Lords Sitting of 25 February 1993

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Southwark): The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

Cardigan Bay: Oil Exploration
Lord Hunt Lord Hunt asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will heed the demands of environmental bodies that no further licences should be given to oil companies to prospect for oil and gas in Cardigan Bay pending an inquiry into the risks to the coastal and island environments of exploiting such resources in those waters.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Baroness Denton of Wakefield): My Lords, there is no evidence of environmental damage through oil and gas exploration and production to justify a call to halt such activity in Cardigan Bay. Licence controls apply at all stages of activity and standards of environmental awareness and protection can be assessed and monitored.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that Answer, but is she aware that no less than 10 organisations, including the CCW, which have various concerns for the protection of wildlife as well as the marine and coastal environment, have expressed unanimous concern about the respective operations in Cardigan Bay? Will she bear in mind that some of the blocks on offer are only a few miles off the coast and that, given the prevailing tides and winds, even minor spillages will cause serious damage to wildlife, particularly around Bardsey Island, and other offshore islands which are bird sanctuaries? Will she also bear in mind the inevitable access roads and storage facilities at points along the heritage coast and the environmental eyesore of oil rigs close offshore? Do not these features make an unanswerable case for an inquiry before further work goes ahead?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am pleased to be able to tell the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that the views of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee were sought before the blocks were offered for licensing in the present round. The JNCC initially opposed the licensing of several of the blocks off the Pembrokeshire coast but then agreed acceptably stringent conditions under which they could be offered. The department also consulted the Cardigan Bay Forum, which includes representatives, as the noble Lord knows, of a number of local and national environmental groups. Their views were taken fully into account. As I said in my original Answer, there is no evidence of danger from inshore drilling.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, what weight is given to the views of environmental bodies? Did the so-called Green Ministers ever discuss these matters on an
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inter-departmental basis? I am sure that the noble Baroness remembers that there is supposed to be a Green Minister in each department. Since this particular worry crosses departmental boundaries, can she say whether the Green Ministers ever discussed it?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am pleased to be able to tell the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, that advice was sought before the blocks were offered for licensing. Before deciding the blocks to be offered the Government consulted other government departments, in particular the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of the Environment. Through the JNCC we receive advice from other environmental bodies and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. I assure the noble Baroness that the Government are fully concerned that the dangers of spillage are to be avoided at all costs.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, although full inquiries are essential, is my noble friend aware that experience in Scotland is reassuring? Exploration drilling has been carried out within the Minches, and several years earlier oil was discovered well within the Moray Firth and has since been produced from an oilfield only 13 miles from land, with no ill-effects but with benefits to local communities; and the dolphins still romp in the waves there near my home.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, it is impossible for me to give a more direct and knowledgeable view than my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy. There is not only the resident population of dolphins in those waters; there are also significant sea bird concentrations. I am sure that my noble friend will agree that it is important to remember that in the past 10 years the oil and gas industry has contributed £63 billion to government revenue.
Lord Elis-Thomas: My Lords, will the noble Baroness ensure that when licences are considered in future for Cardigan Bay and other environmentally sensitive areas, the immediate environmental impact and also the longer-term economic impact on the economies of the local communities are assessed? Would it not be much more convenient if any onshore development were to take place well away from heritage coast areas and that such consideration should form part of the planning process?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am pleased to say to the noble Lord that these matters are taken into consideration. I am concerned here with the licensing of the blocks, but in no instance are other concerns ignored.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, the noble Baroness referred to a number of departments which are concerned about these matters. Can she say whether the Secretary of State for Wales has given approval to all these developments?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am sure that such activity would not take place in those waters without the knowledge of the Secretary of State for Wales.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I regret that the noble Baroness is not as clear as she might be. It is not a question, as she said, of his interest in the matter. Has he given his approval?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, identifies my inability to give a direct yes or no. I shall certainly find out and write to him.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that in my capacity as president of the CPRW, I wrote to the Secretary of State for Wales who promptly passed on the letter to the DTI, saying that it was none of his business? Does that not mean that the Welsh Office was simply not consulted on the matter? Furthermore, voluntary bodies such as the CPRW and the Government's own advisory body, the CCW, who have expressed to the Welsh Office their opposition to the project, have been told that they have to apply to the DTI. What does that say about the Government?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am pleased to tell the noble Lord, Lord Williams, that it says that the Government work together. It proves that the Secretary of State for Wales is well aware of the activities of the DTI in these licensing rounds. I am pleased that he was able to pass on the correspondence to the DTI.
Baroness White: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that those of us who are familiar with Cardigan Bay and the sensitive area there, including the islands of Bardsey, Skomer and Ramsey, which are all protected islands, consider that it should be a place of last resort for trying to obtain non-renewable resources of energy and argue that that that area should not be sacrificed to current commercial interests? Does the Minister agree that it is only if one is in really desperate need of those resources that one should take risks with the very sensitive maritime area of Cardigan Bay?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I understand fully the concerns of the noble Baroness and other Members of your Lordships' House. But it is not considered that we are taking risks with the area. The evidence suggests that there has been no damage to the environment from inshore drilling. Perhaps I may add that the Welsh Office was consulted before the blocks were licensed and its views were fully taken into account.
Baroness White: My Lords, some of us have experience of what happened at Milford Haven: similar things may happen in Cardigan Bay.
Noble Lords: Order!

London Underground: Funding
3.10 p.m.
Lord Jay Lord Jay asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will restore to the levels promised in 1991 the funds available to London Underground for capital and maintenance spending in 1993–94.
The Minister of State, Department of Transport (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, we have no plans to review London Transport's 1993–94 grant settlement. Although some scaling down of the plans announced in 1991 has been necessary in response to the tight public expenditure situation generally, the current settlement allows for levels of investment in the Underground higher than at any point in the 1970s or 1980s.
Lord Jay: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the chairman of London Underground gives a very different account of what is happening? At a time when London's travellers are suffering repeated delays as a result of the cuts made in the past five years, would it not be highly damaging to make a further cut (as reported by the chairman of London Underground) of nearly 50 per cent. in the funding for maintenance and improvements which he has described as a drastic step backwards?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am not quite sure from where the noble Lord, Lord Jay, gets the word "cuts". In the past three years the investment of London Underground Ltd. has averaged about £450 million. This year it is at an all-time record, and next year we expect to invest about £500 million, with a further £600 million in 1995–96. I should have thought that that would be welcomed by the House.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether there has been any day recently on which London Underground has not suffered an interruption to its services, either by reason of the failure of its signalling system or of its vehicles?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, we appreciate that there are problems with London Underground that need to be tackled—and these are being tackled. As my noble friend will be aware from his visits to Angel station, that is a vastly improved station. The new trains on the Central Line will be a pleasure to travel in.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the report in this morning's edition of the Independent in which Mr. Tunnicliffe is quoted as saying that the old, sprawling, overcrowded and neglected Tube network needs another £8 billion-worth of investment just for modernisation, in addition to the money which is needed for the Jubilee Line, Crossrail and other such schemes, and that without such investment a decently modern metro is being pushed 20 years down the track?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I too have read the allegations of what somebody has said with regard to these matters. What is incontrovertible is that we

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are now spending record sums in London Underground. Yes, there is a lot of work to do, but I agree with the noble Lord that we need to improve the metro system.
Baroness Platt of Writtle: My Lords, is my noble friend aware—
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords—
Noble Lords: Order!
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Wakeham): My Lords, I believe that it should be the noble Baroness.
Baroness Platt of Writtle: My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the deterioration in the Circle Line, which serves this House, and of the need for investment?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, there are bound to be such examples and I am sure that all of your Lordships could point to examples. However, £750 million has been spent on the Central Line modernisation. There has been a £72 million rebuild of Angel station and a £170 million programme of train refurbishment is well under way. There has also been a tremendous improvement with regard to escalators and lifts. I remember my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter raising that point and I hope that he has noticed that an effort has been made to improve the service dramatically.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, further to the question that was put to the Minister by his noble friend the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, is the noble Earl aware that in the past few days there has been an outbreak of creeping signal sickness? It started between St. James's Park and Westminster. It moved up to between Westminster and Embankment, and yesterday it was last seen near Aldgate. Is the Minister aware that this outbreak seems rather unusual, and that something should be done about the proper upkeep and maintenance of the signalling system?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord's last sentence was right. Something needs to be done, and that is why we are spending record amounts of money on the problem.
Lord Jay: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the cut is in the present figure proposed for maintenance improvements in 1993–94 as compared with the promise for that year which was made in 1991 according to the chairman of London Underground?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, there has been a reduction in the mammoth amount of money that we are going to spend, but perhaps I may reassure the noble Lord that this year in real terms we are spending four and a half times what the Labour Government spent.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, is it not clear that the Minister is suggesting, in effect, that everything is all right in London Transport and London Underground when that is simply not the case? Is it not a fact that essential repairs are having to be
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overlooked? Is it not the case that asbestos which needs to be removed cannot be removed due to the cuts in the investment programme which the Minister concedes? Is not such a situation absolutely scandalous for a capital city such as London?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord started by saying that I had given the impression that everything was all right, but he then went on to confirm that I had said that things need to be done. Clearly, the noble Lord contradicted himself. The point is that we are spending a record amount of money. We realise that there is a lot more to do, and I am sure that the management of London Underground will continue to do it.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, will the Minister accept from me that London Underground itself has declared its many priorities, and that the Jubilee Line is not one of those priorities? Before there is a final decision to go ahead with the Jubilee Line, will the Minister give some consideration to all the other faults on the Underground so that they can be rectified instead of London Underground going ahead with sustaining a commercial development that was all my eye in the first place?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, like the rest of the House, the noble Lord is up to date with regard to the current position on the Jubilee Line. However, perhaps I may advise him that, among the advantages that the Jubilee Line will bring, will be a reduction in the traffic and number of passengers on the other lines, which will ease the congestion.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, that line is still not one of London Underground's priorities.
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Thurlow: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Bakerloo Line is being invaded by a plague of mice?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, now that the noble Lord has told me, yes.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, is the Minister familiar with the project for a decent modern metro which was referred to by my noble friend Lord Tordoff? Is he aware that London Underground has stated that, on the basis of the investment proposed in the 1991 Autumn Statement, such a system could have been built and provided to Londoners within 10 years, but that on the basis of the downwardly revised figures in the Autumn Statement of 1992, another 10 years will be added to the project?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I know of the document to which the noble Lord refers. However, we must all live within our means and, within the means of the public expenditure that is available, London Underground has had a very generous settlement, with a record amount this year and a substantial amount next year.

Drug and Solvent Abuse
3.20 p.m.
Lord Molloy Lord Molloy asked Her Majesty's Government:
What measures are being considered to combat drug and solvent abuse among young people in the poorer areas of Britain.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, the Home Office has established local teams in 20 locations in Great Britain to work with local communities in finding effective and new ways of preventing the spread of drug misuse, particularly among young people.
Extensive national publicity campaigns are undertaken to warn parents and children of the dangers of those substances.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that encouraging Answer. Does he agree that solvent abuse and glue-sniffing take place in the poorer areas of our country, and that that is where the Home Office must concentrate? The grief felt every week by poor families is caused by thousands of young people dying from solvent abuse and glue-sniffing. British aerosol manufacturers are trying to find a way of ensuring that their goods cannot be used for such practices. Are the Government prepared to talk to them to see what they can do to help manufacturers that are acutely aware of the dangers their products can cause to young people, especially in the poorer areas of our country?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I agree that drug abuse and solvent abuse are terrible and affect people badly. I believe that they affect people right across the spectrum, although I dare say they affect poorer people more than others. One in 10 children may experiment with drugs and solvents. There are about 30 sniffable products in the average household, so while it is desirable to get rid of them, it is difficult to do so with complete certainty.
Lord Mancroft: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, was not entirely correct when he said that the problem is related solely to poorer families? It is a problem which affects equally all families at all levels. There is no basis for the suggestion that it is worse among poorer families than it is among slightly better off families.
Moving slightly further, in relation to my noble friend's Answer about Home Office drug prevention teams, is he aware that by the time the initiative is finished—I am sure that he is aware of this—those drug teams will cost some £25 million? I believe they are now in the third year out of five years, and so far they have come to no conclusion either way as to what constitutes useful prevention, which was within their remit, and by the time they finish in two years' time they anticipate that they will again have reached no conclusion. That is not a satisfactory way for policy to continue.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, clearly if one undertakes a programme, one evaluates its success. The programme will be evaluated. I agree with my noble friend that all sections of the community can be affected. Drug
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education, including solvents, is now included in the national curriculum for England and Wales. Detailed guidance has been issued to help schools plan comprehensive programmes of health and drug education for all pupils between the ages of five and 16.
Lord Rea: My Lords, does the Minister realise that it has been shown, especially in Liverpool, that the enormous social cost of drug-related crime can be reduced by well-run drug treatment and rehabilitation units? Will he assure the House that they will be expanded and not have their funds reduced, directly or by stealth, through the implementation of the National Health Service and Community Care Act?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, those organisations are obviously places which should be cared for by the Government and local authorities. One of the projects we are undertaking is the safer cities programme which at the moment affects 20 cities. A further 40 cities will be included in the near future. It is important to help people who have been affected by drug abuse so as to get them off drugs.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that there are, fortunately, a large number of intelligent and dedicated people running establishments which look after people suffering from this serious problem. Does he agree that it is important that their efforts are not hampered by time-wasting procedures? If I send him some examples, will he take a careful look at them?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I hate time-wasting procedures. If my noble friend were to write to me, I do not think that I would regard that as a time-wasting procedure.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, will the Minister tell the House how many young people die each year as a result of sniffing glue or solvents and how many die as a result of consuming alcohol?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord asked me a detailed question. I cannot give him the information about young people in the way that he asks, but I can tell him that in 1991 there were 69,800 seizures of all drugs; 47,600 drug offenders—an increase of 5 per cent. —21,000 registered addicts—an increase of 17 per cent.—and in 1990 there were 119 deaths. That is the latest figure we have. The figures are for all deaths and not just those of young people.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that drug and solvent abuse among the under-16s is but a symptom of a wider problem of indiscipline and a lack of firm guidance in the home and schools? Perhaps he could talk to our noble friends in the Department of Education about how we have, as a society, tied teachers' hands behind their backs when it comes to discipline, and, furthermore, discuss with the DoE the increase in truancy which of course gives children the time and the opportunity to indulge in solvent abuse.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, my noble friend asked a question which goes a good deal wider than questions

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about drugs, but I agree with him, fundamentally, that much of the trouble with drug abuse, solvent abuse, and crime as a whole starts with how children are brought up—from a very young age until they turn to crime and abuse. Everyone who has anything to do with children, whether in the home or in schools, or who allow people to watch videos and that sort of thing, bears a direct responsibility. I respectfully suggest that it is not enough to hive off the matter to someone else and to say that it is someone else's fault; it is the responsibility of us all.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, in his Answer to my noble friend Lord Molloy the Minister referred to 20 projects. Is he aware that at least 120 drug abuse centres which are supported by local authorities are at risk from the restrictions placed on local authority expenditure and capping?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I was of course referring to the Safe Cities programme.

Car Crimes
3.27 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the latest available figures indicate a reduction in the number of car crimes in Great Britain.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the latest published statistics for England and Wales show that the number of vehicle crimes which were recorded by the police rose by 7 per cent. in the 12 months to June 1992 compared with the previous 12 months. The final quarter of those statistics though showed a fall of 2 per cent. compared with the corresponding quarter of 1991.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer, the last part of which was encouraging and the first part disappointing. Will he give a rough estimate of the proportion of those offences committed by persons under the age of 18? Have the Government noticed that cars bearing disabled signs seem to be preferred targets, no doubt because the culprits are less likely to be chased if disturbed? Is that not diabolical when, to enjoy an ordinary life, the owners of those cars are dependent upon wheels and not legs?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I cannot give my noble friend the answer he seeks. I can, however, tell him that Home Office studies indicate that between 5 per cent. and 7 per cent. of people now aged under 21 have been convicted of car theft. Of those guilty of theft, or unauthorised taking of a vehicle, nearly 45 per cent. were under the age of 18. I am bound to say that I am not aware that disabled cars are a special target. I rather fancied from my noble friend's question that he has had some personal experience of that. I can only tell him that all cars seem to be targets.
Lord Elton: My Lords, does my noble friend recognise that the most effective way of dealing with
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outbreaks of car crime, in particular joy riding, is to provide youth schemes on wheels and tracks? That has worked exceptionally well in those parts of the country where it has been tried but it is now largely dependent on the voluntary sector. Will my noble friend therefore encourage his colleagues in Government and those in the charitable sector to support charities such as that called DIVERT which I am founding for this and allied purposes?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am aware of what DIVERT and other charities do: it is a considerable job of work in helping such people. Local probation services, the police and others are encouraged to find more constructive channels for offenders' energies through such motor projects. The Home Office is providing almost £600,000 to motor projects in this financial year alone.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, is not an outlay of £600,000 and a total, I understand, of 20 projects small in view of the undoubted effectiveness of the motor projects to which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, referred? Why is it that only that small amount of money and that small number of projects are being funded when it is clear that, for example, out of 4,500 young people who have been involved in the projects only 100 have offended again?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, people react in different ways in different parts of the country. Local probation services have a responsibility, as do many charities. The £600,000 which the Home Office provides in a grant is not the sole amount of money which goes towards helping people. It is the amount of money which we give to charities which are involved in the project.
The Viscount of Oxfuird: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that one of the most important precepts in any battle, whether it be a battle against crime or anything else, is that there should be in place an intelligence base? Does he further agree that one of the issues which might be addressed is the gathering of intelligence with sufficient depth to enable an implicit target to be defined and action taken as a result of that information?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, it is our intention to gather as much intelligence as we reasonably can and to make the best use of it.

Business
3.32 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lady Cumberlege will, with the leave of the House, repeat in the form of a Statement an Answer to a Private Notice Question in another place on the report on the inquiry on the London Ambulance Service.

Termination of Medical Treatment Bill [H.L.]
Lord Alport: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make legal the termination of medical treatment in certain circumstances and with safeguards. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Alport.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Alliance & Leicester (Girobank) Bill
Read a third time, and passed, and returned to the Commons with amendments.

