Lords Sitting of 15 February 1993

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

Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
Lord Molloy Lord Molloy asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, and to what extent, they are maintaining liaison with the Government of the USA regarding threats to the safety of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, particularly from Iraq.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey): My Lords, we are in close touch with the US Administration about all issues of international security, including the Gulf. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister will be discussing such issues during his forthcoming visit to Washington.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that encouraging reply. Is she aware that the allies—that is, the Americans, the British and the French—have been compelled yet again to punish Saddam Hussein, as he has completely ignored United Nations resolutions? He has also behaved in an appalling manner to his own people in Iraq. Should we not now seek strong support within the United Nations from other nations as well as the allies to ensure that this dictator does not literally get away with mass murder?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am well aware of the tremendous damage that Saddam Hussein has perpetrated on his own people in Iraq. I should make it clear beyond peradventure that the Iraqi regime could ease the suffering of the Iraqi people by immediately agreeing to implement United Nations Security Council Resolutions Nos. 706 and 712 which specifically permit Iraq to export oil in return for humanitarian supplies. I can only conclude that the Iraqi regime will not do that because it does not care about the Iraqi people.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is it not a fact that, so long as Saddam Hussein remains in power, it will be necessary for ourselves, the United States and others to make it quite clear that any move against either Kuwait or Saudi Arabia will be met with full military resistance?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, that is exactly what we have sought to show the leaders of Iraq in recent events. The way in which the Iraqis have behaved as regards the Kuwaiti border and the difficulties that they are causing the Kurds in the north and the Shias in the south make it clear that we must remain ready and vigilant and that we must ensure that the Government of Iraq comply with United
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Nations Security Council resolutions. If that does not occur, we must take action to ensure that Iraq complies with those resolutions.
Lord Wyatt of Weeford: My Lords, does the noble Baroness recall that the previous time Iraq invaded Kuwait the British ambassador was on holiday and the staff in the Foreign Office were asleep, as they were confident that nothing was about to happen? That occurred when Iraq had massed troops on the border some three weeks before and had declared that it was about to invade Kuwait any day. If the staff in the Foreign Office had not been asleep, the whole ghastly matter might have been avoided, for we could have sent troops in time to avoid it, as we did once before when Iraq made similar threats.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I hope that it will be rare for me to use my following words in this House. I believe that what the noble Lord has just said is a travesty of the truth. I have known staff in the Foreign Office over many years and they were certainly in no way unprepared for the events that occurred in the Gulf. However, it is not as simple as the noble Lord makes out to react in those circumstances when one needs the full backing of the Security Council to do so.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, does the Minister accept that more than ever the activities of Saddam Hussein justify this Government being ready and prepared for action and having adequate armed forces?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, we are and shall be prepared. We have no intention of letting Saddam Hussein get away with any of his exploits.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that when the six-month period concerning the 36th Parallel and the 32nd Parallel is due to be renewed—it is the only protection that the Kurds in the north and the Shias in the south have —this Government will renew it?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, it is our intention so to do. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, for all he has done to push the case of the people of Iraq during these difficult years.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, will the noble Baroness confirm that it remains an essential component of United Kingdom policy to enforce Security Council Resolutions 706 and 707, to which she referred, and Resolutions 687 and 688, and also to ensure Security Council support for any other steps which may prove necessary? Can she say when the Security Council is likely to meet next to consider the issue?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I have four pages of Security Council resolutions here on the subject of Iraq and Kuwait. We shall continue to work in support of all those resolutions. We have supported them in the past and will do so again. I am told that discussions are held every week, but I cannot tell the

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noble Lord when the matter may formally arise again on the Security Council agenda. I shall seek to find out and let him know.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, the noble Baroness mentioned the appalling suffering of the Kurds and Shi'ites in Iraq. Is she also aware that Saddam has prevented any form of international aid entering his country? For those reasons alone ought we not to take advantage of United Nations Resolution 668 which provides that, where it is thought that a government are behaving horrendously towards their own people, the UN may order intervention by other countries which may be prepared so to do? We have done that once, and we did a very good job, but in my judgment we failed because we did not go all the way through, see Saddam off and arrest him to stand international trial. Does the noble Baroness not consider that that resolution would help all those involved, both our own allies and the people of Iraq?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord may have twisted the numbers around. He may have meant Resolution 686 or perhaps Resolution 688. That is not important. The point is that we shall do our very best at all times to make sure that the repression of the civilian population is ameliorated by that aid which we continue to get through. I very much hope that the memorandum of understanding, which expires in March, will be renewed, but it can only be renewed provided that reasonable conditions apply.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, in the light of her welcome reassurance that we shall not allow Saddam Hussein to get away with anything, will the Minister tell the House what action the Government propose to take against a government which openly use two British citizens held in Iraqi jails as instruments of diplomatic blackmail?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, having met Mrs. Ride and Mrs. Wainwright only last night, I am only too well aware of what they are suffering and the way in which, not for the first time, Saddam Hussein is prepared to treat any foreigner who comes from a country he dislikes and is determined to fight. The situation is difficult. Saddam Hussein has sought to make us provide assistance when, simply by agreeing to the implementation of Resolutions 706 and 712, Iraq could have all the humanitarian supplies it needs in return for permission to export its oil.

NHS Trusts: Financial Problems
2.46 p.m.
Baroness Jay of Paddington Baroness Jay of Paddington asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the financial problems currently preventing elective surgery and other treatment in many trust hospitals is due to a failure of management in these hospitals, and how they intend to remedy the situation.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, in the new National Health Service more patients are being treated than ever before and long waiting times are falling. That is to the credit of both managers and clinical staff. Some hospitals have, however, completed their elective work earlier than planned. That has left them with spare capacity which they are looking to purchasers to fill. It is an issue we are addressing for future years, but overall the results for patients have been good. Many more have received their treatment earlier than would otherwise have been the case.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her reply. However, is she aware that there is growing concern about the situation, which seems to show that even the very highly paid new executives in trust hospitals cannot sort the system out? Is she further aware that the present situation seems to reveal basic flaws in the mechanism of the internal market and probably at the bottom basic under-funding of the service as a whole?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, never before has the National Health Service received so much funding. The Government have provided more than £1 billion extra for health services in England next year, a real increase of 3 per cent. over our original plans. Spending is at record levels. The noble Baroness suggested that perhaps managers are at fault. Never before have we had such a quiet winter. It is amazing that the health service is seeing more and more patients, waiting lists are going down and productivity is better than ever before.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, can my noble friend let me into a secret and tell me what elective surgery is? Is it a form of democracy, or is one allowed to choose for oneself?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, there is an element of choice in that one can choose the consultant one wishes to see. Elective surgery is surgery which is not emergency surgery and can be carried out within a period of time.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, will the noble Baroness comment on the fact that before the election the numbers on the waiting list were consistently falling whereas since the election they have consistently increased and have now reached an all-time record level? Secondly, can she comment on the fact that an additional 18,000 people have been appointed to managerial posts since the reorganisation of the health service and the introduction of trusts?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the waiting lists have never been lower in terms of those who have been waiting for over a year. In 1992 the number of patients waiting over a year fell by a remarkable 45 per cent. The number of patients waiting over a year at the end of December was the lowest figure ever recorded. It is not the number of patients on the waiting list which matters; it is the length of time they have to wait. The Government took the decision to reduce the numbers

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of people waiting over two years—and now there are none—and to reduce the number waiting over one year. As I have said, the record has never been better.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, since the noble Baroness clearly will not tell us voluntarily, I shall ask the question. How many people are now waiting under a year compared with last year?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the number of people waiting over a year—
Noble Lords: Under a year!
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am sorry. The number of people waiting under a year is 904,323.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the impressive fact about the trusts is that they have already treated more patients in this financial year than the hospitals did last year before they became trusts? Does she further agree that as the health service treats more and more patients on an elective basis, the number of people waiting for an appointment for their elective operations will naturally increase? The important factor is that the period that they wait is decreasing; and that is the aim that the Government are achieving currently.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely correct. In the first 12 months of the reforms the number of patients treated in the NHS increased by 7.2 per cent. In NHS trusts the increase was 8.2 per cent. That is a remarkable record.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, will the noble Baroness consider the efficiency of the management of the West Midlands Regional Health Authority? Reorganisation was planned 10 years ago. Those plans have not yet been put into operation. Will she ensure that the new management which will take over, and others involved, will consult the citizens of Birmingham with the utmost speed on what is required in the area?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am delighted to answer the noble Baroness's first question, yes. In answer to her second question, she will be aware that the plans are being reviewed at present.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, can the noble Baroness tell us the proportion of total expenditure on management and administrative staff in hospitals before and after trust status?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I do not have those figures with me. However, NHS management accounts for less than 1.8 per cent. of the NHS workforce. The ratio of clinical to support staff has never been higher. But over a quarter of administrative and clerical staff work in direct support of clinicians. That is a factor of which we are very proud.
Lord Hayhoe: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that attacks about managements in trust hospitals, or indeed elsewhere in the National Health Service, are grossly misjudged? Any reasonable
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assessment of their contribution indicates that they ensure a more cost-effective use of the inevitably limited resources available for our health service.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, my noble friend is quite correct. He will be aware that only three or four years ago the Government requested Sir Roy Griffiths, then managing director of Sainsbury's, specifically to review the management of the National Health Service. He was astounded at the lack of management, the poor management and the need to strengthen it. We are determined to get every penny out of every pound spent in the National Health Service. That requires managers to do a good and thorough job.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, will the Minister elucidate on "over-performance on contracts" which seems to be the expression that guides managers at present? Over-performance on contracts seems to be another way of referring to reduction in services or cutbacks.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, that is not the case. Over-performance is when a trust sees and treats more patients than it is contracted to do. Many trusts are doing that. They are squeezing their budgets as tightly as they can in order to treat more patients. However, we expect every trust and every directly managed unit to live within its means.
Lord Desai: My Lords, the noble Baroness referred to the "new National Health Service". Is she aware that according to articles in yesterday's newspapers patients do not have the same confidence in the National Health Service's ability to treat them that they had six months ago? I refer to an article on cancer patients. Is she further aware that fund-holding GPs are not using the full amount of money and are therefore not treating as many patients as they could because there is an incentive for them to save money and to plough it back into the practice? Is that good management?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am surprised at the noble Lord's question. All the surveys that I have seen indicate that the public have greater confidence in the National Health Service. In fact a recent survey by the magazine, Doctor, indicates that the fund-holders reported that they had 70 per cent. cuts in waiting times and over 60 per cent. reported improved services for follow-up appointments. Over 50 per cent. reported improved dealings with consultants and were providing extra services such as physiotherapy. It is hardly surprising that the public are very satisfied with the National Health Service.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, some of us on this side of the House are delighted that the noble Baroness has the courage and the guts to get up and say something nice about the National Health Service.

Armenia: Energy Supplies
2.56 p.m.
The Earl of Shannon The Earl of Shannon asked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they will take to assist in ensuring the supply of energy to Armenia in view of the blowing up of the gas supply line from Russia to Armenia.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, we understand that intermittent supplies have been resumed. But we condemn the further sabotage to the pipeline in recent days. Our ambassador to Armenia recently travelled to Yerevan and discussed the situation with President Ter-Petrossian. Both the EC and the UN Security Council have urged all countries in the region, including Turkey, who are in a position to help, to do so.
The Earl of Shannon: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that reply. Is she aware of the potentially extremely dangerous situation at Medzamor where a nuclear reactor is earthquake damaged? It has been idle since 1988. Owing to lack of energy, Armenia is now unable to use the monitor or control systems for the reactor. Two-thirds of the fuel elements are still in place. The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and the Russian Nuclear Safety Agency have stated that it is stable at present. But it is a real and increasing danger. That is in spite of the fact that the Armenians have sent six stand-by generators in an attempt to keep the cooling system going.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am aware of the Medzamor nuclear power station. It lies on a geological fault line and was switched off after the 1988 earthquake. Armenia does not have the expertise to maintain or operate the plant. It is for that reason that the European Community is funding a safety study of the power station. That will shortly be completed. We hope that the Armenian Government will await the outcome of that and other studies before making any decision. That is the way, we believe, that the safest solution to that important nuclear power station can be achieved.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that the Armenian people, who over the past decade have suffered appallingly, now face another terrible threat. The Minister has explained the technical aspects. Should we not put pressure on the Security Council to ensure that they are put into operation as swiftly as possible?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, we are well aware of the suffering of Armenian and Azerbaijani people in that region. My noble friend Lady Cox, who has done much to help the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, supplies me regularly with up-to-date information. I am pleased to confirm a further £200,000 for the ICRC and UN emergency appeals in Armenia.
While we see a process through the UN as being important, I believe that the CSCE process and the efforts of Signor Raffaelli to bring the parties together
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need greater support. We have urged the parties to agree to a ceasefire to demonstrate their willingness to compromise, which is necessary for a solution. There is, frankly, nothing to be gained from switching talks to another forum.
Lord Elton: My Lords, does my noble friend regard the sabotage as part of the Azerbaijani blockade of that country? If so, what response have the Azerbaijanis given to the motion of the European Parliament calling on them to raise the blockade? Will she further state whether the blockade is a critical factor in the appalling strangulation in Nagorno-Karabakh?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, my noble friend has asked me a number of linked questions. Certainly, the Azeris have sought to blockade Armenia in a number of ways. They have caused great problems in Nakichevan which is a part of Azerbaijan separated from the rest of the country by southern Armenia. We know that without confidence-building measures there will be no solution to the situation. Those measures should obviously include the lifting of the economic blockades. However, we are concerned that there has as yet been no positive response by the Azeris. Until there is, it will be difficult to continue to help the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to the degree we believe they deserve.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the noble Baroness mentioned funding by the European Commission for assistance. Will she inform the House of the amount of funding incorporated in the 1993 draft budget adopted by the Community, together with the article title and item number which refer to that expenditure?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I regret very much that without notice of that question I cannot answer the noble Lord, but I shall write to him.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the incident demonstrates the vulnerability of using gas as a source of power supply? On that basis, will she press her colleague, the President of the Board of Trade, to maximise the use of coal for British power supplies instead of gas?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, the two cases have nothing in common. The safety of any power station is what counts.
Viscount Brentford: My Lords, will my noble friend expand on her earlier Answer and say what efforts the CSCE is making at the moment in broking peace between the Azeris and Armenians? Can she also say whether any progress is being made by the WCC in its efforts to bring together the head of the Armenian Church and the Azeri Moslems?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, Signor Raffaelli, who has been appointed by the CSCE, makes continual efforts to bring the parties together. As concerns the WCC, I cannot give the noble Lord an answer but I shall write to him.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, can the noble Baroness confirm the reports that Turkey and Greece are pursuing their mutual feud by supplying armaments to the respective sides? If so, can she say what steps are being taken to dissuade them?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: No, my Lords, I cannot.

Local Authorities: Capital Receipts
3.2 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick asked Her Majesty's Government:
How much of the £1.75 billion in capital receipts estimated by them to be made available to local authorities as a result of the Autumn Statement will be wiped out through clawbacks and redistribution.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, local authorities are free to spend the estimated £1.75 billion of extra usable capital receipts as they choose and are not required to repay any of them to the Exchequer as a result of the measure.
The distribution of basic credit approval takes some account of authorities' estimated usable receipts, but this does not reduce the total of central government support for their capital programmes.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply because it gives me some hope. Does he agree that when this subject was dealt with by the Chancellor in the Autumn Statement it gave a fragile hope to the building industry, which has already been devastated? Will the Minister also agree that if Mr. Portillo takes his scalpel to the £1.75 billion he may just about ruin the building industry for all time?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, we have no intention of ruining the building industry. The noble Lord is right, the Autumn Statement was about giving the building industry confidence and giving local authorities money to spend with that industry.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, will the noble Lord accept that his own department now considers that £700 million of the so-called £1.75 billion will be taken up in place of normal borrowing for housing investment programme allocations? Further, is he aware that £56 million will be taken up in supplying the shortfall in renovation grants which the Government have cut? Therefore, even if the £1.75 billion is achieved and, of that, £1 billion is left, to participate in the capital partnership programmes which the department has announced will require further sums. Even if that doubtful target is achieved, how much will be left for building new houses?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I find it extraordinary that noble Lords opposite believe that the announcement that we made in the Autumn Statement was some sort of financial trickery, some sleight of hand by the Government. In my original Answer, I explained that local authorities could choose how to spend that
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money provided it is on capital expenditure. Whether they spend it on new houses or other projects is entirely up to them.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, will the noble Lord accept that it is not noble Lords from these Benches who called it "some sort of trickery"? The leader of Nottingham District Council said that it was a con, a cosmetic public relations exercise.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I do not believe that £1.75 billion is a con at all. It is a valuable contribution that is being made to the building industry and one that most responsible local authorities are taking up.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, can the noble Lord give an estimate as to how many new houses will be built and how many workers will be put back into employment?
Lord Strathclyde: No, my Lords, that depends on how the money is spent.

Business
3.6 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lady Chalker will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on Maastricht.

Housing and Urban Development Bill
Brought from the Commons on Friday last and printed pursuant to Standing Order 48; read a first time.

Video Recordings Bill [H.L.]
Lord Birkett: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Birkett.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Lord Elton Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 1:
Before Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
("Young persons employed in video hire shops
. After section 3 of the Video Recordings Act 1984 there shall be inserted the following section—
"Young persons employed in video hire shops.
.—(1) A person who carries on a business of supplying video recordings for reward shall not permit any young person to supply in the course of that business any video recording which, by reason of the classification certificate issued in respect of it, is not suitable for viewing by that young person.
(2) A person who contravenes subsection (1) above is guilty of an offence.
(3) In this section "young person" means a person who has not attained the age of eighteen years." ").
The noble Lord said: This Bill is designed to strengthen the Video Recordings Act 1984. I welcome

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the Bill and support the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, in introducing it. I pause here, as the tide in the Chamber goes out in a manner which would have appeased King Cnut, had it happened to him! My noble friend on the Front Bench, Lord Astor, was kind enough to write to me about the amendments which I tabled and which I foreshadowed in my speech on Second Reading. He concluded his letter by hoping that a Private Member's Bill of this sort would not be,
"over-burdened with controversial amendments going far beyond the scope of the 1984 Act".
I say by way of preliminary that I think it is worth remembering that a Bill in this House is not unlike a bus. It has a known destination and carries on board passengers in the form of clauses, all of whom intend to go to the destination on the name board. The destination on the name board on the front of this bus shows that it will go to the Video Recordings Act via the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980. Sitting in the bus already and waiting for it to go are four passengers put there by the noble Lord, Lord Birkett: three going all the way and one getting off in Scotland.
I wish to do nothing to impede their journeys but I notice that there is plenty more room in the bus; room, I hope, for the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, as a passenger whom I shall certainly assist to get on to the platform; and room above for three.
The question is not therefore: is there room for these amendments?—because there is. A Bill can be as long as one wishes and the Committee may have noticed the astonishing thickness of the Bill laid on the Table a moment ago, to be discussed shortly by your Lordships, whereas ours is only three-and-a-half pages long.
Nor is the question whether the provisions are designed to do exactly what we had in mind when we drafted the Bill. That would be like expecting all the passengers in the bus to wear the same clothes and do the same work. The answer to that point is simple and has already been given by accepting the amendments onto the Marshalled List. They fall plumb into the Long Title of the Bill; so there is room for the passengers and they are going to the advertised destination. The real question is: is their journey really necessary? To decide that, we need to look at them individually.
I speak to the first amendment, which deals with the employment of young people under the age of 18. The object of the principal Act is to shelter.society at large from unrestricted availability of video porn and the younger members of that society from video sex and violence of a kind that may be damaging or disturbing to them. That is achieved by a system of licensing certificates and labels with which the Committee is familiar. Members are also familiar with the way in which the labels and certificates declare that certain videos are suitable only for those above a certain age.
Members of the Committee will certainly remember—if not from their own childhood, from the behaviour of their children and grandchildren—the attraction of anything to the young when they are told that they are not old enough for it. I wonder how many in this Chamber smoked their first cigarette as children
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purely and simply to enjoy an experience forbidden to children; and how many would not have suffered the dizzy nausea of the second cigarette were it not for an urgent wish to seem grown up.
In an ironic way the labelling system itself therefore actually increases the pressure on youngsters to see that which it is designed to help prevent them seeing. We have all in our time resisted the clamorous pleas of the young for things meant only for their elders. For us it is a weariness; but for the newly adult it is an agreeable confirmation that they are of age.
I have little anxiety, therefore, about the ability of 18 year-old shop assistants to resist under-age requests for age-restricted videos. But I doubt the wisdom of expecting under-age shop assistants to enforce the rules against the wishes of their peers to see under-age material. Such assistants can at present sell or hire videos of any age rating. It is normal for them to handle over-18 stock for over-18 customers. That is rather as if 16 year-old children were allowed to sell beer or spirits to adults in pubs. I am not certain that a shop stocking over-18 videos is a good place for children of 14, 15, 16 or 17 to be working in at all. But given that that is accepted, I believe we should take steps to prevent them from handling material that the BBFC itself has specifically singled out as unsuitable for viewing by them and their age group.
The pressures upon under-18s from their peers to release the material to them will be enormous, as will be the temptation to view the material themselves and boast about it. They will be under the same pressures as we were to smoke that first and second cigarette. But whereas the cigarette smoked at the age of 10 or 12 is unlikely to cause lasting harm, the effects of an adult video on a 14 or 15 year-old can be both lasting and traumatic. If Members of the Committee have the slightest doubt of that, I ask them to read our debates in 1984 on the present Act and save themselves a long speech from me.
The amendment is designed to assist the implementation of the policies of the BBFC, of which the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, is vice-president. I very much hope that he and Her Majesty's Government will allow the clause to join his four clauses on the legislative bus, on which there is plenty of room. I beg to move.
3.15 p.m.
Lord Birkett: In view of the elaborate metaphor of the bus introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, if I am to be regarded as the conductor on that bus, it seems rather churlish of me not entirely to welcome the noble Lord on board. Although I share with him —as I am sure all Members of the Committee do—the concern about youth and that young people should not be subject to influences from which they are supposed to be protected by the classification system, I very much doubt whether his journey on this amendment is necessary.
It is perfectly true that people under the age of 18 serve in video shops. Such large numbers do so that I suspect that the legislation, if it were passed, would have a very serious effect upon their employment. Three of the biggest chains of video retailers, who

