Lords Sitting of 17 March 1993

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

Cambodia: Humanitarian Agencies
Lord Judd Lord Judd asked Her Majesty's Government:
What reports they have received about difficulties faced by humanitarian agencies working in Cambodia, and what action they are taking together with the United Nations to protect these operations in future.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey): My Lords, ceasefire violations and banditry remain a threat to agencies and personnel, particularly in remote areas. Our mission in Phnom Penh maintains close liaison with the agencies on their activities and on security. UNTAC will remain in place until three months after the elections, due in May. The UN is considering the likely post-electoral security arrangements.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Is she aware of the specific problems in Cambodia? I refer to the failure of the Khmer Rouge to comply with the UN policy, the renewed military clashes to which she has referred, the continued laying of anti-personnel mines and inadequate resources for the huge and urgent mine clearance operation. Is she in fact confident that the UN has the presence and resources effectively to supervise the forthcoming elections, the inauguration of the new government and the drafting of the new national constitution? What is the Government's policy towards ensuring that adequate resources are available to the UN?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, we deplore the Khmer Rouge's refusal to fulfil their obligations under the comprehensive political settlement and we fully endorse Security Council Resolution 792 which calls for measures to be taken against any Cambodian party not complying with the military provisions of the Paris agreements. We have also called on all parties to desist from offensive military activity and to take every action necessary to safeguard the lives and security of all the personnel working for UNTAC and the humanitarian agencies in Cambodia. Further to that, we have indeed had discussions in New York because we believe it is right that the UN should make proper provision not only to carry through the elections when that time comes but to carry out any mandate given to it by the Security Council. As the noble Lord knows, not all members, sadly, pay their contributions in full or on time. We aim to do so and we urge everyone else to do likewise.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, who exactly is in charge of Phnom Penh? Is there anyone effectively forming the government there?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, my noble friend asks an interesting question. While there is a so-called government in place it is very difficult to know whether they are actually calling the shots. One of the things that has occurred since the transitional authority in Cambodia has been run there by the UN is that we are finding out who tells the truth and who does not. I hope that this will emerge clearly when it comes to the elections.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I welcome the statement made by the Minister. What action are the Government taking to discourage external intervention—for instance, from the People's Republic of China and from the Thailand Army? Does she feel that three months is long enough for the UN to stay there after elections which could conceivably be indeterminate? Are the Government and the UN prepared to consider a longer period if circumstances justify it?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, we are working with our partners in the United Nations to try to make sure that any outside force, from wherever it may come, ceases to intervene in Cambodia. I do not think that it is for me or for the British Government to try to second guess the United Nations over the period of three months that it has declared following the elections for it to remain. Whether it is considered necessary to extend that time will be very much a matter for when we see how the elections go. At the present time, Mr. Akashi, the United Nations Secretary-General's special representative there, believes that it will be adequate.
Lord Braine of Wheatley: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that experienced and dedicated British aid workers are struggling now with mounting difficulty to bring help and relief to people suffering grievously from continuous defiance by the Khmer Rouge of the considerable United Nations forces already in the country? Is it not manifest that the Khmer Rouge's activity is a deliberate attempt to disrupt the elections in May? While it is good news to be told that Her Majesty's Government are in touch with the United Nations about this, can my noble friend say whether action will be taken before it is too late?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am always in favour of preventive action rather than having to try to cure problems after they have occurred. Our regard for the many British nongovernmental organisations active in the field is second to none. So far as concerns the disruptive activities of the Khmer Rouge, it is the job of UNTAC, which has made considerable progress towards implementing the Paris agreements, but we still have not achieved the cantonment and demobilisation of the factions' armed forces. Until that is done the security situation will remain equally dangerous.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is it not possible for our Government to make some representation to the United Nations before the so-called elections take

1443
place, bearing in mind that the Khmer Rouge are killing United States officials and agents? Because they have had no pay they are killing their own countrymen and there is a state of brutal chaos in Cambodia. The elections cannot take place in a decent way if this ugly situation continues.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, that recently there have been some terrible instances of lawlessness including the massacre of 31 people of Vietnamese origin. But I believe that overall there is an improvement. We have to make sure that UNTAC can take up each and every violation of the Paris agreements so that the Khmer Rouge are seen by their own people for what they really are and to make sure that we can turn UNTAC into a peace-enforcing rather than a peace-keeping force.
Lord Rea: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Ennals, that China has played a major part, and still probably plays some part, in sustaining the Khmer Rouge guerillas who refuse to give up their arms? Would it not be possible perhaps to link diplomatically the present discussions with China on Hong Kong in such a way that we can seem to be more accommodating there if China would in turn persuade the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia to accept disarmament so that that country can get on with its long overdue rebuilding?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am not in a position to say categorically whether the Chinese supplies of arms to the Khmer Rouge, or whether the supplies of arms by anybody else to that organisation, are in fact responsible for some of the recent atrocities. The point is that there are still large caches of arms within Cambodia. As regards the noble Lord's second question, I do not believe that it is in the interests of the people of Hong Kong to try to tie up their future with what the Khmer Rouge get up to in Cambodia.
Lord Judd: My Lords, does not the Minister agree that the evidence is that the UN is overstretched in Cambodia and that there really is a very urgent need for the Government to give priority to how the UN can be strengthened and properly resourced for the growing demands being made on it in the role of conflict resolution, pre-emptive diplomacy and humanitarian intervention?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, well knows, that is a much wider question than the one he placed on the Order Paper. At this juncture I say to him that we are very aware of the increasing burden placed on the United Nations and that is why we must use all ability to be preventive in whatever way we can as regards future disasters which are manmade.

Geological Data Bank: Future
2.45 p.m.
Viscount Hanworth Viscount Hanworth asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether it is their intention to privatise the data bank of geological and seismic data held by the British Geological Survey and if so whether they consider that a privatised organisation will maintain the intrinsic value and international reputation of data produced and run by dedicated individuals.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, the Government have no plans to privatise the data bank of geological and seismic data which they maintain in their core centre in Edinburgh. The management of the Department of Trade and Industry's core store is currently carried out by the British Geological Survey on behalf of that department and this work is to be the subject of market testing. Whatever the outcome of the market test, the core store will remain the property of the department.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Will the Government take into account the fact that the database has been there for 150 years and that it will probably be required for a long time to come? Is a possibly small saving justified by putting some of this facility out to tender when the result can hardly be as efficient or as respected as the present system?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, it is government policy to open up to competition many areas of government which hitherto have been the reserve either of civil servants or non-government bodies such as BGS. The objective is to achieve better value for money. I do not believe that the Government consider any sums of money that arise from the taxpayer, however small, to be insignificant.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, can the noble Viscount enlarge on market testing? Is it simply a question of putting out to competitive tender the services that are rendered to BGS, the core, as he says, remaining in public ownership? If so, can the Minister explain how the civil servants running the core business will put their tender together? How will the Government tender for running it themselves? Presumably, they are part of the competition. Will the noble Viscount also give the House an absolute assurance that if there is a tender system and if a private organisation is awarded the contract, access to the core of information will be as carefully controlled as it has been in the past?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, as regards the first part of the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, the British Geological Survey already carries out substantial business on behalf of industries and companies which are not part of government. So it has had experience of being in the commercial world. I can assure the noble Lord that the database of cores, which are under the ownership of the DTI, will remain in that category and will be

1445
safeguarded by the DTI. The same rules will apply; namely, that all data obtained from those cores and other samples are held to be secret for five years and thereafter thrown open so that other companies may use them and they can he used for general research.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, will the noble Viscount bear in mind that, should the Government change their mind and decide to privatise part or the whole of the services to which the Question relates, their own tenure of office is likely to be somewhat dodgy over the next few years and there is the likelihood, on the access of a more enlightened government, that anything which they privatise will be de-privatised?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, the latter comments of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, require very little comment from me.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, will the Government bear in mind that the Ordnance Survey, the geological survey, and the Geological Museum (which is the museum of the survey but now closely associated with the Natural History Museum) should be treated as a unit and not just thrown about administratively?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, I advise the noble Earl that we are not throwing anything about. We hold those institutions in high regard and will do everything to safeguard the scholastic values to which they hold.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, said, is my noble friend aware that there are many on this side of the House (and, for all I know, in other parts of the House) who do not care who actually runs the geological survey or any other survey? What matters is that data continue to go into the survey in the same way as now. Is he further aware that we are therefore very relieved by the announcement that he has just made that that position will not change?
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his comments.

District Health Authority Mergers
2.50 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick asked Her Majesty's Government:
What are their plans for the amalgamation of district health authorities into larger units, and whether they have issued any directives to make this policy mandatory on existing district health authorities.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, no directives have been issued to compel existing district health authorities to merge. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health will consider the individual merits of any merger proposals which are made to her by the regional health authorities.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer, but is she aware that there appears to have been some coercion in certain areas by officials from the Department of Health? I am not too sure of the present situation, but if an amalgamation has taken place between Bolton and Wigan I am told that coercion was used. In fact, the chairman of the regional health authority was heard to say that he would use his reserve powers if the amalgamation did not take place. If the authority rests with regional health authority chairmen to use their powers in that arbitrary manner, will the Minister see that it is withdrawn immediately and that notice is taken of the Secretary of State's wishes?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I have no knowledge that regional chairman have reserve powers in such instances. It is the Secretary of State's decision. She has made it absolutely clear that she will be receptive to mergers between district health authorities where they have a degree of local support, where they are clearly in the interests of patients and where they are seen as part of a strategy to develop the purchasing of services.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend the Minister whether, with the reorganisation of local government and the introduction of community care, it will be possible to make the health authorities coterminous with the local authorities?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Faithfull is absolutely right. Where there is coterminosity, it certainly makes for much better working, but that is not the sole criterion on which mergers are judged.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, first, I hope that the Minister will feel inclined to subscribe to the view that coterminosity is an important consideration. Secondly, does she consider that the disadvantage of health authorities which are too large and which do not really represent the community's interests has an effect on the work of the community health councils? If there is an enlarged, merged district health authority, is it automatic that the community health councils will be enlarged and merged?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord's first point about coterminosity. It certainly makes for easier working. With regard to the community health councils, there is no obligation on them to merge in line with the district health authorities. We have instances of one district health authority with three community health councils.
Lord Rea: My Lords, does the noble Baroness accept that not only coterminosity but also small is beautiful? Is she aware that one of the few aspects of the National Health Service changes which is viewed at all favourably by these Benches is the role of the district health authorities in commissioning services to match the ascertained needs of their populations? If district health authorities are merged into larger units, is there not a danger that it will become more difficult for them to ascertain those needs in detail?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, my heart is in tune with what the noble Lord says, but my head tells me that we can make economies of scale where we have mergers and that we shall therefore get more money for patient care. In a recent merger involving the Dorset health authority, £600,000 was realised in the first year. Larger district health authorities are better able to attract, retain and develop the high calibre of staff that is needed for effective purchasing. In agreeing to mergers, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is very much aware that they must reflect the needs of the local population.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, is it too late to ask the noble Baroness to try to avoid the monstrosity of "coterminosity"?
Lord Carter: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House whether any plan to amalgamate district health authorities would help to prevent the recurrence of the gross misuse of public funds, amounting to fraud, which occurred in Wessex and in the Midlands concerning computer installations and the use of product consultants? Would any attempt to amalgamate district health authorities help to prevent that recurring?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health has made it quite clear that she does not condone or endorse the actions that were taken in those two instances. She has instigated inquiries through the National Audit Office. However, those two schemes had nothing to do with the district health authorities; they were regional schemes.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, can the noble Baroness say what degree of local agreement the Secretary of State considers to be necessary? The noble Baroness may recall that I asked an Unstarred Question about the merger between Kidderminster and Bromsgrove. Nobody agreed to the merger in the case of Kidderminster. It was suspected that the money from Kidderminster was wanted for Bromsgrove and, as it turns out, that is exactly what has happened.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the Government have made it quite clear that we expect to see tangible benefits to patients and clear evidence that there is some degree of local support when we agree to mergers.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, may I take it from the Minister's Answer to me that, in regard to the fact that there is significant opposition in Tameside, where I live, to the proposal that Tameside district health authority should amalgamate with Oldham, no merger will take place unless a considerable majority of the members of both district health authorities are in favour of it?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am sure that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will take into account not only the views that have been expressed in your Lordships' House but also the views of local people.

Business
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to say a few words about this afternoon's debates standing in the names of my noble friends Lady Park of Monmouth and Lord Gisborough. As the mover is allowed 15 minutes, and the Minister should rise to reply not less than 20 minutes before the end of the debate, in the case of the debate in the name of my noble friend Lady Park of Monmouth this means that all other speeches should be limited to a maximum of five minutes and in that of my noble friend Lord Gisborough, six minutes. If any noble Lord were to speak at greater length, he would be doing so at the expense of subsequent speakers in that debate.

Universities
2.58 p.m.
Baroness Park of Monmouth Baroness Park of Monmouth rose to call attention to developments in the universities, with particular reference to the need to encourage students from low income families to enter higher education, and to recognise the value of postgraduates as a national asset; and to move for Papers.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, my chief concern in promoting this debate is to draw attention—in a constructive way, I hope—to the needs of students, actual and potential, and to the importance of postgraduates. However, no useful discussion can take place without looking at the relationship between those who deliver education—the universities—and the Government.
The Government have spent over the past 12 years, and continue to spend, very large sums of money on education at all levels. They have recognised the vital importance of higher education. There is much to applaud in that and in the commitment made in terms of resources. But somewhere along the way they have lost touch with the academic establishment. Communications have broken down. The department has created more and more bureaucratic structures; has called for more and more returns; has consulted less and less; and has pulled up the plants regularly to see whether they are growing in the correct way.
This is a critical time for the country in terms of wise use of all our resources—brains as well as money. To succeed in Europe in whatever framework, whether in industry or management of the Community, we will need linguists. And we need good graduates in the humanities as well as in the sciences. We need classicists, historians, graduates in English literature and philosophers. All have the vital understanding of the structure of language (and the classicists, the training in logic) so indispensable for the writing of sophisticated software and to complement the inventive genius of the engineers and scientists who are often less than good at expressing themselves in clear English. As the Follett Report says, it is of paramount importance that the

1449
humanities remain part of the mainstream national research effort. To encourage access to postgraduate education must be a major aim.
The next decade, too, will be full of challenge in terms of what our young graduates can do to help to build a new infrastructure in the former Communist countries and to play a vital part in promoting international understanding. The know-how programmes TEMPUS and ERASMUS are all part of that process. Yet this is the moment when the universities are told, without warning after pressure to increase numbers, that in 1993 to 1994 the intake of new students will be cut through fee restraint and that the restriction in numbers should apply chiefly to the classroom-based subjects, notably the arts and social sciences. There is, of course, a critical shortage of scientists, needed as future teachers in the schools, in research, and in that vital area of our economy, industry. But here is an area where early consultation with both the universities and industry—and the partnership between the two has been very fruitful and positive in recent years—might have produced a better solution.
Unheralded stop-go action frustrates any reasonable planning, just as too much bureaucracy imposed from the centre wastes time. Quantifying excellence statistically is not only not feasible; it is counter-productive. Too many of the Government's actions have in the past led to what has been called "a range of uncertainty which could hardly have been greater." It would send a most welcome signal if there could be less centralisation, more genuine consultation and more true subsidiarity.
Another area of potential confusion is the doctrine of the market. Universities, rightly, in my view, precisely because it is a way to some autonomy, have been urged to reduce their dependency on the state, and to go out and maximise the commercial exploitation of their research discoveries. That they have done very successfully: yet the Government insisted on privatising the British Technology Group. The universities were the biggest single source of BTG's intellectual property. They drew £13 million a year in income, which is a valuable incentive to research, and BTG provided the medium and long-term support so critical to the support and exploitation of many major scientific discoveries. Yet the Government did not envisage giving the universities any effective voice in its future or any safeguards. In the commercial world that would be called asset-stripping. Fortunately, there was a management buy-out. But it is another example of the Government's reluctance in the past to consult or to recognise that there are important differences between universities and the market. Each is valuable, but they are different.
Proposals to reduce the length of the degree course seem to take little account of the fact that our degree courses are already shorter than anywhere else in Europe and there is virtually none of the wastage through drop-outs that occurs elsewhere. But market forces appear to be invoked to equate quantity—how many students can be put through the system —with success rather than quality. Probably the most
1450
precious, albeit intangible, of assets which universities can give the student is time to think, a scholarly environment and intellectual rigour. Professor R. V. Jones, speaking of the nature of the young physicists who played a vital part in wartime research, said:
"The main object of a university education is to equip those who graduate from it so that they are able to deal with situations for which there are no direct precendents".
Top management in England knows that that is what good graduates can offer. They need quality even before quantity. That is particularly relevant in the light of the DTI study quoted by the Sunday Times, which allegedly attributes,
"the hole in the heart of British manufacturing"
to
"managers who, compared with their overseas counterparts, are only partly educated and ill-trained".
Industry itself, with which I forged close links during my time at Somerville, knows how important the contribution of the universities is. The need for quality has of course to be reconciled with the need to give access to higher education to as many as seek it. That is one of the many areas where policies need to emerge from consultation rather than be imposed from the centre. The process should involve both the universities and industry since I believe that to produce the right conditions to educate the whole population at one stage or another in their lives is enlightened self-interest. We should not look at the question solely as one of the student's own eventual advantage. It makes good sense nationally to subsidise students today if we are to compete in the world of tomorrow and not to waste our biggest asset, people.
In the postgraduate field it is good news that the research councils and the British Academy have taken steps to improve the level of support for those postgraduates holding awards and that the British Academy has introduced the one-year taught course or research training, followed or not by the three-year course. However, there is not more money, just a redistribution of money. That will mean even fewer awards. When such significant numbers—10 to 15 per cent. of full-time students and the majority of part-time students—are privately funded it seems especially hard that they are denied housing and other benefits, as indeed are mature students in full-time education; that they can get virtually no support from the access funds; and that they do not quality for loans, although their undergraduate loan will be steadily growing for another three to four years at least. Government policy for the support and encouragement of postgraduates—and of these the future academics are the seed corn for the universities—is at present both haphazard and incoherent, and yet here lies our future.
Behind the question of how to encourage postgraduates to enter a harsh and often stressful process of learning lies the problem of how to encourage entry into higher education from poor families with no cultural tradition as yet of higher education. Current student poverty and how it is treated is a major factor to consider.
The Government need to take a long hard look, with the institutions, at their policy for students and above all to be seen to listen. There has been mounting

1451
evidence of a degree of student poverty for at least three years. In the view of the chairman of the Select Committee on Education, which looked at student hardship in the period from December 1991 to January 1992 and published four volumes of evidence, though sadly no report, demonstrating widespread and fairly severe poverty, there was and is no doubt that real hardship existed and exists for some students. It is those students, perhaps no more than 20 per cent. but still a significant number, whose situation sends signals to the very group of the poor and the children of the blue-collar workers which the Government and universities wish to encourage to enter higher education. They know from students that a full-time student dependent on the grant receives significantly less money than someone of the same age receives in social security if unemployed. They know that they are incurring a long-term debt which, it seems to them, will be ticking away like a time bomb. They know that they will be caught between having to earn a pittance in term time and being unable to find vacation jobs that pay. They know that if they go on to postgraduate work—and if they do not, where will the teachers of the next generation and the strategic thinkers and innovators come from?—the period of poverty, stress and difficulty will be prolonged a further three of four years. Only a handful will qualify for maintenance and none for loans and the job prospects at the end may be far from rosy. That lesson has gone home.
At present, according to a recent and most valuable CVCP survey in January 1993, 64 per cent. of higher education students come from social classes 1 and 2. According to the same survey, drop-out rates have increased significantly, some specifically because of financial problems. Six per cent. of students are in debt to their university to the tune of £485; term-time employment is increasing; and, as pressure on the access funds grows, the sums dispensed have gone down—in Oxford, for instance, to between £50 and £150. It is not merely a question of putting more money into the system—we all know that there is not much of that—but of recognising that some students are in such difficulties that their access to education is in any case being adversely affected, if not wasted, by stress and its effect on the quality of their work. That is a matter of growing concern in the universities.
The access funds are inadequate to meet the true level of need. Pressure on them is growing, fewer applications are successful, and the awards made are too small to be effective. According to ministerial statements, in the past three years the means-tested vacation hardship allowance was worth £50 a week (£500 over 10 weeks of the long vacation) and housing allowance for the 123,000 who are said to have drawn it in 1990 was worth on average £11 a week throughout the year. The access funds produce at most a single payment of between £50 and a very rare £350 and there are no vacation jobs to supplement it. Meanwhile, rents have not gone down. For postgraduates who do not receive loans, who are not eligible for benefits, who are often self-funding and who are precluded by the nature of their course from
1452
taking vacation work anyway, the access fund is the only source of help. What they will receive, if successful, is derisory.
I know the Government's commitment to education, and I am encouraged to think that they are ready to consult and to listen. What they need now is vision. I hope that they will, first, review and revise the system of student support in the light of the experience of the past three years, of the evidence emerging from their own current survey of student income and expenditure, and of the considerable body of evidence from the CVCP, the CAB and others, including that given to the Select Committee; secondly, that they will institute a similar review of the situation of postgraduates, who are not included in the department's current survey, and for whom a coherent policy is urgently needed; and, thirdly, as an interim short-term measure, that they will restore the vacation hardship allowance. This, the promised safety net, was withdrawn just when it was needed, three months before the first long vacation in which housing benefit was no longer available and there were no jobs.
Fourthly, I hope that the Government will consider with the universities whether to substitute for the access funds, which are random in their application, which are not targeted and, which, despite the generous provision, produce insignificant sums for the needy, some form of housing benefit, means-tested and targeted, which will enable poor students, including postgraduates, to plan, as they cannot at present do. Fifthly, I ask the Government to consider tax-deductible allowances for the many part-time students, a vital part of the educational explosion, who at present receive neither grants nor loans, and often have to pay their own fees because of the virtual disappearance of discretionary grants. Sixthly, they should consider with the universities and industry other means of encouraging entry for poorer students, such as the possibility of giving capital grants rather than revenue to enable institutions to provide more libraries and study space and thus enable students in many universities to live at home, possibly with a small means-tested housing and travel grant, but still have the proper conditions for academic work. Seventhly, they should consider again the case for the repayment of the loan through a graduate tax.
An effective interface of consultation with the institutions and with industry in the light of recent experience and information could open the way to a different and perhaps better disposition of resources. It would be in the national interest; it would lead to a more strategic and coherent approach; and it would justify the large sums being spent. I am heartened to think, from a recent meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for Further and Higher Education and my noble friend the Minister that this pattern of consultation will now be the norm. I beg to move for Papers.
3.12 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, Erasmus was a poor bastard, Isaac Newton came from a low-income family near Grantham and Charles Darwin's father was never more than a country GP.

