Sitting of 15 January 1980

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS

  DARTMOOR COMMONS BILL [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Thursday.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  DEFENCE

    Rhodesia
    Mr. Buckasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement concerning the deployment of British forces in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Francis Pym): A rapid airlift of Service personnel and equipment from the United Kingdom was undertaken by the Royal Air Force, with help from the United States Air Force, immediately after the signing of the ceasefire agreement. Monitoring teams have now been deployed throughout Rhodesia to observe and report on the maintenance of the ceasefire. The total strength of the organisation is currently about 1,450 Service personnel from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Kenya and Fiji.
    I would like to take this opportunity of paying a tribute to the professionalism of these Service men, their high morale and the courage and initiative with which
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    they have undertaken this unique and demanding task.
    Mr. Buck: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Is he aware that he carries the whole House with him in his tribute to our armed forces, who, I am sure, will display the same humanity, courage and resolution that they have shown in Northern Ireland? Will he assure the House that the support, logistic and otherwise, that is necessary for our armed forces to undertake that almost impossible task will be forthcoming from our resources and those of our allies, should that be necessary?
    Mr. Pym: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for his remarks. I can give him the assurance that he asked for.
    Mr. Newens: What are the latest instructions to British forces for dealing with guerrilla units that have not gone to the agreed assembly points? What steps is the Minister taking to prevent further clashes and casualties which could arise when former Muzorewa Government security forces meet guerrilla units?
    Mr. Pym: It is the role of the force from the Commonwealth to monitor ceasefire activities, under the direction of the Governor. Thus far they have achieved that objective remarkably successfully.
    Mr. Alan Clark: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the forces in Rhodesia are adequately armed to deal with any contingency that may arise?
    Mr. Pym: Because their role is to monitor the ceasefire, they are armed only for their personal protection.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: Does the Minister agree that, if there was a close liaison with the Government to make sure that British forces were on the spot to monitor what the Rhodesian security forces are doing, they would be better able to do their job? Is not the killing of guerrillas who were seeking to give up fighting to be deplored?
    Mr. Pym:I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that the monitoring force was not in any way involved in that incident. The degree of co-operation and liaison that has been achieved is expressed by the results so far. I would

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    not like the House to be under any illusion that the exercise that the armed forces are engaged in is other than extremely demanding and hazardous. We hope that it will be carried through to a successful conclusion.
    Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: I welcome the help given by the Americans, but may I ask whether the size and type of assistance given by the American airlift suggests that our own airlift capabilities have been run down rather too fast?
    Mr. Pym: We are very grateful for the help that we received from the United States Air Force. I must point out that about two-thirds of the sorties that were required to move the stores were undertaken by the RAF and slightly more than one-third by the USAF. It would have been possible for the RAF to carry out the whole exercise but it would have taken longer. Clearly, timing was the essence of the exercise and therefore we were grateful for the assistance of the USAF which enabled the movement of troops to be completed so quickly.
    Mr. Concannon: I agree with the Secretary of State about the monitoring force, which has a unique and demanding role. I would not wish to make it any harder or more demanding. Is the Secretary of State aware that some of us are a little worried about the South African forces at the Beitbridge? Is there any way in which this anomalous and indefensible situation can be righted, even if it means more work for the monitoring forces?
    Mr. Pym: That is really a matter for the Governor and, in so far as it affects this House, for my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal. Clearly, this is an important matter which has been fully considered, as have all aspects of the issue. A certain view has been taken by the Governor, and I cannot add anything to that.

    Nuclear Disarmament
    Mr. Norman Atkinsonasked the Secretary of State for Defence how many nuclear weapons Great Britain has destroyed as a result of nuclear disarmament talks at any time since their introduction.
    Mr. Pym: None. The United Kingdom is a party to all the nuclear arms
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    control treaties open to it and has fulfilled all its obligations under them. None of these has required us to destroy any of our nuclear weapons.
    Mr. Atkinson: Does the Secretary of State not agree that it is appalling that none of the negotiated nuclear reductions has ever taken place or that no obsolete weapons have been destroyed, dismantled or withdrawn from service? Will he give an undertaking that he will withdraw the 572 Pershing 1 and cruise missiles from service, and if necessary, under international inspection, destroy them once they are taken out of service?
    Mr. Pym: The hon. Member has referred to weapon systems that belong to the United States. They are not British weapons. As the hon. Member knows, the United States has made an offer about the withdrawal of warheads which has so far received a negative response. There has been no involvement of British weapons in the theatre nuclear force modernisation to which the hon. Member referred.
    Mr. Cormack: Can my right hon. Friend tell the House how many nuclear weapons the Soviet Union has destroyed, and how much that country has spent on nuclear weapons in the last three years?
    Mr. Pym: I do not know how much the Soviet Union has spent, but I know that it has been very slow in withdrawing some nuclear warheads—especially the SS4s and SS5s which had been expected to be withdrawn at a certain rate. In the meantime, Russian SS20s have been built up at a rate which causes the Alliance considerable concern.
    Mr. Cook: Has the Secretary of State read the speech in another place by Lord Carver, the former Chief of Defence Staff? If he has not, will he do so; and, if he has, did he notice the statement of the former Chief of Defence Staff to the effect that in 20 years he had never found a single realistic scenario in which Britain would use the nuclear deterrent independently? Is it not, as Lord Carver said, simply political machismo that has kept that deterrent going?
    Mr. Pym: Lord Carver is entitled to his opinion, as is the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook). The Government have a responsibility for the

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    security of the realm. It has been, and it remains, our view that nuclear weapons of various types are a necessary element of our defence capability.

    Armed Forces (Training)
    Mr. Guy Barnettasked the Secretary of State for Defence whether purpose-built intelligence centres exist for training members of the armed forces and others to withstand coercive methods of interrogation such as interrogation in depth; how many such centres there are; what training is given; and how many personnel have been involved in such training, both officers and other ranks.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. Barney Hayhoe): There are three Service establishments at which facilities exist for training in resistance to interrogation. The training, which is voluntary, is designed to give certain special categories of Service men who are prone to capture in time of war additional confidence to resist interrogation techniques to which they could be subjected. In the last full training year some 340 personnel received such training.
    Mr. Barnett: Will the Minister tell us whether the torture of trainees is included in the training given in these establishments? Will he tell us whether there is any evidence that the experience of torture has the effect of increasing the victime's resistance to torture later on?
    Mr. Hayhoe: The use of the word "torture" is not in any way justified by the training given. Certainly there is a degree of physical hardship and mental stress involved in that training, but it is done under medical supervision. Those involved are volunteers and, although there are many who wish to take part in this training, there are not enough places for them. The hon. Member's comments are not justified.
    Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: Will the Minister bear in mind the experience of our troops who were captured in Korea? In view of the recent advancement in brainwashing techniques, would it not be highly irresponsible for this Government not to ensure that our officers and senior warrant officers were trained, both in resisting capture and resisting the techniques that might be used upon them by a potential enemy?
    Mr. Hayhoe: I think that the training that is undertaken is wholly justified and it would be wrong if our Service men were denied this opportunity.
    Mr. Hooley: Would the Government not be better employed in supporting international efforts for the abolition of torture rather than indulging in experimenting in it?
    Mr. Hayhoe: We have certainly co-operated with the efforts of Amnesty International in the past. Obviously we are not involved in torturing anyone, but we do believe that it is right and proper that this training should be given to our own Service personnel where it is appropriate.

    Nuclear Weapons
    Mr. Canavanasked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he will make a statement outlining the Government's up-to-date policy on nuclear weapons.
    Mr. Pym: Until we can ensure peace and stability in Europe without the need for nuclear weapons, the Government believe that NATO must maintain a full range of such weapons to deter potential aggressors.
    Mr. Canavan: What is the most up-to-date estimate of the increase in public expenditure required for the new theatre nuclear forces and the replacement of Polaris? What possible justification is there for increasing public expenditure on such weapons of mass destruction, especially when this Tory Government are cutting back on public expenditure on essential social services such as housing and education?
    Mr. Cormack: Afghanistan.
    Mr. Pym: The overwhelming proportion of the cost of the modernisation programme of long range theatre nuclear weapons will be borne by our ally, the United States. The cost of the United Kingdom contribution to that programme is of the order of £10 million, which is comparatively modest, bearing in mind the benefit that will accrue from it. The justification for increasing defence expenditure, as the Conservative Party has long made clear, is the fact that the world is becoming less safe rather than more safe, and it is the priority and responsibility of any Government to protect the realm. That is why we attach such importance to defence.
    Mr. McQuarrie: Is it the intention of the Government to site any of these nuclear weapons in the territory of Gibraltar?
    Mr. Pym: There is no such plan to do so, or thought of doing so, at present.
    Mr. Marks: Should we not show our faith in the NATO Alliance and the United States' participation in it by doing away with our so-called independent nuclear deterrent?
    Mr. Pym: This Government and our predecessors have taken the view that the independent nuclear deterrent in the hands of the United Kingdom is an important addition to the deterrence capability of the whole Alliance. Not only do this Government support that view, but all our allies are of the same view—in other words, it is an added strength to the Alliance for the United Kingdom to have this independent nuclear deterrent of its own.

    Nuclear Deterrent
    Mr. Chapmanasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a further statement on the deployment by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation of new United States nuclear missiles in certain Western Europe countries.
    Mr. Temple-Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on progress being achieved towards a theatre nuclear deterrent.
    Mr. Pym: I have nothing to add to the statement that I made to the House on 13 December.
    Mr. Chapman: Lest discussion on this crucial issue becomes unnecessarily confused, can my right hon. Friend confirm that the result of the modernisation programme is to replace Pershing launchers by an equal number and to reduce the number of nuclear warheads in Europe? If so, will he accept that that policy of modernisation without proliferation is to be warmly welcomed?
    Mr. Pym: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he says. We never intended this decision to cause the nuclear element of the Alliance's defence capability to increase. It was the modernisation of a capability of a certain propor-
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    tion. It was not the purpose to increase that proportion.
    Mr. Temple-Morris: Will my right hon. Friend accept that recent events in Afghanistan abundantly vindicate the strong line taken by Her Majesty's Government over theatre nuclear deterrents? Will he continue—with the support, at least, of the Conservative side of the House—to exert pressure on other members of NATO to accept bases?
    Mr. Pym: I believe that those sentiments will be echoed much wider than merely on this side of the House. The events in Afghanistan during the recess have given the clearest possible expression of the kind of activity that certain countries—the Soviet Union, in this case—are prepared to undertake, given the possibility. This underlines the need for us to make sure all the time that we and our allies are capable, between us, of protecting ourselves.
    Mr. Frank Allaun: Are not these missiles of a single key type with no British control? Do they not, therefore, put Britain directly in the retaliation firing line if a nuclear bomb is dropped, by design or accident, on a Russian city?
    Mr. Pym: Unfortunately, nothing can alter the fact that Britain, in any case, is in the firing line, as we have been, I suppose, throughout our history and very much so since the Second World War. Nothing will alter that. On control, I explained to the House before Christmas that the arrangements are the same as those which were in force before, and as exist now in the case of a certain United States' weapon. I have nothing further to say about that.
    Mr. Allan Roberts: Will the Secretary of State explain how he can justify the statement he and his hon. Friends make, namely—that our theatre nuclear weapons—our independent nuclear deterrent—exist to deter the Russians when the right hon. Gentleman claims that detente has been ended by the Russians due to their invasion of Afghanistan? Why did not nuclear weapons deter that invasion?
    Mr. Pym: I do not think that I have said that detente has come to an end. That is what the hon. Gentleman says. But people have been made to look with a rather different eye upon the claims made by the Soviet Union about detente.

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    Some people in the West have, perhaps, come to take a more realistic view of the attitude that exists in that country.
    The deterrent exists. It has so far succeeded, I am glad to say, in preventing a war, at any rate on this side of the globe. Recent events cause us to take an even more realistic view of the care we have to show in protecting the nation's security.

    Service Men (School Fees)
    Mr. Foulkesasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the amount of any fees paid by the Government to private, direct-grant and grant-aided schools in the United Kingdom on behalf of British Service men, for each school.
    Mr. Hayhoe: No, Sir. A Service man who places his child in a boarding school to ensure continuity of education may claim a boarding school allowance, but it remains his own responsibility to pay the fee to the school he has selected. In certain circumstances, he may arrange for a sum due to him to be remitted direct to a school by the Service paymaster, but information as to the amounts or schools covered by any such payments is not readily available.
    Mr. Foulkes: Would it not be more appropriate for the Ministry to arrange for public money to be used to provide much-needed additional boarding places at State schools instead of using public money to continue further to subsidise the élite private sector?
    Mr. Hayhoe: The scheme under which this money is available has been running for many years. It is absolutely in the interests of those who are eligible to take part in it. I am sure it is right that the scheme should be continued.
    Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: Will my right hon. Friend look at the scheme operated by the Foreign Office which is in many ways superior to the scheme operated by the Ministry of Defence? Why should the children of diplomats be treated in a superior fashion to the children of soldiers?
    Mr. Hayhoe: I shall look into that matter. The boarding school allowances have been increased from September last year. Inequality of treatment relating
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    to this and other matters is looked at all the time.
    Mr. Flannery: Is it not the fact that under the new Education Bill, £60 million will be given to private schools? Is it not, therefore, more necessary than ever that we know what other moneys are going to private schools? Why will the Minister not let us know? Figures given recently in the press are as high as hundreds of millions of pounds. We have a right to know how much public money is going to private education, even under the heading of defence.
    Mr. Hayhoe: The amount of money involved in these matters is known. If the hon. Gentleman follows Hansard, he will see that I answered a question on this matter tabled by one of his hon. Friends on 26 July last year.

    Nuclear Missiles
    Mr. Stoddartasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he intends to site any new generation nuclear missiles within 30 miles of Swindon.
    Mr. Rentonasked the Secretary of State for Defence what the current position is regarding the location of cruise missiles in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Pym: We are discussing with the Government of the United States the locations of the 160 ground launched cruise missiles to be based in this country. At present, however, consideration of potential sites is at an early stage and it would be premature to speculate on the possibilities.
    Mr. Stoddart: Can I urge the right hon. Gentleman not to agree to the siting of any nuclear weapons at either Greenham Common or Fairford, which are within 30 miles of my constituency? Does he realise that it is a misguided and potentially catastrophic policy to have nuclear weapons in this country at all?
    Mr. Pym: I fully appreciate the views of the hon. Gentleman. Frankly, at this stage, it would be wrong for me to give any undertaking about any particular site. We are at too early a stage. I must add, however, that this decision, taken not only by this Government, but by the whole NATO Alliance, was taken in the interests of peace and in the interests of the defence of freedom and democracy.

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    The siting of these weapons in no way affects the vulnerability or otherwise of a particular place. It is a mistake for anyone to think that the siting of a weapon in a particular place in the United Kingdom, or any other country in NATO, makes it more or less vulnerable. We are all vulnerable in the horrifying event of a holocaust.
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: How soon after a decision is made will the missiles be on station?
    Mr. Pym: The missiles will be on station between 1982–83 and 1986.
    Mr. Jay: As the right hon. Gentleman has said that the control of the use of these weapons will be the same as under previous Governments, will he confirm that this means that they can be used only with the agreement of both Governments?
    Mr. Pym: I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Newens) before Christmas.
    Mr. Churchill: Will my right hon. Friend explore with the United States Government the possibility of ensuring that the mobile launchers of these missiles remain relatively as lightweight as possible so that they are as mobile as possible and therefore not confined to a handful of bases which would increase the interest of a potential aggressor in a pre-emptive strike?
    Mr. Pym: I have already said that the question of basing is being considered by the United States Government in conjunction with ourselves. There is no question about mobility. I am afraid that I could not give, off the cuff, the actual weight of this vehicle. Obviously, it is a pretty hefty thing. But mobile it is. I cannot say more about the bases at this stage.

    Trident Missile
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on his intentions regarding the Trident, its approximate cost and date of construction.
    Mr. Pym: We are still examining the options for replacing the current Polaris
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    force when it reaches the end of its useful life in the 1990s.
    Mr. Allaun: I do not consider that a very adequate answer. However, if the British Government proceed with Trident, does this not destroy our flexibility in future nuclear negotiations? Does it not damage the prospects regarding SALT, on which our future depends?
    Mr. Pym: I am bound to say that I think that SALT is pretty damaged as things stand today. That has to be recognised. Of course, there are considerations of this kind, whichever option is chosen. A number of articles about the Trident system are pure speculation. As the hon. Gentleman knows, no decision has yet been reached.
    Mr. Douglas: Will the right hon. Gentleman give consideration to indicating in the forthcoming defence White Paper the total cost of the Trident system, plus five nuclear submarines, over the life of the assets, so that we know how much it would cost the nation, both in capital terms and—particularly in relation to my constituency—in terms of the number of men who might be employed and the wages paid to them over the life of the system?
    Mr. Pym: No, but of course cost is highly relevant in our consideration of any possible system. Estimating costs is therefore an important part in the consideration of options that are in hand.
    Mr. Rodgers: The right hon. Gentleman said that the Government were examining options and he has told us previously that he expects a decision to be made this year. As he will appreciate, many complicated issues are at stake. Will he consider making available to the House a great deal more information than has normally been made available? As he knows, it is often easier to learn about our defence policy in Washington than in the House. Notwithstanding security considerations, we would greatly benefit from an informed debate.
    Mr. Pym: I am sensitive to requests for the widest possible amount of information, but it is a mistake to imply that all that one learns in Washington about defence or anything else is necessarily a contribution to truth or knowledge. That is no criticism, but it is so. Because the matter is so complicated and the material

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    is so sensitive in relation to national security it is necessary for any Government to treat the issue with the utmost care. As I have said before, it is my desire at the appropriate stage, and perhaps at several stages, to make available to the House as much information as possible.

    Defence Capability
    Mr. Robert Atkinsasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the current state of Great Britain's defences.
    Mr. Pym: In the face of the growing military challenge from the Soviet Union, NATO has recognised the need to strengthen Alliance defences. The Government fully support these measures, and we are taking positive steps to improve the United Kingdom's contribution to the Alliance.
    Mr. Atkins: When will we have enough forces and weapons to give support to the proposed rapid deployment force suggested by President Carter?
    Mr. Pym: We are considering that matter with the United States, and acutely so in light of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. That is why the Foreign Secretary has gone on a tour of five countries which are affected by the invasion. As my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said yesterday, Ministers are considering the matter both in the North Atlantic Council today and in the European Community. We have the matter actively under review with our allies.
    Mr. Dalyell: Can the Secretary of State be satisfied in light of the statement made by the Under-Secretary of State for Energy on the continuing possible leakage of crucial information from Urenco at Almelo? In light of the Government's own implied criticism of the Dutch Government, what do they propose to do about it?
    Mr. Pym: I am aware of the hon. Gentleman's concern in this matter. He is probably right in the sense that no Secretary of State for Defence, and certainly not this one, can be complacent about such a matter. It is serious, but there is nothing specific that I can say to the hon. Gentleman about it today.
    Mr. Gordon Wilson: In view of the important external threats that have been mentioned, can the Minister say what was the point of the Army training forces at Camberley to combat non-existent insurgency in Scotland? Will the right hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to apologise to the Scottish people for the fact that they were singled out by the English establishment for such derogatory treatment?
    Mr. Pym: I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman ought not to look to the BBC for an apology, if that is what he wants. Neither this Government nor any other have responsibility for what is put out in a programme or for the views expressed in that programme. The fact that consideration is given to the support of the civil power by the military ought to be well understood by the House in view of events in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Banks: Does my right hon. Friend agree that civil defence is part of Britain's total defence? Does he also agree that the subject has been seriously neglected for more than 10 years, and will he, therefore, consult the Home Secretary about conducting an urgent review of civil defence arrangements?
    Mr. Pym: As my hon. Friend will recognise, that matter is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. The reduction in the effort devoted to civil defence a couple of decades ago flowed from the tripwire strategy. It was thought to be unnecessary to have any civil defence. That is why it has been at a minimal level. I know that my right hon. Friend is giving some consideration to that important matter, but I do not have responsibility for it.

    North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
    Mr. Stephen Rossasked the Secretary of State for Defence what decisions were reached at the recent conference of Ministers within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Pym: I made a statement to the House on 13 December about the decisions reached at the special meeting of the NATO Foreign and Defence Ministers on the previous day.
    At their meetings on 10 and 11 December, NATO Defence Ministers had reiterated their concern at the sustained

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    growth in the military capabilities of the Warsaw Pact. They concluded that this build-up, coupled with the Soviet Union's efforts to expand its influence worldwide, presented a growing challenge to the security of the West and they affirmed their determination to maintain the deterrent capability of the Alliance. I stressed that Britain would play its full part in strengthening NATO's collective defence.
    The texts of the final communiqués of all these meetings have been placed in the Library.
    Mr. Ross: I am grateful for that statement. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I support the statement that he made earlier about the safety of cruise missiles. What progress is being made in NATO on the urgent need to standardise our most effective equipment in the Western world?
    Mr. Pym: We are making the most rapid progress that we can, though it is too slow for me. There is clearly a need for interoperability of weapons and when a need has been identified and there is the prospect of bringing a new weapon into use, we begin by discussing with our allies whether we can share the development of a project. It is a lengthy process and it is not going quickly enough, but we are giving it every possible support.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: What positive steps could NATO undertake in light of the Soviet aggression in Afghanistan, bearing in mind the present level of NATO defence forces? What could we do to defend our interests in that area of the world, which are so vital to the future progress and prosperity of Europe?
    Mr. Pym: I have no doubt that those matters are being discussed at this moment by Ministers at the North Atlantic Council. There is no question but that events in South-West Asia during the recess give sharp expression to the threats represented to the West through trade routes and interruptions of our essential needs. We in Britain are acutely conscious, because of our history and geography, of the needs that will have to be met in that part of the world. We are in constant touch with our NATO allies and that is the reason why the Foreign Secretary has made a personal visit to those
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    countries, as part of the assessment that we are making.
    Mr. Cryer: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the installation of cruise missiles in this country could lead to a situation in which the Americans may decide to use those missiles to meet a Russion adventure, for example in Afghanistan, and that we could therefore be dragged willy nilly into a nuclear conflict? Can he explain how freedom and democracy are preserved when other fingers press nuclear buttons and draw people, whether they like it or not, into a radioactive cinder heap? Is that the preservation of freedom, democracy and choice?
    Mr. Pym: The hon. Gentleman knows very well that it is the purpose of those weapons to preserve peace and to deter. To that extent, they have succeeded, but we are now acutely aware of a fact that was not so clear before Christmas, namely that the threat of which we have spoken exists and is real and that if we lower our guard we may be threatened in a way that we would regret.
    The point of those weapons and the modernisation of our theatre nuclear forces is to ensure that we have the capability to deter. Had we not taken that decision we could have been accused of not having enough retaliatory capability to put into the minds of potential aggressors that if they go too far they may have a return that they would find totally unacceptable. That is the point of the deterrent strategy.

    Hong Kong
    Mr. Hooleyasked the Secretary of State for Defence what is the approximate cost to the United Kingdom taxpayer of the recent reinforcement of the Hong Kong garrison.
    Mr. Hayhoe: Last year the cost of the reinforcements was estimated at £27 million for a 12 month period, of which about £6 million would be borne by the United Kingdom. However, reinforcement levels have fluctuated, and I cannot yet give revised cost details as the matter is under further discussion with the Hong Kong Government.
    Mr. Hooley: Now that China has joined the free world and is being embraced with open arms by NATO, might

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    it not be cheaper and more sensible to ask Chairman Hua to send a couple of platoons of the People's Army to defend the interests of the merchant bankers of Hong Kong?
    Mr. Hayhoe: The hon. Gentleman goes into flights of fantasy on this issue, as he has in the past. The purpose of the garrison is to be a demonstration of the Government's commitment to the integrity and security of Hong Kong. The reason for the reinforcements has been the number of illegal immigrants coming across the border. Although there were discussions with Hua Kuo-feng when he came to this country, the number of illegal immigrants still being attracted to free enterprise Hong Kong from Socialist China is causing difficulties for that area.
    Mr. Robert C. Brown: The Minister seemed to indicate that he believed that British forces could defend Hong Kong against a possible Chinese invasion. If he really believes this, he must be living in cloud-cuckoo-land. If he does not, surely he must accept that the £6 million that it is costing to reinforce the garrison—for what purpose I do not understand—would be better spent in going towards a reduction of some of the cuts being made in this country.
    Mr. Hayhoe: The hon. Gentleman may recall the position when he held the office which it is now my privilege to hold, and when the garrison was approximately the same size as it is now. There has been a small level of reinforcement. The reinforcements are there to give support to the police and to the authorities of Hong Kong against the pressure of illegal immigrants coming into Hong Kong. In these circumstances, I think it is entirely justified that we should respond to the request of the Hong Kong Government for reinforcements.
    Mr. Costain: Does the Minister not agree that Labour Members fail to appreciate the respect which the British troops are accorded in Hong Kong by the residents of Hong Kong and by the Chinese themselves?
    Mr. Hayhoe: There is no question of an external threat to Hong Kong, in a military sense, which our garrison there would meet. Such a threat does not exist. But it is essential that we main-
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    tain our garrison in Hong Kong to deal with the serious problem affecting the people of Hong Kong by the pressure of immigration.

    North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
    Mr. Michael Brownasked the Secretary of State for Defence when he intends to meet his colleagues from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
    Mr. Pym: On present plans I expect to meet NATO Defence Ministers at the Eurogroup and Defence Planning Committee meetings in May.
    Mr. Brown: In view of the fact that the flashpoints for potential aggression now occur beyond NATO's frontier, in places such as Afghanistan, does my right hon. Friend accept the need for him and his colleagues in NATO to discuss the limitations which exist because NATO's boundaries end at the equator? Will he consider what possible discussions might take place to take this fact into account?
    Mr. Pym: It is my view that the defence of freedom and democracy knows no boundaries. Whereas, of course, it is appropriate for alliances to have certain boundaries for structural and administrative purposes, the threat that exists is worldwide. It is the policy of the Government to give the most active encouragement to all our NATO allies to perceive the threat in worldwide terms. As I have already said in answer to previous questions, we are fulfilling that policy as best we can at the present time.
    Mrs. Dunwoody: The right hon. Gentleman was suggesting in his earlier answer that he accepted without criticism the policy of common arms procurement with all his European colleagues. If that is so, what effect will that have on industries within Great Britain?
    Mr. Pym: I was giving support and encouragement to the interoperability of weapon systems within the Alliance and to the need for collaboration between member countries of the Alliance over the procurement of weapons. With inflation at its present level, the cost of replacing systems goes up and up and there is an economic incentive to cause the Alliance to look more carefully at collaboration. That is what we are doing.

    NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANISATION
    Mr. Marksasked the Prime Minister when she will next meet Prime Ministers of North Atlantic Treaty Oragnisation countries.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): I frequently see my colleagues, but there are no plans at present for a meeting of the North Atlantic Council at summit level.
    Mr. Marks: Yesterday the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said that the North Atlantic Council would be meeting today but that only certain countries would be represented. Will the Prime Minister assure the House that this is not a self-appointed group, and that all member countries of NATO, including those nearer to the Afghanistan conflict, have the opportunity to take part?
    The Prime Minister: As far as I am aware, they are all there and have the opportunity to take part. They are very important discussions but I cannot be absolutely precise on that question.
    Mr. Stokes: In view of the recent Soviet aggression in Afghanistan will my right hon. Friend consider whether this country should adopt further measures of rearmament, in spite of present economic difficulties?
    The Prime Minister: I think that we are doing as much as we possibly can at the moment. We have undertaken to increase our expenditure by 3 per cent. over the outturn for this year. We must also give attention to the improvement of our economic position so that we may be able the better to defend our country in the future.
    Mr. O'Neill: Would the Prime Minister care to explain to the workers of the Glynwed group in Falkirk, who have been told that they are to be made redundant this year, how a firm which makes a substantial contribution to the Tory Partyfunds at election times is now having—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. We shall not come to open questions until we reach question Q5. The present question relates to NATO.
    Mr. Garel-Jones: Will my right hon. Friend, in discussing with our NATO allies the future of the NATO Alliance, ensure that every encouragement is given to the Spanish Government, who have made clear that it is their intention to play a full part in the defence of the West? If an application to join NATO is made by that Government, what will be the attitude of the British Government? Will my right hon. Friend give us some indication?
    The Prime Minister: Most of us would welcome it if Spain were to join NATO, because once again it would strengthen the defences of the free world. We are particularly anxious to have join us those countries which hitherto have had quite strong communist parties.

    SWINDON
    Mr. Stoddartasked the Prime Minister if she will pay an official visit to Swindon.
    The Prime Minister: I have at present no plans to do so.
    Mr. Stoddart: Is the right hon. Lady aware that my constituents, oppressed by accelerating prices, by swingeing increases in mortgage rates and rents, are now extremely concerned that they may be laid off because of her capricious negligence of the steel dispute? Will she come to Swindon and try to explain her policy and, better still, apologise to my constituents for the way in which she grossly misled them during the election about her policies and the results of those policies?
    The Prime Minister: With regard to our policy on steel, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the taxpayer has been very generous to the steel industry in fully and properly equipping it so that it can increase productivity in the future. The question we have to ask is whether many people whose incomes are lower than the average income in the steel industry, should rightly be asked further to subsidise the steel industry in the future over and above the £450 million budget that we have decided to make available to the British Steel Corporation next year.
    Mr. Foot—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I treated that question as a constituency question, as I have done on all occasions when hon. Members have invited the Prime Minister to visit their constituencies. We shall reach the open question soon, when the other issues can come up.

    ROME
    Mr. Spearingasked the Prime Minister when she next plans to make an official visit to Rome.
    The Prime Minister: I have no immediate plans to do so. I visited Rome on 4 and 5 October and the Italian Prime Minister has accepted my invitation to visit London on 29 and 30 January.
    Mr. Spearing: When the right hon. Lady next goes to Rome will it not be for the next meeting of the Council of the Heads of Government? Will she confirm to the House that she will press for the £1,000 million—no more and no less? Will she tell the House whether that figure includes projects such as loans for atomic power stations and can she say why the Government have agreed to increase the Euratom loan to £1,000 million when the Scrutiny Committee decided that that matter should be debated by this House before it was agreed?
    Is she aware that this was agreed in the Council of Ministers on 20 December? Does that not break the undertaking given to this House?
    The Prime Minister: I think that the next meeting of the European Council will probably be in Brussels in March, unless it is advanced specifically to deal with the budget problem. In the light of that the Italian Prime Minister, as President of the Council, is coming to London shortly. Of course, we shall press for vastly increased receipts for this country from the European budget so that we may substantially reduce our net contribution. We have given up no negotiating position.
    Mr. Budgen: When my right hon. Friend next goes to Rome will she remind all the countries of the EEC that the principal argument for the creation, and also for the extension, of the EEC was that it would give political solidarity in times of crisis? If the French Government fail to give wholehearted support to our economic measures against Soviet Russia in the
    1428
    near future does she not think that the British people may draw a very important conclusion about the whole of the EEC?
    The Prime Minister: There is an EEC meeting today about what further measures should be taken in relation to our decision to stand by the United States and the forthright observations of President Carter about Afghanistan. That is at present being considered and I think that it would be unwise to pre-empt the result of the meeting.
    Mr. Shore: The right hon. Lady used the words "vastly increased" in terms of Community expenditure in Britain in the context of the European budget. Will she make it absolutely plain that her objective remains as it was before the Dublin summit, namely, to get a broad balance between the contribution and the receipts of the United Kingdom, and that she has not abandoned that objective?
    The Prime Minister: I am not abandoning that objective, but let me be perfectly honest with the right hon. Gentleman and say what I said before. That is still the objective. We go for a genuine compromise, but we have not really very much room for manoeuvre. On the issue of receipts, if the European Economic Community increased our receipts to three quarters of the European average—judged per head of population—we should be home and dry.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that whether or not she has the wholehearted support of this House she has the wholehearted support of the people of this country in her demand that our contribution to the EEC budget should be reduced? Will she go to Rome, and future meetings of the EEC, in the knowledge that she has the support of the vast majority of the British people in demanding that we get justice within the EEC. Does she realise that she should not necessarily listen to members of the Opposition who, when all is said and done, actually [Interruption]—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I had hoped that we would reach question Q5 because that is an open one.
    Mr. Winterton: May I remind my right hon. Friend that it was the Opposition who renegotiated our entry terms

    1429
    into the EEC? My right hon. Friend is the only person in the House who has taken a strong stand.
    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend says, it was the policies of the Opposition which landed us with the contribution that we are now paying. I believe that I made it perfectly clear in Dublin that we were not to be satisfied with a small sum which was grossly inadequate in view of our equitable and justified claim.
    Mr. Foot: The right hon. Lady has left the House in considerable doubt as to whether she is standing by what she originally said. Will she tell us, and give the specific reference, when she referred to a so-called "genuine compromise"—to use her words today—just prior to the Dublin meeting?
    The Prime Minister: The phrase was used at Dublin and, I believe, either in my statement or in answer to questions in this House after I had returned from Dublin.

    ARMS CONTROL
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Prime Minister, following the discussions in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation during December, what response she will make to Mr. Brezhnev's proposals.
    The Prime Minister: In December NATO Ministers agreed on an important package of arms control proposals. These initiatives were under discussion well before Mr. Brezhnev's speech on 6 October, but they take account of Soviet ideas. Before the December meeting I had already replied to the letter which I received from Mr. Brezhnev following his speech. In my reply, I emphasised our determination both to rectify the growing imbalance in long range theatre nuclear capabilities and to make full use of the opportunities for arms control.
    Mr. Allaun: While we condemn events in Afghanistan—as many of us condemned events in Vietnam and Suez—should not any offer of arms reduction at least be put to the test rather than be rebuffed by the installation of cruise and Pershing missiles on our soil? Does the Prime Minister agree with the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office that it is in British interests and to our
    1430
    advantage that future arms reduction negotiations should succeed?
    The Prime Minister: What has happened in Afghanistan—something which has been roundly condemned by the whole of the Western world and the non-aligned nations—has fully justified the stand that this Government have taken on defence and our determination to ensure that we always negotiate from strength. Of course, we are always willing to negotiate genuine arms control but the reply to Mr. Brezhnev, which was the result of the NATO meeting, was put forward on 18 December and was turned down by the Soviet authorities.
    Mr. Amery: Will my right hon. Friend send a message to President Tito from the whole of this House wishing him a prompt recovery from his troubles? Will she make plain to Mr. Brezhnev that the British Government will do everything in their power to support Yugoslav resistance to any intervention calculated to threaten Yugoslavia's autonomy?
    The Prime Minister: I am only too happy to send greetings to President Tito and to wish him a speedy recovery from his recent operation and to hope, and say, that we shall do everything we can to see that the independence of Yugoslavia is maintained.

    PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS)
    Mr. Bob Dunnasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 15 January.
    The Prime Minister: In addition to my duties in this House I shall be having meetings with ministerial colleagues and others.
    Mr. Dunn: Will my right hon. Friend take an opportunity to praise the amateur Olympic athletes who train in this country, often under the most horrific conditions? Does she not agree that the amateur status of the Olympic Games has been brought into disrepute in recent years by full-time professionals from the Eastern bloc? Is it not time that the International Olympic Committee revised the terms of reference of the Olympic Games?
    The Prime Minister: It would be a rash person who became involved in the

    1431
    amateur/professional status of athletes. I am sure that my hon. Friend's words will not have gone unheard by the International Olympic Committee.
    Mr. Foot: I return to the reply which the Prime Minister gave to an earlier question about the steel strike. How long does she propose to continue to recite to the country the figures which have been given by the British Steel Corporation and to refuse to have a single meeting with the leaders of the trade unions to hear their side of the case? How much does she think that is costing the country and British industry each year? How long must we tolerate her obstinacy on this subject?
    The Prime Minister: Most of the figures come from the report from the sector working party on iron and steel which was published yesterday and which was signed by the trade union leaders. There are many tables in that document which show the comparative productivity of our steel industry as against other steel industries. The document was signed by both employers and unions.
    Mr. Foot: If the right hon. Lady is so confident that those figures are correct—she quoted other figures when she appeared on television a few days ago—why is she so afraid to meet the trade union leaders?
    The Prime Minister: I am not afraid to meet either the leaders of the trade union movement or leaders of any movement, as the right hon. Gentleman knows. If he cannot ask a better question than that, I do not know why he bothers.
    Mr. Foot: In that case, will the Prime Minister announce to the House and to the country when she will meet the trade unions to hear the very figures of which she and her Secretary of State have so far refused to take any account?
    The Prime Minister: Unlike the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot), I assume that the trade union leaders are able to speak for themselves.

CUSTOMS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Speaker: I have a statement to make. I am constantly reminded by hon. Members that an important part of my responsibility is to protect the rules and privileges of the House. Because I am conscious of this duty, I seek to make a brief statement about our customs. The beginning of the new year is the proper time to make such a statement.
Both the dignity and authority of the House have been protected for centuries by the general observance of our traditions and customs. One of our oldest customs is that when any hon. Member contributes to a debate it is a courtesy for that hon. Member to stay and listen at least to the next speaker and certainly to be in his or her place for the winding-up speeches. That is such an ordinary courtesy that it should not be necessary to mention it, but I fear that it is necessary.
Secondly, when hon. Members seek leave to give notice that because they are dissatisfied with a Minister's reply to a question they propose to raise the subject on the Adjournment, it is customary to use the formula "In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment." I expect hon. Members to adhere strictly to that formula in future.
Finally, it is a long-established tradition in the House that when an hon. Member is on his feet in the Chamber addressing the House another hon. Member does not pass between him and the Chair. I have drawn attention to these customs of ours because there has been a tendency for them to be undermined.

SCHOOL MEALS, MILK AND TRANSPORT
Mr. Harry Ewing: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. A serious situation has arisen in relation to the Education (No. 2) Bill. The point which I wish to make is connected with the Bill, but the broad issue should be considered by you, Mr. Speaker.
The Secretary of State for the Environment has sent a letter to Warwickshire county council indicating that councillors on that authority who have children in

1433
school should not vote on school meals, milk and transport. That means that any councillor who has a child at school, whether or not that child takes advantage of the school meals, milk or transport, cannot vote, although he or she may take part in the discussion.
In spite of repeated attempts this morning I have been unable to discover whether the Secretary of State for Scotland is to issue the same direction to councillors in local and regional authorities in Scotland. In Scotland, a number of councillors have already voted to retain school meals, milk and transport. Unless the matter is cleared up, those councillors who have already voted are in danger of being surcharged. That will create conflict between Parliament and local authorities.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Stirling, Falkirk and Grangemouth (Mr. Ewing) has outlined an issue that I have no doubt is of considerable importance but it is not one on which I can rule. The hon. Member can pursue this matter with the appropriate Government Department.
Later—
Mr. Canavan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will you confirm that under our Standing Orders a Standing Committee may request the presence of the Solicitor-General for Scotland to outline the legal aspects of the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling, Falkirk and Grangemouth (Mr. Ewing)? Will you please advise us on the best way to proceed in order to achieve the attendance of the Solicitor-General for Scotland?
Many regional councillors in Scotland do not know their legal position and many members of the Standing Committee are ignorant of the legal repercussions of the Bill that we are discussing. The Solicitor-General could give us the benefit—if it is a benefit—of his advice about the legal repercussions. As the prosecuting authority in Scotland he could tell us what action, if any, he will take against defaulting councillors who vote on the issue of school meals, milk and transport, even when their children stand to benefit from the decision.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I know that the hon. Member will have studied our rules carefully. He will be as aware as I am, now that the book is in my hand, that Standing Order No. 63 says that:
"Mr. Attorney General, the Lord Advocate, Mr. Solicitor General, and Mr. Solicitor General for Scotland, being Members of this House, or any of them, though not members of a standing committee, may take part in the deliberations of the committee, but shall not vote or make any motion or move any amendment or be counted in the quorum."
It is up to the Committee to invite any Minister it wishes to attend, as is stated in that Standing Order.

WISBECH (AIR CRASH)
Mr. Freud: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should welcome your advice. As a result of the Wisbech air disaster on 21 September, the Minister responsible gave the public to understand that following yesterday's inquest he would make a full statement in the House. When I telephoned the Minister's office yesterday, I was told that because yesterday's business contained a full complement of ministerial statements his statement would be held over until today.
The Minister did not keep his promise. The House is unable to question him about why it took 16 weeks for the inquest to be held, why the names of the pilots were not disclosed and why there was miserable haggling about compensation to the relatives of the deceased. The people of Wisbech were afforded the additional insult—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) is very experienced. Perhaps he will come to the point of order that he wishes me to answer.
Mr. Freud: The people of Wisbech were afforded the additional insult of a question being planted by the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. Walker) so that the Minister could give a written answer. Will you, Mr. Speaker, call the responsible Minister so that he can make a statement and answer questions?
Mr. Speaker: I have never yet said "No" to a Minister who wished to make a statement. Any Speaker with an eye

1435
to peace in the House is unlikely to do so. If such a request comes my way, the hon. Member for Isle of Ely may anticipate my answer.
Mr. David Steel: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. A few moments ago you uttered some admonitions about the courtesies and conventions of the House on points of order. I suggest that where a Minister decides that a written answer is appropriate, as opposed to a statement—presumably because of the crowded nature of the business—it is grossly discourteous and offensive to an hon. Member and his constituency to arrange for that question to be planted by another hon. Member, who has no connection with the incident. I should have thought that the constituency, as well as the hon. Member, was entitled to feel aggrieved about it.
Mr. Speaker: I note that I gave the House a clear indication of my feelings when I replied to the hon. Member representing the constituency concerned. I have had no request for a statement. All that I can say to both sides of the House is that we abandon our normal courtesies at our peril.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
Ordered,
That the draft Financial Assistance for Industry (Increase of Limit) Order 1979 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Mather.]

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES ACT (AMENDMENT)
3.41 pm
Mr. Tony Marlow: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend certain provisions of the European Communities Act 1972.
I ask for leave to introduce the Bill to restore to this House, the sovereign Parliament of this land, the right, once in every year, to approve or disapprove the continued payment of moneys into the European budget. This tribute, money taken from the pockets of our people like income tax or value added tax, is a tax, and the first requirement of any system of taxation is that it should be equitable. So long as the European budget is equitably spent, so long will it receive the House's approval.
I should like to explain why I wish to introduce the Bill at this stage. I must stress, first, that this is not intended as an anti-European measure; rather it is intended to help to strengthen Europe. It may, of course, conflict with some of the rigidities within the existing EEC arrangements.
When we first joined the Common Market, one of the reasons given was the need to prevent the disaster of a future European war; another Hitler or Kaiser would rise and would destroy another generation of Europe's young men. Even then this was a far-fetched and unconvincing reason. It is now almost an inverse of the truth.
Since the last war the world has become a much smaller place. In military terms, at leastin the developed world, the nation State has given way to the continental power bloc. Europe has the population, the inventiveness and the potential wealth of either of the two super Powers, but it does not yet have, to its grave disadvantage, the influence or the proper ability, looking at the dangerous world around us, to secure its interests.
To those previously unaware of them, the nature of Russian intentions was made known at Christmas by the tanks at Kabul. Unfortunately, the nature and resolve of America are uncertain and must for some time remain uncertain after the traumas inflicted on that country by Vietnam and Watergate. But what is

1437
the nature of Europe, the cradle of our modern civilisation?
Western Europe, above all, both as an entity and as a collection of individual nations, has a vital and unfulfilled role to play in maintaining world peace and stability, in maintaining the viability and independence of the Third world, and in maintaining the overseas markets and raw material resources, including oil, on which the future well-being of our people is utterly dependent.
How can we concentrate on these issues when our energies and activities are commanded entirely within Europe by the common agricultural policy—the most disastrous historic accident since the conception of Karl Marx. Vulgar it may be; universally acceptable it certainly is not. "Agricultural"? Does it solve the social problems of the richer nations of Europe? Certainly not. "Policy"? Rather, it is a blind and clumsy juggernaut powered by vested interests, clambering over and flattening all other sensible European initiatives.
If, from today, there were to be a new association of the nations of Western Europe, if all the prime ministers, chancellors and presidents were to get together in a large room in a sumptuous palace to discuss those matters of common interest and concern, those areas where they felt forced to co-operate and where Europe should devise common policies to meet common needs, does anyone for one moment think that a common agricultural policy would be at the top of, or even on, that list? This absurd instrument does not unite, it divides. If it is not destroyed it will destroy the community that it pretends to serve.
Whatever Governments from either side of the House may say, there is no way in which this country will or can continue to remain for long in the European Community while its blood is sucked by a budget forced to feed the appetite of this voracious monster.
Lest we be accused of whingeing, complaining after the event, and wanting to break the rules after having accepted them, it must be borne in mind that when we joined the Community the common agricultural policy accounted for 60 per cent. of the European budget and plans had been advanced to reduce it to 40
1438
per cent. That did not happen, and it now takes three-quarters of the European budget. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food said, since 1973 the cost of the common agricultural policy has trebled.
It may well be that in certain regions and territories this policy is of benefit. Fine—let those territories have it and let them pay for it. Let it be a burden on the national exchequer and let European funds be spent, instead, in areas that unite and strengthen us all and serve our common interests.
If the CAP were debudgetised the agricultural levies would go to those countries that imported the goods. If we raised Europe's money through customs duties only we would not need customs duties and VAT to cover the current expenditure, and there would be a saving for this country of £800 million. If we raised the money on a pro rata basis through VAT there would be a saving for this country of £1,100 million.
As I have said, Europe—itbecomes daily more obvious—has a vital world role to play. It can hardly play such a role without the participation of a worldly Britain. It would be a much poorer Europe without our markets. Europe's food mountains would get lost in the snow without our consumers. What use to Europe is an impoverished Britain, an overtaxed Britain, a Britain unable to invest, a weakened Britain unable to contribute, a surly and unfairly treated Britain, unwilling to co-operate?
How can we remain in Europe under present conditions? How can it be possible for us, on Europe's behalf, to justify a policy whereby food in Britain costs an extra £35 per head per year—£1,800 million a year to be added to the £1,200 million for the budget; an annual cost to this country of £3,000 million?
How can it be possible to justify a budget that costs every British family of four £90 a year while benefiting every wealthy Danish family by £200?
How can it be possible to justify a policy that imposes costs on every household in strife-torn Northern Ireland while at the same time every man, woman and child in the Republic—a place that, rightly or wrongly, many see as the source of their troubles—is in receipt of £2·50 a week? The French no doubt will try,

1439
but the French, after their military disasters of the past 100 years, will no doubt try to justify anything. They have yet to forget Agincourt.
How can we solve this problem? It is we here who must solve it. In any other Assembly concerned with this issue Britain is in a minority, and Britain will lose. We shall lose unless and until we can persuade our partners of the seriousness of our case and the utter commitment
of our intention, and that their interests will be served by a resolution of the difficulties and damaged by their continuance.
I ask the House to support this measure as a means both of sustaining our negotiations and of making plain the determination of the British people.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 170, Noes 47.

Division No. 134]

AYES

[3.50 pm

Alexander, Richard

Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Allaun, Frank

Fry, Peter

Park, George

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

George, Bruce

Parris, Matthew

Ashton, Joe

Grant, George (Morpeth)

Parry, Robert

Aspinwall, Jack

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Pavitt, Laurie

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

Hardy, Peter

Pendry, Tom

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

Hawksley, Warren

Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Haynes, Frank

Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

Bell, Sir Ronald

Heffer, Eric S.

Proctor, K. Harvey

Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

Race, Reg

Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

Home Robertson, John

Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

Bevan, David Gilroy

Homewood, William

Richardson, Jo

Bidwell, Sydney

Hooley, Frank

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Booth, Rt Hon Albert

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)

Brotherton, Michael

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Rooker, J.W.

Buchan, Norman

Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

Budgen, Nick

Johnson, James (Hull West)

Rowlands, Ted

Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

Jones, Barry (East Flint)

Sever, John

Canavan, Dennis

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

Cant, R. B.

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)

Carmichael, Neil

Kerr, Russell

Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

Cartwright, John

Kilfedder, James A.

Silverman, Julius

Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

Kilroy-Silk, Robert

Snape, Peter

Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

Kinnock, Neil

Soley, Clive

Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

Lamble, David

Spearing, Nigel

Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

Lamond, James

Speller, Tony

Cook, Robin F.

Leadbitter, Ted

Spriggs, Leslie

Cowans, Harry

Leighton, Ronald

Stallard, A. W.

Crowther, J. S.

Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)

Cryer, Bob

Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)

Stoddart, David

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Straw, Jack

Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

Litherland, Robert

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

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

McCartney, Hugh

Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)

Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

McCusker, H.

Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

Dixon, Donald

McWilliam, John

Tllley, John

Dormand, Jack

Major, John

Tinn, James

Douglas, Dick

Marlow, Tony

Torney, Tom

Douglas-Mann, Bruce

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

Urwin, Rt Hon Tom

Dubs, Alfred

Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

Eadie, Alex

Maxton, John

Waller, Gary

Eastham, Ken

Maynard, Miss Joan

Watson, John

Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

Mikardo, Ian

Welsh, Michael

Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)

Millan Rt Hon Bruce

White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)

Wigley, Dafydd

Evans, John (Newton)

Molyneaux, James

Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

Fell, Anthony

Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

Field, Frank

Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

Winnick, David

Fitt, Gerard

Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

Winterton, Nicholas

Flannery, Martin

Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

Wright, Sheila

Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Newens, Stanley

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Forrester, John

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Mr. Christopher Murphy and

Foster, Derek

O'Halloran, Michael

Mr. Jocelyn Cadbury.

Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

O'Neill, Martin

NOES

Alton, David

Belth, A.. J.

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Ancram, Michael

Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

Cormack, Patrick

Anderson, Donald

Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

Costain, A. P.

Cranborne, Viscount

Lawrence, Ivan

Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

Dorrell, Stephen

McCrindle, Robert

Sandelson, Neville

Durant, Tony

McOuarrie, Albert

Scott, Nicholas

Dykes, Hugh

Mates, Michael

Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Steel, Rt Hon David

Freud, Clement

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

Temple-Morris, Peter

Ginsberg, David

Myles, David

Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

Gower, Sir Raymond

Needham, Richard

Thompson, Donald

Haselhurst, Alan

Patten, Christopher (Bath)

Hicks, Robert

Rees-Davies, W. R.

TFXLERS FOR THE NOES

Howells, Geraint

Rhodes James, Robert

Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse and

Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Mr. Allen Mckay.

Kimball, Marcus

Question accordingly agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Tony Marlow, Sir Bernard Braine, Sir Ronald Bell, Mr. Peter Mills, Mr. Peter Fry, Mr. Ivan Lawrence, Mr. Peter Lloyd, Mr. John Major, Mr. John Watson, Mr. Richard Alexander and Mr. Gary Waller.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES ACT (AMENDMENT)
Mr. Tony Marlow accordingly presented a Bill to amend certain provisions of the European Communities Act 1972: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 15 February and to be printed. [Bill 114.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  HOUSING BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  4.5 pm
  The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  Most of the debate arising on the Bill will be about the roles of the public and private rented sectors and the aspirations and needs of tenants. However, the debate will be conducted not by the tenants but by home owners explaining what tenants should or should not want, for the House, on both sides, is largely comprised of home owners.
  No one can dispute that the home owner in recent decades has gained immensely from the fact of ownership. The gain has accrued partially from the judgment and thrift associated with the saving to buy, but even more from the tax-free windfall gains that have accrued to virtually everyone once he has bought his own home.
  I do not claim that the Bill will improve the opportunity of everyone affected, nor do I claim that it can eliminate harshness or injustice in every case of need or deprivation—for no law that affects well over 6 million families has that capacity. But, for those who rent or wish to rent, it marks a shift of policy direction in marked contrast to recent years and lays the basis for perhaps as profound a social revolution as any in our history. Certainly no single piece of legislation has enabled the transfer of so much capital wealth from the State to the people.
  In recent years, in both the public and private sectors, one form of rent restraint or another has placed an intolerable financial burden on local authorities and private owners. In both cases the consequences have been the same. In each of the past five years the construction of new council house building has fallen further and further as the subsidy bill has increased by £100 million a year over that period. Today, local authorities are still reducing their building programmes. The growing problem of under-repair of
  1444
  the existing stock and the additional £1,500 first-year loss that every new house built creates are facts that transcend party politics.
  The public sector is following the course long familiar in the private sector, where increasing rent control over decades has forced owners to sell and not to let, or to allow properties to decay.
  I understand the abuses which led to the tightness of present controls, but I hope that others will understand and recognise that the price of those controls is now being paid by those living in unmodernised houses, whose owners cannot afford to improve, and by those without homes at all because owners are scared to let for fear of losing possession. It is paid by council tenants waiting for repairs that local authorities have not the money to pay for because of the mounting burden of costs and subsidies placed upon them.
  On the credit side, we have stopped the unforgivable abuses associated with the excesses of landlordism. But we have paid a massive price in homelessness and inferior housing. I hope that the Labour Party will remember that it had five years to bring new thought to these problems, five years in which the problems steadily worsened. The Labour Government could not even bring themselves to publish their review of the Rent Acts.
  The Bill seeks in a wide variety of ways to break out of the process of decline. The central theme is encouraging the widest response from the largest number of people to help solve their own problems, thus enabling the concentration of public sector resources on those with the most pressing problems.
  Principally, we propose to enact the promise of our manifesto that council and new town tenants shall have the right to buy their own homes. We shall enhance the rights and status of the public sector tenants, to whom we offer, for the first time, a tenants' charter. We have proposals for new opportunities in the private rented sector and we shall introduce a new system of housing subsidies and regulate the distribution of taxpayers' support to local government.
  Chapter I of the Bill, which deals with the right to buy, has two main objectives: first, to give people what they want, and, secondly, to reverse the trend of ever-increasing dominance of the State over

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  the life of the individual. There is in this country a deeply ingrained desire for home ownership. The Government believe that this spirit should be fostered. It reflects the wishes of the people, ensures the wide spread of wealth through society, encourages a personal desire to improve and modernise one's own home, enables parents to accrue wealth for their children and stimulates the attitudes of independence and self-reliance that are the bedrock of a free society.
  The Bill, in its first clause, gives the secure tenant of a public sector dwelling an unequivocal right to acquire the freehold of his house or the leasehold of his flat, provided that he has been a secure tenant for at least three years. There are also arrangements in clause 4 for joint purchase. The limited exceptions to the right to buy—such as groups of dwellings which are specially adapted for the use of elderly and disabled people—are set out in clause 2 and schedule 1. Clauses6, 7 and 8 are concerned with the purchase price. The market value of a dwelling will be determined by the local authority valuer or the district valuer, if the tenant so chooses. The purchase price will be based on the market value less a discount of between 33 and 50 per cent., depending on the purchaser's length of tenancy. If a dwelling is resold within five years, the original purchaser must repay a part or the whole of the discount.
  I believe that these are fair proposals. They recognise what is common practice in the private sector—that a sitting tenant often purchases his home at significantly less than its open market value.
  Our proposals also recognise the length of time tenants have been paying rent and have, therefore, not accumulated wealth as have home owners. There are countless examples where council tenants have paid more in rent than early post-war purchasers have paid in mortgage repayments. Yet the purchaser of an average house has an asset worth £20,000 or even £30,000, but the tenant has the right simply to go on paying rent. Our discounts will bring home ownership within the reach of many for whom it would otherwise remain an impossible dream.
  Mr. Douglas Jay: If there are all these arguments for home ownership, why is the right hon. Gentleman treating the tenant of the private
  1446
  landlord as a second-rate citizen and denying him the similar right to buy his own home?
  Mr. Heseltine: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that hundreds of thousands of such tenants in the private sector have already bought their homes. He will also be aware that his party introduced the Leasehold Reform Act 1967, which did precisely what he is suggesting we should now do.
  Mr. Jay: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the question. Why does he discriminate by giving a legal right to the council house tenant and not to the private tenant?
  Mr. Heseltine: Because I am acting on behalf of the taxpayer, who has funded the erection of houses in the public sector. I have no such right to act in the area of the private sector owners, who have purchased their houses with their own assets.
  Mr. Frank Allaun: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves this general principle, which he describes as fair, may I ask whether he agrees that his Government's statistics show that only 1·3 per cent. of all council properties that have been sold have been flats? Who will buy the eighteenth-storey or twentieth-storey flat? Does not the proposal mean that a mother, who cannot keep her eye on her children—if there is a playground for them—will be locked indefinitely in her flat because the house in the suburbs with a bit of garden—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): The hon. Member is making a lengthy interjection.
  Mr. Allaun: May I finish my point? Such a mother will not be able to buy a council house in the suburbs with a bit of garden for which she is longing because the transfer will become impossible when council houses are sold.
  Mr. Heseltine: I dispute with the hon. Gentleman that the incidence of purchase of flats in the public sector is small, although it may be as small as the figure that he has put before the House. Nevertheless, as he will be aware, I know of only two authorities that have ever tried to sell flats. Therefore, it is not surprising that the flats have not been bought. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that in the private sector there is

  1447
  a ready market in flats. There is no reason to suppose that with proper financial, legal arrangements there should not be an equal market for public sector flats. Anway, we shall find out when the Bill becomes law.
  Many tenants exercising the right to buy their home will be looking for mortgages. Clause 1 gives those exercising the right to buy the right to a mortgage. Many of those who buy finance their purchases other than through their local authority. To the extent that they do so in cash or with a private sector mortgage, the greater will be the gain to the public sector. In any case, the local authorities have already incurred the borrowing, which, in effect, means that a grant of mortgage in these cases is simply a recycling of existing public sector debt.
  Clause 9 provides powers for the Secretary of State to make regulations determining how the amount of mortgage entitlement is to be calculated. Obviously it will be my intention to ensure that normal commercial practice applies. Clause 15 provides for tenants who cannot afford on financial grounds to buy immediately to receive a two-year option to purchase their homes at the original valuation. For this they will make a returnable deposit of £100. It will enable them to save for the purchase of their homes in the firm knowledge of an established price. That fulfils another manifesto promise.
  Tenants wishing to become owners will expect the House to ensure that they have a right to buy which cannot be circumvented or ignored. If Parliament enacts this legislation, it is right to expect all councils and landlords falling within the provisions of the Bill to carry out their duties responsibly and speedily. If it appears, however, that a council is not taking adequate steps to facilitate a sale under the Bill, I shall be able to take over the transaction. Clause 22 gives me the powers and discretion necessary to do so effectively.
  Let me say at once to the House that I regard that as a reserve power. I shall use it only when I find that I have to protect tenants from the illegal behaviour or deliberate delaying tactics of the councils under which they live. [Interruption]. As the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Allaun) says from his seden-
  1448
  tary position, it is democracy. We have a mandate to do precisely that.
  Mr. W. Benyon: Is not the difference between the private sector and the public sector the fact that sales that have taken place in the private sector have been done by agreement? What my right hon. Friend proposes now is that sales should not necessarily be done by agreement.
  Mr. Heseltine: I take my hon. Friend's point. If he will wait for a while, I shall return to the matter later in my speech and say why I believe that it is necessary to have the powers that I ask Parliament to enact.
  Mr. David Ennals: The right hon. Gentleman accepted that this was democracy. Is there not such a thing as local democracy? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in my constituency at the last election the local electorate had put before them by our Labour councillors the intention to do the exact opposite to that which the right hon. Gentleman proposes? Those Labour councillors received a bigger and better vote and won more seats than ever before. For them, that was as much a mandate as the one held by the right hon. Gentleman's Government.
  Mr. Heseltine: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman accepts that, in the end, a national Government have the right to lay down national policies. It was precisely that doctrine which persuaded the right hon. Gentleman, as a member of the previous Cabinet, to steamroller Acts of educational concentration through the House. The House is entitled to consider the proposals, but if Parliament enacts them it will be the duty of responsible local authorities to bring those proposals into effect speedily and effectively.
  One aspect of our proposals that has attracted particular interest is the safeguard for rural areas.
  Mr. J. D. Concannon Mr. J. D. Concannon(Mansfield) rose—
  Mr. Heseltine: I try to give way as much as possible but I have a long speech to make, and if I do not get on many hon. Members will not have a chance to speak. With courtesy, I ask the right hon. Gentleman not to press his point.

