Lords Sitting of 6 February 1997

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

Defence Medical Services
Baroness Cox asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are satisfied that the provision of medical and nursing services for the Armed Forces is adequate at present; and whether it would be adequate in the event of any outbreak of hostilities.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Lord Henley): My Lords, we have made adequate provision to meet our present levels of commitment. We are, however, in the process of reviewing the Defence Medical Services to ensure that they are appropriately manned and equipped to meet any necessary level of medical support for future operations. The Defence Medical Services are currently supporting United Kingdom military operations in Northern Ireland, the Falkland Islands and Bosnia and United Kingdom air operations in support of the southern Iraq exclusion zone.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that apparently encouraging reply. However, is he aware of the very great concern over serious shortages in both the medical and nursing services? For example, in the national contingency force, the number of surgeons in the RAF is at only one-third of full deployment potential and the comparable figures for the Army and Navy are only 60 per cent. and falling. Does he agree that this must surely have serious implications for the quality of care for our Armed Forces, which they are surely entitled to expect from a nation that they serve so well?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I shall have to look very carefully at my noble friend's figures. I am aware that there are shortages in certain key areas, particularly among surgeons, anaesthetists and operating theatre nurses. But as regards the figures that my noble friend quoted, I am advised that we would be able to make good that shortfall by the use of reserves, if required. As at 1st April this year, the shortfall of surgeons in the RAF will be five against a requirement of 28; in the Army the figure is 13 against a requirement of 45; and in the Navy I understand that there is a shortfall of four against a requirement about which I shall have to write to my noble friend.
Lord Walton of Detchant: My Lords, will the Minister accept that the progressive closure of service hospitals has had an adverse effect on the recruitment and retention of medical and nursing personnel within the Defence Medical Services? It is of course true, as the
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noble Lord suggests, that the reserve forces are likely to make an outstanding contribution in the event of a major national emergency. Here I must declare an interest because more than 30 years ago I commanded No. 1 Northern General Hospital (TA). Is the Minister aware that one of the problems is that, despite the passage of the Reserve Forces Act, certain NHS trusts are proving reluctant to release medical personnel for reserve forces training?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I and my colleagues in the Ministry of Defence are aware of the last concern that the noble Lord has raised. As regards the first part of his question and the effect on morale of the closure of a number of hospitals, I point out that the rearrangement of the Defence Medical Services and the creation of MoD units within certain hospitals have created many advantages for the Services and allow much broader training than might otherwise be available. There are certainly gains to be made within the Defence Medical Services as well as the losses to which the noble Lord referred.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, is not one of the factors that in peacetime conditions medical officers look after young, fit servicemen while in periods of war or during other hostilities more doctors and nurses are needed for anticipated casualties? For example, Territorial Army medical units were sent to the Gulf in Operation Granby, where I understand they carried out their role admirably.
Lord Henley: My Lords, it seems fairly obvious that there will always be a greater need for medical personnel in times of war than in peacetime. As I understand it, that is why great use has always been made of the Territorial Army in providing medical support. That obviously will continue to be the case in future. I echo the tribute that my noble friend paid to the work of the medical units in the Territorial Army in Bosnia, as at present, in the Gulf and in other operations.
Lord Carver: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that there is considerable concern among senior officers in all three armed services and their medical services about the present situation, not only as regards the capability to provide medical cover in operations, but also in relation to the unsatisfactory situation of personnel in the Armed Forces medical services serving in military district hospital units in NHS hospitals where they are being treated as cheap labour? Can he say how many of the 112 bed-generating consultant posts which Defence Course Study No. 15 said was the essential minimum to maintain a uniformed service are at present held by uniformed officers?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I shall have to take advice on the last point raised by the noble and gallant Lord. I certainly offer to write to him in due course. I am aware of the concern expressed by him and many others, including many senior officers. Ministers within the Ministry of Defence are also concerned about the shortages in certain areas. That is why they are

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reviewing the situation and why they also believe that it is necessary to review the pay and terms and conditions of service for all personnel in the Defence Medical Services.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that in May last year the Armed Forces Pay Review Body expressed deep concern about unprecedented low morale, a falling retention rate, severe overstretch and heavily reduced promotion and career prospects? Is he further aware that it went on to say that conditions had so far deteriorated that the Defence Secondary Care Agency would not be able to carry out its task in peacetime? Further, can my noble friend comment on the fact that the Select Committee on Defence, which visited Bosnia at the same time, also reported a shortfall of 33 per cent. in the number of surgeons needed there and that that was also a peacetime operation? Finally, I understand that the Government are meditating a defence medical training agency. Does my noble friend believe that there will be anyone left to train?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not believe that the situation is quite as serious as my noble friend makes out in the last part of her question. I am aware of the concerns that have been expressed by the Armed Forces Pay Review Body. I can advise her that a paper, which includes proposals for what I understand are described as "Separate analogues for consultants and general medical and dental practitioners" has been submitted by the Ministry to the review body as part of this year's evidence on medical and dental officers' pay. Obviously, that will be something which the Armed Forces Pay Review Body will have to take into account.
Lord Bramall: My Lords, will the noble Lord at least pass on to the Minister responsible that everything we have heard this afternoon on this Question represents a disaster area in peace and war? In view of the warnings that the Government have had, that is largely self-inflicted. Is the Minister aware that, if something is not done soon, the damage to the medical and nursing services of the Armed Forces may be irreparable?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I hoped that I had made it clear to the House and to the noble and gallant Lord that I was aware of the concerns and that my colleagues within the Ministry of Defence are also well aware of them. That is why they have agreed to review such matters and in particular, as I have made quite clear, to review the pay, terms and conditions of service for all such personnel. Obviously, I can do no more than again reassure the noble and gallant Lord that I shall take these concerns back to my noble friend and to other Ministers in the Ministry of Defence.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, will the Minister pay attention to the word used by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, when he said that the present inadequacy of provision could be "irreparable"? If the Minister does not understand the figures quoted by his
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noble friend the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, perhaps he would consult the British Medical Association which will provide the Ministry of Defence with the appropriate figures. Does the Minister further understand that relying on reserve forces when our troops go into battle is an inadequate solution because NHS trusts will not necessarily release those who are overburdened and overworked in the NHS as it is? Is it not the case that when our Armed Forces go into battle they should have—and they deserve—the highest quality of medical support?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I agree absolutely with the noble Lord on his last point. However, it will always be the case that there must be some reliance in these matters on reserve forces. It would be quite wrong throughout peacetime to equip the Armed Forces with the sort of level of medical services that they require in wartime because that would be a wasteful use of doctors. The point made by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy was a very good one in that respect.
In terms of the figures that I quoted, I made it quite clear that we accepted that there are shortages in certain areas. I referred to surgeons, anaesthetists and operating theatre nurses. I should like to look at the figures which my noble friend Lady Cox quoted. I quoted the figures from the department which showed that in those areas the shortages did not look quite as severe as my noble friend seemed to imply.
Lord Campbell of Alloway Lord Campbell of Alloway My Lords—
Noble Lords: Next Question!
The Lord Privy Seal (Viscount Cranborne): My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will agree that we have had quite a good run on this Question and that we should perhaps move on.

World Bank: Policy Implementation
3.11 p.m.
Lord Judd asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are satisfied with the social development policies of the World Bank and the International Development Administration (IDA) towards the third world.
Lord Chesham: My Lords, we welcome the recent progress in this area and the bank management's commitment to mainstreaming social development approaches particularly in the IDA and in other bank programmes. Serious effort is now required to implement these policies throughout the bank's lending programme.
Lord Judd: My Lords, we too find the thinking of the bank under its present president, Wolfensohn, very encouraging. Have the Government studied the recent report by the bank's operations evaluation department which reveals that the declarations of intent on vital

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social issues and the role of women are still not making themselves felt in specific country programmes, which is what matters? In view of the ODA's very good experience at integrating those concerns into its own bilateral programmes, will the Government now give a firm lead in the bank over the introduction of the mechanisms and administrative arrangements which are necessary to turn welcome rhetoric into action?
Lord Chesham: My Lords, I greatly appreciate what the noble Lord says about the efforts of the ODA. We believe that it has done a fantastic job. We greatly welcome the attitude of the president of the World Bank in intending that such policies should go ahead. The ODA has played a leading role in promoting social development policies in the bank's policy work in, for example, Africa through participating in the poverty and social policy working group of the World Bank-led special programme for Africa. The ODA has played a leading role in improving the social development content of the World Bank's country poverty assessments through support to assessments in Ghana, Zambia, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Gambia and Pakistan. That work will continue.
Lord Judd: My Lords, we are all agreed about the intention and we all welcome what has been said, but the bank's own evaluation department is saying that that intention is not being turned into action. That is what must be addressed. Can the noble Lord give any assurances in that respect?
Lord Chesham: My Lords, I can give every assurance that the ODA will do everything that it can to make certain that such matters are taken seriously not only at the top level of the World Bank but right down through all the bank's management levels. We shall continue to assist in any way that we possibly can.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, can the noble Lord confirm that the board of the World Bank is meeting today and will have before it a report made on behalf of Paraguayan citizens that the World Bank's guidelines were not observed in the case of the Yacireta project? Will the Government uphold the recommendations that were made to the board by the inspection panel that a full investigation of that claim should be carried out? More generally, do the Government agree that when the inspection panel recommends that full investigation the board should accept its recommendations unless there are very strong reasons to the contrary?
Lord Chesham: My Lords, it is going a bit far to ask me to make representations to the board of the World Bank. We should await its recommendations. I have not been privy to the papers for that World Bank meeting.
Viscount Waverley: My Lords, does the noble Lord recognise that there is an increase in private investment and that the World Bank encourages the private sector to factor social development into their programmes?
Lord Chesham: My Lords, it is essential that private investment should be encouraged in such areas. It provides the sustainable investment that will hit the problem at which we are aiming.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I am sure that the House will welcome the noble Lord's assurance that the Government will do all they can to achieve the aims mentioned by my noble friend. Can he say specifically what the Government will do?
Lord Chesham: My Lords, we have already seconded social development advisers to the World Bank to strengthen the bank's capacity to implement its social development policies.

Registration: Qualified Voters
3.16 p.m.
Lord Hylton asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they will be taking between now and the general election to encourage the full registration of qualified voters.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, the main effort to register electors takes place during the annual canvass conducted by electoral registration officers in the autumn. Last autumn the Government spent £750,000 on television advertisements encouraging the return of electoral registration forms. Any eligible elector who may have been missed off the register can make a claim to be added to it after publication. However, those who are too apathetic or who are determined not to register cannot realistically be forced to do so.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Answer, but is it not the case that some 2 million persons are not on the register? That represents nearly 5 per cent. of the total electorate. Will the Government take special steps to register homeless families and individuals, students, gypsies and others who are entitled to vote but who are unlikely to be able to do so?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I have already said that we spend considerable sums of money on public advertising to persuade people to register to vote. I pay tribute to the electoral registration officers who do everything that they can. It is a question of permanency of address. Even people living in the open air or those who are sleeping rough are entitled to vote if they can convince a local registration officer that they are permanently in the area. A great deal is done to persuade people to register. The noble Lord mentioned the figure of 5 per cent. It has been 5 per cent. now for about six years. The number of people who do not appear on the register has therefore been fairly constant.
Lord Merlyn-Rees: My Lords, given that 14th February is the date of the publication of the register, does that mean that if during the general election campaign whole streets are missed off, as often happens—not due to weakness on the part of those registering, but due to weaknesses in electoral registration departments—nothing can be done about it?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, that is not absolutely the case. Names can be added up to the first day of every month if they do not appear on the register as a result of an omission or a mistake. In the run-up to a general election, however, we continue that practice right up to nomination day so that mistakes on the register can be put right and omissions corrected.
Lord Monks well: My Lords, bearing in mind that it is very important that as many people as possible are registered to vote and that they do vote, particularly in the forthcoming general election, would it not be useful for every Minister, whenever he or she speaks in public, to repeat the following slogan, "Voting can change things. Register to vote and use your vote for a better future"?
Baroness Blatch: "And vote Conservative!" My Lords, in this country we are lucky to enjoy the right to vote. That right is very precious. We spend considerable sums of money on reminding people of the importance of registering to vote. To register 95 per cent. of those people eligible to vote is no mean achievement. We continue to make special efforts to get the remaining 5 per cent. onto the register. But there are people who do not want to vote. Some of them are religious objectors. There are those who cannot be bothered to vote; there are others who, for one reason or another, simply do not know about it. Our efforts will continue in that direction.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, does the Minister agree that there are many young people in this country who are unable to register to vote because of the housing difficulties that they face and the necessity to move to find beds? Will the Minister advise local authorities to make a particular effort to encourage or help young people to vote in the next election?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I have already said what efforts are made by electoral registration officers to enable people to provide addresses for voting purposes. I am not sure that I fully understand the noble Lord's point. Young people, whether they are in colleges or moving from job to job, will be somewhere on 10th October of each year when they have to meet the residential qualification. Therefore, they or their parents or families will register that fact. We advertise in cinemas, clubs and newspapers. Electoral registration officers do a great deal of outreach work to help people register on the voting list. The fact that we achieve that in 95 per cent. of cases is no mean achievement. We will continue to concentrate our efforts on the 5 per cent. who, for one reason or another, do not appear on the register.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that the time has come to give Members of this House the vote?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, if a treetop protestor has a secure or settled address for the purposes of obtaining the jobseeker's allowance, is a treetop a suitable position from which to register to vote?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am told that treetops are not now accepted as a residential qualification for
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the purposes of registering for the jobseeker's allowance. But if those who sleep rough—including those who sleep in treetops—can convince the electoral registration officer that there is permanency about their situation, the officer has discretion as to whether or not they should be registered to vote.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, can the noble Baroness tell the House how much is spent on trying to persuade Brits who live overseas to register to vote? What has been the result of that expenditure?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, we spend nothing. About four or five years ago we spent a lump sum not on persuading such people to vote, but simply letting them know that there had been a change in the registration arrangements. We do not spend any money on advertising those arrangements to people who live overseas.

Educational Standards: Ofsted Report
3.23 p.m.
Lord Quirk asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are satisfied with the degree of improvement in school performance noted in the latest Ofsted report.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment Lord Henley: My Lords, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools' report shows that the quality of teaching is satisfactory or better in the majority of schools. It also shows a fall in the number of unsatisfactory or poor lessons from 18 per cent. last year to 16 per cent. this year. These improvements are encouraging, but HMCI's report shows that there is still some way to go. The Government's education reforms are central to improving standards in our schools.
Lord Quirk: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply and for being less than euphoric about the improvements detected by the inspectorate, which in all conscience are modest. Does not the position remain serious and grave in respect of literacy, numeracy and above all, according to the report, information technology? Does the Minister agree therefore that in the face of vociferous, if sadly predictable, opposition and criticism levelled against the chief inspector, he is right and deserves our strongest support in forthrightly addressing the inadequacies in our system and the continuing weaknesses in leadership and teaching, since only thus will we be able to concentrate minds on pursuing improvements? Further, will he agree that, in recognising the vital importance of excellence in head teachers, we should recognise equally the need for excellence in the production of young teachers so that the heads will have a pool of good resources from which to recruit? Therefore, can the Minister assure the House that efforts to revise and rigorously reform teacher training are pursued?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, has asked a number of quite different questions. In no way do I wish to sound complacent, but I believe that it is excellent news that the proportion of badly taught lessons has fallen, albeit slightly from 18 per cent. to 16 per cent. I suspect that if the fall had been much bigger some would have doubted whether it was genuine. I also accept that the figure is still far too high. For that reason over the years we have introduced a range of different measures to ensure that schools improve their standards. That is why we will continue with our reforms. Therefore I am sure that the noble Lord will welcome the Education Bill that comes before the House for its Second Reading on Monday. I also agree with the noble Lord on the importance of adequately trained and qualified teachers. We seek a national curriculum for initial teacher training and we believe that to get that right is one of the most important tasks that face us. I echo the praise of the noble Lord for Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, Mr. Woodhead, who I think does an excellent job in getting into schools and seeing what is going wrong, but also in pointing out just how much is going very well.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, while everyone welcomes the improvements and gives great credit to those who have achieved them, there are still problems? Current research shows that there are massive differences between schools of a similar type. The Ofsted report itself shows the need for a substantial improvement in one in 10 secondary schools and between one in six and one in 12 primary schools. Therefore, the priority must be to ensure that all schools achieve the highest possible standards for their pupils.
Lord Henley: My Lords, as I and the report have made clear, many schools do a wonderful job. The report also makes it quite clear that resources are not the major factor in determining the success of schools. Therefore the bleats from certain people within the profession that the whole of education is under-resourced are palpably untrue. I ask that all of those schools and LEAs that have been identified as performing badly should look to the success of those that are performing well and possibly take a leaf out of their book.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, now that Ofsted has given us admittedly accurate figures for the number of incompetent teachers and head teachers, can we expect to see in the next report figures for the number of incompetent inspectors? My experience of the last inspection of the excellent state school which my own children attended was that teachers lacked confidence in the competence of the inspectors. That was a matter which caused me extreme worry. Is the Minister confident that all of those who currently carry out school inspections for Ofsted have the qualifications that they need?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I have every confidence in the ability of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector and those whom he appoints in Ofsted. I believe that the criticisms
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of inspectors by the noble Lord are quite unjustified. I stress that the contents of the report are a matter for Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, not for Ministers, he being independent of the department.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, does the noble Lord recall that some time ago the Labour Party proposed that there should be a new head teacher qualification to improve leadership and management skills of new heads, and that a new register of qualified heads to enable school governors to appoint the best person for the job should be established? Will the Government now formally welcome and wholly support that very useful proposal?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I might consider doing so if the noble Lord would welcome the Education Bill, which will be coming before this House and which will be taking forward the Government's reforms which have done so much to improve education in so many parts of the country. Sadly, as he well knows, it is not true in all parts of the country. He might be interested in some statistics which I acquired recently from Islington where, I understand, some 43 per cent. of parents in Islington do not make use of the secondary schools in that area but, like Mr. Blair, send their children to schools in other boroughs.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, does the Minister agree that in sections 87 and 88 of the report the inspector says that one quarter of schools are still providing personal and social education which is unsatisfactory, and that one eighth do not have a sex education policy as they are required to do by statute? Is he satisfied with that situation?
Lord Henley: My Lords, as I made clear with regard to the generality—the same is true of the particular—we are obviously pleased that the proportion of badly taught lessons is falling, but it is still too high, as the other failings which the noble Lord pointed out are still too high. We hope that when these matters are pointed out to schools they will seek to address them.
Lord Annan: My Lords, will the Minister accept that for 30 years I have been urging in this House that teachers of mathematics and science should have a differential in their emoluments, because those subjects will never be taught correctly until we have courses to help teachers learn new methods of teaching those difficult subjects?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Lord makes a valid point. There are some shortages of teachers of science and mathematics, although I do not believe that they are as serious as the noble Lord seems to imply. In the end it must be a matter for the LEAs, and the schools themselves where they are responsible for their budgets, to address those matters to ensure that the appropriate people are recruited. Pay is not the only matter. Obviously the status of the profession is important in attracting the appropriate people.

