Lords Sitting of 16 July 1997

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwark.
Lord Windlesham—Took the Oath.
The Earl of Cromartie—Took the Oath.

The Windfall Tax and Unemployment
Lord Lucas of Chilworthasked Her Majesty's Government:
What impact, if any, the proposed windfall tax will have on the level of unemployment.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the money raised by the windfall levy will be used to finance welfare to work and the new deal: £3.5 billion will be spent on improving the skills and ability to compete in the labour market of the young and long-term unemployed. A further £1.3 billion will be spent on equipping schools in order to improve the employability of school-leavers.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that optimistic response, but does he agree that a better way might be to encourage a return to the craft apprenticeship scheme of yesteryear, with perhaps a training period of, say, 30 months? That would enable any subsidy paid to an employer to be reduced during the term of the apprenticeship, at the end of which one would have skilled craftsmen or technicians. The scheme would also provide a link between the employer and the employee.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have much sympathy with what the noble Lord suggests, but that is not the specific objective of the welfare-to-work programme which is designed generally for up to six months. We cannot promise that that programme will accommodate craft apprenticeships such as the noble Lord has in mind. However, we agree that one of the aims of the programme is to help young people to gain a long-lasting commitment from their employers to avoid the "revolving door". There will be an exit strategy with measures to help people to maintain employment when the subsidised period ends. I am sure that the noble Lord will agree that it is important to have an individualised approach to help people to choose the best option for their own needs.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, does the noble Lord recollect that he recently gave me a half-answer to a Question that I had tabled on the matter of the windfall tax in which he ignored three of the points of the Question and did not answer them at all? On the question of whether the windfall tax would make any
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difference to the number of people employed by the companies to which the tax was applied, the noble Lord, in a curious grammatical construction, added at the end of his reply that it would not in his view make any difference to employment. Does that mean employment in the companies concerned or employment in the economy overall?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I was trying to follow the noble Lord's Question which I understood to be about employment in the companies concerned. I think that he will find that I answered two questions, which is all that I am supposed to answer when more than two questions are posed. There is no justification for any reduction in employment in those companies affected by the windfall tax. The tax is a one-off and if the companies are claiming that they need to reduce employment in order to pay it, there must be something inefficient about the way in which they are operating.
Lord Evans of Parkside: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that as a time-served craftsman who served his apprenticeship in a shipyard in Tyneside I would welcome wholeheartedly a return to the old craft apprenticeship scheme? However, is my noble friend further aware that if we were to be in a position to return to that scheme, the first thing that we would have to do would be to reopen the shipyards, factories and steelworks that were closed under the last Tory Government?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have sympathy with my noble friend's point of view, but I must point out that the welfare-to-work programme which will be financed from the windfall tax will not be the only training programme undertaken by the Government. It is an additional programme, designed to re-establish contact with the labour market among those who have lost it and to update their skills. That should make the labour market more efficient.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that the impact on unemployment of the windfall tax is likely to be pretty small? Would it not be far better to continue the last government's policy of having a stable and healthy economy, which has meant that today we have once again seen the monthly unemployment figures fall by about 36,500? Does the noble Lord agree that that may not last as interest rates increase and the pound goes over three deutschmarks in value?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, as is proper, I shall answer the noble Lord's first two questions. His first question involves the same degree of imprecision as that of the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. I agree that the windfall tax will have little or no impact on employment in those companies affected by the tax, but for the reasons that I have given I believe that the programme on which the windfall money is to be spent should improve employment by making the labour markets more flexible. As to the noble Lord's second question, I welcome the further drop in unemployment levels both

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on the standard procedure and on the ILO figures this year. I acknowledge that those drops have continued for a considerable time under more than one government.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the Government have announced a review of how the unemployment figures should be calculated. When in opposition they accused the then Government of fudging the figures. Can the noble Lord inform the House whether those who take part in make-work schemes like the environment task force will still be included in the unemployment figures or will they be fudged into the employment figures?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, pending the review by the Office of National Statistics, to which I have already referred, no changes have taken place. However, the noble Viscount will have observed that the British figures announced this morning show a reduction to 1.6 million and the ILO figures produced from the Labour Force Survey show a reduction to 2 million.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, further to the third supplementary question of my noble friend Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, does the noble Lord agree that were the Government to rule out monetary union for ever, the billions of deutschmarks that have poured into pounds might return to their natural home and the pound might find an altogether more convenient level?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I thought that the noble Lord had found a quite legitimate device for dividing supplementary questions among different members of the Opposition. However, he has asked quite a different question, to which the answer is no.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, in order to try to elucidate the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, about interest rates, will my noble friend ask the noble Lord—I am sure that he can do that—by how much the Opposition would have increased personal taxation to prevent interest rates rising?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I would love to oblige my noble friend but I do not believe that the House would permit it.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, over the past 18 years the party opposite has stressed the importance of manufacturing industries. What will the Government do to improve the position of apprentices and ensure that there are more of them so that the manufacturing industries of this country are far more efficient?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have already spoken about apprenticeships. I do not accept that the welfare-to-work proposals which will be financed from the windfall tax will fail to benefit manufacturing industry. Young people and the long-term unemployed are as free to seek help from
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welfare to work in manufacturing industries as in any other industries. I hope that it will be a positive benefit to manufacturing industries.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords—
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Richard): My Lords, with great respect to the noble Lord, he has already had one go and another go not by default but by representation, if I may put it in that way. I believe that we should move on.

Northern Irelandn: Inward Investment
2.47.m.
Lord Skelmersdaleasked Her Majesty's Government:
What support is given to firms intending to invest in Northern Ireland.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Dubs): My Lords, the Department of Economic Development, through the Industrial Development Board, provides selective financial assistance towards manufacturing and internationally tradeable service projects which offer new employment opportunities and are likely to enhance economic development. Additional support available includes training grants and R&D assistance.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that answer. Does he agree that, on further reflection, an inhibition to inward investment in Northern Ireland as in other parts of the United Kingdom is a fair and efficient planning service? Would the noble Lord describe the Northern Ireland planning service in those terms when, in a recent answer to me, the chief executive said that in 1996 it had taken 1,716 days to reach a conclusion on one particular matter?
Lord Dubs: My Lords, I agree that industrial investment is helped by an efficient planning system. I am not aware of the particular planning application to which the noble Lord refers. However, some of the delays have been due to the complexity of the decision, the need for full consultation and an appeal. Some of the delays have also resulted from further information being required from the applicant for the planning permission. Nevertheless, I agree that long delays are unacceptable and it is one of the matters that I am looking into.
The Earl of Erne: My Lords, can the Minister inform the House how much investment has been lost to Northern Ireland because of the troubles?
Lord Dubs: My Lords, looking back over the many years of the troubles, it is very difficult to answer the question. However, all the evidence that we have suggests that difficulties over the past year or so have not held back an enormous surge in inward investment. For example, for the year ending March 1997, which was the most

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successful period in terms of winning overseas investment, inward investment of £490 million covering 35 projects from American, Asian and European companies was achieved. When those investments are completed they will lead to the creation of 4,600 new jobs. I am confident that this surge of investment in Northern Ireland will continue provided that the incident at Drumcree the weekend before last is viewed as an isolated matter.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, is it possible for the Minister to ask his colleagues in the DTI whether they, in turn, could ask companies which invest in Great Britain whether they have the same or different problems when investing in Northern Ireland? The suspicion is abroad that it is much more difficult for companies to obtain planning permission in Northern Ireland than on the mainland. It would help investment in both places if that could be put to rest once and for all.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, I shall look into whether obtaining planning permission for industrial projects is harder or takes longer in Northern Ireland than in other parts of the UK. Whether I shall be tempted to do that through the DTI or whether it is better that I investigate for myself, I shall decide when I see what comes back from my own department.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, given the Government's welcome emphasis on the need to improve long-term unemployment and to create jobs, what positive direction is given to potential investors in Northern Ireland to move into areas of high unemployment? What is being done to make training facilities and promotional opportunities available and accessible to both communities?
Lord Dubs: My Lords, of course we want to encourage investment to the benefit of all communities in Northern Ireland. For example, a couple of years or longer ago few companies considered investing in West Belfast, an area which has suffered more than most from the difficulties in recent years. However, since then we have encouraged a number of American, Korean and Japanese investors to set up plants there. Those companies include Fujitsu, and Emerson Caterpillar. They will provide hundreds of jobs in the area. We want inward investment to help all people in Northern Ireland and not just a section of the community.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, will the Minister read out a list of the policies which have led to that enormous and most successful surge of investment in the UK to which he referred earlier? Will he say whether it is proposed to change any of them?
Lord Dubs: My Lords, I have a list of the elements of the investment package offered in Northern Ireland, which is one of the most attractive in Europe. Every assistance package is tailored to meet the needs of specific projects. The level of the grant will vary
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according to the location of the project, and will contain one of a number of elements. I shall he brief, but the noble Lord did ask for a list. There are capital grants, revenue grants—for example, employment grants relating to the number of newly created jobs—interest relief grants, rent grants, research and development grants, depreciation allowances on tax, 100 per cent. derating for industrial buildings, help with loans, and so forth. I could expand the list, but I am sure that the noble Lord has had enough.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, perhaps I may modestly claim some ownership of the "we" the Minister mentioned in attracting Fujitsu, Emerson and other investors to West Belfast? We must be grateful to all those who continue to invest in Northern Ireland despite the men of violence. Retailers are some of the most valuable investors. They bring jobs and training to those with a minimum of qualifications, competition for the consumer, and attractions for tourists. Is not the Minister therefore surprised that road services should take 15 months to pronounce on road improvements which would allow a major retailer to expand, to offer more jobs, and to offer more markets for goods produced in Northern Ireland? Is it not important that there should be not just one department focused on inward investment but that every part of government should be focused on bringing more investment to Northern Ireland.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, when I said "we", I meant "we" in the sense of this Government and the previous government. In case there was any doubt about that, let me make it clear that the attractive investment incentives were those for which the noble Baroness had responsibility when she was the Minister in Northern Ireland. Clearly her efforts were successful. We shall want to continue to ensure that inward investment goes on being attractive. With regard to planning delays, a couple of minutes before I came into the Chamber, the noble Baroness mentioned to me that she wanted to ask a question about them. If I am right in interpreting her question as relating to a particular development, my quick answer is that further information is being awaited from the applicant for the planning permission. It is such a large planning application that there will almost certainly have to be a planning inquiry to deal with it. I assure the noble Baroness that I shall look into it further and let her have a full answer by letter.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords—
Noble Lords: Next Question!
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I shall be quick.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I am reluctant to interrupt the noble Lord, but 17 minutes have passed and we are only on the second Question. I think that we should move on.

Mineworkers' Pension Scheme
2.56 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easingtonasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will reconsider the position relating to the surplus payment they received from the Mineworkers' Pension Scheme.
The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Clinton-Davis): No, my Lords. The arrangements whereby the Government receive a share of any surplus in the Mineworkers' Pension Scheme are part of a wider agreement reached with the schemes' trustees in 1994. Under this agreement, the Government guarantee that pension entitlements at privatisation will rise at least in line with inflation; and in return for this the Government share equally with the beneficiaries in any surplus. The trustees supported this agreement in 1994 and we believe that they still support it.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, I accept the general principles of the scheme as stated by my noble friend, but does he agree that with £1.5 billion now in the fund there is room for improvement in the pensions for those thousands of miners who lost their jobs because of the destruction of the mining industry by the previous government, and who are still unemployed? Secondly, does my noble friend remember that the 100 miners who were sacked—it was a case of victimisation—during the dispute in 1984–85 were deprived of their pension rights? Does he agree that it would take just a tiny part of the funds that now exist to restore those rights?
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I am well aware of my noble friend's concern for the welfare of the mining community and those who were deprived of their jobs as a result of events in the past. As regards victimised miners, the case has been considered, and he will be glad to know that it is for the trustees, of course, to consider the possibility of their reinstatement. It remains an open issue. However, it is not a matter for me as a Minister, however sympathetic I might be, to revisit the fund's purposes. It is outside my legal competence so to do.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, as the Minister is probably aware, there are two pension funds relating to the coal industry. One is for mineworkers, and is the one to which the Question relates, and the other is for the staff members, of which I happen to be a beneficiary, so I declare that interest. Is the Minister aware that as a result of the latest valuation of those two schemes the Government will be paid £150 million per annum for 10 years? That is a substantial amount of money. If a further valuation should lead to an even larger amount of money, is there not something to be said for a review of the situation in the light of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dormand?
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, the difficulty is that there is a risk of fluctuations, which no one realises more than the noble Lord. Although benefits have been
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accruing in the way he described in recent years, in previous years the Government were required to enlarge the possibilities of support for at least one of the funds. I am not sure about both. It is not possible for me at the Dispatch Box to take over the trustees' responsibilities. This was an agreement which was approved by Parliament and by the trustees. For that reason, as I say, it is extremely difficult to revisit the issue.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, will my noble friend consider discussing this very important issue with the National Coal Board?
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, no, because the matter falls within the remit of the trustees.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, at the risk of embarrassing the Minister, perhaps I may say that I agree with his original Answer that a bargain was made in 1994 to the effect that the Government would pick up any deficit in the fund and honour the commitment and that any surplus would be shared between the pensioners and the Government. Is that not a far better bargain for the pensioners and potential pensioners than the decision made by his right honourable friend the Chancellor to remove £5.4 billion in a Maxwellian grab in the form of the abolition of advance corporation tax?
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, the noble Lord has had a go on this issue on several fronts. His appetite seems to be insatiable. However, I believe that he ought to table a specific Question on this matter rather than try to enlarge on a Question that has nothing to do with it.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, I appreciate the general principles of the fund which my noble friend has enunciated. However, that is not to say that the situation should remain as it is, in particular as the amount of money in the fund is much greater than was expected. I appreciate the difficulties, but will he agree to assist the National Union of Mineworkers in any discussions it might have with the Government or the trustees?
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, the National Union of Mineworkers and the trustees will enter into a dialogue about the matters if they wish to do so. However, it is not helpful for me to seek to intervene when I have no legal competence so to do.

Pathology and Radiology Services
3.2 p.m.
Lord Walton of Detchantasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will reaffirm the long-accepted definition of pathology and radiology as clinical services in the NHS and that these will not be included under the private finance initiative.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Baroness Jay of Paddington): My Lords, I am happy to reaffirm that the Government have given an undertaking that pathology and radiology services should not be included in private finance initiative schemes. Work is now being undertaken to draw up a definitive list of those activities which will be considered clinical and excluded from PFI projects. That will he completed by the end of the year. Interested parties will be consulted and the Government have given a commitment that the interests of employees will be properly taken into account.
Lord Walton of Detchant: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reassuring Answer. It is important to have her reaffirmation of these specialties as clinical disciplines, as they have been since the establishment of the NHS, more particularly as pathologists, immunologists, microbiologists and others and interventional radiologists are increasingly involved in the personal care of patients.
However, does she accept that a distinction must be drawn between the services to be provided in a clinical setting by such specialists and the infrastructure in which and with which those services can be provided? I accept, as she said, that the clinical services will not be included in the private finance initiative, but does she agree that it would be appropriate for the infrastructure in the form of buildings and highly expensive equipment from time to time to be provided through such an initiative?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, that is precisely the basis on which the Government are proceeding with the private finance initiative within the health service. We are happy to see the design and building of particular installations funded under the initiative, but we are not happy to include clinical services.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, will the noble Baroness answer the second point which the noble Lord, Lord Walton, mentioned? It was whether equipment as opposed to the infrastructural elements can be included under the PFI.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, that depends entirely on the degree to which those pieces of equipment are integral to the clinical services. That is precisely the kind of detailed question at which we shall he looking when we consider the detail of potential PFI contracts and whether services need to be excluded from individual schemes.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is a pity that the Bill was rushed through the House before anyone had considered the meaning of the main services as they appeared in it? The noble Baroness agreed that pathology and radiology should be excluded in response to an amendment which I tabled. What will happen when the list is drawn up?
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Are we to have an additional Bill? What assurances shall we have that the provision will he as sure as though it were on the face of the Bill?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, the noble Baroness rightly recalls the amendment which she and her colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches proposed. It was the basis on which I agreed that pathology and the other services should be excluded from the private finance initiative.
The Bill was rushed through this House and another place, as she described it—I would say that it was taken with due speed—simply because the Government were anxious to achieve the primary purpose of the Bill, which was that the original 14 new hospitals should be built. We believe that the importance of giving 14 communities the opportunity to have new hospitals which have been denied to them for several years has been the most important objective of the Bill, and that has been achieved. We shall certainly not have another Bill to include the matters relating to clinical services, but they will be considered as a list of exclusions when individual contracts are considered.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, does the Minister regret that for years the Labour Party condemned the PFI as privatisation by the back door? Are the Labour Party happier now that they have admitted that the PFI is the best way to build hospitals? Is the Minister happy with NHS trusts using the private sector to provide haemodialysis, routine operations, pathology and radiological services, and will the Minister encourage that?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am not entirely clear about the overall philosophy behind the noble Lord's question. If he is asking whether the Government accept the role of public/private partnerships within the health service, that is certainly the case. I can quote to him from Hansard my contributions on previous Bills on this subject. I believe that he was personally involved in the residual liabilities Bill, which we discussed when the principle was supported from my position, which was then where he is sitting.
As I mentioned in answer to previous questions today, individual specialties will be considered when individual contracts are examined. Obviously, as would be the understanding with any new government we shall not overturn any commercial contracts which have previously been negotiated.
Lord Winston: My Lords, those on this side of the House will be grateful for my noble friend's reassurance about clinical services. Does she agree that there are certain circumstances in which clinical services might appropriately be part of a private finance initiative? I am thinking, for example, of private practice within the health service, which could be of great benefit to the health service, and often may be better practice within

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the health service—within the public sector—where there can be maximum benefit both to the public sector and to the patients concerned.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot accept the principle that clinical services are in general better served in any way other than under the NHS arrangements. However, I look forward to my noble friend's contribution to the discussion on the details of the PFI arrangements under individual contracts as this process continues.

Business
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., my noble friend Lady Jay of Paddington will, with the leave of the House, repeat in the form of a Statement an Answer to a Private Notice Question in another place on plans for GP fundholding.

