Sitting of 5 November 1979

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  WALES

    Welsh Development Agency
    Mr. Cryerasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the operation of the Welsh Development Agency.
    Mr. Ifor Daviesasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he is satisfied with the operations of the Welsh Development Agency.
    The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Nicholas Edwards): I have already made clear to the House that I am broadly satisfied with the Agency's work in promoting economic development in Wales. I do not propose to make radical changes in its role.
    Mr. Cryer: Will the Minister assure the House that the recent cutbacks do not herald the closure and abandonment of the Agency? Does he agree with this imaginative initiative by the previous Labour Government is an important source of assistance and development to those small firms which the Government are supposed to be aiming to help, both in Wales and the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Edwards: The cutbacks do not herald the abandonment of the Agency's work. I agree that its work is valuable. At my request the Agency is working on plans to attract additional private finance to support the task of factory building and industrial development and to make full use of the substantial assets that it controls. I am confident that that sort of partnership between the Agency and the private sector is the right way to ensure maximum possible progress in attracting new development to Wales.
    Mr. Davies: Is the Minister aware that the Welsh Development Agency and the Welsh Office have a proud record of achievement with land clearance schemes? Is he further aware that, due to changes in regional policy, there are many schemes now being delayed, especially in the Lliw Valley in my constituency. Will he please reconsider the position?
    Mr. Edwards: The decisions on individual schemes must be taken by the Agency, which has to decide its own priorities. I know that it is considering the representations made by the hon. Gentleman concerning the Lliw Valley.
    Sir Raymond Gower: Will my right hon. Friend remind the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) that on several occasions my right hon. Friend and many Conservative Members have expressed satisfaction with the manner in which the Agency has conducted its affairs for some years?
    Mr. Edwards: That is so. No one would pretend that every decision it has made has been perfect. I do not believe that the WDA would pretend that, either. I am broadly satisfied with the way it has been pursuing its policies. I have had useful, valuable and constructive discussions with the chairman and members of the board.
    Mr. D. E. Thomas: I refer to the Minister's remarks about co-operation between the public and private sectors in the work of the Agency. Does he agree that, rather than cutting back on the Agency, he should seek to strengthen its work in matters such as the impending closure of the Wallis and Linnell clothing factory in Blaenau Ffestiniog? Does he agree that the Agency should move into the factory in collaboration with the Development Board for Rural Wales, to take over the premises—which are owned by the WDA—and operate a co-operative?
    Mr. Edwards: It would be absurd if the operations of the Agency were restricted simply by the scale of Government money made available to it. I am sure that there is room for co-operation between the Agency and the private sector, and I am anxious to develop that. As for the operation mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, the experience of the agency and of the Welsh Office in dealing with similar industrial matters does not encourage one to think that there is a great deal to be said for such rescue operations. The Agency has had some success in encouraging new investments which it has judged to be viable, but it has been much less successful when it has attempted rescue operations.
    Mr. Alec JonesWill the right hon. Gentleman's newly-found satisfaction with the work of the Agency continue, bearing in mind that earlier this year the Agency's budget was cut by about £3 million? In July there were changes in regional policy, and last Thursday the Government announced a cut of £10·4 million in trade, industry and employment. How much of that cut will fall on the Agency, and what effect will it have on employment in Wales? If unemployment in the United Kingdom is to rise by 300,000, does that mean that Wales can look forward to unemployment of 110,000 next year?
    Mr. Edwards: The right hon. Gentleman has asked a number of questions. I made an additional £3·8 million available to the Agency for the current year for steel closure areas. The essential requirement for industry is to ease the burden of public expenditure, thereby easing the pressure on interest rates and on the use of funds. It is vital that the environment in which industry has to operate is so improved. The right hon. Gentleman referred to cuts—
    Mr. Jones: I asked what part of the £10·4 million cut will fall on the Agency?
    Mr. Edwards: I am asking the Agency to plan on the expectation that it will have about £30 million in the coming financial year.

    Voluntary Organisations
    Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for Wales how much will be given in grants to voluntary organisations by his Department during the current financial year.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Michael Roberts): About £1·8 million.
    Mr. Knox: In view of the valuable work which voluntary organisations do in Wales, will my hon. Friend try to maintain the level of grants in real terms for the next few years? Does he agree that it is a cost-effective form of public expenditure.
    Mr. Roberts: I agree that it is a cost-effective method of expenditure. Our aim is to continue to support voluntary organisations which are grant-aided by the Welsh Office at as high a level as possible,

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    within the limits of available resources. Last year the total paid in grants to voluntary organisations was £1,773,000.
    Mr. D. E. Thomas: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what result there has been, if any, from the discussions that he may have had with his right hon. Friend, who met a number of hon. Members on behalf of Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin this year to request further funding? Is he aware that funding for that organisation has a bearing not only on social services within Wales but acts in furtherance of a bilingual policy?
    Mr. Roberts: We all recognise the splendid work done both by Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin and pre-school playgroups. The current year's grant for preschool playgroups is £43,000, and for Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin £95,000.

    Local Authority Expenditure
    Mr. Wigleyasked the Secretary of State for Wales what guidelines he has issued to local authorities in Wales in relation to their proposed expenditure for 1980–81.
    Mr. Nicholas Edwards: When the Government took office they asked local authorities to reduce their expenditure in the current financial year by 3 per cent. They are now being asked to make a further reduction of about 1 per cent. in 1980–81. No guidelines have been issued on how this reduction should be achieved.
    Mr. Wigley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that over the past four or five years counties such as Gwynedd and the right hon. Gentleman's own county of Dyfed have suffered considerable reductions in resources, and as a result have had to cut back on services because of the change in the rate support grant formula that has favoured inner city areas? Does he accept that it is difficult for such authorities to cut back further without unacceptably eroding the level of services that are maintained? Will he press his colleagues in the Department of the Environment to ensure that any change or modification to the rate support grant formula takes into account the circumstances faced by the counties that I have mentioned?
    Mr. Edwards: I am well aware of the move away from the counties that has taken place in the past few years, and of other special factors which affect rural counties. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that they will be taken fully into account in the announcement that will be made about rate support grant in the near future.
    Mr. Rowlands: Whatever savaging or mauling the Government embark upon in arriving at the rate support grant settlement at the end of this month, will the right hon. Gentleman give a categorical assurance to Welsh domestic ratepayers that the domestic support of 36p in the pound, which has stood for the past few years and which has been a vital support to the average working class domestic ratepayer, will be fully maintained in any new settlement?
    Mr. Edwards: I cannot anticipate the statement that will be made in the next couple of weeks. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I am aware of the importance of this matter and of the gearing effect that would be felt on Welsh rates if proper account were not taken of it.
    Mr. Alan Williams: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that we see little encouragement in the fact that he lost the vital battle to sustain regional aid for Wales? Therefore, we have little confidence in his ability to maintain our share of the rate support grant. Does he realise that if he fails us yet again it will mean higher rates, lower standards of service and fewer local government jobs? We shall judge him by his success. Is he aware that already there is a danger that he is proving to be a lightweight in Cabinet but a burden which the people of Wales cannot afford to carry?
    Mr. Edwards: After all that not very convincing rhetoric I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman is at least prepared to await the announcement that we shall be making about the rate support grant. I am happy to leave these matters to the judgment of the people of Wales. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that about 94 per cent. of the working population of Wales is covered by our regional measures as against 25 per cent. in the United Kingdom as a whole, which hardly suggests that we are not concerned about the particular needs of Wales.

    Sheepmeat
    Mr. Hoosonasked the Secretary of State for Wales what steps he is taking to ensure access for Welsh sheepmeat into the French market.
    Mr. Nicholas Edwards: At the Council of Ministers in September, I stressed the importance of the sheep industry to Wales and the strong feelings among sheep farmers about France's discrimination against United Kingdom sheepmeat exports. The House will be aware of the steps we have taken to impress on Commissioner Gundelach and the French Government that the European Court's judgment must be complied with and United Kingdom sheepmeat admitted immediately into the French market without restriction. I hope that the French Government will comply without further delay and avoid the need for more legal action.
    Mr. Hooson: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that Wales alone rears one-sixth of the Community's sheep? Will he ensure that the British Government will block any further Community price settlement until there is compliance by the French Government with the European Court's ruling?
    Mr. Edwards: I can assure my hon. Friend that I emphasised at the Council of Ministers meeting the great importance to the Welsh agricultural community of the sheepmeat sector. I can also assure him that we shall not be pressed into a financial settlement on sheepmeat which will be selective and detrimental to the interests of United Kingdom farmers. I am sure that he will agree that it would be wrong for Britain to breach the law of the Community.
    Mr. Geraint Howells: Is the Secretary of State aware that not all sheep producers in Wales are in favour of a sheepmeat regime, but rather seek access to the French market? If that is so, will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance to the sheep producers of Wales that he will not trade-in or abolish the guaranteed deficiency payment that has served Britain so well during the past 20 years?
    Mr. Edwards: There is no question of trading-in items. However, if a sheepmeat regime was agreed we would have to consider the future of the guarantee.
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    We have made it clear that we do not think that the proper road to take is one of Community-financed intervention arrangements. We recognise that there should be some arrangement to cushion French farmers against any immediate change or the violent results of any such change. I am glad that I have the support of Welsh farmers and all interests in rural Wales in the fight that we are offering. I only wish that we had the support of all Opposition Members, including the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans), who is encouraging the French Government to break the law by signing early-day motion No. 161.
    Mr. Best: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is disgraceful that certain Opposition Members have signed early-day motion No. 161, which encourages and supports the French Government in breaking the law? Will he ask Opposition Members in Wales to dissociate themselves from that early-day motion?
    Mr. Edwards: The motion demonstrates the contempt that Opposition Members have for the interests of the rural community, and for international legal obligations.
    Mr. Ioan Evans: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we are contributing over £1,000 million to support the common agricultural policy? That is what the Government should deal with. The difficulty that we face in sending sheep to France is typical of the farce of the whole agriculture system. We should return to guaranteed prices for the farmer and deficiency payments. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that a return to that policy would give the housewife a far better deal?
    Mr. Edwards: That does not excuse the hon. Gentleman from urging the French to break the law. If there were some form of Community regime, Britain would stand to benefit because we have more sheep than any other member State.

    Marginal Land
    Mr. Geraint Howellsasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he plans to give financial help to the marginal land farmers in Wales and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Nicholas Edwards: Farmers occupying marginal land can apply for grants

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    for capital improvements and can obtain practical advice from the agricultural development and advisory service. The marginal land study announced on 14 March 1979 is under way and our conclusions will be made known in due course.
    Mr. Howells: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his reply. In view of the food shortage crisis on the hills, will his Department consider paying hill compensatory allowances three months earlier this year? The previous Administration did it in 1974–75. Would it be practical to do this in 1979–80?
    Mr. Edwards: We have now completed our review of hill compensatory allowances and we shall be making an announcement fairly soon. The hon. Gentleman will have to await that announcement.
    Mr. Alec Jones: The right hon. Gentleman said that the marginal land review was under way. Does that mean that practical work on the review is being done on the ground? When he says that we may expect the result in due course, does he mean in the coming year, or after that?
    Mr. Edwards: I shall not take from the right hon. Gentleman's question the implication that I am delaying on this matter, because it was he who delayed in setting up the review for which we, when in opposition, strongly pressed. However, he will know from experience that this is an extremely complicated matter which involves detailed assessment of individual boundaries and of the economic effects in individual areas. That involves a substantial exercise on paper rather than extensive work on the ground. We have the information, and at this stage we are seeking to go through it as thoroughly as we can.
    Mr. D. E. Thomas: Does the Secretary of State recollect telling me by letter earlier this year that he was not prepared to announce increased hill compensatory allowances because the market would recoup the losses? Does he now accept that that has not happened? Will he therefore make an early statement on the matter?
    Mr. Edwards: I have met the farmers union in Wales and I have told it that I accepted the figures that it give me. I
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    understand the serious situation that faces hill farmers in Wales, and we are currently reviewing decisions and will make an announcement as soon as possible.

    Local Authority Services
    Mr. Ioan Evansasked the Secretary of State for Wales what information he has received identifying the areas of services which would be affected should a 5 per cent. cut in resources apply to the budgets of the county councils and district councils in Wales for 1980–81.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Wyn Roberts): I understand that authorities are considering a variety of options in relation to the revised expenditure targets representing a 5 per cent. reduction in the last Government's planned expenditure. It is for authorities to decide their priorities, and I would not expect them, at this stage, to be making comprehensive information available to the Welsh Office.
    Mr. Evans: Does the Minister agree that it is up to local authorities to alert the general public if the Government are to persist with their campaign of slashing public expenditure? Is he aware that the Mid-Glamorgan authority has already identified the closure of all adult education centres, the abandonment of the youth service, the non-admittance of children under 4 to nursery education, the withdrawal of clothing grants and an increase in the teacher-pupil ratio, which will mean the sacking of 259 teachers, if these cuts go ahead? Those apply just to education. Cuts will be made elsewhere in other Departments. Is that not regrettable, and will the Minister reconsider the amount of rate support grant to be given to Wales so as to avoid the slashing of the Welfare State in the Principality?
    Mr. Roberts: We certainly do not intend to stand by if some local authorities, having no regard to the nation's economic circumstances, and at the expense of the great majority of responsible authorities, refuse to implement the spending cuts. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Environmental Services has already indicated to the House that measures will be

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    announced shortly to bring home to such authorities the consequences of their behaviour.
    Mr. Alan Williams: How does the Minister reconcile that statement with giving greater freedom to local authorities?
    Mr. Roberts: I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman is so sensitive on this issue. Listening to him one would not think that he had been a member of a Government who slashed expenditure between 1976–77 and 1977–78. There is nothing new in reducing public expenditure.
    Mr. Evans: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    Nuclear Power Station (Portskewett)
    Mr. Abseasked the Secretary of State for Wales what are the intended terms of reference of the public inquiry into the planning application for a nuclear power station at Portskewett; whether they will require the intended type of reactor and all operational safety studies to be made known to the inquiry; and whether they will require the inquiry to investigate the issues of need, safety and security.
    Mr. Michael Roberts: The public inquiry, the date for which has not been determined, will consider the applications made by the CEGB which specify a nuclear power station of the advanced gas-cooled reactor type. All the relevant planning matters will be considered.
    Mr. Abse: Given that it has not yet been unequivocally stated whether it is intended to proceed with an AGR or a station of the type which suffered the accident at Three Mile Island, will the Minister confirm that the application will undoubtedly be only for consideration of an AGR? If it were any other type of station and an accident occurred similar to that at Three Mile Island, is he aware that the result would be 11,000 deaths from cancer—given an east wind—in Cardiff, and 7,400 deaths in Newport? Does he agree that it is highly important that the terms of reference of this inquiry should include everything specified in my
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    question, namely, safety, physical security and, of course, need?
    Mr. Roberts: It is not my responsibility to speak about the incident to which the hon. Member referred, but, so far as I am aware, no death occurred as a result of it. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be most relieved to know that. I wish to assure him that the application is for an AGR, and that if there were any proposals for any other type of reactor, such as the pressurised water reactor, there would have to be a fresh application which would be decided under the planning and electricity Acts as they apply to this matter. As for need, safety and security, I can assure him that the planning inquiry envisaged will consider the need for a nuclear station at Portskewett, the safety of that station and security on the site.
    Mr. Roy Hughes: I put a question to the Secretary of State for Energy last Monday about the proposed nuclear reactor and he said that he knew nothing about it. Since then I have received a written apology from him. Does the Minister appreciate that there is serious concern and mounting indignation about this very dangerous project, as witnessed by the well-attended meeting that we held in Newport a fortnight ago?
    Mr. Roberts: I recognise the great public concern and interest in these matters. I therefore consider it to be especially important to have an inquiry which provides the maximum flexibility and a full opportunity for public participation. It seems to me that this will best be effected by a public local inquiry which will have the benefit of wide-ranging expert advice.
    Sir Raymond Gower: Is my hon. Friend aware that while it is most important that we should all share the anxities and concern expressed by the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse), and that there must be the utmost care and vigilance in the matter, it is also important to bear in mind the long history of illness, disease and death in the coal mining industry, and to remember the deaths that have occurred in the course of North Sea oil development? Does my hon. Friend agree that in many respects the history of injury and death in those industries has been far more terrible than it is in the case of nuclear power?
    Mr. Roberts: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his observations on the question of safety in the energy industries in Wales. It does the cause of the opponents of nuclear energy no good when they exaggerate their case.
    Mr. Wigley: May I, in supporting the point made by the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse), ask the Minister whether he will give an assurance that there will be an inquiry, not only into the Portskewett proposals, but into any other proposals that may come forward for any other nuclear power stations in Wales, and particularly in respect of any proposals for the dumping of nuclear waste there, which is a matter of deep concern to the people of the Principality?
    Mr. Roberts: There are no such proposals at the moment, but, if they were made, the usual planning procedures would, of course, be followed.
    Mr. Best: Does my hon. Friend agree that, whilst it is perfectly right to take cognisance of people's anxieties in this matter, it is also somewhat irresponsible for people to indulge in scaremongering, which necessarily plays on the fears of the people of this country when they do not have access to the full facts? Will my hon. Friend console Opposition Members with the fact that the safety requirements in this country are far more stringent than those which apply in the United States?
    Mr. Roberts: I am sure that there is a nice balance somewhere between complacency and scaremongering. I hope that we all strike it.
    Mr. Alec Jones: The hon. Gentleman indicated quite clearly that there would be a full inquiry. I am sure that all parties in the House will be most grateful to him for that. I should not want to be party to any scaremongering, but there is genuine fear among the people who live in that area. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) particularly asked that any operational safety studies should be made available to the people who have this fear. I ask the hon. Gentleman please to keep this matter very seriously in mind.
    Mr. Roberts: I shall certainly consider that. I am sure that my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Wales and the Secretary of State for Energy will
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    take all these matters into consideration when they set up the public inquiry.

    National Health Service (Structure)
    Sir Anthony Meyerasked the Secretary of State for Wales what proposals he has for the reorganisation of the National Health Service in Wales.
    Mr. Bestasked the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has for further reorganisation of the health services following the report of the Royal Commission.
    Mr. Ray Powellasked the Secretary of State for Wales what are his proposals for the area health authorities in Wales.
    Mr. Wyn Roberts: Before the end of the year, the Government will be issuing a consultation document on the major issues of structure and management on which the Royal Commission reported. The document will refer to National Health Structure in Wales. I do not want to anticipate this, but I can say now that I shall need a lot of convincing that in Wales any change in the present pattern of areas would be justified, since the area health Authorities generally are comparable to the district authorities contemplated for England.
    Sir A. Meyer: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that the family practitioner committees are well constituted and effectively carrying out their function in every case? Can my hon. Friend give me an assurance that there is a continuing role for community hospitals, and that nothing is projected that will diminish or delay the programme for the construction and maintenance of these community hospitals?
    Mr. Roberts: The family practitioner committees are, on the whole, operating successfully. I know that my hon. Friend has a problem in his authority, but my right hon. Friend cannot intervene in that matter. With regard to the closure of community hospitals, where new hospitals are built and take over the functions of outdated smaller hospitals, some closures are inevitable, but generally our policy is to build on to the role of small hospitals. We shall certainly not close small local hospitals which provide a valuable service to their communities, provided

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    that resources are available to keep them open. If a closure is proposed, I shall need to be satisfied that there is no better course open to us.
    Mr. Best: I greatly welcome that statement by my hon. Friend, but is he aware that, in order to ensure that the resources are available for these small hospitals and that they do not close, the people of Wales are looking for a saving in the bureaucracy and the administration of the Health Service—rather than a cut in services to the patients—where these savings can be effected?
    Will my hon. Friend lay once and for all the bogy about cuts in the Health Service? Will he explain to the House exactly what the Government are doing in regard to the Health Service, since much has been said by Labour Members that is greatly misleading to the people of Wales?
    Mr. Roberts: I assure my hon. Friend that the Government plan to maintain spending on the National Health Service in Wales for 1980–81 at the level proposed by the last Administration. With regard to the Royal Commission report and the later consultation, we want to streamline the Health Service as much as we can and get the best value for the money that we spend on the Health Service in Wales.
    Mr. Powell: I am pleased that the Minister has said that there will not be any reorganisation of the Health Service, but I recently read a document about a reorganisation taking place in the Ogmore area, particularly affecting one hospital, Blackmill hospital. I wonder whether the reorganisation will include this hospital. If there is to be consultation, I hope that the consultation with staff will be far more wide ranging than the last consultation, when you reorganised the service in 1973. As a new Member, I ask whether you would be prepared to apologise, on behalf of the last Tory Government, for the hash you then made of the Health Service.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I am prepared to do many things. The hon. Gentleman kept saying "you". The word "you" in this House refers to one person only, and he does not like it.
    Mr. Roberts: In any organisational changes that may take place, the staff
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    interests will, of course, be properly safeguarded. Districts within Welsh area health authorities do not have the same autonomy as in England. There are, nevertheless, criticisms of existing management arrangements, and there is a case for re-examining them. We hope to be able to strengthen individual hospital units and sectors.
    Mr. Geraint Howells: I am sure that the Minister is aware of the last Conservative Government's assurance to the people of Mid-Wales that the second phase at Bronglais hospital would be built within five years. Here we are, 10 years later, and the assurance has not been fulfilled. Has the Minister any plans to build the second phase at Bronglais hospital within the next five years?
    Mr. Roberts: I should require notice of that question. Of course, there have been delays in capital programmes, largely because of a deficiency in resources. I shall look into the matter raised by the hon. Gentleman and write to him.
    Dr. Roger Thomas: I fully appreciate that the Ministers at the Welsh Office are very busy, but I wonder whether one of them has had time to read the lecture given at the Liverpool Institute recently by my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), a former health Minister, in which he suggested that we should make haste slowly over the reorganisation of the Health Service, and take perhaps until 1992 so that this time we get the organisation right and do not have a complete mess, as in 1974.
    Mr. Roberts: I agree that we must take time over any further reorganisation of the Health Service. In answer to the original question, I suggested that the Health Service in Wales does not need a great deal of change. That also suggests that the Health Service reorganisation carried out by the last Conservative Covernment was indeed a very good one and has stood us in good stead.

    BBC and IBA
    Mr. Roy Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he has had any recent discussions with the chairman of the BBC.
    Mr. Tom Ellisasked the Secretary of State for Wales what recent discussions he has had with the chairmen of the BBC and the IBA.
    Mr. Nicholas Edwards: Broadcasting matters are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, but I saw the chairman of the Independent Broadcasting Authority on matters relating to Wales on 30 July. I have had no discussions with the chairman of the BBC.
    Mr. Hughes: Will the Secretary of State say what he is doing to get rid of the pop session that we have to put up with in the morning in place of a proper news programme? Likewise, will the right hon. Gentleman suggest to the chairman of the neutral BBC that the people of Wales would also benefit if a few of the cheapjacks and alleged political experts were transferred to pastures new?
    Mr. Edwards: I note that the hon. Gentleman is joining those who think that political attitudes should be determined by politicians with regard to appointments to British Broadcasting Corporation bodies. This is an extremely dangerous suggestion. It is not my intention to interfere with the day-to-day running of the BBC, although the hon. Gentleman will be aware that I have in the past, as a private individual, criticised the morning programme to which he referred.
    Mr. Ellis: Is the Secretary of State aware that a large number of people in my constituency, including myself, even at this late stage in the history of broadcasting, are unable to receive either BBC Wales or the HTV services, and that apparently we are to be deprived of the new fourth channel when it comes into operation? Does the Secretary of State realise that the border between England and Wales has, in effect, been moved several miles westwards? What does he intend to do about that?
    Mr. Edwards: The Government have urged the Independent Broadcasting Authority to press on with the engineering programme, with the interests of Wales very much in mind. I am sure that there will be a welcome for the announcement made on 29 October. I am aware that there is a problem in Wrexham, and, indeed, in other individual localities within Wales. I can only
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    say to the hon. Gentleman that the Government will press the broadcasting authorities to move as quickly as they are able.

    Housing Associations
    Sir Raymond Gowerasked the Secretary of State for Wales when he expects to introduce legislation to allow the tenants of housing association developments in Wales to purchase their homes on terms similar to those available for tenants of dwellings owned by local authorities.
    Mr. Wyn Roberts: The housing Bill, which the Government will shortly introduce, will take into account the recommendations of a working partly which has been set up to consider the whole question of housing associations' involvement in home ownership.
    Sir R. Gower: Will my hon. and right hon. Friends take account of the fact that many of the tenants of these associations feel that, as the money for building these dwellings comes from public funds, as does the money provided for local authority housing, they have been rather left out in the cold? They would also like the opportunity of exercising the privilege of home ownership.
    Mr. Roberts: We shall certainly take that fact into account. My hon. Friend will be aware that it has been difficult to give tenants of housing association properties the right to buy because of the charitable status of those associations. The problems are not so great in allowing the associations to sell such properties. The working party is expected to report later this month and its recommendations will be reflected in the Housing Bill.
    Mr. Ioan Evans: When consideration is given to the tenants of housing associations, will the tenants of private landlords also be considered?
    Mr. Roberts: As the hon. Gentleman will realise if he reflects for a moment, there is a considerable difference between the public and the private sector. A great deal of taxpayers' money has been invested in public sector housing, which is not the case in the private sector. There are other differences, and the two sectors are not comparable.
    Mr. Costain: Does my hon. Friend appreciate that a number of private landlords would be delighted to sell properties, for which they are getting such poor rents, on the same terms as councils are selling their houses?
    Mr. Roberts: My hon. Friend is quite right. It has not been at all profitable for private landlords to let properties.
    Mr. Alan Williams: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is considerable concern about the activities of the Cambrian housing association in my constituency, which has just arbitrarily announced an increase of 55 per cent. in its rents? Will the hon. Gentleman say what powers he has to set up an inquiry into these activities?
    Mr. Roberts: Housing associations are very much under the wing of the Housing Corporation. The Welsh Office also has supervisory powers.

    Development Board for Rural Wales
    Mr. D. E. Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he proposes any changes in the functions and boundaries of the Development Board for Rural Wales; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Nicholas Edwards: I am not proposing any changes at this stage.
    Mr. Thomas: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we welcome that assurance but are deeply concerned that the Secretary of State for Industry has withdrawn regional financial assistance from the largest part of the board's area? Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that that must be a blow to the board's regional development strategy?
    Mr. Edwards: There is a three-year transitional period, and we have undertaken to review the whole position in such areas before final decisions are taken. I shall be taking especial note of any representations made about future industrial operations in the area.
    Dr. Roger Thomas: Will the Minister consider including the northern half of the Carmarthen constituency in the board's area? It is geographically identical to other areas included.
    Mr. Edwards: I see no need for that at present. The industrial and unemployment problems in the area to which
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    the hon. Gentleman refers are relatively low. I do not want to enlarge the difficulties of the DBRW at present, when it is working under tight financial constraints.
    Mr. Geraint Howells: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of us in Mid-Wales are proud of the board's record there? However, it is difficult to let many of the advance factories to manufacturers. Will the right hon. Gentleman review the board's policy in that respect? Many of those factories could be let to service industries.
    Mr. Edwards: The board has had considerable success in letting factories to the industrial sector. As a broad general rule, that normally produces more jobs and is a better use of resources than the alternative suggested by the hon. Gentleman.

    Economic Prospects
    Mr. Alan Williamsasked the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of the prospects for the Welsh economy.
    Mr. Nicholas Edwards: The Welsh economy is now suffering from the inevitable consequences of excessive public spending and borrowing by the previous Government, from a restrictive industrial environment, from a general level of wage settlements that has borne little relationship to output, and from a stagnant world economy.
    The purpose of our present measures is to restore the competitive position of British industry and to bring down inflation.
    Mr. Williams: Does not the right hon. Gentleman understand that the Welsh economy is also suffering from the activities of this Government, pushing inflation back up to 20 per cent? Does he also appreciate that we shall feel the impact of unemployment reaching almost 2 million again, as a result of this Government's policies, and that Wales will have to face that situation having lost much of the regional policy protection? We shall therefore bear more than our normal share of the increasing unemployment. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that an official at the EEC said that the right hon. Gentleman did not even object

    21
    to the withdrawal of EEC subsidies for job creation for the young in Wales? How can he justify that attitude in the context of what I have just said?
    Mr. Edwards: I shall deal with the last point first. The Commission has already withdrawn that suggestion and apologised for making it. It was incorrect. I went to see Commissioner Vredeling and expressly raised the point with him. The matter is now under consideration. Of course, it was the previous Government's policy on public expenditure and borrowing that has been the major factor in creating the inflation from which we are now suffering. The right hon. Gentleman urges additional public expenditure, but one wonders what price he wishes to pay for it—either by increases in taxation or increases in interest rates. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we cover 94 per cent. of the working population of Wales in our regional inducements, as against 25 per cent. in the United Kingdom as a whole. In the special development areas that means that the relative attractions are more substantial than they are compared with areas that are not covered.

  WELSH ARTS COUNCIL
  Mr. Wigleyasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when he plans to meet the chairman of the Welsh Arts Council.
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 16 July.
  Mr. Wigley: When the right hon. Gentleman next has the opportunity of meeting the chairman, will he discuss with him the implications of the Redcliffe-Maud report on the arts in England and Wales, particularly that part of the report which deals with the sparsity of resources in areas such as the counties of Gwynedd and Clwyd, which has led to the slowness of development of many of the arts under the care of the North Wales arts association? Will he discuss with the chairman of the Welsh Arts Council whether enough resources are being allocated to such areas, and will he in general review the implications of the Redcliffe-Maud report,
  22
  since, to a large extent that report was based on the assumption that the Welsh Assembly would come into being? Is not the time ripe to reconsider this since the Assembly has been put off for some time?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that he requires. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will be interested to know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales met the chairman of the Welsh Arts Council last Wednesday and they held a wide-ranging discussion.

  ARTS (EXPENDITURE)
  Mr. Canavanasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what representation he has received about the proposed cuts in Government expenditure on the arts.
  Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on the proposed cuts in expenditure on the arts.
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I have received a number of letters from a wide range of people and organisations about the level of Government expenditure on the arts. The White Paper on the Government's public expenditure plans for 1980–81, which was published last Thursday, said:
  "Direct central government expenditure in support of museums, libraries and the live arts in 1980–81 should allow a continuation of activities at a level broadly comparable to what has been possible in the current year."
  Mr. Canavan: Since the arts will undoubtedly suffer from the cuts in Government expenditure and the doubling of VAT, is it not rather dishonest of the Government to claim in last week's White Paper that Government expenditure on the arts should allow a continuation of activities broadly comparable with those at present? Is the right hon. Gentleman not ashamed of the fact that, with regard to Government support for the arts, this Government are nearly at the bottom of the European league?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: As to being bottom of the European league, I am afraid that it is in leagues other than the arts league that we do not figure very highly. These facts are inter-connected. With

  23
  regard to the public expenditure White Paper, far from being ashamed of it I am proud of the statement about direct Government support that it contains.
  Mr. Hamilton: In his quotation from paragraph 36 of the White Paper, will the right hon. Gentleman also include the part which says that local government expenditure on libraries, galleries and museums will fall as a direct consequence of Government policy? Since the right hon. Gentleman was, at one time, associated with the installation of turnstiles in art galleries, can he give an assurance that he will not be party to any nonsense of that kind in the future and that he will abhor any possibility of the closure of libraries and galleries at local level as a direct consequence of the Government's policy?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: With regard to local government expenditure, it is right that the arts and libraries should bear their fair share of any reduction in expenditure at that level. However, I would certainly deplore any discrimination against the arts and libraries. If the hon. Gentleman is asking for my views on library or museum charges, I am against them—
  Mr. Hamilton: Turnstiles.
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: My association with turnstiles occurred in the previous brief period when I was a Minister, and the arrangement was to allow the takings at turnstiles to be kept by the museums so that old age pensioners, students and the disabled could go in free.
  Mr. Stokes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that £108,000 was granted from public funds last year to help make two pornographic films? Is that not an instance where some savings could, perhaps, be made?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am certainly not in favour of any subsidy to pornography. I shall certainly have this matter investigated.
  Mr. Harry Ewing: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the local authority contribution to the arts is basically financed from the rate support grant? Is it not the case that the Government are clearing their own conscience by saying that their contribution to the arts will be
  24
  maintained in order to allow the level of activity to continue as at present, while at the same time they are taking away the local authority contribution through a possibly serious reduction in the rate support grant? How does the right hon. Gentleman view the possibility of children having to pay more to borrow books from libraries and having to pay increased charges for visiting museums and art galleries? Surely that is contrary to everything that the right hon. Gentleman has stood for. He has said that he is against these charges. Will he give the House an assurance that if those charges are increased he will resign?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I can certainly give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that I gave to his hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton), which is that within the parameters of the rate support grant I shall oppose any discrimination against local libraries and museums. However, the figures have not yet been announced. As to library charges, I have made it quite clear that the Government's policy is not to support them.
  Mr. Dubs: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the borough of Wandsworth there is now a council proposal to close down the Battersea arts centre? Will he join me in deploring that proposal, and can he offer any help and comfort to the people of Battersea to ensure that the arts centre is retained?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I have noticed the possible closure of that arts centre, which I would certainly regret. I am afraid that this is a matter for the local authority, but I am keeping the question under constant review and I would be happy to consult the hon. Gentleman to see whether there is anything that can be done.

  BRITISH LIBRARY PROJECT
  Mr. Dobsonasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what is the current state of the British Library project in Euston Road; when the land surplus to British Library requirements is to be released for local purposes; and whether, in the light of technological change, he is prepared to reconsider the whole project so that it would take up much less space.
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: The site for the new building is being cleared as planned. The release of land surplus to British Library requirements is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. I am not aware of any technological development which would enable us to make a significant reduction in the space required.
  Mr. Dobson: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that while reading room and display space will be necessary for any new British Library, present technological changes suggest that, with regard to information storage and retrieval—and that is what the British Library is about—there will be a massive reduction in the demand for space in a central area building such as the one in Euston Road? Therefore, does he not agree that it should be possible to release surplus land from that project to improve the quality of life of the people in Somers Town who live next to the project?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I do not think that the saving from any micro-filming process would be quite on the scale suggested by the hon. Gentleman. I am certainly looking at the possibilities that he has raised, and I intend to make a comprehensive statement about the whole future of the scheme in due course.
  Mr. Cormack: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his last remarks will be greeted with considerable relief in many quarters, because there is great misgiving about the future of this project? Will he promise that the review will be thorough?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. There has been concern about various projects in the arts, but one may draw comfort from the fact that the Government have made it clear, first, that the national heritage fund is to go ahead and, secondly, that the public lending right scheme is to be preserved. I hope that we shall have a similarly happy outcome with regard to the British Library.
  Mr. Waldegrave: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many hon. Members will agree with the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. Dobson) and hope that the result of his wide-ranging study on the British Library scheme will be that it is not now necessary?
  Mr. St. John Stevas: I certainly do not exclude that possibility, but I would not like to depress my hon. Friend's hopes any further.

  INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE (STEAM LOCOMOTIVES)
  Mr. Adleyasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what plans he has, in pursuance of his policy to assist and encourage industrial archaeology, to promote the preservation of steam locomotives as part of the industrial heritage.
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: The Science Museum and the National Railway Museum in York are responsible for the national collection of railway relics. The Science Museum also operates a fund to assist with the preservation elsewhere of technological and scientific material—including steam locomotives—which is considered to be of historic significance.
  Mr. Adley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that at Woodham's scrapyard in Barry, South Wales, there exists the only remaining source of former British Rail steam engines, and that sadly they will probably have to be cut up next year? That will deprive preservationists of a unique collection. Will my right hon. Friend establish contact with Mr. Woodham and his people in Barry regarding the existence of what may be regarded as an important part of our national heritage?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am fully aware of the situation at Barry, not least because my hon. Friend keeps writing to me about it. However, it is a matter for the Science Museum, and I am in communication with the museum to see what can be done.
  Mr. Dalyell: Will the right hon. Gentleman recollect that there were exchanges on that subject before the Summer Recess? May I bluntly ask him if there is any money available to the Science Museum from Government sources for what many people agree is a serious purpose?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: There are funds available, and they are met through a fund that stands at £130,000 in the current financial year. In certain circumstances there are grants available through the

  27
  area museum councils, which are currently receiving Government funding to the extent of £1,266,000. The difficulty is that as there are so many worthy claimants the resources are insufficient.
  Sir Raymond Gower: Does my right hon. Friend agree that had it not been for the initiative of my constituent, Mr. Woodham, some of these wonderful old engines would probably have been destroyed a long time ago? Should we not look closely at a system which permits that sort of thing to happen unless some individual takes action?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am very much in sympathy with what my hon. Friend said, and I join with him in congratulating his constituent for his action. However, we have to face the facts of the situation. We have only limited resources.

  THEATRE MUSEUMS
  Mr. Neubertasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster whether he is satisfied with the present provision in London of museum facilities for the theatre.
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: No, Sir. If sufficient resources are available, I hope that
  28
  a start will be made during the next financial year on providing a theatre museum in the Covent Garden location which has long been earmarked for that purpose.
  Mr. Neubert: Will my right hon. Friend use his powers of persuasion to ensure that there is no further hitch in the provision of that museum in Covent Garden? Is he aware that the museum is to be housed in the basement of a building that has had to be progressively converted from top to bottom? In the course of that conversion, by some incredible act of folly, the basement has been flooded. Will he bring his magic touch to securing the rapid completion of that project?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am grateful for that tribute to my magic touch, but I think that a flood could be described as an act of God. I shall do my best to see that this most important project, in which I take a personal interest goes ahead on time.

  THEATRE MUSEUMS

    STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &C.
    Ordered,
    That the draft Employment Subsidies Act 1978 (Renewal) (Great Britain) Order 1979 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. St. John-Steins.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  EDUCATION (No. 2) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mr. Speaker: Before I call the Minister, I should tell the House that a large number of right hon. and hon. Members have signified to me that they hope to catch my eye during the course of the debate. Therefore, I have decided to use the discretion that the House, in its wisdom, decided last Wednesday night to give to me. Accordingly, any hon. Member who is called this evening between the hours of 7 pm and 8.50 pm will be limited to a speech not exceeding 10 minutes in length. May I add that those who are called to speak before 7 pm are not bound to make long speeches?
  Mr. Norman Buchan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will recall that I raised a point of order last week on the question of Scottish clauses of the Bill being sent to a Scottish Standing Committee. You were generous enough to send me a helpful letter in that regard, for which I thank you. Have the Government made any approach through you to seek leave to move a motion so that the Scottish clauses may be sent to a Scottish Standing Committee? That would be in accordance with precedent. They are crucial clauses, which relate only to Scotland, and the custom and precedent has been for them to be discussed in Scottish Committees. It would be useful to know the answer before the debate starts.
  Mr. Speaker: I have not received notice from the Government and I do not know what their intentions are in the matter.
  3.33 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Mark Carlisle): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  I take note, Mr. Speaker, of your request that speeches should be short. Although I cannot promise to contain myself to the 10-minute period to which you referred, I shall do my best to be reasonably brief.
  As its name implies, this is the second Education Bill to be presented in this Session of Parliament and, indeed, the
  30
  third Education Bill to receive a Second Reading debate in this House in the past 12 months.
  The first Bill, which is now the Education Act 1979, was an urgent measure that was required to carry out our promise at the time of the election to remove from local education authorities the compulsion to reorganise on comprehensive lines when they did not wish to do so. It restored to local education authorities and local people the right to choose the type of secondary education that they wished for their children in their area. This Bill, among other things, puts into legislative form the other promises that we made in our manifesto at the time of the election.
  It is consistent in its purposes with two principles of the Government: first, that of improving the standard of achievement in education by widening parental involvement in schools, strengthening the influence of parents over the choice of schools in which their child will be educated and widening the availabilty of the type of school to parents whose children are now being educated in the maintained sector.
  Secondly, the Bill is consistent also with the principle of the present Government to reduce the degree of central Government control exercised over local authorities in the provision of services for which they are responsible. In particular, it is consistent in the belief that, by reducing those controls, it will be easier for the local authorities to achieve the economic savings for which we have asked.
  The Bill has six main parts. It deals with school government and the right of parents and teachers to sit on governing bodies. It deals with the question of admission to school, the improved opportunities for parental choice and the setting up of local appeals procedure. It provides for our assisted places scheme; it gives greater discretion for local education authorities, particularly as far as school meals and transport are concerned. It deals with various non-controversial provisions from the 1978 Bill and it deals with the revised arrangements for the pooling of expenditure on advanced further education.
  It will be for the convenience of the House if I take the six matters in the order that I have mentioned them, saying a few words on each of them.
  Mr. Ron Leighton: Does the right hon and learned Gentleman recall the words of Sir Winston Churchill, who once said that a nation could make no greater investment than to pour milk down the throats of its children? Why does the right hon. Gentleman advise local authorities to do the opposite?
  Mr. Carlisle: At an appropriate moment, I shall come to the part of my speech which deals with meals, milk and transport. At that stage, I shall attempt to answer any questions which the hon. Gentleman may have.
  I pay heed to your request, Mr. Speaker, to limit speeches in length and I turn to the first of those six parts to which I referred. Clauses 1 to 5 deal with school government. There are two principles involved. First, there is the requirement that each school should be required to have its own individual governing body. The second requirement is that on each individual governing body there should be elected parents and teachers. The reason behind the proposals is that we believe that education should be shown to be a partnership, between both the home and the school and the parent and the teacher. The purpose of having elected teachers and parents on the governing body is that it will emphasise that partnership. The presence of parents, elected from among their number, will increase their involvement and interest in what goes on within the school.
  The Bill provides that there shall be at least two elected parents on each school governing body. However, we accept that the majority responsibility for running schools must rest with the local education authorities. Therefore, it is right that they should be free to decide the correct type of governing body for their individual schools. Therefore, unlike the previous Government's Bill, we have not attempted to lay down in detail either the number of members of a governing body or how that membership should be made up. Those are matters for local education authorities and it is best to leave the maximum degree of flexibility to them to decide the suitable membership of a body, taking into account the local services and the area of the school.
  Clause 2 provides that on each governing body there shall be at least two elected parents and at least two elected teachers,
  32
  except that in a small school with fewer than 300 pupils there shall be at least one elected teacher. In the case of primary schools, where a school is in the area of a minor authority one of the governors of that school should be appointed by that authority. As for the rest of the membership of the governing body, we have left it up to the local authorities to decide, and matters such as the question whether pupil governors should be on the board are matters that we think are best decided at local level.
  The voluntary aided schools are dealt with in clause 2. There, so as to ensure that bodies do not become too large in number, we have reduced the proportion of the foundation governors from a two-thirds proportion to a majority of two on a board of up to 18, and to a majority of three on a board of more than 18. They also will be required to have elected parent governors on their boards, although if one foundation governor is a parent they will be required to have a minimum of only one elected parent.
  Clause 4 provides some important safeguards for foundations and provides that in matters dealing with the future of a foundation, the foundation governors should have the right, if they require, to request a second meeting of the board.
  I realise that in some areas at the moment there is a substantial grouping together of schools under one governing body. As I said, in principle the Bill will not allow such groupings in future but will require, except for primary schools, each school to have a separate body, other than with the approval of the Secretary of State. However, I realise, too, that local authorities will need some time to alter their governing bodies in accordance with the provisions of the Bill. They will all need to have, for example, new instruments of government for each school. I hope that they will attempt to get on with that as soon as the Bill becomes law. In the meantime, I do not propose to lay down any timetable in the Bill, although I retain the power in clause 2(9) to make an order requiring local authorities to change their govening bodies in accordance with the provisions of the Bill.
  I think that that is all that I need to say about the governing bodies. Accordingly, I turn to the second purpose of the Bill.
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that one of the major criticisms of the Bill introduced by the Labour Government was that it did not lay down the powers of governors? Has not he perpetuated the problem of not laying down the powers of the governors, and is not he merely saying that, given a set of sensible people, they will take powers for themselves?
  Mr. Carlisle: I accept that we have not attempted to set out the powers of governing bodies, any more than the previous Government did, and I accept that the reason why we have not done so is that we believe that if we get the right people on the governing bodies it is up to them to exercise their powers as they feel to be right. That was the provision proposed by my predecessor.
  The part of the Bill dealing with school admissions is that covered by clauses 6 to 11. Again, the principle that has guided us is clear. It is to give to parents the strongest possible right of choice about the schools at which their children shall be educated.
  We have to remember that the duty to educate a child is, in the end, a duty not of the local education authority but of the parent. Therefore, parents should be given the widest possible decision about how that duty is carried out. The present position is both confused and confusing. Although the 1944 Act provides for children to be educated according to the wishes of their parents, there has never been provided any system by which those wishes should be heard.
  I accept, of course, that in this area there cannot be absolute freedom of choice. Where a State service is established that is required to provide for all children living in an area and at the same time is required to exercise due consideration for the interests of both ratepayers and taxpayers, it is not possible to legislate for absolute freedom of choice. However, the fact that it is not possible to provide that absolute freedom of choice does not mean that one should not attempt to provide for the strongest choice possible. Accordingly, therefore, clause 6 lays down for the first time the statutory right of a parent to express a preference about the school at which his child should be educated and a statutory
  34
  duty on the local education authority to comply with that preference unless compliance would prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources, or, in the case of schools whose pupils are selected by ability, compliance with that preference would be incompatible with the selective procedure of that school.
  Mr. Ivan Lawrence: Can my right hon. and learned Friend explain how the position set out in this clause differs from the existing position?
  Mr. Carlisle: It differs considerably. As I said, at the moment there is no statutory provision in which any parent's preference for a school can be made clear. In the 1944 Act there is the statement that children should be educated according to the wishes of their parents. However, no provisions have ever been made whereby those wishes can be carried out.
  It will be a very large change in many areas. For the first time we are providing a statutory right to express a preference and a statutory duty on local authorities to comply with that preference. But if parents are to be able to express a preference that is to be of value, it is necessary first that they should know the admission arrangements provided by local authorities for the schools concerned; secondly, that they should have the fullest possible information about the schools concerned so as to make an informed choice; and, thirdly, that they should have a sufficient appeals procedure if it has not been possible to satisfy their preferences.
  Mr. Edwin Wainwright: Is not the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that he is putting into the minds of parents by what he is saying today and by what he is providing in the Bill that they will have the right to select schools of their choice far more than they have been able to before? Will this not cause a great deal of trouble to all those governors who have to judge whether or not parents have that choice?
  Mr. Carlisle: I believe that parents should have as much right as possible to make that choice, although I realise that no choice can ever be absolute. The balance will have to be made between the choice of a parent and the demands on

  35
  the local education authorities. As I said, I have provided for the first time a statutory right for a parent to make that choice.
  Mr. Allen Mckay rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Before I call the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. McKay), I remind him and the House that, inevitably, at the end of the day some hon. Members will have failed to be called, because so many wish to speak, even operating the 10-minute rule. I hope that interruptions will be as few as possible.
  Mr. Eric S. Heffer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I trust that we shall not reach the situation in this House where hon. Members are unable, because of time factors, to intervene during Ministers' speeches or in speeches being made by other hon. Members. If we arrive at that situation we may as well pack up the House of Commons, because it would not be the House of Commons that I have been in for 15 years.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is right about the cut and thrust of debate. However, he would be one of the most agitated if he had his name down to speak and was not called.
  Mr. Heffer: That is not the point.
  Mr. Speaker: There is no point in pursuing it.
  Mr. Bob Cryer: Yes, there is.
  Mr. Heffer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. With due respect, I raised a serious point of order. I have never objected to any hon. Member intervening in any of my speeches and I have never objected when I have not been called. Like many other hon. Members, I could paper my walls with the speeches that I have not been able to make. We are entitled to an answer to the serious point that I raised.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman will receive an answer. As I said at the beginning of the point of order, the cut and thrust of debate is part of our dealings in the House. I was drawing attention to the fact that we have already had four or
  36
  five interruptions in the Secretary of State's speech. I said that if there were too many interruptions, some hon. Members would not be able to make their speeches. I accept the hon. Gentleman's promise not to protest if he is not called.
  Mr. Allen McKay: The Secretary of State was talking about parents' free choice of admission of their children to any school that has room to take them. Is that not contradicted by his taking away from children the right to free travel to school? For some low-paid families with three or four children, the choice of school will be predetermined. The children will have to go to the village school that is nearest rather than to one to which their parents might wish them to go.
  Mr. Carlisle: No one could accuse me of not being willing to give way. I have given way to every hon. Member who has sought to intervene. If I am allowed to develop my speech I shall deal with the hon. Gentleman's intervention when I come to the question of transport. No one can complain if my speech takes rather a long time. Hon. Members have repeatedly asked me to give way.
  If we are to have a choice, it is necessary that parents should know the arrangements for admission to schools and as much information as possible about the school to which they wish their children to go. Under clause 8, a local education authority will be required to publish the arrangements that it makes for admission, including the number of pupils that it intends to admit to a school and the policy that it proposes to adopt on admissions to a school where there is a greater demand than the school can meet. Authorities will also be required to give a description of the arrangements that they are making for parents to express a preference, and for appeals.
  If parents are to make an informed choice they should have as much information as possible about schools, and clause 8 therefore also provides that schools will be required to give as much information as they think fit or as I require to be provided. I believe that it should include the rights to information about a school's academic record and to the publication of examination results.

  37
  I have made clear that I will consult teachers' unions and local authorities about this matter, but I remain of the view that it is right that parents should know as much as possible about a school and that it is better that they should be given factually accurate information rather than pick it up by means of gossip.
  Mr. Neil Kinnock: If the Secretary of State decides to go ahead with his plans for publishing academic results, which is a highly suspect way of assessing the performance of a school, will he at least give us an indication of the requirements that he will lay down to ensure that the results are not merely bald examination figures but include a means of effective and objective evaluation?
  Mr. Carlisle: My objective is clear. I am concerned with information that is intended to be available to parents who may wish to send their children to a certain school. I accept—and I will enter negotiations on this point—that with the educational results the school should make clear, in any way that it wishes, the background from which the children are drawn, and other such matters. I am concerned not so much with providing information for the general public as with providing information to parents who wish to make a choice about the school to which their children should go.
  Following the intervention of the hon. Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Wainwright), I should make clear that the right to express a preference is a new right and is not limited to expressing a preference for a school in an area in which the child lives. Parents will be free for the first time to express a wish that their children should be educated in a school in another local education authority area. Clause 30 provides automatic recoupment between local authorities for children educated outside the area of their own education authority.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: It will cost the parents a fortune in bus fares.
  Mr. Carlisle: The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) ought to realise that many parents living near local authority boundaries complain more than anything about the fact that they cannot send their children to the nearest school,
  38
  because it is in the area of another local education authority.
  Mr. John Evans: As in Cheshire?
  Mr. Carlisle: Of course, that applies in Cheshire, with Liverpool, Manchester and its other surrounding areas. I believe that a parent should have a right to express a preference for a child to be educated in a school in another local education authority area. I have provided for automatic recoupment between the authorities.
  The plans that I have outlined will be of particular assistance to denominational schools, which usually draw their pupils from a wider area. Many of those pupils live in local authority areas other than that in which the school is situated.
  Miss Sheila Wright: Will the Secretary of State explain what provisions he intends to make for decisions to be taken on the question whether a child can go to a school in another local education authority area, and what provisions he intends to make for inter-authority payments?
  Mr. Carlisle: I have just explained that. The Bill provides a right for parents to express a preference for a school outside the area in which they live. Provided that the child is accepted by the school, there will be automatic recoupment between the local authorities. I explained that that is particularly important for denominational schools, where admission policy will be in the hands of governors who cannot be prevented from taking a child who wishes to go there by the unwillingness of a local authority to recoup payments.
  Voluntary aided schools will be able to make their own admission policies, free from pressure from local education authorities. Parents will be able to express a preference and the schools will be under a duty to meet that preference and will have their own appeals procedure.
  Clause 7 sets out the appeals procedure that a parent may use when dissatisfied. It is difficult to decide what is the appropriate type of appeals machinery that is needed if that procedure is to have the right power to decide the matter.

  39
  I have concluded that, inevitably, if that appeals procedure is to have power to bind a local authority it must contain members from that local authority—in other words, not officials of the department but councillors and co-opted members.
  To give the power to overrule the local authority to some other body that is in no way democratically responsible would effectively mean that school policy was taken out of the hands of the democratically elected council and given into the hands of others who were not democratically elected. Had we gone along with the idea—as some suggested—of providing for a totally independent appeals committee, which was not part of the local authority and could only be advisory, it would have caused far more frustration and concern to individual parents than the system that we have devised.
  Mr. John McWilliam: I refer the right hon. and learned Gentleman to the experience of some of us of cases where these regulations have existed and where we have had powers to make them. The result, with the most objective appeals procedure available, was a group of very dissatisfied parents and very upset children.
  Mr. Carlisle: One will never satisfy every parent and every child. The purpose of this appeals procedure, like any other form of appeal, is to provide for a hearing and attempt to satisfy as many as possible of those who are dissatisfied. The person who loses an appeal always ends up dissatisfied, whether in a court of law or any form of tribunal, as I know sometimes to my cost.
  We have decided, therefore, that the appeals procedure committee, whether consisting of three, five or seven members, should be allowed to have a bare majority of one of members who are either members of the council or co-opted members of the local education authority. But the Bill also makes clear that no one who has been involved in the decision will be allowed to sit on the appeal committee, that the chairman himself may not be a member of the local education authority, that the appeal committee must have members on it independent of those who are on the
  40
  local authority, and that individual parents shall have a right to be heard in person at the hearing of their appeal. With those provisos, we believe that the decision made by the appeal committee should be binding, and should overrule that of the local education authority.
  Mr. John Evans: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is reiterating an important point. Will he insist that members of two or three political parties represented on the local education authority will form the basis of the appeal committee? If the councillors are made up of the majority party it is hardly likely that they will disagree with the decisions of the majority party in the first place.
  Mr. Carlisle: That must be a matter for the local authority. I envisage that each local authority will have a panel of councillors—presumably crossing party lines—who will agree to sit on an appeal committee. That would be my wish.
  There will be a similar appeals procedure for voluntary schools. The governors will be entitled to be in a majority. I want to make clear what I believe is the concern of the average parents when they find that their wish is not met. Their concern is that the decision has been taken by some official at the local education authority and that there appears to be no means of questioning, or appealing against, that decision. Our system will provide that any such decision taken by a local education official can be challenged before an appeal committee made up of elected representatives, who, in the end, are the people who must be responsible for the provision of education in that area.
  Since we are setting up a local appeals procedure, it follows that we are doing away with the individual appeal that existed, under section 37, to the Secretary of State. This was always a thoroughly unsatisfactory situation, which, as the House may know, gave a total advantage to a parent who chose deliberately to keep a child away from school against the parent who sent a child to school. In future, there will be no individual appeal, on an individual case, to the Secretary of State. The rights of appeal to the Secretary of State will be limited to those cases in which it is argued that the local authority is acting unreasonably or failing to carry

  41
  out its statutory duties under section 99 of the 1944 Act.
  I now turn, conscious that time is moving on, to the third area of the Bill on which I wish to address the House—the assisted places scheme set out in clauses 17 and 18. I wish to refer to the policy behind that proposal and the financial implications of it. The setting up of the assisted places scheme was the clearest possible election commitment and mandate to restore to bright children of less affluent parents the opportunity to benefit from an education similar to that provided in the old direct grant grammar schools.
  It is a scheme that has been subjected by Labour Members to the most gross distortion. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), I see, has now arrived. Presumably to show his concern about the future leadership of the party, he opened his mouth and decided to condemn the whole scheme without even hearing its details. His remarks were totally erroneous on what was intended.
  The direct grant grammar schools gave a high-quality academic education to children of ability, irrespective of the means of their parents. We on the Conservative Benches regretted greatly the decision to put an end to that scheme. But putting and end to the scheme did not kill those schools. They remain. However, two-thirds of the 174 involved went independent and today remain independent schools. They are, therefore, available only to those who can pay. We believe that the education opportunity provided by those and similar schools should be open to children of ability whose parents cannot afford to pay the fees that they charge. It is with that intention that we bring in this part of the Bill. The schools exist. That means of opportunity exists. That means of opportunity should be restored to able children whose parents are unable to meet the cost.
  Mr. Christopher Price rose—
  Mr. Iain Mills: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for so many interruptions and points of order to be put forward self-indulgently? I was unable to speak in a debate last
  42
  week because of such selfishness. I would appreciate your view.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member has taken up a little extra time. I have given the House my advice about interruptions. That is all that Mr. Speaker can do.
  Mr. Christopher Price: When I raised this issue 10 days ago with the Under-Secretary of State, he said that I should wait until the Second Reading of the Bill before interrupting. I would like to ask the same question. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman spell out exactly how it is proposed to ensure that the youngsters benefiting from this system are poor children, unlike what happened with the direct grant schools? What proportion of poor children does he expect among the total number?
  Mr. Carlisle: Yes, I can and I will. The difference is that, under the direct grant system, if one got a free place one got it irrespective of the income of one's parents, whereas under our scheme it will be means-tested on the income of the parents.
  We therefore propose to enter into arrangements with a number of independent schools of high academic ability, mainly based on the old direct grant schools, to agree that, in respect of a certain number of places at those schools, the Government will meet the fees on a means-tested basis of those children who have been selected for entry to those schools but whose parents cannot afford the fees.
  The means of selection will remain a matter for the schools. Once the children have been selected, the agreement to finance and the proportion of their fees which will be met will depend on a general, central means test.
  It follows, therefore, if I may come to some of the distortions that I have mentioned—
  Mr. Cryer: Callous.
  Mr. Carlisle: It is surprising to be called callous when one is trying to establish a scheme that will help the more disadvantaged children, but then I do not always understand the hon. Gentleman's morality or his language.

