Sitting of 21 July 1980

Preamble
The House met at half-past
Two o'clock

Preamble
PRAYERS
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
EASTBOURNE HARBOUR BILL [Lords]
Salvation Army Bill [Lords]
As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
Mr. Speaker: I have been asking Ministers to answer one supplementary question only, and hon. Members to ask one supplementary question only when they are called.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  ENERGY

    Coal Industry
    1. Mr. Hardy 1. Mr. Hardy asked the Secretary of State for Energy what action is being taken to increase production of coal in
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    the United Kingdom in the light of the Venice agreement.
    Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he has any plans further to increase capital investment in the coal industry.
    Mr Edwin Wainwrightasked the Secretary of State for Energy what effect the recent Venice summit agreement to double coal production by 1990 will have on the future of the British coal mining industry; and if he will make a statement.
    The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. David Howell): The Government's strategy for coal, as embodied in the Coal Industry Bill now before the House, provides for record levels of capital investment in coal and will give the National Coal Board opportunities to expand production provided that the extra coal can be sold at a competitive price. That strategy, which is a continuation of measures adopted by successive Administrations of both parties, is in entire accord with the declaration of the Venice summit.
    Mr. Hardy: Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Venice summit commitment was not restricted to the North American continent? Even at this late stage, will he consider the inflexible time scale contained in the Coal Industry Bill to ensure that the coal industry

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    can maintain research into the use of coal and mining technology, as well as maintain investment in new and existing collieries?
    Mr. Howell: On the last point, the coal industry's commitment to research is well up. We wish to see that continue because of the diverse and exciting future for coal and coal products. The Venice summit target was for all seven countries taken together. The reality is that Britain is streets ahead of most of the other seven, both in coal use and in the proportion of coal in total electricity generation. The pressure from the Venice summit communique was intended for the other countries, to bring them up to the British standards of coal production and coal use. There is no doubt that the greater scope for production increase will be in the United States. If that is achieved, the general effect, combined with our plans for the industry, will be to increase coal production over the coming years to about double the present levels.
    Mr. Roberts: Does the Minister accept that there is real disappointment in the coalfields about the Government's response to the Venice agreement? Does he agree that, if we are to reach the coal production targets that have been discussed, there is need for an even greater drive in our coalfields and a speeding up of development in areas such as those in my constituency, where developments have been proposed? Is he aware that there is a growing fear for the first time in that coalfield about what the future will bring?
    Mr. Howell: I know that there is a problem with the Park colliery in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. The Department of the Environment is considering the matter, especially the chlorine content of coal. In general, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is disappointment in the coalfields. It is recognised that massive investment is going into the coal industry and that the potential for the future is great, provided that we stick to present trends of higher productivity, lower absenteeism, better output per man-shift and, above all, competitive pricing for our coal.
    Mr. Wainwright: Does the Minister agree that Governments may come and go but the coal mining industry will continue for a long time? Does
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    he realise that the financial restriction placed upon the industry will neither benefit its long-term prospects nor create a viable industry? Will he bear in mind the fact that it is better for the Government to look for more co-operation and less confrontation with the trade union movement to ensure that the industry grows and becomes competitive with other nations?
    Mr. Howell: Much depends on the meaning of the word "restriction". When I think of the external financing limit on the coal industry this year of more than £ 800 million, the £ 500 million in operational grants over the next three years, the £ 600 million a year, at 1979 prices, investment in the industry and the fact that social grants will continue after 1983-84, I find it difficult to square that with the concept of restriction.
    Mr. John H. Osborn: Is my right hon. Friend aware that coal could be a source of employment for South Yorkshire? He referred to the sale of coal at competitive prices. Is he aware that utilities in the Community—a possible export market—are shopping around for the cheapest coal available from insecure economic sources? What discussions has he had on an agreed price for coal for the future?
    Mr. Howell: I am not sure about all the innuendoes in my hon. Friend's question. If he is talking about the expansion of coal trade and the coal needs, say, of West Germany, I can tell him that the Bonn Government recently decided on a 15-year plan for a vast increase in long-term coal contracts from wherever they can obtain the coal. There is no doubt that they will seek coal from wherever it is competitively priced. I would be proud, as would the coal industry, if Britain were able to compete in those markets in the future.
    Mr. Eadie: Will the right hon. Gentleman for a moment drop his party dogma and think about the interests of energy provision for the nation? Is he aware that he cannot expect his answers to be accepted by the House when he persists in legislating to extinguish grants to the NCB in 1983-84? Is he aware that such persistence means pit closures and a consequent reduction in coal production? Does he accept that that is not the basis on which the Venice communique was

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    signed? Why do the Government pursue a doctrinaire policy that will lead to restriction in production?
    Mr. Howell: The hon. Gentleman has it wrong. He is experienced in the coal industry and its administration. He is on record as saying that it would be better if the coal industry could continue in profitability without operating grants. That is our aim over the next three years. The hon. Gentleman is mistaken in believing that we are imposing a straitjacket. There is plenty of provision for grants in the £ 500 million of which I have spoken. There is plenty of provision for new investment. I do not see this as a straitjacket. I recognise that the hon. Gentleman has the interests of the coal industry at heart, but in this case he is wrong.
    Several Hon.Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall call one more hon. Member from each side.
    Mr. Adley: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that productivity has gone up since the Chancellor of the Exchequer reduced direct taxes in the last Budget? If that is so, should we not encourage that pattern?
    Mr. Howell: I confirm that productivity in the coal industry is rising. I hope that it continues to do so.
    Mr. Albert Roberts: Is the Minister aware that in the near future we shall require production of 200 million tonnes a year? If we are to achieve that target, will not a terrific amount of good will be required in the industry? What steps is he taking to ensure that the good will that exists is maintained and increased?
    Mr. Howell: I am not sure about the hon. Gentleman's precise target figures. We need an expansion of coal production at competitive prices. I believe that we can achieve that. Good will in the industry, high productivity and big investment in existing faces and for opening up new pits are required. I believe that we can do no better for our coal industry than to ensure that it has the investment, the new equipment and mining machinery to provide the coal for tomorrow under better conditions than have obtained in the industry in the past.
    Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. This matter comes up again shortly.

    Electricity Supply Industry
    Mr. Stoddartasked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he plans to bring forward legislation concerning the reorganisation of the electricity supply industry.
    Mr. David Howell: I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave on Monday 14 July.
    Mr. Stoddart: Yes, I noticed that reply and the fact that the right hon. Gentleman seems to agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) about the need to retain area boards and area board chairmen. Does the right hon. Gentleman's announcement mean the end of the concept of power boards and that he has ended his search for private capital in the electricity supply industry?
    Mr. Howell: About 17 per cent. of electricity is already generated by private means in the industry. My announcement on 14 July confirms that we believe that substantial improvements in the structure of electricity supply can be achieved within the existing statutory framework.
    Mr. Viggers: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is no popular demand for reorganisation of the electricity supply industry? Does he agree that the best idea is to let sleeping Plowdens lie?
    Mr. Howell: I appreciate what my hon. Friend says. There is no need for an enormous centralising upheaval in the industry. That would be the wrong course. There is need for improvement, but I believe that it can be achieved within the existing statutory framework.
    Mr. Ashton: Is the Minister aware that generally the last Labour Government supported the proposals in the Plow-den report? Is he aware that the reasons included the anomalies in pricing policy, installation of meters and disconnections? Is he aware that to the consumer it seems that the area boards have different policies? For instance, is he aware that in London five times more disconnections take place than in the rest of the country? Will he try to introduce a

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    national standard policy, because the present system is distressing to poor people?
    Mr. Howell: There are some anomalies and some variety. I am not sure that variety is necessarily bad. To compare the LEB with other areas with different problems is a little misleading. The hon. Gentleman reminds us that the previous Labour Government supported the centralising proposals in the Plowden report. We believe that they are out of date and that there is nothing for the consumer in such centralisation. I am not surprised that the last Labour Government took that view, but we take a different view.
    Mr. Rost: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the price of electricity is higher in Britain than in some competitor countries and that it is rising faster than in countries such as France and Germany which have major nuclear programmes? How will my right hon. Friend ensure that there is greater efficiency and competition in the industry so that we can retain our competitive position?
    Mr. Howell: Efficiency and competive-ness in the industry are important goals. That is one of the reasons why the present operations of the CEGB have been referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission under the new Competition Act—which was not possible before. Reference has been made to comparative prices, particularly for heavy energy-using industries. There is a danger in making snapshot comparisons when all over Europe contract prices are being revised upwards. We keep a close watch on this. I share my hon. Friend's concern to ensure that we have a highly efficient and competitive industry drawing on efficiently priced fuels and with efficient operations so that it gives good service to the customer.
    Mr. Arthur Lewis: On the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton), is the Minister aware that in some areas there are many immigrants who cannot read or write English and who receive no notice that their electricity supplies are to be cut off? Will he ask the boards to notify the local social security department before they cut off a supply? If
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    he does not do that, is he aware that many old people might die in winter through lack of heat? Will he ask the boards to notify the social security departments before they take action?
    Mr. Howell: As the hon. Gentleman knows, because he has taken a close interest in the matter, the code of practice has been reviewed. I take note of what he said. I shall see whether the provisions can be improved so that the problems he described are minimised.

    Fuel Prices
    Mr. Hal Miller3. Mr. Hal Miller asked the Secretary of State for Energy to what extent fuel prices are subsidised in the European Economic Community; and what representations he has made to the Council of Ministers on the matter.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Norman Lament): The principle of economic pricing of energy was endorsed by all member States in the Energy Council of Ministers on 13 May. I do not have full details of the extent to which fuel prices may be subsidised in other member States. We are, however, continuing to stress on all occasions the importance of implementing this principle.
    Mr. Miller: In the light of the information that I have given to the Department about the extent of the subsidy for gas and coking coal, is my hon. Friend aware of the foundry and forging industries' view that either there must be an end to the subsidies, which in some cases amount to 100 per cent., or that there must be some control over the import of products of those industries?
    Mr. Lamont: I understand that my hon. Friend has written to my hon. Friend at the Department about coking coal imports and will be receiving a reply. It is largely a matter of other countries being more competitive and not a question of subsidies.
    Mr. Hardy: Will the Minister confirm that his Department has plenty of information to prove that our energy pricing policy is markedly disadvantageous to British industry? Will he accept that, although we are achieving self-sufficiency, we are also achieving idiocy?
    Mr. Lamont: I do not accept that. Energy costs are a small proportion of the total cost of most industries—usually about 1 or 2 per cent. We are watching carefully the trend in gas and electricity prices in this country and in the EEC to ensure that British industry is not at a disadvantage.
    Mr. Skeet: Is my hon. Friend aware that tomato growers in Holland receive a considerable subsidy for their gas? Will he make representations to see either that that is discontinued or that United Kingdom growers receive a subsidy?
    Mr. Lamont: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has been making representations at the Council of Ministers, and the Commission has been preparing a report on the problem. Proposals are to be put to the Council of Ministers tomorrow.
    Mr. Ashton: What is the Minister's answer to the Chemical Industries Association, which has strongly protested to him that our gas is 7p to 17p per therm dearer than elsewhere and that Belgium and Italy particularly have heavily subsidised gas? Is he aware that our chemical industries on Merseyside and in Manchester, where there is high unemployment, are suffering the most? Has he no comfort to offer them?
    Mr. Lamont: I am meeting representatives of the chemical industry again this week. Average contract prices for gas in the first quarter of this year were 16p per therm, which may not be apparent from some tables that have been published. Renewals and new contracts are running at a higher rate than the average price for the first quarter of this year, but that is also true in other European countries. The hon. Gentleman may have noticed that the Algerian negotiations with France for LNG, which are before transport and storage costs, are opening at 26p per therm, as is the Norwegian-German Gel-senberg deal.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. [Hon. Members: "Good answer."] It may be a good answer, but it is much too long.

    Conservation
    Mr. Watsonasked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he is satisfied with his Department's activities to encourage conservation.
    Mr. Hannamasked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he is satisfied with progress being made in the United Kingdom on energy conservation.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. John Moore): I am satisfied that our energy conservation policy is effective. As part of this policy, and after completing the statutory consultation procedure, I have today laid an order before the House reducing the maximum heating limit in non-domestic buildings to 19 degs. centigrade. This order will come into effect on 1 October, and I estimate that the energy savings resulting from this reduction could be about 1 million tonnes of oil equivalent a year.
    Mr. Watson: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer and for the conservation measures that the Government have taken over the past year, but what attempt is the Department of Energy making to assess the cost effectiveness of conservation measures as against investment in additional generating capacity?
    Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend will be aware, through his membership of the Select Committee on energy, that it has addressed that important question to the Department, and work is being undertaken on that at present.
    Mr. Hannam: As one who was in danger of overheating in Government offices last winter, will my hon. Friend accept that I welcome that reduction in the maximum heating limit? The overall objective is to reduce oil consumption. What are the latest figures on the consumption of petroleum and motor spirit, which in previous months showed signs of increase over last year's figures?
    Mr. Moore: On the latest figures available for the three months from March to May 1980, United Kingdom petroleum usage was down 14-8 per cent. Motor spirit increased in usage by over 6 per cent. for the first quarter. Happily, for the past three months it is up by only 0-3 per cent., which is almost no increase.
    Mr. Palmer: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I had a most unsatisfactory answer from the Department of Energy

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    about the energy saving in absolute and percentage terms in each Government Department? Will he accept that the Department refused to give me the figures and that I was given only an overall figure of 3 per cent.? Is that lack of information fair to the House?
    Mr. Moore: The answer came from me, and I trust that I would not give an unsatisfactory answer to any hon. Member. The figures were based on usage by the Property Services Agency, which controls most energy usage in the Government sector, and the Ministry of Defence. I felt that my answer gave the information that was requested.
    Mr. Jessel: Does my hon. Friend accept that double glazing to protect people from loss of heat also shuts out aircraft noise and, therefore, brings a double benefit? Can he, therefore, see what can be done, in co-operation with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade?
    Mr. Moore: The House will be aware of my hon. Friend's long and dedicated service to his constituents in regard to aircraft noise. There have been great advances in double glazing, particularly through the promotion of the double glazing industry in the past few years, which will have helped my hon. Friend's constituents in their tribulations.
    Mr. Hooley: Is the Minister aware that it is universally recognised that investment in fuel efficiency is of far greater economic value than investment in new capacity? Why, therefore, are the Government proceeding with a lunatic programme of £ 25 billion investment in nuclear power stations?
    Mr. Moore: Moderation in all things is desirable. There are arguments on the demand side and on the supply side. As for demand, we are addressing ourselves to the basic way in which fuel efficiency can be obtained through the intelligent use of the price mechanism.
    Mr. Freud: In view of precedent and the need for Members of Parliament to be an example to the nation, would it not be a good idea for the House of Commons to aim for 5 per cent. less than the maximum heating limit? Will the Minister announce whether that should be fahrenheit or centigrade?
    Mr. Moore: I shall draw that remark to the attention of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, who is responsible for the operation of the heating limits in the House. I am sure that we should all like to see less steam generated in the Palace of Westminster.

    Coal Industry
    Mr. Adleythe Secretary of State for Energy when he intends to meet the National Union of Mineworkers to discuss the future of the coal industry.
    Mr. John Moore: My right hon. Friend and I met the executive committee of the National Union of Mineworkers on 27 June for a comprehensive discussion of the Coal Industry Bill, which embodies the Government's strategy for the development of the coal industry. We agreed that a further meeting could be held if it should be necessary.
    Mr. Adley: Investment means jobs, and in the light of the technological advances in converting coal to oil will my hon. Friend discuss with the National Union of Mineworkers its attitude to the possibility of oil companies investing in coal mining, as appears to happen in other countries, and even perhaps taking on pits that the NCB has to close?
    Mr. Moore: We should first make our coal industry profitable, which is the basis of our coal strategy. A total of £ 800 million is being invested in the coal industry this year. When we have a profitable industry, the NCB and NUM may welcome private investment, and private investors may welcome the opportunity to invest in the coal industry.
    Mr. Allen McKay: When the Minister discussed the future of the industry with the NCB, did he discuss the tonnage requirements per annum up to the year 2000? Will he assure us that he will not stand by and see pits closed for economic reasons rather than because the coal is exhausted?
    Mr. Moore: Targetry was not specifically raised, but there is constant debate on the matter. Decisions on pit closures are for the NCB in consultation with the mining unions, and that will continue to be the practice.
    Sir Anthony Meyer: Since coal has to compete with other sources of fuel and cannot for ever be sheltered from competition, should not the National Union of Mineworkers, whatever its bargaining strength, reflect that exorbitant demands could in the end lead to scarcity of jobs in the industry?
    Mr. Moore: Pay is an issue for the National Coal Board. I endorse entirely what my hon. Friend has said. The expansion of our coal industry throughout the rest of the century should be in areas where it can compete with other fuels. It is in the interests of the miners and of Britain that the coal industry is able to meet its competitors head on in price and other competitive terms.
    Mr. Skinner: Is it not true that more pits were closed in Britain when miners, relative to their pay today, occupied the lowest place in the pay league? Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the argument about miners pricing themselves out of the market therefore does not hold? Will he confirm that the subsidy in Western Germany is about £ 12 a tonne, in France £ 24 a tonne and in Britain £ 1 a tonne? If that angle is considered and if we increase the amount of coal that we use, we shall help to stop the dole queue spiralling upwards towards 2 million.
    Mr. Moore: Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I am addressing myself to the coal industry at present and in future. The industry does not need to fear the dole queues of the past. Unlike the coal industries of continental Europe, it plans for expansion and not stagnation or reduction in size. To that extent, it does not need the long-term subsidy structures of other industries.
    Mr. Eadie: Surely the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is a matter not merely of meeting the mining unions but of listening to what they have to say. Is he aware that there is scant evidence that he listens to the mining unions when he persists in changing the format of the National Coal Board balance sheet to show that the mining industry is in deficit? Does he agree that accountants cannot produce coal? It is miners who produce coal, and if he listens to what the miners and their leaders have to say we shall get more coal.
    Mr. Moore: I would never fail to listen to the unions, the NCB and other members of the coal industry. At the end of the day, the unions will find in the mining areas that the Coal Industry Bill, "Strategy for Coal" and the commitment to a genuine successful future have been greeted positively.

    Electricity Supply Industry
    Mr. Knoxthe Secretary of State for Energy what proportion of the electricity supply in the United Kingdom was coal-generated in the most recent year for which figures are available; and how this compares with the figure for 1974.
    Mr. Norman Lamont: It is estimated that the proportion of electricity supplied by the public supply system in the United Kingdom generated by coal in 1979 was about 71 per cent. For 1974 the comparable figure was about 57 per cent.
    Mr. Knox: Does my hon. Friend agree that these figures represent satisfactory progress? Does he expect a further increase this year in the proportion of coal-generated electricity?
    Mr. Lamont: I cannot say what will happen this year. I agree with my hon. Friend that the figures represent satisfactory progress. At present the CEGB does not have any plans to construct new coal-fired stations, although studies have been undertaken of possible developments at a number of other sites.
    Mr. Gordon Wilson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are reports that the AGR developments at Torness and Heysham are already falling behind schedule? Does he not conclude that it would be better to obtain more generation of electricity from coal rather than nuclear power, where the problems still exist and are manifest?
    Mr. Lamont: We have to do both. We have to have a diversified system. The existing nuclear power stations on the grid system have supplied electricity at extremely competitive prices.
    Mr. John H. Oshorn: I welcome the decision that has been taken on the first major cross-Channel transmission link. What are my hon. Friend's proposals for transporting coal via transmission line to our fellow EEC members?
    Mr. Lament: We have none at present. The cross-Channel link will enable us to use spare capacity on the system.

    Reactor Systems (Licensing)
    Mr. Gummer9. Mr. Gummer asked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he will bring forward legislation to provide for evidence to be taken on the desirability of any reactor system for which application for a site licence is made at the time of the licensing hearing.
    Mr. Norman Lament: I take it that my hon. Friend has in mind the possibility of an application by the CEGB for consent to build a PWR station at Sizewell, in his constituency. I have made it clear that there will be a full and thorough public inquiry on any such application. The principal safety documentation supporting the initial licensing of the station by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate will be prepared with a view to its being made available to the public.
    Mr. Gummer: I thank my hon. Friend for that announcement. Does he agree that it is important that people should feel that they can argue the merits of the system as well as the siting? If we are to have a proper democratic argument, whether it goes against the Government or for the Government, it is important that everyone should feel that the report is based on real evidence that has been arrived at properly.
    Mr. Lamont: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's philosophy. The Government take the view that there must be a full inquiry into any new reactor system and that all the issues must be explored thoroughly.
    Dr. Owen: When does the hon. Gentleman expect such a public inquiry to be held? Will he confirm that there is increasing doubt whether the PWR design will pass even the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate? There is considerable scientific disquiet about the feasibility of running a PWR and a fast breeder reactor design at the same time. Is it not time that the Government reconsidered their decision on the PWR, bearing in mind that it conflicts with many other energy priorities?
    Mr. Lamont: I cannot say anything about the date for an inquiry yet. No application to build a PWR station has
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    yet been received from the CEGB. As regards any conflict and any conflicting demand for manpower resources by the fast reactor as well as the PWR, we are still reviewing fast breeder reactor policy. No decisions have been taken and we do not expect an early announcement.
    Mr. Palmer: If the reference is to the Sizewell site and possibly to putting a pressurised water reactor on that site, would it not be as well if the Government awaited the conclusions of the investigations of the Select Committee on energy into the nuclear power programme?
    Mr. Lamont: I referred to a particular site only because it is in my hon. Friend's constituency and because there has been speculation about it. No decision has been made about any site. We are all awaiting the report of the Select Committee.

    Oil Consumption
    Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Secretary of State for Energy when he now estimates that the United Kingdom will be self-sufficient in the consumption of oil.
    The Minister of State, Department of Energy (Mr. Hamish Gray): A rate of oil production roughly equivalent to net self-sufficiency should be attained towards the end of the year.
    Mr. Janner: What steps are the Government taking to ensure that when that happy day arrives we shall have enough oil for our own use?
    Mr. Gray: The Government do not expect that there will be any danger of not achieving self-sufficiency for our own use through the 1980s. There is constant monitoring and the Government will take whatever action is necessary in due course.
    Mr. Emery: Does my hon. Friend accept that the price of oil is not settled by international competition but fixed by the largest cartel that the world has ever known, one that can control the supply of oil? How long are the Government to follow that cartel's pricing and what steps will they take to try to ensure its break-up so that we can achieve proper competition on international pricing?
    Mr. Gray: I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that it would be wrong

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    for us to under-sell oil from the United Kingdom continental shelf. We have ensured that we have never led the upsurge in oil pricing. We have merely followed it. United Kingdom oil has been sold at a figure comparable to that of similar oils in other parts of the world. We believe this to be the correct policy.
    Mr. Douglas: When will the Minister make a statement on depletion policy so that we shall be able to gauge how long the considerable reserves in the North Sea could be used for the benefit of the United Kingdom economy? Secondly, will he indicate briefly the amount of United Kingdom oil that is now being exported?
    Mr. Gray: My right hon. Friend will make an announcement soon on depletion policy. In 1979 approximately half of the oil produced from the continental shelf—39 million tonnes—was exported. That is continuing throughout 1980.
    Mr. Banks: Does my hon. Friend agree that Britain's continued self-sufficiency in oil will depend largely on conservation measures? Will he, therefore, look at building regulations to ensure that new buildings and grants for the modernisation of old buildings are covered by regulations that ensure that they are properly insulated?
    Mr. Gray: I assure my hon. Friend that those conservation measures are being considered by the Department of Energy and by my colleagues in the Department of the Environment.

    Wave Energy Systems (Government support)
    Mr. Hooleyasked the Secretary of State for Energy what is the current level of support by the Government of the four different wave energy systems now in course of experimentation in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. John Moore: The level of support for wave energy research in this financial year is expected to be about £ 3-5 million. Work in earlier years on the four original devices, together with more recent inventions, has led to the evolution of more cost-effective designs on which future support will be concentrated.
    Mr. Hooley: As there is a massive over-capacity in electrical generating plant and as the CEGB is continually
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    revising down its demand, should we not take this splendid opportunity to invest in this alternative source instead of proceeding with an idiotic nuclear programme?
    Mr. Moore: I have drawn attention to the fact that £ 3-5 million is being invested this year, as opposed to the £ 900,000 that was invested when the programme started in 1977-78. The Government therefore recognise the importance of investing in such an important area.
    Mr. J. Enoch Powell: What proportion of that investment is being laid out in Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Moore: I would hesitate to answer without having been given notice, but I believe that about £ 40,000-plus will go to the project at Queen's university, Belfast. I shall give the right hon. Gentleman details later.
    Mr. Eadie: As the Minister knows that informed opinion holds that research and development in wave energy have good prospects, will he give an assurance that that research and development programme will not suffer because of the Government's constraints on public expenditure?
    Mr. Moore: The hon. Gentleman is right. The potential size of the resource—I stress the word "potential"—relates to 1,000 kilometres of usable coastal waters. At the most, that might create the equivalent of 30 million tonnes of coal. In the long term, it is a potentially viable source of energy. Projects have not been denied because of public expenditure constraints. Obviously, we are concerned about the sensible, wise and rational use of valuable public money.

    Energy Policy
    Mr. Rostasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he is satisfied that the energy policy objectives agreed at the Venice summit can be achieved.
    Mr. John Patten12. Mr. John Patten asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement upon the outcome of the Venice summit in relation to United Kingdom energy policy.
    Mr. David Howell: It will be of major importance to the industrialised world that the commitments undertaken at the

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    Venice summit to reduce dependence on oil are achieved, and I am confident that, with the full co-operation of all concerned, they will be. The United Kingdom has already made substantial progress, and we shall play our full part in meeting the summit's objectives.
    Mr. Patten: Although I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer, will he give an assurance that the Government will regard the nuclear industry and the coal industry as complementary rather than as being in opposition to one another?
    Mr. Howell: That is the correct way of viewing them.
    Mr. Rost: Will not a commitment to less dependence on oil involve much greater effort to ensure that less energy is wasted? Are the Government satisfied that we can play our part as long as we set specific targets for energy conservation—as other Western countries do—with specific programmes and incentives for achieving them?
    Mr. Howell: The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and substantial amounts of energy are being conserved. As regards new methods, such as the combined generation of heat and power, and district heating—in which my hon. Friend has played a leading role and has taken great interest—we are making good progress. Recently, 13 local authorities showed interest in participating in the current Government programme for developing CHP.
    Mr. Foster: Has the Secretary of State had discussions since the Venice summit with the Minister of Transport, to encourage him to find money for the electrification of British Rail and to divert as much freight traffic to the railways as many of our international competitors do?
    Mr. Howell: I have had no specific discussions since the Venice summit, but the Government have been considering electrification. Discussions were held before the Venice summit.
    Mr. Dykes: Does my right hon. Friend believe that a Community oil or energy levy would help the policy objectives of both Venice summits?
    Mr. Howell: I am doubtful about that. It would have a distorting effect
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    on world prices. It would also create grave difficulties in terms of checking what oil and oil products go in and out of the Community. That idea has been put forward by the Community and is being studied. However, I foresee grave difficulties.
    Mr. Benn: Has the Secretary of State agreed to the proposal made by the International Energy Agency, and rejected by the previous Labour Government to lift all restrictions on trade in coal? Secondly, have we agreed to increase our own depletion of North Sea oil in order to help the Community to reduce its dependence on imported oil from the OPEC countries?
    Mr. Howell: The answer to the right hon. Gentleman's second question is "No." I think that I have answered that question before. The position remains as I then described it. There are no restrictions on trade in coal, nor have we discussed any such restrictions. If the right hon. Gentleman has a particular point in mind, perhaps he will take it up with me afterwards. At present, I can think of no such restrictions.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS

    Members' and Strangers' Dining Rooms (Meals)
    Mr. Freudasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what has been the number of meals served in (a) the Members' and (b) the Strangers' Dining Rooms in May and June; how this compares with the numbers for the corresponding months in 1978 and 1979; and if he will make a statement.
    The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas):With permission, I will publish the figures in the Official Report. The total number of meals served depends upon the number of days the House sits, and to some extent on the business of the House. The figures show no significant variation in the average number of meals served each sitting day as between the three years.
    Mr. Freud: As that answer seems to show that while the price of meals has almost doubled consumption has remained static, should not the right hon. Gentleman think about reviewing the

    21
    Government's policies on market forces, or would this cause him to double the price of meals yet again?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: That is an interesting general economic point. I shall leave it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—the other Chancellor—to unwind that conundrum. The figures show that we have pitched prices about right. That enables the Catering Department, of which the hon. Gentleman is a distinguished ornament, to show a reasonable profit. At the same time it enables hon. Members not to starve.
    Mr. Arthur Lewis: As the right hon. Gentleman intends to publish the figures in the Official Report, will he go one step further and include the figures for the Press Gallery and for those who write about exorbitant charges and so on? We should like to know what the press is doing about that.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I understand that the press is not starving either. As part of the exercise, Press Gallery prices have been brought fully into line with those prevailing in other parts of the House. A special £ 1 surcharge has been introduced for guests in the Press Dining Room, so that it is equal shares of misery.
    Following are the figures:
    Total number of meals served (lunches and dinners. Monday—Friday inclusive):

    Month and number of trading days

    Members' Dining Room

    Strangers' Dining Room

    May 1978 (19) …

    2,250

    1,893

    June 1978 (19) …

    1,644

    1,593

    May 1979 (13) …

    1,389

    960

    June 1979 (15) …

    1,941

    1,670

    May 1980 (16) …

    1,985

    1,512

    June 1980 (21) …

    2,458

    2,088

    Strangers' and Press Galleries (Seats)
    Mr. John Huntasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many seats are available in the Strangers' and Press Galleries, respectively.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: There are 157 seats in the Strangers' Gallery and 154 seats in the Upper and Lower Reporters' Galleries.
    Mr. Hunt: As there seems to be no shortage of seats in the Press Gallery, how does my right hon. Friend justify the continuing monopoly that journalists enjoy on the reporting of our proceedings? Is he aware that when he told
    22
    me on 23 June that any relaxation of the rules governing admission to the Strangers' Gallery would result in unofficial reporting, many of us were tempted to retort "So what?" Will he refer this matter to the appropriate Committee as soon as possible?
    Mr, St. John-Stevas: I know that my hon. Friend has not been satisfied with the replies that he has received about unofficial note-taking. As regards the press, there must be a certain number of seats that are not taken up at any given moment. They must be available to the press. I reduced the number of seats allocated to the overseas press at the beginning of the Session. However, my hon. Friend clearly is not satisfied, and I shall ask the appropriate Committee to consider that point. I hope that my hon. Friend will be pacified.
    Mr, Hooley: In the light of the big and proper demand for the public to observe and hear our proceedings, why are 50 or 60 or more seats vacant at Question Time every day? Can we not have a more sensible allocation of tickets to prevent that from happening?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: It is up to individual Members. I have done everything that I can to encourage individual Members who are not using their allocations to surrender their tickets in time for them to be taken up by other Members. That is printed on the tickets.

    Question Time
    Mr. Winnickasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he is satisfied with the current arrangements for Question Time.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: These are matters for the House. Our procedures at Question Time have, however, been the subject of regular review by Committees of the House over past years.
    Mr. Winnick: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the matter of Prime Minister's Question Time? As many hon. Members put down questions which are not answered, is there not a case for considering an extension of 10 or 15 minutes to the time during which the Prime Minister answers questions?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister

    23
    would be delighted to have a further period for answering questions, because she always scores so successfully against the Leader of the Opposition and the various deputies who appear from time to time. We had a report on this matter in 1977. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said that she will be happy to retain questions which are addressed to her, but nearly all the questions addressed to her now are open questions.
    Mr. Marlow: I wonder whether it would be a helpful idea if in future the first three specific questions to the Prime Minister were always asked as a matter of course before going on to the open questions. In that way, if hon. Members wanted to ask the Prime Minister specific questions, the ballot might ensure that they had the ability to do so.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: That is an interesting and characteristically constructive suggestion by my hon. Friend. I shall certainly consider it.
    Mr. Cormack: In view of the interest in the country in the views of the Opposition, could we have a quarter of an hour a month during which the Leader of the Opposition could answer questions from Conservative Members?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: That is another interesting suggestion, and I shall ponder it.

    Scottish Parliamentary Business
    Mr. Canavanasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when he expects to publish the report of the inter-party talks on the arrangement of Scottish parliamentary business.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I hope that it will be possible to make this report available before the House rises for the Summer Recess.
    Mr. Canavan: In view of the indecent haste with which the Government repealed the Scotland Act more than a year ago, why are they taking so long to come out with proposals for dealing with Scottish parliamentary business? If the Government are afraid of genuine devolution for Scotland, will they give more powers to the Scottish Grand Committee, where the membership more accurately reflects
    24
    the way that the people of Scotland voted in the general election?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: The delay has nothing to do with the Government. We have sent out the copies of the report and are awaiting the responses of the participants in the talks. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to be censorious, he should censor the other participants, not the Government's representative.

    Select Committees (Travelling Expenditure)
    Mr. Christopher Priceasked the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, as representing the House of Commons Commission, what conditions on expenditure the Commission lays down for Select Committees travelling within the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Arthur Bottomley: The Commission has recently decided that Select Committees may not incur expenditure for the holding of purely deliberative meetings outside Westminster without the express approval of the Commission. For other visits within the United Kingdom no formal conditions have needed to be imposed by the Commission.
    Mr. Price: I thank my right hon. Friend for that lucid reply. Is he aware that the Select Committee on education, science and arts is grateful for the Commission's recent permission to deliberate outside the Houe of Commons, because there is a danger that Select Committees spend so much time gathering evidence that they have no time to think about it? Is he further aware that this sensible innovation should be allowed to develop and not be stopped by the Commission?
    Mr. Bottomley: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments about the work of the Commission. The amount of money in the Estimates limits the expenditure. It would be unfair if, in the main, we did not ensure that money was spent on enabling Committees to go outside the House only for the purpose of hearing witnesses.
    Mr. Stokes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that some hon. Members are getting concerned about the proliferation and pretensions of some Select Committees and consider that their travelling should be kept to a minimum?
    Mr. Bottomley: If Select Committees are to do their duty—I hope that they can—this will necessarily entail more expenditure.

  GOVERNMENT ECONOMIC POLICY
  Mr. Christopher Priceasked the Paymaster General when next he intends to meet the press in his official capacity to explain Government economic policy.
  The Paymaster General (Mr. Angus Maude): In addition to meetings with individual journalists, I make frequent visits to the regions, where I take every opportunity to meet editors and representatives of the media.
  Mr. Price: How will the Paymaster General justify to the cress tomorrow the figure of 1,800,000 unemployed? When he is next discussing Conservative posters with Saatchi & Saatchi, and if he is to have those posters full of queues of unemployed people, will he arrange to have some genuine unemployed people among them and put himself at the head of the queue?
  Mr. Maude: I never attempt to forecast figures which have not been issued. I have no consultations with Saatchi & Saatchi, which is not a Government agency.
  Sir William Elliott: Does my right hon. Friend agree that Saatchi & Saatchi did not double unemployment in the North-East of England during the time of the Labour Government?
  Mr. Maude: That is absolutely true, and it would apply not only to the North-East.
  Mr. Bagier: Will the right hon. Gentleman be more forthcoming? Whatever the results of Saatchi & Saatchi's propaganda, is it not a fact that tomorrow the highest unemployment figures since the early 1930s will be announced? Will he not give us a preview of what he will tell the press tomorrow?
  Mr. Maude: If I were to do so, I might go back to a statement by the Leader of the Opposition, when unemployment was doubling under the Labour Government, that that was an inevitable result
  26
  of the financial and fiscal policies that they were following.
  Mr. Adley: Is there not ample evidence from the latest opinion poll that my right hon. Friend appears to be doing rather a good job? Does he agree that the people of this country are not as stupid as the Opposition seem to think they are?
  Mr. Maude: That is perfectly true. On the second question, that would clearly be impossible.

  GOVERNMENT PUBLICITY ORGANISATION
  Mr. Canavanasked the Paymaster General whether, pursuant to his previous replies to the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire and the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot)—Official Report, 23 June, columns 26-7—he has placed the appropriate information in the Library.
  Mr. Maude: I placed in the Library last week a copy of the press handout I issued on 25 April 1979, together with a copy of the relevant newspaper article, which, it will be seen, is substantially different from my handout.
  Mr. Canavan: Why has the Paymaster General not complied fully with the request by adding his personal comments about the Government's record on each of the alleged lies told by the Labour Party? As many of those so-called lies have turned out to be bitter truths, such as increased food prices, VAT and prescription charges and the public asset-stripping of BP and British Airways, will the right hon. Gentleman now have the honesty to admit publicly that the Tory Party cheated and lied its way into office?
  Mr. Maude: To some of the cases mentioned by the hon. Gentleman there was no reference whatever in my handout. In none of the cases referred to in my handout have the Government done anything which suggests that what the Opposition said at the time was not a lie.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Telephone Service
  Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will take steps to restore the House of Commons telephone service to the

  27
  efficiency experienced by hon. Members during the past 35 years.
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: By pressing on with the creation of a combined communications centre at the earliest possible moment, the Services Committee is seeking to ensure that the telephone service will regain the standards of efficiency provided in very different circumstances 35 years ago.
  Mr. Lewis: Is the Leader of the House aware that 35 years ago, with the old equipment, telephonists could take three or four messages for each of three or four Members? Now we are told that they can take only one message for one Member. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if the chief executive of my
  28
  local authority asks for the same message to be given to the three Newham Members he is told that he must make three separate calls? Is that saving Government expenditure?
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: The best way to save local authority expenditure would be to make fewer calls. It is impossible for the switchboard operators, with the present equipment, to give the sort of service that we should like them to give. The combined communications centre will have 24 operating positions able to deal with message-taking, inquiry and connecting functions. I hope that the centre will be ready for service in the first half of 1983. Meanwhile, I ask the hon. Gentleman to exercise a little patience in the matter.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS
The Secretary of State for Industry (Sir Keith Joseph): With permission I should like to make a statement on British Telecommunications.
The present rapid growth of telecommunications and of information technology provides immense opportunities for the industries connected with telecommunications. Over the coming years the majority of British households will be affected. Whole new industries and sub-industries and many new jobs will be created.
These developments have been under way for a longer time in the United States and have gathered greater momentum there than here. I am sure that one of the reasons for America's greater success has been the freedom available there to entrepreneurs to develop new services and a wide range of equipment associated with telecommunications. The opportunities and the market are too great to be encompassed by a single organisation, however skilled and however great its resources.
For those reasons, I announced last September that the Government would be reviewing British Telecommunications' present monopolies over the supply of terminal equipment attached to the telecommunications network and over the provision of services to third parties using British Telecommunications' circuits. Following widespread consultation with interested parties, the Government have reached the following conclusions.
First, we are going to make it very much easier for equipment supplied by the private sector, including all private branch exchanges, to be attached to the network. Subject to a transitional period of about three years, there will be freedom to attach and maintain independently approved equipment which meets the necessary technical standards. The only exceptions will be the supply, installation and maintenance of the first telephone and associated wiring connected directly to the main network, and the maintenance of private branch exchanges and associated wiring, for which British Telecommunications will remain responsible. This substantial change will give the business and domestic customer a wider range of equipment from which to choose and should remove many of
30
the bottlenecks resulting from the Post Office's present exclusive privilege of supplying such equipment.
Secondly, we are going to allow people more freedom to use British Telecommunications' circuits to offer services to third parties which are not currently provided by British Telecommunications—for example, in the data processing field. I expect this change to lead to a significant growth in information data, transmission, educational and entertainment services provided over telephone circuits and to the emergence of new businesses. I have also decided to commission an independent economic assessment of the implications of allowing complete liberalisation for what are commonly referred to as value added network services.
Thirdly, I am exploring the scope for allowing the private sector to provide telecommunications transmission services, such as satellite business systems.
Legislation will be introduced next Session which will make provision for relaxing the monopoly. British Telecommunications will be free to compete with the private sector, but to ensure fair competition the Government intend to take powers to require it, where appropriate, to create a separately accounting subsidiary or subsidiaries where it is in competition with the private sector. We shall welcome partnerships with private capital in these subsidiaries.
I hope that the first fruits of these changes will be manifest within a year or so from now and that they can be fully phased in over the next three years. I look forward to seeing at an early stage approved extension telephones on sale in the shops and the private supply of business equipment currently approved by the Post Office, including private branch exchanges, teleprinters and MODEMS. The changes will bring new opportunities and challenges both for British Telecommunications and the telecommunications industry and I hope that both will respond positively to this greater freedom. They will have the opportunity to expand their range of products to compete successfully both at home and in world markets, and I look forward to the associated development of new enterprises and industries.