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between them employ 25,000 people, have among that number 10,000 who are under the age of 18—in other words, 40 per cent. I believe, therefore, that, if passed, the amendment would have a draconian effect upon the industry.
Furthermore, a very large number of video outlets are not large chains. They are small corner stores. Sometimes they are more grocery than video shops. But (as I am sure all noble Lords have discovered) they sell videos, or they hire out videos as well. In many cases it is a member of the family who looks after the shop. In those little shops I believe it would be a very serious burden upon the shopkeepers if they had to have available at all times somebody over 18 simply to handle the videos.
It is quite clear that if somebody under the age of 18—or indeed under the age of 15—either sells or gives out for hire a video classified for age 15 or 18 to somebody under that age, whatever age he is, he is committing an offence. Those in charge of the shop should have made sure that he did not do so. I have no evidence—and I have asked around—whether there is indeed the sort of peer pressure to which the noble Lord pointed. Are under-aged children pestered by their friends of the same age to supply videos below the proper age? I can find no evidence of it at all.
Lastly, although I understand the noble Lord's metaphor when he says that a bus is big enough to take anything on board, this bus was intended to be a measure about enforcement. It was meant to make sure that the enforcement of an Act, which, I believe, is generally regarded as sensible all round, was made more streamlined, more effective and more cost-effective. The noble Lord's amendments will add to the regulations involved which the Bill otherwise does not do. Therefore they will create new potential offences. I doubt whether that bus is the right one to climb on for that purpose. In view of all those points, I hope that the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his amendment.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I need say only once that our position on Private Members' Bills is that they are a matter for individual judgment and conscience. Therefore what I say from the Dispatch Box is said for myself rather than for my noble friends.
I will make one point in favour of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, followed by one or two points against what he is arguing. The first point certainly is that he is correct—the Bill is not long; it is not complex; it would not be an impossible burden in legislative terms to extend it. Having said that, the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, may be well advised to resist the amendment, even if only on the grounds that the Bill is a streamlining measure and that to add new regulation would complicate the issue.
But when we come to the substance of the amendment, I am bound to say that I do not see any evidence that the evil of which the noble Lord complains is likely to take place, or any reason why video recordings should be singled out in that way. It is not against the law for young people under the age of 18 to serve in grocery shops, newsagents, confectioners, tobacconists and so on. One of the peculiarities of videos is that one cannot be corrupted
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by what is inside the case; whereas if one has a book or a magazine, if corruption were around, it could be obtained by opening the book or magazine. So videos are peculiarly safe from casual handling, if I may put it that way. I would have thought that the noble Lord is proposing an unnecessary complication, and an unnecessary regulation, for which he has not produced any adequate evidence. I hope that the Government, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, will resist the amendment.
Baroness Nicol: I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, will not feel obliged to press the amendment. Although I have the greatest sympathy with much of what he said, this is the wrong place and the wrong time to raise it. If we are to accept a measure which would have the effect of causing severe unemployment among a group of young people who are desperately in need of jobs, then a great deal more consultation would need to take place as to what the exact effect would be—we are not at all sure of that—not only with the retailers concerned, but also with youth employment personnel in the areas which are likely to be effected.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, that it is an unfortunate time to put forward the amendment. I hope that the noble Lord will not press it. It may prejudice any future attempt to achieve the same objective. I do not doubt the noble Lord's integrity, nor the validity of what he says in regard to the effect that videos have on young people. I feel, however, that Amendment No. 1 is unnecessary and will not achieve what he hopes.
Viscount Brentford: I support Amendment No. 1. However, I am not sure whether what is proposed is the right way to go about it. The noble Lord may wish to withdraw the amendment and reflect upon it. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, said in that regard.
My concern, which is well brought out by the amendment, is the fact that the 16 or 17 year-old working in a video shop is encouraged to see all the videos on sale. From my understanding and from what I have been told by teenagers, that is the policy of owners and managers of video shops. One must see what one is selling in order to be a good salesman, to enable one to push the videos. I am worried that the youngsters will need to see the videos while acting as salesmen, whether to other under age people or adults. I therefore support the principle of the amendment.
Viscount Astor: In regard to the bus analogy, I am not sure whether I am the bus inspector, the driver's assistant or indeed the apprentice mechanic—or a little of all three. I can add little to what the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, said. The Government are not persuaded that the amendment of my noble friend is necessary to meet any real need or remedy any real weakness in the way that the Video Recordings Act operates. Many small businesses supply videos as a sideline—for instance, in a grocer's shop. If they had to ensure that there was always someone on the premises who was at least 18 years of age that could drive them out of the video trade altogether. Even

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large national chains employ young people. Amendment No. 1 would prevent such staff being used flexibly.
In short, the amendment would create serious practical difficulties for a range of businesses at a time when the Government are anxious that commerce should not be encumbered with red tape of doubtful value. There is a comparison with the law relating to the sale of alcohol. Shop assistants under the age of 18 are permitted to make off-licence sales of alcohol provided they do so under supervision, whereas the amendment would completely outlaw such sales in respect of age-restricted video recordings. The restriction on the sale of alcohol is also easier to obey and to enforce than the amendment would be because it relates clearly to one age and not to a range of age classifications. It also reflects the fact that young people should not be in a position where they may be tempted to assist in the offences of others since, unlike the situation with video recordings, it is also an offence to attempt to buy alcohol under age.
The Earl of Longford: Perhaps I can ask the noble Viscount a question. He said that young people under the age of 18 are allowed to sell alcohol provided they are supervised. Thinking of one of my local shops, young people are often not supervised by anybody except by a character who may be under suspicion.
Viscount Astor: I cannot answer the noble Earl's question in regard to the shop from which he buys his alcohol. My point is that the amendment would make it more complicated for shops. With that explanation I hope that my noble friend will agree to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Elton: One takes a little time to absorb the variety of arguments put forward. My immediate reaction is to say that I was anxious that a number of young people might not only be at risk themselves but also that they might place others at risk through being required to handle and distribute material which was thought to be harmful to themselves and others of their age. The first reassuring comment of the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, was that there were no less than 10,000 people at risk in that respect. That is not something which encourages me to relax my anxiety. I shall return to the question of evidence in a moment.
The noble Lord's next point was that the Bill was about enforcement. In strictly parliamentary terms, whether it is a Private or a Public Bill, a Bill is about whatever the Long Title says. In this instance the Long Title states that it is,
"An Act to amend the Video Recordings Act 1984",
and so forth. That is no more and no less than what I am proposing.
The noble Lord said that there would be an addition to the regulations that apply to the industry. That I accept. But is that a necessary and worthwhile burden?
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, pointed out that people were safe from casual contamination—if that is a correct description—by the material in a video cassette, which I accept. The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, was kind enough to say that she shared my
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anxiety, but that this was the wrong place and the wrong time because of the desperate need for jobs for young people. That was mentioned also by the noble Lord, Lord Birkett. The analogy is perhaps disproportionate but otherwise just. One would not have advocated continuation of child chimney sweeps before the relevant Acts forced the practice to be abandoned on the grounds that there was massive unemployment at the time. This is a lesser threat, and therefore I do not press the analogy. However, the principle is clear. One fits the law to the circumstance. If the circumstance is that it is a threat to young people, then one should not make a greater exposure of them to that threat at the price of increasing the number of jobs.
It comes back to the question of the scales. I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, said. We need evidence of a considerable number of cases. My evidence is circumstantial. I shall withdraw the amendment and hope that the interested bodies following the arguments in Hansard come forward with the evidence I need to bring it back at Report.
An alternative route would be to require supervision of young people in the shops where they are to handle the material. I can find no reference to that, and it may be acceptable to include a requirement for their supervision by adults rather than to restrict the work that they do by amending the Act. That said, I thank the Committee for its patience and constructive attendance. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Elton Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 2:
Before Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
("Video recordings shown in public places
. After section 3 of the Video Recordings Act 1984 there shall be inserted the following section—
"Video recordings shown in public places.
. If a video recording which is not suitable for viewing by persons who have not attained a particular age is shown in a public place, and any person under the age sees the video recording, or any part of it, in the public place, then the person responsible for the showing of that video recording is guilty of an offence." ").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 2 relates to the showing of videos in public places. I tabled the amendment to address the known evil of the showing of entirely unsuitable material to very young people. At present an adult can hire or purchase a video of any classification. Once he has done so, what he does with it ceases to be the concern of the existing Video Recordings Act. While the composition of audiences in private and domestic premises must be the concern of the people who live there, there is an anomaly in setting up the whole paraphernalia of certification and then turning a blind eye to what happens to the material in public. After all, the Act is designed to protect the public.
That is a matter with which the BBFC is concerned. Indeed, as early as in its 1986 report it drew attention to it. Paragraph 65 of the report states,
"A recurrent problem considered at meetings of the council was that of unsuitable videos being shown in captive situations with children present, such venues including long-distance coaches, hotels and restaurants and video shops, where it was currently legal".
The chairman was asked to write to the Minister about the need to tighten up the rules. The Minister, it is recorded in paragraph 66, replied that the matter was already being considered as part of a wider review of the Cinemas Act and suggested that Home Office officials and those on the board should remain closely in touch on these matters.
In 1987, the annual report recorded in paragraph 57:
"The council had asked the board and the Home Office to consider the best means of ensuring that the screening of unsuitable videos to captive audiences in long-distance coaches, restaurants, hotels and the public areas of video shops should be brought under some form of regulation".
There was particular concern that the screening of videos in non-domestic situations should be constrained by audience age, particularly where such screenings fell between the two relevant pieces of legislation. In paragraph 58 it is recorded that,
"with the council's support an undertaking was given by the Home Office to explore the best means of introducing such regulation, perhaps through an amendment to the Cinemas Act 1985".
In the following paragraph Home Office officials said that they would consult both the film and video industries and coach hire firms, hoteliers and so on to see whether legislation was practicable or whether informal self-regulatory arrangements might suffice. I would add that the final sentence of the paragraph deserves attention:
"A caveat was entered by independent members of the council expressing scepticism about how far self regulation could prove effective in areas of profitable commerce".
Some time has elapsed since then. I hope that the noble Lord or the Minister will be able to tell us how we have progressed in producing a framework to control this area. I regret to see that no reference is made to other places of public entertainment such as hired village halls and school halls where again materials which the board is concerned to regulate can be shown without any regard to the regulations. I have particularly in mind a recent occasion when a seven year-old girl went to the showing in a hired hall of a very violent video and was greatly upset by it.
This probing amendment is drafted to suggest one means of preventing a recurrence of that kind of thing. The Minister will doubtless tell us that the Bill is about the supply and not the exhibition of certificated material, and so indeed will the noble Lord, Lord Birkett—and that is absolutely right. But I hope that they will not go on to say that we need not therefore bother about this kind of abuse. If such conduct is a breach of other legislation such as the Cinemas Act, perhaps the Minister can tell us about that. If it is not, perhaps he can tell us in what respect that measure could be amended to bring it within the Act's scope. I beg to move.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Birkett: Here again I fear I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that, although I too share his concern that films totally unsuitable for young people should not be shown in public places where they are more than likely to see them, I doubt whether there is very much abuse at all. The Cinemas Act 1985 defines a film exhibition as an exhibition of moving pictures
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which is produced otherwise than by the simultaneous reception and exhibition of programmes included in a programme service within the meaning of the Broadcasting Act 1990. In other words, anything that is on film, tape or video; anything that is not coming live off a television or radio set. The Cinemas Act requires that premises other than private dwellings which are to be used for such exhibitions must be licensed and it permits local authorities to impose licence conditions, including restrictions on the age of those allowed in.
By and large, there are very few places in which the noble Lord's amendment would really bite. I refer in particular to video shops, which are now very widely spread. I suspect that the Video Standards Council's rules on the subject of what is and what is not shown in a video shop now bite very deeply and that that abuse is more or less non-existent. The noble Lord's next amendment deals specifically with that point so I shall not say any more on the subject at the moment.
It is of course possible to arrange a video showing in circumstances where quite a large number of people are present which is not a public viewing. There are exceptions for exhibitions of films not for gain; that is to say, for private purposes. But since those exemptions also apply to the cinema, it would be a little unfortunate to single out the video industry where such abuses, I suspect, are less likely than they would even be in cinemas.
As far as concerns the general tenor of the Bill, I take the noble Lord's point that if the Long Title of the Bill is,
"An Act to amend the Video Recordings Act",
that is an invitation to amend it in any way you choose. I do not think it quite means an invitation to make all the amendments that occur to you at the time. There are suitable vehicles and unsuitable vehicles. Although I take the noble Lord's point that a bus is by definition big enough to take on lots of passengers, the purpose of a bus and where it is going are quite different. It would be unfortunate if this so far quite tight-knit and, I hope, potentially effective little Bill were encumbered by a vast number of additions which would slow up its progress. It is not so much the size of the bus but the speed and efficiency of it.
Lord Elton: Can my noble friend say in what way that would slow up its progress? It would go through the House in just the same number of days.
Lord Birkett: I was not entirely thinking of its progress through your Lordships' House or through another place. I was simply thinking of the efficacy of implementing it and how difficult or not it would be for those concerned, which is the video industry, to come to terms with it and operate it properly.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am not very keen on this analogy of the bus. However, I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, would agree with me that the real restriction is likely to be parliamentary time in another place; and there the bridge that the bus has to get under is a very low one.
Lord Birkett: I fear that the noble Lord is all too right on that matter. I would not disagree with him for a moment. I am sure that that is true.
I see the purpose of the amendment but I believe that life is a great deal better than it was during the times that the noble Lord was originally referring to. I do not see the necessity for the amendment at this point. I hope that he will agree to withdraw it.
Viscount Astor: The noble Lord, Lord Birkett, has explained that current laws deal with any possible problem that can arise. I refer in particular to the Cinemas Act 1985. One aspect with which he did not deal totally was "public place". Perhaps it would be helpful to the Committee if I say that, if it were possible to show a video work in a public place in circumstances which were outside the scope of the Cinemas Act, such an exhibition would still be subject to the provisions of the Indecent Displays (Control) Act, which makes it a criminal offence to display indecent matter in a public place or where it can be seen from a public place. Such exhibitions would also be subject to the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, which makes it an offence to infringe a copyright owner's right by the unauthorised public exhibition of a film or sound recording.
Perhaps I may also make the point that we have found no evidence that there is any major social mischief being done by this. I quite understand my noble friend's concerns. The only other point I would make to him is purely a technical one. His amendment refers to "a video recording". I suspect that the correct term should be "a video work". That is purely a technical point. I hope my noble friend will see that his point is covered by existing law. We do not see this to be a problem area.
Lord Elton: I am most grateful to my noble friend for that technical point. I shall ensure that amendments when they later appear will be better drafted. I said that this was a probing amendment because in my view the proper destination for this passenger is quite possibly not on this Bill but on a Bill concerning the Cinemas Act. That is borne out by what the Minister has just said and that is what I wanted to extract.
I am not sure that either of the two noble Lords who have spoken are quite up to date with the extent of disquiet and abuse. I understand that there has been a succession of complaints about material shown, particularly, oddly enough, on long-range buses which have an audience of all ages and tend to get very adult material to entertain the passengers. That is an abuse and one which we should take note of.
I should like my noble friend the Minister to consider, between now and Report stage, putting the two Acts together perhaps in the next Session of Parliament. It is possible that unsuitable video material falls between the regulations of this Act and the Cinemas Act. Perhaps he will see whether anything needs to be done to them in respect of each other to ensure that the gap is closed. It would be very helpful if my noble friend were in a position to tell me
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something about that at Report stage. Until then I shall leave the Committee in peace on this matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Elton Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 3:
Before Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
("Videos on view in shops
. After section 3 of the Video Recordings Act 1984 there shall be inserted the following section—
"Videos on view in shops.
.—(1) A person who carries on in any premises a business of supplying video recordings for reward shall not permit the showing on those premises of any video recording, or part thereof, other than one in respect of which a classification certificate has been issued which satisfies the requirements of section 7(2) (a) of this Act.
(2) A person who contravenes subsection (1) of this section is guilty of an offence." ").
The noble Lord said: Again, this amendment is directed at what happens on the premises used for the hire or sale of video recordings. I need not remind the Committee that the principal Act is designed to protect people of tender age from seeing material suitable only for viewing by adults. It does so by requiring that all material be classified, preventing the hire or sale of certain classifications of videos to people under certain ages. Nevertheless, at present video shops are perfectly at liberty to run extracts, continuous loops or advertisements for such videos in premises in which children of any age can come and go without supervision.
That is the provision of the law. I have in my hand a copy of the Video Standards Council code of practice which deals with this matter and which makes it an unacceptable practice. I shall be most grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, would tell us the extent to which the code of practice is observed and the proportion of places where such video material is available and which actually subscribe to the code of practice. Perhaps he could also tell the Committee of the means of dealing with those places when they fail to observe the code of practice. I beg to move.
Lord Birkett: Once again, if there were any evidence of widespread abuse —the noble Lord has asked me very specifically to say how much there is or is not —I would be much in sympathy with the amendment. However, before I deal with that matter perhaps I may point out one rather serious flaw in the amendment as it stands—
Lord Elton: I am not going to press the amendment in its present form. I believe I made it clear that this is a probing amendment to ask the noble Lord to bring forward information, which I hope will be reassuring, so that I need not bring forward the amendment in any form.
Lord Birkett: I shall certainly do that. I was going to point out that there is a category of video which does not require classification at all. They are the most innocuous of all videos—that is to say, covering sport, religion, music and videos designed to inform, educate or instruct. They are exempt from classification. This

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amendment would surely knock them out, which I am sure was not the noble Lord's intention. It is purely a drafting matter.
I have asked those concerned and, as I understand it, the code of practice of the Video Standards Council is widely followed. It is only in the larger shops where there is even the screen facility. I spoke about corner shops when we were dealing with the first amendment. Those premises rarely have a screen flickering away among the groceries. The screens are usually found in the bigger stores. By and large such stores almost invariably respect the code of practice. Very rarely are whole videos shown. They are much more likely to show a trailer from time to time. But trailers have to be certificated as well as videos. The trailer itself must have a classification such as U, PG, 15 or 18. It is possible to have a U trailer for an 18 film; that is, extracts which are in no way objectionable. Therefore, the material is classified as U.
The code of practice which the Video Standards Council recommends, and which is almost invariably followed, means that no under-age material of any sort is shown in the video shop, including trailers. Therefore, I believe that the noble Lord can be reassured that there is no misuse and that children of any age coming into a video shop are unlikely to see unawares any material on a screen which has not been classified either U or PG. Therefore, in those circumstances I believe that the noble Lord will be doing us all a service at this stage if he also withdraws this amendment.
Viscount Astor: Perhaps I may briefly say that video dealers cannot themselves compile trailer tapes for showing in their shops as that would be a breach of copyright, as would be any public exhibition of a whole work. We have looked at this matter and there is no evidence to show anything that is contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, said. Like all the amendments that the noble Lord has spoken to this afternoon, between now and Report we shall look very closely at what he said.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Elton: I am much obliged to my noble friend. If between now and Report stage I receive no evidence against what the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, said I shall not bring back this amendment; but if I do, I shall. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 [Titles to be assigned to video works for identification purposes]:
Lord Birkett Lord Birkett moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 1, line 19, leave out ("reference") and insert ("registration").
The noble Lord said: This is a very tiny but technical amendment. The Committee will recall that the Bill requires that there is a unique title and number given to every video work simply to make the process of providing evidence in the case of prosecutions much easier. At the moment the Bill refers to a reference number, which indeed it is, but the number is effectively the one under which it is registered for
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classification. The word "registration" seems better. Therefore, the phrase reads "a registration number" and not "a reference number". I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Lord Birkett Lord Birkett moved Amendment No. 5:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
General defence to offences under the 1984 Act
(". After section 14 of the Video Recordings Act 1984 there shall be inserted the following section—
"General defence to offences under this Act.
14A. Without prejudice to any defence specified in the preceding provisions of this Act in relation to a particular offence, it is a defence to a charge of committing any offence under this Act to prove—

(a) that the commission of the offence was due to the act or default of a person other than the accused, and

(b) that the accused took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the commission of the offence by any person under his control." ").

The noble Lord said: The Committee will recall that on Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Merlyn-Rees, proposed putting forward an amendment covering the defence of video retailers in a prosecution by the defence of due diligence. The noble Lord cannot be here today for one of the nicest of all possible reasons. He is in Leeds and he has just received the freedom of the City. I hope that the Committee will join me in congratulating him on that happy event.
The amendment now before the Committee is similar but very slightly streamlined and has the advantage of being tailored particularly for the Video Recordings Act rather than simply taken out of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. It is very similar in effect.
The reason why the noble Lord originally proposed such an amendment, and why I have proposed a similar one myself, is because it was discovered that there are certain offences to which innocent video retailers would have no defence. The general defence of taking due diligence to make sure that the proprietors of shops see that all their employees respect the various regulations under which they operate, is hugely important. By producing an extra defence, even that of due diligence, may be seen as in some way weakening the effect of the Act whereas, as I have been saying all along, the aim is to strengthen the regulations and the means of prosecution.
I believe that the amendment will have the opposite effect. The good thing about a due diligence defence is that it places on the retailer an obligation to train his staff to exercise that due diligence and thus avoid offences under the Act. Therefore, it will have a very salutary effect. If due diligence cannot be proved, the defence is inoperative. Consequently, I believe it is a strengthening rather than a weakening measure, and only just where there are certain offences which would not otherwise be covered. I beg to move.
Viscount Astor: The Government have given careful consideration to the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, after the Second Reading proposals of the noble Lord, Lord

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Merlyn-Rees. The Government agree that this amendment is sensible and will not weaken the enforcement of the law. The inclusion of a due diligence defence would remove the possibility of a conviction being unjustly obtained against an employer who has made every effort to avoid the commission of an offence but who is liable because of the actions of one of his staff. As the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, explained, the amendment would not weaken our existing controls on video recordings and could even assist in the operation of those controls by raising dealers' awareness of the provisions of the Video Recordings Act.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal Baroness Fisher of Rednal moved Amendment No. 6:
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:
("Offences due to fault of other person.
.After section 15 of the Video Recordings Act 1984 there shall be inserted the following section—
"Offences due to fault of other person.
15A. Where the commission by any person of an offence under this Act is due to the act of default of some other person that other person shall be guilty of the offence, and a person may be charged with and convicted of the offence by virtue of this section whether or not proceedings are taken against the first-mentioned person." ").
The noble Baroness said: As a vice-president of the Institute of Trading Standards Administration, I am speaking today on behalf of local authority trading standards officers, who very much welcome the aims of the Bill which the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, has put before the House. However, enforcing the Video Recordings Act is but one of the many responsibilities of the officers of the fair trading institutions. I know that there has been long and deep disappointment about the fact that the proper operation of the controls has been hampered by the shortcomings of the original Act.
The noble Lord, Lord Birkett, has already set out the intentions of his Bill and explained how such measures as he proposes will add to the effectiveness of the legislation. I can wholeheartedly support his views knowing only too well the unease that local authorities feel at having to return, say, 390 out of 400 illegal and unclassified video scenes to the retailer because of the exceptionally onerous evidential procedures currently included in the Act.
Equally, the six-month time limit on investigations is a significant hurdle as evidence may not be discovered until some time after the commission of an offence. The one-year limit which has been proposed by the noble Lord would enable investigations to be more thorough. However, it would also place a duty on local authorities not to delay initiating proceedings against suspected offenders. That is entirely right and local authorities will take particular note of it. The courts have made clear that a dim view will be taken of any prevarication by law enforcers when bringing a case to trial. With that safeguard, I am sure that the small extension of the time limit will be welcomed by all.
However, there are two areas in which I believe that the proper and effective operation of the legislation could be improved still further. The first is the current absence of a defence of due diligence which the noble Lord has brought to the attention of the House. I am happy that the suggestions of my noble friend Lord Merlyn-Rees have been taken on board. It seemed unreasonable that a trader who had taken all possible steps to ensure that he had not broken the law was not able to be protected.
My second concern, in respect of which Amendment No. 6 stands in my name, relates to the cumbersome administrative arrangements which the Act imposes upon enforcement authorities. For obvious reasons, local authorities are empowered only within their own administrative areas—in the areas covered by their councils. Crime, however, does not stop at the borders of local authority areas. There may be a spill-over all over the country. Sensibly, therefore, most protective legislation which is enforced by local authority trading standards officers includes a clause which is commonly known as the "bypass". It enables a local authority to take action against the true perpetrator of an offence within its area even if that person is based many miles away. The bypass really means that one authority can investigate an offence from beginning to end.
Perhaps I may explain what I mean by "from beginning to end". It can mean tracing the importer, the manufacturer, the wholesaler, the local distributor, the retailer and finally the consumer. As it is often the consumer who brings the initial complaint to the attention of the trading standards officers, a long supply chain has to be gone through before the original wrongdoer is reached. The bypass should be thought of only as facilitating the existing role of the local authorities. It will not require any authority to expend further resources.
Perhaps I may give an example of how the bypass works. It was recently brought to the attention of trading standards officers in Kent that unsafe hammers were being sold in their area. Eventually, they were traced to a single supplier in Liverpool. The retailer in Kent did his very best to ensure that the hammers were safe. Indeed, he had written assurances about their safety from his wholesaler. Nevertheless, the hammers were found in his possession and in his shop. But why should he be prosecuted when he had taken all the legitimate steps? If we did not have the bypass procedure, prosecuting the retailer would be the only step that Kent trading standards officers could take. However, because of the bypass procedure the trading standards officers could trace the original wrongdoer, who came from the Liverpool area.
That example shows how, because of the bypass, one local authority could trace the supply chain right back until it found the real charlatan—if I may put it like that—that is, the person who had set out to break the law in the first instance. Therefore, the bypass provision allows rapid and effective action. At the same time, the costs of investigation are less because only one authority is following the matter instead of