  43
  I should now like to deal with the distortions. It follows that the scheme is not, as has been claimed, a scheme of support for the private schools. It is a scheme of support for the parent and pupil. It is support not for the privileged and the rich but for those who otherwise cannot afford the fees. Labour Members often use the word "privilege" in relation to private education. I assume from that that they consider independent education, since it is privileged, to be in some way better than that which is provided in the State system. If that is so, I find it difficult to understand on what basis they wish that privilege retained for those who can pay rather than made available to others of ability who would benefit.
  The scheme is intended not to divide the two areas but to bring them closer together. It is intended not to be contradictory to the State schools but to be complementary to them. It will lead to a greater and better social mix within those schools.
  Mr. John Evans: Absolute rubbish.
  Mr. Carlisle: The hon. Gentleman says that it is absolute rubbish, but it is the view of many of those who run those schools. They believe that they had a greater social mix when they were direct grant schools than they have today, when they are totally fee-charging. I hope that the scheme will work in co-operation with the local education authorities with the aim of helping to meet the academic needs of pupils whose talent might not otherwise be catered for.
  Mr. Ernest Armstrong: Can the Secretary of State deal with the criticisms, for instance, of the Society of Education Officers, which is not what he would call a politically motivated body? Also, can he tell us of any sector of the education service—even the independent headmasters—which has considered it and has given 100 per cent. support to a scheme that he has commended to the House in a peculiar way?
  Mr. Carlisle: Yes—not only the independent headmasters but, I believe, the parents, who are an important part of education.
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  On the right hon. Gentleman's first point, of course I concede and realise that this is a controversial proposal. I never denied that arguments have been put up by such people as the Society of Education Officers. What I said was that I believed that much of the attack on the scheme had been distorted, in that it was based on wrong premises and ideas of what the scheme was trying to achieve.
  I turn now to the financing of the scheme. The Bill retains the scale of introduction and the speed of implementation of the scheme in the hands of the Secretary of State. I was surprised, if it be right, to be told that the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook, as recently as only a few days ago, said on the wireless—I think I also heard him say it on another occasion—that it was monstrous that this Government should be spending £70 million a year on private schools at this time.
  At its earliest, this scheme cannot be introduced until September 1981 and cannot therefore have any economic effect on expenditure either in the current financial year or in the following year. When it is introduced, since it is our intention to take up a proportion of the places in the schools and then phase the scheme in by means of giving assistance to those who enter the schools that year, it means that expenditure in the financial year 1981–82 will be about £6 million and will not build to its full amount of £55 million to £60 million at today's prices until 1888—[Interruption.] I mean 1988.
  Mr. Cryer: It is 1888 that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is going back to.
  Mr. Carlisle: I do not think it is. I apologise for the slip.
  Even if we are to achieve the target date of September 1981 for the introduction of the scheme it is not easy to do so within the time limit that we have set ourselves. A great deal needs to be done in selecting the schools. Therefore, subject to the Bill's getting a Second Reading tonight, I propose to invite schools that might be interested in joining the scheme to write to the Department and discuss details of it.
  Secondly, this scheme will not, as some have suggested, be funded from the LEAs. It is to be centrally funded. The

  45
  money will not be taken from the LEAs; it will be additional money provided by the Treasury for this purpose. Therefore, the financial situation is as follows: the scheme starts in 1981; it will then, despite the comments of the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook and others, amount to an additional 0·1 per cent. of education expenditure. At its maximum, it will involve between 1 per cent. and 2 per cent. of educational expenditure and provide education for between 1 per cent. and 2 per cent. of pupils who otherwise would be educated totally at the cost of the State.
  Mr. Hugh Dykes: But precisely because it is to be centrally funded, and since the present restraints on public spending will last for a couple of years at least before new progress can be made on education spending and other matters, will my right hon. and learned Friend assure us that the target date may be delayed somewhat if the rehabilitation of public spending has not occurred in the meantime?
  Mr. Carlisle: I have made it clear that the date and speed of implementation rests solely in the hands of the Secretary of State. I have also made it clear that, although we hope to start it in September 1981, in that year it is likely to cost, at most, £6 million compared with total local authority education expenditure of £6 billion. I will take note of what my hon. Friend says in the implementation of the scheme. That is one reason why we are implementing it as we are.
  I turn now to the provisions on school meals and transport.
  Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: Clause 17 refers to a participation agreement. Can that be negotiated with a trust that manages four public schools and not with the individual schools involved?
  Mr. Carlisle: I shall certainly consider that point, which has been put to us by various bodies. The King Edward's Foundation has proposed that it should provide a number of places in the schools within the foundation rather than in any particular school. I shall certainly consider that matter.
  I now turn, rather later than I had intended, to those parts of the Bill that
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  deal with school meals and transport—under clauses 22 and 23 for England and Wales and clauses 24 and 25 for Scotland. The purpose here is to relax the statutory obligations on the local authorities to enable them to make considerable savings, believing that savings made in this way are better than those made by the reduction of educational provisions in the classroom.
  At present a local authority is required to provide a school meal for any child who wants it. The meal must be of the type defined by central Government, with a nutritional value defined by central Government, at a charge laid down by central Government and with central Government decisions over those who receive it free of charge. As a result, the school meals service costs £400 million, or 7 per cent. of the total education budget of local education authorities.
  Our proposals are that, instead, local authorities should have power to provide school meals and refreshments and charge what they consider appropriate, with the right to remit charges in whole or in part. There is also a requirement for them to provide facilities in which refreshments can be taken, and they will also have a duty to make provision, as appears requisite, to those children whose parents are on supplementary benefit or family income supplement. This is a minimum requirement and it leaves the local authority the right to provide whatever system it wishes within that minimum requirement.
  I understand from what the Leader of the Opposition has said that our proposals in this area are highly controversial. I remind the House of certain facts about the scheme to which the Labour Party seems to be totally wedded. Having mentioned that the overall cost of school meals is 7 per cent. of the total education budget, I should point out that such meals are taken by only 65 per cent. of those to whom they are made available. In secondary schools the figure is only 50 per cent. Of those who are entitled to meals free of charge, about 30 per cent. choose not to have those meals. Because of the statutory requirements, the economics of school meals are that the parent pays 30p per meal and the taxpayer 24p. The total cost, therefore, is 54p and the food element of that

  47
  amount is 16p per meal. That does not seem to be very sound economics for the parent, the taxpayer or the child.
  Whatever Labour Members may say, it is well known that a great deal of food is wasted, and many children who have free meals flog their vouchers and spend the money in other ways—[Interruption.] That is perfectly true. It is done for the very good reason that the meals are often unattractive to the individuals concerned, who do not wish to eat them.
  We are not abandoning the school meals system in any way we are seeking the ability to provide a simpler system. We believe that many individually priced items would be cheaper to produce and more attractive, and would achieve the objective of cutting by half the subsidy on school meals.
  I remind Labour Members of what the Labour Government did in this respect. To hear the Opposition now one would think that they believed that school meals should be given high subsidies, yet in their period in office they put up the price of school meals by 150 per cent. In their White Paper of 1976 they proposed that the present average subsidy of more than 60 per cent. should be reduced by half by 1980.
  Mr. Reg Race: Yes, but they withdrew that proposal.
  Mr. Carlisle: I remind the hon. Member that, following that White Paper, the previous Government increased the price of school meals, in April 1977, by 66 per cent., from 15p to 25p a meal. Therefore, in doing that they were moving towards the proposals of their 1976 White Paper—to achieve savings.
  I believe that as a result of giving greater freedom to local authorities over the provision of school meals while at the same time requiring them to provide meals to those whose parents are on supplementary benefit or FIS, a major saving will be made. The service will still be provided, but it will be a different type of service, simpler to produce and with exactly the same nutritional value as at present.
  Mr. Frank Dobson: Does the Secretary of State accept the estimate that 500,000 children, at present entitled to free school
  48
  meals, will no longer be so entitled under this measure? What will he suggest to their parents as a replacement for these meals?
  Mr. Carlisle: I do not accept that. As a result of our proposals, I agree that about 400,000 children will not automatically be provided with free school meals. However, in our calculations we assume that as it is within the discretion of the local authority to provide free meals, many will continue to do so.
  Mr. Kinnock: Will the Secretary of State define the extraordinary use of the phrase in clause 22(2)
  "as it appears to the authority to be requisite"?
  Does such a phrase appear in any other education legislation?
  Mr. Carlisle: I cannot answer the second point. On the first point, which I would have thought was more for Committee than a Second Reading debate, if one looks at that clause one sees that a local authority is given a power under subsection (1)(a) to provide food. Clause 22(2) provides that in exercising the power to provide food in relation to any pupil whose parents are on supplementary benefit or FIS, the authority must exercise that power, which means provide the food, so as to ensure that such provision is made as appears to be requisite. I am quite satisfied, despite what has been said by the Child Poverty Action Group, that that clause requires the local authorities to provide refreshment free of charge to children at midday.
  Mr. Kinnock: At their discretion.
  Mr. Carlisle: Not at their discretion. If there is any doubt about this, it can be looked at carefully in Committee. The Government's intentions in wording the Bill in this way are clear. I cannot be my own lawyer, but that is the correct interpretation of that clause.
  I turn from the question of school meals to school transport. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House agree that the present provisions for school transport are unsatisfactory. Local education authorities are under a duty to provide transport free of charge for everyone who lives beyond what is called "walking distance"—that is, two miles for a child up to the age of 8 and three miles for a child over

  49
  the age of 8. That provision is made irrespective of the parent's income. At the same time, there is no duty to provide any form of transport for anyone who lives just within "walking distance", again irrespective of parental income.
  Mrs. Renée Short rose—
  Mr. Carlisle: Will the hon. Lady do me the courtesy of allowing me to advance my argument? She does not have to agree with it, but I think that I might be allowed to put it to her. The present provisions, as she and many other hon. Members must know, lead to innumerable complaints from people living within the three-mile limit. Some parents may have four children in such circumstances and receive nothing whereas a child outside the three-mile limit, irrespective of income, gets free transport.
  Mr. Kevin McNamara rose—
  Mr. Carlisle: If the hon. Gentleman is going to ask me about Catholic schools, I propose to come to that in a moment. If he wishes to ask something else, I shall give way.
  The present illogical situation works unfairly and puts certain children in a privileged position. Free school transport cost £100 million in 1978–79 and will cost £130 million in the coming year. Many hon. Members have argued that this provision should be changed. What hon. Members disagree about is what the change should be. We therefore propose that local authorities should still be required to provide transport where they consider it necessary, but that they should be allowed to charge for that transport. If those on family income supplement or supplementary benefit live beyond the "walking distance" from the nearest convenient school they should be provided with free transport.
  The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) may laugh, but I wonder what she would have said if we had made no provision for children from poor homes living many miles from school. We have retained those provisions, and the hon. Lady knows it. We have also provided a general power for local authorities to pay wholly, or in part, the travelling expenses for any other children if they wish to do so. We believe
  50
  that by changing the rules in this way we shall provide a flexibility that will allow for savings without being unfair to those who at present are not getting free transport.
  The Government do not accept that this will wipe out the whole of the transport subsidy. We assume, in the expenditure White Paper, that the future cost of the transport subsidy will at least be the same as that for 1978–79. I realise that enormous reductions will not be made in these areas, but I believe that giving local authorities the freedom to chose their own system will make some savings without their being unreasonable to the people involved.
  The House must remember that there are many parents whose children live just within the three-mile limit who pay far more in weekly transport costs than any flat rate imposed by a local authority to cover children outside and inside the area limits.
  Mr. Bruce Millan: The Secretary of State is arguing that clause 23(1) imposes an obligation to make arrangements for school transport in England and Wales. Why is there no similar obligation for Scottish local authorities in clause 25(1)? Under that clause they need make no arrangements at all. Why is there a difference?
  Mr. Carlisle: I shall have that matter examined and ensure that the right hon. Gentleman has an answer before the end of the day.
  Mr. Millan: It is obvious that the Secretary of State knows nothing about the Scottish clauses. It will be unsatisfactory for the Scottish clauses to be dealt with in Committee as part of what is otherwise an English Bill, particularly if the English Ministers know nothing about them.
  Mr. Carlisle: The aims of the provisions for Scotland, England and Wales are similar. If a difference in drafting is required to achieve that aim I shall try to give the right hon. Gentleman an answer. I admit that I do not know the answer to the drafting point. The Labour Front Bench may care to reflect that it is far better occasionally to be honest when one does not know something.
  Mrs. Renée Short: The Bill contains revolutionary proposals for school milk,

  51
  meals and transport, and for the financing of those services. What is the cost to local authorities of administering these schemes?
  Mr. Carlisle: Clearly there will be some costs. A figure of £6 million has been suggested as the additional cost of implementing the schemes. I shall try to obtain a fuller answer for the hon. Lady later.
  I turn to the question of denominational schools. I recognise the anxiety of those attending denominational schools about our proposals. In the past local education authorities have been relatively generous in providing free transport for those attending denominational schools when such schools are not the nearest appropriate establishment. Sometimes they have acted beyond their statutory duty.
  Local education authorities have a duty to provide free transport only to children travelling more than three miles to the nearest appropriate school and, on the whole, local authorities stick to that rule. If children choose to attend schools that are not the nearest appropriate schools, they have to pay. In the case of denominational schools, local authorities have invariably relaxed the rule, at their discretion, and allowed free transport to a school even when it is not the nearest appropriate school. I support denominational schools. What is more, I believe that the Bill's provisions strengthen and help them.
  The transport proposals are not intended to operate against denominational schools; nor do I believe they will be used in that way. When Parliament decides to empower a local authority to charge other parents it is reasonable that the same rule should apply to parents whose children attend denominational schools. It would be wrong to provide free transport to children who attend denominational schools while not providing free transport in similar circumstances to those who do not attend such schools.
  I hope that local education authorities will be no less generous in their treatment of denominational schools than they are in respect of others. I hope that they will continue to provide transport to denominational schools. Our public expenditure provisions assume that a
  52
  substantial element of subsidy for school transport will continue.
  The requirement to provide or not to provide is not in any way changed by the Bill. What is changed is the right that exists at present to charge those pupils going to denominational schools further than three miles away if there is a closer appropriate school. Since the requirement is not changed and since the type of procedure introduced is at the discretion of the local authority, it is wrong to suggest that this part of the Bill is a threat to the provision of denominational schools. In the past such schools have relied on the good sense of local authorities. They should feel able to do so in the future.
  Mr. McNamara: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. The first part of what he said is a complete vindication of our argument that there should be no charge for transport.
  Mr. Carlisle: That is a point of view. However, that view was not expressed by the Labour Party when in office. It is a view that it has the luxury of advancing when in opposition.
  You, Mr. Speaker, asked me to be brief. You told me that if I was speaking after 7 o'clock I would be limited to 10 minutes. I apologise for taking such a long time, but I have given way to many hon. Members.
  I do not propose to deal in detail with the other provisions in the Bill. They deal with certain controls over local education authorities and the pooling of higher education expenditure. Controls over local education authorities are contained in clauses 12 to 16. They revise the section 13 procedure, which requires that every case of the establishment, closure, enlargement, altering or changing the character of a school must go to the Secretary of State for his decision. The provision will remain, in that local authorities will still be required to publish their proposals and there will still be the freedom to object. However, if there are no objections a local authority may go ahead without referring the matter to the Secretary of State.
  Highly contentious arguments sometimes revolve round the closure of a school but about 50 per cent. of the cases that go to the Secretary

  53
  of State and take up considerable time, at both local and central Government level, are non-contentious and no serious objection has been raised to them.
  I have attempted to describe the main provisions of the Bill. It enhances the role of parents by widening their choice and involvement in education. It enables local authorities to achieve savings without affecting education standards. It restores the full opportunity to children to take advantage of the direct grant grammar school type of education when they can benefit from it but from which they are now excluded because of their parents' income. For those reasons, I commend the Bill to the House.
  4.44 p.m.
  Mr. Neil Kinnock: Those of us who have been in the House since 1970 have been brought up to believe that the Secretary of State, the right hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle), is a man of considerable intelligence, sensitivity and compassion. We believed that he has all the virtues of what we have come to regard as liberal conservatism. However, we have discovered from his Second Reading speech that, however intelligent he may be, however compassionate and sensitive he may be personally, he now occupies the role of an educational Luddite. The business of the Opposition in the next several months, at every stage of the Bill, will be to expose to the public gaze the policies which he has espoused and of which presumably he is at least part architect. Those policies were not so exposed before the election and during the election and have not been exposed since.
  That is not all that we have heard about Tories and education in the last hour or more. We have learnt that the proposals to remove obligations from local authorities to provide meals are not intended to secure savings. Nothing so materialistic and unconsiderate is envisaged. The main reason for so doing is to come to the rescue of adolescent palates which are upset and offended by school meals.
  We have also learned that fairness is the reason why local authorities are no longer obliged to provide for free school transport, as they have since the 1940s. The Government do not regard that as an act of what I consider to be hooliganism
  54
  against the rural communities in particular or against the effective use of choice by parents in urban or rural areas. It is alleged to be an act of fairness to create uniformity and to come to the rescue of parents whose children live 2·99 miles or 1·99 miles from a school. It is difficult to understand that reasoning.
  It is difficult to understand why, when 5 per cent. of parents want something, they should be allowed to exercise their desire and that that should be called choice. Such a freedom is also called choice when it is applied to education in the independent sector. However, when 65 per cent. of parents want school meals for their children, for example, that is called not choice but something entirely different. According to the Government, that is an unwanted luxury. We shall sort out some of those inconsistencies in Tory policy and expose them.
  Much of the remainder of the Secretary of State's speech is familiar. We have heard it several times in recent years and it was in the Tory manifesto. We heard all the war cries about standards, choice, responsibility and excellence. Cobden's maxim that it is by the delusion of freedom that men are enslaved has never been more true. This Government secured what the Prime Minister calls the mandate of the people. They came to power on the basis of undertakings that they gave to the people. But those undertakings were put in such a way as to ensure that the people would not comprehend them. That is testified by the way in which the public mood and view of Tory policy has changed dramatically—particularly on education—since the election.
  The Bill contains provisions not for the elevation of standards, not for the expansion of choice, not for the fulfilment of responsibility or for the pursuit of excellence. The Bill provides for a stagnation of standards, a negation of choice, an abdication of responsibility and a conspiracy against excellence. That is what is contained in this Bill and many other Government policies.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot raise standards of performance or opportunity while making cuts in the standard of provision such as those that the Government are now engaged upon.

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  It is not possible to make cuts on the scale determined by the Government—to reduce the provision of classroom materials, to reduce the number of teachers by over 20,000, to reduce the opportunity for extending buildings and the improvement of buildings, and to reduce the opportunities of curricular development—while talking about the possibility of raising standards of performance. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman can do that, or insist on doing so, he is wasted at the Department of Education and Science. If he can do that, he should be in the Department of Health and Social Security. If he were in that Department, we could cancel the contracts of all our doctors and nurses. All that he would have to do to cure the halt, the sick and the lame would be to stand outside Alexander Fleming House and pass his hands over the suffering.
  Dr. Keith Hampson rose—
  Mr. Kinnock: No. If he can raise standards in the circumstances that I have described, the right hon. and learned Gentleman can perform miracles.
  Dr. Hampson rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): I understand that the Minister had a fair hearing, and I ask that the Opposition spokesman be given the same.
  Dr. Hampson rose—
  Mr. Kinnock: I was brought up in an education tradition that did not permit politics to rule the day. I shall choose the time when I give way to the hon. Member for Ripon (Dr. Hampson) or anyone else. There has been a great deal of talk—
  Mr. Mark Carlisle: I am not trying to claim a favoured position. The hon. Gentleman said that I cannot justify a reduction of 21,000 teachers in England and Scotland and claim that standards can be maintained. In view of the proposals that the previous Labour Government set out in their White Paper, what figures does he feel I could justify?
  Mr. Kinnock: I intend to come directly to falling rolls. It is either the right hon. and learned Gentleman's politics or his
  56
  arithmetic that needs checking. If he is to make the reductions in financial commitment to education that he has set his hand to, and if the result, as the Association of County Councils and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities have said, is teacher redundancies and reductions of work opportunities for teachers, the reduction in the number of teachers will be considerably in excess of the 10 per cent. reduction in rolls. That will bring the falling standards of which I speak.
  Dr. Hampson: Does the hon. Gentleman remember that the previous Labour Secretary of State for Education and Science, Mrs. Shirley Williams, was in charge of the greatest cutback in teacher training, one that amounted to one-third? She was in charge of the greatest cutback of capitation allowances—namely, books and similar provision. The cutbacks were the greatest made by any recent Secretary of State. In one year she cut in real terms 3·7 per cent. from the education budget but throughout claimed that standards were rising.
  Mr. Kinnock: I am aware of several other factors. If the hon. Gentleman is so concerned about capitation—to the extent that he objects to the record of the Labour Government—I hope that he will join the Opposition in voting against the Government's policies. He has described the so-called terrible crimes that took place during the period of office of the Labour Government, but at the same time that Government were achieving the best pupil-teacher ratio in the whole of education history. That was achieved because of the falling birth rate.
  The hon. Member for Ripon is supposed to have an interest in these matters. If Governments so organise affairs as to maintain a proper relationship between reductions in the birth rate and falls in school rolls, and simultaneously make reductions to their commitments to education of a comparable nature and in proportion, that is good husbandry. However, when they do it in excess of the reduction in the number of children seeking school places, that is an act of vandalism, precisely the act that I accuse the right hon. and learned Gentleman of committing. I hope that the hon. Member for Ripon will be vocal in his protests against the activity that his right hon. and hon

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  Friends are engaging in against education provision.
  A favourite of Tory education policy has been choice. There is a certain intellectual respectability about it. The Government choose to cleave to that and fully to maintain the opportunities for exercising choice for all the citizens for whom they are responsible. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman says, there is no practical limitlessness of choice. Choices have to be restrained in the very nature of human life. However, he said that he wanted to provide the strongest choice. Against the background of all the other proposals in the Bill and the remainder of Tory education policy as we have seen it in government, I do not think that it is a matter of providing the strongest choice. The Government's policy is to provide an effective choice for only the strongest in our society. That is the education policy that we are getting.
  The extra wedge of rural deprivation that will come because of the reductions in local government expenditure, the removal of choice being exercised in the urban areas for much the same reason, with selection restored under the benign eye of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and an easier procedure for school closures to facilitate the cuts of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, all mean that his espousal of choice is totally devoid of any practical meaning. It is an example of the proposition that if a lie is told lustily some of the mud will stick.
  Within 12 months there will be few parents in Britain who think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has ever meant one word that he has uttered about the extension of meaningful choice for pupils and parents.
  There is the question of responsibility. The Tory Party—as a democrat, I fully adhere to the general proposition that there should be an equation between rights and responsibilities—has worn the apparel of the party of responsibility. I say that it abrogates those responsibilities. It does so as a modern Government, with all the obligations of government in a welfare state, by introducing proposals for releasing local government from its obligation to provide meals and transport. The Government even abrogate their responsibilities for trying to secure employment in vital sectors of the
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  economy. In many areas the consequences will be ruinous for those requiring employment in schools and for the mothers of children who depend on the provision of decent meals and transport facilities.
  The Tory idea of securing excellence is akin to the crude business of wine making The Tories believe that if we trample on the mass for long enough something sweet and good will emerge in the end. All the proposals set out in the Bill conform fully to that Tory idea of the pursuit of excellence.
  The Bill has nothing to do with the advancement of education opportunities; nor does it seek to deal with the real challenges of education in 1979 or in the 1980s. It is a combination of parsimony and bigotry. It codifies the cuts. Without the Bill it would be impossible for the Government to meet their targets for making major cutbacks in public expenditure. That is why the Government are so panicky about the Bill. That is why they have lumped into it two Scottish clauses that clearly the right hon. and learned Gentleman does not comprehend. As my right hon. and hon. Friends have said, there is a strong case for a different consideration of that part of the Bill.
  Whatever procedure we choose for the investigation and scrutiny of the Bill, the fact is that it is a Bill that is mostly abouts cuts. Whether we are talking about meals, transport or the procedure for school closures, the Bill is directed predominantly towards facilitating substantial cuts.
  If we were discussing the Bill against a background even of sustained expenditure, let alone expanded expenditure, the argument might be different. But, since the Bill is simply designed to aid the Government panic to get legislation on the statute book to permit local education authorities to desert their responsibilities without incurring the wrath of the law, it is totally indefensible.
  The bigotry is equally apparent. There is the educationally and socially indefensible assisted places scheme. It is an insult to and a sabotage of the State sector. I shall provide all the information that the Secretary of State can possibly want not only this afternoon but ceaselessly through the Committee stage to give extra substance to what my right

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  hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) said from a sedentary position this afternoon. No authority in the education world gives undivided support for the Bill. All the authorities, interests, pressure groups and all professional and other kinds of opinion in education have an overwhelming and unremitting hostility to the assisted places scheme.
  The Secretary of State and many of his hon. Friends, using another piece of Tory jargon, have accused the Socialists of engaging in human engineering in education. There is no process of human engineering more profound, more deliberate, than the existence of the independent school sector. If anybody is deliberately engaging in human engineering, it is the Secretary of State and his Government who have invented a scheme which enjoys practically no support and which will give advantage to a very small number of parents.
  Mr. Patrick Cormack: Is the hon. Gentleman, from that Front Bench, committing his party, should it ever return to power, to the abolition of independent education?
  Mr. Kinnock: I shall spell out for the hon. Gentleman our proposals for the assisted places scheme—
  Mr. F. A. Burden: Answer the question.
  Mr. Kinnock: Hon Members need not worry. I shall answer it directly. However, to get matters absolutely clear, so that the hon. Gentleman and all would-be users of the assisted places scheme—headmasters, governors, and parents—understand completely, it is our resolute proposal to terminate the assisted places scheme at the end of the academic year in which the next Labour Government are elected. I hope that that is a fair warning. Our decision is based squarely and firmly on educational and social considerations, and unlike the Government's scheme, is not a matter for partisan political consideration.
  Mr. Cormack rose—
  Mr. Kinnock: I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman.
  I make no secret whatever of my instincts about public schools. My absolute conviction is that public schools
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  have been, are, and, for as long as they exist, will continue to be, an incubus on freedom, opportunity and justice in our society. I shall therefore use, as I have used in the past, all the influence that I can bring to bear on my party to secure a policy position which will bring about the abolition of the public schools and other forms of private education.
  Mr. Cormack: Answer the question.
  Mr. Kinnock: I am answering the hon. Gentleman's question. Whether my party will adopt such a proposal must be a matter for further debate—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—because the party has no such proposal. Speaking entirely for myself, however, and for my convictions—and, unlike the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South-West (Mr. Cormack), I presume that I shall be standing by those convictions wherever I can—I shall work for the abolition of private education.
  This Bill is opposed—
  Mr. Harry Greenway rose—
  Mr. Kinnock: I am not giving way at this stage.
  Mr. Greenway: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Kinnock: I am not giving way.
  Mr. Dan Jones: Order. The hon. Gentleman is in breach of the rules of the House.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: When it is clear that the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) is not giving way, the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Green-way) must resume his seat.
  Mr. Kinnock: The Secretary of State said that he took particular exception to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook said. I hope that my right hon. Friend is suitably flattered. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that my right hon. Friend had been particularly critical of the Bill and of the assisted places scheme. However, the Bill is opposed, for a variety of reasons, by such organisations as the National Association of Head Teachers, the Society of Education Officers, the National Union of Teachers, the Assistant Masters and

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  Mistresses Association, the Secondary Heads Association, the Welsh Secondary Schools Association, the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association, the educational publishers and the Roman Catholics. Even the Church of England has voiced its objections to parts of the Bill. It used to be said that the Church of England was the Tory Party at prayer. Now this lot, this generation of Tories, are not praying in the Church; they are preying on the Church. I hope that the Secretary of State went to church yesterday, because they might not let him in again.
  The situation is, although the right hon. and learned Gentleman appeared not quite to understand it in what he said, that for 35 years, whenever there has been a closure or a change of use, or whenever parents have wanted to exercise that choice which is supposed to be sacred to Conservative Governments, the local education authority has arrived with a section 13 notice for a closure or change of use, or has acknowledged the desire of parents and has brought the necessary permission in one hand and a season ticket in the other. Hitherto the exercise of choice has been effective not only in the denominational schools but elsewhere.
  If the local education authorities exercise the power that the right hon. and learned. Gentleman proposes to allocate to them, they will arrive empty handed. They will bring the closure notices and the permission to enable the parents to send children to the schools of their choice, but they will then render that permission totally ineffectual by not providing the transport.
  The Secretary of State and his hon. Friend the Member for Eye (Mr. Gummer), who is of devout religious conviction, should go to their churches, to the national associations and to the Roman Catholics who will enable them to understand how profoundly antagonistic those bodies are to the proposals in the Bill.
  Mr. Selwyn Gummer: Why does the hon. Gentleman expect the local authorities to come empty handed? The Bill gives them the power to help denominational schools in any way they wish. Why does the hon. Gentleman have so little faith in local democracy and in his own power to pressurise local authorities?
  Mr. Kinnock: I have great faith in local authorities. Indeed, my faith will be exalted come the next local elections. The hon. Member for Eye either has not read the Bill or, if he has, he does not fully comprehend it. The local education authorities may have the power, and they may have the glory, but they will not have the money. That is the problem. We shall come closer to the detail of that this afternoon and we shall come to it in irritating detail when we deal with the matter in Committee. These points have to be properly brought to the Secretary of State's attention. I hope that the hon. Member for Eye will join us on the Committee. He is a witty fellow. If he can invent ways of excusing his right hon. and learned Friend on this Bill, he will have not only wit but sagacity and a mastery of disguise as well.
  The churches, all kinds of educational institutions, the schools, the headmasters' and teachers' organisations and many parents are already voicing unanimous and undivided hostility to the Bill and to various proposals in it. I do not expect the Government to admit any of that because they have invested a great deal of credibility in the Bill. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said this afternoon that these were not really big cuts at all. The power is to be left with the local authorities. "For every £100 spent now", the Government say, "we shall spend £96, and everything will be wonderful." We shall no doubt have some contention about the accuracy of these figures, but, nevertheless, that is the soothing mesage that comes from the Secretary of State.
  It contrasts violently with the attempt at virility made by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I am not speaking now about the happy events of last Saturday but about the miserable events of last Thursday. Here we have the Secretary of State saying that there will not be any great cuts, whereas the Chief Secretary has spoken of taking an unmerciful sword, in the name of good husbandry, to the public finances of this country. I can only guess that the zenith of the Tories' ambition and their idea of political competence must be to be able to save both faces simultaneously.

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  We not only have Hengist from Henley. We have from Oswestry someone who is proud to be described as the causer of unemployment and the destroyer of certain sections of the Welfare State. He made no bones about it last week. Then we have the Secretary of State, who must be intensely embarrassed by the whole prospect of the destruction that he knows will be caused. He has had the reputation of being a liberal. Indeed, up till last July, the education press was prepared to describe him, sitting among his Cabinet colleagues, as a dove among hawks, as putting up a fight to maintain expenditure in education, and as trying to save the service. That is what was said about the Secretary of State, and there was probably some validity in it, because it would be in keeping with his previous record.
  The Secretary of State has turned out to be not so much a dove as an ostrich. He is burying his head and hiding from the realities and the consequences of his Bill. It might be because he has a pterodactyl sitting next to him. Nevertheless, we can promise the Secretary of State that if he tries to save part of the education system and puts up a fight—even if he fights like a dove—against the mixture of hawks and buzzards in the Cabinet, we shall do our best to help him out.
  Of course, the Secretary of State has already damaged himself in other respects. He says that by his adopting the procedures of clauses 22 to 26 in England, Wales and Scotland, an alternative exists—in spite of swingeing cuts in education expenditure—to making cuts in the classroom. He wants the local authorities to maintain the subsidies. We have just had this from the hon. Member for Eye. The Secretary of State wants the local authorities to exercise their power not to spend on transport and on meals. At the same time, he wants them to exercise their power to spend on transport and on meals. That fairly sums up what the Secretary of State has said. There is only one thing missing, and that is the money to permit them to exercise one of those rights. They can only exercise one of those rights if they are without money, and that is the right not to provide. They cannot exercise the right to provide if they have not the money.
  As for saving the education service from cuts in classroom provision, which the
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  Secretary of State has repeatedly said that he wants to do, all I have done is to go through the lists, reported in the press, of cuts already concluded and agreed to, affecting the classroom directly. He will find that in East Sussex, in Hertfordshire, in the Isle of Wight and in Powys, capitation has been frozen at last year's level. With inflation—the Secretary of State can check on this—that means a major net cut in capitation allowances in schools. Will not that affect standards in classrooms?
  In Bexley, in Birmingham and in Cheshire, cuts of 5 per cent., 7 per cent. and 10 per cent. are proposed in capitation. In Doncaster, we have £168,000 taken off capitation. In Humberside, we have a £200,000 cut in capitation, approved by the education committee. In Hampshire, we have an £80,000 approved cut in capitation. At the same time, incidentally, as making a 10 per cent. capitation cut in State schools, the authority is spending an extra £10,00 on independent schools.
  I know that the Secretary of State is now moving to the position in which he endorses that kind of duplicity and hypocrisy, but I am sure that he will be in great difficulty as he seeks to sustain his argument. In Avon, there is to be a cut of 10 per cent. In Bedfordshire, heads have been informed of a cut of 10 per cent. In Cumbria, a figure of 15 per cent. has been adopted. In Lincolnshire, a figure of 20 per cent. has been confirmed for this year, 1979–80. In Norfolk, the education committee has adopted a cut of 12 per cent. In Rotherham there is to be a 20 per cent. cut in capitation. This has been recommended, and adopted by the education committee. In Trafford, there is to be a cut of 10 per cent., as also in Waltham Forest.
  This is apart from the cuts in curriculum development, in in-service training, in peripatetic education, and the proposals for longer holidays. I have not yet come to the savaging of various kinds of expenditure, such as special assistance for school project holidays in geology, in geography and in civics, or the total abolition of swimming education in many counties.
  Those cuts are already in the classroom and the Bill therefore provides no alternative to making those cuts. Standards will suffer because less is already being spent

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  on essentials in the classroom as a direct consequence of the Government's current policy. That is before the Bill ever becomes law.
  Falling rolls have been used as the excuse. If the Secretary of State will do, in relation to his Government, what many Labour Members did in relation to the Labour Government, and seek to influence his Government to change policy, he will command a degree of respect that he does not command from his present position in this dispute. The Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Ripon, who has been interrupting from a sedentary position, have in common that they are supposed to be liberal Tories. A liberal Tory has been defined as a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run away. That might be a little unfair to the hon. Gentleman and to his right hon. and learned Friend. But it would help the public considerably in their assessment of what Tory government really means and what Tory politicians really mean if we could have especially Back Benchers coming out directly and independently and sticking by the values that they have always pronounced in this House. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will find himself in that position.
  The Tories' favourite justification for their action is not, however, the falling rolls. The favourite justification is local government freedom—the restoration of some halcyon age when local government in this country was not dominated by a Westminster Kremlin and controlled in every move, dictated to in every margin of expenditure. They want a return to the great days before there was direct control or any requirement of uniform standards. They want a return to the days before the Welfare State.
  The Tories want a return to the marvellous days before there was a requirement imposed upon government at local level, regardless of its political make-up, whether it was dominated by Tory cranks from the shires or by slick business men from urban areas who thought more of next year's rate bills than they thought about the future of the children whom they were supposed to represent. Those are the halcyon days to which the Government want to return. I heard the hon. Member for Brent, North (Dr. Boyson), at a conference last week, referring to the "halcyon" days. I thought
  66
  that he was getting mixed up with Greek mythology.
  The basis on which the Tories are seeking to do it is one of misinterpretation—that is the most friendly view—or of deliberate misrepresentation. The Tories have been rumbled already in their bid to draw up a sort of local authorities' Magna Carta. The Tory chairman of the Association of Municipal Associations, Councillor "Tag" Taylor, has said that this year, contrary to what the Secretary of State has said, the cuts in schools will be nearer 10 per cent. than 5 per cent.
  One of my favourite Tory ladies is Councillor Angela Rumbold from Kingston. In general political terms she makes the Prime Minister look a bit like a Brownie captain. In the magazine "Education" of 21 September, Councillor Rumbold is reported as saying:
  "It is impracticable to reduce the service by that extent in the immediate future for which we are now budgeting. If we have as Authorities, to make savings of that magnitude"—
  that is, £200 million; actually, that council is asking for savings of £240 million, which is 20 per cent. more—
  "then Authorities will have no choice but to dig deeper into other areas of education spending which are already facing reductions".
  Councillor Rumbold went on to say:
  "This could only mean reduction in levels of service in basic education provision."
  She said the same thing in respect of transport, because the article continued:
  "Again the possible savings are being overestimated certainly so far as the metropolitan conurbations are concerned."
  Even the Tories know of the total impracticality of the proposals which the Government are putting before them. Tories in local government know the reality of this so-called freedom. They know the reality there is in extra discretion without more resources. They know that they do not have the freedom of discretion, self-determination or even the freedom of devolution. The freedom which local education authorities and local councils generally are about to receive from the Tory Government is the freedom of the prisoner to rattle his chains. That is as far as the Government go down the road towards freedom. Local authorities will have the freedom to make noise but will remain incarcerated in the financial limits set by the Government. The idea that there is any extension of local democracy

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  in this Bill or anywhere else is totally hollow.
  In any case—I mean no distrust of local education authorities or local councils—the tale of discretion in local government under the Welfare State has been a very sad one. It has been sad in terms of uniform allowances; in terms of educational maintenance allowances, which have been law since 1944; in respect of provision for bus fares in respect of the provision of telephones for the disabled, even though that is supposed to be mandatory, and in many other respects.
  Why is there such a patchwork quilt of provision by local education authorities? It is because impositions have been made on them whereas the resources to meet them have not been met. But now we have the mother and father of all extra impositions and, indeed, the mother and father of all withdrawals of resources from local authorities. That is how I describe the proposals in the Bill, which gives authorities the skeletal power to exercise more discrimination and discretion at local level while simultaneously taking away hundreds of millions of pounds and laughing in their face. There is no possibility of local education authorities exercising the power to provide if they do not have more resources. The absence of resources has been guaranteed for the duration of this Government, both by the right hon. and learned Gentleman and by all his right hon. Friends.
  Of course, certain local education authorities may strive by might and main to continue to provide meals and transport. I hope that many of them will try to do so. But at the same time there will be others that do not, because they do not want to. There will be others who will be forced into withdrawing those services by the financial stringencies imposed upon them by central Government, again as a great act of devolutionary democracy.
  What will be the consequence there? We already have disadvantages of birth and domestic environment. We already have the whimsicalities of fortune, birth and parentage which have caused a great difference in treatment from child to child. I am sure the right hon. and learned Gentleman would not attempt to argue
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  that those differences in opportunity, fortune and misfortune should reverberate throughout the whole lifetime of a child and adult. But, as a result of the Bill, he is guaranteeing that, added to those congenital disadvantages, are the great variations that depend upon the local economy, the political domination at local government level and the social background of the whole area. Environmental considerations will also come into play, as will geography and even demography. Added to the whimsicalities of birth, we shall now get an inconsistency of provision throughout the whole country. There will be fortunate areas and areas of great misfortune.
  Frankly, the areas I feel most sorry for are those with a combination of rural deprivation and Tory local government. It will be interesting to see how many Conservative Members, who are supposed to represent the rural and country party, will be able fairly to argue with their constituents that the couple of pence in tax cuts offered to the rural low paid is enough to make up for the deprivation that will now be visited upon villagers, farm workers and rural constituents in the country.
  Mr. Peter Fraser: I am precisely one of those Members whom the hon. Gentleman has described. There is another point which I would have greater difficulty explaining to my constituents. It is this. How can I justify the increased parliamentary salary that I draw when I have two children receiving school meals that are subsidised to the tune of 48p a day? How does the hon. Gentleman face up to that?
  Mr. Kinnock: The hon. Gentleman is a newcomer. In one respect I am glad that he is with us, because it will extend his instruction. If the hon. Gentleman does his job he will never have to apologise to his constituents for the salary that he draws. It is not how much one earns but how well one does the job. The hon. Gentleman is concerned about a sum of 48p a day, which I am. But he had better explain how a change in legislation, coupled with the cuts and the effect that they will have, will give those on relatively low pay a marginal tax rate of £1·35 on every pound earned because of loss of benefit and the extra charges to which they will become victim. How will he explain the criticism of Mr.

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  Jack Boddy of the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers, who said that:
  "A family with two children at school living in a rural area will be £9 worse off as a result of the Government's latest plans to cut public expenditure".
  Mr. Boddy, as reported in The Guardian today, said that the £9 was
  "made up of the extra cost of travel to school, school meals and the absence of school milk".
  It may be that Mr. Boddy is only half right. Many Conservative Members are offering exactly the same advice. But if Mr. Boddy is only half right, £4·50 out of a total net income of £52 a week is a substantial slice. No one will be able to tolerate that.
  Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: The hon. Gentleman must have heard the Minister say quite clearly that expenditure on school transport is to be roughly the same as that in the current year. The hon. Gentleman does not seem to like fairness. It will merely be much more fairly distributed. For example, it would be infinitely fairer to many of the rural areas if a flat rate was instituted by local government, and that is what many of us will be pressing for.
  Mr. Kinnock: First, there is no obligation under the Bill. Secondly, if the hon. Lady wants to propose a flat rate, as I believe her hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove and Redditch (Mr. Miller) has done previously, she should table an amendment so that we can see whether the Government are interested in clawing back money from local authorities. We can then see whether this is a matter of fairness.
  It is difficult to see how, by the mass denial of facilities and support for hundreds of thousands of families, perhaps millions, one is advancing the cause of fairness. Apart from the effect of the transport changes, who with any fairness in him can explain why it is that, instead of 1·2 million children of poor and relatively poor families receiving free school meals, the most that anyone can visualise receiving them, even if all local authorities exercise their freedom—the right hon. and learned Gentleman also said their duty, although I have yet to be convinced of that—to provide such meals, will be half the present total? Under the Secretary of State's scheme, 600,000 childrent
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  who qualify for free schools meals will no longer do so. That is not fair and cannot be considered just even with the Tory version of justice. Local authorities must face that problem.
  Mr. Greenway: The lion. Gentleman gave the example of a wage earner earning £52 a week, but is he aware that a family with two children on that income will have free school meals after November through this Government's action?
  Mr. Kinnock: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be on the Committee so that we may go into that in detail. Meanwhile, I refer him to clause 22(2) and ask him to interpret that sensibly. There is no guarantee.
  Many of the provisions that have existed since 1944 are being ruined. If the Tories are arguing for their proposals on the grounds of extra freedom, I am reminded of the comment of an American GI in 1944. He stood in the middle of a French town, looking at the smoking rubble, and said "We sure liberated the hell out of this place." That is what the Government are doing with the education system.
  The Government have deserted the Taylor report concerning the recommendations on extension of democracy and participation in education. They have diluted the modest schemes of the Labour Government and abandoned even their own policy. The CBI—and that does not mean the "Conservative Bashers Independent"—is disappointed that there are not going to be representatives of the community, and I understand that disappointment.
  As long ago as 1977, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) said:
  "My loudest cheer is for the proposals giving parents more power … parents should have the right to substantial representation on school governing bodies … We also welcome the inclusion on governing bodies of representatives of local community interests."
  Under the Bill such bodies will include at least two parents—and, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows, there are many LEAs that will not go further than that. There is no provision for wider local community involvement in the running of schools.
  The right hon. Member for Chelmsford used to be a civilising influence in the Conservative Party. He has exchanged

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  that role to become a jester to the Cabinet and a fag to the Prime Minister.
  There were certain basic requirements that role to become a jester to the unfortunate that they are missing. There is nothing on pre-school provision, curriculum improvement, examination reform, the policy on the 16 to 19 age group, and mass education to enable us to cope with the massive social and technological changes in society. In fact, there is nothing at all to do with education or educational improvement. There is no mention of under-performance, low morale in the education service or any of the real challenges that we should face. All we have is the assisted places scheme.
  I listed earlier some of the interests opposed to the scheme. The opposition was not confined to those who are generally the enemies of private school provision or even its highly conditional friends. The Headmasters' Conference supported the assisted places scheme but went on to say that such a scheme should clearly complement the State sector. However, the scheme is in rivalry to the State sector, which is why there is so much objection. It will decapitate some of our schools and bring a further rush of examination mania to private schools. Educationally it is totally indefensible.
  At the annual general meeting of the headmasters of independent schools on 17 October, the assisted places scheme was welcomed in that it would provide opportunities for the independent sector to help children in need. However, it was felt that it was a bad time to introduce the scheme when heavy cuts were being made in spending in the maintained sector.
  That statement was made a week after the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his hon. Friend said that the money was coming not out of the State sector but from some new fund that they had invented. Of course the money is coming from overall Government expenditure, and it should be spent on improving provisions in the State sector, which is attended by over 90 per cent. of our children. Those children should be stimulated in their excellence and compensated for any disadvantage. The bright and the dull should receive educationally
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  all that we can possibly put at their disposal.
  That will not be achieved by filtering off children at the age of 11, 13 or 16 under the assisted places scheme. It will not cater for the brilliant urchins, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman will have us believe. Of the places reserved, 50 per cent. are for children who are already in the independent sector—children with parents who are possibly not much worse off than Croesus—and the consultative document makes that fact plain.
  The Bill not does deal with fairness or a modern interpretation of educational requirements or social opportunities in our country. I wonder how the Minister for Social Security, who has responsibility for the disabled, feels about the assisted places scheme? On 11 March 1975 he said:
  "I submit that it has always been an anomaly that there should be subsidies out of public funds to what basically are independent schools."—[Official Report, 11 March 1975; Vol. 888, c. 273.]
  The right hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Prentice) was latterly an eminent member of the Labour Party. I wonder whether he is still sufficiently attached to his original fidelities to join us in the Lobby tonight? However, perhaps he has deserted those along with everything else.
  We are seeing the age-old implementation of what Professor R. H. Tawney called the tadpole theory of society—that the little black dots in the jelly would know that most of them would have short lives but could console themselves with the knowledge that a tiny few would grow into big fat green frogs. That is the basis of the Tory attitude to society. We, however, believe that everyone should have a fair opportunity and have access to the best that is available. That requires a real commitment to public education and not a retreat into the apartheid of a private school system.
  In the Bill, parents are given the choice of looking after their pockets or their children's opportunities. Fortunately, we know the response of most parents, although the Tories uphold the acquisitive instinct and deify material values, and that party's response would be to put money before people. Those are the values Offered by the Tories. Luckily,

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  many parents will reject those values and put their children before immediate material convenience.
  No help has come from the Government, no extension of leadership has been shown. They have deserted their responsibilities. In the sectors of the education service that escape the worst cuts the most that can be hoped for is quarantine. For many other areas it will be guillotine.
  We will fight against the Bill in the House and elsewhere, to protect the children and the people of this country. We will destroy the credibility of the Bill—although that has already been achieved by the Secretary of State—and kick it out whenever we get the opportunity, either in Opposition or in Government, when we next achieve that office.
  5.40 p.m.
  Sir John Eden: The hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) is a colourful character. He is also breathlessly eloquent. The one danger is that one day he will be persuaded to believe in what he is saying. He brings to the halls of akademia all the finesse and subtlety of a broadside of grapeshot fired at close quarters. I suggest that in future debates on the subject he should exercise some degree of humility. After all, we are not dealing, as he would have us believe, in political claptrap so much as in the future of our children. In considering the matter, it is well to move away from the sort of political barrack-room fight that he so much enjoys and endeavour to instil an element of calm deliberation.
  I have a range of interests in the Bill. I am chairman of an independent school and governor of another independent school which was a direct grant school before the advent of the previous Government. Some members of my family attend public schools while others are educated in the State system and attend comprehensive schools. I have the honour to represent a constituency which still, thanks to the result of the last election and the Education Act, rejoices in a fine system of academic selection and the establishment of two first-class grammar schools.
  That wide range of experience and interest in schools has taught me, more than anything else, the value of variety in our education system. I hope that we will always preserve that variety. If the Labour
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  Government had had their way they would have destroyed it. Now that this Government are in office, the trends are changed. We are now able to see not just the preservation of choice and variety in education but their extension. It is to that aspect of the Bill alone that I shall address a few remarks
  I welcome the extension of opportunities given in the Bill for parents to choose schools for their children. Choice is not easy to exercise. Any hon. Member who has had to exercise a choice in schools for his children or for members of his family will know how complex the matter is. I accept fully that a number of parents will not wish to exercise any choice. However, for those who wish to do so and who are interested and concerned to do so, the Bill gives them every opportunity and encouragement.
  Some parents may be influenced—as I have been in the past—by the buildings and facilities of a school. As every hon. Member knows, it is not buildings and facilities that necessarily make the best educational establishments. Some of the finest teaching comes from schools that do not have—to say the least of it—the finest of facilities. Nevertheless, some parents will be influenced by the buildings and facilities. Others will look closely at the type of education, the sort of work that is done at the school, the standard of teaching which is encouraged at the school and the degree of involvement of teachers both in the classroom and outside it. That is much more difficult to ascertain and it cannot be seen by examination standards alone, even though they serve as a guide and an indicator.
  There should be a greater range of information readily available for parents who are trying to exercise a choice between competing schools to which they are considering sending their children. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State will give the maximum possible freedom to local education authorities to involve schools and parents in providing that sort of information.
  I welcome the extension of parental involvement and with it the extension of teacher involvement in standards throughout the school with which they are concerned. Nothing but good will come from the emphasis that is placed

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  on those matters in the Bill. I welcome strongly the assisted places scheme. It is a scheme designed not, as the hon. Member for Bedwellty would have everyone believe, to bolster or buttress schools but to support individual parents who are anxious to secure for their child a particular type of education which their financial resources might not make possible.
  The former direct grant school of which I am a governor has now become independent as a result of the decision that was forced on it by the previous Government. That newly independent school has gone out of its way to introduce and finance a number of bursaries to make available finance to parents who would not otherwise be able to afford the fees. That was done because we believe strongly in the principle of maintaining the widest possible degree of social mix in the school. I emphasise the point that this was done to maintain a social mix, but it was also done in order to retain and preserve the highest possible academic standards. Many parents are looking for a school with special academic emphasis. Many of those parents cannot afford to select the best school because the fees are beyond their means.
  The assistance that such parents will be given by the Bill will mean a great deal to the children who will benefit from it. It will not bolster or subsidise the school in any way. The school can continue to exercise the widest possible social coverage of the children in the neighbouring areas. In that way will be achieved the goal of extending over a wide range the highest possible degree of academic standards.
  In so far as the Bill furthers choice in those critically important areas, I welcome it.
  5.49 p.m.
  Mr. Ernest Armstrong: Today is a very sad one for those who are concerned about the State education system. The Secretary of State had a remarkable opportunity, and I envy him. If there is one period in my public life which I shall always remember, it is the period which I spent at the Department of Education and Science. I have great faith in education and its ability to mould values and standards
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  and to improve the quality of life. In my early days, I asked too much of the education service. This Bill asks nothing of the service in terms of its contribution to the quality of life.
  Over the past 10 years, hundreds of people in the service—teachers, administrators, parents with a real interest in education and politicians—have attended seminars and schools to talk about the need for a new Education Act to recognise the great changes that have occurred since 1944. With that in mind, I read this Bill and I listened to the Secretary of State speaking today. It must be a tremendous disappointment and a blow to the morale of those who are so keen to do something vital for our children to be confronted with this Bill.
  We had a great opportunity, but this Bill has no inspiration in it. It has no vision. It is an unenlightened response to the needs of our children. It is completely out of touch with the movement of education opinion since 1945. It puts the clock back to pre-war days.
  I intend to deal with the main principles and to leave the details very properly to the Committee stage because, however we amend the Bill, we cannot make it a good one. The philosophy behind it is a contradiction of all that most people in the education service have stood for over the years. If the Secretary of State had said "Yes, this is a Bill which is conditioned by the economic crisis through which we are passing"—we all understand that, it is bound to be—"numbers in our schools are falling, and we intend to take advantage of that, cuts are to take place and standards will be difficult to maintain", at least he would have carried most of the House with him. But I do not understand this persistent claim that standards can be maintained and even improved.
  I know of no chairman, even of a Tory county council, who says that. I know of no section of the education service which makes that claim. Many of them say that they have no choice. But let no one pretend that we can maintain education opportunities that we have taken for granted over the past 30 years. This is the most serious challenge to the education service that those involved in it have seen in their lifetime.
  Mr. A. J. Beith: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the chairmen of eight local education authorities in the South-West, not many of them under any control other than Conservative, have written to the Secretary of State saying that the standards of service have to be reduced, that there is no way that they can do anything else, and that it would be a great deal more honest of the Government if they admitted it?
  Mr. Armstrong: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. It is not surprising that politicians are suspect when we go on pretending that measures of this kind can be passed into law and that standards can still be maintained. No one believes it. Good education costs more than bad education, and we cannot escape that. Resources are related to the quality of education, as I hope to show.
  However, it is the philosophy behind the Bill that disturbs me and frightens me. I began teaching 40 years ago. During my life in education, we have made all too slow progress away from a system which concentrated on the gifted and gave them immense privileges towards a system where all our children would get a share of the resources, with their individual needs being met.
  Tawney says we should plan education to emphasise and strengthen the common humanity that unites our people rather than emphasise and strengthen the class differences which divide them. The Secretary of State knows that I do not fight the class war. But this is a divisive Bill, as I shall show when I come to one or two of the details.
  The noble Lord Lord Boyle says that all our children ought to have access to resources which will enable them to develop their potential to the full. They have a right, all children—handicapped, average, below average and so on—to develop their talents and abilities to the full. We have been moving towards that all too slowly. It is because this Bill puts the clock back and turns its face against that that I feel more strongly about it than any subject on which I have spoken during the whole of my parliamentary career.
  I thought that we had reached the stage where, despite the political differences, it
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  was acknowledged that every child, whatever his background and social status, should enjoy the same range and quality of educational opportunity. If we are to do that, it means positive discrimination and not equality of treatment. It means that the children of Tyneside and Durham have priority over the children of Sussex and Surrey if we talk about providing real equality of opportunity.
  That brings me immediately to the assisted places scheme. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) said, it has not a friend in the whole education service. No one has given it unqualified support. I acknowledge that it is a manifesto commitment. It is a bit of political dogma. The Secretary of State knows that if three, four, five or six out of a school are chosen—and it will not be that many in most schools—and sent to independent schools, not even the individuals selected are done any service. If this scheme was really to assist the poorest children in the community, they could be done no worse service than making them guinea pigs in a private school, because that is what they would be.
  I have experience as a headmaster of taking back children who have been taken away from familiar surroundings, from the place where they felt secure, from the children with whom they grew up and from where they shared all their experiences and put into a strange atmosphere—and I understand that in some independent schools there are some very strange circumstances from time to time.
  Mr. Mark Carlisle: The right hon. Gentleman must not exaggerate to this enormous extent. Does not he accept that, although his own Government abolished the direct grant school system, those children who made up the last entry into the direct grant system are still in the fifth and sixth forms of those schools at the moment? I have visited several of the old direct grant schools. The suggestion that those children are somehow lepers in the school is total nonsense.
  Mr. Armstrong: I am not suggesting that all of them are. I am saying that I have had experience of children who felt that they were. In my view, when we talk about the quality of life, culture and so on, the worst that could have happened to me would have been to