31
I have today placed in the Libraries of both Houses a memorandum giving fuller details of these proposed changes.
Mr. John Silkin: I note that the Secretary of State has changed his mind since last Wednesday about international comparisons. As he has done so, why has he not taken into account the experience of France and Germany, which have not destroyed the monopoly and each of which is investing twice as much as we are?
The bulk of Post Office investment is self-financing. If that is cut into, as it will be by the loss of more profitable outlets, how will that make any difference to those on the waiting list for a telephone and how will it help those who complain about high telephone charges? Is it not likely to have an entirely different effect?
As regards British manufacturing industry generally, the Post Office has traditionally always bought British. How on earth will the Secretary of State ensure that when he lets in foreign competition it will not destroy yet another industry, in addition to those that he has already destroyed?
Sir K. Joseph: The proposals will not destroy the monopoly. France and Germany are, alas, much more prosperous than we are. My statement does not presage any loss of profitable outlets now being taken by the Post Office. British industry will be given a period of grace during which to prepare for international competition.
Mr. Silkin: Would the Secretary of State like to reconsider his answer? Of course, his proposal is bound to have an effect on British investment. He says that France and Germany are more prosperous than we are. Is he saying that the United States is not more prosperous than we are?
Sir K. Joseph: I repeat that the changes proposed will not, in general, act to reduce British Telecommunications' existing revenue.
Mr. Kenneth Baker: Will my right hon. Friend disregard the rather exaggerated and gloomy atttitude of the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin),
32
because my right hon. Friend's statement preserves the monopoly of the basic network of Post Office lines in this country but allows the opportunity of a partnership between the public and the private sectors to provide ancillary equipment? To the extent that that is done, the capital provided by the private sector will reduce the demand on public sector capital requirements. Will not that provide just the opportunity that the customer requires?
Sir K. Joseph: My hon. Friend puts the case for what I am proposing much better and more vividly than I did.
Mr. Stott: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is a further example of his manic obsession with ripping off profitable enterprises that are publicly owned? Is he further aware that his proposals will be opposed by the Post Office Engineering Union, the members of which work in British Telecommunications? Is he also aware that taxpayers invest about £ 4 million a day in the network and equipment of British Telecommunications? If, as the right hon. Gentleman proposes, the profitable parts of the industry are to be sold off, or private enterprise is to be allowed to use them, how does the right hon. Gentleman consider that the Post Office will be able to generate sufficient finance to maintain the present network?
Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman has not got it right—
Mr. Stott: I worked for British Telecommunications for 13 years.
Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman should therefore be closer to the facts than he apparently is. Mercifully, it is not the taxpayer who is providing £ 4 million a day—if that is the right figure—for British Telecommunications' investment. The investment comes almost entirely from cash flow from the customer, not the taxpayer. The present set of proposals will make no difference to that cash flow. As my hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Baker) correctly said, the proposals will divert some of that towards other purposes which British Telecommunications cannot now serve.
I think that I have dealt with the hon. Gentleman's main point.
Mr. Butcher: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his statement will be received with delight by the British computer industry and British computer users? Is he aware that the number of terminals connected to Post Office lines is expected to quadruple over the next 10 years? Will he closely monitor the performance of British Telecommunications in checking type approvals for new devices to be released to the market?
Sir K. Joseph: It is not proposed that British Telecommunications shall have the decision about what to allow into the market. It is proposed that there shall be an independent certifying authority for apparatus, an authority that will protect the integrity of the network.
Mr. Golding: Is the Secretary of State aware that the Post Office Engineering Union believes that the proposals will be damaging to the customer, staff and the economy alike and that by creaming off profit and by allowing private outside contractors to take the pick of the businesss they will inevitably lead to slow expansion and modernisation and may also lead to a worse maintenance service and to higher prices?
Sir K. Joseph: I do not wish to associate the Post Office Engineering Union with any of the decisions that the Government have reached. Therefore, I do not want to damage it by what I shall say, but my hon. Friend the Minister of State and I have had what we regard as very helpful discussions with the union in arriving at our policy. I repeat that I am not associating it with any of the decisions made. We propose to continue consultations with the union and with other interests during the preparation of legislation.
Mr. Neale: Is my right hon. Friend aware how much his statement will be welcomed by the private telephone industry, particularly in that he has at last set Buzby free? Will he confirm that while the Post Office will be free to compete for the fitting of equipment to the system it will not be permitted to cross-subsidise between the tariff rates that it charges on the network and the rates that it charges for its equipment that it fits? Secondly, will my right hon. Friend accept that the present standards laid
34
down by the Post Office for fittings addressed to the system are too high and that it is time a regulatory body was established, jointly representing the Post Office and the industry, to lay down what the new lower minimum standards for that equipment should be?
Sir K. Joseph: British Telecommunications will need to account separately for the subsidiaries in which it is competing with the private sector. We intend that precisely to avoid cross-subsidisation, although the Post Office Engineering Union will be sure to say that the private sector is itself to some extent, subject to the requirement that it remains profitable, free to cross-subsidise itself.
I do not accept my hon. Friend's assumption that standards are necessarily too high. The problem with the monopoly so far has above all been that in requiring apparatus tailored minutely to British needs it has inhibited the supply of goods for a world market. I hope, therefore, that the independent certificating authority will both serve British interests and free suppliers to serve a world market.
Mr. Charles R. Morris: Is the Secretary of State aware that many will see his statement today, which envisages opening up the British telecommunications equipment manufacturing monopoly to foreign competition, as a contradiction to the "Buy British", "Buy the Flag" campaign being vigorously promoted by other Government Departments and the Daily Express? How long does the right hon. Gentleman envisage it will be before the British monopoly is replaced by the American or Japanese monopoly?
Sir K. Joseph: I am not responsible for the Daily Express, as the right hon. Gentleman knows. The British manufacturers have, to a large extent through the influence of the Post Office, been discouraged from the world market. We seek to give them opportunities in the world market, but we shall open up our own market to overseas competition only to the extent that overseas markets are opened up to us.
Mr. Cormack: As more and more people will depend on the telecommunications system for more and more ordinary, everyday information, is it not

35
vital that there should not be a monopoly? Would not there be sinister implications if there were?
Sir K. Joseph: I believe that the whole House will agree that a combination of a monopoly for the network and private enterprise and partnership for all the services that can be provided, either added on to the monopoly or in parallel with it, makes good sense.
Mr. Penhaligon: Will the Secretary of State confirm that he has rejected the idea of ending the monopoly over the network for all time?
Sir K. Joseph: The answer is an unqualified "No". I have not rejected any such proposition. In fact, I have announced in my' statement today that we are setting up an inquiry to see how much further we can go in liberalising the use of the monopoly.
Mr. Sainsbury: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that without the opportunities given by the arrangements that he has outlined the British telecommunications industry would be very unlikely to have a large enough or varied enough home base to enable it to export into a market that is bound to be one of the most rapidly growing in the world?
Sir K. Joseph: Yes, Sir. We are dealing with industries that are expanding explosively wherever freedom from monopoly has been achieved, as in America.
Mr. Harry Ewing: How will the Secretary of State ensure that there is the fair competition that his statement speaks of between British Telecommunications and the private sector? Is he saying that he will now remove the cash limits from the Post Office in order to allow it to compete fairly with the private sector? Does he accept that, if he is not saying that, competition cannot possibly be fair under the terms that he has just announced?
Secondly, will the private sector have an unqualified right of access to the network, or will British Telecommunications have the right to refuse the private sector the right to use the network that has been provided by the taxpayer?
Sir K. Joseph: First, it is the private sector that will fear unfair competition from British Telecommunications. Secondly, we shall very much encourage access
36
to private capital by means of partnerships between British Telecommunications and the private sector. Thirdly, access to the network will depend not upon British Telecommunications but upon an independent certificating authority.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call those hon. Members who have been rising since the statement was made.
Mr. Gordon Wilson: Will the Secretary of State bear in mind, when he advances the arguments of the benefits of expansion into the world market, that the same arguments were advanced at the time of our entry into the EEC? What estimates has his Department made of the likely impact of import penetration now that the exclusive domestic market is to go?
Sir K. Joseph: Perhaps I should repeat that we shall phase in the liberalisation of our market and open it up only to firms from such countries as open up their home markets to our suppliers.
Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: As my right hon. Friend's announcement heralds a great expansion, particularly in the number of terminals that will be available, does he not agree that that warrants, and, indeed, demands, an examination of the law of privacy in relation to computers and particularly the information stored about individuals?
Sir K. Joseph: I am sure that that was important before the statement, but its importance is certainly not diminished by the statement.
Mr. Faulds: Does the right hon. Gentleman remember the havoc that he created in his reorganisation of the Health Service? Does he realise that he is now wrecking industry throughout the country with this ideological commitment of his? Does he not realise that his statements today and last week are simply a pursuit of his ideological obsession with damaging various aspects of British industry?
Sir K. Joseph: No.
Mr. Michael Morris: Is the Secretary of State aware how welcome his statement is today to the consumer, both business and domestic? In bringing forward

37
these proposals, will he first have consultations with the manufacturers of equipment and connectors to secure the time span that is necessary to readjust to the new competitive climate?
Secondly, will the Secretary of State say a word about the research work that has been going on, for instance, into the reading of water rates via the telephone, and ensure that this work does not come to a complete halt?
Sir K. Joseph: We have had some very useful consultations with all interests and will continue to have such consultations, including manufacturing industry. My hon. Friend is right to point to as yet uninvented or only scarcely invented possibilities that emerge in telecommunications, including the one to which he referred.
Mr. McWilliam: Will the Secretary of State expand on his statement about the special accounting arrangements that the Post Office will have to make in the areas where it competes directly with private industry? Can he say that, in equity, he will change the method by which private companies account for their activities? I have in mind a company which, for example, had a defence network contract and therefore subsidised back into its telephone installation work. Can we be sure that cross-subsidisation is not operating against the interests of the public in this area?
Will the Secretary of State also look at the question of value-added networks? Will he spend some time in looking at the recent case which has occurred in America, where a private company is renting lines from Bell and offering trunk calls at two-thirds of the rate at which Bell will give them to certain specific centres? What sort of impact would such an arrangement have on the provision of trunk calls into other rural areas, which do not attract this kind of traffic?
Sir K. Joseph: All that we are proposing for accountancy is that British Telecommunications, where it competes with the private sector, will conduct its business through a special subsidiary or series of subsidiaries whose accounts can be isolated from the accounts of the whole of British Telecommunications so that any cross-subsidising can be observed.
38
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will remember that the private firms have to make a profit in order to survive.
It is precisely because there could be a drastic cutting of trunk call charges, with consequent repercussions on local call charges, that we are not at this stage liberalising the whole of value-added network services but are restricting the liberalisation to services which complement rather than compete with services already provided by British Telecommunications and are initiating an inquiry into the implications of total liberalisation.
Mr. Prescott: The Minister will be aware that Hull's telephone system is uniquely owned by the local authority. His proposals would appear further to limit the income of that telephone exchange at a time when it is denied income from the national STD system, denied access to the key sector development, and squeezed by the present public expenditure cuts. Will he now heed the call of the local authority to review the capital requirements of this telephone exchange system in order to maintain the high standards that have been achieved by the local authority telephone system?
Sir K. Joseph: Hull is unique telephonically and its interests will have to be looked at carefully when we come to legislation.
Mr. loan Evans: In view of the fact that the Post Office, merely on telecommunications, has been making about £ 360 million profit each year, what effect will the announcement have on future profitability? Will British Telecommunications be allowed to manufacture its own equipment in future instead of buying it from various other firms? Will foreign firms be allowed to set up in this country to compete with the Post Office?
Sir K. Joseph: Profit prospects are not damaged by the statement today. Indeed, to the extent that the network should be increasingly used, they ought to be enhanced. British Telecommunications' manufacturing prospects will be about the same as now. I do not anticipate much change in the powers that it has about manufacture. To the extent that foreign competition is given opportunities here, we shall expect that much of it will lead to investment in this country.
Mr. Skinner: How many real jobs will be created as a result of the statement that the Secretary of State has made today?
Secondly, what effective safeguards has the Secretary of State built into the new system to ensure that the entrepreneurs compete effectively and not in the manner in which they did a few years ago when, among others, the chairman of the Tory Party, Lord Thorneycroft, on behalf of Pirelli, took so much money out of the system that £ 9 million had to be handed back?
Sir K. Joseph: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman distinguishes between real jobs and some other sorts of jobs. The number of real jobs, following the statement, that will be provided in due course is unknowable, but I would guess that it is very large indeed, probably in the public sector and certainly in the private sector.
Mr. Les Huckfield: May we bring the Secretary of State back into the real world of the ordinary telephone consumer? Since most delays in getting connected to the telephone system obviously come from a lack of investment, since the proposal that the Secretary of State has announced today will obviously erode the profits of the Post Office system and that investment, and since that will mean longer delays and higher charges to existing customers—apart from those who want to attach weird and new-fangled devices to the telephone system—how will the ordinary Post Office customer benefit? More particularly, how will the Secretary of State's proposals today result in any shortening in the delay in connection to the telephone system?
Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman is wrong in every link of his argument. The statement today will not erode the profit or cash flow of British Telecom-
40
munications. A large sector of users of telephones are gravely disadvantaged by delays—namely, the business community; and the freeing of private supply installation of PABXs of less than 100 lines will liberate the private sector to meet the very large demand for business use.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
Mr. Speaker: By leave of the House, I propose to put together the three motions on the Order Paper.
Ordered,
That the Draft Compulsory Acquisition by Public Authorities (Compensation) (Revocation) Order 1980 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the Draft Companies (Directors' Report) (Employment of Disabled Persons) Regulations 1980 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the Draft Income Tax (Construction Operations) Order 1980 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c—[Mr. St. John-Stevas.]
Question agreed to.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at this day's Sitting, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No.3 (Exempted business), the Motions relating to Members' Salaries and Pensions (Expression of Opinion), Members' Salaries and Pensions, Members' Office, Secretarial and Research Allowance, Members Secretarial Winding-up Allowance and Parliament may be proceeded with, though opposed, until Two o'clock, or for four hours after they have been entered upon, whichever is the later, and that if proceedings on the Motions have not been disposed of by that hour any Amendments to the first Motion, which may have been selected by Mr. Speaker, may be moved, the Questions thereon shall be put forthwith, and Mr. Speaker shall then proceed forthwith to put the Question upon the said Motion and any Questions necessary to dispose of the other Motions and of any Amendments moved thereto which have been selected by him.—[Mr. Cope.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY SUPPLY
[27th Allotted Day]—considered

PUBLIC SECTOR INDUSTRIES
3.59 pm
Dr. David Owen Dr. David Owen (Plymouth, Devon-port): I beg to move,
That this House, recognising the major contribution that publicly owned industries and firms have made and can make to the development of Britain's economic strength and to the retention and expansion of employment, deplores the Government's damaging policies which seek to fetter and reduce public sector activity to the disadvantage of the British people.
This debate is taking place on the eve of an announcement which is expected tomorrow and which will demonstrate the extent to which the Government's policies have already led to the most serious and damaging unemployment figures in this country's history since the 1920s and 1930s. It is, perhaps, one of the most serious situations facing our industry that we have ever debated in this House.
In the previous two debates we dealt in detail with the Government's overall financial mismanagement and with policies for alleviating unemployment. In this debate we wish to concentrate predominantly on the public sector. As everyone knows, the public sector and the private sector interweave. The figures for the second quarter of this year show the highest number of liquidations ever listed in the United Kingdom. The number of bankruptcies grows every day. There is not one hon. Member who is not faced in his or her constituency with an announcement every day about lay-offs, short-time working or closures.
The profitability margin of manufacturing in commercial companies is thought to be down to 2 per cent. this year. The percentage increase in fixed investments in the United Kingdom was 2-8 per cent. down last year, against a rise of 31 per cent. in France and 8-3 per cent. in West Germany. Despite a world economic recession, the United Kingdom is facing not simply a recession but a deepening slump. It is part of the charge against this Government that
42
the situation is far worse in the United Kingdom than in any other Western industrialised country.
The Treasury's index, compiled by accounting for unit labour costs, plus changes in currency levels, shows that the competitive position of British goods has declined by almost 30 per cent. over just one year. Export prices are rising quickly. Manufacturing goods are being priced out of the market. It is the contention of the Opposition that the public sector, properly managed, with a full-hearted commitment from the Government, can make a positive contribution to helping with employment and to easing some of the inflationary pressures that are building up on our industry.
The Government have set out their figures for cutting public spending over the next few years. Those figures critically depend on an extraordinary turn-round in the financial position of the nationalised industries. Such a turn-round has never been achieved before in this country. It is a tall order to expect such a turn-round when the nationalised industries have to face the same problems as private industry—high interest rates, very high if they are borrowing from the National Loan Fund, and high exchange rates—and, with inflation having been doubled within a year, all those extra costs are added to their bills. Most nationalised industries are already operating under extremely tight cash limits. It is a tall order in any circumstances and one which few independent commentators believe will be possible to achieve. Certainly, it is impossible to achieve that turn-round without the most savage increases in prices, further fuelling of inflation and a dramatic cut in investment and in services, all creating further unemployment.
In their expenditure projections, the Government do not give forecasts for individual nationalised industries after 1980-81 but give simply the aggregates for all nationalised industries. The House should be given some idea of the size of the turn-round that is expected. In 1979-80 the Government lent the nationalised industries £ 1,900 million. By 1983-84 they expect £ 553 million in repayments. In 1979-80 the total external financing of the nationalised industries was £ 2,300 million. By 1983-84 they are

43
expected to be contributing £ 400 million to national revenues—a total turn-round of £ 2,700 million. That is dependent on the Government's forecast of a massive upsurge in nationalised industries' profits overall over the next two years to finance that turn-round from their own internal resources. Like so many things that the Government claim, that is no doubt arithmetically achievable, but at what price? In our judgment, it will be achieved at an unacceptable price.
It is not only the Opposition who pour scorn on the Government's strategies. A few weeks ago The Economist said that the nationalised industries
"feel lost in a confusing maze of policy contradictions… There is more than a touch of soap opera about the continuing story of this Conservative Government and its nationalised industries."
Soap opera indeed, but this is not entertainment. This is a tragedy, a social and human tragedy, with unemployment on a massive scale. In British Steel we have already seen the prospect of over 50,000 jobs being lost. In shipbuilding about 10,000 jobs will be lost. Soon unemployment will be felt in many more of the nationalised industries and the private sector industries that are dependent on Government support.
What is more, standards of service will fall. We have now had another miserable statement from the Secretary of State for Industry on monopoly in the telecommunications industry, coupled with a statement on monopoly in the Post Office. Does the right hon. Gentleman have any understanding of what public service is about? We have virtually reached the stage when to talk about public services is to indulge in an attack on what public service is all about. It is a fundamental part of the country's economic health that there should be a mixed economy. The monopoly that the Government attack so frequently is a feature of most other Western mixed economies, such as those of France and West Germany. It is a striking feature that, in practically all the industries that we are likely to discuss in this debate, our main Western industrialised competitors do not have an attitude of spite to the public sector. They support it, they
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invest in it and, when they feel it is strategically necessary, they subsidise it.
The issue that is now before the House is whether Conservative Members even believe in a mixed economy. They seem to be able to extol only the merits of the private sector, and they are now claiming that the private sector is laid out on its back. Having witnessed what the Government have done to the steel industry, we fear the same sequence of events in many other industries. In retrospect, the steel industry has been a tragic example of mishandling and incompetence. No one can look back over the events of the last year and believe that what was conducted in the name of the Government was anything other than a shambles of industrial policy.
Sir Monty Finniston described the rundown of the steel industry as "ridiculous". Criticising those who said that capacity must be slashed because of the world recession, he said:
"Where is this recession? Last year the world produced 800 million tonnes of steel, the largest amount in the history of mankind. The Japanese produce 120 million tonnes a year. Are they cutting back capacity to 80 million tonnes? They export 40 million tonnes against our total planned capacity of 15 million tonnes."
Now there is some question whether we shall be able to hold to 15 million tonnes. Sir Monty Finniston put it down to marketing. [Interruption.] If Conservative Members think that this is funny, they should go to some of the areas facing unemployment in the steel industry. It is a great shame that the Secretary of State for Wales cannot be present. He is responsible for the present situation in South Wales, where not only the steel industry but the mining industry is facing a rundown. I cannot believe that any hon. Member, whatever his view on this debate, can find this a laughing matter.
It is because we have seen the application of cash limits administered with doctrinal spite on the steel industry that we fear the cash limits that have been imposed on the coal mining industry, which we shall debate later this week. It is because we believe that the Government are not prepared to support the new technologies—the microelectronics industry has been a major example

45
—that we are fearful of the consequences of the Secretary of State's statement.
A month ago it appeared that the Secretary of State was at last admitting that some industrial aid schemes were necessary when he told NEDO that some of them
"probably bring higher productivity and newer technology than would have been achieved had the subsidy been left in the citizen's pocket and handbag."
We saw the first U-turn of the Government's industrial policy, or at least the glimmerings of it, in the statement over British Steel. Even then, the Secretary of State could not admit that it was a U-turn. His new definition is that
"It is a delay in achievement. It is not the giving up of an objective."
The whole House and most of industry now know that the Secretary of State will have to find more money for British Steel.
Mr. Roy Hughes: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that it is particularly reprehensible that during this debate, which is so much about the steel industry, no Welsh Office Minister is present on the Treasury Bench? Is not that an indication of the way in which Wales is being treated?
Dr. Owen: I fear that it is, and I fear that Wales is suffering and is likely to suffer even more deeply over the next two or three years.
Mr. Kenneth Carlisle: When the right hon. Gentleman refers to our parsimony towards the steel industry, is he not prepared to admit that over the past few years Governments have already given £ 3,000 million to the steel industry and that in the coming year the Government are pledged to give nearly £ 500 million? Surely that is generosity.
Dr. Owen: The Government faced steel industry unions which had a long history of moderation in pay claims. The Government made a ludicrous offer of 2 per cent. They ended up paying 16 per cent. The financial losses arising from that strike have been absolutely savage. No one with any experience of industrial relations does not believe that that strike was avoidable.
The question that we have to face now concerns telecommunications and attitudes to the Post Office. The
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telecommunications industry in the United Kingdom is massive. It constitutes the third largest telecommunications network in the world. The Secretary of State for Industry, who, having made a statement, could not even bother to stay to listen to the debate, did not answer one question about the cash limit that is currently being applied to the Post Office. One of the questions that needs to be answered in the debate is what is happening now to the Post Office. It is unable to live this year within its cash limit and has asked for an easing of £ 150 million in order to carry out the investment to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) so rightly drew the attention of the Secretary of State for Industry. We believe that investment programme to be vital.
We further believe that the Government must take a leaf out of the books of our main industrial competitors. France is currently investing annually some £ 3 billion in telecommunications—twice the United Kingdom's investment. The Japanese Government's support for their microelectronics industry is about £ 500 million. The Japanese have switched from being almost totally reliant on the United States to being a major exporter to the United States. The Secretary of State for Industry made great play of the fact that the United States was a private enterprise economy. He put its success down to the freedom given to the entrepreneurs. The United States has been making a massive outlay on electronics—£ 10 billion in 1979 alone. In West Germany the components industry was being supported by £ 100 million in 1978, with £ 150 million to £ 200 million being provided for the two-year chip support programme. In addition, £ 300 million is being put into research and development, matching Government grants.
The Italian Government have pumped into this area more than £ 600 million over a four-year period—including £ 80 million on chips and £ 70 million on rationalisation. With these vast figures, our industrial competitors recognise the significance of the industry. Where do we stand with the British Government? We have been waiting for over seven months for a decision from the Secretary of State for Industry on whether he can find £ 25 million as a second tranche to invest in

47
Initios. Even if one believes that he ought not to invest in Inmos, surely even Conservative Members agree that a decision should have been taken long since.
The Financial Times commented of the Government:
"It is unfortunate that they have taken so long to make up their minds; a decision appeared to be imminent towards the end of last year. The uncertainty has been unfair to the founders of Inmos and its employees."
We read every day in our newspapers about the "indecisiveness" and "agony" of the Secretary of State for Industry. He appears to regard himself, they say, as "the guardian of the Government's non-interventionist conscience."
As he argues with his conscience, we are seeing the effects of his indecisiveness as the unemployment queue lengthens. His decision on steel is seen widely outside as making his policy of forcing businesses to live in the market with the consequences of their actions look somewhat limp.
There is now major concern that because of a fear that there would be jibes if he did not continue with his doctrinal policy, the next problem we shall see arising is with British Shipbuilders. At any moment we are expecting a decision from the Government to take the three major naval shipyards—Yarrow, Vosper Thornycroft and Vickers—out of British Shipbuilders. If that were to be done it would have a devastating effect. Once again, it is not just the critics from the Labour Benches who are making themselves heard. The Financial Times says of the right hon. Gentleman:
"One fear is that he may attempt to rebuild credibility… by calling for further major cuts in the state-owned shipbuilding industry. Senior Industry Department civil servants seem to be preparing for such an eventuality even though it would further cut demand for the products of the British Steel Corporation."
Last Sunday, The Sunday Times said:
"Within Whiehall the yo-yo attitude towards selling off chunks of British Shipbuilders suggests some of the shrewder Ministerial spirits have grasped that shipbuilding privatisation could involve a short stroll down a rather unpleasant plank."
The only trouble with that is that it will not be the Secretary of State for Industry who strolls down the plank. That stroll will be taken by thousands
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of people whose jobs in British Shipbuilders will be put at risk.
We fear the Government's doctrinal dogmatic attitude to anything that is in the public sector. It is not as though British Shipbuilders has not been able to point since vesting day to a proud record of achievement. A major reorganisation of wage bargaining has occurred, reducing more than 180 procedures to a single bargain. Industrial disputes have been massively reduced with days lost down by a factor of 10. A 7 per cent. self-financing productivity deal has been achieved. These improvements in productivity and manning levels are having their effects in other parts of the industry.
The spite against the industry also attaches to the shipbuilding sector that is within the Government's control. They are cutting down the dockyards. They have just taken out 630 jobs in the Devonport dockyard. That is the equivalent in terms of male employment of the three modern factories that recently were eventually persuaded to come to the West Country. Every person is seeing the effects of all this.
It is not just the nationalised industries that are being hit. As Sir Michael Edwardes said of British Leyland in May,
"We employ 155,000 people with another 455,000 dependent on us in suppliers and support industries."
He went on to explain that there were
"around 600,000 families—2 million people—who watch BL with anxiety".
What do they see? The Secretary of State appears on television saying that he would find it "very, very hard" to persuade Ministers to provide extra funds. Has anyone on the Conservative Benches any idea of the consequences and the knock-on effects that would be felt if British Leyland were to be placed in the situation of no longer continuing to operate? Most of us would accept that important efforts are being made to improve productivity and efficiency in British Leyland, but it is struggling against a wholly unrealistic exchange rate. Sir Michael Edwardes said:
"The United Kingdom is now the most profitable market in which to sell vehicles"
—that is, if one is making one's products anywhere else and shipping them here.

49
BL is battling with high interest charges, and to put it within rigid cash limits, to drive it out of business, would be an act of savagery which surely even this Government could not contemplate.
Then we come to the Secretary of State for Energy and his responsibilities, which are of crucial importance for industry itself. Once again, we see a doctrinal attitude—for example, on British Gas. The Government have told British Gas that they want to see industrial gas prices kept in line with gas oil. That means that industrial gas prices will increase very substantially over the next year. Some industries will face a contract price increase of about 60 per cent.
The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. David Howell): The right hon. Member has made one misstatement of fact which I would not like him to keep in his mind for longer than necessary. It was the last Government of whom he was a member that endorsed the policy of keeping British Gas's industrial gas prices in line with gas oil. This Government have recognised that that policy should have to continue, but we have urged that it should not be pursued with precision in the light of the very sharp rises in oil prices. In fact, gas prices to industry today are running, even on renewed contracts, at 25 per cent. below gas oil prices. Therefore, the right hon. Member should turn to those who were his colleagues in the previous Labour Government if he intends to talk that sort of language.
Dr. Owen: I have never denied that that was a policy that was fixed when the increases in gas oil were very much below their present level. They are now running at a massive cost, including VAT, of £ 173 a tonne—the equivalent of 40p a therm. I welcome the degree of flexibility that the Secretary of State now seems to be showing. That is new, and we shall wish to pursue that opening. Many people on both sides of the House now feel that it is time that Britain, which is energy-rich, was showing some way of trying to ease the industries that have very high energy costs in their unit costs and trying to show some selective discrimination, as is done in many EEC countries.
If one talks to many of our big international companies, one finds that they
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will say that for gas they are priced much higher in this country than are companies in other countries. The European Council of Chemical Manufacturers' Federation has just conducted a survey which shows that in April this year United Kingdom chemical companies were paying between 67 per cent. and 112 per cent. more than their West German competitors. If the Secretary of State is telling British Gas that it should price at a lower contract price, no one will be happier than British Gas itself. However, it finds it a little difficult to accept that on the one hand the Secretary of State puts it in a strait-jacket, saying that it must price at market or realistic prices, and on the other hand the Government encourage the chemical industry to complain about the gas monopoly.
This inability to co-operate with the nationalised industries has been shown by the same Secretary of State who told the Central Electricity Generating Board to stock in coal for last winter because he was expecting a miners' strike. When the bill of £ 300 million was presented—a bill that overshot the board's cash limits—the Secretary of State refused to support the CEGB or back it in any way at all. In fact, he referred it to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. That is the way that one gets rewarded if one sticks with Government policies.
We saw the same sort of thing happen to poor old Sir Charles Villiers. We may not have agreed with every policy that he had, but at least he stuck assiduously to the policies of the Secretary of State for Industry. Then, in his last few days, he was kicked in the teeth for all that he had done in the past year.
If the Secretary of State for Energy were now looking at energy pricing, we would be delighted that that had come about. Last Sunday The Sunday Times said:
"The economic pricing of oil and gas in this country, much favoured by the Government, is a deceptive piece of jargon. Its effect is merely to bring our energy prices in line with a going rate set by the most powerful and irresponsible cartel of recent history."
There is a very strong case for shielding some industries from the effects of energy pricing. That goes for electricity. We have already seen British Steel, in Sheffield, unable to meet the electricity charges of £ 40 million. It also goes for

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coal. If coal is to expand into the industrial market its prices must be held, and we hope that the Secretary of State will accept that British Steel must never again be put in the situation in which it has to buy coking coal from abroad purely and simply because of the effects of cash limits running completely against the £ 50 million investment that only a few years before had been agreed with the NCB and British Steel in order to expand the coking industry. It is this type of economic madhouse that brings this country—not just the public sector and the Government—into discredit.
We are now told that British Rail must sell off its assets. One of the most striking features of the Conservative Government of 1970-74 was the way in which they brought asset stripping into private industry. When we look back on the asset stripping of private industry during that period, we must widely acknowledge that that was one of the most debilitating influences on British industry. It led to a synthetic property boom and to money being poured into property and speculation in the City, and to a grave weakening of our industrial strength. I doubt whether anyone would want to live through that period again.
What have we got from this Government? We now have asset stripping in the public sector. There is not a single public sector activity in which we do not hear of some form of asset stripping. No doubt the Minister for Transport, who is to reply to the debate, will seek to justify some of the arrangements that he has arrived at with British Rail. Of course, British Rail has had to agree, but it is a shotgun marriage. It is living under extremely tight cash limits, and Sir Peter Parker has already warned of a possible £ 50 million overshoot. However, the Minister must not argue the case as being in the interests of free enterprise or competition. Who is likely to purchase these assets, or shares in these assets? Trafalgar House is tipped to bid for Sealink. Trust Houses Forte and Grand Metropolitan are tipped to bid for the hotels. There is hardly likely to be an increase in competition as a result. Profitable assets, which could have eased British Rail's financial position over a period of years, will be sold off, and the problem that—
Sir Frederick Burden rose—
Dr. Owen: No, I shall not give way. The hon. Member can make his speech in his own inimitable way.
We object to the doctrinal attitude that all assets that happen to be publicly owned must be sold. We believe that if this country is to continue a polarised debate between the public and private sectors, its economic health will be gravely weakened.
The Secretary of State for Energy would carry a great deal more conviction with his new-found espousal of monetarism if we did not all know that at one stage he never believed in it at all. One of the most remarkable statements that he made was when he was Minister of State for Energy under a different Administration. At that time he was toeing the line of his then Prime Minister, and in an eloquent statement in "Crossbow" in 1974 he said:
"In just the same way it was technically impossible for there to be cost inflation or for wages to be unaffected if unemployment rose or for demand not to be curbed if the red liquid in the tube called 'money supply' began to fall. Happy days. How simple it all seemed. And what ludicrous nonsense it now all appears—except in one or two quaint comers of the political and journalistic world where such familiar objects from the economic nursery are still hugged lovingly. For, of course, while the coloured liquids flow dutifully, real life has maddening imperfections. It just is not like that. Do these aggregates really exist? Does anyone truly know what the 'money supply' is? We are human beings living in human institutions and not pink liquids in glass tubes."
I should be only too delighted to hear an explanation from the Secretary of State. But the right hon. Gentleman does not qualify for any of the classifications that are around at present in his own Government. He is not a wet, because he nominally believes in monetarism. He is not a monetarist, because clearly he has only just been converted, but at least he has the zeal of the convert. I am afraid that history will say of the right hon. Gentleman that he is a drip.
However, there is a much more serious jibe to be made about this Government. They have in their power the sensible handling of the public sector without doctrine or dogma. They have the power to invest, to create new jobs and hold them. They have the power, where it is

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sensible, to intervene in order to hold down savage increases in prices and to have an effect on the inflation that is being pumped into the system. Where it is sensible, it is reasonable for a Conservative Government, with different views from us, to rein back some parts of the public sector.
Our charge is that the Government's reigning back of the private sector owes nothing to logic and everything to prejudice. It owes nothing to a sensitive handling of human affairs but is contributing day by day to the economic disarray of Britain. If the Government were to use their responsibilities in the public sector with more intelligence and sensitivity, they could at least alleviate some of the worst hardship that is about to fall on the British people.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): Mr. Speaker has asked me to say that he has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
4.30 pm
The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. David Howell): I beg to move, in line 1, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
'this House welcomes the Government's policies of restoring a proper balance between the state sector and private enterprise, and encouraging greater efficiency and a more competitive climate within such industries, to the lasting advantage of the British economy and the British public.'.
By any standards, the motion moved by the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) is a bizarre one for the Labour Party to put forward at such a delicate stage in its affairs and at such a fluid stage in its so-called policies on the public sector. The truth is that the motion and a great deal of what the right hon. Gentleman had to say are in the high Bourbon tradition—from a party that has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing about the pitfalls of excessive State expansion.
Behind the motion lies the amazingly durable myth that the secret of jobs and prosperity lies in more and more nationalisation. We are being told that again today. There is nothing in post-war experience, and nothing that any levelheaded observer could find, to support that view. There is everything to suggest that, while we all want to see good and
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efficient public services, it is mistakes in the handling of the public sector and its over-extension which have done the most severe mischief to our economy, to jobs and to the prosperity of Britain. I shall come later to some of the ways in which we are tackling the enormous problems of the nationalised sector as they confront us today.
First, I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he fully realises what he is doing when he puts his support and his eloquence behind such a motion. Is it really possible that his sort of Labour Party—whatever the pottier ideas on the Benches behind him—wants to wish further nationalisation on Britain after all that has occurred? Are he and the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore), who is to reply, wholly oblivious to the warnings of their leaders in the 1950s and 1960s who wrote about the dangers of insisting on more and more public ownership and nationalisation? Does the right hon. Gentleman remember the late Tony Cros-land, who warned of the dangers of nationalised leviathans? Does he recall the struggles in his party to get rid of all that nonsense? Yet here we are again today with the same arguments being peddled. On, off, and now on again, the Labour Party has peddled those doctrines not for five but for 35 years, right up to the pathetic fiascos of the last Government for which we have never received a full account, such as British Tanners, another brilliant coup by the National Enterprise Board. We have seen the Labour Party learn and relearn again and again at the nation's expense. Now the doctrine has reached its apogee of absurdity with the recently published draft manifesto, with its proposals for massive new State ownership. The idea is not only alive and well; it is thriving more strongly than ever.
The right hon. Gentleman makes an appeal to the anti-doctrinaire. But when the whole mood of our times is away from dinosaur collectivism, when people are searching for a chance to live life on a human scale, how can those on the Front Bench of the Labour Opposition—whatever may happen on the Back Benches—remain hooked on that sort of philosophy? Nor is it as if the Labour case can plead the excuse that I have

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heard the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), indulge in from time to time, namely, the excuse of idealism. That was true 30 years ago. I heard the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) say recently, with his usual engaging candour, when he was asked why the Labour Party spent so much time discussing the constitution and so little time discussing policy, that Labour Party policy was settled 20 years ago. At least, 30 years ago the Labour manifestos of 1945 and 1950 were interested in the customer and in efficiency, items which hardly received a mention in the right hon. Gentleman's speech. The 1945 manifesto, which the former Prime Minister will remember well, said that antisocial restrictive practices would be prohibited in the State industries. But the right hon. Gentleman did not say a word about that today. In relation to steel—about which the right hon. Gentleman had something to say—the manifesto stated:
"Private monopoly has maintained high prices and kept inefficient high-cost plants in existence. Only if public ownership replaces private monopoly can the industry become efficient."
That was the offering in 1945. If Labour Party policy was stuck in the 1940s, 1950s or even the 1960s, we could understand the integrity of that position. But now we have a document the whole tone of which is entirely different. It is more authoritarian and a mile away from the idealism of the Labour Party of 30 years ago.
Mr. Harry Ewing: Is the Secretary of State aware that we are grateful to him for mentioning the 1945 Labour Party manifesto? That manifesto was instrumental in establishing the National Health Service in Britain. If he is so much in favour of what we said in that manifesto, why is he now so much in favour of dismantling all that that manifesto achieved?
Mr. Howell: I was pointing out that at least the manifesto seemed to have some interest in the customer, the consumer and the ordinary taxpayer of Britain—an interest that appears to have vanished out of the widow with the modern consideration, in the Labour Party, of the place of nationalised industries.
Mr. Bill Homewood: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I see nothing in the motion about a further expansion of public ownership. I cannot understand why the Minister has been allowed to continue talking for so long about that point, which does not appear in the motion.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Secretary of State has only just started his speech. I have heard nothing out of order yet.
Mr. Howell: I have only just started my speech. I have yet to come to the meat, and to some of the nonsenses that have been put forward by the Opposition, before coming to the Government's efforts to put matters right.
The Opposition have done a service intabling the motion. As Supply day debates provide a valuable opportunity not only to hear what the Government think and intend, which I shall spell out in a moment, but also what the Opposition have to offer, I invite the right hon. Member for Devonport and the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar to answer some questions. That is only right. We are entitled to know where we stand on some of the generalities that the right hon. Gentleman trotted out in the past half an hour. For instance, will they say which of the policies in the draft manifesto they accept in their capacity as official spokesmen?
Which of the policies on the energy sector does the Shadow energy spokesman accept? I imagine that the motion was tabled to enable Opposition Members to discuss that—as they clearly wish to do. Does the right hon. Member for Devon-port believe that North Sea oil should be taken into public ownership? Does he remember that when a previous Labour Opposition pledged the same it had rapidly to go into complete reverse? Does he believe, as the draft manifesto proposes, that BP should be transformed into a public enterprise instead of an independent company? If he does, will he explain what effect it would have on BP's worldwide position operating, for example, in the United States? Does he believe in
"bringing into public ownership as a single unit the power plant industry"?
That proposal is made in the draft manifesto.

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If he agrees with its proposals, how much does he think that they will cost? The public are entitled to know. If the right hon. Gentleman does not have the figures or has not bothered to work them out, it is my duty to the House to give the estimates which I have worked out. Nationalising the oil companies' offshore oil assets would cost £ 13 billion at today's prices. Buying out the downstream oil activities would cost a further £ 5 billion. Buying out the power plant companies would add further hundreds of millions to the bill—I estimate about £ 500 million. I shall not attempt to estimate the cost of nationalising dock and cargo-handling facilities and extending State control in the road haulage industry, let alone establishing
"a significant public sector stake in each important industrial sector, including… pharmaceuticals and medical equipment".
The bill for that would be a minimum £ 20 billion.
Where is the money to come from? Is it to be a levy on workers' taxes? Is that what right hon. Gentlemen mean when they talk about an irreversible shift of power and wealth to the workers? Alternatively, is the money to be found by using the printing press? If that is how they intend to finance their proposals, it would cause the inflation in the Weimar Republic to look like a children's tea party. If the right hon. Members for Devonport and Stepney and Poplar say that the policies in the draft manifesto are not their policies, perhaps they will explain what part they will play in the redraft. I suggest that the right hon. Member for Devonport takes his courage and has a go, as did the right hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Rodgers) against some of the defence nonsense in his party. If the right hon. Gentleman has a go, I wish him well.
Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many Labour Members who normally sit below the Gangway fled at the mention of the mixed economy by the Opposition spokesman? Their answer is simple. They would confiscate the assets without any compensation.
Mr. Howell: The issues must be clarified. We have had no such clarity from the right hon. Member for Devonport.
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I shall outline some of our plans and explain the Government's thinking about the State sector. I shall begin with our general approach, which was not merely parodied but distorted beyond reach of the facts and figures by the right hon. Member for Devonport. The Conservative Party and the Government have consistently thought in terms of a balance between the State sector and private enterprise in our economy. That is reflected in our amendment. It is true that our presumption is in favour of private enterprise. We do not wish an activity to be performed by the State unless there are evident and compelling reasons. That does not mean that we have not over the years, in a number of instances, found circumstances where a State presence was justified.
We are right to approach proposals for nationalisation sceptically, well aware of the disadvantages that will follow. We an; right to demand certain and careful proof of the benefits claimed. What is more, we are right to go on questioning. I do not accept that because an industry was taken into State ownership 30 years ago at the high noon of the Morrisonian era, for whatever reasons, we should be content for its status to be set for all time by divine order. Its status is set by Parliament for such time as Parliament chooses. One of the most clear expositions of that argument was made by Mr. Edmund Dell, the former right hon. Member for Birkenhead, who has now left the House. The right hon. Member for Devonport used the word "doctrinal" about 40 times. Let him not believe that the word describes Conservatives. It describes people who have constantly pleaded for more and more nationalisation without balance and without proper consideration.
The Government are practical but they are right to question the State sector. We think that it is over-extended and we intend to reduce its size. That is our duty. We must provide the best arrangements for our people and, in particular for the customers who buy the products and services of our State sector industries.
I turn to the situation that we found last May in the State industries and in the nationalised sector on which Opposition Members claim to be such experts. Certainly there was a time when the Labour Party, early in its last period of

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Government, preached and tried to practise financial responsibility and price realism in the State sector. However, by the last election the virtue was not in them. The effects of the IMF health farm cure wore off and they were well and truly back on the bottle.
The last Government established the idea in theory of cash limits. The right hon. Member for Devonport branded cash limits as the work of Satan, but they were the work of his right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey). They were more frequently breached than honoured, and that is almost as bad as having no financial discipline. In a way, it is worse.
In all. the nationalised industries taken together were responsible in 1979-80 for a net addition to the public sector borrowing requirement of £ 2-3 billion or 19-5 per cent. of the whole PSBR. Not only did the losses make an immediate and heavy demand on the taxpayer, but they greatly increased the Government's need to borrow, so making the task of controlling the money supply much more difficult.
Mr. Arthur Palmer: The right hon. Gentleman has a short memory. Was it not a Conservative Government led by the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) who insisted that in the fuel industries' prices should be held constant, thus forcing the electricity supply industry, for the first time, into the red? It was left to a Labour Government to return to realistic pricing.
Mr. Howell: The present Government have been castigated for the last half-hour for doing just that. The memory of the right hon. Member for Devonport seems to be short. He made considerable play of the proposed turn-round of £ ½ billion in nationalised industries over the four-year period. That is less than the turn-round of £ 3 billion which was achieved between the heady days of 1974-75 and the crunch period when the IMF told the Labour Government how to behave. A realistic pricing policy has been followed before on a larger scale. To say that this is being done for the first time in history is factually and statistically incorrect.
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The situation could not be changed overnight. In 1979-80 we were severely limited by time in the extent to which our policies could influence well-established and existing trends. Some of the truly ugly and appalling results of those trends are still working through. Opposition Members try to ascribe those results to policies undertaken since we came to power, but they spring from policies and efforts made during their last chaotic days in Government.
From this year our policies will begin to provide the opportunity to shape matters more decisively. Above all, we are convinced that the cash limits system can work only if cash limits are adhered to. Of course, there will be difficulties and changing circumstances. We are always prepared to talk to the nationalised industries' chairmen about their problems If there are genuine difficulties which require a modification, we are prepared to consider each case. An example was the electricity industry's cash limit for last year, to which the right hon. Member for Devonport referred inaccurately. The industry put to me that the fall in electricity demand and unexpected costs, including the build-up in its stock, made achievement of its cash limit impossible. After having agreed certain rigorous offsetting economies, I was prepared to make an alteration in that cash limit. The right hon. Gentleman has the story wrong.
We have set the nationalised industries' financial targets for a period of three years ahead. I am the first to concede that that is not easy to do. It is so difficult that, while paying lip service to the principle of three-year financial targets in their 1978 White Paper, which they produced with a great flourish, the previous Government found it too much of an effort, certainly in the energy industries, where they set them for no more than a year.
Mr. Harry Cowans: Will the right hon. Gentleman also draw to the attention of the electorate the fact that most public sector industries are failed private sector enterprises? That was the reason why the Government took them over. The Government are only hiving off the sectors of nationalised industry that appear to be making a profit. How will the taxpayer pay for the rest?
Mr. Howell: I am dealing with the major problems posed by the existing nationalised industries. I shall come to those parts that could attract private capital or just as easily be in the private sector. My right hon. Friend will have more to say on that matter.
It is important to set three-year financial targets. Industries that fall within my responsibility have had such targets set. Compared with the one-year ad hoc targetry of the previous regime, which was a significant handicap in planning their business, the changes have been of benefit to the industries and enabled them to plan sensibly for a dangerous and uncertain energy future, where huge investments will be required to meet the turbulence created by the 145 per cent. increase in world oil prices in the past 11 months.
We are also pledged to establish performance targets, which will be of significant help to the industry, satisfy the Government and the taxpayer and help the customer to judge the standard of service that he is receiving.
The nationalised industries chairmen's group has put certain arguments to the Government about the working of the cash limit system, particularly over the way in which investment is treated. My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House that the Government were ready to consider with the nationalised industries chairmen possible modifications, and we are doing so.
Another important and overdue change that the Government have made in handling nationalised industries is the provision in the Competition Act which, for the first time, makes it possible to refer nationalised industries' activities to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission for investigation. That power has already been used over computer rail services, the Severn water authority and the Central Electricity Generating Board. In other areas, such as telecommunications, about which my right hon. Friend made an excellent speech this afternoon, and the postal services, we are widening exposure to competition, which will be of great benefit to the public, customers and the industries. I am glad to confirm our intention to remove the statutory prohibition on the generation of electricity
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as a main business as soon as a suitable legislative opportunity arises.
In all those respects we are determined to make nationalised industries more efficient, more responsive to the needs of the taxpayer and the customer and more able to run their businesses within the strict financial and performance criteria that the Government must set.
I have said that the Government are firmly of the view that the public sector is over-extended, and we want to restore the balance. The right hon. Member for Devorport became obsessed with the word "doctrine". The imbalance and the tilt towards massive over-extension of the public sector has arisen as each Labour Government have rushed with renewed enthusiasm into further and more disastrous ventures of public ownership. We are committed to reducing the extent of State activity. My right hon. Friend will go into the detail of the progress that we have made in restoring the balance and rolling back the extended frontier of the public sector and the plans we have for the future.
I wish to draw the attention of the House to one project in the energy area that constitutes a milestone in the journey onward from the stale principle of nationalised everything—the gas-gathering pipeline proposed for the North Sea. As proposed by the Government, that scheme will involve the first private sector utility in this country for many years. It offers a major opportunity for sources of private finance to step in and take the burden off Government borrowing and the taxpayer. It should be welcomed on all sides of the House, although, needless to say, there has been a deafening silence from the right hon. Gentleman.
The right hon. Gentleman returned understandably to his concern over unemployment, which we all share. As far as I understand his remedies and the proposals in the motion, they would make an ugly situation far worse. Everyone who bothers to stop and think knows that the bellows approach—puffing up demand by monetary inflation—is useless. In his more courageous days, that was the firm view of the previous Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Devonport, although he tends to keep his views on these matters to himself. It was also the view of the right hon. Member for Leeds, East