Overseas Domestic Workers (Protection) Bill [H.L.]
3.32 p.m.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the order of commitment be discharged.—{Lord Hylton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Sea Fisheries (Shellfish) (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
Read a third time.
Baroness Wilcox: My Lords, I beg to move, That the Bill do now pass.
I am deeply grateful for the informed support that my modest Bill has received from all sides of your Lordships' House: for the support of my noble friend Lord Lucas on behalf of the Government; for the support of my noble friend Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, whose Shellfish Association of Great Britain and Fishmongers' Guild, have helped me at every turn; and for the support from the Front Benches Opposite of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, whose searching questions I have endeavoured to answer. I think that I did quite well, but I do not know where the question on the Road Traffic Act came from. I do not think that he knows, and nor do I. So I shall have to miss that one. My warmest thanks go the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, whose knowledge of Scottish fishing problems and of local fishing communities added much to our debate.
I shall not take up much of your Lordships' time for such a little Bill but important new ground is broken here. It is important because it is a world-first breakthrough by MAFF scientists in rearing lobster juveniles which can be let loose to grow in the wild and breed successfully with existing and fast depleting lobster stocks and which will greatly contributed to the much needed transformation of our domestic fishing industry. Sea ranching and sea lagoons will all be a reality, thanks I hope to this Bill. I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Baroness Wilcox.)
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

Local Government and Rating Bill
3.34 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, I beg to move that the Local Government and Rating Bill be now read a second time.
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The Government published their rural White Paper some 15 months ago. The White Paper was the first time ever that any government had undertaken such a comprehensive review of the countryside. White Papers were also produced for both Scotland and Wales, and the Government were widely praised for this, as one would expect, even by the party opposite, which one might not expect, but which was sensible enough to think that it was a good idea.
This Bill implements some of the main elements of the rural White Paper. It contains measures to help to preserve the general stores and post offices in our villages; it includes measures to help other rural businesses; and it ends the rating of sporting rights—which should prove a help to the rural economy.
That terrible word "subsidiarity" comes into this, in so far as it is a theme of the Bill. The Bill gives more powers to parish councils. When I say "parish councils", I include, of course, town councils in England and community councils in Wales. The Bill will give parish councils an increased ability to promote community transport and crime prevention. It will also give people in the locality the power to propose new parishes and to make changes in existing ones. For the first time, local electors will be able to petition for new parishes.
The most important role of many parishes is, of course, to represent their community. The Bill will strengthen that by encouraging principal councils—that is, the counties, districts and boroughs—to consult parish councils on local matters more than they do. In this way, we are trying to encourage that action is taken and that choices are made at the appropriate level. More often than not, that is at the local level, where decisions can be made close to and with the agreement of the very people who will be most affected by them.
It may assist your Lordships if I were to say what parts of the United Kingdom are covered by the Bill: the provisions on non-domestic rating in Part I extend to England, Wales and Scotland; Part II on parishes and parish councils applies to England only; Part III, which extends the powers of parish and community councils, applies to England and Wales but not to Scotland. That is because community councils in Scotland, which are different from community councils in Wales, have a rather different status, and, anyhow, Scotland is different. None of the Bill's provisions extends to Northern Ireland.
Village shops have been in decline recently. The vast supermarkets and the motor car have seen to that. But most people love their village shop and they want their village shop. It provides the day-to-day necessities of the village. The Bill will help to encourage the continuation of the village shop, and it should help the rural economy by providing financial help to rural businesses.
The lifeblood of the village is often the small general store and post office. They are particularly important to older people and to those who do not have ready access to private transport. They are also a source of human contact, which is frequently valuable, and news. They are often the hub of the community—where you find

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out that Mrs. Smith did not collect her pension—and probably why, too—or who is moving into the house next door.
But those village stores have been under great pressure lately. In recent years, many have been forced to close. We want to ensure that that does not happen so much. In particular, we must do the best that we can to see that the only store or post office in the village remains open.
Rates are a particularly heavy burden on those businesses. The Bill, therefore, will halve the rates bills for the general store or the post office where either of those is the only one in the village. That will reduce the rates bills of some 8,000 businesses in England, Scotland and Wales by an average of £500 per year. Local authorities will be able to provide further help to them by reducing, or by waiving altogether, the remainder of the rates bill.
We are also giving local authorities important new powers—discretionary powers—to help other businesses in the village. Some businesses, like pubs, your Lordships will agree, have an important social role in village life. Others will provide much-needed employment.
At present, the only way in which a local authority can reduce the rates bills of those kinds of businesses is if the ratepayer is experiencing actual hardship. Inevitably, this means that help goes only to those who are in particularly serious financial difficulties. But by then it is probably too late to save the business.
In future, local authorities will be able to reduce, or to waive, the rates bills of any business if, in the view of the local authority, the business is important to the community. Local authorities will, therefore, be able to help to ensure that the essential character of village life is preserved. We anticipate that this should help up to 35,000 businesses in England, Scotland and Wales.
The Bill will also end the rating of sporting rights; that is, rates on fowling, shooting, taking or killing game or rabbits and fishing. The rating of these rights is at present riddled with anomalies. Some sporting rights are rated, others are not. It depends on the type of land over which sporting rights are exercised and in some circumstances on the way in which the right is let. By ending the rating of all sporting rights we will remove all the anomalies and will make life easier for everyone involved. It will also give encouragement to the rural economy and to the large number of people who are employed in the sporting industry.
The Bill will also bring Crown property—for example, the buildings of government departments—within the rating system. At present, these buildings are technically exempt from rates, although since the late 19th century the occupiers of Crown property have always paid a contribution in lieu of rates which is redistributed to local authorities along with the other income from rates. This is a quaint anachronism and there is no reason why the Crown should not pay non-domestic rates, just like everybody else.
The Bill, therefore, will end the exemption from paying rates, except in the case of property which is occupied by visiting forces or the headquarters of
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international defence organisations. That property will continue to be exempt, in line with our international treaty obligations.
Part II of the Bill will make it easier to add to and to alter parishes in England, and it will help to strengthen their representational role.
There are already over 10,000 parishes in England, 8,000 of which have elected parish councils. They are immensely varied, both in size and character. Some are quite small villages of 200 people. At the other extreme, the largest in the country is Bracknell Town Council—which is a parish council by another name—which serves a population of nearly 50,000.
Many of these parish councils play an important part in reflecting the local views and interests of their communities. There are, though, some established communities which have no parishes and where people want to have a parish council. There are also some established parishes which need to change shape in order to reflect their demographic changes over the years.
Some of the provisions of this Bill incorporate elements from the Bill which my noble friend Lord Sandys introduced in the last Session, called the Community Representation Bill. And I would like to thank my noble friend for all the work which he put into that and for the suggestions which he made.
I know that he has a particular concern for charter trustee towns, which he has pursued with me both courteously and energetically. Indeed, my noble friend is very prolific because he has now laid a Bill on this subject called the Charter Trustees Bill. I hope that my noble friend will feel that we have been able to meet him, if not on all, at least on many of his points.
We need a flexible system to deal with parish reviews. Under the present system, even the smallest matter to do with parish arrangements has to be referred to the Local Government Commission for review. This is cumbersome and in many cases it is unnecessary. Many of these matters could be determined largely at the local level.
We have, therefore, provided three routes in the Bill by which parishes can be either created or altered. First, district councils can undertake a review and make recommendations to the Secretary of State, if they want to create a new parish or if they want to alter an existing one. Secondly, electors in the area of a proposed parish may submit a petition to their district council calling for the creation of a parish. The third route is for the Secretary of State to direct the Local Government Commission to carry out a parish review from scratch.
The Secretary of State will also be able to refer the recommendations and petitions of a district council to the Local Government Commission for its assessment before he makes the necessary orders to create or alter a parish.
There is one further refinement which I should mention; that is a provision in the Bill which will enable parishes on the Isle of Wight to hold elections at the same time as the unitary county council. This is a matter of deep importance to those in the Isle of Wight, in

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particular to my noble friend Lord Mottistone who was kind enough to draw the discrepancy to my attention. As usual, we have gone out of our way to ensure that my noble friend, as with any other noble Lord, can be satisfied, if possible. I hope that, as usual, my noble friend will be satisfied.
With regard to the representative role of parishes, the Bill will enable the Secretary of State to designate matters on which principal authorities—county, district and borough councils—would be required to consult parish councils. That could be done in one of two ways. First, he could designate matters on which all parishes in a principal authority area might have an interest and on which they should, therefore, be consulted. Secondly, he could set out matters which are likely to be of more selective interest.
In the second case, principal authorities would be required to consult only those parish councils which had given written notice that they wished to be consulted on a designated matter. It is our view that the best way of achieving improved consultations between principal authorities and parish councils is through voluntary action. Many principal authorities already have voluntary agreements in place. Regrettably, though, some do not, despite requests from parish councils that they should do so. That is why we need the legislation.
We took the view though that it would be unnecessarily bossy, as well as running the risk of upsetting existing voluntary arrangements, if we were to set out in legislation what these agreements about consultation should contain. We therefore intend to issue guidance which will make it clear that principal authorities are expected to establish agreements on consultation with parish councils where the parish councils request it.
The guidance will contain a list of matters which should normally be included in these agreements. If it became apparent that the voluntary approach was clearly failing in some respect the Secretary of State would consider use of the legislation.
Part III of the Bill will enable parish councils to support community transport and crime prevention. Many local councils are well placed to develop different transport solutions which can best meet the needs of their communities. The responses which we received on the rural White Paper showed that there was a broad welcome for the proposals which we had in mind.
The Bill therefore proposes new powers which would allow parish and community councils in England and Wales to promote community transport in five specific ways: first, to establish and support car sharing schemes; secondly, to pay grants for a community or a voluntary group which is running a bus for the benefit of the elderly and disabled, or which is providing a non-profit-making community minibus service; thirdly, to give concessions on taxi fares for people who are covered by local authority concessionary fares schemes; fourthly, to investigate transport needs and to publicise transport services; and, fifthly, to fund traffic calming works to be carried out by the highways authority.
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Some parish and community councils already do many of these things. At present though any parish spending on transport—or for that matter spending on crime prevention—is limited to no more than £3.50 per elector. This is the sum which they can raise for spending on general purposes. The new powers in the Bill will give parishes the freedom to increase their precept to cover the costs of any new community transport initiatives. We are not imposing new duties. Those who live in the parish will benefit from these arrangements, so it is right that they should meet the cost, rather than the taxpayer at large.
Crime and fear of crime are, of course, just as important in rural areas as they are in our inner cities. In towns and villages, parish councils can play an important role in assisting the police. We have therefore taken the opportunity in the Bill to give parish and community councils in England and Wales a new power to help the police and to support local crime prevention efforts. Again, no compulsion is involved. Many parishes already do this but, as with transport, the amount which they can raise is limited to £3.50 per elector.
The new provision will give parishes a new and separate statutory power so that they can give whatever kind of help they wish to give to the police in the fight against crime. Parishes will be able to state on what they want their money to be spent, subject, of course, to the agreement of the chief constable.
The help could be very modest, such as equipment for the local constable or security lighting for a vulnerable or dark part of the village, or it could be more ambitious. Some of our larger town councils might, for example, wish to install closed circuit television in their hight street. Therefore, there are a variety of methods which could be used and of ways in which parish councils may now be able to play a part and contribute.
The Bill's purpose is to help the countryside. It follows the rural White Paper which was drafted in close consultation with all those who have an interest in the countryside; and I hope that the Bill will receive the support and approval of your Lordships.
It has been agreed by the usual channels that it is an ideal candidate for what the Procedure Committee has now recommended should be called the Grand Committee procedure but which most of your Lordships will more colloquially remember as a Committee of the Whole House in the Moses Room.
In fact, I understand that it will be the first Bill which will go before the Grand Committee under its new name. I hope that your Lordships will ensure that it will receive the easy passage which such a distinguished precedent should deserve. I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Earl Ferrers.)
3.51 p.m.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for the very comprehensive way in which he introduced the Bill. He has made me see a lot more in it than I confess I saw the first time I read it.

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As the noble Earl said, the Bill arises from the rural White Paper which was welcomed on all sides of the House and which is proving a very valuable document. I welcome in particular the part of the Bill which will give much-needed help to village shops and post offices. As the Minister said, those establishments are much more than trading points. They can be a village meeting place where information—sometimes unkindly known as gossip—is exchanged and social contacts made. They help to keep the rural community alive. If the Bill helps to save the premises that remain open, it will be of use. All too many village shops and post offices have already disappeared. I hope that we can find explore ways of bringing back at least some of them.
In recent years, such premises have been hit by the growth of out-of-town retail developments and consequent car-borne shopping expeditions. Village shops cannot hope to compete price wise. Therefore, although the proposed rate relief is a welcome step, other measures may be needed to ensure that these valuable social assets remain viable. The threshold of £5,000 rateable value for the mandatory scheme may need to be reconsidered; for example, where a post office and general store are combined. And there may be other cases.
Unlike some of his predecessors, the Secretary of State has indicated the undesirability of allowing further out-of-town development. That is welcome. But, as I said, in many areas the damage has already been done. We may need to remind residents of the importance of supporting their local shops before they become under threat. Some 30 per cent. of the population do not own cars and the closure of the local post office is a major loss. Often they are pensioners, unable to buy themselves out of a difficult situation.
It is helpful that the rate relief now on offer to shops and post offices can be considered also for other small enterprises which contribute to the wellbeing of villages and small towns by maintaining a diversity of choice and providing the seed corn for more important enterprises in the future. Therefore, it may be wise to remove the discretionary rateable value threshold and allow complete discretion based on the merits of each case. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Shuttleworth, is to speak. The organisation which he heads has been extremely valuable in helping local communities. I only wish that it had been possible for its operations to be wider; they have been rather restricted. The noble Lord kindly invited me to see some of the results of his commission's achievements. It is very impressive.
The proposals for new powers for parish councils are interesting but, as we heard, there are implications for planning and finance which will need to be examined with some care. I seek reassurance from the noble Earl that nothing in the Bill will impede the efforts of local authorities to reach their Local Agenda 21 targets. Will the Minister say whether that aspect of the proposed changes was considered at all? Was it ever mentioned during the consultation period? Although, alongside the noble Earl, I support the devolution of decision-making wherever feasible, fragmentation of effort can, if not co-ordinated, be the enemy of good environmental
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practice. It would be extremely helpful to have some reassurance on that point. There are many other aspects to be considered in detail and I look forward to the Committee stage and to the opportunity to seek clarification. In the meantime, I give the Bill a qualified welcome.
3.56 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hamwee will be turning her attention to the problems of local government and rating, which is the Title of the Bill, about which she knows a great deal more than I do, but I wish to concentrate on the effects on the countryside.
I dislike the term "subsidiarity" almost as much as the noble Earl but possibly for slightly different reasons. On these Benches we believe that all power should be exercised by those as near to the people as possible and as little as possible should go through the national channel before going down again to authorities of various kinds at local level. In other words, we are in favour of giving as many powers to the smaller councils as can possibly be given, with only certain necessary safeguards.
Having said that about the Bill in general, I have only one question in relation to this aspect. I wish to ask the noble Earl why Northern Ireland is not included. I am sure that there is a very good reason, but it would be quite handy to have it spelt out.
Moving on to Part I of the Bill and non-domestic rating, we welcome the establishment on a regular basis of payments of rates on Crown property. But why does the Bill provide for all Crown property in England and Wales to be subject to non-domestic rating? Surely some of the Crown property is domestic property. Should not that be subject to the appropriate rating, depending upon what it is? I imagine that there are no financial effects apparently listed in the summary of financial effects at that point because, as the noble Earl explained to us, in practice the Crown pays the equivalent of rates already and therefore there will be no gain. Perhaps the noble Earl will confirm that that is so.
Moving on to Part II of the Bill, Clause 9 gives to district, unitary and county councils power to review their area and to make recommendations to the Secretary of State about the creation, abolition or alteration of parishes in the area. In so far as this is a step towards an increase in parish councils, it is very warmly to be welcomed. I just hope that there are sufficient safeguards to ensure that it cannot be used in the future for the abolition of parish councils when that is not particularly wanted by the parishes in question. I would be grateful for the Minister's reassurance on that point.
Clause 16 states that where a parish,
"has no separate parish council, the district or unitary council must under certain circumstances establish a parish council".
That, too, is to be welcomed.
I turn now to Part III of the Bill. I give an enormous welcome to Clauses 26 to 30 which confer powers in relation to transport and roads. Those powers would establish car-sharing schemes, make grants for bus services, arrange concessionary taxi fares schemes,

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investigate public transport and road needs and publicise local transport services and fund traffic calming works. Such powers will be immensely useful; and, indeed, that is a good way of returning power to where it belongs in such matters.
Part IV of the Bill relates to increased powers for parishes to introduce policies for community transport and crime prevention which will not lead to any financial effects for central government. That is good to know. Moreover, parish councils will have the power to increase the precept to cover expenditure on those activities. The power to raise money to run one's own affairs is a very important principle and one which we very much welcome.
There is one further matter that I have failed to address thus far; namely, the question of sporting rights. I am not entirely certain that I totally understand the situation which the noble Earl outlined. I understood him to say that the whole thing was so complex that we might as well abolish it altogether, because that was the simplest way to ensure that there were no complexities. However, I am not sure that that is a general rule that we would want to apply to all legislation. Nevertheless, if the noble Earl says that this is the simplest way, I am prepared to take his word for it. I say so especially because I see that the Country Landowners Association has told us that it thinks that this measure will ensure that there are more hedgerows, game coverts, trees, copses and so on being planted in the countryside.
Some noble Lords will be aware that there is a very interesting item of news in this week's edition of the New Scientist which states that investigations have proved that, where hedgerows have been planted or replanted, there is an immediate gain in wildlife. That is what everyone would expect and it has been proved by a certain amount of investigation which is now firmly on record.
When we come to study the Bill in the Moses Room, I can assure the Minister—at least, I hope that I can do so—that we on these Benches will do our best to give it an easy passage. However, that is not say that we will not look at it in considerable detail but there may not be many more questions to ask. I do not believe that it will necessarily be a short passage for the Bill, although it should be an easy one. On behalf of noble Lords on these Benches, I welcome the Bill.
4.3 p.m.
Lord Shuttleworth: My Lords, I am delighted that the Bill is now before us. I welcome it. I thank my noble friend the Minister for his explanation and apologise to the House in advance if I reiterate some of his points. I shall confine my comments to two matters: first, the proposed rate relief scheme for village shops and post offices; and, secondly, the widened powers of parish councils.
I must first declare an interest: a family trust owns a village shop, although I am not a beneficiary of it. I am also the chairman of the Rural Development Commission, a government agency which is concerned with the economic and social well-being of the people who live
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and work in England's rural areas. I was most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, for the appreciation of our work that she expressed a moment ago.
The Bill may seem modest and, apparently, uncontentious but it addresses one of the most serious concerns of small shopkeepers in rural areas. It will also enable rural communities, through their parish councils, to play a more active role in meeting their own needs.
I turn, first, to the proposal to give rate relief to village shops, post offices and other essential services. The Rural Development Commission has had a long standing concern for village shops and post offices, which have been declining in number for many years. Our survey of rural services in 1994 showed that 39 per cent. of England's rural parishes had no permanent shop, which was a decline of 2 per cent. since 1991. Although 2 per cent. does not sound very much, it is a loss of more than 150 village shops in three years—one a week. Our survey also showed that 40 per cent. of parishes had no post offices. Not surprisingly, the most vulnerable category is the sole shop in the smaller village. Less than six out of 10 parishes of between 1,000 and 3,000 inhabitants have a permanent shop and less than one in 10 parishes with fewer than 500 people. A recent survey of rural community councils for the commission confirmed a widespread concern from around the country about those continuing closures.
It is well recognised—indeed, it has already been recognised in the House this afternoon—that that decline is not just due to the difficulties of running a small shop, but also to the major changes which have taken place in rural areas over the past 20 to 30 years, different shopping patterns and the greater mobility of the population.
Nevertheless, as my noble friend the Minister explained, the village shop continues to play a vital role in the community, especially for the elderly, the disabled and those without a car. More likely than not, the shop will also include the post office and perhaps some other useful services; for example, some village shops in Norfolk provide computerised access to the county library service, while village shops elsewhere act as information points on transport services.
Because of their importance in rural areas, the commission has provided some support for those shops in England for several years. We do that in a number of ways. I must tell the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, that exhorting people to use the village shop is all very well, but it is no substitute for a business run by a competent business man. So we offer a broad range of expert business advice and training to help shopkeepers with the viability of their business. We have also published a good practice guide giving examples of successful village shops. We have published a guide on how communities themselves can finance or even manage their village shop. We have worked with local authorities on local schemes of support, including discretionary relief.
Last October the commission announced a new grant scheme in partnership with local authorities, and others, specifically to assist village shops. It is called, the