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  As our manifesto recognised, the rural areas may contain special problems. However—as we made clear in the election—it would be wrong to deprive those in the countryside of the opportunity to buy their homes. Clause 18 enables local authorities in England to restrict the resale of a dwelling in a national park or area of outstanding natural beauty to people who have lived or worked for the preceding three years in a county within which the national park or area of outstanding natural beauty lies. In Wales, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will have power to designate areas within which local authorities may apply a similar restriction.
  In recent months—and we have been in office for only eight months—several hon. Members have asked that I publish a financial appraisal of our policies. The argument upon which the demand is based must be sound. The House is entitled know the financial implications of legislation for which it is to vote.
  What is perhaps curious is that the loudest and most eloquent demands have been from the Labour Party. It is curious for two reasons. First, to my certain knowledge the Labour Party has steamrollered Bill after Bill through the House with profound financial effects without attempting to cost any of them. In 30 years it has nationalised about 10 per cent. of our economy without explaining to anyone that by now this willful extravagance of the taxpayers' resources would cost £1·5 billion per annum in annual subsidies.
  The Labour Government were quite content to propose in their Housing Bill last year amendments to the Leasehold Reform Act, as a consequence of which one group of rather rich tenants in London would have been able to make windfall gains at the expense of rather rich landlords, without any attempt to explain the financial consequences. They were happy to see several thousand pounds of public money go to redundant workers, some of whom were re-employed in the same firm within months of being made redundant. The whole philosophy and purpose of the Labour Party has been to pursue the expenditure of public money in a climate of minimum accountability. Throughout its history, it has clamoured for the wider distribution of wealth.
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  When we actually introduce a Bill to transfer bricks and mortar to working people, the Opposition behave as though we are giving away the tablets of stone. Why did they not produce their own calculations when they had all the resources of the Civil Service to do the calculations for them? Time and again I made it clear from the Opposition Dispatch Box over a two-year period that we would make the sale of council houses a central election issue. Why did not the Labour Government publish their own figures? I have an answer in the issue of Labour Weekly dated 4 January:
  "It was not ready in time to be published before the election."
  There is other evidence. A document was leaked to The Guardian. The Labour Party would not publish the document when it was in office. Apparently the document was not ready. After all, it had only had five years in which to do its homework and in which to get the document ready. Perhaps there is another explanation. Perhaps the Labour Party would not publish the document because it did not believe the figures in the document.
  The House will want to judge the evidence upon which I put that suggestion. The Labour Party's Green Paper of June 1977 says:
  "In the short term …it appears that for most housing the revenue from sales will exceed the rent and Government subsidy which was previously received, less the cost of management and maintenance. Over the longer term the position changes. But calculations of this sort, stretching over a long period, depend very much on what assumptions are made about inflation, interest rates, costs and rents."
  That is what the Labour Party said when it was in Government. It reached those conclusions when it was in power. However, it could not bring itself to publish the conclusions in the leaked document that has now assumed such a spurious significance after the election.
  Mr. Jack Straw: If the Secretary of State is castigating the Labour Party for refusing to publish the document, why did he refuse to publish it when the Leader of the Opposition said that the document should be published? Was it because the document made it clear that on the assumptions made about inflation and future rent rises massive losses would result from sales?
  Mr. Heseltine: I shall explain why I would not publish the document. The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) served in an official capacity in the Department of the Environment for some time. The reason is simple. I have never seen that document and I know nothing of its status. I do not know whether it is one draft or 10, or whether it is the only draft. I do not know whether Ministers approved it or whether there are any notes from Ministers commenting on it. I do know whether it carried the support of the Secretary of State alone or of any other Minister. I cannot answer any of those questions.
  If the conclusions of the document were so valid, why did the Labour Government not publish them when they had the power to do so? They did not publish them because they did not believe the conclusions. If it is suggested that a successor Government should have the right to publish the documents of a preceding Government, will the Opposition give me permission to publish the review of the Rent Acts which they sat on for five years?
  There is no conceivable way in which a Minister can have access to the documents of a previous Administration and, therefore, to make judgments as to whether those documents should be published. There is no way in which a Minister can know whether those documents carry the views of the previous Government. Therefore, there is no validity in a successor Government publishing the documents of a previous Government.
  Mr. Reginald Freeson: The documents referred to were not policy documents but information documents. They were full of information and nothing was fed in by Ministers other than one question relating to what the effects would be, in certain circumstances, if this policy were pursued. We did not reject them. We believed the information to be correct. I am sure that the Secretary of State would be prepared to accept information if he asked his civil servants to provide informative documents rather than policy advice.
  Mr. Heseltine: If the former Minister for Housing believes that the documents are correct, why did he not give the British electorate an opportunity to judge them during the general election? It is
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  not enough for a Minister for Housing to believe documents to be valid.
  Mr. Freeson: Publish them.
  Mr. Heseltine: The question is whether the previous Labour Government believed those documents to be valid and whether they thought they should be published. As they did not publish them, I am entitled to believe that they had good reason not to. I am particularly entitled to that belief because they published a Green Paper stating that the validity of such questions was worth no more than the assumptions fed into it. We all know that.
  I have published a 50-page assessment in the most minute detail of this whole issue. The House and the Standing Committee can debate it and the Select Committee can investigate it at great length.
  I come back to the question: what economic assumptions can be made about the years stretching into the twenty-first century? If onyone seriously believes that we can make a judgment about what will be happening in 2010 or 2020, he should cast his mind back to the time when cauncil house rents were stable at 7s. 6d. a week, when earnings at best were rising slowly and prices were steady. If anyone 50 years ago had tried to produce a calculation on the economics of selling council houses, his conclusion would have been that a council house would be a bargain at £250. That shows the nonsense of trying to peer in minute detail into the future.
  Mr. Freeson: The normal span is five years—
  Mr. Heseltine: The right hon. Gentleman is expert at losing money after five minutes, let alone five years.
  I turn now to the tenants' charter. Many tenants will not want, and many will not be able to afford, to buy their homes. Indeed, one of the most depressing comments I have heard is that a great many council tenants regard their homes as so indifferent that their principal aim is to get away from them and the area in which they exist. The tenants' charter gives a comprehensive framework of statutory rights. For the first time in the history of public sector housing in this country, tenants will have the protection of a statutory code of rights in their dealings with the local housing department.

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  My aim in framing the charter has been to bring to council tenants the recognition that they have de facto security and the incentives for those who wish to take a greater interest in the condition of their home and its environment. The more that those who can will do for themselves, the more housing authorities will be able to concentrate on the problems of those dependent on society.
  I have given proper weight to those responsibilities in framing the charter. The charter builds on the good practice of many authorities and housing associations. But even for them it will have a new significance as a national statutory code of rights.
  First, clause 27 conveys security of tenure to tenants and licensees of local authorities, housing associations and new towns who are occupying the dwellings as their only or principal home.
  Clauses 29 to 33 give a right to one succession to a secure tenancy and lay down the procedure for possession. The court may not make an order for possession unless one of more of the grounds for possession as set out in schedule 4 is satisfied.
  Clauses 34 to 36 govern the new rights of secure tenants to take in lodgers and sublet part of the dwelling. They will also have rights under clauses 72 and 73 to make improvements, including external decorations, to their houses. The landlord's consent is necessary but must not be unreasonably withheld. This will not, however, affect the landlord's duty to repair and maintain.
  Clauses 39 to 43 specify how tenancy terms may be varied and lay new duties on landlords to make information available to tenants on a range of matters of concern to them, including the terms of secure tenancies and of the tenants' charter and the rules for allocations, transfers and exchanges. Landlords will also be obliged to consult their secure tenants on specified management issues.
  Clause 45 provides that the Secretary of State may contribute to the costs of housing transfers and exchanges.
  The charter will make a profound difference to public sector housing in this country, first and foremost to the tenant and his family. It will give them not only statutory security in their own home but
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  the legal rights to make full use of that security, to enjoy their home as they want, to improve it to meet their needs, to paint it in the colour they choose, to put their own ideas, skills and personality into it and, if they decide to do so, to bring another member of their family into the home, or to take a lodger, thus making better use of the accommodation.
  Many tenants, having put their own work into the dwelling, will want to own it and thus attract the capital benefit for themselves. If so, the way ahead will be clear. But there will be no pressure. Indeed, local authorities under clause37 will have power to compensate a tenant for any capital improvement he carries out. But whether or not tenants decide to take the further step to ownership, their charter rights will remain.
  Some tenants will want to go further in this direction and take full responsibility for their own management by setting up a management co-operative, and I encourage this where possible. It is one way of ensuring that people feel that they have control over the immediate environment they live in. The responsibility is theirs to deal with the way in which their block of flats is looked after and safeguarded from vandalism and other problems which cause distress on some estates. The co-operatives have their own distinctive contribution to make in public housing. I shall take a close personal interest in the progress of co-operatives already in existence and of others which may be set up.
  In recent years much has been heard of the problems of inner cities. I believe that the Bill, both by widening the choice of tenure and by the enhanced role it offers to tenants, is a central feature of the Government's policy to bring a new dimension of opportunity and commitment to these areas.
  I now come to the part of the Bill dealing with the private rented sector. This sector has been declining for 60 years. There are many causes, of which the single largest is almost certainly the low net return on letting compared with other avenues for investment. The combination of rent control and security of tenure has encouraged landlords to sell up on a massive scale as soon as they had the chance.

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  Rent control and security of tenure are the consequence of political pressures, and, whilst some have gained from such controls, many others—including many of our poorest citizens—have suffered from the lack of accommodation. I say at once that it would be quite impossible to draw a hard and fast line in the House as to where changes should be made. It is impossible to prove or quantify the trade-off between owners getting possession and more owners being prepared to let. It is equally impossible to balance the possibility of some hardship arising from easier possession on the one hand against the possible social benefits on the other if that reduction in security meant that more couples found more homes available to rent.
  Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann: Although I am not saying that I accept the Secretary of State's analysis so far, I believe that there is one major point on which the House would like to be reassured. As the Bill stands, and arising from what the Minister has just said, it is possible that many existing protected tenants could be persuaded into shorthold and thereby lose their security. It would greatly affect the attitude of many hon. Members and members of the public if the Secretary of State would give the House an assurance that in no circumstances will an existing protected tenant be persuaded to enter into a short-hold agreement, thereby losing his security. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give that assurance now.
  Mr. Heseltine: I give the assurance—the only one I can meaningfully give—that this legislation in no way detracts from the existing security of those who currently enjoy it. I made that clear—as the Conservative Party made clear—during the election campaign.
  The House has debated these issues many times and most of us recognise that there are few certainties and little room for rigid attitudes. The previous Government, for example, ended security of tenure for unfurnished tenants of resident landlords in new lettings after the Rent Act 1974. They also proposed to speed up possession proceedings for resident landlords. In other words, they recognised the balance of the argument But, in coming to the House with the proposals in the Bill to stimulate private letting, I have one advantage not avail-
  1456
  able to any of my predecessors. The House has set up under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mr. Douglas-Mann) a Select Committee which has a more comprehensive and permanent remit to consider all these things than had any previous agency of this House.
  I therefore say this to the Labour Party. Make no decisions of an irreversible nature about the workings of my proposals. Let them be examined in practice, if it so chooses, by a Select Committee of this House, and then we can make informed judgments in the light of experience. There has been too much that has gone wrong with the private rented sector for far too long for us to refuse to consider new ideas designed to meet the shortages and hardships that exist.
  Let us remember the consequences of the Rent Acts. The price has been paid by society at large, not least by the poorest sections of the community. The consequences of holding down rents artificially over long periods are manifest. Thousands of basically sound properties have been demolished. Tenants have lived for years in appalling conditions and owners have given up in despair. In spite of all the housing progress made, it is harder and harder for young people to find a place to rent.
  Let me contrast two sets of figures to show the folly of what has happened. Since 1956 the single old-age pension has increased from £2 to £23.30 per week, which is an improvement of over 1,000 per cent.
  Mr. Eric S. Heffer Mr. Eric S. Heffer(Liverpool, Walton) rose—
  Mr. Heseltine: A controlled rent fixed on the 1956 rateable value has remained basically unchanged. Since 1970 the average fair rent registered has increased by 106 per cent. while average earnings have moved up two and a half times as fast during the same period, and the cost of repairing the house to which that rent relates must have widened by at least a similar margin. We cannot expect well-maintained homes while keeping the present relationship between costs and rents.
  Mr. Heffer: The right hon. Gentleman argues that young people are finding it difficult to rent property, but at the same

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  time he is advocating that council houses should be sold, which will mean that the stock will be depleted. Ordinary working-class people who cannot afford to buy will not be able to get houses, which will be a serious problem.
  Mr. Heseltine: Under this legislation ordinary working class people will be able to afford to buy on a scale that they never dreamt possible. The fallacy of the hon. Member's narrow doctrinal argument is that he is denying the opportunity to people who will get it no other way. He must understand that we are selling not to people on the open market but to sitting tenants who, on all the evidence, will either buy and remain owners in situ or remain in the same houses as tenants.
  Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Heseltine: This is a long debate in which many hon. Members will have an opportunity to speak. Every time I give way, regrettably my speech is, of necessity, extended. I must ask the House to allow me to proceed.
  I want to indicate the three areas in which I believe that we shall improve the opportunity for rented accommodation. First, clauses 50 to 54 provide for shorthold. A landlord who lets on shorthold will have to offer the tenant a fixed period agreement of between one and five years. If there is no fair rent fixed already, he will need to apply to the rent officer at the outset. To regain possession at or after the end of the agreed period, he will have to give the tenant three months' warning. That will provide tenants with substantial safeguards while corresponding with the needs of the vast majority of new tenants who are looking for short-stay accommodation.
  My second new scheme applies to lettings by resident landlords. I want to encourage more people to rent out spare rooms in their homes. The potential appears to be considerable. In 1977 there were some 900,000 people, mostly owner-occupiers, in large houses with two or more rooms apparently surplus to requirements. The present law presents the resident landlord with a formidable assault course of traps and obstacles if he wants to regain possession of his property. Clause 64 simplifies the present procedure.
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  My third new proposal, in clauses 55 to 57, is concerned with new building for rent. I want to see, on a carefully controlled basis, what scope there is for attracting long-term investment into rented accommodation once more. The Bill gives me, as Secretary of State, power by order to approve bodies seeking to build in the way that I have described. They will then be able to let under what the Bill calls assured tenancies, but only in newly provided building.
  Rents will be freely negotiated and will not be subject to the rent officer, but tenants will have effective security under a modified form of the business tenancy regime in part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. As an experiment, the sort of bodies I have in mind for approval are building societies, pension funds and insurance companies.
  These are my three new initiatives in the private rented sector, and all affect new lettings only.
  Mr. W. Benyon: It seems surprising to a number of us that my right hon. Friend is prepared to make these concessions to various bodies but is not prepared to trust the individual private landlord.
  Mr. Heseltine: I cannot escape from that criticism, but I had to consider the matter carefully in the light of the sensitivity of the whole issue surrounding private rented accommodation. I believe that it is right in the short term to conduct a controlled experiment, which, if it can be shown to reverse the trend of decades, will perhaps recreate a basis of confidence. It is on that basis that I took the decision to try to appeal across the party divide in order to seek a consensus without which it is difficult to believe that there is any lasting prospect of such a reversal.
  Mr. Stephen Ross Mr. Stephen Ross(Isle of Wight) rose—
  Mr. Heseltine: No; I must get on.
  Apart from the three proposals, the Bill will make a number of important changes in the Rent Acts which aim to encourage existing landlords to continue to let and to improve the condition of the rented stock. For example, clause 58 changes the period of review for fair rents from three to two years and clause 62 deals with the totally inequitable

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  system of fixed controlled rents based on 1956 values.
  It is crucial that we preserve the immense national asset represented by the country's housing stock if we are to have any hope of achieving our long-term aim of a decent home for every family. With that in mind, we propose extensive modifications in the improvement grant system to make grants easier to obtain and to widen the number of people entitled to them.
  Part VI of the Bill sets out the new housing subsidy system for local authorities, new towns and the Development Board for Rural Wales, which is to take effect from 1 April 1981. It is designed to offer a sensible and fair deal as between central Government and the housing authorities and between council tenants, ratepayers and taxpayers.
  The starting point each year is the previous year's subsidy entitlement. Then adjustments are made for the changes in expenditure counting for subsidy and in local contributions. The Secretary of State will determine what expenditure counts for subsidy and for each year, after consulting the local authority associations, the change in local contribution.
  Part VIII of the Bill introduces a number of changes to strengthen the financial regimes of the housing associations and extends the Housing Corporation borrowing limits.
  The Bill includes such a wide variety of provisions that I cannot deal with them all in this speech. My hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction will deal tonight with points raised in this debate, and there will be time in Committee for considerable examination of the detail.
  However, I cannot conclude without a further generalisation that follows from the attitude of the Labour Party to the sale of council properties. If the Labour Party in local government pursued practical and flexible policies of council house sales, we should not need legislation and the issues could be left to local discretion, but I know—and I have it from the speeches of Labour Member after Labour Member—that, if I allow any local discretion in any part of this legislation, the Labour Party will seek to use it to frustrate the whole purpose of the policy.
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  There will be talk today of housing queues, selling off the houses with gardens and the problems of tower block families, but for the underlying reality of the attitudes of the Labour Party I need take the House no further than to a little record of history penned by Mr. Joe Haines, who, from within No. 10 Downing Street, tried to convince the Labour Government of the 1960s to enfranchise the council tenant.
  Mr. Heffer: Who is Joe Haines?
  Mr. Heseltine: He was the principal press officer to the Prime Minister under whom the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) served so conspicuously in the Labour Government of the time.
  I quote what Mr. Haines said about the inner workings of the Labour Government over their objections to the sale of council houses:
  "The old objections were renewed again by the political advisers … the 'selling' of council houses was gravely equated with the famous clause 4 of the Labour Party constitution which aims at securing for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange."
  Mr. Haines went on:
  "We were entering the realm of the farcical, the question of whether or not we gave greater freedom to the council tenant was being incorporated into the theology of the movement."
  Tonight an offer to millions of tenants will be resisted by the Labour Party in defence of the theology of the movement which is more archaic even than the housing standards and practices of Eastern Europe.
  I commend this Bill to this House with pride because it is far more than just another housing Bill. It will transform the personal prospects of millions of our citizens, offering to turn them at their wish from tenants to owners. It will establish their rights as individiuals above the bureaucracies of the State. It will come to be seen among the finest traditions and philosophies of the Conservative Party.
  Several hon. Members Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Speaker has asked me to announce that he has decided that after 7 o'clock speeches will be limited to 10 minutes.
  4.53 pm
  Mr. Roy Hattersley: I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends will agree that by far the most eloquent and impressive part of the Secretary of State's speech was that in which he told us how important the Bill was. I am sure that he will accept the opinion of this side of the House that profound social revolutions—as he claims he is presenting—by their very nature have long Committee stages. No doubt, being properly aware of his duties to the House of Commons, the Secretary of State will combine with us in insisting that such a Bill, which has the most profound implications for our society, must have very considerable and detailed scrutiny in Committee. We hope that the Secretary of State will support us in that belief.
  However, we are not encouraged by the way in which the right hon. Gentleman has treated the House of Commons already on this matter. I refer to the question of the documents on costs. The idea of producing a document describing the financial implications of selling council houses came from the Secretary of State. He offered it himself during Question Time in the autumn when some of my hon. Friends challenged him over the more extravagant claims that he had made during the election campaign. Repeatedly, in Question Time after Question Time, the Secretary of State promised that in time for today's debate there would be a thorough appraisal of the cost to the community. In fact, that thorough appraisal was published last Friday. It was not available in the Vote Office when it opened yesterday, and numerous journalists on Friday and Monday morning were told that there were not enough copies for general circulation.
  The Secretary of State had better tell us the position. Is he really saying that, having been committed to this policy for three years in Opposition and for nine months in Government, the Conservative Party did not know its financial consequences until last Friday morning? If that is the case, it is the most extraordinary piece of financial irresponsibility. If the Government knew the financial consequences before then, they had an absolute duty to report them to the House of Commons, as the Secretary of State promised in October.
  1462
  Looking at the document, I am not surprised that the Secretary of State has been reticent about its contents. I hope to deal with some of the financial consequences when I reach that part of my speech, but I believe that the House should have a taste of the intellectual flavour spread over its 44 pages.
  Hon. Members will be aware that our principal complaint about selling council houses is that compulsory sales will mean a denial to prospective tenants of re-lets that otherwise would have been available to them. Clause14 of the annex to this paper seeks to disprove that proposition. It quotes at great length the behaviour of council tenants who have bought their own houses in the past and remained on council estates. Of course, the problem is not that of those who have remained in the past but of those who have left and bought houses elsewhere. Now, when they are offered their houses at a remarkable discount, they will choose to stay on their council estates rather than buy in the private sector.
  Paragraph 14 of the document asks the wrong questions of the wrong people. Its authors, having discovered that fact half-way through, conclude with one of the classical logical errors that is described in any elementary textbook. Having quoted a long survey on the behaviour of council house tenants who remain, their final sentence reaches a conclusion about the motives of council house tenants who previously left. If the Secretary of State has any doubts about his error, I can tell him how he can reconcile them.
  Mr. Heseltine: I make this offer to the right hon. Gentleman. If he lets me know the assumptions on which he wants the calculations made, I shall have them run through for him.
  Mr. Hattersley: I can make a better offer than that. I wish the Secretary of State had given me the opportunity of doing so as it would slightly reduce his embarrassment. Paragraph 14 is based on the evidence of a Mr. Murie of the university of Birmingham, who is quoted throughout the paragraph. If the Secretary of State or any other hon. Member would care to get in touch with Mr. Murie, I am assured that he will explain in detail why that paragraph is wholly wrong. I can give an assurance about that.

  1463
  If the Secretary of State would like more evidence about the intellectual quality of his paper, perhaps he should look at the first line of the final paragraph, which, I swear, reads as follows:
  "Most sitting tenant purchasers are not old enough for many of them to die."
  I assume that that line was constructed by the Home Secretary's speech writers.
  Notwithstanding a good deal of nonsense which has been produced by the Secretary of State and his civil servants, who, I have no doubt, were embarrassed by the requirement to take part in this operation, there are some parts of the Bill which the Opposition welcome. It is wholly appropriate that I should begin by describing those parts of the Bill with which we agree. Of course, we reserve our right to try to improve even those in Committee.
  There are two areas in the Bill with which we agree. First, we very much welcome the extensions proposed in the availability of grants for repairs and improvements. Not only do we welcome that proposal; we invented it. But we in no way begrudge the right hon. Gentleman what we bequeathed to him. Of course, we wish to ensure that the result of those increased powers means an improvement in the amenities for tenants rather than increased profits for landlords. Also, we want to avoid what has become known as "gentrification" of property rather than improved property remaining in the hands of its traditional residents—those who need it. I am sceptical about whether this power will amount to a major improvement programme in the private sector, because most tenants will be unable to afford the balance necessary to put together the package which finances the improvements. Having said that, we welcome that part of the Bill.
  Secondly, we welcome the reintroduction of a tenants' charter. Much of what is proposed in that charter—and, of course, I exclude from my welcome the compulsory sale of council properties—is simply a rewrite of Labour proposals. We have never accepted the view, most recently expressed by the Association of District Councils, which I am glad the Secretary of State has rejected, that council tenants, being de facto secure, do not need any legal security. Hard experience shows often that they do need it
  1464
  and that those who do not need it certainly want it. I am sure that the Secretary of State is right to provide it for them.
  Naturally, we regret very much that two of the most important proposals in the tenants' charter which would have appeared in a Labour Bill have been omitted. I want to press the Secretary of State on those omissions. The first concerns residence qualification. I have no doubt that the original intention to prohibit residence qualification should have been pursued. For some reason, it seems to have been pursued in the Scottish Bill. Perhaps the Minister of State can tell us why the same policy has not been applied in England.
  I still support, as do the Opposition, what has come to be called the Culling-worth principle that no one should be precluded from applying for or being considered for a council tenancy. To preclude certain individuals has a number of economic objections concerning mobility of labour. Much more important, in my experience in the city of Birmingham, it acts in a most discriminatory way against immigrants. I hope that during Committee the Secretary of State will consider reintroducing prohibition of residence qualification.
  I hope that we can be told why, within the area of the tenants' charter, tenants are not to be given the right of consultation over the levels of rents and the levels of charges. That would have appeared in a Labour Bill. Indeed, it appeared in the Conservatives' consultative document. But, somehow, between publication of the consultative document and publication of the Bill, the right to be consulted over rent levels has been omitted.
  Our fear, and, much more important, the fear of tenants, is that this heralds a period in which the Government will embark on a sustained policy of continual and substantial corporation rent increases as part of their economic policy, behind the doorway of reducing the public sector borrowing requirement, rather like the domestic gas tax announced on Thursday and Friday, and as part of a scheme by which tenants will be encouraged, induced and put under pressure to purchase their houses as they make the calculation between mortgage repayments and rents that increase week by week.

  1465
  That is our fear about paragraphs 85 to 89.
  We support the Secretary of State—once more the scheme was ours—for introducing a more flexible subsidy structure. But the structure that a Labour Government would have introduced, the more flexible scheme that I agree is necessary, contained two significant differences from that presented to us today. I wish to press the Secretary of State on both matters, acknowledging and repeating that the general outline of his subsidy scheme seems to us to be basically right but basically different from what we would have done in two particular ways.
  The Labour Bill would have obliged the Secretary of State to
  "have regard to the latest information available to him as to changes in the levels of earnings."
  We pledged ourselves—and we kept our pledge—to keep rent increases and levels of earnings increases in line. Clause 89 of the Bill does not impose any such obligation on the Secretary of State. It requires him to have regard,
  "among other things, to past and expected changes in incomes, costs and prices."
  Anyone who has drafted a Bill and who has been advised on drafting a Bill knows that this obligation is not an obligation at all. It does not in any way constrain the Secretary of State, who, under the terms of the Bill as it now stands, is able to decide on rent levels without any real regard to any of the other indices. This part of the Bill amounts to an enabling power which, if passed by the House, will allow the Secretary of State to do what he wants. That is a fundamental constitutional difficulty. But it also leads many people to believe that the right hon. Gentleman wants to mount massive rent increases.
  There was not a word from the Secretary of State today about prospective rent levels. I hope that we shall hear a little on that and on other matters, to which I propose to turn, from the Minister of State.
  Another ominous straw in the wind for rent levels is demonstrated by the differences between what Labour would have done and what the Secretary of State now proposes. Clause 116 seeks to repeal what has come to be called the no-profit rule which at present prohibits local authorities
  1466
  from charging rents at such a level that the housing revenue account runs into substantial surplus and remains in surplus over a long period. The Secretary of State said in his consultation document that when he removed the no-profit rule and therefore allowed some housing authorities to build up substantial balances at the expense of their tenants he would say how he proposed to deal with those profits. Previous Conservative Governments have clawed back those profits to the central Exchequer. But the Secretary of State said that he would make clear how he proposed to distribute those profits. Unless my attention wandered during his 50-minute speech, he has not told us that today.
  It seems extraordinary that the right hon. Gentleman should ask the House of Commons to vote for local housing authorities making and sustaining large balances in their housing revenue accounts without beginning to fulfil his promise to describe how those balances are to be used and what is to happen to them. If the Minister of State does not reply to that question tonight, it will be the most appalling dereliction of ministerial duty.
  Adding all these matters together—the failure of the Secretary of State to describe his rent intentions, the failure to explain what is to happen to the surplus, the changes he is making in subsidy and rent regulations and the power he is to possess to make arbitrary decisions about rent levels—tenants can only conclude that they are in for a period of continued, sustained and substantial rent increases.
  All the hints, nods and winks from the Government over the last three months suggest that that is the case. The Daily Telegraph on Saturday called for exactly that policy. The Sunday Times, a week last Sunday, in a front page article which bore all the marks of careful ministerial guidance, said that the Government were proposing high rent increases as an inducement for greater purchase. The Prime Minister herself, in the broadcast which The Times described as deeply unmemorable, talked in terms of corporation tenants making a larger contribution to the overall economic welfare of the country.
  I hope very much that the Minister of State will make clear how he sees the pattern of rents developing in the future and perhaps also say how he sees the

  1467
  pattern of council house building developing over the next year or two. It is extraordinary that we are debating a Bill concerning council house building, council house ownership and council rents but the Government have not thought it right to inform the House on two basic matters, namely, what council house building they anticipate and what rent levels they propose.
  The Minister of State had a little fun with me, which I do not begrudge him, when I said that he was very late in producing his housing investment programme plans. He said that we had been much later in our time and had gone as late as 4 January. Even by our tardy standards, he is now 11 days overdue. I hope that before the day is out he will give some indication of when the housing investment programme is to be announced.
  Having explained what we hope to hear, I should now like to turn to two other matters. The Bill, I fear, contains hopeless intellectual confusion about the rented sector in particular. It reflects conflict within the overall Government housing policy. Those conflicts come about as a direct result of Conservative dogma.
  The provisions of the Bill, taken together with the ominous news that I expect, if we get any news at all, about council house building, must mean a containment and possible contraction of the public rented sector. Yet, at the same time, the Government are trying to stabilise, perhaps even expand, the private rented sector. It seems to me extraordinary that anyone should be prepared to advance a thesis that the tenants of this country, as a body, have anything to gain from the contraction of public rented housing and the extension of private rented housing.
  Only the blindest prejudice could advance that proposition. The Secretary of State clearly wants to promote private rented housing. That is obvious from the way that he swings the balance of advantage throughout the Bill away from the private tenant and towards the private landlord.
  There are many examples of that, but I shall give only three. Clause 58 reduces from three years to two years the period between registration and re-registration of fair rents. The inevitable result of
  1468
  that will be more frequent rent increases and, over the years, higher rent increases.
  Clause 59 changes the date on which fair rents will take effect from the date on which the application was made to the date on which the rent officer made his decision. That change will have two inevitable results—procrastination by the landlord, and the tenant having to pay an unreasonably high rent during the period of procrastination that precedes the rent officer's determination.
  Clause 62 abolishes controlled tenancies. The inevitable result will be large rent increases for many of our poorest tenants and many of those in the worst accommodation. There are many more examples, and we oppose all attempts to swing the balance of advantage, in what is, in any case, an unequal relationship, away from the man who wants to rent a house for his family in the direction of the man or institution who wants to let a house for profit.
  Mr. Stephen Ross: One of the disappointing aspects of the debate is that neither Front Bench spokesman has got to the kernel of the housing problem. What is the attitude of the Labour Party to the large number of empty properties in this country? If we are facing economic difficulties, would it not make sense to try to bring some of that property into occupation?
  I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said about the lack of information about the future house building programme and I agree that, certainly in my constituency, where 13 per cent. of property is local authority owned, the sale of council houses would be a total disaster, but what proposals does the right hon. Gentleman have for dealing with the problem of empty properties?
  Mr. Hattersley: I am glad that I have enabled the hon. Gentleman to make the point which he was unable to make to the Secretary of State. It is impossible to deny the advantages of the course that he has proposed, but I do not believe that one should pursue those advantages if, by doing so, one would involve existing tenants in intolerable penalties.
  I believe that the Secretary of State genuinely thinks that the course that I have described is likely to bring more private property on to the market, but I

  1469
  am convinced that it will penalise existing tenants and will not produce the results that the, right hon. Gentleman seeks. After all, the Rent Act 1957 moved the balance of advantage far further away from tenants towards landlords, but its net result was to reduce the supply of private rented property.
  I do not believe that the Secretary of State can achieve the object he seeks in the way that he proposes, not least because I believe that the private landlord is an anachronism in 1980. I do not believe that it is possible to run a substantial private rented system in a way that simultaneously supports the interests of tenants and offers private landlords sufficient rewards and inducements for them to put their houses on the market. I make no allegations about wickedness in the Victorian sense. I allege that private landlords are an anachronism and I believe that the outcome of the Bill will demonstrate that fact more than adequately.
  Mr. Heseltine: The right hon. Member must be aware that every new publicly built house costs a subsidy of £1,500 in the first year. Does he not understand the need to try to produce some incentives to get existing property owned by the private sector on to the rented market? How would he do that, other than along the lines of the shorthold provisions in the Bill?
  Mr. Hattersley: I can give the Secretary of State an example from my constituency about which I have written to him. If he would allow the Conservative council in Birmingham to buy some of the large number of private houses on the fringes of development areas in the city, those properties would be rented immediately to Birmingham citizens. That is a much more practical and less ideological approach than that adopted by the right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Heseltine: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Hattersley: The right hon. Gentleman will not be able during my speech to make up for all his omissions.
  Mr. Heseltine: The course proposed by the right hon. Gentleman would lead to the level of first-year losses that I have outlined.
  Mr. Hattersley: The right hon. Gentleman is rather disarming in the way that he assumes that we all accept his inaccuracies. I am not prepared to accept the figures that he has conjured up. I do not want to pursue the more arcane realms of the right hon. Gentleman's document, but there is no doubt that most of what he has said about investment and transfer payments is wrong.
  I have no doubt that the tenant is best protected by an extension of municipal owernship, and that will surely and certainly come. I have said that I want to see an extension of municipal ownership, and the House knows that one of our traditional and long-standing objections to the sale of council houses is that it will diminish the supply of public rented property.
  That property will be diminished in two ways. I assure the Secretary of State that the authority that he quotes in his document will confirm my view that public rented property will be diminished in terms of numbers. One in seven of new houses that are purchased is bought by those who move from council accommodation. They leave a substantial number of relets for new tenants in desperate need. About 75 per cent. of families moving into council houses move into properties that are not new but re-let. Our wish and determination is to preserve those council houses for the rented sector.
  When I talk about the Bill diminishing the rented sector, I am not speaking only in a numerical sense. The Secretary of State has made gross overstatements about the dissatisfaction of many council tenants for which he has no justification, because the surveys of the attitudes of council tenants are clear. Much of his policy is designed to turn Britain into two housing nations—the prosperous who can afford to buy, and the rest who have to survive in rented accommodation. Even if the policy is not so designed, it will certainly have that result. We do not believe in two housing nations. We believe in two housing sectors, treated with equal esteem and embracing all income groups and having their own individual and distinct advantages.
  I have no doubt that a policy of enforced sales will reduce the desirability of, and the esteem in which the nation holds, corporation and public housing,

  1471
  and it will move us disastrously along the road towards corporation housing being simply the welfare provision that we find in the United States and elsewhere.
  Mr. John Heddle: May I tax the right hon. Gentleman on that point? Is he saying that a tenant of a property owned by a local housing authority holds his tenancy in greater esteem than he would if he owned that property?
  Mr. Hattersley: I am not saying anything remotely like that and I cannot imagine how the hon. Gentleman came to imagine that I was. I stated that all that the Secretary of State has said, and much of what he said during the general election campaign, which was the same, only with even more overstatement, suggests that there is something inferior about not owning one's own house. That is a division in society which this side of the House does not want to see, and it is a division which will be reinforced by the way in which council house sales will develop.
  The Secretary of State warned his colleagues that they would hear a lot about the compulsory sale of new, well-equipped and traditionally designed houses. He is right. He is going to hear at least something about that.
  At the press conference to launch the consultative document, the Minister of State said that a fair spread of properties would be sold and that he had a lot of evidence to support that view but that, unfortunately, it had not been published. The published evidence also, unfortunately for him, demonstrates quite the opposite.
  In the Greater London Council area, only 3 per cent. of flats have been sold since 1977 and only 16 per cent. of the houses which have been sold are in inner London, where the majority of houses are to be found. In Birmingham, 10,000 properties were sold between 1965 and 1978. Only four of those properties were flats. Nationally, during the last nine months for which figures are available, over 37,000 properties were sold, only 484 of which were flats.
  There is no doubt that the houses which will be sold will be the new, traditional suburban houses. The public sector, the sector for rent, will retain the old houses
  1472
  bought as part of road widening schemes and city redevelopment plans, houses built before the war and not improved, and multi-storey flats. Families who need rented accommodation will be denied the opportunity of moving into them. Families already in council accommodation will find the accommodation in which they live unsuitable or inadequate and will be denied the opportunity to transfer into a house of their choice.
  When I say that families will be denied the opportunity, it is enormously important for us to understand and remember that the enforced sale of council houses does not, as the Secretary of State suggests from time to time, offer the opportunity of house purchase to every corporation tenant. At least half of the corporation tenants will not be able to afford to buy their houses. No matter how generous the discounts or how substantial the loan, more than half will not be able to buy their houses. They will not be able to afford the early repayments, and they will not be within the scale of any conceivable mortgage scheme.
  Moreover, 44 per cent. of council tenants are in receipt of either a Department of Health and Social Security income support or rent rebates. They will not buy their houses. The pattern that will emerge in consequence is that the richer tenants will buy the better houses and the poorer tenants will be left with those that remain. I do not know how to describe that in terms of social justice. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State spoke for 50 minutes and I made no complaints. If I speak for anything like that length of time, the House will be denied many other speeches. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to conclude my speech. No doubt he will seek to make his own speech later.
  That is our principal complaint—wholly undoctrinal—against council house sales. We have many supplementary complaints and objections of great force. Despite the publication of Friday's meaningless document, no one really believes that the sale of council houses, over the life of a normal council house, will not result in substantial losses to the community as a whole.
  A second example of the supplementary but important objections is that this is a direct attack on local autonomy, on

  1473
  the rights of democratically elected councillors to fulfil the mandates on which they were elected.
  Thirdly, the scheme, if it is promoted in the way suggested by the Secretary of State, will have a direct and adverse effect on mortgage rates for prospective private tenants. A substantial number of corporation tenants attempt to obtain mortgages on the open market. The Secretary of State hopes that that will be so. That is what the Conservative Central Office urged on councils when letters were sent to Labour groups some months ago. The net result of that extra demand for mortgages can only be either a continuation of the mortgage famine or an increase in mortgage rates to attract new buyers to meet the new demands.
  Those are supplementary objections to the scheme. Our principal objection relates to the number of houses that will be lost to the pool of publicly rented housing. I refer to remarks made by the Minister for Housing and Construction. He is remarkably reckless in his use of figures. I attribute that in general to the company that he now keeps. I hope that in reply he will try to clarify some of the points he has made at previous press conferences when he was not open to the scrutiny of the House.
  The Minister said that it was the Government's view that only a minimum of council tenants will want to buy or take advantage of the right to buy. Will he tell us on what statistics he bases that estimate? Will he tell us what is "a minimum"? Will he tell us how many houses the Government want to sell, hope to sell and plan to sell? We believe that with the admittedly extremely generous discounts there will be a large demand, at least in the early months and years. The Labour Party does not believe necessarily that people who want to do things at the expense of others should have an unrestricted fiat to do so.
  The Minister also said that nationally more houses had been built in the past than had been sold. That is a remarkably bent statistic. He was comparing nationwide building with selling in a number of authorities, as a majority of authorities were not prepared to sell at that time.
  1474
  However, if one looks at the enthusiastic sellers, one discovers that in 1978 the GLC sold 3,706 houses and started 3,136. Birmingham sold 2,179 houses and started 1,469. Nottingham—champion in this league table—sold 2,157 and started 329. Will the Minister tell us whether the Government contemplate a situation in which more houses are being sold, at a loss to the pool of rented accommodation, than are being built? Will the Government contemplate a situation in which there is a net loss in that sector?
  When the Minister has answered those questions, perhaps he will turn to questions on other subjects connected not only with the vital role of the public sector but with other parts of the Bill. We are particularly concerned with the part of the Bill dealing with public sector tenants, to which we take great exception.
  At the annual conference of Shelter, the Minister for Housing and Construction spoke with remarkable eloquence about the need to prohibit restraint in the public sector. He said that for him it was a matter of principle—something which must be changed and which would be changed. Will he tell us why it has not been changed in the Bill and how that principle was eroded?
  Will the Minister also confirm some of our worst fears about the final point with which I wish to deal—that of shorthold? There are several arguments to be advanced in favour of shorthold which I do not begin to dismiss or discount. A shorthold provision is included in the Bill, but virtually all the safeguards have been omitted. Why? The safeguards appeared in Private Members' Bills this year, last year and the year before, but they have now been omitted. No doubt the Under-Secretary of State, if he is a member of the Committee, will be able to explain that in detail. He was a sponsor of at least three Bills which provided for shorthold tenancies protection and safeguards which go far in excess of this Bill.
  There is one danger about which we are particularly concerned. Clause 51(3) gives power to the Secretary of State to deregister shorthold properties and unilaterally to decide that tenants in shortholds are not only not protected in terms of their tenure but are no longer protected in terms of their rents. If that provision reaches the statute book, a

  1475
  future Labour Government would be committed to repealing the shorthold proposition.
  If the Minister wants the co-operation of both sides of the House, and if he wants shortholds to be given a fair wind, as he describes it, the safeguards which have previously been included in shorthold Bills must be included in this Bill, and certainly his power to deregister shorthold tenancies must be removed. If he feels unable to do that, shorthold landlords should not enter into agreements in the belief that a future Labour Government would continue with this policy.
  In dealing with clause 51(3), I should like to make a general complaint about the way in which the Bill has been framed. Powers similar to those contained in clause 51(3), enabling the Secretary of State to do what he chooses, appear in paragraph after paragraph. He has enabling powers. The Secretary of State chooses the rents. The Secretary of State chooses the subsidies. The Secretary of State decides how he will sell council houses if councils will not. The Secretary of State has power to re-register properties.
  I regard it as constitutionally deeply unhealthy that the House of Commons should pass a Bill which then enables one Minister to behave in that way. If we thought about the Bill in terms of democracy alone, we would think it necessary to vote against it this evening. But, of course, we think about it in much wider and very different terms. Much of what the Bill proposes is deeply damaging to the interests of millions of people in this country.
  The principle on which the Bill is based is, in my belief and in the belief of my right hon and hon. Friends, deeply divisive. Tenants of corporation properties who are prosperous enough and self-confident enough to buy their houses will certainly enjoy sustained benefits—I do not deny that for a moment—but they will enjoy them at the cost of the rest of the community, who will pay for council housing subsidies and who will be required to compete for the council houses which remain. Meanwhile, the tenants in private property will see their security diminished, their rents increased and their landlords' powers extended. The public authority tenant can look forward to a reduced chance of transferring to the sort of
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  house that he wants and to the certainty of continual rent increases during the next decade.
  This is exactly the sort of superficial, meritricious, class-conscious, uncaring Bill that we would expect from the right hon. Gentleman, and we shall vote against it tonight.
  5.31 pm
  Mr. Tony Durant: I am pleased to enter the debate at this early stage because I believe that the Bill has two features of fundamental importance. First, it raises the status of council tenants. I have always believed that council tenants have been badly treated by this nation and have always been thought of as second-class citizens. Some of the measures in the Bill try to bring about the feeling on the part of council tenants that they are no longer second-class tenants.
  The Bill improves the opportunities for single persons and young married people to rent accommodation. At the moment, in the public sector in most authorities it is practically impossible for the single person to get a council house. Very often it is practically impossible even for the newly married young couple to do so. The shorthold tenancy will help in this regard.
  Why should there be a right to buy? The Opposition spokesman tended to deprecate those who wish to buy as though they were moving into a different social class. He rather fostered the idea that it was an anachronism to rent property in the private sector. He seemed to suggest that everybody should be either a council tenant or a private owner. I disagree fundamentally with that approach. It was a bad statement to make in this Chamber against many people who rent out very well run properties. It was very unfortunate that he attacked them.
  My fundamental belief is that the sale of council houses is necessary in order to provide a mixed society. I do not like the idea of having council tenants in one area, private tenants in another and private householders in yet another place. I am in favour of a mixed community. With a mixed community there is variety and interest.
  Mr. Don Dixon: If the hon. Gentleman believes in mixed estates, would he advocate that local authorities

  1477
  should buy houses on private estates and rent them to council house tenants?
  Mr. Durant: The truth is that that has been going on. It is nothing new.
  People should have the opportunity, as a fundamental right, to own their home if they wish to do so. The Bill opens up the possibility of home ownership to a far greater number of people than has ever been given the opportunity before.
  The exercise of this right will also bring about greater mobility. One of the fundamental troubles of our economy in this country is that people find it very difficult to move. I come, fortunately, from a prosperous and successful area. In the jobcentre in my area there are 2,000 vacancies, but people cannot move from other parts of the country because there is no opportunity for them to get the housing they need. They cannot come with their families and take up new jobs in my area.
  Mr. Straw: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in saying that the sale of council houses will encourage greater mobility he is directly contradicting what the Government say in their document? What the Government say, in order to justify some of their calculations, is that
  "few households that buy as sitting tenants would be likely to otherwise move away; nearly all would have remained local authority tenants for the rest of their lives".
  That was in a Department of the Environment document issued during this month. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he disagrees with the Secretary of State?
  Mr. Durant: I do not accept that. I am not a member of the Government. I do not have to accept everything in every Government document that has ever been produced. If I did that, I would have a heart attack. I do not have to accept what is in any particular document, be it from Shelter or from the Government. Let us get that clear.
  I believe in the opportunity for people to buy their council houses. They should be able to share in the nation's wealth. An enormous investment has been put into local council housing. People have a right to share in that wealth. Council tenants should have that opportunity. If people buy their council houses, they have the opportunity to participate far more
  1478
  in the management of their estate. That is fundamental. There is a far greater interest, on the part of those who own their own houses on a council estate, in the management of that estate. This has been made clear in the proposals for a tenants' charter.
  What are the objections to the right to buy? Some of them have already been put by the Opposition. Much of what has been said about waiting lists is exaggerated nonsense. Most waiting lists are suspect. My local authority has had a waiting list of 3,000 ever since I have been involved in the town, yet people are always being housed and people are always leaving or arriving. The figure cannot consistently be 3,000. Something must be wrong with the operation of the system of waiting lists for council property. That is why there needs to be a far greater examination of waiting lists. The waiting list is one of the weaknesses of the housing system.
  A further nonsense is that the waiting list is now very much a regional matter. There is a waiting list in the South and there is pressure for housing in the South, but in some parts of the country that pressure no longer exists because there is freedom of opportunity in housing. In my part of the country that sort of pressure still exists, as I have already indicated.
  It has been said that housing is a national asset and that we should not get rid of it. Whose national asset is it? It is the people's national asset. What vague body owns this asset other than the people themselves? They should therefore be involved in the disposal of that asset.
  Mr. David Stoddart: I am very interested in what the hon. Gentleman is saying. The answer, of course, is that the whole of the people own the asset. Is not one of the objections to the sale of council houses for a song, at very large discounts, that we are getting rid of national assets—which belong to all the ratepayers and taxpayers—to individuals, who themselves, rather than the whole community, will gain the appreciated value from them in time?
  Mr. Durant: That is another nonsense. Those people are not getting houses at a bargain price. They have already paid for that property for very many years;

  1479
  indeed, they have well overpaid for it. Those on the 50 per cent. basis, who are supposed to be getting such a good bargain, have obviously been in the property for a long time. Many of them have more than paid for the cost of their houses. They are not getting so much of a bargain in that sense.
  Mr. Stoddart Mr. Stoddart rose—
  Mr. Durant: I have already given way to the hon. Member. I must proceed. Many other hon. Members wish to take part in the debate.
  Another argument commonly used is that only the best council houses will be sold. This is not necessarily so. Many people wish to buy property that is not in particularly good condition because they prefer to have the chance to do it up themselves. That particularly applies to the younger element, who prefer to take a cheaper property in perhaps not such a good area and to have the opportunity to improve it. This should be encouraged.
  There has been talk about local government freedom. What about the citizens? The question of local government freedom is another nonsense. After all, the Labour Party said that local government should have no freedom over education. Now Labour Members are very conscious of the freedom of local authorities. This issue concerns the freedom of the individual as was argued when we discussed education and it is why the Government and Parliament have the right to pass this Bill.
  Mr. W. Benyon: If there is such a vociferous demand, why is that demand not reflected in the polls?
  Mr. Durant: It was shown in all national polls that people would like to own their own homes, and particularly their council houses. Obviously, the number who can is much smaller than those who believe that it is a good thing. I accept that most people believe that it is good to own their home. The polls have shown that.
  We have seen from Shelter's magazine that 30 per cent. of Tory-controlled councils do not think that the Bill is right, and Guildford has been mentioned as being adamant in this respect. I have carefully examined Shelter's returns. Most of them—signed by officials—came in in August. I do not believe that that is a
  1480
  good basis on which to make a judgment. I treat the Shelter returns with some suspicion. Taken overall, the figure of 30 per cent. used by Shelter is suspect and should be treated as such.
  The argument about costs is nonsense and a red herring. We are talking about the year 2040 and I am not interested in the year 2040. Some Opposition Members may be concerned about that time but I am not. I am concerned about the immediate position and with the cash gain. All documents show that. There may not be a long-term cash gain but there is such again in the short term, and that is what matters.
  There has been talk of a lack of mortgages. I hope that by the year 2040 the demand for council housing will have gone away. By then, all council houses may have been sold off into the private market and we shall not need them. There is no council housing in Denmark and the Danes do not appear to suffer as we do from an enormous housing shortage. Let us not look so far ahead. Looking to the future, to the imponderables which can be fed into our permutations, cannot stand examination.
  I urge those in the financial world to come into the housing market. A failure in the past has been that the banks and the insurance companies have not been more involved in housing. Britain is one of the few countries where those institutions are not involved in lending money for housing, but I hope that once the house sales momentum gets under way those institutions will become more involved.
  I am particularly keen on the tenants' charter. Local government is good at providing and allocating housing but its management of housing estates is weak. Local government's management skills in housing leave a lot to be desired. We all have the experience of people complaining to us that their loo has been leaking for six months and that no repairs have been done. The administration of local government housing estates is not good. We all accept that. The tenants'charter—about which both sides of the House generally agree—will improve opportunities for tenants to look after and to get involved in the estates on which they live. Such involvement will improve estates.