Schools and Preparation for Adult Life
3.10 p.m.
Lord Northbournerose to call attention to the role of schools in preparing young people for the responsibilities and challenges of adult life, including parenthood; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity which the ballot gives me to raise this important subject. It is topical because the Government have just produced a White Paper for consultation which refers to life skills education and to preparation for parenthood. It is topical also because the moratorium on the national curriculum will end in 1999 and it is not too soon to begin to consider possible changes.
The 1988 Education Reform Act requires schools:
"to prepare pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life".
I ask myself whether the present national curriculum is achieving those objectives. I think that the answer must be "not to the full". Let us look at the 1988 Act. It provides for a national curriculum with compulsory foundation subjects. I shall list them, although it is rather boring—English or Welsh, maths, science, a foreign language, history, geography, IT, physical education, technology, music and art. Religious education, sex education and careers education are also compulsory.
Sir Ron Dearing, in his report of December 1993, managed, with difficulty, to prise 20 per cent. of the curriculum time from those compulsory subjects so that some of the curriculum subjects could be chosen by the school. But still, in effect, at least 80 per cent. of curriculum time is taken up by the compulsory subjects of the foundation curriculum.
I argue that the compulsory curriculum does not include some of the most important life skills which young people will need in the 21st century. For
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example, it does not include important aspects of preparation for the world of work, self-knowledge, self-confidence, the ability to relate to others, the ability to communicate well, the ability to make decisions, to solve problems, to cope with change and to retrain when necessary. It does not include preparation for citizenship or parenthood, and I shall return to that in a few moments. It does not include health education or money management.
Of course, in the best schools those subjects are delivered either as cross-curricular themes or as part of a personal, social and health education syllabus—PSHE. But PSHE has to be squeezed into the free 20 per cent. of the curriculum. It is not part of the compulsory curriculum; it is not examined; and it is only partly inspected by Ofsted.
Therefore, in many schools PSHE has been marginalised. In some schools, it has been squeezed out altogether. In others, it is badly taught. In 1994, the last year for which I can find statistics, Ofsted inspectors found that only 40 per cent. of PSHE lessons in the secondary schools which they inspected qualified as "good" or "very good".
At present, initial teacher training does not cover PSHE and there is very little in-service training available. Teachers feel uncomfortable delivering a subject which involves exploring values and dealing with pupils' questions on sensitive issues such as sex, morality and family values without proper training.
Incidentally, I believe that the name PSHE should be changed. What a switch-off it is. Why do we not refer to it as life skills or skills for life or perhaps adult life skills, which I favour? The word "adult" tends to have a certain fascination for children. I hope that other noble Lords in this debate will focus on some of the aspects of life skills to which I have referred. I have time to deal with only one; that is, parenting education—education for parenthood.
Why is education for parenthood necessary today? It is necessary for two reason: first, because so many children today are no longer learning what they need to know about parenting from their own families or extended families or neighbours; and, secondly, because today's world is such a complex place in which to bring up children. Traditional moral values are no longer accepted. Many changes are taking place in family structures. I quote from the National Children's Home "Factfile" which states:
"Almost 1 child in 3 is born outside marriage today. One in 5 families with a dependent child are single parent families. Divorce rates have doubled since 1971. More than 1 in 3 marriages are re-marriages".
I continue to quote:
"The implications of these trends are profound. It is important not only that social policy adapts to take account of this, but also that Young People understand the implications for themselves and for their children".
I repeat,
"that Young People understand the implications for themselves and for their children".
Parenting really matters. Children who do not receive the parental love and care which they need, even if it is given by another adult and not by their birth parents,

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will have much more difficulty in growing up emotionally secure and confident. An infant who is loved learns to love. An infant who is secure will grow up confident. A child who is taught that there are boundaries to acceptable behaviour will grow up responsible and self-disciplined. Children need appropriate role models.
Children who do not receive that basic support often fail to settle into primary school, fall behind and become disruptive. Others play truant and get themselves excluded. When young people are half educated or emotionally and behaviourally disturbed, they are difficult to train and employ. However good the schools are, the foundations of education are laid in the home. In passing, I should say that I fear that that may be the rock on which the Government's welfare-to-work programme may founder.
Nevertheless, unemployed and unemployable young people will breed and there is clear evidence that children from a background of poor parenting tend themselves to repeat the pattern of poor parenting. That has been called the cycle of poor parenting. It was the late Lord Joseph who, in 1972, first drew attention to that problem. He called it the cycle of deprivation.
In 1991 in a lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies, he said:
"For children to become self disciplined adults, capable of loving and being loved and of consideration for others, they need from their parents consistent love and discipline: unqualified love but firm guidance in values and behaviour.
Most people experience this and, when they become parents, they pass it on. But some have had no such upbringing or fail to benefit from it. And parenting that is not good enough can lead to misery for the children and, as they grow up, failure at school, crying, violence, disregard for others and unhappiness for themselves".
It is a sad fact that we still have cycles of poor parenting today. There are many causes. We must all work to break those cycles, and schools have an important role to play.
Your Lordships may wonder whether it is possible to teach children about parenting in school and whether they will be interested. There is growing evidence that the answer is "Yes" on both counts. Yes, provided that the subject is delivered by teachers who are well trained and enthusiastic, and provided that it is taught interactively, giving pupils the opportunity to explore and to discuss.
Some schools are already successfully delivering parenting education. The most recent and compelling evidence comes from a report Tomorrow's Parents of which I have placed a copy in the Library of the House. It is published by the Gulbenkian Foundation together with the Children's Society. The report, which is written by Philip Hope, who has subsequently been elected the honourable Member for Corby in another place, records and evaluates an experiment in five Manchester schools during the academic year 1995–96. It used the Children's Society programme Education for Parenthood. It was taught in the schools and the outcomes were evaluated.
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The report's key finding was,
"that inclusion of parenthood education in the curriculum of a school, particularly if it is taught alongside other personal and social issues, can have a positive influence on young people's thinking about their roles and responsibilities as future parents…There is a measurable positive impact on students' knowledge and understanding of parenthood".
Indeed, some of the children's own comments give a flavour of their experience. One said, "It changed my views a lot, because nobody ever tells you what it's all about"; another said, "We learnt how much time and love children need"; again, one said, "It has taught me how children behave, and how to handle it without using force—that it takes understanding, love and patience"; and, finally, one said, "It has shown me that parenting is not a piece of cake".
One of the objects of parenting education must be to present young people with a more realistic and less romanticised picture of parenthood. One school nurse believes that some young girls have babies on the basis of what she describes as the "3 Rs"—that is to say, "Ahh, isn't it lovely! Ahh, I would like one of them! Ahh, how soon can I have one!". There is no thought there for the sleepless nights, the mess, the smell, the cost, the loneliness and the sacrificed youth.
An interesting American experiment included the objective of delaying teenage parenthood: each child—that is, both boys and girls—was given a raw egg to look after for a week. They were told that they were responsible for its safety, never to leave it unattended and, above all, not to break it, but to return it at the end of the week intact. History does not relate whether they were allowed to scramble it in revenge.
Becoming a parent should not be an enterprise which is undertaken by accident, or as a whim. Again, the late Lord Joseph said:
"Casual procreation is unacceptable both for the child and for society".
Once again, I should like to give your Lordships one or two quotations from the children in the report of the Children's Society about their parenting course. One girl said, "It's made a difference to whether I get pregnant or not, you're stopping to think". Another said, "It made me think about all the compromises that I would have to make, and all the changes that a child could make to my life". Further, a boy said, "I have set my heart on being a father; however I need to give myself time to enjoy myself and live a little first". Indeed, education for parenthood is also very important for boys.
When she responds to the debate, I should like to ask the Minister to give the House an assurance that the Government will very seriously consider making adult life skills education, including education for parenthood, a compulsory subject in the national curriculum in the year 2000 and that, in the meantime, the Government will prepare a national syllabus for the subject and ensure that appropriate teacher training is available so that it can be delivered effectively. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.23 p.m.
Lord Plant of Highfield: My Lords, the whole House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for initiating today's debate on a series of very important

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issues. The Motion refers to challenges and responsibilities facing children as they grow into adult life. To my mind those challenges and responsibilities, as far as they relate to possible elements of the curriculum, fall into four areas. The noble Lord has already dwelt on the first area to some extent; namely, those issues to do with personal life and parenting and the fostering and nurturing of children. Some of those parenting skills are indeed skills and there is no reason why, in principle, they cannot be taught. Certainly the report to which the noble Lord referred gives much detail about how they might be taught and disseminated to schoolchildren with very beneficial effect.
Nevertheless, we should recognise that there are aspects of parenting, to which the noble Lord referred, which are not a matter of skill and which cannot in fact be transmitted through education in a very direct way, largely because it is a matter of values. Parenting ideally takes place in a context of loyalty, love, commitment and trust which are not skills and which cannot be taught in any straightforward way and are best learnt by example.
Those values are indispensable in family life. But, nevertheless, they run up against a number of other aspects in our own moral culture which make them peculiarly difficult to follow and implement in our lives today. After all, so much of what goes on in society places a premium upon choice, upon self-interest and upon following one's own inclinations. Yet the very values that characterise family life and parenting stand in opposition to those aspects to a great extent. Having children, nurturing them, and so on, cannot be understood in the terms that characterise so many of the ways in which we speak about our lives today; for example, choice, self-interest and contract. Indeed, those notions are just wholly inappropriate.
If we are to stress the importance of parenting skills and parenting values, it is important in family life, in schools and in society generally, that we should keep affirming the fact that there are things in human life which are more important than choice and self-interest. We should stress that these have a totally ineliminable role to play in family life and in human nurturing and that, against that background, society as a whole has a right to be interested in what goes on in the family. Given the problems about breakdown, and so on, to which the noble Lord referred, it seems to me that that can no longer be seen as entirely a private matter. Indeed, there are other aspects to it which are of social concern. Therefore, schools should certainly play a role in awakening children to such adult needs and responsibilities.
The second area of challenge and responsibility which I believe to be most important relates to individual employability which, again, the noble Lord mentioned. Gone are the days when the labour market or government intervention could produce a sense of security for the whole of one's life in which families could be confident. Any sense of security derived from being in the global market has to come much more through the individual's own skills, the transferability of those skills, and so on. In other words, the individual
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has to be able to do not just one job but many jobs during the course of his or her working life. It seems to me that this Government have that very much at the top of their agenda—as was the case with the previous government—in trying to work out exactly what kind of skills people will need to have in order to retain employability throughout their careers. As I said, it has become much more of an individual concept as problems of state intervention in the economy in the context of a global market have made other forms of security much more difficult to achieve. Again, welfare into work requires that those who are being put into work also have employable skills. That is the second area where life skills, as the noble Lord put it, have an importance in the school curriculum.
My third area relates to the fact that more and more responsibility is being pushed on to the individual; for example, self-assessment for taxation, buying one's own pension and buying one's own unemployment insurance—what the noble Lord called money management. I believe that most of us find such tasks extremely difficult and, therefore, those who are not, so to speak, on top of such things are very vulnerable as we saw through the mis-selling of pensions. Yet if, because of agreed views about the limits of government, individuals increasingly have to take control of their own arrangements in terms of investment, pensions and insurance, it is very important for them to have some kind of training and thus some ability to manage their affairs.
The final area that I should like to mention is what one might call "civil engagement—that is to say, along with pushing down responsibility to individuals, we are now trying to attract people to serve on school governing boards. Parents will be expected to interpret league tables and understand them properly, whether they relate to schools or hospitals. Indeed, trying to understand how the public sector works against the background of much greater information is a new concept. Therefore, as they grow up, children will need to be able to understand how to make sense of that information and translate it into good judgments about how to deal with matters which will be quite crucial to their own children's lives. As regards those four areas, the noble Lord is quite right at least to ask whether there should be room in the curriculum for those kinds of topics.
3.30 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, 1, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for introducing this most important debate this afternoon. The issues that he has raised are fundamental to society. In the time available I wish to make just two points. First, this Motion is similar to the terms of an amendment that I moved in the course of the debates on the education legislation. Section 351 of the Education Act 1996 states,
"The curriculum for a school satisfies the requirements of this section … prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities. responsibilities and experiences of adult life".
My amendment, which was debated, would have added the words, "including marriage and parenthood".

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The first part of this Motion is similar to the terms of the Act. When the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, replies to the debate perhaps she will tell us how that part of the Act is being implemented in schools. I entirely agree with what the noble Lords, Lord Plant and Lord Northbourne, said about responsibilities, the teaching of life skills and the importance of being able to work together, to work co-operatively and to give a commitment to a job that is being undertaken. I have heard myself mentioning those points on many occasions when I was a Minister for education, but they need constantly to be repeated.
However, children need more than that. They need the firm guidance to which the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, referred. In my view they need a set of ideals by which to live. We all need these even if each one of us knows that we shall never be able to live up to those ideals. One of the tragedies today is that children do not have these ideals because we seem to be totally unable to agree on any of them. I believe that there are three points on which we can agree; namely, that bullying is wrong, that stealing is wrong; and that cheating is wrong. Why not build on those points in other areas?
I now turn to the final part of the Motion which is before the House. In referring to parenthood in the Motion the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has not included marriage, which seems to me to be fundamental. I find it extraordinary that the report Tomorrow's Parents, to which he referred, said nothing at all on that matter. I rang the authors to check whether had failed to spot that but they confirmed that they had not written anything about it. I refer to opinion polls in the hope that that will appeal to new Labour who I think set great store by them. An opinion poll conducted in the past six months has shown that 75 per cent. of the public believe that schools should teach children that marriage is a good thing while 73 per cent. believe that moral teaching in schools should focus on marriage and the traditional family. It is interesting to note that no less a person than President Clinton has said, as quoted in the New York Times in January,
"It is wrong to be pregnant or father a child unless you are married and ready to take on the responsibilities of parenthood".
Nothing could be clearer. That is why in my opinion it is so unfortunate that the SCAA report which examined values in schools is so disappointing. Some 150 people were consulted and only five did not think that marriage should have been included in the values and that it deserved to be supported in the statements that were set out.
I am glad that some of the children who have taken part in the courses we are discussing have found them valuable. Tomorrow's Parents argues that as families come,
"in all shapes and sizes there is no 'ideal' parent or an ideal model for a family structure in a society with different cultural, social, religious and ethnic traditions. The values and beliefs about parenting and families which underpinned the project included the pluralism of family structures in our multicultural society without generalising about parenting in different cultures".
These are the central values of the project. Yet the facts show that these values are based on an entirely false premise. Only 6 per cent. of the population is part of a
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minority ethnic culture according to Social Trends.However, many of the minority cultures, particularly the Asian population, are strongly committed to the married family. Only 3.1 per cent. of the population adhere to a non-Christian faith and of these many tend to believe strongly in the married family. Although 40 per cent. of marriages end in divorce, where children are concerned married families are still overwhelmingly the norm.
Even if British society was as pluralistic as the Gulbenkian report makes out, it is an astonishing claim to imply that all family structures are just as good as one another. It will be unfortunate if the age for consenting homosexuals is lowered to 16. Just because there are lone parents who do a tremendously good job does not negate the fact that in general children in married families do better than children in broken homes or single parent families. Any teaching about parenting must be teaching about parenting within marriage for the sake of children and the whole of society.
3.36 p.m.
Lord Jakobovits: My Lords, I learnt only on arriving here this afternoon that we were allocated on average no more than six minutes in which to speak. I had prepared myself to speak for rather longer because I attribute such importance to this subject. However, I now learn that the speaker who was to speak before me, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon, has not been able to be with us this afternoon. I deeply regret that as I was looking forward to his speech. Therefore I now have an extra six minutes in which to speak⁁with your Lordships' leave. However, I cannot promise to say what the right reverend Prelate might have said.
This is not the first time that we owe a significant debt to my noble friend Lord Northbourne for raising our collective concern with the stability of the family. Seven months ago he drew attention to the importance of the family in general. This time the Motion is more specific and mentions the role of schools in preparing citizens for the responsibilities and challenges of adult life, including parenthood. Schoolchildren will not be the only beneficiaries of this discussion. If we are successful and our deliberations help to introduce some pre-marital training in our schools, any number of marriages might eventually be saved from collapse for lack of proper preparation.
More than that, your Lordships' House may itself be a primary beneficiary. I need not remind the House that we are under scrutiny and under increasing pressure either to justify ourselves or to disband. If through proper training in schools we could save even a fraction of the marriages that are currently coming to grief, we would have contributed more to stable marriages and to a decent society than through much of the other legislation that we debate. As of now, we do not even have properly trained personnel to teach such subjects. We have not brought any into existence.
Let no one argue that we do not have the resources to produce them. Much lesser causes benefit from substantial public and private funding. What could be

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more wonderful to herald our entry into the new millennium than helping to eliminate the ravages of broken homes, broken hearts and broken promises?
Also, let no one argue that enduring marriages are no longer fashionable. What a beautiful demonstration to the contrary we witnessed only yesterday when the Queen invited to a royal garden party some 4,000 guests who celebrated with her their golden wedding this year. They were only a fraction of those who had applied to be invited. Such stability of marriage should be highlighted in the media, and taught our children at school.
Let me give your Lordships a few illustrations drawn from the Jewish experience to demonstrate the type of teaching to which our children should be exposed, notably at school. An ancient Jewish source has it that when a young marriage breaks up "even the altar sheds tears". Why the altar, my Lords? The altar is the vessel reserved for sacrifices. If a young marriage fails, we feel that the primary reason is that the couple were not prepared to make sacrifices for each other; and therefore the altar weeps. The altar has failed to teach its message.
I give a further illustration. No doubt the bulk of marriage breakdowns is due to selfishness, and to an unwillingness by each partner to give up something for the sake of the other. We all know the biblical proverb which says, "stolen waters are sweet", or illicit pleasures are more exciting than legitimate joys. Once young people have tasted the temptation of illegitimate experiences before marriage, marriage becomes an anticlimax and starts on a note of disillusionment. It would be sensible to convey that, too, to our children.
Through wise instruction our schools must counterbalance the hedonistic doctrine that all that matters is to have a good time. Our youth must learn that what you get for nothing is worth nothing and that what you do not put into life you will never get out of it.
In conclusion, I do not wish to become involved here in current debates on basic moral issues concerning marriage. But suffice it to say in general that it would be churlish to leave the teaching at schools in general to those who themselves do not accept a moral discipline or do not have the moral courage to stand by their convictions. Nothing can be as morally debilitating, especially for children, than an ambivalence and moral neutrality, where conflicting doctrines can all be equally valid, when generating human life inside or outside marriage.
I hope that our debate will help to stir our determination that no child will leave school without some key to unlock the mystery of how to maintain the stability, happiness and creativeness of marriages they enter full of hope—hope that we share with them for a better society in the millennium to come.

GP Fundholding
3.45 p.m.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer to a Private Notice Question which
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is being asked in another place on GP fundholding. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health said:
"My announcement today of fair waiting lists for the patients of all GPs is an attack on unfairness. It is not an attack on GP fundholding.
"The previous government introduced the internal market into the National Health Service. This created a two tier system where patient was set against patient and GP was set against GP. That was unfair to patients, repugnant to the doctors and nurses who had to apply it and cost a fortune in extra paper-work.
"At the general election we promised to restore fairness to the health service, end the two tier system and ensure that access to treatment is based on need and need alone. We pledged to change the system so that no patients and no GP practices suffered any longer from the unfairness introduced by the Conservatives.
"We are keeping that election promise. All NHS trusts must operate a fair waiting list for urgent admissions regardless of who is commissioning the care. With effect from April next year, when current contracts run out, all health authorities must establish common waiting time standards for all the people living in their area. From the same date, health trusts must not offer preferential treatment to any particular group of patients from a health authority whether those of GP fundholders or not. Faster treatment must be provided only on accepted clinical or social grounds. This change will be fair for every patient and will be more comfortable and acceptable for doctors and nurses to operate.
"My announcement has been welcomed by the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the NHS Confederation. The National Association of Fundholding Practices has made it clear that it fully accepts the principle and that if properly implemented the new policy will benefit all patients.
"In two thirds of all health authorities the patients of non-fundholding practices have to wait longer for hospital treatment. What is not so well known is that in the other one third, it is the patients of GP fundholders who lose out.
"We are determined to have a National Health Service which is fair to all patients. That fairness will be achieved through co-operation, in place of the competition and division of recent years. That fairness will be achieved by levelling up towards the best that is already being achieved and not by levelling down.
"In our general election manifesto we recognised that the development of fundholding has brought advantages as well as disadvantages. We promised to remove the disadvantages. A month ago we set out to bring fairness into the financing of non-fundholder practices. Today we are bringing fairness for their patients.
"We are now consulting the professions and patient organisations on how best to develop a new primary care system in which doctors and nurses can play a leading part in planning local health services more effectively for all the patients in their area.