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"Village Shops Development Scheme" and will provide small, 50 per cent. grants to shops in villages of less than 3,000 people to allow them to invest in areas of activity which can boost their long-term viability. The money can be used, for example, to brighten up the sales area of the shop or to provide new equipment for use within it. There has already been a great deal of interest in the scheme. Earlier this week I visited the village shop in Greenodd in Cumbria to award the first of those new grants.
That sort of support will help to keep a village shop going. However, surveys conducted by the commission have consistently shown that the rates burden is one of the main concerns for small shops and businesses. The commission has made several representations to government, since the introduction of non-domestic rates, about the impact on small rural businesses and village shops in particular. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will not mind therefore if the commission claims some small contribution to the proposals in the Bill now before your Lordships. They reflect those representations that we have made both in the preparation of the rural White Paper and our subsequent discussions with my noble friend's department.
In particular, I support the twin-track approach: mandatory 50 per cent. rate relief for village shops and post offices, combined with a discretionary scheme which will not only allow local authorities to top up the mandatory relief, but also to extend relief to other premises which, in the words of the Bill,
"are used for purposes which are of benefit to the local community",
such as pubs and garages; indeed, there may be other more exotic and colourful examples of that. We shall see.
I believe that it is right to target the mandatory scheme on the most socially important and needy shops and post offices; that is, the sole businesses in communities of 3,000 people or less. I am pleased that the Exchequer will bear the full cost of the mandatory scheme and 75 per cent. of the discretionary help. It will be a relatively small cost in comparison to the benefits that it will bring.
I particularly welcome the flexibility which the Government have encouraged, both in discussion and in the debates in another place, in the operation and interpretation of the rate relief scheme by local authorities. However, there is one aspect of the rate relief scheme which could be strengthened further, and that is the level of rate relief available to small part-time community post offices, the majority of which are to be found in rural areas. Community post offices are at best marginal commercial propositions, often replacing ordinary post offices where it is no longer possible to keep those open. The evidence of the commission's rural services survey suggests that community post offices are not replacing all those closures.
I believe that there is a case for giving 100 per cent. relief from rates for all community post offices in rural areas by extending the terms of the mandatory relief scheme within the Bill. However, if that proves impossible, I at least urge the Government to give clear guidance to local authorities to give priority to helping
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community post offices in using the discretionary element of the scheme. That would encourage more consistency than currently exists, where some smaller post offices around the country already enjoy some rate relief at the discretion of the local authority, yet others of a similar size and performing a similar function have to pay their rates in full. My proposal would apply to a relatively small number of post offices and it would not add greatly to the cost of the rate relief scheme already proposed in the Bill. I have written to the department about this and I hope the Minister may be able to respond positively today.
I now turn briefly to another element of the Bill relating to the new powers for parish councils to respond to transport needs in their area and to implement various crime prevention measures, and the reserve powers which the Bill will give to the Secretary of State to ensure consultation of parish councils on key local issues. Those are useful measures which the commission welcomes. As my noble friend the Minister reminded us, one of the themes in the rural White Paper of 1995, which we strongly supported, was that local communities should be encouraged and assisted to play a greater role in their own futures. Parish councils are an excellent means of doing that and they are particularly well placed to undertake the modest, local measures which are proposed in this Bill to tackle two serious concerns of rural residents.
I think it is sensible that the new powers on transport and crime prevention will be exercised only by those parish councils that wish to do so. Parish councils vary in their size—we have heard some examples of that today—and their capacity to undertake work of this nature. It is important to recognise that parish councils may need help to enhance their role, for example through training or through access to information on good practice. The commission has already produced some such help; we have published or supported a number of good practice guides, including ones on transport and crime prevention, which show ways in which parish councils can take action locally. We are supporting a modest study of the training needs of parish councils. However, we have only limited resources and government and others, including the principal local authorities, need to consider further how they can also help parish councils in developing their role in the life of the countryside. For the good it will do for rural communities throughout England, this Bill deserves the whole-hearted support of the House.
4.13 p.m.
Lord Bowness: My Lords, I support the Bill. I understand from what my noble friend the Minister said that its purpose is to help the countryside. I particularly welcome the proposals for rate relief on general stores, post offices and other important businesses in an area, for all the reasons which the Minister and other speakers have given. All have far greater experience of rural matters than I. I hope that they will allow me to say that many of the problems faced by people living in rural areas when they lose a shop or a post office are shared by people in more urban settings and in larger towns.

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I should not want anyone to think that that is a criticism of the Bill because I understand its purpose. However, the fact remains that the reasons for the loss of shops in urban and suburban areas are much the same as have been put forward in relation to rural areas; namely, the increased number of larger shops, whether within or outside the centre, competing with the traditional shops. These shops are not content to sell their traditional groceries; they now want to sell newspapers, greetings cards, records, lottery tickets and all the things that took people into smaller shops. And they are not nearly so accessible for all the community, as already stated.
I am not suggesting that we should stop competition or that we can or should prevent changing shopping patterns. Larger shops with particular things in particular places are wanted and needed in the right place, but so are the smaller shops. I hope that I may introduce a metropolitan or urban voice into the debate. I welcome the Bill not just for what it will do for rural communities but because I believe it establishes a principle which in rural areas may help to make the competition between the larger stores fairer. That is a good principle and one which I hope at some time my noble friend the Minister and his colleagues in the Government may be able to examine further in order to counter the same problems in urban areas. I support the Bill.
4.16 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, I am indeed grateful on behalf of the Isle of Wight for this Bill and to my noble friend the Minister for his part in ensuring that this legislation is before Parliament. As was touched upon by my noble friend Lord Ferrers, the Isle of Wight's concern is that since it was established as a unitary authority the timescale for elections to the Isle of Wight council became out of step with elections to parish councils. My noble friend's department was warned that that might happen when the relevant legislation introducing unitary authorities was being prepared. However, that is now a matter of the past.
As soon as the non-synchronisation of election dates became a certainty, with the publication of the Isle of Wight council order nearly three years ago today, in consultation with Mr. Barry Field, our Member in another place, I started inquiries about when the necessary correcting legislation might be introduced by the Government. Notwithstanding reminders from time to time by both Barry Field and myself, and help when needed from my noble friend Lord Ullswater and, latterly, my noble friend Lord Ferrers, it has taken all of three years to have this small piece of legislation, which everyone agrees is essential, before your Lordships, with a statutory general election date looming ever closer as time has slipped away. Indeed, it is jolly lucky for the department that the casualty rate of the Back-Benchers of the Government—which might have happened with any party—was not a little higher or the measure would not have been achieved. I am sure that there is a lesson worth learning here by officials of all government departments to try to make sure that similar
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administrative lack of care to detail does not arise in the future, particularly when there is more than half of a five-year parliamentary term in which to deal with it—as there was in this case. I am sorry to have pressed that point but it is quite a lesson to learn, and it will happen again. The lesson is particularly relevant when the government of the day have a small majority.
As well as being a recently retired Lord Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight with a particular interest in that part of the world, I am a vice-president of the National Association of Local Councils, as indeed is the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, who was present for the introduction of this Bill, and others of your Lordships' House and of the other place. In that capacity, I have been asked by the NALC president, the noble Lord, Lord Feversham—sadly, he cannot be with us today—to say a few words on behalf of the national association.
The association, being principally concerned with Parts II and HI of the Bill, thoroughly supports its proposals in those parts. NALC will, however, recommend some amendments to improve the Bill by strengthening Clause 9 to require district or unitary authorities to carry out parish reviews more on the lines set out in the Local Government Act 1972 and the widening of Clause 21 to include consultations with parish meetings in parishes which have no councils. NALC also draws attention to there being no special provision in Part III for the funding of parish councils for new statutory functions. It is suggested that there should be some mechanism whereby the local council can have access to central funds to carry out duties conferred by statute and not have to rely solely on the precept raised from council tax payers in the parish. Examples of such duties relate to community transport and to crime prevention and detection, to which my noble friend the Minister specifically referred in his introduction. The noble Lord, Lord Shuttleworth, chairman of the RDC, drew attention also to the need for help and finance to deal with those problems.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, I welcome the contribution made by my noble friend Lord Shuttleworth. The Rural Development Commission is a profoundly helpful body to assist country life of all kinds, including parish councils. The remarks of my noble friend Lord Shuttleworth are of special value to the debate.
This is a good Bill. Parts of it are essential for good government. I trust that the whole House will give it a speedy passage.
4.22 p.m.
Earl Peel: My Lords, when it was published in 1995, I welcomed the rural White Paper as a positive and well intentioned programme for rural Britain. Consequently I welcome the Bill with equal enthusiasm.
The White Paper is a comprehensive package designed to achieve a balance between the rural communities and wider countryside. I appreciate that the wider countryside is not a specific part of the Bill. However, despite a great number of welcome initiatives by the Government towards conservation schemes and the like, there is still a basic and essential need for a

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proper and comprehensive review of the CAP if we are to see constructive and helpful conservation methods in this country. The Government's initiatives have beer helpful so far as they have gone. But until this basic problem is addressed, I fear that we shall not see the progress that many of us wish to see within the wider countryside.
I remind the Government that there are certain other aspects of the White Paper which many of us will be interested to see brought forward. I shall be interested to hear from the Minister the Government's agenda on hedgerow legislation. My noble friend on the Front Bench will no doubt be aware of my interest in the subject of water. He and I have had considerable correspondence on the matter for some time. During the passage of the Environment Bill the Government gave a commitment to review the process of water abstraction licences. Again, can my noble friend give some indication as to when we are likely to see progress on that issue?
There appears to be a basic recognition in the Bill that local communities need to be given more encouragement to help themselves through a degree of financial independence and responsibility. I am sure that that will be much welcomed. The Government are clearly heeding the recommendations of the House of Lords Select Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.
I do not think it is an exaggeration for me to say that relationships between central and local government have become somewhat strained over the years. I hope that the Bill will go some small way towards developing mutual confidence albeit at a very local level.
It is all too easy for local communities, and society itself, to become overreliant on the state. It is therefore partly through giving such communities the opportunity to manage their own affairs and resources in a more independent fashion that there is likely to be any real renaissance in true community spirit. Tackling crime—it is one of the fundamental platforms of the Bill—is a perfect example where local communities now appreciate that there is a limit to what local police forces can do, and are beginning to take it upon themselves to overcome increasing levels of rural theft and vandalism.
Many initiatives are now emanating from local level. There is Crime Watch, Neighbourhood Watch, Farm Watch and, in my part of the world, even Sheep Watch. They are all successful. In my part of the world the initiative has been so successful that the level of crime has dropped, and the method has changed. No longer does crime take place at midnight or in the early hours of the morning; it has switched to about six o'clock or seven o'clock in the evening when people are at home with their families. Clearly the local vigilantes (if I may so call them) will have to change their methods to meet the change in crime methods. But the scheme is working, and working well.
I have the honour to be patron of what I think is an exciting new community crime prevention initiative in North Yorkshire: the Hambledon and Richmondshire Partnership Against Crime (HARPAC). We have excellent examples where local initiatives work closely
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with the police but are community led. We are tackling auto crime, rural crime and retail crime. With support from local businesses and individuals, the initiative is beginning to show success. Indeed, we have just published the first edition of what we call the HARPAC Hound, a splendid publication which gives useful information on crime to district councils, parish councils, libraries, schools, and so on. It is an example of the way in which local communities are now beginning to take it upon themselves to sort out many difficulties which perhaps all too easily in the past they have relied on the state and local services to solve.
I welcome the new powers in the Bill to support local crime prevention through grants to help provide the installation of crime prevention equipment, along with financial help to provide special constables. That is another good initiative.
I wish to take this opportunity not only of congratulating my noble friend Lord Shuttleworth but also his quango on the excellent work that it has done. Many other noble Lords have mentioned it. There is no doubt that the initiatives taken by the Rural Development Commission have been welcome. The noble Lord said how much he welcomes the rates relief for businesses in the Bill. I shall not expand on that. I thoroughly endorse the remarks he made. I am sure that those measures will give considerable help to village shops, stores and so on.
However, perhaps I may pick up a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol. She is right to say that it is up to local communities, residents, and visitors to rural areas to use the local shops. It is no use complaining when the shops go if people do not make a conscious effort to ensure that the local retailers have the opportunity to survive. I welcome that aspect. I welcome the transport initiative. I also welcome the opportunity for greater liaison between parish and district councils.
Finally, I turn to the abolition of sporting rates and bringing the system in England and Wales into line with that in Scotland. The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, expressed some confusion as to how that had come about. I regard this as a most helpful step, particularly in view of the massive—I do not think that is too strong a word—contribution made over the years by field sports to the conservation of habitats that would otherwise have long since gone. Heather moorland, woods, ponds and other important landscape features owe their very survival to field sports interests and initiatives.
I think it is true to say that sporting rates were a tax on conservation. I therefore very much welcome their abolition. As chairman of the Game Conservancy Trust I have seen a number of initiatives developed over the years—conservation headlands, beetle banks and wild bird cover—none of which would have come about without sporting interests. They have played a big role in helping to stem the decline of a number of threatened species, particularly in arable Britain. Many of those initiatives are now part and parcel of government conservation schemes.

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I very much welcome this initiative. The Bill is extremely apt. I am sure that it will serve its purposes in helping to give a great impetus to rural communities. I wish it a very speedy passage through this House.
4.31 p.m.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, I am also delighted to welcome the Bill. It makes a change from the reaction to other Bills in recent weeks. I declare an interest. I own a business which could well come into the category of village shop.
The Government are to fund the first 50 per cent. of any rate reduction that might be given to a village shop, a proposal that is extremely welcome. On the other hand, many shops require total rate relief, and many local authorities are so strapped for cash that they may well not produce the extra 50 per cent. It will be very interesting to see whether they are prepared to give the full 100 per cent. reduction that they are allowed to give.
There is, however, another point. I have in mind a particular, very small village which has no shop but does have a pub. It is not a very good pub, but it just survives. A cafe has started up beside it which is also just surviving. It is, however, not strictly a shop. Both premises sell chocolate, but one tries to sell tea and the other beer. It is rather like the notice saying, "We guarantee not to cash cheques and the bank guarantees not to sell beer".
Would that sort of business (that is, not exactly a shop but a cafe) which is at the centre of village activity be eligible for the full reduction in rates; or, because it is not strictly a shop, will it not qualify? That sort of case should be included in the provisions.
I support the remarks of my noble friend Lord Peel about usage. The Rural Development Commission has always said that if local people do not use local facilities, those facilities disappear. The more we say, "Use it, or lose it", the better.
I also wish to raise a point about sports facilities. At home, there is a ski slope and two tennis centres, one of which is very precarious; indeed, the ski slope is so precarious that I am not sure that it has not slid down already. Those sorts of facilities also need full rate relief until the business gets off the ground. Once it is off the ground, then it can pay rates. Many local authorities are so keen to levy rates on such facilities that they, as it were, cut their own throats—businesses go down the drain and facilities are lost that were extremely good for the community. Or sometimes a local authority is tempted to take a facility over and run it at a loss. How much better it would be to provide a reduction in rates, allow a business to get off the ground and have somebody other than the authority running the business. I hope that those sorts of facilities, even if they are not out in the country, can be included in the provisions for rate relief until they are off the ground.
I am very glad to see a provision in the Bill to help with crime prevention. That will prove very valuable.
In addition, I welcome the transport initiatives in this measure. Several years ago I was inveigled into investing in a small way in a scheme to collate figures
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relating to all people who moved from the country to live in towns. It was simply not possible. There were too many movements of people for the project to work. Perhaps if it were applied to villages, it might have more success.
Certain areas have private bus services which travel from village to village picking people up. It is very important to make certain that no grants are given to communities to aid competition with existing services. Quite clearly, that would be anti-competitive. I hope that my noble friend will assure me that there will be no unfair competition with any existing services. I very much welcome the Bill.
4.36 p.m.
Lord Sandys: My Lords, almost exactly a year ago, on 7th February, on a snowy evening, this House gave a Second Reading to the Community Representation Bill to which my noble friend Lord Ferrers referred. That Bill expired at the end of last Session. However, thanks to my noble friend and his officials, very fruitful discussions were held in his department from February onwards right up to the present. My first, and very pleasant, task is to thank my noble friend for his continued interest in the Community Representation Bill that we discussed a year ago and especially that aspect with which I and my colleagues are particularly concerned. I declare an interest as the high steward of a charter town; namely, Kidderminster.
Noble Lords may be interested to know that although charter towns are mentioned in the guidance there is no reference whatever to them in the Bill. But, as I hope we shall see in due course, it will be perfectly possible to make full use of the Bill as drafted. I greatly commend what the Government have done in producing the Bill.
Last year my noble friend Lord Mottistone pointed out most successfully how defective the Local Government Act 1992 was, especially in regard to powers for creating parishes and the way in which they had been removed from local democracy and placed in the hands of the Local Government Commission. I shall not touch on that situation. However, I wish to point out a problem in relation to charter towns. Such towns are only 22 in number. As noble Lords may be aware, many are of very ancient foundation. In the 1972 Act they were permitted, as part of a new district, to preserve some civic authority. In a titular sense they retained a mayor, and in a civic sense they retained their robes and armorials. However, they have no function as such.
Since the 1972 Act a number of towns in this category have gained parish council status. The remaining 22, all of which very much wish to do so, fall into the somewhat difficult category of towns with large populations. My noble friend Lord Ferrers mentioned parishes at the lower end of the scale with quite small populations. At the upper end is the parish of Bracknell with a population of 50,000. There are particular reasons why I should mention Bracknell.
But there is one town in particular on which I should like to concentrate to see how it is affected by the Bill. I refer to Bath, a charter trustee town of enormous

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antiquity, one which not only has world heritage status environmentally and architecturally but one which has been an important centre of civilisation in this country since Roman times.
Noble Lords will be aware that King Edgar, the first King of England, was crowned in Bath in 973 and thus the city holds an important place in the history of this country. It was incorporated by charter in 1189. The area of the city has remained almost unchanged since the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. In essence, Bath is unique in that the whole area contained within ancient and historic surroundings is the present active community.
My concern is that were Bath to make application to gain parish council status, either by the process of a public petition or through one of the other two methods described by my noble friend Lord Ferrers, it would lead to the fragmentation of the city. Bath consists of wards, as do nearly all the ancient cities. Under the Bill as drafted, the City of Bath is likely to break up into a substantial number of individual parishes and thereby lose its unique status as a city, with all the advantages which have been mentioned. Almost precisely the same thing would happen in the case of the City of Salisbury, which is very similar, with a population of 36,000, compared to Bath's 85,000, according to the most recent census.
I therefore ask my noble friend Lord Ferrers and his officials to consider the grave problems of fragmentation and to take into account the careful handling that these ancient cities and towns deserve, not only to add to their vitality but also to make them more pleasant places in which to live.
I am delighted to hear from noble Lords the effect that the Bill will have in rural areas. In urban and town areas, too, it will have a very marked effect, for reasons which have been described.
Finally, I am sure that noble Lords would wish me to thank all those who participated in the earlier Bill. If I may say so, it has helped the composition of the Bill before us. It is often the case that a Private Member's Bill can affect the composition of a government Bill which will have the full panoply of the machinery of government behind it. The little Bill we looked at 12 months ago is enormously enhanced in the Bill before us. I thank my noble friend for all he has done and for what I hope we shall do as far as charter towns are concerned.
4.45 p.m.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, perhaps I too may thank the Minister for his explanation of the provisions of the Bill, which we on these Benches welcome in principle and, perhaps a little churlishly, wish went a little further and did some things a little differently. 'Twas ever thus.
I deal first with non-domestic rating. As always with any provision regarding taxation, questions arise regarding its fairness, clarity and transparency. I am by no means certain that this Bill passes those tests; or, if it does, I do not think it receives top marks. The main problem is admittedly the UBR itself. There is, after all,
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a pretty wide consensus that it is not a good tax. The Bill does not address that matter and does not pretend to do so.
With regard to transparency, I am sceptical enough to believe that the cost of the new relief is likely to translate itself into increased council tax. If the Minister is able to say that aggregate external finance, of which UBR is a part, will be made up to balance the relief, that will be a good thing, although I imagine that he is not in a position to respond to that point this afternoon.
If the relief does lead to an increase in council tax, if that change is clearly understood, then one could not grumble too much, save to say that lower-rate taxpayers and those who pay no tax are hit by council tax in a way that does not happen through income tax. That is the relationship between the two areas. That has been the experience from the last Budget.
Will the relief work? I support any proposal for helping small shops and post offices, which are, as many noble Lords have said, at the heart of many small rural communities, although like the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, I also acknowledge the needs of urban areas. Support for regeneration of urban areas is an important topic, not just for those areas but for the countryside too because, if towns are regenerated, the countryside is preserved. That raises the whole issue of saving the countryside by using our urban areas properly and as intensely as possible without being over-intense.
I support too the help for post offices. That raises another, perhaps peripheral, question as to whether that indicates that their privatisation is being taken off the agenda. I invite the Minister to comment if he feels it appropriate.
The terms of the Bill refer to purposes "beneficial to the local community" as a criterion for relief. I would have thought that almost by definition the shops and post offices in question would be beneficial. I hope that there will not be difficulties if neighbouring local authorities exercise their discretion in different ways. That might be an interesting area. That is not to say that I believe that local authorities should not have a discretion. I have said many times that I support local discretion. The Bill allows only a very limited discretion within a tight framework, perhaps too tight both philosophically and practically. We shall perhaps address at later stages practical difficulties, such as what to do with a shop which is not owner-occupied and what to do in a situation where there are two stores, both of which seem to be good candidates, one of which is a post office.
The terms of the Bill are also perhaps too tight in the designation of rural areas being a matter for the Secretary of State, setting the context for the local authority to designate a settlement and which shop might qualify. Perhaps at a later stage we shall pursue matters of criteria, guidance and consultation.
Finally, there is an omission from the Bill with regard to non-domestic rates. Can the Minister explain whether or not there was an opportunity in the Bill to provide for the enforcement of UBR against companies in administrative receivership? That matter is not central to the topics dealt with in the Bill but I understand that

