Sitting of 30 April 1980

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

    House Purchase (Interest Rates)
    Mr. Stephen Rossasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will undertake a study of the problems facing prospective owner-occupiers who find themselves unable to purchase due to high prices and interest rates.
    The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine): The best way to help prospective home buyers is to take the steps necessary to reduce inflation and interest rates and the Government's fiscal and monetary control policies will achieve this. It is also essential to ease the constraints faced by house builders in, for example, the planning and land supply fields. Steps are being taken to meet this objective. In addition, the Government are encouraging local authorities to implement a wide-ranging programme to promote low-cost home ownership.
    Mr. Ross: The Secretary of State might think that that is an adequate answer, but is he aware that I do not? If owner-occupation is the cornerstone of the present Government's policies on housing, is it not up to the Government to inquire why house building starts are at their lowest ebb since the 1920s? Is he aware that increasing numbers of prospective owner-occupiers are being priced out of the chance of buying, and are having to turn to local authorities and housing associations to seek accommodation which is not available because of cuts in the housing investment programme?
    Mr. Heseltine: We do not need an inquiry to establish that public expenditure demands are taking too much money and causing interest rates to be too high. Until we redress that balance we shall never restore the growth in the economy on which prospective house purchase depends.
    Mr. Michael Morris: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I accept the strategy of his answer? However, is there not a problem with local planning authorities and local government in general in relation to the release of land and the easing of planning permission for those projects that private builders wish to pursue?
    Mr. Heseltine: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is right. The repeal of the Community Land Act will contribute to a solution of this problem. Our land registers and our determination to speed up planning processes are part of our strategy.
    Mr. Winnick: Is the Secretary of State aware that there is an acute housing crisis? Is he aware that many people who wish to buy are unable to do so because of property price inflation and the record mortgage interest rate? Is it not a tragedy that so many people who would stand a chance of being re-housed by local authorities are now the victims of the Secretary of State's actions, under which council house building has come to a virtual stop?
    Mr. Heseltine: The hon Gentleman was not in the House when his Government ran down the level of council building to such extraordinary levels. I dare say that he was prepared to defend the record of that Government when he stood at the last election. Of course, I am aware of the crisis in house building, which was precipitated by the appalling economic circumstances which we inherited.
    Mr. Dover: Does the Secretary of State agree that if house prices are rising by 18 or 20 per cent. a year and mortgage interest is at 15 per cent., with tax relief, that is a good bargain for owner-occupiers?
    Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend will also remember that house prices rose by 30 per cent. in the year before we took office. I understand that they are not now rising at all.
    Mr. Frank Allaun: Is it not a fact that the overwhelming majority of the 1 million families on council house waiting lists cannot afford to buy in any circumstances, and even less so with higher prices and interest rates? What will happen to such people? Are not they in an impossible position in view of the virtual ending of council house building which is coming, and the sale of existing council houses?
    Mr. Heseltine: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have borne in mind the difficulties of council house building—which declined to such an extent under the last Government—against the background of the programme which he supported in the Lobby time and time again. The overall position is, broadly, as the House knows, that unless we restore the economy to strength and real growth we shall not achieve the growth in real disposable income on which home ownership depends on an increasing scale.

    Olympic Games
    Mr. Canavanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment which sporting bodies have expressed support for Government policy of non-participation in the Olympic Games.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Hector Monro): The governing bodies of hockey, equestrianism, and yachting have so far expressed support for a boycott. The Joint Shooting Committee which voted in March to keep its options open, will not send a team unless circumstances change. The swimming body has decided to delay a decision until 16 May.
    Mr. Canavan: Is the Minister aware that many American athletes wish that their Olympic Committee had had the guts of the British Olympic Committee and stood up to the Government who are using sports men and women as political pawns in a presidential election campaign? Is not the Minister ashamed to be a member of a Government led by a so-called Iron Lady who allows herself to be used as Jimmy Carter's poodle?
    Mr. Monro: What a disgraceful supplementary question and one not untypical of the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan). I hope that he will realise what is actually happen-
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    ing in Afghanistan and understand that the invasion by the Russians is the reason why many Western Governments have taken a firm position and advised their national Olympic Committees not to go to Moscow. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and many of his colleagues will take the advice that has been given to them.
    Mr. Kimball: Is my hon. Friend aware that in a free country such as ours there is a little local difficulty in raising the money for the Olympics? Will my hon. Friend give guidance to those firms which respond to the Olympic appeal to the effect that the best thing they can do is send one-third of what they would normally give? The Lake Placid games, which have now taken place, cost one-third of the total of the Olympic budget.
    Mr. Monro: The Government have given clear advice to the nation about the Moscow Olympics and I hope that those considering subscribing to the appeal will bear in mind what we have said. In the early part of the year we accepted, and welcomed, subscriptions to the Olympic appeal for the Winter Games at Lake Placid. We give absolutely no encouragement—indeed we offer the maximum discouragement—to subscribers to the appeals for the Moscow Games.
    Mr. Foulkes: Will the Minister bring us up to date on the Government's progress in setting up an alternative, or shadow Olympic Games?
    Mr. Monro: The Government have clearly expressed their wish to assist governing bodies who so desire them, to stage high quality competitions in August or September or at a time to suit them—but not alternative Olympics, of course. It is up to those governing bodies to approach us and we shall give them assistance, if they want it.
    Mr. John Carlisle: Does not my hon. Friend agree that the time has probably come for the Government to impose economic sanctions on those sporting bodies intending to send representatives to Moscow by recommending to the Sports Council that it withdraws grant for the coming year to such bodies?
    Mr. Monro: I note what my hon. Friend says, but it is not the intention of the Government to take further steps

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    other than to continue with persuasion and advice against going to Moscow.
    Mr. Denis Howell: Is it not absolutely scandalous that the Government should seek to advise British industry not to give money to British athletes, who have freely exercised their democratic right to take a decision that the Government do not like? Does not that put the Government in the Russian mould? The Government are saying " Unless you do what we wish we shall impose economic sanctions on you ". Will the Minister tell us why Mr. Sebastian Coe should not run round a track in Russia yet British business men are being encouraged to build power stations and chemical stations in Russia? Where is the logic in that?
    Mr. Monro: I would have thought that after four months the right hon. Gentleman would have begun to understand the basic principles of our position. That position is absolutely right, bearing in mind the astonishing happenings in Afghanistan. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is following those events closely. I sometimes wonder whether he is going to Moscow and whether he is prepared to condone what the Russians are doing in Afghanistan.

    Council Dwellings (Inner London)
    Mr. Bowen Wellsasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the latest estimates of the number of council-owned dwellings standing empty in inner London boroughs.
    Mr. Heseltine: Local authority estimates, in housing investment programme submissions, are that there were about 21,000 vacant dwellings owned by inner London boroughs at 1 April 1979. Figures for individual boroughs are available in the Library.
    Mr. Wells: Will the Secretary of State consider taking powers to prevent Socialist-controlled councils such as Camden and Lambeth from decanting their populations to such towns as Stevenage at a time when many of the houses in their own boroughs are unoccupied and while there are no plans to put people into them?
    Mr. Heseltine: I believe that we have now got the balance wrong between the
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    new town policy and the inner city policy. That is one of the reasons for our decision, stated in the public expenditure review announced by the Government.
    Mr. Douglas-Mann: Will the Secretary of State tell the House how many of those houses are being kept empty with a view to their being sold? Will he say how many of these houses have been kept empty pending a decision by his Department on a loan to a housing association? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that two wrongs do not make a right?
    Mr. Heseltine: Since the vast majority of those houses are, of course, in Labour-controlled boroughs it might be relatively easier for the hon. Gentleman to find out the answer to that question than it would be for me.
    Mr. Michael Morris: Is not one of the most shameful records that of the London borough of Islington? Will my right hon. Friend take firm action to ensure that no further approvals are given for new dwellings in that borough until the thousands of empty properties now in council control there have been modernised and refurbished?
    Mr. Heseltine: I am about to publish the vacant properties survey which has been undertaken for my Department by OPCS. The House will then be able to make an informed judgment. I say at once that I am prepared to do all that I can to bring influence to bear—but not to take powers—to persuade local authorities to use these properties effectively by the proper management of their estates.
    Mr. Dubs: Does not the Secretary of State accept that an additional reason for these houses being empty is that boroughs have been denied the money with which to improve their properties, and that that is the fault of the right hon. Gentleman?
    Mr. Heseltine: That is a devastating condemnation of the policies of the Labour Administration, under which the decisions to keep such properties empty would have been taken.
    Mr. Hattersley: So that the Secretary of State may have the opportunity to redeem the appalling answer that he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mr. Douglas-Mann), may I ask him to recall that some

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    months ago I told him that the city of Birmingham—under Conservative control—was holding 643 houses empty so that they could eventually be sold? Has the Secretary of State——
    Mr. Michael Morris: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker——
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that I can anticipate the hon. Gentleman's point of order. I hope that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparbrook (Mr. Hattersley) is about to relate his remarks to the inner London boroughs.
    Mr. Hattersley: I was referring, Mr. Speaker, to a parallel case in which a borough in the city of Birmingham was holding 643 houses open and unoccupied in order to sell them. If London boroughs were doing that would the Secretary of State condemn them?
    Mr. Heseltine: In Birmingham, at least, they have an argument for doing that. The inner London boroughs, I do not doubt, have no excuse whatever.

    Young Families (Housing)
    Mr. Beithasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of the total effect of his policies on local young families seeking housing accommodation in rural areas.
    The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. John Stanley): Apart from local authority programmes, our policies to increase the availability of private rented accommodation and to encourage low-cost home ownership schemes will benefit the rural areas.
    Mr. Beith: What hope is there for the young family on low wages in rural areas where outside demand for retirement homes and holiday accommodation pushes up the price of housing? What will be the position of those young people who cannot afford a mortgage, even at a lower interest rate than the present rate, when local authorities are obliged to sell their housing stock without any prospect of building other houses to replace those that have been sold?
    Mr. Stanley: The hon. Member should look at our programme for encouraging low-cost home ownership, including shared ownership. That provides a good means whereby people on low incomes
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    can reach a stage which will eventually phase into home ownership.
    Mr. Gummer: Does not my hon. Friend admit that one of the problems in rural areas is that there are empty houses available which are not let because owners are afraid that they may not be able to regain possession should they need a property, for example, for farm workers, who need to be on the spot? Would it not be reasonable to go further than the present Housing Bill and allow the Housing Acts to be permissive if a local authority believes that in its area the Housing Acts cut down the number of properties available to let?
    Mr. Stanley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He will be aware that the vacant property survey, to which my right hon. Friend referred, addresses itself to the extent to which properties were being held vacant as a result of the operation of the Rent Acts. I think that the House will await with great interest the results of the survey which are to be published shortly.
    Mr. Haynes: Is the Secretary of State aware that, because of Government policy over the sale of council houses, many areas are seriously affected—by way of long waiting lists—because local authorities are having difficulties in selling houses? Some of those properties are empty for as long as a year. Does the Secretary of State recall standing at the Despatch Box and telling off Nottingham city council which owns properties that have been standing empty for over a year? That council has now run into debt.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The question is concerned with rural areas.
    Mr. Stanley: The burden of the hon. Gentleman's question, as I heard it, was that he was complaining about delays in selling council houses. I assure him that it is our intention to make the administrative process as expeditious as possible.

    Durham Beaches (Cleaning)
    Mr. Dormandasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will reconsider his decision not to make further financial assistance available to help in the cleaning of the Durham beaches.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Marcus Fox): Neither this nor any previous Administration

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    have made any financial assistance available for this purpose, nor can the Government contribute any funds towards it at the present time.
    Mr. Dormand: Is the Minister aware that he has been badly briefed, because he has given incorrect information? Is he further aware that the pilot project is only half completed and that it would be silly and a waste of public money to leave it as it is? Does he appreciate that all the local authorities there and the National Coal Board have made substantial contributions to it in both time and money? As this is one of the scars that has been imposed on the northern landscape by its contribution to the industrial well-being of this country in the past, is there not the strongest case for having the, whole of this project funded by the Exchequer? Finally, in view of the Minister's very disappointing reply, will he agree to accept a deputation from the local authorities, the National Coal Board and myself to discuss the matter?
    Mr. Fox: I shall see any deputation that wants to come to see me. This pilot scheme was funded by the National Coal Board on the basis that it would help the working study to come to conclusions. There was never any obligation on the Government to find £23 million to solve this problem.
    Dr. David Clark: Is the Minister aware that some of these Durham beaches fall within the EEC designation of former shipbuilding areas? Will he assure the House that his right hon. Friend has not blocked such an EEC scheme at the Council of Ministers?
    Mr. Fox: Of course I can give that assurance. I am aware of the importance of these beaches. But this matter has been going on for 80 years. The National Coal Board inherited these rights. I am afraid that there is nothing more that I can say.

    Water Services Charges
    Mr. Bowdenasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received about the difficulties of people on low incomes paying their water services charges.
    The Minister for Local Government and Environmental Services (Mr. Tom King): We have had a considerable number of representations both from hon.
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    Members and members of the public. One of the principal representations is to consider introducing a rebate scheme for water services.
    Mr. Bowden: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the public fury at the rate of increases of these water charges? Is it not totally illogical not to have a rebate scheme for water charges, particularly for the elderly, when a large part of those water charges is composed of sewerage charges which used to appear under the domestic rates, where they could qualify for a rebate scheme? Will he give urgent consideration to bringing in a scheme to help the elderly and those on low incomes?
    Mr. King: I assure my hon. Friend that I am well aware of the concern. Knowing the constituency that he represents and the scale of the increase in that water authority, I well understand the representations that he is receiving. It is true that, before 1974, it was possible to get a rebate. Since then it has not been possible to get a rebate for sewerage services. Successive Governments have held the view that this is in the nature of a public utility and that the charges should not, therefore, be assisted in that way, but that help for low income families should come through supplementary benefit and other assistance that is possible. That is the position that the Government have supported.
    Mr. James A. Dunn: Will the Minister have another look at the structure and representation of the regional water authorities, which seem less amenable to representation from the community than other comparable organisations? If there were more direct representations in the community, some of these problems would be resolved.
    Mr. King: I am very concerned at the widespread feeling of a lack of accountability of water authorities. Those representations come through clearly to me. The majority on every water authority consists of councillors from local authorities in the area. It is disappointing that a feeling of accountability does not seem to exist. In many cases, people seem to be unaware of who their representative on the water authority is.
    Mrs. Fenner: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Medway borough council, which has not increased the rate for

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    four years, now sees its residents confronted with a 30 per cent. increase in the water rate? Has my right hon. Friend jurisdiction to investigate the serious local assertions that are being made about inefficiency in the accounting of the Southern Water Authority?
    Mr. King: There is a question on the Order Paper on this specific point. Part of the problem of the Southern Water Authority was that it believed the previous Labour Government in their assertion about a 5 per cent. pay policy. My hon. Friend will recall that the increase last year was only 3 per cent. Of course, the authority found itself considerably disadvantaged as a result. I shall have further comments to make about the authority.
    Mr. Arthur Lewis: I just heard the Minister say something about the previous Labour Government. Has not all this arisen because the previous Tory Government initiated this so-called programme? Are not all the troubles and problems that we have now—not 30 per cent., but 300 per cent.—due to the fact that the previous Tory Government were responsible for bringing in this change?
    Mr. King: The hon. Gentleman is suffering from his favourite form of selective amnesia. He may have overlooked the fact that the Labour Party, which he more or less supported in that period, was in government for five years.
    Mr. Hill: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the increases in the Southern Water Authority have been 135 per cent. since the time that it was set up? He must be able to monitor charges and to examine the management of the Southern Water Authority. Can he describe to the House the processes that he will be taking to make sure that these vast increases do not occur every year?
    Mr. King: I have instituted a series of meetings—the first to be held by a Minister—with separate water authorities. The first authority that I saw was the Southern Water Authority in the shape of the chairman and the chief executive. I discussed with them my concern over the level of manpower and the increase that it had shown in recent years. I have received an undertaking that it will be reducing its manpower. I shall take a very close interest in the activities of the
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    water authorities—something which Ministers in the previous Labour Government unfortunately failed to do.
    Mr. Denis Howell: Is the Minister aware that, exactly as we forecast when he and his right hon. Friend introduced measures for the reorganisation of local government, the Health Service and the water service, the people of this country are now paying for four or five bureaucracies when previously there was only one—the local authority? That was the main reason why the previous Labour Government introduced a White Paper proposing changes, which the previous Tory Opposition refused to support. As he must know, this industry is capital-intensive. Is he further aware that interest charges arising from the Government's economic policy are five times more responsible than wages for these water increases?
    Mr. King: That intervention is a classic example of what was wrong with the Labour Government. People cannot pay their water rates bills with White Papers. The inability of the previous Labour Government to tackle the problems which they felt arose out of the Water Act is their own condemnation. We are now taking positive action on this matter. As evidence of that and in view of the concern about the level of interest charges, my right hon. and hon. Friends may have noticed that among the first references to the new Monopolies and Mergers Commission, announced yesterday, is the Severn-Trent Water Authority. We shall then examine further water authorities and their efficiency.

    Rate Increases
    Mr. Mellorasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his latest estimate of average rate increases to be imposed by local authorities for 1980–81.
    Mr. Heseltine: Returns now received from all rating authorities show an average domestic rate increase for England and Wales of 27 per cent., and an average non-domestic rate increase of 23 per cent.
    Mr. Mellor: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Is he aware that certain " big-spender" Labour authorities are saying that it is Government policy, and

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    not their financial incontinence, which has led to the huge, above average rises that they have announced? Will he comment on that? Is he also aware that all too many of those huge rate rises imposed by the Labour-controlled authorities are not being spent on better essential services, but are being used for excess bureaucracy and waste?
    Mr. Heseltine: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend——
    Mr. Snape: I bet you are.
    Mr. Heseltine: Any analysis of the levels of rates fixed by individual authorities shows that the overwhelming proportion of the high levels are fixed under Labour-controlled authorities and the overwhelming majority of low levels are fixed under Conservative-controlled local authorities.
    Mr. Robert C. Brown: Will the Secretary of State be honest for once, and admit that a large proportion of the 27 per cent. increase is a result of the inflation created by the policies of himself and other Ministers?
    Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman will be fully aware that the bulk of local authority expenditure is made up of wage costs—about 70 per cent. on current account. He will be well aware that the bulk of the increases this year are not simply ongoing awards but are results of the Clegg implementations, which were broadly established by the Government which he supported.
    Mr. Durant: Is the Minister aware that the argument of the district councils and the Association of County Councils is that they are worried about Government interference with their rights? At the same time they are asking for control over public expenditure by local authorities. Surely, the Government are taking the right steps.
    Mr. Heseltine: I have no doubt that—as Conservative local government has proved—it is possible to constrain the levels of public expenditure at a local level. The difficulty that local government faces across the country is that Labour Members are constantly encouraging Labour-controlled authorities to increase expenditure.
    Mr. Oakes: What is the Secretary of State's estimate of the number of Tory-controlled authorities with low levels of rate expenditure which will have to issue a supplementary rate in the autumn?
    Mr. Heseltine: That is a matter entirely for the individual local authorities, but I understand that there are Labour-councillors canvassing for election who are prepared to countenance supplementary rate increases if they gain control of local authorities.

    Southern Wafer Authority
    Mr. R. C. Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he proposes next to meet the chairman of the Southern Water Authority.
    Mr. King: I met him on 5 March in the first of my programme of separate meetings with the chairman and chief executive of every English water authority. I have not yet fixed the date of our next meeting.
    Mr. Mitchell: Is the Minister aware that every Member of Parliament in the South of England has received many letters from constituents complaining about the large increases imposed this year by the Southern Water Authority? Will he consider introducing legislation to repeal the Water Act 1973 and return control of water and sewerage to the local authorities where, at least, there will be some degree of accountability? Further, will he examine the whole question of assessment of charges for water?
    Mr. King: I shudder to think what might be the impact on water bills if the responsibility for water and sewerage fell into the hands of some of the present Labour councillors. While the increase in charges by the Southern Water Authority is pretty serious, it is as nothing compared with some of the rate increases under Labour-controlled authorities. We are tackling this real issue as positively as one can. We have set tight cash limits on capital expenditure, and we have set up clear performance indicators. We are now attaching performance aims to every water authority for the next year. I shall be taking the closest personal interest in the performance of each local authority.
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: While my right hon. Friend is having these discussions with the water authorities, will he give a thought to delaying the implementation of section 30 of the Water Act, due to come into effect on 1 April next year, in view of the likely increase in charges that the implementation of that section will have?
    Mr. King: It is a matter for argument as to how significant that would be. I hope that any changes can be phased over a significant period. As it is the intention to end discrimination between classes of consumers, I do not think it would be right to cancel that proposal.

    Housing Corporation
    Mr. Lathamasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to meet the new chairman of the Housing Corporation.
    Mr. Heseltine: I hope to meet Mr. Cubitt soon, and my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction expects to do so regularly.
    Mr. Latham: Is the Minister aware that the appointment of Mr. Hugh Cubitt will be warmly welcomed? When he meets him will he stress that the corporation should give encouragement to voluntary bodies engaged in trying to set up new housing associations, and that he should not listen too much to the salaried officials, and the large bureaucracies that follow them, which seem to have dominated housing association thinking in recent years?
    Mr. Heseltine: I think that my hon. Friend is aware, perhaps better than most, of the initial strengths of the voluntary housing movements which were based on exactly the motivations and concepts which he now puts forward. It will be for Mr. Cubitt to review the organisation over which he has responsibility. I am sure that he will bear in mind the important points that my hon. Friend has made.
    Mr. Allan Roberts: When the Secretary of State meets Mr. Cubitt, will he ask him to campaign as vigorously as the previous chairman of the Housing Corporation would have campaigned against the cuts in housing association expenditure that have been imposed by the Secretary of State and which will bring
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    housing association building for general needs virtually to an end?
    Mr. Heseltine: I am sure that Mr. Cubitt will bear in mind that, if expenditure is higher, interest rates will be higher and fewer houses will be built.
    Mr. Dykes: Will my right hon. Friend confirm again that his plan to draft an amendment to the Housing Bill to allow tenants and co-owners of housing association properties to become owners will be warmly welcomed? When he meets the new chairman of the Housing Corporation will he discuss with him, on the assumption that the legislation is enacted, how long it will be before such schemes can commence?
    Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend will be aware that we are proceeding along the lines that he indicates, and it is our intention to introduce the provisions of the legislation, if it is approved by Parliament, at the earliest possible legal moment.

    Council House Sales
    Mr. Anthony Grantasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is satisfied with the speed of council house sales in urban areas.
    Mr. Stanley: I am satisfied with the progress with sales in the areas where councils are selling, and I share the strong dissatisfaction of tenants about the lack of sales in the areas where councils are not selling.
    Mr. Grant: Is the Minister aware that council house tenants in many urban areas are in despair at the abysmal failure of their Labour-controlled councils to carry out essential repair and maintenance to their houses? In those circumstances, is it not sheer madness that those councils should be obstructing the sale of council houses? Is he aware that any bomb that he would like to put under these councils to make them get on with the sale of council houses will be warmly welcomed by all council tenants?
    Mr. Stanley: I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend that this bomb is likely to be detonated by this House in the next few months.
    Mr. Winnick: Tomorrow.
    Mr. Stanley: The Herculean labours of Standing Committee F are about to come to a conclusion, and it will not be very much longer before the council tenants in those authorities to which he refers will have the opportunity to buy, which they have been denied for far too long.
    Mr. Hardy: Will the Minister differentiate between the sales of council houses in urban and rural areas? Will he endorse the view of the Minister of Agriculture, and make it clear that he, too, is not in favour of the sale of council houses in rural areas?
    Mr. Stanley: As the hon. Gentleman is aware, there are provisions in the Bill which provide a right of pre-emption in certain circumstances, and a right of resale to people in the locality in certain circumstances in rural areas. We made it clear during the election campaign that the right to buy should apply as of right in rural and urban areas equally.
    Mr. Stephen Ross: Is the Minister aware that in many urban areas, council tenants who indicated that they wished to purchase are now returning their contracts, because they cannot afford to do so, as was evidenced recently in the city of Chichester where no fewer than 60 contracts have been returned?
    Mr. Stanley: I am glad to say that, against that, in the first nine months of this Government, about 30,000 council tenants have been able to buy their homes.
    Mr. Heddle: Is my hon. Friend aware that the excuse put forward by certain Labour-controlled authorities as the reason why they cannot sell council houses—even if they want to do so—is that they do not have the valuation or legal staff to deal with the matter? Will he further confirm that such services will be put out to private practice surveyors and valuers, and also to private law firms?
    Mr. Stanley: My hon. Friend is entirely right. The process of selling can be assisted if local authorities use outside professional staff. There is no evidence from about a quarter of a million council tenants who have bought their homes that there is any insuperable administrative difficulty in doing so.

    Sheltered Housing
    Mr. Foulkesasked the Secretary of Stale for the Environment how many local authorities impose charges for the services of a warden in sheltered housing units.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg): My Department does not collect this information.
    Mr. Foulkes: Is not the Minister aware that some authorities and housing associations are using his Government's legislation to introduce these charges? For example, Macclesfield is to charge £4 a week to old people for this service, and the Anchor Housing Association is to charge £8.10 a week. Will he step in and take some action to stop this exploitation of elderly people, who are already finding it difficult to make ends meet because of his Government's policy, and who will get no help to meet these extra charges?
    Mr. Finsberg: This in no way arises from decisions taken by the Government. Authorities such as Warrington are making these charges. The basic reason for the increases is that costs of warden services have increased due to wages and conditions of service agreements. This, and not Government cuts, is the cause.
    Mr. Dover: Is the Minister aware that in the North-West there is a large demand for sheltered housing accommodation for sale? When he considers schemes such as that put forward by South Ribble, will he give special consideration to the cost of the warden's accommodation?
    Mr. Finsberg: We always give extremely careful consideration to any special schemes put to us.

    Low-cost Home Ownership
    Mr. Majorasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what response he has had from local authorities to his policy of encouraging low-cost home ownership outlined in his letter accompanying the housing investment programme allocations.
    Mr. Stanley: It is too early in the financial year to give a firm indication but the initial response from a number of authorities has been positive and constructive.
    Mr. Major: I am pleased to hear about the positive response that the Minister is receiving. Following his statement last week that local authorities can use a portion of capital receipts to supplement HIP allocations, does he not find it a curious anomaly that many Labour local authorities complain about their HIP allocations yet refuse to sell publicly-owned assets which would enable them to supplement those same allocations?
    Mr. Stanley: My hon. Friend is entirely right. It is open to local authorities—in accordance with the detailed description which I set out in the speech to the Institute of Housing, a copy of which is in the Library—to supplement their capital allocations by the process of realising capital assets.
    Mr. Allan Roberts: Is the Minister aware that he has a policy for high-cost home ownership and not low-cost home ownership, and that his announcements on shared ownership and on homesteading are merely gimmicks and palliatives which he is introducing because he has no proper housing policy, and because his Government have stopped council building for the next two years?
    Mr. Stanley: It is not the view of the 70 or so authorities, and all the new towns which will be doing starter homes or building-for-sale schemes this year, or of the 100 or so housing associations which will be planning shared ownership schemes, that those efforts are palliatives or gimmicks.

    Local Authorities (Home Loan Lending)
    Mr. Allan Robertsasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what estimate he has made of the level of local authority home loan lending likely in the financial year 1980–81.
    Mr. Heseltine: Under the one-block system local authorities now have complete freedom to decide on their own priorities within their housing investment programme allocation, and the proportion of that allocation they use for the private sector mortgage lending.
    Mr. Roberts: Why, if the Minister makes a virtue of public expenditure cuts, does he not tell the British people the consequences of the public expendi-
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    ture cuts that he has introduced? Surely he knows that his cuts in housing investment programmes mean a virtual end to local authority home lending, which is an attack on owner-occupation and proves that the Government do not want to support owner-occupation but merely want to attack the public rented sector so as to favour the landlord-owned sector.
    Mr. Heseltine: I do not think that that is the view that will be taken of our policies. Perhaps the hon. Member will have in mind, when he makes his rather exaggerated statements, that under the previous Government the amount of local authority lending for home purchase fell from £1,096 million a year to £226 million a year—in other words, it was reduced to nearly a quarter of what it was when they were in their first year of office.
    Mr. Steen: Will the Minister agree that one of the best ways to alleviate and to decrease the soullessness and apathy in the vast council estates is to get local authorities to lend money for people to buy some of the high-rise fiats and not just their houses?
    Mr. Heseltine: As my hon. Friend knows, perhaps better than most, there are certain local authorities which cannot get people to occupy the high-rise flats on any terms whatever. If they can initiate policies to bring those homes into use, no one will be more pleased than me.
    Mr. Heffer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Liverpool is now in such a parlous financial state, due to Government policy, that it is unable to help people who want to buy local authority homes, and that it is having to cut back on its whole housing programme, including maintenance and rehabilitation? Is it not an absolute scandal that the Government have placed the local authorities in very difficult circumstances in relation to housing?
    Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman would not expect me to try to make judgments about the individual authorities in the Liverpool area. But every time one looks into the options facing a local authority one finds that there is a far greater range of options than those suggested by the hon. Member. I believe that the authority he mentioned could

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    have done many things to alleviate its problems.
    Mr. Hill: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that one of the most serious problems for a young couple wishing to borrow from a local authority—or, indeed, to buy in the private sector—is the raising of the down-payment? I have often thought—and I am sure that my right hon. Friend must also think along these lines—that if the local authority could only allocate some percentage of its lending to youngsters, to enable them at least to find the down-payment, this would mean a complete flow not only from council to private ownership but from council tenancies to council ownership.
    Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend will be aware that we have given local authorities far greater freedom and discretion to use their capital allocations for lending to young couples or to any other people wishing to buy their own homes. What we cannot do at this moment is to increase the levels of public expenditure by providing additional resources for grants because, simply within the context of public expenditure, such resources are not available. As we made clear in our manifesto, this will be one of the things that we shall want to consider when the resources are available.
    Mr. Kaufman: What does the right hon. Gentleman think will be the effect on local authority home loan lending of the power that he is taking under the Housing Bill to force interest rates of local authorities to the highest possible level—higher even than the top building society rate?
    Mr. Heseltine: I think that it will mean that local authorities will lose less on the loans they make and therefore be able to make more loans.

    Caravan Sites (Designation)
    Mrs. Faithasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has any plans to bring forward provision for the designation of caravan sites on a district, as opposed to a county basis.
    Mr. Monro: We are prepared to consider a provision for the designation of districts whenever a suitable legislative opportunity occurs.
    Mrs. Faith: I welcome the answer, but is the Minister aware that councils such as the South Derbyshire district council, in my own constituency, which has been generous and hospitable and has provided adequate provision for gipsies, is extremely disappointed at the delay and is still hoping that designation of district councils will be inserted at some stage into the Local Government, Planning and Land (No. 2) Bill or, if this is not possible, that this designation should be given priority early in the next Session?
    Mr. Monro: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. I know that she has taken a great interest, through correspondence with me, in this very sensitive subject. But, now that there seems to be a general agreement within local authorities that designation is desirable on a district level, when a suitable legislative opportunity occurs we shall take it.
    Mr. Newens: Does the Minister recognise that it is unfair to those authorities which have designated sites for gipsies then to be told to take on further gipsies, while other authorities are still refusing to provide the sites that the gipsies require? Ought we not now to recognise that there are not enough sites to cater for all the gipsies in the country? These people have a right to be catered for. In those circumstances, has not the time arrived when compulsion should be brought to bear on those authorities which are not meeting this need?
    Mr. Monro: I am perfectly well aware, as are many hon. Members, that we are very short of gipsy sites. The initiative must come from the local authorities. They know their own local conditions. If they take the initiative, we can react, but it must come from them. I am certainly not in favour of compulsion.
    Dr. Mawhinney: Will the Minister accept that local authorities such as mine, which have provided designated sites, will find it quite unacceptable that they will not be given designation powers, despite the fact that the travelling populace come to Peterborough area in considerable numbers? Is he aware that, combined with the over-lavish expenditure of public finance for the provision of further sites by the Government, the policy is unacceptable?
    Mr. Monro: I recognise the problem that many hon. Members have to face.

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    However, until districts are designated, it must be left to counties. If there are sufficient sites, they will be designated.
    Mr. Whitehead: As the social problems and population densities of different district councils vary greatly between county authorities, is there not a case—as a result of the difficulties of designation—for allowing greater legislative flexibility in the size of sites?
    Mr. Monro: That may well be the right approach. However, at the moment we have no vehicle for such legislation. We shall take the opportunity when it arises.

    Coastline Erosion (South Shields)
    Dr. David Clarkasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is satisfied that there are sufficient legislative provisions to prevent the erosion of the coastline by the removal of sand, in view of current activities in the South Shields constituency.
    Mr. Fox: I have no reason to think that the legislation is inadequate.
    Dr. Clark: Has the Minister seen the report on beaches in South Shields, prepared by the Hydraulic Research Station, in which it is stated that removal of sand, and damage to coastal defences might not be unconnected? Is he convinced that the legislation contains sufficient financial provision to allow the local authority to purchase the beach from the owner, and thus stop the removal of sand?
    Mr. Fox: I am aware of that report and of the view of the Hydraulic Research Station. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that this is a matter for the Coast Protection Authority. It has the power needed to make a prohibition order, which can be confirmed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Indeed, 28 such orders are applicable round the coast of the United Kingdom.

    Wildlife and Countryside Legislation
    Mr. Watsonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what consultation he proposes to have regarding wildlife and countryside legislation.
    Mr. Heseltine: Consultations on the proposed Wildlife and Countryside Bill have continued since last summer. I intend to publish soon the paper to which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of
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    State referred in his reply to my lion. Friend the Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. Waller) on 27 February. This will describe my revised proposals.
    Mr. Watson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of those who live in rural areas are worried that various pests, such as foxes, are likely to be scheduled as vulnerable species in the proposed legislation? Will he assure us that that is not so?
    Mr. Heseltine: I think that I can help my hon. Friend. The proposals will ensure that the definition of " vulnerable species " will be left to the opinion of the Nature Conservancy Council. I do riot believe that foxes would come within that definition.
    Mr. Hardy: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that what we need is not further consultation but an early introduction of the promised Bill? Does not he accept that the Bill is more in the national interest than the current measures which are almost as damaging and disreputable as the right hon. Gentleman's replies from the Dispatch Box this after noon?
    Mr. Heseltine: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not wish to suggest that the Government should introduce a major piece of legislation at this stage in the Session. I accept that the Bill is important. I intend to introduce the measure as soon as parliamentary time permits.

    Rates (Value for Money)
    Mr. Gummerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has for ensuring that ratepayers can assess the performance of their district and county councils in getting value for money.
    Mr. King: I am seeking powers in the Local Government, Planning and Land (No. 2) Bill to ensure that local authorities publish more information about their performance in a form that will help the public to make more informed judgments. I have recently arranged for the publication, for the first time, of individual authorities' total manpower figures, and also summaries of the time taken to determine planning applications.
    Mr. Gummer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that those who live in authorities such as Suffolk county council—which has always gone in for good housekeeping—find it galling that other county councils spend huge sums of money per head of the population yet still complain that they have not got enough? Should it not be possible for people to see clearly, when comparing one authority with another, which are the good authorities—largely Conservative-controlled—and which are the wasteful ones?
    Mr. King: If more meaningful information and the power to make comparisons were available, it would help to make local authorities accountable and would provide better information to the electorate. I hope that our proposals will be helpful in that respect.
    Mr. Skinner: Is the Minister aware that Bolsover district council has recently dealt with this matter? It is clear that the Government are largely responsible for a rent increase—as a result of subsidies and so on—and consequently, Bolsover district council has set out where the money goes. Does not he accept that nearly 60 per cent. goes in interest charges?
    Mr. King: I must admit that I have not examined the affairs of Bolsover district council in detail. As a generality—I should be interested to see how Bolsover district council fits into it—the level of rate increases in Labour-controlled authorities is high. I imagine that, like other Labour-controlled authorities, Bolsover has made increases that are well above the average.

    Lead in Water
    Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what advice he has given to local authorities and water boards about the amount of lead in water.
    Mr. Fox: The Department has recently issued advice to the water industry on detailed identification of problem areas, and on monitoring the effect of water treatment.
    Mrs. Short: Has the Minister read the Lawther report, which pointed to severe water contamination in certain areas? Does not he accept that water tanks which are lined with lead, and lead water pipes,
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    may need to be replaced? What does he intend to do about that? Is he prepared to give grants towards replacement? Has he had discussions with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services about the advice that should be given to expectant mothers in areas that have a high lead content in the water, as such advice is necessary both for the expectant mother and for the mother who needs to use water in preparing a baby's feed?
    Mr. Fox: The hon. Lady will be aware that an extensive survey took place, which covered many parts of the United Kingdom. We have taken due notice of those areas where the incidence of lead was high, but not unacceptably high. The hon. Lady is right. My colleagues and I are considering the Lawther report. Part of the report—recommendation 13—states that action should be taken. The Department is considering as quickly as possible what action should be taken.
    Mr. Maxton: Is the Minister aware that certain Scottish water authorities are adding lime to the water since that lines the pipes and thereby eases the problem? Is something similar being done in areas of England and Wales that have the same problem?
    Mr. Fox: The problem is particularly acute in Scotland. The remedies being applied in Scotland have been reported to us. The Department is in touch with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.

    Tameside
    Mr. Marksasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will increase the housing investment programme for Tameside.
    Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: We do not propose to make increases in the housing investment programme allocations of any authorities, since the resources available for this purpose in 1980–81 have all been distributed.
    Mr. Marks: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the resources of the housing investment programme have been cut by 50 per cent. and that that will mean disaster for home improvements, home loans and repairs, and for those young people who are seeking accommodation? Is he further aware that, together with

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    an increased mortgage rate, that spells a very difficult future?
    Mr. Finsberg: If Tameside takes advantage of the opportunity to sell council houses in 1980–81 it will be able to increase its expenditure. As it is, the reduction is not 50 per cent. but 26·5 per cent.

    Consultative Council on Local Government Finance
    Mr. Squireasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when last he chaired the consultative council on local government finance.
    Mr. Heseltine: On 15 April 1980.
    Mr. Squire: At that meeting, will my right hon. Friend discuss the relatively unsatisfactory staffing levels—disclosed in the latest quarterly survey—with leaders of the local authority associations?
    Mr. Heseltine: I have already been in touch with the local authority associations in order to try to get a fuller representation of the number of local authorities making returns. I have published recently the bulk of those returns. In the autumn, I shall expect local authorities to publish their quarterly returns in far greater detail, showing each total broken down into the various categories of employees on a regular quarterly basis. Of course, if the subject is raised at the consultative council, I shall discuss it.
    Mr. Murphy: Will my right hon. Friend say whether he has had discussions with the consultative council on the topic of abolishing domestic rates and replacing them with a fairer form of local taxation?
    Mr. Heseltine: I have not had specific discussions on this subject with the con-
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    sultative council, but it will be aware of the Government's interest in pursuing such policies in the longer term.
    Mr. Newens: Has the Secretary of State received protests from a considerable number of Conservative councils about his proposals for rates? Will he consider the unfairness of the proposals that affect the rate support grant given to Essex and other counties which are suffering problems of expansion?
    Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that these factors are taken into account every year in the calculations of the rate support grant. Incomparably the largest protest of which I am aware comes from those living in authority areas where the Labour Party has increased the rates on an extraordinary scale. The House will wish to bear in mind that there are no Conservative authorities among the 20 authorities with the largest rate increases, and that among the 20 authorities with the lowest rate increases there are no Labour authorities.
    Mr. Hattersley: At a previous meeting of the consultative council the Secretary of State promised an early publication of the formula on which his punitive powers are to be based. Now that he has all the rate returns, can we be assured that the punitive legislation will be explained in detail before it is debated on Report on the Floor of the House?
    Mr. Heseltine: The Government's views about the use of the transitional powers will have to be explained in detail to the House before they are used. I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman will explain at the same time the role that he played in precipitating the vast rate increases that we have seen in Labour authorities.

IRANIAN EMBASSY, LONDON
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. William Whitelaw): With permission, Mr. Speaker, before I make my statement on prisons I would like briefly to refer to events at the Iranian embassy of which right hon. and hon. Members will be aware. A few hours ago there was a hostage-taking incident there. I will keep the House informed, in the meantime, all appropriate steps are being taken.
Later—
Mr. Eldon Griffiths: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I raise this point in the presence of the Home Secretary and the Leader of the House. It is quite precise. It is, of course, within the knowledge of the House that one of our fellow citizens, a police officer—I think his name is Trevor Locke—is at present being held hostage in the Iranian embassy in London. I ask two things of you, Sir. First, have you received any request from a Minister to intervene in our affairs in order to make a statement? Secondly, in the event that such a statement is made, could you give us indication now as to what time it might be, so that we can make the necessary arrangements?
Mr. Whitelaw: Perhaps I should repeat to my hon. Friend what I said to the House at the beginning of my statement on the May committee's report. I made a brief reference, as I thought the House would wish, to events at the Iranian embassy, of which hon. Members will be aware. A few hours ago there was a hostage-taking incident there. I shall keep the House informed, as appropriate. In the meantime, I assure my hon. Friend that all appropriate steps are being taken.

PRISONS
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. William Whitelaw): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement about the present situation in the prison system in England and Wales and about the action that I am taking on the main recommendations of the report of the committee of inquiry into the United Kingdom prison services—the May committee. We shall also within the next few weeks publish a detailed reply to the 15th report from the Expenditure Committee for Session 1977–78, and we shall publish proposals for changes in the powers of the courts in relation to young offenders later in the summer.
As the May committee made clear in its report, this country has for many years paid too little attention to its prisons. The result is that our prisons are chronically overcrowded and the prison service operates under severe strain. In the period since the report was published last October, the prison population in England and Wales has risen from 42,500 to a total of 44,000 on 18 April. The figure continues to fluctuate, but the present level is dangerously high. Exceptional measures by way of legislation or administrative action would be unpalatable and frustrating to those whose task it is to administer justice, but they cannot be ruled out if the situation demands them. Our primary task must, however, be to prevent such a situation from developing.
The following action is being taken. First, we must ensure that the prison estate is adequate for the job that it has to do. We have every sympathy with the May committee's recommendation that the building programme should be increased. The present programme, together with a considerable maintenance commitment, is substantial. Work already in progress will produce about 3,400 new or refurbished places by 1985, including a major new dispersal prison, which should come into use next year. Firm plans are being made to start two new major projects in both 1981–82 and 1982–83, which will provide 1,500 further places by the later 1980s. I hope to continue the programme on that basis in 1983–84, and preliminary planning is now proceeding.

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Secondly, we shall continue our efforts to develop alternatives to imprisonment. The Government believe that the outside community must play an increasing part, whether through statutory or voluntary agencies, in the treatment and containment of offenders, particularly those who have not committed violent offences. We shall give full support to non-custodial methods, and we recognise the major contribution that the probation and aftercare service must make to them.
The mentally disordered offender presents particularly difficult problems. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services and I accept that it is undesirable to detain in prison persons whose mental disorder permits them to be detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act. We shall continue our efforts to have such persons transferred to hospitals with the appropriate levels of security. My right hon. Friend will continue to give priority to the establishment of regional secure units. The programme that has been planned will make a valuable contribution to the provision for these offenders.
A new development is that we are making public funds available to enable voluntary organisations to make a start in providing simple overnight shelter for people who would otherwise be charged with offences of drunkenness.
Measures of this kind may not individually achieve a substantial reduction in the prison population, but taken together they can have a significant impact.
Thirdly, the Advisory Council on the Penal System, the Expenditure Committee and the May committee have all emphasised the need for shorter sentences. I have already said that the Government would welcome shorter sentences for nonviolent offenders, and it should be possible to bring about a significant reduction in the general level of sentences without sacrificing the protection that the public is entitled to expect. I believe that such a reduction can be achieved by the exercise of judicial discretion, and recent judgments have suggested that there is an increasing awareness among judges that the less serious type of non-violent offence can properly be met by a shorter term of imprisonment than has been imposed previously.
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I turn now to the May committee's vitally important recommendations on prison reorganisation. Like the committee, I fully support the principle of preserving direct ministerial responsibility for the prison service and for the treatment if individual prisoners. Subject to that, I endorse the May committee's objective of a structure which will give the prison services a greater corporate sense and enable those in charge to be more directly responsible for its own affairs. I am, therefore, instituting a major change in the prison department's position in the Home Office and in its internal organisation. The prison department will be given wide delegated authority within the Home Office for the management of its staff and for the control of its finance. Special attention will be paid to improving the system of financial information and control.
The present director general will remain in his post. A new post of deputy director general will be created and the membership of the Prisons Board will be expanded to include the four regional directors and two outside non-executive members whose appointments I shall announce shortly.
I accept the May committee's crucial recommendations for an inspectorate separate from the prison department, and for the publication of its reports. A new Crown appointment of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons will be announced as soon as possible. He will inspect and report to the Home Secretary on prison establishments in England and Wales, conducting regular inspections of individual establishments and investigating particular incidents or situations on the Home Secretary's directions. He will submit an annual report, which will be published, and other reports, which will be made publicly available as appropriate.
I endorse the May committee's objective of a reconstructed regional organisation, which will enable regional directors to concentrate more closely on the supervision of individual establishments, reporting directly to the deputy director general. As the committee recommended, most specialist functions will be concentrated at headquarters.
I will, with permission, circulate further details of these organisational changes in

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the Official Report. Copies of this information are now available in the Vote Office.
I endorse the May committee's views on the need to achieve better industrial relations, to make the best possible use of staff and to improve staff accommodation and amenities. I am pursuing these matters with the staff associations concerned, with priority for improvements in the procedures for handling industrial relations and for the design of a new attendance system and the associated conditions of service. I accept the committee's recommendation for a comprehensive review of training.
I believe that the changes that I have announced will provide a framework in which members of the prison service, of all grades, will be better able to perform their difficult tasks. I shall do all that I can to help them to maintain their high traditions and to develop new and constructive methods in the context of the concept of positive custody as put forward in the May committee's report. Work will be put in hand to translate it into the design of prison regimes and the development of prison industries, and I will lay the necessary amendments to the prison rules in due course.
All the measures that I have announced have a common objective—to ensure an effective prison system and an efficient and confident prison service.
Mr. Merlyn Rees: I note what the Home Secretary said about the Iranian embassy. The less said about that the better at present, but no doubt we shall have a full report when appropriate.
The right hon. Gentleman's statement on prisons was a long one, which requires far more discussion than is appropriate now. It was our impression that we should have the opportunity to debate the May report before anything was said. I know that the Expenditure Committee report is to be debated shortly, as the Home Secretary said.
The latter part of the statement was concerned with the organisation of the prison service. As its terms of reference show, I set up the May committee to look into the organisation of the prison service. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is my view—a view that I quickly reached as Home Secretary—that not enough thought had been given to the
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prisons themselves, whatever the size of the prison population, and certainly not enough thought has been given to the wider and more important question of penal reform? The structure of the prison service was and is wrong, and needs change. Although part of the Home Office, relations between the prison department and the Home Office were not good, and industrial relations were bad, as we saw last year. I welcome all that the right hon. Gentleman says concerning changes in the internal structure and in finance and management. I approve of the changes announced in the Prisons Board and of the sharpening of responsibilities of the prison organisation regionally.
Is the right hon. Gentleman farther aware that his acceptance of a separate inspectorate is a significant change? However, will he accept that without an improvement in the relationship between the trade union organisations, any changes will fail to have maximum impact? Without the full co-operation of the Prison Officers Association, which itself needs change, there will be further industrial troubles.
I set up the May committee to deal with organisational changes, but will the right hon. Gentleman accept that it was and is my strong view that there must be a radical reduction of the prison population? That needs political will. I do not believe that I was short of that, but I certainly did not have the strength of this House to implement the idea.
I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman says on alternatives to prison and what he says about the mentally ill. Money was provided for regional secure units a long time ago. The Health Service administrators have much to answer for over the delay, and the attitude of some staff is also responsible. The right hon. Gentleman's statement about what I understand are called " wet " shelters, which in this case are for alcoholics and not for dissident Cabinet Ministers, is an improvement, but little more.
Does the right hon. Gentleman really believe that the judiciary will oblige over shorter sentences? All Home Secretaries have asked for shorter sentences, yet more and more people are going to prison, which is not so in the remainder of Europe. The number of people on remand for

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longer periods, about half of whom are then released, needs judicial action. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is only one way forward, if variable in application? The one-third remission of sentence must be replaced by the half remission that I introduced in Northern Ireland and that this House approved. It will require changes in the parole system. The Home Secretary has a majority in this House to implement that radical change, or variants of it. I wish that I could have implemented the change. Without that change any proposals about prison organisation, and so on, will not go to the root of the matter. We are sending far too many people to prison. The judiciary will not oblige. We can deal with the problem only in this House.
Mr. Whitelaw: I readily recognise that the opportunity to make the necessary changes in the organisation of the prison department within the Home Office and the various proposals that the right hon. Gentleman welcomed stem directly from his decision to set up the May committee. I applauded that decision at the time. I believe that it was entirely correct. It has helped in these changes. I also welcome what the right hon. Gentleman said about my reaction to what the May committee said about organisation.
I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman over the question of shorter sentences and the judiciary. Recently there have been signs of an increasing feeling among judges that in many cases shorter sentences are appropriate. I hope that that feeling will develop.
With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's view about remission as in Northern Ireland, with changes in the parole system, I have made it clear that I am ready to consider many of these changes. However, I believe that they will be frustrating to, and disliked by, many who administer justice. There will therefore be opportunities for those people, in turn, to frustrate such changes if they are made, and it is important not to make them unless it becomes absolutely clear that they are essential.
Mr. Wheeler: I welcome this opportunity to support my right hon. Friend in his statement, which I completely endorse. The whole House must be aware of the serious problem in the prison service,
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with a prison population in excess of 44,000. [HON. MEMBERS: " Question."] I welcome the review of prison building. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider the other alternatives. [HON. MEMBERS: " Question."]
Mr. Speaker: Order. The House will be happier if the hon. Member says " Is my right hon. Friend aware that...?"
Mr. Wheeler: I am obliged, Mr. Speaker. Is my right hon. Friend aware that the House will welcome his continued review of those problems, in particular the creation of an independent inspectorate for the prison service, which is a radical advance? Will my right hon. Friend comment further on that proposal?
Mr. Whitelaw: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has personal experience of working in the prison service.
Mr. Russell Kerr: Inside.
Mr. Whitelaw: Whether inside or not, my hon. Friend has experience of working in the prison service, which I understand the hon. Gentleman does not have, and nor have I. I greatly welcome the fact that from my hon. Friend's experience he believes that the changes that I have made are correct.
The new chief inspector will be a Crown appointment. He will be independent of the prison department and will report directly to the Home Secretary. Those are three important developments.
Mr. Kilroy-Silk: The right hon. Gentleman's proposals for the Prisons Board and the inspectorate are welcome, but does he accept that the general response to his statement will be great disappointment over the opportunities that he has missed to make a radical inroad into the crisis in our prisons? He has not addressed himself to the problem of numbers, with about 45,000 prisoners occupying space designed for 37,000. About 11,000 prisoners are crammed two and three at a time into cells built for one. This year already, 150 prisoners have had to sleep in corridors and a further 150 have had to be held in police cells. The right hon. Gentleman's statement, fine words though it contained, is no solution to the problems of numbers, the mentally ill, alcoholics, drug addicts

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and petty offenders. Will the Home Secretary accept that the judiciary is not looking after our prison system, and that this House and the Government must do so? A significant impact on the population can be made only by the immediate introduction of 50 per cent. remission.
Mr. Whitelaw: That may be the hon. Gentleman's view. He says that the prison population is 45,000, but my figure of 44,000 was for 18 April, which shows that there has been a small downward trend. I said that the number fluctuated and that it was right to watch it carefully. I must tell the hon. Member that the measures that I have introduced, taken together, can have a significant influence on the prison population. Some of the measures that he puts forward would have considerable repercussions on the administration of justice. Such measures may be necessary, but I do not wish to take them in a panic, which is what the hon. Member is trying to make me do.
Sir Paul Bryan: Will my right hon. Friend say something about the new prison to be built at Full Sutton? When will construction start, when will it be finished, what is the scale of the prison, and what category of prisoner will be housed there?
Mr. Whitelaw: I shall give my hon. Friend the fullest details, but I do not have them with me this afternoon.
Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: May I return to the issue of the figures? It is perfectly clear that we shall not have a prison population similar to that of Holland unless we change the sentencing strategy of the judiciary. We can do that only after clear consultations between the Lord Chancellor and the judiciary about the kind of sentencing tariff that the judiciary has. Meanwhile and urgently, will the Home Secretary look again at the question of 50 per cent. remission? He mentioned " panic ". We have been talking about this problem since Roy Jenkins was Home Secretary in 1974. That is not panic. There have been clear delays by successive Governments in getting to grips with a very thorny problem. However, it is a problem that must be tackled.
Mr. Whitelaw: On the first point, the hon. Member will agree that there have
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recently been signs, in some of the sentences and the way in which they have been imposed, that there is an increasing awareness that shorter sentences are appropriate for some offenders. The hon. Member will have seen evidence of that in the papers recently.
On the second point, of course I will consider the question of half remission, but I do not believe that it is necessary that I should accept it until it is absolutely certain that we will not succeed by other means.
Mr. Edward Gardner: While welcoming my right hon. Friend's statement, may I ask that in his attempts to deal with the dangerous overcrowding in our prisons he will keep well in mind the alarming increase in violent crime? Will he assure the House and the country that he will do everything in his power to ensure that criminals who use violence will face long-term imprisonment, not merely to punish them but to ensure that the public are protected from the menace of their activities?
Mr. Whitelaw: The position of violent offenders is very much appreciated in the country, and certainly among the judiciary. It is not for me to comment on particular sentences, but I would have thought that the attitude of members of the judiciary to non-violent offenders shows that they are increasingly aware of the value of shorter sentences. From the judiciary's point of view, it is fair to say that it is seen to be very well aware of the need for long terms of imprisonment for violent offenders.
Mr. Stephen Ross: I welcome the Home Secretary's changes in administration and the devolution of power in the Home Office. I echo what has been said about his needing to be far more radical in his attitude to the prison population, if he wishes to cut that population. The May report dealt with many matters of substance, particularly in respect of prison officers and their role. In the statement nothing was said about the inconvenience or locality allowance. Will the Home Secretary tell us something about that? Also, will he help the voluntary associations that can assist in keeping people out of prison? Will he consider giving them some financial aid, which has not been available up to now?
Mr. Whitelaw: I made it clear in my statement, and I welcome the opportunity to repeat it now, that we are discussing many matters of industrial relations with the Prison Officers' Association. We are also discussing the question of an attendance allowance system, which is extremely important. In relation to the voluntary organisations, I have mentioned the question of " wet " shelters. We shall do everything we can, through the probation service and in other ways, to encourage alternatives to custody.
Mr. Russell Kerr: Will the Home Secretary tell the House when the special Home Office tribunal that he appointed following my Adjournment debate on the subject of the Barlinnie special units in Glasgow will report to the House? Will he personally give a progress report on the work of that tribunal?
Mr. Whitelaw: My officials went to see the position at Barlinnie. However, the hon. Member must remember that prisons in Scotland are for the Secretary of State for Scotland and not for me.
Mr. Grieve: Is my right hon. Friend aware that for some years now the judiciary of the Crown courts has been exercised by the problem of prison overcrowding, and that this has been a constant theme of the sentencing conferences that have been organised every year by the higher judiciary, and attended by Crown court judges and recorders? Will he bear in mind that one cannot protect society against grave crime—not only violence against the person, but grave offences against property—without adequate provision of prisons? Will he keep that to the forefront of Government policy?
Mr. Whitelaw: In the statement I sought to provide the right balance between prison places and having alternotive methode of custody, so that those who have to be imprisoned can be put there properly.
Mr. Edward Lyons: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that most of our prisons are those that the Conservative Government nationalised in the 1870s? Does his statement not amount to a tacit acceptance of the position that in his decade, and probably the next as well, none of those prisons will be closed? Is it not true that we shall be left with the same antiquated prisons? Does that not mean that
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we need a far bigger prison building programme than the one that he announced this afternoon?
Mr. Whitelaw: On the point of the hon. and learned Member's history, there is no Government—and no House of Commons or individual hon. Member—in the last 100 years who can honestly say that they have paid sufficient attention to the provision of prisons in this country. We are all equally to blame—every Government and every hon. Member. That cannot be remedied quickly or easily. The hon. and learned, Member must appreciate that.
Mr. Eldon Griffiths: While welcoming shorter sentences in appropriate cases, may I urge my right hon. Friend to stress that neither prison sentences nor remissions should ever depend on the availability of prison places? They should depend, rather, on the seriousness of the offence and the need to protect the public.
Mr. Whitelaw: That is exactly the balance that I have sought to preserve in my statement.
Mr. Arthur Davidson: Will the Home Secretary provide any more money? Can he throw a little light on his plans for providing alternatives for alcoholics? Is it not an absurdity that habitual drunkards should be sent to prison? When the Home Secretary talks about overnight lodging, can he say exactly what he means? Also, where will the money come from?
Mr. Whitelaw: On the various alternatives to custody, first, we shall strongly support the probation service in all its work. Secondly, we have provided more attendance centres for both junior and adult offenders. Those centres have a most important part to play Thirdly, we believe that community service orders, which were instituted by the last Conservative Government, also have an important part to play. We will encourage all voluntary efforts on alternatives to prison. On the question of " wet " shelters, £30,000 will be available for their provision this financial year, and also in 1981–82. That is far more than has ever been done by any Government before.
Sir Bernard Braine: I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend's recognition that

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prison is the wrong place for the alcoholic and that help should be given to people through the " wet shelter " system, but does he not realise that that is only a small part of solving the problem of alcoholism? Treatment is necessary, and what we really need are more detoxification centres. Therefore, before coming to any final conclusion on this matter, will he have discussions with the Department of Health and Social Security in order to establish just how much help can be given, for example, from the licensing compensation fund and by voluntary organisations in order to solve a distressing and growing social problem?
Mr. Whitelaw: I would seek to differentiate what I was saying on the need to keep out of prison those who will not respond to treatment. The hon. Gentleman, who has studied these matters, knows very well that those who will not respond to treatment cannot be cured in detoxification centres or anywhere else. A necessary part of such a cure must be a readiness to respond to treatment. I am seeking to deal, through the " wet shelters ", with those who are not prepared to respond to treatment and who otherwise come in and out of prisons. They are two different points. Of course, I will discuss the major treatment problem with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services.
Mr. Arthur Lewis: The Minister made a long statement but he gave us not the slightest bit of detail on the provision of £30,000. May we have the actual or estimated total cost of these new plans, and be told whether it will increase or decrease Government expenditure?
Mr. Whitelaw: I have said that, as far as expenditure on these various measures is concerned, at a time of economic stringency I am continuing a prison building programme which, I readily recognise, was in many cases started by the right hon. Gentleman my predecessor. As for the other expenditures I cannot give an exact estimate. What I want to make clear is that these expenditures will have to be kept within the cash limits that I have for the prison service as a whole.
Mr. Knight: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the alternative to long prison sentences is not necessarily
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short prison sentences, and that the possibility of taking other action, such as having the convicted criminal report three times a day to a centre, is worthy of being considered as a way of dealing with the problem?
Mr. Whitelaw: I will consider what my hon. Friend said. She will be aware that she is referring to various systems of parole and the work of the probation service, to which we are giving full support.
Mr. Speaker: I propose to call three more hon. Members from either side.
Mr. Charles R. Morris: Is the Home Secretary aware that many who will welcome his statement this afternoon find it somewhat quixotic that penal reform should be motivated by the need for economy? Does he accept that cutting sentencing for crimes not involving violence will not have a major impact on prisons such as Strangeways prison, in Manchester, which in the main caters for long-term offenders, many of whom have been involved in crimes of violence? In those circumstances, will he assure the House that money will continue to be found for improving conditions for both prisoners and staff at Strangeways?
Mr. Whitelaw: I must not particularise on one prison or another, but I made it clear in my statement that in spite of a need for financial stringency, thanks to my colleagues I have been able to preserve a prison building programme which, while it may be modest, is certainly more substantial than for a very long time. I have also entered into considerable maintenance commitments. I recognise what the hon. Gentleman says, and I am able to spend some money. Naturally there is not enough; there has not been enough for many years. However, I am making some improvements.
Mr. Speaker: I should explain that I shall be calling two Front Bench Members at the conclusion, because I am going to call one with a Scottish interest.
Mr. Stanbrook: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way of reducing the pressure on prison accommodation in the long run is to reduce the level of crime? Some improvement may be made by building more prison accommodation and providing detoxification centres, and so on, but does my right

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hon. Friend not agree that it is not serving the interests of the prison service simply to increase the remission rate to 50 per cent.?
Mr. Whitelaw: That is why I have sought to preserve the balance in the statement and in the various measures that we are putting forward. I shall have further measures of penal reform to announce to the House in due course—measures that will meet some of the points that my hon. Friend is making.
Mr. Stuart Holland: Is the Home Secretary aware that talk of £30,000, for example, for the alcoholism services is wholly inadequate in relation to the problem, especially in an area such as I represent—Lambeth, Vauxhall—and that a campaign has been launched—Save Alcoholism Services—in the area because of a lack of funds? Projects such as Consortium, for detoxification units, have capital sums, but insufficient revenue to provide these services. Also, while Claiming that it is important to keep people out of prison who need not be there, could the right hon. Gentleman reply to the point that the National Association for the Care and Rehabilitation of Offenders lacks funds and was recently, for the first time, charged VAT by this Government, a fact that threw it into further financial difficulties?
Mr. Whitelaw: My hon. Friend's first point would be more properly drected to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. For my part, I was making a particular point about money that I can provide on the prison front. What the Department of Health and Social Security can do in the wider aspect of the treatment of alcoholics is another matter, and I shall certainly call my right hon. Friend's attention to what he has said.
In answer to the second point, the hon. Member will be aware that over the years the Home Office has worked very closely with NACRO and has provided financial help to it.
Miss Fookes: Can I persuade my right hon. Friend to grasp the nettle over shorter sentences? It will be done not by ineffective exhortations to the judiciary but by a review by the House of the maximum sentences that ought to be imposed, and legislation to back it.
Mr. Whitelaw: I note my hon. Friend's view. I acknowledge her considerable experience in this matter. I still believe that if judges, by their own decisions, opt for shorter sentences, that will be a great help. I repeat that I see evidence that that is what they are doing. I do not know, therefore, that I accept the second part of my hon. Friend's statement. As many of my hon. Friends have already said, there are great difficulties in pursuing that course.
Mr. Heffer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that those of us who represent constituencies containing very large prisons cannot be satisfied with his statement, and that there is a clear acceptance that much more has to be done? In relation to the building programme, does he agree that it is clear that although he is doing more, perhaps, than others have done before him, it is inadequate? The intolerable conditions in our prisons—for both inmates and officers—must be dealt with, and dealt with rapidly. Even if there is a reduction in the prison population, the accommodation problem must be dealt with. It cannot be allowed to go on as it has in the past.
Mr. Whitelaw: The hon. Gentleman's intervention prompts me to say that in my strictures on Governments and hon. Members I was perhaps somewhat too general, and that he and some other Members who have prisons in their constituencies have campaigned in this way for a very long time. I should like to take the opportunity of putting the record straight and recognising their efforts. I appreciate very much the need for improvements of the kind suggested by the hon. Gentleman. I am grateful to him for recognising that I have made some improvements. I have to tell him that it is extremely difficult to put right everything that is wrong in a short space of time.
Mr. Lawrence: I warmly applaud my right hon. Friend's medium and long-term approach to this problem, and his undoubted commitment not only to the protection of the public but to the efficiency of the penal system, but is it not a fact that there is an immediate crisis in our prisons? Is it not also a fact that the only alternative to letting existing prisoners out earlier is to send fewer people to prison? Would my right hon. Friend please tell the House that he is redoubling

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his efforts to bring to the attention of all the judiciary—that means recorders as well as High Court judges—exactly what position of crisis our prisons have reached?
Mr. Whitelaw: I accept that there is a problem. I must repeat, once again, that I believe that amongst the judiciary there is a wide recognition of this problem and that its members will seek to keep the right balance. I am sure that they will pay attention to many of the comments that have been made in the House this afternoon.
Mr. Millan: The May committee report dealt with the whole of the United Kingdom but this afternoon's statement deals only with England and Wales. What about Scotland and, for that matter, Northern Ireland? Why, for example, is there no Scottish Office Minister present in the House today? Are we going to have a separate statement later? If so, can we be assured that it will be made in this House, so that we can ask questions about it? The habit has been adopted by the present Government of no Scottish statement ever being made in this House. It really is not good enough on an important matter like this.
Mr. Whitelaw: I was, of course, making a statement about the prison situation in England and Wales, for which I am responsible. I shall call the attention of my right hon. Friends to what the right hon. Gentleman said.
Mr. Merlyn Rees: Can the Home Secretary help the House? Quite properly, he made a long statement. There have been many supplementaries, and there could have been more. We felt that there was to be a debate. The word " promise " was used. There is now to be a statement on the Expenditure Committee's report. There will have to be a discussion on the prison rules. Will the right hon. Gentleman impress upon the Leader of the House that what today has shown is that we want to debate the question of prisons?
Mr. Whitelaw: Naturally, I would welcome such a debate, but it must be a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who is here and will have heard the exchanges. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members will agree that it was
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right for me, in all the circumstances—as I wanted to get on with very important reorganisation—to make this statement as soon as I was ready for it. If it is felt that there has been any discourtesy in not having had a debate before this, I must apologise to the House. I thought it was right to get on as fast as I could. I hope that there will be a debate as soon as possible, but that must be a matter for my right hon. Friend.
Following are the details of organisational changes:

THE MAY REPORT: RECOMMENDATIONS ON ORGANISATION
Chapter V of the May committee's report made a number of recommendations designed to improve the administration of the prison service in England and Wales. These recommendations covered the status and independence of the prison department within the Home Office; the structure of its senior posts; the arrangements for inspection; the organisation of regions and establishments; and the functions of boards of visitors. The following paragraphs set out the conclusions which I have reached.
Enhanced responsibilities of the Prison Department.
2. Under the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, the prison department will assume delegated authority for manpower and staffing matters affecting prison governors, prison officers and administrative and specialist staff serving in prison service establishments and regional offices, and certain professional, technical and other specialist staff serving at headquarters. These groups comprise virtually all those non-industrial staff who expect to spend a full career in the prison service. The prison department will also assume delegated responsibility for the day-to-day management of its finance. Work is in hand on the improvements in management accounting methods and financial information systems to which the May committee attached importance.
3. As the May committee recommended, there will continue to be a single principal establishment officer, responsible for manpower and personnel matters affecting the Home Office as a whole. A single principal finance officer will exercise similar responsibilities in relation to finance, and there will be a single accounting officer for all Home Office Votes.
Structure of Senior Posts.
4. The post of director general of the prison service will continue at deputy secretary level. The principle will remain that this and all senior appointments should always go to the best available candidate: it will continue to be held by the present holder of the post.
5. The deputy director general will occupy a position between deputy secretary and undersecretary. As head of the operational service he will be responsible to the director general for the operations of the prison service in the

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field. The present controller (operational administration) will be appointed to the post.
6. Other senior posts will be the director of regimes and services, responsible for the planning and co-ordination of prison regimes, the prison building programme and the provision of services; the director of operational policy, responsible for policy and casework on the treatment of prisoners, the director of personnel and finance, responsible for personnel management, industrial relations and staff training, and also for manpower and financial control, including accounting and financial information systems; and the director of prison medical services, whose responsibilities will be unchanged.
7. The holders of these six posts will be members of the Prisons Board. The board will also include the four regional directors, in view of their operational responsibility for the prison service in the field; and two non-executive members, as recommended by the May committee, to bring to the board an independent viewpoint as well as their own particular knowledge and expertise. The appointments of the outside non-executive members will be announced as soon as possible.
Inspection
8. Appointments to the new post of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons will be made directly by the Crown on the advice of the Home Secretary. The widest possible field of candidates will be considered.
9. The chief inspector will report to the Home Secretary and will be a member of the Home Office, but he will not be a member of the prison department or have any responsibility to that department. His terms of reference will be
" To inspect and report to the Secretary of State on prison service establishments in England and Wales, and in particular on:

(a) conditions in those establishments;

(b) the treatment of prisoners and other inmates and the facilities available to them;

(c) such other matters as the Secretary of State may direct ".

10. The chief inspector will conduct regular inspections of individual establishments and he will investigate particular incidents or situations on the Home Secretary's directions. He will submit an annual report, which will be published, and other reports, which will be made publicly available where appropriate. In accordance with the May committee's recommendation, individual grievances will continue to be dealt with under existing procedures.
11. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has asked, and I have agreed, that the services of the Chief Inspector should be available to inspect prison establishments in Northern Ireland.
12. The chief inspector will be supported by a deputy chief inspector and by a small team, most of whom will be drawn from the prison service. Other professional or specialist support will be provided as necessary.
Regions and Establishments
13. The primary tasks of regional directors will be to secure the application of national
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policy and to contribute to its formulation; and to ensure the proper functioning of their establishments and of the prison system as a whole. They will assume full management responsibility for their establishments, with direct accountability to the deputy director general and with the full support of headquarters. The casework at present done at regional offices is for the most part closely associated with the supervision of establishments, and most of it will remain, but specialist functions will for the most part be concentrated at headquarters as the May committee recommended. I recognise the value of the work which many of the staff have done while they have been at regional offices and their contribution to the prison service, but I am satisfied that their contribution can be made as effectively from headquarters in the future.
14. Establishments for women and girls will for the first time be brought within the regional structure; regional boundaries will be redrawn to remove some of the present anomalies; and the internal organisation of regional offices will be reviewed and standardised.
Boards of Visitors
15. I accept the recommendation that boards of visitors should continue to exercise both an adjudicatory and an inspectorial function. In respect of the latter they will continue to be concerned both with inmates and with members of the staff, but I share the view which most boards have expressed that their links with staff should remain informal. I shall give boards every encouragement to extend where practicable their establishment's involvement in its local community.
Further Action
16. The changes to which I have referred will be carried out within the existing staff resources of the Home Office. Those at headquarters should be largely completed by the end of July; those at regional offices will take longer. Organisational change cannot by itself provide a solution to the more fundamental problems of overcrowding and prison regimes, but the decisions which I have announced today should produce the more cohesive and effective management structure which is an essential basis for the wider but inevitably more gradual changes which are now required.

UNEMPLOYMENT (WALES)
Mr. Wigley: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the puropse of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
" the forecast of a doubling of unemployment in Wales."
This matter is specific, because a specific report was published yesterday, commissioned by the BBC and undertaken by the Institute of Economic Affairs at

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the University College of North Wales, Bangor, which, incidentally, has been adviser to the Welsh Office on economic matters. It forecast that unemployment in Wales would increase to 172,000 by 1983. That compares with a figure of between 80,000 and 90,000 now and of 125,000 as the highest forecast which the Welsh Office has so far admitted.
This matter is important because we in Wales have grim memories of unemployment, and we have them in all parts of Wales. The forecast sees an increase in unemployment to as high as 29 per cent. on Deeside, with an average approaching 15 per cent. over the whole of Wales. The matter is important because we need policies that can respond to these needs, and it is interesting to note that 10 years ago this week my party published an economic plan for Wales which forecast a need for 177,000 jobs over the following decade.
This matter is urgent because decisions are now being taken on economic strategy which need to be reconsidered in the light of this report. It is urgent because factory closures are imminent in all parts of Wales and the Government are committed to reconsidering the development area status; and these decisions will be taken over the next few weeks. Not least, the matter is urgent because of the report this week that the British Steel Coroporation, in response to objections by two unions to the slimming down
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proposals for the Llanwern and Port Talbot steelworks, is about to announce the total closure of one of those two plants. Finally, it is urgent because we had two months ago the annual Welsh day and we certainly cannot wait another six to 12 months before we have an opportunity to debate this matter and bring pressure on the Government to change their policies before it is too late.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman gave me notice before 12 noon today that he would seek leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,
" the forecast of a doubling of unemployment in Wales."
The hon. Gentleman brought to our notice a very serious matter, and the House listened with concern to what he said.
As the House knows, under Standing Order No. 9 I am directed to take into account all the factors set out in the order. The House has instructed me to give no reasons for my decision.
I have given careful consideration to the representations that the hon. Gentleman has made, but I have to rule that they do not fall within the provisions of the Standing Order, and therefore I cannot submit his application to the House.