  1481
  I am in favour of security of tenure. The do-it-yourself industry and the desire of council tenants to improve their homes has enhanced our council estates, and much can be done under the tenants' charter to achieve a mixed society on such estates. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) spoke of consultation and I agree with him. Since the consultative document there has been a weakening of the consultative process with council tenants. I hope that we shall strengthen the consultative provisions when we examine them in Committee.
  Under the shorthold provisions there are tremendous opportunities. My experience in my constituency demonstrates that there is a crying need for shorthold tenure. Many single people, and young marrieds, have little opportunity of finding shorthold accommodation. During the general election I was shown around flats by landladies who did not let their properties because of a psychological fear of the Rent Acts. Much of that fear was unjustified because under the Rent Act 1974 owners had protection if they lived on the premises. None the less, those landladies feared that they would not be able to get a tenant out. They were, therefore, reluctant to let their property. That was a pity. The shorthold provisions will have the psychological effect of releasing more property.
  All this is a beginning. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made it clear that the Bill was a beginning and that we would see how it went. I accept it on that basis because I feel sure that it will bring more housing on to the market. I criticise the Bill because of the way that it deals with mobility. The sale of council houses will assist mobility, but there is still a great deal to be done by central Government to get more mobility in the housing sector so that people may move more easily around the country.
  An industry can suddenly die in a town where there is no other major industry. Workers are therefore stuck in that locality and there is little opportunity for them to move elsewhere. We have had to take work to them because of the lack of mobility in the housing market. More should be done in that direction.
  I welcome the repair provisions in the Bill though I believe that they should be
  1482
  streamlined. There is too much local authority interference once grants for improvement have been made. Officials are constantly coming and going, and I have come across tenants who have lost heart half-way through an improvement scheme. They have quit because of official interference.
  Mr. Allen McKay: When the hon. Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant) talks about local authority interference, does he not realise that that interference is a protection for the tenant in ensuring that alterations are correctly carried out? Many people in my constituency have complained to me of faulty workmanship. As a result of so-called "interference", those faults have been put right.
  Mr. Durant: If the correct arrangements are made and the professional standing of the builder is checked at the start, such interference should not be necessary. I am not saying that there should be no control, but my experience is that constant visiting by officials at weekly or 10-day intervals tends to make tenants lose heart. It is a local problem.
  The last Government greatly damaged tenants' successful repair and maintenance operations by cutting improvement grants by one-third. It was one of the most damaging things that they did. That decision affected much property that could by now have been done up and put to use. We must re-examine that issue.
  Some aspects of housing are not dealt with in the Bill. I wish that they were. I have referred to mobility and I believe that the Rent Acts review is urgently needed. There is not much about it in the Bill. There should have been more. Housing subsidies required further investigation.
  The Bill does not deal adequately with empty properties. This has been mentioned by Opposition Members. We should foster tenants' associations because they have a vital role to play. The Bill does not deal with them.
  I make a special plea for security of tenure for those who live on houseboats. I do not live on one myself but I speak on behalf of houseboat owners. I shall try to move an amendment to the Bill dealing with this matter in Committee. The Bill is a correct first step towards the

  1483
  creation of modern housing conditions. It not only recognises that council tenants have rights; it tries to secure greater use of our housing stock. That is a fundamental issue which society has not tackled, and I believe that the Bill moves in that direction.
  5.50 pm
  Mr. Frederick Mulley: I agree with the hon. Member for Reading, North(Mr. Durant) about the importance of the Bill. Decent housing affects a family almost as much as income in terms of a decent standard of living. It is of particular importance in the inner areas of our industrial towns, where housing remains a grievous problem. Sheffield is one such area.
  Much has been done in the 30 years since I made my maiden speech on this subject, but much remains to be done. The hon. Member for Reading, North and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) have welcomed some of these provisions. However, on balance, I believe that the Bill will make matters much worse for the people whom I represent, and I therefore oppose the measure.
  Time is short and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook eloquently expressed many of my views, so I shall try to deal briefly with those aspects of the Bill which affect my constituents. I have no objection in principle to the sale of council houses or to home ownership. Indeed, I believe that the biggest deterrent to home ownership today is the 15 per cent. mortgage rate brought about by the Conservative Government. Already in Sheffield there are signs that people who might have tried to buy a house are seeking council tenancies.
  The Sheffield city council is totally opposed to the mandatory right to purchase council dwellings, but it has no objection to home ownership. For a number of years the council has used its resources to build houses for sale. It has been successful in providing houses for direct sale. However, that is different from selling rented accommodation which belongs to the city.
  In Sheffield there are 211,000 dwellings. About 93,000, or 45 per cent., of them are council dwellings, 42·5 per cent. are owner-occupied and only 12·5 per cent. are privately rented. What happens to
  1484
  the stock of council tenancies is extremely important to housing development in the city. Our record compares well with that of any city, and is better than that of many, but we still have a waiting list of 25,000 people.
  Many of my constituents are council tenants, but there has been no demand from them to buy their council homes. Indeed, when we had a Conservative council 12 years ago it sought to sell council houses and was remarkably unsuccessful. There is no great demand. When tenants examine the costs of rates, repairs, mortgage payments and management and service charges, they discover that it will cost them more to be the owner-occupier of a council house than to continue to be a tenant.
  The haphazard sale of flats or separate houses will increase management costs and make nonsense of the tenants' charter, which we welcome. If all the tenants in a block of flats or a small estate agree to a proposal, they can be prevented from proceeding because one or two dwellings are privately owned by people who are unwilling to agree with the majority view.
  The Secretary of State is optimistic when he says that only a small addition to local government manpower is necessary to administer the scheme. The Government are putting enormous pressure on local authorities in financial and manpower terms. It is outrageous to introduce a proposal that is bound to add substantially to manpower requirements.
  Even if the sales proceeded, the proposal in the Bill can only be described as an enormous and disgraceful dissipation of public assets. The Secretary of State described the Bill as a social revolution. I prefer to describe it as a counter-revolution. I recall the 1955 general election campaign, when Mr. Macmillan boasted that the Conservatives would build more council houses than the Labour Government had done. The Conservative Party's philosophy then—and I did not dissent from it—was that the only way to tackle the grievous housing problem was to extend municipal ownership.
  The Bill will damage the functions, powers and responsibilities of local authorities. The hon. Member for Reading, North said that housing, more than

  1485
  anything else, depends upon the circumstances of a particular area. I agree with him. The difficulties and problems are different in each of our cities. It is unprecedented for the Secretary of State to take power to override all manner of local discretion, not merely in relation to the sale of council houses but in the granting of mortgages. Local authorities will be directed to give mortgages to people who, from their records, they know to be uncreditworthy.
  Under the Bill it will be possible for a person to buy a second council house at a bargain rate after three or four years. A city such as Sheffield has a large elderly population, but discretion to provide homes for the elderly is to be taken away. Local authorities have a statutory obligation to house the homeless, but the means by which they can do that are to be removed.
  The provision for housing subsidies is likely to be disadvantageous for a city such as Sheffield. The proposals are vague and the Minister must clarify the position. It would be unacceptable if Sheffield had to operate a system of subsidies based on a national average. The overriding worry is that fewer council houses will be available for local authority programmes. The housing investment programme for the financial year 1980–81 has not yet been announced, and there is anxiety not only about the dissipation of existing assets but about the inability of councils to provide for elderly and disabled people and for the homeless. The mandate given to local authorities by their local electors is to be taken away by the Bill. The Bill will not assist those who need homes and improved circumstances, and it must be strenuously opposed by all possible parliamentary means.
  6 pm
  Mr. Nicholas Scott: Like the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley), I made my maiden speech on housing and I have taken a close interest in the subject ever since. I suppose that I share some of his sadness at the lack of progress in meeting many of the housing aspirations of our people.
  As someone who has, perhaps to excess, sought for a consensus on this subject, I was moved almost to despair by the speech which the right hon. Member for
  1486
  Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) made from the Opposition Front Bench this afternoon. It was a blinkered, doctrinaire response to the measure before the House, and it was immensely disappointing.
  In many ways, the right hon. Gentleman's response was not merely blinkered and doctrinaire but self-contradictory. I thought that the high spot of his remarks was when, at one moment, he proclaimed the need for improvements in property and then denounced what he called "gentrification". Within a sentence he went on to laud the importance of mobility and then urged the importance of retaining certain housing for its traditional residents, whoever they may be. I thought that his whole speech added up to a sterile defence of the nanny-State approach to housing that has caused us to fall short of our housing dreams. Indeed, I thought that his thinking had moved on little from the 1885 Royal Commission on housing for the working classes. The Bill is a movement forward from the attitude reflected by the right hon. Gentleman in his speech.
  The Bill seeks to meet the needs of all citizens of this country and, as such, I welcome it. It is reported that Harold Macmillan once said during a discussion that he wanted not constructive criticism but praise. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction will not feel that my welcome for the Bill is any the less if, rather than waste any of the time that I have by heaping paeons of praise on him and his right hon. Friend, I mention one or two of the reservations that I have, or some of the improvements that I believe might be made in the Bill.
  I welcome the sale of council houses. I would have preferred a measure which gave some discretion to local authorities, especially those in areas in the centre of our large cities, where the importance of preserving a good stock of publicly owned housing cannot be overestimated. The Opposition have a heavy responsibility, because of their doctrinaire response to the proposals for the sale of council houses, for having forced my right hon. Friend to meet the situation with a rather blunt and inflexible instrument of the statutory right for all council tenants to be able to buy the house or flat in which they happen to be living.

  1487
  If we give council tenants the right to buy the house or flat in which they live, I must echo the sentiments put forward by the Member of Parliament for the constituency in which I live, the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay), by asking what logical reason there is why such a measure should not extend to tenants of privately rented blocks of flats.
  Anyone who lives in central London—I suppose the same is true, though to a lesser extent, in all large cities—will know of large blocks of flats that are traded around over the heads of the tenants who live in them. Many of these blocks end up in the hands of companies registered in Liechtenstein or some other area overseas. The tenants find it extremely difficult to enforce the terms of their tenancy agreements or any covenants that are the responsibility of the landlord. Service charges are increased, and the agents hide behind the overseas addresses of the companies that own the blocks of flats.
  As a minimum requirement, I should have thought that the housing corporation should produce a model scheme, under which tenants' associations of blocks of flats could have first refusal for the purchase of their block when it came on to the market. I know that there are problems with valuations, but if the Housing Corporation could have a model scheme and a duty was placed on a vendor to give first refusal to a tenants' association to purchase such a block of flats, an important step would be taken to preserve a balanced community in the centre of London.
  We have only to look a few hundred yards down the river from the Palace of Westminster to see what I think is the largest block of flats in Europe, Dolphin Square, which at one time was traded round over the heads of its tenants between property companies. An imaginative gesture was made. A trust was formed, and that block is now run on a non-profit-making basis in the interests of those who live there. There are many other blocks in my constituency and elsewhere in London that would benefit from such a move. I hope that it will be possible during the progress of the Bill to extend to private tenants the rights given to tenants in the public sector.
  1488
  Another group of tenants has been left out of the provisions of the Bill. I want to refer briefly to that group. Ironically, these people are actually public sector tenants; they are the so-called tenants of the Crown estates. "Crown estates" is a mere term. The tenants of these properties are tenants of a Government Department. These estates are not the "Queen's Private Estates" but are estates administered as a Government Department. Yet these tenants are almost unique in that they enjoy no protection under the Rent Acts and have no right to enfranchise under the Leasehold Reform Act. I should have thought that it was essential, through this legislation, to see that these people were brought within the ambit of one or other of the provisions in the Bill and enabled to enfranchise the leases that they have.
  I do not say that the Crown Estates Commission is a bad landlord. Having been one of its tenants, I can vouch for the fact that it is an admirable landlord, but if we are to extend the principle of the right to buy to council tenants there is no logic whatever in denying it to Crown estates tenants.
  I want to mention a problem that is skated over in the terms of the Bill. I am puzzled about the intention of the Bill regarding the proposals for leasehold reform. At the leasehold tribunals, as opposed to the Lands Tribunal, we shall determine the price at which people will be able to enfranchise their leases. But there are two problems which I believe need to be cleared up. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will make clear, when he winds up the debate, whether it is intended, at a later stage, to include some provision in the Bill to cover these.
  First, there are the two different systems at present for determining the value of a lease that is to be enfranchised. The lower values that were covered under the 1967 Act follow a well-known formula. That was changed by the so-called Cambridge Lands Tribunal decision. A large number of higher value leaseholders wanting to enfranchise are waiting to hear whether the Government will introduce one form of valuation of leases for enfranchisement. I believe that the previous Administration made clear that they intended to have a common system. I should like to hear from the Minister

  1489
  whether he intends to move in that direction. If he does, it will certainly benefit a large number of leaseholders in my constituency.
  On the other hand, there is a need to reform the way in which a lease is enfranchised and the timing within which it has to be enfranchised. At present, when a tenant's notice to acquire a freehold under the Leasehold Reform Act is given, the price is determined at which he can enfranchise, and that lasts for ever. A tenant can, in theory, wait four or five years, during which time the value of money—under the previous Administration at least—may halve. That is unfair to the landlord. If a tenant serves notice that he wishes to enfranchise, there should be a time limit, but a generous one of perhaps six months. However, there should be a time after the notice has been served and a price has been agreed within which the tenant should have to go ahead and complete the transaction if he still wishes to do so.
  I welcome the provisions that have been included regarding the privately rented sector. I see little chance of any substantial revival of the privately rented sector. Economics are against it in areas where rented property is most needed, and I think that the political attitude of the Opposition will preclude any great investment in this sector. However, I want to see the preservation of the existing privately rented sector.
  I thought that when the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook described the private landlord as an anachronism in this day and age he showed a most profound ignorance of the nature of a city. Coming from a man who represents the second or third city in this country, that was, I thought, deplorable.
  The lifeblood of a city is young people coming in to make their fame and fortune, to seek new jobs and to bring up new families. Such people cannot qualify for council housing on their arrival because of the points system, and they are unlikely to come into the owner-occupied sector. Their natural home, when they first come to a city, is the privately rented sector.
  If we destroy the privately rented sector, we shall atrophy the city and literally turn it into two camps—owner-occupiers
  1490
  on the one side and municipal tenants on the other—and put it back even more into a class-ridden straitjacket than it is now. I doubt whether we shall see any revival in the privately rented sector, but we should do our best to preserve the part that remains.
  My right hon. Friend talked of the need for residential landlords to make rooms available in their houses in many of the stress areas in our cities. The single best step that he could take would be to talk to his right hon. Friends at the Treasury to see whether, in their next Budget, they could produce provisions which would mean that anybody who let off part of his home was not charged capital gains tax on that section of his house when he disposed of it. They should exempt from income tax the first tranche of rental income up to, say, £1,000 a year. My spies tell me that in certain parts of London there is wide-scale evasion by people taking in lodgers and not declaring that fact to the Revenue. I suspect that the loss to the Revenue would be minimal, but many respectable, right-minded people might be encouraged to make available rooms in their houses for the benefit of the young who come to live in the city for the first time if such a proposal were accepted.
  My right hon. Friend mentioned the evils of rent control and how it had diminished the market in rented houses over the past 25 to 30 years. I am sure that that is true. However, I must put down a marker that any attempt to try to restore the free flow of market forces in central London in privately rented housing would be a social disaster of the first magnitude. Indeed, my right hon. Friend made it clear that he did not intend to take away security from anyone who now enjoys it.
  I warmly welcome the tenants' charter provision for those who will remain public sector tenants. I welcome it particularly warmly since, if I am right, the first time that it was advocated was in a speech that I made in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Mr. Stanley), when I held responsibility for housing matters on behalf of the Conservative Party. The fact that he is introducing this provision is one of the nicer circles of the wheel of politics.
  One aspect of the tenants' charter that I should like to bring out affects particu-

  1491
  larly the city of Westminster and the Royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea. At the end of the war those authorities took on some expensive property—which they still own—which they are anxious to dispose of in a sensible way over the coming years. They would like the right to regain those properties and to sell them properly in the market. Really they are anomalies. Under the terms of the tenants' charter, I do not think that those authorities would be able to gain possession. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will consider that matter in detail and see whether anything can be done to help those authorities.
  I have long thought that one of the main objects of housing policy ought to be to try to break out of the class-based and divisive straitjacket into which housing has gone in recent years. The first step in that direction is to expand the frontiers of ownership. The Bill does that in a dramatic way. It may have its faults, but as a major step in that direction I welcome it.
  6.15 pm
  Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann: It ill-becomes the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott), representing as he does that area, to deplore the remark made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) that the opportunities for improvement grants without adequate control could result not only in the gentrification of an area but in the total exclusion from that area of the indigenous inhabitants.
  How many working-class residents are still living in Chelsea, except in council houses? They have gone. Twenty-three years ago Chelsea had a large number of working-class residents in privately rented accommodation. As a consequence of the 1957 Act and the opportunities for landlords to make substantial fortunes out of buying up properties, eviction, improvement and gentrification, Chelsea is now a totally different area from that which the hon. Gentleman and I knew 25 years ago. Chelsea is now characterised by the King's Road rather than by the qualities that were known in the Chelsea of the past. The hon. Gentleman has witnessed in his area—as in Paddington, which he represented before going to Chelsea—the exclusion of the working-class resident.
  1492
  That change in the character of a locality was facilitated by the 1957 Act, supplemented, I accept, by the well-intentioned improvement measures in the Labour Government's Housing Act 1969. However, it has resulted in many working-class residents on average incomes being removed from large areas in the centres of our cities. If the Bill becomes law, those who remain will be even more rapidly removed from the centres of our cities.
  Mr. Scott: What is the alternative? Should we sterilise an area according to some demographic pattern that existed at some time? Surely not. We accept that there will be a certain amount of gentrification, but we can take counter-measures, such as encouraging housing associations, housing trusts and others, to provide rented accommodation for those who would otherwise be squeezed out of those areas.
  Mr. Douglas-Mann: I accept that. We need to bring the privately rented sector into social ownership through housing associations, local authority acquisitions, and so on, to ensure that our towns and cities provide accommodation for those who need to live in those places.
  But how many postmen or milkmen continue to live in Chelsea? How many of those who provide the essential ingredients of the labour force that a city needs can continue to reside there? Very few. We shall be excluding such people from the centres of our major cities and towns by continuing in this Bill the policies started in the 1957 Act.
  The hon. Gentleman and I agree on many issues. I agree with many of the points that he made in his speech. For example, I welcome his proposal about a model scheme for tenants to buy their flats. I welcome his suggestion that the residents of Crown estates should have similar opportunities to those provided in the Bill. I also welcome his suggestion for changes in the provisions relating to leasehold enfranchisement. Indeed, I share his view—we have argued together both privately and publicly—that the Revenue laws are more responsible for the decline of the privately rented sector than any provissions of the Rent Acts. I shall return to that point.

  1493
  First, I wish to refer to part I, which contains major provisions and many of the most disturbing aspects of the Bill. The social and financial implications of selling council houses are the subject matter of the inquiry of the Select Committee, of which I am Chairman, that is concerned with the policies of the Department of the Environment. It would be naive of me to pretend to the House that I approach that inquiry without suspicion of what the outcome might be or without having thought about the possible implications. Obviously, however, it would be inappropriate for me to prejudge them.
  I have read with the greatest interest the Government's appraisal of the financial effect of council house sales. It is contended that the Government have found the philosopher's stone and that they are thus enabled to carry out the policy with a gain for everybody and a loss to nobody. If the Select Committee is convinced of that, so be it. That will be the subject matter of the Committee's report. The assumptions upon which the Government's appraisal have been based will be challenged and considered very carefully by the Select Committee, of which the hon. Member for Chelsea and I are both members.
  I shall concentrate my remarks on other provisions in the Bill. I refer especially to shorthold tenancies. In reply to my intervention, the Secretary of State gave little reassurance to those who are worried about the effect of the Bill as it stands—namely, that it will enable landlords to persuade their tenants to transfer from being protected tenants to being insecure shorthold tenants—without any real advantage to themselves except, possibly, a short period of reduced rent or some other spurious benefit. Such tenants will be forfeiting security of tenure, despite the Government's contention that no one will lose security of tenure as a consequence of the Bill. As the Bill stands, many tenants could be persuaded to lose their security of tenure. That would be a damaging consequence.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook argued strongly that clause 51(3) enables the Secretary of State wholly to dispense with the requirement that rent should be registered. My right hon. Friend said that if that provision
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  is not removed the Labour Party will make it clear that it intends to repeal the Bill. I hope that the Labour Party will consider repealing the whole shorthold provision unless we are offered considerably greater safeguards.
  The hon. Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams) introduced a Private Member's Bill to achieve shorthold tenure. It contained a number of safeguards that have not reappeared in the Government's Bill. The hon. Gentleman's Bill included a provision that if the landlord proposed to re-let to another tenant on shorthold he must offer the tenancy to the existing tenant. That provision has not appeared in the Bill. The alternative in the hon. Gentleman's Bill was that if the landlord did not offer to re-let to the existing tenant the tenancy would have to be withdrawn from the market completely for six months. That provision has not appeared in the Bill. Measures which the hon. Gentleman introduced, and which Conservative Members accepted in their support of his Bill, have not appeared in this measure.
  It is not necessary to be an expert on the Rent Acts to appreciate the scope for driving a coach and horses through a large number of loopholes. For example, there are the subletting provisions. It would be easy for a landlord to grant his son, or some conveniently amenable friend, a tenancy of a dwelling under clause 53. That person could proceed to sublet without any registration of rent, without giving any of the notices that are purportedly required by the Bill and without even telling the tenants that he was only an intermediate landlord, occupying as a shorthold tenant. In those circumstances, the tenants could suddenly be evicted as soon as the landlord found it convenient to take that action—and they would have had neither security nor the protection of a registered rent.
  I agree with many Conservative Members that there are many provisions within the Rent Acts that need to be improved. The Bill removes one silly trap, namely, the second fixed-term letting by the resident landlord. However, there are many other far more serious traps for tenants. Those traps include holiday lettings and the allegedly "shared" accommodation, under the terms of which a landlord may say to a man or woman,

  1495
  when they do not even know each other, "I shall let you in to share that single room, or flat, on the basis that you do not have possession of any one part of it." Consequently, that is not treated as a letting of an individual part of a property: it is a shared letting and is outside the protection of the Rent Acts.
  If the Government were presenting a Bill that blocked the indefensible loopholes that now exist, and at the same time were creating the opportunity for landlords to let on a shorthold basis and with a registered rent, so that we could test the extent of the disincentive effect in the private rented sector of security of tenure and the extent to which that disincentive has been caused by the Rent Acts, it might be right to give it a try. If they were blocking the loopholes for abuse and at the same time creating a new opportunity, it might be right to support them.
  The effect of the Bill is to widen the loopholes. Indeed, the loopholes are being advertised. They are being made easier to identify and to use. At the same time, the Government are creating a totally new category of tenancy. The consequence of that creation is a gap in the law that should not exist unless one is doing something different at the same time.
  The private rented sector in Britain is declining at a rate that is far greater than the rates of decline in other countries. That is not because of the Rent Acts. The reason is that we have a financial structure that allows tax relief on mortgage interest but not on rent, so that someone who can pay £1,000 or £2,000 a year for his home has a great competitive advantage, if he buys rather than rents, as mortgage repayments obtain tax relief. It is a structure that enables that person, in effect, to pay 50 per cent. more if he is buying his home, whereas he will receive no tax relief if he pays rent. The result is that anyone with property to dispose of will obtain 50 per cent. more if he sells than if he lets. No change in security of tenure will make any difference to that.
  The changes that are being introduced in the Bill will lead to greater abuse and the more rapid eviction of those who now live in our city centres. Perhaps the changes will mean that there will be a few more rooms to rent at £40 a week,
  1496
  but that will not help those who really need that accommodation or those who will have been evicted to provide it.
  I hope that when the Minister replies to the debate he will tell us why it was necessary to include clauses 71 to 74. They appear to provide yet another trap for the tenant who agrees to carry out improvements, subject to conditions, and subsequently finds that he is not able to carry through all the conditions. He thereby becomes liable to yet another ground for possession under the Rent Acts. Why are the clauses necessary? I find their inclusion difficult to understand. Why have the Government included no provisions for compensation for a tenant who has to lose possession, similar to those contained in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 for business tenants who are evicted from premises in which they have carried out improvements?
  I view the Bill with grave suspicion. The major issues that it raises will be the subject matter of the inquiry that will be carried out by the Select Committee. That inquiry will be pursued vigorously.
  6.29 pm
  Mr. Michael Mates: First, I add my voice to those who have enthusiastically welcomed the Bill. The principles in it appear to be admirable. They have the benefit of having been often enough repeated by the Conservative Party in Opposition, and now in Government, to be well known to those who agree with the policy of the Conservative Party and to those who do not. Although many will say that they do not agree with the principles contained in the Bill, they will not be able to say that they are surprised that the Government are carrying out another of their policies. It follows that any reservations that I shall express about the details of the Bill do not in any way diminish my enthusiasm for its principles but represent, I hope, a constructive contribution to our thinking, which may result in some improvements in the legislation as it proceeds from today.
  Our promise that we shall put the prospect of owning his own home within the reach of every householder in the land is an exciting challenge, but I fear that in our enthusiasm to carry the pledge we might cause some unfortunate and unforeseen consequences. In particular, I shall

  1497
  say a few words on the subject of council housing in rural areas and housing set aside but without special facilities for the elderly.
  My constituency lies in the part of Hampshire that is almost totally prevented, by the county and regional structure plans, from carrying out substantial further development. The future growth of both market towns in my constituency, Petersfield and Alton, is to be held to the minimum. The expansion potential for small villages in this part of Hampshire, and up and down the Meon valley, is—in my view quite rightly—almost nil in order to preserve their character. The question therefore arises of how to perpetuate two principles which seem to be in contradiction—the intrinsic right of an existing tenant to buy his own home wherever he may live and the need to preserve our rural and agricultural heritage from extensive development. I am clear in my mind that the right of a council tenant to buy his home, which is envisaged in the Bill, cannot be taken away just because he happens to live in a small or beautiful village. Nevertheless, we should look to the consequences within small communities of the exercise of that right, and we should provide some safeguards.
  I believe that here there is scope for improvement in some of the Government's proposals. Let me quote two examples. The village of Lasham in my constituency has a population of about 400, in a rural area of great beauty. It is close to an airstrip, and it is nationally and internationally known as one of the major gliding centres in the country. It has just six council houses and there is no possibility at the moment of the council building any more. They stand close to the village, the church and the pub, and they would be a highly desirable and prized second home for those who live in London and elsewhere and who spend their weekends gliding.
  Three of the six tenants have already applied to purchase their houses. They have not been permitted to do so because the local council restricts the purchase scheme to villages where there are more than 30 council-owned dwellings. When the Bill becomes law, these tenants will be able to exercise their right to purchase. The consequence will be that
  1498
  when they become owners and they or their successors wish to sell, they will be free to do so. The council will have no control over the hands into which the housing may fall. As a result, in a few years' time there will be no housing available in the village for low-income families and village life will significantly change.
  There must be many such villages, particularly along the South Coast of England—Hampshire, Dorset and Sussex—in which council houses will be snapped up as second homes for those whose recreation, for example, sailing, makes them want such a house. Indeed, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that speculators will give financial inducements to council tenants to exercise their right to buy so that properties become available to those who are prepared to pay a high premium for a house in an area where building is restricted and where people need weekend accommodation to pursue their leisure, sport or pastime. Surely that is not what we intend by the Bill.
  My second example is the village of Farringdon, which is another beautiful example of a rural community. The village has a close of 16 council houses and four bungalows which have been set aside as accommodation for the elderly. Again, there is no prospect of further building. The bungalows are not warden-controlled, nor, under the Bill as it stands, do they have any of the requirements that would exempt them from the compulsory right to purchase. Many such bungalows have been built over the years by councils in pursuit of what I regard as the admirable policy of maintaining the integrity of a rural community. Thus, parents who have raised their families in three or four-bed roomed council houses can, when the children have grown up and left, be rehoused within their community, surrounded by their friends and all that is familiar to them, in accommodation that is far better suited to their needs as they grow older. At the same time they are releasing the larger houses for other growing families, thus repeating the cycle. If such bungalows are sold and go beyond the control of the council, there will be a significant and unfortunate change in the social structure of the community.
  Another important factor is the rehousing of agricultural workers who have lived

  1499
  in tied accommodation until their retirement. At the moment, most local authorities in rural areas are sympathetic to the workers' needs and give priority placement to agricultural workers who are retiring. In that way, farmers can continue to house workers with an essential need for accommodation. The reduction in the housing stock and accommodation set aside for the elderly will make this in every case more difficult, and in many cases impossible.
  Some people would argue that such accommodation should not be available for sale. I do not agree with that proposition. I believe that it would be invidious and arbitrary to deny certain council tenants the right to become home owners purely because they live in a small and attractive community. But there must be safeguards to prevent the disintegration and destruction of these communities. Although the Bill makes an attempt to exercise control within national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, that is only a tiny part of the rural problem, and I am not sure that it approaches the matter in the best way. However, I shall not pursue that matter now.
  I suggest that we should consider that where there is limited accommodation and replacement is virtualy impossible, or where accommodation has been set aside as a matter of policy for the elderly, tenants should be able to exercise their right to purchase, thus maintaining the principle that every secure tenant at the date of the passing of the Bill should have that advantage. However, where the conditions that I have mentioned have been shown to be fulfilled, the local authority should be able to insert as a condition of sale that it will have the first option to buy back the house at its market value when it is next offered for sale. That gives the local authority the opportunity, if it takes the view that it needs the house, to buy it back again and to have it available for council tenants. Clearly, it is not economically possible for the purchase to be repeated again and again. Councils should be able to apply to the Secretary of State to have a particular house exempted from future sales. That should be made clear to any new tenant before the outset of his tenancy.
  1500
  As I see it, that meets the need to give every current tenant the right to buy his house, and it also provides that if the local authority considers it important enough it can get the house back at a later date. It will also prevent local authority housing from falling into the hands of those who are eager to have it in certain areas for second or third homes.
  I hope that the Government will consider my suggestions and will help to achieve the balance that I have described. Indeed, it would be a tragedy if, in embracing the principle of home ownership for council house tenants too enthusiastically, we damaged or destroyed the character of rural communities. We would make it much more difficult for councils to provide accommodation for the elderly. It is a difficult balance to strike, and I am not yet convinced that housing need and sensitive planning for small communities in the future have been given sufficient weight in the Bill.
  6.37 pm
  Mr. David Alton: Today's debate has been symptomatic of the debates that have taken place over the last 10 or 15 years. Governments have come and gone and altered the emphasis as to whether council houses should or should not be sold. Local authorities, too, have been plagued by the incessant debates on whether or not their local council housing should be sold off. Many of us feel that such matters have blurred the more fundamental issues in housing today.
  Whether or not houses are sold makes little difference to the millions who still live in homes without inside toilets or bathrooms. It will have no impact on Britain's lodging-houses and hostels where many fester in the most appalling conditions. Further, the Bill ignores the crazy system of housing finance that is operated in the country. I hope to reurn to these points later in my remarks.
  Parts of the Bill command themselves to me. In some respects it is a curate's egg of a Bill—it is fair in parts. We welcome the provisions that would strengthen housing action areas and general improvement areas by recognising that increases in environmental grants are needed. Many of our general improvement areas and housing action areas have suffered because the environment around

  1501
  the houses has not been improved hand in hand with the homes. That has created a patchwork quilt of decay and renovation.
  Liberals also welcome the enabling powers that are being given to housing associations to acquire and improve property with a view to sale. The experimental scheme to test that principle was piloted by the Liberal administration in Liverpool. We are pleased that the Government have seen fit to extend the principle throughout the country. We also welcome the tenants' charter. However, we shall totally oppose the compulsory sale of council houses. Like Conservatve hon. Members, we want to see the creation of a property-owning democracy. It is nonsense to suggest that the housing situation is the same in every local authority in Britain and that each area should be treated identically.
  The Bill implicitly accepts that there are differences from area to area by deliberately excluding areas of natural beauty. Not only is it a case of one man's meat being another man's poison; it undermines the whole system of British local government and further erodes the right of locally elected representatives to make decisions on issues affecting their locality. We shall seek to amend the Bill so that local authorities are given the right to sell council houses where they think fit.
  The Secretary of State argues that his policy is based on a mandate from the people. Some might argue that that is a strange mandate, as it is based on 30 per cent. of the popular vote. We also argue that every local councillor in the United Kingdom was elected on a mandate and that those councillors are also answerable to the electors who put them there. They, too, fought on policies and principles and they can be expected to rebel against what they will see as an imposition upon them. Unnecessary confrontation will be caused. The Secretary of State and the Minister would do well to listen to the exhortations of the Association of County Councils—which is controlled by the Conservatives—and of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, which have both condemned the Bill because it seeks to control local authorities.
  1502
  In rural areas particularly, this broad brush approach could have disastrous consequences. Many rural areas have unique circumstances that will be ignored if the Bill is pushed through in its present form. The National Farmers Union pointed out:
  "Given the fragility of the structure of many rural communities the union considers it extremely important that changes in law affecting housing provision, however well intentioned, should recognise the need to maintain a diversity of housing available in rural settlements, where the numbers are such that very small shifts in the balance can fundamentally affect the future of a community".
  Therefore, Liberal Members will press the Government to recognise the special circumstances of rural areas. The Government should recognise particularly those areas where there are strict planning controls relating to green belt or infrastructure problems that limit the construction of new homes. They should also recognise those areas where there are strong pressures for holiday and retirement homes as well as those where there is strong pressure for commuter homes. We also believe that the provisions in the Bill concerning Wales, where areas subject to resale conditions will be designated by order of the Secretary of State, should apply to England. If such provisions are not incorporated in the Bill, I cannot see how the Government will be able to implement the terms of the Rent (Agriculture) Act 1976, which places responsibility on local authorities to rehouse outgoing agricultural workers leaving tied accommodation.
  However, special circumstances do not apply solely to agricultural areas. For example, in seaside towns it may become a regular occurrence for council houses to be resold as retirement or holiday homes. That will be of no use to local people who are unable to afford a house in the private sector and who rely upon limited council accommodation.
  I have personal experience of city housing problems because I was chairman of a housing committee in Liverpool until last May. Circumstances in Liverpool are very different. We have 80,000 council dwellings. I spoke to officers in the city's housing department today and they told me that 3,899 of those properties stand empty. They are owned by the city council. Many are derelict and ugly eyesores. In the road adjacent to my home

  1503
  in Edge Hill a house owned by the city council has been empty since 1964. One reason for that is that there has been too much municipalisation. The housing empire has got so out of hand that it has been impossible for the local housing department to run council accommodation in a sensitive way. In Liverpool, 36 per cent. of homes are council owned, compared with a figure of 31 per cent. nationally. There are a further 32 per cent. rented homes in the private rented sector. That demonstrates the need to strengthen the owner-occupied sector. We have tried to achieve that.
  The Liberals in Liverpool, supported by the Conservative Party, commenced a sales policy in 1977. Of 80,000 council dwellings about 1,200 have been sold. In the peak year for council sales of 1972, under the last Conservative Administration, about 60,000 of the country's 6 million council properties were sold. The sale of council properties is not a cure-all for housing problems.
  The document published today shows that selling council houses will provide a profit of up to £7,600. The officials who wrote that document said a few months ago, in a report that was kept secret, that selling council houses could result in losses of up to £5,000. I believe that the books have been cooked and that the figures have been rigged to suit the circumstances. As the Secretary of State said, any long-term financial analysis will show exactly what one wants it to show, depending on what assumptions are built into it. These assumptions, by masterly sleight of hand, have turned Britain's 18 per cent. inflation rate into a 4 per cent. inflation rate for the next 20 years.
  The Government's calculations seem to take no account of the massive increase in construction costs. I shall give the figures for five dwellings that are currently being built in Duncan Street, Liverpool. A three-bedroom, five-person house costs Liverpool city council £24,279to build.
  Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: Did it use direct labour?
  Mr. Alton: It did not use direct labour. A three-bedroom, four-person house costs £25,164 and a four-bedroom house will cost £29,429 to build. That is not the end of the story. Because of the crazy system of housing finance, that money will be
  1504
  borrowed over a 60-year period. In total the first house will cost £219,000, the second house will cost £243,000 and the third a jackpot of £265,000—for a four-bedroom council house.
  If economic rents were charged on those properties, they would range from £80 to £93·28 weekly. That is truly the economics of the madhouse. The Bill dodges the need to reform such a crazy system. The best way to solve the problems of creating a property-owning democracy and achieving greater home ownership, as well as overcoming the problems of housing finance, is to construct more low-cost homes for sale. I am proud to say that in Liverpool we have pioneered such a scheme. Over 3,000 such properties are now either built or in the pipeline. They have been built on inner city sites which people said could not be built upon. They were denounced by the local Labour Party, which voted consistently against them. Those houses are not only built; they are occupied by those who wanted their stake in the community.
  Priority was given to existing council tenants and it was therefore possible to achieve two objectives. First, greater home ownership was achieved, and, secondly, more council accommodation was freed as tenants moved into properties that stand cheek by jowl with council estates. That created vacancies in council accommodation for those in need who could not afford to buy their homes. The Bill fundamentally ignores that problem. What does one tell 90,000 people who are in the dole queue on Merseyside about buying a council house? They will say that they have no chance of buying a council house. What does one tell those in low-income categories, because they do not have any chance either?
  By encouraging those who can afford to buy to move out of council accommodation into a house that is built for sale, two objectives can be achieved. First, by working in partnership with private enterprise, homes that people can afford are built at low cost on land that is owned by the local authority, and at the same time council accommodation is freed for those in need. If the Government wanted to do something radical, they would not introduce such a Bill but would offer to pay people's deposits to enable them to move out of council accommodation into houses built for sale.

  1505
  In that way, more homes would be created for people in need.
  It is all very well to talk about home ownership, but it is a mark of a person's sincerity that when he advocates a certain course of action he does something about it. In 1974 the then Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, now the Prime Minister, said that she would give an unbreakable and unshakable pledge—it was printed in every national newspaper—that the election of a Conservative Government would mean that mortgages would be pegged at 9½ per cent. We would all agree that that looks pretty sick now, with a minimum lending rate of 17 per cent. and with mortgage rates increased to 15 per cent.
  This month, home buyers will start paying a record 15 per cent. on mortgage repayments. They will not even get tax relief on the additional payments until the end of the financial year. This latest increase means that the cost of a mortgage has doubled from January 1978, during the relatively politically stable period of the Lib-Lab pact, until today. Assuming mortgage repayments over a 25-year period, the cost of borrowing £1,000 two years ago was about £8·15 per month, excluding tax relief. The cost of borrowing £1,000 now would be £12·90 per month. Those figures should be measured against the background of rapidly increasing house prices.
  During the same two-year period, house prices have risen by 47 per cent. A house costing £10,000 in January 1978 now costs about £15,000. The mortgage repayments on such a house will have risen from £81·50 to £193·50 per month. Over two years, the average house buyer has been faced with the phenomenal increase of 130 per cent. In human terms, the effects of such spiraling costs are unbounded. Many home owners and potential home owners were encouraged to over-extend themselves and borrow as much as they could afford at that time, but wages have not kept up with mortgage increases and many mortgagors must now have sleepless nights wondering how to pay the increased costs for which they have not budgeted.
  If the Government are sincere in trying to create more home ownership, that is the problem they must tackle first and foremost. Many people who are currently
  1506
  trying to buy their own homes will be forced back on to council waiting lists, as the recent report by Shelter clearly demonstrated, because they will soon be in default on their mortgage repayments. It is all very well to talk about home ownership, but if we are not prepared to put our money where our mouth is we shall never achieve our objectives. Selling off council houses at knock-down prices, desirable as it may be in some areas, will not cut waiting lists and will not make bad housing go away.
  6.53 pm
  Mr. W. Benyon: I declare an interest as the owner of rented property.
  In the enormous Bill we are considering, there are several very good measures, including the clause relating to shorthold tenancies. What a tribute that is to my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams), who has espoused that cause for so long. Therefore, it is with some regret that I shall be unable to support the measure in the Lobby tonight, because it removes from a democratically elected body the right to take a decision on policy—in this case housing policy. That is a vital principle; it is the heart and kernel of the Bill. It cannot be amended in Committee.
  I am a Buckinghamshire Member. My local education authority in Buckinghamshire over the past two periods of Labour Government has fought and fought and fought again to preserve the independence of its education system. Its efforts were warmly applauded by those who now occupy this side of the House. I did not then and do not now agree fully with the education policy of that authority, but I support to the hilt the right of the authority to take this decision in Buckinghamshire and not in Whitehall. I cannot see the difference between a Socialist Government forcing a Conservative council to change its education policy against the wishes of its electors and a Conservative Government forcing a Labour council to change its housing policy, again against the wishes of its electors. Some of my hon. Friends can square that particular circle but I cannot.
  I warmly support the encouragement to tenants to buy and to councils to sell. In my constituency all my authorities—new town and local authorities—have

  1507
  sold council houses for several years, but I cannot be a party to forcing a council to do this against its will and against the policy on which it was elected.
  As I understand it, my right hon. Friend's case falls under three headings: first, that it establishes an essential right to be conferred on the individual; secondly, that large sums of public money are involved in the building and the maintenance of public housing and, therefore, the Govenment have the right to override local authorities; thirdly, that this policy is contained in the election manifesto on which the Conservative Party fought and won the last general election. I shall deal with those three headings one by one.
  Yes, indeed, it confers a right on an individual in an area in which the council does not wish to sell. But if by doing that we interfere with local democracy, one man's gain can be another man's loss. What right, for instance, had the parents in Buckinghamshire who wanted non-selective education? They had only one right, which was to vote, and to persuade their fellow citizens to do the same, in a particular way. When I visit Labour heartlands—and I live in one in London—I cannot understand why these councils are elected over and over again when they are so obviously making a complete mess of what they are doing. But, disagreeable as it may be to my hon. Friends, they are so elected, and if the demand for purchase is so vociferous, why has it not shown itself in the local elections? The answer must be that it is a minority, whatever its size, who wants to purchase, just as it was a minority in Buckinghamshire who wanted non-selective education.
  Mr. Durant: The former Member for Basildon, Mr. Moonman, admitted in a recent television programme that it was because the local council resisted the sale of council houses that he lost his seat.
  Mr. Benyon: Those who attended the Conservative Party conference heard the candidate for Dagenham make this point. The amount of property owned by the council in Dagenham is a relatively small proportion of the total. If the demand for purchase is so great, why is there not a much greater move out of council houses in those areas? As occurred in Buckinghamshire with education, and as is occurring in Labour-controlled local
  1508
  government areas, the danger is that when the minority is thwarted by the majority it appeals over the head of the majority to central Government. That is the real danger of the Bill.
  Mr. Michael Shersby: I understand my hon. Friend's point. Does he not agree that in the municipal elections of May 1978 a substantial number of local authorities changed from Labour to Conservative? Witness my local authority, the London borough of Hillingdon, where the main plank was whether or not council houses would be sold.
  Mr. Benyon: That answers my question. If they take action at the polls, fair enough, but why is it not shown in the polls in other areas which will be affected by the Bill where the right to buy will be forced on council tenants by the Secretary of State? If my hon. Friend is saying that in the area to which he referred it changed the result of the election, he must accept the alternative as well.
  The Secretary of State's second point concerned large sums of public money. Let us be clear about this public money. A large part of the public housing estate is completely free of debt because it was built a long time ago. Should that part of the public housing estate therefore be subject to these provisions? As for the debt itself, that was borrowed on clear contractual terms. I do not suggest that they should do so, but it would be open to the Government to vary the terms of repayment if they are worried on that score. However, it is the housing subsidies that are really at issue.
  After 10 years in this House I have gone full circle. The first thing that I had to do when I came here was to serve on the Committee on the Housing Finance Bill. That taught me the danger of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It is dangerous and one often hits one's toe in the process. What we were doing there, as we are here, was trying to attack in a cumbersome way the true burden of housing subsidies.
  However, housing subsidies are totally within the control of Parliament. If previous Labour Governments had told Buckinghamshire that they thought that its education policy was detrimental to the nation and were therefore not prepared

  1509
  to support it with taxpayers' money, Buckinghamshire would have to decide whether to go ahead on its own with its own resources or conform to Government policy. Likewise, if the Secretary of State comes to Parliament and says that he wants to vary housing subsidies, that is a perfectly proper action and the policy decisions can be left to local authorities.
  It is said that such proposals were in the manifesto. Let us leave to one side how manifestos of all political parties are produced. Suffice it to say that they appear and form the policy on which a party fights a general election. However, it is the most dangerous parrot cry of all to say that everything in the election manifesto must be good and must be carried into legislation.
  There are many examples that could be cited, but I shall take the devolution proposals under the previous Government. Hon. Members who were present will remember that on the Second Reading of the first devolution Bill members of the Labour Party, with few notable exceptions, trooped into the Aye Lobby saying happily that it was in their manifesto. After that, we saw greater and greater disillusionment slowly appear until at the end we realised that no one's heart was in the measure, yet only a small group disagreed. Because the proposals were in the manifesto, Labour Members voted for them on Second Reading and rushed like Gadarene swine to their doom. It is no exaggeration to say that the small group that stood out against the proposals saved the nation from disaster. It would be stupid and presumptuous to say that the Bill is in that class, but I submit to my right hon. and hon. Friends that vital principles are at stake and that those principles will become more obvious as time goes on.
  In the House at this time are many councillors and people connected with local government and they know that local government did not start in the 1880s as so many people think. It goes back into the mists of time and forms the basis of our evolution and the strength and stability of our society. Nowhere should that be more appreciated than in the Conservative Party, whose history spans three centuries. We are not upstarts like the Labour Party.
  Mr. Straw: We did not have the vote.
  Mr. Benyon: Unless this party is a party of tradition, in my view it is nothing. Anything that takes decision-making away from the town or shire hall and places it in the power and patronage of Whitehall is, in my book, bad. That is not Toryism to me.
  How can we forget what we said in those devolution debates in the previous Parliament? We were against the Labour Government's proposals. We said that devolution without a federal system would not work. We all accepted—all of us—that there was disillusionment with and isolation from central Government, and we all accepted—all of us—that, as far as possible, government should be brought closer to the people over whom it is exercised. If we were sincere in what we said then, I say to my right hon. and hon. Friends that we must accept local government in whatever form it takes, with all its faults with all its infuriating conservatism, warts and all. We simply cannot pick and choose without laying ourselves open to the charges that we made against the previous Labour Government.
  There are many anomalies that will arise by taking the freedom to make decisions away from local authorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Petersfield (Mr. Mates) mentioned rural housing and my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) raised the problem of inner cities.
  Many of my hon. Friends believe that the importance of the property-owning democracy overrides everything else. It is important and should be encouraged in as many ways as possible, but it cannot be the only objective.
  I did not join the Conservative Party to be centralist and autocratic, and I am in good company. In November last year the Chief Secretary to the Treasury had a great success in this House, and that prompted the Daily Express to interview him under the title of
  "the Ghengis Khan of public spending".
  The article quotes him as follows:
  "You see, I have this deep instinctive belief that the more decision-making is dispersed throughout society, the less likely you are to get decisions with baleful consequences.
  Once you centralise power, a bad decision is disastrous."
  I could not agree more with that. It is all very well making the Secretary of

  1511
  State the gauleiter of housing, but on these Benches we should remember that the next gauleiter could be a commissar.
  One of the essential truths about housing is that it is a long-term business. It does not happen in five years. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant) said that he cannot look into the next century, but he will have to on housing, otherwise he will never have any success. Crashing swings of the political pendulum are not conducive to a sound housing policy that will produce the result that we all want—a modern home for every family in the land.
  Office engenders responsibility, and over the past four years of Labour government even the political knuckleheads in the Labour Party began to realise that we could not rely on one form of solution to the problem. Every resource and form of tenure are necessary to achieve the aim.
  As a result of what we are doing this evening, attention and effort will be diverted once again to a totally barren controversy that will not produce one extra home. In addition, it will weaken and anger local government in the country. It will dog our footsteps in government, and if, God forbid, we ever find ourselves in opposition, it will be a precedent that will be used mercilessly against us.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Richard Crawshaw): From now until 9 o'clock we shall be operating the 10-minute limit. I hope that hon. Members will curtail their speeches to save the Chair having to intervene.
  7.8 pm
  Mr. Julius Silverman: I am delighted to speak after the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon). I say that not only because I have sympathy with his views but also because I believe that we would all agree that his is the sort of speech that enhances the prestige of this Chamber.
  I approach the problem of the sale of council houses largely from a constituency point of view. In my constituency we have a huge council estate consisting almost entirely of flats, and throughout my constituency there are between 5,000 and 6,000 council flats and maisonettes. It now seems that the people who live
  1512
  in them will never have the opportunity of living in a house.
  A major problem raised in my surgeries concerns people who have lived in these high-rise flats, in many cases for as long as 12 years. Many of them have children, which makes a flat entirely unsuitable. Having done their servitude for that period, they want the privacy of their own house and garden. I have to tell them nowadays that to get a house in almost any area in Birmingham is like getting a lump of gold. I have to tell them candidly and frankly that it is practically impossible, and the Bill will make it totally impossible.
  By its very nature, this provision for the sale of council houses is selective. First, it includes only those who can afford to buy their houses and to pay a mortgage. Even with the discount, this imposes a burden which only working people on higher incomes can afford. Of course, the discount is substantial. It ranges from 33 per cent. to 50 per cent. As a result of inflation, the 50 per cent. may possibly amount to 70 per cent. when a person gets an option which he can operate in the next two years. He buys the property at a price that will operate two years hence, and this means that he may be getting a 70 per cent. discount—a great attraction for people who are interested in buying houses.
  I do not know their motives. No doubt many people wish to be owner-occupiers. That is very good. The Labour Members on the Birmingham council have never been dogmatic about this issue. In fact, we have built hundreds of houses for sale, and we have never dogmatically opposed owner-occupation.
  Many other people—I do not say this cynically—see the possibility of acquiring an asset well below its market price, and in many cases these houses are undervalued before the discount is deducted. They see the opportunity of obtaining an asset which perhaps one day they may be able to sell, and which, in any event, they can leave to their children. For example, an old lady of 90 was granted a 25-year mortgage by the Birmingham city council to buy her house at a discount. No doubt she has people waiting in the background. I am not condemning such people. In fact, if they came to me for advice about whether they should buy, I should tell them to go

  1513
  ahead because they would be getting something for nothing out of the Tory Government. It might be the last thing that they will get from that Government. Certainly they should buy—there is no doubt about the advantages of doing so.
  The point is not whether they should buy but whether the council should sell. I have said that this measure is selective. In the first place, it provides solely for those who have the income that will enable them to buy.
  Mr. John Sever: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the difficulties that seems to have been overlooked in the Bill is the ability to buy? There seems to be little checking on the proposed purchaser's ability to maintain his mortgage. Does my hon. Friend agree that if people attempt to buy property without the necessary financial backing to maintain it, they will be in as great a difficulty—if not greater—as many of them already are in meeting their rent payments?
  Mr. Silverman: I agree entirely. We may find a number of people in great difficulty trying to bear this burden. We should bear in mind that at present they get a mortgage from the council at the Consolidated Fund rate, which is almost 2 per cent. lower than the prevailing mortgage rate. When the Consolidated Fund discharges its older loans at the lower rates of interest, its rate will be in line with the prevailing mortgage rate. There is no doubt that many who have undertaken this responsibility will then find themselves in some difficulty.
  I am also concerned about those who are excluded by the Bill—those who do not have a chance to obtain a house. I speak not only of council tenants. There are those who live in the private sector—in slums—who are also entitled to the chance of a house. There are homeless people who live with relatives—and there are still many in Birmingham. These people believe that they should have a chance to get a house, but at present the Bill excludes them practically entirely from obtaining the thing that they cherish most in the world. Such people come to me and say that they want a very small thing—their own home with a little garden. I have to tell them that I am sorry—it may be a small thing, but
  1514
  it is inaccessible. This is a humane problem, and I do not think that it can be overriden by this or that dogma.
  The point about local democracy that was made by the hon. Member for Buckingham is particularly important in my view.
  Another proposal in the Bill is the provision of local tribunals to deal with the question of leasehold. On the whole, I welcome this. I do not know exactly how the tribunals will work, but one of the great barriers to tenants exercising their rights under the Leasehold Reform Act at present is that in the long run they are obliged, if the landlord so desires, to go to the Lands Tribunal, and they are not prepared to pay the cost of that tribunal. If this provision diminishes that to any extent, it will be a desirable reform. However, it may be necessary also to have some legislative alteration to make the formula for the purchase price clearer.
  Another objection that I have to the Bill has been dealt with already by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). It concerns the question of subsidies. The original formula was provided in our own Green Paper, but there is one vital difference here. At every point the Minister is brought in to make the final decision. We have the formula—it is almost like a chemical formula—of BA?LCD. BA is the base amount, and in the final analysis the Minister decides that. The Minister also decides the differential. Even the local contribution can be determined by the Minister, who decides what is acceptable—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Silverman) has had more than his 10 minutes. I must call the next speaker.
  7.18 pm
  Mr. Anthony Grant: Like the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington(Mr. Silverman), I was impressed by the sturdy and courageous speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon). I have no doubt that what he said struck a sensitive chord among many of us on this side of the House. We do not like over-centralisation or central dictatorship of any sort. On the other hand, I do not like small

  1515
  local dictatorships which can defy the wishes of the people just as much as central Government in many ways. Therefore, I believe that the good parts of the Bill justify its Second Reading and override the points that my hon. Friend made. I am sure that as a result of his speech the Secretary of State will consider very carefully in Committee whether he has perhaps usurped too many powers unto himself, but I do not think that this should override the need to give the Bill a Second Reading, because it is an extremely good measure.
  In view of the time I shall confine my remarks to part II, which relates to the private rented sector. I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mr. Douglas-Mann). I am sorry that he is not present. I believe that he practises law. I do not deny that high taxation has been a deterrent to the development of the private rented sector. High taxation is a deterrent to everything. I should have thought, however, that the hon. Gentleman, with his knowledge of the law, would have realised that the great panoply of legislation, set up over many years, has been a fundamental, basic deterrent to anyone—particularly small landlords—who would otherwise be prepared to let his property. We have created a great spider's web of legislation over rent control and so-called security of tenure ever since the First World War.
  I looked this matter up in the Library. If my arithmetic is right, there are about 40 statutes and well over 50 statutory instruments and orders covering the whole question of rent control. This great tangled mass has done nothing to help. There has continued to exist a chronic housing situation. The distortions in the market still exist and, despite all the legislation, people still suffer. I do not deny that all this activity stemmed from well-meaning intentions. It was no doubt prompted by greedy landlords in the Victorian era. It was certainly promoted by well-meaning, but foolish, Governments, particularly Labour Governments, who were still living in the nineteenth century. It led to the foolish policy of subsidising the property instead of the person in our society. This is where we have gone wrong.
  The consequences of this policy have been as absurd as they have been grossly unfair. They have been unfair socially.
  1516
  As the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) said, we have created two classes of society. It has happened in this respect. There are those who are rent-controlled tenants in the private sector, and the rest who cannot sit on that pot of gold. An example is the small landlord. None of this relates to need or poverty. I have lost count of the number of cases, brought to my notice at my surgery, of private landlords, many of them widows, who have had the albatross of far better heeled tenants around their neck. A classic case was the widow who had been left one property by her husband as her sole means of income. In that property there lived a protected tenant who was himself a substantial property owner—he owned six other properties—yet the state of rigor mortis that prevails meant that nothing could be done.
  The policy has been disastrous economically. It has created immobility in the employment and labour sphere, which has been damaging to our economy. We shall have a lot more unemployment. There will be structural unemployment and unemployment caused by technological change. Many people who worked in declining industries in the North, the North-West and Scotland are unemployed. If, however, in the South one opens a newspaper, one sees page after page of advertisements for jobs. The reason is the straitjacket of crazy housing legislation over many years that has created almost rigor mortis. Although I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) that this situation cannot be unscrambled overnight because to do so would create great social suffering, I would go so far as to say that if there had been no Rent Act legislation since 1915 we would have no housing problems today.
  I welcome part II, which creates short-hold and assured tenancies. I put only one question to my hon. Friend the Minister. Is he satisfied that more nervous landlords will not be deterred by the unlikely event, the almost inconceivable event in my view, of another Government taking office who would implement the policies set out by the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook and the warning that he gave to landlords? If the property market becomes scared, I fear that we shall not get out of the

  1517
  stranglehold that exists and that private rented property will not be available.
  I should like my hon. Friend to say what has happened to the option scheme. If options could be given to tenants to buy, woe betide any party that sought, at an election, to take that right away. Is my hon. Friend satisfied that the Bill is sufficient to enable the market to expand in the way that he wishes?
  I welcome the Bill. I believe that it will get us out of the straitjacket and enable greater mobility of labour, which will reduce unemployment and help our economy. It will be a move against the creation of council house ghettos, which I detect as the only policy advocated by the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook.
  I believe that the Bill will encourage greater home ownership. I know the difficulties, but if one more person is able to own his own home that will be one more bulwark against the encroaching powers of the tyranny of the State.
  7.26 pm
  Mr. David Winnick: I welcome the measures in the Bill to give security of tenure to council tenants. Like a number of my colleagues and the Labour Party itself, I have long campaigned for council tenants to be given further protection in law. This is a welcome step. It should be stated that this is what the Labour Party had inten-
  1518
  ded to do. It was part of the Labour programme that was not implemented but which would have been implemented had we been returned to office.
  It is ironic that the Bill seeks to introduce a form of private tenancy without giving proper security to the tenant. I do not accept the arguments of the Secretary of State or of Conservative Members that it is possible for the private rented sector to be revived. I do not believe that it is desirable. I disagree with the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott). Every time more freedom has been given to the private landlord, it has been abused. We know of Rachmanism.
  When it is claimed that the Rent Acts have produced the scarcity of property, it should be borne in mind that when the Conservative Government introduced the 1957 Rent Act the same arguments as those put forward today were advanced. It was suggested that if one did away with all restrictions and gave landlords more opportunity there would be an incentive for the landlord to provide privately rented accommodation. What occurred in practice, apart from all the abuse and intimidation, was that private landlords and property companies were only too keen to sell the property that had become vacant. Instead of an increase in private rented accommodation, there was considerably less of it as a result of the 1957 Act.