1453
So children from low-income families have always been able to get to university and do well there if they are persistent, motivated, hard-working and very clever. We all know that. The present problem is why so few children of the manual working class, which comprises 57 per cent. of the population, enter higher education, where, as the noble Baroness has just said, 64 per cent. of the student population comes from social classes I and II. It is not because those students are apathetic, unmotivated, lazy or thick. It is because they are shrewd.
A university degree is no longer a passport to a good job, and its lifelong financial value is not what it used to be. Potential poor students are also deterred by the fear that they will be too poor to finish their courses; and they note the fact that the drop-out rates at universities have increased significantly. The CVCP believes that any student support system should be adequate, certain, simple and socially just. The present system is none of these. The so-called "access funds", administered by institutions after students have been admitted, are simply hardship funds and should be called that. They must be means tested and they must admit students from low-income families in one way or another. If the Government wish to attract students from low-income families, they have to confess that the present system is a failure; they must do it again; and they must work harder next time.
As we have heard on more than one occasion from the noble Earl, Lord Russell, the academic standards of many university degrees have fallen. This is not the fault of teachers or students, who have never worked harder. It is because students are forced to waste time earning money to pay their bills. Vacation jobs are vanishing, but even if they were not, paid work is not what vacations are for.
Let me illustrate that from my own subject. Your Lordships may agree that any honours graduate in English literature should have read the works of Shakespeare if nothing else. The generally accepted canon is 39 plays. The student will have studied two at school. That leaves 37. He or she must read them in a scholarly edition like the Oxford, the New Cambridge or the New Arden. In the New Arden edition, the longest play is Hamlet, at 591 pages, the shortest is Titus Andronicus, at 172 pages. That would give an average of about 381 pages per play, which, multiplied by 37, gives 14,097 pages to be read.
Assume a steady reading speed of 30 pages per hour, and it takes 469.9 hours to read Shakespeare. Assume again that the student works a 40-hour week (good factory hours), and simply reading Shakespeare, not writing notes about it or essays, or even thinking about it, takes 11.7475 weeks. The summer vacation is about 12 weeks long. And the complete novels of Dickens or of Henry James make the plays of Shakespeare seem like the Reader's Digest.
Of course, not all students read all Shakespeare. You can get away with less, because no examination can be devised which will force you to read it all. But we used to. I did. And the fact that students now have to fight for paid jobs throughout the summer vacation is positive proof that academic standards have fallen,
1454
and they have fallen because students have to spend so much time in which they should be reading, working for money.
My point is simple: cutting the student grant, forcing students to take out loans, removing benefit from them, have all lowered academic standards. Students come up knowing less and go down having learnt less than earlier generations. Bachelors' degrees in British universities used to be the best in the world. Not any more. Academic standards are in danger of dropping even further. There is a Latin proverb, optima corrupta pessima—the corruption of the best creates the worst—or, as Shakespeare put it:
"Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds".
3.18 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, I wish in the five minutes allowed to concentrate entirely upon the question of postgraduate students, particularly those who are in full-time taught courses. The expansion of undergraduate numbers is of course greatly to be welcomed, but there is no doubt that it must lead to less rigorous attention being paid to work at undergraduate level than was possible before because the resources needed to deal with the additional numbers are not there. As the noble Lord, Lord Morris, said, the inevitable result of that is that there is a decline in standards of undergraduate work.
That means that the people who are to be the leaders in all fields, not just in academia, but in industry, commerce and politics, will come predominantly from the postgraduate students. It is there that they will receive the rigorous kind of training which, at its best, was possible in the undergraduate courses in olden times but will not be possible now. So the way the Government have treated the postgraduate student in the past is something which they need to rethink as a principle of the policy that they will apply. It was said at one point by a Minister at the time of the Education Reform Act that it was undergraduates who really mattered. Of course they matter, but from the point of view of the country it is the postgraduates who matter. Unless we have good postgraduates, standards in this country will fall dramatically.
We need to raise educational standards in that regard if we are to compete not only in Europe but—and this is much more threatening—in the global economy as a whole. Unless we have really well trained people in industry and education, we shall not be able to compete.
Postgraduates have been the Cinderellas of the education system in recent years. As the noble Baroness, Lady Park, said, they do not receive enough money and they do not receive housing allowance. Often they carry extremely heavy burdens. Sometimes they are married and have families to care for. They need more resources and support. I hope that the noble Baroness is aware that I am making a plea for the postgraduates.
We now need to consider ways in which that can be changed so that postgraduates can spend the limited time that they have in doing the work which is needed, to pick up on what they were not able to do previously in the undergraduate world and to prepare to take on

1455
the leadership which we so greatly need. It is wrong to expect them to finance themselves by earning. The money is not there and they need greater resources than have been made available hitherto. If that is not done, we shall lose out because we shall not have the people to take the lead. Other countries have those people. We need to raise the standard of opportunities.
At present in the science field in the taught graduate courses something like 35 per cent. of students are financing themselves privately. In languages and humanities the figure is between 50 per cent. and 55 per cent. Of course, to a large extent that rules out children from poorer families. We are wasting an enormous amount of potential talent which those children have. We need to focus on that group if we are not to rue it in years to come because the leadership in all fields of life will simply not exist.
3.21 p.m.
Lord Annan: My Lords, I have long been an Ishmael among vice-chancellors and colleagues in higher education because I have been less critical of government than they have been in past years. I have always believed passionately in increasing the number of boys and girls who can be educated after the age of 18; indeed, after the age of 16. However, we made a mistake in trying to educate them all at Rolls-Royce standards. It is necessary to have cheaper higher education if we are ever to improve the area which we rarely look at in this House; namely, the further education colleges and individual training programmes that our semi-literate and semi-numerate workforce so badly needs.
Having said that, I must warn the Government. Do they believe that we can expand higher education in the universities and the old polytechnics and not fall into the slough of despond on the Continent? In Germany, few professors ever meet their students. In Rome, 100,000 students occupy buildings designed for 10,000. How are we to ensure that our students continue to be well taught and do not drop out or fail their finals? The drop-out rate is beginning to rise.
British universities were renowned for their low administrative costs partly because the teachers did much of the day-to-day administration and partly because they were not troubled, as they are today, by the Government's concern for accountability. At every university I visit I am told that there is a ceaseless filling in of forms to satisfy the demand to know how many articles or books have been written and on what; how many pupil-contact hours, or, lamentably, simply how many lectures has each staff member given. And because research prowess brings in a higher grant, teaching suffers. At one of London's most prestigious institutions I am told that departments record only lecture hours and ignore time on tutorials. Dons are being gradually turned into salaried employees. They are less and less professional in a profession governed by custom and convention when one accepts duties because it is recognised that they are all part of the profession of being a teacher.
I implore the noble Baroness to use her influence in
1456
an endeavour to try not to impose an inspectorate of teaching on the universities. Leave the universities to assess their own teachers. Teaching at that level is a curious art. Professor Harold Laski was a famous teacher at the LSE, beloved by generations of Indian students as well as by the students of this country. Professor Laski believed that you could teach students what is right in politics and what is wrong in politics. He was succeeded by Professor Michael Oakeshott. He believed that practically everything in politics was wrong. However, they were both incomparable teachers. How can that kind of quality in teaching possibly be assessed by number crunching? It cannot be.
However, I approve the Government's evident intention to differentiate between universities by rewarding those departments which are renowned for their research. When the noble Baroness, Lady Park, tells us to recognise that we should not neglect graduate students, she is implicitly asking us to recognise that there are certain great research universities. If we do not make special provision for them, we shall suffer irreparable loss. It is much more important to provide for them than it is to provide for CERN, whatever the physicists may tell us.
Graduate students produce the knowledge that will shape the future. I must put a question to the noble Baroness. How many of her officials at the department know the literature on higher education? How many read the Higher Education Quarterly? How many have heard of Dr. Halsey? How many know that in this country at present is Professor Martin Trow of the University of California, and I am sure that he will be pleased to give a seminar any time that the Minister chooses. Those scholars have something to tell us. I am bound to say that some of the measures which the department imposes upon universities seem to have been thought up by officials who are ignorant of what university life is like. Perhaps the noble Baroness will make them sit an exam paper. I will gladly set it. I believe that she would be surprised at how low the marks achieved by some of the officials would be.
Finally, I ask the Minister to set up a dialogue between the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals and the higher education funding council on ways in which universities can become more efficient. It is no good the department saying, "Further efficiency gains can be achieved". It is no good the universities saying that there is, "Under-funding of the expansion programme". We must have a dialogue for new ideas. Can videos replace lectures? Do not the proliferation of courses and options in fact add to our difficulties? Will the noble Baroness please take that on board?
3.27 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, time allows me to touch on only two points. I shall concentrate my remarks on the first part of the Motion; namely, the need to encourage students from low income families to enter higher education. In doing that I should like to pick up on one of the many interesting and important points made by my noble friend Lady Park. I wish also to ask the Minister two questions.

1457
Undoubtedly there are a number of students, by no means all, who are facing financial hardship at present. Almost by definition, those coming from low income families are more likely to suffer financial difficulties. The new system of loans and the changes in the social security system have coincided with a period of high unemployment. No system of financial help—either the original, full grant system or the system as it is today—was ever expected to cover 52 weeks of the year.
That has clearly made matters more difficult for students, particularly at a time when they are unable to find vacation work. I am afraid that I am not one of those who thinks that doing vacation work is necessarily bad. It teaches you a great deal about life and how to manage your time. We must hope that as the country gradually pulls out of the recession the situation will improve, but in the meantime we are faced with a difficult situation. I agree with my noble friend Lady Park that it is no use simply saying there must be more money. Higher education is already generously funded and I understand that the funds have risen by 4 per cent. in real terms this year so the amount going into higher education has increased considerably.
Nor do I think it likely, although I have not discussed this point with anyone, that the Government will restore the social security benefits, including housing benefit, which were designed for an entirely different purpose. I ask my noble friend to look at the use that is made of these considerable sums of money, in particular the access funds, which I remember were discussed at length when we debated the student loans legislation. It appears that the funds are not being spent in a sensible way. It is difficult to get other than anecdotal evidence on this matter but I believe that that money should be closely targeted to those in need. It may well be that the review by my right honourable friend Mr. Portillo would be the right vehicle for this. It would be helpful if my noble friend would comment on that and on the vast cost of administering the student loans system. That cost appears to fall on universities. I believe that is in a sense unfair and that it causes them difficulties.
Further, many of the problems in higher education are caused by success, not failure. As a country we have been widely criticised that so many of our young people leave school at 16 and do not go into higher education. They are therefore shut off from opportunities and are much less skilled than they need to be in a world that is becoming more competitive and which demands greater skills. The fact is there has been a huge increase in the numbers entering higher education—the figure is up from one-in-eight in 1979 to one-in-four today. Many of those students come from less well off backgrounds.
I shall illustrate that point. I have had the honour recently to be asked to become the Chancellor of the new University of Greenwich. That institution has experienced a great increase in student numbers, as have other former polytechnics which have now become universities. The number of students at Greenwich has increased from 3,800 in 1978 to some 15,000 in 1992. It has been at the forefront in ensuring
1458
that people from low income families have access to higher education. It is interesting to note that of the students at Greenwich 35 per cent. are part-time, 60 per cent. are over 21, 15 per cent. come from ethnic minorities and 45 per cent. are female. Greenwich has developed flexible courses and the university has been a leader in a credit-based unit system which enables students to attain a vast range of qualifications while attending either part-time or full-time courses. Students can achieve a qualification that is appropriate to their abilities. There is transfer between full and part-time courses and few leave without a recognised qualification.
I have no figures to show precisely how many fail to complete their courses because of hardship. I understand some 500 students probably leave within the first two months. However, they leave for varied reasons. I have no doubt that financial hardship is one of those reasons. That matter deserves to be considered seriously. I hope my noble friend will look at that point.
I take up what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Annan. We have achieved tremendous success in increasing the numbers of students who attend universities. That is much to be welcomed. However, the future seems to be unclear and a stop-go policy is very unsatisfactory. What everyone would like to know is where the Government see this success going and what should be the next steps in higher education.
3.34 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, we all know the commitment of the noble Baroness, Lady Park, to higher education and to students and their well-being. It is typical of her to have tabled this Motion and it is gratifying that so many Peers are speaking in the debate. The fact that this debate is taking place only a month after that tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on the financial difficulties of students shows how strongly people feel on this subject and how important it is to convince the Government that there are great difficulties in the way of the less well off attempting to gain a university place and, if they gain one, being able to finance their courses for three or more years. Drop-out rates have increased significantly. Over three-quarters of higher education students have parents from non-manual occupations with, as we have heard, 64 per cent. coming from social classes 1 and 2. Are we really advancing towards a classless society?
It is clear that there is a large and as yet untapped pool of young people who could gain from higher education. I understand that the department has commissioned a survey of full-time undergraduate students' income and expenditure during the academic year 1992–93, including the summer vacation. The findings should be available later this year. Will that be in time to affect next year's grants, loans and access funds? Will it include postgraduates' income and expenditure? Their need is as great as that of undergraduates, if not greater. Their importance as a national asset has already been made abundantly clear.

1459
It is important that the review should also look at the income and expenditure of part-time students, both undergraduates and postgraduates. Will the Minister tell us whether that is to happen? I wish to devote my few minutes to those students. They are among the most committed and highly motivated of all. They have lower expenditure in that they live at home. Larger and larger numbers of mature students are entering higher education—I understand they constitute some 50 per cent. of the total—and a great number of them are part-time. Over 80 per cent. of postgraduate students are part-time.
Postgraduates are treated as students by not being given housing benefit and yet they are ineligible for student loans or for many student discounts. Because of the nature of their courses they are unavailable for work in the summer. Part-time students have to pay the cost of their own fees and the cost of books, essential equipment and travel. If they attend the Open University, they will have to attend residential schools and tutorials. Tuition fees there have increased by over 90 per cent. in real terms between 1979 and 1993.
At Birkbeck, where all students are part time, about 12 per cent. have their fees paid by employers. It is often the better paid employees who are helped in that way. There are 4,200 students and the fees range from £500 to £1,000, depending on the course. My noble friend Lady Blackstone, the Master, tells me that by the time they have paid for books and travel—those costs can be high—the costs are likely to reach £900 for undergraduates and £1,390 for postgraduates.
A more highly skilled workforce would be of value to the economy. Many more part-time students are aiming to increase their qualifications with a view to improving their opportunities at work. Surely the Government should look at the possibility of not charging them fees or, if that is not possible, they should at least make loans available to them. If the Government will not even help in that way, will they at least let such students set their fees against tax, as the noble Baroness, Lady Park, suggested?
Where in the past local authorities were often willing to help with discretionary grants, that is now becoming less and less of a possibility with the squeeze on their finances and the threat of capping. Some LEAs have cut out grants altogether or are financing only those students who are in their second and third year. Warwickshire, for instance, is giving no new awards except to students with special needs. Northumberland has said that 1,000 students may miss out on courses this year as a result of reductions in its grant budget. Agricultural college principals have identified nearly 600 students who were unable to take up places last September through lack of grant. Those principals expect the situation to get worse this year.
There are particular anxieties about those undertaking dance and drama courses because they rely on discretionary grants. Is it right that the Government are reviewing discretionary grants in the face of concern over the future of training in dance, drama and the law? In winding up the debate on 17th
1460
February the Minister said that the Government can take credit for the system we now have for student support, which is working well. I hope the speeches she hears today will convince her that that is rather a complacent view; that all is not well and that the whole system needs a radical review, including full-time, part-time, undergraduate and postgraduate students.
3.39 p.m.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to take part in this debate, which was so ably introduced by my noble friend Lady Park. It was also an enormous pleasure to hear the plea for the quality of university teaching from the noble Lord, Lord Annan, for whose lectures many years ago I used to queue up, together with his many other fans, as an undergraduate at Cambridge. I should also like to offer my apologies to the House for the fact that attendance at another committee of this House may mean that I miss the very end of this excellent and important debate.
I am not here to beg for an increase in the burden on the British taxpayer in general for better funding either for students or universities. It is a fact that the United Kingdom is the second most generous country of all the OECD countries in the support it gives to student maintenance. Almost £1 billion a year is provided for student maintenance support. The problem is that there is now too much strain on the system for it to continue in its present form. I plead for a real change in and a fundamental review of the system of funding both higher education and the students within it.
As we have heard, the present system has many disadvantages. I should like to enumerate two or three of them. First, total dependence on central funding brings with it also a need for central planning. That, incidentally, has led inevitably to a limit on growth, as other noble Lords have said. Expectations have been raised among young people in the past few years, and the Government's great success has been in expanding opportunities. It would be unthinkable now to have to make a U-turn and to say to young people that opportunities will be denied them as they reach the age of entry to higher education. That is exactly what will happen as a result of the limitation on fees for classroom-based subjects. That is a move back to the days of central planning and away from the Government's commitment to a response to the market.
It is undoubtedly true that in responding to the market higher education has been able to fulfil all and more than the Government asked us to do. I believe that it is absolutely right that the market should be left to decide both how many students enter higher education and what subjects they study. An attempt to manipulate the system in particular areas of the curriculum through the fee system is contrary to the basic principle of the market. I appeal to my noble friend the Minister to find a way back to the response to market forces which has proved a success story in the past few years.

1461
Secondly, under the current system of funding there is undoubtedly real student hardship. The debate held in your Lordships' House a month ago produced incontrovertible evidence of the hardship which is now being suffered by students, to a greater extent than previously. That is true of postgraduate as well as undergraduate students.
Furthermore, I am told not only by my own admission tutors at South Bank but by others throughout the country that more and more students are being put off when they come to discuss the possibility of entering higher education. They talk through with the student services and other advisers the funding which is available to them. At the end of the interview they say, "I simply cannot afford it". That is particularly true of students from low-income families who are intimidated by the sums of money involved in student loans which perhaps your Lordships' children and mine would not find particularly worrying. But to a person whose family has always been poor it is unthinkable to take out a loan of several thousand pounds. They will not do it.
For mature students in particular—another group to which we particularly hope to appeal—it is impossible to contemplate raising a family on the amount of grant and loan money which is available to them, even with the increasing tendency for students to work at weekends and in the evenings during their studies.
I ask again for a rethink of the system of funding and a return to the debate on a graduate tax, which has worked so well in Australia. In that country an additional tax of 2 per cent. applies to all graduates, with an option to pay on completion of their course and a 15 per cent. discount if they do so. The system has worked very well and has produced early revenue for the Australian Government.
I should like to see those who benefit from higher education paying both for part of their fees and for their maintenance according to their ability to pay. A loan is imposed as an equal burden on all, whether they are rich or poor after graduation, and whether they are employed or unemployed. A tax system is graduated and may be geared to start only when income has passed an average level. It is geared particularly to ability to pay, whether graduates are unemployed, raising a family, in poor or well-paid employment. I beg my noble friend the Minister to go back and tell her civil servants, if they say that it is too difficult to administer, that they should think again and find a way to make it work.
3.46 p.m.
Lord Walton of Detchant: My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, I also apologise to the House. I have an unavoidable commitment later this afternoon which prevents my staying until the end of the debate. However, I look forward to reading the closing speeches in Hansard.
There have been a number of important and encouraging developments of late in our universities. First, it is good to note that the number of students entering higher education has increased substantially despite the Government's recent unfortunate stop-go
1462
policy, although we still lag behind many of our international competitors. Secondly, the abolition of the binary line has made available a much wider range of courses in topics not always covered by the older institutions. Thirdly, there has been a significant increase in the number of students admitted to universities from comprehensive schools. Fourthly, admission criteria have been modified so that more mature students are entering higher education. Fifthly, the universities themselves have developed major initiatives in fund-raising to support important developments. Many, too, have developed increasingly fruitful links and even partnerships with industry in teaching companies, for example, so as to correct a major deficiency which has long plagued this country, namely our comparative inability to capitalise on inventions created by British genius.
Despite those encouraging changes we still have a long way to go. There are at least three good reasons why too few students from lower income families enter higher education. First, the rigid entry criteria, based upon achievement in A-level exams, have always been a deterrent in some areas. This country has a tradition of serving well bright young people of exceptional ability whatever their family background and social income. The A-levels are admirable for those in the top 15 per cent. in intellect and ability. However, there are many talented youngsters in the next 25 per cent. who do not achieve adequate results in those exams. Hence they feel that they have failed, and that the system has failed them. And that has put them off higher education.
Happily, the position is changing. Some universities are offering not just standardised degree courses but a wider range of qualifications following on from BTEC, HND, NVQ and the admirable new GNVQ. The whole structure of qualifications on offer at 18-plus needs careful re-examination. We must modify a system which persuades too many young people that they are failures. That and many other social factors have led in certain communities to a powerful anti-education ethos ("Universities are not for the likes of us") which we must do everything in our power to correct. The availability of a wide range of university qualifications, combined with a better public perception of the fundamental importance of a skill-based society, should get that message across.
The third problem is of course, financial. While I have every sympathy with those students who firmly believe that education and maintenance at all levels should be fully funded by the public purse I accept that in the funding which the Government contribute to student maintenance we are still one of the most generous nations in the western world. Publicly funded fees will, I hope, be preserved and indeed extended to courses for which they are not now available. But it is, I believe, unrealistic to expect a reversion to a much more generous system of maintenance grants. I am not opposed in principle to student loans but I believe that there is clear evidence, as other noble Lords have said, to indicate that the present scheme is complex, ineffective and often benefits least those most in need.

1463
The access funds have also proved quite inadequate. Medical students, in particular, have been hard hit by reduction in maintenance grants and the withdrawal of benefits as in their clinical years they work throughout the year. Restoration of housing benefit would cost relatively little and would make a huge difference. But I too would much prefer the loan system to include repayment over a prolonged period through a graduate tax. I trust that the Government will reconsider that possibility.
Perhaps I may mention the crucial importance to this country's medical, scientific, cultural and industrial future of postgraduate awards leading to higher degrees. In medicine, today's basic science discovery brings tomorrow's practical discovery in patient care. A similar principle undoubtedly applies to science and engineering where we have failed all too often to capitalise on scientific discoveries. Britain has a proud record of achievement in medical research and some young doctors regularly explore the possibility of undertaking full time postgraduate study in molecular biology in order to use that knowledge in research leading to the conquest of disease. However, if they have accumulated major and substantial loans in their undergraduate career, they are deterred from pursuing the career that they would wish.
Finally, the Department for Education in its steering group with the Department of Health must also continue carefully to examine the increasingly precarious position of clinical research and clinical academic medicine with its falling recruitment which gives rise to serious concern.
4.51 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, 25 years ago this country had a system of higher education which was the admiration of the world. Among other things it provided for a higher proportion of children of working class families than was common in most universities in Europe. That system has been destroyed to the extent to which there is now almost universal depression in the universities, as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, and others have pointed out. Why is that so? How has it been destroyed? It has been destroyed by an abrogation of the partnership which existed for many years between the government of the day and the university community which was symbolised by the old University Grants Committee. The system was held up to other countries as a model of the way in which finance could be channelled into higher education without government control. That partnership has been abrogated.
The funding councils are simply instruments of government, dominated by the extraordinary view, prevalent in Whitehall, that the last people to know about a function are those who actually practise it and that there must therefore be a lay element; if possible, lay domination.
What is the most recent example? It has been slipped in without much publicity that the new chairman of the Universities Funding Council is to be an eminent accountant, from a well known firm, whose CV suggests no intimate acquaintance
1464
whatever with any aspect of universities. I have ascertained that that appointment was made without any consultation with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals. The committee might at least have been asked whether it would like to comment on the choice of someone in whose hands the future of its institutions to some extent will lie.
When I was a small boy in London on boat race day, I was asked, "Are you Oxford or Cambridge?" My great grandson will be asked, "Are you Coopers or Lybrand?" That is what we have come to. That unwillingness to consult and the belief in the infallibility of a group of civil servants who themselves would have made little impact if they had stayed in the university world, with the arrogance and ignorance that it produces, explain the problems which from different points of view other noble Lords have explored with us.
For instance, many of the issues which have been discussed today, and no doubt will be discussed later, have been pointed out in debates in your Lordships' House over the past few years. When the student loan scheme—the Jackson loan scheme—was launched, I, and other noble Lords repeatedly told your Lordships' House that the scheme would not work, that it was extremely expensive and that it would put students off. I remember the eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, on that subject. Noble Lords stated then, as the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said today, that if it is perfectly reasonable that people should pay in the end for advantages which they have acquired through higher education, the only simple method was a graduate tax along the Australian model. The Government took not the slightest notice of the fact that they were told that not just by Members of your Lordships' House but by Members of your Lordships' House with much experience in the world and in universities. We have pointed out—it has been elaborated today—that postgraduate study is important.
One factor that noble Lords have not pointed out —I conclude by emphasising it—is that because British students cannot afford to take up many postgraduate courses of the greatest distinction, they are being taken up by foreigners. We are doing a lot of admirable postgraduate training for other countries and, internationally minded as we are, no doubt we should be pleased. However, when a major course such as one with which I am familiar in a Scottish university—it trains people to deal with matters such as terrorism, drug traffic and other scourges of the modern world—is attended entirely by foreign students, we are in an idiotic situation. Although the students pay their fees, the money at capital level which goes into that course comes from the British taxpayer. I could multiply that example.
The noble Lord, Lord Annan, talked of the bumf which now drowns the desks of people who ought to be teaching. Why? Because the questionnaires are not designed by people who understand universities but by another lot of accountants. No doubt they are the younger brethren in Coopers & Lybrand. Therefore, I must appeal to the Minister to take back from this House the view that I believe she will find is echoed in

1465
future speeches. Since things have gone so badly wrong —we have an unfunded expansion whose purpose is not clearly understood either by the students or the universities—surely the Government might for once take a little advice from people who know what they talk about.
3.58 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the powerful and cutting speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, with whose views I completely concur. In my five-minute allocation I shall focus on undergraduate medical students, although some of what I say will apply to other students, especially those with a long and arduous course.
It is customary to regard doctors as ladies or gentlemen, often bountiful, with a high social status, whether or not that is deserved. Therefore, it is not surprising that a particularly high proportion of entrants to medical school comes from professional or managerial families. Until recently that proportion had been slowly decreasing, with the proportion of women increasing. That has now stabilised at about 50 per cent. Both those trends are to be welcomed. Some of the reasons have been put by the noble Baroness, Lady Park, who is to be congratulated on choosing this topic, especially when one considers the Bench from which she speaks. By opening up universities to the whole social spectrum, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said more eloquently than I can, we tap reserves of talent and intelligence which would not otherwise be fully harnessed.
I am a product of Cambridge. In my day it was quite a difficult fortress for the less privileged to enter, and still seems to be, despite protestations to the contrary. It was my experience that if they could survive the peculiar establishment customs of that place, working-class undergraduates showed themselves to be of superior ability. They had to be to overcome the hurdles on the way and those that they encountered afterwards.
However, medicine needs not only recruits of high intelligence. It also has a particular need of people from all social classes and all ethnic groups. It is becoming clearer and clearer that nearly every ill is more common and more severe the more disadvantaged the origins and lifestyle of the citizen concerned. To change an unhealthy lifestyle is difficult; many influences operate. Very often there are sets of cultural norms which are powerful and difficult for people to discard: smoking, dietary and drinking habits are prime examples. To be told to change one's ingrained habits by someone from a different cultural background and of a different social class is likely to result in rejection of the advice. Someone who has had the same experience as the patient or client is more likely to understand the pressures operating on them and as a result the whole range of medical and health education advice is more likely to be appropriate and effective.
However, what in fact is happening? According to the 1991–92 BMA survey of medical students' finances, whereas the proportion of medical students from professional or managerial families fell from 76
1466
per cent. to 74 per cent. between 1988 and 1990, it rose again to 78 per cent. in 1991–92. The former and more democratic trend seems to have been reversed. It is not difficult to see why. The average income of medical students, including the top-up loan, in 1991–92 was £2,845 (£3,505 in London), whereas the average expenditure was £4,420 (£5,304 in London). The result, as Mr. Micawber would have predicted, is misery: an average deficit of £1,575 (£1,799 in London).
Because of the intensity of the course, as my noble friend Lord Walton pointed out, there is little time for students to earn money to supplement their income. Some do, of course, but to the detriment of their health through lack of sleep and of their chances of doing well in their finals, as was pointed out by my noble friend Lord Morris. Of course, the lack of sleep could be regarded as a form of training for their first few years of professional life as junior hospital doctors.
So it is not surprising that 71 per cent. of medical students are in debt, with an average debt of £2,400. As that figure is an average, many have much higher debts which increase as the course goes on and the chances of getting a part-time job recede. Those students from low income families have greater debts than those from more privileged backgrounds.
It is often argued that medical students should not complain; they are assured of a well-paid job on qualifying. However, I assure noble Lords that medical salaries are not high to start with. It is only by being on call for excessively long hours that debts can be repaid and mortgages even considered at an age in the late 20s when many in other walks of life have started to raise families. The result of high debts has been to drive students—this has been shown particularly in the United States—into highly paid and perhaps undesirable branches of medicine, to the detriment of research, as my noble friend Lord Walton pointed out, public health and primary care, which are relatively poorly paid, but which may be of more importance for the health of the community.
I wish to conclude by quoting the final paragraph of the BMA survey:
"It is becoming increasingly difficult for any student to afford to undertake a minimum of five years of medical study unless he or she has substantial personal resources. This situation will inevitably lead to medical entrants being admitted on the criterion of ability to pay rather than academic ability and will eventually manifest itself in the quality of the medical profession in years to come".
4.4 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Beloff has just reminded us, three years ago your Lordships' House was discussing the Education (Student Loans) Bill. I faced the daring expedient of turning up my own speeches on that Bill and for once in my life found that I had nothing whatever to regret in them. I ventured then, as I repeat now, to say that I think that the introduction of student loans and the elimination of the many social benefits which went with them was a great mistake and is responsible for many of our current difficulties.