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the first authority passing it to another and so on, with court cases taking place, until the original wrongdoer is traced.
One obvious case of which many noble Lords are aware—it is discussed in your Lordships' House on many occasions—is that of the car mileage "clocker". Under the trades description legislation, the bypass procedure can be used against the clocker. A garage may be selling a car to somebody—as what I am saying now is causing great hilarity, perhaps I could share in the joke when I have finished. A car dealer may have sold a clocked car to a consumer who has bought it in good faith. The garage, too, might be selling the car in good faith, but we all know that there are auctions and that cars can be clocked. The bypass, however, means that the local authority can trace the person who actually committed the crime.
Given those examples, it seems strange that the suppliers of unclassified videos are treated differently from those who defraud or endanger the safety of consumers. It is a great pity that the Video Recordings Act does not contain a bypass provision and that streamlined investigation is therefore impossible. As I have said, local trading standards departments can operate only in their own administrative areas and perhaps cannot, therefore, give full justice to the consumers whom they serve.
If 200 unclassified works are seized in an area, it costs a local authority £500 or £600 for the investigation and prosecution procedures. Those people who are taken to court may be innocent. However, if there is a bypass procedure, the original wrongdoer will be caught at a far lower cost because the resources of only one local authority will be used throughout. Therefore, there will be savings not only for the local authorities but also for the courts. Members of the Committee will recognise that all local authorities are trying to save money as far as possible and are finding it difficult to do so at the present time.
It is hoped that the bypass procedure will tackle those parties which are acting in default and which are leading an innocent person to commit a crime. That is the essence of the wording of the amendment, which follows the wording in the Trade Descriptions Act, consumer protection and food safety legislation. The original wrongdoer will then be in no doubt as to his liability for a subsequent offence.
A bypass provision would make this a more effective piece of legislation at no extra cost. There will be a greater possibility of the original wrongdoer being brought to book and, as prevention is better than cure, it will also represent savings when compared with the cost of prosecuting traders for breaches of the Act as a result of the actions of the original offender. On Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, described those people as the few individuals who deliberately flout the law and abuse the system. I beg to move.
4 p.m.
Lord Elton: If the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, and the Minister are satisfied that this amendment has the effect which the noble Baroness claims for it, then I hope that they will accept the amendment as a means
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of making this legislation more effective. It will also have the agreeable sub-effect of enabling Members of the Committee who have followed my analogy from the beginning to think of a bypass on a bus rather than vice versa.
Lord Birkett: This is by no means an unwelcome passenger and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, for the care and clarity with which she outlined all the problems. I am sure that we all want increased efficiency and cost efficiency as regards the prosecutions procedure. I am sure that we all want to catch the real villains of the piece—the people of whom I spoke at Second Reading, as the noble Baroness reminded us, who deliberately flout the Act.
I am not sure whether the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness is the right way to deal with the matter. Perhaps the noble Baroness will allow me to use my best offices with all parties concerned to see whether I can provide an amendment which is similar in effect, achieves what she wants to achieve and which will meet with her approval before Report stage. I should be very happy to do that. If I fail to do so, the noble Baroness can table an amendment on Report to deal with the matter. I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw the amendment today. Speaking from these Benches on a Private Member's Bill, I am in no position to give an undertaking but I shall do my best to bring all parties together to see whether we can resolve this issue.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My noble friend must make her own decision about the offer made by the noble Lord, Lord Birkett. I confirm that this is very much the kind of amendment which falls within the restricted scope of the Bill as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Birkett. As my noble friend claimed, it would streamline the procedures. I hope that it may be possible to incorporate the amendment, or something like it, into the Bill.
Viscount Astor: While I understand what has been said this afternoon about a bypass provision, I am afraid that the Government have strong reservations about the amendment. As the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, has explained, the purpose of this amendment is to assist trading standards departments to address the root of the problem of unclassified video supply, by enabling them to prosecute those wholesalers who supply retailers in their area for the offences then committed by those retailers. While the Government certainly share the objective of dealing effectively with the illegal supply of unclassified videos, we are not persuaded that this is the correct way to set about it. I shall try to explain why that is so.
Of course there are various precedents for a bypass provision, including that in Section 23 of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968, but that does not mean that such provisions are always appropriate or likely to be effective, and in this case we believe that such a provision would be misplaced for various reasons.
First, it must be remembered that wholesalers who supply unclassified videos to retailers are already guilty of a distinct offence of unlawful supply under the Video Recordings Act. This contrasts with the

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position under the Trade Descriptions Act, where a factory which makes a contaminated tin of peas, for example, will not necessarily apply any description to it and may only be caught for the eventual retailer's offence when it is sold.
The noble Baroness's amendment is inappropriate in the context of the Video Recordings Act for other reasons. Let us take the case of a retailer who knowingly sells an unclassified video; surely, he is responsible for his own offence. It cannot properly be argued that his offence is a result of an act or omission by anyone else other than himself, any more than a drug dealer can argue that his offence was due to the actions of the original smuggler.
Lord Elton: Perhaps I may interrupt my noble friend. There is an analogy with a supplier of a tin of peas which contains a carrot. It is possible for a distributor to distribute unedited and, therefore, unclassified material in a case which advertises the film as having been edited and, therefore, classified. That can only be discovered when the film is shown. I should have thought that there is an exact analogy and that the noble Baroness's amendment applies to that.
Viscount Astor: There are two analogies: that of my noble friend Lord Elton and my analogy. They are slightly different. In these cases, therefore, the requirement in the noble Baroness's amendment that the commission of the offence was due to the act or default of some other person clearly will not be satisfied.
Equally, if a dealer carries out an unlawful video supply in all innocence, he may well be able to avail himself of the defences in the Act. If so, he will be acquitted, and no offence will have been committed. Because the noble Baroness's amendment requires there to have been an offence committed, in those circumstances also the proposed provision could not be used to catch a dishonest wholesaler elsewhere.
The Government therefore believe that it would be inappropriate simply to graft the Trade Descriptions Act "bypass" provision on to the Video Recordings Act, which is structured in an entirely different way. We believe that, where wholesale suppliers are situated outside a local authority trading standards department's area and have supplied unclassified videos to retailers within that area, the correct solution is for the different local authority departments to liaise together in order to bring their investigations to a successful conclusion.
Where trading standards officers have successfully identified a chain of illegal video supply but are unable to pursue the matter further as a result of jurisdictional restrictions, and for some reason collaboration between different authorities cannot be achieved, there is also the option of referring the matter to the police, who are not subject to the same territorial restrictions. Indeed, where training standards officers believe that they have uncovered a network of supply of obscene or other unlawful works then there will be strong practical reasons for the police, who are used to dealing with such offences, to be brought into the investigation at an early stage.
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I sympathise with the intention behind the amendment, but I hope that I have explained why it is unnecessary. This is a complicated area and there can be a long chain of people. The noble Baroness described the numbers of videos that might have to be handed back. The certification procedure will make it easier to bring proceedings in respect of seized videos. We are dealing with a complicated subject and a complicated argument but I hope that, having explained the situation to the noble Baroness, she will withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: I am disappointed with the reply from the Government Front Bench. If one wishes to use the analogy of drug trafficking, the real problem is not the man who is selling £5 worth of drugs on the streets in Birmingham or £10 worth of drugs in London; it is to find the supplier who is bringing the big consignments into the country—in others words, the big guy. That is the point that I have been trying to make. The real problem is not the little man in the shop who is doing his best to support the law, or the honest traveller; it is the person at the top of the chain, who deliberately flouts the law and who is determined to do so. The Minister is encouraging the big fish to allow the little fish lower down the chain to pay the penalties.
Viscount Astor: I did not say that at all. I specifically stated that in the case of a large dealer or a supplier, the matter could be referred to the police, who are used to dealing with such things. When I made the analogy with drugs, I intended to make a point about the offence and how it could be argued that an offence was committed by somebody who had been responsible for a previous offence. That is a separate point. I agree with the noble Baroness that we wish to prevent such videos coming into the country and being sold and shown.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: Perhaps the noble Viscount can reconsider the matter. Will it be cost effective not only for the local authorities but for the courts? That is an important point because court time is expensive.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, who stated that he would give serious consideration to the matter. Perhaps I should rely upon the noble Lord to use his charms on the Minister, as mine seem to have failed. I shall await the results of that consideration and raise the matter at Report if necessary.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.

Maastricht Treaty
4.15 p.m.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, with leave of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement which has been made in another place by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. The Statement is as follows:

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"With permission, Madam Speaker, I wish to make a statement on the process of ratification of the Maastricht Treaty.
"As the House knows, the purpose of the Bill before the House is to ensure that UK law where necessary conforms with the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty.
"My right honourable friend the Minister of State said in this House on 20th January that if Amendment No. 27 were carried, United Kingdom law would not conform to the provisions of the Treaty on European Union and that the United Kingdom would therefore be unable to ratify the Treaty.
"Those remarks were, of course, based on legal advice. However, in the light of discussion in this House and elsewhere, further careful and detailed consideration was given to the matter, and the Attorney-General and the Lord Advocate were asked for their advice. I think it right, with the agreement and on the authority of the Law Officers, to inform the House of the advice at the earliest practicable opportunity, and to explain the Government's position in the light of that advice.
"Madam Speaker, in accordance with our usual practice when legislating, Clause 1 of the European Communities (Amendment) Bill has been drafted to incorporate in our domestic law all amendments and protocols to the Treaty of Rome which were included in the Treaty on European Union.
"The House will recall that the protocol on social policy authorises the other eleven member states of the Community to have recourse to the institutions, procedures and mechanisms of the Treaty of Rome for the purposes of implementing their agreement on cooperation in the social area—the Social Chapter. Most significantly, it specifies that acts adopted by the Council under the terms of the protocol shall not be applicable to the United Kingdom.
"Amendment No. 27 would exclude from the scope of Clause 1 of the Bill the protocol on social policy. That is all that Amendment No. 27 would do. The amendment would not have any effect on the Treaty itself. It would not change the agreement among eleven into an agreement among twelve. It would not bring the Social Chapter into effect in this country. The amendment would simply exclude the protocol from incorporation in domestic law under the European Communities Act. The legal question is therefore whether the United Kingdom could ratify the Treaty even if the protocol were not incorporated into domestic law.
"The Law Officers advise that, if the amendment were carried, acts adopted under the Protocol would still not apply to the United Kingdom. This is because it is of the very nature of the protocol that acts adopted under it should not be applicable to the United Kingdom. It follows that no rights and obligations arise from those acts which need to be given effect in our domestic law.
"In summary, Madam Speaker, the Law Officers consider that, while incorporation of the protocol in domestic law is desirable, it is not necessary for
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ratification or implementation of the Maastricht Treaty. In other words, there would be no impediment to ratification if the amendment were carried because acts adopted under the protocol would still not apply to the United Kingdom.
"Madam Speaker, there can be no question of the United Kingdom ratifying the Treaty except through the normal parliamentary procedures. The House will have the opportunity at Third Reading, after detailed consideration of all aspects of the Bill, to decide whether the Bill should pass into law. The United Kingdom will not ratify the Treaty unless the Bill is approved by Parliament. But Amendment No. 27 is not a proposal to adhere to the Social Chapter and its passage would not be a decision that this country should do so. The Government will continue to oppose the amendment because, as I have said, incorporation of the protocol in domestic law would be desirable. But, in the light of the Law Officers' advice, if the amendment were carried it would have no effect on our ability to ratify the Treaty.
"Madam Speaker, this constitutes a different situation from that implied by the honourable Member for Copeland when he moved the amendment and my right honourable friend's remarks in the House on 20th and 27th January. I regret that the legal advice then given to the House was not correct.
"Madam Speaker, the Government's position on the substance of the matter remains unchanged. We continue to believe the Social Chapter will harm growth and jobs in this country. We intend to press forward with the Bill so that we can ratify the Treaty which I, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer negotiated at Maastricht, and which won an overwhelming majority on Second Reading in this House."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
4.20 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement which was made in another place this afternoon. It is a most extraordinary Statement and is yet another twist in the saga of how the Government are trying to pass the Bill through Parliament.
It is understandable that the Government should wish to make a Statement on the subject this afternoon. We on this side of the House are grateful for any scraps of information which the Government can throw at us which cast some light on their intentions for today. Tomorrow their intentions may be different but this afternoon we have received a certain clarity from the noble Baroness. That is so in particular after the weekend, when heavy government briefing gave the firm impression that the bypassing of Parliament and the use of the Royal Prerogative were being seriously considered. That was a daft idea and am delighted that the Government appear to have rejected it.
It is a strange Statement about a strange episode which started with the unfortunate Mr. Tristan

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Garel-Jones, Minister of State at the Foreign Office. On 20th January he told the House of Commons in unmistakable terms that if Labour's Amendment No. 27 were carried,
"United Kingdom law would not conform to the treaty's provisions, so it would be impossible for the United Kingdom to ratify the treaty".—[Official Report, Commons, 20/1/93; col. 403.]
That was a clear and unambiguous statement. We thought that we knew where we stood, the Euro-sceptics thought that they knew where they stood and even the Government thought that they knew where they stood—at least on 20th January.
In addition to being told that on 20th January, we were also then told that, if Amendment No. 27 were carried, fresh ratifications would be needed by the other 11 countries which have signed the treaty. I assume that the idea of fresh ratification has disappeared like snow as a result of the Law Officers' advice, as has Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones' firm and unequivocal statement.
We are now told that, if the amendment were carried, it would have little effect on the ratification process. If that is so, what on earth has the argument been about? For six or eight weeks, Parliament, the chattering classes, the press and those who follow the intricacies of our parliamentary procedure have been obsessed with the effect that Amendment No. 27 will have on the ratification procedure. We are now told that acceptance will have no effect whatever and that, after consulting the Law Officers, it appears that Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones was wrong.
The Government will know that there is more than one view of the matter; there is that held by the Euro-sceptics, and by Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones on 20th January, and there is the somewhat belated view set out in the Statement. I have even heard the suggestion that, as a way out, we should call a halt to the proceedings and consult the European Court on the correct interpretation. But to be serious, what a farce this has all become—
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Richard: My Lords, having negotiated an opt-out—which was absurd and ill-advised action to take because the other 11 countries with governments of different shades of opinion had accepted the treaty—the Government have sunk themselves into a parliamentary procedural mess which is unique in my limited experience. I recognise that some Members of this House have far more experience than I, but I suspect that not even they could have devised a situation such as that into which the Government have sunk themselves.
In order to get out of that mess the first thing the Government did was to float the idea of bypassing Parliament on the basis that Amendment No. 27 mattered. If Amendment No. 27 does not matter, why on earth should the Government go out of their way—as clearly they did before yesterday's press coverage—to float the idea that all they have to do is to ignore what is happening in the House of Commons and to use the Royal Prerogative to ratify the treaty? Now they have produced fresh legal advice to show that in
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any event the amendment is of no consequence. No doubt the Government anticipate that that opinion will undermine the strength of the opposition to Maastricht which exists on their own Benches.
I must say—and I do not say it with any joy because the situation affects the standing of the country just as much as it affects that of the Government—that in this matter they have elevated drift to a political principle and vacillation to the first rule of parliamentary survival. It is the politics of panic, chaos and confusion. Perhaps I may ask the noble Baroness one serious question—
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: Hear, hear!
Lord Richard: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord should wait because I hope that, when he hears the question, he will lend his weight and authority to obtaining an answer from the Government. When did the Government consult the Law Officers? When, in this extraordinary process, were the Attorney General and the Lord Advocate consulted? Was it as long ago as 20th January when Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones made his now apparently erroneous statement? Did the forensic alarm bells start to ring as long ago as 20th January? They do not appear to have done so—or, if they did, no one listened. Only when it became clear that the Government were in serious trouble in holding their majority in another place was the fresh opinion of two Government Ministers—that is, the Law Officers—trotted out. The Minister will forgive us if we approach this latest twist with deep scepticism. Such political manoeuvring will be neither understood nor appreciated by the country. It reduces Parliament to a laughing stock. The Government should be ashamed of the way in which they have handled this important piece of legislation.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement made by her right honourable friend in another place. I congratulate her on the elegance and sangfroid with which she stood on her head. She did it very well indeed. I expected that the Statement would be an attempt to "tidy up the battlefield", in the words of Field Marshal Montgomery. The battlefield was indeed in a mess. The confusion about the status of the European Communities (Amendment) Bill was widespread in inner circles of the Government, among the Law Officers and in the Palace of Westminster. Outside the great British public must be bewildered as to what the hell is happening. As to the position of our colleagues in the European Community, I suspect that many of them have come to the conclusion that General de Gaulle was right.
It is a most humiliating episode. I have been trying to make up my mind about precisely what this Statement means. It makes three points, as I understand it. The first is that the Government had no intention of using the Royal Prerogative to ratify the treaty without the approval of Parliament. It is an extraordinary state of affairs that that must be said. Secondly, it is stated that whatever happens the Government will stick to their guns on the Social Charter. Perhaps we shall return to that matter.

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Thirdly, it is stated that Amendment No 27, on which the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition did not touch, does not do what it is intended to do—that is, that it does not affect the treaty and does not bind us into the Social Charter, which is what I understood it was meant to do.
I am totally incapable of judging whether that is correct. I received the new information only a short time ago and have received different information at different times on different days since early January. If the new interpretation is correct, it is an interesting and important fact. It means that those who had three objectives in mind, as did we on these Benches—that is, to have the United Kingdom ratify the Treaty of Maastricht, to bring the treaty into force as soon as possible and to end the exclusion of the United Kingdom from the Social Chapter—must look at the amendment again and, if necessary, table a new amendment which produces the effect that we want.
I do not think there are any questions we can possibly ask the noble Baroness. The question that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, has asked is an interesting and relevant one that historians will puzzle over. Who told Mr. Garel-Jones to say what he said? Why did he say it if he was not told? Why did the Attorney-General not notice that it was a gross misinterpretation of the law? All of those questions are fascinating but I do not believe that the noble Baroness can be expected to answer them. They are probably unanswerable. However, what is a pity is that this country should have been put into a humiliating and ridiculous position.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that there was never any intention to bypass Parliament. He should refrain from believing all that he reads in his Sunday newspapers. Since noble Lords may have gained a wrong impression from the noble Lord, Lord Richard, I should say that it was not Mr. Garel-Jones who started the confusion; it started with the drafting and moving of Amendment No. 27 by the noble Lord's honourable friend in another place, Mr. Jack Cunningham.
The noble Lord asked me when the Government consulted the Law Officers. Your Lordships know that in any government department it is normal practice always to seek the advice of departmental legal advisers in the first instance. The problem arises solely from the effect of the Opposition amendment, not the terms of the Bill as presented to the House. It was in the light of the discussion in the House —as it emerged from the reading of Hansard—and elsewhere that careful and detailed consideration was given to what had been said. Surely, that is a purpose of the Committee stage. That was how the Law Officers were brought in and their advice sought early last week. I agree that it is very easy to be wise after the event. I believe there can be no Front-Bencher in either House of Parliament who can honestly say that there have not been times when the legal advice first given has later been changed.
In response to the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, I must say that some may be answerable but the confusion arose from many of
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the speeches made on 20th and 27th January in another place by Liberal and Labour Members of Parliament. The confusion that has reigned has been due partly to the massive speculation about what would happen to Amendment No. 27. The Government intend to use Parliament. They do not intend to incorporate the Social Chapter. Amendment No. 27 will be resisted. If Members care to move another amendment it will be for the Chairman of Ways and Means in another place, or for the Chairman of Committees in this place when the Bill comes before this House, to say whether that amendment is in order.
4.33 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, when I saw the word "Maastricht" on the television screen I had the fleeting hope that the Government would come to the House and tell us that the whole thing had been dropped and the Government would get on with their proper job of governing the country. That not being the case, we have to pursue what we are offered. Like other noble Lords I am left in considerable doubt. I have not had the advantage of studying the text, but, as I understand the Minister, the reason why there is no worry about it affecting ratification is that Amendment No. 27 makes no difference to the treaty or the Bill. If it makes no difference, why do the Government resist it? Why do the Government not say, "If you want to have a silly amendment, have it"? Because the Government are resisting the amendment they must believe that it has some effect. The question I ask my noble friend is: what effect do the Government think that the amendment will have?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I well understand the question that my noble friend Lord Beloff puts but I am sorry to disappoint him. He may still be in doubt. He has posed exactly the question that I posed when I first saw this coming. The point is that the Government wish to have a sensible situation as between our domestic law and international and Community law. Were Amendment No. 27 to be passed there would be no reason why it could not be dealt with in a different way. It would simply be tidier and cause less confusion in the future. I think that the less confusion we have in both Houses and in the country the better.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, the noble Baroness simply cannot get away with blaming this on the Opposition, the pundits, the national press, local press and anybody else they may wish to name. The fact of the matter is that, as the Statement says, her right honourable friend the Minister of State said in the House of Commons on 20th January that if Amendment No. 27 were carried United Kingdom law would not conform to the provisions of the Treaty of European Union and therefore the United Kingdom would not be able to ratify the treaty. That was the advice given at that time. Is the noble Baroness saying that that advice was not given after consultation with the Law Officers? If it was given with the advice of the Law Officers when did they change their minds? Why

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did they not consider the matter in depth so that proper advice was given to the House of Commons in the first instance?
My second point is a very serious one. Here we have a bit of advice that was given to Members of the House of Commons on one particular amendment. But advice has been given on many other amendments, and legal advice will be given on many more, not only in the House of Commons but in the House of Lords. How can we rely on the legal advice we are now receiving from the Law Officers? This is a very serious matter that has to be addressed by the Government, because it is incumbent upon the other place and this House in a serious matter such as this that affects the Constitution of this country, to ensure that all Members in both Houses are given legal advice that is correct and will stand up to scrutiny not only by British courts but by the European Court as well.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, that the earlier advice taken by Mr. Garel-Jones in another place came from departmental legal advisers, not from the Law Officers. We have sought the agreement of the Law Officers and their wisdom on this matter in the light of the discussions that took place in another place on 20th and 27th January. For all the noble Lord's protestations, I have to say that I have been a Member first of another place and now this House for quite long enough to remember when Labour Government Ministers—in those far-off days—came to the House to explain that the departmental legal advisers had not advised the Minister correctly. I see the Chief Whip of the Labour Party nodding his head; he remembers it, too. This situation is not unique. However, it is an uncomfortable situation which none of us would have wished to occur. It has occurred and we have put it right. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, asks how we can now have confidence in the Law Officers. I have first-class confidence in our Law Officers. I can assure your Lordships that they will be consulted whenever I have the slightest doubt. I am sure that that is true for all my honourable friends in another place.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, I hope I may put forward a rather different point of view from my noble friend. Must it not be assumed, now that the Law Officers' opinion has been given—two Law Officers of different jurisdictions have given their opinion —that that is correct, it is wholly improper to suggest, as it was suggested, that that advice was actuated by political considerations? The disreputable conspiracy between the official Labour Party and a few Conservative disloyalists has not merely proved totally unprincipled but also totally ineffective.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble and learned friend for those comments. He is, of course, correct. I wish to emphasise one comment my noble and learned friend made. This matter is not the result of political
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consideration but of legal consideration by the Law Officers. There is no way in which it should be interpreted otherwise.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, is the noble Baroness, whom we all like and respect, really proud of the fact that after 14 years of her party's government, they should be ready to enter into these legal contortions to prevent Britain, alone of the 12 members of the European Community, adhering to a treaty to offer employment protection rights? Would she like to argue that case with the workers of Leyland Daf at the moment?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I respect the noble Lord and his previous experience in the European Commission. However, I should recount the comments made by staff employed at factories in my former constituency. The workers and the management told me that the Social Chapter—or the Social Charter, if one prefers to call it that—would be the death of their industry. That is why we oppose the Social Chapter and why we do not wish to incorporate it in our law.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, most people outside the House will have concluded that the time has come when Members on both Front Benches should stop their clever-Dick tactical manoeuvring and really face up to this important matter in a serious manner. The Opposition clearly tabled Amendment No. 27 with the idea of pushing through a particular part of the Maastricht Treaty they wish to have adopted. The Opposition did that although they pretend to be in favour of the Maastricht Treaty as it stands. The Government delayed giving an answer revealing the true position. They gave the impression, or allowed an impression to gather, that the amendment could achieve things that it is now clear it could never have achieved. If there is a vote in another place on Amendment No. 27, or anything like it, I hope that the Government will take on board the message behind the result of that vote. I admire my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham greatly, but I should tell him that those of us who feel differently to him consider that disloyalty to the country is embodied in allowing Maastricht to go through in its present form. Let us be serious and adult about the matter and give it the serious attention that its importance truly demands.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I hesitate to say this, but I must tell my noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls that I believe he is wrong. Mr. Garel-Jones did not in any way intend to mislead another place. He was acting on the legal advice then given to him by the departmental legal officers. I will not repeat what I said about the process that then followed. However, I am serious about this issue and I hope I am being adult when I consider the future and the needs of this country and what has to be done. While I understand that many noble Lords may have doubts about various aspects of the European Community, there is no doubt that for the future of this nation we should at least be prepared to go along with a treaty which has been carefully negotiated at