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"In this way we hope to reconcile the better aspects of fundholding with fairness for all patients and all the professionals involved. We are discussing this with them and will test out our new proposals through pilot schemes in different parts of the country.
"The new system will be based on the principle that access to health care will be based on need and need alone. That is the principle of quality and equality on which the Labour Party founded the health service. That is the principle on which we will run the National Health Service—so that it is fair to every patient. And who can possibly quarrel with that?".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.50 p.m.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, the Statement says that this is not an attack on GP fundholding; it is an attack on unfairness. This new Labour policy is an attack on freedom. The Labour Party simply cannot bear to give people the freedom to choose. Fifty-four per cent. of GPs chose to be fundholders, and, of the remainder, half want to be fundholders.
The late Brian Abel-Smith, that highly intelligent socialist who advised the Labour Party for many years on the NHS, strongly recommended that all GPs should become fundholders. If the Labour Government were really interested in fairness, they would encourage all GPs to be fundholders. Then, the so-called two-tier system would disappear.
This new Labour policy will have two effects. First, waiting times and waiting lists will inevitably increase. What the Labour Government have failed to understand is that fundholding gave GPs much more influence over hospitals. It was a shift of power. It enabled them to goad the hospitals into providing a better service. The GP fundholders were made into better advocates on the patients' behalf.
The second effect of this new Labour policy is one that the Labour Government have completely failed to understand; that is, it will completely deprive many patients of operations altogether. Some health authorities have stopped treating varicose veins, lumps and bumps, lipomas and so on. But patients of GP fundholders were able to have those operations. Now they will not. I should like to know what the Minister has to say about that. This is old Labour again. It is a fatal mistake for many people.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, unlike the noble Lord on the main Opposition Benches, I welcome the Statement that has just been made in another place because it will create a fairer system. It will not solve the problems of the NHS. It might mean that patients of GP fundholders will have to wait slightly longer for treatment. But it will make very little difference to the length of time that all patients have to wait. That will be solved only when the Government agree that the NHS needs more funding—and only the Liberal Democrats have costed plans for increasing that funding. I know what the Minister will say about extra funding. The proposal will not come into effect until next year. What are the Government doing about it in the meantime?
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I am pleased that the Minister in another place referred to the fact that fundholding has also brought advantages to the health service. One is that the fundholding GPs were much more closely involved in the planning of hospital services through their influence because they had money behind them. I hope that any change will ensure that all the GPs in a health area will have an increased input into the planning of services. They are the people on the ground who know what the general public need in the way of health services; they see them every day in their surgeries.
I also welcome the fact that we are not about to rush into some wonderful new system. The Minister says that he is discussing with all the professions involved what should happen, and that they should test out the new proposals and pilot schemes in different parts of the country. I welcome that.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her welcome for the Statement, which certainly accords with that of the professional bodies outside this House, which responded so favourably to what my right honourable friend said.
I confess to being slightly surprised at the tone of the response from the noble Lord, Lord McColl. He seemed to suggest that what I had described, in repeating the Statement in answer to a Private Notice Question in another place, was that the Government were about to abolish GP fundholding. That was certainly not included in the Statement, and it was certainly not the intention of my right honourable friend. The noble Lord may be interested to know that changes are already in hand to examine the next wave of fundholding—the eighth wave—which, as the noble Lord will know, was suspended at the beginning of May in order to free up some much-needed immediate resources for our plans for this year. The NHS Executive is even now working on guidance on budget setting for 1998–99. That will reflect the advantages that we have discovered in some of the aspects of fundholding referred to in the Statement and indeed in our general election manifesto.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, said, the object of the Statement and of the policy decisions reached by the Government today are to establish a fairer system of waiting lists. As she said, they reflect a determination to approach the matter on a long-term basis. That is why I am satisfied, even though the noble Baroness suggested that she was not, with the additional funding mentioned by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget Statement, which will enable us (over a longer period) to deal with the long-term problems which the waiting list division has created. I remind the House that the problem at the moment is that not only do we have a whole series of local trusts, created under the internal market—under the unfair system that we are seeking to redress—a record number of local trusts at a record level of debt, but there are also record numbers of people on the waiting lists. This initiative today is, as the Statement said, designed to return equality of treatment based on need to all those people who are waiting.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, will the Minister answer my question? As some health authorities have withdrawn treatment for operations for varicose veins, lipomas, lumps and bumps and so on, GP fundholders were able, under the old regime, to request that the hospitals carried out those operations, and they did so. If that part of the system is abolished, what will happen to the patients who cannot have those operations? At the moment they are having to use the private sector. Is that what the Government want?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, with respect, I think that the noble Lord has perhaps not understood the basic purpose of the Statement; namely, to create a common waiting list for all patients waiting for elective care. Under the previous system it was indeed the case that GP fundholders could, if there was excess capacity within a hospital trust to carry out operations, etc., use that time to "fast-track" people who were their patients. Under the new system everyone will be treated equally on the basis of clinical need.
3.59 p.m.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, might I ask the Minister a rather simple question? If the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, is right about the comparative effect on the length of the waiting list for the growing number of patients of hospital trusts, and the reduction in time for other patients, what does the Minister believe will be the effect on the average waiting list for patients? A growing number will come from hospital trusts, and they will have to wait longer. What will be the overall effect?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, perhaps the noble Baroness has misunderstood when she said that patients would come from NHS trusts. Does she mean that they will come from non GP fundholders? I do not understand the question.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I beg the Minister's pardon, I am not entirely familiar with the subject and get my phraseology wrong. However, it seems to me from what the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, said, that the overall time that patients will have to wait under the new Labour plan where everyone is treated exactly the same but where GP fundholders have less power over the hospitals, is longer. The overall effect will be that the waiting lists will be longer. Is that correct?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I do not believe that that is what the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, said. However, perhaps I could try to unwind this immensely complicated NHS jargon—and I share the noble Baroness's problems with it. My point is that what will happen under the system is the following. At the moment all NHS trusts must admit every kind of emergency that comes for treatment on the basis of need. Anyone who comes to the hospital trust with an emergency must be treated on the basis of their arrival time or whatever may be appropriate, whether or not that person comes from a GP fundholder practice. The system that will be developed from
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next April is that everyone will be treated on the same basis for elective treatment. That is, for ailments which are not emergency admissions, such as the varicose veins to which the noble Lord, Lord McColl, referred. So it does not matter whether you are on a GP fundholder's list or a non GP fundholder's list, you will be treated on the basis of your referral and your clinical need.
I cannot see that that would lead to a lengthening of the waiting lists. It will mean that, for example, as I described in repeating the Statement, people who come from GP fundholders' lists—and at the moment in two-thirds of health authorities they have an advantage—will be treated in the same way as others. As I also mentioned, in one-third of health authorities, people from GP fundholders' lists are disadvantaged. They are the ones who tend to go to the back of the queue.
Thus the object of the exercise is to achieve equality on the basis of clinical need, as is already done for emergency treatment. If the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, is saying something different, then I am sure she will intervene.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, I was not saying anything different. I was just saying that the GP fundholder's patients may have to wait longer. The patients of other GPs would perhaps have a slightly shorter wait, but it would not be much shorter.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I am sorry to pursue this but, having confused the issue at the beginning, I wish to get it quite clear. Will the effect of what the Minister has just said be that the average length of time that all patients will have to wait will be longer, shorter or the same?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I cannot imagine why it should be longer. We are talking about finite resources and a finite number of patients. There is one set of hospital theatres and one set patients waiting for treatment. Presumably, if you divide those resources between the two sets of patients there is no reason why the average wait for a combined set of patients should be any different from the average wait at the moment. I am sorry, I am not putting that very clearly. You are dividing like and like; you are not making a preference towards one group of people. That is the object of the exercise.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I am sorry to go on about it, but I should like the matter cleared up. Some purchasing authorities have stopped purchasing certain types of operations from hospitals. If the patient happens to be under the care of a GP fundholder, he can purchase them.
I should like to know what will happen to those people. Will they be able to get their operations on the NHS? In other words, will the Minister instruct the

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purchasing authorities to purchase the treatment for people with varicose veins, lipomas and lumps and bumps?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, we seem to have the same problem as we did on the previous question. Perhaps I may try to make the matter clearer. If there are X number of slots for treatment of varicose veins, for example, and you are a health authority purchasing on behalf of a hospital X number of varicose vein treatments, then you continue to do that. The point is that the people who come from GP fundholders do not gain an advantage in getting the treatment. They will not get their treatment if there is no slot for them to be treated anywhere.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I am sorry but the Minister fails to understand what I am talking about and it is an important issue. Very many patients are worried about it. At the moment there are patients who cannot have those operations. What I want to know is whether the Minister will instruct the purchasing authorities to start purchasing the operations for the patients who have been deprived of them.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, we shall ask the purchasing authorities—we shall not instruct anyone—to admit all patients, whether they are for elective surgery such as varicose veins or for emergency surgery, as is the present system, on the basis of clinical need. No one will be disadvantaged by the process and some people will be advantaged.

Schools and Preparation for Adult Life
4.5 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Baroness Brigstocke: My Lords, I too am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for initiating the debate. It is particularly timely in this week when the Government are sending such confusing messages to our teenagers. In the words of the Evening Standard:
"It's OK to be gay at 16 but don't smoke".
After four moving and uplifting speeches in the debate, I shall limit myself to practicalities. What is the best way of preparing adolescents? The very word means "in the process of growing up". I would say: a good, rigorous, demanding, balanced education. There is no doubt that in an ideal world the best people to train children for life after school would be the parents and those parents would be married. But we do not live in an ideal world.
Recently, the Health Education Authority, of which I am a non-executive director, initiated some useful research through its European network for health promoting schools. Together with the National Foundation for Education Research, it compiled a report on Parents' Views of Health Education. Clearly, parents of secondary school children want attention paid in the
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curriculum to health education: drugs, healthy eating, sex education, smoking and exercise. In other words, schools have a strong and necessary role in preparing students for adult life. As noble Lords may recall, I argued that information about AIDS should fall naturally within the core science curriculum at key stage 4; that is, for children aged 14 to 16. The report of the Health Education Authority also emphasises the importance of the school environment: clean lavatories, walls regularly painted, and desks and furniture kept in good repair.
The Children's Society has devised, as we heard, a pack to fit into key stage 4. It is called Parenting in Education. The suggestion is that it could be used in the weekly classes on personal and social health that take place in many schools. I am sure that the pack contains much sensible and useful material. I question, however, the value of tackling a subject like parenting in an isolated lesson which is neither examined nor tested. The best way of dealing with personal, social and indeed moral issues for the young is in the natural context throughout the curriculum. For example, it should be in the context of science, particularly biology and chemistry, human geography, history, English—especially poetry, drama and the performing arts—and, of course, religious education.
As chairman of governors of a large inner-city comprehensive, I have been able to see cross-curricular projects working superbly. For example, at the beginning of their very first year in the secondary school, the 11 year-olds take part in a special cross-curricular course. It is run by the science and religious education departments which collaborate to devise a special programme spanning the whole range of relationships, including sexual behaviour, all within a moral framework with an emphasis on caring relationships.
From my experience, I am afraid that most teenagers are not too concerned about being parents. They have much more on their minds. It is essential that parents and schools should imbue children from the very start, and in all subjects at school, with a sense of responsibility for themselves and a responsiveness to the needs of others. The secondary school curriculum is already overloaded and fragmented. We do not need an extra subject put into it.
I conclude with a quotation from Professor John Abbott, director of Education 2000:
"The pressures of modern life make it so much harder to find time for our children', honest people confess, while others fail to accept that the pressures they put on themselves do irreparable damage to their children. The average father of a 14 year-old boy now spends, on average, no more than five minutes a day in solo contact with his son".
We cannot ask more from our over-stressed teachers. This is a problem not just for schools; it is a problem for parents and the community at large.
4.12 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, I am, like other noble Lords, very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for initiating the debate this afternoon, following, as it does, so closely after the

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debate that my noble friend Lord Elton introduced on young people and crime. I was not able to be present during that debate but it was very interesting and illuminating.
The implications of parenting and parenthood are taken by some people as a fact of life, but I suggest that they are far more complicated. For that reason I warmly welcome the Motion before us today. It brings our attention to a few problems that children and parents will encounter in life.
Like other contributors this afternoon, I have received a quantity of well thought out and informative literature from the Children's Society, the Gulbenkian Foundation and others. But I also draw on my own experience of parenthood, grandparenthood, step-greatgrandparenthood and many years of coping with the results of school and parenthood throughout my years as chairman of a youth bench.
Parenthood is a privilege, not a right. Parenthood includes fathers—some of us tend to forget that fact. I ask the Minister to use her considerable interest and expertise in trying to persuade young men—but not necessarily young—to go in for teaching in the middle schools. So many children are brought up without a father; without a father's discipline, without a father's example and without a father's love. In my view, that has greatly impaired the future of the children's lives. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will consider that matter. Wherever I go, there are practically no men teachers.
One is encouraged to be sorry for single mothers bringing up children. I am sorry for the children of single mothers. They are often deprived of true love and are also, to my certain knowledge, very lonely children.
Children learn by example, which does not always fit in with classroom teaching. But teachers must be encouraged and should be encouraged from the debate in your Lordships' House this afternoon. They should be made aware of the enormous responsibility that they have for the future generations. Being a teacher and being a parent both involve very hard work and are mentally and physically exhausting. However, one's children are worth their weight in gold throughout their lives.
I have a voice that is giving way and some noble Lords who have known me for very many years may say, "Thank goodness!". My throat is becoming very sore. But, in conclusion, I should like to quote from Libby Purves in the Children's Society publication Education for Parenthood:
"You can't be a professional parent: all parents are amateurs, working out of love and interest. They use their instincts, and their own best childhood memories, to pass on love and security, sense and kindness and courage to the next generation".
How vitally important that statement is.
4.18 p.m.
Lord Quirk: My Lords, I am indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for an opportunity to reflect not just on the role of schools but on Excellence in Schools, the recent White Paper.
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The ambitious targets and plans that are set out for every classroom will play a major part in equipping our youngsters for the challenges of adult life, as mentioned in the Motion before us. I applaud the White Paper's resolve to build upon the structures and institutions established over the past decade, such as SCAA, Ofsted, TTA and the Technology Colleges Trust. While further efforts must indeed be made to root out poor performance in whatever quarter, I welcome the proposals to celebrate the excellence that already exists and to stimulate still more.
Good teachers—beyond doubt, the vast majority—have suffered from the adverse publicity deservedly and necessarily aimed at the bad minority. Now we are promised a system of rewards and hence a teaching profession that will be held in higher regard and attract the best recruits to its numbers.
I welcome too the linking of school and home. Closer involvement of parents with their children's schools, schooling and teachers will be of greatest advantage to families of least advantage. The initiative on homework is a good example. Apparently, 90 per cent. of parents believe that homework is valuable. Yet, in their first year of secondary school, 25 per cent. of children are set homework that takes half an hour or less; and, in their last year of primary school, 43 per cent. of children are set no homework at all. But throughout those two crucial years a dismaying 50 per cent. of youngsters watch television for a dismaying three hours or more every evening. What a missed opportunity for parents to be involved at home with their children and their children's learning.
Naturally, the White Paper could not be expected to cover all aspects of the school as the training ground for life's responsibilities. It has little to say, for example, on the problems encountered by the 10 per cent. of ethnic minority children. It has still less to say on the issue of school-leaving exams and the present GCSE system. It has only a little to say on parenthood education. But not so the recently published Gulbenkian Foundation's report, whose content has been alluded to by several noble Lords.
Its findings provide no basis whatever for the recommendations that emerge. Indeed, the recommendations do not emerge; they were there from the start as the fundamental premise. The report insists that the teaching of parenthood must,
"specifically avoid overtly or covertly promoting any one model of the ideal family".
This is a premise which is wholly eccentric to the ethical norms of British society and indeed of any society on earth with which I have had any acquaintance.
A telling confirmation that this ideology is pervasive in the report is the remarkable fact that a document on parenthood for children can stretch to over 100 pages without a single sentence on the possible relevance of marriage. Quite a tour de force. Even the word "marriage" occurs only once in the document, and that in a dismissive, passing reference to,
"different contracts, including marriage, between parents in different religions and cultures".

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No mention is made of civil marriage or the fact that the vows thus taken are scarcely less solemn or binding or, not least, less public than those in a Jewish, Moslem or Christian marriage.
There is no indication either that, among those religions, Christianity is not all that uncommon in Britain, though the only reference—in relation to one teacher who was said to have "an overtly Christian perspective"—gives the impression of a field anthropologist stumbling upon an exotic sect. Nor would one guess from the report, which studiously (and subversively in my view), marginalises one of the more obvious models of family life, that in 1995—the latest year for which we have figures—two-thirds of all children in this country were born within marriage. While there are indeed over 1 million unmarried cohabiting couples in England, there are well over 10 million married couples, according to the Department of the Environment which projects broadly that ratio for some 20 years into the next century.
One is not unfamiliar with cautious evasion of leadership in the alleged interest of protecting minority sensibilities. But the Gulbenkian report takes cravenness to the point of perverse mystery. Approval of any one type of family structure,
"could lead to accusations of discrimination",
on the grounds of "racism and sexism". Racism and sexism? Which are the races in our midst who are ideologically opposed to marriage? And if marriage is sexist, what are the unmentioned alternatives that would be free of such a stigma?
I would not have dwelt so long on this report were it not for its sharp recommendations directed explicitly at SCAA, and particularly the first recommendation, that programmes on parenting aimed at 11 to 13 year-olds must,
"avoid promoting a single model of family structures or cultures".
It must be our hope that SCAA will resolutely reject that and stick to the position that it set out in its "Statement of Values" published in May this year. Those values included explicit support for "the institution of marriage" with the equally explicit rider that this is to be interpreted as the,
"positive promotion of marriage as an ideal".
This is surely a robust assertion of commonsense consensus that matches the equally robust assertions of common sense in the education White Paper. Our schools will play their proper part in preparing children for the responsibilities ahead only when our entire education system acknowledges that the permissive cringe of yesteryear is not only outmoded, but totally unacceptable.
4.25 p.m.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, I wish to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, on initiating this important debate. I speak as an individual and not on behalf of my party and therefore the views that I share with the House today are personal. I must also admit at this stage that I do not speak as an expert, but very much as a mother who just tried to do her best. I wish to address my remarks to parenthood training.
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There is a saying that children grow up in spite of their parents. That may or may not be true, but one thing is certain: most parents do try by example, discipline, encouragement and advice to give their children as good a start as possible so that they may develop into responsible citizens with an ability to establish loving relationships. Creating such an environment includes the choice of school. I believe that the school should share the same philosophy, allowing the child to develop, flourish and cope with the many and often difficult challenges that adult life can bring.
Success in education is not merely training pupils to pass examinations; it is assisting with the development of the whole being. That enables the pupil to reach his or her full potential and so contribute in a variety of ways to enrich both the community and him or herself.
I too was pleased to receive a briefing from the Children's Society drawing attention to the project that it is pursuing in developing parenthood education in schools. The pilot scheme in five schools appears to have been well received by the schools and enthusiastically supported by most parents and children. It has not yet been fully assessed and I look forward to reading the full report in due course.
I was brought up in a single parent family as my father died. I do not believe that I suffered because I had a very special mother. But just as many children today do, I missed the stability and warmth of a two-parent family. I am sure that such a family is the natural and best atmosphere in which to raise children, where both parents, living under one roof, are able to share the thrills and spills of their children's upbringing at first hand.
I awoke on Monday to listen to the seven o'clock news. I could not believe my ears. The first item concerned the Government's wish to lower the age of consent for homosexuals from 18 to 16, and the second concerned the age at which young people could purchase cigarettes, that to be raised from 16 to 18. What a topsy-turvy world in which we live! Peter Brooke's cartoon in yesterday's The Times summed up the whole matter brilliantly and showed the silliness of a party's propaganda machine in overdrive, spinning out of control.
However, I find both those points disturbing and I hope that they will not be the subject of Bills in your Lordships' House without further consideration. In relation to the first matter, I have adult friends who are homosexual and understand their situation. But that subject was debated fully only three years ago and, on a free vote, the age of consent was reduced from 21 to 18. There were many impassioned speeches in both Houses. But the decision was made and the law changed. I therefore find it appalling that the Government now feel unable to uphold British law in the European Court of Human Rights. I worry about the message it sends to young people. There are many, aged between 16 and 18, who are immature, vulnerable and learning about life. My concern is that evil and perverted older men may prey on such people and lead them into a different way of life. I know it may not be politically correct to voice such views but I feel that I would not be true to myself if I did not do so.

