance of trade; by the Government's own admission it will be high. Of course the Government usually underestimate the balance of trade deficit, so it will be much worse. The noble Viscount, Lord Oxfuird, said how nice things had been

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for exports—but they have been even nicer for imports, thanks to the Government's policy. Cumulatively, we have had a continuously rising balance of trade deficit.
In the middle of such a crisis, the Government propose in the Budget a cut in real investment on the public sector account. Let us take the gross debt to GDP ratio. When Labour was in power—I remind noble Lords of those dire days—we brought down the debt to GDP ratio from 60 per cent. to 45 per cent., without the help of North Sea oil and without raising unemployment. With the help of North Sea oil and a lot of extra unemployment, for a while the debt to GDP ratio went down, but a signal achievement of the Major Government is that the debt to GDP ratio which they inherited will be back in 1994–95. All the evidence shows that for the l4 or 15 years of savaging the economy, with all the extra unemployment, there is the same debt to GDP ratio, with higher unemployment and many more working days lost through unemployment than were ever lost through strikes. Any notion that this Government have any economic competence is false and I wish people to vote for my noble friend's Motion.
7.40 p.m.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, I do not intend to take up your Lordships' time by giving a list of all the reasons why I have the utmost confidence in Her Majesty's Government. Others among my noble friends have already done that. Suffice it to say that I entirely share their views. Instead, I question, as did my noble friend Lady Carnegy, why we, as Members of an unelected Chamber, are engaged in this futile and possibly unconstitutional debate of no confidence in a democratically elected Government—a Government which achieved the largest popular vote in history. Answering myself, I submit that it is nothing more than a cynical attempt to create a smokescreen, to try to draw attention away from the most imaginative Budget that was presented yesterday by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and indeed, by the paucity of the Opposition's views in response to it.
Perhaps we should be debating this evening the abject failure of Members of the Opposition to provide constructive policies of their own instead of simply having argument for argument's sake. For example, both Opposition parties seem able to perform the most amazing feats of mental gymnastics by looking in several directions at once. To see exactly what I mean, one has only to recall that they both proposed increased taxes, either on fuel or on energy; yet now they are shedding crocodile tears because the Government is to put VAT on fuel.
We have an Opposition the main component of which is a party which sold its soul to the unions in order to get through a basic, simple piece of democracy: one member, one vote. They support the disastrous social chapter, and Labour has now signed up to the even more disastrous manifesto of the European Socialist Party.
It is difficult to know exactly what Labour Members stand for; although it seems to me these days, as they change their minds so often, that they even appear to support our manifesto of 1987. I suppose that that is not
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a bad thing. However, I would be much more impressed with them if they stopped singing "The Red Flag" at their annual conference. The red flag that they want to keep flying high here is being torn down all over the world, except perhaps in North Korea, and of course the Walworth Road.
Even if it were not for the many achievements of this Government, the paucity and the abject failure of the Opposition would encourage me to continue to support this Government. The sooner that we are able to put an end to this nonsensical, sterile party politicking, which should belong in the other place, the better. This House does have serious work to do: to consider this Session's legislation. I jolly well hope that we can get on with it now.
7.43 p.m.
Viscount Mountgarret: My Lords, having had the privilege to be a Member of this House for close on 27 years, I think that I can safely say that this has been the most disappointing debate that I have ever listened to. It is disappointing because it does not seem to have an object. I am disappointed that somebody of the calibre of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, should see fit to bring the debate before the House. As my noble friend Baroness Miller said, it does not belong in your Lordships' House; it belongs in another place. However, let us make the best of it, arid let us see if some good can come out of this remarkable performance.
Many of my noble friends on this side of the House have paid tribute to the many excellent things which the Government have done over the past 14 years—none more vehemently so than my noble friend Lord Archer. It might perhaps help to keep a sense of proportion if my noble friends on the Front Bench were made a little aware that all in the garden is not at this stage as rosy as they might like to think having listened to the tributes that have been paid, quite rightly, by their supporters. They have caused a considerable amount of concern in the country as a whole.
We were fortunate enough to win the last election. But I have to ask whether we actually won it, or whether the party opposite contributed very largely to losing it. If that second point is in any way correct, then it is an unsatisfactory state of affairs for this Government to be in —to win, as it were, by default.
Since then, some remarkable actions have been taken by the Government. The manner in which things have been done has caused concern. For instance, the manner in which the closure of pits was announced was terrible. I cannot put it any less strongly than that. I believe that it was declared illegal in the courts. There was a time when people in office who were found to make a nonsense of matters in that way usually held their hands up and said, "I am sorry, I have made a mistake. My position is untenable". It seems that across the board these days, in any walk of life, responsibility for one's actions is not always met in the manner in which it should be met.
Let us take the manner in which interest rates went up and down last year like a yo-yo in the space of 24 hours. That was a strange way of doing things. It struck people

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in the country as being the result of panic. It is not good to be led by people who appear to be panicking. It gives rise for concern.
The Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act is not a Conservative Act. It has no part in Conservative policy. The sanctity of contract was broken, as was widely discussed at the time. That gave concern to people in the country who were involved.
In the area of agriculture, great anxiety is being voiced. Not so long ago we discussed the quota system. We should have been strong enough to tackle that problem in a far better way, so that it did not give rise for concern to those who were involved.
My noble friend Lord Renton referred to the question of our coalmines. I do not know about other people, but it is terrible for me to see those marvellous pits, and equally marvellous men who work in the pits, being thrown on the scrap-heap. We have 1,000 years of fuel there. Why has that happened? It has happened because in the euphoria of the desperate desire for the privatisation of electricity, somebody overlooked the fact that we must ensure a sensible outlet for our own home-produced fuel, instead of relying on fuel which may well later on be imported. I am not talking about the principle of necessary closures, or the principle of privatisation. I am saying that the way in which it was done has given rise to concern.
The proposed privatisation of forestry has not yet happened. But—for goodness sake—I hope that my noble friends on the Front Bench will think that measure through. It will be a devastating blow to the forestry industry of this country if the Forestry Commission sells to the private sector. The commission does a tremendous amount for the growing of trees in this country.
To that extent, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, may have done my noble friends a service by suggesting that they should sit back and take stock (I believe those were his words). They should try not to make the same mistakes again. I would definitely say well done on the good points, particularly on the Budget, which has encouraged everybody to feel happier. But I beg my noble friends: please, please do not upset your loyal supporters in the country.
The figure 14 is prevalent in Parliament. I saw the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, in his seat a moment ago. My noble friend Lord Home was called the 14th Earl of Home, and the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, the 14th Mr. Wilson. We have opened a debate on 14 years of Conservative power. I hope very much that if I am granted a further lease of life of 14 years, I shall still be able to see the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and his friends, heirs and successors, sitting in the places that they occupy now.
7.50 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, I wish to make three points on the Government's energy policy, in which I have no confidence. First there is coal. How wisely the noble Viscount, Lord Mountgarret, has just spoken. I trust that his Front Bench will take great heed of what he said. I agree with him completely that in the
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past year alone we have seen the almost casual announcement of a pit closure programme which would have destroyed an entire workforce; and when that aroused the implacable hostility of a huge section of the British people, the policy was withdrawn. The miners were promised a reprieve and a review. But as we now see all too clearly that was a cynical charade. It takes spectacular mismanagement of policy to produce a situation in which Mr. Arthur Scargill is cheered and encouraged as he marches at the head of a demonstration for coal through the midst of Mayfair.
Secondly, there is THORP, which is another classic case of government dithering. After the reviews and the inquiries and the reviews of the inquiries, when the original economic rationale for THORP has all but disappeared, since its plutonium will not be needed for the fast breeder reactors, and when the political unpopularity of plutonium has become evident, Her Majesty's Government, with all the caution in the cosmos can only say that they are "minded" to let BNFL proceed. They are "minded"—not "determined", not "decided"; they are "minded". What vision! What leadership! What a policy!
Thirdly, there is electricity. The Government have resolutely looked the other way while the electricity generators have manipulated the market. As The Times put it last week, the biggest question in Britain's power generation industry today is whether Stephen Littlechild, the electricity regulator, will refer National Power and PowerGen to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. So we have Government policy sheltering under the skirts of the regulator while consumers pay ever more for the product. The Yarrow study of 1992 found that,
"on average prices were up to 25 per cent. higher for domestic customers and up to 19 per cent. higher for industrial consumers than would have been predicted on the basis of a continuation of pre-privatisation trends".
Policy, my Lords? What policy?
The reason for all the wishy-washy dithering and tinkering is not hard to find. It is the Government's touching faith in the sovereign power of market forces. All true believers in the Conservative Party must bow the knee at that altar; but in no area of policy is it more dangerous and more unnecessary to do so. There can be no possible guarantee that the market will properly value the factors needed for the long-term security of energy supply, for environmental protection or, especially, for energy efficiency. Crude market forces are not good enough. Energy is different, and that is true all over the world. Even in the former Soviet Union it is not a matter of who can make a profit but of who has the pipelines.
The Government have missed countless excellent opportunities. Nowhere is that more true than in the area of renewable energy. They have ignored the possibilities of landfill gas sites. There is no developed strategy for the recycling of waste-to-energy plants. The early encouragement given to energy efficiency seems to have run out of energy as well as out of ideas. The exploitation of tidal energy has got stuck in the mud. Even the simple possibilities of wind farms are only timidly touched upon. The authorities in this country have only to stick a wind pump on a peninsula to raise