1467
The difficulties are considerable, and it is impossible in the course of a five-minute speech to do more than list them quickly. First, as has already been mentioned, there is the great discouragement to a young man or woman to go to university, knowing that he or she will emerge from it a substantial debtor. Many people are brought up—I think rightly—to regard getting into debt as a dangerous and harmful process. The idea that automatically every graduate should be a debtor seems to me a most deplorable one: it is responsible for the discouragement of a good many young people going to university at all. It is also an illusion to believe that one is relieving public funds of undue pressure by that expedient. Loans paid out now may be thought to amount approximately to what the grants would be; therefore, the amount of expenditure which the economy has to bear at the moment is the same under either the grant or the loan system. All that we get from the loan is the chance—and in many cases it is not much more than a chance—of recovering some of the money years hence.
In the light of the Budget, how can anyone be sure—and we are talking of five, six or seven years ahead—that the amount recovered will be of any importance at all? If the Budget is right, then the expenditure which we are talking about will be quite harmless. One has to face the fact—and I beg the Minister to face it—that by substituting a loan for the grant we are not relieving current expenditure at all. What we are doing is giving to graduates the considerable incentive to go abroad. If, after graduating and having drawn the loan, they go abroad, so far as I know there is no means whatever of recovering the loan. We are giving quite a considerable incentive to just those people whom we most need in our country—the highly trained university graduates—to go to work in other countries. That surely must be harmful.
I regard the student loan scheme with even more distaste now than at the time I spoke against it—at some length, I am sorry to say—three years ago. I believe that it is extremely harmful and that we should reconsider it urgently. Most noble Lords will acquit me of being an advocate of increasing public expenditure. I have sometimes made myself exceedingly unpopular by advocating the reverse. But the grant would not have the consequence for years to come of increasing public expenditure: it would simply mean going back to a time-honoured system which worked perfectly satisfactorily. It would also free us from the criticism that every graduate will be a debtor when he leaves.
I wish to recall what I quoted three years ago: it remains true:
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry".
4.9 p.m.
Lord Addington: My Lords, the subject of the debate today is the extension of the debate which started a month ago with a Motion in my name. The noble Baroness, Lady Park, has developed the point, leading us to other issues which were not covered by
1468
my debate and she has done so with tremendous skill. I shall try to concentrate on the issue of encouraging people from a non-traditional element of society to go into higher education.
The last time I spoke, basically I challenged the Government over one fact: that the new system of student maintenance does not provide the same level of income, if the student cannot find a job. We have heard much about what can happen if the student does not obtain a job for a few hours per week but works nearly a full week, as opposed to serving behind a bar. Students are effectively being crucified if they work every night of the week. If we do not provide them with an adequate income and they do not work, they will have less income than someone on social security. I raise again a point I made previously. It has been questioned whether one can eat properly on social security. We are asking people from the income group who know most about what it is like to survive on the bare minimum to go into higher education and encounter more debt.
A great wave of graduates were told to go into the City and join the "yuppie" boom. What happened to them? Many are now unemployed. It was a classic example of how things can go wrong even for people with a higher education. We still need those people, but they perhaps need to be trained in different ways. We must reassess what our country does and how we produce our wealth. We must try to encourage people to go forward. But we present them with a system of personal funding which means that they may not have enough to live on. That is a huge disincentive.
Let us consider the incentives that are relevant to a person of 18 or 19. In the years that have passed since I was thinking of going into higher education—not that long ago —there have been radical changes. I was told that it was supposed to be fun to go to university. Now it is not. One cannot have a good time when one is always hungry; when one cannot pay one's rent. There is no incentive to be there. I am afraid that the image of a drunken student is rapidly diminishing. Anyone who has worked inside a student bar or been part of a student community will know that the element of camaraderie has gone. That is something we should bear in mind.
We are asking young people from the nontraditional groups to go into something which they have never before experienced; something about which their parents haute little knowledge. It is new and strange. We are asking them to take on debts and risk not being able to pay them back. If we seriously tried, could we create a more unpleasant image for them? We are asking them to take a chance on something that their friends are not doing and do something which could go horribly wrong.
I shall not go into other points about which I am concerned. I wish, however, to counter one argument that is often used —that the self-sacrifice is worth it. I attended Aberdeen University. There is the wonderful tradition of the young, hardworking person from a poor background who goes to college and works his way through on the bare minimum for pure love of study. He is called "the lad of parts". He appears out of the middle of nowhere with a sack of oatmeal over

1469
one shoulder and potatoes over the other. He lives off that and gets wonderful grades. Yet in all those stories he invariably dies of consumption on receiving his degree. I suggest that it is not a good model to be striving for.
4.13 p.m.
Lord Chilver: My Lords, I turn from the issue of funding problems facing students from low income families to a somewhat different angle. I want to comment on some of the ways in which access to universities for students has been improved over the years.
In the 1950s and 1960s university entry in Britain was characterised by a low proportion of students from lower socio-economic groups. Progress towards a wider spectrum of recruitment of students was extremely slow. Indeed, as recently as the mid-1980s the chances of a young person from a low income family going to university was as low as one-fifth of those of a young person from a high income family. That is 30 years after the end of the Second World War. It was a period in which universities were heavily dominated by state funding, which clearly did not produce a wide index of students in universities.
Over the years a number of measures have helped to improve the situation, including courses for part-time students and more courses for mature students. Both enable students from low income families to pursue their studies in less conventional ways. But those and similar steps have tended only to have a marginal impact on access at the extreme end of the social spectrum. In my view, it is unlikely that they will ameliorate the situation on a scale which widens the social spread of students in Britain in line with other advanced countries. For example, in Germany the proportion of students in higher education from the lowest socio-economic group is around three times greater than in Britain.
One of the roots of the problem in Britain is that young people in school are not uniformly aware of the diverse opportunities which higher education in this country now offers. Again, as has already been mentioned, young people at school are not uniformly prepared for university entry. There is a natural tendency, on the other hand, for universities to select against well-defined examination standards, as has been noted in the debate. It is not an easy matter to make allowances for students who are not well prepared at school for university. It is important that for young people disadvantaged in that way there should be a readiness on the part of universities to adapt their selection methods to widen the social entry of their students.
Universities in Britain are among the most independent in Europe. It would not be unreasonable to ask them to explore ways in which they can genuinely widen the range of initial recruitment without damaging the quality of their work. There is an expansion of higher education in Britain which shows no signs of any deleterious effects on the quality of academic work or on the standards achieved. Ways must be found to show young people from low income families the importance and relevance of higher
1470
education in their careers. On the other hand, ways must be found by universities of overcoming limitations that formal entry qualifications may always imply.
Wider discussions within the university sector—I include students as well as staff—could help our independent universities to see that they have a vital role to play in tackling one of the most important and, indeed, longest-standing problems of higher education in Britain. At the same time, I hope that the Government and the higher education funding councils will do everything in their power to encourage that wide discussion so that we can look for new solutions within that important sector of higher education.
4.18 p.m.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, I congratulate the universities on the way that they have faced and adapted to the tremendous changes that have taken place over the past decade. It has not been an easy period for them; it has been one of "stop-go" and continual change. First, we saw the 1981 cuts and the capping of student numbers followed by expansion. There were changes in the structures under the funding arrangements. In the past three years universities have been encouraged to prepare for rapid growth throughout the whole of the 1990s. Now the Government have called for a period of consolidation and an ending of that growth.
There have been a number of consequences. First, the unit of resource has been continually eroded. Secondly, staff conditions and salaries in real terms have suffered, in particular in relation to other professions. Thirdly, the fabric and maintenance of buildings and plant have deteriorated, presenting a tremendous financial burden to institutions. Fourthly, student support has decreased, leaving many students in poverty and highly in debt.
On the more positive side, institutions have become more flexible, seeking alternative sources of income, in particular through programmes of continuing education, overseas recruitment and links with industry. There have been programmes to encourage part-time and mature students and access links—all of which have been a testimony to the initiative of the institutions despite the financial constraints under which they were working.
The latest and damaging changes of direction are particular acute. After being encouraged and rewarded for increasing student numbers, institutions are now being told that their expansion plans must be dropped. This could actually mean a reduction in student recruitment over the next three years; otherwise the number of students already in the system, with its knock-on effect, will produce a student population above the level now acceptable to the Government. Those institutions which go beyond their target numbers will find themselves financially penalised—an exact reversal of the situation over the past two years.
If we add to this the 30 per cent. reduction in tuition fee levels for arts and social science students, we find that many institutions are in real financial difficulty.

1471
Particularly at risk are those institutions which have embarked on an improved programme for student accommodation and teaching facilities in order to accommodate the increasing numbers that they were planning for.
This is a chaotic situation in which to find ourselves at the turn of the century, when we know that our world competitiveness will depend on the education and skill levels of our population. The tragedy, as many noble Lords have indicated, is that the group most likely to suffer is that which has benefited least from the expansion of higher education. Despite the increased participation rate, there has been little growth in the participation rate from the social classes C2 and C3. We need a policy to raise the expectation of those groups, who still do not envisage a system where a university education is the norm for their children.
A reform of the A-level system, as advocated by many in the education world, together with the introduction of a system similar to the one recently put forward by the CBI, with its proposed grant for the 16 to 19 year-olds, would do much to boost the confidence of those groups and would put them into a situation from which students of higher education are recruited. As it is, the present consolidation, or retrenchment, is likely to deter because the children from those groups, more than others, are likely to be non-standard, or at the margin, and therefore excluded in the present climate.
4.24 p.m.
Baroness Platt of Writtle: My Lords, it is difficult to know where to begin with developments in the universities, especially in five minutes. A hundred years ago Oxford and Cambridge had not admitted women as members. Now, nationally, women form nearly 50 per cent. of the student body: that is a dramatic development. As yet, however, only 3 per cent. of professors and 19 per cent. of principal lecturers are women. There is room for considerable development of flexible working arrangements in the universities so that women can combine a happy and responsible family life with a successful career, achieving promotion to the highest level of which they are capable.
My noble friend Lady Park is herself an example of ability well rewarded and my noble friend Lady Perry is the first woman Vice-Chancellor of one of our universities. Progress has happened but it needs to be continued. Opportunities have opened up for our young people since the CATS, and later the polytechnics, have become universities, with their tremendous growth in student numbers and places available, which are being taken up. That is not before time. In these days of the universal application of new technology, we need above all a knowledge-based workforce capable of independent study and continuing professional development wherever they find that their working lives demand new skills and knowledge. I am glad to say that not only the former polytechnics but also the older universities are now alert to this new need, whether it be at postgraduate
1472
level, or as a module which through credit accumulation may add up to a first degree. The courses may be short full-time but are far more likely to be part-time, perhaps day, but more often evening or even weekend or distance learning, so that the students can hold on to precious jobs while learning new skills leading to greater job efficiency.
Often, the new students are the first generation from their families to experience higher education. They come from low income families, as my noble friend emphasised. It is a double struggle as they cope with demands which are both academic and financial. My noble friend dealt with the matter comprehensively and in depth, so I shall not continue with that part of my speech.
The rising number of students over the remainder of this century are increasingly likely to be of a more mature age, especially with the number of 18 year-olds falling off dramatically. Some may study through the necessity of acquiring new knowledge in their jobs but some will also study for a degree either full-time or part-time or through distance learning having been made redundant or after bringing up a family with the hope that the new qualifications will prepare them for better-paid employment later when skills are short.
Those people probably left school with no thought that they might one day acquire a degree: they might indeed have been conscious of academic failure. Today, with access courses and accreditation of prior learning and experience, they may be admitted to the first stages of higher education. In particular, the new universities are forming valuable links with satellite colleges of non-advanced further education. Students may enter there, near home, for BTEC higher certificate or diplomas or City and Guilds qualifications and prove through high motivation that they are capable of far more success than either they themselves or their tutors expected. Through common teaching syllabi, they may then be transferred to a degree course and achieve good results.
Often, this progress is achieved by reliance on part-time study or distance learning to fit in with employment or family responsibilities. If students are employed, employers will often help with fees because they will also reap the reward of a better-qualified employee. For the woman at home preparing to return to work better qualified, there is no such help. Part-time grants, being of a discretionary nature and given by the LEA, are bard to come by. Yesterday's Budget Statement promised help for the long-term unemployed to acquire qualifications on full-time courses, but I look forward to the day when grants are related to qualifications, irrespective of mode of study. The Treasury might actually benefit, because part-time students normally live at home and therefore do not require a residential element in their grant. The development and support of part-time learning is important: I am very much in favour of that sort of flexibility. Part-time, like full-time, students form valuable national human resources —definitely vital national assets.
The courses offered by colleges today are more industry and commerce based, with industrialists willing to give voluntary time to serving on advisory

1473
committees and faculties and to monitor and advise on relevance. Colleges are forming far stronger links with local commerce and industry, perhaps through TECs, so that their diplomates and graduates will achieve subsequent success in the local employment market. These new-type diplomates and graduates will, I believe, most definitely be a national asset. I thank my noble friend Lady Park wholeheartedly for initiating this valuable debate.
4.29 p.m.
Lord Rix: My Lords, I am delighted that the question of discretionary grants for dance and drama students has already been touched upon by the noble Baroness, Lady David, for that gives me a little more time to say a word about learning disability and the universities: specifically about degree courses for those working with people with learning disabilities, and becoming the service leaders of the future.
For more than 20 years, Mencap has played a key part in keeping alive the torch of advanced education for staff working with people with learning disabilities. I hope that this history will be written before we lose it, as a tribute to the work of Professor Clarke, Professor Mittler, Ed Wheelan, Mencap's own James Cummings, and others. During those 20 years, we moved from junior training centres to special schools and on to a greater degree of integration in ordinary schools. Over the same period, hospitals declined and community homes developed; and adult training centres became social education centres and then resource centres.
Diplomas waxed and waned; and new degree courses developed. Throughout that time, it was a constant battle to ensure that staff needing advanced courses to acquire special understanding and special skills got what they needed. It still is a battle. We do not value people with learning disabilities sufficiently to value the staff who work with them, and those who provide the courses which the staff need. Not least important, we fail to provide the guaranteed funding that would enable parents and people in generally low-paid employment to take up courses; and we lose human resources we could well use. In this regard, we have already pioneered Open University courses for those working with people with learning disabilities and for those with learning disabilities themselves and we are working towards shared courses. But all that costs money.
Where staff are concerned, and not least those who as graduates with practical experience can help lead in creating good quality learning disability services, I want to draw attention to the degree courses at King Alfred's College, Winchester, and Stockport College. These are new initiatives which build on the diplomas and certificates of earlier years and recognise that community care is not a cheap and amateur alternative to the old institutions, but a dedicated professional service working alongside, supporting and encouraging the relatives, friends and neighbours who also need to be involved. The courses I have in mind are those which enable people who have already worked with people with learning disabilities to reflect on that experience, and build on it. The starting point
1474
might be at least 500 hours of hands-on experience. This means that people such as parents of men and women with learning disability are good candidates.
The ground covered in courses includes such areas as service principles, advocacy, rights, evaluation and the management of change. We are perhaps at the most significant turning point in learning disability services, and the most crucial time for determining for good or ill the future welfare of people with learning disabilities. Your Lordships may be aware that the future of the largest single professional group in the learning disabilities field—nurses—is currently under review. Whatever the decisions taken on this issue, I have no doubt that the quality and direction of change are going to be influenced enormously by the quality of professional education and training.
The Stockport and Winchester courses, side by side with the existing university degree courses, the Open University courses for a wider group (including informal carers), and the national vocational qualifications route towards professional status, are all vital parts of the work being done to ensure that there is an adequate investment in the future of services.
The funding of courses and placements in learning disability studies is not something for which we can rely on commercial sponsorship by businesses wishing to benefit from them. Service training budgets tend not to stretch to degree courses; and we should not rely on people working their passage when the salaries the far side of that are not enormous by commercial standards. I hope that we can look to government to regard favourably the financing of study for full-time courses which will help us to get and stay in the forefront of service development, and to the rewriting of Open University courses which will help a wider range of formal and informal carers give of their best.
When I look at some of the good things happening and meet some of the good people doing them, I see every possibility of a "brave new world". But I also recall that this familiar phrase comes from The Tempest, and that in the same play there is a sad line about the insubstantial fabric of our vision vanishing. We have the choice: to convert perfectly rational dreams into reality or to be content with second best. Graduates from Stockport and Winchester will know how to convert dreams into reality. They, and many others, are ready, willing and able, and they deserve our support.
4.35 p.m.
Lord Selsdon: My Lords, it is said again and again, as we review our relatively poor economic performance in the world over most of our lives, that the one thing we can always rely upon is the strength of our institutions. High among those institutions must inevitably come our academic institutions. One institution that may have declined in relative performance in the world is government, which we always used to feel was standing fair square behind our academic institutions. But these institutions and our universities are crumbling and decaying. The older they are, the greater the level of capital expenditure

1475
which is required to keep them alive. The older they are, often the better their reputation, and that reputation needs support.
For example, I understand that a university with about 15,000 students may face a capital expenditure bill of around £60 million or £4,000 a student. Why is that the case? Part of the problem is the regulations which require higher and higher standards of pollution control, fire protection and safety. Inspectors are sent in, ever mindful of the dangers of being sued and of personal liability, and make recommendations way in excess of what common logic and sense would dictate. Perhaps my noble friend will look at these issues and take into account the splendid philosophy of not entailing excessive costs and seeing whether some concession might be made to permit universities to use some of their savings for new capital investment programmes.
Education is an asset. It has a value. And learning has a value. In order to enhance this value investment in capital expenditure and increased revenues are desirable. At this particular time, for whatever reason, a perfect opportunity emerges, one where the Government are saying, "Here is the right moment to invest for economic upturn". There has never been a situation so favourable for investment in academic institutions and all the paraphernalia to support students. Land costs are lower in real terms than ever before. Building costs are lower—there is a demand for building—and unemployment is higher.
The demand for further education is as great as ever —not only in this country but also internationally—and the ability of the private sector to work with the academic institutions with the support of government to fund developments is very real. I should like to suggest to my noble friend that she might give thought to that because there are private sector organisations willing to work with universities to create developments and to provide such things as student accommodation. At a time when we are told that no new office development, no new housing development and no new apartment development can be economically viable, student accommodation can, because it has reliable tenants. I understand that it is possible to create a unit for a student of around 130 square feet for as little as £10,000, down to the last knife, cup and saucer, and yet students who have no accommodation near their faculty buildings are forced to pay high rents of £50 or more per week. I suggest that the Government look closely at this area because there are considerable opportunities at this time.
The third area I come to is the old chestnut of paying for education. There are people, students and others, who would support the principle that those who cannot afford to pay should have it for free and that those who can afford to pay should have something. I understand that the cost of an undergraduate or postgraduate may be between £6,000 and £13,000 a year, depending on the technological scale of the topic he is studying. I understand too that many countries around the world place great value on United Kingdom education. Let us have not so many civil servants or academics; let us
1476
have, some common, practical sense. I recall that Johnson, at the opening of Drury Lane, referring to Shakespeare, said:
"When learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes".
Let us have a little common sense and logic.
4.40 p.m.
Lord Eatwell: My Lords, I wish to address an issue which has been referred to by my noble friends Lady David and Lady Platt and which is of vital importance to the economic efficiency of the investment in education; namely, the systematic bias which the Government operate against some of the poorest but most committed students in Britain—those who study part-time. Part-time students are people who, while typically holding down a full-time job, and often running a family too, nonetheless find the time, the energy and the enthusiasm to pursue degree courses. In doing so they demonstrate remarkable qualities of drive and dedication to self-improvement.
In the current economic climate we are all aware that resources are scarce and it is vital that we use our limited resources to greatest effect. The distinguished economist, Professor Robin Marris, has studied the comparative costs to the economy of full-time and part-time degree courses. Taking into account wastage rates and the true economic cost of full-time students, Professor Marris found that the rate of return on investment in part-time degrees was three times higher than investment in full-time degrees. I shall be grateful if in her reply the Minister will give the Department of Education's current estimates of the comparative costs of part-time and full-time degrees—and yet, despite that higher rate of return, the Department of Education persists in penalising students who take up part-time education.
First, unlike full-time students, part-time students are not eligible for the mandatory means-tested maintenance grants. Secondly, part-time students are not eligible for the student loan scheme. It seems quite bizarre that the Government are willing to make loans on advantageous terms to students whose earning capacity is hypothetical but are unwilling to make loans to students who are in work to help them cover the costs of their courses. Thirdly, part-time students are the only British undergraduates who are forced to pay tuition fees themselves. The average first degree course will cost the student £2,000 in fees. And let us remember that these are students who are receiving no help with their maintenance, no help with the purchase of books and no help with their travel expenses to get to their lectures; and on top of that they must pay tuition fees out of taxed income. I shall be grateful if the Minister will explain that extraordinary anomaly.
Why, for example, should a 30 year-old single mother, working as a laboratory assistant, who is now in the second year of a BSc course in chemistry, have to pay fees? Why should a 30 year-old, producing first-class work in a French degree course and paying her way by temping, have to pay fees? Why should a 24 year-old shop assistant, who is in his first year of a

1477
degree in mathematics, statistics and computing, have to pay fees? Why should they pay fees when younger students, on identical full-time courses, pay no fees?
Instead of encouraging investment in education the Government penalise those who are willing to make the greatest personal commitment, sacrificing leisure and time with their families and covering their own maintenance. I am sure that in her reply the Minister will not claim credit for the growing numbers in part-time education, for she must know that those numbers are growing in spite of her department's efforts, not because of them.
Instead, I shall be grateful if the Minister will tell the House the department's current estimate of the number of students who are discouraged from taking up part-time degree courses because fees are charged. Will she also tell the House whether the department has studied the impact of the cost of part-time courses on the drop-out rate from those courses, since any drop-out imposes a net economic loss not only on the individual but on the national economy too?
I welcome the fact that her department has decided that the slow-down in the expansion of full-time numbers should not apply to part-time places. However, is the Minister aware that the HEFCE has just allocated £180 million in tuition compensation to full-time places, with only, by my estimate, a miserable £10 million to support part-time places?
Finally, will the Minister now commit herself to a full study of the costs and benefits of part-time degree courses so that investment choices may in future be made on a more rational basis? On the one hand, it is not surprising that a Government who believe that the waste of skills and talents of more than 3 million unemployed is a price well worth paying should produce an education policy which is so clearly economically inefficient; on the other hand, it is difficult to understand why the Government are unwilling to make a commitment to an investment in which the rate of return is so high—the investment in part-time students.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Moyne: My Lords, I am conscious of a great boldness in addressing the House as a part of this excellent and very instructive debate with my own exiguous qualification of a second-class degree at Oxford. But I believe that we should get back to the original Motion as proposed. We are talking about people from low-income families going to university. It seems to me important to devote a minute or two to considering what people from low-income families should go to university. The noble Lord, Lord Walton, spoke of the 15 per cent. who are the top most clever people in the country and then of the 25 per cent. who come under those.
I have little sympathy for the idea that people from the next 25 per cent. should necessarily go to university. In fact, I believe that it should be the cleverest people, whatever level of income they come from. Nobody should go to university because he is from a humble background or from any other
1478
background; he should go because he is clever. It has been proved over the years that the best way to select people from all levels is by examination.
I have found an interesting quotation in a magazine called the New Socialist from two years ago in which it is said:
"Every child should have the chance to have an education equal to that in the best school".
In the strict sense that is a circular argument because it is saying that the worst school should equal the best, and there will always be differences between schools. But one sees what the writer is getting at—that is to say, that as far as possible there should be a level playing field.
From the time of the Butler Education Act until the 1960s I believe that there was, roughly speaking, a level playing field. No playing field is ever more than roughly level, but it was so because the state education system then provided the same system and the same criteria for education as the private sector. True as it always was that from a low-income family one was less likely to go to university, nevertheless, there was the chance. It was regular and it was always present. If someone from a state school was really clever he could compete on equal terms.
Unfortunately, it appears that the educational ethos that existed then in the state sector has more or less collapsed. Noble Lords will no doubt have received, as I did, a briefing from the National Union of Students for this debate. There are some interesting things in the briefing. The author could not spell the word "inaugurate".
Unfortunately, with the way the state sector has developed under the trendy educationists in the education department, it is not possible to select people from there on examination grounds. Therefore, I join with noble Lords opposite in believing that examination can no longer be the criterion, and will no longer be able to be the criterion, until there has been a radical reform of the state education system and a return to the good academic standards that existed before. Academic teaching must return to the state system and then we shall get the right people from low-income backgrounds and, I hope, the right people from all backgrounds.
4.50 p.m.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, for initiating this debate because it has enabled us to put very firmly on the record the disproportion in the number of students from the working class going into higher education. She said that something like two-thirds of university students are from social classes 1 and 2. Those figures are disgraceful, and it is useful to have them on the record now because in years to come they will acquire a veneer of respectability as the former polytechnic students graduate and the figures are diluted.
Soon after I was elected to another place in the early 1970s I was asked to speak to my local chamber of commerce and to discuss youth unemployment with its members. I spoke to them for a little while and we had a chat. At the end I said to them, "You are