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  be taken away from my own surroundings and sent to the kind of atmosphere about which the right hon. and learned Gentleman speaks.
  Of course, this is in line with the idea of rewarding the successful. But to say to our children that success depends on their getting out of their environment and going to a strange one is to do a disservice to the individual and to do no service at all to the nation.
  As I listened to one of the speeches earlier today, I noticed that the Secretary of State for Employment was present. He knows the "them and us" mentality that runs throughout industry. It is unique in this country how we seem to believe that our top civil servants, top management and people who are to be leaders of the community have to be educated in separate schools, having been taken away from the rest of society and moved into a secluded quarter. I cannot think of a more nonsensical idea, yet the Bill perpetuates that sort of view. Even if the Secretary of State could produce evidence to show that I am exaggerating, it is the duty of the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the House to provide the resources for the State schools, in which more than 90 per cent. of our children are educated. We must provide the sort of resources that will enable teachers to educate every child fully. Only a party 60 per cent. of whose members were educated in the private sector—
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: How many on your side?
  Mr. Armstrong: On our side, the figure is 9 per cent. Only a party in which 60 per cent. of the members were educated in the private sector could commend a scheme such as this, which so distorts real education.
  Mr. Tim Brinton: If I have followed the right hon. Gentleman's arguments correctly, he is speaking in favour of the retention of the independent sector with everyone whom I suspect he might describe as upper class, upper-middle or middle class staying in his own sector. The idea of equality that he has been promoting does not exist in his mind.
  Mr. Armstrong: I may have been very inarticulate—I did not go to the proper
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  schools—but I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty on the private sector of education. I feel that it is divisive and against the national interest.
  I was disturbed when the Secretary of State said that cuts will be made "on the periphery". From time to time we hear Conservative Members talking about the "frills" of education. What is called the periphery by the Secretary of State and frills by his hon. Friends are not regarded as such by some hon. Members, and certainly not by me in relation to my children and grandchildren.
  The Secretary of State has put forward a narrow and rigid view. Recently, he said that all that matters is what goes on inside the classroom, and that education really takes place inside the classroom.
  During my grammar school career benefited more from extra-curricular activities. Hon Members may laugh, but it is true. I benefited from the debating society, the historical society, and the various groups where we were introduced to, for example, the great heritage of Northumberland and Durham. That was denied to most children who stayed in elementary schools. It is that sort of activity that will be hammered by the public expenditure cuts and by the implementation of the Bill.
  I turn now to school meals and transport. The idea of providing school meals was pioneered by the teachers. The aim was not just to provide food at lunchtime, although we have always considered that education covers the physical, mental, intellectual and even spiritual growth of our children. We talk about educating the whole child.
  I say, from great experience, that in many schools the school meal, because of the dedication of teachers, became not only an integral part of the school day but an important social occasion. Training took place and youngsters were able to sit together and partake of a meal. It was part of their education.
  Mr. Bob Dunn: Is it not a fact that in any town centre in this country one can see hordes of schoolchildren, with cans of Coca-Cola and bags of fish and chips, who choose not to eat the meals provided at school?
  Mr. Armstrong: I shall come to that aspect. At my school, lunch was never a chore. All the staff stayed and sat with the children.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: The staff do not stay now.
  Mr. Armstrong: There is no statutory duty on teachers, and one of the reasons why they do not stay is—
  Mr. Winterton: They do not want to stay.
  Mr. Armstrong: The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) knows little about the State sector.
  Mr. Winterton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Opposition do not have a monopoly of knowledge of the State sector? Although we may not have been teachers, many Conservative Members have been leading county councillors and have held important positions on those councils. I was deputy chairman of a county education committee for a time.
  Will the right hon. Gentleman withdraw the slur that Conservative Members know nothing about the maintained sector?
  Mr. Armstrong: The hon. Gentleman cannot deny that the majority of Conservative Members lack experience of the State sector. No doubt the hon. Member for Macclesfield goes into State schools for election meetings and formal meetings of governors, but that does not represent experience of the State sector.
  I have been amazed by the references in the debate to school meals and transport. According to the White Paper on expenditure, the Government hope to save £240 million on school meals, milk and transport. The only families with a statutory right to those services are those on family income supplement or supplementary benefit—though even that seems to be in doubt in some quarters.
  If the school meals service becomes a service for poor children only it will be a sad day for education generally and not just for those poor children. The service is an important part of educational provision. When he introduced the 1944 Act Lord Butler said that the provision of school meals was one of the most important parts of the Act. He said that the worth of the investment could be seen
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  in the faces of the children. The new proposals, which are an abdication of responsibility by the Government, mean that the school meals service will no longer occupy the important place that I think it ought to occupy.
  The Roman Catholic authorities and others who visited the Secretary of State recently are concerned about the proposals on school transport. They believe that parents who exercise their right to send their children to denominational schools, which are usually further away than the nearest local authority schools, will receive different treatment from the parents who send their children to local authority schools.
  The Secretary of State apparently told the deputation that if parents exercised that choice they must be prepared to pay some of the price. I suggest that as long as we have the dual system, which gives parents the right to choose a denominational school, those who exercise that choice should have the same rights as those who send their children to the nearest local authority school. I know that this matter will be pursued in Committee. I hope that we can get confirmation.
  Mr. Mark Carlisle: I said specifically that I hoped that they would be treated as generously as other children. As the right hon. Gentleman said, many children go to Catholic schools outside the three-mile limit and although there is a nearer appropriate school, the local authority chooses, at its discretion, to pay their transport costs. Local authorities do not act in that way for those who are not attending Catholic schools. I said that it would be wrong to legislate to give Catholics a privileged situation. I expressed my hope that they would continue to be treated no less generously by local authorities.
  Mr. Armstrong: What concerns me is that the Secretary of State, who ought to accept responsibility, keeps saying that he hopes that local authorities will be as generous as they ought to be. I can name some local authorities where there is no chance whatever of that happening.
  Mr. Carlisle: There is no change in the responsibility of local authorities. The payment that they make at the moment is at their discretion. There is no central control over it.
  Mr. Armstrong: We come back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty made so forcefully. It is a question of money. The Secretary of State for the Environment threatens what he will do to local authorities if they use their discretion to be generous. It is an abdication of responsibility for the Secretary of State for Education to tell the House that the matter is for local authorities to decide and that it has nothing to do with him, but that local authorities must not expect any extra cash from central Government.
  I should like to refer to village schools. It is monstrous that children of 5 years of age should be travelling four and a half to five miles by bus each day to attend a village school in my constituency. The parents are extremely worried. It is no comfort or consolation for them to hear the kind of argument that the Secretary of State put forward about all the anomalies.
  I recognise that transport is a difficult and serious problem. A report was before the last Government for a long time, and I freely admit that we could not come to any kind of amicable solution about it. Apart from the cost and the unreliability of public transport, I can see all kinds of problems if special buses are not provided. Some children, under the kind of regulations that the Secretary of State has put forward, will find difficulty getting the money to enable them to attend school regularly.
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: That is precisely the position at the moment. At one end of a village in my constituency, there is free travel. At the other end, parents pay £4 to get their children to school.
  Mr. Armstrong: The only difference, if the Bill goes forward, is that those now getting free transport will be in the same position. That will be no consolation to anyone. I acknowledge that this is a difficult problem, but the Secretary of State's solution will be unacceptable in most areas.
  We have no reason to be complacent, but there is much to be proud of in our education service. Real educational opportunity has been extended under all Governments. Our primary schools have
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  become not only the envy of the world but good examples of self-contained democratic communities. The education service has always been challenged to do more than we have a right to ask of it. It cannot do everything. I believe firmly that it has a major role in the development of good citizenship, suitable to life in a free and orderly society. It is because I believe that this Bill will set the clock back that I invite the House to throw it out.
  6.15 p.m.
  Mr. Warren Hawksley: I think you Mr. Deputy Speaker for calling me to make my maiden speech in a debate of such importance. This is a great honour for me. As a member of a local authority, and of an education committee, I am greatly interested in this subject. It was a major issue in my constituency during the general election. It was raised at public meetings and on the doorsteps during the campaign.
  The Wrekin is a varied constituency, politically and geographically. With one exception, since the war the constituency has changed political sides with the change of Government, so there have probably been more maiden speeches extolling the beauties of The Wrekin than of any other constituency of the country. I apologise for that.
  Situated in the constituency is Coal-brookdale, the home, we claim, of the Industrial Revolution. Two hundred years ago there was a shortage of wood for smelting which produced an energy crisis as serious as any today. It was in Shropshire that we started smelting from coke. We can claim that we have history with us. Only in July this year we celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of the opening of the world's first iron bridge, which gives its name to a town in my constituency.
  The constituency is an area of old industry. Until a few years ago it was slipping into decay. It has been saved by the work of the Ironbridge Gorge museum, which last year succeeded in winning for its work the award of "Museum of Europe". It was pleasing to those in the constituency that that happened. We lost our last coal mine only this year. It was the last coal mine in the whole of Shrop-shire, once a sizeable mining area.

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  As well as the old industrial areas there is a new town which, unlike some new towns, is not taking up good industrial land. It occupies old land left by the Industrial Revolution. To the north and east there is an agricultural area which is sparsely populated and rural and about which I hope to say a few words concerning the transport provisions in the Bill.
  My predecessor was Mr. Gerry Fowler, who served the constituency from 1966 to 1970, and again from 1974 until the last general election. As a word of warning to other hon. Members, I mention a brave, or perhaps foolhardy, speech that Gerry Fowler made during the debate on the rate support grant last year when he went so far as to describe the constituency as a safe Labour seat. We should perhaps learn that such things are rarer than we thought.
  Having lived in Shropshire for nearly all my life, I pay tribute to what Gerry Fowler achieved as a constituency Member. I have been a county councillor for nine years. I have seen Gerry Fowler at work. He was a great credit to the constituency. I hope that I shall be able to maintain the record that he set. It is a demanding constituency, with 92,000 electors.
  During the election campaign I was told not only that Mr. Fowler was a good constituency Member but that the same applied to one of his predecessors, Bill Yates, whom some hon. Members may remember as a character who strongly supported certain views on the Middle East at a time when they were not fashionable. Mr. Yates has earned his place in the record books not as a good constituency Member but as the only former Member of this House subsequently to be elected to the Australian Parliament. He has made a great change.
  The Bill will give much more freedom and choice to parents and local education authorities. The individual parent will be able to be involved in the education of his child and the choice of the child's school. The LEA will be able to choose the services—transport, school meals and milk, for instance—on which it wishes to spend money.
  Only 10 days ago, in the debate on Government expenditure, an Opposition spokesman said that local authorities were elected and had the mandate and the right to look after the people in their
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  area. I agree. That is why it is natural to give back to local authorities as much power as possible to control their own education expenditure within the limits of the available resources.
  I believe that people, particularly parents, will support LEAs such as mine which, under the Bill, will be able to reduce their subsidy on school meals while safeguarding the capitation allowance and the pupil-teacher ratio. Parents are ready to accept the necessity to cut public expenditure but believe that the cuts should fall on food rather than on books. They believe that teachers and books come first. The LEAs should have the chance to make the alterations they want.
  Shropshire is the second smallest county in the country. It subsidises school meals to the tune of £3⅓ million—three times as much as it spends on libraries, twice what it spends on the fire service and almost as much as it spends on the police service. Only a third of our total school meals expenditure goes on food itself; two-thirds is spent on other items. We have got our priorities wrong when we spend so much money to subsidise school meals.
  It was a representative of the teaching unions on the county council, not one of the Conservative councillors, who said "The milk is wasted in the schools. The children do not drink it" She knows, because she is a teacher. It is important to realise how wide a field is covered by the choice given by the Bill combined with the choice given by the Education Bill introduced by the previous Government.
  Adams grammar school at Newport in my constituency is about to be converted into a comprehensive school. A section 13 notice will be served shortly. I hope that the Secretary of State will listen to public opinion. I do not know whether a majority of the parents and the public want a grammar school or a comprehensive school, since they have not been asked. They have been asked only whether they want scheme A or scheme B. I hope that when the Secretary of State considers the observations on the section 13 notice he will be sure that people have had a clear opportunity to say whether they want the change. The local authority appears to be hell-bent on

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  carrying out the reorganisation that it would have had to carry out before the change of Government.
  The Bill gives parents as well as local authorities some assurances. The theme of choice can be seen not only in the items that I have mentioned but in the idea of giving children from homes which cannot afford it the chance to attend better schools, private schools. The assisted places scheme is a move in the right direction. I hope that it will become law quickly, because many local authorities, including my own, want to start preparing.
  The Bill will make local authorities more responsible. It will be easier for parents to be involved. Some hon. Members have said that some local authorities already do some of the things that are in the Bill. Certainly the clause on parental choice applies to Shropshire. The authority has not given parents more than the bare necessities for choice except in one place—Telford—where this year, for the first time, a system was introduced under which parental choice became the sole criterion.
  Our political opponents warned us that the system would fail, that no one would get his first choice, that everyone would want his children to go to one school and that we should not be able to cope. I learnt before this debate from the chief education officer that 94 per cent. of parents got their first choice and that less than 1 per cent. did not get their first or second choice. That is not a bad record and shows that choice can be introduced.
  Despite the existence of a rural area in my constituency, I agree that local authorities should decide what transport system the children should have. No two areas are alike. I hope that a minimal charge will be introduced for all those who wish to use the system. That would be fairer than the present arrangement. At the moment some villages in my constituency are cut in half by the mystic three-mile limit. People tell me "Little Johnny living next door gets free transport, but my children do not." Local education authorities will now be able to introduce a fairer system.
  I thank the House for listening patiently. I apologise for having made my maiden speech in a rather controversial debate, but I thank hon. Members
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  for not interrupting me. The Bill will benefit education. Flaying been in local government, I know that it will be a breath of fresh air blowing through local authorities. I am pleased to be able to support the measure.
  6.29 p.m.
  Mr. A. J. Beith: I feel that I have been here for a long time and must be getting older when I am called upon to congratulate an hon. Member on his maiden speech. However, it is a pleasure to do so in the case of the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Hawksley) and to welcome to the House someone who brings experience of service in local government and on a local education authority. I hope that he will maintain the tradition established by his predecessor, that there is rarely an education debate without a contribution from The Wrekin. Although I disagreed with much of what the hon. Gentleman said, he said it with such disarming pleasantness and feeling that I had to be alert to spot my points of disagreement. He will find us more ready to interrupt him in future, perhaps, but I hope that he will nevertheless enjoy taking part in debates.
  This is a depressing Bill, even the good points of which have been watered down beyond recognition. Jostling among some very damaging and dangerous principles, there are a few good ones, but even these are almost invisible to the naked eye.
  The reform of school government, for example, was a good idea, developed and pioneered by the Taylor committee, welcomed by Conservative spokesmen, and intended as a major reform. That reform would have taken schools out of the political domination characteristic of some school governing bodies, and out of the vague institutional apathy prevalent in others. The reform would have put control into the hands of those most directly concerned—the local community, those who work in schools and, above all, the parents. What do we find in the Bill when we look at that great principle and the attempt to apply it? Local authority nominees can retain a majority on all school governing bodies. I remember that that same effect was criticised by some Conservative Members during the Committee stage of the last Government's Bill.

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  Parent representation has been reduced to a mere token of one or two parents and one or two teachers in large schools. That is token representation in a governing body of, for example, 20 governors. In schools of that size, political nominees can still dominate the governing bodies. There is no guarantee of pupil representation, and there is also a provision to enable permission to be given for several schools to be put under one governing body. I got the impression from the Secretary of State that he is not keen on that practice continuing, and I hope that that is so.
  The principle of a major change in the composition of school governing bodies that would draw schools more closely into the hands of those most concerned has been watered down to token representation.
  The school that has the support of its parents, teaching staff and immediate local community wants for little, as voluntary support and backing is more readily forthcoming where there is a close association with the school. This token attempt at the reform of school government will not bring us that.
  Parental choice is another good principle, tucked away almost invisibly in the Bill. When the previous Government brought their Bill before the House I said that it was the net gain to parents that should be judged in deciding whether the end result was an improvement in parental choice. As in the last Bill, there will be written into the law a duty upon local education authorities to comply with the expressed preferences of parents about the school that they want their children to attend.
  There will also be an appeal system, although a curious one, in which the local authority has the majority on the body to which the appeal is made. Those two items are on the gains side. On the other side of the balance sheet, the local authorities have the widest let-out imaginable if they do not wish to comply with those preferences. They do not have to comply if this
  "would prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources."
  That is a stronger qualification than exists at present.
  In addition, the local authorities have the opportunity to reduce the size of
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  schools. Only if they reduce the size of a school by more than one-fifth must they make reference to the Secretary of State. The passage in the Bill referring to size confers no obligation on the local authority that states a particular size for a school to admit that number of pupils to the school. All sorts of little qualifications have been put into the Bill.
  Moreover, there will be fewer schools for the parents to choose from. The Secretary of State has now said that he expects about 1,500 school closures in the near future. That will hit village schools in particular. The parents' last resort—the section 37 procedure—will disappear. I accept that the procedure is potentially harmful to the interests of some children, but the local authorities are certainly frightened of it. That section has made education authorities think again before refusing reasonable parental demands. We should not let it go unless we are satisfied that there is a net gain. I am not so satisfied.
  The Government have aroused expectations that they have no real prospect of satisfying. The Bill will reap a bitter harvest of disappointment. I do not agree with those Labour Members who criticise this aspect of the Bill on the ground that it goes too far. They should remember that their Government aroused similar expectations which they did not even want to satisfy. The previous Secretary of State was no less keen on the principle of parental choice than is the present Secretary of State. The Opposition cannot blame the Government for continuing to pursue that principle. I simply suggest that the end result is not a net gain for the parents. I think that that was in the mind of the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) when he asked in what way we would be further forward in parental choice if the Bill were enacted.
  I shall refer to one of the damaging areas of the Bill, namely, school meals and transport. It may be right to look again at the provision of school meals and to see whether the present scale of that provision is appropriate. However, it is one of the few aspects of the education system that can be shown from the statistics to have worked. All the surveys on nutrition and improvement in children's health show that there is a tangible benefit. The onus is on the Government to prove that it is safe to remove that provision.

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  In primary schools and particularly in special schools there is an educational significance in school meals. One of the things that a child needs to learn at a special school is how to eat a meal, and how to do so in the company of others, and that is valuable. Even in the ordinary primary school, it is one of those aspects of education that we should not throw aside. In country areas, where children travel to a distant town, school meals are important. Those children have to wait on cold, wet and snowy corners for school transport. They get to school cold and wet, leave early and get home late, and therefore have need of a hot meal during the day.
  Those children's parents do not want them to be wandering around a town, 10 or 20 miles away, during lunch time. They do not want to be told by the authorities that there are plenty of cafes in which their children can get something to eat. Parents in my constituency do not want that, and I do not think that the education authorities should be encouraged to go down that road. There is room for experiment, but there is also much to lose.
  I turn to the issue of transport. Does the Secretary of State know what is involved in school transport in country areas such as Northumberland, Cumbria, the South-West of England, Scotland and Wales? All manner of conveyances are involved in school transport over great distances—taxis, Land Rovers and buses. Journeys are of anything from three to 30 miles each way.
  A common situation in my constituency is that of a farm worker, a craftsman, with an income just above the family income supplement rate—let us say that he is earning between £65 and £75 a week—with three children. He is already at work when his wife takes those three children down to the end of the farm road and waits there for a taxi to come. The children get into the taxi and go four or five miles to a village. The youngest child gets out and goes to the first school. His journey to that school must have cost at least 75p or £1, for the shared cost of the taxi fare. The other two children then get on to a bus and go to a larger village, six or seven miles further on. One child goes to the middle school in that village. His bus fare,
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  together with his taxi fare must have cost at least £1·25. The older child, who is 16, boards another bus and goes 10 miles further on, to the town where the high school is. His fare cannot have been less than £1·50 for the day's journey. Imagine the cost of those journeys on a family with a low income. It would amount to between £3 and £5 a day.
  The Secretary of State may reply that it is easy to solve that problem and that the education authority could impose a flat rate scheme. Does he understand flat rate schemes? In order to meet these costs, the level of the flat rate would have to be very high. Therefore, any parent living in an area in which there is public transport and where the bus fare is less than the flat rate, will send his child on the bus and opt out of the scheme. Therefore, the flat rate cost will be even higher. Parents whose children travel the longest journeys will pay the most money, although they can least afford it.
  Many of those children travel long distances because village schools have closed, or because schools have been reorganised. Education authorities have given guarantees that there will be free school transport. There are thousands of children in Cumbria and other counties whose parents have had explicit guarantees that they will be provided with free school transport.
  What will happen to children in denominational schools? The Secretary of State said that they would be treated as well as other children. He meant as badly as other children. The denominational school transport costs are quite high. If they are put into a pool scheme the cost will escalate and become a real burden to families who, at present, do not have to pay at all for choosing to send their children to a denominational school.
  Denominational heads, Roman Catholics in particular, have told me that this is the biggest threat to their schools since the 1944 Education Act was passed. They thought that there was settlement and agreement about the basis of denominational education. The bishops have already been to see the Secretary of State, and the impression that they got from that meeting was that the Secretary of State seemed to feel that the country had already been generous enough to

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  Catholic schools and that the time had come to start cutting back a bit.
  Of course, the Secretary of State can say that local authorities do not have to do any of this. They can continue the present provision, or do something very similar. Of course they can, but the end result of that is that those authorities with the biggest transport problems and the most scattered areas will have to cut most into the bones of education itself in order to achieve the same savings.
  If the Scretary of State does not personally telephone them and tell them they must make cuts in education, his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment certainly will. He has already told us that those local authorities that fail to apply cash limits in the way that he wants will be penalised under the new provisions that he intends to bring forward.
  Many local authorities, including the Conservative-controlled Northumberland authority, probably do not want to do this sort of thing, but what choice do they have? Their choice is between making inadequate provision for children to get to school or not being able to teach them properly when they get there. In the face of all this it is impossible to deny that the Secretary of State is reducing standards in State education.
  The chairman of the Isle of Wight education committee, which is dominated by Conservatives, has written to the Secretary of State on behalf of eight South-West local education authorities. He says:
  "It is at local level that budget cuts begin to bite and are felt directly by those who rely upon the service. Our task in achieving an acceptance of reductions at local level is rendered much more difficult when statements are made by central government that financial savings can be made without affecting the standards of the service. This is manifestly not the case and it seems unfortunate in the extreme that this stance is taken centrally. It seems to us that it would be more honest to admit the simple fact that the present economic position demands a measure of retrenchment which in the short term will reduce standards of provision. We cannot deny it locally because the facts speak for themselves. Our position would be much stronger if there were an open recognition of the situation by central government spokesmen. In this way there would at least appear to be a unanimity which at the moment, regrettably does not exist."
  Dr. Hampson: Does the hon. Member agree that even though some authorities might do some of the Draconian things
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  that he has listed, at least now they have some choice as to the areas they cut? In 1976, when the then Secretary of State cut almost exactly the same amount from the education budget—about 3·7 per cent. in real terms—they had no choice at all. They had to tie up such a high proportion of their budget that they were obliged to cut such areas as books, discretionary grants and teachers.
  Mr. Beith: I hope that the hon. Member will oppose this Bill with all the fervour with which he opposed the 1976 measures. However, I must point out that the previous cuts did not stop the children from getting to school. They did not bring about a situation in which farm workers in my constituency could not afford to send their children to school at all.
  In the face of the kind of problem to which I have referred, and which, with the best will in the world, the education authorities cannot solve without either harming the ability of the child to get to school or the education that he gets at school, the Secretary of State can still find money, on an increasing scale, for the assisted places scheme. Where is this money coming from? The Secretary of State tells us that it will not come from the education budget. Did it fall off the back of a lorry? Is it pennies from heaven? If he can find sources of money like this, even the year after next and the following year, let us have some of it for the State education system. The Conservatives who run the education authority in Northumberland would very much like some of it. The chairman of that authority has already said that she does not see much scope for using public money for private schools when her authority would like to spend it in the schools that it runs. She believes that the authority's schools have very high standards and that it is appropriate to send bright children to them.
  It is extraordinary that the Secretary of State should contemplate spending that money, in the present time scale, on a scheme that is unlikely to benefit more than the tiniest minority of children. Even among those who will benefit there will be a large proportion whose parents are so highly motivated that they are determined their children should get on. They are the, kind who would get the very best out of the State system anyway. This is

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  an appalling misjudgment. I expected better of the Secretary of State.
  There is precious little good in this Bill. There is an awful lot of bad, and the House should have the courage to throw it out.
  6.45 p.m.
  Mr. James Molyneaux: I am sure that the House will realise that in the course of a fairly wide debate so far on the Bill, applying as it does to the whole of the United Kingdom, we are achieving in a realistic fashion what we are exhorted to do in less practical ways in Northern Ireland. We are taking an initiative, filling a political vacuum, if one exists, and dealing in real politics. What could be more real than deciding the arrangements for the education of the rising generation, who will become the electorate in the not-too-distant future?
  It is important to realise that we are doing all of that by the method that has evolved over a period of about 700 years—that is, by debate in the House, later in Committee, perhaps in the House again and still later in another place. We are not amending or producing legislation by means of an all-party conference. Indeed, when the two Front Bench spokesmen exchanged views a little earlier I could not bring myself to believe that the Bill presented to us today represented any form of a political solution previously arrived at in an inter-party discussion upstairs. Certainly I should not like to volunteer to be the impartial chairman at such a discussion.
  Practically every clause in this Bill begins with the term
  "A local education authority may".
  It is right and proper that local authority representatives, being closest to the electorate, should be the people to implement, if they think fit, the powers made available by the Bill. In Northern Ireland the Bill will confer these powers not on local authorities but on what is, in effect, another branch of central Government. Education and library boards in Northern Ireland are nominated by the Minister—not the Whitehall Minister, but the appropriate Minister in Northern Ireland—and it will be these boards, which are another arm of Government, that will decide whether to implement the
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  provisions of the Bill. These boards can be persuaded, by a process of nods and winks, to do some strange things. By their very powers, structure and nature they are not encouraged to concern themselves with the opinions of the electorate, or even with those of parents and teachers.
  The principles of the Bill, by saddling the Northern Ireland education boards with responsibilities and duties, emphasise the urgency of the need for the Government to do that to which they committed themselves in their election manifesto six months ago. They said of Northern Ireland
  "In the absence of devolved government we will seek to establish one or more elected regional councils with a wide range of powers over local services."
  Local authorities in Britain are being given powers to select priorities, to eliminate waste and to make savings in education. Parliament has a clear duty to cut the cackle and re-establish in Northern Ireland, on the same pattern as Britain, local authorities answerable for their decisions and actions to those who elect them.
  We in the Ulster Unionist Party have never made the mistake of demanding economies and reductions in Government expenditure and in the next breath pleading that Northern Ireland should be excluded from the consequences. We accept that education cannot escape its share of reductions, but it seems to us that if there must be cuts savings should be made on school meals. They should be regarded as a social rather than as an educational issue. Provided that the position of needy families is safeguarded, it should be possible to do something to reduce the steadily escalating costs of the service.
  It cannot be denied that a great deal of waste arises from the "cookhouse" quality of some meals, though this varies from one school to another. Waste also arises as a result of children's likes and dislikes. Some parents have come to the conclusion that snack meals are more popular with children. Perhaps we should set an example in the Palace of Westminster.
  The greatest concern of my party, however, is over school transport. If something resembling the provisions of clause 23 were to be applied in Northern Ireland we should regard that as a breach of faith. As right hon. and hon. Members

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  know, the patterns of population in Northern Ireland are different from those in Great Britain. The pattern of small farms throughout the Province created a vast number of small schools in country areas. Reorganisation in the past 20 years depended for its acceptance upon a firm undertaking by the Government of the day that when a small school was closed free transport would be provided as an essential part of the centralisation process.
  The number of schools affected was significant. The Ministry of Education gave the number of primary schools in 1924 as 2,041. By 1974 that figure had dropped to 1,138. A breach of the undertaking to provide free transport would affect two-fifths of the children in rural areas. I trust that however the Government apply this Bill to Northern Ireland they will remember the undertaking given in the name of a previous Government.
  The Government are honouring their manifesto commitment which was clearly set out on page 24. They are doing it without undue deference to those who disagree with them. I hope that they will proceed on parallel lines and honour their commitment on page 22 of the manifesto and restore to Northern Ireland the type of local authority on which the Bill depends for its implementation. I hope also that they will do that without undue deference to those who would reject positive action and seek refuge in argument, without end and without result.
  6.54 p.m.
  Mr. John Carlisle: This Bill is probably one of the most courageous measures brought before the House for many a long year and I am privileged to speak in support of it. The Government obviously face a fairly difficult winter and have many courageous decisions yet to take. The Bill will bring a great deal of pleasure to many parents throughout the land; to none more so than in my constituency.
  The Bill has already been received with great enthusiasm by people to whom I have spoken. I regret that the previous Administration did not have the courage to bring in such a Bill. It seeks to sweep away years of rigid and inflexible authority created by Socialist control. I speak particularly of the hopes of parents. The last Administration enacted their
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  measures with cynical glee, and this Bill will remove the shackles placed upon parents' freedom of choice. The measure is a high water mark in education since 1944. I congratulate the Minister and his team on this outstanding charter for parents. I confine my remarks within the limits of the new 10-minute rule for speeches after 7 o'clock and to the issue of freedom of parental choice afforded by the Bill.
  I am concerned about the problems facing local authorities on the question of admissions and I am distressed that many authorities, including, regrettably, my own in Bedfordshire, have for too long ignored parental choice in favour of juggling numbers to fill places.
  New ambitious school projects were started during the term of the previous Administration, regardless of cost, and some very fine schools were turned into comprehensive jungles in the name of pure political ideology. In the last decade we have lost many schools of high academic standing though the dramatic effect of Conservative victories in the county council elections of 1977 enabled some new authorities to bring about some changes. Much money has been wasted on new schools and new schemes. Not all authorities have been able to face dilemmas with the freedom of choice we would like to see.
  The number of children of school age is falling. Social habits and population changes make forecasts of the number of school places difficult. Faced with the economic situation and because of falling numbers, most authorities have been forced to stop some of their new school projects. Some have been forced to use selection methods, and I refer particularly to the method of selection by catchment area.
  This Bill contains some very fine words about parental choice. It speaks of
  "…a preference as to the school at which he wishes education to be provided for his child…".
  It even extends that choice rather dramatically to schools outside the parents' own local authority area. Those fine words will be music to the ears of parents in my constituency. They will fall on deaf ears if some authorities persist in allocating places according to the numbers game

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  by filling up places at bad schools to the detriment of allocating places at the good schools.
  Bedfordshire has done that by changing catchment areas, often without consultation with parents and sometimes with a notice of less than one school year. Many parents move into a catchment area to ensure that their children are educated at a particular school. I make no apology for naming the Challney boys' school in my constituency where that occurs. Many parents who buy property at a high price, who pay high rates and who make great personal sacrifices, have their high hopes for their children's education wiped out overnight at the stroke of a pen when a catchment area is changed.
  The catchment areas are unfair. However, until there are sufficient places to allow full parental choice, they are a necessary evil. They lead inevitably to the making of waiting lists. I take issue with the Bedfordshire county authority which consistently refuses to allow even councillors to see the waiting lists. This has caused great distress to parents who had hoped that their children would gain a place at a particular school.
  I appeal to the Secretary of State, who has the privilege of sharing my name, to prove that the Government are worthy. I hope that under clause 8 he will specify by regulation that any change in a catchment area must be made after full consultation with the parents and after a proper period of notice. If the waiting lists are necessary, they must be published.
  There is a grey area which the Bill does not cover. I hope that the waiting lists will be drawn up according to a code of preference. Preference should be granted to those who live close to a school, the sons and daughters of those who attended a school or those with a religious or medical reason. The names on the list should never be drawn out of a hat. Education by lottery—which to a certain extent is being practised in my own county—is unworthy of any Conservative Administration.
  Without reservation I welcome two further aspects of the Bill—information to parents and the appeals procedure against admissions. For too long bad schools have been able to hide behind mediocre
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  examination results and poor academic achievement by having their numbers kept up by the methods which I have described.
  Schools sell a product—the ability to educate. That product should be pushed forward, as with any product in a shop window, to make children fit for adult life. Sales literature for a school must by statute be honest and contain all relevant facts about a school. That is an essential part of the offer made to parents. Examination results speak for themselves. However, the percentage of failures and passes should be included in that literature. A school should also advertise the general appearance of the staff and pupils.
  I hope that the production of a manifesto will encourage schools to go further—to hold open days more frequently and to welcome intending parents and pupils to the school before they make a choice. Schools should furnish examination results as soon as possible. Many already do that and are proud to do so. It is sad but realistic that legislation may sometimes be necessary to encourage them. I hope that the Bill will encourage schools to provide more information—and not only about admission numbers, although such information tells a suitable story in many establishments.
  I welcome the establishment of a special appeals committee to consider admission decisions. I am particularly heartened to learn that its chairman is not to be a member of an education committee. That decision will be well received by my constituents. Virtually no appeals procedure exists. Ordinarily, a parent is refused admission for his child to a particular school by a standard letter which is usually delivered well into the school year. The only recourse is to appeal in person or to write to the local authority. Usually the parent is met with a stony silence or a short interview with an official way down the authority's list. The only course is for that parent to appeal to his local councillor or his Member of Parliament, both of whom are usually hog-tied by a firm, unbending, bureaucratic decision.
  The last recourse for a parent, who is often desperate, is to keep the child away from school. The parent is then faced with the full weight of legislation pressuring him to return the child to school. The

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  parent must give in or educate the child himself, and that involves personal sacrifice.
  Such a case occurred in my constituency. No case has aroused more compassion since 3 May than this. I am sure that similar cases occur throughout the country. The child suffers, the parents suffer and the local education authority suffers because it is seen to be hardhearted and unbending. An appeals committee will do much to alleviate that problem. I am sorry that it does not exist today.
  The Bill offers a new challenge to all local authorities, and a new hope to thousands of parents. It is imaginative, far-reaching and well in step with the Conservative pledge to set the people free. Parental choice is a phrase which is not lightly disregarded by Conservative Members as we start to re-establish that individuals matter, that people have certain basic rights, and that our children should be able to enjoy the best possible standards. My hon. Friends and I give the Bill our full support. It should be received with gratitude by every parent in the land.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Richard Crawshaw): Before I call the next hon. Member I remind the House that Mr. Speaker indicated that between 7 p.m. and 8.50 p.m. tonight we would operate the 10-minute rule for speeches. I hope that hon. Members will limit themselves so that it is not necessary for the Chair to intervene.
  7.7 p.m.
  Mr. R. C. Mitchell: I am probably making history by being the first hon. Member to speak under the 10-minute rule. I have supported the idea of such a rule ever since I entered the House in 1966.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) described the hon. Member for Brent, North (Dr. Boyson) as a pterodactyl. I cannot remember what pre-dated the pterodactyl, but we heard it when the hon. Member for Luton, West (Mr. Carlisle) was speaking. That was the most reactionary speech on education that I have heard in the House.
  This is a thoroughly bad Bill. It is full of paradoxes. Clauses 6 to 8 purport to increase parental choice. Clause 23,
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  which deals with transport, makes it economically impossible for many parents to exercise that free choice. I represent an urban constituency, where the problem of school transport is not as acute as it is in other areas. The only people in my constituency who will be affected by the transport regulations are those who have chosen freely to send their children to a voluntary school—perhaps a Catholic school—or those who have asked that their children attend a school outside the catchment area because, for instance, it has a special reputation for music. The only pupils who will be affected in my area will be those who attend voluntary schools or specialist schools from choice. They will be hit by the new transport charges.
  I do not see any Conservative Members who represent rural seats in Hampshire, yet in many such country districts there will be much greater problems. Many of the country schools, especially secondary schools, will be outside the three-mile limit. Where are the hon. Members for Hampshire? I should like to see them participating in the debate. They are conveniently absent.
  The Hampshire authority has announced that it proposes to charge 15p for a single journey for most children in secondary schools. As an example I take a lower-paid agricultural worker in the middle of the Petersfield constituency in Hampshire. He has two children at secondary school. A charge of 15p a journey means 30p per day per child, or £1·50 per child per week. He has to find £3 per week solely for transport.
  The Minister made great play of giving local authorities more power to make their own decision over school meals. What he is really doing is evading his responsibilities. He is running away from making unpopular decisions and trying to pass the buck to the local authorities, hoping that they will get the blame when matters go wrong.
  Local authorities have consistently been opposed to taking responsibility to deal with poverty. They have maintained that the alleviation of poverty is a matter for national Government. Local authorities of all political parties hold that view.
  The worst part of the school meal proposals is the abolition of the parental scale. That means that half of the

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  children presently entitled to free school meals will not be so entitled in future. That will broaden the poverty trap fur those who are only slightly above family income supplement or supplementary benefit level. It will pay many lower-paid workers to give up their jobs and receive supplementary benefit. They will be better off by doing that after these proposals are implemented.
  The charge for school meals will be about 50p a day, and that is a low estimate. Taking the same example of an agricultural worker with two children, the cost of school meals per child per week will be £2·50, or £5·00 per week for both children. That worker may be earning about £60 per week gross, which is slightly above the family income supplement level. He will have to find £8 per week for transport and school meals. I do not have such low-paid workers in my constituency, but they come from the constituencies of Conservative Members. I do not see any Conservative Members rising to speak on behalf of low-paid agricultural workers.
  There is an absurd situation in Hampshire. I quote from the report of the education officer to the schools subcommittee:
  "There is little doubt that the increased charges … will result in a massive switch by parents from the purchase of school meals to the provision of sandwiches."
  The report then discusses the possibility of charging pupils to eat sandwiches, and states:
  "Four pence per sandwich eater per day … would bring in … £200,000 per annum'.
  In the end the sub-committee decided not to do that, and I quote its reasons:
  "However, there would be 'consumer resistance' which would be likely to take one of two forms. Either the children would leave the school to consume their sandwiches or buy refreshments off school premises. This may be thought undesirable particularly for younger children and if an accident were to befall such a child because of the unwillingness to pay a charge for eating sandwiches the authority would incur considerable criticism. Alternatively, the pupils would eat their sandwiches surreptitiously in different parts of the school leaving crumbs and other remains. This would prove a health hazard as indeed has proved the case in at least one school where such practices went undetected for a period."
  We must be in a desperate situation if local authorities and education committees are having to discuss that sort of
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  business for the sake of a source of money.
  Those discussions are taking place, but it seems that there is enough money to allocate to subsidise the private sector of education. The main purpose of the Bill is not to help poorer children. It is to put money into the pockets of ex-direct grant schools that are in financial difficulties. I suspect that I know why the Minister has delayed bringing the provisions into effect until 1981. There is no great demand at the moment, but the cuts that he is making in the State education system will so reduce standards that there will be a demand by 1981.
  This is a disgraceful Bill. Its effects will be threefold. First, it will make the poor poorer by widening the poverty trap. Low-paid workers will be faced with bills of £6, £8 or £10 per week. Secondly, it will increase privilege in education. Thirdly, it will inevitably reduce standards in State schools.
  Side by side with that, the capitation fee is having a serious effect upon the provision of school books. In my area the Tories have an answer to that problem. One of them issued a statement in which he admitted that provision of school books was a problem, but said that it was up to parent-teacher associations to get together to raise money for books. I thought that parent-teacher associations raised money for extras which schools could not afford. What will be the next stage? The Government will say that a school cannot have a teacher unless the parent-teacher association can raise enough money to pay his salary. We are reaching that stage in our State schools. Inevitably, there will be a reduction in standards. I believe that the Bill was deliberately designed to do that.
  7.19 p.m.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I shall be brief and I shall heed the instruction to speak for less than 10 minutes.
  I am amazed that the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Mitchell) should waste so much of his speech talking about school meals. Parents are interested in the standard of education, the standard of teachers, the standard of facilities and the provision of school

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  books and other vital equipment. My right hon, and learned Friend has his priorities right. It is no longer tolerable for the Department of Education and Science to find sums in excess of £400 million a year for the cost of school meals. The vast majority of parents can make that necessary sacrifice and provide the funds to pay proper fees for school meals.
  I say to the hon. Member for Itchen and other hon. Members who have spoken from the Opposition Benches that I believe that when parents bring a child into the world it is their responsibility to feed it, and not the responsibility of the education service. If there is a need to help those on low incomes and single parent families, the provision of such funds should come from a separate budget provided by the Department of Health and Social Security. I remind Opposition Members that provision is made within the Bill to ensure that those on low income and family income supplement are assisted by education authorities.
  The hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Race) is gesticulating from a sedentary position. He represents too often a public service union and not his constituents. I believe that parents are sufficiently responsible to know where proper priorities lie. I commend the Bill.
  I represent a constituency which is both urban and rural. I am happy to say that the problems of transport are being grasped by the Government, whereas the previous Government failed to do so. The provisions in the Bill are designed to give local authorities discretion in how they provide school transport for the children in their area. Where a local education authority has given a categorical assurance—perhaps even a promise—to certain rural communities that where schools have been closed and pupils transferred to one new school free transport will be available, I want my right hon, and learned Friend to give an assurance that the local authority will honour the commitment, unless there is an overwhelming view expressed in the area that such a commitment can be disregarded.
  The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) has advanced a valid argument. There will be some heated debate on these matters in rural areas. However, I do not believe that my right
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  hon. and learned Friend or local education authorities will seek to make massive cuts in school transport. I represent a constituency in Cheshire. If the education authority seeks to meet Members of Parliament from the area that it serves, I shall discuss the matter with it.
  I am sorry that the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed is not in the Chamber, as I should have liked him to hear some of my remarks. The hon. Gentleman's mother lives in my constituency. I know her well. The hon. Gentleman went to the King's school in my constituency. Perhaps his ability to deliver articulate speeches of the type that he delivered this evening arose as a result of the excellent education that he received at that school.
  The King's school, which for many years has co-operated with the Cheshire education authority, welcomes the assisted places scheme that features so well in the Bill. The headmaster wishes once again to offer places to children from deprived families in my constituency so that they may benefit, as in the past, from the excellent academic education and atmosphere that is provided in the school.
  I ask my right hon, and learned Friend to disregard some of the humbug that has been uttered from the Opposition Benches. I can assure him that there are many good schools that have provided an excellent education. I say to the hon. Member for Itchen that children from deprived backgrounds deserve the best education that we can give them, whether it lies within the maintained sector or the private sector.
  The King's school, as a result of the 1976 Act, that pernicious piece of Socialist legislation, was forced to go independent. I regret that. For many years the school had worked closely with the Cheshire education authority. It has provided an excellent education for children from all walks of life in my constituency.
  The assisted places scheme, which is modest in its scope, in the first year of operation—1981–82—will cost as little as £8 million. Over seven years it will work up to the full estimated cost of £55 million. The King's school will yet again be able to offer the sort of education that certain children from deprived backgrounds need to develop the best of their talent and potential.

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  My right hon and learned Friend has grasped the nettle. I support this courageous and brave Bill. My right hon, and learned Friend will have the support of his hon. Friends. He will also have the overwhelming support of parents, who are genuinely interested in standards of education.
  In an intervention I took some exception to the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Armstrong), for whom I have considerable respect. I believe that he did a disservice to himself and his reputation when he implied that Conservative Members have little knowledge of the maintained sector. That is utterly wrong.
  In an excellent maiden speech, my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Hawksley) indicated that he had served as a member of a county education committee and had been a member of a county council. My hon. Friend said that he took an active interest in education. I added in my intervention that for a number of years I had been active in local government and that I had become deputy chairman of an education committee. I served on all the managing and governing bodies in my constituency. My attendence record was about 95 per cent. I took a genuine interest.
  My right hon, and learned Friend has a genuine and positive interest in the education of young people. He has my support, and I am sure that he has the support of most reasonable and responsible people.
  7.27 p.m.
  Mr. David Stoddart: The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) was up to his usual standard. He usually waxes most eloquent and is most enthusiastic about the most reactionary measures that come before the House, and tonight has been no exception.
  Undoubtedly the Bill is a reactionary measure. It is a class-biased Bill which, far from increasing education opportunities, will remove them. It is intolerable that in the same Bill that deprives ordinary working-class children of assistance with transport costs and meals we find proposals that must give additional education privilege to the very section of the community that already has it. That is exactly what the scheme means.
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  Few children from poor families will benefit from the assisted places scheme. Perhaps hundreds of thousands will suffer deprivation through the savage cuts that will be made in transport to schools, school meals costs, and education provision generally. If we want to give every child a proper opportunity, as most of us do, there is only one way of doing so, and that is not by creaming children off from one school to another. The answer is to ensure that all schools are of the same degree of excellence. To deprive comprehensive schools within the State system of £55 million or £65 million will do the reverse. The Bill is class biased. It is a reactionary measure and I am sorry that it has been brought forward.
  The Government are all too fond of saying that they have a mandate for their policies. The Tories neither sought nor obtained a mandate for the measures contained in the Bill. Had they told parents at the general election that they would pay higher school meal charges, or have their children deprived of school meals; had they told parents that they would have to pay more for the cost of sending their children to school; had they said that the public would pay trebled prescription charges and that VAT was to be doubled, it would have been a different matter, but they cannot say, from the Treasury Bench, that they have a mandate for anything, let alone the Bill.
  The Tory Party perpetrated a cruel and cynical deception on the British people at the last general election. This Bill and the other measures that they have brought forward expose that deceit and portray the cynical attitude of Tory Members towards openness in politics and government.
  Sir John Eden: In his opening remarks the hon. Member placed great emphasis on the fact that the Bill was biased in favour of or against certain classes. Which class does the Bill favour, and how does it do that?
  Mr. Stoddart: It would take a lot of time to deal with that subject. If the right hon. Member does not know the answer he has wasted his time in the House. We have spent a lot of time telling him that certainly the professional classes will do very well out of the assisted places scheme, while the poorer classes will not.
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Why?
  Mr. Stoddart: For the simple reason that the professional classes will know how to go about it while the people from working-class homes will not.
  Mr. Gummer: Rubbish.
  Sir John Eden: Will the hon. Member give way again?
  Mr. Stoddart: There is no time to give way.
  Sir J. Eden: But the hon. Member not answer the question.
  Mr. Stoddart: I am not able to give way, because I have to comply with the 10-mintne rule.
  Sir J. Eden: But the hon. Member has not answered the question.
  Mr. Stoddart: It is no good the right hon. Gentleman raving. He is on a bad wicket and he ought to shut up about it.
  Sir J. Eden: Answer the question.
  Mr. Stoddart: We in the Labour Party and the trade union movement are not the only ones to deplore the Government's attack on education, not only through the Bill but through the cuts that have already been made. In Wiltshire the chairman of the education committee, being unable to countenance the cuts that were forced on his committee by the county council—cuts amounting to £6·5 million over the next three years—resigned as the chairman of the committee and resigned also from the county council. When he resigned he said that:
  "A child who is denied adequate education today may suffer irreparable deprivation for life."
  So if the Tories will not take it from me they had better take it from one of their own who could stand them no longer. The man had sufficient honesty and honour to resign his post.
  The finance and general purposes committee, on 17 September, resolved to
  "point out, in the strongest terms possible to the County Council that if the measures proposed are put into operation in this and subsequent years there will be a definite lowering of the quality of education in this country."
  It is not, therefore, the Labour Party and the trade union movement alone that are telling the Conservative Party that the
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  measures proposed in the Bill will injure education. Their own supporters in the country are doing that—not ordinary voters but people who are in a position of authority, in a position to know. These people are warning the Tory Party that it is on the wrong road. The Bill takes us another step along that road. I urge my right hon, and hon. Friends to vote against the Bill tonight, and I sincerely hope that those who have a care for education and the honesty to admit that this Bill will harm education will join us in our Lobby.
  7.34 p.m.
  Mr. Norman Miscampbell: By the rules of the House and also by choice, my contribution must be a short one.
  I do not suppose that anyone, least of all the Secretary of State, welcomes the introduction of a Bill the main aim and drive of which is to facilitate cuts. In so far as it does that and gives local authorities the chance and choice of making those cuts, it can reluctantly be welcomed.
  I only hope that other authorities do as well as Lancashire appears to have done in its choice of cuts. It has managed to continue with its nursery schemes, albeit without an increase in the number of places, but equally without having to sacrifice one place. We have increased the number of teachers. We had hoped to have an extra 20 for special schools; there will be only 10 extra. In Lancashire we have managed to achieve a great deal of what needs to be done by postponement. Of course, postponement cannot go on for ever, although the damage can perhaps be contained. In so far as we have succeeded in doing that, the Bill can be accepted, albeit reluctantly. There have been times tonight when I have felt that there has been a reluctance in some parts of the House to face the need for cuts.
  I want to confine myself to one part of the Bill, a part to which I have never concealed my opposition. I have continually told my right hon, and learned Friend the Secretary of State that I thought that we were wrong to make this choice. I am referring to the proposals in clauses 17 and 18.
  I do not believe that these proposals would ever have seen the light of day

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  had my right hon. Friends appreciated, when they conceived them, the nature and size of the cuts that we have to face. I am sorry, in the face of the necessities that confront us at the moment, that we have persisted with them. However, I speak against those clauses not in terms of privilege or choice but purely on educational grounds.
  I have discussed this matter with headmasters of schools in my town and with education authorities. Why are they almost universally opposed to the proposals? The reasons are simple. In many cases it is not that they are opposed to the Conservative Party. They are against these provisions because of the effect that they can have on the education not of the few bright children who will go but of those who will be left behind in the schools. That is where the crunch comes.
  The Secretary of State said that, at most, the independent schools would take 1 or 2 per cent, of pupils. How many bright children do people think there are? One or 2 per cent, of the bright children at the Pimlico comprehensive down the road represents 25 or 30 bright children being taken out of the school. I defy anybody to say that taking that number of bright children will do anything other than change the quality of education for those who remain.
  The next point that must be weighed is that the teachers themselves will resent the fact that the bright children will go. Thank heaven, some teachers enjoy teaching the dullards. Others find their stimulation in teaching the bright and the brightest. If the bright and the brightest are to be taken from them, will it be surprising that they either resent it or follow them? As a barrister one would find one's professional card rather undistinguished if one were marked "All right for Preston Crown court but no good for the Court of Appeal." In a sense that is what we are doing about teachers.
  Lastly, I believe that the clauses are wrong from our party's point of view, for good reasons. I believe that there is a problem, which is ignored at times, of bright children in certain catchment areas. If that problem exists we should solve it by selectivity. That is right at the heart of everything that we have been saying.
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  There is no reason to have a change in Blackpool. We went comprehensive 10 years ago. The bright child can go straight through, get to the sixth form college and go to university. The proposals are a total waste of money in Blackpool and in vast areas of the country.
  If there is a problem, the money should be used where it is needed. There should be local choice. Sometimes local choice goes against what I would advocate. None the less, I believe that our party is right to say that there should be local choice. There is no local choice in this scheme. What is so interesting is that the very areas that have struck out so persistently and retained their grammar schools are the ones that ought to be most adamantly opposed to this proposal, because it will be straight from their maintained grammar schools that the bright ones will be taken. There will be trouble when it is understood that some people are being crammed or that there is a primary school that is edging its way towards getting results. People will then say that the whole thing is unfair.
  It seems to me that there is an entirely respectable Conservative position with regard to education broadly. We should say that we will defend the right of people to educate their children privately if they wish, and will defend it as a principle. I do not believe that the acceptance of public money for private places will help that in the least. We should say that local authorities should be given the freedom to choose, even though in some cases—as in my own case—they would make choices that were not the choice that Blackpool, with an overwhelming Tory majority, made 10 years ago.
  We should at the same time make absolutely plain that we will support and encourage that section of our educational establishment to which 85 per cent, of our children go. Because this proposal does none of those three things I think that it is wrong and that we should change our minds.
  7.42 p.m.
  Mr. Kevin McNamara: I trust that the hon, and learned Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) will forgive me if I do not follow his argument, although I respect him most profoundly. It takes great courage to speak to one's

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  own Front Bench in the way that he has done.
  I do not wish to make a party political speech on the Bill although, like many of my right hon, and hon. Friends, I am incensed about a lot of its contents. I want to turn to something which I and many other people in this country thought had disappeared from the realm of political controversy. I refer to the position of religious schools, denominational schools, and the dual system of education.
  When the 1944 Bill was going through the House the then Mr. Butler, who gave his name to the measure, and Mr. Chuter Ede, who was speaking for the then Labour Opposition, referred, on the question of school transport, to the position of the denominational schools. It was recognised that the 1944 settlement, and in particular the provision on transport, would take denominational schools out of the realm of political controversy. It was felt that leaving the control of this question under central Government would also remove it as a contentious issue in areas in which, for example, "Rome on the rates" had been a rallying cry, just as there had been many other battles over religious education in the past.
  The denominational schools, and certainly the Catholic hierarchy, regard the provisions in the Bill as the most grievous blow and threat to the provision of Church schools that they have faced since the war, and certainly since the 1944 settlement. It is no exaggeration to say that.
  I listened very carefully to the Secretary of State's apologia for charging for transport in the case of denominational schools. He said, in particular, that we were to share the misery with people who had sent their children to the county school that was beyond the three-mile limit. I found that a very strange and a very shallow sort of argument. I found it strange because we should not justify one person's misery by citing another person's misery. I found it strange because it failed to recognise the inequity of the taxation and extra burden being put upon the ordinary citizen whose children do not go to a denominational school but who happens to live outside the three-mile area. It failed to recognise the principle of equality of treatment.
  I know that it is very easy for the Secretary of State to talk about the anomalies
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  arising from the fact that there are children who live 2·9 miles from a school and others who live 3·1 miles from a school. We accept that lines have to be drawn somewhere. The fact of the three-mile line has been generally recognised.
  The position of the denominational school is on a par with that of the village school. The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) spoke about children going into cities and towns. My argument is on a far stronger basis than that. Although the Secretary of State said that many local authorities, in their largesse, gave more than they were required to give, and that sometimes the nearest appropriate school was not the Catholic school or other denominational school, the point is that the whole spirit of the 1944 Act in respect of denominational schools was related to free transport. That was the whole point of it.
  In my own constituency over 50 per cent, of the children at the schools—some of my children attend them—travel over three miles on free school buses, and pass appropriate county secondary schools. Some even live on the doorsteps of appropriate schools. Under this provision, they could well lose the facility of free transport if it is at the discretion of the local authority.
  The Catholic schools and the denominational schools accepted the reorganisation under the 1944 Act because the choice of the siting of schools was based upon the principle that they would have free transport. That free transport has now gone.
  I mentioned my own constituency. Let me now take some of the most startling examples, such as St. Bede's school at Lanchester, and St. Peter's school, at Doncaster, where 93 per cent, of the children use free transport. If those free passes go, whether there is a standard charge by a local authority or whether the local authority, using its discretion, gives no help at all, the viability of such schools and the choice of the parents will be severely limited. I am very concerned about that aspect.
  It is not only in the North that these problems arise. They arise also in the good, solid, Tory South. At St. Paul's school, Haywards Heath, 75 per cent, of the Catholic school population travel on free public transport. At St. Richard's,