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great gales of suspicion and hostility because there is no clear and published policy and because local people are not involved early enough in decisions.
Yet there is evidence to suggest that powerful and sustained development of renewables could do much more for the competitiveness of British industry than all the deregulation and enterprise initiatives put together, if only that policy were pursued openly, robustly and with a mandatory approach. It is entirely characteristic of the declining importance given to energy planning that the old autonomous Department of Energy has now disappeared into the recesses of the DTI. That old department, which was led by some distinguished Ministers and highly intelligent and able officials, has gone. The result is all too clear to see. The Government's energy policy has no policy and very little energy. All the steam has gone out of it. It has lost power and credibility. It needs a vigorous application of that primaeval energy source, elbow grease, if it is to be worth even our interest.
7.53 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Mountgarret who preceded me in this debate by a few minutes referred to his 27 years in your Lordships' House. I, a mere babe of 22 years in this House, attend a debate of this nature for the first time this evening.
I have to disagree with one or two of my noble friends. I have found this a fascinating debate. Indeed, we could do with more of this type of debate. If this is the kind of set piece attack by the Opposition I must say to the House that I am truly astonished at the moderation of noble Lords opposite. They have spent close on four-and-a-half hours in a mish-mash of complaints, harking back to a golden era prior to 1979. I wonder where is the sharp and targeted attack upon this Government, who have been in power for 14 years. I exempt from my remarks the noble Lord, Lord Desai, who I thought made a spirited and excellent attempt. But as I said, I have been astonished at the moderation of the barbed comments coming from across the Floor of your Lordships' House.
Earlier in the debate noble Lords opposite referred to the remarks made by my noble friend Lady Thatcher on the steps of Downing Street in 1979 when she quoted the words of St. Francis of Assisi: "Where there is discord" and so on. Those who remember the 1970s did not have to look too deeply at the outgoing Government or indeed the friendly brethren in the Labour Party—the noble Lord, Lord Richard, may have been away in Brussels, I am not too sure; he may well have been a distinguished Member of that government—let alone the great supporters of that movement, the trades unions. I wondered whether, like many of the comments that have come from noble Lords opposite in this great censure debate, they chose their weapons with great prescience or much foresight.
I was particularly pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington. Your Lordships will be aware that he and I share one common factor. We are both members of the distinguished profession of accountancy. However, I was somewhat startled and worried to find that today he was not his usual self, red in tooth and
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claw. Perhaps he has spent too long trying to catch up with the news of the Budget in the newspapers in the Library.
I wondered much at what he had to say about this country of ours and how many of us in this Chamber did not know how the other half of the country lived. If he gives me half a second afterwards, or tomorrow, I will show him exactly the kind of life that is lived outside your Lordships' House as it is illustrated in the tabloid newspapers. One does not need the talents of an accountant to do that. Everyone can see it and read about it. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, was certainly inaccurate in his comments.
Perhaps I may return to the comments made about 1979. I recall the remarks made by my noble friend Lady Thatcher when, as Mrs. Thatcher, she formed her first government in 1979. One of the first things that her first administration undertook was to attempt to put some sense of order into industrial relations. I had the privilege of taking some humble part in the first Employment Bill of 1979–80. I and many noble Lords who were with us at that time will remember the fraternal discord in the Labour Party as we looked at various aspects of trade unionism. It was best put by the former and much regretted late Member of your Lordships' House, Lord Feather. Referring to some of the activities that had been carried on in the name of the trades unions in 1970, he said that such scenes as were taking place then and happened during the early, mid and late 1970s had nothing whatever to do with trade unionism and all the good work done by trade unionists.
It has taken the employment legislation of this Government, with much courage, at last to bring about professional industrial relations in this country. We have seen many of the results—some were referred to by my noble friend Lord Onslow. For instance, Rover cars are exporting to Japan whereas the great automotive industries of Germany are having some difficulty. I believe that my noble friend the Leader of the House and various other noble friends put forward one or two salient facts regarding comparisons with our competitor friends and member states, France and Germany. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that the Prime Minister of France and the Bundeskanzler Kohl would be content with the so-called "problems" of the, United Kingdom economy.
We heard nothing in the debate this afternoon—this set-piece censure debate—from noble Lords opposite to make either myself or my noble friends buckle in our support of the Government and my right honourable friend the Prime Minister.
8 p.m.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I must start by apologising to your Lordships for not having been here to hear the opening speeches, or indeed many later contributions. I hope that may be forgiven on this occasion because I had long-standing commitments elsewhere from which I was unable to escape at the comparatively short notice which we were given for such an important debate.
It is of course true that some of us on these Benches have from time to time expressed reservations about

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some aspects of government policy. But surely that is part of our function, and it usually results in improved legislation.
I think the only recent government policy with which some of us wholeheartedly disagreed, without being able to improve it in any way, was the decision to ratify the Treaty on European Union as signed at Maastricht. Time will tell who was right on that matter, and I pray that it turns out to be the Government—although I doubt it, if only for the reason that they were so strongly supported by the Benches opposite.
As many noble Lords will know, I am also now sure that our well-intentioned community care policy is not working and is not going to work as its authors wished. For instance, I am now convinced that we are closing down our residential institutions for the mentally handicapped too quickly, forcing many of these people to live with inadequate care packages in the outside world, where there is no real community and where people do not care as much as we hoped they would. So I very much hope that this policy will be modified urgently to give greater priority to the creation of sheltered or village communities, which seem to be wanted by more than 60 per cent. of the relatives of mentally handicapped people and in which the mentally handicapped can be happily accommodated much more cheaply than they can under our community care policy. I hope that the Treasury will take an interest in that suggestion before too long.
While speaking of the mentally handicapped, I also believe that our latest Education Act puts too much emphasis on educating children with a mental handicap in ordinary schools. I hope that this will soon be more generally recognised and that the resultant suffering can be alleviated through guidance from my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education.
But it seems to me that the gracious Speech presented us with an entirely healthy set of policies. I appreciate that they do not appeal to the Benches opposite, but that is because, when enacted, they will do much to reduce the power of the bloated bureaucratic state, which still wields such a negative influence on all our lives but which is so beloved by socialists everywhere.
My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has also indicated that he intends to allow real people from ordinary walks of life to get some of the jobs at the top of the Civil Service. That will be thoroughly refreshing to the departments concerned, to the advice they give to Ministers and to the service that they offer.
In the time available I can mention only one policy in the gracious Speech of which I particularly approve and have some familiarity with the area which it will affect. I am immensely relieved that the Government have decided to do something about perhaps the last great socialist establishment in this country, that haven of the gender, race and class brigade, teacher training. That establishment is perhaps more responsible than anything else for the depressing failure of our state system of education over the past 25 years, and I trust that the Bill which is to receive its Second Reading in your Lordships' House next week will contribute to a fairer deal for all our children in the future.
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I have spoken enough, and I trust that it is clear that I strongly support the Government against this extremely unfortunate Motion tonight.
8.5 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, on a number of occasions I have had the privilege of winding up a debate in your Lordships' House. I have found it usually an interesting, challenging and worthwhile exercise, but I must confess that this evening I am totally at a loss. In my view we have not had a debate. We have had a random knockabout, unfocused and covering at least 20 different subjects, none of which was discussed. For the person who must wind up that is no small challenge, and it is not a challenge that I intend to take on. It is impossible to deal in any intelligent way with so discursive—I cannot even call it an argument—a set of assertions thrown from one side of the House to the other over a period of five hours.
Of course there were points with which one agrees from both sides of the House. For example, I agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Miller—I see that she is not in her place —when she said that it was a magical Budget. It was indeed; it was done with mirrors! The noble Baroness certainly got the language right on that occasion.
I agreed with many of the criticisms of government policy in a number of areas that came from both sides of the House, again as assertions with no time to discuss, argue or amplify them in an intelligent way. Of course, as a Member of the unofficial Opposition—that is perhaps the way I should be described—overall I oppose a great deal of what the Government have done; but not all of it. I cannot take part in a wholesale condemnation so ill-supported by the facts and argued in so random a fashion. While we on these Benches oppose the policies of Her Majesty's Government, I am bound to say that we also have no confidence in the policies of the official Opposition.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Baroness Seear: My Lords, Members of the official Opposition had plenty of opportunity to make their points and I am now making mine from these Benches. This has been a totally unsatisfactory afternoon.
I could pick up a great many of the issues raised and make yet another comment on them, but I do not intend to do that. Instead I intend to raise a matter which I consider to be of the greatest importance and in which I have a great lack of confidence. I refer to the fact that the Government do not seem to have taken on board in the longer term what the real problems are that this country is up against in trying to operate in a global economy. They are the problems that any government—it is for the Government to do it—trying to give leadership to the country should be raising, thinking about and telling the people of this country how they can be tackled.
The problems which we are encountering at the present time and which are being encountered in all the countries of the European Continent are structural and not cyclical. There are cyclical complications, but basically the problems are structural, arising from the

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shift in the global economy, from what is happening on the Pacific Rim, from the vast increase in numbers in the developing countries and all that that will mean in terms of trade and social problems.
In my view we in the West are at a turning point in human history, like the Enlightenment and like the fall of the Roman Empire, when methods are changing at a basic level. Any government worth their salt should be looking at those issues and telling people that the structural changes and opportunities for change occurring in the world economy are threatening challenges but also great opportunities. They should be preparing the people of this country both for the opportunities and the threats. That preparation must be in the way in which human capital, infrastructure capital and capital in industry are organised in order that those challenges can be met and the opportunities seized.
Where have the Governmer, given this lead? When will they explain to people that the problems will not pass away? My criticism of the Labour Party is that it takes the same short-term view in criticising the errors in immediate policy but never focuses on the real difficulties. It is all very well to say—and of course we all agree—that we need to have a high wage, high skill labour force. But we do not have it. How are we to get it? Without it there is no hope of getting the country out of the problems which it faces. What is the Labour Party proposing to do about it? What indeed did it do about it in the past?
I recognise that there are many people in the Labour Party today who are as convinced as any of us of the importance of education and training. But I would remind them that in 1977—after all, we had many years in the preceding quarter of a century of Labour Governments—44 per cent. of the youngsters leaving our schools went either into unemployment or into a job with no training whatsoever. What have either of the parties done about that? The comparable figure in France was 19 per cent. and in Germany 9 per cent. These are the problems of the future. These are the things that matter.
Any government worth their salt would be making it clear to the country what the problems are. Some industries will die. Others must be brought forward. That is the problem which we ought to be facing. None of this has been mentioned today and in my view we have been wasting our time.
8.11 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, in the course of the past few hours a good deal of resentment has been expressed at our temerity in putting down this Motion today. I find that puzzling. It is not, I suppose, just on the old Conservative principle that nothing shall be done for the first time. It must be some residual conviction that this House has a justification other than in the political arena. I pay tribute to the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for breaking away from the succession of party political speeches that we have heard, all of which, with the exception of the contribution the noble Viscount, Lord Mountgarret, who spoke for five minutes against the Government and 10 seconds in favour of the
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Government, were been entirely predictable. But unless we express political opinion and unless we act politically, what justification is there for the public expenditure in keeping this House in being as a House of Parliament? I can see none.
I have been here for a far shorter time than many of those who have spoken tonight. I confess that I find distasteful the spectacle of the House spending hours debating salmon fishing, game licences, or any of the things which appeal to noble Lords socially but have no political impact whatever. Unless we concentrate on political issues, both in expressing our political views in the way we have been doing today and, most importantly, in the revision of legislation, there is no justification for being here. In that sense I do not apologise on behalf of my party in any way for our having introduced the Motion, so ably moved by my noble friend Lord Richard.
A further bonus is that we have had a succession of five-minute speeches. I venture to suggest that hardly one of those speeches was any the worse for being made in five minutes rather than in 10 minutes, 15 minutes, or 20 minutes.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: Stick to it yourself!
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I shall watch the clock very carefully, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, rightly reminds me.
Of course, there have been disadvantages in the sense that we have heard a lot of what I might politely call House of Commons speeches, some of which have been no more than constituency annual dinner speeches. We have heard some speeches 'which lean very heavily on party headquarter hand-outs—and I am looking ahead of me when I say that.
I do not want to go over the ground concerning individual policies that has been covered very adequately in debate. Instead, I want but to try to explore what it is that the policies are for, what it is that we expect of a government and in what sense this Government can be said to have failed in meeting those expectations. I want to suggest to your Lordships that what government is for is to contribute—only to contribute—to a society in which there is an equal worth for all citizens; a society in which basic needs—equal rights before the law, a safe environment and adequate food, shelter, education, health and work—are met for all citizens. I want to suggest to your Lordships that the history of the past 14 years has not only been that the Government have not contributed to those basic rights and needs but that they have in many ways detracted from them and made things worse.
We have in theory equal rights before the law, just as we have in theory the right to dine at the Ritz—except that most of us do not have the money for it. But it is still the fact that 10 per cent. of our citizens are not on the voting list. They do not take part in our democracy. They deny themselves the opportunity to take part in our democracy. That figure increased very greatly when the poll tax was introduced. It is a fact that a significant part of our democratic structure—that of local government—has been persistently and consistently