1479
worried about youth unemployment, but what you are really worried about is that if a lot of young people are out of work there will be social unrest leading to instability". They admitted that that was a great deal of their concern.
During the last election I heard a radio phone-in programme in which the right honourable Kenneth Clarke was answering questions. He said one thing that I have thought about ever since. He asked why a lorry driver should pay tax so that somebody could be trained to be a solicitor. I am sure that if someone ran a Fabian summer school or held a teach-in, one could provide a perfectly satisfactory answer to that question; but to a working chap who is fed up, having just finished his shift, an easy answer does not immediately spring to mind. I think that the educational establishment has got the wind up because it has been rumbled.
The noble Baroness, Lady Park, said that where there is no cultural tradition of doing so students from poor families are not entering higher education. We all know that students tend to be the children of people who have graduated. That whole ethos is part of a society in which the skills of numeracy and literacy are given far too much prominence. In fact, I sometimes used to think that the whole of our education system was geared to producing a handful of people to go to Oxford or Cambridge.
There are other skills of which there is no family tradition but for which the working class shows an equal, if not better, aptitude than other classes. I spoke in a previous debate about the way in which children can now master video machines and computers whereas a number of Members of your Lordships' House would be totally at sea with them. Let us take another modern skill of which there is no family tradition such as driving a car. No insurance policy is weighted against somebody because they happen to come from a particular social class. I sometimes wonder just how some professors of moral theology would manage to back an articulated lorry into a space where there is about a foot of clearance on either side. We are talking about particular skills only.
Some time ago I wearied your Lordships with an example from my early work in another place. The local Labour council in Bristol decided to abolish free places in direct-grant grammar schools, and there was an uproar. It was said that Labour was taking away from working-class children the opportunity to go to direct-grant grammar schools. I got so fed up with this that I got the figures from the education authority. Over a five-year period, 92 primary schools in Bristol were eligible to enter children for free places at direct-grant grammar schools. I found that 56 per cent. of those places went to five primary schools. Some noble Lords know Bristol, so when I say that those five schools included Westbury, Westbury Park and Stoke Bishop, they will know that working-class children did not even have a look in. The other 87 primary schools took up fewer than half of the free places available, yet that was the great opportunity for working-class children. It is nonsense.
1480
The education establishment must examine itself seriously. I do not think that it is any coincidence that over half the speakers listed for this debate have been to either Oxford or Cambridge. What a pressure group to have operating on one's behalf. I do not make a party point here. I remember when my noble friend the Member for Chesterfield (I mean my right honourable friend—that was a Freudian slip) was chairman of the Labour Party's home policy committee. More people from Oxford than from Wales and more people from Cambridge than from the entire area of Scotland were co-opted onto its committees.
This debate is really an easing of the conscience on the part of the establishment. It is time that we woke up to what has been going on and to the way in which our working-class children have been treated. It is no good blaming the Government. The academic establishment must look at itself.
4.55 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, on her persistence in trying to get this debate onto the Order Paper. I am delighted that she has succeeded. I am delighted also that she has drawn attention to the problems of students from low-income families. It is my contention that those students are at a disadvantage not only in terms of entry into universities but also in terms of their chances of getting a good degree when they get there.
When I contemplate a little wearily waiting for a reply to another education debate, I remember a story—I assure your Lordships that it is not apocryphal—about a debate that took place in Durban about 100 years ago on the question of whether the earth was flat. The speaker for the Flat Earth Society was its chairman, equipped with a large staff and deploying masses of figures to prove that in spite of all the appearances to the contrary the earth really was flat. The speaker on the other side was a sea captain whose only argument was that he knew that the earth was round because he had sailed around it. When the votes of the audience came to be counted, there was an overwhelming majority for the proposition that the earth was flat. But that did not actually make the earth flat.
Today we have had a veritable fleet of sea captains, with the noble Baroness, Lady Park, in the capacity of admiral. On 17th February we had an equal fleet of sea captains, with my noble friend Lord Addington in the capacity of admiral. Despite the unanimous agreement from everyone who knew about it that there was a real problem, we heard the Government reply that the system was working well. I should like to know how they know. What gives them the authority to state that everybody with any practical experience of the subject is wrong? What entitles them to dismiss experience? It begins to look as if it is becoming an item of government policy to say, "They're all out of step but our Johnny". The Government seem to rely on figures. It is of course possible that all the practical experience is wrong and that the figures are right, but it is not, I think,

1481
inherently probable. I should have thought that if all of us collectively have got it wrong that would indicate a change in the public mood so great that it ought to worry the Government a great deal more than if we were right.
I also wonder whether the party of Disraeli is altogether wise to take it as axiomatic that the statistics are right and the experience is wrong. The Government's statistics are also vitiated by the Rayner principle that they should collect statistics only of what they want to know. Of course, the Government do not usually want to know any inconvenient things, so the Rayner principle in government statistics has become a Pangloss' charter.
On 17th February, the Minister relied on the argument that many students had not taken up loans. As the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, explained, that is because many of them prefer to take jobs, but the Government do not know anything about students taking jobs. They do not want to know. So they do not have the information, and they cannot assess it.
The Minister has taken a relaxed attitude towards students taking jobs. She said that they are free to take jobs if they wish to do so. Prima facie, the Minister is in error, because some 20 per cent. of universities have rules that students should not take jobs. What is compatible with an academic education is a matter of academic judgment, not to be undertaken by the ministry. Before the Minister starts to consider overruling powers exercised under statutes and charters, she might take legal advice on the judgment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bingham, the Master of the Rolls, in the case of Regina v. The Disciplinary Committee of the Jockey Club on 20th December last. The Minister also said that the comparison with income support was invalid because students were expected to contribute to the cost of their own support. Was she talking just about the loan, or was she admitting that the basic level of student support is inadequate?
5.1 p.m.
Lord Judd: My Lords, those of us who know the noble Baroness, Lady Park, are aware that the debate is no fleeting interest. In her commitment to higher education and to her students as people, not just as statistics, her record is outstanding. What she and others have said today provides good examples of mature political reflection at its best.
Higher education is critically relevant to democracy. It enhances the capacity of citizens to contribute constructively and analytically to debate. We need rich resources of experience and wisdom if good political, economic and social judgments are to be made. Our future prosperity depends upon the added value of our economic life. That requires the maximum development of talent and accessibility of education at all levels throughout life.
It is difficult to exaggerate the damage to efficiency that violent stop-go policies inflict upon dedicated teachers and administrators. The latest sudden stop last autumn, with the draconian 30 per cent. cut in money paid to universities for classroom-based teaching, mainly arts and social sciences, played havoc
1482
when applications for entry in October 1993 were already rising sharply and arrangements to meet that were advanced. A consequential special victim has been the much respected Goldsmiths' College in London.
Perhaps the Minister could explain that policy of increasing starvation of the arts in higher education. I hope that she realises that there are real fears lest Huxley's Brave New World is being moved to the non-fiction shelves. The cuts have also meant that the franchising of the initial stages of higher education courses to local further education institutions has become much less feasible. There is likely to be a reduction—in some areas a total loss—of access to foundation courses as introductions to higher education. Yet those are exactly the courses which open up higher education to lower income families and ethnic minorities which, for financial, personal and cultural reasons, are less likely to be able to travel.
Expansion means greater numbers; improved access however means opening up the opportunities to a wider cross-section of society. That does not mean changed admission standards, but the removal of deterrent barriers. Those include inadequate or inappropriately drafted information to prospective students; too much emphasis on A-levels as the route to higher education; the academic/vocational divide resulting from tests at 14; and the lack of adequate financial support arrangements.
The loan system is clearly a major deterrent to potential students from poor families. The financial difficulties faced by students discourage those with few family resources behind them. The findings of the recent survey by the CVCP are significant: drop-out rates have increased disturbingly; there is growing pressure on the totally misnamed access funds—hardship funds for students who have already gained access—with a falling percentage of successful applicants and diminishing amounts awarded; 6 per cent. of students are in debt to their university, quite apart from large numbers in debt to their banks or to the loan scheme.
Despite the Prime Minister's romantic notion of a classless society, as we have heard today the stark reality is that the manual working class represents 57 per cent. of the population but provides only 25 per cent. of the higher education students. Those statistics are a challenge to us all.
Postgraduates are a special national asset. It is sadly short sighted to question spending on basic research because of the lack of a direct link between that and wealth creation. Furthermore, the many successful postgraduate students of today are the higher education teachers of tomorrow. Higher education is possible only if there are teachers. I gather that the Universities' Statistical Record calculates that the number of academic staff aged 35 to 54 increased from 58 per cent. to 70 per cent. in the 1980s, while those under 35 fell from 29 per cent. to 15 per cent. over the same period. Will the Minister assure us that that danger signal has registered and inform us what remedial action she plans to take?
As the debate has made clear, there is widespread recognition that the UK's strategic future into the next

1483
century is very much dependent upon an imaginative, viable and widely accessible system of higher education. Brandon Gough, chairman of Coopers and Lybrand, and chairman designate of the Higher Education Funding Council, has already opened the debate on how that might be funded, with his initial ideas on how employers, as well as students, might play their part.
The CVCP is clear about immediate needs: for access funds to be increased in line with expanding student numbers rather than the rate of inflation; reinstatement of the cost-effective housing benefit; a full review of all student support, including postgraduates and part-time students. We also need to ask why a college like Birkbeck, with its unique role in access, has been penalised in the recent funding allocations for the year ahead, and why the LSE, of which I am proud to be a governor, with its outstanding research grading, should have been similarly penalised when it is devoted to qualitative viability as distinct from the quantitative hardware of the United Kingdom. We should look at President Clinton's imaginative scheme for at least some students to finance their higher education by national social service; and we must evaluate the graduate tax schemes, as operated elsewhere, with repayment linked through subsequent income.
The Minister is jealous of her reputation for action. Here is an opportunity to build a national consensus on urgent measures: the desire for that has been well demonstrated today across the House as a whole.
5.7 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, I too am grateful to my noble friend Lady Park of Monmouth for allowing us to return to the subject of higher education. This is the third time in just a month that we have addressed this subject. I do not suggest by that that the subject is not important nor that the anxieties expressed by noble Lords are any the less important. What I am saying is that it will be impossible for me not to repeat what I have said in the Chamber and in letters to noble Lords following previous debates.
Today's Motion has focused on participation by students from low-income families and on postgraduate students. Particular concerns have been expressed about the adequacy of support for those students and for part-time students. Let me start by saying something about participation by those groups in recent years, for there is no evidence that, overall, lack of support has deterred participation.
Contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has just said, more students from lower income families are participating in higher education than ever before. The number of students entering universities from low-income groups has increased by 32 per cent. since 1979.
The growth in part-time and postgraduate students has been even more dramatic. The number of part-time undergraduate students has increased by 65 per cent. since 1979. The total number of postgraduate
1484
students has risen by 108 per cent. over the same period. The number of part-time postgraduate students has increased by nearly 300 per cent.
Some noble Lords do not agree with me, but I believe our arrangements for the financial support of students have contributed to the widening of access for young people to higher education.
The great strength of the current arrangements is their flexibility to meet individual circumstances. First, there is the means-tested grant, with a range of supplementary allowances, for those with additional needs. Those include disabled students, students with dependants, and mature students. Some students in vulnerable groups have retained their eligibility for benefits.
We have made access funds available for the minority of students in particular financial difficulty. It is true to say that per head of students disproportionate access funds are made available to postgraduate students. Some are anxious about the way in which the funds have sometimes been distributed. My noble friend Lady Young mentioned that. I deplore examples of bad practice as much as anyone else. The funds are an important part of the system. They are intended to target help where it is most needed and the Government look to universities and colleges to ensure that that intention is met. But we will not go on tolerating the laggedness of local authorities to make available grants to students when they qualify. I know that when students take up their courses that is a sensitive time of year.
We are not deaf to criticism. Clearly is it important to know how, where and to what extent particular needs, even hardship, occur and are met. We need to test our support arrangements against students' needs and circumstances across the country. My department is currently undertaking a survey of students' income and expenditure. We shall look carefully at the findings later in the year. I take exception to what was said by the noble Earl, Lord Russell; that we research only those issues about which we want to know. We want to know the mismatch between the funds made available to students and the degree to which they provide for their needs while they are at university. That is what we shall look for in the research now taking place.
I turn to postgraduate students: the second theme of the debate. It is not the Government's policy that every student accepted for a postgraduate course should receive support from public funds. That must be so if public expenditure is to be kept under control and the burden on taxpayers is to remain reasonable. The main channels of public funding are the five research councils to students in the physical and social sciences, the British Academy to students in the humanities and the Department for Education and the other education departments in respect of a variety of subjects, including art and design. In addition, local education authorities may make discretionary awards. The Department of Employment funds some 2,500 postgraduates each year under its High Technology National Training Programme. There is also considerable support for students from business and commerce.

1485
The number and levels of award are set by each award-making body based on its judgment of the future need for researchers or others trained to postgraduate level within their field. The research councils, for example, offer different levels of award according to their perceptions of recruitment needs in different fields.
Anxiety has been expressed about whether there will continue to be enough students coming through to the highest levels to meet the future needs for highly qualified people, in particular for university staff. Here, all the signs are good. The number of full-time university postgraduates has increased by more than 60 per cent. since 1980. Demand for postgraduate awards is very high with steep competition for most awards. The award-making bodies keep under review the likely future demand and supply so as to ensure that we produce enough students educated to the highest levels to meet all our future needs. The grants which are given by the research councils are not awarded on the basis of means for students; they relate to their qualification to study.
It is true that postgraduate students receive less than their peers who have chosen to enter employment. But postgraduate awards are not intended to equate to salaries; they are treated as scholarships and are tax free. Older students and those with additional responsibilities may receive additional allowances. Thus, although the minimum award from the largest award-making body—the Science and Engineering Research Council—was £4,450 for a student outside London, on average students also received an additional £1,000 in allowances. Students in London received a further £1,000. Many postgraduate research students supplement their awards with earnings from part-time teaching, gaining valuable experience in the process. Others receive top-up sponsorship from companies which have an interest in their area of research. That diversity of funding is welcome.
Perhaps I may now address some of the points made in the debate. My noble friend Lady Park referred to the privatisation of the British Technology Group. The group has a strong remit to develop discoveries made in our higher education institutions and the CVCP is represented on its governing body. My noble friend referred also to the stop-go policy, as did my noble friend Lady Young. My noble friend Lady Park called us to task for the decision for a pause in the growth of higher education. The universities and colleges have performed spectacularly in expanding higher education. More than 28 per cent. of young people are now participating. My right honourable friend's decision to maintain that level reflected views expressed to him by some vice-chancellors who welcomed the opportunity to take a breath.
My noble friend also referred to the humanities being at risk, as did other noble Lords. It was said that the recent announcement of a reduction in tuition fees for classroom-based subjects would damage the humanities. That is to misunderstand the position. Tuition fees constitute only a part of public funding for higher education. The greater part comes from the
1486
funding councils through block grant, which has been increased to provide full compensation for the adjustment in fee levels. The reduction in fees for classroom-based courses will affect only recruitment in excess of planned numbers. I can assure my noble friend and others who expressed the anxiety that we have no intention of damaging the humanities.
My noble friend referred to the length of the degree course. It is not the Government's policy to reduce the length of the degree course. Our policy is that the average length of course should not increase. That can be achieved partly by an increase in the number of diploma courses for those not suited to the full degree. The inescapable fact is that, within the public funds available, the shorter the average length of course the more students can benefit from higher education.
I was interested in my noble friend's suggestion that capital grants should be made for libraries and study space. A committee chaired by Professor Sir Brian Follett is currently looking at all aspects of library provision in higher education. I am sure that the committee will also look at that possibility before reporting to the Higher Education Funding Council. Reference was also made by my noble friend to reviewing the postgraduate situation. The research councils have machinery which keeps levels of their postgraduate awards under review. Maintenance grants are revised each year. However, as regards scientific manpower, including postgraduate studies, the situation will be reviewed in the forthcoming White Paper on science and technology. I have no doubt that we will give considerable time to debating that.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, referred to falling academic standards. I do not know why the noble Lord claimed that the standard of the British degree is falling. The fact is that the proportion of first-class and upper second-class degrees awarded increased steadily throughout the 1980s. My noble friend Lady Young referred to the cost to higher education institutions of administering the loan scheme. Higher education institutions certify students' eligibility for loans. They are awarded £4 for each correctly completed certificate. It is our view that that should meet the costs of an efficient institution, bearing in mind the increasing level of take-up.
The noble Lord, Lord Annan, referred to the research assessment exercise as being too costly and too onerous. Assessment is essential to enable research funding to be targeted on departments which provide the highest quality. The Higher Education Funding Council's research assessment exercise was not an exercise in number crunching; it involved subjective judgments by academics of their peers. The council will consider its approach to the next exercise in the light of information from institutions on costs. The funding council is considering the need to take steps to ensure that administrative burdens are kept to a necessary minimum.
My noble friend Lady Perry was worried about students being intimidated by the thought of long-term debt. I admit that we have much work to do in that respect. The loan which is made available to young people is reasonable. It does not begin to

1487
qualify for repayment until the April following the end of the course. There is no requirement on the part of any postgraduate to repay the loan until he or she is earning at or above £13,560, which is 85 per cent. of the national average wage at present. That is index rated every year. If a graduate does not reach that level of income for 25 years or reaches the age of 50 during the time that the grant repayment has been deferred, whichever comes first, the loan is written off. That is not onerous but I accept that we still have a long way to go to make sure that young people find it preferable to take the loans on more generous terms than borrowing from banks or building societies.
My noble friend Lady Perry mentioned a graduate tax. I know that she suggested that a graduate tax would enable student numbers to expand faster. However, under the present arrangements the Government remain committed to expansion of higher education. As my noble friend Lady Young pointed out, entrants to higher education have risen from one-in-eight in 1979 to one-in-four now, and that will reach one-in-three by the end of the decade.
My noble friend said that replacing loans by a graduate tax would be an easier way to pay. That is fraught with difficulties which have been well discussed. I shall take back what my noble friend said to my right honourable friend. However, the difficulty about a graduate tax is that it would not distinguish between those graduates who receive public support from their higher education institution and those who do not. A system that did distinguish in that way would be administratively complex. On the other hand, a loan relates only to those young people who make use of the facility and it gives the student a choice of how much to borrow. Indeed, I omitted to say earlier that the repayment may be over five years or even longer if it is related to a longer course.
My noble friend Lord Beloff referred to the HEFC being run by accountants. That is not true. The council carries out much of its business in close co-operation with universities and colleges. Indeed, its chief executive is a former vice-chancellor. Its new chairman has had a close association with the City University and has been a member of the Council for Industry and Higher Education since 1985.
My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter said that loans will not save public expenditure. I am reliably informed that in due course it is expected to make considerable savings for the taxpayer. I understand that those savings should reach over £200 million per year.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, perhaps my noble friend will forgive me. I did not say that it would eliminate public expenditure. I said that there would be no early relief to public expenditure. Surely that is the case?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. However, there will be savings when the scheme comes to full fruition.
My noble friend Lady Perry claimed that we are reverting to a system of central planning. I do not believe that that is the case. The funding system is
1488
essentially the same as it was before the adjustment in tuition fees. The decision on who to recruit and in what subjects still rests with the universities. We value the autonomy of institutions and their academic freedom. I agree with my noble friend Lady Perry that we should nurture the market place which we have created.
My noble friend Lord Chilver asked us to encourage the universities to be more flexible in their entry requirements. Under legislation passed in this House, universities are entirely free to determine their own entry requirements. Many, particularly the new universities, are already showing that flexibility. However, the new GNVQ, to which many noble Lords have referred, will provide a vocational route for entry into higher education which is an alternative to the traditional A-Level route. However, I join with the noble Lord, Lord Cocks, in saying that it must be for the universities to consider the possibility of wider access to their institutions.
My noble friend Lady Platt referred to women's participation. That is an important point to be made. She has expressed concern about the proportion of women in higher education. We have now achieved parity in the student population. The proportion of women full-time students rose from 41 per cent. in 1979 to 48 per cent. in 1991. We cannot change the position among academic staff overnight, as my noble friend will realise. However, I believe that as the present generation of students provides the next generation of academic staff, we shall achieve better representation of women at all levels in higher education.
My noble friend Lady Platt referred also to mature students. For the second year in succession in 1991 more mature students than young students began higher education courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. The proportion of mature undergraduate students increased from 43 per cent. in 1979 to 49 per cent. in 1991.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, was concerned about declining funds for higher education. More funds than ever before are being provided through funding council grants and tuition fees. The funds for 1993–94 are 7 per cent. up on the previous year after increases of 10 per cent. in each of the previous three years. That is generous, especially given the present pressures on public spending.
The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, was concerned about part-time students and said that funding is inadequate. Demand for part-time higher education study is buoyant. Part-time students can apply for discretionary grants. They may also qualify for social security benefits although many are in employment and can support themselves. I cannot give the specific figures for which the noble Lord asked but I shall write to him.
Lord Eatwell: My Lords—
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am sorry that I cannot give way but I have no time. This is an almost impossible task. I am trying to reply to a debate which has had many speakers and I am trying to cover all the points raised.

1489
My noble friend Lord Selsdon referred to capital funding for universities. He said that universities and colleges should look to private sources to meet some of their needs. That is already happening. Many universities have been expanding their sources of private funds for many years. We believe that that will continue. In addition, we have recently relaxed the controls on private borrowing by colleges and universities. For the first time they are able to use exchequer-funded assets as security when raising loans.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, said that he wanted better information. The Government's Higher Education Charter will encourage universities to improve the information made available to students.
I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I stress the positive aspects of our higher education system. Record numbers of students are being educated in our universities and colleges. The number of home students has increased by over 80 per cent. since 1979 and they are achieving better results than ever before. We have more students in this country successfully completing their higher education courses than any other country. Our system of student support remains one of the most generous in Europe. Of course, a minority of students suffer hardship, I do not deny that. However, the virtue of our system is its flexibility to respond to the range of different needs. Access funds in particular can and should be used specifically to respond to individual needs. The combined grant and loan system provides a firm and fair foundation for our students to undertake study. Full year support from grant and loan is nearly 40 per cent. higher than grant alone three years ago.
We could never undertake to provide financial support for everyone who chooses to take a postgraduate course. However, government funds are available from research councils and other sources. In 1991–92 the number of awards was the second highest ever. As I said, those awards are not given on a means-tested basis. I thank my noble friend Lady Park for giving us the opportunity to return to this extremely important subject.
5.26 p.m.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the care she has taken in the reply to the debate. I did not expect any immediate commitments and I was not disappointed. I am especially happy and grateful that so many noble Lords made such valuable and lively contributions to a worthwhile debate. I thank the CVCP to which I am indebted for the useful survey it conducted among universities and for its unfailing readiness to provide facts and figures. I thank the other bodies who sent me useful information.
I should like to make two brief points.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Strabolgi): My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness, but the time allotted for this debated has now elapsed. Does the noble Baroness wish to withdraw the Motion?
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
1490
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Crime
5.28 p.m.
Lord Gisborough Lord Gisborough rose to call attention to the rising crime figures and to the case for additional support for the courts and the police to deal with crime; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the police have been faced with an appalling problem caused by the uncontrollable, violent and sadistic behaviour of a small, hard core group of young people with whom they have inadequate powers to deal. All that the police can do is give warning after warning: the youths boast that the police can do nothing to them. Like anything else in life they become used to offending and one crime leads to a worse crime as they strain against non-existent authority. They provoke the police, taking up a position from the sunshine roofs of vehicles they have stolen and throwing rocks at police cars. Even dangerous youngsters who rape and use drugs have had to be released because of their age. They are then free to commit serious offences while on remand. No wonder the police and the criminals' victims feel frustrated! Many of these youngsters may well have disastrous backgrounds. But they should have been brought up in their tracks at a much earlier age.
In days gone by when a youngster offended he received immediate punishment from either a policeman or a parent, who were respected for taking such action. There may well have been cases of injustice but at least the young knew where they were. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" may now be an unfashionable saying, but it was not totally without merit. Over the past few weeks the Government have taken various actions to try to deal with juvenile offenders. It is high time they did so. The secure training orders will at least keep some of them off the streets for a while but the success of the scheme depends on the success of their reformation while in custody. That is the only thing that will stop them re-offending. Therefore the length of their sentences should suit their need for education and rehabilitation as much as, if not more than, the severity of their crime.
I understand there are only 200 places in secure accommodation. There are 150 hard core youngsters in my county alone. Many more places will need to be provided and staff of adequate calibre will also need to be found. Surely old army barracks would be ideal as a quick and temporary measure of accommodation. They could be managed perhaps by recently retired Guards NCOs with their known qualities of discipline, training and above all leadership.
One cause of public anger is that juveniles cannot be identified and the protection of anonymity is now extended to those aged under 18 rather than to those aged under 17. The right to anonymity has prompted people to ask, "How do we know who to watch out for? We do not even know if the cases are going to court". Frustration has created a trend whereby

1491
people take the law into their own hands. Known criminals and families with problem children have been attacked and forced out of their communities. There have been a number of reported cases of revenge attacks such as the case of Ronald Penrose, a regular thief, who was himself beaten to death by an enraged mob. His son was taken off and beaten elsewhere.
We are witnessing an expression of anger at inadequate policing and justice which is leading to the formation of vigilante groups. In some high crime housing estates volunteers are patrolling at night and are indeed reducing the crime rate on those estates. For those unwilling to become special constables, perhaps there should be reformed the aptly named Home Guard to provide the voluntary wardens with a degree of control and a degree of authority.
In the countryside youths sortie out to do unlimited damage to property and wildlife. They have no respect for person or property and offer violence to anyone trying to protect themselves. To try to arrest someone invites the risk of personal assault, or of being arrested oneself. I caught one young vandal red-handed and took him a mile to the police station. I asked the police to tell him to desist from his activities. About an hour later the police sergeant came to inform me that the parents of the boy had been dissuaded from prosecuting me for arresting the boy. Furthermore the police did not even dare to arrest the boy themselves. How can a boy grow up with any respect for the law if he knows that he can do what he likes with impunity?
Many people now carry knives and police officers are among those who get stabbed. But no one can now be stopped and searched just on suspicion. The police are frustrated by the restrictions and by the increasing complexity of the law under which they have to work as well as by inadequate resources to tackle crime. There have been some very few but very highly publicised cases of the distortion of evidence. That has done immense damage to the whole police force whose evidence is now suspect. It has resulted in the raising of the standard of proof to a point that is difficult to achieve, thus giving an enormous advantage to the defence. Defence can now demand so much more proof that many cases are simply not taken to court. The pendulum in favour of the offender has swung too far, even to the extent of the police having to disclose the names of informers. It must be reversed, but in turn every single member of the police must realise how scrupulously honest and careful he must be in the presentation of his evidence. If we are to crack crime, we must give the police the powers they need and we must be prepared to forgo, at least for a period, some of the niceties of civil liberties.
Once brought to court, the unit fine system introduced by the 1991 Act is proving in practice to be grossly unfair. Unemployed people, along with those who claim to have little income, are receiving derisory, small financial penalties. It is too easy for the well versed criminal to understate his income and he knows he will get away with it. Those who honestly admit that they are in work receive huge fines for the same
1492
offence. The vicious treatment of those who are in work will bring hatred and disrespect for the law and just penalise the diligent. Meanwhile, raising the maximum penalties has had no effect whatever in reducing crime. Before unit fines were introduced each court had a tariff as a guide, but these varied even between adjacent courts. The Home Office should lay down a tariff guide for the whole country and then leave it to the good sense of the magistrates to apply tariffs to each very different circumstance and locality. Fining can never be equal for all as no two cases are the same, but the magistrate or judge hearing the case is as likely as some social scholar in the Home Office to get it somewhere near right.
There has been an ever increasing movement over the years to stop corporal punishment on the argument that it breeds more violence. No one can condone the sadistic beating of children, but where young thugs break in and beat up an old lady in her own house, are they really likely to become even more violent? Some form of physical punishment is the only thing that some of these young thugs are likely to respect, whether it is a punishment drill, runs up a mountain, or the cane. It may make them heroes but that does not mean they want the punishment repeated. Physical punishment is over quickly and avoids all the well known disadvantages and the cost of detention.
Similarly, I am absolutely convinced that there must be the ultimate deterrent of the cane in school. It should be seldom used but it must be there as a last resort; for example, for persistent violence against other children.
Many cases before the courts expose dreadful cases of hardship. There is no money in the family; just illness and disability. Great sympathy is felt by magistrates for the distressing family situation, yet punishment has to be given for what are understandable human failings. It is always difficult to award people, already unable to manage on their social security benefit, fines that are adequate to deal with the offence. I give an example. Many people, usually women, are charged with having no TV licence and would usually be fined eight units. Under the Home Office rules, a girl earning £160 a week, or £4 per hour, would have to pay some £288, and clearly she has to devote earnings of 72 hours of her work towards paying the fine. That is presumably what the Home Office considered to be fair. However, lots of these offending girls are unemployed single parents with no skill and no chance of getting a job. They cannot manage on their income support and so take a chance with their licence.
Under the unit fine system they may only have to pay £30. That encourages them to save the £85 needed for the licence. Back again in court for the same offence they soon build up a long catalogue of fines which, along with the cost of now buying a licence and the inability anyhow to manage on their income in the first place, forces them either to starve themselves and the child, go and steal, or leave the child unattended and go out on the street on the game. I ask noble Lords what other alternative they have. All alternatives lead either to further crime and court