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  Bexhill, the figure is 61 per cent., at St. John's, Woking, it is 60·9 per cent.
  In the diocese of Plymouth—a good Tory area£43 per cent, of the children of Catholic schools use free public transport. In the diocese of Arundel and Brighton, 50 per cent, of the Catholic school population use free public transport.
  The same sort of case can be made on behalf of the children attending Church of England and other denominational schools.
  We think, therefore, that we are entitled to argue that the siting of schools such as St. Peter's, Doncaster, and St. Paul's, Haywards Heath, was not necessarily decided on the basis of where the largest Catholic population happened to be at the particular time. It was decided on the basis of the best transport network. The schools at Doncaster, Lanchester and Bishop Auckland are all in exactly that position. The Government are going back on the spirit of the undertaking given in the Education Act 1944.
  This is a matter of considerable public concern. There will be an extra charge upon parents and upon the communities generally. These are people whose choice of a district was related to the availability of free public transport. Whether the children of such people are in denominational schools or county schools does not matter. They took sensible decisions on the basis of the undertakings that they were given. Against the background of falling rolls, and with parents having to pay extra taxation, they will be in a very difficult position indeed.
  I am told that when representations were made to the Secretary of State he said "Of course, at the time of the 1944 Act you got barely 50 per cent, of your school costs and now you get 85 per cent." With many hon. Members, I sat here and watched successive Front Benchers preening themselves as they increased the amount to 70 per cent., 80 per cent, and 85 per cent, for school building. Was there ever any suggestion at any time that there would be a reduction in free public transport? Would the siting of these schools ever have been made in those circumstances?
  Mr. Stanley Cohen: Does my hon. Friend agree that
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  in the light of the drop in population it is expected that by 1980 the school population will be one-third less than it is at present? That will inevitably mean that schools will be closed and that those remaining will be greater distances apart. This is bound to affect travelling distances.
  Mr. McNamara: Yes, I agree. My hon. Friend has made a powerful point which will affect Church and denominational schools as much as any others. I sometimes wonder whether Conservative Members who are so keen to rush to defend this provision, on hearing that an Eastern Communist Government were removing free travel to school in order to save revenue—thus preventing children from attending Church schools—would not attack such a measure as an evil Marxist scheme meant to subvert religious education and undermine parental rights. Basically, that is what is happening to religious communities in this country, who with successive Governments have adhered to the education policy of the day and have sought merely to maintain their schools and keep them out of political controversy.
  In fact, the right hon, and learned Gentleman and the Government are reintroducing that controversy. The complaints will not stop here. They will be voiced by parents throughout the whole country, both North and South, who feel that they have been betrayed. Whatever else they voted for, and whichever party they supported, they did not wish to see their schools close. For people of my religion, these schools were something that we fought for and cherished. They are part of our tradition. We want to see them maintained; we do not want to see them sacrificed in this way.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has had more than 10 minutes.
  7.52 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Griffiths: I do not have the honour and opportunity of making a maiden speech this evening, but, despite the fact that I have only 10 minutes, it would be remiss of me if I did not commend the interests of the city of Portsmouth since I now have the honour to represent the northern section. I should also like to remind the

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  House of the long and distinguished service of my predecessor, Mr. Frank Judd, who was Member for both Portsmouth, West and Portsmouth, North over a period of years, during which time he was called to high office.
  The city of Portsmouth, although situated in the county of Hampshire, has many of the social and economic problems that link it more closely with the great urban areas of the north than with the rural south. There is no doubt at all that for that reason hon. Members may regard the experience that I bring to the debate as particularly relevant, since it has already been suggested that to some extent at least hon. Members should show that they have practical experience in education.
  I have taught in the public sector of education for 30 years. I am still teaching in it; and, therefore, my experience is up to date. In addition, I have served in local government for more than 11 years, and have been chairman of an education committee which had the unusual distinction of removing the 11-plus examination. It was one of the first county boroughs to introduce such a proposal. I mention that as the basic qualification for my contribution this evening.
  The long period that I have spent in education, as well as the fact that I am a parent, means that my commitment to education is no less sincere or deep than that of Labour Members. Nevertheless, I realise that, no matter how strongly we may believe in a particular social service, the depth of our belief does not mean that the laws of economics are suspended. The fact is that during the last election the Conservative Party campaigned on a programme of public expenditure cuts in every area except the police force and defence. There was no suggestion, as far as I am aware, that there would be specific exceptions. This was made perfectly clear to the electorate of the city of Portsmouth before they cast their votes.
  Earlier we heard about the link between the quality of education and resources. I agree that there is a link between the two, but it is not direct and absolute. It is not necessary to spend more money in order to improve education. It may well be that reductions in expenditure can be accompanied by wise
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  economies. It is not simply a case that more money means better education. Had that been so, we would have seen gradually improving education over the years since 1945. Many of us would not agree that that has occurred in proportion to the amount of money spent.
  There are ways of improving education—for example, by making parents better informed. Much of the debate has centred around certain points in the Bill that are particularly controversial, but others ought to be brought out as well. I welcome the fact that in future all schools will be required to produce a prospectus. This is something that independent schools have had to do in order to draw the attention of parents to their existence and qualities. It will be an excellent thing when in a city such as Portsmouth and other areas—where the choice is basically between comprehensive schools—the particular strengths and qualities of those schools are drawn to the attention of parents so that they may make an intelligent choice between schools which are of a similar nature but which, because of the composition of staff, the interests of head teachers and traditions, will have different qualities.
  My second point relates to the provision of school meals. I was a headmaster for some years. One of the most difficult areas to administer—I am sure that many head teachers will agree—was that of school meals. For example, we had to make provision in inadequate buildings for where children would eat, where the meals would be kept warm in cold weather and what was to happen to the children if members of staff were ill. There was a need for members of staff to supervise, and so on. This was always a highly controversial matter, and it always represented a great difficulty to members of staff.
  I believe that it was probably a fundamental mistake to link school meals directly with the education budget and the education service. If anything, schools meals are a social service and should be funded and staffed from outside education. The advantage which many independent schools offer in this regard is that while providing a cooked meal they also encourage children to bring their own food, thus offering a choice. I hope that State schools will follow that pattern and will

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  allow a choice of meal for children attending schools in the State sector.
  I turn to the question of assisted places, which I welcome wholeheartedly. Here I disagree with my hon and learned Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell), who suggested that a disservice would be done by taking pupils from the State sector into the independent sector. We can regard that as an investment in the future. Certain children by their very nature are academically minded and wish to obtain the kind of education which their parents sincerely and honestly believe is offered in those schools.
  It is not fair to say that we offer that choice to all parents. At present it is not open to those who cannot afford to pay. The Bill has been called class biased. Of course it is. It is biased in favour of poor parents. No professional person will be able to get his child into an independent school under the scheme because there will be a means test, and only poor parents will benefit. I have seen many parents of relatively modest means struggling to pay fees at independent schools, and in a city like Portsmouth there are few rich people. I believe that these people deserve our help.
  There is a particular problem for pupils who entered these schools since the direct grant system ended. They have paid full fees. When they reach the point of entering the sixth form they may leave school because of their age, and I suggest that there is a need for special consideration to be given to parents of those children. It may be necessary to supplement those newly entering secondary education with special provision for those moving on to the sixth form.
  I find the remaining provisions for assisted places entirely acceptable. Many parents in my constituency and, I am sure, throughout the country will be whole heartedly behind the Minister in bringing forward this excellent measure of educational reform.
  8.2 p.m.
  Mr. Jim Marshall: The passage of time has not in any way increased the liberalism of outlook of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths).
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  My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) made a non-political speech on behalf of the Catholics of the United Kingdom. I also congratulate the hon, and learned Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) on taking a liberal stand on education. He pointed out that he was not prepared to accept the Bill, and his comments were similar to those of my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) although they differed on the question of maintaining private education. I am sure that if the hon, and learned Gentleman is able to get on to the Committee—and as a former Whip that is probably unlikely—he will be a great asset to my hon. Friends and myself.
  We do not oppose everything in the Bill. Many clauses derive from the Labour Government's Bill. We welcome such enlightened measures as those dealing with industrial scholarships, grants for the teaching of Welsh, and the arrangements for nursery teachers in day nurseries.
  However, the primary purpose of the Bill is not to enhance the quality of education or to increase access to it. It is a continuation of the redistributive taxation policies outlined in the Budget in May. Schoolchildren will lose free school meals and will have to pay for transport, so that the better off can have their tax cuts. That is the essential policy behind the Bill. In addition, it enshrines choice and privilege for the few at the expense of the less well off. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart) that it is a squalid Bill as well as being class ridden.
  The public sector is under attack. The number of teachers will be reduced and schools will be closed. The provision of textbooks is insufficient. It is nauseating that at such a time the Secretary of State should take pleasure in introducing the assisted places scheme. It is sheer hogwash and hypocrisy to pretend that the eventual £55 million required to operate the scheme will not be found at the expense of the public sector. If the Secretary of State is prepared to go to the State for the £55 million for the assisted places, why does he not do so for the £30 million that is to be withdrawn from school transport?
  Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones: It is not being withdrawn.
  Mr. Marshall: The Secretary of State for the Environment said that wage increases next year will not be allowed to go through the roof. The hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) cannot be so ridiculous as to believe that that money will not be saved by local authority cuts.
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: It simply does not follow.
  Mr. Marshall: The hon. Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) is perhaps spending so much time in Europe that she is unaware of politics in this country.
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: The hon. Gentleman does not appear to have read the Bill.
  Mr. Marshall: The Bill removes the duty to provide. The hon. Lady is assuming that local authorities will continue to do so.
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: That is exactly what it does not do. The hon. Gentleman should read it again.
  Mr. Marshall: The hon. Lady appears to be assuming that local authorities will continue to provide the service at the same level of charge. If that is not so, is she prepared to say at what level?
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: In his estimates the Secretary of State is assuming the same expenditure next year as this.
  Mr. Marshall: Rubbish.
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: The increase next year would have been £130 million. The Secretary of State is assuming £100 million. My point is that at present it is grossly unfair that people living just within the three-mile limit get absolutely no help. Everyone agrees that the three-mile limit is grossly unfair. The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) assumed that, if a flat rate was introduced, there would be no Government funding whatever. That is simply not the case. It could be a moderate amount, and it would be a great lightening of the burden on many unemployed parents.
  Mr. Marshall: The hon. Lady abuses the privilege that I extended to her by permitting her to intervene.
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: I did not ask the hon. Gentleman to sit down.
  Mr. Marshall: It is hypocrisy to say that the money will not be found at the expense of the public sector. The £55 million will go to the private schools and will give a fillip to the bastions of privilege. We are opposed to that.
  The abolition of the duty to provide meals of a given nutritional standard at a set price will have serious implications. It will have an effect on the nutritional well-being of children and on family budgets.
  The Secretary of State is probably aware that the DHSS recently sponsored a survey on children who are receiving free school meals. That survey showed that the free school meals are going to the right group of children and that withdrawal might prejudice their future development. That fact has not been made up by the Parliamentary Labour Party or the Labour Party but is the result of an independent survey commissioned by the DHSS.
  The proposals will withdraw the right to obtain free school meals from at least 500,000 school children. If that happens, the Secretary of State places at risk, in view of increased charges, the nutritional well-being of those children. If the local authorities do not maintain high enough nutritional values, he could be placing at risk the other 600,000 children who continue to qualify for the free meals. The right hon. and learned Gentleman could well carry on his conscience the adverse effects upon the nutritional well-being of today's young school children for the rest of his life. That is too high a price to pay for the Tory incentive society.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Mitchell) referred to the effects on the family budget of the increase in school meal charges. Most objective assessments agree that in about 12 months' time the average price of a school meal will be between 60p and 70p. I see that the Secretary of State looks rather astonished. Perhaps his Department has its own estimates which the pterodactyl—the hon. Member for Brent,

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  North (Dr Boyson)—can provide the House with when he winds up the debate.
  Mr. Mark Carlisle: The hon. Gentleman gave his estimate with such confidence. What is the basis of his figures?
  Mr. Marshall: The Child Poverty Action Group, which I regard as an independent assessor in the circumstances. Leicestershire county council has introduced schemes in six of its schools. It issues to children in receipt of free school meals 45p vouchers. I imagine that the minimum meal that they can obtain of sufficient nutritional value will cost at least 10p or 15p more this time next year. Families will have to pay 60p to 70p a week more per child.
  I realise that the Chair is becoming restless. This is the first time that I have been released from the Whips' office and I am rather unhappy to be subjected to the 10-minute rule. The Bill is a continuation—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member has already spoken for over 10 minutes.
  8.13 p.m.
  Mr. Malcolm Thornton: First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Hawksley) on his maiden speech. I am fortunate in joining him as someone who can claim to have direct experience of this subject through local authority associations and my former membership of a local authority. He showed not only his understanding of the problem but how responsible authorities can use the Bill and react responsibly to the cuts in expenditure that are proposed by the Government.
  The Bill is to be welcomed. It gives a greater degree of parental participation, it provides an opportunity for parental choice within realistic limits and it goes further than the Bill that was introduced by Mrs. Shirley Williams, the former Secretary of State, in treating local education authorities as responsible and accountable bodies. It sets out the important manifesto commitment to introduce an assisted places scheme, a scheme that is widely desired by so many of the electorate. Why a manifesto commitment? Why parental support? It is a
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  reaction to the lowered standards and the lack of opportunities for academically bright children to achieve their full potential in some of the schools that have emerged in the past decade or so.
  This proposal, more than any other, has provoked a hysterical outburst from Opposition Members and a torrent of deliberate distortions of both financial and educational effects. One wonders whether Opposition Members understand it. It has been said that men reason to strengthen their own prejudices and not to disturb their adversaries' convictions. We have heard much prejudice this afternoon but precious little reason.
  The assisted places scheme is expected to give priority to children in inner urban areas. It will not start until September 1981. In the first year it will cost between £5 million and £6 million. That will gradually rise over six years, at today's constant prices, to between £55 million and £60 million. That is a small price to pay for the opportunities that can be offered. Labour Members would have us believe that it is to the advantage of the chosen few. Areas of Birkenhead and Liverpool can hardly be called the balmier places of the country. However, there are many parents in those areas who, prior to the destruction of the direct grant schools, could see their children enjoy the academic opportunities that they offered. Those parents welcome the opportunity that will be afforded by the assisted places scheme.
  I must sound a note of caution. However desirable the proposals for increased parental and teacher representation, for the publication of extensive information concerning schools, for the setting up of appeals panels and for discretion on charges, all those things will inevitably increase the cost to local authorities at a time when they are rightly being asked to scrutinise and contain their expenditure. Many authorities, particularly those which have been prudent in the past, will find that the extra financial burden will cause real problems for the basic education service if it is imposed immediately. Some provision should be made in Committee for a specified period over which local education authorities, in line with their own priorities, can implement the proposals. Where cuts are required in the education budget, it is not just for the local

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  education authorities to make the cuts. The authorities at Elizabeth House would do well to examine their own administrative procedures and requirements.
  All the Welsh eloquence and oratory of the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) cannot disguise his total lack of any educational argument to cloak his fear that the measures pursued by the Government will expose the havoc that previous Socialist Administrations have wreaked upon the educational standards of the country. For him to say that the public fail to understand our policies is to treat the public with the same cavalier disregard that his party has treated the future of so many of our children.
  8.18 p.m.
  Mr. Dennis Canavan: I intend to confine most of my remarks to those aspects of the Bill which affect Scotland, and I say at the outset that if the Bill ever becomes law it may go down in history as the Tory Party's cynical contribution to the International Year of the Child. Instead of responding to the real needs of children, especially deprived children, the Tories are depriving those children even more by taking away their legal rights to transport to and from school, and to school meals and milk. In a sense, history is partially repeating itself. In a previous incarnation, the Prime Minister became known to many people as "Thatcher the Milk Snatcher"; and there are still many people, especially children, in my constituency and elsewhere who think of her in those terms. But now she is not just satisfied with removing the legal rights of children to school milk. She is also removing their legal rights to school meals and transport.
  Reference has already been made to the indecent haste with which this legislation has been brought before the House. Let me give details of what took place in Scotland. On 2 October, a letter went out from the Scottish Education Department to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities saying:
  "I must ask that any comments should reach me within the next two weeks, if at all possible. I should be grateful if you would treat the details of the proposals as confidential until they are laid before Parliment."
  I thought that it was a piece of brass neck to expect the local authorities to respond constructively in such a short
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  period of time to proposals of such importance to the children in their schools.
  Accordingly, I wrote to the Secretary of State for Scotland in the following terms:
  "The document asks that details of the proposals be kept confidential until they are laid before Parliament. This to my mind is an insult not only to Parliament but to the general public. The people and their elected representatives are entitled to know now what plans the Government is considering to reduce the legal rights of their children."
  A few days later, at alarming speed for the Scottish Office, I received a letter dated 26 October saying:
  "It is normal practice for the Government to consult interested parties in general terms about proposals for legislation before reaching final views on details of the legislation. The fact that this is done in confidence, far from being an insult to Parliament, is a recognition that it would be a breach of Parliamentary privilege to publish even preliminary Government proposals for legislation before Parliament had considered the matter."
  The letter was signed by the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland who is responsible for education, industry, sport and the arts in Scotland, and he is making a mess of them all. Now he is starting to take responsibility for telling hon. Members on the Back Benches exactly what is and what is not a breach of parliamentary privilege. The hon. Gentleman's reply to my letter was absolute humbug. If it were taken literally, it would mean that the publication of any circular, consultative document, or Green Paper even, would be a breach of parliamentary privilege.
  This Bill is turning back the clock in the history of Scottish education. The removal of the statutory obligation to provide meals and milk will deprive many children in terms of their standard of health and education. It is children in areas of multiple deprivation who will suffer most of all. The statistics which the Secretary of State gave me show that 430,000 pupils in Scotland receive school meals and that 30 per cent. of them receive free school meals. In other words, 30 per cent. of these children come from low-income families.
  Similarly, the removal of the statutory obligation to provide transport could result in a tendency to absenteeism. There might be an effect on the attendance rate

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  of pupils, especially those from poor-income homes. We have heard a good deal about rural areas. But let no one think that all rural areas are represented in this House by Tory Members. Most of my constituency is a rural area. I think of the secondary schools in my constituency. Almost all of them have catchment areas with a radius of more than three miles. I have in mind such schools as Balfron high school, Bannockburn high school, Denny high school, and Kilsyth academy. Some of the children from such places as Fallin have to travel into Stirling to go to the Wallace high school. There is a special problem, too, for pupils attending Catholic schools. There is no Catholic secondary school in my constituency. All Catholic children have to travel outside, either to St. Modan's high school in Stirling, St. Mungo's in Falkirk, St. Maurice's in Cumbernauld or St. Ninian's in Kirkintilloch. For some pupils this means a 30-miles-a-day round trip to get to and from school.
  It makes me slightly sick when I hear Government supporters talking about freedom of choice. What they are doing is eroding what freedom already exists because for many families these proposals could result in an increase in the family budget of £3 per week per child.
  Government supporters also talk about freedom for local authorities. What possible freedom can this Bill mean for a local authority when the Minister says that it should have the discretion to decide what to provide but that the Government will not supply it with the money with which to provide these essential services? The Government are cutting the amount of subsidy for meals and milk by about 50 per cent. The subsidy on transport is being cut in Scotland by at least £2 million a year.
  I ask the Minister to bear in mind the effect on employment and the economy, bearing in mind that 170,000 people are employed in the school meals service alone. What about the drivers and conductresses on the school buses and the effect on the agricultural economy? Part of the reason why the last Labour Government took the very wise decision to restore free school milk to the over-sevens was that it made good sense to get rid of one of the many absurdities of the silly
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  common agricultural policy. Instead of the milk going to surplus and to waste, it was given to children at school.
  What exactly has the Minister in store for the future of Scottish education? There is an assisted places scheme proposed in this Bill for England and Wales which will cost £55 million. I understand that discussions have already taken place in Scotland with education chiefs about implementing a similar scheme. This to my mind shows that the Tories are completely out of touch with what is going on in Scottish education. More than 95 per cent. of Scotland's children are in the public sector of education. It may be that the Secretary of State for Scotland does not realise this. He is the Cabinet Minister with responsibility for education in Scotland. I noticed an article in the Glasgow Herald last July which referred to his home on the 1,000-acre family estate at Gargunnock, Stirlingshire, in my constituency. I happen to know that there is a nice wee school in Gargunnock at primary level and that there is a very good secondary school, Stirling high school, only a few miles away.
  According to "Who's Who?", the Secretary of State decided that these schools were not good enough for him. He went to some unknown private school in Edinburgh and to another school called Winchester, which I believe is somewhere in England. The article continued:
  "In the laird tradition the Youngers have all been educated at English public schools."
  Then the Secretary of State himself was quoted:
  "I wanted the boys to go to Winchester because I do believe it gives the most marvellous start in life. At Winchester you are always able to be an individualist. In my day, despite all the general emphasis on excelling at sport, you could be a butterfly fancier at Winchester and still hold your head up high."
  It is about time that the Secretary of State got his head out of the clouds. It is about time that he flew back down to earth and, instead of looking after the butterflies, started looking after the interests of Scotland's schoolchildren who are his responsibility.
  This Bill is an obscene publication. It is an attack on the rights of innocent children. It is an attack on their rights to decent educational standards. It is an attack on their rights to decent health standards. It is an attack on their very

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  birthright. No civilised society would sacrifice its children in this way.
  This is a barbaric Bill. I hope that some of the less barbaric among the barbarians on the Government Benches will come into the Division Lobby with Opposition Members and make sure that the Bill is defeated. It is one of the most reactionary pieces of legislation since the birth of the Welfare State.
  8.28 p.m.
  Mr. Selwyn Gummer: As a "retread" Member, I feel a little like a male version of a married woman returner. I should like to start by saying how much my constituency misses the 27 years of representation of Sir Harwood Harrison, who had a distinguished war record and a distinguished record in the House. He took a life-long interest in defence and had a fine constituency record.
  Following Sir Harwood will be difficult. In every one of the 200 villages in my overwhelmingly rural constituency there are many who remember with gratitude the work that he did on their behalf.
  My constituency is one of those named after a town so small that few have heard of it—and we like to keep it that way. It is 600 square miles, stretching from Walberswick through Aldeburgh and Orford, back through the towns of Leiston and Stowmarket, to tiny villages, some with fewer than 60 or 70 electors.
  The Bill is of great interest to my constituency. Despite the attempt of the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) to show his rural knowledge by his interesting discussion of the habits of fat green frogs and tadpoles, I am still sure that his understanding of problems of rural areas does not come from knowledge; the problems are seen through the eyes of a dogmatist, and a Socialist dogmatist at that.
  The Bill provides for parents a great deal more choice, by statute, than they have ever had. The Labour Party does not like that, for the reasons so clearly stated by the hon. Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Wainwright), who said, in an intervention, that the proposals were disgraceful because not all parents would decide in the way that the bureaucrats would like them to decide and it would be more difficult to make arrangements
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  for the children. Of course it will be more difficult. That is one good reason for the Bill.
  There are parents throughout the country who want to choose. There are parents in my constituency living one mile from a school in Norfolk, but their children have to travel eight miles to a school in Suffolk. Those parents will be able to make the choice that they want to make. That must be a good thing. I hope that all those Labour Members who have suddenly got an attack of rural support will support that part of the Bill.
  Why are Labour Members frightenea of local choice and the independence of local authorities? Democracy does not inhere only in the House. If we believe in democracy, we must accept that local authorities can deal with the concerns and needs of the children in their areas more effectively than we are able to do.
  I am pleased that we are giving local authorities new powers. Let us realise how important that is. When the Labour Government implemented their cuts they did not give local authorities any independence. Every pound cut from the spending on education was cut off the education of children in the classroom—real education. The sacred cows—the parts that could not be touched—were reserved for a Socialist Secretary of State for Education.
  When we have to cut, it is right to give local authorities the chance to make their choices in respect of the problems that they know about rather than to demand of them cuts in the real nature of education.
  I agree with those who say that it is sad that cuts are necessary, but I have been fascinated to note that not a single Labour Member has addressed himself to the economic situation in which we find ourselves. Labour Members did not begin to argue from the point of how we pay the bills, but from what they would like to spend. That is a recipe for disaster in countries as well as in families. If we start from the point of saying what we would like to spend instead of from how much we have to spend, we shall not be able to make any provision for our families or our nation.
  It is sad that our debate is taking place in the context of the hon. Member for Bedwellty's total refusal to face up to

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  what his Government left behind, namely, spending decisions and bills to come, but none of the economic infrastructure to pay those bills. The Government must have as their first priority the task of creating the economic climate in which Britain can, at long last, take its place among the rich nations of the world. I want us again to be the richest instead of the second poorest nation within the European Community.
  I understand the attacks on the problems of denominational schools. I am fascinated to hear how some people can suddenly change. As an Anglican and a member of the General Synod, I intend to make a list of those who will give support in the religious battles that we face. They include people who have never uttered a word in favour of Christian education during their time in this House until it has become politically advantageous. I exempt the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara), who has a long and great reputation on issues about which some of his fellow Members have been extremely offensive. He has fought for his faith. But many who now cheer the denominational schools are those who have attacked denominational education in the past.
  I warn the Minister that if the power of school transport is to be given to local authorities, as I believe it should, the battle for denominational education will go to the local authorities. There is no more determined battler than the Anglican or Roman Catholic fighting for his schools and his faith. Every local authority must realise that this power has been given to it. We will see that local authorities use it properly to ensure that our schools are retained and extended.
  I wish to comment to the assisted places scheme. It is sad to see many people whose place in this House was founded upon the excellence of the academic education of the old grammar schools spending all their time attacking that excellence. If we are to provide some of the poorest of our disparate rural areas—areas where I have seen poverty that I never witnessed in the more trumpeted-about city areas that I have represented—with the opportunities that they ought to have, I believe that the assisted places system is necessary.
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  I have two caveats. They are direct and clear. I regret that the scheme is not organised through the local authorities rather than at Westminster. I want the local authorities to become real powers in their own land. I would have to see a change in the economic climate of our country before I would move in the direction of this scheme. It ought to be part of the growth of the nation rather than occurring at a time of cuts. Although the Bill must be supported, because most of it is excellent, one or two parts could well be tinkered with a little in Committee. I hope that the Secretary of State will give the assurances that we need.
  Above all, I cannot believe that this House can approach the matter of education without first considering how we pay for it. Until the Opposition can propose one way in which they would have been able to foot the bill which they had left to us, they are in no position to speak with Welsh hwyl, from Bedwellty or no.
  8.38 p.m.
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: It is perhaps appropriate that we are debating this Bill on 5 November. It reminds us, as Northern Ireland did during the Stormont Government, that if a majority makes life too harsh and too intolerable it is easy to push a minority from peaceful dissent into violent dissent. For democracy to work the minority must feel that it is not being too harshly treated. This Bill goes beyond those limits. It is no exaggeration to say that as a result of the Bill children will be killed on the roads of this country. The first death will produce one or two people who will be prepared to take the law into their own hands. Soon, scores of people will be going down that avenue.
  Far too many children are already killed while walking to or from school. At the moment most of the longest and most difficult journeys that children have to make to school are avoided because they are able to travel in transport provided free by the local authority. Once charges are introduced, and families are faced with bills or £5 or £6 a week in bus fares children will either walk further or start taking bicycles on to country lanes, which are often extremely hazardous. Either way, the risk of road accidents will rapidly increase.

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  A parent with a car taking three or four children to school will find it difficult to pass by other children walking substantial distances in bad weather. As a result, cars will be overcrowded. Parents taking children from farms might be hurrying to get back for milking. Again, accidents will increase. The cost of treating one or two of these long-term accident victims will be much more than we save. This provision will hit both those who want denominational education and, in many rural areas where the village school is Church of England, those who deliberately do not want it. There will be less choice rather than more.
  If the removal of free transport will kill some children on the roads in the next few years, the effect of removing the school meals subsidy will be the same. More children will be nipping home at dinner time, particularly those with a long distance to travel. The sudden dash across the road to get home a little more quickly will also help to raise the number of accidents.
  Already, when there is no adult to supervise them, some children go home to cook their own meals. I know of a child who used to go home at dinner time to cook himself chips. It is surely undesirable to allow a child of school age to use a chip pan unsupervised. Accident levels in the home or on the road will rise as a result of these provisions.
  Less dramatic is the number of childdren who will go hungry. As a teacher for a long time, I know how difficult it was to get the attention of children who had not had an adequate breakfast. One would argue with them that they should get a proper breakfast—
  Mrs. Peggy Fenner: That is the parents' fault.
  Mr. Bennett: But it was because the parents did not care and did not provide a proper breakfast that the teacher had the problem of the child who came to school hungry. If the school is now not to provide a dinner either, the task of the teacher will be that much harder; his and the school's resources will be wasted if the children are not well enough fed to concentrate.
  This is bad economics. A large part of the cost of school meals is the capital cost of the canteens. I do not believe
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  that the Government have thought what school canteens will be used for. The loan charges will have to be paid whether or not they are used. A large part of the money, of course, is for the payment of staff, and I agree that if the meals are reduced the staff can be cut to some extent. But in many schools, a minimum of staff will still have to be provided, and the cost of meals will go up. We shall have the reverse of economies of scale.
  The Bill is totally dishonest. If the Government really believe in removing the transport and meals subsidies and in making parents pay for books, they should do so themselves rather than expect local authorities to take the unpleasant decisions and the blame for children dying on the roads.
  The Government should consider the record of local authorities in using discretionary powers. When it comes to the provision of free school uniforms, the record is appalling. I went on many deputations to my own Government to plead with them to take that discretion away from local authorities and to introduce a national minimum standard. I know of many cases in which local authorities would not make decent provision for children in real hardship who needed school uniforms. They were battered between the social services and the local authority. Each said that the other was responsible, and the child ended up with no school uniform.
  Local authorities also have an appalling record in providing discretionary awards that make it worth while for a student to stay on beyond the statutory school leaving age. In further education, discretionary awards produce anomaly after anomaly. If the Government could produce a few examples to show how giving local authorities that kind of discretion would produce higher standards, one or two Opposition Members might have some sympathy with the Bill.
  The Government should look at the effect of the Bill on local democracy. I welcome the provision for children to go across the boundary, but it is possible that there will be children in the same classroom paying different prices for school meals. In Catholic or Jewish schools, where children travel substantial distances, the anomaly might arise that four different sets of children pay four different prices

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  for their school meals because of the different decisions of local authorities. That would be a bureaucrat's dream, but it would not do much for local democracy.
  There is much more in the Bill that I wish to criticise, but time prevents me from doing so. In order to establish privilege, £55 million will be spent. It is ironic that that is in the Bill. The epitaph to the first child killed on the road as a result of the Bill may well be that he was killed to pay for the privilege of another child.
  I spent 10 weeks going through the Education Bill produced by the previous Labour Government. In that Bill there was a clause devoted to the government of schools, but that measure was unsatisfactory because it did not ask the basic question: why does one want school governors and what are their powers? The Taylor committee fudged the issue. It did not tackle the powers of governors but simply said that if one sets up a body of responsible people, they will take powers for themselves.
  Such a situation will create clashes. Either the head teacher and the teachers in the school must give up some of their existing powers, or the local authority must give up some of its powers, in order to give governors meaningful powers. If that is not done, people will be asked to turn up to meetings where they can do very little. Should governing bodies be responsible for the appointment of teachers and for the curriculum? If they have responsibility for the curriculum, how concerned should the governors be with seeing whether the timetable carries out the curriculum?
  Although I have little time left tonight, I look forward to pursuing many more criticisms of the Bill in Committee. I hope that the Bill does not see the light of day as an Act, because it is a mean and squalid measure.
  8.48 p.m.
  Mrs. Sheila Faith: I welcome the Bill because it is concerned with extending and fulfilling parental choice and involvement. I particularly welcome that clause which says that there must be at least two elected parent governors at each school.
  During my experience as a school manager and governor, I have found that
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  parents have a special interest in the school and a knowledge of its activities that is invaluable. Parent governors provide a real link between school and home. I am glad that the Bill states that detailed information should be published and made available about every school, including a school's examination results.
  It should be made widely known that the work of the school governor is interesting and that governors should have a valid and worthwhile role, as the hon. Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) mentioned. At present, governors participate in staff appointments, but other real responsibilities should be given to them so that busy men and women may be persuaded that the job is worthwhile.
  Governors should have a say in curriculum and teaching methods. Teachers are worried. They know that there is real concern about standards and they would welcome wider support for their policies. If stronger powers had been given to managers previously, the disgraceful affairs at the William Tyndall school would not have been allowed to continue for so long.
  There is one aspect of this Bill which worries me and which has not been mentioned so far. That is the way in which parent governors are elected. In my county of Derbyshire, when parents' meetings are organised only a very small proportion of parents attend—probably less than 5 per cent.
  I am very much in favour of parent-teacher associations. They are great assets to schools and they often raise money for musical, sports and other equipment which might not otherwise be obtained. Also, if they have skills they carry out minor repairs and decorations to the schools, and often they do much patient work in helping remedial teachers.
  However, I do not believe that parent-teacher associations are the proper vehicles for electing parent governors. At meetings of PTAs there are rarely sufficient numbers to be representative, and therefore, they could be unduly influenced by pressure groups. Governors elected by such pressure groups could be unrealistic in their demands on the local authority without trying to act constructively. Therefore, as soon as resources are available I advocate that there should be secret postal ballots for the position of

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  parent governors. Candidates should supply biographical details, notes about their political affiliations if any, and their thoughts about the standards of teaching methods which they would like to see applied in the school. Only when this happens will we have truly representative parent governors, able to assist the school by providing a fair assessment of the parents' views. The pendulum of fashion in education has swung back and forth and it is right that parents should have more say in its direction. I support this Bill.
  8.53 p.m.
  Mr. Martin Flannery: The Guardian today commented on this Bill in its editorial. As one of my hon. Friends said previously, this measure is virtually unamendable. It is a naked class measure, it is a disgrace to British education, and it is born of expediency and a desire to hammer away at our education system. We all know this and so do parents, including all those who voted Tory.
  The Guardian heads its article
  "Mr. Carlisle legislates for inequity."
  When I first looked at it, I thought it said "iniquity".
  It goes on to say:
  "If the Government was sincere about its public commitment to improve the standards in our schools, there would be an entirely different Education Bill from the miserable measure which will receive its second reading in the Commons today."
  Later, it says:
  "Instead, the education debate today returns either to stale issues, which one had hoped had disappeared for good (selection and the abolition of free school meals and transport) or to new and even more socially divisive issues, such as the proposed £50 million public subsidy to private schools."
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) said, many of us have previously regarded the Minister as a liberal with a small "1". He has thrown that descripion to the four winds today. I would have thought, based on previous knowledge of him, that he would have been embarrassed to bring forward such a measure. He should have resigned rather than engage in this piece of naked class legislation which will besmirch his name for a long time.
  We all know that this is a cuts Bill. Let us be clear about the effects of those
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  cuts. There are no cuts for the Tories' children. They have the money and they can pay if the fees increase. The cuts are for our children, including those parents who were innocently conned by the Tory blarney on income tax, and who voted accordingly. They must learn the hard way. During the election campaign we prophesied that for every £1·50 in tax cuts, people would pay out £10 eventually. This Bill reinforces that view.
  The Secretary of State spoke of improving standards. Who does he think he is talking to? In 1979–80 the county of Avon is to make cuts totalling £4 million in its education budget. That means a 10 per cent. cut in capitation, the abandoning of admissions for rising-fives, and 406 possible redundancies. All that is to happen from 31 December and there is to be an alteration of the 1980 term dates.
  In Barnet there are planned cuts in induction training, capitation, meals provision, training expenses and furniture and equipment. Concessionary bus passes for the over-16s are to be withdrawn. There are to be cuts in expenditure at Hendon and Barnet college as well as cuts in teachers' centres; and there are indications of further cuts. In the face of all that, the Secretary of State has the effrontery to tell us that his Government will improve education standards.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman knows that cuts will take place not only in Avon, Barnet and Barking but throughout the country. This squalid, nasty Bill is a continuation of those cuts. With brazen effrontery the Government say that they aim to raise standards. They propose to lower standards for our children and put up standards for their own children by taking up to £70 million of our money and handing it over to their own already well-heeled and privileged children.
  The Government have the gall to advocate snack meals as if children prefer snacks to the protein that we give them in a decent meal. The school meal is the only good meal that many of our children eat in the day. The right hon. and learned Gentleman talks of snack meals and of giving freedom to local councils, but in reality he is cutting education standards.

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  When the Government speak of parental choice they mean choice for a select group of parents, namely, parents of their own class, not working-class parents. They must think that we do not understand what they mean. If there were an election now the Conservatives would be in great difficulty. Their con trick has been seen for what it is by the majority of the electorate.
  What do the Government mean by assisted places? They mean taking from the weak and the disadvantaged to give to the already privileged. Churchill is reputed to have told King George VI, when India was going its way "I did not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire". The Secretary of State is presiding over the liquidation of most of the civilised and advanced measures which we introduced into our education system. He will go down in history precisely for doing that.
  Just over a week ago the Bill was published. That signalled the launching of a vicious attack on the education of ordinary children. It will deprive hundreds of thousands of them of the free meals that they so urgently need. Side by side with the publication of that measure, exchange controls were lifted to allow rich Tories to take their money abroad in order to make more money. They can now take their money out of this country. They talk about patriotism and all this at a time when they propose to take the food out of the mouths of hundreds of thousands of our children.
  This is a muddled, ill-considered Bill. It is a class measure aimed at working people and their children. It is destined to harm those who can least afford to be harmed. As an ex-headmaster I wonder how many teachers voted Tory at the general election. I am sure that after this Bill very few teachers will vote Tory at the next election.
  The teachers are totally against the Bill. All day and every day pressure comes from the trade unions and parents' organisations. Conservative Members may smile—in a forced way—but I believe that they are receiving letters telling them exactly what the people who voted for them think about this nasty Bill.
  The White Paper on public expenditure cuts is really a black paper in the true
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  tradition of black papers. The Bill is an additional black paper. It represents a continuation of the cuts. There is massive documentation on the way in which education is suffering. It is said that some of us did nothing about the cuts made under a Labour Government. Those cuts were trivial compared with those in the Bill. Many of my hon. Friends and I fought against any cuts in education People know that. I invite Conservative Members, many of whom agree with us, to have the courage to defend the children of our country by coming into the Lobby with us tonight.
  9 p.m.
  Mr. Harry Greenway: Having worked in schools which have shared their governing bodies with others, and in schools with a single governing body, I welcome the proposal which enables all schools to have a single governing body. That will help the schools to achieve a stronger identity.
  I welcome also the statutory provision for parent and teacher governors. Such a scheme has operated in Ealing and many other areas for many years and has proved valuable. However, I must add a word of warning. I hope that local authorities will not appoint too many teachers to the governing body of a large school. In my last school, which had 2,000 pupils, the headmaster would have been disadvantaged when implementing policies if a large number of teachers had been able to dictate to him on policy via his governing body, however good the relationship between them.
  It is right that more information on schools should be published to enable parents to make a valid choice. Perhaps there should be a format in each area for a list of questions and answers about each school, including the subjects on the curriculum and the take-up of CSE and GCE O and A level examination courses.
  Primary school pupils and their parents should have the opportunity to visit secondary schools before making their choice of secondary school. I hope that local authorities will facilitate that during evenings or during school hours. Schools can set apart times during which this can be done at minimum inconvenience to the efficient functioning of the schools concerned.

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  I welcome in particular the proposal that parents be enabled to choose a school in a neighbouring local authority area and that the fees be paid by their own local authority. That is in contrast to a reverse movement by the last Government which was an unwelcome step backwards.
  The new meals arrangements will not disadvantage pupils. In the comprehensive school at Kings Cross in which I worked 12 years ago cafeteria style meals were provided for sixth formers. The pupils liked them and they worked well. We must be a little careful about who is entitled to object to the running or otherwise of school meals. After all, heads of schools have to supervise meals. They are, above all others, entitled to a view.
  It ill behoves some of those who shout about the possible lack of school meal provision and who have not been willing to take part in the supervision of school meals to criticise the possibility.
  In Dickens's "Old Curiosity Shop" Mr. Swiveller said to a menial:
  "'Did you ever taste beer?'
  'I had a sip of it once,' said the small servant.
  'Here's a state of things!' cried Mr. Swiveller…
  'She never tasted it—it can't be tasted in a sip!'"
  School time, however good, is but a sip of the cup of education.
  In addition to my work in schools I have lectured in adult education institutes for nearly 15 years. The adult education institutes do a wonderful job for many who discover a personal identity only after leaving school. They are also invaluable in improving the education of those who did well at school. They maintain the learning habit throughout life, and that is important to all individuals. They help adults to adjust to an ever-changing world and to influence their own lives and environment.
  Many who are deprived benefit greatly, such as adult illiterates, physically and mentally handicapped, elderly, unemployed and many more. I strongly support, and hope that we shall all support, adult education institutes.
  In the whiff of grapeshot from the Opposition Front Bench the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) referred to social engineering It ill becomes him, or any of his colleagues, to speak about
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  social engineering. I remind them that the State was built for man and not man for the State. Schools were built for children—children were not made for schools. Many Socialist-controlled local authorities are bringing all possible pressure to bear on schools to set up single courses to be taken by all children within the school whatever their ability, with the object of achieving social equality. It is not equality of opportunity but social equality that they want. They will do anything to achieve that end, and will deny all opportunity and diversity of school course to children, however bright and varied in ability they may be.
  I welcome the movement towards greater choice and diversity in education provision that the Bill provides. I know that the children will be the gainers.
  9.8 p.m.
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: I am sure that the House will agree that it has been an interesting though somewhat contentious debate. It is not surprising that it has been a contentious debate, considering the Bill's proposals. The Dickensian references made by the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) strike me as appropriate in view of some of the Bill's proposals.
  I will start on a non-contentious note by congratulating the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Hawksley) on his maiden speech. All hon. Members will remember his predecessor, Gerry Fowler, who made very important contributions to education. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman shares his interest in education. I think that he will understand that his views are not as acceptable to me as those of his predecessor.
  It is often said that it is a pity that education becomes bogged down in political argument. We often read well-meaning slogans that we should try to keep education out of politics. I have never believed that to be possible. It is Bills such as this, proposed by the Government, that show how blatantly political the Government are being in their education policy.
  The basic proposals of the Bill display the Government's priorities and show clearly the divisive nature of the their approach to education. In many respects the Bill is detailed and complex. We shall wish to examine all its details in

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  Committee. Its basic proposals are simple and straightforward. It enables local authorities to reduce their provision for the majority of children, while at the same time it earmarks extra resources for private education. Nothing in the debate has done anything but reinforce that interpretation of the Bill. That view was confirmed by the hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell), and I admire him for being so honest. Such priorities, at a time of general cutbacks in expenditure, are deplorable and an insult to every child in the State school system.
  We are opposed in principle to the Bill's main provisions, but there are some sections of it that we do not wish to condemn outright, not least because they have been poached from the Labour Government's Education Act of 1976. However, we cannot give even those proposals our unreserved support. Many of the Bill's provisions as they now stand are severely watered down versions of those that appeared in the Labour Government's measure. It was the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) who recognised that.
  As I have said, we support some of the proposals concerning governing bodies—for example, that each school should have its own governing body. However, we feel that there is a need to give detailed consideration to certain other provisions relating to governing bodies. We want to discuss in Committee how strong the position of local authority representatives should be vis-a-vis other groups. We shall want to discuss the balance of representation, the potential for representatives of older pupils, and the possibility of having representatives of all those who work in schools as well as local community representatives. We hope that the Government will consider some of the detailed proposals and be willing to amend certain parts of them in Committee.
  There are other provisions that we shall consider in detail—provisions that have been taken from the Labour measure—that we do not oppose in principle, for example, industrial scholarships and teaching in Welsh, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) mentioned. As my hon. Friend said, the proposals contained in the first few clauses are not the central part of the
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  Bill's intentions. The parts of the Bill that we can support are only a tiny proportion of the Bill overall.
  We are totally opposed to the major proposals within the Bill. I shall concentrate my remarks on the parts with which we disagree. However, before I move to those I have some remarks to make about clauses 6 to 9, which have received the attention of quite a few Conservative Members. These are the clauses that deal with parental choice, including a clause that sets up a new local appeals body.
  In the past we heard a great deal from Conservative Members about the importance of parental choice in education. The Conservative Party often presents parental choice as its preserve and its policy. There is general agreement that parental involvement in education should be as great as possible. However, on many occasions, both inside the House and outside, there has been a deliberate attempt by Conservatives to mislead parents about what they mean by freedom of choice. They have frequently held out carrots to parents. They have made sweeping statements about the provisions that they will make to improve parental choice. They have said, for example, "We shall let you choose the school to which your children will go". It is interesting to study exactly what the Bill states about parental choice.
  The hon. Member for Luton, West (Mr. Carlisle) described the provisions on parental choice as music to the ears of his constituents. What does the Bill do? I hope that the hon. Gentleman has read it in detail. It defines the limitations on parental choice, an area that has often been neglected by the Conservative Party. Its attitude is made clear in the Bill.
  Mr. Mark Carlisle rose—
  Mrs. Taylor: I shall read from the explanatory memorandum. I am sure that the Minister will not mind my choosing the explanatory memorandum rather than the Bill itself. Bearing in mind the previous difficulties that we have had with explanatory memoranda, I am sure that he will have had the Bill's explanatory memorandum checked carefully. It states that
  "Arrangements are to be made for parents to express a preference for a particular school and those responsible for admissions are

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  required to comply with such a preference except where to do so would prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources, would be incompatible with admission arrangements agreed between the governors of an aided or special agreement school"
  and
  "or would be incompatible with admission arrangements based upon selection by reference to ability or aptitude".
  So when exceptions have been made for efficient education, for the efficient use of resources, for arrangements with aided schools and selective procedures in many areas, the freedom that is left for parents may not be what the Conservative Party led many of them to believe would be provided. I do not think that the constituents of Luton, West will find much joy in the music of those particular phrases.
  I believe that the Government have learnt some of the realities and difficulties that are associated with parental choice, but they have still a great deal to learn. They have to learn that the whole idea of the selective system of education, of dividing children into grammar schools and secondary modern schools, is completely incompatible with parental choice to the vast majority of parents and children. This has been recognised by some Conservatives. A little progress has been made, because recently Mrs. Dorothy Marshall, Conservative chairman of the education committee in Cumbria, said of the selective system there
  "parental choice has not worked because there have been too many applications for the grammar schools".
  We on the Labour side believe that there should be as much parental choice as possible, but we also recognise, as does the Secretary of State when he is being more realistic, that parental choice cannot be absolute—
  Mr. Mark Carlisle: I said so.
  Mrs. Taylor: Indeed, the right hon. and learned Gentleman may have said so, and I hope that he agrees that the provisions in the Bill for parental choice are not absolute and that the limitations are extremely severe, which he did not mention before the Bill appeared.
  We also recognise that choice is least in those areas without the comprehensive system, and that a choice in education is less if resources are being diverted out of
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  State schools. I was glad to see that this last point was recognised by the Under-Secretary of State—the hon. Member for Brent, North (Dr. Boyson)—recently, when he said that the only way to improve parental choice was to improve the quality of the maintained system. If that is what he wants to do I can assure him that he will have our full support, but he will not do it with this Bill.
  Let me deal now with the appeal system proposed in these clauses. We recognise the need for an appeal system but we do not accept the suggestions in the Bill to be an improvement on the existing position. Our objections are to a situation in which the local authority is both judge and jury. The local authority will decide the original allocation of children to schools. Then, according to the Bill, it will have a majority on the appeal committee that looks at the complaints of dissatisfied parents. Since at present many allocations are already reconsidered by local authorities at the request of parents, often with little success, and when we hear how some of these appeals are considered, it is no wonder we have little faith in the proposals.
  In a case of which I heard recently a letter of appeal was put into the letter box of a local education office after it had closed one evening. The reply from the same education department rejecting the appeal was posted back before 2 p.m. the following day with an assurance to the parents that
  "this appeal has received full and detailed consideration."
  Such instances do not enable us to look favourably on the idea of local authorities being judge and jury.
  Mr. Paul Hawkins: I bet that it was a Labour authority.
  Mrs. Taylor: It was not. The authority concerned was a Conservative one. If the hon. Gentleman would like to look at the envelope and the original letter, I can send him copies.
  I also wonder whether the Minister has calculated the cost of a new formal appeals system, because as local authorities are being told to cut expenditure they are not likely to look favourably on being given a new obligation to set up

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  a new mini-bureaucracy. I hope that if the Minister has considered that or has consulted local authorities he will let the House know how much he thinks it will cost to administer the provision.
  I now turn to those areas that have dominated the debate. The most significant proposals in the Bill, as my hon. Friends have pointed out, are those dealing with school meals, school milk and transport, and those dealing with the assisted places scheme. I mention these two very different proposals together because they are related. Money has to be saved, so we are told, in education, and local education authorities have to reduce their services. This means that the Government must release them from many of the statutory obligations which exist at present. That is why we have clauses 24 and 25, on school meals and transport. However, clauses 17 to 21 are there for exactly the opposite reason. They are there to allow the Government to make new public expenditure on private education.
  When the Secretary of State took over he said that education had to take its fair share of public expenditure cuts and that education had to suffer cuts in the interests of equality of sacrifice in all Departments. But for private education there is no equality of sacrifice.
  In clauses 24 and 25 the Government are trying to hide behind the slogan of giving more freedom to local authorities. We all know what is happening in reality. Conservative authorities have told the Government that they cannot meet their target cuts in public spending unless they can ditch some of their responsibilities. Some are even saying that they cannot meet these targets even if they reduce services; therefore, school meals, school milk and transport are the main targets for cuts. We are told that over £250 million can be saved here. It seems to us that many local authorities will find it easier and quicker to increase the price of school meals rather than to reorganise the service completely, as some hon. Members have predicted.
  It is fair to say that next year we shall see school meal charges of over 50p in many areas. That prediction may well be as modest as our earlier prediction that the Government would double prescription charges. Of course, there have been
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  increases in school meal prices in the past, as the Secretary of State pointed out earlier. Many of my hon. Friends have in the past joined in criticism of these increases, but we have never before had a proposal for the complete removal of nutritional standards, the removal of all school meals for some children, and the removal of free school meals for many children. Indeed, when prices were increased in the past there was always a raising of the income level for eligibility.
  Now we are getting to a position in which the Government's proposals will cause real hardship. The children who will lose most come from the families who gained nothing from the Conservative Budget. The Government are now making sure that more families fall into the poverty trap.
  A similar situation exists in respect of school transport. Many of my hon. Friends have referred to the difficulties that will be experienced in rural areas. I am surprised—indeed, astonished—that more Conservative Members have not referred to the way in which rural areas will be affected. As they read their constituency correspondence, I hope that they realise just how severely many families will be affected. We have heard how the proposals on school transport will affect children who go to denominational schools. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) showed clearly how denominational schools had planned their policies on the assumption that transport subsidies would continue.
  There is another type of authority that will be affected by the changes in school transport, and it is one that has not yet been covered in the debate. It concerns those areas that still practice selection at the age of 11. If there is selection in an area, more children have to travel greater distances to get to their grammar or secondary modern school. If the grammar schools are as popular as the Conservative Party sometimes says, perhaps parents will not mind having to pay for their children to go to grammar schools. However, I get as many complaints about the three-mile limit from parents whose children go to grammar schools as I do from those whose children go to secondary modern schools.
  We should think of the children who go to secondary modern schools and their

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  parents. Many children travel more than three miles to go to secondary modern schools. At present parents and children do not like it. How will they feel when they are told that they will have to pay full bus fares for the privilege of attending secondary modern schools that are often unpopular?
  The Secretary of State said earlier that he thought that the scheme on transport should be ended, because the three-mile limit created some anomalies. He said that the three-mile limit gave certain children privileges, because it gave them free bus travel. That was his reason for saying that the system should be ended completely. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is so keen on abolishing privileges I am surprised that he does not turn his attention to the private sector of education in order to end some of the privileges there.
  There are many provisions in the Bill relating to cuts in public expenditure. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock), this is against a general background of cuts in public expenditure, capitation allowances and nursery schools. I see the hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. Atkins) present. I am sorry that he did not speak, because he might have explained satisfactorily why new nursery schools in Preston are at present lying empty and cannot be opened because of the Government's cuts.
  There have already been cuts, and the Bill allows for many more. But what will the Government do if these economies are not considered sufficient? What if the Government decide that they have to make even further economies? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept even more of the proposals of the Association of County Councils—because that is the origin of the proposals before us? Will we next have changes in school opening hours, the removal of minimum standards for playing areas, charges for nursery education, or even a reduction in the period of statutory schooling? All these are proposals from the ACC, which the Minister seems to listen to very carefully. I should like some assurances from the Minister that we shall not have further developments along those lines.
  I wish to say something about the assisted places scheme. To take money out of education in the way in which the
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  Government are doing at present is bad enough in itself, but to do so at the same time—and by means of the same Bill—as they are providing for the assisted places scheme is downright insulting.
  The Minister was quibbling earlier about the exact amount of money involved. I believe that any money spent on the scheme is wrong in principle, and especially so against the background of present cuts.
  The Government have not revealed all their plans about the scheme. They have said that it is to help the bright child from a poor background, but I doubt whether it will give any real educational advantage to those children.
  There are some important questions to be answered. Is the Secretary of State really saying that State schools cannot cope with bright children? That is the implication behind the scheme. He appears to be implying that because State schools cannot cope with bright children, these children have to be siphoned off to the private sector. I suggest that the Secretary of State gets to know the State schools and their achievements better. They can provide the best in education.
  However, if the right hon. and learned Gentleman persists in believing that maintained schools cannot cope with bright children, he should be fighting in Cabinet for more resources for his Department and not volunteering the cuts that he has been volunteering over the past few months.
  We shall have to wait until the Bill is in Committee to ask the many questions that we would like answered. These concern such matters as the regional imbalance of the scheme and the number of places for girls, as opposed to boys.
  Those matters are secondary, however. Our central charge against the Secretary of State is that his priority should be the maintained sector. He has direct responsibility for State schools, and with the Bill he is abdicating that responsibility. He is not only depriving the maintained sector of funds; he is damaging morale by undervaluing the education that it provides. By depriving State schools of some of their brightest pupils he is attempting to damage the system.
  In his admirable speech the hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North illustrated just how wrong the Government

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  are, and I echo many of his points. Their priorities are wrong. Their main responsibility is to the maintained sector, and they are acting recklessly and insulting children in State schools. The Bill has as its aim political and not educational ends. It is intended to promote the interests of a minority in private education. The aim of hon. Members on the Labour Benches is to protect the interests of the education system as a whole. Because of that, and because the Secretary of State is damaging education for the majority of the children, we are completely against the proposals in the Bill.
  9.34 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Dr. Rhodes Boyson): The discussion has been wide today and, like the behaviour of Opposition Members, it illustrates the clear divide between both sides of the House in philosophy and the ways in which the matter is approached.
  First, I pay tribute to the maiden speaker and those who, as the phrase goes, made "retread" speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Hawksley) made his maiden speech today. Having spoken in his area, I know that there is a great deal of interest in education there. [Interruption.] If Opposition Members had such an intense interest in education, why did they replace their education spokesman at the last election? That was the sort of degree of commitment that was shown.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths) made his second maiden speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Eye (Mr. Gummer) was one of the few speakers to draw attention to the economic situation in which the Bill is being brought forward.
  In his wide-ranging speech, the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock), occasionally mentioning the Bill by accident, implied that education is coming to an end in this country. He said that vast numbers of teachers were being dismissed. I shall take up one figure that he quoted. In the next two years, the number of pupils in our schools will decline by 4·7 per cent. The number of teachers will decline by 3·7 per cent. only, which means that the pupil-teacher ratio, now at its lowest ever of 18·9 per
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  cent., will be even lower at 18·7 per cent. The hon. Member for Bedwellty referred to good husbandry. Conservative Members prefer improved husbandry. There is every evidence that we can achieve that.
  I shall take six topics of discussion, as was done by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State. First, the reforming over a period of time of the governing bodies. It is important that that proposal should be fed in as the local authorities want it so that they can assess the cost-effectiveness of the additional staff. I received a letter this morning, by coincidence, from Tyrrell Burgess and Tony Travers, who are not known to favour Conservative policy. The letter says:
  "So far as school government is concerned this is a better Bill than its predecessor. It provides for parents and teachers on governing bodies without complexity, rigidity and over-regulation. It still does not legislate for a genuine partnership, but unlike the last Bill it would not stop this happening."
  The same letter points out how much more effective from its point of view is the Bill than the previous one that we tried to improve in Committee.
  Mr. Kinnock: Read the rest of it.
  Dr. Boyson: It goes on to list the ways in which the Bill is better than the previous one. In no way does it say that the Bill is worse than last time. I shall send a copy to the hon. Member for Bedwellty. Once he has read it, he will not ask for it to be read publicly. It is courteous of him to help me in that way.
  There is a wide difference of opinion between the two sides of the House on the question of choice. Thirteen days ago an hon. Member for whom I have great respect, the right hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Armstrong), said at Question Time:
  "Whatever we may build into any Act of Parliament about legal rights and other matters, the great mass of our children and their parents will have no choice at all about the schools they attend".—[Official Report, 23 October 1979; Vol. 972 c. 180.]
  That is not true. We can increase parental choice and we intend to do so. The hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mrs. Taylor) made a competent speech this evening. I agree that there can be no absolute choice. That was also said by my right hon. and learned Friend, and I have said