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diminished over the past 14 years so that we have now reached the position where quangos—quasi autonomous non-governmental organisations —whose members are appointed and paid by Ministers, account for more of public expenditure than the whole of the democratic local government structure.
It is a fact that, although we pay lip service to civil rights, this country loses more cases at the European Court of Human Rights than any other country in Europe. It is a fact that changes in legal aid have meant that access to the law is available to a smaller proportion of our people than at any time since legal aid was first introduced. It is a fact, as my noble friend Lord Williams of Mostyn, well put it, that the citizens of this country are uneasy in their liberties.
On the right to a safe environment, well, again, my noble friend Lord Williams referred in more detail to the inadequacy of the Government's criminal justice policy. I want to give one figure which shows the extent to which the Government have failed. It concerns those people who have had experience of crime. In 1980 35 per cent. of our people had experience of crime. In 1993 53 per cent. had experience of crime. That is not an increase of which the Conservative Government should be proud.
I turn briefly to the basic right to food. I do so only because the noble Lord, Lord Vinson, said that we have food coming out of our ears. Well, we do, but a lot of people in this country do not. A couple on income support with one child can afford to spend only £26 a week on food whereas the minimum cost of a nutritionally healthy diet is £33.50. The availability of school meals, to take another example, has declined by 27 per cent. in the years since 1979. On the basic right to shelter, I could go into a long debate on house building and the decay of our housing stock. But let us take what is most obvious. The official figure for homelessness in this country is 400,000 people. Shelter's figure, which I tend to prefer, is 2 million. There are 1.5 million houses unfit for human habitation. When it comes to fuel as a part of shelter, the bottom 20 per cent. of our population spend three times the proportion of income that is spent by the top 20 per cent. on fuel, which is why VAT on fuel is such a wicked aspect of the Government's policy.
I do not have time to deal with the excellent speeches made on education and training except to say to noble Lords opposite that if they are so satisfied with the progress in education and training why is it that, in terms of the skills of the workforce, this country now comes 20th out of 22 members of the OECD? That is not an improvement over the past 14 years. The position is considerably worse.
When we speak about basic rights, above all let us consider the right to work. It is not simply that unemployment is unjust. Of course, it is. Many of my noble friends made that point with far greater effect than I can. But it is also inefficient. It is bad economics. It is a fact that we are failing to use the abilities of a large proportion of the people of this country. It is also a fact that unemployment is discriminatory. It is discriminatory by race for black people. Ethnic minorities are more
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likely to be unemployed. It is also discriminatory by class and gender and for the sick and the disabled, as my noble friend Lord Ashley rightly said. It is discriminatory historically because those whose parents had good jobs are more likely to get good jobs themselves.
What is the reaction of this Government? Instead of doing something about unemployment they change the rules for the unemployed. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, called it "reshaping". My noble friend Lord Ashley rightly corrected him and said that it was not reshaping but renaming and then cutting the benefits available to the unemployed. To call them job seekers when the policies of this Government have led to the fact that 2 million men of working age no longer actively seek work gives the lie to the claim of the Lord Privy Seal that this is not a party issue.
Behind all these factors lies poverty. It may not be a popular subject to talk about in your Lordships' House, but we must talk about it. It is an important means of judging the performance of the Government. By the most moderate, basic and elementary standard of poverty, which is the level of income support, or as it was, supplementary benefit, the number of our fellow citizens who are in poverty has risen from 7.75 million in 1979 to nearly 11.5 million in 1989. I do not have later figures. These are the 1993 published figures. There are 3.5 million more of our fellow citizens who are in poverty than when this Government came into office. According to the European Community standards of poverty, 20 per cent. of our population is in poverty. We have 20 per cent. of the poor of Europe. Our figures are worse than for all of Europe except Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Greece.
My noble friend Lord Bruce rightly drew attention to the extremes of wealth and poverty in this country. By every standard which one can apply these extremes have become worse. In 1979 the share of the total income of this country gained by the bottom half of the population was one-third. In 1991 it was down to one quarter. When one considers wealth, 1 per cent. of the people of this country own 18 per cent. of the wealth; 2 per cent. own 25 per cent.; 10 per cent. own 50 per cent. and the top 50 per cent. own 92 per cent. These are not simply comparative figures; they are absolute figures as well. In the 1980s and in the period of office of this Government, the absolute income of the bottom 10 per cent. of our population fell by 6 per cent. My noble friend Lord Longford rightly pointed to the immorality of such a development. He calls it Christian. I do not share his faith. But I certainly share with him the view that this is something which all people, with any sense of morality, ought to be ashamed of.
I am not accusing the Government of creating inequality by accident. Oh no! They have done it absolutely deliberately. This Government have had the policy of looking after their own. That is what governments are for and that is why I am a member of the Labour Party. I am a member of the party which represents and cares for the interests of the less privileged in our society. It was entirely proper for politicians in the Conservative Party to look after their own, and by God they have done so.

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Let us look at the way in which the Government have managed public expenditure. Despite the fact that they have had £100 billion from North Sea oil and gas and £65 billion from privatisation, what has been the effect of their public expenditure policies? The effects have been a spendthrift policy such as has never been seen before. The effect has been a consumer spending binge which went on so long after it was justified by the taxation policy of the Government that we have landed up with a recession, the highest level of consumer debt and the lowest level of saving than at any time in recent history.
What has been the impact of the taxation policies of this Government? It is not just today's Budget that we are looking at. We are looking at what has happened to the £31 billion handed out in tax cuts since 1979. Of that £31 billion, £8.7 billion have gone to the top 1 per cent. of the population; £15.2 billion to the top 10 per cent. and only £4.8 billion to the bottom 50 per cent. The result is not a low-tax society. The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, was more honest when he said that the policy of the Government was low direct taxes. We have a high-tax economy which is less progressive than it was in 1979. We have the situation where the top 10 per cent. of the population pay 32 per cent. of their income in tax and the bottom 10 per cent. pay 43 per cent. That is regressive taxation and a deliberate and conscious policy, as all these policies are, of making the rich richer and the poor poorer. It has not worked.
The Government's policies have been a failure by their own standards. The misplaced triumphalism of those who have chosen to quote figures from the past few months, as if they outweigh the figures from the past 14 years, does not bear thinking about. Above all, by any decent standards, over 14 years this Government have been a failure. They deserve no confidence from this House.
8.27 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of Transport (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, every opposition has the right to test the confidence of the House in the Government, but surely this must be one of the oddest occasions on which that right has been exercised. We have just had five days of debate on the Loyal Address. Despite that wealth of material, the Opposition seem to have been stumped for a single specific subject on which to take issue with the Government. There is no vote on the Queen's Speech.
Pierre Mendes-France's dictum was that to govern is to choose. The Opposition have the luxury that they do not have to govern but now that they have the luxury they do not want to choose. Labour Front Bench spokesmen have recently spoken at length and today's debate has given another opportunity for them to hear the sound of their own voices. It has been amusing to see them playing musical chairs between the Front and Back-Benches. Of course, I can understand the difficulty that the Labour Party have had in producing speakers for this debate. The Liberal Party, too, was noticeable by its absence.
Without doubt it was good for Britain that 14 years ago the Conservative Government rescued it from the
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parlous state to which it had been brought. Let us never forget what was written in 1979 by one of our ablest ambassadors at that time:
"We talk of ourselves without shame as being one of the less prosperous countries in Europe. The prognosis for the future is discouraging".
I agree with my noble friend Lord Archer. The amount of time since then lends no enchantment to the lean years of Labour which gave us the lowest growth rate in Europe, the highest strike record, and for the average family, virtually no increase in take home pay and a substantial erosion of pensions for the pensioners.
The contrast could not be more stark. We now have a country whose views are heeded, whose help is sought and whose will to act is not in doubt. As my noble Mend Lady Young said, others outside this country are often well-placed to make incisive judgments and they have decided that we are a country in which they want to invest. That is an objective vote of confidence which cannot be questioned. The UK has received one-third of all inward investment in the EC over recent years. Over 3,500 American companies have invested in Britain, including 96 of their top 100 companies. Around 200 Japanese firms, among them every one of Japan's top 10 consumer electronics firms, have chosen the UK as their manufacturing location in Europe. I unreservedly welcome that investment. To my noble friend Lord Sanderson of Bowden, whose support I appreciate, I say this: according to European business leaders, Britain is now the best place in the European Community to build a manufacturing plant.
As a country, we have become more prosperous and so services have improved. Although the noble Lord, Lord Carter, said that there was a funding problem in the NHS, I remind him that spending in the NHS has increased by more than 60 per cent. in real terms and now stands at record levels. Yesterday my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a further increase in spending on the NHS, which will rise by £1.5 billion in 1994–95, a 1.5 per cent. increase in real terms. We will spend about 6 per cent. of our national income on the NHS this year compared to 4.7 per cent. when Labour were in office. There are nearly 19,000 more doctors and dentists, and the number of midwives and nurses has risen by 69,000. Their pay has increased in real terms. Labour cut their numbers and cut their pay.
It was appropriate that the noble Baroness, Lady Castle, talked about pensioners. She will recall that at a stroke she cut £2 a week off what they received. The average pensioner in 1990–91—
Baroness Castle of Blackburn: Is it not also true that I carried through the House of Commons a provision to link annually each up-rating with the movement of earnings instead of prices, which everybody agrees now was the right way of keeping their standard of living up?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, what the noble Baroness has not denied is that by changing the up-rating provisions she cut £2 a week from every

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pensioner. Pensioners are now 54 per cent. better off in real terms than they were under Labour. That is a great and substantial improvement.
Turning to what the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, said, he will know that spending on the disabled has risen by 100 per cent. over and above inflation, and that the number of people claiming invalidity benefit has doubled.
We have taken unprecedented action to protect the environment at local, national and international level. Not for the first time—and no doubt not for the last—the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, was wrong. We are the first country to have announced in full and in detail how we will deliver our Rio commitment.
During our term of office, we have increased the number of police officers by 16,000, and spending on the police has increased by 81 per cent. in real terms.
The pupil-teacher ratio has fallen, and spending per pupil has risen by over 45 per cent. in real terms. There are now over 80 per cent. more full-time students in higher education. Already nearly one in three young people enters higher education, up from one in eight in 1979, and so the target that we set ourselves for the year 2000 has been all but achieved seven years early. My noble friend Lady Perry will be pleased to know that the Government are also committed to expanding further education. The new plans announced yesterday provide for a 20 per cent. increase in students in further education and sixth-form colleges over the next three years.
We have based these achievements and our reforms, often radical, on the two pillars of Conservative thinking—freedom and responsibility. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, looked back over the past 14 years—and so will I because it is a record of which we are proud and which we must not forget.
In our first term of government, we set about tackling the legacy of socialist economics. Through the sale of council houses, we set our sights on giving everyone a real stake of their own-1.4 million people have bought their homes from local authorities in Great Britain under the right to buy—a right opposed so strenuously by Labour—until they realised that it was popular. That is a precedent that they have followed on many other occasions.
Our second term followed logically, extending the progress of social enfranchisement through privatisation. My noble friend Lord Oxfuird reminded us how the Labour Party fought each and every proposal. Let me remind your Lordships of one case—British Airways. In 1980, Air France made a profit; BA made a loss. In 1993, BA is the most successful and profitable carrier in Europe while Air France is seeking yet more state aid to prop itself up, courtesy of the taxpayer. We also started the reform of the tax system to restore the incentives sapped by socialism, a process which the Chancellor built on yesterday by keeping income and corporation tax low and by introducing a substantial package of assistance for business and supply side reform.
In our third term we kept up the momentum. We extended our programme of reform so as to give
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ordinary people not just a stake of their own, but a say of their own, first of all in education, then in housing and then in health.
In our fourth term, we will bring about an unprecedented shift in power away from the producers and providers of services. The beneficiaries will be those who use the services. We are seeking to give people more control over their own lives. The Opposition are against spreading those and other freedoms and they are against choice for all our people. What has been achieved so far has been done by the Government working with the citizen. That is why we not only held the intellectual agenda in the 1980s, but we retain that grip now.
There is no intellectual agenda from the party opposite. In order to find some clothes, their leader, Mr. Smith, went to Brussels on 9th November and signed up to a programme which would impose a massive burden on industry: the social chapter, a maximum 35-hour working week, European works councils, consultation of workers in multi-national businesses and European sectoral collective agreements. The Socialist manifesto makes it clear that
"the plans of the Conservatives to make Europe more competitive … are unacceptable".
To don those clothes and impose that on this country is to take the short road to ruin.
I recall vividly the vote of no confidence in 1979 in another place. What I saw was in stark contrast to the real world outside where the winter of discontent resulting from the Labour Government's policies was causing havoc. I watched from the Gallery a large number of Labour MPs stay in the Chamber after the vote and sing "The Red Flag". They still, misty eyed, sing it now. Nothing has changed. But in the countries of Eastern Europe which they so admired at the time, they have burnt their red flags, changed the tune and moved on. It was only yesterday at a meeting in Brussels that many of the Ministers of those countries reminded me of their appreciation of what the Conservative Government here did to help them to get rid of their yoke of socialism. We did it by strong defence and determination.
Defending the realm is the first duty of Government. Nothing is more important than to ensure that the country is defended with strength and resolution. When Brezhnev deployed the SS.20s, we deployed the cruise missiles. We were able to negotiate from strength and as a result the threat to our security from the overwhelming conventional forces of the Warsaw Pact has been removed, the Berlin Wall has come down and the Cold War is at an end. The Labour Party and its cohorts in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament would not and never could have put us in that position. As a result of our strength and will, we have a Europe in which democracy, rule of law and basic human rights are spreading ever more widely.
Noble Lords opposite have consistently urged massive reductions in the defence budget. Our policy is to keep the lid on defence cuts while preserving the ability of our front line troops to respond. To that end, we shall continue to maintain highly capable nuclear and conventional forces and ensure that their training,