LAND DRAINAGE (AMENDMENT)
4.17 pm
Dr. Edmund Marshall: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Land Drainage Act 1976; and for connected purposes.
Although that long title has very wide scope in relation to land drainage, the proposed Bill has one very simple and narrow purpose, which is concerned with the amount of money which water authorities can raise each year to spend on land drainage.
The importance of land drainage is well known to all hon. Members who have constituencies in low-lying areas which receive water flowing down from upland districts. Heavy precipitation in recent winters has brought flooding to several parts of England and Wales, with rivers bursting their banks and much farmland remaining waterlogged.
Any expenditure incurred by a water authority for land drainage purposes is raised by precept on the county councils for the area in question in accordance with arrangements laid down in section 46 of the Land Drainage Act 1976. Perhaps I should point out that these arrangements are entirely separate from the charges which a water authority makes for water supply, sewerage and sewage disposal, for which in many areas general ratepayers are now receiving separate bills direct from water authorities, and nothing in this Bill will affect the level of those charges.
However, under section 46(5) of the 1976 Act, the amount which a water authority can precept on a county council for land drainage purposes is limited to 1·7 times the penny rate product for the area concerned. This limit can be exceeded only with the special consent of the local authority members of the relevant local land drainage committee. It is not surprising that in the present financial climate in local government such special consent is increasingly unlikely to be given. Consequently, the 1·7 factor written into the legislation now in force is beginning to impose an absolute cash limit on the land drainage expenditure of water authorities. I understand, for
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example, that the 1·7 ceiling is already restraining expenditure on land drainage in Somerset and that without some legislative action that ceiling will be reached in many other counties in these times of high inflation. So the real value of land drainage expenditure will be reduced in inverse proportion to the rate of inflation.
Of course, the whole position would be changed if there were a general revaluation of hereditaments throughout the country, because experience suggests that such revaluations approximately double the product of a penny rate in any area. However, there is, at present, no prospect of such a revaluation while the Government are looking at the future of the general rating system as a whole. Consequently, the 1·7 factor written into the 1976 Act is, in effect, a rigid cash limit imposed by law, and inflation makes a nonsense of such a limit.
I have raised the problem with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, whom I am glad to see on the Government Front Bench, and I was pleased to note what he said to me in a letter on 28 March:
" I accept that this is a real problem, but the difficulty is that it cannot be solved without legislation. I can only promise that we shall bear very much in mind the possibility of amending the present statute at the first suitable opportunity."
My Bill is designed to provide just such an opportunity and I am hopeful that the Government will give it their blessing.
The detailed content of the Bill will give the Minister power to vary the 1.7 factor by order, subject to annulment by either House of Parliament. While I am not always in favour of extending ministerial powers, I think that the provision for such varying orders is the only sensible way of dealing with the problem that I have described.
I hope, therefore, that the Bill will be supported by the Government and by hon. Members on both sides of the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Dr. Edmund Marshall, Mr. Joseph Ashton, Sir Paul Bryan, Mr. loan Evans, Mr. Clement Freud, Mr. Colin Shepherd, Mr. John Spence, Mr. Patrick Wall, Mr. Michael Welsh, and Mr. Alec Woodall.

LAND DRAINAGE (AMENDMENT)
  LAND DRAINAGE (AMENDMENT)
  Dr. Edmund Marshall accordingly presented a Bill to amend the Land Drainage Act 1976; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 9 May and to be printed [Bill 201.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY
  EMPLOYMENT BILL
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.
  EMPLOYMENT BILL
    Clause 10

      NOTICES TO EMPLOYER
      4.23 pm
      Mr. John Grant: I beg to move amendment No. 76, in page 11, line 8 leave out " twenty-one" and insert " fourteen ".
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): With this, we may take the following amendments:
      No. 77, in page 11, line 14 leave out " twenty-one " and insert " fourteen ".
      No. 79 in page 11, line 40 leave out " twenty-one " and insert " fourteen ".
      Mr. Grant: We spent a long time in Committee arguing the technicalities of the clause and I shall try to avoid doing so again at length, but it is essential that the whole House should have an opportunity to express its view on some aspects of what I regard as one of the meanest and most petty-minded clauses in this thoroughly obnoxious Bill.
      We have listened on Report to many speeches by Conservative Members on the theme of the alleged oppression by trade unions of individual workers' rights. I do not pretend that things do not go wrong, that mistakes are not made and that wrong decisions, of which sometimes no one can be proud, are not taken. However, the case in that respect is grossly, indeed wildly and mischievously, exaggerated, and the legislative way is not the best way of resolving such problems
      Throughout our debates there has been scarcely a peep from Conservative Members about the most retrograde and reactionary aspect of the Bill, namely, the insidious attack on individual workers' rights that the Government are callously and determinedly inflicting on working people.
      We see it in the proposed repeal of schedule 11 and the removal of the limited statutory protection that the schedule

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      offered to low-paid workers, a large proportion of whom are women. One Conservative Member had the courage to speak out against the Government on that matter and, although he did not vote with us, it is to his credit that he did not appear in the Government Lobby either.
      We also had an argument about the unfair dismissal proposals. Once again, the proposed changes will hit especially hard at low-paid workers, which again means many women. One might ask where the Tory voices were then in defence of individual workers' rights. Not one of the pin-striped Tory lawyers, who had been so vocal in other debates on workers freedom, could find his tongue to denounce the situation in which the freedom to exploit is being underwritten by the Government.
      Clauses 10 and 11 hang together as part of an overall package that the Secretary of State should be ashamed to put forward as we enter the 1980s. Taken one by one, the changes to individual rights that are contained in the Bill could be camouflaged as having no great significance. But together they reveal an inescapable affront to working people and clause 10 is a prime example of the disastrous course that the Government—the first in this country to be led by a woman—are following on equal rights generally and women's rights in particular.
      It is important that I should sketch in our overall approach to the clause, so that I can illustrate why we feel that the amendments are necessary and why I charge the Government with being as sexist as they are racist in their policymaking processes.
      I listened to the Prime Minister on the Jimmy Young show this morning. She was asked about the Employment Bill and she talked about the closed shop and picketing but made no mention of the maternity rights clauses or the proposals in the Bill that affect individual workers' rights.
      No doubt the Prime Minister feels that she has made it without recourse to statutory protection or assistance and has done it by, to use the old phrase, standing on her own two feet. That is back in fashion as a Tory catch-phrase. It is worth reminding the House that the
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      phrase was last made fashionable by the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath)—and we all know what happened to him. This morning's broadcast illustrated again that the Prime Minister has an " I am all right, Jill " attitude to these matters.
      The right hon. Lady and her Government show scant concern for the women who need protection and help in our still unequal society. The clause illustrates the Government thinking that a woman's place is in the home. That was perhaps best expressed by the Secretary of State for Social Services with that splendid quote:
      " If the good Lord had intended us to have equal rights and to go out to work and to behave equally, he really would not have created man and woman."
      Dr. Oonagh McDonald: In what century was that said?
      Mr. Grant: I leave that to the House to judge. Of course, that attitude may be convenient for the Government. Their deliberate actions are forcing up the level of unemployment and they can argue that with more women at home there will be more jobs for men. That line is peddled irrespective of what women want or believe is best for them or, more important, what are their needs. It ignores rocketing inflation, soaring bills and family needs. It subscribes to the outdated view that most women go out to work for pin money, when we know that most women work to balance the family budget and that that is becoming an increasing necessity because of Government policies.
      4.30 pm
      I do not know why the Secretary of State should join in an attack on women. Perhaps he was overridden in Cabinet and had to go along with the majority. Perhaps events in recent months in the Cabinet have soured him towards women and turned him chauvinistic. I should not be surprised if that were so. That would be understandable, if not pardonable. Hard cases do not make good law and he has been dealing with a hard case.
      I do not understand how the Secretary of State can pretend that he seeks to protect job opportunities for women when the Government's public expenditure cuts slash savagely child minding facilities,

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      play groups, nursery education and training courses for women. I do not understand how the Secretary of State can pretend that job opportunities are being protected or created.
      An International Labour Organisation conference is planned for June to discuss measures to ensure equal opportunities and treatment for workers with family responsibilities. That will affect men but it will affect women to a greater degree. I hope that a British Minister attends that conference. I wonder what line the Government will take. Such a conference must be a huge embarrassment to the Government who will be able to offer little more than an apology or, more likely, a false prospectus.
      The changes in the clause are in line with the Government's dismal approach to equal opportunity. They pay lip service to that concept while indulging in wrecking tactics. Ample research is available. Research from the Department of Health and Social Security and the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth, which the Government stupidly abandoned, show that working wives' wages have prevented a massive number of families from sliding into poverty.
      The Government's case is that many employers are put off employing women because they believe that the provisions giving rights to working women who become mothers are too burdensome and lead to uncertainty. One must ask on what evidence the Government base their approach, which was outlined originally in the consultative document. In Committee the Under-Secretary of State gave us his supporting sources. He picked on aspects of the report from the Low Pay Unit. He was shot to pieces on that because the unit's overall evidence was adamantly against the Bill's proposals. That was a piece of ill-advised selectivity which I doubt that he will wish to repeat.
      The Under-Secretary of State was selective when he referred to one aspect of the clause in relation to the Equal Opportunities Commission. The Commission firmly opposes this part of the Bill. The Under-Secretary also referred to his constituency postbag. He could produce nothing from it, not even on a non-attributable basis. However, he produced a curious letter from a headmaster. It is
      1406
      best to draw a veil over that letter because it did not stand up to examination.
      The Under-Secretary referred to the Association of British Chambers of Commerce in support of his case. However, on examination we discovered that the association produced not a scrap of evidence. It expressed pure opinion. With great difficulty the Under-Secretary of State scraped up a few facts which he did his best to distort in a vain effort to boost his case.
      Not only have the Government no evidence to explain why they seek the changes in the Bill, but even the flimsy support upon which they fall back in their desperate attempt to justify their case emerged well after the presentation of the so-called consultative document which proved that their minds were already made up. Consultation was a sham.
      There is evidence aplenty the other way. We produced it in Committee and I do not intend to go over it in detail today. There is evidence from the Opinion Research Centre study, commissioned by the Government and the Equal Opportunities Commission. A more recent survey based on questions to 261 organisations in the public and private sectors, showed that 83 per cent. of employers found that the maternity provisions worked well in practice. The few who thought otherwise had not experienced the provisions.
      The clause will cause major complications for the woman who seeks to take maternity leave. In particular, the cumbersome notification procedures are bound to cause confusion and uncertainty, not only for employees but for employers. More and more women will safeguard their position when they understand the law. They will write to their employer and say that they are returning to work even when they know that they are not likely to return. Ultimately, employers will have little to thank the Government for in that respect. A consequence will be more form filling, more letter writing, more bureaucracy and more red tape for employers and employees.
      Women represent well over 40 per cent. of the work force. For many women, especially for the ethnic minorities with language problems, there will be major difficulties in understanding the law.

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      Many such people could lose their rights by default. The Government have given no indication of the steps that they will take to deal with the problem. We have heard nothing from the Government except the pathetic suggestion, or pious hope, that the changes will somehow help employment opportunities.
      One could use that argument to sweep away all protective legislation. We could use it to abolish health and safety laws and to get rid of the wages councils. Perhaps the Government are edging us along that path and this is the first step. One hears disquieting rumours about the future of wages councils, the wages inspectorate and the fair wages resolutions. We have questioned the Government in our debates on the Bill, but we have received no answers. They have maintained a studied silence.
      Amendments Nos. 76 and 77 are an atttempt to tilt the balance back a little towards the woman employee. Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State will argue that 14 days' notice is unnecessary because of the phrase:
      " or,... as soon as reasonably practicable ".
      I understand the argument, but it leaves the door open to further controversy. It would be preferable to formalise the extra week.
      The Bill changes the final notification period before return to work from seven to 21 days. The Under-Secretary of State made a great meal of the EOC's arguments on this aspect, perhaps because he did not have much else to get his teeth into. The Commission's initial view was that the first notification before absence should not be tied to a loss of rights and that, as the final notification might be the only one, 28 days would be appropriate. That was the earlier proposition of the EOC.
      The Bill now demands two mandatory notifications and another optional one. In view of that, I do not see the grounds for increasing the length of time before final notification. Nor does the Equal Opportunities Commission. That being so, the Under-Secretary cannot cite the EOC in his own behalf any longer.
      I think that seven days is quite enough for the employer who may now have two affirmations of a woman's intention to return to work. In Committee I argued
      1408
      for the retention of the seven-day period and the Under-Secretary of State said that it was a matter of judgment as to what was reasonable notice. He rejected my view. I asked him to reflect and perhaps he has done so. If he is prepared to revert to seven days that will be fine. However, on the basis that it is unlikely that he will agree to that that the suggestion of 14 days is a compromise which the Government might be prepared to accept. However, I have to recognise that the Government are in no mood to make concessions even at the margins and I do not have much hope of them.
      This clause, and the next one, will have a decidedly adverse effect on many working women. The Government have blatantly ignored all the available evidence and the views of those who represent working women. They are saying to those people " We know what is good for you ".
      In many respects we are still behind other European countries in this context. I know that one can argue that there is room for controversy and doubt about international comparisons. However, one thing is certain; if these changes go through we will lag well behind other countries.
      I return to my original question—why are the Government proposing these changes? Of course, maternity benefits cost the Exchequer about £30 million a year. It may be, I suppose, that in the present penny-pinching atmosphere the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been scratching around in order to save a few million pounds. Perhaps he has been in touch with his right hon. Friend with whom he has such a cosy relationship. Perhaps it is also as well that the wife of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is no longer the deputy chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission. One could say that she got out just in time to avoid embarrassment or, perhaps, she saw the writing on the wall.
      For all that, I find it difficult to believe that public expenditure is the real reason for the proposed changes. I think we come back to the point about helping the employer at the expense of the employee. I do not believe that there is much in it for the employer, but this all fits into the Government package aimed at kidding the small employers as to where their political friends are while at the same time

      1409
      hitting them as hard as possible in every other way. It is a con trick, but it is in line with the Government's dogmatic anti-worker approach which runs through this Bill.
      This is part of the Government's deliberate attempt to weaken the position of workers, working women and women generally. We have seen the Government's approach in the context of immigration rights, nursery education and other areas of education. We have seen it expressed in the form of cuts in benefits to the wives and families of strikers and in the inadequate level of child benefit.
      Nothing in the Tory manifesto suggested that the Government would whittle away maternity benefit rights. Of course not. The Tories were very conscious of the women's vote. I suggest that it was blatantly dishonest of the Tories to hide their intentions and—the Under-Secretary made this claim in Committee—to claim a mandate for what they are now doing.
      I remember, as I am sure do my right hon. and hon. Friends—the splendid Saatchi and Saatchi slogan
      " Cheer up, the Conservatives are coming. Don't just hope for a better life—vote for one."
      I think that the Secretary of State for Employment has a copy of the Tory manifesto in his hands at this moment and I feel sure that he is closely following what I am saying. We recall the advertisements with their phoney dole queues which have now turned into real dole queues with a vengance.
      We did not hear slogans from Saatchi and Saatchi in that context. We might have had one imposed, perhaps, on a picture of the Prime Minister saying: " A woman's place is in the home ". We did not see that, nor were there posters on the hoardings saying: " Choose with the Tories—your baby or your job." That would have been an honest indication to women voters that their rights were to be undermined.
      The Government have no mandate for these changes, whatever they may say about their mandate in other respects in relation to the Bill. There was nothing in the Tory manifesto to suggest that this woman-led Government would go in for a whole range of anti-woman, sexist legislation into which this despicable clause fits very neatly.
      The fact that we have tabled these amendments does not alter our real aim which is to get rid of the whole clause lock, stock and barrel along with the rest of this Bill. We shall certainly do that when we form the next Government.
      Mr. Don Dixon: Does my hon. Friend accept that we would expect those Conservative Members who supported the Abortion (Amendment) Bill—which they said was to protect the unborn child—to come into the Lobby with us tonight to protect the mothers of those unborn children?
      Mr. Grant: My hon. Friend is right, I hope that we shall see that. But going on past form there is very little chance of that happening. However, one never knows. We might get a Conservative Member or two—perhaps an hon. Lady—who is prepared to support our approach—but I doubt it.
      4.45 pm
      Miss Jo Richardson: The amendment to which we are speaking deals with a narrow point. I accept that. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, Central (Mr. Grant) for presenting so cogently the difficulties which will face women generally as a result of the maternity and other provisions in the Bill that affect women. He highlighted the general attack on women which is being perpetrated by the Government.
      There may be only 19 women Members of Parliament out of a total of 635 hon. Members and we may be in a minority. However, I remind the House that we are not in a minority in the country. We are a majority in the country because over 50 per cent. of the population are women. I am sick to death of being eternally referred to as being part of a minority group in the country. We are not and while I have no desire that we should take a stand or an attitude as a majority I wish that women were not lumped together in that way.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, Central has already said that women represent over 42 per cent. of the nation's work force. That is true, but it is an unfortunate fact—despite the rights we gained under the Labour Government—that many of those women in the work force are in low-paid or part-time jobs.

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      I had hoped that, if there had been a Labour Government following the general election, we might have taken further steps towards providing better job opportunities and better job training for women. That would have made it easier for women to play their proper role. I am sure that I echo the feelings of my female colleagues in opposition when I say that I am grateful to our Conservative women colleagues who so stoutly opposed the attack on women's rights contained in this Bill during the Committee stage. I confess that I am always a little surprised that, when a Bill affects some aspects of women's rights, a woman Member is seldom put on to the Committee. It seems that when it does happen that it is an accident that a woman is on such a Committee.
      One would have thought that the Committee of Selection would have thought it appropriate—since there was a fair amount of fuss about the maternity rights provisions of the Bill—to have put a woman on the Standing Committee considering it. I am not saying that I wanted to be that woman.
      Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: The Committee of Selection placed women on the Committee considering the legal rights legislation and put a number of women on the Abortion Bill Committee. Those women eventually took themselves off that particular Committee.
      Miss Richardson: I do not follow the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman).
      Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: I was talking about selection for Committees.
      Miss Richardson: Indeed, I understand that. I am not suggesting that there have not been women on Committees considering Bills which affect women. I well remember, going back to 1974–75, and the Sex Discrimination Bill, that a number of women were on the Committee considering that measure. It is remarkable that, when Bills closely affecting women are to go through the House, the Committee of Selection does not always think that it should appoint women Members to serve on them. There was one Bill, the exact title of which I have forgotten, but it concerned nurses and midwives—an area
      1412
      which involves a large number of women workers—and no woman Member served on the Committee. However, I digress from the amendment.
      The maternity provisions and other provisions in this Bill militate against and bear heavily on women not only in the work force, but in general. They severely limit the position and the protection of individual women workers. As we are in a vulnerable position in the work force, both as employees and trade unionists, the provisions in clauses 10 and 11 and in other parts of the Bill—notably schedule 11—are discriminatory.
      I agree that this Government were not brought in on a mandate to force women back into the home. The Bill shows a definite policy trend and intention to do just that. Coupled with other actions of the Government over the past 12 months, including a number of policy speeches by Government Front Bench spokesmen—which have resulted in a number of women being forced back into the home—it begins to come through loud and clear to women that the Government believe that the woman's place is in the home, not in the workplace, whether she is in the workplace for economic reasons—and many women are—or because she wishes to pursue a career and life of her own.
      I do not know whether the Government are aware of the fury not only of the EOC and of other organisations which specifically watch this kind of thing, but of the anger of a large number of women's groups about this attack on their rights. That fury is real.
      The existing provisions regarding maternity pay and the right to return to work are very limited. In 1974–75, when the Employment Protection Bill was on Report—again, I did not serve on the Committee considering that Bill—I remember sitting on the Government side with some of my then hon. Friends—hon. female sisters I shall call them—notably Mrs. Hayman and Mrs. Wise, who, both, regrettably, lost their seats, and the late Mrs. Millie Miller. We tried desperately to get our own Government to make the maternity provisions in the Employment Protection Bill, as it then was, more generous than they were. For example, we tried to get them brought more into line with the maternity provisions which prevailed in European countries.

      1413
      I am sure that the figures that I am about to give are familiar to those who served on the Committee, because they must have been quoted time and again, France grants 16 weeks' leave with 90 per cent. basic wage. Italy has 20 weeks' leave with 80 per cent. basic pay. Neither has any qualifying period. In Hungary, women are entitled to five months' leave on full pay and a further three years with monthly cash allowances, followed by reinstatement wihout loss of seniority or penson rights. The Employment Gazette, from which I got these figures—there are many others—shows that no other EEC country treats small firms differently.
      I see the hon. Member for Lancaster scribbling furiously. As she is an elected member of the European Parliament, we shall be glad to hear what she finds in her sojourns in Europe as regards the rights of women in those countries in this respect compared with the rights that we enjoy here.
      Large numbers of women are excluded from the maternity provisions by the requirements of continuous service for two years with a 16-hour week or between 18 and 16 hours if continuously employed for five years. In 1975, 9 per cent. of women worked fewer than 16 hours a week. I am still talking about what we had before this Bill was introduced.
      The present legislation makes no provision for paternity leave. There is a growing demand—it will be even greater in future—for paternity as well as maternity leave. Some firms already grant paternity leave. I understand that some of the smaller firms, perhaps with a more personal touch, tend to think about paternity as well as maternity rights.
      The general provisions under the Employment Protection Act are quite small. For this Government to make them as mean as they are proposing is rotten. I re-read some of the debates at that time. I remember my own Front Bench—we were then in government—telling us that if in the following five or 10 years matters improved, they hoped that it would be possible to make the provisions more generous. I do not think that any Labour Member ever envisaged, whatever the economic situation, that those small maternity provisions in the Employment Protection Act would be decreased in the way that is now proposed.
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      The amendment relates to the mechanics of taking maternity leave. They are already cumbersome. One has to read carefully the small print regarding the date to make application and so on. It seems that the mechanics will be made more cumbersome and restricted. As I read the Bill, a women has to advise her employer in writing 21 days before she intends to be absent due to pregnancy. If she wants to return to work, she has to inform him three weeks before that she intends to do so. So she has two letters to write. She has to reply within 14 days to a letter written at any time 49 days after the birth asking whether she intends to return to work and then write three weeks before her expected return giving the date of her return and so on.
      I can imagine a woman approaching her confinement, with all the other things that she has to do, trying to remember that, not later than 21 days before her expected absence from work, she has to write a letter to her employer. It may be that she wants to work an extra week. That is why we are trying to make these provisions less tough than they are. Why should the woman be tied so tightly in the way that the Government now intend?
      When the woman has had her baby and has begun to settle down and to think about when and whether she wants to return to work, she has to think about all these various statutory periods within which she has to make application, to write to her employer, and so on. Such provisions underline the obvious fact that no man has gone through the trauma of having a child and the difficulties facing a mother after the birth of her child. I can imagine the difficulty in most households, with notes being pinned up on the kitchen wall reminding the woman not to forget to write to the managing director or personnel manager, or whoever, so many days after this or that, and at the same time coping with nappies, and so on.
      It must also be borne in mind that before and after a birth a woman is often in a tense and emotional state, and she should not have to be put to the trouble at that time of making a decision within such a short time about whether she wishes to return to work.
      5 pm
      Mr. Richard Needham: Does not the hon. Lady also accept that

      1415
      the employer has to make certain arrangements with the temporary staff that he may have taken on during the time the pregnant lady has taken off to have her baby? Is there not some obligation on the employer to make sure that he looks after the temporary staff? An employer in a small company may find it difficult to find temporary staff. Is it not right that he should know when the pregnant lady will return to work—if she returns to work—so that the temporary employee can make appropriate arrangements? There must be a balance.
      Miss Richardson: The hon. Gentleman is making a mountain out of a molehill. The statistics show—obviously the hon. Gentleman has not looked at them—that the take-up of the existing provisions is very low. There has not been any hassle in small firms, as he suggests. Between April and September 1979 55,139 women were eligible to take maternity leave. Only 1·9 per cent. of women who take maternity leave receive maternity pay. Only 3 per cent. return to work. A recent Department of Employment survey showed that of 300 small firms, only 4 per cent. had granted maternity leave, and that none of those firms had found it troublesome. A decent employer who carries out the provisions of the law properly will be able to obtain temporary—I stress temporary—assistance during the time that the pregnant woman is away. Surely we do not have to stick to 49 days before or 21 days after in the tough way that the Government propose.
      There is no justification for treating small firms differently, and for making women's rights dependent on something as arbitrary as the size of the firm. Why a work force of five? Why not a work force of 10, or one? It is purely arbitrary. It creates two classes of women workers—those who work for small firms and those who work for large firms. There is enough discrimination without that. Some women will have maternity rights, and some women will have no maternity rights, depending on the size of the firm in which they are working. No other European country operates in that way.
      The maternity fund was set up to ensure that all employers share equally the cost of a woman's right to take maternity
      1416
      leave and to make sure that the burden does not fall on small employers or firms that employ mainly women. Apart from the additional harassment of women under the provisions of clause 10, the notification procedure will undoubtedly make it more confusing, and administratively difficult and cumbersome for the employer, particularly in a small firm where there are few people doing many jobs. These new provisions, with their tight timetables, will make it more difficult for small firms to obey the law properly. Surely that is the opposite of the Government's intentions.
      I have been reading some of the reports of the debates on maternity provisions during the Report stage of the Employment Protection Act. I noted that the present Secretary of State for Employment showed a good deal of sympathy for treating women equally and without discrimination. I hope that that is his present attitude. I hope that he will not want to be seen to be discriminating against women. He showed a distinct thread of sympathy at that time.
      As my hon. Friend for Islington, Central said, it is a bitter irony that the first woman Prime Minister of this country should be the first Prime Minister to snatch back so quickly and greedily those rights which women have won so hard. I remember a line in the woman's page of The Guardian which has stuck in my mind, and which I have quoted often. It said:
      " Mrs. T. may be a woman, but that does not make her a sister."
      That may be right. She has shown no sympathy for the rest of her sisters.
      I would have expected the right hon. Lady, as a woman Prime Minister—or for that matter, any woman who is Prime Minister—to have paid particular attention to the fact that women are so underprivileged in this country and so much in need of a helping hand to get them to a basis of equality with men. Tory Members do not seem to understand that once we achieve genuine equal opportunity and genuine equality of job opportunities, we shall hear no more about women's rights over men's rights. Only while women are so much the underprivileged half of the community will there be constant uprisings of women's groups demanding their basic rights as

      1417
      human beings and women. Until Governments recognise that, and make considerable strides towards genuine equality, there will always be bitterness and frustration in at least half of the community. I hope that the Secretary of State will reconsider clauses 10 and 11 and show again his thread of sympathy—the small amount of sympathy which I think he showed recently—and not be overridden by the Prime Minister.
      Dr. McDonald: I rise to speak in support of amendments Nos. 76, 77 and 79. My hon. Friends have already referred to their suspicions about the reasons for the reduction in the maternity leave rights for women. Their suspicions are justified. Reference has been made to the speeches by Ministers in which it has been said that a women's place is in the home and that there is a need for the women to return to the home. Perhaps that should be tied up with the Chancellor's prediction to a Select Committee this week that there will be 2 million unemployed in the near future.
      It would be extremely convenient for the Government if women were encouraged to return to the home, since they are aware that many women do not register and claim unemployment benefit, and, therefore, do not appear in the statistics showing the numbers of people unemployed. It would save the Government considerable embarrassment during their period of administration if women could be encouraged to remain at home and not to swell the ranks of the unemployed.
      We know the kind of encouragement to women to return home that is made in the speeches of Conservative Members, and this is strengthened by legislative action of one sort or another. The Bill is an example of this. We can only believe that their actions result from fear and prejudice when we note the lack of evidence in favour of changes of this sort in the maternity leave provisions of the Employment Protection Act passed by the previous Labour Government. Neither the Department of Employment's own survey nor other surveys which have been carried out provide a single shred of evidence to justify these changes in the legislation. When the Department of Employment commissioned the Opinion Research Centre to carry out a survey in
      1418
      reply to the first general question about which pieces of Government legislation impeded the progress of small businesses, only one out of the 300 or so firms questioned referred specifically to the maternity leave provisions of the Employment Protection Act.
      There is no evidence, therefore, for changes of the sort which are embodied in the Bill. We can only, therefore, refer to fear and prejudice as the Government's reasons to justify the changes that they are seeking to introduce.
      We have heard already from my hon. Friends how few women avail themselves of the maternity leave provisions. Between July 1978 and July 1979, out of over 10 million working women, only 11,600 took maternity leave—about three women out of every 1,000. There is other evidence, in the surveys carried out by the Equal Opportunities Commission and by other institutions, suggesting that very small numbers of women take up the maternity leave provisions. I do not think that this is a good thing, and the reasons for it are not hard to find.
      They are to be found in two areas, the first of which is the lack of provision for paternity leave. In passing, I emphasise the need for paternity leave, because the birth of a child into a family should be regarded not simply as the responsibility of the mother; the care of the child is a matter for both parents. It is important for both parents to be closely involved in the birth and in the first few weeks of the child's life. The lack of paternity leave and the lack of child care facilities make it impractical for many women to return to work after the birth of a child, however much they want and need to do so.
      Reference has been made to the fact that working women provide wages which lift large numbers of low-paid families out of poverty. The survey of the DHSS indicates that the wives of low-paid husbands are generally more likely to contribute between 36 per cent. and 60 per cent. to the joint income than are the wives of higher-paid husbands.
      I remind the House that we continually hear from Government spokesmen of the need to provide incentives for people to remain in work. The Government, by the Bill, are putting another obstacle in the way of those who may wish to return to

      1419
      work. They are hitting particularly hard at the low-paid family and forcing that low-paid family to fall back on State benefits in the form of family income supplement and rent and rate rebates. Had the wife been able to return to work after the birth of her child with greater ease and security than the provsions allow, her wages could have lifted the family's income above the need for recourse to the family income supplement or to rent and rate rebates.
      Once again we find that the Government's words about the need to provide incentives for work are a lot of hot air. The Government's aim is, to hit at the most vulnerable in society, in order to protect those whose interests they feel the need to protect, namely, the employers—and particularly, as they claim, the interests of the smaller business man.
      5.15 pm
      As the Government are seeking particularly to protect small firms and to encourage small firms to take on more employees, it would be interesting to know from the Government how many women of child-bearing age are employed in small firms of five or fewer than five people. Can the Minister provide us with the figures? Can he assure us—since, no doubt, these provisions will go through unchanged tonight—that his Department will set up a monitoring unit which will be able to tell us, say, this time next year that the numbers of women of child-bearing age employed by the small firms, as defined in this part of the Bill, have increased, and that therefore the changes have been successful? Or is this merely another piece of prejudice on the part of the Government, with the Government being unwilling to provide the information for which I have asked, or to carry out any monitoring system to find whether their claims about small firms being discouraged, by the maternity leave provisions, from taking on female employees are correct?
      It would be interesting to have some hard information from the Minister on these points. I doubt whether he can provide the numbers for which I have asked, and I doubt whether he will provide us with any assurance that his Department will carry out the kind of monitoring that would serve as some
      1420
      kind of fig-leaf justification for the changes to be introduced by this legislation.
      My hon. Friends have, quite rightly, referred to the legislation as attacking the rights of women. They have expressed their surprise that a Government headed by a woman are determined to attack and to reduce the rights of women, for which some of my hon. Friends fought so hard during the latter stage of the previous Government. Yet ever since the Prime Minister's party came to power, everything that she has said and done has indicated her total lack of concern—indeed, her contempt—for women who have to use these statutory provisions in order to protect their rights.
      I remember that, shortly after the Prime Minister's party was returned on 3 May, during Prime Minister's Question Time in the House she told us with great glee that she had had no need of the work of the Equal Opportunities Commission, and that she had managed to make her own way without the support of any organisation of that kind. Indeed, she turned then on other women who require the protection of the EOC and the protection of legislation of this kind, seeking to override that protection in every possible way.
      The legislation will achieve two things. It will worsen the position of British women as compared with women throughout virtually the whole of the Community. Only West Germany requires, as a qualifying condition for reinstatement, that a woman must advise her employer at least four weeks before maternity leave begins of her intention to continue working. Even there the requirement is only to inform her employer of that intention on one occasion. None of the other member countries of the EEC has any such requirement. Indeed, they provide for return to work, and, in general, the maternity pay is better while the woman is away from work.
      To raise our standards to those in the rest of the Community and to protect women from the activities of this Government we shall have to fall back on the provisions of the EEC directive adopted in 1978. Article 2 states:
      " For the purposes of the following provisions, the principle of equal treatment shall mean that there shall be no discrimination whatsoever on grounds of sex either directly or

      1421
      indirectly by references in particular to marital or family status."
      In the context of rights at work, a woman's right to return to work after maternity leave should perhaps be compared with an illness. To ensure that a woman has those rights in a small firm, as defined in clause 11, and that she is not discriminated against through lack of knowledge of the provisions of clause 10 as they stand, the best that we can do is encourage women, through the Equal Opportunities Commission, to take their case to the European Court of Justice at Luxembourg. As with discrimination against immigrants, women will not be able to look to their Government to protect their rights but will have to appeal beyond that Government to the European Court of Justice. Once a case is judged in their favour in regard to that directive, the judgment will overrule the provisions of the Employment Bill and ensure that women have the required employment protection at law. I am consistently opposed to our membership of the Common Market, and I regret to say that women will have to turn to the European Court for the necessary protection. However, there is no point in looking to this Government for their rights, even though it is headed by a Prime Minister whom at first they might have regarded as a sister.
      Miss Joan Lestor: I have listened to my hon. Friends and to the eloquent silence on the Conservative Benches, and I shall be brief.
      In the progress of reactionary regimes in the past three important points have been highlighted—attacks on ethnic minorities, the trade union movement and women, and women working. I do not suggest that the Government are treading the path of pre-war reactionary Right-wing parties. It is for others to draw their own conclusion. However, they are following a path that is discriminatory in every sense of the word.
      The Government should explain the demand that they say comes from small firms. In my constituency there are probably more small firms, factories and employers than in most others. I have endeavoured to find out whether these small firms are in difficulties because the small number of women of childbearing age whom they employ take advantage of the provisions that are to be eliminated. No one has complained.
      1422
      I believe that what my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Dr. McDonald) says is about the size of it. It is an attempt to discourage women from working. Although the provisions for maternity leave and return to work are isolated, their removal must be seen in the context of the Government's general policies. It is part of a campaign to remove from women the confidence that they have been gaining over the years that they can be the mothers and also work—and many of them have to—and still their children and homes will not suffer. It also gives the Government the opportunity to reduce the unemployment figures by making it more difficult for women to return to work and even actively discouraging them from working.
      The Bill is more about that than protecting the interests of small firms. My hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) has already given us the statistics for women returning to work and taking advantage of the benefits. If there were more women Members of this House, particularly women of child-bearing age, the Government could not get away with this. I am not in any sense anti-man. I almost took exception when my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, Central (Mr. Grant) said that possibly the Minister was so disillusioned with a woman in power that he had become anti-woman. Many of us have seen men in power and it has not made us anti-men, in spite of our views on the way that the Government have conducted our affairs. However, the men in this House who have wives and children and whose wives pursue careers are failing in their duty and being less than honest if they endorse the removal of these provisions.
      Viewed in conjunction with the closure of day nurseries and the failure to expand nursery schools, which have been a basic provision so that women could go out to work, this can be seen as an attack on women's rights. There is no demand from the small employer to abolish the provisions. It is also a further insidious attempt to cloak the unemployment figures, which we know will soar in the next few months.
      Mr. Arthur Davidson: There were no women in the Committee which considered this Bill. We drew

      1423
      attention to the absurd fact that those most affected by the maternity provisions were not able to object. That balance has been more than rectified today by the three excellent speeches of my hon. Friends. I am a man, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor) does not dislike me. It would be wrong for me not to add one or two words. For no good reason the Government are making it more difficult for women to benefit from the maternity leave provisions, which were included, after a long and hard-fought battle, in the previous Employment Protection Act.
      These provisions will add to the bureaucracy and the difficulties that women face when they wish to return to work after taking maternity leave. They face considerable difficulties. Why should a woman have to write three times to her employer? Why should an extra burden be placed on her? This suggestion comes from a Government who are supposed to be against form-filling and bureaucracy.
      5.30 pm
      This tatty and unworthy measure will make matters more difficult for the woman who has a family and who wants to work, or is forced to work, for a small, local firm. The more skilled woman worker, who can work for a larger firm, will have greater rights. She will have, perhaps, the protection of employment legislation introduced by Labour Governments. The woman who has to work for a small firm locally will have fewer rights. Her disadvantages will be twofold. She will find that the Bill, when enacted, will be discriminatory against her. It will mean that the small firm that wants to recruit more skilled labour, especially more skilled female labour, will be unable to do so because women will be unwilling to work for such a firm if there is a possibility of working for a larger firm, even if that means travelling a greater distance.
      For all these reasons I believe that the Government have unworthy motives. They wish to suggest that they are doing something to help small employers when in reality they are not doing so. They are introducing a measure that will add to the disadvantages that women face. The Government should be honest and with-
      1424
      draw the clause. They should acknowledge that it should never have been in the Bill. It is tatty, unworthy and of no value to employers who, according to the Government, will benefit from it.
      Mr. Ron Leighton: It is remarkable that not one Conservative Member has chosen to defend this attack on women's rights. It is especially remarkable that Conservative lady Members who were present have left the Chamber. No doubt they are ashamed of the clause and are not willing to defend it.
      Surely the House should adopt the bipartisan view that we are here to protect the weaker sections of the community. I can think of no more vulnerable section than women having babies. Surely it should be a section that has cross-party support. I find it repugnant that a Parliament composed primarily of middle-class, middle-aged men chooses to reduce the rights of women in childbirth.
      As my hon. Friends have said, it is necessary for a woman in childbirth to write three letters. If her employer writes 49 days after the birth of her child and if she fails to reply within 14 days, she will lose her rights. There will be no equality for women in industry unless they have these rights. Surely six weeks after confinement is far too early for a woman to make such a decision.
      For example, the woman might have had a difficult confinement. If so, she will have other things on her mind. It may be that she is overwhelmed by the new life which has come into the family. Although as men we do not experience childbirth, we experience the wonderful event of the new child coming into the family. It may be that the woman is completely overwhelmed, especially if it is her first child. The new life will take precedence over everything else. In such circumstances, it is surely reasonable to accept that the woman may be uncertain at such an early stage about whether she wants to return to work.
      There are many practical problems. For instance, will she be able to get a child-minder? Will it be possible to make suitable arrangements? It is intolerable to foist such a decision on a woman within six weeks of childbirth. We like to call ourselves honourable men, and I do not think that what I have described is an

      1425
      honourable or gentlemanly thing to do. It is difficult for a woman to make a rational decision within six weeks of childbirth, especially if it is her first child.
      Mr. David Madel: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Leighton: Certainly. The hon. Gentleman is a great expert on these matters.
      Mr. Madel: I am not. The hon. Gentleman is talking about clause 10(2). He is expressing anxiety about the practicality of 49 days. If he reads the bottom line of subsection (2), he will note the provision
      " as soon as reasonably practicable ".
      Therefore, the Government have met the argument that he is advancing. Indeed, it was met by the previous Labour Government when they introduced the original legislation.
      Mr. Leighton: I am referring to the exact number of days. If the hon. Gentleman agrees that the reference to 49 days should be omitted and that the subsection should merely refer to
      " as soon as reasonably practicable ",
      I shall be in agreement. However, the subsection provides for 49 days. That is unnecessary. It is petty, mean, unworthy and a disgrace for a Government led by a woman.
      The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Patrick Mayhew): We have had a debate upon a clause that makes the most modest of adjustments to the rights of women to resume their work after they have had a baby. It has been spoilt by the extravagance of the language that has been used not only by the hon. Member for Islington, Central (Mr. Grant)—rather uncharacteristically—who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, but by the hon. Members for Barking (Miss Richardson), Thurrock (Dr. McDonald) and Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor).
      I remind the House of the nature of the protection that is given to women in these circumstances. If they have met the qualifying period of two years' employment—I take this from the Act introduced by a previous Labour Government—and if they wish to return to their work after they have had a baby, they must give notice not less than three weeks before they commence their absence, and again give
      1426
      notice not less than one week before they wish to return to work, which may be up to 29 weeks after the date of confinement.
      If they meet those conditions and the employer does not take them back into the original job, they will have a claim for compensation for unfair dismissal. That is the structure of the protection given by the current Act. It is against that background that we must consider the effect of clause 10.
      Does the clause take away anything significant? Does it diminish in any significant particular the right of women to return to work? It does not. It merely states that we have to take account of the concerns of the employer and those of the replacement worker, permanent or temporary, when the employer may have taken on to fill the gap left by his female employee when she goes off to have her baby. That is the Government's sole purpose in introducing the clause.
      I wondered whether it was in some spirit of burlesque that Labour Members spoke of a sexist attack upon women and a deliberate attempt to strike at those who are most vulnerable.
      I remind the House of two things, one of which the Government have done and the other of which the Government have taken power to do in the Bill. Those two things are directly relevant to the debate. The Bill introduces a new right for women. [Interruption.] It is one thing for Opposition spokesmen to propose, when they have no ability to dispose. They did nothing about this provision when they were in power. It is another thing for the Government to make proposals. The Government have proposed that women should have time off from work, with pay, for as long as may be reasonable so that they may then go to a pre-natal clinic, where that is medically advised. How can that be said to be consistent with a sexist attack on women at their weakest?
      I invite hon. Ladies on the Labour Benches to address themselves to reality. I admit that it is possible to put up some quite good arguments against the two clauses. However, any speech is disfigured that attacks the clauses—despite the evidence—in such extravagant language. We have already increased the maximum amounts of compensation for unfair dismissal. We have increased not

      1427
      only the component which must be reviewed annually, but the component upon which there is no statutory obligation to do so. They have been increased by about 10 per cent. this year.
      Mr. Harold Walker: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman accept that, although it is true that the limits have been increased, they have not been sufficiently increased to offset the effects of inflation?
      Mr. Mayhew: The previous Labour Government did not make the annual review of compensation awards a statutory requirement. However, they were reviewed last year and again this year. I do not wish to take a long time answering a point which answers itself. However, I do not wish it to be supposed that I am passing over the type of language that has been used in the debate. It is deeply offensive to the Government. That will not worry Opposition Members, but it is offensive to the Government and to those who have regard for the truth. I therefore ask the House to look at the effects of clause 10.
      The present Act requires that the first notice should be given not less than three weeks before the woman begins maternity absence. The Bill makes a profoundly important change and states that that notice must be given in writing. If Opposition Members believe that that represents an attack on a fundamental human right, they have been leading pretty sheltered existences.
      The clause states that the notice, which under present law has to be given not less than a week before the woman intends to come back, must now be given in writing. It must now be given in writing not less than three weeks before she intends to return. Does that represent a desperate attack on women at their weakest? The purpose of the clause is to bridge an enormous gap. A woman may take maternity leave 11 weeks before her confinement and she must give notice three weeks before that absence commences. It is then not until 28 weeks after confinement that confirmation of return is needed.
      We must have regard to the interests of those who are taken on as replacements. We must also consider those who need to plan their businesses, and who need to know how they can fill a post. We are
      1428
      not concerned simply about employers as employers. We have always made clear that we are concerned that we want employers to be able to take on more staff, including more female staff. Where possible, we wish to create more jobs and to encourage the establishment of new businesses.
      5.45 pm
      In our manifesto we said that we would review those parts of the Employment Protection Act that endanger the viability of businesses, particularly small businesses. I remind Opposition Members that a Minister in the previous Labour Government, the present Lord Lever, issued a warning a couple of years ago against allowing the Employment Protection Act to become an employment destruction Act. He gave that warning for just that reason.
      Mr. Leighton: Does not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the poll, officially commissioned by the Department of Employment, showed that out of 300 small firms only 4 per cent. had granted maternity leave and none of them had found it troublesome?
      Mr. Mayhew: That figure, along with many others, appears in the ORC report. We cannot ignore the fact that 20 per cent. of those 300 firms expected to experience difficulty in holding a job open for up to 40 weeks. Although that is not at the head and forefront of the anxieties of small businesses, it cannot be overlooked. We must mitigate those anxieties, as far as is compatible, with the protection that we support.
      Mrs. Jill Knight: Has my hon. and learned Friend also considered the undoubted fact that this regulation has militated against the employment of women? In many cases, particularly in the West Midlands, employers have deliberately avoided bringing such trouble on themselves and have taken on young men instead of young women. My hon. Friends and I do not wish to spoil the employment opportunities that are open to women.
      Mr. Mayhew: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her remarks.
      Mr. Harold Walker: Rubbish.
      Mr. Mayhew: It is nonsense to denounce an opinion as " rubbish ", just

      1429
      because it conflicts with one's own point of view. As the House knows, my hon. Friend is a very conscientious and experienced Member of Parliament. Her remarks accord with a great deal of the opinion that we have received. One does not have to be hanged to hold the opinion that hanging is a disagreeable experience. It is not easy to conduct a survey of those who have not begun new businesses. One cannot go to a " Non Companies House " and look at the statistics.
      Mr. Walker: Opinions have been expressed that have rightly caused anxiety. Those opinions became the subject of careful, independent research. However, there is no evidence to substantiate those opinions. The hon. and learned Gentleman should point out that the Department of Employment commissioned independent research. It produced not a scrap of evidence to support the opinion expressed by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight).
      Mr. Mayhew: I have already mentioned that the ORC report indicates that 20 per cent. of the 301 companies polled considered that difficulties would arise from the obligation to grant up to 40 weeks' absence before reinstatement. This is not at the head and forefront of anxieties that affect small businesses. However, we cannot disregard it.
      Our views have been borne out by the overwhelming support that we have received in our consultations. The measure has not been put forward without consultation. Indeed, I doubt whether any Bill in modern times has been the result of more consultation. There were working papers in July, September and February. If any hon. Member is interested, I shall gladly write to him, giving him an analysis of the response and support that we have had for this proposal.
      The third and last thing that this clause does is to provide that if an employer so wishes, he has not less than seven weeks after the confinement in which to write to the employee and ask for confirmation of her intention to return to work. Then, within a fortnight, the employee must write back and say " Yes " or " No ". If she does not reply, she loses the right to reinstatement.
      1430
      I acknowledge that a helpful suggestion was made by a number of Labour Members during Committee stage, when it was pointed out that there was a danger that that could constitute a trap unless the written request from the employer gave an explanation of what would happen if the employee did not reply—that she would be put on notice that her rights would be lost. We accepted that, and we are putting that matter right in our next amendment. That is all the clause does. It does not remove a woman's right to return to work; it simply gives the employer a more reliable guide as to whether the right to return will be exercised. Unless that kind of assistance is given, it is our firm belief that fewer jobs will be available to women in these circumstances.
      It has been said that while this provision does not actually take us back to the dark ages, it puts us in a position that is far worse than that to be found anywhere else in Europe. That is not true. With the possible exception of West Germany, we have by far the best record for the duration of maternity leave. In most European countries, and certainly within the EEC, female workers are expected to go back to work about the same time after confinement that we confer on an employer the right to send a letter asking whether the right to return will be exercised—about seven weeks. Also, in many European countries, there is a requirement for notification in one form or another—mostly in the form of a certification of confinement or pregnancy. Therefore, it is with some sadness that I note the extravagant language that has been used to condemn what is really a useful and moderate adjustment.
      I was asked what sort of numbers were likely to be affected. If we assume that the proportion of women leaving to have a baby and qualifying for the right to return, which is about 1·33 per cent., is the same in very small firms of five or fewer employees as in the economy as a whole, then about 5,000 women in such firms will be affected each year. These matters are subject to considerable speculation and uncertainty.
      I hope that I have said enough to indicate why these amendments, which interfere in a most marginal way with

      1431
      the provisions of the clause, should be rejected.
      Mr. John Grant: I am sorry to disappoint the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I do not intend to say more on this matter. He talks about the modesty of the changes that the Government propose. He reminds me of the story of the wife who caught her husband in bed with the au pair girl. The wife complained that the husband made it all sound so darned reasonable. That has been the Minister's approach all along. He soft-soaped us all through the Committee, and he did so pretty effectively. He tries to make out that this clause is innocuous. But this is just part of a package, and that is our primary objection. The Minister even tries to persuade us that the clause is good for working women, and that it will create more jobs. That is patently dishonest. He also argued that it was good for employers, and to that extent there is an arguable case.
      Mr. Cyril Smith: The hon. Member has just said that there is an arguable case from the employers' point of view. The more I listen to this Government, the more I am convinced that they know little about running small businesses. If a woman has time off from a small business to have a baby, the employer will not be communicating formally with her by letter. He will be in touch with her every week about income tax rebates and so on. He will want to know how the baby is, and he will probably want to help her during her pregnancy. She will probably pop into work to see her colleagues and tell them about the baby's progress. People running small businesses do not need these formal procedures or the exchange of letters. The Government have got it all wrong.
      Mr. Grant: I agree with the hon. Member, but at least there is a more arguable case for the help given to the employer than that for the help given to working women. Until tonight I thought that there was only one woman—the Prime Minister—who was in favour of this clause. Now we find that there is another. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) intervened briefly to express her approval.
      1432
      But her intervention was based on hearsay and opinion, not hard evidence. Throughout the Standing Committee we received no evidence and no actual facts. I do not know why the hon. Lady did not make a speech and give us some evidence. We do not want to hear any more opinions and hearsay about small employers being adversely affected in this way.
      I agree entirely with my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor). I have had exactly the same experience in my constituency of small firms which have had no complaints at all about the operation of the maternity arrangements. If this clause is good for working women, why is every organisation representing working women against it? I am surprised that the Minister has not conjured up an association of Conservative women trade unionists to support his case. If he did, he would have to hire the proverbial Liberal Party taxi in which they could hold their meeting. The Minister has not provided us with any worthwhile evidence. He said tonight that he would provide an analysis of evidence based on the consultative document. Why did he not do that before? We should have had that sort of analysis during our Standing Committee debates. The Minister knows that there is no detailed evidence.
      Mr. Barry Porter: Perhaps I could give the hon. Member some evidence as an employer of female labour. I agree with the point put forward by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) about the friendliness in small businesses. However, I like to have records, and all the clause does is to require notice in writing. That is very sensible, and it matters only if the employer and the employee fall out. It is not much good if an employee goes to a tribunal and says that when she went into the office to collect a woolly hat for her baby, she said that she hoped to come back.
      6 pm
      Of course, it helps the employer. To assist my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight), certainly it is the case in my practice that we are pretty reluctant to take on girls to be typists or secretaries who are likely to have babies in the near future. It is

      1433
      sad but true. It may be thought that I am terribly cruel, but if I lose one-twelfth of my labour force, which is one secretary, for 40 weeks or more I cannot cover that; I cannot get the experience or the continuing knowledge that a girl acquires. If I do that I suggest that there are thousands of others who do it as well.
      Mr. John Grant: I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but what he has not done is to provide us with any evidence or indeed confirm that he has actually experienced difficulty. That is the point I was trying to make. We have not, in fact, had any evidence of difficulties experienced by employers as a consequence of existing legislation.
      The small employer argument is little more than a con trick. I accept what my hon. Friend said—indeed it is what I said earlier—that this is very much a method of helping to cloak the unemployment figures by trying to keep more working women at home. It is part of a discriminatory approach—part of an approach which we on the Labour Benches deplore and oppose. I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to divide the House at the appropriate moment when we reach amendment No. 79.
      Amendment negatived.
      Mr. Mayhew: I beg to move amendment No. 12, in page 11, line 18, leave out ' and '.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take Government amendment No. 13.
      Mr. Mayhew: This is a matter of drafting. I beg to move formally.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Amendment made: No. 13, in page 11, line 21, leave out ' so informs him ' and insert ' (iii) '.—[Mr. Mayhew.]
      Mr. Mayhew: I beg to move amendment No. 14, in page 11, line 28, leave out ' in writing ' and insert
      ' in accordance with subsection (3B) '.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 78, in page 11, line 33, at end insert
      ' provided that the employer's written request contained a declaration that such entitlement would be lost if the confirmation was not given '
      and Government amendment No. 15.
      Mr. Mayhew: The effect of this amendment, taken with amendment No. 15, is to ensure that when an employer requests an employee, in writing, to confirm her intention to return he must at the same time warn her that she will not be entitled to the right to return unless she replies to his request within the stipulated time limit. I mentioned the thinking behind this a few moments ago, though I was no doubt out of order. It arises out of a point made by the Opposition in Standing Committee. We considered it at some length at that stage. I do not believe that it is necessary for me to say more, though I am prepared to do so, and I hope that the wording and intent of the clause are acceptable to the House.
      Mr. John Grant: Although I would have preferred the wording in our own amendment—No. 78—because I think it spells out the obligation more clearly, the hon. and learned Gentleman has responded, as he says, to our representations in Committee, and we are content with what he is proposing.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Amendment made: No. 15, in page 11, line 33, at end insert—
      ' (3B) A request under subsection (3A) shall be made in writing and shall be accompanied by a written statement of the effect of that subsection.'.—[Mr. Mayhew.]
      Amendment proposed: No. 79, in page 11, line 40, leave out ' twenty-one ' and insert ' fourteen '.—[Mr. John Grant.]
      Question put, that the amendment be made:—
      The House divided: Ayes 257, Noes 309.

      Division No. 272]

      AYES

      [6.05 pm

      Abse, Leo

      Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)

      Booth, Rt Hon Albert

      Adams, Allen

      Bagier, Gordon A. T.

      Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)

      Allaun, Frank

      Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

      Bradley, Tom

      Anderson, Donald

      Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Archer, Rt Hon Peter

      Beith, A. J.

      Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

      Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest

      Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

      Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

      Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

      Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

      Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

      Ashton, Joe

      Bidwell, Sydney

      Buchan, Norman

      Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

      Healey, Rt Hon Denis

      Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

      Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Prescott, John

      Campbell, Ian

      Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

      Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

      Campbell-Savours, Dale

      Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

      Race, Reg

      Canavan, Dennis

      Home Robertson, John

      Radice, Giles

      Cant, R. B.

      Homewood, William

      Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

      Carmichael, Neil

      Hooley, Frank

      Richardson, Jo

      Carter-Jones, Lewis

      Horam, John

      Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

      Cartwright, John

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

      Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

      Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

      Howells, Geraint

      Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)

      Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

      Huckfield, Les

      Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

      Cohen, Stanley

      Hudson Davies, Gwilym Ednyfed

      Robertson, George

      Coleman, Donald

      Hughes, Mark (Durham)

      Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

      Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

      Rodgers, Rt Hon William

      Conlan, Bernard

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Rooker, J. W.

      Cook, Robin F.

      Janner, Hon Greville

      Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

      Cowans, Harry

      Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

      Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

      Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)

      John, Brynmor

      Rowlands, Ted

      Crowther, J. S.

      Johnson, James (Hull West)

      Ryman, John

      Cryer, Bob

      Johnson, Walter (Derby South)

      Sandelson, Neville

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

      Sever, John

      Cunningham, George (Islington S)

      Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rhondda)

      Sheerman, Barry

      Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

      Jones, Barry (East Flint)

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

      Dalyell, Tam

      Jones, Dan (Burnley)

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)

      Davidson, Arthur

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Short, Mrs Renée

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Kerr, Russell

      Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

      Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

      Kilroy-Silk, Robert

      Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

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

      Kinnock, Neil

      Silverman, Julius

      Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

      Lamborn, Harry

      Skinner, Dennis

      Dempsey, James

      Lamond, James

      Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

      Dewar, Donald

      Leighton, Ronald

      Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)

      Dixon, Donald

      Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

      Snape, Peter

      Dobson, Frank

      Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)

      Soley, Clive

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Spearing, Nigel

      Dubs, Alfred

      Litherland, Robert

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Lofthouse, Geoffrey

      Stallard, A. W.

      Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

      Lyon, Alexander (York)

      Steel, Rt Hon David

      Dunnett, Jack

      Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)

      Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)

      Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

      McCartney, Hugh

      Stoddart, David

      Eadie, Alex

      McDonald, Dr Oonagh

      Stott, Roger

      Eastham, Ken

      McElhone, Frank

      Strang, Gavin

      Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

      McGuire, Michael (Ince)

      Straw, Jack

      Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)

      McKay, Allen (Penistone)

      Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

      Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

      McKelvey, William

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

      English, Michael

      MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

      Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

      Ennals, Rt Hon David

      McNally, Thomas

      Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

      Evans, loan (Aberdare)

      McWilliam, John

      Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

      Evans, John (Newton)

      Marks, Kenneth

      Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)

      Ewing, Harry

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

      Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

      Faulds, Andrew

      Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

      Tilley, John

      Field, Frank

      Martin, Michael (Gl'gow, Springb'rn)

      Torney, Tom

      Fitch, Alan

      Mason, Rt Hon Roy

      Urwin, Rt Hon Tom

      Flannery, Martin

      Maxton, John

      Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

      Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

      Maynard, Miss Joan

      Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

      Foot, Rt Hon Michael

      Meacher, Michael

      Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

      Ford, Ben

      Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

      Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

      Forrester, John

      Mikardo, Ian

      Watkins, David

      Foster, Derek

      Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

      Weetch, Ken

      Foulkes, George

      Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

      Wellbeloved, James

      Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

      Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

      Welsh, Michael

      Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

      Molyneux, James

      White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

      Freud, Clement

      Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      White, James (Glasgow, Pollock)

      Garrett, John (Norwich S)

      Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

      Whitehead, Phillip

      Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

      Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

      Wigley, Dafydd

      George, Bruce

      Morton, George

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

      Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

      Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

      Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)

      Ginsburg, David

      Newens, Stanley

      Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

      Golding, John

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)

      Gourlay, Harry

      Ogden, Eric

      Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

      Graham, Ted

      O'Halloran, Michael

      Winnick, David

      Grant, George (Morpeth)

      O'Neill, Martin

      Woodall, Alec

      Grant, John (Islington C)

      Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

      Woolmer, Kenneth

      Grimond, Rt Hon J.

      Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

      Wrigglesworth, Ian

      Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

      Palmer, Arthur

      Wright, Sheila

      Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

      Parker, John

      Young, David (Bolton East)

      Hardy, Peter

      Parry, Robert

      Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

      Pavitt, Laurie

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

      Penhallgon, David

      Mr. James Tinn and

      Haynes, Frank

      Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

      Mr. Waiter Harrison.

      NOES

      Adley, Robert

      Ancram, Michael

      Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Arnold, Tom

      Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone;

      Alexander, Richard

      Aspinwall, Jack

      Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

      Amery, Rt Hon Julian

      Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

      Banks, Robert

      1436

      1437

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

      Mawhinney, Dr Brian

      Bell, Sir Ronald

      Gardiner, George (Reigate)

      Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

      Bendall, Vivian

      Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)

      Mayhew, Patrick

      Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)

      Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

      Mellor, David

      Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

      Glyn, Dr Alan

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Best, Keith

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

      Bevan, David Gilroy

      Gorst, John

      Mills, lain (Meriden)

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Gow, Ian

      Miscampbell, Norman

      Biggs-Davison, John

      Gower, Sir Raymond

      Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

      Blackburn, John

      Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

      Moate, Roger

      Body, Richard

      Gray, Hamish

      Monro, Hector

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Greenway, Harry

      Montgomery, Fergus

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Grieve, Percy

      Moore, John

      Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

      Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)

      Morgan, Geraint

      Bowden, Andrew

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

      Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

      Boyson, Dr Rhodes

      Grist, Ian

      Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

      Braine, Sir Bernard

      Grylls, Michael

      Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

      Bright, Graham

      Gummer, John Selwyn

      Mudd, David

      Brinton, Tim

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

      Murphy, Christopher

      Brittan, Leon

      Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

      Myles, David

      Brooke, Hon Peter

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Neale, Gerrard

      Brotherton, Michael

      Hannam, John

      Needham, Richard

      Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Nelson, Anthony

      Browne, John (Winchester)

      Hastings, Stephen

      Neubert, Michael

      Bruce-Gardyne, John

      Hawksley, Warren

      Newton, Tony

      Bryan, Sir Paul

      Hayhoe, Barney

      Normanton, Tom

      Buchanan-Smith, Hon Alick

      Heddle, John

      Nott, Rt Hon John

      Buck, Antony

      Henderson, Barry

      Onslow, Cranley

      Budgen, Nick

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

      Bulmer, Esmond

      Hicks, Robert

      Osborn, John

      Burden, F. A.

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Page, John (Harrow, West)

      Butcher, John

      Hill, James

      Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)

      Butler, Hon Adam

      Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

      Parris, Matthew

      Cadbury, Jocelyn

      Holland, Philip (Carlton)

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Carlisle, John (Luton West)

      Hooson, Tom

      Patten, John (Oxford)

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Hordern, Peter

      Pattie, Geoffrey

      Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

      Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Pawsey, James

      Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

      Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

      Percival, Sir Ian

      Channon, Paul

      Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

      Peyton, Rt Hon John

      Chapman, Sydney

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Pink, Rt Bonner

      Churchill, W. S.

      Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

      Pollock, Alexander

      Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Hurd Hon Douglas

      Porter, George

      Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

      Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

      Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

      Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

      Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

      Price, David (Eastleigh)

      Clegg, Sir Walter

      Jessel, Toby

      Prior, Rt Hon James

      Cockeram, Eric

      Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

      Proctor, K. Harvey

      Colvin, Michael

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Pym, Rt Hon Francis

      Cope, John

      Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

      Raison, Timothy

      Cormack, Patrick

      Kaberry, Sir Donald

      Rathbone, Tim

      Corrie, John

      Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

      Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

      Costain, A. P.

      Kimball, Marcus

      Rees-Davies, W. R.

      Cranborne, Viscount

      King, Rt Hon Tom

      Renton, Tim

      Critchley, Julian

      Kilson, Sir Timothy

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Crouch, David

      Knight, Mrs Jill

      Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

      Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

      Knox, David

      Ridsdale, Julian

      Dickens, Geoffrey

      Lamont, Norman

      Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Lang, Ian

      Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

      Dover, Denshore

      Latham, Michael

      Rossi, Hugh

      du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Rost, Peter

      Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

      Lawson, Nigel

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Durant, Tony

      Lee, John

      St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

      Dykes, Hugh

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      Scott, Nicholas

      Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

      Lester, Jim (Beeston)

      Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

      Edwards, Rt Hon N. (Pembroke)

      Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

      Shelton, William (Streatham)

      Eggar, Timothy

      Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Elliott, Sir William

      Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'bills)

      Emery, Peter

      Loveridge, John

      Shersby, Michael

      Eyre, Reginald

      McCrindle, Robert

      Silvester, Fred

      Fairbairn, Nicholas

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Sims, Roger

      Fairgrieve, Russell

      MacGregor, John

      Skeet, T. H. H.

      Faith, Mrs Sheila

      MacKay, John (Argyll)

      Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

      Farr, John

      Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

      Speed, Keith

      Fell, Anthony

      McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

      Speller, Tony

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

      Spence, John

      Finsberg, Geoffrey

      McQuarrie, Albert

      Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

      Fisher, Sir Nigel

      Madel, David

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

      Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

      Major, John

      Sproat, lain

      Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

      Marland, Paul

      Squire, Robin

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Marlow, Tony

      Stainton, Keith

      Forman, Nigel

      Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Marten, Nell (Banbury)

      Stanley, John

      Fox, Marcus

      Mates, Michael

      Steen, Anthony

      Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

      Mather, Carol

      Stevens, Martin

      Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

      Maude, Rt Hon Angus

      Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

      Fry, Peter

      Mawby, Ray

      Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

      1438

      1439

      Stradling Thomas, J.

      Vaughan, Dr Gerard

      Wheeler, John

      Tapsell, Peter

      Viggers, Peter

      Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

      Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)

      Waddington, David

      Whitney, Raymond

      Taylor, Teddy (Southend East)

      Wakeham, John

      Wickenden, Keith

      Tebbit, Norman

      Waldegrave, Hon William

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Walker, Rt Hon Peter (Worcester)

      Wilkinson, John

      Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

      Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

      Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

      Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

      Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Thompson, Donald

      Wall, Patrick

      Wolfson, Mark

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Waller, Gary

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Walters, Dennis

      Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)

      Ward, John

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      Trippier, David

      Watson, John

      Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and

      Trotter, Neville

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

      Mr. Anthony Berry.

      van Straubenzee, W. R.

      Question accordingly negatived.

    Clause 11

      RIGHT TO RETURN
      Mr. John Grant: I beg to move amendment No. 83, in page 12, line 8 leave out ' five ' and insert ' three '.
      The essence of clause 11, although by no means its only objectionable aspect, is the creation of a two-tier system. In dealing with this matter in Committee, I went into considerable detail about the great weight of evidence against the Government's case. I do not want to repeat that this evening. However, I ought to mention some of the bodies which have criticised the Government in respect of this clause, because they are many and varied. They include the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Royal College of Nursing, the National Council for Civil Liberties, the Low Pay Unit, the Conservative trade unionists, the Equal Pay and Opportunities Campaign and the Institute of Personnel Management.
      Perhaps I can refer to what the latter body said, because the Institute took the view:
      " It is potentially the most damaging of all the proposed amendments to existing maternity rights and deserves the strongest opposition ".
      Of course, the Department of Employment had the benefit of the results of the Opinion Research Centre survey, which has already been referred to in our debates. I think the findings indicated that there should be no change. The evidence from various employers' associations on the effects of employment legislation produced precisely nothing to indicate that the maternity provisions were damaging to recruitment, employment or to the conduct of their businesses.
      The Association of Independent Businesses, the Forum of Independent
      1440
      Businesses, the National Federation of Self-Employed and Small Businesses all carried out surveys of one kind or another, or submitted documents of one kind or another, which had no real criticism based on actual evidence of the harmful effect of the maternity provisions. Of course, a survey by the Small Businesses Bureau supported the Government's view, but I think that even the hon. and learned Gentleman accepts that that asked somewhat leading questions. Of course, we know that that is an organisation which is closely linked to Conservative Central Office.
      Therefore, there has been no independent view that these provisions should be changed in the way in which the Government propose. There has been no worthwhile evidence at all to support the exemption of small firms or the other changes which are envisaged. Far from encouraging employers to take on more women, as the Equal Opportunities Commission has pointed out, I think that women of childbearing age may be much more reluctant to work for small firms. Thus, the employers' range of potential employees will be reduced.
      Quite apart from the two-tier aspect, this clause is riddled with a number of unsatisfactory phrases, and they are important phrases. There are the terms " suitable " alternative employment, " not substantially less favourable " and " not reasonably practicable ", all of which would cause problems of interpretation for industrial tribunals making judgments and would very probably lead to inconsistencies in their decisions. Indeed, I think it would be very difficult for tribunals to reach consistent decisions on the basis of the legislation as it will stand if the Bill goes through unamended.
      The Equal Opportunities Commission said this of the Bill:
      " The changes in maternity rights put forward in the Bill erode the principle that the

      1441
      maternity rights package was intended to protect women from disadvantage in employment when they took time off to bear children. This principle has been breached by allowing employers to offer women returning to work jobs which could be less favourable than their original jobs."
      The Equal Opportunities Commission is very clear about its attitude to these clauses of the Bill, and of course it does include employer representatives as well as trade union representatives, which ought to be borne in mind by the House.
      In Committee I referred to a special survey of small businesses carried out by the Conservative-controlled Greater London Council, and subsequently my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) referred to an updated version of that survey when we pursued our debates on this on the Floor of the House. Again, there was no evidence at all in that survey that any of the small firms were really bothered at all about maternity rights.
      I have said that the two-tier argument is the essence of this clause, and of course it is. The Government's consultative document conceded that a two-tier system was undesirable—that is what it actually said—yet this clause creates this special category of firms with five or fewer employees which have this special exemption. The employer has only to show that it was " not reasonably practicable " to offer the same job back or to offer one " not substantially less favourable ".
      We on the Opposition side of the House want the whole clause to go but, recognising that there is scant chance of the Government budging in that respect, we are trying by amendment No. 83 to minimise the damage as much as possible.
      As the Government have moved since the publication of the consultative document from the figure of 20 or fewer down to the current figure of five or fewer employees, we are now seeking to reduce the figure still further, to three. I accept at once that that is an arbitrary figure, but so is the Government's figure. They have never at any stage, so far as I am aware, sought to justify the figure of five, and the reason is, of course, that they know full well that no such distinction should be drawn at all.
      I have referred to the small firms exemption, but the rest of the clause is
      1442
      equally objectionable, and it all hangs together. In particular, there is the part about reinstatement, which talks about the offer of " suitable " and " appropriate " alternative work. The conditions here are very loose and ill-defined, and I think they will worry any woman leaving work to have a baby and hoping to go back to her job. They would create very considerable insecurity. At least if our amendment were accepted fewer women would be disadvantaged in that way.
      There is also the word " substantially ", which, again, will offer opportunities for endless wrangling between the employer and the employee, and ultimately cause difficulties for the tribunals. The Government keep telling us that they do not want to create uncertainty, yet in this Bill they have gone on creating more and more uncertainty, clause by clause. They are hiding behind the tribunals and saying " Leave it to them ". The hon. and learned Gentleman made that his theme for much of the Committee stage of the Bill. " Leave it to the tribunals, which are experienced in these matters," he said. In practice what the Government are doing—albeit the experience of the tribunals is considerable and we have great faith in them—is making the tribunals' job very much more difficult.
      We do not know what all this would mean in terms of job opportunities. Again, the hon. and learned Gentleman has come back to that tonight and given it as the reason for the changes. But there has been no real research on that and no attempt, as far as I am aware, to estimate the effects on job opportunities. I would have expected there to be some such research if the Government were seriously trying to make out a case instead of just groping along. Nor, until tonight, have we had any estimate from the Government of how many women would be adversely affected. I am a little surprised by the figure of 5,000 which the hon. and learned Gentleman gave, although perhaps we are not making quite the same comparisons. I did remind the Standing Committee that when the present Government, then in opposition, were proposing to exclude from the requirements of the Employment Protection Act 1975 employers with fewer than four employees the Department of Employment advised Ministers—and I am indebted for this information to my right

      1443
      hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker)—as follows:
      " The right is an individual one and it would be wrong to deprive an employee of these rights just because she happens to work for someone who has very few employees. To apply such an exclusion could deprive a large number of women, perhaps as many as half a million, of those rights."
      That was the advice which the Department of Employment gave to Ministers in the previous Government.
      That figure of half a million was based on the exclusion figure being four, so I would have thought it must now be more because the figure the Government have picked on is five. We know also that both the percentage of women at work in terms of the total work force and the actual number of women at work have increased, and I would have thought it would not be unreasonable to talk about three quarters of a million women at least being adversely affected—or potentially so; perhaps that is the difference between the figure the hon. and learned Gentleman gave and what I am trying to establish, which is the number of women potentially adversely affected as a consequence of these two clauses of the Bill.
      I wonder what advice the Minister has had from his officials this time, whether officials have changed their tune and, if so, why. It seems rather unlikely. I would have thought it much more likely that the advice the officials have given has been disregarded. I would not pretend that an employer will never experience difficulty when an employee takes maternity leave. It would be silly to suggest that. But the Government have, as always in this Bill, chosen an arbitrary figure. I think it is fair to ask whether an employer with five workers who has one absentee on maternity leave will be more disadvantaged than an employer with 10 employees who has two of them on maternity leave, which is a quite possible situation. So it is an arbitrary figure, and the fact is that employers have overcome these difficulties, in so far as they are difficulties, in the past and can continue to do so. But I think they are minimal difficulties and have been unfairly and indeed grossly exaggerated by the Government in trying to make their case. They should not be going along this road of a two-tier system at all. We are talking
      1444
      here about individual rights and they really cannot be denied simply to suit the convenience of a particular employer at a particular time.
      In Committee the Under-Secretary claimed, in connection with this clause:
      " wide support for what we propose in the Bill". [Official Report, Standing Committee A, 13 March, 1980; c. 1234.]
      He gave a very full response to the debate, which I read very carefully subsequently in the Official Report and in that response he did not offer a jot or tittle of evidence for that particular phrase claiming support. I think that if ever the Government have scraped the barrel to justify legislative change they have certainly done so on clause 11.
      I have spoken of a two-tier system but I think we can really talk about three tiers. First, there are women with reinstatement rights who will be aware of those rights and will use them whether or not they intend to return to work. They will use the situation to safeguard their position, and this will create uncertainty, not least for the employer. Secondly, there will be those who simply will not understand the complication and they will be deprived of their rights for that reason, so that effectively they will lose them by default. Thirdly, there will be those in the small firms who will effectively again be without rights at all. I must say this is very strange behaviour for a party which proclaims itself so often as being in favour of the individual. That claim is exposed as being phoney and a sham.
      6.30 pm
      It is not maternity rights or any other provisions in the Employment Protection Act that are hitting job opportunities or small businesses; it is the policies of the Government and high interest rates. We have seen today the latest CBI survey on industrial confidence. Those, and all the other problems reflected in plummeting business confidence, and the forecasts of startlingly high unemployment, which are made with increasing regularity, are hitting firms, not least small firms, hardest.
      The Government are not fussy about the scapegoats they pick. In the Bill it is not just the unions, but, far more important, individual working people. In this clause, the Government have picked

      1445
      on working women. In view of that, it is not unreasonable to suggest that Conservative Members are a hollow and hypocritical bunch and I do not know how they can call themselves freedom fighters.
      Mr. Leighton: I find it obnoxious that the Government should legislate for inequality before the law and to create two classes of citizens, one group with one set of rights and another with fewer rights.
      The Under-Secretary said that no previous piece of legislation had been canvassed more widely or had been the subject of wider consultations, but my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, Central (Mr. Grant) has given us a long list of organisations, including Conservative trade unionists, who oppose the clause.
      I wish to return to the survey, conducted by the Department of Employment, of 301 firms employing fewer than 50 employees. Two-thirds of the sample employed 10 or fewer workers. Only 4 per cent. of that sample had experience of holding a job open for a pregnant woman for 40 weeks and only 2 per cent. had given maternity pay. It is clear that only a miniscule proportion of women claim these rights. No firm had found any difficulties.
      The Under-Secretary relied on the fact that 20 per cent. of the firms in the survey thought that holding a job open for 40 weeks could prove troublesome for the future. The hon. and learned Gentleman rested his whole case on that. But surely that finding is based on speculation and not on experience. Not one of the firms with experience of this matter believed that it caused any problem.
      Another fact shown by the survey was that only 11 per cent. of those polled knew that there were any maternity provisions. Only when prompted and asked whether holding open a job for 40 weeks might cause problems did they reply " Yes, perhaps it could." That is not really convincing evidence. There is no evidence from small businesses that the maternity provisions are worrying them. What concerns those businesses are interest rates, VAT, lack of orders and so on. They are not concerned about the maternity provisions. It is unworthy for the Government to legislate on such slim evidence.
      Mr. Mayhew: Under the present law, a woman who qualifies for the right to return must be given her original job back unless it has disappeared for reasons of redundancy. If she is not given her original job back, she may put in a claim for unfair dismissal.
      The clause is intended to tackle the difficulties that employers face in holding open the woman's original job for up to 40 weeks, and the problems that they face on her return. Of course, many employers cope with the problem by taking on temporary replacements who can be readily dismissed on the woman's return, because they will not have served long enough to qualify for unfair dismissal compensation.
      As I said in our previous debate, we have to spare some thought for the women who can be dismissed with little warning, no matter how good a job they may be doing. Although the employer is likely to be merely uncertain about the woman's return, much more turns on the matter for her replacement. The main point of the clause is to cater for those situations in which it is not possible to recruit a temporary replacement and when permanent employment has to be offered to the person covering the absentee's job. At present an employer has to choose between facing an unfair dismissal claim from the woman on maternity leave or breaking the undertaking that he has made to her replacement.
      The clause sets out to do two things. As for the reference to suitable alternative employment, any employer who finds it not reasonably practicable to take the woman back in her original job can offer an alternative, provided it is suitable.
      The hon. Member for Islington, Central (Mr. Grant) expressed anxiety about the wording, but the formula in the clause is taken from the previous Government's 1978 Act, which replaced a provision in the 1975 Act concerning the right to return to work in the case of redundancy. Section 45(4) of the 1978 Act sets out the description of the alternative job that has to be found. I am advised that it has not caused difficulties to tribunals and we believe that it is important that the same formula should be applied in the Bill.
      The formula will give employers who have alternative jobs to offer much more flexibility in making their arrangements

      1447
      and, at the same time, keep the employees' links with their old jobs. I emphasise that an employer can take advantage of that flexibility only if he or an associated employer has suitable alternative work to offer.
      I turn to the limited exception for very small firms, with which the amendment is concerned. There is only one exception to the general rule. If a firm with five or fewer employees cannot keep open the original job and has no suitable alternative to offer, either in that firm or with an associated employer, it may be exempted altogether from the obligation to reinstate the woman. However, if that is to apply the employer will have to be able to show, first, that it was not reasonably practicable to offer the woman her original job and, secondly, that it was not reasonably practicable to offer a suitable alternative.
      It is only right that the small firm that is genuinely in that position should be relieved of the burden of the reinstatement provision. Those who say that our proposal is damaging to the interests of women employees must surely ask themselves what the position would be for a small firm. Its choice would be either to pay perhaps substantial compensation for unfair dismissal, which it might be unable to afford, or to take the woman back in her original job when that was not reasonably practicable.
      When dealing with a firm employing only five or fewer employees, which will therefore probably be among the most fragile of firms, compelling it by law to do something that is not reasonably practicable and that would have a significant effect on its operations would create great danger to the future viability of the firm and the viability of the jobs of those whom it employs.
      I will not raise again the question whether the Government are justified in
      heeding what has been said to them and, in forming their judgment, the question whether, by making the adjustment for very small firms, they will be encouraging the creation and maintenance of jobs in those firms and the creation of new firms. The arguments on that aspect of the clause are the same as the arguments put forward on the previous clause. I heard what the hon. Member for Islington, Central said and he heard what I said. I suspect that neither of us will convince the other by repeating what has been said.
      We believe that our proposal will stimulate employment. The figures that I was asked for are based on an assessment of the number of employers with five or fewer employees. About 1 million people are employed in small firms. About 40 per cent. of them—about 400,000—are women. The 1·33 per cent. figure that I gave in the last debate amounts to 5,000. The 500,000 referred to by the hon. Member for Islington, Central is derived from the same assessment that produces the 400,000 figure that I have just given. The 1·33 per cent leads to the 5,000 figure.
      Of course, we wish to avoid two classes of employee. As a result of heeding what was pressed upon us strongly, we reduced the application of the special exemption from firms employing 20 people to firms employing five. I agree that five is an arbitrary number. However, it is the number adopted by the last Government in their application of the Sex Discrimination Act. We feel that it is sensible. We stand by that judgment. We believe that three would confine the special exemption too closely. For those reasons, I advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to resist the amendment.
      Question put, That the amendment be made:—
      The House divided: Ayes 255, Noes 297.