Asylum and Immigration Appeals Bill
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. Moved, That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:

Clauses 1 to 4,

Schedule 1,

Clauses 5 to 8,

Schedule 2,

Clauses 9 to 16.—(Earl Ferrers.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Clean Air Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of recommitment be discharged.
Moved, That the order of recommitment be discharged.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Radioactive Substances Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of recommitment be discharged.
Moved, That the order of recommitment be discharged.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Charities Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of recommitment be discharged.
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Moved, That the order of recommitment be discharged.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Welsh Language Bill [H.L.]
3.35 p.m.
Read a third time.
Clause 11 [Revision of guidelines]:
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 5, line 27, leave out ("from time to time") and insert ("at such intervals as it thinks fit").
The noble Earl said: My Lords, in moving the amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 2. The amendments will remove the condition which was contained in the Bill as originally drafted that the board could not revise its guidelines within the first five years of operation of the initial set of guidelines.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, proposed on Report amendments which were similar to the two amendments which now stand in my name. He said that this was an area where we needed both rigidity and flexibility. That seemed a remarkable combination; rather like the irresistible meeting the immovable. I was, though, taken with his analogy of the garden hose and the garden fork representing rigidity and flexibility. I have been unable to come up with a better analogy for my own amendments.
It is important that there should be a certain amount of rigidity, which is the garden fork, so that people know where they are and so that there is consistency in the guidelines. It is important too—and I am grateful to the noble Lord for pointing it out—that there should be flexibility, which is his concept of the garden hose. Furthermore, the guidelines should be able to be changed if and when the board considers it necessary. On reflection, I agree with the noble Lord that our original proposal of a five-year period before the guidelines could be reviewed smacked a little too much of the fork and not enough of the hose. The amendments which I propose will allow the board to alter its guidelines as and when it deems that appropriate.
We can leave it to the board to ensure that too frequent overhauls of the arrangements will not be allowed to detract from the main benefits which the Bill will bring. I am sure that we can rely on the board to do that effectively. Where it does decide to, revise the guidelines, those will have to be approved by Parliament. I beg to move.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for tabling the two amendments, which are similar to those that I tabled at an earlier stage. Indeed, one could not get a shovel between his words and mine. The amendments will improve the Bill and will be extremely useful. As a measure of my gratitude I must say that, if the noble Earl wants his garden dug at any time, I shall be happy to go across with my garden fork.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 5, line 31, leave out subsection (2).
On Question, amendment agreed to.
An amendment (privilege) made.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
At the opening of our discussions on the Bill I confessed to your Lordships that my expert knowledge of Welsh did not compare with that which was at the disposal of your Lordships. I found that I was right. Our subsequent discussions have served only to increase my realisation of how limited my own knowledge is and how complicated to the uninitiated the Welsh language is.
I am only too glad that the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, generally restrained himself from emulating the example of his father and did not subject me, as did his father to him, to shouts of, "Speak Welsh", whenever I attempted to respond to your Lordships' debates in English. I find that formidable enough.
I am, I am sorry to say, as much of a monoglot now as I was when this Bill started in your Lordships' House. I do now, though, understand better, as a result of the passage of the Bill, the issues which concern your Lordships and others by which the Welsh language will not only thrive but will also advance.
At the beginning of the passage of the Bill through your Lordships' House, I said that it was the Government's desire that the Bill should be subject to detailed scrutiny. I think that we can fairly claim that it has been. I also said that the Government were in the business of listening. I hope that we can also claim that we have listened—and indeed we shall continue to do so.
Legislating for a language is far from a frequent occurrence. It is a peculiar form of legislating. It inevitably involves an element of the abstract—loyalties, emotions, sentiments and patriotism—as well as facts. It is not the stuff of what one might call "every day" legislation.
The Government have never, therefore, taken the view that this Bill is incapable of improvement. We were anxious to hear your Lordships' views and to consider them carefully. If I have been obliged, sometimes, to say that we think that some of the suggestions which your Lordships have put forward might not be appropriate to incorporate into the Bill, it was not because of obduracy or because of any feelings of intellectual arrogance on behalf of the Government, but simply because we felt, after genuine consideration, that the proposals might not work in the way intended.
Many of your Lordships—too many in fact to list—have said much which has been helpful, and to which we have been only too glad to listen. We have had some enormously interesting and even philosophical debates, which have been, mercifully, free of party politics, and subject only once to the rigours of a division; and I am grateful to your Lordships for that.
I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, who has taken the brunt of the responsibility from the Benches opposite with characteristic skill and patience, and with that peculiar
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capacity of his to get hold of a point and worry it through—rather like a terrier—to a conclusion. And he was supported, fascinatingly, by the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, who rested, as he frequently does, on Holy Writ to help him through.
I am grateful, too, to the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, a distinguished former Secretary of State for Wales, who himself introduced, and saw passed into law, the only other Welsh Language Bill. It is with a twinge of humility that I realise that his Bill will be dissolved into the fulsomeness of the present Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Hooson, has brought his formidable, clear legal expertise to bear, with, for me, uncomfortable regularity.
Then my noble friends Lord Crickhowell and Lord Thomas of Gwydir, both previous Secretaries of State for Wales, brought their own wise and considered contributions to our debates. And my noble friend Lord Crickhowell showed his characteristic Welsh independence of view when he found it appropriate, in all the circumstances, to go into a different Lobby from me.
The Bill will also be remembered for the participation of the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas. As a newcomer to your Lordships' House—and, if I might say so, a welcome newcomer—and as one who has always been a fervent advocate for Wales and the Welsh language, he has made many important contributions on difficult and intricate aspects of the Bill, always with charm and a smile, and always with that wholly enviable capacity of being able to speak articulately without a note—in either language. That is to be admired.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, has produced his remarkable powers of advocacy to press his points—powers which are fine if you are of the same view, but uncomfortable if you hold a contrary one. In either case, they are impressive and have helped to structure our debates.
Even the noble Lord, Lord Geraint, has restrained himself from expressing his original stance—even if he may still feel it, which I hope that he does not—of being totally opposed to the Bill. I am particularly glad that my noble friend Lord St. Davids has also taken his share of the heat from these Benches. I am most grateful to all of your Lordships who have participated in this Bill.
I hope that your Lordships will feel that there is flexibility inherent in this Bill, flexibility which will enable us to take account of the substance of many of the amendments which your Lordships have proposed, without them being specifically referred to on the face of the Bill. There have, of course, been other amendments which the Government have not felt able to accept. The most prominent of these has been how best to accord full equality of status to the Welsh language, which we have discussed on a number of occasions.
The Government understand the depth of feeling which many of your Lordships have on this—a feeling which is a reflection of that which is prevalent in the Principality. We understand that because confirming the status of the Welsh language in Wales is a prime objective of this Bill. We think, though, that the Bill

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achieves this by establishing the principle of equality and by removing legislative obstacles which would prevent the Welsh language from enjoying equality of status with the English language.
Where we have not felt able to accept amendments on this, that has only been decided after the closest possible scrutiny and because it has transpired that there have been considerable legal obstacles which have prevented us from so doing.
Before we pass this Bill onto another place, I would just like to refer to some of these matters because I know that there are areas where a number of your Lordships continue to have concern.
The Government's view is that the official status of the Welsh language should not be dependent upon any single piece of legislation. Its status should be—and is—a reflection of its general position in the statute book and because it has been the everyday language of public administration in many parts of Wales for many years.
The whole philosophy behind the Bill has been that the provision of public services in Welsh should be seen as part and parcel of the provision of public services in Wales. The intention is not to establish Welsh as an official language, but to reflect our view that it already is.
We are not, therefore, proposing that Welsh language schemes should be drawn up in order to emphasise the status of Welsh as an official language. They will be prepared because Welsh already enjoys official status, and they will simply illustrate how individual public bodies intend to reflect that fact.
Schemes are important because of the practical measures which they will contain. The basis of the Government's case is, though, that the status of the language must be about more than just the content of schemes.
On Report we became immersed in the concept of a purpose clause. I think that it could be argued that the purpose of this Bill, in part, is to put right the legislative wrongs which have befallen the Welsh language over the past 500 years. The Bill is not, though, a magic wand which we can wave in order to overturn the course of history.
The challenge which faces the language now, as we prepare to enter the 21st century, is about more than just the way in which the language is treated in law. The challenge which faces the language is that it is a small language in numerical terms—although, as I have come to learn, it is a very large language in many other respects—but it has, as its nearest neighbour a language which is very large and very powerful in every respect.
If Welsh is to continue to co-exist with English over the next 500 years, then it will need to be supported by all those who have an interest in its future well-being. In that I certainly include many of your Lordships. Most of all, though, it depends on the people of Wales themselves. It depends on those who are active in the voluntary groups to whose valuable work we have referred. It depends upon the teachers at all levels who, by their efforts, will help to ensure that young people grow up not only speaking the language, but
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also being aware of its wider cultural riches. Most of all, it depends upon ordinary people deciding that it is a language which they wish to speak.
I therefore return to the point which I made at the beginning of our discussions on this Bill at Second Reading. The Government have a contribution to make towards creating an environment where people can exercise a choice—a choice as to whether they want to speak Welsh.
This Bill reflects that, and it seeks to ensure that that choice can be exercised in all aspects of public services. If there is to be a banging of the drum of the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, then it seems to me that the message which the drum should bang is that the very presence of this Bill is an indication of the Government's total commitment to the Welsh language.
The challenge now, for the people who speak Welsh and for those among the wider population who have the interest of the language at heart, is to ensure that the opportunities which the Bill provides are grasped.
Their use of Welsh will reinforce the position of the language as an integral part of the everyday lives of so many people. I think that the Bill has an important contribution to make towards ensuring that that will continue to be the case. I am grateful to noble Lords for the consideration which they have given to this Bill and for the courteous and understanding way in which that consideration has been given. I hope that the Bill will prove to be not only a buttress but also a substantial step forward in the protection and in the advancement of the Welsh language.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Earl Ferrers.)
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, the Motion is that the Bill do now pass. In indicating our intention not to oppose the Motion, I should like to say that that does not mean that the Bill has met with our full approval. Indeed, the Bill has proved to be more notable for its omissions than for its content. The main change which it brings about is the setting up of the statutory Welsh Language Board to promote and facilitate the Welsh language. Let there be no doubt that we welcome that development. A great deal of the value of the board will depend upon the degree of independence it will enjoy. However, we noted in Committee that the board will be subject to general and special directions of the Secretary of State. Much will depend on the quality of its chairman and of its members. We very much regret that our amendment on the board's membership was not acceptable in its entirety to the Government. The membership clause, even as amended, does not provide for an independent element in the membership. I respectfully remind the Minister that he acknowledged on Report that he would take note of that point.
The other notable change introduced by the Bill is that public bodies in Wales will be called upon to agree language schemes. That long overdue reform is welcome. I suppose the major problem at the moment is one of uncertainty, partly because we have not as yet seen the timetable for the implementation of the Bill and partly because the content of the guidelines and the content of the language scheme are as yet unknown. However, they will be known in due course.

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My greatest sadness is that the Government did not use the Bill as a vehicle to confer upon the Welsh language the status of an official language in Wales. The Minister has dealt with that matter this afternoon but I believe I am right in saying that there is a strong body of opinion in Wales which is not satisfied with Clause 1 as it stands and will not be satisfied when they read the comments of the noble Earl. I add only the following. If Parliament continues to deny to the Welsh language the status as such of an official language in Wales, in the long run—and in the not so long run—the fruit of that failure may be bitter. I therefore hope that the Government will still reflect upon the purpose clause tabled by my noble friend Lord Cledwyn.
In our view there have been other considerable omissions from the Bill. There is the failure to extend its provisions to government departments. In our view it is quite wrong that the Government's legislation should not apply to their own departments. Without wishing to be disrespectful to Ministers, I must say that we have not been given any sound justification for excluding government departments from the Bill. On the contrary there are a number of objections of principle to their exclusion. Nevertheless we shall look to the realisation of the Minister's firm undertaking, given on Report and in his letter to me of 22nd February, that,
"this Bill will affect Government Departments in the same way as it does all other public bodies".
However, I must confess that I do not see how that undertaking can be enforced.
It is equally disappointing that the Government have not been able to extend the Bill to those functions of the privatised public utilities which are of the nature of a public service and to which a language scheme should therefore be attached. Time alone will tell whether Parliament would be wise to rely—as Ministers and the Government are relying—on the utilities developing Welsh language policies on a voluntary basis. The Minister's words on that matter have been carefully selected. He has referred merely to "a view".
There is one matter where there is still a great deal of anxiety and that concerns the role of the board in the educational field. The position as described in a letter from the Minister of State at the Welsh Office has been noted. Nevertheless we do not wish to find ourselves in a position where it could be argued that there is a conflict, or a potential conflict, between the Education Acts and this Bill when it is enacted. We believe that the position should be spelt out in this legislation. I venture to ask the Minister whether, in the event of a possible conflict between this measure and the Education Acts, the Welsh Language Act 1993 would prevail. That question has not been answered.
The Opposition tabled a large number of amendments in an endeavour to improve the Bill. Notwithstanding the kind words of the Minister, the great majority of those amendments were rejected by the Government. We thank the Minister for accepting
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three of the amendments together with about one-third of our amendment on the important Clause 1 relating to the composition of the new board.
I wish to place it on record that it is my understanding that the Government are still giving consideration to the following important matters raised by the Opposition. Those matters are, first, the need for a clause which would in effect amount to a defence within the meaning of the Race Relations Act to a complaint of discrimination in the circumstances we have discussed in Committee where the ability to speak Welsh is a condition of employment; secondly, the need for a read-over clause when a service which has attracted a language scheme is contracted out under compulsory competitive trading provisions to the private sector; and, thirdly, whether the board may pay or recommend the payment of compensation to a successful complainant. That point was not covered in the Minister's letter to me of 22nd February. With respect I refer the Minister to the proceedings on Report at col. 1307 of Hansard.
Fourthly, there is the question of whether to place on a public body an express duty to implement an agreed scheme. Finally, the Government have still to bring forward the amendment promised on Second Reading to allow the use in the courts of written as well as spoken Welsh. I trust that when the Bill comes back to your Lordships' House it will have been changed to accommodate those matters.
I make a plea for the provision of adequate staff and finance for the board. The new board faces a huge task. It has to draft the precise contents of the guidelines and agree the detailed contents of the language schemes with all the public bodies operating in Wales and to do so as quickly as possible. In each case that will involve anything from 20 to 30 stages. In addition to all that, the board has to undertake the promotional functions under Clause 2. Regrettably those functions were not much discussed in Committee. I trust that all noble Lords can support that plea for adequate resources for the new board.
I now come to my concluding remarks. I should like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, and the noble Viscount, Lord St Davids, for their assistance and unfailing courtesy. Throughout they have always been anxious to help. I must also thank the Churches in Wales, the voluntary organisations to which the Minister referred, and the hundreds of people who have toiled long and hard during the past 10 years in order to secure a strengthened Welsh Language Act. Without their contribution and perseverance there would be no Welsh Language Bill before the House this afternoon.
I also wish to acknowledge the contribution of the present board, although I have often been critical of it. I am indebted to his Honour Judge Dewi Watkin Powell and to Dr. Christopher MacCrudden of Lincoln College for their advice whenever I sought it over the years. I should also like to thank my noble friends Lord Morris of Castle Morris and Lord Williams of Mostyn for their substantial contributions during the passage of the Bill. I want to acknowledge my debt of gratitude to my noble friend Lord Cledwyn for his encouragement for over a quarter of a century,

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"to preserve the vineyard which has been handed to our keeping",
to quote the words of probably the greatest Welsh language writer and poet of our century, Saunders Lewis.
4.1 p.m.
Lord Hooson: My Lords, as we send this Bill on its way to another place, as we surely will—I have had a restraining influence on my noble friend Lord Geraint in this matter—we can all reflect on the fact that half a million people speak Welsh today and on the amazing survival of the language. When one considers that there have been four-and-a-half centuries of legislation directly specifically against the language, that is an amazing survival. It has many lessons for Europe. As we move towards a more united Europe there will no doubt be a dominant economic language and a dominant culture and Europe will have to get used to majority and minority cultures living side by side within national boundaries.
I, too, should like to thank the noble Earl and the Government for the spirit in which the legislation has been considered. I find it difficult to recall an occasion when there has been more consultation with the opposition. The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, and the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids, and, behind the scenes, Sir Wyn Roberts—who is very much the architect of the Bill—have been extremely helpful. It is admirable that a non-party approach has been adopted. I see the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, expressing agreement with that sentiment. It is very important with a Bill of this kind.
We have to take Wales as we find it. As I said at Second Reading, it is no good thinking that we can right the wrongs of four-and-a-half centuries in one Bill. Therefore, the Government have adopted the right approach. They had to create the framework within which it will be possible for future generations to develop the Welsh language. I am no believer in simple gestures. The people of Wales have to make sure that the Welsh language survives. All the Government can do is to provide the means of doing so. As I said at Second Reading, important though the Bill is, it is not as important as access throughout Wales to bilingual education. That is the secret.
I remember reading the words of the late Saunders Lewis, who was a notable man. He said that it was impossible to have a bilingual nation in Wales, it had to be monolingual; in other words, it had to be entirely Welsh speaking. I read those words during the war while I was in the Navy. I was in a corvette and feeling rather seasick as I read those words and I thought that they were nonsense. It seemed to me that in the world we were moving into it was impossible for the Welsh language to survive other than on the basis of bilingualism.
However, having said that, and having broadly approved of the way in which the Government have approached the Bill, I believe that they have made one fundamental error. The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, was kind enough to consider very carefully two amendments: the purpose clause on which the noble
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Lord, Lord Cledwyn, had taken advice and my own circumscribed clause, which was rather different. On mature reflection I feel that the clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, might have led to some of the problems which the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, mentioned. He said:
"For example, every Act of Parliament that applies in any way to Wales would have to be printed in Welsh as well as in English, as would every statutory instrument, every decision of a government department and every copy of Hansard in both Houses. The statute books themselves might even have to be written in Welsh too. The task would be endless, as would be the imagination and the cost".—[Official Report, 18/2/93; col. 1266.]
There was an outside chance that that might happen under a purpose clause, but there was no chance whatsoever of that happening as a result of the amendment that was voted on. The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, was generous enough to withdraw his own amendment and not press it to a Division so that my amendment could be tested. The noble Earl made it quite clear that he was sympathetic to the purpose of the amendments, as were the Government. However, expressing his general opposition, he said (at col. 1268):
"I do so simply because of the legal implications. We are introducing law. Laws ought to be clear and unambiguous".
I hope that the Government will seek high quality legal advice on the issue. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, said that it was not beyond the ingenuity of man—or of lawyers in this context—to insert a clause setting out such a general statement, which is so important to Wales, that Welsh is an official language. One is putting right the wrong of four-and-a-half centuries because the Act of 1536 specifically prescribed Welsh. Welsh was specifically declared not to be an acceptable language, and something has to be done to put that right.
When he carefully analysed my amendment at Report Stage the noble Earl did not deal with the last words which I had included:
"this is to be achieved as provided in this Act".
I think that if he takes advice from constitutional lawyers on that point the noble Earl will find that those words would mean that the meaning to be ascribed to the general statement that Welsh is an official language would be interpreted with regard to those words. Even if I am wrong about that I am quite sure that lawyers could provide a means of making the general statement and circumscribing it so that the problems which the noble Earl outlined would not arise.
The Government have said that they are concerned that an amendment of that kind might cause further trouble. Have they reflected for a moment on the kind of trouble that they might have if they do not have such a clause? One has only to look at the history of this matter to realise how important it is. In this House we are all anxious to make sure that the Government have it right. I approve of their approach in general, but I believe that they would be making a great error in allowing the Act to leave the Palace of Westminster without such a declaration. I am sure that practical means can be found of circumscribing the matter.
Having said that, I wish the Bill God speed. I hope that it will be a very successful Act. Wales has waited

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for many years for such an Act and the Government are to be congratulated. In particular, Sir Wyn Roberts is to be congratulated for his persistence. As the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, said, the Welsh Language Board is to be congratulated on its contribution behind the scenes and its debates with the Government department. Those debates must have borne fruit in the Bill. I also wish to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate for the spirit in which they have done so. It has been an important contribution to Welsh history.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Elis-Thomas: My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak on the Motion that the Bill do now pass, and to follow my noble friend Lord Hooson. I thank the Minister for the way in which he has handled the debate. He was less than fair to himself when he said that he had not learned much Welsh in the course of our debates. I am sure that he is now able to pronounce Bwrdd yr laith Gymraeg very effectively. The creation of the board, and the way in which the legislation has been introduced by the Government is a response to the demand from both language communities in Wales for many years for a statutory body which will deal with promoting the language.
I agree with one sentence that the noble Earl stated at Third Reading; namely, that the way in which the Bill is dealt with and how we progress legislation is up to the people of Wales. But the people of Wales also have a right to look to these Houses of Parliament for a legislative framework which will facilitate the required restoration and normalisation of Welsh as a national language. In our debates on the Bill I have noted a shift of emphasis. I noted with some care what the Minister said at Third Reading about the phrase "official language". During previous deliberations it was argued that the Welsh language was an official language already and therefore did not need to be recognised as such in law. The argument now apparently is that it should not be recognised in one statute because it is already in effect in other statutes.
If we cannot have the phrase which recognises the statutory position of Welsh in the Welsh Language Bill, where can we have it? I therefore say this to the Minister, his officials, and his colleague the Minister of State for Wales, Sir Wyn Roberts. Surely the resources of government can look again at the principle of an official language. It is not the content of the phrase so much as the formal status that it will endow. I do not say at this stage in the revival and reintroduction of Welsh that that principle is necessary, but there has been sufficient public opinion in Wales for it to be justified. I therefore ask the Government again to consider that principle.
From an early sighting of the Bill—on publication it was brought to me by courier on a damp day in Dolgellau—I recognised that the Government had devised a form of language legislation which could be effective. It combined the principle of treatment on a basis of equality with practical schemes. I still believe that that is a preferable and more practical structure than an alternative of equal validity or a scheme which might be regarded as statutory bilingualism. The Bill
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gives the board the necessary powers to ensure that, throughout the public sector in Wales, Welsh will be a normal language of administration.
A T-shirt, produced by a company which franchises such items for Cymdeithas yr iaith Gymraeg, the Welsh Language Society, is going the rounds. It says something to the effect, "No to a weak Welsh Language Bill". I am thinking of commissioning another T-shirt which says, "Yes to a strong Welsh Language Board". The Bill enables the board to undertake the promotional and statutory activity of ensuring that throughout the public sector there are schemes and services to be delivered; and that the public will understand what those schemes are.
There are a number of outstanding issues. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and his colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench for the way in which they have led us on the Bill. I shall not repeat what they said. However, there is the issue of privatised utilities. Although the Government have come part of the way in statements, letters and debates, there is no change on the face of the Bill. The issue of whether those public utilities, now privatised, should be brought within the ambit of the Bill should be considered by the Welsh Office officials and the Minister before the Bill appears in another place.
There is also the issue of the competitive tendering procedure. The Minister told us that the Welsh language schemes will follow through the contract to the contracting privatised sector. However, the issue again needs to be considered.
I refer to the relationship between this legislation, employment opportunities and racial equality. It is essential that it is not sufficient to say that schemes will be devised between the EOC, the CRE and Bwrdd yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Board). It is essential that it is made clear in employment law and in anti-racism legislation that language qualifications are an essential part of choice in the public sector, and that they are not themselves discriminatory.
There is also the issue of the funding and nature of the board. I do not wish to see a Welsh language bureaucracy created. I wish to see a small, efficient staff delivering the service. But wherever that service can be delivered by the voluntary sector, by commercial small-scale companies, or by local authorities or other agencies, it should be so delivered. I do not wish to see a linguistic or language bureaucracy created in order to administer the Bill.
Finally, I refer to the overall context in which we make these historic decisions. It would be wrong of me not to remind the House, as I did at Second Reading, that there is a long history of campaigning on the issue. In many other parts of the world linguistic campaigns have turned exceedingly bitter. Although we have had some bitterness in Wales—we have had some forms of protest which I could never condone —it is fair to say that the commitment of Cymdeithas yr iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) to non-violence against persons has at least prevented some of the linguistic bitterness experienced in other countries from manifesting itself in Wales.
The campaigns of the language society have been motivated by successive generations of committed