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I believe the second issue—raising the age for the purchase of cigarettes to 18—will not stop the practice of smoking but will hit retailers who have the difficult task of guessing the age of the customer. Sometimes it must be impossible to make the right judgment. It smacks of the nanny state and will only make unlawful smoking even more exciting.
We should think long and hard before making changes in legislation. If that is necessary due to changing circumstances then a major factor should be the effect on family life. The family is the basic unit in society and has served us well for countless generations. The best is within marriage, where a commitment has been made by two people. Sadly, we know that things can go wrong, but the ideal was right.
We expect much from our schools. Teachers have a huge responsibility but they cannot tackle this subject alone. There is no more important task than the training of our young people for parenthood. But we must all share in this work. I am thrilled that this initiative has become high profile. I wish everyone involved the greatest success and I thank them most sincerely for accepting the challenge.
4.31 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for initiating this debate and for the opportunity it provides to welcome initiatives which the Government have already taken, especially those to promote literacy and numeracy as essential for adulthood, and also to ask some questions concerning the spiritual dimension of education.
Many of the Government's proposals in the consultation paper Excellence in Schools are to be warmly welcomed, including the emphasis on standards, support for schools providing good education, "zero tolerance" of under-performance and a
"great improvement in achievements in maths and English at the end of primary education, to meet national targets".
The need for these commitments is underpinned by research which has shown that although there are many good schools there are also those which are failing to give pupils essential knowledge in literacy and maths. Research has also shown that children who can read well by the age of seven achieve much better by the age of 16 than those who cannot. But many children have not attained basic reading and writing skills not only by the age of seven, but by the age of entering secondary school at 11; and many even leave school at 16 functionally illiterate and innumerate. Clearly, literacy and numeracy are essential for adulthood and parenthood, and a failure to ensure that all young people are equipped with these skills is a betrayal by some schools of their responsibilities to pupils. I therefore welcome the Government's determination to ensure that this failure will not be tolerated.
Declaring an interest—not pecuniary—as a member of the board of the Teacher Training Agency, I also warmly welcome proposals to ensure that teachers will be enabled to teach effectively, including core
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requirements for all initial teacher training courses, new requirements and standards for all trainee teachers, the emphasis on literacy and numeracy for primary teachers and proposals for effective appraisal. But other proposals are a cause for some concern, especially those which might reduce the proven success of grant-maintained and grammar schools. And there seems to be a lack of proposals to promote the spiritual dimension of education through religious education and worship, which were reaffirmed in the Education Act 1988. It is this to which I now turn.
Schools inherently have a deep and pervasive influence on the beliefs, values and attitudes of their pupils. They thus play a major role in shaping the society of the future, including the next generation's moral values, attitudes to family life and parenthood and knowledge and understanding of their religious heritage. As the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, emphasises in his profoundly important book Faith in the Future,
"Faith, family and community are, I suspect, mutually linked. When one breaks down, the others are weakened. When families disintegrate, so too does the sense of neighbourhood and the continuity of our great religious traditions. When localities become anonymous, families lose the support of neighbours … when religious belief begins to wane, the moral bonds of marriage and neighbourhood duty lose their transcendental value and begin to shift and crumble in the high winds of change. This is precisely what has happened in our time and the loss, though subtle, is immense".
He sees a significant part of the solution in education which is explicitly and deliberately designed to preserve moral values and is rooted in the great spiritual traditions. Perhaps I may quote a few more words:
"The answer lies in a particular concept of education, one sharply at odds with prevailing moral fashion but which can be found in Aristotle and until relatively recently might even have been described as self-evident. On this view education is not simply a matter of imparting information, inculcating skills and training the individual to make autonomous choices. Instead, it is a matter of inducting successive generations into the society in which they will become participants. It involves transmitting a particular society's history, norms and 'habits of the heart'. Education is an apprenticeship in being a citizen. It is a process of learning certain roles and then internalising them so that the law is no longer an external constraint but becomes, in Jeremiah's phrase, a law 'written in our inmost being and inscribed upon our hearts'".
It is with this affirmation of the crucial importance of moral and spiritual education for family life, for parenthood and for a stable, moral and just society that I conclude by welcoming the recent publication by Ofsted on The Impact of New Agreed Syllabuses on the Teaching and Learning of Religious Education and with a plea to the Government to give a substantial commitment to the preservation and promotion of the moral and religious dimension of education.
I welcome the improvements noted in the Ofsted report in the extent of compliance with the law in teaching RE; in knowledge, attainment and attitudes of many pupils, especially in primary schools, and in teachers' subject knowledge, facilitated by agreed syllabuses. But there are still areas of concern. I finish by asking the Minister whether she can give an assurance that this Government will give a commitment to encourage the teaching of RE for all pupils, consistent with their religious heritage and recognising, of course, the right of parents to withdraw their children if they so wish. In the great majority of cases the spiritual heritage

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will be the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and those of other faiths also have the right to RE and worship which respects the integrity of their faiths.
To teach in ways which preserve knowledge and understanding of the spiritual traditions of our country is not to be dismissed as indoctrination but to be appreciated as providing a fundamental freedom for all children: the freedom to make an informed choice as to whether and how they wish to develop as they grow up, the fundamental spiritual dimension not only of education but of life itself.
4.36 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Mon: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Northbourne for giving your Lordships the opportunity of debating this most important subject.
Some years ago one of my nephews said, "The most important thing in life is not taught to us in school; that is, to be a good parent". Many of your Lordships might say, "But that is the job of parents, not the school". But, sadly, I have to say, that nephew was a boy typical of many young people. His parents divorced when he was aged seven. He was torn between them. He ran away from his prep school, confused and unhappy.
Homes with love, security and good routines are what children need, with parents who give them good healthy examples to follow. But so many young people do not have such homes. Many children have to contend with parents who have an alcohol problem. They can feel ashamed and insecure. Many come from violent homes, from the homes with the stresses and strains when parents are unemployed. Some come from homes where there is serious illness or a single parent.
I feel that all children should have life skills and health education taught as part of the school curriculum to prepare them for the challenges of adult life. In 1988 I moved an amendment, with all-party support, on this subject. We all live in a very complex world which for many years has put such emphasis on material things. Many young people cannot cope with the endless pressures put on them by their parents, who only want successful children, or from advertisements on television which show lifestyles beyond their means, and the very strong peer pressures which often lead young people into drug taking and crime.
With so much pressure on the National Health Service all children, both boys and girls, ought to learn basic home nursing and first aid. That would help society as a whole and make young people more responsible for their own and their families' health care. They should learn basic food hygiene and nutrition and about the dangers of HIV, drugs, alcohol and smoking, as well as basic health and safety issues. They should also learn about money matters, such as banks, mortgages, pensions and budgeting. They should learn about child care and what it means to be a responsible parent.
Since abortion became so available and 5 million babies have been aborted, the value of life seems to have been trivialised. We now have convenience food and convenience babies. I am sure young people need to have the opportunity of learning the values of life. When
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you have very nearly lost your life, as I did, you realise what life is all about. You value what you have and what you wish you had.
I agree with the report Tomorrow's Parents when it states:
"Parenthood education must be valued and given priority as a core part of the school curriculum".
That sensitive subject needs to become part of teacher training.
In the United Kingdom today there are enough children and young people out of school, education and training to fill the whole of Wembley Stadium twice over. I should like to congratulate Cities in Schools, which is the only national charity working solely with children and young people who are excluded from mainstream education, on tackling that problem.
Many of those young people have multiple needs. They may have special educational needs, be living in children's homes or with foster parents. They may have been involved with the police and may feel that they no longer can cope with their school or their problems.
At any time 55,000 children and young people are in the care system, of whom three-quarters will leave without any educational qualifications. Young people living in children's homes are up to 80 times more likely to be excluded from school than those living with their own families. Those at-risk young people need more not less preparation for the responsibilities and challenges of adult life. May I ask the Minister to give this matter urgent consideration?
4.43 p.m.
Viscount Chelmsford: My Lords, I am a great admirer of the single-minded way in which the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, pursues better parenting. I am not an expert in this area, but I hope to offer one or two separate, disparate strands which may help us to improve the general way in which children are brought up to become adults.
My noble friend Lady Brigstocke mentioned John Abbott. When he returned from the USA some 15 or 20 years ago, he carried with him a set of principles which became Education 2000. Perhaps I may refer to one of the principles which he advocated and which has actually happened. He said that schools should at all times have some of their teachers away from school, either retraining or in the local community trying to find out what the schools should be doing with regard to jobs.
That is the theme of my first strand, because the key to moving children into adulthood is to get them jobs. I well recollect that in my own children's schooldays—now some time ago—the careers room was almost a joke. I am not sufficiently qualified to know how far the position has advanced, but anything that we can do to improve the careers aspect of school life should be considered. The Government have recently said that they intend to try to make school league tables more sophisticated. Perhaps I may therefore ask the Minister whether there are any plans to measure jobs for school leavers to try to get a feel for how schools are doing in a particular area.

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The Education 2000 theory about having teachers out of school suggests that that might be possible through the proper use of computers as fewer teachers may be needed in school at any one time. Clearly, computers offer teenagers an excellent opportunity to learn at their own speed, in their own time, choosing their own subject, using menu-driven courses. But I have learned recently of research which suggests that computers are even more important for toddlers than for school children. That surprised me a great deal.
This brings me to my second strand, because we now know that the first two years from birth are the most formative in a child's experience. That is why we now attach such importance to learning to play before a child learns how to work. I am told that three year-olds are experts with mouses and that as long as they have a PC with sound they can gain a great deal of knowledge from speaking story books; identifying words; having small amounts of texts to read; hot buttons to press so that birds fly out of trees or other forms of animation; matching objects; placing items in order on the screen; recognising numbers; or identifying shapes, such as circles and triangles. All of those things can improve concentration. Toddlers learn with short attention spans and by moving from subject to subject and back again. Researchers were surprised to find that without any pressure on anybody's part, three year-olds could concentrate on computers for up to 10 minutes at a time.
That is just one of the activities that is available to a toddler if it is handled correctly. The software is now very much more generally available than people realise. I suggest that the returns from improved development prior to playschool are much more important than the returns later, although computers will obviously be important later. I hope that well loved, well developed toddlers will get off to a flying start in school, find learning easier, and make better adults.
I come now to my third strand. I should like to tell your Lordships a very quick story from a charity that I support, West London Action for Children. A single mother was desperate because her hyperactive two year-old would never leave her alone. She could not even do the housework without being pestered all the time. At her wits' end, she called for help. A social worker arrived with a bag of toys, sat down in the middle of the room and put out the toys. At the end of 10 minutes, the mother was gasping because the child had concentrated on the toys—and on nothing else—for 10 minutes. That had never been seen before. The point was that the social worker had to teach the mother—a young unmarried mother who herself had never experienced a proper childhood—that as long as she had a pact with the child that there would be a "children's hour" and some time that would always be devoted 100 per cent. to the mother and the child, everything would gradually get better. The mother had been failing ever to give the child its own time. That was a consequence of the mother never having had that sort of childhood herself. Other noble Lords have already made similar points, but it is worth asking the Minister whether she thinks that enough is being done in the way
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of training to help parents, particularly single mothers who may not themselves have had a reasonable childhood, to achieve better parenting.
Finally—and again on computers—I am told that it is now customary for computers to be removed from school children some six months before their exams because computers are not allowed to be used during exams. That is understandable, but this is the age of the Internet and the web. It is the age when children can, with great ease, access data bases from home. I wonder, therefore, whether such a prohibition is sensible in today's world. As we now know that the reform of teacher training is being postponed for a year, I wonder whether the Government might use that delay to consider how they could further improve ICT teacher training—that is, teacher training for information and communications technologies—so that the teachers will feel confident with the technology. Perhaps we could also use the period to consider whether we might change to an exam system which does not have to consider whether children will cheat if they can access something through a computer.
It is said that a stitch in time saves nine. I have offered four small suggestions. I hope that they are four stitches and that the savings will come from special education needs, less unemployment, less mental illness and less crime if we can promote children towards a better adulthood.
4.50 p.m.
The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, I too warmly thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for giving me this opportunity to speak about world citizenship in education. I also speak as someone who has had to learn the difficulties of parenting all over again by taking on the care of my late sister's 15 year-old son. By gum, it is difficult to get world citizenship over to 15 year-olds. He is a budding geographer and zoologist and I have high hopes for him.
For those of us who are concerned about global perspectives as a moral force in education, a good deal of comfort can be drawn from recent statements by Ministers representing the education and the international development departments. There appears to be a genuine new official enthusiasm for awareness of world affairs in the classroom such as did not seem possible when I initiated a debate on this theme just over a year ago. For example, the new DfEE document Excellence in Schools frequently mentions the wider world and the global economy. In section 6 of the document, under the heading "Helping pupils achieve", there is an important passage on skills for life which mentions citizenship and work-related training alongside parenting.
There are also some encouraging signs from the Department for International Development whose Minister has a strong personal commitment to development education and has promoted the importance of global and environmental education, for example through fair trade in the supermarket which is attracting the interests of a good number of young people. Her department is already reviewing its support

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for development education initiatives in schools and colleges, and a good deal is expected of the forthcoming White Paper.
Enthusiasm at a high level is all very well but we must make global education attractive as a subject. As to the curriculum, everyone welcomes the new emphasis on life skills and the spiritual and moral dimension. I am increasingly convinced that the present curriculum contains all of the elements that make up the spiritual and moral dimension, specifically in world citizenship education, and that we should not waste time endlessly searching for new definitions and cross-curricular themes. Let us make the best of what we have and what we have worked upon.
I also believe that the gradual strengthening of geography, which I discovered at a recent RGS seminar had to fight its own corner, will provide further encouragement. However, teachers who try to bring a global dimension into schools without much guidance have a problem. Certainly, Ofsted will help them through the core subjects and can identify life skills or cross-cultural exchanges by highlighting them in reports. There is some promise that that will happen. The Institute of Education is to hold a conference on this theme in October with the aim of drawing up a charter for initial teaching education and reinforcing the urgent need for a curriculum specifically for teacher training in this area.
The Development Education Association is another body that has become highly experienced in this field. For example, it has analysed key stages 3 and 4 of the curriculum for the benefit of teachers. It has emphasised the value to education of ethnic minorities in our society and has brought together various specialised non-governmental organisations—Christian Aid, Save the Children and so on—to promote activities in education. These are important resources alongside the new Government's policy. There is a high expectation of lottery money and the Cyberspace, some of which will certainly not be fulfilled.
Professor Michael Barber has put the question: if the ethics of teachers do not promote world understanding, whose will? If the Government have said that they intend to halve the number of people in the world who live in extreme poverty by the year 2015 they must waste no time in spreading awareness of the world's problems in the schools and in the minds of our young people.
4.55 p.m.
Viscount Brentford: My Lords, I too am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for initiating this debate. It seems to me that education is paramountly meant to be a preparation for adult life, particularly for employment but for a number of other purposes as well. I was very interested in the parenting report, which has been mentioned frequently. I do not propose to talk much about parenting itself; many noble Lords have already done so. However, I do not believe that parenting will be an abstruse item in the future for all our pupils. Many of them are aware of 15 year-old girls who already have babies. Such a girl, with or
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without a boyfriend, will have to act as a parent to that child. It is therefore highly relevant for teenagers to be taught about parenting, although I fully agree with my noble friend Lady Young that parenting should be taught in the context of marriage.
I make one comment on marriage that a number of noble Lords have amply covered. I believe it is important that there should be teaching on marriage in schools to stress the difference between marriage where there is a commitment to live with another person for life as opposed to the all-too-common boy and girl who live together just so long as they both so wish. I believe that there is a place in school, probably in personal and social education classes, for dealing with matters like commitment, trust and loyalty. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Plant, said that he did not consider that that was appropriate. However, because the parenting report speaks about the participative and facilitative teaching of this subject, I believe that this could very well be covered in that way in schools.
The main point on which I wish to speak—it has already been obliquely referred to—is relationships. Perhaps I should admit that I am chairman of an advisory group of a charity called Relationships Foundation. The whole teaching of relationships might provide a framework for a good deal of the other subjects that could be taught in PSE to teenagers. I was interested that pages 57 to 58 of the parenting report showed that relationships between teenagers and their parents, their peer group and teachers all improved by parenting teaching. I believe that teenagers could be helped in this participative and facilitative style in all manner of relationships.
Relationships are not always easy for teenagers. They may be much easier for the extrovert. I believe that relationships could be taught beneficially on a much wider scale. I give an example. For the teenager as for the adult, there is a fundamental difference between being an assertive personality which is perfectly acceptable and a good thing and being an aggressive personality which is unacceptable. The latter will lead to a good number of other things like bullying. I believe that relationship teaching in PSE can help to clarify the issue.
The other aspect of relationships is how families relate together. That has value. When one of my children brought a friend to stay with the family for a couple of days I found that the visiting child was amazed because we all sat down together for meals and talked. One or two visiting friends say that in their families they go to the fridge, get the food that they want and take it to their own rooms to eat, probably in front of the television. A family that sits down to a meal and talks together—that is a real way to build relationships within the family. It is something which could usefully be brought out in that same style of teaching.
I turn to finance. It needs to be taught in this series as part of adult lifeskills. The Micawber principle is income £1—and to modernise the jargon—expenditure £1.05p, result misery; income £1, expenditure 95p, result happiness. I have always tried to teach my

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children that principle. Finance, incorporating such matters as how to handle a chequebook or loan and how to use cards, could usefully be taught in PSE as part of lifeskills. It is a parental duty, but many parents fail. Let us have a long-stop and have lifeskills taught in schools.
5.1 p.m.
Lord Paul: My Lords, I first add my appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for introducing this Motion. It is timely as the scope of education has expanded: freedom, prosperity, competitiveness, and the ability to shape events are all linked to education.
Education is not just an economic priority, it is a social priority. Education is an essential link between the individual and society: it is the cement that holds us together. Therefore the boundaries of education must be increasingly stretched to embrace all in our society. Perhaps this is because modern life has given rise to a central paradox—that is, the way we live today erodes the cohesion of society; yet only by working together as a community can humanity sustain civilisation and progress.
That contradiction is aggravated by the dramatic growth in single-parent and two wage earner families, and the general decline of family life almost everywhere.Such circumstances thrust an enormous task upon our schools. They have to be more in loco parentis than ever before. Schools not only have to teach the academic curricula, they have also to help students to prepare for, and function in, the contemporary world. Many schools are ill-prepared for this. The case for modernisation and reform of the educational system, especially primary and secondary schools, is clear and urgent.
I am not a proponent of state intervention. However, I do believe that a state-supported programme for educational development is a necessity. The needs are pressing. Let me mention a few. We need to upgrade teacher training, and interest more professionally qualified individuals in teaching. We need to revise and upgrade pay scales so that teaching is seen to be an attractive form of long-term employment and a permanent commitment. We need to consult teachers to improve the ways in which teaching is perceived and restore the levels of professionalism. I believe also that we should devise ways in which to invigorate parent-teacher groups. In too many instances, PTAs have become a formality.
I was raised and received my early education in India. The values which were encouraged in those days had three special elements: the importance of family, the significance of duty and obligation, and the worth of experience. Underlying all was an effort to instill a sense of civic responsibility in young people. I would advocate some kind of value education, especially some kind of training in social and professional ethics at school. For example, while the majority of children receive lessons in sex education, much of this relates purely to the biological. It seems that they receive little help or moral guidance on what will be the most important decision they ever make: parenthood.
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I shall say a word about another facet of education—the virtue of experience. In our haste to keep pace with what is going on, we often forget that education is balance. Because our society discounts the importance of experience, schools also reflect this attitude. Experience is an essential counter-weight to the dangers inherent in narrowly focused and highly specialised modern pedantry. It is what humanises the learning of technological communities. Sixty years ago, T.S. Eliot addressed this concern in words that have special resonance for our time: I quote:
"Where is life we have lost in living?.
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?".
Education does not come cheap. But there is no other social investment which has a better long-term pay off. We have to find the funding - and the sooner the better. We must build a society where education is recognised and valued as being primarily about human development, about the realisation of human potential and about the promotion of human values.
5.7 p.m.
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, first, I want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for raising this important subject. We have been privileged in the House in recent months to debate important issues facing young people, whether they be the impact of family policies or education, and therefore this debate is indeed timely. We know that the new Government have placed education firmly at the centre of their agenda. Their proposals for change have been laid out in the White Paper Excellence in Schools. It is a good White Paper. I congratulate the Secretary of State on it. It is not the normal bland, stupefyingly boring White Paper to which we have all become used to grinding through. I pay a compliment to the Government for producing it.
I hope noble Lords will agree that it is not enough for our education system just to be producing competent scientists, entrepreneurial businessmen and the like. Of course those skills are important for the nation as a whole and for the individual as he or she seeks work. It is also important for schools to be producing pupils with a deep sense of citizenship who are prepared to be part of a caring community.
In the previous Parliament we debated the work of SCAA and its consultation with the National Forum for Values in Education and the Community. One of the purposes of that consultation was to make recommendations on ways in which schools might be supported in making their contribution to pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. I suspect that noble Lords would agree that pupils need such values when they leave school and face the outside world of work, relationships and home life with all its responsibilities and rewards.
I understand that SCAA will be running some pilot projects on those values from September. I look forward to finding out how they are received. I was glad to read in the White Paper that the Government are continuing to support SCAA's work. In the later years of school there is an emphasis on careers, job interviews and CVs. I would like to propose that there should be an equal

