Lords Sitting of 24 June 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 Oxford.

Lord Molyneaux of Killead
The Right Honourable Sir James Henry Molyneaux, KBE, having been created Baron Molyneaux of Killead, of Killead in the County of Antrim, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Cooke of Islandreagh and the Lord McConnell.

The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells
James Lawton, Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells—Was (in the usual manner) introduced between the Lord Bishop of Norwich and the Lord Bishop of Oxford.
The Earl of Elgin and Kincardine The Earl of Elgin and Kincardine—Took the Oath.

Mandatory Life Sentence for Murder
2.54 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway Lord Campbell of Alloway asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether there has been recent consultation between the Lord Chancellor and senior members of the judiciary on the abolition of the mandatory life sentence for murder and, if not, when such consultation will take place.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Irvine of Lairg): My Lords, there has been no such consultation, nor is any planned, nor has any been requested. If any members of the higher judiciary desire to make representations to me on the subject, I will consider them with great care. I will meet them for discussions, if they so wish, and will pass on the outcome of those discussions to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for his most helpful and useful Answer. As he as Lord Chancellor first answers at Question Time, perhaps your Lordships will allow a word of congratulation and an expression of goodwill from someone on these Back-Benches who has known him since his earliest days at the Bar as a fair-minded opponent of the highest order of integrity and competence.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, in the wake of the negative response of the Home Office on 11th June, is the noble and learned Lord aware that as long ago as 1965, on the amendment proposed by the then Lord Chief
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Justice, the discretionary life sentence was accepted by this House but later withdrawn in exchange for the mandatory sentence with the discretion of the judge if he wished to make recommendations? That was done at the request of the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner.
Is the noble and learned Lord further aware that in 1991, in a debate on the Criminal Justice Bill, a massive majority of this House, which included the then Lord Chief Justice, two former Lord Chancellors and five Law Lords, accepted a similar amendment?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his generous remarks. I do indeed know the history of that debate in 1965. I know that the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Parker of Waddington, put down an amendment which narrowly passed in your Lordships' House, which would have had the effect of then abolishing—that is, about 30 years ago—the mandatory life sentence for murder. He was persuaded to withdraw it and to have it replaced by another amendment. I am also aware of the vote in your Lordships' House during the passage of the Bill to which the noble Lord referred.
Lord Hooson: My Lords, does not the noble and learned Lord's reply indicate that the Government are not prepared to take any initiative in this matter but are expecting the senior judiciary to seek a consultation? In the light of the representations and the questions which were asked from the Government when they were in opposition, does not this indicate a tempering of their approach?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, the arguments on both sides of this very contentious issue are well known. The view that prevailed under our predecessors was that all murder was so heinous that it required to be marked by a mandatory life sentence. There was also the argument that the public have confidence that that is so and that they further have confidence that the Home Secretary of the day must decide on all the information then available to him when it is safe to release a convicted murderer.
The arguments on the other side are very well known to me; that it is said to be wrong that all murders, regardless of the individual circumstances—and all murders vary so infinitely in their circumstances—should always attract the same sentence.
The Government are well aware of the arguments on both sides and I need go no further than to say in direct response to the question put that my door is open. I can also say that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary will profit from his experience in dealing with these lifer cases under the powers that Parliament has conferred upon him and, no doubt, as time passes will reflect upon the balance and the wisdom of our current arrangements.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord recall that the star-studded cast who made up the majority of the 98 in the debate to which the noble Lord. Lord Campbell of Alloway, drew attention not only featured the current Leader of this House but also himself? Further does the noble and learned Lord still strongly support the following two propositions? I say,

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"still" because he supported those propositions in the debate on 6th November 1989. The propositions were: murder embraces such a multitude of diverse crimes that a single mandatory sentence must be inappropriate. Accordingly, the mandatory life sentence should be abolished by a discretionary life sentence so that the range of penalties for murder is the same as for any other serious crime.
The second proposition that the noble and learned Lord firmly put forward—and I ask whether he still agrees with that proposition—is that the decision of how long a person should spend in prison is a judicial decision to be made by a judge in open court after hearing argument, subject to a right of appeal, and that it should not be this—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Ackner: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor still agree that such a decision should not be made by a politician in secret without any right of appeal?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, by definition, the noble and learned Lord has a longer memory than me; but I, too, have quite a good memory. I did refresh that memory by looking through my own contribution to the debate to which the noble and learned Lord referred. I did think that it was quite well expressed but I was not bowled over by it today. The only difference between my position as expressed then and now is that today I think I have a keener awareness of the arguments on the other side, which I took pains in an earlier answer to express, than I had before and indeed the depth and sincerity with which they are held, to the same degree as the depth of sincerity which the noble and learned Lord adheres to his views.
Lord Waddington: My Lords—
Noble Lords: Next Question!
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Richard): My Lords, I have to tell the House that I was cowardly enough not to interrupt the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, but I fear that I must interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, because we have now spent nine minutes on the first Question.

Law of the Sea Convention
3.3 p.m.
Lord Archer of Sandwell Lord Archer of Sandwell asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they intend to ratify the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention 1982.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): My Lords, we recognise that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is the
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most significant maritime convention this century. Its provisions cover virtually every topic of importance to coastal and maritime states, including the protection and preservation of the marine environment. The Government intend to push environmental concerns up the global agenda. Ministers have not yet had the opportunity to consider the UK's accession to the convention. Noble Lords may rest assured that Ministers will be considering this question soon.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that very encouraging Answer. However, does she agree that we are already doing virtually everything which would be enjoined on us by the convention and that the only problem in the past has been the significance of Rockall for the exclusive economic zone? Is not the sole issue whether the fishing industry should share 0.2 per cent of its catch with such foreign boats as occasionally venture into that area? Indeed, for the sake of that, are we not disqualifying ourselves from discussions on the whole new regime? Can my noble friend the Minister go a stage further and promise that, under this Government, we will not be condemned eternally to pay the price of every item on the menu but always miss out on the food?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I hope that I have made it clear that the Government support the UNCLOS. We certainly intend to accede to the convention. However, as I said, Ministers will need first to consider what timing best suits the interests of the United Kingdom.
Lord Wilberforce: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I tabled exactly the same Question as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, as long ago as November 1994? The Answer then given on behalf of the previous government was that they were working on the procedure to enable the UK to accede to the convention. Can the noble Baroness accelerate that procedure, which has apparently already occupied two-and-a-half years?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for his contribution. However, I should like to point out to him that the latest form of the convention was adopted in July 1994. The previous government had 32 months to consider whether or not to accede to the convention, whereas the current government have had less than two months to do so. I have given the House the assurance that it will be done as soon as the timing indicates that it is in the best interests of the United Kingdom.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, can the Minister give the House an assurance that the situation surrounding the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom waters as affected by the dispute over the ownership of Rockall will play a part in the deliberations that Her Majesty's Government will be undertaking when considering the timing of accession?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the UK title to Rockall is not affected by accession to the convention. British sovereignty over Rockall was

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proclaimed in 1955 and confirmed by the Island of Rockall Act 1972, which made Rockall a part of Scotland. Indeed, Rockall will remain a part of Scotland.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the convention confers advantages on coastal states not only in environmental terms but also in terms of fishing rights and, more importantly, freedom of the sea? Further, although the Government have not yet had much time to consider the matter, can the Minister give the House an assurance that the examination of procedures will be swift and the outcome positive?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I can certainly give the noble Lord the assurance that the examination will be swift. Indeed, I agree with him that there are many benefits to the international community conferred by the convention, not only as regards establishing a clear legal regime on the high seas but also as regards rights of passage of naval and civilian ships and aircraft and promoting international marine conservation.

Combined Heat and Power
3.8 p.m.
Viscount Mersey Viscount Mersey asked Her Majesty's Government:
How they hope to achieve the production of 10 gigawatts of combined heat and power by 2010.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Baroness Hayman): My Lords, the Government are now making a detailed assessment of combined heat and power potential, and will set the new target in the light of that assessment and the role of CHP in combating climate change. The case for increasing the UK's CHP capacity to 10 gigawatts was set out in the 1994 Labour Party policy document, In Trust for Tomorrow. My right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister recently wrote to leaders of major industrial companies underlining the benefits of CHP in improving industrial competitiveness and reducing carbon dioxide and other harmful emissions. We are very pleased that the CBI has agreed to endorse the campaign.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply. As a former president of the Combined Heat and Power Association, I certainly wish the Government luck in achieving their target. However, is the noble Baroness aware of the actual scale of engineering work required if we are to raise our combined heat and power percentage up to 20 per cent. of total generating capacity? In particular, can the noble Baroness give me an assurance that the present formula rating scheme will not be abolished in 2000 AD? That would actually increase rates on combined heat and power plants—I gather by up to 70 per cent. in some cases. That would certainly not be conducive to this massive and rather welcome planned expansion.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I am grateful for the support of the noble Viscount for the general thrust of
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government policy in this area. We recognise that this is an important issue for those involved in CHP projects, which, as I have said, we are committed to encouraging in the review of the rating system. We are actively considering a range of options to ensure that CHP schemes do not face unnecessary increased costs as a result of the proposed changes to the rating system.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, does the noble Baroness realise that when she speaks about detailed assessment she is repeating language which we have heard over and over again in this House from a Tory Government and now from a Labour Government and which has the effect of delaying decisions? I say to the noble Baroness in the nicest possible way that we are getting rather tired of that kind of answer.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I am not sure I should like to hear the noble Earl when he is speaking in a nasty way! That comment was a little unfair when one considers that the Deputy Prime Minister has already written to 300 major industrial companies to explain how important the Government consider combined heat and power to be. We have already received an extremely encouraging response to that exercise. Schemes have been announced, such as that announced in today's Financial Times by Heinz. Those schemes show the economic and environmental advantages of combined heat and power. We are making progress in this area and the Government are intent on making further progress.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, I declare an interest, in that I am chairman of a company which promotes combined heat and power. My question relates to the recently published government report on the private finance initiative. To what extent will the streamlined PFI be used in support of the Government's proposals? I draw the Minister's attention in that connection to the fact that a new task force should sign off the commercial viability of all significant projects before they go through the normal commercial processes. Many of these combined heat and power projects are fairly small. How will they be dealt with?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I am grateful for that question. I talked earlier about the initiative we have taken with industry, but we believe there is enormous scope for these kinds of projects in the public sector. There is already an interesting combined heat and power scheme in Whitehall, in Downing Street. There are vast possibilities for establishing such schemes in the health service, in education and particularly in housing. We are considering how the capital receipts initiative and yesterday's announcement on public/private partnerships could provide new opportunities for combined heat and power schemes in the public sector.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Royal Free Hospital Trust, of which I am chairman, has introduced a combined heat and power scheme which will save the hospital about £1.5 million a year? We hope that it will shortly generate an additional half a million pounds a year from the sale of

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surplus power to the National Grid. Does the noble Baroness support similar schemes in the health service, as I believe she said she did?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I am certainly aware of the connections of the noble Baroness with the health service, having had the opportunity to work with her in that area. These kinds of scheme have great economic benefits in areas of the public sector such as the health service. However, we should not underestimate the environmental benefits. In this area environmental and economic benefits go together.
Lord Moynihan: My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the British Wind Energy Association and a director of Enron Renewable Energy Corporation. The Minister will know that government support for CHP is closely tied to government support for renewable energy. Will the Minister confirm therefore that it is the Government's intention to introduce a further round of the non-fossil fuel obligation?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, we recognise that if we are to meet the challenging targets that exist with regard to decreasing pollution levels, we shall have to consider a whole range of issues. CHP is the measure that this Question refers to, but we shall also have to address the use of renewable energy sources.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, in six months' time the United Kingdom will have the presidency of the European Union Council of Ministers. Do the Government intend to secure a Europe-wide target for CHP during their presidency?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, we believe that our presidency will provide opportunities in this field. We shall certainly wish to encourage other countries to maximise the social, environmental and economic benefits of CHP. We also believe that there are opportunities for British firms and British technologies in an international context.

Road Schemes: Assessment Criteria
3.15 p.m.
Lord Berkeley Lord Berkeley asked Her Majesty's Government:
What criteria will be used in assessing whether major motorway and road schemes will proceed.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, the strategic roads review announced last week will be a broadly based exercise and will assess road schemes against the four criteria set out in our manifesto; namely, accessibility, safety, economy and environmental impact.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. Will the Government
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take into consideration the criteria of not building roads but encouraging people to use public transport—for example, bus or train—and encouraging freight by rail?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, what we are intent on doing in the White Paper on an integrated transport policy which we are committed to produce next spring is to look broadly at all the options, to look at the problems which have arisen with particular schemes and to consider solutions which might comprise using another form of transport or managing demand rather than building roads.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, as the Departments of the Environment and of Transport and their predecessors have not been responsible for roads in Scotland for at least 40 years, does the Answer of the noble Baroness confine itself to England and Wales? Does she accept that different criteria apply in Scotland, where distances between towns are long and where the land in between can be barren heath?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, the necessity for considering these issues in a Scottish context was recognised by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, who made a parallel announcement of a strategic roads review in Scotland.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, in conducting this review, will the Government consult Railtrack about the possibility of building new railway lines and reopening branch lines?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, we certainly intend that the review and the White Paper will be an open and consultative exercise. I expect that we shall receive representations from a wide variety of interests. This is an area where there are competing and often conflicting pressures. It is important that we listen to the widest range of views and consider the widest range of possible solutions.
Lord Renton: My Lords, will the Minister bear in mind that in Scotland public transport is not available to people living in many of the remote places and that it is often a necessity in their case to improve roads?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, while I accept the failings of public transport in Scotland and in some parts of England and Wales too, we have to bear in mind that the solution may be to improve public transport rather than to assume that the only answer is to provide an alternative to public transport.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware of the almost uncontrollable excitement which we all feel at the prospect of this new White Paper which is to produce an integrated system of transport? So far, many governments have found this to be a pipe dream.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I am delighted that there is such anticipation on Opposition Benches and elsewhere. It would be wrong to suggest that this will be an easy exercise or that there are simple solutions. On the

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other hand, it would be equally wrong not to try to find those solutions, because an enormous number of pressures, both economic and environmental, indicate that we have to find some answers.
Lord Monson: My Lords, is the Minister aware that a great many people are anxious that minor road schemes should proceed? They can be extremely effective in reducing casualties among both motorists and pedestrians.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, we accept that fact. The minor safety schemes which were in the Highways Agency's programme were specifically exempted from the review and will go ahead according to the programme.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, does the Minister agree that, however successful the Government are in encouraging both freight and passenger traffic on to rail and other forms of public transport, the vast majority of traffic will still be by road for purely practical reasons? Therefore I hope that the noble Baroness will agree that to freeze the road programme altogether, in particular the construction of bypasses and motorway widening, would be to condemn the country to gridlock.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, we have not frozen the roads programme altogether. Roads under construction continue to be constructed. We have recognised that 12 schemes are in urgent need of review. We are having an accelerated review of them and will announce the results before the end of July. However, the noble Lord should not prejudge the results of the White Paper exercise about an integrated transport policy.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that, in the light of the contention about the high speed link to the Channel Tunnel, proposals to expand the railway system are likely to prove at least as contentious as the proposals to build new roads, if not more so?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I accept that what the noble Lord says is correct: there are no easy answers to these problems. There are costs to all the alternatives on offer. What is important is that we have a wide-ranging, open and honest public debate about the cost and benefits of various alternative ways of approaching the problems.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, will the review take into account the possibilities arising from road pricing?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, yes.
Lord Palmer: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is high time that there was a continual dual carriageway from the capital city of Scotland, Edinburgh, to the capital of the north of England, Newcastle?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, in view of what I said about the need for careful assessment of
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individual schemes, it would be wrong for me to prejudge the results of the review in the case of individual schemes.

Business
3.22 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., my noble friend the Leader of the House will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on the Denver Summit. I should like to take this opportunity to remind the House that the Companion indicates that discussion on a Statement should not exceed 20 minutes from the end of the Minister's initial reply to the Opposition spokesmen, and contributions in the discussion should be confined to brief comments and questions for clarification.

House of Lords' Offices: Select Committee Report
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Boston of Faversham): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the First Report from the Select Committee be agreed to (HL Paper 8).—(The Chairman of Committees.)
Following is the report referred to:
Appointment of Sub-Committees
The Committee appointed the following Sub-Committees and Panel—

Finance and Staff Sub-Committee
L. Boston of Faversham (Chairman),

L. Colwyn,

V. Cranborne,

L. Gladwin of Clee,

L. Harris of Greenwich,

E. Northesk,

L. Renfrew of Kaimsthorn,

L. Richard,

L. Rodgers of Quarry Bank,

L. Sheppard of Didgemere,

L. Weatherill,

L. Williams of Elvel,

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.

Administration and Works Sub-Committee
V. Allenby of Megiddo,

L. Berkeley,

L. Boston of Faversham (Chairman),

L. Carter,

L. Colwyn,

B. David,

E. Gowrie,

L. Harris of Greenwich,

L. Methuen,

B. Rawlings,

L. Renfrew of Kaimsthorn,

L. Strathclyde,

L. Weatherill,

with the Clerk of the Parliaments and the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod.

Library and Computers Sub-Committee
L. Avebury,

L. Freyberg,

L. Hoffmann,

L. Holderness,

B. Lockwood,

L. Lucas,

L. McIntosh of Haringey,

B. Nicol,

B. Platt of Writtle,

L. Renfrew of Kaimsthorn (Chairman),

L. St. John of Bletso,

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.

Refreshment Sub-Committee
E. Arran,

L. Carter,

L. Chesham,

L. Colwyn (Chairman),

B. David,

L. Graham of Edmonton,

L. Harris of Greenwich,

L. Howell,

L. Lawrence,

L. Palmer,

V. Thurso,

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.

Advisory Panel on Works of Art
L. Chorley,

L. Cobbold,M

L. Crathorne,

V. Falkland,

E. Gowrie (Chairman),

B. Hilton of Eggardon,

L. Hindlip,

L. Morris of Castle Morris,

L. Palmer,

B. Trumpington,

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Education (Schools) Bill
3.24 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Government are determined that all children will be offered a high quality education. There should be no question of a small group of children benefiting at the expense of many others.
More than £1 billion has been spent on the assisted places scheme since it was introduced. That money would have been better spent on the state system. The Bill represents a reordering of our educational priorities. It puts the interests of the 440,000 five, six and seven year-olds ahead of the 40,000 or so who would have benefited under the assisted places scheme. We promised to act quickly on class sizes and we intend to do so. Getting this Bill on to the statute book is a necessary first step. I make no apologies for moving quickly on this key pledge in our manifesto.
Class size is important. As I am sure many in your Lordships' House will agree, it is a key factor in improving standards in those vital early years of formal
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education when pupils try to master the basics. That view is supported by research evidence in this country and in the United States.
The Ofsted report on class sizes in 1995 said that,
"small class sizes are of benefit in the early years of primary education. Once pupils have achieved competency in basic learning, particularly in literacy, they are more able to learn effectively in larger classes".
I believe that parents share our wish to see smaller classes. The White Paper, to be published next month, will set out our plans to raise standards across the education system including cutting class sizes. Targets will be introduced progressively based on plans drawn up by the LEAs and schools. We shall consult the LEAs and others about the preparation of detailed plans to reduce class sizes which take into account particular local needs.
Reducing class sizes is just one part of our major programme to raise standards. The new standards and effectiveness unit demonstrates commitment to the basics of literacy and the determination to tackle failing schools. Nearly half of all primary schoolchildren transferring to secondary school are below the standards expected of 11 year-olds in English and mathematics. We really must turn that round. We have set tough targets to raise standards in both literacy and numeracy. The funds released from the assisted places scheme will make a positive contribution.
Ending the assisted places scheme is not just about facilitating smaller classes. We have long made it clear that we object to the principles on which the scheme is founded and the way it has operated in practice. We object in principle to the scheme. It has not met its objectives. Indeed, it has failed on a number of different counts. First, parental choice has not been enhanced. It is the schools which select the pupils who will receive support. Parental choice is a myth. Secondly, it has not been targeted on those the scheme intended to help. Nearly a third of assisted place holders were previously in the independent sector. I question whether pupils who had already been in the independent sector need the help that the scheme provided.
Thirdly, those benefiting do not all come from poor backgrounds. One in five of the children are from families with incomes above the national average. So we are seeing well-off people being subsidised by those poorer than themselves.
Fourthly, the scheme is hardly a ladder of opportunity for children from working-class backgrounds. More than half of assisted pupils come from the upper and middle classes. Only 46 per cent. of pupils come from working-class backgrounds.
Fifthly, the costs of the scheme are simply not justified. The previous government had planned to spend over £200 million in 1999–2000. Over time they would have had to spend double that to meet their commitment to double the size of the scheme. The average cost of a secondary assisted place in 1997–98 in England will be around £4,100. That is 47 per cent. more per pupil than the standard spending assessment for secondary pupils in state schools, which is £2,780 per annum.

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Lastly, it fails to add value. That is the most telling criticism of all. Research published last year compared the performance of assisted pupils with that of matched state pupils of similar intelligence and ability. There was no statistically significant difference in terms of results achieved, both in total A-level point scores and average A-level points scores. Assisted pupils did not gain added value.
I now turn to the Bill's provisions in detail. Clause 1 repeals the duty on the Secretary of State to operate an assisted places scheme in England and Wales, and other statutory provisions. Clause 2 makes transitional arrangements for pupils holding assisted places at the beginning of the 1997–98 school year which allow them to continue to hold their places for that and subsequent years, but with a proviso for primary pupils. Clause 3 provides for regulations to prescribe transitional arrangements during the phasing out period. Clause 4 defines the terms used in Clauses 1 to 3 and Clause 5 has the same effect in relation to the operation of the assisted places scheme in Scotland. Clauses 6 and 7 and the schedule provide for consequential amendments, commencement and territorial extent.
The effect of the provisions is that there will be no intakes to assisted places in September 1998 and subsequent years. But we will honour commitments to children on the scheme and to those offered places for September 1997—in the case of pupils under the age of 11 until they have completed their primary education, save in special circumstances. There is a discretionary power so that pupils under the age of 11 can receive continued support for a period when they are of secondary age, and pupils of secondary age will be supported until they complete their education at their current school, usually at the age of 18.
We never said that we would provide for primary age children to hold their places all the way through to age 18. That would mean running the scheme for another 13 years. We said that we would provide for it to be phased out over about seven years.
It is more sensible to provide for primary age pupils to move to the maintained sector at the age of 11. We have made it clear that we will use discretionary power flexibly and in a way that is sympathetic to the needs of individual pupils. We will extend the period of support where there is good reason to do so: for example, in the case of a pupil resident in a part of the country where the normal age of transfer from primary to secondary schooling is later than the age of 11; and in the case of children who take up a 10 year-old place at a secondary school. We will also consider using discretion where the parents of a child in a prep school were given a promise of a place to the age of 13. However, each case will need to be considered on its individual merits.
Places will be available in the maintained sector for children who would otherwise have had assisted places. There is plenty of time for local education authorities to plan how best to accommodate these pupils. Currently, there are over 800,000 spare places within existing LEA provision in England—ample scope to accommodate the 10,000 or so pupils who would otherwise have joined the scheme each year from 1998.
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Many assisted places scheme schools predict that they will have no difficulty in filling their places with fee-paying pupils. So, overall, the phasing out of the scheme may not have much net effect on maintained sector provision. We will keep that under review: for the present we do not believe that educating children who may otherwise have had assisted places will result in a significant additional burden on local education authorities.
We intend to make sure that the state sector is equipped to provide a first-rate education for all our children, including the most able and talented. We will be setting out our proposals in the forthcoming education White Paper and consulting on them. The independent sector does not have a monopoly in being able to provide for able and talented pupils. State schools can and do provide for very able children. The scheme represents an unwarranted subsidy to the private sector. Much better value for money will be achieved through transferring that funding to the state system.
The Bill marks the end of the assisted places scheme which has benefited so few at the expense of so many. It represents the beginning of the end of overcrowded infant classes and is another milestone on the road to raising standards. I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time— (Baroness Blackstone.)
3.36 p.m.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her clear introduction of the Bill. She will not expect me, or for that matter many on these Benches, or, dare I say it, many on the other Benches in this House, to agree with all, or even much, of what she had to say about the Bill. In fact, I believe she is only too well aware that we do not like the Bill at all and do not agree with large parts of it. I particularly disagreed with her allegations that there was no added value and no benefit to the less well off; her implication that it was some sort of middle class "scam"; and her allegation that there was no parental choice. Those are matters to which we shall return in due course.
As my right honourable friend Mrs Shephard, then Shadow Education and Employment Secretary, put it in another place, this is "a mean little Bill". It is a further measure driven purely by dogma. Anyone who thinks that old Labour is dead need look no further than this Bill to see that it is very much alive and still flourishing in the heart of Labour's educational establishment.
Nevertheless, as always, I desire to be constructive and helpful. I shall therefore begin by saying a little about matters on which we can agree, and about the framework that we have left behind for the party opposite, on which, if they are so minded, they can continue to build and raise standards, as we have done over the past 18 years.
As I made clear in the debate on the Address, I believe that we achieved much over those 18 years. Much of it was structural and much related to delegating greater autonomy to the schools themselves. But the theme underlying all that we did was the attempt to

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create greater parental choice and greater diversity, and thereby apply the best of all possible pressures to an ever continuing raising of standards.
In the course of that debate, I asked a number of questions pertinent to the Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, winding up for the Government, described it as an inordinate number of questions. I have to say that I feel that it was positively "ordinate", in that there were only six questions relating to this Bill. A number of others related to other educational matters.
In the course of her reply the noble Baroness responded to one, possibly two, of those questions. That is fair enough. It must be for the noble Baroness to make her own speech and to decide just how many of the points put during the course of debate can be answered. I do not object to that. However, I feel that the questions I asked, especially those relating to this Bill, ought to be answered in due course by letter. It is now over a month since that debate and I still await a response to the various unanswered questions, in particular those relating to the abolition of the assisted places scheme.
In making that complaint I do not wish to imply any criticism of the officials within the Department for Education and Employment; as one who served there, I know how conscientious they are. However, Ministers should ensure that replies are made within a suitable time and in this case should ensure that the valid points which I and other noble Lords made a month before the Second Reading of this Bill are properly answered. We are now at Second Reading and I imagine that some of my noble friends are in the position—and I certainly am—that many of our legitimate inquiries have not been dealt with. We shall have to explore them in considerable detail at Committee stage and beyond.
I sought an assurance that the Bill would receive proper and correct scrutiny in both Houses of Parliament and that the proper time limits would be observed. I was given an assurance that that would be the case. It seems that that will be the case in this House, and I am grateful for that. But the somewhat indecent haste with which the Bill was rushed through another place was hardly in keeping with the spirit behind the assurance that I was given by the noble Baroness and it means that we shall have to examine the Bill with considerable care at Committee stage and beyond.
As I said, we believe this to be a mean and nasty little Bill, very much in keeping with the egalitarian dogma of old Labour that if not everyone can have something, no one can have it. We recognise though that—sadly, misguidedly—they have a very clear mandate for the Bill and for that reason alone we shall not oppose its Second Reading in this House. However, we have a number of legitimate concerns which we seek to put to the Government and which we believe they must answer before the Bill goes onto the statute book.
Perhaps I may start with the drafting of the Bill. We were told by the noble Baroness during the debate on the Address that the reduction of class sizes for five, six and seven year-olds would be financed by the abolition of the assisted places scheme. That is also stated on the face of the Bill to be its purpose. During
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its passage through another place my right honourable and honourable friends were unable to elicit from Her Majesty's Government the details of the mechanisms to ensure that the money saved would be used in that way. I therefore believe that the Bill is skeletal and that, if the policy of reducing class sizes is to succeed, there will necessarily have to be further alterations to legislation surrounding, in particular, admissions procedures—namely, limiting parental choice. I therefore hope that the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee will look carefully at this measure and that Her Majesty's Government will, as we did when we were in government, note and act on any comments made by that committee.
My second point relates to the financial implications of abolition. The total cost of the scheme is currently some £134 million. Some 38,000 children benefit, at an average cost of something like £3,600. The noble Baroness seems to be saying that virtually all of that will be saved, ignoring the fact that those 38,000 children will have to be catered for in the maintained sector. In the debate on the Address the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, spoke of £20 million to £50 million being saved by 1998–99 or 1999–2000. In another place Mr. Stephen Byers (Official Report, Commons, 2/6/97; col. 111) gave a figure of some £100 million being "freed up", as he put it, by the year 2000. No doubt other figures will be given on other occasions. But there seems to be a distinct lack of precision about what might be saved and absolutely no recognition of the extra costs of bringing the assisted places scheme children back into the maintained sector. We are simply told that there are 800,000 surplus places, the implication being that there will be no extra costs. But where are those 800,000 surplus places? Are they where the assisted places children are? Are they in popular, successful schools? And are they genuinely surplus or merely notional?
That brings me to my third point, which relates to parental choice and admissions. The Bill removes one aspect of parental choice. The noble Baroness, in suggesting that there will be no extra costs in that the surplus places can be used, implies that she will not allow the good, popular schools to expand. Parents are therefore unlikely even to get their second choice; the choice will be limited to those failing schools burdened with surplus places which the LEA wishes to support artificially, thereby placating their friends among the militants of the teaching unions. Parents who now have their first choice in the assisted places scheme will be denied that choice, will probably not even get their second choice, the popular maintained school, but will be driven to a third or fourth choice.
Fourthly, can we hear a little more about how the savings will lead to smaller class sizes? I believe that the noble Baroness will be aware of the research by the Institute of Public Finance, whose estimates show that:
"Eliminating all classes exceeding 30 for 5, 6 and 7 year-olds would cost about £65 million annually, with an additional estimated £100 million in capital costs—but only if action was taken simultaneously to restrict admissions to primary schools.
Government savings from phasing out the assisted places scheme would amount, after seven years, to no more than £49 million annually (once the cost of educating pupils in state schools instead had been taken into account).