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young people who regard it as their obligation to ensure the maintenance of the Welsh language. They have taken on public authorities on that basis. In many of their campaigns they have succeeded. I believe that they should now consider their position. What is the most creative and productive action that Cymdeithas yr iaith Gymraeg can now take? It should pause in its campaign of negating the Bill and the activity of the board, and consider carefully whether there is now an opportunity to create a new consensus and a positive approach towards the revival of Welsh in Wales. As the Minister so clearly said, it is for the people of Wales to resolve the issue. I believe that in this legislation we have the opportunity to do that. I hope that all sectors of Welsh society will seize that opportunity.
4.19 p.m.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: My Lords, as a mere Scot perhaps I may indicate my interest in the Bill. I am not a Gaelic-speaking Scot, but I am interested in the Welsh language because after over 20 years' membership of the Parliamentary Labour Party the one thing that has always impressed me was the way in which Welsh colleagues of mine seeking election to the Shadow Cabinet always lapsed into their own language when strangers like me appeared so that I would not know whom they were voting for and whom they were voting against! My interest in the Bill is that I wish to ensure that my good friends in Wales —and my best friend in Wales is the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos—are always able after Murrayfield to say in their own language, "Scotland, 20; Wales, nil".
Lord Geraint: My Lords, I find it very difficult to restrain my feelings on this occasion and also the feelings of the majority of the people of Wales that once again we have been let down by government policies, especially by this Bill.
When I first heard that the Government were to present a new Welsh Language Bill to Parliament, I allowed myself to feel a little optimism. What I and thousands of my fellow Welsh men and women had fought and argued for, over many years, seemed nearer to realisation. Our goal was simply to ensure that the Welsh language enjoyed exactly the same status within Wales as did the English language. To us, that seemed only fair and just.
My disappointment when I actually saw the provisions of the Bill was great. But it was tempered, as my noble friend has just said, by the hope that amendments would be accepted during its progress through your Lordships' House. However, although many noble Lords spoke with great eloquence and put forward what I and others believed were irrefutable arguments in favour of the amendments, the Government were not impressed or moved.
Yes, I shall say that the Government are prepared to spend money on the Welsh language, but they are not willing to take one more step to bestow on the
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language the status we think it merits. That saddens me greatly, for I think we have lost a great opportunity here to make history in 1993.
If the Bill continues its passage without giving Welsh the status of an official language in Wales, it will be decisively rejected. It has already been judged unacceptable in its present form by all the organisations in the Welsh Language Forum, as well as by other religious and cultural leaders throughout Wales and by the mass of public opinion. In my view, in short, it fails to come up to Welsh expectations.
The Welsh verdict on the Bill will be clear cut. As has been acknowledged by both sides of this House, we have had four-and-a-half centuries of foul play, rigged rules and biased referees. That was to change with this Bill, but it has not. The Government's famous sense of fair play has failed. Make no mistake, the anger will be deep, the disappointment great, the result disharmony in Wales.
For nations to be good neighbours, especially when those nations are part of the same state, there must be mutual respect, mutual civility and mutual recognition. We looked for this Bill to establish a framework for that, but we do not have it. We understand from the Government's spokesman, Sir Wyn Roberts, that the Government sought to improve the Bill, but in this House we are told that Welsh is still not to be recognised in English law as an official language in Wales.
I say to Ministers, "You have both been courteous in manner, but you have not been just, fair or courteous in content. Saying 'no' nicely is not enough when justice demands you to say 'yes'". Wales wants a Welsh Language Bill—we are still waiting to see one.
The debate now moves on to another place and I earnestly hope that the Secretary of State will have taken careful note of the words spoken in this Chamber only last week by his distinguished predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell.
4.25 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, it was not to be suspected that those of your Lordships who have felt concern about the insertion of the words "an official language of Wales" would not return to that subject again today. I know that it strikes close to the hearts of many noble Lords; indeed, all those who spoke on the Motion that the Bill do now pass referred to it other than the noble Lord, Lord Ewing of Kirkford. He seemed to be more concerned about Scotland and it was a mere passing reference; he was not concerned about the official language.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, hoped that the Government would go on considering the suggestion. I said that we would. As I explained earlier, this is an unusual type of Bill. We do not often legislate for languages and we have been concerned to do our best. I accept that we cannot always meet everyone's views, but the reason why we were unable to accept the amendments—whether they came from the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, or the noble Lord, Lord Hooson —was because of the legal implications they would have, and not any lack of sympathy we may have for what they were getting at. Of course we shall continue

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to consider the matter and see whether there are ways in which we could meet the aspirations without running into desperate legal complexities or uncertainties. Both those are undesirable.
I had hoped that the entrenched ruggedness of disapprobation for the Bill which the noble Lord, Lord Geraint, exuded at Second Reading, would have modified itself a little. He shakes his head. He indicated that it had not budged an inch. We brought in a Welsh Language Bill in order to try to help the Welsh language. It might not be all that the noble Lord, Lord Geraint, aspired to, but at least it is a genuine effort on behalf of the Government to encourage the Welsh language. It is disappointing—I put it no higher than that—that one who is such an advocate and admirer of the Welsh language cannot see a tiny bit of the other side of the coin and accept that the Government are trying to help the language, as the noble Lord, Lord Geraint, wishes.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked whether I would give an undertaking that should there be a conflict between the Education Act and this Bill, this legislation would prevail. The noble Lord knows that no Minister would be so stupid as to give an undertaking of that nature. I cannot say what will happen when laws are passed and they become the laws of the country. No Minister could give such an undertaking. We do not believe that there is any conflict, or that there will be any. However, should that be the case, in the end it must be a matter for the courts. It is not a matter about which Ministers—passing birds of passage as they are—could ever give long-term undertakings.
It would be inappropriate for me to answer all the points which have been made, many of which we have discussed before. I realise that they have been made today to mark down matters about which noble Lords are uneasy. There is another place through which the Bill still has to go in all its stages. I have no doubt that your Lordships' observations will continue to be reflected on by the Government. No doubt they will also be reflected in speeches in another place. I had hoped for a little more encouragement as the Bill winged its way to another place, although the noble Lord, Lord Hooson, was generous with his encouragement. I hope that noble Lords will find that when this Bill becomes law it will be a great asset to the Welsh language.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

London Ambulance Service
4.30 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, this may be a convenient moment to repeat in the form of a Statement an Answer to a Private Notice Question being given in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health. It is as follows:
"The House will recall that last October I asked the South West Thames Regional Health Authority
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to commission an independent inquiry into the operation of the computer aided despatch system of the London Ambulance Service. This followed occasions on which the system had seriously failed. That independent inquiry has now reported, and I am grateful to Mr. Don Page and his team for the thorough way in which the task was discharged.
"The report finds that there were a series of failures on all sides in the implementation of the computer aided despatch system. It concludes that these were attributable largely to the pace at which this new system was installed, following on from the very damaging ambulancemen's strike in 1990.
"I take a very serious view of the catalogue of errors which the report has highlighted. These are unacceptable and must not be repeated. In a meeting with both the South West Thames Regional Health Authority and the London Ambulance Service yesterday, I made clear the gravity of the situation and the importance which all those concerned with the London Ambulance Service will attach to the speedy rectification of mistakes and to learning lessons from what has gone before.
"I remain to be convinced that the lines of management accountability between the London Ambulance Service and ultimately Ministers are sufficiently robust. Accordingly, I have instructed Professor Marian Hicks, chairman of the South West Thames Regional Health Authority, to produce proposals within one month for strengthening the lines of accountability. I note that Mr. Jim Harris, chairman of the LAS board, has decided to step down, with effect from Monday, in order to allow that process to proceed without inappropriate distraction.
"The House should be reassured, however, that significant managerial changes have already taken place at the LAS since the report was commissioned. In particular, a new chief executive, Mr. Martin Gorham, has been appointed, following the resignation of John Wilby. He has taken considerable steps to improve both management and industrial relations at the service. I am also pleased to note that the LAS will be appointing an information technology director to oversee the staged reimplementation of an effective computer aided despatch system.
"The House will also want to know Of the significant improvements in service standards which have taken place since the autumn. 999 calls are now answered within an average of six seconds. Ambulance response times are now some 15 per cent. above the level to which they fell last summer. However, they remain well below the levels in other metropolitan areas.
"The report recognises that London is a special case. However, the fact that other ambulance services continue to provide a much better service in terms of response time than the LAS, often with far fewer resources, must give the service and those who work for it considerable food for thought. These problems must be tackled. In particular, I wish to see an early start made to the negotiation of

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new rosters with the union side which will put more ambulances on the road and improve the service to patients.
"I have asked Professor Hicks to provide me with regular reports on progress. We will be agreeing new objectives with the authority to achieve national standards as soon as possible. By then we will also want to see evidence of further improvements in the service's personnel and financial performance.
"Both the regional health authority and the London Ambulance Service itself have embraced the findings of the independent inquiry. A series of important managerial steps are now in place in response. These will improve the management of the service, management and staff relations and accountability to local people. The result will be improvements to the service for London patients which London expects and London must get."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
4.35 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Answer to a Private Notice Question in another place. I must confess that this is a rather new experience for me. I have not had a chance properly to peruse the report of the inquiry, as I only received it about five minutes ago.
This is a very serious matter in a number of ways. Even from a very quick perusal, the report shows that there has been a very serious failure of management. I have used computers for 30 of the 52 years of my life. I have never known any computer system work on first trial. It is universally true that computer systems, especially when they are being changed over, promise too much. It takes some time before all the bugs are eliminated and they become user friendly. That should have been known and taken care of. There should have been pilot projects and dry runs before the system was put into operation.
The pressure on management which resulted in the great hurry with which the system was put into operation, the lack of consultation with the staff who had to use the system and, I gather from the report, a climate of mistrust of the employees on the part of the management added to the problems. It is remarkable that we have had one more resignation on this round from the London Ambulance Service. Somebody has taken responsibility this time.
I welcome the report, though I would like to have seen slightly more about the lines of management between the London Ambulance Service, the regional health authority and the Department of Health. We ought to be very aware that when my friends in another place asked for an inquiry, again and again they were fobbed off by the Secretary of State and junior Ministers. It was correct to ask for an inquiry; but it. was left too late. It is rather tragic. The full extent of the difficulties caused by the failure is not known. However, it is noted in this morning's Independent that the London Ambulance Service has
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had to give evidence at more than 20 coroner's courts since the breakdown last October. I say no more. This is a serious matter.
The Statement on the Tomlinson Report made last week mentioned that the reforms would be implemented in the expectation that the London Ambulance Service would be able to take the burden of the running down of the accident and emergency units at Bart's and other reorganisation. The same mistake must not be made again. Let there be no reorganisation until we are quite sure that the London Ambulance Service can handle the burdens and we have had enough dry runs. We should not get into another hasty reform.
It is remarkable how the report mentions that in asking for open tendering the quantitative rather than the qualitative aspect was emphasised. That was a polite way of saying that we looked for the cheapest service but not the best service. The whole matter of the trust status of ambulance services has a question mark over it. Management systems must be thoroughly improved until we are satisfied that people know what they are about. I am absolutely astonished that an information technology director is now being appointed in the London Ambulance Service. Such a director should have been in place long ago. I should have liked to see a little more responsibility taken at a higher level than we have heard about this afternoon.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, we thank the Minister for repeating the Answer to the Private Notice Question. To apologise is not to excuse, but I welcome the tone of humility that I detected. Many noble Lords must have experienced computers failing or not producing the magic that was expected of them, but no good workman blames his tools. I am astounded to hear that only now is an IT director to be appointed. An IT director should have been appointed before the specification for the new design system was written and into which an inquiry has been made. Noble Lords will forgive me for referring to local authorities—that is my background—but I doubt that they would have been allowed to get away with a specification which was clearly inadequate.
The noble Lord, Lord Desai, rightly referred to the lines of accountability. I note the resignation of the chairman in order to enable a review of accountability. No one would have wished that situation to have arisen, but it is accepted to be an appropriate resignation, although it is a recognition of the problem and not a solution.
I hope that in assessing the accountability and the workings of the service the managers will take on board the advice offered and comments made by the ambulance personnel who operate the service on a day to day basis. The climate of distress that has been mentioned has had a good deal of publicity over a very long period.
Can the Minister comment on other reports in the press today as to the level of complaints and the new systems for dealing with complaints? Can she reassure noble Lords that staff will be trained to deal with complaints? It appears that of the five staff who were dealing with complaints, only one was doing so full time and that none of them had any training.

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I should be grateful if the Minister would comment on the vehicles that are used by the service and their fitness. Before the crisis last October, I recall reading reports that vehicles were not always fit. The fact that vehicles could not be put on the road was causing problems.
I return to the underlying point. The report deals with the narrow issue of the crisis of last October. I welcome the fact that it is clearly being applied more widely. There have been many calls for a full inquiry into the workings of the London Ambulance Service. The people of London need to be reassured that, although the acute problem may have been tackled, to use health jargon there is a real prospect of dealing with the chronic and, if I may say so at a political level, of ensuring that the service is not driven by dogma.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I should like to reply to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Desai, who detailed some management failures. The Government accept those criticisms. That is why my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health has asked the South West Thames Regional Health Authority to examine the lines of management accountability. However, I should like to stress that the London Ambulance Service is the largest and most complex ambulance service in the United Kingdom.
The South West Thames Regional Health Authority is committed to improving the service. The region has acknowledged the point that the LAS management tried to do too much too soon and that that very ambitious approach alienated staff. It recognises that if it is to succeed in the future, it has to work closely with staff and take them with it; and that includes training and other aspects of the service.
The region acknowledges that a more measured and participative approach is required, which is something that will be introduced.
I should like to correct a misconception that may have arisen that the London Ambulance Service is a cheap service. It is not: it has a budget of £70 million, which is an increase of nearly 9 per cent. over last year. We have the responsibility of ensuring that the money is effectively spent. The region is therefore looking carefully at the recommendations in the report and at any resource implications.
Lord Desai: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness for giving way. I did not state that the service was cheap. I stated that in commissioning the CAD system cheapness was emphasised rather than quality.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I accept the point made by the noble Lord. The regional health authority is looking at the specification documents and procurement processes to see what revisions need to be made.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, raised the question of specification. It is correct to state that in the past the situation has not been satisfactory. The management executive sent a letter to the National Health Service in relation to that point, giving
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guidance and a £1 million limit on new schemes involving computers. The sanction of the management executive will be required before they are procured.
The level of complaints is high and, therefore, further staff have been recruited to deal with that aspect of the service. However, the Secretary of State and her Ministers hope that so many staff will not be required in the future because there will not be so many complaints. Clearly, the service has to improve before that situation is reached.
The noble Baroness raised the subject of vehicles. Since 1991 290 new vehicles have been purchased, which represent 36 per cent. of the London ambulance fleet. A further 30 A and E vehicles have recently been ordered and the London Ambulance Service is committed to spending two-thirds of its capital allocation on vehicle replacement. Therefore, within a period of five years, we should see a very different fleet.
4.47 p.m.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, I have not had an opportunity of seeing a copy of the Statement but I have followed some of the correspondence. Will the Minister put on record that the London Ambulance Service has the praise of all sections of the community, whatever problems are raised in the report?
Being of an age when I do not understand computers, can I ask the Minister whether more comprehensive training will be given to those who operate them? Can she say whether, as a result of the disturbing events, recruitment has been affected? In view of the implications of the Tomlinson Report, will it not be more difficult for ambulances to reach casualty areas if casualty departments in some of the London hospitals, particularly in this area, are being scaled down?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, a great deal of emphasis has been put on training ambulance personnel, not only in the administrative system in terms of computers, but very much in terms of service delivery. The number of paramedics within the service has been increased remarkably.
I do not have the figures for recruitment. I am not sure whether it is keeping pace with past experience, but I know that the absenteeism rate has been steady. We should like to see that figure reduced. It has not increased, which is perhaps one indicator of staff satisfaction.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that the Statement tells us that the introduction of the computer aided despatch system in London was an absolute shambles? It was a new system. Will she and her colleagues learn a lesson from that shambles and disregard the proposals made by the Director General of Oftel and British Telecom to move the 999 emergency call system away from British Telecom to a so far unnamed private agency?
Will the Minister make clear to the Director General of Oftel and to British Telecom that dealing with emergency calls on the 999 system is a highly specialised matter for which many telephone operators have been trained extensively over many

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years? And will the Minister therefore make it clear at this early stage that these madcap proposals should be dropped?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the future plans of Oftel are not a matter for me.

Appropriation (Northern Ireland) Order 1993
4.50 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (The Earl of Arran)The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (The Earl of Arran) rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 15th February be approved.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this is one in a series of financial orders covering Northern Ireland departments which come before the House each year. The draft order before us today authorises expenditure of £80 million for Northern Ireland departments for the current financial year. That is in addition to the £5,014 million voted by the House last July. It also authorises the vote-on-account of £2,376 million for 1993–94, to enable the services of Northern Ireland departments to continue until the 1993–94 main estimates are brought before your Lordships later this year.
Before turning to the details of the estimates, I should like to set them in the context of the recent performance of the Northern Ireland economy. Although Northern Ireland generally mirrors the performance of the national economy, it is widely recognised that the local economy has held up well in the face of adverse national and global economic conditions. The economic downturn in Northern Ireland began later and has been less pronounced than in the rest of the UK. In the year to September 1992, there was a 1 per cent. decrease in local employment compared with a 3.3 per cent. fall nationally. Similarly, unemployment has shown an increase of 3,200 over the year to stand at 107,000 or 14.6 per cent. of the workforce in January 1993. That is a rise of only 0.4 per cent., compared with 1.4 per cent. in the UK as a whole. While none of us can afford to be complacent in the present harsh environment, those indicators provide solid evidence of the resilience of the Northern Ireland economy.
With your Lordships' permission, I now turn to the main items in the order, starting with the Department of Agriculture. In Vote 1, a token increase of £1,000 is required to reflect changes in the uptake of grants under capital grant schemes; £2 million is for additional commitments under the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Scheme. That is offset by reduced requirements under the Farm and Conservation Grant Scheme.
In Vote 2, various reallocations have been made within the vote. Those include a £0.2 million increase for fees to private veterinarians under the disease eradication programme; £0.37 million is for watercourse management, including flood protection works.
In the department of Economic Development, token increases are sought for four votes. In Vote 1, an additional £5.8 million is for new inward investment projects. That reflects the Industrial Development Board's success in attracting internationally competitive companies. A recent example is Pan European Textiles, which will create up to 500 jobs. A net increase of £5 million is for assistance to Short Brothers plc. That additional expenditure is offset by savings elsewhere in the vote, including lower than anticipated claims for industrial development grants. Assistance to Harland and Wolff Holdings plc shows a £7.8 million reduction, due to slippage on a contract. That will now fall to be paid in 1993–94.
In Vote 2, £1.7 million is for the Industrial Research and Technology Unit, which seeks to improve the competitiveness of local industry through increased research and development; £1 million is for assistance to the Northern Ireland tourist industry and £1 million for clearing the Ormeau Road gasworks site in Belfast. Those increases are offset by savings elsewhere in the vote.
In Vote 3, which covers the Training and Employment Agency, an additional £4.7 million is required to meet in full the demand for training places under the youth training programme. Offsetting savings have been found elsewhere in the vote. Finally, in the Department of Economic Development, provision is sought in Vote 4 to meet expenses incurred in the privatisation of the electricity supply industry in Northern Ireland. Those are being met from the proceeds of the sale of the generating stations earlier in the year.
I turn now to the Department of the Environment where, in Vote 1, a redistribution of resources has taken place within the roads programme. Some £0.7 million is required for minor roads schemes. In Vote 2, covering housing, additional net provision of £14.4 million is sought. Increases in the vote are offset by receipts of £3 million from sales under the co-ownership scheme and from housing association rents.
In Vote 3, £7.6 million is for capital expenditure on sewerage services. Increases in the vote are offset by reductions elsewhere and by increased receipts. In Vote 4 £2 million is for community economic regeneration schemes, which continue to be targeted at areas of social, economic and environmental need.
I now turn to the Department of Education. In Vote 1 a net increase of £7 million is sought; £6.2 million is for grants to education and library boards, including the increased cost of school teachers' salaries; £2.3 million is for voluntary grammar and grant-maintained integrated schools. I know that your Lordships continue to take a keen interest in the development of integrated education in Northern Ireland and will therefore be pleased to learn that there are now 18 integrated schools in operation, with a total of 3,300 pupils in attendance. In Vote 2, £1.8 million is sought for the increased uptake of student loans and an increase in the cost of postgraduate student awards.
For the Department of Health and Social Services, a net increase of £13.2 million is sought in Vote 1;