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  the same consistently. However, just because there cannot be a 100 per cent. choice, just because everybody cannot play at the Wembley cup final, that does not mean that everybody is prohibited from playing at the Wembley cup final.
  Mr. Ted Graham: That is in the hon. Member's constituency.
  Dr. Boyson: Of course it is in my constituency. People in the public houses who are listening to this debate on LBC radio will be delighted to know that their constituency is remembered in the House tonight. It is important that we extend and not contract the choice. I believe that we are doing so. I have myself been quoted, but I have before me the Labour manifesto. I do not of course look at it every day, but I have it before me now. If right hon. and hon. Members care to look at it they will find no mention of parental choice from beginning to end. I should like an Opposition Member who mentioned it in his election address to send me a copy, because I have looked at those of some of the right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Front Bench, and I have found no mention of parental choice.
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: The hon. Gentleman mentions the importance of parental choice and its absence from the election addresses of my right hon. and hon. Friends. Can he say whether there was an explicit definition of the limitations on parental choice which he outlines in the Bill in his own election address?
  Dr. Boyson: Mr. Speaker—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I shall answer. In my view, questions are to be answered, unlike the reaction of Opposition Members. There was a statement in most of our election addresses that we would extend parental choice of schools. We have done so. I shall deal with the hon. Lady's question in a moment, if she will be patient. However, before I do so I want to quote from a letter in The Times in 1973 from Cardinal Hume. He wrote:
  "The liberty in question is that of parental choice of schooling. Is it too much to ask politicians to apply their minds to the question of how that liberty can he extended rather than how it can first be limited still further and then abolished entirely?"
  That is what Opposition Members would do. It would be limited, and then it would be abolished entirely. The Government
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  want to see it extended, and there is no doubt that parents, too, want to see it extended. There is no doubt that parental choice at school will mean that if parents get the schools they want, they will back the schools that their children attend, and discipline and everything else will be easier. Similarly, there is no doubt that if schools know that they have to respond to parental demands, the standards of those schools will improve in a way that the odd visit by inspectors will never equal.
  I refer now to Lord Young, another authority who as far as I know has never sat on the Conservative Benches in this House. He is director of the Institute of Community Studies which carried out a study, with the Advisory Centre for Education, of parental wishes in Hackney and concluded recently that the quality of local schools was of special importance because, if people were dissatisfied with them, they were likely to move out. There is no doubt that one of the reasons for urban deprivation is that people have moved out of our city centres because of their dissatisfaction with school standards in their areas.
  I suspect that Opposition Members do not not really want to trust people in the choice that they want. We are prepared to do so. This is just like council house sales. The Opposition prefer to tell people what they want, as mandarins, instead of asking them what they require.
  Mr. Allen McKay rose—
  Dr. Boyson: No, I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman. My time is limited. Having given way once, I have already given way more than the hon. Member for Bolton, West did. I come to what the hon. Lady said, and I hope that I shall not be interrupted again before I can reply to her.
  The Bill says quite clearly that parents have a right. It is the first time that that has been put into any Act of Parliament. They have the right to state a preference. The Bill also provides how that preference can be met. The local authority has to inform parents how selection for schools will happen, how many children will be taken, and what is being done inside the schools. We accept what the hon. Lady said. There is no means of absolute choice. That is why we say

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  that we cannot have admission if it would be prejudicial to the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources.
  Most parental choices are not against that. I ask hon. Members to look at what is happening in inner London at present. The schools which inner London is trying to close are the schools to which parents want their children to go. The schools which inner London is trying to keep open—and I cannot understand how even the Labour Party can do this—are in most cases the schools to which no one wants to go. [HON. MEMBERS: "Name them."] I shall name one. Islington Green had only two A-level passes this year from 800 children. That school is being kept open. A school nearby with 40 A-level passes is being closed.
  Mr. Canavan: Name them.
  Dr. Boyson: I have named them. How many more does the hon. Gentleman want? Does not he read the papers? I shall send the hon. Gentleman some more. I apologise, Mr. Speaker. I must not allow the Opposition to agitate me in this way. I must go on giving the true faith as Government supporters understand it.
  Still on parental choice, we have established a parental appeals system which is realistic. There is no point in setting up a parental appeals system which is not realistic and which a local authority can ignore. One has a choice between an appeals system that is not realistic, and the recommendations of which are ignored by local authorities, and a system in which the local authority has a majority of only one, with the rest of the members being drawn from parents and teachers, and in which the decision is binding upon the local authority. I have no doubt that the vast improvements that will come from that appeals system will not only increase parental choice but will improve the standard of schools.
  Mr. Allen McKay: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Dr. Boyson: No. There are three other aspects of parental choice. One is automatic recoupment. Parents will have a clear right to express preference for a school in the area of another authority.
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  Subject to the same conditions as exist in the authority area in which that parent lives, there will be a duty on the other authority to comply with a parent's preference. That is a tremendous increase in parental choice.
  Parents who are dissatisfied with a nearby school will be able to opt for a school on the other side of a boundary. They cannot do that now. The children must be considered by the school on the other side of the boundary as though they were living in that school's area.
  Mr. Edwin Wainwright: Does not the Minister realise that schools are not built on wheels? Populations vary from place to place and there has to be zoning. If we are not careful, the Government will be promising parents complete freedom of choice, but zoning will not allow that to happen.
  Dr. BoysonSchools may not be on wheels, but children have legs.
  Mr. John Evans: They will need them when the hon. Gentleman's lot abolish free school transport.
  Dr. Boyson: The first proposal that increases parental choice is automatic recoupment. The second is that if local authorities want to cut the size of schools, they can no longer do so wherever they wish. If they cut school rolls by 20 per cent. when the population has fallen by 25 per cent., the decision will be referred to the Secretary of State.
  Mr. Barry Sheerman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is not an hon. Member supposed to speak in a language that we can all understand? The Minister might as well be speaking in Welsh or Hindustani. We cannot understand him.
  Hon. Members: Racist.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Huddersfield, East (Mr. Sheerman) picked on the wrong language!
  Dr. Boyson: If we had a little more peace and quiet on the Opposition Benches, the hon. Member for Huddersfield, East (Mr. Sheerman) would be able to hear more.
  The other proposal that will enhance parental choice is the presentation of additional information. There are two views of what Sir James Goldsmith calls

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  the "see-through society", but the Government believe in the presentation of information. I quote in aid Peter Wilby writing in New Society—
  "Whether it is corporal punishment or exam results or school records, the assumption is that information must be withheld from the general populace because we are too ignorant or too wicked to be entrusted with it. The assumption is that professionals know what is best for us, that though we are both paymasters and consumers, we cannot be allowed to exercise the rights of either."
  That is the view of the Labour Party. Eric Midwinter of the Advisory Committee for Education, which is not a Conservative body, said recently:
  "Publishing exam results baldly can be misleading, but not publishing them is not leading at all."
  It is vital that we publish full information on schools so that when parents make their choice of which school they want their children to go to, that choice is an informed choice.
  I would like to turn to the assisted places scheme—
  Mr. Kinnock: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Dr. Boyson: No, I will not give way. I have given way three times. The hon. Gentleman spoke for nearly an hour. I have had only 12 minutes and I am not giving way. Clause 17 makes clear that this is not a divisive measure to benefit the rich. It is to help the poor who cannot otherwise go to those schools. It is to enable pupils who might not otherwise be able to do so to benefit from education at independent schools. There is a means test. Only those who cannot afford to go will be helped directly by the State system.
  Mr. Kinnock rose—
  Dr. Boyson: I shall not give way, even if the hon. Gentleman stays there until half-past 10 o'clock. I consider that 56 minutes was long enough for the hon. Gentleman, too long for some. The average cost will not apply at all for the next two years. By that time, we trust that the economy will have improved. We want to get the country on its feet following the mess in which it was left by the Labour Party. Even then, the cost will be only £600 per person. The cost in State education is £550 at present. It is not a gross cost. Those children would
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  have to be educated at State schools. The difference is £50.
  Years ago, Labour Members attacked the 11-plus examination on the grounds that it was inefficient and did not select properly. It was apparently unable to select properly 20 per cent. of pupils. Now, apparently, Labour Members believe that 2 per cent. selection can be done so accurately that it will be perfect in those selected, and draw away children so that the rest of the system cannot work properly. Which do they believe? Do they believe that the 11-plus was so inaccurate that it could not even pick 20 per cent., and that this new test, now that they have seen the light, will be so accurate about some degree of selection that I do not even accept, that the 2 per cent. will be perfect? If comprehensive schools cannot actually run without keeping 2 per cent. of children, they are much more fragile than I believe they are.
  Mr.. Kinnock rose—
  Dr. Boyson: No. I am not giving way. In 1975, the hon. Member for Bolton, West asked whether there were comprehensive schools in which children needed to go to those places. In 1975, in the Inner London Education Authority, half the comprehensive schools did not even offer a mathematics A-level, let alone achieve a pass. One-third did not offer a single A-level technical subject and one-fifth did not offer a single foreign language. There were bright and able children in those schools. But the ladder of mobility was knocked down by the Labour Party to permit Socialist feudalism and Socialist rotten boroughs in the middle of cities. We want to rebuild the ladders for those children. If the move is divisive it is divisive on the side of those for whom it should be divisive—not for the rich but for those who cannot afford to go. All that the Labour Party achieved when it put direct grant schools inside the independent sector was that those who had enough money could go to those schools but no one else could attend them.
  I trust that all hon. Members went to church some time during yesterday and read their bibles. When they came home, it would have been a good idea for them to read their dictionaries. As someone once said, the plot is not very good and it is difficult to follow. If, however, one

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  reads through the dictionary and looks up the word "comprehensive", one finds that it means "containing much". It does not mean 100 per cent. It would be a good idea if Labour Members actually looked at the meaning of the word, which means "much", "most", but certainly not "the whole".
  I commend to my hon. Friends the assisted places scheme. The hon. Member for Bedwellty—I can quote him, even if I do not give way to him—said that Tory policies are a barbarous crime against working class parents and their kids. Most of Labour's so-called campaign against birth, rank, wealth and privilege becomes a campaign against talent, excellence, social mobility and the open society in an attempt to retain Labour's rotten boroughs in depressed inner cities which have suffered Labour control for 50 years. The sale of council houses, increased parental choice at school, and the assisted places scheme are all part of an attempt to enfranchise them into a socially mobile society and release them from the shackles of Socialist feudalism. [Interruption.] That is what this is basically all about. That is why Labour Members are making so much noise. They do not like it. They know that people will realise that ladders of social mobility are coming back.
  I want to refer now to school meals, milk and transport—and perhaps even to the fascinating subject of the higher education pool. The school meals system was built up over a long period, not just for the poor but also, in World War Two, as a way of feeding children, increasing rations for the family and to avoid the parents eating the food. Hon. Members may laugh, but they can read the debates on this matter. Also, more women were going out to work during the war.
  Where is the social justice in spending £225 million of the £330 million school meals subsidy on children who can afford to pay the full amount? Only 40 per cent. of the subsidy goes to those who cannot afford to pay. The Bill makes it clear—we shall make it clearer in Committee—that anyone on family income supplement or on supplementary benefit will continue to qualify for free school meals and transport. From November, anyone on FIS with two children will be
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  able to earn £60·50 before having to pay for school meals. All the examples which were quoted will now come under family income supplement.
  It is a pity that so many teachers have withdrawn from school meals supervision, causing almost a breakdown in many city areas. One immediate way of improving the schools meal service would be for teachers to return to school meals duty, as head teachers wish them to do.
  The subject of school transport has been raised in the House ever since I have been here. It has never been satisfactory in the eyes of hon. Members on either side of the House. As has been said, anyone 10 yards within the three-mile limit does not get a penny, however poor, while anyone 10 yards beyond it, however rich, gets free transport. That is utterly wrong. There will still be £100 million available for school transport to ensure that money is used properly for the transport of those who require it.
  Mr. Hawkins rose—
  Dr. Boyson: No, I had better get on. I have only two minutes. I shall see my hon. Friend in the Lobby later.
  The Bill is only a framework for the improvement and the widening of parental choice.
  Mr. Kinnoek rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister is not giving way.
  Dr. Boyson: The Bill is a means of increasing parental choice, the powers of local authorities and the opportunities of children to go to good schools. At the same time, we are improving teacher quality—
  Mr. James Johnson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not like the Minister gabbling away, but is it not an old custom of the House that a Minister should at least give way to a Shadow Minister?
  Mr. Speaker: Order.
  Dr. Boyson: We shall also be improving education in wide areas. We are already improving the quality of teachers,

  161
  which was so low when we inherited it. We are also checking the curriculum to ensure that we are moving towards a core curriculum. We are also making sure how this can be tested by the assessment of performance unit and in many other ways. We are improving O-level
  standards so that we can maintain O-level standards in this country.
  Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 305, Noes 253.

  Division No. 92]

  AYES

  10.00 p.m.

  Adley, Robert

  Durant, Tony

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Alexander, Richard

  Edwards, Rt Hon N. (Pembroke)

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Eggar, Timothy

  Kimball, Marcus

  Ancram, Michael

  Elliott, Sir William

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Arnold, Tom

  Emery, Peter

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Eyre, Reginald

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Lamont, Norman

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Lang, Ian

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Faith, Mrs Sheila

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Farr, John

  Latham, Michael

  Bell, Ronald

  Fell, Anthony

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Bendall, Vivian

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Lawson, Nigel

  Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Lee, John

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Best, Keith

  Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Forman, Nigel

  Loveridge, John

  Blackburn, John

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Luce, Richard

  Blaker, Peter

  Fox, Marcus

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Body, Richard

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  McCrindle, Robert

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Fry, Peter

  Macfarlane, Nell

  Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

  Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

  MacGregor, John

  Bowden, Andrew

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  MacKsy, John (Argyll)

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes

  Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)

  McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Bright, Graham

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Brinton, Tim

  Goodhew, Victor

  Madel, David

  Brittan, Leon

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Major, John

  Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

  Gorst, John

  Marland, Paul

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Gow, Ian

  Marlow, Tony

  Brotherton, Michael

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Mates, Michael

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

  Mather, Carol

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Gray, Hamish

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Bruce-Gardyne, John

  Greenway, Harry

  Mawby, Ray

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Grleve, Percy

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Buchanan-Smith, Hon Alick

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Buck, Antony

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Budgen, Nick

  Grist, Ian

  Mellor, David

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Grylls, Michael

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Burden, F. A.

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Butcher, John

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Eps'm&Ew'll)

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

  Butler, Hon Adam

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Mills, Peter (West Devon)

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Carlisle, John (Luton West)

  Hannam, John

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Moate, Roger

  Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

  Hastings, Stephen

  Monro, Hector

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Channon, Paul

  Hawkins, Paul

  Moore, John

  Chapman, Sydney

  Hawksley, Warren

  Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

  Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

  Clark, Dr William (Croydon South)

  Heath, Rt Hon Edward

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Heddle, John

  Mudd, David

  Clegg, Walter

  Henderson, Barry

  Murphy, Christopher

  Cockeram, Eric

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Myles, David

  Colvin, Michael

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Neale, Gerrard

  Cope, John

  Hill, James

  Needham, Richard

  Cormack, Patrick

  Holland, Philip (Carlton)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Corrie, John

  Hooson, Tom

  Neubert, Michael

  Costain, A. P.

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Newton, Tony

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

  Normanton, Tom

  Critchley, Julian

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Nott, Rt Hon John

  Crouch, David

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Onslow, Cranley

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Hurd, Hon Douglas

  Osborn, John

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Dover, Denshore

  Jessel, Toby

  Parris, Matthew

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Patten, John (Oxford)

  Pawsey, James

  Shersby, Michael

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Percival, Sir Ian

  Silvester, Fred

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Sims, Roger

  Viggers, Peter

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Waddington, David

  Pollock, Alexander

  Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

  Wakeham, John

  Porter, George

  Speller, Tony

  waldegrave, Hon William

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Spence, John

  Walker, Rt Hon. Peter (Worcester)

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

  Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

  prior, Rt Hon James

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

  Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Squire, Robin

  Wall, Patrick

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Waller, Gary

  Raison, Timothy

  Stanley, John

  Walters, Dennis

  Rathbone, Tim

  Steen, Anthony

  Ward, John

  Rees, peter (Dover and Deal)

  Stevens, Martin

  Warren, Kenneth

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Watson, John

  Renton, Tim

  Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Stokes, John

  Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd & Stev'nage)

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Wheeler, John

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Tapsell, peter

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)

  Whitney, Raymond

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Tebbit, Norman

  Wickenden, Keith

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Wilkinson, John

  Rossl, Hugh

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

  Rost, Peter

  Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Thompson, Donald

  Wolfson, Mark

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Thorne, Nell (Ilford South)

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  St. John-stevas, Rt Hon Norman

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Townend, John (Bridllngton)

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Trippier, David

  Mr. Spencer Le Merchant and

  Shepherd, Richard(Aldridge-Br'hills)

  Trotter, Neville

  Mr. Anthony Berry.

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

  Haynes, Frank

  Adams, Allen

  Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Allaun, Frank

  Deakins, Eric

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Anderson, Donald

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Dempsey, James

  Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest

  Dewar, Donald

  Home Robertson, John

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Dixon, Donald

  Homewood, William

  Ashton, Joe

  Dobson, Frank

  Hooley, Frank

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Dormand, Jack

  Horam, John

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Douglas, Dick

  Howell, Rt Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Howells, Geraint

  Beith, A. J.

  Dubs, Alfred

  Huckfield, Les

  Benn Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Dunnett, Jack

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Booth, Rt Hon Albert

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Janner, Hon Greville

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Eadle, Alex

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)

  Eastham, Ken

  John, Brynmor

  Bradley, Tom

  Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

  Johnson, Walter (Derby South)

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  English, Michael

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Ennais, Rt Hon David

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh, Leith)

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Buchan, Norman

  Ewing, Harry

  Kerr, Russell

  Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

  Field, Frank

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Fitch, Alan

  Kinnock, Neil

  Campbell, Ian

  Flannery, Martin

  Lambie, David

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)

  Lamborn, Harry

  Canavan, Dennis

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Lamond, James

  Cant, R. B.

  Ford, Ben

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Carmichael, Neil

  Forrester, John

  Leighton, Ronald

  Certwright, John

  Foster, Derek

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Clark, David (South Shields)

  Foulkes, George

  Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)

  Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

  Litherland, Robert

  Cohen, Stanley

  Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Coleman, Donald

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D,

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

  Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson

  Conlan, Bernard

  George, Bruce

  McCartney, Hugh

  Cook, Robin F.

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  McDonald, Dr. Oonagh

  Cowans, Harry

  Ginsburg, David

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)

  Gourlay, Harry

  McKelvey, William

  Crowther, J. S.

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  MacKenzle, Rt Hon Gregor

  Cryer, Bob

  Maclennan, Robert

  Cunliffc, Lawrence

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, Central)

  Cunningham, George (Islington S)

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  McNally, Thomas

  Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  McNamara, Kevin

  Dalyell, Tam

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

  McWilliam, John

  Davidson, Arthur

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Magee, Bryan

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

  Maguire, Frank (Fermanagh)

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Marks, Kenneth

  Marshall, David (Gl'sgow, Shettles'n)

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Mason, Fit Hon Roy

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Maxton, John

  Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)

  Mellish, Rl Hon Robert

  Robertson, George

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Tilley, John

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Rodgers, Rt Hon William

  Torney, Tom

  Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)

  Rooker, J. W.

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

  Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Wainwright, Richard (Coine Valley)

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

  Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

  Ryman, John

  Watkins, David

  Morris, Rt Kon John (Aberavon)

  Sandelson, Neville

  Weetch, Ken

  Morton, George

  Sever, John

  Wellbeloved, James

  Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

  Sheerman, Barry

  Welsh, Michael

  Newens, Stanley

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert (A'ton-u-L)

  White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)

  White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

  Ogden, Eric

  Short, Mrs Renée

  Whitlock, William

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Silkln, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  O'Neill, Martin

  Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Silverman, Julius

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Palmer, Arthur

  Skinner, Dennis

  Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)

  Park, George

  Snape, peter

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

  Parker, John

  Soley. Clive

  Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

  Parry, Robert

  Spearing, Nigel

  Winnick, David

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Woolmer, Kenneth

  Pendry, Tom

  Stallard, A. W.

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Penhaligon, David

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Wright, Shella

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)

  Young, David (Bolton East)

  Prescott, John

  Stoddart, David

  Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

  Stott, Roger

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES

  Race, Reg

  Strang, Gavin

  Mr. Ted Graham and

  Radice, Giles

  Straw, Jack

  Mr. James Tinn.

  Question accordingly agreed to.

  Bill read a Second time.

  Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

  EDUCATION (No. 2) [MONEY]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the law relating to education, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

  (a) any expenses incurred by the Secretary of State under that Act; and

  (b) any increase attributable to that Act in the sums payable out of such moneys under any other Act.

  —[Mr. Wakeham.]
  10.15 pm
  Mr. Neil Kinnock: I do not wish to detain the House for long.
  Mr. Speaker: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member but I do not expect to be here throughout the entire debate on the money resolution. I remind the House that there is a limit of three-quarters of an hour on the debate. Many hon. Members who were disappointed in the earlier debate still hope to be called.
  Mr. Kinnock: I am conscious of the need to be brief. The money resolution is of particular importance against the Government's general economic policy and because of its implications for public expenditure. It is also important because of the provision for expenditure on the assisted places scheme. We are not yet satisfied that we can totally divorce the money to be spent on the assisted places scheme from the withdrawals of finance for the general benefit and advantage of children in the maintained sector. The Secretary of State and the Government will have to be more inventive and more convincing before they persuade us that these are separate budgets.
  The Under-Secretary of State said that because children had legs they should walk. That is an updated version of "Let them eat cake". The Government are saying "Let them eat crisps. Let them do anything that will save money for the public purse". That is unless, by dint of the Government's perverse policy for assisted places, they are from fortunate homes, have fortunate access to particular types of school, and are able to take advantage of the bonus that the Government are offering the middle classes.
  10.18 pm
  Mr. D. E. Thomas: The money resolution provides a sum of £55 million for assisted places and for the reduction of £200 million in expenditure on meals and milk. It also provides for a reduction in expenditure on transport.
  I observed with interest the absence from the Conservative Benches, in the early part of the debate, of any hon. Members representing a rural constituency in Wales. One or two hon. Members from rural Scottish constituences were present. As a proportion of its education budget the Powys education authority spent more on transport than any other authority. Yet neither of the newly elected Conservative Members from that county graced the debate with his presence. The reason for their absence is clear. Both are equally dissatisfied with the measure and its impact on their constituents. They did not have the moral courage of the hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell), who made his opposition clearly known.
  I wish to speak about the £55 million that is to be spent on assisted places and to counterpose it with the £500,000 being expended on Welsh-medium education under clauses 21 and 22.
  I shall not go into detail on the small print; no doubt we shall have an opportunity to do that in Committee. The £500,000 to be provided for Welsh language teaching and the teaching in that language of other subjects is one of the more appropriate resurrections from the deceased Education Act of the previous Administration. The £500,000 to be expended is presumably to cater for the clear demand for the expansion of Welsh medium education in the secondary school sector.
  There are 35,000 school pupils in Wales, including two of my children, who receive primary education through the medium of Welsh. There are only 6,000 secondary school places where pupils are receiving education through the medium of Welsh. Assuming that the overwhelming majority of those now receiving primary Welsh-medium education wish to continue with secondary education, there will be a shortfall of 29,000 places at secondary school for education through the medium of Welsh. That is the equivalent of nearly 35 secondary schools.

  169
  There is a clear demand and need in Wales for the extension of bilingual and Welsh-medium education. I contrast the 30,000 places to be funded by £500,000 with the £55 million to be expended on assisted places within the private sector for up to 15,000 pupils annually at the height of the scheme.
  Those are the Government's financial priorities. Fifty-five million pounds is to be expended for a duplication, in the private sector, of facilities for the upper middle class from the British ruling classes. Contrasted with that is the paltry provision of £500,000 for Welsh-medium education. There are 30,000 pupils in Wales who, by attending primary school through the medium of Welsh, have indicated their option for Welsh-medium secondary education.
  How is the £500,000 that is being granted by the largesse of the Government to be taken up? How is it to be spent? Clause 21 states that the
  "Secretary of State shall … make provision … to local authorities and other persons of grant in respect of expenditure incurred or to be incurred in, or in connection with, the teaching of the Welsh language or the teaching in that language of other subjects."
  Let us assume that an education authority in Powys, Gwynedd, Mid- or South Glamorgan busses secondary school pupils not three or five miles, but 30, 40 or 50 miles on a round trip to attend Welsh-medium education. The arguments that were deployed earlier by hon. Members in respect of denominational schools apply with even more force to those who opt for bilingual or Welsh-medium education because of the distances involved.
  As a random example, let us assume that Mid-Glamorgan applies for funds for its scheme for transporting pupils to Rhydfelen or alternative Welsh-medium schools, whether in South Glamorgan, Mid-Glamorgan or West Glamorgan. In Clwyd it would be, for example, to Glan Clwyd or Morgan Clwyd. The education authority would apply to the Welsh Office for expenditure of £500,000, under the provision. Are we to understand that that would be acceptable expenditure under that heading? The £500,000 will be justifying the Government's cuts in transport provision and filling up gaps created by their cutbacks on education expenditure through the rate support grant. In other
  170
  words, the £500,000, paltry as it is, will be eaten up entirely by the application-making authorities. Therefore, it is not additional funding for the Welsh language.
  We know how keen the Secretary of State for Wales and his two Under-Secretaries of State are to go around Wales pretending that that represent not the English ruling class but the cultural diversity and plurality that is the reality of the United Kingdom. They pretend that the Government are introducing newfound money that is paralleled only by the cash for the national Eistedfodd, provided that my hon. Friend the Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley) does not make extremist speeches from the platform. It is claimed to be new cash for Wales, but in reality the cash will be eaten up by the vacuum created by the Government's lack of provision.
  The Bill will probably be seen as the most divisive piece of class legislation since the war. For the first time the liberal consensus on education in the United Kingdom has been broken open. That is the effect of the Bill, with all the consequences that that will have in future given the view that many Labour Members and Members in opposition parties take about education provision.
  Within the Bill we have the sop of Welsh-medium education. That has to be contrasted starkly with the determintaion of the Conservative Party to fund its own supporters and the establishments that have provided fodder for the Conservative Benches for far too long.
  10.27 pm
  Mr. Iain Mills: In the discussions preceding the Division, and in the present discussion, it is important for us fundamentally to consider how the money will be spent. In the rhetoric of debate it is often forgotten that the number of schoolchildren requiring education is falling. Has our education system succeeded? When considering the enormous cost of our education system and its results both in equality and in the making of young people ready for industry and jobs, we must come to the conclusion that the money that we have spent has not been spent well.
  It is worth reminding ourselves that we are not starting from an ideal position in terms of cost or achievement. What

  171
  is our objective? Is it equality at any price, or is it education at an affordable price? I suggest that it is very much the latter objective.
  Many parents and teachers in my constituency will welcome many of the Bill's contents. Many good education authorities have already costed and planned for many of the attributes of the Bill. Boards of governors for many education authorities already exist. I am slightly concerned that the need to provide separate boards of manegement or governors, especially for primary schools, and the cost of servicing their two or three meetings each year will come at a time when local authorities can ill afford the expenditure.
  I am not suggesting that the principle of separate boards of management is wrong. However, we must bear much in mind the costs of such a system. I suggest that we consider phasing the requirement for separate boards for primary schools over a period that will allow education authorities with many primary schools—for example, the Solihull education authority has 107, and 45 boards of management—to make the necessary provision. It is necessary for the system to be introduced at a pace that is affordable.
  In providing separate boards of governors it is essential that we have governors who are knowledgeable about their jobs and their functions. The education authority in my area has, two or three times a year, 80 putative governors brought together to train them in exactly what their jobs are. As there is a necessity for separate boards of management so is there a necessity for training and a requirement to choose the right people and to ensure that they know what they are doing.
  I must also congratulate many of the authorities—particularly those in my constituency, for which I might show a certain bias—that they have taken the initiative and provided boards of appeal. I ask my right hon. and learned Friend to be reasonable in the application of the changes that are quite rightly planned to ensure as much independence as possible in consideration of parents' appeals on the place of schooling. I would not like to see bureaucracy result, for example, in an application to a board of appeal this September requiring 12 months before an answer is given.
  172
  Those authorities that have good practices should not be forced to adopt a national scheme too quickly, to the detriment of existing, well-run schemes. However, those authorities that have good practices are few and far between, and one must therefore welcome the national proposals in the Bill as being essential. While I congratulate the authorities that have already achieved high standards, I welcome the application of those standards to the entire nation.
  10.32 pm
  Mr. R. B. Cant: I wish to question the Secretary of State about clause 26. I do so because I was present at the Staffordshire county council education committee this morning as a member in opposition. We told the chairman of the committee that we were happy that the Bill did not give local education authorities a specific or explicit power to make a charge for nursery education.
  In Stoke-on-Trent we are very proud of our nursery education, which we have been developing for 50 years. There are about 5,000 children in full-time nursery schools or nursery classes. The proposal of the Staffordshire county council—we are, alas, in its area—was to make a charge of £3 a week for a single session. That would have totally undermined nursery education in our part of the county. A massive petition has been presented, all to no avail.
  The interesting point here—this is the reason why I am asking the question—is that the chairman of the committee said that the Bill put him in a dilemma. As we tried to get a clearer answer, he said that the Bill certainly did not contain a direct power, and he then implied—I should hate to do him an injustice, because he is a fine chap—that perhaps this clause had been included to provide a back-door method of charging. I am glad to see the Secretary of State shaking his head. It would be possible to envisage a position in which this clause gave a much more Draconian education authority than Staffordshire—one like Cheshire, for instance—the power to redesignate all nursery schools and nursery classes into the category of day nurseries, which are arranged not under education but under health legislation, and for which a charge is currently made.

  173
  I hope that the Secretary of State is correct in nodding his head and, by implication, saying that whatever might be legally possible under clause 26, it is certaintly not the intention to provide a back-door method for local authorities to charge for nursery education and that the absence of an explicit or specific power to charge is within the spirit of the Government's intention in this area.
  10.35 pm
  Mr. J. F. Pawsey: A little earlier the speech of the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) was likened to a broadside of grapeshot fired at close range. With every respect to him, I do not think that that was a true analogy. But then, if we compare the hon. Gentleman's efforts with the gentle and smooth seduction that was attempted earlier today by my hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education, perhaps a better analogy would be that of a violent rape. But the hon. Member for Bedwellty is as yet a young man, and with a young man's disease. He must surely learn that more can be achieved by the soft word and the soothing caress than by a brutal, rough assault such as we witnessed earlier in the debate.
  I welcome most parts of the Bill that was presented earlier. It was unfortunate that Labour Members could not find some parts of it to commend, and I believe that they were being less than generous. I applaud the references to school governing bodies and the increased parental choice. I applaud especially that part of the Bill which enables parents to have more decision and to be able to send their children to schools outside their own local authority areas. It is imaginative and it is good. It will do much for parents throughout our nation.
  The Bill refers to more information on schools—and at a time when the House has been pressing for more information generally, could not such an item commend itself to the Opposition? It is disappointing that we have had no favourable comment from Opposition Members. They have, as I suggested earlier, been less than generous.
  Like some other Conservative Members, I have certain reservations. Those reservations relate to transport. I am a little concerned about the amount of discretion that is being given to local
  174
  authorities in this respect. I am delighted to note that Opposition Members agree with me at least on something.
  In general, I welcome devolution to local authorities with power going from the centre to local authorities, but I feel that there are insufficent guidelines in the Bill to put local authorities completely on the right track. I fear that with certain local authorities we may find that the axe is being swung with rather more enthusiasm than intelligence.
  Warwickshire is not the most rural of counties. Perhaps that distinction should go to parts of Wales, as we heard earlier in the debate. But we still have our rural areas and still bus many thousands of children considerable distances.
  I cannot help but remember, as a member of my own county council's education committee, that we closed village schools, and that those closures were sold to parents on the basis of providing either free or cheap transport. This is an aspect that gives me great concern, and I ask my right hon. and learned Friend to take note of the concern being expressed on Conservative Benches. I do not doubt that these proposals will cause great distress to many parents living in my own constituency.
  Those who live in rural areas have, by definition, the longest journeys to make. They can expect, for no other reason than their address, to pay more for the education that their children will enjoy.
  In this connection, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have a letter from the National Farmers' Union. It is not a long letter, and I hope you will forgive me for quoting from it. It states that:
  "The long standing statutory duty of local authorities to provide free school transport is of considerable value to farming and other families who live in rural areas where school catchment areas are inevitable larger than in towns. The relaxation of this duty, as proposed in the Bill, would represent a further erosion of the range and standard of services available in country areas".
  I am growing concerned, Mr. Deputy Speaker, at the amount of enthusiasm that I am getting from the Opposition Members.
  The letter continues a trend that
  "has been having an increasingly adverse impact on many rural communities"

  175
  —and that
  "The new legislation would seem likely to result in most, if not all authorities, either making substantial charges for school transport, or withdrawing such services altogether".
  This sums up the fears and forebodings of some Conservative Members. Another reason for my concern is that the Bill will discriminate against denominational schools—against Catholic and Church of England schools, Jewish schools and even against those children who wish to have the benefit of all-Welsh education. The question of denominational schools is an important one to hon. Members on both sides of the House. Here I acknowledge the depth of feeling of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara), who made the point so eloquently earlier.
  In denominational schools one does not have a small, tight, intimate catchment area. In fact, children are drawn from substantial distances. The concern that so many parents will feel warrants more attention from my right hon. and learned Friend than we have perhaps so far seen.
  I take note of the time, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as well as your glance. I shall sit down at this point, but I ask my right hon and learned Friend to take note of the points that I have made.
  10.41 pm
  Mr. Guy Barnett: I rise because I want to object most strongly to the expenditure of £55 million on the assisted places scheme. Whether or not it was intended, it seems to me that the consequence of this scheme will be to wreck the comprehensive system in many of the urban areas of the country. That system was beginning to operate really successfully. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and I know from the twenty-fifth anniversary of Kidbrooke school, in my constituency, it has had to fight against constant opposition from the press and Tory spokesmen, and has won through. It is doing a remarkable job. But as many hon. Members will know, recently a survey appeared—I think that it was last March—in New Society which indicated what headmasters in comprehensive schools have repeatedly said, namely, that they depend on a fair proportion of children of reasonably high ability in order to raise the performance and behaviour of all pupils of all abilities.
  176
  That survey has indicated that what headmasters in comprehensive schools have constantly said is the case. My contention is that this scheme, which will inevitably have the effect of denuding comprehensive schools in urban areas such as London, Birmingham and Manchester of some of their ablest pupils, will be particularly damaging during a time of falling school rolls, which are affecting urban areas more than other parts of the country.
  That will be the consequence for comprehensive schools. It will make it increasingly difficult for those schools to run viable and economic sixth forms, because a high proportion of those children will be taken away. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will have seen an article written by the education officer of the Inner London education authority, who has indicated quite clearly the damage that this scheme will do to the maintained system of education, which is supported by central Government. My contention is that this House ought not to vote £55 million that is liable to be so damaging to a sector of education for which the Government bear the final responsibility. I believe that it is totally wrong that £55 million should be expended in this way, because its direct consequence will be damaging to the maintained system of education in this country.
  10.44 pm
  Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I want to refer to two aspects of the money resolution—that relating to school meals and that relating to assisted places.
  My belief is that the administrative costs of the present system of dishing out school meals are both far too high and wrongly directed. It is absurd that the food costs less than one-third of the total value of the school meal-16p out of 54p. A more simplified cafeteria system would provide an equally nutritious meal, with infinitely less waste. A pig farmer near a large school is quids in, because he can get some jolly good stuff out of the canteen, but it is being paid for by taxpayers' money. The food should be going to the children, not the pigs. The present system is a waste of taxpayers' money.

  177
  I disagree with the money resolution on the matter of school milk. Milk for schoolchildren is one of the best bargains that we get from the EEC. I welcome the opportunity to recoup part of our large subscription through payments for milk and milk derivatives which go directly to the children or into school meals.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) said that those hon. Members whose constituencies had retained their grammar schools should oppose the provision of assisted places. In Lancaster we have kept our grammar schools, but we welcome the provision on behalf of children in less fortunate areas whose academic ladder may have been destroyed. In Blackpool the schools are all jolly good, but I have worked in the Scotland Road area of Liverpool and in the East End of London. In those areas the academic standard in schools is extremely low.
  The hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Barnett) spoke of destroying viable sixth forms by taking away a high proportion of the children who might go to State schools, but that reduces the argument to absurdity. It will amount to only 25 pupils per constituency.
  Mr. Guy Barnett: The hon. Lady is wrong.
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: No, roughly 25 per constituency.
  I should not support the measure if it were being introduced now, because I should be sorry to see £55 million spent in this way at present. By the end of the next 18 months we shall have had a chance to restore our economy and I therefore commend the money resolution to the House.
  10.47 pm
  Mr. Reg Race: I, too, wish to concentrate on school meals and milk, and particularly on the fruitless expenditure of the Government in making between 30,000 and 45,000 school meal staff redundant. Those figures were given by the Secretary of State at a recent press briefing, when he said that his Department was working on a 10 to 15 per cent. reduction in school meals staff in the next financial year. That service employs 300,000 people so my figures must be correct.
  178
  Some of those who are made redundant will receive unemployment benefit, which will probably cost the State more than paying them for the work that they do. Many of these workers are part-time staff. The last new earnings survey showed that, on average, supervisory assistants were paid £14·40 a week. If these people are made redundant the net cost to the State in unemployment and other social security benefits will be quite substantial, and the proposed reduction in educational expenditure is therefore an illusion. The outgoing will simply be transferred to the Department of Health and Social Security. It is nonsense.
  When, as they must, the Government issue advice to local authorities on how the school meal service is to be changed they will have to pay due regard to nutritional standards, even though the statutory requirement for those standards is to be abolished. In 1975 the famous report by the Secretary of State's Department was published, stating that school meals were extremely important for the well-being of children. It said:
  "We believe that if well-balanced school meals provide a third of the recommended intake of energy and protein there is little danger that any child who has a satisfactory diet at home will be at risk nutritionally. But we do not think it safe to assume that all children necessarily receive a satisfactory diet at home. We are especially concerned that all children should receive enough protein at school, since any shortfall in protein in the midday meal might easily not be made up in other meals or snacks consumed outside school".
  What has changed since 1975? We now have a Tory Government, with a Secretary of State who is not interested in the conclusions of the national food survey. I advise the Minister to look at the 1975 and 1977 surveys. The consumption of milk between those years fell by 0·3 oz. per person per week. The consumption of meat during the same period fell from 41·64 oz. per person per week to 40·64 oz. per person per week. The consumption of fish and fresh fruit also fell. The only item that rose was the consumption of cheese. Is it not reasonable to expect that the Minister would be interested in preserving the school meal service? Nothing would illuminate the debate more than comment from the right hon. Gentleman on those facts.

  179
  If the Minister is so proud of the fantastic legislation that he has put before us tonight, why did he refuse to debate with my right hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) and the Runcorn parents action committee the issues of school meals, school milk and public expenditure in general? Is he aware that the chairman of the education committee in the county council of Cheshire is proposing a 10p charge for all those children who presently receive free school meals?
  10.54 pm
  Mr. Paul Hawkins: I shall not enter into an argument with the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Race). He obviously feels that it is not the parents' job to feed their children.
  I should like to draw my right hon. and learned Friend's attention to the fact that in rural districts, such as Norfolk, men have to travel long distances to work. That costs them between £7 and £9 per week. They may have to add to that the cost of transport for their children, and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will look into that question carefully. Many small schools have been closed and the right to free bus transport withdrawn. That is a matter of great concern to my constituents. I know that my right hon. and learned Friend will bear the matter in mind, and I hope that we shall see an alteration in Committee.
  10.55 pm
  The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Mark Carlisle): Perhaps I might reply briefly to some of the matters raised in this short debate.
  My hon. Friends the Members for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hawkins) and for Rugby (Mr. Pawsey) spoke of the concern that people had expressed about the transport provisions in the Bill. I am, of course, aware of it. However, I repeat what I said earlier. In the financial provisions, although we are providing local authorities with freedom to charge, we are not assuming that the existing subsidy will disappear. We are allowing for a subsidy of more than £1 million in our calculations for 1980–81 for rural transport. I hope that the savings of between £20 million and £30 million for which we are
  180
  looking can be achieved without the sorts of matters mentioned by my hon. Friends.
  All that I can say to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant), is that his point is a novel one. He asked why the clause was in the Bill. It is, in fact, a repeat of what had been in his Government's Bill and is concerned with the transfer of teachers to day nurseries. If it has the effect that he suggests I shall look at it again, because that is not its intention.
  I must remind the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Barnett) that we debated the pros and cons of the assisted places scheme on Second Reading. I do not accept that this provision will have the adverse effects that he suggests on the maintained sector. He spoke about the comprehensive schools in urban areas. If he is talking about their present standards in their fifth and sixth forms, I remind him that they are at the moment running alongside the direct grant schools since they still have the direct grant entry in their last years in those schools. The number that we are considering in the assisted places scheme will be similar to that which existed in the old direct grant schools.
  Mr. Guy Barnett: Falling rolls.
  Mr. Carlisle: Falling rolls are important, of course. That is why I believe that we must have a much greater relationship between schools of all kinds at sixth form level if we are to have viable sixth forms. Falling rolls will bring that upon us.
  I thought that the speech of the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Race) was concerned more with the interests of NUPE members than with those of children.
  Mr. Race: Cheap.
  Mr. Carlisle: It is not cheap at all. It is accurate. The hon. Gentleman is a representative of NUPE. If he argues that the provision on school meals is likely to cause the employment of fewer people in the school meals service, I must tell him that I have always accepted that. But that is one argument. To suggest that the basic concern is with nutritional standards is merely trying to find another argument to justify the hon. Gentleman's main concern, which is about the number

  181
  of NUPE members who are employed. I am of course concerned with nutritional standards, but I am satisfied that our provisions will be adequate in that area.
  The money resolution rightly recognises that there is additional money in the Welsh section, in the assisted places scheme, in the setting up of governing boards under the earlier clauses of the Bill, and in the appeal committees under the middle clauses of the Bill. I am advised that the wording of the money resolution is wide enough to cover debate on all those matters.
  I shall bear in mind the views that have been expressed in this short debate and the previous one, and I shall consider whether there are any matters that should be changed.
  10.58 pm
  Miss Sheila Wright: In both debates today the Secretary of State has been at great pains to detail at some length the different provisions of the Bill. I think that that is most aptly illustrated not by what were called his soothing seductions but by his Freudian slip. The Government are indeed moving backwards to standards of the 1880s, instead of moving forwards, as we had all hoped, to the 1980s.
  This Bill, in respect of which we are asked to support the money resolution, appears very clearly to anyone outside the House to be an amalgam of window
  dressing—hypocritical window dressing in the case of the governing boards—and a blatant, overt determination to provide a subsidy for private education.
  In respect of school governors, the Bill contains a provision to elect two parents and two teachers. However, there is no provision laying down what proportion of the governing board they shall be, nor is there any definition of their powers. There is not much point in being a governor if no one knows what can be done or what proportion of the governing board his vote will represent.
  My own local authority has one-fortieth of the country's children. It would be very happy to have one-fortieth of the £55 million to spend on its own maintained schools. I am sure that the Conservative chairman of the education authority would agree with that.
  Because of differences in background and environment, differences and inequalities in the selection procedures, and perhaps unconscious prejudices among those who select children for these schools, where there will be no control over the fees charged we shall end up—
  It being three-quarters of an hour after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted Business).
  The House divided: Ayes 296, Noes 247.

  Division No. 93]

  AYES

  [11 pm

  Adley, Robert

  Brinton, Tim

  Colvin, Michael

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Brittan, Leon

  Cope, John

  Alexander, Richard

  Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

  Cormack, Patrick

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Corrie, John

  Ancram, Michael

  Brotherton, Michael

  Costain, A. P.

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Critchley, Julian

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Bruce-Gardyne, John

  Crouch, David

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Buchanan-Smith, Hon Alick

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Bell, Ronald

  Buck, Antony

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Bendall, Vivian

  Budgen, Nick

  Dover, Denshore

  Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)

  Bulmer, Esmond

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Burden, F. A

  Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

  Best, Keith

  Butcher, John

  Durant, Tony

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Butler, Hon Adam

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Bitten, Rt Hon John

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Edwards, Rt Hon N. (Pembroke)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Carlisle, John (Luton West)

  Eggar, Timothy

  Blackburn, John

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Elliott, Sir William

  Blaker, Peter

  Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

  Emery, Peter

  Body, Richard

  ChalKer, Mrs Lynda

  Eyre, Reginald

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Channon, Paul

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Chapman, Sydney

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

  Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Faith, Mrs Sheila

  Bowden, Andrew

  Clark, Dr William (Croydon South)

  Farr, John

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Fell, Anthony

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Clegg, Walter

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Bright, Graham

  Cockeram, Eric

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Loveridge, John

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

  Luce, Richard

  Rossi, Hugh

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Rost, Peter

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  McCrindle, Robert

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Forman, Nigel

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  MacGregor, John

  Scott, Nicholas

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  MacKay, John (Argyll)

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Fry, Peter

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Madel, David

  Shersby, Michael

  Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)

  Major, John

  Silvester, Fred

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Marland, Paul

  Sims, Roger

  Goodhew, Victor

  Marlow, Tony

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Mates, Michael

  Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

  Gorst, John

  Mather, Carol

  Speller, Tony

  Gow, Ian

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Spence, John

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Mawby, Ray

  Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

  Gray, Hamish

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Squire, Robin

  Greenway, Harry

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Grieve, Percy

  Mellor, David

  Stanley, John

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Steen, Anthony

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Stevens, Martin

  Grist Ian

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Grylls, Michael

  Mills, Peter (West Devon)

  Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Stokes, John

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Eps'm&Ew ll)

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Moate, Roger

  Tapsell, Peter

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Monro, Hector

  Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)

  Hannam, John

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Tebbit, Norman

  Haselthurst, Alan

  Moore, John

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Hastings, Stephen

  Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

  Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

  Hawkins, Paul

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Cheater)

  Thompson, Donald

  Hawksley, Warren

  Mudd, David

  Thorne, Nell (Ilford South)

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Murphy, Christopher

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Heddle, John

  Myles, David

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Henderson, Barry

  Neale, Gerrard

  Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Needham, Richard

  Trippier, David

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Nelson, Anthony

  Trotter, Neville

  Hill, James

  Neubert, Michael

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Holland, Philip (Carlton)

  Newton, Tony

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Hooson, Tom

  Normanton, Tom

  Waddington, David

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Nott, Rt Hon John

  Wakeham, John

  Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

  Onslow, Cranley

  Waldegrave, Hon. William

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

  Walker, Rt Hon Peter (Worcester)

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Osborn, John

  Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

  Hurd, Hon Douglas

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Wall, Patrick

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Parris, Matthew

  Waller, Gary

  Jessel, Toby

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Walters, Dennis

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  patten, John (Oxford)

  Ward, John

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Pawsey, James

  Warren, Kenneth

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Percival, Sir Ian

  Watson, John

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Pollock, Alexander

  Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd & Stav'nage)

  Klmball, Marcus

  Porter, George

  Wheeler, John

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  price, David (Eastleigh)

  Whitney, Raymond

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  prior, Rt Hon James

  Wickenden, Keith

  Lamont, Norman

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Wilkinson, John

  Lang, Ian

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Raison, Timothy

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Latham, Michael

  Rathbone, Tim

  Wolfson, Mark

  Lawrence Ivan

  Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Lawson, Nigel

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Lee, John

  Renton, Tim

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Rhodes James, Robert

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutand)

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Mr. Spencer Le Mant rch

  Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  M A thony Berry.a

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Viggers, Peter

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Adams, Allen

  Beith, A. J.

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Allaun, Frank

  Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

  Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

  Anderson, Donald

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh, Leith)

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Buchan, Norman

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest

  Booth, Rt Hon Albert

  Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Ashton, Joe

  Bottomiey, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)

  Campbell, Ian

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Bradley, Tom

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Canavan, Dennis

  Cant, R. B.

  Hooley, Frank

  Prescott, John

  Carmichael, Nell

  Horam, John

  Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

  Cartwright, John

  Howells, Geraint

  Race, Reg

  Clark, David (South Shields)

  Huckfleld, Lea

  Radice, Giles

  Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Cohen, Stanley

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Coleman, Donald

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  Janner, Hon Greville

  Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)

  Conlan, Bernard

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Cook, Robin F.

  John, Brynmor

  Robertson, George

  Cowans, Harry

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)

  Johnson, Walter (Derby South)

  Rodgers, Rt Hon William

  Crowther, J. S.

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Rooker, J. W.

  Cryer, Bob

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Cunningham, George (Islington S)

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Rowlands, Ted

  Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

  Kerr, Russell

  Ryman, John

  Dalyell, Tam

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Sandeison, Neville

  Davidson, Arthur

  Kinnock, Neil

  Sever, John

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Lambie, David

  Sheerman, Barry

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Lamborn, Harry

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert (A'ton-u-L)

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

  Lamond, James

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)

  Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)

  Leadbitter. Ted

  Short, Mrs Renée

  Deakins, Eric

  Leighton, Ronald

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Dempsey, James

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Elton & Slough)

  Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  Dewar, Donald

  Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)

  Silverman, Julius

  Dixon, Donald

  Litherland, Robert

  Skinner, Dennis

  Dobson, Frank

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Snape, Peter

  Dormand, Jack

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Soley, Clive

  Douglas, Dick

  Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson

  Spearing, Nigel

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  McCartney, Hugh

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Dubs, Alfred

  McDonald, Dr Oonagh

  Stailard, A. W.

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

  McKelvey, William

  Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)

  Dunnett, Jack

  MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  Stoddart, David

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Maclennan, Robert

  Stott, Roger

  Eadie, Alex

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, Central)

  Strang, Gavin

  Eastham, Ken

  McNally, Thomas

  Straw, Jack

  Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

  McNamara, Kevin

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  English, Michael

  McWilliam, John

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

  Ennals, Rt Hon David

  Magee, Bryan

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Evans, loan (Aberdare)

  Maguire, Frank (Fermanagh)

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Marks, Kenneth

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

  Ewing, Harry

  Marshall, David (Gl'sgow, Shettles'n)

  Thomas, Dr Roger Carmarthen)

  Field, Frank

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Fitch, Alan

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

  Tilley, John

  Flannery, Martin

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Tinn, James

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Maxton, John

  Torney, Tom

  Ford, Ben

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Forrester, John

  Meacher, Michael

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

  Foster, Derek

  Meillsh, Rt Hon Robert

  Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

  Foulkes, George

  Mikardo, Ian

  Watkins, David

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Weetch, Ken

  Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

  Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)

  Wellbeloved, James

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

  Welsh, Michael

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

  Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

  White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

  George, Bruce

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenahawe)

  White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

  Whitlock, William

  Ginsburg, David

  Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Gourlay, Harry

  Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Graham, Ted

  Newens, Stanley

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Ogden, Eric

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Winnick, David

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Woolmer, Kenneth

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Palmer, Arthur

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Haynes, Frank

  Park, George

  Wright, Sheila

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Parker, John

  Young, David (Bolton East)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Parry, Robert

  Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

  Pavitt, Laurie

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES

  Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

  Pendry, Tom

  Home Robertson, John

  Penhaligon, David

  Mr. Joseph Dean and

  Homewood, William

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Mr. George Morton.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the law relating to education, it is expedient to authorise the payment
  186
  out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

  (a) any expenses incurred by the Secretary of State under that Act; and

  (b) any increase attributable to that Act in the sums payable out of such moneys under any other Act.