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Phasing out assisted places as pupils leave school would only release savings in stages: no savings would be likely before 1998–99, when a mere £13 million would be saved.
Since the annual savings from the assisted places scheme would only reach their maximum levels in 2004/5, the re-allocation of funds to cutting class sizes would have an accumulated deficit of more than £250 million by then".
I therefore ask the noble Baroness whether the Government will go further in restricting the admissions policy of primary schools. That matter is not addressed in the Bill but is implicit in it and must therefore be addressed by the Government during the Bill's passage through this House.
Fifthly, I should like to come on to New Labour's first and clearest broken promise, not alluded to by the noble Baroness—namely, the broken promise to the 11 year-olds. Before the election we had from Mr. Peter Kilfoyle, a Front Bench spokesman on education—though we understand that he has now been sent off to the outer darkness of the Office of Public Service—an absolutely clear assurance that, if a child had an assisted place at a school which takes children to the age of 13, that place would be honoured until the child was 13. After the election, on 22nd May, in a Department for Education and Employment circular, it was stated that in fact children under the age of 11 would only stay on until the end of their primary education, i.e. 11. That was an absolutely clear breach of a pre-election promise. Since then we have had a partial re-think from the Government and we are now told that some children will be allowed to stay on, but only at the Secretary of State's discretion. I hope that during the course of the Bill we can hear from the noble Baroness that, in keeping with the promise made by her honourable friend, all can, as of right, stay on until 13.
Further, would the noble Baroness clarify what is meant by the "end of primary education" in those LEAs with middle schools? Would children be affected at nine or 13? That is another point that we shall wish to explore later on in the passage of the Bill.
I also understand that there will be anomalies facing some 10 and 11 year-olds in Scotland. Those are detailed matters on which I do not seek assurances at the moment, nor do I feel that it would be appropriate to go into such detail at Second Reading. But I can give an assurance to the noble Baroness that we shall want some explanations at Committee stage. She might possibly want to ask her noble friend Lord Sewel for the Scottish Office to attend on some of those occasions, as we believe that his presence will be necessary to deal with the Scottish matters in the Bill, this being a Bill which affects England and Wales and Scotland.
Those are just a few of the points that the Government must answer. There are many more which will be raised by my noble friends in the course of this afternoon and many more that we shall wish to raise at Committee stage and later. I could have said more about the benefits of the scheme to so many individuals over the years. No doubt many of my noble friends who have much more experience of this scheme will address those points in due course. Let me say how grateful I am that so many of my noble friends who have experience of the assisted places scheme and of how it has worked and
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benefited children from all areas will take part in the debate this afternoon. I know for a fact that there are many others who wished to speak but could not be present. For example, my noble friend Lord Carlisle of Bucklow, who was the Secretary of State who introduced the assisted places scheme some 16 years ago, told me that he unfortunately would be unable to be present today, though he hoped to take part in later stages of the Bill. He asked me to make it clear to the House that in his view abolition was a disaster which could only damage the educational prospects of many of our bright children who live in inner-city areas.
As I said, others will make that point forcefully. One can only hope that the Government will listen and show for once that New Labour is genuinely new and not merely the old, envy ridden, class hating, old Socialist dog.
3.52 p.m.
Lord Tope: My Lords, I do not want to follow too closely the noble Lord, Lord Henley, in his sentiments on the Bill. One of the pleasures for me in welcoming the Bill is that I shall not, year after year, have to come to this Chamber and think of new ways of explaining why we oppose the assisted places scheme. The Liberal Democrats have consistently opposed the assisted places scheme. It must therefore logically follow that we support a Bill which, broadly speaking, will phase out such a scheme.
In doing that, let me say very strongly and clearly that we are not in the least driven by dogma and envy, nor are we motivated by any opposition to independent schools—indeed, quite the opposite. I shall quote very briefly from the Liberal Democrat election manifesto—it is the only time that I shall do so—where we said about independent schools:
"We will forge a new partnership with the independent sector and we will encourage independent schools to work with state schools. We will phase out the Assisted Places Schemes and use the money saved to enable LEAs, if they wish, to enter into local partnership schemes. These could include assisting the funding of pupils at independent schools. Pupils currently covered by APS would, however, be protected until they finish their studies".
That is a positive view about a partnership with independent schools. It is not in any sense an opposition to independent schools. I believe that the Government committed themselves to increased partnership between the state sector and the independent sector and I look forward to hearing, either in today's debate or more likely perhaps in the White Paper that we shall shortly receive, exactly what that means.
Our objection is not to independent schools. It is to the assisted places scheme. The reasons for our objections to such schemes were very well described by the Minister in her opening speech. The scheme is centrally administered; it takes no account of local need; and there are large regional variations—if there is any doubt about that, there are the very interesting figures published in the research paper 97/70 which show enormous regional variations, tilted, perhaps not surprisingly, to the South-East of England and particularly I note to the county of Surrey: there are no

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less than 1,264 places within that county alone. The scheme takes no account of local need and is not administered locally.
As the Minister said, it is at the very least debatable and it is certainly my view that it does not help those who most need it. As she said, one-third of those people already on the assisted places scheme come to it from within the private sector. I do not wish to make a sweeping judgment of all of those people but it must be true, as the Minister suspects, that many of them probably could afford to be in the private sector. Certainly, they are in a mind set which prefers the private sector to the state sector and I question whether that is a proper use of public funds. Also, it is not usually the best way to help those who are most in need of help from the state. Perhaps that is a point that we shall develop further.
I also question whether the scheme provides value for money. As the Minister explained and as I believe is well known, the costs per pupil in the assisted places scheme are dramatically greater than the money provided for those in the state scheme. I should here perhaps declare an interest as a leader of a council which is a local education authority. I find it iniquitous to have to explain to parents, when occasionally I do, why, as a local education authority, we receive barely half what is given to a pupil who has the good fortune perhaps to attend with an assisted place. Above all, however, the objection to the assisted places scheme is that using taxpayers' money to subsidise independent schools is simply not a proper and best use of public money.
Since the general election and the Labour victory and the very clear commitment to abolishing the assisted places scheme, I have come to realise, as I previously suspected, that maybe the scheme is not necessary either. I note with interest, as will other noble Lords, that since the election a number of independent schools, which genuinely, I believe, have a commitment to helping those whose parents cannot afford to pay the fees, have been making their own arrangements. Most notably, perhaps, the Girls Public Day School Trust has already announced that it will be preserving its 3,000 places to assist pupils to attend its schools without paying the full fees. Other schools are making similar arrangements and similar announcements. I welcome that. Good luck to them. But it seems to me to illustrate that it is not necessary to be using taxpayers' money for those purposes. It is far better that the schools themselves should do it, if that is the measure of their commitment.
I welcome the Bill and support the commitment to phasing out the scheme, as we did in our election manifesto. It is obviously right to honour commitments made to those pupils who are already in the scheme or who will be in the scheme from September this year. At this stage I come to the one point on which I do differ from the Government so far. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, quite rightly referred to it and it is perhaps the only part of his speech with which I agreed—I hope that that does not cause him too much distress—namely, the question of pupils in the scheme at preparatory schools which continue to provide education up to the age of 13.
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As the debate started, I was handed a letter, received by one of my noble friends, from which I want to quote just one paragraph. It is from a parent whose son has an assisted place at a preparatory school. He writes:
"My son's name is Joseph. He is seven years old and has an assisted place at [a school in] Swansea. If the new law is passed, I will have to explain to him why he can't stay in a school he has grown to love. He will have to be told that when all his friends move up to year six he will not be joining them. The teachers who have guided him in his academic development will no longer support him. What the government doesn't seem to have considered is that not all independent schools are arranged into two separate entities".
I felt that that letter put the dilemma very well. As has already been said, Mr. Peter Kilfoyle, when he was an education spokesman, on 1st April said very clearly and unequivocally:
"If a child has a place at a school which runs to 13, then that place will be honoured through to 13".
Since that time we have had, I must say, muddle and confusion from the Government as to exactly what they do mean, which has, I am sad to say, been characterised by weasel words about discretion and so on. I had hoped, following the intervention of the Prime Minister at Prime Minister's Question Time after the Third Reading of the Bill in another place, that today the Minister might clarify the position more fully. But she said that it is subject to discretion; that people like the author of the letter from which I quoted will have to apply individually; and that the Minister will have to consider each and every case separately. In my view that is simply not good enough. A clear commitment was given specifically for children through to the age of 13, with a more general commitment that we would honour the assisted places scheme for those already in it, and that must include the children about whom we are talking. There are a relatively small number of such children but it is important to them. I hope that the Government, during the course of the passage of the Bill through your Lordships' House, will think again about that.
It is stated in the Financial Memorandum that the objective of the Bill is to reduce infant school class sizes in the maintained sector. I understand that the Government have said it is their objective to reduce the numbers to no more than 30 by the end of this Parliament—presumably the year 2002—for infant classes, for children aged five, six and seven. Liberal Democrats too share that objective. Indeed, we would go further; as is well known, we would have done it by the famous penny on tax and would have provided for the reduction of class sizes in all primary schools.
When I made that point in the debate on the Queen's Speech in your Lordships' House, at the end of the debate the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, rounded on me and accused me of being typical old Labour. After the debate I was poached by many on the Government Benches and welcomed with open arms. I was fully expecting to be given an application form at any time. I do not regard that in the least as old Labour and, indeed, as an old Young Liberal I feel that the insult was perhaps well intended. I regard it as common sense. I acknowledge immediately, as I did in that debate, that without doubt the greatest benefit of small classes comes in the earliest years and that

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if there has to be a priority, then priority given to five, six and seven year-olds is clearly right. I therefore support that.
My concern is what happens to those children when they are aged seven, eight, nine and so forth. Let me declare two interests. First, I am married to a primary school teacher; secondly, I am a governor of a junior school which takes children from the ages of seven to 11. If the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, or others feel that class sizes do not matter at those ages, then I say to him: ask any teacher. Ask any teacher if they think that class sizes do not matter. Ask any parent if that is their view. The noble Lord will hold a very different view.
Let me say straight away that a smaller class does not immediately convert a bad teacher into a good teacher; of course it does not. But a smaller class enables a good teacher to teach better and to be able to give much closer individual attention to the pupils. That matters at the age of seven onwards nearly as much as it does before the age of seven.
Therefore I welcome the Government's Bill. I welcome the objective of the Bill, even though I feel it is too limited. But I have to say, in conclusion, that I am extremely doubtful as to whether the Government's arithmetic will add up and whether the money to be saved from the assisted places scheme will achieve the objective desired. Indeed, I note the subtle wording that Ministers use as the debate continues which tends to indicate that they too are coming to that conclusion. They are now talking about "contributing to" rather than "achieving". It is a contribution I welcome.
There are hugely different estimates as to what will be the net savings from the assisted places scheme. We shall probably not know that until there are actual figures available. There are also widely-ranging estimates of what the full cost of the reduction in class sizes will be. By that I mean not just the additional teachers, but also all the associated costs. It is all very well to say that there are 800,000 surplus places; but not all of those are in the schools which will need to accommodate additional pupils. Those savings will need to be carefully monitored, as will the progress—if there is progress—towards smaller class sizes, and we will return to that later in the consideration of the Bill.
I speak now, as a leader of a council and a local education authority, with great trepidation that in the first year, perhaps the first two years, we are more likely to go in the opposite direction. The Government's adherence to Tory spending plans and even more so to keeping to the plans not only in total, but within departments, looks as though it will mean a bad settlement for local government this year. If local government this year receives a bad settlement then inevitably schools will suffer.
I fear that the first full year of a Labour Government will not lead to a reduction in class sizes for anyone. It will actually mean even larger class sizes and even fewer teachers. I shall look with considerable interest at how matters develop in the months before the revenue support grant settlement. I do not doubt the Government's commitment to smaller class sizes; I simply doubt their will to put that commitment into practice.
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But that is for the future. For now, with the proviso I made, we are pleased with the Bill, and for the first time in your Lordships' House I am able to give an almost unqualified welcome to an education Bill.

The Denver Summit
4.6 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister on the summit of the Eight held at Denver last weekend. I have placed in the Library of the House the communiqué and the other documents issued following the summit.
The Statement is as follows:
"One of the most stimulating discussions at Denver was on the need for structural reform in all our economies. Different countries face somewhat different problems. But we all face the challenge of how to take advantage of increasing globalisation and provide new job opportunities. In many countries, unemployment—particularly among young people—is far too high. We need to combine greater labour market flexibility with action to improve work incentives, skills and employability, and reduce the risk of marginalisation. There was a welcome for the United Kingdom's plan to take forward work on this at a meeting of G8 finance and social affairs Ministers in London early next year and then at the Birmingham summit.
"We also discussed the problem of transnational organised crime, which is a growing preoccupation for all of us. Crime is becoming increasingly sophisticated and international, and criminals will quickly exploit the newest technologies to evade detection. We must fight them on their own ground, developing greater international co-operation and new techniques to match the threat. Over the coming months we shall work up specific proposals on co-operation against crime, including drug-trafficking and financial crime, which we can consider in detail at next year's summit.
"In Denver, the finance Ministers reported on the progress they had made on measures to increase financial stability. My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will lead the follow-up next year on plans to improve further co-operation between financial supervisors.
"The summit focused particular attention on Africa. We agreed on the need to combat poverty through debt relief, improved market access and support for education. The priority is to focus assistance where it is most needed and will reap most benefit—that is, to those countries which are introducing economic reforms and which respect the principles of human rights and good governance. We emphasised the importance of not wasting money on unproductive, especially military, expenditure and of combating corruption. I announced that Britain would, over the

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next three years, increase by 50 per cent. our support for primary education, basic health care and clean water in sub-Saharan Africa.
"We discussed UN reform and welcomed the Secretary General's efforts. We encouraged him to undertake a system-wide review of the UN and its agencies. We agreed on the need to develop the UN's ability to prevent and resolve conflicts. And we all recognised the needs to solve the UN's funding crisis as soon as possible.
"The leaders of the Seven also agreed to provide 300 million US dollars towards the cost of restoring the sarcophagus over the Chernobyl reactor to prevent any further leak of radioactive material.
"I was pleased to get the strong support of all other leaders for our views on Hong Kong. The communiqué underlined the G8' s durable interest in Hong Kong's stability and prosperity and looked forward to democratic elections there for a new legislature as soon as possible.
"Foreign Ministers discussed a number of regional and global issues and presented a detailed report to heads. The summit issued a separate statement on Bosnia, reaffirming our commitment to the peace agreement and backed efforts to achieve a lasting settlement in Cyprus. The communiqué also records unanimous support for progress towards a legally binding international agreement to ban anti-personnel landmines.
"I welcome Russia's participation as a major partner in the summit of the Eight. President Yeltsin played a fuller role than ever before and we agreed to continue our efforts to help Russia integrate into the global economic system. Russia will shortly be participating as a creditor in the Paris Club.
"We naturally devoted considerable time in Denver to environmental issues, many of which are being followed up at the UN General Assembly special session which opened yesterday. There is much we need to do to improve the environment we live in. Cleaner air, cleaner water, less congestion and better use of scarce resources are things that matter to all of us. And, in developing countries, alleviating poverty is the key to sustainable development. We are committed over time to reverse the decline in Britain's development assistance that occurred under the previous government.
"Much of the public attention though has focused on efforts to tackle the threat of global warming. We made some progress at Denver, which I hope to see consolidated at the UN session in New York. Everyone accepted that, by the time of the Kyoto conference later this year, we must agree binding targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions beyond the year 2000. As the House will know, the European Union has already put forward proposals for a target reduction of 15 per cent. in greenhouse gases by the year 2010. The British Government have indicated their readiness to go further. We are already likely to achieve a reduction of 10 per cent. in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2000.
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"Such targets are tough but achievable—achievable by the sorts of policies that are sensible in their own right: an integrated transport policy that makes public transport more attractive and gets traffic flowing more smoothly; increasing the use of renewable forms of energy; improving energy efficiency in firms and the public sector up to the standards of the best, and increasing the use of combined heat and power; and improving energy efficiency in homes, for example, through promoting self-financing schemes by the energy suppliers.
"Measures aimed at producing environmental benefits are often seen as burdensome or unachievable when they are first proposed, but experience shows that sensible measures produce sensible results, as we saw with measures to promote the use of unleaded petrol, for example.
"We also discussed a number of other key environmental issues, including the need to work for an international agreement on forests with suitably high standards. We also discussed how to increase access to clean water and sanitation, and how to improve international co-ordination of efforts to protect oceans and to manage fisheries.
"This was my first G8 Summit and I was struck by how much better the discussions were when we had time to focus on the key issues common to all our countries. Next year I want to take that further and concentrate on fewer issues in greater depth. In some senses it will mean a return to the original concept of G7 and G8 summits, using the opportunity for informal but substantive discussions.
"At Birmingham, I want in particular to concentrate on two subjects: the issue of jobs and employability and the challenge posed by organised crime. The first will also be a major theme of our presidency of the European Union in the first half of next year. Both are of central importance in all the G8 countries.
"I am grateful to the President of the United States for his hospitality at the Denver summit this year and to the authorities there. I am also grateful to the people of Birmingham for agreeing to host next year's summit, which I am confident will be an equal success."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
4.14 p.m.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I and the whole House are grateful to the Lord Privy Seal for repeating the Statement. Indeed, I am sure the House will agree that there is a great deal to welcome in the Statement. For instance, it is clear that the involvement of Russia in the G7 context—now the G8—is to be welcomed, and it is something for which the previous Government worked as assiduously as their successors.
We welcome the Statement on organised crime, with which we could not disagree in any material respect. We also welcome the firm line on human rights in Hong Kong. We will watch with sympathy the Government's efforts to make sure that those sentiments are translated into fact.

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We also greatly welcome the remarks about improved market access as far as third world products are concerned. Everyone in your Lordships' House will be aware that trade, rather than aid, is a more dignified and effective way of helping third world countries. We will be extremely interested to know to what extent the Prime Minister and the Government are able to make sure that these principles are translated into action as far as our European partners are concerned. I would be grateful for any comment that the Lord Privy Seal could make in that respect.
We also welcome the remarks that the noble Lord has made about UN reform. I am sure it is something which he in particular, with his experience, will welcome.
We welcome, too, the Prime Minister's continued understanding, certainly apparent from his rhetoric, of how to tackle and reduce unemployment, which all of us agree is the principal internal evil affecting the countries of the European Union—other European Union countries at the moment, fortunately, rather than our own. It is striking that the theme of the Denver Summit was the success of what, in shorthand, has come to be known as the Anglo-Saxon economic model of low tax, low regulation and free labour markets, as against the Rhineland model of high taxation and high regulation. It therefore seems to this side of the House all the more extraordinary, in view of the Prime Minister's rhetoric, and in particular the rhetoric he deployed recently to his socialist colleagues in that remarkable speech in Malmö, that he has agreed to the social chapter at the Amsterdam summit.
One thing the Government will need to make clear is whether there is any difference in their approach in government from their approach in opposition. In government we need to see a match between actions and words rather than merely sticking to the rhetoric.
It is all very well to sign the Denver communiqué and its pious declarations about greater deregulation and responsive labour markets, but is it sensible at the same time to plan restrictions on working time, more regulation in the work place and a minimum wage, if the minimum wage is to be at a level to make a significant difference both to the unemployment rate and to the income of the people who will benefit from it? The time will come when that choice has to be made. I hope that the Government will look to the realities with which business has to grapple in the competitive world in which the Government admit we live. We must not merely be addicted to headlines, however Messianic and attractive the rhetoric may be.
If I may pass to environmental matters, perhaps I should declare a commercial interest as a shareholder and a former chairman of a company involved in developing emission control technologies. The reality is that, for all the grandiose speeches, the Denver and New York summits clearly failed to produce agreement, notably between the United States and other countries. This is in interesting contrast to the Rio summit five years ago, when my right honourable friend Mr. John Major played such a distinguished, if less public, role. I hope that we will see more concrete results over the coming five years in the wake of this summit.
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Is the Lord Privy Seal aware that the United Kingdom is one of only three countries which have met the Rio targets? That, of course, is entirely the responsibility and achievement of the preceding government. I hope that the Lord Privy Seal will give some credit not only to the previous government but also to my right honourable friend Mr. John Gummer for his extraordinary efforts in that regard. I am grateful to the Government Deputy Chief Whip for his multi-partisan approach to this matter.
I am particularly concerned by a statement in a Labour Party document that,
"Labour does not accept that the market mechanism is inherently superior to regulation".
I wonder whether the Lord Privy Seal will accept that there is at least a respectable argument to suggest that in the field of the environment that may be precisely wrong. We can look at the record of the German Government, who were one of the leaders, and much to their credit, in the field of pollution regulation. One of the difficulties of imposing limits is that once the limits have been reached by the people who are concerned with them there is no longer an incentive to spend money on research and development into new technologies in order to make the performance of pollution control more effective still.
Can the Lord Privy Seal give us the Government's view about future regulation regimes both in this country and worldwide? Does he think that there is merit, for instance, in introducing in this country, and encouraging other countries to introduce, such devices as tradeable credits, which introduce flexibility of this kind and which can produce incentives through the regulatory regimes to make sure that there is an incentive to invest in new technologies so that the bare achievement of basic standards can be exceeded rather than merely achieved?
Can the noble Lord also tell the House whether during the course of the Prime Minister's visit to the United States he took the opportunity to have conversations with the World Bank and other institutions providing credit facilities to the third world, where most of the greenhouse gases will be emitted during the course of industrialisation over the coming decades, and whether there might be some possibility of encouraging the World Bank and its allied institutions to make, as part of their loan agreements, conditions for pollution control before money is disbursed?
I have a feeling that the rhetoric coming out of the Government at the moment, not only from the Denver summit but also from the Prime Minister's meetings in New York, is merely softening up this country for an increase in taxes on the back of a desire, above all, to attach that increase in taxes to the motherhood and apple pie of green issues. If that is so, I hope that the Lord Privy Seal will be able to tell us whether he recognises that that really will not do. It is at least possible that higher taxes could have exactly the opposite result of what the Government's rhetoric suggests and that it may well be that the new technologies that are increasingly available to us now can be used as a cheap method of achieving far more effectively what higher taxes can achieve.