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emphasis on marriage and parenthood, which are decisions as important to the pupils' future as their careers. In this day and age, people are expected to change careers during their working life, but, ideally, marriage should be for life. Parenthood certainly is a lifelong vocation and yet there is no training within the curriculum for this most vital and demanding of jobs that has so much impact on another life and the very future well being of our society as a whole.
The White Paper acknowledged that parenting should become part of the programme of education given the title Skills for Life. I hope that the noble Baroness the Minister will agree that this subject should become an important part of our national curriculum. The Government are consulting on the question, "What should parenting education programmes contain?". Perhaps I may suggest that parenting education should contain some guidance about marriage, too, as I and many others believe that that gives children the most secure start to life. I look forward with interest to hearing how the Minister will respond.
I wish to raise one further issue, which is the latest UN convention on the rights of the child, whereby the local authorities are to be given the mandate to usurp parental authority when the child is not satisfied with his or her treatment. Is that not completely unbalanced? I assume that we can rely on the good sense and sound judgment of Her Majesty's Government to resist this half-baked, anti-family UN convention. If the Minister in winding up can confirm that the Government will stand firm against this insidious undermining of family values I am sure that the House will be much in her debt.
5.12 p.m.
Lord Tope: My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords are deeply grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for initiating today's debate. It is a testament to him that it has generated so much interest in your Lordships' House and that we have no fewer than 15 other speakers. The result is that they have had to be limited to six minutes, a frustration which I am sure they have all felt because much more could be said. I am the first to be allowed an additional four minutes, which will be insufficient to cover all the points that I would wish to cover, let alone respond to the many points that have been made.
Many noble Lords have spoken about marriage. I do not believe that it is appropriate for me to comment on that from the Front Bench, save to say that in a week's time my wife and I will celebrate our silver wedding anniversary and this weekend we will have a family occasion as a joint celebration to celebrate her parents' golden wedding anniversary. Perhaps that is the most eloquent comment I can make on the subject.
More neutrally, I am sure that we all recognise the importance of stable, long-term, loving relationships to good family life. I recognise that some noble Lords went further than that, but I am sure that it is the basis with which all of us can agree. Several noble Lords made reference to the Children's Society report, which I, too, received and read with great interest. I do not have time to develop upon it, except to say there was a great deal
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with which I agreed, particularly its introductory comment that now was the time to talk about how parent education is incorporated in the school curriculum and not whether it should be.
I am pleased that much of today's debate has been about parenthood. That is not surprising as it is referred to specifically in the Motion before us. That is recognised in the White Paper, which begins its section on helping pupils achieve by stating:
Parents are a child's first and enduring teachers. They play a crucial role in helping their children learn.
That is a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree and I am sure it is a view shared in your Lordships' House.
I am pleased that today we have been talking about the responsibilities of parents. I believe that for many years, until comparatively recently, too much emphasis was placed on parents' rights and schools' responsibilities and not enough the other way around. Therefore, I welcome the shift towards talking more about parents' responsibilities and helping and enabling them to understand those responsibilities and to meet them.
Teachers play a vitally important role in shaping the society of the future, but they must do so working in the context of the society of today. I speak with teachers often and therefore I know that sometimes they feel that they are, in a sense, working against a tide. They feel that society as a whole does not always support them as it should in their work to try to instil such values and to teach parental skills in schools. It is important that the Government have recognised that in the White Paper. There is a section devoted to it and I hope that it receives the response that it deserves. I hope, too, that the Government will be able to act upon it.
As I have mentioned in almost every education debate in your Lordships' House, I continue to be the leader of a London borough council which is a local education authority, and I thought that on this occasion I should take advantage of it by seeking advice from what perhaps no longer should be called "the chalk face"—although I still use that term. I spoke to two headteachers at two of our excellent secondary schools in the London Borough of Sutton. The first was Greenshaw High School, a mixed school, which my two sons attended. In every year of the school it teaches issues about adult life and parenthood through the tutorial programme. I was told that children explore a range of issues relating to topics of parenthood and so forth.
I also spoke to the headmaster at Carlshalton High School for Boys, which is obviously a single sex school. It runs parentcraft lessons in years 10 and 11 which look at the role of parenthood. They teach boys about washing babies and changing nappies—lessons I could have done with some years ago—as well as more usually first aid, ironing, washing and so forth, together with health and sex education. The headteacher told me that those classes have been extremely successful, in particular due to the strong personal commitment of the staff involved in running them. I venture to suggest that that is usually the reason for successful teaching.

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Another school will open in my borough in September. It is a purpose-built comprehensive school which I recently visited with the headteacher. He, too, told me of his determination that all pupils who leave the school—the first will start in September—will know how to lead responsible adult lives and be able to look after themselves in all the necessary basic skills such as cooking, sewing and so forth.
Those are important issues. Many schools are undertaking excellent work and I asked the teachers to whom I spoke what it was they wanted. Although they had different ways of expressing themselves, there was astonishing commonality in their responses. I spoke to the teachers separately and the first thing they said they wanted was recognition from government and others that schools are achieving a great deal against all the odds. They meant resources—they were, of course, talking to the leader of their council—the national curriculum and all that that imposes and, sadly, too many disinterested parents.
I asked them about the national curriculum. The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, suggested that teaching parenthood should be part of the national curriculum. The headteachers to whom I spoke believed that it should not and I am inclined to agree with them. The fear was that if it were, it would be too prescriptive and the problem is that the national curriculum is already too crowded. They also considered that it might stifle different initiatives in carrying out this essential work.
They suggested that government should collect and promote good practice and that they should encourage schools to adopt schemes to develop children's skills in these particular areas. It was suggested that a manual of good practice could be drawn together and given a high profile launch. In other words, they want encouragement, the dissemination of good practice, a higher profile and the reward that recognition brings, but they do not want the prescription which inevitably follows with the national curriculum. That is extremely important and I am sure that that will come in the response to the White Paper, which I welcomed when it was published and welcome again today. In the context of today's debate, I look in particular at the relevant section. We very much support the proposals in the White Paper in relation to work-related learning. We recognise with interest and support the points that are made about parenting. The White Paper states:
We want all secondary schools to help teach young people the skills of good parenting, both formally and through contact with good adult role models.
We heartily endorse that.
The final area on which I should like to touch has been touched upon briefly in the debate, particularly by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, with whom I agreed in particular; that is, citizenship. There is a section in the White Paper on citizenship. The White Paper recognises that a good democracy needs to be a healthy democracy which means that it needs to be active. It is a matter of particular concern to me and, I hope, to all your Lordships that disillusionment with our political system is at its greatest among young people. Two-fifths of
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young people eligible to vote do not do so. Indeed, in the European elections, only 11 per cent. of young people eligible to vote actually did so.
As regards choosing role models, it is interesting that when young people were asked whom they would ask for advice on managing their finances, one in five said Chris Evans or Gary Lineker. Only one in 100 said Kenneth Clarke at the time that he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was at the bottom of the table with Mystic Meg. I make no comment on the late lamented Chancellor of the Exchequer but that is a sad comment on whom young people choose as their role models.
There are some things that the Government can do. For example, of those appointed to quangos, only 5 per cent. are under 40. I doubt very much whether young people think that under 40 is young but to many of us, it is. The average age of those appointed to quangos is 57. All those important issues need to be addressed and I am pleased that the Government, in their White Paper, are trying to address them and are to set up an advisory group to discuss citizenship. In doing so, I hope that they will draw on the valuable work done by many voluntary organisations, in particular the British Youth Council, which does excellent work on a very small grant from central government.
This has been a useful debate on a very important subject to us all. I think that we have learnt from it. I hope that the Government will receive a good response to that section in the White Paper and I look forward to being able to take those matters further.
5.22 p.m.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I too welcome being able to take part in this debate today. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for making that possible.
The phraseology that we have heard expressed by other speakers has included marriage—and I stress marriage—stable relationships, caring relationships, parenthooding and the linking of schools and homes. I was pleased to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Paul, about the importance of family, duty and experience.
There is no doubt that we all share a common concern for the problems facing parents and families at the present time. None of us doubts that schools have a role to play in the promoting of stability in those areas of society. However, the problem is that we live in a community without an agreed system of values, as my noble friend Lady Young implied earlier. Marriage—and I declare my own interest, I believe in marriage—is an acknowledged important part of life but we recognise also that it is an individual choice of people.
I have been appalled, as I am sure have other noble Lords, by the age at which children are being expelled from schools. A case reported in the newspapers only last week involved a boy of five being excluded from his school. I understand that six children per week of primary school age are being excluded. That highlights the growing problems faced by teachers in our primary schools.
Schools share in some of the moral confusion and teachers themselves reflect the diversity of lifestyles within our society. I fear that it can be said that in some

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senses they reflect rather than mould society. When issues like the family are discussed in schools, the atmosphere is one of moral relativism—that is, all relationships are seen as equal. I do not wish to pile on the pessimism but we must consider the difficulties facing us. This country has never had an atmosphere of secular or civil morality such as exists in France and, to a lesser extent, in America. Traditionally, the teaching of morality has been left to our churches. And yet I feel that with only 8 per cent. of the population attending church on a regular basis, the time has come to look at other ways in which to promote parenting. The debate this afternoon suggests—and it is true—that schools have their part to play.
Development in helping families with parenting should not be undertaken in isolation. Many voluntary organizations—and noble Lords have mentioned some—traditionally give support to families. I should like to speak of the work undertaken by two such organisations in Leicestershire; namely, Homestart and Connections.
Homestart began some time ago with the aim of befriending and helping families under stress. I know that it is well known to your Lordships' House. Its work has been extended to other centres throughout the country.
The other organisation is Connections. That started only some 10 years ago. It offers support to families in a different way. Instead of the volunteer giving home support to people in their own homes, children from the ages of five to 10 are given the opportunity to meet once a week in a hall after school for two hours in the early evening. The helpers, all volunteers, are given training and practical support.
The children learn right from wrong; learn to play organised games; learn to sit down and have a meal. The importance of that was mentioned earlier by my noble friend Lord Brentford. They receive encouragement. They gain in confidence. They are taught about food and nutrition. They learn to swim and also take walks in the countryside.
It is a wide range of learning but it is always with the aim to encourage individual children. Respect for themselves and for others is key to the work. Mrs. Murray is the organiser whose idea and inspiration Connections is. She said that if she does not have the children by the time they are aged five, her task is that much greater when she is helping children who come from families under stress. All the children that she receives are recommended from social services. Her team of volunteers, which numbers about 40, works with a ratio of 3:1. The children are helped and encouraged.
In her contribution today, the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, highlighted also the contribution which men make to giving a balance to family life. Elizabeth Murray, of Connections, is very keen that men, and in particular young men, should play an important part in the work in which she is involved.
Therefore, I welcome the contributions made to this debate today. Perhaps I may return to the importance of marriage. I was not aware that as a Front Bench spokesperson, I should not give a preferred choice.
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However, I should like so to do and if I am wrong, I apologise. I am lucky enough to have been married for many years. I have two children and now three grandchildren who bring enormous joy. And yes, marriage brings its problems with it. It brings challenges for each and every one of us. But there is no other way in which to make sure that our future generations get off to a good start without the importance that parents make to the debate.
After all, it is parents who have the children in the first place. Some noble Lords have spoken about responsibilities and rights. It is extremely important that we bring up the next generation to appreciate the importance of marriage.
Perhaps I may now pose one or two questions to the Minister who is to respond to the debate. First, is the noble Baroness able to accept that schools have a responsibility to include parenthood in the curriculum? I am sure that she will have no difficulty with that. Moreover, perhaps that could be considered as regards the younger age group rather than just concentrating on secondary school level, bearing in mind that the biggest influence one has on children is at the younger age. Secondly, can the Minister tell us the Government's view on the traditional family and family values? Thirdly, how does the Minister see the promotion of parenthood when, within our communities, as has been mentioned in today's debate, there is such wide diversity? I believe we all face that challenge.
In welcoming all the contributions made in the debate this afternoon, it is clear to me that we recognise that there are no easy solutions. I have approached the problem pragmatically. I feel that the interaction among families, schools and the community, as I highlighted with my examples from Leicestershire, is essential. We have great expertise whether it is within schools, within parents, or within voluntary organisations. We must not expect our teachers to take on the sole role of solving our moral problems. It is parents who are responsible for their children and it is indeed they who should set the standard.
5.31 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone): My Lords, like other speakers, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for calling attention to the important role of schools in preparing young people for adult life. The noble Lord spoke eloquently, knowledgeably, and from a position of experience as chairman of the Parenting Forum. I should also like to thank all those who contributed to today's interesting debate. The terms of the debate relate to preparing young people for the responsibilities of adult life, including parenthood. I want to try to address the issue raised in the terms of the debate as broadly as possible. I do not believe it would be appropriate for me to debate the merits or otherwise of the independent Gulbenkian report; instead, I should like to focus on government policies.
As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, said in his opening speech, and as other speakers have endorsed, parents are, and should be, the main formative influence

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on their children's development. The foundations for adult life are laid early in childhood. So we aim to provide good quality early years education, alongside childcare and family learning where that is appropriate. But when a child moves on to school, schools also have a key role to play. A crucial aspect of a school's role in preparing its pupils for adult life is to give them a good general education and to ensure that they achieve the best they are capable of achieving.
I was immensely grateful for what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and the noble Lords, Lord Ashbourne and Lord Tope, about the White Paper. The measures in the White Paper, Excellence in Schools, which I announced in this House last Monday, will equip young people with the knowledge and skills which are required for today's complex world of work, skills and knowledge which are very necessary to our future if we are to compete successfully in the next century. They will be complemented by the opportunities for education and training that we will provide through our welfare to work programme.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, we recognise that literacy and numeracy are the basics for successful learning at school and in adult life, and that is why we are placing great emphasis on getting them right in schools as early as possible and setting ambitious and achievable targets for 11 year-olds. But learning does not stop with the final bell of the school day. Many schools are already doing a great deal through homework clubs, study support, outdoor and other extra-curricular activities. We will make available funding from the new midweek good causes lottery to extend or establish regular programmes of out-of-school-hours activities in at least half of all secondary and a quarter of all primary schools.
Raising standards in the basics is right. Talk of equality of opportunity and engaging with society is hollow if young people leave school not able to read and write properly, or handle numbers well. We need to have other goals in order to prepare young people for adulthood. Schools play a vital role in helping young people to develop into well balanced individuals with confidence and respect for themselves and for others, and in developing skills in the fourth R to which my colleague in another place, Estelle Morris, referred recently—relationships. Schools can give young people an appreciation of the different backgrounds and cultures in out multi-race, multi-faith society. They can help them to develop the attitudes to life and work needed to be full and active citizens and lead purposeful and fulfilled lives. Those wider goals are central to personal, social and health education. I noted what the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, said about the nomenclature here. I accept that it is a bit of a mouthful; indeed, it is something which I shall certainly take away with a view to considering his alternative of "life skills".
The noble Lord asked three questions about the area which I believe it would be helpful for me to address at this point. The noble Lord asked, first, whether the Government would make personal, social and health education compulsory from the year 2000 in all schools. In answer, I can say that we will take decisions about the
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need for, and the nature of, any changes in the National Curriculum when we have considered advice from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority next year. We shall also take into account reactions to our White Paper, Excellence in Schools. In that respect, I should tell the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, that the White Paper contains proposals for all secondary schools to provide parenting education. However, whether or not that is appropriate for primary schools is a matter which needs a little more consideration.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, also asked whether it would be right to produce a national syllabus in the area. I believe that the answer is no. It will still be the responsibility of each school's governing body to decide what best fits the needs of its own pupils. I believe that to be consistent with the views expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Brigstocke, in her contribution. Finally, the noble Lord asked about teacher training. The recently announced new curriculum for teacher training states that newly qualified teachers must be able to address pupils' personal, moral and social development. Indeed, that is something we shall want to implement.
Most speakers who contributed to today's debate have made it clear that they are aware of the fact that schools have a legal duty to provide a curriculum which promotes the spiritual, moral, social, cultural, physical and mental development of pupils and society and to prepare pupils for the opportunities and responsibilities of adult life. The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, asked about religious education. I can tell her that the Government are committed to the continuing provision of RE and have no plans to change existing provisions.
Secondary schools must also provide sex education and careers education. Elements of sex and drugs education are part of the science national curriculum. In answer to a question of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, Ofsted reports on how the Act is being implemented and it has reported favourably recently on how these legal duties are being catered for in schools. Schools take their legal responsibilities concerning the curriculum seriously. Many schools choose to meet their responsibilities through programmes of personal, social and health education which can encompass a broad range of topics including sex and relationships, drugs education, nutrition, physical activity and broader health education, safety education, and careers, work-related and community based education. I want to say a little more about some of those now to give your Lordships' House a flavour of the current range of provision in schools which contributes to preparing young people for adult life, and some of the work which my department is supporting.
Young people face considerable pressure from their peers and in the media in the area of sexual relationships. In answer to my noble friend Lord Paul, schools work with parents, health and other services to give young people access, through sex education, to good information and help in developing the communication and negotiation skills needed to make responsible decisions about their personal and sexual behaviour as they enter adulthood. Schools have a key role in developing similar skills in young people to

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reject drugs, and that includes tobacco. I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, does not really think that discouraging young people from smoking is to be condemned as an example of the nanny state. My Government's proposals for reducing smoking, particularly among the young, and the proposed appointment of a "drugs czar", signal a vigorous new strategy bringing agencies together in a coherent programme to deal with the problems of drug misuse. Schools, of course, cover broader health topics within health education.
There is much good work going on in schools to prepare young people for the world of work. The noble Viscount, Lord Chelmsford, asked about careers education and said that it was a joke in his school. I hope that that is no longer the case in schools today. Through careers education and guidance schools equip young people with the skills they need to make the important decisions they have to make about the transition between school and work and help them to put these decisions into practice. Of course standards of provision in schools and colleges are not perfect and they must continue to improve. Most now have a written policy statement, careers co-ordinators and partnership agreements with careers services. Those are the cornerstone of good overall provision. We are committed to improving careers education in schools and colleges. The Education Act 1997 will raise its status, making it compulsory for pupils in years 9 to 11.
Much of the debate about the role of schools in preparing young people for adult life tends to centre on the curriculum. There are always calls for changes to the national curriculum to include particular topics. We have considered whether in the short term we should aim to change the present statutory framework. We know that the national curriculum is not perfect but we have consistently made it clear that we do not want to make any statutory changes to key stages 1, 2 and 3 until the year 2000. In the short term it is essential for teachers to have some stability to allow them to concentrate their efforts on improving their teaching rather than relearning what they have to teach. But we do want to see our priorities of literacy and numeracy better reflected in the way the current curriculum is being delivered. We also expect advice next year on the need for and nature of changes to the national curriculum after the year 2000. However, I do not want to suggest that this is shutting down development. Preparing young people for adult life is about much more than legal obligations concerning the curriculum, extremely important though these may be. It is about how young people relate to one another and interact with others at school and in their communities, and how they develop into adults. These are areas within personal, social and health education where we can start to consider changes now. Our White Paper highlights a number of life skills.
I want in particular to focus now on parenting and then to say something about citizenship. The noble Viscount, Lord Chelmsford, asked about the training of parents. However, that is outside the scope of this debate, which is about pupils at school. As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has argued, it is difficult to
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overstate the importance of good parenting to the well-being of individuals and society. I know myself that being a parent has never been easy as I am one. It is no easier today. Some of the problems are the same, but many are different. Of course our society has undergone many sweeping changes, for example, changes in the role of women and the extent to which they are at work.
If we can help the parents of tomorrow to gain a better understanding of the responsibilities and skills required to become good parents we can make a real difference to the health and success of our communities and help tackle some of the more pressing problems they face, including pregnancies among young teenage girls. Many young people leave school without ever having thought through whether or when they will have children. A number of speakers in this debate have already indicated their concern about this. Certainly many embark upon this major change without properly considering the potential impact on their lives. Schools cannot and should not take the place of parents, but with parents they can play an important role in teaching young people what it means to be a parent; namely, the emotional, financial and practical responsibilities and the lifelong nature of the commitment it brings. Some very good work is already taking place in schools, particularly those with well developed personal, social and health education programmes. The Tomorrow's Parents report, which has been mentioned earlier, illustrates what can be achieved. I have already said that our White Paper makes clear that we want all secondary schools to have a role in teaching young people about good parenting.
We shall also encourage schools to develop links with other agencies, particularly voluntary and community groups, adult education centres and family nurturing schemes which are supporting parents in bringing up their children. This will provide support for schools and practical help to today's parents. The noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, asked whether there could be more men teachers to provide role models, especially in middle schools. I think I am right in saying that more than half of teachers in secondary schools are men. However, I accept that in primary schools the proportion is much lower and is only about 20 per cent. There is a case for trying to encourage more young men to enter primary school teaching.
The subject of citizenship was referred to by my noble friend Lord Plant, the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and the noble Lord, Lord Tope. The Government recognise that young people can feel disconnected from society. It is vital for them and indeed for all of us that young people believe they have a stake in the communities in which they live, that their voices are heard and that their views and actions can make a difference to society. I noted what the noble Lord, Lord Tope, said about trying to bring more younger people into quangos. I entirely endorse that. Citizenship education is already a feature in some primary and secondary schools. We intend to give greater prominence to this work in schools. Again, we are consulting widely and will work with all those who have an expertise in this area.