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£11.7 million is for the family health services, to meet increased costs in pharmaceutical and general dental services; £6.2 million is for increases in capital expenditure. Those increases are offset by increased receipts.
In Vote 3, additional net provision of £3 million is required. That includes £9.7 million for increased expenditure on housing benefit, rent allowances and rent and rates rebates. Those increases are offset by reductions elsewhere and by increased receipts of £5 million from the National Insurance Fund. Finally, in Vote 4, which covers social security, £40.4 million is sought to meet increases in the numbers receiving a wide range of benefits, including attendance and disability allowances and income support.
I hope that your Lordships have found this summary of the main components of the order to be of help. I commend the order to your Lordships.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 15th February be approved.—(The Earl of Arran.)
4.58 p.m.
Lord Blease: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his clear and comprehensive explanation of the appropriation order. Like all noble Lords, I attach crucial importance to the appropriation measures. They present a huge financial input to help the economic prosperity, the social equity and general wellbeing of the Northern Ireland people.
I have stated my view on many occasions when appropriation orders have been considered in this House. It is an unfortunate gap in the parliamentary democratic procedures that those public expenditure reports and papers are not openly considered and debated by representative thinking citizens in Northern Ireland. Any serious personal or corporate study of these collated plans, priorities and demands for government expenditure is sure to condition a mental approach to the need for careful deliberation rather than settling for shallow, phoney, personal, sectional or party propaganda. Any honest, critical pragmatic approach to these appropriation provisions must surely press personal faculties to rise above concepts of individual party power-sharing positions and raise them to positions which include more demanding and satisfying principles of responsibility and accountability.
It was a pleasure for me two days ago to see and hear on television the noble Earl, Lord Arran, who was standing in a very idyllic place, the Minnowburn Shallows, releasing some thousands of small salmon fry into the River Lagan. That river, I may tell your Lordships, has been without a salmon for over 100 years because of the stagnant water and long-term domestic and industrial pollution, together with impossible weirs built to serve industry. Stocking this river with salmon and with other river fish is an experiment which has been warmly received by the general community in Northern Ireland. It brings back life and hope to the polluted river and is a well worthwhile act. In the Northern Ireland context, perhaps it is much more. I would ask: is it not a practical demonstration of faith and hope, symbolic of the many hundreds of political, industrial, social and
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community work projects proceeding day by day in the Province? This is work undertaken with faith, hope and goodwill for the future, notwithstanding the somewhat socially soiled and politically polluted parts that prevent the clear, free flow of vibrant community life throughout the Province.
Turning to the appropriation order itself, I wish to raise a few points. It would be difficult across the Floor of the House to deal in precise terms with each item because a fair amount of explanation would be needed, but I should like to call attention to page 11, under the heading of Department of Finance and Personnel, Vote 1, and also to page 10, which refers to the Department of Health and Social Services. The establishment of a Voluntary Activity Unit is referred to, in which the Minister took part, and I quote from information which was released by the Northern Ireland Information Service on 22nd February. It states:
"The major contribution made by voluntary organisations and community groups to the quality of life in Northern Ireland was stressed today by the Secretary of State, Sir Patrick Mayhew MP.
"The Secretary of State, accompanied by Health Minister Lord Arran, was launching the Government's strategy document for the Support of the Voluntary Sector and for Community Development in Northern Ireland …
"The Secretary of State: 'There is also a wealth of talented and dedicated volunteers who liberally donate their time and effort, adding much to the quality and range of services available. We are committed to working in partnership with the voluntary sector and I believe that this new Strategy will make that partnership even more productive. For the first time, Government has a clearly defined strategy which acknowledges the contribution of the voluntary sector to many aspects of life in the Province, sets out the aims of Departments in supporting voluntary bodies, and indicates how Departments intend to develop good practice in administering their grant schemes'."
The document announces that a new unit, to be called the Voluntary Activity Unit, is to be set up in the Department of Health and Social Services,
"to provide a clearly identified focal point for voluntary activity in Northern Ireland. In addition, the new Unit will assume lead responsibility on community development and provide the appropriate machinery for interdepartmental consideration of key issues in this field".
I want to assure the noble Minister that the document which accompanied this statement has been very well received. However, I should like to put a few questions to him in order to get further clarification. I should like to ask him: when will the Voluntary Activity Unit be established? How is it intended to undertake the lead responsibility in any voluntary contacts? What provisions for support and efficiency scrutiny will the Voluntary Activity Unit provide to existing YTPs and similar schemes above what is already available under the Training and Employment Agency? One could also ask who, among all the departments which are to be brought together, is going to lead? I do not minimise in any way the importance of ensuring that voluntary efforts should be praised but of course they must be co-ordinated and their efforts should be scrutinised.
Turning to the Council for Nature Conservation and the Countryside, which would come under the Department of the Environment Vote, I quote from an article which was published on 19th February,

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when a special conference was held in connection with the Council for Nature Conservation and the Countryside. It states:
"The Government is giving less support to conservation work in Northern Ireland than in Scotland and Wales, it was claimed today.
"Professor Palmer Newbould, chairman of the Council for Nature Conservation and the Countryside, said, 'I firmly believe the DoE Environment Service does not have the resources needed to discharge its statutory function in conserving the heritage of Northern Ireland and in fulfilling the Government's international commitments'."
It continues:
"Professor Newbould said the council shared the view of the Minister that there should be a radical review of the relationship between environmental and economic policy in Northern Ireland."
I should like to ask the Minister: is such a review being considered and, if so, when will its terms of reference be made known?
Turning now to economic and industrial development and unemployment, the Minister—and I agree with him—laid considerable emphasis on the fact that tremendous efforts are being made in Northern Ireland against great odds. Every praise ought to be given to all concerned, to the trade unions and of course to Ministers and all those who have worked to get inward investment to keep the wheels of industry turning in Northern Ireland. I do not wish in any way to detract from the views expressed by the Minister about the steady level of unemployment in Northern Ireland: employment has not declined to the degree that has taken place in the rest of the United Kingdom. But, if you are at the bottom, you are at the bottom and there is nowhere else to go. Northern Ireland has been in that chronic unemployment position for years and years. It may not all be related to the chronic recessionary period: there are other reasons, and I would openly admit that.
Certain useful developments are taking place under the headings of the Department of Finance and Personnel, page 11, Vote 3 and the Department of Economic Development, page 9, Vote 1. Since the enactment of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) NI Order 1992, there has been a marked upsurge at district council level in the promotion of employment, investment, business and tourist developments. I understand that most of the 26 local district councils have appointed economic development committees and, in some instances, development officers.
Just over a week ago on 17th February, I had the pleasure of attending a very well organised and successful development promotion arranged by the Newry and Mourne District Council. The promotion was held to launch two videos specially commissioned to promote the economic development of the Newry and Mourne areas. These videos are entitled "Business Matters" and "Choice for Business". They are available in five main languages. They are to be made available and used throughout the world to attract new investment and trade to that district council area.
Great efforts are being made and they are already beginning to show results. I can refer to a list of other local district councils which are doing the same thing. A 2p rate is available for this form of development.
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However, there are some problems which arise in relation to what have been called power structures and clashes of ideals. Will the Minister consider inquiring of the DED whether it would be helpful to establish a special district council economic development unit to assist with advice and interdepartmental co-ordination?
District councils normally work with the Department of the Environment, but these proposals involve tourism, health services and roads. A tremendous amount of co-ordination is required when the projects come forward. There is also the problem of other local interests—and rightly so—such as LEDU and some other agencies. They are difficult to bring into the discussions which are necessary when industrial development is going on.
This brings forward the issue of EC grants being made available if they can be joined together. That would make the situation much easier. I speak highly of what is being organised by the chamber of commerce and the CBI. They have deliberately taken on contracts for cross-border trade which is already showing great results in promoting trade and, I hope, employment.
Finally, perhaps I may deal with the subject of job promotion and inward investment. In another place on 18th February last, a Question was asked about inward investment in Northern Ireland. The reply to the Question was:
"So far this financial year, the Industrial Development Board has secured seven new inward investment projects involving a total investment of just over £105 million and offering 1,299 new jobs. This is a most encouraging achievement".—[Official Report, Commons, 18/2/93; col. 463.]
I admit that 1,299 new jobs on the horizon is very good. But when one begins to analyse that, a number of points arise. The Question was about inward investment and the reply stated about total investment. I assume that that means public and private finance. When one examines the reply, it indicates a cost per job of over £80,000. That is far in excess of any assessment of cost per job made by the Northern Ireland Economic Council.
I refer to its report, Inward Investment in Northern Ireland, No. 99, published in 1992. Page 53 of that report deals with six years of job promotions, total aid, total investments and cost per job. The total cost per job is given as £20,000 over a period of six years. I believe that this matter requires some clarification for a number of reasons. Money is being asked for industrial development and for the promotion of jobs. If it is going to cost £80,000 per job on average, then perhaps the money should be directed to more scientific development, infrastructure needs, skilled management and the enhancement of training and skills for the workers. There would be better returns and a more competitive situation would be developed if the money was spent in that way. It is a question which has to be dealt with much more actively than by debate across the Floor of the House.
I ask the Minister to look at that report and page 69, which states:
"Given the resources that continue to be expended on this strand of industrial development policy in Northern Ireland it is clear that an extensive review is now long overdue. The

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Council, therefore, recommends that an independent review of this type is undertaken immediately, preferably by a person or organisation from outside Northern Ireland".
Will the Minister undertake to have this issue clarified? Will he also say whether an independent review is being considered? I thank the Minister and I support the order.
5.17 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, I follow my old colleague the noble Lord, Lord Blease, in thanking the Minister for a very clear exposition of this annual affair. I represent my noble friend Lord Holme of Cheltenham who is unable to be here. I shall not be as aware of all the details as he would be. I have not spoken in your Lordships' House on Northern Ireland for over 10 years, so it was a great pleasure to see exactly the same faces and the same names on the list of speakers, with the notable exception of the Minister, as appeared 10 years ago. I have a certain feeling of nostalgia for the whole thing.
After 10 years it is rather disappointing—and it is 17 years since I had any responsibility for Northern Ireland—to find that the problems are much the same and the solutions not noticeably nearer. The total revised figure in today's appropriation order is £2,375,610,000. That is considerable. I looked up the figure for 10 years ago which was £1,075,398,800. If one makes allowance for inflation, which is about one-third over that period in real terms, the present amount represents a large increase over 10 years. I do not know that we have a great deal to show for it except in generally keeping the lid on. That is all we have succeeded in doing so far. I am not telling noble Lords how to do better because I do not believe that anyone knows.
We were told by the NIEC last November that activity in the Province is continuing to follow a steady downward trend. As the Minister mentioned, unemployment now stands at 14.6 per cent., which is very high for such a small country.
We are all aware of the sinister contribution of terrorism to these disturbing facts and of the determination of the IRA to deprive its fellow countrymen (whether Catholic or Protestant) of a decent standard of living. Its policy seems to be to upset everything so that nothing works. I shall not go into the motives of the IRA. To my mind, they are absolutely unintelligible. When one realises that Southern Ireland is almost as frightened of the IRA as we are, what it is doing is habitual rather than in any sense designed. It produces the most appalling behaviour on the other side. The whole thing is very sad. However, it is fair to say that the IRA has had some success in preventing what the noble Lord, Lord Blease, was talking about, which is obtaining incoming work from businesses outside. How can one expect outsiders to invest freely in such conditions? During the past 12 years only about 9,000 jobs have been created in new, externally owned projects. That is not very impressive despite the fact that an awful lot of work has been done at considerable expense.
Perhaps I may turn now to some of the details of the order, and deal first with agriculture. If I had known that I should be speaking in this debate, I
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should have worn my Northern Ireland Milk Marketing Board tie, of which I am very proud, although I am not quite sure what has happened to the Northern Ireland Milk Marketing Board. The cuts of 27 per cent. in the hill livestock compensatory awards seem a devastating blow. One knows the difficulties. One knows the problems of the French farmers, GATT and everything else, but the way in which that is affecting one small corner of Northern Ireland and harming ordinary men is difficult to swallow. The awards were meant to assist the less favoured areas—and 72 per cent. of Northern Ireland's land falls into that category. Something may have to be done to help those mostly small—often very small—farmers. If France can do it, we must also.
I should like to say a word about housing. It is predicted that there will be a £73 million shortfall between what the Housing Executive thinks it is absolutely imperative to do and what it has the money to do. It says that it can deal with only one in five of the houses that are unfit to live in. In addition, 4,044 houses were built in 1983, but only 953 in 1990. I do not know whether the Minister can say anything to cheer us up in relation to housing which, unlike some other things, seems to be getting steadily worse. A good many other things are getting worse, but much more slowly.
On the subject of education, I agree absolutely that what many of us are interested in is integrated education and schools. It is obvious to all of us that that is something constructive. In spite of all the bad things that go on, integrated education is something which, in itself, is good. It is so hard to find things like that in Northern Ireland and occasions when one can feel that not only is one stopping something from going wrong, but actually putting something right. I understand the difficulty is that there is a good demand for places, but resources are short. It seems to many of us that that matter should be dealt with and I should be grateful if the Minister could take a look at it. He said that there were 18 integrated schools. If there is any chance of increasing the number of such schools then, given the small sums involved compared with many of the other things that we are talking about, I do not think that that chance should be denied. Major priority should be given to one of the few things which we all think is working in the right direction.
There is a clear need for low-cost rented housing. I hope that some of the increase in Vote 2 can be spared for that purpose, but it is not clear that it will be. One must not support only the owner-occupiers. There is a great need for low-cost rented housing.
I turn finally to water. I beg the Government to reconsider their plans to privatise the water service. It is suggested that that might increase domestic bills by as much as £300, but even if that is an exaggeration, privatisation would certainly increase them. Of course, something must be done about repairs where there is huge wastage, but it would be ironic if water were to become an exploited resource given the splendid rainfall of Northern Ireland.
I should like to finish with one brief thought. There is only one way forward, and we all know what it is

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—it is, first, through talks, and then through shared administration. All of us in this party—and, I am sure, in this House—will do all that we can to help the Secretary of State to get the talks going again and to establish an Administration of some kind. I served in Northern Ireland when there was an Administration for about three weeks. It was jolly good and very hopeful. I very much hope to see that again one of these days.
5.26 p.m.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, at the outset perhaps I may say how pleased I am to see the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, once again participating in Northern Ireland debates. I recall vividly when he was a Minister in the Northern Ireland structure in 1974 in the first five months of that year, there was real hope that progress could be made under the Sunningdale Executive, which tried so desperately to bring about consensus, reconciliation and co-operation between the communities in Northern Ireland. I think that the noble Lord would testify that every member of that Executive, which straddled both communities, tried desperately to hold on to the Executive—not in our own personal interests, but in the interests of all the people of Northern Ireland. Sadly, it was brought to an end by what was alleged to be the Ulster workers' strike, which was a bigoted strike by certain people who did not agree with the Executive.
The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, reflected sadly that nothing seems to have changed much since he was a Minister. He said that in all the years that he has sat in your Lordships' House—and I have been with him for the past 10 years—nothing seems to have changed dramatically in Northern Ireland.
I realise that when we have these twice-yearly debates on the appropriation orders some people in this building—and particularly some in the other House—feel rather irritated that we are discussing what are really local government or county council projects. Indeed, it has been alleged that one Member asked, "Why take up the prime time of the House with these purely county council matters?" However, the fact is that this is the only forum in which such matters can be debated because local government in Northern Ireland has absolutely no functions. There is no Assembly and there does not seem any possibility of an Assembly. I know that Parliament may be weary of listening to Members from Northern Ireland, and that must be especially true for the Hansard reporters who have to listen to townland names from throughout Northern Ireland. I do not know how they manage to spell them, and pronouncing them makes it even more difficult for them. But that is the structure that we have been left with and this is the only place in which we can debate the orders.
Before leaving home today I listened to both the radio and the television reports of the increase in unemployment in this country. British Gas is to pay off 4,000 workers and ICI is to pay off about 7,000. It is a problem throughout the United Kingdom. I am sure that every elected representative and all those who are interested in Northern Ireland will be
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concerned about those figures. Northern Ireland, however, is in a unique position. The terrible total of 108,000 in the small community of Northern Ireland is more devastating than would appear to be the case if that level of unemployment occurred in other parts of the United Kingdom. In Northern Ireland, 27 per cent. of the people are unemployed. Of those, 58 per cent. are under 34 years of age. That is where Northern Ireland is unique. That is the time when people are thinking of getting married, acquiring a home and putting down some roots in the community. The unemployment figure of 3 million in the United Kingdom is a disaster, but many of those people have been made redundant because they are 50 years of age or running up to 60. In Northern Ireland there is dreadful insecurity. When people are in their 20s or 30s they want to get married, put down roots and build a family. On the face of it, they have no prospect of getting a job.
What can people do? Do they settle in to being dependent upon the social services? There is a dependency culture in Northern Ireland. People realise that they have no possibility of obtaining a job. Many years ago I was a Member of Parliament representing a Northern Ireland constituency and I put down a series of Questions to the Minister asking about the unemployment figures. There is a great deal of anxiety in this country at the moment about the number of people who have been unemployed for more than one year. In Northern Ireland people have been unemployed for five, 10, 20 and 30 years. They will never obtain a job. The Minister might find it interesting to go into those figures. There are people who have never had a job since leaving school. They have to depend upon the state. They do not want to, but what can they do in those circumstances? Do they settle into living in the dependency culture or do they go to other parts of the United Kingdom where, again, there is little prospect of them obtaining a job? They are caught on the treadmill of despair.
That has had no small effect upon the troubled times through which Northern Ireland has lived for the past 20 years. When one is in that rut there seems to be no one worried about you or your vision of what life will be in the future. It is easy to see how young people could be attracted by paramilitary—loyalist or republican—organisations. It is no answer to say that the troubles of Northern Ireland have been brought about by unemployment. The troubles in Northern Ireland have been brought about by 400 or 500 years of Irish history, but endemic unemployment creates and nurtures all the old sores.
I have a letter in my desk from a young girl who has just obtained a 2.1 degree in history and politics from Queen's University. I do not know why she studied history and politics in Northern Ireland after living there for 21 years. She says that she is prepared to take a job anywhere in Northern Ireland or here. That young girl's education has been paid for in part by the taxpayer. Where does she go? Young people with an education can come here where, again, there are difficulties, or they can go to some other part of the world. That is their dream. They are Northern Ireland's life blood and they should be staying there.