  LEGAL SERVICES (ROYAL COMMISSION'S REPORT)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.]
  11.12 pm
  Mr. John Ryman: The report of the Royal Commission on legal services, which was published on 3 October, is the most comprehensive and thorough investigation of legal services ever undertaken by any Commission. I join in the tributes paid to Sir Henry Benson and his colleagues. I have never been able to understand why the Commission was set up in the first place—by a previous Government—but I warmly congratulate it on its work.
  I am indebted to the Attorney-General for his being here, tonight, since I want to discover the Government's reactions to a number of questions—bearing in mind, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman said on 30 October, that a period of consultation and reflection is required before any definite decisions can be made.
  Do the Government accept in principle the tenor of the report? Without accepting every recommendation, are they prepared to say that, prima facie, the report has paid tribute to the administration of justice and the standard of both sides of the profession—although there are matters which require improvement and investigation with a view to providing a better, speedier and more efficient service to the public, who require a comprehensive legal service, to the profession itself and to the taxpayer?
  Already the influence of the report has been felt in certain directions. Following its publication the Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning, said at the recent conference of the Law Society in Jersey that he believed that everything should be done to reduce the backlog and length of cases in the courts and to speed up the rate at which cases went to court, because the problem was crying out for a solution. He supported the Law Commission's recommendation to simplify and speed up civil court procedures.
  Again, since publication the Lord Chancellor has set up an inquiry into how proceedings in the Chancery division
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  of the High Court can be speeded up and made cheaper. He has appointed a High Court judge, Mr. Justice Oliver, and a Mr. John Woolf to head a small committee to recommend measures to expedite proceedings in the Chancery division. All this is thoroughly healthy and good.
  Because the report is complicated, I ask the Attorney-General whether the Government are prepared to consider producing a discussion paper, narrowing the issues and dividing them into those matters which involve increased public expenditure and those which do not. There are many immediate improvements which could be made without the use of additional public funds. I realise that once extra public money is required—as it is in a number of cases—different considerations may arise.
  Are the Government prepared to encourage, in effect, public and parliamentary discussion of those recommendations by producing a document, as the previous Government did in relation to the Phillimore report on the law of contempt, setting out the issues, with a view to promoting public discussion?
  In a short debate of this kind it is impossible to deal with many of the topics that arise, but I suggest that one of the most urgent recommendations of the report that should be considered urgently by the Government is that dealing with the various administrative changes that could be made without expenditure of vast sums of money and without the complicated processes of consultation. Consultations have already taken place with the various bodies, such as the Law Society, which made recommendations to the Commission in the first place.
  I refer to the question of conveyancing, which appears in chapter 21. There has been a lot of ill-informed and ignorant criticism of conveyancing in general and of the legal profession by people who know nothing of the technicalities. If anyone is foolish enough to conduct his own conveyancing on his own house, he is perfectly at liberty to do so.
  The Royal Commission's recommendation preserves the right of the "do-it-yourself" conveyancer but makes certain recommendations to reduce the legal costs, none of which involves vast expenditure and all of which are eminently

  189
  sensible. I refer particularly to the question of employing only one solicitor between the vendor and purchaser when there is no apparent conflict of interests, thereby saving a good deal of money.
  I refer also to the recommendations at the end of the chapter—a dozen or so of them—all sensible and all of which go further to protect the interests of the lay client, without costing money. For example, this can be done by submitting a bill to the lay client or solicitor before fees are deducted from the money received on behalf of the client and by encouraging building societies and solicitors to ensure that mortgagees are not represented separately from vendors or purchasers unless there is a conflict of interests. Other sensible measures to protect the public, save costs and simplify procedures could be introduced in the near future. I have not time to dwell on that at greater length.
  I draw the right hon. and learned Gentleman's attention to the administration and financing of legal aid in civil cases. I shall not tonight deal with the question of legal aid in criminal cases because that is a separate, big subject upon which there has been ample public discussion at various levels. The administration and financing of legal advice in civil cases, which is featured in chapters 12 and 13 of the report, give rise to a host of recommendations. Many of those recommendations would be relatively simple to implement and would not cost much money.
  Earlier this year, in the good old days of a Labour Government, with the approval of the Conservative spokesman in the House of Lords, Lord Rawlinson, the former Labour Lord Chancellor introduced measures to make legal aid available to more people in civil cases by raising the financial limits. That was a move in the right direction. However, many disadvantages are suffered by people who require legal aid. A non-legally aided defendant is still at a grave disadvantage when he wins a case against a legally aided plaintiff. It is grossly unfair that if a non-legally aided defendant wins a case he may lose financially because he is unable to recover costs from the person who is legally aided and fails in his action.
  Such anomalies are discussed in the report and recommendations are made. I
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  urge the Attorney-General to consider those recommendations and to express the Government's preliminary views on them. All these subjects are important. One cannot say that one is more important than another. I deal with them in the order in which they occurred to me.
  The question of legal representation before administrative tribunals must be reviewed. Under successive Governments there has been an enormous increase in the work of tribunals. This is discussed in chapter 15 of the report. Tribunals are growing in number almost daily. Their quality varies, sometimes in accordance with the personality of the chairman. There is a case for ensuring that persons appearing before administrative tribunals are entitled to legal representation out of public funds if they cannot afford their own representation. At present there are many anomalies.
  In some tribunals, no legal representation is allowed without the tribunal's permission. Before other tribunals, legal representation is allowed but not through the legal aid fund. Other tribunals do not allow legal representation of any kind even though important questions of law and fact, or mixed law and fact, may be involved.
  The Royal Commission has much to say about that. I ask the Government to consider the first recommendation in particular. On page 174 of volume one, the report states:
  "The procedures of all the main tribunals need to be reviewed; this should be undertaken by the Council on Tribunals"—
  which already exists and has many distinguished members—
  "under the general oversight of the Lord Chancellor."
  This is urgent. The tribunals are becoming increasingly more active daily and many cases take far longer than they should because those who appear before them are not legally represented. There are many other recommendations dealing with tribunals, none of which appears to involve vast expenditure of public money.
  The feeling exists, rightly or wrongly, that lay clients do not have any redress if they feel that the solicitor's bill that they receive is excessive. At present there is a system of appeal by taxation to the Law Society, provided that that is pursued within a certain time. There are further

  191
  appellate procedures after that in relatively rare cases if the lay client takes the trouble to pursue them.
  It is felt that solicitors and the Law Society are inexorably intertwined and that it is no use appealing to the Law Society on an issue of costs from a solicitor because the Law Society will tend to back up the solicitor. That is an unfortunate impression, because I feel that the Law Society gets tough with its own kind if it thinks that a solicitor has gone wrong. However, that is not the impression among the public generally, especially among those, of whom there is no shortage, who complain about lawyers.
  The dissatisfied litigant who wishes to blame a solicitor does not appreciate the tough machinery that exists to enable the Law Society to deal with its own kind. It may be that the Royal Commission's recommendations dealing with what are called lawyers' charges contain many sensible proposals that the Government should consider closely to allay the fears of the public.
  Linked with that is the issue of complaints against solicitors. Again the feeling exists, rightly or wrongly, that the Law Society is not independent when dealing with such complaints. I disagree. I think that the Law Society, on the whole, deals very well with solicitors who go wrong. The difficulty is to persuade the general public that that is so.
  The Attorney-General is well aware of the anxieties that exist at the Bar about the future of the profession. He is close to the Bar, and, as the leader of the Bar, knows of the problems that are troubling the profession. We have before us a good and careful report that contains many recommendations. Sooner or later the Government must tackle the basic problem. If we want a good legal service, the Government must be prepared to provide the money for it.
  I have spoken of matters that do not require money, and now I shall talk about matters that do require it. The scale of fees at the Bar is wholly inadequate in 1979, taking the past five or six years of inflation. There has been no increase in professional fees in the face of inflation. The profession has voluntarily reformed itself in many respects. I know of no other profession or trade that has voluntarily
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  abandoned the two-thirds rule and voluntarily abandoned various practices that were considered contrary to the public interest. It is rewarded by having lower fees now than six years ago. Naturally, I disclose an interest. There have been representations to successive Governments about the appallingly low standard of fees at the Bar. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is mindful—I know that he is—of these considerations.
  I know that the Attorney-General has not had time to consider the report in depth, but will he say whether he is sympathetic to my suggestion that a discussion paper should be issued; whether he is sympathetic to setting out a list of recommendations that could be implemented in the near future that do not require the expenditure of public money; and whether, in the long term, he will do everything in his power to persuade the Government to make more public money available to maintain the quality of legal services, which cannot be maintained without that being done?
  11.30 pm
  Mr. David Mellor: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me and to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General for allowing me a little of his time to make a contribution to this debate.
  I congratulate the hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Ryman) on raising this topic and on having dealt as moderately and effectively as he did with the recommendations of the Royal Commission. I am only sorry that the hon. Gentleman sits on the Labour Benches in splendid isolation and that we conduct this debate in the absence of any legal spokesman from the Opposition, which strikes me as rather extraordinary.
  I agree with almost everything that the hon. Gentleman said. I compliment him particularly on what he said about the level of fees at the Bar, although one must declare an interest. I agree also with what the hon. Gentleman said about conveyancing. I regard the outcry against present conveyancing practice as extraordinary. In support of that statement, one has only to look at the average transaction

  193
  and compare the level of the solicitor's fee with that paid to the estate agents.
  I should like to raise two points for the consideration of my right hon. and learned Friend. The first is with regard to law centres. I think that we are all grateful to the Royal Commission for its balanced views on law centres. It has reiterated, first, that the purpose of law centres is to offer legal advice in areas where there is a shortage of solicitors, and not otherwise.
  Secondly, the Commission has made clear that the role of law centres is to offer legal advice, albeit biased towards advice on social security and such matters. The Commission has made it equally clear that it is not the role of law centres to become centres for what they term community work but what many of us, particularly on the Conservative Benches, would term political agitation.
  The Commission has made it plain that that is not the purpose of law centres, and the fact that that has been said lends strength to the position of the council in my borough of Wandsworth, which, although it spends the most money of any local authority in England on law centres—about £150,000 a year—has had to contend with law centres which are not content to deal merely with the areas within which it is thought they should operate but have gone far too much into the area of agitation, to the extent that their ability to carry out their basic legal service has been damaged.
  I compliment the Royal Commission also on what it said about professional staff at law centres, reiterating that while they may work outside either of the professions they nevertheless have to adhere to professional standards and must be subject to the same control by professional bodies as the rest of us are when working in conventional legal practice.
  The only point about law centres on which I take issue with the Royal Commission is on its recommendation for a central agency. I suggest that that is not in keeping with our views on quangos. There is no reason why there should not be sensible local control of a law centre, just as there can be sensible local control of so many essential local services, of which this is but one.
  194
  My next point relates to legal aid. I appreciate that funds are not readily available—it would be irresponsible to suggest that they are—but the whole subject of legal aid and administrative tribunals has to be considered with the greatest care. When my right hon. and learned Friend made his statement last week, he was kind enough to indicate his basic sympathy with the idea that legal aid should be extended, and I hope that within the lifetime of this Government it will be possible for something to be done about that.
  11.34 pm
  Mr. Keith Best: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for allowing me about one minute of his time in which to make a brief contribution. I, too, wish to make a few remarks about law centres, but I proceed on the basis of the maxim that where there is a right there is a remedy. In a Utopian society, everybody would have access to legal services. Sadly, that is not the position in the country at present, simply because there are those, particularly on the civil legal aid side, who for financial reasons cannot go to law or who are inhibited from so doing.
  I welcome what has been said by the Royal Commission:
  "We believe that the principle to be observed is that legal aid should be available to all but that above minimum levels the contribution to be sought should increase by reference to the size of the individual's resources. The contribution assessed should be such that it will not place an undue financial burden upon him."
  I believe that there is a great need for an increase in law centres. The matter is dealt with in the report. I do not have the time now to quote the references which I should have liked to quote, but it is all in the report for the reading. It has been endorsed by the Lord Chancellor's legal aid advisory committee.
  The one point upon which I ask my right hon. and learned Friend to comment is whether we have not reached the stage where we should have some form of central funding of law centres as distinct from the situation which has prevailed up to the present. My right hon. and learned Friend, in a recent parliamentary answer, said that about seven law centres were funded by the Lord Chancellor's Department, 13 by the Department of the

  195
  Environment under the urban aid scheme, and 11 through other agencies. That is, perhaps, an unsatisfactory state of affairs. I hope that at some stage we shall see some form of central funding which also takes cognisance of the fact that the local community should participate in the workings of its own law centre.
  11.36 pm
  The Attorney-General (Sir Michael Havers): The House will be grateful to the hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Ryman) for taking his opportunity to discuss this report so soon after its publication. I am grateful to him for the way in which he dealt with the points and I shall certainly ensure that his helpful comments are considered when we come, as we must, to consider the report and consult about it.
  The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to learn that time has not been wasted. Last Wednesday the legal services conference met. Its members included members of the Bar, the Law Society, citizens advice bureaux, the Law Centres Federation, even the Trades Union Congress. It made substantial progress. It was a constructive meeting. It is already reporting the progress that it made to the Lord Chancellor's advisory committee. So we have already started the process of consultation.
  In the very few minutes available to me, I wish to say that it can be fairly said that the cri de coeur of the hon. Gentleman was that there should be a discussion paper. Having read all four volumes of the report, I wonder whether we need any further paper at this stage. The report provides ample material for discussion. What all of us have to do is encourage discussion. It may be that there will come a time, before any final debate, when the Government, in a statement either by me or by my noble Friend in the other place, will identify the problems and the views that they have taken. However, I should have thought that there is all the material needed in this very full report to encourage discussion. In fact, discussion is already taking place, involving not only those concerned in the law but those in the House and outside who criticise the lawyers. As we all know, there are plenty of those.
  I have been asked whether the Government accept the tenor of the report. If
  196
  the hon. Gentleman is asking whether we accept the report as a whole, my answer is that it is impossible for me to say at this stage. A great deal of consideration and consultation is necessary. If the hon. Gentleman is asking whether, for example, I accept the unanimous report so far as it concerns fusion, the answer is "Yes". If he is asking whether I accept that part of the report which deals with the backlog of cases, the delay and the advisability of speeding up procedures, the answer is "yes".
  The hon. Gentleman is well known at the Bar as being someone who does not waste time in court. The report makes a point about prolixity. He and I would take common cause here in saying that anything that shortens speeches and tends to eliminate tedious cross-examination will be welcomed, not only by those who have to sit and listen to them but because of its effect in saving public expenditure. Those sorts of things do not need money, simply a bit of persuasion and a bit of encouragement from solicitors, judges and others. I often wonder whether the Court of Appeal could not be a little more outspoken in its support of judges who stop the same question being asked five times, rather than never coming out in criticism of those judges who allow the same question to be put in varying different ways, going on and on, not only to the boredom of everyone present but at great public expense.
  To seek to distinguish between those recommendations in the report which require public expenditure and those which do not is not as simple as the hon. Gentleman said or as was put to me during questions after my statement last week. It is not simply a matter of saying that a particular recommendation involves no public expenditure and that it can therefore be dealt with at once. Many of them still require consultation. Hon. Members should consider the result of the recommendations upon conveyancing, which the hon. Member for Blyth and I both believe to be sensible. They have caused a tremendous uproar. It would be wrong for us to seek to implement those at once without holding consultations or giving those who disagree an opportunity to be heard.
  I have always thought that there are problems for the successful litigant who

  197
  is not legally aided coming up against a legally aided opponent. That matter is under consideration. It is, in a way, a form of blackmail, and it is something that we must consider.
  It is worth remembering that in the 11 years up to last year criminal legal aid had risen from £2·6 million to £26 million. The number of cases had increased by about 60 per cent., but the
  198
  total expenditure on those cases, whether due to prolixity or to further complication, and bearing in mind the huge increase in crime in that time, had risen by about 10 or 11 times. Those matters must be considered carefully.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Twelve o'clock.

INDUSTRY
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  Energy Loss
  Nuclear Power Stations
  Nuclear Power Stations
  Industrial Diseases (Compensation Claims)
  Industrial Diseases (Compensation Claims)
  Petrol Supplies
  Petrol Supplies
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Value Added Tax
  Value Added Tax
  Value Added Tax (Bloodstock Industry)
  Value Added Tax (Bloodstock Industry)
  Transport Drivers (Taxation Allowance)
  Transport Drivers (Taxation Allowance)
  Tax Exemption Certificates (Building and Construction Industry)
  Tax Exemption Certificates (Building and Construction Industry)
  Corporation Tax
  Corporation Tax
  European Community Budget
  European Community Budget
  Share Ownership
  Share Ownership
  Farmers (Tax Arrangements)
  Farmers (Tax Arrangements)
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Sheepmeat
  Sheepmeat
  Herring Fishing
  Herring Fishing
  Common Fisheries Policy
  Common Fisheries Policy
  Agricultural Wages Board
  Agricultural Wages Board
  Agricultural Workers
  Agricultural Workers
  Public Expenditure
  Public Expenditure
  Purchasing Contracts
  Purchasing Contracts
  Dairy and Sugar Industries
  Dairy and Sugar Industries
  Public Officials (Powers of Entry)
  Public Officials (Powers of Entry)
DEFENCE
  Air Bases
  Air Bases
  Queen's Flight
  Queen's Flight
  Tornado Aircraft
  Tornado Aircraft
  Britain and NATO (Booklet)
  Britain and NATO (Booklet)
  Retired Officers (Employment)
  Retired Officers (Employment)
  Purchasing Contracts
  Purchasing Contracts
  Low-flying Aircraft
  Low-flying Aircraft
  Military Aircraft (Flight Control)
  Military Aircraft (Flight Control)
  Gatow Heide, Berlin
  Gatow Heide, Berlin
EUROPEAN COMMUNITY
  Assembly Members (Immunities)
  Assembly Members (Immunities)
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  Citizenship
  Citizenship
  Rhodesia
  Rhodesia
  Cambodia
  Cambodia
  Consular Offices
  Consular Offices
  Negative Certificates of Origin
  Negative Certificates of Origin
OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT
  Infant and Young Child Feeding (Geneva Conference)
  Infant and Young Child Feeding (Geneva Conference)
SOCIAL SERVICES
  Poor Persons
  Poor Persons
  Supplementary Benefit
  Supplementary Benefit
  Paddington Day Hospital
  Paddington Day Hospital
  Medway Towns (Fund Allocations)
  Medway Towns (Fund Allocations)
  Benefits (Industrial Disputes)
  Benefits (Industrial Disputes)
  Hospitals (Fuel Supplies)
  Hospitals (Fuel Supplies)
  Hospitals (Brent and Harrow)
  Hospitals (Brent and Harrow)
  National Health Service (Photocopying Costs)
  National Health Service (Photocopying Costs)
  Autistic Children
  Autistic Children
  Perinatal Mortality Survey
  Perinatal Mortality Survey
  Retired Dental Surgeons
  Retired Dental Surgeons
  Ambulance Service
  Ambulance Service
  City General Hospital, Carlisle
  City General Hospital, Carlisle
  National Health Service
  National Health Service
  Family Practitioners
  Family Practitioners
  Chiropody
  Chiropody
  Heating Allowance
  Heating Allowance
  Disabled Persons
  Disabled Persons
  One-Parent Families
  One-Parent Families
  Mobility Allowance
  Mobility Allowance
  Good Neighbour Campaign
  Good Neighbour Campaign
  Family Income Supplement
  Family Income Supplement
  Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Act 1979
  Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Act 1979
  Regional Health Authorities
  Regional Health Authorities
  Anaesthesia
  Anaesthesia
  Ancillary Services
  Ancillary Services
  Hospital Administration
  Hospital Administration
  Voluntary Sector
  Voluntary Sector
  Widows
  Widows
  Berkshire Area Health Authority
  Berkshire Area Health Authority
  Benefits and Earnings
  Benefits and Earnings
SCOTLAND
  Peterhead Prison (Family Visits)
  Peterhead Prison (Family Visits)
  Pay Beds
  Pay Beds
  School Bus Services
  School Bus Services
  School Meals
  School Meals
  Peterhead Prison (Life Prisoner)
  Peterhead Prison (Life Prisoner)
  Schoolchildren
  Schoolchildren
  Local Health Councils
  Local Health Councils
  Rate Support Grant
  Rate Support Grant
  Educational Establishments (Cost)
  Educational Establishments (Cost)
  Herring Processing Industry
  Herring Processing Industry
  Scottish Central Excavation Unit
  Scottish Central Excavation Unit
  Coatbridge and Airdrie (Industrial Development)
  Coatbridge and Airdrie (Industrial Development)
  Employment (Dundee)
  Employment (Dundee)
  Industrial Investment (Dundee)
  Industrial Investment (Dundee)
  Advance Factories (Dundee)
  Advance Factories (Dundee)
  Hypothermia
  Hypothermia
  Child Minders
  Child Minders
  Parliamentary Boundaries (Dundee)
  Parliamentary Boundaries (Dundee)
  Criminal Law
  Criminal Law
  Community Service Orders
  Community Service Orders
  Police
  Police
  Police Cadets
  Police Cadets
  Licensing (Scotland) Act 1976
  Licensing (Scotland) Act 1976
  Fire Service Training School, Gullane
  Fire Service Training School, Gullane
  Council Houses (Sale)
  Council Houses (Sale)
  Oil Development (Impact on Indigenous Industries)
  Oil Development (Impact on Indigenous Industries)
  Scottish Tourist Board
  Scottish Tourist Board
  Unemployment (Dundee)
  Unemployment (Dundee)
  Common Fisheries Policy
  Common Fisheries Policy
  Sheepmeat
  Sheepmeat
  Regional and Island Authorities
  Regional and Island Authorities
  Health Boards (Value Added Tax)
  Health Boards (Value Added Tax)
  River Tweed (Protection)
  River Tweed (Protection)
  Hospital Waiting Lists
  Hospital Waiting Lists
  Home Helps
  Home Helps
  Fishing Industry
  Fishing Industry
  Highlands and Islands Development Board
  Highlands and Islands Development Board
TRANSPORT
  Lorry Design (Road Damage)
  Lorry Design (Road Damage)
  Channel Tunnel
  Channel Tunnel
  Public Expenditure
  Public Expenditure
  Disabled Persons
  Disabled Persons
  Freight Integration Council
  Freight Integration Council
  Mrs. F. O'Brien
  Mrs. F. O'Brien
ENVIRONMENT
  Community Land Act 1975
  Community Land Act 1975
  Property Owners (Possession and Fair Rents)
  Property Owners (Possession and Fair Rents)
  Travelling People
  Travelling People
  Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act
  Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act
  Regional Government Car Service
  Regional Government Car Service
  Field Monument Wardens
  Field Monument Wardens
  Burial Act 1853
  Burial Act 1853
  Housing (Walsall)
  Housing (Walsall)
  Local Government Act 1972 (Elections)
  Local Government Act 1972 (Elections)
  Housing Associations
  Housing Associations
  Departmental Staff (Powers of Entry)
  Departmental Staff (Powers of Entry)
  Copec Housing Association
  Copec Housing Association
  Local Government (Expenditure)
  Local Government (Expenditure)
  Mersey Estuary
  Mersey Estuary
  Local Authorities (Staff)
  Local Authorities (Staff)
  Toilet Facilities
  Toilet Facilities
NORTHERN IRELAND
  Voluntary Schools (Land Acquisition)
  Voluntary Schools (Land Acquisition)
  European Community Aid
  European Community Aid
  School Building
  School Building
  Companies (Northern Ireland) Order 1978
  Companies (Northern Ireland) Order 1978
  Off-Licensees (Prosecutions)
  Off-Licensees (Prosecutions)
  Arms and Ammunition
  Arms and Ammunition
  Terrorists (Average Age)
  Terrorists (Average Age)
  Housing Executive Property (Squatters)
  Housing Executive Property (Squatters)
  Commercial Property (Compensation Claims)
  Commercial Property (Compensation Claims)
  Ballygowan Road, Castlereagh
  Ballygowan Road, Castlereagh
TRADE
  Coal Imports
  Coal Imports
  London Airports
  London Airports
  Companies House
  Companies House
  Fireworks
  Fireworks
  Powdered Milk
  Powdered Milk
  Metrication Board
  Metrication Board
  Estate Agents Act
  Estate Agents Act
  Foundry Castings (Imports)
  Foundry Castings (Imports)
  Textile Imports
  Textile Imports
  Batteries
  Batteries
  Soviet Shipping
  Soviet Shipping
  Trading Agreements (COMECON)
  Trading Agreements (COMECON)

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

FISHERY PROTECTION MEASURES
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent foreign trawlers fishing within United Kingdom fishing limits in the English Channel and by using smaller mesh nets ignoring United Kingdom regulations essential for the conservation of our fishing stocks.
The MINISTER of STATE, MINISTRY of AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES and FOOD (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, all waters, including the English Channel, lying within British fishery limits are regularly patrolled by our fishery protection fleet in order to ensure that all fishing vessels comply with United Kingdom laws on mesh sizes and related fishery conservation measures.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that reply. But is he satisfied, particularly in relation to the West Country ports, that the fishing patrol vessels are adequate in numbers and speed to cope with the poaching that has been occurring in the last few weeks? Secondly, in view of the speed with which this country implemented the recommendations regarding the mesh measurements of nets—rightly, I believe, in view of the need to conserve fishing stocks—will Her Majesty's Government press for similar action by other maritime powers, in order to conserve fishing stocks, and to give our fishermen a fair deal and prevent the poaching of immature fishing stocks?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, the answer to my noble friend's first question is that we are satisfied that the number of vessels and the capability of the vessels is adequate for the task. With regard to the second part of her question, we are, of course, actively pursuing a common fishing policy within the EEC. We are anxious that this should be concluded as quickly as possible. We have taken action on conservation ourselves because we feel this to be very important; otherwise there will be no fish to fish.
Lord BOOTHBY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether Her Majesty's Government are satisfied that the Navy has enough ships of the particular kind required to ensure the effective protection of our inshore fishing industry?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, we are satisfied that there are adequate vessels. The noble Lord, Lord Boothby, might like to know that there are five Royal Navy Island Class vessels and three vessels operated by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland which are deployed on fishery protection duties in offshore waters. They are supported by RAF Nimrod aircraft, which fly about 180 hours a month on surveillance duties, and eight to 10 Royal Navy Ton Class vessels. A further three vessels operated by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland are deployed in coastal waters.
Lord BOOTHBY: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that satisfactory answer.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that, on matters such as this, it is vital that we remain firmly within the law? Is he aware that in terms of our relationship with our partners in Europe we may be passing through a critical stage? Some of them are wanting to ignore the rule of law in certain matters, which could well bring about a breakdown in that very essential partnership. Would he agree that we must give a lead by seeing to it when a law or a regulation is in existence it is adhered to, and if we are disquieted about anything we get our remedies through the courts and do not take unilateral action which undermines the very rule of law itself?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I think there is nothing which my noble friend has asked

597
me in that question with which I would disagree. We are concerned to see that any action we take is within the law. We have taken certain action with regard to fishery conservation which we believe to be within the law, although there are others who have taken the case to the European Court.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, can my noble friend say what is the Government's policy towards the Russian factory ships which are at present sitting in Falmouth harbour, thereby doing the local fishermen, the number of whose boats has been reduced from approximately 100 to 30, out of their livelihood?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, it is our duty to police and patrol the waters which are under our jurisdiction. If my noble friend has any particular point that he would wish me to look at I would be quite willing to do so, if he would be kind enough to let me know the details.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, would not my noble friend agree that it is very difficult for the crew of a Nimrod aircraft to decide if a boat is using an illegal mesh? Therefore, would it not be wise to have helicopters carrying rubber dinghies with outboard engines which could be launched into the sea in order to inspect the nets?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, that is an ingenious suggestion. I am aware that it would be very difficult for any pilot to check the size of a 70 millimetre net from a fair height at a fair speed. That is, of course, why we have ships. It is up to the ships to board the vessels when there is any matter for concern. As regards helicopters, I think the initial reply to that suggestion is bound to be that this would be a matter of very considerable expense.

NORTH SEA OIL WELLS: CONTROL OF BLOW-OUTS
2.44 p.m.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what safety measures they have in mind in the event of an oil blow-out in the North Sea.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EMPLOYMENT (The Earl of Gowrie): My Lords, each operator of an offshore oil/gas installation on the United Kingdom Continental Shelf has by regulation to prepare contingency plans for a number of emergency situations, including blow-outs. The contingency plans of fixed oil installations have been called in by the Department of Energy and are scrutinised—albeit the ultimate responsibility must rest with the operator. Annual exercises are held by Government to test contingency planning procedures. In the event of a blow-out, the normal search and rescue facilities co-ordinated by H.M. Coastguard can be called upon and operators can also call upon the resources of other North Sea operators through the "Sector Club" arrangements. The Department of Energy has also made arrangements to monitor the operators' responses to blowouts and to inform and co-ordinate the various departmental interests.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his somewhat comforting reply. However, is he aware that in my Question I was not concerned with the safety of the crew on the oil-rigs—because the oil companies are so efficient that they would obviously have ample safety precautions in that respect—but that my real thoughts were turning on the virtually complete destruction of marine life in such a restricted area as the North Sea? I was hoping that Her Majesty's Government might have some task force at hand composed of people like Red Adair. I understand that there is a man called Red Adair who appears to be able to control these blow-outs. I wonder whether Her Majesty's Government have a reserve of Red Adairs to try to control such a blow-out, which could be disastrous?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I can assure my noble friend that no political considerations will come into the provision of safety in the event of a

599
blow-out. In fact, as he said, the Government do have a task force—the Blow-Out Emergency Team—which can, in the last resort, take over control of operations from the operator.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, arising out of what the noble Viscount said, may I ask the Government whether they are aware of the very great work that Mr. Red Adair and his team from Texas did in capping the Ekofisk blow-out—work for which we are all indebted? What are Her Majesty's Government doing to ensure that a British team is trained for this very important work should a similar emergency arise in our waters? I am sure that the Government would agree that this is too important a matter to be left to individual companies.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, if the noble Lord will be so kind as to study my last answer, he will realise that I have in fact said that the Government do have such a task force—the Blow-Out Emergency Team. But, I am delighted to add my tribute to the work of Mr. Adair.

RENT ACTS: TENANT PROTECTION
2.48 p.m.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps are being taken to protect tenants from being evicted from residences occupied by them for over 20 years by speculators who are exploiting loopholes in the Rent Act.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, I am not aware of a loophole which would enable such longstanding tenants to be evicted from their homes. We have made it clear that we do not intend to reduce the security of existing protected tenants.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, is it not farcical that although the Rent Acts are
600
supposed to protect people with moderate incomes, many are living in properties which are being purchased, and the rent tribunals are not taking the slightest notice of scarcity value in assessing rents, which are being increased every time there is speculation? Does he realise that a large number of people are being deprived of their homes at present because they cannot afford the exorbitant rents which, in consequence of the speculation, are being claimed from them, with tribunals' assessments?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, the Rent Acts make it quite clear that, in fact, the scarcity aspect should not be taken into account when assessing the levels of rents; so there is very little that the Government can do about that, even if it were desirable to do so. As regards the noble Lord's Question, I have read with much interest his earlier Questions on the same subject over the past 18 months or so. From the extensive nature of those Questions, and indeed from the equally extensive replies that he has been given, I doubt that I could add anything to what must by now be the noble Lord's already extensive knowledge of this most complex subject.
Lord BOOTHBY: My Lords, is it a fact that under the law as it at present stands tenants who have been occupying their residences for over 20 years cannot be evicted?
Lord BELLWIN: Yes, my Lords. The regulations regarding eviction are now, under the Acts, such that there is the same security as has existed ever since the Rent Acts came into force. The noble Lord will probably know that in fact the first of these Acts was dated 1965, and that was followed by the 1968 Act and a series of Acts thereafter. The answer to the noble Lord's question is, Yes, that is so.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, will the noble Lord think again about this matter? Does he realise that people who have lived in their homes for 20 or 30 years —and I have in mind in particular pensioners who rely entirely upon a fixed pension—are being driven from their homes? The result is terrifying and the Acts do not protect them. Will the noble Lord go into the matter carefully and ensure that something like the Leasehold Reform Act or a proper Rent Act

601
is introduced in order to protect such people and ensure that scarcity value is not taken into consideration when fixing rentals?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, this raises a very complex area. There can be few areas that are more complex than the Rent Acts and their workings. It would not be for me to say at this moment in time that the Government will seek yet another review of such Acts. One must, of course, sympathise with the point the noble Lord makes, but there is no evidence as such to show that with the rent allowances and the other protection which is available tenants are being evicted, as the noble Lord suggests.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, if an appellant to a tribunal had some reason to believe that scarcity value was not being disregarded, would he not have grounds for appeal to the High Court for a prerogative writ?
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, yes, he would.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, could such a person obtain legal aid for that purpose?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I am grateful for the aside which would seem to indicate that there is such a right. Whether or not legal aid would be available in those circumstances is something I should certainly want to look into.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, can the Government do something in the leasehold sector? Bearing in mind that it was largely due to them that security of tenure was put on in the early 1970s, would they look into the leasehold sector? —where people who have had houses on long leases, sometimes for 30 or 40 years, and who would be entitled to leasehold enfranchisement, cannot take it up because of the enormous sums, sometimes over £100,000, that they are being asked to pay for a new lease. That is causing great distress.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I assume that the noble Lord raised the point with the previous Administration during the last five years, no doubt at regular intervals. I can do no better than make
602
the point I made to the noble Lord, Lord Janner, about the whole workings of these Acts. Yes, the Government are, in fact, looking at certain aspects of the workings of the Acts and I assure the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, that the point he has made will be included in those considerations.
Lord ROBERTHALL: My Lords, is the Minister aware that a very large number of people who would be prepared to let their houses, or part of their houses, are afraid to do so because of the restrictions of the Rent Acts? If those Acts could be modified in such a way that at least some of this property could come on to the market, it would very much reduce the speculation to which the noble Lord, Lord Janner, referred.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I am aware of that fact and, as has previously been declared, that is precisely why it is the Government's intention to introduce a form of shorthold lettings.

THE GAMING BOARD: RESPONSIBILITIES
2.54 p.m.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper. Perhaps I might draw attention to the fact that there are two obvious printing errors, which I am glad to say on this occasion cannot be attributed to my bad handwriting because the Question was put in typewritten form.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what are the statutory responsibilities of the Gaming Board and its relationship with the horsefacing industry in view of the Statement by the Under-Secretary for the Environment in the House of Commons on 29th October 1979 (Hansard, col. 946) that as from 1st January 1980 there will be a partnership between the Jockey Club, the Levy Board and the Gaming Board for the bennefit of the horseracing industry operating within a scheme which the Home Secretary intends to approve under Section 25 of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Belstead): My Lords, the Gaming Board is responsible for keeping under review the extent and character of gaming in Great Britain. The Board also has certain functions in relation to lotteries. It has no responsibility for horseracing and will not be involved in any way in the proposed Horseracing Advisory Council. My honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, in referring to the proposal that this new body should be set up by 1st January 1980, inadvertently mentioned the Gaming Board, but this was an error and he has asked me to apologise to anyone who was misled.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, I certainly accept the regrets of the Minister for Sport. However, is the noble Lord aware that the speech of the Home Secretary is filled with similar errors, and that on Thursday I hope to take advantage of the Third Reading of the Gaming (Amendment) Bill to draw attention to some of them? Perhaps the noble Lord will put himself in a position to make a similar retraction on the part of the Home Secretary.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am sorry but I am only aware that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary made a perfectly splendid speech on 29th October, with every word of which I agree.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, is it not a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, spotted the misprints, as we were all looking forward to finding out about "horsefacing"?
Lord WIGG: My Lords, in that case, if the noble Lord wants to find out anything about horseracing, or any other aspect of gambling, he should take no notice of the debate in another place which, for the most part, was fatuous rubbish.

SALE OF GOODS BILL [H.L.]
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, I understand that no amendments
604
have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Recommitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Recommitment be discharged.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE BILL [H.L.]
2.56 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into a Committee on Recommitment on the Bill. I must express my regret that there are a number of amendments on a consolidation Bill, but when we come to it—if we do—noble Lords will find that there is very little in it.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee on Recommitment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 66 agreed to.
Clause 67 [Promissory oaths of certain justices]:
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 42, line 24, leave out ("section") and insert ("sub-section").
The noble and learned Lord said: This amendment corrects a clerical error which was in the Bill when it was introduced, but which had not previously been noticed. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 67, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 68 to 72 agreed to.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Consequential amendments]:
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendments Nos. 2 and 3:
Page 51, line 16, leave out from ("44") to ("for") in line 18.
Page 51, line 20, leave out from ("56(B)(7)") to ("for") in line 22.
The noble and learned Lord said: With Amendment No. 2, I should also like to speak to the amendment on line 20 as well. The words proposed to be left out have been rendered superfluous by the Domestic Proceedings and Magistrates' Courts Act 1978 (Commencement No. 3 Order 1979) made on 26th June. The words in question relate to certain provisions of the Domestic Proceedings and Magistrates' Courts Act 1978 and would have been needed if those provisions had not come into force before the commencement of the Bill. The order however brings those proceedings into operation on 1st November 1979, which in the events which have now happened, is bound to be a date earlier than the commencement of the Bill; that is to say, three months after Royal Assent. I beg to move these amendments en bloc.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
3 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 51, line 26, at end insert—
("Affiliation Proceedings Act 1957 (c. 55)
9A. In section 3(1), in relation to any time after the coming into operation of section 49 of the Domestic Proceedings and Magistrates' Courts Act 1978, for "section 1 of the Administration of Justice Act 1973" substitute "the Justices of the Peace Act 1979".").
The noble and learned Lord said: This amendment will insert in the schedule a new paragraph in substitution for the existing paragraph 26 which is to be deleted by the subsequent amendment. It is only a drafting amendment for improving the form of the legislation. Where an existing principal Act has been prospectively amended by a provision of an amending Act which is not yet in force, and the further amendment has to be made in consequence to the Bill, the method adopted elsewhere in Schedule 2 is to amend the principal Act and not the amending Act. This is thought to be the method most useful to users of the statutes.
606
Paragraph 26 is out of line with this pattern. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendments Nos. 5 and 6:
Page 51, line 35, at end insert—
("Backing of Warrants (Republic of Ireland) Act 1965 (c. 45)
11A. In the Schedule, in the proviso to paragraph 2, for the words from "section 121" to "other magistrates" substitute"section 16(1) of the Justices of the Peace Act 1979 (which exempts stipendiary magistrates from certain restrictions imposed by the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952)" and for "that Act" substitute "the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952".").
at end insert—
("Criminal Justice Act 1967 (c. 80)
11 B. In section 45(4), for "Part IV of the Justices of the Peace Act 1949 "substitute" Part VI of the Justices of the Peace Act 1979".").
The noble and learned Lord said: May I take Amendment No. 5 with the second amendment on line 35. These Amendments form part of a group of amendments to insert in the schedule further consequential amendments of enactments containing references to provisions which are to be consolidated by the Bill. It is not essential that all such enactments should be expressly amended. The necessary substitution of references to provisions of the Bill for references to provisions consolidated by the Bill will, in default of express amendment, be made by the Interpretation Act 1978, Section 17(2)(a), but it is for the convenience of users of the statutes that as many of the enactments in question as come to light during the period of consolidation should be expressly amended. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 51, leave out lines 41 to 43.
The noble and learned Lord said: This is a pure drafting amendment. The amendment will delete a paragraph inserted in the schedule in error. It purports to amend Section 43 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970, but in fact that section has already been repealed. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendments Nos. 8, 9, 10 and 11:
Page 51, line 43, at end insert—
("Guardianship of Minors Act 1971 (c. 3)
12A. In section 15, in subsections (1) and (4), in relation to any time after the coming into operation of section 47(1) of the Domestic Proceedings and Magistrates' Courts Act 1978, for "Administration of Justice Act 1973" substitute "Justices of the Peace Act 1979".")
Page 52, line 5, at end insert—
("Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1972 (c. 18)
14A. In section 27(2), in relation to any time after the coming into operation of section 56 of the Domestic Proceedings and Magistrates' Courts Act 1978, for "section 1 of the Administration of Justice Act 1973" substitute "the Justices of the Peace Act 1979".")
Page 52, line 10, at end insert—
("Criminal Justice Act 1972 (c. 71)
15A. In section 51, in subsection (4), for "section 5(1) of the Justices of the Peace Act 1968" substitute "section 28(1) of the Justices of the Peace Act 1979".")
Page 53, line 10, leave out ("38(4)") and insert ("38—

(a)in subsection (3), for "section 1 of the Administration of Justice Act 1973 "substitute"section 8 of the Justices of the Peace Act 1979";

(b)in subsection (4).").

The noble and learned Lord said: May I take Amendment No. 8 with the amendments to page 52, line 5, paragraph 14A, and page 52, line 10, No. 15A, and page 53, line 10, which go with it in consequence. These raise the same point, as I have already explained on the two amendments to page 51, line 35. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 53, leave out lines 20 and 21.
The noble and learned Lord said: This is consequential on the amendment to page 51, line 26. I beg to move.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: Having myself engaged in this fascinating patter on many occasions, I congratulate the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor on the speed with which he has accomplished reading out the incomprehensible, and doing it so felicitously.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord. I thought perhaps I was deceiving the
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Committee into thinking I knew something about it.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the amendments.

PROTECTION OF OFFICIAL INFORMATION BILL [H.L.]
3.6 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of the Protection of Official Information Bill. The object of this Bill is to get rid of Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911 and to substitute a code which is more liberal, more intelligible, and even capable of enforcement. There is no intention to deal with Section 1 of the principal Act which deals with spying in the general sense of the word. Nor is there any intention to couple this Bill with the totally different and potentially more controversial question whether or to what extent we should attempt to imitate the Americans in giving the citizen a general right, legally enforceable through the courts, of access to Government files. What is beyond controversy is that such an attempt raises totally separate issues outside the scope of the present measure, and any attempt, however well intentioned, to take it on would, I think, wreck the chances of the present measure getting through this Session. At any rate, it forms no part at all of the legislation for which I now seek the approval of the House.
Unless I am mistaken it is now nine years since a judge said, I think at the Old Bailey, that it was time that Section 2 was pensioned off, and it is more than eight years since the Franks Committee, which was set up to achieve this object, made its report. It is no criticism that successive Governments, sailing under different political colours, have failed so far to achieve this purpose. All have concurred in the proposed objective. But this is the first time that one has given birth to actual proposed legislation. The Bill, I must explain, is not mine but that of

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my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. He asked me to introduce it into your Lordships' House because it is highly technical. I will strive to make it intelligible. But I hope the House will forgive me in any shortcomings or possibly in any inaccuracies and be patient with what must be a long and necessarily dry as dust exposition of its contents.
The crucial question for consideration on Second Reading of the Bill is what information in the hands of the Government deserves the protection of the criminal law. I stress the word "criminal" law, because it does not affect either in one way or another the civil legal responsibilities or indeed the moral obligations of Government servants or contractors, or individual newspapers, or others. The laws of contract, the law of tort, the law affecting confidentiality, defamation, the disciplinary rules of the Civil Service, all remain unaltered by the Bill. This is not intended as a charter for people to act in a dishonourable or disloyal fashion, to give away Cabinet secrets, to break their Privy Councillor's oath, to leak unauthorised information or to spread false stories to other people's detriment. No doubt this will all go on as before, and no doubt from time to time it will give rise to civil litigation or even to criticism, but it will not as such be criminal. This is a law to limit the extent of criminal liability.
This being so, I must make one more boring general point. Except in the deplorable field of absolute offences which we must all desire to restrict to the minimum, all criminal law consists of three main components. The first is the prohibited act, sometimes referred to in somewhat illiterate Latin as the actus reus. The second is the guilty state of mind, less illiterately known as menus rea. The third, to which I shall refer only briefly in one connection but which is contained in Clauses 8 to 11 inclusive, is the classification of offences, the mode of trial and the penalties available for infringement. But with all criminal laws, always excepting absolute offences, no offence is committed unless both of the first two elements are present and, subject to certain defined exceptions, unless both are proved beyond reasonable doubt.
In the light of these generalities I can now begin to survey the field of battle.
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After the judge suggested that Section 2 should be pensioned off, two broad schools emerged. One advocated the continuance of a sort of catch-all section protected by the Attorney General's or Director of Public Prosecution's fiat. The other recommended a precise definition of the prohibited act. The House will see from Clause 8 that there are two restrictions on prosecution for various of the offences. Both apply in one type of offence which requires both a ministerial certificate and a fiat, and in all other cases a fiat either from the Director of Public Prosecutions, in one class of offence, or the Attorney General in all the others is required before proceedings can be brought.
This, however, in the view of the Government and, I hope, in the view of other people as well, is totally inadequate as a protection for the subject, except of course against private prosecutions or ill-founded or oppressive conduct by bureaucratic authority. This is where the second side of thought comes in; the subject is entitled to know with as much precision as possible what conduct he has to avoid in order not to incur liability to prosecution. It is this with which the major part of the Bill is concerned.
Before I come to that, however, I must deal with the rather narrower concept of mens rea or guilty intent. This is of very great importance because even if the conduct concerned amounts to the prohibited act, a defendant is not guilty unless he also has a guilty mind. In the case of the ordinary citizen—dealt with under Clause 4, and this, of course, includes members of the Press—the subject must actually have known or actually had reasonable cause to believe, that the information in question was protected; and this must be proved to the maximum degree of certainty, which is that demanded by the criminal law: beyond reasonable doubt. In the case of a Crown servant or Government contractor as defined in the Bill—the definition of each can be found in Clause 14—the test is different. Before he can commit an offence at all, he must have dealt with protected information contrary to his official duty or an equivalent in the case of a contractor, dealt with under Clause 2. That is part of the prohibited act. But if he does deal with protected information contrary to his official duty, it will be for him to show that he did not believe and had

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no reasonable cause to believe that he was dealing with protected material. In that case, however, that standard will be proof on the balance of probabilities and not beyond reasonable doubt.
I now come to what may turn out to be the real meat of the question. The Franks Report did not have a draft Bill attached to it, but it did have recommendations. Everything that has taken place since Franks has used Franks as a starting point, and this Bill is no exception. But there have been a number of successive attempts by successive Governments to define or classify what is meant by protected material. None has been absolutely identical with Franks, nor has any been exactly identical with any of the others. Again, this Bill is no exception. I do not believe there is any party politics in this—at least there ought not to be.
What is in the Bill is the product of continuing discussion in public and private. We have made use of the speech of my noble friend Lord Carr of Hadley in another place on 29th June 1973; we have made use of the White Paper of the last Government (Cmnd. 7285) published in July 1978; we have also profited from the experience gained by discussion of Mr. Clement Freud's Private Member's Bill ; and we have made use of continuing discussions both inside and outside the Government. What we have produced is the best we can think of, and we now present it to Parliament. The Franks Report (para. 14) condemned the existing law in the following terms:
"The present law, contained in section 2, is notable for its extreme width and for the considerable uncertainty attaching to its interpretation and enforcement. It does not carry public confidence. We propose its replacement by provisions reduced in scope and less uncertain in operation".
This exactly expresses our own intention in this Bill. The Franks Committee recommended confining the protected material to a few specific areas, and this is what we have done. Clause 1(1) deals with protected information. Clause 1(2) deals with articles; that is articles in the sense of physical objects and not articles in the Press.
The Franks Committee chose as its criteria information the disclosure of which would cause serious injury to the interest of the nation. It identified information in the fields of defence and internal
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security, foreign relations, currency and the reserves, Cabinet papers, certain information relating to the maintenance of law and order, and private confidences. In some respects we have been more liberal than the Franks Report. Like the previous Government; for instance, in their White Paper, we have not protected Cabinet papers as such, and we have not protected currency or the reserves as such.
There are however features in which we differ, not so much from the Franks definitions or objectives as the methods by which we seek to achieve them. We all recognise, for instance, that defence and intelligence should be protected. Franks, however, thought that this field should be confined to the most sensitive information only. The Bill recognises—and I think the last Government did—that intelligence often consists in the gradual accumulation of small items of information, each apparently trivial in itself. As an ex-intelligence officer, I am sure that this is right, and I hope that the House will agree with it. For one phrase we are indebted to Mr. Clement Freud. He protected information, the disclosure of which would endanger the safety of a British subject (as I still prefer to call it, although now, I fear, inaccurately). This is what we agree with, and it will be seen embodied in Clause 1(1)(a).
There is also a difference from Franks—in my judgment also an improvement—in the question of the formal classification of documents; for instance, when a document is classified secret, confidential, restricted, and so on. This has its manifest advantages, but it is an over-simplification and in our view leaves too much to the Government official who does the classifying. We have concentrated instead in Clause (1) in identification of the substance of the information, rather than its technical classification marked on the top of the document. But in Clause 12 we have dealt with classification. Its effect under Clause 12 is not conclusive. It simply puts the recipient of a document on notice of its probable character. In other words, it goes to guilty intent, rather than the prohibited act.
On the question of "serious injury", however, we have made the ministerial certificate conclusive. There are, we believe, cogent reasons for this, and we

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agree with the Franks Report that it is a Government function, the test being political and subject to control by Parliament, rather than justiciable and subject to control by the judges; but even more so, because if we left it to the judges, it would, if they were to do their duty, be necessary to pass on semi-publicly a great deal more secret information, potentially, if not actually, damaging in order to substantiate our point. As noble Lords will see from Clause 8(1), however, this is limited to cases under Clause 1(1)(a).
I do not think that I need say much more about Clause 1(1)(b). Clause 1(1)(c) relates to the criminal law and prison security. It follows the Franks Report, and so far there has been little public dispute about it. I should perhaps have mentioned already, but it is particularly valuable here, that Clause 7—not only for Clause 1(1)(c), but for Clause 1(1)(e) and (f) as well—provides the individual with a useful defence. Notwithstanding that the information is protected, no offence is committed if the defendant shows that it was in any case available to the public. This, I hope, deals at least in part with a point attributed, I do not know whether justly or unjustly, in today's Guardian, to the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. Clause 1(1)(d) deals with intercepts, and I do not intend to elaborate on this. It is essential to any intelligence system to protect this class of information and article.
When I come to Clause 1(1)(e) and 1(1)(f) I enter a different area of policy. There are confidences reposed in Her Majesty's Government in the foreign field by other Governments in confidence. These we consider should be protected by the criminal law. Our credibility as a repository of confidential information would obviously be undermined if it were not so. Paragraph (f) is wider than envisaged by the Franks Report, but in our estimation rightly so. Individuals are on occasion compelled by law and under a moral obligation to confide their uttermost secrets to the Government in confidence, and of course these are other occasions on which the Government acquire such secrets. In such cases the Government hold the information as a trust, and we think that it should be protected. So far the Franks Report agreed. Subsequent criticism, including
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that by my noble friend Lord Carr of Hadley, in the speech to which I have referred, pointed out that this was technically too narrow. Not only individuals, but trading concerns, have secrets that they have to impart to Her Majesty's Government. These ought equally to be protected, and we see no reason why the public sector trading concerns should be in any worse position.
I do not think I need deal separately with Clause 2 which deals in general with "articles". The categories protected follow broadly the lines of Clause 1, which deals with information. The definition of "official information" is information (or for that matter an article) held by a Crown servant or Government contractor by virtue of his position as such. Both Crown servants and Government contractors are defined in Clause 14.
Clauses 2, 3 and 4 define the offences committed by wrongful disclosure, differentiating on the lines that I have described between Crown servants and Government contractors, on the one hand, and the ordinary individual subject, on the other. Clause 5 broadly follows the Franks Report in defining the case where officials and Government contractors fail to safeguard documents or articles. Clause 6 creates a separate offence on the lines outlined in the previous Government's White Paper protecting information. Noble Lords will note the special defence accorded to persons charged under Clause 6 by Clause 7(2).
Clause 7 therefore contains two separate and valuable defences, one fairly generally available on the lines I have indicated, and one applicable only to offences under Clause 6. I have already dealt with Clauses 8 and 12. Clauses 9, 10, 11, and 13 are technical and ancillary. Clause 14 is the definition clause, and Clause 15 applies the Bill to actions done abroad, or in the Channel Isles, or Isle of Man, or any colony, and generally to Northern Ireland. Clause 16 is the usual clause dealing with Short Title amendments and repeals, which are set out at length in the schedule. Clause 16(4) brings the Bill into operation by Statutory Instrument of the Secretary of State.
I think that I have left out one point that I should mention to the House.