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for a brief Camelot period, until he reverted to a damp neo-Keynesianism, which had nothing to do with the views of the late Lord Keynes.
Everyone knows that nations like ours must look to smaller and newer enterprises, providing products and services that may not have been even heard of or categorised in Whitehall officialdom, for the jobs and prosperity of the coming years. It is hard to envisage anything less appropriate for Britain than lumbering us with the reactionary centralism offered by the Opposition in their motion, which has nothing to do with the needs of the economy in the 1980s.
The nation wants no more nationalisation. It wants less. I suspect that the right hon. Member for Devonport and some of his friends want no more of it either, although they need to fight quickly and courageously if their views are not to be swamped. What we have heard today from the Opposition is the intellectual flotsam of the past. It has no place in a creative and better future. The right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. and hon. Friends continually express fears for the future, but I suspect that they are fears not that we shall fail but that we shall succeed—as we shall.
4.58 pm
Mr. David Wafkins: There is not a single publicly owned industry in the country that is not under attack and being damaged, perhaps irreparably, by this Government's policies. Among the welter of damage and destruction, no industry is more severely under attack than the steel industry. Perhaps one omission in a speech notable for the omission of anything remotely relevant to the debate is hardly surprising, but it is interesting to note that the Secretary of State made only a passing reference to the condition of the steel industry in 1945.
My constituency is heavily dependent upon the steel industry. It will be more affected by the Government's damaging policies in closing down large sections of the industry than any other place where closures are proposed. I am not minimising the serious effects of steel closures wherever they take place.
I note that the Secretary of State for Industry has not graced or troubled us so far in the debate. The right hon. Gentle-
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man constantly wrings his hands about what he says will be the terrible effects of the shutdown of the Consett steelworks, yet he acquiesces in the unjustifiable closure of Consett and does everything he can to encourage it. Indeed, the whole Government seek to encourage the closure with all the means at their disposal.
This policy will be socially disastrous. It will put 3,700 steel workers out of jobs plus many hundreds in dependent occupations. My right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) said in his able opening speech that there is an inevitable linkage and interaction between the publicly and privately owned sectors of industry. Many of the hundreds of additional jobs that will be lost as a result of the shutdown at the Consett steelworks will be in private firms that depend for their existence on contracts with the BSC works at Consett.
The shutdown of the steelworks will devastate an entire community and send shock waves of increased unemployment through, for example, coal mining and transport throughout the North-East of England, a region that has already been savagely hit by the Government's policies.
If the policy is disastrous on social grounds, it is deplorable on economic grounds. We are not talking of an old rundown plant that is working at a loss. It is a modernised, efficient and profitable plant with one of the best productivity records in Europe. The productivity of the Consett steelworks is about 240 tonnes of liquid steel per man year. The BSC average is 140 tonnes and its target is 180 tonnes. Consett is already performing well above the corporation's target figure, at a level that compares favourably with that of Germany, which has one of the most productive steel industries throughout Europe.
Consett is meeting all the criteria that have been laid down by the Government for survival, but, seemingly, that has not been welcomed by the Government. The Government appear to be doing their best to discredit Consett's success in meeting their criteria. In reply to me in the House the Prime Minister has made great play of the fact that the Consett plant was unprofitable between 1975 and 1979 and that it became profitable only in the last quarter of 1979. Nobody is disputing that. How on earth could it become profitable until the loss-making

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sections were eliminated? All those sections have been eliminated. The last of them, the plate mill, was closed in October 1979, with the negotiated loss, which was accepted by the trade unions and the community, of over 400 jobs.
Since then, steadily increasing profits have been made at Consett. In September of that year there was a profit of £ 24,000. In October the profit increased to £ 110,000 and in November to £ 340,000. At that stage the monthly figures suddenly stopped being published. Then came the steel dispute, which lasted for three months. What a classic example of the damaging effects of the Government's policy upon nationalised industries! The dispute in the steel industry was deliberately provoked by Government policy and deliberately prolonged as part of the Government's policy towards the industry.
Following the ending of the dispute, the workers set up new production and productivity records practically every week. All that we have heard from Ministers while that has been going on is vague claims that the plant is making losses. Those claims have not been substantiated.
In the week ending Saturday 12 July—the week before last—9,000 tonnes of liquid steel were produced at Consett. That was an all-time record in the history of iron and steel-making at Consett. It has been leaked that a profit of £ 187,000 was made at the works in June. The monthly figures for Consett are being suppressed because they would destroy the spurious case for closure if they were known generally.
My constituents have been repeatedly told "Make the works productive and profitable and they will survive." They have made them productive. They have made them profitable. They did everything that they were asked to do. In that process they sacrificed about 2,500 jobs in an already badly hit community with high unemployment. However, they have been betrayed; they have to listen to their achievement being belittled and misrepresented.
On 10 July, during the very week of all-time record production, the Prime Minister said that Consett was again
"in a loss-making position."—[Official Report, 10 July 1980; Vol. 988, c. 757.]
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I hope that the right hon. Lady will check the facts and even consider making a personal statement to the House.
I have concentrated my remarks upon my constituency and the consequences there of the damaging nature of the Government's policies towards publicly owned industries. Although Consett is the most extreme example of the Government's damaging approach to the steel industry, it represents only a fraction of the damage that is being done to the industry generally. If the Government's present proposals are implemented in their entirety, they will cripple the steel industry and make Britain dependent in due course on imported steel.
More than one carefully researched forecast of the world steel market prophesies a growing demand for steel from 1981 and conceivably a world shortage by 1985. Against that background, it is not surprising that no other steel-producing country is cutting back its steel industry in such a manner. France, Germany and Italy are all planning to increase their output—no doubt with a view to taking over the markets that Britain proposes to abandon.
Mr. James Johnson: Just like the fishing industry.
Mr. Watkins: Exactly. Those countries are proposing to take over the markets that Britain apparently plans to abandon, including the home market.
By 1985 the Government's proposal to build a new force of nuclear submarines will presumably be well advanced. If present policies continue, the British steel industry will not then be able to supply the steel. Irrespective of the merits or demerits of the Government's armaments policy, there is every possibility that we shall have to rely on imported steel. Nothing could be more ridiculous. Will we have to rely on imported steel from the expanded industries of France, Italy or Germany, or perhaps the United States of America? We may have to rely on imported steel from American companies in which Lazard Freres of New York has financial involvement.
The Government stand condemned by their policies towards the publicly owned steel industry, public enterprise

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and everything that concerns the public interest—let alone by the the motion, which I shall be supporting.
5.9 pm
Sir Frederick Burden: I fully understand and sympathise with the hon. Member for Consett (Mr. Watkins) about the redundancies that will occur in his constituency. I am sure that all hon. Members will agree with that expression of sympathy. However, when he has taken stock of the situation, I am sure that the new chairman of the BSC will make his views clear on Consett. Given the figures that the hon. Member for Consett has provided, I hope that serious consideration will be devoted to Consett's future.
It is difficult for anyone with objective ideas about industry to understand how one can maintain an industry that is vastly over-producing for several years because of the possibility of greater demand many years hence. How can it be kept at full production in the meantime? It is difficult to over-estimate the dangers of bankruptcy that would follow such a course.
The right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) did little to justify the nationalised corporations. He was full of excuses for them. He spoke a great deal about doctrinaire attitudes and dogma. It is the Labour Party that holds doctrinaire attitudes and uses dogma in relation to industry. It said that the State, or the community at large, should own or control land and the means of production for the common benefit of the people. That is the basis of Socialism. I was in the Chamber in the early days of nationalisation. I remember the glee with which it was embraced by the Labour Party. The leaders of the Labour Party led the public to believe that nationalisation would result in greater industrial efficiency. They said that it would be a pacesetter in innovation. They also said that nationalisation would keep down prices, improve the economy, advance living standards and, above all, improve industrial relations beyond belief.
In the manifesto of February 1974 the Labour Party said that it would take over shipbuilding, ship repairing, marine engineering, ports, the manufacture of airframes and aero engines, sections of
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the pharmaceutical industry, road haulage, construction and machine tools. It said that it had the takeover of banking, insurance and building societies under active consideration.
Mr. Homewood Mr. Homewood rose—
Sir F. Burden: The hon. Gentleman has been bobbing up and down like a yo-yo. I may give way later, but I have no doubt that he will make his own speech.
Statements were handed out to the public and the nation soon after the end of the war about the advantages of nationalisation. If nationalised industries have not matched up to the obligations that were clearly stated by the Labour Party, the case for further nationalisation must be suspect. In 1974 there was no reason for the Labour Party to take over such enormous areas of industry, including banking, insurance and the building societies. What benefit would the public and the country gain from such takeovers? It is interesting that the Labour Party made the following statement:
"We intend to socialise existing nationalised industries. In consultation with the unions, we shall take steps to make the management of existing nationalised industries more responsible to the workers in the industry and more responsive to their consumers' needs."
In view of what happened during the winter of discontent, that is a very suspect statement.
The consumer did not benefit greatly from nationalised industries; nor were the workers of those industries overwhelmed with satisfaction. When compared with similar industries in other major European countries, our nationalised industries are the least efficient.
Mr. Stuart Holland: The hon. Gentleman has made a very interesting claim. Would he care to cite the source? If he looks at the European Centre for Public Enterprise in Brussels, he will find that British industry is often more efficient than its European counterparts.
Sir F. Burden: The hon. Gentleman can make his own speech. I shall come to that point shortly. He may be surprised to hear what I have to say. Between 1961 and 1977 the nationalised industries lost a total of £ 15,302,000,000, or about £ 2-5 million every day of every week. At the beginning of last year the economist Walter Eltis wrote an article

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in Lloyds Bank Review. He commented on those losses and said that not a single year between 1961 to 1977 had shown a surplus.
From a loss in the nationalised industries of £ 273 million in 1961, the deficit rose to £ 2,728 million in 1975. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out, that figure remained about the same in 1978. The public corporations have never been able to cover interest on accumulated debts in addition to wages and salaries. They have had to borrow increasing sums to pay the interest that they could not cover from sales revenue. That is only part of the story.
Between 1968 and 1975 £ 2,652 million worth of debts, including interest charges, was written off by the Government. The corporations had no resources to finance capital investment. All money had to be borrowed. That increased the Government's borrowing requirement at a faster rate. Ultimately, the taxpayer has to stump up, because Governments have no money. The Government therefore funded the large deficit that had arisen from overmanning, continued operation of inefficient plant, restrictive practices and the need to keep the unions happy. They did so in the interests of the unemployment figures. The Financial Times contained a report—as I am sure the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland) will be interested to know—in the summer of 1975 that compared the performances of European industries. The values were converted to the existing exchange rates. It is little wonder that Britain was at the bottom in every case. Germany was top in steel, and Britain was bottom. That was in terms of production per man—[Hon. Members: "What was the measurement?"]. This was measured by man output and by the cost per unit produced. It is no good Labour Members shaking their heads. These are the facts. I know that they are unpleasant and unpalatable, but they are facts.
Mr. David Watkins: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir F. Burden: No. I am sorry, but I have quite a lot to say.
The National Coal Board was at the bottom of the list with regard to coal. The Netherlands was top with regard to railways, and British Rail
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was bottom. The same sorry story applies to the National Bus Corporation. It was second from the bottom, and, not surprisingly, London Transport was bottom—[Hon. Members: "On what?"] On production per unit per man—[Hon. Members: "What does that mean?"]. Hon. Members will be able to make their own speeches.
Steel is an important subject today. Britain was once the greatest steel producer in the world. We led the world in both quality and output. But now the German steel worker produces about five times the amount that is produced by his British counterpart.
Mr. Watkins Mr. Watkins rose—
Sir F. Burden: I am sorry, I have given way once. I know that Labour Members do not like these facts, but they are facts.
Mr. Watkins: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Surely he must be aware that there has been no competition in the steel industry since 1936, when the old steel masters carved it up. He has referred to productivity, which is a correct and fair way to judge the industry. How does he justify a policy of shutting down the most profitable and productive works in the country—Consett—which is equalling the best German levels of productivity?
Sir F. Burden: The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong in saying that there is no competition, because even in this country private steelworks are making a profit. If they were not, they would have been driven out of business. Sheerness steelworks is one example. It is essential that the BSC competes in price and quality with overseas suppliers in order to enable Britain to produce products, in which steel is a main ingredient, which are of a quality and a price that enable it to operate in world markets. Many Labour Members would argue that we should keep all the steel mills open irrespective of production.
We shall be interested to hear in the Opposition reply exactly what action they would take in order to estimate exactly what they would do with the British steel industry. I shall be interested to hear how many plants they would keep open. Many Labour Members say that they should all be kept open in the interests of full employment. Is that

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so or is it not? If it is not, why not admit it, as well as admit that there will be considerable redundancies and unemployment in the steel industry? Why do the Opposition continue to maintain that this is all due to the present Government when they would probably have to do the same themselves?
Production in competition with overseas countries is also lacking in respect of coal. In 1977-78, it fell for the fourth year in succession from 63-6 cwt. to 434 cwt. per man-shift. At the end of 1978, Joe Gormley estimated that only 3-7 out of five shifts were actually worked because of absenteeism. Those are not my words but the words of Joe Gormley. I am merely reminding hon. Members of them. Now, of course, Mr. Scargill and the wild men are demanding an enormous increase in wages, which will inevitably increase the price of coal very much more. Already, as we have been told—and it has never been denied—it is possible for British consumers to import coal from Australia and America more cheaply than it costs to buy it on the home market, which has such enormous reserves.
If the wages of the miners go up so substantially, so will the price of coal, and if the steelworks have to buy the coal from Britain instead of importing it, so will the cost of steel. That will affect many of our goods that are sold on the world market. It will also exacerbate our employment situation.
Dr. M. S. Miller: I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the terms of the amendment, which I presume he is supporting. It asks that:
"this House welcomes the Government's policies of restoring a proper balance between the state sector and private enterprise".
Does not he agree that what the Government have done is totally to destroy the public sector? Will he apply his mind to that?
Sir F. Burden: I shall apply my mind to that. Everything that I see leads me to believe that the Government are absolutely right to take such a critical view. Large wage increases in the coal industry will not only increase the price of steel but will increase the price of electricity and cause considerable hardship to the domestic user in this country, unless—and
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this is always a possibility—there is a considerable increase in coal purchases from countries where it is cheaper.
In addition to the large increases in wages which Mr. Scargill and others are asking for, do the miners still receive free coal? Perhaps my right hon. Friend can tell me. If they do, and if it is in any substantial quantity, it adds considerably to the value of their overall wages. That should be known as well. Apparently the right hon. Member for Devonport does not know. I invite him to tell us.
In an article entitled "The true deficits of the public corporations", Walter Eltis, the economist, stated:
"In 1972, 1973 and 1974, they did not even earn enough to cover wages and the salaries of employees. The final surpluses have at no point been sufficient to cover the interest cost or accumulated debt in wages and salaries."
They have, therefore, been increasing borrowings in order to pay interest that they are unable to cover from sales revenue. The result is that the total debt and interest which they had to pay have both risen rapidly. He went on to state that this was especially disturbing, because official interest costs are an understatement of real interest burden. A total of £ 2,602 million of debts of public corporations was written off between 1968 and 1975 and the central Government absorbed them, but that was never shown. The nationalised industries borrowed much money overseas. All that must be paid back in foreign money. They even understated the interest costs, which made it clear that the borrowing of the nationalised industries has increased. The accumulated debt had increased the whole time in the nationalised industries. They have had no money to finance capital investment.
Mr. Stuart Holland: No money?
Sir F. Burden: They have had no money to finance capital investment. They have had to borrow it or it has been a subsidy.
Mr. Holland Mr. Holland rose—
Sir F. Burden: I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman once. It has been a subsidy from the Government. They have never earned it from their revenue.
Mr. Holland: Nonsense.
Sir F. Burden: All the money that they required had to be borrowed. That increased their total debt and the Government's overall borrowing requirements still further. No responsible Government can allow that situation to continue.
The economic strains imposed on the previous Labour Government by the demands of the nationalised corporations played a considerable part in forcing them to go cap in hand to the IMF. I should like to know what advice the IMF gave to the Labour Government on their handling of the nationalised industries in future. I suggest that the IMF told them to look at them objectively and to evaluate cost accountability.
If Opposition Members doubt the critical financial situation that arose, why did the Labour Government go to the IMF? Why were they unable even to pay old age pensioners their Christmas bonuses in 1975 and 1976—[Interruption.]—which this Government have now restored? That is a fact and I suggest that hon. Gentlemen look it up.
Mr. Palmer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. What have old-age pensioners to do with the organisation of the nationalised industries?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman must make his own speech.
Sir F. Burden: I was very careful to link it with the financial situation that caused the Labour Government to go to the IMF. I illustrated the need for them to go to the IMF when they were not in a position to honour their obligations to the old-age pensioners for their Christmas bonuses in those years.
I am convinced that if another Labour Government were elected the pressures from the Left wing to carry out the suggestions which were made in the February 1974 Socialist manifesto to take over the financial organisations and to extend nationalisation right accross the board would be enormous. I am also convinced that if the previous Labour Government had been returned last year they would have had to look with a critical and objective eye at the situation of the nationalised industries. They would have had a great deal of opposition from practically every Labour Member if it meant cutting back, making redundancies and so on. It would
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have been complete anathema and would have been called treachery by many of the extreme Left-wing members of the Labour Party and they would have opposed it bitterly.
I believe that this Government have taken the correct course. They have pointed out where the nationalised industries have failed, and they have failed in many areas. The greatest indication of the sense of the Government as a whole and of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, who is to reply to the debate, was shown clearly last week when he made his statement about the railways. I remind the right hon. Member for Devonport that the chairman of British Rail was appointed by the Labour Government. He appeared to be no friend of the Conservative Party. Presumably he was appointed by the Labour Government because he was a man of integrity, knowledge and experience. The greatest tribute to the move towards rationalising and improving British Rail came from the chairman of that organisation when he admitted that he wholeheartedly accepted the proposals put forward by my right hon. Friend last week.
Mr. Gordon A. T. Bagier: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir F. Burden: No. I have given way several times.
Mr. Bagier: I know the chairman of British Rail better than the hon. Gentleman does.
Sir F. Burden: If the hon. Gentleman knows the chairman of British Rail, perhaps in his speech he will tell us more about him.
Mr. Bagier Mr. Bagier rose—
Sir F. Burden: The hon. Gentleman will be able to confirm it.
Mr. Bagier: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir F. Burden: I am not giving way. I have almost finished. I have given way quite a lot. I have given way more than anyone else in the debate. The right hon. Member for Devonport would not give way to me at all.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the nationalised industries need to be looked

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at in the light of the conditions of the 1980s and the experiences that they have gone through since becoming national corporations.
I am sure that in the long run the measures taken by the Government will not only make the nationalised industries more effective but will improve the prospects and prosperity of the people working in them, will improve industrial relations and, above all, will ensure that consumers get a better deal from many of the nationalised industries than they are getting now.
5.36 pm
Mr. Ray Powell: I am surprised at the suggestion by the hon. Member for Gillingham (Sir F. Burden) that miners should not receive free coal.
Sir Frederick Burden: I did not say that.
Mr. Powell: My father was a miner. I should not mind betting that Conservative Members pick up more in expenses in one day than any perks that my father had in the whole of his life. It is a disgrace that hon. Gentlemen should suggest that those who go to the bowels of the earth to extract energy for the country should be deprived of the small concession of a ton of coal six times a year when business men and company directors are taking perks which are bleeding some of their companies dry.
I want to concentrate on some of the rubbish to which we have listened since about 4 o'clock from the Government Benches.
Last weekend the Prime Minister, despite my warning at Question Time last Tuesday that there was no welcome for her in Wales, turned up. There were 2,000 police, supported by just as many members of the Special Patrol Group, I suppose, to protect her from 10,000 protesting workers in Wales. I see the Under-Secretary of State for Wales looking to try to correct me. Are my figures correct, or have I given an underestimate?
The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Wyn Roberts): The hon. Gentleman overestimates very considerably when he talks of 10,000. I understood that it was between 2,000 and 3,000 at most.
Sir Anthony Meyer: It was raining.
Mr. Powell: The Minister was inside the pavilion listening to the Prime Minister, whereas I was outside counting. My counting and my arithmetic are far better than the Under-Secretary's.
Despite the fact that it was raining, when my friends and I marched the streets of Swansea protesting with placards we were protesting genuinely. Because of what the Government had done in 14 months—the desecration of the Welsh economy, industry, steel workers and the theat to the miners—we felt that it was necessary for some of us to stand up and start shouting.
When I gave the Prime Minister that warning last week, I knew of the uprising that is taking place in Wales. I know of the numbers who have been deprived of jobs—not only men in the steel industry but women in the textile industry in my constituency. When they marched in Swansea, they were protesting in a proper manner to the Prime Minister.
I stayed up late last night to watch the television programme on the Tory conference. My hon. Friends continually complain abount the coverage that the Labour Party receives from the BBC, but the coverage of that Tory conference highlighted the collapse of the ridiculous, mad monetarist policies that the Government are pursuing.
If the Government are right, why was the Prime Minister not prepared to go to the people in Wales and to listen to the objections? Why did she have to be escorted in and out of the back door of the conference? Those waiting to protest did not even see her. Indeed, it could have been her double at the conference.
The 10,000 trade unionists who were protesting at the Prime Minister's policies did not see her and she could not have seen much of them, except through the windows of the conference hall, but she said:
"From what I have seen of them, I do not want them on my side."
That was not what she said when she conned them into voting for her 14 months ago, and that phrase will live in the minds of the people of Wales for a long time.
The Prime Minister told an over-enthusiastic audience, consisting mainly,

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I am told, of bankrupt business men and out-of-work civil servants:
"Does anyone really suppose that any party, having won a great victory, would actually want to send unemployment figures up? I tell you this. No Government deliberately increases unemployment."
The Prime Minister denied that the Government's policies were depriving people of jobs. It is, therefore, reasonable to request the Minister who is to reply to the debate to explain why the unemployment figure, which is to be officially announced tomorrow, is 1-85 million after 14 months of the Government's period of office. Can he explain why there have been 30,000 redundancies in the steel industry, that at least 2,000 people are losing their jobs daily, that there are 100 to 150 bankruptcies every week and that the unemployment figure is far higher than in the 1930s?
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition issued a challenge to the Prime Minister before she spoke in Swansea, but she did not reply or refer to it. Is it true that the Government are seriously considering the closure of one or other of the main steelworks in South Wales—Llanwern and Port Talbot—or, indeed, that they might consider the closure of both? If such a move took place, it would seriously affect the continuation of our coking coal-producing collieries in Wales.
What will the Government do when industries of that magnitude are closed and redundancies escalate in areas such as my constituency, where we have 4,000 to 5,000 steel workers still working at Port Talbot and 4,000 to 5,000 miners producing coking coal? What will the Government do to find jobs for my people? It is reasonable for us to expect a reply on those aspects of two of the major nationalised industries which are suffering as a result of the Government's policies.
The Prime Minister suggested on Saturday that if unemployment escalated in Wales, the best plan for the workers would be to move. She admitted that that might be painful, but it was her only suggestion. The right hon. Lady deliberately ignores the economic consequences of moving for working-class men. Where should they move? Many people have been put out of work in areas that have always been considered to have plenty of employment.
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If those who lose their jobs move to London or the East Coast, where unemployment is increasing, they will be faced with the need to purchase properties that cost twice as much as those in South Wales. The cost of moving and reestablishing their families is far too great for them to contemplate a move. It is even more difficult to move into industrial areas than it was in the 1930s.
Dr. M. S. Miller: Does my hon. Friend agree that the coal industry is vital to the economy of the country and that, encompassing, as it does, energy that we can take from the ground for the next 300 years, it should be expanded and not contracted in the way that the Government propose?
Mr. Powell: I agree that the industry should be expanded. I could go on at length about the energy value of the coal industry. I was born in the Rhondda valley, where numerous collieries were closed in the mid-1960s. I do not put all the blame on the Conservatives. We were just as responsible for the closure of collieries at that time. A number of people objected strongly.
Nov/ that those valleys are closed in the Rhondda, the coal will never be brought from the bowels of the earth there because water has seeped in and soaked the whole of the seams. We shall not recover the energy that is now buried in the collieries of the Rhondda. I thought that the nation had learnt the lesson. If we have emergencies and need energy, the usual source is coal.
Time is passing, and a number of other hon. Members wish to speak, but I should like to make one or two points about Saturday's statement by the Prime Minister. Because of the complacency of Conservative Members, because they will not stand up and be counted, the message is not getting through to her. Conservative Members know as well as Labour Members that the people want to see the Government change their policies. People who supported the Government 14 months ago, people who helped get them elected—the business men, the CBI and other people—are warning them to change their policies before we slip too far down the slippery slope.
When I listened to the Prime Minister on television last night saying that people should move, my first thought was that

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the best idea for the people of Wales, if they had to move, was to look for accommodation in Finchley, which is the Prime Minister's constituency.
Mr. Wyn Roberts: Has it occurred to the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister might have been thinking of people moving within Wales? Surely he is aware that 47 per cent. of the Government's United Kingdom factory-building programme is to be located in Wales and that no less than £ 48 million is being spent through the Welsh Development Agency and other Government agencies on remedial measures in connection with the steel closures.
Mr. Powell: What the hon. Gentleman says may be correct. I heard him say exactly the same on television last night, when he talked about the £ 48 million and the percentage that is being sunk in Wales for economic recovery. It is not enough.
Only two years ago in Wales, in Ogmore, in Bridgend, we were jubilant. We were a growth area, with the Ford engine plant coming in at a total cost of £ 180 million to give jobs for an estimated 2,500 people. What has happened? Ford now says that it will employ no more than 1,500 people in the engine plant at Bridgend, and 500 of them will be redundant Ford workers from Swansea and other areas. As I have said, that plant is to cost £ 180 million. The figure of £ 48 million to try to solve our problems in Wales is ridiculous.
Mr. Don Dixon: How does the Prime Minister, who seems to want to turn Britain into a country of industrial nomads, expect people to move? Does she expect them to take their schools, old people's homes and hospitals with them when they are put into other areas? In my constituency we have had migration for many years. The young and active are leaving, and there is an increasing burden on those who stay. The Secretary of State for the Environment is cutting public spending. Who will keep the old people in their homes, who will keep the hospitals going, who will pay for the schools, if the young and active move at the Prime Minister's behest to find employment? Would it not be easier to tell the employment to go where the
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workers are, instead of the workers being industrial nomads?
Mr. Powell: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. What he says is true. If the Government are not prepared now to spend money on public services, they will not spend it when people move into areas.
I have referred to Rhondda, and my hon. Friend speaks of Jarrow. Both areas sent most of their population marching to London over the problem of unemployment. I see areas of the Rhondda derelict as a result of the closure of collieries and of people being asked to go away. I see streets of homes empty, playgronds not being used and schools that are under-used as a result of Governments' past economic policies. It is wrong to talk about people moving when it is just as easy in the 1980s, when we are passing through a technological revolution, to move industries back to Wales and to particular areas of Wales.
The Government's policy is to create new jobs in soundly based and competitive industries. The CBI, the Stock Exchange and all the Government's other friends entirely reject that argument, fundamentally because the soundly based and competitive industries of 12 months ago are going to the wall That is happening consistently. Only last weekend a firm in my constituency, soundly based and very competitive, established in 1945—Christie Tyler Limited—was compelled to close four factories, throwing 300 people out of work. The firm was renowned as a good employer and had excellent trade union relationships. Production was always on target.
What is to blame for that closure? Government policies are at fault. Consumer demand is strangled. Warehouses are full and order books are empty. The unions cannot be blamed for that. It seems that as a result of Government policies the only work that is becoming available is work for the Official Receiver.
I have taken well over my time. I conclude by telling the smug and indifferent Members on the Government Benches, those with majorities of 27, 2,700 or even 12,700, "Ask your constituents whether they would vote for you now." If the feedback from the Tories in other constituencies is anything

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like the response from the Tories in Ogmore, we shall never see a Tory Government again. I warn Tory Members "You either change your policies or your leader or you change your profession, because you have only a short time here."
5.59 pm
Mr. Mark Wolfson: I shall start by addressing myself to some of the points made by the Shadow energy spokesman, the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen). I am sorry that he is not present now. The right hon. Gentleman said that he regarded the debate as fundamentally important to the economy and as being of concern to people in Britain. I agree, and I am a little surprised that on a Supply day attendance on the Opposition Benches is rather thin.
The right hon. Gentleman suggested that the Government's policy towards the nationalised industries was one of spite and that this was in contrast to the policies of Governments in other indust-trialised countries where the mixed economy was accepted. As a supporter of the Government's policies, I have to say that nothing in my experience of the industrialised industries or in the contacts that I have had with management or workpeople in those industries, would make me feel any attitude of spite towards them. They are a crucial and important part of the British economy, and the people who work in them do a crucial and important job. It is vital that this point should be made often from the Government Benches.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to particularise steel, shipbuilding and today's announcement on telecommunications as examples of where the Government's policy was spiteful towards nationalised industries. These are unfortunate examples.
We have heard examples of how the current problems of the steel industry are deeply affecting the lives and future of people in steel-making areas, and I have much sympathy with them. Nevertheless, in the steel industry there was huge overinvestment at a time when it was not realised that the demand for steel worldwide would fall. In addition, that overinvestment was in some cases not effectively used. That is an example of the danger that occurs with nationalised
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industries, because they are large and inflexible, and when Governments get behind them things can either go very well or, equally, they can go very badly.
The shipbuilding industry has a long history of really difficult labour relations, and an old history—now mercifully less apparent—of demarcation disputes which hold back productivity. Over the last 10 years, British shipbuilding has been falling badly behind.
Mr. Dixon: I agree with the hon. Gentleman when he talks about shipbuilding having had bad industrial relations for a considerable time. I was a shop steward in the industry for many years. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, since vesting day, British Shipbuilders has a record second to none in this country for good industrial relations? Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) mentioned that from June 1977 until this year the number of wage bargaining units for manual workers and staff had been reduced from 182 to one. There has also been a tenfold reduction in the number of industrial disputes. The hon. Gentleman's point about industrial relations does not, therefore, apply to the British shipbuilding industry.
Mr. Wolfson: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I agree with him that there has been a dramatic improvement in industrial relations in that industry. Whether it has been due to nationalisation or to a realisation by those working in the industry that unless industrial relations were improved they would not remain even at a low level of competitiveness is not yet clear.
The point should also be made that shipbuilding is one industry that is benefiting considerably from the Government's policy of strengthening our Armed Forces. Money from the Government is benefiting those working in the industry and, at the same time, improving their job security.
The example of telecommunications, again, was not a very good one to take, because the postal services to the customer have come to be of an acceptably low standard. The moves that the Secretary of State for Industry has made in this area to free the industry will, I suggest, be of benefit to the consumer.
One of the mistakes that the Opposition make—they made the same mistake when

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they were in office—is to place tremendous emphasis on the retention of jobs in industry whether or not those jobs are helping to meet a market need. I accept that there is a balance to be drawn between market need and the needs of the customer, and that is exactly the policy in which the Government are involved.
I should like to consider briefly the history of the nationalised industries and the reason for nationalisation. First, there were the political reasons, which were elaborated for us by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Sir F. Burden). One of them was to control the commanding heights of the economy. Conservative Members are unlikely to agree with that reason. Indeed, as my hon. Friend rightly said, there are now many Labour Members who would not favour an expansion of that political role, although equally there are others who are very much in favour of it and who would be likely to go for it when the next opportunity arises. The country should be aware of that alternative.
Secondly, there were the economic reasons, relating to those public services which could no longer attract private capital in order to modernise. The coal mines and the railways were two examples.
Thirdly, there was the great idealism and the hope that, when nationalised, the industries concerned would provide a better working life for the people in them.
It is extremely sad that in the steel industry in particular the hope of long-term job security has been dashed. In the context of economics and security for employees, therefore, the history of the nationalised industries is not encouraging. Indeed, they have not been able to deliver the goods over the past 30 years in the way that was hoped.
The right hon. Gentleman said that if the nationalised industries were properly managed and had the full-hearted support of the Government, they would be effective. That takes me to my next two points.
The problem of running nationalised industries is twofold. First, they have no final accountability. Governments are always in a position—often assisted by pressure from their own Back Benches—to bail out the nationalised industries
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when they get into difficulties. It requires the most immense strength of mind and sense of long-term responsibility for that pressure to be resisted.
Mr. Bagier: Will the hon. Gentleman agree that, particularly in the case of the energy industries, they have got into trouble because successive Governments have used them as economic regulators?
Mr. Wolfson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I agree that this is the danger in many of the nationalised industries. I do not, however, believe that the policies of the present Government are being directed in that way.
The next problem is that management is always in danger of being interfered with in the nationalised industries. As a result, the industries have become increasingly inflexible, because they are unable to respond sufficiently enough to market forces.
The steel industry is a good example of that. The industry was prepared to slim down early, but there was resistance from hon. Members and from the Government of the day to that slimming down, at a time in the world economy when it could have been more easily achieved and with less human difficulty and social problems than now. I illustrate my point by quoting the example of the unrealism of there never being final responsibility and accountability in the nationalised industries. Soon after he took office, the general secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, Mr. Sidney Weighell, said:
"It is no problem of mine whether the British Railways Board are able or not able to meet my members' pay claim. My job is to get the same level of settlement for my members as other nationalised industries have already achieved."
Is not that an unrealistic view for a senior trade union leader to take if he is concerned about the long-term security of his members' jobs? I appreciate the work that he has to do for them, but it is not in the long-term interest of the preservation of jobs to take that attitude.
The Government's policies on nationalised industries are neither doctrinal nor spiteful. There will continue to be a role for the Government in assisting the development of nationalised industries. Nothing that we have heard today from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of

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State for Energy suggests, and I doubt whether anything that we shall hear from the Minister of Transport in his reply to the debate will suggest, that there is not a role for the Government in improving the ability and productivity of nationalised industries within sensible limits. There is a role for the Government, which this Government are performing at present.
The Government's policies on the British National Oil Corporation fit that pattern. The result of freeing the BNOC's monopoly has been an increase in activity by private and smaller oil companies. We now have a wider spread and a less monopolistic approach in the development of oil licences. That is valuable for Britain, not only in the short term, in the creation of jobs, but also in the longer term. As North Sea oil resources run out, it will be advantageous for British companies to be in partnership with a number of other international consortia for development elsewhere in the world in the future, using our expertise in the long term. That would not have happened had the existing arrangements under which BNOC operated been allowed to continue.
Are any hon. Members satisfied when they compare the services given by nationalised industries with the services of private companies—for example, the Sealink services of British Rail compared with those of free enterprise on cross-Channel services? It is obvious that one service is run by British Rail—a nationalised industry—and others, which are cleaner, where service is more positive and where there appears to be a better espirit de corps among the staff, are run by free enterprise companies. Likewise, a private hovercraft company has been profitable for many years, but British Rail's operation is still unprofitable. That is a good reason why the Minister of Transport has taken steps in that direction. The Government have a continuing responsibility to work in partnership with British Rail for the improvement of rail services in Britain. The Minister has chosen to investigate whether other funding and a freer method of operation involving free enterprise can improve services that are not crucial to the mainstream operation of British Rail.
Government policy towards the public sector is positive, and the aim is clear.
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It is not doctrinal but it is thoroughly practical. Mishandling in the public sector, which is so large and all-embracing, can bring disaster. There is a crucial need for a broader, less monopolistic base, in which some companies will develop and others will decline. These policies give that opportunity a chance of reality and achievement. That is why I support wholeheartedly the Government's amendment to the Opposition motion.
6.16 pm
Mr. David Penhaligon: If I were 30 years older, and if I had been elected to the House 30 years earlier, I should have argued at that time for an increase in the size of the public sector. I do not have a great deal of time for those who own land and industry in Britain, and I would not have done then. The evidence of the last 30 years suggests that the increase in the size of the public sector is not advantageous to the economy, and I see no argument now for any substantial or sustained increase in that sector. That does not mean that there is not a role for the State in running our economy.
Not long after I was elected to Parliament, the then Labour Government spent a substantial amount on bailing out Ferranti from its impending financial doom. That was right and proper. A few months ago this Conservative Government announced that they were to sell Ferranti back to the private sector. I believe that that was also right and proper. The irony is that if the Conservatives had been in power when Ferranti collapsed originally, they would have let it go. If Labour were in power now, they would keep Ferranti in the State sector. What happened was right but it was by pure chance. Ferranti was helped when it originally collapsed, and it is now to be returned to the private sector.
There is a role for the Government in industry, but it should not be in an ever-increasing section of the economy. I believe that the State sector is too big, and some of the moves by the Government to reduce its size will not receive any opposition from me. However, the Government are trying to go too fast. In modern politics a solution taking more than five years is of no interest to a politician. However, the Government

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have set industries financial targets that are totally untenable. The speech of the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devon-port (Dr. Owen) had much to commend it in that respect. He spoke of the turn-round being requested in times of great financial difficulty. The Government have set targets of which industries will fall short, and they will have to face a U-turn of their own making.
For all that, some of the Government's policies on the nationalised sector make no sense. The Minister of Transport is here, so I shall refer to his area of responsibility. He is the only Minister present. At the Venice conference the Prime Minister announced that Britain, with the other Western Governments, would make a sustained effort to reduce the consumption of oil. That is obviously right. How the Government can possibly tie that with their current policy on public transport, however, I do not know. Public transport is being eroded—in my area past the point of no return.
Let us consider the position in the urban areas. London has a deteriorating public transport system, with rail fares permanently escalating. I do not see how the Government can possibly relate their objective of reducing the consumption of oil to their policy of, in effect, reducing public transport. That is not a coherent approach.
Britain is fortunate in having good, mineable coal deposits. We are about the only country in Europe that can claim to have plenty of coal. We also have great oil and gas reserves. But at a time when the rest of the world is trying to get away from oil and increase its coal output, the Government invest £ 10 billion to £ 15 billion in building pressurised water reactors all over the country. This massive sum is equivalent to £ 400 for every household—and yet our coal reserves are to be largely ignored. I fail to grasp the rationale of that policy.
Anyone listening to this debate will see what is largely wrong with the two-party system in Britain. One side praises nationalised industry as though it were the perfect solution. The other side pretends that nationalised industry is all bad and rotten. Each side claims that what the other does is wrong.
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I see the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Mudd) on the Conservative Benches. The Falmouth ship repair yard is in his constituency, but it affects mine as well. The Labour Government closed it at a stroke, and he and I know why: it was the only part of that great nationalised industry that was not in a Labour constituency. We are seeing something of the same now with the Government taking their chance to get at the steel industry, which largely is located not in Conservative constituencies but in South Wales and other areas which, for Conservatives, are of little electoral consequence.
Far less dogma and far more pragmatism should be applied to the nationalised industries. I should particularly welcome a response from the Minister of Transport to say how he relates the Government's policy on public transport with the Prime Minister's declared determination substantially to reduce our consumption of oil.
6.24 pm
Mr. Roger Moate: I welcomed the first few remarks of the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon). I presume from those remarks that he will be supporting the Government amendment. His last remarks about the closure of steelworks in Labour constituencies resulting from some political plot by the Government were contemptible. If he believes that politicians on either side of the House act in that way, he has a low opinion of all human beings. I hope that he is not judging others by his own standards.
Mr. Penhaligon: I do not claim all knowledge, but I had considerable experience of the Conservative Party in Opposition trying to win back parts of the country which they thought were naturally and rightfully theirs—for example, Cornwall. For week after week and month after month, the Conservative Party in Cornwall kept saying that the Falmouth docks were being closed purely and simply because they were in a Conservative constituency.
Mr. Moate: I make no such judgment about the Labour Party; nor would I expect others to make it about the Conservative Party. If the hon. Gentleman alleges that steelworks are being closed

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because they are in Labour constituencies, he is debasing politics. I am sorry to say that, because generally the hon. Gentleman talks rather more common sense than he has this evening.
It is remarkable that on a day when the Opposition table a Supply day motion in extreme terms condemning the Government for their action on matters that are, presumably, dear to the Labour Party, the Labour Benches are an expanse of green, with hardly any Members present. When a Supply day motion is being debated, it is incumbent upon the Opposition to demonstrate the strength of their feeling. At this moment only three Labour Members are present—
Mr. Penhaligon: And a third of the Liberal Party.
Mr. Moate: Labour Members are outnumbered at least two or three to one by my hon. Friends who are present. I hope that those in the public sector industries who think that they are getting the support of the Labour Party will take note of the truth. The motion embodies a spurious proposition. If it were anything else, Labour Members would be here in massed ranks to argue the case. There are more than enough Conservative Members present to defend the Government's position, if it needed defending.
It is remarkable, given the problems of British industry, which we all acknowledge, that the Labour Party should choose, here and elsewhere, to launch a debate on nationalisation. The major problems facing our industry have been caused by the world recession, by technological change and by other developments in world trade. Even so, the Labour Party made proposals at the Wembley conference and in its draft manifesto for the expansion of public ownership. Such a proposal is likely to condemn the Labour Party to electoral oblivion. Labour Members do themselves a gross disservice by advancing this sort of proposition.
The debate is not basically between the Government and the Labour Party. It is between the Opposition Front Bench and hon. Members below the Gangway, the Tribune group—if only they were here.
Mr. John Patten: They have a meeting.
Mr. Moate: Then it is a long meeting. They absented themselves as soon as the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devon-port (Dr. Owen) rose to speak. I do not know whether he had been thinking evil thoughts and spirited his hon. Friends away, or whether he bored them out of the Chamber. If it were the latter, I have some sympathy for their point of view. His speech was one of the most unconvincing and self-righteous that I have heard for a long time. I use the term "self-righteous" deliberately. It is unconvincing for a party that was in office 14 months ago now to adopt the pose that everything that is wrong with British industry has been caused by the present Government.
I do not believe that Governments have the power that is attributed to my Government by the Opposition and by many commentators. It takes far longer than just over a year for policies to work through and have such an effect on the economy, whether for good or ill. Admittedly, current policies are having some effect, but by and large the present state of the country is more attributable to the inheritance left by the last Administration than to the actions of this Administration. That is why I find it totally self-righteous for Labour Party spokesmen to attribute the current problems of British industry to the events of the last 12 months.
Mr. Donald Anderson: Does the hon. Member disagree with those Conservatives who trumpet long and loud that there has been a clear change of direction over the nationalised industries?
Mr. Moate: No, I am not saying that there has not been a change of direction. I hope that there has. But it has not yet had the major effect on the nationalised industries that was attributed to it by the right hon. Member for Devonport.
It was a little unfair of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy to expect the right hon. Member for Devonport to announce policies on behalf of his party. After all, he is only its spokesman. How can he possibly know what policies will be enunciated by the Tribune group? In fact, I suspect that, rather like the shadow spokesman on defence, the right hon. Member is probably not consulted at all about these matters. Nevertheless, his contribution was pretty unhelpful in the context of the

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general performance of the nationalised industries and the private sector, faced with the problems of today.
Regardless of the party in power, there has been an inexorable decline over a long period in most of our public sector industries. It is foolish to attribute that to one party or the other. One has only to look, for example, at the coal industry. In 1947 nearly 750,000 people were engaged in that industry. That figure has now dropped to 235,000. That is a tremendous change—a revolution in coal mining. On the railways, on the same time scale, the number employed has dropped from nearly 700,000 to 244,000. That change is continuing inexorably, regardless of the Government and regardless of policy changes.
It is clear that the economic facts of life are steamrollering out of existence the commanding heights of the economy that the Tribune group is so determined to take over. It must be frustrating for the ardent Socialist to find that those commanding heights no no longer exist.
The nationalisation argument over the years shows that the tragedy for the taxpayer and the country is that the Labour Party has always managed to get into office and take over many of these industries at a time when they were facing a serious decline. As a result, the taxpayer has had to meet the costs of phasing out large sections of those industries, politicians and Parliament have had to carry the odium for the social changes that have followed and we have delayed the changes in efficiency that were desperately needed.
I have some sympathy for the ardent Socialists who see their case almost disproved because they have taken over industries at the wrong time. But that is their problem. It seems to happen almost every time. If one were trying to prove the case for Socialism, one would feel that it was an extraordinary time to take over the shipbuilding industry—when it is going into a massive decline, alongside enormous surplus capacity throughout the Western world. But that is just what happened. We had the classic example of the taxpayer carrying the massive burden of closures and small but efficient yards being damaged but nothing long-term being achieved for those who work in the industry.
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This is my complaint about the Labour Party's posture on nationalisation. It is not helping those who work in the public sector if it tries to kid them that somehow nationalisation provides greater job security. It definitely does not. One only has to look at the steel industry and the record of the previous Administration to see that.
Mr. Palmer: If a poll were taken of workers in the nationalised industries, does the hon. Member really suppose that they would vote for a return to private enterprise?
Mr. Moate: I suspect that, given the choice of closure or a return to private enterprise, the vast majority would opt for survival. If people in the private sector were asked whether they wanted to stay in the private sector or be nationalised, they would all opt for the private sector. Those are more significant points than the one that the hon. Member put. If, for example, the 60,000 people working in the private steel sector were asked whether they would rather remain there or be nationalised, they would resoundingly vote to remain in the private sector. The health and strength of the private steel sector should be studied more carefully by the whole nation as an object lesson in the operation of a mixed economy for the benefit of everyone.
Sir Anthony Meyer: Perhaps my hon. Friend would care to reflect on the example of Brymbo steelworks, which was originally bought rather forcefully from BSC by private enterprise. The transfer was welcomed by the employees. They have never ceased to bless the fact that the works was handed over to private enterprise, because they have done much better since.
Mr. Moate: That is a clear example of an open-minded, pragmatic approach to the question of public versus private sector. That is the lesson we should draw from all that has been discussed and done in the past decade. Let us be pragmatic. The Government are not being doctrinal, as they were accused of being by the right hon. Member for Devonport. We are taking a pragmatic and sensible approach. Where it is clear that certain sections of the economy have to stay within the public sector for practical reasons, we have adhered to a