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Reference is made in the order to a regeneration of the community. It is a question of only £3.4 million. One could spend hours trying to analyse what regeneration of the community in Northern Ireland means. I remember when the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, was there many years ago with his noble friend, whose name I forget for the moment. He took an interest in the communities in Northern Ireland. It was sad that he had to leave because of a change of government. He tried to do something. I do not live in Northern Ireland, but I am in almost daily touch with people there to try to find out what is happening to bring about a regeneration of the community. There is a prime example in my former constituency of West Belfast.
Some people say that part of the city is a no-go area. It is, in many respects. It is a no-go area for the police and security forces, but it is very much a "go" area for joyriders. It is also a no-go area for potential investment in Northern Ireland. It is imperative that the Government use all their resources to drive that community back into being a civilised society. One cannot write off all the people and say that they are all republicans or murderers. They are not loyalists or republicans; they are the people who live there. They have no hope of leaving or getting a job. If they have no hope of finding a job, the everyday running of their lives—paying their rents and acquiring all the other essentials of life—is difficult. The Government should put in a great deal of effort to bring about the regeneration of those areas.
Another item of which I have taken note is the abolition of the wages councils in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has had unemployment since its inception. It is a low-wage economy. Wages councils exist to protect the people at the very bottom of the wage-earning society. When they are abolished, unscrupulous employers will take advantage of their abolition. That is the last thing that Northern Ireland needs.
I wish to talk about LEDU. When I represented West Belfast I was happy with LEDU. I believed that it had done everything it could to attract small businesses into Northern Ireland. I notice that LEDU was criticised in another place, but in my former constituency LEDU has been instrumental in bringing in, and has given whatever financial support it could to, what is known as a silotank. The company is Digestors Silos and Tanks Limited of Northumberland Street in West Belfast. Loyalists were at one end of the street and republicans at the other. Many murders were committed there by both sides. Many members of the security force were killed in that street. It is a tremendous advance that LEDU has been instrumental in establishing Unit 2 on the industrial site there. The idea was imported from Switzerland. It must be said in LEDU's favour that it was instrumental in bringing technology from Switzerland which will be organised by people who live in Northern Ireland.
When I represented that constituency I was almost afraid to go out on that street, because one was always
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in danger of being shot by one or other of the paramilitary organisations or the security forces, so I have no criticisms to make of LEDU.
It is only a minor point, but mention has been made of the clearing of the old gas works site in the City of Belfast. That is a nostalgic memory for me, because when I stopped going to sea after the last war one of the first jobs I got was as a stoker in the Belfast gasworks. I remember it well. I remember the nearby bars which we would all go into before we started work. Sometimes we would escape over the wall to go into them again. What do the Government intend to do with that site? It is a prime site in the centre of Belfast. Will they use it for housing? If industry could be attracted to the site, it would be of tremendous benefit to the surrounding market area where so many people are unemployed.
The last time we debated the appropriation order I mentioned waiting lists for cardiac operations in Northern Ireland. It is recognised throughout the world that more people suffer from heart complaints in Northern Ireland than anywhere else. I hope that the Government will spare no expense to ensure that those who are in need of bypass surgery do not have to wait over-long for their operations. I recently received a letter from a man of 51 years of age who had pains in his chest. He went to a hospital where he was told he needed bypass surgery, but that there was a two-year waiting list. He said, "How long do you think I'll last with this?". The consultant said, "You could last six months or a year". The patient said, "You have advised me that I cannot have an operation for two years but you then tell me in another breath that I can last only a year". The consultant said to him—I shall mention his name if it becomes necessary—"Do you own your own house? Do you own your own car? How much money do you have in the bank or the building society? If I were in your position I would advise you to draw it out and to go private". That is an awful condemnation of the social security system and the health service in Northern Ireland. The case is still pending and I shall give the names of the consultant and the patient to the Minister.
I conclude by referring again to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson. I listened to and read the debate in another place on the appropriation order. Anyone coming from another planet and knowing nothing about Northern Ireland would, after listening to and reading the debates, recognise that one issue permeates the whole atmosphere in Northern Ireland; it is a dreadful sense of insecurity. There is insecurity in jobs, in the need for housing and in having something to look forward to.
Government in Northern Ireland is far removed from what it was in the days of the old Stormont, or during the time of the Executive or even when the Assembly was in operation. The Unionist Members are annoyed that the Government are pouring money into the building of a road between Newry and the Republic. They see that as a means of taking away from their interests and bringing together unity with the Republic. They are asking, "Why aren't the Government pouring money into the Larne area, because Lame is adjacent to Scotland?". The Catholic

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nationalist community is doing everything that it can to push forward the Newry road and the Protestant community is disappointed because no road appears to be going to Larne.
Furthermore, people appointed by the Government to what are referred to as quangos are first asked about their religion. It is asked, "Is he one of ours or is he one of theirs?". If he is not one of theirs there is insecurity because of the possibility that he will not act in their interests. A Member in another place actually asked a Minister, "When are you going to build houses for Protestants in North Belfast?". In representing the interests of his constituents he believes that in North Belfast more houses are being built for Catholics than are being built for Protestants. Again, there exists a terrible insecurity.
Northern Ireland is being affected by the closure of beds. A representative said that beds were being closed in the Royal Victoria Hospital and the City Hospital and that patients were being directed to a hospital on the Crumlin Road in Belfast, which is a Catholic hospital. Throughout the debates the representatives appeared to be so afraid and insecure that there appears to be no progress.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, that with economic problems in Northern Ireland, with the poverty and social deprivation that exists there and with the breakdown in community relationships, it is imperative that every Northern Ireland elected representative in this Government and the Irish Government should do everything they can to ensure that inter-party talks are resumed. No obstacle should be put in the way because any obstacle would lead merely to ongoing tragedy for the people of Northern Ireland.
5.45 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I support my noble friend in his presentation of the appropriation order. I have been involved with Northern Ireland for the past nine years but I note that today there is a sad gap on the Cross-Benches. We are delighted to see in the Chamber the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain. We look forward to having the benefit of her wisdom on dairy produce and agriculture. However, for the first time to my knowledge we shall not hear the forthright and helpful tones of Lord Dunleath. For many years Lord Dunleath was in the forefront of political life in the Province, not least in the domain of agriculture. I, many of your Lordships and many of his friends in Great Britain will mourn his passing.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I shall direct the remainder of my comments to Vote 1, the schedule dealing with agriculture. I was pleased to hear my noble friend say that there will be assistance for private veterinary practitioners. I hope that the veterinary research laboratory and the veterinary service of the Department of Agriculture in Northern Ireland are able to keep up with the extraordinary scientific work that is required. I refer to that connected with disease eradication, the meat plants and the blood tests which
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are carried out in the Province. They are essential in fulfilling our European requirements as regards anabolic steroids, additives and hormones in meat. Northern Ireland cannot afford to lose its excellent reputation for animal health, nor its reputation for producing the best food in Europe. My noble friend's waistline shows that, as does mine.
I hope that my noble friend will be able to give the House some encouragement about the hill livestock compensatory allowances. All of us, including my noble friend who fulfils his office excellently and with great spirit, have been subject to the pressures of the Treasury and above all the beloved Northern Ireland Audit Office. We shall be interested to hear my noble friend's views on the matter.
There appears to be a problem with potatoes in the Northern Ireland agricultural sector, as indeed there was in 1985. If my noble friend has time perhaps he will ask the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, to hand him the Good Book which sits on the Table. In it he will find great comfort, as did I in 1985 when at a particular service I looked at Psalm 65. It describes how the rivulets ran down the furrows and fertility was given. I understand that last year more than rivulets were involved and that parts of County Down and Cumber were under water. We should be grateful for any encouraging news of the potato trade that my noble friend can give. Indeed, we are grateful for what he and his department have done and are doing to try to help those farmers.
Vote 2 refers to the veterinary services. I hope that my noble friend will confirm that all is well among my friends and the friends of agriculture at the veterinary research laboratory in Northern Ireland, which is no distance from my noble friend's office. I hope that any increased workload at the laboratory will be funded and will receive a high priority in my noble friend's spending projects. Will my noble friend take on board and confirm, although not necessarily tonight or in the immediate future, the fact that all remedial work on the drainage sector is being carried out? All remedial work on the Blackwater scheme has been completed. The main scheme was a gigantic one which took about 10 years to complete. I believe that it has now been completed. However, your Lordships will know that a great deal of remedial work and tidying up of land slippage and so on needed to be carried out. Perhaps my noble friend will verify that that work has been completed.
My noble friend mentioned flood protection. I am not aware of any major disasters, the like of which we had in Scotland on the Tay. However, I recall one year that there was a serious flood problem at Myroe, out towards Londonderry. I seem to remember that quite a number of sheep were drowned when the flood walls gave way. In fact, I was advised that that was because rabbits had made their homes in the flood walls and that made the walls give way. Perhaps my noble friend will confirm that the flood works to which he referred specifically are being carried out and that the Myroe area continues to have a high priority in my noble friend's projects.
That concludes my remarks on agriculture. I am delighted to see that the Northern Ireland Audit Office

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seems to be looking for £1.7 million. I am astonished at the value for money that that provides since I know that the Treasury and the Northern Ireland Department of Finance and Personnel are extremely parsimonious with funds. However, I pay my tribute to the work of the Northern Ireland Audit Office. We should also ensure that the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Social Services, so ably run by my noble friend, receive the funds which they seek.
The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, mentioned a hospital and who did or did not wish to go to that hospital because it might not suit their views. I hope that in Northern Ireland we shall see something that I saw in England after the appalling air crash at Kegworth. I visited the main hospital in Derby where I found two employees of the Department of Agriculture, who, happily, were on the mend. Indeed, my own former Private Secretary was in Leicester and I am delighted to say that he is fully restored to good health. In the Derby hospital were two adjacent beds. The occupant of one was a young man and the occupant of the other was a young lady. Neither had injuries which were too serious. One of the beds was surrounded by fleets of Madonnas, Lourdes water, rosary beads and other religious items. The young man's bed was surrounded by red, white and blue scarves, Rangers apparel, which means to those of your Lordships who know Northern Ireland that the young man and his family were not necessarily partaking of the Lourdes water at that stage. Those two people were in adjacent beds. I understand that the young couple are soon to plight their troth. That gave me an inkling that hospitals in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain, generally cope with all health problems and problems caused by accidents. The service which those hospitals give is the same as that provided by the Department of Agriculture; that is, nulli secundus second to none.
I support the order and I thank my noble friend for presenting the figures today.
5.55 p.m.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, quite rightly drew attention to the feelings of insecurity being experienced in Northern Ireland. My partial answer to him perhaps lies in the cross-city rail link in the middle of Belfast which will connect the Larne line with the rest of the rail network. When that is eventually constructed and finished, it will be of considerable economic importance. It will also have a symbolic value as something linking one side of the river with the other and draw the two communities somewhat closer together than they have been in the past.
I should like to mention a few detailed points of which I have given notice to the Minister's department. The first concerns cross-border road closures. I understand from a recent parliamentary reply that no fewer than 103 road crossing points are at present closed under the emergency provisions legislation. That amounts to just over one-third of the total roads which cross the line in the whole of Northern Ireland.
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It seems to me that, of their nature, those closures are bound to cause economic loss to people living on either side, because as well as imposing much longer journeys, they also cause considerable political resentment both in Northern Ireland and in the Republic. It is also anomalous that there should still be so many closures at a time when, I am glad to say, co-operation between the security forces in Northern Ireland and the Garda and the Irish Army is probably better than it has ever been and certainly very much better than it used to be. In my view the closures are an anomaly at a time when Sinn Fein and the IRA have been decisively repudiated by the electorate in the Irish Republic.
A third reason for considering that that is not a very satisfactory state of affairs is that 1993 sees the start of the single market in the European Community. It is a time when frontiers are supposed to be diminishing in importance and, above all, trade and exchanges within the whole of the Community are supposed to be on the increase. I realise that there is a major security factor and I know that the question is under constant review. That is an expression which we have heard on a good many occasions on a good many different subjects. It can mean almost nothing. Therefore, I ask Her Majesty's Government whether those closures can be reviewed either on an individual road-by-road basis or, if that is not considered satisfactory, on a county-by-county basis, with the intention of opening as many as possible as soon as possible.
My next point concerns fines and fine defaulters. We know that fines are the most appropriate punishment for a large range of offences. It is important to see that when they are imposed, those on whom they are imposed can pay them. I know—and I welcome it—that an experiment is currently under way in what are called unit fines whereby the fine that a person has to pay is related to his income so that there is a reasonable prospect of his being able to pay it. I hope that that experiment will be successful and will be extended to the whole of Northern Ireland before too long because that will cut down the number of problems which arise.
When people do not pay, they have to go to prison. It is a sad fact that between one-third and one half of the total prison admissions every year are for cases of fine default. That absorbs a disproportionate amount of time and energy of the prison service. Sometimes a person is kept in prison for only about 24 hours with remission, good conduct and so on. I hope that very soon we shall be able to have non-custodial penalties for fine defaulters. I have been assured by the probation board that that could be put in place quite quickly and that it would not involve a great deal of expense. I hope that it will happen soon. I should be most grateful for any encouragement that the Minister could give me on that point.
I now turn to the whole question of crime prevention. In that context I welcome the current review of the criminal justice system. That review is greatly needed and I hope good results will emerge from it. However, we have to remember that we are talking about a population in Northern Ireland of

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only one and half million. Therefore, to my mind, it is a suitable place in which to begin to put into place a comprehensive strategy for preventing crime. I am talking principally of normal civilian crime and not of terrorist or paramilitary crime. I believe that to make progress in this area much better co-ordination will be needed between government departments. Previous speakers have referred to the work of government departments. Greater co-ordination must be achieved between government departments and non-governmental organisations. I suspect that better co-ordination can be achieved without a vastly greater expenditure of money.
What is required above all else is to instil into people respect for others from a very early age. That process must begin with children in play groups and then be continued in schools, youth clubs and youth organisations. That would greatly help the situation. It would lower the rate of vandalism and it would lower people's aggression and the number of brawls, fights and incidents of petty thieving that occur. It would help reduce a whole range of crimes. However, a strategy must be adopted. If it were adopted, the various bodies that carry out good work in Northern Ireland could relate their work to it.
My final point concerns discrimination in local government employment. We need to remember that local government is still a large employer in Northern Ireland despite its limited functions. It employs every kind of person from labourers right up to chief executives. In my view it is sad that, after 21 years of direct rule, of fair employment law and the setting up of a Fair Employment Commission, discrimination still continues. In June 1990 there was a bad case of discrimination in the City of Belfast. A Protestant applicant was appointed to a post over five better qualified Roman Catholics. That is just one example of discrimination. I know there are other examples of discrimination in the other direction.
It is also a sad fact that not all district councils in Northern Ireland have yet signed the declaration on fair employment. There is still some reluctance to sign that declaration and some councils are still backsliding on that issue. A number of government organisations are working on this problem. They include the Fair Employment Commission, the Civil Service Commission and the Community Relations Commission. I hope they can get their act together and that there are not too many of them all trying to stir the same pot and trying to achieve the same result. Discrimination needs to be tackled. Once it has been eliminated, that will go a long way to removing the feelings of insecurity which have been mentioned this evening.
6.5 p.m.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, I did not intend to speak in this debate. However, I was thrown the gauntlet by the noble Lord, Lord Lyell. Having entered the Chamber to listen to the debate I feel enthused by the speeches I have heard. It has probably always been the case in this House that Northern Ireland is referred to as a normal place and as a
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normal part of the United Kingdom where life goes on in a normal way. However, I have never heard it referred to in that way before. There are, of course, problems in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, it always seems to be the problems that are highlighted. Many people do not realise that many good things happen in Northern Ireland too.
It is sad that there are so few noble Lords present in the Chamber to hear the great contributions that have been made, particularly by the noble Lords, Lord Blease and Lord Fitt. I am not supposed to call them my noble friends but both of them happen to be my friends. I know what both of them have achieved from different sides of the spectrum in Northern Ireland, as it were. Their one objective is to ensure that Northern Ireland will become what it was in the past; that is, a thriving, God-fearing place and a good place in which to live.
I have three points to make. First, those involved in agriculture in Northern Ireland could teach their counterparts on the mainland a great deal. I was temporarily connected with agriculture in Northern Ireland as a marketing adviser for the Ministry of Agriculture in England. I could not understand why farmers in Northern Ireland were much more aware of marketing than their counterparts on the mainland. After about three days I realised that as Northern Ireland is a fairly small place most of the farmers there know the civil servants in the Department of Agriculture in Northern Ireland. They also know the agriculture Ministers, talk to them and explain their problems to them. There is a dialogue between the farmers and the Ministers on the needs of consumers. I wish that that happened to a greater extent in this part of the United Kingdom.
I hope that agriculture in Northern Ireland will continue to prosper. There are problems there as we have heard, but the farmers in Northern Ireland are sensitive to the needs of consumers. Their produce is more expensive in this country than our own produce because Northern Ireland farmers face additional transport costs. Nevertheless, they still manage to sell their produce over here and they can still show the milk marketing boards in the United Kingdom a thing or two about selling dairy products.
My noble friend Lord Hylton mentioned discrimination. I fear we make a little too much of that. The record of discrimination in Northern Ireland is a lot better than it used to be. I know of many examples of serious discrimination in this country. They involve gender, colour and sometimes creed. We should play down discrimination in Northern Ireland. I want to witness a greater dialogue with the people in Northern Ireland on the subject of discrimination. We should discuss ways of reducing it.
I make a plea to the Minister for better health education in Northern Ireland. The figures for heart disease are appalling. Northern Ireland has the highest incidence of heart disease of any country in the United Kingdom. As we know, the United Kingdom has one of the highest incidences of heart disease in Europe, or indeed the world. There is great food in Northern Ireland and that is partially, if not wholly, responsible for the high incidence of heart disease there. I believe

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a public campaign should be mounted to try to lessen the high incidence of heart disease as it causes real distress to the families of those who are afflicted by it. I should also mention the cost of treating those who suffer from the disease. The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, mentioned the waiting lists for heart bypass operations in Northern Ireland. I believe that there may be a case now for a simple public campaign on diet to try to lessen cardiac disease, which would unite all the people of Northern Ireland.
6.9 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl for identifying the main components of the order. As we have been told by so many speakers, the order transfers very large sums of expenditure. In comparison with Wales and Scotland, public expenditure in Northern Ireland is substantially higher per capita.
The order is complex. At least that is my impression, even following the guidance given by the Minister. It is almost impossible to understand its significance without the guidance of the Government's booklet, Expenditure Plans and Priorities 1993–94 to 1995–96. With the help of the booklet the order begins to make sense.
We have been told graphically by my colleagues on the Benches behind me, and I do not believe that the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, would disagree, that there is much deprivation in Northern Ireland. For years the rate of unemployment has been high: it continues to be the highest of all parts of the United Kingdom. My noble friend Lord Fitt also made the point very powerfully that long-term unemployment is a severe problem for the Province. I believe that it was my noble friend who used the graphic phrase "the treadmill of despair".
We are glad that there is to be considerable expenditure on training young people. We support that expenditure. I notice that there are at least three programmes designed to that end. We are very pleased that young people are being guaranteed a place on a training scheme. Can the Minister tell the House what percentage of young people now under training are likely to be in employment within 12 months of completing their training?
There is increased—and justifiably so—expenditure on job creation. However, I wonder whether the department has made a prediction, taking all factors into consideration, as to how many new jobs are required in Northern Ireland to reduce unemployment to 1990 levels by the end of this century.
Associated with long-term unemployment and low household incomes are high levels of ill health, long-term sickness and disability. That in turn contributes to disadvantage and deprivation. Again, that has been described by my noble friend Lord Fitt. I trust that my noble friend will convey to the Minister the confidential information to which he referred. The housing budget continues to be overstretched —a point made powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson. I am very glad to see the noble Lord in his place. He gave his perspective of 10 years of
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expenditure on government policies in Northern Ireland. His speech was not only reflective but sobering.
I mention those factors in order to demonstrate that Northern Ireland will need high levels of support from central government for many years to come. Therefore, it is particularly important, indeed essential, that central government spending is properly committed and monitored. That point was made by my noble friend Lord Blease. Yet we recently read two worrying reports on aspects of public expenditure in Northern Ireland.
On 12th November the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General for Northern Ireland was ordered to be printed. The report refers to the large write-offs made in 1991–92 by the Department of Economic Development, while the social security vote for the same year was qualified. We do not like qualified reports. On 19th November the report of the Public Accounts Committee was ordered to be published. The Minister will know that the committee was sharply critical of the Department of Education's failure for 13 years between 1978 and 1991 to monitor its teachers' premature retirement scheme. That is a truly amazing tale. The committee found that there was a total absence of management information on the cost of the retirement scheme, both in the cases of individual teachers and overall. We found the report most worrying.
I was very interested in the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, on expenditure on the Northern Ireland Audit Office referred to on page 11. Is the Minister in a position to tell the House how many adverse reports involving either lack of control of expenditure or monitoring of expenditure on departmental programmes or the programmes of their agencies have been received by the Northern Ireland Office during the past five years? We formed the impression that the money is just sloshing around without adequate control. It would be helpful if we also knew how the Northern Ireland Office compares in that respect with the other two territorial departments responsible for Scotland and Wales, in however broad terms.
In the past few days I have read the annual report of the chief adjudication officer for 1991–92 on the adjudication standards of the Social Security Agency during a period of rising workloads due to increased unemployment. Once again I am pleased to welcome the CAO's report. This year it points to limited improvements in some aspects but reminds us of deterioration in others. I believe that the chief adjudication officer is answerable to the Minister.
Perhaps I may now leave the accountants and move on to another dimension provided by the reflections of Dr. Eames, the Primate of the Church of Ireland, when he gave evidence to the Opsahl Commission in Belfast last week. According to the right reverend primate the principal objective of government policy should be the building up of trust throughout society. The Government should seek to achieve that objective by reducing unemployment, reducing sectarianism, reducing community ills and enhancing fair employment.