  1519
  Although it has been said that existing private tenants will be given protection, I have no doubt that abuse will occur and that some existing private tenants will be intimidated into becoming part of a shorthold tenancy. I shall watch for that development carefully.
  Like my party, I am opposed to the sale of council houses. There will continue to be an argument about whether a loss is involved. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mr. Douglas-Mann), who is Chairman of the Select Committee on the Environment, of which I am a member, has said, we are considering the financial and social implications of council house sales. From all the evidence we have so far gathered, a loss seems undoubtedly to be involved. I think that this will be shown also in the evidence to come.
  But the greatest concern must exist over the social arguments relating to the sale of council houses. Many families, certainly a large number of my constituents who are council tenants living in multi-storey flats, visit my surgery and write to me, as they write to other public representatives, to say that they wish to be rehoused. They are sick and tired of living in multi-storey flats. Very few of these flats will be sold off. The Minister for Housing and Construction gave me information about the sale of council flats in a recent parliamentary reply. I asked how many council houses and flats had been sold in each of the past four quarters for which figures were available. The national figures for flats over those quarters were 90, 145, 135 and 150.
  The Secretary of State says that greater encouragement will be given and that it will be law that council flats will have to be sold if people wish to buy them, but I do not believe that there will be any great wish to buy flats. We know only too well that the better type of council housing will be bought. Few Conservative Members would deny that.
  Of course, if the better type of council housing is sold, those in multi-storey blocks of flats will have less opportunity of getting a transfer. Both parties that have controlled the council at Walsall have a policy of not selling flats. I do not believe that that position will change.
  1520
  It is unfortunate, to say the least, that a community asset of considerable value is to be sold, regardless of local needs, solely to satisfy party dogma. Local authorities are the best judges of whether it is advisable to sell council dwellings. When the Labour Party was in Government, we were lectured by the Conservatives that it should not be up to Whitehall to make decisions over local matters. The Conservatives have changed their tune. They now tell us that local authorities must obey, that Whitehall must lay down the line and that regardless of local circumstances the Secretary of State knows best.
  It would be far better to assist council tenants who want to buy to move into the private market, with mortgages and so on. Apart from satisfying those tenants, the result would be to release their accommodation for those such as my constituents who live in multi-storey blocks of flats. It would give them a greater opportunity to move into the houses with gardens that they are so keen to have.
  The Tories' policy towards council housing is that they believe that it should be available for the poorly paid, the disabled and a number of pensioners but that, generally, council housing is not required any more. Last year saw the lowest number of council housing starts since before the war, and the present Government have decreed that there is no great need for more council housing.
  I believe that there is, in fact, a greater need for council accommodation for many families who find it virtually impossible to buy a house, not only because of the 15 per cent. mortgage interest rate but because of the level of house prices, certainly in London and the West Midlands. A number of what I describe as semiprofessional families who might previously have been able to buy a house are now unable to do so. They will not have their needs satisfied by private rented accommodation, and they need council accommodation.
  It is unfortunate that the Conservatives consider that there is little need for council accommodation. That is an aspect of housing policy that we shall have to present to the country at local elections and other times.

  1521
  I consider this to be a shoddy Bill which springs from the Conservatives' hostility to the very concept of a publicly rented housing sector. It will do nothing to provide accommodation for people in need and will do a tremendous amount of damage. The 1 million people still on housing waiting lists will find that their needs and wants will remain unsatisfied as a result of the Bill.
  7.35 pm
  Mr. Michael Shersby: I had the pleasure of listening on the radio this afternoon to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hatters-ley). He made one of the usual mistakes of Labour spokesmen who oppose the sale of council houses. He implied that only those on the waiting lists for rented accommodation have real housing need. I do not believe that that is so.
  Those on the waiting lists to buy properties, either because they are tenants or have never applied for local authority rented accommodation, are also in housing need. Many people have never applied for local authority rented accommodation. Many are young couples who are about to be married and are looking for a home to buy. They need a home of their own in which they have security of tenure, just as much as do those on housing waiting lists, who have no monopoly of housing need. We need a variety of types of accommodation to suit people with different needs.
  I welcome the Bill and congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on bringing in such an important measure so soon after the general election. I particularly welcome the Bill because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant) has said, it raises the status of council tenants, and that is a matter of great interest to me.
  Housing is of considerable interest to my constituents. Few issues—perhaps only the overcoming of inflation—are more important. Housing is the key issue, particularly for young engaged or married couples seeking their first homes and for those who have been tenants for some years and desire more than anything the boon of home ownership.
  I was pleased that the Secretary of State visited my constituency recently to hand over the keys of the 500th house to be
  1522
  sold to tenants since the Conservatives took control of Hillingdon council in May 1978. That house was an example of what can be done by a tenant to improve a property and it is an example of the sort of home ownership that I wish to see encouraged.
  For other secure tenants, the provision of a charter giving them rights under the law is something that they have desired for many years. I am glad that the Government are introducing it.
  I wish to make three points in the brief time available to me. First, I am pleased that Parliament is at last legislating to introduce a new system of shorthold tenancies in the private sector. In the previous Parliament I was a sponsor of the Bill to provide shorthold tenure which was introduced on several occasions by my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams). On each occasion we had to witness that Bill being voted down by the then Labour majority in the House, who thus deprived many young people of desperately needed accommodation.
  The provisions of clauses 50 to 54, which introduce shorthold tenancies, are an important contribution to solving the housing problems facing young people in particular. They will be able to take a lease at a fair rent for fixed terms of between one and five years, at the end of which the landlord will have the right to regain possession.
  Shorthold will release a considerable amount of accommodation in the privately rented sector which has been unused or, in many cases. under occupied. It will be a particular benefit to couples who are working and saving for a deposit to buy a home of their own. I hope that it will encourage the subletting of parts of dwelling-houses where the owner is still terrified to let because of the fear that he or she will not be able to regain possession, due to the provisions relating to security of tenure. That is a fear which may not be justified, but people believe that, and no assurance by Members of Parliament will put people's minds at rest. Only an Act of Parliament which creates a new type of tenure—shorthold tenure—will put their minds at rest and make this sort of accommodation available.
  I say to the Labour Party that I hope very much that it will be possible in

  1523
  Committee to consider the points which have been raised on security of tenure and that we shall be able to reach a bipartisan agreement on the desirability of shorthold. Only if we do that can we really make it work.
  I should like to give an illustration of the benefit which shorthold could bring to university students, both single and married, who have experienced tremendous difficulty in obtaining suitable accommodation in recent years. I mention the problems of students at Brunel university, in my constituency. For many months, young freshers at that university have been forced to sleep in makeshift beds in the university building. They cannot obtain suitable rented accommodation locally because people will not sublet.
  Uxbridge is predominantly an area of semis. If the people who own those semis have the upstairs part empty, they will not let for fear that they will not be able to regain possession, either for their own use or perhaps for use by their children, at a subsequent date. I hope that when the Bill becomes law home owners locally who have spare accommodation will consider letting it to students and to others who desire nothing more than a couple of rooms of their own for a fixed period of between one and five years.
  In today's debate we have heard little about the problems facing our university students—the young men and women on whom we depend so much for the success of our country in the future. I believe that shorthold will be a wonderful boon for them. The owner will know that he can regain control of his home, and the short holder will have the benefit of security of tenure for a limited period. We can discuss in Committee the extent to which that security of tenure should be improved.
  I turn now to those people who need not a short lease with security of tenure but the opportunity to purchase a home of their own. For those people, the benefits of buying a house by means of shared purchase are of enormous value, particularly in areas such as Greater London, where house prices have risen substantially during the last two years. Shared purchase is a much better solution to the housing problem than an extension
  1524
  of municipal ownership—even in the East Midlands, even in Birmingham.
  A list of the Nationwide Building Society's house prices shows that a terraced house can be bought in the West Midlands for £11,930 and a semi-detached house for £17,750. The Nationwide says in its summary on first homes that terraced houses are now purchased by 42 per cent. of Nationwide's first-time buyers compared with 30 per cent. five years ago. Semidetached houses are the second most popular choice of first-time home buyers, followed by flats and maisonettes, the figure for which is 16 per cent., and detached houses, where it is 10 per cent.
  Mr. Winnick: Average house prices vary from area to area.
  Mr. Shersby: Prices vary over the country. Hon. Members who have had the opportunity to read the Nationwide survey will be aware of the prices within their areas. I give the figure in my constituency, in which London airport is situated. In the fourth quarter of 1979, house prices increased by an average of 29 per cent. There is little difference between new and secondhand properties. Those prices are now stabilising. In Greater London, the price of an older semi-detached house is £32,320. That is the price in my constituency for those types of houses, of which there are a large number.
  How, then, are young couples with average industrial earnings to be able to buy a house at that price? The only answer is by means of shared purchase, where as little as 30 per cent. of the equity can be purchased and the remainder rented with an option to buy at a later date. A mortgage of about £10,000 is a feasible proposition for many young couples, and even the not so young, whom I see at my weekly constituency advice bureau. It is not a figure which is by any means out of court when both partners are working, and sometimes when they are not. I pay tribute to my local authority for the vigour with which it has forged ahead with this scheme and to other councils which have done likewise.
  As with all good things, there are one or two snags. First, there is not enough property available to local authorities to meet the demand. I hope that in his reply my hon. Friend the Minister will say something about encouraging local

  1525
  authorities to provide more houses for sale.
  I welcome the Bill as an important measure which will do much to spread home ownership, which is the greatest boon to men and women in the country.
  7.48 pm
  Mr. D. E. Thomas: In all housing debates it is almost a tradition that I get up to restate the housing profile in Wales.
  In Wales, 25 per cent. of our housing stock was built in the last century. The resources made available per capita in Wales are below the level made available in any English region. The Bill attempts to make local authority housing stock available to tenants for purchase, but the measure is overshadowed by the far more substantial threat of further cuts in local authority housing expenditure.
  In 10 minutes I shall not go over the abysmal record of the Labour Government on housing. I shall not go over the effect of housing cuts imposed by the Labour Government on the profile of the housing stock. If this proposal is implemented—unless perhaps the imaginative revolt that has already started on the Conservative Back Benches develops—we shall be back to where we were in 1972 in Wales and in the whole of Britain. In that year, when a Conservative Government were in power, the number of houses built in the public sector in Wales plummeted to 3,377. In the same year, 3,171 council houses were sold to their tenants, leaving a net increase in the housing stock of 200.
  Ten years ago Plaid Cymru—which has a consistent record on housing policy, if nothing else—said that to start to tackle the real housing needs of Wales 25,000 new houses a year were needed. In that period the Labour Party—which always follows behind Plaid Cymru's initiatives in this field—adopted a target of 22,500, later dropping it to 20,000. That figure of 20,000 public and private new starts in Wales was reached in only one year, 1967, when 11,000 local authority starts were undertaken. My fear is that we shall have a repeat of the position in 1972, when there was a wholesale disposal of stock. We need an increase in resources available so that the amount of housing stock can be increased and its proper distribution ensured.
  1526
  Ostensibly, the Bill will redistribute the ownership of housing stock, but that does not mean that we are utilising our stock properly. The basic issue is the proper utilisation of the housing stock. This cannot happen through market forces. The hon. Member for Petersfield (Mr. Mates) made a strong plea, with which I wholeheartedly agree, that market forces cannot be relied upon to protect rural communities. I argue equally strongly that they cannot be relied upon to support or to maintain the integrity of urban communities. But in the rural communities—the point with which the hon. Gentleman was dealing—78 per cent. of the councils in the Shelter survey indicated that they had some reservations about the indiscriminate right to buy.
  I do not take the view that the so-called rural safeguards in the Bill are adequate. Indeed, the National Farmers Union—I do not agree with it on everything—has very sensitively argued that in rural areas the sale of public sector rented accommodation to existing tenants will do little to help housing conditions; indeed, it will exacerbate them. Local authorities have no power at the moment to control the occupancy of private sector housing, except in the case of new building.
  The danger that we shall face—it was put forward clearly by the hon. Member for Petersfield—is that housing stock in rural areas will become second homes, or will become commuter homes where those rural areas are near to major urban centres. We can foresee, as a result of the Bill, rural houses being sold off in quantity, or possibly in total, in certain localities. This will only exacerbate the depopulation of rural areas, lengthen the waiting lists and erode community life. That will be the social effect of the Bill. The Association of District Councils has made this very point, arguing that the special condition should be capable of extension by a local authority to the whole of its area. It has also argued for discretion as to the 10-year pre-emption right, which is far stronger than we see now in the Bill.
  I press on the housing Minister in the Welsh Office—I hope that he and I will both appear on the Committee—that we should look again at this question and see whether the special provision for Wales is adequate to ensure that we can control

  1527
  the proper use of our housing stock. We do not want a position in which more and more housing units are becoming no longer housing units but units for tourist, recreation or leisure purposes.
  I turn now to an issue that is covered in two clauses. I refer to leasehold reform, or to what I prefer to call leasehold abolition, for which many of us in Wales have been campaigning over the years. I have two examples of the kind of thing now happening, particularly in urban Wales.
  I should like to mention the case of Mr. Embry of 13 Hirwaun Street, Cathays, Cardiff. Mr. Embry is a longstanding member of the National Union of Railwaymen and a shop steward. He is the owner-occupier of a leasehold property. The ground landlord is the BP Pension Trust, a well-known philanthropic organisation. The lease came to an end in September 1979. The market value of the house is probably about £7,500. The BP Pension Trust is asking £2,500 for the freehold. Many people living in terraced cottages in the valleys in South Wales are in a similar position. About 30 per cent. of the market value of their property, were it to be sold, is demanded for the purchase of the freehold.
  There is an attempt in the Bill to deal with the question of the valuation panel, or the rent assessment panel, becoming the panel for the valuation of the cost of purchase of freehold. We regard this as a minimal reform. We take the view that there ought to be a serious attempt to place a strong and firm ceiling on the total price of the freehold, so that we do not have problems with institutional investors, many of whom have come in and purchased leaseholds in areas such as urban Cardiff, Newport and Swansea. These institutional landlords should not be permitted to profit the third time round from leasehold property.
  We want to see a strengthening of the Bill to deal with the insecurity which many leaseholders now face. Many of them approach a state of panic when the lease runs out. They are faced with the need to obtain capital for purchase and have no prospect of getting it. I press the Government to take action on this issue also.
  7.55 pm
  Mr. Tim Renton: I am sure that the hon. Member for Merioneth (Mr. Thomas) will forgive me if, in the precious minutes available to me, I do not seek to pursue and rebut his arguments.
  Like my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams), I feel this evening a little like the hero of the parable of the sower in the New Testament, because I introduced, during the years of the Labour Government, two Bills under the Ten Minutes Rule, by which I sought to amend the Rent Acts in order to bring forward more private rented accommodation from both the resident and the non-resident landlord. In those days, the seed that I tried to sow fell very much among thorns and upon rocky ground. It is therefore delightful tonight to know that one is sowing in a much more fertile atmosphere, and to welcome—albeit with some reservations, one or two of which I shall go into—my right hon. Friend's major Bill.
  I welcome the concept of shorthold tenancies in the private rented sector. Both Shelter—an organisation for which I have considerable respect when it discards some of its political bias—and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) have said that they did not think that the shorthold tenancies in the private sector would help. They did not think that this concept would help to bring forward more accommodation. They thought, in contrast, that it might increase homelessness—something that none of us on either side of the House would wish to do. All I can say is that the measures introduced by the Labour Government—notably the Rent Act 1974—certainly have not succeeded either.
  In my constituency, estate agents estimate that about 40 per cent. of private rented accommodation has been withdrawn from the market in recent years. We have as much homelessness, even in Sussex, as we ever did before. We have as many dossers on the beaches beyond Brighton and Hove waiting for the evening soup run. Every housing association in Sussex, I am told, has a closed waiting list. We must therefore surely try to see whether the shorthold tenancy can now bring forward some of the private accommodation that has been withdrawn from the market in recent years.

  1529
  In this context, there are two questions of some detail with which I should like my hon. Friend the Minister to deal when he replies. The first is whether, when a landlord enters into an agreement with anew tenant and he creates a shorthold tenancy for one year, it will be possible to enter into an agreement that that one year is renewable for further periods of, say, one year, at the option of either landlord or tenant. It is very important that this extension of the term by renewal should be possible within the shorthold concept. Obviously, when a landlord finds an acceptable tenant, and, vice versa, when a tenant finds an acceptable landlord, both tenant and landlord wish to continue the arrangement. But it is not clear to me at present—under, for example, clause 54—whether it would be renewable.
  My second question is this: will the shorthold arrangements envisaged in the Bill be additional to the existing provisions for the temporarily absent owner-occupier created in the Rent Act 1977? I hope that they will be, because I am sure that the aim of the Minister for Housing and Construction in the Bill is to increase the supply of accommodation. It is important, therefore, that no possibilities that already exist should be withdrawn.
  I want to see "To let" signs appearing in every street in my constituency. I believe that the Bill is taking some necessary steps to ensure that that happens.
  I want also to mention housing finance and housing subsidies. I am concerned that paragraph 26 of the explanatory memorandum gives no figures for savings on housing subsidies under the new proposals.
  It seems to me that the Secretary of State is proposing a complex formula which is, above all, at his discretion. It gives him a varying discretion for different local authorities. I do not know that this is the best way to tackle this difficult area of housing finance. It is clear that current subsidies for housing finance are a broad brush approach. It is estimated by my council that only 60 to 70 per cent. of its council tenants are in need, yet they all receive a subsidy by virtue of living in council property.
  I recommend strongly to my right hon. and hon. Friends that they look at the
  1530
  proposals put forward by the Mid-Sussex district council, which is represented in this House by my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead (Mr. Johnson Smith) and myself. Under that scheme the council suggests that it should waive all that part of housing subsidy which covers capital expenditure—particularly that which covers loan repayments and interest. The council proposes that it should then be allowed to raise its rents to an economic level.
  It estimates that this would mean an increase of £3·64 a week in average rental. At the same time it asks, as a quid pro quo, that it should be allowed total reimbursement from the Government for rent rebates. It reckons that as a result of putting up rents to a full economic level the number of tenants receiving rent rebate would increase by about 500.
  As my hon. Friend the Minister will realise, such a scheme would mean that all the subsidy received by the council would be for rent rebate only and would be concentrated not on bricks and mortar just because those bricks and mortar were in public ownership but exclusively on council tenants in need. In addition, the council says that its suggestion would save the Government £600,000 in the initial year.
  I believe that this is a very important proposal from the Mid-Sussex district council. After all, the Government still spend approximately £5 billion a year on housing finance. That is the major area left in which we could create large savings in public expenditure. If Mid-Sussex district council is allowed to do what I have suggested by way of an experimental scheme, and it worked, such a scheme could be extended and adopted by other councils.
  I fully appreciate that many councils are not in a position to make this kind of offer. It is because we do not have high unemployment and because we are an area of relatively high incomes and continuing growth in Mid-Sussex that we can make such a suggestion.
  Surely the Government do not get an offer such as this from a council every day of the week which would save them £600,000 in a year. If this specific suggestion were adopted of allocating all the housing subsidy by way of rent rebates to people in need rather than to property, that would be very much in keeping with

  1531
  Tory philosophy. If it worked, it would be as fundamental a reform of housing finance as the encouragement to private ownership of housing that is the most important part of the Bill.
  8.4 pm
  Mr. John Tilley: I begin by answering one of the questions posed by the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton) and say that there is no right for a tenant to renew a short-hold tenancy at its expiry if he so wishes. That is a serious derogation from the Bills that he and the hon. Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams) introduced in the last Parliament. I hope that they will press the Minister for the renewal of shorthold tenancy to be included in the provisions of this Bill.
  In some ways, the Bill distorts the English language to the point of deception in trying to give the impression that rights are being given to tenants and potential owner-occupiers. The fact is that the rights and abilities are being taken away from them.
  The first phrase that sticks in my craw is "the right to buy". As has already been pointed out, only 50 per cent. of council tenants have incomes which enable them to be considered as purchasers. That is the national percentage. I am sure that in areas of low incomes—such as my own inner city constituency—something like three-quarters of the people will enjoy the right to buy just as they enjoy the right to dine at the Savoy because it is open to everyone. Such a right is meaningless because such people do not have the ability to pay.
  There is also the strange label which describes council tenants as "secure". What does that mean? It means that they will be secure in the knowledge that the Government will be blackmailing their council to put up rents to very high levels. It has been made clear that that is the Government's intention. They will be secure in the knowledge that their council will not be receiving the subsidies that are essential for decent standards of maintenance and repair. They will be secure in the knowledge that their chances of transferring, in London, to a house in the outer area, with a garden, are now nil. Those chances have been destroyed because of the sales policy of the Tory GLC and the Tory-controlled outer London boroughs. That is the strange definition
  1532
  of security, on which the other provisions of the tenants' charter will have no impact at all.
  We see another distortion of language where another category of tenants is described as "assured tenants". That category, though it is important, has hardly been mentioned in the debate. What is the tenant assured of? He is assured that he will have no protection at all under the Rent Acts. He is assured that his landlord will have the single objective, plus the power, to push up his rent to the highest level the market will stand. That is a strange definition of assurance.
  Perhaps there is one description that is almost too good. That it is the description "shorthold". We have heard in speeches from both sides of the House that many of the tenants who become shorthold tenants will quickly realise just how short that shorthold tenancy will be. While the Minister and some of his supporters—though only some of them—believe that this provision will unleash a flood of properties for letting that are now being hoarded by landlords that is merely a matter of faithon the part of the Tories. Some of them have been honest enough to doubt whether that reserve of properties exists. I am not able to convince hon. Members otherwise.
  In his speech the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) said, having forgone constructive criticism and having moved on to destructive praise, that he welcomed the Bill even though he outlined many of its inadequacies in relation to inner London. As the hon. Member did, let us look at existing tenancies. The Bill has three tendencies which are undeniable. It will have three effects which cannot simply be discerned by a Select Committee looking into a crystal ball. There is no need to look into a crystal ball. We can read the record of what landlords have been, and still are, doing.
  The first tendency is to increase homelessness. If the Bill is intended to give landlords the power to evict people when they wish, it is likely—indeed necessary if the Bill is to be effective in the way desired by the Government—that landlords will have to evict people. The figures are very clear. Following the Rent Act 1974, the protection extended to furnished tenancies reduced the number of families made homeless because of

  1533
  eviction in London. That process is certain to be reversed by this Bill and local authorities, already struggling with large numbers of homeless families, will need to help more of them.
  The Bill will secondly cause a feeling of greater insecurity for tenants because they will know that they have only between one and five years' security of tenure. Why should a landlord grant a five-year security of tenure when he can apply a one-year shorthold tenure with more options? Tenants will not dare to press for repairs, even though they have a statutory right to such repairs. They will not dare to challenge the abuses of the Rent Acts, which already occur and will continue to occur. The Bill merely adds to the loopholes.
  The Bill will also have an effect upon landlords. It provides them with an incentive to change existing tenancies to shorthold tenancies. The good ones will do that when tenants leave voluntarily. However, we must all accept that there are bad landlords. The hon. Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant) seemed to think that bad landlords went out with Queen Victoria, but bad landlords exist even in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The bad landlords will be tempted to find ways of winkling or harassing out protected tenants in order to replace them with shorthold tenants.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) said that this was a dangerous enabling Bill. I believe that it is a disabling Bill in that it reduces in a variety of ways the power of local authorities to help with housing. It also reduces the legal protection of private tenants. The Secretary of State will be able to decide how far that protection is reduced, but we have not yet been told how far he will go. We must be told precisely which areas will be excluded from the registered rent provision. We have a right to know whether the Secretary of State expects local councils to have a surplus in their housing revenue accounts.
  The Bill provides private landlords with an incentive to harass existing tenants and an opportunity to exploit new tenants. The Bill will have little, if any, effect on the decrease in the number of private rented dwellings. The Rent Acts have had little effect upon that trend
  1534
  because there are deeper economic and fiscal reasons for it than responses to rent control.
  Hon. Members representing the London constituencies concentrated on the effect of the Bill upon private tenancies. The Bill reintroduces the fear of eviction, the fear that some families will have no roof over their heads within a few months and that the next rent increase will be more than they can afford. That applies particularly to the 200,000 people who have controlled tenancies and who tend to be the older and poorer people in our community.
  I do not say that the Labour Government abolished all the bad aspects of private landlordism. But without exaggeration I say that part II of the Bill rehabilitates the memory of Peter Rachman because it is based on the theory that the power of profit is the only way to solve the housing problem in our cities. We have proved time and again that the private sector will not,—and I accept that perhaps it cannot—provide decent housing at rents which working people can afford. I believe that it is undesirable for one person's home to be owned by another for personal gain.
  Private landlordism on a commercial scale in our big cities is dying. The role of the Government must be to put it out of its misery and give the public sector, the co-operative sector and the housing associations the resources to provide a better alternative. All that the Bill does is to prolong the agony of the death throes of private landlordism and to provide the means for deprivation and exploitation for yet another generation of private tenants.
  8.13 pm
  Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd: I support the Bill. I do not wish to dwell on the eulogy and praise for legislation which has been promised for many years by the Conservative Party. The Lake District national park is part of my constituency. Another part is an area of outstanding natural beauty. I am pleased that there are special provisions in the Bill to deal with those areas.
  Such rural areas are special. They are different from urban areas and in a different category from other rural areas. The National Parks Authority is responsible for planning decisions in a national

  1535
  park. The district council is responsible for housing. In a national park there can be conflict between the National Parks Authority and the housing authority. For that reason, national parks are in a special category. I am pleased that that has been taken into account. However, the special provisions in the Bill do not deal with the problem correctly. Clause 18 could give the planning authority the right of pre-emption at market value to buy back any house which was put on the market. I can see no reason against that. One reason that has been used against pre-emption is that under existing procedure rights of pre-emption are proving to be a deterrent to the availability of building society finance. That has caused difficulties.
  There should be no difficulty if the right of pre-emption is exercised at the market value rather than at the value of the sale price in the first instance. That is preferable to the provisions in clause 18. Clause 18 embodies the simple suggestion that in certain circumstances there should be a limitation upon the type of person who may buy a dwelling house in a subsequent sale. The tenant who has purchased the dwelling and his successors in title are prevented from selling that house except to a person in a certain category. That person must be a local—a person who has lived or worked in the area for at least three years.
  That will lead to difficulties. The national parks have experienced difficulties with the section 52 agreements under the Town and Country Planning Act. The National Parks Authority has limited the right to resell a property, after an improvement has been made under planning permission, to certain categories of people similar to those envisaged in clause 18.
  That results in a difficult and uncertain valuation of the property. If the number of people eligible to purchase a property is limited by residence or place of work, the catchment area involved is small and the property value is undermined. The value of the property is uncertain and probably lower than the market value would be if there were no limitation.
  Unfortunately, this has meant that on the resale of that property people have found it difficult to obtain mortgage finance because the mortgage authority has considered the property uncertain.
  1536
  There have been instances of people finding it a deterrent to improving their property as there is no certainty that the value of the improvements will be reflected in its resale price.
  Another matter to which I should like to draw the Government's attention is that within the definition in clause 18 we have—
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington) rose—
  Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am afraid that I cannot give way. We are limited to 10 minutes. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) will be called. I have several points to make and I do not wish to waste the time of the House.
  There is a problem with the interpretation of what constitutes the place of work, and I ask the Government to consider this. Is a Member of Parliament said to have his place of work within his constituency? Does "place of work" mean wholly the place of work or partly the place of work? If it means partly, it would include someone who passed through the area, such as a travelling salesman, which would not be the Government's intention. If it means wholly, it would exclude Members of Parliament and business men whose offices were outside the constituency but who did some work within it. There will be problems of interpretation. I say no more than that.
  Furthermore, because of the matters to which I have alluded, there will be problems of valuation. The restriction on the right to sell the property to certain individuals will lead to a diminution of its value. Inevitably the catchment of people who will be able to purchase the property will be that much smaller. That aspect of devaluation is not excluded by clause 6 of the Bill and, therefore, will be germane to the consideration of the district or local authority valuer.
  Where do these uncertainties lead us? I suggest that they lead us to a two-tier housing market where some properties just outside the areas of a national park will have one value and those just inside it will have another. They lead to a certain amount of prejudice against the local authority which was the original housing authority, because that authority will receive a lower sale price before discounts than it would have received for a similar

  1537
  property just outside the area of a national park.
  The difficulties of interpretation and the definition of who will constitute a proper purchaser to obtain title will lead to difficulties for council tenants. We need only consider the difficulties that solicitors will have when advising a client whether a prospective purchaser is suitable, whether he will be able to obtain title and whether he has the right residence or work qualifications.
  I believe that I have drawn attention to some of the difficulties with which I believe we are faced because of the way in which the Government have sought to deal with this problem. I suggest that they should look at the matter again and consider the possibility of giving district councils in the national parks and areas of outstanding beauty the right of preemption to repurchase the property at the market value at the time they wish to exercise that option.
  8.22 pm
  Mr. Frank Allaun: I ask the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Lennox-Boyd) to forgive me if I do not follow the points that he raised, for reasons of time.
  The Government are deliberately attempting to undermine and end the provision of council houses in Britain, first, by selling off council properties and, secondly, by reducing the number of new council houses built to under 45,000 this year, and probably a much lower figure next year. As the writer of the editorial in The Daily Telegraph says:
  "All this makes sense so long as there is no new building."
  Thirdly, the Government, by reducing subsidy and thereby increasing rents, are undermining the provision of council houses.
  Council housing has provided good homes for millions of families, and we shall struggle to retain it. The policy of the Labour Party is clear: we are against the sale of council houses except in areas where there is no shortage of accommodation for rent—and such places are few.
  The Bill will not produce one additional house. There are almost a million
  1538
  people on the waiting lists, plus all those—I know plenty in my constituency—who do not put their name down because they know that there is no chance of getting a house even if their names are on the list. If we restrict the number of houses available, we restrict the number of re-lets. Three out of four people are allocated a council house because of a re-let.
  Which houses will be sold? Obviously it will be the better houses, the houses in the suburbs, the semi-detached houses with a little bit of garden in which the children can play. It will not be the flats at the top of 20-storey blocks, where mothers live in terrible conditions because their young children cannot be allowed out to play. Only 1·3 per cent. of all council house sales have been flats. We leave behind for the disadvantaged the unsold houses—the dregs, the dross. That happened in America. American council housing has become welfare housing for the disadvantaged. That is the danger. That is what will happen to our good housing stock.
  The Bill is undemocratic. It takes away powers from local authorities. Labour councils do not like it—and there will be more Labour councils by 1 May next. Many Conservative councils do not like it, and have said so, because it takes away their rights. Why should a council be compelled to sell its houses if it does not wish to do so? Many councils, such as Guildford, North Norfolk and even Chelmsford, have opposed the idea, and others have their doubts.
  Let us consider the financial loss to the community. Councils will have to go on paying interest on the original loans on these houses for the next 60 years or for the balance of the 60 years since they were built. Discounts of between 33 per cent. and 50 per cent. will be given. Therefore, an average council house, valued at £14,000, will secure for the buyer a £7,000 tax-free gain. But, on top of that, a buyer is to be enabled to pay £100 and secure an option to buy two years later at the price when he took out a mortgage. In two years, prices might increase by over 40 per cent. The Secretary of State knows that that has happened. Therefore, that would add tremendously to the bonus. If buyers are to gain to that extent, somebody else loses. Who is it?

  1539
  It is other council tenants, ratepayers and taxpayers.
  The figures that we have been given to show that this will be a painless business are phoney. They exclude all tax relief on mortgage interest, which is already £1·2 billion a year to owner-occupiers. The Secretary of State smiles, but he knows that that is true. For every new mortgage, tax relief at 30 per cent. will be lost to the Exchequer.
  Conservative leaders hope for a quarter of a million sales a year. At an average price and a mortgage of £10,000, that will cost the Exchequer £750 million extra in tax relief. If a similar number of houses is sold in the subsequent year, the loss will rise to £1·5 billion a year, and so on. That loss will have to be made up by additional income tax, VAT, taxes on tobacco, petrol, and other taxes.
  Nottingham city council claims to have made a profit on its sales, but subsequent close investigation by two experts shows that during the life of the houses there will be a loss of £22,000 on a two-bedroomed house and £29,000 on a three-bedroomed house.
  What about the families who cannot afford to buy, even with a mortgage? Is it any wonder that these sales are opposed by organisations such as One-Parent Families, the Campaign for the Homeless and Rootless, Shelter and others, not to mention the TUC and the Labour Party?
  Another factor is that the huge new discounts will lead to corruption on a massive scale. If a house valued at £14,000 can be sold for £7,000, moneylenders will offer loans to buyers of low means. Such loans will be on the understanding that, after five years, the buyers will resell to the moneylenders and share the tax-free profit between them.
  Council tenants should be warned about what they are taking on. With building society interest at 15 per cent., plus rates, repairs and insurance, they will pay a great deal more than their present rents. Then, if they fall behind with their instalments, there is the danger of eviction. In some areas the eviction rate is already increasing, even without this added risk. Even so, discounts are so enormous that it will prove a good deal for many tenants but a disastrous deal for everyone else.
  1540
  A horde of additional local government servants will be needed. I do not know whether the Secretary of State has taken that into account. Each house will require to be surveyed, so there will have to be surveyors. Each house will have to be valued, so there will have to be valuers. The three-year stay of tenants in council houses will, in many instances, require extensive checking. If they have moved about, their three-year status will have to be recorded. The details of the sale will have to be checked. Finally, mortgages will have to be fixed, following inquiries into the buyers' means. If the right hon. Gentleman thinks that he can do all that without local government officials, he is making a great mistake. How many thousands of extra local government officials will be required? This is the Government who are supposed to be reducing the number of such officials.
  I refer to the Minister's intention to increase rents. The new system means that he will set a figure by which each council's contributions in rents and rates will be compelled to rise. If councils do not do so, they will lose Government subsidy. They will have to make up the shortfall by cutting services. That is an unfair way of putting pressure on tenants to buy.
  The Labour Party is in favour of council housing and owner-occupation. It can prove that by its introduction of the option mortgage scheme, the £500 million loan to the building societies and the loans and grants to first-time buyers. There is no proposal in the Bill to make private landlords sell to their tenants. No, this is municipal asset-stripping, and Labour Members, without exception, will vote against the Bill.
  8.33 pm
  Mr. Tim Eggar: The Bill should be seen as not only the fulfilment of a manifesto pledge that received a good deal of support throughout the country during the election but the first step, although perhaps a hesitant one, towards the reorientation of the housing market.
  The strengths and the weaknesses of the Bill must be viewed in the perspective of United Kingdom housing. We are lucky in having the highest percentage of owner-occupation in Europe. However, we have an unacceptably high

  1541
  degree of fluctuation in house prices. That can be traced almost directly to the reliance on one major source of finance for house purchase—namely, from the building societies and on floating rate funds.
  Outside the owner-occupied sector we are burdened with one of the least flexible housing markets in the Community. Legislation introduced by successive Governments has reduced the private rented sector to the provision of scandalously substandard housing for totally uneconomic rents for mainly the poorest in the community. The remaining one-third of households are caught in the spider's web of State housing, whether that is in the form of letting from councils or from housing associations. Tenants benefit from highly subsidised rents, but they pay the price of being the tenants of largely bureaucratic and inflexible landlords.
  The inflexible landlord system means that the tenant, once in a local authority area, effectively remains chained to an area for the rest of his life as a tenant. It is against that background that we should judge the Bill.
  I turn briefly to the detailed provisions. Broadly, I think that much of the Bill can be welcomed. The granting of substantial discounts to council tenants, together with the legal right not only to purchase but to finance, will undoubtedly increase the mobility of the housing market. In time, as we look forward, it will ensure that there is an added diversity in the property market, a diversity that is to be welcomed.
  I am particularly grateful to my right hon. Friend for including provisions that permit widows to benefit from any discounts that their husbands would have otherwise accrued. Also, I offer thanks on behalf of single people who may be living at home looking after one or both parents. They will give a broad welcome to the fact that they can join together with their parents in getting a mortgage for a property.
  On the other hand, I feel that the provisions in the Bill are too restrictive in relation to the five-year resale proposal. I hope that in Committee the Government will give local authorities and other landlords the right to exercise their discretion about whether that discount has to be re-
  1542
  paid in proportion if a sale is made within five years. Every council has certain undesirable properties—I know that from my own constituency. Often, those properties are tower blocks from which tenants, as soon as they are allocated there, seek to be transferred. Yet the same flats at the top of tower blocks would be attractive to young married couples without children who would wish to purchase them as a way into the housing market—even though they could benefit only from the minimum three-year discount. Councils could well be given a flexibility and discretion about reclaiming the discount given if a sale was made within five years.
  I turn briefly to the tenants' charter aspects of the Bill. Of course, the requirements put legal force behind only the requirement on all councils to stick by the provisions that are already enforced by the best council landlords. However, there is a real danger that clauses 42 to 45 will lead, in the hands of some councils, to empires of consultation officers, tenants' advisory departments and housing conciliation appeals procedures. We should be aware of the danger that the tenants' charter will become a bureaucratic orgy.
  I turn to the creation of the shorthold tenure—an act which we all welcome. However, I do not feel that there is any justification for the requirement that the rent under shorthold tenancies should be protected by the force of law. Surely, the negotiation of a rent for a shorthold tenancy should be decided between the tenant and the landlord. There should be no interference by a third party. It is an extraordinary double standard that introduces that requirement but makes no express statement as to whether rents are to be regulated if council tenants let off rooms in their council property.
  We should also examine matters that are not covered by the Bill. We should recognise the substantial need for additional public expenditure restrictions. The only area in which that can be made is in housing subsidy. At present, the subsidy runs at over £1·7 billion per annum. That amount goes not to those in greatest need but to those who have the luck to live in State housing. Everybody knows of examples of households with four or five wage-earners. Such households receive exactly the same subsidy and pay

  1543
  the same rent as the widow next door who is struggling to rear three or four children on her own. That simply cannot be right. Surely it is far better for all tenants to pay economic rents so that any help available can be given to those in real need. Even allowing for a generous increase in the estimate of what will have to be given for rent and rate rebates, the basic rate of income tax could be cut by up to 3p in the pound over a period of time in order to cut out the housing rental subsidy.
  In equity, if we are to tackle the subsidy for State housing, we should look at the subsidy that is presently available for owner-occupiers in the form of tax deduction for interest payments. We must openly declare that we shall not increase the amount of borrowing that qualifies for interest deduction and that any variations we make in the present system will be merely to take account of regional house price variations.
  I know that the Secretary of State is considering looking at the tax advantages given to building societies. Those tax advantages, combined with historical belief and antagonism from the clearing banks against funding short and lending long, mean that there is no real competition within the finance markets that provide housing funds. I hope that consideration for the overall economic policy of the Government together with the specific consideration given at the moment will mean that we shall move towards a situation where building societies are able to fund themselves in a long-term sterling bond market and therefore reduce reliance on floating rate finance. That would go some way towards damping down the up and down movement in the price of private housing.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): Order. I think that the hon. Member has had his 10 minutes.
  8.42 pm
  Mr. Jeffrey Thomas: I venture to think that no hon. Member will quarrel with the bald statement of fact that housing and the problems stemming from it represent the greatest social problem of our time. In our view, the Bill comes nowhere near meeting the challenge of those problems. In many respects it aggravates and exacerbates the very problems that it purports to amend.
  1544
  The Bill has been described in various ways, including that of a "tenants' charter". A far more appropriate name would be a "dossers' charter", because in its present form it is in many ways a recipe for further homelessness.
  I shall deploy the time at my disposal by dealing with one aspect of housing, but an aspect that is crucial to Wales and many other parts of the United Kingdom. I refer to the problem of leasehold property and leasehold reform. From the information available, it seems that even today there are about 400,000 leasehold properties in Wales. That is the biggest concentration in the United Kingdom and amounts to almost one-third of the total housing stock. We are therefore entitled to ask what the Bill does to cure the various problems confronting leaseholders. It needs only the most cursory scrutiny of the Bill to discover that it is almost silent on those measures needed to alleviate the difficulties facing leaseholders in Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom.
  The 1967 Act was fought for very hard over many years. Because it was a novel measure, it ran into problems. One problem was that the machinery set up under the Act was not used as it should have been used, and most of the leaseholders affected by the 1967 Act have not taken professional advice and have therefore not known of their rights under the Act. This is not only a major factor in the disparity in freehold prices but it has led to a great deal of misunderstanding and resentment. I understand that only 15 per cent. of all the leaseholders in South Wales have made use of their right to purchase under the 1967 Act.
  Because of the limited time at my disposal, I do not want to canvass all the problems and difficulties, but it has been suggested, for instance, that a qualifying lessee should be able to proceed under the 1967 Act by his solicitor serving a notice of enfranchisement together with a certificate of title to the effect that the applicant is qualified to purchase the reversion. Whilst this no doubt would help in ensuring that leaseholders obtained a fair deal in the sense that they would have to use the machinery of the Act, in many cases—for instance, where the freehold of an estate of houses was being sold—this requirement would put

  1545
  up the cost of purchase. A more practical solution would be to make it mandatory for the freeholder to inform the leaseholder of the statutory procedures under the Act at the time of the lease-holder's initial inquiry about purchase.
  I underline the urgency of the need for reform. If essential amendments and additions to the 1967 Act are to be made under the Bill, it is imperative that they be made quickly, as relief is most needed by leaseholders whose leases are near expiry. These include a multitude of 99-year leases created towards the end of the last century. The lapse of even 12 months in introducing relief could mean a difference of hundreds of pounds in the cost of a freehold.
  May I seek in the time at my disposal to make several short points? First, the proposal to grant council tenants the right to purchase their houses freehold after three years gives a justifiable sense of grievance to the leaseholder who under the present rules has to wait for five years before enfranchisement. In these new circumstances, leaseholders should at least be put on a par with council tenants.
  Secondly, the present procedures under the 1967 Act give the landlord technical advantages which operate to the disadvantage of the tenant, and in some circumstances prospective purchasers are frightened off. One such advantage is that the landlord can quote a high price, often forcing the leaseholder to concede that price rather than go to the expense of appealing. Other instances include the requirement that the tenant must pay the landlord a deposit of £25 at the outset. This means in practice that the landlord need not quote a price until the £25 has been paid, and if the tenant withdraws because the price is too high he has to ask for his deposit back and may well not receive it because the landlord will counterclaim for compensation.
  More importantly perhaps, the landlord can employ delaying tactics. Even though time limits are specified in the regulations, in practice there is no effective sanction against delay, and unscrupulous landlords use delay to persuade a tenant to pay a high price or dissuade a prospective tenant altogether.
  The £25 deposit should be abolished, but the problem of the delay is rather
  1546
  more difficult but equally important. Some landlords do not respond to inquiries or applications and many take much longer than the two-month period in which, under the Lord Chancellor's rules that accompany the 1967 Act, they are obliged to reply to a leaseholder's notice of claim. Although there will have to be safeguards for ground landlords who are prevented from replying for good or valid reasons, to impress a sense of urgency on them dilatory landlords should be fined or damages awarded against them for failure to act within the two-month period. Above all, there should be a massive publicity campaign to ensure that leaseholders know their rights under the 1967 Act, even if they are not to be given fuller rights under this Bill.
  Finally, the Bill is the most obvious vehicle for reforming the leasehold system. It is at hand and can easily be amended and added to in Committee. It would be criminal folly for the Government to ignore the desperate needs of leaseholders not only in Wales but throughout the United Kingdom. Reforms are urgently needed, and I hope that the Government will find time to include them in the Bill.
  8.51 pm
  Mr. John Heddle: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak at this late hour, and I shall abide by the strictures from the Chair.
  I ought to declare two interests. Before I entered the House I was by profession a consultant surveyor and for some time was connected with the housing market, and I am a member of the board of management of a housing society. It is therefore with pleasure that I note that part VIII, which is concerned with housing associations and the Housing Corporation, seeks to protect public funds by imposing more stringent controls on the accountability and audit procedures of registered housing societies, which I have previously discussed with the Minister.
  The Bill is the most comprehensive and courageous piece of housing legislation that has ever been framed, and it is a matter of great joy on these Benches that it met with overwhelming endorsement by the electorate in May of last year, particularly in the new towns. It endeavours to create not two nations but one—a nation of home owners. It

  1547
  endeavours to bring about a larger distribution of wealth from the public till—that impersonal thing—to the private purse, which strikes a chord close to most people's hearts.
  It is a matter of historic importance that there is this endeavour to take housing out of the political arena once and for all. The Bill will provide an open door nationwide for everyone to become a secure tenant or a secure owner. It will endeavour to lift the veil of "them and us" from towns and cities.
  The Bill enables tenants who cannot buy outright at least to take one or two steps on the ladder. It gives them the opportunity to buy a proportion of their house, directly related to their income and status for the time being. That proportion can be increased as their career prospects and status improve, and ultimately they can realise 100 per cent. home ownership.
  There are three indisputable reasons why the Bill must make sense. The first is economic. Subsidies for council housing currently cost the Exchequer and the ratepayers a horrendous deficit. A figure of £5 billion was given by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton). I do not know whether the deficit is £5 billion or £2 billion, but it is a horrendous sum. Rent increases of the size necessary to cope with that deficit would not be practical. At the same time, we, as a nation, cannot afford to continue to borrow abroad to meet this deficit. Realisation of assets is the only permanent solution that will lead to the reduction of the capital debt—loan charges, management, maintenance and repairing obligations imposed upon every housing authority in this country.
  Secondly, home ownership will give the individual a personal stake in the capital wealth of the country and a substantial measure of political freedom and independence from the State machine and political patronage.
  Thirdly, home ownership will give personal mobility, as we have already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant). Personal pride in ownership is the stimulation for and the natural instinct of someone who cares for what he owns. This will help to create a nation of families who are more responsible and
  1548
  who will thus live in a more stable society.
  At the same time, it will unlock the capital that is tied up in the bricks and mortar of our so-called greatest national asset—a national asset that is enjoyed by few but contributed to by many. The capital released by the sale of bricks and mortar will be recycled and reinvested to rebuild homes for people genuinely in need—sheltered housing for the elderly and infirm, and starter homes and half-and-half homes for first-time buyers to enable them to realise the opportunity of home ownership.
  There is no doubt that successive Rent Acts, particularly the 1977 Act, have dried up the availability of private rented accommodation in both the furnished and unfurnished sectors. The Bill is a bold attempt, through its shorthold provisions, to bring forward accommodation that is locked up and vacant to enable people to move about the country and take up jobs elsewhere, which is so necessary to revitalise our economy. The Bill also introduces a new form of tenure—assured tenancies. These will enable landlords to let new houses at realistic rents and will thus encourage the larger residential developers and builders to incorporate a supply of houses and flats to be let unfurnished in their larger developments, as they did before the war.
  It may also encourage pension funds and other institutions to invest directly in the residential sector. I welcome this. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) referred to those houses which are still caught in the trap of the Rent Act 1957 and the fact that the Bill will lift them out of control. At the same time, he said that such decontrol would affect poorer tenants in substandard accommodation. I venture to suggest that substandard accommodation will remain substandard while landlords are unable to recover realistic rents to meet the cost of repairs.
  At once, the Bill will provide the broad brush of home ownership that so many people voted for at the last election—the opportunity to buy their own homes and be liberated from subservience to the local authority and at the same time have the opportunity of being masters in their own homes and masters of their own

  1549
  destiny. The Bill seeks to purge the vendetta against the private landlord and to ease council tenants from inhuman and petty bureaucratic restrictions. It seeks to encourage private developers and builders to resume their historic role of providing homes to rent and thus assist the mobility of labour that is so essential to a society that has become wooden and static, and so necessary in an economy that is undergoing radical change. The Bill presents the public with the opportunity to share in a major shift of economic power into the hands of the individual, with all that that means in terms of self-help, self-health, self-respect and freedom.
  9 pm
  Mr. Gerald Kaufman: This Second Reading debate has inevitably centred on the provision in the Bill for compulsory sales of council houses. But the House should pay attention to the many other pernicious provisions in the Bill. The most fundamental change is in clause 80—the removal of the Housing Act 1957 duty on local authorities regularly to prepare plans for the provision of new homes in their areas. This is a statutory duty that local authorities have had imposed on them for many years under Governments of both parties. Its removal strikes at the heart of publicly provided housing in this country.
  This is accompanied by other proposals that illustrate the Government's detestation of local authority housing and their vendetta against council tenants. Clause 116 means the return to the provision in the Housing Finance Act 1972, repealed by the Labour Government in 1975, that councils should be allowed to make a profit out of the rents they charge their tenants. In clause 41, there is the specific and deliberate removal from the Labour Government's tenants' charter of the right of tenants to be consulted about the rents that they pay.
  In its way, the most vindictive innovation in the Bill—astonishing coming from a Government who claim to champion home ownership—is the provision in clause 98 that in future local authority mortgagors shall have to pay whichever is the higher—the local authority average interest rate or the building society rate. This change will make it even more diffi-
  1550
  cult for local authority tenants to buy their council houses.
  In all the euphoria that the Secretary of State has generated about the alleged desirability of the compulsory sale of council houses, the right hon. Gentleman has never really discussed how practicable this might be. The Opposition make clear that we regard it as unacceptable that councils should be compelled to sell off their best houses regardless of local housing need. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lambeth, Central (Mr. Tilley) pointed out, it is even more culpable in a way to offer tenants the bait where many who are attracted by it may never be able to bite on it.
  The right to buy, of which we have heard so much, does not exist for most tenants of housing associations. Of these 340,000 tenants, no fewer than 215,000, or 63 per cent., are excluded by clause 2 from the right to buy. Again, 15 per cent. of council tenants are excluded outright from the right to buy by the rule that there must be a minimum tenancy of three years. That means that 1 million families are excluded from the Secretary of State's social revolution for a start.
  The Secretary of State has not yet announced what minimum income level for mortgages he intends to lay down under clause 9. What is known is that council tenants have much lower incomes on average than the population as a whole. The latest figures show that the average income of council tenant households is 24 per cent. below the average for all households. It is also known that the sums that purchasers pay, even with the discounts proposed in the Bill, will be very high. At a 33 per cent. discount, weekly mortgage payments on an average council house will be £23. Even after tax relief, the payments will still amount to £16·33.
  If we are generous to the Secretary of State, we can consider the tenants who will qualify for maximum discount of 50 per cent., although they will number only 30 per cent. of the total. Their weekly mortgage payment before tax relief will be £17·17. After tax relief it will be £12·19. Those payments, with rates, water rates, heating charges, insurance and repairs and maintenance added, should be contrasted with the present average council rent of £6·56 a week. As my hon. Friend the Member for Salford,

  1551
  East (Mr. Allaun) indicated, the cost becomes very high for households with only three-quarters of average income. For them, all chance of rent rebate is lost for good. This high cost may be one reason why council house sales so far under this Government have not exactly been a roaring success.
  We already have experience of the response to the Tory policy of substantial discounts. In May the Secretary of State announced that he was immediately allowing councils to sell houses at a discount of up to 50 per cent. He was optimistic about that initiative and declared:
  "I believe that the new consents will give impetus to the Government's policy to encourage the growth of home ownership in which the sale of council houses has an important part to play."
  That was his confident hope, but what has been the result? In the third quarter of 1979, the first complete quarter since the Government took office, council house sales totalled 7,060, but in the third quarter of 1978—under the restrictive, killjoy Labour Government—council house sales totalled 8,484. The net result of the Secretary of State's breathless new impetus has been a reduction in council house sales of 17 per cent.
  We have other evidence of the response to the Government's new policies. In May the Secretary of State gave a new consent for the sale of houses in new towns. The Government announced in July that after only a couple of months of the new consent no fewer than 11,130 tenants in 11 new towns had already made inquiries about buying their homes. That was pretty impressive, but what is the position six months later? The grand total of sales from those 11,130 initial inquiries is 516–4½ per cent. And that is the percentage of those who made inquiries. The number of tenants in those new towns is 85,600, so the percentage of purchasers of those eligible to buy is ½per cent.
  Mr. Michael Colvin: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us how many councils which were selling houses before the general election are not now doing so? Bristol city council has reversed its 18-year-old policy of selling council houses and is now not doing so. Could not that account for the fall in sales?
  Mr. Kaufman: That does not account for the figures that I have given because Bristol reversed its policy fairly recently, following Government interference in its successful approach to council house sales.
  What a disappointment the poor figures must be to the Secretary of State. We all remember his rousing rhetoric at the Conservative Party conference in the autumn. He told the cheering throngs at Blackpool that the sale of council houses would be seen as "a great social revolution" He proclaimed:
  "I can think of no act of social policy more likely to change the attitude of countless thousands of our people than the enfranchisement of council tenants."
  He promised a "great crusade" against Labour-controlled councils that opposed his policy. He described them as the feudal barons denying the peasants their land. The right hon. Gentleman issued this stern warning:
  "If it is a fight they want we shall lead our party across their heartlands, carrying our message door to door."
  The right hon. Gentleman had his chance, because in one of the greatest Socialist heartlands of all, the constituency of Manchester, Central, we had a by-election in the autumn. The overwhelming majority of electors in that constituency live in council property and they waited behind their doors in suspense and anticipation, ready for the Secretary of State's promised knock.
  We all know that it usually takes brute force to keep the right hon. Gentleman away from the political stump, but the doors of Manchester, Central remained unthumped. In fact, Manchester did not even see the Secretary of State during the by-election campaign. As for the Tory candidate, he did not even mention the sale of council houses in his election address, and when the votes were counted it turned out that the peasants had voted for the feudal barons. The Tory candidate got 1,275 votes, and Magna Carta lost its deposit.
  The problem is that the Secretary of State is a great fighter when words are his weapon. But, sadly, in his crusade he seems to be leading an army of conscientious objectors. Let us be fair to the Secretary of State. He is fighting so many crusades at once that he cannot win them all immediately. As we know, another of his battles is against bureaucracy. He