1493
appearances or to the NHS hospital. A way could be found to enable the unemployed girl to earn money by doing piecework in her home, without leaving the children, for the appropriate number of hours—like her sister who can work in her job—to pay the fine. This is not community service. It has nothing to do with community service. It is piecework rewarded with a cheque valid to pay the fine. A system of this kind, all the details of which have been worked out and given to the Home Office would reduce the number of people coming into court for repeat offences simply due to their inability to earn the money to pay their fines. It would give some hope to those in financial despair, without excusing them their penalties.
One of the problems singular to this country within Europe is that under 18 year-olds are allowed to gamble in amusement arcades. This soon becomes a habit and then an addiction for which only theft will provide the finance to continue. A study published last year showed slot machine gambling to be reaching epidemic proportions. Youngsters will steal to find the money in order to play the machines. Slot machines should be illegal for under age children as is the case in so many other countries.
It does not make sense to me that television companies can claim that advertising makes people buy goods and then say that portrayal of violence does not have a similar influence. I believe that the senses of youngsters, and of the not so young, are dulled, distorted and depraved by what they see on television and video nasties, by sex, violence and animal abuse, and in particular by dreadful pornography. We should stop pretending that children are all in bed by 9 o'clock. The law must be severely tightened up and the laws of arrest widened.
Peer pressure is important. For a youngster to stay in his group he has to comply with the norm. It may be a matter of wearing the same type of trainers, he may have to commit the same or a greater crime to stay in his group. Equally, peer pressure works the other way. The Americans have set up teen courts where, subject to safeguards, the young are tried by other teenagers. That has met with remarkable success. It is a project worth copying experimentally, but the Home Office has already rejected it. Presumably it is too innovative.
Peer pressure also applies to parents. It is therefore perhaps time for parents to be named in order to bring peer pressure on them to control their children. Since October the courts have had tougher powers to deal with juveniles and involve their parents. It is probably only peer pressure that can ever reduce the rate of illegitimacy or the cults of drugs, glue-sniffing and drink. That leads back to the matter of stigma so thoughtfully discussed in the past by my noble friend Lord Joseph.
The tendency to commit crime starts early, due to family background and upbringing. Therefore, the answer to law and order lies much deeper than in the courts. It involves such matters as one-parent families, child abuse, latch-key children, truancy, boredom—perhaps national community service would help here—education, unemployment, positive love, care and discipline both at home and at school, disciplined
1494
apprenticeship, and attitudes and example by parents and peers, along with better detection, home security, high-tech credit card authorisation, control of drugs and drink and a real fear of being caught and punished.
A whole range of positive actions is already in place: research into truancy, probation, intermediate treatment, and charities such as Divert. All deserve every support. That is where the effort must be directed to stop youngsters starting on the road to crime in the first place. Any improvement will take generations, as problem parents lead to problem children. However, attitudes are changing, even in the Home Office, and over the past few weeks action has begun. May it continue. I beg to move for Papers.
5.42 p.m.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: My Lords, I am not sure that I can follow the noble Lord as to the support which he suggests should be given to the courts, but I have no time to pursue that matter. I shall limit myself as regards "support for the courts" and shall concentrate on juvenile crime.
The noble Earl has listened patiently over the years to those of us who have urged the Government to concentrate their resources on that area. There is now a whole raft of additional support which could be given to those operating the Children Act and the Criminal Justice Acts, to which I shall refer in a moment.
Nothing winkles out the real worth of a politician more quickly than holding the office of Home Secretary. Within weeks Mr. Clarke had given a knee-jerk reaction to some much-publicised juvenile offending, when perhaps bending that limb might have been a more appropriate stance. He proposed the creation of yet another type of closed institution for 12 to 15 year-old children—secure training centres—so characteristically and revealingly described as locking up persistent, nasty little juveniles.
What would a modicum of modesty and inquiry have revealed to Mr. Clarke on arrival at the Home Office? First, he would have found a mass of research in the form of Green Papers and White Papers published over 10 years, culminating in complex new legislation. Secondly, he would have found a distinct and clear philosophy governing the treatment of juveniles, backed by a dedicated body of professional and voluntary workers in the field, with three other government departments intimately involved. Thirdly, such inquiry would have revealed certain undeniable facts: a reduction of 35 per cent. in juvenile crime by males in the past five years, 43 per cent. of those aged between 10 and 13; a 50 per cent. reduction in the number of those held in custody; a 50 per cent. fall in indictable offences by that age group; an 80 per cent. fall in motor car offences. Only 10 per cent. of those offences involved violence, and only 1.5 per cent. involved sex. Yet 70 per cent. to 80 per cent. of those leaving prison service custody re-offend within two years. Mr. Clarke would have found a commitment to abolish prison remands for 15 and 16 year-olds when sufficient secure places had become available.

1495
That is a success story involving a real reduction in juvenile crime based largely on the provision to the courts of intense, supervised activity schemes in the community. The new Home Secretary would surely have wanted to pay tribute to his predecessors, Mr. Hurd and John Patten, and to the noble Earl and the enlightened staff in the Home Office.
He would also have found a mass of research and reports produced over the past 10 years on the outcome of detention of juveniles in closed institutions, approved schools, community homes, community homes with education, detention centres and young offender institutions. That research identified such institutions with 75 per cent. to 85 per cent. reconviction rates, abuse, bullying, contamination, suicides, and low levels of professional skill. That is an expensive way of making bad people worse, as Mr. Hurd described it.
With that evidence of failure and success, there could surely be but one policy for the new Home Secretary: support for the courts to build on what had been so laboriously and successfully achieved. If funds were available he should provide national availability of bail support schemes and ring-fenced central funding of supervised activity schemes. He should provide a national network of secure units and there should be a statutory duty to make provision for them. He should safeguard specialist rehabilitation centres and residential homes such as Peper Harow, and voluntary youth organisations, and stop the present haemorrhage of those homes due to lack of funds. He should provide hostel and transitional accommodation. He should establish nationally local consultation committees and local agencies to identify and target young offenders in each area and provide proper training for the staff.
However, all we have is confrontation. That is the Government's favourite stance. Every nationally known children's organisation from Barnardos to Save the Children is in total opposition to the proposal.
On what evidence are these penal institutions justified? What is the cost? Why has persistence rather than seriousness now become the criterion? Under-14s can attract a residential requirement in secure accommodation. If they are beyond control they can be taken into care until 18 years of age. The over-14s are subject to Section 53, with detention up to 12 months. What evidence is there that those units have failed?
This is an idea borne of ignorance and arrogance, mere posturing to an unnecessarily fearful public. It will do nothing but increase once again the re-offending of juveniles.
5.50 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, for raising this topical and important question. The causes of crime, the assessment of crime statistics and the nature of what the courts require are all complicated subjects. I should like to start therefore with a plea that this
1496
complexity should be recognised and that those who venture into this area should be humble enough to advance their opinions with some caution.
It is a subject which has been plagued by what I call an either/or approach. It is held that either the individual is to blame or that environmental and social factors are to blame. We hear that either people should be punished or they should be rehabilitated. The truth, surely, is that each of those aspects is important and needs to be taken seriously. No one should feel that to recognise the inherent tendency in each one of us towards weakness and evil, as well as good, somehow means that we should not recognise the role of parenting or of conditioning through the media and through the surrounding physical and spiritual circumstances, or through a host of other causes which may influence people for good or evil. Individual contributions from public figures, including Church leaders, may highlight particular aspects. But surely a polarised debate is of little help.
If the causes of crime are complex, then so also is the matter of sentencing. There is no one approach which has all the answers. We need a multifaceted pluralism of experimentation drawing on the skills and enthusiasms of a wide range of statutory and voluntary organisations and volunteers. We still have a great deal to learn about what kind of punishment, treatment or resource would be right for different offenders. We surely need the energetic commitment not only of the Government and statutory agencies at different levels but also from voluntary organisations including the Churches. One insight which has surely emerged from recent debate is that we are all in this matter together. We must share responsibility for finding a way forward.
Last week I read a report of a probation officer working in Leeds. He analysed possible reasons for the high level of crime on a particular housing estate. At the end he commented that although crime levels were high, the vast majority of the population of the housing estate were law-abiding citizens. No analysis in the end can determine why in two apparently identical sets of circumstances one person becomes a criminal and another does not. I believe that whatever causes there may be for criminal activity the element of personal responsibility for our actions remains. It is that matter which I wish to address today.
More than 15 years ago, I visited a bail hostel in Leeds run by a single individual. He belonged to a local church but was not part of any organisation. He rented a couple of houses in Chapeltown. He appeared in court, in particular when West Indian boys were before the magistrate. He offered to take responsibility for their reappearance in court and took them back to his unofficial bail hostel. When he had the youngsters back there, he would say to them, "You only have one life. Why are you throwing it away? Aren't you fit for something better?" It was an attempt to bring home to youngsters their own personal responsibility for what they had been doing. I regarded it as heroic work. Because it was unofficial, no analysis was made of its effectiveness. Nevertheless, it was an attempt to bring

1497
home to offenders their own responsibility for what had happened and the possibility of a changed pattern of behaviour.
Recently I visited a probation hostel, again in Leeds, supported by the Ripon Diocesan Council for Social Aid. The warden told me of a similar attempt in which he was engaged to bring home to youngsters the personal responsibility that they held for their offence. He gave me some details of the procedure which was followed. He spoke of offence analysis. That encourages an offender to look at what led up to the offence; to consider the consequences for other people; to understand the results of his or her action; and to consider what opportunities the offender had to alter the course of action. Other factors are then considered, such as relationships, peer pressure—to which the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, referred—drink/drug abuse, how far the act of offending was within the offender's control, identifying why he was at risk, and attempting to create possible ways of reducing risk. Obviously such work depends on personal relationships. However, given that good relationships can be developed with offenders it is possible to confront those who offend with their behaviour patterns and lifestyle. They should understand that they are in control of their own lives, that they are responsible, and that offences do not simply happen; they happen because the offenders determine that they shall.
I refer briefly to the work of the Leeds Mediation and Reparation Service. It was set up on a firm basis and supported by the Home Office. It is one of four pieces of experimental work undertaken throughout the country in the 1980s. It involves bringing together both victim and offender with the intention that the offender shall realise the personal nature of his or her offence; and the victim is given some chance to explain to the offender just what the consequences were. Some research has been undertaken on reparation. I give your Lordships one set of figures only. The Leeds analysis shows that of offenders who were involved in reparation some 76 per cent. had no further convictions after 12 months and 57 per cent. had no further convictions after two years. Those figures contrast fairly sharply with figures for further convictions which the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, gave earlier.
There seems to be some experience, based on a philosophy of understanding the importance of personal responsibility, that that factor is able to bring down offending levels. In the light of that experience, I ask the Minister whether there is any intention to continue that reparation scheme. Are the Government considering putting further resources into that area of experimentation?
I end by reiterating the point that I made earlier. Clearly the situation is grave and tragic. It requires insight from a great many of us if we are to make progress and improvement.
5.56 p.m.
Lord Knights: My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, for giving us the opportunity to discuss what is one of our major domestic problems today.
As the House will be well aware, the problem of crime and its containment has been regarded traditionally in this country as primarily one to be addressed by the police and the courts. Indeed, when the first paid, professional police officers stepped out onto the streets of London in 1829 they were told that:
"The protection of life and property, the preservation of public tranquillity and the absence of crime would alone prove whether the objects for which police have been appointed have been attained".
Government merely shared with local authorities the responsibility for providing the necessary resources.
It follows from that that increased levels of crime could be held to indicate either that the police were inefficient or that the sentencing policies of the courts were too liberal or lenient—a view which I believe is still held by many today.
Such critics tend to overlook, however, that throughout the 19th century, and to a large extent the first 40 years of this century, the police and the courts were supported in their role by a raft of other social controls such as religion, custom, gossip, family relationships, public respect and "what the neighbours think", to name but a few. To a great extent those have disappeared as a consequence of the social revolution that we have undergone since the Second World War. I believe that that factor has contributed to our current problem more than unemployment or social deprivation.
I suggest that this is our first and major question. What can be done to reinforce some of the old, moral and ethical values? In that connection, I believe that the Church must have a role to play, as indeed must the schools. I accept entirely, of course, that schools should not be expected to take over the responsibility of parents. However, sadly, there are too many parents today not sufficiently skilled in the business of bringing up children. That is another problem which needs addressing. Clearly it is the young whom we must target if there is to be any long-term effect on the volume of crime in our society.
In recent years of course the old traditions to which I referred have given way to the belief that government should be more than simply a quartermaster and should be actively involved in devising crime prevention strategies. It is here that I believe we meet our second question. In seeking to respond to the pressures brought on by the higher political profile which crime has now achieved, I believe that the Government have not recognised sufficiently the part which local authorities can and should play in the matter. The answers are far more likely to be found, in my submission, in the communities where the crime is being committed than in Whitehall.
Some local authorities, I know, have responded very well, but not all. Perhaps the Minister could tell us today why the Government are so reluctant to impose a statutory role on local authorities to develop comprehensive strategic policies in a real partnership

1499
with all other relevant bodies, designed to tackle in a structured way the identified crime problems in their areas. From the evidence of what has been achieved in other areas in this way, often led by voluntary organisations, clearly that is the way ahead. They are under a statutory requirement to deal with road safety; why not safety from crime also? I believe that the question, "What are you doing about it?" would often be much better addressed to the town hall than to Whitehall and would be much more likely to achieve results.
Finally, perhaps I may return to the first point of the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough. I believe that a good many police officers today would say that the Home Secretary's recent Statement about juvenile criminals was addressed to the wrong problem. Of course there is a need for a form of secure sentence for a very few young criminals. But the feature which most worries the public today, particularly victims of crime, I believe, is the way in which some young criminals can continue to commit crime while on remand to an extent which makes the criminal justice system look ridiculous. Could the noble Earl tell us when we are likely to see the first additional secure places for juveniles on remand which were promised two years ago? That may not have a great effect on the level of crime in our communities but it will at least begin to give some satisfaction and confidence to the victims of it.
6.2 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the Motion moved with such machine-gun efficiency by my noble friend draws attention to the rising crime figures and does so just as everyone's attention is fixed on a handful of horrific crimes committed by children. Many members of the public therefore believe that the number of juvenile offenders is on the increase. It is not. I wish to draw your Lordships' attention to the dramatic fact that between 1980 and 1990 the number of juveniles cautioned or convicted for indictable offences actually fell by no narrow margin but by no less than 37 per cent. Between 1985 and 1991, the fall was 40 per cent. These figures are provided by the police; the figures are for offenders, not offences. They bring me into brief and, I have to say, unaccustomed agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington. It will not, I fear, last long.
When so many voices are saying that nothing ever works, it is important to point 'out that in this area of crime something does work and we are doing it. As the Government were Conservative for the whole of that period, I hope that mine is not the only Conservative voice to draw attention to that conspicuous achievement and to urge Her Majesty's Government to acknowledge and build on it.
When the Conservatives came to power in 1979, the country was at least as despondent about crime and the failure to control it as it is now, and with reason. The 1970s had seen a disenchantment with imprisonment or custody as the main response to offending by young people. In its place there was developing a range of responses which, being
1500
intermediate between fines and custody, came to be called "intermediate treatment", but which we now know better as "treatment in the community".
To their credit, in spite of electoral and media pressure simply to step up the punitive treatments, my colleagues then at the Department of Health and Social Security and the Home Office embraced that policy. The experiment of my noble friend Lord Whitelaw with the short sharp shock in 1992 did not diminish the drive towards intermediate treatment in the DHSS where, under Norman Fowler, I first encountered it, was convinced of its efficiency and gave it my support. Six months later, at the Home Office, I found that, even with the short sharp shock in full swing, my noble friend Lord Whitelaw as Home Secretary had accepted as an amendment to a criminal justice Bill in Parliament a clause which prohibited the courts from sentencing any young offender to custody until they had considered and rejected every possible lesser sentence.
It was the development of rigorous, demanding and closely supervised community sentences, largely from a clientele provided by that measure that dramatically reduced not just juvenile custody but juvenile offending, as the noble Lord, Lord Knights, perceptively reminded noble Lords, with more authority than I can ever command.
Of course, there is a problem with both some serious and some frequent juvenile offenders, but that is only 1 per cent. of the problem. Never forget the 99 per cent. and never forget that, apart from that measure of my noble friend and one by his successor directing the courts away from custody, the only really successful part of our whole response to crime was led by the DHSS, was applied to juveniles and was responsible for a reduction of indictable juvenile offending by 40 per cent. We cannot afford not to learn that lesson. It suggests that the increase of support is needed more here than even by the courts or the police. Here I diverge, with a sigh of not intellectual but emotional relief, from the line of the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington. The sensation of agreeing with him is so unfamiliar as to make me feel uncomfortable in his company.
We cannot ignore that much of that success depended upon the voluntary sector. Central funding reached it by a variety of routes and among the most effective was the Intermediate Treatment Fund, of which I have personal knowledge as chairman. To it, the DHSS—the DH as it now is—formerly devoted £500,000. That grant, I regret to tell your Lordships, was terminated and I came straight to the House from the final closing meeting of the fund this afternoon.
I gladly acknowledge the DH grant to its successor body, the Divert Trust, which I also chair, but that is just under £95,000. A generous £100,000 from the Football Trust leaves £310,000 to be found from other sources just to restore the work to its former level. It is heartening that the Home Office has come in with its own grant of £95,000, to extend this highly effective work up the age range to young adults. Just think of the impact on the quality of British life of the 37 per cent. reduction of their offending.

1501
The Home Office partnership programme is full of promise in that direction. But to replicate in that area our work for juveniles would mean finding another £400,000 from charitable giving, on top of the £310,000 which I have already mentioned. So far, we have raised just £22,000 to meet the combined and urgent need.
Fund raising continues, but it is simply not realistic to expect us to find all that is needed on our own, when demands on charitable funding are rocketing and more and more companies are reporting depressing results.
Will my noble friend therefore please ask his colleagues in the Department of Health and in his own department to do two things? Will they give cogent support to our approaches for funds to business, industry and to other government departments which we can assist, such as education, the environment and the Welsh Office? It is in that direction, I repeat, rather than that of the police or the courts that the money is needed. Will the Government please start seriously considering whether, in 1994–95 and subsequent years, they can make a substantially greater commitment of the electorate's money to this proven, effective and economical means of achieving something which that electorate desperately wants and will vote for—the reduction of crime?
6.8 p.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: Crime, my Lords, has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished. But, when I read that the country is becoming engulfed in a tidal wave of crime and similar pieces of hyperbole, it seems to me that it is time to pause. We keep being told, without any qualification, that crime has doubled in the past 10 years. That is broadly what the police figures of reported crime suggest. But, for reasons that we have discussed in the past, the alarmist police figures are far from giving an accurate picture. The British crime surveys come a lot closer to what is going on. Last year's survey—the results of which are just becoming available—suggests that the increase over the 10 years, although bad enough, was about half that shown by the police figures. The disparity for crimes of violence was even greater, and that in a total which, by international standards, was really quite modest.
The police learn of only some of the crimes committed. The proportion varies but it is safe to say that considerably less than 50 per cent. end up as recorded crimes. Of that minority the police solved only 29 per cent. last year, so that for the great majority of crimes the perpetrator is not known. Perhaps it makes it easier to bear, that we do not see many headlines recording the facts to which attention has been drawn by the noble Lords, Lord Hutchinson, and Lord Elton, in regard to the decline in juvenile delinquency.
I can understand the frustrations which the police feel and the risks they now face of violent attack. But they have had fairly large increases in resources in the past 10 years and have always headed the queue for pay increases. Whether those resources are used to the best advantage will be a matter for argument. Long
1502
experience suggests that it is not, alas, justifiable to believe that to provide more police means less crime—just like that. Equally, although there may be a case for more powers for the courts —but not, I submit, for corporal punishment—it is essential to go carefully given the strong relation between custody and subsequent criminal behaviour.
In my career I have been involved with approved schools, borstal, detention centres, corrective training, preventive detention and so forth, without its being established that any single one of them helped to reduce crime. The latest proposals to deal with a small hard core of persistent offenders—though obviously from what we heard tonight not entirely free from controversy—coupled with the gradual impact of treatment in the community and the recent Children Act, may have a better fate. But I am in no doubt that, whatever is done in regard to the powers and resources of the police and the courts, that of itself will not go near to solving the problem. As the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, said, it is much more complicated than that.
It seems to me that the prospects of progress involve restoring hope to many who feel despair and frustration; inculcating a greater sense of right and wrong among the young; trying in some measure to restore family values; reducing the impact of violence in films and television, and trying to counter the increasing coarseness of our culture —easy to list, but hard to achieve. The achievement of dealing with that problem is going well beyond the responsibilities of those in the front line—the police and courts; it is a responsibility which rests on us all.
6.13 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Gisborough for providing me with an opportunity to comment on four points on juvenile crime made by the Home Secretary in the Statement in another place and in your Lordships House on 2nd March 1993. First, the Home Secretary spoke of his concern about the apparent lack of powers for the courts to deal with the worst of young offenders. I can only say that I have received letters from magistrates in that regard. I do not have time to quote them but I will let my noble friend the Minister have them later if that would be of help.
Secondly, the Home Secretary said,
"We [the Government], must also take other measures to tackle the problem on a broader front".—[Official Report, 2/3/93; col. 560.]
On that point I suggest that there is a diminution of support services and preventive measures at the grass roots. The youth service is being diminished; the grant for intermediate treatment, as so vividly described by my noble friend Lord Elton, ceased on this day; community training centres by NACRO have closed down, and in some areas youth training schemes are ineffective. The Department for Education, and to a lesser degree the Department of Health, and local authorities have allowed independent private schools run by charities, which deal with maladjusted delinquent children, to close. That is a serious matter. But at long last the serious situation of non-attendance in school is being dealt with in the

1503
Education Bill. I should say also that the social security system gives little help to young people who have no homes and are sleeping on the streets.
The Home Secretary suggested, thirdly, that there should be a secure training order for 12 to 15 year-olds, who will be sent to secure training centres. The secure training order will be different from anything that has ever been provided before—think of that, my Lords! Fourthly, the cost is estimated to be £10 million.
On those four points research has shown that persistent young child offenders are numerically small. The major problem lies with the 15 to 17 year-olds, not the 12 to 15 year-olds. That has been so for the past 20 years. How will the secure training order for 12 to 15 year-olds differ from the approved school order, the Borstals or the short sharp shock? The approved schools provided education, care and training. Home Office research and the research of the Dartington Research Unit shows that half the boys were back in custody after one year of discharge and two-thirds after two years. Relationships with their families after discharge were minimal. They lost contact with their homes and communities.
Does the Home Secretary realise that at the moment there are vacancies—yes, vacancies—at Glenthorne and St. Charles Youth Training Centres? I should point out that the cost is £2,700 per child per week. That was stated in the The Times of 3rd March. I agree that there should be secure units to which a child or young person can be sent. I agree with other noble Lords that they should be run by local authorities on a regional basis, using present community centres and intermediate treatment centres for the children who are showing improvement to go out to. Such centres should not number more than 25 and should be run as locally as possible.
At the conference of the Association of Chief Officers of Probation in 1992, a year ago, the then Home Secretary said that he had been exploring what more could be done to tackle crime at its roots. He concluded by saying that there was,
"a need to offer young people drifting into crime an alternative set of values. The need to offer personal enrichment to the young; to teach them how to deal with life; and above all, to instil a sense of responsibility and community".
The sudden change of attitude on the part of the Home Secretary and the Home Office is alarming. Without consideration of past experience, the findings of research and the possibility of building on the good work already being done, as stated by my noble friend Lord Elton, both by the probation service, the social services and voluntary organisations, the idea of spending £10 million more is extraordinary. The voluntary organisations and the present excellent schemes that are running could do with that £10 million.
Finally, and perhaps most important, I ask my noble friend whether his right honourable friend the Home Secretary will consider presenting at least a Green Paper, to which thoughtful response could be made, on the prevention of and dealing with juvenile crime. At most, and even better, will he consider
1504
setting up a Royal Commission to look at the social policies of this country, preventive measures and at the needs of young offenders, their families and the communities?
6.20 p.m.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, I propose to focus my brief observations on the Criminal Justice Act 1991, which came into force in October of last year and which is greatly diminishing public confidence in the administration of criminal justice by seriously reducing a court's ability to protect the public from the persistent offender, both young and old. It is neither a pleasure nor a satisfaction to say to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, "I told you so". It is not a pleasure or a satisfaction usually to say that, but particularly in his case because I sensed—although of course he did not say so—that he largely agreed with the criticisms which I sought to voice on those sections to which I will draw attention.
In August of last year, a few months before the Act came into force, there was a case in the Court of Appeal Criminal Division in which in the first half of 1991 the appellant managed to commit a total of 61 offences of dishonesty. The substantive offences for which he appeared before the trial judge included five burglaries, seven cases of taking somebody else's motor car without consent and one of escape from custody. He asked for no fewer than 42 other offences to be taken into consideration. They included another 10 burglaries and another 10 offences of taking other people's cars.
He was, in the view of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division, very properly and rightly sentenced to three years' detention but the learned judge, giving the judgment of the court, observed that it was a sobering reflection that after 1st October—that is when the 1991 Act came into force—it was going to be extremely difficult to deal with persistent offenders of that kind in a sensible and realistic way. That was because of two or three provisions in the Act upon which the Government insisted.
The first, in Section 1 (2), prevents the court, when considering whether a person should go into custody, considering more than the offence before it and one other offence associated with that offence. The other offence associated with it is defined as being an offence in which he is convicted in the proceedings or in which he is sentenced at the same time, or it is an offence which is taken into consideration.
The persistent offender who is brought before the courts on the basis of a specimen charge as, for instance, in the case of social security frauds or persistent dishonesty as an employee, may be charged with £5 or £10 as a specimen charge, when there are many many other charges which are part of the system. He cannot be sentenced for those charges. The offences which are taken into consideration are limited to one.
Section 29(1) of the Act provides:
"An offence shall not be regarded as more serious for the purposes of any provision of this Part by reason of any previous convictions of the offender or any failure of his to respond to previous sentences."