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it is a matter of considerable concern that companies in administrative receivership are able to avoid paying UBR.
My honourable friend the Member for Newbury in another place referred to the colonial attitude of the Government, which was an expression I rather enjoyed. I think it is quite apt as regards the Bill, particularly with respect to Part II.
Like my noble friend, I am of the "subsidiarity tendency". By that I mean not more government, but government at the right level. I welcome the possibility of more parishes, although I would prefer to see—this is one suggestion—a presumption in favour of parishes with a mechanism for a regular review rather than the somewhat ad hoc approach in the Bill.
Decisions are matters for the Secretary of State, although there is consultation. One of those to be consulted, of course, is the Local Government Commission but that would only be at the instigation of the Secretary of State. Again, the Bill raises issues on consultation which will bear discussion at later stages. I will be seeking assurances later about the processes. Many individuals and organisations may have views. I am thinking, for instance, of other parts of the public sector.
On the question of how parishes will relate to charter trustee areas, I was delighted to hear the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Sandys—I remember his Bill well. But the concern not to destroy the identity of historic communities by fragmenting them is something I well understand.
To me, a glaring omission is the failure to take the opportunity to allow for parishing community councils in London—a world city made up of villages. I see no good reason for refusing Londoners the right to have their own local councils. That is a right that the rest of the country will have but not those of us who live in our capital. Our capital has many different characteristics and the identity of the small areas of London which go to make it up add to its character.
In Committee on these Benches we shall pursue the issue, which was raised in another place by my honourable friend the Member for Newbury and in this House by my noble friend Lord Tope who, almost 20 years ago, when he was a Member of another place, brought forward a Private Member's Bill to do just that. That Private Member's Bill had a most interesting list of sponsors.
I believe that overseeing the operation of parishing would be just the sort of thing that your Lordships' Select Committee on relations between central and local government had in mind. It was suggested that there might be a committee of this House or another place to review that relationship. The Select Committee made comments on the need for a body which would assist the process of good relations. It is a pity that that proposal is not being taken forward because I can see a real role for such a committee in the parishing process.
That committee also made recommendations on the powers of competence of local authorities, which takes us to Part III of the Bill. I support the extension of
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specific powers for the councils in question so far as they go. But I cannot help but feel that it is odd that it is necessary to spell out such powers in detail. It is far better always to start from allowing the general with restrictions rather than requiring the spelling out of the specifics. The subject areas are important—I do not deny that—and I am sure that good use will be made of the new powers, although it did occur to me that an extension of the right of local authorities to make grants to the police seems something of an admission of defeat by the Home Office.
I have talked of relations between central and local government. Relations between tiers of local government are important too. Principal local authorities are developing charters and agreements with their local parishes to formalise the relationship, and I understand that a lot of very positive work is going on. At the interface between principal local authorities and central government work too is advancing on some charter or concordat—I do not think the term has yet been agreed. I would like to take this opportunity to say—perhaps not with complete relevance to the Bill but nevertheless I will say it that I hope that work goes forward quickly and is successful as I believe it is very important.
I will end, again not with strict relevance but perhaps appropriately as I think this may be the last debate on local government matters before April, by wishing good luck to the new Local Government association. I am sure all your Lordships will wish it well and will wish well too the ever-better local government of this country which I am sure the new association will assist.
4.56 p.m.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, let me first thank the Minister for the very clear way in which he went through the detail of the Bill, explained it to the House and generally spoke in favour of rural areas.
Having said that, in the run-up to an election it is not surprising if people throughout the country look suspiciously at any measures brought forward by government. After all, it is understandable that the Government want to try to look good in the last weeks before they face the electorate. Nevertheless, the conclusion one must reach about this Bill is that it is a good Bill coming from a bad government. I do not know whether the Minister heard that: it is a good Bill coming from a bad government, and I think that it is very generous of us to say so.
Over the years it has been clear that our countryside, the rural areas of Britain, are all too often forgotten. It is therefore welcome that we have a Bill which will make a positive contribution to the problems of rural areas. Before going into the details, let me try to set the context. All is not as well as some of your Lordships have suggested this afternoon. In the wider context, the Government have over many years given approval to large out-of-town shopping centres which have had the effect, inevitably, of destroying village shops in the surrounding areas. I appreciate that the present Secretary of State appears to be against out-of-town shopping centres, but I fear that much of the damage has been done.

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Secondly, neither the Bill nor the Minister has said anything about the high levels of unemployment in the rural areas of this country, which in turn have an effect on the living standards, which in turn have an effect on economic vitality in those areas.
Thirdly, there are enormous housing difficulties in some of these parts of the country, and there is a drift away from these areas on the part of young people either because they are looking for jobs where they can find them or because they cannot afford the fairly high prices for houses in the areas in which they have been brought up.
My next general point is that public transport is pretty lousy in many of these areas, and the dependence on the motorcar is far too heavy. Government deregulation policies have certainly played their part in damaging public transport in these areas.
My last general point is that sometimes in this country the beauty of the countryside masks the poverty of some of the people who live within it. Some of the difficulties that the Bill tries to tackle stem from the poverty, unemployment, housing difficulties and poor transport in the areas about which we are talking.
Let me be more positive in terms of the Bill itself. It goes some small way towards tackling the problems that I have described. I welcome the move to help village stores and post offices. As many noble Lords have said, village stores and post offices may well be the centre of the village. They may well be the focus of village life, gossip and discussion. But for elderly people or those without motor cars, they are even more vital because they may provide the only possible access to shopping. The more vulnerable people in country areas are those who are most dependent upon the facilities provided by the village shop or post office within walking distance, when other larger shops require a motor car to get to them.
I welcome what the Bill says about shops and post offices. I also welcome what it says about transport, tackling crime and possibly the help it will give to setting up more parish councils to enable local people to express themselves through elected representatives when dealing with the problems of their areas.
Further, I welcome the fact that there will be a power of precept given to parish councils to enable them to raise some money for those purposes. In passing, I notice that the power has been widely welcomed on all sides. It is not that different in principle from the power that we in the Labour Party would like to give to the people of Scotland in setting up a Scottish Assembly. That seems to attract a lot of criticism, whereas the very sensible wish to give parish councils the same power passes without criticism. I welcome that power for parish councils; and, if there is an assembly or parliament for Scotland, I should welcome it as giving the people of Scotland, if they choose that way, the power to raise some money for their own needs.
Let me deal with some of the specific difficulties which stem from the Bill. Some of the proposals are quite detailed. First, there is the cut-off point of settlements above 3,000 to exclude them from the safeguards that can be brought in for village shops and
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post offices. I suppose that there has to be a cut-off point somewhere, but I wonder whether the figure of 3,000 may be a little low for scattered communities.
I am also somewhat concerned that the emphasis is placed on the "only" store. If there is more than one store, these benefits will not apply. I wonder whether that is appropriate. A community which is getting on for 3,000 may be very widely scattered. At each end of it there may well be a store but, as I understand it, neither would benefit from the provisions of the Bill, although the spirit of the Bill suggests that they should do so. I wonder, therefore, whether the Bill is unduly restrictive about that.
Secondly, given the rateable value threshold of £5,000, what happens where the village shop and the post office are a joint enterprise? That may well put the joint shop and post office above the £5,000 threshold, even though they might qualify if they were separate. I hope that that will not prove too restrictive.
I should also like to know the answer to the question of who gets a particular concession: whether the shopkeeper gets the concession or the owner or landlord of the property gets it, if the two are different individuals. Like other noble Lords this afternoon, I too question whether the definition of "rural settlement" may not be too narrow. What about shops that are on the edge of small towns where similar conditions apply in terms of distance from a large store? People there can be just as isolated as they may be in small villages. I refer to country towns. Again, the distances may be fairly large. I hope that we can find some way to have the provisions made more flexible to include such areas.
I wonder too whether it might be possible to make the definition of "shops" more flexible to include other types of shop, perhaps garages that sell a variety of goods. Pharmacies and pubs have already been mentioned.
There is a difficulty when the home of the person who runs the post office or village shop is part of the same premises. Is it possible for the shopping part to attract the benefit described? That is a technical difficulty but I hope that some way can be found to resolve it. I understand that some 1,200 or so such establishments might be affected up and down the country.
My noble friend Lady Nicol drew attention to the need for people in rural areas to use shops and post offices; as one noble Lord said, "Use it, or lose it." Of course, that is true. But possibly other measures could be added to the Bill to help attract business or interest in, say, a post office. One suggestion given to me is the possibility of a public access terminal. People could go to the post office and use a computer terminal—with advice; people like me would need it—in order to tap into a wide range of information, such as governmental information and information from the local authority, which they might otherwise have to travel some distance to obtain. That is a small way in which post offices might, as it were, exert a pulling power in the locality.
There is another difficulty. What about the villages which have already lost their shops? There are many of them. I wonder whether there is not some way in which the same incentive given to village shops and post

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offices to keep them there could also be applied to enable village shops and post offices to be restored. I appreciate that that is more difficult. Once a shop has gone, it is hard to bring it back. However, there may be some communities which might band together to bring back their village shop and might need a little help to do it.
I turn now to local transport and crime prevention. I hope that some of the poorer parish councils will be able to raise enough money locally to enable them to carry out the functions that they will be given in this legislation.
Nothing has been said about local schools, although the White paper drew attention to the importance of local schools and the difficulty that children might have making long journeys, should the local village school disappear.
I also regret that there is no mention of possible improvements to railway services, either retaining railway services in these areas or—dare I even suggest it—in some of those areas where railways services have been closed down, bringing them back as a way of attracting more life to local areas. We all know areas where the local railway system, if run perhaps on a different basis, could possibly be restored and at least pay for itself in the new circumstances.
I understand that the Bill will enable parish councils to make grants available for bus services wholly or mainly for the benefit of members of the public who are elderly or disabled. That is quite right and proper. But if a local bus service is to be provided or supported by these means, everybody will start to use it because there are so few bus services in some areas. I would hope that the fact that we shall all pile on to those bus services in those areas would not make the Government say that it is not within the terms of the Bill. Again, I hope that the provision will be sufficiently flexible.
Lastly, I welcome the opportunity given to parish councils in regard to crime prevention. Anything that enables local people to be involved in decisions about their own safety can only be for the better. In my experience, it is the local people who know where the dangerous areas are; they know where there should be an additional streetlight; they know the roads down which some villains might travel. That kind of collaboration between local people and the police can only be to the good. Anything that makes such collaboration better, as I believe this Bill might do, is to be welcomed.
As I said at the beginning, this is a good Bill from a bad government. We shall need to look at it in detail when it goes to Committee. I hope that the Bill, with these principles, will get through the House quickly.
Earl Peel: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, can he make a comment about the abolition of rates on sporting rights? He did not mention them at all in his speech and I am curious to know what his and his party's views are towards that part of the Bill.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, I did not mention them because I was somewhat bemused both by the
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discussions here and in the other place about them. Frankly, I would rather leave the matter to the Committee stage to see whether we are helping to make Scotland the same as England or England the same as Scotland and where the benefits are. The Minister said very little about it in his speech. I was hoping that he would give us a lead.
5.10 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, that is a very good way of saying, "I don't know". I do not blame the noble Lord because he was caught on the hop and he made a jolly good fist of getting out of the situation. I am grateful for the welcome that noble Lords have given to this Bill. It has been a considerable welcome and that is deeply appreciated. There were not many noble Lords who disagreed with it.
The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is a very nice man and I like him a lot. It does not come easy to him to be nasty. He did try to be nasty because I believe that his brief says that he must say something horrible about the Government. So he said that it was a jolly good Bill, but that it came from a bad government. I expected him to say something like that. However, he said that it was a "good Bill" and that was the great thing about it. He did try to bring in a little party politics in saying that we had not done very much. I was amused and wondered how his party was going to make a much better fist of all this. Only one Member on the Benches behind him participated in the debate on this great Bill, which shows the interest that his party has in the countryside. However, she is an excellent Member and she too said that it is a good Bill.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, she is a very good Member.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, indeed, she is a very good Member. The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, always has a percipient attitude towards matters concerning the countryside. She said that it is a good Bill.
I was glad to note so many of my noble friends behind me enthusing about the Bill and the Government. My noble friend Lord Gisborough pointed out that he was happy to be on the side of the angels today. I merely say that we noted that some of my noble friends behind me have not always been minded to support the Government in the way that they should. Because my noble friend made those nice remarks today, I hope he will not consider that he is storing up brownie points for any future misdemeanours. I will accept the fact that he has seen the light and that in future he and most of my noble friends will continue to support the Government in the way that they usually do.
Earl Peel: My Lords, I am quite certain that the remarks that my noble friend makes are made in jest. Perhaps I may just make a serious point. As regards the Firearms (Amendment) Bill, it did not give me nor any of my colleagues any pleasure whatsoever to vote against the Government which, principally, we support. The reason we did so was because we thought that it

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was a thoroughly bad Bill. That in no way implies criticism of the Government themselves generally speaking, but only on that specific occasion.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, perhaps I may add that I was principally voting against the Opposition Front Bench.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I think we should get back to the Bill. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Shuttleworth for what he and the Rural Development Commission do for the countryside. They put in a considerable amount of work from which the countryside benefits greatly. His intervention today is a mark not only of the importance of the countryside, but also of the work of the Rural Development Commission.
My noble friend Lord Mottistone referred to the Isle of Wight, as I would expect. I thought that he would be glad about the steps we have taken to deal with the Isle of Wight and its problems. But my noble friend was not wholly satisfied. He said, "We warned the Government of the problem. We have tried for years and years. Why have we not altered things before now?". We have not necessarily had the opportunity to do that, but this Bill provides such an opportunity. However, my noble friend said that he tried; Mr. Field tried; and my noble friend Lord Ullswater tried. But my noble friend said that we had to wait until Ferrers came to the Department of the Environment before he got the satisfaction which he sought. I hope that at least he will now find that satisfaction.
My noble friend Lord Gisborough and many others referred to the importance of keeping rural shops and that they should be supported. They have to be supported, but inevitably one has changing demands because of the advantages of the large shops with cheaper prices and so many things being available. However, people do require small shops. I believe that it was my noble friend Lord Bowness who said that we cannot alter the patterns of shopping and that it would be wrong of us to try. He is quite right in that respect. We should not alter the patterns of shopping, but we should try to help those shops which find themselves in specific difficulties.
One of the points to which many noble Lords referred was rate relief. The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, was concerned about the threshold for mandatory relief being too low at £5,000. The rateable value threshold is not on the face of the Bill. We are minded to set it at £5,000. When we consulted about the threshold in the summer most respondents supported that level. We shall certainly consider the noble Baroness's comments before we set the threshold for mandatory relief. At the moment it is not set in stone, but that is the figure which we believe should be set.
The noble Baroness asked why we needed a threshold for discretionary relief. Our research shows that small businesses are most in need of help. That is why it is right to limit the discretionary relief to businesses which have a rateable value below £10,000. Again, we have not set such a threshold and it is not on the face of the Bill. We shall certainly consider the points made by the noble Baroness before we reach a final decision.
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The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, wanted to know why the Bill provided that Crown property will pay only business rates and not domestic rates. There is a fairly simple reply to that. The domestic rate no longer exists. It is now called the council tax. The Bill provides that only non-domestic Crown property will be removed from Crown exemption and that is why they will pay non-domestic rates. The amounts will be broadly the same as the contributions in lieu of rates which they make at the moment. Domestic Crown property is generally subject to council tax because the occupiers themselves are not exempt. Only empty domestic property and houses owned by the Ministry of Defence are exempt. In that case a contribution is made in lieu of council tax.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, I completely accept what the noble Earl said and he has certainly cleared my mind on the subject. If there is still some area where money is paid in lieu of council tax, why is that anomaly not also being cleared up in this Bill? The main anomaly is that money paid in lieu of tax out of goodwill has been tidied up and tax is being paid. Why cannot that be done in the area which the noble Earl just mentioned?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, if I understood the noble Lord's problem correctly, it is this. Non-domestic rates are paid on property. Therefore, when the property is in the hands of a government department, until now it has not paid the non-domestic rate because it has been exempt. However, a similar amount has been paid in lieu. Domestic rates now no longer refer to a place, but are domestic rates paid by individuals. Therefore, people who live in what may be a non-domestic place will still have to pay the council tax.
I may have misunderstood the noble Lord's question. I shall read it again in Hansard and write to him about it. From the expression on his face, I fancy that I may have misunderstood him—
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, before the Minister continues, my noble friend has a point, because the council tax is in part a property tax, as we were told on many occasions when the legislation was going through. That is why, for instance, a sole occupier gets only 25 per cent. relief—it is a relief on only part of the tax. It might be helpful to my noble friend if, on the point about empty properties—
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I see now that there is a point of which I may not be fully seized. I shall address my mind to the point that the noble Lord and his noble friend have made. Incidentally, I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, said that he "hugely welcomed" the Bill. That is helpful.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and my noble friend Lord Bowness referred to small business rate relief and said how good it was for the countryside, but that town businesses suffered also. We are aware that rates continue to be a considerable burden on small businesses whether they are located in the country or in towns. We recognise that more needs to be done. I can