  1553
  spelt out his views vividly in a speech that he made in Cheltenham in July. It was a major oration and at times his language reached Demosthenic heights. Take this extract, which I quote in its entirety:
  "Sale of council houses. Get on with it."
  But it was on the subject of bureaucracy that the Secretary of State was at his most eloquent. He said:
  "We are now at a point where the web of bureaucracy is too dense, too pervasive, and entangles far more than it ought … Local councils … do not need, they do not want, the fussy supervision of detail which now exists."
  Let us look at the Housing Bill and see how in it the Secretary of State gets rid of the web of bureaucracy and the fussy supervision of detail. Let us consider, in particular, how a council tenant goes about exercising his right to buy a house. It is a simple straightforward procedure. First, the tenant serves a written notice on the council under clause 5(1). The council responds by serving a notice on the tenant under clause 5(1). For good measure, the council then serves a further notice on the tenant under clause 10(1). Then, not resting on its laurels, the council sends the tenant a form under clause 10(3). The tenant has been left out of things a bit, so he counters smartly by serving another written notice on the council under clause 11(1).
  A new participant now makes his appearance—the district valuer. He makes a determination or are-determination under clause 11(2). The council cannot let that go by, so it makes a representation to the district valuer under clause 11(3). The tenant is not going to let that pass, so he makes a representation to the district valuer under clause 11 (3). In response, the council serves a notice on the tenant under clause 11(4). The council then follows this up by sending the tenant a form under clause 11(5).
  It is now the tenant's turn again. He serves a notice in writing on the council under clause 12(1). Back to the council, which serves a notice in writing on the tenant under clause 12(3). Various moves now become possible. The council can serve a notice on the tenant under clause 15(2). The tenant can serve an injunction on the council under clause15(8). The council, getting desperate, may make a covenant under clause 18(1). The council
  1554
  may serve a notice on the tenant under clause 18(2), or it may give a consent to the tenant under clause 18(2).
  Yet another character now appears—the chief land registrar. He can enter a restriction under clause 18(5). Back to the council, which must give the tenant a certificate under clause 19(2). Enter now the Secretary of State. He may give the council notice in writing under clause 22(1), and he may repeat the process under clause 22(2). Then, in a masterstroke, the Secretary of State may withdraw his notice in writing to the council under clause 22(1) by giving the council further notice in writing under clause 22 (5). The pace then quickens. The Secretary of State may execute a document under clause 23(1). The chief land registrar can register the tenants under clause 23(3). He shall then supply the Secretary of State with a document under clause 23 (4).
  Along the way, the House will be relieved to hear, the Secretary of State has all sorts of little jobs to do. He may make an order under clause 7(3), or regulations under clause 9(4), or orders under clause 17(1) and clause 20(2), or regulations under clause 21(1), or a determination under clause 22(7), or an order under clause 25(1). That is how the Bill makes it easy for the council tenant to buy his house and how the Secretary of State fulfils his promise to get rid of fussy supervision of detail and to destroy the web of bureaucracy.
  What a crusade the Secretary of State is leading, to be sure. His straggling troops are groping their way down a murky labyrinth, accompanied by a qualified solicitor and a filing clerk. Instead of a glorious war-cry such as "God for Michael, England and St. Margaret", the slogan on his pennant reads "Please complete this form in triplicate". His council house sales army does not only consist of the tenants—the PBI. It includes the non-commissioned officers as well, and additional staff for the local authorities. There are about 50 to 60 additional staff for the Department of the Environment and the Welsh Office. There are extra employees for the law courts and extra employees for the Land Registry.
  But we must remember that the Secretary of State is used to creating work for

  1555
  idle hands. It was he who, only the other day, appointed as his adviser on the Palace of Westminster a former Tory Member of this House, Sir Robert Cooke, the man best remembered for helping to make this Victorian Palace look like Victoria Palace. Sir Robert is being paid £3,000 a year for one day's work a week. He is living disproof of the belief that it takes two to quango.
  One quango that has been working full-time is the team at the Department of the Environment that has been patching together a document on the costs of council house sales. Here is the impressive products of its labours—"Appraisal of the financial effects of council house sales". It sets out to prove that, on a variety of assumptions, the sale of council houses would bring a profit to the taxpayer and ratepayer. The Secretary of State last Friday proudly described it as
  "most rigorous, sophisticated and comprehensive".
  The Secretary of State has strange standards. This publication, Crown copyright, price £1·20, should find a steady sale in bookshops, if placed on the shelves devoted to sensational fiction. Here is some of the phraseology of this "rigorous, sophisticated and comprehensive" document:
  "Recourse must be had to inference, deduction and assumption. … All that can be done is to make assumptions. … Estimating the effect is difficult. … The figure shown is no more than tentative. … With so many variables, what would happen is hard to assess."
  All the same, the document arrives at its conclusions—conclusions uniformly favourable to the Government's case. But can we believe what it claims to prove?
  Let us look at three of the crucial elements in its calculations—first, the cost to the Exchequer of tax relief on mortgage interest payments. Every assessment made in this document includes a calculation of this tax relief. Yet the Chancellor of the Exchequer has told me that in such a calculation too many assumptions would have to be made for an estimate to be meaningful. So, on the authority of the Chancellor himself, that part of the calculation is worthless. But there is worse to come.
  Another essential element in the calculation is the rise in the level of rents. Rents forgone by the council on houses
  1556
  sold are, of course, a loss to the taxpayer.
  In an answer that I received yesterday, the Minister of State flatly refused my request for his estimate of increases in council rents for the next five years. He fobbed me off and said that future council rent levels depended on the decisions of local authorities. Yet this document includes future rent increases in its calculations. It claims to do what the Minister says he is unable to do. It bases its claim that council house sales will yield a profit to the taxpayer on assumptions that rents will rise by between 3 and 11 per cent.
  These assumptions are completely bogus. The present average council house rent is £6·56 a week. In his rate support grant settlement published two months ago, the Secretary of State assumed that rents would rise this coming year by an average of £1·50 a week. That assumption is faithfully repeated in this document as part of the basis of the calculations.
  An increase of £1·50 on £6·56 is, however, not 3 per cent. or even 11 per cent. It is 23 per cent. That scale of rent increase makes a vast difference to the outcome of the document's calculations. Let us remember that the Bill repeals Labour's no-profit limit on rent increases. In future, rents are liable to go up even faster, so that the fraudulent assumptions on rent increases invalidate this document even further.
  There is another element in these calculations that conclusively reveals the document's dishonesty. Every calculation in this document allows for the cost to the council of renovating the house—if it had kept it instead of selling it—and cost assumptions range between nil and £3,208 over a 20-year period. There is absolutely no justification for these assumptions. The document itself admits that no separate figures are available for the cost of improving all purpose-built dwellings.
  It guesses that in the decade 1969–78 9 per cent. of purpose-built council houses were modernised. That means less than 1 per cent. per year, or about 18 per cent. over 20 years. That is probably an overestimate because the figure is likely to be much less than this since the houses sold will be the best houses. They will be the newest houses, those least likely

  1557
  to be in need of modernisation. So the most that should be allowed for savings on modernisation is 18 per cent. of that £3,208.
  That reduces the potential saving to £577 and by itself plunges many of the Secretary of State's allegedly profitable results into deficit. The Secretary of State was being much more honest with the House when he admitted last month, speaking on this very subject:
  "As one looks ahead for many years, one can make more or less whatever judgment one likes. That is purely a matter of personal opinion."—[Official Report, 12 December 1979; Vol. 975, c. 1284.]
  As for this document, it really is a shoddy piece of work. Far from being rigorous, sophisticated and comprehensive as claimed by the Secretary of State, it is as contemptible as the policies it seeks to justify. If the claimed profit to the taxpayer of council house sales is so much fool's gold, the quantifiable cost to the taxpayer of the Bill is only too real. First, the Secretary of State will be spending something like £750,000 to publicise his council house sales policy. The requirement for the local authorities, the Department of the Environment, the Welsh Office, the courts and the Land Registry to take on extra staff will cost about £9·5 million a year.
  Then we come to rents. Last June the Secretary of State spelt out his housing policy. In his statement he promised:
  "Some will prefer or will only be able to rent. We are not going to forget them."
  The right hon. Gentleman has certainly not forgotten them. We have seen how he is forcing council rents up by 23 per cent. In clauses 58 and 62 of the Bill, he forces up the rents of private tenants as well.
  Clause 62 ends rent control for 200,000 private tenants. Clause 58 allows landlords to put up rents of more than 1,400,000 regulated tenants every two years instead of every three years as at present, and the 200,000 controlled tenants will also face rent increases every two years in future. Another 133 rent officers at a cost of £1 million a year will be needed to administer this scheme. The cost of the rent officers alone wipes out almost all the money that the Secretary of State saved last year in his famous quango hunt.
  1558
  The cost to private tenants of the increased rents will be severe but the cost to the taxpayer will be enormous. Higher rents mean higher rent allowances—a taxpayers' subsidy to private landlords paid out of the public purse. The increased rent allowances brought about directly by the Bill will cost the taxpayer £60 million a year by 1982–83.
  It is not clear whether aid with rents by the Supplementary Benefits Commission is included in that figure or additional to it. If it is additional, the cost to the taxpayer of "Heseltine's high rents policy" could be an extra £140 million a year within two years, rising each year after that. No wonder the Bill is so widely condemned.
  The Association of District Councils, making a point which is important to my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), states:
  "the safeguard for rural areas … is not of itself adequate to preserve an adequate supply of accommodation at a reasonable price for local people."
  The National Farmers Union says it considers that
  "the unconstrained nature of the provisions in the Bill will add to existing severe problems in many rural areas."
  The National Housing and Town Planning Council has denounced the £100 option as being
  "reminiscent of the seedier aspects of hire purchase."
  The Sunday Telegraph states:
  "In some areas, the result of this Bill may be to reduce public housing provision quite unacceptably."
  Perhaps the most searing condemnation is that which states:
  "What does such a policy really achieve? What it results in is the better houses being sold to the wealthier tenants. It will be of no advantage to the old and will not be available to the poor. It reduces the overall quality of the public housing stock and this has financial consequences when average repair and maintenance costs rise."
  That stringent condemnation comes from the Tory Reform Group, a well-connected body. A list which the group supplied to me shows that its patron is
  "The right hon. Peter Walker, MBE, MP"
  and that its vice-presidents include:
  "The right hon. Lord Carrington, PC, KCMG, MC, the right hon. Sir Ian Gilmour, Bt, MP, and the right hon. William Whitelaw, CHMC, MP."

  1559
  The Tory Reform Group speaks for many besides its patron and vice-presidents when it condemns the Bill.
  The Bill is cumbersome and bureaucratic. It deliberately makes housing dearer than ever before for all tenants—council tenants and the tenants of private landlords. It is an expensive Bill. It comes from a Minister who claims that he wants to cut public expenditure, but it will add hundreds of millions of pounds to public expenditure. Worst of all, it is an irrelevant Bill. It juggles with rents and ownership. As my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East and the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon), in a courageous speech, said, if it becomes law the Bill will not produce a single additional home for those who are in desperate need.
  Last June the Secretary of State said that his objective was to provide enough new house building to meet the demand for home ownership and meet essential needs in the public sector. The Secretary of State has already failed irretrievably.
  The Director General of the National Council of Building Material Producers has warned that because of council house sales the level of private house building could be significantly affected by the creation of new demand on scarce building society funds. The council expects a decline in new housing this year of 11½ per cent.—8 per cent. in the private sector and 16 per cent. in the public sector.
  The National Economic Development Council in its recently published construction forecasts expects a devastating total of only 185,000 housing starts this year in the whole of Great Britain. It expects only 70,000 starts in the public sector. The latest figures for England and Wales, published last week, show that between September and November total housing starts were down by 13 per cent. on the previous year and public sector starts were down by 24 per cent.
  The Secretary of State, who has the effrontery to talk about enough new house building to meet demand, is certain to leave office with the unenviable record of having not only presided over but deliberately brought about the worst housing programme since the war. That is the grim truth behind this despicable Bill, and that is why we shall vote against it tonight.
  9.30 pm
  The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. John Stanley): The House will be grateful to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) for setting out the procedure of the right-to-buy legislation so succinctly and for demonstrating so conclusively that the right to buy will achieve its objectives. It was interesting to hear him arguing that insufficient council houses were being sold at present. I do not see how he reconciles that with his opposition to the Bill tonight. We hope to remedy that.
  I think that I am right in saying that, in the document from which he quoted, the Tory Reform Group concluded that we were not going far enough and that council houses should be given away. I am not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman's endorsement of the Tory Reform Group goes that far.
  The debate has been wide-ranging, and inevitably there have been profound differences on certain aspects of the Bill. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) acknowledged that there were substantial elements of the Bill that were common ground to both sides. We welcome the opportunity to bring forward a number of measures which the previous Administration said were desirable but failed to pass into legislation. The tenants' charter comes into that category, as do the alterations that we are making to the improvement grants system, the reform of the housing subsidy system and many of the changes that we are making with regard to the Housing Corporation and housing associations. Also, we have made at least one important change in the private rented sector. I am glad that we are able to bring forward, in our first Session, a number of major and important legislative changes which the previous Administration were unable to do at any time during their period of office.
  The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook said that the tenants' charter was a Labour proposal. I have to tell him that it was a Labour proposal which Labour Members voted against when my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Eyre) brought forward his Private Member's Bill on the tenants' charter. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) also made an important con-

  1561
  tribution to that proposal in the early stages.
  The right hon. Gentleman referred to a number of alterations that we have made and to consultation on rents. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant) also mentioned this. We carefully considered the representations that we received and the implications for other charges and consultations on rates or water rates. We also looked carefully at the bureaucratic implications, something on which the right hon. Member for Ardwick dwelt.
  We were especially struck by the representations that we received from one authority about why it did not seem sensible to continue with the proposal for statutory consultation on rents. It said that
  "the degree of consultation which will be required for matters such as changes in rents and other charges could cause serious delays or increases in administrative costs, particularly for those councils which do not have organised tenants' associations to consult with".
  I must tell the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook that those were the representations that we received from his former council in the city of Sheffield.
  Reference was also made to distraint and a process that we have not changed in the tenants' charter. The right hon. Member for Ardwick quoted from my Shelter speech. If we could find a better way—hopefully we can—that might be a practice that can be dispensed with.
  Local authorities made strong representations to us about the size of rent arrears, which total about £50 million to £60 million. That is the current figure for rent arrears. We received representations from one local authority, in which it said:
  "It is acknowledged that this provision is likely to render distress useless as an arrears recovery method."
  I should tell the right hon. Member for Ardwick that those representations were received from the city of Manchester. Therefore, we felt that that was a legitimate change to make.
  The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook asked about the local contribution and the definition of the Secretary of State's powers in clause 89. The form of wording in that clause is taken from the previous Government's Green Paper. That states that one of the advantages of the pro-
  1562
  posed subsidy system is that it will enable a balance to be struck between central and local contributions to housing costs in the light of all relevant factors, including past and expected movements of incomes, costs and prices. We felt it right to reflect all those factors listed in the previous Government's Green Paper, but I am advised that, in making the final decision on the local contribution, there is no difference in the discretion given to the Secretary of State in this Bill compared with that in the Labour Government's Bill.
  I turn to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea about our proposals in connection with the leasehold reform legislation—in particular, the special valuation method. My hon. Friend will know that in 1974, when we were in Opposition, the rateable value limits of the Leasehold Reform Act were raised as a result of our amendments. At the same time we provided a special valuation basis so that, for houses of higher rateable value, the price of the freehold would be closer to the market value. We have looked at this matter again and have come to the conclusion that it was right. The effect of repealing the special valuation basis would be to enable leaseholders of these more expensive houses to enfranchise on the original basis, so they would stand to make large windfall gains at the expense of other private owners. We do not think that would be justified. I am sorry if that should disappoint some of my hon. Friend's constituents.
  My hon. Friend also asked about the position of tenants of the Crown estates. We have received a number of representations from Crown estates' tenants for their inclusion in the provisions of the Bill. I am glad to tell my hon. Friend that, in the light of the representations made by those tenants in connection with the Bill, the commissioners are reviewing arrangements relative to tenants' rights and are inviting suggestions for improvements from the various tenants' associations. I shall keep in close touch with the commissioners on that matter.
  I turn now to the various proposals that have been made about the private rented sector.
  Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: Would it be possible to alter the terms

  1563
  of compensation in relation to the leasehold enfranchisement provisions, whilst raising the limits? I should have thought that it would be equitable to do that. Will the Government consider taking action along those lines?
  Mr. Stanley: We are proposing not to raise the rateable value limits but merely to continue the special valuation basis. However, I shall consider what my hon. and learned Friend said. The Bill is drafted widely enough to enable me to consider that matter.
  I turn now to the private rented sector. We have debated the shorthold proposal at considerable length, but, having listened to some of the speeches by Opposition Members, I found a fundamental contradiction in the approach that they seemed to adopt towards the rented sector. Again and again they expressed concern about the need to increase the availability of accommodation in the public rented sector, but at the same time they seemed reluctant to contemplate measures which would increase the availability of accommodation in the private rented sector.
  The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook made his position clear. He said that private landlords were an anachronism. On many occasions Opposition Members have made it clear that they do not regard the private sector as having any future. They do not want it to have any future. Many, it seems, would be happy for it to slide into extinction.
  At a time when there is a demonstrable need for short-term rented accommodation, and when, at the same time, there are those in the private sector who are both willing and able to make that accommodation available at no cost to public funds, provided that the legislative framework is right, it is irresponsible for the Labour Party to continue to pursue its vendetta against private landlords when there is a means of easing the problem of rented accommodation.
  I agree very much with what my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) said about shorthold and when he called for, as far as possible, a bipartisan approach. That is an approach that we wish to follow, because the confidence factor is all-important. We shall consider carefully the proposals that have been made and the arguments advanced by the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook,
  1564
  by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mr. Douglas-Mann) and by others. However, I cannot agree that the shorthold proposals are basically unreasonable or unfair to tenants. Tenants will have to pay no more than a fair rentas provided by other rent legislation. They will qualify for rent allowances. They will have security of tenure during the periods of tenancy that they have agreed.
  The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook said that clause 51(3) was important to the degree of support that he is prepared to give to shorthold. It may be that he does not fully understand that part of the clause. I appreciate the difficulties at this stage in our proceedings. That provision does not imply that the Secretary of State will have power to go to market rents for shorthold. There will be no deregistration to market rents. At present, a fair rent must be registered at the outset of shorthold.
  If clause 51(3) were used, it would not have an effect on existing shorthold and it would not prevent the tenant, or the landlord, under a subsequent shorthold, from applying for and having a fair rent registered. In other words, it would produce exactly the same position as already applies under existing Labour Rent Acts to fair rents, where there is no compulsory obligation to go for fair rents. It is an obligation that is at the option of either the landlord or the tenant.
  The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden asked why clauses 71 to 74 had been included. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that under the Bill, unlike the previous Labour Government's Housing Bill, we are conferring the right to an improvement grant on the private sector tenant as well as on the public sector tenant. Therefore, we have to reproduce the equivalent provisions that appeared in the Labour Government's Bill, namely, the clauses that applied to public sector tenants and their rights in respect of improvement grants. We have endeavoured to produce the equivalent provisions for private sector tenants. I note the hon. Gentleman's comments, but there is no basic difficulty. There is probably no basic disagreement between us.
  Mr. Scott: Before my hon. Friend moves on from shortholds, I ask him to deal with an issue that is of particular interest in central London. When a tenant comes to the end of a shorthold

  1565
  and the lease is determined, will he be eligible for rehousing under the homeless persons legislation or will he be treated as if he has made himself homeless intentionally?
  Mr. Stanley: The interaction of the homeless persons legislation and the short-hold proposals is exactly the same as the interaction between the homeless persons legislation and existing Rent Acts. It will be for local authorities to determine—ultimately it will be for the courts todecide—whether there is an element of intentional homelessness. The Bill's provisions will apply to the tenant in the position that my hon. Friend describes in the same way as in other legislation.
  I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton) that short-hold is additional to the existing provisions that enable temporarily absent owner-occupiers to regain possession. I believe that the Bill's provisions meet my hon. Friend's comments about renewal. Our intention is that shorthold should operate flexibly so that lettings may be carried on by mutual agreement.
  The right hon. Member for Ardwick expressed criticism of the arrangements that we are making in other parts of the private rented sector. I was surprised to hear the criticisms he appeared to apply to people in controlled tenancies. Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman that the average controlled rent is estimated at about £1 per week. It is patently obvious that that is not enough to maintain a house in a decent state of repair, let alone to provide any return to the owner.
  The result has been all too predictable. Over the last 20 years, the rent regime for controlled tenants has assured that the properties have decayed around the tenants who live in them. On any dispassionate assessment, the bringing of controlled tenancies into rent regulation should have been completed years ago. I recently received a letter from two owners of controlled tenancies which highlights the problem:
  "What we would like to know now is when you as Housing Minister will let us get a fair rent on the house that we keep in good repair and let to a lady tenant for 88p a week. This is a controlled rent. … We pay repairs, tax, insurance and painting and the rent does nowhere cover it. So, please remember us, you can't rent a tent for 88p a week."
  1566
  I turn to the right to buy. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant), in a strong speech, asked about the option provision. I assure him that the provision is in the legislation, as we promised in our manifesto. A number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Lennox-Boyd) and Peters-field (Mr. Mates) and the hon. Member for Merioneth (Mr. Thomas), referred to the question of rural areas and the concern that they have about the provisions that will affect those areas. We are aware of the representations that have been made and we shall consider those further, in particular the representations in relation to areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks.
  I turn to the points made about the financial effects of the sale of council houses, about which Labour Members have expressed such a deep and newfound interest. I only wish that the degree of interest and concern about the financial effects of assets going out of the public sector had been matched by a similar degree of interest about the financial effects of taking assets into the public sector. Criticisms have been made of the financial appraisal that we have produced, but they come pretty ill from a party that, for example, nationalised the steel industry with no financial appraisal at all and without the faintest glimmer of thought that over the next 13 years or so it would cost the taxpayer about £5,000 million.
  To be fair to Labour Members, in their last period in Government they carried out a detailed and exhaustive study of housing policy. No doubt the right hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Freeson) and others would claim that it was as exhaustive and comprehensive a study of housing policy as any that has been carried out for many years. It is interesting that such was the unimportance of the financial effects of the sale of council houses to the previous Administration, so low down did it come in their order of priorities, that when their Green Paper, with its three technical appendices, was published, volume I contained detailed statistics of such burning contemporary importance as the annual number of marriages in England and Wales in the year 1871. Volume II contained a detailed and interesting study of mortgage lending

  1567
  in Australia. There one can find an interesting study of housing policy in Denmark. There are no statistics, information or financial data on the financial effects of the sale of council houses.
  It has been suggested that the assumptions that we have used are partial. We could have used far more favourable assumptions than those used in the worst case in our financial appraisal. The rent assumption that we used in the worst case is a rate of increase in rent that has not taken place over the last 50, 20, 10 or five years. We have used an assumption for savings on management and maintenance that gives a less favourable result than those assumptions used in the study of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, the Nottingham study or even the Shelter study.
  I understand why our financial appraisal does not come up to the expectations of the Labour Party. I do not believe that the Labour Party is in the least interested in making an objective financial appraisal. It is merely interested in trying to show that the sale of council houses is bound to make a loss. No doubt it came to the embarrassing conclusion that the sale of council houses was likely to be profitable and, therefore, it chose a policy of saying nothing when it was in Government. If the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook is so exercised on this issue, why do the Opposition not publish their financial appraisal? Everyone else has published financial appraisals. The CIPFA has published its financial appraisal, and so have Nottingham and Shelter. Eveyone has published a financial appraisal except the Labour Party. Why does the right hon. Gentleman not publish his appraisal?
  Mr. Hattersley: I shall be overjoyed to publish our financial appraisal. The only difficulty is that the right hon. Gentleman will not give me permission.
  Mr. Stanley: The right hon. Member now has every possibility, as the data is available, to publish his appraisal. He can produce his own appraisal. That was his responsibility when he was in Government. He has had nine months to publish it, yet he has done nothing.
  I turn to the arguments put forward about the right to buy and the arguments that have been made against it. The argument that only the best houses
  1568
  will be sold is contrary to the experience of home owners up and down the country. Their experience is that all types of houses are sold—houses of every type, size, location and condition. If it is thought that only the best will be sold, one need look no further than the experience of the GLC with homesteading. Accommodation has been sold that could not be called the best by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, those houses would be described by estate agents as being in need of sympathetic hands—to use a euphemism. The degree of dilapidation involved has been exceeded only by the enthusiasm of those applying to purchase them.
  Turning to the arguments concerning waiting lists, we said in our financial appraisal—where it is analysed in detail—that the majority of re-lets occur because of old age or death, yet the bulk of people buying council houses do so when they are in their thirties or forties and they will remain in that accommodation unless they buy.
  The most conclusive evidence that has emerged about the doubts within the Labour Party on the question of waiting lists can be found inside Labour-controlled authorities. For example, Labour-controlled Dartford, with a total waiting list of 1,900 people, is now selling council houses at discounts of up to 50 per cent. In Labour-controlled Easington there is a waiting list of about 5,000 people, yet that authority is selling council houses with discounts of up to 50 per cent. Labour-controlled Bassetlaw, with a waiting list of 2,100, is selling council houses at discounts up to 20 per cent. Labour-controlled Derby and Labour-controlled Nottingham, with waiting lists of about 5,000 and 8,000 respectively, are also selling at discounts up to 20 per cent. The frailty of the waiting list argument comes out from what Labour councils are doing.
  We have heard a great deal about the local democracy argument. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. Alton) did not consult his hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Ely(Mr. Freud) to refresh his memory of the observations his hon. Friend made on that question during the Second Reading debate on the Education Bill.
  The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook said that he would vote against the Bill,

  1569
  but he has not made clear whether the Labour Party would withdraw the right to buy from 6 million council tenants. Would the Labour Party withdraw the right to buy? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."]
  Mr. Hattersley: Yes.
  Mr. Stanley: I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. That answer will be noted by 6 million council house ten-ants.
  It is interesting to note the degree of enthusiasm that is being expressed by Labour councillors throughout the country in buying their council houses even in advance of the Bill becoming law. The House would like to know of a recent cutting which came into my hands about a Labour councillor who bought his council house and then voted against the sale of council houses by his local authority. The cutting is headlined:
  "My house sale vote by Labour Rolls-Royce councilor".
  It reads:
  "A gleaming P registration Rolls-Royce stands outside the semi-detached house which George Collett's wife, Nellie, brought from their local Council. George, like his wife, a Sandwell Labour councillor, is a man who says he believes that people should be able to benefit from their own hard work. He agrees, however, that he supported a council resolution which has now stopped all further council house sales. The resolution has put at risk the plans of hundreds of other tenants who have applied to buy."
  Councillor Collett said:
  "Just because I am in business and drive a Rolls does not mean I have to support Tory policies"
  That may be Councillor Collett's view, but by what right does he deny others the benefits of Tory policies which he is prepared to get for himself?
  I doubt whether there have been many other supposedly controversial measures that in fact have enjoyed such overwhelming popular support. The opinion poll taken by The Observer before the election showed that the proportion of Labour voters suporting the right to buy was no less than 75 per cent., and no wonder.
  The case for the right to buy is the case for giving to millions of people and to their children a chance of access to capital that at the moment they are wholly denied. It is the case for giving people greater ability to move. It is the case for giving individuals greater control over their own lives. It is the case for a massive redistribution of wealth from the public sector to private individuals.
  On this issue, as on so many others, the Labour Party is fundamentally out of touch; and not merely that. This debate has exposed as vividly as any we have had the false prospectus of the Labour Party. The Labour Party says that it favours the redistribution of wealth, yet here it is resisting it. The Labour Party says that it favours public ownership because it means ownership by the people, yet here it is opposing the greatest opportunity for ownership that 6 million people have ever had. It says that it favours greater equality, yet here it is about to vote against as important a measure to reduce inequality as has ever been put before the House. Tenants want the right to buy, and they are right to want it. They want it now, and I ask the House to give it to them.
  Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 319, Noes 267.

  Division No. 135

  AYES

  [10 pm

  Adley, Robert

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Buchanan-Smith, Hon Alick

  Alexander, Richard

  Blackburn, John

  Buck, Antony

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Body, Richard

  Budgen, Nick

  Ancram, Michael

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Arnold, Tom

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Burden, F. A.

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

  Butcher, John

  Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

  Bowden, Andrew

  Butler, Hon Adam

  Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Carlisle, John (Luton West)

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Bright, Graham

  Carlisle, Kenneth(Lincoln)

  Banks, Robert

  Brinton, Tim

  Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Brittan, Leon

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  Bell, Sir Ronald

  Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

  Channon, Paul

  Bendall, Vivian

  Brooke Hon Peter

  Chapman, Sydney

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)

  Brotherton, Michael

  Churchill, W. S.

  Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpo)

  Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Best, Keith

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Bruce-Gardyne, John

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Clegg, Sir Walter

  Hurd, Hon Douglas

  Percival, Sir Ian

  Cockeram, Eric

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Colvin, Michael

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Cope, John

  Jessel, Toby

  Pollock, Alexander

  Cormack, Patrick

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Porter, George

  Corrie, John

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

  Costain, A. P.

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Crouch, David

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Kilfedder, James A.

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Kimball, Marcus

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Dorrell, Stephen

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Raison, Timothy

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Rathbone, Tim

  Dover, Denshore

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Knox, David

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

  Lamont, Norman

  Renton, Tim

  Durant, Tony

  Lang, Ian

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Dykes, Hugh

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Latham, Michael

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Edwards, Rt Hon N. (Pembroke)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Eggar, Timothy

  Lawson, Nigel

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Elliott, Sir William

  Lee, John

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Emery, Peter

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Eyre, Reginald

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Ross, Wm. (Londonderry)

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Rost, Peter

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Faith, Mrs Sheila

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Farr, John

  Loveridge, John

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

  Fell, Anthony

  Luce, Richard

  Scott, Nicholas

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  McCrindle, Robert

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  McCusker, H.

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  MacGregor, John

  Shersby, Michael

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  MacKay, John (Argyll)

  Silvester, Fred

  Forman, Nigel

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Sims, Roger

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Fox, Marcus

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Speed, Keith

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Madel, David

  Speller, Tony

  Fry, Peter

  Major, John

  Spence, John

  Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

  Marlow, Tony

  Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

  Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Sproat, Iain

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Mates, Michael

  Squire, Robin

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Mather, Carol

  Stainton, Keith

  Goodhart, Philip

  Mawby, Ray

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Goodhew, Victor

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Stanley, John

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Steen, Anthony

  Gorst, John

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Stevens, Martin

  Gow, Ian

  Mellor, David

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

  Gray, Hamish

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Stokes, John

  Greenway, Harry

  Mills, Iain (Merlden)

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  eve, Percy

  Mills, Peter (West Devon)

  Tapsell, Peter

  hs Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Tebbit, Norman

  Gr Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Griffith

  Moate, Roger

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Griffiths

  Molyneaux, James

  Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

  Grist, Ian elwyn

  Monro, Hector

  Thompson, Donald

  Grylis, Michael hie (Epa'm & Ew'll)

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Thorne, Neil (Iiford South)

  Gummer, John S (Salisbury)

  Moore, John

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Hamilton, Hon Ar

  Morgan, Geraint

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Hamilton, Michael

  Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

  Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Morrison, Hon Charies (Devizes)

  Trippier, David

  Hannam, John

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

  Trotter, Neville

  Haselhurst, Alan eel

  Murphy, Christopher

  Van Straubenzee, W.R.

  Hastings, Stephen

  Myles, David

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Neale, Gerrard

  Viggers, Peter

  Hawkins, Paul

  Needham, Richard

  Waddington, David

  Hawksley, Warren

  Nelson, Anthony

  Wakeham, John

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Neubert, Michael

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Heddle, John

  Nott, Rt Hon John

  Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

  Henderson, Barry

  Onslow, Cranley

  Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

  Waller, Gary

  Hicks, Robert

  Osborn, John

  Walters, Dennis

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Page, John (Harrow West)

  Ward, John

  Hill, James

  Page, Rt Hon Sir R. Graham

  Warren, Kenneth

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

  Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)

  Watson, John

  Holland, Philip (Carlton)

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Hooson, Tom

  Parris, Matthew

  Wheeler, John

  Hordern, Peter

  Christopher (Bath)

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  John (Oxford)

  Whitney, Raymond

  Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

  Pattern Geoffrey

  Wickenden, Keith

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Patter James

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Pattie,

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Pawsey,

  1572

  1573

  Wilkinson, John

  Wolfson, Mark

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Mr. Anthony Berry.

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Fitt, Gerard

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

  Adams, Allen

  Flannery, Martin

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Allaun, Frank

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

  Alton, David

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

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

  Anderson, Donald

  Forrester, John

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Foster, Derek

  Maxton, John

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest

  Foulkes, George

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

  Meacher, Michael

  Ashton, Joe

  Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

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

  Freud, Clement

  Mikardo, Ian

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

  Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)

  Beith, A. J.

  George, Bruce

  Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

  Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Ginsberg, David

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Golding, John

  Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Gourlay, Harry

  Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

  Booth, Rt Hon Albert

  Graham, Ted

  Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Newens, Stanley

  Bradley, Tom

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

  Ogden, Eric

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Hardy, Peter

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  O'Neill, Martin

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh, Leith)

  Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Buchan, Norman

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

  Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

  Haynes, Frank

  Park, George

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Parker, John

  Campbell, Ian

  Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

  Parry, Robert

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Canavan, Dennis

  Home Robertson, John

  Pendry, Tom

  Cant, R. B.

  Homewood, William

  Penhallgon, David

  Carmichael, Neil

  Hooley, Frank

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Horam, John

  Prescott, John

  Cartwright, John

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

  Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

  Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

  Howells, Geraint

  Race, Reg

  Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  Huckfield, Les

  Radice, Giles

  Cohen, Stanley

  Hudson Davies, Gwilym Ednyled

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

  Coleman, Donald.

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Richardson, Jo

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Conlan, Bernard

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Cook, Robin F.

  Janner, Hon Greville

  Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)

  Cowans, Harry

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Cox, Tom (Wandsworth, Tooting)

  John, Brynmor

  Robertson, George

  Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Crowther, J. S.

  Johnson, Walter (Derby South)

  Rodgers, Rt Hon William

  Cryer, Bob

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Rooker, J.W.

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rhondda)

  Roper, John

  Cunningham, George (Islington S)

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Rowlands, Ted

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Kerr, Russell

  Ryman, John

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Sandelson, Neville

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

  Kinnock, Neil

  Sever, John

  Deakins, Eric

  Lamble, David

  Sheerman, Barry

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Lamborn, Harry

  Sheldon, Rt Hon R

  Dempsey, James

  Lamond, James

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Pet

  Dewar, Donald

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Short, Mrs Renéebert (A'ton-u-L)

  Dixon, Donald

  Leighton, Ronald

  Silkin, Rt Hon Jer (Step and Pop)

  Dobson, Frank

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &Slough)

  Silkin, Rt Hon S

  Dormand, Jack

  Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)

  Silverman, ju hn (Deptford)

  Douglas, Dick

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Smith, Rt C. (Dulwich)

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Litherland, Robert

  Snape, plus

  Dubs, Alfred

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Soley, on J. (North Lanarkshire)

  Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Spear' ter

  Dunnett, Jack

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)

  Sprig Clive

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson

  Stal ng, Nigel

  Eadie, Alex

  McDonald, Dr Oonagh

  Ste gs, Leslie

  Eastham, Ken

  McElhone, Frank

  St lard, A. W.

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Sel. Rt Hon David

  Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)

  McKelvey, William

  oddart, David

  Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

  MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  tott, Roger

  English, Michael

  Maclennan, Robert

  trang, Gavin

  Ennals, Rt Hon David

  McMahon, Andrew

  Straw, Jack

  Evans, loan (Aberdare)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, Central)

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Evans, John (Newton)

  McNally, Thomas

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

  Ewing, Harry

  McWilliam, John

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Field, Frank

  Magee, Bryan

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Fitch, Alan

  Marks, Kenneth

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

  Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  1574

  1575

  Tilley, John

  Welsh, Michael

  Winnick, David

  Tinn, James

  White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

  Woodall, Alec

  Torney, Tom

  White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

  Woolmer, Kenneth

  Urwin, Rt Hon Tom

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Whitlock, William

  Wright, Sheila

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Young, David (Bolton East)

  Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Watkins, David

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Weetch, Ken

  Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)

  Mr. George Morton and

  Wellbeloved, James

  Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

  Mr. Hugh McCartney.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Bill read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, consideration of Lords Amendments to the Bail etc. (Scotland) Bill may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour and that the Motion relating to Welsh Affairs may be proceeded with, though opposed, until half-past Eleven o'clock or for one and a half hours after it has been entered upon, whichever is the later.—[Mr. Wakeham.]

HOUSING [MONEY]
Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to give security of tenure, and the right to buy their homes, to tenants of local authorities and other bodies; to make other provision with respect to those and other tenants; to restrict the discretion of the court in making orders for possession of land and to amend the law about housing finance in the public sector, it is expedient to authorize—

(a) the making out of money provided by Parliament of grants and loans to facilitate the exchange of dwellings by tenants and the movement of tenants from accommodation provided by one landlord to accommodation provided by another;

(b) payments out of money so provided in connection with new provisions relating to housing subsidy, rent allowance subsidy and rent rebate subsidy;

(c) payments out of money so provided under schemes for contributions (not exceeding £5,000, or such greater amount as may be provided by order, for any one dwelling) towards losses incurred by local authorities on houses acquired for repair, improvement or conversion, and then disposed of;

(d) the making out of money so provided of grants to the Housing Corporation;

(e) increased payments out of the National Loans Fund (loans by the Secretary of State)
1576
and the Consolidated Fund (Treasury guarantees) attributable to raising the limit on the borrowing power of the Housing Corporation to £2.000 million and providing for that limit to be raised by order to £3,000 million;

(f) any increase in the sums payable out of money provided by Parliament under any other Act attributable to—

(i) provisions amending Part III of the Housing Act 1974 including provision enabling housing association grants under section 29 to be paid to housing associations registered under section 13 of that Act as contributions (not exceeding £5,000, or such greater amount as may be provided by order, for any one dwelling) towards losses incurred on houses acquired for repair, improvement, or conversion, and then disposed of;

(ii) provisions entitling tenants to local authority grants under Part VII of the Housing Act 1974, and amending that Part in other respects;

(iii) provisions altering the basis of the Secretary of State's contribution to local authority expenditure under Part II of the Housing Act 1969 or section 45 of the Housing Act 1974; and

(iv) provisions amending Part II of the Housing Subsidies Act 1967 (subsidised loans for house purchase and improvement);

(g) any administrative expenses of the Secretary of State under the Act of the present Session; and

(h) payments into the Consolidated Fund.—[Mr. Stanley.]

PETROLEUM REVENUE TAX BILL
Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered; read the Third time and passed.
BAIL ETC. (SCOTLAND) BILL
Lords amendments considered.
Clause 1

  RELEASE OF CONDITIONS
  Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 1, line 9, leave out
  ("except in the special circumstances mentioned in")
  and insert ("subject to")
  10.16 pm
  The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  This is a drafting amendment which was agreed in another place. It has no significance for the policy in the Bill, and I commend it to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Lords amendment: No. 2, in page 1, line 12, leave out from ("liberation") to ("this") in line 15 and insert
  ("may be granted by the police under section 18, 294, 295 or 296 of the 1975 Act as amended by sections 7 to 9 of")
  Mr. Rifkind: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  This is a fairly minor amendment which seeks to clear up an apparent contradiction in the Bill as drafted. There is no point of principle involved, and I therefore commend it to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Lords amendment: No. 3, in page 1, line 20, leave out
  ("including every continuation of a diet")
  Mr. Rifkind: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): With this we may take Lords amendments Nos. 8 and 9.
  Mr. Rifkind: The amendments clear up an anomaly in the Bill. Although the Bill provides for a person who is on bail to appear at the appointed time for every "diet", it does not make specific provision for a continued diet. The amendment clarifies the matter and no new policy issue is introduced by the amendments. I commend them to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2

  PROVISIONS SUPPLEMENTARY TO S/
  Lords amendment: No. 4, in page 2, line 37, leave out from ("direct") to end of line 7 on page 3 and insert
  ("which, subject to subsection(2) below, shall be his proper domicile of citation.
  1578
  (2) The court may on application in writing by the accused while he is on bail alter the address specified in the order granting bail, and this new address shall, as from such date as the court may direct, become his proper domicile of citation; and the court shall notify the accused of its decision on any application under this subsection.
  (3) In this section "proper domicile of citation" means the address at which the accused may be cited to appear at any diet relating to the offence with which he is charged or an offence charged in the same proceedings as that offence or to which any other intimation or document may be sent; and any citation at or the sending of an intimation or document to the proper domicile of citation shall be presumed to have been duly carried out.")
  Mr. Rifkind: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  As drafted, the Bill provides that the accused must give as his domicile of citation his normal place of residence unless the court, on cause shown, directs otherwise. The amendment provides for a situation where an accused person has changed his address while he is on bail. Under the amendment he is required to inform the court of that change of address and the new address will take effect only when the court has been informed.
  As with the other amendments, there is no change of policy, but the matter is clarified to ensure that the Bill has the effect that was originally intended.
  Mr. Donald Dewar: Will the Minister say a little more about the machinery? I understand that the written application is made to the court. Does the Under-Secretary envisage that there will have to be a hearing before a sheriff, or will it bean administrative matter? Clearly the date on which the new address takes effect is a matter for the court.
  Mr. Rifkind: The amendment provides that an accused person should apply to the court in writing with details of his change of address and that only when the court has received notification and is therefore aware of the new address will it be proper that it should take effect.
  The purpose is to ensure that an accused person who moves his address and fails to inform the court should not have a justifiable defence to an action that he has failed to turn up because he has not been properly notified. The court will always know the relevant address for

  1579
  purposes of bail. The application to the court may be made in writing.
  Question put and agreed to.

Clause 4

  PROVISIONS RELATING TO MONETARY CONDITIONS
  Lords amendment: No. 5, in page 5, line 19, leave out subsection (2).
  Mr. Rifkind: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may take Lords amendments Nos. 6 and 7.
  Mr. Rifkind: The amendments seek to correct an omission from the Bill with regard to the position of a cautioner. He is not entitled to withdraw his caution where there has been a charge of breach of bail unless and until the charge is dropped or the accused is acquitted or convicted.
  In the case of probation orders and orders granting an absolute discharge, when imposed in summary courts, they are imposed without formal conviction and where the accused is put on probation or given an absolute discharge in respect of an offence of breach of bail, any cautioner would, on a strict interpretation, never be able to recover the sum lodged. The purpose is to remove that anomaly and ensure that the bail money lodged can be recovered. The amendment has been approved in the other House, and on that basis I invite the House to approve it.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Lords amendments Nos. 6 to 9 agreed to.

Clause 13

  SHORT TITLE, COMMENCEMENT AND EXTENT
  Lords amendment: No. 10, in page 10, line 19, leave out from ("instrument") to end of line 20.
  Mr. Rifkind: I beg to move, That this House cloth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  The amendment simply deletes from the Bill the power for the Secretary of State to bring in the different provisions in the Bill on different days. It is intended that the Act should be brought into effect on a single day by statutory instrument. The provision in the Bill is therefore irrelevant. On that basis, I invite the House to agree to the amendment.
  Mr. Harry Ewing: Will the Minister state the date on which the Bill is likely to be brought into effect? He will appreciate that there is great interest in the matter throughout Scotland.
  Mr. Rifkind: I cannot give a specific date. I agree that it is important that the Bill be brought into effect as soon as possible. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, it was separated from the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill in order that it could be brought forward as a matter of urgency. Now that it is likely to complete its parliamentary passage, we expect it to be brought into effect in the very near future. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a specific date, but he can rest assured that it will be the earliest possible date.
  Mr. Ewing: Is there anything that might hold up the passage of the Bill? Is there anything that would prevent the Government from bringing it into force at the earliest possible date? Will the Minister state whether cuts in staff in the sheriff courts might give the Government cause for concern as to the date on which the Bill might be brought into force?
  Mr. Rifkind: The sheriff court, as part of the law and order system, is of course exempt from the restraints on expenditure which the Government are pursuing. There is no reason of which I am aware why the hon. Gentleman need be concerned about the date on which the Bill takes effect.
  Question put and agreed to.

WELSH AFFAIRS
10.22 pm
Mr. Philip Holland: I beg to move,
That Mr. Alan Williams be discharged from the Committee on Welsh Affairs.
This motion was first tabled on Wednesday 12 December, along with another motion to discharge my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) from the Energy Committee.
The two motions were tabled to implement a firm undertaking given by me in the debate on Monday 26 November, and directly arise from an oversight of the Committee of Selection in failing, in these two cases only, to observe the ground rules unanimously agreed by the Committee at its meeting on 4 July 1979.
I first remind the House that on 19 November, in a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr), I disclosed that the Committee does not propose to nominate for the departmental Select Committees members of the Government, Parliamentary Private Secretaries, and regular Opposition Front Bench spokesmen.
A week later, on 26 November, when the House debated the Committee of Selection's nominations for the membership of all the departmental Select Committees, I pointed out that the House had placed responsibility for selection on the Committee, without imposing any conditions or criteria to be observed. In short, the House expected the Committee of Selection to make its own ground rules, and the Committee, in agreeing on certain exclusions, has exercised the total discretion that the House willed.
In moving the resolutions on 26 November, I drew the attention of the House to two mistakes we had made in the lists of names proposed, and I gave a clear and unequivocal undertaking to correct those mistakes at the earliest opportunity if the House would approve the motions before it as they stood. I said:
"We shall of course correct our mistakes at the earliest opportunity if the House approves these motions."—[Official Report, 26 November 1979, Vol. 974, c. 1032.]
That undertaking was accepted wholly without comment or any dissenting voice in the debate that followed. The House voted in favour of the nominations put forward in the clear understanding and
1582
knowledge that two names required to be changed at an early date because they were in the exclusion categories unanimously agreed by the Committee and announced to the House on two separate occasions.
The House may wonder how two errors could have arisen in the first place. In the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East, he had been appointed as a Parliamentary Private Secretary after we had selected him for the Select Committee on Energy but before we tabled the motions. Unfortunately, we had missed the announcement of his appointment, and we apologise to him for the inconvenience caused by our error.
In the case of the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), I suspect—although this is speculation—that the source of the error is to be found, perhaps, in the statement of the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Harrison), when he said:
"However, on this occasion, with this great democracy that has arrived, there have been so many fingers in the pie, and so many people requesting others to serve on a committee, that there has been confusion."—[Official Report, 26 November 1979; Vol. 974, c. 1060.]
In neither case, however, can we excuse the oversight of our Committee in not changing the names before tabling the original motions. We apologise to my hon. Friend, to the right hon. Gentleman and to the House for the resulting inconvenience.
The right hon. Member for Swansea, West has questioned whether we are acting constitutionally. There can be nothing unconstitutional in any of the actions that we have taken so far in the Committee of Selection.
Mr. Alan Williams: The hon. Gentleman has been very gracious in his comments. If he will reread the letter, he will see that I have not challenged whether the Committee was acting constitutionally. I asked about the constitutional basis for including Opposition Front Benchers with Ministers.
Mr. Holland: I hope to be able to reassure the right hon. Gentleman in a moment or two as to the basis of our decisions, although I have already pointed out that we were acting clearly

1583
within our remit, given to us by the House, to have complete discretion in what ground rules we wished to lay. But, in my view, if I were to fail now to seek to implement the clear undertaking that I gave to the House before the House voted on the motions on 26 November, I should be guilty of impropriety, if not of anything more.
The right hon. Member for Swansea, West, in an interview he gave to the South Wales Evening Post on Friday, 14 December, and in a letter that he wrote to me on 7 January—he issued it to the national press, so it is proper for me to talk about it—raised a number of objections to being discharged from the Select Committee.
The report in the South Wales Evening Post states that I have ruled that no Front Bench spokesman may be a member of one of the Select Committees. The truth is that the Committee itself ruled this, without division or dissension, and I am merely the spokesman for the Committee. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept that.
The general tenor of the right hon. Gentleman's complaint on 14 December, according to the article, seemed to be that the move to discharge him from the Select Committee at that time—he may have changed his mind since then—was part of a Tory plot to remove a Welsh Member capable of scrutinising the Department adequately. I emphasise that the decision to exclude Front Bench spokesmen and to table this motion were both taken by the Committee of Selection and unanimously agreed by the Committee of Selection.
The right hon. Gentleman accused me of discourtesy on two counts. The first was that I had merely informed him of the Committee's decision without attempting to justify it. It is no part of my remit to justify the unanimous decisions of the Committee of Selection. It is for the House to decide whether it will accept them. The second was that I was not prepared to discuss the matter with him. From that I take it that there is an implication that I could negotiate with him on a solution. I am not, of course, empowered to debate with anyone who is not a member of the Committee of Selection a clear instruction given to me by the Committee unanimously at one of its regular meetings.
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In his letter to me, the right hon. Gentleman deprecated what he described as an arbitrary decree of the Committee. There is nothing arbitrary about a Select Committee reaching a unanimous agreement about a recommendation which then has to be approved by the whole House. There can be nothing arbitrary about that; the time scale is too long.
The right hon. Gentleman also suggested that it was within the competence of the political party only to decide which of its members may or not be members of a Select Committee. The point that the right hon. Gentleman made was that it would be correct if his own Front Bench told him that he could not be a member of a Select Committee but not correct for our Committee to do so.
Sir Raymond Gower: I wonder whether, for the better information of the public who may not understand, as hon. Members do, the composition of the Committee of Selection, it might be as well to get on record for the benefit of the press the fact that the Committee of Selection is an all-party Committee.
Mr. Holland: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As the House knows, the Committee of Selection consists of nine members—five from the Government Benches and four from the Opposition Benches. When I speak of a unanimous decision, I speak of members of both parties agreeing unanimously.
On the question of who should decide whether a Front Bench spokesman should be a member of a Select Committee, I believe that it is solely within the competence of the Committee of Selection—in default of any specific instruction from the House as a whole—to make such a decision in relation to the recommendations it places before the House. I remind the House that the Committee of Selection makes its recommendations to the House. It is the House that decides whether those recommendations are acceptable.
The right hon. Gentleman reminded me in his letter that the Committee of Selection is a House of Commons Committee. We are indeed well aware of that and we are intent on defending our independence from outside pressures—pressures that have certainly increased since our

1585
function has been expanded to include Select Committees.
We happen to believe that the House expects us to take a firm and independent line in carrying out a task that is at times nowadays arduous and nearly always thankless. If we are correct in this belief, we have the right to be supported by the House. If, on the other hand, the House wishes the Committee of Selection to be instructed—or intimidated—by either the Government Front Bench or the Opposition Front Bench, the House must say so.
10.33 pm
Mr. Alan Williams: I would normally have gone to the Back Benches to make my contribution but since I am being indicted for being on the Front Bench I might as well have something to lean on while we conduct our debate.
Hon. Gentlemen and I have discussed this matter over the weeks and I accept that in most instances this is not a personal issue. Many hon. Gentlemen have come to me individually to stress that there is no personal element in this. I accept that we are seeing this as a House of Commons issue, and that, consequently, we are seeing it differently.
The fact is that on three occasions there has been an attempt to have me removed from this Committee. It is not my wish—
Mr. Philip Holland: I know that technically it is possible to say that there have been three occasions. In fact the same motion is tabled and periodically brought forward to be moved formally if the House so wills it. If the House does not will it, as the right hon. Gentleman knows full well, objections can be raised and it cannot be moved formally. The reason for doing this on a number of occasions before it is brought for debate is to give both sides of the House time to consider and to give the right hon. Gentleman time to consider whether he wishes to press the matter to a debate. That is the reason for moving it two or three times formally before bringing it to debate.
Mr. Williams: I am not particularly worried whether, technically, it is a single motion or whether it is a series of motions. It would be hard to convince my three colleagues—[Interruption]. If
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hon. Gentlemen will allow us, we are trying to have a sensible discussion of an issue that is important, not in personal, but in House of Commons terms. As the hon. Member for Carlton (Mr. Holland) will confirm, I said in a brief discussion that if a constitutional argument could be put to me explaining why, as an Opposition Front Bencher, I should not be on a Select Committee there would be no need to move a motion to have me removed from the Committee. I would ask that I should be removed from that Committee. I believe that the hon. Gentleman will confirm that.
The hon. Member for Carlton said that the issue was approved by the House of Commons. That is not strictly true. I do not suggest that the hon. Member is deliberately misleading the House but he is not accurate. A debate took place which I did not attend. The hon. Member referred to that in a letter which he sent to me yesterday. I did not attend the debate because the purpose of the motion was to make me a member of the Committee. No one told me that there was anything wrong with my being a member of the Committee and I did not bother to attend the debate to express a contrary view.
This issue has nothing to do with individuals. I shall be glad to accept whatever the House decides tonight. We are dealing with the method by which the Executive is controlled by the Legislature. That is always important to the House of Commons. When the motion was before the House at the end of last year most hon. Members thought that it was a straightforward method of approving the list of names selected by the Committee.
I am not interested in recrimination. The hon. Member for Carlton suggested that the Committee might have altered the list of names. However, it is difficult to understand the decision that was taken when the House met unaware of the qualifications that the hon. Member intended to explain in his contribution. Hon. Members were not warned that an issue of constitutional significance was to be raised.
Mr. Philip Holland: I am sure that the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) reads the Official Report. The week before the debate took place the

1587
exclusions were detailed in a written answer. It was reasonable to expect that the exclusions would be raised in debate.
Mr. Williams: Since 1967, when I first went on to the Front Bench, I have had to answer questions. I remember one or two occasions when answers given one week were outdated several weeks later. The motion proposed by the hon. Member and his Committee did not incorporate the basic principle contained in the answer. When the House met it did not understand that a point of precedent was to be established.
I know that I shall be defeated tonight and that the issue will be dead after this evening. However, a principle is involved. Tory Members must remember that because of the democratic process they will be in Opposition at some time and that they will want to be effective. It is important when taking a decision about the Executive and the Legislature not to lose sight of the basic objectives of motions. The basic objective of setting up Select Committees was to improve the situation for us all.
I was a Minister of State in two Departments throughout the Labour Party's last period in office. I have never been called to give evidence before a Select Committee. It is easy for Ministers to escape the scrutiny of the House. I supported the idea of a Select Committee and I still do. Such Committees are a useful addition in the armament of the House against the Executive. The aim should be to make the most effective check possible. The issue revolves round the choice of members of Committees, which are one of the major checks on the Executive.
We are all aware of the inaccuracies of Question Time. It has its purpose, and its dramatic and theatrical value. Occasionally a Minister falls flat on his face, but most of the time any Minister with any degree of confidence can fumble his way through the hour and the few questions that he faces. Select Committees offer us the possibility of detailed scrutiny of Ministers and the Executive, which is something that I should have thought most of us would welcome. Most hon. Members, other than the Minister appearing at any given time, would want to see that process working as effectively as possible.
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I fully appreciate the logic of saying that a Minister should not be on a Select Committee. One can accept that there is no sense in the Executive interrogating the Executive, particularly when there is collective responsibility which neutralises any value there might be in a Minister's specialist knowledge.
Similarly, I can see the point of excluding Parliamentary Private Secretaries. They have a non-constitutional relationship with the Executive and a split loyalty. But they have an extra loyalty in relation to the Executive. What I do not understand—and this is something no one has explained—is why a member of the Opposition Front Bench should not be able to scrutinise the Executive. There is a major difference in the constitutional position of a Minister, a Minister's PPS and somebody sitting on the Opposition Front Bench. Who has the greatest vested interest in interrogating the Executive as efficiently as possible, if it is not the Opposition Front Bench, whichever party happens to be in office?
Mr. Michael English: There is an ancient tradition in the House that a PPS should not speak upon subjects relating to the Department in which he is a PPS. I should have thought that the same principle might apply to Select Committees. This is not to question whether any particular political party has taken the view that its own PPSs should not sit on any Select Committee. I am talking in terms of the House as a whole. For example, it would be quite inappropriate for the PPS to the Foreign Secretary to sit on the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, though I see no reason why he should not siton the Treasury and Civil Service Committee.
Mr. Williams: I fully accept the logic of that argument. On the other hand, I would point out that it has been the practice under various Governments for PPSs to be sacrificed for voting sins often relating to Departments other than their own. So there is a presumption that there is a loyalty not just to the individual Department but to the Executive.
It is a matter for the House to decide, but I would have no objection to PPSs sitting on Committees other than those covering their own Department. It would not be a matter of grave concern. The