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If you are Prime Minister you do not have to make casual remarks about issues of such gravity affecting many millions of people, all private motorists and many branches of industry. I hope the House will recognise that there must be a clearly thought out policy. In that context perhaps I may say that there appears to be a measure of confusion between some reports and the Statement that the Lord Privy Seal has so kindly repeated to us today as to what the Government's targets are. For instance, I note that the Prime Minister backed an EU target of reducing CO2 emissions to 15 per cent. below 1990 levels by 2010. He was also reported elsewhere as setting a higher unilateral target of a 20 per cent. cut by 2010. Are those reports correct? Is this target purely for CO2 emissions or is it for, as the Statement implies, all greenhouse gases? This, as the House will realise, is important because it is infinitely more difficult to achieve that reduction for CO, emissions rather than for all greenhouse gases. I should be grateful if the Lord Privy Seal could explain that for us.
I hope also that he will be able to explain for us how these emission cuts will be achieved. Will this mean an alteration in the Labour Party's traditional support for coal? Will he be looking at road tolling? Will the use of private cars be restricted, or are the public just being softened up yet again for unjustifiable tax increases in the Budget?
Denver also looked to co-operation on solutions for the costs of ageing populations. Is it not true that, thanks to previous governments, Britain has far better funded private pensions than any other European nation? Against the background of the Denver summit, would it not be astonishing to contemplate changing corporate taxation and reforming ACT in such a way as to cut pension fund income? I hope that the Lord Privy Seal will be able to reassure us today that he will be making clear the danger of tinkering with ACT to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in advance of the Budget and that if he fails in that endeavour he will explain to the pensioners of this country the danger to the size of their pensions that tinkering with ACT represents.
There is much to be welcomed in the Statement but, as so often with the Government's record in their short tenure of office so far, their declarations raise infinitely more questions than they answer.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, I thank the Lord Privy Seal for repeating this important Statement. Like the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, I should like to associate these Benches with what was said about help to Africa, the statement on Hong Kong, Bosnia and Cyprus, and to welcome the increased participation of Russia.
There are three issues on which I should like to ask questions. Two of them were dealt with by the noble Viscount. The first is the question of unemployment. Fortunately, unemployment is diminishing in this country, although it is still at a very high level in some other EU countries. The Government were quite right to emphasise that greater market flexibility has to be associated with skills training and employability. Those
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are crucial to continuing the progress already made. It would be helpful to know whether, in advance of further discussing these matters with their international partners at the Birmingham summit, the Government will be putting forward proposals that we can discuss in this House.
The second issue is financial stability, which is obviously of crucial importance but was dealt with very briefly in the Statement. It merely said that the Finance Ministers had already discussed this and that there would be further discussions between what are described as financial supervisors. That makes it sound rather technical. Is it more substantial than that or is it merely a question of supervisors getting together to see how they would supervise financial flows or the movement of money which has originated from doubtful sources? I should be grateful if this could be expanded on a little because it is an important issue.
Finally, there is the environmental question. I am very pleased that the Prime Minister should have put so much emphasis on this not only in the G8 Conference but also in his remarks yesterday to the United Nations in New York. I am glad that the United Kingdom intends to take a lead in this matter and that in addition to the proposal from the EU for a 15 per cent. emission reduction by the year 2010, we have put forward the proposal for a 20 per cent. reduction. What we should like to know is how this will be achieved. Here again I hope that before this is debated further with the heads of state at the G8 Conference in Birmingham next year we shall have a full opportunity of hearing the Government's views on the two major issues which the Prime Minister identified as leading to this desirable result; namely, a more efficient, integrated transport system and improvements in the efficient use of energy and encouragement for the use of renewables.
These are three issues which have been under consideration for many years and on which a good deal of progress has already been made. But in order to achieve this challenging objective which the Government have rightly set, we have to recognise that although the year 2010 may sound a long way off, it is only another 13 years away. If the structural changes to the environmental scene have to be put in place by then we have to start very soon indeed. If we are going to do that, then we need to know how we are going to set about it.
Therefore, generally speaking, we welcome the Statement. We are very pleased that these issues will be taken up again in Birmingham. However, in view of the importance of the environmental issues, I am not clear why the Prime Minister should have left that subject off the agenda for Birmingham. He stated that the agenda would deal with employment and organised crime. There is a very strong case for the environmental problems to be taken further at that meeting to which the Prime Minister so effectively referred recently.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I am grateful for at least some of what the noble Viscount and the noble Lord said. I thought that the noble Viscount was doing rather well in making the first eight or 10 points that I noted,

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but he then veered off track and became somewhat carping. Indeed, at one stage I felt that he was a trifle patronising.
Baroness Blatch: Can't take it!
Lord Richard: Oh dear me!
Viscount Cranborne: I would not dare.
Lord Richard: My Lords, whatever the verb is, no doubt to patronise is in the eye of the beholder, as all kinds of other things are.
I was asked a number of detailed questions by the noble Viscount and perhaps I may give some detailed and authorised answers. As regards tradeable credits, we have to look at this matter as part of the Kyoto negotiations. They may well have a part to play, but they cannot be used as an excuse for countries not taking domestic action. I was asked about financial stability. It is a technical subject, which has been discussed in depth by G8 experts. The aim is simple. It is to create co-ordinating supervisors who will monitor financial transactions and prevent irregularities which can remain hidden in increasingly complex international transactions.
I was asked whether the proposed follow up discussions by my right honourable friend the Chancellor will be only with supervisors. No, it is about supervisors and making sure that supervision is better co-ordinated. The schema, if I can put it that way, is that that should take place at the beginning of next year and then obviously the matter will come back to the summit in Birmingham.
The noble Viscount seemed a little afraid that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister did not give the previous government any credit. He asked me whether I would give the previous government some credit for what they had done about the gas emissions target. My right honourable friend said to the UN General Assembly:
"I attacked the last British government for many things. But they did deliver on the greenhouse gas emission targets set at Rio. Some other countries cannot say the same including some of the great industrialised nations. To them I say this: our targets will not be taken seriously by the poorer countries until the richer countries are meeting them".
I hope that the forum of the United Nations General Assembly is sufficiently public to satisfy even the noble Viscount.
I was asked specifically what my right honourable friend said about emissions at the General Assembly. Perhaps I should read what he said, which is the simple way of doing it. He said,
"Perhaps the most worrying problem is climate change. If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unabated, by the year 2100 global temperatures will have gone up 1 to 3.5 degrees centigrade and sea levels risen by perhaps as much as a metre. Some small islands are seriously at risk. So the EU has proposed the new and challenging target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions in developed countries to 15% below their 1990 level by the year 2010. In Britain we would he ready to go further to a 20% target".
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As the noble Viscount pointed out, Britain's record, I am happy to acknowledge, is good. Compared to 1990 we have reduced emissions by 10 per cent. already. Therefore, we are well on track for the reduction of 15 per cent. by the year 2010, which is the proposal, as the noble Viscount knows, of the European Union as a whole. We believe that we can do better than that. We can reduce the figure by 20 per cent. without engaging in any of the rather drastic measures which the noble Viscount delighted in putting up only to knock down. I have noticed over the years that that is one of the favourite ploys, but an affectionate one, if I may put it that way, used by the noble Viscount. When in trouble he erects an Aunt Sally which he proposes to knock down. As the noble Viscount knows and as my right honourable friend has said on a number of occasions. the way to achieve the target is by the methods set out specifically in the Statement.
My right honourable friend refers in the Statement to four specific matters. One of these is,
"an integrated transport policy that makes public transport more attractive and gets traffic flowing more smoothly".
The noble Viscount will know that a White Paper is in preparation on that matter.
The Statement mentions
"increasing the use of renewable forms of energy".
I do not believe that anyone in the House will question that.
There is reference to,
"improving energy efficiency in firms and the public sector up to the standards of the best, and increasing the use of combined heat and power".
We had a Question about combined heat and power at Question Time today in which the Government expressed support for the concept.
Finally, the Statement mentions,
"improving energy efficiency in homes, for example through promoting self-financing schemes by the energy suppliers".
If those measures are enacted, we believe we can achieve the 20 per cent. reduction by the year 2010.
Any matter concerning taxation is for my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am learning quite quickly what a delight that sentence is when standing at the Government Dispatch Box. I am sure that my right honourable friend the Chancellor will read with great interest what has been said in the House today and will take such account of it as he believes appropriate and sensible.
There was considerable discussion at the summit about the ageing population, particularly the idea of active ageing. When I read the communiqué, it seemed to me that in some ways your Lordships' House is a very good example of what was being talked about. The communiqué states:
"We discussed the idea of 'active aging'—the desire and ability of many older people to continue work or other socially productive activities well into their later years, and agreed that old stereotypes of seniors as dependent should be abandoned … We discussed how our nations can promote active aging of our older citizens with due regard to their individual choices and circumstances, including removing disincentives to labor force participation and lowering barriers to flexible and part-time employment that exist in some countries".

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It seems to me that your Lordships' House might provide a good case study of active ageing.
To be a little more serious for a moment, we believe that the summit was a success. As the noble Viscount said, we believe it important that Russia was involved. We believe it will be increasingly important that Russia becomes more involved. It is true that environmental targets were not reached at Denver. The important time for targets to be reached and accepted by other countries is at Kyoto. There is a commitment in the communiqué that those targets will have to be expressed in time for the Kyoto summit.
4.40 p.m.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, the speeches that followed the Statement were the kind of speeches that could have emanated from any mutual admiration society. For my part, I detect only one positive sentence in the Statement. It is a sentence with which I wholeheartedly agree and it is one that I hope will come to fruition and give satisfaction. But for that sentence, which I will enlarge upon in a moment, the Statement is a series of generalisations tacked together which add up to almost nothing. The positive sentence that is good and should be watched indicates that the Prime Minister has recognised the generality of the remainder of the Statement. He says that at future summits he will try hard to see that the discussions concentrate upon definite points that can be debated in detail and amount to something. That is important, and I approve of it. I hope that he will be successful in bringing that about. Often one is faced with anodyne Statements such as that before us today. It could be nothing else. I do not criticise the Prime Minister for presenting nothing; he did rather well. Too often particularly on matters that emanate from European summits one hears general speeches that tell one nothing, only to find months later that the country has been committed to one detail or another that is antagonistic to the good of the UK. Therefore, if there is one positive sentence saying that there will be detailed discussion, that makes the Statement worth listening to because it means something. That is good. It is a sentence of which I heartily approve.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord is disappointed. However, the mere fact that he cannot disagree with the Statement does not make it of no consequence. If one looks at the Statement and the communiqué one sees a good deal of meat. Of course, one does not find total agreement. One would not expect that. My right honourable friend says that this is the first G8 summit that he has attended and he has recognised that it did best, if I may put it inelegantly, when it had time to concentrate and focus on a particular subject. Therefore, he will try next year in Birmingham to focus on two, which I believe most people agree is a sensible way to proceed.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, I hope that he will succeed.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Lord for clarification on a very
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important and welcome point made in the Statement; namely, the 300 million dollars that is to be spent on the sarcophagus at Chernobyl. My understanding of the situation is that there is already some commitment on behalf of the G7 countries to repair the sarcophagus. It would be helpful to know whether that is an additional or new commitment to repair the sarcophagus. If so, is the noble Lord able to give any indication of the contribution of the United Kingdom to the cost of that significant, albeit necessary, improvement because it is still in a very dangerous condition?
Lord Richard: My Lords, I shall try to find the precise page in the communiqué that assists the noble and learned Lord. I thought that I had flagged the page. I do not believe that it was a previously existing commitment. The Government of the Ukraine is grateful that 300 million dollars is to be made available. Help has now arrived. I am informed that G7 and other countries have already given some money to the Chernobyl clean up and the Ukraine energy sector, but this is new money to make the sarcophagus safe.

Education (Schools) Bill
4.45 p.m.
Second Reading debate resumed.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich: My Lords, in 1845 when Bishop Samuel Wilberforce took his seat in this House Prince Albert gave him the following advice:
"A Bishop ought to abstain completely from mixing himself up with the politics of the day, and beyond giving a general support to the Queen's government, should take no part in the discussion of state affairs".
That remains sound advice. The Prince, however, went on to say:
" … but he should come forward whenever the interests of humanity are at stake, and give boldly and manfully his advice to House and Country (I mean questions like the education of the people, the health of towns, measures for the recreation of the poor, et cetera)".
In the debate in reply to Her Majesty's most gracious Speech my brother prelate the Bishop of Ripon, who is chairman of the Church of England Board of Education, spoke supportively of the Government's commitment to education. I echo that support in general while disagreeing with the subject matter of this Bill. My right reverend brother, had he been able to attend the House today, would not altogether agree with what I am about to say. However, Christians can legitimately differ on many matters, as we do, and remain friends, as we do. Realistically, with the kind of majority that is at the disposal of the present Government, it would be naïve to hope to persuade them to change their mind about an issue to which they referred specifically in their election manifesto. However, there are certain considerations arising from the Government's proposals which I believe have not been given sufficient weight about which I wish to speak briefly.

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The Government's proposal concerning assisted places is inextricably linked to the reduction of class sizes in primary schools. No one doubts the rightness of their aims. It is the method with which I and many others are deeply unhappy. Educationally, the assisted places scheme has nothing whatever to do with primary school class sizes. The only link between them is money. The hope is that the savings made by abolishing the one will supply the needs of the other; in other words, the prime declared motive for the abolition of the assisted places scheme is economic. If there is a positive educational reason for so doing it is hard to discern. Quite apart from the doubts already expressed in many places about whether the sums involved add up, there is a moral as well as economic issue at stake in terms of the rightness of destroying something that on any analysis has benefited the education of many thousands of children.
I speak with some experience of these matters and, I trust, without prejudice. My children were educated, at both primary and secondary levels, at local authority and independent schools. They were well educated in both sectors. Two of them are now senior teachers, one in a comprehensive school and the other in an independent preparatory school. For some years before my translation to Norwich I was the Archbishop's adviser to the Headmasters' Conference, providing a link between the Church and the independent schools. Like many in your Lordships' House, I have been a governor of several schools in both sectors of education.
Many of us have sad memories of the abolition of direct grant schools. It was a decision that did little to improve education generally. On the contrary, frequently there was an adverse result when many such schools became fully independent. That resulted in the narrowing of the social spectrum from which the pupils for those schools came. Entry was not a matter only of academic promise but of the ability to pay. The assisted places scheme had the effect, to some extent, of reversing that unfortunate development. The result of its abolition will undoubtedly be, once again, to limit entry to independent schools to the children of parents who are wealthy enough to pay the fees. That is neither good for independent schools nor for educational standards generally.
To comment upon economic matters is perilous territory for anyone on these Benches, though in the past I crossed swords many times with the previous government on the subject of the iniquitous VAT charges on ancient buildings, as the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, knows well. At the risk of talking as a fool, I do not understand why the improvement of education in one sector must necessarily be at the cost of destroying another; why budgets are so self-contained within one department that it is impossible to devise some way of finding money from some other source. Furthermore, successive governments have underestimated the willingness of the British people to pay the necessary costs of good education. The success of the Liberal Democrats in the recent election may not have been
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due just to tactical voting but to their forthright policy of increasing taxation to raise standards in health and education.
As far as I am aware, the abolition of independent education is not on the Government's agenda. Therefore one may assume that the Government have a concern for the children who are educated in those schools. The independent schools are part of our educational system, and a significant part. There is a tradition, dating back to the earliest days when the Church founded many such institutions, of pioneering experiment and innovation which has benefited the whole field of education. That tradition of experiment and innovation is still very much alive, and still of potential benefit to schools of every kind.
That benefit was explicitly recognised recently by the Secretary of State, because he has enlisted Dulwich College and King Edward's School, Birmingham, to assist the Department for Education in a scheme to promote reading ability in state schools. It is ironic, to say the least, that a Government who acknowledge an important function for independent schools and wish to work in partnership with them, should, at the same time, wish to deprive certain children of the benefits of an education in schools which they clearly value.
There is a further related and final point that I want to make. The abolition of the assisted places scheme will inevitably stifle some aspects of the pioneering educational work of independent schools, because it will limit the intake of children to an ever narrower social spectrum, or, rather, economic spectrum.
Among the proper concerns of all education is not just academic achievement but the development of the whole person, which includes an appreciation of what it means to live in a society that is socially and racially mixed. The limitation of entry to independent schools will undermine that primary purpose. The independent schools will survive and probably thrive, but they will be the poorer, because they will become the exclusive preserve of the wealthy. That, in turn, will increase division in a society which the Government are pledged to unite.
Excellence in education is the Government's declared aim. Excellence consists of developing what is good and eliminating what is bad. What, one might ask, is intrinsically bad about the opening of educational opportunities in independent schools to those who would otherwise not be able to benefit from them? Neither excellence in education nor unity in society is best served by the destruction of that which is good.
4.55 p.m.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, this is a short and limited Bill. It represents a small part only of the measures which the new Labour Government, through their election manifesto, are pledged to make to improve our education system. The object of the Bill is simple. It is to phase out the assisted places scheme which the previous government introduced in 1981,

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and which was one of the first measures that has led to the present divisive and failing state education system.
It is a controversial Bill, because it reflects a fundamental difference between the philosophies of the present Government and the previous government. It concerns the many rather than the few. The priority of the new Labour Government is to raise standards of education for all our children, while the priority of the previous government was to provide, in their view, a superior provision for a small minority of children.
The purpose behind the Bill is to use the resources to help bring down class sizes for the half a million or so primary schoolchildren aged five to seven years in classes of more than 30. As my noble friend said, it is most important that that be done among the younger age group in the first instance.
Members opposite will no doubt criticise, as did their friends in another place, the move on the basis that it will not provide enough money to meet its objectives and, in any case, reducing class sizes, even in infant schools, will not solve all our education problems. Of course they may be right in some respects. but at least the Bill is a step in the right direction. It is a step in the process of doing just that: improving our education system. It is part of a comprehensive programme many of whose facets are already being put in place.
Questions have been raised about how much will be saved by the scheme. Experts are coming up with different figures as to how much will be saved. I am not going to quote any of those figures selectively. There is no doubt that there will be some savings. Of course, if the previous government had continued in office, they would have increased the number of assisted places, which means, as we project into the future, that an increased amount of money would have been spent on a few, and therefore the amount saved will increase.
Currently there are some 38,000 assisted places in the scheme. The numbers involved, as I said, were set to rise under the new government, and so too was the expenditure: from £117.5 million in the current financial year to something like £180 million in the year 1999–2000.
Members of the party opposite have also criticised the Bill on the basis that it will lead to overcrowding and increases in class sizes and will reduce parental choice. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, made quite a point about parental choice. Those arguments are fallacious, as is the whole concept of any meaningful parental choice for the great majority of parents.
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State believes that the children involved in the assisted places scheme can be absorbed into the state system. After all, what are we talking about? Of the 38,000 children currently involved, only 43 per cent. are on free places. For the remainder, there is some parental contribution, and as we have already heard this afternoon, one-third of the children already come from the private education sector. Therefore, one can
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assume that those and like-minded parents will attempt to keep their children in the system. In any case, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, many of the schools in the private sector are already seeking to build up funds to help provide bursaries for children. In effect, we are talking about the 10,000 or so pupils who would enter the scheme each year. It would be realistic to assume that approximately 50 per cent. of those pupils will remain in the private sector. Therefore, we are talking about an additional 5,000-odd pupils a year.
If the scheme is as successful as noble Lords opposite claim, those children should be evenly spread over the country, as are the 80,000 empty places within the existing provisions of the LEAs. Therefore, all could be easily accommodated. If the pupils are not so evenly spread, as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, indicated and as I suspect, and there are clusters in more prosperous areas, the scheme is flawed on grounds of geographical as well as educational discrimination. According to the Audit Commission report on supply and the allocation of school places published last autumn, one in six schools currently has more than 25 per cent. of places unfilled while one in five is more than 5 per cent. above the MOE capacity; that is the previous government's open enrolment measure of physical capacity.
That position has been getting worse. Between 1994–95. the percentage of secondary schools in which the numbers on roll exceeded the MOE test increased from 25 per cent. to 30 per cent. The secondary school population was projected to rise by 12 per cent. between 1996 and 2004. At primary school level in England, 31.8 per cent. of pupils are in classes of more than 30. The percentage increased in each year during the four years prior to the 1996 audit. However, we must ask by what standard the Opposition criticise the new Labour Government, bearing in mind that they left the state system in such a situation. What plans had they in place to cope with it? So far as I can see, none, except to transfer further money to the private sector through providing more assisted places. That is an expensive and increasingly divisive approach to a problem which, according to the Audit Commission, arose to a considerable extent as a result of the tensions and conflicts in the policy objectives of the previous government.
The Bill seeks to end a mistaken and inequitable use of education resources. It does not attempt to put in place alternative policies. Such policies will be outlined in the anticipated White Paper to which my noble friend referred and in the subsequent Bill, which we shall have in the autumn. I look forward to the introduction of that Bill. In the meantime, I welcome this Bill as an important means of paving the way.
5.4 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, the Bill comes as no surprise to us. It was well trailed during the general election campaign. Although we knew that it was coming early, it is nevertheless both nasty and

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mean-spirited. In that respect, I agree so much with my noble friend Lord Henley. It is extremely difficult to see it as other than a political sop.
It is indeed ironic that the Bill comes from a government led by a Prime Minister who was educated at Fettes—an excellent school, which takes assisted-place pupils—who during the general election campaign asked the British people to trust him and who looked for the support of the whole community. The Government have hardly been in office five minutes before introducing a piece of legislation which breaks a promise that was made quite clearly during the general election campaign. We shall expect during the course of the Bill to have a more satisfactory answer than we have yet received.
The Bill does not take into account the whole community; it leaves out the children in assisted places. The way in which they have been referred to today is in many ways disgraceful. They are real children in real schools; they are not just numbers on a list. I wonder how many of those who are so critical of the scheme have met any of them, have visited the schools and have seen how so many children have had opportunities and have benefited in ways that would not otherwise have been available. I do not believe that such children are being helped, although I for one would include them in "the community". I was interested in the points made by the right reverend Prelate about the fact that the Government have already asked the independent schools to give them help in raising standards.
We should not be surprised by the Bill. After all, it follows traditional Labour Party policy. I well recall the previous Labour Government abolishing the direct grant schools in 1976, when the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, was Secretary of State for Education. It would be difficult to argue that the abolition of the direct grant schools raised standards or helped the education of the people of this country. Undoubtedly, those schools were some of the academically best. Most scientists would agree that they produced a large proportion of this country's scientists and they were damaged by the ending of the direct grants.
Another untrue statement is that the assisted places scheme is a subsidy to the schools. The direct grant scheme was a subsidy to the schools, but those of us who were interested in trying to find a replacement looked to the assisted places scheme, which is a help to the pupils and not to the schools. It is difficult to believe that as a result of the Bill educational standards will rise.
I agree with the Minister on two points. We all want educational standards to rise and we would all like smaller class sizes. However, it is difficult to believe that the Bill will achieve either. There is no real link between the two points and, as my noble friend Lord Henley made clear, the sums do not add up. I shall not repeat the argument, because he made it plain, but I agree with what he said.
We know that independent schools have high academic standards. The figures are there for all to see. In 1995–96, 80 per cent. of 15 year-olds at
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independent schools gained five or more passes at grades A to C at GCSE, compared with an overall national average of 43 per cent. Furthermore, 80 per cent. of A-level pupils at independent schools gained three or more passes. The national average, including independent schools, was 58 per cent. No one can consider that that achievement is bad; it is what we want for all schools. It shows that independent schools offer high academic standards and parents would not choose to send their children to them if they did not.
Therefore, what is the point of the legislation? The Minister, in her concluding remarks, said that she objected to the assisted places scheme on principle. First, the argument is that parental choice is not enhanced. I did not follow the Minister's argument on that. It seemed to be that there is no parental choice because the schools determine who attends them. But all parental choice works like that. Indeed, the Prime Minister chose a grant-maintained school for his son, and I have no doubt that that school chooses whether to have the pupils who come to it. Moreover, when the Minister's right honourable friend, Ms Harman, chose to send her son to a grammar school, again such a school will choose whether it will admit the pupils who apply. That is not an absence of freedom of choice; it is the way that freedom of choice works.
We have also been told that assisted places have not been a ladder of opportunity. However, if one looks at the facts, it will be seen that 46 per cent. of assisted-place pupils come from socio-economic groups C2, D and E, with an additional 37 per cent. coming from socio-economic group C1. That means 83 per cent. are coming from what I do not believe anyone would describe as the richest section of society. As 11 per cent. of assisted-place pupils come from ethnic minorities, it seems to me that the scheme is providing a great service. About 42 per cent. of the places are free because the families concerned have an annual income of less than £9,873 and the average annual income of assisted-place families is £10,650. It is a ladder of opportunity, and I am sorry that it is being pulled away and not extended.
Further, we are told that the scheme does not add value. That is simply not true. In 1995–96, Dr. Anne West of the Centre for Educational Research at the London School of Economics, studied the A-level results of a group of assisted-place holders and compared them with the results of academically matched contemporaries who had been offered assisted places but eventually took up places in state schools. She found that the assisted-place pupils achieved results on average between one-and-a-half and three grades higher than their state school counterparts. As everyone knows, such results make an enormous difference when it comes to a choice of university and a course at university.
As I said earlier, the scheme does add value. It is not a subsidy to schools; independent schools will continue when there are no assisted places. Many of them could fill their places over and over again. However, for the reasons clearly spelt out by the right

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reverend Prelate, it is not in anyone's best interests for independent schools to become exclusively places only for the rich. Indeed, it would not enhance the reputation of the schools, it would not help children and it would not help the country as a whole.
I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, said that Conservatives use the scheme simply to provide something for the few. If the noble Baroness reads through the policies that we pursued while in government, she will see that we did a great deal to enhance choice—not only parental choice as laid down by Act of Parliament early on in 1980, but also by the establishment of grant-maintained schools, city technology colleges, specialist schools for languages, and so on. Indeed, there was a great variety of schools, all designed to provide more opportunities for children with different abilities and talents. The assisted places scheme is one part of that whole.
Perhaps I may conclude on the rather heartless argument of saying that there are 800,000 places in the maintained system and they are empty. The first question that one has to ask oneself is: why are they empty? The chances are that those places are in unpopular schools; in other words, people do not want to send their children to those schools and, therefore, there are empty places. Is that the right place to direct assisted-place pupils? In effect, far from being given great benefits, it is quite possible that those children will be callously sent off to schools which are not very good. It is difficult to see how that will raise educational standards for them.
So far as concerns regional variations, independent schools are spread exactly evenly from one end of the country to the other. Therefore, one would expect to have regional variations. However, in so far as it has been possible, those schools which have wished to join the scheme have been spread throughout the country. If there are some areas without any assisted places, it probably means that they are without any independent schools where that would apply.
I believe that the assisted places scheme has given enormous opportunities to the children in it. It is only the children who will be hurt by this legislation. It is very sad that the scheme is now to be wound up. I do not believe that it will make any difference to class sizes because the sums do not add up. Further, the Government will have to find considerably more money than they presently intend to do if they are to achieve what they want. The Government will have to realise that once they say that no class size can rise above 30, popular schools may find that they will have to prevent many parents from having their first choice. I do not use that as an important argument because we would all like to see standards rising and class sizes falling. However, one has to ask oneself: what is the purpose of the Bill? I find it difficult to see that it will achieve any educational objective, despite having listened to arguments this afternoon put forward in support of the legislation. This is a very sad day for education; it is indeed a tragedy for the children concerned.
5.15 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, there is one thing that I simply do not understand about the speech just made by the noble Baroness. She said that there has been criticism of the children who have assisted places. I do not remember either of my noble friends saying a single word against assisted places; indeed, they did not do so. Those children who now have assisted places will be able to finish their careers in their present schools. I believe that to be both generous and right. Nevertheless, I very much resent the way that we have been attacked for no reason.
It gives me very great pleasure to be taking part today in this Second Reading debate on the Bill which abolishes the assisted places scheme. The reason for my great pleasure is not only my strong dislike of the scheme and my disapproval of it as unprincipled in giving help to the few at the expense of the many, but also that, some 17 years ago, I led the opposition to the 1980 Act. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, then led for the government, and, judging from her speech today, as I would have predicted, her views have not changed at all—
Baroness Young: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble Baroness, but I feel I should stress that I thought I was right then and I think that I am right today.
Baroness David: My Lords, I am not surprised.
I thank my noble friend the Minister for her clear exposition of the Bill and the principles behind it. The aim to improve the standards of education for the very young by reducing class sizes for five to seven year-olds, to give them a better start in life, surely cannot be disputed. A good early education is recognised today as having a profoundly beneficial effect on the whole of a child's education. No parent wants to see their child in an overcrowded class with an overstretched teacher in charge. Those who query the size of a class making a difference should ask any teacher or, indeed, any parent who opts for a private school.
When shall we learn to trust the teachers and give them back the confidence that they have had taken from them over recent years? The flight from the profession by heads and deputy heads by means of early retirement is evidence enough of the poor treatment that they have had from these Tory governments. Indeed, yesterday we heard that the number of those entering teacher training this year is down by 11 per cent. If noble Lords opposite point to some teachers who have been stroppy—and they sometimes seem to enjoy doing that—they should remember the vast bulk of the profession who are dedicated, do a good job and are just fed up with the way that they have been criticised. They have had to cope with constantly changing policies (for example, changes to the National Curriculum and testing) and a huge increase in paperwork.
I looked back at the Second Reading debate on the 1980 Bill in which Lord Butler of Saffron Walden took an important part. He was not happy with various