1505
That means, as the Lord Chief Justice observed recently in the case of Regina v. Bexley, that,
"familiar sentencing remarks before the Act such as 'You have a long history of committing offences of this kind', or 'You have been given every chance, fines, probation, community service, and here you are again', will no longer be appropriate. They would be statutorily irrelevant as indicators of seriousness in the instant offence. So much is clear from section 29(1)."
It is interesting to see how within the department itself there is a strange form of contradiction. Your Lordships may remember that ugly Act called the Aggravated Vehicle-Taking Act. There was a case called Regina v. Bird which came before the Court of Appeal Criminal Division last October. It was a terrible case of most dangerous driving, resulting in the end in some injury. The Act provides for a maximum of two years, or five years if there is injury done in the course of the taking. This was such a case: the sentence was 15 months. That occurred two or three months before the 1992 Act came into force and 15 months was a perfectly proper sentence. Once the 1992 Act came into force the maximum was one year, so the Home Office is providing legislation which provides up to five years for a juvenile for this type of offence, at the same time, in a subsequent Act, reducing it to 12 months.
I conclude only with this observation. I do not wish it to be thought at all that, as a member of the judiciary, I am seeking more and longer terms of imprisonment. I very much regret that "exceptional circumstances" have now to be found for the suspended sentence to be imposed. There are articles in learned journals, pointing out that this will result in more and more persons being sent to prison because the sentence of suspended imprisonment was very much resorted to. And very effective it was too. I therefore urge the Minster to bring back this Act for necessary amendment with all possible speed.
6.27 p.m.
Lord Bethell: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Gisborough is to be congratulated on having introduced so eloquently a matter of such importance and topicality. It is only a few weeks since your Lordships had the chance to debate in this House the question of police co-operation among the countries of the European Community: the new organisation known as Europol. I should like to begin these brief remarks by asking my noble friend the Minister whether there is anything further that he can add to what he said on that occasion about the development of Europol, whether any progress is being made in finding a permanent site for it and whether anything has been done to work out the extent of its activity and the type of crime that this sort of police co-operation will address.
I should at the outset confess that I have an interest in this in that I am a parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation of England and Wales. But I think that all your Lordships, and indeed the people I also represent in the European Parliament, will be particularly worried at this time about the question of crime and of young offenders which was emphasised by the noble Lord who introduced this debate.
1506
People are worried also about the capacity of our criminal justice system to ensure that the perpetrators of serious crime have every chance of being caught and, when they are caught, of being convicted and suitably punished. It means that it is now in the offender's interest not to concentrate on committing one type of offence. I believe the previous speaker raised this point, with very great acumen. Because of recent legislation it happens that offenders may move from one type of crime to another type of crime—for instance, from burglary to dishonesty to violence against the person—and previous convictions, unless they are for the same type of offence, may not be taken into consideration by the person passing sentence. The criminal knows this and knows that he will be more leniently dealt with if he is astute and if he, so to speak, moves his type of offence from one to the other. That cannot be common sense. I hope that your Lordships will consider whether the legislation should be looked at again because, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, pointed out, the situation has only just arisen.
The unit fines system has not got off to a very good start. The Government were well aware a long time ago that this aspect of the Criminal Justice Act would attract the attention of the media. It seems that it has burst like a bombshell upon certain sections of the media, with a number of individuals who have been unfortunate enough to be caught and to be shown to have high incomes having the very large fines that they have had to pay splashed across the press. This may be an important question but it is surely far less important than the question of those who have committed very serious offences who are now fined very small amounts.
I know of a case of a man who admitted stealing more than £20 to spend on drinking alcohol before being arrested for criminal damage amounting to £5,000, as well as drunken driving and assaulting the police. He was fined a sum which was less than that which he had spent on the drink which had put him in the deplorable condition. That cannot be a sensible system.
The Police Federation welcomes the Home Secretary's decision that persistent young offenders who have had the benefit of every opportunity to reform should face a custodial sentence during which they will receive education and training. Moreover, the police are unanimous in condemning the present system by which young offenders who need to be remanded to the care of a local authority are placed in children's homes where they are forced to associate with children who have not committed offences and who are in care for family reasons. Again it seems that the victim of society is suffering at the expense of the person who offends against society. The truth is, as the police know full well, that in many cases youngsters sentenced to a stay in one of these homes abscond at the first opportunity. There have been cases where young offenders have hopped out of the social worker's car on the first occasion that it stopped at a traffic light.
I know that this matter is of the utmost importance to your Lordships and that the Government are having great difficulty in tackling it. Clearly, the public

1507
are deeply concerned. I believe that my noble friend Lord Gisborough raised some important issues and had some interesting suggestions about how the question of young offenders should be tackled. I beg the Minister to take them seriously and to indicate, either this evening or at a future date, how he will tackle this question which is causing the British public so much grievous concern.
6.33 p.m.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, for raising this matter today and enabling me to speak solely on the persistent young offender. I do so by reference to a seminar that was held at Cumberland Lodge only two days after the Home Secretary's announcement and was attended by 34 participants who all had expertise and experience in this subject. They ranged from chief constable to magistrates and criminologists. They included the noble Baronesses, Lady Faithfull and Lady Hilton of Eggardon, and indeed would have included the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, only unfortunately she was otherwise engaged. It was a very knowledgeable group of people and they came to some conclusions which I should like to give to the House.
I shall repeat what the House, I suppose, knows—that the Home Secretary wished the courts to have a new power to make a secure training order in respect of juveniles aged 12 to 15, subject to certain conditions, and to establish new secure training centres in which such young people could be detained for periods of between six months and two years, with a period of close supervision after release, a point that has not been sufficiently mentioned. The Home Secretary's proposals were fresh in the minds of the 30 or so participants in the seminar. I should like to give the House the seminar's main conclusions. Quite a number of the minor conclusions very much coincide with the kind of ideas that the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, gave to the House earlier in the debate.
First, there was no evidence of a substantial increase in juvenile crime—that has been supported by what the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, said—or of more frequent and serious offending by a small number of persistent offenders, but more investigation was needed.
Secondly, the main response to juvenile crime, both to its prevention and to identified offenders, must be through the existing range of services and facilities, with a greater emphasis on improving standards and filling gaps in provision, backed by more effective co-ordination of policies and programmes at national and local level.
Thirdly, some services and facilities which had the capacity to reduce crime and criminality were being curtailed or withdrawn because of financial pressure on local authorities and others. Here I should say that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, was quite right to draw attention to the withdrawal of government facilities from the intermediate treatment fund. That is certainly a retrogressive measure. I very much hope
1508
that the Government will think again and that they will come to support it for a long term and not merely for the three years in which they have agreed to fund intermediate treatment by the organisation known as Divert while it gets private funding.
Fourthly, secure accommodation was needed for some exceptionally difficult offenders, and some expansion was needed of that secure accommodation, possibly, but not necessarily, with a power for courts to require an offender to be placed in secure accommodation.
Fifthly, the case had not been made for a new custodial sentence or new custodial institutions; and if the Government intended to proceed with their proposals they should be the subject of the widest possible consultations. It was hoped that these consultations would be conducted by the Government with an open mind and a readiness to hear the points of view expressed by the seminar and to adjust their proposals in the light of the comments received.
This debate has thrown up a large number of important comments, such as those of the noble Lord, Lord Knights, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, and many others. The conclusions and recommendations of this influential seminar —at least I hope that it is an influential seminar; it was certainly a knowledgeable seminar—will be finalised, circulated and sent not only to the Home Secretary but also to the Secretary of State for Health.
I have had time only to summarise very briefly the conclusions of the conference and to say that unanimity was reached by the large and diverse group of people who attended.
6.38 p.m.
The Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham: My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to those already expressed to the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, for providing us with this opportunity of discussing these important issues. The debate comes at a very timely moment in the midst of all kinds of allegations flying around concerning police performance, rising crime and falling detection rates. However, it is a pity that such an important topic is limited to a paltry two and a half hours.
The noble Lord hit the nail accurately on the head with the thrust of his Motion—the keyword being "support". The word "support" conjures up, especially when used in conjunction with the police, financial support; and, indeed, nearly all of the currently fashionable media hype about our beleaguered police service tells us how well paid they are. And so they should be, considering the nature of the job that they do for us all. I gather that the police now cost every taxpayer £5 per week. Well, frankly, I do not begrudge them that. I think that they have more than earned it in the face of ever-increasing violence on our streets.
But support means more than just financial. Some of your Lordships may be aware that I spend a lot of my time on foot patrol with police officers all over this country, mostly in areas of urban blight and high unemployment and often on housing estates of mind-blowing squalor where those not already

1509
engaged in crime are forced to live in daily fear of it. The squalor is everywhere and it has a profound effect on people, their minds and attitudes, and how they look at life.
I am lucky. I can go to one of these appalling estates, walk around for eight hours enjoying the protection of one or two robust, experienced, policemen, recoil in horror at what I see and then retire to my comfortable 18th century ex-rectory in Somerset. The people who have to live—if one can call it that—in those dreadful places, of which there are thousands spread all over, from the north of Scotland to the south of England, have no Somerset escape. They have no escape at all; nor do they have any hope of one. They are condemned to serve their time there as best they can, just as if a court had sentenced them to prison. They are condemned to a life of scraping by, using whatever means possible, and that often means crime.
Is it any wonder that in those circumstances some youngsters turn to crime? I believe not. If I were a young man born and raised in one of those rotten estates no doubt I would turn to crime as well. A dedicated community policeman on Tyneside once said to me, as we were walking around one of the gutted, barricaded, torched, and litter and refuse-strewn estates up there, "This is not a policing problem; it is a social problem". He was right.
Endemic unemployment and severe social deprivation are the two main reasons why otherwise decent people turn to crime. Many of the problems are of our own making; passing and approving legislation without a true idea of how it will affect people. It is against that background of social and moral deprivation that we have to examine crime and how we as a society, not just the police, can cope with it.
It is so easy to lay the blame for crime at the boots of the police. It is about time that noble Lords heard what police constables out there on our streets have to say. Their views have been expressed to me over and over again: they must be listened to. This is what they say: "We are tired of acting as nursemaids to society, expected to deal with the mess resulting from well-intentioned but misguided legislation. Do the politicians know what they are doing? The sheer amount of paperwork that modern bureaucracy demands of us every time we make an arrest is mind-boggling and acts as a major deterrent to us. Every arrest made can easily result in up to eight hours' paper and office work which takes us off the street for the entire shift and beyond. The Crown Prosecution Service is in drastic need of overhaul. They will not accept a case for prosecution unless it carries more than a 50 per cent. chance of resulting in a successful conviction. We do all the basic spade work for them and then they throw it out. Offenders for certain types of crimes such as joy riding—aggravated car theft, to use its ludicrous title—burglary, house breaking, street crime, muggings, assaults, etc., are getting younger and younger thereby falling outside the penalty of the law. All we can do is caution them. They put two fingers up at us and we release them again to offend and offend and offend. One 14 year-old boy known to have committed
1510
hundreds of offences, said 'I don't regret being a thief. These have been the best two years of my life. I'll steal while I can because I enjoy it. I am addicted to it. It feels fantastic going into a shop, taking what you want, and knowing nothing can be done to you'".
Policemen might be excused for asking themselves the question: why bother? Offenders know all these things. They know that they will probably get away with it, so they commit the crime.
We can best support the police by helping them perform their difficult and often dangerous duties by removing some of the many hindrances we ourselves have placed in their path. I have mentioned a few. We need to treat the police as part of the local community which they serve. If we lose sight of that we are in deep trouble. We do not need to make police forces larger and therefore more remote from the local community. We need to make it easier for them to bring offenders to book for their crimes by making the punishment fit the crime and by paying much more attention to crime prevention in the first place.
6.45 p.m.
Viscount Tenby: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, for introducing this timely debate. It is a very large subject of great complexity and one on which many and varied opinions are held. I speak both as a magistrate and as a member of a large police authority. But time constraints prevent my covering all but a tiny part of the field and, even so, I fear that I may have to speak quickly and with constant reference to my notes, for which I apologise to noble Lords. I am accordingly confining my remarks to two aspects of court work, save only to say to the Government in passing, in relation to the police and as a sort of sideways swipe: please think very carefully indeed before you replace the democratically-elected council members of police authorities with quangos composed of local supermarket managers, systems processors, international oil executives and the like.
The two points that I would mention are on the subject of bail and government proposals to set up secure training centres, which I welcome. The Bail Act 1976 requires courts to grant bail unless there are quite specific and compelling reasons not to do so. Magistrates are daily criticised for carrying out Government wishes in that respect, which are chiefly prompted by the lack of appropriate secure accommodation for remand prisoners and by the likelihood that, owing to the inability of the legal system to get its act together, a prisoner who eventually may well be found not guilty would have already spent a year or so under lock and key.
There is a severe shortage of bail hostel places, and what there is patchily distributed throughout the country, to say the least. Better and more generous funding arrangements should be made with councils to ensure that there is adequate secure accommodation. An additional factor contributing to this unsatisfactory position—which I am glad to report is being actively investigated by a bail issues steering group—is the lack at times of good initial information

1511
on cases coming before the Bench. That requires the setting up of a workable, rapid response system between all the concerned agencies.
As magistrates we know, just as the police know, that many crimes are committed while offenders are on bail, particularly where offences against property are concerned. There has been a valuable and interesting pilot study on the subject under independent academic control, by the Northumbria police. But almost unbelievably there has been no national initiative to examine the trends in this area of criminality.
I come now to the second point; namely, the proposals for dealing with that small nucleus of hard core juvenile offenders. Let us away with all the hand-wringing about the adverse effect of locking them up in "universities of crime". Of course punishment within the community is overwhelmingly the best option for dealing with the great majority of juvenile offenders. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, about spending priorities in promoting that very laudable objective.
In that context it seems to me that a great deal more could be done with the cautioning-plus policy so that the supporting services interview, and offer help to, the offender immediately after the first caution has been received. In that way courts will no longer be receiving, as they now do, first-time-up offenders who have already received two or three cautions at the hands of the police.
The brutal truth of the matter, however, is that in the criminal world universal redemption is pie in the sky. Some people will always re-offend, even if their prison officers are an amalgam of St. Francis of Assisi and Albert Schweitzer, and the community must be protected against them. I beg the Minister to bear in mind two points on that. First, the staffing in such establishments is of crucial importance. Discipline apart, the ethos in such places should be that of the demanding, personality-stretching boarding school. To echo the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, it may well be, for example, that the slimming-down of the Armed Forces will result in a pool of suitable senior warrant officers becoming available; after, of course, appropriate training and provided they have the necessary temperament. I would look with grave suspicion at the prospect of the local authorities controlling these establishments.
Secondly, and arising directly from this, for the initiative to stand any chance Of success I believe that our sentencing perceptions must change. The original Government Statement said:
"The order might last … two years".—[Offictal Report, 2/3/93; col. 560.]
Indeed, I hope that it might, for a three-month sentence will hardly benefit such offenders if, as I am sure we all want, the objective is to turn a no-hoper into a worthwhile member of society. For this we should surely be looking at a sentence of between one and two years.
It is essential that, this time round, we get everything right, and I would judge two years not a day too long to set up the scheme satisfactorily. But I
1512
must, ask the Minister this: "What are we to do in the intervening two years unless we tackle the secure accommodation/bail hostel shortage with the utmost vigour?"
We are living in a period of uncertainty and self-doubt. There are undeniable problems in the working of the new Criminal Justice Act, which have been referred to already in this debate, particularly by my noble and learned friend Lord Ackner. I am extremely grateful to him for dealing with that issue. The police await reorganisation and are assailed by criticism from all sides—some justified, much of it not. The magisterial service sees its independence increasingly threatened by Government and its morale is not what it once was. I must tell your Lordships that quite bluntly. The legal profession itself is under attack from the highest judge to the lowest junior. In the circumstances, can we perhaps stop congratulating ourselves on having the best legal service in the world, and instead try to make it so by our combined best endeavours?
6.51 p.m.
Earl Nelson: My Lords, I suggest that one of the best ways in which we could assist the police at present is to cut down the mountain of paperwork that they now have to complete for anything that they do. In the time that I am allowed I can draw attention to only a small number of the many problems and intend to concentrate on only two at this time. They are the disclosure of material to the defence and bureaucracy. In doing so, I shall draw your Lordships' attention to a number of horror stories from around the country and leave your Lordships and, I hope, the Government, to consider the implications of ever-increasing the burden of paperwork on the police, which I hope will demonstrate why the police are unable to do the job they want to do, and which the public want them to do, despite the great increases in manpower and resources which have already been made.
While the exercise of the right of silence has always hampered police investigations, particularly major investigations, another trend is beginning to emerge which is already having disastrous effects on the ability of the prosecution to secure successful prosecutions. The police service—particularly in the wake of a number of miscarriages of justice—states that it is happy to disclose material to the defence which is correct and relevant. However, the question of what is relevant is now being cynically abused at court-room level. Cases involving serious criminal offences are having to be discontinued as officers are not prepared to disclose information that would jeopardise the safety or confidentiality of an informant. Yet there is total acceptance in some quarters on the other side that the right of silence is used by offenders to protect others. In this case, what is sauce for the goose is certainly not sauce for the gander.
Additionally, some unscrupulous defence counsel—and there are some—are making unrealistic demands regarding unused material. Requests are also being made that necessitate unnecessary and extensive

1513
use of manpower and resources. Recently in the north-west of England detectives in a large fraud trial have been forced to release 1 million pages of material from their investigation. In a case in south Yorkshire the defence has asked for 510,000 pages of evidence. In a trial connected with the murder of P.C. Keith Blakelock it has been estimated that it will take 38 hours of printing-out time to provide the documents that the defence is requesting.
If this trend continues (and there is every indication that it will), the problem will become increasingly acute. The police service is anticipating a scenario whereby defence counsel will argue that police documentation such as computer-aided dispatch messages, Home Office major inquiry system discs and house-to-house inquiry proformas will become disclosure material, as well as police sickness records and personal files, as has already happened in at least one case. This issue is already a massive drain on resources which is set to grow, and once again it is the cynically abused adversarial system of justice which is the root cause of the problem.
It has been estimated that within the Metropolitan Police area alone at present a minimum of 65 detectives are required to do nothing but prepare disclosure material for major trials. That number could rise to 450 in a year or two if the trend continues. Incidentally, the money for all this comes from police budgets, to say nothing of the manpower that is taken up nationally in preparing all this stuff.
I turn now to bureaucracy. It is widely acknowledged that as a result of the pretrial issues working group, the amount of documentation required following arrest has significantly increased. One figure mentioned is that prior to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (which we all know as PACE) a simple matter that took one officer two hours to process is now estimated to take two officers six hours. It has been calculated that a simple arrest requires the completion of a minimum of 21 forms. Most of these requirements stem from Crown Prosecution Service demands. Noble Lords who read the press on Monday will no doubt know that as many as 68 forms are required up to conviction in some force areas.
In addition, recommendations regarding the integrity of evidence has meant that any officer, however minor his involvement in an incident, is now required to produce evidence. Although the laudable objective is to produce evidence of greater integrity, it is having the effect of removing larger and yet larger numbers of officers from the streets. In some cases it is alleged that officers are becoming more reluctant to get involved. Although it might not be a good thing to say, I say it nevertheless—"Who can blame them?"
I have said little about the extra burden placed on police by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 or by the Crown Prosecution Service—time prevents that. But these indeed serve to create further horror stories when it comes to the drain on police time and resources.
I hope that what I have been able to say today will illustrate that the ever-increasing volume of paperwork and bureaucracy engulfing the police is slowly
1514
but surely bringing the guardians of law and order to a grinding halt and that a very serious situation has already developed. I fear that that situation will get progressively worse unless radical and fundamental changes are made in the very near future to reverse this worrying and time-consuming trend to ever more accountability—because that is what it amounts to. I suggest that doing that would go a long way to provide extra support for the police, and no doubt for the courts as well, without spending more money and providing yet more resources.
6.58 p.m.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I should like to deal with two problems relating to juvenile crime. I turn first to moral standards, to which the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, referred in the Statement on 2nd March when he said:
"It is the decline of those standards which results in much of the indiscipline and criminality which we now see".— [Official Report, 2/3/93; col. 571.]
Sadly, I fear that he is right. The moral standards on many of the streets of our inner cities today are those of Fagin and the Artful Dodger. It is a question of what one can get away with, with the view being taken, "It is all right to steal as long as you don't get caught". With sentences of perhaps £8 under the unit system even after numerous cautions, the penalty for getting caught is not very great.
Many young people do not seem to be conscious that stealing is an offence. Perhaps I may tell your Lordships about a small incident that occurred recently in the Stepney Children's Fund, of which I am the chairman. A young lad of 14 whom I know approached the director saying, "Bob, I know that the fund is short of money. I've got a lorry with 4,000 plastic gnomes. If you can find me an outlet for them, the Stepney Children's Fund can have 50 per cent. of the proceeds". That is a reputable charity. If any of your Lordships is looking for plastic gnomes—
Is the Minister satisfied that the national curriculum and the new schools inspections will ensure that all children are given a good grounding in citizenship and responsible parenting? If not, will he support the introduction of a mandatory course in citizenship within the national curriculum? There is no greater unkindness to any child than to fail to teach him or her the limits of acceptable behaviour.
I wish to turn to the subject of prevention. In January this year NACRO published a report on juvenile crime. It expressed reservations about the Government's proposals for new secure units but unreserved enthusiasm for the various schemes which exist for diverting young people from crime. The report said:
"It is of the greatest importance that such young people (that is, persistent juvenile offenders) and their families should receive effective, timely intervention of a kind likely to divert those young people from crime".
It continues:
"Effective measures to prevent youth crime are more likely to reduce offending by juveniles than any number of alterations in the powers of courts to sentence young offenders".
Such schemes can be cost-effective. Well-run befriending schemes are showing rates of reoffending

1515
within two years of less than 20 per cent. as against 80 per cent. of reoffending by young people who have not been through such schemes. That is an improvement of 60 per cent. Often it is the first time those young people have experienced kindness and encouragement from adults. I am chairman of a befriending scheme at Toynbee Hall. Our cost per young person is about £1,000 for six months of intensive befriending with follow-up for the next two years. Only half of that is funded by the taxpayer through the Safer Cities project. The cost therefore to the taxpayer is only £500 per child befriended. That should be set against the cost of a custodial sentence, which is between £1,500 and £2,700 per week (£140,000 a year).
Your Lordships may think that it would be obvious to the Government that such prevention is better for the young people concerned, and for the Exchequer, than letting things fester until there is need for custodial sentences. Alas, not so! The Government are cutting back, or allowing funds to be withdrawn from many proven crime prevention schemes. Perhaps I may give some examples. Over the next two years, through the closing down of the Safer Cities project the borough of Tower Hamlets will lose £250,000; through the ending of the urban programme it will lose £2.8 million; and as a result of the withdrawal of Section 11 funding it will lose £3 million. Because of SSAs, even if it wants to, the borough will be unable to increase its own expenditure to bridge that gap and so projects will have to be closed.
I shall take another borough. In this case it is the Conservative-controlled borough of Enfield. It has suffered cuts to its youth services of 80 per cent. of its total budget for last year and this year. It lost £300,000 last year and will lose a further £370,000 this year. A spokesman at Enfield said:
"Decision makers will only understand the effects of these cuts in June when the kids are on the streets".
Together the inner London boroughs have lost 33 per cent. of their youth workers over the past two years. More cuts are in the pipeline. The Urban Aid Fund is to be cut from £240 million to £91 million over two years—a cut of 62 per cent. Out of that, voluntary agencies will lose direct grants of £60 million.
The pattern in Hull is interesting and shows the trend. The overall youth service cuts amount to 6.5 per cent., but grants to the voluntary sector are cut by 32 per cent. In many cases it is the voluntary sector which is suffering the brunt of the cuts. I have no doubt that the Minister will say that local authorities must decide on their own spending. I do not believe that that is the position in this case. The Home Office will have to spend enormous sums of the taxpayers' money on custodial sentences in the future unless small sums are spent on prevention now.
Will the Minister consider short-circuiting the local authorities and making grants direct to those voluntary organisations which can show proven success, on a pound-for-pound basis, matching voluntary and private sector funding? I am not asking for charity; I am asking for common sense. Will the
1516
Minister do a cost-benefit analysis and try to persuade the Treasury that meanness is not always the best way to save money?
7.6 p.m.
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord Gisborough for putting down today's Motion and giving us the opportunity to discuss the crucial issue of law and order that causes us so much concern these days. Let me say straight away that I believe the real answer to the problem is to reform the potential troublemaker before it is too late, and thus close the stable door before the horse has bolted. I am not against increasing police resources to maintain law and order, as my noble friend so cogently argued, but it is only a second-best option and not the real answer.
We live in a sick society. We live in a society where James Bulger, aged two, was abducted and then murdered by two 10 year-olds; a society where nearly 40 per cent. of all marriages in this country end in divorce; a society where abortion is, in effect, available on demand; where degrading pornography is rife; where violence is commonplace; and where drugs are, in some areas, the norm.
What is the cause of this malaise? The fundamental reason for the sorry state of affairs in this country is the breakdown of the family. When the family is strong, the nation is strong. When the family life of a nation is under attack, the nation is weakened. Today in Britain the family has become a prime target for attack. It is visibly crumbling.
No strong voice of protest was raised in 1979 when the Gay Liberation Front issued its manifesto saying that its aim was to destroy the family. Again, there was little reaction in 1980 when the British Humanist Association, with its view of family life as an outdated institution, boasted:
"we helped erode the religious foundations of beliefs, attitudes and morality".
Today we are experiencing the effects of that destruction and erosion as laws previously based on biblical absolutes and intended for the protection of the family have been cast aside. Old values, restraints and taboos have been swept away and new, humanistic laws voted in. Today the Department of Health gives the Terrence Higgins Trust (a sophisticated, highly articulate, homosexual organisation) substantial funding, and it has gained a marked influence on Government thinking. New permissive legislation has weakened the traditional family structure and children in particular have become vulnerable. The concept of the stable, two-parent family as the basic unit in society is fast disappearing.
I wish to say a word about where that all leads; it leads to crime among young people or youth crime. Whether the crime be theft, robbery, assault or murder, two common factors are always present: self-centredness and a lack of wisdom. First, self-centredness: crime is committed because, "I want. I want something. I want my own way. I want what you have got. I don't have it. I can't afford it. I will get it any way I can."
One early major role model for a child may well be the parent who insists on his or her own way, demands