1589
tragedy is that the Committee of Selection has never explained to the House—even tonight, when it knew I would be bound to ask the question, because I had already put the question in letters to the Committee—the reason for these decisions.
I am not asking for a reason in relation to myself. The decision concerning me is a valid one. I am a Front Bencher and, per se, I am not allowed to be on Committees. But the question that the House should be asking has not been answered. Why should not Opposition Front Benchers be allowed to serve on Committees?
Mr. Peter Bottomley: The right hon. Gentleman, as he said, is speaking from the Opposition Front Bench. If he remained on the Select Committee, presumably he would still remain on the Opposition Front Bench. But would he be speaking for or asking questions on behalf of the Labour Party as an Opposition Front Bencher on the Select Committee? Does he have the support of his Front Bench colleagues for what he is saying tonight?
Mr. Williams: I should be asking questions on the same basis as any other hon. Member on the Select Committee. One comes to this House to ask questions as an individual. I can ask those questions from the Front Bench. I see no difficulty in asking questions in a Front Bench role. We have the paradoxical situation—it is not an investigatory committee—that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who has not replied to my communication, no doubt because he has far more important matters to concern him—
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): I have.
Mr. Williams: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has seen his reply to me. Unfortunately, I have not. But the right hon. Gentleman, as a member of the Executive, is the chairman of a Select Committee. I accept that there are reasons why it makes sense in that instance, but it is a fact.
Mr. English: I am sorry to intervene twice. In the light of what my right hon.
1590
Friend said, may I ask whether he would have given up the privileges of being on the Front Bench? For example—a small example—he is given statements before other Members of the House are allowed to read them. Would he have refused them?
Mr. Williams: No, of course not. I do not see any conflict of interest there. There is no difficulty. If, in my Front Bench role, I am expected to follow and question a statement made by the Government and I am given prior notice of half an hour—or an hour if the Minister is feeling excessively generous—I do not see that it impinges on my role, or that of any Front Bench speaker, in Select Committee.
Mr. Barry Henderson: Is it not the case that Opposition Front Bench spokesmen have privileges of questioning the Executive—privileges which are not available to other hon. Members—and that therein lies the difference?
Mr. Williams: No. The interesting feature is that the members of a Select Committee have privileges not allowed to Front Benchers. Members of a Select Committee will be allowed sidelined documents which will not be available to Front Benchers.
I accept that hon. Members on both sides are trying to make constructive points to answer the question that I have put. But is not that in a way—not an indictment; I do not want to use so strong a word—a minor criticism of the Committee of Selection in that hon. Members are sitting scratching their heads and asking why this should be so? No one has yet brought forward an argument to the contrary.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Williams: I shall do so, but perhaps I may complete the odd sentence now and then before an interjection. I am happy for hon. Gentlemen to filibuster into the night.
Mr. Bottomley: On this point.
Mr. Williams: All right.
Mr. Bottomley: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman, as no doubt I would remind him if I were a member of a

1591
subject Select Committee and he was an answering Minister, that he has not answered my second question? As he is speaking from the Front Bench and is a Front Bench spokesman for the Labour Party, is he putting forward views which have the support of his Front Bench colleagues?
Mr. Williams: I am arguing a point of view which I, as an individual, have not discussed with my Front Bench colleagues. I am trying to put forward a coherent argument and I am trying to develop it in so far as I may be permitted by the House. I am doing so without hostility and I am trying to be constructive. I am trying to deal with points which I think are of importance to the House, recognising that I am doomed to be defeated because the Government have kept their votes here tonight.
Mr. John Gorst: I endorse what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley). There is the assumption that a speech made from the Opposition Dispatch Box carries the weight of the Opposition. Therefore, what the right hon. Gentleman is saying would be more appropriate if he were speaking from the Back Benches.
Mr. Williams: The hon. Gentleman may prevaricate about where I speak from, but that is not fundamental to the main issue.
The role of the Committee of Selection is to work within guidelines which enable it to produce the most effective Committee—I am not talking about myself—to further the role of the Legislature vis-à-vis the Executive. It may be that the guidelines within which it is working internally enable it to do that, However, no one has yet explained them. We still do not know why the decision has been reached.
The sequence of events has some importance. Those who have been closely involved in these matters know that I never sought membership of the Select Committee. I never sought the chairmanship. I expected the hon. Member for Carlton to be the Chairman until it was decided to allocate a certain number of chairmanships to the Opposition. Even then, it did not occur to me that anyone would suggest that I hold the chairmanship. I think that those in the Welsh
1592
Conservative Group who know the background will accept that I did not ask for the chairmanship. It is not something that I value as a great personal prize and which I am reluctant to lose. I realise that it will be lost tonight.
Sir Raymond Gower: The right hon. Gentleman has posed one main question, namely, "Why is it objectionable for an hon. Member to sit on a Select Committee and at the same time to be an Opposition spokesman?" Does he agree on reflection that it could be deemed objectionable that the same person should be conducting the rather partisan opposition to the Executive of an Opposition Front Bench spokesman and carrying out a different sort of interrogation of the Executive from that which a Select Committee performs?
Mr. Williams: I intend to deal with that later. I shall try not to be too long. Hon. Members have been interjecting and it is not my fault that I have been speaking at such great length. I rose as soon as I could and I shall resume my seat as soon as I can. This is the only occasion on which I shall be allowed to present my case.
As I have said, I did not seek chairmanship of the Committee. I did not seek membership of the Committee. Until November I was aware of only one challenge to my membership of the Committee. It came from a senior Conservative Member—I shall not mention names or constituencies. He approached me and told me that there was concern among certain Welsh Conservative Back Benchers, and that if I dared to make a robust speech in replying to the debate in the Welsh Grand Committee on the Welsh economy they would withdraw their support from my chairmanship of the Committee.
Mr. Michael Brotherton Mr. Michael Brotherton(Louth): rose—
Mr. Williams: I shall give way in a moment. That was a challenge to my chairmanship, not to my membership. At that stage no one had questioned whether I was to be a member. When the hon. Member for Carlton quotes the Western Mail, or the South Wales Echo, he will understand that in the context of this issue—I have never told him about it and I never referred to it in my letter—it is

1593
valuable for the House to know precisely what happened. It was because of the event to which I have referred that I began to suspect what might have been going on behind the scenes, not necessarily in the Committee but in certain other areas involving certain Welsh Conservative Back Benchers.
Mr. Philip Holland: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that the first that I knew of that was when I received part of a newspaper that was sent to me by a relative who lives in South Wales—not by any hon. Member? The only other information that I received is as he has just detailed. Nobody else disclosed that to me—no member of the Committee of Selection. The judgment of the Committee and the decision that was taken was in no way influenced by that sort of information.
Mr. Williams: I accept that. I am trying to explain my comment. The first warning that I had that anything was wrong was not from the hon. Gentleman or from the Committee but from a rather discreet, sidled, contribution by a Conservative Member who represents a Welsh constituency. That may have been a private enterprise venture on his own part. Nevertheless, that was the first time that I was alerted to any difficulties. Indeed, that shows why it might have been helpful to have a certain degree of discussion—at least, I should have been informed of what was happening. I did not know and it was difficult to find out what was going on.
As the hon. Gentleman will recollect, I then approached him in the Members' Lobby. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will interject if I unfairly describe in any way the development of the discussion. I asked him why I was to be excluded and I was told that it was because a decision had been taken in the Committee of Selection. I asked—asking is not a sin in the House of Commons and never has been—why I was to be removed, because his answer did not tell me that. The hon. Gentleman said that the Committee had taken its decision, which was final, to which I said that, in that case, it was even more important for an understanding of the reasons for that decision.
It is strange that the House is setting up Committees to stop arbitrary decision-
1594
making on behalf of the Executive and yet a point of precedent can be established without the House understanding why—even if the precedent is sound. When I pressed the hon. Gentleman further he said that a decision had been taken to exclude Ministers, Parliamentary Private Secretaries and Shadow spokesmen. I then said—as I said in my earlier interjection—that I could understand that in the case of Ministers and Parliamentary Private Secretaries but I did not see the constitutional basis for the Committee's decison in relation to Shadow Ministers. No explanation was offered and no explanation has been forthcoming for this date. I told the hon. Gentleman then—I hope that he did not take offence—that I would fight the decision. That is what I am doing now. I recognise that I am losing, as well.
Mr. Keith Best: The right hon. Gentleman perpetually asks for justification of the decision. He seems to be alone in his misunderstanding. It seems to me that my right hon. and hon. Friends clearly understand the principle that is at stake. He said that he has not discussed the matter with his right hon. and hon. Friends and has not had the benefit of their advice, but does he not foresee a conflict of interests of any nature between a member of a Select Committee and an Opposition Front Bench spokesman? If, as I sincerely hope, he does perceive some form of conflict, which way would he turn? The question was posed earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlton (Mr. Holland). With great respect, the right hon. Gentleman has not answered that question. If the right hon. Gentleman perceived a conflict of interests, would he turn to his right hon. and hon. Friends?—he has already accepted the principle of collective responsibility—or would he ally himself with the Select Committee on which he serves?
Mr. Williams: The hon. Gentleman will discover that I shall deal with that point later when I explain why we are debating this issue.
No explanation was given to me on that occasion, no explanation was given in the letter that I received yesterday, and no explanation has been given to the House tonight. If a Front Bench role necessitates exclusion from a Committee's Front Bench, I shall expect to see a mass of Liberal resignations in the hands of

1595
the Committee of Selection tomorrow. As I said in my letter, every Liberal Member carries at least one Front Bench baton in his brief case.
Although my hon. Friends will not like these words, it is absurd that the nationalists are not included in the Welsh Committee. The Committee of Selection decides the allocation between parties, not the Opposition. When nationalists serve on Committees they have, in their own party terms, Front Bench roles. If it is embarrassing for a Labour Front Bench spokesman to have that role, why is it not embarrassing for a Liberal to have such a role? What is the difference? There has been a singular lack of explanation from Conservative Members about that "difference".
The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) was courteous enough to endeavour to explain that there could be a problem of committing the official Opposition in one's role as Chairman. However, that is a problem for the Opposition, not for the House of Commons. As long as the Opposition are willing to take that risk, there will be a pitfall that may cause great jubilation to Conservative Members as they watch to see whether anyone treads on a banana skin. It is not really an issue for the Committee of Selection, nor for the House of Commons. It is of internal concern to the Opposition of the day.
Mr. English: My right hon. Friend has just made a point better than any could have done. Does he not concede that the position of Chairman of a Select Committee may not be a matter wholly for the Opposition?
Mr. Williams: I am not sure what my hon. Friend's point is. We are not here to discuss chairmanship as that has nothing to do with the Committee of Selection.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: I thought that the right hon. Gentleman had raised that point himself.
Mr. Williams: I did, but I did not do so in order to discuss whether I should be Chairman. It is a matter of whether I should be on the Committee, and of whether a Front Bench spokesman should be on the Committee. It is for individual Committees to select their Chairmen.
1596
The letter that I received made that point very fairly, and I think that it is accepted by the Select Committee.
It has been mentioned that it would be difficult for me, as a Front Bench spokesman, to be impartial. The hon. Member for Barry (Sir R. Gower) also made that point in a pleasant way. Who, with the exception of Mr. Speaker and Mr. Deputy Speaker—upon whom we often put great strain—is impartial? Nobody is impartial. Surely most of us are sufficiently intelligent and capable enough to differentiate between an analytical role and performing a value judgment based upon that analysis.
It is what any Minister has to do. A Minister who does not analyse the problem soundly before making a political interpretation will inevitably get into difficulties. Therefore, the question of impartiality is a non-issue. In this House it is impossible from the Front or Back Benches to find someone who would be technically impartial.
If it came to a set of recommendations from the Committee with which the Chairman or the Opposition Front Bench spokesman—and let us assume that he is not the Chairman—did not agree, in what way is he in a different position from any other hon. Member who disagrees with the findings of the Committee? He still has the same freedom to express his minority view and have it recorded.
Mr. Geraint Howells: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is aware that he is an official Opposition spokesman. I am the Liberal spokesman on Welsh affairs and agriculture. There is a vast difference between the right hon. Gentleman, who is now seeking to defend himself, and other hon. Members.
Mr. Williams: The hon. Gentleman does himself a grave injustice. As far as the Liberal Party is concerned, he is a Front Bench spokesman of the Liberal Party. I am a Front Bench spokesman of the Labour Party. However, this does not affect the basic issue of partiality or impartiality.
I shall no longer be on the Committee when this debate comes to an end, but the House must ask itself an important question, regardless of individuals, in order to avoid the very situation that we

1597
are in tonight. Is the House sure that it is a sound House of Commons decision to determine that in no circumstances whatsoever can any Front Bench spokesman be on a Select Committee? After tonight, this will be quoted as the precedent established by the House in support of the Committee of Selection's view. That is why in my letter to the hon. Member for Carlton I said that, regardless of whether I am on the Committee or whether I am Chairman, it would be a worthwhile duty to the House to separate the issue of the individual from the principle. The House should decide on the principle as a principle instead of doing so accidentally, in deciding on the individual.
I recognise that I shall go from this Committee, but it would be valuable to the House if tonight my name was removed from the Committee and we did not treat it as a precedent for all future occasions, binding on the House—because that is how it will be interpreted by the Committee of Selection.
If the hon. Gentleman will give an assurance—which will not help me—that a set of guidelines will be brought before the House so that such issues of principle, and not issues concerning individuals, can be decided in the House in full knowledge of all the ramifications, I shall be happy and the dispute will have been worth while. The hon. Gentleman is shaking his head, so tonight we shall drift into a decision of precedent without most hon. Members ever being aware of what the issue is. All that appears on the Order Paper is:
"That Mr. Alan Williams be discharged from the Committee on Welsh Affairs."
The vast majority of our colleagues, who have a great many matters to think about in the House, are not aware that by voting or not voting tonight they are setting a precedent for the future for all Select Committees.
I say to my hon. Friends that I am not asking anyone to go into the Division Lobby on my behalf. I intend that the House shall divide but I am not asking anyone to go into the Division Lobby in support of my membership of the Committee. Indeed, I hope that none of my colleagues will go into the Division Lobby. Tellers will be provided so that there can be a Division. It is important
1598
that the House should realise that a point of principle is involved. It is a far wider issue than one affecting any individual Member of the House. Many hon. Members will disagree with me. But this decision should have been taken in full awareness of all the considerations and with the whole House knowing the real issue before the House tonight rather than thinking that it was a simple matter of whether A or B stays, or does not stay, on a particular Committee.
11.11 pm
Sir Raymond Gower: I shall not detain the House for more than a few moments. The right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) may feel, on reflection, that there is nothing personal about this matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlton (Mr. Holland) has given, with admirable clarity, the reasons for the decision taken by his Committee. As members of the Select Committee, we have found this matter highly embarrassing. We have not been able to proceed with the business of the Committee. The election of a Chairman has had to be deferred.
We welcomed the membership of the right hon. Member for Swansea, West when he was first selected. A large majority of the membership on both sides of the Committee probably felt that he would be a very good Chairman of the Committee. But we were in the hands of the Committee of Selection. It would have been absurd for us select a Chairman who was not going to be a member of the Committee. When the reasons were first given, I must confess that I felt a degree of sympathy for the views expressed by the right hon. Gentleman. But the more I thought, the more I saw the inconsistency of a Front Bencher and more partisan interrogator of the Executive being at the same time a member of a Committee that would conduct a different kind of interrogation of the Executive.
I am sure that members of our Committee had no feelings against the right hon. Gentleman. Indeed, we were predisposed in his favour. One of the reasons for delaying the selection of a Chairman was the possibility that the right hon. Gentleman might decide to resign his Front Bench position and remain on the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman could have taken one course or the other.

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He has, understandably, decided that he would like to maintain both positions. The decision of the Committee of Selection makes that impossible.
I am sorry that this has happened. It has been highly embarrassing. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has not seen fit to withdraw his suggestion, made at some stage, that this was some kind of plan by certain unknown Conservative Members against him personally. That is absurd. I can give the assurance, from my knowledge of my colleagues on the Committee, that this is not the case. I hope that he will withdraw the suggestion before the debate concludes. I give him this opportunity.
11.14 pm
Mr. Harry Lamborn: I should like to make clear, as a member of the Committee of Selection from the Labour side of the House, that the decision taken, as the Chairman has made clear, was the decision of the Committee as a whole. It was taken and conveyed to the House in answer to a question be-
fore the Committee got down to the job of appointing the members of the Committee. Indeed, one Front Bench spokesman withdrew as a spokesman because he preferred to serve as a member of a Select Committee.
When there were five or six applicants for each place on some Select Committees a number of criteria had to be established. They were made clear to the House and hon. Members had the opportunity to make a decision on them. One thing that emerged as a result of the competition for places was that no member of the Committee of Selection would have dared to appoint himself to any of the Select Committees.
We are in difficulty over the criteria because they were announced publicly in a written answer, but I believe that the decision of the Committee of Selection was correct, and I shall support it if there is a Division.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 121, Noes 0.

Division No. 136

AYES

[11.16 pm

Alexander, Richard

Gower, Sir Raymond

Pawsey, James

Ancram, Michael

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Penhaligon, David

Aspinwall, Jack

Grist, Ian

Pollock, Alexander

Beith, A. J.

Heddle, John

Proctor, K. Harvey

Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

Henderson, Barry

Rathbone, Tim

Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)

Hicks, Robert

Renton, Tim

Berry, Hon Anthony

Holland, Philip (Carlton)

Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

Best, Keith

Hooson, Tom

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Bevan, David Gilroy

Howells, Geraint

Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

Blackburn, John

Hunt, David (Wirral)

St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Boyson, Dr Rhodes

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Sims, Roger

Bright, Graham

Kershaw, Anthony

Speller, Tony

Brinton, Tim

Kitson, Sir Timothy

Sproat, Iain

Brooke, Hon Peter

Knox, David

Squire, Robin

Brotherton, Michael

Lamborn, Harry

Steel, Rt Hon David

Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

Lawrence, Ivan

Stevens, Martin

Cadbury, Jocelyn

Le Merchant, Spencer

Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

Canavan, Dennis

Lester, Jim (Beeston)

Stradling Thomas, J.

Carlisle, John (Luton West)

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Tebbit, Norman

Chapman, Sydney

Lyell, Nicholas

Thompson, Donald

Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

Macfarlane, Neil

Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

MacGregor, John

Viggers, Peter

Clegg, Sir Walter

McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

Waddington, David

Colvin, Michael

Major, John

Wakeham, John

Corrie, John

Marlow, Tony

Waldegrave, Hon William

Costain, A. P.

Mather, Carol

Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Waller, Gary

Dover, Denshore

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Ward, John

du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

Mellor, David

Watson, John

Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Wheeler, John

Durant, Tony

Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

Wickenden, Keith

Dykes, Hugh

Mills, Iain (Meriden)

Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

Edwards, Rt Hon N. (Pembroke)

Moate, Roger

Wilson, Gordon(Dundee East)

Faith, Mrs Sheila

Morgan, Geraint

Winterton, Nicholas

Fisher, Sir Nigel

Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

Wolfson, Mark

Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

Murphy, Christopher

Younger, Rt Hon George

Fox Marcus

Neale, Gerrard

Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

Page, John (Harrow West)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Page, Rt Hon Sir R. Graham

Mr. Robert Boscawen and

Goodlad, Alastair

Parris, Matthew

Mr. John Cope.

Gorst, John

Patten, John (Oxford)

NOES

NIL

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Mr. Ray Powell and

Dr. Roger Thomas

Question accordingly agreed to.
Ordered,
That Mr. Alan Williams be discharged from the Committee on Welsh Affairs.

POST-SCHOOL EDUCATION
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.]
11.27 pm
Mr. Jim Craigen: I should like the Minister to indicate tonight the Government's future policy towards the 16–18 years age group. The Scottish Education Department published its consultative paper dealing with the post-school education of this age group in Scotland last October. I believe that the Minister will now have received the various submissions that he asked should be made by the end of the year.
The Minister is uniquely placed in this matter because the areas of his responsibility in the Scottish Office cover not only education but industry and employment. This combination should lend itself to sensing the interaction that undoubtedly exists in these important fields. Unfortunately, the consultative paper declared that Government policy was primarily to reduce public expenditure, even though in this age group the message of the document was clear: that the number of young people in that group in Scotland will grow substantially over the next couple of years before falling back to its present level by 1986–87. In spite of that, the Minister, in presenting the document last autumn, indicated that there was no prospect of any additional resources to implement the suggestions in the document.
The Minister has travelled to the United States and, I believe, Japan, seeking investment opportunities for Scotland. He must recognise that our market potential and domestic stability are important factors, but I am sure that the economies of those two countries would also emphasise to him that a well-educated and skilled work force is equally
1602
essential, not least for indigenous industries. That was why the consultative document seems highly disappointing. It makes little or no reference to the role that education and training can play in economic development and, just as important, in meeting the social challenges that our country will be facing in the 1980s.
Since the general election there have been 40,000 redundancies in Scotland. This seems to me to emphasise the considerable need that is developing for the expansion of education and training facilities. The consultative paper reminds us that about 50 per cent. of the age group in question receive no post-school education. Undoubtedly, many young people who are in employment and receiving no full-time or part-time education rely on the workplace as their main education centre.
The figure of 14 per cent. unemployed young people is given in the report, but there are few suggestions as to how this alarming percentage can be reduced in the years ahead. The problem of the unqualified, unwanted and unskilled youngster must be a dominant cause for concern to the Government. The pool of jobs available for unskilled and unqualified youngsters has been drying up for some years. It is a problem that faces any modern Government, by the nature of the changes in technology.
Compared with the early 1950s, when the main unemployment problem was among adults, youth unemployment is now well above the average level of unemployment. Such schemes as the youth opportunities programme are helpful, but, in the nature of things, they are limited. The youth opportunities programme is designed only to meet the short-term problem facing a youngster. Many young people subsequently enter the employment market, after a brief spell with the programme. In the Strathclyde area matters seem to be reasonably on target, and by April we should fill the number of places available.
The Minister might indicate, in respect of the training workshops, that more use

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will be made of the various facilities that some of the industry training boards sponsor through various group training schemes, so that we maximise the availability of training potential.
Dealing wth those who are in employment, I hope that the consultative document will not lead to any dilution of the importance of the further education colleges as a sector of Scottish education. They have a distinctive part to play. All too often they have been overshadowed by the Scottish universities.
I am rather sceptical about the suggestions in the consultative document that young people over 16 should be creamed off from the secondary schools and obliged to go into further education colleges, which presumably would emerge as tertiary colleges. The further education colleges tend to be concentrated in the city and urban areas. I do not think that this would readily lend itself to any major reorganisation which appears to be envisaged in the consultative document.
Moreover, does this mean that the Minister envisages closing a lot of secondary schools in the years to come when, after the watershed year of 1982, the roll of the secondary school starts to fall, in order to create these tertiary colleges? What does the Minister expect from the Tertiary Education Council which was set up last year? I know that the council is looking at two areas. I trust that the Minister is asking it to act independently in tackling the various questions and that it is not expected only to come up with answers which the Government would like. I am glad that the council is looking at the potential of microelectronics. I hope that it will take to heart some of the points made in the recently published Finniston report "Engineering our Future". That report made a number of interesting points about funding polytechnics. We do not have polytechnics as such in Scotland.
Can the Minister say what the Government's policy is on central institutions, which are a unique feature of higher education within the United Kingdom? Will he consider making the Glasgow college of technology, which is in my constituency, a central institution, like Paisley college? Glasgow college makes a considerable contribution within West Central Scotland. From a funding point
1604
of view, it would lift some of the load from Strathclyde regional council if the college were to be brought into central funding. Does the Minister feel that, in the longer term, the local authorities can bear the cost of a developing further education sector?
For those still at school, I must express concern about some of the pronouncements that the Minister was making last week concerning the staffing situation. In the secondary schools it is only in the last three or four years that we have been able to overcome some of the chronic shortages of teaching staff which have plagued the West of Scotland since the war. Even now we still have shortages in our secondary schools, particularly in technical education—mathematics, business studies, physics, general science and even music. I hope that the Minister will not throw away some of the hard-won gains of the last few years.
More pertinently, the Minister is on record as saying that the local authorities should sack 2,000 primary schoolteachers. Is he prepared to challenge the points that the deputy general secretary of the EIS made last Friday in an article in the Glasgow Herald? The deputy general secretary insisted that the Scottish Education Department had not only frozen the minimum agreed staffing levels but wanted to push back those levels and the resources available.
From my experience and observation, it seems that all too often many of the remedial problems develop in the primary schools and subsequently overflow into the secondary schools. The colleges of further education are expected to repair the damage. If earlier action had been taken, such damage would not have occurred.
We have tried to encourage remedial work in our primary and secondary schools in recent years. Can the Minister assure me that his calculations make provision for the additional teaching assistance that we set out in circular 991 for areas of urban deprivation? Will he continue to support the extra teachers we obtained through urban aid?
The other week the Minister made a pronouncement on the future of the Scottish adult literacy unit, and yet we know that something like 9,000 adults were assisted by this unit in the three years

1605
from 1976 to 1979. I am sure he will agree that those figures represent only the tip of the iceberg. The problem of adult illiteracy has implications for those seeking jobs.
If the teaching force is reduced on the scale suggested by the Minister last week, it will have implications for the colleges of education, certainly at primary level. Bearing in mind the song and dance that was made when the Minister was an Opposition spokesman, I wonder whether he can now guarantee the continued existence of the present colleges of education, in which the Secretary of State, who is sitting next to him, has a particular interest.
Although he is not the Minister responsible for Scottish universities, I am quite certain that he keeps in regular contact with the Secretary of State for Education and Science. Has the Minister put any views to the Secretary of State at that Department about the future intake into Scottish universities? More particularly, has he discussed Strathclyde and Glasgow universities, where there is serious concern about the reduction in potential intake, bearing in mind that the age group that we are discussing is increasing and will continue to increase?
Since I would like the Minister to give me some answers on these points, I leave him with this message. I am well aware that the Government have been retreating from intervention over a wide area of economic and social activity. With his responsibilities, particularly in relation to employment, the Minister must recognise that the Government cannot afford to step back from a meaningful education and manpower policy. Some of the biggest changes that will face our society in the coming decade will arise among the white collar workers.
This has implications for the work being done in colleges of further education in Scotland and it also has major implications for the number of jobs that will be available, especially in the clerical, secretarial and administrative areas. It is essential that the Miniser has a decisive policy and that he is prepared to tackle some of the problems that are now emerging in the colleges of further education among the 16–18 age group.
11.44 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Alexander Fletcher): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Craigen) for choosing this subject for an Adjournment debate. He said at the start that this was a priority age group. I wholeheartedly agree with him. That is also very much the view of the Government in trying to make plans for the future provision of education in Scotland.
There is, as the hon. Gentleman said, a bulge now appearing—as the school population declines in the primary and secondary sections—in the 16–18 age group. That is why we felt that one of the first things we should do as a Government was to issue the consultative paper. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that in our public expenditure considerations we are taking every possible step to ensure that public expenditure is not cut as far as the provision of facilities for young people in this age group is concerned. The problem of unqualified school leavers must be tackled constructively. The Government are anxious to do that and to be seen to be doing it in order to give encouragement to young people in that age group and to those involved with them.
Some of the questions raised by the hon. Member are matters which the Tertiary Education Council is considering on behalf of the Secretary of State. It is considering such matters as the rationalisation of resources and facilities and the co-ordination of education facilities in Scotland for the 16 to 18-year-old age group. The council is also involved in considering how best to bring together the resources of the central institutions, the further education colleges and the secondary schools. The declining school population gives us the opportunity to make better co-ordinated provision for young people.
The hon. Member mentioned my comments last week about overstaffing, in primary schools in particular. I was anxious to make the position public because overstaffing in one area of education prevents resources being used for other high priorities. Under the Labour Government, and under this Government, the pupil-teacher ratios have reached satisfactory levels. Mismanagement is involved if staff levels are exceeded to the extent which I outlined in my statement.

1607
Such overstaffing takes away resources from other critical areas of education, including microelectronics. There is provision for £300,000 to be made available to secondary schools for equipment and general facilities so that they can provide better training in that important new sphere. The provision will be stepped up as and where necessary, but resources are not unlimited. Overstaffing costs about £15 million. That is bad management and that is why I drew it to the attention of Scottish education authorities.
The paper makes it clear that within the post-compulsory education sector it is concerned mainly with those young people who do not intend to go on to higher education rather than with those who do. The scope of the paper is therefore fairly well defined. Even so, it provides plenty of material for discussion. It is not just a bland survey of the existing system with some nebulous conclusions at the end. It asks some sharp questions. It raises some controversial issues.
The Scottish consultative paper and the responses to it will make a useful contribution to the review of 16 to 18-year-olds. In order to make sure that full account is taken of the Scottish contribution in the Government's general review on 16–18 age group education and training, we set a deadline of 31 December 1979 for comments on "The First Two Years of Post-Compulsory Education in Scotland", although the consultative paper was not issued until 29 October last year. Some bodies, including the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Educational Institute of Scotland, were unable to finalise their comments by the end of 1979 and we have told them that they can have a bit longer. I hope that the last of the comments on the consultative paper will be with the Department by the end of this month or early in February.
The consultative paper has aroused a good deal of interest, as the hon. Member has acknowledged, and the comments received on it so far have been many and varied. The document includes some controversial suggestions, and the advice that we are getting on some aspects is conflicting. The document itself refrained from reaching conclusions. Rather, it concluded by posing a number of questions, which is right.
1608
The hon. Member will not expect me to state any firm conclusions of my own tonight. It will take some time to analyse the responses to the paper to try to reach a balanced view on which particular options, or combination of options, offer the best prospects of advance. However, there are one or two general points I want to emphasise.
First, we need to break away from some of the rigidities of structure to which we have grown accustomed but which effectively inhibit possible improvements in the range or quality of educational opportunities we can offer our young people. I believe that the hon. Member has some experience of educational establishments in Scotland and he will know what I mean. Second, we must prove perfectly capable of achieving improvements within available resources. The opportunity to do so is provided by the almost spectacular decline now occurring in the number of secondary school pupils. Third, there is surely scope for useful redeployment of resources in this area.
The consultative paper is directed particularly at the large proportion of young people who do not go on to higher education. Some of them leave school and continue their education on a full-time basis in further education colleges. Some of them find jobs in which they receive industrial training, sometimes combined with part-time further education.
But too many drop out of the educational system altogether, and never find their way back. We estimate that at any given point in time over 40 per cent. of the 16 to 18-year-olds in Scotland are receiving no form of daytime education or training. This is not something that gives us any cause for satisfaction. Moreover, in present circumstances it is more important than ever to ensure that those who are receiving education, whether at school or elsewhere, are receiving an adequate preparation for working life.
The consultative paper makes it clear that too many young people are leaving school at the minimum leaving age, completely severing their connections with systematic education. It asks what can be done to induce more 16 to 18-year-olds to participate in post-compulsory education and training. But it states that the Government's primary objective is to reduce the burden of public expenditure and adds that no additional resources will

1609
be available to support expansionist policies in education. It think that this can be achieved because of the decline in the school population to which I have referred.
Increased participation does not necessarily mean building more further education colleges and recruiting hundreds of additional teaching staff. If the total staff and facilities at present available to schools and further education colleges were regarded as resources which could be pooled and redeployed to the best advantage, more young people could be given part-time or full-time educational opportunities without financial additional provision.
The consultative paper recognises that the present system is not adequately meeting the education and training needs of 16–18-year-olds and that the system cannot be allowed just to go on as it is at present. The paper challenges some of the existing arrangements and structures and the assumptions underlying them and suggests particular aspects—such as the different teaching qualifications for secondary school teachers and further education teachers—which, if changed, would enable existing facilities and teaching manpower to be used more flexibly. That is what the problem demands and that is why we are asking these questions in the consultative document.
Mr. Craigen: What calculations have been worked out regarding the possible interchange of qualifications? It is a ticklish problem for the Government to take on.
Mr. Fletcher: The hon. Gentleman asks what assumptions have been made. We have put the question to the educational establishment in Scotland—people who are essentially involved in this work. We are asking them to be flexible and to give us suggestions. We are not laying down the law. We are asking them for suggestions as to how some useful flexibility can be built into the system in the interests of the young people about whom the hon.
1610
Gentleman and I and many other people in Scotland are deeply concerned.
The decline in the secondary school population—from about 400,000 pupils at present to fewer than 300,000 in the next decade—will not simply enable education authorities to reorganise the provision they make for post-compulsory education but will compel them to do so. Reorganisation will be necessary not only to conserve resources but, more fundamentally for educational reasons, to ensure that pupils receive their education in an environment which is intellectually stimulating.
There comes a point when the established pattern of provision in a particular school is no longer acceptable. I was told of a visit which one of Her Majesty's inspectors of schools paid to a school quite recently and discovered that its fifth form comprised 11 pupils—10 girls and one boy. This was a school not in a remote and sparsely populated area but in a built-up area of Strathclyde. This merely illustrates the point that, in face of declining school rolls, some rationalisation would be inevitable even if resources were plentiful. Our present economic difficulties merely reinforce the need to redeploy the staff and facilities that we already have.
We recognise that fundamental changes cannot be made overnight and that we cannot establish an instant network of tertiary or sixth form colleges. But education cannot stand still. At the present time, it is perhaps more important than ever that we take stock of our position and try to chart the way ahead. That is the whole objective of the consultative document.
The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at three minutes to Twelve o'clock

DEFNCE
  Wisbech (Air Crash)
  Wisbech (Air Crash)
  PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS)
  PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS)
  EUROPEAN COMMUNITY (HEADS OF GOVERNMENT)
  EUROPEAN COMMUNITY (HEADS OF GOVERNMENT)
  OPEN GOVERNMENT
  OPEN GOVERNMENT
  PRIME MINISTER (BROADCAST)
  PRIME MINISTER (BROADCAST)
  FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
  FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
  MAY BANK HOLIDAY
  MAY BANK HOLIDAY
  GOVERNMENT PROGRAMME
  GOVERNMENT PROGRAMME
  RHODESIA
  RHODESIA
  AUCHINLECK
  AUCHINLECK
  ARMS CONTROL
  ARMS CONTROL
  TUC
  TUC
  CBI
  CBI
  PRESIDENT CARTER
  PRESIDENT CARTER
  RHODESIA
  RHODESIA
  JURY VETTING
  JURY VETTING
HOUSE OF COMMONS
  Strangers' Gallery
  Strangers' Gallery
  Political Parties (Financial Assistance)
  Political Parties (Financial Assistance)
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
  Pupil—Teacher Ratios
  Pupil—Teacher Ratios
  A and O-level Syllabuses
  A and O-level Syllabuses
  London School of Economics
  London School of Economics
EMPLOYMENT
  Average Wage Scales
  Average Wage Scales
  Skillcentres (South Yorkshire)
  Skillcentres (South Yorkshire)
ENERGY
  Microprocessors
  Microprocessors
  Euratom Loans Scheme
  Euratom Loans Scheme
  Windscale (Security)
  Windscale (Security)
  Didcot Power Station
  Didcot Power Station
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Prince Abdul Reza
  Prince Abdul Reza
  "Not Guilty" Pleas
  "Not Guilty" Pleas
  Departmental Staff (Costs)
  Departmental Staff (Costs)
  Unpaid Fines
  Unpaid Fines
  Police Officers (Assault Offences)
  Police Officers (Assault Offences)
INDUSTRY
  Departmental Staff (Costs)
  Departmental Staff (Costs)
  Assisted Area Status
  Assisted Area Status
OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT
  Aid
  Aid
  Kampuchea
  Kampuchea
WALES
  Hospitals (Construction)
  Hospitals (Construction)
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Honey Identification
  Honey Identification
SCOTLAND
  Local Government (Committee of Inquiry)
  Local Government (Committee of Inquiry)
  Canadian Herring Imports
  Canadian Herring Imports
  Education (Microelectronic Development Programme)
  Education (Microelectronic Development Programme)
TRADE
  Steel (Imports)
  Steel (Imports)
  Departmental Staff (Costs)
  Departmental Staff (Costs)
ENVIRONMENT
  Council Houses
  Council Houses
TRANSPORT
  Continental Lorries (Third Party Insurance)
  Continental Lorries (Third Party Insurance)
  Transport Supplementary Grant
  Transport Supplementary Grant
DEFENCE
  HMS "Invincible"
  HMS "Invincible"
  Cyprus
  Cyprus
  Multi-role Combat Aircraft
  Multi-role Combat Aircraft
  Cruise Missiles
  Cruise Missiles
  North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
  North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
  Polaris
  Polaris
  Europe (Nuclear Deterrent)
  Europe (Nuclear Deterrent)
  Fishery Patrol Vessels
  Fishery Patrol Vessels
  Contracts
  Contracts
  Departmental Staff (Costs)
  Departmental Staff (Costs)
  Territorial Army
  Territorial Army
  Uranium Plant, Capenhurst
  Uranium Plant, Capenhurst
SOCIAL SERVICES
  Nurses (Pay and Comparability)
  Nurses (Pay and Comparability)
  Heating Allowance
  Heating Allowance
  Maternity Grant
  Maternity Grant
  Benefit Payments (Rayner Study)
  Benefit Payments (Rayner Study)
  Medical Service Committees
  Medical Service Committees
  Fraudulent Claims (Prosecutions)
  Fraudulent Claims (Prosecutions)
  Sick and Disabled Persons (Benefits)
  Sick and Disabled Persons (Benefits)
  Staff Vacancies (Camden and Islington)
  Staff Vacancies (Camden and Islington)
  Industrial Insurance (Funerals)
  Industrial Insurance (Funerals)
  Depo Provera
  Depo Provera
  Epilepsy
  Epilepsy
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  Rhodesia
  Rhodesia
  Europe (Defence Forces)
  Europe (Defence Forces)
  Departmental Staff (Costs)
  Departmental Staff (Costs)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Income Tax
  Income Tax
  Public Companies (Grants)
  Public Companies (Grants)
  Departmental Staff (Costs)
  Departmental Staff (Costs)
HOUSE OF COMMONS
  Staff (Salaries)
  Staff (Salaries)
NORTHERN IRELAND
  Terrorist Offences (Crown Witnesses)
  Terrorist Offences (Crown Witnesses)
  Detained Persons (Deaths)
  Detained Persons (Deaths)

Preamble
Reassembling after the Christmas Recess, the House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Saint Albans.
The Earl of Rosslyn—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.
The Lord Gifford—Affirmed.

RAF AIR DEFENCE FORCES
Lord HILL-NORTON: 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 how they intend to make up the shortage of air defence aircraft and aircrew available to the Royal Air Force, in the years 1980–83.
The MINISTER of STATE, MINISTRY of DEFENCE (Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal): My Lords,
2
in this period the United Kingdom air defence fighter front line will be expanded by the formation of an additional Lightning squadron; a new squadron of VC.10 tanker aircraft will also be introduced as one of a number of measures designed to ensure that the potential of the fighter force is exploited to the full. As regards aircrew, the air defence forces are up to strength and this position will be maintained, notwithstanding the current shortage of pilots in the Royal Air Force.
Lord HILL-NORTON: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. I found it alarming. May I ask further whether, in view of the fact that the Russians are now building aircraft at a rate which would replace the front line of the whole Royal Air Force every six months, he regards what he has just said as an adequate deterrent in this respect?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I have said on a previous occasion that it is impossible to be satisfied or to be smug about this situation. But we are doing our best and we think that we are making some improvements.
Lord BALFOUR of INCHRYE: My Lords, may I ask the Minister this

3
question: In his reply, I think he said that there was to be a new VC.10 tanker squadron. As no VC.10s have been built for a great many years now, does this really mean an accretion to our strength or simply a redisposal of old aircraft?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I am speaking from memory, but I believe that these were VC.10s which the Air Force Department acquired and which they are converting to a tanker role. They were previously passenger aircraft.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord the Minister whether he agrees, in view of what has happened recently and the consequences which might be much more serious than some people contemplate, because there seems to be too much caution about, that what he is proposing in the way of strengthening the Air Force is inadequate in the circumstances, and will be even more inadequate in the future? In the circumstances, would it not be wise for the Government to reconsider our defence strategy and, in particular, get rid at once, and perhaps for all time, of this nonsense about détente with Russia?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I am speaking about the air defence of this country, and the principal problem that constrains us in adding rapidly to that capability is our ability to acquire aircraft, to arrange for the support of the aircraft and to train the pilots to fly them. In the short term, it is very difficult to do anything which yields a rapid return.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, the noble Lord has mentioned the shortage of pilots. Is this not a clear case for building up a large reserve of pilots? Could there not be some modern version of the auxiliary air force, which could give a reserve of pilots and bring the Royal Air Force more closely in touch with the civilian population?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, that is a very interesting suggestion which the noble Earl makes. But my guess is that it would prove to be difficult to follow, in the sense that nowadays the requirements
4
for a fighter pilot are very much more demanding than they used to be in the years when we remember the contribution that was made by the auxiliary air force. Nevertheless, it is something that is well worth examining.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, in reference to what my noble friend Lord Shinwell said just now, would the Minister reaffirm that the twin purposes of NATO are defence as well as détente, and that it is the intention of this country as a leading member of NATO to pursue both objectives at the same time, in co-operation with our other allies in NATO? On a factual question, is this expansion, which the Minister described in his first Answer, within the 3 per cent. limit agreed with our NATO allies last year, or is it additional to that?
Lord STRATHCONA and MONT ROYAL: My Lords, taking the noble Lord's last question first, it is within the currently planned expenditure limits, which would include the 3 per cent. As regards the general question, I agree with him that our policy remains to find an amicable arrangement with our potential adversaries, but we believe that negotiations to this end are best conducted from a position of strength rather than weakness.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether the Supreme Allied Commander Europe is happy with the situation as it is at the moment?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I have not communicated with the Supreme Allied Commander Europe on this issue, but I very much doubt whether he is any happier than I am. All I can say is that it is the best we can do at the present time.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there are some of us who feel that this House is talking in "cloud cuckooland"? How does the noble Lord think we can increase the number of aircraft with the steel industry being made almost defunct? Secondly, there is the question of the source of chromium, aluminium and other necessities which are difficult to get. Why talk like a nation of gladiators

5
when at this moment we could not hold out for half an hour in a nuclear war?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I think that is rather wide of the original Question.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, it needs answering!
Lord SHIN WELL: My Lords, in view of the questions which have been asked by my noble friends, may I ask a further question? Is the noble Lord the Minister aware that nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of strengthening our defences, in association with our allies—and I emphasise that—irrespective of this desire for détente, however fine sounding it appears to be, but which we know now by experience is a deception?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I am very grateful for the noble Lord's sentiments. They will be read with interest and acclaim in the Ministry of Defence.

SPECIAL CONSTABULARY: REPRESENTATION
2.45 p.m.
Lord INGLEWOOD: 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 are aware of the feeling in the unpaid 23,000 strong Special Constabulary that they alone in the Police Service in this country have no national organisation and no means of expressing a view on any subject affecting their members or their conditions of service; and whether they will arrange an annual conference of Special Constabulary commandants and other representative members or delegates comparable with the annual conferences organised by the Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales, the Police Federation and the Association of Chief Officers of Police.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Belstead): My Lords, special
6
constables volunteer for duty with a particular force, and the recognised channel for representations is through the chief officer of that force. The last review of the Special Constabulary, in which special constables participated, considered and rejected the need for any national representative body.
The total strength of the Special Constabulary has now fallen to below 17,000. This is a matter of concern, and I am glad to have this opportunity to inform the House that the Police Advisory Board has decided to set up a new working party to consider how this decline can be reversed. The points raised by my noble friend in this Question will be put before the working party.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that his reply has vindicated many of the representations that I have been making over the last few years? Is he aware that it is extremely timely that a new committee should be set up? Is he aware, too, that the Question made no reference to channels of representation? It was comparing the lot of the unpaid volunteer Special Constabulary with that of the other members of the police force who have an entirely different form of organisation. Why should the unpaid volunteers be treated differently and less well than the others?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, my noble friend has been very active in these matters over the years. Indeed, the previous working party of the Police Advisory Board which looked into the position of the Special Constabulary paid tribute to the very helpful and valuable evidence which my noble friend had given to it. However, as to the supplementary questions which my noble friend has just put to me, it is precisely points of that kind which this working party, which is due to meet this month for the first time, should now begin to consider.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I thank my noble friend for his answers.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, can my noble friend say how long the working party is likely to take?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am sorry, but as things stand at the moment

7
I am afraid that I cannot answer that question for my noble friend.

EEC NATIONALS: HOUSING OBLIGATIONS
2.48 p.m.
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: 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 are the obligations to provide housing for nationals of Member States of the European Communities who are living and working in the United Kingdom; and what measures they are taking to meet any such obligations.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, EEC Regulation No. 1612/68 on freedom of movement for workers within the Community provides that EEC nationals working in another Member State shall enjoy the same rights and benefits in relation to housing as the nationals of that State. It is for local housing authorities to judge the housing needs of those in their areas.
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that interesting Answer, may I ask whether he is aware that there is some anxiety that British nationals would not receive the same liberal treatment in Member States in Europe as EEC nationals receive when they come here, in particular under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977? Can my noble friend tell me whether there is reciprocal treatment? Would British nationals be given equivalent treatment for rehousing if they were living in one of the Member States in Europe?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, the regulations call for precisely that—for reciprocal arrangements. But the housing circumstances vary in the different countries. For example, we have a preponderance of
8
local authority dwellings but one would not find the same preponderance in, say, Germany or elsewhere where there is a greater amount of private housing. Therefore to the extent that there is a difference in the housing, that is quite right. However, the intent of the regulations is that there should be reciprocal arrangements.
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that that answer gives no satisfaction at all? Is he also aware that I am left with the impression that whereas we are most liberally treating nationals of other member countries, similar treatment is not given to our citizens? What arrangements are being made to co-ordinate the provision of housing for the homeless in Member States to ensure that the British taxpayers and ratepayers of British families are not being exploited to the benefit of other Member States?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I am sorry that my noble friend feels that the answer is less than he would like to have. It is certainly the one that I am entitled to give in the light of the facts as they are. As to whether or not there is the same degree of attention given to this problem in other countries, one would only have to go by the history and the record as we have it, and if my noble friend will produce some situations to indicate that there have been circumstances where this has not been so, I will gladly welcome them and undertake to look at them; but at the present time, so far as I am aware, there are no such instances.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, does not the earlier Answer of the noble Lord indicate that if his Government's policy of selling municipal houses is continued we shall be in danger of being in breach of our obligations to the EEC?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, in the light of the situation as it has so far obtained as regards numbers, and so on, there is little likelihood of that happening.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, will the noble Lord tell us why there is little likelihood of it happening? If they come, it will be as tenants, with the rights as I gather we have to give them statutorily, and certainly we are making their trip worth while!
Lord BELLWIN: I think not, my Lords. The record so far shows that the number of occasions when this has arisen is so small that the likelihood is exactly as I have suggested.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: But it is made so much more attractive, my Lords.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, would my noble friend not agree that the sale of council houses, in so far as it will increase the number of privately owned houses, will work towards reciprocity with Germany and other countries which have a greater private sector?
Lord PARGITER: My Lords, is the noble Lord saying that because we have a greater preponderance of local authority housing in this country we have a greater liability to house people from other countries than other countries have to house our nationals in similar circumstances?
Lord BELLWIN: No, my Lords, I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that there are regulations which call for total reciprocity in the way this is carried out. That is all I am saying. I can only repeat what I said a few moments ago, that so far there is nothing to indicate that there is such a preponderance or an imbalance as to reflect adversely upon our nationals.
Lord BROOKS of TREMORFA: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many British workers working in other Member States are in fact sleeping rough because they cannot get accommodation and I am referring specifically to building trade workers?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I assume that the noble Lord will give me some evidence that I can investigate.
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: My Lords, will my noble friend answer one question which I put to him with regard to the prospect of co-ordination between Member States on this very important aspect of policy?
Lord BELLWIN: Yes, my Lords, I will certainly look at that, to see whether there is something which both can and which needs to be done.

HEATHROW-VICTORIA TERMINAL: ROAD TRANSPORT FACILITIES
2.54 p.m.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: 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 make a Statement upon the road transport facilities provided from the Victoria Air Terminal to and from Heathrow Airport; and whether or not these are to be curtailed or expanded.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, British Airways operate a bus link from Victoria Terminal to and from Heathrow Airport. Passenger demand for such services has reduced since the opening of the Underground link with Heathrow and the service is unprofitable. Its provision is a matter for the British Airways Board who keep the economics of the operation under constant review. At the moment British Airways have no plans to curtail or expand the service.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, I hope that that Answer and old information is as unsatisfactory to the noble Lord as it is to me. May I ask him whether he recalls that in January 1974, under a Conservative Government, the check-in service was removed from West London Terminal, although it was used by 1⅓ million passengers; that in April of last year, under a Labour Government, what was left of the service at West London Air Terminal was also withdrawn, although it was used by more than a million passengers in the preceding 12 months? Arising from that, does the noble Lord not feel that with present taxi rates to and from Heathrow being in the neighbourhood of £10 from Central London, passengers should be given the option of paying for a viable bus service? I am not asking for a subsidised service.
Secondly, is the noble Lord aware—and I take it from his reply that he is not—that I have information which leads me to believe that very serious inquiries are being made at the moment—and that the trade unions are most disturbed by these—to withdraw the service from Victoria Terminal?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, the noble Baroness is asking for a viable bus service and that the public should have the right to subscribe to such a viable bus service. They have had several chances to do that. The present service is not viable, and indeed the service from the West London Air Terminal was not viable either. That is why they were withdrawn.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, the noble Lord would lose on that, but the House has not time to go into all those old arguments. May I ask the noble Lord whether he remembers that on 18th July last year, when I raised this matter with him, he said this:
" Passengers for Central London, who are elderly or infirm or who have more baggage than they can carry on the Tube, are expected to use the British Airways bus service to the Victoria terminal …"?—[Official Report; 18.7.79, col. 1491.]
May I take it that the noble Lord still stands by that, and that we shall not suddenly find the bus service withdrawn before we have even had a chance to comment on it?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, this is primarily a matter for British Airways. As I have said, British Airways have no plans to withdraw this service at the present time. As for the future, I am afraid my crystal ball is no better than that of the noble Baroness.
Lord PARRY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that some of us are grateful that the noble Baroness is able to monitor the behaviour of British Airways in respect of these matters, and in view of the statement which was made since this House last dealt with a question on this issue, is he prepared to tell us at this stage whether the Government plan to make an early Statement on the alternative uses of regional airports in view of the massive strain on public utilities, such as the one raised in the Question, because of the pressures on Heathrow and other airports?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, as I said in the Statement which I repeated in this House before Christmas, the Government certainly have it as their policy to encourage the fullest use of regional airports, including those in Wales
12
and Scotland. Depending on demand we shall do what we can to encourage new international services to them.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, is the noble Lord in a position to say anything about the road link to Gatwick, which surely must be one of the worst connections by road between any major airport and major town?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I think that is rather a different question.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there is no direct Tube connection between Victoria and Heathrow Airport, and would it not be desirable to undertake a reconstruction of Hammer-smith Broadway underground station to enable a direct line to run from Victoria to Heathrow?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, there are many parts of London which do not enjoy a direct Tube service. I am not sure that the expense of the project envisaged by the noble Lord would be justified.