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Maastricht, excluding those matters which are not right for Britain and ensuring that any considerations of economic and monetary union must come before Parliament before we take any action towards that union. That is the way to do things and it is the way we have done them. It will be right and good for the country for us to ratify the Maastricht Treaty.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement in this House. Until this moment one might have imagined that Parliament consisted only of another place and not also of this place. At some stage we will have to consider the amendments that will be brought before us. Therefore it is good that we are taken into the Government's confidence at this stage. I am also grateful to the Minister for repeating a Statement which enabled me to cheer to the rafters as my noble friend Lord Stoddart and the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, combined in a united force against what she said.
But seriously—not that I have not been serious in the points I have made so far—will the Minister illuminate us further as regards the legal advice that was given to Mr. Garel-Jones when he made his Statement? I ask that question as one who was a Minister for many years in another place and as one who has sat on the Front Bench in this place. Was Mr. Hurd saying that Mr. Garel-Jones made a Statement to the House of Commons of great importance without the views of the Law Officers having been ascertained in advance? I find that impossible to believe. Will the Minister explain how it was that that Statement was made only on the advice of civil servants and not on the advice of Ministers? We may then perhaps understand what is going on.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am glad I have helped the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, to make friends across the Chamber. However, in his long experience as Secretary of State for Social Services I am sure there were times when the legal advice available to him changed from the time when it was first given to him. I wish to repeat something I said earlier. In the light of discussion we took the Law Officers' advice because of what had been said in debate. However the problem only arose out of the effect of the Opposition amendment. It does not arise out of the terms of the Bill as it was presented to the House.
There is no more that I can tell noble Lords, willing as I am to be questioned on these matters. The legal advice generally available to Ministers is, I believe, second to none, but it cannot be perfect. That is the very reason why in both another place and in this House we have experienced legal officers. As I said earlier, we can all be wise after the event and declare it would have been better if the Law Officers' advice had been sought in the first place. The fact that it was not is now in the past. That fact cannot be changed. The advice has now been sought and I am grateful to the Law Officers.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that despite the fun being had at her expense the Statement that she has repeated
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clarifies what has been a rather confusing weekend? I hope it allows us to see the main target here which is to ratify the Treaty and get on with the business of running a sensible European Community. Does my noble friend agree that the real confusion that surrounds the whole issue is the fact that the party opposite which claims to support the Maastricht Bill will vote against it and the rump in this party who claim they agree with opting out of the Social Chapter now appear to wish to vote for opting in? That is the confusion; it is not a confusion in the Government's mind.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, my noble friend has expressed the position far better than I could. Indeed it was my intention this afternoon to clarify the situation. The legal advice that the Law Officers have given us is advice on which we can fully depend. I remember with clarity all the debates in the past on Bills that concerned the European Community and I have never known a situation like this before. It is sad for the country that the Opposition are so prepared to play cat and mouse with something which the large majority of them say they believe in.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that the amendment to which the Statement refers has been on the Order Paper in the other place for six calendar months? It has taken until this time for the Government to come forward with a Statement seeking legally to define the net result if the amendment were passed. Is the Minister aware that there are many thousands of people in this country today pursuing litigation who will heave a sigh of relief that they are not buying their legal advice from the Government's legal advisers?
If the amendment is not important, will the Minister give a guarantee that the Government will not apply a three-line Whip when the vote comes to be taken?
Finally, why are the Government so determined to avoid implementing the Social Chapter? Over a year ago the present Government introduced an arrangement whereby when a Government Minister lost his or her job for whatever reason the ministerial salary continued for three calendar months. Why is that arrangement not good enough for the workers of Leyland Daf?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am well aware that the amendment has been on the Order Paper for some time. So have some 500-plus others. It is probably because departmental legal officers have been wading through the implications that they may have seen the matter in a different light. I have made the point to the House this afternoon, and I repeat, that it was when the subject of Amendment No. 27 was debated a number of aspects became clear. On reading the report of those debates, particularly of the debate on 27th January, we sought the advice of the Law Officers. I cannot and will not give the noble Lord any guarantees about whipping in this or another place. It is not my place to do so. I believe that his own Front Bench would respond similarly.
Lord Elton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the repetition of the Statement has been greeted with great relief as reducing to simplicity what was a very complex problem? Secondly, is she aware that I have listened with grave anxiety to the way in which we have been discussing and criticising the conduct of Law Officers and other Members of another place which I should have thought was privileged to that other place? Does the Minister agree that the time to discuss the contents of the Bill is when the Bill comes to this House, and that it may be quite different and the clause in question will probably not be in it?
Finally, since noble Lords opposite seem to consider it quite proper to criticise the conduct of Members in another place, does my noble friend agree with me that the Opposition Front Bench in this House set aside very lightly, with a laugh or two, the important fact that Amendment No. 27 was tabled by their party, which plainly did not know what it meant either?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Elton makes exceedingly important points. I believe that he has his finger on the pulse as regards what has been happening. The Labour Party in another place is very divided. I used to think that it was perhaps rather more divided than in this House, although having watched noble Lords on the Benches opposite I sometimes now wonder whether that is the case.
We shall see what comes of the many debates in your Lordships' House as well as the debates in another place. I conclude by saying that I believe that it is right for Britain that the Treaty of Maastricht should be ratified.

Criminal Justice Act 1991 (Contracted Out Prisons) (No. 2) Order 1992
4.53 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers)The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers) rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 16th December be approved [16th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Earl said: My Lords, the draft order before your Lordships seeks to extend the powers in the Criminal Justice Act 1991 to allow the management of existing prisons to be contracted out to a private operator.
When it was originally drafted the Criminal Justice Act provided only for the contracting out of remand prisons. During its passage through Parliament another place accepted an amendment which allowed those powers to be extended, by order, to allow for the contracting out of any type of prison, existing or new. In July last year, Parliament approved an order which extended contracting out to new prisons. That order allowed the new prison at Blakenhurst, which is due to open later this year, to be managed by a private operator.
All contracted-out prisons have been subject to a competitive tendering exercise. The first, the Wolds near Hull, opened in April 1992. It is a remand prison
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which can hold 320 prisoners. It is managed by Group 4 Remand Services Ltd. As the only prison which is managed by a private operator, the Wolds has attracted considerable attention from those who are interested in the penal system and from the press. It is to the credit of Group 4 that it has been willing to allow access to the prison to so many visitors. Between opening in April 1992 to the end of January 1993, 148 people had visited it, excluding, of course, visits to prisoners and the 68 visitors from the press and television.
Wolds is unique in that it is the only purely remand adult prison which we have in England. The high public profile which it enjoys—if indeed enjoys is the appropriate word —has included some alarmist stories. Some of these have been about incidents which have not happened. People rang up constantly to say that Wolds had burnt down. Others telephoned to say that inmates were on the roof, even after it was said that the prison had burnt down. Imagination and scaremongering has been rife and markedly distant from reality. Other reports have given substantial publicity to events which at any other prison would have attracted little or no press coverage, still less coverage at national level.
Wolds offers a high quality regime to its inmates. It recognises the needs of those who are not convicted. The regime includes daily visits from families and legal advisers and 15 hours a day unlocked and out of cells. Few other prisons in the country offered visits to prisoners' families on Christmas day, as Wolds did. We think that Wolds compares well with the public sector, but we need more than one privately operated prison—out of the total of about 130—if we are properly to test the effectiveness of competition in raising standards in the prison system as a whole.
The next prison to open under private sector management will be Blakenhurst, near Redditch which is near to Birmingham. Blakenhurst is a local prison which can take 649 prisoners. Unlike Wolds, it will hold convicted prisoners who are serving their sentences as well as those who are on remand. It will be managed by UK Detention Services Limited. Like Wolds, its performance will be closely and continuously monitored in order to ensure compliance with the high standards which are set out in the agreement with the contractor.
The prison will also develop new ideas. Prisoners will be locked in the cells only at normal sleeping time or for specific security needs. Like Wolds, Blakenhurst will provide 15 hours per day for prisoners to be out of their cells as a norm. A mixture of education provisions, of at least six hours a week, will aim to prepare prisoners for the realities of release. Visiting facilities for prisoners' families will be open in the evening to suit the convenience of the visitor, with daily visits for unconvicted prisoners. Basic hygiene provisions for prisoners will be good, providing daily showers and daily changes of socks and underpants. Prisoners will be involved in decisions which affect them as individuals as much as possible. The services of a solicitor will be made available to give advice on

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appeals. High standards of health care, suicide screening and sex offender therapy treatment will also be provided in that innovative programme.
In the debate in July 1992 on the order to allow new prisons to be contracted out it was made clear in another place that the Government's policy was to subject all new prisons to competitive tendering. In May we will therefore be inviting private operators to bid for the management of the new prison at Doncaster. That is the last of the 21 new prisons which will have been constructed as part of our most recent prison building programme. The programme has cost a total of no less than £1,200 million. Doncaster prison will have 720 places and it is scheduled to open in the early part of 1994.
Wolds, Blakenhurst and Doncaster are all new prisons. The order before your Lordships today will enable the Government to enter into contracts with private operators for the management of existing prisons. The order is before your Lordships because we are carrying out a market-testing exercise on Her Majesty's Prison Manchester, which is commonly known as Strangeways. Therefore, in addition to half a dozen private sector companies an in-house team from the prison service has also been invited to bid for the management contract.
Bringing forward the order now is not intended in any way to pre-empt the outcome of the tender evaluation process. It is simply a case of needing to be prepared. We need to be in a position to enter into a contract should a private operator be successful.
Manchester is one of our oldest and largest local prisons. Following the riot in April 1990 the larger part of the prison was left in a condition which required major refurbishment and which amounted almost to rebuilding it. At that time the prison held 1,647 prisoners. Those included unconvicted prisoners on remand, those awaiting sentence, and prisoners serving their sentences, including some in the highest security category, category A.
Manchester will now be a virtually new prison when it opens. It therefore seemed right to seek private sector tenders for its management. That is in line with our policy on the management of new prisons. Manchester has remained partially operational while the rebuilding work has taken place, and it has retained a nucleus of Prison Service staff. It seemed, therefore, a good candidate for extending our contracting-out programme to include "market testing", in which in-house bids are sought and considered in competition with those from the private sector.
This is a time of great change in the Prison Service. In April, the service will become an executive agency, under the leadership of Mr. Derek Lewis. As an agency, it will have considerable freedom to determine the best way in which to carry out its remit. An important change to the present position is that the Prison Service will be responsible for implementing government policy on the involvement of the private sector in managing prisons.
Agency status, and the introduction of competition by private sector involvement in the Prison Service, have the same objective—to raise standards and to
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secure better value for money throughout the prison system. In order to achieve that, we need to find the right balance between public and private sector management of individual prisons, and my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has asked Mr. Lewis to provide advice later this year on the extent, the form, and the timescale for increasing private sector involvement. Meanwhile, the Prisons Board will be looking for further establishments which may be suitable for market testing or contracting out.
In relation to contracting out, it might be helpful to your Lordships if I were to say something about the application of the European Community acquired rights directive and the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 which are, rather nastily, colloquially known as TUPE. Those have been the subject of much recent media coverage. The somewhat alarming-sounding regulations are the means by which the European Community acquired rights directive is given effect in domestic law. They protect the employment contracts and collective agreements of staff when an "undertaking" is transferred from one organisation to another.
When both the European Community directive and the regulations were drawn up, the draftsmen did not have in mind the type of transfer of work from the public sector to the private sector with which many government departments are now involved. That has resulted in considerable discussion about the effect which the regulations will have on a number of contracting out and market testing exercises, including that of Her Majesty's prison at Manchester.
When the invitations to tender for Manchester were issued in October last year the understanding was that the regulations would not apply. Shortly before Christmas further legal advice on the subject was given and it became apparent that we should apply the regulations to Manchester. In relation to other existing prisons, which may be contracted out in future, we shall need to consider carefully each case as it arises.
What is clear is that the application of the regulations to existing prisons will not necessarily be a barrier to private sector involvement. There are, arguably, benefits as well as difficulties in taking over a workforce. New ideas and approaches can be grafted on to existing expertise and skills, of which there is already a good supply in the Prison Service.
The Prison Service is preparing an in-house bid for the management of Manchester. That is an encouraging sign, and it bodes well for the future for a prison system which will be a mixture of directly and privately managed establishments.
I know that within the Prison Service there are many dedicated members of staff who are struggling to provide fair and humane care in difficult surroundings. They do a job which I fancy would not appeal to many people and they do it very well. Their work will continue still to be necessary. The move to agency status, with the devolution of many key decisions such as recruitment of staff to local level, together with the stimulus of competition from the private sector, should result in the ability to introduce change which will be of benefit to individual

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establishments. Prison governors will be better able to improve the way in which they manage their establishments and they will be better able to try out innovative ideas more easily. That should result in better value for money for the taxpayer and better regimes for the prisoners.
In my view both the move to agency status and the involvement of the private sector are healthy developments. I know that many staff in the Prison Service are ready to take up the challenge which it offers and to begin to build a Prison Service under a new regime which will come to be recognised as a leader in the field by other countries and of which we can all be proud. I commend the order to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 16th December be approved [16th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Earl Ferrers.)
5 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I rise to offer very strong opposition to the lamentable order moved by the noble Earl with more than his usual charm—and that was certainly needed on this occasion. I am aware that the official view of my party will no doubt be very effectively stated by my noble friend Lord McIntosh at the end of the debate. I will be surprised if he much disagrees with my general line. In another place my party divided against the order. For once, I believe that I speak along orthodox party lines.
I am one of the few noble Lords who have visited the Wolds. When we last discussed the issue the noble Earl had not had time to do so. I do not know whether he has had time since. I assume that he has not since he does not rise to confirm that he has visited Wolds. I believe that anyone who speaks for the Government on this issue should find time eventually to visit the Wolds or some such place. But I shall offer some words about the Wolds before I conclude.
I speak now on the principle. The noble Earl is sensitive on such matters. He will realise that those who oppose the order do so on moral grounds. We regard the issue as one of fundamental principle. I have criticised the prison system as often and as sharply as anyone present. But I regard the order as an outrageous attempt to steal the administration of prisons away from the Prison Service and to place it in the hands of a variegated crew of novices with no experience of prisons.
Let us consider the Wolds. I do not know the latest figures. When I visited it, out of 100 operational staff only five had experience of prisons. Apart from the governor, who took me around, I met two senior gentlemen. One had been a physical education officer in a private school; the other had been some sort of management consultant trainee. Shall we pit the wisdom of those gentlemen against the accumulated wisdom over many years of the Prison Service?
Let us consider the position even more fundamentally. I submit that when we take away the liberty of a fellow citizen we assume a grave responsibility. No doubt the primary reason is that we believe ourselves to be acting in the interests of the community. But we
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cannot discharge our responsibility for the welfare of the citizen in our care. I wish to labour that fundamental point. I have criticised the Prison Service often enough. But throughout the 50 years that I have known the Prison Service, there has been a light of concern, albeit flickering, by staff for the prisoners in their charge. There is no reason to suppose that an international company such as the one which now manages the Wolds will have any such concern.
What is that company doing at the Wolds? What is that foreign company up to? It has come here for one reason only. Neither a charitable nor a public spirited reason, but to make money, to make a profit. There is no harm in that; many of us who have been in business are likely to have done the same in our time. But that is the motive and we should never under any circumstances believe that the company has the same concern for prisoners as the existing Prison Service.
The Government whom the noble Earl represents have a fanatical belief in the superiority of any businessman over any public servant. They have replaced a widely admired head of the Prison Service with a television executive who has never been inside a prison according to my information. That is because the Government believe that the businessman always knows best, and that is what is behind this order.
That is not the only reason. When I went to the Wolds I asked what the advantage of it was. The prison governor—an excellent man—had had experience of prisons. He said to me "We have more flexible working arrangements". In other words, they get on without trade unions. That is what it boils down to. There are businessmen who love the idea of getting on without trade unions. That is the game they are playing, with no nonsense about it.
I am afraid that I feel that this is one more step along the ideological road of crazy privatisation. I can only end with the words of a poet whose name I do not know. If I were asked, I should have to look it up:
"Turn again, oh my Sweetest"—
those words are aimed at the noble Earl—
"Turn again, false and fleetest"—
those words are aimed at the rest of the Government—
"The beaten where thou beatest
I'll swear is Hell's own track".
That describes my attitude and, I am sure, that of all those who care for prisoners or value the work of the Prison Service.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, I agree with a good deal of what the noble Earl, Lord Longford, has said. I shall confine myself to one or two detailed points, as I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, will make the rest.
First, in his opening speech the noble Earl said that the Wolds prison compares well with the public sector. So it ought to. No one would take on a contract with the kind of problems we have in most of the other prisons in the country. No one in their right mind would undertake for money running a place like Brixton or even some of the smaller prisons which are nearly as bad. When the noble Earl said that, he was being over-innocent—even though he is always so polite and innocent.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, is the noble Lord talking of me?
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, no, I am talking of the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Earl must not be too keen on gathering all the bouquets that the noble Lord is passing.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, after that little effort to keep everyone happy, it is important to realise that, with the setting up of the Wolds, with the proper conditions, with the agreed staff, with the agreed number and no excess in the number of prisoners, if the Government had done that elsewhere the results would have been at least as good as they are at the Wolds. They may possibly have been better, as the noble Earl, Lord Longford, believes. There is no doubt that, if only we could have persuaded the Government to give as much enthusiasm to reacting positively to the 85 recommendations in the Woolf report as they have to introducing this new arrangement for prisons on ideological grounds, things would be much better.
My belief is that it is difficult to oppose on ideological or any other grounds anything which improves the ghastly way in which we treat remand prisoners in this country at the moment. It is absolutely intolerable. Everyone knows that and says so. One-third of those who are on remand and treated in that evil way leave without a sentence in the end. It is an impossible situation. Thus I cannot object if the Tory Party has a special idea that it wishes to do something in a certain way, provided that it is basically sensible. That way is to have proper equipment and no overcrowding—for which we have been shouting for more than 30 years all over the country. If that is achieved, good luck to them.
I cannot go far because I well remember reading the history of penal affairs and of the old gaolers before prisons were nationalised. They depended entirely on bribes for their money. Chains were always put on prisoners first and they had to pay the gaolers before the chains were removed.
I am not saying that the new companies would behave like that, but I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Longford, that there is a motive to make money out of that, without which the companies would not do it. There is nothing else I wish to say as I know that my noble friend Lord Harris will cover all the other points.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I believe that there are two reasons for the order. The first is ideological and I shall return to that in a moment. The second is the deplorable industrial relations record in our prisons. The Home Secretary made no reference to that in the House of Commons, and neither did the noble Earl refer to it today. But it is one of the principal reasons why we have the order.
As the noble Earl will recall, I have raised this matter on a number of occasions. I do not believe that the Government of which I was a member had a good
938
record on this because they did not. There were far too many surrenders to the branches of the Prison Officers' Association. The noble Earl will recall the report of Sir John May soon after the present Government came into office. He drew attention to the lamentable industrial relations situation in the prisons. Curiously, since 1979 it has become a great deal worse. That is not my view. It is the opinion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, who conducted the inquiry into the disturbances which took place at Strangeways.
The reason why the situation has become worse since 1979 is simple. The noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, when Prime Minister, was quite happy to take on the National Union of Mineworkers. She was quite happy to take on other groups of organised workers. But she would under no circumstances take on the branches of the Prison Officers' Association. That is why the situation has deteriorated in many prisons, although not all. In many prisons the industrial relations record is excellent; there are many admirable men and women working in the Prison Service. The noble Earl will recall from the previous debates that we have had on the issue that in other prisons a campaign has been waged by a minority of members of the association to create as much chaos as possible.
The way one deals with the situation, in my view, is the manner in which Mr. Hurd dealt with it when there was the walk-out at Wandsworth. The fact that the Metropolitan Police took over Wandsworth in an extremely ugly situation and brought order to the prison passed a message to the rest of the Prison Service that behaviour of that kind would not be tolerated. Firm management is the way to deal with a bad industrial relations situation, not privatisation.
It is instructive to examine how Ministers have changed their ground since the Bill which became the Criminal Justice Act 1991 was introduced into Parliament. First, there was the proposal to take powers to set up the single remand establishment at the Wolds. It was the idea of Mr. Hurd, and I supported it at the time for the reasons given by my noble friend Lord Donaldson. Remand establishments are, in the judgment of all of us, wholly different from prisons holding sentenced prisoners. If anyone finds it difficult to accept that view, they have only to read the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, to see the justification for that opinion.
I am sure that the noble Earl will recall the words of his then colleague, Mrs. Rumbold, when speaking in the House of Commons on 25th February 1991. That is less than two years ago. She said:
"The Government are taking the first step in considering contracting out a remand prison … If, and only if, the contracted-out remand centre proves to be a success might we move towards privatisation of other parts of the prison service".—[Official Report, Commons, 25/2/91; col. 720.]
In the light of last year's debate and the speech of the noble Earl—when, with great respect to him, he endeavoured (not wholly successfully in my view) to re-write history—it is important to emphasise again Mrs. Rumbold's words:
"If, and only if, the contracted-out remand centre proves to be a success"—