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policy of taxpayers' support. I must remind the House that we are still talking about taxpayers' support; I believe that the State sector will receive taxpayers' support this year to the tune of £ 25 billion.
Surely, in an ideal economy we would want these major industries to support the taxpayer. We want those industries to make profits to build hospitals and roads. But that is not the way it is. Those industries are leaning on the taxpayer, rather than the other way round. That cannot be the right approach.
Pragmatically and sensibly, one can say that certain industries can be better managed, be more efficient and provide better job security if they are "privatised". It is simply a question of management.
I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is to wind up the debate, since I wish to put a number of points to him. I believe that his has done more than most other Government Departments to ensure the future efficient management of State assets where the consumer is paramount. The consumer decides whether he will travel by private enterprise or British Rail ships, whether he will stay in British Rail hotels, whether he will use private or public transport. The consumer has been determining the decline of public transport. We must somehow meet this need and not turn a blind eye to it.
The Labour Party pretends that we are damaging the railways by our current policies, but that is a myth. It is worth reminding Labour Members of the history of rail closures. They talk about the Tory Party and the Beeching axe, but in the last 10 years of Labour Government nearly 4,500 miles of railways were closed, compared with under 3,000 miles in the last 10 years of Conservative Government. The inexorable facts of life drove the Labour Government to make more rail closures than the Conservative Government.
The reality of life now is that there is a desperate shortage of investment capital for all our major public industries. That shortage would exist even if the Labour Party had won the election. If it was now in power it would impose tough cash limits on British Rail and other public sector industries.
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The Minister of Transport has managed to persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer—and I do not know how he did it—to keep up rail support, the PSO and other grants, to almost exactly the levels as applied previously. Given the problem of capital shortage and the desperate need for investment in British Rail and its subsidiary companies, does it not make sense to introduce private capital into those sectors of the railway community where private capital could work? The Labour Party has its head in the sand when it condemns the proposals to sell the subsidiary companies.
My right hon. Friend made it clear that the proceeds from the sales would go to British Rail. If the consumer on British Rail was asked "Would you rather have British Rail hanging on to its office blocks and hotels or having extra capital to electrify certain lines and improve commuter services?", the consumer and the taxpayer would say "Let British Rail stick to running railways and get out of those sectors where it has not been successful."
There is not an hon. Member in the House who can say that the record of BR hotels is good compared with the private sector. Judged by the needs of the consumer, the needs of British Rail investment, and especially job security and job opportunity, the hotels would be far better off in the private sector.
Mr. Jack Dormand: Give us some evidence.
Mr. Moate: The evidence is all around us. The private groups have built modern and profitable hotels while British Rail has built only one new hotel since the war. It has made a profit of only £ 328,000 from 39 hotels. [An Hon. Member: "It has been starved of investment capital."] That is true. It has been starved of investment capital by successive Governments, as have Sealink and the hovercraft company, because it is within the public sector. If Opposition Members wish to do a favour for the people who work in those industries, they will say "Get as far away from any Government as you can." If I was a trade union leader thinking of my members in those hotels, I would want to get as far away from the public sector as possible, so that we could have an expansionist policy

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based on profitable investment and the satisfaction of consumer needs.
Mr. Ioan Evans: What happened to Ferranti and the shipbuilding industry under private enterprise? The shipbuilding industry declined from producing 30 per cent. or more of the world's ships to about 4 or 5 per cent. under private enterprise. That was an absolute decline. It is succeeding under public ownership far better than it did under private enterprise. It is obtaining new orders that it could not achieve under private enterprise. Ferranti collapsed under private enterprise. It was rescued by public money, but it is now being sold again.
Mr. Moate: I should be happy to spend a long time explaining why I think that the whole of the Ferranti saga has been a dreadful error, but this is not the moment. I dealt with shipbuilding earlier. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was not in the Chamber or did not listen.
I hope that Opposition Members will look at subsidiary companies a little more pragmatically. The Government have made a moderate and sensible proposal that will benefit everybody, whereas the present arrangement is damaging British Rail interests.
In other areas also the Minister of Transport has taken action—for example, by encouraging the introduction of new private capital into bus transport and by the sale of motorway service areas. I expect that Opposition Members are opposed to that, but it will benefit the taxpayers by bringing in cash and improving service to the consumer.
Another area where my right hon. Friend has made initial proposals which I greatly welcome, but about which we have not heard the final details, is that of the ports. As with British Rail's subsidiaries and the National Freight Corporation, my right hon. Friend has entered into an understanding with the British Transport Docks Board—which administers the industry and understands its true needs and best interests—for the partial or complete denationalisation of the industry and the introduction of private capital. Some time ago my right hon. Friend announced that he had agreed with the BTDB a scheme, in prin-
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ciple, to introduce private capital in some form or another. I welcome that as a major change of direction in the ports which will be of great benefit to the country.
As in other areas, the phasing down of many of the greater ports in Britain with their great concentrations of labour has proved that smaller and more efficient units are successful Many of those units are under private ownership, many are in the public sector and some are trust ports. It is not so much ownership that counts as the good fortune in location and the independence of management. That is why it is right that the BTDB should, of its own volition, get as far away from the Government as possible and become an independent private organisation.
It is a helpful trend that the ports are being told "You manage your affairs without Government interference and without even the burden of the National Ports Council". They do not need the Government to direct them. The more the Government direct them, the less efficient they are likely to be. I welcome the steps that my right hon. Friend has taken to introduce private capital for the benefit of the consumer. It would be helpful to hear whether he has yet decided when and how the BTDB will be allowed to introduce private capital.
As a party and as a Government, we say that the present mixed economy should continue. There are areas where we can introduce private capital for the greater benefit of industry, the people who work in it and the taxpayer. The Opposition will do a great disservice to Britain, and an even greater disservice to themselves—but why should we care about that?—if they advocate an even greater expansion of public ownership.
6.48 pm
Mr. John Golding: I speak as the political officer of the Post Office Engineering Union—a job that has never been easier as thousands more Post Office engineers are beginning to realise how damaging are the political decisions of the Government to their occupational interests.
For 20 years I have called attention to the inadequacy of Post Office investment. We are suffering today from under-investment in the past, especially

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on underground cables. Many faults are occurring because of past reluctance to invest in modern plant and equipment. The frustration of the telephone users has its origin in past public spending cuts. I have in mind the Barber cuts of 1973. Unfortunately, the customer blames the present Post Office staff rather than politicians who have long since been forgotten.
The Government's cash limits policy has been especially harmful. They have treated telecommunications—a vital part of our economy—as though it was a spending department rather than the profitable, vital, economic service that it is. In their attempt to cut the public sector borrowing requirement, the Government have undermined a sector that is vital to our economic growth. Of course, the Post Office should be subject to outside financial control. The Post Office Engineering Union accepts the 5 per cent. return target and the task of reducing costs in real terms by 5 per cent. a year. Which other business is set such a task at the present time?
The Post Office Engineering Union does not accept that over the past three years there has been a requirement to pay back £ 173 million, of which £ 110 million fell in the last financial year. It is no wonder that customers are irate because they cannot obtain telephones and that staff are upset at their failure to obtain the stores necessary to provide an efficient service.
The Post Office Engineering Union is also worried because restrictions on borrowing this year have led to reports of a cash gap of at least £ 200 million. It fears the consequence for the business and its members if management is forced to take decisions against their interests.
Limits on borrowing by businesses which are thriving do not make sense from the point of view of employment, the customer and the economy, which will become even more dependent on telecommunications and computers. The cash limits on the telecommunications business have led to higher prices, waiting lists for telephones and other equipment, a less efficient service and a significant slowing down of the technological development on which we shall depend so much. It is not surprising, given the crippling of telecommunica-
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tions by the Government, that customers complain and workers lose heart.
Barlow was able to blow his top and leave. Rank-and-file engineers who have devoted their working lives to the Post Office do not see why they should leave what could be a proud public service. The Conservatives have used public discontent to further their ideological opposition to profitable public enterprise. The proposals announced this afternoon will take substantial sums out of telecommunications, although they are needed to expand and improve the quality of services.
The Post Office needs at least £ 1,500 million a year—or £ 4 million a day—from its own resources or from others in order to invest. In a nutshell, the proposals will put money into the City at the expense of everyone else, particularly at the expense of the small towns and rural areas. Higher prices and a worsening service are the most likely consequences of the Government's policy.
Dividing the maintenance of telecommunications is bound to lead to a worse service, extra cost and maintenance difficulties. Can one imagine the arguments between the Post Office and other suppliers when a fault occurs originating either in the Post Office network or equipment or in privately supplied equipment? Post Office engineers maintain the entire network and accept responsibility for repairing any fault free of charge. They do not blame another source. They do not shuffle off responsibility. The television repair man can blame the aerial, not the set. He can disappear with the customer owing him money for calling at the house. There is no charge now for repairing a telephone fault. In future, it is likely that the customer will be told "It has nothing to do with me. The other firm is at fault." We should avoid that.
The Government say that they are opening up the business to competition. They know that if they allow private circuits to be used by all and sundry—to cease to be private—they will be creaming off. The creation of the subsidiary is a device which will make it more difficult for the Post Office than its competitors to operate. Will the Secretary of State insist that each of the

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competitors which creates subsidiaries follows the same rules?
The statement by the Secretary of State this afternoon is disappointing because it abandons an integrated telecommunications network. It is harmful to the development of our industrial structure, which will depend more and more upon the growth of data transmission and on the increasing use of an effective and efficient telecommunications system linked to data processing. Today's announcement will lower further the morale of Post Office engineers, who are already working under the strain of rapidly advancing technology. Through no fault of theirs, they are subject to public criticism. They feel insecure because of the technological explosion. Workers are worried that their training today will have little relevance in five or 10 years. They want job security.
Today's announcement will undermine the confidence of those workers. Their productivity record is first-rate. They have successfully reduced unit costs. Whatever has happened in the other sectors of public industry, in telecommunications manpower productivity has increased. The task is to lower unit costs in real terms by 5 per cent. It can be of no use to such an industry to undermine further the confidence of its workers.
The Secretary of State must think again before introducing his legislation, because it is harmful to the customers, staff and the economy. Post Office staff should be rewarded for their efforts and conscientiousness. They should not be punished, as it appears that they will be by the Government.
6.59 pm
Sir Anthony Meyer: The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) spoke up bravely for his union. I have much sympathy with what he said about the consistent underinvestment in the infrastructure of telecommunications under Governments of both parties. However, it is not an argument in favour of nationalisation, because during that period the Post Office was nationalised.
I welcome Members of the Labour Party to the debate. Although not many of my hon. Friends have been present, they have consistently outnumbered
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Labour Members by about 10 to 1. It is good to see Labour Members here, back from more congenial pastimes such as arguing about the various Labour Party policies. I welcome in particular Members of the Welsh Labour Party.
Mr. Anderson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir A. Meyer: The hon. Gentleman missed a rousing speech by his hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) in which he referred to the recent Conservative Party conference in Swansea. I have to tell the hon. Members for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) and for Aberdare (Mr. Evans), who were perhaps outside during the conference, that it was very successful. No doubt the Prime Minister would have welcomed an opportunity to have an exchange of views with the demonstrators outside, but they did not seem to be in much of a mood for an exchange.
On my way back from that conference I travelled up and down two or three of the industrial valleys of South Wales. I could not help being struck by the pace at which the old traditional industries of steel and coal are being replaced by relatively pleasant modern factories, producing a wide variety of products. As we heard from one of my hon. Friends in an intervention, no less than 47 per cent. of the advance factories being built in the United Kingdom are being built in Wales. That is no less than the urgent needs of the Principality demand.
I shall not argue whether that welcome development is a tribute to public or private enterprise. I wish to stand back from the great argument about public and private enterprise and consider the nation's long-term economic objectives. I do not believe that there is much doubt about where we want to get to. We want to reach a state of affairs in which a very small number of people in industry produce vast wealth, using the latest technological achievements—all the products of automation and the silicon chip—to the full. We recognise that that probably means that, at the end of the day, there will be a minuscule labour force working in productive industry, producing vast wealth.
It would be an environment in which innumerable small and medium-sized firms catered for the needs of a very wealthy society. Industry would also

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provide the resources to finance lavish public services, and here perhaps I join Opposition Members. We should have fine schools with small pupil-teacher ratios, well-equipped hospitals in which there was no waiting for treatment; in the public sector, transport with no waiting for buses, and in the private sector shops and banks where one did not have to queue. That society may be a long way away, but that is what we should be aiming for. It would entail short hours for those in industrial employment—a short week, a short year and, indeed, a short working life.
On the other side of the coin, it would mean an end to restrictive practices, having no truck with restrictive notions such as import controls and doing without subsidies. To enable small firms to operate profitably in that environment, there would have to be cuts in taxation. Additionally, the great increase in the social services is much more likely to come about if we accept the idea that they will not necessarily be financed for ever from the public purse.
That is the mirage that we should aim for. How do we reach those sunlit uplands? We have a magnificent atlas for that purpose, which has hardly been opened since it was recently issued. It is called the Brandt report. It involves advanced countries making a massive transfer of resources to developing countries so that they can build up their requirements to finance purchases from the developed countries and so get the whole process going. Although it is a magnificent atlas, it has smudgy road maps. The difficulty is to find our way in the medium term. I believe that the way there lies in closer co-operation within the Community, although I have to be more specific than that.
Mr. Anderson: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says about the Brandt report as an atlas, but does he agree that from the reports of the Venice summit it appears that the Conservative Government have thrown that atlas decisively out of the window?
Sir A. Meyer: I might be prepared to listen to the hon. Gentleman if he could seriously claim that his party had more consistently advocated the policies set out in the Brandt report. However, the right hon. Member for Plymouth,
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Devonport (Dr. Owen), who made a clever speech, merely used the occasion to attack the Government's policies. At no stage did he indicate that his party was committed to such policies. The position is quite the contrary. With every day that passes, it becomes increasingly evident that the Labour Party's policies are to apply strict import controls, in particular to the products of the developing world. I do not believe that Labour Members are well qualified to speak on the issue.
Mr. Peter Shore: The hon. Gentleman is being a little unfair. He has also been selective in the number of debates that he has attended. The House had a good debate on the Brandt report. If the hon. Gentleman was there, I apologise, but if he was I do not believe that he could possibly have made those remarks. We strongly urged the Government to make the most positive response in time for the Venice summit.
Sir A. Meyer: I was sitting on the far Benches listening attentively to every word that the right hon. Gentleman said. Although in general terms he spoke in favour of the ideas contained in the report, almost every subsequent Labour Member who spoke in that debate, as in all other debates remotely related to the subject, demonstrated that the Labour Party's primary interest is in pressing for import controls. They have not specified that those import controls should not be applied against developing countries. However, we are straying from the subject of the debate. We are supposed to be considering our attitude to nationalised industries.
Implicit in what I said earlier is the concept that there is no future for this country in trying to prop up by import controls or open-ended subsidies jobs in industries that are the industries of yesterday. We do no service to those in such industries by trying to pretend that any Government can safeguard their jobs. If one lesson has gone home to steel workers and coal miners, it is that nationalisation is no guarantee of continued employment. For a period, by subsidy Governments can attempt to prop up those jobs, but the reckoning when it comes is terrible indeed.

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An Opposition Member spoke of the way in which our steel industry was being run down with an abruptness that was brutal in its consequences for those working in the industry. I agree that the abruptness is brutal. It imposes a special obligation on Governments to cushion the consequences. However, it is brutal solely because the Labour Government put off over and over again so many vital decisions within that industry. They left it in a hopelessly uncompetitive state, and it required such massive subsidies from the remainder of the economic system that it has imposed a real burden on other industries, which could be providing better, more secure jobs than those available in the steel industry.
Having said that, I must say that to whatever extent the steel industry in this country is slimmed down, Wales must remain a major element within that industry. The traditions of Wales, the equipment available and, above all, the skills of the workers give Wales an alienable right to remain a major element within the steel industry, however far the industry has to be slimmed down.
Mr. Bagier: Bearing in mind also the Conservative Party's philosophies, would the hon. Gentleman advocate the same for Consett as for Wales?
Sir A. Meyer: I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Consett (Mr. Watkins), as did the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Bagier). Anyone who listens to the hon. Member for Consett must be struck by the strength of the case that he deploys. On one or two occasions he departed from his normal high standard of fairness. However, I am here not to argue that case but to listen to it with great sympathy. It is a shame that a town such as Consett, with such a fine record of labour relations, should have been struck in such a way. However, that is the inevitable consequence of the failure to take the right decision at the right time.
Sometimes I choose the image of a group in a lifeboat that has long ago thrown overboard all unnecessary items. We have long ago thrown overboard all luxury, comfort and shelter. If we are safely to reach port, we shall have to throw overboard some of the fuel and
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supplies that we need to get us to port. That is a measure of the gravity of the short-term position with which we are faced. It is only by navigating through the immediate perilous waters, having thrown away essential items of equipment, that we stand any chance of surviving in the long run.
I do not believe that subsidies or import controls offer a way of enabling our traditional nationalised industries to survive. A much better way of enabling British industry to survive—this does not apply solely to nationalised industries—is to pursue a much more active procurement policy of buying British. We have had references recently to the PAYE computer. The argument in favour of buying a British-made computer, even if it does the job less well and is more expensive, is strong. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, when talking about Poseidon, emphasised strongly the amount of work for British yards that would be involved in the decision that he had taken. I was glad to hear him say that.
A conspicuous example close to my constituency is the European Airbus. I should like to see the Government—this applied also to the previous Labour Government—lean heavily on British Airways and strongly encourage it to purchase the A300B rather than the medium-range American Boeing aircraft that it has been buying. That would be a far better way of providing jobs within the sector which is part nationalised and part denationalised and which so badly requires jobs to be provided. It would be a far better way of making that provision than continuing to pour thousands of millions of pounds into the steel industry.
I have to recognise that, necessary though it is to limit the vast sums that British Steel is losing by way of operating losses, the idea of obliging it to break even within so short a period as 12 months is not the best way of achieving economic operation, even in the short term. I do not believe that it will be practicable to make the deadline work. If the bosses of British Steel are required to show a paper break-even position within so short a period, there is a danger that they will adopt policies and expedients that will turn out to be more expensive in the long run.

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I should hate to see the Government behave as the previous Labour Government behaved when they announced that they had set a financial limit to the requirements of British Steel. When pressed, they said "We did not mean it. It was not a limit but a target." When asked what the difference was between a limit and a target, they said "We suppose that it would have been better to call it a pious hope." I should not like to see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry behaving in that soppy way. None the less, it may be advisable to give the new chairman of British Steel a little more leeway lest, in order to comply with the strict guidelines, he rushes into decisions that he may subsequently come to regret.
I congratulate the Opposition on their motion. It encapsulates pretty well everything that has gone wrong over the past few years. The Labour Party has formed the Government for 11 of the past 16 years. We see it approving the overmanning and restrictive practices that have made the publicly owned industries and public services so vulnerable to foreign competition and have led to the inescapable need for cuts in Government spending.
We have the Opposition rejecting the policies that are being applied by the Government to make the same industries competitive and for cutting services, however painfully, to a size commensurate with what our impoverished economy can afford. At the same time the Opposition blandly ignore the fact that even under a Socialist Government nationalised industries and the public services were able neither to serve the public nor to save the jobs of their workers.
I wish that I could be as wholehearted and enthusiastic about the Government's amendment. I have no quarrel with its contents. However, I should like to see some reference to the issue that I have tried to develop—namely, that industry, whether public or private, is facing an inexorable decline in the number of employees for whom it can provide employment. It is to services, public as well as private, to tourism, banking, insurance, retail trade, hospitals, schools and transport, that we must look to provide the jobs that are so desper-
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ately needed, and nowhere more desperately than in the Principality of Wales.
7.17 pm
Mr. Arthur Palmer: The hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) spoke in his usual moderate and mild way. However, the hon. Gentleman wandered rather wide. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not take up his remarks.
I am annoyed with those who talk all the time, especially on the the Government Benches, about the decline of Britain and British industry. They must not go on doing it for too long or else they will be held as mainly to blame. The truth is that there is not a great deal wrong with the economy that a 3 or 4 per cent. improvement in productivity would not put right. The issue is how we achieve that improvement.
I did not hear the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) as I was at a meeting of the Select Committee on energy. However, I heard the speech of the Secretary of State for Energy. As one would expect, the right hon. Gentleman made great play about motions to be discussed at Labour Party conferences on the further extension of nationalisation. When parties have been defeated at elections, they have to think again about their fundamental principles. They usually end up, however by returning to a much more reasonable and middle position. That is likely to happen again.
There is no real contradiction between Socialist fundamentalism and accepting the need for a mixed economy. That is what we have and we are likely to have it for a considerable time. As I say, there is no contradiction in accepting the mixed economy and at the same time believing in an ultimate Socialist future. I suggest that it is far better to believe in a Socialist future than in a capitalist past, but if we have to live in what is to be a mixed economy for a long time, that must be our true position in our own time.
I have taken a close interest in the affairs of nationalised industries since I first came to the House. I have been especially interested in the administration of these industries and their practical working. I think that I have served on all Committees on electricity

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and gas supply during the time that I have been a Member of this place. I have played a part in Bills on those subjects at all stages in their passage through the House. I have never had a static conception of nationalisation. Evolution is a law of life. There is a danger that in parliamentary systems such as ours legislation can all too easily place nationalised industries in straitjackets. They are, therefore, unable to take advantage of changes in technique or of commercial exploitation. The relevant Act may narrowly confine an industry to its original aim. For example, if the electricity supply industry—the House knows of my interest in this industry and of my connections with it—had been able to acquire a share in the ownership and development of North Sea gas as a new primary fuel, it would not have been placed at such a disadvantage in relation to the gas industry, which has a monopoly by statute. That monopoly was granted by a Conservative Government.
Legislation is often hard to come by because there are limitations on parliamentary time. Things are not done when they should be done because time cannot always be found for Bills. One reason certainly why the Secretary of State has not introduced a Bill to implement, in whole or in part, the recommendations of the Plowden report for the reorganisation of the electricity supply industry—on which everyone worked so hard-has been the lack of time available for legislation. Changes that might have been beneficial to the country have been passed over in favour of more doubtful proposals, such as restrictions on trade union freedom, adverse social securty changes and so on. We have had a spate of such Bills. Most of them are reactionary in intention and they take time.
I hope that one of the first actions of a new Labour Government will be to give freedom to the nationalised industries to make changes in their powers, subject only to ministerial approval. They should be allowed to make changes by means of regulations, approved by the House. They should not have to wait for new legislation to be introduced. The aim would be to
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allow nationalised industries to diversify and, where commercially attractive, to expand their business into new fields, as the private sector does. Of course, that contradicts the point of view held by the Minister of Transport. He has told us that the profitable sections of the railway industry will be hived off and sold to private enterprise in order to get back cash. We should instead allow the railways to expand further into profitable areas, in order to find the revenue that will help them.
Both sides of the House appear to accept the need for a mixed economy. If they do not do so in theory, they at least accept that need in practice. There is no reason why a Conservative Government should reject such a view. At one time, Conservative Governments did not reject it. In the late 1950s, a Conservative Government enacted a measure that set up the centralised CEGB within the existing nationalisation framework. They gave that body the right to manufacture with ministerial approval. That was a sensible and pragmatic decision. One would not get such a decision from the present Conservative Administration. The aim of that 1950s legislation was to strengthen the nationalised industry by means of new forms of organisation. For that reason, the changes were not opposed by the then Labour Opposition.
But what have we now? Ministers and their supporters show open hostility not only to the merits of new public enterprise but to the existing nationalised industries. Trade unions in the nationalised industries firmly believe that to be the case. If one talks privately to the management of nationalised industries, one finds that it takes the same view. Given that there is a mixed economy that is part public and part private, why does the Conservative Party continue the long-running and old-fashioned debate of private enterprise versus nationalisation?
Last week I was in France on behalf of the Select Committee on energy. We spoke to French economists and administrators, to French industrialists involved in its nationalised industries and to French Ministers. The span of nationalisation in France is not dissimilar to that found in Britain. However, the

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French have never known such arguments as we have. That is a particularly British form of argument. Perhaps it is a survival from Victorian days, when we went further towards a pure free enterprise system than any other country in Europe. The French are not bothered about where the capital comes from, as long as it earns a proper return. The sooner, I suggest, that we get closer to that pragmatic French view, the better.
Britain's nationalised industries have done a fine job for the country. One must examine their finances carefully. The hon. Member for Gillingham (Sir F. Burden) spoke as if all the nationalised industries made losses. The coal industry, the transport industry and the railways have had difficulties, because new techniques have overtaken them. However, the electricity supply industry did not go into the red after it had been nationalised, until Conservative interventionists told the industry that it must hold its prices constant. Government subsidisation then began. The electricity industry did not ask for that, nor did the trade unions.
If one considers how much capital the majority of nationalised industries obtain from their own resources, one must conclude that by international standards their productivity and efficiency are as good as those of the large-scale private companies, such as ICI and Shell. At present, the nationalised industries are being restricted. That restraint applies to productive and up-to-date nationalised industries just as it applies to the coal industry and to the railway industry, where historical and technical changes have created difficulties for them in all countries.
If nationalised industries experience problems of expansion, it is because the Government have fixed artificial cash limits on investment. I cannot understand why productive nationalised industries which make commercially good investments should be subject to cash limits. It is said that it is good for ICI, Courtaulds and other companies to put money into new chemical plants, since that will benefit the country and bring a return. However, if the CEGB invests in new nuclear power stations as future technology, it is subject to artificial restraint from Governments.
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I know that Labour and Conservative Governments have equally continued that practice, but it is about time that it was stopped. There should be a differentiation between productive investment, whatever the system of ownership, and expenditure, which normally comes out of taxation revenues. That would improve the look of the Government's own accounts, but apart from that it would be a good thing to do in itself.
I hold a view which many of my hon. Friends may not hold. I believe that intervention by Ministers in the affairs of the nationalised industries should be kept to a minimum. I believe that those industries should be commercially viable and be allowed to work in an economy which is reasonably free. Indeed, there is no real contradiction between socialised enterprises and the market economy. Some of the countries east of the Iron Curtain are moving fast in that direction anyhow.
However, what does the Secretary of State for Energy now propose to do with regard to electricity supply? It is Government interventionism run mad. Instead of carrying through the proposals that have been recommended to successive Governments by the Plowden committee and those associated with it, the Minister himself will, apparently for the future, to a great extent direct the affairs of the electricity supply industry.
I have in front of me a copy of Hansard for 15 July. It contains a long statement, which, incidentally, was not made from the Dispatch Box, as it should have been so that the right hon. Gentleman could have been questioned. It was done in the sly manner of slipping in an inspired written question almost at the end of the day. The statement took up columns of Hansard. It says that the right hon. Gentleman will not now give a new shape to the electricity supply industry so that it can look after its own affairs.
I do not want to be too long, but I should like to give one or two quotations. The right hon. Gentleman said:
"I have been assured by the council"—
that is, the Electricity Council—
"and individual electricity boards of their commitment to my policy"—
This is the party which believes in nonintervention. He continued:

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"I will seek specific comments from the council before approving capital programmes".
He went on:
"the council will advise me on the further development of physical, technical and financial measures of performance by the boards". —[Official Report, 15 July 1980; Vol. 988, c. 447.]
He will also decide "whether changes are desirable" and will expect the conclusions to be reported to him. That is interventionism run mad. It is the kind of thing that I fear from this Government. There may be Socialist interventionists, but there is nothing so chaotic as a Tory interventionist.
I should like to comment on a sentence which was uttered by the Secretary of State earlier this afternoon. It seemed to slip out. As I have said, I am suspicious of the way in which he goes about our affairs. He said, I think, that he would end the existing monopoly of the CEGB with regard to industrial supplies. There is no real monopoly at present. I think that about 20 per cent. of electricity in this country used by industry is generated privately. That has been the case ever since nationalisation, for the simple reason that there are private generating plants on industrial estates or with large concentrations of industry, such as one gets at ICI at Wilton in North Yorkshire. I am familiar with that area. It has an industrial power station which supplies its own needs and also links in with the national grid. Therefore, there is nothing new in using private enterprise on private land for electricity supplies.
However, if that so called monopoly is to be broken, it means further changes. The House has a right to know whether the right hon. Gentleman is proposing that private electricity concerns will be given the right to break up the public highways in order to lay down duplicate mains to the public suppliers. If that is to be the case, I should point out that long before nationalisation electricity undertakings, from the 1882 Act onwards, always had a territorial monoply. That is the sensible way of dividing responsibility when large-scale capital expenditure is involved. Again, I feel that the Secretary of State is getting just too devious for words. In future, he must be much franker with the House. Those who are responsible for public
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electricity supplies will be concerned about this proposal and will rightly want to know what it means.
If new generating stations are to be erected privately, what about the fuel that will be employed? Will that come under control? There is a choice of fuel. It could be nuclear, coal or oil, although at present it would not be sensible to use oil. What about the strategic placing of these power stations in relation to the national grid? Great losses in the uses of energy can be caused if a power station is built just anywhere to suit a private developer and if within two or three miles there is a publicly-owned power station which could easily carry the load.
If that is to occur, we shall not just hit at the electricity nationalisation Acts of 1947 and 1957 but we shall hit at the proposals brought forward by the Baldwin Government in 1926, which set up the unified electricity grid. I ask Ministers to think a little about what they are doing. They should not too easily cast aside the wisdom of those who have gone before them.
7.38 pm
Mr. Tom Benyon: I intend to stick—I hope rigidly—to the promise that I gave you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, not to take more than 10 minutes. I am comforted by the thought that those who speak twice as long may catch your eye only half as often.
I should like to confine my remarks to the motor industry. I am sure that my constituents will receive comfort from the entire House when I point out that about 800 of them recently lost their jobs as a result of the closure of MG in Abingdon. In the last two weeks, we have seen the death of a unique car, which only a year ago celebrated its golden jubilee and is now in its fifty-first year. How hard it is to tell the work force, which has been loyal to British Leyland for so long and has had such a good strike record and tradition of excellence and of handing down responsibility for making these cars from father to son.
The irony is that if they had not been such good workmen and had such a reputation for high quality, the deal that was mooted between British Leyland and Aston Martin could not even have been thought of. It would certainly not have got off the ground as far as it did. It

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is a tragedy that the deal, worked at so hard by Alan Curtis of Aston Martin and supported by Michael Edwardes of British Leyland, failed to come to pass.
The reasons why the deal did not come to pass are complex. It is not as simple as to say that the city institutions or the Government have not done what they should have done. The first reason is that after the 1968 merger BMC and Leyland decided to put money into the TR range of sports cars. Secondly, the MG was regarded as so special a car that various parts—the gearbox to name but one—were unique and consequently could not be used in other British Leyland cars. Thirdly, the MG deal, like so much of the British motor industry, was caught badly by the high value of the pound. Next came the crippling interest rates, and £ 20 million was a great deal of money for Alan Curtis to raise. The world recession finally scotched the deal. The MG work force and car cannot insulate themselves from world conditions. Today in the Financial Times I see that tragically another 6,000 British Leyland workers, many of whom work on the TR range, are also on part time.
It is not the job of Members of Parliament to mislead their constituents into believing that there are easy solutions to their problems. It is no service to my constituents to tell them that they can be insulated from the world recession or that we can spend our way out. Nor is it a proper service to tell them that they can build an economic future for themselves out of a magnificent car which, for reasons beyond their control, has become a loss-maker.
I am pleased that a faint glimmer of silver in a very black cloud for the Abingdon work force is that, at the initiative of British Leyland, the management of that company, along with the town council, the district council and the trade unions, which have been enthusiastic about this idea, are to examine the Abingdon site with a view not to selling it off as a job lot but to seeing whether it can be divided into 1,000 to 2,000 units for other businesses in that area. I hope that this idea will bear fruit and will grow from the tragedy of the closure of the MG works. However bleak the present may look, inventiveness and resilience have not been suspended in Abingdon. I hope that this idea will shortly be examined by the
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authorities in Abingdon and the management of Leyland.
During the past ½ to 2 years Michael Edwardes has attempted to explain to the Leyland work force the problems that he and they as a company face in trying to sell cars at a time of world recession. Leyland's problems are manifold. Much of the message that Michael Edwardes has attempted to put across has been misunderstood—possibly wilfully in many instances, but perhaps not. He finds, as I am sure that many of those who head our large concerns find, that the difficulty of communication is extreme.
We are told "The two sides of British industry"—can there be a more arid phrase?—"met this afternoon." The gulf may be too wide. In trying to explain the problems facing his troubled company, Michael Edwardes appears to be calling across a chasm of distrust. The message never seems to reach the other side; it just echoes back to him. The message must be "If you cannot sell it you cannot go on making it. If there is no productivity, there can be no real pay increases. Unless unit labour costs and productivity are competitive, we export jobs, not goods."
I should like to hark back to an excellent speech made last week by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton (Mr. Forman). He said that the problem facing the Government, too, was that of communication—trying to bridge the gap of misunderstanding between the Government and the people about economic problems, realism on pay, production, inflation and the economy.
What are the problems we face? I should like the Government to implement one of our many manifesto statements: to institute a wider economic forum for explaining some of these problems to the people. It would help to build a bridge across the chasm of public misunderstanding. I should like that wider forum to be set up without delay.
There are some areas where the Government can positively help Leyland. An evil godmother was at the birth of British Leyland in 1968. She decided, instead of giving three or four blessings to the newborn babe that it should be plagued with the curses of strikes and management and union problems. More recently the plagues have come thicker and faster.

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One plague is a high pound and a low yen. Since 1977 the pound's differential has reached 50 per cent. with the yen, 25 per cent. with the deutschemark, 20 per cent. with the French franc and 25 per cent. with the lira. The next plague would be a poor reputation on grounds of quality and delivery. Next would be the plague of the British disease of knocking. We are good at knocking this country and we have been knocking BL for too long. Lastly, we would be plagued, at a time when the company is teetering on the brink of survival or non-survival, with a world recession.
Times have now changed. Leyland has some new models and has instituted a programme of quality control on a par with anything on the Continent. The company has rationalised to a major extent. It is determined to turn itself round and get moving again. There is a sense of crisis not only in management but in the work force. Reality walks abroad at British Leyland now, but it is still in a crisis and it is teetering on the brink.
In the past, like an ageing heavyweight fighter knocked cold in many bouts—mainly by Japanese, Spanish and Eastern bloc contenders—Leyland had become a bit of a joke. But that fighter now has a new manager, a great deal of experience, training and preparation and a new style. It has lost a lot of weight, slimming down from a heavyweight to a light heavyweight, and it does not mind a fair contest in the ring, but it would like some help from its backers. It does not wish to go into the ring with one or even two hands tied behind its back.
The Government have given great help in many areas, but there are a few areas in which they should consider helping more. British Leyland is one of the largest employers in the country and the Government are a major shareholder, so all the help that they can give that company at this time must be welcome and wise.
Japan exports to the European Community 606,000 cars—that was the number registered in 1979—and the European Community exports to Japan 38,000 cars. In the first six months of 1980 Japan increased its EEC market share to 8 per cent. compared with 6 per cent. in 1979, yet unemployment is only
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2 per cent. in Japan, while it is 8 per cent. and, tragically, rising in this country.
Why is this happening? First, for reasons beyond anyone's control, the yen has appreciated by about 20 per cent. in the past 18 months. It is difficult to sell cars in Japan, because the technical regulations are intense and the distribution system is hard to bust and is pretty well tied up.
The Government understand the Spanish situation, which borders on the intolerable. Spanish exports of cars to the EEC in 1979 totalled 50,000, while Spain's imports were only 300, because there is a tariff of 35-1 per cent. against imports into Spain, while it suffers only 4-4 per cent. in return. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade is aware of that matter and I ask him to consider it carefully to see what can be done to put it right as soon as possible.
The position in Eastern Europe is also intolerable. Those countries exported—let us call it dumped—39,000 cars to the EEC in 1979 and took only 400 cars in return. As far as I can see, there were no reciprocal sales. The result is that 6,000 British Leyland jobs have been given to Communist countries and our distributors face considerable problems. I am, of course, assuming that all those cars would be replaced by BL cars, which would not be the case, because we should have to fight hard against competition from France, Germany and elsewhere. Nevertheless, it is intolerable to have so many Eastern European cars imported into this country.
I am not asking for import controls. We should not follow the French in trying to find new ways of bending the rules but rather should press vigorously for the application of existing rules. It is intolerable that we appear to be the only country playing cricket by the rules. Our EEC compatriots will nick the wicket, bails and ball any day.
We have seen many examples of that. The French attitude towards us and the Common Market generally borders on the contemptuous. They have a history of bending the rules over for example, VAT on racehorses and the performance on lamb imports. The French have driven their foreign-made coach and

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horses through the Treaty of Rome so often that they make it look like the route nationale.
The French make our cars conform to their own type approval systems and to EEC directives, but inevitably we do not do the same. I ask the Government to support the European Commission in opening discussions urgently to limit imports of Japanese cars into Europe and the EEC. I also ask them to support, if necessary, voluntary restraint by the Japanese in the United Kingdom, which has already been agreed by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the Japanese Auto Manufacturers Association, and to ensure that the Ministry of Transport obtains assurances that our EEC colleagues will accept our cars without the imposition of extra national type approval regulations, as we accept imported cars from those countries in the EEC.
I am not asking for protection from fair competition. Far from it. I ask that we stop playing our game of manufacturing cars when the players on the other side are using loaded dice.
7.54 pm
Mr. Gordon A. T. Bagier: I hope that the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Benyon) will forgive me if I do not follow his comments too closely. I do not have a car industry in my constituency, but I sympathise with those who are being made unemployed in that industry. No one deplores the disappearance of MG more than those of us who are car lovers.
The Government's amendment to the Opposition motion includes the words:
"restoring a proper balance between the state sector and private enterprise".
What does that mean? Where can we find evidence of what it means? We do not have to look far. The Secretary of State for Energy this afternoon made no attempt to reply to any of the allegations made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen). Indeed, the Secretary of State started to give us a history lesson from 1945. Perhaps I shall be forgiven, therefore, if I look back to try to discover the philosophy of the Secretary of State and his friends.
The Conservative Government of 1953 denationalised the road haulage
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system. They did not denationalise the railway system and, as far as I am aware, the present Government have no plans to denationalise the railway system. The 1953 Government had a look round and asked "What are the most profitable sections of the public sector that we can get rid of?" They sold the road haulage sector at knock-down prices.
The Opposition of the day undertook that road haulage would be taken back into public ownership without compensation. Unfortunately, it was 1964 before a Labour Government were returned and at that time circumstances were such that it was impossible to implement that pledge.
The next practical example of what is meant by the "balance" referred to in the amendment came in 1970 when the then Conservative Government sold a couple of plums from the public sector. Thomas Cook was gathered up by the private sector. It was obviously a company with great growth potential and it was taken out of the public sector and handed over to the Government's pals for nothing but doctrinaire reasons.
The Carlisle State brewery was also sold. Those of us who were in the House at the time remember the gallant fight put up by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Lewis), who is a leader of the temperance movement and who believes strongly in public ownership. That brewery was smashed up for doctrinaire reasons and handed over to the Government's pals at giveaway prices.
We used to have two largely cooperative brewing businesses in the Northern region—the Federation brewery in the North-East and the Carlisle State brewery. It was no accident that that was where one could buy the cheapest pint. That is no longer so in Carlisle, but it is still true in the North-East, because the co-operative brewery continues there.
That is the background against which we must judge the Government's philosophy. Conservative Members will no doubt claim that the Government's current proposals for the public sector were included in their manifesto. They have claimed that all their misdeeds of the past year were included in the manifesto.

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There is, however, a much more menacing significance about their proposals for the public sector. They will have a drastic effect on security, jobs and the long-term promotion prospects of those in the public sector. I declare my interest. I worked for 22 years in the nationalised railway industry and I am sponsored by the National Union of Railwaymen.
My hon. Friends have already referred to the proposals for the postal services and telecommunications. I should like to deal with the proposal for British Rail, and I am glad that the Minister of Transport is to reply to the debate.
I hope that the Minister will refute what one of his hon. Friends said that the structure proposed for the privatisation of the profitable sections of British Rail has the wholehearted support of Sir Peter Parker. My information is very different. It is that under the Government's original privatisation proposals there was no question of British Rail holding 100 per cent. of the holding company's shares. There has been a significant shift in the Government's approach in the past few months. Sir Peter Parker has welcomed it, because he is across a barrel in many ways. He runs a business in which the different parts are complementary. The railways side is complementary to hotels, to Sealink and to the property that British Rail owns. Everything interlocks.
Therefore, when proposals for finding cash for British Rail are made, Sir Peter is across a barrel. If the Government say that the cash limits must be held at a certain level, he often faces the choice of putting a coat of paint on the North British Hotel in Glasgow or having an extra couple of miles of long-welded track. The capital that he requires to run his main enterprise, British Rail, is denied him from Government sources. He has a tremendous problem.
If we are to take away from British Rail an income of about £ 40 million a year from the property services, hotel services and the like, how will that assist British Rail's main function? Will the Minister explain to many of his hon. Friends who live in the commuter belt down to the South Coast whether it will affect their fares structure? The balance will have to be found. Sir Peter Parker
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cannot give the money away and say that it is of no significance. He has to find it within the budget requirements of his own business. If that money is taken away from the income, the general money flow of British Rail's earnings, the Government must explain how that will help it do the job.
Some hon. Members—I say "some", because most are sensible—criticise British Rail, and indirectly the staff, for being overmanned and so on. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman does not say that, but I see that the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) is nodding agreement with the allegation of overmanning. During the 16 years that I have been a Member, the British Rail staff has been dramatically reduced, with full agreement between unions and management.
The part of the industry with which I was connected—signalling—has been revolutionised. Hundreds of signalmen have agreed in consultation, because of the modernisation of the system, that their jobs shall be disposed of. All that has been done with co-operation and the spirit of maintaining a business, even throughout the difficult era of Dr. Beech-ing and the then Tory Government's policy of massively slashing lines. It was said to be done to make the system profitable, but that did not happen. What happened was what we warned would happen—that if one cuts the branches off the tree, the trunk will wither.
That is what worries those who are left in the industry. Sir Peter Parker said at the annual conference of the National Union of Railwaymen a fortnight ago, when he referred to his discussions with the Minister of Transport:
"There is common ground in these consultations, although each interest has a different approach to it. What I hope for from the Board's viewpoint is roughly this: that opportunities must be pursued to enable the railway subsidiary activities to expand and develop in open competition with the public sector."
That is a very important request. I hope that the Minister will take it on board, because most of the nationalised industries are hamstrung in open competition with the private sector.
Sir Peter said:
"If there is to be, in the light of government policy, the introduction of private capital, then the Board's initiative in the development of collaborations can be crucial."