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manning and equipment remain sufficient for them to fulfil their roles to the high standards that have been demonstrated in the Falklands, the Gulf and now in Bosnia. Our servicemen and women will not be asked to undertake difficult and hazardous operations without the necessary equipment, support and training. That is why my right honourable friend Mr. Rifkind has today announced 3,000 more troops for the Army, the placing of orders for up to 259 British-built Challenger tanks, new minesweepers and orders for a new RAF helicopter fleet.
Our role in Europe is vital, not just in defence but, as my noble friend Lord Rippon of Hexham reminded us, within the EC. Unlike the party opposite, we seek an open, outward-looking and decentralised Community. The Community must face up to the competition that other parts of the world pose. We must avoid over-regulation from Brussels and overimplementation of any regulations to which we have agreed. We must ensure that other countries in the EC do the same. As my noble friend Lady Elles said, the high social costs must he tackled as they are posing a crippling burden on growth and jobs, reducing Europe's competitiveness.
It was again only yesterday, as not so long ago, in the 1980s, that I was approached by Ministers of the EC who asked me, "How have you done it again in Britain just when we are going into the deepest of recessions? Can we follow your lead and get ourselves out?" The contrast between our position and that of our European competitors could not be better highlighted than by what we have seen recently—strikes, which used to be known as the British disease, are beginning to cripple industries on the mainland. The socialist habit of compromise which we experienced under Labour is catching up fast. It is every government's responsibility to take hard, difficult and sometimes initially unpopular decisions when necessary. We have done so. We now have the second lowest level of inflation, the lowest interest rates, falling unemployment levels, the highest rate of growth forecast by the Commission both this year and next. But, we cannot afford to be complacent about recovery here when recession continues to bite abroad: 60 per cent. of our exports go to the Community, and it is in Britain's interests to foster an environment of growth and prosperity in the Community.
Having failed to be elected in this country, the Labour Party wants the cover of Europe to introduce its socialist ideas—more quietly, more secretively and more unaccountably than it could in this country. Take its support for the European Recovery Fund. That will increase borrowing by the back door. It wants a fund twice the size of the current EC budget. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, supports that. The advantage to Labour is that the borrowing, thus the debt, thus the repayments our children will face, will not show up on the PSBR. It fulfils the socialist dream. It saves the Labour Party having to take the difficult decisions. It gives it more room to fudge the issue. We have none of that. We know, the people of this country know, and history has shown, that tight control over public expenditure and our finances is a prerequisite for a prosperous Britain. In his Budget Statement yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer showed precisely how
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the Government plan to bring the public finances firmly under control, setting the PSBR on a steadily declining path. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, threw out a challenge. He said that if Labour had spent 40 per cent. of GDP it would have been hounded out of office. It did, and it was. Public sector borrowing will be no more than needed to finance capital spending by 1997–98, and eliminated altogether by the end of the decade. By following that principle, and updating legislation made for a previous era, we have made this country more prosperous.
To the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, I say that average incomes for all economic status groups and family types have increased. I was sad to hear that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, wanted all the differentials to be lowered again and to bring everyone to the poorer state that they were before.
We have also had our difficulties. Prosperity has never been one long golden thread. But I so agree with what my noble friend Lord Stewartby said: what is clear to one and all is that, if that we had followed the advice of Labour, inflation would have climbed higher and we should still be plunging downwards. On the contrary, we have a programme based, as my noble friend Lord Alexander of Weedon said, on steady growth for the future.
As year succeeds year, and the Opposition accept policy after policy that we have pursued, it would nice if, just occasionally, they could acknowledge that we were right after all. Whether noble Lords opposite choose to follow in our wake is of course a matter for them. What the Government will continue to do is to pursue the necessity of maintaining this country's high standing at home and abroad. New challenges with which we must deal will always arise. The new Jerusalem may exist, but probably not on this earth. Building a decent, prosperous and successful Britain is work enough. This Government have the values. They have the policies and the will to carry out that work. As a result, the electorate has shown its confidence in a Conservative Government four times in succession. As opposed to having no confidence in the Government, the House should censure the Opposition for having nothing to offer. I urge the House to reject the Motion.
8.45 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, perhaps I may say just two or three things in finally commending the Motion to the House. First, I am delighted at the popularity this debate seems suddenly to have assumed. It is nice to see faces that we do not often see here. Indeed, it is nice to see faces that we have never seen. We welcome them with that spirit of open-heartedness that one would expect from the Labour Benches. No doubt they will all vote the wrong way. Having dragged them all in, I have no doubt that the Government wish to count every one of them as they go through the Lobby.
The only thing about the debate that I do not understand—I listened to most of the speeches—is the sense almost of constitutional outrage that came from the other side of the House: as if we were doing something unconstitutional, improper and unlawful in daring to put down a Motion of no confidence in the

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policies of Her Majesty's Government. One of the functions of the Opposition is precisely to test the Government's policies. It is to call them to account from time to time. It may upset some people on the other side of the House who may feel that the Opposition are getting uppity; that somehow we are behaving in an unsporting way. I can only tell those who feel that way that it is something that I propose to continue.
What has also been interesting about the debate is that most of the speakers from the other side, including the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, have said very little about government policy. They have said a great deal about Labour policy. There has been a great inquest into what happened under the Labour Government up until 1979, but in terms of looking forward, which we surely should be doing, as to where the Government have taken us and whence we go from here, hardly a word.
The lines are clearly drawn in this debate. The one fact that the Government have to accept is that they have been there now for 14 years. To turn round to try to blame things on the attitude of the Government before 1979, or on the Labour Party while in opposition, is thin, hollow and will not wash. I commend the Motion to the House.
8.48 p.m.
On Question, Whether the Motion shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 95; Not-Contents, 282.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Airedale, L.

Howell, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Ardwick, L.

Hughes, L.

Ashley of Stoke, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L.

Barnett, L.

Jay, L.

Birk, B.

Jeger, B.

Blackstone, B.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Blease, L.

Kennet, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Bottomley, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Callaghan of Cardiff, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Campbell of Eskan, L.

Lockwood, B.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Longford, E.

Carter, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Castle of Blackburn, B.

Macaulay of Bragar, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

McCarthy, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.

McNair, L.

Desai, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Diamond, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Donoughue, L.

Molloy, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Monkswell, L.

Elis-Thomas, L.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Ennals, L.

[Teller.]

Falkender, B.

Mulley, L.

Falkland, V.

Murray of Epping Forest, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Nicol, B.

Gallacher, L.

Ogmore, L.

Geraint, L.

Peston, L.

Glenamara, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

Plant of Highfield, L.

Grey, E.

Prys-Davies, L.

Hamwee, B.

Rea, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Redesdale, L.

Haskel, L.

Richard, L.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Russell, E.

Hollick, L.

Seear, B.

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Sefton of Garston, L.

Variey, L.

Serota, B.

Walpole, L.

Shepherd, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Stallard, L.

White, B.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Williams of Mostyn, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Wilson of Rievaulx, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

Turner of Camden, B.

Young of Darlington, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

De L'Isle, V.

Abinger, L.

De Saumarez, L.

Addison, V.

Dean of Harptree, L.

Aldington, L.

Deedes, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Denham, L.

Alexander of Weedon, L.

Denman, L.

Annaly, L.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, L.

Derwent, L.

Arran, E.

Digby, L.

Ashbourne, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Astor, V.

Downshire, M.

Astor of Hever, L.

Dudley, E.

Auckland, L.

Dundonald, E.

Barber, L.

Eccles, V.

Barber of Tewkesbury, L.

Eccles of Moulton, B.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Eden of Winton, L.

Beloff, L.

Elibank, L.

Belstead, L.

Elles, B.

Bessborough, E.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Bethell, L.

Elphinstone, L.

Biddulph, L.

Elton, L.

Birdwood, L.

Erne, E.

Blakenham, V.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Blatch, B.

Faithfull, B.

Blyth, L.

Ferrers, E.

Boardman, L.

Flather, B.

Bolton, L.

Forbes, L.

Borthwick, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Gainford, L.

Braine of Wheatley, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Brentford, V.

Geddes, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Gilmour of Craigmillar, L.

Brigstocke, B.

Glenarthur, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Goold, L.

Bruntisfield, L.

Goschen, V.

Burton, L.

Gray, L.

Butterworth, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Byron, L.

Greenway, L.

Caithness, E.

Gridley, L.

Caldecote, V.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Camden, M.

Haig, E.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L

Campbell of Croy, L.

Hambleden, V.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Hanson, L.

Carnock, L.

Harding of Petherton, L.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Hardinge of Penshurst, L.

Carrington, L.

Harlech, L.

Cavendish of Furness, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Cayzer, L.

Harmsworth, L.

Chelmsford, V.

Harrowby, E.

Chesham, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Chilver, L.

Harvington, L.

Clanwilliam, E.

Haslam, L.

Clark of Kempston, L.

Hayhoe, L.

Cockneld, L.

Hemphill, L.

Colwyn, L.

Henley, L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Hertford, M.

Courtown, E.

Hesketh, L.

Cox, B.

Holderness, L.

Craigmyle, L.

HolmPatrick, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Hood, V.

Crathorne, L.

Hooper, B.

Crawshaw, L.

Hothfield, L.

Crickhowell, L.

Howe, E.

Cross, V.

Howe of Aberavon, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Huntly, M.

Cumberlege, B.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Dacre of Glanton, L.

Inglewood, L.

635

Ingrow, L.

Prior, L.

Ironside, L.

Pym, L.

Jeffreys, L.

Radnor, E.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Keith of Castleacre, L.

Reay, L.

Kemsley, V.

Rees, L.

Kenyon, L.

Remnant, L.

Killearn, L.

Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, L.

Kimball, L.

Renton, L.

Kitchener, E.

Renwick, L.

Knollys, V.

Rippon of Hexham, L.

Knutsford, V.

Rodger of Earlsferry, L.

Lane of Horsell, L.