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Clearly, there is considerable expenditure by the Government on measures aimed at job creation. Can the Minister say to what extent the various policies of the Government are co-ordinated to achieve that desired end? Like the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, and my noble friends on the Benches behind me, I find it baffling that in the midst of all the unemployment, the Government's ideological policies in at least two fields will add to unemployment in Northern Ireland within the next year or so. Both derive from privatisation. As and from next April the district councils will be required to contract out many of their services. It has been calculated that that will lead to a loss of about 2,000 jobs. Why on earth is it necessary for the Government to proceed with the legislation in 1993? Indeed, can the Minister tell the House what effect the EC directive on acquired rights will have on the Government's contracting out policy and its underlying assumptions? Perhaps we may suggest that, given the provisions of the directive, the policy should be abandoned or at least delayed.
The other privatisation issue, namely, the Northern Ireland Electricity supply industry, is still much in the news. It was referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Arran, in his speech. I believe that again it is common ground that such privatisation will lead to job losses. On Saturday I received a lengthy letter of about 1,000 words written by a person in Northern Ireland alleging that the generating plants, in particular the power stations at Kilroot, West Belfast and Ballylumford, were sold off last year for a song and that the contracts with the American-Belgian consortium are exceptionally generous. The Expenditure Plans and Priorities booklet is thin on what happened at Kilroot, West Belfast and Ballylumford power stations. Indeed, I have heard more from the Minister today than I read in the booklet. It would be appreciated if the Minister could place a copy of the trade sales contract in the Library. Is that possible, or is it confidential? The letter contains a number of grave allegations which cause me some anxiety. However, to be fair, since the letter does not produce supporting evidence, I shall not pursue those allegations today although I reserve the right to come back to them.
The question which immediately arises is this. How will the privatisation measures, including the proposed privatisation of the water supply system, contribute to the reduction of unemployment? Perhaps the Minister will enlighten noble Lords on these Benches. We should have thought that in the present climate what makes sense is that the highest priority should be given by the Government to retaining jobs.
The primate encouraged a commitment to fair employment policies. I suppose that in a sense discrimination is the obverse of equal opportunity and fair opportunity. Notwithstanding what has been said today, the need for fair employment policies was again brought home to me by the recent report on fair employment procedures submitted to the governing body of Queen's University. Considering that during the past few years progress has been made at this seat
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of learning towards the goal of fair employment, I was surprised to read that it was still possible for the latest report to make 93 recommendations to enhance fair employment at the university. Perhaps the Minister will tell us how many of the 93 recommendations will be implemented. Is the department satisfied that there are good reasons why the remainder should not be implemented?
The primate dealt with the need to reduce sectarianism and to build up inter-community trust among those nearest to the problems and conflicts. We all know that that is a complex area. It is always difficult to reconcile what appear to be inherent contradictions. If I may say so, this is the constant theme which my noble friend Lord Blease presses upon me; and he of course is living through the difficulties, tensions and dangers.
The integrated schools, which are powerfully supported in this House, are making an important contribution. I wish too to pay tribute to the voluntary bodies which have exercised vigorous imagination and enterprise in that area. I also recognise in fairness to the Government that in recent years they have set up and given their full support to the Community Relations Council. The work of that council is sketched out on pages 170 and 171 of the booklet. We are greatly indebted to the council. Yet we would encourage it to play a maximum role in establishing and building up co-ordinating groups at different levels and throughout every part of Northern Ireland in pursuit of objectives to be achieved over a period of, say, three or five years; and of reporting to the department, and if need be to the Secretary of State himself, on the precise difficulties which it is encountering.
Perhaps I may say a final word on the reflective words of the Primate of the Church of Ireland. The Government have a key role to play in encouraging and facilitating the conditions that will lead to the build-up of inter-community trust. Perhaps the single most important initiative within the Government's gift is to introduce a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. Will the Government at long last introduce a Bill of Rights? The concept is widely supported by all the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland. It is widely supported on this side of the House, and by my friends on the Benches on my right. Indeed, consensus on the issue even survived the failure of the talks last year.
Like other noble Lords who have spoken today, we encourage the Government to do what is in their power to restart the talks in Northern Ireland. I shall listen with great interest to the Minister's comments on the issues which have been raised today, and the many questions which have been addressed to him. In the meantime I am glad to confirm that we on these Benches approve the order.
6.26 p.m.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, is quite right in saying that many issues, and indeed even more questions, have been put to me this evening. However, before I start to answer those questions, I thank all noble Lords who have

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contributed today in an extremely wide-ranging debate. I feel very much like the new boy among so many people who have either served or lived in Northern Ireland, or who live at this moment in Northern Ireland.
Perhaps I may first take points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Blease. It was both thoughtful and kind of the noble Lord to mention earlier his points about the release of the salmon into the tributary of the River Lagan. I was closely involved in that matter. Indeed, it is a most determined effort to breathe new life into an historic and much loved river and thus symbolises so much of what so many in Northern Ireland feel and desire.
The noble Lord asked the sources of the funding of the £105 million for the new inward investment project attracted by the IDB so far this year which the Minister responsible for the economy quoted in another place on 18th February. The IDB provided selective financial assistance totalling £30 million and the remaining £75 million was invested by the private sector. The main projects involved were, for instance, Pan European Textiles and Fruit of the Loom.
The noble Lord then asked about the new Voluntary Activity Unit. He is quite right. It is mentioned carefully and strongly in the Strategic Framework document for the voluntary sector, the launch of which I took part in last week. That Voluntary Activity Unit, which will be established within the DHSS, will be acting as a focal point in co-ordinating the work of the voluntary services. A strategy defining the precise aims and roles of the unit will be developed in consultation with the voluntary sector and the unit will assume the lead responsibility in community development and provide structures necessary for consideration among departments on key issues in that field. The noble Lord asked more specific questions. If he will allow me, I shall write to him on them.
The noble Lord, Lord Blease, put forward the suggestion of a special district council economic development unit. It is an interesting idea which I shall pass on to the Minister responsible. The noble Lord also asked about the Northern Ireland Economic Research Council. Its recent report recommended an independent review of inward investment and the establishment of a computerised database. The Permanent Secretary of the Department of Economic Development and IDB's chairman have just completed a review of IDB's overseas promotional activities. In addition, consultants have been retained by IDB to carry out an examination of Northern Ireland's competitive position in relation to the industrial sector being targeted. In those circumstances, IDB does not believe that there is a need at this time to set up an independent review of inward investment policy. However, work on the development of the computerised database is already under way and it is being afforded a high degree of priority with a representative team led at deputy chief executive level.
If I may say so, it was a great pleasure to see the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, speaking again from his Benches, having served many years ago in Northern
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Ireland. It was even more of a pleasure to see him wearing the Milk Marketing Board tie. I very much hope that when he speaks again from those Benches he will continue to wear that tie.
The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, asked particularly about the hill livestock compensatory allowances reduction. I acknowledge the concerns about the reduction in HLCA rates for hill sheep, but I point out that the incomes of mixed livestock farmers in the Northern Ireland less favoured areas (LFAs) have improved substantially for a second successive year. The average net farm income in the Northern Ireland severely disadvantaged areas is estimated to have increased by 70 per cent. over the past year. We could not ignore those factors in deciding the HLCA rates for 1993.
I also point out that overall support for hardy breed ewes has increased, not decreased. I am sorry to come down to specifics, but the total support will be £34.45 compared with £32 the previous year. I can tell my noble friend Lord Lyell that most of those affected will also benefit from higher suckler cow premiums and many will gain from the extension of environmentally sensitive areas in Co. Antrim and the considerable amount coming through shortly in Co. Fermanagh.
The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, asked that the Government should encourage proposals for integrated education. We are happy to do that, but we can only respond to the parents' desires. It would be counter-productive to try to force the pace, but as the noble Lord recognises, progress has been made and the outlook is certainly encouraging.
The noble Lord mentioned Housing Executive budgets and referred to the resources available to the Housing Executive. There are many important public expenditure programmes in Northern Ireland but I have to say that resources are finite. In 1992–93, the Housing Executive will have gross resources of some £488 million, and that substantial sum will support the Housing Executive's aims of improving housing conditions in Northern Ireland and meeting urgent housing need.
The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, made his customary impassioned appeal for recognition of the many good points that exist in Northern Ireland and made his plea that many more beneficial points should increase in Northern Ireland. He particularly asked about the regeneration of West Belfast. The Government are fully aware of the severe economic difficulties in that area and are tackling them in a number of major ways. For example, the Making Belfast Work scheme seeks to tackle the economic and social problems in the most disadvantaged areas of Belfast; £124 million will have been spent on the programme between 1988–89 and 1993–94, in addition to mainstream programmes. In addition, Targeting Social Need—the Government's third public expenditure priority—is targeted at areas of need. I know that the Industrial Development Board is also actively seeking to attract industry to that area.
The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, asked, in relation to the gasworks site, when the Belfast site would be cleared and what were the plans for its future. The 27-acre site

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is now fully cleared. The property is within the Laganside development area and consideration is being given to how best it might be developed.
The noble Lord also referred to health and, in particular, cardiac surgery and waiting lists. The noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, also specifically mentioned that issue. Additional funding of almost £1 million was made available for the appointment in May last year of a fourth cardiac surgeon and supporting team at the Royal Victoria Hospital. That will allow an increase in the yearly number of health service cardiac operations at the hospital from 630 to 840. Additional resources have also been made available to purchase cardiac operations from hospitals in Great Britain for people who have been waiting for over two years. The number of people waiting for this length of time has declined since early 1992 from well over 400 to 170. Additional resources totalling some £2.75 million will be made available in 1993–94 and that should help to wipe out the waiting list.
My noble friend Lord Lyell made some correct and affectionate comments about the late Lord Dunleath and the tragic circumstances of his passing. I am sure that everyone in your Lordships' House will sadly miss his contribution to debates on Northern Ireland and on many other issues.
My noble friend Lord Lyell asked about developments in the Veterinary Sciences Division of the Department of Agriculture. Two topics are particularly worthy of mention. First, I can tell him that the scientists in the Veterinary Sciences Division have been at the forefront—as the noble Lord well knows from his time there—in developing new techniques to detect the presence of Clenbuterol—or "angel dust" as it is often called—in animals. The technique involves detecting the drug in the retina of the eye which allows abuse to be identified more than 12 weeks after Clenbuterol has been withdrawn. That has rendered the abuse of Clenbuterol uneconomic and it is a most welcome step in the effort to reduce drug abuse in animals.
Secondly, I was also pleased to note that the Veterinary Sciences Division and the Applied Plant Sciences Division of the Department of Agriculture have been awarded £400,000 of EC funding through the Science and Technology for Regional Innovation programme. That will establish a biotechnology centre for animals and plant health. The money will help disease prevention by upgrading the existing molecular biology facilities to allow the production of better diagnostic tests and improved vaccines for animals and disease resistant plants.
My noble friend Lord Lyell asked about the Blackwater drainage scheme. The Department of Agriculture is currently undertaking comprehensive environmental and fisheries compensatory measures following the completion of the Blackwater scheme.
My noble friend also mentioned the sensitive issue of potatoes in Northern Ireland. I can tell him that I am only too well aware of the difficulties with last year's potato crop. I can only make two comments tonight. First, as my noble friend knows, the
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Government have an agreement to consider the introduction of market support measures when and if the average market price falls to £46 per tonne. Despite the difficult trading circumstances, prices have not fallen to that level. Secondly, I can tell him also that I shall meet the Ulster Farmers' Union next week, but I am not prepared to prejudge that discussion now.
I now move to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. He mentioned the closure of cross-border roads. The Government understand that road closures, whether in Belfast or Fermanagh, certainly have implications for local people in terms of both inconvenience and the effect on community life. Regrettably, such measures are necessary to counter terrorist attacks and the movement of guns and explosives. The precise measures used are kept under review (I have to use the phrase even though the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, may not like it) and indeed under constant and continual review. They are tailored as appropriate to the current terrorist threat. Also, the relaxation in frontier controls on the passage of goods will apply here as elsewhere in the European Community and the existing common travel arrangements between the Republic and the United Kingdom will be unchanged.
The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, raised the issue of discrimination in district councils. I can assure him that the agencies involved in fair employment—the Fair Employment Commission, the Local Government Staff Commission and the Central Community Relations Unit—have district roles and there is no duplication of effort or overlap of their functions.
The noble Lord also mentioned crime prevention in Northern Ireland. As he is aware, over the past year the Government have conducted a wide-ranging review of criminal justice policies in the country. Our policy on crime prevention has been a very important part of that review. The Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, of which he is the distinguished president, along with a wide range of other statutory and voluntary organisations, have very helpfully contributed to the review and my colleagues have paid careful regard to his views. We hope to publish the conclusions of the review in the coming months. At that stage we shall be happy to consider any further suggestions that the noble Lord may wish to make on the Government's proposals for the future of crime prevention, activity and policy, and on wider criminal justice policy issues in Northern Ireland.
On the subject of fines and fine defaulters, at present we are working on proposals for unit fines. I agree with the noble Lord that setting fines in relation to offenders' declared means should reduce default by those who at present cannot pay.
I make very strong mention of the contribution made by the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain. She said much that was particularly relevant and true about Northern Ireland, particularly on the subject of health promotion. Certainly a health promotion agency was established in October 1990 to undertake health promotion activity. Its work is to plan and

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carry out regional and local programmes in co-operation with health and social services boards and other people who are concerned with health promotion. Its work includes programmes on healthy lifestyles in particular. Indeed, given the instance and rate of heart disease in Northern Ireland, the noble Baroness can be assured that encouraging better health through improved diet is very high on the agency's agenda.
In conclusion, I turn to the points and very searching questions put by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies. Like so many of your Lordships, he was particularly thoughtful and generous in giving me notice of them. He asked what percentage of young people under training for work in industry are likely to be in employment within 12 months of completion of the training course. Information in that regard is not at present available. The destination of young people leaving the youth training programme is recorded only at the point of leaving the programme. However, the Training and Employment Agency is about to commission a survey which will report on the destination of young people immediately on leaving the programme and, by means of a questionnaire issued at the end of each of the two years following the date of leaving, will seek to report on their progress. Existing monitoring arrangements indicate that in the period from 1st April 1992 to 31st January this year 56 per cent. of leavers from the programme had progressed into employment.
The noble Lord also asked about the number of new jobs required in Northern Ireland to reduce unemployment to 1990 levels by the year 2001. It is not the Government's practice to forecast employment or unemployment figures at either the national or regional level. In any case, such economic projections can be very unreliable since there is no direct and quantifiable link between changes in employment and in unemployment. For example, future levels of migration out of Northern Ireland would obviously affect the unemployment figure.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, also referred to the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General for Northern Ireland on the 1991–92 appropriation accounts. He asked how the number of qualifications noted in the report compares with the position in the Scottish and Welsh Offices. It is not possible to make such comparisons since the remit of the Northern Ireland Office extends to both central and local government activities whereas the National Audit Office deals only with central government in England, Scotland and Wales.
The noble Lord also raised the subject of compulsory competitive tendering in district councils. The point is that it is designed to encourage the maximum value for money in the delivery of services to the public. That principle applies just as much to councils in Northern Ireland as in the rest of the United Kingdom. It is not possible to say whether that will lead directly to any redundancies in council staff. At the end of the day it is for the councils to decide how best to manage their affairs. Experience in Great Britain has shown that the vast majority of contracts has remained in house.
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The noble Lord also referred to the Acquired Rights Directive. The Government have always accepted that the public sector, both central and local government, are within the scope of the Acquired Rights Directive.
On the subject of NIE privatisation, the noble Lord asked about the trade sale contents for Kilroot, Belfast West and Ballylumford. I am afraid it is not possible to let the noble Lord have copies of those as the sale contents are commercially confidential. However, I refer him to the written response in another place of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on 5th March last year. I shall be happy to let the noble Lord have a copy of it.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked about fair employment at Queen's University and in particular the recommendations in the recent review by independent consultants. Those are matters for the university. However, I understand that, following a 1989 report by the then Fair Employment Agency, Queen's University has implemented a wide range of agreed affirmative action measures to ensure that all its recruitment and selection procedures comply with the fair employment code of practice.
Finally, the noble Lord asked about a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. I can certainly tell him that we are fully committed to the protection of human rights. Our record on that is demonstrated by specific measures, such as the fair employment legislation. We are certainly willing to consider proposals for further strengthening that protection.
I am acutely aware that I have taken up much of your Lordships' time and at the same time not answered all the questions that have been put to me. I apologise but assure noble Lords that I shall answer those questions in writing. We have had an extremely interesting debate on the appropriation orders. As always, your Lordships have shown your normal interest, deep knowledge and concern for the wellbeing of the people of Northern Ireland.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Carers
6.50 p.m.
Lord Ashley of Stoke Lord Ashley of Stoke rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to deal with the financial, physical and emotional problems of carers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the truth about carers is that they are saviours, treated as shadows. They save the lives of disabled and frail people, just as much as the medical profession. Without their work the lives of sick and disabled people would be unbearable and impossible. It is time that we looked at carers with fresh eyes and recognised and acknowledged their value as human gold dust. We should treat them with the respect and attention that they deserve.
I should like to pay tribute to the Carers' National Association and the invaluable work that is carried out by its president, the noble Baroness, Lady Seear.

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I should also like to pay tribute to Crossroads and the many other organisations and active supporters who do such splendid work. I have done what little I can, along with my parliamentary colleagues in another place. However, the Government have failed to take adequate action.
Carers, who provide invaluable assistance at home to relatives or friends who are ill or disabled, are still undervalued, unappreciated and underpaid. The vast majority of them are not paid at all, thus saving the Government an estimated £20 billion a year, which is an astronomical amount of money.
I should like to put some basic facts on record so that the Government are in no doubt about the magnitude of carers' problems.
There are an estimated 6.8 million carers in the United Kingdom, 1 million of whom provide care or assistance for at least 35 hours a week. In the 1991 Department of Social Security report it was stated that two-thirds of all carers say that caring has an adverse effect on their standard of living. That is a very sad fact. One quarter of them have borrowed money and 60 per cent. have cut back on normal expenditure. Half of them have drawn on their savings. Imagine the poverty, hardship and indeed the desperation involved in those facts. That is what it means to be a carer. The facts speak for themselves and they are eloquent testimony to the burdens that are borne by carers. There are differences of nearly £166 a week between the weekly incomes of comparable carer and non-carer households.
The good news, according to the Minister of State for Social Security in another place in November 1991, is that,
"An independent income for carers is provided in the form of invalid care allowance - ICA."
The bad news is that of the 6.8 million carers only 175,000 receive that amount. By my calculation—and I am not very good at arithmetic—that leaves approximately 6,625,000 carers who do not enjoy that government munificence. That is an absolute disgrace, and I see no reason for ignoring them. Nor is the ICA, which is paid to the minuscule minority, a king's ransom. At £32.55 a week, which would buy perhaps a good cigar or two cigars, it is one of the lowest comparable benefits in the social security system. It represents approximately 12 per cent. of average earnings, even though it is supposed to be an incomes maintenance benefit. It may be enough to maintain someone in Somalia or somewhere like that, but it is not enough to maintain a person in this country at the necessary living standard. It is an insult to carers.
Carers do not only suffer poverty; they suffer lost opportunities. They cannot earn money outside, or, if they can, they have to reduce the hours that they work. Therefore, they cannot build up pension provision or save for the future. They are trapped in a downward vortex and they are inexorably drawn deeper and deeper into poverty. It is a kind of whirlpool. There is no escape from it unless the Government take decisive action.
The older carers who are over 65, who have the greatest difficulty in caring because of their age, are
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unable to claim ICA for the first time after the age of 65. That is not only an anomaly but it is an injustice that is begging for government action.
One of the main reasons why carers are neglected by the Government—exploited by the Government—is that they are taken for granted. They are prisoners of their own kindness. They are expected to bear the burdens of society simply because of their relationships. The Government have nothing to be proud about in that regard.
Therefore, the first thing that the Government and society should do is to recognise the enormously valuable and skilled work that carers carry out. Mere lip-service is not enough. If I may say so, there is nothing worse than Ministers wringing their hands but doing nothing. Carers must be recognised, and that recognition must be followed by action.
To be frank, the recent up-ratings have had a trifling impact on the situation, and there should be a comprehensive review of the benefit system as it affects carers.
The ICA should be raised to the level of state retirement pension and it should be related more closely to national average earnings. Rights to unemployment benefit should be restored. Older carers should receive a carer's pension.
The organisation Caring Costs has stated that three-quarters of carers are not receiving their rightful benefits. Imagine that. There are all those peanuts available, and the carers are not receiving the peanuts simply because they do not know about them, they are unaware of them, or they find the claim too difficult to make. It is important for the Government to ensure that all carers receive every penny to which they are entitled. They need every penny because at that standard of living every penny counts.
Carers need more than money: they need time off as a legal right. The Royal College of Nursing and the Spastics Society have sent me some profoundly disturbing evidence about the way that carers suffer for lack of time off. I do not have the time to detail that evidence because other noble Lords wish to speak and I should like to make a short speech. However, that evidence is profoundly disturbing. They must be allowed time off as a matter of right that is enshrined in legislation. They need support services. They have the right to be consulted on every aspect of caring and to be treated as the important people they are.
Everyone requires support of one kind or another in daily life. Everyone requires time off from the stresses of work. Everyone needs to be treated with respect. Carers need more support than many, and they suffer far greater stress than most. They deserve the respect of all of us. Those people should be at the head of the queue for benefits rather than at the back, as they are today. I hope that the debate will help to push them a little further ahead of the queue.
7 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, we must be extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, for introducing this important topic into your Lordships' House. It has attracted a number of highly qualified speakers. The Deputy Leader of my own