1517
his or her own way and, when frustrated, gets it by whatever means he or she knows will work, including blackmail, threats and verbal or physical violence. Selfishness, self-centredness and an obsession with oneself can be and often are due to a fundamental insecurity and discontent with oneself; a diminished sense of personal value and self worth.
Secondly, I turn to the lack of wisdom. In the mind of the perpetrator of a crime there is always an inability or an unwillingness to consider the consequences of criminal behaviour for oneself and/or for the victim. Such consequences can be excluded from consideration by a concentration and focusing down upon only the specific desired consequence for the benefit of self. However that may be present or manifested, it betrays a basic lack of wisdom, a poverty of intelligent decision-making.
Those factors suggest that criminal tendencies can be prevented from turning into actual crime where the long-term effective befriending of children produces a combination of, first, the creation and encouragement of self worth and, secondly, the stimulation and enhancement of personal wisdom to a point where the more positively wise decision is taken at moments of peer group pressure, temptation or boredom.
There is in Britain a voluntary organisation which exists for the sole purpose of placing high-calibre, well-trained, highly skilled, full-time workers alongside young children. Workers are specifically trained to note the earliest symptoms of criminal tendency or waywardness and, at such a time, to endow with time the child at risk. Each worker is based in a local school as a befriender; as a dependable, reliable adult friend who is trained to be both proactive and reactive in establishing creative relationships with children, providing children with a trusted confidant.
The Department of Education is providing some assistance to that organisation in helping to fund its Berkshire Project during the next two years. The organisation has many supporters and encouragers both in your Lordships' House and in another place. It is called "Schools Outreach". I must declare an interest as I am chairman of the appeals committee of the charity.
The organisation is the only one of its kind in the United Kingdom and it deserves and needs much greater support. It has workers in Middlesbrough, Norwich, Birmingham, Slough, Swindon, Tipton and Redditch. The deservedly high reputation of its workers is creating interest and demand throughout the country. The only hindrance to growth and effectiveness is a lack of financial resources.
I put it to the House—indeed, I can assure the House—that Schools Outreach keeps our prisons less full than they would otherwise be and provides constructive and skilled help to those who desperately need it. Headmasters are crying out for trained workers to be put into their schools—
Noble Lords: Time!
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, I beg your pardon, I must close. I urge the Minister to spare a penny or two from his department for Schools Outreach, which will be tremendously in his debt.
7.13 p.m.
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, for initiating this debate. In the short time available I want to come at the problem from a quite different angle; one that I addressed exactly four years ago in similar circumstances.
Most people would not think of diet in the context of criminal behaviour, though they would be aware of the link with alcohol and drugs. But most people would probably not know of the increasingly persuasive research which appears to show a correlation between certain types of food or diet and deviant behaviour. The evidence has gathered force in the past four years, particularly in the field of childhood hyperactivity, and is to be found more and more in the medical journals.
The idea is not new: indeed, the newness of technological medicine, with the consequent downgrading of the role of nutrition, together with the rise of the social sciences, has tended to obscure it. I was amused to read recently an extract from the British Medical Journal of 100 years ago which began:
"One deplorable result of excessive meat eating in England is the ill-temper which is a chronic complaint among us".
Come forward 99 years, and you find the San Francisco Heart Trial and the Edinburgh Artery Survey both linking low-fat intake with lowered aggression in their subjects.
Much of the evidence centres on junk diets—refined, highly-processed food with an excess of sugar, milk and artificial additives. The problem here appears to be a lack of nutrients in terms of the vitamins and minerals needed for proper brain function, and this is often compounded by the absorption of toxic substances such as lead from a polluted environment.
There was, for example, a 24 year-old man who came before the courts in 1990, for the 14th time, with a bizarre history of offending. He always took heavy goods vehicles without the owners' consent, always between 10.30 p.m. and 3 a.m., and drove them all over the country. I am indebted for that story to the charity Natural Justice, based in Cumbria, which was able to examine the man and draw the attention of the court to his extraordinary daily pattern of eating, which involved no food before tea-time, absolutely no vegetables, and about 100 teaspoons of sugar a day. Given a probation order and a change of diet his behaviour altered out of all recognition and he did not reoffend. The extra cost of his treatment was £4 a week.
Reactive hypoglycaemia was one of this man's problems—a matter of blood-sugar levels—as it was with 68 habitually violent offenders in a study in Finland in 1986. In the more recent Shipley project, a Yorkshire policeman, with help from the National Society for Research into Allergy, looked at the individual food intolerances of a group of juvenile offenders. Some of your Lordships may have seen the outcome on a "QED" programme entitled "Little Monsters" last April. Having smashed up the mini-bus and the laboratory on their visit to London for investigation, all nine of them became reasonably

1519
docile on an altered diet with food supplements, and offences thereafter dropped markedly. The cost of their criminal damage had been something over £100,000; the cost of investigation and treatment for all of them came to £2,000 at the outside.
I could give many more examples. On the scientific side, there is the 45 per cent. reduction in anti-social behaviour recorded among prisoners in Alabama on a wholefood diet, or the 44 per cent. in Los Angeles which resulted in a city-wide ban on highly-processed foods in juvenile institutions. On the anecdotal side, there is the lad who lives near us at home who is driven literally berserk by contact with milk, sugar or wheat, and steals cars and beats up his mother.
I have found an interesting result of drawing attention to this topic to be the chord it strikes with families and the general public. But not, it seems, with the authorities. Time is, alas, too short to go into why these ideas are not picked up, or are even opposed. There was an excellent article on this in vol. 3 of the Criminologist for 1987. It has much to do with people's training and the difficulty of crossing interdisciplinary boundaries. A distinguished scientist of my acquaintance puts it down largely to the separation of two cultures: an unwillingness to accept that social behaviour can have anything other than social origins. He also points out that this is about the only truly scientific route into the causes of crime.
I also suspect that the implications for the criminal justice system, for education, the food industry and medicine are of such an order as themselves to give rise to a certain resistance among the authorities in those fields. This is understandable, but unfortunate, because I do not believe that as a society we can go on dismissing evidence which could help us in however small a way to come to grips with crime figures, whether rising or not. Of course I need hardly stress that this is just one aspect of a huge field. There is no place here for the single-issue fanatic. But I do hope that the noble Earl the Minister can persuade his department to take an open-minded look at the area of research I have tried to outline.
7.20 p.m.
The Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair: My Lords, I am also involved with the charity Schools Outreach to which the noble Lord, Lord Ashbourne referred. I am chairman of the Berkshire branch. Schools Outreach carefully selects young men and women of interesting and intelligent character to receive skilful training in one-to-one counselling of troublesome schoolchildren—those children who are potentially tomorrow's criminals.
The counsellors are not employed by the school or by parents. They are employed by Schools Outreach. That is an extremely important fact because it means that their independence from authority and officialdom gives them an opportunity to obtain the confidence of the children.
The characteristic of rebellious misfits is self-centredness. Therefore, when the counsellors are friendly and confiding, a child is likely to unburden himself. Very often the solution to the child's
1520
previously bottled-up woes can be childishly simple. I give an example. In a school in Slough was a girl who was extremely aggressive. The counsellor—a young woman—gained the girl's confidence. By careful questioning she discovered that the girl was taking things out on her parents who would send her to bed supperless. Further questioning revealed that the parents were both working and when they came home, the girl was already there. The counsellor suggested to the girl that she should be kinder to her parents because they needed to relax. The girl had not thought of that; it had not occurred to her because she was too self-centred. She then thought that that might be a good idea and acted upon it. It worked. The girl was kinder to her parents. As I said, such matters can have a childishly simple solution.
The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, spoke about exclusions from school and implied that that is a problem. Since Schools Outreach counsellors have been present in that school, in 1989–90 there were 39 exclusions, in 1990–91, 50 exclusions and in 1991–92, two exclusions. So far, in the past school year there have been two exclusions. In the same period staff turnover has reduced from 90 per cent. to nought. It is interesting that two young girls acting as counsellors have made that amount of difference in one school.
Some of your Lordships may have seen the "Panorama" programme on which it was announced that in the United States the Burger King chain has given 2 million dollars to build centres for excluded children. We should love that to happen here.
The counselling provided by Schools Outreach does not work for everyone because unfortunately, from earliest times, there has always been a small minority of people who are born bent. Until medical science can discover why that is so and what to do about it, restraint and punitive measures are essential. However, the majority of potential criminals can be changed while they are still at an impressionable school age and it is a toss up as to whether they will become good or go bad. Prevention is much cheaper than cure.
Throughout the debate there have been discussions about the cost of crime. When I was speaking about exclusions I should have said that it costs thousands of pounds to look after children who have been excluded from school. Schools Outreach works on a shoestring. I repeat that I hope that Burger King can be persuaded to give 2 million dollars in this country.
7.25 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I join with others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, for initiating the debate which has been extremely useful. Like others, I propose to deal with one issue; namely, the problem of juvenile crime. In particular I wish to discuss some of the issues raised by the policy announcement by the Home Secretary on 2nd March that he proposes to introduce a new sentence for the courts; that is, the secure training order for 12 to 15 year-olds who have been convicted of three imprisonable offences.
I wish to ask a number of questions relating to that announcement. First, what is the first date upon which

1521
the new order can be introduced? The noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, asked that question. I am sure that we should all be extremely grateful if the noble Earl were to tell us. It has been suggested that it cannot be introduced before the summer of 1995. Perhaps he will tell us whether that statement is correct.
Secondly, it is suggested that a place in one of the new institutions will cost between £1,500 and £2,000 per week. At a time when we have a borrowing requirement of £50 billion, it would be helpful were the noble Earl to tell us whether the Home Office or the Home Secretary has Treasury approval for expenditure of that order.
If it is suggested—indeed, it has been—that the current difficulties which we are facing as regards young offenders are urgent and are being caused by a very small number of young offenders, why are the Government not taking more action to stimulate the number of secure places in local authority children's homes? When the Government came into office there were 329 such places. There are now fewer than 300. It seems to me extraordinary that we are talking about the establishment and creation of a new disposal for the courts at a time when the Government have failed to provide sufficient places in local authority children's homes and have indeed, allowed the numbers to decline.
It seems that a short-term programme aimed at providing more secure places in local authority homes is far more relevant than the creation of the new order which the Home Secretary announced on 2nd March. Again, it seems odd that the new order, which will not be available for another two years, is in some way preferred to the creation of new secure places in local authority children's homes. I believe that the new order sounds suspiciously like an approved school order. That collapsed because it simply did not work.
Next, what action has the Department of Health taken since the debate which we had in July of last year on the NCH, Police Foundation and Metropolitan Police report on child runaways? It was generally accepted that there are a substantial number of runaways from a limited number of children's homes. Many of those children become sucked into criminal activity. What action has been taken since the debate in July of last year to deal with that situation?
The other question which I should like to ask the noble Earl is related because it deals with a matter which was touched on by the previous speaker; that is, the alarming increase in the number of children who are being excluded from school. It appears that a consequence of the introduction of the philosophy of the market place into our education system and the publication of league tables, which are supposed to enable parents to distinguish good schools from bad schools, is that a number of schools are keen to rid themselves as quickly as possible of their more tiresome students. It has been estimated—I do not know the basis of the calculation—that between 25,000 and 60,000 children have been excluded from school as a result of this new development. That seems to me a pretty worrying matter.
We are talking about a situation in which children are thrown out of school and as a consequence receive
1522
only six to seven hours' tuition a week. What does the noble Earl and his colleagues think is likely to happen to these children, who themselves no doubt have committed offences against school discipline? Probably a significant number of them will also get sucked into criminal activities. What precisely do Ministers intend to do about that? Is there any discussion between the Home Office, the Department of Health and the Department for Education about creating some form of co-ordinated response to the situation? The issues which we have discussed tonight have led to a great deal of public anxiety, as we are well aware. Unless there is a common policy involving those three departments, the prospects of our successfully dealing with the situation are extremely limited.
7.31 p.m.
Baroness Mallalieu: My Lords, this debate, for which we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, has seen expressions of constructive insight from all sides of the House, as well, I am bound to say, as the resurgence of some arguments on penology which Noah would have thought were outdated.
This debate is not simply one about figures or statistics. It is a debate, or it should be a debate, about the collapse of public confidence in law enforcement. Notwithstanding the juvenile crime figures, people believe—I think, rightly—that crime has risen and is continuing to rise to a point where in some areas it is out of control. The public want to see their government not just condemning, not just huffing and puffing disapproval and imposing token measures designed to give an appearance of swift and stern response to the symptoms; they want to see a government who are genuinely trying to identify the causes and trying to deal with them so as to reverse the deterioration which all of us see wherever we live, not just in our inner cities.
What people want are better and safer communities everywhere throughout Britain. As a child I would wander off alone to play in the fields and woods of Buckinghamshire for hours until darkness fell. My children could never do the same today. Some 10 years ago I would leave my car happily in any of the local station car parks secure in the knowledge that when I returned it would be intact and I could return to it in personal safety at any time of the day or night. I cannot do so today. Five years ago violence was something I read about, heard about in the courts or saw on television. In the past six months I have been a witness to violent crime three times. The final occasion was last week. That did not occur in some inner city area by night but in the English countryside on a Saturday afternoon.
Crime affects the quality of all our lives. People have a right to go about their affairs without having their houses or their cars broken into. They have a right to go about their lawful business and pleasure without being threatened, abused, attacked and assaulted. They have a right to expect the police to be given the resources, the powers and the support to protect the public and to use those powers effectively,

1523
and the courts to be given the powers to deal adequately with those who engage in anti-social conduct. Society, in short, has a duty to bring those who commit crime to justice and a duty to the victims of crime to see that the punishment that is imposed properly reflects the seriousness of that crime.
But merely punishing the criminal, even with greater and greater severity as some noble Lords have urged, does not tackle the causes of crime, nor in the long term, as this Government's record of failure in this respect has unhappily shown, does it reduce offending, or ultimately protect the public. Being tough on crime is not enough; we must also be tough on the causes of crime. So why do people commit crime? Children are not born knowing right from wrong. They learn initially by example. They learn first from their families, then from their friends, then at school and ultimately from the community around them. Where those values and principles are not communicated within the family, the result is a failure to learn the initial lesson which all too often leads on to crime.
Statistics produced by the "Who Cares?" Trust—that is a charity that helps some 75,000 children who pass through the care system—speak more graphically than any words. Some 10,000 young people aged 16 to 18 leave care each year. They form only 0.6 of the total number of young people under 18, yet 38 per cent. of those in young offender institutions have a care background and 23 per cent. of the adult prison population have been in care. It is surely plain common sense that inadequate or unsatisfactory family backgrounds, poor education, bad housing, low employment prospects and drug abuse all affect the likelihood of young people turning to crime.
A child who has no security in his family and no sense of belonging to something more than just himself, and with an unsatisfactory education, too often grows into a young person and then an adult with no stake in his community, no sense of belonging and no respect for the lives and the property of others. Through the 1980s—this is continuing into the 1990s—there was a philosophy which tended to tell us that all individuals were free in a land of enterprise and opportunity to exploit their talents in our market economy, and that the concept of society with rights and entitlements and obligations towards others was discredited or out of date. We have seen, as a result of that philosophy, the growth of a discredited, disaffected underclass of mainly young people who have no job, no loyalties and no time for the rules of a society which excludes them from its benefits.
What can be done about that now? What will not work are instant solutions based on inadequate research and lack of understanding. Condemnation without understanding is doomed to fail and it results in the sort of changes of direction that we have seen over and over again in the policies of this Government from detention centres to approved schools, and to promises that are never fulfilled of more secure places. We are now faced once again with promises of five approved school-type units. Thrashing about in this way cannot work. There must be an overall strategy
1524
which is properly researched and which includes not just the police and the courts but also the social services, schools, families and the community as a whole.
There must be more help to ensure that children do not become offenders. There must be more support for those families most in need. Could not the £10 million earmarked for the new secure places be better spent on help for nursery education in the more vulnerable areas? Policing must be strengthened within local communities, with more men and women on the beat in partnership with local people and particularly with parents. Ideally, we should all know our local policemen. There should be no "no go areas" on housing estates. Some noble Lords have mentioned those.
The 15 million offences committed last year show that cosmetic and piecemeal action has been a miserable failure. All of us know that is the case, including the noble Earl, if he is frank with this House. If this Government would make a commitment to a concerted plan which recognises that individual responsibility for crime, for which this Government are a vociferous advocate, goes hand in hand with community action, they would have our wholehearted support and also our gratitude. If they will not do so, the numbers of people who suffer the misery of being victims of crime will continue to increase and the quality of life in this country, of which we were once so proud, will become a matter of shame.
7.39 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, the House will be grateful to my noble friend Lord Gisborough for providing the opportunity to debate this important matter of crime. I found myself in sympathy with much of what my noble friend said. Your Lordships will understand that, in a debate such as this with so many speakers, I cannot deal with every point which has been made, although I have listened to them all with interest and shall continue to absorb them.
The problem of crime is enormously complex. Were there an easy solution, someone would have found it years ago. Governments as such do not create crime; nor can they, on their own, prevent it or resolve it. They react to it and try to prevent it.
In his Motion my noble friend draws the attention of the House to the "rising crime figures". What do those figures tell us? In the 12 months to the end of June 1992, the police in England and Wales recorded 5.5 million crimes. Only 5 per cent. of all crime was violent crime and, curiously, that figure has remained constant over the last 30 years. Ninety-four per cent. of crimes were against property; over half of all crime was either theft of, or from, vehicles, or burglaries. The total amount of crime was 11 per cent. more than in the previous year. But the signs are that the rate of increase is slowing down.
We know, however, that the number of recorded crimes only partially reflects the real level of crime. The British Crime Survey, which asks people directly about their own experiences of crime as victims, suggests that some of the long-term increase in

1525
recorded crime is due to the fact that more victims are now reporting crime. Victims of crimes such as rape, domestic violence and child abuse have previously been reluctant to come out in the open. Now they are more willing to do so. The Government have encouraged this. That is good, but it does—if one can put it so indecorously—"inflate" the figures.
This apparent wave of crime is not a phenomenon which is peculiar to this country. Recent international surveys confirm that, compared with other countries, England and Wales are relatively safe places in which to live. There is, in fact, a greater chance of being a victim of a robbery in Italy, Spain, the United States of America, Canada and Australia than there is in England and Wales. However, we have the highest risk of having our cars stolen. My noble friend Lord Bethell asked about Europol. I cannot give him further information on that matter at present.
Although very often it is women and the elderly who are the most frightened of crime, those most at risk of being victims of violent assault are, contrary to what one might expect, young men aged between 16 and 24. Least at risk are those over 60 and under 10.
Behind each statistic, though, lies an individual story of fear and of misery. In trying to reduce both the fear of crime and crime itself, the police have a very important part to play. Over the last decade we have therefore provided the police with substantially increased resources. The numbers of police and civilians working with them in England and Wales have increased by 31,600. Spending on the police has risen by 81 per cent. in real terms. Since 1983, some 5,700 police officers have been released for operational duties by civilianising their posts, and the Government and individual forces are continuing to look at ways of using those resources more effectively.
I should like to pay a tribute to the police for the work which they do tirelessly on behalf of the public. It is work for which they are frequently criticised and vilified but which is becoming increasingly dangerous. To those police officers who have been subjected to the most appalling violence from the public—and I have seen some of those who have—the rest of us owe a great debt of gratitude.
There are perpetually calls for more police officers, and I understand why. However, sometimes one gets the impression that some people will not be satisfied until half the population of the country is in the police force and the other half is in gaol. In whatever sphere we operate—and public life is no different—we have to operate within given parameters. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary is at present looking at all aspects of the police service in order to see whether the resources which we are putting at the disposal of the police can be better utilised.
My noble friend Lord Nelson and others referred to the burden of paperwork. I agree that excessive paperwork is terrible. The Government are as anxious as the police to ensure that the paperwork involved is only that which is necessary for justice and no more. A working party on pre-trial issues has made recommendations aimed at improving the quality of
1526
police files, reducing delays and lifting the burdens on the police where possible. However, I am not aware that there are 68 forms which have to be dealt with.
We also have to provide the courts with sufficient powers to ensure that offenders are dealt with fairly and effectively. Over the last decade we have increased the powers of the courts to deal with the most serious offences. The Criminal Justice Act 1988 introduced, for the first time, a right of appeal by the Attorney-General against excessively lenient sentences for serious offences. Maximum penalties for child cruelty, attempted rape and trafficking in drugs have been increased. The Aggravated Vehicle-Taking Act 1992 provides tough new penalties to deal with what is now known as "death-riding".
The noble Lords, Lord Hutchinson and Lord Harris, the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, and the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, as well as my noble friends Lord Knights, Lord Elton and Lady Faithfull, all referred in various ways to the recent proposals of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary to deal with that small proportion of juveniles whose persistent offending makes them a menace to their community and ruins the lives of law-abiding citizens. I agree with my noble friend Lord Elton that the number of known offenders has gone down, but the average number of offences committed by offenders has risen. I am aware that this is a controversial subject: the fact is that certain children habitually and perpetually re-offend. They have to be put in secure places to take them out of the light and to make life better for others in the community whose lives and homes they are ruining.
My noble friend Lord Knights asked about the new secure places for juveniles on remand. The Department of Health aims to have the capital programme completed and the new secure accommodation in operation by the end of 1995. My noble friend Lady Faithfull also asked about the youth service. We agree about the importance of the youth service. The Government have increased support, through the Department for Education's GEST programme, in 1993–94 by spending £4 million on new youth action schemes. We have increased support for national youth voluntary organisations to £2.8 million and have doubled support for the innovative and developmental youth projects to £400,000.
My noble friend Lord Elton also referred to funding for the intermediate treatment fund. I shall take back to my colleagues both my noble friend's welcome for Home Office funding for what is known as the Divert Trust and his wish for continuing support in raising more funds for community treatment generally.
The noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, asked about the shortage of bail hostels. The Government are providing £8 million to fund bail hostels and bail support schemes, increasing the number to 113 bail hostels this year. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, asked about runaways. I recognise the problems with regard to children who run away from residential homes. The Department of Health is planning to strengthen the guidance to staff in residential homes on dealing with returned runaways

1527
and we are planning meetings between officials and practitioners to explore in more detail the options, which could include skilled intervention and more preventive measures. I agree that progress since July has been slower than we would have wished, but it is essential that all with an interest are consulted if any new strategy is to be successful.
The Government are aware of the concerns which have been expressed about some of the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1991, particularly Sections 18 and 29. My noble friend Lord Gisborough and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, mentioned those concerns. However, I do not need to remind the House that the Act includes many provisions other than those in Sections 18 and 29. It allows longer sentences to be passed for violent and sexual offences. It gives greater meaning to the custodial sentences which are passed by the courts. All offenders will have to serve at least half their sentence in custody, and those who serve 12 months or more will continue to be supervised for a period after release. The Act introduces a tougher range of community penalties. It places a duty on parents to take responsibility for their children's behaviour, and it makes it easier for child victims to give evidence in court. The Act has been in operation only for some six months and its effects are being carefully monitored. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has said that he will re-examine the Act in the light of the information about how it is working in practice.
We also need to reduce the possibility that offenders will re-offend. Community and custodial penalties are therefore aimed at making offenders face up to the effect of their crimes and helping them to lead law-abiding lives. The probation service is being strengthened by 25 per cent. so as to supervise the community penalties.
The fact is that, if treated properly, many young offenders will not offend again whereas if they are sent to prison they mix with hardened criminals and often emerge more criminal than when they entered. In that respect it is interesting to note that 87 per cent. of those who are cautioned do not re-offend again within two years.
The noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, in an enormously interesting and unusual speech, raised the part which is played by diet. That is an area about which relatively little is known at present but which, I am sure, has an influence on some people. I am glad to be able to tell the noble Earl that the Home Office is negotiating with Dr. Jonathan Brostoff over a possible research study on the links between diet and crime.
The Government have done much too to promote the prevention of crime, and we shall continue to do so. The Neighbourhood Watch movement will continue to expand. The Safer Cities programme will spread to new areas. We are setting up a new national board on crime prevention, and we are reconvening the ministerial group on crime prevention chaired by the Home Office to ensure greater co-ordination of crime prevention policy within government. So much is being done.
1528
Of course, in the fight against crime we need to confront not only the symptoms but also the underlying factors, the causes of crime. When one reads in the newspapers, or hears on television, of even children doing terrible things, everyone says, "What has gone wrong? Whose fault is it? What can we do to stop it?" As the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, said, everyone has a responsibility. We all have ideas as to causes of crime. Your Lordships have given some views today. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York gave some recently. He got uncomfortably tangled up with the media. I warned him that I might refer to it. He said that badness is often brought out of people by circumstances, by upbringing, by a sense of boredom and by a sense of hopelessness, and in some young people by a sense that they have no stake in society. That is a matter to which the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, referred, as did the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon.
The noble Earl, Lord Winchilsea, said that in part it is a social problem. I am sure that he is right. It is right to seek the causes of the troubles. But whatever the cause of crime may be, there can be no excuse for it. There can be no justification for it. Authority, whether of Church or state, or even of home or school, can only have meaning if the rule of law is accepted. It will only have meaning if those who break the law, and who thereby ruin for everyone else the society of which they themselves are a part, are condemned for their actions.
There are those who despise and reject any form of authority and who prefer the law of the jungle. But theirs is a selfish and self-centred attitude where licence replaces liberty and where indulgence replaces obligation. No society can run on those lines for long. Crime does not have to happen. As the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, said, no one is born a criminal. It is true—I agree with the right reverend Prelate—that economic deprivation, whether of income or of housing; family criminality; parental misunderstanding; failure at school, whether that is because of low attainment or because the schools are ineffective; all have a part to play in a person's make-up and may be contributory factors to criminality. But they are not determining factors.
Not all people with those backgrounds become offenders, and plenty without them do offend. There are many who have suffered appalling deprivation yet who would never dream of resorting to acts of criminality. There are others who have had a better start in life but who nevertheless turn to crime. It is people who commit crime; it is not circumstances. People, whether the criminal or the critic, cannot shrug off the responsibilities for their actions. I believe that that is what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon meant when he referred to personal responsibility. That is what I believe my right honourable friend the Prime Minister meant too when he said that we want to understand less and to condemn more. It is pretty horrifying to realise that one in three males by the age of 31 has a criminal record, and that does not included traffic offences;