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The provisions in the Bill requiring the fiat of the Attorney-General and the Director of Public Prosecutions do not of course apply to Scotland, although they apply to Northern Ireland. The reason for this is that all prosecutions in Scotland are under the aegis of the Lord Advocate, and therefore it is not usual in Scotland, I understand—my Scottish friends will correct me if I am wrong—to include such an express provision.
The Bill has been subjected——
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, if the noble and learned Lord has completed his explanation of the clauses, I wonder whether I may ask a question about Clause 1(1)(c), relating to information likely to be useful in the commission of offences. If in future a journalist discloses instructions which have been given by Government departments to civil servants—for example, the social security A code or instructions to immigration officers—which have been kept under wraps because the Government say that the disclosure of the information in them would be useful to fraudulent social security claimants, or to persons trying to evade the immigration law, would the journalist publishing that information be committing an offence?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I think that instant law is almost always bad law, but the answer would be certainly not, unless he knew that what he was doing was likely to come under the relevant clause, because that would be caught by the absence of mens rea. However, I shall ask my noble friend Lord Belstead, who is to reply to the debate, to take special note of what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has asked me, and give, not instant law, which I hesitate to do, but a considered reply coming from a reputable source.
My Lords, I noticed one rather violent leading article in one of the Sunday newspapers yesterday about the Bill. It proceeded by asking a number of rhetorical questions, preceded by the phrase, "What would happen if …?" Since the questions themselves were framed without reference to the criteria of the Bill, they are not capable in themselves of precise answer. Perhaps that is why they were framed in that way. But the short
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answer is that nothing which is legal now is rendered illegal by the Bill, and a great deal which is illegal now is put outside the criminal law by the Bill. On the other hand, if the Bill is passed through the House in its present form there is nothing which remains against the criminal law which is not protected by safeguards, such as the special defences under Sections 2 and 7, the requirement of strict proof of knowledge in other cases, the fiat of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney-General, and, where the ministerial certificate is required, the ministerial certificate, which can be challenged in Parliament. I have referred to all of these in the course of my remarks.
The only question we have to settle today is whether to give the Bill a Second Reading. In answer to that question—which is, after all, a simple one—I would ask the House to take the following view. Are we to leave on the Statute Book a section which is really manifestly intolerable because it is unjust and anachronistic; and, if tolerable at all, is tolerable only because it is unenforceable and unenforced, and therefore brings the law into disrepute? Or are we to give a Second Reading to a Bill which is the fruit of discussion, public and private, in Government circles and outside them over nine years; which corresponds broadly to, and in some ways is more liberal than, the report of the Franks Committee; and which, where it does not correspond with that report, almost always corresponds with the last Government's White Paper? I would suggest that there could be only one answer to this question this afternoon, and that a negative reply would simply be a form of legislative Luddism. Other points can surely be left, either to discussion this afternoon or to the Committee and Report stages. My last appeal to the House is not to allow imagined perfectionism, either now or hereafter, to become the enemy of the good ; and in that spirit, and subject to criticisms which may be made either now or at a later opportunity, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
3.33 p.m.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor described the Bill as highly

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technical, and that became manifest from his own speech, which endeavoured to clarify the technicality; and we are very grateful to him for doing so. But I think it is very important that the technicalities of the Bill should not obscure the fact that it concerns a vital aspect of our democracy. Indeed, it touches its very heart. It is the balance that has to be sought and, if possible, achieved between, on the one hand, enabling people to be adequately informed about the working of government, so that they can make informed use of their rights as citizens and electors, and have a voice in determining their own fate; and, on the other hand, enabling the Government of the day to preserve secrecy where, in the national interest, it is necessary to keep some information secret. It is not an easy balance to strike.
Of course, totalitarian Governments maintain secrecy, although brave individuals sometimes break through the veil. The dictators pronounce their decisions and force them on their subjects. But a democracy like ours relies on the trust of the people, on a broad consensus between Government and governed. If that consensus were to break down, we should be in deep trouble. But all democratic Governments have found it necessary to keep some information secret. The question is: How should that secrecy be maintained, and in what aspects of government should secrecy necessarily be protected?—and I have emphasised the word "necessarily".
Since 1889 we have used the criminal law as one important means of preserving essential secrecy; and so, indeed, have most Western countries. With us, as the noble and learned Lord has pointed out, the main criminal sanctions are to be found in Sections 1 and 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. Section 1 deals with disclosure for a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interests of the State—the spy cases. This Bill does not touch that. Section 2, with which we are concerned, covers the unauthorised disclosure of protected information, irrespective of the discloser's purpose. It catches people who may indeed have no thought of harming their country. I agree with the view, which is inherent in the bringing forward of this separate Bill to deal with Section 2, that those provisions should
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not appear side by side with the spy sections, the rest of the Official Secrets Act.
It is now common ground that the catch-all effect of Section 2 is no longer right, if indeed it ever was. The curious thing is that Clause 2 was not discussed at all in the parliamentary debates of 1911, and the Bill passed through the House of Commons on one August afternoon with very little discussion. If I may say so, one knows what goes on in another place on an August afternoon! The first parliamentary attack on Section 2 indeed came 28 years later, in 1939, when the Bill of that year was considered. On that occasion, the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, the father of my noble friend, criticised Section 2 in this House as,
"capable of indefinite expansion to cover … all manner of communications and information which may have been received from any one who holds or has held office under His Majesty".— [Official Report, 7/3/39; col. 31.]
It is therefore perhaps fitting that this Bill should be discussed today in the presence of my noble friend the son of Lord Strabolgi who made that early protest so long ago.
My Lords, the purpose of this Bill, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has indicated, is to repeal Section 2. Some have taken the view that that is all that ought to have been done. The Government do not take that view; nor do I. But whether what the Government propose in this Bill to take the place of Section 2 is acceptable is another question, which we shall have to consider. It restricts criminal sanctions for unauthorised disclosure or communication, as the Lord Chancellor has pointed out, to a specified and identified range of information. The catch-all provision has gone; but the question we have to face is whether or not the Bill as it stands may still catch too much, may still unduly restrict information and withhold it from the public. Will the Bill harmfully impede the Press (as it seems to think), the media and others who supply the lifeblood of public information and knowledge? These are questions which we shall no doubt consider with care as the Bill goes through the House. It would indeed he deplorable if, in giving precision to the categories to be protected, there were produced the harder, harsher certainty of new, specific provisions, instead of the

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old generality. It would be regrettable if new presbyter were but old priest writ large.
The previous Labour Administration considered this issue and these questions at length, and their ideas, as the noble and learned Lord has pointed out, were set out in the White Paper of July 1978 and then, in March of this year, in a Green Paper entitled Open Government. In the Green Paper one sees the following:
"The Government recognises that the ' catchall ' effect of Section 2 is no longer right and intends that it should be replaced by provisions which would restrict criminal sanctions for unauthorised disclosure or communication to a strictly limited range of information. This reform will not of itself increase the flow of information from Government, since the criminal law is concerned only with what should not be disclosed, and open government is concerned with what should be disclosed. And matters whose unauthorised disclosure would attract criminal sanctions would be among matters exempted from disclosure under any open government system. But the Government sees reform of Section 2 as an essential step in creating a climate in which greater openness can prevail".
The White Paper proposals were, as the noble and learned Lord has said, based on the recommendations of the Franks Committee. That was a distinguished committee under distinguished chairmanship and membership—Members of Parliament, lawyers, former civil servants and strong representation from Fleet Street and broadcasting. The report was unanimous and, so far as I can recollect, was well received in 1972 in Fleet Street as elsewhere.
The White Paper proposals that I have referred to now (and as the passage I have quoted indicated) admitted that reform of Section 2 would not of itself increase the flow of information from the Government. But, as I have read, we did see reform as an essential step, a precursor to greater openness in government. That reform was to be linked with provisions for greater public access to official documents; and the relevant portion of the Green Paper makes that clear. It explains the major argument for a public right of access; namely, that those seeking information have the right to obtain what they want, when they want it, subject to clear exceptions, rather than having to wait on Government initiative or discretion to release material. And the broad approach
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to the matter which was to be undertaken by the Government in legislation is set out in paragraph 59 of the Green Paper:
"In the Government's view the essential requirements of any scheme of access to official information is that it should satisfy public demand so far as is reasonable and practicable; that it should be fully compatible with constitutional and Parliamentary systems of this country; and that the costs should be commensurate with the public benefit".
Then, in the Labour Manifesto of 1979, an undertaking was given that the Government would:
"Introduce a Freedom of Information Bill to provide a system of open government, and enact the proposals made by the Government in its White Paper to reform Section Two …".
The noble and learned Lord has not lifted the veil in any respect on what the Government contemplate by way of follow-up to the limited purposes of the present Bill. He has said—and no doubt it may well be the case—that to attach to this Bill wider provisions on freedom of information would be time-consuming. But I think that we on this side of the House would be grateful if that "reputable source", as he has been so engagingly described the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, would lift the veil and tell us what ideas the Government have in mind in this field because we deem it to be quite crucial. Merely at this stage to deal with Section 2 without coping with and providing for the clamant demand from the public for greater access to official information will not do. I look forward with enthusiasm to hearing him at the conclusion of this debate unveil what the Government have in mind.
Coming to Section 2 of the Act itself, the noble and learned Lord has read some appropriate passages from the report. It said for instance:
"We found section 2 a mess. Its scope is enormously wide. Any law which impinges on the freedom of information in a democracy should be much more tightly drawn".
And it adds:
"A catch-all provision is saved from absurdity in operation only by the sparing exercise of the Attorney General's discretion to prosecute".
My Lords, in my six years in office as Attorney General there were only nine such prosecutions. Indeed, some serious commentators—and I think that one of my successors, a Conservative Attorney General, expressed this view —have said that because of the great

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difficulties in the way of identifying and defining with certainty those kinds of official information which should be covered, it would be preferable, on balance, to retain a catch-all section, together with the Attorney General's control over prosecution, as the lesser of two evils. I am bound to admit that one of the prosecutions which I authorised brought me into very bad trouble; but perhaps it is not desirable to retraverse that particular ground, although if it is traversed I should be happy to deal with it.
That is one view that was taken. But the Franks Report found that the very width of the Attorney General's discretion and the inevitably selective way in which it is exercised—that is the way the report put it—gives rise to considerable unease.
I have referred to the tension between openness and secrecy and I think that the House will be disposed to agree with the conclusion of Franks that the catch-all provision clearly goes too far towards the protection of secrecy. But to repeal it without replacement would work the opposite way, as I have said. The proper balance between openness and secrecy, I believe, requires a reformed law. The question that we face in considering this Bill is this. Do its provisions achieve that balance satisfactorily? The almost universal reaction of the Press has been an emphatic "No" to that question. The Bill has had a bad Press without exception, I believe, on both Right and Left of the political spectrum. It has been called a threat to freedom. There have been great headlines:
"How they plan to keep us in the dark"
and others such.
Of course, a misunderstanding, even outright conflict, between Press and Government and, indeed, even between Parliament and Government, has arisen before from time to time and may not necessarily be bad. But the relationships between these great institutions in our democracy are very delicate and should not be damaged. The balance between them is not capable of legalistic refinement but I believe that mutual trust between Government, the Press and the media is something for which each side should strive. I think that a considerable responsibility now lies on this House—a responsibility which it is well able to
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undertake—to examine carefully how justified are the fears of the Press and responsible bodies of opinion about the provisions of the Bill, and this we shall do during the various stages of the Bill.
It may be fitting within the time which is available to me if I indicate at this stage some of the main areas, as I see it, of legitimate concern. Clause 1 as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has explained, describes the information to which the Act applies, the protected information, disclosure of which attracts the criminal sanctions which are set out in the Bill. It falls, as the noble and learned Lord has told us, and as noble Lords will see from the Bill, into six categories. Category (a) is the first and refers to information relating to defence or international relations, the unauthorised disclosure of which would be likely to cause serious injury to the interests of the nation or endanger the safety of a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies. Your Lordships will see the test of that matter is the likelihood to cause serious injury to the interests of the nation or endanger the safety of its citizens. But that test is conclusively decided not by evidence to that effect to be given in court, but simply by ministerial certification under the provisions of Clauses 8 and 9 of the Bill.
Clause 8 provides:
"A prosecution for an offence under this Act in respect of information to which section 1(1)(a) above or an article to which section 1(2)(a) above applies shall not be instituted unless it has been certified by a Minister of the Crown that at the time of the alleged offence unauthorised disclosure of the information or article would have been likely to cause serious injury to the interests of the nation"—
et cetera. Clause 9 provides:
"On a prosecution relating to any information or article, a certificate under section 8(1) above that, at the time of the alleged offence, unauthorised disclosure of the information or article would have been likely to cause serious injury to the interests of the nation or endanger the safety of a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, or both, shall be conclusive evidence of that fact".
So the main issue in a trial in a certain sense is decided before the trial begins by the Minister's certificate.
The second category, (b), is information relating to security or intelligence. That is a broad category. I do not think that it is expressly provided for in that way in Franks, and it is provided for separately

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from defence and international relations. It is subject in Clause 1(1)(a) to no statutory test either as to seriousness or damage, and it would seem that any information about security and intelligence is protected whether or not it is already common knowledge.
A defence in respect of disclosure of information in Clause 1(1)(a), (b) and (d)—that is to say, defence, security or intelligence and interceptions—that before the time of the alleged offence the information had been available or had become available on request to the public or a section of the public, is apparently excluded for those categories of information. The other categories, (c), (e) and (f) are also covered.
The provisions of Clause 7 are an important part of the Bill. It reads as follows:
"It shall be a defence for a person charged with an offence under section 2, 3, 4 or 5 above in relation to information specified in section 1(1)(c), (e) or (f)"—
not, as your Lordships' will see, (a), (b) or (d)—
"to prove that before the time of the alleged offence the information had been made available, or had become available on request, to the public or a section of the public".
We shall want to examine carefully why that defence should be excluded from those in many respects graver aspects of the information provisions. Clause 7 itself is far from clear even to the categories to which it refers. It refers to "made available One wonders: made available by whom? Made available where? Does it cover Press publications, Press information, or does it only cover information officially made available within the United Kingdom? Perhaps the noble Lord at some convenient time —not necessarily today—will enlighten the House about those matters.
An important departure from Franks has been made in respect of the three important categories of defence, international relations, security and intelligence information. The Franks report proposed that appropriate classification should be the test of serious injury. I quote:
"The prosecution should have to satisfy the court that the information fell within a category and that it was so classified, but the court should not be concerned with the effect of the disclosure on the interests of the nation".
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But the classification was the basis and the key to the identification of what ought to be protected.
However, so far as I can understand in this Bill in relation to the categories (a), (b) and (d) that are found in Clause 1 protection is quite separate and divorced from classification, and classification is no more than an indication of serious injury and not necessary for the protection of the information. It would seem that a Minister could give a certificate for prosecution under Clauses 8 and 9 for the disclosure of information regarding defence, et cetera, which was not originally classified.
If that is so—and I believe it to be so from the language of the Bill—it would seem to undermine the approach of Franks, which was to create certainty as to what was covered by the process of classification to enable a civil servant, a journalist or a member of the public to know where he is in regard to these documents. Provision for classification of documents is made in Clauses 12 and 13 of the Bill. The system of classification is to be the overall responsibility of the Minister for the Civil Service, the Prime Minister—a small addition to her already enormously onerous duties.
The actual classification is to be done by what is described as the responsible authority. That means, according to Clause 12, any person designated as a responsible authority by a person prescribed in the regulations the Minister for the Civil Service may make. We are not told who that person would be and I would ask whether the responsible authorities must necessarily be within Government Departments proper or whether public corporations or Government contractors have classification powers. If that were so, it would mean there would be no control over the classification function either by Parliament or by the courts.
As to Clause 1(e) and 1(f), neither the Franks Report nor the White Paper proposed a category of official matter obtained from foreign governments or international governmental organisations or bodies carrying on nationalised industries. At the proper time we will examine the reasons which the Government may give for the inclusion of those categories.
I should have mentioned in the earlier context that, in regard to certification,

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I think I am right in saying it was proposed that it was not only the Minister who should be involved in examining the appropriateness of the conclusive certificate but that the Attorney-General should also be involved. I also recollect that in the discussion of the Freedom of Information Bill in the House of Commons it was proposed by the then Conservative Front-Bench spokesman that a security commission should be involved in the crucial process of certification.
My Lords, I have taken already more time than I should have done, but these are important considerations. It is a crucially important Bill. I am bound to say we think that before it passes on its way to another place it ought to undergo considerable improvements if the protection of the individual, of the Press and of the public is to be adequately looked after.
4.2 p.m.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, my noble friends on these Benches will also want to express gratitude to the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack for the careful way in which he explained the terms of this Bill to your Lordships' House. It appears only fitting that, after the barrage of criticism this Bill has received since its publication a fortnight ago, there should at last have been one voice raised in its favour.
Of course, this Bill makes no attempt to deal with Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act. It is perhaps a pity that the opportunity has not been taken to amend some of the more objectionable provisions of that section. This Bill deals solely with Section 2. I think that the first observation it is perhaps worth making is this: so far as I know—and if I am wrong on the facts I will be corrected—during the last five years of the Labour Government one person was prosecuted under Section 2 of the Act and three people, who happened to have algebraical surnames which will be familiar to your Lordships, were prosecuted under both Sections 1 and 2. That was the only use made of Section 2 of the Act throughout the last five years.
The reasons were two-fold. First, as has been pointed out by the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack, Section 2 was discredited as being a
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catch-all section under which it was an offence for the Press to publish, for example, details of the time at which the head of MI5 had his morning cup of coffee. There was no defence if that information was given in the Press; and when the Act clearly became so broadly based as that, it lost a great deal of its point and of its credibility.
Secondly, there was a further difficulty, which was that the construction of Section 2 became of considerable doubt. It became of doubt in the Sunday Telegraph case, where the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, and I had the pleasure of "slugging it out" side by side as to what was the proper construction of that section. It became clear that, so far as the receivers of information and the subsequent transmitters of that information were concerned, the law was in a state of considerable doubt. In the result, for those two reasons, Section 2 fell into disrepute and into disuse for those five years.
The first observation I really want to make is this: the country survived. Scandals were exposed, investigative journalism took place, Governments were embarrassed—and quite right too: that is what Governments are for—and all that happened without the fabric of our society in any way collapsing. Indeed, this perhaps gives weight to the contention put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in an earlier debate on this topic, when he suggested that perhaps the simplest course in relation to Section 2 of the Act was to repeal it altogether and to leave it. That course is not being taken. The course that is being taken is that a reform of the Act should be effected in the way set out in this Bill. It must, therefore, be made as clear as can be that the inevitable effect of this reform, however liberal it may be, will be that once the law in Section 2 is clarified there are going to be more and not less prosecutions for the type of offence which is covered by this section. There are going to be not merely more, but a great many more, prosecutions of civil servants and of the Press, however liberal the Government may proclaim their intentions to be.
It was for that reason that we on these Benches always made it clear when the White Paper of the previous Government, which is largely responsible for this Bill,

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was being debated in your Lordships' House, that we could summon up no enthusiasm for reforms of this nature unless they were coupled with a commitment to more open government and freedom of information, so that the inevitably repressive effect that this legislation is bound to have could at least be counter-balanced by helping to ensure that we would have in this country a society of citizens who would be encouraged to participate in the formation of policy, because they had in their possession sensible and well-informed documentation and could take part in meaningful discussions about it. We note to our great regret that the Government have decided not to couple what we regard as an essential combination, namely, the reform of Section 2 and a move towards freedom of information.
I should like, if I may, to second the call of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, and to ask the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, when he replies to indicate whether, in the Conservative Government's oft-stated commitment to freedom, they include freedom of information. If they do, I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, whether he will be good enough to state precisely what steps the Government are taking in order to bring about that situation.
This Bill, as I have said, ostensibly relaxes the existing controls, although it will inevitably have the effect of causing more prosecutions. It endeavours to do that by covering not the whole of official information but only the six categories set out in Clause 1 of this Bill. I would, if I may respectfully do so, applaud the Government for not including categories such as Cabinet papers per se or budgetary and monetary information, which might perhaps have been included. Nevertheless, although this Bill restricts the categories of information to the six set out in Clause 1, it does so in what I believe on examination turns out to be a most disturbingly repressive manner. I do not want to make Committee points at this stage, but I must give some indications of what I mean by that observation in order to justify it.
It is clear under Clause 1(1)(a), combined of course with Clause 4, that both civil servants and journalists, and indeed
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private citizens, are at risk of prosecution on the mere say so of the Minister. If the House, that we could summon up no Minister certifies that information related to defence or international relations would be likely to cause serious injury by the unauthorised disclosure of it, then that is that and the civil servant, the journalist and the citizen has, for practical purposes no defence whatsoever. He cannot challenge the Minister's certificate. It is not even a defence to be able to show that the Minister's certificate is absurd.
If a journalist publishes an item about our defence in a newspaper, and the Minister chooses to certify in accordance with Clause 1(1)(a), it would be no defence for that journalist to demonstrate that he lifted the whole of the article from the Herald Tribune of the previous week, because, ludicrous though it may sound, Clause 7 which deals with that issue does not provide any defence under Clause 1(1)(a) or 1(1)(b) to the effect that the information is already commonly known. Although this may sound a slightly fanciful issue or a fanciful defence it is not really, because both in the Sunday Telegraph case and in the ABC case precisely that issue was raised.
Furthermore,—and I agree again with the noble Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones—if the object of this legislation is, as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said, that a person, such as a journalist, should know with precision the risks he was running, how can that be said of a situation in which the Minister is entitled to certify under Clause 1(1)(a) information which has never been classified under Clause 12, or, conversely entitled to say of information which has been classified under Clause 12, "I do not regard this as information coming within Clause 1(1)(a)"?
So far as Clause 1(1)(b) is concerned—that is, information relating to security or intelligence—the situation is, if anything, worse. There is not even the safeguard, for what it is worth, that the Minister has to certify that the disclosure might cause serious injury. It is any information relating to security or intelligence, and "security or intelligence" is defined in Clause 14 in the widest possible way. It follows that if a journalist publishes any matter at all which he knows relates to security or intelligence, he must be guilty of an offence, even if he publishes the

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time at which the head of MI5 has his morning coffee. That would be clearly covered by this legislation. That is the advance which the Government claim is being made in the course of their clarification and their relaxation of the existing law.
So far as Clause 1(1)(c) is concerned, which includes information that would be likely to impede the apprehension of suspected offenders, I am again perturbed that that might be used against journalists who were carrying out perfectly genuine, serious responsible investigative work into the commission of possible criminal offences. Much of value has been done by journalists in recent years and I can see that clause being used, if a Government chose to, against them.
Clause 1(1)(d) deserves just a look in passing. That includes not only,
"information obtained by reason of the interception of postal packets or telecommunication conversations"
but also,
"information relating to the obtaining of information by reason of any such interception".
As I understand that paragraph—and I do not want to put forward too many hypothetical cases and to ask the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, to deal with them when he comes to reply—if my telephone is being tapped because I am such a dangerous radical, and I disclose to the Press that my telephone is being tapped, then I am committing an offence under this Bill because I am giving information that is relating to the obtaining of information. There we are.
I would add only one other comment about one of these six categories, and that is the one relating to Clause 1(1)(f) which is information obtained from any persons mentioned in subsection (4), held by a Crown servant or Government contractor on terms or in circumstances requiring it to be held in confidence. Again, as I read that paragraph combined with subsection (4), and also combined with Clause 4, the Guardian newspaper would have clearly committed a criminal offence when it recently disclosed the communication on jury vetting that had come into its possession; and I believe that that newspaper performed an invaluable service in so doing. I raise these matters simply as an indication that this legislation is a great deal more
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repressive than was perhaps thought when this Bill was first put forward.
I add only two other observations about this Bill at this stage, and about certain clauses of it. Clause 2(2)(a) places the onus of proof on the defence. That of course happens from time to time in the 1911 Official Secrets Act and is not, in itself, entirely surprising. But it places a burden of proof on a defendant to show not simply that he did not believe that the information was information to which the Act applied, but also that he had no reasonable cause to believe it. I believe that that is putting on a defendant a very high burden of a rather unusual nature.
Finally, as to the specific clauses of this Bill, may I mention Clause 12, which deals with classification, "Where in the opinion of the responsible authority …"Who is the responsible authority is completely unclear. So far as I can see from this Bill, it can be somebody so junior as to be in no way responsible and to have no authority. But if he is designated a responsible authority by the Minister, he has the duty and the burden of declaring what information or documents would be likely to cause serious injury if disclosed. I suggest that that, again, is an impossible burden to put on a civil servant. It would inevitably lead to the classification of far more documents than if it were done by somebody in a position of real authority, and even, dare I say it, of responsibility to Parliament. Surely the responsibility for the classifying of documents, where these consequences may follow, must be that of the Minister. There must be some review process by which the Minister's decision can be considered, and I hasten to say that I do not read the words in Clause 13(2)(c) as providing for any such review process.
I hope your Lordships will not think that those are simply Committee points that I raise in looking broadly at the terms of this Bill. Inevitably, they lead me to have serious reservations about it. I say at once that I give the Government the benefit of the doubt. I always give Governments the benefit of the doubt, although experience repeatedly proves me wrong. But I do give them the benefit of the doubt of assuming that they set out on this exercise with a genuine desire to tidy up and to liberalise the law. I

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doubt whether they realised the repressive consequences that will flow from the way in which this Bill is drafted.
In making these observations I am, of course, very much aware that there will come into being, in the course of the next few months, a bandwagon of opposition to this Bill, upon which many people will leap who have no concern whatever for the security of this country or for the defence of the realm. I hope that those of us who wish to put forward constructive suggestions for the improvement of this Bill will not be tarred with that brush.
I hope it will be accepted that there are many of us who recognise that the problem posed by the Bill is one of balance. It is a problem of trying to reconcile the measures that should be taken to protect the safety of the nation and our security with the vital necessity of having a free Press and with the right of ordinary citizens to know as much as possible of what is going on in the quarters of Government. I have to suggest that this balance is not right in the Bill as it is now drafted. I am encouraged by the concluding words of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack: that his mind is by no means closed on this matter and that when we come to a later stage of the Bill he will be willing and anxious, on behalf of the Government, to listen to all constructive suggestions that can be put to improve the Bill and eventually to get the balance right.
4.22 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I thank my noble and learned friend for introducing this Bill and for his explanation of its purposes. I agree with my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor that we need to replace Section 2 of the 1911 Act. I propose to make some brief comments and to put two questions to the Government. In doing this, I am very conscious that I am following in the debate three leading lawyers and three of the most brilliant legal minds in the land. I shall accordingly concentrate strictly on the administrative side of this question. On prosecutions, though, my noble and learned friend invited someone with experience of Scottish administration to confirm the
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position in Scotland. If I may do so modestly, so far as I know the position still is that prosecutions in Scotland are initiated only by the Lord Advocate and pursued through the procurator fiscal service. The authority of the Director of Public Prosecutions does not extend North of the Border.
I should like to add some views on what I feel are the undesirable effects of Section 2 as it has existed since 1911. Section 2, in its envelopment of virtually every matter dealt with within departments unless and until officially made public, was the lazy way of protecting secret information. I can understand the frustration of the Press and broadcasting organisations about it. It is ridiculous in its precise technical effect. For example, it could envelop disclosure of the method by which morning tea"elevenses"—is dispensed in a department. More seriously, it could envelop the disclosure of consideration of whether British Summer-Time should be chanced to British Standard Time, a matter of concern to the population at large and one that was decided nine years ago by a free vote in another place. I mention that example because I think it may strike a chord with my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, as he had been Shadow Home Secretary and I had been Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland concerned with home affairs in Scotland, dealing together with that subject.
Section 2 has been suffocating in its totally enveloping effect. It has been described as an omnibus provision. It has also been described as a blunderbuss. It has been more. I would describe it as a sawn-off punt gun, scattering shot with a spread far wider than required, peppering not only all feathered life but also every inoffensive object in its wide are—harmless bees and butterflies, for example —and being quite indiscriminate in its impact.
I hope that the House will allow me to draw upon some administrative experience from the past. I signed the Official Secrets Act as an official, a professional diplomatist. In addition, during that period, in the mid-1950s, I was assigned for two years from the Foreign Office to be Private Secretary to the Secretary to the Cabinet, then Sir Norman Brook, later Lord Normanbrook. For a short

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period I worked also for Sir Edward Bridges, as he then was. For both, who later joined your Lordships' House, I have the greatest admiration and I do not presume to reflect in any way their views. This was a long time ago but it enabled me to have a worm's eye view of the Whitehall system and the papers involved.
During that work, and in the Diplomatic Service, as it is now again called, I felt that the whole method of protecting papers on confidential matters was unsatisfactory. It attempted complete prohibition on disclosure and yet leaks of confidential information from time to time occurred. I have no doubt that embarrassing disclosures will continue to be made from time to time. They may be embarrassing to individuals, to the Government of the day or to the Opposition, but what is really important, what surely matters most, is that they should not endanger the safety of the country or of individuals, or undermine the system of Government. It is on that second point that I wish to put my questions.
First let me deal with the position of civil servants, on the collective responsibility of the Cabinet and the advice given to Ministers. This also applies to members of the Armed Forces, particularly when they are serving in the Ministry of Defence. I know that the principle of collective responsibility of the Cabinet has been said to have been somewhat eroded of late—indeed, some would say dented. There can be cases where the Minister responsible for a particular subject is in a minority in the Cabinet. The majority decision is adopted and of course, following our principle of Cabinet government, the whole Cabinet publicly supports what has been decided. This means that the Minister who was opposing the decision is the one who has to announce it and defend it. Of course it will undermine the authority of Government if information is deliberately leaked that that Minister was opposed to the decision. That is one example.
On the question of advice given to Ministers, civil servants offer advice and it can be rejected. Ministers, or the Government as a whole, can decide to do something quite different. The nature of that advice has always been confidential, because, again, civil servants have to support the decision that has been taken—
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and they always have, loyally. This is a matter which should be dealt with by code or by discipline. In my personal experience, the traditions of our public service and its practice have probably been the ruling factors. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor mentioned Civil Service discipline in this respect.
There is certainly nothing that I can see in the Bill to deal with these matters. I should therefore be grateful if, when my noble friend Lord Belstead winds up the debate, he could tell us how these matters are to be covered in the future, unless our whole system of Cabinet government is to be changed, and I cannot believe that that is to be part of the Bill's intention. I believe this is important because deliberate leaks that have occurred in the past are usually slanted or are only part of the story. Very often they have been leaked in order to give credence to one side of an argument or to tilt the balance. The public may then be misinformed or indeed misled by such leaks. The only remedy that is available to a Government or a department in that situation is to release the whole of the story. As I have indicated, that may undermine our whole system of government—the system of collective responsibility for decisions and the loyalty of civil servants who may have recommended against those decisions at earlier stages.
My second question is on classification and is particularly related to Clause 13 Under that clause, regulations are to be passed by both Houses of Parliament. Will that be the occasion, after those regulations have been passed, for a complete overhaul of the system of classification of documents throughout the Government in all the departments? I think this question is related to the one just put by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, about classification. I believe that for the new classification system to work successfully it must be integrated with the Government system and that in turn has to have the authority of the Ministers concerned. So I ask whether it is the intention to have an overhaul of the classification system as a whole once Parliament has accepted the proposed regulations.
Before concluding, I suggest that if this Bill is passed it should have a trial period to see how it works in practice and that the Government should not close its

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mind to changes or additions being made after a reasonable period. For example, a point has been raised—I heard it being put by Mr. Harold Evans of the Sunday Times on the radio today after the one o'clock news—about the description of information received from foreign Governments or international organisations. I think he has a point that that particular category of information could be abused in the future if it is not very carefully watched. A Government could simply ban any information from certain sources even though there was really no secrecy or confidentiality about it. With those reservations, I welcome the proposed disappearance of Section 2 of the 1911 Act.
4.33 p.m.
Lord ARDWICK: My Lords, since I have recently become the chairman of the Press Freedom Committee of the Commonwealth Press Union perhaps I had better explain straight away that what I am saying today is entirely a personal view. It is 40 years since I and fellow members of the National Union of Journalists demonstrated in the streets against the Official Secrets Act. What we had against Mr. Neville Chamberlain's Government at that particular moment on official secrets, I cannot well remember but I do remember that we were extremely upset about the situation; and ever since then the Act has been under intermittent attack from journalists, from trade unionists and from lawyers with a deep concern for civil liberties. In recent years the criticism has grown and grown as Government have come to have a greater impact upon our daily lives—often a beneficial impact although sometimes a restrictive one—so that people have felt an increasing need to find out what the Government are really doing, what they are thinking, and how their agents are acting when they are out of the public view. So the arrogant secretiveness of the old Establishment is no longer tolerable and, perhaps rather reluctantly, Governments have come to accept this.
The question of what should be open to the public, and what in the public interest should not be revealed, is not really in conflict between the two major parties that have held power in turn since the war. Nor is it a Left versus a Right issue;
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it is a conflict between the governors of our society and the rest of us, the governed. The champions of the governed are to be found on the Back Benches of Parliament and in a vigilant newspaper Press. In recent years the newspapers have recovered and intensified their old zest for investigation, for probing into dark corners and asking the kind of questions which Governments hate to hear and sometimes are loath to answer. In recent years newspapers have devoted increased resources and developed new techniques to perform this role, which is essential to any democracy, more effectively than ever.
The difficulties in the way of the Press in Britain are formidable. A more severe view of libel is taken in Britain than in any other country I know. The law of contempt is still confusing, and in the Official Secrets Act there is still the absurd and notorious Section 2. This Section 2 was, I think, described by the late Richard Crossman as "a mangy old sheep". It has not been administered repressively ; it is however a useful weapon to deter, if not to smite, or it is a wall behind which officialdom can shelter when under assault. Perhaps its most profound effect has been to reflect and to fortify the tradition of secrecy among British officials and British Governments.
When we newspaper men compare our situation with that in America we are told, "You must take into account the British Parliamentary system: the presence of Ministers in Parliament who can be questioned by Members of Parliament enjoying the widest privilege". This, rather than the Press, is the palladium of our British liberties, so we are told. It is a strong argument but it is not an overwhelming one. Members of Parliament depend heavily for their effectiveness in probing and challenging Ministers of the Crown on the reports and investigations of newspapers. An Opposition deprived of newspapers would be in a sad way indeed. An Opposition stimulated and informed by a Press with sufficient freedom to probe and disclose would gain in democratic effectiveness.
It is in accord with the current climate that after much debate and long inquiry the Government should produce a Bill to sweep away Section 2. It has been said that it replaces a blunderbuss with an

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Armalite rifle. That is exactly what newspapers, who will be on the receiving end, now fear. It is much easier to face a blunderbuss than to face an Armalite rifle. To change the metaphor, the Government are replacing a wide and unwieldy net with a fine mesh for a handier net which will let the small fry get away but which will catch the bigger fish at need. That is what is upsetting the newspapers. There is little gratitude in Fleet Street for what the Government propose. Within a few days of the publication of the Bill it has been critically assessed not only by the Sunday newspaper which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor mentioned, but by the Guardian and the Economist and by newspapers which the Government may look upon as friends, such as the Daily Mail and the Sunday Telegraph. The Guardian even goes so far as to say that the Bill is—
"in certain essential provisions a far clearer assault on the freedom of the press than anything contrived by Mr. Michael Foot or intended by the National Union of Journalists three years ago".
Perhaps this argument is not so compelling as it might be since I think that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and I, and others, must now admit that our fears of three years ago, happily, have not been borne out.
Mr. Stewart Patrick in the Daily Mail last Friday was even more scathing. He said:
"It might seem difficult to imagine a replacement which is worse than Section 2, but this Government has managed it".
With tongue in cheek he commends the Government on the Bill's honesty:
"It is honestly and unashamedly devoted to the belief that Government is a secret process and that the Press and the public should be told only what Whitehall considers good for them".
There is, I fear, a danger of the public becoming confused by the row about this Bill. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor did his best to set it straight earlier on.
Two demands are being made by the Press and by others. The first is that the infinitely wide provisions of Section 2 should be swept away and in their place protection should be given to the narrow range of subjects on which there is universal agreement that protection is vital to the nation and to its citizens. But items of information which would cease, under these provisions to be protected by the
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criminal law, would not necessarily be available to the public. So what is needed is further legislation, an official freedom of information Bill which would establish a general right of access to official documents for members of the public and indeed provide facilities for such access. Mr. Freud's Private Member's Bill attempted both to do this and drastically to reform or replace Section 2 at one and the same time. So now the Government are being reproached for failing to follow the Freudian path. Meanwhile Mr. Meacher in another place is following in Mr. Freud's footsteps.
It is obvious that the Government are going to have a hard time in Parliament and in the Press, and they would smooth their own path, I think, if they were to promise that they would follow this Bill with a freedom of information Bill and find time for it in the next Session. I do not think it would be nearly so difficult as the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack has suggested. The exemptions will have been fairly clearly defined in the Bill now before us. But a promise of this kind, even if given, would not allay the fears that there are about the Bill which is before us, and it would not dissipate the bitter antagonism which is being built up.
There is one provision in the Bill which excites universal scorn among journalists. It is not just that the Minister in a prosecution for disclosure concerning defence or international relations may present a certificate to the court saying that disclosure is likely to cause serious injury to the interests of the nation et cetera; it is not only that the Minister is given such a right, subject to the approval of the Attorney-General, but that the certificate will be conclusive evidence of that fact. The last five words, "conclusive evidence of that fact", are a quotation from the Bill. But we are not dealing with a fact; we are dealing with what the Minister considers to be likely to happen, we are dealing with a Minister's educated guess or his hunch, and all the court can then decide is whether the accused did it. If he did, that seems to be the end of it; if he did it, if he knew what he was doing, he has no defence.
I hope that noble Lords who are also learned Lords will say what they think about this. Is there any good reason

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why the court should not decide whether the likelihood of serious injury to the national interest as conceived by the Minister is a reality? No doubt in most cases the Minister and the Attorney-General would have acted correctly and would be able to show that the certificate was valid. But we all know that there are times when the nerves of Governments are frayed and there are times when Ministers have a defective sense of judgment. It is on subjects such as defence and security that Governments can most easily lose their perspective, indeed sometimes make asses of themselves.
There are other worrying aspects of the Bill, especially the very wide provisions about security and intelligence and wiretapping and so forth, about which noble Lords have spoken. I hope that this Bill will get deep and unhurried examination in Committee in this House. It is not a Bill that should arouse the Party passions. It does not need really to command the loyalty of supporters of the Government nor the antagonism of supporters of the Opposition. There is a real problem of balancing the need for secrecy and the need for disclosure, and it is one which the knowledge and the experience of this House is singularly fitted to tackle. I hope that the Government, who have, I believe, commitments to open government, will show some flexibility on this Bill before it goes to another place.
4.45 p.m.
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, may I say that I am very pleased indeed that the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, made such a notable contribution, I think I am right in saying that he is the first speaker who can claim to speak with great authority on behalf of the Press. He disowned any official mandate in that behalf, and I must do the same. I was for some seven years the chairman of the Newspaper Publishers' Association. I have ceased to be, but I still have a nostalgic and sentimental regard for my previous associates, and I must confess to a slight disappointment that they are so ill-represented here this afternoon. I see the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, who I have no doubt will make a valiant and worthwhile contribution, but when I think of the number of Members of this House
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who ought to be available to speak on this matter, which is of such signal concern to the Press, it is a slight disappointment that they have found pressing engagements elsewhere.
I should like to say a word of congratulation, which I think comes rather rarely, to the draftsmen of this Bill. I have on previous occasions spoken rather harshly about them. I think this is a skilfully drafted Bill in a situation of quite exceptional difficulty, because, as several noble Lords have said, it is a question of maintaining the balance between what you can freely allow and what must be suppressed on behalf of the nation. I very much associate myself with what the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, said. I do not think anyone speaking critically of this Bill will be suspected of believing that access to all our information should be given to potential enemies and potential rivals, to the detriment of the country. It would, I think, be a disservice indeed if any word spoken here were likely to create an impression that we in this House do not regard sufficiently seriously the need to maintain those secrets which are really secret and which are crucial to the welfare of the nation.
Having said that, perhaps I may be permitted a recollection of what created the original Official Secrets Act, which may be of some value in enabling us to recognise the exceptional difficulty of maintaining the balance. I do not think any of us was alive at the time, but my vague recollection of the situation from reading is that the first Act came into existence because of a disclosure by the Globe newspaper of a secret annexure to the Treaty of Berlin. An inquiry had been made about that matter, I think in this House, to the Foreign Minister, Lord Salisbury, and my recollection is that he flatly denied that there was such an annexure.
It has been thought that that was a discreditable thing to do. I do not share that view. There must obviously be times when it may be necessary for a Government Minister to tell an untruth if it is a white untruth. But what then happened was that a Foreign Office clerk, known as a Foreign Office "tenpenny" because he was paid 10d. an hour, having copied that particular annexure, copied it again and took it to the Globe newspaper, and is

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believed, although there was some suspicion to the contrary, to have received no payment. He was prosecuted, but he could be prosecuted only for theft of the paper. He had had the providence to supply his own paper, so that he was acquitted. This poses a splendid example of the problem that exists.
Clearly Government must be protected from disclosures of this kind. Is the public entitled to know whether a Minister has told a blatant untruth and informed the world at large that no such annexure existed? My own view would be that the bias is on the side of the Government. But it is a difficult question, and I give this example because it demonstrates to the House the precise nature of the difficulty. I do not believe that any Act could be drafted that would sufficiently ensure that delinquents are caught by its net that did not extend more widely than its precise need. I think one must accept that if the Act is to be adequate it must be perhaps more than adequate. This I am perfectly prepared to accept.
Having accepted that, may I be permitted to say this. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor invited us to consider whether it would be appropriate to give a Second Reading to this Bill. I am in the happy position, having been taught long ago never to answer a question that one did not need to answer, as a humble Cross-Bencher in this House, of knowing that my decision on that matter is unimportant. But I would venture to say that in my view this Bill will require a great deal of work in Committee. Obviously, it cannot reach Committee unless it has a Second Reading. Having said that I shall refer no more to the question raised by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. However, I think that there are a number of matters of principle—and it would be wrong to enter into the detail at this stage—that one might safely mention.
First, there is the question of the Freedom of Information Bill which has been much mooted abroad. I would not wish to encourage the complacency of the Opposition in this matter, by belief that anyone regards them as totally virtuous in their behaviour. They had many years in which to introduce an amended Official Secrets Bill, a Freedom of Information Bill or any type of Bill they liked in order to increase the liberties of the subject.
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They never did so while in office, but they satisfied themselves by a faint reference in their election Manifesto and said that next time they were in they were certainly going to do it. I can only say that I still would have some doubts about the nature and extent to which that promise will be fulfilled. I think that the problem that arises in this connection is that people out of government regard this as obviously something that needs to be done. However, when they come into Government they come into line with the realities of the situation—that it can be done only in circumstances of exceptional difficulty and by a very bold advance.
As regards the present Bill, what is most distressing is the unanimous hostility of the Press to it. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, referred to this matter, and so did the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. I would venture to make a suggestion. I believe that it is of desperate importance that in a free democracy a proper relationship should exist between Press and Government. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, rightly said, it should not be a relationship of excessive affection: it should be a relationship at arm's length, but it must be a relationship where the Press has confidence in the honesty of the Government and confidence in the certainty that the Government will not use this legislation for ulterior or disreputable motives. It needs to be satisfied that they will not use it to conceal errors. It needs to be satisfied that they will not use it to prevent embarrassment.
I venture to suggest that if that has not already happened, it would be very appropriate for the Government to confer with the senior organs of the Press about how the Bill might be amended in a way that would restore its confidence. There is a splendid institution for doing that. I am referring to the Press Council. At present, the chairman of the Press Council is an extremely distinguished lawyer, as indeed were his two predecessors extremely distinguished lawyers. He is perhaps in some ways the most suitable person. So far as I know he has had no political affiliations. He is chairman of the Bar Council, and in my view his view on this matter—if consultation has not already taken place—would be of very great value.

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Another matter that would greatly restore confidence, and which has already been raised, is the question of who should institute proceedings and in what circumstances. There is bound to be great hostility to the suggestion that a Minister of the Crown can, as an unchallengeable act, certify that an offence has been committed. I know that the noble Lord said that it could be left neither to the courts, nor to the institution of prosecution, because it might mean providing information in excess of what was safe at that stage. I must remind him that if a prosecution is in fact instituted all that information has to be provided. It is provided at the hearing, and the courts have found methods of hearing in camera those parts that are regarded as confidential and as possibly dangerous to the security of the State. They have found ways of hearing those matters without the necessity of bestowing the power on a Minister. Your Lordships will never persuade the Press that an unfettered discretion vested in a Minister is a safe thing to give in respect of almost anything—certainly not in a matter which affects the liberty of the subject. I ask the Government to reconsider the matter very carefully.
It is slightly ironic that the self same Lord Chancellor who has expressed such cogent and persuasive reasons why we should have a Bill of Rights which assigns every matter of significance to the courts should regard it as inappropriate that this particular matter should be assigned to the courts. That is also a reason why we should think again about bestowing unfettered discretion on a Minister without any right of appeal. If I may say so, I think that rather than vesting this power with the Director of Public Prosecutions, who has already had some very invidious decisions to make, and putting the Attorney-General in the same situation, it would be far better to adopt the rule that applies, if I am not mistaken, in relation to criminal livelihood—that no prosecution can be instituted without the consent of the court. If that can apply in a matter as important as that I cannot see why it should not apply in these cases. I invite the Government to reflect on whether that change might not do a great deal to render the Bill less unacceptable to the Press at large and, if I may say so, to the public at large.
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I should like to hark back to the question of the Freedom of Information Bill. Much has been said about this and it is prated about as though it were a solution to problems. The lawyers present, and some who are not lawyers, may, a hundred years ago, as I did, have read Dicey's Constitutional Law and remember that he told us that liberties in this country were not prescribed by Act of Parliament. What one was entitled to do was what one was not prevented from doing. I take exactly the same view about information. I would rather see the area of prevention restricted than an attempt to enunciate what it is we are entitled to do. I do not believe that it is possible to do that. The result would be total confusion. I think too that Mr. Freud was much more consistent and logical in embodying in one Bill—if he had wanted to have a Freedom of Information Bill—provisions both for the freedom of information and for their restriction. My own view is that we shall have much greater safeguards and benefits by limiting the restrictions than by intending to state what it is we are allowed to do. These are general observations, and I conclude only by saying—
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: apologise for interrupting the noble Lord, but I wonder whether he would assist me on a very important point? He suggested that there could be some legitimate doubt as regards the impartiality of a Minister and whether he would initiate proceedings. He seemed to suggest that the chairman of the Press Council, who is impartial and objective, could perhaps be consulted because he is impartial and objective. However, he cannot speak with the authority of the rest of the Press, whereas a Minister, when he makes a statement, involves the whole of the Government. Therefore, if one questions the impartiality of a Minister, one is questioning the impartiality of the whole of the Government. However, the recognition that the chairman of the Press Council cannot, with authority and certainty, speak for the whole of the Press in his reaction, is, I believe, a possible weakness in the type of suggestion that the noble Lord is putting to the Government in asking them to give thought to amending the Bill.
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, as I grow older it becomes increasingly depressing to see how difficult it is for me to

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make myself clear. I did not at any time suggest that the institution of proceedings should be at the discretion of the chairman of the Press Council. I suggested that it might be desirable to consult the Press Council and other relatively impartial authorities in relation to the Press, as to the terms of the Bill. Clearly it would be quite inappropriate to seek to vest the Press, who are most likely to be the people accused, with the authority of launching the proceedings. That was never my intention and I apologise to the noble Lord if I gave him a misleading impression.
In conclusion, I do not believe that freedom of information Bills are likely to achieve much in the way of making us freer people. The number of restrictions on the expression of opinion and the expression of view are, indeed, likely to affect whether we are free or not free people. I would hope that the Bill will be most strenuously considered in Committee. I hope, too, that we shall achieve a situation with an Official Secrets Act, where the prevention of the dissemination of information cannot in any circumstances be operated as a censorship. I hope that we shall attain a situation where the Government will demonstrate—as I am sure is their intention—in the written word (and the written word will speak for that demonstration), that it is their intention only to restrict these matters to the extent that they are a danger to society and a danger to Government and likely to impede good government.
4.59 p.m.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, some of your Lordships may be somewhat surprised to find me making a speech because they may know that many moons ago I decided never to make another speech— I merely interrupt if I think I can be tiresome. It was not out of consideration for your Lordships that I gave up making speeches, but on the various occasions when I sat on the Front Bench I became extremely tired of the sound of my own voice! However, this is a Home Office Bill and, although I never dealt with the matter as such when at the Home Office, it is a matter that has always interested me and I realise the complications.
May I say without any impertinence that for the first time I think that I agree
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with every word that has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. There have been occasions when I have disagreed with him and I have not said so. But today I undoubtedly agree with him.
Merely from looking at the history of the matter it must be quite clear that noble Lords opposite will not divide on Second Reading against the Bill.
Looking at the history of the matter, it started, of course, with the Franks Committee, and, it was found in the end that some of that Committee's recommendations did not work. After a long time and two manifestoes, the previous Labour Government issued a White Paper which differed to some extent from the recommendations of the Franks Committee. This Bill very much follows that White Paper, though there are certain additions to it. Obviously noble Lords opposite are not in a position to divide on Second Reading, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, indicated at some length that he intends to oppose quite a few of the details in the Bill during the Committee stage. He indicated that he would not oppose the Bill now.
There have been three additions to the White Paper which are of some importance and which I do not think have been mentioned. I may be wrong in saying that they are additions, but I think I am right. The first, to use shorthand, is the protection of foreign Governments. I believe that to be important; it is a question of our credibility as a country. There is power in the Bill to stop information which is given to us in confidence by a foreign Government from being spread about. The clause that deals with postal interception is also new and important. The third addition arises in Clause 1(4)(b), which brings the nationalised industries into the picture and advocates treating them the same as any other business or body corporate. That is all I want to say about the Bill.
I should like briefly to make some comments on the Press. Seldom have I had any opportunity to give advice to the Press, though they have given me lots of advice. I believe that they are ruining their own case. I have read various Press comments on the Bill. They may be right about some of the things they dislike about the Bill, which may be

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altered in Committee, but in some of their articles they have given the impression that they object, first, to the fact that in the Bill they are treated exactly the same as any other ordinary citizen, though differently from the civil servant. I do not see why they should not be. I do not think that that is what they mean, but that is the impression given to other members of the public. In that way I believe that the Press are spoiling their case.
Secondly, in some articles they seem to suggest— I do not think they mean to—that the Government are not the proper people to decide what is secret and what should not be divulged. One article in one of the papers goes further and, reading between the lines, the suggestion is that the Press should decide. I am sure that that is not what is meant. By overstating their case in that way they are doing themselves a great deal of harm.
I should like to follow up what the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has just said. I do not believe that the suggestion in the Labour Party's Green Paper about divulging information—I shall not say ad lib—and putting it into legislation would work. It was tried in the United States and as soon as the laws were passed they had to start hedging around and stopping what they had already agreed to. I am convinced that the proper way to deal with this question of information is to put pressure on the Government, but that should be done by administrative means. If Governments wish to give out more information, they ought to make quite certain that their civil servants give out more information and that they can do so, but to do it by means of the law would be a failure. That is my swan song.
5.5 p.m.
Lord HUTCHINSON of LULLING-TON: My Lords, I must confess that, eight and a half years since the Sunday Telegraph case, seven years since the Franks Report was published, 10 years since the Fulton Report was published, 16 years since the publication of the Radcliffe Report and only a mere year since the ABC trial, to be presented with a Protection of Official Information Bill rather than a freedom of information Bill is something of a disappointment. I
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confess that I find the Bill itself depressing. Some of it is so unsatisfactory that I wonder whether it can be cured by amendment. The icing on this indigestible and, in some parts, poisonous cake is, of course, the final burial of Section 2. But that is a mere formality, as it expired years ago.
However, there are some good points in the Bill and, of course, I welcome them. Above all, I welcome that it is the disclosure, and not the receipt, of information which is made subject to the criminal law. I welcome the defence which is provided under Clause 2(2)(a) and (b), the classification of documents to be governed by regulations and the attempt to limit the ambit of the information which is to be protected. Those points are good and are perhaps worth supporting in the spirit of the opening remarks of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor.
I turn now to the bad aspects of the Bill. Those most directly affected by the Bill are, first, of course, the huge number of Crown servants; secondly, the Press and the media and, if one believes in the freedom of the Press, onwards to the informed public; thirdly, the lawyers—for it is the advocate who will advise on whether or not to prosecute and it is he who must explain the offence to the jury which is to try the case and, indeed, argue the law; it is the advocate who must ultimately be the champion of the freedom of the individual when the matter comes to trial. It so happens that, as an advocate, I have been involved in a large number of Official Secrets Act cases, the two most relevant—and this has been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Wigoder—being the Sunday Telegraph case and, more recently, the ABC case. Many days were spent in those trials discussing and seeking to disentangle the idiocies, of Section 2. In my opinion this Bill has not resolved the problems which have exacerbated the relations between the Press and Government and which have brought so many trials under the Official Secrets Act into disrepute. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord Wigoder has already said, by replacing a discredited and therefore unused section by a new and in many ways more rigid control, the Bill may turn out to be a backward step.
In my opinion, this Bill is once again befogged by the official obsession with

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secrecy and suspends once more—and I regret taking this view—above the journalist's head a sword which may fall unpredictably and oppressively and propel him once again into the dock. Franks came to two clear conclusions, did it not? One was only to use the criminal law when there is a specific reason. The reason there is to protect the security of the nation and the safety of the people, as it was put. Secondly—and this was essential to the Franks Report—the only way to bring certainty and clarity is to have a clear system of classification governed by regulation with a built-in safeguard against over-classification, because one of the greatest dangers in this area is to launch a prosecution against an individual on an outdated classification.
But the very basis of the Franks Report was that in a trial the prosecution must satisfy the court that the information falls within the necessary classification, and that that information was at the time so classified. Classification was the test of the serious injury to the interests of the nation. The safeguard against over- classification was a review of the classification by the Minister; a review of the classification by the Minister before proceedings were instituted. Of course, here in this Bill, as we have heard, the certificate of the Minister is not a review of a previous classification in order to see that it is up to date and a prosecution is properly launched. It is apparently a review in the sense of looking at the information which has been disclosed and then certifying that in fact it enters the category suggested, which is a very different thing.
What do we find here in this Bill? I wish not to go too much into detail, but I would submit that it is important for the House to appreciate what are the implications. Clause 1(1)(a) and Clause 2 have been referred to. What would happen, under this Bill, in court under a prosecution? The Crown servant would be found guilty of an offence if he disclosed any
"information relating to defence or international relations"
which has been certified by the Minister as likely to cause serious injury to the interests of the nation. In other words, as my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones pointed out, the main issue in the trial will have been decided before
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anybody comes into court at all; that is, the certificate of the Minister is all that would be required. If prosecuting, one's job would be exceedingly simple. It would be to prove that the person in the dock was indeed a Crown servant and, secondly, that the information was disclosed. That would be the end of that, and there would be no defence for the defendant in relation to that certificate. But the certificate, as I have already pointed out, is given ex post facto, and there is no requirement as to prior classification.
What course would be open to the defence? This is the other point in this Bill which I submit needs the most careful examination. On a balance of probabilities, that he had no reasonable cause to believe that the information, was information to which this Act applied. Well, what is that information? It is that described in Clause 1(1)(a):
"Information relating to defence or international relations the…disclosure of which would be likely to cause serious injury …".
So on this defence which is given to the defendant, the defendant would want to prove that he had no reasonable cause to believe that the information would be likely to cause serious injury because, for instance, it had been published in many other places already.
But then the certificate is produced, and the certificate is conclusive that that is not the case. What is the result of that? Is the defence which is provided here rendered inoperable by the production of the certificate, or does the Minister visualise that a jury is to be told, "You must find this disclosure of information is likely to cause serious injury because you have got the certificate in front of you, and that cannot be disputed in this court. But, if the defendant proves the information to have been published widely before he disclosed it, then you can acquit him because he genuinely believed the prior publication would mean that any further publication could not cause serious injury to the nation, although the Minister certified that it does"?
A defence of reasonable cause to believe no injury must involve an inquiry into whether in fact there was injury, must it not? For if you can prove that there was not any injury, then of course your belief must be a reasonable one. I hope

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that this is not a lawyer's complexity of thought, but it does seem to me that if you have here a certificate which cannot be in any way rebutted, and at the same time you provide a defence to a defendant to prove that he had no reasonable cause to think that this publication would cause injury to the nation, then the very foundation of that defendant's defence must be that, because it was known beforehand it could not cause any injury to anybody, and therefore he must be in a position to prove that. Yet the situation will be completely farcical if, at the same time, the jury going out to consider that matter had in their hands a copy of a certificate from a Minister which said that that cannot be so.
Can your Lordships accept the power in the Minister to certify? In nine cases out of 10 would you not agree that he will do what his security advisers advise? Perhaps I may tell your Lordships what happens in those circumstances. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, will not be upset by what I am going to say. In the ABC case the matter concerned the disclosing of information about Signals intelligence, and the Signals intelligence professionally is known as "SigInt". In court were several rows of security officers, and on the first day of the trial we were told, "The word 'SigInt' is secret."We were told that the whereabouts of SigInt stations in this country were secret and their names must not be mentioned; that the SigInt units serving there were secret and their names must not be mentioned; that the United States had SigInt stations in this country, but they were secret and must not be mentioned; that the headquarters of SigInt was in a place which must not be mentioned because it was secret; that the aerials used in those stations were secret; and that the physical layout of SigInt stations was secret and must not be mentioned.
On the first day of the trial and in cross-examining witnesses one was told that one must not mention SigInt but only intelligence. Having a client who had, as a journalist, collected a large library of information on his own particular subject, we were able within three days to produce 20 or 30 articles from around the world discussing SigInt; we were able to produce photographs of
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boards up outside SigInt stations with the names of the units written on them, and the court was in a state of hilarious laughter when witnesses appeared in the witness box and I asked, "Is it right that this"—passing up on a piece of paper—"is the name of your unit?" and the reply was, "I cannot answer that question; that is a secret." I then passed a photograph of the board to the witness and asked, "Is that the board that is up outside the door of your unit?" The answer was, "Yes", but when I asked, "Read it out to the jury", the answer was, "I cannot do that; that is a secret". There is no question at all but that these matters, if there had been provision for a certificate, would have been certified by the Minister on the advice of his officers as being secret matters which, if mentioned at the Central Criminal Court, would bring the whole of the stucture of society to the ground. That is the situation, and I ask noble Lords to consider very carefully whether this system of certification is one they are prepared to accept.
I turn to the international relations part of Clause 1. It refers to:
"serious injury to the interests of the nation".
I remind the House of the Sunday Telegraph case, in which publication involved a confidential assessment of the defence situation in Nigeria, the supply of arms to the Nigerian Government and the attitude of the British Government to Biafra showing, as it appeared, a very different situation from that stated officially by the Government in Parliament. There was a serious deterioration in our relations with Nigeria when this matter was published. There is no doubt about that at all. What would have been the Minister's certification in that situation? What would the Minister's certification have been at the time of Suez? These are matters of serious import.
Again, how in terms of international relations would the defendant raise the defence that is given to him—that he had no reasonable cause to believe the disclosure would cause serious injury? Would the Minister agree to him calling a series of experts to say that the interests of the nation required the disclosure? If not, the defence is a myth. My personal view, for what it is worth, is that the phrase "interests of the nation" is an impossible definition, that the words are

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far too broad and could be argued forever. The words should in my view be much more akin to "the defence or security of the Realm" and that nothing less will do. The test must be one of evidence of classification, I suggest, and a certificate should be given only on a review of the classification by the Minister at the moment of proceedings, and that the defence of previous publication surely should be provided throughout the Bill, of no reasonable cause to believe that the information was protected because it had become available to the public or a section of the public. Surely Clause 7 must be rephrased, extended and strengthened from the miserable creature it now is.
Under Clause 1(1)(b), as the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, pointed out, the disclosure of any information relating to security or intelligence would become an offence, and we are back again to the old cups of tea situation of Section 2 of the old Act, and once again the defence provided—of no reasonable cause to believe that it was information to which the Act applied—is vacuous, is it not? because all the defence would mean was that it did not relate to security or intelligence. That is no defence that would be of any use to anybody and, in all these cases, the matter would clearly relate to security or intelligence and the defence that is needed is the defence to which I have referred.
On Clause 4 and the offence of wrongful disclosure by the ordinary person or journalist, if a person discloses any protected information—anything which he might reasonably believe related to security or intelligence which had once been in the possession of a civil servant or a clerk in a military establishment—it would be an offence. The fact, as the Guardian newspaper disclosed that immigration officers helped MI5 with information would immediately fall within that category, and so would all the matters I referred to in the ABC case. I submit that the whole question of the propriety, safety and expense of the intelligence services is one surely which must be debated in Parliament.
Clause 5 has not really been referred to, but I submit that it is the worst of all if we are looking at the objectionable parts of the Bill. Here indeed the journalist should be alarmed, for this is indeed Big Brother himself. It provides that if:
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"any person has in his possession … any document containing information … which is protected"—
and again let us not forget the certificates—and has reasonable cause to believe that it is so protected and,
"fails to comply with an official direction for its … disposal",
he commits an offence for which he may receive three months imprisonment or a £1,000 fine. Your Lordships will appreciate that that refers to any document relating to anything to do with security or intelligence—that is in regard to the intelligence services.
I should like to summarise the situation as I see it on reading the clause. I may be wrong, but consider the position of a journalist who in a sensible way amasses a file of information —much of it of course confidential, some of it leaked to him no doubt by politicians, police officers and others, much of it from very different sources—which he keeps himself and discloses or uses only after consultation with his editor, no doubt. Such a journalist will find the police or the security services, with a search warrant, coming and rummaging through his files, hitting upon documents which fall within the words that I have quoted, containing information which is protected and certified to be so of course when the search has been completed. He will then be ordered to dispose of the documents in the way that the official requires him to dispose of them, and if he does not do so, he commits an offence. Is that what your Lordships feel should be an appropriate course of action in the light of the provisions of the Bill?
My Lords, I have said enough, and I have taken a long time, in order to give some indication of my own personal grave doubts as to the desirability of the Bill in its present form. I should like to second the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, that the chairman of the Press Council might well be consulted in relation to any possible amendments to the Bill.
5.32 p.m.
Lord GIBSON: My Lords, I shall be brief because I think your Lordships will agree that enough has been said already this afternoon to convince all of us that the Bill will need a great deal of work in Committee if it is to achieve what surely