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party, herself at one time a carer, my noble friend Lord Redesdale, who has personal experience, and my own diocesan Bishop will produce more evidence and experience in this matter than I, and I shall therefore keep what I have to say short. Nevertheless, every parish priest must encounter in his own parish cases and problems of people who cannot cope when dealing with the immense difficulties of caring. I am grateful to a lady in my own parish who has drawn my attention to a situation that I shall mention later.
Carers need rest; they need people who are able to take their place and relieve the immense strain under which they work. Indeed, they need people who will enable them to carry out the necessary functions of their ordinary life, for some are virtually prisoners in their own homes, dependent on neighbours for help —often well given. One of the good aspects of this subject is that one is talking of immense love, self-sacrifice and help given by individuals to each other.
The work that carers do and the work that those who relieve carers do measurably improves the welfare of the community. Carers themselves relieve the community of immense expenditure which they take voluntarily on their own shoulders. I do not say that it should be otherwise; God forbid that caring should turn into part of the purchasing ethos into which our community seems to be moving in every other field. Nevertheless, carers need support from the community because the community gains from their work.
Who is prepared to pay for all this? The answer is that the community must pay in some shape or form. A community which undertakes the responsibility for ensuring that none of its members is unnecessarily deprived of modest wellbeing must pay and endure sacrifices to do so. Unless the Government are concerned to demolish the welfare state—I am fairly sure that they are not—they must see that the money is produced and that the requisite authorities manage to take on their responsibilities.
Before I sit down I should like to mention one minor case which may be tangential to the main Question but which has been drawn to my attention. It concerns the reforms that are sometimes needed in the whole pension and care system. In a case that was brought to my notice a wife who is under retirement age has been caring for her husband for many years with resulting damage to her own health. She has now been advised that he must go into residential care. Their income is made up of his retirement and occupational pensions and totals £300 per week. The charge for residential care is £320 per week. The wife has been told that the council will take the husband's whole income in order to look after him. She has a small amount of savings which she is informed she must live on, which will then quickly evaporate. She can then apply for income support.
The appalling and absurd point is that, were the woman to divorce her husband, the pension would be split between them; the council could not take it all and it would have to make up the difference from its own finances. Of course that lady has no intention of divorcing her husband. But she should not be placed in a position where it is an option. They say that hard
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cases make bad law. But the welfare state exists to see that hard cases are looked after. We must do something about such cases.
7.6 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, I too want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, for giving us the opportunity to discuss this complex and challenging issue. It is challenging not only for carers but for those of us in society who are concerned to see the welfare of all, whether physical, mental, spiritual or emotional.
Perhaps I may, first, make the point that we should not see the needs of carers only in terms of "problems". To do so can so easily imply that the carers themselves are problems, whereas in practice we owe a tremendous debt to those people, many of whom would not regard themselves as doing anything special. They see it as their duty as wives, husbands, children or parents.
My main concern in the debate is the emotional needs of carers. They are often overlooked even by the carers themselves. Becoming an informal carer is rarely a chosen course of action. Circumstances may thrust the situation onto an unsuspecting family through accident or sudden illness; sometimes it is a gradual process that creeps up on a person unawares —an elderly relative becoming more and more dependent on others until the situation demands a radical reassessment of lifestyle. It may involve the loss of a job in order to be able to look after relatives or the relocation of an elderly person to live with children, with all the added strain that such a new situation brings.
I am reminded of a telling quote from the report by Judith Oliver of the Equal Opportunities Commission in 1982, where she said,
"You're just assumed to be a 'natural carer'; somehow you will magically find all the necessary physical and emotional resources to cope. It's funny when you consider the effort they go to, to give new mothers advice on how to handle babies —no-one tells you how to handle incontinent, senile parents … because it's not talked about, you think you should 'know' and then in addition to all the other pressures, you feel guilty because you can't cope with it".
That lack of widespread understanding and advice may in part be due to the materialistic view of humanity which our society holds; that is, that people are only of worth when they hold the ability or potential to contribute actively to society. Those who care for the disabled, the handicapped and the elderly are often overlooked both in terms of provision of facilities and in emotional support.
I fully endorse the words of the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, with regard to the Carers National Association and its president. It is vital to the support of carers, many of whom feel overwhelmed by the scale of the job they undertake in caring for a loved one and for whom there can be a real sense of isolation and loneliness. Those networks of support are often lifelines for carers. I urge the Government to ensure that those voluntary bodies are enabled to continue their vital work, not on the hand-to-mouth existence that many currently endure, but as part of a nationally-recognised resource that can concentrate

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on the work of support and care for the carers, without the constant worry of financial crisis hanging over them.
The emotional load tends to fall particularly on women. Despite the many changes in our society towards sharing of caring responsibilities, there is still an underlying assumption that men will care about their relatives, working to make financial provision for them, while women are expected to care directly for their relatives. This extra dimension of caring is not only physically exhausting but it can place a great strain on marriages and on family life when the demands from all sides become overwhelming. There is clear evidence that when the strain becomes too much carers may behave in a way that they themselves abhor: losing their temper or striking out to slap a child or an elderly person.
In order to begin to meet carers' emotional needs three things appear to be necessary. The first is a greater public awareness of what caring often involves and a recognition of both the real satisfaction and the huge stresses which often follow. There is still much that could be done in the employment field to help women and men who are carers: part-time working, flexible working arrangements and career breaks, such as are being introduced by progressive firms for maternity leave. The lack of provision for children with disabilities during school holidays is a constant source of worry for many parents, and effectively reduces their employment opportunities. For those who have to give up work in order to meet the demands of caring, the loss of status can be a difficult additional burden to bear. I would ask your Lordships to listen to these words from a consultant anaesthetist who is looking after his wife:
"What hurts most of all is that you appear to become suddenly a person whose opinions count for absolutely nothing. I mean, there was I, someone who had people's lives in my hands when they were on the operating table. Then suddenly no one believes what you are saying. I used to tell my sons how bad their mother was getting. I could see them exchanging glances of disbelief … and the really awful thing is that I recognise that I've done precisely the same to patients without realising what I was doing".
Secondly, we need to encourage a culture of neighbourliness and friendship, where burdens are to some extent shared. It is perhaps here where the network of voluntary bodies, support groups, churches and other faith groups have most to offer. Thirdly, there needs to be proper support for carers from local social services, with opportunities for regular and reliable assistance. The resources for this are so stretched that they can only respond to a crisis, as the following two short cases from my own diocese will show.
The first case concerns a teacher whose husband has a personality disorder and who also looks after her mother-in-law. The mother-in-law is frail and elderly; she lives on her own and has many practical care needs. There is no space for her to move in with them. Complaints from neighbours have been received after the gas was left on. The carer finds more items blackened by burning in the kitchen each time she goes round. The social services do not have the resources to act "unless something serious happens".
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The combined stress of looking after both relatives led to her having a nervous breakdown. The carer's GP has instructed her to stop doing tasks for her mother-in-law. She is now taking long-term sick leave and is likely to have to resign from her teaching job as a result of her own condition. She now feels that three people are in need of financial and emotional support, as a direct result of her own caring role failing to gain adequate support. How serious does something have to be before the social services can step in and offer support and help? Waiting for a crisis is much more costly, both in financial and emotional terms.
The second case concerns a 14 year-old boy who was the prime carer of his father, who died from an AIDS-related illness. After the father became ill and lost his job, the boy's mother went out to work in the evenings to support the family, leaving the 14 year-old to do most of the basic caring tasks. After a long and traumatic illness, his father died. The emotional strain on the 14 year-old seeing his father change from a large fit man to a thin and confused patient was overwhelming. However, this emotional strain was intensified by the stigma of having a father with AIDS and the fear he then faced with his friends. By the time the young man was 16 he had lost all social contact with friends and others, and he now requires psychiatric help.
When caring goes wrong the results can be serious. Carers can and do snap. The whole area of elderly abuse is a sensitive one, but it is now being recognised as a reality. Respite care and holidays are vital to help carers maintain their equilibrium and to recharge their batteries. However, respite care schemes are always at risk by local authority spending reductions. The work done by such schemes as the Crossroads Care Attendants Schemes is vital. I should also like to pay tribute to the splendid work of the Winged Fellowship which provides holidays for the disabled to enable their carers to have a much needed break. Prevention is always better than cure, and the work done to enable carers to renew their emotional and physical strength must be given a much higher priority.
I would urge the Government to put the funding of such agencies on an adequate long-term footing. The financial savings will be quickly gained but, more important still, the emotional needs of carers who bear the brunt of caring in the community will also be more readily met.
7.17 p.m.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, for the opportunity once again to raise the problems of carers. It is a topic that in many ways should receive a far higher profile than it appears to have. It is quite possible that one reason why carers do not have a high political profile is that many of them do not have the time, because of their obligations of caring, or the financial means to take up the many points that concern them. Indeed many carers feel themselves to be isolated from society. At a recent meeting of Caring Cross, an alliance of voluntary organisations campaigning for an independent income for carers, it was clear that there was a definite feeling of anger among carers that

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their needs were not being addressed. Certainly the percentage of carers suffering financial hardship due to their position as carers could be taken to show that we are not supporting to the extent we ought people who have devoted their lives to others, often to their own detriment.
For many carers, caring is a full-time career. The person they care for is often dependent on them and I am sure that many of your Lordships could cite examples of carers who spend their entire time looking after a disabled relative, partner or friend 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 52 weeks a year. I have a close friend with distrophic epidermylisis belosa. This condition is, in its severe forms, totally disabling. It is a condition which requires constant attention, often of a medical nature. It often seems that the entire family revolves around the needs created by Johnny's condition. Like many other carers in the same position, there is no escape for the family from the constant need for, and the responsibility of, caring. That can bring on problems of stress. That stress leads many carers to ill-health and the constant worry can bring on depression. One remedy to that problem, as has been pointed out by many noble Lords, is respite care.
I have some experience of respite care, in that I was secretary of Pendower Special Needs Junior Gateway Club. That club was specifically set up to give respite care to the parents of severely mentally and physically handicapped children. It met once a week. I have to admit that, when we took the children away for three hours, that was for some of the parents the only three hours they had to themselves in a week.
With this group, and a number of others, I have also been on various residential holidays. The most memorable was a holiday I took with the Pendower group to Jersey during which I was given the sole responsibility of looking after a hyperactive eight year-old called Ricky. I have to admit that I found Sandhurst far less stressful than a single week looking after that child.
I have taken part in the fund raising for all the holidays I have been on. They were all funded by the groups concerned. It is not an easy task for volunteer groups to raise funds. I am not underestimating the value of volunteer organisations providing respite care. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Rix, understands better than many, through his connections with Mencap, how important the holidays are. However, I believe that government must bear some responsibility for respite care.
If carers are expected to cope, and to be able to cope, there must be time for them to get away, not from the person for whom they are caring, but from the constant responsibility for care. They must be given a break when they can have time to live their own lives. That must be provided by government. As has been pointed out, the majority of carers are not able to afford respite care themselves.
In the present environment of public spending cuts, perhaps it will seem naive of me to ask for government funding for respite care. However, without that funding, respite care will, in many cases, disappear. Local authorities may evaluate a person's need for
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respite care, but it is quite certain that, with the present cuts in the budgets of local authorities, money for that service will not be available, and there will be no option for disabled people to choose the type of care they require—which is a matter of great importance.
Can the Minister say whether any specific funding for respite care is being set aside by the Government? That money would enable carers to cope with their responsibilities. It would also save money in the long term because, when a carer can no longer cope, the person cared for will often end up in hospital, where beds are excessively expensive.
Perhaps I may put one last question to the Minister. Why is it that Britain is the only country in the European Community which does not give tax relief to those who fund the 24-hour nursing of disabled or chronically sick patients at home? That is unfair when one considers that, were it not for the financial and other sacrifices made by the carers who provide the service for their loved ones, those loved ones would often end up in hospital putting far more of a burden upon the state. Caring at home is a cheap alternative. However, the fact that it is cheap does not mean that the state does not have some obligation to provide funding for those who cannot afford the care that they would like to give their loved ones themselves.
7.25 p.m.
Lord Rix: My Lords, I am proud to enlist in the ranks of the regiment of the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, for this debate. If there are not many of us in the Chamber tonight, at least we know that out there we have a huge army of unpaid and often unsung family, friend and neighbour carers—but particularly family carers—who provide most of what we choose to call community care. Dr. Maurice Ashley wrote some much-read books about the 17th century. When the social history of the 20th century is written, his namesake Jack, Lord Ashley, will figure prominently in that history as a champion of people with disabilities and of those who work for and with them.
If I may be forgiven an aside, I think it is a pity that there has been some success on the part of those who theorise about these things in dividing carers from service users; and in denying the reality that these two groups, just as they need each other in daily life, need each other in a united front on community care. United we stand; divided, there is rather less chance of standing up successfully. And I shall not apologise for using the term "carer", although I understand that "care" and "carer" are frowned on in rather more radical circles.
Where people with learning disabilities are concerned, the carers for most adults and nearly all children are primarily parents. As noble Lords will know from personal experience or the experience of friends and neighbours, for many parents whose children have severe learning disabilities, the special needs of the very early years continue into the teens, adulthood and middle life; and the caring to meet those needs runs on into the so-called retirement years of the parents.

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Community care has been hailed as the great hope for elderly people. At its best, it represents a chance for people in the last decades of their lives to re-assert control over their lives; to stay in their own homes, sharing in the life of their own local communities, enjoying supported independence. How very different is the situation for those elderly parents trapped into providing care that they are increasingly less able to deliver to their own satisfaction; trapped in homes that they would long since have exchanged for more convenient homes but for their continuing role as carers; denied the chance to have their own increasing needs met because they must give priority to a son or daughter still totally dependent on them.
I have put to your Lordships on more than one occasion the argument that people with learning disabilities need the opportunity to live in homes of their own with the support that each and every one needs. That same argument applies to their parents. I have heard of a director of social services saying of elderly carers and their adult sons and daughters: "They don't want to be separated; they need each other". Two people drowning will clutch at each other and drown together. How much better if both can be rescued and supported, to survive as friends, rather than drowning in a situation which was enforced, not chosen.
Parents who see their own lives contract in retirement while their friends experience a new freedom, often just accept that as the way things are. "He is my responsibility", they say. If community care is to live up to its name, he or she is also our responsibility. That wider responsibility extends to what is still, as it was 50 years ago, the most stressful concern of all: what happens when I am gone? The Family Committee of the International League of Societies for People with a Mental Handicap met at Mencap last weekend. I know from many encounters with parents from all around the world that this is their greatest concern. We all want to see our children settled. For most of us and most of our children, that means seeing them making their own way, happily married, with homes of their own and a job that is no more uncertain than the next person's job. Sons and daughters with severe learning disabilities have few of those prospects and they and their carers share that great uncertainty.
Community care plans are beginning to put numbers on these issues, just as the personal accounts that Mencap and other voluntary bodies collect put faces on the issues. From North-West Thames region, looking across a number of London boroughs, we have recently had a "Time Bomb" survey looking at the implications for services of simply waiting until parents die, which is what I might call minimalist planning.
Central Television has highlighted the plight of elderly carers in Derbyshire. In that programme two elderly carers were specifically mentioned, Mr. and Mrs. Hopewell. Those of your Lordships who study the Scriptures—and I see that a number who do so are present in the Chamber—will be familiar with the Biblical habit of renaming people when their
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circumstances change for the better or the worse. How sad it would be if, on 1st April 1993, we had to rename Mr. and Mrs. Hopewell as "Mr. and Mrs. Hope-Dashed" or even "Mr. and Mrs. Hope-Indefinitely-Deferred".
Nationwide, a forthcoming study based on community care plans, in which Mencap and Mencap's New Era Housing Association partners have been involved, will be showing that instead of the current—roughly—2,000 new residential places a year, we need some 5,000 residential places a year.
I am delighted that the Department of Health has recently published Guidance on Standards for the Residential Care Needs of People with Learning Disabilities/Mental Handicap. I am a little disconcerted that the latest figures for the number of places that can be quoted in this new document relate to 1989. If I asked the Government to confirm or deny my estimate that we need to more than double the existing rate of provision of residential care for this particular group, I suspect that I might not get a very helpful answer.
If residential care for the latter group is the only means in most cases of reconciling the support needs of elderly carers and the support needs of middle-aged sons and daughters, in the shorter term we need a continuing increase in the quality and quantity of day services and respite care, as we have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. Both these essential services, which represent a contribution to a partnership between parent carers and the wider community, figure prominently in the guidance on community care. Both feature in community care plans. Both are, as far as I can judge, at risk of diminishing rather than increasing, as local authorities try to align their services with their resources on the one hand, and the greatly increased demands on them on the other hand.
Community care—"care in the community"—call it what one will, but comment on 1st April as the starting date has been restrained, and far be it from me to spoil that conspiracy of good manners. However, I shall note in passing that one of the customs associated with that day in times gone by was for the mighty to swop places with ordinary folk. It might be no bad thing if those who govern our destinies in health and social services swopped places on 1st April for one day with carers. On the other hand, I have the uncomfortable feeling that, while health and social services might do quite well from the deal and learn much to their benefit, the severely disabled people being cared for would not.
Despite my background in a profession where, without the willing suspension of disbelief, it would have been difficult to attract customers, I remain a realist: I do not expect anything very remarkable, for either good or ill, to happen on 1st April when the community care system comes of age—or whatever the appropriate analogy may be for two years of waiting. I set on one side the wealth of guidance and the financial initiatives, and against them the fact that many health and local authorities have done their sums and concluded that during this coming year they will be able to do less, not more. I do not believe that

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this dialogue of the deaf represents a monopoly of wickedness on one side or the other. I have a suspicion that the reality is that a lot of running is needed just to stand still, and that not all services will be able to maintain that status quo.
What I am sure of is that, in order to hold on to advantages gained, and to take advantage of the sound guidance that has been issued, and the good practice developed in a quiet way in many places, we need two things. The first is the full implementation of the legislation already on the statute book—not least those parts of the 1986 Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act which would have given people with disabilities advocacy and assessment rights that they do not otherwise enjoy. Carers, too, would benefit from this.
The second essential is absolute clarity that people with problems need to be assessed for services; that the assessment of their needs should have nothing to do with what is currently available or with their ability to pay; and that this assessment must then be used—first to provide a basis for the rational allocation of existing resources, and secondly for the rational and informed planning of future developments. Will the Minister confirm that this is how things should be, and that this is how Ministers will insist that they will be?
I want to ask two other questions. Will the Minister say whether the number of day-service places is currently rising or falling, and by how much it is expected to rise or fall during the coming year? Will the Minister—and this is a more modest request—say by how much she estimates the provision of respite-care places for adults has risen since the OPCS study of 1986–89, and by how much she expects it to have risen by the end of the first decade of community care?
I am afraid that it is an unfortunate habit of mine to close with a quotation from the great and the good in the Who's Who sense. Let me close this time with a quotation from one of the great and the good whose name is not in Who's Who—although I daresay that it ought to be. As my noble friend Lord Ashley remarked of carers, she is human gold dust indeed. She is a widowed mother who lives in Lambeth. She said:
"My son is 58. He is profoundly and multiply handicapped. I have cared for him for 58 years. What will happen when I pass on?"
That says it all really.
7.36 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, I have already explained to the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and do so now to the rest of the House that I fear that I may have to leave before the end of the debate because I have another engagement which I entered into before I knew about this Unstarred Question.
Perhaps your Lordships will recall that quite a long time ago there was something called the Griffiths Report, which spelt out a wide and encouraging programme for community care. There was then a long, long pause during which a fierce battle was fought between two government departments with powerful protagonists on either side. The carers, whose hopes had been greatly raised by the Griffiths
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Report, waited and waited and waited. As they waited, their hopes grew more and more frail. We then had the community care legislation, the implementation of which was to be delayed for a further two years for carers. But in five weeks' time, that community care legislation will come into force. It is extremely important that we try to get it right. But, of course, if we have not done a lot to try to get it right by now, it is not likely to be right in five weeks' time. I suppose that there is still a chance to do something about it and, if we do not get it right straightaway, we can improve it.
The fundamental point is that we need to regard the job of the main carer as a job. It has been treated so often as if it were something that people did in the ordinary course of events, but it has not been treated as a job. Community care is a wonderful idea. It means that we should get people out of institutions and move them into the community —into nice, loving communities which, it was presumed, would be adequately financed and would look after those people. The reality is likely to be very different. If people come out of institutions and into the community, the burden of the responsibility—and the burden—will fall (if we are honest about it) very heavily on the families. If those families do not carry that responsibility, then our well-intentioned schemes to move people out of institutional life—and they were well-intentioned schemes—could turn into absolute disasters. Indeed, there is a considerable chance that they will be absolute disasters.
The great majority of families will try to do their best but, by definition, the people leaving institutions will be the least easy to cope with. The burden that will be put on the families who try to cope will be very heavy—in some cases, excessively heavy. We have been told that there are already more than 6 million carers, but they do not all carry anything like the same responsibilities.
If we are to be realistic and if we are to try to obtain the best possible services, targeted—to use the word so beloved of the Government—on those who most need them, we must recognise that among those 6 million, different levels of responsibility are being carried. The numbers carrying very heavy responsibilities are still extremely substantial. It is those in particular on whom we want to direct our attention.
The principle should be that caring is a job. As other speakers have said, if the carers—they are not all family people, of course—did not take on the responsibility for caring for people, they would have to be provided for in some other way, at government expense, in costly institutions of some kind or another. If a person is caring, that person is doing a job. If we could look at it in that way, we would treat such people differently.
It should not be taken for granted that people will do the caring. People should be given the opportunity, without feeling shame or excessive guilt, to say, "This is something I really cannot do." There must be genuine consent to take on the job of caring in people's own homes. The legislation requires that individual plans should be drawn up for people who need to be cared for. There is a danger of