      Division No. 273]

      AYES

      [6.40 pm

      Abse, Leo

      Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

      Buchan, Norman

      Adams, Allen

      Beith, A. J.

      Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

      Allaun, Frank

      Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

      Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

      Anderson, Donald

      Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

      Campbell, Ian

      Archer, Rt Hon Peter

      Bidwell, Sydney

      Campbell-Savours, Dale

      Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest

      Booth, Rt Hon Albert

      Canavan, Dennis

      Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

      Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)

      Cant, R. B.

      Ashton, Joe

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Carter-Jones, Lewis

      Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)

      Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

      Cartwright, John

      Bagier, Gordon A. T.

      Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

      Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

      Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

      Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

      Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

      Cohen, Stanley

      Hooley, Frank

      Race, Reg

      Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

      Horam, John

      Radice, Giles

      Conlan, Bernard

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

      Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

      Cook, Robin F.

      Howells, Geraint

      Richardson, Jo

      Cowans, Harry

      Huckfield, Les

      Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

      Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)

      Hudson, Davies, Gwilym Ednyfed

      Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

      Crowther, J. S.

      Hughes, Mark (Durham)

      Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)

      Cryer, Bob

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

      Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Robertson, George

      Cunningham, George (Islington S)

      Janner, Hon Greville

      Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

      Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

      Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

      Rodgers, Rt Hon William

      Dalyell, Tam

      John, Brynmor

      Rooker, J. W.

      Davidson, Arthur

      Johnson, James (Hull West)

      Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Johnson, Walter (Derby South)

      Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

      Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

      Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

      Rowlands, Ted

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

      Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rhondda)

      Ryman, John

      Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

      Jones, Barry (East Flint)

      Sandelson, Neville

      Dempsey, James

      Jones, Dan (Burnley)

      Sever, John

      Dewar, Donald

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Sheerman, Barry

      Dixon, Donald

      Kerr, Russell

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

      Dobson, Frank

      Kilroy-Silk, Robert

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)

      Dormand, Jack

      Kinnock, Neil

      Short, Mrs Renée

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Lamborn, Harry

      Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

      Dubs, Alfred

      Lamond, James

      Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Leighton, Ronald

      Silverman Julius

      Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

      Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

      Skinner, Dennis

      Dunnett, Jack

      Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)

      Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

      Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)

      Eadie, Alex

      Litherland, Robert

      Snape peter

      Eastham, Ken

      Lofthouse, Geoffrey

      Soley, Clive

      Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

      Lyon, Alexander (York)

      Spearing, Nigel

      Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)

      Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

      Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson

      Stallard, A. W.

      English, Michael

      McCartney, Hugh

      Steel, Rt Hon David

      Ennals, Rt Hon David

      McDonald, Dr Oonagh

      Stoddart, David

      Evans, loan (Aberdare)

      McElhone, Frank

      Stott, Roger

      Evans, John (Newton)

      McGuire, Michael (Ince)

      Strang, Gavin

      Ewing, Harry

      McKay, Allen (Penistone)

      Straw, Jack

      Faulds, Andrew

      McKelvey, William

      Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

      Field, Frank

      MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

      Fitch, Alan

      McNally, Thomas

      Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

      Flannery, Martin

      McWilliam, John

      Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

      Fletcher, L. R. (llkeston)

      Marks, Kenneth

      Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

      Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

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

      Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)

      Foot, Rt Hon Michael

      Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

      Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

      Ford, Ben

      Martin, Michael (Gl'gow, Springb'rn)

      Tilley, John

      Forrester, John

      Mason, Rt Hon Roy

      Torney, Tom

      Foster, Derek

      Maxton, John

      Urwin, Rt Hon Tom

      Foulkes, George

      Maynard, Miss Joan

      Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

      Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

      Meacher, Michael

      Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

      Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

      Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

      Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

      Freud, Clement

      Mikardo, Ian

      Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

      Garrett, John (Norwich S)

      Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

      Watkins, David

      Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

      Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

      Weetch, Ken

      George, Bruce

      Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

      Wellbeloved, James

      Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

      Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Welsh, Michael

      Ginsburg, David

      Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

      White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

      Gourlay, Harry

      Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

      White, James (Glasgow, Pollack)

      Graham, Ted

      Morton, George

      Whitlock, William

      Grant, George (Morpeth)

      Movie, Rt Hon Roland

      Wigley, Dafydd

      Grant, John (Islington C)

      Newens, Stanley

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

      Grimond, Rt Hon J.

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)

      Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

      Ogden, Eric

      Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

      Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

      O'Halloran, Michael

      Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)

      Hardy, Peter

      O'Neill, Martin

      Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

      Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

      Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

      Winnick David

      Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

      Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

      Woodall, Alec

      Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

      Palmer, Arthur

      Woolmer, Kenneth

      Haynes, Frank

      Parker, John

      Wrigglesworth, Ian

      Healey, Rt Hon Denis

      Parry, Robert

      Wright, Sheila

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Pavitt, Laurie

      Young, David (Bolton East)

      Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

      Penhaligon, David

      Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

      Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Home Robertson, John

      Prescott, John

      Mr. James Tinn and

      Homewood, William

      Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

      Mr. Donald Coleman.

      NOES

      Adley, Robert

      Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

      Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

      Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)

      Alexander, Richard

      Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

      Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

      Amery, Rt Hon Julian

      Banks, Robert

      Best, Keith

      Ancram, Michael

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Bevan, David Gilroy

      Arnold, Tom

      Bell, Sir Ronald

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Aspinwall, Jack

      Bendall, Vivian

      Biggs-Davison, John

      1450

      1451

      Blackburn, John

      Grieve, Percy

      Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

      Body, Richard

      Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)

      Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

      Mudd, David

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Grist, Ian

      Murphy, Christopher

      Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

      Grylls, Michael

      Myles, David

      Bowden, Andrew

      Gummer, John Selwyn

      Neale, Gerrard

      Boyson, Dr Rhodes

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

      Needham, Richard

      Braine, Sir Bernard

      Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

      Nelson, Anthony

      Bright, Graham

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Neubert, Michael

      Brinton, Tim

      Hannam, John

      Newton, Tony

      Brittan, Leon

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Normanton, Tom

      Brooke, Hon Peter

      Hawksley, Warren

      Nott, Rt Hon John

      Brotherton, Michael

      Hayhoe, Barney

      Onslow, Cranley

      Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

      Heddle, John

      Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

      Browne, John (Winchester)

      Henderson, Barry

      Osborn, John

      Bruce-Gardyne, John

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Page, John (Harrow, West)

      Bryan, Sir Paul

      Hicks, Robert

      Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)

      Buchanan-Smith, Hon Alick

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Parris, Matthew

      Buck, Antony

      Hill, James

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Budgen, Nick

      Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

      Patten, John (Oxford)

      Bulmer, Esmond

      Holland, Philip (Carlton)

      Pattie, Geoffrey

      Burden, F. A.

      Hooson, Tom

      Pink, Rt Bonner

      Butcher, John

      Hordern, Peter

      Pollock, Alexander

      Butler, Hon Adam

      Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

      Porter, George

      Cadbury, Jocelyn

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

      Carlisle, John (Luton West)

      Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

      Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Hurd, Hon Douglas

      Price, David (Eastleigh)

      Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

      Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

      Prior, Rt Hon James

      Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

      Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

      Proctor, K. Harvey

      Channon, Paul

      Jessel, Toby

      Pym, Rt Hon Francis

      Chapman, Sydney

      Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

      Raison, Timothy

      Churchill, W. S.

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Rathbone, Tim

      Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

      Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

      Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

      Kaberry, Sir Donald

      Rees-Davies, W. R.

      Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

      Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

      Renton, Tim

      Clegg, Sir Walter

      Kimball, Marcus

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Cockeram, Eric

      King, Rt Hon Tom

      Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

      Colvin, Michael

      Kitson, Sir Timothy

      Ridsdale, Julian

      Cope, John

      Knight, Mrs Jill

      Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

      Cormack, Patrick

      Knox, David

      Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

      Corrie, John

      Lamont, Norman

      Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

      Costain, A. P.

      Lang, Ian

      Rossi, Hugh

      Cranborne, Viscount

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Rost, Peter

      Critchley, Julian

      Latham, Michael

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Crouch, David

      Lawrence, Ivan

      St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

      Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

      Lawson, Nigel

      Scott, Nicholas

      Dickens, Geoffrey

      Lee, John

      Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      Shelton, William (Streatham)

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

      Lester, Jim (Beeston)

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Dover, Denshore

      Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

      du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

      Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

      Silvester, Fred

      Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

      Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

      Sims, Roger

      Durant, Tony

      Loveridge, John

      Skeet, T. H. H.

      Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

      McCrindle, Robert

      Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

      Edwards, Rt Hon N. (Pembroke)

      Macfarlane, Nell

      Speed, Keith

      Eggar, Timothy

      MacGregor, John

      Speller, Tony

      Elliott, Sir William

      MacKay, John (Argyll)

      Spence, John

      Fairbairn, Nicholas

      Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

      Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

      Fairgrieve, Russell

      McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

      Faith, Mrs Sheila

      McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

      Sproat, lain

      Farr, John

      McQuarrie, Albert

      Squire, Robin

      Fell, Anthony

      Madel, David

      Stainton, Keith

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      Major, John

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Finsberg, Geoffrey

      Marland, Paul

      Stanley, John

      Fisher, Sir Nigel

      Marlow, Tony

      Steen, Anthony

      Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

      Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

      Stevens, Martin

      Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

      Marten, Neil (Banbury)

      Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Mates, Michael

      Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

      Forman, Nigel

      Mather, Carol

      Stradling Thomas, J.

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Maude, Rt Hon Angus

      Tapsell, Peter

      Fox, Marcus

      Mawby, Ray

      Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)

      Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

      Mawhinney, Dr Brian

      Taylor, Teddy (Southend East)

      Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

      Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

      Tebbit, Norman

      Fry, Peter

      Mayhew, Patrick

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

      Mellor, David

      Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

      Gardiner, George (Reigate)

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Thompson, Donald

      Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)

      Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

      Mills, lain (Meriden)

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Glyn, Dr Alan

      Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

      Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Moate, Roger

      Trippier, David

      Gorst, John

      Molyneux, James

      Trotter, Neville

      Gow, Ian

      Monro, Hector

      van Straubenzee, W. R.

      Gower, Sir Raymond

      Montgomery, Fergus

      Vaughan, Dr Gerard

      Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

      Moore, John

      Viggers, Peter

      Gray, Hamish

      Morgan, Geraint

      Waddington, David

      Greenway, Harry

      Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

      Wakeham, John

      1452

      1453

      Waldegrave, Hon William

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

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Walker, Rt Hon Peter (Worcester)

      Wheeler, John

      Wolfson, Mark

      Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

      Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

      Whitney, Raymond

      Wall, Patrick

      Wickenden, Keith

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      Waller, Gary

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and

      Walters, Dennis

      Wilkinson, John

      Mr Anthony Berry.

      Ward, John

      Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

      Question accordingly negatived.

    Clause 13

      GUARANTEE PAYMENTS
      Mr. Tony Marlow: I beg to move amendment No. 16, in page 15, line 32 at end insert
      'and in section 15(3) (which specifies the number of relevant days for the purposes of the said section 15(2) for the expression " not exceeding five " wherever it occurs there shall be substituted " not exceeding two ".'.
      The amendment concerns the subject of guarantee payments. It is a simple, moderate and sensitive measure, and as the Government are a moderate, if not to say simple and sensitive, Government I hope that they will be able to accept it.
      On both sides of the House and in the country there has been concern for a long time about the different conditions of employment between white-collar and blue-collar workers. The situation has been divisive, discriminatory and to an extent degrading, in that whereas white-collar workers—in nineteenth century terms—have been looked upon as valued members of the company, some blue-collar workers have been looked upon as a brutal and inconsequential group of hired hands, liable to be picked up and put down at the whim of management.
      The previous Labour Government introduced the concept of guarantee payments and I believe that many people had sympathy with the measure at the time that it was introduced. Of course, circumstances change and the period that was initially envisaged was five days. There are now problems, because industrial and commercial circumstances are changing and the Government, being aware of those problems, have made a change in the provision. The five days does not now apply for three months from the start of any particular month. The measure stipulates five days within any 13 consecutive weeks. That means that the liability for guarantee payments will be slightly less than it was before.
      1454
      No doubt the Government are introducing this proposal for good reasons and no doubt there is secure logic behind those reasons. I seek to extend the logic of what the Government are attempting to do by reducing the guarantee payment period in any consecutive 13 weeks from five days to two days. I shall explain why.
      At the moment some of our industrial companies are faced with severe problems. Over the last year sterling has increased in value against other currencies by about 20 per cent. At the same time, our cost of living has risen at a higher rate than the cost of living in other countries. Therefore, for many of our manufacturers—some of whom are threatened by import competition and some of whom are operating in overseas markets, as important exporters—this is a difficult time for marketing their goods.
      In those circumstances the companies most likely to be affected by guarantee payments are the very companies now in difficult circumstances, because they have not got the markets and the throughput. In many cases they also do not have the cash. If, given that unfavourable state, they need to lay people off because there is no work and at the same time have to find guarantee payments out of their limited resources, at a time of high interest rates—though it looks as though they will come down—some of those companies will go under. Some of them are bound to die, though others are viable and will recover. The additional burden of having to make guarantee payments will tip some of those companies over the edge and some potentially viable companies—which would last out the storm, recover, grow and create more jobs—will, unfortunately, be destroyed.
      I accept that the original measure was a sensitive and humane one. People less charitably disposed to the Opposition than I am might say that that measure was the Danegeld paid by the previous Labour Government to the industrial vandals at Congress House. I believe that it was a humane and sensitive

      1455
      measure. However, continuing with that measure in its present strength could be destructive and damaging. This, after all, is an employment Bill.
      There are great pressures on some of our fine, young, small and medium-sized companies, which have great potential. Those companies could, in a short time, topple over the edge of the ravine into that area presided over by the liquidator and the receiver. As this is an employment Bill I think that the Government would wish to prevent that happening wherever they could.
      I await a sympathetic hearing from my right hon. Friend. I await what he has to say before deciding whether I wish to press the amendment to a Division.
      The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. James Prior): My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) moved his amendment in a reasonable and sensible manner. With him, I entirely take the point that until recently there was a great difference between blue-collar and white-collar workers. There were many instances where white-collar workers were covered by some form of guarantee payment. A number of blue-collar workers were covered, but by no means all.
      The basis of guarantee payments—let us face the fact that we are talking of five days in a three-month rolling period—is to try to move towards a concept of single-status companies. I am a great supporter of single-status companies. One of our industrial relations problems is that we have differing degrees of status for different types of employee in a company. That quickly creates bad blood. I am glad that my lion. Friend supports the concept of the single-status company.
      7 pm
      We believe that five days of guaranteed pay in any one three-month period is not an unreasonable burden for a company to bear, particularly since the current maximum daily rate is set at £8 a day. It is not by any means high. That is the maximum that could be claimed.
      My hon. Friend referred to a company getting into difficulty and going on to short time or otherwise having to make people redundant because it could not
      1456
      afford to employ them. That situation could be covered by the temporary short-time working scheme. From what my hon. Friend said, I think that it would be better if such cases were dealt with in that manner.
      As for the reduction from five days to three days in a three-month period, we believe that a good employer will want to give his employees that sort of basic protection. It is pretty basic. It is not a great protection. Of course, it does not apply when there is a lay-off, or when the short time results from a trade dispute involving any employee of his employer or of any associated employer.
      It seems to us, and from what my hon. Friend said, that many good companies would regard cutting back on the guarantee payments in this way as a retrograde step and would not wish to support it. I believe that for these reasons it is wise for us to stick to the five days in three months.
      As my hon. Friend said—I think that I should tell the House again—we made a change in the arrangements. At one time the year was split into four quarters. We realised, particularly during the lorry drivers' and steel disputes, that as the quarter ended at the end of January and the next quarter began at the beginning of February, it enabled a guarantee payment to be made for 10 days in a comparatively short period. We thought that was going too far. Therefore, we have now made it a rolling three-month period.
      At one time employers were not happy that there should be a rolling period. They wanted a fixed period. We consulted widely on the point, and from that consultation it became clear that there was almost complete support among employers for the rolling period proposal. That is why we inserted it into the Bill this time round.
      I hope that my hon. Friend will not feel that he ought to press his amendment to a Division. We believe that five days in any three-month period is not an unreasonable period to be covered by guarantee payment provisions. Many employers already have considerably higher guarantee pay arrangements than that. This is setting a fair, reasonable minimum.
      Despite what Labour Members have said, we have been trying to be fair as

      1457
      between the rights of employees and employers. Because we felt that the balance was wrong, we have been, as it were, shifting the balance of bargaining power back in favour of the employer. The Government believe that to go to the extent of reducing the lay-off guarantee payment from five days to two days in three months would be shifting it too far back and too much against individual employees.
      For those reasons, I hope that my hon. Friend will not press his amendment.
      Amendment negatived.

    Clause 14

      ACTION SHORT OF DISMISSAL RELATING TO TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP AND ACTIVITIES
      Amendments made: No. 24, in page 16, line 19, after ' unless' insert ' either—'
      No. 25, in page 16, line 21, at end insert
      ' or
      (b) the agreement was made before the commencement of the said section 6 and took effect in relation to them by reason, and as a condition, of their employer's becoming a member of an employers' association which was a party to the agreement.'.
      No. 17, in page 16, line 40, after ' may ', insert
      ' before the hearing of the complaint '.—[Mr. Prior.]

    Clause 15

      PICKETING
      Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I beg to move amendment No. 18, in page 17, line 16, leave out from ' (1) ' to end of line 2 on page 18, and insert—
      ' It shall be lawful for not more than six persons in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute to attend at or near any place where another person happens to be not being a place where he resides for the purpose only of peacefully obtaining or communicating information or peacefully persuading any person to work or abstain from working.
      (2) for the purpose of such peaceful picketing it shall be lawful for such person or persons to obstruct the passage of vehicles for no longer than is necessary to communicate with the occupants of the vehicle.'.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Richard Crawshaw): With this we may take the following amendments:
      No. 107, in page 17, line 26, at end insert:
      ' provided that the numbers of persons in attendance for such purposes shall not be so many as to intimidate by their presence any other person or to constitute a physical barrier to the lawful movement into or out of any premises where there is or may be a trade dispute of anyone who has lawful business to be there; or to create a breach of the peace '.
      No. 19, in page 17, line 40, at end insert—
      ' (2) Nothing in this section shall affect existing immunities from criminal prosecution.'.
      No. 114, in page 17, line 40, after ' work ', insert—
      ' (4) For the purpose of allowing persons to peacefully communicate and persuade it shall be lawful for the police, at the request of a person attending as provided for in subsection (1) above, to stop any vehicle leaving or entering the place of work.'.
      Mr. Lyon: We come now to the important provision relating to picketing. This part of the Bill causes the greatest concern. There are parts of the Bill which I find squalid, such as the maternity benefit. Somewhere, on balance, the judgment might find favour with the Government. But on this matter there is a clear division of opinion. I find the provision about picketing very suspect.
      What concerns me most is the matter that I have raised in amendment No. 19. My concern in amendment No. 18 is to ventilate and discuss the issue. I do not intend to press the matter. But amendment No. 19 is at the very crux of the dispute that I have been having with the Secretary of State since Second Reading. I feel that there is considerable danger for the future implicit in the wording of clause 15—a danger which so far the Secretary of State has not accepted. However, as I shall seek to indicate, the Attorney-General seems to agree with me.
      First, I should put the matter in context. The right to strike is an inevitable part of a free society. If we were forced to go to work against our will, it would be a slave society. We pride ourselves on the right to strike. But the right to strike would be an empty charade if there were not also the concomitant right to picket.
      The argument that is going on about clause 15 concerns how extensive the right to picket should be. The Government accept that there should be a right to picket one's own place of work. The question is whether it should go further.

      1459
      There is some ambiguity in the present position on the Bill since the Government have outlawed secondary action outside the first customer's premises. Yet, it is not possible within the context of clause 15, as drafted, to picket the first customer's premises. That seems a little odd. It suggests that the Minister has some difficulty in combining all the factors which have been in his mind in trying to limit the right both to secondary picketing and secondary action.
      What ought to be clear now, after all the discussion, is that the right to picket did not have any particular geographical restraint before the introduction of the Bill. The so-called secondary picketing, which has caused so much concern in the past 12 months or so, was a phrase which came into being only in that period of approximately 18 months. Before that it had always been accepted that people could picket places other than their place of work if that seemed to be a proper exercise of the power in furtherance of a trade dispute. For many good reasons, into which I shall not go now, there are reasonable grounds for accepting that it is in furtherance of a trade dispute to picket somewhere other than one's place of work.
      The right to picket has never been drafted in English law as a right. Indeed, very few of our rights are drafted as positive rights. We are entitled to do anything that we are not prevented from doing by law. The right to picket has been a statutory immunity since 1906. It is an immunity from prosecution or from civil suit in relation to the activity that one is pursuing. It has been so drafted in all legislation since 1906 until this Bill. Indeed, in this Bill it is declared to be lawful to do something which otherwise might be unlawful.
      In the leading case of Hunt v. Broome in the House of Lords, Lord Salmon said that but for the appropriate section which was being considered at that time
      " The mere attendance of pickets might constitute an offence under... the Act of 1875 or under the Highways Act 1959, or constitute a tort, for example, a nuisance."
      Therefore, the section gives a narrow, but nevertheless, real immunity to pickets. Clearly, it does no more. I had always understood the law to be so, until I heard the Secretary of State claim
      1460
      on Second Reading that there was no such thing as immunity from criminal prosecution under the preceding law, because it was not unlawful to picket peacefully.
      The House must be clear as to what is lawful and what is unlawful. The immunity has never extended beyond the right to persuade others peacefully of the justice of a cause. A person is not entitled to use violence or unlawful intimidation. The gathering of a great number of people designed to intimidate by fear, is unlawful, and always has been unlawful. The only question is whether it is possible for the police to enforce such legality in the presence of hundreds of people. That is a difficulty of enforcement.
      The chief constables told the Select Committee that there is no reason why there should be any further law on picketing because there is no doubt about what is unlawful. It is lawful to attend a gathering and to try to persuade a person who wishes to move across a picket line that it would be wrong for him to do so, and in doing so a person can use expressions which would help him to persuade the other person, and which might indicate that if he were to enter the factory he would lose his union card. That is not unlawful intimidation. As that is all that is permitted by picketing, I am surprised that the Government have included this clause. They simply want to try to cut down the area of picketing because it is thought that secondary picketing has led to an abuse by creating situations of potential violence.
      Amendment No. 18 relates to a more desirable way of proceeding. When I was a Minister at the Home Office in 1974 I sought to persuade the then Government that this was a better approach. If the number of pickets outside a place of work was limited to no more than six, and those pickets were then given the right—in the sense of a legal immunity—to stop a vehicle from crossing the picket line for long enough to speak to the driver and seek to persuade him, that would be a proper balance of interest. The picketing law is no more than a balance of interest between those who are on strike and those who are not. That balance of interest would avoid any possible conflict, because wherever picketing has been limited to very small numbers there has been

      1461
      very little evidence of any abuse of that right. For that reason, I have tabled amendment No. 18. I know that it will not carry conviction with this Government, any more than it caried conviction with my Government, because the police and the trade unions are opposed to it for various reasons. Both are wrong, and in time they will learn that it will be wise to adopt this practice.
      Mr. Douglas Hogg: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify what he has in mind? He is contemplating six people standing on a picket line, and those persons being protected by the provisions in these amendments. If one other person joins, bringing the total to seven, will they all lose their statutory protection, or will only the most recent arrival lose his protection?
      7.15 pm
      Mr. Lyon: The police would have the right to reduce the number to six, and they would be entitled to tell the pickets that only persons who were there by authority of the union should be included in the picket line. Those persons would have immunity, because they were authorised, and the others would not. The detail will need further discussion. In my view, the adoption of these amendments is the right way to proceed. The Government have not proceeded in that way. They have said that secondary picketing is so wrong that they will stop people from picketing anywhere else but outside their place of work. However, they do not want a confrontation with the unions, because that would lead to people being sent to prison—and we are all conscious of what happened in 1971.
      The trouble with the Government's solution is that they are potentially putting themselves in that position. On Second Reading, the Labour Front Bench tried to warn the Government of that position, and the Minister claimed forcefully that we were wrong. I wrote to the Minister, and it became clear, through an exchange of letters, that there is a fair difference of opinion between his legal advice and my view of the law. The legal advice given to the Minister is that it is not unlawful for a person to stand in the highway, provided that his standing there is not regarded as an unreasonable use of the highway. My view is that to stand in the highway is potentially a
      1462
      breach of the law, because it is potentially an obstruction. If the police ask that person to move on, he must move on.
      When the chief officers of police gave evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs I asked them whether that was their view of the law. It was. It is clear from subsequent interventions by the Attorney-General in Committee, and in a statement in February, that he takes my view. I am happy to have his assurance that I was right, but perhaps we are both wrong, and perhaps we have both misunderstood the law.
      I am simply saying that there is potential doubt. If the Attorney-General and I are right, there is an immunity from prosecution for obstruction, or for failing to obey the instruction of a police officer to move on. That is a narrow, but important, immunity. If the pickets picket peacefully and a policeman tells them to move on, and they do not move on because they have a right to stay, that is a potential source of conflict and possible violence. It is essential that both sides should know their rights in that situation.
      The Secretary of State says that that is merely a triviality. What would happen in a heated situation outside the factory gates where a person who was not employed there said that he was picketing as he had always picketed, and the Secretary of State said that no police officer could deal with the situation and that an action would have to be brought before the Divisional Court? What would happen if a policeman told that person that he was not employed at the factory and that he must move on? If the person said that he would not move on and was prosecuted, a very dangerous industrial situation might follow. The incident may be trivial. It may be brought up at the local magistrates court, but it may lead to another dockers' situation in which the country is brought to a standstill because the Secretary of State has got it wrong.
      By amendment No. 19 I seek to give the Secretary of State the opportunity to confirm the meaning of clause 15. All it says is:
      "Nothing in the section shall affect existing immunities from criminal prosecution ".
      That is what he says the clause means. He has been telling his Back Benchers and the trade unions from the beginning

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      that this has no effect upon the criminal law and will not cause any further arrests, and that the police have no greater powers under it than they had before.
      I say—and to some extent the Attorney-General agrees with me—" Yes, they do, because you have taken away the criminal immunity in relation to those who are secondary pickets in the sense defined in the clause—those who are not employed at that place of work ". Those people can be moved on, and they will think that they need not be moved on because they have heard what the Secretary of State says. I appeal to him as a reasonable person. Surely it does no harm to the principle of his Bill. If he accepts the amendment, it will only confirm what he says about the Bill. I should have thought that there could be no real dispute between us about it.
      I shall not enlarge on the other amendments, because time is pressing, but this is a matter of fundamental importance and is potentially of considerable danger. I hope that the Minister will agree.
      Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I hope that the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) will forgive me if I do not follow his argument on his amendment. As my own amendment is grouped with his, I shall speak to it at once.
      This in no sense a hostile or a rebel amendment; on the contrary, I trust that it is a friendly and amicable one. I do not agree with the whole of my right hon. Friend's approach to the Bill, but I agree with nearly all of it. I am grateful to him for having, with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, courteously received the Police Federation—in which I declare an interest—to discuss my amendment.
      In terms of its general drive and purpose I believe that my amendment is absolutely consistent with the manifesto of the Conservative Party at the last general election and with all the related statements on party policy by the Prime Minister and by my right hon. Friend, on which all of us on the Government Benches fought and won that election. I also believe that it expresses, as far as I have been able to discover, not only the views and the hopes of the very large number of people who voted for a change
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      of Government precisely because they wanted—as they still want—an end to violent picketing; I believe that it expresses what this large number of people and the public generally are fully entitled to expect, and do expect, from this Government.
      I need not upset the House by raking over the ugly scenes of mass picketing that disfigured the face of industrial Britain during the winter of discontent. We all recall it vividly. I start instead with a quotation from today's issue of The Guardian, which describes what is now happening outside the offices of the Express and Star newspaper in Wolverhampton. I quote the report of Mr. Paul Johnson—not, I should have thought, a particular union basher. [Interruption.] He may have seen the light, but I would not have called him that. He says:
      " Sixteen print workers were arrested yesterday when 300 pickets clashed with the police... National Graphical Association members drafted in from Liverpool, Cardiff, Chester and Bristol were trying to prevent vans laden with newspapers from leaving the offices. The pickets were held in check by about 150 policemen and the vans were escorted out after a street strewn with metal tacks had been cleared."
      I do not think that anyone in the House—certainly not the hon. Member for York—could possibly describe that as peaceful picketing in the terms of the clause that we are now discussing.
      Mr. Harold Walker: The hon. Gentleman pointed out that some at least of those who were involved in these matters had been arrested; therefore the present law empowered the police to act against them. Presumably, those who did it did so in defiance of the present law. Will the hon. Gentleman tell me in what respect changing the law is likely to deter them any more in the future than the present law has done? If the law at present is able to make provision for their arrest, why is it necessary to change the law, when the powers required by the police seem to be in existence already?
      Mr. Griffiths: The right hon. Gentleman, for whose knowledge of these matters I have a good deal of respect, is exactly 10 minutes too early, because I shall get to that point at the end of my speech.
      The incident at Wolverhampton goes to the heart of the amendment, because

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      it raises the question whether sheer numbers create a problem. I believe that they do, and I cite to start with the evidence given to the Select Committee, of which the hon. Member for York is a member, by the chief police officer. I shall draw the factual matter from their statements.
      In the case of the Saltley affair of some years ago, they told the Committee that 800 police officers were employed to control upwards of 15,000 pickets and demonstrators.
      In the case of Hadfields, they said that
      "on 14 February 1980 it was estimated that 1,500 ' pickets ' were present in the Vulcan Road area and 680 police officers were deployed to contain the situation."
      The report of the Select Committee went on to state that in the case of Grunwick
      "Between 13 June and 7 November there were 51 days in which large-scale picketing occurred. The total number of pickets during this period was estimated at 52,000; the largest number on any single day was 20,000... During this period 37,000 police were employed... 347 injuries to police were recorded and 17 to members of the public."
      I do not think, on this evidence, that there can be any doubt that numbers are a problem. I do not think that there can be any doubt, either, about the public's deep concern about numbers. I need not go into the question of the election campaign, but there is no doubt on the Conservative Benches that there was real public anger about the impact of numbers on the picket line.
      Lest there be any doubt about this, let us consider what happened in the House. At the height of the Grunwick affair there were exchanges in the House—I shall not detain it with quotations—when both the former Prime Minister and the present Prime Minister, both the former Home Secretary and the present Home Secretary, and both the former Secretary of State for Employment and the present Secretary of State for Employment, all agreed on one thing, namely, that numbers can intimidate and that numbers do obstruct.
      The former Prime Minister said:
      " those who latch on to this in order to turn an industrial dispute into a political battle—[HON. MEMBERS: " Hear, hear."]—that applies to the National Association for Freedom as well as to the International Socialists—can be kept clear of this industrial dispute... the situation is getting extremely serious."—
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      [Official Report, 23 June 1977; Vol. 933, c. 1735.]
      7.30 pm
      I can fairly summarise those exchanges by referring to a report of the political editor of The Times, who wrote this:
      " Mr. Callaghan in the Commons made no attempt to conceal the Labour Cabinet's deep anxieties about the demonstrations outside the Grunwick factory. Senior Ministers are profoundly disturbed about the impression created at home and abroad by television reports showing day after day fighting between large numbers of demonstrators and the police."
      All hon. Members, all political parties and the British public as a whole, share my concern about numbers. That is right, so what do we do about it? We are pledged to do something about it.
      The Police Federation originally proposed a specific limit. It proposed that the number of those on any one picket line should be confined to six. It then thought that it might be better to limit the numbers in a single dispute to 50. But in the case of large and complex firms, six is not enough. Fifty may not be enough. It is unrealistic to suggest any specific limit, because circumstances vary enormously between one firm and another.
      The police then considered whether a limit should be placed on the proportion of the work force involved in picketing. They suggested a limit of 5 per cent., but again, I rejected that notion. It was—and is—wholly impracticable. One would find, for example, that 5 per cent. of the work force of British Leyland or Ford was an entirely different thing to 5 per cent. of the work force of a small firm that employed only 40 workers. In addition, such a suggestion would place the police and shop stewards in great difficulty. They would have to determine whether 5 per cent. meant 5 per cent. of the total work force or 5 per cent. of the work force at a particular branch or plant, or 5 per cent. of the union in dispute. For those practical reasons, the Police Federation dropped its suggestion for an absolute or proportional limit. I think that that was wise.
      Mr. Leighton: Presumably, the Police Federation is a different body from that of chief constables. The hon. Gentleman quoted from The Times. I have a copy of The Times of 21 February. In that copy

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      five chief constables gave evidence. They stated:
      " The police are happy with the existing law as it affects picketing and do not want any extra powers, a group of chief constables told Mr. William Whitelaw, Home Secretary, yesterday."
      I understand that individuals in the police force hold differing views.
      Mr. Griffiths: I shall turn to the subject of police powers shortly. However, I have made plain for whom I speak—for the federation in this instance, and also for myself.
      My amendment avoids absolute and rigid limits. They would do more harm than good. I hope that my friends in the legal profession will not object if I say that the amendment has a common law-style approach. It has three prongs, which seek to deal with the mischief done by numbers.
      The first prong suggests that the numbers should not be so great as to cause intimidation. The second prong suggests that the numbers should not be so great as to create a physical barrier to lawful movement in and out of the premises. The third prong ensures that the numbers should not be so great as to cause a breach of the peace.
      Do numbers intimidate? The evidence is to be found in recent examples. I shall quote some of the statements that were made to the police by those workers at Hadfields who had voted in favour of continuing to work. When they tried to go to work, some of them found that they were unable to reach the premises. The Times states:
      "The statements told of men and women employees being spat upon, kicked, sworn at and jostled as they went to work. Women described how they had been called scabs, bastards and whores... One statement told of police stopping a busload of workers so that they had a walk of 500 yards to the factory gates... There was one policeman only on duty... Our party consisted of about 35 to 40 people; we were immediately met by pickets in large groups... We were called various names, spat at, and forced off the causeway by means of kicks and pushes... The women in the party were very brave to keep going on in these circumstances, and the men kept their patience in the very explosive situation."
      Surely no hon. Member would doubt that that represents intimidation. The House cannot accept such intimidation.
      Mr. Douglas Hogg: I am sure that the House would accept that that act was an act of intimidation. However, that specific act also constitutes a breach of the existing common law and statutory provisions.
      Mr. Griffiths: Indeed, it does. Unfortunately, as the chairman of Hadfields fairly reported at the time, intimidation won a victory. It proved impracticable on that occasion—whatever the law might say—for the police to enforce the law.
      Mr. Nick Budgen: Is it not a problem of enforcement? Does my hon. Frend not agree that we should ensure that we have sufficient police to enforce the existing law? The creation of further offences does not help.
      Mr. Griffiths: I agree with my hon. Friend and shall comment further towards the end of my remarks.
      The second prong of the amendment deals not so much with intimidation but with the question whether numbers can and do constitute a physical barrier to those who lawfully seek to go in and out of the premises being picketed. I have no need to quote examples; I can refer to my own experience. I did not have the same number of opportunities to visit Grunwick during the picketing as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hen-don, North (Mr. Gorst). However, I did go there to observe what was going on.
      There is no question but that when one is faced with 10,000 to 20,000 people, jostling, shouting and fighting with the police, and occasionally with one another, in a confined space, other people are physically impeded from lawfully going in and out of the premises. The need for the second prong of my amendment is demonstrated on the evidence.
      The third prong concerns the question whether numbers can lead to a breach of the peace. All hon. Members are concerned when an industrial dispute is latched on to by large numbers of people who have no part in the industrial dispute, and who have simply gone along to make as much trouble as possible. Large numbers of those who took part in the picketing at Grunwick were not trade unionists. I am thinking of many of those who are on the extreme fringes of politics—on the Right and on the Left

      1469
      —of various student bodies, and others who came along for the punch-up. When numbers on a picket line swell to such a point that they cause a major breach of the peace, the law should take a clearer view.
      Mr. Stan Crowther: It seems that the hon. Gentleman is guilty of having a basic misconception of the meaning of the clause. He has been talking about the police. He has told us several times that he speaks for the Police Federation. However, the clause has nothing to do with the criminal law; it is concerned solely with civil actions. If the amendment were approved, would it not mean that those present in such numbers as to cause intimidation could be sued in the civil courts? What have the police to do with the clause?
      Mr. Griffiths: The hon. Gentleman must recognise that the clause would involve the police if it were amended in the fashion that I propose.
      Mr. Budgen: Does my hon. Friend say that if the amendment is accepted it will create a criminal offence? Surely it would be only in the circumstances of a potential criminal offence that the police would be involved.
      Mr. Griffiths: I shall answer my hon. Friend's question in my own way in the brief time that I want to take.
      I made it plain at the outset that I do not regard the amendment as in any sense hostile to my right hon. Friend's Bill and general philosophy. That is why I do not propose to press it to a Division. I am well aware that the Government have chosen not to go down the road of criminal sanctions. They have chosen to adopt civil injunctions. If I were to succeed in inserting the amendment, it would be a proposal without the sanction that I judge that it requires to have. And as I believe that this would be technically defective, I shall not press the amendment.
      However, there is real concern about these matters. It is maintained by some lawyers, by some chief officers of police and by the Attorney-General that there is already sufficient power for the police to take action. That is partly in the form of statute law and partly in the form of a great deal of case law that has been tried by the courts.
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      I accept immediately that there are powers for the police to act provided that they have the resources and the will. However, there is value for the public, pickets, the press and the police to be able clearly to understand exactly what the law is, what their powers are. and the limits of picketing. It is for that reason that I see merit in there being on the face of the Bill a declaration that sets out the limits of picketing, namely, that pickets should not intimidate, they should not constitute a physical barrier, and they should not cause a breach of the peace.
      Bearing in mind the way in which the Bill is structured and the philosophy that my right hon. Friend has adopted, with which I broadly agree, I think it advisable for the matters to which I have referred to be spelt out in the code of conduct that will accompany the Bill when it becomes law.
      If the Government accept that these are matters of grave public concern and that it is necessary to make all concerned well aware of what the law is and what its limits are, I ask my hon. and learned Friend to confirm that the code of conduct should spell out the issues and make them plain to all concerned. If he is prepared to do that, I ask for a further undertaking that he will consult not only the Police Federation and the chief officers but all others concerned, so that what appears in the code of conduct will be clearly understood.
      7.45 pm
      I ask for a further undertaking. The Government have decided, rightly or wrongly, to avoid the criminal law. If that works, so be it. However, if it is found, after a period, that it is not working, I ask the Government to think again.
      If my hon. and learned Friend is able to give those undertakings I shall not press the amendment to a Division. His own and my right hon. Friend's ready willingness so far to discuss the matter with the police service has been appreciated, and I hope that we can continue in that way.
      Mr. John Evans: At one stage I felt that I should have to rebut some of the charges made by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths). However, I recognise that he has taken a great deal of the time of the

      1471
      House to justify his position as adviser to the Police Federation. I am well aware that the House wishes to make progress, and it is not my intention to speak at length on the amendment.
      Everyone, both inside and outside the House, including the overwhelming majority of trade unionists involved in industrial disputes, recognises and pays tribute to the work that the police have to do, often in extremely difficult situations, when industrial disputes occur. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that we all recognise that until such time as Governments clearly write the law—invariably Governments have refused to do so—it will be left to the police at the scene of the action to interpret the law and public order as best they can. The hon. Gentleman's amendment does not make a great deal of sense. Presumably it would be left to the officer in charge at the scene of the action to define how many were allowed to attend.
      In common with my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon)—I speak as a sponsored Member of the AUEW—I have been involved in industrial disputes. I recognise the force behind the argument that any attempt to limit the number of pickets attending a dispute would be doomed to failure for a variety of reasons, not least because many works establishments, especially the larger ones, have many entrances. I presume that it is sought to allow only a certain number of pickets to attend irrespective of the number of entrances.
      I shall concentrate briefly on amendment No. 114, which I am sure the House will recognise is a serious and thoughtful attempt to define the difficult area of mass picketing. I do not think that anyone welcomes the sight or the actions of mass picketing. It is important for the House to understand the reason and thinking behind it when it occurs. The overwhelming majority of industrial disputes involved only two or three pickets. They are settled amicably and reasonably and there is no " aggro " at the works. It is only occasionally, in well-publicised cases, that mass picketing takes place.
      At such a time it is invariable that problems occur. We are seeking to give the power to the police to alter the law to give them the right to stop a lorry at the request of the official in charge of
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      the picket to allow the picket peacefully to put the argument to the driver. The policeman would be there. He would decide whether the necessary time had been taken to put the arguments to the driver. If at the end of the pickets' argument the driver decided that he did not wish to listen to the argument, he would be free to enter or leave the works.
      When pickets feel that their actions are being circumvented by lorries driving in and out to deliver materials it causes bad feeling, and mass pickets will physically try to stop these lorries. The men and women involved are forced to feel bitter and decide to stop the lorry by one menas or another. If hon. Gentlemen realise the bitterness of those feelings, they will recognise the force of our amendment. The Minister endorses the argument. On 30 July 1975 he said:
      " I would be prepared to consider very carefully whether we ought not to confer upon the police what they have not got at present—the right to stop a vehicle for a limited period so that the picket may have the right to do that which he has the right to seek to attempt to do; namely, to persuade."—[Official Report, 30 July 1975; Vol. 896, c. 1904.]
      It is impossible to persuade a lorry driver travelling at 30 miles per hour. Deaths and serious accidents to pickets have been caused by lorries. Our amendment attempts to assist the Government in a difficult situation.
      Clause 15 could lead to mass picketing instead of preventing it. I do not want to go over all the arguments raised in Committee, but one is important. If a convener or shop steward visits another establishment to seek support and presuade those workers to join the strike, he can be easily identified and sued. In a nutshell that is the effect of clause 15. In future he will take the whole of his factory to seek that support. It will be impossible to identify 200 or 300 or even 2,000 or 3,000 workers. There is a grave danger that clause 15 will lead to mass picketing.
      The amendment would give the police the right to make a decision which in many circumstances they already take. In most industrial action a strong rapport exists between pickets and police. Without that, the majority of strikes would end in punch-ups and anarchy. We wish to prevent mass picketing occurring through the determination of the work force to stop

      1473
      lorries entering or leaving the establishment, and instead give the police the right to stop a lorry at the request of a picket. There may still be the odd occurrence such as Grunwick, which was more of a mass demonstration by the trade union movement to express its detestation of a particular employer. However, in the average industrial situation mass picketing may occur because the workers are upset and seek to stop lorries entering or leaving the firm by interposing their bodies. The police would not necessarily stop the lorry. The pickets could express their opinion through the policeman, but if the driver rejected it he would drive on.
      I ask the Government to accept the amendment. It is a useful solution to the problems that the Bill in general and clause 15 in particular will create.
      Mr. Douglas Hogg: In view of the lateness of the hour, I shall advance only one criticism of the amendment put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths). It will deprive a perfectly law-abiding picket of the statutory protection afforded by clause 15, not because of any action on his part but because of the actions of those with whom he is keeping company. In particular, he will be deprived of the statutory protection merely because he belongs to a demonstration which happens to be, because of the numbers, an obstruction or cause of intimidation. It is not right to deprive someone of a statutory protection merely because of the company that he keeps. I therefore oppose the amendment.
      Mr. Eric G. Varley: I shall not detain the House long. In Committee we spent six sittings on what was then clause 14 and is now clause 15. However, it will be useful to give the Front Bench advice on the amendments.
      My hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon) does a great service in highlighting the issues and asking the Government to clarify the position, which was far from clear on Second Reading. It emerged more clearly when we debated the matter in Committee, but in amendment No. 19 my hon. Friend gives the Government the opportunity to state their intentions clearly:
      " Nothing in this section shall affect existing immunities from criminal prosecution ".
      On 17 December last year, which is a long time ago, when I asked about the
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      police getting involved in picketing, as outlined in the Bill, the Secretary of State strongly refuted that the Bill was anything to do with the police, and said:
      " This has absolutely nothing to do with the police. It has nothing to do with criminal law. It is entirely a matter for the person who believes that his contracts are in some way being broken to take action through the civil court. The police are in no way involved m this."—[Official Report, 17 December 1979; Vol. 976, c. 75–6.]
      If the Secretary of State is right and wishes to confirm that, I see no reason why he should not accept amendment No. 19.
      I cannot advise my hon. Friends to support my hon. Friend's other amendment, No. 18. My hon. Friend probably realises now that to some extent it is impracticable to try to lay down that not more than six persons attend a picket in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. Crowther) explained in Committee the difficulties that could arise at Rotherham steelworks, which stretch for about three miles, certainly out of Rotherham and nearly into Sheffield. From the evidence given to the Select Committee on Employment we know that the police are opposed to that limit.
      We are content to stand by the description of picketing set out by the present Attorney-General on 19 February. The police in their evidence say that the existing law on picketing is adequate. It relies to a great extent on the common sense of those who are picketing and the police who are trying to see that no disorder takes place. Mr. Alan Goodson, chief constable of Leicestershire and president of the Association of Chief Police Officers was reported in The Times on 21 February as saying that he ruled out as impractical any new legislation laying down a precise limit on " the number of people who can constitute a peaceful picket. I think that is absolutely right. There is a great weight of evidence that suggests that the House should not consider anything like that.
      Of course there is the problem of large numbers of pickets. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) is right. I do not know whether he has looked recently at the TUC guides on picketing, but these are a blueprint for industrial peace. It is a great tragedy that the Government have discarded these

      1475
      guides, rather than seeking to build on them.
      Mr. May hew: No.
      8 pm
      Mr. Varley: The hon. and learned Gentleman says that the Government have not discarded them, but I have seen some of the correspondence between the Department of Employment and the TUC. The emphasis laid on the guides by Mr. Len Murray is that these were part of a package, and certainly the other part of the package has gone.
      On the question of mass picketing the TUC says:
      " In any situation where large numbers of people with strong feelings are involved, there is a danger that things can get out of control, particularly in a confined area, such as access to a factory. It is therefore particularly important for any such demonstrations to be well conducted in a well organised and disciplined manner. It is also important that demonstrations of this kind do not convey the impression that the object is to blockade the workplace."
      Another sentence within this guide says of the trade union officer in charge:
      " He should ensure that the number of pickets is no larger than is necessary ".
      It is rather a tragedy that the Government have not at least talked to the TUC about these guides, rather than moving straight to legislation.
      Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Of course what the right hon. Member says is in every way a good approach. Will the TUC discuss this with the Government in an open way before the Government make their own code of practice known? I believe that it would be very sensible for the TUC to help in that way, if it will.
      Mr. Varley: I have seen the correspondence between the Secretary of State and the General Secretary of the TUC. The TUC places great emphasis, not only on its guides but on the other documents that it produced at that time—for example, those on the question of the commitment to reduce inflation, and to support certain industrial policies, and so on. I cannot speak for the TUC but I suspect that the Secretary of State, when he produces his new codes of practice later in the year after the Bill has reached the statute book, will invite the TUC to discuss its guides again. I do not know what the TUC's reaction will be.
      1476
      When we come to Third Reading I shall have something to say about the way in which Government should proceed on trade union matters. My judgment is that these codes of practice are a much better way of trying to conduct industrial disputes, rather than moving straight to the law and getting the courts involved, as they inevitably will be.
      I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for York will not pursue amendment No. 18, but that he will press amendment No. 19 if he is called to do so. On that basis we shall support him.
      Mr. Mayhew: Perhaps it will be convenient if I deal first with the amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) and then deal with the two amendments proposed by the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon). I fully understand the anxiety that lies behind my hon. Friend's amendment. He said at the outset that the terms of the amendment were entirely consistent with our manifesto. I accept that. I also accept that the amendment is not in any sense hostile to the theme of the Bill or to the task that the Government have adopted.
      My hon. Friend also said that there was no doubt that numbers were the problem. That is true. We are all familiar with the most recent illustrations of mass picketing and the great burdens that they impose on the police and upon many members of the public, as well as those who are anxious only to get on with their work. In recent years we have all seen the violence and disorder which have occurred as a result of mass picketing. Nothing can justify that sort of behaviour. I do not believe that anyone in this House would believe that it was justifiable, but we must all recognise that it is more likely to occur where there is mass picketing than where picketing is confined or is limited to small numbers. Mass picketing deeply offends most decent people, who find it extraordinary that the scenes commonly associated therewith should take place in this country without any control. This has done more than anything in recent years to alienate public sympathy and to tarnish the reputation of the trade unions in whose names it is carried out. That is serious because all sensible people want the trade union movement to have a good name.

      1477
      Above all, mass picketing imposes an enormous burden of enforcement on the police, whose job it is not to take sides in an industrial dispute but to try to maintain the Queen's peace against sometimes imposible odds. Indeed, it is important that the police should be seen not to take sides. That is a job that they do with great judgment, courage, restraint and good sense. We should compliment them on, and thank them for, their work in tackling such a difficult and unpleasant task. I gladly do that.
      I wish to make it clear that, in the words of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General——
      " The criminal law of the land applies to pickets as it does to anybody else. Let there be no illusion that the immunity provided under the civil law enables pickets to break the criminal law."
      Of course that is right. The immunity conferred by section 15 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974 does not permit a picket to break the criminal law. Later my right hon. and learned Friend says:
      " If pickets by sheer numbers, seek to stop people going to work or delivering or collecting goods they are not protected by the law since their purpose is to obstruct rather than persuade."—[Official Report, 19 February 1980; Vol. 979, c. 238–39.]
      It is small wonder that the Police Federation, whose interests my hon. Friend represents so faithfully, and whose members have recently had to confront 1,500 pickets at Hadfields, wants to write into this clause an expression of the limitations that the criminal law already imposes upon numbers. The purpose of this amendment is to withdraw immunity from civil action from those who picket in such numbers that they intimidate persons by their very numbers or constitute a physical barrier to lawful movement or create a breach of the peace. I can well understand why the federation wanted that written into the clause.
      However, my hon. Friend with his close knowledge of these matters has made it clear that he understands that picketing which has those consequences is already criminally unlawful. What is more, such pickets are not protected by immunity from action under the civil law. The Attorney-General made that clear as well. Nevertheless, I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend said in concluding his speech. He claimed that there is a
      1478
      need for the law relating to picketing, particularly the criminal law, to be clearly understood and known by everyone who is potentially affected by it. That means people who want to picket, those who organise them, those whose premises are affected and workers who want to go to work but who are affected by the action of the pickets.
      That, I know, is the purpose of the amendment, and to most people it is far from clear at present. It needs to be made clear so that not only pickets and those who organise them but everyone else concerned are in no doubt where they stand under the law. However, it is very difficult to do this in the language of a statute, especially one which has to use the complicated device of granting immunity from civil action, and which is a concept of great complexity in which we have been locked since 1906.
      I do not think we will get clarity or simplicity or anything like that as long as we persist with it. The language of a statute is necessarily technical and compressed and there is always the risk that what is intended to clarify will in some unforeseen way create new uncertainties. For example, an amendment of this kind could lead to confusion between the civil and the criminal law. Section 15 of the 1974 Act, which the Bill seeks to amend, deals primarily with, the civil law. The effect of this amendment would be to emphasise that the civil law immunities are put at risk if criminal offences are committed. The clause already has that effect.
      Rather than trying to achieve this necessary purpose by adding to this clause, therefore, the Government think it wiser that there should be an authoritative code of practice on picketing in which the law can be explained in whatever detail and with whatever illustrative examples may be necessary. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the TUC made a valuable contribution in its guide of February last year. It followed upon a valuable contribution by the National Union of Mineworkers a few years earlier. However, neither is enough. The TUC guide certainly forms a foundation upon which an up-to-date code could well be built, but it is not enough, for one reason alone, that it permits picketing at a place other than the place of work, which is contrary to the Govern-

      1479
      ment's policy. I acknowledge its value and, as my right hon. Friend has said, we would be pleased if, in co-operation, we could build upon that foundation an up-to-date and sufficient code of practice.
      There would, of course, need to be very wide consultation, and my right hon. Friend has asked me, in response to the two questions that my hon. Friend asked me, to give the assurance that it would be his intention to consult very fully with the police, including—naturally—the Police Federation. By reason of their special position, experience and responsibilities, there can be none with more important advice to offer, although there will be others with equally important advice to offer.
      I am glad to be able to give the assurance today that we will so consult when it comes to considering what the code of practice will contain. That only reiterates what my right hon. Friend told the leaders of the Police Federation when they visited us on 8 February.
      I was then asked by my hon. Friend whether if the approach which the Government are adopting—avoiding a change in the criminal law—does not work, the Government would think again. It will certainly do so, but I give no assurance that we will consider adding to the criminal law, although we would not rule it out, for the reasons given by my hon. Friends the Members for Grantham (Mr. Hogg) and for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen), that if there is a criminal offence on the statute book already which will enable the mischief to be dealt with if only it can be enforced, one does not really diminish the difficulties simply by writing another criminal offence into the statute book. That is the difficulty. I hope I have made the Government's position clear to my hon. Friend and I hope that, on the assurance I have given, he will feel able to seek leave to withdraw his amendment.
      I come now to the amendment proposed by the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon). There are two major grounds upon which I have to say that we cannot accept it. The first is that it defeats the principal purpose of the clause, which is to restrict lawful picketing to the picket's own place of work. The second is that it confers upon pickets the right to stop
      1480
      vehicles for the purpose of picketing peacefully. This is something which has never been conferred upon pickets. The law always upheld the right of everyone to pass freely along the highway.
      As the Attorney-General said on 19 February:
      " Each one of us is free, as an individual, to come and go as he pleases to his home or to his place of work.
      The law specifically protects our enjoyment of those rights."—[Official Report, 19 February, 1980: Vol. 979, c. 238.]
      The Government propose to ensure that it continues to do so. The need in today's conditions to communicate one's own side of the case in an industrial dispute cannot warrant, we believe, an incursion into the right of free passage of such fundamental significance. It is perfectly easy to indicate where a picket line is established. Anyone approaching a picket line today knows that the pickets are anxious to persuade him, if they can, not to cross the line, or at least to explain their case. The decision whether to stop and listen must be left to them.
      8.15 pm
      This point of principle is not avoided by the variant to this amendment which is contained in amendment No. 114 argued by the hon. Member for Newton (Mr. Evans), which would give the police power to stop any vehicle leaving or entering the place of work at the request of pickets. It may be slightly less offensive that someone should be stopped by a police officer at the request of pickets than by a picket himself, but it does not alter the main objection in principle, which I have already mentioned, that we do not believe that someone's personal liberty to decide whether or not to stop should be infringed at the request of someone who wishes to put his point in relation to a dispute that he is carrying on with his employer. We do not, therefore, believe that 114 is possible.
      I also agree with the last point made by the hon. Gentleman that to write in any number, be it six or 16, imparts a rigidity to this statute which is at odds with the essential need for flexibility that the police have always identified and insisted upon. That would be a mistake.
      I turn now to the contention that clause 15 significantly enlarges the ambit of the criminal law and will make more pickets liable to imprisonment. I am very

      1481
      conscious of the time constraints, but I am also conscious of the correspondence that has taken place between himself and my right hon. Friend and of the importance of the point he makes, and I hope to have the indulgence of the House if I take a few minutes to deal with the point of law he has raised. I would not wish to skirt round it.
      My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General said on 19 February:
      "the law on picketing does not in any real way change the criminal law."
      In answer to the hon. Gentleman, my right hon. and learned Friend went on to say:
      " So far as I can see, the only way in which the immunity given in the existing law on picketing changes the criminal law is that it permits an obstruction of the highway. That is not a serious obstruction. The law permits one to stand on the pavement or in the road outside the place of work where ordinarily one would not be permitted to do so because the highway is meant for passing and repassing. That, I think, is the limit. It is only to that extent that the immunity would be removed if clause 14 became effective."—[Official Report, 19 February 1980; Vol. 979, c. 555.]
      What he was referring to was the technical wrong of not using the highway for passing and re-passing but for standing in a static position as a picket. The offence under the Highways Act is as follows:—
      " without lawful authority or excuse in any way wilfully obstructing the free passage along a highway ".
      The test of obstruction, as the hon. Gentleman will know, is whether the use of the highway is unreasonable. Whether it is unreasonable depends on all the circumstances, including its duration, position and purpose and whether it causes actual as opposed to potential obstruction. The hon. Gentleman said, when moving his amendment, that even to stand still on the highway was, as I understood him, to commit a criminal offence because it was potentially an obstruction. I must take issue with him there: one cannot commit a potential offence.
      Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: This is the very crux of it. The argument I put forward—and I think I have solid legal basis for it—is that one can. The hon. and learned Gentleman and his legal advisers have taken the view that one cannot. Very well. But if I am right then a police officer can come to a picket and say " You are not employed
      1482
      at this place of work. You must move on."
      Because of the assurances which the Secretary of State has given, the picket thinks that the police have no right to move on a person even if he is a secondary picket, and he resists. What is the position then? It is no good talking about differences between legal authorities, which I can cheerfully swap with the hon. Gentleman. Is it not right that this clause should make it clear that the police officer has no power to move on a picket even in those circumstances, merely because he is not employed at that place of work?
      Mr. Mayhew: I do not believe that this clause should concern itself with the criminal law, nor do I believe that the hon. Gentleman is right when he says that perhaps the Attorney-General supports him in the contention that he has just expressed, namely, that it is possible to commit a criminal offence merely by standing in one position in the highway and obstructing no one. I shall explain why. The Attorney-General had in mind the test that it would have to be an unreasonable user of the highway to constitute an offence of wilfully obstructing it under the Highways Act. He said, during the 25th sitting of the Committee:
      " If, by contrast "——
      that is to say, by contrast to actual physical obstruction——
      "all a person does is to stand on the pavement on the side of the road, without interfering with the rights of others to pass and re-pass, and peacefully communicates information—perhaps by holding a placard or by speaking—or tries to persuade others not to enter their place of work, that does not amount to obstruction, even in the technical sense ".
      I pause to remind the hon. Gentleman that the only possible criminal offence can be obstruction. That is permitted under the common law. It needs no statutory protection. That was first decided in 1906, and again by Lord Widgery in 1974 and Lord Denning in 1976. Therefore, in those circumstances, the amendment of section 15 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, which this clause will affect, has no effect on criminal liability at all.
      But the Attorney-General went on to deal with a situation in which a peaceful picket does interfere with the rights of others to pass, not deliberately but incidentally, not causing, to use his words

      1483
      on 19 February a " serious obstruction ", but preventing from moving along the pavement people who are trying not to get into the works but to the bus stop or the shops. He said that that would seem to be a very rare occasion but that
      " if there were an obstruction under the Highways Act, where it was a lawful picket, it is open to argument that section 15 might provide immunity. Some say that section 15 is declaratory; others say that it would go further and provide an immunity in that case."
      But he continued
      " whatever the precise legal effect of section 15, its practical consequences are not in doubt. It confers no immunity from prosecution for obstruction in the sense in which that term is normally understood: that is, physically preventing a person from going where he wants to go, not only into the works, but also along the pavement to the other end of the road. If pickets go beyond peaceful persuasion and obstruct the passage of workers or vehicles, everyone knows that there is no protection for that sort of act.
      It follows that the limitation on the scope of lawful picketing proposed in clause 14 does not in any real terms extend the ambit of the criminal law. It does not create any new criminal offence and it does not affect the powers and duties of the police in any way ".—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 18 March 1980; c. 1347–48.]
      I think that the House will therefore agree that my right hon. Friend was entitled to say, in his Second Reading speech, that the Bill does not create any additional burden on the police because it does not create any new criminal offence. Similarly, I believe that I was entitled to say:
      " The criminal law is not being affected."—[Official Report, 17 December 1979; Vol. 976, c. 169.]
      Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: After we have passed this clause in an unamended state, will it be possible for a police officer to go up to a picket and say " You are not employed at this place of work. You must move on "? If the person refuses to move on, has he committed a criminal offence?
      Mr. Mayhew: On the basis of the explanation given by the Attorney-General, which I have just read, a picket who is not preventing or obstructing in any way the passage of anyone along the pavement would not be committing the offence of obstruction. Therefore, I do not believe that it would be lawful for a police officer to say " Move on ", and to prosecute him for obstructing a police officer in the
      1484
      course of his duty. It would be a different matter if some obstruction were being committed. That is what I understand the Attorney-General to be saying, and I believe it to be right.
      Mr. Lyon: If that is the effect, why not accept the amendment?
      Mr. Mayhew: I am about to explain why I do not believe that amendment No. 19, which says that existing criminal immunities are not affected—I have paraphrased it, but that is the guts of it—ought to be accepted. It refers to existing immunities from criminal prosecution. Even if that is an accurate expression, which in law I do not believe it is—at any rate, I doubt whether it is—I do not believe that there are any criminal immunitites, except in respect of the technical offences of obstruction, which I have mentioned. It would not dissolve the doubt to which the Attorney-General referred, when he said that some say one thing and some say the other. It would have the defect of introducing a reference to the criminal law in a clause that deals with the civil law.
      If the amendment were accepted, it might lead pickets and others to think that they had immunity from criminal prosecution for criminal offences other than obstruction. Indeed, the very reference to " immunities "—in the plural—suggests that more than obstruction is involved. Yet I know of no offence other than that of obstructing the highway that could be relevant.
      The courts themselves would not necessarily know what existing immunities the Act was referring to. Also, I very much doubt whether it is accurate to speak of immunity from criminal prosecution. I believe that the true way of expressing it would be to say that in those circumstances the picket has not committed a criminal offence. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the careful way in which he argued his case, but I believe it to be misconceived and I must advise my right hon. Friends to resist it.
      Mr. Lyon: I am happy to ask leave to withdraw amendment No. 18, although I do not accept the arguments, either in relation to numbers or to stopping the vehicle. The fact that there will be a limited number of pickets at any factory gate would make it perfectly possible to cope with the situation. The fact is that

      1485
      to allow an immunity for stopping a vehicle is the only way in which one will prevent great numbers of strikers, who feel deeply that those lorries are breaking their strike, from trying to interfere physically in order to stop them. The only way in which we shall get rid of violence is by allowing a right, in the sense of an immunity, to stop a vehicle.
      I should like to deal with amendment No. 19. I come back to what I have said about the potential of considerable conflict on future picket lines, when the police say to pickets who have attended from other places of work that they should move on and then arrest them, either for obstruction or for failing to obey the instructions of a police officer in the execution of his duty. Because that is against what the Government intend, surely it would be possible to accept this amendment.
      The hon. and learned Gentleman conceded my argument. If there is a criminal offence which is now capable of being committed if this clause passes unamended—even if it is the relatively trivial one of an obstruction, of somebody not involved in getting into the place of work—surely it is better that we should remove that doubt from the criminal law by allowing this amendment to pass. The fact that the hon. and learned Gentleman refuses to allow it to pass suggests that all along this Government have recognised that this will extend the power of the police to intervene in an industrial situation and that although they purport not to want that, that is really what they are after. I hope that the Opposition will vote heavily against this provision.
      I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Mr. Harold Walker: I beg to move amendment No. 86, in page 17, line 20, at end insert—
      " at the place of work of another member of the same trade union, or
      at the place of work of another member of the same trade union who is engaged in the same or a related dispute, or
      at the premises of any employer engaged in the dispute, or
      at other premises of the person's employer, or
      at the premises to which work has been transferred either immediately preceding the dispute or during the course of the dispute, or
      at the premises of an associated employer, or."
      1486
      I must tell the House that I had this morning prepared some very powerful and persuasive arguments in favour of all the parts of this amendment but I have been sitting here watching the digital clock tick away and I sense an anxiety to make sure that we not only have a Third Reading debate and a Division but finish at a reasonable hour. So, with the greatest reluctance and, I am sure, to the delight of the House, I shall dispense with the argument and merely rest on the fact that the amendment is self-explanatory in all its details and makes its own case.
      We have learn sufficient by now, particularly after the long hours during which we debated this clause of the Bill in the Standing Committee, to anticipate the Government's reaction. I know that they are extremely unlikely to accept this amendment, so I am going to save the time of the House by saying that I urge my hon. Friends, when the Minister has replied, to divide the House on this amendment.
      Mr. Prior: I too had prepared a long speech on this amendment and I am very happy not to have to deliver it to the House. All I must say to the right hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker) is that I believe that this amendment would wreck this particular clause and the purpose which underlines it. What we have sought to do is take secondary picketing, say that it is a particularly odious form of industrial action and seek to make it unlawful. There are too many cases nowadays in which not only does an employer find his business disrupted by secondary picketing, but employees who feel they have absolutely nothing to do with the dispute in question are afraid of going into work. They find themselves in a position in which, even after having voted to continue working, they are still not working, partly because of the things we have been discussing under the previous amendment but also because of the effects of even peaceful secondary picketing.
      Having considered the arguments put forward by hon. Gentlemen in Committee stage—and they cited in particular picketing of premises to which an employer has transferred work during a dispute and the picketing of other premises or companies associated with it—I still believe that there is a perfect case for saying that this picketing should not take place.

      1487
      There are many methods open to employees in dispute of explaining the situation to, and gaining the support of, other workers, and secondary picketing is not necessary for that purpose. It may start out as a means of persuasion but too often it turns into an indiscriminate blockade of the employer's premises, which can have damaging effects not only for that employer and his employees but
      for customers and suppliers, and so on down the chain.
      It is for all these reasons that I ask my right hon and hon. Friends to reject the amendment.
      Question put, That the amendment be made:—
      The House divided: Ayes 244, Noes 316.

      Division No. 274]

      AYES

      [8.30 pm

      Abse, Leo

      Ennals, Rt Hon David

      Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)

      Adams, Allen

      Evans, loan (Aberdare)

      Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson

      Allaun, Frank

      Evans, John (Newton)

      McDonald, Dr Oonagh

      Anderson, Donald

      Ewing, Harry

      McElhone, Frank

      Archer Rt Hon Peter

      Faulds, Andrew

      McGuire, Michael (Ince)

      Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

      Field, Frank

      McKay, Allen (Penistone)

      Ashton, Joe

      Fitch, Alan

      McKelvey, William

      Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)

      Flannery, Martin

      MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

      Bagier, Gordon A. T.

      Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)

      Maclennan, Robert

      Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

      Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

      McNally, Thomas

      Beith, A. J.

      Foot, Rt Hon Michael

      McWilliam, John

      Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

      Ford, Ben

      Marks, Kenneth

      Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

      Forrester, John

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

      Bidwell, Sydney

      Foster, Derek

      Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

      Booth, Rt Hon Albert

      Foulkes, George

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

      Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)

      Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

      Martin, Michael (Gl'gow, Springb'rn)

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

      Mason, Rt Hon Roy

      Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

      Garrett, John (Norwich S)

      Maxton, John

      Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

      Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

      Maynard, Miss Joan

      Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

      George, Bruce

      Meacher, Michael

      Buchan, Norman

      Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

      Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

      Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

      Ginsburg, David

      Mikardo, Ian

      Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

      Golding, John

      Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

      Campbell, Ian

      Gourlay, Harry

      Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

      Campbell-Savours, Dale

      Grant, George (Morpeth)

      Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

      Canavan, Dennis

      Grant, John (Islington C)

      Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Cant, R. B.

      Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

      Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

      Carmichael, Neil

      Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

      Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

      Carter-Jones, Lewis

      Hardy, Peter

      Morton, George

      Cartwright, John

      Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

      Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

      Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

      Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

      Newens, Stanley

      Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

      Haynes, Frank

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Cohen, Stanley

      Healey, Rt Hon Denis

      O'Halloran, Michael

      Coleman, Donald

      Heffer, Eric S.

      O'Neill, Martin

      Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

      Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

      Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

      Conlan, Bernard

      Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

      Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

      Cook, Robin F.

      Home Robertson, John

      Palmer, Arthur

      Cowans, Harry

      Homewood, William

      Parker, John

      Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)

      Hooley, Frank

      Parry, Robert

      Crowther, J. S.

      Horam, John

      Pavitt, Laurie

      Cryer, Bob

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

      Pendry, Tom

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      Huckfield, Les

      Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

      Cunningham, George (Islington S)

      Hudson, Davies, Gwilym Ednyfed

      Prescott, John

      Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

      Hughes, Mark (Durham)

      Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

      Dalyell, Tam

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

      Race, Reg

      Davidson, Arthur

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Radice, Giles

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Janner, Hon Greville

      Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

      Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

      Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

      Richardson, Jo

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

      John, Brynmor

      Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

      Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

      Johnson, James (Hull West)

      Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

      Dempsey, James

      Johnson, Walter (Derby South)

      Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)

      Dewar, Donald

      Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rhondda)

      Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

      Dixon, Donald

      Jones, Barry (East Flint)

      Robertson, George

      Dobson, Frank

      Jones, Dan (Burnley)

      Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

      Dormand, Jack

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Rodgers, Rt Hon William

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Kerr, Russell

      Rooker, J. W.

      Dubs, Alfred

      Kilroy-Silk, Robert

      Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Kinnock, Neil

      Rowlands, Ted

      Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

      Lamborn, Harry

      Ryman, John

      Dunnett, Jack

      Lamond, James

      Sever, John

      Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

      Leighton, Ronald

      Sheerman, Barry

      Eadie, Alex

      Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

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

      Eastham, Ken

      Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)

      Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Short, Mrs Renée

      Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)

      Litherland, Robert

      Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

      Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

      Lofthouse, Geoffrey

      Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

      English, Michael

      Lyon, Alexander (York)

      Silverman, Julius

      Skinner, Dennis

      Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)

      Wigley, Dafydd

      Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)

      Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

      Snape, Peter

      Tilley, John

      Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)

      Soley, Clive

      Tinn, James

      Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

      Spearing, Nigel

      Torney, Tom

      Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Urwin, Rt Hon Tom

      Winnick, David

      Stallard, A. W.

      Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

      Woodall, Alec

      Stoddart, David

      Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

      Woolmer, Kenneth

      Stott, Roger

      Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

      Wrigglesworth, Ian

      Strang, Gavin

      Watkins, David

      Wright, Sheila

      Straw, Jack

      Weetch, Ken

      Young, David (Bolton East)

      Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

      Wellbeloved, James

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

      Welsh, Michael

      TELLERS POR THE AVES:

      Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

      White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

      Mr. Hugh McCartney and

      Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

      White, James (Glasgow, Pollock)

      Mr. Ted Graham.

      Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

      Whitlock, William

      NOES

      Adley, Robert

      Cranborne, Viscount

      Hill, James

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Critchley, Julian

      Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

      Alexander, Richard

      Crouch, David

      Holland, Philip (Carlton)

      Alison, Michael

      Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

      Hooson, Tom

      Amery, Rt Hon Julian

      Dickens, Geoffrey

      Hordern, Peter

      Ancram, Michael

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Arnold, Tom

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

      Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

      Aspinwall, Jack

      Dover, Denshore

      Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

      Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

      du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

      Howells, Geraint

      Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

      Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

      Durant, Tony

      Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

      Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

      Dykes, Hugh

      Hurd, Hon Douglas

      Banks, Robert

      Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

      Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Edwards, Rt Hon N. (Pembroke)

      Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

      Beith, A. J.

      Eggar, Timothy

      Jessel, Toby

      Bell, Sir Ronald

      Elliott, Sir William

      Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

      Bendall, Vivian

      Emery, Peter

      Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

      Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)

      Eyre, Reginald

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)

      Fairbairn, Nicholas

      Kaberry, Sir Donald

      Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

      Fairgrieve, Russell

      Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

      Best, Keith

      Faith, Mrs Sheila

      Kimball, Marcus

      Bevan, David Gilroy

      Farr, John

      King, Rt Hon Tom

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Fell, Anthony

      Kitson, Sir Timothy

      Biggs-Davison, John

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      Knight, Mrs Jill

      Blackburn, John

      Finsberg, Geoffrey

      Knox, David

      Body, Richard

      Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

      Lamont, Norman

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

      Lang, Ian

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

      Forman, Nigel

      Latham, Michael

      Bowden, Andrew

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Boyson, Dr Rhodes

      Fox, Marcus

      Lawson, Nigel

      Braine, Sir Bernard

      Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

      Lee, John

      Bright, Graham

      Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      Brinton, Tim

      Fry, Peter

      Lester, Jim (Beeston)

      Brittan, Leon

      Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

      Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

      Brooke, Hon Peter

      Gardiner, George (Reigate)

      Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

      Brotherton, Michael

      Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)

      Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

      Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

      Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

      Loveridge, John

      Browne, John (Winchester)

      Glyn, Dr Alan

      Lyell, Nicholas

      Bruce-Gardyne, John

      Goodlad, Alastair

      McCrindle, Robert

      Bryan, Sir Paul

      Gorst, John

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Buchanan-Smith, Hon Alick

      Gow, Ian

      MacGregor, John

      Buck, Antony

      Gower, Sir Raymond

      MacKay, John (Argyll)

      Budgen, Nick

      Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

      Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

      Bulmer, Esmond

      Gray, Hamish

      McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

      Burden, F. A.

      Greenway, Harry

      McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

      Butcher, John

      Grieve, Percy

      McQuarrie, Albert

      Butler, Hon Adam

      Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)

      Madel, David

      Cadbury, Jocelyn

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

      Major, John

      Carlisle, John (Luton West)

      Grimond, Rt Hon J.

      Marland, Paul

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Grist, Ian

      Marlow, Tony

      Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

      Grylls, Michael

      Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

      Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

      Gummer, John Selwyn

      Marten, Neil (Banbury)

      Channon, Paul

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

      Mates, Michael

      Chapman, Sydney

      Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

      Mather, Carol

      Churchill, W. S.

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Maude, Rt Hon Angus

      Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Hannam, John

      Mawby, Ray

      Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Mawhinney, Dr Brian

      Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

      Hastings, Stephen

      Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

      Clegg, Sir Walter

      Hawksley, Warren

      Mayhew, Patrick

      Cockeram, Eric

      Hayhoe, Barney

      Mellor, David

      Colvin, Michael

      Heddle, John

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Cope, John

      Henderson, Barry

      Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

      Cormack, Patrick

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Mills, lain (Meriden)

      Corrie, John

      Hicks, Robert

      Miscampbell, Norman

      Costain. A. P.

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

      1490

      1491

      Moate, Roger

      Rathbone, Tim

      Taylor, Teddy (Southend East)

      Molyneux, James

      Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

      Tebbit, Norman

      Monro, Hector

      Rees-Davies, W. R.

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Montgomery, Fergus

      Renton, Tim

      Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

      Moore, John

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Thompson, Donald

      Morgan, Geraint

      Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

      Ridsdale, Julian

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

      Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

      Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)

      Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

      Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

      Trippier, David

      Mudd, David

      Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

      Trotter, Neville

      Murphy, Christopher

      Rossi, Hugh

      van Straubenzee, W. R.

      Myles, David

      Rost, Peter

      Vaughan, Dr Gerard

      Neale, Gerrard

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Viggers, Peter

      Needham, Richard

      St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

      Waddington, David

      Nelson, Anthony

      Scott, Nicholas

      Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

      Neubert, Michael

      Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

      Wakeham, John

      Newton, Tony

      Shelton, William (Streatham)

      Waldegrave, Hon William

      Normanton, Tom

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

      Nott, Rt Hon John

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

      Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

      Onslow, Cranley

      Silvester, Fred

      Wall, Patrick

      Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

      Sims, Roger

      Waller, Gary

      Osborn, John

      Skeet, T. H. H.

      Walters, Dennis

      Page, John (Harrow, West)

      Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

      Ward, John

      Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)

      Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

      Watson, John

      Parris, Matthew

      Speed, Keith

      Wells, John (Maidstone)

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Speller, Tony

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

      Patten, John (Oxford)

      Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

      Wheeler, John

      Pattie, Geoffrey

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

      Whitney, Raymond

      Pawsey, James

      Sproat, lain

      Wickenden, Keith

      Penhaligon, David

      Squire, Robin

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Percival, Sir Ian

      Stainton, Keith

      Wilkinson, John

      Pink, Rt Bonner

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

      Pollock, Alexander

      Stanley, John

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Porter, George

      Steel, Rt Hon David

      Wolfson, Mark

      Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

      Steen, Anthony

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

      Stevens, Martin

      Younger, Rt Hon George

      Price, David (Eastleigh)

      Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

      Prior, Rt Hon James

      Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      Proctor, K. Harvey

      Stradling Thomas, J.

      Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and

      Pym, Rt Hon Francis

      Tapsell, Peter

      Mr. Anthony Berry.

      Raison, Timothy

      Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)

      Question accordingly negatived.
      Mr. Harold Walker: I beg to move amendment No. 88, in page 17, line 21, leave out from ' union ' to end of line 23.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): With this we may discuss Government amendments Nos. 26 and 27.
      Mr. Walker: I hope that I might earn the gratitude of the House by being as brief in moving this amendment as I was in moving the last.
      The provision in the clause is absurdly restrictive. As the clause is drafted it would, for example, expose Mr. Len Murray to a civil action if he had to do what I am sure the Secretary of State would love him to do in one of the situations described. He might pop along and say to the lads " Lads, just cool it a bit ". The mere act of doing that, under this provision, would expose Mr. Murray to action in the courts.
      8.45 pm
      The same would apply if the secretary of the local trades council wanted to pop along to the chaps on the picket line and say " Lads, there's a cup of tea for
      1492
      you at the trades hall when you are ready." Again, it seems to us that he will be caught by the provisions of the Bill and exposed to civil action. I do not intend to inflict on the House any more examples of the absurdities that have been created by the Government, despite the fact that I could quote an endless list of them. I hope that that, of itself, will convince the Secretary of State, and the House, of the good sense of this modest little amendment.
      I am quite sure that the Secretary of State will say, when he moves his own amendments, that he has gone some way towards meeting the arguments we advanced in Committee. I confess that I cannot understand the right hon. Gentleman's amendments. I hope that, with the same brevity with which I have moved amendment No. 88, he will tell us exactly what the amendments mean and indicate whether he has responded in any degree to the persuasive arguments advanced in Committee.
      Mr. Prior: Amendment No. 88 would considerably increase the number of people who could attend on a picket line and would allow any trade union official

      1493
      to picket anywhere. We think that that is far too wide-ranging a measure. We do not see why officials should be able to picket where there is no dispute or, if there is a dispute, where they do not represent the workers on the picket line. We have tabled amendments Nos. 26 and 27 which will make it clear that trade union officials may accompany the members of their union whom they represent. That provides them with complete scope to carry out their normal duties.
      I turn to the amendments which the right hon. Gentleman finds it difficult to understand. The effect of amendment No. 26, which adds the words " and whom he represents ", provides that it should be lawful for a trade union official to picket alongside his members only if he represents those members. Amendment No. 27 which comes at the end of line 40 explains what this means. Those officials—that is to say shop stewards—who have been elected, or appointed, to represent a specific group of employees are to be regarded for the purposes of this clause as representing only those employees and no others.
      Other trade union officials—that is to say national officials—who do not represent a specific group of members are to be regarded as representing all the members of a trade union. Hence, they are able to join a picket line of any members of their union.
      During discussions in Committee my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) pointed out that the clause as drafted allowed wide scope for picketing by trade union officials whose members were picketing, whether or not those officials represented members of the
      union on the picket line or those who had a direct interest in the dispute. For that purpose my hon. Friend tabled an amendment to narrow that scope. The Opposition pointed out that the amendment might be, and probably would be, unnecessarily narrow as it could prevent people such as a branch chairman or the lay president of the union from attending a picket line. Our amendments take account of those two arguments and make it lawful for a branch chairman or secretary to picket at any place where members of their branch are picketing lawfully. The lay president—in so far as he is likely to want to join a picket line at all—will be able to attend alongside any of his members who are picketing.
      At the same time the amendment will prevent officials who do not represent those who are actually picketing from being drafted in to swell the numbers on that picket fine or to act as a prime picket. Therefore, in some respects, we have narrowed the definition as my hon. Friend suggested. On the other hand, we have widened it to the extent that the Opposition asked us to do in Committee.
      Amendment negatived.
      Amendment made: No. 26, in page 17, line 23, at end insert ' and whom he represents '.—[Mr. Prior.]
      Amendment proposed: No. 19, in page 17, line 40, at end insert—
      ' (2) Nothing in this section shall affect existing immunities from criminal prosecution.'.—[Mr. Alexander W. Lyon.]
      Question put, That the amendment be made:—
      The House divided: Ayes 246, Noes 310.

      Division No. 275]

      AYES

      [8.50 pm

      Abse, Leo

      Buchan, Norman

      Cryer, Bob

      Adams, Allen

      Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      Allaun, Frank

      Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

      Cunningham, George (Islington S)

      Anderson, Donald

      Campbell, Ian

      Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

      Archer, Rt Hon Peter

      Campbell-Savours, Dale

      Dalyell, Tam

      Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

      Canavan, Dennis

      Davidson, Arthur

      Ashton, Joe

      Cant, R. B.

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)

      Carmichael, Neil

      Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

      Bagier, Gordon A. T.

      Carter-Jones, Lewis

      Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

      Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

      Cartwright, John

      Dempsey, James

      Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

      Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

      Dewar, Donald

      Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

      Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

      Dixon, Donald

      Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

      Cohen, Stanley

      Dobson, Frank

      Bidwell, Sydney

      Coleman, Donald

      Dormand, Jack

      Booth, Rt Hon Albert

      Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)

      Conlan, Bernard

      Dubs, Alfred

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Cook, Robin F.

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

      Cowans, Harry

      Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

      Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

      Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)

      Dunnett, Jack

      Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

      Crowther, J. S.

      Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

      Eadie, Alex

      Kinnock, Nell

      Robertson, George

      Eastham Ken

      Lamborn, Harry

      Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

      Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

      Lamond, James

      Rodgers, Rt Hon William

      Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)

      Leighton, Ronald

      Rooker, J. W.

      Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

      Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

      Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

      English, Michael

      Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)

      Rowlands, Ted

      Ennals, Rt Hon David

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Ryman, John

      Evans, loan (Aberdare)

      Litherland, Robert

      Sever, John

      Evans, John (Newton)

      Lofthouse, Geoffrey

      Sheerman, Barry

      Ewing, Harry

      Lyon, Alexander (York)

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

      Faulds, Andrew

      Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)

      Field, Frank

      Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson

      Short, Mrs Renée

      Fitch, Alan

      McCartney, Hugh

      Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

      Flannery, Martin

      McDonald, Dr Oonagh

      Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

      Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)

      McElhone, Frank

      Silverman, Julius

      Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

      McGuire, Michael (Ince)

      Skinner, Dennis

      Foot, Rt Hon Michael

      McKay, Allen (Penistone)

      Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)

      Ford, Ben

      McKelvey, William

      Snape, Peter

      Forrester, John

      MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

      Soley, Clive

      Foster, Derek

      Maclennan, Robert

      Spearing, Nigel

      Foulkes, George

      McNally, Thomas

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

      McWilliam, John

      Stallard, A. W.

      Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

      Marks, Kenneth

      Stoddart, David

      Garrett, John (Norwich S)

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

      Stott, Roger

      Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

      Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

      Strang, Gavin

      George, Bruce

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

      Straw, Jack

      Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

      Martin, Michael (Gl'gow, Springb'rn)

      Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

      Ginsburg, David

      Mason, Rt Hon Roy

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

      Golding, John

      Maxton, John

      Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

      Gourlay, Harry

      Maynard, Miss Joan

      Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

      Graham, Ted

      Meacher, Michael

      Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

      Grant, George (Morpeth)

      Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

      Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)

      Grant, John (Islington C)

      Mikardo, Ian

      Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

      Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

      Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

      Tilley, John

      Hardy, Peter

      Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

      Tinn, James

      Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

      Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

      Torney, Tom

      Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

      Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Urwin, Rt Hon Tom

      Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

      Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

      Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

      Haynes, Frank

      Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

      Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

      Healey, Rt Hon Denis

      Morton, George

      Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

      Watkins, David

      Hogg Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

      Newens, Stanley

      Weetch, Ken

      Holland. Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Wellbeloved, James

      Home Robertson, John

      O'Halloran, Michael

      Welsh, Michael

      Homewood, William

      O'Neill, Martin

      White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

      Hooley, Frank

      Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

      White, James (Glasgow, Pollock)

      Horam, John

      Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

      Whitehead, Phillip

      Howell Rt Hon Denis (B ham, Sm H)

      Palmer, Arthur

      Whitlock, William

      Huckfield, Les

      Parker, John

      Wigley, Dafydd

      Hudson Davies, Gwilym Ednyfed

      Parry, Robert

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

      Hughes, Mark (Durham)

      Pavitt, Laurie

      Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

      Pendry, Tom

      Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

      Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

      Janner, Hon Greville

      Prescott, John

      Winnick, David

      Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

      Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

      Woodall, Alec

      John, Brynmor

      Race, Reg

      Woolmer, Kenneth

      Johnson, James (Hull West)

      Radice, Giles

      Wrigglesworth, Ian

      Johnson, Waller (Derby South)

      Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

      Wright, Sheila

      Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rhondda)

      Richardson, Jo

      Young, David (Bolton East)

      Jones, Barry (East Flint)

      Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

      Jones, Dan (Burnley)

      Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)

      Mr. Terry Davis and

      Kerr, Russell

      Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

      Mr. James Hamilton

      Kilroy-Silk, Robert

      NOES

      Adley, Robert

      Bevan, David Gilroy

      Buck, Antony

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Budgen, Nick

      Alexander, Richard

      Biggs-Davison, John

      Bulmer, Esmond

      Alison, Michael

      Blackburn, John

      Burden, F. A.

      Amery, Rt Hon Julian

      Body, Richard

      Butcher, John

      Ancram, Michael

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Butler, Hon Adam

      Arnold, Tom

      Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

      Cadbury, Jocelyn

      Aspinwall, Jack

      Bowden, Andrew

      Carlisle, John (Luton West)

      Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

      Boyson, Dr Rhodes

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

      Braine, Sir Bernard

      Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

      Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

      Bright, Graham

      Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

      Banks, Robert

      Brinton, Tim

      Channon, Paul

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Brittan, Leon

      Chapman, Sydney

      Beith, A. J.

      Brooke, Hon Peter

      Churchill, W. S.

      Bell, Sir Ronald

      Brotherton, Michael

      Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Bendall Vivian

      Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

      Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

      Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)

      Browne, John (Winchester)

      Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

      Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)

      Bruce-Gardyne, John

      Clegg, Sir Walter

      Berry, Hon Anthony

      Bryan, Sir Paul

      Cockeram, Eric

      Best, Keith

      Buchanan-Smith, Hon Alick

      Colvin, Michael

      1496

      1497

      Cope, John

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Prior, Rt Hon James

      Cormack, Patrick

      Kaberry, Sir Donald

      Proctor, K. Harvey

      Carrie, John

      Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

      Pym, Rt Hon Francis

      Costain, A. P.

      Kimball, Marcus

      Raison, Timothy

      Cranborne, Viscount

      King, Rt Hon Tom

      Rathbone, Tim

      Critchley, Julian

      Kitson, Sir Timothy

      Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

      Crouch, David

      Knight, Mrs Jill

      Rees-Davies, W. R.

      Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

      Knox, David

      Renton, Tim

      Dickens, Geoffrey

      Lamont, Norman

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Lang, Ian

      Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Ridsdale, Julian

      Dover, Denshore

      Latham, Michael

      Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

      du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

      Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

      Lawson, Nigel

      Rossi, Hugh

      Durant, Tony

      Lee, John

      Rost, Peter

      Dykes, Hugh

      Le Marchant, Spencer

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

      Edwards, Rt Hon N. (Pembroke)

      Lester, Jim (Beeston)

      Scott, Nicholas

      Eggar, Timothy

      Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

      Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

      Elliott, Sir William

      Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

      Shelton, William (Streatham)

      Emery, Peter

      Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Eyre, Reginald

      Loveridge, John

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

      Fairbairn, Nicholas

      Lyell, Nicholas

      Shersby, Michael

      Fairgrieve, Russell

      McCrindle, Robert

      Silvester, Fred

      Faith, Mrs Sheila

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Sims, Roger

      Farr, John

      MacGregor, John

      Skeet, T. H. H.

      Fell, Anthony

      MacKay, John (Argyll)

      Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

      Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

      Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

      McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

      Speed, Keith

      Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

      McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

      Speller, Tony

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      McQuarrie, Albert

      Spence, John

      Forman, Nigel

      Madel, David

      Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Major, John

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

      Fox, Marcus

      Marland, Paul

      Sproat, lain

      Fraser, RI Hon H. (Stafford & St)

      Marlow, Tony

      Squire, Robin

      Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

      Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

      Stainton, Keith

      Fry, Peter

      Marten, Neil (Banbury)

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

      Mates, Michael

      Stanley, John

      Gardiner, George (Reigate)

      Maude, Rt Hon Angus

      Steen, Anthony

      Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)

      Mawby, Ray

      Stevens, Martin

      Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

      Mawhinney, Dr Brian

      Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

      Glyn, Dr Alan

      Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

      Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Mayhew, Patrick

      Stradling Thomas, J.

      Gorst, John

      Mellor, David

      Tapsell, Peter

      Gow, Ian

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)

      Gower, Sir Raymond

      Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

      Taylor, Teddy (Southend East)

      Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

      Mills, lain (Meriden)

      Tebbit, Norman

      Gray, Hamish

      Miscampbell, Norman

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Greenway, Harry

      Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

      Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

      Grieve, Percy

      Moate, Roger

      Thompson, Donald

      Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)

      Molyneux, James

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

      Monro, Hector

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Grimond, Rt Hon J.

      Montgomery, Fergus

      Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)

      Grist, Ian

      Moore, John

      Trippier, David

      Grylls, Michael

      Morgan, Geraint

      Trotter, Neville

      Gummer, John Selwyn

      Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

      van Straubenzee, W. R.

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

      Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

      Vaughan, Dr Gerard

      Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

      Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

      Viggers, Peter

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Mudd, David

      Waddington, David

      Hannam, John

      Murphy, Christopher

      Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Myles, David

      Wakeham, John

      Hastings, Stephen

      Neale, Gerrard

      Waldegrave, Hon William

      Hawksley, Warren

      Needham, Richard

      Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

      Hayhoe, Barney

      Nelson, Anthony

      Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

      Heddle, John

      Neubert, Michael

      Wall, Patrick

      Henderson, Barry

      Newton, Tony

      Waller, Gary

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Normanton, Tom

      Walters, Dennis

      Hicks, Robert

      Nott, Rt Hon John

      Ward, John

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Onslow, Cranley

      Watson, John

      Hill, James

      Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

      Wells, John (Maidstone)

      Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

      Osborn, John

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

      Holland, Philip (Carlton)

      Page, John (Harrow, West)

      Wheeler, John

      Hooson, Tom

      Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)

      Whitney, Raymond

      Hordern, Peter

      Parris, Matthew

      Wickenden, Keith

      Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

      Patten, John (Oxford)

      Wilkinson, John

      Howell. Ralph (North Norfolk)

      Pattie, Geoffrey

      Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

      Howells, Geraint

      Pawsey, James

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Penhaligon, David

      Wolfson, Mark

      Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

      Pink, Rt Bonner

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Hurd, Hon Douglas

      Pollock, Alexander

      Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

      Porter, George

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

      Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

      Mr. Robert Boscawen and

      Jessel, Toby

      Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

      Mr. Carol Mather

      Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

      Price, David (Eastleigh)

      Question accordingly negatived.
      Amendment made: No. 27, in page 17, line 40, at end insert—
      ' (4) A person who is an official of a trade union by virtue only of having been elected or appointed to be a representative of some of the members of the union shall be regarded for the purposes of subsection (1) above as representing only those members; but otherwise an official of a trade union shall be regarded for those purposes as representing all its members.'.—[Mr. Prior.]

    Schedule 1
      MINOR AND CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS
      Amendment made: No. 28, in page 22, line 32, leave out ' (3C) ' and insert '(3E)'.—[Mr. Prior.]
    Schedule 2

      REPEALS
      Amendment made: No. 20, in page 24, line 25, at end insert ' Section 13(3) '.—[Mr. Prior.]
      9.1 pm
      Mr. Mayhew: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
      This is without doubt, a much better Bill now, both in substance and in detail, and we are grateful for the manner in which its provisions have been scrutinised and debated both in Standing Committee and on the Floor of the House. It is worth looking back, in a brief speech, to its origins. At the general election and for some years before, I think that there was no subject that the whole country found more important than industrial relations. Nearly everywhere people could be found who believed that in one respect or another our country was getting the balance wrong. Millions, I believe, thought that the unions were allowed to get away with things that were unfair to ordinary working people. Millions of people—I shall be frank—were worried as to what would happen if a Conservative Government sought to curtail those privileges. Many more millions of people were deeply afraid of what would happen if a Labour Government did not try to curtail those privileges—as they knew would be the case.
      1500
      My right hon. Friend, when in opposition, gave years to exploring how a fairer balance might practicably be obtained, and I can think of no political task making greater demands upon good judgment. Its consequences were that our manifesto set out an unusually detailed programme. That programme's scheme was to make changes that were limited, certainly, but which were none the less vital. It seemed to find some useful approval. We were supported at the general election by not far short of 5 million trade union members. That scheme is now implemented in the Bill.
      I doubt whether any Bill in modern times has been preceded by more detailed consultation. Its final form incorporated features reflecting views which had been pressed upon us from very many quarters, including the TUC. The stakes that we are playing for surely warranted that degree of deliberation. We want the Bill to stick. The heart of it lies in the proposals for public funds for secret ballots; the proposals for mitigating the injustices caused by the closed shop—yet without outlawing that all too deeply-rooted institution; for controlling secondary picketing; and for restricting trade union immunity for blacking and other secondary industrial action.
      I do not place much faith in polls. However, these measures seem remarkably popular among trade unionists. The support for these measures is not surprising. People want secret ballots. To have them paid for is hardly to suffer a crippling attack on a fundamental human right.
      We have widened the scope of the Bill to take account of valuable points raised by the Opposition in Committee. People want sensible safeguards and exemptions in closed shop agreements. They are frightened of the power of expulsion that their unions hold. Why should they not be compensated for unreasonable expulsion, when a card torn up a is a right to work denied? Why should religion provide the sole ground for conscientious exemption?
      People are frightened by secondary picketing. It is intended that they should be frightened. They see it as a bullying intrusion by outsiders. Lawful picketing should be restricted to the place where the picket works. However, we have improved clause 15, so that appropriate union officials can take part.

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      People are resentful of secondary blacking, and are often gravely harmed by it. The new clause restricts immunity in a way that accords with industrial reality and industrial expectations. Beyond that line, it restores the protection that common law has always afforded. It is up to employers affected by secondary blacking to make use of the common law rights that are now being returned to them.
      The Bill owes much to comments that we received from industry on secondary blacking, during consideration of the February working paper. It represents our immediate response. We had to make an immediate response to the McShane decision given in the House of Lords, which was made after the Bill had been published. However, immunities are immensely difficult. We shall discuss them further in a Green Paper to be published later this year.
      The function of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service in recognition issues, and of the CAC in awarding terms and conditions, has given rise to great difficulties in practice. In Committee, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was pressed strongly to consider any further representations that might be made about the CAC. He agreed to do so. On both these issues the Bill reflects our view that, on balance, these matters are best left to negotiation and conciliation between the parties. We think that that is right.
      I turn lastly to the job protection provisions in the Bill. Two years ago, Lord Lever said that we should take care that the Employment Protection Act did not become an employment destruction Act. We cannot afford to neglect any means that can be achieved—without seriously restricting the job protection rights that we support—of encouraging employment and of encouraging the small business in particular to expand. That is the purpose of the useful and practical adjustments that we are making. Our good faith is illustrated by the new clause—widely welcomed—which gives pregnant women a right to a reasonable amount of time off with pay, for the purpose of visiting a prenatal clinic, where that is medically advised.
      The purpose of the Bill is to help to establish a practicable and balanced framework of law, within which people may bargain with each other within in-
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      dustry upon a fair legal footing. The Bill is practical, balanced and fair. Its Third Reading is deserved.
      9.8 pm
      Mr. Varley: I shall not take up much time, as several hon. Members wish to address the House. The Bill has been before Parliament for four and a half months. During that time the Opposition have tried to expose its provocative and damaging nature. We have also tried to expose its irrelevance. We could not have done that without the support of my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker), my hon. Friend the I Member for Islington, Central (Mr. Grant), and the other members of the Standing Committee.
      We have exposed the fact that it is a damaging measure, which fails to deal with the economic problems that face the nation. I suspect that the Secretary of State has not derived much satisfaction from our proceedings over the past few months. Day after day he has had to face the insults and goading of the Tory press, especially the Daily Express. That, in turn, has encouraged some of the extremists who sit on the Conservative Benches. I see that the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Gardiner) is in his place. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will seek to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is the hon. Gentleman's opinion that at least 100 Tory Back Benchers will not be satisfied with the Bill. Last weekend the Sunday People stated:
      " the dogs having tasted blood are unlikely to stop now."
      It has amazed me that over the past few months not one of the Secretary of State's senior colleagues has taken the trouble to support him in any speech made outside the House.
      Mr. Robert Adley: That is not true.
      Mr. Varley: There may have been one or two, but they have been largely silent outside the House. I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman if he can tell me which senior Cabinet colleague has supported the right hon. Gentleman in any weekend speech on this measure. The hon. Gentleman's reaction indicates the isolation of the right hon. Gentleman.
      Mr. Adley: My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science was speaking in my

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      constituency recently, and he was fulsome in his praise of my right hon. Friend.
      Mr. Varley: That must have been one of the few Tory speeches that was not reported. All the so-called moderates in the Cabinet—for example, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Secretary of State for the Home Department and the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs—have been silent. That is to be deeply regretted.
      It worries me that some of the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues may be afraid to incur the displeasure of the Prime Minister. At Bournemouth on 22 March the right hon. Lady used the same platform as the right hon. Gentleman to undermine his approach. She said:
      " We shall be making further reforms ".
      That indicates that the Government will be introducing further measures.
      Mr. Nicholas Lyell: We have enjoyed this ritual several times in Committee. Will the right hon. Gentleman be kind enough to tell the House which provision in the Bill he supports?
      Mr. Varley: It is customary on Third Reading to make some introductory remarks before turning to the measures included in the Bill. Conservative Members—[Interruption.] I can understand the difficulty of Conservative Members. They are trying by their frivolity to disguise the great divisions within the Conservative Party. The hon. Member for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst) called the Secretary of State a coward, or referred to a cowardly act. It was something of that sort. I shall, of course, give way to the hon. Gentleman if he wishes to intervene.
      Mr. John Gorst: No.
      Mr. Varley: Surely there is no dispute that the hon. Member for Reigate said in a speech during the weekend—it was well reported—that 100 Conservative Members in one way or another do not support the right hon. Gentleman. Indeed, they have defied him on more than three occasions. It is surely legitimate for the Opposition to say that that is the position and that there are great divisions within the Conservative Party.
      Mr. Gorst: I wish to set the record straight. Far from questioning my right hon. Friend's courage, I admire not only his courage but his temerity.
      Mr. Varley: Does the hon. Gentleman categorically deny using the word " cowardly " in relation to his right hon. Friend?
      Mr. Gorst: Not in that context.
      Mr. Varley: The hon. Gentleman is wriggling.
      I say all this to point out the divisions. Hon. Gentlemen may laugh now, knowing that they will escape to their Division. However, if the Prime Minister has her way, we shall be back here before too long with further legislation.
      The Secretary of State does not want to bring forward further legislation on industrial relations. Last week, in answer to one of his hon. Friends, the right hon. Gentleman said that although he would produce a Green Paper there was no guarantee that legislation would result. That is not what the Prime Minister is saying. The House will be faced with a further measure before the year is out.
      Mr. Adley: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Varley: I shall not give way again. Other hon. Members wish to take part in the debate, and I understand that we are anxious to move to a vote.
      Free trade unionism is a right to be enjoyed and exercised responsibly. Having listened to debates, I have increasingly formed the impression that a sizeable proportion of Conservative Members regard trade unionism as a crime to be punished. The Bill has started the punishing process. It will have a far-reaching impact on trade union and individual rights. Most of its provisions are a recipe for trouble making and legalistic formulae. The courts, particularly the Court of Appeal, will have a field day with this legislation. That is why the trade unions and some sensible employers' associations oppose it. The weakening of the Employment Protection Act by clauses 10 and 11, which relate to women's rights, maternity pay, and the right to return to work after having a baby, is petty, spiteful and mean. History will record with disbelief that a Government headed for the first time by a woman approved such squalid measures.

      1505
      The Secretary of State has been thumbing through the Conservative Party manifesto. I am sure that he will say that the Bill had the approval of the electorate, but I defy the right hon. Gentleman and any other hon. Gentleman to point out where in any of their publications prior to the Election it was stated that they would take away women's rights to maternity pay and the right to return to work. Without strong backing from a strong trade union no woman will have a hope of getting her job back after having a baby. The Prime Minister will be able to boast that her Government reduced employment rights for women in Britain and that they became far worse off than most of their European counterparts.
      The proposals for so-called secondary picketing and secondary action will mean that more industrial disputes go before the courts than ever in the past. I do not believe that a judge should be asked to inspect all the complexities of trade union-employer disputes. It will certainly not improve industrial relations. Experience shows that when the courts are involved industrial relations deteriorate. The Government's record on industrial relations is already disastrous. I have given chapter and verse for disputes in previous debates. At the last count 27 million working days had been lost. The Employment Gazette has not yet been published, so we do not know the up-to-date figures. That is twice as bad as the performance in the period of the last Conservative Government, headed by the right hon. Member for Sid-cup (Mr. Heath).
      In this short debate I can only highlight a few of the far-reaching implications that this Bill will have for industrial relations. The Government have missed an opportunity to win the support of the trade union movement. They have missed the chance to persuade the trade unions to implement their own voluntary guides and build on them. Only a couple of hours ago the Minister was paying tribute to those guides, but the Government have missed the opportunity. If they say, as they have, to the trade union movement " We will not take any notice of your guides—we do not regard them very highly and we will move immediately to legislation ", the trade union movement will say " Get on with it, and do not expect any help from us." That is precisely what is likely to happen.
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      I do not remember a period in the last 20 years when co-operation with the trade union movement was more important and more urgently required. With inflation running at 20 per cent. and going higher, with investment and business confidence at the lowest ebb for many years, with unemployment rising to 2 million, and with young people leaving school only to be told that society has no use for them, we are debating a measure that is a great irrelevance. This is a Bill to satisfy the irrational emotional vendetta that the Prime Minister has against the trade union movement.
      When this Bill becomes law, it will be a failure. It will cure no industrial disputes, but it will cause many. Along with many other measures that the Government are putting on the statute book, it will cause ill feeling and contribute further to our relative industrial decline. That is why we shall vote against it tonight.
      9.22 pm
      Mrs. Knight: I cannot help feeling that when the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) reads his speech in Hansard in the morning, he will be rather ashamed of it. We are entitled to believe that he knows something about industrial relations, but tonight he did not contribute one iota to the debate on Third Reading. Coming from the Labour Party, there can be no doubt that he is an expert on the question of party splits. He certainly tried his hardest to make what he could of the fact that not all members of the Conservative Party, or of any party, agree completely with everything that is in this Bill. There are some things in it that I do not agree with, but I shall unhesitatingly vote in favour of the Third Reading tonight.
      Having said that there are parts of the Bill with which I disagree, I wish to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State very sincerely, because he has done a Herculean task. From the very start the Bill was bound to cause opposition from all parts of the House for all kinds of different reasons. After all, this is an extremely difficult and sensitive area and there is no place for a bull in the china shop of industrial relations.
      That view is not imcompatible with the honourable intention of carrying out our election promises, nor with adhering

      1507
      to certain basic principles for which the Conservative Party stands. A major part of my political philosophy is a deep and passionate love of freedom. I could not live in a country where individual freedom did not exist. I accept that, paradoxically, there cannot be true freedom without some restrictions, notably the restriction that one must never infringe the rights and liberties of others in pursuing one's own freedom. However, that does not arise in this context.
      In a free country it cannot be right to compel people to join trade unions against their will, or to stay in them in contravention of all they believe. I would no more seek to force a pacifist to fight than force a man or woman with fundamental objections to what a union is doing to belong to that union. It is monstrous that a man should be denied the ability to earn his living in his chosen trade unless he joins the union and does exactly what he is told. We are dealing with a very important freedom here. A man has the right to pursue his trade and if he may only pursue it as a union member, then there is something very wrong because some union rules are quite unacceptable. I have had a very interesting time reading some of the rules of our trade unions and I find that almost all of them have rules pledging the union and its members to political ends. The NUR, in rule 4(a)——
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is, of course, addressing herself to what is in that Bill.
      Mrs. Knight: I do not, Mr. Deputy Speaker, with the greatest respect, think that I can be faulted in this matter, because I am talking about the fact that individuals must join unions and, within the context of the Bill, I am worried that there is insufficient freedom to avoid union membership. Surely it is perfectly relevant and, I submit, most important, to point out that, if one can work only by joining a union and the rules of the union say what they do, some of us should be concerned that the Bill itself does not in all degrees protect people from——
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is what I rather feared the hon. Lady was leading up to. It is not the matters that are not in the Bill which are relevant
      1508
      tonight; it is the matters which are in the Bill that are relevant.
      Mrs. Knight: None the less, I think you would agree, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that one is perfectly entitled to answer questions put from the opposite side of the House. I was specifically asked which parts of the Bill I did not agree with. I shall pass on, of course, and take your guidance, save only to say that it cannot be right only to have very limited protection from being forced to pursue a certain political end.
      I want to ask my right hon. Friend whether he will let me know about certain constituency cases I have and whether his Bill will or will not protect these people. I raise the case first of a man named John Carney, a quiet, decent. hard-working man, an uncomplaining member of the ASTMS for many years. In fact, he has had to be, because if he had not been he would not have worked. I am not saying for a moment that the membership did not confer benefits, and the Bill itself recognises all the way through that this has been the case.
      This man has paid his dues for many years but felt very strongly about a particular issue of conscience, namely abortion. Because of the complexity of this Bill I have been unable to find out whether he will be protected when it is passed. Whichever side of that argument his beliefs fall does not alter by one iota the case I am putting forward. As a Roman Catholic—which I am not—he believes very strongly that this particular union's activities in pushing the cause of abortion on demand is something that he cannot support. His dues also support that campaign. He has tried very hard within his rights, to leave the union. I am most anxious to know what the Bill will do for him.
      Mr. Crowther: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will the hon. Lady tell us where in this Bill there is anything about abortion? Are we not getting into ridiculous areas now?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have already pointed out to the hon. Lady what would be in order. I am just waiting to see how her argument is developing.
      Mrs. Knight: The argument is perfectly in order, I submit, because a basic tenet of this Bill and what it is trying

      1509
      to do for trade union members as well as for the public is the alteration of the situation from what it is at present——
      Mr. Leighton Mr. Leighton rose——
      Mrs. Knight: No, I will not give way, because other hon. Members wish to speak and I want to be quick
      The point is that if a union member has a point of conscience——
      Mr. Leighton Mr. Leighton rose——
      Mrs. Knight: No, I will not give way.
      If a member of a trade union has a perfectly legitimate conscientious objection to membership of that union, will he still be forced to be in it? This particular man has been trying for five years to be allowed to leave that union. He was told that he could not leave the union. The firm has an agreement with that union that if there are religious objections the person can pay his union dues into a charity. He has tried to do this and has nominated a charity, because he has no wish to avoid paying his union dues.
      In January he completed the official form of resignation. Now I come to the thing that worries me, and to what I want to know about with regard to this Bill There was actually a vote within the union, which decided that he could not leave the union. So he has had to leave his job. Can I tell him that this Bill will help him or not?
      Last month the Transport and General Workers Union branch at Davenports in Birmingham voted for a 24-hour official strike. The engineering department voted unanimously not to strike and the management said there would be work for the engineering branch, but it had to back down because force was exerted by the union. Can I tell my constituents that this Bill will not stop situations of that kind and protect their right to work?
      In Birmingham there is a scandalous state of affairs in the printing industry. All recruitment must be done through the union office. No person is allowed to apply for or accept a job except under the terms laid down by the unions—that is either SLADE or NGA. This can, and indeed does, give rise to all sorts of coercion of individuals and companies and gives the unions a monopoly in the supply of labour, which, there can be no
      1510
      doubt at all, strikes at the very roots of individual freedom.
      What I am asking is whether the Bill will help the widow who came to me for advice. She had taken on her husband's printing firm and had to recruit to replace him and also another person who had retired. She had been told by the unions that they would not permit her to take on any new labour unless the unions—and the firm was not unionised—were allowed to nominate the people she should employ. Will the Bill stop that? To my mind the closed shop is an evil. The Bill encompasses the closed shop and does certain things to help people with regard to sackings through closed shops.
      But what of the situation of the person who cannot move because of the diktat of the unions? Will the Bill help that person? The closed shop is an evil. Managements may find it convenient and I know that this has been a very important point to my right hon. Friend in weighing up the Bill's content, but it is still an evil. The unions are, I think, the most powerful estate in our land, and to operate such force on the backs of bound men cannot be right. Certainly, it is not compatible with freedom. My reservations about the Bill lie in that area. However, as I have said, I shall have no hesitation in supporting it.
      I want people to have freedom from coercion, violence and fear with regard to union membership and the use of their labour. But I well understand my right hon. Friend's difficulties. He has tried to reach, through the prickly and easily offended topsoil, to the strata of reason and moderation of the ordinary trade unionists. However, the man to whom I referred has experienced the kind of terrorism of which I have spoken. He looks to us—there is no glimmer of hope for him in looking to the Labour Party—to protect him, his jobs, his wife and his family from fear. Does the Bill do that?
      9.35 pm
      Mr. Crowther: I was beginning to think that we were back at Question Time. That was a most remarkable Third Reading speech. It consisted of a series of questions to which, no doubt, the right hon. Gentleman will reply in due course. However, it would have been appropriate to use a different occasion for putting questions.

      1511
      What has worried me ever since the Bill began its tortuous course is that the public, who are dependent on the press, television and radio for their information, know very little about its contents or about its implications.—[HON MEMBERS: " They are on strike."]—Well, the press has not been on strike for the last three months. I do not wish to be unduly critical of the press, because I realise that with the plethora of Bills which the Government are pushing through in their headlong rush to create a new record for the amount of legislation in one session—I am sure they are aiming to get into the Guinness Book of Records—it would be impossible for any newspaper to give more than cursory attention to any Bill. But even the most avid reader of the national daily press—I notice that the press is sparsely represented in the Gallery at present—is unlikely to have any knowledge of what the Bill is about.
      The 32 sittings of the Committee received hardly any coverage at all, and press descriptions of the Bill have been generalities. It has described it as a Bill to curb trade union power, to reduce trade union immunities and things such as that. The impression has been assiduously cultivated that it is a fairly moderate measure, that the Secretary of State is a very moderate chap and that this is all part of the " softly, softly " approach. That just is not true.
      I appreciate what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) said about the right hon. Gentleman's difficulties in Cabinet, but it is all a matter of relativity. It simply means that those who are against him are even more extreme than he is. The fact is that this is an extreme measure. There should be no doubt about that in people's minds. It is clearly calculated not merely to curb powers but also to shackle the trade union movement by placing many traditional practices beyond the protection of the law. It goes very much further, and this is a point which the public have not yet grasped. It is also a measure to erode the rights of individual employees, whether trade unionists or not, by taking away rights which in many cases they have enjoyed for generations. Sooner or later, people will realise what is happening.
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      Many Conservative Members are fond of telling us that they have a mandate for this and that they were elected on their manifesto. But, in large measure, the contents of the Bill were not foreshadowed in the Conservative manifesto. Its provisions were not spelt out. I accept that in principle the Government have a mandate so far as mandates exist under our constitution, and I accept that they promised to reduce the power of trade unions. But so far as I can recall, they did not promise to launch an onslaught on the hard-won rights of individual citizens. That is what the Bill will do.
      I do not remember the Conservatives promising in their manifesto that they would make it much more difficult, and in some cases impossible, for a woman to get her job back after she had left work to have a baby. I do not remember their promising that millions of people employed by small firms would lose their rights to claim compensation for unfair dismissal if they were sacked within the first two years of employment.
      I am sure that they did not promise the electorate that they would do away with the right of every worker to receive the recognised wage for the job that he does. That right has existed for centuries in one form or another. If Conservative Members doubt that, they should read their history books, because they will find ordinances from the Crown in the Middle Ages on the question of fair wages. The whole concept of fair wages will be destroyed, at a stroke, by the Bill. That right of individual citizens is being taken away.
      There will be a considerable backlash from thousands of people who thought that they were voting for a party that would curb the power of trade unions and will find that they have elected a Government who are taking away the rights of individual employees. Many people failed to understand when they were carried away on the wave of antiunion hysteria in May that trade unions came into existence solely for the purpose of protecting individual workers in a society in which all the organs of power were weighted against them. Trade unions still exist for that purpose and no other.

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      Every time that we debate these matters, Conservative Members show that they do not understand the nature of trade unionism. That is largely because of the different social backgrounds of those Members. I do not blame them for not understanding; I do not criticise anyone for ignorance. But I criticise them for using their ignorance to make attacks on the rights of those in different social classes.
      Conservative Members seem to think that a union is separate and apart from its members. A union is not a machine, controlled by robots, which exists to oppress and tyrannise human beings. A union consists of its members.
      It has often been claimed that the Government have learned the lessons from the terrible mistakes that the previous Conservative Government made over the Industrial Relations Act. However, the Bill proves that they have learnt nothing. In some ways, the Bill will be even worse. It will certainly provide lucrative employment for the legal profession. Perhaps that is why it is called the Employment Bill. Lawyers are the only people to whom it will give any employment. The Bill will certainly increase the decision-making powers that will be left in the hands of learned judges, instead of being left to experienced representatives of employers and workers who know something about what they are discussing.
      The Secretary of State, who has now left the Chamber, and the Under-Secretary have spoken more than once about the desirability of finding common ground for the legislative framework of industrial relations. But while proclaiming a belief in a consensus approach, they have recklessly pushed through a measure which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield pointed out, is opposed not only by the whole trade union movement, but by the more enlightened employers' organisations.
      The inevitable result of the Bill will be more industrial strife, more strikes, more disruption and more lost production. Such is the Government's animosity to the trade union movement that they have concentrated on finding ways of defeating workers who take industrial action instead of concentrating on preserving, developing and improving the machinery that would make industrial action unnecessary.
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      The Government's philosophy and approach is wrong.
      " They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."
      Unfortunately, the country will suffer the consequences of the Government's monumental folly.
      9.45 pm
      Mr. Lyell: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly in support of the Bill. I have had the pleasure of listening to the speech by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) on at least half a dozen occasions in Committee. I listened with particular interest on this occasion to see whether he criticised any particular provisions of the Bill. I assumed that he did not disapprove of anything that he did not mention in detail. I do not blame him for using generalities.
      The secret ballot, closed shop, secondary picketing and trade union immunity provisions will make a fair and balanced contribution to putting into proper perspective the grossly excessive powers and privileges of the trade unions.
      The hon. Member for Keighley, (Mr. Cryer), who contributes to debates on numerous occasions, will be aware of one of the Bill's provisions. When trade unionists, who frequently speak of democracy, come to contemplate the Bill, can they do anything but approve the provisions which make secret ballots easier on issues which are important to trade union members? Too frequently do hon. Members opposite say that secret ballots are an expensive and cumbersome method of ascertaining the views of trade unionists. The Bill rules out that expense. I hope that ballots will be used when there is divided opinion among trade unionists on important issues, whether they involve questions of union control or a decision to call a strike.
      Few of my hon. Friends do not have an instinctive feeling that the closed shop is contrary to their principles..
      Mr. Ian Mikardo: What about the lawyers?
      Mr. Lyell: The hon. Member would be wise to remember that the legal profession is open to anybody with the ability to join it. If it were true that the right to work in businesses where closed shops prevail is open to anybody who is willing

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      to work, and do the job, the problems of the closed shop would not loom as large as they have recently.
      The provision to restrict new closed shops to those who have the support of the overwhelming majority of trade unionists who are affected by them must be applauded. We must look with interest to see whether there is not a further call for the same measures to be applied to existing closed shops so that people have the opportunity to vote upon them.
      I applaud the Bill's strategy in not pushing that extra measure at this stage. The skill of the Secretary of State is that he has introduced measures which are exclusively beneficial, but the country will wait to see whether further measures are needed. That is why I welcome the Green Paper on immunities as a whole.
      The issue of immunities is genuinely an exceptionally difficult problem. One looks forward to seeing what the right hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker) has to say on this particular aspect because he must have, at least, considered the whole question of immunities when he was in a position of responsibility in the Department of Employment.
      The right hon. Gentleman must have agonised about whether his own party had not gone too far in removing all immunities and granting unrestricted privileges. He may find it inconvenient during this short Third Reading debate to make any particular comment but I should have thought that the whole country believes that the blanket——
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Lyell) must relate his remarks to what is in the Bill.
      Mr. Lyell: I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was concentrating, I hope correctly, on the point which the Bill sought to cover within the context of that which it might have sought to cover.
      To coin a phrase, the most striking feature of the Bill is its restriction of picketing to the place of work and to those who are involved in the industrial action. Recalling the excesses at the Saltley coke works—and I suspect there are only two Members of this House who
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      did not regard that as disgraceful—and having seen, more recently, the effects of secondary picketing at Hadfield's, in Sheffield, and at Sheerness, the whole country will applaud the fact the such picketing has now been restricted to an employee's own place of work.
      Furthermore, the whole country will applaud the fact that it has now been recognised that the existing criminal law provides considerable protection if only it is properly applied and enforced. The combinations of the reasonable restriction of secondary picketing and the realisation—as has often been said by Labour right hon. and hon. Members—that the criminal law should be enforced, along with the new measures and the three points that I have mentioned, demonstrates how important it is that this Bill should receive the support of the whole House.
      9.53 pm
      Mr. Mikardo: If this Bill is, as the Under-Secretary said, a better Bill now than when it started its life, that fact does not owe much to the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Lyell). During almost 100 hours of debate in Committee the hon. Gentleman firmly maintained a Trappist silence. Having heard him this evening, I understand why that was the case.
      Since I have mentioned the Under-Secretary I am going to say something that may surprise my right hon. and hon. Friends. I wish to express my thanks and appreciation to him for the way in which he did his share of the work of getting the Bill through the House.
      Inevitably, in Committee it is the Under-Secretary rather than the Minister who has the biggest job to do. Although I, of course, disagreed with about 90 per cent. of what the Under-Secretary said in every speech that he made, I think that all members of the Committee, whether they agreed with him or not—and there were hon. Members on both sides of the Committee who disagreed with him—should be grateful to him for the patience and the clarity with which he advanced his own arguments and sought to rebuff the arguments of those with whom he disagreed.
      This is a pernicious Bill. To steal a phrase from the French, it is worse than a crime; it is a mistake. From the Government's point of view, it is worse

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      than a crime; it is a mistake—because it will succeed brilliantly in achieving objectives that are precisely the opposite of what the Government had in mind when they introduced the Bill. I think that that will happen in four ways.
      First, the Bill is aimed at trade unions and trade unionists. It is absolutely clear that it will adversely affect the interests of all workers—trade unionists, non-trade unionists and anti-trade unionists alike. That is the first way in which it will achieve an objective different from what was sought.
      Secondly—I speak from some little first-hand experience of these matters as a result of sitting through 100 hours in Committee going through the Bill with a small tooth comb and discussing it with management and worker friends in industry—the effect of this measure will be to increase the number of unofficial strikes. There will be more unofficial disputes, they will be longer and more bitter, and they will be more difficult to resolve. That is the second way in which the Bill will achieve exactly the opposite objective from what the Government want.
      The third objective was to try to clarify the law once and for all. Of course, we can never clarify the law once and for all, but the Bill was supposed to make a big advance in that direction. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. Crowther) said, there will be more industrial relations matters in the courts as a result of this measure.
      That will lead to a fourth problem. I prophesy that ere long somebody will be imprisoned as a result of the Bill. It is no good talking about taking the criminal law out of it. One day someone will refuse to pay a fine, will refuse to be distrained, and will be imprisoned.
      I have considerable regard for the Secretary of State—much more than some of his hon. Friends have for him—but he should now be getting his right hon. and learned Friend to increase the staff of the Official Solicitor's Department, because many more official solicitors will be needed—[Interruption.] The hon.
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      Gentleman has obviously dined very well. When he gets on a bit, he will learn to take his roast beef better without being the worse for it. I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman will need more official solicitors because he will have more Pentonville fives. He will be on the same hook as was his predecessor in a previous Conservative Government, and he will have the job of getting off that hook.
      I said that this was a pernicious Bill. It is a mean Bill, too. Although it is aimed in general at all workers and will adversely affect them, three groups will be most adversely affected. They are the three groups who are most vulnerable. I worry about this matter, because I have an inner city constituency where there are many workers who fall into these three groups. The three groups are the low-paid, the women workers and the employees of small firms. On average, they will be more adversely affected than other workers. In inner city areas, such as the one in which my constituency is situated, that effect will be felt very sharply.
      When we came out of Standing Committee—where we had good debates with very good arguments—and got on to the Floor of the House, most of the stuff that we heard from the Government Benches was highly theoretical and grossly uninformed.
      The speeches that we heard were based not on reality but on mythology. We heard the sort of chit-chat that goes down very well over the brandy and cigars in an expensive city luncheon club. We heard the sort of chit-chat that goes down well over the pre-Sunday lunch gins and tonics at the nineteenth hole of a Surrey golf club—or, if one looks to the female of the species, the sort of chit-chat that goes down well under the dryer——
      It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, the Employment Bill and the consideration of Lords Amendments to the British Aerospace Bill may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Lord James Douglas-Hamilton]

EMPLOYMENT BILL
Question again proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Mr. Mikardo: I was saying that the females of the species employ the same sort of mythology when they sit under the dryer in the luxury beauty salons in Mayfair.
This mythology derives a great deal from Conservative Members reading the newspapers. Most of this uninformed anti-trade union talk is fostered by the newspapers. I am always amazed that members of the newspaper industry—with, perhaps, one exception, the worst record on industrial relations of all industries in Britain—believe that that record authorises them to tell other people how to run their industrial relations.
An example of the worst brass-necked impertinence and the worst presumption in the world is that of the The Times. That newspaper was off the streets for a year, because its management badly mishandled an industrial dispute that, if it had been handled properly, could have been settled much earlier on the terms that were eventually conceded. As soon as The Times returned, its journalists started writing pontifical leading articles telling people how to run their industries. That reminds me of the motorist who was convicted of dangerous driving and who had his licence taken away for a year. As soon as he got his licence back he opened a school of motoring to teach people to drive in the way that he drove.
We have heard passionate speeches about the wickedness of trade unions
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from the throbbing heart of British industry represented on the Conservative Benches. We have listened to the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Brown). Winchester's blast furnaces light up the night sky, right across the New Forest and down to Beaulieu Creek. We have heard about industrial relations from the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Gardiner). Reigate's busy shipyards emit the clang of metal on metal that reverberates right up St. John's Hill, over the North Downs, and hits the stockbrokers below their belts. [HON. MEMBERS: " More ".] Those 100 samurai on the Tory Benches are not merely anti-trade union. The trade unions and the workers are their secondary target. Their first target is the Secretary of State for Employment, and he knows that. They want to be rid of him. That would not be serious if it were not for the fact that they have the support of the leader of their party, the Prime Minister.
When on television the right hon. Lady publicly humiliated the right hon. Gentleman—who is a man of spirit and character—I wondered why he stood for it. I think I know why he stood for it—because he knows jolly well that he will still be there when she has gone. He knows jolly well that when the Tories run into really rough weather they will do what they did to Anthony Eden, to Alec Douglas-Home and to the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath). They will drop her, and that is when the right hon. Gentleman will come into his own.
I look forward to the day—and may it be soon—when we shall have a Labour Government to repeal this nasty, miserable Bill.
10.5 pm
Mr. Needham: I wish that I could be as polite about the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) as was the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) about my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment.
I have listened to the right hon. Member for Chesterfield with great interest on Second Reading, in Committee, and during the debate this evening. He reminds me slightly of a junior shop steward, recently elected, who knows nothing about industrial relations and is serving his apprenticeship by being rude to the people on the other side.
The right hon. Member said that industrial relations law, when it had come into effect in this country and dealt with the trade unions, was generally an unmitigated disaster. He said that it was a disaster because it brought the law into those areas that would be better confined to people negotiating one with another. He seems to forget that the law on industrial relations has been with us, in regard to employers, for generations—and there is nothing wrong with that. I would not necessarily disagree that it is right for the law to have some effect on regulations at work and to ensure that proper standards are set for employers in this country.
But this is a very one-sided argument. When it is a matter of law to deal with specific abuses on the other side of the equation, such as the trade union side, Labour Members throw their hands in the air and say that this is an aggressive and dreadful attack on the rights of ordinary working people, that they cannot in any way support it, and that it will do nothing but harm and damage—except for assisting my right hon. and learned Friends to get even more fees than they have already.
That cannot be the right way in which to proceed. Initially the law was changed in order to restore the balance in society at a time when it was very much in favour of the employers, at the expense of workpeople, but consistently over the last 60 or 70 years it has gone the other way.
The hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) said in the House the other day that there was a conflict between capital on one side and workpeople on the other,
1522
and that the law must be brought in more and more strongly to defend workpeople against the force and power of capital. My submission is that the Bill is needed because the interests of capital and of workpeople are becoming more and more similar.
There is no point in having a machine costing £1 million if the man who works it can withdraw his labour and bankrupt the company. But increasingly, in an integrated and automated society, that is what happens. We are not dealing with the industrial society of the 1920s or 1930s. [Hon. Members: " They are."] Certainly, Labour Members are, but we on the Government Benches know that we are not dealing with that sort of society; we are dealing in the Bill with the problems that face a modern economy when small groups of people can wreak on society tremendous damage—damage that was never previously foreseen.
I accept that the balance that we seek in this country is a balance in which the law has a small part to play and in which people can get on and negotiate sensibly. But there is no point in denying that the power of the trade union movement—the negative power to make life difficult—has dramatically increased over the years, otherwise, why was it that a previous Labour Government had to introduce " In Place of Strife "? Why was it that the Labour Government faced such appalling problems in the winter of 1978–79? There is no point in denying that any Government will face these difficulties.
Does this Bill set sensible parameters to the extreme abuses of one side? Previously, the House would not accept such parameters. However, through the provisions of secondary action, secondary picketing, the provisions governing SLADE, and the encouragement of secret ballots, this Bill has succeeded. It represents a sensible and reasonable starting point.
What would the Opposition have us do? Perhaps they would do nothing and allow the problems to continue. Sooner or later these problems will arrive at their door, just as they appeared after the war, in the 1960s and the latter part of the 1970s. What will they do? Either they will do nothing or they will strengthen further the power of the trade union

1523
movement at the expense of the other side of industry.
Several of my hon. Friends argue that the Bill does not go far enough. Arguments can be put forward in favour of compulsory ballots and the abolition of the closed shop, and in favour of an individual's right to leave a trade union if he feels, at the end of the day that it does not serve his interests. We face difficult times. Management will face great problems. Our management already spends more time dealing with industrial relations than any of our competitors. If we listen to the advice of some of my hon. Friends, even more time will be spent.
If people have the right to leave a union at will and to set up on their own, our industrial relations system—developed over many years—will be undermined. There are more unions per industry in Britain than elsewhere, and that is one reason why the closed shop has arisen. My hon. Friends' suggestions will undermine management's basic ability to survive. Many of my hon. Friends say that management must manage. If they believe that, they should consider the issue carefully before supporting ideas and motions that will undermine management's ability to manage.
The Bill seeks to establish that certain areas now outside the law are brought within it. The employer will make use of those provisions only if he knows that his employees are with him. The Bill will not be used by the gaffers against the workers. Those who are not involved in disputes, together with their employers, will be able to get injunctions and to go about their everyday purpose. It marks a fundamental beginning in the restoration of a basis on which the law can operate sensibly and even-handedly.
Britain desperately needs this Bill. It may not work in every instance, and it may need amendment as time goes on. Of course, it may be argued that we shall have to look at it again. Basically, it is a good Bill that has been well thought through. It takes advantage of an expertise in industrial relations that the Conservative Party has not always had. Provided that it is given a chance, it will set us on the way ahead.
10.13 pm
Mr. Cyril Smith: I supported the Bill on Second Reading, and I shall do so
1524
again tonight. I should like to join the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) in praising the Under-Secretary for the way in which he conducted himself in Committee. On occasions, I found his sense of humour a relief. I found his clarity worth listening to, and I appreciated his patience. I appreciated that he was clearly the master of his subject. I pay tribute to him for the way in which he conducted himself throughout the proceedings in Committee.
I have no doubt that the pendulum of industrial affairs and employment law swung too far in favour of the trade union movement. Those of us who were in the House in 1974 and were employment spokesmen for our parties argued that the measures being enacted by the Labour Government were pushing the pendulum too far in that direction. Experience over the past four or five years has demonstrated clearly the need to try to rebalance the pendulum—in other words, to bring it back to the centre. I believe that the Bill is a fair attempt to do just that.
I have never argued—I do not do so now—that the trade unions are above the law as it now stands. The issue is not whether they are above the law but what is the law above which they are not. We have to strike a fair balance. The House must be as much concerned with a man's right to work as with his right to strike. It must be as concerned with his right to go about his daily task in peace as with his right to persuade others to his point of view. It has to be concerned with a worker's right to a fair deal and with the right of workers to influence the decisions of those who seek to lead them. The Bill is about all those things.
The Bill has aroused three principal areas of public discussion—ballots, the closed shop and picketing. I voted for stronger action on ballots and the closed shop. In the House, one has usually in the end to choose between Government proposed action or no action. As I believe that no action is unacceptable in the present circumstances, I have tended to opt for the actions proposed by the Government. I have expressed my doubts about the effectiveness of the clauses on picketing and blacking. We shall soon see in reality whether I am right. There

1525
are those in my party who take the view that a code of conduct would have been better. I do not subscribe to that argument, and I have not propagated it during the passage of the Bill. However, time will soon tell whether others in my party are right or whether the Government are right in introducing the measures contained in the Bill.
I am delighted that the Government accepted the proposal for time off for ante-natal care. However, I am sorry that they proceeded to worsen rights for pregnant women. I do not take the view that their rights have been totally desecrated or denied as a consequence of the Bill, but I do not think that anyone can doubt that they have been worsened. Had I been able to intervene earlier, which I intended to do until I was thrown by the Minister's wrong use of procedure, I should have drawn attention to the rights of immigrant women. I am seriously concerned about the effect that the Bill will have on those women.
The Government are requiring immigrant women to sign letters, to write letters and to understand the provisions of the Bill when enacted if they are to protect themselves. I am extremely concerned about their rights. That is why I supported the official Opposition in their opposition to the Government's proposals on maternity law.
I take the view that those who work for small companies are entitled to the same protection in law as those who work for large companies. That is why I supported the official Opposition in their opposition to clause 7.
I do not believe that this Bill is the answer to our industrial problems or to industrial relations. Long-term solutions lie in full worker participation in industry, works councils, two-tier boards, with employee representation, profit sharing, and the general creation of team spirit. Many of our problems in industry are concerned not with industrial relations but with high interest rates and their effect on the value of the pound. In the past seven days in my constituency hundreds of redundancies have been announced by Turner and Newall Limited, on the basis of the effect of Government policy on the value of the pound. The Bill does nothing to deal with that problem. However, I repeat
1526
that something had to be done in the short term to bring the pendulum on industrial realtions and law back to the centre. The Bill is a genuine attempt to do something.
During the passage of the Bill in Committee and in the House, I have tried to have regard to individual liberty and freedom and minority protection. I feel that that is my proper role as the minority party spokesman on the Bill. I hope that the Bill does what the Secretary of State intends, namely, provides a stable basis for future industrial relations.
In passing, I hope that the TUC will think again about its proposed posturing on 14 May. That demonstration will do nothing to halt or alter the Bill, create jobs or help our economy. It will not even do anything for the image of labour and the trade union movement in this country. I hope that all sensible people will ignore the call to strike on that day.
As has been said, the Secretary of State has worked hard on this subject over the years. He has consulted and listened. He has tried 10 persuade, and it would appear that at least at Cabinet level he has so far persuaded. He therefore deserves to succeed, and I very much hope that he will.
I do not believe that the Bill is the great and terrible ogre that it is made out to be. If I may say so, I do not believe that the official Opposition believe that. Their actions, attendance and speeches do not give the impression that they believe that. The fight over the 1971 Act should be compared with the attitude to this Bill. I do not object to the weakness of the official Opposition's fight; I merely express the hope that it might be indicative of their ultimate attitude and the attitude that they try to persuade the trade union movement to adopt.
The Bill has its faults and weaknesses, but it is at least an attempt to do something, which is better than doing nothing, especially when the mass of people in this country want something to be done. I wish the Bill well, and I shall vote for its Third Reading.
10.24 pm
Mr. Madel: As the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) said, the Bill is nothing like as contentious as had been imagined. It has not aroused the great

1527
controversy anticipated in this House or outside. That is partly because it is shorter in length than the 1971 Act. Also, many of the clauses are voluntary and require action by employers, employees, or both, to bring the provisions into force. It does not seek to disturb existing good industrial relations practice. It positively encourages the good parts of our industrial relations that already exist.
I welcome clause 1 and should like to know when the scheme for ballots will be introduced. In the various parts of the clause whereby public money is given for the calling of ballots, the subsection that provides that unions can claim money for ballots for the amending of their rules is particularly important. I hope that unions will look carefully at some of their rules and especially their procedures before calling industrial action.
On clause 2, in spite of the remarks of the right hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker), the Secretary of State will not introduce codes of practice until ACAS has been consulted. I believe that ACAS will welcome the fact that the Secretary of State will introduce the codes after consultations, because there are certain subjects, such as picketing, industrial democracy and grievance procedures, in respect of which ACAS, because of its composition, cannot easily bring about such codes.
On the closed shop provisions, I particularly noticed that in our debate on Second Reading my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that the Department of Employment had done a survey on existing closed shops and had found that when people had a genuine conscientious objection to joining their anxieties were taken into account. In the Bill, we are trying to strengthen that I hope that the Department will publish a regular report on the way in which the closed shops are working. Some closed shops have come about as a result of ballots many years ago, and it would not be right or sensible to insist that there should be a re-run of that procedure.
On clause 7—the small business clause—I welcome the fact that we have altered the law over unfair dismissal. However, I have one reservation. We have wiped out of the Bill subsection (1)(c) of the
1528
new section inserted in the 1978 Act whereby a dismissed employee must be informed in writing of the effects of the clause. Someone must inform would-be employees when they take employment in a small business that this part of the 1978 Act does not apply to them. This is particularly so when one considers that many of those employees are young people seeking their first jobs.
I welcome clause 12, on ante-natal care. I hope that we have got it right on the question of the time allowed before one can put in an appeal to an industrial tribunal if one's employer has not paid for time off. I assume that there is an automatic right of appeal to the employment appeals tribunal if one does not get justice in the industrial tribunal.
On the question of clause 17 and the alteration that wipes out ACAS's role in recognition procedures, there are a number of cases that ACAS has in mid-stream on recognition procedures. Will they now be dropped, rather than proceeded with?
In Committee and on Third Reading, we have asked what will happen now. All I would say on the Green Paper on immunity is that the consultation must be wide and meaningful and must pay special attention to those in personnel on both sides of industry—shop stewards and personnel managers—who spend every waking moment of their working day dealing with this problem. I am not sure whether further legislation will be necessary, and I suggest that it will be impossible to say for some time. However, I think that we have got the balance right in this Bill. We now need a period of industrial stability and peace in order to get legislation working. My right hon. Friend certainly deserves the support of the House in putting it on the statute book.
10.28 pm
Mr. Giles Radice: The Second Reading of this Bill was more than four months ago, and since then we have spent 32 sittings and more than 100 hours in Committee. An amazing number of words have been uttered about this Bill, mainly from Labour Members. I congratulate the Under-Secretary on the way in which he piloted the Bill through.
What kind of Bill do we have on Third Reading? On Second Reading I called the Bill " more mean that modest ", and

1529
certainly it is still mean. It takes away rights. Clause 5 still removes from the employer the onus of proof. Clause 7 still takes away the right to claim for unfair dismissal for employees in small businesses. Clauses 10 and 11 still weaken maternity rights. Schedule 11 of the Employment Protection Act, which gives some protection to the low-paid, will still be removed. Far from protecting the rights of individuals, the Bill actually reduces them.
If the Bill was ever a modest one, it has long since lost all its modesty. Clause 6 introduces major changes in the closed shop arrangements which will lead to endless litigation. Clause 14 bans secondary picketing and is very tough and restrictive; it will certainly cause disruption. The new clause on secondary action will bring judges right back into industrial relations.
On Second Reading and in Committee, the right hon. Gentleman said that his purpose was to restore the balance in industrial relations by introducing a new law. Our contention is that law in these areas—closed shop, picketing, secondary action—will, in fact, make matters worse and that the best way to proceed is by voluntary means, such as in closed shop arrangements, as the Department of Employment survey shows, with TUC advice and a code of practice on picketing and secondary action.
On Third Reading, it is not in order to discuss what is not in the Bill, and that has been a good thing, because we have heard from most of the hon. Gentlemen who have been speaking on Report—those people whom the Secretary of State has beaten off night after night. The only trouble is that this means that the Bill is merely a first instalment and that we shall probably get more later, if the Prime Minister has her way.
Whatever we say tonight, however, the real point of decision is not in this House but elsewhere. In one of his rustic phrases, the right hon. Gentleman said that he thought that his Bill worked with the grain of industrial relations. We think that the opposite is the case; we think that it works against the grain of industrial relations. The only test of that will be in factories and companies throughout the land.
1530
This Bill, like the ill-fated Industrial Relations Act 1971, will fail. Far from improving industrial relations, it will make them worse, and in doing so once again it will bring industrial relations law into disrepute. In the end, this House will have to adopt a different approach—an approach based on industrial democracy. Whether we or those on the Government side of the House are right, only time will tell. I believe that events will prove us to have been right, rather than them.
10.32 pm
Mr. Gorst: On Second Reading, I said that I believed that the Bill would be one-third of a loaf. I am glad to say that a few crumbs—perhaps it is ungenerous to call them crumbs, and I should say " a few slices "—have been added to the size of the loaf and it is now larger than it was, but it is still less than half a loaf.
Will the Bill work? Is it sufficient? Has it got the teeth to bite on those occasions when damage or disobedience may occur in industrial disagreements? I believe that it will work, not because of its intrinsic strength but solely by permission of the trade union movement, that is to say, the TUC and the trade unions that comprise it. The question is whether that permission will be granted. I believe that it will be granted only as long as it suits the trade union movement. Industrial power for the unions is needed; but it is, I believe, only for political purposes that the extra immunities for the trade unions have in recent years been obtained. Their power has grown, is growing and ought to be diminished; but it has not been sufficiently diminished by this Bill.
Why do the trade unions resent the removal of any immunities that have been taken away by this Bill? After all, if one looks back, one sees that provisions concerning safety, health, factory conditions, minimum wages, unfair dismissal and redundancy have all been introduced at a time when the unions were less powerful than they have been since the days of the 1974 Act, which the previous Government introduced.
Why do the trade unions resent the removal of their immunities in the small ways that have been provided for by this Bill? The only reason that I can see

1531
is that, although they plead that they are becoming weaker in relation to employers, the reality is that they are able to boast that they can bring down Governments. It cannot be a consistent argument to say, on the one hand, that they are weaker in relation to employers while, on the other, they say that they have demonstrated that they are precisely the reverse in relation to Governments.
If this reform is to take place step by step, will a second step at trade union reform be practical? I offer to my right hon. Friend the gloomy prospect that public opinion in favour of trade union reform will evaporate if this lot does not work. Disenchantment with legislation will grow, union clamour against any further reform will mount, the political will to achieve any further change will be non-existent, and election fever will then become the order of the day. This Bill is to be the only Bill, and for that reason it must succeed. For that reason, even though I believe it to be half a loaf, it will have my support.
10.36 pm
Mr. Harold Walker: I understand that there is a general feeling in the House that we should rise at a reasonable hour. [HON. MEMBERS: " No."] Therefore, I wish to speak very briefly. If I echo some of the things that have already been said, I do so deliberately, because I think that some of them deserve emphasis.
In their speeches tonight, Conservative Members have confirmed what some of us have believed all along—that they do not mind people having rights in industrial relations, such as the right to belong to trade unions and the right to strike, just so long as they do not try to practise them and make them effective.
I thought that the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Lyell) was shooting from the hip and that he let the cat out of the bag when he referred to the grossly excessive powers of trade unions. He went on to speak of the abuses of picketing, and so on. I commend to him and the House some recent words from perhaps the best-known tyre salesman in Britain, Sir Robert Mark, who said on television:
" Those who frame new laws sometimes give insufficient weight to enforcement. They devote such care and time to debating the moral
1532
implications but assume, often quite wrongly, that people can be made to obey them".
I again remind the House of words uttered to Conservative Members that laws can be effective only if they have the tacit acceptance of those to whom they apply.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) referred to extremists on the Conservative Benches who are pushing the Secretary of State along a path that I believe he is reluctant to take. None the less, he has been forced along it step by step, to use his own phraseology, by the ultras and the bully-boys—not only those who have taken part in our debates but those who have not participated—who reflect the strength of the extremist view on the Conservative Benches. I noticed that several hon. Members jeered at my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) when he forecast that as a consequence of the Bill some workers would eventually finish up in gaol. It seems that there is a view among Conservative Members that pickets should go to gaol.
I hear voices of dissent, but I should like to quote from an article in the Sheffield Morning Telegraph headed " Prison urged as curb on unions ". It says:
" One of the leading Tory back benchers on law enforcement and penal reform is urging that trade unionists found guilty of offences connected with picketing be prohibited from attending further demonstrations, under pain of imprisonment ".
It goes on about the hon. Member for Paddington (Mr. Wheeler), a former Home Office crime researcher—and a former assistant governor at Brixton and Wandsworth prisons, by the way. This was in a report published by the Conservative Central Office, which says also that powers should be given to ban all demonstrations and assemblies in certain areas—and all this in the context of a report on crime.
That is not the first time that we have had the clear impression from hon. Members on the Government Benches that, somehow, the exercise of basic trade union rights is to be identified with the commission of criminal offences.
I say that the right hon. Gentleman is being pushed along this road in a step-by-step process that I described in Committee as the salami tactic of cutting the

1533
trade unions down to size slice by slice. It has already been made quite clear that this is only one in a whole series of instalments, leading us back down the road towards the days of the Industrial Relations Act.
During the passage of the Bill, we heard from right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite literally torrents of words of abuse of trade unions and trade unionists for allegedly forcing people out of jobs or denying people access to work, yet throughout the whole of the many hours—I think, in all, between 125 and 130 hours—I cannot recall a single right hon. or hon. Gentleman on the Government Benches uttering a word of criticism of employers who unfairly dismiss; not a word of sympathy for the employees, the workers, who are arbitrarily, peremptorily, unfairly dismissed; not a crumb of comfort, not a word of sympathy for the 1½ million people unemployed. Their numbers will grow, largely as a direct consequence of the policies of this Government.
The Government talk about their approach being fair and balanced. They might show a little balance by seeing that occasionally there is room for criticism of employers, room for sympathy for people who have been sacked and room for sympathy for those deprived of their jobs and very often their basic employment rights.
I believe that this Bill, like the Industrial Relations Act before it, irrespective of what it does in direct terms, is already inevitably souring and poisoning the climate in which industrial relations in this country are conducted. I believe that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield said, it will destroy such good will as this Government might have sought from the TUC and individual unions. No Government in the history of this country ever needed the support of working-class organisations as the Government do at present.
I believe that the Bill will have a similar effect to that of the Industrial Relations Act. My right hon. Friend referred to 27 million working days lost owing to disputes in this country. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to contrast that with the performance of the last Labour Government. If my memory serves me aright, 27 million working days is a number in excess of those lost in the year
1534
of the General Strike, and probably the highest number lost in a single year in this century—and that is the position before the measure gets on to the statute book.
I believe that it is already having the same effect as that disastrous Act—that is not my word; it was the Director General of the CBI who said that. It will have that effect and of course it will in due course suffer the same fate as the Industrial Relations Act: it will be swept from the statute book.
10.43 pm
Mr. Prior: There will be few more important Bills and few more controversial Bills going through the House during the course of this Parliament, and yet the whole atmosphere has been so different for those of us who were in the House in 1971. I think that this is due as much as anything to the fact that the Opposition now recognise that it is time that the law on industrial relations was clarified, and that something has to be done.
The question running through all these debates has been, what should be the role of the law in industrial relations? The Opposition's view, as we have heard it this evening and on a number of occasions, at least in speeches, is that the law has no place. They are happy to see the law place obligations on employers, and they have been happy to see the law give special rights to trade unions, or to suppress the rights of individual workers in a closed shop, but at the same time they argue that it should never be used to limit the damage that can be caused by industrial action, however reckless and however tenous its connection with a trade dispute.
Instead, the Opposition have told us that the voluntary approach, by itself, is all that is needed; that we have a stark choice between the voluntary and the statutory, and that if we choose one we must forgo the other. That has been the gist of what they have been saying throughout this evening.
I tell them frankly, though I suspect that they already know it, that the British people no longer believe that. The Opposition have played that record for too long. The needle has stuck, and the results have caught up with them. More important, the results now threaten our industrial performance as well.