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not a tendering exercise, as the noble Earl tried last year to suggest, but if the operation of that establishment proved to be a success.
Let us come again in detail to what the noble Earl told us. When we were debating the Bill which gave the Home Secretary the order making powers we are discussing today he said:
"If a suitable tender is received that prison may be contracted out. No new remand centres are being built or planned. Therefore, in regard to contracted-out remand centres, that will be the only one for the foreseeable future. At present there are no plans to contract out prisons for convicted prisoners or for existing establishments".
He said all that less than two years ago, adding:
"If we decided to go down that road we should first wish to see how well the contracting out at Wolds had gone, and whether there were any lessons to be learned from that".—[Official Report, 23/4/91; col. 211.]
A few weeks later the noble Earl said:
"I must emphasise once again that my right honourable friend has no plans to contract out the management of existing prisons. There is no hidden agenda of wholesale contracting out of existing prisons".—[Official Report, 21/5/91; col. 211.]
We now know that there was just such a hidden agenda. No doubt the noble Earl was not told. The noble Earl is an honourable man. He would certainly under no circumstances have sought to mislead the House. But it is quite obvious that his colleagues had a hidden agenda and that is why we are discussing the matter today.
Last year, when he brought forward the first order dealing with contracting out, the noble Earl had the embarrassing experience of coming back to us to explain that, despite all the assurances he had given only a few months before, the Government had chosen to ignore them. Despite his own promise that the Wolds,
"will be the only one for the foreseeable future",
he moved an order to extend the Home Secretary's power to privatise all new prisons—not existing prisons but all prisons built thereafter. He performed his duties, I may say, without any apparent embarrassment, despite the assurances he had given exactly in the contrary direction.
Not altogether surprisingly in the circumstances, his arguments were a little unconvincing. He said the Wolds,
"to date … has been shown to be a success".—[Official Report, 7/7/92; col. 1109.]
That was a pretty remarkable statement in all the circumstances because it was made at the beginning of July. The Wolds had been opened only in April. When the noble Earl spoke last July it was only one-third full. That is pretty thin evidence for a Government to decide that an experiment has been a remarkable success. But no doubt the noble Earl will be able to assist us in regard to the matter again today.
Today we have another order extending the possibility of privatisation to all existing prisons. I do not want to deal with the general issues of principle involved in the policy. I have already made my position clear. I believe that it is undesirable and foolish. I should just like to raise one or two matters which arise from that decision.
First, I should like to refer to the position of the new director general. I do not know Mr. Derek Lewis.
940
All I will say is that, given the very heavy responsibilities with which he has been entrusted, I wish him well. He will certainly carry a very heavy burden. Not only will he run the Prison Service; he will also have the responsibility of implementing all the privatisation decisions. How one man can do both jobs is a question that I would find very difficult to answer.
But one statement made by the Home Secretary during the Commons debate on the issue seemed to me a little remarkable. He said:
"In April, the service will become an executive agency under the leadership of Derek Lewis, whom I appointed recently". —[Official Report, Commons, 3/2/93; col. 422.]
Let us consider those words for a moment: "I appointed recently". Perhaps the noble Earl will help to clear up my doubts. Do Ministers now appoint the heads of all executive agencies? If that is so, perhaps the noble Earl will be able to refer me to the date upon which that decision was announced in Parliament.
I have no doubt that Mr. Lewis and other candidates were interviewed by members of the public service, so the noble Earl need not trouble to assure me on that point. I am asking an altogether different question. The holder of that position ranks as a Deputy Under-Secretary of State in the Home Civil Service, although, as we know, Mr. Lewis is paid a great deal more. Is his position within the gift of a Minister of the Crown? If so, I think we are moving perilously away from the traditions of the British public service and the principles laid down in the Trevelyan-Northcote reforms. Perhaps the noble Earl will deal with the matter. I think that we should be reassured on that.
So far as the public service is concerned, the Trevelyan-Northcote reforms have operated for a century and a half. If they are to be discarded, I believe that we should have a clear statement explaining the situation that Ministers have decided upon. We are well aware that so far as Permanent Secretaries are concerned the Prime Minister of the day is consulted. But that is not the issue. Perhaps, as I said, the noble Earl will deal with that when he comes to reply.
I should now like to deal with the other part of Mr. Lewis's responsibilities for the creeping privatisation programme. The Government appear to have got themselves into a fine old mess. Their enthusiasm for privatisation at all costs—the costs, of course, are borne by employees not by Ministers—has apparently been such that they have been ignoring their own regulations. The noble Earl skated fairly briskly, if I may say so, over the question of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 to implement the European Commission's 1977 acquired rights directive. That directive broadly lays it down that any new contractor must take over employees on their existing terms and conditions. As we are well aware, for many months, while the pace of privatisation grew, Ministers were either unaware of the order or they believed that they could get away with ignoring its provisions.
Then there were threats of litigation and the Government drew back. As a result, just to take one example reported by the Financial Times, 120 staff employed by the Prison Service Stores Department in

941
Corby have had their redundancy notices withdrawn. The new contractor was to have been Beck & Pollitzer, but it apparently had not been told by Ministers about the existence of the regulations.
I am by no means a doctrinaire opponent of all privatisation proposals. I have made that clear already. Sometimes the private sector will perform a responsibility more effectively and satisfactorily than the public services; sometimes the reverse will be true. But that is not the position of the Government. As the noble Earl, Lord Longford, pointed out, they believe that the private sector is always best, although I should have thought that in recent months there has been much evidence to the contrary.
Let us put that aside for a moment. We have a situation in Corby where 120 longstanding employees of the Prison Service of the Home Office—storemen and storewomen, not highly paid public servants—were suddenly told that after a lifetime of working in public service they were to be fired. They performed their work faithfully and well, but Ministers took no account of that whatever. They were to be discharged. The only reason that their redundancy notices are being withdrawn—no doubt the Statement we heard a few minutes ago is significant in this context—is that some legal adviser to the Government, perhaps the law officers or somebody else, realised that the Government were behaving unlawfully. That is why the redundancy notices have been withdrawn. They are in the process of being withdrawn in a number of other cases. It would have been even more helpful to the House if the Government had acknowledged once again that there had been a serious failure regarding their legal advice. Only because there was a European directive in existence—I say that in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington—have those people been saved from being thrown on the scrapheap.
I hope that the noble Earl will tell us whether there are any further consequences to the transfer of undertakings order. The Home Secretary said that the successful tenderer at Strangeways would have to take over protected employment contracts. I welcome that, as I am sure many others do also. However, I hope that we shall obtain further information on that point from the noble Earl.
I come to my final point. I have been informed that if there are disturbances in privately managed prisons, the staff in the state sector will not go to reinforce the private sector staff. As they are outside the public service, the view has been taken that they must look after their own security problems. That has major implications for the police service. During the serious disturbances that occurred when Mr. Hurd was Home Secretary, and indeed on many other occasions when riots have taken place, they have been rectified only because staff at prisons which were not affected were sent as reinforcements to those that were.
What happens now? If there are not to be reinforcements from the state sector, who will go to the prisons when there is a substantial disturbance? Will it be the police? Many would welcome an answer from the noble Earl on that point. If it is, does the noble Earl realise that the forces concerned will need
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substantial programmes of training on how they are to deal with a problem of that nature in a prison. If they are to be given that training, who will pay for it? Will the Home Office make more funds available to the chief officers concerned? It will be helpful to have answers to those questions.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Howell: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for allowing me to intervene. An additional point arises on the matter that he raised. In fact the police would also be involving themselves in an industrial dispute, which is to be regretted.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, that may be so but a disturbance may take place when no industrial dispute is involved. In any event, the noble Earl is aware of the point and I hope that he will give us a clear answer. I am sure that the police will follow his reply with the closest attention.
I have made my position on the matter wholly clear. The order we are discussing today is largely, though not exclusively, the result of the Government's doctrinaire obsessions. It will not deal with the pressing problems in our prisons; it merely diverts us from the major issues involved in trying to create more civilised conditions in the prisons of this country.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Longford need have no fear that I shall disagree with him. The order is an abomination. It is only my deep respect for the conventions of this House, and in particular the convention that we do not vote against orders passed in another place, that will prevent me from going into the Lobby against this dreadful order.
There are two fundamental reasons why I oppose the order—one of principle and a whole series on practicality. The reason of principle was best expressed by the distinguished criminologist, Sir Leon Radzinowicz, who argued in The Times in 1988—referring to remand prisons—
"In a democracy grounded on the rule of law and public accountability the enforcement of penal legislation, which includes prisoners deprived of their liberty while awaiting trial, should be the undiluted responsibility of the state. It is one thing for private companies to provide services to the state system, it is an altogether different matter for bodies whose motivation is primarily commercial to have coercive powers over prisoners".
One does not need to cast aspersions on the motives or efficiency of those who undertake the private contracts in order to reinforce the basic point that it is wrong for the private sector to deprive people of their liberty; it is wrong for the private sector to lock people up. I have no reason other than what I read in the press and what I have heard in the House and read from the debate in the House of Commons to be critical of Group 4 or those who propose to take over the contract at Blakenhurst. I have nothing against them, but they are in a position in which we should not have placed them. We should not allow the private sector to lock people up.
I turn to the issues of practicality, of which there are many. I shall talk first of the historical ones before going on to the priorities for the future. I start with the Wolds prison. That is a remand prison that has been

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referred to on a number of occasions. The Minister today and the Home Secretary two weeks ago praised the record of the Wolds. But, as my noble friend Lord Longford said, it has only been open since last April. When he visited there it consisted of only one third floor. My understanding is that, although it provides for 320 remand prisoners, there have never been more than 233. Under those circumstances it is not too difficult to provide higher standards than are provided elsewhere.
But it does not seem that those standards are being produced. On 19th December the Financial Times described a horrific case where a prisoner was tortured and injected with heroin. Only yesterday the Observer contained details of what had been happening in the Wolds prison and compared it with public sector prisons. It states:
"Last week there was a second escape from The Wolds in less than a month. A prisoner who was being escorted by the jail's Group 4 staff for treatment at Hull Royal Infirmary suddenly leapt from a wheelchair and vanished".
That is the second escape in a month, and unless the Minister has evidence to the contrary, I suggest that that is way above the record for public sector prisoners. It is also reported that in the month following 11th December 1992 there were no fewer than eight assaults on staff. That contrasts, I understand, with a figure for public sector prisons of on average six assaults on staff per year per prison.
In addition to the point which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has rightly made about what will happen if there are disturbances in the prison—I very much look forward to the Minister's answer on that—I understand that a letter has been sent to the Prison Officers' Association saying that if there is any threat of overcrowding at the Wolds any excess of remand prisoners will be sent to the public prison at Hull. If any difficulties which arise either from disturbances or from the possibility of overcrowding are simply shifted off to public sector prisons, what justifiable comparison can we make between the records of private sector prisons and public sector prisons? My fear about this comparison is confirmed by the fact that the tender which is being issued for Strangeways in Manchester has been taken back and amended so that the tenderers to run Strangeways will have an opportunity to put on extra costs if there is any threat of overcrowding. I have not heard of that being adopted as a principle in public sector prisons.
This is ideology carried to a mad extreme. It is based on a totally false view of what happens in the United States. Ministers went over, visited some presumably ideal prisons in certain parts of the United States and came back with the idea that this was something that would please the Adam Smith Institute. What they seem to have forgotten is that while there are 1.25 million prisoners in the United States —far too many—only 20,000 of them are in private sector prisons. In other words, the United States itself has not adopted private prisons as a proper way of dealing with the problem. Heaven knows, it has enough problems which we would not wish to see in this country.
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The noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred to the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations and the chaos that has been caused in legal advice to government and in the implementation of that legal advice in their contracting procedures. In introducing the order in another place two weeks ago the Home Secretary said that the new procedures would protect employment contracts and collective agreements and would provide for consultation in the case of redundancies. That is what the regulations say. They have to say that. It is a European directive. They cannot get round it. But they can get rid of the collective agreements and the protected employment before they go out to tender, can they not? Presumably, that is exactly what they will now do. They will remove employees' rights and then they will proceed to the transfer of undertakings rather than run the risk of conflicting with these European objectives.
I do not think that anyone has drawn attention to the point, although it was mentioned in another place by Mr. Robert Maclennan, about the lack of availability of information to Parliament concerning these privatised prisons. Since the Wolds was privatised, any questions about the staffing of the prison and conditions there are described as being "Commercial-in-Confidence". This may well be the last occasion on which we shall be able to debate issues concerning privatised prisons because we will no longer succeed in getting answers from Ministers on these subjects.
The whole thing is a false analogy. It is claimed by Ministers that somehow there is a relationship between privatisation and an enlightened regime, co-operation from the Prison Officers' Association, good conditions and high quality in everything from food to work and education and training. It is assumed at the same time that overcrowding, drugs, slopping out and all of the worst features of our prison system are somehow caused by the fact that it is in the public sector. If we look at the priorities for our prisons I think it will be seen that privatisation is the last thing that we should be considering. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, set out the priorities very clearly in his report. In none of the priorities that he set out is privatisation in any way relevant. He talked about the need for better work opportunities, better education and better treatment, both psychiatric and medical, which will be an extra problem. He talked about an enhanced role and not just a custodial role for prison officers so that they can take part in rehabilitation. Above all, he talked about the horrors of overcrowding and poor sanitation in our prisons. To none of those issues is privatisation an answer. It is just a diversion from the responsibilities which Ministers have.
Indeed there is one way in which the recommendations of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, go exactly contrary to privatisation. In his report he talked about a national system of accredited standards. How can we have a national system of accredited standards if we are going to be privatising little by little our prison system, losing control of our prison system and losing control of the standards in

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order to fill the ideological imperatives of the Adam Smith Institute and those who presume to follow its guidance?
There is an organisation called the Penal Affairs Consortium. All the members of the organisation do not necessarily subscribe to everything that the consortium collectively says. It consists of Action on Youth Crime, the Association of Chief Officers of Probation, the Association of Members of Boards of Visitors, the Apex Trust, the Biosocial Therapy Association, the Bourne Trust, the Howard League for Penal Reform, Inquest, the Institution of Professionals, Managers and Specialists, JUSTICE, Liberty, the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, the National Association of Probation Officers, New Bridge, the Parole Release Scheme, Prisoners Abroad, Prisoners Advice Service, the Prisoners' Families and Friends' Service, the Prison Governors' Association, the Prison Officers' Association, the Prison Reform Trust, the Royal Philanthropic Society, the Society of Voluntary Associates and Women in Prison. The Penal Affairs Consortium, with that membership, opposes the private management of prisons and escort arrangements on grounds of principle and practicality. So do we. Under those circumstances the best course would be for the Government to bow their head in shame and withdraw the order.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, when I prepared myself for this order earlier I thought what a reasonable order it is. Never in my life did I think that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, would get so worked up about it. He described it as a dreadful order, as an abomination and as ideology carried to a mad extreme. I think that those are extravagant words, if I may say so, for this order.
It is very difficult for the Government because, as I have told your Lordships before now, ever since I have had the privilege of occupying this position at the Dispatch Box I have heard complaint after complaint about how bad the Prison Service is, how bad it is for inmates, how disgraceful it is, and have been asked what we were going to do about it. A very great deal has been done, over the past 10 years in particular, in building new prisons and so forth. Now we come to a different phase and a new phase when we are actually going to contract out some of the running of the prisons. This is a great change but because it is a great change does not mean that it is necessarily a wrong one or a bad one.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said that it was the undiluted responsibility of the state to look after prisoners, and so it is. The state is not reneging from any responsibility. It is saying who is going to manage the prisons. I do not believe that there is any magical, mystical feeling that says only civil servants are able to look after prisoners. In this instance we are getting a very rigid set of principles and a very tightly drawn contract. It is on that that people are being invited to quote.
It is interesting to note the contracting out possibility at Manchester and to compare it with what is being offered to prisoners at other prisons of a similar size. One will find that the prisoners at
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Manchester will spend at least 12 hours out of the cells seven days a week; in other prisons on average the prisoners spend six hours out of the cells each day and usually fewer at weekends. At Manchester there is access to a minimum of six hours education a week. At other prisons there is no guaranteed access to education and for most prisoners it is limited. At Manchester there is access to a minimum of six hours physical education a week and at other prisons there is at least one session of physical education a week, although some prisoners enjoy more.
Looking at the comparisons one finds the conditions that will apply at Manchester; and the reason for them is because of the very tightly drawn contract which will be better than that which applies at other prisons. Both the noble Lords, Lord McIntosh and Lord Harris of Greenwich said that the Government are being doctrinaire and ideological. They are not. The Government are asking how they can produce a better regime for the prisoners. If it happens to be cheaper then that is better, too. I cannot see what is wrong with that.
In this order we are taking the precaution that when this matter goes out to tender if an outside body meets the tender's specifications—for which the prison department will also be competing—more effectively then that body should be given the contract. That does not mean to say that the contract is necessarily going to a outside contractor.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said that we shall lose control of standards if this work is put out to contractors. I suggest to the noble Lord that that is exactly what one does not do because the standards are very carefully and clearly adumbrated in the contract. In the prison there will be not only the director who will run it but also a controller who will be from the Home Office. He will ensure that the prison is run in accordance with the contract which has been given. So there is no question of the state relinquishing its responsibility. There is no question that the control of standards would be lost. I believe the evidence shows that standards would be better.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, said that we had no right to hand these contracts over to a motley crew of people who had no knowledge of running prisons. The contractors have to persuade the Home Office that they can run a prison. Many of them have gone to great lengths to acquire the expertise and to submit very detailed proposals. The Home Office sets the syllabus and the standards for the training of staff at a contracted-out prison. The noble Earl was also worried about the staff at the Wolds and whether they were involved with a trade union. They are represented by Apex which is part of the General & Municipal Workers Union. The staff remuneration is broadly comparable to that in the prison service.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, was worried about the contracting out of other prisons. He quoted what I had said and it is fair enough for him to do so. It is perfectly true that what I told the noble Lord at the time was the case; namely, that there were no plans then for contracting out the existing prisons. That was the case then. Like everyone else, the

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Government are entitled to change their minds when they believe that a change will be more successful. That is what we have done.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, I am glad that we have found that out.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, at least that shows the noble Lord that we are not blinkered in our views. We always listen to what noble Lords say and sometimes we may even act on their views if they are better.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, will the noble Earl accept one intervention? The noble Earl asked us to believe that under the new arrangements the organisation led by a television executive will be able to impose conditions. That produces the most wonderful scenario. Why cannot those conditions be imposed now on the existing service?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Earl will realise that when one tries to change things, even in Government—and the noble Earl had responsibility for many years—that is not quite so easy as it might seem. People get used to what they have done and used to the regimes with which they have been involved. The great advantage of the present system is that at least one has two systems. The privatised and contracted out scheme, if that is the better, will point the way in which the state service should run.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, asked why we did not contract out more prisons before evaluating the first one. We are of the view that the introduction of private sector management into the present system will stimulate competition and encourage the introduction of new ideas much more quickly than would otherwise be the case. He was also worried about the contracting out of warehousing and distribution. We are considering the implications of the legal advice that TUPE applies in Corby and in particular whether to let the contract or to revert to the in-house management.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, referred to Mr. Lewis. I am bound to tell the noble Earl that he was appointed from a very strong field of candidates. He has the right policies and experience in managing the process of change and in providing the prison service with dynamic leadership. He has been appointed as a career civil servant—the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, was concerned about that—on a fixed term contract. His appointment was made in open competition held under the guidance of the Civil Service Commission and advice from both a senior civil servant and a representative of industry.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, perhaps I may repeat the question which I put to the noble Earl, because clearly he misheard me. I did not ask whether Mr. Lewis had been interviewed by a group of public servants, because I am sure that he had been. I asked the Minister specifically about the words used by the Home Secretary in the House of Commons (Official Report, 3rd February at col. 422) which were: "I appointed Mr. Lewis". Did the Home Secretary personally appoint Mr. Lewis? Does he owe his
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position to a personal appointment by a Minister of the Crown and, if so, how does he reconcile that with other appointments in the public service?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, perhaps I may correct something which I said. I said that he was a career civil servant. He is not. That was an unfortunate slip of the tongue. The noble Lord quite fairly asked me whether my right honourable friend appointed him. The answer is that he did.
We come now to the so called torture case at the Wolds where a person was injected with heroin. That is a most appalling thing to have happened. It does not matter whether such things happen in state-run prisons or in contracted-out prisons; it is appalling. The Humberside police are investigating it and it would not be appropriate for me to comment further.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, was also worried about what happens if there is a major disturbance. The contractors are required to satisfy the Secretary of State that they have satisfactory contingency plans in place. The chief officers of police in the areas which surround the contracted-out prisons have sought assistance in training their instructors in the use of control and restraint techniques should they be called upon. Some of your Lordships have also referred—
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, with respect to the noble Earl, again that is not the question that I asked him. The question that I asked was totally different. I understand—I believe on good authority —that staff from Home Office prisons, if I may so describe them, will not reinforce the staff at a private sector establishment if there is a riot as they do at the moment if there is a disturbance at another Home Office prison. If that is the situation, the question that arises is: who is to reinforce the staff of the private sector establishment? Will it be the local police? If so, is the Minister aware that that will create substantial resource and training implications for the chief officers concerned? Will they be given additional assistance from the Home Office Police Department, for which the noble Earl is responsible, to deal with that situation?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, a riot in any prison creates great problems—whether it is a privatised prison or, as the noble Lord describes it, a Home Office prison. Eventually, the police will be involved—and that will be the case if there is a riot in a contracted-out prison. The question that the noble Lord asked was, "If there is a riot, where will the immediate resources come from?" That responsibility rests with the contractors, who have to satisfy the Home Office that they can take account of immediate problems. Obviously, if the trouble escalates into the most appalling riot, the police will be involved—as now.
Some noble Lords have referred to escapes from the Wolds. The first was on 23rd January, and the prisoner was returned within 48 hours. He is believed to have escaped via the visiting area as visitors were leaving the prison. The second escape took place at Hull Infirmary on 9th February when a prisoner escaped from his escort after his handcuffs had been