1529
that 50 per cent. of known offenders are under the age of 21; and that the peak age of offending is between 15 and 18.
When one looks at a tiny child aged six weeks who is dependent and reliant on others for everything, one wonders what can turn that baby into a criminal by the time he is 15 or 16. What happens to that child during his upbringing largely determines how he will turn out. It is like a potter who has a raw piece of clay. How he twists and moulds that clay determines to a large extent whether what emerges is a thing of beauty or an eyesore. A child is just the same. The influence to which he is subjected in the home and in the school plays a vital part. So do the parents. So do the teachers. So do television and videos. So do books and papers. What that child is allowed to see, what he is not allowed to see, the discipline of the home, the school, the church, and the willingness of the parents to submit that child to that discipline and to be a part of it, all play a vital part in what that child becomes. And we are all responsible for that. A child learns as much by a process of osmosis, by absorbing atmosphere and thought, as he does by being taught. But when, for whatever reason, one marriage in three ends in divorce, one wonders where lies the stability for the child. That is a point which exercised both my noble friends Lord Gisborough and Lord Ashbourne.
Statistics, of course, can never answer those questions. Truth, beauty and goodness can never be subject to statistical analysis. Nor can ill discipline, badness or evil. I remember a parson who was not greatly gifted in the pulpit saying some 20 years ago, "What will destroy this world is not the atom bomb or the hydrogen bomb but the inability to discern between right and wrong". I believe that he was right.
That is something about which parents, teachers, Church, social workers and even Government have a vitally important part of play and from which obligation not one of us can escape. We are part of the society in which we live. By our deeds we affect that society, and by our attitudes we create that society. Good needs to be cherished. Bad needs to be condemned; and the ability to recognise the difference needs to be taught.
There are two issues on which we might dwell. First, if we could restore a sense of morals into an increasingly godless age, then there would be a more regulated and law-abiding society, and more contentment too. Secondly, when we hear those great advocates articulating as they do with such subtlety that the boundaries of permissiveness and acceptability should be stretched yet further, and that it is in the interests of people not to be restrained within the rigid confines of previous precedent, it is as well to remember that civilisation is a very thin veneer. That veneer can easily be stripped off. When it is, it exposes only raw humanity in its place. It is no bad thing to remember the words of the late Lord Fisher of Canterbury, when he said,
"There is no unreasonable argument which cannot be proved reasonable by reason".
7.55 p.m.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, it remains for me to thank the Minister for that excellent reply and all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate with such interesting speeches. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Pensions and Benefits: Payment Arrangements
7.56 p.m.
Lord Peston Lord Peston rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to introduce automated credit transfer arrangements for the payment of pensions and other benefits, and what effect this would have on the viability of the national network of sub-post offices.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Question that I have placed before your Lordships today has three dimensions. There are three government departments which are or may be concerned. Clearly, since I refer to the payment of pensions and other benefits, it is a matter for the Department of Social Security. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Henley, will reply to the Question. However, since we are discussing the network of sub-post offices which are essentially small businesses—I have asked the Question because of my responsibilities with respect to industry—it is equally a matter for the Department of Industry. Many of the sub-post offices most at risk are in rural areas and therefore justify a departmental environmental approach to the matter. I therefore accept that a wide range of interests is involved.
I have put down the Question in order to raise a broad issue: what is going on? I hope to receive an answer from the noble Lord, Lord Henley. As I understand the matter, the Department of Social Security is conducting a trial involving how social security benefits, but notably pensions, will be paid. That is the origin of the matter that has been brought to my attention.
I wish for more and better particulars about the trial. I hasten to add that I do not wish to be accused of being a Luddite. I am not against considering new means of making payments. But there is more to the issue than that. I seek additional clarification on the nature of the trial. I am led to believe that persons who are about to collect their pensions for the first time have been sent letters about possible collection arrangements for their pensions. I have copies of the three types of letter: one kind emphasises the advantages of using a bank or building society, but mentions the option of using a post office. The second type again emphasises and gives advice about banks and building societies but virtually mentions post offices en passant and says that one has to send away for further information. The third merely refers to banks and building societies and then states that there may be other means.
My thoughts are that, if this is a trial, it does not meet the minimum requirement of a statistical nature

1531
for a trial, which is, essentially, a lack of bias. A document which I have before me on the one hand devotes a great deal of space to the option of giving the benefit straight into a bank or building society account. It then states, quite rightly, "Getting your money in this way has many advantages". On the other hand, the word "advantages" does not appear at all in relation to the second possibility, which is by order book at a post office. Speaking as someone who at one time had considerable expertise on statistical testing. I do not believe that it remotely meets the minimum standard required for what is called a trial. This means in particular that any information derived from the alleged trial will simply be so biased as to be quite worthless. I ask the noble Lord to tell me what is the purpose of the three different letters and why the word "trial" is being used. What is going on?
My next question is that, in carrying out such an exercise, one would expect that a variety of interests would be consulted. Again, I ask the noble Lord, who has been consulted? Have any of those who in some way represent pensioners been consulted? Has the Post Office been consulted and if so in what form? Has the organisation called the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters been consulted?
To revert to my opening remarks, in so far as it is obvious that the Department of Social Security, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of the Environment are involved, has there been a government committee and government consultation which provide the background to all this? Will the results of the "trial" be reported back to a group of Ministers and officials?
I said that, apart from the substantive question of the means of paying pensions, there is a serious question about the sub-post offices. They are small businesses. If I may make my usual acerbic remark, I assume that almost everyone who has such a small business is likely to vote for the noble Lord's party, not mine, so I am clearly not electioneering, I do not see these as natural constituents. But nonetheless, small businesses are dear to the heart of the Government and it was only yesterday that in the Budget we were told so. In so far as they are important to the Government, why is a policy initiative being considered which, to put it at its mildest, is threatening to small businesses? Sub-post offices employ a total of 40,000 full and part-time workers. They have contact every week with 19 million people; their business, transacted largely in transfer payments, runs to nearly £70 million. We are talking about small businesses, businessmen and women who have a personal financial stake in their sub-post office. I do not have to emphasise to anyone who has any notion of rural England that these people are very much part of their community and they have a tradition of service to that community. Why are they being put at risk in this way? I repeat my question: what are the Government up to?
In that connection, I have consulted quite a number of noble Lords who have been interested in the matter —but not so interested as to be here tonight. Many of them are devoted to rural communities and believe
1532
that the sub-post offices are enormously important parts of rural communities. If they were to go, almost the only focus left in those communities would disappear.
I come finally to the other side. In so far as an alternative method of payment through the banks and building societies is being considered, first, may I ask whether those banks and building societies have been consulted and in what way? Are they enthusiastic about this? It is not obvious to me that it would be particularly profitable business. I ask the noble Lord whether there is any evidence that they want the business. More to the point, will they provide the service free? In other words, if it gradually happens that the sub-post offices disappear, payment will essentially have to be more and more through a bank or building society, often to people who do not have a bank or building society account and, for that matter, do not want one. Will it not add to the costs that those people incur?
It may be said that I have made an enormous point about what looks at first sight to be a rather minor matter. I can only say that for the three main types of people concerned it is not minor at all. For the business people who are involved with the sub-post offices, it is not minor. For the pensioners and recipients of the benefits, it is not minor. For the communities in which the sub-post offices exist, it is certainly not minor.
8.6 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Peston, for introducing a topic which as I have looked at it has come to seem more and more fascinating. It is a teaser of a problem. We have here a conflict of right and right; such conflicts always intrigue me. We also have an interdepartmental problem; those always intrigue me too. I cannot help thinking that somewhere in Whitehall there ought to be something nicknamed the "Howard's End Committee" because its motto is "Only Connect".
My noble kinsman knows that I am not likely to offer any criticism of the payment of benefit by automatic credit transfer because well before the department introduced it I asked the department whether it would make the facility available. I was speaking on that occasion on behalf of someone who spoke in the debate on disability at our Nottingham party conference in the spring of 1991. He made to me the reasonable point that being in a wheelchair he did not always find travel to the post office easy. There are quite a lot of people in that position. Thus we should remember that, apart from any savings to the department—and those of course are not negligible when there are other causes on which we wish to spend money—payment of benefit by automatic credit transfer may on occasion do much good. I am glad that the facility is available and I should like it to stay available.
However, when I say that I am in favour of benefits being paid by automatic credit transfer, I have not said that I am in favour of them being paid only by that method. My noble kinsman expressed agreement with that view during the autumn uprating Statement.

1533
I think we agree that we are in favour of choice; that people should be able to choose the method of getting their benefit paid which is most convenient to them. After all, in this country it is not compulsory to have a bank account. I was told over dinner about a group of people who paid subscriptions of 50p each into a bank account and paid bank charges of 60p per entry on those subscriptions.
There may be many people on benefit who find that it is not good value for money to have a bank account. Since people on benefit are often in debt, there may be a number whom the banks might not altogether welcome as customers. So any situation in which it is necessary for those on benefit to have a bank account could become rather awkward and give rise to a need for urgent consultations with banks. After all, banks are in business for profit and have to concern themselves with the creditworthiness of their customers.
I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, raised the question of the forms. I think we agree that there is a strong case for having a level playing field. I have no objection to people being asked which form of benefit they want, but the choice should be expressed in an equal way. I must confess that the phrase "by other means" caused me some anxiety and makes me think of Clausewitz. It is not quite as bad as that, but it suggests a certain amount of pressure.
The other problem is the question of sub-post offices. It is true that all government is a game of billiards. Everything we do cannons off onto something else. I admit that, because sub-post offices do not come within the social security brief, I have not given the thought that I should have to their future. I noticed the word "reassurance" in the uprating Statement and was glad to hear it. But I have not thought through the full implications.
It is of course true that a sub-post office, normally combined with a village shop, is absolutely vital in any rural community. It used to be said that there were only two meeting places in the normal English village—the Church and the ale house. The sub-post office now provides a third, and perhaps the most valuable of the three. It is a valuable part of a villager's pride.
Some time ago, before the ownership of Harrods was a controversial matter, its owner was holidaying in the Scottish Highlands. He went into the village shop and the shopkeeper started boasting to him about how splendid her shop was. She then asked, "What do you do?" He replied, "I have a shop too". She started asking a few questions about the range of goods it sold and as he went on her jaw dropped further and further. Then suddenly her face lit up and she said, "Och, but ye'll no have the post office"!
Having the post office is often vital both to the economic survival of the shop and to the pride of the village. I once lived in a village that was 12 miles from the nearest bank. It was three miles from the nearest post office. But at least if one was determined the post office was within walking distance. It was capable of functioning as a village centre, acting as a distribution point for news and being part of what made a community a community.
1534
But of course it is not only in rural areas that sub-post offices are vital. No one would venture to describe Kilburn as a rural area. But at the moment there is a considerable outcry going on in Kilburn against the proposal to close the sub-post office in Cricklewood. Many people, particularly pensioners and those who have heavy traffic on roads near them, do not feel inclined to go out and walk a couple of miles. But it matters rather a lot to them to get out of the house from time to time. A visit to a sub-post office can therefore be a vital part of life in an urban community as well as a rural one.
We therefore have a conflict of right and right. The survival of sub-post offices is vital. The payment of benefit by automatic credit transfer is good. So where do we go from here? This is where we need to think about whether there are alternative ways of looking at the problem. At present small post offices are in difficulty. ACRE has found that 42 per cent. are thinking of giving up. That would be a disaster. The trouble is that too much of their finance seems to depend on business done with the Government; 70 per cent. depends on government business of one sort or another and 34 per cent. on business done for the benefit office. I am inclined to suggest that we need to look at a system of remuneration for sub-post offices—whether there is a new way of rejigging the financing of sub-post offices that does not depend quite so heavily on payments of pensions and social security benefits.
One point that obviously calls for examination is the uniform business rate. Some of us may remember the noble Lord, Lord Pym, speaking on the Second Reading of the Local Government Finance Bill 1988 and warning the House very strongly that it was going to cause a considerable threat to the future of corner shops. That was a far-sighted speech.
There are technical changes that could be made to the uniform business rate, short of abolishing it. For example, something could be done in the way of concessions to those whose business premises are the same as their dwellinghouse. That would cover a great many of the cases with which we are concerned. A new form of contract could be drawn up with rural sub-post offices. It is possible to look at the rate of payment for other services, and, indeed, at the possibility of paying them a fee simply for operating a post office—perhaps something along the lines of the capitation fee paid to doctors. One could perhaps proportion it to the number of people for whom it is the nearest post office.
A sub-post office performs a vital service simply by being there. The Government therefore would not be wasting their money if they were to consider a scheme of payment in which that formed one element. After all, they should remember the point made by my right honourable friend Mr Tyler in another place—if a sub-post office network did not exist the Government would have to invent one. This Government, aware as they are of the difficulties of centralised planning, would probably agree that creating such a system from scratch would be a great deal harder than preserving the one which has grown up spontaneously.
8.17 p.m.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord Peston for introducing this subject and alerting the House. This trial —three separate forms to each of 8,000 people in the north west of England—gives me an appalling sense of déjà vu When I was a boy we were occasionally treated to a visit to the cinema. In those days there were continuous performances and one had to go in and hope one could catch the start of the film. Often we did not and would sit there watching the screen until the film came round again. We would turn to each other and say, "this is where we came in".
I have that dreadful feeling now and the déjà vu is well founded. I recently had the privilege of raising in your Lordships' House the whole question of water metering and whether it would be imposed on domestic consumers regardless of their wishes. The regulator of the water industry wishes domestic consumers to be metered and bases his evidence for that on two trials; one was a form sent out with water bills to each customer and the other was an in-depth questionnaire produced by the OPCS.
In your Lordships' House I pointed out statistical deficiencies in the form which went with the water bills. The regulator wrote to me and said that they realised the existence of those statistical deficiencies. One must therefore ask why the thing was sent out in the first place. There was a pitiful response to the survey. I believe that only 1.6 per cent. of the people who received the form with their bills responded. The regulator said that they placed more reliance on the OPCS survey. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Gaskell of the London School of Economics who, being more statistically minded than I, was able to point out the substantial deficiencies in that. Yet on the basis of these two samplings, the whole nation was going to be subjected to domestic water metering if the regulator had his way.
Here again we have trials going on. Are we going to have a situation, as my noble friend said, where the results are to be used for making changes on a national scale without further detailed conversations? As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, concern has been voiced about this in another place, not only by his colleagues who represent very far flung and widespread constituencies in the south west of England but also by colleagues of the noble Lord, Lord Peston, and myself, who represent urban areas. They realise the essential nature of the local post office as an integral part of life of an area.
Given that, one has to say that the feeling of déjà vu again sweeps over in waves when one considers what has happened to so many traditional public houses following the MMC report on the brewing industry and the way in which a number of areas have been deprived of the local hostelry—a place not only of refreshment but where people could meet, see their friends and enjoy a social life in a centre which otherwise would not have been available. So we have had the mess-up made by the MMC report and the brewers over public houses. Are we now faced with the same thing over post offices?
1536
It has already been said that post offices are an integral part of people's lives. I have always believed that on this side of the House we are in business to look after people who find the most difficulty in looking after themselves. I have looked at these forms to which my noble friend referred. The form says "Phone freeline" and it gives the number to ring for more information. I phoned the number at 18.19 this evening and I was told that the office was closed but that if I left my name and daytime telephone number they would come back to me. They went on to point out that the office is open between 9 a.m. and 4.30 p.m., Monday to Friday.
That in itself is loaded against the least able in our society, because they do not have telephones and they cannot give daytime numbers. It is also loaded against people who have jobs where they cannot just lift up a phone on the desk or get out their mobile and ring up between the hours of 9 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. It may be said by the Minister that they represent a minority in our society, but I believe that it is up to people who have some sort of position to look after minorities, particularly in these circumstances.
I am unhappy about this. I regard it as ominous, and I follow up what was said by my noble friend about banks. Banks are undergoing something of a change at the moment, following a number of injudicious investments not only domestically, here in Britain, but also abroad. They are seeking ways of recouping losses, and individual bank accounts are now being looked at as fruitful sources of income in the future. There is also the question of extra charges, and we know their behaviour in regard to passing on reductions in interest rates to people who have borrowed from them—the whole sum has not been given to those people who have taken out loans.
I touch very briefly on an article which appeared in the Daily Telegraph last October which said:
"Pensions: payments in arrears are saving the DHSS £40 million a year"—
a nice little earner for the Government.
Is this another aspect of people being paid in arrears instead of collecting the cash weekly? Is that featuring in the Treasury's calculations for saving money? If so, it is a reprehensible way of behaving.
I conclude by saying that I am suspicious. I am glad that my noble friends are alert as well. We require reassurance on this, because for many people the visit to the post office to collect a payment is part of their social life. It is an outing: not everybody enjoys the social whirl of the ballet or theatre. For many people a visit to the post office is an important part of their weekly round. The post offices themselves depend on the business which is generated by people going there to collect their payments and I can see a very serious threat to these local social centres if we are not extremely alert.
8.24 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley): My Lords, I think this has been a very interesting debate

1537
and has touched on a variety of different subjects and on two or three departments, as the noble Lord, Lord Peston, put it.
In passing, may I make one brief remark to the noble Lord, Lord Cocks. He complained about the lack of hostelries resulting from certain government policies. My comment may comfort him: that is, that if he read the speech of my honourable friend on the same subject in another place last December, when the subject was last debated, he would note that my honourable friend referred as an example to the pub known as the "Swan With Two Necks" in Pendleton in Lancashire, which also doubled up as a community post office. The two problems can be dealt with as one.
My only regret is that the assurances which we have already given, for example, in that debate on the same subject in another place last December have not yet had their effect. I propose to repeat those assurances and to give the noble Lord, Lord Cocks, and others the reassurances they are looking for.
May I begin by explaining what is happening as regards the method of payment of benefits? At present, social security benefits are paid to beneficiaries by a variety of means. Some are paid by order book, cashable at a post office. Some are paid by Girocheque, or by a payable order, and some are paid by automatic credit transfer into the beneficiary's bank, building society or Girobank account. For some benefits, the beneficiary has the choice of method between, say, an order book and an automated credit transfer, which I shall refer to from now on as ACT. But for some benefits, ACT has not until now been available. My noble kinsman Lord Russell has expressed concern about this in the past and I think he will remember that I wrote to him in June 1991 outlining some of our proposals to extend ACT to other benefits. I explained why problems had arisen over certain things and why we should like to extend them, particularly to those who are disabled.
The Government consider that ACT offers substantial advantages to the recipient, compared with other methods of payment. I should like to stress to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, who I thought seemed to be under the impression that we were bringing in something totally new here, that ACT does already extend to a great many benefits and it has a fairly high take-up with some of those benefits. Perhaps I may give him one or two examples. As regards pensions and widow's benefit, already some 25 per cent. are paid by ACT. Of new customers in receipt of such benefits, the recent figure of take-up is 41 per cent. With child benefit, the general figure is 22 per cent. and with new customers 34 per cent. To take another fairly small example, 30 per cent. of war pensions are paid by ACT, and with new customers the figure rises to 39 per cent.
There is obviously a considerable degree of growth in the ACT world and we consider that there are many advantages in that. I should like to spell out some of the disadvantages of order books. An order book, for example, can generally be cashed at just one single nominated post office, whereas recipients of ACT may draw money out of any branch of their bank or building society anywhere in the country, or out of
1538
any post office if they have a Girobank account, so the use of the post office is still available. In addition, ACT could be paid into an interest-bearing account. Cashpoint facilities mean that beneficiaries can withdraw their money at any hour of the day or night, and they do not need to queue at the post office.
Fears have been expressed during the debate about the possibility of bank charges. We are at the moment only offering claimants the opportunity to use ACT or the opportunity to use the post office if they wish, so claimants who do not have a bank account clearly cannot use ACT and therefore bank charges simply do not arise in those cases. The banks have not yet introduced charges, and indeed some of them have recently said they do not intend to do so. Many claimants, as I have said, already prefer to use ACT because of its greater convenience.
There are other advantages in ACT. I regret to have to say that there is a considerable amount of organised fraud against the social security system, and the theft of order books is a particular example of that. We are cracking down on it, but it would be rash to say that we could ever eliminate it entirely.
There is also the administrative cost of different methods of payment, a point touched upon by one or two noble Lords. The administrative cost of ACT is far less than the cost of payment by order books. Perhaps I may give three figures. The cost for each payment by ACT is 3p. I stress that most payments by ACT are for four weeks. The cost for each payment by order book, where one is generally paying weekly and, therefore, theoretically, one ought to multiply this, is some 44p. The cost of paying by giro, which is largely for unemployment benefit and therefore outside the scope of the Question, is some 119p. It is very important that we use taxpayers' money as wisely as possible. I should like to stress that the savings simply from a greater take-up of ACT could be very large indeed.
For all these reasons the Government decided to extend the availability of ACT to cover those benefits —or most of them, as I told my noble kinsman Lord Russell which are at present payable only by other means. We promised that in the Citizen's Charter, and the necessary regulations will shortly be laid. In addition, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Security announced last autumn that the Government would be encouraging the greater use of ACT.
For that purpose, the Benefits Agency of the Department of Social Security has, as the noble Lord, Lord Peston, correctly told the House, been testing in trials some revised forms for sending to people who are shortly to become eligible for retirement pensions. The noble Lord asked for greater details of the trials. He mentioned the three forms. He seemed to be saying that this investigation was not statistically valid and that it was a biased test. The simple aim behind what we are doing is to test the effect of each of those forms. We are not saying that form A, form B or form C will be the one that is used. We are trying to see how comprehensible that form can be and what the behavioural results on the individuals will be. Again I must stress the figure that I quoted earlier. Already

1539
with the existing form, which very much stresses the order book rather than the possibility of ACT, which is rather left to one side, we have 41 per cent. take-up of ACT. But it will be very interesting to see what the effects of those forms will be.
The Post Office was informed of our proposal to test new types of form. We did not consult the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, but that is a matter for the post offices themselves, since we had informed them about our plans. They have since written directly to a number of my colleagues and we will be replying to them in due course. The result of that trial will certainly inform our decision on what kind of form to use in the future, and that form will be published in due course.
I will return to the subject of the Post Office in a moment but I should like to explain and stress again that the purpose of the form is simply to encourage the use of ACT. I would reject any suggestion that any of the forms suppresses the information that there are other methods of payment available. I should be prepared to accept that they highlight ACT in different ways but all of them provide sufficient information about how to ask for other methods. The noble Lord, Lord Cocks, suggested that very few pensioners have telephones. I should like to remind him that the latest figures show that something of the order of 89 per cent. of pensioner households have telephones. I imagine that the figure for new pensioners will be even greater.
I return to the Post Office itself. As my honourable friend the Minister for Trade explained in another place last December, the Government will ensure that a national network of post offices remains. I repeat that commitment. That of course does not mean that every sub-post office everywhere will stay open for ever. There are changes in populations and in customers' requirements which make that both unnecessary and undesirable.
I noted the comments of my noble kinsman Lord Russell and his views on how post offices, particularly rural post offices, should be kept open. I am sure that my right honourable and honourable friends in the Department of Trade and Industry will take note of what he said. My noble kinsman was broadly right when he talked about business for Post Office Counters Limited, which is responsible for rural post offices, largely being about one-third from the Benefits
1540
Agency of the DSS, with a further 21 per cent. from the Royal Mail, 21 per cent. from Girobank, about 5 per cent. from the DVLA, 5 per cent. from National Savings, 5 per cent. from BT, 4 per cent. from the BBC and so on. Their sources of income are very diverse but I accept that a very large part comes from the Department of Social Security. Therefore it is very important that the effects on post offices and rural post offices of any decisions we take are taken into account. I assure my noble kinsman that they will be.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Peston, I can only stress that the Government value highly the service given by sub-postmasters, whether in the country or in urban areas. And a nationwide network, including that rural network, will remain. I repeat the commitment made in our manifesto and repeated by my honourable friend in December. But that does not preclude the Department of Social Security looking at the most efficient, and for that matter the cheapest, way of delivering benefit.
Lord Peston: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, as he sounded as if he has virtually ended his speech, can he give me an assurance that when the trials are finished and his department has gathered together whatever information it feels it is getting from the trials, a report will be written and that he will at least make some effort to see whether that report can be placed in the public domain so that those of us who are interested can learn a little about what the department has learnt?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I cannot give the noble Lord that assurance. There are two questions here. The first is how we are going to press ahead with encouraging the take-up of ACT. That will depend on these trials. The second question is how my colleagues in the Department of Trade and Industry see the post office network review. That goes beyond the question of the trials on these forms. The results of the trials will inform our decision on what kind of form we will use in the future. We shall certainly publish that form—we shall have to because obviously that form will have to be made available to the public.

Croydon Tramlink Bill [H.L.]
Reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee with amendments.
House adjourned at twenty-three minutes before nine o'clock.