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In other words, Sir Peter was speaking about what would happen if the various sectors were to take in private capital and the board's holding went below 51 per cent. Most of my hon. Friends and certainly my trade union friends will fight to maintain 51 per cent. if possible. I hope that the Minister will ensure that the British Rail participation and shareholding in each subsidiary will be sufficient for it to have overall management control. It is crucial to the future of the railway's working.
It is not possible to run a Sealink system without the co-operation of British Rail. Everyone can see the reality of that. The work must be done in co-operation. There can be an argument about hotels, but British Rail is in the business of holidays and passengers. That is an integral part of its business.
In property, I see the money-grubbing fingers getting itchy. That is where the big profits are. That is the section that everyone is waiting to get his hands on. I hope to hear, though I very much doubt that I shall, an indication that the profits from the property side will be used to maintain the main trunk of British Rail.
Mr. Tim Eggar: Would the hon. Gentleman care to reflect on the performance of British Rail hotels compared with, over the past 15 years, the performance of Trust Houses Forte or Grand Metropolitan?
Mr. Bagier: Sir Peter Parker told the NUR conference and a meeting of hon. Members not long ago that, given the money, British Rail's hotels could be extremely successful, but starved of capital they could not; and they have been starved of it. The hon. Gentleman may well laugh, but British Rail's big success story in hotels because it concentrated all its hotel section capital on it, is the Caledonian hotel, which is now one of Britain's star hotels. The hon. Gentleman cannot laugh that off.
The Minister of Transport (Mr. Norman Fowler): I think that the hon. Gentleman would be fair enough to acknowledge that British Rail hotels have been starved of resources not only for the past 15 months but for the past 25 years. The present Government are trying to do something about it.
Mr. Bagier: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the hotels being starved
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of capital. I do not deny that. Unfortunately, the one option not open to British Rail is standstill; if it stands still, it will fall down. That is why in many ways I can understand Sir Peter Parker welcoming some opportunity of investment. However, I should like from the right hon. Gentleman an undertaking that if private enterprise goes into the hotel section British Rail will maintain a controlling interest. I suspect that it will not. I suspect that there will often be a sell-off inslead of an investment prospect.
I turn to an important constituency matter. There has not yet been an announcement about the shipbuilding industry, though we are warned that there will be a statement in the coming week. If, as is rumoured, the naval sections of shipbuilding are to be hived off from British Shipbuilders, that will crucify the merchant ship building section of the industry. We can say "Goodbye" to it for good. Its present structure is so cross-subsidised that one section could not survive without the other. That is the considered opinion of the whole British Shipbuilders board and of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions.
Mr. Robert C. Brown: No doubt the Government will claim that they had a mandate from the British people for such a statement. Does my hon. Friend agree that no one—not even the most diehard Tory—voted for persisting with a policy that would make sure that we did not have a British merchant ship building capacity in the future?
Mr. Bagier: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, West (Mr. Brown). As he well knows, as a Member representing a shipbuilding town, the effect on Swan Hunter, for example, would be disastrous, because Swan Hunter is a mixed yard. It is a combination of five yards which do naval work as well as ordinary merchant shipping work. To separate it would kill it.
I warn the Government that there is absolutely unified condemnation of any proposal of this nature. It will be fought tooth and nail in this House and outside. If the Government have any fond ideas about appealing to the shipyard workers who work in the naval yards to separate from their colleagues in the merchant navy yards, they are living in

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a fool's paradise, because that will not happen.
British Shipbuilders deserves a first-call class pat on the back for its performance since vesting day. It has done this at a time of worldwide recession in shipbuilding. Even the Japanese have had to halve their capacity. Less than 10 months ago, British Shipbuilders said that in order to remain viable it needed 45 ships. There were horse laughs from Conservative Members and from people elsewhere. Yet British Shipbuilders has achieved its objective in nine months. It has done it because its representatives stumped the world to get the business. There has been Government aid as well; the intervention fund has been useful.
Here we have a success story. British Shipbuilders has a sales force that can go out to China and to any country in the world. It can say "What do you want—a merchant ship, a corvette or a submarine? You name it and we can do it, because we have a centralised sales force and we control the work."
That is the important factor. If that centralised sales force is broken up, it will be a crying shame and a great blow to the shipbuilding industry in Britain.
I want to mention one of the successful firms, Austin and Pickersgill. I say here what I have said outside to Mr. Kimber, the managing director, who frequently says that shipbuilding should be denationalised. He is the only person I know in management who says that, from the chairman of British Shipbuilders down. Mr. Kimber, of all people, should remember what happened to Austin and Pickersgill. It was taken into public ownership because of the crash of Court Line. It was part of a holiday firm empire, and because that part of the business fell down Austin and Pickersgill almost went to the wall.
It would have gone into the hands of the receiver if some of us had not appealed to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn), who helped to put through a measure taking Austin and Pickersgill into public ownership as a going concern. The Government of the day could have got Austin and Pickersgill at a knockdown price had they wished, but they did not do that. If it had gone into the hands of the receiver, every order on its books
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would have been lost. The work force at Austin and Pickersgill remember this, and so do the work force on the Wear. They will have no truck with any plans of the Government for denationalisation.
I have covered two industries in which I have an interest. I hope that the Government will take note of what has been said and that we shall have a reply from the Minister that is more detailed than the response from the Secretary of State for Energy to my right hon. Friend the Member for Devonport.
8.13 pm
Mr. Iain Mills: There is no doubt that in modern, sophisticated, industrialised countries there is a need for a mixed economy. It is difficult to imagine any other economic system that would allow at the same time the growth of the national product and a constant increase in disposable income and in life style and life standards.
It is perhaps a signal thought tonight that many of the problems that we are experiencing in the macro-economics of this country are influenced by our public expenditure requirements, which in turn are influenced by the size of our public sector, which again in turn is influenced by the number and the amount of subsidies needed to keep the nationalised industries afloat. Therefore, the amendment, which seeks to restore a proper balance between the State sector and private enterprise, is probably the most important part of the whole debate.
It would be useful to lay a few myths about nationalised industries. Having said that, I believe that we need a mixed economy, and I hope that hon. Members will allow me to look at some aspects of it. Nationalised industries seem inevitably to develop management structures which are complex, developing a cyclicly restrictive bureaucracy, which in the end is incapable of responding to outside stimuli and increasingly responds in a never-ending cycle of cost against price to its own internal problems.
I can think of very few areas in which it could be said that the management structures within nationalised industries have developed in the way in which most of us on each side of the House believe to be necessary in a highly competitive world, in which they need highly responsive customer-angled management, trade union officials and employees.

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The responsiveness of organisations to outside influences and to the needs of their customers in terms of quality, delivery and supply must be the critical factor for any organisation, such as the coal industry, which is an extractive industry. Nationalised industries, because of this bureaucratic management structure, find it difficult to respond to innovation, to identify innovation or to see how innovation is needed.
There are notable examples which prove that nationalised industries can do it. Perhaps the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Bagier), who has just spoken, will be pleased if I say that I am most impressed with British Rail's record of innovation. It is sad that the lack of funds within that organisation—because it is nationalised and because we are short of money—prevents it from capitalising on some of its advance concepts, particularly in export markets. I hope to be able to touch later on some ways in which the sale of British Rail subsidies may help to do just that.
Nationalised industries also find it difficult to demonstrate effectiveness in terms of cost and the accountability that comes absolutely from having to respond to the shareholder and private enterprise system within capitalism. The two systems diverge, and however keen, well-managed and good the workpeople may be, it is difficult to see how a nationalised industry can in the end achieve anything like the same rate of success as private enterprise in responding to cost pressures, efficiency pressures and customer pressures.
That is why I welcomed recently a number of changes in nationalised industries brought about by the Government's policies. I shall be grateful if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy will mention this to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, who has made a particularly well-marked, well-judged and effective contribution towards correcting the balance between private and public enterprise.
It was with full co-operation of the chairman of the board of the National Freight Corporation that the Transport Bill—now the Transport Act—allowed the Minister powers to create a new corporation from the NFC, a statutory corporation established under the Transport Act 1968. Its objectives were to take over and manage public sector road transport
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companies that were hitherto in the ownership of a British holding company,—National Carriers Limited and Freight-liners, which reverted later to British Rail. Seeing such familiar names as British Road Services and Pickfords returning to the private sector, with the co-operation of those who manage it, seems to Conservative Members to be an excellent achievement. The Government's intention is to achieve a substantial private investment in the NFC.
I em phasise to Labour Members that in this respect we are not talking about asset stripping. We are talking about restoring to the public the funds which are rightfully theirs. Hon. Members may laugh. Perhaps they will not laugh so much when we ask them how otherwise British Rail is to find the capital to electrify lines. How can it be done other than through private interest?
When the National Freight Corporation is finally floated on the market, the public and the nation will benefit. Indeed, this example, now embodied in the Transport Act, could be extended elsewhere with considerable merit.
Mr. Ioan Evans: The hon. Member for Meriden (Mr. Mills) compares the public sector with the private sector. British Leyland failed under private enterprise, and it has now been taken into public ownership, where it is succeeding. However, it is having to compete with Renault, a publicy owned company. Is it the intention of the Government to return British Leyland to the private sector to compete with a company such as Renault, which is more successful because it has been publicly owned for longer?
Mr. Mills: I always appreciate the sincerity of the hon. Gentleman, but at the beginning of my discourse I made clear that I believe in a balance between public and private enterprise. There is no doubt in my mind that the vehicle industry across Europe involves substantial amounts of public ownership and public funds—not only Renault, which is largely owned by the French Government, but Volkswagen in Germany, and others. The Government recognise that fact and they do not look for a 100 per cent. private enterprise economy. We do not think that that is possible, and we shall not denationalise every single concern. However, we must

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look for opportunities whereby those who work within nationalised enterprises and those who benefit from their services will benefit from a return to private enterprise.
The sale of British Rail subsidiaries will be of enormous benefit to those who work within them. Just as the chairman and board of the National Freight Corporation welcomed its denationalisation because of the availability to them of private funds to allow them to develop their enterprises and to grow, denationalisation must be welcomed by those who manage the subsidiaries of British Rail, in that they, too, now have an equal chance with their competitors of access to funds to allow them to grow. It is a tragedy that the growth of British Transport Hotels, Sealink and other parts of British Rail has not been possible because of lack of funds.
I repeat the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate), who said that British Transport Hotels had built one hotel since the war and had lost £ 328,000 on a turnover of £ 38 million. That is a tragedy for the employees and the trade union officials. Should not they have the chance to see growth and new capital brought in, and to see the keen cutting edge of competition operating in their favour? My hon. Friend said that there are some excellent hotels in the group. Why should they not have access to private funds to allow them to achieve a successful commercial enterprise that will not only do well but will give a better guarantee of jobs? Are Labour Members saying that they will be happy with a policy that will lessen security and lessen opportunities for new jobs, which we badly need now?
If the track record in creating profits has been poor in the past, is it not right, if it is risky, for private enterprise to carry the risk? Why should it be risked out of the public purse? Is it not the job of British Rail to provide rail transport? Is it the job of British Rail to manage property, to build hovercraft or to run the Gleneagles hotel? The real job of those who are interested in transport is to improve rail services. If the funds that result from the privatisation of British Rail subsidiaries will allow more miles to be electrified, saving the nation energy and giving the passen-
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gers better comfort, we shall have done an excellent job.
In announcing the sale of British Rail subsidiary companies, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport said that he recognises that these subsidiary enterprises would not secure essential commercial freedom unless private capital was attracted in sufficient volume, thus maximising the opportunities for profitable services. We should not stop at the National Freight Corporation and British Rail—
Mr. Anderson: Where, in all the proposals for the subsidiaries, is there a promise of one extra penny for electrification of main lines?
Mr. Mills: If the hon. Gentleman reads the Minister's statement, he will realise that the moneys from the sale of these enterprises will be considered by British Rail. The Minister did not say that the money would be used for electrification, but if the proceeds of the sales go to British Rail it is up to the chairman of British Rail and his staff to decide how best to use them, and I know that one of their priorities is the electrification of lines.
I congratulate the Minister on his success, in the Transport Act, of releasing the forces of competition in British busways. I was horrified to read in my local newspaper that Midland Red, the Midlands subsidiary of the National Bus Company, was looking at 39 local services with a view to a package of economy measures. The introduction of private bus services is not only a good idea but will be essential if many of my constituents who live in rural areas are not to be marooned because of a lack of public bus services caused by the inevitable year by year decrease in services presented annually with increased fares, reduced services and fewer stops. The sooner that all those involved at executive level in the National Bus Company and in the trade unions who have criticised some aspects of this freeing of competition recognise that if we maintain the status quo there will be no status and no quo, the better. There will be fewer bus services. I urge my right hon. Friend to seek further opportunities to introduce better services through more encouragement of private bus services.
The same applies to the British Transport Docks Board. There is a further

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opportunity, on which my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham has already commented, and I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister to look at an organisation which operates 18 ports in Great Britain and handles over 20 per cent. of the ports' traffic. It is an ideal candidate for the introduction of private capital. I am not talking about asset stripping. I am talking about opportunity given to people who can see opportunities and attract the funds.
I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister on the sale of motorway service areas and on the reduction of bureaucratic complexity in the road construction units, and on the transfer of many of the sub-units to private contractors. I also urge him to consider whether some of the funds and activities of the Transport and Road Research Laboratory can be moved from the public sector to private organisations. I know that the Minister is good at striking blows for the freedom of private enterprise and I am sure that he can see opportunities in that organisation.
It was encouraging to note that the Government have now grasped the realities of encouraging those who work in the coal industry. Labour Members have mentioned the coal industry. The morale of the miners in the Midlands must have been improved by the Government's statement of intent. One has only to look back at the miles of railway lines closed in the past 10 or 15 years—closures in which Labour Governments played a major part—and at the horrifying number of pit closures that happened directly under Labour Governments, to see that however tight the targets of the National Coal Board, the demonstration of skill, knowledge and belief in coal, backed up with enormous sums, is most encouraging. It is in terms of these enormous sums that we must grasp the hard realities.
One Labour Member said that he had spent 22 years in a nationalised industry. I spent 18 years in private enterprise. If only some of those companies for which I worked, which had close connections with the motor car industry, had had access to the huge sums referred to by Labour Members in respect of the nationalised industries, life would have been magnificent. However, private enterprise companies have to work hard. Their philosophy is a good example to
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follow—survival, gain, and growth through the use of private funds and through the identification of the right risks to take. Risks, opportunity and innovation often go together. I believe that we can, through further transfers from public to private sector operation, secure not only a better balance between public and private sectors but more security for the employees and better services for the customer.
8.31 pm
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: The hon. Member for Meriden (Mr. Mills) referred to the possibility of our exporting rail products. A company in my constituency is in the forefront of such export trade. I spent this morning with Mr. Sullivan, who is an administrator for the federal railroad in the United States. He came to my constituency to see the new rail bus, a vehicle that has been produced by British Leyland at the Leyland National plant. It is hoped to export the vehicle throughout the world. Having sent a prototype already to America, we look forward to that product being sold throughout the United States.
Mr. Sullivan said this morning:
"What is more exciting is the potential this vehicle has for meeting the transportation needs of other smaller population centres throughout the United States. We have already been approached by the officials of several States DOTs, who expressed interest in operating Rail Bus transportation in their states."
That is a success story, but there are other stories which are not so successful.
I want to consider tonight the effects of reductions in public expenditure on the publicly owned industries, particularly in the Northern region constituencies, and how that affects the creation of new jobs. All the constituencies in the region are littered with the dereliction of closed factories. The region is a depressing sight. In every town and community closed factories and long queues of unemployed only add to that depressed atmosphere.
We have to attempt to measure this decline in industry. To this end I quote a letter that was sent to the Secretary of State for Energy by Norweb, the electricity supply authority of the North-West. The letter is an adequate and eective indicator and yardstick of what is happening in the region. It gives

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the consumption of energy, and that portrays the measure of the problem. The letter states:
"When Norman Lamont visited us in April we emphasised to him the low economic growth of the north west of England… The Board asked me to bring this situation to your attention"—
that is, to the Secretary of State for Energy—
"because electricity sales are a good indicator of the industrial vitality of an area… In 1955, 14.3 per cent. of electricity sold to industry in England and Wales was to Norweb consumers. By 1980 this percentage had fallen to 9.8 per cent. in a continuous downward trend. Total sales to industrial consumers were 7,885 million units in 1979-80, which was only marginally higher than the 7,835 million units achieved in 1970-71. During the same period the other 11 Electricity Boards have increased sales from 62,948 million to 72,343 million units. It is therefore not just a question of a lower share of a growing market, but a position of stagnation which is very worrying to everyone involved in industry in the northwest. My Board certainly share this concern at the deterioration over many years in the economic standing of the north-west, and feel that it would be helpful to have our views conveyed to the Government"
Why is this reduction in activity taking place? I can produce as evidence yet another letter sent by another industry—the BSC, Cumbria—to many of its customers and the local press and generally circulated to a number of interested bodies. This letter draws attention to a factor which is severely prejudicing the position of the British Steel Corporation and its ability to sell products at the right price in the world market. The letter says:
"BSC Cumbria, like all manufacturers within the public or private sector, are doing all possible to both cut their own internal costs and to absorb external price increases in order to continue to live in an increasingly price competitive world. This world is one in which price increases are either unobtainable for reasons of competition both in our United Kingdom and export markets, or where price increases, such as can be obtained, are at 5 per cent. maximum year on year."
At this point the Secretary of State for Energy may wish to pay particular attention to these facts.
"And yet, our electricity and gas undertakings, knowing of the difficulties which we, their customers, are having to live with, notify us of price increases of 32 per cent. and 45 per cent. respectively from last year to this. There appears to be no possibility of negotiating with either of these undertakings and the commercial attitude is quite definitely one of 'take it or leave it'.".
Hon. Members will be under no illusions
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about what "leave it" means. If one "leaves it", it means that one closes down, and in my constituency that means that 5,000 people will be out of work. The letter continues:
"In a full year the charges notified by these two undertakings will amount to over £ 550,000 and £ 560,000 respectively for BSC, Cumbria; an unbelievable increase in total of £ 1-2 million."
That £ 1-2 million, attributable in just this year to energy price increases, is equivalent to the profits of the British Steel Corporation in Cumbria for the year before last. That is the magnitude of the increases that this Government require the nationalised industries to introduce.
The letter goes on:
"It is understood that what lies behind these appalling price increases is the policy of our Government's Department of Energy. But what sense can there be in pursuing a policy which imposes on industries already faced with enormous difficulties, price increases which they can neither discuss nor negotiate and which, at the end of the day, can only result in contraction both of their customer base and thus of their own business? "
Therefore, we have at present a problem for the British Steel Corporation which seems insuperable. On the one hand it has rising costs, particularly for energy, and on the other hand it has the rise in value of sterling and at the same time fairly constant prices world-wide for its products. Yet it is required to compete in the world market against companies that are exporting to us; importing from overseas in the case of the paper industry in America where energy is available at half the price that it is available at on the domestic United Kingdom market and in the case of Germany where subsidies in excess of £ 3,000 million a year are paid to the German steel industry. How is it possible for an industry in the United Kingdom to compete effectively on the world market when it is competing against countries that are willing, through political decisions, to implement, introduce and maintain subsidies on that scale? That is at the heart of the problem of many of the publicly owned industries in this country. It is also at the heart of many of the privately owned industries. They simply cannot afford to pay the price for energy and compete fairly and squarely on the world markets.
The Secretary of State for Energy should intervene now and tell us what is happening and whether his Government are willing to acknowledge that as

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a practical problem of manufacturing industries. If the right hon. Gentleman finds that difficult to absorb, let him consider the effect of the policy of high energy charges on BSC Cumbria and its plea of poverty over and above the so-called wise words of the former chairman of the BSC. I have a letter from BSC Cumbria to the Allerdale district council rates department, dated 10 June. It says:
"I would now like to refer to… the effects on BSC Cumbria of the most recent increase in rates which we calculate in total to amount to £ 167,000; this representing, across Allerdale, Copeland and Barrow Councils, an average increase of approximately 20 per cent the vast bulk of the rate burden being levied by your Authority. I explained to you at our meeting that this increase was outwith our capability to pay and that the reason for this was that we have no right to levy our customers for price increases and must live within the revenue which we can generate as a selling operation. I informed you that the market conditions in which we currently operate are as difficult as in the desperate recession of the early 1930s."
Having commented that the total rates demand equates to a virtual levy of £ 210 on each employee within the Moss Bay and Chapel Bank sites, the letter continues:
" Therefore, and having failed to find a way forward via discussion to date, I am, on behalf of BSC Cumbria, who are the occupiers, for this purpose, seeking a major remission of Rates under Section 53 of the General Rates Act of 1967, on the grounds of inability to pay for the reason of poverty and would be grateful if you would formally put this application to your Council for a decision."
The BSC, in national negotiations with Government Ministers, says that it does not want subsidies. The truth is that, in the constituencies, regional managers are going to local authorities and plead-ding poverty because they cannot afford to pay their bills. That is the measure of the impact of the Government's policy—the real measure, not the superlative intellectual talk of the House of Commons. That is the real effect on the publicly owned industries in the constituencies of hon. Members on the Labour side of the House.
It is the recognition of those problems in our constituencies that is determining the level of future unemployment. We know that if those publicly owned industries cannot afford to pay their bills, our people will lose their jobs.
Mr. Allen McKay: Is my hon. Friend aware that, in my constituency the steelworks that Mr. MacGregor
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says is the jewel in the steel industry's crown is in difficulty because of electricity charges, part of which is in respect of the three months for which the steel industry was on strike and did not use electricity? That has increased the price per ingot tonne by £ 7. The rates that have to be levied because of the cost of the Government's policies on local government have increased the price of the ingot tonne by another £ 4, making a total increase of £ 11 per ingot tonne on last year's price.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I hope that the Secretary of State heard that point. That is the problem, the case and the story that we are hearing from all parts of the country.
In 1972 a former Conservative Government introduced the Industry Act 1972. Section 7 (1) states:
"For the purposes set out in the following provisions of this section the Secretary of State may, with the consent of the Treasury, provide financial assistance where, in his opinion—(a) the financial assistance is likely to provide, maintain or safeguard employment in any part of the assisted areas, and (b) the undertakings for which the assistance is provided are or will be wholly or mainly in the assisted areas."
The BSC plants are in assisted areas. I simply cannot understand why it is not possible to pay into the assisted areas and into the publicly owned indusries energy subsidies in line with that section of the legislation.
8.45 pm
Mr. Tim Eggar: I apologise for not being in the Chamber earlier. I was involved in a Committee.
I shall restrict my remarks to two profitable industries in the energy sector—the British National Oil Corporation and the British Gas Corporation. Cash limits place constraints on capital investment by successful and profitable nationalised industries. The rationale for cash limits is clear: the Government wish to keep control over the PSBR. They also wish to put some pressure on nationalised industries to settle wages at reasonable levels.
Unfortunately, nationalised industries increasingly use up their cash limits by accepting wage levels that inevitably lead to a reduction in capital investment. The best example of that is the National Coal Board. However, the NCB has a significant advantage: it can increase its prices since effectively it is a monopoly supplier.

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The danger is that nationalised industries will be forced by cash limits to take decisions that no similar private enterprise with the same turnover and capital investment decisions has to take. British Gas Corporation is an example. Its turnover amounts to thousands of millions of pounds. A change in the weather in winter can affect that turnover by hundreds of millions of pounds. Yet it is expected to react and act within cash limits measured merely in tens of millions of pounds. That is not practical.
The Government must devise a rolling cash limits system, preferably with a five-year projection, and take out of the cash limits as far as is possible that amount of expenditure which should be for capital investment and that which should be current expenditure. I recognise that that is complicated. Unless the Government examine that possibility, profitable nationalised industries will be forced to make uncommercial decisions because of the cash limits.
My second argument relates to the future ownership and structure of ownership of the BNOC and the BGC. It is an integral part of Conservative philosophy—a part of Conservative policy so eloquently portrayed in "The Right Approach to the Economy"—that ownership of nationalised industries should be spread directly to the people. "The Right Approach to the Economy" states
"Ownership by the State is not the same as ownership by the people."
We have an opportunity to live up to that undertaking and pledge in relation to the oil and gas industries.
I am anxious about press reports. The Financial Times today and The Observer on Sunday suggested that the great Tory way forward was that the British National Oil Corporation was to sell £ 500 million worth of oil bonds. What possible purpose could that serve?
That operation will not spread ownership. We shall not have equity shares quoted. People will not be able to buy and sell bits of the North Sea or BNOC. The consequences are clear: people who would otherwise have invested in gilts, put their savings into the Post Office or bought national savings certificates will put their money into oil price-related stock with BNOC. Those who should
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benefit from North Sea oil or gas will not be able to buy that stock. The people who will invest will be those who have savings, people living in the South-East, the wealthy section of the community. When the scheme is announced, I shall not even be surprised to hear the cry repeated that it is Scotland's oil.
The proposals may be a face-saving exercise to make it appear that the Tory Party is changing the status quo. That is not enough. We have the opportunity to give shares to everyone in the country over 18, which would be a real way to spread ownership. Everyone could have the opportunity to participate in the wealth of North Sea oil and gas. My hon. Friend the Minister has studied the situation in British Columbia and Alberta. I believe that he, too, will have reached the conclusion that the administrative problems of such a scheme are not insuperable.
In a debate on the oil industry about two weeks ago, the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) made it clear that of the schemes that had come forward from these Benches for denationalisation or privatising or changing the status of BNOC, the option of giving shares directly to the people was the one that he found least objectionable.
It is not too late. We have the opportunity to give share ownership directly to the people. That opportunity should be seized with both hands. We shall greatly regret it if we let it go.
8.53 pm
Mr. Donald Anderson: A distortion of private investment in favour of the oil sector as a result of the policy that the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) fears can only be at the expense of private investment in industries and regions that desperately need such investment.
I make no apology for beginning with the Welsh dimension. Wales depends more on the public sector than any other area of Great Britain. The Government's negative attitude to the public sector causes more job losses and anxiety in Wales than elsewhere. All that the Prime Minister could say to us in Swansea last Saturday about the avalanche of job losses that has befallen us in the public and private sector in Wales was that

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the Welsh people should be prepared to move out of their own country, with all the echoes that that has of what happened in the 1930s. It is therefore hardly surprising that even at that Conservative assembly she had to slip out of a side door without answering questions, as if slipping out of a beleaguered garrison.
The steel crisis depends in part on the world recession but also on the Government's unreal cash limits and their timetable for breaking even. We in Wales fear that the measures of the success of the new chairman, Mr. MacGregor, will be a narrow profitability, which can result only in one or more of the two remaining bulk steel producers in Wales having to close.
The blows to the steel industry in Wales have a knock-on effect on the coal industry, with a number of pits being in jeopardy. It is an effect that will go through even to the rail industry as 80 per cent. of freight receipts in the region come from the passage of coal to the steel industry. That is bound to maken the Welsh valleys. It will be more difficult for the British Railways Board to maintain lines at the margin, of which there are many in Wales. The knock-on effect can only contribute further to the de-industrialisation of Wales.
Given the recession and BR's efforts to keep within its external financial limits, there is a danger that it will be forced to sell assets at knock-down prices. That will happen simultaneously with considerable pressure from the Government to keep down fare increases.
British Rail subsidiaries under the present financial structure are operating at a commercial disadvantage. I see no reason in principle why in certain areas private capital should not be attracted. For example, Sealink has bought from Harland and Wolff when commercial criteria might have persuaded it to buy from foreign yards.
Does the new commercial set-up that will result from the Government's proposals mean that it will make commercial but not national sense for it to refuse to go to a yard such as Harland and Wolff? That may be justified in the public interest, but I trust that the Government will not blame the public sector for the consequences.
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Under present regulations, British Rail cannot operate "lease and lease back". However, that is achievable by simple statutory amendment. British Rail could have greater commercial freedom without going to the lengths that the Secretary of State is suggesting purely for dogmatic reasons.
The right hon. Gentleman says, as he told the House on Monday of last week, that the new subsidiaries—for example, Sealink UK Ltd. and British Transport Hotels.—will not have 51 per cent. public interest. He said that if there were that interest they would not be outside the PSBR; but there is already a precedent in the Government's proposals for the new British Airways and BP in its old manifestation before a portion was sold off. There was a 51 per cent. State interest, but BP was outside the PSBR. There are clear precedents for the Government if they want them. The money supply effect will be the same for the subsidiaries irrespective of whether they are within the public sector.
There is a real danger of the new proposals for privatisation leading to less competition. What is to prevent the competitors of Sealink, whether Townsend Thoresen or European Ferries, from buying into Sealink and thereby reducing competition on the Channel routes? It is even conceivable that B and I, a wholly owned Irish Government company, would buy into Sealink, which would have an adverse effect on British Rail's operation from Fishguard as B and I currently operates from Pembroke Dock.
Once the Government float the shares and make Sealink a private company, there is nothing they can do to prevent a "dawn raid"—namely, one of the commercial competitors of Sealink buying into the company and taking decisions that will have an adverse effect on the new company. Given the Government's proposals, that cannot be prevented.
British Rail's property holdings are the most glamorous part of the package. Why should the Government not allow those holdings greater freedom from ministerial control in incurring expenditure in the acquisition or development of property? The Secretary of State knows that under current procedures there are joint ventures. There is a hazy line between the operation of British Rail's property interests and the private sector. That

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could well be enhanced; the Government's proposals involve that glamorous incentive to encourage private sector capital into the new companies. In the 1960s, British Rail was forced to sell many of its property interests at knock-down prices. There is a danger that the Government will force British Rail to do that again.
I hope that the Secretary of State will answer my next point. In the debate on 14 July he said:
"The proceeds will go to British Rail. We have made that absolutely clear."—[Officiul Report, 14 July 1980; Vol. 988 c. 1056.]
Does that mean that any receipts will immediately go to British Rail? Will part go and the remainder be deferred? Will they be used by the Treasury to reduce British Rail's total debt, when the oldest debt has the lowest interest rate? Will the receipts obtained by British Rail as a result of the sale of assets be used to reduce the external financial limit on British Rail? If so, they would not be available for electrification and other urgently needed investment outlets. British Rail would have no incentive to maximise the profitability of those subsidiaries.
This financial year, British Rail's property holdings will contribute about £ 50 million to its general coffers. Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that under his proposals no less than that amount will be available to British Rail from property interests? He knows that British Rail desperately needs capital. Lately, the levels of investment have been the lowest of any railway undertaking in Europe. British Rail needs capital for its inter-city business, to maintain the network and for main-line electrification.
What trade-off will compensate British Rail for the loss of those interests in terms of extra cash for investment in the main-line business? In the proposals to assist British Rail, is the motive to compensate the community fairly or to give the private sector a quick buck? Are the Government following their ideological wish to roll back the public sector so that they can raise a cheer at the Tory Party conference? The Government have been playing with fire. In the past few years substantial industrial harmony in the railway industry has been
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carefully built up by the present chairman. As a result of the Government's dogmatic exercise, there is a danger that that will be lost. The proposals are irrelevant to British Rail's needs. The Government have no policy for the railways. They have concentrated on the subsidiaries at the expense of the investment needs of the 1980s—namely, electrification, the Channel tunnel and the opportunities that public rail offers in an energy-hungry world.
9.4 pm
Mr. Peter Shore: In winding up for the Opposition, I, too, must remind the House that this is the third in a series of Supply days in which we have sought to focus attention upon the major economic problems of the country and the main defects of the Government's economic policies. There can be no doubt about the gravity of our situation. It has been referred to by many of my hon. Friends, who spoke from their direct constituency experience. However, hardly a word about the economy escaped the lips of the Secretary of State for Energy when he spoke earlier in the debate.
As we know, unemployment last month leapt to the post-war record of 16 million—an increase of about 350,000 over what it was when the Government took office. The whole country, and I believe even the Government, are bracing themselves for the shock of tomorrow's figures. The British economy was at first sluggish in response to Government measures; difficulties were heaped upon it in the summer of last year. It tottered along until about March, when the collapse really began. Industrial output in the March to May quarter has fallen quite dramatically. As we all know, the output of manufacturing industries was down some 8 per cent. in May compared with what it was a year ago. Nowhere in the economy is there at present a gleam of light. Output is down, but investment, particularly in manufacturing industry, is falling more steeply. The trends suggest that we shall experience a contraction of 8 to 12 per cent. in crucial investment in manufacturing industry. Exports are falling as well.
How can it be otherwise when we have a rising exchange rate and when we are busy pricing ourselves out of the

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world market? It would be difficult enough to hold our own in the world market if world trade was buoyant, but it is not. As the House will recall, according to the latest OECD survey the world economy is now expected to grow by less than 1 per cent. in the period 1980-81. The prediction is for a growth of unemployment in the OECD area from just under 20 million to more than 23 million in mid-1981.
In her weekend speech at Swansea, the Prime Minister said that some part of the difficulty was due to the world recession and that the other part was self-inflicted. I do not quarrel with that. What she did not point out in relation to the world recession was the negative part which she herself played in the Venice summit of Seven—those countries which collectively dominate world trade—in making sure that no significant new action was taken to deal with the menacing problems of global recession. Wounds have been inflicted upon the whole British economy, but nowhere has the attack been more vindictive and absurd than on the public sector of industry, which is the focus of today's debate. That is a sector of British industry whose success is indispensable to our economic health.
We know of the Government's general approach to the nationalised industries. After 10 minutes of almost total triviality, the Secretary of State for Energy had the gall to claim that the Government had a balanced approach—practical and questioning—to the nationalised industries. That was a theme which a number of his hon. Friends developed. I do not believe him. I take as a rather stronger and better guide to the Government's approach the Prime Minister, who declared that it was her major purpose to roll back the frontiers of the State, and I take even more seriously the remarks of the Secretary of State for Industry, who I am delighted to see in his place. It was he who last week reminded himself and us that nationalisation was, as he once described it, one of six "poisons" which were circulating in the bloodstream of the nation. So much for a balanced approach.
When I listened to the right hon. Gentleman, I was reminded how in medieval physiology the four chief fluids of the body—blood, phlegm, choler and
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melancholy—were, according to their particular mix, held to determine a person's physical and mental qualities. We recall the prescription that followed from such primitive medical analyses—the leechings, the bleedings, the starvings and the amputations.
The attack on the nationalised industries has been hardly less crude and ill informed. Not a week passes without some fresh statement on how the Government intend to injure or reduce the prospects of those industries. Only today the Secretary of State for Industry made his statement on how he intends to break the telecommunications monopoly. We had a statement, a half statement or a hint from the Secretary of State for Energy about new measures in electricity supply which I hope his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport will amplify in the course of his remarks later. Last week we had statements from both right hon. Gentlemen about what they intended to do with the British Rail subsidiaries, on the one hand, and the Post Office proper, on the other.
The pattern of attack is entirely clear. First, the nationalised industries are being arbitrarily severed from all the ancillary activities and enterprises that they have developed, and developed for sound operational reasons often long before they were nationalised. But, as we know, these subsidiaries are profitable, and it is the doctrine of the Conservative Party to dispose of everything that is profitable and to return it to private ownership.
Secondly, the Government are forcing the sale, in part or in whole of those public corporations which are in surplus. The National Freight Corporation is to be disposed of and British Airways and British Aerospace are to be turned into companies and forced to dispose of roughly half their shares. The Minister and his colleagues are still dithering about how they can best dispose of property represented in the British National Oil Corporation.
Thirdly, the nationalised industries are being subjected, wherever possible, to increasing competitive pressures: in the Post Office; in British Airways with, above all, the operations of the Civil Aviation Authority and its changed directives about licensing private airlines; and in the National Bus Corporation and

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municipal bus services with the new licensing policies in the Transport Act. All that has been done when the Government know full well that to supply a wide public service—air, bus or post—it is essential that cross-subsidisation takes place so that the profitable traffic can sustain the inevitably unprofitable services which are of benefit to so many people.
The fourth and still more serious point of attack—my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) referred to it earlier, so I need say very little about it—is that the Government have put the nationalised industries into a financial straitjacket. On the one hand, they are reducing their lending to the nationalised industries and, on the other hand, they are imposing cash limits based on totally unrealistic inflationary forecasts—a point made by the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) a short time ago.
Over the Government's five-year period we are to have a massive turn-round in the borrowing position of the nationalised industries—a turn-round of about £ 23 billion. This turn-round in nationalised industry finance can be achieved only by sending a wave of deflation through the economy. Prices, charges and fares will rise steeply and both industrial and domestic consumers have to carry the load.
I have confined myself to the nationalised industries, the public corporations, and the damage that has been inflicted upon them, but I want to turn to the crucial area of public enterprise and the manufacturing sector of industry. The Govenment's basic, negative approach was made plain by the Secretary of State for Industry as long ago as 6 November on Second Reading of the Industry Bill. He said:
"There should be no need for public sector investment finance in manufacturing industry."—[Official Report, 6 November 1979; Vol. 973, c. 240.]
The fact that there is such a need is an entirely different matter, but there should not be. The first instruction of the new Act is to place on the National Enterprise Board the duty of disposing of, not acquiring, investment in the manufacturing sector.
What is happening now was entirely predictable. The NEB is selling its most
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profitable holdings. Ferranti, ICL and others have been disposed of. Alfred Herbert's has simply gone to the wall. That is a nonsensical policy. As the new chairman of the NEB—the Secretary of State's personal appointee—pointed out in his annual report in April;
"The present form of financial duty laid down by Government can only make sense if the NEB maintains profitable investments as a means of supporting its new projects during their start up and loss-making years."
Clearly, the policy of forced disposal of profitable firms will make that task impossible.
The NEB has been allowed to retain one potentially important role in some areas of high technology where the capital market cannot be relied upon to supply the necessary risk capital. One is inclined to ask how that can be, and the Secretary of State for Industry's philosophical worries about that matter have left him virtually paralysed.
The new board decided in December to back the Inmos project with a second tranche of £ 25 million. In April, the chairman said in his report:
"We took this decision conscious of the risks inherent in such a bold innovative venture… At the time of writing, three months after our decisions, we await a decision by Government… This is a worrying delay to a project where success depends on bringing satisfactory products to the market at the right time in the face of strong foreign competition.'
Another three months have passed since then and still the Secretary of State for Industry wrestles with his conscience and dithers with his decision.
We should be clear about the main thrust and purpose of Government policy. It is, at best, to halt the expansion and, at worst, to enforce a major contraction of the basic industries and public services provided by public corporations. Secondly, it is to drive public enterprise out of the manufacturing sector of British industry.
We could take each of the nationalised industries and firms and judge its performance against the purpose of its original acquisition or establishment. I believe that we should find, as we have in the past, that the case for retaining those industries in public ownership and assisting them in their activities is overwhelming. If they are damaged or hobbled, services will suffer. If they are destroyed, there will be no serious

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possibility, certainly among the main nationalised industries, of private enterprise taking them over.
There has always been a wider economic case for public ownership. Nationalised industries collectively account for between one-quarter and one-third of total investment in plant and machinery in British industry. They can, and do, take a long-term view of national needs. Indeed, they have to do so, because the time scale of their investments often stretches for a decade or more.
With few exceptions, private corporations, however large, are unable to take so long a view. It follows that nationalised industries are relatively free from the damaging effects of the business cycle. With public finance they are able to sustain their investment programmes, to the great benefit of the whole economy. I repeat "the whole economy", because a large part of nationalised industries' equipment programmes sustains the order books of private industry. The contraction of nationalised industry programmes has a directly damaging effect on the private sector. In terms of economic management, when private industry is depressed the expansion and bringing forward of nationalised industry expenditure can act as a major counter to deflation.
The programmes of nationalised industries have given a basic stability to the British economy and have helped to sustain full employment and economic growth through most of the post-war period. They are being denied the opportunity to play that role today. I find that particularly odd, bearing in mind that the Prime Minister came back from the Venice meeting with a commitment to break the link between growth and shortage of oil, which is holding back the economies of the Western world.
The Prime Minister came back with policies agreed to double the supply and use of coal by 1990 and to carry out other major projects for energy production and energy saving in the economies of the West. There is no reflection of any of that thinking or objective in the Government's programme. Not only in Britain but in many other parts of the world the expansion of energy supplies will have to come about through the expansion of publicly owned industries.
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Not to recognise this is a major defect in the Government's thinking.
My second main point concerns what I call the new role of public enterprise in the manufacturing sector of British industry. Like others, I am concerned—and the Secretary of State for Industry has frequently addressed himself to this question—about the relative failure of Britain's manufacturing' industry in terms of output, competitiveness and share of export markets over the past 20 years. It is in this sector that we shall win or lose the battle for our future.
The question that I ask myself, and that the right hon. Gentleman has asked himself, is why the decline over the past 20 years has taken place. The Secretary of State addressed himself to the question at his party's annual conference, when he said that, whatever else was the cause, it was "not the failure of private enterprise".
As no one but private enterprise has until recently entered manufacturing, it is difficult to see who else can be blamed. So the right hon. Gentleman had to widen the explanation, to assert:
"For decades and generations private enterprise has not been given the climate in which it can produce its beneficent results".
I repeat "decades and generations", including, presumably, the 13 years of uninterrupted Conservative rule from 1951 to 1964, when the Conservatives "set the people free" and "invested in success"; including, presumably, the inter-war years, when the balance of industrial, social and political power was massively tilted in favour of industrial and commercial interests.
The facts of our manufacturing decline are not in dispute. In 1963 our exports exceeded our imports by about 100 per cent. By 1970 they exceeded imports by only 50 per cent., and last year by only 5 per cent. This year we expect there to be no manufacturing surplus at all.
We in the Labour Party have drawn very different conclusions from this relative decline. Above all, we have noted the reluctance to invest in Britain and the willingness and facility to invest overseas. For the past 15 years direct investment overseas by United Kingdom manufacturing companies has increased two and a half times faster than their investment at home.