1535
Because of the emotions, history and prejudices of the whole of this century, this is an area in which we are wise to move with caution. We have always welcomed the efforts of trade unions to put their own house in order. Nothing in the Bill removes ultimate responsibility from them. But issuing guidance is not enough. It has to be made effective. Trade unions must accept responsibility for ensuring that their own guidance is made to stick and that those who flout it are brought to book. Without that acceptance of responsibility, the currency of voluntary guidance is devalued, and that is what we have seen over the past 10 years.
If the trade union movement had used the past decade to do what it promised in 1969, namely, to put its own house in order, I do not believe that we would have spent so much time debating changes in the law as we have over the past four months.
Mr. Sydney Bidwell: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Prior: We all want to get on, but I will give way briefly.
Mr. Bidwell: Is the Secretary of State trying to persuade us that the TUC, which now represents more workers than ever before, will accept the major concepts of the Bill? Is the right hon. Gentleman not in an impossible position when he faces a future of implacable opposition because he has not properly discussed the content of the Bill with the TUC?
Mr. Prior: I shall come to that aspect later. I want to ask the Opposition some questions. Is it really their view that no changes in the law are necessary? Do they believe that no protection is required for individual workers against the abuses of the closed shop, or that secondary picketing and the ability to spread industrial action far and wide, beyond the parties to the original dispute, are essential for trade unions to be able to do their job?
Do the Opposition believe that no changes are needed in the unprecedented volume of employment protection legislation that has gone through the House in recent years, or that nothing needs to be done to protect workers from the bullying tactics of a union such as SLADE?
Those are the questions that the nation is asking. Some of my hon. Friends have
1536
asked them of me, because they want me to go further.
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: So my right hon. Friend should.
Mr. Prior: The House knows that, in many ways, my hon. Friends who have been asking those questions in the past few weeks have been reflecting pretty accurately what they have heard in the country—not on the golf courses or in the saloon bars, but on the factory floor.
Mr. Bob Cryer: Name one such factory floor.
Mr. Prior: I could name any number in my own constituency, for a start.
Mr. Cryer: Name one.
Mr. Leighton: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Prior: Of course, the Opposition do not like being asked these questions.
Mr. Leighton: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Speaker: Order. The Secretary of State has made clear that he will not give way.
Mr. Prior: The Opposition do not like being asked these questions.
Mr. Leighton: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Prior: It is embarrassing for them.
Mr. Cryer: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Prior: No.
Mr. Cryer: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Speaker: Order. It is clear that the Secretary of State is not giving way.
Mr. David Winnick: But the right hon. Gentleman has asked us some questions.
Mr. Speaker: I understand that they are rhetorical questions. He does not want them answered.
Mr. Prior: The Opposition have failed to solve the problems themselves, yet, having put 160 clauses and 23 schedules of trade union and employment legislation

1537
on the statute book in 1974 and 1975, they tell us that the law has no place in industrial relations. If the Opposition hold to that view, it is tantamount to saying that at no time may any Government or Parliament pass a law or take action that is considered necessary and right, simply because a powerful group, operating independently of Parliament, says that it will not, or cannot, obey the law. That is dangerous talk, and it strikes at the heart of parliamentary sovereignty and democracy.
If there were other occasions in our history—as there were—when power left Parliament, paradoxically it was the industrial barons of the last century who occasioned the need for the privileges which the unions subsequently secured from Parliament to protect their proper rights.
We have a duty to pass legislation and to ensure that it is enforceable. We also have a duty to make as certain as we can that the legislation is fair and just to all sections of the community. I believe that the Bill fits and passes that test.
I have said that I do not rule out the possibility of further legislation. Whether we have more legislation, what it does, and when it comes, will depend above all on the response of unions and management to what we are passing tonight. Some have been quick to say that the Bill will not work and that they will do all that they can to prevent its working. The people who say that must recognise the implications of what they are saying. The Bill takes an essentially reasonable approach to remedying abuses that the vast majority of people—and the majority of trade unionists—want stopped. They are not prepared to see the purposes of the Bill frustrated or subverted. If that were to happen there would be great pressure to take much stronger action. Who is to say that that would be unreasonable?
An awesome task of leadership lies ahead for those who are responsible in the trade union movement. I know that some accept that, but to others—still too many—it still seems easier to indulge in the luxury of opposition than to bring about reform. The course of blind opposition is not the course that will serve the interests of trade union members. Let there be no doubt in the minds of those who are affected by the Bill's provisions. The Bill provides a framework. What happens within that framework is up to unions and management. They alone can forge the better relationship in industry that will restore our economy, rebuild our industry and produce employment for our people. It will also help to restore our self-confidence as a nation.
The last Administration tilted the balance too far towards the unions, and often towards unofficial groups acting in defiance of official union leadership. The Bill tips the balance back towards responsible management and responsible union leadership. Management and unions are responsible for the day-to-day conduct of industrial relations. Ultimately, they alone can bring about the improvements that we need. Laws can shape behaviour over time, but they will not transform deep-rooted attitudes overnight.
The will to put right what is wrong with our industrial relations must not stop with this Bill. The real task lies ahead, and is the responsibility of those in industry. Over the coming months and years the challenge will be not to the Bill but to management and unions in industry.
I say to my hon. Friends " Get out and sell the Bill to the country." It is fair, it is firm and it is balanced. It deserves the support of the whole country. I believe that it will get it.
Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
The House divided: Ayes 319, Noes 251.

Division No. 276]

AYES

[10.55 pm

Aitken, Jonathan

Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)

Adley, Robert

Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

Alexander, Richard

Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

Best, Keith

Alison, Michael

Banks, Robert

Bevan, David Gilroy

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Ancram, Michael

Beith, A. J.

Biggs-Davison, John

Arnold, Tom

Bell, Sir Ronald

Blackburn, John

Aspinwall, Jack

Bendall, Vivian

Body, Richard

Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Montgomery, Fergus

Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

Grist, Ian

Moore, John

Bowden, Andrew

Grylls, Michael

Morgan, Geraint

Boyson, Dr Rhodes

Gummer, John Selwyn

Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

Braine, Sir Bernard

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

Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

Bright, Graham

Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

Brinton, Tim

Hampson, Dr Keith

Mudd, David

Brittan, Leon

Hannam, John

Murphy, Christopher

Brooke, Hon Peter

Haselhurst, Alan

Myles, David

Brotherton, Michael

Hastings, Stephen

Neale, Gerrard

Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

Hawksley, Warren

Needham, Richard

Browne, John (Winchester)

Hayhoe, Barney

Nelson, Anthony

Browne, John (Winchester)

Heddle, John

Neubert, Michael

Bryan, Sir Paul

Henderson, Barry

Newton, Tony

Buchanan-Smith, Hon Alick

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Normanton, Tom

Buck, Antony

Hicks, Robert

Nott, Rt Hon John

Budgen, Nick

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Onslow, Cranley

Bulmer, Esmond

Hill, James

Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

Burden, F. A.

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

Osborn, John

Butcher, John

Holland, Philip (Carlton)

Page, John (Harrow, West)

Butler, Hon Adam

Hooson, Tom

Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)

Cadbury, Jocelyn

Hordern, Peter

Parris, Matthew

Carlisle, John (Luton West)

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Patten, Christopher (Bath)

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

Patten, John (Oxford)

Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Pattie, Geoffrey

Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

Howells, Geraint

Pewsey, James

Channon, Paul

Hunt, David (Wirral)

Penhaligon, David

Chapman, Sydney

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Percival, Sir Ian

Churchill, W. S.

Hurd, Hon Douglas

Peyton, Rt Hon John

Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

Pink, Rt Bonner

Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

Pollock, Alexander

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Jessel, Toby

Porter, George

Clegg, Sir Walter

Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

Cockeram, Eric

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

Colvin, Michael

Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

Price, David (Eastleigh)

Cope, John

Kaberry, Sir Donald

Prior, Rt Hon James

Cormack, Patrick

Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

Proctor, K. Harvey

Corrie, John

Kimball, Marcus

Pym, Rt Hon Francis

Costain, A. P.

King, Rt Hon Tom

Raison, Timothy

Critchley, Julian

Kitson, Sir Timothy

Rathbone, Tim

Crouch, David

Knight, Mrs Jill

Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

Knox, David

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Dickens, Geoffrey

Lamont, Norman

Renton, Tim

Dorrell, Stephen

Lang, Ian

Rhodes James, Robert

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Langford-Holt, Sir John

Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

Dover, Denshore

Latham, Michael

Ridsdale, Julian

du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

Lawrence, Ivan

Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

Lawson, Nigel

Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

Durant, Tony

Lee, John

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Dykes, Hugh

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Rossi, Hugh

Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

Lester, Jim (Beeston)

Rost, Peter

Edwards, Rt Hon N. (Pembroke)

Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

Eggar, Timothy

Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

Elliott sir William

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Scott, Nicholas

Emery, Peter

Loveridge, John

Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

Eyre, Reginald

Lyell, Nicholas

Shelton, William (Streatham)

Fairbairn, Nicholas

McCrindle, Robert

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Fairgrieve, Russell

Macfarlane, Nell

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

Faith, Mrs Sheila

MacGregor, John

Shersby, Michael

Farr, John

MacKay, John (Argyll)

Silvester, Fred

Fell, Anthony

Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

Sims, Roger

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

Skeet, T. H. H.

Finsberg, Geoffrey

McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

Fisher, Sir Nigel

McQuarrie, Albert

Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

Madel, David

Speed, Keith

Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

Major, John

Speller, Tony

Fookes, Miss Janet

Marland, Paul

Forman, Nigel

Marlow, Tony

Spence, John

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

Fox, Marcus

Marten, Neil (Banbury)

Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

Mates, Michael

Sproat, lain

Fry, Peter

Mather, Carol

Squire, Robin

Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

Maude, Rt Hon Angus

Stainton, Keith

Gardiner, George (Reigate)

Mawby, Ray

Stanbrook, Ivor

Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Stanley, John

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Steen, Anthony

Glyn, Dr Alan

Mayhew, Patrick

Stevens, Martin

Goodlad, Alastair

Mellor, David

Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

Gorst, John

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

Gow, Ian

Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

Stradling Thomas, J.

Gower, Sir Raymond

Mills, lain (Meriden)

Tapsell, Peter

Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

Miscampbell, Norman

Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)

Gray, Hamish

Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

Taylor, Teddy (Southend East)

Greenway, Harry

Moate, Roger

Tebbit, Norman

Grieve, Percy

Molyneux, James

Temple-Morris, Peter

Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)

Monro, Hector

Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

1540

1541

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

Waldegrave, Hon William

Whitney, Raymond

Thompson, Donald

Walker, Rt Hon Peter (Worcester)

Wickenden, Keith

Thorne, Neil (llford South)

Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

Wiggin, Jerry

Thornton, Malcolm

Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

Wilkinson, John

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Wall, Patrick

Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)

Waller, Gary

Winterton, Nicholas

Trippier, David

Walters, Dennis

Wolfson, Mark

Trotter, Neville

Ward, John

Young, Sir George (Acton)

van Straubenzee, W. R.

Watson, John

Younger, Rt Hon George

Vaughan, Dr Gerard

Wells, John (Maidstone)

Viggers, Peter

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

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Waddington, David

Wheeler, John

Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and

Wakeham, John

Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

Mr. Anthony Berry.

NOES

Abse, Leo

Evans, loan (Aberdare)

McElhone, Frank

Adams, Allen

Evans, John (Newton)

McGuire, Michael (Ince)

Allaun, Frank

Ewing, Harry

McKay, Allen (Penistone)

Anderson, Donald

Faulds, Andrew

McKelvey, William

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Field, Frank

MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest

Fitch, Alan

Maclennan, Robert

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Fitt, Gerard

McNally, Thomas

Ashton, Joe

Flannery, Martin

McWilliam, John

Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)

Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)

Marks, Kenneth

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

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

Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

Ford, Ben

Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

Forrester, John

Martin, Michael (Gl'gow, Springb'rn)

Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

Foster, Derek

Mason, Rt Hon Roy

Bidwell, Sydney

Foulkes, George

Maxton, John

Booth, Rt Hon Albert

Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

Maynard, Miss Joan

Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)

Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

Meacher, Michael

Bradley, Tom

Garrett, John (Norwich S)

Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

Mikardo, Ian

Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

George, Bruce

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)

Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

Ginsburg, David

Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

Buchan, Norman

Golding, John

Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

Gourlay, Harry

Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

Grant, George (Morpeth)

Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

Campbell, Ian

Grant, John (Islington C)

Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Morton, George

Canavan, Dennis

Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

Cant, R. B.

Hardy, Peter

Newens, Stanley

Carmichael, Neil

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Carter-Jones, Lewis

Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

Ogden, Eric

Cartwright, John

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

O'Halloran, Michael

Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

Haynes, Frank

O'Neill, Martin

Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

Healey, Rt Hon Denis

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Cohen, Stanley

Heffer, Eric S.

Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

Coleman, Donald

Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

Palmer, Arthur

Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

Parker, John

Conlan, Bernard

Home Robertson, John

Parry, Robert

Cook, Robin F.

Homewood, William

Pavitt, Laurie

Cowans, Harry

Hooley, Frank

Pendry, Tom

Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)

Horam, John

Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

Crowther, J. S.

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

Prescott, John

Cryer, Bob

Huckfield, Les

Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Hudson Davies, Gwilym Ednyfed

Race, Reg

Cunningham, George (Islington S)

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Radice, Giles

Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

Dalyell, Tam

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Richardson, Jo

Davidson, Arthur

Janner, Hon Greville

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

John, Brynmor

Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)

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

Johnson, James (Hull West)

Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

Johnson, Walter (Derby South)

Robertson, George

Dempsey, James

Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rhondda)

Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

Dewar, Donald

Jones, Barry (East Flint)

Rodgers, Rt Hon William

Dixon, Donald

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Rooker, J. W.

Dobson, Frank

Kerr, Russell

Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

Dormand, Jack

Kilroy-Silk, Robert

Rowlands, Ted

Douglas-Mann, Bruce

Kinnock, Neil

Ryman, John

Dubs, Alfred

Lamborn, Harry

Sever, John

Duffy, A. E. P.

Lamond, James

Sheerman, Barry

Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

Leighton, Ronald

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

Dunnett, Jack

Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)

Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Short, Mrs Renée

Eadie, Alex

Litherland, Robert

Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

Eastham, Ken

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

Lyon, Alexander (York)

Silverman, Julius

Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)

Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)

Skinner, Dennis

Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson

Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)

English, Michael

McCartney, Hugh

Snape, Peter

Ennals, Rt Hon David

McDonald, Dr Oonagh

Soley, Clive

1542

1543

Spearing, Nigel

Tilley, John

Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

Spriggs, Leslie

Torney, Tom

Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)

Stallard, A. W.

Urwin, Rt Hon Tom

Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)

Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)

Stoddart, David

Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

Stott, Roger

Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

Winnick, David

Strang, Gavin

Watkins, David

Woodall, Alec

Straw, Jack

Weetch, Ken

Woolmer, Kenneth

Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

Wellbeloved, James

Wrigglesworth, Ian

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

Welsh, Michael

Wright, Sheila

Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

Young, David (Bolton East)

Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

White, James (Glasgow, Pollock)

Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

Whitehead, Phillip

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)

Whitlock, William

Mr. James Tinn and

Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

Wigley, Dafydd

Mr. Ted Graham.

Question accordingly agreed to.
Bill read the Third time and passed.

BRITISH AEROSPACE BILL
Lords amendments considered.
BRITISH AEROSPACE BILL
  Clause 1

    VESTING OF PROPERTY, ETC., OF BRITISH AEROSPACE IN A COMPANY NOMINATED BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE
    Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 2, line 21, at end insert—
    " (3A) Without prejudice to subsection (3)(b) above, any proceedings on an application made by British Aerospace before the appointed day under section 31(3) of the Act of 1977 may be continued on and after that day by the successor company, and any order made under subsection (9) of that section with respect to any loss resulting to British Aerospace from the transaction to which the application relates shall be made in favour of the successor company."
    11.5 pm
    The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Adam Butler): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    This is a technical amendment. Like the other amendment that we have before us tonight, it was moved by the Government on Report in another place and it was unopposed, so there is no reason why it should detain us for long.
    The House will remember that clause 1 deals essentially with the vesting of the property, rights liabilities and obligations of British Aerospace, the corporation, in a company nominated by the Secretary of State. It ensures, in effect, that that company will become a full successor to the corporation.
    Subsection (3) provides that in all agreements and documents, with the exception of enactments, all references to British Aerospace after the appointed day will refer to the successor company. It is in connection with that exception that a small problem has arisen which the amendment seeks to rectify and which I hope will meet with the approval of the House.
    Under section 31 of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977, British Aerospace has been enabled to seek compensation for onerous transactions undertaken by one of the vesting companies before nationalisation. At the moment, arbitration proceedings under that section
    1546
    are in hand in respect of one alleged onerous transaction. After the day appointed for the vesting of the undertaking in the successor company, the right to continue those proceedings under section 31 will vest, along with all other rights, in the successor company.
    However, section 31(9), which enables the arbitration tribunal to make an order for compensation in respect of an onerous transaction, provides that the order may be made only in favour of the corporation and not of the successor company.
    As I said, subsection (3)(c) specifically exempts enactments from the general provision in the subsection that references to the corporation are to be taken, after the appointed day, as references to the successor company. This would have the effect that, if proceedings in the case to which I have referred were still pending after the appointed day, they would be carried on by the successor company, but any order for compensation could be made only in favour of the shell corporation.
    An amendment to section 31 is therefor necessary to ensure that, after the vesting, an order for compensation is made in favour of the successor company and not the corporation, so that the right to compensation will vest with all other property, rights, liabilities and obligations of the corporation in the successor company.
    This narrow amendment adds a new subsection to clause 1. We believe that it is necessary, because the arbitration proceedings to which I have referred are of uncertain duration and there is a risk that an order for compensation would not be made until after the appointed day.
    I hope that hon. Members will agree with me that this is a sensible and equitable amendment. As I said, it is a technical one and is fully in accordance with the Government's overall policy that the company should be the full successor to the corporation. It is not a controversial amendment, and I hope that the House will agree with the Lords in it.
    Mr. Les Huckfield: We note that the Minister of State is up to his usual tricks. On this Bill, he always says that everything that he is proposing is of really minimal consequence and does not make much difference one way or the other. When we begin to look at it, we

    1547
    find that it is of great significance and that it conceals a great deal more than he pretends to the House.
    When the hon. Member wrote to me on 2nd April—I am grateful that he did so—he put at the end of his letter the words
    " I thought you should know of these amendments in advance; you will agree that they are not points of substance."
    I knew then that something was up, because that is exactly the technique that he has used to ply and plough his way through the Committee stage. Having read the debates in the other place, and having just heard his performance here, it is clear to me that nothing has changed.
    A great deal of my hon. Friends' time has been spent on the Bill. That is why they have come to hear what the Minister says tonight. They are very concerned. The Opposition are not whipped. My hon. Friends are here because they want to be, and not because they have to be. But we know that the hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. Atkins)—I dignify him with that title—is here only because he wants to see how his share applications are likely to go. It is well known—he will be interested in these compensation issues—that he has only one interest in seeing the passage of the Bill on to the statute book: he wants to buy as many shares as he possibly can.
    Mr. Douglas Hogg: That is an unparliamentary remark.
    Mr. Huckfield: It cannot be unparliamentary, because the hon. Member for Preston, North said that he wanted to buy the shares. I cannot help it if the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), who does not come to this place very often, did not hear his hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North say that, but it was said, and my hon. Friends can testify to it. The hon. Member said that he wanted to buy the shares. I have news for him. The flotation of the new company is apparently to be put off yet again, and may not now take place until the autumn. I hope that he will be able to stay in this House that long.
    But it is, of course, to the amendment from the other place that I wish to turn. The Minister would have us believe that this is simply a matter of transferring any compensation benefits from the current
    1548
    statutory corporation to the shell company and then to the fully publicly quoted and properly fledged successor company. He said that it was a simple matter of ensuring that any benefits from arbitration landed in the lap of the new successor company.
    11.15 pm
    The Minister has failed to tell us that an almighty argument is going on about compensation. I wonder when arbitration will end. Perhaps the company will be renationalised before it has been concluded. The Minister knows that the Labour Party will renationalise British Aerospace without compensation. The Government should get themselves up to date about the position of those proceedings.
    The Minister told us that the issue of compensation would take a tiny bit longer than anticipated. In his letter to me, he wrote:
    " We had previously understood that a settlement would be reached before the appointed day."
    I have news for him. Has he read the Financial Times of 16 January? There is an article in that paper by Robert Cottrell, who is supposed to know what he is writing about. Presumably he would not have been given a job with the Financial Times if he did not. [Interruption.] If hon. Members are unhappy about using quotations from the Financial Times, I can quote from other journals and newspapers. I thought that they trusted the Financial Times. If they do not, they should tell us whom they do trust.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): Has this anything to do with the amendment?
    Mr. Huckfield: Conservative Members are making the usual sounds of whipped men. We know that they have been whipped. They would not be here if they did not have to attend. If the hon. Member for Preston, North knew how his shares would go, he would be off. He is staying only to find out what will happen to them.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: The hon. Gentleman is not doing the House a service by tackling the amendment in this way. Is he aware that some Conservative Members are here because they

    1549
    have Hawker Siddeley or British Aerospace factories in, or close to, their constituencies? Those factories employ many people. We are here to ensure that the Bill safeguards a satisfactory future for the new company. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will treat this issue seriously. Many Conservative Members hope that the Bill will be given serious consideration. We are concerned about the future of the new company and the employment that it will provide.
    Mr. Huckfield: Perhaps I can intervene in my own speech. Although the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) claims to represent a peripheral British Aerospace constituency—more peripheral than that of the hon. Member for Preston, North, who is not allowed to speak—he should know that the Bill was first mooted on 24 July 1979. It received a Second Reading in the middle of November 1979. Nevertheless, this is the first time that I have heard the hon. Gentleman speak on this subject. Perhaps he was ill. Perhaps he is still ill. If he was ill, he must have been ill for a very long time.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that hon. Members cannot intervene on every subject relating to their constituencies. Is he aware that although some Conservative Members may not speak, they take an active interest in such issues? They follow debates in the House and in Committee. Again, is the hon. Gentleman aware that although I represent a constituency in which British Aerospace is " peripherally " of interest—I consider that it is of great interest—I have met representatives of the company on a fairly regular basis. Indeed, I have made representations to the Government about the areas in which they are concerned. I hope that the hon. Member will withdraw his rather unfortunate remarks.
    Mr. Huckfield: When an hon. Gentleman has to come to the House to justify his performance as much as the hon. Gentleman has done tonight—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are straying rather wide of the amendment, which relates to the transfer of assets. It has nothing to do with the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton).
    Mr. Bob Cryer: Will my hon. Friend give way?
    Mr. Huckfield: Of course.
    Mr. Cryer: I want to focus attention on the amendment, but I ask my hon. Friend to forgive the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), who has outside interests. He is the chairman of CAMRA and he has other financial interests. It is only natural that those interests take him away from the House, as the interests of other Conservative Members take them away from it.
    Mr. Huckfield: My hon. Friend has put the matter in proper perspective. The hon. Member for Macclesfield appears to feel strongly about aerospace, but it is the first time in this Parliament that I have heard him speak on the subject.
    I hope that you will forgive me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was side-tracked because I dared to indicate that I was about to quote from the Financial Times. I referred to compensation, which is the subject matter of the amendment. Before I was distracted by Conservative Members, I was about to quote from the Financial Times of 16 January 1980. The Minister of State would have us believe that we are dealing with a simple issue—merely transferring any benefits from the compensation arbitration to the new successor company. I hope that the Minister will tell us how long the compensation proceedings will take.
    The article in the Financial Times to which I have referred states:
    " GEC and Vickers, for example, have received a £40 million down payment for BAC. The two companies mooted compensation in the order of £200 million at the time of nationalisation. Vosper has received £1·3 million whereas it is believed to be seeking up to £25 million.
    Those companies now moving into arbitration must steel themselves for further delays of some two years before final settlement is reached."
    You will note, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that Conservative Members are leaving the Chamber. The great interest in aerospace on the Conservative Benches is waning already.
    Mr. Douglas Hogg: The hon. Gentleman should look at the Benches behind him.
    Mr. Huckfield: My hon. Friends are here because they want to be. The article continues. I refer to a passage about three

    1551
    or four paragraphs after the one that I have quoted. Reference is made to the procedures that may have to be followed to the Court of Appeal and other courts. It states—I hope that the hon. Member for Macclesfield, who for the first time professes an interest in aerospace matters, will listen:
    " The upshot is that some companies will have waited more than eight years for compensation by the time settlement is reached."
    If they have to wait that long, British Aerospace will have been renationalised. There will not be any compensation that time round.
    Mr. Christopher Murphy: Disgraceful.
    Mr. Huckfield: The Minister tries to pass this over as a matter of little significance. Does he thing that by some crude sleight of hand he can dismiss the issue?
    The House cannot dismiss the fact that some companies might have to wait eight years before their compensation is settled. If the hon. Member for Macclesfield does not like that—he should be interested in compensation, as some of his constituents might still be awaiting compensation—he should address himself to the circular that was issued by Vosper on 12 February. It was sent to a number of shareholders. I hope that my hon. Friends will listen to me quoting from the circular, because I know that they follow these matters assiduously. The letter is signed by Sir John Rix, MBE, the chairman of the company.
    Mr. Adam Butler: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman has been discoursing on compensation in general, which is dealt with under sections 35 to 41 of the 1977 Act. This amendment refers only to section 31, which is a different matter. It involves the safeguarding of assets, and so on.
    I seek your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether it is in order to deal with general questions of compensation in discussing this amendment? Secondly and specifically, I cannot see that Vosper-Thorneycroft, which is a shipbuilding company, has anything to do with the aerospace industry.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: I, too, was listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. I hope that he is developing his argument, but he must relate it to the amendment. I have had to intervene on two occasions about that matter. May we stick to the amendment?
    Mr. Huckfield: I know that you will recognise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I have been distracted by Conservative Members.
    Mr. Frank Dobson: Driven to distraction.
    Mr. Huckfield: That is the phrase that I was about to use.
    I was trying to concentrate on section 31 of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977, with which the amendment deals. It is with that section that the letter from Sir John Rix is concerned. The letter was sent to all shareholders.
    I see that the hon. Member for Macclesfield has crossed the Floor. Perhaps he has been persuaded by my arguments. [Interruption.] Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will appreciate that I have to put up with a great deal of distraction from the Conservative Benches—and some of the distraction has now crossed to this side of the House.
    The letter says:
    " We do not understand how virtual confiscation can be condoned by a Conservative Government, particularly when it is considering the sale of a part of a confiscated industry on a willing buyer/seller or open market basis. Furthermore "—
    and this is the chairman of one of the companies, who is acutely concerned about what will happen to these arbitration proceedings under section 31—
    " the Government's present stance is in stark contrast to the statements on the subject of compensation by Conservative spokesmen when in opposition."
    Mr. Butler: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman is talking about a shipbuilding company, which has nothing to do with aerospace. Secondly, despite what he says, he is not dealing with the matter covered by section 31 of the 1977 Act; he is dealing with a matter totally separate from tonight's amendment or anything to do with the Bill and one that involves the payment by Government for assets nationalised

    1553
    by the previous Administration. The amendment that we are discussing involves compensation that might be payable to British Aerospace or, as the amendment would allow, to the successor company. I submit that these are totally different matters and that the hon. Gentleman is out of order.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) is straying widely from the amendment. He will accept that Vosper Thornycroft has nothing to do with it. I must ask him to confine his remarks to this Lords amendment.
    Mr. Cryer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is a difficult, complicated and highly technical amendment. I was following my hon. Friend's comments with considerable interest. It is true that compensation under the British Aerospace Bill affects aerospace alone, but the 1977 Act is slightly wider. I should be interested to hear my hon. Friend's remarks further.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: I thank the hon. Gentleman. I am following the matter carefully, but it is an abuse of the rules of this House to stray from the amendment that we are discussing. Perhaps we can continue on that basis.
    11.30 pm
    Mr. Huckfield: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am now in some difficulty. The hon. Member's own letter to me of 2 April refers to section 31 of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act. He should know that when the last Labour Government nationalised aircraft and shipbuilding they did so in the same Bill. He should also know that the argument that is currently being advanced by Vosper-Thorneycroft is exactly the same as the argument of GEC and Vickers. In fact, it is all the same kind of argument. The Minister knows that, as aircraft and shipbuilding were nationalised together, all those who need compensation, all those who still fear that they may have to go to arbitration, are putting exactly the same case. Because of that, I am bound to cite one of the companies that have been most vociferous in demanding compensation. Just as the shipbuilding company has been very vociferous in demanding compensation under section 31, to which the hon. Gentleman refers in this letter,
    1554
    so also have GEC and Vickers been equally vociferous. It is the same argument—that is why I have sought to make it tonight.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It may be the same argument, but this is the British Aerospace Bill. It is perfectly in order for the hon. Member to allude to something that may have happened in another industry, but not to dwell upon it. Will he please confine his remarks to the Bill?
    Mr. Cryer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was on the British Aerospace Bill Committee, and the 1977 Act was widely referred to exactly in the terms that you mentioned—by way of reference, in order to illuminate the proceedings on the present legislation. However, because the 1977 Act is altered by the British Aerospace Bill, it must involve some references that my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) will have to go into in some detail because of the technical nature of the Act that is mentioned in the amendment.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member has an advantage, in that he was on the Committee. But many matters were discussed during the Committee stage. Tonight we are discussing one specific matter in one specific amendment—Lords amendment No. 1. It is to that that we must address our remarks.
    Mr. Huckfield: Obviously I shall be bound by your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I always appreciate the wisdom that you bestow on our proceedings, but here we have a company that stands in need of compensation and is accusing the present Conservative Government of the near-confiscation of assets. That is the accusation that is being advanced——
    Mr. Adam Butler: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
    Mr. Huckfield: This is intolerable; I was in the middle of my speech.
    Mr. Butler: On a point of order. May I repeat what I said a few moments ago about this amendment and section 31 of the 1977 Act? It is not correct to say that the matter that the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) is trying to raise falls within the scope of that section.

    1555
    It does not. Compensation for the companies that were nationalised by his Government was dealt with under other sections. Section 31 deals with compensation that might be payable to British Aerospace or to the corporation. It is a totally unrelated matter.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The House would best be served at this time of night by leaving points of order and getting on with the debate on the amendment. Will the hon. Member please confine his remarks to the amendment?
    Mr. Huckfield: I am being placed in exactly the same utterly intolerable position as that in which the Opposition were placed all the way through the Committee stage. Time and time again the Government sought to railroad the Bill through the Committee because they want to flog the company off to their supporters. We are witnessing the same again tonight.
    We cannot find out the truth about the new company. Even the memorandum and articles of association were placed in the Library only at the beginning of this month. We have engaged in some consultations. We have found that the memorandum and articles of association are not technically complete, but are deficient, so we cannot find out what the new company is all about.
    We are not satisfied with the memorandum and articles of association that have been placed in the Library. We cannot find out when compensation will be paid. We cannot find out when the arbitration proceedings will be concluded. We have a major private company that is accusing the Government of virtual confiscation, yet the hon. Gentleman keeps saying that we cannot even ask questions about it.
    If we cannot find out about the sucsecssor company—the successor company is relevant, because it is mentioned in the amendment—if we cannot find out about the arbitration proceedings, if we cannot find out when the compensation issues will be settled and if we cannot ask questions about those matters, what is relevant? What is germane to the arguments on the amendment? That is precisely what people want to know. They
    1556
    want to know when they will get their money. They want to know when the compensation proceedings will be completed. They want to know when the arbitration tribunal will be wound up.
    Companies are actually talking about going to the European Court of Human Rights because they cannot get any sense out of the Government. The hon. Gentleman comes to the House and, with a mere sleight of hand, says " It is all right. It is just a bit of technical redrafting ".
    The way in which the hon. Gentleman has treated the Bill and the way in which the whole denationalisation matter has been treated is an insult to the House and to the workers in the industry. The hon. Gentleman has not enlightened any of us tonight by the way in which he has tried to dismiss the amendment and to cover up what is actually taking place at present in the matters of compensation.
    We are far from satisfied about the way in which amendments such as this are being treated. We cannot find out what kind of successor company we are talking about, because we believe that the memorandum and articles of association are deficient. We cannot find out about the compensation. It is questions such as these that must be answered before we can agree to take further any amendments like this.
    The hon. Gentleman goes on to talk about the successor company and its possible flotation. People in the City are beginning to wonder whether the company ever will be floated. It is not our fault that the minimum lending rate stands at 17 per cent. [Interruption.] The hon. Member from wherever it is takes a very scant interest in our proceedings, anyway. Perhaps he wants to buy the shares as well. I should have thought that hon. Members on the Government Benches wanted to see the passage of this denationalisation legislation and the flogging off of British Aerospace. If so, they should be very concerned about the fact that their Government are dragging their feet on denationalisation. I quote from the financial page of the Sunday Telegraph of 6 April. It is headed—rather appropriately—" Sale of the Century ". It says:
    " Now aerospace offer grounded."

    1557
    This is very germane to the successor company, because it is the successor company which is being talked about in this amendment. The article goes on:
    " The Government's plans to sell off British Aerospace to the public have crashed into a solid wall of record breaking interest rates. I understand that the Bank of England and the Department of Industry are now resigned to a postponement of British Aerospace flotation until Autumn at the earliest."
    Some questions must be answered before we can take the amendment further. When will this new company be floated? It is not only that the previous private owners want to know when they are likely to receive their compensation; it is that the country as a whole is entitled to know when the Government intend to carry out their election pledges. As far as we can see, there will be delay after delay. It is possible to imagine a situation in which we may never have a successor company. Before we can take anything further forward tonight, we want to know about the flotation.
    While I am talking about the successor company—the hon. Gentleman will recognise that the successor company is entirely relevant, because it is mentioned in the amendment—I ask whether the hon. Gentleman has looked at the memorandum and articles of association of the new successor company? Whilst we are talking about some of the benefits of the arbitration proceedings possibly passing to the successor company, I hope that my hon. Friends—I know that they will be very concerned about this—will take note of the fact that the Secretary of State has allowed himself to be almost completely deprived of any powers that he might have wished to have to control this new company. That is the kind of successor company that is mentioned in these amendments tonight.
    We want to hear from the Secretary of State exactly what powers to appoint directors he intends to exercise. Article 72, on page 30, says that the Secretary of State may reserve to himself the right to appoint two directors. The trouble is that if he is reserving to himself the right to appoint only two directors out of a board of six he is, in fact, reserving the right for himself to have a permanent minority influence.
    Furthermore, the directors whom he appoints will not be entitled to be the chairman or deputy chairman of the company, will have no casting vote, no vote
    1558
    on any contracts between the company and the Crown, and no power of veto. If that is the kind of condition to be imposed on the Secretary of State's own appointments to the board of the company, I have to ask what is the use of the Secretary of State's even bothering to appoint directors. It seems that he has reserved to himself powers that will be so minimal as to be virtually meaningless.
    What does the hon. Gentleman think that the Secretary of State's appointed directors will be able to do? As far as we can see, all that they can do is to ask for a meeting and speak at it. That is all. If that is the way in which the Government intend to preserve the vital strategic interests of the nation, they ought to have said so in the defence White Paper. Vital defence equipment manufacture will be at stake, and the Secretary of State has allowed himself to be manoeuvred into a position in which he may possibly reserve the right to appoint two directors, who cannot really do anything once they are on the board.
    It is issues such as this that we really must have settled to our satisfaction before we take the matter further. I must ask the forgiveness of the House for raising these matters at this late stage, but, as the hon. Gentleman did not put the articles in the Library until 2 April, and as this is the first chance that we have had to refer to them, this is the only way in which we can find out what we want to know.
    Article 100, on page 39, provides that the minimum borrowing powers of the new company—presumably that will have to be private borrowing, because as far as we can see none of the nationalised industries in future will be allowed to do any Government borrowing—will be at least £450 million. I should have thought that that would vitally threaten the survival of the successor company and could, at certain times, render it vulnerable to fluctuations on the private market.
    What I have said demonstrates the need for much more information before we can take further either of these amendments tonight. It is particularly unfortunate that the hon. Gentleman always comes before this House and tries to dismiss anything that he introduces as merely a technical and drafting amendment, when what he has tried to do is to skate over the fact

    1559
    that, although the new memorandum and articles of association have been placed in the Library, when we study them they give rise only to even more worries.
    11.45 pm
    For example, I cannot see for the life of me how article 40, on page 19, is supposed to prevent British Aerospace passing into foreign ownership. Yet that is suposed to be the most technically perfect example or variant that the Government have produced to prevent British Aerospace passing into foreign ownership. Having taken legal advice on this matter, I am advised that it is absolutely impossible for British Aerospace to police in whose names the shares will be held.
    If the hon. Gentleman really means that these articles are intended to prevent the new company passing into foreign ownership, I must tell him that on the basis of my legal advice they do nothing of the sort. Therefore, we could well end up in a situation in which any benefits from the arbitration proceedings in compensation terms, which might ultimately be paid to the successor company, will not end up in this country. They might end up in foreign hands. As far as we can see, there is nothing in article 40 to prevent that happening.
    Far from being a technical, drafting amendment—this is why my hon. Friends are showing such great concern about it—[Interruption.] At least my hon. Friends are taking an interest, which is more than Conservative Members are doing. Far from being a simple drafting or technical amendment, which is necessary because the Government forgot something when the Bill went to the other place, we are discussing matters of great moment. We are talking about when the compensation might finally be paid. We are talking about the fact that we may have to go to the Court of Appeal, or even to the European Court of Human Rights. We are talking about whether all this might take as long as eight years. As I have said, we hope that by then the companies will have been renationalised. All that is involved in this argument.
    We must also raise—because it is only appropriate to do so—the question of the memorandum and articles of the new company. Now that those have been placed in the Library—of course, it was
    1560
    not our fault that they were put in the Library so late—I hope that we will be forgiven if we ask what kind of company the new successor company will be.
    Unless we get some satisfaction on these points, I am afraid that we shall have to detain the House even longer. I know how strongly my hon. Friends feel. We want some answers. We were not given many answers in 19 Committee sittings, or on Report. I hope that the hon. Gentleman or his hon. Friend will try to give us some answers now.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I shall be very brief. Although the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) may not think that we are interested in this matter, I can assure him that we are, as I tried to imply earlier. Although the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) brought in the fact that I happen to have some outside interests, which do not detract from my parliamentary duties or take me away from the House, they perhaps assist me in understanding commercial matters. In fact, this is a commercial matter, and I have been involved in the formation of a new company. Therefore, I share some of the concern which has rightly been expressed by the hon. Member for Nuneaton about the memorandum and articles of association of the company.
    I want to direct my remarks particularly to that, because I am concerned about how the compensation to the successor company might well be affected if there were a heavy foreign interest in that successor company. From the answers that my hon. Friend has given me in response to letters that I have sent him and to private words that I have had with him expressing my concern about certain aspects of this Bill, I am not sure how the new successor company could deal with that situation.
    If there are substantial sales of shares to foreign investors or their nominees—the hon. Member for Nuneaton rightly mentioned this matter—perhaps, ultimately, with the risk of the appointment to the board of foreign directors, how in the long term, if the compensation to which the hon. Gentleman has referred could take up to eight years to be finalised and passed through to the successor company, will that going distributed, and what effect will it have upon a company that might at that time have a substantial foreign investment?

    1561
    I say to my hon. Friend on the Front Bench that I want to see the company denationalised, but at the same time I want to see that a guarantee is written into this legislation, or the articles or the memorandum, whereby not only this House but the people who work for British Aerospace can be assured that the company will remain predominantly British for all time.
    There is one other matter that I want to raise. It relates to the anxiety that many members of the company feel that British Aerospace could be divided up and that the more profitable elements of British Aerospace might well be sold off separately in due course. How, then, would this compensation, which is very much part of this Lords amendment, be effective if there were separate companies to which compensation would ultimately have to be allocated and distributed?
    While I do not agree with some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Nuneaton about the lack of trust that the Government have shown and the way in which they have bulldozed the Bill through—I would not have thought that 19 sittings, on a fairly straightforward Bill, indicated that the Government have sought to bulldoze the Bill—certainly there are some unanswered questions.
    That is one of the reasons why I am here. I remain somewhat dissatisfied with the assurances and guarantees that the Government have been able to give, because, as I have indicated, I want this company to remain British. I believe that it is vital that a company in this strategic area of our economy—and it is an important defence industry—should remain predominantly British. There should be a minimum only of overseas investment and interest in this company, because this is a very important matter for Britain and for our defence.
    I also believe that it is important that those who work for the company should not be messed about by nationalisation and denationalisation. I am strongly opposed to the way in which the Opposition have said that they will nationalise the company again when they come back to power—if they ever come back to power—and that they will do so without compensation. I hardly think that that will give confidence to the very skilled and basically responsible work force
    1562
    employed by British Aerospace.
    I am concerned that this company should remain one unit. There is no point in selling off the profitable elements. I do not wish to get out of order and therefore suffer criticism from you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I must ask my hon. Friend how this amendment and the articles of the new company could operate if it broke up and compensation had to be allocated in some way to two or three companies that on vesting day were part of British Aerospace Ltd., the new aircraft corporation that we are forming.
    I hope that my hon. Friend can be a little more forthcoming. Certainly, ploughing through the memorandum and articles of association of the company that are in the Library and that were placed there, as the hon. Member for Nuneaton said, only on 2 April, is hardly the best way of proceeding with a very important matter. I understand the urgency and the difficulty, but perhaps even at this late stage my hon. Friend can be reasonably forthcoming with the assurances that I seek. I know that hon. Members on the Opposition Benches seek these and other assurances and, perhaps more important, so do those many thousands of people who work in this important industry.
    Mr. Tom McNally: I follow the remarks of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) with some enthusiasm. However, the hon. Gentleman spoke of not " messing about " with this important industry, and I have to ask who has messed about with a success story in terms of public ownership, high technology, worker participation and management involvement in a new industry.
    The hon. Gentleman raised an important matter, and those who are messing about with British Aerospace sit on the Treasury Bench. Like the hon. Member for Macclesfield, I want a satisfactory future for British Aerospace Ltd., but it is significant that, after all the inquiries made in Committee, a Conservative Member should express doubts about foreign involvement in this key industry. The hon. Gentleman still doubts whether the Government can give the necessary guarantees.
    On this Third Reading——
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This is not a Third Reading debate. That is what I am concerned about.
    Mr. McNally: I appreciate that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Even at this late stage, when we are discussing Lords amendments, a Conservative Member is still worried and seeks reassurances from the Minister about the dividing up of British Aerospace Ltd. How glad we are that the hon. Gentleman has taken up the arguments that the Opposition put week after week in Committee.
    Some of my constituents who work in British Aerospace told me today that they would like to hear the debates on the Lords amendments. They said that they had heard that another place had taken on a new, robust attitude and was defending people's interests and putting a check on the Government.
    My constituents had read the sort of articles that appear in The Daily Telegraph explaining that when Labour Governments are in power their Lordships check abuse by the Executive and when Conservatives are in power they look after the interests of the workers. I had to show them the amendments—the rather mediocre effort of another place to defend the interests of those who have worked hard to make common sense of a high technology industry. British Aerospace reports for 1979 show a success story during a depressing period for British industry.
    The Minister of State has tried to finesse us on the problems of British Aerospace by talking about this amendment being a technical problem, a problem of compensation for " onerous transactions ", " orders in favour of the corporation ", " successor companies " and so on. But the hon. Member for Macclesfield still has doubts, and the hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. Atkins) has fled the field. Only the Government spear carriers are left.
    Many of us work with and for those in British Aerospace. Throughout our debates, the Minister of State has never carried the workers or the management. The only people whom he has carried are the ideological spear carriers on his Back Benches. He has not even carried the hon. Member for Macclesfield.
    The Minister has much to answer for in going through with this terrible, meddl-
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    ing, ideological Tory manifesto commitment. He should be ashamed of himself.
    Mr. Cryer: I am grateful for the opportunity to make one or two comments. Clearly the technical nature of the amendment indicates the rushed nature of the legislation put to the Commons and the lack of information which horrified even the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton). Even when the Minister has written to the hon. Member, and no doubt begged him to read what was there, the hon. Member is still not satisfied. That is an indication of the rushed nature of the legislation.
    12 midnight
    The amendment remedies an oversight which, because of the absurd process which the Government adopted to pursue the denationalisation measure, they overlooked. The Minister argues that the amendment is necessary, although it was not recognised before, because some arbitration might result in money being awarded to British Aerospace—a public body. The Minister wants any such money to be awarded to the successor company. The successor company is not clearly defined because of one of the more obscure parts of the Bill. Whether the successor company relates to the transitional company or the final company is not clear from the amendment. It rests on the words " successor company ".
    If the award is made to the corporation, that might delay clause 10(9) of the Bill under which the Secretary of State may, by order,
    " after consulting British Aerospace and the successor company, dissolve British Aerospace on a day specified in the order, as soon as he is satisfied that nothing further remains to be done by British Aerospace under subsection (3) or (6) above."
    I am not too concerned that the successor should be denied the money if it helps to keep British Aerospace alive and prevents its winding-up by instrument.
    I assume that " the successor company " means the final company and not the shell company. The minister mentioned the shell corporation and said that the money should not go to it. I assume that if money did go to the shell corporation—that is, British Aerospace which is at present vigorous, healthy and profitable—when the profits are transferred, the money awarded under the arbitration procedure would go to the Consolidated

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    Fund. I am all in favour of that If arbitration awards are made, they should go into the public purse rather than to the successor company.
    During debates on the Bill, the successor company was held to stand on its own feet with sturdy private enterprise entrepreneurs making independent decisions. That is utter nonsense. It is a fabrication. The Bill contains a number of provisions which set up a company in a partial way.
    I like to take the Minister at his word. If the successor company takes on the task against my wishes and against the wishes of the majority of workers, it must accept that arbitration claims are proceeding, that they are for the previous corporation and that it pushes out the boat on the private enterprise venture as it stands now. It should not pick up awards in future years which arise as a result of British Aerospace activities.
    I am not keen on letting this clause through at all. It seems to me—given the economic circumstances that the Government are creating, including the climbing rate of unemployment—that they cannot recover, and will not be able to recover, by 1984–85 in any convincing way. Therefore, there will be a Labour Government. That Labour Government will be committed to renationalising and activating the British Aerospace corporation, and if that corporation is still in existence it will be so much easier for that task to be carried out. Therefore, it seems to me that this technical amendment, indicating as it does the rushed, sloppy and careless nature of the legislation, is being pushed through by a Government motivated by a doctrinaire drive which would not disgrace any Right-Wing Government in Western Europe.
    The Government have been sloppy in their approach, and the Lords have brought forward this techncal amendment to make sure that the successor is guaranteed a position free of any sort of encumbrance. I take the view that they should take the position as it stands and push the private enterprise boat out without any encumbrance and without any possibility of income from any award. That might well help keep British Aerospace in existence—I shall be interested to hear the comments of the Minister if that is so—so that it can be resurrected and once again be a source of pride to the nation.
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    Conservative Members know that the corporation is currently a highly profitable public enterprise. That is why it is being attacked. The Tories cannot stand public success because such success means that their own dogma is thereby diminished.
    Mr. Dobson: I start immediately by disclaiming any interest which I have pursued in this Bill as it has passed through its previous stages.
    When I noted the Lords amendments, I began to pay particular attention to them. I thought that I understood what they meant until I heard the Minister's explanation of what they meant. I then became puzzled once more, and I have had to refer back to the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977. I promise that I will refer to that Act only by way of illustration, or history, in my speeeh.
    I have observed, both as a result of my involvement in the various stages of the Transport Bill and also at a greater distance in the other denationalisation measures brought before the House by the Government, that one of their major objectives has been to relieve the State corporations, as they pass into private ownership, of any onerous burdens. The objective has been to pile on to those corporations as many assets as possible to make them more attractive to prospective purchasers. This amendment—not the product of any ingenuity on the part of the Lords, since it was a Government amendment introduced in the House of Lords—is intended to do just that.
    I propose to take the House back, as I think anyone must who is trying to explain this amendment, to the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977. Section 31 refers to " onerous transactions ". The onerous transactions referred to are transactions which some of the private companies might have entered into prior to nationalisation in order to stymie nationalisation, or to worsen the position of such enterprises as the British Aerospace corporation once they were nationalised. One of the provisions was that a tribunal should be established which would consider whether any loss was incurred, in this case, by British Aerospace as a result of the transactions entered into. The purpose of this provision in the 1977 Act was to protect the public corporation against any unscrupulous or ridiculous activity on the part of the private companies which

    1567
    were to be nationalised. It therefore seems reasonable that the British Aerospace corporation should be compensated for that kind of action.
    There seems to be no logic in carrying those rights forward to the private owners who now want to buy the British Aerospace corporation because it is a worthwhile asset. For that reason, unless the Minister can convince me that my understanding of the 1977 Act and the Bill and the Lords amendment is entirely erronous, I feel that I cannot support the amendment. It is yet another case of laundering and gilding and making more attractive a State corporation before it is sold to the private sector.
    Mr. Adam Butter: The interesting thing about this debate is that their Lordships, who adopted a critical attitude towards the Bill and fulfilled their duty, as would be expected, accepted the amendment unopposed because they saw it for what it was and were able to comprehend what was behind it. On the other hand, this evening we have had the sort of speech from the Opposition Front Bench which those who served on the Committee got used to and bored with because of its repetition.
    Tonight, because I judge them to have been largely irrelevant, I do not propose to answer all the points made by the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield). It would be wrong for me to answer the point that he made regarding compensation because, as I made clear on a point of order, the compensation referred to in the amendment falls under section 31 of the 1977 Act and has nothing to do with the compensation to be paid to the previous owners of the companies which are nationalised. Further, there is nothing in the amendment which has any relevance to the articles of association.
    References were made to the company directors. As always, the hon. Gentleman misquoted. Therefore, I shall correct him on this point. He will be aware that the directors are precluded from voting only on contracts between the company and the Government as customer, but in all other respects will act as full directors of the company.
    There is some small relevance in the point about the flotation. In the case to
    1568
    which I referred, which is undergoing arbitration, the question was whether the corporation would be fully active when that case was settled or whether the successor company would have been set up. There was a possibility that the limited company would have been set up before the arbitration proceedings closed—and, when we looked at this matter some months ago, we thought it likely that they would have concluded quickly—but, when it became apparent that that was not so certain, we decided that it would be wise to introduce this amendment in another place on Report, which we did.
    On the other hand, my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) related the amendment to two specific points. He questioned whether, if under section 31 compensation were to be paid as an outcome of the present case, it was likely to be paid to a company which was foreign owned or was split up into separate bits. In both those possibilities he saw some complication and sought my guidance.
    The articles of association of the new company will ensure, provided they are not altered, that the maximum foreign shareholding of British Aerospace Ltd. will be kept to 15 per cent.
    Mr. Les Huckfield: Absolute rubbish.
    12.15 am
    Mr. Butler: There are safeguards written in, and duties imposed on the directors to ensure that shares are not foreign held, and certificates to that effect will be sought. They will have powers to challenge and disfranchise where there is doubt—
    Mr. Huckfield: Will the Minister give way on that point?
    Mr. Butler: I shall give way in a moment.
    They will be able to challenge nominee holdings and subsidiary company holdings which may be foreign subsidiaries. They are empowered to take action in what we believe is a totally foolproof way to keep the foreign shareholding to a maximum of 15 per cent.
    Mr. Huckfield: It is outrageous for the Minister to persist in perpetrating that myth before the House. Even in Committee, on the minimal amount of legal advice that I was able to obtain on a

    1569
    non-commissioned part-time basis, we put to the Minister amendments which he was forced to incorporate in the Bill because he agreed that they were technically more proficient.
    Having given the articles and memoranda of association a cursory glance and a cursory legal examination, I am advised that the draft article to which he refers will have nothing like the effect that he claims it will have. He knows that as well as I do. There is no way on earth that British Aerospace Ltd. directors can police who really owns or who is the governing force behind the ownership of shares. He cannot prove that.
    Mr. Butler: The hon. Member for Nuneaton has admitted that he has given the matter only a cursory look. That is typical of his attitude throughout. The superficiality with which he has dealt with the Bill has shown his real purpose in opposing it, which has been deliberately to stir up anxieties about the future.
    It is true that we received some suggestions from the hon. Gentleman, and we altered the articles on foreign shareholding to a small extent following his advice, which we welcomed. If he shares the view of the Government and those in the industry that the company should not fall under foreign control, and if he really believes that the articles are not foolproof in this respect, I ask him to let me have, as a matter of urgency, the legal advice of which he claims to be aware so that we can examine it. We have taken not a cursory look at the matter but full legal advice, financial advice, and so on.
    It is important that the articles of association should not be changed in this respect, and the Government have stated clearly—the hon. Member for Nuneaton may remember it—that we shall not let the shareholding of the Government fall below 25 per cent., which is the minimum necessary to block any change in the articles of association, and we shall vote our shares to protect the articles. That is a firm Government assurance.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield was concerned about a split. I am sure that if he were to look back through the reports of the Committee proceedings, and if he had been able to join us on Report, he would remember or he would have read clear statements by Ministers to the effect
    1570
    that it is not the Government's intention to split up the company. For that reason, we chose a single successor company and wrote that into the Bill so that it would not be possible to split up the company.
    If I have to give an assurance again from this Dispatch Box, I am glad to do so. It is not the Government's intention to split up the company. It is not the management's intention to split up the company. I know that it is not the union's wish that the company should be split up. It seems to me, therefore, that it is certain that it will not be. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that assurance from me.
    Mr. Huckfield: If the hon. Gentleman is so concerned to give the House that kind of assurance, why have the Government insisted, in the articles which have been placed in the Library of the House, on specific provision for hiving off parts of the new company? They have put in the articles provision whereby the new successor company can hive off. Why do they do that if they do not intend to break it up?
    Mr. Butler: The hon. Gentleman simply demonstrates his ignorance of company matters which he has displayed so many times before. Is he really suggesting that no limited company should be in a position to form subsidiary companies, if necessary to dispose of assets and if necessary to acquire assets? That is exactly the sort of rigidity that he and his hon. Friends, if they were in government, would wish to impose on industry. Indeed, it is one of the reasons why so much of the nationalised sector of British industry is in the state that it is.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield raised two points which were in line with the amendment. The hon. Member for Stockport, South (Mr. McNally) made a " Fourth Reading " speech, so there was nothing there to answer. The hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) tried to draw me——
    Mr. McNally: There is one matter that the Minister might explain, even at this stage, although the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) has collapsed like a deck of cards. Why does the Minister think, even at this stage, despite all the issues on which he has given assurances, that he has not carried

    1571
    with him the trade union movement—the workers in British Aerospace? That is an important question, and he should give some explanation to the House. With all the consultations they have had, the workers still have doubts, and some of the Minister's explanations tonight will increase those doubts.
    Mr. Butler: The reason for there still being some doubts is the campaign, led by the hon. Member for Nuneaton, deliberately to stir up anxieties among people who wish to go on working and earning their living in British Aerospace. I have spent a great deal of time in going round British Aerospace sites to try to undo the damage that the hon. Member has been doing. The unions are very much behind the Government's plans on the two points that my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield raised. They welcome the Government's policy of not splitting up the industry and share the Government's wish that the company in the future should not fall under foreign control. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the unions are totally behind the Government on those two very important points of policy.
    The hon. Member for Keighley tried to lead me off into giving definitions and descriptions of the successor company. His memory cannot be as short as that—we have heard him on too many occasions. He also tried to suggest that in his view the compensation which might arise out of the present case should not fall to
    British Aerospace Ltd. if the company had been formed by that time. His intention, I suggest, is to try to do in a different way what his hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton does, which is to damage the prospects of British Aerospace Ltd. Our intention is not to pile special benefits on it but that it should succeed the corporation and carry on the business of the corporation in every possible way and in like manner.
    It seemed to us to be absolutely right, therefore, that if the corporation, under section 31 of the 1977 Act, was likely to receive compensation as the outcome of some tribunal proceedings, then, if the new company had been formed, that compensation should go to it rather than to the corporation because all the assets, liabilities, property and rights of the corporation are transferred under clause 1 of the Bill to the successor company. The amendment amends clause 1. As I have said, it makes it possible to make compensation payments under section 31(3) to the successor company. It is a wise and sensible amendment. It was accepted without opposition in another place. I commend it to the House.
    Mr. Huckfield Mr. Huckfield rose——
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. An hon. Member may speak only once on a Lords amendment.
    Question put, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment:—
    The House divided: Ayes 79, Noes 18.

    Division No. 277]

    AYES

    [12.25 a.m.

    Ancram, Michael

    Gow, Ian

    Needham, Richard

    Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

    Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

    Neubert, Michael

    Banks, Robert

    Gummer, John Selwyn

    Newton, Tony

    Berry, Hon Anthony

    Heddle, John

    Normanton, Tom

    Best, Keith

    Henderson, Barry

    Parris, Matthew

    Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

    Hunt, David (Wirral)

    Proctor, K. Harvey

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

    Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

    Braine, Sir Bernard

    Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

    St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

    Bright, Graham

    Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

    Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

    Brinton, Tim

    Le Marchant, Spencer

    Sims, Roger

    Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

    Lester, Jim (Beeston)

    Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

    Butler, Hon Adam

    Lyell, Nicholas

    Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

    Cadbury, Jocelyn

    MacGregor, John

    Squire, Robin

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

    Major, John

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

    Marlow, Tony

    Steel, Rt Hon David

    Chapman, Sydney

    Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

    Stevens, Martin

    Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Mather, Carol

    Stradling Thomas, J.

    Colvin, Michael

    Mawhinney, Dr Brian

    Taylor, Teddy (Southend East)

    Cope, John

    Mellor, David

    Thompson, Donald

    Dorrell, Stephen

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Viggers, Peter

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

    Mills, lain (Meriden)

    Waddington, David

    Dover, Denshore

    Moate, Roger

    Waldegrave, Hon William

    Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

    Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

    Waller, Gary

    Faith, Mrs Sheila

    Murphy, Christopher

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

    Fenner, Mrs Peggy

    Myles, David

    Wickenden, Keith

    Wilkinson John

    Wolfson, Mark

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Young, Sir George (Acton)

    Mr. John Wakeham and

    Mr. Peter Brooke.

    NOES

    Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

    McNally, Thomas

    Sheerman, Barry

    Canavan, Dennis

    Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, ltchen)

    Stallard, A. W.

    Eastham, Ken

    Morton, George

    Woolmer, Kenneth

    Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)

    Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

    Ennals, Rt Hon David

    Race, Reg

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Evans, John (Newton)

    Richardson, Jo

    Mr. Frank Dobson and

    Hamilton, W. W. (Central File)

    Rooker, J. W.

    Mr. Bob Cryer.

    Huckfield, Les

    Question accordingly agreed to.

  Clause 8

    LIABILITY OF THE SUCCESSOR COMPANY FOR DEFAULTING SUBSIDIARY WHERE CAUSE OF ACTION AROSE BEFORE APPOINTED DAY
    Lords amendment: No. 2, in page 7, line 31, leave out
    " by execution or (in Scotland) by diligence "
    The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Michael Marshall): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    After the Opposition's synthetic indignation over amendment No. 1, measured by the 18 votes that the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) was able to muster, which is either a reflection on his failure to draw the crowd or perhaps a lack of enthusiasm for the argument that he claimed was boiling up on the Labour Benches, I hope that even the hon. Gentleman will realise that this is purely a drafting amendment which in no way affects the purpose of clause 8.
    The need to make the amendment arises because of the inclusion of the words " by execution ", which, while perfectly correct in English law, could lead to difficulties of interpretation under the law of Northern Ireland. The Government believe that the best way of avoiding that possibility is to remove the words from the Bill, together with the words
    " or (in Scotland) by diligence ",
    which become redundant if the preceding words are taken out. As amended, the wording clearly encompasses enforcement under all these systems of law.
    As I have said, the amendment does not change the meaning of the clause. Indeed, by avoiding ambiguity it clarifies it. I am sure that the House will agree that that is a wholly desirable aim and,
    1574
    because this is not a controversial point, will not seek to disagree with the Lords in this amendment.
    Mr. Cryer: Before the Minister sits down——
    Mr. Les Huckfield: The Government always put on the Under-Secretary when they want a bit of progress made. They know that he treats the Opposition more courteously, and genuinely tries to be helpful. That is the hon. Gentleman's nature. Unfortunately, it is not the nature of his hon. Friend the Minister of State.
    Mr. Dobson: The hon. Gentleman is not as boring either.
    Mr. Huckfield: I agree that the Minister of State is also rather boring.
    I believe that we can accept a great deal of what the Under-Secretary says. He has done a good job in trying to shed light on these matters. We always found in Committee that we made faster progress with the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, one day, when his hon. Friend was in Brussels, we got through two whole pages of the Bill in one sitting. That takes some doing. We knew that, with the Minister of State in Brussels, we could make that progress.
    We appreciate the research that the Under-Secretary has done and the legal advice that he has received, which we hope is right on this occasion. The legal advice that the Government receive is not always right. Having said, I am not exactly in control of what happens on these Benches tonight. I have always believed in spontaneous uprisings of the people. I shall have to be guided by my hon. Friends and their reactions. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) always feels strongly about all these matters and may well be moved to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras,

    1575
    South (Mr. Dobson) has similar feelings. My hon. Friends may feel even more strongly than I do. I pay tribute to the manner in which the hon. Member has proposed this amendment Unlike the Minister of State, the Under-Secretary actually tries from time to time to be helpful.
    Mr. Murphy: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I believe that we should be discussing the Lords amendments to the British Aerospace Bill. While my hon. Friends and I admire the tremendous work that is done by our Ministers, we would still like to get on with the business in hand.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Richard Crawsbaw): I am sure that the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) was about to come to the amendment. I hesitated to intervene in case we lost the good will which seemed to have developed in the last few minutes.
    Mr. Huckfield: I am glad that you recognise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I was deliberately trying to develop some good will. We know that the hon Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mr. Murphy) takes a very assiduous interest in these matters! To my knowledge, he has spoken only once on the Bill since 24 July last year.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is going outside the bounds of order now. I hope that he will return to the amendment.
    Mr. Huckfield: I think I can accept the amendment, but I am not sure about my hon. Friends.
    Mr. Cryer: May I raise one or two questions on this drafting point? First, I found it vaguely annoying that in Committee the Government accused us of trying to delay the Bill by protracted examination when in fact we merely wanted to give it detailed and scrupulous consideration. We were absolutely right to do so. Quite clearly, drafting amendments of this sort would not have been necessary if the Government had got it right in the first place.
    Line 31 of page 7 of the Bill, which is altered by the amendment, includes the words
    " or (in Scotland) by diligence ".
    1576
    Frankly, I am not aware what " diligence " is in Scotland—[Interruption.] If hon. Members wish to make comments, I am quite willing to give way, especially to the hon. Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mr. Murphy), who was singularly silent in Committee and showed a distinct lack of interest, understanding or care for the Bill. [Interruption.] I suggest that hon. Members express their views in their own time and with their own speeches. Many of us have shown great interest in this Bill over very many hours.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: That is why there are only 18 Opposition Members here tonight.
    Mr. Cryer: I was speaking for myself. If the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) wishes to make a speech, he is entitled to do so.
    Why were the words
    " or (in Scotland) by diligence "
    included in the first place? Now that they are to be excluded, because that seems to be the most suitable way of dealing with the word " execution " which would cause trouble in the Northern Ireland courts, what will be the effect of that deletion? I assume the words
    " or (in Scotland) by diligence "
    were inserted because they were designed to make it clear that a particular Scottish legal process applied. If that was a requirement when the Bill was drafted and that requirement has now been removed, what is the position in Scotland now, and will the Bill be effective? In other words, in trying to remove an area of doubt in Northern Ireland, have the Government created another area of doubt in Scotland? Or were the words superfluous, redundant, or otiose in any event?
    It concerns me that this amendment should be necessary at all after the amount of time that we spent on this wretched Bill in Committee.
    12.45 am
    Mr. Dobson: Ordinarily, I should welcome the deletion of virtually any words from any Bill which the present Government might propose. If Government Front Bench Members were to put forward a manuscript amendment whose purpose was to delete the whole Bill, I should welcome it.
    However, I am surprised at the curious wording which is to disappear. As my

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    hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) said, if the words were worth putting into the Bill in the first place, why are they being taken out, and what will be the consequence of their removal?
    Presumably, the draftsman put the words into the Bill in the first place because he felt that it was necessary to make clear that the judgment or order became enforceable by execution in England and in Scotland " by diligence." If it is thought right to remove the phrase, it should not have been put into the Bill in the first place. If that is the position, it was a bit of shoddy and superfluous drafting. On the other hand, if the phrase is deleted, it will have some consequences.
    I am struck by the phrase
    " or (in Scotland) by diligence ".
    One normally associates the Scots with assiduousness and diligence, but I still did not understand what the phrase meant although I had a sneaking feeling that it referred to horse-drawn carriages. Sure enough, I discovered from the Oxford English Dictionary that to travel by diligence in France means travelling by a public stage coach. I cannot think that that is what it means. I had to plough a long way through the Oxford English Dictionary before I discovered a meaning which apparently had any relation to this clause from which it is sought to delete the words.
    The only definition I can find which might apply is
    " the process of law by which persons, lands or effects are attached on execution or in security for debt or "—
    I do not think this can be it—
    " a warrant issued by a court to enforce the attendance of witnesses."
    I think that what that really means is that in Scotland " by diligence " means by execution in England. The Minister did not explain that.
    Therefore, I am still not clear whether there is any difference between the words " by execution " in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and " (in Scotland) by diligence ". I still think that we have not had any explanation of why, if these words were felt to be necessary when the Bill was originally drafted, they are not necessary now. If there is some complication about what the words " by execution " might mean in Northern Ireland.
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    I should have thought that the draftsman could have come up with something which would retain words which were apparently thought to be necessary at the outset.
    I want to know whether the Government have any precedents for either including or omitting these words. If the Government cannot quote any sensible precedents, although it seems a trivial matter, we may once again have to divide the House.
    Mr. Michael Marshall: The hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) opened the debate in his usual cordial vein. I shall respond in like manner. I shall try to meet some of the genuine questions which have been put to me.
    The hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) was perhaps seeking to understand the basis upon which these various terminologies arose in the first place. I do not claim to enter into these legal matters with any great expertise, but the fact is that one is here referring to the practice of law under the different codes, particularly as they relate to Scotland as opposed to other parts of the United Kingdom. The change which has been brought forward here arises simply from the fact that the use of the term " by execution " is deemed to be inappropriate in the case of Northern Ireland. The House will recognise that from time to time the terminology within the legal profession itself and the way in which these matters are looked at comes under review. Those words are deemed to be inappropriate in the case of Northern Ireland. It therefore follows that, since the term " by execution " is being removed, there is no need to retain the phrase " or (in Scotland) by diligence ", which was originally included merely to allow for the different terminology in Scotland.
    The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. Dobson), having parked his stagecoach, asked a perfectly fair question about the precedent. I am happy to be able to give him the precedent, because the effect of the amendment is, in fact, to revert to the situation which would apply under section 53 of the 1977 Act, which this clause reflects. We are always very happy when we find precedents set under another Administration which so happily meet the point.
    Mr. Dobson: Presumably there are Acts of this Parliament which include the words
    " by execution or (in Scotland) by diligence ".
    What do the parliamentary draftsmen do to cope with the application of those Acts to Northern Ireland in those circumstances?
    Mr. Marshall: I am not in a position to give the hon. Gentleman an answer about the whole of our legislative framework, I regret to say. I think that, if this is
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    a matter which he is keen to pursue, he may wish to consider other ways of obtaining that information. What I am concerned with in this Bill is the effect of the amendment, which is to put the words in exactly the same terms as under section 53 of the 1977 Act, which makes no mention of " diligence ". The Bill, like the 1977 Act, can work without it. I hope that the House will feel able to agree with the amendment.
    Question put and agreed to.