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parts of the Bill, transport being one area that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, will remember well for the defeat that she suffered there. Of the assisted places scheme Lord Butler said:
"I am not very taken by this clause".
He went on to say:
"I therefore believe that this Bill is based upon the idea that a few assisted places may help; but now, when we find that the scheme has been halved—it is not going to cost £50 million in five or six years. it is going to cost only a few million in the next year or two; and in my view it cannot affect more than 5,000, 6,000 or 7,000 pupils"—
of course, the price has now risen to practically £160 million, with 37,000 students involved—
"I really wonder whether the money might not be saved on this and given over to rural transport. I would not regret that at all, partly because I am, as was indicated in an article in the Sunday Times, especially keen to see the sixth-form classes at comprehensive schools improved. They are slowly improving. I have now retired from a great college, but my college is beginning to take sixth-form scholars of comprehensive schools, and I am encouraging them to take more. That means an improvement in the classes. I think that what is really wanted in education is an improvement in the State system".—[Official Report, 25/2/80; cols. 1048–1049.]
Lord Butler was an enlightened Tory, and, apart from some notable exceptions—a good many in this House—they seem a vanishing breed. He really wanted the state system to improve for the benefit of all children.
Over the years, the scheme—made out to be so modest in 1980—has expanded and expanded, as have the costs. In 1981, 220 schools took part, three more in 1983 and three more in 1984. The manifesto pledge that 35,000 places would be available by the mid-nineties meant that another 52 English schools had to be admitted. That was in fact achieved by 1989. But as there was some imbalance in provision in areas such as the Midlands and the North East—the same uneven geographical distribution had been the case with the direct grant schools-17 more schools were admitted to the scheme in 1996. To show what a good thing the independent schools think it is for them, 100 more applied to join.
I was amused to read in my files on the 1980 Bill an article by an education correspondent in November 1980 which ended,
"One thing is clear, the APS schools like the bookies, cannot lose. Apart from creaming off an invaluable proportion of talented youngsters from the maintained sector they are going to be paid handsomely for their trouble. With hundreds of applicants at each school paying registration and examination fees, I estimate in this aspect alone the APS is a £250,000 bonanza for the independent sector. With a bonus, I am sure, of many extra fee paying pupils who do not end up with a win in the APS competition".
That correspondent was from the Daily Mail.
When the scheme started, it was intended for the very high flyers, and the schools to which they were to go were to be the really excellent. Before a school was admitted in those early years, HMI was able to comment on the quality of the school, and say if it deserved to have these special pupils and income from the state. That has not happened recently: and certainly some of the schools now in the scheme cannot compare with the best comprehensives.
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Another way in which the scheme has developed is in the age range at which pupils can take up a place—from 11 to 12, 13 and sixth form level. And then at the 1995 Conservative conference Mr. Major announced that the scheme would be doubled in size. So followed the cynical move in the final education Bill of the Tory Government to increase the scope of the scheme to include primary schools this year. That will mean the schools affected will go up from 293 to 355, and from some 5,700 entry places overall to 10,500. A piece of briefing that I received just before the debate states that the number of schools is now 477, but that does not match up with any other figure I have seen. Perhaps the noble Baroness can explain that. Unfortunately, although the 1997 Bill was severely truncated because of the early calling of the election, that clause was not deleted. The regulation that children must spend the two years previous to taking a place in a maintained school could no longer apply.
Regulations are issued each year, primarily to update the financial arrangements for parents' contributions in line with inflation. Not only did they do that very generously, in 1984, for instance, by over 6 per cent. when inflation was 5 per cent., and that at a time when student grants were to be increased by only 4 per cent. Also that year the provision that a child could be eligible for a sixth form place only if the local authority agreed, was revoked. (This had been put in to appease Lord Butler.)
The evidence I have seen seems to show that poorer families were well represented among those gaining places; two out of five households receiving help had incomes below £9,874. But the poll—incidentally it was an ISIS poll, therefore an independent school poll—showed that the proportion of professional and managerial families receiving financial support through the scheme had increased by 8 per cent. since 1991. ISIS suggests that this is through executive unemployment and business crashes. But we must also remember that a well-off household could receive help if more than one child in the family had a place, particularly if the children were at high fee schools. It is argued that the scheme has benefited the artificially poor. The middle classes, always smart at seeing what is to their advantage, have profited much more than the working classes. Professor Freeman of Middlesex University has pointed out that up to two-thirds of students taking up places at 16 are already fee-paying pupils in that school. What has happened to the rule that those taking up places should have spent two years in a maintained school? The original safeguards have slipped and slipped away.
I have emphasised my opposition to the APS as a matter of educational principle. The Government have said they will use the savings that accrue from its abolition to reduce class sizes for five, six and seven year-olds. It is vitally important, therefore, that the savings are as large as possible and occur as rapidly as possible. I know that my noble friend told us something about this in her opening speech but I think it needs to be made absolutely clear. Could she tell

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us when expenditure on the scheme will fall from the £160 million mentioned to zero? I understand that the savings are estimated to be only £100 million by the year 2000. Why is the figure as low as that? Is it to do with the extension of the scheme to primary schools in the 1997 Act? Apart from the entry class this year, can my noble friend assure me that the effect of this Bill is to limit the primary school concession to this year only? Am I to understand that we are committed to some of these pupils until they are 13? Other people have asked that. I hope she will answer these questions when she winds up.
The important thing to remember is that this Bill is about improving the state system of education in this country and raising standards. Professor Rutter in his book 15,000 Hours showed how a few bright children in a school could have a very beneficial effect on the whole school. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said:
"We, the profession, teachers and the majority of parents have agreed that class size matters. We must therefore ask, to which children does it matter? Does it matter to only a few, or to all our children in all our schools? The answer is very simple; we have a choice between excellence for a few or high quality education for the many. We have made a choice in favour of the many, because we know that, both for the individuals concerned and for social cohesion and the economy, literacy and numeracy matter to every one of us".
I support the Bill.
5.27 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, this Bill covers Scotland. There are of course different Ministers and systems north and south of the Border and it is no doubt convenient to deal with the same subject in one Bill. I find I am the only speaker from Scotland in the debate. That is one reason I decided to take part. Another reason was that I was in the chair for four years of the Scottish Council of Independent Schools, since its inception in 1976. The council worked out a system of assisted places for Scotland which was adopted as the basis for the one now operating.
My third reason for taking part today is that I was Secretary of State for Scotland from 1970 to 1974 and so exercised central government's responsibility for schools in Scotland at a time when the future of the grant-aided schools had started to become a political issue. Incidentally, no Secretary of State from any party who has held that appointment before me is still alive. Consequently I feel I am in a good position to rehearse briefly the recent history that has led to the present situation in Scotland. I shall start 34 years ago when, following other roles in government, I was a junior Minister in the Scottish Office in 1963–64.
The grant-aided schools in Scotland were broadly the equivalent to the direct grant schools in England and Wales. Twenty or 30 per cent., or even more, of their costs were being met by government grants. There were scales for fee paying and various selection arrangements. Those schools set out in particular to take pupils with academic abilities. The intention was that
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parents of such children did not have to pay more than they could afford in fees. A Labour Government came into office in 1964 and froze the level of those grants. With inflation, the effect was their reduction.
When a Conservative Government returned six years later in 1970, the grant-aided system in Scotland was still in place and the new Government restored the earlier arrangements. I was Secretary of State; and I did so in Scotland. However, when the Labour Government arrived in 1974 they set about abolishing those grants altogether—they did not freeze them—by phasing them out. The schools then had to take decisions about their future. Individually they chose various courses.
In opposition, the Conservative Party studied how the principle could be retained. We were encouraged by many who hoped that bright and able children would still be enabled to benefit from appropriate schooling, although their parents might not be well off and could not afford the full economic fees. There were of course parents who were comfortably off as well.
The grant-aided schools in Scotland have produced leaders and successful professionals in all walks of life. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Steel—who made an outstanding maiden speech a few days ago—and my right honourable friend Mr. Malcolm Rifkind were at George Watson's in Edinburgh. I could give other notable examples. Those schools contained centres of excellence.
The Scottish Council of Independent Schools, realising that grants would be abolished, as they were, set itself the task of formulating a new scheme to continue the principle behind the grant-aided schools. As in England and Wales, we felt that starting again from scratch it would be fairest to attach future grants to pupils rather than schools. It would have been difficult and invidious to make a new selection of schools to receive grants. Some of the previous grant-aided schools had undergone considerable changes.
In those independent schools which joined the scheme, places would be offered subject to conditions. In the event, the large majority of schools joined, including, if my memory serves me right, Fettes College. After the Conservative Government took office in 1979, the assisted places scheme was introduced north and south of the Border. Now this Bill is designed to remove it. Parents of able and academic children—those parents may not be well off—will no longer be able to find appropriate places for the children. The scales of fees to be paid depended on the family circumstances. An efficient and popular system is to be scrapped.
I shall say a few words generally about traditional attitudes in Scotland to education. There has always been co-operation—I speak of a couple of hundred years; I do not refer to my own lifetime, but well before—in Scottish communities to help academic or talented young people to fulfil their potential. I am old enough to remember that in the 1930s both in the Highlands and in Glasgow there was no sense of envy. Combined efforts would be directed to helping a local

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child to continue his or her schooling and to reach university when it seemed likely that they would excel there; and very often they did.
In Scotland this value placed on education has been evident over a long period. I shall give examples from two centuries. At the end of the last century, one school, the High School of Glasgow, produced two Prime Ministers: Mr. Campbell-Bannerman and Mr. Bonar Law. In the 18th century, the same school produced two eminent generals: Sir John Moore, who died, still young for his rank, at Coruna, and is renowned still in the British Army for creating and training the first light infantry; and General Sir Colin Campbell, the first Lord Clyde, who was the son of a shoemaker. I could give many more examples from other Scottish schools. I do not suggest that those schools at that time were operating under the modern grant-aided scheme, but they were operating under the same principle.
I look forward to hearing my noble friend Lord Pilkington when he winds up and congratulate him on his position on the Front Bench. I have known him for 30 years since the time when he was a young teacher. He went on to exalted heights as the headmaster of more than one illustrious school.
In conclusion, I would have expected old Labour to do away with grant-aided schools, as they did in the late 1970s. Is it really consistent with the aims of New Labour to be destroying schemes that assist ability in the young where personal parental finance is lacking? Is it too late to have second thoughts? What about a review, ruling nothing in and nothing out? If the Bill goes ahead—I suspect for populist reasons—destroying the schemes will be regarded in the future as academic vandalism.
5.36 p.m.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, it would be hard to argue with the objective of reducing class sizes in junior schools or any other schools. I cannot help wondering whether this Bill does so in the way that I would have chosen. Should we do that by robbing Peter to pay Paul? Would it not have been better perhaps to throw new money at the problem? However, I gain the impression—I do not know from where—that this is a party political issue. It may be more appropriate for me from these Benches to take a more general view of the situation.
When the assisted places scheme has had a decent burial, I plead with the Government and express the hope that they will consider the great contribution which independent schools have made and could make in the future to the education of this country. I was much encouraged by the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and the Government's policy statement that they hope to work in partnership with the independent system.
I intend to speak today about my personal experience. Therefore I cannot avoid explaining a little of the background. For nearly three decades I have been a governor of Kings School, Canterbury. I attended the last governors' meeting this morning. I was given a very good lunch; I hope that that will not affect my ability
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to communicate with your Lordships. For over four decades I have been a governor of Northbourne Park School and a governor of two maintained schools.
I have nothing to declare because I have had no advantages from any of those situations. On the other hand, I and my family have made a commitment to reinvest the rent for the house—it belongs to me—from Northbourne Park School to help individual pupils to attend the school. From my long observation and experience I am convinced that there are young people who can gain enormous benefit from good, caring boarding education, especially when their lives have been torn apart by their experiences in the family. Children to whom that happens are not by any means restricted to those who are able to afford to pay. In our society today there are more and more children who could benefit from boarding education at some stage in their lives. There are parents who work long hours and are often away from home; there are broken homes; there are many fewer grandparents (and extended families) who are able to support their grandchildren.
I recognise the argument that the independent sector can be socially divisive. In so far as that is true, I deplore it. But surely the solution must be to widen the scope and range of those who enjoy the benefits which children in independent education enjoy today, and not to destroy the schools that provide those benefits.
Let no one be under any illusion that, by removing independent schools, what was described by Belloc as the "hoary social curse" will go away. My wife is French and I have the advantage of knowing something of French education and society. In spite of the fact that Frenchmen all call one another "monsieur" and nearly all send their children to the lycée, I assure the House that those who regard themselves as the upper crust in French society are no less arrogant and conceited than their opposite numbers in this country—far from it!
We should be looking at what independent education has to give. The assisted places scheme did not necessarily address that problem very effectively. The major advantages afforded by independent education in this country, which are not available to any considerable extent in the maintained sector, are: first, (in the better schools) good, caring boarding; secondly, high staff ratios and very good pastoral care; and thirdly (apart from the high standard of education) a wide variety of extra-curricular activities and sports which provide opportunities for children to build confidence and gain experience for life. In a perfect world those advantages should be available to all children who need them, both those who can pay and those who cannot, and in particular to those children who lack happy, secure, supportive homes. The cost of a boarding place in an English public school is about half the cost of a place in a special school.
Perhaps I may relate the story of one boy whom I shall call Peter, although it is not his real name. He came to the Stepney Children's Fund camps at the age of 10, about nine years ago. He was deeply disturbed. He had been rejected by both his parents and had had eight foster placements, all of which he had rejected.

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The social services department was in despair as to what to do with him and decided that he needed boarding education. A place was found for him in a state boarding school at a cost of £28,000 a year. Quite reasonably, the department decided that it could not afford that. I was able to find a place for him in an independent school in Kent under the assisted places scheme. He was lucky enough to have an extremely intelligent and flexible head of social services who was able to agree to pay the boarding fee. He went to the school and was cared for under the pastoral care system there. He did well at the school. He is now about to pass out of college and already has a management training place with one of the major supermarkets. That is a small success story for the APS. The noble Baroness may well say that one swallow does not make a summer. My reply would be: de mortuis nihil nisi bonum—this story may be a useful epitaph for the assisted places scheme.
When the assisted places scheme has been laid to rest, we should not as a nation demonise the independent sector because of its weaknesses. We should examine its strengths and try to build on them, so as to enrich the total provision that we can make for all children in this country.
5.44 p.m.
Lord Skidelsky: My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on her appointment. We have enjoyed arguing about education for many years and I dare say we shall continue to do so. The noble Baroness and her department will be hard put to compress the rising demand for education within the straitjacket imposed by the Chancellor; however, I wish her well.
The Bill is designed to phase out the assisted places scheme. From the year 1998–99 there will be no new entrants into the scheme. By the year 2004–05 no pupils will be educated under it. The object of the exercise, stated clearly in the explanatory and financial memorandum, is to realise savings,
"which will be spent on reducing infant class sizes in the maintained sector".
I do not want to spend time debating the merits of reducing infant class sizes or how much that will cost. I mention in passing the interesting fact that between 1991 and 1996 the average pupil-teacher ratio in primary schools remained unchanged at about 22, while the percentage of pupils in classes of over 30 increased from 20 to 27. Evidently, it is not the pupil-teacher ratio that is crucial but the way in which schools organise their teaching and the ratio of administration to teaching. I hope the Government will give some consideration to reducing the administrative burdens on schools. That will lower the cost of reducing class sizes.
I should like to concentrate on one point. The Government have claimed, somewhat imprudently, that almost the whole cost of reducing infant classes to 30 can be met by abolishing assisted places. The savings are calculated at £100 million by the year 2000, which will more than pay for the new teachers and classes required. That has been challenged from two sides—the cost of reducing class sizes to 30 will be greater than the Government expect, and savings from abolishing the
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assisted places scheme will be less. I want to concentrate on the savings aspect since that is crucial to the whole argument.
The Government's view is that there is a choice between assisting some 40,000 pupils to get a superior education and reducing class sizes for approximately 450,000 infant school pupils—a choice, as the Secretary of State said in another place,
"between excellence for a few or high-quality education for the many".
The Minister echoed that idea today.
My contention is that this is a false choice; and the arithmetic bears me out. Indeed, it is worse than that. If the savings from abolishing the assisted places scheme are non-existent, or negligible, its abolition imposes two costs on society: reduction of choice and the lowering of educational quality for about 40,000 pupils. Those are two costs without any compensating advantages.
Having examined the figures, I believe that the Government's estimate of savings is wildly optimistic. Their calculation is as follows. The Government spend on average £3,900 for an assisted place. There are, or are shortly to be, 40,000 pupils with assisted places. Abolishing the assisted places scheme will therefore eventually save about £160 million a year. The Government expect that the annual saving will reach £100 million a year by the year 2000. That is expected to be the net annual saving, the amount that would be available for reducing infant class sizes in the maintained sector in three years' time.
The Government's view of the savings they will achieve seems to be based on the extraordinary proposition that 30,000 or so pupils who by the year 2000 would have been deprived of an assisted place through the run-down of the scheme will be accommodated almost costlessly within the state system. Why do they believe something so absurd? Apparently the Government believe that these extra pupils will take up spare places in the maintained schools, which will cost the state almost nothing. We have the airy statement by the Minister for school standards in the other place, Mr. Byers, that there are 800,000 empty places within the existing LEA provision, leaving ample scope for absorbing additional pupils. The Minister said today that she expected "no significant additional burden".
Noble Lords should recognise that the figures of vacancies are totally irrelevant to the problem of cost. Schools are funded on a per-pupil basis. If school enrolment increases by 40,000, school budgets rise automatically in line with the standard cost per pupil in the relevant area. There is no mechanism for removing this extra cost. The extra children do not turn up at their school with a placard saying, "I would have had an assisted place, therefore you must take me at no extra cost to yourself". There is no way of identifying the source of extra numbers; schools simply budget for them whether or not they have spare capacity.
The only reputable way of calculating net saving is that adopted by the Institute of Fiscal Studies in its recent analysis. It assumes that the net saving is the difference between the average annual cost of an assisted place, £3,900, and the average annual cost of a

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maintained place, £2,700, a difference of £1,200. On that basis, net annual saving by year three of the run-down is not £100 million but £28 million, compared with the cost of restricting infant classes to 30 in that year of £105 million. That leaves a funding gap of £77 million.
Even that may be too rosy a picture. In estimating net saving, what we need to know is not the difference between the average cost of an assisted place and a maintained place but the difference between the average cost of an assisted place and the actual cost of the maintained place equivalent. Many pupils with assisted places would actually cost the state more than £2,700 in the maintained sector. For example, 9,000 of the assisted places are in sixth forms, where the difference in cost between an assisted place and a maintained place is much less than £1,200. In addition, the standard spending assessment per pupil in some areas, particularly urban areas, is much higher than in others. Assisted places pupils drawn from such areas may cost the Government less now than their maintained sector counterparts.
And that is not all. The average cost given for a state school pupil omits capital grants, whereas the fees of independent schools cover most of their capital spending. In 1995 independent schools spent an average of £550 per pupil on new facilities. Per-pupil capital expenditure in the maintained sector may well be less on average—I do not have the figures—but any allowance made under this head would reduce the difference in cost, and thus net saving, even further.
There is, of course, one way in which the Government could squeeze extra savings from abolishing assisted places, and that is by reducing its spending per pupil, and thus increasing class sizes, in its secondary schools. Perhaps I may ask the Minister whether that is in fact the Government's intention. If it is, it will certainly come as a great surprise to those who voted for the Labour Party in May.
What are we to conclude from all this? A reasonable view would be that the net savings from abolishing the assisted places scheme would be very low—at most, in the order of £20 million a year over the seven-year run-down—as against the cost of reducing infant class size of £70 million a year over the same period. These savings are chicken-feed to the dragons of rising public spending on education. The financial link between the two projects—the claim that they are alternatives—is largely spurious.
What is left, it seems to me, is simply an old-fashioned piece of class war. Mr. Gerald Kaufman asked in another place why parents in his constituency should subsidise assisted places for a few privileged children, and the noble Lord, Lord Tope, made the same point in this debate. The fact is that over the country as a whole the subsidy is massively the other way. Fee-paying parents save the state about £2.5 billion a year, £1.25 billion that would otherwise be spent educating 600,000 children in state schools and an equivalent amount that independent-school parents pay in tax for state education which they do not use. Let us at any rate be clear about who is subsidising whom.
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I should like to conclude with a general observation. At present we have in this country a huge state education system which runs side by side with a very small independent sector. On the one side we have the planned provision of a standardised product; on the other side, variety, choice and a great deal of excellence. The Bill, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out, raises barriers between the two systems even higher than they are at the moment. But there is really no reason to continue this way. Education does not have to be centrally planned and publicly provided; it is so only because since the war governments have, through heavy taxes, prevented most parents buying the education they want for their children. I should like to see the private sector in education expand. That ought to be the goal of my party, which should also challenge the reformers in the Government. Stopping people getting what they want is a characteristic feature of the old state socialism; it is the reverse of what we on these Benches think about education; and I submit that it should have no place in the thinking of New Labour.
5.57 p.m.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, the Bill did not come as any surprise to those on this side of the House; it was indeed among the issues mentioned before the general election and when it came we were expecting it. But the extraordinary pronouncements, conduct and attitude of the Prime Minister which appeared to show that new Labour was not so very far away from the policies and thinking of the Conservative Party certainly do not stretch to this Bill. The Bill has caused us to revert to our opinion of the Labour Party as it was in the 1970s—that is, old Labour. This return to old Labour restores its position to what it was before 1979 by abolishing the assisted places scheme and restores its lack of any clear policy to improve teaching standards in maintained schools.
I agree with what my noble friend Lord Skidelsky said about the way that this so-called policy has not been thought out. We have seen over and over again that school standards are not radically altered by the number of children in a class but by the qualities of the teachers, especially those of the headteacher. While there are some excellent teachers and headteachers whose standing and abilities are effective in their schools, that position is by no means general. There will be little change in the quality of schools unless consideration is given to more than just the numbers in classrooms. From the speeches we have heard from the other side of the House and those made in another place, it seemed as though a magic wand would be waved to reduce the number of children in a class to under 30 and all would be well; the children would become brilliant, would pass their exams and become great academics or whatever one wished them to be. We know perfectly well that none of that is true.
So far there has been no guidance on those issues, no evidence of an intention to improve on inadequate teaching, no information about methods to be used to encourage teachers and headteachers to apply successful methods, leading to improvement. There has been practically no information on the Bill at all, even to

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those who are keen and interested to know what the intentions of the Government are. A White Paper has been promised, but when will it be produced? It was going to be in June. It would have been helpful to have had it before debating the Bill, not after. It is to be hoped that in future the Government, when they have got used to being in government, will seek to ensure that a White Paper is published before introducing the relevant Bill. When there is no White Paper, as in the present case, it leads to the belief, regrettably, that the Government are determined to abolish a system that they dislike because it is not in accordance with their principles. It has nothing to do with whether several thousand children have benefited from new opportunities to learn and study at a higher level than might otherwise have been the case. That is not the reason for this particular Bill.
Those children have mainly come from families with very low incomes. Over 40 per cent. of those families have a gross annual income of below £10,000. We have been into all the figures and it has been pointed out that at least 83 per cent. of the families do indeed have low incomes. Yet, over 90 per cent. of those children have achieved high grades in their GCSEs and A-levels, far more than the average of the maintained schools at the same ages. The denial of that opportunity to a broad selection of young children is based on the old Labour policy of central planning and equality at the lowest common level. We have been given no evidence that standards in schools are to be or can be raised, strengthening the abilities and skills of the young. Reduction in numbers will not have positive effects in schools without other improvements and changes as well.
There is also anxiety concerning the financial consequences of the Bill. Other noble Lords have also touched on that matter. It is stated that savings will be around £100 million by the year 2000. But that figure at least is surely controversial. The figures can only be estimated and not known. Consequently, they vary—estimates always vary. A departmental estimate in 1996 forecast that reducing class numbers for five, six and seven year-olds could cost between £120 million and £250 million, those estimated costs being for additional teachers only. So said Robin Squire, speaking in the other place on 28th October 1996. The Institute of Public Finance estimated that to phase out assisted places schemes could cause a deficit of up to £250 million.
I know that those are controversial figures and that they are estimates. But we must recognise that they are estimates which are given by highly reputable organisations. They must be taken into account when planning some particular future policy. As I said, all those figures are only estimates but it is evident that, if class sizes are cut to 30 pupils or below, the choice of school available to a parent will be more limited. By the generally agreed principle of supply and demand, it will be the unpopular school—that is, the less efficient school—which will have places to offer. That will be the problem. As the assisted places are phased out, those children will not have the opportunity to go into schools where the classes are few and smaller but will only have
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the opportunity to go to those schools which have been neglected or are not recognised as good schools in the general neighbourhood where the children live.
One important issue affecting about 1,700 children has also been raised. There are 2,000 children at present in assisted places in junior schools, who, under the Government's current proposals, will cease to benefit from that education at the age of 11. It is understood that the Government will use their discretion as to those children who might be allowed to stay on until the age of 13 in those areas where there are not local schools which terminate at 11, when the children go on to the next stage of their education.
But it is no consolation to parents, or indeed to the children, to know what is to happen to them or what discretion will be used by the relevant Minister. It is not a way to treat children who have been working hard at a high level to get on with their studies and with their life just to chuck them out on to a kind of dustheap and to be told. "We are not going to keep you in this kind of school any more. You will have to go back to whatever school is in your area." It will not be the best school—as I said, those are the schools in which numbers are going down—and the children will have a very hard time of it.
The relaxation by the Government, under heavy pressure, to enable 330 children to maintain their assisted places up to the age of 13, so enabling them to go straight on to their next school, is indeed to be welcomed. But it does not solve the problem of the other 1,700 or so children who will have to be removed from their preparatory schools at the age of 11. Some schools have offered assisted places to some of those young school children. It looks as though schools themselves are seeking to raise funding to meet the costs that are now government funded. Those schools will contribute to carrying on in new ways the assisted places schemes which are now being brought to an end. The right reverend Prelate in his speech clearly expressed concern over that particular action. In fact, it is a typical case of the Government withdrawing funds and it being left to individuals to seek out new ways of solving a major problem and dealing with it.
I am sure we shall find that schools will react. Certainly that applies to Manchester Grammar School. The Girls Public Day Schools—there are 25 of them in the south of England—intend to find ways of getting round that problem. That is to be warmly welcomed. The Government should be thankful that there are still people in this country with the courage and initiative to meet these problems and that when the Government make a mess of things there are individuals who can get round the difficulties and find new solutions.
But perhaps the Government may have coherent answers to some of the problems that have been raised so far in today's debate. We shall certainly look forward to the noble Baroness's reply when she comes to wind up the debate. If we do not hear the answers from her, we may perhaps find them in that mythical White Paper which may be published next month.
6.6 p.m.
Lord Parry: My Lords, in the high summer of 1945, I left the training college where I had been prepared for teaching and went to teach in the public education system. Up to that date my preparation had been at the Neyland Board School, followed by two years at Trinity College, Carmarthen. Then I began to teach.
At that time, education in Britain was a patchwork. The type of education that you received depended on where you lived. It was a patchwork because not enough public money was devoted to it. In fact, only in certain areas were sufficient sums of money available to provide a decent education for those who could not afford to pay for it themselves. That is an issue that has been stated time and again. In this country there are a great many such people. The right reverend Prelate is not in his seat, so I cannot refer to what he said, but he was wrong. The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, has put on this education debate an influence which is all his own. It ignores the fact that there are still thousands of families in this country who, even when they want to do so, cannot afford to educate their children. The system has to be rearranged and has to provide for those people.
In the past couple of days I have shown your Lordships the national newspaper of Wales. This debate applies to Wales. The noble Lord who used to be Secretary of State for Scotland, when the Conservative Party had Secretaries of State for Scotland, has told the Chamber that this Bill applies to Scotland, as it does to Wales. The headline in today's national newspaper of Wales is:
"Classrooms in chaos fear as teachers quit".
The text goes on to sketch out the fact that the people who would normally have gone into teaching under the old system no longer see teaching as an attractive profession. There are great difficulties in the education system in Britain, which we forget when we boast of what we have contributed to it. The newspaper isolates the point that I would have made in response to the right reverend Prelate; namely, that if people do not go in for teaching, class sizes will be again radically altered. It is vitally important that the kind of financial contribution that this Bill seeks to make is made available to general education rather than to privileged education.
I am in no sense speaking the politics of envy. In my 32 years as a teacher, in the 20 years that my daughter has been teaching and in the time that my wife was ancillary to the teaching service, we have indeed been into the classrooms and seen the children. We know the advantages and the disadvantages that accrue to so many children in our classrooms in Britain today.
I congratulate my noble friend Lady Blackstone both on her elevation to the Front Bench and on the precise and concise way in which she presented the Bill. Many of the misunderstandings which are alleged to have arisen and many of the challenges that have been made to the Bill ignore the very points that my noble friend systematically made in her presentation. For example, I was astonished to hear the noble Lord, Lord Henley—again not in his place—make the charge that this was a mean-spirited Bill and that it represented only broken promises to the 11 year-olds when my noble friend had specifically outlined the provisions that will be made.
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I forgot to say that, as well as being an old teacher, I am also Old Labour. In 1945 I joined the Labour Party. I am amazed that tonight the only references to the Labour councils of the past were so dismissive of everything that was done from 1945 on an impulse generated in radical liberalism which was, incidentally, fought, in Wales at any rate, by the High Church. Then, after the coalition presentation of the 1945 Act, we had a reconstruction of religious education. I wonder how many noble Lords who make the plea for the privatisation of education themselves benefited from the public education system. Certainly there are hundreds and thousands of people in this country who would not have attained the standards that they did if it had not been for Old Labour councillors—under-educated themselves but of brilliant intelligence—devoting their energy and morality to creating a system better than the one under which Labour had grown up. For instance, the University of Wales in Aberystwyth was funded by the pennies of the miners when their wages were derisory.
I was immensely impressed, and am glad I can be positive in this, by the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. I can support much of what he said. I believe that one of the areas that we have not really looked into in public education is the boarding system. There are great advantages that can be found in education in residential schools properly run. But first we must fund the provision for the general schools. One must make certain that those children who attend them are properly educated, and that comes hack to these simple facts.
Every piece of research that has been conducted into education in my lifetime has proved that the major influences on the education of a child are, first, the attitude of his home to the school in which he is taught; secondly, the quality of the teacher; and, thirdly, the amount of time that the good teacher can devote to the children in his or her care.
When my daughter began teaching in Pembrokeshire—not a bad area—an education system that won plaudits from all around, she found herself in her first years teaching in the school hall that was also the dining hall. She had 32 children—infants in the admission class—to teach under those conditions and every day her day was shortened by the necessity of putting up the tables for lunch. When one sees that type of education, how can one blame teachers? For 22 years in this House, every time someone criticised the teacher and blamed the ills in education on the teacher, I stood here and disavowed it. Far too often the House was turned into a place which challenged the standards of the teachers rather than the system under which those teachers taught.
In the article from which I quoted there is enough evidence to say: let us pass this Bill; let us pass it quickly. We have already been told that it is only one plank in a programme to which my party, new and old, is committed. We are going to drive it through and that is not in any sense out of envy; it is because we want the same opportunities for all the children that some of your Lordships have enjoyed.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Butterfield: My Lords, I speak from this side of the House but, first, I heartily congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, on her promotion. It is good to find someone who has tertiary education responsibilities having so much influence in educational affairs. I am sure that there will be some fencing, but in general we shall be wearing masks.
I begin by saying that I regret that the opportunity was not taken by the Government in the Bill to build on the assisted places scheme in an upwards direction. The noble Lord, Lord Parry, touched my heart because one of my names is Hughes and I therefore have some Welsh genes. I understand what he says in relation to the differences that exist in different parts of the country. But it does not seem to me that we have given enough attention to the scheme. I understand that 46 per cent. of those on assisted places are from poorer families. I am not sure that that 46 per cent. should be sacrificed, as it seems they are going to be.
I hope it is acceptable if an old educationalist, as I like to believe I am, says that my philosophy is that if the quality of the pastures is different in different parts of the field—education is different in different parts of the country—I am not convinced that the right thing to do is to put up a barrier so that people cannot go where education is good. That is the sort of philosophy that lies behind the Bill we are considering.
I appreciated the speeches made at Second Reading in another place. I was impressed by some of the remarks made by the Secretary of State. All of us must admire him for his courage and fortitude. I have certainly enjoyed entertaining him to lunch in the past to talk over the whole question of trying to help the people's health generally by health promotion. However, I was distressed—bearing in mind my philosophy—when he said that we have a choice between excellence for the few and high quality education for the many. My feeling is that we should be trying to help the many obtain the excellence that is apparently available to the few.
It is important to realise that widening opportunity should be a general feeling in the country. That does not necessarily mean that we should take a few thousand children who are on assisted places schemes and dispose of them in favour of the many because, according to the Secretary of State, it will be a good thing—for individuals, for social cohesion and for the economy—to get rid of those places. I find that a very bitter pill to swallow. The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, has dealt with an aspect I wish to address. I am not convinced that it will have an immediate effect on class size. Long ago—not as long ago as the time referred to by the former Secretary of State for Scotland—I was Vice-Chancellor at Nottingham. One of the things we were always considering there, because it mattered to us, was population change. As I understand it, the population of young people is in decline. The number of births over the last five years has fallen by 7 or 8 per cent. If those figures are projected into the future—bearing in mind the concern that we all have regarding births to teenaged children—the chances are that the number of children
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coming into primary education will decline. I may be wrong, but that is my interpretation of the tables on population trends I have seen. I am not sure, therefore, that it is such a good argument to put forward at this time.
Mr. Don Foster, speaking for the Liberal Democrats in another place, said he wanted to get rid of the scheme because it was centrally controlled. I understand that. I suppose. But he also felt that it was encouraging independent schools to raise their fees so that they could get more money from the Government through assisted places. I find that a rather tortuous argument.
Mrs. Gillian Shephard said that the Bill was driven by dogma. The dictionary definition of dogma is "a way of thinking not based on or tested by reflection". This debate gives us the opportunity for such reflection. The important thing is that we do not seem to be paying very much attention to the competitive aspects of achieving an assisted place, or indeed to the competitiveness we need in the country and which we need to accept into our educational system. Nor is there any recognition of the confidence that a scholarship gives to those who achieve one, or any appreciation of the satisfaction that a scholarship in the family gives to parents. As chairman of the united medical and dental schools of St. Thomas's and Guy's Hospital, I saw many people of non-British ethnicity who had managed to get their children into those medical schools and see them qualify. It was obvious that involving themselves in competition had given them pleasure.
I have also been busy for the last 12 or 13 years giving scholarships to people from Hong Kong and Tokyo as well as from this country. We should not underestimate the effect on young people of success in a scholarship scheme. I have to declare a bias. When my father's business in Stechford ran into difficulties during the great depression I was very fortunate to be supported by a scholarship at secondary school, at medical school and also in order to go to the US.
I acknowledge all of that, but I remain concerned that only yesterday our Prime Minister drew attention to the need to protect the atmosphere by reducing levels of CO, and other gases, not least, he said, because of the future of our children. I certainly concur with that and admire his courage in standing up for what we heard in the Statement today. But there is another serious threat which we must not neglect. Having grandchildren, I am concerned not only about the environment but about our standard of living as we go into the next century.
I refer to the splendid speeches made in this House only a week ago about competitiveness in British industry. We all realise how important it is to face the competition which is growing in the East. Competitiveness is extremely important to our industry. Standing on the other side of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Desai, conducted a splendid review of what we need in terms of competitiveness in this country. It is not simply productive competitiveness in selling our cars, our shoes, our clothes and so on. Design is very important. I believe that we must add to the case for education the recognition and encouragement, not only of aptitude but of competition, which is definitely a very important spur.