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We have noted, too, the persistent undervaluation of the engineer in British industry, the point so strongly made in the recent Finniston report. We have also noted the various policies pursued with insufficient success in the post-war period. We invested immensely in higher education. We transformed Britain's road, rail, air and sea communications. We made our investment incentives in industry among the best and most generous in the world. After all this had been done, who will forget the cri de coeur of the last Conservative Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath), in his interview with The Director magazine in June 1973? He said:
"The curse of British industry is that it has never anticipated demand. When we came in we were told there weren't sufficient inducements to invest. So we provided the inducements. Then we were told people were scared of balance of payments difficulties leading to stop-go. So we floated the £. Then we were told of fears of inflation: and now we are dealing with that. And still you aren't investing enough."
There is a fundamental weakness, a weakness on the supply side. That is why as a party we made the historic decision in the 1970s not to wipe out the private sector in manufacturing industry but deliberately to cross its frontier with public enterprise on a substantial scale. It is here that the ideological folly of the Government is so clearly demonstrated. They believe that public enterprise is wrong in principle and bound to fail. Where it succeeds, they insist on selling it off. Where is has yet to succeed, they wish to deny it the possibilities of rescue or success. All the time they have failed to recognise that the great simplicities that govern their own economic thinking—the spur of profit, the incentive of great reward, the virtues of competition—are largely irrelevant today to the great private corporations which conduct the main part of our manufacturing business.
Let me jog the memory of the Minister of Transport, who is to reply to the debate. Does he really think that Rolls-Royce lacked competition before 1970? Does he really think that what motivated the management of Rolls-Royce—before the Government decided to rescue it from collapse by nationalisation—was the dividend to be paid to its shareholders? I doubt whether any of the directors or
148
managers ever owned more than a handful of shares. They were motivated, narrowly, perhaps, by managerial perks and rewards, but more broadly by their wish to see success for what was, and is, a great British engineering enterprise. So what led to the downfall of Rolls-Royce? It was lack of investment, overstretched finances and management mis-judgment.
Again, was not British Leyland, before the rescue in 1975, a major private business, managerially controlled? Would even this Government really have accepted its collapse, with the direct and indirect loss of half a million jobs and the loss of perhaps £ 2,000 million on the balance of payments? Does the Minister really think, like his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry, that
"free enterprise is not only the best way yet invented towards full employment and rising standards of living, but it is the only way to secure these conditions in freedom"?
Has Renault, wholly owned by the French State since 1945, not only expanded employment and expanded output but in some mysterious way avoided tyranny in France?
Do not the Minister and his colleagues understand that in a world of increasingly complex and expensive technology even large private corporations are dangerously slow to innovate and often unable or unwilling to take the necessary risk?
I do not want to add unnecessarily to the Government's difficulties, but the more vehemently they assert their total commitment to their present policies, the more that ruin spreads in British industry, the more obvious it is that doubt—indeed, major doubt—is seeping in. There is doubt about the whole economic strategy that the Government are pursuing, and beyond doubt there is fear that the social and political consequences will be catastrophic.
Faced with the virtual collapse of the steel industry, the Government have this year doubled the assistance that the Prime Minister had sworn not to give. Worse still, from the Government's point of view, the great economic gurus of the present Conservative faith have now confessed to recent and terrible doubts. I know that the Prime Minister is sensitive about these gentlemen, Professors Milton Friedman and Von Hayek. She

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went out of her way in Swansea on Saturday to say:
"Our opponents say that the Government is deliberately depriving people of jobs in obedience to some fanatical and obscure economic doctrine invented by columnists."
Yes, that is precisely what they are saying. But now what does Professor Friedman have to say? Money supply, of course, is still the ark of the covenant, but the PSBR is a different matter. That can and should be relaxed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) has frequently urged. So what happens to the Red Book forecast and the commitment to the virtual elimination of the PSBR by 1984?
Then, even worse, there is the case of Professor Von Hayek. He is still in favour of monetarism but, as he revealed in his letter to The Times last month, it takes time, and there may not be enough time. So, after all that has been said about free collective bargaining, about the sheer impossibility of inflation so long as the money supply it sightly controlled, the Government must, according to the professor,
"at once rescind all the special privileges which have been granted to the trade unions by law… only this can make it possible for the beneficial effects of such a money supply policy to manifest itself in time before the term of the present Government runs out."
Finally, and most damaging, we had the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer of 15 July to the Coningsby club. Up to that moment, whatever the short-term planning and however improbable the way ahead may have seemed, the phoenix of free enterprise was destined to rise from the ashes of our industrial collapse. But now, after that speech, we are asked to face the fact of a permanent contraction of manufacturing employment.
The possession of North Sea oil, so the Chancellor tells us, means a permanently high exchange rate for the pound and a consequential inability to compete over a wide range of manufactures. Thus, under the present Government's mismanagement, the very possession of oil, which should enrich us, has been turned into an instrument for our own impoverishment. That is the economics of bedlam and of failure.
What we are experiencing is basically an appalling intellectual recidivism by the Conservative Party—a return to free
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market dogmas of the most extreme kind; an expunging from its memory of the whole post-war experience which, in spite of its setbacks, more than doubled the standard of living of the British people: a lurch back into the exhausted economics and fallacies of the inter-war years, into the terrible political fatalism and absurd belief that economic regeneration was the consequence not of Government action but of Government inaction; the belief that if only inflation can be defeated all will be well—just as if from 1924 to 1939 we did not have a decade and a half of stable, even falling, prices and along with with it the waste and misery of industrial decline, endemic unemployment and unacceptable poverty. To support today these outdated cliches is nothing less than an intellectual disgrace.
I am reminded of the words of John Maynard Keynes of some years ago. He said:
"Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back."
I leave it to the House to decide, as hon. Members survey the Government Front Bench, who fall into the category of
"practical men… the slaves of some defunct economist"
and who are the
"Madmen in authority… distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back."
I tell the Government to open their eyes, get rid of their dogma and recognise that our major problems have now become a lack of effective demand and that great resources of wealth and output lie idle now and must be brought back into use. They must recognise, too, the crucial need to improve the supply side of the economy, and that that will need more than the motor of private enterprise. It will need the strong thrust of the engine of public enterprise as well.
Finally, let them recognise that they will get nowhere by attacking one half of the nation. Rather, success will require a joint effort of both our productive classes—the working class and the middle class—the earning classes who, with their different traditions, skills and virtues, made us prosperous in the past and, with the right policies, will make us prosperous again.
9.34 pm
The Minister of Transport (Mr. Norman Fowler): I shall seek to reply to as many of the points raised in the debate as I can. Clearly, one of the central themes of the debate—and I, perhaps unlike the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore), have listened to most of the debate—has been the balance between the public sector and private enterprise. It has been dealt with by my hon. Friends the Members for Gillingham (Sir F. Burden) and Seven-oaks (Mr. Wolfson), who stressed the importance of public sector staff. I agree with their remarks. It has been stressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) in an impressive speech and by my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer), who pointed out that nationalisation in itself is no guarantee of the future or prosperity of an industry. I also pay tribute to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Mr. Benyon) on the provision of labour.
We also heard speeches from the hon. Members for Ogmore (Mr. Powell), Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) and Consett (Mr. Watkins). We heard a further variation from the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), who talked, in passing, about the mixed economy, without stopping to define his intention. I shall return to the right hon. Gentleman's remarks in a moment.
It is that balance between the public and private sectors that lies at the heart of this debate. The introduction of private capital was touched on in several speeches, and there was a ludicrous charge of asset-stripping from the right hon. Member for Devonport. The Government's position is clear: we are introducing private capital into State-owned industries when it is in the interest of the industry and the public to do so. We see no advantage to the economy, the consumer or the work force in keeping businessses in the public sector when they can survive better outside, with access to private capital and with freedom from controls and Government interference. Surely, the whole characteristic of this approach is an industry-by-industry examination of the position and solutions geared to meet the particular and specific needs of those industries.
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My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mr. Mills) welcomed the Government's provisions for the National Freight Corporation and British Rail subsidiaries. They asked further about the position of the British Transport Docks Board. The ports operated by the British Transport Docks Board were originally owned and controlled by the private railway companies of the last century. Following rail nationalisation in 1947, the railway ports were administered as part of the British Transport Commission, and, following the Transport Act 1962, with a few exceptions, they came under the control of the British Transport Docks Board. The boad now operates 19 ports, including Southampton, Hull, Birmingham, Cardiff and Lowestoft. They handle about a quarter of the total port traffic in Great Britain.
In March I told the House that I had asked Sir Humphrey Browne, chairman of the British Transport Docks Board, to explore ways of introducing private capital into the board's undertaking, in consultation with the trade unions and others concerned, and to report to me. The chairman has now reported, and I have consulted a merchant bank. I am glad to be able to tell the House—
Mr. Anderson: Is it not in the normal tradition of the House for a statement of this importance to be made at the end of Question Time?
Mr. Speaker: Ministers choose their own moments to make statements.
Mr. Fowler: What I am now saying follows my statement to the House in March. I intend to respond to the request of my hon. Friends and to set out my intentions.
I am glad to tell the House that the Government have decided to proceed with plans to introduce private capital into the board. I propose to proceed with the preparation of legislation to make the necessary changes in the board's constitution in order to transform it into a company and give me the powers to sell shares in it.
I wish to make two essential points about this proposal. First, the plans that we have set out envisage that the board's undertaking will be maintained as a single management unit. In other words,

153
there will be no break-up or disposal of individual ports. Secondly, although the Government will take a 51 per cent. holding, this will not involve any intervention in the running of the business, and existing controls under the 1962 Transport Act will be removed. Legislation will be needed and I intend to introduce the proposals to the House at the earliest opportunity.
The advantage of this course—I add that the chairman of the BTDB accepts this—is that it will give full commercial freedom to the board. The board will no longer be subject to intervention and interference from the Government. This is a course that recognises the success of the management and work force and it means that they will be responsible for their own future without Government controls on investment.
Mr. Shore: The right hon. Gentleman must realise that there is a great deal of resentment at what he is doing now. The British Transport Docks Board, with its extensive dock facilities, enters into the constituencies of many hon. Members. I do not see why the Minister should not come to the House and make a proper statement in order to give hon. Members on both sides the chance to question him properly.
Mr. Fowler: I was about to give way to one of the right hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends who wants to ask a question about this subject. In the time that I have done the job of Transport Minister, I have, in total contrast to my predecessor, come to the House and made statements. I have made a statement previously on this matter. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to compare my record with that of my predecessor, I suggest that he does so.
Mr. Jack Straw: Since the Minister is abusing the House in making a statement during a winding-up speech, will he come to the House again and give hon. Members a chance to ask questions after a statement in the afternoon?
Mr. Fowler: If the hon. Member has only just woken up to the fact that these are the kind of proposals that we have for the BTDB, I do not know what he has been doing—especially as I made my announcement about this on the Floor of the House last March. The fact is that
154
we are developing our policy. I take every opportunity to explain the development of our policies on the Floor of the House. I am doing that now.
Mr. Bagier: Is not what the Minister has just said in this context a distinct abuse of the House? As the senior Minister replying for the Government on behalf of all nationalised industries, will he agree that to take up this amount of time is litile short of disgraceful and is dodging away from the cross-examination that he would otherwise receive?
Mr. Fowler: I repeat what I said a moment ago. On the question of taking up time, I have given away five minutes so that another hon. Member from the Opposition Benches could get into the debate. I have been here listening to the debate from beginning to end, unlike the light hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar.
Above all, our proposal recognises that there is no need for the British Transport Docks Board to remain in the public sector under the restrictions and threat of restrictions that that involves.
Again, that underlines the Government's determination to have an industry-by-industry examination. For that reason, we have not chosen a single standard way to introduce private capital. It is no part of our intention to move from the inflexibility favoured by the Opposition to a different inflexibility. We have deliberately chosen different courses to introduce private capital into, for example, the National Freight Corporation—where the Government do not seek a shareholding—or into British Rail subsidiaries—where, ultimately, the subsidiary companies will have a minority British Rail interest—or into British Airways and British Aerospace. That those courses are different is a matter of strength, not weakness.
The subject of British Rail subsidiaries was raised by a number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Gillingham, Sevenoaks and Faversham. It was also raised by. the hon. Members for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) and Sunderland, South (Mr. Bagier), who spoke of the menace that it posed. I hope to persuade him that his fears are wholly misplaced. I agree entirety with those who argue that the interests of the public must include the interests of those who work for British

155
Rail subsidiaries, and also those who have an interest in seeing those businesses develop.
The position is clear. For years companies such as British Transport Hotels and Sealink have been starved of investment. Until recently they came low, if not bottom, for management attention within the railway industry. Today, there is no serious figure inside the industry who believes that things should continue as they are, that the status quo should be preserved.
There is no serious figure inside the industry who believes that the problems of the subsidiary businesses have appeared in the past 15 months. They have been evident during the past 20 years. As we know to our cost, for more than half of those 20 years the Opposition were in Government. There is no serious figure inside the industry—or inside any other industry—who is satisfied that one of the nation's leading hotel groups is producing £ 300,000 profit on a £ 38 million turnover. I say to the right hon. Member for Devonport that there is no serious figure inside the industry who believes that the chairman of British Rail is party to an agreement which he does not feel is in the interests of the railway industry. There are enough men on the Opposition Front Bench who know the truth of that.
When the plans were announced, the chairman of British Rail said in a press release that the British Railways Board
"welcomes the announcement by the Minister of Transport today… that private capital is to be introduced into its main non-rail subsidiary activities and plans, using its existing powers, to set up a holding company".
Sir Peter Parker said:
"Railways are a creative business. The introduction of private capital should increase the scope and unlock the great potential of the subsidiary businesses. Investment has been limited and because of the thin spread, the subsidiaries have been starved. The proposed changes should also result in benefits to the main rail business."
The right hon. Member for Devonport quoted the Financial Times at every point during his speech. But the Financial Times also said:
"The plan for bringing private capital into some of British Rail's non-railway activities which was outlined yesterday… is a victory for commercial good sense."
Mr. Robin F. Cook (Edinburgh, Central): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fowler: No. The Opposition motion claims that our policies are against the public's interest. It makes sense to seek opportunties for these businesses, to see them grow and not decay and to give managements the freedom that they should have.
The standards for judging the performance of a nationalised industry are the same as for any other industry. Performance must be judged by the standards of goods and services, by the prospects that they bring for their work forces and by their ability to generate wealth and contribute to national resources. Our complaint is that all too often nationalised industries have failed on those counts.
That failure is not necessarily the result of the management's action. It might be because of long-term lack of investment. That is one of the reasons why we are introducing private investment. Alternatively, it might be the result of bad productivity that has made goods uncompetitive. I agree with what the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer) said about that. It might have resulted from a lack of normal competitive forces.
One of the main thrusts of the Government's policy is to do what we can to make the nationalised industries more accountable to the public and more responsive to the needs of the consumer. I say to the right hon. Member for Devonport that that is the characteristic of our approach. For too long the customer has taken second place. Surely the customer's needs should come first, whether they are served by public industry or private industry.
The best way to make the nationalised industries more responsive is to expose them to fair competition with the private sector. We have been reviewing the areas where the nationalised industries have been unnecessarily protected from the rigours of the market place.
The Transport Act will open up bus services to exactly such competition. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry made an announcement in the House today about the relaxation of the British telecommunications mono-

157
poly and the post monopoly and the development of new services. That is an example of the action that we are taking and intend to take. The last thing that we want to do is to be drawn into the day-to-day management of the nationalised industries.
In addition to financial control, some mechanism is often essential to act as a substitute for the disciplines of competition which apply to the rest of the economy. Without that, it is too easy for a monopoly industry to meet its financial target simply by raising prices. That is why we have taken power in the Competition Act to subject the nationalised industries and other bodies protected by some degree of statutory monopoly—such as the water authorities—to investigation by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. The Act gives the Secretary of State for Trade power to refer to the Commission the efficiency, costs and standards of the services provided by nationalised industries. That must be the right approach for the Government.
Already British Rail's London and South-East commuter services and the CEGB have been referred to the Commission. The Commission has been asked to look in particular at the reasons for the decline in the quality of commuter services and the scope for reducing costs by improvement in productivity and efficiency. The Government have announced their intention to refer the Severn and Trent water authority to the Commission in the autumn. Investigations by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission will help to establish areas where improvements in efficiency and service can be made.
Mr. Bagier: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fowler: We welcome the opportunity of this debate to set out our policies and explain them further.
However, having listened to almost every speech from the Opposition, I remain puzzled as to why they chose the subject for a Supply day debate. The implication of their motion is that they have something better to offer. However, as Opposition Members themselves have pointed out, a solution was not offered when Labour was in power, and nor are
158
we any clearer what Labour policy is now that Labour is in Opposition.
Mr. Bagier: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fowler: Is the Labour Party policy that of its national executive committee? That, surely to goodness, cannot be an unfair question, but nothing was more typical than the reaction—
Mr. Barry Sheerman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Surely, it is an abuse of the House to spend 20 minutes of a 30-minute wind-up speech on transport when the debate concerns nationalised industries.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister must make his own speech.
Mr. Fowler: I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman can have been listening to the debate or my speech. The reaction from the Opposition Front Bench was typical when my right hon. Friend quite fairly raised the question of whether the national executive committee of the Labour Party was supported. The right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar studied the skylight with such intensity that one would have thought that a message was about to flash up giving the date of the retirement of the Leader of the Opposition.
The issues raised in the document are of fundamental importance. The document has not been produced by whatever body is thought to be conspiring against the Labour Party. It is written and issued on the authority of the national executive committee of the Labour Party. It sets out a radical programme. It promises the extension of public ownership to banking and insurance, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, construction and building materials and ports and road haulage. It adds:
"We shall give a Labour Government the powers to take individual companies into public ownership by Statutory Instrument."
That pledge comes just before the section on democracy at work.
I say one thing for the Left: its policies may be absurd, foolish and misguided, but at least they are clear. Its proposals may be hideously expensive and hopelessly impractical, but no one doubts their meaning. The tragedy is that from the beginning of the debate to the end

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we have heard not a murmur of policy from the official Opposition Front Bench.
Mr. James Callaghan: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Hon. Members: Give way.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Fowler: I support—
Mr. Callaghan: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fowler: I support—
Mr. Callaghan Mr. Callaghan rose—
Mr. Speaker: It appears that the Minister is not giving way.
Mr. Callaghan: What is the future of South Wales steel?
Mr. Fowler Mr. Fowler rose—
Hon. Members: Give way.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Callaghan: What is the future of South Wales steel?
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Fowler: I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to support the Government amendment tonight.
Mr. Callaghan: What is the future of South Wales steel?
Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 248, Noes 322.

PUBLIC SECTOR INDUSTRIES

  See Division 411
  in column 217
  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 32 (Questions on Amendments), That the proposed words be there added:—
  The House divided: Ayes 314, Noes 254.

  See Division
  412 in column 221
  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Mr. Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to, pursuant to Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply).
  Resolved,
  That this House welcomes the Government's policies of restoring a proper balance between the state sector and private enterprise, and encouraging greater efficiency and a more competitive climate within such industries, to the lasting advantage of the British economy and the British public.

MEMBERS' SALARIES AND PENSIONS
Mr. Speaker: Before I call the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to move his motion, it may be for the convenience of the House if I explain the course that we shall follow in the light of the business motion to which the House agreed this afternoon.
The debate on the first of the five motions before the House—those numbered 2 to 6 on the Order Paper—can continue for four hours, and during the course of it it will be open to any hon. Member to discuss all the other motions and amendments which stand on the Order Paper.
At the end of the debate I shall call upon hon. Members to move formally any amendments to motion No. 2 which are shown on the selection list. When any such amendments have been disposed of, I shall put the main Question, or the main Question as amended. I shall then call upon the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to move formally motion No. 3, to which no amendments are selected, and then motion No. 4. When he has done so, hon. Members whose amendments to motion No. 4 have been selected will be invited successively to move them formally. When those amendments have been disposed of, the main Question, as amended or not amended, will be put.
There are no amendments to motions Nos. 5 and 6, so I shall call upon the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to move them formally in succession, and I shall put the Question to them.
Mr. George Cunningham: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You indicated that after motion No. 2 had been disposed of you would call upon the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to move motion No. 3, to which no amendments have been selected, because no private Member would be in order in moving an amendment to that motion—at least, in an upward direction.
Perhaps it should be understood that we presume that if the first motion—the expression of opinion motion—is amend-
162
ed the Government will, of course, take the initiative to make a corresponding amendment to the effective motion—that is, the one in the name of the Leader of the House as the effective motion No. 3.
Mr. Eric Ogden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You were good enough to indicate that hon. Members might discuss any amendment or motion on the Order Paper referring to this business. I happen to be in the unenviable position of having on the Order Paper five amendments none of which has been selected. It does not happen often, thank goodness. Would it be in order for me or for anyone else who happens to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, to refer to the amendments on the Order Paper, or only to those which have been selected?
Mr. Speaker: The point of order raised from the Opposition Front Bench by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) is really a point which the Leader of the House will probably answer in his speech.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden), with his five amendments, does not know the sorrow that the matter caused me. If he catches my eye, he will be free to speak to them, but he will not have an opportunity to vote upon them.
Mr. Roger Moate: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As the arguments on the subject are not unfamiliar to both sides of the House, would it be in order to suggest that we take the votes now and have the debate afterwards?
Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
Mr. Speaker: I thought a little earlier that I was being made to earn my increase before I received it.
10.30 pm
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): May I first answer the point that has been raised by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham)? If the first motion is amended, it will not be the intention of the Government to press ahead with the substantive motion.

163
We would have to withdraw it and consider what should be done, because the Queen's Recommendation has not been

That, in the opinion of this House, the following provisions about salaries and pensions of Members of this House should be made: -

(1) The salary payable to Members of each of the descriptions in the first column of the following Table-

5

(a) in respect of service on and after 13th June 1980 and before 13th June 1981 shall be at the yearly rate specified in relation to that description in the second column of that Table; and

(b) in respect of service on and after 13th June 1981 shall be at the yearly rate specified in relation to that description in the third column of that Table.

10

TABLE

Description of Member

Yearly rate of salary from 13th June 1980 to 12th June 1981

Yearly rate of salary from 13th June 1981

£

£

15

1. Member not within paragraph 2.

11,750

13,150

2. Member or Officer of this House receiving a salary under the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975 or a pension under section 26 of the Parlia-20 mentary and Other Pensions Act 1972.

6,930

7,670

20

(2) The ordinary salary of every Member in respect of service on and after 13th June 1980 shall be regarded for pension purposes as being at the rate of £ 13,150.

25

(3) Any Member, except one in whose case no deduction is required to be made under section 3 or 4 of the Act of 1972, shall be credited by way of supplement to his salary payable in respect of service on or after 13th June 1980 and before 13th June 1981, with amounts at the yearly rate of £ 84.

As everyone in the House knows, fixing the right rate of salary for Members of Parliament is a difficult matter. It is essentially a question of balance. On the one hand, Members certainly ought to be properly remunerated for the work they do. On the other hand, because of our position in the public eye, we need to give a lead to the country at large.
As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear in her statement on 7 July, the Government's overriding economic priority is to reduce inflation, and in order to do this we need to achieve and keep to our monetary targets. As she said, unless the growth of earnings is broadly consistent with the rate of monetary growth, the fall in inflation will be accompanied by a larger rise in unemployment.
That is why the level of pay increases in the public sector must be reduced, as is already happening in the private sector. If Parliament does not give a lead now, the example could be severely prejudicial to the climate in which the next pay round is conducted.
signified to an amended motion but only to the motion. I hope that that clears up the point.
I beg to move,
It is the Government's view that a positive lead could best be given by Members accepting a pay increase somewhat lower than that recommended by the Top Salaries Review Body. Although, of course, the final decision on this matter rests with the House, I wish to put it to Members that a degree of self-denial on our part is the most responsible line to take.
Mr. Andrew Faulds: Is the situation not simply that the Prime Minister and the right hon. Gentleman are abusing the devotion and concern to their parliamentary duties of Opposition Members, because, as he is well aware, most of those on his Back Benches have a multiplicity of directorships, which remove them—[Interruption.]—from dependence—[Interruption.]—on a single parliamentary salary?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I regret that the hon. Member has injected that somewhat partisan note into the debate. This is a matter which concerns—[Interruption.] I have never had a directorship in my life. No one has ever offered me one, so I have never been put to any temptation

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I am fully aware that some Members will feel let down. I respect their feelings, but I must repeat what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in her statement on 7 July: the Government must have regard to their wider commitment to propose what they believe to be right in the battle against inflation.
I should like briefly to remind the House of the background to this year's proposals on Members' pay, as it is fairly complex. In 1979 the review body recommended a salary of £ 12,000 for those Members who were not Ministers or other office-holders. The Government accepted that figure, but because the existing salary was only £ 6,897 we felt that the increase was too great to be paid in one go. It was, therefore, agreed by the House that the new salary should be introduced in three stages. The first stage was paid last year, giving Members a salary of £ 9,450. The second stage of £ 10,725 came into payment on 13 June this year, and the third and final stage is due to be paid on 13 June 1981. The recommendations of the review body this year were that both the second and third stages should be increased by 14-6 per cent. The Government think it right to ask hon. Members to settle for a smaller figure. We are, therefore, inviting the House to approve a motion providing for a salary of £ 11,750 from 13 June 1980, and of £ 13,150 from 13 June 1981, an increase of 96 per cent. on the second and third stages respectively.
Mr. Russell Johnston: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I shall give way, but I should like to finish this background description first.
We have also agreed that the review body should be asked to review next year's third stage increase of hon. Members' pay to £ 13,150.
Mr. Johnston: What evidence does the Leader of the House have that pay restraint on the part of hon. Members would have any effect on any other pay increase in the absence of an incomes policy?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I do not say that an example by the House alone can solve our inflation problem. However, if the House does not set some sort of example to the nation, any chance that we may
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have of succeeding in our anti-inflation policy will be doomed to failure from the start.
Mr. Jack Straw rose—
Mr. St. John-Stevas: The Government will implement the result of the third stage review, unless there are clear and compelling reasons for not doing so.
Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Does not the Leader of the House recollect that he gave an assurance to that effect last year and that the Prime Minister wrote to Lord Boyle on 30 July 1979 saying:
"It is out intention to accept and implement the recommendations you make."
There was no qualification to that. Why should we believe the right hon. Gentleman now?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: The hon. Gentleman has made a fair point, which I accept. I do not deny, any more than my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister denies, that that pledge was given. But it was given 12 months ago. The situation since then has altered, and the Government have to review the position in the light of events since then. It is for the House to decide on that issue. I am here to request Members to accept the arguments I am putting. The figures will be voted by the House. I can put it no higher than that. The hon. Gentleman is entitled to point to the pledges that we gave. I agree with that.
The restraint we are seeking from the House on Members' pay ought also to apply to allowances and, of course, to Ministers' pay. We propose, therefore, that the secretarial and research assistance allowance should be increased by 9-6 per cent. to £ 7,400 with effect from 13 June 1980. We are proposing for members of the Cabinet and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General an increase of only 5 per cent. excluding the parliamentary salary, and of 9-6 per cent. for other Ministers and paid office-holders. Junior Ministers in the House of Lords do not receive any salary specifically for their parliamentary duties. We believe that to be a serious problem and we are considering the best way to deal with it. We shall bring forward proposals as soon as posible.
I turn now to the various individual motions. As hon. Members will have

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noted, the first two are broadly similar. Both deal with Members' salaries and pensions, but the first is an expression of opinion which the House can amend, whereas the second is subject to the Queen's Recommendation. Hon. Members may recall that this procedure is necessary when dealing with their pay and pensions and derives from the fact that an effective resolution of the House to increase Members' pay automatically leads to an increase in Exchequer contributions to the pension fund. Accordingly, any motion or amendment leading to such an increase formally requires the Queen's Recommendation. If the motion framed as an expression of opinion finds favour with the House, the effective motion will be moved immediately afterwards. If the first motion does not find favour, the subsequent motion will not be moved.
Mr. George Cunningham: The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said a few moments ago that if the first motion is amended that is a decision for the House to take, and that if the House votes for something different from what the Government want it will be the House's decision that takes place. In that case, why do the Government, if there is an amendment to the first motion, have to take the second motion away? Why do not the Government simply move—I should have thought that the Chair would be willing to accept it—the same amendment to the second one as will have been passed to the first one?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I do not think that procedurally that would be possible. I shall certainly consider the hon. Gentleman's suggestion because, as I have made clear, on this matter it is the wish of the House that decides the issue. That has always been the case, and it is the case today.
The first paragraph of the two motions increases the pay of ordinary Members to £ 11,750 from 13 June 1980 and £ 13,150 from 13 June 1981. It also increases the parliamentary pay of Ministers and other office holders to £ 6,930 from 13 June 1980 and to £ 7,670 in 1981. There is an element of rationalisation here. There are currently three separate rates of parliamentary salary for Ministers—a result of the previous Government's pay policy. As there is no justification for different
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rates and the Review Body recommended a single rate, we are proposing £ 6,930 for all Ministers and office holders.
Paragraph (2) ensures that the increased third stage rate of £ 13,150 will be used for pension purposes and paragraph (3) lays down the supplement payable to cover the 6 per cent. pension contribution on the difference between actual and pensionable pay. For ministerial salaries the corresponding supplement is provided for in a resolution made by the House on 11 July 1979, which still stands.
An amendment on the Order Paper seeks to increase the rate of pay for pension purposes. The Government strongly urge its rejection on these grounds; to accept it would place Members of this House in the invidious position of treating themselves more generously than senior members of the Civil Service and the other public services—[Hon. Members: "Oh."]—who are being treated under the Government's decision on the Boyle report on their pay.
There is the further point that this amendment would put the pension figure above the notional final salary figure for the first time. In the past, while we have accepted that the pension figure should be higher than the staged increase so that those retiring should not suffer from the staging, there has never been a case where the pension figure has been higher than the actual notional figure of the salary. It would cause considerable problems if that discrepancy were to arise.
Mr. Michael English: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are several Clerks of the House now living whose pensions exceed the present salary of the present Clerk of the House? Is he also aware that it is not relevant to compare us with the rest of the Civil Service? Most of us do not start in our twenties, so perhaps he would care to compare us with judges whose pensions accrue over 15 years. On that basis we are much worse treated.
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I was not making a general comparison with the Civil Service. I was making a comparison within the Government's response to the Boyle recommendations. There is an equity in the recommendations between civil servants and hon. Members of this House, both of whom have had the

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Boyle recommendations proportionately reduced.
The third motion increases the limit on the secretarial and research assistance allowance to £ 7,270 for the year ending 31 March 1981 and £ 7,400 for a full year. The House voted on 4 March for an additional sum of 10 per cent. of the existing secretarial allowance to be made available to provide pensions for Members' employees. The Government have accepted the views of the House on this matter and in the current motion on the secretarial allowance the amount payable to provide for employees' pensions has been increased so that it remains 10 per cent. of the main allowance. Certain hon. Members have asked me to confirm that the money for employees' pensions is indeed additional to the money which may be provided for secretarial and research assistance, and I am happy to clarify and confirm that point.
Mr. Terence Higgins: Can my right hon. Friend clarify one point? Leaving the question of pensions for members' secretaries on one side, am I correct in thinking that the Government's proposal, in effect, limits the increase in the secretarial allowance to 9-6 per cent.? If that is so, can my right hon. Friend explain why our secretaries are being asked to set an example to the nation, and how that compares with the increase proposed for Civil Service secretaries?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: Secretarial and ministerial salaries are different, but they are not necessarily perceived as such in the country at large. I am afraid that that is a fact. Although it may not be justified, the public link those two salaries and regard them as connected. That is why it is essential to have a common approach to both these problems.
The fourth motion increases the—
Mr. Higgins Mr. Higgins rose—
Hon. Members: Give way.
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I have given way a great deal, and I must press on. The fourth motion [Interruption]—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister does not appear to be giving way.
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I shall give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden).
Sir John Eden: In view of my right hon. Friend's remarks, would it not be fairer and more honourable to revert to the previous position where secretarial and research remunerations were separate?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: That was the original recommendation. It was in response to representations from hon. Members in different parts of the House that I amalgamated them because it was for the convenience of hon. Members. I made that change in accordance with the wishes of the House.
Mr. Higgins: I am grateful—
Mr. Speaker: Order. It was to me that the Minister gave way.
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I did give way to you, Mr. Speaker, but as I have sat down I shall give way to my right hon Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins).
Mr. Higgins: I am doubly grateful to my right hon. Friend. Will he now answer my second, point? If our secretaries' allowances are to be limited to 9-6 per cent. in the way that he suggested, will he say, in the Estimates now before us and for which he will ask our approval, what will be the increase in the pay of civil servants' secretaries?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I cannot answer that question without notice. I shall endeavour to find out the exact reply and or if I am able to catch Mr. Speaker's eye again to reply to any points, that is one with which I shall deal.
The fourth motion increases the winding-up allowance made towards defraying the expenses of secretarial assistance required in connection with parliamentary duties after a person has ceased to be a Member of the House. At present the allowance is limited to £ 500, and in the case of a deceased Member is paid only on the authorisation of his or her personal representative, which can take as long as six months to obtain. The motion increases the limit of the allowance to one-sixth of the secretarial allowance and permits payment under the arrangements approved by Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker's special committee on the winding-up allowance has recommended that authorisation to pay should be obtained from the appropriate party Whip's Office,

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which would be required to complete a form of nomination. The Government accept the proposed arrangements. It is a small, but important point. I have come across a great number of cases where distress has been caused because secretaries have been unable to be paid for a considerable time. We want a procedure that can be easily brought into operation to minimise the distress that is inevitably caused to everyone concerned at such a moment.
The final motion seeks approval of a draft Order in Council to implement increases in Ministers' and office holders' salaries. Ministers are not yet in receipt of the second stage of their 1979 increases, so the order brings those into effect as well as updating them by 5 per cent. for Cabinet Ministers and 96 per cent. for other Ministers, as I have already mentioned. The order also makes provision for the updated third stage salaries to be paid with effect from 13 June 1981 and to be used for pension purposes, as for Back Bench Members.
I have said that Cabinet Ministers will get a 5 per cent. increase. That is not entirely accurate because the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor have decided not to draw a salary above that of other Cabinet Ministers, which means that they will receive increases well below 5 per cent.
Those are our proposals. I know that they are not good news to all Members of the House. I know that some Members are severely critical of them. I am grateful to the House for the courteous hearing that it has given me. I urge the House to support the measures. They might not be as generous as some hon. Members had hoped, but I believe that in the wider perspective of the interests of the nation as a whole they are the right recommendations. I commend the Government's proposals to the House.
10.55 pm
Mr. George Cunningham: One feels like saying "Here we are again", because we have been through this debate and this subject regularly every year for many years. The nature of the discussion does not change much over the years. It is a subject that should be discussed in a serious and non-partisan way, because we
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are discusssing how much we should pay ourselves not only as a financial matter but as matter that goes close to the heart of how our democracy works and particularly the relationship between the legislature and the Executive.
In the last year there has been an interesting change in the attitude expressed by some of the media on this subject. Of course, some of the media continue to indulge in straight and blatant criticism of any rise in the remuneration that we vote ourselves. However, other newspapers have, in the past year recognised that this annual painstaking exercise is not conducive to the good government of the country and that we should find some method of settling the matter other than by a debate of this kind taking place with this degree of acrimony each year.
That view was expressed, for example, by the Evening News a week or two back, by The Guardian, by The Economist and by other newspapers which in the past have not expressed that view. In spite of the change of view by some newspapers, inevitably there will be criticism of whatever we decide tonight.
Let us at the start get some of the facts straight so that even some of the journalists can understand—even if they do not bring themselves to print them. In 1964 it was decided that the appropriate remuneration for Members of Parliament should be £ 3,250. If that figure is uprated to take account of price inflation the present salary of Members would be over £ 15,000. No one is suggesting that we adopt a figure of over £ 15,000 tonight.
If we take the figure of £ 4,500 that was chosen in 1972 and uprate it, that produces a figure of over £ 14,000. Again, no-one is suggesting that figure. If we take the 1975 Boyle recommendation of £ 8,000 and uprate that, the figure is over £ 15,000.
The result is that the Boyle recommendation of £ 12,300—even more, the Government's recommendation of £ 11,700—constitutes a reduction of about 20 per cent. in the real value of the salary as decided on three occasions in the last 16 years. The remuneration of Members of Parliament is, therefore, proposed to be about 20 per cent. lower in real terms than was decided at three periods in the last 16 years.
Mr. Alan Clark: I do not know why the hon. Gentleman has taken 1964 as a base line. The figures which he has used are net of the large allowances that we receive today. In 1964 the allowances did not exist.
Mr. Cunningham: It is appalling that the hon. Gentleman should adopt that argument. It is even more appalling that the Prime Minister should have adopted it a few weeks ago when she made her announcement. The effect of the allowances that have been introduced and increased over the years is to permit hon. Members to pay for greater assistance for themselves in doing their job. That is the only proper use of those allowances. It is entirely wrong to say that because we have access to a certain amount of money in order to finance a secretary, that constitutes part of the remuneration of Members.
Mr. John Bruce-Gardyne: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Cunningham: Although this debate may run for four hours, most of us are anxious that it should not necessarily do so. Other hon. Members will have more chance of entering the debate if I do not give way every half minute. All these points can come up in the debate.
I have pointed out that, by comparison with the rise in prices, the salary of Members has fallen considerably. If one takes the rise in earnings, the position is even more stark. Again taking 1964, which I adopt because it happens to be one of the dates when a new decision was made on these matters, the rise in earnings generally since then has been about six-and-a-half-fold. The rise in the remuneration of Members of Parliament has been about three-and-a-half-fold. Earnings generally have risen six and a half times. Salaries of Members of Parliament have risen three and a half times. Those are the basic facts. No one can possibly say that over the years Members of Parliament have failed to give an example in restraint to the remainder of the country.
Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: The hon. Gentleman is overlooking some aspects of the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark). He referred to the services to enable hon. Members to do their job.
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However, in 1964 hon. Members did not receive a petrol allowance. [Hon. Members: "Yes, they did."] They did not receive a petrol allowance in their constituencies, or a living away allowance. We have to consider that we are determining what tax the remainder of the community should pay. We should bear in mind the fact that we do not enhance our authority in making those choices if the proportion—[Hon. Members: "Speech."]—of the total receipts that we get, which are free of tax, is deemed to be constantly increasing.
Mr. Cunningham: So far as there is any validity in that point—and that is not very far at all—it should have been made in the hon. Gentleman's own speech. He is mistaken about fact. Free travel to the House and in a Member's constituency was part of the facilities of a Member at that time.
In discussing the matter, I believe that we should try to be calm and to distill some principles to guide us in reaching our decision. A first principle in deciding what should be paid as salary to a Member of Parliament is that we do not want to attract people into the House for the money. We are not in danger of doing that. A second principle is that we should not put off good people, who would otherwise wish to be active in politics, because of the money.
I know that the right hon. Member for Down. South (Mr. Powell) constantly argues that because there is no shortage of people who wish to stand as candidates for Parliament there is no need to make the increase that might be proposed by Lord Boyle. If that were the only principle that we went on we should have no salary for Members of Parliament at all. We should still fill the House. The Benches would not all be empty if we went back to the end of the nineteenth century, when no allowance was paid to Members. It is just that there would be a different kind of Member.
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: That might be preferable.
Mr. Cunningham: They might be Members more inclined to represent a certain section of society, but they would not be a cross-section of society by any standards.

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The third principle is that the proper service of the House in this day requires that a large number of hon. Members—not necessarily all—should be prepared to give full time or nearly full time to their parliamentary duties. Many of my hon. Friends have put that more extremely. But all Members of Parliament should give full time to their parliamentary duties. Some people believe that having a number of Members with outside interests is good for the House but this much no one can deny: if there were not a large number of Members giving their full time to their work in the House the place could not possibly work. The system of Select Committees that we introduced last year and that is working well could not function if that were not the case, so that is an important principle.
Another principle as regards the manner in which we take our decisions is this. The House—that means individual Members of the House—should jealously guard the right to take this decision. It is not a decision which should be taken by Governments, either in theory or in practice. Many of us when we were on the Government side of the House were prepared to say it to our own Government as I am prepared to say it to Conservative Back Benchers now.
Finally, another principle that hon. Members need to take account of is that there is a very sensitive ratio between the salary payable to a non-ministerial Member of the House and the salary payable to a Minister in the House. If that ratio is too favourable to a Minister, then there is too much desire to become a Minister and too much reluctance to resign in circumstances when Ministers should resign. One of our virtues is that we are only as human as our constituents. Therefore, if that ratio is got wrong this place is entirely weakened bv it.
I regard it as simply absurd and meriting no further argument that we decide that a Member of Parliament should be paid about the same as, let us say, an assistant borough secretary of a London local authority. It is absurd. I regard it as absurd that we should decide that the appropriate amount to pay to a Member of Parliament is about the middle of the scale of the payment that we make to a principal in the Civil Service,
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who is far from the top of the hierarchy of the Civil Service. The Guardian earlier this year said:
"There is something wrong with a society that pays its junior civil servants £ 5,000 more than its full-time representatives in Parliament."
I would only disagree with that because I do not think that there is anything wrong with society. There is just something wrong with the Members of Parliament. It is entirely for us. We have no one to blame but ourselves. We are taking a decision which is not only about ourselves but about the good government of the country.
Until now hon. Members have been perfectly justified in directing criticisms at the Government, and I shall, too, in a moment. But after tonight no criticism can be directed at the Government. The Government cannot pass this motion. They have only got 90 votes. It will pass tonight only if Members of Parliament vote for it, and thereafter the entire responsibility for that lies with us as Members and not with the Government.
There are masses of people in the middle and lower ranks of government, of industry, of commerce and of jounalism—both the people who write the stuff and the people who print it—who are paid very considerably more than we think is right for a Member of Parliament. If we want to savour some of the absurdities, I recommend hon. Members to read through the second annual report of the House of Commons Commission, which sets out in great detail the salaries paid to our own staff in the House.
Let us turn to the Department of the Clerk of the House. Of course, we should not dream of equating ourselves with the Clerk of the House. Let us go down to the Clerk Assistant. We must not equate ourselves with him. We could move down the list to the Clerk of Committees, but that is too high. Let us go down the list again to the Second Clerk Assistant. That is too high. Let us go down to the six Principal Clerks Class I. That is too high. Let us consider the three Principal Clerks Class II. That is too high. too. Let us go down to the 15 Deputy Principal Clerks: but that is too high. We are now down to the 29 Senior Clerks. We have found the level.
It is absurd. Hon. Members may wish to look at other parts of the list, such as

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the Refreshment Department and the Office of the Speaker. We must have some self-respect, and respect for the position and the responsibility that this job involves. I do not regard this matter lightly. We must prick this annual blister. It cannot go on for ever like this. In 1975 the House decided by a large majority that the salaries of hon. Members should be linked to some position in the public service.
There is an amendment on the Order Paper that expresses the same notion. That notion has been supported outside the House by several newspapers. It is time that the House reiterated its support for that principle. The amendment does not specify any particular grade. It simply states the principle of linkage. Over the years, that has been more or less supported by Governments, and commended to Boyle. Although Boyle rejected it he has always felt obliged to add that if the House wanted to go for it he would gladly advise on the best way of doing so.
The Government say that we must set an example to the nation. As I have explained, we have set an example. We should do so if we were to accept the Boyle recommendation tonight. Uniike his previous reports, in his latest report Boyle himself aimed off. He said that it might be appropriate to do certain things, but that he recommended something less. We all know why he did that. The Prime Minister gave him an assurance.
If the House were to say that those outside the House should settle for 9-6 per cent. at the end of the year in which inflation has reached 20 per cent. and worse, it would be setting an unrealistic standard. At the end of a year of such inflation it would not be right if people were to settle for such a low figure. The saddest and most important feature of this business is unprecedented. In politics, there are not many absolute rules. However, one is that when one gives one's word one keeps it.
Let us distinguish between the undertakings that can be given. If someone stands up during an election campaign and says "We will bring down inflation", that is not an undertaking, but a boast. We all understand that as such. However, when someone says, "This is what the Government will do", it is a promise. T did not think that the day would come
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when a British Prime Minister would take an assurance so lightly.
What the Prime Minister said in her letter to Lord Boyle which commissioned the report that we are now discussing was:
"I would be grateful if you would undertake this review. It is our intention to accept and implement the recommendations you make."
That had never been said before to Lord Boyle. It was said to Lord Boyle and acted upon by him in reaching his decision. The Leader of the House, who, as he knows, earns great respect in all parts of the House in many ways, is unhappy. But he is not unhappy enough. He said:
"This year"—
this is not 12 months ago, but this year on 4 March, speaking to the House as Leader of the House—
"the updating of the second stage payment by the Review Body on Top Salaries has been accepted in advance by the Government, and the Government are committed to implementing the updating from this summer. That also will be applied to the third stage of the payment ".—[Official Report, 4 March 1980; Vol. 980, c. 266.]
He went on to indicate the Government's attitude to implementing Boyle in later years. It is significant that he left a loophole in respect of those later years. He did not give a 100 per cent. commitment, which only serves to strengthen the nature of the 100 per cent. commitment which he made in respect of this year.
Let us just get clear what the nature of that promise was. First, the Government were not promising the outcome of this debate. I would be the first to criticise the Government if they ever said "We guarantee that the House will vote for the following." This is not a decision for them to take; it is one for the House to take. Secondly, it is not a question of the Government saying "We will do the following for you." Once again, it is for us to decide, not for them to promise something to us. What the Government were doing was to promise something that they would act upon for their part in so far as Government could achieve it.
It is inconceivable that a British Prime Minister could take so lightly a promise so given. It is inconceivable that a Leader of the House makes an undertaking of that kind, is forced by his colleagues to renege on it and then does not resign. The keeping of promises does

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not depend on the subject matter. This is not the most important thing in the world at all. It is very unimportant, but one either keeps promises or one does not, and if one gives them up on little things like that, what use is one's word at all?
It gives me no satisfaction that it is the Conservative Party whose Prime Minister and Leader of the House have done this, because this is such a breach of private morality, which has its place in public affairs, that it shames any of us. It lowers and demeans all of us when a British Prime Minister and a British Leader of the House take so lightly the assurances that they have given.
I come to the resolutions. My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) has tabled an amendment the effect of which would be to implement the Boyle recommendations for Members but not necessarily for Ministers. I am sure that many Members of the House will feel that that should be supported. It is a view which has been supported outside the House. If we do not do that, certainly the whole issue goes back very much into the melting pot. However, it is a decision upon which each Member must make up his mind.
We then have the proposal on linkage. That repeats the position taken by the House in 1975. It is supported on an all-party basis, across the Floor of the House, and it is something which I strongly urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to support tonight.
We then have a modest proposal to make the pensionable salary the figure adopted by Boyle rather than the figure recommended by the Government. That is what we have always done before over the past five years or so. If that amendment is carried, a consequential amendment will be required to the next section in that motion.
The next amendment, to alter the basis for the pensions of Members from sixtieths to fortieths, would require legislation. If that amendment is passed tonight it will be a clear indication to the Government that it is the wish of the House that that change should be made.
Then we come to the secretarial allowance. I must say to the Leader of the House that there is a fault in the motion
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that he has tabled. The proposal is that a sum of money equal to 10 per cent. of the secretarial allowance should be available to Members to pay into schemes to provide pensions for Members' secretaries.
It is the intention of the Leader of the House—for what that is worth—as he announced in reply to a question last Friday, that there should also be a limit on the amount payable in respect of each secretary, that limit being 10 per cent. of the salary paid to that secretary. But the Leader of the House must get it out of his head that he is in a position to instruct the Accountant of the House. The answer that he gave on Friday was the second time that he used the word, that he would "instruct" the Accountant of the House. He has no authority whatsoever to instruct the Accountant of the House, and he must stop using that word. When his civil servants put it to him, he has to refuse to take that advice. He has no authority to limit the payment made to 10 per cent. of individual salaries unless he is prepared to put it in a motion before the House.
My hon. Friend has recommended that the secretarial allowance should be raised to the figure recommended by Boyle, at £ 8,000. It might be felt that there is no point in having Boyle at all if we are going to reject not only the main but every recommendation that he has made.
All these are matters for decisions of the House; that is, for individual Members. It is highly salutary for Governments not always to get their way in the House. Governments are all the better for a good beating, particularly a regular one. If Governments are defeated about once a month it keeps them in pretty good trim. There are one or two motions on the Order Paper for which there is sufficient support on both sides of the House, and it would be right for the House to substitute its decision and judgment for those put forward by the Leader of the House. I commend the second and third motions particularly for support by all who are concerned that the House, and not the Government, should take this decision.
Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would it be in accordance with the wishes of the House if those who have amendments which are

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to be called introduce them and then we vote upon them?
Mr. Speaker: I think that we had better follow the procedure that I outlined earlier.
11.23 pm
Mr. Edward da Cann: I agreed very much with the opening words of the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham). His work in this area has long been constructive and is much respected on both sides of the House. But if he will not mind my saying so directly, I thought that he went much too far in the attack that he made upon my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. It is very good to see that my right hon. Friend has been joined by some of his and my right hon. Friends. It is appropriate that he should not stand alone. The doctrine of collective responsibility is well understood in the House and it could not function without it.
I also agreed with the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury when he said that speeches should be short. Mine certainly will be short.
I greatly regret the necessity for this debate. We may find some odd moments of amusement in it, but it is, on the whole, an unhappy and undignified affair. The tragedy is that its likelihood has long been foreseen.
I think it appropriate to explain the advice that was given to the Front and Back Benches on both sides of the House three years ago, repeated two years ago and one year ago. There was a clear recommendation that we should establish the Boyle committee—that was done—that the committee's reports should be accepted without equivocation and that there should be a commitment from the whole House before the forthcoming general election. If that suggestion had been accepted it would have solved the problem and we should not be having this debate. Alas, it was not accepted by either side and we have had the embarrassment of a year ago and further embarrassment now. My purpose in speaking is to express the hope that it might be avoided on future occasions, and to say how that might be done.
We are much too introspective about this matter. I fancy that the country is much less interested in it than we believe.
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But I cannot accept that it can be right that the House should be asked by the Government of the day to accept only those parts of Boyle that suit them at a particular time. We have made the position of Lord Boyle and his colleagues utterly impossible and we should not any longer ask them to carry out for us this odious duty which, apparently, we have in the past lacked the courage to decide exclusively for ourselves.
May I put the matter in a wider context? My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in her statement of 7 July on reports Nos. 14 and 15 of the Review Body, made it clear that it was appropriate to consider them together. I should like to do that also.
Report No. 14 covered several professions. It may be thought that they were an unlikely mè lange—chairmen and members of nationalised industry boards, members of the high judiciary, senior civil servants, senior officers in the Armed Services—but all people of significance in our State for whom Ministers and the House are responsible.
I should like to refer specifically to the nationalised industry chairmen. There are some general lessons to be drawn from the way that we are treating them. I do not know of another occasion when it will be possible to talk about them. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House was good enough to say that he would answer any questions put to him in the debate. I put one to him now; how easy is it to fill vacancies at the highest levels in the nationalised industries? We have seen what has been happening lately in certain of them. The British Steel Corporation comes immediately to mind. How many vacancies have there been over the years? How long have they remained unfilled?
I remember the permanent secretary at the Department of Industry making it clear to the Public Accounts Committee when I was chairman that it had been impossible to find a first choice as chairman of the newly nationalised British Shipbuilders because not enough money was being offered. The position of finance director in that company had been vacant for 15 months. I suspect that, much more often than the House knows, we cannot fill top jobs because we do not pay enough.