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concentrating upon the needs of the person to be cared for. Of course they are of the greatest importance, but unless those plans also suit the person who must do the caring, the result will be pretty disastrous. No plans should be made which have not been discussed fully with the person who will do the caring. That person should be able to state what are the limits of the caring they feel they can take on.
The Carers National Association, of which I have the honour to be president, has abundant evidence to show that when carers are consulted, on the whole they ask for a great deal less than people think they will. There is a fear that if they are asked what they want they will ask for the earth. They do not. In most cases they ask for a great deal less than you or I might expect that they would. That is another reason, although a secondary one, why they should be brought fully into the development of plans. Those plans should not be more or less decided in advance. It is no good local authority representatives going along with a cut-and-dried idea as to what the provision should be. They should go with open minds to discuss matters with the person who needs help and equally with the person who has to give that help. Without that, the development of community care will be disastrous.
If we regard caring as a job, then we must look at the financial side of it. Other speakers have pointed out how expensive institutional care is. For men and women doing the job the financial burden can be heavy. It might surprise your Lordships' House to know that a considerable number of men do the job, although not as many as women. It has always been the policy of the Carers National Association to do everything possible to help carers stay in employment for as long as they possibly can. That should be the aim of all those responsible for developing community care schemes. In the longer run, that is to everyone's advantage.
In the early days, the forerunner of the Carers National Association did a survey. It asked the people doing the caring what was their greatest problem. In those days we expected that it would be loneliness or lack of money—the obvious things—but the overwhelming response was, "What will happen to me when I am old?" That is what we must bear in mind all the time. We must look at that factor when we consider the financial problems of carers. We should keep them in employment and support them so that they can, preferably, do full-time work. For many people that will not be possible. They should at least be enabled to do part-time work so that they can maintain their earnings and their pension rights, which are of the greatest importance.
We must consider the pay level of people who have to be at home full time. Other speakers have talked about the invalid care allowance. It is of course merely a contribution. It is a contribution to make up, in some way, for loss of income. It is in no way a payment for the work being done which, in our view, is what it should be. If one accepts that principle, it is ridiculous that people who start caring over pension age should not be able to draw any allowance for
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doing it. They are still doing a taxing, expensive, caring job. If it is a genuine caring job, there is no reason why they should be unable to receive an allowance just because they start caring at an age when it is assumed that they will not be earning.
Perhaps I may draw attention once again—we raised this point often when the legislation was going through—to the extraordinary nonsense of requiring that someone has to care for a person for 35 hours. A person may be caring for two people. A person may have two infirm, and perhaps tiresome, elderly parents to look after. We should not fool ourselves into believing that these old people are delightful dears that one wants to be with all the time. It is quite the contrary in many cases. If one is caring for two of them, but neither of them for 35 hours, one does not qualify, although one may be spending 55 hours spread over two people instead of 35 hours for one person. That is the legislation of the madhouse. What we are interested in is the length of time a person is tied doing the job and the stress involved. Two tiresome old people must be much more difficult to deal with than, one tiresome old person, unless they can be tiresome to each other and lift the burden in some way. Cannot the Government look at that matter again? It is an absurdity.
It is not just money, important though money is, and we should not underrate it; it is also support of another kind. Most speakers have talked about respite care, and of course that is important. However I have heard it said on a number of occasions that when a carer is asked, "Would you rather have a reliable night's sleep or a holiday?", that carer has said, "Give me sleep every time." Those of us who have looked after people and had broken nights, night after night after night, know full well what that means. I suspect that there will be demands for that kind of help on a large scale when we get down to discussing what carers need. That is not to say that they do not need respite care. Of course, they do. But it is not the only kind of help.
Day centres are enormously important, so that one can get rid of the elderly people for a bit. Why have we been so determined to shut local hospitals? A small cottage hospital may have a day centre where people can go. They get to know the place and the staff, and they make friends with the cat. All that matters enormously. Then, if the person has been to the day centre it is not so difficult to persuade him or her to accept respite care. If one can get the person one is looking after into a day centre once or twice a week, that makes the most enormous difference to the life of the carer. That is of the greatest importance. So is help inside the house. Domiciliary care of one kind or another is vital. The home help service provides essential assistance. If one is looking after a frail, incontinent person one needs a great deal of assistance and one welcomes some help with the running of the house. That is important. Some home helps have gone rather upmarket and are interested in counselling and all that. I am not against counselling, but for my money I would rather have someone do the washing up and clean the floor than give me counselling and helpful advice. I might get that more effectively

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somewhere else. It is important to have a good home help service as a back-up for those who are looking after old and difficult people.
I wish to mention briefly the emotional stress. Yes, people do it because they love their relations. But we all know that love and hate are closely linked. It is easy for love of the person who is being looked after to turn into hate—and hate is accompanied by guilt. Many people involved in caring are haunted by guilt and need a great deal of help in that respect.
Finally, when the caring is over and the person who was being cared for has died there is a frightful gap. The job may have been awful and the carer may have railed against it, but when it is finished there is for many nothing left. The problems of bereavement are then most acute. The present regulations require that people must get back to work; there is no period for recovery during which the allowances continue. I ask the Government not to break off payment immediately but to allow at least two or three months for adjustment during which the carer can draw allowances before being expected to return to the labour market.
7.51 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, we must all thank my noble friend Lord Ashley for drawing our attention to this important problem. I rise—as I did on a previous occasion when my noble friend Lord Longford drew attention to the matter—as the most ignorant of all noble Lords as regards the practical details. I am amazed that a rich and caring society such as ours can get things wrong not because it is mean or penny-pinching but because it takes a particular view of entitlements. When paying out money from the state to carers we operate on a principle which is exactly the opposite of that which applies to the legal system. Our legal system states that every person is deemed to be innocent until proved guilty. When paying entitlements we operate on the principle that everyone is out to cheat the state unless that is proved otherwise. As a result we construct the most enormous obstacles, site conditions and rules under which claiming is discouraged and, if successful, is inadequate.
When the Disabled Persons Bill was passing through your Lordships' House the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, said something that I should like to quote. On Second Reading he said:
"Even if one bounces a rubber ball up and down forever it reaches its own breaking point. Carers are not rubber balls; they are flesh and blood like the rest of us. There may be other strains within their family, apart from the disabled person. There are other members of the family who demand their attention and time. Perhaps they are looking after a disabled husband or child while at the same time, 30 miles away, they have a parent gradually getting older who needs more and more attention as well. Even without the additional strains, looking after one disabled person, where one is never getting a full night's sleep, brings one to the verge of breaking point. If that is allowed to happen … one would end up with two people in care: the disabled person and the carer".—[Official Report, 14/5/86; col. 1234.]
Many noble Lords have described practical circumstances which are summarised in that quotation. When considering the financial, physical and emotional needs of carers one is also considering the
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cared-for person because they are together. I should like your Lordships to consider the problem in a certain light. Let us suppose that we had no problems of money and had no other care in the world and then ask what we would like people to have. First, we would like the carer and the cared-for to have as much freedom to lead as normal a life as possible. The cared-for person should have the freedom to choose not to be cared for by a particular carer, because not all of us like to be cared for by our nearest and dearest. The carer should have the freedom to lead as normal a life as possible, having chosen to undertake this particular kind of task.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said that we should think of caring as a job which should be rewarded or supplemented. The current rules for deciding invalidity care allowance treat the carer worse than an unemployed person. Therefore, rather than treating a carer as having a job, we make their entitlements much worse than those of the unemployed. I hope that eventually—I do not say immediately because I am not as optimistic as I was in my youth—we can treat the carer on the same basis as an unemployed person because there are several advantages. If the carer were treated as a long-term unemployed person the loss of entitlement when the cared-for person dies would disappear. Similarly, one could consider the whole life-cycle of a carer taking into account the pension entitlement. It would be better to think of a carer as someone who has a low-paid job or no job at all. Treating a carer as being unemployed would be a substantial advance on the present situation.
Let us consider for one moment the current rules. There is a £50 earning limit. If a person does not make more than £50 he or she receives £33.70p. That total of £83.70p. is less than one-third of average earnings. By almost any definition it is distinctly below the poverty level. Therefore, we are saying that someone who cares for their nearest and dearest for 35 hours a week should, having chosen to do so, have a standard of living which is only one-third of average earnings.
I do not wish to encourage the Government to spend too much money—I know that they have problems—but not so much money would be involved. We must think radically about the way in which we view the carer and the cared-for. If we ask ourselves what is needed to take good care of the disabled person and what is needed to allow the carer to lead a normal life, we might have a more decent system of entitlements.
Finance is not the only problem; many noble Lords have pointed out the problems of respite care and of what happens to carers during their lives. Unemployed people are entitled to holidays, perhaps four, five or six weeks. Why should not a carer be entitled to a holiday? Why cannot we think of caring as a sub-career and not a proper career? If some of the think-tanks which always exist on the Left, on the Right or in the middle were to give radical thought to the caring and the cared-for, we might achieve a better system of rewarding the carers.
I shall not say any more than that because, as I have said, I am not an expert. However, over the long term

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I urge the Government perhaps to treat carers more like the long-term unemployed so that they can live lives as close to normal as possible. If we succeed in doing that, we shall have a more decent society because, as other noble Lords have said, carers save more money than they cost.
8 p.m.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to respond to this debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Ashley. He, of course, has been a doughty fighter for disabled people, chairing the all party Lords and Commons disablement group for 23 years, and through his own personal courage and testimony has shown how disability can be overcome.
Although my admiration for the noble Lord's achievements is great, it does not diminish the recognition that there are others whose disabilities are so profound that no amount of courage would enable them to lead independent lives. They will always require the love, care and understanding of others to help them through their daily lives.
The Government can only provide a very broad framework to support these carers. Every carer's need is highly individual, as are the needs of those for whom they care. I believe it to be futile to prescribe a regime for carers. Some are fiercely independent. Others who are physically and emotionally drained are grateful to accept the help offered to them. Increasingly, their needs are being recognised through research and statistical data funded by the department, and through reports such as that commissioned by the Carers National Association entitled Speak Up Speak Out. I join other noble Lords in paying tribute to the organisation for this excellent piece of work and for the many initiatives stimulated by its president, the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and its national director, Jill Pitkeathly.
The noble Lord, Lord Ashley focused his question on three areas: financial, physical and emotional. I shall address the action which the Government are taking under those headings. The main benefit for carers, as your Lordships are aware, is the invalid care allowance. That is designed to give some financial support to those who forgo the opportunity of full-time work to look after a severely disabled friend or relative. As regards the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Desai, I do not believe that we should equate that benefit with unemployment benefit. Its whole purpose is quite different. Carers are eligible if they spend at least 35 hours a week looking after someone who is receiving either the highest or the middle rate of the care component of the disability living allowance. They are also eligible if the person for whom they care receives either attendance allowance or constant attendance allowance. Carers must be over the age of 16 and under pensionable age when they make their claim. In that way provision is concentrated on those who give up work to care for the most dependent people requiring help.
The noble Lord, Lord Ashley, said that he wished to widen the scope of the invalid care allowance, as did the noble Lord, Lord Desai, and other noble Lords. I
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recognise that the difficulty with drawing boundaries or setting criteria is that those who just fail to be included have a strong sense of grievance but your Lordships are aware that resources are finite and need to be invested where they are used most effectively. ICA is intended for those carers who spend a substantial amount of time in providing care for severely disabled people.
The Government are not entirely without heart. They are aware of increasing pressures and have enabled a greater number of people to receive invalid care allowance. In 1978 only 5,000 people benefited; today more than 195,000 do so. There has been a similar dramatic increase in the annual amount of benefits received; that is, from £4 million in 1978 to £366 million today.
The growth in invalid care allowance has been accompanied by enhancements to other benefits. Changes made to the attendance allowance enable it to be paid, without delay, to terminally ill people, and to children under the age of two; and, more recently, the further surge in claims arising from the introduction of disability living allowance has enabled more carers to receive invalid care allowance. In addition, from 1st April the amount which a carer may earn without it affecting entitlement to invalid care allowance has increased to £50 a week. That is the fourth successive increase in as many years.
Further help is available to those entitled to the allowance who also receive at least one of the income-related benefits: income support, housing benefit or community charge benefit via the carer premium. Your Lordships may be aware that since October 1991 that premium has continued to be payable to carers for a further eight weeks after their caring duties have ceased. Furthermore, where income support becomes payable for the first time after caring ceases, the carer premium can be paid for up to eight weeks in addition. The extension of payments in this way has helped to cushion carers against a sudden drop in benefit levels at what is often a difficult time for them. As one carer said it is impossible to go from the graveside straight to the Job Centre; a period of bereavement and adjustment is essential. More recently, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Security announced that from 1st April the earnings disregard in income support for carers has been increased to £15 a week.
The noble Lord, Lord Ashley, made a plea that other carers should receive a carers pension. But carers who have had a long caring career will have credits which will entitle them to state retirement pension. Other carers will have paid contributions prior to undertaking the caring role to similar effect.
The noble Lord also referred to uprating as having a trifling impact. As the noble Lord will be aware, social security benefits were uprated in line with inflation which at the time was 3.6 per cent. Inflation has gone down which will help the poorest social security recipients. My right honourable friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has also announced a fundamental review of expenditure which will include social security.

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The Government have tried to provide carers with the opportunity to get out and to work if they so choose—a point very well made by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear—but that desire is frustrated if local services or employers are inflexible. A good example is the case of the woman who had an afternoon job with a computer company. Her husband had a stroke and needed care. He got a place at a day centre from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. but her working hours were 1.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. The inflexibility of services meant that she had to give up work in order to look after him. Flexible working hours, job shares and part-time working are recognised by good employers as necessary measures to meet the needs of employees with young children, but those who have similar needs which are generated by dependent relatives are often ignored.
Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, I look forward to the day when we not only have a wide distribution of child care vouchers but also of elderly care vouchers. I also look forward to the seminar, to be held next month by my honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health, for employers, voluntary organisations and statutory bodies. The purpose of the seminar is to heighten general awareness and produce useful ideas and initiatives for both employers and carers. All of the measures testify to the Government's concern to help carers. It is a record of progressive and measured improvement in the level of financial help given to them.
I turn now to health and social services support. Considerable physical demands are often made on carers and the burden is increased if carers have to perform the household tasks for themselves and their dependants. One of the key objectives of the community care reforms, which will be fully implemented from April 1993, is to make sure that local authorities and health authorities give carers support in these areas. An important objective of the reforms is to promote the development of home, day and respite services for those receiving community care in their own homes.
Local authorities will, in partnership with health authorities, professionals and other interested parties, assess individuals' needs for services and arrange appropriate provision. A combination of services which is designed for the individual may include health, housing and social services, and could involve the provision of disability equipment and adaptations to accommodation, including services provided by voluntary organisations.
We have told authorities that in making assessments, they should take into account the preferences of carers. We know that at the moment that good practice does not necessarily happen. An example which particularly comes to my mind is that of a woman of 35, who is confined to a wheelchair as a result of cerebral palsy. She none the less cares for her mother who is also in a wheelchair following a stroke. The mother needs personal care. However, they manage that between them to their own satisfaction. What they find difficult is hoovering and washing floors. That is not surprising. They asked
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their local authority for one hour's help with housework per week. They were unable to get this but they were offered 10 hours per week of personal care for the mother, which they do not want or need. The frustrations felt by carers in such situations are often not based on a lack of resources but rather on the inflexible and unimaginative ways in which the resources are used.
Such examples strengthen the Government's determination to make local authorities more sensitive to the needs of individuals rather than trying to make people conform to systems because "people don't, they won't and they shouldn't". Under the new Act, carers who feel that they need community care services in their own right can ask for a separate assessment. Local authorities should already be developing assessment procedures which build upon current good practice. That is well illustrated by the London Borough of Sutton who were faced with an elderly man who continually refused all help offered, though it was clear that he needed it. It was a long while before a social worker asked in frustration, "Well, what do you want?" to which he replied, "I don't want your meals on wheels, I don't want your home help, I value my privacy. What I do want is to be able to go down the Legion with my mates on a Friday night." There was no mechanism for achieving this so an enlightened director, realising that there were probably many cases like this, gave each of the five district teams a £4,000 budget to spend on achieving the hitherto unachievable. It is the Government's policy to encourage such enlightenment and we have been impressed by the effect devolved budgets can have on services.
The noble Lords, Lord Ashley, Lord Beaumont of Whitley and Lord Redesdale, mentioned the value of respite care. That is an element of care which the Government recognise is often a lifeline for carers. Just knowing that a guaranteed break is available can make all the difference between giving up or returning to the task refreshed and renewed. Our policy guidance Community Care in the Next Decade and Beyond specifically tells local authorities that their community care plans should identify how they intend to offer practical help such as respite care. These community care plans must be drawn up in concert with the local authority and the health authority working together and defining the responsibilities of each in order to meet the needs of their shared population. Of course, additional funding will be needed for local authorities to be able to provide this increase in care for those living at home. The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark mentioned that. Some £565 million will be made available through the ring-fenced special transitional grant which will enable authorities to give more support to carers through additional respite and home care schemes.
In addition the social security residential allowance from April 1993 will be payable to people who go into residential homes for short periods. This will also help local authorities to fund respite care. So, for the first time, we will not only have reduced the current disincentive to provide respite care but we will have

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replaced it by a positive incentive. We look to authorities to make the most of this opportunity and thereby lighten the load on carers.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, mentioned changes in charges for residential care. He drew our attention to the fact that husbands and wives' assets may be jointly assessed sometimes to the detriment of one spouse. We recently revised the regulations concerning local authority charges for residential care to bring them into line with the generally more generous income support means test. We consulted widely before laying those regulations. Obviously we have not been able to make all the improvements which individual commentators wish to see but the new regulations will mean that most people are better off. We have given authorities discretion over some important areas for carers; for instance, how the carer's home should be treated when the carer is not a spouse or a close relative.
In addition, we recognise the knowledge and expertise carers and their organisations have in contributing to the pattern and shape of the new services. Local authorities are obliged to publish annual care plans setting out how they intend to discharge their responsibilities. For the first time ever they are legally obliged to consult with voluntary organisations who represent the interests of users and carers. This puts carers in a prime position to influence the future delivery of services. That goes some way to meeting the aspiration of the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, that carers must be respected, recognised and valued. It also goes some way to meeting the wish of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, to discontinue what I think he described as "the dialogue of the deaf".
The noble Lord, Lord Rix, asked some penetrating and difficult questions on the number of community services places and the number of respite care places. I shall have to let the noble Lord have those figures in writing. He may well have anticipated that answer. I do not think I can forecast how the services will grow in the future. The way in which local authorities in particular spend the substantial extra resources that we are making available—over £1.8 billion by 1995–96 —will depend very much on local needs and priorities for community care services.
I turn finally to emotional support. This subject was perceptively addressed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark. I wish to endorse his view that in some ways we are all carers. The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, gave a personal testimony to that. As children, most of us were taught to help our parents, our brothers and sisters, and this continues throughout our lives. It is a pleasure for both receiver and giver and it is often difficult to pinpoint the moment when someone becomes defined as a carer. It
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is not surprising that the researchers of Speak Up Speak Out found that after 10 years 14 per cent. of carers did not recognise that they were carers. But we can recognise carers who, with enormous burdens, are still able to join community activities—people who help others and receive help themselves. But, for some who are almost housebound, it is easy to become lonely and depressed. Contact with professional workers can help, but the Government cannot legislate to ensure that every social worker or assessor is endowed with both sense and sensitivity.
That is where voluntary organisations are so important. The right reverend Prelate will be pleased to know that the Government give financial support to hundreds of organisations, many of which have established local support groups and networks for carers and are effective in providing an escape from isolation and depression. The Department of Health alone grants those organisations to the tune of £17.8 million, £2 million of which over the last two years has been given to carers' organisations.
I am aware that I have not touched on community nursing or the comprehensive programme of carer research which is being undertaken or commissioned by the Government, or indeed on the way that the information on the new proposals is being disseminated. However, before I conclude, I wish to tell your Lordships of the recent Government initiative to set up a group of users and carers to monitor and feedback to Ministers the progress being made in implementing the community care reforms. Members of the new group will act as a focal point for their area of the country and their particular client group. We shall expect to hear from them about health and social services and about services provided by the independent sector as well as the statutory authorities. The group will give us a better feel as to how we can continue to go about achieving the aims of community care.
So, in conclusion, the Government have been active in their efforts to help carers. That said, I could not claim that the role of a carer is an easy one or that we can hope to dispel overnight all the problems that carers have to contend with, many of which have been graphically illustrated by noble Lords in this debate tonight. I hope your Lordships' House will acknowledge that the Government have listened, have recognised, and are addressing the problems through their overall community care strategy, a main tenet of which is to place carers at the heart of decision making, not only for those whom they cherish, but also in influencing social policy, both local and nationwide.
House adjourned at nineteen minutes past eight o'clock.