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I am coming to the view that competition is an invaluable yardstick for our choice of policies as we move forward. I do not mean bruising competition. I recall, when a professor at Guy's, the nurse tutors saying that the girls who were trying to achieve high marks and win prizes in their examinations were not necessarily the good nurses. The need was for caring nurses. I concede that completely, but I fear that we must face competition.
I am concerned that we in this country are moving into the circle of saying what people like to hear and then giving it to them but not appreciating that we also have to think as well as do service to people's attitudes. I believe that in future consideration of our policies and in the coming century it will be very important to encourage a competitive attitude. That is why I regret the tone of the Bill.
6.28 p.m.
Viscount Hampden: My Lords, I begin with a confession. I hope when I have finished my brief intervention your Lordships will not say, "Thank goodness for that!".
My confession is that I have not spoken in your Lordships' House in an education debate since July 1979, when I supported the noble Baroness, Lady Young, when she introduced her education Bill, which I remember was vehemently opposed by the noble Baroness. Lady David. I remember being saddened that day on hearing so many Peers on the Labour Benches say how grateful they were for their own grammar school education but how determined they were to stop anyone else having a similar education. Having listened to some of the speeches from this side of the House this afternoon, I am not sure that anything much has changed.
It was with some trepidation that I intervened in 1979. I have the same trepidation again. I am not an educationist and I am not involved in local government hut, like the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, I have for over 30 years been involved as a governor of a school. The school was founded by my family over 400 years ago and is situated in Battersea. In 1979 we had just changed from being a grammar school, forced out by the then government's education policy, and had become an independent school. We were very much looking forward to involving ourselves with the assisted places which were about to be introduced.
In the past 18 years we have had many assisted places pupils going through our school. In fact we are probably one of the bigger users of the scheme. The idea that it is some kind of middle-class scam where people who have been clever enough kid the headmaster that they depend on the income to get their boys, and now girls, into the school is nonsense. When I said to the headmaster, "It looks as if the Labour Party is going to win the election. Will all our assisted places pupils' parents suddenly find that they have a grandmother who has a little nest egg?", he assured me that that was not so and that every single case was genuine.
Emanuel School is not a high-flying school. It is very much a community school which tries to provide a well rounded education, both academically and sportingly,
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and contributes to the community of Battersea. That was no better exemplified than when the terrible train crash outside Clapham Junction eight or nine years ago caused the school to be the centre for the rescue operations. The then government appreciated the efforts the school had made. This was demonstrated by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, who was then the Home Office Minister. coming down to a very moving memorial service which was attended by the widow of the train driver who was killed and by the widow of one of the passengers who was killed. The noble Earl expressed appreciation of what the school had done.
This is the kind of school that the Government should be helping, not hindering. I know that it is not the custom in your Lordships' House to oppose a Second Reading. I also appreciate the convention that this was well signalled in the Labour Party's manifesto and the fact that the Official Opposition will not be opposing the Bill. However, I feel that it is a very poor start for this new Government. To be in opposition for 18 years, win an election with a thumping majority and then start off with this mean little Bill is a very bad start.
6.31 p.m.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: My Lords, I too should like to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, in conducting her first education Bill through the House and to say that in the higher education sector at least there is great rejoicing that we have someone making policy who knows about the sector.
I find it rather difficult to speak against any measure which attempts to find money to help children in the early years. It is quite obvious from what other noble Lords have said that they too have been seduced by the strength of the argument to improve the ratio in class sizes in the early years into feeling supportive towards the Bill. However, I feel it is quite meretricious to present the Bill as something which is about reducing class sizes for the early years when it is not. The Bill is about attacking the assisted places scheme and as such it must be judged.
Of course we all want to see class sizes reduced. Class sizes are very important in the early years, although I think that their importance is very much exaggerated for older children. I have no intention now of repeating the many arguments which have been made for the value and strength of the assisted places scheme itself. However, I must say that I am very sad at the opportunities which some children will lose because of the abolition of the scheme, most particularly those whose older siblings have benefited from the scheme and who themselves hoped and expected that they too would be fortunate enough to follow.
I should like to remind the House that the Minister's arguments about the number of middle-class parents who were involved were for me very unpersuasive. The professional classes of my experience are not particularly wealthy and quite often the professional classes who are supporting two and three children find themselves, particularly where they are in one-parent families because of separation, divorce or widowhood.

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extremely strapped for cash. It has made a great difference to them to be able to get assisted places for their children.
I am also sad at the impact that the removal of the scheme will have on some of the independent schools themselves. As other noble Lords have said, it is very good for the independent sector to have a social and financial mix in their pupil populations. I would feel that we had lost something very valuable if the independent sector were to return to the days when only those who could afford to pay were able to send their children to independent schools. I know that the independent schools themselves will make great efforts to continue, through scholarships and so on, to provide opportunities. Nevertheless, there is bound to be a reduction in the number of children, particularly those from lower economic and financial backgrounds and from the very deprived personal backgrounds who have been the main beneficiaries, on anyone's analysis, of the scheme. I think particularly that it will hit some of the very good girls schools, which always find it harder to attract endowment money and therefore may be the most affected by this rather unfortunate measure.
Other noble Lords have made excellent points about the strength of the scheme. Therefore, I should like to make just two or three points which are particularly addressed to the argument relating to the reduction in class sizes for the early years. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will make it clear to anxious parents who have been whipped up by the media that reducing class sizes is not very easy. It is not simply a matter of producing a little money out of a hat and, hey presto, next year all the class sizes will be below 30. That is true for many reasons.
First, the LEAs now make many of the decisions about the way in which money is spent. I note that the Minister said that she intended to hold discussions with the LEAs about how they would reduce class sizes with the rather small sum of money that they are to be given. Nevertheless, I worry very much whether she has in fact from the Department of Education and Employment the authority to tell LEAs what they are to do, particularly as, if we continue the argument, the next stage is that the schools themselves have the final choice as to what they will do with the resources given to them.
As my noble friend Lord Skidelsky made dramatically clear, schools with quite low ratios of pupils to teacher can nevertheless decide whether they teach in large classes or in small classes or whether in fact, as many of them do, they divide the day up into periods of larger-class teaching and then smaller groups working with classroom auxiliaries on particular aspects of the curriculum. In fact there is already a ratio between pupils and teacher which is adequate to allow schools to teach in quite small classes—well below 30—if they so choose. I do not think that one or two extra teachers in a few schools will make a great deal of difference to the way in which schools organise themselves. I should be interested to know from the Minister how she intends to follow through this strange conundrum of intervening at the level of the schools' decisions as to what they do with resources.
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The second reason is that five and six year-olds do not come in neat packages of 29, 28 or 27. They come in all kinds of different packages year on year. In the case of a very small infants school in a village which is relatively isolated, I should be interested to know what the Government propose they would do if in one unfortunate year that infants school in the isolated village found itself with a class of 32. Would they then take three children and bus them down the road to the nearest village, which I suggest would be extremely unfortunate for the three who were kicked out, or would they ask the school to invest the huge sum of money needed to bring in an extra teacher and provide an extra classroom in order to divide those 32 children into two classes of 16, so that they could somehow magically deliver their promise of having classes under 30? It is not simple. I hope that that honest truth is conveyed to the parents and the anxious public of this country.
Another matter in the noble Baroness's opening statement worried me even more. I feel very anxious about what she said as regards putting pupils who would putatively be recipients of assisted places into the surplus places of the maintained sector without any additional cost. My noble friend Lord Skidelsky suggested that that would be impossible. Certainly, under existing legislation it would be impossible. My fear is that perhaps there is some proposal to turn back from the principle that the money follows the child and that in future we shall have new legislation which will somehow say that the surplus places are no longer to be funded, but to be filled up to a certain level without any additional money.
That is a very worrying thought. I would hate to be the head of a school which was suddenly made to take five extra children and was told, "After all, we know that you haven't got any surplus places, my love, but down the road there are 25 such places. so I'm afraid that there isn't any funding for them and they are coming to your school now". Somehow they are fitted in, but however it is done and in whatever way those surplus places are distributed for the additional pupils without the assisted places scheme in independent schools, it would mean that in the state sector the overall unit of funding per pupil would have to go down. There would be less money spent per pupil because, just as there is no such thing as a free lunch, there is absolutely no such thing as a free place. Anyone who has ever run a school or an institution can tell you that.
My last point is this. I was very privileged to be one of Her Majesty's Inspectors for 17 years of my life and to share with schools and colleges their daily work. Very often nowadays we hear far too much about a tiny minority of schools and teachers who are failing. In parenthesis, I believe most teachers now feel that although the press in the past chastised them with whips, New Labour appears to be outdoing itself in chastising them with scorpions. Hardly a day goes by without hearing of yet more schools failing and that there are more bad teachers around. That does not do much to make the good teachers feel cheerful.
However, my point is this. In those years I visited many hundreds of schools in both the independent and the state sectors. I can say without any doubt that the

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majority of the schools were good and a substantial minority were excellent. Some were poor but there was absolutely no correlation with where the good, bad or excellent schools were to he found. Some were in the state sector and others in the independent sector. Although I have fought throughout my professional career against the idea that independent schools were necessarily always good and state schools were necessarily always inferior, I wish to say very strongly that I hope we shall get away from the idea that somehow independent schools are there to be raided for a bit of extra money if it is needed or they are somehow socially divisive and therefore a bad thing in themselves.
There is excellence in the state sector and also in the independent sector. Some of the excellence in the latter is of world-class quality. It seems to me that any responsible government would wish to ensure that it is excellence which is promoted wherever it is to be found and that bright children should have access to the excellence of the independent sector regardless of their parents' ability to pay.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, several noble Lords have congratulated the noble Baroness Lady Blackstone on her accession to office. On the contrary, I feel obliged to offer her my commiseration. After all, here is someone who has built up a justified reputation in the education world—with a very firm foundation in a grammar school, which is not the kind of school favoured by her party—and the London School of Economics, which, prior to the foundation of the University of Buckingham, was the last university institution to be founded wholly by private enterprise. Yet here is the noble Baroness obliged to begin her tenure of office by introducing this pitiful little Bill.
It could be called an anti-education Bill. But it is not a consolation to be told that it is only the beginning of a whole series of further measures which we are to hear about in the promised White Paper because one wonders if the philosophy which underlies this Bill will be the philosophy of the other measures which we are to expect.
I believe that expectations were raised by Mr. Tony Blair during his election campaign when he constantly stressed this aspect of policy. One may remember him going around repeating the mantra, "Education, education, education". That reminds me very much of something I learnt about his late Majesty, King Charles II. On the ship returning him from exile he was asked by one of his courtiers what would be the watchword of the new reign. "Alistair, my boy," he said, "it is obvious—chastity, chastity, chastity". So mantras do not always tell one a great deal.
But what has impressed me in this debate is something which was most clearly enunciated by the right reverend Prelate—that is to say, that there is a direct connection between the assisted places scheme and the abolition of the direct grant schools and that they in turn rest on a long tradition of founding schools in which the Church of the right reverend Prelate initially played the major role; namely, that independent
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education in this country, both for those who were to become the ruling or administrative class and for many others, existed long before there was a state system. The state system is a relatively recent accretion to the British educational system and all proposals for change might well take that into account.
I speak with particular concern on this matter. Although I am not a member of the right reverend Prelate's Church I enjoyed the fruits of the work of one of its great figures in the Renaissance period, Dean Colet. It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, is not in his place because I could point out that his school in Glasgow might have produced quite good generals: we produced, inter alia, Marlborough and Monty. Those who have appreciated the fact that they are enjoying something which goes back to thinking about education centuries ago must have some concern about what is the apparent philosophy of noble Lords opposite. I believe it was the noble Baroness Lady Lockwood who said that we are engaged in a controversy about the philosophy of education. While agreeing with her, I am not sure that I would define the difference in that way. There is no contradiction in the idea that there is an ineluctable contest between the education of an entire younger population up to their maximum and the selection and training of people of outstanding ability, but the contradiction clearly exists in the minds of Her Majesty's present Ministers as evinced by this Bill.
A good deal has been said about the disappointment of individual children whose careers may be cut off or the disappointment of parents who may suddenly find themselves unable to continue the education of their children in the way that they had hoped. As noble Lords will be aware, I am not a sentimental person. I do not go in for that kind of thing. I look at it entirely cold-bloodedly from the point of view of the national interest. It is in the national interest that wherever outstanding talent exists in any field the use of it for the nation's benefit, whether it be in commerce, administration or on the battlefield, should not be curtailed by the lack of funds in the particular child's family. That seems to me to be essential. But, in order to bring that about, one needs a great variety of schools, because there are different forms of excellence. One needs boarding schools as well as day schools. One needs a whole gamut of educational provision. What depresses me about the philosophy (if I may call it that) of the noble Lords opposite is that it is based on the belief that the nation's interests can be served within a system of only one kind of school. I believe that it cannot be done, and no serious country believes that it can be done or proceeds along those lines.
Since my noble friend Lord Skidelsky and others have demolished any argument that a serious financial contribution to the general education system will be made by this Bill—it appears to me that numeracy standards should be looked at in Her Majesty's Government before they are looked at in the population at large, but that is by the way—it seems to me that there is nothing to this Bill except a gesture against the notion of selection, the notion of differentiated schools, the notion that there is a national interest above the

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interest of any child, family or school and that that should be at the heart of education policy. I hope that one day it will be again.
6.53 p.m.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, no Bill can have been more widely expected than this. Since its introduction in 1981 the assisted places scheme has been consistently opposed by the Labour Party. This year's manifesto spelt out the abolition of the assisted places scheme and the intention to use the funds to reduce class sizes for five, six and seven-year olds. This commitment was one of the five key pledges made by the Prime Minister to the electorate. No doubt it played its part in the victory on 1st May.
The noble Lords, Lord Skidelsky, Lord Henley and Lord Tope, and others, including the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, have questioned the financial calculations that make that pledge. I have read the paper to which they referred and listened to the arguments made by my noble friend the Minister. I am not sufficiently expert to be aware of the merits of the argument. However, there are two matters on which I am clear. First, the abolition of this scheme will release substantial sums for the DfEE to spend as it sees fit. Secondly, it was one of the five key pledges that class sizes would be reduced to 30. I have no doubt that that key pledge will be met.
For the record, the argument against the assisted places scheme is one of fairness. We believe it is fairer that 440,000 five, six and seven year-olds should have their class sizes reduced to 30 or less than that just 38,000 schoolchildren should be selected to attend independent schools. Irrespective of the use to which the money is put, no government should subsidise the independent sector at the expense of the children who are directly in their care. I believe that it was a tacit admission of failure by the previous government that they did not believe the state sector could offer high standards to all those for whom it was responsible.
Lord Skidelsky: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. Surely, the point at issue is whether it is at the expense of the 450,000. The noble Lord assumes that it is. I was making a rather strong argument that it is not.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, I have understood the arguments of the noble Lord and have read the paper to which he referred. But the Government have been elected on two very clear pledges. Whether or not they are reconcilable, they will be achieved individually. But if this Bill goes through substantial amounts of money will be released and class sizes will be reduced to 30 or less for five, six and seven year-olds. That is the substantive point, and that is the intention of the Government. Of course, this places a grave responsibility at the door of the new Government. Many state schools achieve high standards, but not all. One cannot dismiss the aspirations of many parents to send their children to independent schools as elitist or mere snobbery. There is genuine and widespread concern that standards of discipline and academic achievement are too low in parts of the state sector.
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The Government are pursuing various initiatives to ensure that best practice spreads to all schools. I wish them well in that endeavour. However, they must be realistic as to why so many parents aspire to independent schooling for their children. The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, laid down a challenge to the Government when he spoke of the benefits to some children of boarding school education. He said that children had to be treated as individuals. I know from experience that some young boys benefit from boarding school education.
The noble Baroness, Lady Elles, said that a reduction in class sizes was not of itself sufficient to increase standards. She is right. However, I have never read an independent school prospectus that did not boast about the small class sizes that it had to offer. The noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said that independent schools benefited from the social mix of bright children coming from poorer backgrounds. The contrary argument is equally true. State schools will also benefit from these children and raise standards as a whole.
I have spoken briefly about why I believe the assisted places scheme is wrong in principle. When one looks at practice the argument is stronger still. Last autumn I had the privilege of addressing the Association of Independent School Bursars. My message was not well received. I emerged with only light flesh wounds. Nevertheless, all of the bursars were realistic about the resolve of the Labour Party to abolish the assisted places scheme. During coffee breaks I was regaled with stories about how the assisted places scheme was abused. I heard stories about the money paying for people's divorces and the general ingenuity of parents in accessing these funds. Those stories were told with a ribald humour which spoke volumes about the scheme's lack of success in helping the kind of children that it was meant to help.
However, the point was made that despite widespread abuse of the scheme, there were examples where children had been given life-enhancing opportunities that would never have been received without an independent school education. No doubt that argument was inculcated into the children themselves. I find that argument sad and fundamentally flawed, in that it consigns those who do not receive independent education to the second rank and fails to recognise that many state schools can and do offer a breadth of opportunity and achievement that encourages each child to make the most of his or her talents.
The noble Lord, Lord Henley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred to the Bill as nasty and mean spirited. They are wrong on both counts. The Bill puts the many above the few. If they call that old Labour, so be it. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, raged—I put it as highly as that—at the injustice of sending bright children to state schools. The noble Lord, Lord Butterfield, spoke of the sacrifice of children. The noble Baroness, Lady Elles, spoke of throwing children onto the dust heap. The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky. called for a huge expansion of the independent sector. The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, capped it all by speaking of anti-education. If the party opposite believes that, what an indictment of its education policies over the

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past 18 years. Does it believe that sending a child to the state sector will consign it to the dust heap? That is a shameful argument to use.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. My noble friends Lady Elles, Lady Young and Lord Butterfield said nothing of the kind. None of us on this side of the House has anything but admiration for excellent state schools, and clearly more children benefit from them than from the independent sector. The noble Lord has to advance a different argument, if he supports the Bill.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, I wrote down the comments at the time they were made, and we can check Hansard. I stand by what I said. They were the arguments used against sending children to state schools when noble Lords opposite were arguing that the independent sector offered the only true opportunities.
I support the Bill because it narrows the gap between the unduly privileged and the underprivileged; it redistributes taxpayers' money from the private sector to the public sector; and, above all, I support it because our five, six and seven year-olds deserve smaller classes and a better start in life.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I reiterate what my noble friend Lord Beloff said. Never did I use such words as those which the noble Lord has attached to me, and nor did my noble friend Lady Young. I therefore totally disregard his speech because he could not have been listening to anything said from this side of the House.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, if I am wrong, I apologise. But, as I said, I wrote down the comments after they were made. We can check in Hansard tomorrow.
7.3 p.m.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, the noble Lord may be as puzzled about that as he was about finance. It is plain that the purpose of the Bill is to release money to improve educational standards. Despite the philosophy of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby: "When I say a thing, it means what I say", which he asks the Government to apply to themselves, I shall be interested in the Minister's reply to the lucid indictment by my noble friend Lord Skidelsky of the financing that lies behind the scheme. If the finance does not stand up, then the Bill is revealed, as suggested by the right reverend Prelate, and my noble friends Lady Young, Lord Beloff, and many others, as the product of an educational ideology—an ideology which has played a large part in reducing standards and limiting opportunity. It is an ideology that destroyed grammar schools and the direct grant schools, and now does this. Naturally, as a child of poor parents and a former pupil of a direct grant school, I feel strongly about it.
The Labour Party, whether in government or in opposition, has always opposed any co-operation between the independent and the maintained sector of
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education. The fact that a large proportion of present independent schools, particularly the direct grant schools, maintains selection, when the state established non-selective area comprehensive schools aggravated that opposition to co-operation.
The Prime Minister professes to have learnt a great deal from the Labour Party in Australia. But I am afraid that old Labour prevails in education. In Australia, the Labour Party has never opposed the use of public funds in the independent sector. It is happy to give grants to schools as selective as Sydney Grammar and as exclusive as Geelong. But the Government have no interest in any co-operation.
There are poor parents. I was High Master of St. Paul's for seven years. I ran the assisted places scheme. I must have seen income returns from some hundreds of people. We admitted about 20 pupils a year, but received many more applications. I never saw incomes above £15,000. With regard to middle class children, it is true that some had been in the private sector. They had lost a parent, parents had lost jobs, or a mother had suffered a divorce from a husband who did not have enough money to support two families. Those were the children who came from the independent sector. The myth of subsidy to the middle class is just a myth. It should not be used, because it is dishonest. I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Hampden. One would find that to be so from the headmasters of many schools.
Let us look at the reason, because it is important. Why did poor parents elect to leave the maintained sector and take up assisted places in independent schools? It was because those schools offered specialist courses which were not available to the children in the maintained schools in the area where they lived. I shall give some examples. Some children have an aptitude for languages. In areas such as Hackney and Stoke Newington, few schools offered more than two modern languages, and many did not offer that. At St. Paul's, as did many other independent schools, we offered four or more modern languages as well as Latin and Greek. Because of our nature as a selective school, we had a fine mathematics department at post-16 level which could offer double mathematics and the whole range of mathematical studies. I can assure the Minister that those courses were not available in the area comprehensives from which those children came. That was especially true of the poorer areas of the city and certain ethnic areas of the city. That is why they came.
Paradoxically, the Government recognise the value of the specialisation that exists in many independent schools. Only last week, in a press statement, the Minister's colleague, the Minister responsible for schools standards, Estelle Morris, said:
"Specialist schools are popular with schools, parents and sponsors alike".
So I am delighted that the Government are continuing the previous government's policy of creating such schools to specialise in languages, technology and a whole series of other areas. I think that the Prime Minister talked about sports, mathematics, and such subjects. They are seeking private finance to assist that development, as did the previous government.