Rodney, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Romney, E.

Leigh, L.

Roxburghe, D.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

St. Davids, V.

Liverpool, E.

St. John of Fawsley, L.

Long, V.

Saltoun of Abemethy, Ly.

Lothian, M.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Lucas, L.

Sandford, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Savile, L.

Lyell, L.

Seccombe, B.

McAlpine of West Green, L.

Sharp of Grimsdyke, L.

MacAndrew, L.

Sharpies, B.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Sherfleld, L.

Macfarlane of Bearsden, L.

Shuttleworth, L.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Mackintosh of Halifax, V.

Skelmersdale, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Skidelsky, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, L.

Mancroft, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Marchwood, V.

Stewartby, L.

Margadale, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Marlesford, L.

Strange, B.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Strathclyde, L.

May, L.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E.

Melville, V.

[Teller.]

Merrivale, L.

Sudeley, L.

Mersey, V.

Sherfield, L.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Swansea, L.

Mills, V.

Swinton, E.

Milverton, L.

Tebbit, L.

Monckton of Brenchley, V.

Teviot, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Thatcher, B.

Montgomery of Alamein V.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Mottistone, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Mountevans, L.

Tollemache, L.

Mountgarret, V.

Torphichen, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Townshend, M.

Moyne, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Moyola, L.

Trumpington, B.

Munster, E.

Tugendhat, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Ullswater, V. [Teller.]

Nelson, E.

Vinson, L.

Nelson of Stafford, L.

Vivian, L.

Norrie, L.

Wade of Chorlton, L.

Onslow, E.

Wakeham, L.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

[Lord Privy Seal.]

Orr-Ewing, L.

Walker of Worcester, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Watkinson, V.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Westbury, L.

Parkinson, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Wigram, L.

Peel, E

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Pender, L.

Windlesham, L.

Perry of Southwark, B.

Wise, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Wolfson, L.

Pike, B.

Woolton, E.

Platt of Writtle, B.

Wynford, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Young, B.

Polwarth, L.

Younger of Prestwick, L.

Prentice, L.

Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Motion disagreed to accordingly.

British Rail: Smoking Ban
9 p.m.
Lord Aldington Lord Aldington rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what powers they have to protect passengers on British Rail's Network SouthEast trains who are no longer permitted to smoke in smoking compartments on outer suburban and long distance services; and whether British Rail's action in removing this choice from their customers is contrary to the Citizen's Charter.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I make no apologies for asking the Question; indeed, for asking the House to come back to earth or to the rail track, The Question relates to the removal by British Rail management of all smoking compartments from all trains in Kent and other parts of the south-east; that is, well outside the suburban area. I shall first summarise the background against which I seek to know what powers of intervention the Government have.
The ban on smoking by a public service raises some important issues that go to the rights of minorities to exercise their own choice of social behaviours of all legitimate kinds. That is one of the liberties of the individual. The Question also highlights a case of a public service monopoly manager riding roughshod over a sizeable minority of his customers, knowing that he is so doing, and then seeking to persuade Ministers, as he has wrongly persuaded himself, that a market survey justifies what he has done; or so it seems to me.
Tonight's Question was tabled some months ago, but I was anxious not to press my noble friend Lord Caithness further about smoking compartments while he was, in his charming and not unsuccessful way, piloting the Railways Bill through the House. He knows well—and, indeed, so do his colleagues in the Government—after three Question Times on the matter that several noble Lords, as well as myself, were not at all convinced by his painstaking short replies to our short questions. But, having carefully timed the debate so that my noble friend Lord Caithness could reply to it, we now know that that has become quite impossible. Nevertheless, I welcome in his place the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, who I am sure will give me as good as I deserve.
Some people like smoking and some do not. Some people think that smoking, even in moderation., is dangerous and some do not; indeed, some people think that it is beneficial. For many decades there have been smoking compartments in trains so as to enable those who want to smoke to do so without upsetting people who dislike smoking. Of British Rail's Network SouthEast passengers about 29 per cent, are smokers. Since yesterday, that 29 per cent. can pride themselves on contributing more than the non-smokers to the public funds that go to help British Rail.
Outside the inner-suburban area, that minority has been allowed to smoke in trains until early this year—that is, 1993—when a so-called "commercial" reason was adduced for ending the sensible arrangement of marking about one-quarter of the compartments for smoking. Then, for the first time, a ban was dictated on

637
smoking in trains in Kent and throughout most of the south-east, even on journeys of more than one hour and even on journeys as long as those to Cardiff or Birmingham where, under other more sensible management, there is no such ban. If that is not gross discrimination against a part of the United Kingdom, I do not know what is; indeed, it is a lot else too.
The allegedly commercial arguments boil down to just two. The first is about the cost of cleaning and the second is about passengers' attitudes; that is, the market argument. It is said that smokers cause much more mess than non-smokers so that cleaning costs a lot more. But non-smokers also leave litter. They discard tins, sweet and chocolate papers and apple and banana skins. The question is: where do they put them? The same question goes for smokers' ash and stubs. Suitable trays and containers are not difficult or costly to supply or to keep clean. The clean-up argument is as unsound as it is specious. If it were true, it would apply equally to train services everywhere and it would lead to a general ban on smoking throughout the British Rail network.
The second argument rests on an independent market survey conducted in September 1992. First, it is alleged by British Rail that the survey proves that there is "overwhelming support" among existing customers for the extension of the ban. Secondly, the survey is alleged to prove that even 55 per cent. of smoker passengers were in favour of that ban. I shall return in a moment to the former misstatement, but the latter is so monstrously a falsification that I shall deal with it at once.
The market survey showed that 55 per cent. of the smokers on services where smoking was already banned accepted the ban. I regard it as a good bit mischievous for anybody to use that figure in connection with the ban's extension to other services. However, I have to add here that even if there was significant majority support for the extension of the ban, which I do not believe there was, I would still ask Her Majesty's Government whether they really wish to see public services management abandon all concern for the minority in legitimate social habits.
But in truth the market survey most certainly did not prove that there was an overwhelming majority for the ban to extend to long distance services in Kent. The most directly relevant set of figures in the survey—the survey is dated 4th September 1992 and is the latest I know of—is quite clear in its meaning. Those questioned at stations served by trains which at that time had smoking compartments were asked their views on a change, up or down, in smoking accommodation from its then level—at that time that was about one-quarter of the train. One of the questions concerned the case for a possible increase. That does not surprise me for my experience as a moderate user of trains in Kent, and a very moderate pipe smoker, was that at peak travel times the smoking compartments were more crowded than the others.
The answers to the question showed that only 38 per cent. of all passengers—that is, smokers and non-smokers—declared in favour of any decrease in the number of smoking compartments. The rest were in favour either of retaining the then present level or were
638
in favour of an increase. Some 4 per cent. of non-smokers were in favour of an increase. I should have thought that those answers would have persuaded even the most fanatical manager that he would be wrong to impose a ban on smoking. However, that is not the case in Network SouthEast where for some reason, high-minded or not, a ban was wanted so badly that the network found a way of reinterpreting the answers. The attitude to the smoking public of the master of Network SouthEast can be seen in the brief which he sent to my noble friend Lord Caithness. I have, in a quite proper way, been enabled to see that brief. I say "quite proper" because it was sent by one of the colleagues of my noble friend Lord Caithness in the Department of Transport to a noble Lord in this House. The day before the Minister answered questions in this House on this subject in May he received a letter which stated:
"The extension (of the ban) was always bound to generate some strong feelings but was taken for commercial and not social reasons. Extensive market research amongst existing customers showed overwhelming support for a ban".
My goodness gracious! How can anyone interpret that survey that way? When I challenged my noble friend on this point, he argued in a letter to me (no doubt he did so on advice he had received) that the apparent contradiction between such a statement and the figures I have mentioned—those were the figures that showed a majority of all passengers were against any decrease in the then existing level of smoking compartments—is easily explained. He said the contradiction,
"results from passengers in favour of a ban, on whose services smoking had been banned, assuming that the level of accommodation was already nil".
That is about as screwy an interpretation as I can get out of those figures. I call that rather an insult to the intelligence of Network SouthEast passengers. Perhaps my noble friend wishes to see my further deliberations on the figures in the survey. I have ascertained that even as regards long distance services the majority of passengers against any decrease in the supply of smoking compartments is even greater. I was absolutely stupefied that my noble friend could believe his comments. But then my stupefaction became just a bit less when I noticed the date on which I had received the letter. My noble friend's department does not believe in dating letters. I have received a number of letters from that department none of which are dated. However I believe I received that letter on Monday, 5th April and I am quite clear that my noble friend signed it on April Fool's Day. That would explain it.
I checked what the market surveyors themselves said about those figures, taking into account the whole range of questions, from "increase", "decrease", "the same", and so on. This is their summary:
"Although smokers predominate among those desiring an increase in smoking seats, yet there is a strong body of opinion, including a majority of smokers, who would agree with keeping the present level the same".
What could be clearer? How do my noble friends on the Front Bench justify the managing director trying to get round that and arguing that his market wants something different?
What powers do the Government have in such railway matters? I assume that they share with me a concern that minorities should not unreasonably be

639
deprived of rights to behave socially as they wish, provided they are acting within the general law. That principle extends far beyond smoking; for example to sporting activities and other such matters.
The Transport Act 1962 seems to provide powers of intervention by the Secretary of State. I have done my best to try to find out what the law is by reading the books in the Library. There is a specific power in Section 56(6) for my right honourable friend to give directions to the board on any recommendation from the Central Transport Consultative Committee. I do not believe that he has given any such direction.
I have in front of me a press notice dated 18th May from that committee headed:
"Smokers are fuming at Network SouthEast's smoking ban".
It states that Network SouthEast,
"takes the view that the average journey time of users should be the governing factor in determining whether smoking accommodation should be provided. The CTCC takes a different view, believing that rolling stock which normally operates on routes with journey times of substantially more than one hour should carry some smoking accommodation".
Is that not quite clear, my Lords? Is it not clear to my noble friend?
At the end the press release states:
"We think that NSE should find ways of satisfying the demands of its smoking passengers rather than taking action which alienates them".
It said earlier:
"Some NSE managers seem prepared to treat their customers in a rather heavy-handed manner".
I can assure noble Lords that that is correct, because I have received all kinds of threats when I have asked whether I could smoke in a carriage where it was not stated that I could not. That was a clear expression of the committee's considered opinion. What has the Secretary of State done about it?
The British Railways Board's powers to make by-laws on smoking and other matters, set out in Section 67 of the Transport Act, are made subject to confirmation by the Secretary of State, or so it seems to me. We shall hear whether that is so. I am therefore rather surprised that the Government should have approved a by-law of the British Railways Board that enabled its management to ban smoking on services which had never previously had such a ban and then claim that the ban was purely a matter for the commercial judgment of British Rail. I find that inconsistent with what the Act says. When was the relevant by-law confirmed by the Minister responsible?
Lastly—I have spoken for much too long but I regard this as a very serious matter—in my Question I mentioned the Citizen's Charter. I have in mind the emphasis placed there on the importance of choice and the aim of the Government to widen choice in public services. That is set out in the conclusion. I have also in mind the passage on page 17 relating to the railways which states:
"British Rail will seek to make its services to the public friendlier and more personal".
Fewer than 30 per cent. of its passengers are smokers. The guards on our trains show those qualities in enforcing what to many of them seems to be a mistaken rule, but a rule that binds them. But above them is someone, or more, who flouts the spirit of that excellent charter in this matter of smoking bans and
640
accommodation, and then goes on to stretch the limits of all credulity in justifying that outrageous ban. What powers do the Government have to enforce their clearly expressed will?
I hope that my noble friend and the House will feel that something must be done to put right this quite outrageous misuse of monopoly power.
9.19 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, in everything that he has said. I do so as a non-smoker—one who has smoked but has not done so for a very long time—and one who believes in the right of individuals to smoke and for people to have facilities, on an equal basis, to smoke if they wish to do so.
As the noble Lord said, people have been allowed to smoke on Network SouthEast and elsewhere on the railways for over 100 years. It has been possible, without trouble, to provide separate smoking accommodation for people who wish to smoke. However, suddenly a group of people—it does not comprise the passengers; as the noble Lord pointed out, the majority of passengers, both smoking and non-smoking, are happy for the facilities for smokers on trains to continue—the railway management, come along arid say, "We think that it is no longer a commercial proposition to allow people to smoke". Yet their customers state that it is all right for people to smoke provided they are allowed segregated accommodation on the trains.
I, too, was worried about the answers given during Question Time. Like the noble Lord, I too wrote to the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, to ask what rights smokers had under the Citizen's Charter. It seems to me that smokers in this country now have no rights. They also appear to have no rights to be treated within the health service as other people are treated. I shall come to that later.
I told the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, that I was worried that smokers were not being considered in relation to their rights under the Citizen's Charter. I received a similar reply to that given to the noble Lord, Lord Aldington: that it is a commercial matter. did not seem to occur to the Minister that the Government have a duty to protect the individual liberties and rights of all citizens. Where one has a public monopoly, the Government have a double duty to those people because they have nowhere else to go.
The matter of cleanliness seems to rank high on the agenda. Therefore I wrote back to the noble Earl saying:
"You mention improved cleanliness as one of the benefits of the smoking ban but there is to be no action against those who munch, crunch and slurp their way through train journeys producing, as a result, a mountain of paper, cardboard, polystyrene, cans etc. which must be far in excess in both volume and weight of litter produced by smokers".
I should have thought that that was a reasonable thing to say. But the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, had also forgotten about the drinkers. I therefore continued:
"Nor, apparently, is there any suggestion that the drinking of alcoholic liquor should be banned on trains although it is well known that alcohol not only harms the health of those who abuse it but also often results in violence against innocent people—sometimes railway staff. Furthermore, I feel sure that