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removed so that he could receive treatment. The prisoner was recaptured during the evening of 10th February. Several noble Lords were concerned about the number of escapes from and the trouble at the Wolds. I think that it is fair to say that any new prison —wherever it is—initially has its share of problems. It does not matter whether it is a contracted-out prison or a new prison. That is one of the facts of life.
I can only tell your Lordships that we hope and believe that contracted-out prisons will have the chance to make a great contribution to the success of life in prison. Everyone knows—the noble Earl, Lord Longford, knows this better than anyone—that being in prison is very disagreeable. If we can raise the standards of care in prisons, it is relatively immaterial whether that work is done by civil servants, the Home Office or those who contract for it. The point is that the Home Office retains the responsibility for prisoners. It also retains the right to try to provide the best possible treatment and accommodation for them. We believe that in this case contracting out might help.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 1992
6.4 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley)The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley) rose to move, That the draft orders and regulation laid before the House on 21st January [18th Report from the Joint Committee] and the draft order laid before the House on 3rd December 1992 [14th Report from the Joint Committee] be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move.
These are five draft orders concerning the rates of social security benefits, national insurance contributions and occupational pensions from April of this year. They implement decisions announced by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Security following the Chancellor's Autumn Statement at the end of the public expenditure round last year. They clearly demonstrate our commitment to those people most in need. We have maintained support for those hit by recession; we have focused additional support on the most needy; and we have
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kept our pledges to families and to the elderly. We will be increasing all major benefits in line with prices—and more than that, concentrating resources on those most in need.
The benefits uprating will be achieved without increasing the main rates of national insurance contributions in April of this year. The national insurance instruments (that is, the second and third on the Order Paper) before the House today provide for the minimum changes to certain earnings limits and to the flat rate contributions in accordance with the usual practice each year. With the permission of the House, I do not propose to dwell upon the detail of those two orders.
I turn now to the benefit uprating which is contained in the principle order (the fourth on the Order Paper). When my right honourable friend announced that all the main benefits would be uprated in line with prices he was warned that by retrospective indexing he would be,
"leaving pensioners' living standards vulnerable to rising inflation in the coming year".
Similar points were made in this House. But the retail prices index showed a 3.6 per cent. rise in September. It now shows a rise of just 1.7 per cent. It is though that September year-on-year figure of 3.6 per cent. that will be used (and not any later or lower figure) in April this year.
It may be helpful if I now indicate how the benefit uprating helps different groups of people: first of all, pensioners. Our pensions policy has three main strands. The first is to maintain the real value of the basic retirement pension, so we are increasing the basic pension next April from £54.15 to £56.10 for a single person and by £3.10 to £89.80 a week for a couple.
The second strand is to focus extra help on those who most need it. The House will remember that we increased the income support pensioner premiums in October last year by £2 for a single person and £3 for a couple. From April, less well off pensioners will benefit not just from the uprating but also from a real increase in their disposable income when they no longer have to pay any portion of council tax. Together these two measures will take the annual extra help made available to pensioners through income-related benefits to £0.5 billion in six months and £1 billion since 1988.
The third strand is to encourage people to make additional pension provision in line with their earnings. The Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order protects members of occupational pension schemes by uprating by 3 per cent. post award guaranteed minimum pensions earned from April 1988 onwards.
The success of our policies to encourage more choice in pensions can be seen by the number of people who have chosen to contract out of the state system. Since the pension reforms of the 1980s, 5 million people have become personal pension holders, some 500,000 additional people have joined occupational schemes and the number of schemes has increased by 31,000.
I turn to families. Once again for families we have honoured our manifesto pledge by fully uprating child benefit which will rise to £10 per week for the first child and £8.10 for other children in the family. Family credit will be uprated in full. It now goes to more people with family responsibilities than ever before. Some 450,000 families are being helped to maintain themselves in work by an average payment of £42 a week. Maternity allowance and the lower rate of statutory maternity pay will go up in full to £43.75 and £47.95 respectively.
I now turn to the sick and disabled. We propose to uprate invalidity benefit fully in line with inflation for people unable to work because of sickness.
The House will also note that we intend to make a full increase in line with the retail prices index for sickness benefit and for the lower rate of statutory sick pay. We do not, however, propose to increase the higher rate, which goes to employees earning £195 or more a week. Most employees who qualify for the higher rate have their statutory sick pay topped up by occupational sick pay schemes. It would, therefore, be an inappropriate use of scarce resources to increase that rate.
For people with disabilities we will in particular continue the support provided by the two new benefits introduced last year—disability working allowance and disability living allowance. This will be the first uprating for these new benefits. Since the introduction of disability living allowance in April last year 370,000 awards have been made, including over 200,000 less severely disabled people who have benefited from this new benefit. This increases to nearly 2 million the number of people receiving help with the extra costs of disability.
We also plan to increase the amount that carers may earn before their benefit entitlement is affected. Carers entitled to the carer premium in income support, housing benefit or council tax benefit who presently qualify for a lower earnings disregard will be able to earn up to £15 a week without losing any of their income related benefit. The ceiling for earnings for those receiving invalid care allowance will increase by £10 from £40 to £50 per week.
While not forming part of the orders before your Lordships, I mention these measures now as they will affect the disposable incomes of some carers from April. Both those measures will help many carers who wish to keep in touch with the world of work, as well as giving them valuable additional cash.
Other provisions—largely for the elderly, but for all those who need additional care—are the payments made for residential care and nursing homes. From April the department's limits set out in the uprating order will apply to income support claimants who have preserved rights to the special higher levels of income support. Those are mainly people who are resident in residential care or nursing homes on 31st March.
Most of the limits will be increased by £10—that is, more than inflation in most cases. But there will be no increases for the terminal illness limit. Those have not proved to be very effective in providing additional
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help to hospices since many do not make a charge and there is, therefore, no basis on which their residents can claim the special levels of income support. We have therefore decided that a better use of resources is to increase the grant to hospices, and we will be making an extra grant of £1 million in 1993–94. That is in addition to the £1 million for each of the Public Expenditure Survey years that was announced in 1991.
Our debate today covers a wide range of measures designed to make sure that expenditure is deployed wisely and effectively. The Government are getting on with the job of keeping our promises, of protecting all those most in need and of encouraging responsibility by giving people more control over their own money. I commend the orders to the House.
Moved, That the draft orders and regulation laid before the House on 21st January [18th Report from the Joint Committee] and the draft order laid before the House on 3rd December 1992 [14th Report from the Joint Committee] be approved.—(Lord Henley).
6.15 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, we thank the Minister for his introduction. On this side of the House we welcome an uprating which inflation-proofs benefits and which, as has rightly been said, as inflation is falling may even represent a modest improvement in real terms to most beneficiaries. We are happy to acknowledge that. However, it is worth pointing out that if the retail prices index is 3.6 per cent., the average rise in male earnings is 4.7 per cent. Therefore, recipients of benefits will still see themselves slipping even further behind the rising prosperity of those in work.
I give an example. Unemployment benefit for a couple with two children under the age of 11 has hardly increased in real terms since April 1979. It has risen from £69.53 to £69.70 per week at April 1992 prices. However, in the same period, as a percentage of gross average male earnings, that benefit has fallen from 27 per cent. to just over 20 per cent. —the cost of decoupling the link of benefits to earnings and coupling it instead to prices. Nevertheless, we are pleased that we are not arguing this evening to prevent a cut in benefits in real terms, which given the fears of last autumn seemed all too possible.
I should like to raise some particular problems, most of which have been previously flagged from the Opposition Benches, as well as some wider anxieties. The first cluster of problems are those affecting people on very low benefits. We are talking about the poverty of non-working single parent mothers with young children, the continuing poverty of elderly pensioners who have neither SERPS nor a private pension and carers whose invalidity care allowance represents barely 10 per cent. of average earnings.
None of those groups can reasonably enter the labour market. They are dependent upon benefits, usually because other people—small children, the frail or the elderly—are dependent upon them. Their benefits are totally inadequate to provide enough for their daily needs. As all the research carried out by the

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CABs and other charitable organisations indicates, those people fall into debt or they go short. Needless to say, they are almost all women.
Therefore, will the Minister look at the home responsibility contribution, especially for carers, in the context of the debate about the equalisation of pension ages? My figures may not be correct because 1 am trying to decipher them from the department's statistics. But will the Minister confirm that only 25 per cent. of working women at the age of 60 enjoy a full old age pension in their own right on their own contribution?
Many such women are forced to turn to the Social Fund, whose workings, cash limits, replacement of grants by loans and failure to help the neediest have been demonstrated by research finding after research finding. The Government's own social security advisory consortium has urged them to restructure the Social Fund. Their own sponsored research undertaken by York University has urged them to restructure the Social Fund. In the light of that research, will the Minister indicate when we can expect to see that reform? Will he indicate also how much new money, as opposed to recycled loans, has gone into the Social Fund in the past 12 months?
I suggest that there is a cluster of problems for those who remain on very low benefits and who cannot reasonably be expected to enter the labour market because of those dependent upon them. We must continue to address that problem.
Secondly, there are a cluster of problems affecting those receiving no benefit at all. First, I am thinking of the problem of 16 to 17 year-olds who are not in education, not in work and, despite government promises, not in training. They are without income.
The national figures suggest, although the Minister may have more up-to-date information, that there are something like 125,000 unemployed young people, of whom 97,000 in that category are without income. Certainly the latest figures from Norfolk are that 450 school-leavers are unemployed, awaiting a training place and without income. For them the Government's promise of a training place is a miasma. We know what happens to them. They turn to begging on the streets. Will the Minister tell us what financial arrangements are being made for those young people for whom the promise of a training place has so far failed to materialise?
Secondly, still as regards those claiming no benefit —it may be that the Minister will give us a more positive response on this—perhaps I may point out a problem of which I am sure he is aware; namely, that those who undertake more than 21 hours education per week—those training to acquire skills which the country so desperately needs—are perversely punished by losing benefit. Those who work for 24 hours per week in the voluntary sector, perhaps even as local authority councillors, effectively retain their labour skills and at the same time offer a community service. However, they are also perversely punished by losing their right to benefit. We hope to see a speedy review of those arrangements.
Thirdly, can the Minister reconsider the position of those people who are denied benefit while benefit
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officers explore whether they are available for and are actively seeking work, as a result of which very poor people are denied their entire income on the basis of an officer's doubt rather than on the basis of an adjudicated offence? Can the Minister tell us the review mechanisms that are in place that were promised by his honourable friend Mr. Burt to the Statutory Instruments Committee? I was present when that promise was made. Can the Minister tell us what shape the review mechanism will take and whether he will be reporting to the House on its efficacy?
The last group is made up of those who are waiting for their DLA claim to be processed, who lost access to the Independent Living Fund and therefore to an increase in their income of £70 to £120 a week. That is a severe price to pay for government delays.
In that context, I should like to put on record that every word of the assertions in my question to the Minister on this subject a week ago was correct, as letters from the Independent Living Fund have subsequently confirmed. The Minister was wrong to state that I was wrong and I regret that he has not seen fit to withdraw his remarks to that effect.
Thirdly, I should like to turn to those people who are on benefit but who should not be. I am talking about the unemployed. It is clear that social security expenditure is unemployment led, because the unemployed draw not just unemployment benefit or invalidity benefit and, in time, income support, but also receive housing benefit or mortgage help, poll and council tax benefits, etc.
Without entering into the wider debates that have been promised by reviews from both parties, I should like to emphasise that the Government, having destroyed our manufacturing base, are now seeking to finger the benefit system which picks up the pieces. If our manufacturing economy were rebuilt, no government would need to face the prospects of devastating our social security system in the name of fundamental review. Social security is carrying a load for which it was never intended. The fault lies not in the fecklessness of our people nor in fashionable theories of dependency culture, but in the absolute insufficiency of jobs. The evidence is around us. Every time Sainsbury's advertise for a packer of shelves there are 200 applications. The abolition of wages councils would push more women who are sole earners on to family credit, and, rather like the Speenhamland system of old, the state and the tax payers will be subsidising the employer to pay low wages.
I have tried to indicate the main problems of those on very low benefits, those on no benefits and those who are drawing benefit who would prefer to be in work. The Minister and his honourable friend in another place have been making much about the issue of fraud. The Minister will have our full support in stamping out fraud whenever it exists. However, there is quite a lot of research evidence to support the fact that mismanagement and consequent error, if benefit staff and of claimants is an infinitely larger problem. We urge the Minister, for all our sakes, to keep separate statistics on what is fraud and what is error so that we may have agreed information.

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I should like to point out the continuing cost of the shadow welfare state in our society arising from such matters as mortgage tax relief and relief on private pensions. The information from the National Audit Office is that we are currently paying £9 billion to save £4 billion in SERPS by privileging private pensions.
One problem that will be of wider concern in the future is the interface of social security and local authority benefits, particularly the problem of housing where one is eligible for mortgage help if one is on income support but not on family credit. That is a perverse incentive to become unemployed.
The issues that remain concern housing repossession. We do not need what is offered by the Housing Bill, which is a rents to mortgages scheme, but a mortgages to rent scheme, thus looping people into the social security system, enabling them to retain their homes.
Can we hope that the Minister will continue to keep in mind in his review the wider issue of the poverty trap, the sharp taper of benefits which underpins that poverty trap, thus producing a perverse incentive not to work, and, finally and above all, the widening gap between those on benefits and those in work? If a social security system is to have any rootedness in justice, it must seek to narrow and not to widen that gap. I await the Minister's response.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, the noble Lord will notice that I am a stand-in for his noble kinsman. That may or may not be a matter of relief to him.
We are glad that the appalling rumours about what was going to happen to benefits have not proved to have substance, and that many of the important benefits are being increased. That does not mean to say that we are satisfied with the package that we are being offered, and the noble Lord would hardly expect that to be the position.
We are pleased that child benefit is being updated. However, we should like confirmation that never again—though perhaps that is a request that is unlikely to be responded to, so I will ask rather for confirmation that there is no further intention of freezing child benefit as it has been frozen in the past. It would be an acceptable position if a proposal that child benefit will be updated in line with the retail prices index, if nothing else, were to be incorporated in legislation. We continue to regard child benefit as one of the most important benefits. It affects families with responsibilities for children, which is undoubtedly one of the heaviest burdens that people in poverty have to bear. Therefore, we should like confirmation that there is no further intention of tinkering with child benefit.
I should like to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, by stating that we continue to regard the Social Fund as a singularly ill-designed instrument for dealing with special problems of poverty. It is quite ridiculous to make loans to people who are already living at the lowest possible level. The loans are certain to increase their indebtedness, which is already one of their major problems. Can the Government reconsider the nature of the Social Fund and whether it is not time that they abandoned the idea of making loans?
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The government, while deploring debt on the one hand, encourage people to get into it on the other. There are loans to students and loans to the most impoverished people. It is not desirable that either of those groups, in their already straitened circumstances, should be landed with a burden of debt which in many cases they will not be able to clear for many years, if at all.
We welcome the increase in the invalid care allowance. However, I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the fact that people who start caring when they are over the age of 65 are not eligible for the invalid care allowance, small though it is. I assume that it is considered that the invalid care allowance is a substitution for the pay that people lose, and that if they are over retirement age they are not losing pay. That is a misinterpretation of what the care allowance ought to be about. Invalid care allowance should be paid in recognition of the work that is being done by carers of all ages, over or under 65, who are keeping people in their own homes who would otherwise be very expensively looked after in institutions. As a result, the distinction between those people above and those people under the age of 65 is a false one.
The introduction in April of the community care system will place a very heavy burden on those people. The burden of caring is difficult enough but, if it is enhanced by considerable poverty, then their plight will be serious. That will be the situation for many people, especially if they are going to have the care of relations who are coming out of institutions, who, by definition, are those most difficult to care for. In the light of the changes that will take place in April, will the Minister not consider making the invalid care allowance available to people of all ages, if it is demonstrated that they are doing a very heavy job of caring?
I wish to join in urging the Minister to look again at the 21-hour rule for study which applies to the unemployed. It is crystal clear that the biggest burden to this country is the extent to which people are insufficiently trained, or not trained at all. That situation will continue even when we move out of recession. If during periods of unemployment people are prepared to receive training, and to spend 21 hours a week in an organisation which will provide that training and equip them for a more demanding labour market, that should be encouraged. They should also be encouraged to undertake that training for a full week rather than for merely 21 hours.
Without giving greater assistance for training we shall find ourselves with a serious problem because even when we are out of recession there will not be jobs for people without skills and knowledge. The time during which people are unemployed can he used to ensure that they acquire skills and knowledge. By handicapping the unemployed to a maximum of 21 hours a week is a false economy and a short-sighted view of what is needed. I hope that the Government will look at that issue and at the 24 hours allowed for voluntary work. Such activities should be encouraged

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and extended so that when people have the opportunity of employment they are properly equipped to take it. They are not equipped at present.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, spoke of the appalling rumours that were circulating in the autumn. They did not emanate from this side of the House but were more along the lines of scaremongering from the Opposition. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, reminded the House, we have kept our pledges, in particular, our manifesto pledges to uprate child benefit and retirement pension. We shall continue to maintain them. We have uprated all the main benefits in full and by prices.
It is all very well for the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, to say that there is a growing gap between benefits, such as unemployment benefit and retirement benefit, and earnings. I presume that her hidden agenda was to return to what her party did; that was to uprate either by prices or earnings, whichever was the highest—
Lord Ennals: Hear, hear!
Lord Henley: My Lords, I note the "hear, hear" of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals. But how would one pay for an ever-greater burden on the working population? We are committed to uprating pensions, for example, in line with prices and at the same time to encouraging the growth of pensioners' incomes from other sources. That is why since we have been in government we have seen pensioners' average net income from all sources, and not only from the state retirement pension, grow by approximately 3 per cent. per annum. However, during the entire five years when the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, was Secretary of State for Social Services the pension grew by only 3 per cent. in real terms over and above inflation. Income for pensioners from saving during that time fell. If we are to start uprating by earnings and prices, whichever is the highest. I must remind the House who will have to pay. If one takes pensions alone one will find there will be an extra contribution bill to employer and employee of some £11.20 per week. That is a considerable sum of money.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, spoke about the adequacy of benefits for three target groups in particular. I accept the single parents and the older pensioners. She pointed out those above the age of 80 who are less likely to benefit from occupational pensions because of their working career. She also mentioned carers. As regards the generality of adequacy of all our benefits I have yet to see any genuine evidence of people being unable to manage on existing levels of benefit. To answer that more money at a high level of benefit will reduce, say, malnutrition, when there might be other causes such as ignorance is simplistic. We have increased the income support rates over and above inflation, in particular if the noble Baroness is prepared to take into account the fact that in future those in receipt of income support will not have to pay 20 per cent. of the council tax.
I must also point out that income support is paid for out of general taxation. Many of those taxpayers
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are low earners. As I have pointed out, we have during the years increased income support over and above RPI. We have increased the premiums for the elderly in income support by far more. In my opening remarks I mentioned the fact that we have added some £1 billion per year to the amount of support in income support paid to pensioners. For the first time the income support level for a couple above the age of 80 is more than £100.
I shall deal later with some of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, about carers. I now turn to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, about HRP and the statistic which I cannot yet confirm; that at the age of 60 only 25 per cent. of women are in receipt of a full pension in their own right. I shall write to the noble Baroness on that point. She made a valid point about HRP and asked the Government to see whether it can be extended. I can assure the noble Baroness that the matter is worth looking at in our entire review of the state pension age, bearing in mind the different conditions under which most women work and the fact that many women take considerable time away from the labour market. There is already a degree of protection in HRP but it might be worth looking at the matter further during our considerations of the issue.
I turn to the lack of automatic entitlement to income support of 16 and 17 year-olds. I assure the noble Baroness —as I have on previous occasions but not to any great effect—that there remains the guarantee of a place on youth training if they want one. Only those who are vulnerable and unable to take advantage of that opportunity can receive income support automatically.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, my point was that there are youngsters who are waiting for a place which fails to materialise because insufficient places are being offered by employers to TECs. While they wait for a promise that does not materialise they are without income. That was the point I raised and I hope that the Minister will go on to address it.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I was about to say that there is a course of action which deals with their problem. They can apply for income support under the severe hardship provision if there is a likelihood of hardship and if they have no other means of support. However, we see no particular need to provide them with automatic entitlement to income support when, for example, they are living at home supported by their family and where there is no element of hardship. We have eased the means by which they can claim severe hardship and we ensure that they receive careful counselling. However, we see no reason whatever why a 16 or 17 year-old should have automatic entitlement to income support whether they need it or not.
I turn to the social fund and the report of the Social Policy Research Unit at York. I acknowledge that both the noble Baronesses, Lady Seear and Lady Hollis, are not as keen on the social fund as I am. We are considering the results of the research which we commissioned into the Social Fund together with all other recent reports on the scheme. We shall respond to those in due course. However, I must say we have

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seen nothing to justify altering the basic principles of the Social Fund, which is a much better scheme than any of its predecessors; in particular, its predecessor of single payments, when costs rose out of control.
Noble Lords asked about ICA and the position of carers. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, believed that the allowance should be paid to those above the age of 60. I note what she said but, as always, standing at the Dispatch Box I must remind her of the considerable cost implications of her suggestion. I am sure that the noble Baroness will argue, as she knows her noble kinsman always manages to do, that in the event we will save money in the long term. All I can say to the noble Baroness is that we have increased by a considerable amount the sum of money that carers can earn without it affecting their particular level of benefit.
I will certainly undertake to look at the point that both noble Baronesses made about the number of hours' training allowed for those on unemployment benefit or in receipt of income support when out of work, and similarly the work rule, in particular for members of councils, that has been a problem in the past.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, in dealing with carers I am not sure that the Minister has taken on board that I was talking about those over pension age. It is not the amount of earnings that they can get but the fact that they cannot get any at all if they start above a certain age. They may then be very poor.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I was quite aware of what the noble Baroness was saying. The point I was trying to make was that there were what might be called some goodies for carers generally. I accept the point made by the noble Baroness that there is nothing for those over 60. Obviously, that is something we will bear in mind but I point out to the noble Baroness that it has considerable cost implications. I will undertake to look at the points made by both noble Baronesses about the permissible number of hours' training or voluntary work for those on unemployment benefit or in receipt of income support. I thought we had resolved the particular problem of councillors. I have seen a number of councillors on the issue recently. Obviously, the noble Baroness is not yet satisfied.
I turn to the question of DLA and the particular problems about its introduction. I also deal with the question about the ILF raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. We have accepted that there have been problems with DLA and its administration. A number of delays have affected a number of people. When a new benefit like that is introduced to a very large number of people there are always quite likely to be problems. When the Labour Party was in government and introduced mobility allowance it took a different approach; it introduced it in a phased manner. As a result, there were 5,000 payments in the first year, 30,000 in the second year, 65,000 in the third year and 95,000 in the fourth year. That may or may not be a satisfactory way to deal with it. I have to say that personally if I were entitled to one or the other I would prefer to wait a mere three months—as the delays over
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DLA seem to have been this year —rather than up to four years for some classes of people back in the early seventies when mobility allowance was claimed.
I also refer to the point that the noble Baroness makes about our exchange of words at the Dispatch Box on ILF the other day. As the noble Baroness has acknowledged, I have already apologised. She considered my manner abrupt. I am, I believe, quite right in saying that the ILF—the Independent Living Fund—had a discretion that it could operate. It simply chose not to exercise that discretion. For that reason I do not believe there is any need for me to make the apology for which the noble Baroness asks.
The noble Baroness asks whether we can have separate statistics on what is fraud and what is error. I note what she says, but I suspect that there will be considerable practical difficulties in defining all the different levels of fraud and error.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I believe that to be a helpful response. However, as I understand it, the separation of information was made before 1988. I stand to be corrected, but I believe that it stopped from 1988 onwards. Therefore, if we were able to disaggregate the statistics in the past it would be extremely helpful if we could continue to do so in future. Then we would have an agreed basis of information as to what was a problem of error—and the Sunday Times report on the DLA suggested there were considerable problems of error—and what was a problem of fraud, which we would all wish to stamp out.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I presume that the noble Baroness would like to stamp out both error and fraud. I will certainly look at what she says without making any commitment. I cannot repeat myself often enough in saying that I do not accept what the noble Baroness says about the cost of the personal pensions initiative and the cost of the changes that we made to SERPS in the early eighties. Those changes and the changes that we made by the abolition of the uprating by prices or earnings were the two biggest steps in giving us an affordable pensions structure for the 21st century—a structure that my children and grandchildren would be able to afford. There was no point in making wild promises, as the party opposite did, in the mere hope that something would turn up.
I turn to the poverty trap and the high level of the taper to which the noble Baroness objects. I accept that there are some people with very high marginal deduction rates. The first thing I point out is that the number of those with high marginal deduction rates over 90 per cent. dropped dramatically from 130,000 to 75,000 between 1985 and 1992–93. The second point I make is one of cost. It is worth pointing out to the noble Baroness that the cost of reducing the housing benefit taper to, say, 50 per cent. would be £340 million. I am afraid that that is simply not on. To reduce it by a mere 5 per cent. to 60 per cent. will cost some £100 million with about 1.5 million gainers of about £1.30 per week.
The noble Baroness asked about the fundamental review of social security and sought an assurance that it was not just about cutting costs. I suppose I could