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It therefore seems to us—as my noble friends have said—odd and ideologically motivated that a government who are prepared to set up specialist schools are not prepared, as are the Australian Government, to take advantage of the specialisations which already exist in independent schools and are available to poor families through the assisted places scheme.
As a headmaster of 17 years standing, I can assure the Minister and her colleagues that if they believe £100,000 and an extra £100 a pupil can create language departments equivalent to those which exist in independent schools and which are the product of years of work, of choice of staff, and years of investment in satellite dishes, language laboratories, and so forth, and that they will have the equivalent of the language department of St. Paul's available now to poor children, they are mistaken.
Perhaps I may underline a point made by the right reverend Prelate and other noble Lords. The main candidates for assisted places are pupils in the former direct grant schools. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, was right when he said that this scheme was created to try in some way to continue the tradition of the direct grant schools. Everyone must acknowledge that they were sacrificed on the altar of ideology because they withdrew from the state sector and became independent, sadly and reluctantly, so as to maintain their academic specialisation.
These schools, many in the great northern cities such as the one I attended, have a long history of serving the talented children of poor parents. I very much doubt whether poor parents in Bradford, Manchester and Newcastle will find any even designated maintained schools which will replace the existing excellence of schools such as Bradford Grammar, Manchester Grammar, the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle, King Edward's, Birmingham, and so forth. As one of my noble friends said, they are schools with an international reputation for excellence.
As was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and others, the tragedy is that the money released by depriving these able and poor children of access to schools such as those will not achieve the transformation of the education system that the Government claim. I repeat that I shall be delighted if the noble Baroness, with the support of her officials, can shoot down the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, in flames. It will be a great gladiatorial combat, to which I look forward.
However, perhaps I may go further and underline what was said by my noble friend Lord Henley. If class sizes are reduced to 30 the popular schools—those are the best schools which are full—will have to turn away pupils. If a law provides that classes must have no more than 30 pupils anyone with a child at a bad school who wants to move to a popular school which has classes of more than 30 will be told, "No luck, my son. You stay where you are". If I were a parent I should prefer a class of 32 in a good school rather than a class of 30 in a bad school.
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I shall be interested to hear what the Minister says about that, but the Government could solve the problem in a simple way. They could spend more money on buildings in the popular schools so that the popular and best schools can take more children. But we return to the mystery of money. Where will the money come from? In that respect I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and the Liberal Democrats. If you want to improve things and not force children to go to bad schools just because you limit the class size you must spend money on the good schools. The end result will be to force children to remain in poor schools. Therefore, the result of this sorry little Bill will be to abolish the chance of bright pupils to go to schools such as Manchester Grammar and force others to go into classes of 30 in bad schools.
This country needs both smaller classes and specialised academic courses for academically able pupils. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, that a country which does not value its academically able pupils is a country doomed to decline. As I have said often in this House, in every other part of Europe there are post-16 centres of excellence for able pupils; brilliant sixth forms equivalent to that of Manchester Grammar. The assisted places scheme provided some chance for that in our country. I must therefore say that it is a mean, nasty little Bill, as my noble friend said. and many will suffer.
In Committee, I and the noble Lord, Lord Tope, will press the Minister about the proposal to force children to leave at 11. I shall be interested to hear how the Secretary of State will offer his appeals system. There are some difficult cases. I know of a dyslexic child aged 10 in an independent school. Will he be able to go to a dyslexic unit? There is another point which the Minister might dismiss but which I believe is important. If at a private school a pupil started to learn French at eight and Latin at nine, is it good for his or her education to have to begin French again at 11 and possibly abandon Latin altogether?
I cannot imagine any other European country depriving poor and clever children of a chance to attend schools which are recognised as excellent and have produced many people who have contributed to the nation. I refer to schools such as Manchester Grammar, St. Paul's and Westminster, but I could extend the catalogue further. The Government are saying that such pupils should not attend those schools, and the end result will be children forced to remain in unpopular schools and in classes of 30 in bad schools. It is a bad Bill and owes a lot to an ideology which desires and believes only in a state monopoly of education. It obstinately refuses to see that co-operation between the independent and state sectors would help to improve education.
When the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, used to stand at this Dispatch Box I constantly reminded him that he was like the Bourbons; he had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. I am afraid that I must apply the same epithet to the Government. This Bill ought not to have been put forward.
7.16 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have congratulated me on my new post. I am delighted to be in it. I am grateful for the commiserations of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, but I do not need them. I am very happy to be standing at the Dispatch Box introducing this Bill. It is a change which for a long time the Labour Party in opposition signalled that it would wish to introduce. It was part of our general election pledge that we would phase out assisted places.
I hope that noble Lords opposite and on my own Benches will forgive me if I fail to answer all the questions that have been asked today. We have had an informative debate, but how useful it has been I am not sure. However, I am sure that it has set the scene for a lively Committee stage. I hope that in Committee we will be able to go into more detail, which I shall be unable to do in the time available to me tonight.
Lord Henley: My Lords, will the Minister offer to write to me and to other noble Lords who have made points that she cannot answer tonight, and do so before the Committee stage? I am still awaiting answers to a number of questions that I asked during my speech on the humble Address, which was a month ago.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, the noble Lord anticipated what I was about to say. Yes, of course, we shall write to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate and who put questions that I do not have time to answer today. I am sorry if during the debate on the Queen's Speech the noble Lord put questions which were not answered. I was not aware that my noble friend who wound up the debate made a commitment to answer any questions that he put. The noble Lord asked many questions and I apologise if they were not answered.
It might be easier for the parliamentary section of my department to answer questions put in this debate if the noble Lord's noble friend Lord Lucas would refrain from tabling so many Written Questions. Of course, we welcome Questions, but perhaps I may inform the House that he has now tabled almost 50 in seven weeks. That reaches an all-time record. We are answering them, but I mention the fact because it is hard work for the civil servants concerned.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. I take great exception to what the Minister has just said about my noble friend Lord Lucas. He has been working extremely hard as a parliamentarian—indeed, as parliamentarians should do—to examine the case that the Government are making. It is his right to table Questions. I hope that nothing that the Minister has said implies that he does not have that absolute right. There are rules and procedures in this House about the number of Questions that can be tabled. No doubt the Clerks will advise my noble friend whether he has broken any of those rules. However, it is my understanding that he has not done
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so. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to recognise the absolute right that my noble friend has to table such Questions.
Further, if the Minister's civil servants are too tired to answer such questions, then as Minister responsible she ought to consider reorganising her department to ensure that there are enough civil servants to do so. After all, it must surely be one of their most important roles to reply to Questions tabled by Members not just from this House but also from another place. I should add that the point just made by the Minister is not one that she would have got away with if she had made it in another place.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, the noble Lord. Lord Strathclyde, has now taken up quite a bit of my time which I would otherwise have used in answering questions which have been put to me in today's debate. Of course I am not denying that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has a right to table Questions. He has the right to do so and they are all being dealt with. I am simply trying to explain that I believe it is a record for 50 Questions to be tabled in a period of seven weeks. It also amounts to a great deal of work for the civil servants concerned.
The noble Lord, Lord Henley, also complained about the timing of the Bill. However, the legislation has been introduced right at the start of the Session so as to give notice to the schools involved about the phasing out and to avoid any further uncertainty. It is a short Bill with a limited number of clauses. We made a pledge in this House with respect to the Bill, and any others introduced, that we would abide by the normal timetable. We shall of course do so. The Bill has nothing to do with dogma or envy. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and to my noble friend Lord Parry for their recognition of that fact.
Several speakers referred to "old Labour". I should point out that New Labour was elected on a large mandate—indeed, with a huge mandate—and it defeated divided Conservatism. The electorate endorsed our proposals to phase out the scheme and spend the money saved on reducing class sizes in infant schools. Unfortunately, noble Lords opposite seem to be a little out of touch with the views of the electorate on such matters. However, I am glad that the noble Lords, Lord Henley and Lord Campbell of Croy, accept that we do in fact have a mandate to make such changes. I am sorry to tell the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, that, given the fact that we made it absolutely clear in the election campaign and in our manifesto that this was something that we were going to do, we have no intention now of undertaking a review.
The noble Baroness, Lady Elles, talked about what she called the "mythical White Paper". She asked why it had not been introduced before the Bill. I believe I explained why we needed to introduce the Bill very early in the Session: we want to be fair to the schools concerned. However, we shall be publishing our White Paper early next month. It is a very wide-ranging document and one which covers a huge range of issues, not just matters which might be relevant to the question of class sizes. There will be plenty of opportunity to

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debate the White Paper and we shall be consulting widely. I should stress that we took office only on 2nd May and to expect a White Paper of this kind to be introduced in less than three months after taking office is rather a tall order. I hope that the noble Baroness will accept that fact.
The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, said that it was in the national interest that outstanding talent should be developed. I entirely endorse that view. It is in the national interest that outstanding talent should be developed. However, what depresses me about the philosophy of some noble Lords opposite is that they seem to think that private schools have some kind of monopoly in relation to developing and sustaining talent. I believe that came out particularly in some of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington. I see the noble Lord shaking his head, but he did go on and on about a small number of independent schools—
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the Minister but I merely pointed out that there were certain independent schools that have centres of excellence, as indeed do certain state schools. I therefore thought that, rather than children being forced to go to their area school, they should be given a chance in both. I never denied that many state schools have centres of excellence. I just wanted to point out that the legislation would deprive certain poor children of the opportunity to attend such centres of excellence. The Minister has misinterpreted what I said.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for intervening and saying that he does not deny that there are many state schools which make excellent provision for children.
However, one of the underlying themes of what was said by noble Lords opposite—and my noble friend Lord Ponsonby commented on this rather eloquently—is that the state system does not somehow match up. I am sorry, we on this side of the House are determined that in this Government we will promote a strong state system that can educate all of our children to the standards that they deserve. If I may say so, to assume anything else is insulting to teachers in our state schools, many of whom are excellent and many of whom are doing a fantastic job in more difficult circumstances than would be true of many teachers in the independent sector who are not coping with the kind of disadvantaged backgrounds which, unfortunately, characterise some of the pupils in the state system.
Finally, by way of introduction, I should like to say that we in the Government believe that the assisted places scheme is also the product of an educational ideology. Of course it is; there are ideological differences between us. It would be surprising if that were not so. Many rather insulting remarks have been made about the ideological basis of our wish to make changes. Yes, of course, our views are different and our priorities are different. I would not expect otherwise.
I should stress that the cost of the scheme simply cannot be justified—£160 million this year for the schemes in Great Britain, rising to £200 million at
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the turn of the century under the plans of the previous government. Over time, the previous government would have had to spend double that amount to meet their commitments. Our priority is to reduce class sizes as part of our strategy to raise primary school standards. We never said that we would achieve the class size pledge overnight. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, questioned whether the abolition of the assisted places scheme would in fact lead to the reduction in class sizes to which we are pledged. I should tell them that reductions will be made progressively as the APS savings arise. The resources freed by phasing out the scheme will allow us—and this is our pledge and commitment—by the end of this Parliament to meet our class size pledge. That is the time-scale.
The previous government had started a substantial expansion programme in the scheme so that significant savings will accrue as a result of phasing it out. The noble Lords, Lord Henley and Lord Tope, asked about the savings and queried what they would buy. I believe that was also true of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky. We predict that the savings will amount to about £100 million in total by the year 2000. That represents the cost of employing around 4,000 primary teachers for a year. Of course more savings will follow after the year 2000 which will enable us to appoint additional numbers of primary school teachers.
The range of figures quoted during today's debate on the cost of reducing class sizes was considerable. Much depends on the underlying assumptions. I do not want to get too technical in this Second Reading debate and I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I do not do so. Two past pieces of independent research show a cost of around £65 million a year for the reduction of class sizes. That is within the sums that we shall be saving from the assisted places scheme in the next five years. We need, of course, to review the costings with local authorities. I am absolutely ready to concede that a review will have to take place as we go along. As the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said, we intend to talk to local authorities and consider the costs in the light of all the practical issues that they will have to face. Of course, there are practical issues when one makes any change of this kind, but we shall address them.
The noble Lord, Lord Henley, asked about the mechanisms for ensuring that the money saved would be used to reduce class sizes. Available funding will be distributed between authorities on an equitable and transparent basis and in the light of needs. The distribution must reflect past decisions by authorities so that we do not penalise those who have already taken measures to cut class sizes by favouring primary schools in their spending decisions. Initially at least we expect to ring fence the APS savings to be spent on specific measures to reduce infant class sizes. However, as I said, the details of the process will be discussed with local authorities and others in the coming weeks. I do not think noble Lords could expect me at this stage to have every fine detail in place on how that will be achieved. I ask for the understanding of noble Lords in that respect.

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In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, and others, this Bill is about the phasing out of the assisted places scheme to help us to meet our pledge on class sizes. We shall provide full details on the arrangements to achieve smaller class sizes in the White Paper and in the autumn education Bill. However, what is clear is that phasing out the assisted places scheme will lead to significant savings to help us meet that pledge and to reduce infant classes by the end of this Parliament.
The noble Lord, Lord Butterfield, said that he has grandchildren. I, too, have grandchildren. I have a five and a half year-old granddaughter in a local authority primary school and she has three year-old twin sisters who are about to start in a nursery school. I want my grandchildren to benefit from this Bill. I want to see excellent primary schools and classes of a size that makes it possible for teachers to achieve that excellence.
I turn now to a number of concerns that were expressed as regards the impact on the maintained sector of abolishing or phasing out this scheme. Various dire predictions were made by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, but I think they were based on a false premise that all the places would be withdrawn with immediate effect. The noble Lord shakes his head. I take it back if that is not what he meant. I reinforce what I have already said; namely, that we are phasing out, not abolishing, this scheme outright. The noble Lords, Lord Skidelsky and Lord Henley, claimed that there would be significant extra cost to the state sector. However, I think I am right in saying that they were assuming average costs when marginal costs are the relevant measure here. Incidentally, I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, for his kind words about my appointment. We do not always agree about many aspects of education but debating with him has always been enjoyable and challenging and it is always conducted in a good natured way. His intervention today was rather more good natured than, I am afraid, were the speeches of some noble Lords opposite.
Lord Skidelsky: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her words and also for giving way. However, I was not of course talking about marginal cost pricing because that is not the way the state sector costs its pupils. We have a clear difference. The Government have predicted £100 million of savings in year three. The Institute of Fiscal Studies says that it will be £28 million. It has used a sophisticated methodology and seems to have relied on realistic assumptions. Which figure does the noble Baroness believe in? If the Institute of Fiscal Studies is correct, how will the gap in funding be met?
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I have made it absolutely clear that the Government believe that there will be savings of £100 million from the scheme. I have not seen the report of the Institute of Fiscal Studies but I shall certainly look at it to see what it has to say.
Last year there were 815,380 surplus school places in England. There was not a single LEA where the number of entry assisted places exceeded the number of surplus places within that LEA. Therefore every local education
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authority has the capacity to absorb the number of pupils no longer entering the assisted places scheme. There are about 10,000 new assisted places available each year. That represents only one-eighth of 1 per cent. of the school population. Most entry places—some 6,000 of them—are available at the age of 11, compared with half a million children transferring from state primary schools. That is fewer than two pupils for every secondary school in England. With over a year's notice, local education authorities have plenty of time to plan and make the appropriate arrangements. The comments that have been made by noble Lords opposite who have suggested that this will be terribly difficult are misconstrued.
Pupil projections underpinning the local government finance settlement for 1998–99 will make assumptions as in previous years about the size of the independent sector as a whole rather than for the assisted places scheme itself. Many assisted places scheme schools are predicting that they will have absolutely no difficulty filling their places with fee paying pupils. This leads us to conclude that overall it is unlikely that the phasing out of the scheme will have any major net effect on maintained sector provision. However, we shall keep the matter under review. For the present we do not believe that educating children who may otherwise have had assisted places will result in a significant additional burden on local education authorities.
Several speakers, including my noble friend Lady David, asked about the position of children in assisted places in primary schools. A number of noble Lords opposite were critical of our decision to cease support at the end of primary schooling. But that is the most sensible age for a child to transfer to the maintained sector. I do not accept that it is unreasonable to expect a child to change schools at the age of 11. Half a million children do so every year. Those who argue for a general extension of support through to the age of 13 do so on the ground that the scheme should provide the bridge until alternative sources of funding are available for them to complete private education through to age 18. I question whether those pupils are genuine candidates for support.
We are honouring commitments made in opposition. We never said that children in integral junior departments would keep their places through to age 13 or 18. Our commitment to those pupils is to the end of the primary phase of their education.
We also made clear that discretionary power to extend support beyond the age of 11 will be used flexibly and in a way that is sympathetic to the needs of individual pupils. For example, we indicated that we propose to exercise discretion in favour of all 10 year-old children who take up entry places at a secondary school. We take the view that although such children may be receiving primary education, they are attending a school which has an age range of 10 to 18, which is essentially a secondary school. Any pupil in a preparatory school going up to the age of 13 who had a clear promise—and I mean a clear promise or understanding—of having a place up to that age will have that place honoured. We shall use the discretionary power already in the Bill to extend places beyond the age of 11.

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The noble Lord, Lord Henley, and, I believe, the noble Lord, Lord Tope, asked about promises before the election to preparatory school children. We always made it clear that we would phase out the scheme over a seven-year period, and that is what we shall do. It would be quite wrong to continue to subsidise private education at the taxpayers' expense when no such promise or understanding has been given. I think that we would be letting down the electorate if we were to do so.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, making blanket provision on the face of the Bill for places to continue to 13 is unnecessary. I regret to say that it would also be open to abuse. We intend instead to use the discretionary power which will enable the circumstances of each case to be checked. Each case will be considered carefully on its merits. In due course, we shall let the schools know in detail how that discretion will be exercised. That is the proper way to safeguard the public purse. It ensures that we put the consideration of what is best for the pupil—and that is what we are concerned about—ahead of the school's interest.
The noble Lord, Lord Henley, raised the question about middle schools. We have always said that we would exercise discretion in favour of children in areas with a later age of transfer to secondary schools. That we shall do.
A number of noble Lords raised the question of our attitude towards independent schools. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, mentioned the importance of building bridges between state and independent schools. Perhaps I may reassure him, the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and the right reverend Prelate, that there is no vendetta against the independent sector. Nor is there any intention of destroying the excellence of those schools. Indeed, the Government wish to promote excellence for the many children and not the few, as my noble friend Lady Lockwood pointed out. We already make a substantial contribution to the education of children with special needs in independent schools. We provide specialist provision in music and ballet which is not readily available in the state sector. We shall continue to do both those things.
However, we do not think that the scheme is a sensible way of promoting links. But I welcome proposals from the independent sector to build real bridges and forge substantial collaborative partnerships. We shall say something about that in the White Paper. The noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, is wrong to say that we have no interest in supporting bridge building of that kind. We most certainly do.
I am running out of time. Many other issues have been raised including questions by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, about value added. Perhaps I may say to the noble Baroness that I am afraid we disagree about the facts. I have read closely research undertaken by the London School of Economics. Our interpretation is that it does not bear out what the noble Baroness said. There is little value added for the bright children who transfer from the state schools
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to the independent schools under this scheme, These are able and talented pupils who would have done just as well, I am glad to say, in the state sector.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, raised questions about boarding education. We accept that boarding can be valuable especially for children from very disrupted and disadvantaged homes. Questions were asked about whether abolishing the APS would narrow the intake to independent schools. Again I cannot accept the claims made by noble Lords who suggested that.
A number of my noble friends commented on the fact that the assisted places scheme has not entirely reached those for whom it was intended. I remind the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, that the scheme was not designed for the professional classes to whom she referred. It was designed to help poor children from low income homes. In my introductory speech I made it clear that although some children in that category have benefited more than half the children on the scheme are from higher income families or from middle class families. Some may be from middle class families who have fallen on hard times. Some are the children of divorced or separated parents from middle and upper middle class backgrounds where the income of the father is not taken into account. I do not think that that is an appropriate way of defining eligibility for the scheme.
I do not have time to answer all the questions raised. However, I conclude by picking up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington. He made rather much of it. He suggested that there were wonderful modern language departments in independent schools. I have no doubt that he is right about that. But as someone who spent 19 years living in Stoke Newington, about which he made some rather derogatory remarks—
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, perhaps I may—
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, perhaps I may finish. We are running out of time and I have given way on a number of occasions. Many schools in Stoke Newington are making a very good stab at teaching modern languages to state school pupils. What the noble Lord said was extremely unfair to teachers of modern languages in state schools. A modern foreign language is a compulsory subject in the national curriculum for secondary schools. The noble Lord should know better than to suggest that some state schools do not teach it. A number of state primary schools also make provision for early years French. I do not accept the central thrust of the noble Lord's argument. The state sector can provide for the able child, and offer the curricular breadth that he or she needs which is both stretching and relevant.
The right reverend Prelate said that there was no educational reason for phasing out the scheme. I beg to differ. This is about educational priorities. After all, that is what politics is often about. It is about defining our priorities. It is about trying to find a more sensible use of scarce resources. There are many calls on the education

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budget and many improvements that we want to make. The very limited educational benefits of this scheme simply do not justify the educational expenditure made on it.
I have tried to deal with the main points raised during the course of the debate. I look forward to further debate in Committee and during the remaining stages. The Bill honours a pledge to the electorate. I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Solicitor-General's Salary Order 1997
7.50 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 12th June be approved [3rd Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. This draft order provides for an increase in the Solicitor-General's salary to the same rate as that of the Lord Advocate.
Following the general election, the Solicitor-General, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, was appointed a Minister in this House. Previous reports from the Top Salaries Review Body and the Senior Salaries Review Body have supported the traditional arrangement of paying the Solicitor-General the same salary as the Lord Advocate when both have been in the same House. Until 1979 they were both in the House of Commons. As both are now in the House of Lords, the salary of the Solicitor-General should be increased to match that of the Lord Advocate once again.
The order will come into effect on 27th June 1997 and will increase the salary of the Solicitor-General to £78,072 (from the current rate of £52,278). This level of salary was recommended for the Lord Advocate in the 1996 Senior Salaries Review Body report. I commend the order to the House.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 12th June be approved [3rd Report from the Joint Committed].—(Lord McIntosh of Haringey.)
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord the Deputy Chief Whip for the way in which he introduced the order. I shall keep the House for only a few moments. It is an interesting order. It is the first time that we have had an order of this type in this Parliament, which is not surprising. It is also interesting because of the introduction of the Solicitor-General to this House. I might add that I find it a very wonderful thing that after the result of the general election, with the enormous number of new Labour MPs who entered the House of Commons, among that great bulk they could not find their own Solicitor-General and had to come to the unelected House of Lords to fill that particular post. That must say something about the role of this House.
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The order is to come into force on 27th June 1997. Does that mean that the poor Solicitor-General will be rather more poverty-stricken up until that date than he otherwise might have been, and that he will not receive any pay between his appointment and 27th June? If so, I admire his selflessness. Perhaps the noble Lord will be able to advise me on that point.
I had intended to ask how the figure had been reached. However, the noble Lord explained that by saying that the Solicitor-General was to he paid at the same level as the Lord Advocate. My question then is: how is it that the Solicitor-General for England and Wales is not being paid at the same level as the Solicitor-General for Scotland, who is being paid only £66,811? That strikes me as rather bad luck for the Solicitor-General for Scotland. Considering that the Government says they are a Unionist party, I am sure that this debate should be drawn to the attention of the Solicitor-General, who may have something to say about it.
Both the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor-General are paid more than the Lord Privy Seal in this House. Some may think that that is fair enough. No doubt the noble Lord the Deputy Chief Whip has a justification for it.
More worrying is the fact that before 1st July 1996 the Lord Advocate, and therefore the Solicitor-General had he been in this House, was paid £57,241. Ministers of State in the House of Lords were paid £50,328, a difference of some £7,000. Ministers of State in he House of Lords are now paid £51,838, and now the Solicitor-General and the Lord Advocate are to be paid £78,000. The House will realise that there is a substantial gap between the two. The party opposite will know more about differentials than I do. However, it strikes me that these figures are more out of kilter than they should be.
I am also aware that Sir Michael Perry has been reviewing the position of the pay of Ministers in the House of Lords. I wonder whether the noble Lord might indicate how that review is going; whether or not Sir Michael Perry has reported; if he has not, when he hopes to report; and what the likely view of the Government would be if he recommended an increase. The Labour Government having bitten the bullet on paying the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor-General substantially more, I should be sorry if noble Lords who sit on the Front Bench opposite did not also receive a fair crack of the whip.
I am conscious that in saying this I may have an interest to declare. I believe that my own humble salary is somehow tied to that of a Member on the Bench opposite. I am not quite sure which one; and in any case it is very lowly. Having declared that interest, I hope that the noble Lord the Deputy Chief Whip will be able to answer some of the questions that I pose. I have no objection to this order going through in order for the Solicitor-General to be paid.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments and for the constructive way in which he approached the order. I can readily dismiss the argument that there is nobody

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in the House of Commons suitable to be Solicitor-General. Nothing in this order, or indeed in the appointment of a Solicitor-General in this House, should give the noble Lord that impression. It may well be merely a matter of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton being eminently well qualified for the post and it is entirely appropriate that he should be in this House.
I am afraid the noble Lord is quite right in saying that my noble and learned friend will have to wait until 27th June—it is only this Friday—to receive his higher salary. I understand that he is bearing this burden with equanimity.
The noble Lord said that the salary for the Solicitor-General for England and Wales should perhaps be consonant with that of the Solicitor-General for Scotland. He may or may not be right. However, that is not what the Top Salaries Review Body and the Senior Salaries Review Body recommended. Their recommendation on more than one occasion has been that the two posts of Solicitor-General for England and Wales and Lord Advocate should be the ones that are made equal.
The noble Lord then turned to the wider issue of ministerial salaries in this House. If he is to declare an interest, then I must declare the same interest, as must all of us on this Front Bench. I do not believe that under our rules it is one that disqualifies us from considering the matter. Indeed, it would be an absurdity if that were the case.
The noble Lord is quite right in saying that the Senior Salaries Review Body in its report of July last year did not consider the position of Lords Ministers. It deferred for further consideration the matter of the salaries of Lords Ministers, describing it as a development recommendation which should be considered by the Prime Minister. It was not considered by the previous Prime Minister, and I believe the noble Lord will agree that the present Prime Minister has had rather a lot of urgent business on his plate during the past seven weeks that would make it quite difficult for the matter to be referred to him.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt at this stage. My understanding is that the Senior Salaries Review Body has considered this subject and has taken evidence. Presumably as a result of that evidence it will make recommendations. My question is: does the noble Lord know whether it has completed that review, when it is likely to report and what the attitude of the Government is likely to be? The noble Lord may have answered the question as to what attitude the Government will take. He indicated that they have accepted its recommendation about the Solicitor-General, and therefore I assume that they would accept any recommendation that came from the Senior Salaries Review Body on ministerial pay in the House of Lords.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord is entitled to make that assumption or to tempt me into making it. As I was
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about to continue to say, as he and I know—at least I gave evidence to the board when I was in Opposition—the Senior Salaries Review Body has been considering the issue of salaries in the House of Lords. I do not know when it will report or what its recommendations will be and therefore it is impossible for me to say what the Government's response would be to any recommendations it makes.
The noble Lord said that this would make the Solicitor-General's pay greater than that of the Lord Privy Seal. It is true that the Lord Privy Seal has, in common with other Cabinet Ministers, restricted the salary that he draws to £58,876, but he is entitled to £77,963, which is very much in line with the salary now recommended.
Unless any other noble Lord wishes to intervene, I commend the order to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Channel Tunnel Rail Link (Stratford Station and Subsidiary Works) Order 1997
8.1 p.m.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. Perhaps I may, first, welcome the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, to what I believe is his first speech from the Opposition Front Bench on transport, although I am glad to have seen him already active at Question Time this week. I hope that he will enjoy the transport brief as much as I do. It gives me some comfort to see him there because it makes me feel quite well established in the job.
As this is the first time that a Motion tabled under the provisions of Section 9 of the Transport and Works Act has been debated in this House, I should perhaps briefly explain the purpose of this special statutory procedure. Orders under the Transport and Works Act 1992 replaced private Bills as the means by which new railways, tramways and certain other works projects are normally authorised. Section 9 of the Transport and Works Act gave Parliament a continuing and important role in relation to schemes which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, are of national significance by making it a requirement that the approval of each House be obtained before the Transport and Works Act order can be made.
If a resolution approving such proposals is passed in both this House and another place, the application goes forward for more detailed consideration at public inquiry. It would then be for the Secretary of State to decide, in the light of the inspector's report, whether to authorise the proposals in question by making a TWA order. The Secretary of State is not bound to make an order endorsed in principle by Parliament and until he makes his decision he must keep an open mind on the merits of the proposals. Nevertheless he would take careful note of Parliament's view in reaching his decision.