641
there are many, like myself, who feel disgusted and nauseated at the behaviour—short of violence—of people who have over-imbibed intoxicating liquor".
Noble Lords will have seen such people on the trains. I am virtually teetotal and it offends me. I am a non-smoker, a non-drinker and a non-womaniser; I can really speak from on high! I have no vices that I can think of other than attending the House of Lords every day. But it seems that the only person who is to be banned from doing what he wants is the smoker. It is disgraceful that one section of the community should be treated in that way.
Not only BR but other organisations like British Airways—which is banning smoking on long-haul flights as well as short-haul flights—are doing it as well. Employers are banning smoking. Why? They are responding to a government-inspired witch-hunt against smokers. Their individual rights seem to be suspended by a government who pretend to believe in individual freedom and rights. They are always talking about that. I do not wish to offend the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, but only an hour ago he will have heard them talking about individual rights.
Lord Aldington: I did.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: Except apparently for smokers.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, perhaps I may intervene. Is not the noble Lord weakening his case to some extent? The possibility of smoking on trains in segregated carriages is surely far removed from a case where there is no real segregation? There can be none on an aircraft, where a curtain is not enough, nor in theatres and cinemas. Is there not a difference of degree that affects the issue? Would it not be better for my noble friend to confine himself to the case where there is a possibility of clear segregation?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I shall not argue about segregation on aircraft. Modern techniques make it possible to ensure that there is clean air as well as smoky air in aircraft. There is no difficulty about that. I should have thought that in employment it was perfectly possible for employers to set aside rest rooms for smokers and non-smokers. What I want is for smokers to be given the same rights as everyone else, particularly under the Citizen's Charter. Apparently everyone else is entitled to rights under the charter except smokers.
It seems to me that there is a campaign by a narrow elite who wish to impose their standards on their fellows. There is and has been over a long time a campaign to outlaw smoking as a social habit. All kinds of lies are told and statistics cooked; we have heard about them this evening. People are frightened as a consequence of the campaign to outlaw smoking as a social habit.
British Rail in particular has carried on that campaign over a long period. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, that it did not start on Network SouthEast. It started with British Rail banning the sale
642
of tobacco in the kiosks on stations. BR is trying to impose its own standards on all its passengers or "customers", as I believe they are now called.
However, the problem goes even further than that. People may be able to manage without a cigarette or a pipe on a train journey of an hour or an hour-and-a-half. But I do not see why they should. I do not see why people should suddenly stop something which has been enjoyed for over 100 years. The problem is becoming much worse than that, however, because we now find that smokers are being denied treatment within the health service, which is much more serious. The problem goes on from the banning of smoking in railway carriages. It extends to patients being banned from treatment within the National Health Service.
The latest example is the case of Mr. Gibson, who went to Southampton General Hospital to have an operation, for which he was getting prepared when the consultant surgeon came along and said: "Have you given up smoking?" Mr. Gibson said that he had not given up smoking. He was sent home. He was told to stop smoking, and when he had stopped smoking he could go back on the list. Mr. Gibson died 11 days later. Mr. Gibson had also been told previously that if he paid £12,000 he could have an operation privately. So had Mr. Gibson had £12,000 to have an operation privately, he might very well have been alive today. Because he was forced into the National Health Service—for which he has paid, let us make no mistake about it; smokers pay their taxes just the same as everybody else; indeed, they pay more taxes than anybody else—he was denied treatment under the National Health Service which might have saved his life.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene. Is he seriously suggesting that the surgeon who was going to do the operation in the National Health Service was the same surgeon who said that he would operate if he was paid £12,000 in the private sector? That would be a very serious allegation. I cannot believe that that can be so.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: No, my Lords, I was not suggesting that for one moment. I did not say that. I said that Mr. Gibson had been told that an operation was available privately for £12,000. He did not have £12,000, so he had to go to the National Health Service, and he was sent home. I am told of course that it was a matter of clinical judgment, and I have to accept that. But one wonders whether the clinical judgment of the consultant surgeon was right. Would Mr. Gibson still be alive today if the operation had been carried out, rather than being dead today because he was sent home without having the operation? That is a matter which should concern all of us.
This is AIDS week. Let us suppose, for example, that a person suffering from AIDS had been sent home and refused treatment within the National Health Service. There would be a national outcry, and rightly so. But there should be a national outcry every time a smoker is sent home when he needs treatment within the National Health Service. Therefore, as well as considering the serious matter which has been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, about Network SouthEast, the

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Government have to look a lot wider. Denying smokers rights in railway carriages leads to denying smokers rights within the National Health Service, which may very well lead to serious illness or even death. That is why I support very strongly indeed the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, in demanding explanations and results from Her Majesty's Government on this matter this evening.
9.34 p.m.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, after the devastating indictment of the Government by my old friend, the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, on the Tory Benches, there really is no necessity for further contributions to this debate on the Question. But since when has necessity been a pretext for speeches in this House? I do not want to make heavy weather of this matter, but I have a number of interests to declare. I am a pipe smoker of long standing, though less so than the 60 years of the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, by a decade or so. I am a train traveller—if it cannot be absolutely avoided. I am chairman of FOREST, which is the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco. It does not promote smoking; it defends the right for citizens to enjoy a pipe or cigarettes.
I have been a strong and lifelong supporter of individual freedom. For me the hallmark of a free society is that it permits adult citizens the widest conceivable choice attainable without significantly subtracting from the like freedom of others. The key is that we do not simply uphold popular freedoms. Indeed the acid test of a democratic temper is to defend other people's choices of which we actively disapprove; that is to say, tolerance. That is not particularly virtuous because the unwritten contract of a free society is a tolerance of other people's strange preferences for such things as male cosmetics, foxhunting, jogging, eating fish and chips or black pudding, in exchange for their tolerance of our eccentricities.
Democracy does not mean permitting freedoms practised by 51 per cent. of the population. A civilised society is marked by respect—if possible, courteous and good natured—for minority tastes and activities of which we may actively disapprove. Whatever its demerits, the great merit of the competitive market is that it caters sensitively for individuals and consumer idiosyncrasies. Even small minorities favouring fancy waistcoats, pink socks or other familiar Front Bench government styles can have their particular tastes served in a free market. Majority agreement is not required. There is a tendency for small minorities to have their way. Because in nationalised industries that kind of preference is not possible, all the nationalising Acts made provision for consumer representatives to have their voice heard on consultative committees.
The chairman of the British Railways Board, defending the ban, wrote a letter to say that BR liaise carefully with statutorily constituted representatives of transport users, and so forth. There has been much talk of getting approval in that way. This morning I ventured to 'phone the Transport Users Consultative Committee for Southern England and spoke to the acting Secretary, Mr. Edwards. He told me that on 8th December last year the committee received an announcement from British
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Rail to the effect that all smoking carriages were being withdrawn from Kent and East Sussex. Shortly thereafter the committee was told that smoking facilities had been withdrawn elsewhere on the SouthEast network.
There was no question of consultation. There was absolutely no effort to ascertain the views of the consultative committee, much less to take notice of the views of the consumers themselves. As the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, said, the survey that British Rail conducted last year, in the autumn of 1992, showed that 61 per cent. of passengers on non-banned stations thought that the provision for smoking should either be kept the same or increased.
I turn to British Rail's own charter, which is a rather less pretentious document than the Government's to which I shall come in a moment. British Rail say that it undertakes to:
"ask your views and publish the results".
They asked views through the survey but they did not publish the results. There had to be a Question in this House from the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, before British Rail agreed to put a copy of the findings in the Library. Of course the charter does not say, "We will take notice of your views". It says, "We will ask your views and publish the results if compelled to do so; but we will not necessarily feel obliged to proceed any further".
That is all small beer. We come to this great document that I hold in my trembling hand the—Citizen's Charter—and see what the Government have to say to give comfort to smokers and others. It says,
"The Citizen's Charter applies to all public services. These include government departments and agencies, nationalised industries,"
and so forth. The key principles will include,
"Evidence that the views of those who use the services have been taken into account in setting standards".
It goes on to say,
"The task is an ambitious one. We are determined to make it happen as quickly as possible… We will be taking immediate steps to encourage all public services to adopt Charter principles and to apply them to their own operations".
We move on to transport where it has a section acknowledging that,
"British Rail's performance too often falls short of what the public has a right to expect".
It says we expect,
"simple and effective complaints procedures; a straightforward system of redress in cases where the level of service is unacceptable … BR will seek to make its service to the public friendlier and more personal".
We have heard that before. We move on to the penultimate section and I shall not bother your Lordships beyond that. The heading is "Prisons". It states,
"All citizens are entitled to consideration, including those who offend against the law. The Mission Statement of the Prison Service undertakes to look after all prisoners with humanity".
The deduction I draw from this document is that it is not so much that smokers are second-class citizens. So far as the charter is concerned, smokers on trains are non-citizens.
9.42 p.m.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, I rise briefly to support my noble friend Lord Aldington. As other noble Lords have said, British Rail has a right and duty to ban smoking in a reasonable proportion of its carriages. It has done so throughout my life, both during the war and before it, just as smoking has always been banned in this Chamber. No one objects to that.
It is arguable that smoking may be banned for short journeys, as is the case on London Underground where the journeys are nearly all short, but it is not the case on Network SouthEast that all journeys are short, as most of us know to our cost. It may be that they are meant to be short, but that is another matter. It once took me three-and-a-half hours to travel from Dover to London in an unheated train. To shut people up for that length of time and give them no area on the train where they can relieve their feelings by smoking is inhuman. If it does not breach the Citizen's Charter, it ought to.
My sympathy goes out to my noble friend Lord Aldington and others who are forced to travel in what are sometimes horrible trains, watching people munching fish and chips and other forms of food while they are forbidden to have an innocent smoke in any part of the foul-smelling premises. I can see no reason for British Rail's intolerance. And why are they telling us all this? I have smoked since joining the army at the age of 17, when we all smoked. We were 100 per cent. fitter then than the average youth one sees on the streets today. I was subjected to passive smoking from the cradle—both of my parents and most of my family smoked like chimneys. I am 66 now and even if I die at 96 I suppose that my death will be entered in the statistics as being smoking-related.
In my view most statistics and market surveys are as suspect as the opinion polls were in the last general election. I believe that the Government have a duty to protect the wishes of my noble friend and others who ask only for a place where they can smoke on what is often an unpleasant journey.
9.45 p.m.
Lord Howell: My Lords, with the tolerance and courtesy of the House, I should like to speak for a few moments in the gap. I apologise for not putting down my name but it was not until the Unstarred Question appeared on the annunciator that I became aware that it was being debated. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, for raising the matter.
Some years ago, on behalf of the Central Council of Physical Recreation, I conducted a two-year inquiry into the sponsorship of sport in this country. My committee had to face up to the question not just of smoking but of drinking and gambling. We reached the conclusion that where a pursuit is lawful and the state gains many millions of pounds from an activity the state has no business trying to restrict the support of those activities. My first question therefore is: what are the Government or British Rail doing trying to put an inhibition on a lawful activity? I submit to the House that it is quite wrong. In the case of British Rail, if it were not for
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smokers and the excise duty they provide, the subsidies to meet British Rail's losses would not be available, which makes it an added offence in my view.
All these activities are for individual persons to decide for themselves. I agree that smoking is offensive to some people and that therefore some segregated accommodation should be provided. The only time I smoke my cigars, which I do once or twice a day on British Rail, is to prevent the neurosis brought on by people using mobile telephones, which pester us all the way from Birmingham to London. I am fed up of listening to other people's business activities being conducted on trains. I hope that British Rail will provide segregated places for them too where they can chatter away on their telephones. I might not need to smoke as many cigars as I do.
We have a small amount of accommodation on the trains between Birmingham to London. It is totally inadequate. It is one half of one carriage. The fact that tobacco is sold at New Street and other Birmingham stations makes the ban even more ludicrous and ridiculous. The same is true of aircraft. The sale of duty-free tobacco on aircraft must be a lucrative part of British Airways' income. The cabin staff come around with their trolleys. Therefore, it makes no sense for the Government to stand on one side, do nothing about it and thereby interfere with the personal prerogative of individual citizens who choose to exercise their taste in tobacco.
I suggest to the Minister and to the people involved that the logic of the campaign against smoking, which has not been faced up to by anyone yet, is to say that we ought to make smoking unlawful. Let the people who want to interfere with smoking, which is a lawful activity generating vast sums of income, come out into the open, as people in the United States did about alcohol with disastrous results years ago, and say, "We face the logic of our position. We intend to propose that the Government should ban smoking and make it unlawful." They will not do that—no government would support them if they did.
It is to the credit of the Government that in the area of sport they accepted the recommendations of the committee that I chaired and did not stop the sponsorship of sport by tobacco companies—for the very good reason that tobacco companies are carrying out a lawful activity for the benefit of the state as well as for their industry. That should be the criterion. I therefore strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, in his Unstarred Question.
9.49 p.m.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I should like to say a few words just to throw perhaps a few spanners into the works. The noble Lord, Lord Aldington, says that some people think that smoking is harmful. Not so, my Lords. Anyone who has an open mind knows that smoking is harmful. Sir Richard Doll, a Fellow of the Royal Society, did some careful scientific surveys and trials which showed clearly and without doubt that if one smokes for a long period of time, statistically one is much more likely to die of cancer of the lung. Before any noble Lord leaps to his feet and says that statistics