PROTECTION OF TRADING INTERESTS BILL
2.58 p.m.
Brought from the Commons on Friday the 21st of December last and printed pursuant to Standing Order No. 47; read 1a.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA, WESTERN SAMOA AND NAURU (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL
2.59 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment be discharged.—(Lord Trefgarne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

FURSKINS BILL [H.L.]
3 p.m.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Paget of Northampton.)
Lord WYNN-JONES: My Lords, I should like to take this opportunity of congratulating my noble friend on having got through a Bill with a short, unusual Title, and on having got it through without a single amendment. I think that this is quite an achievement and he is to be congratulated. My opinion of the Bill remains as I expressed it at Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 3a accordingly.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Paget of Northampton.)
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
3.2 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (The Earl of Mansfield): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill is a substantial measure which extends to 80 clauses and 8 schedules. It seeks to make a number of changes, some of them major, in criminal procedure and evidence in Scotland and in the treatment of offenders. It will be a major landmark in Scottish legislation on criminal law and in Scottish legislation generally. The last substantial Scottish criminal justice measure passed into law in 1963; and the present Bill bids fair to be the most important Scottish measure ever passed on the subject. There is, therefore, a substantial task before us in considering this Bill. I am certain that our discussions will be thoughtful, positive and constructive.
The Bill is in a very real sense only a part, though by far the most important
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part, of a process of reform which has engaged Governments of both parties over the past few years. One short but significant reform was enacted as the Community Service (Scotland) Act 1978. This introduced a most useful new disposal for the courts—the power to require an offender found guilty of an imprisonable offence to carry out work for the benefit of the community. And it was largely because of the work done by our predecessors that we were able to introduce the Bail etc. (Scotland) Bill so early in this Session. That Bill should complete its parliamentary progress in another place tonight.
The Bill presently before your Lordships includes a large number of provisions similar to those included in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill which the previous Government introduced last Session, and, I hope, many of the other measures it introduces will also be welcomed by the noble Lords opposite. There are, of course, matters in the Bill on which Government and Opposition may not necessarily be in full agreement, but we differ from noble Lords opposite on matters of detail, I fancy, rather than of major principle. Indeed, on the issue which it is suggested will give rise to most controversy in Scotland—the new police power of detention—our proposals differ only in detail from theirs, and both are firmly based on Thomson recommendations.
This Bill, like the previous one, draws heavily on the considered advice of several departmental committees of inquiry which have made recommendations at various times in the past eight years. We are all much indebted to the distinguished men and women who served on these committees for the considerable amount of work which went into the various reports. The most substantial body of work is contained in the three reports of committees chaired by the late Lord Thomson. The first and third of these, published in 1972 and 1977 respectively, make recommendations about procedure on criminal appeals: the second report, on criminal procedure generally, was published in 1975. The Emslie Report on penalties for homicide by a committee chaired by the distinguished judge Lord Emslie was published in 1972. The Scottish Council on Crime reported on fines in 1974, and its general memorandum of 1975 commented on the

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problem of crime in Scotland in general. The Dunpark Report, on compensation by the offender to the victim, was published in 1977, as was the McElhone Report, on the worrying problem of football crowd behaviour, and the Bryden Report, on identification procedure, was published in 1978. It is sometimes cynically suggested that the only purpose of committees of inquiry is to bury important questions. This Bill gives the lie to that claim.
My Lords, I turn now to the Bill itself. It is complex and deals with a wide variety of issues. I do not, therefore, propose to test the patience of the House by examining every one of the clauses in turn. That is a task for Committee stage, and the purpose of each clause is set out in the Explanatory Memorandum. However, noble Lords may find it helpful if I were to identify the main parts of the Bill and the principal issues it contains. The first two clauses of the Bill relate to police powers and are derived from the recommendations of the Thomson Committee in its second report. An attempt has been made to suggest that the limited powers proposed are creating a Police State, and I will show your Lordships—and the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, will need no convincing on this point—that they do no such thing.
We place on the police the responsibility of investigating crimes and detecting the criminal with a view to prosecution. But, as the law of Scotland stands, they have no power, unless the evidence is so clear against a suspect that they can already arrest him, to pursue their investigation. Any person they approach for information, whether suspect or witness, can merely walk away. Of course, as the Thomson Committee recognised, life is not really like this—few crimes would be detected, if it were—and by persuasion, and, might I say, by bluff, investigation is carried out. But this is the unsatisfactory situation the Thomson Committee found. They did not say, as some have suggested, that the police were acting illegally, taking powers of detention they did not have. But they did say that it was undesirable that the police should have to rely on their present methods and that the position should be regularised.
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Clause 1, therefore, allows a constable to require a suspect or a witness to give his name and address and allows him to ask a suspect for an explanation of the circumstances giving rise to the suspicion. He must remain in the constable's presence long enough for him to verify it. However, if this is not done without unreasonable delay (for example, by radio) the person need no longer remain with the constable. Failure to comply with a constable's request for the name and address is to be an offence.
Clause 2 provides that a police officer may detain a person for a period of up to six hours at a police station or elsewhere if, and only if, he has reasonable grounds to suspect that a person has committed or is committing an offence, and for the investigation of a suspected offence or of possible prosecution. The suspect may be detained only for a maximum of six hours or until he is cleared or arrested, whichever is the shorter time, and he cannot be detained again in respect of the same offence except on cause shown, on the authority of a magistrate. We consider it important on the one hand that the police be given adequate powers to investigate crime by questioning those who may be suspected of a crime but who may not have committed it, and against whom there is certainly not enough evidence for arrest and charge, and on the other we fully recognise that it is equally important that the powers of the police should be clearly set out in statute and the rights of the citizen properly safeguarded. To this end the clause contains further safeguards in that the suspect must be told the reason he is detained and records must be kept of the time, place and purpose of the detention.
Noble Lords may find it helpful when considering the need for this power of detention to compare it with the present position in England on the power of the police to question a person in custody. Although the circumstances are different in other respects, the police in England, unlike those in Scotland, may arrest a suspect for certain offences before they are in a position to charge him and question him even in minor cases. The suspect's replies will be admissible in evidence at his trial, although these are, of course, subject to certain safeguards. In Scotland the police may not arrest someone without charging him at the

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same time. Once he is charged, his replies to questions would not be admissible as evidence at his trial. This clause therefore provides a very limited and circumscribed power for the police to hold someone in legal custody and question him. This is a necessary power recommended by the Thomson Committee: that a similar but much wider power is also found in England suggests that it is not the intolerable assault on civil liberties which some people have suggested.
The powers of the constable in relation to questioning, searching and fingerprinting are also set out in the clause and it provides that any fingerprints shall be destroyed if the suspect is either not charged with the suspected offence or cleared of it. Nothing in the clause puts a suspect under obligation to give any information other than his name and address and he is to be informed of this. The right to silence is therefore specifically protected.
Clause 3 states that a person who is either arrested or detained under Clause 2 shall be entitled to have a solicitor and another person informed without delay of his detention. No such right at present exists at this stage. Clearly there will be occasions where the very fact of a person's detention or arrest may "tip off" his accomplices, and delay in sending information of detention would be justified in such cases. The clause allows for such delay but the permissible delay is limited to that necessary in the interest of the investigation, or of the prevention of crime, or of the apprehension of offenders.
Clause 4 reflects a provision moved into the previous Government's Bill in Committee in another place, and deals with the dangerous practice of knife-carrying which leads to so many serious crimes of violence in Scotland. While the practice is illegal under the Prevention of Crime Act 1953, the police have no such power at present, as they have with firearms, to stop and search suspected carriers on reasonable suspicion of the offence. The clause creates the power. It is based on a recommendation of the Scottish Council on Crime, and, if any of your Lordships is in doubt about the case for the provision, I suggest that you read the very powerful case for the power
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in pages 43 to 46 of their general memorandum.
Taking the provisions in Clauses 1 to 4 generally, I want to emphasise strongly from the outset that, despite the misguided assertions of various vociferous groups and individuals in Scotland, these are provisions limited both in nature and in time, and no more than are essential for the police in their functions of investigating and preventing crime. It is also important to see these provisions of the Bill in context and the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, did so admirably, if I may say so, when we considered the Second Reading of the Bail etc. (Scotland) Bill. The noble and learned Lord said on 6th November 1979, at column 708 of the Official Report:
"… one of the problems of preparing a comprehensive Bill is the problem of striking the right balance between measures designed to ensure the easier conviction of the truly guilty and measures designed to protect the legitimate interests of the accused and of those who fall to be punished for their guilt. One result of this process of cannibalisation of which I have spoken is that by the time we come to consider the Criminal Justice Bill which the Government will introduce we shall already have enacted I believe—in this Bill and in the Community Service by Offenders Bill—some of the measures which were conceived in the interests of accused persons. And it would be quite wrong for me or for anyone else to leave that out of account in assessing the overall balance of the forthcoming Bill. All three measures must be looked at together as part of one package in order to see whether or not the proper balance has been achieved".
That is a fairly long quotation, but I respectfully agree with the noble and learned Lord that it encapsulates the attitude which should be taken to these various measures. I am sure that when these measures are looked at together they will be seen to safeguard the innocent citizen, make justice more effective and make it more likely that the guilty will be brought to account for their crimes.
Clause 5 derives from the previous Bill and is an enabling power, for use as resources become available, permitting the police to take drunk offenders to a detoxification facility, instead of arresting them. I have spent some time on Part I of the Bill because it has been suggested that they are unacceptable extensions of police powers, and because the Government attach great importance to these provisions. If I treat the rest of the Bill in less detail, it is not that it is less important—indeed, much of it may arguably

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be more so—it is that public discussion has so far concentrated on the first four clauses. Part II of the Bill contains provisions intended to make a major and substantial reform of Scottish law in relation to procedure and evidence.
Clause 6 provides for the revival of judicial examination—an old but moribund part of Scottish procedure. It is the stage when a person arrested with a view to prosecution on indictment is first brought before a sheriff, but it has now become wholly formal (apart from the possibility of a bail application). The proposal by the Thomson Committee for fresh use to be made of the stage had two sources. The first was the evidence they received from prisoners that at present they felt cut off from the early stages of criminal procedure—they had no opportunity to "have their say" until the trial. The second is that, if there is an explanation to be given by the accused which—and I do not like using the word—disincriminates him of the crime with which he is charged, it is reasonable and desirable that he should give it formally at the earliest moment, so that, if it is confirmed, the charge can be dropped.
The effect of the provision is to permit the procurator fiscal, under the control of the sheriff, to put a limited number of questions to the accused to elicit whether he has any explanation which exonerates him, and also to put to him any statement purporting guilt he is alleged to have made to the police, so that he has an opportunity to challenge it at that stage. He has the right to a solicitor at that stage which is taken in chambers, and the right to silence is maintained since he has no obligation to say anything. In the converse, of course, common sense suggests that, if the accused has an innocent explanation he will make it at this early opportunity; so that a defence of, say, alibi produced at the trial, but not at judicial examination, must, unless there is reasonable explanation, be at risk of disbelief, and the prosecution and judge will have the right to comment on its late production.
Clause 7 of the Bill extends the jurisdiction of district courts by removing or amending some of the limits of the powers of district courts under Section 285 of the
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Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975. This will enable the district court to take certain cases which at present can only be dealt with by the sheriff court, and thus help to alleviate the severe pressure under which sheriff courts presently labour.
The working group on identification procedure under Scottish criminal law which was chaired by Sir William Bryden, Q.C., called for a number of changes in procedure. Most of these are being implemented administratively, but Clause 10 of the Bill implements those which require legislation. They provide, first, that the legal aid scheme should be amended to provide for duty solicitors to attend identification parades to represent the interests of the suspect or accused; and, secondly, that an accused shall be entitled to have an identification parade held where the court considers it reasonable and where the prosecutor has not held a parade either on his own initiative or after a request by the accused.
Clause 12 and Schedule 4 are vastly technical but simple in effect. Scottish indictment trials have traditionally consisted of two diets, a first diet at which a plea is taken and preliminary matters, such as pleas of competence and relevance, are—or, rather, should be—dealt with, and then a trial diet, if a plea of Not Guilty is persisted in. But first diets have become largely burdensome formalities with the issues, even the accused's decision to plead guilty, postponed to the trial diet, with jurors, witnesses and so on assembled. Since no practical means have been devised of ensuring that the automatic first diet serves a useful purpose, the sensible course seems to be to abolish it, and place on those who wish to raise preliminary issues or to enter a plea of guilty a responsibility to do so. Schedule 4, therefore, makes provision for the replacement of the first diet by provision for raising preliminary issues. Incidentally, it implements a Thomson recommendation that there should be a preliminary appeal against the court's decision on a plea of competence or relevance.
Noble Lords will be aware that large parts of the Bill are intended to safeguard or advance the rights of the citizen against the State. In this respect, Clause 14 makes provision to tighten the

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existing procedure for the prevention of delay in trials. Under solemn procedure, any trial should be started within 12 months of the accused's first appearance in petition; an accused is not to be in custody for more than 80 days without an indictment being served on him and not for more than 110 days unless his trial begins. This amends the 110 day rule", as the Thomson Committee recommended, so that it runs to the fixed date of the beginning of a trial and not the uncertain date of its conclusion.
No equivalent of that rule at present exists in summary procedure, but following the Thomson recommendation Clause 14 provides that no one is to be detained under summary procedure for more than 40 days after the bringing of the complaint in court unless the trial starts in that time.
Clause 15 is by way of experiment. The summary courts suffer from a problem of late changes of plea, often as late as the diet of trial itself, with court and witnesses assembled. It may well be that the accused, after his grant of legal aid, has made no attempt to meet the condition of his legal aid and to co-operate with his solicitor, but left things till the last moment. The clause empowers, but does not oblige, the court to fix an intermediate diet at which the state of preparedness of the defence and the accused's co-operation can be explored. We would like to see the provision operated selectively in one or two courts in order to test its effectiveness in ensuring the early investigation of the case the accused has to face, and the entering of pleas of guilty at that stage, rather than at the trial diet.
The Bill also implements the Thomson Committee's recommendation on no case to answer. At present it is competent for the accused at the end of the prosecution case to submit that the prosecution has failed to make its case and that he should be acquitted; but if the submission fails he cannot then produce evidence for his defence. It seems inherently unfair for the defence to be told, in effect, that there is a case to answer but that he may not answer it. Under Clause 19, therefore, he would make a new submission of "no case to answer" and if the court rejected it he would not be debarred from leading evidence afterwards.
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Noble Lords will have noted recent concern about the long-established Scottish practice of requiring juries to be kept strictly secluded. This is a matter which the noble Lord. Lord Hughes, raised during our consideration of the Second Reading of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Bill. He was rightly concerned that a jury should not be driven to its verdict by pangs of hunger and thirst, but agreed that a provision which had remained almost unaltered on the statute book since 1587 might be allowed to rest a few months longer while the Government consulted interested parties and determined how best the law might be reformed. I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising the matter and for his tolerance in allowing us the time we needed to get the reform right.
Although strict seclusion is right in principle, the complexity of modern trials has made some jury sittings longer and a prohibition on any contact with the jury which prevents the supply of food or sleeping accommodation seems unnecessarily harsh. Clause 24 of the Bill allows a judge to give such instruction as he considers appropriate for the provision of meals, refreshments and overnight accommodation for jurors. I have no doubt this will be widely welcomed.
Clause 25 redefines the term "officer of law" in the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975 so that a civilian citation service could be used to serve documents such as citation for attendance at court. This provides a possibility of reducing the demand on police manpower in personal citation.
Clauses 26 to 31 deal with matters relating to evidence, and of these Clause 31 perhaps merits special mention. We in Scotland are proud of the general principle that no one can be convicted of a crime on the uncorroborated evidence of one witness. But the spectacle of traffic wardens solemnly patrolling in pairs to note the registration numbers of cars parked illegally is an absurdity; and the Bill would provide that, for those very minor motoring offences to which the ticket system applies, the evidence of one witness shall be sufficient for conviction should the case ever come to trial.
The first and third reports of the Thomson Committee made recom-

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mendations for the reform of both the indictment and the much-criticised summary appeal procedure in Scotland. Clauses 32 to 36 and Schedules 2 and 3 provide for the reform of appeal procedures in solemn and summary cases on the basis of these recommendations but with modifications.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, will no doubt recognise the provisions on summary appeal, since they are based on amendments put down by the then Government to the previous Bill, but not debated before the election. Apart from the fact that the provisions include the Thomson improvements to the stating of the case in summary appeals, I would only note at this stage that the provisions face the difficulty of any appellate court, that it has not heard the evidence given at the trial by providing the court, as an alternative to upholding or dismissing the appeal, with a power to set aside a conviction and authorise a re-trial where all the evidence can be led. Re-trial is an innovation in Scotland, but it was recommended by the Thomson Committee for indictment appeals and extended to summary appeals by the previous Government's amendments.
Part III of the Bill deals with penalties and reforms the law in a number of respects. In particular it contains a number of provisions designed to reduce the use of imprisonment. The Community Service by Offenders (Scotland) Act and the Bail etc. (Scotland) Bill had as an object the reduction of the use of imprisonment, and the Bill includes several measures to continue that policy. Clause 40 would provide that a court could not imprison a person who has not previously been imprisoned unless he has had the opportunity to be legally represented at least for the proceedings between conviction and sentence. Clause 41 would extend the present legislation relating to first offenders, applying to all persons who have not previously undergone a custodial sentence, the provision that the court cannot pass such a sentence unless it has considered a background report on him from a local authority, and is satisfied that no other method of dealing with him is appropriate.
Clauses 46 to 50 of the Bill contain a number of provisions relating to fines
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enforcement which are intended to improve the efficiency of the fines collection service and the reduction of imprisonment in default. The fines enforcement procedure in summary cases is to be applied to fines imposed on indictment and the Sheriff Court is to enforce High Court fines. Summary courts would be allowed to remit fines which they have imposed in whole or in part. Certain restrictions on the use of civil process where this would be appropriate to recover a fine would be removed.
In particular, Clause 49 revises the table of maximum periods of imprisonment which may be imposed on an offender who defaults on the payment of a fine of such and such an amount, to take account of the fall in the value of money, and will have some effect in reducing imprisonment in default.
I have already mentioned under Part I of the Bill the new power for a policeman to take a drunken person to a designated place to be "dried out" rather than to arrest him and lock him up in the cells. Clause 54 of the Bill is another aspect of the same policy of ultimately removing imprisonment as a punishment for drunkenness. It would abolish imprisonment as a direct sentence for statutory offences of drunkenness and increase the financial penalties for these offences.
The Bill includes new provision for custodial sentences for young offenders. We agree with our predecessors that the present three overlapping sentences of young offenders' institution, borstal and detention centre are unsatisfactory and wasteful of resources to no purpose, but we attach importance to the power of the courts to sentence young offenders to the brisk discipline of a detention centre such as Glenochil. The Bill therefore provides for detention centre sentences of between 28 days and four months, with a discretion in the court, in passing such a sentence, to order detention in a young offenders' institution where it considers a detention centre sentence inappropriate.
Clause 42 derives from the report of the Emslie Committee on the Penalties for Homicide, which was set up, like the Scottish Council on Crime, by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy when Secretary of State for Scotland. The origin of the committee was the concern

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about the increase in the incidence of murder in the 1960s which has continued to this day. The committee recommended the continuance of the life sentence for murder. They described it as an "awesome sentence", with its liability, even on release after many years of imprisonment, to recall at any stage of the rest of life. But they considered that its punitive and deterrent effect could be enhanced if the judge's recommendation on the minimum period to be served, which is seldom made at present, were to be pronounced, with his reasons, in every case, unless there were exceptional reasons to the contrary. The Government agree, and they have the support of Scottish judges in their view.
Part IV of the Bill (which comprises Clauses 56 to 65) introduces a system of compensation by the offender to the victim. Such a scheme was recommended by the Dunpark Committee, although in a more complex form. The Government consider that the Dunpark proposals for a certification procedure to be used when compensation could not be readily assessed would be unnecessarily complex, but we accept the principle of the Dunpark Report that offenders should, where appropriate, be liable to compensate their victims. In too many cases it is abundantly clear that the victim of a crime has suffered financial loss but might face considerable difficulties in attempting to pursue a claim through the civil courts. Although the criminal court in sentencing may be aware that the offender could well afford to recompense the victim, it is at present unable to require him to do so. Part IV of the Bill therefore introduces a simple system (akin to that which already exists in England and Wales) which would enable criminal courts in Scotland to order offenders to pay compensation to their victims. Such a power will not affect the existing civil rights of the victim. I am sure, therefore, that this proposal will be warmly welcomed on all sides of the House.
Part V of the Bill will also be generally welcome; it implements the main recommendation of a working group set up by the previous administration and chaired by Mr Frank McElhone, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Scottish Office. The problem of violence at or around sporting grounds (in particular football
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grounds) concerns all of us; and the Government accept the view of the working group that alcohol abuse is a major contributory factor to football violence. Clauses 66 to 74 of the Bill would therefore allow the Secretary of State to designate sports grounds or events, and would make it an offence for any person to attempt to enter or be within any designated sports ground while in possession of alcohol or any container capable of being used as an offensive weapon, or while drunk. Similar provisions will also apply to supporters travelling to and from matches on private hire coaches.
Part VI of the Bill contains a number of miscellaneous and general provisions. I would refer particularly to Clause 75. Vandalism is one of our banes and blights in Scotland, damaging the quality of life in many of our housing areas and placing a financial burden on the ratepayer. In Scottish law at present it hides under the inappropriate name of "malicious mischief", and, indeed, is often not prosecuted as such but further concealed under some wider offence, such as breach of the peace. The statutory offence in Clause 75 would call a spade a spade, and, where the act was repeated, would show the previous convictions and let the court know the sort of person they were dealing with.
My Lords, this is a long, complex and important Bill. It includes a wide range of reforms of Scottish justice but running through the whole Bill is, I hope, the core of consistent approach to criminal policy. Every citizen should be entitled to expect from the State a system of justice which is fair. To be fair it must be efficient and reasonably swift: it must protect the innocent and punish the guilty. Its punishments must also be humane. All of these objectives are advanced in this Bill. I believe it offers a fair balance between the powers of the police and the rights of the individual, between justice and efficiency. It seeks to make imprisonment less common and more effective; to make criminal procedure cheaper and better for the individual as well as for the State; to justify and to enhance continued public confidence in the Scottish criminal justice system. It takes full account of the deliberations of a number of distinguished committees reporting over recent years and the representations and reflections to

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which their reports gave rise. This Bill deals in a measured and carefully considered manner with some of the most difficult and controversial topics in criminal policy. I believe it does so constructively, fairly and successfully. I commend it to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Mansfield.)
3.35 p.m.
Lord McCLUSKEY: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Earl for his careful exposition of a long and complex Bill. It is not my intention to follow him through each and every clause. At this stage the House should be considering the principle of the Bill, and this Bill rests upon several disparate and unconnected principles. May I summarise them in order to introduce the points I seek to make. The principles, as I see them, are, first of all, that the police require new powers of detention and search. Secondly, that an accused person's right to silence in court ought to be restricted. Thirdly, that a number of largely unconnected changes should be made in relation to evidence, procedure, and sentencing in Scotland. Fourthly, that the appeal system should be improved and, in some respects, dramatically changed. Fifthly, that the court should be given power in Scotland to make compensation orders; and sixthly, that drunkenness and the throwing of bottles at, and associated with, sporting events—not just football events but sporting events generally—should be legislated against.
Before I turn to these particulars may I make some general observations. Some of the provisions in this Bill regarding police powers, evidence and procedure and penalties were contained in the Bill referred to by the noble Earl and introduced by the last Government. Others, particularly relating to appeals in summary causes and alcohol at sporting events, would have been introduced either in the course of the progress of that Bill or in further legislation. I want to make it plain that I shall not urge the rejection of any provision which we introduced or might have introduced. But the mere fact that on particular issues the two Front Benches have espoused a
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particular provision does not of itself make it a good one.
For example, Clause 21 in this Bill is almost the same as our Clause 24, providing that a trial may proceed in the accused's absence in certain circumstances. We put that into our Bill without, I feel, very much enthusiasm, but at the request of the Lord Justice General. It was rejected with great enthusiasm by a substantial majority in Committee in the Commons, and those voting against it included the Ministers in the Commons who are now responsible for this Bill, and yet here it is again. I believe that no one would shed any tears if it were once again rejected.
The other example I must mention at this stage is the powers of detention. Public concern has grown about these powers, and I think that given the growth and expression of public concern the House and the Government would do well to give a careful hearing to these objections, and to see whether they can be met or satisfied at least in part. I repeat, the mere fact that we had similar powers in our Bill in respect of detention is itself no sufficient answer to the critics who opposed our Bill, and indeed to the arguments that they now advance.
May I make a second general point. I approach the whole exercise of legislating about Scots criminal law with mixed feelings. The law can be reformed to some extent by the courts; it can be reformed by Parliament. The courts in reforming the law tend to be slow and haphazard and to have a restricted competence to alter the law, but none the less the courts evolve changes in the law. Parliament comes along sovereign; it can act instantly. It is of course democratic and responsive immediately to public pressure, but it tends to react to particular situations and tends to rush through changes in the law which do not pay the same heed to the coherence, unity and genius of the law. One thinks, for example, of the Thorpe case in England, which produced a considerable clamour for legislation of one kind or another, and the Morgan rape case in England a few years ago which lead to the passing of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1976.
The general point is that in the field of criminal law reform we must beware

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of a hyperactive legislature and always ask ourselves, "Is this legislation really necessary?", and I believe that is the proper test, even in relation to largely procedural matters of the kind with which we are dealing here. We do not want to introduce into Scots law so much legislation that we suffocate its genius, destroy its flexibility and rob of it of its simplicity. If we apply that test to this legislation—is it really necessary?—then I believe that some parts of the Bill fail to pass that test.
I come to the provisions of the Bill to which I wish to draw attention. The new police powers contained in Clauses 1, 2 and 3 are, I believe, necessary and justifiable though with some modifications. They are said to derive, and they do derive, from the report by the late Lord Thomson and his commitee, but that report provided that there should be certain safeguards for an accused in police custody; that is to say, that there should be tape recordings of what took place inside the police station. That is not in this Bill, and indeed it was not in our Bill, but it is important to notice that neither our Bill nor this one is in terms implementing the Thomson Report in relation to what happens inside police stations, and that is an important qualification we should bear in mind.
The new police powers however are, I believe, necessary because police investigations of a crime at or near the place where it occurred can be and sometimes are frustrated by the refusal of persons involved to assist the police willingly in their inquiries. What happens now—and one finds some reference to this in Thomson, and I have had considerable experience of the criminal courts in Scotland and this is my judgment—is that the police have a choice. They can let the suspect or witness go; they can arrest him on what may well prove to be inadequate evidence, a bad charge; or they can detain him against his will either on some technical charge or by means of some vague and imprecise threat, and I believe that is what happens at the present time and I believe furthermore that the courts in Scotland commonly turn a blind eye or at least a benevolent eye on police irregular pressures at that stage in their investigations, and I believe that happens in England as well. That is
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done simply because it is realised that otherwise the proper investigation of crime will be frustrated. The Thomson Report recognised this and one finds it in paragraphs 3 (10), 3 (11), 3 (13) and 3 (14), and I invite your Lordships' attention to those paragraphs although I will not quote them in full.
The solution in my view is to regularise what is now permitted in practice if we regard it as acceptable, and then to enforce the new rules strictly. The police, the public and the courts will then all know where they stand. I recognise of course that occasionally a wholly innocent person may be detained against his will for a short period, but I believe that most citizens would accept that as a disagreeable necessity justified by the overriding public interest in the detection of crime and the avoidance of the present situation in which the criminal authorities and the courts tolerate from time to time police irregularities, thus, in my view, risking public confidence in the processes of the criminal law. So my principle here is this: let the law be clear, let it be adequate, and let it be enforced.
If a person is to be detained against his will, is it necessary to detain him, as the Bill proposes, for six hours? This is a person not arrested but simply detained on suspicion. I do not believe that period is necessary. He is not arrested, as I have said, and therefore his rights are extremely limited. Thus, this period of limbo, as it were, should be as short as is absolutely necessary. If he is willing to stay and help the police, then the statutory power is not necessary. So the kind of man we are talking about to whom this six-hour period applies is a person who is unwilling to assist the police in their inquiries. In that situation is it likely that he will answervoluntarily the questions the police want to put to him? Surely he will not, and therefore all the police can properly do is check his name and address and search him. Do they need six hours for that purpose? I believe not. He does not have to answer the questions; all he has to do is give his name and address and be searched, so why keep him in for six hours? What is the purpose of that long period? In my submission, the period we proposed in our Bill, of four hours, is ample in all cases.

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What is rather more serious is this. Why in such a case, where the evidence even after the search of the man does not justify arrest, detain him for a second period? I direct attention particularly to Clause 2(3), which says that a person who has been detained for six hours can be re-detained at the end of that period, again without being arrested, simply on the authority of a justice. This is a wholly bad provision. I detect shades of South Africa here, and indeed of the police State, in allowing successive periods of detention on a mere magistrate's warrant. There are no safeguards for the detained person, for the non-arrested suspect, and even his lawyer and relatives may know nothing of his whereabouts and circumstances. In the other place when our Bill was being debated Mr. Rifkind in committee expressed himself as wholly opposed to such a power. I believe he was entirely right and I believe it is wrong to include this provision in this Bill. In any event, the authority of a mere justice is a wholly inadequate safeguard and in my submission this provision should go.
The other wholly unjustified power is contained in Clause 2(5)(c), which permits fingerprinting of detainees—that is, suspects who are not arrested—and in my view that is an unjustified interference with civil liberty. It is open to abuse, despite the proviso, and I beg the Government to reconsider that provision and withdraw what I believe to be a new, offensive and unnecessary power.
Clause 4, to which reference has been made, gives the police power to search in the street for weapons. It was not in our Bill, but it was put in the Bill in committee in the other place. I believe it is entirely unnecessary and I invite the Government to reconsider it. The opening words of Clause 4 require the constable to have:
"reasonable grounds for suspecting that any person has committed or is committing an offence under section 1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953"—
which prohibits the carrying of offensive weapons in public. If one looks at the opening words of Clause 2, one sees that if the—
" constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that a person has committed or is committing an offence punishable by imprisonment"—
then the person may be detained. What is to stop a constable who believes a person
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is carrying an offensive weapon from using his power under Clause 2 to have that person detained and then searched at the police station? Why create a special power of search in the street? This appears to be going too far and it is liable to lead to very bad relations between the police and the community if one allows the power of search in the street for weapons merely on the suspicion of a constable.
Many people are very worried at these extensions of police powers, whether they were contained in our Bill or are contained in this one. If they are to be given—whether in the Bill or limited as I propose—is there not a case for saying in the Bill that they should be given for a trial period and that at the end of that period the police, the public and the other interests can give their views? There should in my submission be provision for a review. That would encourage restraint by the police and encourage the growth of good practice in relation to the use of these powers. People say—I hope they are wrong—that these powers are liable to be abused. Let us give the police three years in which to demonstrate that they will not be abused, and at the end of that time let the matter come back before Parliament in order that both Houses may consider on an affirmative resolution whether or not the powers are to stand; and I would table an amendment to allow for such a review by Parliament after three years.
May I direct attention to Clause 6. It is the only one that I want to make a lot of in this procedure and evidence part of the Bill, but it is of great importance. It makes a serious inroad into the accused's right to silence. Hitherto an accused appearing in court had a right to put the Crown to the proof, a right to remain silent, and of course that right technically is not taken away by this new provision. At the present time, he has this right; he usually exercises it, at least until his trial when he opts whether or not to give evidence. It is in present practice, and has been for most of this century, highly unusual for a person to make a declaration at an earlier stage, although he was entitled to do so. As I say, under this new provision the accused's right to silence is technically preserved, but he will be brought before the sheriff, he will be asked questions by the prose-

33
cutor, and if he does not answer the questions, his failure to do so may be commented upon at his trial. That is a quite serious sanction for failure to respond, and accordingly there is pressure upon the accused to forgo his right to silence and to answer questions at this early stage.
I want to make three points about this. First, let us recognise what the clause does. It effectively diminishes in an entirely novel way the right to silence. Secondly, I wonder whether the profession in Scotland will make this work'? This is a serious question because much of the criminal work in Scotland is handled by a small number of solicitors. If each and every one of those solicitors chooses to advise each and every client to remain silent at the judicial examination, then is this comment by the judge going to be worth making? There is no point in saying at a particular trial that the accused did not answer the question when in fact one knows that no one ever answers such a question. Further, if the accused, on his solicitor's advice, answers no question, is it proper that a comment should be made about the accused? Why should the comment not be made about the accused's solicitor? This is a provision which can be made to work only if the profession in Scotland decide to make it work.
There is another point that is important. The right to question is extremely broad in the new Section 20A of the 1975 Act, and that breadth of questioning, combined with the right to bring the accused back again and again, turns the proceedings at this stage into inquisitorial proceedings, which is a dramatic potential revolution in our whole criminal procedure; and all this within a few hours of arrest. So this is important, my Lords, and it is important that the Government should think very carefully about whether or not they really want to proceed with this kind of provision.
I acknowledge that in the Thomson Report recommendations were made roughly along these lines, but again there were safeguards which this Bill does not contain. I see that the Lord Advocate has the Thomson Report before him, and he will find what he is looking for on page 43. He will find that Thomson recommended that the objects of judicial
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examination should be threefold. The first was to afford the accused, at the earliest possible stage, an opportunity to explain himself. The second was to protect the interests of an accused who had been interrogated by police officers and who had given answers or made statements to the police. So two out of the three were conceived in the accused's interest. But the third is the one that gives rise to this provision, and it was to enable the procurator fiscal …
"… to ask an accused questions designed to prevent the subsequent fabrication of a false line of defence;"
for example, alibi. That is perfectly sound. If the accused wants to say that he was at his granny's or that he was watching a football match, let him say that at once and the police can investigate that story. But what Thomson went on to say was that there ought to be a number of limitations about the kind of questions that could be put. This Bill ignores that restriction upon the prosecutor's capacity to ask questions and gives the prosecutor an extremely broad remit, and he can ask about almost anything.
What the Thomson does in paragraph 8.17, on page 44 is to lay down a procedure with strict controls to prevent cross-examination at this early stage which may be within a few hours—72 hours probably—of the man's arrest. What has happened to this protective scheme? Is it to be spelt out in an Act of Adjournal? Reference is made in the Bill to Act of Adjournal, but that Act of Adjournal, may I point out, is one that is to be made by the Lord Justice General and the judges of the High Court in Scotland. It is not going to be seen by Parliament, and, accordingly, if a procedure is to be created to protect the accused, Parliament would have no right to review that procedure in the Act of Adjournal. I should like to know whether the Lord Advocate, or the Minister, has had discussions with the Lord Justice General and if so, can he tell us what this Act of Adjournal is to contain? Until this is known, we are being asked to buy a dangerous pig in an impenetrable poke. There are other questions in relation to this matter, but I believe that they can wait until the Committee stage.
I turn to Clause 14, which I particularly welcome, and I particularly welcome the extension of the 110-day period to the

35
start of the trial, but more particularly, in the interests of accused persons, I welcome both the provisions about avoidance of delay in criminal trials in Scotland and in criminal summary trials. This is a big step forward and I congratulate the Government upon implementing it, although it will undoubtedly cause some extra expense in the running of the service in Scotland.
I wish to draw attention to Clause 19. This is the clause which provides that the accused may argue that he has no case to answer. I am not very enthusiastic about it, but I recognise that the Thomson Report was in favour of it, and I am willing to bow to that judgment, although I think that this, too, is liable to put up the cost of legal aid in criminal cases in Scotland and that, I hope, has been noted in preparing the estimate of the cost-effects of the Bill.
I have already mentioned Clause 21, which in our Bill was Clause 24 and which was thrown out in the Commons Committee by a combination of two Labour MPs, one Scottish Nationalist, and five Tories, including Mr. Teddy Taylor, Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn, and Mr. Malcolm Rif kind; and I wonder what on earth it is doing back in this Bill. On that occasion Mr. Fairbairn said, as shown on page 387 of the report I have, that he could draft no amendment which in his opinion could avoid or cure the dangers of this particular clause. Well he certainly has not avoided the dangers, and I should be interested to know why the Government have done an about-turn, a complete mini U-turn, on this particular matter.
Clause 23 contains a nonsense, and I do not know where this comes from. Clause 23 provides that,
" In any trial each accused may challenge one juror … without giving any reason."
At the moment we have a jury of 15, and each accused may object to five jurors, the so-called peremptory challenge. He gives no reason, he merely says, "Object", or, "Need not come", and the juror is asked to stand down. If the number of peremptory challenges is reduced to one, and accused persons want to object to more than one juror—whether they object to their age, their sex, their address or whatever; and a whole witchcraft goes
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into the choice of jurors—defence counsel will have to come forward and say, "I object to this juror on cause shown" Then he has to present an argument to the court. How much time will that take, with the judge, half a dozen counsel, clerks, and jurors all sitting around, while there is a 10-minute argument on each of the jurors, about whether or not cause is shown? And what does "cause shown" mean? We do not know what it means in Scotland, simply because, having the peremptory challenge, we never needed to use the cause shown provision. At the end of the day, there is a right to challenge one juror, and so one might as well give the accused the right to challenge no jurors; and let us go over to a system of cause shown in all cases. This was designed I believe, to save money. It might save a few hundred pounds, or a couple of thousand pounds at the very outside. But the expense of lengthening trials in order to have cause shown objections will dwarf any saving of expenditure, and I ask the Government to abandon this as a piece of nonsense.
Clauses 32 and 33 relate to the appeals and I extend a general welcome to them, with one qualification, and I ask the Government to think carefully about this. I believe that the court, on appeal, should have the right in summary causes to allow a new trial; in other words, to quash the conviction and give the prosecutor perhaps two months, as this Bill provides, to come forward with another charge on the same facts. But I do not believe that that is a desirable provision in relation to jury cases. The reason for the distinction is quite simply this. If a case goes to jury trial it tends to get some publicity; if it goes to appeal it tends to get more; if a second trial is allowed—and it is going to happen very rarely—then it is going to get an immense amount of publicity. What chance is there, then, on the second occasion, of finding a jury without knowledge of the case from the previous trial and the appeal hearing? I believe there is very little chance. You will find sheriffs, of course, who can deal with cases in summary causes, because perhaps they do not bring the same kind of prejudice to bear. Certainly they will come with a professional judgment to the assessment of the evidence in the particular case. So I believe there is a fundamental difference between the right of reprosecu-

37
tion in summary and in solemn cases, and I believe that this provision requires more cogent justification than I have yet heard.
Part III of the Bill contains numerous detailed provisions about penalties. They were nearly all in our Bill, and I need not detain the House by looking at them in any detail. One of them, however, I must draw attention to, and that is in Clause 42, which gives effect to a recommendation by the committee which sat under the present Lord Justice General, Lord Emslie, and requires a judge, except in special circumstances, in the case of a murder, to recommend a minimum period that the person must serve. My Lords, that may be a provision one ought to leave to the judge's option, as it were, but to require him to do it seems to me to be going too far. How can a judge, at the time and in the circumstances of the trial, have any real idea what effect 10 years, 20 years or 25 years of imprisonment are going to have upon the accused person, who may at the time of the trial be aged 19 or 20? So I believe that that is something which ought to be looked at again.
Compensation by offenders is covered by Part IV of the Bill. I welcome that, and I have one or two amendments which I would hope to propose at the Committee stage. I need not detain your Lordships with them now except perhaps to say that I was never very happy with the Dunpark Report, which struck me as being, as the noble Earl indicated, an intensely bureaucratic-looking document, and I am glad that the Government have chosen a somewhat simpler path.
So we come to Part V, and I extend a general welcome to the provisions in Part V, which endeavour to reduce hooliganism and drunkenness at sporting occasions. It owes much, of course, to the McElhone Working Group. I occasionally go both to rugby and to soccer matches, and these occasions tend to be disfigured by drink, swearing and the throwing of missiles. This Bill includes provisions directed against the drink and the missiles, but not against the swearing. I should have liked to have seen a provision prohibiting the use of four-letter words, but then I realise that "goal" is a four-letter word, not to
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mention "ball", so I accept that that is quite impracticable.
But I fear that the provisions in Clause 69, directed against the throwing of bottles and cans, are misconceived. The Government, in order to define the missile, have created the concept of "a controlled container". It is a very silly one. It includes not just a bottle and a can, but a hip flask; it includes a saucer and a jar of smelling salts (which I always take to a rugby match in case Scotland should score a try); it includes a fountain pen; it includes a tobacco tin; and it includes, probably, a box of chocolate liqueurs. What it does not include, however, is a gourd, or skin bottle, out of which Spaniards are wont to squeeze wine in a long, thin jet. So I foresee the terracing at Celtic Park being lined with thousands of supporters squeezing their gourds and directing their jets of Tartan Special, not only at their own eager mouths but in the general direction of their friends' mouths and the necks of Rangers' supporters. It is not, my Lords, a pretty prospect! I am tempted to say to the noble Earl, at the risk of some little ambiguity, "Chuck it, Mansfield", and settle for the less precise but more realistic expression:
"bottle, can or similar container, designed, or adapted or used for carrying alcohol, and having a capacity greater than six and two-thirds fluid ounces."
This would allow the pessimistic spectator to carry a small hip flask for the quasi-medicinal purpose of comforting his soul when his team slides to defeat.
Finally, my Lords, I think there is a curious loophole in Clause 73, but at this late hour I shall not draw attention to it; I would hope to look at it in the context of the Committee stage. The noble Earl mentioned vandalism, and I want to conclude my review of the provisions of the Bill by looking at that. It is nonsense to include in the Bill Clause 75. The crime which is described in the Bill as "vandalism" is, as he said, now called "malicious mischief". All this Bill does is to change its name. At the moment, malicious mischief is a crime which is a common law offence and can be punished by substantial penalties indeed. What this particular Bill does, oddly enough, is to diminish the penalties for vandalism, because it lays restrictions upon the penalties which may be imposed. The

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problem lies not in what you call the crime: the problem lies in its detection and the social conditions which have given and do give rise to it. The inclusion in the Bill in this form of Clause 75 against vandalism—and we are all against vandalism—is simply, in my view, a dishonest pretence, and it just will not work.
My Lords, the Bill contains many other provisions. It is not possible for this House to subject every clause and every provision to the kind of careful scrutiny that it deserves, and I regret that I myself am unable to be present for parts of the Committee stage; but I believe that this Bill, in part, has recently evoked serious and deeply-felt criticism. I do not agree with it all, but I have met with the leaders of those who campaign against the Bill. I do not agree with the noble Earl's description of them as "vociferous groups", and I hope that the Government, particularly at the Committee stage, will not dismiss their representations, and mine, as unworthy of notice. We all share, I believe, an identity of aim, which is that we must seek to achieve the public interest in the detection of crime. To allow these arguments to be advanced and heard, and because the Bill contains much that is worthwhile, I will not oppose the Second Reading.
4.7 p.m.
Lord FOOT: My Lords, this debate has already taken a rather curious, although not perhaps an unexpected, turn. I should like to begin, if I may, by congratulating the noble Earl upon the comprehensive way in which he explained this massive Bill to us. I do not know that I would congratulate him so much on the blandness with which he proposed to this House what are, as I shall hope to show, major constitutional changes; but I feel we should all express our sympathy to the noble Lord, Lord McCluskey, for the task that he has had to perform this afternoon, because he has been in the difficulty, of course, that he has had to express concern and doubt about provisions which appeared in the Bill which was promoted by his own Government a year or so ago. Not since Agag has anybody had to walk so delicately as the noble Lord! As I understood it, what he was saying to the noble Earl over and over again was, "Will you
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please reconsider the things which are incorporated in your Bill which appeared in our Bill, because we may both have got it wrong?". If I may take one particular illustration, the noble Lord, Lord McCluskey, suggested that the Government should consider inserting a clause in this Bill which would allow for it to have a three-year experimental period. May I ask him whether that provision appeared in his Government's Bill; and, if not, why not? What has happened in the last 12 months that makes it necessary that there should be an experimental period for this Bill, as compared to the Bill for which the previous Government were responsible?
My Lords, it is evident that we on these Benches are going to be the only people from whom there is going to come any real assault upon the major purposes of this Bill, and this afternoon I shall endeavour, I hope briefly, to explain to the House why it is that I and, I fancy, my noble friends take the view, which is indeed expressed in the first words of the Explanatory Memorandum, that this is a Bill,
"which makes a number of changes, some major, in criminal procedure and evidence in Scotland and in the treatment of offenders".
I regard that as an understatement. I shall endeavour to satisfy the House that this Bill effects two major constitutional changes touching upon the rights of the individual in a democratic society under the rule of law. These two major alterations which the Bill proposes are, first, that it introduces this new concept of detention, something falling short of and different in its consequences from arrest and having wholly different consequences to arrest; and, secondly, that this Bill constitutes the first legislative assault upon what for centuries (not only in this country but in other countries and, particularly, in the United States) has been regarded as one of the basic rights of the individual in a free society; that is, the right of the accused faced with his accusers to remain silent and that that silence should not be held to his disadvantage or detriment. It is that bastion of freedom which we believe to have been breached by Clause 6 of this Bill.
Before I come to the reasons why we hold this view in regard to this particular clause—and I shall confine myself to

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Clauses 1 to 6—may I make a general observation? This is a Scottish Bill. If it reaches the Statute Book it will create—and I do not suppose that the noble Earl will dissent from this—a new divergence between criminal procedures in Scotland, on the one hand, and in England and Wales, on the other. if this were a Bill which was being passed through a Scottish Parliament under a devolved system of Government, that might not matter very much; but, because devolution has been lost, this Bill must come through this Parliament at Westminster.
I do not know of any peculiarity or of any particularity in the Scottish situation which makes the proposals contained in this Bill for Scotland inappropriate to England and Wales; and it would be quite illogical to carry through these changes, if they are proper, appropriate and good things to do in Scotland and then not go on and introduce the same changes in the criminal procedure in England and Wales. Indeed, I feel sure that the English and Welsh police would take the view that, if their colleagues in Scotland are to be given these additional powers, it would be ridiculous for them not to be given the same powers. The problems of law enforcement in England and Wales are much the same as the problems in Scotland. Therefore, we are here today debating not only what ought to be done about law enforcement in Scotland but problems which are common to all parts of the United Kingdom.
That is something which makes it a little surprising that the list of speakers this afternoon is as short as it is. I would suggest that it is particularly unfortunate that we are not going to have any contribution from any Law Lord. I should have thought that these were matters which would have been of great concern to those noble and learned Lords; and, indeed, when we were discussing very much the same sort of thing in the Criminal Law Revision proposals of about three or four years ago, we heard on that occasion, and very eloquently, as I remember, from several Law Lords on the very subjects contained in this Bill.
I am confining myself to Clauses 1 to 6 of the Bill partly because I should be quite incapable, not being a Scottish lawyer, of saying anything particularly useful about some of the no doubt excellent and
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unobjectionable proposals contained in the remaining part of the Bill. May I now turn to Clauses 1, 2 and 3. These are the clauses which give two new powers of detention to police officers. Clause 1, as the noble Earl has explained, gives the police powers to detain a person reasonably suspected of having committed any offence—and I underline the words "any offence"—and to detain any other persons whom they believe might be able to give information about that offence in order to obtain from them their names and addresses and to verify those names and addresses and, in the case of a suspect, to ask him for any explanation of the circumstances which have aroused the police officer's suspicions. It is an offence on the part of either the suspect or the witness to refuse to give his name and address or to give a false one.
Before I look at that more closely, may I make a preliminary observation? I hope that I do not fail to understand the arguments for some such power of what might be called temporary detention to ascertain the identity of a suspect or even of a witness. I appreciate that there are arguments in favour of giving the police some power of that kind. As things stand, at any rate in England and Wales—and I cannot speak about Scotland—unless a policeman happens to have a legal ground for arresting a suspect, if the suspect is wholly unhelpful and refuses to give any information the policeman may be powerless (as the noble Earl has said) to do anything about it. I admit readily that that must be a frustrating experience for the policeman and that it is not in the interests of justice. In the later stages of this Bill, in so far as any criticism of this clause comes from these Benches, I think it will be directed to consideration of whether the powers given to the police under this Bill are too wide and whether they can be narrowed. But when one comes to the situation of a witness in the street whom the police are given power under this Bill to detain if a policeman reasonably considers that that witness may be able to give any useful information, that is an entirely different state of affairs.
In order to illustrate that, I will give the House a simple illustration. Let us suppose that a policeman thinks that some individual has parked a car improperly. That is a circumstance that enables him to

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exercise his detaining powers under this Bill because, in the case of any offence whatsoever, the policeman who has suspicions of that kind is entitled to exercise these powers. What if a policeman turns to some individual who happens to be standing around and demands of him that he gives his name and address? That is a situation which may perfectly well arise under this Bill. There are then two possibilities. If the individual concerned—this entirely innocent individual who happens to be a bystander—complies, then the policeman is entitled to hold on to him until such time as he, the policeman, can verify the accuracy of the information he has been given. Not only that, but the policeman is entitled to use reasonable force to hold on to him. I am glad that the noble Lord is looking at the Bill. I am sure I have it right.
The other possibility is that he does not comply and that the innocent, potential witness may say to the policeman, "I do not want to be involved in this", or, "I haven't any information which is relevant" If he does that, not only does he make himself liable to a fine of £50 for refusing to comply with the policeman's request but, what is more, he is liable to instant arrest and can be taken into custody. One of the things which have perplexed us in the whole problem of trying to abate the high rates of crime in this country over the years, and one of the most perplexing and difficult problems, is to try to build up a condition of confidence and co-operation between the police on the one hand and the public on the other.
Is it not that very confidence which is going to be endangered by measures of this kind? I hope it is necessary only to pose one simple question: Are powers of this kind, to be exercisable against wholly innocent people, either necessary or calculated in any way to nourish good relations between the public and the police? If I may respectfully say so, the question answers itself. So far as need is concerned, so far as it is necessary for the police to have these powers, I can only say that having had some 45 years' experience practising in the magistrates' courts of this country I cannot recall a single occasion when the police have ever complained to me that their legitimate activities have been thwarted by the unwillingness of a witness to give his name and address.
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Is it really worthwhile to encourage all this animosity between the police and the public for so insignificant a gain as will be obtained by this particular measure?
I pass on to Clauses 2 and 3. This is a matter of very much greater consequence. Clause 2 provides:
"(1) Where a constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that a person has committed or is committing an offence punishable by imprisonment"—
I pause there to point out that any criminal offence which is properly called a criminal offence is punishable by imprisonment. The vast majority of offences are punishable by imprisonment. The clause says:
" (1) Where a constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that a person has committed or is committing an offence punishable by imprisonment, the constable may, for the purpose of facilitating the carrying out of investigations",
take him to a police station and detain him for six hours. How those six hours may be extended has been explained by the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey. A simple application on the telephone to a justice of the peace is sufficient to get a further authority to detain the man for the further six hours. He can be released in one moment and the next moment brought back again. All that the policeman has to satisfy the justice about is that he needs a further period of time. All he has to say to the justice over the telephone is: "I have not completed my inquiries. I need a further period of time in which to do so". It is going to be extraordinarily difficult—is it not?—in those circumstances for the justice to say anything other than, "All right, you have my approval for doing so". There is the basic period of six hours during which the person can be so detained.
What can happen during those six hours? In order to find out what can happen to the individual in such custody, one has to look at Clause 2(5). It provides:
"Where a person is detained under subsection (1) above, a constable may—

(a) put questions to him in relation to the suspected offence;

(b) exercise the same powers of search as are available following an arrest; and

(c) take fingerprints, palmprints and such other prints and impressions as the constable may, having regard to the circumstances of the suspected offence, consider appropriate:"

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That is what will happen; that is what will be going on during the six hours of limbo, as the noble and learned Lord put it.
One of the most perplexing and difficult questions which people concerned in the criminal procedures of England and Scotland have been considering for very many years is how one can devise some procedure by which what happens when a suspect is in the hands of the police in the secrecy of the police station, whether he has been arrested or whether he is, as we euphemistically put it, "helping police in their inquiries", can be monitored. One of the problems to which the judges of this country have never failed to draw our continuing attention is the fact that many criminal trials are taken up very largely and for long periods of time with a trial within a trial because of the dispute as to what happened in the police station, and what was said and done there.
This clause provides no assistance in the resolution of that particular problem. All kinds of proposals have been made through different quarters as to how what goes on in a police station can be monitored. There has been the suggestion that tape recorders should be used; there has even been the suggestion that video-tape recorders should be used. There has been the suggestion that nothing that takes place in the absence of the accused's solicitor should be given in evidence. There have been suggestions that all the questioning and interrogations should take place in the presence of an independent person such as a justice of the peace.
The worst feature of this particular proposal is that it makes no contribution to lessening the difficulties from which we suffer at the moment; indeed, it exacerbates them. That is perfectly clear when one considers this. The person, while detained in the police station, is detained there in secrecy unless he can take advantage of the provisions of Clause 3. As the noble Earl has explained, that clause says:
" Without prejudice to section 19 or 305 of the 1975 Act (intimation to solicitor following arrest), a person who has been arrested and is in custody in a police station or other premises, or who is being detained in a police station or other premises under section 2 of this Act, shall be entitled to have intimation of his custody or detention and of the place where he is being held sent to a solicitor and to one other person reasonably named by him without delay or,"—
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And here we come to the words which make nonsense of it all—
" or, where some delay is necessary in the interest of the investigation or the prevention of crime or the apprehension of offenders, with no more delay than is so necessary".
Who decides what delay is necessary? The police do. There is no authority which can supervise this procedure. The defence of the individual's right which the noble Earl said was provided by Clause 2(7) is quite empty. It says:
"A person detained under subsection (1) above shall be under no obligation to answer any question other than to give his name and address, and a constable shall so inform him".
What happens when a person is brought into a police station? Who is to say if the constable carries out his duty under the Act? He says to the suspect, "You are not obliged to tell me anything except your name and address. However, I have the right under the statute to ask you any questions I like. If you do not answer my questions, it is provided by law that I shall be able to report that."
Furthermore, it is open to the police constable to say: "You are not obliged to tell me anything except your name and address but you will no doubt bear in mind that I have the power to detain you here for another six hours and it is up to you to decide whether or not you will co-operate. If you are prepared to co-operate you may well be released before the six hours have expired". The evil here is this: you are setting up and introducing into our legal system a system of secret interrogation which is monitored only by the police themselves, and if we were discussing what goes on in totalitarian countries all over the world we should regard that as one of the worst features of such régimes. This is an invitation. Policemen are human beings and this procedure, whereby they can hold a man in secret custody and subject him to whatever interrogation they think fit, is an invitation to what we used to call in the old days "third degree". That is the evil, I would suggest, of a measure of this kind.
My Lords, I must hurry on, because I want briefly to refer to Clause 6. I should like, if I may, to read the relevant parts of it because I think they are self-explanatory. It is proposed that there should be a new section added to the 1975 Act. It says:

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"2A—(1) Subject to subsection (2) below"—
I will refer later to what subsection (2) says—
"an accused on being brought before the sheriff for examination on any charge"—
I understand that to be substantially the same thing as what we call committal proceedings in this country, when information is taken down as to what the charges are and evidence is produced in one form or another in support of those charges)—
"(whether that examination is the first examination or a further examination) may be questioned by the prosecutor in so far as such questioning is directed towards eliciting any explanation, denial, justification or comment which the accused may have as regards—
(a) matters averred in the charge;".
What will happen under that procedure? After the sheriff has listened to the evidence and after the charges have been read out and the evidence has been received, the prosecutor is then entitled to get up and examine the accused man upon any matter "averred in the charges". Is this not an absolutely unprecedented proposal? It means that off the cuff the accused, without legal advice and without knowing in advance what questions the prosecutor will ask, has got to answer the prosecutor's questions. When I say he has got to, there is of course a sanction if he does not, because it is subsequently provided that if he stays silent it will be open at his subsequent trial for the judge or the prosecutor to comment on the fact that he failed to give such an explanation at the time.
I would ask your Lordships to consider a complicated fraud case with 20 counts on the indictment. Under this provision—the noble Earl will correct me if I am wrong—without having to give any previous notice of the questions he intends to ask, the prosecutor can get up after the examination and can then examine the accused upon every count in the indictment. He can ask him where he was two years ago, who he was with, when he made the entry in the book of account, and so on. All these answers will be given off the cuff before he has any opportunity of consulting with a solicitor as to how his defence is going to be presented. All this is written down in a verbatim record and is passed eventually to the jury trial. I do not know that it is
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necessary to say anything further about that.
The noble Earl, in introducing this Bill and speaking about these particular provisions, seemed to suggest that anybody who thought they constituted a departure from long-established traditions in this country and in Scotland was an alarmist or a person of no importance and no account. My Lords, is it alarmist for us to suggest that this is the most grave invasion of the rights of an accused to silence without prejudice to himself that has been made in this House, or in any other place, up to this time?
What it amounts to is this: the prosecutor will be allowed to examine the accused at that stage at such length as he chooses as to what defence the accused is going to put forward eventually and without any prior notice of the questions which the accused will be called upon to answer before, as I say, the accused has had any chance of obtaining legal advice. We are engaged, as the noble Lord said in his peroration, in a discussion of the age-old question of how in a free society you maintain a balance between the authority of the State on the one hand and the central rights of the individual on the other. I take the view that in this country, and indeed in Scotland, we have in the past solved that problem, or attempted to solve it, pretty well; but it is my belief and the belief also, I understand, of my noble friends on these Benches, that Clauses 1 to 6 of this Bill represent a quite unnecessary and quite unacceptable curtailment of those individual rights, and it is a curtailment which can only bring the criminal law and criminal procedures of the realm into disrepute.
4.38 p.m.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, for introducing the Bill in the way he has done. It is a complicated Bill, and my complaint is that it became available in Scotland only on 27th December. That means there have been less than three weeks in which this Bill could be examined. It is supported by eight reports, of which I have only had the opportunity of seeing six: perhaps one can see the others at another time. It is largely drafted by reference and it refers to some 10 other Acts of Parliament. I

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should doubt very much if there is anyone outside the Crown Office who has checked all those references, except perhaps the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, who is capable of checking almost anything, I am sure.
The trouble about a Bill drafted like this is that it is really very difficult to be certain that one can follow what the clauses mean unless one has seen the basis on which they are founded. To give your Lordships one example, Section 54 deals with drunkenness, but it is not clear whether the Scottish Office is in favour of drunkenness or opposed to it. It is not clear whether the penalties for drunkenness are increased or diminished. I assume they are probably increased and I think that is what it says in the Explanatory Memorandum; but that is not part of the Bill itself. I think the time may come—I do not blame the draftsmen—when Acts of Parliament have to be made easier to read. They are not written purely for the benefit of learned judges, advised by learned counsel: they are written so that the public shall understand them and I think that the day may come when the whole basis of drafting has to be changed with that in mind.
What this Bill does show, I think, is the extraordinary complexity which crime has taken on at this present time. For several centuries we have always been able to begin criminal proceedings in 110 days. Now, however, new crimes are getting so complex, so sophisticated, that that is no longer possible.
I have no comments on the appeals procedure and evidence, except that I am very glad that the stated case has been dealt with. At the present time, the position is unsatisfactory and the new arrangements will meet what is really an urgent need. I am also glad that the criteria on appeal from the sheriff have been put on a new basis. I should like to ask one small question on this. I may be wrong, because it is a subject about which I do not know a great deal. It seems to me that the judge's notes on appeal will be handed to the accused. I presume this means that they will be made public—I do not know whether or not that is the intention—and if they are made public will they still be covered by privilege? Otherwise,
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the judges will quite naturally be inhibited in what they say about certain witnesses.
Of course I am delighted, as I think everyone will be, about the provision of some compensation for the victims of crime. I had no idea how difficult this problem was till I glanced at the report on it. It is exceedingly complex, and one wonders whether this proposal will be particularly successful. I hope that compensation for victims will not come to be connected with imprisonment, which is an entirely separate matter. After all, it would defeat the purpose of compensation, if the result was that the committer of the violation was not sent to prison.
Can we not invent some other form of deterrent which would, at least, encourage people to pay for their offences? If I may make a random suggestion, just as we can take away a motorist's licence, why not take away the licence from someone owning a television set, so that he would not be allowed to have a television set until he had paid his fine? For a great many people, that would be quite a punishment.
I hope that the provision about sports grounds will be successful, but I wonder whether it will. As I understand it, most of these stadiums themselves have very large bars. Indeed, someone told me the other day that Arsenal has the biggest bar west of Hong Kong. I do not know whether or not that is true, but I believe it is fairly common practice. Unless those bars are controlled, it does not seem to me that merely preventing people from having alcohol on the way to a match will achieve very much.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, criticised the paragraph on vandalism. He may be right in law, but I should have thought there was a good psychological reason for bringing out the fact that vandalism has become a real threat. Other words, rather vaguely covering the subject, are not really quite so effective.
The report on homicide by Lord Emslie contained the most important point. In paragraph 25, he said:
" In short, in recent years there have been as many persons convicted of murder annually as there were convicted in an average ten year period between 1900 and 1949".