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I noted with particular interest what the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, said about development education. The Government agree with what he said about its importance and about the importance of education for world citizenship. We will also be working with voluntary organisations, the business community and others, to develop a nationwide programme of Citizens Service—Millennium Volunteers—to provide young people with opportunities to do useful voluntary work in the community. For some it will increase their prospects of employment, but the aim is much wider: to restore a sense of belonging and identity to communities and to promote social responsibility.
I turn now to values in adult life. As the noble Baroness. Lady Young, said, values are important in preparing young people for adult life. It is not sufficient simply for young people to acquire knowledge and skills. They must also develop and apply values such as respect for others and for the law.
As many noble Lords will know, we have given approval to the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority—shortly to become the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority—to produce guidance to schools based on the statement of core values drawn up by its National Forum on Values in Education and the Community. It will extend across the curriculum and beyond it, to embrace the wider work of schools. It will be supported by case studies, a directory of resources and guidelines for community service. There will be a SCAA pilot later this year.
In reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, the SCAA statement from the forum on values did not omit any reference to marriage. Moreover, the statement reflected very wide consultation about common values in this area. I think that the SCAA advice was accepted by the last Government.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tope, about the importance of stable, long term and loving relationships as a context for all children.
In conclusion, I hope that I have convinced your Lordships of this Government's commitment to strengthening the role of schools in preparing young people for adult life. I have sought to answer as many questions as possible posed by speakers in the debate. Where I have failed to do so, I shall of course write to noble lords.
There is already a great deal of good practice. As I have indicated, we shall seek to build on that by raising general standards in schools to ensure that young people have the skills for work. We will also assist schools to help young people develop into confident and responsible adults and caring and active members of society—in short, to have the broader skills for life. I accept what the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, said about the need for a pragmatic approach.
It is important that we do not see these two elements as separate and unconnected. They are geared toward common central purposes: well balanced individuals and a well balanced society. In the work we have set out to do, we must secure a firm place and proper status for personal, social and health education in schools to help
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ensure coherence in the provision for preparing young people for adult life. We must also be careful to ensure that this coherence is reflected in any decisions about the shape of the curriculum and the role of schools in the new millennium.
5.54 p.m.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for being so grateful to me for tabling the subject. I thank your Lordships for the many thoughtful and valuable contributions. I was particularly glad that a number of noble Lords raised the question of citizenship. Even more noble Lords gave a great welcome to the Government's White Paper. The Government should be delighted by that support.
Many noble Lords mentioned the Gulbenkian Foundation's report, Tomorrow's Parents. Everyone broadly welcomed it. However, anxiety was expressed about the treatment of marriage. The policy of the Children's Society and the Gulbenkian Foundation on this issue is set out on page 12 of the report. Whether or not that policy implies that all family structures are equally good, I am not entirely sure. It is a question that needs to be addressed. My own prejudice is that all family structures are not equally good although we have to accept that they exist.
I believe that there should be more research on the subject; more consideration should be given to it. Any such research or consideration of whether family structures are equally good should be measured against these three criteria: the welfare and outcomes for children; the shared values of our society; and the religious values which many of us hold.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brigstocke, drew attention to the dichotomy of responsibility between parents and teachers, and implied that teachers already had enough on their plate and that parents should accept responsibility on this matter. I merely refer to what happens when parents fail to accept their responsibility.
Finally, I thank the Minister for the extraordinarily constructive and helpful things she said, in particular the good news about teacher training. Like all education, the success of life skills education ultimately depends on the skill and enthusiasm of teachers. Structures help. In the end good teachers are the key. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

The Probation Service
5.56 p.m.
The Earl of Longfordrose to call attention to proposed cuts in the Probation Service; and to move for Papers.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, we can all agree that this is an excellent and opportune moment to discuss these issues. Not long ago I put down a Written Question to the Minister who will reply asking what funds would be available to the Probation Service in the years to come. He said that the whole matter was

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undergoing prolonged and thorough consideration. I understand that there is an Answer to a Written Question today. I have been unable to see it. It announces something still more fundamental. However, the door is ajar so far as concerns government support for the Probation Service in the years to come. I understand that no final settlement has been reached. I am glad that the door is ajar. I hope that the debate plays its small part, and will be the beginning of pressure to push the door further open.
I am not one of those—and I am sure that there are not many on these Benches—who believe that any legacy left by our predecessors in government is bound to be unhelpful or possibly malignant. Certainly, my dear friend sitting at my side, my noble friend Lord Graham, is not one of those. For example, I believe that the economy is in rather better shape than usual at present. But we are not concerned with those matters today.
If, by some strange good fortune, we had won the election in 1992—I have no right to speak for my party except as a humble Back-Bencher—the Labour Party would have inherited an excellent and promising legacy in the penal field. The 1991 Act would have been recently passed—a culmination of rather slow but steady progress towards more humane treatment of prisoners and a more enlightened approach to prison sentencing.
That was not to be. However, I shall always remember with gratitude the efforts made by some Conservative Ministers. I think in particular of the constructive efforts in the penal field over a crucial period of the noble Lords, Lord Hurd and Lord Patten. But in 1993 something untoward happened. Mr. Michael Howard became Home Secretary. I do not think that one can ever blame one man for government policy. Nevertheless, that policy will always be associated with his name, and I daresay he is proud of it. I have called him the Prince of Darkness many times. However, I do not believe I have done any damage to his career. He is now, I understand, shadow minister for foreign affairs; so I am glad to say I have not done him any lasting injury. As I have said previously, his great talents will find alternative uses, and that seems to be in prospect.
Leaving aside personalities, let us examine the policy. It was based on the theory that "prison works", and that it works better if it is made nastier for prisoners. That policy was duly carried out, in total contradiction to the policies of the noble Lords, Lord Hurd and Lord Patten, and other Conservative leaders. The result has been a steady increase in the prison population. It has increased more than 50 per cent. in the past four years; and, if matters continue as now, an increase of some 20,000 in the next seven or eight years seems likely. That is the result, not of accident, but of policy—all the more so because, as I ventured to imply in a Question I asked the Minister yesterday, according to the late government (we do not want to dispute everything they say) crime has not been increasing in recent years. Nevertheless, not only has there been a remorseless increase in the prison population up to the present time, but such an increase is also in prospect. That is the result of that policy.
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On the other hand, the Probation Service is to be cut. I shall not argue about figures; everyone agrees that it is to be cut. According to official figures the cut is not very severe; but it is definite and pronounced. According to the leaders of the Probation Service, the National Association of Probation Officers and the Association of Chief Officers of Probation, it is much more serious than it appears and is cumulative in its effect. People like Mr. Harry Fletcher of the National Association of Probation Officers and leading representatives of the Association of Chief Officers of Probation would say that if this policy of steadily and remorselessly cutting the Probation Service were to be continued, the lasting effect would be overwhelming.
I shall give only one small example of the kind of thing that is happening. At present I happen to be visiting Wandsworth Prison twice a week. There were 14 probation officers at the prison; the number is being reduced to five. Those responsible for welfare are to be reduced to two. That sort of thing cannot be done without causing very serious damage to any idea of rehabilitation.
I give one other small personal example. A very remarkable gentleman, Mr. Bob Tierney, whom I have mentioned before, was in prison for 17 years and has now become a probation officer. That is a rather wonderful achievement in the circumstances. But what are his prospects? He has a one-year contract, and after that, who knows? That is what members of the Probation Service face today. Anyone who adopts such a policy will be doing lasting damage, not only to the Probation Service itself but to the whole future of social work in this country.
Since I prepared these remarks, there have been one or two announcements in the newspapers. The Lord Chief Justice has made a powerful speech. I shall not attempt to summarise it here, but we all ought to study it very carefully. I hope that he will not mind my referring to his remarks, as summarised on the front page of the Daily Mail. The article stated that the Lord Chief Justice says we send too many people to prison, and that prison does not work. The Daily Mail went on, of course, to denounce him. The Sun newspaper denounced him even more strenuously in a leading article under the heading, "Lock 'em up". That is the alternative. The Sun puts these matters a little more plainly than Mr. Michael Howard ever did. But "lock 'em up" is the alternative to the kind of policy pursued by the leaders of all parties, including, for example, the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, who has become the chairman of a prison reform trust. If you "lock 'em up", you do not need a Probation Service.
We cannot duck the issue. There can he alternatives to prison. That is what is in the mind of the Lord Chief Justice. I was also glad to read in the Daily Mail a leading article headed, "Mr. Straw's U-turn". I suppose that if someone is praised for making a U-turn, it implies that he was not on quite the right lines before. However, I do not want to labour the point. I am delighted to hear that he has made a U-turn—although, again, the Daily Mail denounces him for making it. Either we associate with everybody who has ever been concerned with penal reform in any party, or we fall back on the policy of

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Michael Howard and say that prison works and to hell with a Probation Service. That is the issue. It cannot be ducked. I hope that everyone in the House will agree that there should be a larger role for the Probation Service and that the idea of cutting it is quite detestable.
My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
6.5 p.m.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, it is always extremely difficult to follow the noble Earl, Lord Longford. Not only do I not have his lengthy experience; I am afraid that I do not have his wit either. Nevertheless, he has done us a service by raising this subject today.
The context for the cut in probation finance is a Home Office three-year plan which assumes declining expenditure and that the service will,
continue to respond to the challenge of improving operating efficiency without compromising standards of service.
In other words, more has to be achieved for every pound. The current grant—excluding capital grants and credit approvals, grants for probation hostels and the money which comes direct from the Prison Service—which is the main support for funding probation, is to be cut by £11 million, from £331 million to £323 million between 1996–97 and 1999–2000.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, suggested that the degree of that cut is being described differently in different places. The baseline suggests savings, year on year, of something around 4 per cent. over the next three years. That target has to be achieved against a background of already substantially improved performance in 1995–96, during which efficiency savings of 5.2 per cent. were achieved; a reduction in real unit costs since 1991–92, of 12 per cent.; and staffing cuts, which have also already begun, of around 100 per annum in the next three years.
The Central Probation Council claims that in real terms, bearing in mind inflation, the overall resources will have declined by nearly 30 per cent. between 1994–95 and 1999–2000. If we take the probation committee which I have just joined, that equates to three years of cuts, in this year and two subsequent years, of £400,000—a total of £1.2 million in a budget related to that basic Home Office grant of around £6 million. So however we look at the issue, something is being done to constrain and reduce the amount of resources that are available to the Probation Service.
Yet the workload with which that service is having to deal is increasing all the time. Again, the Central Probation Council estimates that that increase is likely to be over 12 per cent. in the years 1994–95/1999–2000. It is true that the increase in community sentences is levelling off. But money payment supervision orders are on the increase; and perhaps that reflects a wish not to send people to gaol for debt default, as we discussed in response to a Question yesterday in this House. Combination orders are also increasing and that increase is likely to continue as the complexity of cases resulting in a community sentence increases.
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The increased prison population also increases the potential caseload in the through and aftercare area. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, described the situation where the number of probation officers in Wandsworth is declining. In my own area, the contracted amount of probation work within prisons declined last year, no doubt reflecting prison governors' own budgetary pressures, but it is increasing again this year. In other words, it is a rather unpredictable element of the Probation Service's work. The Home Office exerts downward pressure on costs per case via its three-year plan. But, as one of my local Probation Service officers said the other day, it is hardly necessary as costs per case are bound to decrease if the number of cases rises and the amount of money available to deal with them decreases. One hardly needs a programme, when in itself it is a programme for reduced costs per case. Whether the quality of the work can be maintained as the cost per case declines is what most people are worried about.
Recently there was some pretty unhelpful publicity with respect to the Probation Service. On 2nd July there was a series of dramatic headlines. The Daily Mail stated:
Killing and raping whilst on probation.
The Daily Express said:
Stop this scandal of prisoners being freed to commit murder.
I do not believe that anyone actually frees prisoners in order that they may commit murder. Nevertheless that was the way the Daily Express put it. Even the Independent, which one thought might know better, had the headline:
Probationers commit 'a murder a week.
Again, that is not exactly accurate. Some probationers re-offend, particularly those who have recently come out of prison and are among the most dangerous people in the care of the Probation Service.
At any one moment there may be up to 200,000 people in the care of the Probation Service. If 100 of those re-offend during the year, committing serious crimes, it is extremely unfortunate for the people who are the victims of the crimes. However, in terms of risk assessment, it may not be quite as serious as the figures suggest when dealt with in the way that they were in the press. That material was released, I understand, by the Home Office in order to show not how unsuccessful the Probation Service was, but how successful it was. The way in which it was released was so unfortunate as to attract those remarks.
Again, if people who are dangerous are released into the care of the Probation Service—and about 15,000 of the 200,000 fall into the very dangerous category—under such circumstances, it emphasises the need to have a Probation Service which is fully equipped and able to deal with that level of care and responsibility.
A problem which attracts public attention is sex offenders released after they finish their term of imprisonment. I do not speak in this House or anywhere else on behalf of my party on these matters, but it seems to me that it might well be more sensible to think of a totally different regime for those kinds of offenders. It would take into account the fact that many are mentally

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ill and should perhaps be treated in a totally different way. They could be held in safekeeping until it is thought that they are safe to be released, rather than being kept in prison where they receive virtually no treatment and are then released after the term of their sentence.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, rightly pointed us in the direction of the alternatives to probation. I was lucky enough over the weekend to listen to a lecture given by a senior and respected retired judge. He pointed out a number of interesting things about the prison population which everyone may know, but I shall trespass on your Lordships' good will and repeat them. The numbers in prison in the last 40 years have risen from 21,000 to 62,000. The cost of keeping each prisoner in prison has risen from £5,000 per annum to £24,000 per annum. The re-conviction rate has risen, on average, from 16 per cent. to 40 per cent. within two years. The re-conviction rate for teenage boys is 80 per cent., but it is much less for other categories of prisoner.
Who goes to prison? Overwhelmingly it is young men who have a low educational achievement and a poor family background. The single biggest predictor of offending behaviour is the fact of having been in care. That amounts to the same thing since a youngster is not in care normally unless he has a dysfunctional family. People who go to prison are usually unemployed. In other words, they are precisely the people who have not received or not been able to take on board the education for parenthood and relationships which were the subject of the previous debate.
What happens to those people when they are in gaol? Education has been cut in many prisons. There is a lack of person-to-person contact and of encouragement and support for most prisoners. You and I, my Lords, can no doubt remember when our children or perhaps even ourselves (talking about some of our younger Members) would come home during our early adult life for restoration and support, with the general feeling that we could be where we wanted to be and behave as we wanted to behave. That is precisely the support which the young adult who offends does not have. Where can he—it is largely he—best get that support? Does it come to him in prison? I suggest not. But in community service, community punishment or community treatment, the offender is in contact with a supportive probation officer. He may receive very good training or work experience. He may be able to attend a day centre where he receives help with his psychological, emotional and personal problems. Such help is not always available in most prisons. Speaking personally, I would have supposed that it is more cost effective, in terms of the total overall cost to the community of a continuous offender, to do as the noble Earl suggested; that is, to encourage the increased use of community sentencing and to discourage the irrational increase in the number of prisoners who currently serve at Her Majesty's pleasure.
6.19 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, yet again the House and the nation are grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for providing a platform for dialogue
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with Ministers. It is timely, urgent and crucial to the penal estate and to the nation. Normally we spend time trying to convince the Minister that there is a case to be answered, but I do not believe it is so today. It is certain that this Minister understands very well the case that was made by previous speakers. I want to appeal to him and his ministerial colleagues on hard headed, pragmatic, value-for-money grounds.
We are talking about an underestimated, under-appreciated aspect of public service. Although we are talking of the Probation Service, I include the Prison Service. Prison officers and probation officers do not get the credit that they deserve for what they do. It is one of the dirty jobs in society and in the main they do it without complaining and without blaming anyone else. One of the purposes of tonight's debate is to give them some encouragement and support that in the House of Lords they have friends who understand the problems.
Perhaps I may tell the Minister what I have been advised in briefing. There are very significant statistics. I am told that a prison place costs £24,500 a year to maintain; a probation order £2,270; and a community service order £1,700. So, the cost of prison is 11 times that of a probation order. I realise that the gravity of the offence, the nature of the individual and the sentencing policy all play their part in those statistics. But I hope that the Minister would take the line of trying to move toward reducing that disparity. Currently, it seems that all too easily people who commit offences and deserve to be punished are sent to prison, rather than not being sent to prison and other means being used to punish them. I was delighted to hear from the noble Earl, Lord Longford, that there has today been a broad announcement to the effect that a review will be carried out—a not unfamiliar phrase from this Government over the past three months. I hope very much indeed that that review will produce something realistic which will he of benefit.
This debate takes place against the background of a horrific rise in the prison population. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, mentioned that increase. My statistics indicate that on 17th January this year the prison population stood at 57,000. That was the level of the projected average prison population for the financial year 1996–97. By the year 2000, the average prison population is projected to be 66,000. That is horrendous. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, when he held the position of Home Secretary, saying that a prison population of 42,000 was intolerable.
We have sought to solve the problems of an increasing prison population by creating more places in which to put offenders rather than by trying to find means and methods of reducing the number of those who deserve to be incarcerated. I believe that that is a very sad reflection on us all.
I sought advice on that puzzling situation and the first thing I was told was that, although it was a dramatic rise, to be fair it could not have been foreseen precisely. When I asked to what it was thought the increase was due, I was told that it was the greater use of custodial sentences by the courts, particularly the Crown Court, and an increase in the average length of sentence

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from 19.8 months in the period from October 1994 to September 1995 to 21.6 months in the period October 1995 to September 1996. So, that is the action of the courts.
The consequence of the previous Government's policies has meant an intolerable strain and pressure being put on prison officers and probation officers. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, referred to those consequences. Less money, more work to be done and fewer people to do that work mean that the people doing the job have heavier case loads. Let me repeat some of the noble Baroness's statistics. It is estimated that between 1994 and 1999 2,750 probation officers will have been lost from the probation service. That represents 19 per cent. of the workforce and is an enormous number. So, 80 per cent. of those who were doing the job now have a workload not of 100 per cent. but of 120 per cent. That is quite intolerable. The workload has increased by 12.4 per cent. As for resources—we all know that ultimately it is resources and their deployment which are the answer—they have fallen as well. Those policies have had a severe consequence on the workload within the probation service.
What has been the consequence on probation officers, especially those whose service is in prisons? Probation staff in prisons carry higher case loads and are expected to produce more court reports. Again, that is reference to what the noble Baroness said. Caseloads are expected to rise by four to five on average but in some areas they could rise by more. Early retirement and redundancy schemes will be introduced in at least 60 per cent. of probation services. That is almost a cop out. It is understandable that people under such pressure find it intolerable and seek a way out by means of redundancy and early retirement. We cannot blame them. But that is not a solution to the problem of the penal estate. Let me say again that prison officers and probation officers are much maligned. They deserve our support.
What does all that mean in practical terms? I have been sent a note from the publication Probation Staffing, Home Office, April 1997, which states:
There is growing evidence of job substitution. Probation officers are being replaced in courts with non-trained or administrative staff and in some areas court cover is severely restricted.
Many noble Lords have experience in this field. When I had the proud privilege of representing the interests of prison officers I went into about 32 prisons in five years, in order to familiarise myself with the nature of prison officers' problems. At that time—I give full credit to the previous government—there were three prisoners being held in one cell. Officers were faced with the slopping-out procedure; and police cells were used for prisoners. It was a horrendous situation. Conditions improved vastly over a period, which I cannot define, but there are now signs that we are slipping back. A great effort was made to make sure that only one person occupied a cell but we are now told increasingly that there is doubling up (that is the term used) and trebling up. We shall never return to the slopping-out
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procedure and I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, and her colleagues for taking up that matter as a top priority.
In up to a quarter of the area offices have been merged or closed in order to save on revenue or capital costs. As a result, those on supervision have to travel greater distances and many will find it harder to keep appointments. That is the fall-out from taking neat accountancy and Treasury-driven decisions which produce as an answer a bottom line that balances. But the consequence is a poorer quality of service and rehabilitation.
During the time that I used to visit prisons, it was a great sadness to find that, because of a shortage of officers, the education service had been restricted and employment opportunities reduced because of the lack of supervision. Prisoners who are incarcerated are entitled to receive the best that can be provided to rehabilitate them into the outside world and of that they were being denied.
All that has had a disastrous effect on the probation service in prisons. During the past financial year, over 80 of the 650 seconded probation officer posts in prisons have been lost. In the past year, 12 per cent. have disappeared. The need for those posts has not diminished; indeed, it has increased. There were 15 per cent. fewer probation officers seconded to prisons at the end of 1996 compared with the end of 1995. As a result, fewer courses aimed at preventing reoffending are run and the quality of through-care and rehabilitation will deteriorate. That situation is patent and obvious.
In conclusion, I hope that the Minister, from his vast experience in and around the penal estate, will understand the reasons for our concern. It is our good fortune that he is there to carry those concerns into high ministerial discussions in order to bring sanity into the dangerous world described so graphically and compassionately by my noble friend Lord Longford, to whom we continue to be beholden for this opportunity to debate the issue.
I hope that the Minister will recognise that this is what I call a benign debate rather than a malignant one. It recognises the problems, though we do not have real solutions to them. However, if we can encourage the Minister, when he discusses these matters with his ministerial colleagues, to take from this House and this debate steps that can be taken—hints of which have appeared in the press over the past few days—to reduce the prison population and, above all else, to increase and maintain the quality of the service of the probation officers for those unfortunates who need it, he will do this House and those who need that improved service a great benefit. We shall all be grateful to him for that.
6.30 p.m.
Baroness Masham of liton: My Lords, I congratulate and thank the noble Earl on having this timely debate. There is real concern that the Probation Service is to be cut when its workload is at an all-time peak. The demand is clear. The Probation Service can supply the expertise to reduce crime if government funding allows it to do so. Will the economics balance out?