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advise my noble friend that we are looking at what steps might be taken further to reduce the rate burdens on small businesses, wherever they are located.
My noble friend Lord Gisborough was concerned about new businesses receiving rate relief. The Bill will provide mandatory rate relief to general stores and post offices because they provide an essential service. Local authorities will have discretionary powers to help other rural businesses, but we are considering how to help small businesses in general with their rates bills and we shall certainly consider my noble friend's points before we reach a decision.
The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, also spoke about property and was concerned about whether the relief would be available if only part of the property was used as a general store. Relief will be available if only part of the property (be it a general store or a post office) is being used. The noble Lord was also concerned about the position of owner occupiers. Rate relief will apply only to an occupier, not to an owner, because the property must be in use.
The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, also said that the specified figure of 3,000 for a village population was too low for a rural settlement. It is always difficult to come to a fair or right figure. We thought that 3,000 was about right. We consulted on that figure and, on the whole, most people considered that it was right. I claim no immunity about it being the perfect figure, but it is the one that we think is right. However, whatever the figure on which one decides, reasons are always given as to why it should be higher or lower.
My noble friend Lord Shuttleworth referred to community post offices. I agree that community post offices play an important role in providing essential services to rural communities, as do all post offices. Community post offices already tend to have very low rates bills—far lower than the bills of full-time post offices. The rate relief scheme may reduce them still further by providing that the sole post office—and it has to be a sole post office in a village settlement—receives 50 per cent. mandatory rate relief. My noble friend said that it will be open to local authorities to grant community post offices 100 per cent. relief if they so wish. I am sure that local authorities will look with particular favour on applications from the very smallest post offices, but I do not think that it would be appropriate to issue guidance on such decisions. The use of discretionary powers should reflect local circumstances. Any guidance is, by definition, bound to be more prescriptive than no guidance. This is one of those occasions when one wishes to leave the discretion with the local authorities.
My noble friend Lord Sandys referred to the Charter Trustees Bill. I had a funny feeling that we would not get through this debate without my noble friend referring to that. I am bound to say that I do not entirely share my noble friend's view that the Local Government and Rating Bill will adversely affect charter trustee areas or that special provision needs to be made for them. Our general view is that a parish should be based on the smallest area which would reflect local interests and form a convenient administrative unit. It may well be
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that charter trustee areas meet that test, but we do not think that it would be right to ensure that a charter trustee area can only become a single parish. Communities are never fossilised. They inevitably ebb and flow. If the identities of old communities change, it is the modern communities, not the older ones, which the boundaries of any new parish should reflect.
Where a proposal to parish a charter trustee area is brought forward by a district council or as a petition, local views will be presented to the Secretary of State. It should therefore be quite clear where local interests and identities lie with regard to the proposed parish. If it is not clear, the Secretary of State can call on the Local Government Commission to consider the matter further.
We have taken steps to ensure that the effect of any proposal for a new parish in an existing charter trustee area is to be taken into account properly. Our draft circular on parish reviews cites a charter trustee town as a possible case where a larger parish would best suit the needs of the area if division of a town would not reflect the sense of community which should lie behind all those parishes. The draft circular also refers to particular factors for consideration where there is a proposal to parish a charter trustee area, such as whether the area has a cohesive history and demonstrable community identity and whether it contains separate smaller areas which themselves have separate identities and would be viable as parishes in their own right. We think that that will provide perfectly clear and balanced guidance about charter trustee areas and new parishes. As always on these matters, my noble friend's speech was most interesting and I shall certainly study what he said carefully.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, was concerned about the risk of the decision-making process being fragmented. She was also worried about Agenda 21 issues. The decision-making responsibility will not be transferred by the Bill. The Bill provides only that there should be better consultation between the local authorities and the parish councils. It should enable the principal authorities to make better decisions. Agenda 21 issues may well be suitable for wider consultation. We are not intending that that should be made more difficult.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, asked whether parish councils could be abolished under the Bill. The answer is that they could be. It will be possible for the Local Government Commission or a district council to recommend that a parish council should be abolished, but a review will have to be conducted first. The Secretary of State will require very good reasons as to why a parish council should be abolished. Mere dissatisfaction with the current parish council will not be enough. We expect few such abolitions.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, also referred to Northern Ireland and asked why Northern Ireland is not included in the Bill. It will be open to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to bring forward an Order in Council to bring Northern Ireland rating into line with these changes where appropriate, if he wishes to do so.

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The noble Lord was also worried about sporting rights. My noble friend Lord Peel gave the noble Lord a very good answer. The rating of sporting rights is riddled with anomalies. The only way to solve such problems is to remove such rights from rating. The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, said that saying that, if something was inconvenient or contained lots of anomalies, it should be removed was a funny approach to take. I think that that is a rather good basis on which to approach such matters, but most of government does not operate like that because it is too complicated. This case, however, is not too complicated; it is quite simple. Therefore, we think that it is a good thing to do because it will help local country interests. It will put about £5 million per year into the rural economy. We shall be getting rid of regulations. Indeed, we shall be getting rid of a nasty tax, so I think that everyone should approve of it. Indeed, even the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, might think that that is a good idea.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, in view of the utter complexity of the tax system, can we also get rid of that?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am always very keen to help my noble friends. However, I think that he asks a little too much of me on this occasion. I will bear in mind his sentiments. Even though I may be in agreement with him, I do not believe that I would be able to persuade my colleagues in government to take such a generous view.
My noble friend Lord Mottistone has received proposals from the National Association of Local Councils which would require district councils to carry out regular reviews, extend the consultation provisions to parish meetings and give financial support to help parishes to carry out their new functions. These are fairly detailed matters that we can return to at Committee stage. The regular reviews under the 1972 Act achieve little. It is not the carrying out of reviews that matters. What matters is that it is taken seriously when it is done. Some districts do not take it very seriously. The petitioning procedure in the Bill provides a better remedy in case the district council is not interested or is agnostic. There are powers, not duties, to provide something extra. It is right that the local taxpayer should meet the bill for that. I believe that to ask the national taxpayer to subsidise local choices is wrong.
My noble friend Lord Peel referred to the reform of the common agricultural policy. I agree with him that reform is essential, especially before the European Union's membership greatly increases. We are working to that end. He asked whether I could say anything about hedgerow legislation. Our proposals went out to consultation and some 530 responses were received. Those responses are being considered. With regard to a review of water abstraction licences, I am bound to say that my noble friend has caught me on the hop. I am not totally familiar with the present position, since it does not have very much to do with this Bill. However, I will find out the situation and write to my noble friend.
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The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was concerned about non-domestic rates and whether the implementation of this measure would cause problems. We are discussing with local authorities exactly how to implement the village shop scheme. They do not consider that there are very many problems, but if necessary we will have to issue guidance.
The noble Baroness was also concerned about companies in administrative receivership. She said that they do not have to pay non-domestic rates. We are considering how to proceed in the light of the responses to consultation which took place in the autumn.
The noble Baroness said that it should be possible to establish parish councils in Greater London. Maybe it should. However, London is different from other parts of the country. There is no evidence of local demand for parish councils in London today. This is not surprising. We believe that there would be difficulty in defining communities on which parish councils in London might be based. The primary role of parishes is to represent small individual communities whose particular interests might otherwise be unrepresented. Of course, that happens to a much greater extent in the country than is likely to be the case in London. However, I join with the noble Baroness in wishing the Local Government Association great success when it takes on its new tasks.
The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, asked about out-of-town shopping centres and unemployment. It is now clear government policy in policy planning guidance notes that there should be a presumption against out-of-town shopping centres. First, one must look at the town centre to see what can be done and, secondly, one looks at the edges of the town to see what can be done there. Greenfield sites are the last resort.
The noble Lord referred to unemployment in the countryside. That difficulty always exists for obvious reasons that one need not go into in detail. For example, there are difficulties in getting to and from particular business locations. But one should not forget the work of the Rural Development Commission under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Shuttleworth. Its work is designed primarily to ensure that the worst hit country areas are regenerated where that is possible.
The Bill is designed to help rural communities. I believe that in the speeches this afternoon your Lordships have agreed that on the whole the Bill strikes a common chord. It is about small businesses and small areas. It may be that in the totality of national statutes this is not as high up the order of priorities as some may believe, but in rural areas and the countryside this measure will have considerable effect. It is in order to help those areas that this Bill is brought forward. I am grateful for the suggestions that your Lordships have made. I beg to move.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Grand Committee.

Sheffield Development Corporation (Area and Constitution) Order 1997
5.35 p.m.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 14th January be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this is the fourth order of its kind to come before your Lordships. We have previously considered orders relating to the Leeds, Bristol and Central Manchester Development Corporations. This order is required to wind up the Sheffield Development Corporation. It revokes the 1988 order which designated the urban development area and established the development corporation. The order will take effect in two stages. First, it will remove urban development area status on 1st April. Secondly, on 1st July it will revoke that part of the 1988 order which established the development corporation. If this comes about the corporation will cease to exercise its operational functions after 31st March 1997, and it will then have three months in which to prepare its final report and accounts. The corporation will finally be dissolved on 1st July of this year.
The Sheffield Development Corporation was set up in 1988 with a specific mission: to bring economic regeneration to the Lower Don Valley area of Sheffield. Nine years later we seek to wind it up because it has succeeded in what it had to do. I remember visiting Sheffield some 10 years ago. I was appalled by the devastation. Buildings were decrepit, with broken windows and tiles off roofs. Vast areas of land and a great number of industrial buildings were falling into dereliction and decay. There was an air of misery and despair about the place—or so it seemed to me as a visitor.
I revisited the area two weeks ago. It has been totally transformed. There is no other way to describe it. The dereliction has been replaced by new roads, factories and offices. The area is bright and clean and provides an attractive modern business environment. There is an air not just of hope but of optimism and success. The area is once again productive. I find this very encouraging. This is the result of the sheer hard work and inspiration of the Sheffield Development Corporation.
One of the corporation's first tasks was to assemble sites from the fragmented land ownership in the valley in order to prepare them for new development. Major infrastructure improvements were planned and started, land was reclaimed and investors became interested. The result is there for all to see.
The corporation's activities have resulted in the reclamation of nearly 600 acres of land which have been prepared for new uses; the building or improvement of nine miles of roads; the building of over five million square feet of commercial floor space; and the creation of over 18,000 jobs. Existing businesses have been helped to improve their premises and historically interesting buildings have been restored. Environmental projects include a cycle and walkway along the River Don running the length of the valley. Major
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improvements have been made to the canal to open it up for leisure and tourism. Extensive landscaping has been done. I would never have believed when I visited Sheffield 10 years ago that over 160,000 trees and shrubs would have been planted in and around the lower Don Valley alone by 1997.
One may ask what all of this has cost. The answer is £101 million from central government and £7.5 million from European funding. I think that that is a staggering achievement: £101 million has been spent on that; and when one thinks that £147 million was spent on facilities for the World Student Games, one understands how much has been obtained for that lesser sum. It has also attracted over £680 million private sector investment. In other words, for every £1 of public investment, nearly £7 of private investment has been secured. I consider that this is a great achievement.
That though is not the end of the story. A further 6,000 jobs are expected to be created after the corporation is wound up, as a direct result of what it has done. The valley now has a diverse economy, ranging from food production, through a Rolls-Royce dealership, to the Abbey National share registry office. The corporation has also made sure that Sheffield has its own airport. This will be open later this year. And Sheffield now produces—just think of this!—more steel now than it did at the height of its production during the Second World War.
The corporation has turned its area around. It has worked with the city council to give Sheffield a new image and to make it a place which now attracts both interest and investment. Partnership in the city has strengthened, and that will be vital for the future.
The corporation has a right to be proud of all its achievements. I would like to congratulate Mr. Sykes, the corporation's chairman, and all of the board members, whether they are past ones or present ones. These include my noble friend Lady Park and the late Lord Mulley, whose service to the corporation as deputy chairman has been recognised by the naming of a road in the area "Fred Mulley Road". My congratulations go also to the corporation's enthusiastic and professional team of officers, without whom there would be no story to tell.
The corporation was set up for a limited period of time to do a specific job of work—that of securing self-sustaining regeneration in the lower Don Valley. It has now done that. Its work is complete and it is right for it to be wound up. It must now be for others to learn from its example and to build on its successes. I wish them well in their efforts and I wish the greatest of continued success to the lower Don Valley and to all those who will work there. I commend the order to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 14th January be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee] —(Earl Ferrers.)
Lord Dubs: My Lords, by any standard, the work of the Sheffield Development Corporation has been a success. Certainly the Members of Parliament for the local constituencies believe so and the Minister has

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made clear what the successes have been. I should like to raise just one or two issues about what will happen next. Clearly the partnership that has been developed in Sheffield has been most beneficial. Sheffield City Council will, I am sure, wish to continue the benefits of the partnerships that the development corporation started.
I wish to ask the Minister about the development corporation's assets. I understand that not all of them will go to Sheffield City Council. I wonder why not, and where else they will go when the Sheffield Development Corporation is wound up. The other question relates to the airport. A great deal has been said recently about the airport. I wonder who will now be responsible for it. Will it be Sheffield City Council or some other authority?
Clearly when there has been a successful period where the development corporation has achieved the regeneration of an area, everyone will agree that the benefits of that must not be allowed to fall away but should be continued and indeed enhanced. I am sure that Sheffield City Council will want to play its part. I am interested to know whether it will be given responsibility for most of the assets or whether they will be transferred to some other body.
Having said that, I wish all the organisations that have been involved in regenerating the lower Don Valley well, and I hope that area's success will continue well into the future.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his welcome of the order and for what he said about it. Oddly enough, there is little unfinished business overall. The appropriate successors have been found where necessary. The city council and British Waterways are due to oversee the completion of the unfinished grant-aided schemes and development agreements. The Sheffield Development Corporation has provided cash to those bodies to pay for the work which has to be completed after its lifetime.
All the assets will be disposed of. All the development land is sold to owner-occupiers or developers. It is not expected that there will be any residual funds. The Sheffield Development Corporation has spending plans for all the available resources.
We would welcome a new regeneration agency. Having got this great impetus going, it would be excellent if it could be continued. Discussions have been held with Ministers, but essentially it is a matter for the city council and its partners to take forward.
A private developer funded the construction of Sheffield City Airport. There was a total package for Tinsley Park which delivered the airport and 50 acres of business park which was secured by funding from various sources: from the Sheffield Development Corporation, Europe, English Partnerships and the private sector. Discussions are under way with Sheffield City Council for the local authority to become the freeholder of the city airport site. The developer would hold a 999-year lease.
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I hope that I have responded to most of the questions put by the noble Lord about this order. I would only reiterate what I said at the beginning, with which I think he agrees. This has been a great success story. Although he would not like to suggest that it is the Government who should take the credit for that, I would merely say that the work that has been done by the Sheffield Development Corporation, its members and staff, is work which the Government by their general policy were able to bring about. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his welcome for the order.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, perhaps I may thank him for having given such a detailed answer to the various points put to him.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Industrial Training Levy (Engineering Construction Board) Order 1997
5.48 p.m.
Lord Henley Lord Henley rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 14th January be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I speak to this order and the following order together.
The proposals before your Lordships this evening seek authority for the Construction Industry Training Board and the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board to impose a levy on the employers in their industries to finance their training activities, and to fund the operating costs of the boards.
Provision for this is contained in the Industrial Training Act 1982, and the orders before your Lordships would give effect to proposals submitted by the two boards.
The proposals from each board include provision to raise a levy in excess of 1 per cent. of an employer's payroll. The Industrial Training Act 1982 requires that in such cases the proposals must be approved by affirmative resolution of both Houses.
In each case the proposals are almost exactly the same as those approved by this House and another place last year. As in previous orders they are based on employers' payrolls and their use of sub-contract labour.
As required by the Industrial Training Act, both boards have provided for the exemption of small firms from the levy. The level at which this exemption takes effect is unchanged from last year and aims to strike the right balance between helping small firms to grow and giving them unfair commercial advantage. However, all firms need a skilled, competent workforce if they are to be competitive and small, non-levy paying firms in these sectors are encouraged to take advantage of the services offered by the boards and to provide placement opportunities for trainees.
The CITB proposes to raise a two-part levy: 0.25 per cent. of payroll and 2 per cent. of net expenditure by employers on labour-only

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sub-contracting. Employers with combined payroll and labour-only payments of less than £61,000 are exempt from paying the levy.
The ECITB treats its head offices and construction sites as separate establishments and proposes to raise a four-part levy. For head offices the rates are 0.4 per cent. of payroll and 0.5 per cent. of net expenditure by employers on labour-only sub-contracting. Those head offices employing 40 or fewer employees are exempt from paying the levy. The rates for sites are 1.5 per cent. of payroll and 2 per cent. of net expenditure by employers on labour-only sub-contracting. There is exemption for site employers with combined payroll and net labour-only payments of £75,000 or less.
The higher rates on labour-only payments reflect the fact that employers using labour-only subcontractors do not, in the main, play any active part in the training of the pool of skilled labour from which they recruit.
Both sets of proposals involved levy rates in excess of 0.2 per cent. with no provision for exempting employers who make their own training arrangements. In such cases the Industrial Training Act 1982 requires boards to demonstrate that the proposals have the support of the employers in the industry. I am satisfied that each of the boards has obtained that support.
The House will be aware from previous debates that the CITB and the ECITB are the only two statutory industry training boards. They have been retained at the express wish of their industries and a crucial indicator of their effectiveness is the continuing level of support from employers.
I take this opportunity to inform the House that as non-departmental public bodies, both boards are subject to periodic review of both their role and performance. Each is presently constituted to March 1998 and policy reviews are about to begin. The reviews will include full consultation with industry and other interests, and a survey of employer views.
I expect a final report to be produced by the end of the year. That report will make recommendations about whether the boards should continue as statutory training boards or become national training organisations without levy-raising powers, as with other industry-level training organisations.
The draft orders before the House will enable the two boards to carry out their training responsibilities in 1997, and I believe it is right that the House should agree to approve them. I commend them to the House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 14th January be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee] —(Lord Henley.)
5.52 p.m.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, we agree to the Motion and support the continuation of the levies. It is normal practice to ask the Minister a number of questions. It is some years since I performed this particular task from this side of the House.
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I am struck by the fact that the figures are precisely the same. Can the Minister say why that is? He referred to 0.25 per cent. of the payroll of the CITB, 2 per cent. of the net expenditure for labour-only sub-contractors, ECITB head office rates at 0.4 per cent. of the payroll and 0.5 per cent and 2 per cent. net expenditure on labour-only sub-contracting. That seems to me to have been going on forever.
How does it come about that every year the sum is exactly the same? It appears to be the same sum irrespective of the reserves, although several years ago Ministers referred to the fact that the reserves were large and gave the impression that if they became too large the effective rates would fall. However, they remained the same irrespective of the size of the labour force and the demand for the product. Will the figures ever change? Are they in some way set in aspic and, if so, why?
The Minister said that the continuation of the two ITBs is up for review after 1998 and that the review has begun. I am glad that he said that. What is the basis on which this Government at this time will decide whether or not the two ITBs will continue? The Minister appeared to say that the majority of firms still want the statutory boards. I do not have at my disposal up-to-date figures of the number of employers who want the boards to continue. If the Minister has them perhaps he will tell me.
In 1994, which are the latest figures I have, 51 per cent. of CITB employers said they wanted the board to continue. That is not a large majority. Furthermore, 55.7 per cent. of the ECITBs said that they wanted the board to continue. What will happen this year if those numbers fall away? Is it the Government's view that the moment they fall below the majority—say to 48 per cent. or 46 per cent.—bang goes the board? Is that the Government's policy, irrespective of what is happening to training in the industry, the demand for training or the strength of the desire to keep the board among the 48 per cent. or whatever? Can the Minister tell us what factors will decide whether the boards continue and how vital it will be for the survey to produce a majority of employers in favour of the boards?
My final question relates to training volumes and training levels. We know in general terms that the volume of government training and government expenditure on training has fallen significantly since 1987. Between 1987 and 1994 it fell by more than one-third. Since 1994 it has probably fallen even more. Do the Government still take the view that government expenditure on training can decline and that the volume of training in this and other industries will remain stable or will rise? In the Government's view, is there to be no relationship whatever between the amount of money spent by them and the amount of money spent by industry? I hope to receive an answer from the Minister tonight.
5.57 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Henley, for the clear explanation of the