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The Section 9 procedure has been used only once before, for the Central Railway project, but, as the resolution approving the project was defeated in another place, this House did not have the opportunity to debate it. This time the resolution to approve the proposed Stratford station and twin-track connection to the North London and West Coast main lines was passed in another place on 12th June.
The use of the Section 9 procedure in this case is rather unusual. It arises because Section 42 of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996 provides specifically for these proposals, in any application for a TWA order, to be referred to Parliament under the Section 9 procedure. The Secretary of State has not had to form an opinion on whether they are of national significance: the decision to refer this application to Parliament has been taken out of his hands by Section 42 of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act. This special provision was inserted in the Act, with all-party support, to give Parliament an opportunity of formally demonstrating its support in principle for the proposed works.
The Government support these proposals in principle and therefore urge the House to pass this Motion. If the House were to reject it, that would in effect be the end of the matter as the order could not be made. If the House passes the Motion, the project will go forward for more detailed examination at public inquiry. My right honourable friend will then decide whether the order should be made, having taken carefully into account Parliament's approval and the inquiry inspector's recommendations.
With the leave of the House, I shall set out the Government's views on the proposals more fully at the end of the debate. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House, pursuant to Section 9(4) of the Transport and Works Act 1992 ("the Act") as applied by Section 42 of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996, approves the following proposals, contained in an application for an Order submitted under Section 6 of the Act by Eurostar (UK) Limited on 23rd January 1997 and entitled The Channel Tunnel Rail Link (Stratford Station and Subsidiary Works) Order, for
(1) The construction, maintenance and operation of—

(i) in the London Boroughs of Hackney and Newham, a station at Stratford for international and domestic services on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link with vehicular parking and other facilities in connection therewith; railways comprising down and up lines to serve international and domestic platforms at that station; and a station access road off Waterden Road, including a bridge over the River Lea;

(ii) in the London Borough of Hackney, a realignment and improvement of Waterden Road;

(iii) in the London Borough of Newham, a subway at the existing suburban Stratford station with a pedestrian link to the new station; and

(iv) in the London Boroughs of Camden and Islington, railways near St. Pancras to provide access between the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and the West Coast Main Line by means of a connection to the North London Line.

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(2) The authorisation of works ancillary to the above-mentioned works, including the stopping-up of York Way in the London Boroughs of Camden and Islington, the making of a means of access to and from that road and interference with waterways.
(3) The compulsory acquisition or use of land or rights in land for the intended works; compensation for this and for the injurious affection of land; and the compulsory use of subsoil.—(Baroness Hayman.)
8.6 p.m.
Lord Methuen: My Lords, from these Benches we welcome the proposals put forward in the order. I particularly do so as, having been a member of the CTRL Select Committee of this House, I am especially aware of the importance of the proposals to the scheme as a whole. Having sat through 32 days of the Select Committee, I can appreciate the benefits of having a TWA system.
It is essential that the benefits of the Channel Tunnel are made easily available to the whole country and not just to London and the south east. The provision of the double-track direct connection to the West Coast main line is a vital element and will save some 20 minutes of journey time by avoiding reversal at St. Pancras. It is disappointing that it is not practical to have a similar connection to the East Coast main line.
An inherent worry about the proposal is that the North London line will not have adequate capacity to handle both its existing and future Channel Tunnel rail link traffic. I trust that Railtrack can justify, and will carry out, any necessary improvements to avoid such a bottleneck. Reading the report of the debate on the order in another place, one is aware of the serious concerns about the proposals for the new Stratford station. The urban regeneration of the surrounding area is vital and it is essential that the new station and its pedestrian and road links and other facilities are integrated into the redevelopment of that area of east London with consequential benefit for jobs and the local economy. Those are aspects which will be properly left to the public inquiry and the inspector to resolve.
I have further concerns with regard to rail freight. We had a debate in this Chamber recently on the European railway strategy, which emphasised the need for encouraging traffic off the road. One hopes that connections to the West Coast main line will enable the rail freight freeway concept to be extended dramatically and effectively to the north and to the Midlands by the provision of new train paths to the tunnel, using this link.
There is already overloading of the West London line and the railways of the south east have only limited freight capacity. For effective freight use we need to minimise delays in the London area and at Dollands Moor with locomotives and crews working through from the north to the continental destinations and with open access to the French railways. Inspection at Dollands Moor should be automated, using electronic checking of loading gauge, axle weight and hot box detection, all of which should be practicable.

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I am glad that the facilities covered by the order can be achieved without the use of public finance. I look forward to being able to make use of the regional Eurostar services and strongly support the order.
8.8 p.m.
Lord Cadman: My Lords, in rising to support this Motion, I declare an interest in that last year, along with the previous speaker, I had the honour to serve on the Select Committee that examined the CTRL Bill, now an Act. I hope that that will enable me more fully to explain this order to your Lordships.
I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which she presented the order. London & Continental, as part of its bid to construct and operate the CTRL, included in its specification an international and domestic station at Stratford and an improved twin-track connection with the existing North London Line across the King's Cross railway lands. Those latter works are one of the subjects of this order and are to enable traffic to and from other parts of the UK to access the CTRL via the North London Line without having to go into St. Pancras. The station at Stratford will enable these trains to serve London, and its establishment there will enable much regeneration and improvement to take place at what will in fact become a transport centre with connections to central London via the Jubilee Line, to the Docklands Railway and to many parts of south-east England, not only by existing lines but also by the CTRL itself.
The CTRL Act provides for an open box section—a sort of trench—across the Stratford railway lines of about 1 kilometre in length, into which the line will rise from its tunnel from King's Cross and from which it will descend into its tunnel to Barking. That box will accommodate four running lines and platforms and a railway access point for maintenance and emergency purposes.
The order in front of us today provides for the construction of a station at that point with all the necessary facilities for processing international and domestic passengers. It will be connected with the existing station at Stratford by a pedestrian walkway, which I understand will have some kind of travelator installed in it. Thus, travellers from the Continent will be able to complete their journey into London and the south east easily. Similarly, joining passengers will find well planned access and connections to the new service.
The station at Stratford should do much to enhance the regeneration of that part of east London without compromising the local environment to any great extent. Access to the site has been the subject of careful and detailed study and, while car parking will be provided, its use will be managed in such a way as to discourage its use for any purpose other than in connection with international travel.
London & Continental attaches considerable importance to the regional services that will use the station. It has been established that some 20 million people will live within a four-hour journey time to Paris.
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Birmingham and the Midlands generally are included in that area and Manchester also will be just over five hours distant, using the links provided for in this order.
One of the advantages of the north of London Eurostar trains, as they are called, is the potential for a seamless and uncomplicated journey from the UK provinces to, in due course, many continental destinations. The security and immigration regimes suggested for the operation of these services appear at present to be somewhat lacking in practicality. They involve the total segregation of intending passengers at various provincial stations in circumstances with which those stations are ill equipped to deal. Such procedures are better done on the trains themselves. I hope that in due course, with the approaching completion of a proper facility at Stratford, careful consideration will be given—dare I say it—to instructing the immigration authorities to be a little more positive about how they propose to service these trains.
The King's Cross connection, while achieving a 20-minute saving in journey time, will do much to alleviate fears that the existing North London Line service will be compromised by its increased use by Eurostar services. The provision of a twin track connection in place of the original single line will provide much additional flexibility of pathing over the critical section of the North London Line through Camden Road by permitting parallel working through this section and reducing the likelihood of the North London Line being blocked by a Eurostar awaiting a path through to the CTRL.
We are all aware that major infrastructure projects usually bear an environmental and human price. I am pleased to be able to tell the House that this scheme is something of an exception. More than 90 per cent. of the land involved is railway land already earmarked for the rail link project and some distance from residential areas. Construction will be undertaken as part of the overall rail link works and will not add significantly to the environmental impact. The comprehensive regime for environmental protection put in place for the rail link Act will also apply to this scheme.
I hope, therefore, that your Lordships on all sides will support a scheme which has so many benefits. The support of this House for the Motion today will be consistent with the expressed will of the last Parliament, which strongly supported the principle of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill in both Houses without a division. Approval of the Motion today will enable the scheme to go forward for detailed consideration at a public inquiry in due course.
8.15 p.m.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, in rising to support this order, perhaps I may first declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. I was interested in the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Methuen, about 32 days sitting in Select Committee. I remind him that, if this order is approved in this House, there will be a public inquiry and we shall see whether the total length of time for the passage of the order through both Houses and for the public inquiry is longer or shorter than its

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equivalent for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill. That is something that we shall be looking at in a few years' time.
The noble Lord, Lord Methuen, also mentioned rail freight. I hope that I can put his mind at rest somewhat over the capacity for rail freight in the London area. Earlier this week, Railtrack announced that it would develop a kind of freight bypass for London, going round through Redhill and Guildford to Reading, for freight that does not need to go into or out of London. It is to be hoped that to some extent that will mitigate the problem of capacity constraints within the London area.
I have supported the Channel Tunnel rail link for a very long time, beginning long before I arrived in your Lordships' House. But I have always felt that the rail link was wanting without a station at Stratford and without a proper connection linking to the lines going beyond London. It is a credit to the people of Newham and East London generally that they have fought so hard for the station in the face of much opposition from the previous government, for reasons that I fail to understand. As the noble Lord, Lord Cadman, said, Stratford is a most wonderful transport interchange and it is desperately in need of a little economic regeneration. There are many arguments for building an interchange station there and I strongly support the inclusion of that part of the order.
Similarly, doubling the connection to the North London Line has to go in. I remind your Lordships that what is included in the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act was originally intended as an emergency line only, so that if a train were stuck in a tunnel and could not get into St. Pancras, it had a way out without going backwards, which is alleged to be difficult. There was never any intention of running through trains north of London. It is a tribute to the present promoters, who have seen the need to avoid reversing in St. Pancras, that they have now come forward with a very sensible scheme. So I support both parts of the order in that respect.
I should like briefly to revisit one or two matters which I raised in various debates in this House on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill. My first point relates to the construction of the Channel Tunnel rail link and specifically to the matters contained in this order. I should then like to move on to the operations.
As regards the construction, there has been a need for as much material as possible to come by rail. There have been ongoing discussions between the promoters and the English, Welsh and Scottish railways over facilities for the transfer of the aggregates and cement to King's Cross. Some rather unpleasant negotiations took place on the night that the English, Welsh and Scottish railways companies were transferred from British Rail, which seemed to have the effect of removing any security of tenure of the aggregate plants from King's Cross, even though they were required to service the construction. I believe that that issue has now been resolved. But there is still the problem of how many tracks are needed to unload the aggregates. It is very sad that that discussion is still going on about a year later.
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If there are not sufficient tracks to unload the aggregates, they cannot come by rail. It is as simple as that. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will use her best endeavours to encourage the promoters and the others involved to sort out that problem quickly.
Turning to Stratford, a year ago I raised the question of some of the land being available for a rail freight terminal, because there is nothing in the area left between Tilbury and Cricklewood. I quite accept that on the Stratford box area, that land has to be dedicated to development to help pay for the station. But up in Temple Mills, to the right hand side, there is a very large area of land which I believe could be used for a small rail freight terminal. It is ideally placed to service a fruit and vegetable wholesale market just across the river from there. It does not even have to have a security of tenure so long as it can move from one place to the other. Again, the negotiations have been going on intermittently for a year with no firm commitment or agreement and I hope that that is something else that my noble friend can further by putting pressure on the promoters.
Turning to the construction generally, I looked up some figures for the Channel tunnel construction the other day. On the UK side, 6,500 trains were used over three or four years to bring materials to the construction site. I hope that the promoters will comply with the spirit as well as the letter of the various undertakings given and bring everything that they can in by rail. It will save an enormous amount of environmental damage to local roads in the Stratford and King's Cross area as well as down the line.
I turn now to the operations. The noble Lord, Lord Cadman, raised the question of the through trains north of London and frontier control activities. He is absolutely right to raise that matter; I raised it a year ago. As I understand it, no progress has been made since that time. It is remarkable that in 1997 the promoters are prevented from carrying national passengers on international trains—they are not really international trains; they are inter-Community trains.
I know that frontiers still exist in this country, but it must be possible to come up with a regime which allows the frontier control people to accept as normal custom and practice a system of processing people on the train. If they need advice on that, they should look back to a morning in March when I returned to London from Paris on the first train of the day. There were six British frontier control people on that train. If the train had been full they would only have had to process 40 people each per hour, and the train was not full so they were probably down to around 10 people per hour. I am sure that they spent the night in Paris on business, but one wonders quite what they were doing there.
There is plenty of time to process people on the train. There is plenty of time to do the necessary checks before the train goes into the tunnel. The consequences of not doing that are that the trains going north of London—even those travelling to London, but I shall stick to those going north—cannot carry national passengers. Problems will occur when the north of London Eurostar starts operating later this year. It will start from

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Manchester or Glasgow on its way to Paris. One will not be able to get on to the train at Glasgow and get off at Crewe or Stafford; one will not be able to get on to the train at Stafford on the return journey and get off at Glasgow. Consequently, there will be a large number of empty seats on that train as it gets further from the tunnel, yet there is plenty of time for the frontier control people to process people as the train enters the tunnel. Bearing in mind that we recently read that London & Continental has had to delay its financing process because its traffic and revenue numbers are not up to scratch, surely that is something the Government could consider to assist the company in encouraging more people to use the trains when it launches its extremely important service north of London later this year.
The noble Lord, Lord Cadman, mentioned the immigration service on the trains. I should like to put it the other way round and say that the immigration service is a service to the people using the trains and not the other way round. I hope that the Minister will be able to pass on our comments to the Customs and Immigration services and all the other frontier control people so that when London & Continental starts its service north of London later this year, it can start as it ought to continue; that is, with open stations. When the train reaches Ashford or London on the way to the tunnel, the checks should be done on the train.
I conclude by commending the order to the House. I fully support it and wish it a fair wind in the public inquiry.
8.25 p.m.
Lord Mountevans: My Lords, I begin, unscripted, by echoing the last few paragraphs of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. It is critical—I may have misheard him; he mentioned Stafford but let me concentrate on Stratford—that the trains create a journey opportunity from the west coast main line into East Anglia. The train existed in the old days in a different form—in fact, some of us went on the last trip—but in terms of passenger convenience, journey opportunity and especially in terms of viability, his argument is well made.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, reminded us, this is the first TWA order to reach this House. The only other one that I can remember—that in relation to the Great Central Railway—died in another place last summer. I cannot think of a better way or a better subject with which to start the process in this House tonight, though I would prefer the expression "national benefit"—on which the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, also touched—to "national interest". One's interests and one's benefits are not always the same thing. But if I am to say what I find good about the order—and there is a great deal—let me say it briefly.
The order is good for London. It gives us a third Eurostar station by adding Stratford to Waterloo and St. Pancras. That must be good as a matter of consumer choice and will surely be even better in terms of contributing to solving the chronic congestion problems that exist in the city itself. The order is good for
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Kent to London commuters because of the benefits of integrating with existing infrastructure at Stratford, as has been mentioned already. I refer to Anglian Railways, Great Eastern Railways, the Docklands Light Railway, the Central Line and the Jubilee Line extension.
I originally thought that this issue was largely a passenger matter. But the other part of the order, the West Coast link, benefits not only passengers, but also potentially the through-freight from the Continent. We have already discussed trans-frontier freight and anything that makes trans-frontier freight easier must be welcomed.
Perhaps I may mention three caveats. So far I have spoken of all the things that I find good in the underlying order. There are three points which I do not say are bad, but which I should not like to see overlooked. The first is the matter of employment. Most noble Lords will have seen the brief. Putting it shortly, potentially 15,000 jobs may be created in an area of the Stratford hinterland where there are 90,000 unemployed. However, we must not overlook the Docklands experience. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of jobs were either created or safeguarded. Sadly, not many of them seemed relevant to the local unemployment problem. I hope that the Stratford Promotion Group, whose brief is extremely helpful, will not overlook that fact.
I hope also that all parties concerned will remember the needs of a group unmentioned either when the order went through another place, or so far this evening or in the brief. I put it bluntly: I refer to the needs of the disabled. We must make sure that they have the opportunity to enjoy the wonderful benefits that we have been discussing this evening.
I have one final concern: the timetable. It seems to be as long or as short as the public inquiry, and transport infrastructure inquiries have a habit of expanding not only into the time available but well beyond it. I believe the longest on record at the moment is Stansted; but that will soon be overtaken by Terminal 5. Much closer to home and more personally I can remember an infrastructure inquiry in the New Forest which was scheduled for two working days but actually took 30.
This topic was well raised last Thursday when my noble friend Lord Kinnoull asked an Unstarred Question. Of course, I agree that all interests concerned should have the chance to argue their case; to have their day in court, to use our expression; to have their time at bat, to use the Americanism. I hope the inspector's remit will be such, however, that relevance to the works we are discussing overrides irrelevance. A public inquiry can seriously prejudice the viability of a concept such as Stratford and the west coast main line link. I do hope that this will not turn out to be the case.
Yesterday afternoon I travelled from Brussels to Waterloo. The journey was immaculate and it was punctual; it took me almost five hours from Brussels to my own home. If Stratford had been available, I could probably have saved 30 minutes. That is just one more reason among many, albeit a personal one, for welcoming this order.
8.30 p.m.
Lord Crook: My Lords, I too welcome this order. I am sure that we shall all benefit from it. I do not wish to waste time by repeating what has already been said, so I shall be brief.
The Channel Tunnel rail link is a continental railway. It is not clear, however, whether it will be built to take continental-sized trains like the French TGV. Their trains are bigger than ours and they will not fit. If that is to be the case, then we are in trouble. This should be emphasised with reference to the North London link, because immediately there is no prospect of continental trains running along it. The west coast main line will not take them. That link ought nevertheless to be built to a size that can cope with French trains and where, inevitably, our lines are made bigger.
We should also warn that it would be a pity if the Stratford station construction followed the short-sighted approach at Ashford International, where it has been beautifully arranged so that French trains cannot stop at the Ashford terminal station but will bypass it. Goodness knows why!
Finally, I have a question for the noble Baroness. There is a remarkable little phrase in paragraph 12 of the order: "subsoil or under-surface". In the Oxford Dictionary "under-surface" apparently applies to the "under sides of the shafts of a cart". It is also fairly obviously the underside of the wings of an aircraft. Would the noble Baroness please let me know what it is supposed to mean in the context of this order?
Leaving that aside, I strongly support the order.
8.33 p.m.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, my apologies to the next listed speaker. I enter the debate because I find myself in a difficult situation. I thought we were to hear the details of the works before we heard the Government's view, so that we would know what we were talking about.
When the Channel Tunnel Bill came to this House it was opposed. It was opposed because some people wanted a public inquiry into the whole question of the Channel Tunnel in order to assess its consequences for the rest of the country. One of the points, put quite forcefully, was that the present problem in Great Britain was too much development in the south east, thereby creating a barrier between the rest of the country, including Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the Continent, where the large growth that we need will evidently take place.
The argument against a public inquiry was, "We can settle it without that; rest assured that we will be looking very carefully at the prospect of linking the Channel Tunnel, particularly with the West Coast Line". That was accepted, and we all went along with the idea that that was what would happen. It would not be a question of transferring in London passengers from the north to the Channel Tunnel. There would be a direct line from the north west, Northern Ireland and Scotland right through the south east to the
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Continent. At the time I thought that was a perfectly reasonable thing to say. On the Order Paper today, however, I see,
"in the London Boroughs of Camden and Islington, railways near St. Pancras to provide access between the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and the West Coast Main Line by means of a connection to the North London Line".
At first I took that to mean that we were to get a physical link by rail between the rest of the country through the Channel Tunnel without any stopping at all or any interference of that progress in London. It now appears, when I look at the schedule of works, that there is no mention of the West Coast main line. It merely talks of a connection to the North London Line. If my reading of the situation is right, once again the movement from the rest of the country will come up against a barrier. I look forward to being told that I am wrong. I had no hesitation in subscribing to my party's view at the time of what was the real solution to the traffic problems and development problems of Great Britain. I have no hesitation in reaffirming that.
I had a word with the Minister beforehand. I thought that by now I would have heard the details of what exactly was to happen. I have not. I hope still to hear them, and I hope that they will be along the lines of the assurances given to us when the public inquiry did not take place. If one thing has been very firmly established—it was, I believe, the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, who said so—it is that what is proposed is good for east London and the Jubilee Line. Yes, it is very good for east London, and to hell with the rest of the country's development. There are too many developments going on in London.
Lord Mountevans: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I said that the link to the West Coast main line opened up all manner of passenger and freight opportunities that were good for the rest of the country. He will see that when he reads my speech tomorrow.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord is proved right when we hear the details of exactly what is the link between the north west main line and the Channel Tunnel—not London, but the Channel Tunnel. I hope I am wrong, but I would be very surprised if that is so.
The problem is that all the developments in this country are too London-oriented. People are looking for developments in London and the south east. In my opinion and that of many people in the provinces, too much development is being ploughed into London. It is time some of it was pushed back where it belongs—among the majority of people in this country.
8.38 p.m.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, we on these Benches support and welcome the order which the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Cadman, have explained to us so well. I also thank the Minister for her kind words. I am sure that we shall have many interesting debates; it is certainly "all change" for us.

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I am pleased that the Minister is continuing with the previous government's policy on construction of the high speed link, thereby exploiting the advantages of the private sector in a major Private Finance Initiative or, as it is now known, a private-public partnership.
The line will be routed through east London to achieve the regenerative benefits mentioned by the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Cadman, and many other noble Lords. The order will allow for the construction of the international and domestic station at Stratford. This will make it much easier to travel to and from France and the rest of the Continent from the regions rather than just from the south east, as many noble Lords have pointed out so well.
Of course there will be some objections to the scheme but, as many noble Lords have said, these will be best handled by the public inquiry. It is to be hoped that the inquiry will not be too protracted. The noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, covered that point very well.
In due course the Government may have to make a decision regarding landfill tax and what to do with the spoil from the works. A satisfactory outcome may make it possible to use rail haulage to rail-connected landfill sites rather than use road haulage to landfill sites near London. I do not expect the Minister to respond to this point. It is merely an observation.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, referred to the use to be made of the other Stratford railway lands and Temple Mills. It may be a little late to address the particular issue that the noble Lord raises. However, the planners and indeed the Minister will need to strike a balance between developing derelict railway land on the one hand and not inadvertently constraining future rail developments on the other.
The noble Lord also made some interesting points regarding customs and immigration formalities. The Minister's right honourable friend the Prime Minister is right to maintain the nation's control of immigration. The controls need to be effective but they do not necessarily need to be burdensome. The noble Lord also referred to the upgrading of the twin-track connection between the west coast mainline and the CTRL. With the twin-track facility, any serious problems at St. Pancras Station can be easily overcome. I am pleased that this very wise decision was made.
I have today very briefly studied the plans for the CTRL scheme between Stratford and St. Pancras and I was struck by the opportunities that will be presented to the construction industry. However, it will require large sums of money to build the railway and there will be risks attached to it. I am quite sure the Minister understands that profit is the reward for taking risks. But does she understand the loss of confidence attached to applying windfall taxes to projects that turn out to be successful? The Private Finance Initiative will work, but only if it allows for private profit as well as private risk.
The noble Lord, Lord Cadman, mentioned the "travelator" between the new station and the existing station. Today I detected some doubt as to whether the walkway will be mechanical. I am, I think, much fitter than many of your Lordships. However, I still find long
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walks with luggage very tiring. I hope that the developers will rethink this point carefully. It is not, of course, a matter for the Minister to comment on.
This order is part of the process initiated by the previous government. We have in progress the Heathrow Express, ThamesLink 2000, the Docklands Light Railway extension to Lewisham, the Croydon tram link and the Jubilee Line extension, all programmes inherited from the previous government. I am sure that the Minister will want to continue this process. I hope that she receives the resources necessary to carry on. I look forward to hearing what she has to say in reply to the debate.
8.43 p.m.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, this has been an extremely useful if short debate in which there has been a large measure of agreement on the merits of Eurostar's proposals. The noble Lord, Lord Cadman, gave a helpful summary of the proposals and set out persuasively the promoters' case for the House passing the resolution. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, conveyed clearly the Opposition's support for the proposals in principle. Further endorsement was given by all the other noble Lords who spoke in the debate. I hope it will also be given by my noble friend Lord Sefton, with the reassurances about the opportunities that we believe the west coast main line connection will give for regional development and regional passenger travel.
My noble friend Lord Berkeley, the noble Lords, Lord Mountevans and Lord Methuen, and the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, raised their concerns over the issue of immigration controls. Those are technically not transport matters. However, what was clear to me, listening on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, was the strength of feeling on this issue, and I shall certainly take away those representations and put them in front of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary.
Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Crook, that I hoped to get inspiration or assistance in replying to him in detail about definitions of "subsoil" and "under-surface". I fear that I am not able to do so this evening but I undertake to write to him on the issues.
The application for the order was made in January by Eurostar (UK) Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of London & Continental Railways, which successfully bid for the contract to build the Channel Tunnel rail link. The works contained in the draft order were not included in the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act because the decision in principle to proceed with them came too late for inclusion in the Bill without seriously prejudicing its progress.
The proposed station at Stratford will provide a new intermediate stop for international and domestic services using the CTRL. It will enable passengers to make connections with other railway services at Stratford such as the London Underground Central and Jubilee Lines, the Docklands Light Railway, the North London Line and the Great Eastern Line. The station will thus give passengers a wider choice of access to international and domestic services on the CTRL and make an important contribution to the Government's declared aim of establishing a more integrated public transport system.

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In addition—reference was made to this point by several speakers in the debate—the development of the station is expected to create sizeable regeneration benefits for the Stratford area, which is a focal point for development at the western end of the Thames Gateway. Taking into account the scope for redevelopment of adjoining lands, including former railway lands, and the wider development opportunities in the Lower Lea Valley and the Royal Docks, the extra employment prospects for the area in the longer term could be substantial.
I listened with care to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, about whether local jobs will be created by the Stratford development. He was right to bring the attention of the House to the fact that that is not always so. At this stage it is difficult to say exactly what types of jobs will eventually be created. However, I can tell the House that LCR is working with the London boroughs of Newham, Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest to produce a development framework plan for the Stratford development lands. The boroughs will naturally wish to ensure that as many jobs as possible are created for local people.
The other main proposal in Eurostar's application, which is closely associated with Stratford station—it is the area to which the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, referred and on which he was looking for reassurance—is for a twin-track connection from the CTRL to the North London Line and the west coast main line. This will enable trains to and from the Channel Tunnel to bypass St. Pancras station and transfer directly to the North London Line and the west coast main line, thereby reducing journey times from Scotland, the north and the Midlands to and from mainland Europe. The regional development possibilities that this opens up are substantial. Stratford station would be used as the London stop on these through trains. The twin-track connection replaces the single track provided for in the CTRL Act and would greatly increase operational flexibility and reliability.
The department has received 59 objections to, or representations about, the proposed works. Copies have been placed in the Library, along with a copy of Eurostar's application and the associated documentation. The objectors have raised a number of issues concerning mainly the perceived adverse local impacts of the scheme on especially traffic levels, the environment and businesses. Reference has been made tonight to the importance of making sure that there are other public transport links, not solely dependence on car links, to the Stratford terminal. These are matters which quite properly need to be considered carefully before the order is determined. I am sure that they will be discussed at the public inquiry.
I know that concerns have been raised tonight about the possible length of the public inquiry. It is not within my powers to say exactly how long it will be. I point out to noble Lords—it was an issue that was raised in our debate the other evening—that although we tend to focus on the very long inquiries over major infrastructure projects, the majority of inquiries
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are nothing like that long. We would hope that this inquiry could go through a properly democratic process but not a long drawn out one.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, raised an issue regarding the impact of the CTRL on rail freight, which is an area that I know is of great concern to him. He particularly asked about the provision of sidings for the discharge of aggregates and cement to the batching plants, which were covered in assurances given in the passage of the CTRL Act.
There will be one siding with facilities for aggregate discharge. The provision of a second siding providing a simultaneous discharge facility for cement depends on whether the physical constraints of the site can be overcome. I understand that discussions between LCR, the batching companies and EWS on this issue are continuing. I also understand the noble Lord's impatience at not getting a resolution to these matters. I certainly hope that it will be possible to get a reasonably swift resolution.
The noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, raised the issue of access for disabled people to Stratford station. The promoters are required to comply with the advice of the rail regulator and the department's disabled persons transport advisory committee on disability matters as if it directly applied to them. I very much hope that state-of-the-art provision for disabled people will be made in this new development.
If the House passes this Resolution the Secretary of State will have a duty to decide whether the order should be made. His mind must remain open on that decision. In making that decision he must in particular have regard to the inspector's report following a detailed consideration of the proposals and of the objections to them at the public inquiry. The issue for the House this evening is whether in principle the proposals are worthy of going forward for this more detailed examination. If your Lordships judge that they are—as indeed the Government do—this Motion should be supported.
It will be open to the Secretary of State to amend provisions in the draft order or to change the planning conditions attaching to any deemed planning permission in the light of any recommendations by the inquiry inspector. The Secretary of State must also consider the environmental statement in determining whether to make the order.
In the Government's view, the objections that have been made do not raise fundamental issues which might dent our confidence in the overall merits of the proposals, which have been well supported this evening. We are satisfied that the grounds of the objections to the application are of a nature which would be best considered at an inquiry. It seems to us that the proposed works are desirable in principle. They have the potential to bring significant transport benefits by encouraging greater use of the railways, especially for travel to Europe. A new station at Stratford would help towards a more integrated public transport system in London. For the local communities in the East Thames Corridor, there is the prospect of substantial benefits. with more jobs and much-needed urban regeneration.