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ask the same question about the privatisation by the noble Baroness's party of its policy-making by handing it over to the commission on social justice. I am full of admiration at its conversion to the virtues of privatisation. It has taken it so far as to privatise its policy-making. The purpose of our fundamental review of social security is not to cut the level of benefits to the sick, the unemployed or the elderly as the noble Baroness claimed. The purpose of the review is to look at ways in which we can make the system more effective in the long term and provide better value for money to our customers; Existing manifesto pledges will he unaffected. We will honour our pledges to uprate fully in line with prices both retirement pensions and child benefit. That is what we have done, along with the other benefits in this particular debate. I commend the five orders to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Kenya: Elections
6.48 p.m.
Lord Tordoff Lord Tordoff rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their response to the report of the Commonwealth Observers' Group on the recent elections in Kenya.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
I begin by thanking the Minister for being here tonight. I know that she is always dashing round the world and it is very good that she is here for a debate on what I believe to be a subject which she herself agrees is important.
I should like to offer your Lordships a short description of the events leading up to the election in Kenya on 29th December last year, to try to explain in some detail the observations and conclusions of the observers from the Commonwealth Secretariat, to consider the future and to ask the Government what their reaction is to the report. The report received some criticism in the press. It appeared that the journalists—who always like simple answers to complex questions—wanted to know whether the elections were free and fair. Consider the following circumstances: 1 million voters are displaced from the electoral register; there is substantial personation of votes; there is a deliberate failure to de-limit voting districts so as to present a high disparity in electoral size, varying between 20,000 and 126,000; and there is a huge imbalance in the number of voters required to elect representatives of different political parties to Parliament. Are those elections free and fair? Should they be nullified? I do not think so. All those things I have mentioned apply to local and parliamentary elections in Britain.
The criticism of the report in the press also tends to show that on the whole the press has not read the report. There is also a lack of understanding of what the Commonwealth observers are supposed to be doing. I reiterate that they are there to observe, to record their impartial findings and to report to the Secretary General of the Commonwealth and to the political parties in the country. It is not the job of the
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Commonwealth observers to determine the future of the country. It is up to the Kenyan people, the Commonwealth and the donor countries to interpret those findings and determine their response.
I should start by explaining what happened before we arrived there, because the process did not begin with our arrival on 16th and 17th December last year. It could be said to have started—although it probably started long before—with the decision of the Commonwealth Heads of Government in Harare in 1991, when it was decided that the Commonwealth should try to assist the extension of multi-party democracy throughout the Commonwealth. As a result of that there was a significant number of visits by the Secretary General and his staff to Kenya. Technical teams were sent out there to help to identify the issues. Those noble Lords who have read the report will have seen those issues identified on page 1. As a result of that activity significant changes were made in the electoral arrangements. I wish to take the opportunity tonight to pay tribute to the Secretary General of the Commonwealth and to his secretariat.
The delegation went out mainly on 16th and 17th December. It comprised 25 people from 18 countries. It is important to recognise that this was not a British delegation; it was a Commonwealth delegation. It contained only three British people: the honourable Colin Moynihan, Sylvia Heal and myself. The other members came from different parts of the Commonwealth and they comprised as broad a cross-section of the Commonwealth as one could wish. It is important to reiterate that this was a Commonwealth enterprise. The delegation consisted of experienced people such as judges, diplomats, parliamentarians, election officers and a highly qualified team of staff who deserve the highest tribute.
We started by having initial discussions with the Government, the President and the political parties. We talked to the local national monitoring units. They comprised a useful group of people to whom praise is very much due. I wish to place on record—this is contained in the report—our thanks to the officials in Kenya: the Permanent Secretary, the foreign department and Ambassador Sefu who did such a lot to ensure we were able to move about freely and efficiently. I wish to pay tribute to my driver, Mr. Joseph Boit, who drove about 2,500 kilometres on my behalf and without whose assistance we would not have found half the polling stations that we found on polling day.
After that initial period, 36 of us, including members of the staff, went out to different regions of the country. In addition to ourselves there were other observers and monitors. There were about 50 from the International Republican Institute of the United States. There were Scandinavians, European parliamentarians and church groups, including the former Bishop of Manchester, as well as diplomats from the High Commissions and embassies in Nairobi. It was a pity that the Carter Centre, the Kennedy Center and the National Democratic Institute were not allowed to send observers because it was alleged by the Government of Kenya that they

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would be biased. I believe that that view had been given by Kenneth Kaunda as a result of what had happened in Zambia the year before.
Let us spend a moment to look at the political situation which existed prior to 1992. We must bear in mind that Kenya was a one-party state for almost 30 years. It had a bad human rights record. The previous elections had been conducted not by secret ballot but by people queuing up in front of pictures of their candidate. Election petitions were still being heard from the 1988 elections four years later. It was quite clear from our discussions with President Moi that he was not in favour of multi-party elections. He made it quite plain to us that he feared that that would lead to excessive tribal divisions. It was only due to extended pressure from donor countries that the elections took place at all.
The contestants all came from nine parties. Political parties have to be registered in Kenya. That does not occur in this country, although it might be a good idea if it did. Three parties were rejected. One of them was an Islamic party from the Mombasa area. It was rejected because it was regarded as being tribalist. The Green Party and the Green Party of Africa were rejected for security reasons. That seems a little curious. One must bear in mind that the opposition parties in Kenya were relatively new. Many of them comprised seasoned politicians who had been in the Kenya African National Union (KANU) but they were very new to their political parties. They were inexperienced in campaigning in multi-party elections. Their membership was confined to certain areas and there was quite clearly a difference between what was happening in the urban and in the rural areas. I noticed that also in the elections that I witnessed in Zambia last year and in Bulgaria the year before. Those are points one should remember when trying to establish who are the "goodies" and who are the "baddies". This was not a highly sophisticated election campaign.
The report considers the conditions for free and fair elections and it spells out some of these. It states that while constitutional reforms are relatively easy on paper, there are major problems in changing the attitudes of politicians of ruling parties and civil servants brought up in a one-party system.
Page 7 of the report states:
"Recent Commonwealth experience suggests that at the political level two elements are of particular importance to the conduct of free and fair elections during the transition from a one-party to a multi-party system: the creation of a 'level playing field'"—
I have to apologise as I thought we had removed the expression "level playing field" from the report along with all the split infinitives. However, I am afraid one instance of a "level playing field" crept in. The report continues:
"the creation of a 'level playing field' for the lawful activities of all political parties and a thorough de-linking of government affairs, personnel and resources from those of the ruling party".
That is frightfully important. Another important factor is the establishment of an independent electoral commission which all the parties can trust and whose rules are accepted and administered fairly. There
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should be free and fair access to the press, TV and radio. I shall return to that point in a moment. There should also be an absence of intimidation and bribery. There should be secrecy of the ballot, an absence of ballot rigging and accuracy at the count. How far were those criteria met?
I shall deal with some of the problem areas. The first problem existed before we arrived: that is the matter of the nominations. As I believe I have already said, we should bear in mind that there were three concurrent elections: one for the presidency, one for the Parliament and one for the civic elections. There were considerable abuses as regards the nominations for the parliamentary and the civic elections. There was widespread evidence of nominees being kidnapped, threatened, robbed of documents and of money and of being prevented from getting their nominations in on time. Such practices were more prevalent in some areas than in others. I was working in the Rift Valley and in the four districts that I covered there were some 15 constituencies and only four of them were contested. One could not help but notice that those were all in the president's own area. Indeed, when we met the president and asked him about it he said, "It is unthinkable that anybody would come from outside the area and seek to stand for election in my own home area". As I recall, our leader replied that he was sure that the president did not expect a totally different form of democracy in Kenya from the rest of the world.
There was also the problem that the Attorney General had altered the law without bothering to tell anybody. The time between the announcement of the election and nomination day was changed from not less than to not more than 21 days. It was probably illegal for him to do that but he did it nevertheless. In the event only six days were allowed between the announcement of the election and nomination day.
During the campaign itself there was considerable evidence of intimidation in the period running up to the election. In the area where I was working I visited refugee camps where there were people whose homes had been burnt, their crops destroyed, their cattle stolen and many of their friends and relatives killed. It was a form of political ethnic cleansing. The Kalenjins had been told by the local politicians—and I place the responsibility for creating the atmosphere firmly on the politicians—that if KANU lost the election they would lose land to other tribes and they would have no influence on the government.
Here I should like to pay tribute to the churches. Huge numbers of people—in the region of 15,000 in the Burnt Forest area—had suddenly landed in the lap of the local churches. It was comforting to see the way in which churches of all denominations worked together in a truly ecumenical way to help out those poor people, with very little government assistance.
I do not say that there was no intimidation by opposition parties. In some parts of the country there undoubtedly was, but it was certainly not on the same scale. In the light of the overall situation, I do not want to overestimate the effect on the result. It was

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localised, but nevertheless unacceptable. The decoupling of the government and KANU hardly took place throughout the campaign.
Chapter 5 of the report devotes considerable attention to the question of media freedom. It was clear that the press was biased in favour of KANU. The press being biased in favour of the government party is not unknown in other countries. However, in the case of the electronic media it is more serious, particularly when the electronic media are controlled by the government. The report states:
"this became one of the most contentious issues during the campaign. We consider that arrangements to ensure that all parties have equal access to the media are always an important indicator of the strength of the commitment to the democratic process … we issued a statement pointing out that there was a noticeable imbalance in the reporting of the election on radio and television and that we would hope to see greater exposure given to the activities of the opposition parties in the publicly owned media".
In so far as that was achieved, the opposition were shown only in a derogatory light. Most of the evening television broadcasts showed what the president had been doing that day and what he would be doing the following day.
More seriously, a number of journalists, particularly from the weekly newspapers, had been put in gaol and charged with sedition. So far as I know they are not yet off the hook even now. One shudders to think what would have happened to the Sun newspaper in similar circumstances.
There was certainly intimidation and bribery. There was intimidation at public meetings. An organisation called Young Kenya 92, which was almost certainly illegal, was organised and paid. I myself saw people given money and taken off in what appeared to be government vehicles, although they had private number plates. That was in addition to the difficulties which the opposition parties experienced in obtaining permits for meetings.
Serious attempts were made to intimidate opposition candidates right up to the last minute. In Kerio South, a constituency which was part of my area, a lady called Tabatha Seii was very nearly seriously attacked the night before polling. Fortunately she had with her not only some askari but also a member of the BBC World Service. I should also like to pay tribute to the World Service. It was interesting that when speaking to people about the media in Kenya if one suggested that the radio and television were biased they would say, "That doesn't matter because we've got the World Service". That was very good to hear.
Allegations were made that voting cards were being bought from voters. One was supposed to have a pink voting card to be able to go to the polls at all. Those were being bought for quite a lot of money and either being destroyed or handed over to supporters of the government party. That was an issue on which the chairman of the Electoral Commission showed at his best. He suddenly announced about 10 days before the election that it was no longer necessary to have the cards to vote. A great deal of money had changed hands to no great purpose. There was considerable
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circumstantial evidence to support most of those complaints, but, as always, it was difficult to quantify and it was difficult to obtain first-hand evidence.
A major complaint was made about the composition of the Electoral Commission. It was appointed without consultation with the opposition parties. The fitness for office of its chairman became an issue. He had been chairman when Kenya was a single party state. The report, both in the text on page 10 and in Annex 10, goes into the matter in some detail because we thought it important. We said:
"With the change to a multi-party system, it became vital that the contestants should have the confidence that the Electoral Commission was indeed an independent and impartial body free from the direction and control of any other person in the exercise of its functions.
"Not surprisingly, therefore, the opposition parties objected to Justice Chesoni continuing as Chairman of the Electoral Commission on the grounds that he was not fit for the office".
The reason he was allegedly not fit for office was, as the appendix tells us, because in 1984 he had been a judge of the High Court of Kenya. Bankruptcy proceedings were filed against him and he was allowed to retire on a pension. The government-controlled bank was ordered by the government to write off his debt. In 1990 he was reappointed an acting justice of appeal, but then it was found that there was an outstanding application to commit him to prison which was due to come up in May 1990. He was asked to resign; he refused and was fired. Nevertheless, the president felt that he was suitable to remain as chairman of the Electoral Commission. We said:
"The retention of Justice Chesoni in the face of what were apparently justified opposition protests could reasonably be interpreted by the opposition parties as an unmistakable signal that the Government would use its powers to secure an advantage for the ruling party".
There is no doubt that that feeling that he was totally compromised and was a tool of the government was responsible for a considerable amount of the suspicion and sourness which occurred at that stage of the election process. As we say in the report, at a later stage Justice Chesoni performed much better.
There is much more that I could say, but I see that time is whizzing by. Come election day, in spite of all the problems, the situation was much redeemed. There were serious organisational problems: late opening of polling booths; lack of experience; considerable confusion; and sporadic but by no means widespread instances of attempted ballot rigging—but there were many more allegations than confirmed cases. There was a serious lack of secrecy. I saw polling booths where the screens had been totally removed. In many cases illiterate voters were assisted in a way which was unacceptable. However, it is fair to say that in general polling day went a long way to redeem the whole election process.
In the last paragraph of our assessment we say:
"we can only conclude that neither the polling day arrangements nor the polling and counting processes were adequately designed or carried out to meet the specific situations and needs which the Kenyan electoral environment required. This, coupled with a lack of comprehensive training and civic education, led to the inevitable delays and confusion at the polls. If it were not for the laudable commitment, dedication and patience of some poll officials, party agents and, in particular, the electors, the whole process could easily have become a fiasco. Special mention must be made of the

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thousands of local monitors who tirelessly and vigilantly kept watch at all polling stations and counting centres. As it was, polling day, and the many hours afterwards, was probably the most positive aspect of the whole electoral process".
In conclusion, I can do no better than again quote from our own conclusion in the summary. We stated:
"Despite the flaws, we believe that these elections marked the first step on the path to multi-party democracy. The process, as it turned out, was facilitated greatly by the resolute determination of the voters to make a success of their contribution to its development. Regrettably, the contribution of the Government and the political parties did not match that of the voters on this occasion".
I wish to ask the Government this question. Where do we go from here? Kenya has come a long way. It has begun to be a multi-party democracy. It has a substantial elected opposition. Parliament has met and has been prorogued; I hope that that is merely a technicality. Perhaps the Minister will be able to assist on that because she has been in Kenya so recently. All eyes are on President Moi. Will he treat the Opposition properly? Will the Opposition behave as a proper opposition group should? Are the abuses of the past ended? Will the Opposition be allowed to operate freely? Will the media be allowed to operate freely? Will journalists be allowed to criticise?
The Commonwealth has an enormous role to play. The Secretary-General has already been back to Kenya and is in contact with all sides. He is using his leverage, expertise and experience to try to assist all sides. We must be grateful to him for that. I am sure that the Minister is doing likewise. However, we must make it clear that we can only support the Kenyan Government if progress is made. Progress is important not only for Kenya itself but for the whole of Africa and for democracy in Africa. Kenya was the big test. It almost failed. But it can succeed if the President, the governing party and the Opposition have the will to make it succeed. Only at that stage should our support be guaranteed.
7.12 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, the House is grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, for his work as one of the Commonwealth Observer Group and for initiating the debate. He did so with the balance of judgment that the report also demonstrates. It was wise to let the dust settle before we had the debate. I believe that now is a good time to examine the report and the situation in Kenya in order to consider how Britain, especially Her Majesty's Government, should respond to the situation.
I pay a tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker. I believe that her visits to Kenya before President Daniel arap Moi had responded to the cause for multi-party democracy were important. The British Government supported the strongly-held American view, and that of other aid donors. I am grateful to her for her recent visit. That is another reason why today is a good time to have the debate. I look forward intensely to hearing what she has to say.
President Daniel arap Moi had opposed the concept of multi-party democracy not only for long years before he gave in to pressure, but also afterwards when he indicated that he did not think much of the
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system. I believe that the report confirmed that sufficiently for us to watch carefully to ensure that he does not now use his election-given power to revert to the days of oppression and fraud which typified so much of his rule from 1978 until December 1992. He did not hesitate to throw his opponents into gaol without charge, without trial or the protection of the law. It was not by accident that he became one of the richest men in the world during his period in office. That was at the expense of his own people.
We look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness has to say and her comments on the report by the Commonwealth Observer Group. The group's report will have enabled some people to reach the simple conclusion that the elections were rigged, or for the Opposition to say, "We was robbed". It is quite possible that fair and well-conducted elections could have led to a different result which might have put opposition parties into the role of the presidency. I wish to touch on a few points which arise from the report. I shall not repeat what the noble Lord said.
First, the ruling party could have done far more to control and curb the ethnic excesses. Secondly, the Government refused to have dialogue with the newly-created opposition parties in the run-up to the election. Some agreement between them might have greatly improved the situation. Thirdly, the Government were responsible for the structure and composition of the Electoral Commission, to which the noble Lord referred. Fourthly, there was inadequate training of registration officers. Over a million people were unable to register to vote. There was multiple registration. Fifthly the refusal to publish the 1989 census results was unfortunate. Public servants were expected to act in the interests of KANU, the ruling party.
Sixthly, the decision by the Government to cut short the period of the campaign was in the interests of the Government, as they saw it. Seventhly, many election candidates were prevented from handing in their nomination papers. Opposition parties were harassed in the Rift Valley, and elsewhere, and in the North Eastern Province were unable to organise election meetings freely or, in some cases, not at all. Eighthly, there was widespread bribery. Ninthly, on polling day many polling stations were not open for voters until long after the time that they were supposed to be open. Tenthly, the counting of the votes was very slow indeed. Many other points have been touched on by the noble Lord.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me for intervening. Does he accept that the late opening and the slow counting were due to inexperience and, in some cases perhaps, incompetence rather than deliberate attempts by the governing party to damage the election?
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I do indeed. However, it helps to substantiate the point that I made: that the election officers were not properly trained to do their job effectively. I do not say that it necessarily affected the result. I simply say that as a well-run election, it did not quite come up to scratch.

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Such a catalogue of events as the noble Lord has revealed, and to which I have added, were almost entirely to the advantage of KANU and were more than enough to disqualify the outcome and to declare the election to be invalid. But in the end it was the common sense and political judgment of the political leaders, of the people across the spectrum, and indeed of the Commonwealth observers, which ensured that Daniel arap Moi is still President of Kenya—although in my view he does not deserve to be so.
I am intentionally seeking to be as brief as I can. Before coming to the lessons to be learned from the election in Kenya let me reveal two interests. First, I have an intense interest in Kenya. I have been there many times and hope to go there many times again. I hope that nothing I say today will make my life more difficult the next time that I am in Kenya. Secondly, Mr. Kenneth Matiba—he was the leader of the party who gained most votes among the opposition parties—has been a close personal friend of mine for well over 30 years. He and his wife Edith lived with my family when they were both doing postgraduate studies. He was educated at a mission school. I know his abilities. His absolute honesty and his integrity are attributes that are not always present in all political leaders even in countries other than Kenya, to put it at its mildest. He was a success as a civil servant and as a businessman. He was then a success as a Cabinet Minister. He was a success as a husband and father too, and it was his belief in multi-party democracy which led to his estrangement from President Moi when he was arguing the case for multi-party democracy and President Moi was saying, "None of that"—so much so that Matiba was thrown into jail without charge or trial and his family not knowing for many months where he was. He suffered appalling deprivations which undoubtedly, in my view, led to the stroke which occurred 11 months after his incarceration. The records of his family are as distinguished as his own.
Poor Ken was kept in solitary confinement for 11 months, totally cut off from his family and forced to sleep on a brick floor. Before his detention his wife and one of their daughters were brutally attacked in their home. They were severely injured and both were in hospital for some time. All his family stood by him throughout his struggle.
It was Mr. Matiba's qualities of leadership which led him also to leave his hospital bed for treatment in London at a time when his supporters might have created a situation of violent conflict. They declared, as soon as they knew that he was in hospital, that they would free him the following Sunday. That would undoubtedly have led to violence unless he had simply been freed, and there was no indication that Mr. Moi would do that.
Those same qualities led him to return to Kenya for the multi-party elections for which he had called for such a long time. He returned to the elections before fully recovering from his stroke. He had no opportunity after his operations and treatment fully to recover. It was again those same qualities which led him to turn away from almost certain violence after the results were known. Had he or the other party
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leaders called on his supporters either to boycott the rigged elections or to refuse to accept their outcome, the situation in Kenya might indeed have been dire.
I pay tribute to the report of the observers who used their political judgment. I also pay tribute to the party leaders who may be open to criticism for other actions, but they decided in the interests of their country that they would take their places in parliament. I believe that Mr. Matiba's time is still to come and I hope that it will not be long.
I totally support the political judgment of those who said, in the words of the Commonwealth observers, that,
"These elections marked the first step on the path to multi-party democracy".
As it turned out, the process was facilitated greatly by the resolute determination of the voters to make a success of their contribution to its development. Tributes were paid to the patience and determination displayed by the voters. They deserve a better government than they have as a result of the election.
Finally, what should Britain's role be now? For years Britain took a low profile. I agree with the comments in the report in the Independent of 6th January:
"Only when it seemed that the country would explode if Mr. Moi did not allow multi-party democracy and when all other aid donors were urging democracy, did Britain finally put pressure on Mr. Moi by stopping aid to Kenya".
It was at that time that the noble Baroness made her significant contribution to the welfare of Kenya.
In my view, Kenya needs Britain more than Britain needs Kenya. Because of our long historic ties we have a link with Kenya and feel naturally, as part of the Commonwealth, a responsibility for that country. I had the privilege of knowing Jomo Kenyatta before and during his presidency, meeting him not long before his death. I knew Tom M'Boya and the late Michael Blundell before I had the opportunity of meeting Mr. Moi. I was introduced to him by Ken Matiba.
Because of the £1 billion worth of investment, Britain's voice will always be listened to in Kenya. Unhappily, Kenya has been split during these elections along tribal lines. The Luo and the Kikuyu were solidly against Mr. Moi. It would be wrong to give Mr. Moi unqualified support or immediately to restore the aid programme. We must be satisfied that the new-found democracy is in safe hands. I certainly agree with all the conclusions of Christian Aid's report, based on the wise, sound advice of the former Bishop the Very Reverend and Mrs. Stanley Booth-Clibborn. I thought that they produced an outstanding report in which there were three points with which I associate myself. Unfortunately, I do not have them to hand, which reduces my speech.
The points were that we must ensure that Kenya stays on the right and proper path, that we do not see it going back again to the situation in which those who voted against the government suffer—either the political leaders or the parties. The report by Christian Aid was very valuable and I wish that I had it with me.
I look forward with great interest to what the Minister has to say. I hope that she will take the same view as did Christian Aid that British policy will be

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based on the performance of the newly-elected government. I look forward to what the noble Baroness has to say and I shall watch with interest Britain's relationship with Kenya during the months and years to come.
7.26 p.m.
Viscount Brentford: My Lords, I too would like to express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, not only for his hard work in Kenya in December but also for his interesting remarks in opening the debate on the Question. I also look forward to the speech of my noble friend Lady Chalker. I know from my contacts in Kenya in what extremely high regard she is held in that country.
I do not wish to go over all the ground that has been so ably covered by both the noble Lords, Lord Tordoff and Lord Ennals. I wish to make just one or two points. I agree that the process is a first step towards democracy. The extent to which the result of the election reflects the will of the people I find hard to diagnose. Perhaps two-thirds of the electorate voted against the government, but the government, KANU, were returned. I also wish to know whether my noble friend can tell me how many seats in parliament are still vacant or being contested. Again, I have heard conflicting reports and it is hard to see what is right and proper there.
Perhaps the most important issue is whether the lessons have been learnt for the next election so that the corruption which clearly existed will be much reduced. I do not believe that the government were the only party acting corruptly. I believe that there was opposition corruption as well in certain quarters, though to a lesser extent.
Much has been said about the training of election officers. I hope that there can be ways in which the Kenya Government can be encouraged to initiate training and perhaps put training under the Commonwealth team so that it is impartial. Then election officers will in future not be trained by KANU. It is clearly an enormous difficulty that the separation of the government from KANU was not able to be pushed any more than it was and the two ran together.
I felt, however, that it was encouraging that the superb team of observers was not hoodwinked, as some of the reports from certain quarters suggest that much hoodwinking went on. I am enormously encouraged by the Commonwealth observers' report which ended by being extremely realistic.
Perhaps I may put one or two further questions to the Minister about what Her Majesty's Government's policy will be in the medium and the long term. I know because I read it in the press—we know that everything is true in the press, but in this instance I believe it—that my noble friend has been exerting her great influence to encourage dialogue between the government and the opposition parties. I would be very grateful if she were able to inform noble Lords of what progress she has made. It is important that
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between them they try to solve the country's outstanding political and economic problems, which are still enormous.
My last question is: what is Her Majesty's Government's view on resuming support for Kenya's beleaguered economy? Is my noble friend satisfied that economic reform and political reform have met the criteria for bilateral and multilateral aid to be resumed, or should further measures be required of the Kenya Government? If so, what action is being taken to encourage those further measures to be taken so that the country can receive aid? Unfortunately, as has already been said, the country is in a very poor economic state at the present time. The aid countries, the government, the opposition and other sources of influence in Kenya need to pull together so that the country can regain its leading position in Africa and not be pulled down by those problems. I look forward to hearing what my noble friend has to say.
7.30 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Ennals and the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, for putting down the Question. I also greatly look forward to what the Minister will say in response since she has so recently been in Kenya. I have some more specific questions for her regarding what the UK Government will be doing in response.
Kenya is clearly at a crossroads. After the first multi-party elections for over 25 years, it faces an uncertain future. It could go the way of the proper establishment of democracy, in which opposition parties are able to operate freely, in which the government are accountable to parliament and in which human rights are preserved and large-scale corruption is eliminated. Alternatively, it could return to autocratic rule, leading to civil unrest and disorder, fuelled by the rightly justifiable outrage of the opposition parties, leading in the end to serious upheaval and political instability. How Western governments, and in particular the British Government, handle relations with Kenya in the crucial months ahead, following an election which leaves much to be desired in its conduct, is vitally important.
Looking back over the past decade, one cannot but be rather uneasy about the UK Government's record in dealing with Mr. Moi and his government. It is an uneasiness already expressed by my noble friend Lord Ennals, although in a very gentle way. Having succeeded to the presidency on the death of Kenyatta in 1979, Moi embarked on an increasingly repressive regime. More and more he ruled by presidential decree, locking up those who opposed him, denying such opponents a fair trial and torturing some of them in prison. At the same time corruption became rife. Through much of that period the UK Government said and did little, in spite of their large potential for influence as Kenya's biggest bilateral aid donor. Surely they should have acted sooner to try to curb the brutality and corruption of the Moi regime.
But as more and more aid donors became concerned about blatant breaches of human rights,