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orders. There are differing views as to the merits of the grant and levy system, but industrial training boards have the virtue of enabling employers, trade union representatives and educationists to discuss together what is best for the industry concerned before government take decisions.
In the case of the construction industry, the greater use of contract labour, short-term working and the fluidity of the workforce provides special reasons for concentrating training under the two boards. I agree with what the Minister in another place said about the reported practice of some employers passing on the CITB levy to their sub-contractors. I welcome the board's decision to issue guidance, making it clear that responsibility for payment of the levy rests with employers. I welcome also the undertaking that, in reviewing the future of both boards, there is to be full consultation with interested parties before conclusions are reached.
In another place, the Minister said that he had already received several representations. He added that the report which he would eventually receive might conceivably recommend that the boards continue as statutory training boards but that their scope might be changed so that some peripheral sectors of their industries moved in or out of scope. That being so, can the Minister add to what he has said about the likely outcome of the review?
In conclusion, from these Benches I welcome the orders and am happy to approve them.
6 p.m.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their general welcome of the two orders. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, back to this debate. I believe that this is the third time in four years that I have taken these orders through your Lordships' House. They are taken on an annual basis, although I understand that the legislation provides that they should be dealt with only from time to time. However, for some reason they are dealt with on an annual basis and I believe that there is no harm in that.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, asked me three questions, the middle one of which was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester. First, there is the noble Lord's rather deep suspicion as regards the fact that the figures seem to be the same each year. He asked why that is. The simple answer is that those are the figures which were deemed to be appropriate by the industry. That is what the industry thought right and that is what it thought was needed to perform the training which it needs to conduct. Obviously if Parliament decided that the figures were excessive, it would be open to it to reject the two orders, but it has not done so. Certainly the debate on this matter in the other place, which was a veritable record for its brevity, seems to indicate that there was general support from both sides.
Secondly, perhaps I may touch on the question of the review which I mentioned. I hope that I have not made noble Lords suspicious by the mere fact that I mentioned that these are subject to review. Noble
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Lords will be aware that it is our policy that all non-departmental public bodies must be reviewed on a five-yearly basis, and in this case, it is now time for that review. We shall look very carefully at this matter and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, for underlining that. There will be considerable consultation.
So far, the employers have consistently made a very strong case for the retention of both boards. I give an assurance to the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, that we have no plans to close down the boards on an arbitrary basis if a certain percentage of employers were no longer in favour. However, if there were little or no support for such a system, obviously the case for their retention would be much weaker. These sorts of levy arrangements seem to work well only when they are supported by the industries concerned.
The noble Lord's final point was in relation to training levels and the amount of funding provided by the Government for training. I start by making the first and most important point because I believe that in the end, the major contributors to training should be the employers themselves. They are in the lead. The most recent years for which I have figures show that something in the order of £10 billion was spent on training by employers in 1993. The Government will continue to make a substantial contribution to training. As the noble Lord will be aware, there has been a substantial commitment to TECs, which was reaffirmed with continuing investment of more than £1.4 billion each year to the TEC-delivered programmes. The noble Lord will know of the success of our modern apprenticeships, and in 1996-97 we shall see about 57,000 young people who are forecast to start on such a scheme; by 1999-2000 there is provision for 67,000 to start, with well over 140,000 in training.
I could talk about a number of other schemes. However, the noble Lord should really look at the unemployment figures in this country. On a day when we have seen the unemployment figures in Germany rise by something like 0.5 million, it is gratifying to remember that, as a result of our policies, we have seen unemployment fall and fall steadily for some 36 months. Unemployment has now fallen by well over 1 million since the recovery began. It is now below 2 million and there has been that steady decline for 36 months or more. That is a tribute to the success of the Government's policies and the effort that we make in encouraging employers and others to train their workers.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps he will write to me about this. I have a quote from Hansard where the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said in answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear that,
"in that context, it is worth recalling that while government provide of the order of £2 billion a year on training, that is matched by provision and funding from the private sector of a further £20 billion or so".—[Official Report, 5/12/94; col. 801.]

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Those figures are rather different, are they not?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Lord is right to draw attention to that figure of £20 billion which we have used in the past. I should like to write to the noble Lord in greater detail on that figure. Our current estimates are that that was a somewhat inflated figure and the one that I quoted is probably nearer to the case. The noble Lord will be aware that those figures are very difficult to estimate because it depends on what one means by "training" and, therefore, which parts of the budget should be counted. Having given that brief explanation, I should like to write to the noble Lord about that.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Industrial Training Levy (Construction Board) Order 1997
Lord Henley: My Lords, I beg to move. Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 14th January be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee] .—(Lord Henley.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Professions Supplementary to Medicine (Prosthetists and Orthotists Board) Order of Council 1997
6.6 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege)The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege) rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 13th January be approved. [9th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the order before your Lordships creates a Prosthetists and Orthotists Board under the Professions Supplementary to Medicine Act 1960. Prosthetists and orthotists are specialised health professionals who measure and fit patients for artificial limbs and appliances such as splints, braces and footwear. They specify the design and materials for those devices and evaluate their use.
The broad effect of the order is to extend the 1960 Act as if the profession were included alongside those it already covers: chiropodists, dietitians, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, radiographers, orthoptists and medical laboratory scientific officers.
The board's function will be to promote high standards of professional education and conduct within the umbrella of the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine—the CPSM—whose duty it is to co-ordinate and supervise the activities of all the boards. The main duties are to: prepare and maintain a register; approve training courses leading to state registration and the institutions providing them; determine applications for admission to the register on the basis of qualifications and experience acquired
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either in the UK or elsewhere; set up investigating and disciplinary committees to produce guidance on conduct and to deal with individual cases of misconduct.
Practitioners who are registered by the board will be entitled to call themselves "State registered prosthetists and orthotists". The use of that title by a person who is not registered will be an offence, as will the use of any title or description which falsely implies that he is registered under the 1960 Act.
The Act requires that the board should have a majority of members from the profession concerned. It will have 13 members appointed by the CPSM, of whom seven will be nominated by the profession in the first instance and thereafter elected by registrants. The remaining members will be two medical practitioners, nominated by the Royal Colleges, two educationists and—an important innovation—one representative of employers and one of patients and carers.
The size of the CPSM itself will also increase from 21 to 24 because the Act requires that all boards have a professional representative on the council, and that the number of medical and professional members should be equal. The third lay member preserves the balance of representation between professional, medical and other members.
I turn to the merits. Statutory regulation is a privilege, not to be granted just because the profession concerned aspires to it, but to be justified because it provides safeguards for the public which would not otherwise be available. How do prosthetists and orthotists match up?
They are a small and highly specialised group. The UK workforce numbers only about 800 practitioners. The majority, over 80 per cent., are employed by private firms who contract to provide services to the NHS. They provide direct, hands-on care for particularly vulnerable patients of all ages, operating with substantial autonomy within multidisciplinary teams. Their work is commissioned by other clinicians, such as surgeons, but surgeons accept them as the true experts within their field. So what they do, if ill done, presents serious risks of physical and psychological harm to patients arising from defects in the selection, design, manufacture, fitting or evaluation of limbs and appliances.
The training required is exacting. The only route to qualification in the UK is through one of the two centres at the universities of Strathclyde and of Salford. Each provides a four-year combined Honours course, integrating the theoretical, practical and clinical aspects of prosthetics and orthotics. Both centres are strongly supported by the NHS and both have strong international links. The training reflects a unique combination of expertise—precision engineering, materials science, design and production methods, plus a high degree of clinical, communication and team-working skills.
Beyond qualification, the profession deserves credit for combining two disciplines whose training and practice was historically separated into a coherent

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body of knowledge and experience, represented by a single organisation. It has produced a comprehensive statement of the ethical and practice standards expected of its members which are comparable with those of other health professions and consistent with international best practice.
It has also consulted widely and thoroughly on the proposal now before your Lordships. It balloted its members who overwhelmingly approved it (87 per cent. of those voting); and it secured the support of the medical and nursing professions, those groups currently regulated under the 1960 Act and, significantly, of employers' representatives as well.
The profession has also acknowledged that the possession of a qualification alone cannot guarantee safe and effective practice and is currently developing a scheme of continuing education credits. The importance of keeping knowledge and skills updated is fundamental to modern health services, and employers and professions need to work together to foster life-long learning among all staff.
But the merits begin and end with patients. State registration of prosthetists and orthotists offers the public an objective assurance of the high standards of training, conduct and practice that they can expect. It offers, also, incidental benefits: providing a benchmark for employers; assisting in workforce planning by keeping a continuous record of the pool of qualified practitioners; providing an opportunity to strengthen collaboration between the health professions; and providing a coherent mechanism for dealing with overseas qualified practitioners, including those from the European economic area wishing to exercise the right of freedom of movement.
If approved, the measure will provide a scheme of self-regulation at arm's length from government and funded by practitioners themselves. The Government are satisfied that prosthetists and orthotists—indeed, it is just as well that I have my own teeth; otherwise I would be in desperate trouble when pronouncing those words—have sufficiently developed their standards, identity and purpose to join the family of mature professions already regulated by the CPSM. I commend to your Lordships the making of this order by the Privy Council. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 13th January be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee] .—(Baroness Cumberlege.)
Lord Colwyn: My Lords, when I came into the Chamber I knew what a prosthodontist and an orthodontist was, and I believe that I probably understand now what prosthetists and orthotists are. I am grateful for the comprehensive way that my noble friend the Minister explained the order. However, can she tell me whether these two subject headings include orthodontists and prosthodontists? Having said that, I welcome the order.
Lord Rea: My Lords, on this side of the House we thoroughly welcome the order, which is most useful. It is useful because it will enable recognition of a very
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important body of highly skilled practitioners as one of the professions supplementary to medicine. As a practitioner in the NHS, I was from time to time very grateful that my patients had the benefit of the skills of prosthetists and orthotists. Very often, it was through the orthopaedic surgeons at Queen Mary's Roehampton, where a large number of patients with artificial limbs are handled so expertly.
I listened to what the Minister said; it was indeed very clear. I do not believe that there is any need for me to elaborate upon it. However, I have one point to make. In the Hansard report in another place, I believe there is a printing error in the information given about the number of people on the CPSM (the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine) where it says that there must be two rather than three "O" and "P" representatives, if I may put it that way, because of the need to balance expert and lay representation. I believe that the figure should be three rather than two, but that does not affect the legislation or the schedule. It is only a report in Hansard of the other place and is probably unimportant. Having said that, we support the order and wish it well.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend and to the noble Lord, Lord Rea, for their support for what is an eminently sensible thing to be doing for these two professions. In reply to my noble friend Lord Colwyn, I should say that I believe the answer is no. Perhaps I may tell the noble Lord, Lord Rea, that the size of the CPSM will increase from 21 to 24. He is quite right in that respect. The Act requires that each board has one professional representative on the council and that the number of professional and medical representatives should be equal. Of course, the third lay member preserves the balance of representation among professional, medical and other members. I think that the noble Lord is probably correct and that, very unusually, there has been a typing error in the Official Report of the other place. I commend the order to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

United Nations Personnel Bill
6.17 p.m.
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
This Bill was introduced in another place by my honourable friend the Member of Parliament for Hendon South, John Marshall. With all-party support it enjoyed a very speedy passage. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Chalker of Wallasey for entrusting me with the task of shepherding the Bill through your Lordships' House. I am delighted to do so, but I fear that it will take a little longer than it did in the other place, which was approximately 30 seconds.
The Bill will enable the United Kingdom to ratify the UN Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel. The convention was

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adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9th December 1994. It was signed by the United Kingdom in December 1995. While it is unlikely that many cases of offences against UN personnel will arise in the UK, the convention is clearly a desirable measure.
There already exists legal regulation of combatants in international armed conflict, but no instrument has yet prohibited or provided legal remedies for attacks against forces performing traditional "non-combat peace-keeping functions". With the increase in number of such operations, and rising casualties to UN personnel, UN member states agree that there is a need for an international agreement to deter and provide for punishment of such attacks.
The convention addresses that problem by creating a regime for prosecution or extradition of persons accused of attacking UN peacekeepers and other persons associated with UN operations.
Clauses 1 and 2 create extra-territorial jurisdiction over offences committed in relation to attacks on UN workers and their premises and vehicles. Clause 3 creates a new offence; namely, the making of a threat to commit attacks against UN workers with the objective of compelling a person to do or refrain from doing any act. Clause 6 makes offences under the Bill extraditable as between the United Kingdom and all parties to the convention.
As I have said, this is a simple, non-controversial Bill. Although it has 10 clauses, it is nevertheless a short Bill. I commend it to your Lordships' House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—{Lord Brougham and Vaux.)
6.20 p.m.
Viscount Colville of Culross: My Lords, I would not normally have spoken on a measure of this sort; nor do I believe that there is any way in which we can possibly pass legislation which alters the convention that this Bill seeks to implement. The noble Lord, Lord Brougham, has had no notice of the point that I have made.
I have a specific interest in this, or, that is to say, I used to have one, because I think I am the only person who has ever been a special rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and I used to carry out my commission, as it were, in Guatemala. I was there for about four years. Nothing happened to me, as your Lordships can see. I was extremely well looked after but if I had had a problem and had the Government sought to extradite someone from anywhere to be tried in this country under the provisions of this Bill, I wonder what would have happened.
It is, I believe, for the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, rather than the noble Lord, Lord Brougham, to consider Clause 4, which contains a definition of a UN operation. Clause 4(2) states that a UN operation is one,
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"which is established … by an organ of the United Nations".
Undoubtedly my responsibility was laid down by the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. It was certainly conducted under the authority and control of the UN but whether it had,
"as its purpose the maintenance or restoration of international peace and security"
as mentioned in Clause 4(2)(c)(i), or whether there existed "an exceptional risk", as mentioned in Clause 4(2)(c)(ii), was not something that had ever been declared by anyone. If it had not been declared by anyone—I refer to Clause 4(2)(a)—and if the words "and" or "or" are not included, for the purposes of the jurisdiction of the courts in this country one does not know whether someone who was doing the kind of job I was doing, which had not been declared to be of exceptional risk, is covered by the Bill.
I accept that Clause 4(5) refers to a certificate, but I am not sure what my insurers might have said about that—I did not have any and I was not particularly worried. If we are to implement this Bill we need to know what sort of case we shall be able to deal with in the courts in this country. Cases might well be dealt with in a Crown Court, such as the one in which I sit. We need to have a certain amount of clarity about what measure in the convention we are implementing.
If something is lacking in Clause 4(2)(a), which tells us whether a UN operation has to be established by an organ of the UN and all the rest of it, or not as the case may be, I am not sure that there will not be an argument about jurisdiction in this country in the remote event of such a thing we have discussed occurring. I do not think the convention goes into that sort of detail. The measure before us is the result of British drafting. It may be worth looking at the measure again to make sure that we have not made a small error here. I should be grateful if the noble Lord could at some time—not today—apply his mind to that.
6.24 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I apologise for the absence of my noble friend Lady Blackstone who would have wished to be here but, regrettably, is unable to be present. She asked me to say on her behalf that we on these Benches give the Bill a warm welcome. It will serve to meet a purpose which has been perceived by John Marshall in another place, a man who has my utmost respect. The need for the Bill has been born out of experience.
I can well imagine that the relatives and friends of people who perform humanitarian duties in places of conflict must find it tragic that, while those people seek to be peacemakers, they may somehow or other become involved in situations where they are either threatened or come under attack or, in attempting to keep the peace, become victims of violence. The Bill seeks to create extraterritorial jurisdiction with regard to those crimes. In the War Crimes Bill we attempted to put in place a similar provision and we have seen the trouble that has arisen as a result of that. The noble Viscount on the

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Cross-Benches has made a point which is worth considering. It would be a tragedy if in this fraught timetable of the present Parliament anything were done to inhibit the passage of the Bill. No one can object to it. The noble Viscount did not object to it. He referred to an interesting point which I am sure can be put right, if necessary by amendment. I very much hope that there is no need to delay the passage of the Bill. As I have said, we on these Benches give it a warm welcome.
6.26 p.m.
Lord Chesham: My Lords, I thank everyone for the welcome they have given the Bill. We on these Benches also welcome it. I refer first of all to the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. Under Clause 4(5) provision is made as regards any dispute over what constitutes a UN operation. I hope that is a satisfactory answer to his question. If he is not satisfied, I shall of course write to him.
The Bill's purpose is to protect the men and women who under the auspices of the United Nations put themselves at personal risk while serving the international community. It is inevitable that with an increasing number of UN peacekeeping operations (currently there are 17), more UN personnel, both military and civilian, are put at risk. The number of casualties has increased in parallel. We owe it to those men and women who work for the UN in any capacity, but particularly in the danger which often occurs in peacekeeping operations, to ensure that arrangements are in place for their physical protection. It is clear to UN member states that there is a need for an international agreement to deter and punish attacks on operation personnel. This is entirely consistent with the international community's long-standing acceptance that there should be rules governing international armed conflict, for example in the Geneva Conventions. But this should apply not only to war. Those bringing peace should be equally entitled to international protection.
Realistic measures which allow UN peacekeepers to deploy safely are therefore vital. For this reason, on 3rd May 1994 the Security Council drew up specific criteria for peacekeeping operations which included provision regarding the physical protection of UN personnel. As my noble friend Lord Brougham and Vaux has already mentioned, the United Nations Convention on the Safety and Security of United Nations and Associated Personnel was adopted on 9th December 1994. The convention commits parties to prosecute perpetrators of attacks upon UN workers wherever they had been committed and to make such offences extraditable. The United Kingdom signed the convention in December 1995. This Bill will enable the United Kingdom to ratify that convention.
The Bill as drafted therefore creates extra-territorial jurisdiction over such offences. It ensures that offenders can be tried in this country, wherever their offences occurred, and makes their offences extraditable as between the UK and all states which are parties to the convention.
Only one new offence is required; namely, the offence of making a threat to commit an attack against a UN worker with the objective of compelling a person
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to do or refrain from doing any act. The other kinds of conduct with which the convention deals are already criminal offences under our law. In these cases, the Bill simply extends the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom courts to cover offences committed outside the United Kingdom.
It is unlikely that many cases of offences against UN personnel will come before our courts. But we must ensure that legislation is in place in order to meet any such eventuality. Until now, no legal instrument has fully protected UN peacekeeping personnel. I think we can agree that it is time for that to be changed.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, who tempts me to go down the path of the War Crimes Bill, to which I was rather opposed. However, I shall not do so tonight.
I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for his remarks. No doubt my colleague will write to him, as I do not have the answer to his question. I thank my noble friend on the Front Bench. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Public Entertainments Licences (Drug Misuse) Bill
6.31 p.m.
Baroness Anelay of St. Johns: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Bill was introduced in another place by my honourable friend Mr. Barry Legg. It received support from all parties.
Drugs misuse over the past 10 years has escalated into the single greatest risk to the health and welfare of our young people. Drugs have always been a menace to society. What is different now is the sheer scale of illicit drug misuse and the extent to which it has become enmeshed in dance and youth culture. For example, it is estimated that up to 1 million Ecstasy tablets are sold each week in Britain. Almost all are taken in the context of dancing and entertainment. Every parent's nightmare is that they will see their child sucked into the world of drug misuse.
The pressures on youngsters to try drugs are enormous. Drugs such as Ecstasy are peddled as a necessary ingredient to having a good time. Dealers target the clubs where young people go to enjoy themselves. If a club is not properly managed or the owners are corrupt, it becomes a focus for drug dealing and drug misuse. As a result, the physical health and mental well-being of young people are put at risk and, all too frequently, there are deaths.
The majority of deaths associated with dance drugs such as Ecstasy have been caused by heat stroke. Others have been caused by brain damage linked to excessive