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are not to be believed, they are just a scientific way of looking at numbers and simply state what the chances are of the figures being significant or not.
Admittedly, Sir Richard published the work very recently—only a third of a century ago, which is a very short period of time, and some people are a little slow on the uptake. It is accepted in scientific circles that smoking can produce cancer of the lung. It can induce blockage in the arteries, strokes, heart attacks, duodenal ulcers and so forth. It is a long list of diseases. So let us not be in any doubt at all about that.
Lord Aldington: My Lords, as my noble friend quoted me perhaps he will explain why a leading physician in Harley Street said to my grandfather when he was 85 years old that his health was very good and that he would live for a long time so long as he smoked a cigar twice a day. He lived to the age of 95½. All I said was that I know that there is a difference of opinion. Will my noble friend explain why that was right for my old grandfather and had some very beneficial results and why he says that I am wrong?
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I would not dream of saying that my noble friend Lord Aldington is wrong. All I am doing is stating the scientific facts. The fact that a Harley Street doctor said X years ago that somebody should smoke does not prove anything. I want to state clearly that there is no doubt whatever that smoking will increase the risk of dying of these conditions. That is the fact.
Much has been said about the freedom of the individual to do as he likes and to smoke. Of course, I would not deny that for one moment. But what about the freedom of individuals who do not smoke and who strongly object to being in the presence of those who do? What about the people who not only strongly object but who have an asthmatic attack induced by smoke? Noble Lords are shaking their heads. Tobacco smoke can induce an asthmatic attack: there is no doubt about that. It is a fact. Supposing it concerns a child? Are noble Lords seriously suggesting that people should have the freedom to induce an asthmatic attack in a child who is in the vicinity of someone who is smoking?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, there is nothing between us. British Rail has hitherto set aside a carriage for smokers only and for anyone who wishes to join them. That is a segregated carriage away from everyone else. We fully accept that there are people who do not wish to be in the presence of cigarette smoke. What we object to is the fact that British Rail suddenly withdrew a facility which would have achieved just that—smokers in one carriage and non-smokers in the rest of the train. What is wrong with that?
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, there is nothing wrong with that at all. But what happens if there is no room elsewhere on the train and non-smokers have to get on? I know that there is a rather "gung ho" atmosphere in the House and that the majority of noble Lords are smokers. But I have to rise to defend those who do not smoke and who get into difficulty when in the presence of somebody who is smoking. The noble Lord mentioned the aeroplane. If you are on a plane you
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can be in a non-smoking area but smoke will get to you. That is the whole point. The air in the aircraft is the same. It is not segregated into first-class or second-class air. It is air and it circulates throughout the whole plane. There are some people—I have met them—who suffer from asthma and who did not board a plane only to suffer five hours of great distress. Do noble Lords support the idea that people should be so distressed? I am sure that they do not.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend. Is he aware that there are people, including my wife, who can have asthmatic attacks if they are in the presence of an animal? Is my noble friend suggesting that animals should not be carried on passenger trains on Network SouthEast?
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I shall not get into the business of animals, but one would certainly have some difficulty taking an animal on a plane.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: We are talking about railways.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: I do not mind interventions. I would have as many as possible. It is no problem. I am delighted to be able to do this sort of remedial teaching because I do not often get the opportunity in university circles.
I wish to deal with a point about smokers who are denied operations which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. We should be clear about this. There is no general ban on smokers for particular operations. It is simply that if it is planned that somebody should have an operation and that person continues smoking and if, as a result of their continuing smoking, the operation will have only a poor result, clearly it would be unwise to proceed. That is the basis on which people are sent home—only if they have continued to smoke.
Finally, I have not met the head of Network SouthEast, but he seems to me to be an eminently sensible gentleman. I support what he is doing.
9.56 p.m.
Lord Kilbracken: My Lords, I have just estimated that I have smoked 440,000 cigarettes in the past 55 years. Having declared that interest, I wish to draw attention to just one point as I see it.
I travel by train from time to time although not on the network which has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, in his Unstarred Question. What happens on each occasion is that I walk along the entire length of the train looking for a smoking compartment. The train is practically empty, but having walked the entire length of the train, if I am lucky I find, right at the front, about half a carriage in which smoking is permitted. It is absolutely packed out. It is so full of people smoking that it is impossible to sit there, and I end up in a non-smoking compartment.
When I fly, which I do rather more often, I find that on a great many flights smoking is now not permitted at all. If it is permitted, it is allowed in perhaps 30 seats at the very back of the plane. Here I must disagree with the noble Lord, Lord McColl, that smoking is unpleasant for other passengers. The smoking seats are always at

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the rear of the plane and smoke in an aeroplane does not move for'ard; it goes aft. It does not affect other passengers. In any case, here again the 30 seats in which smoking is permitted at the back of the plane are absolutely full of people and the rest of the plane is probably half empty.
Lord Rea: My Lords, that is not true.
Lord Kilbracken: My Lords, my noble friend says that that is not true, but I assure him that I have travelled perhaps just as much as him and I have found that that is invariably the case. I therefore feel that all forms of public transport are unfair to smokers. That is an irrational failure to a great extent. We, too, have rights.
10 p.m.
The Earl of Harrowby: My Lords, I, too, hesitate to intervene at this late hour. I apologise. I shall keep my remarks brief. This is an important debate. The real issue is being obscured by the smoke. The real issue is intolerance of minorities' views. We owe a great debt to my noble friend Lord Aldington and to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, for putting forward such a robust defence. I hope that the Government will take due note of it. A real issue exists. My noble friend made some remarks about smoking. I am not sure that he is right. It is true that cigarettes are a known and proven danger. It is not true of tobacco in general; it is not true of cigars; it is not true of pipes. Nothing is as yet proven.
My worry arises from the emotional issue. We are entering into an era of intolerance of views of minorities. I have known North America and Canada for a long time. I have great admiration for them, but we are in great danger of imitating American emotional extremism. That worries me. It is not just on this issue, but it is predominant on this issue at the moment. It is high time that it stopped.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, said a great deal about aircraft. I agree with him. I make a further point. During the rush hour there are six aeroplanes an hour to Paris. Why cannot one of them be a smoking aeroplane? Why cannot the 747 on the Hong Kong route, which has an upper deck with a separate air conditioning system, allow smoking? It used to do so. Why can one have cigarettes but not pipes, when pipes are much better for one? It is only seven or eight years ago that cigar smoking was stopped on Concorde.
We have this issue out of balance. The issue is not smoking. Let us not be blinded by the smoke. The real issue is whether we are prepared to become one of the intolerant nations of this world and let extremism and emotionalism override our common sense and our sense of fairness. I am not. I thank my noble friend Lord Aldington and the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, for raising this subject.
10.3 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, initiated this interesting debate, which has given rise to a number of interesting revelations: for example, the outstanding modesty of my noble friend Lord Stoddart, who has no vices. I can think of one, but
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I shall not go into it now. A certain amount of anti-Americanism has also just crept into the debate. I regret one thing: the gap has been used extensively. In my view, that is not consistent with the best procedures of the House because there has been ample opportunity for names to be put down for the debate. That is how debates should be conducted, in my respectful submission. Some of the speeches in the gap, interesting though they were, went beyond what is normally acceptable, which is not more than two minutes.
The case for the majority must not be overlooked. Therefore the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, is deserving of further consideration. The debate has been supported by a number of your Lordships who have taken the point about civil liberties. There is a civil liberty attaching to people who are forced, frequently, to enter areas which are uncongenial to them. If one needs to get somewhere on an aircraft and there is no space other than in the smoking section, that is pretty unpleasant if one does not like smoking and if one also finds passive smoking unacceptable. I do not accept that the division that exists is adequate to protect a person from that mischief.
A number of your Lordships recited anecdotes. I suppose that that is reasonable in this House because we are in or approaching our "anecdotage". I should like to tell noble Lords a story which affected me and which might have a moral in it for smokers or for those who support smoking as depicted in the debate. When I was a member of the Commission I flew to Dacca. I flew first-class because it is a long way and because the Commission does that kind of thing—but so do Ministers. The steward asked me whether I would mind if someone took the seat next to me and smoked. I said, "I am sorry. I have an objection to that, particularly during a period of some five-and-a-half hours". He went away saying that that was perfectly understandable. He later came back to me and asked whether I would mind if that gentleman changed seats with a young lady and she came to sit next to me. It so happened that the young lady was a French film actress called Natalie Baye. So it can be rewarding not to engage in smoking.
I believe that those noble Lords who have argued the case have made too much of it. Many of the services about which we have spoken are frequently crowded. We know that one of the problems of Network SouthEast—without going into the arguments about the railway system—is that it is frequently overcrowded. It is an imposition, in particular on short distances, that those who are running the railway should not have the right to say, "No, we are not going to allow smoking", or, "We shall provide a separate compartment". I accept segregation on the railways but I should not accept it elsewhere; for instance, in theatres, cinemas or on short flights. People who operate those services are right to make their commercial judgments about such issues and to invest the element of health into that judgment. But I suppose that when it comes to the railways there is a case for segregation.
One must look at the commercial viability of that. It is not for Members of your Lordships' House to dictate to British Rail or to anyone else the commercial viability of their operations in that regard. If it is