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I too have a few figures and I am sure the Minister will correct me if I am not right. Over the five years—1994–95 to 1999–2000, the probation situation is: workload increase, plus 12.4 per cent.; real terms cut, minus 29.4 per cent., which equals £114 million; loss of staff, minus 19 per cent. Probation areas offer excellent value for money in the fight against crime. The average cost per prison place, per year, was £24,500 in 1995–96. The annual unit cost of a probation order at that time was £2,270; that of a community service order—the Probation Service's most commonly used order—was just £1,700 in the same year. That means custody costs were 11 to 14 times those of probation intervention. Probation intervention is extremely economical and effective in reducing crime.
A consultant who works with many of the 54 probation services nationally stated recently that he had never seen the service under so much pressure, with staff dealing with increasing numbers and cases of increasing seriousness. In North Yorkshire, where I live, they are undertaking a root and branch review of all their business processes to seek to fund efficiency savings. They remain one of the most underfunded services against the cash limit formula. The formula has been in place for several years but the correction factor between the better and worse funded services has been slow to correct the imbalances.
The five probation services—Gwent, North Wales, Derbyshire, Cleveland and North Yorkshire—are now in discussion with the probation associations about speeding up the correction process. The 17 per cent. by which North Yorkshire is short in its budget amounts to around £3 million to £4 million in revenue budget terms and would purchase over 30 additional members of staff to assist with the enormous demand of supervising offenders to national standards and working with couples in dispute over their children.
North Yorkshire operates a detailed risk management policy whereby every offender and family court client is screened for risk to the public. Where serious concerns are identified, risk management meetings involving the police, social services and others are called which have, on occasion, resulted in the recall of the offender to court or to prison. In that context, it was not helpful for the Home Office recently—if it did—to pass to the press a circular outlining the collection of "serious incident reports" from the 54 probation services. That revealed that around 180 offenders nationally had committed serious or grave crimes while under formal supervision to the Probation Service last year. Those statistics demonstrate the kind of difficult and demanding people who are involved and ask questions about how far the service can be expected to manage risk in the community.
There is a link with the ever-increasing prison population and the workload of the Probation Service, since everyone serving over 12 months leaves prison under the supervision of a probation officer. That supervision of prisoners returning to the community offers a number of safeguards to the public. Now that the Prison Service and the Probation Service are linked
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under one Minister—Joyce Quin—there will be a more automatic triggering of probation resources when the prison population changes?
I have the honour at the moment of chairing an inquiry into girls in prison. The inquiry visited nine adult women's prisons where girls aged under 18 are also held. We found in every prison that the probation department was struggling to provide a service at all, let alone something resembling what was required. Most departments had suffered recent cuts, reducing the number of probation officers available in prison. For instance, in one prison they had just lost their senior probation officer, resulting in there being no probation line manager within the prison.
On average, we found that there was one probation officer for every 100 women. They often have to deal with a whole range of different groups with widely varying needs—lifers, sentenced prisoners, remand prisoners, vulnerable prisoners, deportees, mothers and babies and young offenders. With such a low ratio of probation officers to inmates it is impossible for them to cater for all those different needs. In addition, overcrowding is putting the uniformed staff under enormous pressure which has meant, among other things, that the personal officer scheme is not operating properly in most prisons.
Personal officers are supposed to deal with practical problems faced by the prisoners; for instance, sorting out problems relating to their housing on the outside or issues to do with children. In reality they often do not have time to do that and the job falls to the probation officers, leaving them with little time to work with the prisoners as they are trained to do. Most probation officers we spoke to rarely did individual work with the prisoners and, if they did, they could not commit to regular sessions. That was not good for morale. The most they could do was to organise group personal development courses. However, even those were not always possible. One probation department was only able to offer one course for lifers and nothing else.
In another prison, where 50 per cent. of its population were young offenders, there were no courses for young offenders because the probation officers—two officers for 250 women—simply did not have the time. The upshot of that situation is that regimes in prisons are becoming less and less rehabilitative. Prisons are becoming places where prisoners are simply contained and controlled until they are released. This means that re-offending rates will increase. If no meaningful work is done with people while they are in prison there is an increased chance that they will offend again, resulting in more victims, more expense for the public purse and another person wasting more life in gaol.
I read recently that the Home Secretary intends there to be more work in prison. That is excellent news. On one visit to a prison some time ago the inmates told me that when they made things they were then broken up in order to re-use the materials. That must have been soul-destroying. On a visit to Italy once I saw an excellent prison shop. Perhaps I may ask the Minister: will there be prison shops here? That would give prisoners a challenge. I have always felt it to be a

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dangerous situation when prisoners are locked in their cells for many hours. The devil finds work for idle hands.
I hope the Minister will be able to tell us tonight that there is a good future for the Probation Service. We in North Yorkshire would not want to see reduced the skilled staff who are working with offending behaviour, sex offending, conflict and violence, vehicle crime and the drug action teams.
6.41 p.m.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity given to us by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, to debate the effect of a reduction in funding for Probation Service activities.
While I never worked in a probation service I have worked in the Scottish criminal justice social work service and as a prison social worker. The integration of offender services within the social work departments was a keystone of the Kilbrandon Report. The single door approach has been maintained over the past 28 years. The generic caseload has comparatively recently been altered into the form of specialist teams within the 32 social work departments. Indeed, that was an inevitable adjustment. Funding of qualifying offender services is 100 per cent. by the Scottish Office. This variation is, for me, an example of the inappropriateness of trying to pretend that the United Kingdom can be run as a unitary state. Clearly, we have here, in Hong Kong parlance, one country, three systems.
Moving on from the constitutional argument and returning to the world of probation, I wish to focus on the nature of the work and the effect that a reduction in the service must have on the professional task. The main thrust of the probation officer's work ought to be seen as behaviour modification. That work will he effective if, and only if, the probationer has built up a working relationship with the probation supervisor. In most cases, "working relationship" is an inappropriate description. For most probation clients, nothing really happens until they have transcended the professional or compulsory nature of the working relationship and moved it on to more personal terms. They need to have accepted their supervisor as a person in spite of the professional relationship. That is, of course, not true of the probation worker's position. The relationship must remain professional for the supervisor, though it is bound to have the appearance of a more personal relationship.
At this point it may be helpful to recall a description of my humble efforts to build a professional relationship with a prisoner I shall call Robert, which is not his real name. He was about to come out on licence, at two-thirds of an eight-year sentence at a young offenders institution in Scotland. His faith in social workers and YOI licensed supervision was less than nil. He had spent five-and-a-half years fearing licence and expecting to be recalled as soon as sufficient evidence had been "manufactured". He blamed his previous social worker for recommending a substantial sentence in the pre-sentence social inquiry report. The initial meeting at
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the prison looked like a waste of time. Social workers were not just "unhelpful" and "useless"; they were worse. However, some store was set by my promise to see him again before his liberation. The second visit was pretty much the same. But the fact that I had come back as promised was credited to me. When he was liberated I believe that the licensed supervision grew to be positive. Certainly, it was not the negative experience that Robert had feared.
The point of the last few sentences has to be this. Building a working relationship with probationer clients is not something that can be rushed. Unless it is achieved, very little else can be achieved. Certainly, the terms of the various orders can be explained and supervised administratively. But the relationship is the basic foundation building block. It is as fundamental as the three Rs in education.
As the probation services are asked, rightly, to take on ever more complex work, so the funding ought to be expanding to provide the opportunity for this new work actually to happen. But that is not the case. Budgets are contracting and caseloads are increasing. Opportunities to intervene meaningfully are therefore contracting. Each case is a new and unique entity. Building that relationship cannot be rushed or treated as a timed process, just to be shortened by a wee bit.
I conclude my remarks by asking how long the public will continue to be persuaded that better public services can be provided for ever lower taxes. Public intellectual resistance to taxation decreases in the light of publicised targeted spending. The public will come round to see that quality services can be delivered only for the full price. Discounted schemes are bound to be less effective and ultimately seen as a deception.
I realise that the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, did not plead with the Treasury for less money. I do, however, regard the fiscal strategy adopted by his Government as being unhelpful. I must hope that the probation services can survive this cutback in their socially useful operation.
6.48 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I have almost no credentials for taking part in this debate other than that my wife is a trained probation officer and worked as a probation officer for many years in Peckham and Camberwell, two rather difficult areas, if I may put it like that, of London. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Longford on, first, winning the ballot and, secondly, on winning it at a particularly important time. Over the past few days we have heard about the rise in the prison population and about the need to consider disposals other than custodial sentences. We know that court orders for probation are rising. As my noble friend pointed out, this does not seem to be the right time even to consider cuts in the Probation Service.
I mentioned that my wife was a probation officer. She emphasised to me even this morning the point mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, about youth crime. It is all very well to say to a young tearaway that he should go to prison, Borstal or have a custodial sentence, but as the noble Baroness rightly

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said, there may be a parental problem. There may be a relationship that needs to be established. Unless such a young tearaway is sensitively handled by a probation officer, he or she can easily become a hardened criminal, particularly if he or she is sent to one of those great schools of crime, Her Majesty's Prisons. This is not the moment to consider cuts in the Probation Service.
Leaving aside the importance of coaching young tearaways away from serious crime—I do so with some reluctance because I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas—the truth is that virtually all high-risk offenders who are already known to the courts, the police, the prisons, and the psychiatric services come to the Probation Service at some time. Whether or not they get parole, they are released on licence from prison and those who do not get parole (on the grounds that they are too much of a risk or are too dangerous) will be released and go immediately to the Probation Service. Even severely mentally disordered offenders are still put on probation by the courts as are, for instance, offenders addicted to drugs. In the light of that, this is not the time to cut the Probation Service.
So, what is happening? The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, described it very well. If the Home Office three-year plan is not modified by the new Government, by the year 2000 the budget for the service will have been cut, as the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, said, by well over 20 per cent. in real terms compared with 1994. The total caseload, on the other hand, is estimated to rise by some 10 per cent. during the same period. It does not take much imagination to realise what the result will be. The result will be that the higher caseloads will mean lower quality and hence more danger to the public. Higher caseloads will mean loss of morale among officers, overwork and the consequent breakup of their own family situations. Higher caseloads will mean more re-offenders. All that is against the background that was described by my noble friend Lord Graham and by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, of a cost of something over £24,000 per annum for a place in prison as opposed to a cost of about £2,500 to supervise somebody on probation. It really does not seem to make sense.
I do not think that we should forget that probation officers work without any protection and often, as your Lordships will appreciate, in circumstances of great physical danger. We hear a great deal about the risks of service in the Armed Forces and the police—and rightly so—but in many cases, more numerous than is realised, probation officers are the unsung heroes of our society, using their training and skills to keep offenders from committing ever more crime and at substantial personal risk. They deserve our thanks and our support but, above all, they deserve a fair deal. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will assure the House that they are going to get it.
6.54 p.m.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, I join other Members of your Lordships' House in saying how greatly we are indebted to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for giving us this opportunity to discuss the Probation Service. As noble Lords will recall, we
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are returning to a subject that we have discussed previously in your Lordships' House—in fact, twice in the past two years. Today, as on previous occasions, Cross-Bench concern has been expressed about the present situation. Today we have focused, as was the intention of the noble Earl, Lord Longford, on the further cuts, but I believe that we could take the debate a little wider and consider the future of the Probation Service as a whole.
In the debate on the Address on 19th May, I said—I hope that I may be allowed the vanity of quoting myself—
"I hope also that the Government will spare a thought for the future of the Probation Service".—[Official Report, 19/5/97; col. 160.]
I also said that the changes made in recruitment and training had been strongly opposed in your Lordships' House and that they could easily be reversed and quite soon.
It would be unreasonable to ask today for a major statement of government policy—and, if I asked, I certainly would not get one—but perhaps I may cast a small pebble on to the Government Front Bench. Whatever review has been announced today, we must be careful that such reviews do not become an excuse for a difficult decision postponed. There are some welcome signs of a more open, sympathetic and realistic approach to prisons policy. Ms Joyce Quin, the Minister of State in another place, has started well and is rightly earning good opinions. As has been said, it is a comfort that the Probation Service comes under her. However, we must remember that it is often possible to make a preliminary decision and not to postpone a decision indefinitely for a full review.
Perhaps I may make a suggestion to the Minister with regard to the recruitment and training of probation officers. On coming into office, Ministers could immediately have asked their officials for an assessment of the objectives and validity of the changes introduced by the previous government, taking account of the views expressed by the then Opposition, and for a statement about how far the process of change had gone and how best it could be reversed. A summary report could easily be in ministerial hands within two or three weeks. There would be no need to go to Cabinet. It would enable Ministers to give us an indication at least of the way in which their minds were moving. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will not simply rest on a review as a justification for saying nothing of substance today.
My second small pebble is the hope that policy changes will not be announced or made by means of extra-parliamentary winks and nods. Policy changes should not be announced elsewhere. I noticed, for example, in the Observer last Sunday (13th July) that a front page headline read:
"Stop filling jails, Straw tells judges".
In what was an obvious briefing, there was a reference to,
"a reversal of the hardline 'prison works' rhetoric he [Mr. Straw] adopted before the election".
If that was indeed a briefing and if we have to draw the conclusion which the Observer suggested—and that would be sustained by an interview given by the

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Home Secretary on "World at One"—I hope that we shall have a plain Statement to Parliament on prison policy and, if not today then very soon, a plain Statement to Parliament on the future of the Probation Service.
On 7th July in the other place, the Minister of State, Joyce Quin, answered a Question from Miss Widdecombe on what discussions the Home Secretary had had with Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons about a possible merger between the Prison and Probation Services. The Minister of State who replied, Ms. Joyce Quin, said:
"None about a merger".
Later she said:
"We have made no decision about a merger".—[Official Report, Commons, 7/7/96; cols. 603–604.]
Can the Minister clarify precisely what that means? Is a merger an option that is being considered by Ministers within the Home Office? Currently, I am an agnostic on the issue. There is no catch in my question. It would be consistent with the Government's wish for more open government if one knew that at least the possibility of a merger was currently being looked at.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, my noble friend Lady Thomas and the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, referred to the figures available in the three-year survey of Home Office expenditure. I make a simple summary of those figures. I refer to the last year for which outturn figures are available, 1995–96. In that year the Prison Service cost £1,329 million. There were then only 50,000 inmates—happy days. The Probation Service cost £400 million, with a total caseload of 183,500. I render those figures in the following simple way. For less than one third of the cost the Probation Service takes care of more than three times as many offenders. If that was true on the basis of the 1995–96 outturn figures I believe that it is true today for the figures anticipated in the last financial year and also the current year.
I do not make too much of such a comparison because I am aware that I do not compare like with like. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of evidence in those figures that the Probation Service is good value for money. If the Home Secretary really means what he says and that we should stop filling our gaols, then, as noble Lords have said, there will be a much larger role for the Probation Service and it will need more resources. I understand that in the current financial year it would be difficult, consistent with the declared policy of the Government, to reverse the cuts. Although they may appear to be small in real terms—I believe that they amount to £10 million between two successive years—I hope that the Minister will give some indication that possibly those cuts will be reversed, at least for the financial year 1998–99.
I found the review of the Probation Service published in the Home Office annual report profoundly disappointing. It had none of the humanity which I believe such a document should contain. Ten achievements were listed in paragraph 9.10 for the year covered by the report (1996), of which four were
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concerned entirely with financial and administrative achievements: extended activity sampling; investigation of unit cost variations; continued implementation of the computerised case record administration and management system; and the Home Office had pursued the possible use of private finance for the provision of Probation Service accommodation. I do not minimise the need for good financial control and administration, but I wish that among the achievements of the service in 1996 something more positive had been said about what the Probation Service exists for and how far its objectives had been fulfilled.
I looked for greater enlightenment at The Three-Year Plan for the Probation Service. I was very disappointed. At times I found it incomprehensible. It is full of aims, priorities, standards, goals, targets and KPIs. I was sufficiently unfamiliar with the buzzwords of current management jargon that I had to reflect awhile on the meaning of KPIs. I now understand that they refer to key performance indicators. It was a difficult report to follow, and certainly not reassuring. It was very difficult to find the word "rehabilitation", to which the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, has referred. It contained no flavour of what the Probation Service did and why it existed. I could find only one short sentence in 49 glossy pages dealing with what were called new qualifying training arrangements for probation officers. That was the only reference that I could find to the matters that we have discussed twice in your Lordships' House to which we attach the greatest possible importance.
I recognise that the Probation Service will require the careful attention of the new Government, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, who said that probation officers were the unsung heroes of the penal system. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, it is an underestimated service. It is unglamorous but very important. I believe that if we do not give it the resources that it needs we shall come to regret it.
7.6 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I also join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Earl for initiating the debate. I was given the name of one of the maidens of darkness during Michael Howard's period of office at the Home Office. During that time the noble Earl and I had many happy times together.
As a result of time constraints the debate must concentrate solely on the Probation Service. This means that the interesting debate about early intervention, crime prevention programmes and the importance of parents, schools and partnerships within communities to address pre-offending and diversionary programmes cannot be addressed. Indeed, these issues were discussed recently in another debate in your Lordships' House, which remains on the record. The Probation Service was established to pick up the pieces after all else had failed and people had offended. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton. There is often unfair criticism of the Probation Service and a lack of appreciation of probation officers and their work when they are the people who are called upon to deal with some of the community's most difficult problems.