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water consumption, liver failure and heart failure. Deaths grab the headlines, but there are no statistics on the number of people who are suffering serious non-fatal reactions to Ecstasy. Recent research has suggested that regular use of Ecstasy can lead to longer-term psychological effects including depression.
But it is a mistake to concentrate only on the damage caused by one drug. There is a substantial polydrug culture on the dance floor with users selecting different drugs, or a combination of them, according to the desired short-term effects.
So how will the Bill address the problem of drugs misuse in venues which are covered by a public entertainments licence? The Bill is designed to give local authorities the power to close down those clubs where the owners cannot or will not deal effectively with the serious problem of drug misuse on or near the premises. As the law stands at present, a licensing authority can revoke a public entertainments licence only after a court has convicted the club operators for breach of a licence condition. It can also reject an application to renew a licence, but the legislation specifically allows a club to remain open pending the outcome of an appeal process which can involve both the magistrates' court and the Crown Court. The appeal process can take many months, during which time a club can stay open and more young people can be put at risk. That cannot be right.
I shall now briefly describe the main provisions of the Bill. Clause 1 amends the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982. It allows a local authority to revoke a licence in the light of evidence supplied by the chief officer of police that there is,
"a serious problem relating to the supply or use of controlled drugs at or near the premises".
After the local authority has considered the evidence, it may decide to take no further action. On the other hand, the authority may decide that action is necessary and that the imposition of terms, conditions or restrictions on the licence will deal with the problem. If it believes that will not resolve the problem, the authority will have the ultimate sanction of revoking the licence.
Whatever action the local authority decides to take, either to add further conditions to the licence or to revoke that licence, it must first meet a test before taking that action. It must be satisfied that to do so will assist in dealing with the problem. If it cannot meet that requirement, it must take no further action.
If the local authority decides to vary the terms of the licence or to revoke it, it is then required to give reasons for its action to the holder of the licence, and he or she can then make representations which the authority must consider within 21 days. After considering any representations, the authority must decide whether to confirm the revocation or the imposition of new conditions, or whether the licence should be reinstated in its original form.
Club owners will retain their right to appeal to a court against the decision of the local authority. But pending the outcome of that appeal, the club will be closed. Clause 1 also gives a court the power to revoke a licence
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following a conviction in relation to the licence on a similar basis. But in certain circumstances the court can order the licence to remain in force pending an appeal.
Clause 2 amends Schedule 12 to the London Government Act 1960, which applies to public entertainment licences in Greater London and makes similar provisions to those introduced by Clause 1, which I have already detailed.
The Bill before you has been welcomed by local authorities and the police. It is seen as an important step towards cutting off the supply of drugs to young people. The main thrust of the Bill has also been welcomed by the club owners and promoters as represented by the largest of the trade organisations, the British Entertainment and Discotheque Association (BEDA). But they also have concerns that the tough provisions in this Bill may be applied unfairly on their members and that businesses could suffer as a result.
These are indeed tough powers, but they are necessary to deal with what is a most serious problem. I believe, however, that these powers will be used sparingly. The majority of clubs are working hard, often in co-operation with the police, to keep drugs off their premises. BEDA is in the forefront of those who are taking the threat posed by drugs in the clubs seriously. It is putting in place effective security measures and training its staff, in particular its door staff, to deal with the threat. I applaud those initiatives and I am confident that responsible club owners will have nothing to fear from the new powers in this Bill.
I believe that BEDA's concerns, which include whether it will receive adequate notice from the police of the identification of a serious drug problem on a club's premises and how some of the Bill would be interpreted by the authorities, can be effectively dealt with by a code of practice. The Government have already undertaken to produce such guidance in consultation with local authorities, the police and representatives of the club industry, and to give this code of practice wide circulation before those new powers come into force.
This Bill addresses a very real area of public concern. It can help to prevent every parent's nightmare from becoming a reality. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Anelay of St. Johns.)
6.38 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, we must all be grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing the Bill and explaining it so well. We are all horrified by the extent of drug misuse, in particular hard drug misuse by young people.
Having said that, the day before yesterday this House struck a blow, albeit a wholly inadequate blow, for the rights and interests of a substantial body of people, namely, the pistol shooters, their families and the businesses supplying them—well over 100,000 people in all. Mainly of mature years, they include ex-servicemen, serving and retired police officers, solicitors, nurses, bank managers, skilled craftsmen and similar people. Many of them might be described as

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pillars of the community. The people we are discussing today would rarely be considered pillars of the community. On balance, they are probably younger, and they are certainly far less numerous. They probably include a slightly larger than average—albeit small—minority of "dodgy characters". Fairly or unfairly, they are unlikely to be people with whom the public instinctively feel sympathy. But no matter. Everybody in this country, sympathetic or otherwise, deserves justice. There seems to be a fear, whether justified or not, that under the Bill people may no longer be presumed innocent until proved guilty.
So much depends on how the word "serious" is interpreted by the police. Will one drug find, or two such finds, be enough to close a club or discotheque, throwing dozens of employees out of work in the process? What happens if an unscrupulous owner plants drugs on a rival's premises so as to drive him out of business? Will there be written warnings if a problem is perceived to exist? That would be in everybody's interest. Willing co-operation with the police on the part of club owners is surely the best solution. Will there be pre-trial disclosure? Will there be properly constituted hearings? Will there be consistency between local authorities in applying the law? Might there be a fast-track appeals procedure? I look forward to the noble Earl's reply, and also to that of the noble Baroness. The Bill should not be rushed through this House automatically. We have the right to examine it in Committee if that is the feeling of the House.
6.42 p.m.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, before commenting on the Bill, I declare an interest. I am a director of Rank Leisure Limited, which operates clubs that have public entertainments licences. I also declare another interest. I have been involved with the Boys' Clubs organisation for almost all my adult life. We grown-ups are often very critical of young people—of their fecklessness, self-centredness and fondness for loud music, but, more often than not, their perfectly reasonable desire to congregate together to discuss their problems.
Most noble Lords will appreciate that the relationship between young people and their parents is often at best difficult and at worst impossible. Broken homes and single-parent families only add to the difficulties. Providing young people with somewhere to meet and use their time productively has for a long time been recognised by the Boys' Clubs movement as being important. The provision of well-managed meeting places, with some purpose-built clubs, has encouraged the young to gather for sporting and social purposes and the clubs are justly proud of their achievements in that regard.
Although it would be naive to consider that nightclubs or other establishments with public entertainments licences are anything like what I described, they also provide young people with a place to meet and socialise and form a considerable part of the leisure industry and the tourism industry. The nightclub industry contributes over £2 billion to the UK economy annually and
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employs more than 130,000 people. About 1 million young people, mostly between the ages of 18 and 25, visit these clubs every week.
The Bill concerns itself with the misuse of controlled drugs and directs its attention particularly to one form of leisure provision; namely, clubs and pubs with public entertainments licences, but not licensed premises generally. Therefore it might be seen as being stricter with the young than it is with the adult population. Nothing in my remarks should be construed as suggesting that I approve in any way of the use of controlled drugs. I do not. What is more, I am in favour of the thrust of this proposed legislation and pay tribute to my noble friend for introducing the measure.
What concerns me and others—I have received letters from a number of organisations expressing concerns-is some of the uncertainties that are left hanging in the air. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, mentioned a few of them. In both operative clauses of the Bill, the local authority may revoke a public entertainments licence on information from the police that there is a "serious drugs problem" at or near the place of entertainment. Will my noble friend the Minister tell the House what is meant by a "serious drugs problem"; and will he consider inserting into the Bill a definition clause, in order that local authorities which will have to interpret this legislation following complaints, will act in the same consistent way across the country rather than arbitrarily and inconsistently? I am sure that the Minister will tell me that that matter can be dealt with more properly by guidance notes from the Home Office. We heard from my noble friend that BEDA has already had meetings with the Home Office and that a code of conduct has already been outlined. However, this is such a pivotal point of the Bill that I believe it should be on the face of the Bill. Without the identification of a "serious drugs problem" none of the provisions of the Bill can be activated.
My next point concerns the phrase "at or near". I can well understand the "at". The "at" is under the control of the management of the club. But the "near" is much more problematic. For instance, a club might easily be close to a car park or shopping mall where young people might gather for less favourable activities. The club may be seen by the police as attracting young people to the area, and they may feel that the revocation of the club's licence will assist in dealing with the drug problem. Is it fair that a nearby club with its single entry point and trained doormen should be served with a notice of the revocation of its licence without some written warning and without being able to stay open while an appeal is being prepared? How near is "near" to be judged in a city centre? Is St. James's Park near to the Palace of Westminster? Section 5 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 makes it clear that warnings are required on the basis of "minded to prosecute". That Act was amended to that effect in this House. It is not right to abandon that principle so soon after the passing that legislation.
I am entirely on the side of the Home Office when it strives for the proper management of establishments which hold public entertainments licences. The training of doormen and bar staff is a vital ingredient of a

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successful establishment, and a statutory registration scheme for doormen might go a long way to improving this aspect of protection for young people. However, there can occasionally be a rogue member of staff who can let the side down. The management, who do not have the day-to-day responsibility for the running of an establishment, should be given a written warning that the police have identified a serious drugs problem so that they can take remedial action immediately. In that way the Government's initiative, Tackling Drugs Together, can be properly pursued.
My noble friend has already indicated the action that the British Entertainment & Discotheque Association has taken. I am sure that noble Lords will have received a letter from BEDA drawing to the attention of the House some of the points that I have made this evening, among others. I believe that the Association has also had a meeting with the Home Office to express some of its concerns, which I hope has been useful.
However, as the noble Lord, Lord Monson, said, the Bill passed through the other place on Friday, 17th January in one day without the opportunity of a Committee stage, although reservations were voiced about some of its provisions during the Second Reading debate. I trust that this House will give this important piece of legislation the careful scrutiny it deserves.
6.50 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St. Johns, for presenting this Bill so clearly to your Lordships.
As a founder member of the all-party Drug Misuse Committee, I have followed the worrying growth of drug misuse over the years which seems to endanger every country in the world. I have attended the funerals of two young people, one young man, one young woman, both of whom died due to the problems of drug and alcohol addiction. The grief of everyone attending the funerals was united at the thought of the waste of life and what could have been.
Illegal drugs are a menace which destroys families and destabilises communities. The marketing of drugs by barons and dealers has been far too successful, even though the Government, police and Customs have worked very hard to prevent the spread of the drugs which have become endemic throughout the country.
Fashions among the young and peer group pressure are an important issue. The young seem to fear being different and become sucked into the dangerous culture which many parents have difficulty controlling.
Our young people are very valuable. We need healthy and happy young people who see a future and who can take up important positions in adult life, be it running the country or looking after the growing numbers of elderly people. We do not want people with chaotic lifestyles due to drug addiction who lose control of their lives and future well-being.
One of the things that many young people enjoy doing is dancing. They enjoy the music which is now played in the clubs, which is the reason for the Bill before your Lordships.
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We must be careful that the younger generation does not become alienated from their elders. I have heard young people say about many of their parents' generation that the example set has not been exemplary. There has been a lot of heavy drinking, tobacco smoking and broken marriages. That should be confessed and admitted to the young people. Even though tobacco and alcohol are legal, it is the results which count. Young people need a positive and honest message about the long-term dangers of drugs misuse. The Bill gives new powers to local authorities to close down clubs where there is a serious drugs problem.
I have received, as I am sure that other noble Lords taking part in this debate will have received, letters from the British Entertainment & Discotheque Association, the Brewers and Licensed Retailers Association and the Independent Association of British Nightclubs and Discotheques. Those bodies have some concerns.
It is the job of your Lordships' House to try to improve Bills if they need improvement and to give the other place the opportunity to look again at a Bill. I understand that this Bill was not discussed in Committee in another place.
Anything to do with controlling drugs has become the most difficult challenge of our times. One only has to look at the difficulties in trying to keep drugs out of prisons to understand the problems.
Your Lordships may be a little surprised when I say that I have some sympathy with the entertainments industry over some of its wishes to see the Bill amended. It is important that everyone involved with young people and their entertainment should work closely together to safeguard them and for their well-being. I should like to ask the noble Baroness and the Minister whether they think there are enough safeguards in the Bill to ensure that owners and operators of entertainment premises are given adequate protection under the law. I have sympathy with the view that there should be a requirement for a formal written warning to be given to the licensee by the police before a club is closed down, setting out the problem and the necessary action and offering the licensee the opportunity to take remedial action within a specified period.
I also have sympathy with the view that the responsibility of the licensee should be confined to the premises themselves and not extend to those areas which are near the premises but outside the control of the licensee. I ask the question, how near is near? It is like the problem of beyond the school gate. Is Black Rod in charge of what goes on around Westminster Abbey? How much policing will the police do and how much have they been doing?
It is the drug traffickers who need to be caught. Traffickers are devious and cunning but very often desperate because they want to feed their own habit. Tackling the dealers at ground level can be dangerous work. I hope that the concerns will be addressed.
When I was a new Member of your Lordships' House in 1970 my grandfather-in-law, the late Lord Swinton, told me that all Bills should be clearly defined. What is the definition of a serious drugs problem? Other noble

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Lords have asked the same question. It is important to make this Bill as workable as possible because it deals with a very serious matter.
I should like to take this opportunity to bring the health and safety aspect of clubs to the notice of your Lordships' House. In Scotland there are codes of conduct and licensing arrangements for clubs. The Licensing (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 1996 confers powers on licensing boards to attach conditions to licences in respect of premises where relevant events are held in order to safeguard the health and safety of people attending those events. In particular, the Act allows licensing boards to attach conditions to licences such as the maximum number of people allowed to attend an event, the provision of adequate stewarding and the provision of drinking water and rest areas (chill-out rooms).
In addition, the Act gives the Secretary of State discretionary powers to set conditions which boards must attach to licences and allows boards to vary licences to make events safer without having to wait until they come up for renewal. Guidelines have been produced supporting the new provisions.
England and Wales do not yet have these requirements, but the London Drug Policy Forum, a body founded jointly by the Home Office and the Corporation of London, produced a code of practice on health and safety at dance venues last December. The forum says that, although it is not possible as yet to evaluate the code, it is confident that it will be utilised by both local authorities and clubs themselves. It is important to ensure that people can attend clubs in the safest conditions possible and be in a position to make informed decisions about drug use. The forum does not condone drug usage but tries to give health and safety information. I feel that rather than just consensus, these necessary and sensible requirements should be in regulations, as in Scotland, and should be in the agreement before licences are given to clubs.
It seems to me that positive action over these issues is the message which may help young people realise they are valued, not the commercial attitude of some clubs when they charge outrageous prices for water and turn off the taps.
There are many concerted efforts being made to make clubs safer, but perhaps one of the big difficulties is that many young people may have taken Ecstasy, or whatever drug they have, before they arrive at the club to dance. This is a difficult matter. It is important to get the balance of the Bill right so that everyone will do their best to fight the scourge of drug misuse.
7 p.m.
Lord Meston: My Lords, I too would like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St. Johns, for introducing this Bill and for her explanation of it. The Bill is intended to deal with the acute and worrying problems which she has described, particularly worrying for parents of teenage children, as to which I suppose I should declare an interest.
As we have just heard, the Bill applies only to England and Wales and I suspect, not for the first time, we have something to learn from the Scottish law and
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procedure in this area. But I would be interested at some stage to learn whether there are, in fact, equivalent provisions or are to be equivalent provisions in the Scottish jurisdiction.
The statistics show that there were 48 deaths solely caused by the drug Ecstasy in and between 1991 and 1995. Of course, that is at present the most publicised drug but it is certainly not the only prevalent drug. And, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said, death is not the only consequence of taking Ecstasy: it can also cause serious and permanent damage.
We fully support the principle of the Bill. Those who assist or knowingly permit drug supply or use at licensed premises should, where necessary, be put out of business quickly and firmly. The concerns I have about the Bill are essentially concerns that it should work effectively and fairly and that it should not create as many problems as it might solve.
The first concern has already been touched on by several speakers. It is the looseness of some of the wording used. What is meant by,
"a serious problem relating to the supply or use of controlled drugs"?
It may be difficult to assess when a problem is to be regarded as a serious problem. What is meant by "near" the place? Clearly the legislation should apply to the licensed premises and to anything adjacent which is in the ownership or control of the licence holder. But licence holders cannot control what happens on the public highway or in the car park in the next street. Those are the sort of places where drug transactions are likely to take place if there is sufficient security and sufficient surveillance at the club itself.
Of course these clubs act as magnets to the drug users and drug dealers. But the licence holder and his staff can only be said to have any control over and any indirect responsibility for what may go on outside if they do not try to stop and search people coming into the club who may have drugs or who are under the influence of drugs.
The other expression in the Bill which is not easy to grapple with is that stating the ground on which it is proposed that the licensing authorities and the courts are to base their decisions to revoke or to refuse or restrict the licence. They will have to be satisfied that to do so will assist in dealing with the problem. I assume that this really means that the revocation or the refusal or restriction is found necessary to reduce the problem substantially. If so, it would be better if the Bill said so clearly.
I accept that precise wording is difficult and that, so far as proximity to the premises is concerned, it may be unhelpful to state some arbitrary distance. However, the vagueness of the wording is likely to leave a lot of room for argument and room for the benefit of lawyers. It may well create inconsistencies between different licensing areas. I understand that some guidance may be issued by the Home Office, as we have heard, but such guidance is not binding and may not be enough to make up for the lack of precision in the Bill. It is also not satisfactory if the guidance is not to be issued until after this Bill is passed. I would therefore ask whether there are yet any draft guidelines and, if not, whether they can be

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produced before the Bill completes it passage. I would also ask whether any draft guidelines have received or will receive any direct input from the various interested bodies.
Perhaps I may turn briefly to the question of bouncers or "door supervisors", as they are euphemistically called, who are vital to the prevention of drugs in and around clubs. I understand that the setting of proper standards for the training of such people is patchy and variable as between different authorities. It is important that there is some level of training and registration and that the Government should set minimum standards for regulation, not just limited to criminal record checks.
I understand there has been some form of consultation exercise and wonder if the Minister can inform us as to whether there will be a national scheme of regulation. I also understand that the Government have produced a draft circular of good practice for the running of clubs and events. It seems to me to be terribly important that there is a uniform standard of good practice so that compliance with individual local initiatives is not taken as tacit recognition by the licence holder concerned that he has a problem. If he complies voluntarily with some local code of conduct, he may well be making a rod for his own back. That will not be the case if he is complying with a nationally laid down minimum standard.
Finally, perhaps I may return briefly to the Bill as it will work in practice in its present form. I do suggest that there are procedural deficiencies, in particular in allowing for revocation of a licence on the basis solely of a report by a chief officer of police that there is a serious problem at or near the place concerned.
No doubt the vast majority of chief police officers will act properly in making such reports, but there may well be a risk that they are influenced by the wish to save the manpower resources which these clubs undoubtedly require. They may also be unwittingly influenced by evidence provided by trade rivals. The Bill provides that these reports go just to the licensing authority not to the licence holder affected by it or to anyone else. So the licence holder has no opportunity to assess or to comment on the accuracy of the report or the validity of its conclusions.
The report and what to do next are then to be considered by the local authority. There is no provision for any representations at that stage or for any sort of hearing before the decision is made. So the licence holder is given no notice of what is happening, no opportunity to test or to question the evidence and no opportunity to give assurances for the future. The first he may hear of the process is when he receives the reasons for revocation, by which time he may have been operating unlawfully without a licence for several days. Under the Bill it is only after the decision is made that the licence holder first has the right to make representations in some unspecified form. Those representations could lead to reinstatement of the licence, by which time the business may have suffered irreparable damage and jobs may have been lost. I suggest that this type of procedure invites appeals and
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costly applications for judicial review. Surely the licence holder has the right to be informed and the right to be heard earlier before the decision is made.
Licensing authorities should not be exposed to litigation or complaints that they acted unfairly, prematurely or on insufficient evidence. They could face substantial claims for damages for lost business from a licence holder whose licence has been taken away and then reinstated. Indeed, it seems to me that there is also a possibility that those very risks may make some licensing authorities over-cautious, which is contrary to the intentions of the Bill.
I suggest, as several noble Lords have mentioned, that we should build into the statutory framework as a first step a formal warning to the licence holder that there is a problem, a warning requiring him to take remedial action or at least to make proposals for remedial action. In many cases, particularly of licence holders who have become complacent or careless, that may be all that is needed: one firm warning letter. Most licence holders will react promptly to show the police and the authorities that the warning has been taken seriously. Surely that first step will be cheaper and create more co-operation than confrontation. Moreover, if the warning is not acted upon, the police will be in a much better position to show in any report that there is a problem. In any event, those reports should go not just to the licensing authority but to the licence holder and, I suggest, to the owner of the premises, who may have rights under a lease to require action to be taken and who may be concerned about the value of the property which he owns if the licence is at risk from the negligence or worse of his tenant.
There should also be some opportunity to make representations and be heard by the licensing authority before a decision is made. The Bill gives a right of appeal to a court after the event but the Bill provides for time for an appeal to run from the date on which the representations are considered, which may be a date quite unknown to the licence holder. He may be deprived of time by not being informed for several days. Also, it is not clear to me that there is a power to allow a licence to remain in force pending an appeal when it has been revoked by the licensing authority as opposed to by reason of a decision of the court.
Another problem—it is a specific technical problem but an important one—seems to be that even temporary loss of a licence before its reinstatement will lead to the revocation of the special hours certificate and the special hours certificate will not be revived by reinstatement of the public entertainment licence. In other words, the special hours certificate will have to be applied for all over again with the procedures laid down in the relevant statute, for advertisement, notice to be given and the opportunity for trade objections to be considered.
I suggest that it is possible to have a fast but fairer procedure. As drafted, the Bill may cause hardship to smaller operators who do not have the resources or the broader shoulders of the large corporations and may cause unnecessary hardship to their employees.
As has been said by several noble Lords, the Bill had no debate beyond the Second Reading in another place. We wish the Bill well but it needs a little scrutiny.