183
The Boyle report indicates as much. It says that nationalised industries are:
"Some of the largest and technologically most complex industries in the country, indeed in the world."
The House knows that that is so. It is crucial to get the best people to run those industries and it is right to pay a premium, where necessary, for excellence. What is the present position? I quote again from the Boyle report, which contains frequent references to the point:
"It has been put to us strongly that the present level of salaries for Chairmen and Board members is generally too low."
Let us take paragraph 11:
"Our attention has already been drawn to the difficulty, at current (staged) salaries, of attracting and retaining individuals with the capacity and experience to manage some of the major industries on which the future prosperity of the country depends, in a rapidly changing and increasingly international market. The difficulty has been exacerbated, it was said, by earlier decisions to stage the implementation."
and so on.
The position is entirely clear. Here are these industries; we are responsible for them. There is difficulty in getting the right people to run them. What do we promptly proceed to do? We cut the recommended salary increases for the chairmen and others by about 30 per cent.
We are compounding the difficulty. We are making it all the greater for the future. We are not only establishing a situation in which differentials are harder to maintain but endeavouring to create an example which, in my opinion, simply does not work. The sooner we abandon it for a flat market rate approach the better.
There is a link with this place, is there not? If the nationalised industries are technologically complex and important, Great Britain Limited, or Great Britain Unlimited, is the most important responsibility in the United Kingdom. As the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury so rightly said, this place is changing. There is an increasingly and strongly held view on the Back Benches that we must be more active in living up to our responsibility of exercising a control, a continuous surveillance, over the Executive, especially as the scope of government has grown, as it has so much in recent years.
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We must become more professional. Some of us may like that; some of us may dislike it. None the less, it is the fact. We are in a position of transition, as we establish new Select Committees to help us carry out that work, as we come to talk, as we surely shall this year, about other devices, such as the pre-examination of legislation before it goes to its Standing Committee stage.
It is right that my right hon. Friend should tell us "Certainly we shall provide the oportunity for hon. Members to exercise their responsibilities better, in the name of the people. What is more, I shall provide the facilities for them to do this work." For too long they have been lacking. It must be right, for instance, to give right hon. and hon. Members the opportunity to travel. I could quote the names of individual hon. Members on both sides of the House who have travelled to, for example, Northern Ireland many times at their own expense.
How right my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) was to say that it is most extraordinary to put up the salaries of secretaries in the Civil Service by 20 per cent. and limit ourselves when we have work to do.
I believe in Parliament. I want to see it work better and more effectively, in the national interest. That has been my aim and ambition for many years. My reason for disappointment over this matter is not only the embarrassment to which I have referred but my feeling that in doing what the Government propose tonight, if that is what is eventually agreed, we are not advancing this process as rapidly or as effectively we might.
The people of this nation trust us to do a responsible job. Alas, we have not always been doing it. We must, over the years, taking the long view, encourage people of ability, experience and judgment to come here—not to come here for the income, of course, but we cannot ignore that side of life. The nation has no right to ask that a thorough job be done on its behalf on the cheap. There is a limit to the sacrifices that should be asked of men and women in the public service.
How do we stand? The hon. Gentleman referred to newspaper comment. The Times commented a short time ago that British Members of Parliament were
"absolutely and relatively the lowest paid of any in an industrial country".

185
The Guardian said:
"MPs remain the lowest paid of any Western State except Ireland."
Quite rightly, my right hon. Friend himself, in our last debate on the subject, pointed out that the salary had not been brought properly up to date for seven years.
When Boyle reported to us a year ago, Members' remuneration was still at a level below that which a top London secretary could earn. I do not know what the right figure is—£ 15,000 a year has been mentioned. I think that it ought to be a good deal higher. Be that as it may, what we are asked to accept now is some 20 per cent. below that figure. Let the nation note that.
It is true that Members' conditions have been much improved, and we have much to thank the Leader of the House for in that regard. But it is fair to state that the improvement began from an absurdly low level, and it is also fair to state—let me say it plainly to the House—that the conditions have improved only because the Parliamentary Labour Party, led by the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) and his predecessor, Lord Cledwyn Hughes, and the 1922 Committee have come together to try to make things better. T thank my colleagues most warmly for all they have done in that regard.
It may be that some hon. Members feel that they do not need a salary increase. Very well—let them not draw it. And let them also not advertise the fact. I do not know your view, Mr. Speaker, but I know too many hon. Members who do need the salary increase. I also wish to say how much I regret that Ministers are being asked to make a greater sacrifice than Members. Frankly, I do not think that that is fair.
I have said before, and I repeat, that there is no doubt, as the Governor of the Bank of England was remarking upstairs this evening to the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service, that we are in a recession, and, of course, my right hon. Friend is right—the spotlight is on Members of Parliament. So perhaps only one course is open to us today. I certainly would not vote for the Boyle recommendation at this moment. [Hon. Members: "Why not?"] We should have had it before, but that moment has
186
passed and gone. But other things need to be said.
I hope that the House will vote in favour of the proposal standing in the names of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides—that we should put up the pension to the notional level, as we did before. It is not fair to take out of those who are in the evening of their lives the necessity of present times.
I do not care for pecking orders or for comparabilities, but I think that the hon. Member for Islington South, and Finsbury was right in what he said about the need to look again at some form of link. I would prefer a basket in accordance with the evidence that some of us gave to Boyle a short while ago. That is the way to do it, I believe, and I think we have to aim also at settling the right figure and the right link for the period of a Parliament.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister also said—and I think that she was entirely right—that these are matters that we must decide for ourselves.
Mr. Alan Clark: My right hon. Friend says that he thinks that we should decide the matter for a period of a Parliament. There might be many in the House who would agree with him. But would it not be more seemly if we decided it at the end of one Parliament to cover our successors in the next?
Mr. du Cann: My hon. Friend is entirely right. That is precisely what some of us recommended at the end of the last Parliament, and I would recommend it now for the end of this Parliament, whenever that may come.
Mr. Nick Budgen: Is my right hon. Friend saying that he is in favour of a sum being fixed at the beginning of a Parliament and that, no matter what the rate of inflation, it should not rise at all during that Parliament?
Mr. du Cann: That is not what I said, but I would be ready to come to some arrangement of that sort in a way that I am about to suggest to the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark) is entirely right. Let us try to settle this issue at the end of a Parliament for the next Parliament. Let us take responsibilty away from the Front Benches. It is a

187
House of Commons matter. Let us establish a small group of Members of experience to handle this for us and to decide. We have plenty of wisdom and plenty of experience in this House. Those hon. Members who have been privileged to be in this House for many years have a great sense of responsibility.
Let us hope this time that we can get away from the dé jà vu to which reference has been made. Let us make certain that we settle the matter once and for all.
11.40 pm
Mr. Frederick Willey: I think the House wants to expedite the debate and I shall be very brief.
We have had two fine speeches and the position is clear. I give every credit to the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann). We have been trying to reach an agreement about what we can achieve on behalf of the House. I should have expected that the Leader of the House would accept what we propose. It is unfair to use the pay roll vote to try to defeat what is, I think, the general view on each side of the House of what we can do.
We are suggesting no more than that we should be fair to those who receive pensions by preserving and maintaining the present system. Secondly, we have suggested turning to a system of linkage.
We have drafted our proposal widely so that the Government have a wide discretion. We do that in the light of our experience. We have negotiated with the Boyle committee and we know the difficulties. We know that the main difficulty that faces the Boyle committee is that its recommendations have, as it said, to be swiftly implemented. That has not happened and that is what causes the trouble. We want to avoid that.
I should have thought that if the House could accept the amendment on linkage we should be able to do just what the right hon. Gentleman has proposed. We could then have discussions with the Leader of the House to determine the most effective way of dealing with the matter. If we did that we should then at last have taken the matter out of the area of public controversy. That is the objective.
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We have gone a long way and made a lot of progress in the last year or two. I do not want to be disrespectful to the Leader of the House, but these are the things that we ought to do, and do urgently. I hope that the House will be able to come to this decision.
Several hon. Members Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Mr. Hugh Dykes. (Hon. Members: "Vote."] Order. It is very difficult for me to ascertain whether it is the will of the House that the Question be put. [Interruption.] Order. We can settle it very easily. I cannot settle it. Someone could propose it.
Mr. Ogden Mr. Ogden rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Mr. Speaker: There are two opinions and we have had only two speeches. I shall give the House the chance to vote if it wishes. The time will be taken out of the four hours if the House divides. I think that we had better move on for a while. Mr. Hugh Dykes.
11.43 pm
Mr. Hugh Dykes: I think there has been—[Interruption.] If I detect the feeling of the House correctly, although hon. Members may wish to come to a vote in due course, without taking as long as some might have expected, none the less there is, I think, a feeling that there should be some further debate. [Interruption.] There are a number of things that should be said very briefly before the vote is taken.
First, there is a sense in which the House has continually to say to itself and to the public outside that we regard these occasions as deeply embarrassing, awkward and, indeed, offensive. There is nothing more awkward than for hon. Members to have to explain outside that we have a relatively crowded House at 11.45 pm tonight on this subject whereas on most occasions at this hour when we are debating matters of national importance there is nothing like this number of hon. Members present. That is a reflection of the feeling that we should try once and for all to exorcise this matter from our debates and decisions, either through the proposal of my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) for a committee of Members—[Interruption]. As a relatively new Member, I think that

189
I am entitled to express a view about the difficulties that hon. Members who have been in the House for a fairly short time face because of the impasse on Members' pay.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton suggested a special committee of Members. Other hon. Members would prefer the matter to be considered by an independent review body. But we all feel deeply sympathetic to the Boyle machinery and to Lord Boyle for the way in which his independent and objective study has been undermjned. Whether the reasons for the undermining from the Treasury Bench were correct is another matter for another debate. It is right for the House to reach a decision, which should be more than merely an expression of opinion on amendment (h) principally and on other related amendments.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Ogden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I have listened to these arguments for 16 years, and the only way to decide anything is to vote. I beg to move, That the Question be now put.
Question put. That the Question be now put:—
The House divided: Ayes 257, Noes 33.
Mr. Speaker: I wish to make a brief statement. Because the House made it clear to me that it wished me to accept the closure, I now deem the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) to have been moved. That will mean that the House will vote now on whether we have full Boyle or not.
Mr. William Hamilton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not think that anybody should deem that I do anything, least of all move an amendment without discussing it. My point is serious. At the outset of the debate, Mr. Speaker, you suggested a form for debate which would ensure that hon. Members like myself would have the opportunity to make their points. Hon. Members who heard that obviously did
190
not dissent from that course. It may well have been that those who sought to move the closure of the debate did not realise what the House had agreed. I am thereby precluded from exercising my right to speak to my amendment. Because my amendment was fairly narrowly drawn on Members' salaries only, I was not able to speak to that amendment on subsequent amendments. Mr. Speaker said that the debate would last for four hours. I hope that, at some time during the course of that four hours, I shall have the opportunity to speak. I shall endeavour to bring myself in order and raise the points that I intended to raise on my original amendment.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is quite correct. The House has accepted the closure on his amendment only. We have now come to amendment (a), which is "full Boyle".
Amendment proposed: (a), in line 1, leave out from 'House' to the end of the Question and add
'the salaries and pensions paid to Members of Parliament in respect of service on and after 13th June 1980 should be those recommended in Report No. 15 of the Review Body on Top Salaries.'.—[Mr. William Hamilton.]
Question put. That the Amendment be made:—
The House divided: Ayes 137, Noes 231.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: Although even a short contribution now is unpopular, Mr. Speaker, I shall make it. I am in the habit of making contributions, welcome or not, in the cause of free debate. I should like to make four brief points. The first is that there is no embarrassment in discussing our pay. The embarrassment relates to the messes that we make in settling it each year in this haphazard way.
Secondly, as as already been said by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham), the question of linkage has already been determined in 1975. Personally, I would take it very amiss if the Government now decide to oppose a decision which the House has already taken. My third point ties in with this, and anticipates debates next year and the year after. It is that the Government should put the Boyle recommendations before the House and leave it to the House itself to table an amendment to reduce those recommendations. I believe that it is wrong for the Government to do that.
My final point is my own recommendation for the future. I do not believe that the House should decide at the end of a Parliament what the pay should be for the next Parliament. Instead, it should, early on in the present Parliament, decide what the pay should be at the beginning of the next one. In order to get round the problem of committing a future Parliament, I believe that the form of words next year should be to the effect that on the last possible day of this Parliament,
192
or at a preceding general election, the salary should be put at the appropriate level.
My view is that during a Parliament Members should not receive full compensation for inflation. I think that they should receive increases representing half the increase in inflation. In that way we make sure that at least at the beginning of each Parliament new Members, whether "retreads" or not, receive the right amount of money. We would also set an example during the currency of the Parliament to which we are elected.
12.27 am
Mr. Hooley: I would have thought that one of the principles to which this House was dedicated was full and fair debate. I should like to follow what the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) has just said. By rejecting Boyle, this House has rejected the principles of an independent review body. It will be nonsensical in the future to ask distinguished men or women in public life to sit and deliberate or calculate the salaries and conditions of Members of Parliament, only for them to make their recommendations to this House and to have them thrown out on the say-so of the Government Whips. That is a quite intolerable situation, and we have now discredited one very valuable means of determining the remuneration of Members of this House.
It follows that we must seek some alternative method. Clearly, there are only two options available. One is simply to decide for ourselves what we wish to pay ourselves, without any reference to any external body or index whatever. I think that most hon. Members would reject that idea. The alternative is some form of linkage—some sort of automatic calculator—related to other salaries, either in public life or elsewhere. Personally, I think that the proposition now before us is somewhat narrowly calculated, but I believe that the principle is of enormous importance, and I hope that the House will vote for it.
12.29 am
Mr. Dykes: The House wishes to move to a Division, and I wish to make only two quick points. It is right that we have a short debate, and I wish to make two points in support of what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for

193
Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley). This is a different matter from the previous vote.
The assertion and exhortation to us is that we should set an example. I agree. However, we should consider the effect of the example that was set last year. It is interesting that the second stage automatic increase passed wholly unnoticed in the public mind, and that it is only the row about the percentage increase on the Boyle adjustment which has got into the newspapers as a result of the embarrassment of this House.
We can get off this hook by going back to the memory, the decisive vote and the enormous majority of 1975 in favour of linkage—to assistant secretary or whatever may be suitable—and deciding that that will be the system from now on. Whatever grade may be chosen, that must be the rational way for the House to decide the matter. I support the amendment.
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The House divided: Ayes 225, Noes 159.

MEMBERS' SALARIES AND PENSIONS

  See Division 413
  in column 225
  Question accordingly agreed to.

  See Division 414
  in column 229
  Question accordingly negatived.
  Mr. Speaker: I now call the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) to move his amendment formally, if he wishes.
  Mr. Frank Hooley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am somewhat bewildered by the contradictory decisions that the House has taken about this debate. Is it in order to continue to debate amendments (g), (h) and (i) and motion No. 4 and the two related amendments?
  Mr. Speaker: It will be in order, unless the House later decides that the time has come to bring the debate to a conclusion. I remind the House that, although there were loud cries for the closure, we have to bear in mind that minorities also have a right to be heard.
  Amendment proposed: (g), in line 22, leave out ' £ 13,150' and insert ' £ 13,750'.—[Mr. Willey.]
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 213, Noes 174.

  See Division 415
  in column 231
  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Amendment proposed: (h), in line 26, at end add—
  '(4) In the light of the continued difficulty in providing fairly for the salaries of Members of this House, the salaries of Members should be regulated to correspond with the amounts of the salary paid to a specified grade in the Public Service.'.—[Mr. Willey.]
  12.25 am

See Division 416
in column 235
Question accordingly agreed to.
12.42 am
Mr. Charles R. Morris: I beg to move amendment (i), in line 26, at end add—
'(4) The annual amount of the pension payable to an honourable Member shall be a sum equal to the aggregate of the following amounts, that is to say—

(a) an amount equal to one-fortieth of the relevant terminal salary multiplied by the number of complete years comprised in his aggregate period of reckonable service as a Member, and

(b) an amount bearing the same proportion to one-fortieth of the relevant terminal salary as the number of days comprised in that period after the end of the last complete year comprised in it bears to three hundred and sixty-five.'.

Accepting the clear will of the House for a speedy conclusion to our deliberations, I move the amendment very briefly. I believe that the basis of computing Members' pensions should reflect the realities of parliamentary life, in the in-
194
teresls not only of Members but of their families and dependants.
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The House divided: Ayes 200, Noes 152.

See Division 417
in column 237
Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr. Charles R. Morris: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May 1, through you, ask the Leader of the House, in keeping with his responsibilities, to make a statement indicating that he accepts the will of the House on the amendment that the House has just passed?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: As you will appreciate, Mr. Speaker, and as the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate, there are very complex questions involved in pensions. I give the right hon. Gentleman the assurance that we shall consider the position. I shall come to the House with a statement on this matter at the earliest opportunity.
Mr. George Cunningham: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I take it that what the Leader of the House has just said relates to the amendment which has just been carried and that one alone, on account of the fact that to effect the change for which we have voted would require legislation. I take it that he would not adopt the same attitude to the previous amendments which have been carried and that the Government will accept those amendments without question, and any others that we carry later tonight which do not require legislation, in accordance with the earlier statement of the Leader of the House that all these matters—leaving aside the pension one which needs legislation—are for the House to decide.
Will the Leader of the House say, therefore, that in respect of those other matters which do not call for legislation he will be taking away his motion No. 3 and bringing it forward in a revised form to fit the amendments which have been carried by the House and any others which might be carried later this evening?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I shall not be moving motion No. 3 tonight. In the light of the decisions that have been taken, it

195
will be necessary for a major Government statement to be made.

That, in the opinion of this House, the following provisions about salaries and pensions of Members of this House should be made:—

(1) The salary payable to Members of each of the descriptions in the first column of the following Table-

(a) in respect of service on and after 13th June 1980 and before 13th June 1981 shall be at the yearly rate specified in relation to that description in the second column of that Table; and

(b) in respect of service on and after 13th June 1981 shall be at the yearly rate specified in relation to that description in the third column of that Table.

TABLE

Description of Member

Yearly rate of salary from 13th June 1980 to 12th June 1981

Yearly rate of salary from 13th June 1981

£

£

1. Member not within paragraph 2.

11,750

13,150

2. Member or Officer of this House receiving a salary under the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975 or a pension under section 26 of the Parliamentary and Other Pensions Act 1972.

6,930

7,670

(2) The ordinary salary of every Member in respect of service on and after 13th June 1980 shall be regarded for pension purposes as being at the rate of £ 13,750.

(3) Any Member, except one in whose case no deduction is required to be made under section 3 or 4 of the Act of 1972, shall be credited by way of supplement to his salary payable in respect of service on or after 13th June 1980 and before 13th June 1981, with amounts at the yearly rate of £ 84.

(4) In the light of the continued difficulty in providing fairly for the salaries of Members of this House, the salaries of Members should be regulated to correspond with the amounts of the salary paid to a specified grade in the Public Service.

(5) The annual amount of the pension payable to an honourable Member shall be a sum equal to the aggregate of the following amounts, that is to say-

(a) an amount equal to one-fortieth of the relevant terminal salary multiplied by the number of complete years comprised in his aggregate period of reckonable service as a Member, and

(b) an amount bearing the same proportion to one-fortieth of the relevant terminal salary as the number of days comprised in that period after the end of the last complete year comprised in it bears to three hundred and sixty-five.'.

MEMBERS' OFFICE, SECRETARIAL AND RESEARCH ALLOWANCE
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, in the opinion of this House—

(a) the limit on the allowance payable to a Member of this House in respect of the aggregate expenses incurred by him for his parliamentary duties as general office expenses, on secretarial assistance and on research assistance should be £ 7,270 for the year ending 31st March 1981 and £ 7,400 for any subsequent year; and

(b) provision should be made to enable each Member in receipt of the allowance to contribute sums, not exceeding in the year ending 31st March 1981 £ 727 and in any subsequent year £ 740, to an approved pension scheme for the provision of pensions or other benefits for or in respect of persons in the payment of whose salaries such expenses are incurred by him.—[Mr. St. John-Stevas.]

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.
Resolved,
12.57 am
Mr. Alfred Dubs: I wish to move amendments (q), (s), (w) and (y).
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman can move only one amendment at a time. We shall see how he gets on, and how we get on.
Mr. Dubs: In that case, I beg to move amendment (q), in paragraph (a), leave out ' £ 7,270' and insert ' £ 7,859'.
12.58 am
Mr. Terence Higgins: The House will recollect that I asked the Leader of the House for some information which is relevant to this amendment. Clearly, if we are to ask the country, as we have done, to follow our example, there is an argument for saying that the House should be consistent with that

197
decision in matters within its control. We do not want to say that we shall set an example, ask our secretaries to set an example, and then find that the Government are not following it in other areas of public service, for example on the question of the salaries of secretaries in the Civil Service. Therefore, I hope that the Leader of the House, having had well over an hour to ascertain the information, will be able to give us that information. If he cannot, will he assure the House that there is no question of Estimates being presented for increases exceeding 18 or 20 per cent. in Civil Service secretaries' pay?
12.59 am
Mr. English: The right hon. Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) has well illustrated the problems that this motion and its amendments raise.
The Boyle report recommended that the first van Straubenzee report should be implemented. A number of hon. Members do not want a secretarial allowance. We merely want the same privileges as Officers of the House and Ministers. We want our secretaries to be paid by the Exchequer, and we want secretarial expenses paid, not to us, but in the way that they are paid in an ordinary business or in the Government. Some hon. Members object to that, and they would prefer to have the money. The trouble is that we do not know where the money goes in every case. The majority of hon. Members have a secretary, and considerable secretarial expenses, but there are suggestions that not every hon. Member does.
On a previous occasion the hon. Member for Battersea. South (Mr. Dubs) moved an amendment to secure that the Boyle report should be implemented, but he did not press it to a Division. It would be more satisfactory to have an opportunity of voting on whether we want to allow Members—not to force them—to have their secretaries paid by the Exchequer, and not have a system of receiving money and then paying it out. That system is open to abuse.
Mr. Higgins: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Are we to have a reply from the Leader of the House?
1 am
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I shall reply briefly to the two points. I regret that there is no simple comparison between Civil Service secretaries and secretaries
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in this House. That is because there are different grades of Civil Service secretaries and their pay is affected by a variety of proficiency allowances—
Mr. Faulds: My secretary is very proficient.
Mr. St. John-Stevas: In addition, the pay for Members' secretaries varies from Member to Member. One cannot make a direct comparison. The best I can say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) is that we shall pursue this matter further and let him have further figures.
On the point raised by the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English), it is possible, if hon. Members wish, for their secretaries to be paid directly from the Fees Office. I have encouraged hon. Members to use that facility and I am pleased to say that an increasing number of them are doing so. However, it should be left to hon. Members to decide for themselves.
Mr. English: What is not possible is to have one's secretary paid and pensioned on the same basis as a secretary in the Civil Service. There is, on an agency basis, for a charge of, I think, some 5 per cent., the possibility of having her paid directly by the Fees Office—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Is the hon. Gentleman asking a question, because he has exhausted his right to speak?
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The House divided: Ayes 187, Noes 168.

MEMBERS' OFFICE, SECRETARIAL AND RESEARCH ALLOWANCE

  See Division 418
  in column 241
  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Amendments made: (s), in paragraph (a), leave out ' £ 7,400' and insert
  ' £ 8,000'.
  (w), in paragraph (b), leave out ' £ 727' and insert ' £ 786'.
  (y), in paragraph (b), leave out ' £ 740' and insert ' £ 800'.—[Mr. Dubs.]
  Main question, as amended, put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That, in the opinion of this House—

  (a) the limit on the allowance payable to a Member of this House in respect of the aggregate expenses incurred by him for

  199
  his parliamentary duties as general office expenses, on secretarial assistance and on research assistance should be £ 7,859 for the year ending 31st March 1981 and £ 8,000 for any subsequent year; and

  (b) provision should be made to enable each Member in receipt of the allowance to contribute sums, not exceeding in the year ending 31st March 1981 £ 786 and in any subsequent year £ 800, to an approved pension scheme for the provision of pensions or other benefits for or in respect of persons in the payment of whose salaries such expenses are incurred by him.

  MEMBERS' SECRETARIAL WINDING-UP ALLOWANCE
  Resolved,
  That, in the opinion of this House,—

  (a) provision should be made under arrangements approved by Mr. Speaker for an allowance to be made towards defraying the expenses of secretarial or research assistance which, after a person has ceased to be a Member of this House, is still required in connection with his Parliamentary duties: and

  (b) the limit on that allowance should be one-sixth of the amount which, for the year in which that person ceases to be a Member, is the limit on the allowance payable to a Member of this House in respect of the aggregate expenses incurred by him for his Parliamentary duties as general office expenses, on secretarial assistance and on research assistance; and

  (c) the allowance should be paid to the person who has ceased to be a Member or. if he has died, to his personal representatives or a person nominated by him or selected under the arrangements approved by Mr. Speaker.—[Mr. St. John-Stevas.]

  MINISTERIAL AND OTHER SALARIES AND PENSIONS
  Motion made, and Question proposed.
  That the draft Ministerial and other Salaries and Pensions Order 1980, which was laid before this House on 14 July, be approved.—[Mr. St. John-Stevas.]
  1.14 am
  Mr. English: I wish to ask the Leader of the House a simple question. What is the Prime Minister's salary? The reason why I want to know the Prime Minister's salary is that it has been extremely difficult to find out precisely what that salary is at the moment.
  The Library, after considerable research, did not come up with an official answer but provided the answer in Whitaker's Almanack—that the Prime Minister's salary is £ 27,000. I understand that it is made up of £ 22,000 for
  200
  having the offices of Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury and £ 5,000 for being a Member of Parliament.
  On the last occasion when we discussed a Boyle report on Ministers' salaries, the Prime Minister said that she would not take an increase in salary. That sounded generous and noble, but in the 1979 order there was a provision for increasing the salaries of office-holders—the members of the Cabinet other than the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor—but there was no provision for an increase in the salary of the office of Prime Minister.
  I do not dispute the right of the right hon. Lady the Prime Minister not to take a salary provided by law. We all have that right. In the last Government the then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, now Lord Lever, did not take his salary. He was entitled to do that. However, under the 1979 order some difficulties would have been caused if the right hon. Lady's successor, whether Labour or Conservative, did not have an outside interest. The office of Prime Minister's salary was not raised, which is different from saying that as an individual one does not want to take a salary out of the Exchequer.
  Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): Order. It is out of order for several hon. Members to be on their feet at the same time.
  Mr. English: Perhaps it is right that the House has just rejected a recommendation that we should not raise the pensionable salary of Members of Parliament. The 1979 order raised, and the current order raises, the pensionable salary of the Prime Minister. It is peculiar that the right hon. Lady should say that she does not wish the office of Prime Minister's salary to be raised but that she wishes the pensionable salary to be raised so that when she or her successors retire they—and she—receive a higher pension.
  The Government made a statement in June referring to the implementation after the next election of the Boyle recommendations on the Prime Minister's salary. The statement was tempered by a comment about not putting her salary above that recommended for her Cabinet colleagues. Consequently, she said that she would take no increase in ministerial

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  salary until 1981. We are now presented with an order which increases her salary from 1980 to 1981. It is significant that since that was mentioned on 21 June 1979 the year 1981 has not been mentioned.
  In this order the salary of the office of Prime Minister is raised from 1980-81 and not from 1981, as the right hon. Lady earlier suggested. As I have pointed out. it is entirely up to the right hon. Lady—
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I beg to move, That the Question be now put.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I sense that the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) is about to come to a conclusion.
  Mr. English: It is entirely up to the right hon. Lady not to take something provided for by law, but that was true on the previous occasion, when she provided by law that anyone holding her office should not get an increase. The Government are now providing that anyone holding that office should get an increase.
  There has been no further statement from the right hon. Lady contradicting or changing the statement that was earlier made. On one occasion she said that she was not taking a salary increase that was not there for her to take. She is now making no statement about whether she is taking a salary increase that will be there for her to take. I believe that we are entitled to know the answer to that question and also why there is the strange contradiction between the 1979 order and the 1980 order.
  1.20 am
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: It may assist the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) if I state that the Prime Minister's current salary is £ 22,000 plus the parliamentary allowance. The proposed salary from July 1980, updated to the second stage, will be £ 23,500. The proposed salary, updated to the third stage on 13 June 1981, will be £ 26,250, as opposed to the national salary that was suggested by the Boyle committee, which would come to £ 30,250.
  1.21 am
  Mr. George Cunningham: If the Government attach as much importance to
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  cutting public expenditure in the entire area as they have indicated, should they not withdraw the motion and bring it back with lower figures, in the light of decisions taken by the House on other matters this evening, so that there is no extra cost to public funds?
  Question put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 183, Noes 46.
  That the draft Ministerial and other Salaries and Pensions Order 1980, which was laid before this House on 14 July, be approved.
  Mr. George Cunningham: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We have now come to the end of what was intended to be one unified debate on these matters. The Leader of the House told the House earlier that the Government would have to consider the situation in the light of the defeats that they have suffered tonight. However, on previous occasions the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister have stated very firmly that most of the decisions that we have taken tonight are very much matters for the House to take. They have said that they would make their recommendations, but that these decisions were for the House to take.
  With the exception of the decision taken with regard to pensions—that is, the one-fortieth and one-sixtieth point—which is a matter that requires legislation and which is therefore in an entirely different category to the rest, it would be natural and normal for the Leader of the House to say that the Government accept the decision of the House on the matters on which the Government have said it is for the House to decide, and that they would bring forward the main effective motion—which was on the Order Paper, but withdrawn—in an amended form, to fit the decisions taken by the House. There is no reason why, in accordance with precedent, the Leader of the House should not say that he stands by his earlier statement, and the Prime Minister's statement, that they will accept the will of the House on these matters. I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you will give him an opportunity to do so.
  Mr. St John-Stevas: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I stand by everything that I said in the course of the debate and what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said. We shall have to consider carefully the situation that has now arisen and we shall make a statement to the House as soon as possible.

  MINISTERIAL AND OTHER SALARIES AND PENSIONS

    See Division 419
    in column 243
    Question accordingly agreed to.
    Resolved,

  GLUE SNIFFING
  Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Berry.]
  1.35 am
  Mr. Jack Straw: It is never easy to follow such an exciting debate as the one that we have just had. I thought that I would have some difficulty in speaking over the hubbub of hon. Members leaving the Chamber. However, I am grateful to my now absent hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) for his assistance in emptying the Chamber so effectively.
  Two years ago, glue sniffing was sufficient of a problem in my constituency for the social services department, in cooperation with the police and the area health authority, to issue leaflets to parents, teachers and young people about its dangers. For a period it died down, but now, I am afraid, its practice has started to increase. Residents in one area of the town—Daisyfield—have become so concerned about the disruption to their neighbourhood caused by glue sniffers who have broken into bricked-up houses and acted in a disruptive and anti-social way that, led by one of the residents—Mr. Mohammed Desai, of Ross Street—they have produced a petition about it. Their councillor, Mr. William Taylor, who is also a youth and community worker with extensive knowledge of young people in the town, has taken the matter up, and it was he who asked for my help.
  It was, therefore, this immediate constituency interest that led to my request for this Adjournment debate. Subsequently, the Lancashire Evening Telegraph conducted an investigation into glue sniffing within the town and came up with some detailed and pretty horrifying evidence from children, some as young as 12, who appear to be habitual glue
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  sniffers. From all that I have read and heard, I do not believe that my constituency is any better or worse than any other urban areas. Since this debate was announced hon. Members from both sides of the House have expressed their concern about its incidence and have mentioned the worries of their constituents. The fact that even at this late hour there are as many hon. Members as there are in the Chamber indicates the concern that is shared across the Floor.
  When my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) held a similar Adjournment debate two years ago he pointed out that 600 young people under the age of 18—I think in one year—in the Strathclyde region had come to the attention of the authorities as having been examined and treated for glue sniffing. I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend, because it is he above all other hon. Members who has pursued this problem and tried to suggest solutions to it.
  No one should be in any doubt about the dangers inherent in glue sniffing, as well as the dangers inherent in the inhalation of other solvents. Glue is sniffed, as I think we all understand, because it can produce a sensation of being "high" and of pleasant hallucinations. If young people are leading rather aimless lives, and are truahting—there is a close relationship between children who are glue sniffing and those who are truanting—or if they are a bit older and face the prospect of no job, one can perhaps understand why they may seek such an escape.
  Mr. Tim Eggar: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the fact that, certainly in my constituency, it is most unfortunate that glue sniffing has been associated with excessive amounts of vandalism and that older children have engaged in glue sniffing which has involved young children of 8 or 9 years of age?
  Mr. Straw: Yes. One of the worrying things about this is that in some cases it involves children as young as that. Certainly, the evidence of the social services department in my constituency is that it is children in the 11 to 14-year-old bracket who can be particularly at risk.
  There are many unpleasant and potentially dangerous side effects from glue

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  sniffing. Users can become violent and aggressive, but because they do not know what they are doing they can place themselves in danger, at risk of accidents, and can cause disturbance, inconvenience and violence to others.
  Last Saturday the London Broadcasting Company programme "Jellybone", which is broadcast to young listeners, held a live half-hour phone-in to ask the views of its listeners about the problem of glue sniffing and how it might be tackled. I shall detain the House by reading two of the verbatim comments of children who phoned that programme.
  Gary, who is aged 14 and lives in Islington, said:
  "quite a few kids in my class have been glue sniffing and the effects on them are something rotten. They've been having fights with other kids and they haven't known what they've been doing… at first they don't know what they're doing, then they go into a trance and if you go over to them… they just blow up and start kicking out and hitting you."
  A girl, Coleen, aged 15, from Bexley-heath, said:
  "quite a lot of them in school do it, and there's quite a lot of trouble when it happens. They become violent and moany and they sweat."
  Those are only the short-term effects. The Minister, in answer to a question in May, said that those short-term effects
  " are usually reversible but may be severe, and even, in rare instances, fatal."
  But he went on to point out:
  "Chronic effects may include damage, which may be irreversible, to bodily organs and the nervous system." [Official Report, 15th May 1980; Vol. 984, c. 549.]
  So the dangers from glue sniffing can be very severe.
  We may be in no doubt about the dangers of glue sniffing, but there is a great deal of doubt as to how big the problem is and whether, throughout the country and in particular localities, it is on the increase or is decreasing. The reason why we are in doubt about the size of the problem is that neither centrally nor on a co-ordinated basis are figures collected of the number of persons admitted to hospital suffering from the effects of glue sniffing or who come to the attention of the police.
  I know why these figures have not been collected centrally. In the case of hospital admissions, it is because glue sniffing does not form part of the international classifi-
  206
  cation of diseases and in the case of the police, it is because glue sniffing is not a crime, and I am certainly not proposing that it should be. Therefore, police practices in the recording of incidents of glue sniffing vary greatly.
  I do not believe that the international classification of diseases should be regarded as a kind of bureaucratic bar to hospitals being encouraged to collect these figures where necessary. I believe that the Home Office should follow the lead of some police forces, including Strathclyde, which collect on a central basis figures relating to children who come to their attention suffering from the effects of glue sniffing.
  Mr. William Waldegrave: As a member of the inner London juvenile court who has some experience of this problem, the hon. Gentleman might consider it sensible to encourage the Minister to collect figures from local social services departments, too. Perhaps he is coming to that point. This is normally how the courts come across these problems.
  Mr. Straw: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that suggestion. I hope that the Minister will bear it in mind.
  The figures are important not because they would be accurate in absolute terms but because they would indicate rising or falling trends in areas and nationally.
  The second question concerns access to these glues, whether they should be banned from sale to young people under 16 or 18 years of age, and whether additives should be put in them to make them unpleasant.
  As for a ban on sales, I am aware that one leading manufacturer has advised retailers not to sell to children where they suspect that the purchasers may be using the glue for sniffing. I have had a helpful suggestion from the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Page), that retailers should be made aware of the dangers of glue sniffing and should inform the police where they experience a run on particular product lines of glues.
  Some manufacturers are adopting a responsible approach to this matter, but the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Security should consider whether powers should be taken to

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  enable the sales of these products—product by product—to be banned in specific areas on a trial basis. I am aware that banning the sale of these products to under-sixteens might not work, and that if it did work it might lead to children going on to worse things which had to be made publicly available. I think that there is a strong argument for experimenting with bans in particular regions for two years and seeing whether that has an effect on the sales of glue and the incidence of glue sniffing.
  I am aware of the manufacturers' objections to additives, but I think that the Government and the industry should do more to see whether certain additives could be put into glues which would have the effect of deterring children from glue sniffing.
  Three states in the United States already have laws requiring additives to be put into glues. Massachusetts requires that oil of mustard or other deterrents to inhalation should be put into glues. The DHSS and the Home Office should consider the United States' experience, both in respect of additives and in respect of the fact that 23 states restrict the sale of glues in one way or another.
  Thirdly, and most important, there is the question of better education, and of the DHSS taking a lead in educating children and parents about the dangers of glue sniffing. Parents should be told that if their children have boils round the mouth and are listless and moody, and lose their appetite, they are showing symptoms not of an illness but of glue sniffing, and require social as well as medical help.
  Children should be made more aware of the problems. The DHSS should consider the excellent example of the social services department in Lancashire, which, in co-operation with the police, produced some useful and helpful leaflets two years ago.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: fs my hon. Friend aware that the Department of Education, to which I referred a case some time ago, did not see it as its duty to advise schools, which are often the first to witness outbreaks of glue sniffing, on how they should go about looking for the signs and perhaps creating a pool of national information?
  Mr. Straw: I am sorry to hear that. I hope that the Under-Secretary who is to reply will try to change the DES's laissez-faire attitude.
  I am aware that it is the error of every politician to believe that each problem must have a solution. I do not pretend that there is an easy answer to the problem of glue sniffing but I believe that it is a problem that we cannot ignore and that needs to be taken seriously. The Government could take helpful action, and I look forward to the Minister's announcing such action.
  1.47 am
  Mr. David Young: On 12 July this year, in Bolton, a girl of 15 years of age died tragically from sniffing a pain-relieving medical spray. That was certainly a contributory factor to her death. That brought home to us all in Bolton the effects of sniffing such agents, and also solvents.
  I am concerned that it is difficult to ascertain the facts and discover the size of the problem. It is difficult to discover whether what we are seeing is the tip of an iceberg or something that is widespread. I ask the Minister to arrange for statistics to be collected so that local authorities and other concerned bodies may be able to judge how vast the problem is. Unless we can judge that we shall not be able to take remedial action. I am sure that the police, the social services and all the other concerned bodies will do what they can, but obviously they must have a yardstick against which to judge the resources that they devote to the problem.
  Each of us recognises that drug addiction can be extremely serious. The experimentation that we are discussing is the first stage towards soft, and then hard, drugs. Unless we get down to the roots where the experimentation starts and stem it before it takes hold, the drug problem will be greatly expanded. I am concerned that the DES has not given guidance or encouragement to authorities to find out more about such experimentation, because that is the point at which drug addiction often starts.
  I am concerned about an answer that I recently received from the Department of Trade, to which it was transferred by the Home Secretary. In reply to my

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  question on the sniffing of sprays, particularly medical sprays, it concluded:
  "As far as the problem of sniffing is concerned there are many consumer products which can be and are misused in this way, but are quite safe when properly used for their intended purpose."—[Official Report, 17 July 1980; Vol. 988, c. 638-39.]
  We recognise that, but if sniffing of medical sprays is at least one element in a complicated formula, should not these at least be put on prescription? Again, we return to the question of statistics to justify such action. Let us see how big the problem is and devote all the resources we can to stop this pernicious habit.
  1.50 am
  The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Sir George Young): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) for raising this topic in a responsible and constructive way, because it is a matter that causes a great deal of concern among the general public.
  I propose to try to set the matter in perspective, consider a positive range of responses to the problem within existing powers, and then consider some of the ideas that have been suggested for using the criminal law against users or suppliers, and some of the practical problems involved.
  Although the practice is generally referred to as glue sniffing it is not restricted to glue. A wide range of goods in common domestic use can be misused to experience hallucinatory effects or a euphoric sensation similar to that experienced after drinking alcohol. This can lead to dizziness, double vision and nausea. Short-term use can in rare instances cause death, but in other cases does not, from the evidence available, seem to produce any detectable damage. The cause for real concern, as the hon. Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Young) implied, comes from casual or intermittent use, which leads to prolonged use, from which some people may develop permanent damage to the brain, liver or kidneys. In the United Kingdom exact figures on the incidence of sniffing, or on the number of injuries and deaths resulting from the practice, are not available, but in the last 10 years there have been some deaths—between five and 10 a year.
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  I have some sympathy with what both hon. Members said about better information on the incidence of sniffing. I shall urgently consider how we can improve the statistics, by using the local authority social service departments, the courts, or the hospitals.
  Many young people may experiment briefly with "sniffing", as one experiment among many in growing up, without its becoming a habit or leading to any serious consequences. The practice is not confined to any particular age group, though undoubtedly it mainly affects adolescents. The pattern seems to be one of limited and scattered outbreaks among groups of young people, rapidly tailing off as other activities, including drinking, become available. In the country as a whole there is no firm evidence to show that sniffing is becoming more widespread.
  Before considering possible solutions to the problem I should like to set it in context. The hon. Member for Bolton. East, drew attention to the tragic death from sniffing in his constituency this month. Although we know of only about five to 10 deaths a year from this cause, each one is one too many, especially as the deaths are of youngsters. I should like to extend my sympathy to the girl's family and friends. However, compared with deaths from, for example, road accidents in the under-19 age group, which totalled about 1,800 in 1978, they are few. Set against the 50.000 premature deaths from smoking, they also fall into insignificance, and, of course, cigarettes do not perform the useful function of sticking broken pieces of china together or making one's furniture shine, or making the top of one's wife's head look attractive. But the fact that a solvent-sniffing death receives the headlines that we saw last week at least indicates that this is not one more tragedy of life that we blandly accept and pass by with no more than a cursory glance.
  Therefore, we must consider most seriously what can practically be done to reduce, if not eradicate, the harm. Many of the ideas that I have looked at over the past few days are either so drastic that they are unacceptable or of such little effect as to be hardly worth undertaking. So before I look at what might be done negatively by law I should like to look at what can be done positively under present powers.