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I therefore place on record both my appreciation and acceptance of the centrality of the Probation Service and its work and of community sentences in the criminal justice service.
The question implied by the Motion—the future funding of the Probation Service—is a matter for the Government. As is publicly known, the Government have agreed to continue with the planned spending totals of the previous government and not vary departmental totals for at least two years in this Parliament. It is also publicly known that areas of additional spending already planned by this Government as and when money is found have not so far included the Probation Service. Funding of the Probation Service is set out in the Government's expenditure plans and The Three-Year Plan for the Probation Service. More money has been devolved to the area committees and there has been, and continues to be, heavy investment in new technology. That factor should not be overlooked when considering the scope for efficiency savings in the search for better value for money. Officials in the Home Office—a number of whom I recognise from where I stand—will be aware of my frustration at the speed of progress. I hope that the new technology for the service in both equipment and training is almost complete.
In this debate there has been much exaggeration of the statistics. I leave the Minister to use the official Home Office statistics when he comes to reply to the debate. I was privileged to have had the responsibility for the Probation Service during my time at the Home Office. Contrary to common perception, we regarded the Probation Service as an important part of the criminal justice system. Effective community sentencing and supervision of offenders following release from prison is essential.
The Probation Service is expected to ensure that community sentences provide a tough, demanding punishment which is effective in reducing crime. In carrying out that work, it must have regard for the safety of the public, which involves effective risk assessment, enforcement and the management of offenders and their programmes. The Probation Service is also charged with improving the quality of service and making the best possible use of resources. National standards were introduced in 1992, and revised and republished in 1995 in order to strengthen the supervision of offenders.
The standards required of community sentences are that they are demanding as punishments; that supervision is rigorous; and that offenders are returned to court promptly if they fail to comply with the requirements of the sentence. We believe also that, wherever possible, parents should be involved in the process of reforming young offenders. Where the courts, Probation Service, parents and families work together the chances of success are that much greater. I have seen some pretty impressive work done by the Probation Service in co-operation with those groups in the community. They have worked well in diverting people away from crime.
Of course, where parents do not co-operate, the courts have the powers to bind them over; to require them to attend court; and to order them to pay fines or
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compensation arising out of their children's behaviour. A novel community sentence has been undergoing, and continues to undergo, what appear to be, on the evidence to date, successful trials. It has the potential to make a substantial contribution to sentencing, and could have the effect of helping the Probation Service. I refer to the curfew order by electronic tagging. I am pleased to say that the Government have dropped their opposition to that policy. I believe that they are now convinced that the technology is working and that it could make a contribution to community sentencing.
The Conservative Government Green Paper Strengthening Punishment in the Community was widely circulated for consultation. For a long time community sentences have been a secret garden—known and understood by the courts and the Probation Service, but not by the general public. There is a range of orders: probation orders; community service orders; a combination order; a curfew order; an attendance order; a supervision order, all of which address the varying degrees of seriousness of offending, suitability, and degree of restriction of liberty, plus of course the age of the offender.
The Green Paper introduced the proposition of a single integrated sentence to replace the range of sentences. It would then be a matter for the courts in open court—it is important to emphasise open court—to address the sentencing needs appropriate to the offence committed. The main elements to be addressed included punishment in the community, restriction of liberty, reparation, and the prevention of re-offending, which of course includes rehabilitation. In that way, the offender before the court, instead of having a sentence meted out in terms of hours, weeks, or years, and then awaiting a visit to the probation officer to find out what it meant, would know the length of the sentence and what was expected of him or her at the time of being sentenced. That would result in a more transparent system and would go some way towards enabling the public to know the effect of the sentence. The hope was that it would dispel the perception that a community sentence is a soft option.
It is true that much of what the Probation Service does is effective, but it must be said that programmes exist where it is hard to see the challenge to the offender, physical or mental. There are some programmes which fall short of the best. It must therefore be in the interests of the Probation Service itself that public attitudes and perceptions of the service are improved and that the serious work of the service is more publicly appreciated.
In my view to some extent the Probation Service has always been its own enemy. That is a point I shared with it on many occasions. Happily the service is opening up. It is subject to rigorous standards and systematic inspection, both on performance and across the whole service on a thematic basis. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, was so scathing and indulged in some scoffing about being concerned about monitoring the standards of the Probation Service. The public want to know about the quality of the service. It has to be measured. He does not like the jargon words "key performance indicators", but they are important. They are set out in some detail in the document. Without

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some understanding of where the best practice lies, and learning from best practice, the service will not improve. As a result of the national standards and introduction of key performance indicators much improvement has been wrought in the service.
The inspectorate performs a great service. The reports on the performance of the Probation Service which have been produced by the inspectorate over recent years have been material to the improvements in service delivery. Having said that, there remains considerable scope for further progress to be made. The Green Paper to which I referred, and the consultation which followed, resulted in some interesting pilot demonstration projects. They were designed to show how far changes in approach by the courts and the Probation Service, acting in accordance with the principles set out in the Green Paper, but within the current law, might increase public and sentencer confidence in community sentences. It was the previous government's intention to keep any possible new legislation which might be needed as a result of those projects under review. So anything the Minister can say about those projects, and the future of the service on the basis of those projects, will be helpful.
A statistic which continues to concern many of us is the reconviction rate for those who serve prison sentences compared with those who serve community sentences. I am afraid that the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, underestimated the figures on reconviction rates. Over half of all those who are sentenced to prison or community sentences re-offend within two years. Over recent years, the reconviction rate for community sentences has been slightly higher than that for those who serve prison sentences. I make nothing of the slight difference. It is so slight—something between 1 per cent. and 2 per cent.—that one could almost say that the reconviction rates are about the same, whether offenders serve prison sentences or community sentences.
I wish to make a number of points. First, the reconviction rate is too high both for prison and community sentences; and, secondly, the community sentence reconviction rate should be much, much lower. Those sentences deal with a lower category of crime and prisoner. That will continue to be a great challenge. We all look forward to progress being made in that direction.
A "what works" approach to evaluation was introduced while I was at the Home Office. The key to improvement will lie in the degree to which effective practice is identified, properly evaluated, properly recorded, and learned from. Results from changing to more effective programmes as a consequence of that information, will be important and critical to improvements in the service.
One reads in the press of a possible merger between probation and prison service officers. Until one knows the detail, I shall refrain from commenting on hearsay, but that is how we usually hear about the Government's policies. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, the contempt the Government have so far shown for
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Parliament is regrettable. We hope that such statements will be made to Parliament and not by Mandelson's PR machine to journalists.
I do not comment in detail on any merger, but there are territorial difficulties between the two services, particularly in the area of shared responsibility for prisoners before release. Some of the reduction in numbers of probation officers in prisons, which has been referred to by a number of noble Lords, is not just a matter of finance, it is a territorial dispute between the Prison Service and the Probation Service. I know that Home Office officials are looking at and monitoring that carefully. I left the Home Office before we had any results of that monitoring, but no doubt the Minister will have more information about it. But this area needs to be addressed and I know that Home Office officials are aware of that fact.
The through-care work that is done by the Probation Service is among the most onerous and dangerous and, I must say, it is also the most effective work. Whatever changes are envisaged, that work must not be neglected. Indeed, it must be nurtured. I find it difficult to see how the two services could merge' without the utmost difficulty, not least to address the issues of education and training and the cultural differences between them.
As regards the vast sums of money which it is said can be saved, as recently claimed in the media by a Government Minister, that will cause great consternation in both services. I shall be most interested to hear about the vast sums of money which can be saved from such a merger. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, at this stage I shall keep an open mind.
As regards training, I personally invested time and energy developing for probation officers a system of training of the highest quality. Progress was frustratingly slow and at times I was concerned about what appeared to be a reluctance on the part of those involved in developing the project to address the fact that the Probation Service deals predominantly with offenders. Although there is an element of preventing re-offending and of rehabilitation, which is essential to the work of the probation officer in effective supervision and management of punishment programmes, the fact that it is dealing predominantly with offenders must be reflected in the training schedules. I have no wish to disregard family court welfare work, which the service carries out so well. However, the basic training for entry into the service must prepare probation officers for the core work, which is the effective management of community sentences and the post-supervision of prisoners.
Ministers and noble Lords opposite spent much of the past 18 years exhorting the previous government to spend more on almost every service. Day in and day out, they were critical of levels of expenditure by the previous government, as is the noble Earl, Lord Longford, today. In government, as the Minister has learnt quickly, life is very different. Resources available for expenditure on services will always be limited. How the money is spent, the effectiveness of services, the quality of the output information rather

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than an obsession only with the input of resources are all important factors. However successful prevention programmes are, there will be a major role well into the future both for prison places and effective community service.
The dramatic change in the Labour Party during the past two years in accepting more and more of my party's law and order policies is to be welcomed and will command our support. The noble Lord finds that amusing. Almost on a daily basis he is concurring—
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I find nothing amusing. Someone was whispering in my ear.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, perhaps I misread the body language. I shall pose only one question to the Minister. If he responds to the thrust of tonight's debate in a way that panders to what I believe was being asked by most of those who have spoken in the debate, can he tell us this? Of those who would be sentenced to prison, who would he diverted to community programmes and what category of offender or offence would qualify for such a diversionary programme?
7.23 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Williams of Mostyn): My Lords, I thank the noble Earl and all those who have contributed to our discussions tonight. The Probation Service has developed significantly during the past decade. Savings have had to be made and they have not been comfortable ones. I wish to say at the beginning of my short remarks that I endorse what was said so graphically by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, and reiterated and reinforced by other noble Lords.
The Probation Service and the work that it does is valued and appreciated. I can say that having had long experience of it both in practice prosecuting and defending in criminal cases and, not without significance and of great value in terms of experience, in sentencing as a trial judge, I know the valuable work that it does and I know the difficulties under which it labours. It is vital that if community sentences are to be available to the courts they and the public are confident that those sentences are effectively carried out.
The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, asked a question, saying that if I were to pander—a curious word—to what had been demanded I should be obliged to say of those prisoners who now go to prison, in which detailed category, which would be dealt with by alternatives. I believe that in our country sentencing is a matter for the courts. The Government's duty through legislation in Parliament is to provide alternatives. It is not possible to answer that question in a considered way because it does not focus on the point. The Government are determined to provide that the courts have at their disposal a range of effective sentences in which there will be public confidence.
I believe that the probation service will have a good future because it is essential as a component of our penal and criminal justice system. It is certainly true that community sentences have in the past been regarded as
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a soft option. One must recognise the proposition that sometimes they were a soft option, often because of delays built into the system, so that a community service sanction ultimately seemed of no effective matter to the offender. That is a situation which the Home Secretary promised to attack almost from his first day in Queen Anne's Gate.
It has been said by a number of your Lordships that one needs to have resources properly allocated and properly considered. I understand the slight tease from the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, about KPIs. One cannot spend millions of pounds of public money without having some testing. I am hound to say, both of us probably coming from a similarly philistine background, that when I first encountered KPIs before going to Queen Anne's Gate I thought that they were management mumbo jumbo. In fact, when one examines them one sees that they are not, because one must discover what is the most effective use of public resources.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, said that this is intended to be a benign debate. I take it as such. I cannot repeat too often that these debates ought not to be the occasion on which to try to score party political points and I hope your Lordships will hear none of that from me tonight.
The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, said that announcements should be made to Parliament where at all possible and I entirely agree. That is why I am happy to say that today my right honourable friend the Home Secretary made an announcement to Parliament in another place in the form, I believe, of a Written Answer when he announced the review which is to take place. It is to take place on the following basis. All noble Lords know that there is on hand a comprehensive review of all Government spending. The Home Office review, which my right honourable friend announced, is looking at other options for integrating the work of the Prison and Probation Services in England and Wales. I regard that as an entirely prudent, sensible approach.
As has rightly been observed, the two services have grown in different ways. They have a different history and they had different purposes to attend to when they respectively came into being. The Home Secretary believes, and I am sure that he is right, that it is time to have a review into how they interrelate. They have different management and organisational structures, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, pointed out. But the point underlying the philosophy of the review is that they deal often in turn with the same individual offenders. They have the same aims of protecting the public from harm and of bringing about the rehabilitation of offenders.
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, was a little unkind to the three-year plan because if one looks at Goal A in paragraph 2.2 and then casts an eye through pages 11 to 13, there is a good deal of material which can, as the noble Baroness said, be read only in the context of rehabilitation—the critical success factors identified, crime reduction on release, post-release licences, employment and training work and physical

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and mental health problems. I think that the noble Baroness made a good point that that is all in the context of rehabilitation and can mean nothing else.
Therefore, the review will attend to various options. I was gratified to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, said about my honourable friend the Minister responsible for prisons and probation. I think what he said is generally recognised and it is a benefit to have my honourable friend looking after prisons and probation in that way, not simply because of her quality as a Minister but because it is more appropriate that it be done that way.
We do not wish to waste time. I shall specify the parameters of the review in a moment. It is intended originally to be an internal review which will provide options for the Home Secretary's consideration by the end of November. I do not believe that to be an unreasonable timetable. The initial part of the review will be internal to government with a view then to wide consultation when credible options for improvement have been identified. It is not the case of one service taking over the other. The question is what areas of work they have in common; how they can better help each other; and how they can better serve the wider community, which both wish to do.
The terms of reference are: first, to identify and assess options for closer and more integrated work between the Prison Service and the Probation Service in England and Wales, including any implications for the structure, organisation, management, working practices, human resources, funding and legislation governing the functions of those services. Further, it is to examine international models reflecting good practice and to identify any lessons concerning the effectiveness and efficiency, organisation and management structures exhibited by those models. Perhaps I may say that in the past, I think we have tended, in that area and others, to be rather too insular and to believe that there are no lessons to be learnt from overseas experience. We wish to put that right. Thirdly, we also intend the review to provide a preliminary analysis of the options identified, including estimated costs and benefits as a basis for consultation.
That is a step of practical utility. It is time limited to the end of November for the Home Secretary and thereafter open to the widest possible consultation. I recognise readily that we shall get nowhere in these difficult areas without consultation with those most intimately affected; namely, as the noble Lord, Lord Graham, said, the Prison Service and Probation Service.
As regards money, it is well-known that our policy is to stick to the overall base lines set when we came into office. That means that the amounts envisaged for the Probation Service are £428 million in the present year going down to £425 million next year and £417 million in 1999–2000.
I hope to offer this crumb of comfort. That does not rule out adjustments to the level of funding given to the Probation Service. But it would mean that since there are no extra resources overall, any extra given in that
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area would have to be funded by a cutback elsewhere. Of course, that is one of the purposes of having a review.
Qualifying training was a distinct question raised by a number of your Lordships. At the moment, there is no legal requirement for any specific qualification for appointment as a probation officer since the change in the regulations. We have had a presentation from ACOPS, CPC and NAPO. We understand their concerns. We are giving careful consideration to their proposals. I hope that the Government's position, in its definitive state, will be announced before too long. I hope that that may be of assistance.
The noble Baroness asked me specifically about two projects. With her great knowledge, I believe that she was referring to Teesside and Shropshire. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for providing me with the opportunity to tell the House that those projects are continuing. We support their continuation. The Home Office is carefully evaluating the projects and when we have got the lessons, we shall consider them with great care, including possible implications for legislation. I hope that that is a satisfactory answer to what I may describe fairly as a most helpful question which illuminates part of our debate.
The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, asked about prison shops. I should like to give careful thought to that and I undertake to transmit it to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary for his careful consideration.
The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, said that we are looking for a fair deal. I agree, within the limits of what we can deal with. He said that we must assess objectives. I agree. I am bound to say that I think the Home Office has, in the past, assessed objectives even though different conclusions have been reached. I do not think it to be a legitimate complaint that the Home Office had not put its mind to the point, even if we may have reached different conclusions.
The question was raised about information as regards serious offences committed while under probation supervision. The public has rights. One of those rights is the right to information. There was no intention at all to undermine the Probation Service when that material was provided: quite the reverse. The intention in releasing the relevant probation circular to the press was to set the information in context. As the noble Baroness pointed out, the proper context was—and I happily repeat it—that the Probation Service has about 200,000 offenders under supervision at any one time. Many of them present real risks. No one overlooks the gravity of the offences which were mentioned but in the context of 200,000, it may be that that should have received a rather more careful reflection in some newspapers.
That is the problem about information. Either one clutches it to one's sweaty bosom and lets it out to no one or one distributes it into the public domain. We thought that it was right to distribute it. It is unfortunate that a counterspin—I use the vogue word—was given to it on this occasion because it seems to have been rather unfair and perhaps rather ill considered.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, perhaps I may make matters absolutely clear. I agree entirely with every word that the Minister has just said. I was attempting, perhaps not as cleverly, to make the same point.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I am most grateful for that. I believe that we have a duty to reassure and reinforce people who are carrying out very difficult jobs. They are vulnerable not only in the way described by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, which I recognise well, but sometimes they are vulnerable to criticism which might have been a little better considered and informed.
The trite observation, which I make despite its triteness, is that no one can say in how many cases skilled, dedicated intervention and work by the Probation Service prevented further offending. Of course, that news, which is good news, is never attractive because there is no headline which can be drawn from it.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, does that point not illustrate very well that probation officers need extremely good training?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, probation officers need very good training but I would not derive that moral from that story. The moral I derive from that story is that information is disseminated. One needs to put the good part of the story in the same context as the bad. I agree entirely with the noble Baroness that it is such difficult, skilful and stressful work that it obviously needs careful training. Indeed, prison officers' work is strained and stressful. It is very easy for those of us who go home after our day's work to forget that doing that sort of work, it is not easy to dissociate the rest of one's day or one's evening from that difficult work.
I hope that I have been helpful to your Lordships in this short debate. Nobody can pretend that it is an easy situation. The causes of that unease are not as relevant as the present remedies to which we must try to look. I believe, not simply because I stand here delivering the Government's view, that this review is of critical importance. It has the possibility of bringing about a sea change in how we deal with offenders.
Prison for some is bound to be the sanction that public safety requires and the public interest demands. It is not an appropriate sanction for all those who commit crime at every stage of their development. I believe that all speakers have agreed that if one catches potential offenders when they are young, one saves them the loss of wasted life, to use the phrase of the noble Baroness on another occasion when we discussed the matter. It saves enormous amounts of money; and, not least, it saves the anguish and heartache of so many victims whose interests also need to be carefully attended to. Sometimes those interests seem perhaps to be marginalised because we focus so much on how we deal with offenders. I respectfully suggest to your Lordships—I know that the noble Baroness and I are entirely at one on this—that while we must remember
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that criminals are victims of crime in a deeper sense, the innocent victim and his or her interests should never be overlooked.
I believe that I have trespassed a little on your Lordships' patience. However, in conclusion, I make the observation that in American rodeos a bur is sometimes placed under the saddle of the horse to make it restive. My noble friend Lord Longford never needs that because—and I mean this in all seriousness and sincerity—he has been absolutely indefatigable in the pursuit of what he believes to be right and just. I have never pretended that I agree with him on everything, but I salute the way that he never lets go and continually seeks the improvement of conditions within our society.
7.42 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I am most grateful to all speakers who have taken part in tonight's debate. I often tell people that we have the best debates in the world and the worst voting system. However, I shall leave the latter point on its own and stick to the first one; namely, that we have very high quality debates.
First, I should like to thank those who have spoken from all parts of the House. We have heard the chairman of the Labour Peers and their representative on the advisory committee; in other words, the two most representative Labour Peers available, apart from the Front Bench. They have spoken very strongly as liberal champions. The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, also took part. She has surpassed all of us in visiting nine women's prisons. I have visited more than nine prisons but not more than nine women's prisons, so that is a record.
All parts of the House were strongly represented and all speakers said roughly the same as I submitted in my convictions at the beginning of the debate: that there is no possible justification for the cuts in the Probation Service when this country is richer than it has ever been, and in view of the large increase in the prison population. I repeat: there is no possible justification for those cuts. No such justification has been provided, not even from the Front Bench. I did not exactly expect my revered friend the Minister (who spoke so kindly of me a moment ago) to do so. I realise that he is tied by his office. He is in a position where he has to say, to use the Irish phrase, "Mind you, I have said nothing". He is not in a position to commit the Government.
So far as concerns the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, I feel a great deal of sympathy for her. She referred to the fact that I called her "the maiden of darkness" in the past; but I have also called her "the angel of light" on other occasions. I listened to her speaking with such deep feeling, expressing such care for the Probation Service and wondered how someone who cares so much could share a large part of the responsibility for imposing such outrageous cuts. I have only one explanation: the noble Baroness did her best to resign, but her resignation was not accepted. That has happened to other people. When I was Minister for Germany 50 years ago I tried to resign but Clem Attlee knew the answer to that one. He wrote me a letter saying, "Dear Frank, I have received your note and will try to

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look into it later". So I am sure that that is the position of the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch. However, she is now approaching freedom because she will be joined by the noble Lords, Lord Hurd and Lord Patten, who are great penal reformers. Therefore, she will no doubt astonish us all very shortly.
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In conclusion, I should like again to thank all speakers who took part in the debate. I only hope and believe that this debate will have had a good effect. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at fifteen minutes before eight o'clock.