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I hope that the criticisms that I have made are regarded as intended to be constructive. It is important that we choke off drugs from licensed premises and their customers. It is also important that licence holders are made to face up to their clear responsibilities in this difficult area.
7.14 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for introducing the Bill. She is right in saying that when the Bill received its Second Reading in the other place it was welcomed all round the Chamber. It is also true, as a number of noble Lords said, that the Bill did not receive proper scrutiny in Committee nor have a proper Report stage. Indeed, the Second Reading itself could be subject to criticism. It lasted for four hours but the last one-and-a-half hours at least of those four hours were taken up by honourable Members who were speaking in order to kill the next Bill, which was a Labour Bill to extend cold weather payments to pensioners. So, frankly, it was not much of a Second Reading and the debate was not very edifying. We have to look at the Bill extremely carefully.
All noble Lords who have so far spoken looked at the Bill, quite understandably, from the point of view of the holders of public entertainment licences. They looked at the provisions of the Bill and questioned whether they were sufficiently clear and the processes properly reflected the interests of the holders of licences. Surely, the starting point of the Bill is and has to be that it requires both the police and the local authority to be satisfied that there is a serious misuse of drugs and that it has to be dealt with quickly. If there were not provision for revocation, there would be no point whatsoever in the Bill. The points made by the noble Lords, Lord Meston and Lord Monson, the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater and the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, all recognised that fact but failed to recognise the extent to which subsequent legal provision has to follow from immediate revocation rather than provide for processes to take place before revocation. We should not be having the Bill at all unless we were looking to immediate revocation.
Neither am I terribly convinced by the arguments used this evening about the wording of the Bill. The words "at or near" the place, and particularly the word "near" can be interpreted in different ways. But that is not the only provision in the Bill. The point is that the police have to make the application and the local authority has to be satisfied that not renewing or transferring the licence will assist in dealing with the problem. It is a purposive definition of "near" rather than a definition in terms of metres—yards, if your Lordships prefer—away from the place where the licence is held.
I have no doubt that noble Lords who have expressed severe doubts about the wording of the Bill will wish to propose amendments to the Bill. Otherwise there is not much point in debating it in this way. For my part, I shall listen carefully to such amendments. However,
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I shall not be very convinced if the amendments seek to remove the central purpose of the Bill, which is immediate revocation of a licence.
I myself have very considerable doubts about the Bill, but they do not require amendment to the Bill. I want to make that point clearly. Satisfying my doubts would not hold up the progress of the Bill. First, the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, made reference made to the London Drug Policy Forum. Indeed, it has produced a very valuable report. Reference was also made to the Home Office circular of February 1996 on drugs misuse. The point about those publications is that they provide, in the one case, and discuss, in the second case, codes of good practice for establishments with public entertainment licences. With this Bill the danger is that the codes of good practice could be in conflict with the provisions of the Bill. I suggest that the noble Baroness and the Government have to look at that point.
Wherever possible, what we must be concerned with is the prevention of drugs misuse and not its cure. Closing down an establishment ought to be the last resort. We want establishments with public entertainment licences which actually work without drugs. That is why the codes of practice and the publications to which I have referred are so important. Again, the noble Baroness has very helpfully referred to such matters as the adequate provision of free water for those who become dehydrated; chill-out areas for those who become overheated; the need to report all drug incidents immediately they occur; and the presence on the premises of outreach workers, for example, or paramedics under certain circumstances. All these are elements in the draft code of practice.
The first problem with them is that, as they stand, a club which implements that code of practice could itself be suspected of having a serious drug problem. That difficulty was identified in the school context when it was first suggested that there should be drug education in schools. Those schools which had drug education were accused of having a drug problem. It was not until it was recognised that all schools should have drug education that that problem was on the way to being resolved. I do not know whether it has been resolved yet. The suspicion and the danger is that those clubs which adopt and enforce the recommendations of the London Drug Policy Forum and the Home Office circular, will be thought of by the police and/or local authorities as having a drug problem and having to take these steps to deal with it.
I come now to the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Meston. Not until we have a final version of the circular in force will we be sure that there is not a risk in having a code of practice. My view, like that expressed by other noble Lords, is that such a code of practice ought to be available to this House very quickly indeed, before this Bill completes its stages. I believe that does not require amendment of the Bill, but action by the Government.
The second problem has been referred to obliquely by other noble Lords concerned about the interests of the club owners: it is the liability of the local authority. Very considerable power is being given to a local

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authority, on the advice of the police, to revoke a licence and to close down a club immediately. As noble Lords have said, that involves a loss of business which could be terminal for the business, and irrevocable. Somebody suggested that they would continue to open illegally, but I certainly hope that will not happen.
If there is to be adequate defence for local authorities against claims for damages for the misuse of their powers, then the Government have to provide far more explicit criteria which local authorities can produce as a defence than are available in the Bill. They have to be able to say, "In making this decision we did not just act reasonably, we followed the criteria laid down by government". We would want to see government produce those criteria before this Bill leaves this House.
The third issue has also been referred to by other noble Lords. It is the registration of bouncers—"door supervisors", as the noble Lord, Lord Meston, reminded us they are euphemistically called. Again, there is a Home Office circular of December 1996 about regulation in the private security industry. I understand that that includes door supervisors. In order for this Bill to work and for there to be proper prevention of drug misuse in clubs, there has to be a national scheme, as the noble Lord, Lord Meston, has said, for the training, supervision and regulation of bouncers, who are very often—far too often—the path by which drugs reach licensed premises.
There are many things which need to be done before this Bill can be effectively implemented and can achieve the purpose for which it is intended. They are the responsibility of government and of those who have advocated this Bill. They have to hold discussions before the Bill comes back to us at a later stage. I wish to see the Bill go through. I do not wish to see it either delayed or destroyed by complicated legal amendments, but I want the background decision-making guidance, advice and codes of practice drawn up by government to be available to us before the Bill leaves this House.
7.25 p.m.
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, we have had a most interesting debate on this subject. I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend on the clear and concise way in which she has put forward the Bill. The Government fully support the Bill.
Last October the Home Secretary announced that he was determined that the law should be changed to help local authorities exercise their responsibilities in connection with public entertainment licences granted to clubs in cases where drug misuse is occurring. This Bill does just that by providing local authorities with a new emergency revocation power and by ensuring that once a club's licence is revoked it is closed immediately.
It is a sad fact of life that too many of our young people are tempted to experiment with illegal drugs. The latest British Crime Survey data reports that some 43 per cent. of 16-29 year-olds say they have taken a prohibited drug at some time in their lives. Recent or regular drug misuse is fortunately much less common with 14 per cent. reported use in last month, but that is still too many.
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Ecstasy is the drug most closely associated with clubs by the media and the public. We are all aware of a number of tragic deaths in recent years—none more poignant than that of Leah Betts just over a year ago after taking an ecstasy tablet which had been bought in a club. Since her death Mr. and Mrs. Betts have worked tirelessly to prevent similar tragedies happening elsewhere and I pay tribute to the work that they are doing. We know that they support the provisions in the Bill.
Young people are at particular risk from drug misuse due to their natural urge to experiment and their inexperience, particularly in dealing with peer pressure. Regrettably, on occasions they are also set bad examples by a number of leading figures in the music industry. Clubs where young people go to enjoy themselves often act as magnets for the dealers who move in to sell their wares.
We accept that the provisions in the Bill are tough—some would say draconian. That is precisely the intention. As my noble friend said, it provides tough powers to deal with a very serious problem. Responsible local authorities trying to deal with the problem of drugs in clubs deserve our support.
At the same time we understand the concerns of responsible club owners and promoters that this Bill may affect their legitimate businesses. Representatives of the British Entertainment and Discotheque Association (BEDA) have met with Home Office Ministers and officials to air these concerns. The Bill puts in place the powers needed to deal with the comparatively rare, worst situations. We have undertaken to produce a circular to accompany the Bill when it becomes law to encourage the consultation and co-operation that is already taking place in many areas between the police, licensing authorities and club owners.
It is common knowledge that club door staff are a crucial influence in the extent to which drugs find their way into clubs. Stakes are high and the pressure exerted by criminals on club owners and staff who want to run a clean operation can be considerable. The Home Office has circulated best practice guidance, as mentioned by noble Lords, to local authorities and police forces who wish to set up local registration schemes for door staff who work at clubs. This has been based on the experiences of schemes run in various parts of the country and drawn up in consultation with the police, local authority associations and the entertainment industry. In many of the schemes, registration involves criminal record checks by the police and satisfactory completion of an approved training course.
I know, however, that BEDA feels strongly that a statutory, national training and registration scheme for door supervisors is necessary, as noble Lords have said. In view of current concerns, the consultation paper we issued recently on the regulation of the contract guarding sector of the private security industry included an invitation for comments on whether door supervisors should be included in the proposed new statutory arrangements for the private security industry.

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Other measures are in hand to combat the menace of drugs in clubs. As the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, said, a draft Home Office circular was issued last year to encourage local authorities to exercise their licensing responsibility in such a way as to safeguard the health and safety of young people at clubs. The circular generated enormous interest and the consultation period had to be considerably extended to cope with the demand. We plan to issue the final version of that circular before too long.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, does "before too long" mean before the Bill leaves this House?
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, I shall come later to the point about the circular and the Bill. I am referring to the health and safety factors, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, referred.
The drug action teams set up under the Government's drugs strategy also have an important role to play in all this. The teams have been developing close working relationships with a range of voluntary agencies, community groups and other interested parties in tackling drug misuse locally. Many of the teams' action plans feature combating the menace of drugs to young people high on their list of priorities. We believe the teams are well placed to encourage partnership and co-ordination between local authorities, the police and the club owners and promoters.
Noble Lords have referred to our attitude towards written cautions. We do not consider it necessary or appropriate for the legislation to require local authorities to issue a written caution before they can take action. Where problems arise with public entertainment licences, there is already a great deal of dialogue between local authorities and licence holders. It is unlikely that, in the case of serious drug misuse, there would not have been prior contact with both local authorities and the police. The Bill is also intended to allow local authorities to take immediate action in extreme circumstances. We do not think that it is sensible to complicate such courtesies by specifically providing for a written caution.
The noble Lord, Lord Meston, mentioned formal hearings. Although the existing legislation does not require them to do so, most local authorities already hold such hearings before deciding to revoke or to refuse to renew a licence. We expect that in the interests of natural justice local authorities will wish to continue to do that in the majority of cases. This matter will also be dealt with in the proposed Home Office guidance. The Bill already provides for an application to make representations and for them to be considered within 21 days of any decision on revocation or non-renewal. A statutory requirement for a formal hearing is unlikely to add anything in most cases and could delay urgent action in those instances where it was considered essential.
All noble Lords remarked on the guidance circular to local authorities. It is not yet available in draft form. It will be issued following the consultation which I gather is ongoing with the local authority associations, the
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police and the trade. I am told that it may not be possible to have the guidance in draft form in the time available to us before the Bill passes through Parliament.
Lord Mclntosh of Haringey: My Lords, that is very bad news. A number of noble Lords have said how important it is that we should know the Government's thoughts on this. Perhaps I may make a constructive suggestion. Consultation takes place by a document being sent out to the organisations concerned. They take their time in sending it back. The Government then collate all the responses. Could not the Government urgently now convene a meeting of the local authority associations, trade associations and the police within, say, the next couple of weeks, get their responses to the draft and then come to the House?
Lord Meston: My Lords, I support the noble Lord's last observation. The concerns which have been expressed about the Bill relate to the procedures. Those concerns may well be covered adequately by the guidance, but it is important, particularly for those of us who want to decide how to proceed further with the Bill and whether to table amendments, to have the guidance (at least in draft form) available to us at a very early date, preferably before the next stage. That is absolutely vital.
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, I realise that the comments made by the noble Lords, Lord Mclntosh and Lord Meston, are constructive and that they both support the Bill. I shall, of course, take away everything that has been said and consult officials at the Home Office to see how near we are to being able to produce the circular in draft form. The areas that we shall be considering in the draft guidance and circular include liaison between the police and the clubs, security and safety features, particular drugs problems and effective communication between the various bodies. The police must contact the club about any perceived problem before the stage of bringing in the local authority.
My noble friend Lord Ullswater referred to young people. This Bill is not intended to stop young people enjoying themselves by closing down the clubs where so many go to enjoy themselves. The Bill is designed to deal with the worst situations when clubs cannot or will not take effective action.
The noble Lord, Lord Meston, mentioned Scotland. I understand that the arrangements in Scotland are different from, but complementary to, those in England and Wales.
Other noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Meston and Lord Mclntosh, asked whether we would be introducing statutory registration schemes for door supervisors. Door supervisors, or "bouncers", in clubs are known to be a greater problem in some areas than in others. There is no evidence of a simple national problem which could justify the introduction of statutory registration. Our policy of encouraging local voluntary registration schemes was endorsed by the Select Committee on Home Affairs. It recommended the introduction of guidance on best practice for the setting

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up of such schemes and that the expansion and effectiveness of such schemes should be monitored before national legislation is considered.
The noble Lord, Lord Meston, was concerned about the power to allow the licence to remain in force temporarily. As my noble friend mentioned, that is not possible where the local authority revokes the licence, but if the revocation is ordered by a magistrates' court, the court has a power to order that the licence remains in force while an appeal is brought.
The noble Lord also mentioned a number of technical points which have also been raised by the industry. We are considering them at the moment. I refer particularly to special hours certificates and to the time allowed for appeal.
The Bill and the code should be complementary. We intend to present them as such. The police support and encourage the health and safety messages that are given out in clubs. Although I have answered a number of questions, I have probably left some outstanding and I hope that my noble friend will deal with them. However, if any points remain unanswered, we shall write to noble Lords.
In conclusion, I repeat that the Government's view is that this Bill closes a serious loophole and makes an important contribution towards protecting our young people from the menace of drug misuse. I commend it to your Lordships.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, perhaps I may ask him—because so many noble Lords have mentioned this point—about the definition of "serious". How serious is "serious"?
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, I understand that my noble friend will deal with that point.
7.39 p.m.
Baroness Anelay of St. Johns: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for answering so many questions and to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate with such good will. I take all of their contributions in the spirit in which they were made—to produce the best possible Bill. I hope that their support will continue so that this Bill can pass into law as soon as possible.
The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, referred to one particular definition. I am not a lawyer but a magistrate, and I tread very warily. One intriguing rule of this House is that I cannot refer to the noble Lord, Lord Meston, as the noble and learned Lord, although I know that he is learned in the law. For that reason I am even more careful about what I say. As to the definition of "serious", whether or not such a problem is serious will be determined in each and every case. Although that sounds very woolly, in a more down to earth and perhaps flippant way what may appear to me to be a serious drug problem may not be a serious problem to someone like Liam Gallagher. It may not appear to the police to be serious. The police deal with clubs day in and day out and they will be aware of what constitutes
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a serious problem with drugs in the context of the dance and youth scene. I believe that, as each and every incident arises, what constitutes "serious" must be decided upon. In addition, as in other areas case law will be built up from which one will gain a better idea of what "serious" means in the context of the Bill.
Questions were raised in regard to the phrase "at or nearby". I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mclntosh of Haringey, who referred to the underlying purposive definition. I believe that that sums up the intention very well. I do not believe that a definition based on distance would be helpful. Anyone who was unscrupulous would immediately be able to get round the Bill simply by setting up shop with his drugs just a few centimetres beyond the distance defined in the Bill. There is another important consideration in relation to "nearby". If the police have identified a serious problem in a nightclub or dance club and they know that people are being kept out of the particular establishment by very efficient doorkeepers, and therefore people have set up shop nearby, the Bill will give the police the opportunity to take strong action against the club. But that will occur only if the local authority is satisfied on the evidence it is given that taking action against the club will assist in solving the problem. It cannot simply take action against the club unless it feels that it will stop the drug peddling next door. It must be satisfied that the problem will be eased or solved by closing it down or adding to or changing the conditions of the licence. Although the word "draconian" has rightly been used by my noble friend, this measure will be used only in very narrow circumstances and after a good number of precautions have been taken along the way.
A particular concern voiced by a group of operators was that "pernicious" local authorities and police authorities could act to close down clubs. Under the Bill, to close down a club, first, the police must establish that there is a serious problem and must have evidence to prove that to the local authority. Secondly, the local authority separately must arrive at a proper decision that there are grounds to take action under the Bill. I do not believe that in a democracy it is likely that a police authority and local authority will be engaged in some kind of conspiracy. In this House there are noble Lords with experience of how local authorities work, and they will know that that is not how they proceed.
References were made to one or two other legal definitions. As a layman, I will attempt to deal with them. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, expressed worry about whether people would be presumed to be guilty from the start. He did not want to lose the old presumption that a person was innocent until proved guilty. However, this Bill provides that at the very first instance the police must present their evidence to the local authority. There is no closure, revocation or change of any conditions until the local authority has considered that evidence and made a decision. One knows that that is the situation before other tribunals outwith the magisterial and Crown Court system.
The noble Lord, Lord Monson, also referred to the worry that unscrupulous traders in drugs could plant drugs in premises. In that way they could get their rivals closed down. That view has been expressed by some operators. However, on the basis of discussions before

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coming to this House I believe that the police have such day-to-day knowledge of clubs on their patch that they will have a pretty good idea, if they are carrying out their duties properly—as I believe they are—which clubs have rivals and which clubs already have a problem. Although that practice may exist, I do not believe it is one that will prejudice the intent of this Bill or its practical effect.
Mention was also made of the risk of local authorities having to pay compensation if they revoked a licence and thereby the club owner lost his business, and subsequently the licence was reinstated because the local authority was found to be in error. My understanding of the law is that the local authority would be liable to pay such compensation only if it could be shown that it had acted maliciously and negligently. I believe that if the local authority follows carefully a code of practice as to how to weigh up evidence and carry out the procedures, it should not find itself liable to pay such compensation.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. That was exactly the point I made when speaking of the need to have the codes of practice in effect before the commencement of this measure. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness that if they act in accordance with codes of practice they will not be at risk.
Baroness Anelay of St. Johns: My Lords, I appreciate that. I believe that my noble friend the Minister is aware of the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Mclntosh.
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I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I believe that there is a good measure of agreement on the principles of the Bill. Some Members of this House will have had the opportunity to witness the effect of drugs on young people. Some of us are doctors, lawyers and magistrates who are involved in treating, advising and sentencing those involved in the misuse of drugs. Others are probation officers who help young people along the road to independence from drugs. Many of us are parents who are concerned about the safety of our children or their friends. Noble Lords will have seen, as I have at close quarters, young lives at best blighted and at worst ended by the misuse of drugs.
I do not claim that this Bill will solve the social problems of drugs misuse in clubs overnight. It must be seen as part of a wider assault on abuse of drugs. I support all the educational programmes, advertising campaigns and good work in the community to try to convince people of the harm that drugs can do. I welcome the efforts of the Government to crack down on drug dealers. This Bill will make it possible to close down unscrupulous clubs straight away as soon as the police have determined that they pose a serious drugs problem and the local authority, having considered all the evidence, has come to the same conclusion. The Bill proposes a specific solution to a specific problem. I ask your Lordships to give it a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at eleven minutes before eight o'clock.