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and following the murder of the former Foreign Minister, Robert Ouko, the Government finally started to put pressure on Mr. Moi along with other aid donors. There was an agreement under the chairmanship of the World Bank to suspend lending and balance of payments assistance to Kenya in late 1991. Their resumption was tied to the regime introducing political reforms as well as undertaking a more effective implementation of the country's structural adjustment programme. One month later, President Moi's KANU party agreed to legalise opposition parties and to hold multi-party elections. As we all know, they took place at the end of December a year later, with a resulting victory for KANU.
The crucial question now is whether Mr. Moi—a most reluctant democrat—intends to behave in a way which is appropriate to a democratic leader. The signs so far are not auspicious. Perhaps we should not be surprised. For nearly 14 years, President Moi has exercised dictatorial power, showing little tolerance or ability to compromise. He must now make dramatic changes in the way he governs.
Such changes are particularly important in the context of an election which raises many questions about whether it was genuinely free and fair. I listened with great interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, said. He speaks with authority as a member of the Commonwealth Observer Group which monitored the elections. Having myself been an observer of the election process in another African country which had been denied the benefit of elections, I recognise the difficulties facing such a group both in collecting and assessing the evidence and in making a judgment about whether the election was free and fair. However, having read the Commonwealth report, it is impossible not to feel uneasy.
The first cause for concern is the Electoral Commission and its composition. Frankly, the Commonwealth observers' report is contradictory on the matter. As the report indicates, the opposition complained about both the composition and the performance of the Electoral Commission, and argued that Mr. Chesoni, its chairman, and some other members of the Electoral Commission were unfit to serve on that body—a charge which, of course, he vigorously denied. The report then states that the Commonwealth observers received no information that would cast doubt on the denial, despite the Commonwealth delegation receiving a file which apparently lent credence to the allegations when it visited Kenya in November last year.
Somewhat paradoxically, the observers' report goes on to suggest that there were reasonable grounds for challenging Mr. Chesoni's credentials. Indicative of this, the report states that retaining Mr. Chesoni:
"could reasonably be interpreted by the opposition parties as an unmistakable signal that the Government would use its powers to secure an advantage for the ruling party … [his] lack of transparency, his unwillingness to meet the opposition parties and his apparent collaboration with the Attorney-General in improperly shortening the period between the issue of the writ and the nomination of candidates, confirmed opposition misgivings".
The observers concluded:
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"These factors cast a cloud over the electoral process".
They observed, however, as the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, has already reported, that the Electoral Commission's performance improved dramatically—I suppose we can be grateful for small mercies—although the report argues that the chairman's background and his earlier performance in the office,
"might have undermined perceptions that the election would be supervised in a manner that was free and fair".
The Commonwealth observers' report also high-lights the difficulties involved in evaluating elections in those terms, although it became clear to the team that,
"some aspects of the elections were not fair".
The team's concerns relate to the inadequacy of the vote registration process in many parts of the country and significant weaknesses in the nomination process for candidates.
The report also observed that the Electoral Commission fulfilled its designed role in the last weeks of the campaign. The observers also noted—the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, referred to this—the partisanship of the state-owned radio and television and the reluctance of the government to delink themselves from the KANU party.
Finally, as we have already heard this evening, the Commonwealth observers were particularly concerned about KANU's resort to violence and intimidation in the Rift Valley, President Moi's own heartland, and in the north-eastern province. That resulted in 16 KANU candidates being returned unopposed. I understand that the opposition parties are appealing against those unopposed elections; but perhaps the Minister will confirm that.
Despite those anxieties, the report falls short of condemning the elections outright. The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, quoted the conclusions and I do not wish to repeat everything that he said. Perhaps I may quote a couple of lines. The team concluded,
"we believe that the results in many instances directly reflect, however imperfectly, the expression of the will of the people. It constitutes a giant step on the road to multi-party democracy".
Had I been drafting I would have been inclined to leave out the word "giant". In the circumstances such hyperbole seems a little misplaced. The election, although flawed, is at least a small step in the right direction. I fully understand the anxieties of the Commonwealth observers about declaring the election to be neither free nor fair. Nevertheless, after the catalogue of failures that we heard of from the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, it is essential that lessons are learnt from the election so that everything possible can be done to ensure that its imperfections do not apply to the next one.
In that regard I endorse everything said by the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford. It is unclear whether the Kenyan Government take seriously the reported irregularities or whether they will be responsive to suggestions for the need, for example, for the training of election officers. I hope that the UK Government made clear that they are concerned about many aspects of the report.
Meanwhile, we need to ask what can be done to put pressure on the Kenyan Government to implement parliamentary democracy. President Moi's decision to prorogue Parliament is alarming. Perhaps the

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Minister can say whether she received a convincing explanation on her recent visit and also whether she was given any indication of when Parliament would be recalled. President Moi's failure to appoint any opposition leaders to government posts must also be a considerable cause for anxiety since that means that the country's most powerful and politically active tribes—the Kikuyus and the Luo—are not represented in government. The election revealed that support for President Moi is down to a mere 2.5 per cent. in the Kikuyu homeland.
It would be helpful if the Minister could tell the House whether President Moi has held talks with opposition parties or whether he still believes that he can govern in defiance of them. I assume that she met representatives of the opposition during her recent visit. Perhaps the noble Baroness can confirm that and say to what conclusions she came with respect to their anxieties in regard to the election.
Since Kenya is one of the largest recipients of UK aid, receiving more than any other African country according to 1990 statistics, with only India and Bangladesh as larger recipients, the UK Government are in a strong position to put into practice in Kenya their commitment to linking aid to good government. I note that aid to Kenya averaged £49.4 million between 1988 and 1990 but went down to £29.3 million in 1991. I am unclear whether that is a reflection of the failure to sustain good government or whether there are other reasons. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that and at the same time indicate what the level of British bilateral aid is expected to be in 1992–93.
Turning to the resumption of lending provisions to Kenya by the international community, will the Minister agree that that should be delayed until there is clear evidence that President Moi's Government will both uphold democracy and respect human rights? On the second of those points I understand from Amnesty International that all the political prisoners of which it is aware have been released from gaol but that 30 government opponents are still facing charges, including sedition, and that no date has been set for their trial. Nor have there been any investigations into allegations of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners. There have also been allegations that Somali refugees—most of whom are women, children and the old—have been mistreated in Kenyan refugee camps and threats have been made to deport them. Any light that the Minister can throw on those questions would be helpful.
Clearly there is a great deal at stake in Kenya in the next few months following the elections. We must expect more than we have seen so far from the opposition if it is to act as an effective coalition as well as from the government. But President Moi must bear the major responsibility for the deterioration of his country and its image abroad. Once a role model for Africa with a successful economy and political stability, it now faces an economic crisis. But, above all, its reputation has been damaged by a corrupt and autocratic government. Kenya's 26 million people
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deserve better than that. We owe it to them to use our influence to help bring about the political change necessary to restore Kenya's reputation.
7.45 p.m.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, and all of your Lordships for your contributions to this debate. The elections were held in Kenya on 29th December. They marked an important watershed in Kenya's recent history, reflecting the wider trend towards political reform and greater democracy which we have seen sweeping across many parts of the world—as many would say, not before time.
Periods of fundamental change are always accompanied by risks and opportunities. Britain, as one of Kenya's closest friends, was keen to do all that it could to help minimise the risks and maximise the opportunities. The Commonwealth, I believe, approached its responsibilities towards Kenya in the same spirit of friendship and support.
Since the Commonwealth Secretariat was first invited last April to send an observer team to the elections, it tackled the task at hand with a commendable degree of diligence and dedication. As the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, said, it was not an easy job. When long entrenched political landscapes and attitudes begin to shift, suspicions run high. But I commend to your Lordships the report before you, which, in our assessment, constitutes a balanced piece of work and illustrates clearly the positive and the negative aspects of the process.
As noble Lords will be aware, I visited Kenya 10 days ago both to see the problems of the north-east and to talk to President Moi and several of his Ministers. I had also asked to meet leaders of the opposition parties, but my invitation was accepted only by Mr. Kenneth Matiba—leader of FORD-Asili —and two colleagues. We had a good meeting and I fully appreciate what the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, said about Kenneth Matiba whom I too have known for some time though not as long as he. I am sorry that the leaders of the two other main parties refused a discussion. I always recall a phrase taught to me 25 years ago by the late lain Macleod. He said,
"We may not agree, but we should never fail to listen".
It seems a worthy maxim for any disputed matter, especially in the politics of Africa. I was glad therefore to have a good talk with Mr. Robert Shaw, a senior adviser to FORD-Kenya.
My colleagues in the Foreign Office and I had met all the leading opposition figures in the run-up to the elections. We took every opportunity to make clear that Britain had no hidden political agenda. We were genuinely impartial between the political parties and we remain so. We are not, however, impartial about the need for democracy in Kenya. Kenya is one of the few African Commonwealth states in which there has been a continuity of constitutional civilian rule since independence. The move away from a one-party state represents a shift of historic importance. The opposition now have a major stake also in the parliamentary system. I sincerely hope that both they and the governing party will recognise the importance

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at this stage in Kenya's history of adopting a policy of reconciliation and tolerance. For my part, I will continue to keep my door open to any leading Kenyan politician who wishes to see me. I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, that I have urged both on the opposition and members of the Government that dialogue between government and opposition is the only way to succeed for Kenya's sake. I implored them to put Kenyan people and the needs of Kenya for growth and stability first and above their party political attitudes.
As the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, said, the elections were not perfect. There were serious flaws, recognised by all those who took part in the observer exercise. We are indeed grateful to him and his colleagues from this country and indeed all the observers who went to Kenya. Yes, the report is critical of the election process, but all equally agree that there were no grounds on which to declare the whole proceedings null and void. On the contrary, the elections represented a major advance for the democratic process in Kenya. The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, concluded his speech with the last paragraph from the Commonwealth observers' summary, which sets out the matter very well. They spoke of the first step on the path to multi-party democracy. I had some sympathy with the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, when she said "giant step" on the road to multi-party democracy, as on page 40 of the report. It was not quite as giant as all that and it is interesting that the summary says "first step".
I want to pay tribute too to the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Anyaoku, and his staff at the Commonwealth Secretariat. They really should be praised for the enthusiasm they have shown and for their efforts to encourage the process of democratisation in the various countries where Commonwealth observer groups have been present. I probably know better than most just how difficult that can be. Their contribution to the democratisation process in Kenya has been invaluable and the advice and guidance that they were able to give to the Kenyan authorities led directly to the many improvements in the electoral environment there and indeed to the fact that things had improved by the end of the process and polling day compared with how they were at the beginning. Of course any report receives criticism too, but I still believe that this report and their assessment were frank and fair.
I note that there was a high degree of consensus among all the observer groups on Kenya. None found any evidence of organised fraud. The electoral irregularities were documented in considerable detail. The International Republican Institute from the US concluded that,
"the electoral environment was unfair and the electoral process seriously flawed. We question whether all Kenyans were able to fully express their will—although millions did—but from our perspective we feel that this process is a significant step in Kenya's transition to genuine multi-party democracy".
There was one other group which has not been mentioned in the debate and which I was fortunate enough to meet in Nairobi last Monday. It is the National Election Monitoring Unit, the Kenyan
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domestic monitors. It reached similar conclusions. NEMU performed a valuable role throughout the period and in general exerted a constructive moderating influence. That continued, I am glad to say, after the election. NEMU is working for dialogue between the parties and is helping to foster positive attitudes towards the parliamentary process. Whatever else we do I hope it may be possible to encourage NEMU in its idea of a foundation for democracy in Kenya. That is something that I undertook with their leaders to look into with support from this country. The monitors were very impressive indeed. It cannot have been easy for them to have gone to the lengths that observers from outside the country, knowing that they could simply return to their own countries after the election, did. These monitors live, breathe and work in Kenya all the time. I am glad to say, too, that the report I had from the European Community Heads of Mission broadly supported the Commonwealth observers' view. So despite the criticisms, I do not think that there is any difference of opinion about the direction being correct.
My concern all along has been not only that the elections should be held but that they should be as free and fair as possible. That was why I made sure that we gave a considerable amount of practical assistance, including providing all the ballot boxes. We did indeed train some key electoral officials although we could not train all of them by any manner or means. We provided some office equipment to the Electoral Commission which had absolutely none at the beginning. In addition we made a significant contribution through the Commonwealth Secretariat to the Commonwealth observer team. But we remained absolutely impartial as between the parties and continue to do so.
I noted the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, regarding the serious concerns about the campaigning environment in the run-up to the election. Your Lordships will see from a Written Answer that I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Gainford, on 14th December, at col. WA 19 of the Official Report, that I made clear our concerns then. I have made them clear not only in this House. I made sure that those views were very well known in Kenya.
A number of comments have been made rightly about the Electoral Commission. The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, made some, as did the noble Lords, Lord Tordoff and Lord Ennals, and my noble friend Lord Brentford. The Commonwealth observers' report highlights the various problems associated with the conduct of the commission, particularly its lack of transparency and also its concern about the perceived role and credibility of its chairman, Mr. Justice Chesoni. The report also makes clear the damage done to the commission's credibility by the wide speculation regarding the chairman's fitness for office, by its role in the attempted shortening of the electoral process, to which a number of noble Lords referred, and in its initial reaction to grievances over frustrated parliamentary nominations. However, the report recognises a significant improvement in the end in the commission's performance in the latter stages of the campaign. All the allegations are covered in the report

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but the Commonwealth observers say that in the last three weeks there was a marked improvement. We can therefore believe and know that we were actually quite effective in what we were doing as observers on the Electoral Commission. We just wish that it had happened sooner.
There has been the most regrettable violence in Kenya, particularly last year, and in the Rift Valley. The tribal clashes, particularly between the Kalenjin and the Luo and the Kikuyu, for which government and opposition blamed each other, are a very bad situation. More effective security measures are needed. Some, taken by the middle of 1982, lessened the impact of the clashes but there was still sporadic violence and inter-tribal fighting right up to the election and even some real trouble afterwards. One of the issues I raised with President Moi last Monday was indeed the need for the Government impartially to administer law and order and to bring the perpetrators of violence to book.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, has the noble Baroness seen any sign that that view prevails? Have any charges been brought against those who were responsible on either side for violence during the election campaign?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I do not believe that it has been possible to gain sufficient evidence. As the noble Lord may well know, collecting evidence when tensions are so high has been a matter of real difficulty. It is one of the reasons why I was advising President Moi in the way I did—that this matter has to be gripped by the Government regardless of party and regardless of tribal allegiance.
A number of your Lordships have referred to the role of the media and its importance. It is also something which we have repeatedly underlined to the Kenyan Government. It is something which the national electoral monitoring unit wish to follow up. We shall see what can be done to assist them in that matter.
Your Lordships also asked about events which have happened since the election, particularly the suspension of parliament. When parliament convened on 26th January in Nairobi it was within the 90 days of its dissolution (28th October) and therefore within the constitution. At that time the elected speaker swore in members and business was duly completed. It is normal Kenyan practice for parliament then to be suspended as it was on 27th January. I can further tell the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, that we expect to see the Kenyan Parliament resume some time in March. Obviously it is not within my gift to give a specific date.
Perhaps I may now turn to a number of other matters which are outstanding following the election. My noble friend Lord Brentford, in his very interesting speech and kind remarks, for which I thank him, asked me about contested seats. There are up to 90 seats in total that are currently the subject of electoral petitions, and that includes the seat of the president. These contests come from all parties,
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including inter-opposition party petitions. So there is a general petitioning going on which alleges malpractice by fellow opposition parties as well as KANU. That is a matter of concern to be resolved as quickly as possible. I have pressed that the petitions be heard without delay.
There were two or three comments made during the debate about the United Kingdom being rather slow to act. Given that, for the past seven years—with the exception of a very short break in the middle when my right honourable friend William Waldegrave was looking after Africa—I have been responsible for African matters, I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and your Lordships that at no time have we ceased to try to push Kenya forward to a sensible democratic system with good government. After the many years I have been dealing with Africa I know that one needs infinite patience in these matters.
However, we made it absolutely clear in 1990 (long before 1991) that economic reform was essential if Kenya was ever to get on top of her problems. We also made it quite clear that political reform was essential. We may not have shouted it from the top of the mango tree, but we certainly made sure that it was said. Therefore it is not right to charge that the United Kingdom joined in only after others had made the case. We have given no balance of payments support over the past year. I made it very clear to President Moi early in 1992; again when we met at Rio in June, in September last year and also a week ago, that there will be no further balance of payments support from us or any other donor until there are satisfactory results from the discussion with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
My noble friend Lord Brentford asked me for some detail about that. There will be a meeting of the fund representatives in Nairobi next Monday. We sincerely hope that the important measures that are needed will be completed. The Kenyan Government need to tighten monetary policy. They need to get on with their civil service and para-statal reforms as well as completing a number of other undertakings which they gave to the international financial institutions as long as a year ago. They have made progress on the political front, but, as was made quite clear to them in 1991, they have also to make progress on the economic front. Whatever may be the criticism of the IFIs occasionally in Kenya, I stress that we are asking no more of Kenya than we have of other countries in the region.
In balance of payments support Britain has always moved in line with the bank and the fund. It is quite clear to see in Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia. I repeat that there will be no new balance of payments support until Kenya reaches agreement with the bank and the fund. That means getting back on to the right economic path. We hope we shall see positive signals soon because that will be good for Kenya and for Kenyans. Certainly the donors will pull together.
There has been much emphasis placed in the press comment on the Kenyan elections upon irregularities identified by the Commonwealth and other observers and these have been highlighted tonight. Some have

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suggested that these were so serious that the election should be declared invalid. I do not share that view. For all the problems identified in the Commonwealth and other reports, the fact remains that millions of Kenyans turned out on the day and were given an opportunity to express their views on their future government.
The return of President Moi and his party was not the result of systematic rigging, or even of the malpractices described in the Commonwealth report, but of the division within the ranks of the opposition. Critics should hear in mind that no other country within a thousand miles of Kenya has given its electorate a similar opportunity to express its views. I believe that your Lordships' House and others should avoid making the best the enemy of the good. It may be that it could be better, but first time round in the right direction means that we can help them to make it better the second time round when those elections Come.
We warmly welcome the report of the observer group and entirely endorse its conclusions. We thank the Commonwealth for the invaluable role it has played in Kenya over the past year. I watched with some trepidation when Kenya embarked on the difficult process of political reform, but I loudly applaud the Kenyan people, because polling day passed off without serious incident and they had a democratic election. That fact is to the lasting credit of all Kenyans. Being the first multi-party elections since 1966, it has undoubtedly been a step forward for democracy in Africa as a whole and, we hope, an influence on others.
Nobody must be under any illusions about the imperfections in the process. So we strongly urge that those grievances of whichever party, arising out of the electoral process, are dealt with properly by petitions and resolved speedily. We will ask them to learn from the lessons that we find in the elections. We have made those thoughts clear to members of the government. But we also hope to see further progress in the de-linking of the party of government from the state apparatus. That is particularly important for the media. The opposition parties must be given reasonable access to put their views across.
So we have called on all sides, but primarily the government, on whom the main responsibility lies, to get on with those jobs but also to condemn unequivocally all ethnic violence and to take effective action to put it to an end once and for all. A climate of genuine constructive dialogue with the opposition parties will set the right tone. Now is the time for all Kenyans to consolidate the achievement built on the gains which have been won and make party politics work. Although that will take time, I believe that we shall see a fully-fledged democracy emerging. That democracy needs roots, patience, hard work and realism. It does not just happen overnight. It is a long and gradual evolution. I am confident that Kenya has embarked upon that road and deserves our support. Perhaps I may close by thanking once more the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, for initiating this debate and for the role that he has played, along with so many others, in helping Kenya forward.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I wonder whether she can answer my question about British bilateral aid. I am most grateful to her for addressing so many of our questions, but I wonder whether she can comment on that point.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I have already partially commented on that, but since this Unstarred Question was about the electoral process I felt that it was important to concentrate on that in my reply. I have already told the House that we have not given any balance of payments support for the past year plus. I can tell the House further that in 1988 we provided some £20 million of balance of payments support. As I have said, that is no more. However, we continue to try to help some of the important reforms to be achieved. That is how in 1991–92 our figure rose to about £29 million—I am speaking from memory here. When one considers that this is the sort of help that is being given to the people of Kenya through education, veterinary projects to control the tsetse fly and medical help (as well as in many other basic ways), one can be quite sure that that aid is both going to the people who need it and doing the job that is needed.
What I have refused to do is to allow any money to go into the central government for some two years. That is a decision that I am still not prepared to make until such time as I am convinced that there is a proper programme with the fund and the bank. However, we have of course helped the Kenyans who have been victims of drought. Indeed, we have spent over £9 million bilaterally and through our share of EC action on that. Only last week, on finding the situation in the Turkana region so bad for Kenyans, we announced a contribution of £0.75 million through Oxfam to help the people in the north west.
Perhaps I should add that, notwithstanding their own economic difficulties, the Kenyan Government have spent a great deal of time and resources trying to help the almost unstemmed flow of refugees. I have seen for myself on many occasions the security problems which have arisen from refugee camps in the north east of Kenya and I can assure the noble Baroness that it is not just women and children who have crossed the border. There has been a major security problem for the Government of Kenya. Although I recognise that the return of refugees to their own country may be a priority for Kenya, when I saw President Moi last Monday I urged him to work closely with UNHCR on this problem because it must be tackled in a balanced and considered way. Unilateral action will do Kenya no credit and will not help the refugees. We continue to help the refugees in the north eastern province also.
Our programme has continued for the sake of the people. It has not continued with the government. In addition to the constant pressure from the donor community, that is the one action that I believe has concentrated minds enormously on the steps towards political democracy.
House adjourned at thirteen minutes past eight o'clock.