WESTMINSTER HOSPITAL
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Mather.]
12.53 am
Mr. David Mellor: I am very pleased to have the opportunity on the Adjournment to speak on this very important topic. I should make clear at the outset that I am raising this issue with the full concurrence of the constituency Member, my hon. Friend the Member for the City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke), who is precluded by his membership of the Government from speaking in the House on this subject but is present in the Chamber for this debate.
I have two interests in raising this matter. First, I have the honour to be a co-opted special trustee of Westminster hospital. Secondly, for many years, Westminster hospital has enjoyed a very close and fruitful association with Queen Mary's hospital, Roehampton, in my constituency, a relationship which my constituents and the staff of Queen Mary's wish to continue. Obviously my purpose in raising this issue is to try to ensure that that happens.
We are concerned with two different reports: first, the Flowers report of London university on the future of university medical education, which, among other things, recommends the closure of the Westminster hospital medical school; and, secondly, the report of the London Health Planning Consortium on the reduction of the number of acute beds in London hospitals, which recommends, inter alia, the deletion of about 400 acute beds at Westminster hospital so as to reduce the hospital to one of about 100 beds only and to turn it into an annex of St. Thomas's hospital.
I should say straightaway that I accept that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has had no part in the preparation of either of those reports, and that he inherited the consortium report from the previous Government. However, he is now in the unenviable position of having to decide, with his colleagues, the proper course to adopt.
I turn to the Flowers report. As I have indicated, the recommendation is that a hospital medical school with one of the finest traditions of any medical school in London should be closed. Last year, it
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had the best academic record in the university at the lowest cost per student. It is said that the benefit would be a substantial saving in funds. Obviously, I do not object to savings in funds, but I rather think that even the least inquiring of minds would be unconvinced by the reasoning in the Flowers report. Even if savings of the order proposed were to be found, if it means the closure of such a medical school, one might think that it would be bought at too high a price.
I turn to the consortium report. In effect, if it were implemented, it would amount to the destruction of this fine hospital. Of course, it can be said that it will continue to exist, but only in so emasculated a form as to be a pathetic attempt to prove that there is life after death.
This hospital has been a national, if not a world, leader in many branches of medicine and one to which many dedicated men and women have devoted their fives. It is a hospital of international renown, and it is a matter of bitter regret to me that its future should be called into question in the manner in which it is.
In the limited time available, I do not want to embark on the merits of the policy of RAWP. I shall content myself by saying that I am an opponent of RAWP, and I regret very much that the Government seem to have embraced that concept. It is equally right and fair to say that the right hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals), to whose work on behalf of Westminster hospital in recent months I pay tribute, is himself an adherent of RAWP. However, in some of the time available, I hope that he will argue that, even if one embraces the principles of RAWP, it is possible to pursue that policy while retaining Westminster hospital in its present form. I believe that that is crucial to the argument.
It may be said that it would be a good thing if resources were to be allocated out of London and if the real effect was that a centre of excellence similar to Westminster was established somewhere else. But a Labour Member, coming from a constituency in the North-West which is badly served by NHS facilities, indicated to me at lunchtime that he was unconvinced, although he would wish it to be otherwise, that the closure of a hospital such as Westminster would be of benefit

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to the people in his part of the country. Therefore, one is driven irresistibly to the conclusion that, whatever view one takes of NHS policy and however one approaches this problem, the proposal to remove this hospital from the map is neither sensible nor tenable.
There is one essential point I want to advance tonight before I sit down so that other hon. Members may have the opportunity of expressing their views. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has indicated that the Flowers report is a matter for the university and that no imminent decision is to be expected from the Government on the consortium report. Indeed, he indicated to the right hon. Member for Norwich, North in a letter that I have seen that it might even be slightly premature for some of us who are concerned about the matter to go to see him. However, the problem is that those of us who have had meetings with people from London university hear them say that one of the fundamental reasons for the Flowers report proposal is that it was believed that the consortium would recommend the dismemberment of the hospital, and there was no point in retaining a medical school in a hospital that would lose 80 per cent. of its beds.
Flowers is to be decided and determined by the university within the next three or four months. If the Government do not speak out now, the decision may well go against Westminster medical school. If it does, how much easier it will be for people in the DHSS to say " Westminster has lost its medical school, so why do we not chop it up altogether in accordance with the consortium, and what would be the loss?" That is why I say to my hon. Friend that it is imperative that the Government speak out on this issue, particularly for the reason I have given. But there is another pressing reason why it is essential that the Government should speak out. Many senior staff, men and women with other important duties to perform, are finding that an increasingly dominant part of their lives is taken up by having to act as agitators on behalf of the hospital—a position in which, in my respectful submission to the House, they should never have been put in the first place.
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I appreciate that my hon. Friend has an unenviable task, but I must tell him quite frankly that I should not care to be in the position of any Minister who had the blood of this fine hospital on his hands, and I should not care to have to try to justify this to a public which will rightly look upon it with extreme scepticism. I could not personally accept such a position and would both vote and campaign against it, although what I do is perhaps not a matter of great significance. But I have been greatly heartened by the support I have received both from hon. Members present tonight and from others who are not present but have told me of their great misgivings. This applies throughout the House, among senior and junior Members alike.
I do not think that there is a majority in the House for this proposal, and I hope we shall be able to avoid quite unnecessary bloodshed and strife on this issue. I hope that, if not tonight at least soon, we shall have some words of comfort from the Ministers at the DHSS so that we can all turn our attention to more fruitful matters and not find ourselves in the invidious position of having to defend a hospital that should not need any defending in this House, having regard to the services it has rendered to its Members over the years.
1.4 am
Mr. David Ennals: I am most grateful to the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) for raising this subject and for the way in which he has done so, and I want briefly to support everything that he has said. I must declare a personal interest. I am a patient at the hospital and have been one for a considerable time. I have no doubt that I owe my life to Westminster hospital, but that is not the point.
I believe that there is great strength of feeling on both sides of the House and in both Houses of Parliament, about this proposal. Westminster hospital has a world-wide reputation. Its academic excellence is recognised by everyone, and not only does it produce the best results in terms of a medical school but it does so at less cost than any other in the country.
I want to touch on the central point that was made by the hon. Member for

1585
Putney. The vice-chancellor of the university yesterday met a group of us who are deeply concerned about the future of the hospital, and he made it clear that there would be no question of closing the most efficient and cost-effective of all London teaching hospitals unless it was understood that there would be a loss of 410 beds. Obviously, if it is a hospital of 100 beds, there is no possibility of a medical school. This is why it seems to me that the hon. Member for Putney is absolutely right in saying to the Department that it must take a decision first. I think it would be quite wrong for the university, in view of the difficult position in which it is placed, to take a decision on Westminster hospital on the assumption that 400 beds will go when no decision has been taken about whether 400 beds will go. I hope that the Secretary of State will receive a deputation, that the Under-Secretary will concern himself with the matter and that any final decision will be postponed.
Not only is there opposition in the House, but the area health authority opposes the closure, and it would be a tragedy if a hospital with such a reputation and a medical school of such academic excellence were to close. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Putney for giving me the chance to add my weight to what he has said.
1.6 am
Mr. Mark Wolfson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr Mellor) for giving me the opportunity to participate in the debate. I support his view that the Westminster hospital should not be run down and that the Westminster medical school should not be closed.
I oppose the proposals for several reasons, first from a philosophical point of view. The hospital and the medical school are centres of excellence, and it is surely no part of the Government's policy to close such centres. Secondly, I oppose the proposals on grounds of size. Surely we have learnt by now that big is by no means beautiful. Part of the plan for closing the Westminster medical school would be to enlarge other schools. We need to learn that lesson and not go down the road where mistakes have been made before with nationalised industries and local government in schools.
Thirdly, I oppose the proposals because
1586
of the record of the medical school. Not only was it top last year in terms of academic record, but the Westminster is top of the list over a 10-year period, and those high standards have been achieved economically. Figures will help. It costs £14,500 to train a doctor at the Westminster. At St. George's the cost is £29,000, and the average cost is £22,000. I suggest that the school is an economic jewel in a rather costly crown.
For the Westminster medical school, the demand for places is up 70 per cent. over the past eight years, against a slightly falling market for medical school places overall. That reflects the stated desire of students to learn in a small, personal environment where close relationship can be established among students, patients and staff.
One of my constituents originally alerted me to the problem that he faced as a student currently at the school. He wrote of the qualitative aspect of the school:
"This aspect is probably best appreciated by a visit to the medical school. I think that it is sufficient to say that when I was choosing which medical school to train at, I chose Westminster above all others very much because of the atmosphere which even on a cursory visit can be seen to be one of warmth and friendship amongst students, staff and patients."
I turn to the future of the hospital. It is not enough for the Under-Secretary to tell us that the Flowers report is not his responsibility. The recommendation of the report has to be taken in conjunction with the proposals in the discussion document " Towards a balance ".
I suggest that that document should be considered with much caution, considerable scepticism and very thorough probing. It is unsigned, we have no way of knowing whether it is an agreed document, and the consortium, whatever that term may mean, appears to have been composed of two-thirds bureaucrats and one-third academics. The weight of practising medical opinion was horrifyingly lacking. Despite the title " discussion document ", the paper makes a clear recommendation for the rundown of the hospital, as has already been described most graphically, from 520 beds to a 100-bed hospital acting merely as a support unit.
Relatively, the Westminster hospital is up to date. It was built in 1938. It is cheap to run. heat and maintain. Many

1587
modern buildings cause great cost headaches. The tower at Guy's hospital is an example.
High-grade medical developments are going forward in the Westminster hospital. The accident and emergency department is new and heavily utilised. The operating theatres are being completely modernised at a cost of more than £1 million. Some rationalisation of existing London hospitals might be necessary, but surely it has never been, nor should it be, Conservative Party policy to take out a centre of medical and teaching excellence such as this hospital represents.
1.11 am
Dr. Brian Mawhinney: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) for allowing me to intervene. I shall concentrate on the Flowers report, which was the basis of the decision to do away with the medical school which is linked to the proposals for the hospital.
The report does not bear examination. I shall deal with three aspects of it. We are told that it is proposed to save £3 million. But, in the next sentence, the report says that it is impossible to judge how much money, if any, will be saved by the implementation of the report. I learnt today that the university is not prepared to give to the advisory committee, for its Friday meeting, any financial evidence from the report That means either that no financial evidence exists or that it is so weak and paltry that it would be an embarrassment to reveal it. There is no financial nor academic basis for the report. The report recommends closing the pre-clinical schools at King's and the Royal Free, of which I am a member of the academic staff. The two schools represent the epitome of the multi-faculty institution type of preclinical education and integrated education. Yet both are to be disbanded. There is no academic thread running through the report.
The effect of the report is to increase the size of class to the detriment of academic teaching. We no longer believe that big is beautiful, and yet the organisation envisaged by the report is of mammoth groupings with super-deans and sub-deans galore. That is inimical to the education process.
1588
Why should any of the medical schools be put at risk on the basis of a report which does not stand examination on a financial, academic or organisational basis? On Monday, I put to the vice-chancellor personally that Lord Flowers was picked, at least in part, to lend the eminence of his name to the report so that it would carry greater weight. That causes perplexity because we do not understand why the people involved in the report would want to be associated with something which is so hard to understand on the face of it. What was behind the report?
There might be a case for rationalising medical education, but not on the basis of the report. I oppose the closure of the medical school and the Westminster hospital.
1.15 am
The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Sir George Young): I have answered a large number of Adjournment debates in the past year—more, it feels, than any other Minister—but never yet has any Adjournment debate that I have replied to had such a large and distinguished audience. I interpret the remarks that have been made in the debate, from both sides of the House, as a warning shot across the bows.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) for raising the question of the future of Westminster hospital, and I compliment him on the way in which he has presented his case, reinforced as he was by two of his hon. Friends and a former Secretary of State. The hospital also has a friend who is, perforce, silent in this House but who is active in the interests of the hospital outside the House, my hon. Friend the Member for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke), who is in his place at the moment.
This is a subject which has caused much public concern, and I see that the subject is reported yet again in this evening's newspapers. Westminster has a long and distinguished tradition both as a hospital and a medical school. Many hon. Members have reason to be grateful to the staff of the hospital for the help and treatment that they have received, and some, as we have heard this evening, even owe their lives to the hospital.
Eighteen months ago, I had occasion to visit the hospital with a cracked rib.

1589
I was given excellent personal service by the staff. Owing to my unusual height, three X-rays of my rib cage had to be taken, but it would be churlish of me to hold that against the hospital.
I am aware that many right hon. and hon. Members have signed an early-day motion on the subject. Nobody can deny that Westminster is a much-loved and valuable hospital. My hon. Friend, as a special trustee of the hospital, knows this better than I do, and he has eloquently drawn our attention to the contribution which the hospital has made in many areas. I endorse what he said about the fine record of the hospital.
I equally understand the anxieties which the staff and patients at the hospital and those at the medical school must feel. The efforts which they have put into the campaign to save the hospital is evidence of their commitment to it, and I must say that they have conducted that campaign with commendable restraint and intelligence. I know that for them this is a difficult time, and I sympathise with them.
However, it is important that a legitimate and serious debate should be allowed to run its course whether or not one agrees with the remedies that have been proposed. I can assure hon. Members, and indeed the staff, that the points which have been put in this debate will not be ignored. I accept that there is a strong case for resolving as soon as possible the planning blight which has descended on the hospital. I hope that we can resolve it without, in the words of my hon. Friend, " bloodshed and strife ".
In response to what my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson) said, may I say that there is a complex relationship between medical education and the provision of health services? This relationship is described quite well in the report of the consortium. My right hon. Friend will have to make any decision that falls to him in full knowledge of that relationship. I make it clear that the Government have taken no decision to close the hospital.
May I explain briefly what the position is? We are concerned with two reports. The Flowers report was produced by a working party set up by the University of London under the chairmanship of Lord
1590
Flowers. Its job was to look at the way in which resources were used within the University of London for medical education and to suggest what changes were needed. The report proposed that radical changes should be made in the organisation of the medical schools and the postgraduate institutes. From a total of 34 separate institutions, the report envisages the creation of six new combined medical and dental schools. In this process, it envisages the complete closure of Westminster medical school.
Although the report is of widespread interest, it is concerned with the internal organisation of the university and, as a self-governing body, the university must decide itself how far it wishes to pursue the proposals. It would be wrong for me to comment at this stage on the proposals to close the Westminster medical school. None the less, the vice-chancellor has said that he wishes the report to be carefully considered and has invited anyone who wishes to submit views to do so within the next month. The report, and the views expressed on it, will then be considered by the appropriate machinery within the university before it reaches its decisions. I understand that a decision will be reached by the university by the end of July.
The second report, which appeared in parallel, was produced by the London Health Planning Consortium. As my hon. Friend said, that was set up in 1978 and was made up of officers of the main bodies concerned with the Health Service and medical education in London. It has produced a number of reports, the latest being entitled " Towards a balance ". This document suggests that major changes are needed in the level of hospital services in London and gives the consortium's views on how those changes should be brought about. It identifies a framework of major hospital groupings for each part of London around which health services might be planned in future. The consortium proposes that one of these groupings should be formed by linking Westminster hospital with St. Thomas's hospital. It proposes that the majority of acute services within this grouping should be provided in the new St. Thomas's hospital. There is no suggestion in that report that Westminster hospital should be closed. But it would be envisaged that the role of the hospital

1591
should be different, and the report suggests that it should provide a different range of services.
The hospital has good facilities which have been developed and improved in recent years. As has been said in the debate, the facilities will need to be used effectively, even if for some other purpose than at present. I shall not speculate at this stage on what that use might be, because consideration of that report is at an early stage and no decisions have been taken. The report has been issued as a basis for discussion, and my right hon. Friend has made it clear that he wishes to see the fullest public debate before he considers the proposals. I shall return to the way in which that report is to be dealt with.
The consortium has asked to be informed of the views of health authorities, the university and others, but it would not be for the consortium to decide what action to take. It has no executive role and can only make planning proposals, as it has done so far. I understand that it will be giving consideration during June and July to representations. Its revised views will be referred to the London advisory group in about August, and Ministers will be advised some time in September or October.
The Government's views on the structure of the NHS are well known. We intend to move towards a simplification of the structure over the next two or three years. We are determined that changes should take place in London on the same time scale as the rest of the country. Some of the most urgent and difficult structural problems are to be found in London—I say that as a London Member. But, before decisions about the future structure of the Health Service in London can be taken, it will be necessary to know what the strategic pattern of hospital services should be. It is important, therefore, that the issues
1592
raised by the consortium should be resolved. That does not mean that its proposals will necessarily be pursued, but we must be satisfied that we have the right basis on which to develop London's hospital services over the next 20 years.
Clearly, there are major issues to be resolved and important decisions to be taken. My right hon. Friend is anxious that the decisions that he takes are based on an appreciation of the full range of views and evidence which may be expressed. He is concerned that, in reaching these decisions, he should have available to him broadly-based advice reflecting the views of all interested parties. For this reason, he has decided to establish a London advisory group which will be called upon to consider not only the issues raised by the reports of the London Health Planning Consortium but the proposals which will be made by the regional health authorities for the restructuring of the Health Service. The group will not advise on the Flowers report which, as I have said, is a matter that, in the first instance, the university must resolve.
However, it will be the advisory group's task to look at the whole range of views which have been expressed on reports by the consortium. It will act as a " jury " weighing the evidence—not just the conclusions of the consortium, but any other proposals put up by people in the field—and considering everybody's views. I undertake to ensure that all the views expressed in this debate will be available to the advisory group. The group will then advise my right hon Friend on the best course of action. But, in the final analysis, he will be the judge. He will make the final decision on the Health Service issues. But I know that at the forefront of his mind he will have some of the points that have been made in this important debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes past One o'clock.

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ENVIRONMENT
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  Local Authority Associations
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  Development Commission (Review Group Report)
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  National Ice Skating Centre
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NATIONAL FINANCE
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FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
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DEFENCE
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AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
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HOME DEPARTMENT
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  Riding Establishments Acts
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WALES
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  Welsh Agriculture
TRANSPORT
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  Roads (Expenditure)
  Roads (Expenditure)
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  Heavy Lorries (Traffic Management)
  Heavy Lorries (Traffic Management)
ENVIRONMENT
  Water Charges
  Water Charges
  Merseyside (Urban Aid Programme)
  Merseyside (Urban Aid Programme)
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  Enterprise Zones
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  Council House Sales
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  Improvement Grants
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  Water Rates (Rebate Scheme)
  Building Control Consent (Fees)
  Building Control Consent (Fees)
  Domestic Rates (Reform)
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  Local Authority Associations
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  Rate Support Grant (Representations)
  Rate Support Grant (Representations)
  Council House Building
  Council House Building
  Home Improvements Council
  Home Improvements Council
  Local Government, Planning and Land (No. 2) Bill (Compulsory Purchase Powers)
  Local Government, Planning and Land (No. 2) Bill (Compulsory Purchase Powers)
  Local Authority Finance
  Local Authority Finance
  Single Homeless People (Brent Report)
  Single Homeless People (Brent Report)
  Council House Sales
  Council House Sales
  Urban Programme and Housing Cost Yardstick
  Urban Programme and Housing Cost Yardstick
  Rate Rebates
  Rate Rebates
  Departmental Staff
  Departmental Staff
  Rate Rebate Scheme
  Rate Rebate Scheme
  Local Taxation (Reform)
  Local Taxation (Reform)
  Planning Applications (Charges)
  Planning Applications (Charges)
  House Building
  House Building
  Unsold Public Sector Houses
  Unsold Public Sector Houses
  Home Insulation Grants
  Home Insulation Grants
  Rent Officer Service
  Rent Officer Service

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

WESTMINSTER HOSPITAL AND THE FLOWERS REPORT
Lord SEGAL: 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 whether any closure of beds is likely at Westminster Hospital after publication of the Flowers Report.
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, the Flowers Report is concerned with medical schools, not with hospitals. A parallel report by the London Health Planning Consortium does, however, suggest a changed role for Westminster Hospital, involving fewer acute beds. Both reports are at present the subject of wide consultation, and no decisions will be taken until consultation has been completed.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, I wish formally to thank the noble Lord for that reply. Is he aware that the contemplated closure of the Westminster medical school is likely to lower the standards of treatment in Westminster Hospital, and is bound adversely to affect the interests of many thousands of patients, who include Members of both Houses of Parliament? May I declare a personal interest in this matter not only as a grateful patient, but also as a former student and graduate of the Westminster medical school.
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, the noble Lord told me previously that he is a former graduate of the medical school of this magnificent hospital, to which so many of us are devoted; and the Government are well aware of the anxiety over the hospital. I respect-
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fully suggest to the noble Lord that the question he is asking is somewhat premature, because many consultations are now taking place and are about to take place, and no doubt a more satisfactory answer could be given in a few months' time. However, I should say that there is no suggestion that Westminster Hospital should be closed; I should like to make that clear. The noble Lord is right: the Flowers Report has recommended the closure of the Westminster medical school, and the London Health Planning Consortium has proposed a significant reduction in the number of acute beds in the hospital, linking it with St. Thomas's.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the closure of beds would be disastrous also to the nursing school, and is he also aware that Westminster Hospital is a designated demonstration rehabilitation centre?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: No, my Lords; I was not actually aware of those details, but what the noble Baroness has said will be read with interest.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will appreciate that there is great concern in both Houses in regard to this matter. Westminster Hospital has helped many Members of the other place and many noble Lords. It is a very fine hospital, and I hope that the Government will be very careful about what they do.
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, perhaps I should say that initially the Flowers Report is entirely a matter for London University to consider. The university will be receiving comments until the end of May. In parallel with this the LHPC will be receiving comments on its report, also until the end of May. In due course these reports will be looked at by the London Advisory Group, an independent body which is now being set up, and they will be reporting to my right honourable friend, I think around September.
Lord REIGATE: My Lord,, is my noble friend aware that, with great respect, his earlier answer does not make very much sense? First, is he aware of the very large sum of money that has been spent on Westminster Hospital in the

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course of the last 12 years, bringing it to completion after being started only 40 years ago? Is my noble friend further aware that at least £1 million is now being spent on new operating wards? Does he not agree that this proves that the argument with regard to the decline in population in London is nonsense—because had that argument been so, what would justify the department having spent so many millions of pounds on the hospital, only to scrap it now?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I think that I am aware of all the points raised by the noble Lord, apart from the assertion that my answer did not make sense.
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that some of us have regarded the Flowers Report as a notable attempt to see the national perspective for the medical profession and our medical resources, in particular in terms of the tremendous concentration of medical teaching resources in London in relationship to the country as a whole? Is my noble friend aware that, while some of the report's recommendations are very tough, they could be helpful towards trying to see how to use limited expert resources in the best possible way?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I believe that that is absolutely so.
Lord WINSTANLEY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in my capacity as a medical practitioner I have had occasion to send several noble Lords from your Lordships' House to Westminster Hospital for emergency treatment, and the fact that several of those noble Lords are sitting with us in the Chamber today is surely eloquent testimony to the importance of that august institution? With regard to the medical school, from which I benefited greatly in post-graduate study, may I ask the noble Lord whether the Government, in considering the Flowers Report, will carefully bear in mind the view that when it comes to medical schools, bigger is not necessarily better?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I fully appreciate what the noble Lord says.
The Earl of ONSLOW: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the spina bifida unit at Westminster Hospital is an extremely good one, that people from that spina bifida unit will now have to go to Carshalton, and that there is great concern among parents of spina bifida children at this particular movement?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for what he has said.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that the Westminster medical school is one of the small medical schools in the country, and that many students choose it because, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said, small is beautiful and their results are excellent?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I have also heard that, and the record of success from that school is, I believe, exceptionally high, possibly the highest of all.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether it is not the fact that the Flowers Report is not in any way binding on the Government? It would be a mistake to think that what is in the Flowers Report is in fact binding, when it is not.
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord. I hoped that I had made that clear. As I said, it is entirely a matter for London University to consider the Flowers Report. Eventually the London Advisory Group will be in touch with the London University, and then all the comments will go to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that a very considerable saving could be made in other directions, by the merger of some of the smaller colleges of Oxford and Cambridge into some of the larger colleges, and that the sheer folly of this suggestion is paralleled by the absurd proposal to merge the medical school of Westminster into the school of another teaching hospital? Would the noble Lord not agree that the wisest course for everyone concerned

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would be to consign the Flowers Report to the same fate as the Annan Report on Broadcasting?
Lord ANNAN: My Lords, I wonder whether I could assure the noble Lord— Several noble Lords: No!
Lord ANNAN: My Lords, may I assure the noble Lord—
Several noble Lords: No!
Lord ANNAN: My Lords, may I ask whether the noble Lord is aware that I would wish to give him an assurance that the report which is under discussion by the House at the moment will be considered very carefully by the University of London? It was a report of recommendations made personally to me as Vice-Chancellor, and I have now asked for the widest consultations throughout the University of London and outside the university so that we can have informed opinions on the merits of its recommendations. Is the noble Lord aware that I would also wish to reassure him that consultations are taking place directly with Westminster medical school, and that at three o'clock this afternoon I shall be at the Westminster medical school with members of the relevant committee, which will be advising the governing body of the university? May I also warn the noble Lord, Lord Cullen—
Several noble Lords: No!
Lord ANNAN: May I, however, also warn the noble Lord that it is very difficult indeed for the University of London to continue to fund its medical schools at the present rate when many of them are in deficit?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I am greatly reassured, and I am sure that other noble Lords are, too.
Lord REIGATE: My Lords, would my noble friend accept that the issue raised—that of the better allocation of the resources for medicine and teaching in London—would not justify a bad decision, such as that which is put forward?

NATIONAL FRONT MARCH IN LEWISHAM
2.47 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of HAMPSTEAD: 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 public expenditure was incurred as a result of the police measures in the Borough of Lewisham instituted to protect the march of the National Front which took place on 20th April 1980.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Belstead): My Lords, I understand from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis that the cost of the policing arrangements for this march has been estimated at £300,000.
Lord LLOYD of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask him this question: Does he not think that we are paying too high a price—and I do not refer to this purely in financial terms—to enable small Nazi groups (because that is what they are), in the name of so-called freedom of speech, to inflict inflammatory racialist slogans on areas which have apparently been deliberately chosen on account of their large coloured population?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, so far as the financial price is concerned, I certainly appreciate the force of the question which the noble Lord asks of me. It is to see whether the balance between the rights of demonstrators and the interests of the rest of the public is correct that the Government are undertaking a review of the Public Order Act 1936 and related legislation, on which my right honourable friend published a Green Paper last week and upon which I know my right honourable friend would welcome the views of noble Lords. Of course, in that respect my right honourable friend will be taking into account what the noble Lord said in his supplementary.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, did not the National Front march in

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Lewisham, consisting largely of "skinheads" shouting racialist abuse, in itself constitute a threat to law and order? Was this not foreseeable? If it is thought that the powers of the chief constable are inadequate to protect the public peace by preventing this sort of illegal procession, should those powers not be reviewed immediately to see whether this public abuse cannot be remedied?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I would not presume to depart from the conclusion which the noble and learned Lord has reached that this constituted a threat, and clearly the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis took the threat very seriously. But the commissioner has to operate within the terms of the existing law, and, as the noble and learned Lord will know better than I do, the commissioner has to believe that serious disorder cannot otherwise be prevented before he can apply for a ban or impose conditions. The commissioner reached a conclusion that serious disorder could otherwise be prevented; and, if I may say so, in the final analysis the commissioner was proved right.
The Lord Bishop of SOUTHWARK: My Lords, if the Government consider it essential for these demonstrations to continue in the interests of free speech, could not the payments for the police and other payments come from the whole community rather than from the ratepayers of a particular borough? Having witnessed two demonstrations in Lewisham (which is in my diocese) and also one a month or so ago at the Elephant and Castle, it seems unfair that the ratepayers of a particular locality should have to pay the police to protect them from invaders from the whole country.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I must confess that this is something which has not been taken into account in the Green Paper. What has been canvassed in last week's Green Paper is whether it might not be right to require those who demonstrate to contribute to the cost. This presents difficulties because in some cases it would be difficult to apportion blame for the disorder between the organisers and those who oppose them. In regard to the suggestion that the right reverend Prelate has put to me, I should like to
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look at that and draw it to the attention of my right honourable friend.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, could the noble Lord tell us whether demonstrators have any rights at all on a high road? In my day, the leading case was Harrison v. The Duke of Rutland where a demonstration march by a gentleman beating a tin can was designed to obstruct the noble Duke's driving pheasants across the road. Mr. Harrison was mulcted of damages on the principle that the only right that the public have on the highway is to use it to go backwards and forwards on their lawful travelling purposes.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I think that each case is a matter for the courts to decide.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, would my noble friend say something about the figure of £300,000? Does all of that represent overtime? Could he also say what happens in those districts of London from which large numbers of police were drawn for this purpose? Since we have so few organised reserves, were they left wide open to the petty thieves?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, as far as the first supplementary question is concerned, these are costs which have been assessed by the Metropolitan Police for the expenses they incurred. I am not trying to be unhelpful, but I do not think I can go further than that. So far as the second and important supplementary question is concerned, what the noble Lord has said is taken seriously into account from the operational point of view by the commissioner and his officers before these decisions are arrived at.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, quite apart from the review of the Public Order Act which is being conducted by the Home Secretary, is there not an important question of resources which must be devoted to these demonstrations? Would he not agree that the fact that public order was maintained in the event is not necessarily a vindication of the judgment of the Metropolitan Commissioner that this march should have been allowed to take place, bearing in mind that there was a continual threat of serious disorder during the whole of the period that the

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"Nazis" were marching through this area; and the fact that no serious public disorder eventuated was largely a matter of luck and of the enormous resources that the police put in? Are we to put in resources without limit for any future march that the National Front may choose to conduct to areas largely populated by ethnic minorities?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, the noble Lord asks hypothetical questions. The only way I could respond to be helpful to the House is to make it clear that the powers under the 1936 Act to ban or impose conditions on marches require that the decision is made on public order grounds alone. Before going to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, it is on those grounds, and those alone, as the law now stands, that the commissioner and chief constables throughout the country must make up their minds.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, as one who was concerned with the Mosley predecessors of these vicious people, may I ask the noble Lord to go into the methods used at that time to prevent demonstrations? For example, will he remember that at that time—and will he consider it now—demonstrations in Trafalgar Square were prohibited? Furthermore, is it not a fact that these people are preaching exactly the same kind of thing which we have fought against for years and which caused such terrible disturbances in this country until they were quelled by the people themselves?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, noble Lords are saying many things with which I find myself in agreement, but I seriously ask the noble Lord, Lord Janner, and all noble Lords, if they have time, to read my right honourable friend's Green Paper (Cmnd. 7891) and perhaps to respond to the invitation that I sought to offer at the beginning of this exchange. I repeat that the Home Secretary would very much welcome observations from Members of your Lordships' House.

CONSERVATION: THE MAFF CAPITAL GRANT SCHEMES
2.55 p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
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The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the proposed changes in the administration of MAFF capital grant schemes call into question the Government's commitment to conservation, since they could lead to a reversal of the progress made in improving the design and siting of buildings, securing concern for wildlife and improving the conservation of the landscape.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, the purpose of the changes which are proposed for the capital grant schemes is to make them simpler and less costly to administer. They do not alter the Government's commitment to conservation.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply, but does he not accept that the Strutt Report recommended that MAFF should take much wider responsibilities for protecting wildlife and promoting landscape conservation? Does he accept that these proposals in their present form only imply the need to be concerned for conservation and designated areas such as the national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty?
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, I think the best assurance that I can repeat is the assurance given by my honourable friend in another place on 10th March. The noble Baroness will find it at column 437 of the Commons' Official Report.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, if I may intervene again, does the noble Lord accept that the real point of contact for discussing conservation is the point when plans are submitted and when investment programmes are being made? If the need for prior approval is being abolished, have we not lost that point of contact with the farmer from the point of view of conservation of wildlife and better landscape schemes?
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, I think perhaps the noble Baroness is speaking a little prematurely, because consultations are at present in progress, the results of which will be published before long. As regards the point she makes that there is a cut-off from the former procedure, the

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Strutt Report made a particular point that a start should be made in national park areas. This we intend to pursue.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, would my noble friend not agree that, although the proposals as regards conservation will not do in their present form, it is only a consultation document at this stage and there is therefore ample time and opportunity to get the proposals right? May I ask whether he will go a little further than drawing our attention to what his honourable friend said last month in the other place and give us the assurance now in respect of these particular proposals that, when his right honourable friend draws them up (after having established such economies as may be found in his department; which is the proper thing to do), he will ensure that under the new proposals it is easy and possible for the Minister to discharge his obligations under Section 11 of the Countryside Act, and also that under the proposals when amended it will be possible to move forward and implement the proposals of the Strutt Report—proposals which were agreed in principle by his right honourable friend and welcomed by all bodies concerned with conservation and the countryside?
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, this is a technical matter. I would here draw my noble friend's attention to what my noble friend Lord Ferrers said when the Farm Capital Grant (Variation) Scheme 1980 was being discussed in your Lordships' House on 28th February.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, will the Minister bear in mind that farmers have enough difficulty at the moment without a further set of regulations? They have to live, work and earn their living in the countryside, which is more than many of the people concerned with the present proposals have to do.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, I very much agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, has said. The object of this review is that there should be a single streamlined capital grant scheme with simpler procedures entailing significantly less use of staff.
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, would the noble Lord accept that both farmers and those interested in the wildlife and amenity aspects of the countryside are united in agreeing that what the noble Lord has described as streamlined and simplified procedures will damage farming, amenity and wildlife interests? Will he give the House an assurance that as this is a consultative document—and I am glad that he has stressed that—the Government will consult with voluntary organisations concerned with wildlife and amenity aspects in the countryside before coming to any decisions on the proposed changes?
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, in response to the noble Lord, I will gladly confirm that the consultation document of the Rayner project went to 70 bodies, organisations and individuals in the first instance, and to anyone who applied for it. So substantial consultation is in progress at the moment. I would not agree with the noble Lord's suggestion that it will remove the benefits of conservation to proceed with the scheme as intended at the moment. There are safeguards written into the recommendations of the Strutt Report which of course my noble friend confirmed in another place on 10th March.
The Earl of SWINTON: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that it is very often the case that farmers and others who live in the countryside show a great deal more concern for wildlife and improving the conservation of the landscape than those who come into the countryside masquerading under the name of conservationists? I am particularly thinking of the case of the Yorkshire Dales national park, where the buildings that the farmers have put up over the years, the little barns in which to keep the hay, are one of the most attractive reasons why the area is one of such outstanding natural beauty.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, the Minister intends to discharge all his statutory responsibilities in regard to those particular sensitive areas referred to—the national parks, the SSSIs and the areas of outstanding natural beauty. The House will agree that, given those assurances, the consultation process must proceed.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, while I thank my noble friend for the assurances that he has given us, would he not agree that, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, was saying just now, in this particular case it was the National Farmers' Union who were the first and the quickest to point out the mistakes that are being made in this current consultation document?
Lord SANDYS: Yes, my Lords. There have been a number of comments made by the National Farmers' Union. Their earlier comments on the Strutt Report are welcome. It is too early at this stage in the consultation process to say anything more.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, the noble Lord will recall that he made use during his earlier reply of the letters SSSI. Can the noble Lord tell us what organisation or animal they represent?
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, I beg your Lordships' pardon. It is a site of special scientific interest.

RENT INCREASES: SUGGESTED LIMITS
3.5 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 whether they will introduce measures to limit the percentages by which tenants' rents can be increased.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, the answer is, no. Private tenants are protected by the fair rent system under the Rent Acts. Responsibility for the level of council house rents must rest with individual local housing authorities.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will really settle down and consider the position? I am sure that he has had letters from tenants' associations, and is he aware
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that the position today is a scandalous one in so far as middle class people are concerned? What does the noble Lord say about the case that was brought to his notice of an 85-year old woman who had lived in a house for 40 years who had to be turned out because the increased rent wanted was 500 per cent. higher than she was paying? May I ask the noble Lord to look into this matter again and see what can be done? It is a scandalous position.
May I also ask him this: the words "scarcity value", which people believed meant that if there was no place or few places available for rental, that created a scarcity value, in fact did not in the normal sense of the expression. This has been misinterpreted. Will he please see to it that a suitable term is inserted into the Rent Acts to say that, when rents are being assessed, the real scarcity value should be taken into consideration by the tribunal or whoever it may be and should be discarded when fixing what should be the amount of the rent to the tenant?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, there are two major thrusts in the question. The first relates to the rateable value limits under the Rent Acts. I am very well aware of the representations that have been made, not least by the noble Lord on many occasions, and by individuals. All I can say as to that today is that we are bearing those representations in mind.
So far as the scarcity factor in assessing rents is concerned, this is a very dangerous suggestion that the noble Lord has proposed. If scarcity was removed as a factor in arriving at fair rents then I would have little doubt that the rents themselves would be very much higher than they are at the moment. That is certainly true in relation to market rents. While that may be a cause of some satisfaction to many landlords who are also concerned about the level of fair rents being fixed, I do not think that it is quite what the noble Lord has in mind.
If I may just take another moment to say again what I have said on a number of occasions when this has been raised in the past, the fact is that the object of the establishment of fair rents is to try to get as fair a balance as possible between what tenants can pay and what landlords need to have as a reasonable return. If we do

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not get either right, then on the one hand the tenant is in difficulty, and on the other the supply of dwellings dries up. That is the dilemma, as I have said before.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, arising out of what my noble friend has said, will the noble Lord confirm that with regard to the scarcity value with regulated tenancies, it is clearly laid down under Section 70(2) of the 1977 Act that this should not be taken into account? Will he confirm that it is the Government's intention not to rescind this particular piece of legislation?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I thought I had done so. I must have put it badly. That is precisely what I was trying to say. There is no intention at all of trying to remove the scarcity factor from the calculation of rents. If I put it the other way round, then I am sorry; I did not mean to do so. I shall read Hansard with much interest when it comes out.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that it is unwise to dismiss this matter in a summary fashion? Is he aware that all over the place tenants' associations are being formed? They are not concerned about the public sector, because those people are being, if not adequately protected, at any rate protected to some extent. But those in the private sector are very apprehensive about what will happen because of the provisions of the Housing Bill. Will he take into account that the so-called "protection" provided through the rent assessment officers is no protection at all, because one cannot be satisfied about the impartiality of rent officers or rent tribunals? If he wants evidence, I can furnish all that is necessary.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I was not aware that I was treating the matter in a summary fashion at all. In fact, the number of occasions that I have answered the same point, or tried to do, I think would indicate that I treat it very far from summarily. It is a very important matter and I treat it with the respect and importance which it merits.
So far as the working of the Act and the fixing of rent levels by rent officers and rent assessment committees are concerned, the noble Lord says that he has evidence he would give of situations where
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this clearly is unfair or unreasonable. I would welcome his giving me such instances and undertake to see that they are properly looked at in detail. However, I think it only right to say that in general there is as much criticism from landlords as to fixed rents as there is from tenants. I repeat, if I may, for the nth time, that there is the dilemma of trying to get it right. If there is a better way than rent officers and rent assessment committees, let us have suggestions.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, may I try to rectify what is obviously a wrong impression gained by the noble Lord in relation to the Question I put. I did not say, "Is he aware …?" I did not say that the scarcity value is not an important factor. What I asked him was: What is scarcity value? According to the tribunals at present sitting, they do not take into consideration the fact of the scarcity of places to rent—and this is the important thing—which was created by people who are (perhaps I had better not use the words I want to use) utilising the present position to create scarcity values by refusing to rent a place at a reasonable rent and are consequently raising the price of the freeholds or long leaseholds by methods which mean that scarcity value, from a rental point of view, is thoroughly misunderstood. Will the noble Lord seek to rectify that?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I suggest that we are getting into very deep water because I had the privilege of sitting on the Francis Committee, where we studied rent regulation and the definitions of "scarcity" every Friday for 15 months. We tried to decide what was a proper definition of "scarcity" in this context. I should hate now to embark upon definitions of "scarcity" for your Lordships' benefit. I do not think you would thank me, but I think that the question which the noble Lord has raised on several occasions really relates to the earlier point I mentioned concerning the rateable value limits. I think that is the way to approach the matter, and I did say that we are bearing that in mind.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, I think it would be convenient, after continuing Questions for 38 minutes on four very important subjects, if I were to say that at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m.

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my noble friend Lord Belstead will be repeating a Statement on prisons.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask this question: why was it necessary to allow the other Questions to go on at great length when a very important issue was being raised and we are not allowed to ask questions about it?
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, I think each Question this afternoon was of considerable importance. It is difficult to weigh the importance of one against another, but we have continued for an equivalent time on each Question.

SOCIAL SECURITY BILL
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order, vizt.:—

Clauses 1 and 2

Schedule 1

Clauses 3 to 6

Schedule 2

Clauses 7 to 10

Schedule 3

Clauses 11 to 20

Schedule 4

Clause 21

Schedule 5

—(Lord Cullen of Ashbourne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

POST OFFICE SERVICES
3.15 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY Lord CAMPBELL of CROY rose to call attention to the quality of service provided by the Post Office; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper, calling attention to the quality of service provided
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by the Post Office. This is a subject of widespread concern at the moment. I shall myself concentrate on two matters: the letter post and the telephone system. Those services affect almost every member of the public, and businesses of all kinds and sizes in the country are also affected by their degree of reliability. I hope that other speakers in the debate will move into other areas of Post Office activities.
This seems a suitable time for a debate on this subject, for two particular reasons. First, the costs of both the services to which I have referred have recently risen very sharply without any matching improvement. Secondly, there have been some highly relevant reports published recently, in particular the Monopoly Commission's Report on the Inner London postal services: that came out only four weeks ago. Also there has been the First Report of the Commons Select Committee on Industry and Trade: that was published last month. In effect, that Committee has made public very recent evidence without comment because, they say, interest is high in the affairs of the Post Office. There are indeed in that evidence important facts and expressions of view to which I, too, am drawing attention. There have also been recent reports from the Post Office Users' National Council, especially those on increases in postal and telecommunication charges. It is my impression that the Users' Council does a remarkable job in marshalling relevant facts in the best interests of the customers.
The postal service is run as a self-contained business and so also is the telecommunications business, both within the Post Office at present. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Industry announced last year that the Government have decided to divide the Post Office into two bodies, the second to be called British Telecommunications. This follows the recommendations of the Carter Review Committee of 1977. I will not discuss reorganisation, but I will remind your Lordships that, in their White Paper of July 1978, the last Government did not dissent from that recommendation that the Post Office be divided into two, but suggested that further time was needed for consideration.
I turn first to the postal system for letters. The service is erratic and in

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general is not good enough. There is a strong current of feeling in the country that it must be improved. The huge quantity of complaints in recent months boil down to three main categories: first, general unreliability; second, high cost of both first- and second-class letters in relation to the efficiency; and third, certain particularly bad areas where there have been inordinate delays, for example, Central London. The letter service is patchy. Remarkably quick deliveries do occur. The trouble is that they cannot be relied on. I have come to know several hardworking and conscientious postmen, both in Scotland and in London, who would like to be able to take pride in a speedy and efficient service. They deserve to be able to. The present state of the post is unfair to them.
Let us consider the variations. Within London, it has been the experience during the past year or so that a first-class letter can take two, three, four or more days after posting for delivery, even though it has to travel only a mile or two within London. This is acknowledged in the reports which I have mentioned. There is an anomaly here which I know from my own experience. If I post a letter before midday in the village of Croy near my home, 10 miles North East of Inverness and 600 miles from here, it invariably is delivered by the first post in London. This points towards delays in the presorting and the sorting within London, rather than in the delivery itself. But it shows what can be done, and it also shows how patchy the service is in different parts of the country.
To give another example of unpredictability, a lady in Edinburgh, in a letter published in The Times earlier this year, said that she had posted a Valentine card on 13th February. The postal service frustrated her intention by delivering it on the same day, when of course she had intended it for the 14th. In her letter, she described this as the Post Office being irritatingly efficient on that occasion, and The Times published her letter under the heading "Galloping Hearts".
What are the Post Office's targets? Within the United Kingdom, where there are no special obstacles or remoteness involved, I understand that when a letter is posted by a reasonably early post the
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target is that first-class post should arrive on the following working day, and that second-class post should arrive within three working days. The Post Office carry out their own method of sampling and I understand that they hope for well over 90 per cent. of this target to be reached. I should like confirmation, if my noble friend the Minister of State can give it, when he comes to reply.
It seems from the reports to which I have referred that the Post Office have been aiming for 93 per cent. achievement of their target for first-class post, and 96 per cent. for second-class post. But they also have revealed that in the last 12 months or so, for most of last year in particular, the percentages were in the low eighties, and they were in the low eighties for most of that time. I hope that the Minister can tell us more about this matter of being well below their own targets.
The number of letters being sent has decreased in recent years, understandably, because the service is no better and the cost in stamps is higher. Much of the trouble appears to be in the sorting procedure, and in the failure to move to mechanical sorting as was planned. The report on Inner London is illuminating on this point. It states that complaints about deterioration of the letter service were fully justified—that is the statement of the Monopolies Commission—and it attributes the causes very largely to industrial disputes about mechanisation. This is an area in London where there is a shortage of postal staff, so the possibility of significant unemployment being caused because of mechanisation cannot be a real genuine matter for anxiety.
The most important form of mechanisation being proposed in sorting is the optical character recognition system—OCR. Under this, codes and addresses can be recognised quickly by scanners. The system is successfully in use in other countries, both operationally and experimentally, but in the United Kingdom little progress is being made in this, or in other moves towards mechanisation. Action is required. There must be an initiative to move towards real progress. I believe that rationalisation in jobs is required. Management should be preparing for this, and the unions concerned should see that it is in the long-term interest of

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their membership, because it could lead to more rewarding jobs and better pay.
The use of part-time labour has hitherto been opposed by the unions. If it could be brought in, it might well provide more work in areas of high unemployment and reduce the staff shortages in other areas. I need hardly remind your Lordships about the sharp increases in costs of the post, but in figures, since last August, the first-class post has been increased by about 30 per cent. and the second-class post by 40 per cent. The public expect rationalisation and improvement in return, bearing in mind that about 80 per cent. of the costs of the postal service are at present labour costs.
I should like to draw attention, constructively, to one possibility where a substantial change could be made. I believe that this is bound to come eventually, though it is also bound to be controversial. At present, legislation requires delivery to be made to every individual address. This is not the practice in most comparable industrial countries in the world. In those countries, there are central post-boxes for blocks of flats and garden gate boxes for houses not close to a street or road. In the United States of America, this has been the custom for 30 and more years in many areas. That is a high-wage, high-productivity economy and we ought to heed the direction in which they have been going, because we want to become a high-wage, high-productivity economy, too.
To put it another way, a point is reached when the majority of the public cannot afford the price of a personal delivery service. The citizen may then prefer to make a do-it-yourself contribution of collecting from a nearby box, in return for reliability and reasonable charges; not prohibitive charges as they may well become unless changes of this kind are introduced. This change, I believe, needs to be examined. Parliament has a special responsibility, because legislation would be needed. In other words, the demands on the personal delivery service should be brought into line with present-day requirements and the willingness and ability of the citizen to pay for an inessential but expensive part of the service.
I foresee that most members of the public will resist very strongly having to put
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20p stamps on their letters in two or three years' time, and that is the pace at which postal costs have been mounting. Rather than pay for the time and legwork of individual postmen delivering to every flat or house, they would prefer to economise on that element. The reliability and efficiency of the service are more important to them, and these might well improve as a result. The Post Office have made it clear in the evidence to which I have referred, that for their part they would welcome changes of this kind and it would help them to improve their basic services.
I turn to the telephone system. The first disquieting fact is that during 1979 the time taken to provide services and repair faults increased. In its October report the Users' Council described this as alarming. Secondly, there has been a substantial rise in the charges. Telephoning has suddenly become much more expensive. There has also been a telephone bill dispute, causing much inconvenience. It apparently cost £120 million, which has to be paid for by the customers.
The most disturbing feature of the telephone situation, however, is the failure to meet applications for installing telephones. This seems to be getting worse. Additional business is thereby being lost. I would seek information from my noble friend about the approximate numbers of those waiting for a telephone. In the Press half a million has been given as the number. That was, for example, in a letter in The Times last week, on 24th April. My own impression, assisted by figures kindly passed to me by the Government, is that in fact it is about a quarter-million, so that that letter had doubled the number. But many have been waiting for six months or more, and it is certainly deplorable that a quarter-million should be waiting for a telephone.
It is also unfortunate that the number is increasing, because I understand that a year ago there were under 200,000 waiting for a telephone. There is a connection charge, and I agree that there should be a connection charge for as long as there is a waiting list. That is to avoid frivolous or light-hearted applications which may be followed later by withdrawals, and therefore waste the valuable time of the Post Office telecommunications staff.
The United Kingdom compares most unfavourably with other countries. For example, in the United States you can get a telephone within 24 or 48 hours in most places on request. I should be glad if my noble friend could provide the latest information about this and any news about plans to tackle this urgent task and catch up. I welcome the new system which the Post Office are adopting, called System X. I hope that this will greatly improve the telephone service and modernise it, but can the Post Office or its successor carry out both tasks at once? Can they provide the extra installations for those who are waiting and at the same time carry out this massive replacement with modern equipment?
I should like to say a word or two about public relations. Both the letter and the telephone services need better presentation. At the beginning of what I hope will be a new telephone era, will the Post Office or the new communications body please drop that irritating bird? The advertising symbol Buzby has come to represent all that now goes wrong. When telephoning you can hear his beak tapping on the line or scraping it, before his antics cause you to be cut off altogether in the middle of your conversation. His effect is to encourage unnecessary calls on a network already creaking under the strain. He is also an affront to the tens of thousands—those tens of thousands I have been speaking of—of applicants who are waiting for a telephone. Buzby should be buried or humanely returned to his natural habitat, to the jungle noises with which he has become associated.
Whoever advises on public relations should consider rephrasing the demand notes for payment. After a prolonged period of months with no telephone bills, followed by much delayed telephone bills containing shock figures, relationships with customers are not assisted by the wording, "Unless payment is received within seven days we shall be obliged to disconnect your telephone. Should you pay after that there may be some delay before your line can be reconnected and you will be charged a reconnection fee." Of course, there could be reasons such as holidays or illness, or even inquiring into the size of the bill, which could cause delay. The language of ultimatum is not conducive to good customer relations. This
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ungracious approach is compounded by the absurd time limit. The seven days, as I have indicated earlier, can be consumed by postal delays in each direction as well as the weekend.
Recent history shows that the Post Office's publicity has on the whole been lamentable. The prime example was in 1968 when the two-tier post was introduced. I then initiated the first debate in the Commons on 17th October of that year upon the new system. The Postmaster General of the day had already described the public relations before the system's introduction as a disaster. I was more polite in the debate; I said it had been handled with unexampled ineptitude. But I would remind your Lordships of the chaos during that September and October when mail was being mislaid or taking days and weeks to arrive. What was the Post Office slogan with which one was faced wherever one went at that time? It was, "Someone, somewhere is waiting for a letter from you."
My Lords, in my comments on the postal and telephone services, I have been critical but, I hope, constructive. The public had more cause for complaint during the last year than in any other year in peacetime. This must be changed, and changed soon. The interests of those working in the Post Office are involved, as well as the efficiency with which we can all conduct our daily lives. I beg to move for Papers.

IRANIAN EMBASSY INCIDENT
3.36 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary on Prisons.
Before I make the Statement I should like leave to refer to events at the Iranian Embassy of which noble Lords may be aware. A few hours ago there was a hostage-taking incident. All appropriate steps are being taken.

PRISONS
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, the Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a Statement about the present situation in the prison system in England and Wales and about the action I am taking on the main recommendations of the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the United Kingdom Prison Services (the May Committee). We shall also within the next few weeks publish a detailed reply to the 15th Report from the Expenditure Committee for Session 1977–78, and we shall publish proposals for changes in the powers of the courts in relation to young offenders later in the summer.
"As the May Committee made clear in their report, this country has for many years paid too little attention to its prisons. The result is that our prisons are chronically overcrowded and the prison service operates under severe strain. In the period since the report was published last October, the prison population in England and Wales has risen from 42,500 to a total of 44,000 on 18th April. The figure continues to fluctuate, but the present level is dangerously high. Exceptional measures by way of legislation or administrative action would be unpalatable and frustrating to those whose task it is to administer justice, but they cannot be ruled out if the situation demands them. Our primary task must, however, be to prevent such a situation from developing.
"The following action is being taken. First, we must ensure that the prison estate is adequate for the job it has to do. We have every sympathy with the May Committee's recommendation that the building programme should be increased. The present programme, together with a considerable mantenance commitment, is substantial. Work already in progress will produce some 3,400 new or refurbished places by 1985, including a major new dispersal prison which should come into use next year. Firm plans are being made to start two new major projects in both 1981–82 and 1982–83, which will provide 1,500 further places by the later 1980s. I hope to continue the programme on that basis in 1983–84 and preliminary planning is now proceeding.
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"Secondly, we shall continue our efforts to develop alternatives to imprisonment. The Government believe that the outside community must play an increasing part, whether through statutory or voluntary agencies, in the treatment and containment of offenders, particularly those who have not committed violent offences. We shall give full support to non-custodial methods, and we recognise the major contribution which the Probation and After-Care Service must make to them.
The mentally disordered offender presents particularly difficult problems. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services and I accept that it is undesirable to detain in prison persons whose mental disorder permits them to be detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act. We shall continue our efforts to have such persons transferred to hospitals with the appropriate levels of security. My right honourable friend will continue to give priority to the establishment of regional secure units. The programme which has been planned will make a valuable contribution to the provision for these offenders.
"A new development is that we are making public funds available to enable voluntary organisations to make a start in providing simple overnight shelter for people who would otherwise be charged with offences of drunkenness.
"Measures of this kind may not individually achieve a substantial reduction in the prison population, but taken together they can have a significant impact.
"Thirdly, the Advisory Council on the Penal System, the Expenditure Committee and the May Committee have all emphasised the need for shorter sentences. I have already said that the Government would welcome shorter sentences for non-violent offenders, and it should be possible to bring about a significant reduction in the general level of sentences without sacrificing the protection which the public is entitled to expect. I believe that such a reduction can be achieved by the exercise of judicial discretion, and recent judgments have suggested that there is an increasing awareness among judges that the less serious type

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of non-violent offence can properly be met by a shorter term of imprisonment than has been imposed previously.
"I turn now to the May Committee's vitally important recommendations on prison reorganisation. Like the committee, I fully support the principle of preserving direct ministerial responsibility for the Prison Service and for the treatment of individual prisoners. Subject to that, I endorse the May Committee's objective of a structure which will give the prison services a greater corporate sense and enable those in charge to be more directly responsible for its own affairs. I am, therefore, instituting a major change in the Prison Department's position in the Home Office and in its internal organisation. The Prison Department will be given wide delegated authority within the Home Office for the management of its staff and for the control of its finance. Special attention will be paid to improving the system of financial information and control.
"The present Director General will remain in his post. A new post of deputy director general will be created and the membership of the Prisons Board will be expanded to include the four regional directors and two outside non-executive members whose appointments I shall announce shortly.
"I accept the May Committee's crucial recommendations for an Inspectorate separate from the Prison Department, and for the publication of its reports. A new Crown appointment of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons will be announced as soon as possible. He will inspect and report to the Home Secretary on prison establishments in England and Wales, conducting regular inspections of individual establishments and investigating particular incidents or situations on the Home Secretary's directions. He will submit an annual report which will be published and other reports which will be made publicly available as appropriate.
"I endorse the May Committee's objective of a reconstructed regional organisation which will enable regional directors to concentrate more closely on the supervision of individual
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establishments, reporting directly to the deputy director general. As the committee recommended, most specialist functions will be concentrated at headquarters.
"I will, with permission, circulate further details of these organisational changes in the Official Report. Copies of this information are now available in the Vote Office.
"I endorse the May Committee's views on the need to achieve better industrial relations, to make the best possible use of staff and to improve staff accommodation and amenities. I am pursuing these matters with the staff associations concerned, with priority for improvements in the procedures for handling industrial relations, and for the design of a new attendance system and the associated conditions of service. I accept the committee's recommendation for a comprehensive review of training.
"I believe that the changes which I have announced will provide a framework in which members of the Prison Service, of all grades, will be better able to perform their difficult tasks. I shall do all I can to help them to maintain their high traditions and to develop new and constructive methods in the context of the concept of positive custody as put forward in the May Committee's Report. Work will be put in hand to translate it into the design of prison régimes and the development of prison industries, and I will lay the necessary amendments to the prison rules in due course.
"All the measures which I have announced have a common objective—to ensure an effective prison system and an efficient and confident Prison Service".
That, my Lords, is my right honourable friend's Statement.
Following are details of organisational changes referred to above:

THE MAY REPORT: RECOMMENDATIONS ON ORGANISATION
Chapter V of the May Committee's Report made a number of recommendations designed to improve the administration of the Prison Service in England and Wales. These recommendations

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covered the status and independence of the Prison Department within the Home Office; the structure of its senior posts; the arrangements for inspection; the organisation of regions and establishments; and the functions of boards of visitors. The following paragraphs set out the conclusions which I have reached.
Enhanced responsibilities of the Prison Department
2. Under the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, the Prison Department will assume delegated authority for manpower and staffing matters affecting prison governors, prison officers and administrative and specialist staff serving in Prison Service establishments and regional offices, and certain professional, technical and other specialist staff serving at headquarters. These groups comprise virtually all those non-industrial staff who expect to spend a full career in the Prison Service. The Prison Department will also assume delegated responsibility for the day-to-day management of its finance. Work is in hand on the improvements in management accounting methods and financial information systems to which the May Committee attached importance.
3. As the May Committee recommended, there will continue to be a single principal establishment officer, responsible for manpower and personnel matters affecting the Home Office as a whole. A single principal finance officer will exercise similar responsibilities in relation to finance, and there will be a single accounting officer for all Home Office Votes.
Structure of Senior Posts
4. The post of Director General of the Prison Service will continue at Deputy Secretary level. The principle will remain that this and all senior appointments should always go to the best available candidate: it will continue to be held by the present holder of the post.
5. The deputy director general will occupy a position between deputy secretary and undersecretary. As head of the operational service he will be responsible to the Director General for the operations of the Prison Service in the field. The present controller (operational administration) will be appointed to the post.
6. Other senior posts will be the director of regimes and services, responsible for the planning and co-ordination of prison regimes, the prison building programme and the provision of services; the director of operational policy, responsible for policy and casework on the treatment of prisoners; the director of personnel and finance, responsible for personnel management, industrial relations and staff training, and also for manpower and financial control, including accounting and financial information systems; and the director of prison medical services, whose responsibilities will be unchanged.
7. The holders of these six posts will be members of the Prisons Board. The board will also include the four regional directors, in view of their operational responsibility for the Prison Service in the field; and two non-executive members, as recommended by the May Committee, to bring to the board an independent viewpoint as well
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as their own particular knowledge and expertise. The appointments of the outside non-executive members will be announced as soon as possible.
Inspection
8. Appointments to the new post of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons will be made directly by the Crown on the advice of the Home Secretary. The widest possible field of candidates will be considered.
9. The Chief Inspector will report to the Home Secretary and will be a member of the Home Office, but he will not be a member of the Prison Department or have any responsibility to that department. His terms of reference will be:
"To inspect and report to the Secretary of State on Prison Service establishments in England and Wales, and in particular on:

(a) conditions in those establishments;

(b) the treatment of prisoners and other inmates and the facilities available to them;

(c) such other matters as the Secretary of State may direct".

10. The Chief Inspector will conduct regular inspections of individual establishments and he will investigate particular incidents or situations on the Home Secretary's directions. He will submit an annual report which will be published and other reports which will be made publicly available where appropriate. In accordance with the May Committee's recommendation, individual grievances will continue to be dealt with under existing procedures.
11. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has asked, and I have agreed, that the services of the Chief Inspector should be available to inspect prison establishments in Northern Ireland.
12. The Chief Inspector will be supported by a deputy chief inspector and by a small team most of whom will be drawn from the Prison Service. Other professional or specialist support will be provided as necessary.
Regions and Establishments
13. The primary tasks of regional directors will be to secure the application of national policy and to contribute to its formulation; and to ensure the proper functioning of their establishments and of the prison system as a whole. They will assume full management responsibility for their establishments, with direct accountability to the deputy director general and with the full support of headquarters. The casework at present done at regional offices is for the most part closely associated with the supervision of establishments and most of it will remain; but specialist functions will for the most part be concentrated at headquarters, as the May Committee recommended. I recognise the value of the work which many of the staff have done while they have been at regional offices and their contribution to the Prison Service, but I am satisfied that their contribution can be made as effectively from headquarters in the future.
14. Establishments for women and girls will for the first time be brought within the regional structure; regional boundaries will be redrawn

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to remove some of the present anomalies; and the internal organisation of regional offices will be reviewed and standardised.
Boards of Visitors
15. I accept the recommendation that boards of visitors should continue to exercise both an adjudicatory and an inspectorial function. In respect of the latter they will continue to be concerned both with inmates and with members of the staff, but I share the view which most boards have expressed that their links with staff should remain informal. I shall give boards every encouragement to extend where practicable their establishment's involvement in its local community.
Further Action
16. The changes to which I have referred will be carried out within the existing staff resources of the Home Office. Those at headquarters should be largely completed by the end of July; those at regional offices will take longer. Organisational change cannot by itself provide a solution to the more fundamental problems of overcrowding and prison regimes, but the decisions which I have announced today should produce the more cohesive and effective management structure which is an essential basis for the wider but inevitably more gradual changes which are now required.
3.46 p.m.
Lord BOSTON of FAVERSHAM: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for informing your Lordships about the situation at the Iranian Embassy.
I should also like to thank the noble Lord the Minister very much for repeating this very important and lengthy Statement.
We shall need time to study some aspects of it, but the noble Lord will recall that one reason why the May Committee was set up by my right honourable friend the then Home Secretary was the crisis level which had been reached in the prison population.
I should like to endorse what he has said about the recommendations which were made by the May Committee regarding the organisation of the Prison Service. Both so far as its structure is concerned, and communications within it, the May Committee found that there were serious shortcomings. Although some of these details will need study, I should like to give an immediate welcome to the proposals which he has made about reorganising the Prison Service and in particular about the proposals to set up a separate inspectorate. This is a very significant change indeed. The independence of a new inspectorate was something which in its
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report the May Committee particularly wanted. The Minister will have full support from us for any effective measures to reduce the prison population.
I should like to ask him, first of all, whether he can say what reduction he expects to obtain in the prison population—and perhaps over what period of time, if it is possible to say so—as a result of the proposals now being made. On the building programme which he has mentioned, a number of proposals were already in hand when the last Government went out of office. As at 31st October of last year, five new prisons were in planning under the previous Government's proposals and 5,000 new places were to be provided under those proposals by the end of the 1980s. I am wondering whether the Minister can say if the proposals which he has just announced amount to an increase over those proposals, and, if so, to what extent.
I should also like to welcome what the noble Lord said about the alternatives to imprisonment that are being considered, and especially to welcome what he said about drunken offenders and mentally disordered offenders. Indeed, fine defaulters and maintenance defaulters are two other categories who, by being kept out of prison, could well contribute to a reduction in the prison population.
There are just three questions, in addition to the one concerning the building programme and the reduction in the prison population, which I should like to put to the Minister. The first is whether the question of one-half remission in place of one-third remission of sentences is under consideration, because that could indeed make a major contribution towards reducing the prison population. If that were to be implemented, it would also involve changes in the parole system, and I am wondering whether this, too, is under consideration.
So far as the alternatives to imprisonment are concerned, can the Minister say whether those which are being considered include the introduction of partly suspended sentences Of course, it also happens to be the case, as I am sure the noble Lord will agree, that the number of people on remand and the length of time spent on remand are still far too great, and further steps in those directions could indeed contribute to a further reduction

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in the prison population. As already indicated from this Bench, the noble Lord the Minister can count on full support for any effective measures to reduce the prison population and so to contribute to overcoming the crisis.
3.50 p.m.
Lord FOOT: My Lords, I should like to join the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for repeating the Statement in this House. The noble Lord may agree with me that the Statement really falls into two parts. The first part deals with what has properly been described by the noble Lord, Lord Boston, as the crisis in our prison system and, although the Statement does not use that word, I think it is clearly the view of the Government that we are faced with a situation of very great gravity.
The second part of the Statement deals with the matter of prison reorganisation and the reform of prison administration. I shall not say anything about that, not because I think it is unimportant but I should like to emphasise, if I may, what I believe to be the terrible gravity of the situation with which we are immediately confronted today in the form of overcrowding in prisons. Look at it how one may, on every count the situation today is worse than it has ever been in the history of British prisons. If we consider the figures taken by the Statement—namely, the figures of the daily average population—we find that that has risen since the publication of the May Report from 42,500 to 44,000 in April of this year, and indeed my information is that in March it went up to nearly 45,000 people. That is the worst figure we have ever had.
Alternatively, we may take another test of the matter: using the test of the difference between the number of prisoners in the prisons at any time and the number of prisoners who can be accommodated without overcrowding, and comparing that with the figure of the population of the prisons as in fact it is, we find that the difference is no less than 6,300 people in excess of the theoretical capacity of the prisons.
Then, if we take the final test, to which no reference was made in the Statement
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but which no doubt the Government have closely in mind—namely, the test of the number of prisoners who are condemned to live two, three or even four to a cell made for one, we find that that figure works out to the enormous total in February of this year of 17,000 people living in those conditions.
That is despite the fact that since 1974 the number of prison places available has been increased by 5,000. In that context it is important to recognise what prospects are held out by the Statement as to what may be done in the way of preparing new places during the 'eighties. As I understand it from the Statement, the expectation is no more than this, that it may be possible in the 1980s to furbish and create a further 5,000 places, the same number as we created during the previous six years.
Also of course we have had this enormous increase despite the considerable efforts that have been made by successive Governments to find alternatives to imprisonment. I remember that it was said by the representative of the Home Office in the former Government that, had it not been for those alternatives which have been found over the last decade, the prison population today would probably be something like 7,000 more than it actually is. The third thing which has to be taken into account when considering these figures is that it is only in the last decade that we have introduced the system of parole. Yet despite all those things we have had this enormous and critical increase in the prison population.
What disturbs me about the Statement and indeed about the recommendations of the May Report is that the May Report seems to take the view that some of the methods which we have used in the past in trying to find alternatives to imprisonment may in fact have been exhausted and it may be that there is not much more to be gained by travelling along that road. I shall be interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, says in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Boston, about what other alternatives to imprisonment the Government have in mind. If I have correctly interpreted the report of the May Committee on this question of overcrowding, I think they really concluded that there were only two ways in which they thought any real impact could

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be made upon the overcrowding dilemma. The first was the idea that it might be possible by administrative measures, by an increase in the period of remission, by extending the area of parole and perhaps even by the device of an amnesty, to reduce the number of prisoners. That was one road which the May Committee thought might be profitable and I suggest that the only other road along which they thought any real progress could be made was if we could have a radical review of the sentencing policies of the courts.
It is, of course, received wisdom today to say that there are far too many people in our prisons who ought not to be there at all. But how are they getting there? They are being sent there by the courts, and unless we can tackle the problem at that end there is no real prospect of achieving any reduction in the average daily population of the prisons.
I should like to know what plans the Government have in mind for initiating that radical review of our sentencing policies. The courts might well reply, "We have no alternative but to send to prison people for whom it is really unnecessary, because society does not provide us with alternatives". That was accepted by the May Committee, and the May Committee expressed the opinion that the National Health Service had been gravely at fault in not trying to make provision for secure units for people suffering from mental disabilities.
I join, of course, with the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, in saying that any assistance that can be given to the Government from these Benches and from the Liberal Benches in the other place in tackling this problem—which is not a party political problem, God forbid!—will indeed be willingly offered.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, perhaps I may reply to the noble Lords who have spoken from the Front Benches and thank them for the constructive response which they have given to my right honourable friend's Statement. In essence, both the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, and the noble Lord, Lord Foot, have asked me about the prison building programme. Because of the need to take old prison accommodation out of use, the legacy of years and years of neglect running over
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many different administrations in the past, we have this enormously old prison estate which has to be dealt with bit by bit, and I have to say quite openly to the noble Lord, Lord Boston, that the existing building programme will not remove the overcrowding within this decade.
If I may, I should like to bracket with that immediately a recognition that it was the previous Government who put into their public expenditure survey plans for five new prisons, and 3,400 places, as I said in my Statement, are actually in hand at the present moment. What the present Government are doing now is, first, putting these plans into the shape of firm plans for two new prisons in 1981–2 and 1982–3, and it is our intention to follow that up with another two new prisons in the year 1983–4. That is what we wish to do.
The noble Lord asked me about other alternatives, exceptional measures which might have to be taken; he particularly mentioned parole, remission and the partially suspended sentence. These, of course, were matters—I do not know if the partially suspended sentence was—which the May Committee canvassed as being possibilities, and at this stage I would not wish to discuss the relative merits of those matters any further. I indicated at the beginning of the Statement that we have further things we shall need to say to Parliament in the near future, on the report of the Expenditure Committee, for instance.
The noble Lord, Lord Foot, made the point that a radical review of sentencing policy was needed. I hope the noble Lord will forgive me if I say that I hoped that he might have welcomed the part of the Statement which referred to a reduction which can be achieved, in my right honourable friend's view, by the exercise of judicial discretion. Indeed, recent judgments have suggested that this judicial discretion is being exercised. There is nothing between the Government and the noble Lord in what he was saying; we are trying to move in the direction which the noble Lord was saying was desirable.
The noble Lord, Lord Foot, made the very important point that non-custodial measures may perhaps almost have been exhausted in their effectiveness. I do not think that is entirely true. For instance,

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the provision of £30,000 this year for overnight shelters, for those who otherwise would very likely find themselves in prison for offences associated with alcohol, will help to keep yet more people out of prison. The noble Lord makes an important point when he reminds the Government that the effect of non-custodial sentences has a limit. When the Statement says that we think that non-custodial measures taken together make a significant impact, that is what we mean, and that is the road down which we hope to go.
Finally, may I say this. I know the situation is clearly very serious in our prisons; I accept that the noble Lord was right to make this point. But it did almost sound as if all was woe. Your Lordships might like to know that recruitment for the Prison Service is the highest it has ever been; there is a 50 per cent. increase in the number of candidates for the Prison Service passing through the selection process at the present time.
Lord SOPER: My Lords, I should like very briefly to ask a question on behalf of the largest voluntary body in the country, the Christian Church, and I think in this respect I can probably represent it. We welcome heartily the proposition that money will be available for overnight accommodation which can be provided by these voluntary bodies, which have only been prevented from so doing by the lack of funds up to now. This will deal with at least some of the overcrowding which we all deplore.
The question I should like to ask is a simple one. As an encouragement to local voluntary bodies, and indeed as a precaution, will the Government set out in some detail what they believe to be the requirements of such overnight accommodation, the conditions under which such overnight accommodation ought to be provided and what will be the organisations taking care of those responsibilities? Not only will it be an encouragement to them to hear that such funds will be available, but—I hope I will not be misunderstood—there are a number of over-sentimentalised efforts which have been occurring in the Church in previous years which have done no good to the general condition whatsoever. It is of the greatest importance that such voluntary bodies as are now almost straining at the
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leash to do what they can shall be acquainted with the kind of conditions which will make it possible for them to entertain and receive these emoluments.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, mine is a question as well, bearing in mind the standing orders. I should like to ask what the Government have in mind when they say, "Less serious type of non-violent offence". Perhaps, like others of your Lordships, I am just suffering from the effects of yet another break-in. I feel it would be undesirable if the Government were too hasty to empty the prisons on that very narrow definition. At the risk of sounding like the hanging judge, since all parts of the House have referred to the increase in the number of prisoners, I would remind your Lordships that there has also been an increase in the number of crimes. There is still a way to keep out of prison and that is by not committing crime. The noble Lord mentioned the mentally ill and alcoholics. I would be very interested to know what other class of prisoner would be considered as liable to a shorter sentence merely to empty the prisons, which does seem to me a very curious reason for dealing with this problem in this way.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, if I may answer the noble Lord, Lord Soper, I thank him for the advice he has given on this, which is valuable and helpful to the Government. The plan is for shelter for people suffering from alcoholic problems which otherwise would land them in prison, which will be provided by existing voluntary organisations who are already running some form of accommodation facilities, people in the field who already know what they are doing. Nevertheless, I should like to draw the attention of my right honourable friend to what the noble Lord said about advice from the department. Already there have been negotiations between the Home Office and some of the voluntary organisations, which of course we had to have before we could come to Parliament to suggest that this is a road down which we wish to go.
With regard to the point the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, made, I think she speaks for many people when she says that it is not always easy to distinguish between what one may call "violent" or

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"non-violent" offences. If you suffer a burglary and see the appalling devastation in your home, you scratch your head and you say, "I may not have suffered violence, but look at the appalling violence which has been done to my home". None the less, recent judgments have suggested that many judges support the view that, although tough sentences are essential for violent criminals, a shorter sentence could be as satisfactory for many of those currently sentenced to imprisonment for non-violent offences. May I make the point that this is not being said entirely in the context of prisons which are over-full but also in the context of research, a point which many noble Lords take every opportunity to remind me of. Research shows that constant custodial disposals for some criminals in the end can have a counteractive effect.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend three very brief questions. First, I would ask my noble friend whether immigrants awaiting deportation could be dealt with in bail hostels rather than prison? They have not committed an offence such as that referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips. Secondly, could not juveniles be dealt with within the juvenile system instead of prison? Thirdly, I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Boston, on the question of remand cases. Many people in prison on remand finally get a sentence which is shorter than the time they have been in prison on remand.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for the three questoins she has put, because, if I may say so, they are most relevant. So far as the first two points are concerned made by my noble friend Lady Faithfull—whether immigrants awaiting deportation could be kept in bail hostels and whether juveniles could not be kept in some sort of accommodation outside prison—of course my noble friend would be the first to realise that there are some people, although by no means all those in prison, who require to be kept in secure accommodation. I think we have to keep that in mind when we look at what the noble Baroness has suggested.
So far as remands are concerned, we were of course to have debated this question very recently in this House and
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pressures prevented it, but I think within the next three weeks the debate will take place and we ought to await that debate.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, in deciding whether to exercise judicial discretion on whether to impose prison sentences or not it is the case that the Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane, has made a most helpful observation on the Bench in his court in the Royal Courts of Justice.
Lord BELSTEAD: I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord. I understand that that is so.
4.12 p.m.
Lord HOOSON: My Lords, while welcoming the general tenor of the Statement, may I ask the Minister to say what grounds the Government have for thinking that these measures are adequate to deal with this enormous problem? If I may put it in three specific points, if the building of 5,000 additional places in prison in the past six years has proved inadequate, what hope have they, by allowing for 5,000 places to be provided in the next 10 years, of finding that adequate? As money has been allocated for reasonably secure establishments for the health authorities and they have almost always spent the money for other purposes, what grounds have we for thinking that reasonably secure establishments will be provided for the mentally disorientated?
Thirdly, is not the reorganisation of the Prison Service largely cosmetic? What greater power is there going to be in the service? Is the appointment of an assistant director general going to be sufficient, or are we not really dealing with an area where successive Governments have been penny pinching? As a community, we have to face the fact that we have to spend very much more in this public sector.
Lord BELSTEAD: I think I can answer the noble Lord very swiftly on the important points which he has made. As to the adequacy of what the Government are attempting to do at a time of severe restraint of public expenditure, we are not restraining the recurrent expenditure on the Prison Service. In other words, we are welcoming as many prison officers as will apply and are suitable for service in the prisons. As I sought to explain to the

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noble Lord, Lord Boston, we are aiming to continue with a substantial prison building programme.
With regard to the suggestion of the noble Lord on the cosmetic nature of the reorganisation of the Prison Service, which is something on which we have not really embarked in this question and answer, that is really not so. If I may give one example only, the appointment of an inspector who is going to be entirely independent of the prison department and responsible only to the Home Secretary, who in turn is responsible for the department, and the appointment of two non-executive members of the general public to the Prisons' Board is, I hope, an earnest of the intention of the Government that they want to be much more open about the affairs of the Prison Service in this country.
Earl CATHCART: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister able to assure us that the Government have given full consideration to the idea, as an alternative to detention in prison, of giving certain prisoners the opportunity to do constructive work, which would be of good effect to the community as a whole and would greatly affect the morale of the individual concerned by his being able to do something positive instead of being just s hut away in prison?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, the answer to my noble friend is in the affirmative. I think that the record of the community service order—which of course sprang from recommendations from the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, who sits on the other side of the House, but was introduced by the party that sits on this side of the House—which is one of good co-operation, speaks for itself. What I will do is to send my noble friend a short note showing the percentage of those offenders who are on community service, and also how successful these community service orders are.
Viscount LONG: My Lords, I think we have had long enough on the Statement—38 minutes. Perhaps, as we have a long night in front of us, we could now return to the debate.