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practicable to have such a wholly segregated service and to provide one coach for smokers, it is equally right that there should be additional compensation for nonsmokers. As a result of their circumstances they may be required to seek such accommodation on the train as they can—
Lord Aldington: My Lords, I do not believe that the noble Lord has read my Motion. It does not refer to short journeys but specifically to,
"outer suburban and long distance services".
The Motion deliberately refers to the abandonment of smoking compartments, which have existed for 100 years. It is not a question of striving to do anything new but of retaining what was.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I am not the only Member to have strayed from the exact terms of the noble Lord's Motion. Like my noble friend Lord Stoddart, the noble Lord is most modest and virtuous about the matter. But other Members have trespassed in this way. The point that I made in relation to segregation, in particular on long distance journeys, is the one that I stand by.
It has been said that the Government have an overall duty to intervene in such a matter. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, placed a rather naive faith in the Citizen's Charter. Well, there are many of us who could have told him that such naivety is not to be practised, any more than smoking is, in certain places. I believe that the Government would be very unwise to intervene so far as concerns British Rail. If BR takes account of what noble Lords have said, then that will be a good thing and something to which I would not object, subject to the point. I made earlier.
As regards the future of British Rail as a whole, it seems to me that the question of smoking was never raised, although privatisation was mentioned by one speaker. I suppose that it is feasible for all smokers to get together to form an organisation that could tender for a franchise. They could then have all the smoking in the world that they wanted. I believe that the Government would welcome that development because they would at least receive one application for a franchise, whereas at present they stand a pretty good chance of receiving none. So perhaps it is a good idea.
I do not want to go into the matter in any great detail. However, my noble friend Lord Howell said that it was wrong to impose a restriction on what is a lawful activity. Well, it is a perfectly lawful activity to commit suicide these days, although that used not to be the case; indeed, it used to be a criminal offence. I suppose that that gets to the nub of the argument: they want to commit suicide.
10.12 p.m.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I have listened very carefully to the debate which seems to have attracted a flush of last-minute interest. It is clear that the Question arouses strong feeling. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Aldington has raised the matter on a number of occasions in the past. However, he will not be very surprised to know that the position of Her Majesty's Government has not changed. The provision of smoking
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accommodation on trains is for British Rail to decide. It would not be appropriate for Ministers to intervene in what is a commercial matter for BR.
It may be helpful to noble Lords if I explain the background to the smoking ban. British Rail decided to ban smoking on Network SouthEast inner-suburban services in 1990. The decision was made on three grounds. First, market research showed that a declining number of passengers wished to travel in smoking compartments. Secondly, the ban was intended to reduce overcrowding in non-smoking compartments, as research showed that non-smokers often chose to stand rather than take a seat in a smoking compartment. Thirdly, the ban was expected to reduce the cost of cleaning trains and improve the cleanliness of trains generally.
The response to the ban was positive. Before the ban was introduced in 1990, some 55 per cent. of passengers were in favour. A survey in August 1992 showed that not only had that figure increased significantly, with 76 per cent. of all passengers in favour, but that over half of those passengers who smoke supported the ban. That increase was believed to be because of the improved cleanliness of the trains in general. Relieved of the need to spend so much time scnibbing smoking compartments, cleaners were able to spend equal time on every carriage, resulting in a considerable improvement in the travelling environment for all passengers.
The survey also explored passengers' attitudes to the possible extension of restrictions on smoking: 55 per cent. of all passengers questioned were in favour of a complete ban on Network SouthEast, while a further significant proportion were not opposed to a complete ban. Given the encouraging results of the research and the very positive response to the existing ban, Network SouthEast decided to proceed with a no-smoking policy on most of its services, The ban was phased in during the first half of this year.
We are satisfied that the research does suggest significant support for the extension of the ban. I know that my noble friend Lord Aldington disputes, that fact, and I am aware that he has corresponded with my noble friend Lord Caithness on the matter. However, I do not believe that there is anything I can add tonight on the subject of those figures.
British Rail recognises that it would not be appropriate to ban smoking on very long distance journeys. That is why smoking is still allowed on the long distance services provided by the south western division of Network SouthEast. My noble friend Lord Aldington will also be pleased to note that British Rail has no plans to extend the smoking ban to InterCity services, although they too have reduced their provision of smoking accommodation in line with passenger demand.
My noble friend Lord Aldington and the noble Lords, Lord Stoddart of Swindon and Lord Harris of High Cross, all asked whether the Network SouthEast smoking ban is contrary to the Passenger's Charter. The Passenger's Charter commits British Rail to greater responsiveness to the demands of passengers. As the

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majority of passengers support the smoking ban, we do not see that this is inconsistent with the aims of the charter.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, the Minister cannot get away with that. The Passenger's Charter asks British Rail to respond to the needs of passengers. It does not state that BR should respond to the wishes of a majority of passengers: it states that BR should respond to the needs of passengers. That means that BR should respond to the needs of smokers as well as non-smokers. That is what the Citizen's Charter ought to be about. I sincerely hope that the noble Viscount is not saying that British Rail, and indeed every other service, must be governed at any particular time according to what the majority of people say at any given time about anything.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the charter commits British Rail to greater responsiveness to passengers in general. That is the situation. As the majority of passengers support the smoking ban, as I mentioned, we do not see that this is inconsistent with the aims of the charter.
Lord Aldington: My Lords, I am sure my noble friend does not wish to mislead the House. I know it worries him to hear this bandying about of statistics. It worries me also. He has referred to the statistic concerning people's reactions to the existing proposed ban. He says that 55 per cent. were overwhelmingly in favour of completing it. If he will kindly look at the breakdown of the statistics, he will find that 41 per cent. were completely in favour and only 14 per cent. were slightly in favour. Will he stop bandying these figures about as if they showed that people were decisively in favour of the outrageous action of the managing director?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the decision is of course a commercial one for British Rail. It is British Rail's interpretation of those statistics which is important. All respondents from banned stations were asked about their reaction to the ban and the results showed that 55 per cent. were in favour of it. The interpretation of the figures is for British Rail.
Noble Lords: No.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, it is.
Lord Aldington: My Lords, is my noble friend saying that I am misleading the House by reading out the statistics? I do not like being accused of falsifying statements to the House.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I in no way accused my noble friend of falsifying any statements to the House. I merely said that we are presented with a set of statistics and different people and different organisations have adopted different interpretations of those statistics. I might add that there are three instances where the figure of 55 per cent. appears and perhaps that accounts for some of the confusion.
Lord Aldington: My Lords, it does not.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, it does. Perhaps I can take up my speech from where I left off. One of the key aims of the charter is to provide clean stations and clean trains. I am sure that my noble friend will agree that the smoking ban is an important factor in improving cleanliness on trains. A further aspect of the charter is consideration of customer complaints.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, the Minister is saying that to ban smoking makes trains, platforms or stations cleaner. But does he not realise that they would be cleaner still if one banned all eating and drinking on trains? Indeed there would be greater cleanliness and greater saving from doing that than from banning smoking. Is the logic now that British Rail will ban all eating and drinking on trains in the interests of cleanliness?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, it is an indisputable fact that smoking compartments impose an extra cleaning burden.
I am sure that if passengers had reacted badly to the ban British Rail would have had cause to reconsider its position, if only because it does not wish to lose business. We suspect that the ban remains because very few passengers have objected.
The noble Lord, Lord Howell, mentioned that there is a right to smoke. We do not believe that there is an automatic right to smoke. As with many other activities, it is expected that people who visit properties which belong to others will respect the wishes of those who own or operate those premises. No one would suggest that there was a right to smoke on commercial premises where one was requested not to do so. One would respect the right of the businesses concerned to determine their policies on these matters. Although British Rail is currently a publicly-owned organisation, it is run on a commercial basis and it should behave accordingly.
For the future it will be for individual franchisees to decide whether to provide smoking accommodation on trains. Clearly the Government would not seek to dictate to such companies what their policies should be in this area. They will decide on a commercial basis, taking full account of the wishes of their customers.
British Rail's decision to ban smoking on most Network SouthEast services also reflects similar moves by other public transport operators, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis. Smoking is banned completely on London Underground, although clearly there are special safety reasons why that should be the case. However, smoking is also banned on London buses, National Express coaches and many local bus services in response to commercial considerations. There is no smoking on British Airways domestic flights or flights to European destinations under 90 minutes. Smoking is banned completely on domestic flights in Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, Sweden, most of the USA and a number of other countries. Bans are also becoming increasingly common on international flights. British Rail therefore cannot be accused of being out of step with other transport operators.
Although British Rail may have other reasons for banning smoking, I should take up the points raised by

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my noble friend Lord McColl in reminding the House of the impact that smoking has on health. Smoking kills over 110,000 people a year, one in six of all deaths.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for giving way. Do all those 110,000 people who die from smoking-related diseases smoke?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I seek merely to draw to the attention of the House the undisputed fact that smoking has very serious associated health problems. Those people who are expert in the matter believe that smoking kills more than 110,000 people a year. I am not a doctor, so I will not argue the point with the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. However, it has been estimated that the cost to the National Health Service is up to £325 million annually and the cost to industry and businesses is some 50 million working days lost each year.
The Government are therefore committed to reducing the prevalence of cigarette smoking. The Health of the Nation White Paper set a target of 80 per cent. of public places being covered by effective no-smoking policies
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by 1994. The Network SouthEast ban is fully consistent with that target and is evidence of the good progress which is being made by voluntary means. However, the White Paper states that the Government should consider legislation on smoking in public places if that progress does not continue.
The by-law which permits British Rail to ban smoking has been in existence for many years. No amendment to that by-law was necessary to apply a complete ban on smoking on some trains. As my noble friend may be aware, the Government have no powers to alter a by-law already made by British Rail. However, I have made it clear that even if we had that power we would not exercise it in order to rescind the ban on smoking on Network SouthEast.
We sympathise with the views of those Members of your Lordships' House who wish to protect the interests of smokers. However, we feel that British Rail is right to listen to the majority of their passengers and to act accordingly.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past ten o'clock.