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we all want to achieve; namely, the proper balance between freedom and security—a point that has been made by a number of your Lordships this afternoon. This is the essence of the matter, and the question is whether the Bill achieves it, and I believe that it does not do so in its present form. Indeed, I do not believe that it represents a net improvement over the old Section 2 in its present form. I believe that it is preferable to live under an unworkable blunderbuss or a sawn-off shotgun which is very seldom invoked than under this Bill, which I believe would have a very repressive effect.
Of course the Bill contains some improvements. It narrows the area of secrecy, but within the newly defined area, which necessarily is very wide, it effectively allows the Government to determine what is a secret and what is not; and I do not believe that by their nature Governments are the best instruments for deciding where the balance between freedom and security lies, particularly at moments when they are liable to be embarrassed. Let us therefore examine the Bill in Committee to see whether it protects official information and also whether it achieves the necessary balance. I believe that it gives the Government too much power, and I hope that we can do something about that. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, I should like to support the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, that the Press Council chairman might help.
I accept that in order to give the authorities the power to catch all those who really are endangering our national security or interest the definitions of protected information have to be wide, and they certainly are wide in the Bill. Clause 1(1)(e), for instance, refers to
"information which is obtained from a government of another State … on terms requiring it to be held in confidence".
It is not difficult to imagine circumstances in which there would be room for two perfectly legitimate opinions as to whether the national interest really required that such information should be protected. Yet, if any person discloses information of that nature he may be committing an offence under the Bill, which goes on to say that a prosecution under this clause
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requires the consent of the Attorney-General. A prosecution under the clause relating to defence or international affairs requires a certificate from a Minister of the Crown to the effect that disclosure damages the national interest. This point has been constantly referred to this afternoon.
Surely the whole point is that if the definitions are to be drawn widely enough to be effective when they are needed, it must be wrong to allow Ministers—the Executive authority—the sole power to interpret where the national interest lies. I urge that we examine the Bill in Committee and draw the definitions widely enough for their purpose, but withhold from the Government the power to prosecute until they have satisfied an independent authority. We have been told by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to make the distinction between a political decision, which is why it has been decided to give this power to a Minister, and a judicial decision, which is felt to be inappropriate in cases of this kind. I take that point completely, but at the same time it seems to me vital that we find a way of assigning the power to make the decision to an independent authority, and I must say that I can think of no better independent authority than a High Court judge, hearing the appeal in camera if necessary.
The Government could have allowed it to be a defence in a prosecution to be able to say that the disclosure was in the public interest and was not likely to harm that interest. They have not done so. They have preferred to let prosecutions go forward simply on the say-so of Ministers without any such defence being allowed, and I feel sure that this cannot be right. I hope that the House will insist that prosecutions for the disclosure of protected information shall go forward only on a certificate from an independent authority. That would do something to reconcile the conflicting requirements of security, on the one hand, and of freedom of information, on the other.
Because I think that the Bill, if enacted as it stands, would make legitimate, indeed vital, journalistic inquiry harder in practice—not in theory, but in practice—than it is today, I ought to declare an interest. I am chairman of a group of companies, which includes two newspaper publishing

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companies one of which publishes the Financial Times. Incidentally, I would refer your Lordships to a leader on this subject which the paper published this morning. I felt that it was extremely well balanced, and the newspaper perhaps could not be charged—as one noble Lord was—with ruining its case. It was a very measured comment on the Bill, but none the less an indictment of it. In declaring my interest let me say that I seek no privilege for journalists. I seek only the right of all citizens to freedom of information, whether or not under a freedom of information Bill, limited only by what is vital to security, and I submit that an independent judiciary would be better judges of the national interest in this respect than would Ministers of the Crown.
5.39 p.m.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: My Lords, it is with considerable trepidation that I follow the bevy of legal minds who have spoken this afternoon, but perhaps it is not a bad thing for an inquisitive layman to transgress into what looks as if it is going to be a lawyers' paradise. First, may I thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for his most comprehensive explanation of the provisions of the Bill and say that overall I certainly support it. I am as committed to liberty and democratic rights as, indeed, any Member of this Parliament must be; but, equally, I am firmly security-minded where the interests of this nation are concerned: not just in defence, to which the last two speakers would almost entirely have limited it, but in international relations and also in regard to something vitally important to Government interests and contracts in inventions, industrial processes and brilliant research, the disclosure of which could do irreparable damage to the future economic progress of this country.
Having worked with four Ministries, one in war-time and three in peace-time, I know how dribs and drabs of information can be built up into a dramatically important whole, and how what may be insignificant to a junior can provide the missing link to an expert. Ironically, of course, alongside the intelligence services no one is better at putting bits and pieces together and making a whole cake out of them than are the Press. They can be
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quite expert at it. The suggested demise of the tight net of Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act has been generally welcomed, and indeed I welcome it also. In fact, the Bill implements, though it has been given little credit for it today, many of the recommendations of the Franks Committee, which, with the White Paper published by the last Government, still emphasised, both of them, the essential importance of national security and international relations.
The Bill also refers to Government contractors. Thousands of these are in private enterprise industry, and are susceptible in this day and age to the tremendous post-war growth in industrial espionage. In this Bill we seem to have fully protected the nationalised industries, firms under Royal Charter, British Leyland and the BBC—ironically, not ITV—hut it is less effective in the case of companies vital to this country, not merely in defence but in new inventions that could win us enormous exports abroad if we are first in the field, and in their development and research before they receive their Government contract. How, too, in this computer age, does the individual fare in safeguarding, under this Bill, his justifiable privacy? The Government have obviously sought to find a fair and rational balance between the zeal of certain sections of the public and the Press to "publish and be damned" and the legitimate protection of our national interests and individual rights; and I must say that I gain no heart from the last two speakers, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, when he seeks to separate national security from international affairs. One of the Press staff may go to jail for six months, but the damage done if confidential exchanges between two heads of State are disclosed could be far more damaging to this country, and could completely destroy the goodwill and the faith that may have taken years to build up.
The Bill—and if I am wrong in this I am sure my noble friend who is to reply will correct me—seems to shift the weight of the offence from the recipient of information leaked to the party leaking such information. What happens when the Press refuse to disclose their sources of information? Are we to have endless Government inquiries, at the taxpayers' expense, to find the culprit? There has

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been some criticism of the clauses covering defence and international affairs, but I would firmly agree that such issues are essentially political and that only the Government of the day, with all the information at their command, have the confidential know ledge and, above all, the overriding responsibility to the country to assess the extent of the injury inflicted on our nation and on our overseas relations; or, indeed, defencewise, on our military allies.
Let us not forget that in this battle for information between nations we do not compete on equal terms. Less than a quarter of the world has a free Press to probe and pry and analyse. In three-quarters of the world, radio and television are equally controlled and restricted by rigid censorship, as is open debate. In many lands, to criticise any action of the Government is treasonable, as is critical analysis of any Government project. The availability of information from such countries is minimal, and, being Government-controlled, can even be deliberately misleading "black" information in comparison with the wide availability of information in another country in a free Press, radio, television, in research articles and in industrial journals. The information which can be gleaned from open sources in such countries far exceeds that which we can obtain from the censored countries.
It has been suggested that quite a number of people seek to transfer the decision on "injury to the nation" to the courts. How, without disclosing the value of the most secret defence processes or the most delicate international negotiations, could you impose upon a judge and jury, with all the court officials—the police, the lawyers, the witnesses, the Press—the responsibility of assessing that which it is rightly the absolute duty and responsibility of the Government to assess, that duty and responsibility having been put on their shoulders by the elected Parliament? And what effect would this greatly widened disclosure have on relations with our NATO allies or our foreign neighbours and allies? Without security, such international exchanges of information would simply dry up.
I should now like to say a word about Government contractors. From being
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the greatest industrial nation in the 19th century we are now overtaken by the financial and economic strength of several of our industrial rivals. We are still, however, an inventive nation, and the need to protect such specialised knowledge during its development and until it is patented or is sufficiently commercially viable to be negotiated and bring a Government contract is, I think, of vital importance—because industrial espionage is now big business. Some of our rivals give the most cursory scientific data of their equipment, but when they inquire about ours, frequently with no intention of buying but merely to pick our brains, they submit questionnaires demanding the greatest possible scientific detail. It would appear that in so far as such equipment is under Government contract, and only when it is under Government contract, will it be protected; but research and development of a prototype may take years before the Government contract to buy comes in. So whether it be in this Bill or in another—and possibly it has to be in another—I think our national inventiveness should be supported and protected.
Finally, may I raise a few queries which could perhaps be considered before we reach the Committee stage? The Bill restricts disclosure but does not restrict misuse by the person restricted. What I mean is this: A Government contractor cannot disclose technology given to him to fulfil a Government contract, nor can he disclose an article he makes with it; but he can use that information for his own purposes, be they never so nefarious, possibly for the purpose of industrial espionage, possibly for the purpose of making similar goods with that information for sale to unfriendly powers. Secondly, it defines official authorisation as authorisation duly given by a Crown servant or by a Government contractor, but it does not make it an offence, as I am given to believe, for the Crown servant or the Government contractor to give an official authorisation unduly, when he has no right to do so.
Strangely, the Bill causes an act done by a foreigner outside the United Kingdom to be an offence even if it is an act done in their own country by a foreign corporation which may have a contract to supply even minor goods to a United Kingdom embassy abroad. It also appears that the

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Bill does not protect a person who discloses information under an order of court, including the European Court of Justice, or an order of the EEC Commission. My Lords, I do not expect the noble Lord who is to reply to answer these queries tonight, but I think that they may be points which can be considered before we reach Committee stage. I have spoken for longer than I expected, but overall I think—even without perhaps all the Amendments sought this afternoon—we have what will eventually become a good and necessary Bill.
5.51 p.m.
Lord HALE: My Lords, I apologise first to the noble Baroness because I have been having electro-magnetic trouble with my hearing aid and have only just got it right in time to hear what was certainly, I hope, the theme on which I shall be reading her words with very great interest tomorrow morning. I have held for a long time that the most potent force in the world today is accident, and it is a subject which seems quite beyond the power of man to control. I went by chance into the Whips' Office on Thursday afternoon to put down my name to speak on the following Thursday. Recollecting what has recently happened in relation to Order Papers, I inquired about this Bill.
My Lords, I regard this Government with extreme suspicion. Some events which have happened, even with the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, and his colleagues, I found very disquieting. I asked whether there were many hoping to speak on the Franks Report and the Bill. The lady replied, "Only one." I became almost terrified at the thought that this Bill—which had appeared quite suddenly on the Order Paper, had been put down for a day when we were not due to sit, and when we were summoned for that day at only two days' notice—somehow or other was going to have very poor support or give rise to a very poor debate. Regardless of the fact that my presence could easily make it worse, I put down my name to speak provisionally and waited for Monday morning.
The motivating force in my case undoubtedly was the gentleman called Dreyfus; for there I saw world history changed in a single case. There were others, undoubtedly; but I doubt whether
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many now can recall that, unless one's physical history is shaped just as much by that chance. I was born in that era when we saw France destroy herself again on this semi-religious, semi-racial, and semi-Left/Right struggle which witnessed the long agony of an undoubtedly, unquestionably, innocent man. He had no connection with the matter whatsoever. He was a Jew—which suited the Right Wing in France at the time. We started something then which led on to the gas chamber. It seems that there came from that a genuine distaste, a genuine bitterness, a genuine horror of the whole procedure of the enforcement of secrecy by interrogation, by the use of spies, by the trapping of people.
There was one thing that was said which came rather outside the range of the debate, and which was welcome to my way of thinking, from the noble Lord opposite. He said that he had been talking to two very distinguished officers of State about these matters. I was a little shocked at the sort of official attitude which came from very distinguished men—men I would classify as more than civil servants —in their attitude to the concerns of a very large proportion of human society. Anyone who wants a classic example should consult the diary of Harold Nicolson, a gifted, charming, delightful writer but one who had no idea of any kind about the lives of his constituents in Leicester where he was elected largely by change and where he held his seat, as a very knowledgeable man about foreign affairs, for years. But he never made any mental contact at all with the petit bourgeoisie,or the working-class.
This was the attitude that recalled one of the events in the long toil of this Act. The Labour Party had rather a rough time at that time. They were, strangely enough, worried about the leadership and quarrelled about who should lead them. Mr. Raymond Postgate is writing the Life of George Lansbury. As I say, in the Labour Party Snowden had less chance of contact even than Frank Hodges would have after he had left the Party; and he had a genuine working-class background. The Labour Party at that time went through a period of constant reviling, as did most of its supporters. We had an Attorney General of great talent, who would rather have

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volunteered to serve with any party, who brought a prosecution of a communist and then withdrew it. He took every wrong step that is possible to take without any corruption or evil motive. There was a complete lack of understanding of the principles and duties upon which a prosecution should be founded. He withdrew it for reasons which were very convenient for the Labour Party but of no particular merit, and they were certainly in contrast to the spirit of the Act.
I wish to refer particularly today to one case, those of us who know the Labour Party, and the background of the illustrious career of my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, know who would get "pinched" for a prosecution. There was of course the Zinoviev letter—I think about the 15th refutation of the validity of the Zinoviev letter—which was undoubtedly concocted by Right Wing elements in this country. Then there was George Lansbury. Raymond Postgate, his son-in-law, in writing his biography wrote under some difficulty because they had had a demand for George's Cabinet papers to be returned. He was in the Cabinet for a few months as First Commissioner of Works. He was a man of admirable probity, of a strict integrity. But capable of course of indiscretion. He went over to try to settle Hitler. I think that was rather a sensible thing to do; I can see no possible harm in that. He tried to make peace with many people —not, so far as I know, with Ramsay Macdonald. From two of the names mentioned by Raymond Postgate, he received constant demands for the return of his Cabinet papers. Raymond Post-gate was finally told that he would be prosecuted under this Act unless he returned the papers forthwith. The war was on and George Lansbury was dead. When Raymond Postgate asked for the return of the papers, which he had surrendered—including many he need not have surrendered, but he said "Take the lot, I cannot start working over the man's papers at this moment with the war on; I am in the Home Guard"—Mr. Attlee said: "No, they are Crown property". We now know they were not Crown property. In a way we are passing an Act to define ownership a little more clearly.
As I say, I put my name down to speak with no very sure intent, but this is
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a matter which so touches the heart and conception of justice and brings all of us into touch with the problems we were taught to face and principles in which we were taught to believe. I thought that the Franks Committee Report was a very cheery one, on the whole, from a distinguished committee which sometimes erred on the side of caution. Sometimes they seemed to have been almost reckless.
I cannot say that there is anything in detail that I wish to say on this Second Reading. I hope to be able to attend throughout the Committee stage. I cannot argue because one cannot comprehend the magnitude of today's problems. I do not know how many of us today know what are the methods of finding and checking. I do not know how far we have progressed—if it be progress—in the interpretation of documents, the magnification of documents, the circulation of documents, and in the transmission of papers. I know that we have at the world's disposal, and being controlled by many more people, the hydrogen bomb which is of a destructive potential which brings us nearer to the end of all things. I think that we have got to take risks one way or the other, and we do take a risk if we do not have official secrets Acts and secrets retrictions.
The time has come when we ought to take one or two decisions. We have to make peace; we have to take the chance. An immense task is to organise world understanding and world co-operation, which means of course not thinking that democracy is necessarily precisely the way in which the Russians should regulate their affairs. They have done pretty well but they have deprived the world of a lot of freedom; but their enemies have deprived the world of a lot of human beings, too. The world is facing problems of a tremendous magnitude.
I know I have abused my position; I came here hardly prepared to go into details. I have listened to almost every word, including the brilliant speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, which was a pleasure to hear. In a strange way, I doubt whether there has been any dissent, any acrimony, about objectives. I hope that in that spirit we may be able to improve this Bill while thinking of the wider aspects in which time is beginning to pass irrevocably and finally to the end.
6.8 p.m.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Hale. I shall be short. We are in an unusual situation this evening because usually of course we are concerned with differences of view between the major political parties. This is a subject in which the division of opinion has usually been between the Executive on one side and Parliament, the Press and others on the other. It is a difficult field because we must obviously nave an Official Secrets Act. The general difficulties have been felt. I cannot of course claim to speak with the experience of my noble friend Lord Hutchinson of Lullington. I can only remember one Section 2 case, perhaps illustrating the reason why for so long now it has been virtually a dead letter. This was a prosecution of a loyal, conservative, public school, conscientious civil servant who was in the Ministry of Information, a Ministry that existed not to conceal anything but all the time to give out information. She had been given, with other members of the staff, policy documents showing what British Government policy was in relation to various European countries and if anybody asked her what the Government policy was towards such and such a country she could then tell them. She could quote from the document, but she was not supposed to give anybody a copy of the document. She was particularly anxious to persuade a Yugoslav friend that our policy as to Yugoslavia was right and she actually gave him a copy of the document, which of course she should not have done. She was prosecuted under Section 2 and on the first count of the indictment she was not only dismissed the service but given the maximum punishment of two years in prison. I thought that was an absurd example of prosecution and an absurd sentence. The Court of Appeal upheld it; but it is not surprising, when one gets that sort of sentence and that sort of case, that the legislation is virtually a dead letter.
I agree that we must have an Official Secrets Act and in particular a Section 1. With regard to Section 2, what has impressed me most in the recent history of that section has been that, although for a good many years now it has virtually become a dead letter, I have not heard anybody say—and nobody has said in the
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debate tonight—that anything awful has happened because we have got a dead letter. There are all sorts of prosecutions which ought to have taken place and have not taken place, so it seems to show that we should take some care before we do something in the legislative field which might make things worse.
My first difficulty concerns the completely unlimited powers of the Executive to decide the question of public interest. As the leading article in the Financial Times said this morning:
"What is secret will be anything which the Government chooses to call secret"
I cannot myself see why there should not be an appeal. It is quite true that in not providing for an appeal, the Bill follows the Franks Committee; but I myself believe that if the Franks Committee had sat eight years later in a very different climate they might well have taken a different view. The judges are not wholly inexperienced in this field. After all, ever since the Cammell Laird case some years ago now, it has been the law in this country that if only two people litigate the Crown is entitled to arrive and say, if a document is being called for, "You must not produce that document because it would be contrary to the public interest". The judge can then look at the document, if he is not satisfied, before making up his own mind: so they are not strangers to all this. But here there is no appeal to a court, to a tribunal, not even to a "three wise men" committee—nor, to refer to another suggestion which I think found some favour with the last Administration and which had been suggested by Justice, is it proposed that the Parliamentary Commissioner, the Ombudsman, might play a useful part in this field.
The second matter concerns the difficulties which my noble friend Lord Hutchinson and others have talked of over interpretation. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said it was a merit of the Bill that there has been as great a precision as possible. However, if one takes a word like "security" or "intelligence", what do the words mean? At face value they might mean anything or nothing, and I should have thought that they required a fairly precise definition. There is a definition in the definition clause, but it is

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an explanation rather than a definition and it says:
"' security or intelligence' means the work and activities of, and in support of, the security and intelligence services or any part of them, and references to information relating to security or intelligence includes references to information held or transmitted by those services or persons in support of them or any part of them".
I do not know whether others feel much wiser after I have read that. Take security, for example: does it include atomic nuclear security'? In relation to Winscale, I think the fuels company in question would like to give some information on the grounds of security, and it ought I suppose to be a matter of security. We know that if a container of irradiated fuel—that is to say, containing plutonium, uranium and waste matter—is damaged, that part of London where it happened might, if it happened in London, be uninhabitable for the next 125 years.
I do not know how many of your Lordships yesterday saw a photograph in the paper obtained by three men. They had had no difficulty in finding out by telephoning a workmen's hut that a container of nuclear waste was due to arrive at Stratford Station at a particular time from nuclear reactors in Essex and Suffolk. So they went there with a rocket launcher and duly arrived on time. They then approached with the rocket launcher to within a few inches of the container. Fortunately it was not a real rocket launcher but a dummy. It looked exactly like it; but nobody stopped them and there is a photograph in the Observer of yesterday of the trigger being pressed. The railway company said: "well, it has nothing to do with us. They had platform tickets and we could not stop them coming on to the platform. If we had seen a gun or something we would have told the police. It is not a matter for us". Nobody would doubt that a public service may have been done by these three men taking this course and exposing the scandalous lack of security precautions; but does that come into this question of security or intelligence? No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, could tell us.
Also, I am very unhappy about the classification, which is to be done entirely by a civil servant, to be nominated, I think, by the Prime Minister. Classification will be particularly important to the Press. I
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am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, here because I hope he might agree with me if I proposed that before this Bill proceeds very far some Committee might be set up, on which the Press could be represented, to consider what the best method of classification would be. This, you see, would be following the Franks Report, because Franks said in paragraph 163:
"The Government and the representatives of the news media and of any other interest directly affected should enter into discussions with a view to the establishment of an informal committee on classification of the kind outlined in paragraphs 165 and 166".
I think it might be a wise course to take if a committee were set up and the Press were consulted before the classification scheme is finally decided.
Lastly, may I just say this. It is clear, is it not?, from what so many of us have said tonight that, while it may be doubtful whether a poor Bill would be better than the present situation, if we are to get the right Bill, a great deal of discussion and consideration has to take place. I want to ask this question of the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, if I may. Is the rumour—I hope it is not an official secret—that the Government have decided that this Bill must be rushed through this House and be out of this House by Christmas correct? If it is, I should very much regret that, because, if ever there was a Bill which would repay a very full and careful Committee stage, I should have thought it was this Bill.
Lord SPENS: My Lords, I intervene very briefly, only because I want to qualify myself to speak in Committee. I believe fervently in the freedom of the Press, and this Bill must be scrutinised in minute detail in Committee before we allow it to go forward. I supported the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, when he implied, so I think, that it is the specific restrictions on freedom of speech which must be scrutinised. Having said that, I give my support to the Second Reading of the Bill.
6.20 p.m.
Lord BOSTON of FAVERSHAM: My Lords, there has been a wide range of views expressed tonight on this matter—the Protection of Official Information Bill. I suppose the one thing on which there

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may be unanimity of view is that tonight is perhaps the most appropriate night of the year to be talking about protection in the Palace of Westminster. It is, after all, Guy Fawkes night.
As might have been expected, this debate has revealed that there are great differences of opinion on this whole problem and pretty well every shade of opinion, if not every one, has been represented. My noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones, in his customarily thorough way, has spelled out in some detail the arguments as we see them on this Bench, so I do not feel that I need to detain your Lordships for long now. What is clear from this debate is that we all—or nearly all, at any rate—start from the same point, in that we share the view that there needs to be a move towards as much more open government as is possible. and that there needs to be protection for certain categories of official information and information held in official quarters; that is, including private information. Where people differ is as to how far those aims should go.
As has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords tonight, there is of course the question of balance—on the one hand, the need to preserve the security of the State and to safeguard its citizens and, on the other hand, to make available as much information as possible. Differences have emerged within the parties, not least in the discussions that took place on earlier occasions in another place. So perhaps the Government can take some comfort, at any rate, from the fact that whatever Bill is produced will not satisfy everyone; there will have to be a compromise of some kind.
My noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones has already indicated that the Bill before us contains elements that were in the White Paper of July, 1978, and, as he has also shown, that document itself contained some of the main proposals of the Franks Committee. Two of the principal matters proposed by the Franks Committee for inclusion as protected classes, which were not accepted as part of the White Paper plans, were Cabinet and Cabinet committee papers, except in so far as they were covered by other categories, such as defence and material about the currency and reserves; and, of course, as we have heard from the
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noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, these are not in the present Bill either. So it is true to say that, to that extent at any rate, this Bill is more liberal than some aspects of the Franks Committee's proposals.
A number of detailed objections have been raised to this Bill and there are some which may well be dealt with as Committee points, if your Lordships allow this Second Reading tonight. But it has already emerged—and I would underline what has been said—that there are a number of matters of importance on which the Bill is open to objection. One of the principal points—and this is something to which my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones and others, including my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, have referred—on which there is cause for concern as expressed in some other quarters, too, is that the Bill separates protection of information concerning defence and international relations from the classification of documents and articles, contrary to the recommendations of the Franks Committee itself. Here I would refer to the last Government's White Paper, at paragraph 23 on page 13, where it states:
"The system of classification markings would be embedded in the Bill, as the Franks Committee recommended, by including the definitions of each security marking in the Bill and providing an enabling power for regulations about classification to be made".
That more detailed provision is, of course, not in the Bill.
But the major point here, about which concern has been expressed on the Bill, is that classification, which Franks recommended should be the test of serious injury to the interests of the nation and a condition for prosecution, is in this Bill only an indication that information may be protected. The problem that some people have posed is that no one can be certain, as a result of these provisions in the Bill, that a document which is not classified does not contain information which a Minister may decide is protected by criminal sanctions; in other words, that a document can be declared ex post facto to be protected.
There is also some additional matter of concern in some quarters, which is put in this way: that the system of classification is not to be the responsibility of individual

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Ministers, but of the Minister for the Civil Service, the Prime Minister. He may delegate the job of classification to responsible authorities, which may not be within Government Departments proper—a matter which is referred to in Clauses 12 and 13 of the Bill ; and the definitions of "Crown servant" and "government contractor" are very wide and may be extended by statutory instrument—a matter which is dealt with in Clause 14. These provisions suggest the possibility of an almost unlimited extension of official status over bodies and persons having some relation to Government. So that there is, and has been expressed, some unease there. I suggest, and agree, that this is something on which further discussion and clarification are needed.
A further point to which reference has been made tonight by my noble friend Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, my noble friend Lord Ardwick, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones, clearly disturbs some people and it concerns the proposed Minister's certificate. The Minister's certificate, that unauthorised disclosure may cause serious injury and so on, is under the Bill conclusive, as has been pointed out tonight, and is not open to challenge in the courts. It is not subject to any check either by the Attorney-General, as was proposed by the last Government, or by the Security Commission.
This is something which was referred to specifically by my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones, and was proposed by the then Opposition; that is to say, by a Conservative Front Bench spokesman in Standing Committee C in the other place on 8th February this year, on Mr. Clement Freud's Official Information Bill. The Minister would thus be judge in his own cause and some would therefore see him as not genuinely responsible to Parliament, as he may decline to answer questions on such matters. In making reference to this point I referred to the Attorney-General, and it is of course the case, too, that the Attorney-General's role under the Bill is limited only to consenting to prosecutions—a role that he would have had under the White Paper as well.
Again—a further matter which has been causing some concern, not only to Mem-
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bers of your Lordships' House but to some outside as well, and which was referred to tonight by my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones and by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder—is that the Bill creates a separate category of information relating to security or intelligence, which is not subject to any test of serious injury or otherwise. So this means that any information about security or intelligence is protected, whether or not it is already common knowledge. As I understand it, there is no defence under Clause 7 except in connection with the offence—which is an additional offence—of disclosing information about protective security measures. Here the burden of proof is on the defendant to show that disclosure could not lead to unauthorised access to other protected information, and the objection which some have put forward is that this practically precludes altogether any public discussion of security matters.
I mention this as another example of matters about which people have expressed doubts and where further discussion might therefore be appropriate, if not very necessary. There are, of course, others. Among those mentioned tonight was the matter of telephone communications, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. This relates to a highly sensitive field, not dealt with either in the Franks Report or in the last Government's White Paper of July 1978. I think that we shall need to look carefully at those matters.
One of the most unfortunate features—not so much about the Bill itself but about the way in which this measure has been brought forward, if I may say so with great respect—is that there seems to have been a singular and sad lack of communication and consultation by the Government with other bodies on a matter which has, by its very definition alone, to do with communication. The question of consultation has been referred to tonight by, among others, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. In the Labour Government's White Paper, for example, of July 1978 there was a relevant and, if I may say so—I was not responsible because I was not in the Government at that time so perhaps I can mention it without immodesty—very pertinent point at paragraph 25 on page 14. This was something which I believe was alluded to by my noble and

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learned friend Lord Gardiner. The paragraph says that it was suggested in the Franks Report that the Government should enter into discussions with representatives of the news media and with any other interests directly affected with a view to the establishment of an informal committee on classification, and that the Home Secretary would be ready to initiate the discussions as recommended nearer the time that it seemed likely that a Bill was to be introduced.
Then, in March 1979, there was published another document, the Green Paper, to which some reference has been made tonight by certain noble Lords. This was intended to lead to discussions and, indeed, to consultations—and I stress that word—on those topics. I refer in this connection, too, to a point which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. He made it clear that he will not be able to support the reform which is before us tonight unless it is coupled with a move towards freedom of information. He endorsed, as I do now, a request which was made by my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones for information from the Government—if not tonight, then certainly very soon indeed—about the moves which they propose to make in the direction of freedom of information.
It cannot have been often that there has been a measure so early in the life of a Government or a Parliament of which in the Press, irrespective of political view or colour, there has been such widespread condemnation or at least such widespread scepticism, a point referred to by my noble friend Lord Ardwick. This is especially sad when what we are united upon is the need for reform in this whole sphere. If there have been consultations it would seem that they have not been very fruitful. But whether or not they have been, and whether or not they have been adequate, there is now clearly a need, in my submission, for the widest possible examination and for a dialogue, so far as that is now open to us as the debate proceeds in your Lordships' House. For what is clear is that there need to be substantial improvements made.
6.35 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, has just referred to scepticism about the
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drafting of the Bill whose Second Reading my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has introduced today. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, will not think that I am being discourteous if I turn from his speech, which I found very interesting—indeed, we shall certainly look extremely carefully at many points in it—to my noble and learned friend's speech and say that I think that the first significant point in the debate has been the one made by him; namely, that there is a broad measure of agreement that we need to do something about Section 2.
Certainly I realise that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, made the point—and I would not venture to disagree with him, speaking from his experience—that nothing very undesirable seems to have occurred in recent years because of the existence of Section 2. However, I was surprised that the noble and learned Lord could say that, when one remembers the pretty trenchant criticism in the Franks Report about having legislation which was so wide and uncertain as to be almost unintelligible and unworkable. In saying that there is a broad measure of agreement, I realise also that the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, expressed the fear that the "punt gun", as my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy described Section 2, would be replaced by a Bill which would be an Armalite riffle. That apprehension is misplaced. I say that because I believe that the case which was argued both in the Franks Report and in the previous Government's White Paper refutes many of the doubts which have been expressed today—a report and a White Paper, incidentally, upon which this Bill is mainly based. Your Lordships' speeches will undoubtedly provide fuel for a very great deal of discussion, if this Bill is given a Second Reading.
The debate today undoubtedly provides us with a very useful background to consider urgently the points which noble Lords have made. In doing this, we shall of course be bearing in mind that we are according to the death of Section 2 a good deal more attention than accompanied its birth. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, reminded us of this. That Bill was brought forward at a time of some national tension to deal primarily with other matters, and

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Section 2 was barely discussed in the parliamentary debates of the time. All I can say, having sat through a lengthy as well as an interesting debate, is that your Lordships have already shown today that this House is not going to be so remiss on this occasion.
If the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor describes the Bill as highly technical, your Lordships can guess my state of mind in attempting to make my own way through the provisions of each clause. I suspect that in some cases there has been an expectation that the replacement of Section 2 would involve the substitution of a provision not substantially more complex. But that simply cannot be. I appreciate that the Bill is complex but this is, I think, the inevitable result of seeking to do what many of us are agreed must be done; namely, to define precisely the circumstances in which the disclosure of official information should be penalised. The brevity of Section 2 is in some respects the consequence of the breadth of its scope, and because we are not being so sweeping in this Bill the fact of the matter is that we cannot be so brief.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, both at the beginning and at the end of this debate have, I think it is fair to say, made clear their unease with Section 2 but have linked their expressions of concern with a wish to know more about what are the present Government's views on, if I may use shorthand, open government.
This Bill is not, as my noble and learned friend made clear, about freedom of information or open government. The Government's view is that legislation is not the only way to achieve greater openness in Government, and in saying that I am encouraged by the speeches which were made by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and my noble friend Lord Derwent. As a Government we have made clear our policy in another place—to make as much information as possible available, including background papers and analytical studies relevant to major policy decisions. This policy amounts to a reaffirmation of the directive promulgated to Departments in July of 1977 by the then head of the Home Civil
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Service. I will not go on about that because we are at the end of a long debate, but I will add one other point on this subject. In addition to that the Government believe that the reforms of the Select Committee system which the House of Commons has recently decided will provide a very important contribution to greater openness in government of a kind which accords with our parliamentary and constitutional arrangements.
Starting with the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, several noble Lords have, I admit, criticised the Bill as being more restrictive in the sense that it will create—so noble Lords have asserted—a situation which is more restrictive than the present situation under Section 2. I should like to reply by looking at Clause 4, the offence of the ordinary citizen. After all, this clause gives the citizen a degree of protection that Clauses 2 and 3 do not afford to the Crown servant or Government contractor. The essential point is that in the case of the citizen the prosecution have to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that the accused appreciated that the information he disclosed was protected under the Act, and that of course is a stiffer test than what is proposed for Crown servants and Government contractors.
So what we are talking about in this Bill is the case of a citizen, and I realise that in talking about the citizen many of your Lordships have been speaking of representatives of the Press. But we are talking about a citizen who discloses information otherwise than in accordance with an official authorisation and fully appreciating that it is both in a protected category and is official information. I really do not think that that can fall into the category of having an axe falling unpredictably on the head of somebody, as the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, described the effect of the Bill.
I realise also from speeches which your Lordships have made that some of your Lordships feel that it is oppressive to cast the definition of security or intelligence so wide that a citizen who discloses even trivial information about these matters is liable to conviction and a sentence of two years' imprisonment. The fact is that there are certain areas where the safeguarding of the nation's interests is essential. The previous Administration

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recognised in its White Paper of July of last year, at paragraph 31, that despite the view of the Franks Committee of this particular point, information relating to security and intelligence was deserving of the highest protection, whether or not it met the test that its unauthorised disclosure would be likely to cause serious injury to our national interests. I trust that noble Lords opposite remain of the same view. I might add that I do not sense that those who criticise this overall coverage of security or intelligence matters are likely to complain at the similar protection that we propose to extend to the confidences of the citizen.
I now move on to Clause 7 which, again from the Opposition Front Bench, was raised, I think, in both the opening and the closing speeches. It provides the defence in the case of material in the law and order, foreign, commercial and personal confidences, that the information was previously available to the public. Noble Lords have raised the possibility of extending this defence to other categories of information: defence and international relations, security and intelligence and intercepts. Clearly there are arguments both ways on this and I realise that different views are held. For what it is worth my own view is that the difference in kind between these types of information justifies the selective approach that we propose. But if your Lordships give the Bill a Second Reading then in Committee we shall be able to examine the matter more deeply. In the meantime we shall certainly consider the points which have been made.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, raised a specific point on this clause which confers a defence in relation to information protected by Clause 1(1) sub-paragraphs (c), (e) or (f), the noble and learned Lord asking that the information having already been made available to the public, or to a section of it, should mean that it had been made officially available. The answer to the noble and learned Lord's question is, No. So long as information is available it does not matter how it became so—whether officially or not. That is, as the Bill is drafted.
I turn for a moment to the question of classification, which several of your Lordships have raised. The Bill provides, in
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Clauses 12 and 13, for the classification of material in the defence and international relations categories and I realise that I am speaking to noble Lords—and to the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, in particular—who have immense experience in this field. But I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I say that the point made by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, bears repeating—the fact that new material is classified and marked as such, under this Bill has no direct bearing on the offences. However, classification markings will have the dual purpose of warning those handling the material that it is protected and, in consequence, of providing evidence in a subsequent prosecution bearing on the issue, whether the accused appreciated that the material was protected or not.
Many of your Lordships referred to the regulation—making power to be found in this part of the Bill. The regulations provided for here will set out the general system and provide for the appropriate delegation of levels of decision-making on classification. These are supposed to be enabling powers and will clearly take into account any views which your Lordships have been expressing and will express, and particularly the views of my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy, who expressed particular interest in the future classification. Clearly a Minister must remain the final arbiter in these matters, but he cannot himself classify all the papers in his department and this regulation-making power is supposed to take care of that.
I now move from that to the certificate issuing power of a Minister. There were many points made on this and I will go to the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson. The noble Lord made many points and, if he will forgive me, I am not going to try to answer them, but on this one I should like to take issue with the noble Lord when he implied that the Minister will issue a certificate without reviewing the whole circumstances of a case. On this point our proposals in Clause 8 are exactly in line with Franks. Of course the Minister will review the circumstances of a case before issuing a certificate, just as Franks intended. We are not proposing to protect information by reference to its classification, so it is the nature of the information, rather than its classification, that the Minister must

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consider. This technical point apart, what we propose is actually what Franks recommended and it is precisely, of course, what was recommended in the previous Government's White Paper.
Many of your Lordships, not least my noble friend Lady Hornsby-Smith, have put points to me which should be replied to, but I really think it might he your Lordships' wish that we should draw the debate to a close, provided I give a genuine undertaking that the points will be looked at most carefully. However, there are two points which I think I must reply to. First, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, asked me a direct question about the definition of the expression "security or intelligence" which is to be found printed in Clause 1 (1) (b). As the noble and learned Lord will have noticed, of course this is defined in Clause 14 under the definition of "security or intelligence". If the noble and learned Lord wishes me to add anything to that definition which is to be found in Clause 14, the only words I can give him are that the definition means Her Majesty's foreign and other secret services and Government communications headquarters.
Finally, my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy summarised succinctly the Franks argument that Cabinet papers should be protected because of the Cabinet's special role in Government. All I can say on this is that we and the previous Government concluded that this would be drawing the field too wide. Of course, Cabinet papers will be protected if their subject matter justifies this—for instance, defence—but, for the rest, as I think my noble and learned friend said far better than I can, it seems best to rely on the judgment of Ministers and on disciplinary sanctions. I sense that the House would feel any other approach to be unnecessarily restrictive, and I hope I shall be allowed some credit for one point on which, quite clearly, we are taking a rather more liberal line.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, if my noble friend will allow me to interrupt, I did not in fact mention Cabinet papers and it was not my purpose to disagree, because I believe that there need not be a rule to protect Cabinet
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papers. My point was protecting the information that a Minister or Ministers had been in a minority against an important decision announced by the Government, but I was not concerned to protect Cabinet papers as a whole.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I apologise to my noble friend for misunderstanding him. If the Bill is given a Second Reading perhaps we could return to this point at the next stage.
My Lords, this debate has, I think, underlined a large measure of agreement that certainly Section 2 really has got to go. I must confess that I had expected to hear views expressed in rather more ringing tones that the proposals of the Franks Committee provided a sure basis for the making of new law. I believe, speaking on behalf of the Government, that if this Bill receives a Second Reading, in Committee your Lordships will find that it in fact provides improvements on some of the Franks proposals; and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Boston, was good enough to suggest this in certain respects. I am sure it should replace Section 2, for which the case for abolition is I think absolutely overwhelming. On those grounds, I ask your Lordships to agree that the Bill should now be read a second time.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, before the noble Lord concludes, I wonder whether he can respond to the suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner about the desirability of further consultations with people in the Press Council and with the persons who were mentioned by my noble and learned friend. I am sorry to burden him further, and I am grateful to him for having covered so much ground.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for making the point again and thereby underlining it. The undertaking I give is that I will personally draw this point to the attention of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. With that, I hope that your Lordships will agree that this Bill should be read a second time.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

THE STEEL INDUSTRY IN SCOTLAND
6.53 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY Lord CAMPBELL of CROY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a Statement about the serious situation facing the steel industry in Scotland which has arisen because of inability to use the iron ore terminal opened at Hunterston five months ago. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I am asking the Government whether they will comment on the serious situation which has arisen in the main steel-making area in Scotland, that is Ravenscraig, at Motherwell. As part of modernisation and improving efficiency the iron ore terminal on the coast at Hunterston has been constructed. It was completed and formally opened five months ago, but it is still not in use. Iron ore has had to be brought up the Clyde in small vessels to general terminus quay, and it is estimated that about £1 million a week has been lost by the British Steel Corporation as a result. Fortuitously, the subject now being raised in this House is reaching a stage of positive progress, judging from the news over the weekend. The Minister who is replying this evening, my noble friend Lord Trenchard, may be able to inform us on the very latest developments. I do not press the Government to make a Statement this evening on this matter. I do recognise that there are still decisions to be taken. In particular, it seems the Government are being asked to designate Hunterston for the purposes of a dock labour scheme. So that large progress appears to have been made but a settlement has not yet been completed.
At the outset, my Lords, I must make it clear that it is my intention to avoid any interference in the dispute between the two large unions representing the transport and steel workers respectively which has unfortunately prevented the manning of the terminal, involving about 60 jobs, and so caused the delay. I am well aware of the case which each union has been defending; I am well aware of the principles they each seek to protect and the importance which they attach to them. I respect the purpose of both unions. I shall not be taking sides;
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indeed, I would find it very difficult to choose if I was compelled to.
What I aim to do tonight is to draw attention to the disproportionate amount of damage that can be done to our country's economy and to employment prospects by situations of this kind. We must surely find ways of solving these problems without severely wounding ourselves in the process, because with modernisation and technology, similar situations are likely to arise in the future, and in other industries besides the steel industry. Through one pair of eyes the circumstances at Hunterston can be seen simply as an extension of a salt water jetty to a steelworks. Through other eyes they may be seen as the beginnings of a port. The weekend news indicated that the TUC and the unions concerned worked for many hours on Saturday, the day before yesterday, and for all I know into the early hours of Sunday, to reach the basis of an agreement. These efforts are to be warmly applauded. It is in that spirit, I suggest, that such problems should be tackled in future, and I hope at an earlier stage.
In the present case, although the apparent deadlock has been reported from time to time during the last five months, too few members of the public seemed to be aware of how much was at risk; too few, certainly in Scotland, realised that the industrial projects at stake were ones which most of Scotland heard about at the times in the past when they were first considered. They were projects being pressed by the bodies representing industry in Scotland, by the trade unions in Scotland and by other bodies concerned with Scotland's economic wellbeing. Those projects had been in the headlines at those times.
My Lords, let us first consider Ravenscraig. In 1958, after weeks of controversy, campaigning and canvassing for competing sites in different parts of the United Kingdom, it was decided that a strip mill should be built at Motherwell. Many Scots had felt that this was important because industry in Scotland had during the controversy expressed strong views publicly on the need to retain substantial steel-making capacity in Scotland. The Scottish Trades Union Congress along with many other Scottish organisations, as I recall those days, were

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wholly in favour. There was a general welcome, therefore, in Scotland, in the headlines as much as anywhere else, for the decision when it was announced in 1958. I know that some people with special knowledge of the steel industry were less than enthusiastic with that decision and thought it was political. None the less Scotland was given the benefit of any doubts in that decision and there was much rejoicing North of the Border as a result.
Later, in 1972, when the reorganisation of the British steel industry had to be carried out, the special position of Ravenscraig was underlined publicly with great emphasis, and as a result it became one of the few centres selected for the concentrated modernisation of steel-making in the United Kingdom. Millions of pounds were allocated to its further development, again to the acclamation of the Press and public in Scotland. This is the same Ravenscraig, the very same steelworks, now dependent on the new ore terminal, and the same steelworks that has consequently been threatened by months of delay. Indeed, the British Steel Corporation announced a few weeks ago that it would soon have to suspend operations there if a settlement could not be reached. That would have meant 9,000 jobs directly threatened, and I am sure many too indirectly threatened in that area.
I turn to Hunterston. It became clear in the late 1960s that a terminal in the deep sheltered water there would improve Ravenscraig's efficiency. In particular it would make use of the trend to large ships, to ore carriers; and that trend has indeed continued since. Because it is in an area of considerable beauty and amenity in the Firth of Clyde, a public inquiry was held which included other proposals also for Hunterston.
The Reporter—and I should explain that that is the name given North of the Border to the official who is an Inspector in England and Wales—submitted his recommendation in 1970. In December of that year the Secretary of State, acting within the strict requirements of the Planning Acts, accepted the Reporter's recommendation that the ore terminal could go ahead. There were, as I have mentioned, local objections to any indus-
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trial development at that location, which were understandable. But the decision received a wide welcome in Scotland as again providing another opportunity for the modernisation of a flourishing Scottish steel industry with the good effects expected for the users of steel and other industries in Scotland. The Reporter had recommended that the ore terminal go ahead, although he did recommend against certain other proposals at the inquiry.
There is in Scotland a particular organisation which works to achieve the best economic conditions; I refer to the Scottish Council for Industry and Development. Membership includes industrialists, businessmen, trade unionists and university staff. The Scottish Council had been advocating use of this deep water resource and was understandably pleased with the decisions being taken.
Earlier in 1970 a report had been published, which the Scottish Council had commissioned, under the supervision of Sir William Lithgow, of the shipbuilding firm Scott, Lithgow, and Professor Nicoll of Strathclyde University. That report was called Oceanspan and it presented a development strategy for increasing the maritime resources of Scotland, especially where deep-water berthing was possible. It rightly caught the imagination of many in Scotland nine years ago, in addition to those concerned with trade and industry in their daily lives. The Hunterston ore terminal project fitted neatly into that strategy.
I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Newton, with all his experience, is to speak after me. I know that at least two noble Lords on the Labour Benches would have been here and would probably have contributed from their participation and interest in these matters in the past. Unfortunately, they cannot be available in London today. I hope that the five months' delay really is now at an end and that it has not mortally wounded the Ravenscraig steelworks. I applaud again the special efforts made in the last few days by the TUC, and I should like to give encouragement to all who are still engaged in getting the ore terminal manned and in action as soon as possible.
I have reminded the House that the projects at Ravenscraig and Hunterston have been regarded in the past as important

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at the times when they were being decided upon. It should accordingly be appreciated how much has been at risk during these last five months. If anything is to be gained from this sad experience, let it be a determination to settle these matters in good time before new plant or new methods come into operation in similar circumstances, when they occur in other places in our country.
7.6 p.m.
Lord LEE of NEWTON: My Lords, I know that we all join the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, in hoping that this long delay is now coming to an end. I do not disagree with most of what the noble Lord has said to us. He has concentrated on Scottish steel, but it is true to say that throughout the world steel industries are in dire trouble. Indeed, if that which the economists tell us comes about and we are going into an even deeper recession, those steel industries will be among the first to feel the effects of such a recession.
Indeed, when one looks at the situation in Scotland, there are very few industries that are not in trouble and that is most disappointing when one thinks of the huge sums which have been invested in Scotland as a result of development area policy. One wonders what would have happened there if those sums had not been invested in years gone by.
The noble Lord reminded us that this is essentially a demarcation dispute. They are always an extremely difficult type of dispute for us to cope with. In recent years we have managed to eliminate a great many of them. The noble Lord knows as well as I the situation of the shipbuilding industry—an industry which at one time used to have a great number of "who drills the hole?" type of disputes. The reason we very rarely hear of any demarcation disputes now in that industry, is that the two principal unions managed to amalgamate and we do not find demarcation disputes existing within one union—at least, not as a rule. That was a great advance in eliminating demarcation disputes in the shipbuilding industry.
I am glad that the noble Lord did not blame altogether the two unions concerned in the Hunterston dispute. I think he said that if he had to take a decision as to where to lay the blame he would not know which
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to choose—and nor would I. That is common ground. The last thing that I hope any of us would charge them with is either having a type of Luddite mentality or simply being bloody-minded.
It is the case that the steel industry has a very good record indeed as regards the solution to the problems of that industry. The Iron and Steel Trades Confederation can be very proud of its record, especially when we look at the problems that it has had in the last few years, and the problems which face it now.
The trouble is that there is no way in which we can solve this problem by amalgamation. We have here one union which is concerned specifically with the steel industry.
The other union is a general workers' union which spreads over a great many of our industries. There is no basis upon which we can solve that. Indeed, I think I have said a few times in this House that we suffer from the fact that we pioneered trade unionism in Britain. The modern concept of how to solve many of these problems is by industrial unionism in which we have one union for one industry. It is ironic when we think of the fact that the most strike-free industries in Europe are to be found in Germany and that it was the TUC which did the groundwork to put that country on its feet as regards trade unionism. If we could start from scratch, we would do precisely the same as they do.
It is also the case that if we look at the problems of these two unions, we find that both the steelworkers and the dockers have lost a vast number of jobs in the last few years. That is quite inevitable with the march of progress. But when one looks at why they are so keen about this kind of issue, one must look first at the fact that both of them have seen their numbers diminish rapidly and that in Scotland as a whole, and certainly in the Clyde area, there is precious little alternative if one loses one's job in one's industry. It is a very great problem for people who see their jobs in danger of disappearing and who know perfectly well that, if they are one of the unlucky ones, there is not much hope of getting another.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, mentioned the activities of the TUC Steel Committee. I join with the noble

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Lord in congratulating that committee upon the work it has done. I shall not go into all the details, because it is fairly well known that it wants to allocate certain types of jobs to the dockers and certain types of jobs at Hunterston to the steelworkers. I know that this will present the Government with certain problems, including the problem of scheduling and those connected with the Dock Work Regulation Act.
As I understand it, there are fears that if the Government agree to the kind of thing which the TUC are suggesting, other ports may well ask for the same facilities. I hope that the Government will not allow that to prevent a settlement being reached at Hunterston. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, gave a graphic description of what will happen if we do not reach a settlement now. Ravenscraig itself is in danger; 9,000 jobs could go. I do not want to go into the history of Ravenscraig and whether or not it should ever have been built; as the noble Lord knows, the experts in steel differed on that. That is water under the bridge. Nine thousand jobs are in danger there. Because of the problems in the steel industry, particularly at Corby, where some 6,000 people are threatened with redundancy, the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation is thinking in terms of taking industrial action. If that industrial action comes about—and I hope it will not—it will certainly affect the future of Ravenscraig.
I have a feeling that the British Steel Corporation is trying to progress too rapidly. I had a great deal to do with the creation of that British steel agency and I know perfectly well how keen it is to become viable. But to believe that, at a time of world recession, when orders are not available, you can have a huge industry and that you can say, "Next year we must break even on profitability", is the wrong approach by the BSC. Indeed, if the Government are saying to the BSC that they must break even next year, the Government are also wrong.
The alternatives to the kind of settlement which we are discussing at Hunterston, and therefore at Ravenscraig, are too shocking to allow us to play about with small issues. The people of Scotland are entitled to feel that, now that the TUC have found some means of a solution to the
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Hunterston issue, the Government must not stand on ceremony and must not argue about whether or not the dockers will be registered. To me that would be very wrong indeed.
I, therefore, join the noble Lord in hoping that we are at the end of what has been a very difficult issue indeed. The noble Lord told us that we must find a way to solve these disputes before they hurt us so badly, and I join with him in that. I have suggested that where there is this kind of dispute and there is a possibility of amalgamation of the unions, that is the answer. I have tried to point out that that solution is not available at Hunterston. Therefore, we must consider that the solutions which have been successful in other areas and industries are not available there. I hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, will inform his right honourable friend that we in this House are extremely concerned about the future of Hunterston, that we want the unions concerned to reach agreement, and that we do not want to see a huge capital investment wasted as it has been wasted so far. We cannot see any future in using the old methods of bringing in ores, with the huge on-cost that that means when it is handled. That is no good. If we are to live in this world, we must use modern methods. As I have tried to point out, the trade unions concerned have in many respects met that position. I appeal to the noble Viscount to ask the Government not to stand on what I consider to be comparatively minor issues as against the huge problem which faces the people of Scotland. If his right honourable friend has not yet taken a decision on this, I hope he will tell him that this House is of the opinion that he should agree to the settlement proposed by the TUC.
7.17 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of INDUSTRY (Viscount Trenchard): My Lords, I welcome the opportunity provided by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy to say a few words on the very difficult position of the Scottish steel industry. I am afraid that I shall not satisfy either him or the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Newton, in the amount that I am able to say at the moment in relation to the proposed settlement which the TUC negotiated. I appreciate all

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that they have both said about the appalling consequences of the current situation and the hope that they have both expressed that the current situation may be nearly at an end.
All I can say at this stage is that I welcome the agreement reached between the TGWU and the ISTC on Saturday under TUC auspices about manning arrangements at the terminal. This is, of course, the issue which has so far stood in the way of bringing the terminal into operation. As has been said, the General Secretary of the TUC has written to the Secretary of State for Employment setting out that agreement and asking him to confirm that it is his intention to initiate the appropriate procedures for Hunterston to be designated a steel port. I understand that Mr. Prior started a meeting with the trade unions concerned at 6 p.m. tonight, so the noble Lord will appreciate that my right honourable friend has not delayed in any way in trying to settle this issue. I have to point out, as indeed the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Newton, recognised, that this designation, or proposed designation, of Hunterston as a scheme port raises some wider issues, and I believe that he recognised that. I have to say to him that I feel he may have swept them slightly on one side. I do not in any way want to intimate by saying that that my right honourable friend may not be able to reach a method of accepting, or accepting in some form, the TUC agreement; but I do not think you can totally sweep issues which affect another major troubled area in our economy on one side and say, "Don't let this issue be affected by detail". I hope that we will now see a settlement of this vexed issue, but do not let us underestimate some of the wider issues that the settlement now proposed involves.
I understand only too well the feelings of all those who have worked long and hard to try to design a new future for a major Scottish steel industry. My noble friend has outlined very clearly the steps, starting in 1958 which led to the creation of the over £200 million Ravenscraig investment which doubles their capacity for steelmaking, or the nearly £100 million investment in the Hunterston terminal, which is essential to its use. I think perhaps he has not mentioned his own important part in those many negotiations and discussions in the past.
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He drew my attention to the Clyde Port Authority Bill in 1973. I became aware on reading it of the enormous strength of the environmental case. As a boy I used to collect mussels and unsuspecting limpets off the rocks at Fairlie, so I well understand the feelings of the environmental lobby about the development of Hunterston. However, all that was overcome with the support of all the parties, which my noble friend has mentioned. Or we hope it has been overcome, because for six months, as has been said, the whole of this grand design has been held up. As has also been said, and as was said by British Steel Corporation in a Press notice recently, the cause does not lie in any dispute between BSC and its employees; it lies in an inter-union dispute between the members of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation and the Transport and General Workers concerning the arrangements for manning some 60 jobs at the terminal.
I am informed that British Steel explored all possible ways of preventing this dispute affecting the Ravenscraig situation, but they came to a conclusion—and nobody has been able to suggest any other adequate conclusion—that neither in cost nor in quality, nor in quantity, because Ravenscraig was designed to double production in Scotland, was there any way that they could keep Ravenscraig going past the end of November if the Hunterston situation is not solved. So we hope very much tonight that all is not still at risk.
Like my noble friend, and like the noble Lord, Lord Lee, I do not wish to go into the rights or wrongs of the dispute of the two parties. Furthermore, I think I understand from my industrial background the important humane points that the noble Lord, Lord Lee, made, particularly about the problems of declining industries. But I have to ask him and the House: can we, in our present economic situation, afford these kinds of demarcation disputes affecting 60 people and lasting for so long? One has to say to him that whatever the difficulties of organisation, this surely had to be solved earlier.
He has mentioned the crisis facing the steel industry. I recently returned from Germany, and while he is of course right that there are major problems for steel

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production the world over, the situation, due now to the fast adoption of new methods in Germany, is picking up faster there than in this country. How can we strengthen the appeal not only to those involved in this dispute, which may, we hope, be over very soon, that in the country's present condition we really cannot afford losses which the Scottish division of British Steel had in 1978–79 of £83 million, and £20·8 million in the first quarter of this year? What the figure will prove to be—my noble friend has suggested £1 million a week as being lost—in the second and third quarters we have yet to see, with some degree of horror.
My Lords, I hope you will not feel that I am being controversial in an area where we need to appeal to people's better nature about the overriding needs to face up to the economic facts of life, but I think I have to take the opportunity to say that the Government have been accused of excessive cuts, which, as we have sought to point out, are not really cuts but an effort to stabilise as a whole the public sector until the retracting wealth-creating sector stops retracting and starts to increase again. We have been criticised for undermining a compassionate and caring society with these cuts, and with other measures, to try to stabilise the total expenditure in the public sector. How much compassion and care could have been provided with the extra public money that has had to be found in these last six months! A policy of caring and compassion exercised by a bankrupt State, which is what we were heading for, is I believe about as useful for those in need of compassion and care as—and with the need to observe the decorum of this House I must use a Latin term—a sparrow's passing flatus; I understand that is the medical description for the noisy puff of wind that a sparrow which has eaten too much might emit.
In terms of whatever is necessary to prevent this kind of thing either continuing or occurring at any other time, can we ask people really to understand the basic connection between the adopting of new and efficient techniques in industry, whatever the problems of a human nature, and our ability to improve what have become very inadequate social services generally?
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Again, I wish to thank the two noble Lords who have contributed to this discussion and echo with them the hope that very soon we shall see Hunterston and Ravenscraig in full and more economic production.

  CITY CEMETERY, BELFAST: WAR GRAVES DESECRATION
  CITY CEMETERY, BELFAST: WAR GRAVES DESECRATION
  OFF-COURSE HORSERACE BETTING LEVY AND GRANTS
  OFF-COURSE HORSERACE BETTING LEVY AND GRANTS
  NEGATIVE CERTIFICATE OF ORIGIN: AUTHENTICATION
  NEGATIVE CERTIFICATE OF ORIGIN: AUTHENTICATION