POST OFFICE SERVICES
Debate resumed.
4.15 p.m.
Lord WINSTANLEY: My Lords, it seems that it is now time that I endeavoured to draw your attention away from prisons and into post offices, places that are occasionally equally overcrowded but which I hope are otherwise superior in many respects. It is a great pleasure to me to follow the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy. I should like to say straight away how grateful I am—as I am sure is the whole House—to him for giving us the opportunity to debate a matter that is of the utmost importance. Lord Campbell of Croy will remember that some years ago we worked together closely in another place on matters to do with the Post Office, and I hope he will remember also that on those occasions we found ourselves in agreement on all the matters that he raised. Perhaps noble Lords will be glad to hear from me now that I agreed with every single word in Lord Campbell's very interesting speech, which I hope your Lordships will recollect clearly after the interval that we have had since he made it, because he drew our attention to some very important themes.
Perhaps I ought to begin by declaring a previous interest, if there is such a thing, in that for the two-year period of the experiment in industrial democracy I was a part-time member of the Post Office Board, a so-called consumer member. In that capacity as a member of the Post Office Board I was privy to much confidential information that I am afraid is subject to the terms of the Official Secrets Act and which it would obviously be improper for me to disclose. It is not that I might not like to talk about some of those matters, but I will not do so. Thus, perhaps, your Lordships will accept that my words today will be brief. May I also add by way of apology that I have another engagement in your Lordships' House and I shall have to absent myself for part of the debate. I hope that those speaking at that time will forgive me, although I shall return as soon as I can escape from the other engagement.
I have risen on this matter to make really but one point and to try to emphasise

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it. I shall deal only with that particular aspect and matters immediately related to it. I should like to begin personally by paying a tribute to the work of Sir William Barlow in his all too short a period as chairman of the Post Office Board. I think that he brought a new approach, a new freshness and new initiatives. Certainly, having worked closely with him, I should like to say how very sorry I am to see him go and how grateful I was personally to him for the actions that he took. I am quite sure that your Lordships' House would be right in recognising the immense contribution that he made in tackling what were, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, has pointed out, very difficult tasks.
I should like to remind your Lordships' that when Sir William Barlow was appointed chairman, and took up office on 1st January 1978, he immediately concerned himself very publicly with the quality of service. He made statements publicly that he was very concerned about the quality of service and its decline in all of the businesses. He also stated very publicly that he was equally concerned about the apparent gap between the quality of service as measured by the businesses and as apparently perceived by the customers. In that, too, I think he was right in expressing anxiety, because clearly, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, said in talking about targets of 93 per cent. of first-class letters being delivered on day B and so on, that might be the figure that the Post Office obtained from its own measurements, but it was not the figure that the customers actually perceived.
One of Sir William Barlow's first acts, having stated publicly that he was very concerned about the quality of service and wanted it looked at very carefully, was to set up a small committee of the Post Office Board that was charged with the job of examining the quality of service in the various businesses, examining the present methods of monitoring quality of service, by those businesses examining the gap I referred to between the quality of service as measured by the businesses and as perceived by the customer, and looking at those matters which impeded the quality of service or adversely affected it; and making recommendations regarding the collection of statistics on quality of service and report on quality of service
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statistics both to the Post Office and to the public.
When Sir William set up that committee he chose three members, and only three members, to serve upon it. He did, in point of fact, choose the three members of the Post Office Board with the least knowledge and the least personal experience of the Post Office itself. He chose me as its chairman and consumer representative; Mrs. Janice Walsh who was the other consumer representative and part-time member of the board; and Professor Michael Posner, an eminent economist but a person who had not had previous professional connections with the Post Office.
I am bound to say that our experience was that perhaps the chairman was wise to choose amateurs, in a sense, to take on the task. They would inevitably unearth all sorts of problems which the managing directors of the businesses had lived with on a daily basis for many years and knew all about. I think that it was helpful to have some very old problems looked at through new eyes, and slightly different eyes, so that those concerned with actually carrying out the job might perhaps look at them again. For example, in our first report to the board we referred to the importance of the Post Office paying a little more regard to the opportunities for the recruitment of women, bearing in mind that recruitment problems were, in fact, at the root of many of our difficulties as regards the postal services. We were able to remind the Post Office Board that the board itself, 11 years previously, had in fact taken a decision in those very terms. The immediate response by the board was, "Surely you are not trying to hurry us?" The point that I am trying to make is that it was not a bad thing to have some old matters looked at through new and rather amateur eyes.
After a couple of years of taking evidence, digging into the businesses, compiling reports and presenting them to the Post Office Board, Sir William publicly made it clear that many of the recommendations of that quality of service committee had, in fact, been accepted by the board and to my certain knowledge many of them were slowly being put into practice to the great benefit, in the long run, of the customer. Personally, I express regret once again

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that Sir William himself may not be there to see all those new developments through.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, referred, for example, to the very important matter of the monitoring of the pipeline and the waiting list regarding the installation of telephone equipment, particularly in Greater London. This was a matter of very great concern to the board, to the public and to those who had to wait. We investigated very carefully the way in which that waiting list was monitored and the way in which certain people were perhaps elevated in the list and certain people were perhaps kept down, and so on. I was glad to receive an assurance that the recommendations made by the consumer representatives on the board had, in fact, been taken on board by the business and were being put into effect. I think that, in the fullness of time, there will be benefits to the customer.
I said that I wished to make only one point. It is a very brief and general point. I shall say nothing about the success or otherwise of the experiment in industrial democracy with trade union nominated directors on the Post Office Board. It was clearly a difficult operation. To take a massive organisation with a very long history of deeply ingrained procedures for discussion and consultation at the grass roots, and to try to introduce totally new procedures for the board without there being changes at the grass roots, as it were, was perhaps not very likely to succeed.
However, what I want to say is that it is my experience—and I hope that at the end of the day when the facts are finally revealed your Lordships may appreciate this—that there really are possible benefits from the point of view of the consumer that can emerge from the presence of a very small number of independent and perhaps consumer-orientated representatives on the boards of large and major undertakings. People who can perhaps look at matters in a slightly different way bring a new dimension to discussions and occasionally remind professionals of matters with which they have long been familiar, but which they tend to overlook because they have been battling with them for so very many years. I wish to make that one point. While that experiment
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may not have been a total success in other ways, it was my honest opinion that the presence of some independent members on the board was useful from the public point of view. It is an example that could possibly be followed in other large public undertakings.
I wish to say no more about the many matters raised by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, save that I agree with each and every one of them. They are matters of great public concern that must be tackled and they must be tackled at the end of the day by the businesses. However, I am sure that the businesses themselves would tackle them a little more speedily if they received some encouragement and perhaps pressure from the Government, and we may, in the fullness of time, hear a little about that.
4.27 p.m.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, I think we owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for his initiative in tabling this Motion today. It seems to me that it is particularly well timed because I understand that the Government's White Paper is in draft and is due to come out around the middle of July. This is, therefore, a formative time when I hope the Minister, who is very helpful to us in this House, will take on board some of the constructive suggestions that come out of this debate and will incorporate them in the White Paper.
We should remind ourselves that the Government were elected about a year ago. They were elected on three proposals, particularly appropriate to this debate—namely, to encourage wealth-creating industry and especially the encouragement of small businesses; to reduce bureaucracy in the public sector; and, to hive off portions of the public sector which it was felt were better handled by private industry.
I personally wish to concentrate on the telecommunications side for two reasons. The first reason is that it is an area which I have grown to know something about—being an electronic engineer—and the second reason is that it is the life blood of a healthy and competitive industrial and business economy. If we do not have an efficient telephone service, we shall not get the business from overseas and we shall not have the communications

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which are essential today if we are to remain viable and profitable. That depends also on international telephones as much as it does on internal telephones. The third reason is that it is a very capital-intensive industry, but despite that it employs 233,000 people directly and, of course, tens of thousands more in industry manufacturing equipment for the Post Office.
My feelings about the Post Office staff—and I am sure that they are reflected by many noble Lords taking part in this debate—are that whenever I meet them I always come to the conclusion that they are extremely nice, on the whole very well mannered, patient and dedicated people whether serving on the postal side or the telecommunications side. But, I cannot help feeling that this dedicated staff is struggling to cope with an overburdened, over-large and rather archaic system, and is doing its best under those handicaps.
I wish to concentrate my criticism on four points. The first is productivity, which, unfortunately, as in so many parts of the public sector, is too low. The second is shortages and delays, which are very serious to business and particularly to new and struggling business. The third is the need to liberalise this monopoly, which has been part of our policy. Fourthly, if I have time, I should like to say a word on the capital investment programme.
First, let me say that productivity is too low. It is difficult to make judgments on this matter, particularly in a service industry. But the judgment by the Carter Report was based on the number of telephones per person employed. That is a source which is an international measurement, although I realise that it is difficult to obtain. The Post Office Review Committee—the Carter Committee—quoted figures which I am afraid went back to 1974–75, and no later. These figures were that the United Kingdom had 83 telephones per Post Office employee; Sweden had 126, that is to say, 50 per cent. more; Japan had 127, equally, 50 per cent. more; and the United States of America had 154, which was 100 per cent. more than our figure.
The Government White Paper published by the Labour Party in July 1978 accepted those comparisons and said that it felt
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that overseas comparisons were very valuable and should be carried out. The Government then announced that they had set up a joint working party between the Department of Industry and the Post Office to make these comparisons available. Therefore, I hope that when my noble friend replies he will tell us what progress has been made in the last two years and how soon we may expect some publication on the present position.
I should now like to say a few words on shortages and delays. This must affect everyone; it certainly affects the whole flexibility of industry and business. I want to take as an example the private automatic branch exchange, more commonly known as the PABX. The two popular categories—and there are other variations—are the PABX 1, for under 50 lines, which invariably means relatively small businesses and the PABX 7 for up to 100 lines. But there are typical delays of one year from the moment you ask for a PABX before you can get one supplied, and a delay of one and a half years is not uncommon. It is no good the Government saying that they are going to encourage the creation of small businesses by every means possible and are going to encourage the job creation which they will afford, if there is no possible chance of a company getting a telephone system in under a year. In fact, the application for a PABX nowadays is more like taking a ticket in a lottery; one may come up early and one may not come up for a very long time.
There were understandable reasons why the Post Office did not re-order the current designs. They had a new system coming along—Herald for the small business man and Monarch for up to the 120 extension customer. Field trials are about to start. Any business which is not on the field trial list may have to wait two or three years for the new system. The Post Office stopped ordering the old types believing—and understandably believing—that as industry expanded the smaller PABXs would become available and they could be supplied to the newer businesses, and the old ones could be slowly phased out. That has not come about; it simply has not happened. But with delays which may be two or three years for the new business, why not let in other manufacturers? There are other people who could provide PABXs to Post Office require-

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ments. Why keep it to a small number who have long had orders from the Post Office?
This leads me to the third point of liberalisation. Other countries have found it necessary to liberalise their Post Office monopolies. In recent years France has made tremendous progress in this field and, of course, the United States of America is always the leader. I believe that this monopoly has remained sacrosanct for too long. Of course, the recommendation for greater liberalisation has come from a whole host of reports. The natural area where the monopoly should continue to exist is, of course, in the provision of cables. We cannot have competitive systems there, particularly with the new type of cables—fibre optical cables—which are being introduced. Let all the terminal and exchange equipments remain in Post Office hands.
But I believe that the customer's equipment could be much better manufactured, supplied and tested by the private sector. Of course, I recognise—as have the various reports—that a committee would be needed to ensure that the equipment to be attached would not in any way harm the integrity of the network. I would suggest to my noble friend that if there is to be a body to judge between the equipment made in the private sector and that made within the Post Office, it should be an independent committee. If it were to be under the auspices of the Post Office, there would be the suspicion that the Post Office was dragging its feet when competitive equipment was offered for test. Other countries do it, so why not us?
I should like to turn for a moment to the field of research and development. Dollis Hill was on the edge of my constituency of North Hendon, so I used to visit it from time to time. Now, of course, it has overflowed its boundaries and its main spin-off is at Martlesham near Ipswich. A noble Lord who visited it recently, told me that he was excited by the work being done by some 600 qualified people at Martlesham. What is sad is that few of those people genuinely thought that their exciting and stimulating developments would ever see the light of day, would ever be taken up, manufactured and sold. They believed that there were
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possibilities and potential, not just for use in this country but, above all, for the export trade. For if we are not up with the rest of the world in our attachments and in our Post Office services and exchange equipment, we shall not export in a highly competitive area.
These 600 people have had some pretty good results. It was at Dollis Hill that the whole science of fibre optics was initiated. We are going to start it here in a limited experiment. Already the Americans have taken up the idea invented in this country. Japan is now working assiduously on it and expanding its use. Here we are with yet another invention, in this case by the Post Office, being belatedly slow in its development.
I am afraid that this is the natural result of an enormous monopoly organisation. That is why I especially press my noble friend to let in the winds of competition. After all, the Post Office should be encouraging innovation all the way—everything from the simple and competitive telephone in our home to devices like integral moderns, visual display units, teletypewriters and all the forthcoming contrivances of computers, which eventually, of course, will be available in our homes and may well be plugged into the telephone networks.
Surely we ought also to extend the use of telephone jacks. It is done in one area already. If you want a message recorder, you can buy your own with the degree of sophistication that you require and one that fits your purse; having got the one that suits you best, you plug that into a jack at home and then it works. Why should not that sort of thing be used in other fields as well? It would avoid the need for a Post Office engineer, or perhaps two, coming and making the connection, with all the time-wasting that is involved when someone is not in and not available.
In the United States of America they have Post Office shops. Ought not we to have Post Office shops? We have an electricity monopoly, but we have electricity shops. Some equipment is especially manufactured for that monopoly, but a great deal of other competitive equipment is also marketed by their shops and is also available from other sources. How much better to go in and buy your

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telephone; choosing the colour and the type you want. You could have a late-Victorian or Edwardian design, if that is what you want. You simply pay for it, take it home and plug it in. This would introduce some competition into a field where competition and innovation is absolutely essential.
In The Times recently a letter was published about the telephone service in the United Kingdom, comparing its performance with the performance of the telephone service in the United States of America. Mr. Charles F. Hankel wrote:
"I rented an apartment in Houston, Texas, and was able to move in within a week of my arrival … My telephone service, installed within 24 hours, allowed me to make calls, by direct dialling, to any part of the world. I was able to divert my calls to other numbers. I was able to store the larger or more commonly used numbers and recall them by dialling a two-digit code. I did not have to pay for local calls. I received a detailed list of all long-distance calls, showing the number dialled, the date, time, length and cost, including the name of the town. I could use any telephone in the country, quote my name and telephone number, and have the call charged to my own number".
Those are the facilities which are perfectly possible, and you could have them here with a little more drive and dynamics, and with a bit more accord and sympathy for the innovative processes.
I should like to say a word on capital equipment. I do not know whether it is right or wrong that Sir William Barlow resigned because he felt that he was not able to get the capital investment which he deemed necessary. I know that he was an approachable and I think efficient person to head our Post Office, and we owe him a debt of gratitude for what he achieved in his three years of service.
I note when I look at the very well edited and prepared Post Office Report and Accounts that the capital expenditure—and it is also in the Carter Report—has been falling off, in real terms. We all these days have to reduce our accounts to real terms if we are to be realistic. Capital expenditure and capital investment in 1970 was £372 million. In 1979–80 it was £997 million. That looks an impressive increase, but to look at it in real terms it was £372 million in 1970, it peaked at £488 million in real terms in 1973–74—I may say the last year of a period of Conservative Government, which shows our far-sightedness—and it has now
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deteriorated from £488 million down to £262 million. On a rising expenditure, and the need for these services to be improved and with the installation of System X, are we right to restrain capital expenditure to this degree? more particularly, because it is self-financing.
In fact, in the last year, 1979–80, not only did they finance all their own capital expenditure but they paid back £296 million of their long-term borrowing, so there was a net gain to the PSBR, minus £110 million. This year it is forecast in the Government White Paper that there is going to be £65 million which is not covered from their own resources. So even then it is a small extra call on the PSBR—very small. I know that, like the housemaid's baby, each requirement is a small one and therefore need not be worried about, but they all add up to something much greater. But it is £65 million, and the statement in the Government's White Paper on public expenditure (page 148) says quite clearly that, by and large, the Post Office will finance all its own capital investment requirements up to the year 1983–84 from within its own resources. I would ask my noble friend to look to see whether this is true. Perhaps he could tell us in his wind-up speech whether this is right or wrong. Certainly I would not wish to see the Post Office telecom side starved when we are so anxious to encourage the efficiency of this sector.
Lastly, I come to the future. I do not believe that we can go on starving our requirements, our home demand, in this way. This was brought out in the admirable paper, a copy of which was sent to the Minister for Industry in the middle of March, compiled by the Association of Telecommunications Users. I have not got time to cover all the points. They said:
"There have been reports of foreign companies which have abandoned plans to set up offices in the UK, particularly in the City of London, because they have been told by the Post Office that they will have to wait over a year for a PABX.
"The supply position on Post Office PABXs has been so bad for so long that no promises from the Post Office can be taken as justification for delaying the removal of the monopoly on PABXs of up to 100 lines. The Associations suggest this should be done as a matter of urgency".

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If we wait for a Government White Paper in July, it means we shall have to wait until the next Session of Parliament for a Bill to liberalise the industry and cover certain other reforms which I and my noble friend have suggested. Could I ask my noble friend to take note of the suggestion at the bottom of page 19 of this report, where it says that something should be done now even before the White Paper in July? It says:
"Should the Post Office be unwilling to concede these points in advance of legislation"—
that is, the liberalization—
"the Associations would strongly urge the Secretary of State to issue a directive under the terms of Section 11 of the Post Office Act 1969".
We have the power. If we all believe that we need to expand our industry and the efficiency of that industry, let him go ahead from today and do so.
4.46 p.m.
Lord RAGLAN: My Lords, I want to draw attention to two matters which, although they may appear to be small, in fact have the capacity vitally to affect the quality of Post Office service, and closely affect the users of telephones and the writers of letters; namely, the telephone and postal codes. In making my criticism I may say that although it appears to me that perhaps there is sometimes a tendency on the part of the Post Office to forget that it is there to provide a service—and possibly the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, is right in saying that the telephone service is not as much on its toes as it could be—there are many firms, small as well as large, in the private sector which in my experience are far worse in their outlook than the Post Office, and whose attitude to their customers is one of casualness amounting to superciliousness, as if it were demeaning and humiliating to provide a good service, and as if they were in business to please only themselves.
In fact, the giving of poor service has become something of a British disease, and that attitude may be at the back of a lot of our industrial difficulties. Generally speaking, judged by the contemporary standards in private industry, I fancy that the standard of service which the Post Office provides is really not bad. It may be said that the Post Office needs competition, but I should claim that good service is not necessarily prompted by
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competition. Besides, if, as the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, would like, bits of the Post Office were hived off and the services which the Post Office supply were open to competition, unless that competition is carefully restricted the results would be to cream off the most profitable bits, leaving the Post Office to struggle with the unprofitable parts. That would be bad for the taxpayer, bad for Post Office morale, and bad for efficiency.
We should give praise where praise is very much due. I am told on good authority, because I am not a stamp collector myself, that the Post Office leads the world in stamp design and is internationally acclaimed for it. Let us give a cheer when our industries lead the world in something. It would, however, be surprising if some of the current British take-it-or-leave-it attitude had not rubbed off on the Post Office somewhere. For instance, I suspect it is not purely a reflection of the Post Office's monopoly position that a telephone set with keys, rather than with a dial, and for which an extra quarterly charge is made, is offered only in a two-tone confection of mud-grey, and it is tidal mud-grey at that! I find this very unimaginative.
It would not be a good enough defence to declare that the private enterprise founder of mass production, Henry Ford, is said once to have offered his customers any colour so long as it was black. People are cleverer nowadays at making variety, and the Post Office should try to do so as a matter of principle. And if, as he threatens, and as the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, hoped, the Industry Secretary makes legal the use of all kinds of foreign handsets that are now available, I fear that the Post Office will have only itself to blame; it could have done lucrative business in encouraging a variety of its own designs. Now imports will start to flood in and British firms will be behind, as usual, all through what can only be called a lack of imagination.
Perhaps it is not far from that kind of lack of solicitousness about the customer's choice to the inventing of codes which, for all that they may be ingenious, are difficult for customers actually to use. With the telephone codes, at least the STD codes have the virtue of being the same from wherever you are making a call, although you must check another

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directory to see whether it is to be a trunk or local call. But the length of some of the numbers one is asked to dial is bizarre. It is quite common to be faced with having to dial 10 figures. That is enough to find one of 10,000 million numbers on one exchange alone. Yet whether one wants to remember a telephone number or write it down, every extra digit means more time spent, more difficulty and more possibility of inaccuracy. As for the local codes, they are astonishingly inconveniently planned, for the code of an exchange will vary according to the local exchange from which one is ringing, and all of them, like the STD codes, vary in length and rhythm and are likewise difficult to remember. There is, therefore, no point in trying to write down these local codes or trying to memorise them because one is fooled if one does not have a code book handy.
I do not think the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, need tell me why, when dialling from my local exchange at Usk to neighbouring Raglan, I need to dial nine digits; that is enough for an exchange of 1,000 million subscribers. Nor do I need ask him to explain why we have telephone codes of such amazing complication. I think I already know the answer. It is that whoever devised these codes is removed from all the common tasks of life by his secretaries, and when lie is at home his loyal wife does the telephoning. The task of designing a good and sensible code plan needs to be given to someone whose concern it is to give us a system which is as brief as possible, comprehensible, easy to memorise and simple to use. My suggestion is that there should be area codes—or code areas, in a word—designated by counties perhaps, so that when dialling into the area you use the area prefix, and when dialling within the area you do not use the prefix. This system operates in London and over the whole of the United States. Probably there is an unnecessary number of digits that must be dialled, but it works well and everybody understands it. Yet those of us who live in the provinces are foisted off with this other system.
One virtue of having code areas would be that sheer distance could cease to be quite the overriding consideration it now is when computing the charge, which is as it should be now that our telephone system is catching up technologically. In
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addition, we should be able to abolish the need for two directories, one for the number of the subscriber and one for his code. I do not say that the present arrangement was designed so that one forgets a subscriber's number while going to look up his code, but that is the effect of the system and what all too often happens, unless one writes it all down. It is one more example of how our provincial code system was not devised with the convenience of customers in mind.
The same sort of remarks apply to the postal code. I have seen some advertising plaintively asking us to use the postcodes. I wonder whether the Post Office has ever asked itself why people do not use them. It is mainly because nobody can remember them. They are a peculiarly fussy and strikingly unmemorisable combination of letters and figures. You are lucky if you can even remember your own. I believe the code to be so exact that a letter might reach your house almost without the benefit of human agency, if it could, and that seems to be a case of attempting to go too far with automation, by expecting too much of it in this application. It is certain that the Post Office will never be able to do without postmen to carry letters and parcels. Surely postmen can be counted on to know their districts, and therefore the kind of theoretical exactitude we have now in the postcode is unnecessary
If we must have postcodes—and if, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, said, action is required on them now—please may we have them as simple as possible both to write and to remember? Surely short, all-figure numbers, like other countries have, would be quite adequate. As things are, I think I can confidently predict that not enough people will be persuaded to use postcodes to make the scheme work. That will not be the customers' fault. It will be the fault of the Post Office for trying to institute a code for their own notional convenience without thought first being given to the convenience of users, whose co-operation is essential to its working. There is no doubt that customers would like to help the Post Office give a better service. My advice therefore to the Post Office is that they should drop the present codes and start again thinking of us, their writers and customers, whom they are asking to use these codes. I am sure they will find

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that such consideration will greatly help them in the improvement of their service.
4.58 p.m.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: My Lords, I have listened with enormous interest to the technical and excellent speeches that have been made, and we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for initiating a debate on this subject. I rise because I have always had great respect for the Post Office and postmen who, from my experience, do their best to serve the public individually—because the postal service is, for most people, a personal service. Of course it deals with vast quantities of mail and enormous distances—involved are long-distance communications and all the other matters which have been excellently described by, among others, the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing—but the everyday postal service is for ordinary consumers a personal service, and often when the post arrives their jobs and duties for the day are revealed to them. So I believe that on the whole each person really judges the postal service by the delivery service of which he has experience every day.
We cannot deny the fact that there has been a deterioration in the everyday postal delivery, but from my experience this applies more in the cities than in the rural areas. Why that should be, I do not know. Perhaps in rural areas the people who receive the mail are more personally interested in the delivery and in the postmen, most of whom are very friendly and bring news from the other areas in which they operate, which may be a neighbouring village. Very often they discuss subjects of local interest, whether in the agricultural world, the sporting world, or whatever. I believe that on the whole in the rural areas the local interest in the services which are given by the postmen is greater than in the towns.
Postmen bring not only letters, but very often news, because news travels just as well by word of mouth as by letter. In the cities the situation is very different. There it is not so easy to take a personal interest in the postman because our letters simply drop through our postboxes in the morning, and it is only on those occasions when the postman is unable to get a large letter or a parcel through the
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letter box that he rings the bell and one has a conversation with him. In the countryside there is a personal aspect which I believe helps the postal service.
Of course this is a very small part of the mail service, but the influence of service conditions plays a great part in the recruitment of personnel for the Post Office. I have the feeling that it is easier for the Post Office to run its services in the country districts than it is in the cities.
I fear that I have not read as many reports on this subject as has the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, or one or two other Peers, but I have seen one memorandum and there seems to be a contradictory view about the recruitment of postmen. One document that was sent to me to read states that about another 7,000 postmen are needed, but another memorandum reports that the postal services are overmanned, though admittedly it may be a highly labour-intensive service. I should like the noble Viscount, when he replies, to deal with the question of recruitment to the postal services, and say whether we suffer from over-manning or under-manning. One memorandum I have says that it took 1,900 more personnel in the postal business than it took in 1973–74 to deal with one million fewer letters. If that is correct, it is certainly not encouraging.
Naturally the great interest in the postal charges arises from the actual cost, and I can well realise that with the huge increase in the cost of posting in this country there will be a reduction in the number of people who write letters. But I do not want to see the postal service cut down. It is still vital to the economy. No doubt new methods could improve and help the working of the service, and I hope that the Post Office union will co-operate in the new services because I am sure that at the end of the day this will be to the great benefit of the Post Office personnel as well as to those of us on the receiving end. None of us wants postmen to be exploited and their conditions of work and service are vital matters but efficiency must be a criterion of service since the costs involved are so enormous.
I should like to stress the great importance of the village post offices. They provide many vital services to the com-

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munity, and I believe that any thoughts about trying to cut down these post offices on grounds of cost would not be justified. I am sure that the service that the local post offices provide for the public cannot be provided if instead the post office is miles away and people thus find it impossible to get there to collect their pensions, postal orders or whatever they want. So I strongly support the view, which I believe has been expressed on many occasions, that the rural post office should be retained.
Telecommunications, which have been discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, are a very different proposition. Telephones have revolutionised the countryside, and have brought about much speeding up, but there is still a very long waiting list for telephones; and of course the cost is very great. However, it seems that people must want to have telephones installed, since there is a long waiting list, certainly in the country areas. Overcoming this problem would provide more customers and more money for the Post Office, and should be given high priority.
Another group of people for whom telephones are of enormous assistance is the old-age pensioners. If they have a telephone, many old people are enabled to live on their own. They can contact relations or friends when in trouble. Otherwise they would be unable to live on their own, and it would be much more expensive for everyone if they had to go into old people's homes. In this regard I should like priority to be given to old people, where conditions allow, so that they can remain independent as long as possible.
I shall remain a staunch supporter of the postal services, but there must be a great effort by all concerned to stop the deterioration which has been described by other noble Lords, and to improve the service again. I believe that better relationships on all sides would help, and I only hope that this can be accomplished.
5.7 p.m.
Lord MORRIS: My Lords, in investigating this subject I have found the legal and historical background underlying the creation of the Post Office monopoly of telecommunications not only fascinating
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but illustrative and instructive, too. The efficacy and potential of telegraphy leaped dramatically to the public notice during the Civil War in the United States, and it is certain that defence implications, among others, of its use inspired the provisions of the Telegraph Act 1863—the first of many enabling Acts—which provided, inter alia, that
"If One of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State requires the Company"—
that is, the telegraph companies coming within the ambit of the Act—
"to transmit any Message on Her Majesty's Service, such Message shall … have Priority";
and, further, that,
"On the Request of the Board of Trade, the Company"—
which subsequently became the Post Office as well—
"shall … place … such a Telegraph … to be for the exclusive Use of Her Majesty".
Furthermore, the Act provided that,
"In Emergencies Telegraphs may be taken possession of for Her Majesty's Service".
Subsequently the Act of 1869 provided—I am not quite sure how this extension came about, but it is fundamentally an administrative point, rather than a defence point—that,
"The Postmaster General … shall … have the exclusive privilege"—
I stress the word "privilege"—
"of transmitting telegrams within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland".
It is from these Acts that the current law stems.
I was most interested to note that in a report written on the centenary of the International Telecommunication Union, the authors were forced to state that,
"In Britain, the development of the telephone was at first greatly hampered by the Telegraph Act of 1869 by which the Post Office had acquired the monopoly of all telegraphic communications …".
Very little has changed in over a hundred years!
This exclusive privilege is maintained to this very day by virtue of the Post Office Act 1969, Section 24, under which the Post Office enjoy "the exclusive privilege" with respect to telecommunications. If one looks back to Section 9, however, one might possibly raise a horse laugh by reading that:
"It shall be the duty of the Post Office … to meet the social, industrial and commercial needs

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of the British Islands … and, in particular, to provide throughout those Islands … such services for the conveyance of letters and such telephone services as satisfy all reasonable demands for them".
However, in conjunction with the foregoing one must read subsection (4), which reads:
"Nothing in this section shall be construed as imposing upon the Post Office, either directly or indirectly, any form of duty or liability enforceable by proceedings before any court".
It is some duty where the customers have no legal recourse in regard to the duty imposed! There is also the very strange anomaly that, also according to the Act of 1969,
"In discharging the duty imposed on it by the foregoing subsection, the Post Office shall have regard"—
it is not a duty, but they must "have regard"—
"to developments in the field of communications …".
So we see what the position is quite clearly. There is no duty to provide any telecommunication services, and yet they have exclusive privilege to control. The result is that we are very behind the times in the field of telecommunications, and by that, of course, I do not mean only telephones; I mean radio telecommunications and all the message services which are of course extant these days. That is why I most warmly welcome the Government's decision to relax the operation of the Post Office's telecommunications monopoly. The monopoly is not only out of date, but is counter-productive. Indeed, the Secretary of State for Industry stated that Her Majesty's Government shared the Carter Committee's view—and this is a straight quotation by the Secretary of State from the Carter Committee Report —
"that they were not convinced that the balance of advantage to the community favoured the continuation of the existing boundaries to the Post Office telecommunications monopoly".
He went on to say:
"… we want to see greater freedom for the provision of all kinds of added value services on telecommunications circuits. Subject to safeguarding the technical integrity of the system, we also believe that it is in the national interest to provide greater scope for competition in the supply of apparatus for attachment to the network".
This view must be correct. I think it is quite well illustrated because centralised
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State planning by one customer—namely, the Post Office—has, as I believe, not served Britain's best interests. If State planning and a single customer was the answer, then the USSR should have led in developments in telecommunications and electronics, rather than the free enterprise countries. We have seen that regulated—and I stress that word, "regulated"—private enterprise in the telecommunications field has enabled American industry to develop competitive products and has created a vast market in all areas of telecommunications.
Indeed, the experience in the United States shows that the combination of freedom for attachments and peripheral equipment, independent common carriers and added value services has resulted in increased efficiency without drawing upon precious national financial resources; has increased traffic on the public telephone network with resultant profit; has created new employment in communications installation, maintenance and added value services; has expanded manufacturing, research and development and export production; and has increased competition, resulting in higher quality and grade of service to the customer.
With respect, I would suggest the immediate transfer of the monopoly powers under the Post Office Act to the Minister in the Department of Industry. The Minister should be empowered to license organisations providing added value services; sales, installation and maintenance of attachments and peripheral equipment to the public telephone network; and common carrier services. In addition, a communications authority should be formed, responsible to the Minister, to provide central direction and regulation of all forms of communication. There would of course be an additional benefit, in that a plethora of Quangos and (if your Lordships would excuse a terrible phrase) quasi-Quangos could be merged with or eliminated by the creation of a single communications authority.
Such or similar changes are vital to the health of the nation. The sweeping changes which are occurring in technology and society make it essential that the regulation of communications is removed from the existing historic framework. The rapid development of computers and micro-chip processors are causing the merging of many traditionally separate

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sectors of administration and communications. Information processing and automatic switching using digital techniques are changing fundamental concepts of communication. The rapid development of technology requires regulations which clearly take account of electronic realities and must ensure equity to all communication users to prevent 19th century regulations being used to retard progress and cynically permit multinationals and State monopolies totally to dominate and exploit these advances.
Turning specifically to radio telecommunications, the radio frequency spectrum could be seen to be one of the nation's resources, and, unlike fossil fuels, it cannot be exhausted. It is important that the regulation and management of the spectrum ensures that full use is made of this freely available resource. It is inappropriate, for reasons which I have already stated, or for similar reasons, for outdated Government regulations and practices artificially to prevent the efficient and (I stress this word) responsible use of the radio spectrum. Your Lordships will appreciate that Government decisions on the radio spectrum have historically been dominated by broadcasting and military interests. It must be accepted that the defence of the nation is paramount and that adequate radio frequencies should be available to the defence forces.
In the case of broadcasting, the public are entitled to expect adequate information and entertainment within the economic restraints of the nation. However, Government regulators have allocated and assigned the majority of the spectrum to these services without due regard to the actual use of the radio spectrum. Civil radio communication services are currently allocated less than 8 per cent. of the spectrum below 1,000 megaherz. The practical matter of the two largest services using the spectrum allocated to them is that fundamentally it is impossible for the broadcasters or the defence forces physically to fill the spectrum with working systems. Optimum use of the spectrum involving the sharing between broadcasting and civil radio communication systems is entirely practical but needs a communications authority to co-ordinate and to regulate it.
My Lords, I have spoken for far too long. I should like to finish by thanking
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my noble friend the Chief Whip for ensuring that I did not speak after my noble friend Lady Trumpington, because she is quite impossible to follow. I beseech your Lordships to stay, because I know that we are all in for a treat.
5.20 p.m.
Baroness TRUMPINGTON: My Lords, that is the most terrifying remark to stand up to; but I thank my noble friend for it. I, too, greatly welcome the opportunity provided by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy to discuss the quality of service provided by the Post Office while longing to join him in wringing the neck of that beastly little bird Buzby. I intend to confine my remarks to the specific question of Britain's air mail service. Private individuals and members of the Air Transport Users Committee of which I have the honour to be chairman have become increasingly worried about the deterioration in the quality of Britain's air mail service. As individual users of air mail for either personal or business communication, we know that postal charges have been rising at an above-average rate even for inflation-prone Britain and at the same time it seems clear that the quality of service is diminishing. In the era of propeller aircraft it was usual for overseas mail to be delivered within a matter of days; today, with air journey times halved by modern jets, overseas air mail seldom seems to take less than a week.
In 1978, the Air Transport Users Committee decided that the time had come to do something about it. Then we ran into an unexpected problem, it was very difficult to find out what was happening. To some extent, this was due to a certain secretiveness on airline matters among the few organisations which are closely involved. But, also, it reflected the fact that nobody had studied Britain's air mail in recent times and there was consequently a dearth of background information available to users.
As a first step, we invited a well-known air transport economist, Mr. John Seekings, who has made a special study of cargo matters, to carry out detailed research on our behalf and to report back to the Air Transport Users Committee. His report confirms that air mail is indeed a complex business. The report also

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confirmed our fears that all is not well. Two particular aspects strike us as being of fundamental importance. First, it seems that the Post Office does not give air mail the care and attention it deserves, possibly because of the greater economic appeal of international telecommunications; secondly, it seems that a cross-subsidy of one class of user by another has become a widespread and undesirable practice and, as a result, many users are having to pay more than they should for air mail.
I should like, if I may, to enlarge upon these two conclusions as well as touching on other aspects of the whole air mail service. I hope that your Lordships will understand that at times I will be quoting from the report I have already mentioned. I fully appreciate that air mail is a secondary element in the total mail operation. Furthermore, there is a division between letters and packages. Nearly all overseas letters now move by air and make a profit for the Post Office. However, it seems that overseas air mail is not accorded the first-class status it deserves within the United Kingdom. Frankly, I find this scandalous. I should like at this stage to say that POUNC cooperated enthusiastually with the researches made by the Air Transport Users Committee but we learned from them that owing to limited resources they have been precluded from detailed consideration of overseas mail. The Government may well consider commissioning a special study by POUNC of both price and delivery performances of our air mail service.
My Lords, I will now turn briefly to the question of our parcel post. Postal authorities in most countries have always been under intense, and understandable, pressure to promote the export of printed paper, and as a result the situation today is that most postal authorities are incurring massive deficits mailing books and periodicals overseas at special discount rates. This international competition in mail subsidy continues apparently to be acceptable only because the losses on discounted printed papers can be offset by profits from protected letter traffic and quasi-protected parcel traffic or by direct Government subsidy.
From the viewpoint of Britain's publishing industry, for instance, competition
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from its main international rival, the United States, is particularly severe. Under these circumstances, the legitimate effort of the British Post Office to raise rates for printed papers to economic levels while the United States Post Office continues to be prepared to subsidise American publishers creates a very real problem. That problem is that even though rates from the United Kingdom are substantially higher than those from most other competing countries, the Post Office is still incurring a substantial deficit. Quite simply, Britain's publishers appear unable to bear the level of postal charges which would be economic for the Post Office. The Post Office is therefore maximising its profit on other postal activities to offset this deficit.
The concern turns on the fact that if airmail rates are held artificially high in order to cross-subsidise surface mail, then the growth of air mail is significantly impeded. It is possible that the relatively slow growth of air mail letters and parcels in comparison with competing media could have been caused to some extent by artificially-high postage rates. Unfortunately, the Post Office refuses on grounds of commercial security to make available for independent scrutiny the economic information which is needed to evaluate this situation objectively. All that can be said is that informed guesswork strongly suggests that certain categories of air mail parcels in particular and, possibly, long-distance letters appear to be suffering from excessive postal rates.
My repeated use of the word "seems" and the phrase "appear to be" brings me to the last point which I feel needs emphasis. Because some of those involved in air mail service were not willing to furnish specific information some of my conclusions cannot be verified. If the Post Office is to continue to enjoy its traditional monopoly then it must recognise that public accountability is part of the price that it must expect to pay. The split of the postal and telecommunications businesses is to be welcomed in that the proper development of all mail services, but especially airmail, can take place without inhibition. I submit therefore that airmail could be developed in three parallel ways: a regular airmail service with dependable delivery times; an express airmail facility at a premium price founded on a firm economic footing,

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operated either by the Post Office and/or private enterprise; and, finally, an expansion of an accelerated surface post facility into a general form of second-class airmail.
5.29 p.m.
Earl FORTESCUE: My Lords, may I join with others in thanking my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy for giving us this opportunity to speak on the Post Office. I should like to speak briefly on one aspect only, that of the telephone service. I, myself, do not use the telephone unless I have to, and then only briefly. However, I have a wife and three daughters at home and I find that the telephone bill is one of the largest I pay, and certainly the one I most resent having to pay. I suspect that the British system involves more wasted time and frustration than any other modern system in North America or Western Europe. Wrong numbers particularly irritate me. Not only do they waste time but one is having to pay for unwanted calls.
The majority of calls to all parts of the world now can be dialled direct. I understand that these are recorded by a meter in the telephone exchange. As a subscriber, I also understand that one has no right whatever to check one's own meter reading. This is surely wrong and unfair. I buy electricity and there is a meter in my premises, and the same applies to gas and water. Why should not the telephone meter be in one's own house where one can read it in person if one feels so inclined?
If pressed, the Post Office will rent one a meter which can stand beside the telephone at home. However, the Post Office stress that the reading of this meter is unlikely to correspond with the reading of the meter at the exchange, as meters are not 100 per cent. accurate, and alterations are made to the reading on the exchange meter from time to time for technical reasons. I suggest that the whole arrangement is unsatisfactory and that every subscriber should be charged on the reading of a meter on his own premises.
The Post Office might well argue that this would involve the cost of extra men travelling around the country to read individual meters. I suggest that this could be easily overcome by asking sub
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scribers to report the readings of their own meters with periodic checks by official meter readers, who could at the same time read the telephone meter, the gas meter, the electricity meter and the water meter.
5.32 p.m.
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, like previous speakers, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy because this occasion gives me an opportunity of making one or two points very briefly about an institution in this country for which I have had an affectionate interest for a good many years. I should like to start by saying that I fully agree with the Government's decision to split the present Post Office into telecommunications and postal services. The Secretary of State should be careful before he decides to dismantle the monopoly status of the Post Office as far as postal services are concerned. We should remember that the problems of the latter are to a great extent the problems of size; the enormous volume of mail which these days must be handled every day of the year. This is a problem which faces every postal service in the world.
Earlier this year I sent a letter to the rector of the Venerable English College in Rome. It took five weeks to arrive. The reply, to my surprise, was posted in Harpenden because, so my correspondent said, the delays in the Italian post were so great that they relied on giving their mail to some priest to bring back to England to post here. All the grumbles that we have heard this afternoon and which we continually see in the Press and elsewhere about the postal services, are grumbles which are reproduced in almost every country, not least in the United States.
I would remind my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy that the cost of first-class post in the United States is marginally greater than here and the standard of service provided by the post in the United States is a good deal lower. Indeed, if my noble friend was living in Croy, Arizona, he probably would have to go once a week in his dressing gown and carpet slippers to the local post office to get his mail, whereas here no doubt he gets it delivered punctually every weekday.
To break the monopoly of the postal services will add to the financial difficulties

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of the Post Office. Above all, it would be a considerable discouragement to management, which is already harassed on the one hand by Government financial pressures, and by the continuous interference of Governments over a good many years, and on the other by the attitude of the trade unions to improvements in organisation and the introduction of mechanised methods. I remember 20 years ago seeing in Norwich the pilot letter sorting machines at work. Yet even today, 20 years later, largely as the result of the attitude of the unions, the distribution of these machines is far from complete.
The resignation of the present able chairman, Sir William Barlow, is evidence of the demoralising effect which contemporary pressures have on the Post Office management. He gave as a reason that there was too much exposure and too many constraints. The Post Office mangement are naturally sensitive to the volume of public criticism; they feel that they lack support from the Government, and they are only too well aware of the obstruction which they experience from the trade unions in their plans to improve the standards of public service which it is their job to provide.
The postal service is not simply just another nationalised industry; the postal service of this country has been the responsibility of the State for four and half centuries. I feel that any decision to break the monopoly would be doctrinaire and not conceived in the best interests of the Post Office. Over the years the revenue of the Post Office has continually been milked to provide in earlier days an income for royal mistresses or a pension for some public figure, and latterly as windfall for the Treasury.
If we want to improve the standard of service, the first thing necessary is for the management of the Post Office to receive the financial and moral support from the Government which any body of men who carry the heavy responsibility for running a public service must expect—a public service without which the Government administration would collapse. Morale in my view is vital. The present attitude of Ministers and of Parliament to the Post Office management has gone far to undermine this in the case of the body of extremely able men and women in the postal service.
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When there was a Postmaster General—to say nothing of an Assistant Postmaster General—a Minister was available to stand up in Parliament to explain and defend and, where necessary, to direct and encourage the Post Office management. He took what Sir William Barlow described as the exposure, and no doubt at the same time he was able to overcome some of the constraints. In my view, there should be a Minister of State at least in the Department of Industry responsible for the postal services. I personally should like to see the postal services become part of the Civil Service once again. It is not an industry in the normal sense, it is and always has been a Government service which, in the course of time, the private citizen has been able to use.
In a period of high wage inflation and as a labour intensive service in which only a limited amount of mechanism is possible, the Post Office has very special problems. My noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing referred in particular to the other side of the present postal administration: telecommunications. This is entirely different. With the application of fibre glass to telephone cables, the introduction of the microchip and with the development of System X, this industry—and that is an industry—has a prospect of technological progress between now and the year 2000 which will represent a major revolution.
However, in order to achieve this, it must have the capital resources at its disposal to introduce the improvements and the modernisation which no doubt is necessary and which at the present moment I know is possible. But the problem really is that if the Post Office or the telecommunications corporation has to develop from its own capital resources or from what it can obtain by loans, it will take a substantial period of time before these improvements in the quality of the service can be introduced.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing that it is not wise or necessary to maintain the present monopoly as far as telecommunications are concerned; but he knows as well as I do that to open the market fully to any standard of equipment which any customer in a shop would wish to buy to attach to his telephone can quite easily damage the standard of service that the telecommunications corporation can

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produce. Indeed he said that in his speech, and I think it is very important to bear that in mind. It is all very well to say "Let us throw it open to full competition", but the truth is that on the telecommunications side the Post Office has maintained a very high standard of equipment and service up to the present, and they are very anxious not to see that deteriorate with the introduction of all sorts of new instruments and gadgets which may affect the general service.
The delivery of letters, from the Inland Revenue's income tax demand to a birthday card for one's youngest grandchild, will continue to depend upon the human factor—the welfare and morale of the hundreds of thousands of men and women from the chairman down to the post lady with her bicycle who plods devotedly along the village street each weekday morning to deliver the mail and which has always seemed to me to be a miracle of organisation, which is very important.
I therefore support the decision to divide the Post Office into two parts: post and telecommunications. But I would vote against breaking the Post Office monopoly. I implore the Government, and particularly the Secretary of State for Industry, to try to get a better understanding of the nature of the problems of the postal srevice and to give to its management and workers the encouragement which has so evidently been lacking in the attitudes of successive Governments in recent years.
5.42 p.m.
Lord SKELMERSDALE: My Lords, I have not had occasion to mention the details of my small horticultural business before in this Chamber, but since my third largest item of expenditure, as a retail mail order organisation, is on the Post Office and since the expenditure will be something over £10,000 this calendar year, I thought that perhaps this might be a suitable opportunity to come in on this most important debate initiated by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy.
My noble friend was indeed critical of the Post Office in his speech, but you will see from what I have to say that on the whole I am a satisfied user of the mails side. This may point up some of the dichotomy referred to by the noble
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Lord, Lord Winstanley, between business users on however small a scale and private users of the mails side of the Post Office business. As I say, my remarks will be largely confined to that.
First of all, my respect for the sales side of the mails side has grown by leaps and bounds ever since I first had a visit from the local Post Office representative, who suggested my using the two-tier contract service for parcels and letter packets. This means in effect that parcels are bulk-weighed and you pay so much per kilogram and also so much for the individual parcels; so you only have to count them and put them on a spring balance. You do not, of course, get involved in sticking on stamps, which is a great advantage when you are hard pressed in a busy packing season, especially this year when sales have been delayed by copious amounts of rain in the early spring. Just recently I have heard of a another type of contract which is based on a single amount per parcel, but I would rather doubt that my own scale of operations would be large enough to justify that system from the Post Office's point of view.
Surely any service is entirely and absolutely dependent on the people who are actually doing a particular job at a particular time. Most of my consignments are packed in padded bags, of the kind normally used for books; and occasionally one gets rapped over the knuckles by a customer because the postman has tried to put a bag through a letter-box which is too small. I would doubt whether the Post Office as an organisation is to blame, except possibly in their training courses where this point may not be aedquately dealt with. I personally have no experience of what goes on in training courses for postmen.
I am also delighted with the Post Office's new free compensation scheme, as very occasionally a parcel is delayed in transit and plants are received in a soggymess—which does not do my business any good and does not do the Post Office much good either. Even more occasionally, they go missing altogether. But a complaint of that kind, which one does hear of from time to time, has to be put into perspective. In the last eight months we have posted about 9,000 parcels or packets and we have only had occasion to

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contact the Post Office four times on this score. According to my usually rather shaky arithmetic, that works out at 0.04 per cent., which I would have thought was a negligible amount and an acceptable risk in most cases. Certainly it is well under the Post Office's own published figures.
Moving from the particular to the general, what exactly does one want from the Post Office?—obviously a speedy, efficient service at as small a cost as possible. In my own experience, speaking generally, we are getting the speed. Parcels for Yorkshire in the last fortnight, for example, have been taking three or four days, which I think is quite exceptional. Never have we had occasion to complain that a parcel has taken more than nine days.
From the Post Office's point of view, I agree with my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy that we would get much more if the individual postman did not have to walk up garden paths—they do not do this in the tropics and in many other parts of the world, as has already been referred to this afternoon. Perhaps help could be given by providing a post box at the road-gate of houses in country districts but also on new housing estates, where a postman has to walk up and down garden paths with a resulting loss of time.
Indeed, but for the outcry which I am sure would ensue from the general public, one could extend this idea. I suggest that blocks of post boxes could be erected at suitable places which would not be more than five or, at the outside, 10 minutes' walk from any particular home. That would speed up delivery dramatically, and I personally think it would provide a social service and a modicum of much-needed exercise for many people, who would have to walk for a few minutes to a post box and back to collect their particular bundle of post, if any. That, of course, is where the bugbear would be found. If you went for a five-minute walk in the rain only to discover that there was nothing in your postbox, you would be absolutely livid; but of course one always has to take the swings with the roundabouts.
I wish, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, that more people would use the postcode, although I am told there is
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only one sorting office which has the machinery fully operational to use it at the moment. Even quite small mail order businesses and other business have sufficient post at certain times of the year to take advantage of the bulk mailing rebate scheme. For example—
Lord RAGLAN: My Lords, may I intervene for one moment? I did not wish more people not to use the postcodes; I was objecting to the kind of postcode we are expected to use. I fully support the use of the postcode.
Lord SKELMERSDALE: My Lords, I am sorry: I misunderstood what the noble Lord was saying, and I apologise. The quid pro quo for taking advantage of the bulk mailing rebate scheme is that the sender has to give the Post Office the items pre-sorted into postal towns and counties. This is so much quicker and easier with the postcode, which also makes it very much easier to find a particular name and address. As the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, said, with the advent of the micro-chip computer, now definitely economic even for a mini-business, in the Government's terminology and certainly in my own—I would not deign to call myself even a small business—the postcode becomes even more important. Although one can, quite easily, assess a name and address from a microcomputer, it is a very slow and laborious process and the use of the postcode speeds it up quite dramatically. I know, because I am busily having a machine programmed at this moment.
Last, but not least, it is fashionable in certain quarters to knock the Post Office. By "knocking the Post Office", I do not mean the kind of constructive criticisms that we have had in this debate this afternoon. I regard them as being useful, and I hope we shall be told by my noble friend on the Front Bench that some of these ideas have already been considered by the Post Office Board and that others certainly will be. However, looking around this Chamber, and indeed around the streets of London as I came from Paddington this morning, I wonder how many noble Lords and members of the public, like me, have blamed the Post Office, because we have not replied to a letter quite quickly enough, or indeed have not initiated one. It is an easy thing to do and "they", the amorphous lump of the

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Post Office, take the blame. But it is not on.
Can you, my Lords, yourselves, imagine running a service industry, delivering over 30 million letters and half a million parcels a day to more than 21 million addresses, often in very inaccessible parts of the country? It is the town deliveries that subsidise the out-of-the-way destinations, and it is the easily accessible addresses that are, at the moment, being creamed off for parcels by British Rail and private couriers.
To allow the Post Office's monopoly of letters and postal packets to be broken would be a disservice to everyone, as well as being the end of a fairly cheap method of distributing mail. All that would happen would be cheap urban mail and very expensive Post Office-controlled mail for the country districts. In a word, almost, I say, "Don't knock the Post Office". Leave it well alone with, as I say, a few pertinent suggestions, such as those made by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy this afternoon.
But by all means hive off the telephone part. Many other speakers have spoken about this and I do not intend to add to what has been said except just to say at the very end that, if I remember my A. A. Milne correctly, Wol the Owl had a notice outside his door saying, "Please knock if an answer is not required." Many of us in this Chamber this afternoon are quite definitely pulling at the bell-rope.
5.53 p.m.
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE: My Lords, may I join with other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for initiating this debate this afternoon on the standard of service provided by the Post Office? One always has a fear, when we debate a subject such as this, that the Post Office will be treated as a whipping boy and that people from all quarters will come to attack it and tell of personal experiences of the Post Office being, as it turned out this afternoon, either too efficient or not efficient enough.
But, in fact, the Post Office has had a considerable number of supporters in the debate today and, as the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, has just said, we
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should not regard the Post Office as a whipping boy. I am sure that what we should do is to try to judge the achievements, the costs and the reliability of the Post Office by such international standards as we know of, and also by such experiences as we may have.
When the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, initiated the debate, he first spoke of the letters service which he called erratic and not good enough. He dealt with three areas—the general unreliability, the high cost, and the parts of the country where the service is particularly had. On the question of unreliability, it is certainly so that the targets of the Post Office for deliveries of 93 per cent. of first-class letters on Day B, which is the day after posting, and 96 per cent. of second-class letters on Day D, which is the fourth day after posting, have not been achieved. In fact, there has been a deterioration between 1975–76 and 1979–80, and the Post Office is certainly concerned that the percentages for those services have decreased.
The latest figures which I have are for the month of February 1980. They show that first-class letters improved, for the Tuesday to Saturday collections, from 83·1 per cent. delivered on Day B in the previous year to 86·8 per cent. So there is some slight improvement there. For second-class letters, for the Tuesday to Saturday collections, the figure was up from 81·9 per cent. to 89·4 per cent. I find these figures slightly difficult to understand or to relate, and perhaps the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, can explain. There are two sets of figures, the figures for collections from Tuesday to Saturday, and those for the full week collections, which always tend to be slightly worse than the former.
On the question of high cost, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, made the point that people would baulk at putting a 20p stamp on their letters in two to three years' time. If we accept—and I am sure we do not accept—that inflation will go on increasing at 20 per cent. a year, then in 3z years' time that is exactly what the cost of posting a first-class letter will be. Therefore, if we are to ensure that that seemingly high cost for posting a first-class letter is not to come about, then we must ensure that the rate of inflation is brought down to a more reasonable

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figure, which will make the noble Lord's prediction one which does not come about.
The noble Lord, Lord Alport, made a very realistic speech, pointing to the high cost of postal services and to the delays elsewhere. Bearing in mind that situation—the Italian situation and the American situation—to which he referred, the delays which we have in this country are very small indeed.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, will the noble Lord very kindly give way? He has referred to my speech and it is better if I make the point now rather than later. My reference to 20p was, I hope, not a prediction. I was making it in connection with the suggestion I was making for reducing the cost of the service. It was certainly not a prediction and I very much hope that it will not come about.
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE: My Lords, I am sure we all hope that it will not come about. It will certainly depend on the rate of inflation more than anything else. I should now like to come to the third aspect with which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, dealt, and which I do not think he said very much about—the question of bad areas. Here, in particular, we think about the position in central London where there has been continual criticism of the postal services. But the criticism is not only of the postal services in London. There have been criticisms of London Transport's services and of the availability of service staff in central London.
A problem which has much concerned local government in London for a very long time is to ensure that there are places available for people to live in the central areas, places from which they can get to their work easily before public transport commences. This is a problem which the Post Office has and which London Transport has. People need to be at work before transport services are available. Of course, in the hotel and restaurant field there is the same problem of people needing to go home after the public transport services have ceased in the evening. This is certainly one of the reasons why the Post Office is understaffed in central London.
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There is also the fact that the job of a postman is, perhaps, not as attractive as it was in the past. Before World War the Post Office certainly had no difficulty in recruiting and retaining good quality staff. It is also true that at that time the conditions of service of a postman were considerably less attractive than they are today, but of course the Post Office—as I have said—had no difficulty in filling staff vacancies. One could say that the general employment conditions of the time made this so.
One can also say that a postman and a London Transport worker, for example, at that time were exceptions in the general rule of pensions and other facilities provided for employees, whereas today virtually all employees of all major companies have those facilities available as a part of their employment. The particular attraction of working for the Post Office and having these specially good conditions of service does not exist now as it did in the past; that additional attraction is not there. Therefore, of course, the question of pay becomes ever more important in attracting people to work for the Post Office.
Indeed, I am told that there is some evidence to suggest that, in order to keep staff at times of uncompetitive pay, managers, have allowed unorthodox methods of overtime to develop. Overtime has been paid for which has not been fully worked. No doubt these managers felt that they had no alternative but to do this, since it was the only way in which the earnings of their staff could be kept high in order to hold enough staff to provide an adequate service. This is undoubtedly a potent factor in causing some of the problems which the Post Office has felt in Central London.
The noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, spoke very movingly about the Post Office services and hoped that the Post Office unions would co-operate in furthering improvements within the service. Certainly I very much support what she said about the retention of local services.
A service which was not mentioned but which sometimes comes under attack is the telegram service. Periodically there have been attacks that it was quite uneconomic and that it was therefore a

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service that should be dispensed with. I would resist that proposal very strongly as I feel that the telegram service provides a means of communication for which there can be no substitute for those without a telephone, and that it is a terribly important service. It is curious to note what has happened with the progress of time, because the telegram service was one of the most used services of the Post Office during the latter part of the last century.
Nor would I be happy with the suggestion that Lord Campbell of Croy made, that deliveries should no longer be made to every individual address. Other noble Lords have commented on that and on the American situation where people may have to walk a long way to collect questionable mail. I mean questionable in the sense that they do not know in advance whether there will be any mail for them to collect.
Lord Raglan and Lord Skelmersdale had a small contretemps about the question of post codes. I have always considered myself fortunate here in that I have a post code which is SW1 PIER, which I find easy to remember even though the word "Pier" is spelled P-I-E-R!
May I now go to the question of the telecommunications field'? We must also look at the standard of service there. The particular items one wants to look at are, first, the number of faults which develop in the service, which is a measure of the reliability of the service; secondly, the question of how speedily those faults can be cleared; and, thirdly, the question of the waiting list for people who wish to have a telephone installed. On the question of faults and the speed of clearance, this has shown a considerable improvement in the percentage of calls which failed due to the Post Office from 1974 onwards and reached a peak of perfection, if that is the right word, in 1977–78, showing a slight increase in 1978–79, but still a very low standard of failures due to the Post Office.
On the question of the faults cleared by the Post Office the next day, this shows a gradual decrease in the percentage not cleared by the next day. The latest figures I have show that in the year 1978–1979 about half the faults were cleared by the next day, and the figure is still increasing.
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On the question of the waiting list, Lord Campbell of Croy referred to the fact that the waiting list had increased from 200,000 to 265,000 over the past year. I understand that this was caused largely by a heavier than expected demand, with the effect that there was a shortage in supplies arriving. The manufacturers were not able to produce more supplies than they had anticipated they would be asked for. Also, there were problems with cables and exchange equipment. However, I also understand that there is an intention on the part of the Post Office and the Post Office Engineering Union—the union concerned in this side of the work of the Post Office—to aim in the current year for a substantial reduction to 130,000; that is, if this intention of the Post Office and the POEU is realised, the waiting list will be reduced to 130,000, which is about half its present amount. Perhaps that is not an excuse for what has happened in the past but it is a sign that there will be improvement there.
Lord Orr-Ewing commented on the liberalisation of the Post Office manufacturing policy, so that people would be allowed to install foreign handsets in their homes. One of the problems here has always been that if you have a handset which has not been entirely approved it is difficult to know whose responsibility it is to repair it when it goes wrong. The Post Office will not wish to repair a handset which has been manufactured outside their normal code of operation. This is an area which can cause continual problems.
I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, for being out of the Chamber during part of his speech. I gather that he raised the question of the decreasing capital expenditure of the Post Office. I mention that point because I understand that the Post Office have very rigidly applied to them the Government's cash limits policy, with the effect that they are unable to invest as much as they would like to invest. In some ways they should be treated very much as an ordinary competitive industry. They should not be bound in that particular way if they themselves can generate internally the resources for this additional financing. One would hope to see them being able to act in this way.
There were attacks from different parts of the Chamber on that poor bird Buzby, with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of

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Croy, assisted by the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, aiming to strangle him. I have always felt that he is rather a pleasant character—in some ways perhaps more pleasant than Mr. Cube. I am afraid that I shall not be assisting them in that strangulation policy.
Finally, I should like to say something about the split of the Post Office into the postal side and the telecommunications side. This was strongly argued in the Carter Report, which concluded:
"The case is reinforced by the general impression from the evidence given to us that the present combined management has led to over-centralisation, poor delegation and slow decision-making. The overloading of the present single board has, in our view, inhibited sound strategic thinking. The Post Office has not been an effective policy-making body producing a co-ordinated strategy for the whole range of communications other than broadcasting".
There was no argument over those conclusions by the Carter Committee. However, the Government must look very closely at what arrangements they suggest for splitting the corporation and also at what new structure one will have.
A very interesting suggestion was made by the noble Lord, Lord Alport, that one might have a Minister of State with responsibility for the Post Office. It may well be that a solution to this problem could be to retain the unification, under the guidance of a Minister at the Department of Industry who would have within his area of responsibility the two separate corporations. I thought that this was a very useful suggestion which the Government should look at very carefully. I am certain that whatever arrangements are come to with regard to splitting the Post Office, they must be done as painlessly as possible and in a way which does not unduly ruffle the feathers of all those involved. As noble Lords will know, there is a considerable divergence of opinion about this within the unions involved in the Post Office industry.
I hope that some of the remarks which I and other noble Lords have made will be useful to the Government in considering what should be done for the best for the future of the Post Office.
6.14 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of INDUSTRY (Viscount Trenchard): My Lords, the Government are in debt to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy for timing the debate to take place now and for drawing from your Lordships' House, as debates of this kind usually do, some very interesting expert opinions over a wide area, some general and some very specific, like Lady Trumpington's expert knowledge in relation to air mail. Therefore, may I thank my noble friend and assure him, and others who have taken part in the debate, that Hansard will be scrutinised, whether in the photographic form—where I discovered to my glee that other people also have to alter what they have said—or in the printed form, if the dispute is over by then.
This whole subject is of enormous importance, and I have been trying to think what a Government spokesman should put first. What I think I should put first is that we echo the sentiment expressed by many people that there are in the Post Office a lot of people who work and try to serve the public in a very dedicated way. With that as background, I think that one should note that in this House today, as elsewhere in the past and as in the Carter Report, there is unanimity on the split of the Post Office, although there are points about the method, such as those made just now by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede.
We should be a little apprehensive about the idea of a Minister providing a major co-ordinating role between two corporations. I am sure that the noble Lord did not mean that. Our philosophy is that Ministers should not, on the whole, run things, and I am sure that the noble Lord would not suggest that that should happen. We will take note of his views, and those of other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, as to structure, but as to the split into two purposeful management organisations we have no doubt that it should be done. Nor did Sir William Barlow have any doubts about that. He supported us, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, will confirm that Sir William Barlow's board also supported this idea throughout.
At this point I should like to echo the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and also those of my right

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honourable friend the Secretary of State for Industry. We are sorry that taking on the telecommunications side after the split is something which Sir William Barlow prefers not to do, and that he prefers to return to private industry. I would ask noble Lords, and in particular my noble friend Lord Alport, to look at the 16th April Hansard report of the other place and see what my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said in relation to Sir William Barlow's resignation. I should also like to draw his attention to the fact that Sir William Barlow has said that there have been no major disagreements on matters of policy between him and the Government.
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, if I may interrupt my noble friend for one moment, I do not think I alleged that this was the case. I said that I understood that the reason for Sir William Barlow's decision not to continue in the service of telecommunications was because of the exposure which he, as a private citizen and chairman, had to the political pressures, which are perhaps inevitable, on a great public corporation of this sort. What I suggested, therefore, was that to relieve the future chairmen of the organisations some of that pressure should be taken by the Government, through a Minister responsible for it—which I think is the right thing to do in the circumstances.
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for making his views clear as to the reason for Sir William's resignation, which we regret. For the sake of clarity of the Government position I can confirm that while all nationalised industries would perhaps like it if there were more capital available for them to do everything they want to do, we had a very happy co-operation between Sir William and his board and this Administration and we regret that it is coming to an end.
Before turning to the letter-post I wish to make one general remark, because both in the case of the letter-post and in the case of telecommunications we are, as noble Lords have said, looking at change. I would say that one of the problems which is before us all the time, as it always has been before anyone considering organisational change, is how big are the changes that one wishes to
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consider. Small changes can be decided fairly quickly; bigger and perhaps more radical changes take more time to look at. Therefore, while various noble Lords have asked me whether the Government will come to decisions in both these areas in the near future, I can certainly say, "Yes, in the near future", because we have been considering the position now for some time, but I will not commit myself to anything in terms of dates, except to say that we are certainly not thinking beyond months and we are speeding things as much as we can.
In relation to the post, the position last summer was really very serious. It was serious to a point where I think my right honourable friend was fully justified in immediately allowing consideration and recommendation on the breaking of the postal monopoly. Although I know that my noble friend Lord Alport, obviously with great knowledge, has spoken strongly about the fact that the postal service is, and always has been, a national service, I do not believe that that in itself is a sufficient reason, nor do I believe it is dogmatic to look at the question of the degree to which the postal monopoly over the whole field should remain exactly as it is. That, indeed, is what we are doing, and will continue to do.
In relation to the figures for delivery of first-class and second-class mail I do not think the House will want a lot of detailed figures, but the first-class mail—and these figures are on a Tuesday to Saturday basis—last summer dropped to 77.4 per cent. in June, and it was against that background that we felt that real and sweeping investigation was necessary. The same trend applies to the second-class mail. Since then there has been an improvement. The Christmas peak produced a dip against the conditions mentioned by noble Lords in this debate and then we were on an improvement trend again.
I do not wish to steal the thunder of the Post Office for the March figures, but in order to give them what I think is called in advertising terms a "teaser campaign", I can say that they are several percentage points better than the February figures quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede. So that there is an improvement, thank goodness! I must confess that sometimes I wonder, although the

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sampling is done on the most professional basis possible, just what this kind of survey really means, and at times I wonder how it is that so often I seem to fall into the odd 10 per cent. which lies in the nonstandard delivery part of those figures.
The Government have noted with pleasure for the future the recent acceptance by the membership of the Union of Post Office Workers of a pay offer containing proposals to allow practices conducive to more efficient working to be introduced. That is all part of a two-year plan, produced under Sir William Barlow's chairmanship, to try to work on the many problems that have been raised by various speakers today. My noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood was right in both apparently opposite directions when she told of the two reports, the one speaking of the shortage of staff and the other of the fact that we were over-manned. Both are true and both, of course, can be true and the manning levels themselves can be affected by the wider-ranging changes which I am sure that my late civil service colleague, Ron Dearing, who goes to take over the Post Office (and I am quite sure that he will make a great success of it) will clearly have to look at in the arguments for maintaining local services in full on the one hand and new ways of making economies on the other. I am sure that the social points will not be missed by him. Both these rival criticisms can clearly be true. With the manning standards and methods used at the present time there are in many areas shortages of staff, particularly in some parts of the country. But this does not mean that there is not room for considerable productivity improvements, both using existing methods and by the introduction of new methods.
In introducing this Motion, my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy spoke of the escalating costs for a poor service. This is indeed a worry and the prices which are charged are not those which the Post Office would have liked to have used for pricing their services but with the current efficiency levels and with the overall national need to meet cash limits, whether we argue about particular ones or not, these increases were inevitable.
The volume of mail has in fact increased in 1978–79 and the degree to which the
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volume of mail will prove to be price-elastic is something which only the future will show. The optical scanning methods, which my noble friend mentioned, depend upon postal codes. I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, is right as to the reason why Post Office codes are not used, and he must give advice to the Post Office on his much better system, which is far beyond my skills to design; but I have a feeling that the failure to use postal codes is something to do with the British character and British independence, as well as the problems of the codes, and I hope that Mr. Dearing will somehow be able to coax the British public into using the codes in order to introduce the systems.
Lord RAGLAN: My Lords, may I make a comment here? I suppose no research has been done as to why people do not use the codes. The London codes are very widely known, and so far as I know everybody uses them. So there must be something which is very different about the way the London codes are put together and the ordinary postal code is put together.
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, I am sure the Post Office—and it is more a matter for them than the Government—will take note of any advice on any better systems of this kind that might be possible. In this context, let me say that I am advised that the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Fortescue that a meter should be installed in the house is rather difficult when the charge depends upon distance as well as time, and also when there are different rates for different times of the day or week. This really does require a slightly complicated meter.
If I can pass to the telecommunications side at this point, let me say that I think in general under Sir William Barlow's chairmanship the Post Office has pioneered some very good new equipment, some of which is famous across the world. Had I time I would refer to a number of different items, but some have been mentioned in the debate already. The problem has been the application of the new equipment and getting it in in time, from a situation where we were perhaps behind at one stage. I think one of the greatest things Sir William has done is to improve the technical competence and performance of the Post Office in the development area on the telecommunications side.