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That is the first half of this century. Ten times as many people are convicted every year as were convicted then. The seriousness of this is, first, that the detection of crime viewed as a percentage is much higher today than it was before the war. Something like 50 per cent. of serious crimes, or at least homicide crimes, are today resolved. Of course, the gross number of unresolved crimes is considerably greater, but the percentage of convictions is very much higher.
Secondly, the standard of living in this country has improved enormously since before the war. One has only to look at the number of motor cars—I believe that more were sold last year than ever before—at the holidays which are available to people, at the houses, at the clothing and at the welfare state generally. Yet the rate of criminal activity continues, with all kinds of new crimes—muggings, kidnappings, skilled assassinations and so on.
I do not know, and I do not think anybody knows, what this is due to. There is a certain dislike of authority. But one must recognise that one of the biggest factors in postwar domestic life is television, and when I looked at television fairly regularly I calculated that we had about four good fights every night. The curious thing is that the hero, the "goodie", the man of virtue was always stronger, cleverer and shot straighter than the other chap. That is not my experience of life, and the implication that the virtuous man should always be stronger could very easily be turned around to say that the strongest man is always virtuous. In fact, there are quite a large number of people, both in this country and outside it, who believe that strength gives you virtue and a right for your action. This is a very dangerous situation and it was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Foot.
It is all very well to argue about rights of freedom and rights against interference—indeed, there is a very interesting examination in Chapter 2 of the second Thomson Report—but there is no greater interference with the liberty of the individual than an assault or a committal of crime. If anyone comes into your house, steals your goods and ties you up, there is nothing quite so interfering to an
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individual. I would say this to the Government. Unless we can take steps to reduce the rising number of crimes, we shall be failing in our duty. Crime is an invasion of the most serious character.
I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, that the rules about arrest should be regulated, should be clarified and should be enforced. That is what matters, and that is what divides a free society from a non-free society. It is one of the matters that we must look at. This is a very important Bill and we have the advantage of having in this House four ex-Secretaries of State and four noble Lords who have worked in the Crown Office. I very much hope that we shall be able to put the Bill into a shape which will be accepted and recognised as a step forward.
4.48 p.m.
Lord WILSON of LANGSIDE: My Lords, I am bound to say that I share some of the concern expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, at the outset of his speech, because this is a difficult Bill on which to make a Second Reading speech, for the simple reason that from its very nature there is no single principle underlying the provisions of this measure. I say that, but of course the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, made an extraordinarily effective Second Reading speech, with that facility and skill in advocacy which he so uniquely commands. If I may say so, I think that we are in the debt of all three Front Bench speakers who introduced and commented on this measure.
Whenever controversy breaks out in relation to matters pertaining to the criminal field, be it law and order, criminal justice legislation or what have you, as that controversy is presented in the media the arguments invariably tend to become polarised. The controversy which there has so far been in Scotland about this measure is no exception to that rule. There is, on the one hand, the school represented by the radical civil rights groups, who see the provisions of Part I of the Bill in particular, as a first step towards a police state—a view with which I gather the noble Lord, Lord Foot, had some sympathy. On the other hand, there is the view represented by those who support what is sometimes the police

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point of view: that the police have to tight crime with one hand tied behind their back; and the hand which ties that hand behind the back of the police is always represented as being the hand of the law and the lawyers. The truth lies far from either of these points of view. I would not say that it lies exactly between the two, but far from either.
One could regard this Bill as the culmination of that chapter of legislation which sought to amend, reform and improve our Scottish system of criminal justice which began in 1949 with the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act. With that in mind, there are two questions which I think the Government have to answer more effectively than they have so far done. The first—which was touched on by the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey—is whether this Bill is really necessary. I ask this question not in the spirit of a carping critic or a petulant "aginner", of whom there are so many in Scotland, but as one seeking enlightenment from the Government. I ask them whether this Bill is really necessary and, secondly, whether it will contribute to the better functioning of our system of criminal justice. I pose those two questions for this reason. If this is the culmination of the chapter which began in 1949, we ought to consider the outcome of our efforts since the war to reform, amend and improve our system of Scottish criminal justice.
There was the 1949 Act to which I have already referred. There was the Prevention of Crime Act 1953, which has some bearing on the situation, even though it is a United Kingdom statute. There was the consolidation of our summary criminal procedure in the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act 1954. Then there was the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1963, the first offenders Act, the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 and the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Act 1971. The last two are not peculiarly criminal justice measures but they have an impact on the field. There was also the measure which introduced into Scotland the power to make community service orders.
What I would invite the House to do—I think it is relevant; I certainly hope it is—is to consider for a moment the change of scene presented in the courts in Scotland as a consequence of all these earlier
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measures. Then we can consider what kind of contribution this measure is likely to make. In the High Court of Justiciary, the Supreme criminal court of Scotland, there were then 13 judges, or it may have been 15. There are now 20.
In the Crown Office in Edinburgh, there was then at the head of the prosecution administration in Scotland the Crown Agent and one legally qualified assistant. Now there is the Crown Agent, plus 10. Then there were four advocate deputes, of whom only one was a senior member of the Bar. Now there are 10, and six of them are senior members of the Bar. In the Scottish Office there was then a mere handful of men and women responsible for the Government side of the administration of criminal justice. Now there must be somewhere in the region of 40 plus.
In the Glasgow Sheriff Court—I use this merely as an illustration of the situation in the sheriff courts throughout the country, because it is typical; Glasgow is the largest and busiest of the courts in the country (and, some say, in Europe)—there were then eight sheriffs. There are now 20. The procurator fiscal in Glasgow conducted all the prosecutions with eight deputes. There is now the procurator fiscal and 47 deputes.
I mention these matters, the relevance of which may not be immediately obvious, because, as I see it, the Bill which is now before the House is the culminating step in the process which was produced by our earlier efforts. The question which I think the Government have now to ask themselves is whether in these circumstances the system is functioning more effectively and more efficiently than it did before we started on this road, and whether the functioning of the system today reflects that full and proper use is being made of those additional resources which have been put at the disposal of the system. I am bound to say that not everyone thinks that the answer to these questions is, Yes. But if the answer is not, Yes, should we not pause and ask whether we ought to continue further along this same road or perhaps consider the need for taking steps in different directions?
The second reason why I ask these two questions derives from my consideration

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of Part I of the Bill. I am bound to confess that my approach to these provisions is a little different, as at present advised, from that of Lord Foot whose expressions of concern I heard with great interest. I am inclined to feel that, if the Government can satisfy us that these powers for the police are necessary, we should let them have them. if there is a reasonable prospect that the police will exercise them sensibly and properly and that they will render more effective the work of the police in preventing crime, I would be inclined to say, let the police have them. But to the extent that they are cosmetic or window dressing—changing names from one thing to another—do not let us waste time upon them.
I do not wholly share the views which I gather were expressed by the Thomson Committee in relation to police powers, so I am probably wrong; this I accept. However, I wondered about this when the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, said that under the 1953 Act the police have no power to stop and search suspected carriers of offensive weapons. I had always thought that Section 1(1) of the 1953 Act gave them such power because subsection (3) provides:
" A constable may arrest without warrant any person whom he has reasonable cause to believe to be committing an offence under subsection (1) of this section, if the constable is not satisfied as to that person's identity or place of residence, or has reasonable cause to believe that it is necessary to arrest him in order to prevent the commission by him of any other offence in the course of committing which an offensive weapon might be used."
If a constable arrests, he is immediately in a position to search. Accordingly, I wonder whether the noble Earl was right when he said—as he did say, I thought—that the police have no power to stop and search suspected carriers.
The EARL of MANSFIELD: My Lords, I wonder whether I may interrupt the noble and learned Lord to repeat what I did say: that unless the police arrest they have no power to search.
Lord WILSON of LANGSIDE: My Lords, I cannot see any problem arising out of that. If they have reasonable cause to believe, why should they not arrest? Surely that is the proper thing to do.
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In conclusion, as regards the powers of the police in Scotland at the moment I find it difficult to believe that they are not adequate. They have extensive powers at common law and under statute to arrest without warrant. Their right to do so is rarely challenged, and I would take some convincing that in this context the Thomson Committee was right. As I have readily conceded, the Thomson Committee are more likely to be right than I am, but I hope the Government will go rather further than they have so far done in convincing this House that the Thomson Committee was right about this before they adopt these proposals. It was of course a very distinguished committee, but I imagine that in history distinguished committees have from time to time been wrong. So I hope that in the debates on the Committee stage, which of course will be the really crucial stage of this Bill, we shall hear less about the Thomson Committee and more about the reasons for the Government's finding it necessary to introduce these very wide and sweeping powers. As I have said, if they can convince us of that, then I think our inclination would be to say we should let the police have them. But to all these matters we shall want very convincing answers.
5.3 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Lang-side who, besides having been a Lord Advocate, after that undertook the reorganisation of the administration of the courts in Scotland in the early 1970s. He is well qualified to take part in the later stages of this Bill and the examination of it which he has urged upon the House. We are singularly fortunate in having the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, to pilot the Bill through and to introduce it in the clear way that he did today. He is familiar with the law in Scotland and also in England. In that respect he follows a tradition set by at least one of his distinguished ancestors.
I feel constrained to make a contribution although I am the first speaker so far who is not a qualified lawyer. I have felt this because there are particular points in the Bill which are the result of initiatives which I took when I was Secretary of State for Scotland between 1970 and 1974.

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I created two of the bodies which have made recommendations upon which clauses are based, including the most controversial part of the Bill, Part I. I leave to others the legal matters and procedure connected with the courts but I recognise that the Government will have been helped by the advice from the Thomson Committee on these matters.
I should like to put to the House some facts and I hope that I shall be forgiven if I produce them from personal experience, because I think it is incidents with which one has been concerned oneself where one knows the facts rather than cases which come to one from hearsay which illuminate matters of this kind. First, I should like to deal with Clause 42, on penalties for murder. The clause embodies the principal recommendations of the Emslie Committee. That was a body created and appointed by me in November 1970 and I am glad that the results of the wisdom and experience of that Committee are now to be put into effect. I am sure all those who know Lord Emslie will be delighted, as I was, with his peerage recently announced in the New Year honours and will welcome him to join our House as soon as that can happen.
I should like to add this. A Secretary of State for Scotland, in the same way as the Home Secretary for England and, I believe, Wales, has the duty to consider individual cases where parole and reduction of sentence arise or are being recommended. Those can be difficult decisions. Often the trial judge from the original trial is no longer alive, or if he is alive, being elderly he is in no condition to remember the particular case should there be any question of consulting him. Therefore I think it would be an improvement, as I understand the Bill proposes, for the judge to make a recommendation at the time of the trial or to state why he is not making such a recommendation. It will certainly help Secretaries of State in the future.
Then I turn to vandalism and the new statutory offence which it is to be made. I understand that cases will be triablƏ summarily. Some commentators in Scotland are contending that this addition is not necessary and, if I did not misunderstand the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, today, he also said that this can be dealt with by existing law. That
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may be so, but I take a rather different view from that taken by the noble and learned Lord and on this I agree with my noble friend Lord Selkirk. The fact that a combination of various enactment s makes vandalism a crime in Scotland is not apparent to many of the kinds of people who in fact commit it. Very often they are youths who are not familiar with the law and who carry out these acts at short notice and thoughtlessly. I assume that the intention of this clause is to make it palpably clear that it is a crime wantonly to destroy property, whether private or public. I am sure examples occur to all of your Lordships, such as public telephones, compartments in railway trains, private cars and house and shop windows. If the making of such diabolical behaviour, a clear, separate and identifiable offence, is likely to reduce its incidence, then I am in favour of it.
Most people will have had personal experience of such things. The worst event that happened to me was when a Mini of mine, parked in darkness in a small Scottish town, was smashed—windows and windscreen—and overturned. The culprits were caught and they pleaded guilty. As I remember it they went to borstal, but of course there was no financial remedy for me because they had no assets. I was not driving the car; it was being driven by my daughter at the time and I am thankful that she and the girl who was with her were not in the car. I think that, if they had been, the attack would probably not have taken place, but one always worries about that eventuality. In fact, it was sheer vandalism. There was no question of there being any identification with me. I was a member of the Cabinet at the time but the culprits had no idea that it was my car and normally a rather old Mini is not associated with Cabinet Ministers.
But that is not the only case. I am afraid that later on yet another Mini of mine was smashed in the park outside Inverness Station. That marred an agreeable expedition so far as I was concerned, because I had gone from Inverness to Edinburgh to perform the formal opening, at the invitation of Mr. Peter Diamond, of the James VI and I exhibition at the Edinburgh Festival. Of course it was most disappointing to me to return by the night sleeper to Inverness and to find that my car and four others had been

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smashed up. I suggest that if the culprits knew, and there was publicity for the fact, that this kind of damage was a crime, it would help. We must make an effort to reduce that kind of thing.
Now I come to public vandalism. I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, was probably thinking in terms of the dilapidated council estate in some city where vandalism occurs but where the housing has already gone downhill. I take an extract from my local newspaper, the Northern Scot, of 22nd December, only a few days ago:
" Hooligans vandalise play area. A wanton act of vandalism may cause Moray District Council to review their policy making play provision for toddlers in their housing schemes. This warning came from the council's recreation department yesterday. It followed the destruction of a Wendy playhouse. The equipment was installed on Tuesday afternoon and was untouched at 8 p.m. that night, but by the following morning it had been ripped off its concrete base and badly damaged".
There is no excuse for that kind of thing, and I do hope that the clause in the Bill and the other parts of it affecting vandalism will cure that disease.
I come to the most controversial clauses, Clauses 1 to 5. I do believe, and I agree with earlier speakers, that they deserve careful examination and changes may well be necessary to improve them. I am aware of the concern in Scotland about them. They propose in particular powers of detention and search. Certain bodies are attempting to oppose the whole Bill simply because of these clauses, and that is ridiculous with a Bill of 80 clauses where it is already clear that a large majority of the technical parts are broadly acceptable. These bodies are, first of all, the Scottish Council for Civil Liberties, and, secondly, the Campaign to Stop the Scottish Criminal Justice Bill. There has been correspondence in the Scottish Press.
It is less easy to take their case seriously when one sees, for example, a letter dated 20th December, when the Bill had only been published the day before, the 19th, and my noble friend has told us that it was not available in Scotland until the 27th. Even less can one consider seriously another letter appearing in the Scotsman on the 18th, the day before the Bill was published, and dated the 12th, a week
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before it was published. That one starts with these words:
" I am deeply disturbed at the astounding lack of publicity towards the Scottish Criminal Justice Bill which, as it stands at present, poses a grave threat to the freedom of the individual if certain clauses in it become law".
It is even referring to particular clauses a week before they were presented to Parliament, and of course clauses can be changed in that last week; I have seen it happen. It does, therefore, cause one not to take that kind of letter very seriously. There are all the signs of a deliberate preparation of objections and letters for those who are prepared to take part in the campaign; there was an attempt at orchestration which was an obvious failure in the case of the letter of 12th December. It is rather like the character from the Dick Emery show, the son who says to his father, "Did I do something wrong, Dad?" The answer is, yes, he sent the letter 10 days too soon in that case.
Now I come to the power of search for the police in certain circumstances. This is a recommendation by the Scottish Council on Crime and this, as my noble friend has reminded your Lordships, was a body which I created when I was Secretary of State in April 1972 to study possible remedies and give advice. I do accept, where search is concerned, that there is a gap in the police powers in Scotland. Where there is strong suspicion that someone is carrying an offensive or lethal weapon the police are not so well placed in Scotland as they are South of the Border. I recognise that we are all concerned with personal freedom, but that includes freedom from being mugged or coshed. It is too easy in Scotland for the criminal who wants ready cash or credit cards, and there are cases every day in Scotland and South of the Border of robbery with violence or thereat of violence. It is an unattractice and dangerous feature of ordinary life at the present day. We all know of incidents.
Why then is there this campaign? I would like to remind your Lordships that searches go on at present. I myself would not mind if I was searched twice a day if it would help in any way to reduce the amount of crime entailing violence or the threat of violence, in particular assaults on women in order to snatch their handbags. But I am searched! I

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am searched on average about four times a week, and this is because my life entails my flying between the airports of Inverness, Glasgow, Edinburgh and London and some others. I have had to submit to this for about five years. In the last five years passengers have submitted with resignation, and I think good grace, to personal frisking and minute examination of their personal luggage. This is an invasion of privacy and it is only recent. It has none the less been accepted by the public, because hijacking has, regrettably, become a hazard that cannot be ignored. So also has the increase in mugging and other forms of robbery with violence. It really is no good the Council for Civil Liberties arguing that members of the public have entered into a contract with the airline and that makes the difference where airports are concerned. The large majority of the travelling public are simply going about their daily business and air is the appropriate form of travel for them. If you live in the Scottish Islands, for example, Lewis or Orkney, it is the only way of travelling at times, certainly during the winter months. Whether it is a housewife, a businessman, an electrician or a farmworker, he or she has to fly. The same applies to other parts of Northern Scotland and the West of Scotland. So to split hairs on theoretical differences between intrusions into personal freedom I believe is nonsense. I suggest to the council that they should spend more of their time in trying to promote freedom from mugging.
I have news for both the council and the Campaign to Stop the Scottish Criminal Justice Bill. In the whole history of aviation there has been no case of hijacking between Inverness and Stornoway; nor in the whole history of aviation has there been a case of hijacking between Glasgow and Inverness, or even between Inverness and London. None the less we all submit willingly to this search. It is not even the police who examine us. I am sure that the security services employed at the airports are trustworthy and efficient, but passengers know nothing about them. For all we know they could have been very recently taken from the local employment exchange and given a few hours' training. In my own case I cause a slight sensation, because I have this metal caliper strapped to one leg, whenever I have to go through
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one of those detector barriers, because I cannot walk without it—I have to be in a wheelchair if it breaks—It makes a sound like a gong, and one or two of the security men who have read the novel The Day of the Jackal, or seen the film, examine the caliper with great interest, because of course it was a metal crutch in which the rifle was disguised in that story.
If doubts about invasion of privacy occur, may I for one serious moment give another example. Travelling from London to Inverness recently, I found a friend who was having a package examined. It contained the ashes of his mother which were being taken for burial or scattering in the home area in the North of Scotland. I went to see whether I could possibly help in case there was any distress arising. In fact, there was no distress, but none the less those ashes were searched in case they contained some lethal object. I give that as an example. We put up with all this because of the fear of hijacking, although it has never happened on any of these flights. Let us therefore accept a minimal degree of inconvenience which is minimal in comparison in order to help ward off the attack upon us with a blunt instrument or a hold-up with a gun.
Then there is the anomaly of the powers that the police already have concerning the protection of birds. The police can search people to see whether they have stolen eggs, because that arises from the legislation. Indeed, in another place I was responsible with others, including the late Lady Tweedsmuir, for putting through legislation which has reached the stage where the police can search for eggs. That is important legislation for us in Northern Scotland. Several pairs of ospreys are neighbours of mine and there are people who want to get the eggs of the peregrine and young peregrine falcons, not overlooking the golden eagle. Therefore, search is unnecessary, but it is an anomaly that a policeman can have that power of search and yet not have the power of search for a lethal weapon. I mention in passing that tomorrow, the 16th, is the centenary of the passing of the first legislation for the protection of birds. I understand that the Post Office is issuing stamps in order to commemorate the occasion.
I turn briefly to the question of detention. This Bill proposes six hours, but the last

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Bill of the Labour Government proposed four hours. Both Governments agreed in principle that there is a gap here which needs to be filled. The police in Scotland can invite someone to visit the police station, but there is no reason why anyone should accept that invitation. A criminal, or an intending criminal, will not do so—he is a person who knows that he does not have to do so. Anyone in your Lordships' House would, of course, go to a police station on invitation and help, but someone with evil intentions would not do so.
I think that this matter needs careful examination because, for example, if someone who is expected home does not arrive for three hours and he is someone of organised methodical habits, and there is no message when he would normally have telephoned and put through a message, it can be extremely worrying, especially if he is elderly or ill. So, the discretion which the police have, not even to inform a member of the family nominated by the person who is being detained, is something that needs to be looked into. I think that I understand the reasons behind this point. For example, if one of the Kray brothers were detained in this way the police would not automatically get in touch with one of the other Kray brothers as the relative to be informed, because clearly that would be in the nature of a "tip-off". I think that this matter needs to be explained in the Committee stage. One often hears the phrase in news items, "A man is assisting the police with inquiries". However, that is invariably in England and Wales, because at present it is difficult for that situation to occur in Scotland.
My last point concerns football hooliganism. I am in favour of measures to reduce it, as your Lordships will know from what I have said in this House on previous occasions. However, I think that some clarification is necessary on Clause 68—clarification of what are the duties of the bus or coach driver who has football enthusiasts with him going to the match. Despite very obvious notices, warnings and visual checks, a situation can arise in which the driver notices that someone is taking a swig. Many of us in Scotland are born with a certain conjuring ability which could be the envy of the
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Magic Circle. We can cause to materialise from nowhere a flask or a shaped half-bottle of spirit. What happens if, on the journey the driver sees somebody produce such a flask which no one knew was on board? Does he have to stop? Does he have to pull in if he is on the motorway? Those are the type of matters which need to be looked into, because the responsibility must he made clear and it must not be too heavy upon someone like the driver.
I should like to say that when I was Secretary of State for Scotland, I found that the police were, on the whole, doing a very good job, often in difficult circumstances. I should like to mention in particular the Inspector of Constabulary in Scotland, Mr. David Gray, who must have been doing that job for at least nine years, because I understand that he is still doing it, and I am sure that he has been helpful to successive Governments. I should also like to mention Sir David McNee who, at the time when I was Secretary of State, was chief constable in Glasgow, and is now head of the Metropolitan Police. It was clear to me that both of them were determined to protect and promote a law-abiding society, and also to root out every shortcoming and corrupt practice that there might be within the police. In later stages we must surely try to strike a balance between protecting the public more effectively than at present, and intruding unnecessarily upon the privacy of a free society.
5.27 p.m.
Lord GIFFORD: My Lords, much of the Bill deals with the powers and the procedures of the Scottish criminal courts, a subject which an English lawyer is supremely ill-fitted to deal with or comment upon. But, Part I deals with the circumstances in which it is permissible for police officers to interfere with the liberty of the individual to go about without restraint. There are no reasons why different standards should apply in one part of the United Kingdom from another. On the contrary, there is every reason why the standards should be the same. What is more, these very questions about the powers of the police are the subject, at this moment, of keen debate in England in the context of the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure.
Considerable research has been undertaken by that Royal Commission into the

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very questions with which the Bill deals, research which I understand was absent from the deliberations of the Thomson Committee and research which bears on questions like the psychological effects of interrogation in police custody and upon the practicability of tape recordings, and which is to be published during the course of this year. In the context of that Royal Commission English chief officers of police are demanding the very kind of powers which are being put into practice for Scotland in this Bill; and many organisations and individuals are engaged on the opposite side of that debate. We await with great interest the outcome of the deliberations of that Commission.
It is most regrettable that there should be no kind of co-ordination between the development of public debate in England and the development of public debate in Scotland. One would wish to see a uniform code emerge with all the material which has been put into this debate in both parts of the United Kingdom being used. But we have the Bill before us, and I suggest that we must look at it within the wider context to which many noble Lords have addressed themselves.
The cry that the police need more powers to deal with criminals is becoming all too familiar. It comes, of course, from the spokesmen and chief officers of police. It is taken up whenever serious crimes are reported by the popular Press, and it is echoed by politicians of both parties, particularly, it would seem, when they are in Government. I suggest that it is a highly dangerous cry. It lulls people into believing that all the disturbing manifestations and problems of social unrest, vandals, football hooligans and others who have grown up as the products of a society rife with unemployment and bad housing, can somehow be put in their place and be made to go away by giving more powers to the police. I hope that I am as much against football hooliganism as any noble Lord, but I do not think that any amount of extra police powers can effect the motivation which leads to such crimes.
I believe that the police already have too much power in our society and that the people have too little control over the police. The police have the powers to gather and to store unlimited quantities
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of information about us on their computers. The police have the powers to set up quasi-military special units with ultra-modern equipment, such as the special patrol group in London. The police have powers, through the use of radio equipment and motor vehicles, to swoop in large numbers at short notice on scenes of trouble and disorder. Our society is being policed less and less by consent and more and more by fear, and I can see no effective channels for the control of abuses.
The trend was very forcefully and fearfully described recently in a lecture by Professor Stuart Hall, part of which was published recently in the Guardian of 5th January. He began his lecture with these words:
" We are now in the middle of a deep and decisive movement towards a more disciplinary and authoritarian kind of society."
It is in that context that we should scrutinise a Bill which seeks to give new powers to the police. When we look at the Bill we find that the very first clause contains a frightening new power: to require, by force, the furnishing of a name and address by anybody, suspect or not, who a policeman believes may have information about an offence. The situation, which has pertained in England and in Scotland up to now, was summed up by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Parker, in the case of Rice v. Connolly in 1966, in these words:
" It seems to me quite clear that though every citizen has a moral duty or, if you like, a social duty to assist the police, there is no legal duty to that effect, and indeed the whole basis of the common law is the right of the individual to refuse to answer questions put to him by persons in authority, and to refuse to accompany those in authority to any particular place, short, of course, of arrest."
When people are witness to some outrage or to some accident, they do help the police. They help the police because they choose to, and not because they are compelled to. To introduce compulsion into the giving of assistance to the police changes the whole relationship between police and public. Its effect on the public is that they no longer feel that they are helping of their own civic goodwill, but are answering some request from authority. The effect upon the police is that instead of asking for assistance, they are able to compel and require assistance. Human nature and the experience of police

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powers tell us that the more powers the police, or anyone else for that matter, have, the more arrogance and high-handedness there will be in the use of those powers.
With regard more specifically to the proposals of Clause 1, there seem to me to be three burning questions. First, in what circumstances may the police require a non-suspect to furnish his name and address? The answer seems to be: in the widest possible circumstances, whenever a constable believes that a person has information; there is not even the requirement for reasonable cause, and it is in relation to any offence at all. Secondly, how will this possibility of detention for verification of name operate? Respectable people who carry bankers' cards or driving licences and suchlike will, of course, be all right, but the rest will no doubt have to hang about until some form of check can be made on some kind of record. No doubt it is envisaged that eventually we shall all be on some kind of record into which the local police station will be wired. It is a short step from there to the requirement that we should all carry identity cards so that we can answer these requests for names and addresses.
Thirdly—and perhaps most pertinently—what use will be made of the information which is thus required? It will no doubt be stored in the police computer. The request can be made of all the people at a public meeting at which a tomato has been thrown; all the people who frequent a club at which some offence has been committed. There is absolutely no safeguard as to what will be done with the records that are thus amassed about the people who are asked these questions. My plea would be to delete Clause 1 from the Bill, at the very least in so far as it affects people who are not suspects.
Then we come to Clause 2, the power of detention for questioning short of an arrest. As the noble Earl said, I am aware that the law of Scotland is different from the law of England; but the information I have been given is that it is not so different, that there are huge areas where there are similar powers of arrest in Engand and in Scotland. Be that as it may, the remedy would be to modify the powers of arrest in Scotland rather than to create
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a new power which, I suggest, is an invitation to the police for abuse, an invitation to gather people in, after an offence has been committed, on a vague suspicion that they may in some way be involved; and thus subject them to the indignities of search and finger-printing and to the hazards of an interrogation, without the slightest safeguard being provided for them.
The safeguard that they are allowed to have a solicitor or relative informed is not a safeguard at all; as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, said, at best it is a courtesy to the relatives, because there is no provision for the solicitor to be present during the questioning once he has been informed. Nor is there any provision for the verification of the questions and answers by the modern method of tape recording, which was recommended by the Thomson Committee and which is now being further researched by the Royal Commission. This omission seems to be a classic example of what happens to official committees. When Governments come to enact legislation, they always leave out the recommendations which protect the individual and put in the recommendations which protect authority, particularly when the protection of the individual leads to the expenditure of money.
I had waited for this debate to consider the question of Clause 6 and its apparent major inroad into the right to silence, thinking that perhaps there was some peculiarity of Scottish criminal procedure which explained why it was being introduced. There seems to be none. I find myself much persuaded by the arguments of my noble and learned friend Lord McCluskey and my noble friend Lord Foot that Clause 6 does, indeed, represent a dangerous departure, again not subject to any of the sort of safeguards which, for instance, pertain in the much more developed continental system of inquisitorial justice, where the answering of questions before a magistrate is part and parcel of a careful system of investigation.
No doubt the Bill will go through, especially as the colleagues in the other place of my Front Brench seem to have sold the pass on so many of the Bill's provisions. It will go through because the powers behind the Government seem to be stronger than the politicians who make tip the Government. There should,

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in the light of today's debate, be introduced some standing order which requires that no measure which has been opposed by the Conservatives and is then introduced by them, and introduced by the Labour Party and then opposed by them, should ever be allowed to go through to the statute book. It would be a defence of the people against the power of those who stand behind the elected Government. But the Bill will not go through before those who oppose it have made the most strenuous efforts to whittle down the powers it contains, to introduce safeguards, and to resist the temptation to say, "Well, it does not really matter because it is only the Scots who are going to suffer". I take the view that human rights must be defended against attack wherever the attack may fall, because it so easily could be our turn next.
5.42 p.m.
Lord TEVIOT: My Lords, normally it is customary in your Lordships' House to pass cursory comment on the speaker who has just spoken. I feel that I need to pause for one or two minutes before I go to the text of my speech. The noble Lord, Lord Gifford, spoke of an almost Utopian situation. He wants to see the police with great powers, and everything else, and the arguments he produced are very credible. But with the nature of the mid-three-quarters of the 20th century, and the awful things that we are surviving, in the main, that situation is not credible. I support a Government which submits proposals to free the individual. Nevertheless, I suggest to my noble friend that he follows the questions that the noble Lord has put to us.
Now I go on to my own speech, which is very short. I shall address my remarks solely to Part V of the Bill, which deals with sporting events, control of alcohol, et cetera, which Part I do not think has been dealt with in great detail so far. For this purpose I am wearing an old hat. Some of your Lordships may know that I was once a bus driver. I fully understand and appreciate the intentions behind these clauses concerned with public transport, but I am worried about certain of the implications and regulations to be imposed on coach operators and drivers. I am aware that some of the ground has already been covered by representations
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made by the Scottish Council of the Confederation of British Road Passenger Transport, but nevertheless there are some matters that need further consideration.
Under Clause 66 the Secretary of State for Scotland will be able to designate
"a sports ground or a class of sports ground; (b) a sporting event, or a class of sporting event, at that ground or at any of that class of ground"
for the purpose of Part V of the Bill, and thereby impose certain controls on alcoholic consumption. Clause 67 of the Bill goes on to penalise persons who are in possession of alcohol on public service vehicles which would convey them to such designated sporting events or grounds.
So far, so good, my Lords. But it is Clause 68, which imposes penalties on coach operators and their employees, or agents, which I should like my noble friend to reconsider. The operator, either by himself or by his employee or agent, may not permit alcohol to be carried on the vehicle. The clause implies that the coach operators may be exonerated from penalties if they are able to prove that they took all the necessary steps to prevent alcohol being carried on this vehicle. But, alas!, the driver is not able to do so presumably unless he can prove that he never received instructions from his employer. But that is a rather dog-in-the-manger situation which I shall only mention at this point but will come back to in Committee.
I am able to talk from personal experience, which is slight in this respect but varied, because for some six years I was employed as a driver and conductor on stage services. In the parliamentary summer recess of 1968 I was employed by three different coach operators to observe driver fatigue under provisions made in the controversial Transport Bill of that year (which became an Act) in the part which concerned drivers' hours. One's function as a driver of that particular vehicle was to transport passengers on behalf of one's employer as well as to act, if one can still use the word, as servant to those people one was actually carrying. It is true to say that while carrying out those duties as a driver one had to see that a certain amount of law and order was observed, in that no one passenger, or passengers, should be allowed to be a nuisance or a disturbance to others.

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But one's real function was to take people where they wanted to go at the appointed time, and above all safely, which meant that one had to keep one's eyes on the road.
Therefore, I submit that it is unfair to place the driver in an intolerable position whereby he is physically or verbally supposed to stop such people carrying alcohol on their persons, for example in a hip flask or other container. I ask, is this driver or his employer supposed to search the passengers' possessions, or to make a search of their clothing before they board the vehicle? Your Lordships will know that it is quite possible for people to secrete a half bottle of whisky at least, or other spirit, in an overcoat, or in a hip flask in their trousers. It would be extremely difficult to make this type of search, and could be classed as an infringement of personal liberty even if it was deemed desirable in this instance. My noble friend Lord Campbell dwelt upon this matter, but I think it was on arms and not quite this position. I must also mention that the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, talked about going to rugger matches, and referred to taking a hip flask for that purpose. I hope he does not travel by public transport. A good driver who has had some experience should be able to maintain a rapport with his passengers, but there could well be circumstances which are entirely beyond his control. When they occur a driver is in a lonely position when an offence turns sour.
Furthermore, I should like to know how operators are to be informed of these designated sporting events. I gather that there are 900 operators in Scotland. For instance, there may be occasions in addition to inter-Scottish traffic when coaches have travelled from England and Wales, and on some occasions for great distances. Are these people supposed to disgorge their alcoholic containers from their persons into Gretna Green litter baskets, or wherever, when they cross the Border?
My Lords, in conclusion, I submit that as these provisions stand they are unworkable, and I would ask my noble friend and the Government to think again. The McElhone Report states in paragraph 39 that the existing law is insufficient to
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control persons who are carried in passenger service vehicles from indulging in unsocial behaviour due to over-consumption of alcohol, and they wish to strengthen the arm of bus operators and drivers who are doing such a good job. That is absolutely right. I wish to further underline that the provisions proposed, for reasons I have already stated, do not do this, but further aggravate what is already a difficult position. After all, the police do have the requisite authority to deal with these situations.
5.50 p.m.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, I apologise for intervening at this stage, not having put my name down to speak, but I shall be very brief because I wish to refer exclusively to Clause 68. Cutting out the legal language, because I am not a lawyer, though I have some understanding of analysis and semantics, this provision simply says that if the holder of a public service vehicle licence permits alcohol to be carried on the vehicle—
" the holder and, as the case may be, the employee or agent shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £200".
That is as clear as sunlight on a beautiful summer morning. But subsection (2) then says:
" Where the holder of a public service vehicle licence is charged with an offence under subsection (1) of this section by reason only of the actions of his employee or agent, it shall be a defence for him to prove that the alcohol was carried on the vehicle without the holder's knowledge and that he exercised all due diligence to prevent such carriage".
In other words, if I own 10 buses in South Wales or Stoke-on-Trent I can easily say I had no idea that any alcohol was being carried on my buses. In other words, there is one law for the owner of the vehicle and another for the poor bus driver. My reasonable question to the excellent Lord Advocate is whether the Transport and General Workers' Union and the bus people were invited to discuss this matter.
In my view this law is unworkable. New Year's Day in Scotland is a wonderful time. Some dear old duck goes to the supermarket and buys three bottles, puts them in her basket and takes them on the bus. Will the anchorage of the law be brought to bear on that poor old lady who is taking liquor home to celebrate

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Old Year's night? If the law is applied, that must be done and that seems to be making a fool of legislation. Or consider the situation when some of us come up from South Wales to a great rugger match at Murrayfield. Those on the bus are travelling with the expectation of seeing an excellent game against the Scots, who may beat us next season anyway. Is there liquor on Welsh buses when we come up from the valleys? What will happen to us when we get to the Border? Is there to be one law for the Welsh and another for the Scots? What about the freedom of the individual?
The more one looks at this provision in depth the sillier it becomes. I say that meaning no insult to the Lord Advocate, but the drafting of this needs much more care. Perhaps the noble and learned Lord will explain Clause 68. Will he, between now and Committee, reconsider the matter and in the meantime give the House some information on the subject? I am happy to support the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, on this matter.
5.53 p.m.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, I too apologise for speaking without first putting my name down, but there are a few points to which I feel I must refer, and the first follows what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek. I live very near the Scottish Border on the English side; differences in the legal system are important to us, and I should like my noble and learned friend to say that the Government are conscious of this.
There has been a certain amount of talk about drinking on buses, but what about drinking on trains? People go to football matches in trains as much as they go in buses. Last year I went to Carlisle railway station on a day when special trains were running through—I contacted British Transport Police because I wanted to see what the problem really was. What I saw was disgusting; broken windows, men lying in the corridors, and as soon as a train stopped at the station the doors were opened and people rushed into the station canteen and from almost every train there were one or two arrests of people trying to grab sandwiches without paying. Will
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this Bill protect us from that? If not, there is room in Committee for provision to protect us from those things.
Secondly, I wish to refer to the stop, search and detain provisions in the Bill, although they are referred to under rather a different name. They have been set out in the Metropolitan Police Acts for a very long time. Most of the country has not had them, although the powers are included in some Private Bills and some of the bigger cities have them. Not long ago I was out at night with a police constable in one of the larger English towns where these provisions do not obtain. I asked the officer, who was in his middle twenties and with some service, whether it made any difference to his feeling of confidence and ability to do his job in a town where these legal powers did not apply as against the city where he had previously done duty. He replied that he did not think it made any difference to him; he thought that when dealing with people on the street there were ample powers in the more general legislation.
I do not often agree with the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, but I did on this one occasion and I am glad to say so. As I think is known, I have spent hundreds of hours, not just occasional evenings, with police on duty in the last few years and I was therefore interested in what was said by the noble Lord opposite about policing by consent and policing by fear. The police themselves in this country are never tired of saying how they police by consent, because otherwise they would not be able to do their job. In fact, there is a mixture of consent and fear in the way they carry out their duties. I am sure that any noble Lord who has been out with even the best intentioned and most reasonable and honourable police constables in the evening will agree with this. From time to time one comes on a group of lads making a row. The constable may say, "I think we should have a few words with them," and when he stops his vehicle a sense of fear on the other side is felt; and I am sure that is general throughout our larger cities. I do not say one can get over it, and I do not even know whether this Bill will make it much worse, but I am sure that at present it is wrong to say that policing is all done by consent because part of

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it must, by the nature of the duty, include an element of fear.
Similarly, it is all wrong to give the impression that the police are accountable for everything. Of course they are accountable to the courts, as we all are, but there is a good deal in any police system which is not accountable and never will be. It is therefore important for us to ensure that we have as good a police force as can be devised. I would not want to exchange ours for any other that I have seen, but that does not disguise the fact—I have said this before—that we should do all we possibly can to revise the weaker points and do what we can to make a good force better.
5.57 p.m.
The LORD ADVOCATE (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, I wish at the outset to express my gratitude to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate for the constructive suggestions they have offered. This Government are deeply and fundamentally committed to the liberty of the individual. It is fundamental to that liberty that the individual should have a reasonable expectation of being free from crime, and the proposals made in the Bill, particularly those in Clauses 1 to 6, are intended to assist in protecting the freedom of the individual against crime.
As noble Lords will appreciate, I am not in a position to talk about the law of England and Wales or to make comparisons between the two systems in any detail. I noticed however that the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, said that from his experience of the criminal courts in Scotland, such powers as are proposed in these clauses—I am thinking particularly of Clauses 1 and 2 and not of Clause 6—were necessary, whereas the noble Lord, Lord Foot, explained that with 45 years of experience in the courts of England and Wales, such powers were not necessary. I do not think Lord McCluskey's experience extends quite to 45 years, but it is certainly very extensive.
Lord FOOT: My Lords, all I was saying was that in the course of my experience in the magistrates' courts of this country I had never come across a case where the police had complained in any way that
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they were not able to fulfil their duties because some person was unwilling to identify himself. That was the limit of the comment I made.
Lord MACKAY of CLASIIFERN: My Lords, that is the point I am seeking to make—that among those with experience of practice there is apparently a difference of opinion about what seems to be necessary. One of the reasons for that may be related to the provisions that apply in England and Wales with regard to arrest. I noted, for example, that the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, suggested that if powers on these lines are necessary, it may be right to consider amending the provisions with regard to powers of arrest. We have tried to consider the matter as best we can in the light of the Thomson Committee Report, which was a very deep and varied consideration of the problem, and we have sought to follow the proposals that they have made in regard to this matter.
The Thomson Committee was set up a considerable time ago by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, who was then Secretary of State, in association with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, who was then the Lord Advocate and we have every confidence that they would choose people of competence and people who represented a very wide spectrum of Scottish life. Indeed, I believe that the people they actually chose demonstrated that we were right, if we had such a judgment.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, suggested that when faced with a problem of this kind one has to consider, first, whether the powers are necessary. My submission to your Lordships is that in the light of both the evidence as canvassed in the Thomson Report and the experience of those who practise in the courts—and here I need go no further than cite what the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, has said—such powers are necessary. Secondly—and this, too, is important—these powers must be adequate. It is no use making a provision which does not properly meet the need that one is setting out to meet. Going only half way towards meeting what is required is inviting continuation of the present trouble, and I would endorse the criterion that the noble and

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learned Lord has set out: that the powers are required to be adequate.
So far as that is concerned, it is interesting to see that all those who gave evidence to the Thomson Committee thought that six hours was a period that could he justified. The Scottish Council of Civil Liberties, who in this matter would, I think, be in favour of reducing such periods to a minimum, while against the principle of having the powers at all—and I want to make that quite clear—thought that if they were to be granted, six hours was a reasonable time. In the light of all the information we have thought that six hours was an appropriate period.
It is also necessary that the powers should be clearly defined. The present situation is not clear, as Thomson found, and as the noble and learned Lord's experience demonstrates, and we are seeking to set out clearly the powers that the police should have in this matter. The purposes of the examination are set out, and of course we shall be glad to consider most carefully any suggestions of noble Lords for improving the way in which the powers are expressed.
Next I should like to mention the question of tape recording; and perhaps this is an appropriate time to say that we must always learn from other experience. Reference has been made to the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure in England and Wales and the work that they are doing. Of course, account will be taken of any information that is forthcoming as the situation develops, and perhaps that explains why today some people do not have the same view as they might have expressed six or eight months ago. So far as tape recording is concerned, the Government's attitude is that this is a matter which requires investigation, and shortly after the Government took office an experiment was set up, at a total cost of £37,000, so far as the actual equipment is concerned to see whether this is practicable. The experiment is being carried out by the Tayside and Central Police Force at Dundee and Falkirk police stations. We will monitor the experiment closely and consider the results very carefully. Of course, it does not follow that it would require legislation to make this practice the norm; that could be done by administrative action if
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the tape recording procedure proves to be practicable.
May I now turn to the matter of judicial examination. The situation is that judicial examination has formed part of the law of Scotland for a long time, but probably because of the right of an accused person to give evidence on his own behalf it has not been much used since the turn of the century. The proposals in Clause 6 are intended to revive judicial examination, particularly for the purpose of giving an accused person an opportunity at the earliest possible time to state his position with regard to the matters in issue, as well as to consider any extra-judicial confession alleged to have been made by him.
It is proposed that the procedures should be governed by an Act of Adjournal, and an Act of Adjournal can be changed from time to time in the light of experience. Perhaps some of the criticism of this proposal made by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, is met by the idea that the Act of Adjournal will set out the questions which the prosecution will be allowed to ask. We certainly have it in mind that the form of the judicial examination should be fairly clearly set out, and it is certainly the intention that it should be brief. There is no intention to have a prolonged examination, but rather an examination on reasonably clear lines, which would be fairly brief, and it is intended also to give the accused person an opportunity as soon as possible to state his position on the major matters——
Lord FOOT: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble and learned Lord again, but may I ask him this: If, as he suggests, the object of the new Section 20A of the 1975 Act is to give the accused the opportunity of giving an explanation to the court, why does he not give that explanation in reply to questions from his own advocate? Why is he required to answer the questions of the prosecutor?
Lord GIFFORD: My Lords, can the noble and learned Lord tell us that by the Committee stage your Lordships will be given some details of the questions which it is proposed should be asked at the judicial examination?
Lord MACKAY of CLASHFERN: My Lords, as noble Lords appreciate, the

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intention would be that the actual questions would be formulated in an Act of Adjournal which would be made by the court, but I certainly hope that we shall be able to give noble Lords a fairly clear indication of the type of question that we have in mind the prosecution would ask. The prosecutor would ask it simply because that seems to be the most convenient way in which the matter should be handled. The court would be in charge of the proceedings and at that stage the accused person would be entitled to legal representation, but of couse he might not desire to avail himself of it.
Lord McCLUSKEY: My Lords, this is an important matter, and if the Lord Advocate will forgive me for intervening, I should like to ask him to address himself to the question I asked. In particular, are we to be allowed to see the Act of Adjournal? As he knows, under the 1975 Act, the Act of Adjournal to be prescribed to deal with this matter is to be prepared by the judges. It does not require the consent of the Secretary of State; it does not require to be seen by either House of Parliament. But will the House in fact see the Act of Adjournal? Before we conclude our deliberations on this Part of the Bill shall we be allowed to see the Act of Adjournal in draft? In other words, before we pass this measure shall we know what questions are to be allowed to be asked?
Lord MACKAY of CLASHFERN: My Lords, I can certainly bring before your Lordships what I envisage the Act of Adjournal will be dealing with, and perhaps your Lordships will feel that one way of handling the matter would be to circumscribe the power which the court would have in the Act of Adjournal. That would be one way of dealing with the matter, if it commended itself to your Lordships. But in this area I think it is important to retain flexibility, and that is the reason why it was thought best to have this matter in an Act of Adjournal, the court holding the balance and being able to adjust that balance in the light of experience. As I said at the beginning, these are matters in which all of us learn. I do not think anybody has a reasonable claim to the fountain of all knowledge on these matters. We learn;
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and, in the light of that learning, I think this procedure could be improved.
My Lords, those are the main matters with which I should like to deal with regard to this Part of the Bill. Some suggestions have been made that the powers to stop people and search for offensive weapons already exist; for example, that if Clause 2 is enacted the later power is not required. Surely this goes against the idea that one wants to affect the liberty of people as little as possible. If simply stopping them and searching them quickly on the street is sufficient, why have to take them to a police station, why have to arrest them? This is the purpose of this clause, to make it possible to search without going any further, and I would respectfully suggest that that is an improvement. To give the police a range of powers, none of which they would use unless it was necessary, is in our view the proper way to handle this matter. If they have adequate powers, then the temptation to abuse those powers is thereby greatly reduced. We would also suggest that the power to fingerprint is a very useful one, in that it may lead very quickly to a checking of the situation. A person under suspicion, once you have his fingerprints, may well prove not to be a suspect at all; and the sooner the matter can be checked, the better. So powers such as these are, I would submit, very reasonably given.
My Lords, perhaps I may now go on to mention one or two of the other matters which have been raised in relation to later provisions. So far as the compensation orders are concerned, I gather your Lordships welcome these. My noble friend Lord Selkirk wanted to make it clear that imprisonment would not be associated with these orders, and that the primary way in which they would be enforced would be by civil process. It is provided that civil process, civil diligence, will be available for the enforcement of compensation orders and fines, and in the Bill it is proposed to remove the difficulty. In the present law, if one uses civil diligence then the other method is incompetent, and conversely. We are seekine to remove that so as to make it easier to use civil diligence for the enforcement of these matters.
I now come briefly to Clause 68, which has aroused a certain amount of interest

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in various quarters of the House. The clause applies only in relation to sporting events which are designated by the Secretary of State, and therefore, I think, would not apply to the lady going to the supermarket on New Year's Day to buy something for that day, if the supermarket were open. The clause is founded on making it an offence to permit alcohol to be carried; and the word "permit", as the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, said, seems to be as clear as the sunlight—and I am glad that he finds it so. The confusion arises from subsection (2), and the reason for subsection (2) is that it might be suggested that an employer "permitted" through his employee; in other words, that the employer would be held as permitting something to be done if the employee whom he had put in charge of the vehicle permitted it. The intention of subsection (2) is to give the employer a defence in that situation.
So far as the employee is concerned, however, the employee would be liable only if he permitted the alcohol to be carried, and that would imply not only knowledge on his part but some acquiescence on his part in the carrying of the alcohol. Perhaps I could say that, in the consideration of these matters by the McElhone Committee, both the operators and the trade unions involved were consulted. The Transport and General Workers' Union, I think, were specially referred to, and were consulted at that stage. But here, as with the rest of the Bill, we shall of course be glad to give the most careful consideration to any suggestions for improvement that any noble Lord may have.
My Lords, I now turn briefly to the matter of appeals. The situation with regard to appeals is, I think, regarded as generally acceptable, from what I understand. The noble Lord, Lord McCluskey, suggested that retrial in indictment proceedings is inadvisable. We appreciate, of course, the difficulty in indictment proceedings, but the intention behind this is that this is a possible way for the court to deal with a doubtful case. If a case is doubtful as a result of a previous trial, it may be better to incur the difficulty that there is in a second trial rather than to leave the conviction standing. It is in that narrow sort of case that it seems to me that the court might regard retrial on
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indictment cases as an option they should take.
Lord McCLUSKEY: My Lords, if the Lord Advocate would again forgive me for intervening, he will recall that in one or two cases in Scotland in the last few years there has been a contempt of court by a newspaper or a television broadcasting station which has said something about a trial before it has taken place. In at least one of these cases the High Court, in considering the contempt proceedings, has given an indication to the Lord Advocate of the day that he might not proceed with the trial simply because of the risk of prejudice. Given that the risk of prejudice might prevent a trial from ever taking place in these circumstances, does the Lord Advocate not accept that there is such a risk, a similar risk, in the kind of situation envisaged by the Bill?
Lord MACKAY of CLASHFERN: My Lords, so far as I know, the court in Scotland has never actually prevented a Lord Advocate from proceeding. I think the matter may be the subject of debate in a particular case soon, and therefore I do not propose to say anything more about it than that. But I would suggest that the situation in which you have a very narrow case which causes concern is a very difficult one, and we suggest that one option that should be open to the court (it will take account of all the circumstances in deciding whether or not to adopt it) is to set aside the conviction, allowing the Lord Advocate to re-indict if so advised. Of course, the court would first of all decide whether it should do that, but the Lord Advocate would also have to consider whether, notwithstanding that he was given that right, he should exercise it. I would envisage it being exercised in only very rare circumstances, but we believe it is an advantage to have this power in the court and to leave the court its discretion in deciding whether to use it.
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Selkirk asked a question about the judge's notes. The proposal is that the judge's report should be available to both sides, because it is felt that there is something unfair about the judge's report going straight to the appeal court without the accused person having a right to see it. Therefore, it

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would be available to both sides; but that would in no way, in our view, affect its privilege. It would still be privileged, in the same way as a judge's pronouncement of judgment would be privileged.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I take it that it would be made public then, too?
Lord MACKAY of CLASHFERN: Certainly, if it is referred to in the course of the debate, it would become public, my Lords.
Now, taking account of all these matters, which I am sure will all be carefully considered by your Lordships when we come to the Bill in Committee. I would commend this Bill to the House as being a reasonable measure carefully adjusted to preserve the balance between the individual and the need to prosecute and convict the criminal; and I hope that the House will see its way clear to giving the Bill a Second Reading.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, raised some questions about the resources now available to the Crown. All I can say about that is that they seem to be very necessary. I am doing my best to use them to the best advantage, but the flow of cases we have to deal with differs quite a lot from the flow of cases in the early days to which he referred. Initiatives have been taken to try to reduce the flow by looking at alternatives to prosecution, and a committee under the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, is considering that matter very carefully at the moment.
Lord WILSON of LANGSIDE: My Lords, before the noble and learned Lord sits down, may I ask him to go back to the question of the right of search? I understood him to suggest that the right to search given in particular in relation to the prevention of crime was simpler and therefore should be preferable to the more formal process of arrest. Am I not right in thinking that so far as arrest is concerned the advantage from the individual citizen's point of view is that he has a clear remedy in the event of the arrest being wrongful? Would it not be more difficult to establish a wrong in the event of a casual search by a police constable in the street?
Lord MACKAY of CLASHFERN: My Lords, I would think not. But in any case the wrong would be greater if the citizen had to be arrested and taken to the police station. That would be my view of the matter. I would suggest that, if all that the police wanted to know was whether their suspicion that a man was carrying an offensive weapon was correct and they could search him on the spot and discover one way or the other whether it were true—and, if it were not true, no further proceedings were necessary—that is preferable to having to carry him off to the police station to have all that done. I would suggest that that is a reasonable justification for these proposals.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

ALEXANDRA PARK AND PALACE BILL [H.L.] BANGOR MARKET BILL [H.L.] BRITISH OLIVETTI LIMITED BILL [H.L.] COUNTY OF KENT BILL [H.L.] DERBYSHIRE BILL [H.L.] EAGLE & GLOBE STEEL LIMITED BILL [H.L.] EASTBOURNE HARBOUR BILL [H.L.] EAST SUSSEX BILL [H.L.] FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE(REIGATE) BILL [H.L.] HUMBERSIDE BILL [H.L.] SALVATION ARMY BILL [H.L.] SOUTHERN WATER AUTHORITY BILL [H.L.]
Presented, and read 1a
  DETAINEES AND TEMPORARY ADMISSIONS AT HEATHROW
  DETAINEES AND TEMPORARY ADMISSIONS AT HEATHROW
  ENTRY CLEARANCE: APPEALS AGAINST REFUSAL
  ENTRY CLEARANCE: APPEALS AGAINST REFUSAL
  ENTRY CLEARANCE: WAITING TIMES
  ENTRY CLEARANCE: WAITING TIMES
  ENTRY CLEARANCE APPLICATIONS: INDIA, PAKISTAN AND BANGLADESH
  ENTRY CLEARANCE APPLICATIONS: INDIA, PAKISTAN AND BANGLADESH
  DEPORTATION NOTICES: APPEALS
  DEPORTATION NOTICES: APPEALS
  APPLICATIONS TO REMAIN IN THE COUNTRY: FIANCES OR HUSBANDS
  APPLICATIONS TO REMAIN IN THE COUNTRY: FIANCES OR HUSBANDS
  APPLICATIONS FOR ASYLUM: LATIN AMERICA
  APPLICATIONS FOR ASYLUM: LATIN AMERICA
  CANNABIS: CONVICTIONS
  CANNABIS: CONVICTIONS
  VITAMIN D DEFICIENCIES IN ASIAN COMMUNITIES
  VITAMIN D DEFICIENCIES IN ASIAN COMMUNITIES
  N.H.S.: COST OF SPECTACLE FRAMES AND LENSES
  N.H.S.: COST OF SPECTACLE FRAMES AND LENSES
  WORKING PARTY ON FORTIFICATION OF FOOD WITH VITAMIN D
  WORKING PARTY ON FORTIFICATION OF FOOD WITH VITAMIN D
  POLICE RECRUITS: EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS
  POLICE RECRUITS: EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS
  SHOTGUN CERTIFICATES: CONVICTION STATISTICS
  SHOTGUN CERTIFICATES: CONVICTION STATISTICS
  JUBILEE HALL AND THE PIAZZA, COVENT GARDEN
  JUBILEE HALL AND THE PIAZZA, COVENT GARDEN
  THE PALACE OF WESTMINSTER: HEATING
  THE PALACE OF WESTMINSTER: HEATING
  PRESSURISED WATER REACTORS: SAFETY DOCUMENTS
  PRESSURISED WATER REACTORS: SAFETY DOCUMENTS
  WEAPONS SYSTEMS PROJECTS OF U.K. ORIGIN
  WEAPONS SYSTEMS PROJECTS OF U.K. ORIGIN
  BEECH BARK DISEASE
  BEECH BARK DISEASE
  CROW POPULATION
  CROW POPULATION
  GREATER LONDON: NON-WHITE POPULATION
  GREATER LONDON: NON-WHITE POPULATION
  THE CHILDREN ACT 1975
  THE CHILDREN ACT 1975
  SOUTHERN RHODESIA: U.K. ADVISERS
  SOUTHERN RHODESIA: U.K. ADVISERS
  EEC NATIONAL ASSEMBLIES: FACILITIES FOR VISITING MEPs
  EEC NATIONAL ASSEMBLIES: FACILITIES FOR VISITING MEPs
  QUOTA VOUCHERS AND U.K. PASSPORT HOLDERS
  QUOTA VOUCHERS AND U.K. PASSPORT HOLDERS
  DIESEL ENGINES AND FUEL. ECONOMY
  DIESEL ENGINES AND FUEL. ECONOMY
  SUITS: FOREIGN IMPORTS
  SUITS: FOREIGN IMPORTS