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So the Government have no hesitation in inviting the House to pass this Resolution, while obviously reserving our position on whether, after detailed consideration at a public inquiry, the order should be made. I commend the order to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Organophosphates
8.54 p.m.
The Countess of Mar: rose to ask Her Majesty's Government how members of their advisory committees concerned with the licensing and use of organophosphate products are selected for appointment, and whether they are satisfied that the advice they receive is, in every respect, impartial.
The noble Countess said: My Lords, may I say from the start that, by asking this Question, I cast no aspersions on individuals. It is the system with which I am concerned.
There are three main committees which advise the Government on pesticide matters. About 90 per cent. of pesticides are regulated by the Pesticides Safety Directorate, with the remainder being regulated by the Health and Safety Executive. The Veterinary Products Committee, under the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, advises, among other matters, on veterinary medicines which have organophosphates as an active ingredient. The Advisory Committee on Pesticides advises on agricultural pesticides and the Health and Safety Executive advises on non-agricultural pesticides. As far as I can ascertain, it is only the Health and Safety Committee which includes industry and trades unions on its committees.
As well as the main committees there are specialist sub-committees to advise the main committee on safety and licensing aspects. The main committees then report to Ministers with their recommendations. The lead department is the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I am delighted that the Government are now trying to resolve the conflicting interests within MAFF, where the ministry is expected to promote agricultural production and the interests of farmers and growers while it has a duty to promote consumer and worker health and safety and to protect the environment. There is also an urgent need to review the system of regulation, monitoring and enforcement of pesticide licensing and use.
The advisory committees are all described as "independent", the dictionary definition of which is:
"not dependent or relying on anybody".
I do believe that these committees are independent of government, but I am not so certain that they are independent of the industry which they were set up to regulate. The Veterinary Medicines Directorate and the Pesticides Safety Directorate are both government agencies, dependent for much of their income upon the fees they charge the chemical companies for licensing new products. They rely upon those same companies to carry out safety assessments and to
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submit authentic data. There is no independent cross-check of that data, as I have established from Answers to parliamentary Questions. The committees need trained and experienced staff. In many cases these people will have come from the chemical companies and, as so many are now on short-term contracts, some will want to return to the industry. The industry is also expected to report to the regulators any adverse reactions in humans, animals or the environment. Does the noble Lord the Minister find this dependence acceptable?
Members of the advisory committees tend to be distinguished academics with backgrounds in research, administration and teaching. With the exception of the Health and Safety Executive committees, there are no lay members and, perhaps surprisingly, no women on the main committees. Are there no distinguished women working in the fields from which the advisers are drawn? Appointments are made by MAFF and members must sign a declaration of their interests in chemical companies. We do not know how the appointment process operates, but there must be an element of personal recommendation. There is nothing wrong with this, as long as it is not the only means by which members are selected. There seems to be a nucleus of about 25 individuals who advise on a number of committees.
The scientific community is very close-knit and because the numbers of individuals in specialties is small, they will all know one another. They are dependent upon one another for support, guidance, praise and recognition. If they wish to succeed, they must run with the prevailing ethos of their group, department or specialism. History is littered with stories of the establishment refusing to accept new scientific discoveries and of the ostracism of the discoverers. The first I can think of is Galileo. There may be a number of reasons why scientists tend to take this stance. Their prestige, and therefore their position in the scientific hierarchy, depends upon the authority which is accorded to their work by their peers and by the wider public. They may therefore resist any challengers to their established doctrine for fear of losing face. There may be subtle pressures put upon them by the larger chemical companies to the extent that any dissent from current thinking and practice might lead to a loss of financial or other support to themselves or to their university department. The influence may be as crude as a threat to move to a country where the regulatory regime is more amenable.
What were the influences which precipitated the unfortunate circumstances under which Dr. Jamal, a member of the scientific panel of the Veterinary Products Committee, was forced to tender his resignation? He has said publicly that his experience with large numbers of farmers and others who are suffering nervous system damage led him to believe that continued use of OPs should be suspended, and he made his opinion known to the chairman of the Veterinary Products Committee before he was ever appointed to the panel.

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Those who believe their health has been damaged by OPs and others who are working with them have the distinct impression that the establishment is demonstrating an unwillingness to accept the evidence of hundreds of published scientific papers and thousands of individuals who are ill after using OP pesticides.
Members of the advisory committees may not have any direct interest in the chemical companies, but they will have earned the status which has got them on to the committees after working for the industry either directly or through research on behalf of their universities. Unless they have retired, they will still be involved with colleagues who are dependent on chemical company research funds for the continuation of their departments, and those who are administrators may even be involved in obtaining industry funding. Is it unreasonable to suggest that, no matter how they try to avoid it, these people may be influenced by the pressures placed upon them by the need to ensure the viability of their faculties? Are there not pressures put upon them from outside by implied threats of relocation and the loss of valuable income to the nation?
Are Her Majesty's Government satisfied that the advice they receive is in every respect impartial? "Impartial" means "not favouring one more than another". Impartial advisers will hear and see all the available evidence, test its validity and weigh it in the balance without fear or favour. If there is a lack of evidence to support one side or the other, no balanced conclusion can be drawn. Remember Toyber's dictum: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
The Veterinary Products Committee in its report on the Suspected Adverse Reaction Scheme has consistently stated that evidence on the health effects of exposure to OP sheep dips is "inconclusive", without seeking further field or clinical evidence. It has based its advice that OP sheep dips should continue to be used upon that lack of evidence of adverse health effects. It continues to assert that, provided the recommended protective clothing is worn, those involved in sheep dipping will be safe. This is in spite of evidence from the Institute of Occupational Medicine that metabolites from OPs were found in the urine of dippers, whether or not they were wearing protective clothing, indicating that the chemicals had been absorbed. It has also asserted that the inhalation of vapour and spray is not a problem, despite evidence from sufferers. The argument is that no measurable quantities have been found in field tests, while it admits that the equipment used is not able to measure minute doses.
The authorisation procedure relies on the "predictive model". This means that a standard is set based upon the expected effect of a dose of a chemical which is extrapolated from laboratory experiments and conformity with which is deemed to satisfy the safety requirements. Humans are not large rats; even less are they the hens which are used to predict chronic neurological damage. Humans do not all come from the same mould either. It is very apparent that some
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can tolerate much higher levels of exposure than others. The underlying ethos is that no drug, chemical or medicine can be absolutely safe and that no test method can be devised to ensure that all possible dangers are identified. Against this, unless a very good reason can be given, there is the general imperative that a product must be approved for sale. If the assessment is made on risk/benefit principles, I ask the Minister how many people—men, women and, worst of all, children—must be made ill before a product is seen to constitute a risk?
The existence of a regulatory system has lulled the public into the belief that all products which are licensed as pesticides or medicines have been subjected to rigorous testing and are safe to use provided the recommended safety precautions are heeded. In reality, there are huge gaps in the safety data, particularly for OPs. The public is now beginning to doubt that the system is reliable. Once a licence has been granted for a product it is contrary to human nature to expect that either the licensing authorities or the manufacturers will willingly admit that they have failed to detect effects which subsequently come to light, for to do so is likely to result in huge compensation claims, particularly where the advisers have recommended to government the use of a particular product in order that compulsory treatment or prevention be carried out—for example, the dipping of sheep to control scab or dressing cattle to prevent warble fly infestation. Manufacturers who were forced to withdraw products by the licensing authority without very strong evidence of undesirable effects would not hesitate to sue. This point was made very clear to the all-party group of MPs and me when we met the then Minister, Mr. John Gummer, to ask for a moratorium on OP dips in 1993. Do not these factors have a bearing on the decision-making process of the Government's advisers?
There is no mechanism for an impartial challenge to be made to the fundamental bases upon which the evaluation of a pesticide is conducted. While the regulating authority may take a neutral view, accepting and proposing authorisation criteria, it does not appear to question whether the criteria are adequate. The view that the authority takes may be neutral, but it is not impartial. The developer puts his case but there is no one to put the case against and it does not call for any contrary evidence.
As many have found to their cost, there is a fundamental imbalance between the evidence required prior to the licensing of a product and that required post-release. If damage is alleged to have occurred it must be proven to a very rigorous scientific level, while the scientific evidence required by the regulators need not. Compared with the energy and resources generated prior to licence authorisation, the manpower and funding provided to investigate events which have led to claims of ill-health or environmental damage is minuscule. This results in a procedure which cannot be impartial because the system in which it operates lacks balance.
These expert committees are often required to make decisions upon incomplete evidence, so the only verdict they can give is that of "not proven". This

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cannot be an impartial response if the resources allocated to field and clinical investigations are inadequate and the evaluators do not qualify their findings accordingly. They rely upon what may be called "constructive ignorance" by being content to rule on the evidence which is before them and avoid a search for information that may lead them to a different decision. That is not being impartial.
Of course, there is also an inherent bias in that human nature decrees that arbiters tend to favour their own judgment and resist the opposite view. The Cairns Committee in its review of the authority which both licensed aircraft as airworthy and was responsible for investigating aircraft accidents coined the phrase "intellectual corruption". Is there not room for intellectual corruption in the deliberations of these committees?
A short while ago I came upon the following quotation from A Pride of Tigers by Sybil Marshall:
"I fell to wondering why it is that 'experts' so often get things wrong. Once they become experts they know all the answers, so they don't ask questions. They simply reach out and take the most likely ready-made explanation from the peg and use it, whether it fits the case in point or not".
OP victims are tired of, and distressed by, a medical profession which tells them that they should see a psychologist, or that conventional medicine can do nothing for them, simply because the medical profession is confounded by the multitude of symptoms with which their patients present, and there is no easy explanation in the medical literature and no clear lead from the Department of Health.
I ask the Minister whether he will ask his right honourable friend in another place to review the means by which appointments to the Government advisory committees are made; whether he will consider creating a pool of suitable candidates from which he can draw by a method similar to that used for jury service; that these candidates should include young scientists, PhD students for example, as well as senior members of the profession; women, and lay people with field experience in using products similar to those to be licensed. Will he look into ways of reducing the dependence of university departments and other research facilities on the chemical industry for funding of research into their particular field? Will he consider the exercise of the precautionary principle rather than risk analysis as the basis for the issue of a licence for a product, especially when there is a lack of toxicity data available? Will he work towards the separation of licensing procedures from procedures to investigate harm caused to humans, animals and the environment by licensed products? Finally, will he make all these procedures open to scrutiny? Is he aware that I have obtained most of the information I have on OPs not from the UK but from the United States under their Freedom of Information Act?
9.9 p.m.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I propose to intervene briefly in the debate to support the noble Countess in yet another aspect of the long
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battle to establish the truth about the Gulf War syndrome and the role of OPs and to raise a related concern.
On the first point, much of what the noble Countess had to say about possible constructive ignorance and intellectual corruption, and above all about the need to make procedures open to scrutiny, including the way in which committees are appointed, is equally applicable to some of the committees appointed by the European Commission. On a number of issues, ranging from the quality of bathing water to the protection of birds, I have been struck by the lack of transparency which characterises the agenda, the reporting and even the membership of the committees responsible. It is often difficult, if not impossible, to establish what scientific and technical advice has been given, and only too often legitimate requests for information are refused.
It is all the more important therefore that we should ensure the most open proceedings possible on the issue at a national level, especially when the issue is one of public confidence and morale. The public is much more ready to accept bad news than to encounter all the doubts and anxieties that arise from obfuscation. We have good scientists and conscientious public servants. Let us ensure that they are seen to be open to accept even the most inconvenient facts.
My other concern, though somewhat alleviated by the statement yesterday of the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, that research into OPs is being funded jointly by the Department of Health, MAFF and the HSE, is that the Ministry of Defence should be fully seized of all scientific evidence available to the three main committees listed by the noble Countess and should, in its turn, submit to them whatever scientific, medical or other relevant information on the issue of the effect of OPs may emerge from the inquiry being conducted by the Ministry of Defence in response to the Defence Committee in another place.
An independent co-ordinator, someone who is neither a civil servant in the ministries concerned (the MoD and MAFF) nor a member of any of the existing committees, should be appointed to review all relevant information. Such a co-ordinator should be free to hear evidence given under the equivalent of parliamentary immunity from any present or indeed former member of those ministries who possesses relevant information.
If mistakes were made or information was not considered relevant or sufficiently substantial and was therefore not brought forward, or even suppressed, now is the time to remedy that. That may offer the chance to set the record straight and to ensure that there are no more time-bombs of undisclosed knowledge ticking away. An independent co-ordinator could help to ensure that ministries do not decide that partial evidence is no evidence and therefore take no action. Sufferers from the effects of OPs have been left in limbo for too long. That is not right, and something must be done.
9.13 p.m.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I offer my support to the noble Countess and my noble friend and what they have said this evening, and I hope that the Minister will take it seriously. I look back at my time in MAFF, which I enjoyed greatly, and at the great quality of the civil servants there, and of our scientific advisers. I do not wish them to think that what I say is any criticism of them.
I look back and think that we set up those committees and used them in a way which led to many of the problems that we faced towards the end of our term in office, and which led to the breakdown in trust between the people of this country and MAFF and what it said.
Looking back, I can understand how we came to set up and use committees in that way. It is clear that MAFF does not have within it, and politicians do not have within their ranks, the expertise necessary to provide answers to difficult scientific questions. From the point of view of public trust, they need to set up committees which have a measure of independence. From the point of view of making decisions, they need to obtain from those committees a single, clear recommendation.
It then became the practice that the Government relied on and enacted the recommendations of these committees. Indeed, they took them as gospel, not to be quarrelled with. It therefore became necessary that the people on the committees should display a great deal of level-headedness and that they should not represent extremes of opinion; that they should be able to agree together and not produce dissenting opinions. Those committees seemed to be selected by a process of networking, as the noble Countess suggested. Clearly, the politicians did not know who the right people were. I suspect that in many cases the civil servants did not know who the right people were. They were discovered by talking to other people and generally finding out through the scientific community who were the best people for the job.
At the time, that seemed to me to be a very reasonable way of going about things. But, now that I look back at all the difficulties we had, I can see perhaps more clearly the imperfections that were present in the system. As the noble Countess said, scientists are human beings; they are subject to bias, like the rest of us. In science, there always has been a strong pattern of consensus. If you were a believer in the Phlogiston theory, when that was right, you would fight viciously people who proposed that it was wrong. That has always been the way that science has evolved. A consensus has been fought against by a few outsiders until it has been overturned and the rebels become the consensus in their turn. We have been using a system to choose people for these committees which is strongly biased towards consensus, principally because we have demanded that at the end of the day the committees produce a consensus themselves.
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Scientists are subject to natural biases in that they wish to continue to have careers and they wish their research to be paid for. The two principal sources for that are either the Government and the committees that they set up, which will tend towards consensus and the consensus view of what research should be done, or industry, which will tend towards research which does not undermine its own business.
That process has also led to committees which tend to exclude people from participation. They exclude the industry from open participation, they exclude users and they exclude consumers. Those groups must then make their impact on decisions covertly. Obviously, industry has ways of doing that, but others must develop their own ways of influencing the committees, as it were, in secret.
That leads to a whole process of dissatisfaction, a feeling of cover up and a lack of trust. That bedeviled us in so many aspects of what we were doing in MAFF. Looking back, we believed that we were doing the right thing. We all believed that we were doing the honest thing, that we were taking the right decisions and that we were treating matters fairly and honestly. But the structures that we were using, the structures we had set up, did not allow the public to believe that too.
I believe that other models could he pursued by the Government which would achieve the same effects without the down side. I suggest that the Government might consider the example of the Court of Appeal, with tribunals and, indeed, this House itself, and in the way in which they operate. If the House of Lords sends down a judicial decision by three votes to two that is accepted as a reasonable decision. No one argues with the decision. It is understood that there may not be an absolute, right answer, that there might be two sides of opinion, but it has been decided. Why cannot we have committees in which that level of dissent can be experienced and expressed, but nonetheless we accept their decisions when they come down—or at least we accept them as being the decisions of the committees?
In court, the experts appear as witnesses and not as arbiters. They can be questioned and other points of view can be brought to bear. Access can be had by interest groups and others who are affected by the decisions. The whole thing can be weighed in public before a decision is reached. If at the end of the day the committee arrives at what may be seen as the wrong decision politicians will feel able to intervene, as they would with the court. We in this House have had some long debates about the Government overruling the House of Lords in a decision that it has reached. Why should we feel differently about a scientific committee on a technical aspect of organophosphates, BSE or whatever? Politicians have a role to play. They have recently shown that most strongly in the case of firearms control, where a serious and well set up committee produced recommendations with which we disagreed and we wanted to act more strongly. The Government wish to go further than that. Politicians have a role. They should not feel cowed and unable to play their role

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because they have set up committees which are so totally expert that the Government cannot claim to have a role in the process.
I believe that this is a matter which should attract the Government's serious consideration. If they wish to avoid the kind of problems which we let ourselves in for during the past five years, I hope particularly that they will bear that in mind when constructing the new food safety agency. We do not know a great deal about it so far, but what has been posited makes it sound like a sort of super committee, which will be so inward turned and so bound up with its own way of doing things that it will, perhaps, need another regulator over it to ensure that the public voice can be heard and influence what the committee chooses to do.
It is enormously important that we should take this opportunity of a new government and of their determination to have open government and freedom of information—all of which I agree with—to reform the structures within MAFF which have so held us back from being seen to do what we have always believed to be right and what I believe officials and scientists in the expert committees have always tried to do; namely, do the best for the people in this country as a whole and to make honest and correct decisions.
9.21 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Donoughue): My Lords, I want to thank the noble Countess for placing this Question before us and the others who have spoken in the debate. I believe that the quality of the speeches has fully compensated for the fact that they have been few in number.
When, somewhat to my surprise, I took this ministerial position I rapidly realised that it was bound to involve an early encounter with the noble Countess. Given her track record, that was bound to be a daunting prospect. However, I should say that it was also a pleasing prospect. I am grateful to the noble Countess for forcing me to look early on into this important issue. I hope that I and my fellow Ministers will bring a fresh mind to it and that I can encourage the department, as I am sure I can, to take a fresh look at the matter. Some of us have been too long in government, even if it was a long time ago, to assume that fresh looks always mean fresh conclusions, but I can certainly promise a fresh look.
We fully recognise the concerns of the noble Countess about the effects of exposure to organophosphorus products. MAFF Ministers have repeatedly said that there is no scientifically recognised and widely accepted clinical syndrome associated with low level exposure to organophosphate sheep dips. That remains the case so far as concerns our scientific advice. Yet, while this statement so far as it goes may be technically accurate, it does not, I fear, recognise the concerns of the large group of
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people who clearly believe that they are suffering from the effects of exposure to organophosphorus products.
Therefore, from the beginning, I want to assure the House that we have every sympathy with those individuals. There can be little doubt that the suffering of this group of people is quite genuine and the cause of it must be fully investigated. We are totally determined to look closely into the issue. We shall take whatever steps are necessary, including the relevant scientific and clinical research, to satisfy ourselves that effective consideration is given to those concerns.
Of course the regulatory systems must be based on sound science. But in practice many of the decisions which regulators take are a matter of balance. The advisory committees and the regulatory agencies face the challenge of weighing benefits against safety concerns guided only by the certainty that their knowledge is incomplete. We therefore intend to examine carefully whether the balance of decision making—much of what the noble Countess was saying was about that balance—lies where we and the public believe it should lie.
Our recent proposal to broaden the membership of the advisory committees to include lay members—I am not sure everyone interested in this area has taken that on board—is one step towards this goal. We shall also be meeting the chairmen of the committees to seek to understand, among other things, how they determine what is an acceptable risk and whether the resulting balance reflects the public's concerns. We want to look again at ways to improve the system. We are ready to consider proposals to achieve this and we aim to get the balance right, or more right. I have never achieved perfection in anything in my life and therefore I have to qualify that.
I am sure noble Lords are aware that members of the advisory committees are appointed by agriculture Ministers with the agreement of health Ministers and, in the case of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides, the Secretary of State for the Environment. Members are selected for their scientific expertise relevant to the advice offered to Ministers. The noble Baroness rightly argues that such scientific expertise should be particularly relevant to the health dangers associated with a specific product. That is pertinent and I shall pursue it. I shall also wish to be reassured that sufficient relevant medical expertise is present.
There is full public consultation to seek nominations for membership. Over 80 organisations are consulted and there will shortly be consultation on the replacement and reappointment of members whose term of office expires at the end of 1997. As regards members of the Veterinary Products Committee, recommendations for appointment are subject to the consultation of the Medicines Commission. There is a statutory duty under the Medicines Act to recommend to Ministers persons considered to be well qualified to serve on the Veterinary Products Committee and the other Section 4 committees.

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Current membership of the Veterinary Products Committee includes expertise in human as well as veterinary medicine. The committee has a medical and scientific panel set up specifically to look into reports of long-term health effects from the use of organophosphorus sheep dips and advise on research. The chairman of the panel, Dr. Bateman, is also a member of the Veterinary Products Committee. Seven out of the 14 present members of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides, including the chairman, have expertise in the medical field, including human toxicology and occupational medicine.
As a result of the medical and scientific panel's recommendations, the Institute of Occupational Medicine in Edinburgh is to conduct a half a million pound study of long-term, low level exposure to OP sheep dips. The report is expected in 1999. We trust that this will help us further to understand this complex issue. I fully understand the concerns of the noble Countess about the balance of expert advice. My right honourable friend the Minister has already said, as I mentioned, that he is looking at the appointment of consumer or lay representatives on advisory committees in the area of food safety. That will also include committees such as the Veterinary Products Committee.
The noble Countess mentioned women members. I am pleased to inform the House that there are two women, Dr. Gaskell and Miss Gibson, on the VPC and Dr. Carter on the APC. Whether that is enough—whether there are ever enough—to satisfy noble Baronesses in this House remains to be seen. However, I can assure the noble Countess that we are reviewing the system of appointments. Her mention of a panel will be helpful to us when we consider appointing extra people to the committees.
The Veterinary Products Committee discussed Professor James's report on the Food Standards Agency and is submitting comments. The committee had no objection to lay membership or to greater openness and transparency. The Government need to look at the confidentiality provisions of the Medicines Act in order to achieve the maximum openness compatible with the restraints of that Act.
On the difficult question of impartiality, we naturally wish to ensure that the Government receive the best advice from those best qualified to give it. It is inevitable that the expertise of members is valuable to industry too, which will often be looking to the same people. We have to assume that we receive impartial advice. However, if anyone has further considered suggestions—and I include the remarks of the noble Countess and the noble Baroness, Lady Park—on how we can further guarantee impartiality perhaps they will write to me and I shall consider those specific proposals sympathetically.
The noble Countess mentioned financial conflicts. Strict controls exist. For the Veterinary Products Committee, members make an annual declaration of interests. Those are published in the annual report which is part of a composite publication covering the Medicines Commission and other Section 4
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committees. The publication also includes the code of practice governing the declaration of interests. As well as that annual declaration, members are required to declare interests at meetings. If interests are declared, the chairman excludes members from discussion or limits their participation, as appropriate.
For the Advisory Committee on Pesticides, there is a statutory requirement that members are appointed only on signature of a declaration to the effect that they have,
"no financial or commercial interest as would be likely to prejudice the proper discharge of their functions".
The appointment of members with some minor connections with industry is not ruled out. Each case is judged against the test of "likely to prejudice".
In addition to the statutory rules, all members are also required to make an annual declaration of all industry interests, however minor, covering both personal interests and those of their employer. This declaration is published in the committee's annual report. So I think I can say to the noble Countess that I am reasonably convinced that financial conflicts of interest concerning members' direct incomes are not of real, practical concern. Whether the financing of research at universities and institutions connected to members is an issue I am not so sure and will investigate further.
I sympathise with the noble Countess's question as to why independent research is not done into the safety of the veterinary and pesticide products that the Government approve. I have asked my officials the very same question. Typically, it takes 10 years to develop and test a product, but the precise formulation will not be settled until the last year or so of development. If government conducted safety tests, these could not begin until very late in the day, delaying availability. It would also mean that work would be duplicated. In an international market different countries could be carrying out the same experiments and achieving the same results. There would be unnecessary experiments on animals and unnecessary suffering.
That said, I am, however, prepared to examine the matter further to see whether there is any sensible and selective way of involving government or some extra independent dimension. Here I think of the suggestion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Park; namely, to double check those cases where there is particular reason for concern. It would probably involve public expense, and I cannot make a commitment to that. However, public health is one of our top priorities.
The approach used by the regulators is to demand all the information generated; and for veterinary medicines there is a legal requirement, including adverse results. Even early experiments on the active compound can be considered by the advisory committees. That gives a broader understanding of the product's properties and is more reliable than simply a limited range of tests carried out by government.
If significant gaps in the safety data emerge during evaluation, then the product is not authorised or approved. In addition, the data have to be produced

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to recognised standards, including OECD guidelines, and good laboratory practice controlled by the Department of Health.
Having described all these magnificent protections, there may still be ways in which the system can be improved. There may be circumstances, for instance, in which an early dialogue between manufacturers and regulators could result in a wider range of experimental data becoming available on which a scientific judgment can be made. I have asked my officials to look at all the suggestions and arguments advanced by the noble Countess, the noble Lord and the noble Baroness and to consider any practical improvements that could be made on current practice.
Finally, perhaps I may turn to one or two specific points that arose. To the noble Countess, I say that I am also aware that expert committees may balance in one direction or another, even with the best of intentions. I sense that that is possible to smell; it is difficult to assess, and extremely difficult to correct. Nevertheless, I promise her that we will try.
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The noble Baroness, Lady Park, suggested that the precautionary concept should be given greater priority. I have great sympathy with that approach and have already asked officials to look into how that might be secured. The House should be aware that the present criteria are safety, quality and efficacy. We will consider whether it is possible to qualify that with the precautionary element. MAFF is closely in touch with the Ministry of Defence, but we will certainly pursue the noble Baroness's suggestion of an independent co-ordinator.
I found the reflection of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on his time as spokesman helpful and commendably honest. He aptly described the dilemma of Ministers assessing scientific advice. He described it with painful accuracy and I can assure him that nothing that happened on 1st May has altered that dilemma. He is probably right that the present system is not transparent and open enough. He made helpful suggestions about a better model; we shall look at them in our present review. The one thing that I can promise him is that we are not cowed.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before ten o'clock.