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With regard to the delay of up to six months in some cases to get the telephone installed. Yes, it is true that a little over a quarter of a million are on the waiting list for telephones at the present moment—260,000 in fact; and it is true that this is more than the figure for the same time last year, March 1979, which was 196,000. I do not have the internal target that the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, mentioned for 1980, but I do know that it is the Post Office's determined intention to turn the path round and improve it substantially. More engineers have been engaged, more last year, I think, than ever before; efficiency consultants have been used; temporary equipment is being used; many other methods are being used to try to improve the position. It is also regrettably true, as my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing said, that on some other equipment, notably the PABX, delays are considerably longer.
Let me at this moment turn to the point of capital requirements, and let me say merely that we are still looking at the question of whether, if it is clearly the case that we have now more new technical applications which are proven than the cash limits for the future would appear to cover—there must be cash limits, and for the 80s they are not small ones—we are prepared to scratch our heads about how, without breaking Government cash limits, money could be found to speed up development. Of course, one of the main areas here lies in the breaking of the monopoly; we agree with all other speakers and we agree with the quotation which my noble friend Lord Morris made from the Carter Report that the existing boundaries to the telecommunications monopoly do need real examination. We have been for some time now taking advice from all concerned, and we shall announce the results of this certainly in months. We shall not exclude the possibility of phasing in liberalisation rather than one big package; this is one of the alternatives we are looking at.
The problems of compatibility have been described, and the problem of how a necessary authority will approve standards, will ensure compatibility, will draw up any terms for licensing, is well taken on board and is being examined from every angle. In relation to costs and prices, telephone charges did not in fact increase from
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October 1975 until the latest increases were introduced, so that though those increases are steep one does have to take account of the four years of standstill in charges. One had hoped, and I know Sir William Barlow had hoped, that that standstill could have been continued for a longer time, but wage settlements in relation to productivity forced the introduction of the higher charges at the time that they were introduced.
With regard to Buzby, I will not enter into the debate, except to say that I understand that Buzby makes a profit and gets more new business. Furthermore, one of its main purposes is shifting off-peak loads and drawing consumers' attention to the fact that they can save money by phoning on certain days at certain times. The noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, raised a great number of very interesting points. I do not think I shall be able to deal with them all today. The international comparisons are being examined by the joint committee that he spoke of. They are not easy to draw conclusions from. But there is no complacency and they will be dealt with. The Users Association document and its recommendations have been examined very closely, and my honourable friend Mr. Butler has been in communication with the association on all their recommendations.
In relation to the capital situation and to the decline of capital—I think perhaps this is the last major point that I should try to deal with—I have looked rather quickly at the figures raised by my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing. Of course, there is an uneven path of capital investment; there was very high capital investment in the period 1973–75 at a time of very low profit and at a time when perhaps a great deal of catching-up was necessary. The type of equipment currently required, and the size of the demand, are different, and the Post Office have made mistakes in estimating demand—I think everybody always does. The figures for the future, for the 1980s, in the Government's expenditure plans show clearly that we rise to another pretty high peak.
Perhaps I may best summarise it by saying that the expected expenditure and constant prices in the four years up to 1983–84 will be 20 per cent. higher in constant prices than the total in the four

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years since 1976–77. I will give extra information to my noble friend, but I believe that very large capital expenditure has now been allowed for. The degree of self-financing of capital expenditure depends upon the size of the profit with which it can be self-financed as well as on the capital programme.
I will draw the attention of my colleagues in the Home Office, who have the overall responsibility for the regulation of the radio spectrum, to the points made by my noble friend Lord Morris. I shall make sure that those points are fully taken on board by them. They are fully seized of the importance of the radio spectrum as a very valuable national resource. Once again I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy for introducing this debate at this time. I apologise for this rather inadequate and disjointed winding-up, and I promise noble Lords that the debate will be drawn to the attention of all of my right honourable friends concerned.
6.43 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I should like to thank all of the noble Lords who have contributed to the debate today. As a result, a number of different topics of concern to the public have been raised—for example, postal codes, air mail, telecommunications equipment and business users, to take but a few that I was not able to touch on.
I should like to comment first on a point raised by my noble friend Lord Alport, because there may be a possibility of a misunderstanding here. He referred to certain anomalies to which I had pointed—for example, that first-class mail within London, travelling only two or three miles, could take up to five or six days; and he drew my attention, quite rightly, to the United States of America where there are post boxes and individuals have to collect their own mail. It was because I lived for three years in the United States some years ago that I made the proposal that we might move to that situation which all other comparable industrial countries have already adopted.
It was suggested that collecting one's mail in that way would be objected to. I suppose that might be the first reaction of the average customer, but when I said
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that for two of those years when I was collecting my own mail locally I was living on the outskirts of New York and not in the sticks, as my noble friend was suggesting—he does not seem to be here at the moment—he will see that it was because I and my American neighbours preferred to collect from post boxes locally rather than pay the disproportionate cost of high-wage postemen doing this extra, but not essential, leg work, that I put this proposal forward in my speech. It was also touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. I apologise for making the point briefly in my speech, but I was trying to cover a number of subjects reasonably briefly and to be very constructive in putting forward a proposal that I believed would be significant for postal costs.
Because of the interest shown in that part of my speech, I must draw attention to the fact that it was Sir William Barlow himself who said that the Post Office would like this legislative requirement to be altered on the lines I have suggested. That is why I hope that my noble friend will read what I have said, because he was quite rightly pointing out how much Sir William had contributed during his term, and I think he was quoting him. Therefore I think it is important to note that on 30th January, in evidence to the Select Committee to which I referred, published and dated 5th March, at page 13, column 2, when he was asked whether the Post Office wished to have the requirement altered that post be delivered to each individual address such as flats in a block, he said that he would. Those who are interested—and it is clear that many who have taken part in this debate are interested in this point—could well look up the exchanges under the reference that I have mentioned. That is why I have given it, because there is a great deal more there that indicates the Post Office view. It is to encourage changes that require legislation to enable it to reduce costs in this area. It was largely because of the Post Office view expressed by Sir William Barlow and because of successful practice abroad that I put forward this proposal. I suggest that it should be examined.
My Lords, if costs can be reduced then the cost of stamps need not reflect inflation. I hope that inflation will be curbed and reduced drastically in the next few

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years, but whatever happens to inflation, if costs can be cut in this way then the cost of stamps need not follow the same path
I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Trenchard for the information he gave in his speech and for replying to the main points which the speakers had raised. I welcome the improvements about which he was able to tell us. The Government, of course, are not answerable for the day-to-day activities of the Post Office, and I would not expect my noble friend to answer any points of that kind. But long-term strategy and reorganisation are matters for the Post Office. Parliament is much concerned, not only because of the interests of the public that are involved but because of the changes that may be necessary in existing legislation. It is therefore heartening that my noble friend and his ministerial colleagues are clearly putting the sound help of these services to the public very high in their priorities. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT GRANTS (ETHNIC GROUPS) BILL [H.L.]
6.47 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. This Bill is about racial disadvantage, by which I mean the disadvantage suffered by a person because of his colour or race or ethnic or national origin, whether or not it is caused by unlawful racial discrimination. The facts of racial disadvantage have been enumerated very clearly by authorities such as Mr. David Smith in his book of the same title, Facts of Racial Disadvantage, where he showed, for example, that 58 per cent. of Pakistanis were doing semi-skilled or unskilled jobs compared with 18 per cent. of whites; that unemployment is significantly higher among minorities, that 31 per cent. of West Indian unskilled manual workers were in council housing compared with 56 per cent. of the general population; and that only 15 per cent. of Asian women over the age of 45 spoke English fluently or fairly well. Therefore, the information on which to base an
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assessment of racial disadvantage has been available for at least the last six years.
In the White Paper which preceded the Race Relations Act, 1976, the Government said that a comprehensive strategy for tackling disadvantage was just as important as the legal machinery they were then considering for dealing with discrimination. Yet for the last 14 years there has only been one piece of legislation on the statute book that is directly designed to help ethnic minorities to cope with the problem of racial disadvantage, and that is Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966, which this measure is designed to replace. Under Section 11 there was provision for a 75 per cent. grant to be paid by the Government towards expenditure incurred by local authorities for purposes arising from the presence within their area of Commonwealth immigrants. With the benefit of hindsight I think that we can identify five major defects in that legislation. First, that it applied only to minorities from the Commonwealth and thus, for example, it excluded such minorities as the boat people from Vietnam, although clearly the local authorities that are doing their job properly would have to spend extra money on meeting the particular needs of the boat people arriving in their areas. Secondly, that only those immigrants who arrived within the last 10 years were covered, whereas the 1971 Census showed already that over 40 per cent. of the people belonging to ethnic minorities were born here, and that proportion must certainly have risen to something like half in the intervening years.
Thirdly, that the grant was payable only towards expenditure on staff costs and was not extended to the needs of capital expenditure in this connection. Fourthly, that some local authorities were not making any use at all of Section 11; and if one looks at the figures as regards Greater London that were given by Mr. Timothy Raison in an answer in another place on 28th November last, one sees some quite inexplicable variations between one local authority and another. For example Tower Hamlets which claimed £40,000 in 1978–79 received nothing at all in 1979–80. Lambeth declined from £10,000 in 1978–79 to £9,000 in 1979–80. One can compare that, for example, with Ealing, which received £1.3 million or Brent which received £1.6 million. There

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is no rhyme or reason for the enormous disparities between the amounts claimed and received by one local authority and another. Finally, in the list of criticisms, I must say that the rules are open to misinterpretation, and there are cases where funds have not been used as the Act inended.
I should like to refer to a document which I received yesterday from Lady Murray, the widow of our late and much respected colleague Lord Murray, who is the chairman of the CRC in Gravesend. In this document, which deals fairly comprehensively with the criticism that I have mentioned, there is shown correspondence which demonstrates that Kent County Council did not treat Section 11 as meaning that a teacher should be additional to the basic establishment to be eligible for grant, although Mr. Brynmor John—who was then the Minister responsible for these matters in the Home Office—in a letter to Lord Murray said that one of the purposes was to encourage local authorities to provide additional staff. So, there was clearly a difference of view as to how the Act was supposed to work as between some local authorities, and the Home Office which administered the section.
These limitations had been clear for some time when, in the spring of 1978, there was an all-party attempt to improve matters by means of an amendment to the Inner Urban Areas Bill which was then before another place. That amendment which was, as I have said, an all-party amendment signed by Mr. Peter Walker—now a Cabinet Minister—and Mr. Nicholas Scott, as well as my honourable friend Mr. Alan Beith, was to have been moved by Mr. Alex Lyon, but it was unfortunately not selected because it was outside the long title of the Bill. I then wrote to the Home Secretary, Mr. Merlyn Rees, suggesting that there should be an all-party discussion on how to proceed on a matter where there seemed to be very general agreement. Mr. Rees agreed to see members of all parties. In the event, I actually went to see him alone but with the full approval of my colleagues in the other parties.
Mr. Rees told me on 20th July that he was then urgently reviewing Section 11 and, in the process, he was ready to receive
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views on the subject from all interested organisations including, of course, those which were representing ethnic minorities. Then, after this process of consultation, in November 1978 the Government issued a consultative document setting out the proposals. That was sent to some 4,000 individuals and organisations. It is worth noting that almost none of the recipients of this document objected in principle to the idea of removing the restrictions inherent in Section 11 which I have mentioned.
The next step was the introduction of the Local Government Grants (Ethnic Groups) Bill, which is, to all intents and purposes, identical to the one now before your Lordships, except we do not need the provisions that were contained in that measure relating to Scotland and Wales in case of devolution. That Bill was carried on Second Reading by no less a majority than 267 votes to seven on 12th March last year, and it was in Committee when it was overtaken by the Dissolution of Parliament.
My purpose in reintroducing the identical Bill is two-fold. First, there has not been any statement of policy from the Government on what they intend to do about Section 11, even though when they were in Opposition they did give a partial welcome to the measure. If they have changed their minds in the last year, then perhaps the noble Lord who is to reply will be able to explain why. If they are still of the same mind, they can facilitate the passage of the Bill. My right honourable friend the Leader of the Liberal Party put a Question to the Home Secretary on 25th February, and was told at that time that the Government had no plans for reintroducing the Bill, but they were currently reviewing the operation of Section 11.
Secondly, if the principle is still accepted on all sides—and I can imagine no reason why it should not be—then I should like to create the opportunity for pursuing several important questions of detail which arose in the debates last year and which were never properly resolved because of the Dissolution. Mr. Keith Speed, who was then speaking officially for the Conservatives, said that he was happy about grant-aiding local authorities for the purpose of removing disadvantages from which an

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ethnic group suffered, but he had doubts about the second and third objectives mentioned in Clause 1(2). Those are:
"(b) securing that the services provided by the local authority are as effective in relation to ethnic groups as they are in relation to the rest of the community;
(c) promoting good relations between ethnic groups or between ethnic groups and the rest of the community."
Mr. Speed thought that those provisions gave scope for positive discrimination which, of course, is a naughty phrase not only to the Conservative Party, but equally to Mr. Merlyn Rees. I was not clear how it could be maintained that, if one makes services as effective, but no more so, for black people as for white, it constituted positive discrimination. We never learned how that interpretation could have been put on the clauses, because the point was never reached in the Standing Committee.
As to the promotion of good relations between persons of different racial groups, that was, it may be remembered, a duty that was laid on the local authorities by Section 71 of the Race Relations Act 1976 with, at that time, the warm approval, I think, of all parties, although Parliament never gave them any money to pay for it.
Another point that ought to be resolved is the proposal that was made by Mr. Alex Lyon that, in order to qualify for grant under the Bill, local authorities should be obliged to make a survey of the needs of their ethnic minorities, and to draw up plans for meeting them which, of course, they are not obliged to do under Section 11. There is no question of fitting the applications for grant under Section 11 into any sort of comprehensive strategy of local authorities for dealing with the question of disadvantage.
As there was no sign of action on this front, and as in our view the defects of Section 11 become ever more acute with the lapse of time, we thought that it would be necessary to give an airing to the subject now. An increasing proportion of people belonging to ethnic minorities have been here for more than 10 years, but their problems have not gone away as it was naively imagined that they would in 1966. I think that it will become impossible to use numerical formulae of any kind, such as are built into the application of Section 11—for example, the requirement that 2 per cent. of the population must be of recent Common-
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wealth immigrants—now that it has been decided by the Government not to ask either an ethnic origin question or a parental birthplace question in the 1981 Census.
Furthermore, there are the 15,000 Vietnamese I have already mentioned who probably need special help in acquiring English; and no doubt there will be other refugees, such as those who have been received in this country in recent years from Latin America, Ethiopia and South Africa, none of whom count for grant under Section 11 because, of course, none of those places are in the Commonwealth. It may be of interest to your Lordships to be reminded that in 1979, contrary to popular myth, there were more people accepted for settlement in the United Kingdom who were foreign nationals than Commonwealth citizens.
In November 1979 I wrote to about 100 local authorities asking them whether they approved of the Bill and, if not, what were their criticisms of it. I had an extremely good response from 76 authorities, and of those who expressed any opinion at all there was a majority of six to one in favour of the broad principles of the Bill. Quite a few referred to the consultative document rather than to the Bill, and one of their commonest objections was to the short-term nature of the grant, a point that was recognised by Mr. Brynmor John when he said in his Second Reading speech that:
"… in some instances longer-term funding should be provided".—[Official Report (Commons), 12/3/79; col. 62.]
It was the fact that so many local authorities, including Conservative-controlled ones such as Wandsworth, Kensington and Chelsea, and Harrow, were so overwhelmingly in favour of change on these lines that encouraged us to test the feeling of the House and prompt Ministers to give some indication of their plans. I should mention at this point that not only does the Bill have the support of the majority of local authorities, but I received a letter this afternoon from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro—who told me that he wanted to be present but unfortunately could not make it—who wanted me to know that in his capacity as chairman of the Board for Social Responsibility of the Church, he is in no doubt that the board would, in

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principle, support the Bill. He says that the matter was recently discussed in the General Synod on a Motion of the Bishop of Guildford, and although no formal decision was reached, the response was such that it could fairly be said that those responsible in the Church of England for this area would be in sympathy with the intention of the Bill. I am very glad to know that the Church has been discussing the matter and that this is the general view, as outlined by the right reverend Prelate.
I suppose that we could continue for some years more using Section 11. We could, if this Bill is passed, merely redistribute the same amount of money more equitably, spreading the jam more thinly, as the London Borough of Enfield put it in its reply to our questionnaire. Or, we could increase the resources available so that the existing programmes are maintained and new ones instituted. Mr. Brynmor John said, when he introduced the Bill last March, that an extra £50 million was to have been provided over the next three years, and that in 1982–83 the grant would be 70 per cent. up on the grant for that current year.
One appreciates that the general policy of this Government is to control spending far more strictly than did the previous Government, but there are necessary exceptions. As Mr. Peter Walker warned several times before the election, if we are not going to spend money on eliminating racial disadvantage, we shall be storing up very serious trouble for a few years hence, and there will be a far greater burden placed on the community by false economies now.
What would we be able to do under this Bill that we cannot at present do under Section 11? There was, in fact, a very comprehensive list of suggestions set out in the consultative document; I shall not weary your Lordships with a recitation of them all, but I shall just very briefly mention some examples. The first is staff and facilities for ethnic record-keeping. This is an important facet of the proposals, because if local authorities do not keep ethnic records, they cannot monitor their own performance and see whether they are complying with the terms of Section 71 of the Race Relations Act 1976. The second example is hostels for homeless young people, an extremely
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important and essential duty of local authorities and one which they are obviously not able to carry out under Section 11 because, as I have mentioned, that does not cover capital expenditure.
The third is advisory staff and literature in other languages to improve take-up of services. Here again, any local authority which has a substantial number of refugees in it might wish to print literature in their own language so as to help them, when they first arrive, to have access to the social services that are available to people, whether immigrants or natives. The fourth is social facilities to combat the isolation of women in the home. I have mentioned the large percentage of women of Asian origin of 45 years and over who do not speak any English and who, therefore, tend to be very isolated and unable to play their full part in the social life of the community. Finally, the development of youth clubs, which I need hardly emphasise, is an extremely important development in certain inner city areas where historically this kind of facility has been notably lacking.
In the memorandum placed in the Library by the Home Secretary about the disturbances in St. Paul's, Bristol, we are told:
"The police, like other agencies and representatives in the St. Paul's area, were taken by surprise at the turn of events"
Whatever the proximate cause of the violence may have been, is it not at least possible that the young people there, sensing the hopelessness of their aspirations and condemned to what they see as a perpetually second-class citizenship, were lashing out against what they see as the forces of white supremacy? I spoke to Mr. Peter Courtier, the ACRO in Bristol, this morning and he told me that the CRE there submitted a number of schemes on behalf of voluntary groups in the area concerned with ethnic minorities, but that the county council did not support any of them under the Urban Programme; that the city council did submit one or two schemes on behalf of voluntary bodies, and one of those was concerned with youth facilities for recreation and evening education, but it was given priority No. 7 in the list and was, therefore, not selected. He tells me that since the riots this project has been resubmitted as a special case and has now been approved.

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I hope that we do not have to wait until riots take place in other areas before we give attention to the problems of racial disadvantage. Certainly Bristol had no more reason to explode than many other areas of other cities; an ominous grafitti has appeared in some areas of South London—"Bristol first, Brixton next". And Mr. David Lane said in a speech to the Young Conservatives in Leicester on 1st December last year:
"I have never accepted the inevitability of racial violence in London or in Midland or Northern cities, which has been prophesised so insistently by Mr. Powell and others. But my optimism assumes that politicians and others will he aroused to take preventive action in time. Indifference or inaction will turn today's problems into tomorrow's violence".
We are not talking in this Bill about conferring any special privileges on minorities, but—if I may paraphrase Mr. John—about translating a notional equality of eligibility into a real equality of access to community services. The facts of life shown by those many different surveys I have mentioned, conducted by academics, Government departments and independent institutions like the Tavistock Institute, the Runnymede Trust and PEP, are that minorities and particularly blacks get the short end of the stick in almost every area of life: in education, housing, health, employment and social services. We believe that a just society is one that gives all its citizens, irrespective of their colour, race, ethnic or national origins, the same benefits and the same chances as anyone else. This Bill would be a small step in that direction. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Avebury.)
7.10 p.m.
Lord BOSTON of FAVERSHAM: My Lords, I should like to give a warm welcome to this Bill and to thank the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for introducing it. There is no doubt in my mind that it is needed, and I believe that the need for it can be seen even more clearly as a result of recent events, as I shall mention in a moment. As the noble Lord has explained, the Bill is almost the same as the Bill of the same name which was introduced by the last Government, except for the powers relating to devolution which were in the last Bill but which are not in this one. In all other respects the terms,
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provisions, and purposes of the two Bills are identical.
The main purpose of the Bill, as the noble Lord said, is to replace Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 with wider powers to help disadvantaged people who belong to ethnic minorities. Perhaps I should say here that I know that some of us, including some of my noble friends, do not particularly like the terms "ethnic groups" or "ethnic minorities", and so on, but it is difficult otherwise to find a comprehensive and all-embracing term to cover the various minorities, black, coloured and white.
For some time now there has been wide and growing agreement that Section 11 has become out-of-date, and that was why the last Government brought in their Bill last year. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has chosen the right moment to introduce his Bill even if the actual timing has been somewhat coincidental. Recent events certainly have—and here I would wholly agree with him—underlined the fact that the existing provisions for helping disadvantaged people who belong to ethnic minorities are out of date. The events that I have particularly in mind recently are the disturbances this month in Bristol. Whatever are found, as a result of the various inquiries which were announced in your Lordships' House on Monday by the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, to be the underlying causes of those disturbances, they have undoubtedly served to focus attention on the need to do more to help our inner city areas and to assist those members of ethnic groups who are at a disadvantage.
As my right honourable friend Mr. Merlyn Rees, the former Home Secretary, pointed out in another place on 3rd April, the day after the Bristol riots, and again last Monday when Statements were made in both Houses, the existing provisions under Section 11 are indeed out-of-date and need to be revised. I share Lord Avebury's views about the weaknesses of the existing provisions. He has already mentioned a number of them, so that I do not need to remind your Lordships about them again.
There were, I think, two additional matters which perhaps the noble Lord might have alluded to, but which certainly can be added to those which I recall he

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mentioned in moving the Second Reading. First, a further serious weakness of the 1966 Act is that the problems which need to be dealt with are wider than can be covered by the problems relating to language and customs which come under that Act. Again, under the existing Act, immigrants have to be in a particular area in substantial numbers, and that means that there is—and the noble Lord may have alluded to this—undoubtedly a statistical difficulty here. It means that some areas which are too small to meet that requirement have to be left out, even though they ought to have the sort of special help which would be possible under this Bill.
The Bill is clearly designed to overcome those weaknesses and deficiencies that the noble Lord mentioned and of which I have also reminded your Lordships. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, also mentioned the reference made by my honourable friend in another place in moving the Second Reading of last year's Bill about the provision of grants, when he said that the consultative document which the then Government had already issued the previous year before introducing their Bill rather overemphasised the short-term nature of the schemes envisaged under it.
It turned out not only in Lord Avebury's survey but also in the course of the discussions that went on on that consultation document that what the local authorities—those of them who were concerned about any matters under these proposals—were concerned about was the short-term nature of the measures which could be undertaken under the proposals as they then stood. As the noble Lord has indicated, my honourable friend said that the Government at that time were prepared to adopt a more flexible attitude and recognise that in some instances longer-term funding should be provided. I mention this only to emphasise that this really shows the value of these consultations. Although that particular consultation document perhaps did not fall within the category of Green Papers, it demonstrated the same sort of principle.
I do not intend to detain your Lordships by going into the matters of principle more fully. The noble Lord has already given a thorough explanation of the Bill.
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I also regard it as of great importance that this reform would widen considerably the categories of services for which money could be provided; notably the broad social service category, including especially the health services. There is only one other matter to which I should like to refer, and that is the survery undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, last November to see what local authorities thought of the proposals in the Bill. That was a useful piece of work, and I am grateful to him for passing on a digest of it.
What struck me particularly about it was the spread of agreement among a large number of local authorities about the need for these provisions, and the fact that these included some of the more sizeable local authorities, but also that there was a great variety of local authorities throughout the country who felt the need for this reform, including, may say, local authorities controlled by different political parties. I very much hope that this spread of support which has emerged as a result of that survey, and indeed in the course of the consultations earlier, will be reflected in your Lordships' House tonight and that noble Lords in all parts will speed this Bill on its way.
7.17 p.m.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, I take rather a different view of this Bill because for many years, in fact since 1959 when my late husband was Secretary of State for the Colonies, I have known many of our friends who are the subject of this Bill. I have met them in their countries of origin. I have also met them since they decided to come to live amongst us. This Bill refers to them all as "ethnic groups" which, like the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, I dislike as a term, but it is a term that perhaps we have to use tonight. This term ethnic groups,
"means a group of persons distinguished by colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins".
The noble Lord seeks by this Bill, as we know, to replace Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966. This section of the Act was put in as a result of very high immigration figures, and the obvious need to help those members of the Commonwealth who were strangers to our environment and whose language and

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customs differed from our community. But in 1968 the number of immigrants from the Commonwealth was 136,000; in 1978, 10 years later, there were 82,000. But taking Africa and West Indies together, in 1968 there were 34,000 and in 1978, 10 years later, that figure was halved and it was 17,000; whereas those who decided to return to their original homes in Africa and the West Indies totalled 12,000 in 1978.
Clause 2 of this Bill asks for grants to be paid to local authorities for removing disadvantages from which an ethnic group suffers. We are all well aware—and sometimes only too well aware—that this group suffers from disadvantages. Their housing on the whole is not as good as we should like, they do not always have equal opportunities of employment and they sometimes find themselves with a lower standard of education. In 1975, for instance, it was found that mothers among them with children under five worked longer hours than other mothers with children of the same age. In Leicester, 85 per cent. of coloured mothers with children under five worked; in Manchester, 77 per cent.; in Bradford, 44 per cent.; and in Wolverhampton, 41 per cent. compared with the national average of 50 per cent. of all mothers with children under-five. Section 11 provides help in all those areas and to implement it the Government expect to contribute in excess of £40 million during the current year under the Act.
To remove—that is the wording of this Bill—all disadvantages is, I am afraid, utopian and will take many decades to bring about, much as we should all like to see it. The next part of the Bill asks for expenditure to secure:
"that the services provided by the local authority are as effective in relation to ethnic groups as they are in relation to the rest of the community".
The services are there. The local government offices are staffed by people trained to help all the citizens of our country and I cannot believe, as the Bill implies, that those who belong to the ethnic groups are treated in any way differently from the others, and Section 11 covers that. In Clause I (2)(c) the Bill asks that expenditure should qualify for a grant for
"promoting good relations between ethnic groups or between ethnic groups and the rest of the community".
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Here again, I suggest that Section 11 and the money provided is able to promote what the noble Lord has in mind.
However, in my view—maybe I am the only person who thinks this way—no amount of legislation, whether under this Bill or Section 11, will promote good relations. That can come about and succeed only if we want it to be a success. Perhaps it is like a marriage; two people decide to live together and they are normally fairly happy and content with their lot. Occasionally there are rows and misunderstandings—perhaps like Bristol—and both partners have to work really hard to re-establish their former harmony. That is where, in my view, the numerous voluntary organisations can and do play a vital part in promoting the good relations we would all like to see. From the churches and meeting places, which should also include carnivals in the streets, to the schools and the homes, I suggest that more can be done in this sphere by people of goodwill than can ever be done by Act of Parliament.
There is another side to this coin. Many of the ethnic groups are now of second generation; they were born and educated here and have grown up here and are now part of our country. They pay their rates and taxes as we do. Although we do what we can to smooth their path, is it not time that we stopped alluding to them and treating them as though they were different? It seems to me that Section 11, backed up by the large amount of money the Government provide and aided by the voluntary agencies, is adequate to deal with this problem. I shall therefore oppose the Bill.
7.25 p.m.
Lord PITT of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, is opposed to the Bill, because she takes a very progressive view on most matters, particularly social matters, and often I tend to agree with her. I am sorry that on this occasion not only do I not agree with her but I doubt whether her late husband would have agreed with her either.
I have said in your Lordships' House more than once that the problem facing this country is not an immigration problem but a race relations problem, and it is necessary for us to address ourselves to

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it as such. So far we have not done so, and if the attendance in your Lordships' House is anything to go by, we are still where we were because when, recently, we were discussing some immigration rules, this House was packed. This evening the House is nearly empty, so we still have not got the point. This country has a race relations problem with which it must deal because unless it deals with it there will be difficulties, and it cannot be dealt with merely by talking about immigration or tightening the immigration rules. The noble Baroness illustrated my point beautifully when she used the illustration of the West Indians and the extent to which they are already going back. But the situation vis-à-vis the indigenous population and the people of West Indian origin in this country has not improved. On the contrary, it is getting worse. We know that most of the youngsters with whom we have problems—I know a great deal about this—are of West Indian origin. Therefore, the fact of West Indian migration having ceased has not changed the subject because the subject always was what it is, namely the need to break down certain barriers.
Of course, all people—I was going to say of a certain class, but I mean people who are working, say, at a certain level or are living in certain areas—have problems in common and those problems are tackled by programmes for inner city areas or programmes of urban aid or by the social services. Yes, those are all ways of dealing with those problems in common, but over and above them, the people who are distinguished by the colour of their skin have additional problems, and that is what we are talking about. It is that racial disadvantage with which we must deal. That racial disadvantage requires additional effort and for that effort there is need for additional resources. I do not know that it is absolutely necessary for the Government to provide the resources in the way we have agreed. For example, the Government could decide that the Commission for Racial Equality should have a very large budget and be required to cooperate with local authorities in dealing with the problems in their areas. That would be one way of providing the necessary resources.
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What I am quite certain about is that the resources need to be provided; what is more, that they need to be aimed at the problems, where the problems are, and where they can be dealt with. Of course, Section 11 of the 1966 Act does not enable us to do that. After all, Section 11 does not apply to the second and third generation blacks in Liverpool, yet they are as racially disadvantaged as are those in Brixton—in many instances more so.
Therefore, we must try to bring ourselves to look at the issues properly and recognise that we have certain problems, that the problems are the result of racial differences and of certain attitudes to race, that those attitudes need to be broken down, that the consequence of those attitudes is that there are certain disadvantages that people of a certain colour suffer, and that that situation must be removed if we are to create a cohesive society.
These are principles which we must all accept and on which we must all work, because unless we do that, we are bound to have trouble. I find it difficult to understand why, following the evidence from the United States—and there is a lot of it—this country has not learnt the lessons that are there to be learnt. The Americans have reached the stage where they have to indulge in positive discrimination. Do you know why they have to indulge in positive discrimination, my Lords? It is because over the years they have allowed their blacks to suffer discrimination which has put the blacks at great disadvantage, and now today the only way that they can balance the situation is by positively discriminating in favour of the blacks.
We do not want to get to that stage. We do not have to get to that stage. What we need to do at this stage is to remove the obstacles. One thing we have done. We have passed a law making discrimination illegal. It deals with overt discrimination. But we must deal with covert discrimination as well; and dealing with covert discrimination is more difficult and requires many of the resources we have been speaking about.
Legislation will not of course remove these obstacles—not by itself. What legislation does is to declare the public's

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attitude to certain matters. That is what we do when we pass legislation. We make certain declarations, and when we pass legislation such as that now before us, in addition we provide some resources to help carry out the declaration that we have made, to help to attain the objective that we have set. That is what we do.
Of course the voluntary organisations will have to do the job, but the local authorities will need the funds to help the voluntary organisations to do that job. This is where the Bill comes in, but, as I said earlier, it could possibly be done in other ways. However, what is required, and what I hope the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, will announce, is a commitment by the Government really to deal with this matter and to provide the necessary resources.
We must provide these resources. We must take seriously not only the question of racial discrimination but also the question of racial disadvantage, because it is racial disadvantage that makes youngsters rebel in the way that they do. They regard the situation as hopeless, and they regard themselves as not belonging; nothing that they can see suggests that they belong; nothing that is done indicates that they are wanted. That is why they rebel, and that is why we must give them hope; we must do things that make them feel that they are wanted. One advantage of a grant would be that many of these youngsters could have a second chance—for instance, through grants to the further education colleges. This is the kind of thing that is required. I have taken more time than I intended to take. I hope that, whatever the final outcome of this particular debate, the Government will firmly fix their minds on the need to deal with the racial disadvantage which exists in this society and which must be overcome.
7.37 p.m.
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for describing his Bill to us with his usual clarity. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, I found the remarks of my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve, speaking from her wide experience and with her usual sympathy and compassion, most persuasive. The noble Lord, Lord Pitt,
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speaks with such invariable charm that I find it quite impossible to venture to cross swords with him in the debate. In fact the mere idea of crossing swords with the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, I find very difficult to conceive.
I wish, in three or four sentences, to say why I am not attracted by the method that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has suggested for the revision of Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966. I do not like the method for two reasons. The first is that the whole aim of this Government, and of most local authorities, is to rely upon the general rate support grant, rather than upon specific grants. A plethora of specific grants tends to complicate administration and to confuse responsibility.
The second reason is that it is my impression that special schemes centrally laid down for ethnic minority groups sometimes tend, contrary to intentions, to segregate such groups further. I like very much what my noble friend Lady Macleod said about what the supreme aim should be with ethnic minority groups. I, too, feel that the aim should be as far as possible to treat their members in the same way as other members of society, with as few as possible being treated as special cases. I can well believe that, in cases where an ethnic group forms a high proportion of the total population, it would be right that this factor might be taken cognisance of in the computation of the rate support grant, as indeed are other factors concerning inner city areas.
I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, may well be right when he says that Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 needs to be looked at again, but I suggest that this should be done, after fresh consultation with the local authority associations, by action initiated by the Government themselves. For those two simple reasons, really, I am not enamoured of the method that Lord Avebury has chosen to revise Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966. I would find it very difficult indeed, therefore, to vote for his Bill as at present drafted.
7.40 p.m.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, although my name is not on the list of speakers, I wonder whether I might ask

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the indulgence of the House to intervene, having listened to the debate. I speak as an ex-local government chief officer, and it is for that reason that I am a little puzzled and bemused by some of the things said by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt. As a local government officer, if one went through the various departments—particularly, I must say, in the area where I worked—one found that whether you were on the housing list did not depend on where you came from, who you were or what you were. What mattered was that you subscribed to the rules and regulations of the housing department. Houses were allocated according to the points system regardless of who you were and where you came from; and I would submit there was no discrimination. I think I would be right in saying that there is no housing department in this country which would discriminate.
Lord PITT of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Baroness? There was a survey carried out not so very long ago—I am sorry the noble Baroness has not read it—in which several local authorities were in fact questioned about their housing policies, and it was discovered that quite a few of them were discriminating.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, I think they may have different points systems. I may be wrong, and the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, may well be right, but certainly the local authorities with whom I have contact had exactly the same points system for everybody in their area, no matter who they were; they just had to subscribe to the points system. Secondly, when it comes to youth clubs, for instance, certainly in the area where I worked everybody was entitled to join a youth club whoever they were, and thought was given to every single person.
I am sitting on a committee of inquiry into the education of children of the ethnic groups, set up by the Department of Education and Science. Certainly I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, that there are problems there, but I would submit that it is not a problem of colour but of culture. It is a problem of how we can weave the culture of the people who have come to this country into our culture, so that both the indigenous
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population and those who have come to this country can be woven in together.
Finally, my Lords, having worked extremely closely with the Community Relations Committee I have learned that one of the great things is that those who have come to our country want the dignity of being treated with equality. They do not want a better service or a worse service; they want the same service. If they do not get the same service, and if they ask for more than is given, nobody realises more than the great friends I have in the ethnic minorities that it will be counter-productive. As I say, I would submit that very often it is a question of culture, not of colour, and that we do not want to discriminate one way or the other for any group in our community.
7.44 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, the provisions of this Bill are very wide, and they have enabled the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, to express his long-standing and deep concern for ethnic minorities and the difficulties which they face. But, although your Lordships who have also spoken in this debate clearly share the noble Lord's concern, not all noble Lords who have spoken see the solution to the problems we have been discussing as being best met by the provisions of this Bill. I should like to make it clear that the Government share the concern which has been expressed, but if the principle of equal opportunities for all our citizens is to be genuine, then I suggest that we must recognise the extent of the problems which face all people whose circumstances call for special help and who live, usually, in the most deprived parts of our inner cities.
That is why the Secretary of State for the Environment has introduced the concept of enterprise zones; that is why we have retained resources for the urban programme; and that, particularly, is the reason why the Government believe that the greatest help they can give to all our citizens—including, of course, ethnic minorities—is to do everything possible to put the economy of the country back on to a healthy and prosperous footing. Unless we can achieve that, efforts to meet the needs of all disadvantaged groups will be fruitless, because there will not be jobs, demand or wealth for people to secure.

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I do not believe that the view I have just expressed differs in any real respect from that of the previous Government, which originally introduced the Bill on which this Bill is based. In November 1978 the previous Administration issued a consultative document, and in paragraph 4 of that document this was written:
"The Government's basic analysis is that a great deal of the disadvantage the minorities suffer is shared with the less well-off members of the indigenous population, and that their most fundamental needs, for example for jobs, housing, education and health services, are essentially the same as those of the general population. It is, therefore, through the main expenditure programmes that these needs should be met, and the Government—like its predecessors—has not thought it right to contemplate meeting all the needs of minorities from special funds separate from main programmes".
Those are the words in the previous Administration's consultative document of November of two years ago.
Lord PITT of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, will the noble Lord go on reading the document? There is another sentence, or another paragraph, just after that, which says something else.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, clearly the previous Government and this Government will be seen, as I say a little more, not to be seeing matters entirely eye to eye; but the paragraph which I have just quoted I think illustrates the point which has been made by many noble Lords in this debate, which is that this Bill goes off in a direction which many noble Lords feel is ill-advised, in that it would set up a wider-ranging, special fund involving significant additional resources. At the moment, the level of expenditure grant aided by Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 amounts to a considerable sum. The 1978–79 grant was paid on a total expenditure of just under £39 million, and we know from the figure given in connection with the previous Government's Bill that additional expenditure was proposed for that of some £10 million in the first year if that Bill had become law, rising to some £24 million additional expenditure in the third year, at 1978 prices, if that Bill had become law. Moreover, legislation of the kind which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is laying before the House would require not only that but additional staff, both centrally and locally,
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at a time when we are trying to restrain the growth of staff in the public service.
Having said that, may I say that I realise it is only natural to want to spend public money on objectives which each one of us considers to be desirable. I have done it many times myself. Indeed, I have ventured to make speeches to your Lordships, and I have certainly listened to a lot of speeches from noble Lords in all parts of the House, saying that this is what we want to do. But I must remind the House that, although total spending grant aided under Section 11 has reached some nearly £40 million, there are now reasons for looking very carefully at extra expenditure. Apart from the need to restrain public expenditure at the present time, many of the problems of community relations I think need solutions other than the mere spending of money; and I am bound to say that the Government are not persuaded that this measure is the best or the most effective way of helping ethnic minorities.
The whole object of the Bill is to enable grants to be paid in respect of work with ethnic minorities in a way which appears to cover not only people who are newly-arrived in this country but also subsequent generations. Such a policy would have the disadvantage of identifying positively people whose families have been citizens of this country for many years and who, certainly in some cases, could resent being picked out in this way.
I was interested in preparing for this debate to learn of an article published last winter in New Community which told of recent research on a cohort of 16-year-olds and which, although finding that ethnic minority children are likely to suffer educational disadvantage—which was what I would expect for a variety of reasons—this no longer applies when you look at the cohort when it refers to second-generation immigrants. It is a finding of that kind which one must take to heart and not always lead to the conclusion that, because people have come to this country from overseas, they therefore continue in the family in subsequent generations to be deprived and to look upon themselves as deprived. I do not believe that that is the case. I do not deny that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury (and Lord Pitt made the same point) may well have a point in saying that

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Section 11, as it is administered at present, focuses too narrowly on the problems of being new to this country.
Soon after taking office, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State announced in another place that he proposed to undertake an early review of the operation of Section 11. The noble Lord mentioned this. I want to tell the House that the review has reached an advanced stage and that it has been looking at precisely the sort of points which were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Boston, in his speech. It has already become clear that there may be scope within the framework of the present legislation for changing the current administrative criteria which restrict the scope of Section 11 grants. But any changes could have implications which need to be studied carefully, and would need to be discussed not only within Government but also with such other interests as the Commission for Racial Equality and the local authority associations.
After listening to the speech made by my noble friend Lord Amory, I think that it would be highly necessary for the Government to discuss seriously with the local authorities what their views were. We certainly hope to be able to make an announcement about the outcome of our review before too long. Meanwhile, I think that my noble friend Lady Macleod was right in claiming that Section 11 is none the less playing a useful part in encouraging equal opportunities. Nearly 90 local authorities now receive grant aid which, in the last financial year, totalled approximately £33 million. For instance, £6 million was paid out last year to the Inner London Education Authority. Without this sort of aid, many authorities would have difficulty in meeting the special needs of ethnic minorities living in their area. These are not simply obvious needs like language teaching. Increasingly, grant aid under Section 11 is helping with the provision of staff and dealing with a range of social problems including housing advice officers, careers and employment advisers and social workers. Moreover, there is no sign of any falling off in the rate of applications for new ventures.
I am in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, in his call for removing racial discrimination, wishing thereby to see
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the consequences of its removal. But I do not think that we should fall into the trap of thinking that the answers to these problems necessarily lie in the field of resources alone. We must surely also be willing to persist in efforts to remove grievances and to fight prejudice and misunderstanding. This, I suggest, is not a job for Government alone. We all have a part to play. The ethnic minorities must play their part in making a wholehearted contribution to the community; but at the same time the problems of the minorities must be met with sympathy and understanding. Life in this country must not be allowed to become a matter of different cultures subsisting in self-contained compartments. I must say that some of the speeches of my noble friends have been made because they fear that the consequence of this Bill would be to perpetuate that situation. All healthy cultures develop; in the context of race relations they can do so only if we break down the barriers, and particularly the barriers of prejudice and intolerance.
It is against this background that the Government believe that in the present situation it is better to strive to improve the working of Section 11 than to replace it. We think it is open to question whether the proposals in the Bill would achieve better results. They certainly would be more costly. This is unacceptable at a time when restraint on public expenditure is such a vital element in trying to improve the economy for everyone. The single best thing that the Government can do for the ethnic minorities is to lay the foundations of a prosperous and healthy economy. At the same time, the Government do not underestimate the gravity of the problems which face us in the short term. I hope that the Statement about Bristol that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary made on Monday proves that the Government are ready to take steps to promote and try to improve race relations.
This debate I think has been valuable and has enabled the Government to make clear that the operation of Section 11 has been actively and genuinely reviewed. However, the Government take the view that the noble Lord's Bill could not be practicably implemented in the present economic situation, even if doubts did not exist (as they do) about the principle of what the noble Lord proposes. I hope

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therefore that following this debate the noble Lord will not wish to proceed to Committee stage.
7.56 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for the information that he has given us about the review of Section 11 of the Local Government Act which is now being conducted by his right honourable friend. I welcome his hint that perhaps the criteria for the award of Section 11 aid might be changed by administrative means that would not require legislation; because whether or not your Lordships agree to give this Bill a Second Reading this evening, I had not anticipated that it would go through all its stages in both Houses by the Summer Recess but I simply felt that by means of the Committee stage we should be able to ventilate some of the problems raised in the other place and which I mentioned earlier.
Before I ask your Lordships to agree to a Second Reading, as I intend to do, I hope I may deal with one or two points raised particularly in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Belstead. He said, as if I had claimed that it was a job for the Government alone to improve race relations, that this is not a job for Government alone and that we must involve voluntary organisations and bodies of all kinds. I did not say that we should not involve them. I am not suggesting that this Bill is a panacea for the removal of disadvantage. I support the efforts that the Government are making through the Commission for Racial Equality and the local CRCs to tackle the job in a variety of ways. To suggest that because we are proposing that certain resources should be devoted to the removal of disadvantage, we are ignoring all other means of tackling the problem is, I think, a little unfair of the noble Lord.
The noble Lord said that in the present economic situation we could not afford to increase the grant aid made available under Section 11, grant aid which, he said, was running at something like £40 million a year. As I said in my speech tonight, we have two options: either to redistribute the amount presently being made available by the Government under Section 11 so as to widen the scope—or, as I put it in the words of the London Borough
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of Enfield, to spread the jam more thinly but probably more equitably than at the moment—or, as the previous Government intended, to increase the amount of resources we are putting into the removal of disadvantage.
While I never said and do not say now that resources are the only key to the solution of this problem, I am in agreement with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, that what we have done is to go to the opposite extreme: we have hidden our heads in the sand and, as he said, the situation has not improved but got worse with the longer period that people belonging to the ethnic minorities have been in the country. With respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, it is not a question of recent arrivals. As I said earlier, this was a mistake that Parliament made at the time of the Local Government Act of 1966 in thinking that the problem would disappear with the lapse of time and that the only people we needed to help were those who had arrived in the last 10 years.
The noble Baroness herself recognised that people who have been here much longer than that suffer from disadvantage. She mentioned in particular housing, employment and education. She said that to remove all these disadvantages was to aim at a kind of Utopia. I agree that in the present economic situation we probably have not the resources to do everything that we should like. In common with certain other priorities that the Government have selected as being immune from the cuts—namely, defence and law and order—the problem of racial disadvantage is of such overriding importance that it would be a mistake to exclude it from this special consideration.
Therefore, my Lords, I ask the House to give this Bill a Second Reading so that we can go into a Committee and discuss more fully the objections that the noble Baroness and others have raised this evening and so that we can continuously monitor, by the discussions that we are having in this House, the developments that the Home Office are bringing forward with regard to the consultations with local authorities and the revision of Section 11. This is the way in which we can keep a close eye on what the Government are doing, and I hope that your Lordship will agree to a Second Reading.
8.1 p.m.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Lord Amherst of Hackney): My Lords, the Question is that this Bill be now read a second time. As many as are of that opinion will say, "Content". To the contrary, "Not-Content". I think the Not-Contents have it.
Several Noble Lords: Content!
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Clear the Bar.
8.5 p.m.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: My Lords, Tellers for the Contents have not been appointed pursuant to Standing Order No. 50. A Division therefore cannot take place, and I declare that the Not-Contents have it.

THE CHILDREN ACT 1975
8.6 p.m.
Lord GIFFORD Lord GIFFORD rose to ask Her Majesty's Government when they intend to bring into operation those provisions of the Children Act 1975 which enable parents to be represented and to obtain legal aid in care proceedings relating to their children in juvenile courts. The noble Lord said: My Lords, may I declare an interest as a member of the Bar who has been involved in cases of child care. The Question which I ask concerns the rights of parents to have proper legal representation when their children are to be taken away by the order of a court and put in the care of a local authority. May I begin by sketching the legal background to what I shall he suggesting is a deplorably unjust state of affairs.
On the last available figures, there were a total of just over 100,000 children in the care of local authorities. Of those, some 48,000 were in care following an order made by a juvenile court under Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969. That provides that a care order can be made mainly in two cases; either when a child has committed a criminal offence or when a child has been proved to have been neglected or ill-treated, and that comprises a total of some 15,000 children in those figures. Those are cases where the conduct, behaviour and actions of the
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child's parents are directly in issue, and very frequently the cases are concerning young babies or infant children.
Sometimes the cases concern evidence of direct physical injuries to the child, the child battering cases. These are probably only a minority of the neglect and ill-treatment cases. There is often a much more general allegation of neglect or inadequacy by the parent, and a failure to bring up the child in a proper and adequate way. These are cases which of course go to the very heart of family life. They raise the rights of people to raise their children without interference by authority unless the necessity for that has been very clearly proved.
The extraordinary thing about these proceedings in the juvenile court is that the parents, whose conduct is so directly in issue, are not officially parties to the proceedings at all. The child is a party; the child may have legal aid. The child may appeal if someone is dissatisfied with the decision. But the parents have only a very limited right to answer any allegations made against them. They do not have any possibility of obtaining legal aid and they do not have any right of appeal. One can compare the procedures in the High Court when a child is a ward of court and often very similar issues are canvassed. There the parents are fully parties to the case. They are represented; they can have legal aid and the child is only a party who may be represented by the Official Solicitor in very exceptional cases.
The experience of those involved is that that is much more just, but the result in the juvenile court is confusion and injustice. There is confusion because the child's lawyer is in a dilemma. You cannot take instructions from a baby or a four-year-old. Therefore, the solicitors involved, if they are conscientious, sometimes bring in an outside expert to advise on the matter, but many rely on their own untrained judgments of what is in the best interests of the child. What they do not do is to put forward and have tested by the court the parents' case on the allegations which have been made. The parents are effectively shut out unless either they can pay for a lawyer to represent them—which is a rare case, because we are dealing mainly with those without the means to pay—or they have the good fortune to

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have a law centre or other kind of free legal service in their neighbourhood.
The same problem arises if a parent wishes to apply to revoke a care order. The parent can do that only in the name of the child. A lawyer is appointed to represent the child, and if the lawyer thinks that the care order should not be revoked the parent has no possibility of making the application. This inevitably results in grave injustice. I do not think I can do anything more apt than to quote from the most recent report of the Lord Chancellor's Legal Aid Advisory Committee for 1978–79, paragraph 43:
"We cannot help expressing our very considerable concern at the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. It cannot be right that parents should be denied full opportunity to put their side of the case where their capacity to discharge their parental responsibilities is in question and where the court has power to sever their relationship with their child. Local authorities instituting such proceedings are invariably represented by solicitors and produce technical evidence from social workers and other child care specialists. It is hard to see how justice can be seen to he done when the parents are denied legal representation to test the evidence supporting the allegations against them. We also believe that the present solution is contrary to the best interests of the children involved. In some cases solicitors may unwittingly fail to represent the best interests of the child through attempting to represent both the parents and the child. In other cases the solicitor representing the child may pay insufficient attention to the parents' view of past events and future prospects. We have no doubt that local authorities always act in what they consider to be the best interests of the child, but it seems unduly sanguine to assume that their view is always right".
I have quoted in full the very informed and authoritative view of that committee.
In relation to the last sentence of that paragraph, the experience of those organisations which have to deal in this field—the Family Rights Group, the Law Centres Federation and the Justice for Children Organisation—is that local authorities, perhaps over-reacting to child tragedies that have occurred, are these days coming to the court too often with flimsy and unjustified cases. The experience is that where the parents can be represented and where they can have their answers put properly before the court and tested, the drastic solution of a care order can frequently be avoided.
The next remarkable fact is that Parliament sought to remedy this state of affairs five years ago. It provided in the Children
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Act 1975 that an order could be made by the court granting separate representation to the child and the parents, and that legal aid could be granted to the parents. Those provisions have not been brought into force, except in a very small minority of cases. This is not just a denial of justice; it is a denial of parliamentary democracy that it should take five years without action being taken to bring into force something which has been passed in to law.
There is said to be a complicating factor, in that the Act also provided for a network of guardians to act on behalf of children. It is said that that provision is difficult to operate and may need review; but that need not hold up the bringing into force of the powers to grant legal aid to parents to answer the case which is made against them in these proceedings. That would not be the ideal solution, but it would remedy the worst injustices which take place.
The estimate made by the Government themselves is that would cost about £1 million, and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor—I am sorry he is not to be the person replying to this debate, because it is from his department's Vote that this money should be coming—has said in a letter to the Family Rights Group:
"I am sorry to say that there are no resources available".
This is a pathetic excuse. We are talking about a mere million pounds against which should be offset the incalculable but considerable savings that would result to local authorities, because less children would be put into care if the cases of their parents were to be adequately presented to the court. But, quite apart from that, surely there are few kinds of case in which it is more important for justice to be done than for the persons involved to be represented. The consequences of a wrong decision are devastating and irreversible to the parents, to the children and to the community at large, and a Government with any decent sense of priorities would have seized upon this as a glaring need.
I fully accept that the predecessors of this Government have neglected this problem and that they did not implement those provisions; but this Government are

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now responsible and I would ask them: When are they going to act?
8.18 p.m.
Lord HOOSON: My Lords, it is amazing that the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, has to ask this Question at the present time, because I was on the committee in another place in 1975 when the Children Bill, as it was then, was going through. There was no dispute as to the right of the parents to be represented in care proceedings. It was only then put as a question of doubt whether the economic circumstances of the country would allow the provisions of Sections 64 and 65 of the Act to be implemented.
Now we are in the position that no one can doubt that a parent should be represented in care proceedings. If one is charged with stealing a can of beans from the shelf of a shop, almost as a matter of course one is entitled to legal aid; yet if one is faced with an application by a local authority which could break up a family—an application for a care order—then no provision exists for legal aid to be given to the parents involved. It is really a ludicrous state of affairs. Our sense of priorities is wrong somewhere along the line, and the sole question for the House is not the justice of the representation of the parents in proceedings of this kind, but a matter of whether the economic excuse justifies a refusal for implementing fully the provisions of Sections 64 and 65 of the Children Act.
I entirely agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, put so very well, and I am grateful to him for his brief historical review, which obviates the need for a repetition. But I could not help thinking that though I have no cause for thinking that I have an interest to declare, in that I have never been briefed so far as I recollect in a care order before a court of this kind, I have often appeared in wardship cases. The contrast between the enormous care which the High Court takes in wardship cases, with adequate representation always available for the parents, and the provisions for representation before magistrates, really beggars description. When one hears that there are over 100,000 children in care, 45,000 of them as a result of proceedings under the 1969 Act, it becomes a high priority
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for any Government to implement fully those provisions to which reference has already been made.
The last Government were greatly to blame, in that they postponed full implementation of Sections 64 and 65, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, rightly observed, the onus of implementing these provisions is now firmly in the court, as it were, of this Government. Surely nobody can dispute that the true nature of care proceedings by a local authority involves a clash of interest between the parents, usually, and the local authority. How is a solicitor who is briefed to appear for a child who is not in a position to give him instructions, to act? Is he to take upon himself a quasi-judicial role and implement his duty according to his own inclination? Some of them, as I understand it, feel inclined only to go to the local authority for the facts and ignore the parents. Others take it for granted that, because the instructions were originally given by the parents, they should follow the instructions of the parents, though the child's interest and the parents' interest may be in conflict. Or are they simply to go around to everybody, like a bee going to each flower and sucking from each flower, deciding for themselves what are the merits of the case and thus taking upon themselves a judicial capacity? The position of the advocate in this kind of situation is impossible.
In view of the great importance that this country has always attached to family life, the enormous rift which takes place in a family if a child is put into care, and the recently and eloquently expressed modern views doubting the efficacy of care, very often, in this kind of situation, surely the time has come when this Government, and any other Government, must acknowledge that the highest priority should be given now to the legal representation of parents in care proceedings and to the implementation of these sections.
8.23 p.m.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, in his Unstarred Question to the Minister. The Children Act 1975 has 109 sections, of which 35½, if I may so put it, have not yet been implemented and it is not known when they will be. It is now 1980. All of the 35½ sections are

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important, but there are some which are more important than others, and I suggest that, in the interests of justice, this is one of the most important which has not been implemented. I had intended to talk about the legal aspect, but as that has been so ably done by the last two speakers I shall leave that out, and perhaps as a social worker I may turn to the human aspect.
Twenty years ago, the battered baby syndrome was not understood or appreciated. It was first written about and investigated by Professor Kemp in Canada. It was then taken up by paediatricians, doctors and psychiatrists in this country notably at the Park Hospital, and it has now been fully identified, though. not always understood. In this country at the moment, social workers are in a terrible dilemma and I have been in that dilemma myself. A case is reported of a child who has sustained an injury. You visit the home and appear to find loving, caring parents, and yet the child has an injury. The mother or the father will give you a good explanation of that injury—"He fell down the stairs", or "He was alone in the room", or "I just went out for a moment". You think that you will leave the child in the home and you go away, but two days later the child sustains another injury so you then remove the child. Alternatively, you remove the child and go home and wonder whether you should have removed that child.
The media—and the media may be quite right—have so emphasised these cases in the Press, because, sadly, in our Press bad news is good money-making news and there have been many inquiries into the battered baby which I need hardly enumerate. Unfortunately, it is always seen that blame must be apportioned to somebody. This is how the inquiries seem to take place. Because of the growing number of inquiries—probably quite rightly—because of the growing feeling that blame should he apportioned, there has been a swing towards removing children in order to be on the safe side. This is very important, because it means that some parents may well be suffering when they should not be. On the other hand, we should not blame the social workers, because they have stood to be corrected by so many inquiries and by so many people in the media, that they have come to feel that they must remove the
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child. Therefore, it is vitally important that this section, to which the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, has referred, should be implemented, so that parents have separate representation from the children.
It is a tragedy that we in this country have so many children in custodial care. According to the rules and regulations, those cases of children in care should be reviewed every six months for a plan to be made. But, sadly, this is often not done and children remain in care for far too long, thus being deprived, ultimately, of parents and family life. I realise that there is a lack of resources and I am sure that this will be one of the reasons given by the Minister. Therefore, would it not be possible, perhaps, to implement Section 32A if not Section 32B as a first step? Obviously, we should all prefer both sections to be implemented. But if there is said to be a lack of resources, could we not implement Section 32A, allowing for separate representation? The present position is not in accordance with justice as we understand it in the United Kingdom.
I wonder whether the Minister will forgive me, if I improve the shining hour and save your Lordships another Unstarred Question in the House, by asking about some of the other sections which have not been implemented. Can the Minister say when it is likely that Section 1(2), providing for a comprehensive adoption service in this country, is likely to be implemented? I appreciate that this involves the approval of voluntary agencies by the Department of Health and Social Security, and that it therefore has manpower implications for the Civil Service. But it is estimated that there are in this country 8,000 children with special needs who are awaiting adoption. The cost of 100 children remaining in care in institutions for five years is £2 million. Surely, with the very good work that is being done at the moment by local authorities, voluntary adoption agencies, the Adoption Resource Exchange, one could look to implementing Parts I and II and thus saving the country £2 million.
Furthermore if this section is not implemented in the very near future, a number of voluntary agencies will go out of business, if I can put it that way. It is the policy of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to support voluntary agencies. From the point of view of the

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pathos and sadness of a woman giving up her child, we would hope that the Minister would look at Sections 14 and 16 which cover the freeing of a child for adoption. It would cost nothing, or very little, to prohibit private placements under Section 28.
I make no apology for bringing in some other points under this Act which have not been implemented but which would give a family to children who have no family, and would give parents who have been unjustly treated—as Lord Gifford said—hope that they may care for their own children.
8.31 p.m.
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, we have had a contribution from the noble Baroness from the point of view of a social worker, and from two noble Lords who have spoken the legal point of view. I should like very briefly to add my voice from the point of view of somebody who was responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services in Northern Ireland for two and a half years. In that period I certainly became very much aware of the sense of injustice, the sense of frustration and the sense of bewilderment that many parents who had had their children taken away from them and placed in care felt because of the lack of legal representation to which my noble friend has drawn attention in this Question.
I was also going to stress, but I will not repeat it at length because the noble Baroness has put it better than I would have done, the twin contradictory pressures which the social services are under. On the one hand there is a growing body of evidence about the inappropriateness of institutional care, or indeed fostering, as opposed to children remaining at home except in cases where it really is justified by the most extreme circumstances at home. All the evidence shows that placement in care is likely to lead to appalling problems in the future for the children who are placed in care. On the other hand, as the noble Baroness said, there are the ever-increasing pressures under which the social services are placed, in my view largely because of quite unrealistic expectations that social workers are able to prevent every child in the country being physically damaged or attacked in any possible way by its parents.
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The noble Baroness mentioned the lengthy, long drawn-out and very well publicised inquiries which take place when the social services are alleged to have made the wrong decision. It seems to me that that latter point must inevitably, as the noble Baroness said, increase the pressure on social services to play it safe and to apply to have children placed in care if they feel that there is some risk involved. I regret that; I am sure social workers regret that. I certainly do not blame them. They are under-resourced, under-financed, under-staffed and facing enormous pressures. Nevertheless, it seems to me to give added urgency to the point which my noble friend has raised.
I have the feeling in this debate that a number of us feel that the case that has been put to the Government is so strong that there is no great need to emphasise that but rather that it is necessary to meet the financial argument which I suspect we all feel is going to come from the noble Lord when he replies to my noble friend's question.
A number of points have been made about that. Maybe I could also try a point on the noble Lord. I am well aware that the argument that if you spend some money on X it will save money on Y does not go down particularly well with the Treasury, and even more so when the savings are on one department's Vote and the expenditure on another department's Vote. But in this case it seems to me that the potential savings are so far out of scale with the likely expenditure that that really should not be a stumbling block.
As I understand it—as I am not sure if my figures tally with those of the noble Baroness, and I did not have time to work it out as she was speaking, perhaps the Minister could confirm this for me—and as far as I have been able to calculate it, the cost of keeping the 46,000-odd children who are in care under this particular section was about £115 million in 1978. I say "about"; I wonder whether the Minister has a more up-to-date figure than that because, as I say, that was for 1978.
It seems to me likely on previous evidence of the outcome of court cases where defendants are or are not legally represented that one could expect really quite a substantial change in the outcome of

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cases. Evidence from previous research into the effect of legal representation on the outcome of cases I do not have at my fingertips, but one would expect the change to be of the order of 10 to 20 per cent.—something of that sort. Assuming it produced simply a 2 per cent. drop in the number of children put into care under this section, there would be a saving of £2.3 million at 1978 prices in a full year—double the estimate of the likely expenditure. That is taking the most modest possible implications of implementing the proposals which my noble friend has put forward. It really does seem to me on that basis that any financial argument which the noble Lord might have been asked before the debate to put to your Lordships really should not be advanced, because it will not hold water.
The financial points are obviously important, and I hope the noble Lords will have been convinced by what I have said on that. It does seem to me that there are other arguments: the argument of natural justice and the other arguments that have been put forward by noble Lords and the noble Baroness are of far greater importance. This is a vitally important decision. The decision to place a child in care will give a local authority complete control over the parents' access to their child. It seems to me to be a growing problem. I heard a representative of the NSPCC say recently that they expected far more cases of children having to be taken into care under this section because of the growing problems of poverty, of unemployment, and because of the cutbacks that have been made in areas like housing and the social services.
It seems to me that fundamentally the system of justice, the delivery of justice would be enormously improved were the local authority to be properly questioned, expertly questioned, about their reasons for wanting to take a child into care, the sorts of benefit they thought would be derived from that step and the sorts of risk which they thought would be taken by leaving a child at home, particularly as I have said because of the overwhelming evidence of the damage that placing children in care tends to do to their future lives.
Also, of course, for those involved—and this was very much my experience as a Minister dealing with complaints, letters
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and individual cases in this field—the allegations that are made against parents by local authorities are of the most serious kind: allegations that parents are likely to kill their child if the child remains with them. It really does seem to me an appalling denial of natural justice that in those circumstances the parents should feel not only that they have no right to legal representation themselves, but very often that there are two lawyers in the court—the local authority's and the child's—who are actually speaking against them.
For those reasons, and not for the economic ones which may weigh with the Government but which I must confess do not seem to be the most important ones, I would hope the noble Lord would be able to give us a positive reply to what has so far been, and will continue to be, a unanimous debate this evening.
8.40 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I recognise that I am in a very vulnerable position because I am sure that the noble Lord the Minister, and I shall not altogether blame him if he does, will have to say to your Lordships—I found myself in this position several times when I was in the department—that it is not possible to implement a large number of the sections of the Children Act 1975. I am not unmindful of the situation because I introduced the Children Bill, as it was then, into your Lordships' House when I was in the department. One often has to take the Government's view, which often is contrary to one's own view. It is no secret among my friends that I experienced a great deal of disappointment when the Government of which I was a member were unable to implement this particular section.
I do not want to deal with the legal aspects because they have been so admirably dealt with, first by my noble friend Lord Gifford and then by the noble Lord, Lord Hooson. What I want to do is to remind the Minister, if it is necessary to do so, that during the passage of the Children Bill we had a long drawn out discussion in your Lordships' House as to what was the most important part and the most important thing. I cannot remember the actual words, but after

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much discussion there was general agreement in both Houses that the Bill was concerned with the interests of the child. I think the final decision was that the interests of the child were of paramount importance. I want to ask the Minister—it is not that I have been converted; as I have said, it is a view which I have always held—to concern himself with the one important factor: that the interests of the child are of paramount importance.
There is a good deal of anxiety on the part of social workers who are familiar with care proceedings in juvenile courts. Obviously statistics upon this particular matter to which I want to make reference will not be kept, but if the parties were represented in both criminal cases and care proceedings I am sure that there would not be so many convictions and that there would not be so many care orders. Many, many social workers know from personal experience, as I know from personal experience, that if a person is represented then at least the whole of the thoughts and feelings of that individual are put before the bench, or are put before the magistrates.
There have been a good many acquittals in criminal cases which would not have happened if the person had not been represented. I am equally prepared to say, because I believe it to be true, that fewer care orders would have been made if the parents had been represented. But because they were not represented orders were made, often on the grounds that the noble Baroness mentioned—that is, the dilemma facing social workers who feel that they have got to bring these cases because there is an element of doubt in their minds. But it is the court which makes the decision, and the court often makes the decision on evidence that is not all that strong. We are, and have been for years, removing children from their homes far too readily and far too easily.
Different conclusions are arrived at when children or parents are represented. As things are at present, there is a real risk that justice will not be seen to be done; nor will it have been done in some instances where the parents are not legally represented. In care proceedings, the child himself, not the parents, is the respondent. In the normal way, the court would consider the parents as having the
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child's interests in the forefront of their minds. In care proceedings, however, the issue may well be, and often is: are the parents good, responsible parents? Where the parents' behaviour, attitude and conduct towards the child are in question, then there might be a conflict of interest so far as the child and its parents are concerned.
As we have been told, the child is entitled to legal aid, but unless the parents themselves are in a position to brief and pay for a solicitor and so are in a position to question, challenge and disprove some if not all of the allegations being made about their competence as parents, the court very often has not the best evidence before it upon which to make a judgment. In a letter which I received recently I was told—and I quote:
"At one time a solicitor representing a child in care proceedings automatically took his instructions from the child's parents, thus ensuring their views were made known to the court. Now lawyers are conscious that they represent only the child. Frequently they will not seek instructions from the parents but will make their own assessment of what case should be put to the court in response to that brought by the local authority".
Few parents can afford legal aid, and as yet they are not eligible for legal aid. Parents must of necessity, as things are at the moment, feel at a considerable disadvantage.
My noble friend Lord Melchett made some reference to cost and the Government's attitude towards it. I do not seek to defend the last Government who in this matter were wrong time and time again. If this Government are going to take the same line, I think that they will be equally wrong. We have 100,700 children in care—at least we did on 31st March 1978; I have been unable to get any more recent figures—at a cost of something over £199 million. It means that it costs upwards of £2,000, and in some cases £3,000, a year to keep a child in care.
One could talk about the harm that can be done by taking a child into care. Harm is often done. Professional social workers with many years of experience behind them will say that very often a bad home is better than no family home at all. Of course, some children have got to be removed, but over the years there has been a tendency to take children

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away because, if something dreadful happens, like a Maria Colwell, there will then be a public outcry and people will be pilloried for not taking some kind of action at a particular time. I think it is important that we should ask the Government to look at this matter.
What is a million pounds in a budget of I do not know how many tens of thousands of millions? I believe it would make justice be seen to be done; I think it would mean that parents would at least feel that their point of view had been put fairly and squarely and fully and frankly to the court. I do not think my noble friend Lord Gifford will mind my saying that I do not think the solution to the problem rests solely with the granting of legal aid to parents, important as that is—and I believe that to be very important indeed. After all, it is their child. They have a right to express an opinion, and if they cannot do it themselves they have the right to have somebody to do it for them. I think we need to look at the care proceedings process as it is at the present moment and what in fact actually happens in court.
The provision in the Act for the appointment of a guardian ad litem has, I believe, not yet been implemented, and I believe the guardian ad litem should be an experienced social worker. I believe I am right in saying that this was envisaged in the discussions that we had in 1974 and 1975, that the guardian ad litem would be a qualified—and I really mean qualified—social worker who would be able to assist the court by producing an independent report. I should prefer to see the two things go together, but if I have to choose I come down on the side of providing legal aid for parents, for the reasons that everybody who has spoken tonight has given.
I lay myself open now to a charge of being political. That is not unknown so far as I am concerned. I do not intend this to be a political criticism but I was reading The Times yesterday and I read this:
"More children are likely to be physically ill-treated by their parents because of tensions caused by Britain's increasing economic difficulties. That is the view of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children".
It goes on to say this:
"The threat of an economic recession, high unemployment, fears of redundancy, rising prices,
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diminished support from public funds—all these factors add to family tensions and to the risk of children becoming scapegoats".
I ask my noble friend opposite not to interpret this as a political criticism, but this is the situation that has been happening, not just since this Government have been in power. It happened long before we had economic difficulties. Very often certain families can stand so much and then there is a crack-up. Sometimes it is only a temporary crack-up but the children suffer.
That is not, in itself, a good enough reason for whisking up children, taking them out of their home and putting them in care. What it needs is for somebody to be able to assess the situation and, what is even much more important, is for the parents, if they should find themselves in that position, to be able to be legally represented, so that the court may be made perfectly clear that this is not something that is general within that family but is a situation which has been caused by some kind of emergency.
I am not concerned with just saving £2,500 a year, although of course that is important, but if we can keep children in their own home they will perhaps get a far better basis and understanding of companionship and family life. I have been in some awful homes when I was a professional social worker—places in which I did not want to spend more than a few minutes; but there was an awful lot of love in between the clouting and the walloping, and I think we must be very careful that we do not remove children unnecessarily. I believe there is that danger unless the court is fully informed of the situation. The court can only be fully informed either if the parents can speak for themselves—and many of them are not articulate enough to do it, but that does not mean that they are bad parents—or if they cannot do it themselves, through the services of a competent lawyer who can do it for them.
I do not know, but I think the noble Lord may well be in a position where he cannot give any undertakings today. I have been impressed by the small number of people who have spoken in this debate, but I have also been impressed by the fact that we are a cross-section. It so happens that we represent the three major parties in your Lordships' House, and I wonder whether

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the noble Lord will have a word with his right honourable friend the Secretary of State and ask him whether he would be prepared to meet the five of us who have taken part in this debate tonight. He may well feel that it will not serve any useful purpose, but I am sure that if we could meet him we might get the £1 million that we need to do this.
8.56 p.m.
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I think that was a very interesting suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell, and I will certainly put it to my right honourable friend and see what he has to say. I am also sure that he will read with very great interest what I think have been extremely interesting speeches from all sides of the House on this matter. The fact that I am not going to make a very encouraging reply is, of course, another point. It might be helpful if I were first to explain the present position with regard to Sections 64 and 65 of the Children Act 1975, the provision which, when fully implemented, will enable courts to grant legal aid to parents so that they may be separately represented in care proceedings.
Section 64 was the subject of much discussion in this House five years ago. Your Lordships may recall that it enables a juvenile court in care proceedings to make an order which will prohibit the parents of a child from representing him or otherwise acting on his behalf in the proceedings if it appears to the court that there is a conflict of interest between the child and his parents. Courts are likely to find that such a conflict of interest exists in any proceedings brought on grounds of ill-treatment or neglect or exposure to moral danger. The order made by the court is sometimes referred to as a separation order or an exclusion order.
Where a court has made a separation order, it may appoint a suitably qualified independent person—a guardian ad litem—to act for the child in the proceedings. Such a person would be expected to bring to bear social work expertise in deciding where the child's best interests lie. When the Act is fully implemented, there will be power under Section 103 for local authorities to establish panels of persons from which courts will be able to appoint
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guardians ad litem in both care and adoption proceedings. I should make it clear at this point that the appointment of a guardian ad litem to act for the child would not preclude the court from granting the child legal aid so that he may also be represented by a solicitor in appropriate cases. Where both a solicitor and a guardian ad litem have been appointed to act for the child, the guardian ad litem would be expected to give instructions to the solicitor on the conduct of the child's case. After the court has made a separation order, whether or not it appoints a guardian ad litem for the child, it may then, under Section 65 of the Act, grant legal aid to the parents so that they may be represented by a solicitor in the proceedings. It will be clear from this brief explanation of the working of Sections 64 and 65 that the two sections are interrelated in so far as the power to grant legal aid to parents is restricted to cases in which the court has already made a separation-order under Section 64.
This is how the separate representation provisions of the Children Act 1975 would work if Section 64 were fully implemented. However, although Section 65 came into force on 26th November 1976, it has only been possible to bring into force that part of Section 64 which enables parents and children to be separately represented in proceedings arising from unopposed applications for the discharge of care or supervision orders; that is, applications made by the parents which are not opposed by the local authority.
These are proceedings of the kind which led to the return of Maria Colwell to her mother and where the Government of the day felt that there was the greatest danger that the child's interests might not be fully protected because of the local authority's decision not to oppose the application by the parent for the discharge of the relevant order. If I may now direct myself to replying to the noble Lord's Question, Her Majesty's Government do not have any immediate plans for bringing into force the remainder of Section 64 so as to enable parents and children to be separately represented in all care proceedings, including those where the application is opposed. I realise that this will be depressing news, particularly for those Members of this House, who,

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five years ago, welcomed with such enthusiasm the separate representation provisions in the Children Act.
This House may well ask why we have been able to make so little progress since 1975. The answer lies in the fact that Section 64 has appreciable resource implications for local authorities and the probation service who would be expected to provide from their staffs most of the members of the panels from which courts would appoint guardians ad litem and also because the granting of legal aid to parents would place an appreciable burden on the legal aid fund.
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord if he is leaving that point. He spoke of an appreciable burden on the legal aid fund. Would he care to quantify that more clearly?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: Yes, my Lords; I will be coming to that. When the 1975 Children Act was passed, the Government of the day made it clear in another place that many of the Act's desirable provisions could only be implemented when additional resources became available. It was recognised that the separate representation provisions involved high cost and that it would only be possible to make a modest start by bringing into force the low-cost provision relating to unopposed proceedings to which I have already referred.
The Government are committed to the main aims of the Children Act and are anxious to bring into force any remaining provisions which do not have resource implications for local authorities, the probation service and the courts. My noble friend Lady Faithfull asked what we might be doing in that respect. The Government have stated that their aim would be the speedy introduction of any of the provisions which are identified as needing no extra resources. They hope that these might include the provisions for approval of voluntary adoption societies freeing children for adoption and approved adoption allowances, because these provisions have frequently been mentioned in representations we have received. No decisions have been made about the timing or order of implementation of other provisions which have resource implications for local authorities.
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This must be considered in the context of the Government's overall strategy of controlling the growth of public expenditure.
With this end in view my right honourable friend has set up a joint working party—which includes representatives of the local authority associations—to cost the unimplemented provisions of the Act. The working party is expected to report by the summer and their report will include an estimate of the cost of implementing the remainder of Section 64. But it will come as no surprise to this House to learn that the financial situation of local authorities has worsened since the Act was passed in 1975; and that the prospects of local authorities being able to undertake the work of establishing panels of guardians ad litem is even less favourable now than it was in 1975.
The problem is not simply one of money. Guardians ad litem will need to be persons with a high level of social work skills; persons who will need to examine their social work colleagues' records and possibly question their practice and judgments in particular cases. They will need to have advocacy skills and may have to cross-examine others or stand up to cross-examination themselves, particularly if they disagree with the line taken by the local authority in the case. The number of professionally trained social workers and probation officers with these skills is likely to be limited; so it is not just a question of money but also one of manpower and training.
Then, of course, there is the question of legal aid for the parents who are made the subject of separation orders. The overall cost of providing legal aid in this way would obviously depend upon the number of cases in which courts made separation orders. It is estimated, on the basis of the present number of care cases dealt with in the courts, that such orders might be made in about 4,500 to 5,000 cases a year. In that event the cost of legal aid might very well be of the order of £1 million a year. If it was necessary for parents to be represented separately from each other in some cases, the cost would be correspondingly greater.
My Lords, unpleasant as these facts are, they are facts that we have to face and I must tell this House frankly that, in

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the light of current constraints on public expenditure, there is little prospect of our being able to bring into force the remainder of Section 64 in the foreseeable future: officials of the departments concerned are, however, considering whether a further partial implementation of Section 64 would be feasible and effective in achieving the objectives of this section, subject of course to the necessary financial resources becoming available in due course.
The fact that parents cannot normally obtain legal aid to be represented in care proceedings does not mean that no help at all is available to them. In the first place, they may obtain legal advice and assistance under the so-called "green form" scheme. Under that scheme a solicitor can advise the parents and prepare their case for them, but he cannot represent them in court. Secondly, I am pleased to say that many law centres help to meet this gap in the legal aid scheme by representing parents whose children are the subject of care proceedings. However, no one would pretend that those sources of help are fully adequate substitutes for legal aid, and I am sure that the House will join me in hoping that, resources permitting, a way will be found to resolve this problem in the not too distant future.
I was asked a question by the noble Lords, Lord Gifford and Lord Melchett. The Lord Chancellor accepts that as a matter of natural justice parents should have legal representation to meet allegations made against them. He has said before that as soon as resources permit he would like to make provision for legal aid to be made available to parents in such circumstances.
Lord GIFFORD: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask two questions for clarification? First, can he confirm clearly that it would be perfectly possible and lawful to implement the provisions of Section 64 regarding legal aid without implementing the guardians ad litem provisions, which could then be deferred to a further date? Secondly, in relation to the mention of a study by officials of the department into the partial implementation of Section 64, is this concerned with legal aid, and how long is this particular study going to take?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, we should have the study by this summer. I am not sure that I can answer the noble Lord's first question; I think so, but I am not absolutely certain.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him whether he is taking steps to discuss with the Magistrates' Association the implementation of Section 64, keeping in mind the fact—if he is thinking about the financial aspect—that the magistrates in this country are saving millions of pounds because they give their services free, and the fact that the juvenile panel is very anxious to see that Section 64 is brought into full effect?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. I am now able to answer the question that I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Gifford. It is possible to implement legal aid without guardians ad litem.

ALEXANDRA PARK AND PALACE BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Select Committee with amendments.
  EDUCATION DISCRETIONARY AWARDS
  EDUCATION DISCRETIONARY AWARDS
  FULL VALUE DISCRETIONARY AWARDS IN 1978–79—NUMBER AND LEA EXPENDITURE ON MAINTENANCE AND FEES, FOR ENGLAND AND WALES
  FULL VALUE DISCRETIONARY AWARDS IN 1978–79—NUMBER AND LEA EXPENDITURE ON MAINTENANCE AND FEES, FOR ENGLAND AND WALES
  IMMIGRATION POLICY AND UKIAS/UNHCR
  IMMIGRATION POLICY AND UKIAS/UNHCR
  UN DISARMAMENT COMMITTEE: MEMBERSHIP
  UN DISARMAMENT COMMITTEE: MEMBERSHIP
  LIVE ANIMAL EXPORTS: PORTSMOUTH CITY COUNCIL BILL
  LIVE ANIMAL EXPORTS: PORTSMOUTH CITY COUNCIL BILL
  BULL CALVES: EXPORT TO ITALY
  BULL CALVES: EXPORT TO ITALY
  IMF LOAN: BALANCE OUTSTANDING
  IMF LOAN: BALANCE OUTSTANDING