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  The hon. Member for Blackburn suggested a national education campaign. I fully agree that education is vital, and propose to consider what sort in more detail. In general, warning children about the serious risks that they incur represents the most rational and effective response. That message is dramatically and tragically reinforced by the death of Dawn Hulme.
  Responsible informative articles in appropriate journals aimed at parents, such as a recent article in Good Housekeeping, can also play a valuable role in educating the public. Parents must exercise their own responsibilities for knowing what their children are doing and controlling them. Parents should be advised to look for the symptoms—the smell of glue and other solvents, signs on clothing, a rash or boils round the nose and mouth, a red ring round the nose, possibly accompanying loss of appetite, loss of co-ordination, confusion, restlessness or slurred speech. But such behavioural changes could, of course, be due to other causes. In any event, parents and other adults may need help in recognising the problem, and confidence in tackling it.
  I share the view of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Consumer Affairs and other Ministers who have looked with concern at this problem that the most practicable way to meet it is by local initiative through appropriate health education, by drug liaison committees where they exist, and crucially, by enlisting the co-operation of school teachers, doctors, social workers, police and youth organisers in those localities where there is evidence that sniffing is taking place.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department on 17 March expressed the view that the correct approach is through persuasion and education rather than the criminal law. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science, in response to a written question on 7 May, said:
  "The matter is best tackled through teachers and others in positions of responsibility, warning young people about the dangers involved, and through continuing programmes of health education which include reference to the misuse of drugs generally".—[Official Report, 7 May 1980; Vol. 984, c. 126.]
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  That was reiterated on 4 June. I will draw to his attention the critical remarks made in this debate.
  I understand that there is a chapter on this in the Department of Education and Science's handbook "Health Education in Schools". Other leaflets are available which teachers would find helpful. In particular, there is "Notes on Solvent Sniffing", prepared by the Camden and Islington area health authority.
  I am not convinced at this stage that a circular from my Department is wanted or needed by the field authorities and the professions concerned. Two specialised voluntary organisations are helping in this matter. One of these is the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependency, which is grant-aided by the Department; it publicises an extensive bibliography on solvent use and a leaflet on "Teaching about a volatile situation", aimed at minimising casualties. The other organisation is Release, supported by the Home Office, which publishes a factual leaflet, and held a conference in January attended by 250 people from a wide range of statutory and voluntary organisations.
  The consensus of that conference was that health education directed at minimising harm represents the most rational and effective response, and is the most hopeful course for preventing those tragic deaths which can happen to the young experimenter the first time out.
  Some people have suggested that children's legislation should be amended to make sniffing a specific ground for bringing a child before a juvenile court as in need of care and protection. I am not convinced that it is necessary to identify sniffing in particular as a form of self-abuse before care proceedings can be brought. One of the existing conditions for bringing care proceedings is that the child's health is being avoidably impaired or neglected. Although care proceedings could not be ruled out in an exceptional case, I do not think that removing a child from his parents—which would generally be the purpose of care proceedings—is the best way to tackle this problem.
  It has also been suggested that the police should have greater powers. At the moment, there is no evidence that the police have insufficient powers to take appropriate action when a person is found to be intoxicated by solvents.

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  It is open to a constable to refer any person to a suitable medical or perhaps detoxifiation facility, and to take him to such a place if he is willing to go. Where an arrestable offence or a breach of the peace is involved, a person may be taken into custody, and the police will ensure that he receives medical attention if it is needed.
  My right hon. Friend the Minister for Consumer Affairs has considered the desirability of introducing regulations requiring products that may be sniffed to carry a warning, but the great and growing range of items makes this impracticable; worse, such labelling would identify the product worth sniffing. If one looks at the range of products involved one sees that it is quite extensive. There is gas-lighter fuel, nail varnish, nail polish remover, surgical spirit, anti-freeze, petrol, polishes, cleaning solutions, and all aerosol sprays. Similar objections apply to ingredient labelling. General publicity about harmful substances could likewise be counterproductive.
  The hon. Member for Blackburn suggested putting an aversive additive into products to deter the sniffer. This must not cause discomfort or risk to a person using the product for its intended purpose, or detract significantly from the product for its intended purpose, or detract significantly from the product's effectiveness. A number of different additives would be required because, for example, an acceptable smelly additive for floor polish might deter the innocent user of a hair spray. A research programme to identify additives would be uncertain and costly, and I agree with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Consumer Affairs that it is difficult at present to justify embarking on such a project.
  Mr. Straw: Whenever the question of additives or restrictions on sales is raised the objection is taken that this could cover a very wide range of products, but the truth is that only a handful of glues are really popular among children. Rather than carrying it so widely, should not consideration be given to providing warnings on the packets of those substances and at least seeing whether it has some effect on the practice?
  Sir G. Young: That is a valuable suggestion. I should like to explore
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  it. The danger of identifying one or two products for this rather distinctive treatment is that it simply moves potential abusers on to some of the other products that I have mentioned. A few years ago inquiries were made of the chemical defence establishment to find out what might be the cost of identifying one additive for the most abused substance. I understand that the estimate was that it would take up to two and a half years and cost at least £ 150,000, and that there was no guarantee of a successful outcome. I shall look at the matter again in the light of the representations that have been made, but I am not optimistic that this is a valuable avenue for progress.
  My right hon. Friend's inquiries have suggested that the substitution of less harmful substances would not be technically practicable, partly because there are good reasons why particular products are used, for example, to avoid flam-mability hazards. Moreover, unless all sniffable products were replaced by substitutes, misusers would simply turn to the remaining ones.
  The hon. Member then suggested prohibition of the sale of solvents to young persons in certain areas. But so many products would have to be controlled, as the list that I have just read out would indicate, and many of those products—indeed, most of them—are products which in normal use are perfectly acceptable to be used by young people. It would be extremely difficult to ensure the effective enforcement of age limits, even on pain of criminal prosecution of the trader and the check-out girl at the supermarket.
  Moreover, if one overcame that, young people who could not buy solvents themselves could simply persuade older friends to do so, they could use products that are readily available at home, or they could travel outside the area to get them, and it would be more difficult to prevent theft than, for example, in the case of drugs. So without wishing to appear totally negative, I think that there are some formidable practical objections to pursuing that suggestion from the hon. Gentleman.
  It has also been suggested that as solvent sniffing and the social problems arising from it bear similarities to the misuse of drugs, similar regimes of control might be introduced as are applied to drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. But

  215
  the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs—which advises Ministers on all matters to do with the control of drug misuse—has looked at this and has concluded that the model of strict control under the Misuse of Drugs Act, which penalises such activities as unlawful manufacture, supply and possession of drugs that are misused, could not be applied to a whole range of common household products and would in any case be doomed to failure because of the impossibility of enforcement.
  To sum up, I see many difficulties in creating new offences and I share the confidence that the Home Secretary has expressed that the police could play their
  216
  full part, along with other local services, in the educational and persuasive approach that we consider to be the most practicable for tackling this problem. I shall look again at some of the specific suggestions that have been made in the debate, especially the one about statistics. But we have to remember that we live in a society in which individual responsibility and common sense, rather than State intervention, are the main safeguards against damage of this kind, and there really is a limit to effectual Government action in this type of activity.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at four minutes past Two o'clock.

  PUBLIC SECTOR INDUSTRIES
  Divisions 411 to 412

  Division No. 411]

  AYES

  [10.00 pm

  Abse, Leo

  Fitt, Gerard

  Mikardo, Ian

  Adams, Allen

  Flannery, Martin

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Allaun, Frank

  Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)

  Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)

  Anderson, Donald

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Fool, Rt Hon Michael

  Mitchell, R. C. (Solon, Itchen)

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest

  Forrester, John

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Foster, Derek

  Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

  Ashton, Joe

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

  Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

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

  Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

  Morton, George

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

  Newens, Stanley

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  George, Bruce

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Ogden, Eric

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Ginsburg, David

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Goldlng, John

  O'Neill, Martin

  Booth, Rt Hon Albert

  Gourlay, Harry

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Graham, Ted

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Palmer, Arthur

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Park, George

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwall)

  Parker, John

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

  Parry, Robert

  Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

  Hardy, Peter

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Brown. Ron (Edinburgh, Lelth)

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Buchan, Norman

  Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

  Prescott, John

  Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Price, Christopher (Lewlsham West)

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Haynes, Frank

  Race, Reg

  Campbell, Ian

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Radlce, Giles

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

  Canavan., Dennis

  Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

  Richardson, Jo

  Cant, R. B.

  Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Carmichael, Nell

  Home Robertson, John

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Homewood, William

  Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)

  Cartwright, John

  Hooley, Frank

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Clark. Dr. David (South Shields)

  Horam, John

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Cocks Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  Huckfield, Les

  Rodgers, Rt Hon William

  Cohen, Stanley

  Hudson Davies, Gwilym Ednyfed

  Rooker, J. W.

  Coleman, Donald

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Roper, John

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Conian, Bernard

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Cook, Robin F.

  Janner, Hon Greville

  Ryman, John

  Cowans, Harry

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Sandelson, Neville

  Cox, Tom (Wandsworth, Tooting)

  John, Brynmor

  Sever, John

  Cralgen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhlll)

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Sileerman, Barry

  Crowther, J. S.

  Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rhonddal

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

  Cryer, Bob

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)

  Cunllffe, Lawrence

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Short, Mrs Renee

  Cunningham, George (Islington S)

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

  Kerr, Russell

  Silkln, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwlch)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Kllroy-Silk, Robert

  Silverman, Julius

  Davidson, Arthur

  Kinnock, Neil

  Skinner, Dennis

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzll (Lianelll)

  Lamble, David

  Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Lamborn, Harry

  Snaps, Peter

  Davia, Clinton (Hackney Central)

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Soley, Clive

  Deakins, Eric

  Leighton, Ronald

  Spearing, Nigel

  Dempsey, James

  Lester, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Stallard, A. W.

  Dewar, Donald

  Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)

  Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)

  Dixon, Donald

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Stoddart, David

  Dobson, Frank

  Litherland, Robert

  Stott, Roger

  Dormand, Jack

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Strang, Gavin

  Douglas, Dick

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Straw, Jack

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Dubs, Alfred

  McDonald, Dr Oonagh

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  McElhone, Frank

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

  McKay, Allen (Penlstone)

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertlllery)

  Dunnett, Jack

  McKelvey, William

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwynelh

  MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)

  Eadle, Alex

  Maclennan, Robert

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Eastham, Ken

  McNally, Thomas

  Tilley, John

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  McNamara, Kevin

  Tinn, James

  Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)

  McWilliam, John

  Tomey, Tom

  Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

  Magee, Bryan

  Urwin, Rt Hon Tom

  English, Michael

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

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Ennals, Rt Hon David

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

  Evans, loan (Aberdare)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

  Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

  Evans, John (Newton)

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

  Watkins, David

  Ewing, Harry

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Weetch, Ken

  Faulds, Andrew

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Wellbeloved, James

  Field, Frank

  Meacher, Michael

  Walsh, Michael

  Fitch, Alan

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

  White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

  Wright, Sheila

  Whitlock, William

  Winnick, David

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Woodall, Alec

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Woolmer, Kenneth

  Mr. Terry Davis and

  Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)

  Wriggiesworth, Ian

  Mr. Hugh McCartney.

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Lamont, Norman

  Knox, David

  Alexander, Richard

  Eggar, Timothy

  Lang, Ian

  Alison, Michael

  Elliott, Sir William

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Alton, David

  Emery, Peter

  Latham, Michael

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian Ancram, Michael

  Eyre, Reginald

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Arnold, Ton

  Falrbairn, Nicholas

  Lawson, Nigel

  Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Lee, John

  Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)

  Faith, Mrs Sheila

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Farr, John

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Fell, Anthony

  Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

  Banks, Robert Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Beith, A. J.

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Loveridge, John

  Bell, Sir Ronald

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Luce, Richard

  Bendall, Vivian

  Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Beryon, W. (Buckingham)

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  MacGregor, John

  Best, Keith

  Forman, Nigel

  MacKay, John (Argyll)

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Famham)

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Fox, Marcus

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Blggs-Davison, John

  Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Blackburn, John

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Madel, David

  Blaker, Peter

  Fry, Peter

  Major, John

  Body, Richard

  Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

  Marland, Paul

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Gardiner, George (Relgate)

  Marlow, Tony

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Bowden, Andrew

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Mates, Michael

  Boyson, Dr. Rhodes

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Mather, Carol

  Bralne, Sir Bernard

  Goodhew, Victor

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Bright, Graham

  Goodlad, Alastalr

  Mawby, Ray

  Brinton, Tim

  Gorst, John

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Brittan, Leon

  Gow, Ian

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Gray, Hamlsh

  Mellor, David

  Brotherton, Michael

  Greenway, Harry

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc thorpe)

  Grieve, Percy

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Mills, lain (Meriden)

  Bruce-Gardyne, John

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  Mills, Peter (West Devon)

  Bryan. Sir Paul

  Grist, Ian

  Mlscampbell, Norman

  Buck, Antony

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Budgen, Nick

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

  Moate, Roger

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Molyneaux, James

  Burden, Sir Frederick

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Monro, Hector

  Butcher, John

  Hannam, John

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Butler, Hon Adam

  Haselhurst, Alan Hastings, Stephen

  Moore, John

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Morgan, Geralnt

  Carlisle, John (Luton West)

  Hawkins, Paul

  Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hawksley, Warren

  Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

  Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  Heath, Rt Hon Edward

  Mudd, David

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Heddle, John

  Murphy, Christopher

  Chapman, Sydney

  Henderson, Barry

  Myles, David

  Churchill, W. S.

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Neale, Gerrard

  Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Hicks, Robert

  Needham, Richard

  Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Nelson, Anthony

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushclltle)

  Hill, James

  Neubert, Michael

  Clegg, Sir Walle

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

  Newton, Tony

  Cockeram, Eric

  Holland, Philip (Carlton)

  Normanton, Tom

  Colvln, Michael

  Hordern, Peter

  Nott, Rt Hon John

  Cope, John

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Onslow, Cranley

  Cormack, Patrick

  Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

  Corrie, John

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Osborn, John

  Costain, Sir Albert

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Cranborne, Viscount Crouch,

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Page, Rt Hon Sir R. Graham

  David Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Jessel, Toby

  Parris, Matthew

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Dover, Denshore

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Patten, John (Oxford)

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Dunlop, John

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Pawsey, James

  Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Penhallgon, David

  Durant, Tony

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Percival, Sir Ian

  Dykes, Hugh

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Pollock, Alexander

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Porter, George

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

  Silvester, Fred

  Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Sims, Roger

  Trippler, David

  Price, Sir David

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Trotter, Neville

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Smith, Dudley (War. and Learn ton)

  van-Straubenzee, W. R.

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Speed, Keith

  Vlggers, Peter

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Speller, Tony

  Waddington, David

  Raison, Timothy

  Spence, John

  Walnwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

  Wakeham, John

  Sees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

  Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Sproat, lain

  Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

  Renton, Tim

  Squire, Robin

  Wall, Patrick

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Stainton, Keith

  Waller, Gary

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Walters, Dennis

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Stanley, John

  Ward, John

  Ridsdaie, Julian

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Warren, Kenneth

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Steen, Anthony

  Watson, John

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Stevens, Martin

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

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

  Roberls, Wyn (Conway)

  Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

  Wheeler, John

  Rossi, Hugh

  Stokes, John

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Rost, Peter

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Whitney, Raymond

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Tapsell. Peter

  Wickenden, Keith

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)

  Wilkinson, John

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

  Taylor, Teddy (Southend East)

  Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

  Scott, Nicholas

  Tebbit, Norman

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Wolfson, Mark

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Thomas, Rt Hon. Peter (Hendon S)

  young, Sir George (Acton)

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Thompson, Donald

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Mr. Spencer Le Marcliant and

  Shersby, Michael

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Mr. Anthony Berry.

  Division No. 412]

  AYES

  [10.14 pm

  Adley, Robert

  Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Gorst, John

  Alexander, Richard

  Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

  Gow, Ian

  Alison, Michael

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Clegg, Sir Walter

  Gray, Hamish

  Ancram, Michael

  Cockeram, Eric

  Greenway, Harry

  Arnold, Tom

  Colvin, Michael

  Grieve, Percy

  Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

  Cope, John

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)

  Cormaek, Patrick

  Grist, Ian

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Corrle, John

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Banks, Robert

  Costain, Sir Albert

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

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Bell, Sir Ronald

  Crouch, David

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Sendall, Vivian

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Hannam, John

  Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Hastings, Stephen

  Best, Keith

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Havers, Rl Hon Sir Michael

  3evan, David Gilroy

  Dover, Denshore

  Hawkins, Paul

  Siffsn, Rt Hon John

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Hawksley, Warren

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Dunlop, John

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Blackburn, John

  Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

  Heath, Rt Hon Edward

  Blaker. Peter

  Durant, Tony

  Heddle, John

  Body, Richard

  Dykes, Hugh

  Henderson, Barry

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Eggar, Timothy

  Hicks, Robert

  Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

  Elliott, Sir William

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Bowden, Andrew

  Emery, Peter

  Hill, James

  Boyson, Dr. Rhodes

  Eyre, Reginald

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Fairbalrn, Nicholas

  Holland, Philip (Carlton)

  Bright, Graham

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Hordern, Peter

  Brinton, Tim

  Faith, Mrs Sheila

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Brittan, Leon

  Farr, John

  Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

  Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher -

  Fell, Anthony

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Broiherton, Michael

  Flnsberg, Geoffrey

  Hunt, John (Ravenebourne)

  Brown, Michael (Brlgg ft Sc'thorpe)

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

  Jenkln, Rt Hon Patrick

  Bruce-Gardyne, John

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Jessel, Toby

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Buck, Antony

  Forman, Nigel

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Budgen, Nick

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Fox, Marcus

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Burden, F. A.

  Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh

  Kelletl-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Butcher, John

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Butler, Hon Adam

  Fry, Peter

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

  Kitson, Sir Tl ny

  Carlisle, John (Luton West)

  Gardiner, George (Relgate)

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)

  Knox, David

  Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Lamont, Norman

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Lang, Ian

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Chapman, Sydney

  Goodhew, Victor

  Latham, Michael

  Churchill, W. S.

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Lawson, Nigel

  Onslow, Cranley

  Spence, John

  Lee, John

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

  Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Osborn, John

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Sproat, lain

  Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

  Page, Rt Hon Sir R. Graham

  Squire, Robin

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)

  Stainton, Keith

  Loveridge, John

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Luce, Richard

  Parris, Matthew

  Stanley, John

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Steen, Anthony

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Patten, John (Oxford)

  Stevens, Martin

  MacGregor, John

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  MacKay, John (Argyll)

  Pawsey, James

  Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

  Macmlllan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Percival, Sir Ian

  Stokes, John

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Tapsell, Peter

  Madel, David

  Pollock, Alexander

  Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)

  Major, John

  Porter, George

  Taylor, Teddy (Southend East)

  Marland, Paul

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

  Tebbit, Norman

  Marlow, Tony

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Price, Sir David

  Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Thompson, Donald

  Mates, Michael

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)

  Mather, Carol

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Ralson, Timothy

  Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)

  Mawby, Ray

  Rathbone, Tim

  Trippier, David

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

  Trotter, Neville

  Maxwell-Hyslop. Robin

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  van-Straubenzee, W. R.

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Renton, Tim

  Viggers, Peter

  Meltor, David

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Waddington, David

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Wakeham, John

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

  Mills, lain (Meriden)

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

  Mills, Peter (West Devon)

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Wall, Patrick

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Waller, Gary

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Walters, Dennis

  Moate, Roger

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Ward, John

  Molyneaux, James

  Rossi, Hugh

  Warren, Kenneth

  Monro, Hector

  Rost, Peter

  Watson, John

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Moore, John

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

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

  Morgan, Geraint

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

  Wheeler, John

  Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

  Scott, Nicholas

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Whitney, Raymond

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Wickenden, Keith

  Mudd, David

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Wilkinson, John

  Murphy, Christopher

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

  Myles, David

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Neale, Gerrard

  Shersby, Michael

  Wolfson, Mark

  Needham, Richard

  Silvester, Fred

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Sims, Roger

  Neubert, Michael

  Skeet, T.H. H.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Newton, Tony

  Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

  Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and

  Normanton, Tom

  Speed, Keith

  Mr. Anthony Berry

  Nott, Rt Hon John

  Speller, Tony

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Campbeli, Ian

  Deakins, Eric

  Adams, Allen

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Dempsey, James

  Allaun, Frank

  Canavan, Dennis

  Dewar, Donald

  Alton, David

  Cant, R. B

  Dixon, Donald

  Anderson, Donald

  Carmichael, Neil

  Dobson, Frank

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Dormand, Jack

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest

  Cartwright, John

  Douglas, Dick

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Clark, Dr. David (South Shields)

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Ashton, Joe

  Cocks.Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  Dubs, Alfred

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

  Cohen, Stanley

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Coleman, Donald

  Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  Dunnett, Jack

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Conian, Bernard

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Berth, A. J

  Cook, Robin F.

  Eadie, Alex

  Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

  Cowans, Harry

  Eastham, Ken

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Cox, Tom (Wandsworth, Tooting)

  Edwarda, Robert (Wolv SE)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)

  Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)

  Booth, Rt Hon Albert

  Crowther, J. S.

  Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Cryer, Bob

  English, Michael

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Ennals, Rt Hon David

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Cunningham, George (Islington S)

  Evans, loan (Aberdare)

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Dalyell, Tarn

  Ewing, Harry

  Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

  Davidson, Arthur

  Faulds, Andrew

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh, Leith)

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzll (Llaneill)

  Field, Frank

  Buchan, Norman

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Fitch, Alan

  Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

  Fitt, Gerard

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

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

  Flannery, Martin

  Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  McCartney, Hugh

  Ryman, John

  Forrester, John

  McDonald, Dr Oonagh

  Sandelson, Neville

  Foster, Derek

  McElhone, Frank

  Sever, John

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Sheerman, Barry

  Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

  McKelvey, William

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

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

  Maclennan, Robert

  Short, Mrs René e

  George, Bruce

  McNally, Thomas

  Silkln, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  McNamara, Kevin

  Silkln, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  Ginsburg, David

  McWilliam, John

  Silverman, Julius

  Golding, John

  Magee, Bryan

  Skinner, Dennis

  Gourlay, Harry

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

  Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)

  Graham, Ted

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Snape, Peter

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

  Soley, Clive

  Grant, John (Islington C)

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

  Spearing, Nigel

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Stallard, A. W.

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fite)

  Meacher, Michael

  Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)

  Hardy, Peter

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Stoddart, David

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Mikardo, Ian

  Stott, Roger

  Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Strang, Gavin

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)

  Straw, Jack

  Haynes, Frank

  Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

  Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

  Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

  Home Robertson, John

  Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

  Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)

  Homewood, William

  Newens, Stanley

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Hooley, Frank

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Tilley, John

  Horam, John

  Ogden, Eric

  Torney, Tom

  Huckfield, Les

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Urwin, Rt Hon Tom

  Hudson Davles, Gwllym Ednyled

  O'Neill, Martin

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Palmer, Arthur

  Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

  Janner, Hon Greville

  Park, George

  Watklns, David

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Parker, John

  Weetch, Ken

  John, Brynmor

  Parry, Robert

  Wellbeloved, James

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Welsh, Michael

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Penhaligon, David

  White, Frank R. (Bury & Radclifte)

  Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rhondda)

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  While, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Prescott, John

  Whitlock, William

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Race, Reg

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Kerr, Russell

  Radice, Giles

  Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

  Kinnock, Neil

  Richardson, Jo

  Winnick, David

  Lambie, David

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Woodall, Alec

  Lamborn, Harry

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Woolmer, Kenneth

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Leighton, Ronald

  Roberts, Gwllym (Cannock)

  Wright, Sheila

  Lester, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Robinson, Geotlrey (Coventry NW)

  Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)

  Rodgers, Rt Hon William

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Hooker, J. W.

  Mr. George Morton and

  Litherland, Robert

  Roper, John

  Mr. James Tinn

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  MEMBERS SALARIES AND PENSIONS

  Divisions 413 to 419

  Division No. 4131

  AYES

  [11.45 pm

  Alexander, Richard

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Alton, David

  Blackburn, John

  Cant, R. B.

  Ancram, Michael

  Body, Richard

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Cartwrlght, John

  Ashton, Joe

  Bright, Graham

  Chapman, Sydney

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

  Brinton, Tim

  Churchill, W. S.

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

  Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Brctherton, Michael

  Clark, Dr. David (South Shields)

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Brcwn, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

  Banks, Robert

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

  Clegg, Sir Walter

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Cohen, Stanley

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  Beith, A. J

  Bruce-Gardyne, John

  Cook, Robin F.

  Bell, Sir Ronald

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Corrie, John

  Bendall, Vivian

  Buchan, Norman

  Cowans, Harry

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Suck, Antony

  Cralgen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhlll)

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Butcher, John

  Crouch, David

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Crowther, J. S.

  Dalyell, Tarn

  Lamond, James

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Davidson, Arthur

  Latham, Michael

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

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

  Lee, John

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast East)

  Deakina, Eric

  Leighton, Ronald

  Rodgers, Rt Hon William

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Rooker, J. W.

  Dempsey, James

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Dixon, Donald

  Litherland, Robert

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Dobson, Frank

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Sandelson, Neville

  Dormand, Jack

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Scott, Nicholas

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Sever, John

  Douglas, Dick

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Dover, Denshore

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)

  Sheerman, Barry

  Dune, Alfred

  McElhone, Frank

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

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  MacKay, John (Argyll)

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  McKelvey, William

  Shersby, Michael

  Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

  Maclennan, Robert

  Skinner, Dennis

  Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  McNally, Thoma

  Snape, Peter

  Durant, Tony

  Madel, David

  Soley, Clive

  Dykes, Hugh

  Marlow, Tony

  Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

  Eastham, Ken

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

  Eggar, Timothy

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

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Emery, Peter

  Mates, Michael

  Steen, Anthony

  Faulds, Andrew

  Mawby, Ray

  Stevens, Martin

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Field, Frank

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Stewart, Allan (East Renfrewshire)

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)

  Stoddart, David

  Forrester, John

  Mills, Peter (West Devon)

  Stott, Roger

  Foster, Derek

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Strang, Gavin

  Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh

  Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

  Straw, Jack

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Mitchell, R. C. (Solon, Itchen)

  Tapsell, Peter

  Freud, Clement

  Moate, Roger

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

  Gardiner, George (Relgate)

  Molyneaux, James

  Thompson, Donald

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Thome, Neil (Ilford South)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Morgan, Geralnt

  Tinn, James

  Goodlad, Alastalr

  Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

  Trippier, David

  Gow, Ian

  Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Greenway, Harry

  Mudd, David

  Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

  Grist, Ian

  Murphy, Christopher

  Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Neale, Gerrard

  Wall, Patrick

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Needham, Richard

  Waller, Gary

  Hsnnam, John

  Nelson, Anthony

  Ward, John

  Hardy, Peter

  Normanton, Tom

  Warren, Kenneth

  Haynes, Frank

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Watkins, David

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  O'Neill, Martin

  Wellbeloved, James

  Henderson, Barry

  Onslow, Cranley

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Hicks, Robert

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

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

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

  Osborn, John

  Wheeler, John

  Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

  Home Robertson, John

  Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)

  Whitney, Raymond

  Homewood, William

  Palmer, Arthur

  Wickenden, Keith

  Hordern, Peter

  Parker, John

  Wilkinson, John

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Parry, Robert

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Pawsey, James

  Winnick, David

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Pollock, Alexander

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Jessel, Toby

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Woolmer, Kenneth

  John, Brynmor

  Prescott, John

  Wriggtesworth, Ian

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Wright, Sheila

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Race, Reg

  Young, David (Bolton East)

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Rathbone, Tim

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Knox, David

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Mr. Kevin McNamara and

  Lambie, David

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Mr. Eric Ogden

  NOES

  Best, Keith

  Hooley, Frank

  Penhaligon, David

  Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

  Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Cryer, Bob

  Kerr, Russell

  Spearing, Nigel

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Stokes, John

  English, Michael

  MacKenzle, Rt Hon Gregor

  Welsh, Michael

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  McWilliam, John

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swanses W)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Major, John

  Woodall, Alec

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  George, Bruce

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Mr. Peter Bottomley and

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Parris, Matthew

  Mr. Nick Budgen

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  NOES

  Alexander, Richard

  Buck, Antony

  Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

  Alison, Michael

  Budgen, Nick

  Forman, Nigel

  Alton, David

  Burden, Sir Frederick

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Ancram, Michael

  Butcher, John

  Fox, Marcus

  Arnold, Tom

  Butler, Hon Adam

  Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh

  Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Banks, Robert

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Gllmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Chapman, Sydney

  Goodhew, Victor

  Bendall, Vivian

  Churchill, W. S.

  Goodlad, Alastalr

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Gow, Ian

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

  Gray, Hamish

  Best, Keith

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushclltte)

  Grist, Ian

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Clegg, Sir Walter

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Cope, John

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Corrie, John

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Blackburn, John

  Crouch, David

  Hannam, John

  Blaker, Peter

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Body, Richard

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Dover, Denshore

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Henderson, Barry

  Bowden, Andrew

  Dunn, Robert (Dactford)

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Boyson, Dr. Rhodes

  Durant, Tony

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

  Bright, Graham

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Hordern, Peter

  Brinton, Tim

  Eggar, Timothy

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Brittan, Leon

  Emery, Peter

  Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Eyre, Reginald

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Brotherton, Michael

  Fairbalrn, Nicholas

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Browne, John (Wincheser)

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Bruce-Gardyne, John

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Jessel, Toby

  Bryan, Sir Paut

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Mudd, David

  Shersby, Michael

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Murphy, Christopher

  Silvester, Fred

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Neale, Gerrard

  Sims, Roger

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Needham, Richard

  Skinner, Dennis

  Lamont, Norman

  Nelson, Anthony

  Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

  Latham, Michael

  Neubert, Michael

  Speed, Keith

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Newton, Tony

  Speller, Tony

  Lawson, Nigel

  Normanton, Tom

  Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

  Lee, John

  Nott, Rt Hon John

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Onslow, Crantey

  Stanley, John

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

  Steen, Anthony

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Osborn, John

  Stevens, Martin

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)

  Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

  Luce, Richard

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Stokes, John

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Parris, Matthew

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Tapsell, Peter

  MacGregor, John

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Tebbit, Norman

  MacKay, John (Argyll)

  Pawsey, James

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Penhallgon, David

  Thompson, Donald

  Madel, David

  Percival, Sir Ian

  Thorne. Neil (Ilford South)

  Major, John

  Pollock, Alexander

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Marlow, Tony

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

  Trippier, David

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Uan-Straubenzee, W. R.

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Viggers, Peter

  Mates, Michael

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Wakeham, John

  Mather, Carol

  Raison, Timothy

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Rathbone, Tim

  Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

  Mawby, Ray

  Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

  Wall, Patrick

  Mawhinney, Or Brian

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Waller, Gary

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Ward, John

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Warren, Kenneth

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Wheeler, John

  Mills, Peter (West Devon)

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Whitney, Raymond

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Wickenden, Keith

  Moate, Roger

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast East)

  Wilkinson, John

  Molyneaux, James

  Rossi, Hugh

  Wolfson, Mark

  Monro, Hector

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Montgomery, Fergus

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

  Moore, John

  Scott, Nicholas

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Morgan, Geraint

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton and

  Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Mr. David Waddineton.

  Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

  Division No. 415]

  AYES

  [12.12 am

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  Ashton, Joe

  Dalyell, Tarn

  George, Bruce

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

  Davidson, Arthur

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Goodlad, Alaslair

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

  Graham, Ted

  Barnertt, Guy (Greenwich)

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

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Barrett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Deakins, Eric

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Beith, A. J

  Dempsey, James

  Greenway, Harry

  Belt, Sir Ronald

  Dewar, Donald

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

  Bendall, Vivian

  Dixon, Donald

  Hannam, John

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Dobson, Frank

  Hardy, Peter

  Blackburn, John

  Dormand, Jack

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Blackburn, John

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Haynes, Frank

  Boothroyd, Miss Belly

  Douglas, Dick

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Hicks, Robert

  Bowden, Andrew

  Dover, Denshore

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Bright, Graham

  Dubs, Alfred

  Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Home Robertson, John

  Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

  Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

  Homewood, William

  Buchan, Norman

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Hooley, Frank

  Buck, Antony

  Dykes, Hugh

  Hordern, Peter

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Eastham, Ken

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Eggar, Timothy

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Cartwright, John

  Churchill, W. S.

  Emery, Peter

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Clark, Dr. David (South Shields)

  English, Michael

  John, Brynmor

  Clegg, Sir Walter

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  Fauids, Andrew

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Cohen, Stanley

  Field, Frank

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Conlan, Bernard

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Kerr, Russell

  Cowans, Harry

  Forrester, John

  Kinnock, Neil

  Cralgen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhili)

  Foster, Derek

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Crowther, J. S.

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

  Knox, David

  Cryer, Bob

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Lambie, David

  Cunningham, George (Islington S)

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Lamond, James

  Lawrence, Ivan

  O'Neill, Martin

  Splcer, Jim (West Dorset)

  Lead bitter, Ted

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Steen, Anthony

  Leighton, Ronald

  Osborn, John

  Stewart, Allan (East Renfrewshire)

  Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)

  Palmer, Arthur

  Stoddart, David

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Parker, John

  Stokes, John

  Litherland, Robert

  Parry, Robert

  Stott, Roger

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Strang, Gavin

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Straw, Jack

  McCartney, Hugh

  Prescott, John

  Tapsell, Peter

  McElhone, Frank

  Price, Christopher (Lewlsham West)

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Race, Reg

  Thompson, Donald

  McKelvey, William

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

  Tinn, James

  MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  van-Straubenzee, W. R.

  Maclennan, Robert

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  McNally, Thomas

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Walnwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

  McWilliam, John

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Walnwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

  Marlow, Tony

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Watkins, David

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

  Rodgers, Rt Hon William

  Wellbeloved, James

  Mawby, Ray

  Rooker, J. W.

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

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Welsh, Michael

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Sandelson, Neville

  White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Scott, Nicholas

  Wllley, Rt Hon Frederick

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Sever, John

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

  Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)

  Sheer man, Barry

  Winnick, David

  Miscampbell, Norman

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

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Mitchell, R. C. (Solon, ltchen)

  Shersby, Michael

  Woodall, Alec

  Morgan, Geraint

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Woolmer, Kenneth

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Wright, Sheila

  Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

  Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

  Young, David (Bolton East)

  Morton, George

  Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)

  Neale, Gerrard

  Snape, Peter

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Soley, Clive

  Mr. Kevin McMamara and

  Ogden, Eric

  Spearing, Nigel

  Sir Paul Bryan

  NOES

  Alexander, Richard

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Major, John

  Alison, Michael

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Alton, David

  Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Ancram, Michael

  Forman, Nigel

  Mather, Carol

  Arnold, Tom

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)

  Fox, Marcus

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Banks, Robert

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Mills, Peter (West Devon)

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Gow, Ian

  Moate, Roger

  Besl, Keith

  Gray, Hamish

  Molyneaux, James

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Grist, tan

  Monro, Hector

  Bitfen, Rt Hon John

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Blaker, Peter

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Moore, John

  Body, Richard

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

  Boyson, Dr. Rhodes

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

  Brinton, Tim

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Mudd, David

  Brittan, Leon

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Murphy, Christopher

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Henderson, Barry

  Needham, Richard

  Brotherton, Michael

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Neubert, Michael

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

  Newton, Tony

  Bruce-Gardyne, John

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Normanton, Tom

  Budgen, Nick

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Nott, Rt Hon John

  Burden, F. A.

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Onslow, Cranley

  Butcher, John

  Jessel, Toby

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Salty

  Butler, Hon Adam

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)

  Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Parrls, Matthew

  Channon, Paul

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Chapman, Sydney

  Lamont, Norman

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Latham, Michael

  Pawsey, James

  Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

  Lawson, Nigel

  Penhaligon, David

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Lee, John

  Percival, Sir Ian

  Cope, John

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

  Corrle, John

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Crouch, David

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Luce, Richard

  Raison, Timothy

  Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Rathbone, Tim

  Durant, Tony

  Macfarlane, Nell

  Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  MacKay, John (Argyll)

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Eyre, Reginald

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Rifklnd, Malcolm

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Madel, David

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Stevens, Martin

  Waller, Gary

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Warren, Kenneth

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast East)

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Rossi, Hugh

  Tebblt, Norman

  Wheeler, John

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

  Thorne, Nell (Ilford South)

  Whitney, Raymond

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Wickenden, Keith

  Silvester, Fred

  Trippier, David

  Wilkinson, John

  Sims, Roger

  Viggers, Peter

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Speed, Keith

  Waddington, David

  Speller, Tony

  Wakeham, John

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Mr. Robert Boscawen and

  Stanley, John

  Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

  Mr. John MacGregor

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Division No. 416]

  AYES

  [12.30 am

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Field, Frank

  Mawby, Ray

  Ashton, Joe

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

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

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Forrester, John

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Foster, Derek

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Sarnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Freud, Clement

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Beith, A. J.

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)

  Bell, Sir Ronald

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Bendall, Vivian

  George, Bruce

  Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Blackburn, John

  Graham, Ted

  Morgan, Geralnt

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

  Bowden, Andrew

  Greenway, Harry

  Morton, George

  Bright, Graham

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central File)

  Murphy, Christopher

  Brotherton, Michael

  Hannam, John

  Neale, Gerrard

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Hardy, Peter

  Normanton, Tom

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Brvan, Sir Paul

  Haynes, Frank

  O'Neill, Martin

  Buchan, Norman

  Healey. Rt Hon Denis

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Buck, Antony

  Hicks, Robert

  Osborn, John

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Parker, John

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

  Parry, Robert

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Cartwright, John

  Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

  Pawsey, James

  Churchill, W. S.

  Home Robertson, John

  Penhaligon, David

  Clark, Dr. David (South Shields)

  Homewood, William

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Clegg, Sir Walter

  Hooley, Frank

  Prescott, John

  Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  Hordern, Peter

  Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

  Cohen, Stanley

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Conian, Bernard

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Cook, Robin F.

  Jessel, Toby

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Cowans, Harry

  John, Brynmor

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Crowther, J. S.

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast East)

  Cryer, Bob

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Rodgers, Rt Hon William

  Cunningham, George (Islington S)

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Rooker, J. W.

  Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

  Kinnock, Neil

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Sandelson, Neville

  Davidson, Arthur

  Knox, David

  Scott, Nicholas

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Lambie, David

  Sever, John

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

  Lamond, James

  Shearman, Barry

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

  Lawrence, Ivan

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

  Deakirvs, Eric

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Dempsey, James

  Lee, John

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Dewar, Donald

  Leighton, Ronald

  Skinner, Dennis

  Dobson, Frank

  Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)

  Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

  Dormand, Jack

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Litherland, Robert

  Soley, Clive

  Douglas, Dick

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Spearing, Nigel

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Dover, Denshore

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Steen, Anthony

  Dubs. Alfred

  McCartney, Hugh

  Stoddart, David

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  McElhone, Frank

  Stott, Roger

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Strang, Gavin

  Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

  McKelvey, William

  Straw, Jack

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  Tapsell, Peter

  Durant, Tony

  Maclennan, Robert

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

  Dykes, Hugh

  McNally, Thomas

  Thompson, Donald

  Eastham, Ken

  McNamara, Kevin

  Tinn, James

  Eggar, Timothy

  McWilllam, John

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Emery, Peter

  Madel, David

  Trippier, David

  English, Michael

  Mariow, Tony

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Faulds, Andrew

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

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

  Wheeler, John

  Woolmer, Kenneth

  Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

  White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Wall, Patrick

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Wright, Sheila

  Waller, Gary

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

  Young, David (Bolton East)

  Ward, John

  Winnick, David

  Watklns, David

  Winterton, Nicholas

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES'.

  Wellbeloved, James

  Wolfson, Mark

  Mr. Charles Morrison and

  Welsh, Michael

  Woodall, Alec

  Mr. Eric Ogden.

  NOES

  Alison, Michael

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Pattle, Geoffrey

  Alton, David

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Perclval, Sir Ian

  Ancram, Michael

  Hampson, Dr Kelth

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

  Arnold, Tom

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Banks, Robert

  Henderson, Barry

  Race, Reg

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Raison, Timothy

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

  Best, Keith

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Sevan, David Gilroy

  Jopllng, Rt Hon Michael

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffsey

  Blaker, Peter

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Body, Richard

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Roberls, Wyn (Conway)

  Boyson, Dr. Rhodes

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Rossi, Hugh

  Brlnton, Tim

  Lamont, Norman

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

  Brittan, Leon

  Latham, Michael

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Lawson, Nigel

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Shersby, Michael

  Bruce-Gardyne, John

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Silvester, Fred

  Budgen, Nick

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Sims, Roger

  Burden, F. A.

  Luce, Richard

  Speed, Keith

  Butcher, John

  Macfariane, Nell

  Speller, Tony

  Carlisie, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  MacGregor, John

  Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

  Carlisie, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

  MacKay, John (Argyll)

  Splcer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Stanley, John

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Major, John

  Stevens, Martin

  Chapman, Sydney

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

  Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Stokes, John

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Cope, John

  Mills, Peter (West Devon)

  Tebbit, Norman

  Carrie, John

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Crouch David

  Moate, Roger

  Thorne, Nell (Ilford South)

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Molyneaux, James

  Viggers, Peter

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Monro, Hector

  Waddington, David

  Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

  Moore, John

  Wakeham, John

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Eyre, Reginald

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

  Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

  Falrbalrn, Nicholas

  Mudd, David

  Warren, Kenneth

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Needham, Richard

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Nelson, Anthony

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

  Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

  Neubert, Michael

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Forman, Nigel

  Newton, Tony

  Whitney, Raymond

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Nott, Rt Hon John

  Wickenden, Keith

  Fox, Marcus

  Onslow, Cranley

  Wilkinson, John

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

  Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Parkinson, Cecil

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Gow, Ian

  Parris, Matthew

  Mr. Carol Mather and

  Gray, Hamish

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Mr. Robert Boscawen.

  Grist, Ian

  Division No. 417]

  AYES

  [12.40 am

  Alton, David

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Cowane, Harry

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)

  Ashton, Joe

  Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

  Crowther, J. S.

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

  Browne, John (Wincheser)

  Cryer, Bob

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Buchan, Norman

  Cunningham, George (Islington S)

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Buck, Antony

  Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Burden, Sir Frederick

  Daiyell, Tam

  Beith, A. J.

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Davidson, Arthur

  Bell, Sir Ronald

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Davles, Ifor (Gower)

  Bendall, Vivian

  Cartwrighl, John

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Churchill, W. S.

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

  Best, Keith

  Clark, Dr. David (South Shields)

  Deakins, Eric

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

  Cohen, Stanley

  Dempsey, James

  Bowden, Andrew

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  Dewar, Donald

  Bright. Graham

  Conlan, Bernard

  Dixon, Donald

  Dobson, Frank

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Dormand, Jack

  Kinnock, Nell

  Rodgers, Rt Hon William

  Douglas, Dick

  Knox, David

  Rooker, J. W.

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Lambie, David

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Dubs, Alfred

  Lamond, James

  Sandelson, Neville

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Scott, Nicholas

  Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Sever, John

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Leighton, Ronald

  Sheerman, Barry

  Durartt, Tony

  Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)

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

  Dykes, Hugh

  Lltherland, Robert

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Eastham, Ken

  Loflhouse, Geoffrey

  Shersby, Michael

  Eggar, Timothy

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Emery, Peter

  McCartney, Hugh

  Skeet, T.H. H.

  English, Michael

  McElhone, Frank

  Skinner, Dennis

  Evans, John (Newton)

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)

  Faulds, Andrew

  MacKay, John (Argyll)

  Soley, Clive

  Field, Frank

  McKelvey, William

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  Steen, Anthony

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Maclennan, Robert

  Stewart, Allan (East Renfrewshire)

  Forrester, John

  McNally, Thomas

  Stoddart, David

  Foster, Derek

  McWilliam, John

  Stott, Roger

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

  Marlow, Tony

  Strang, Gavin

  Freud, Clement

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

  Straw, Jack

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

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

  Tapsell, Peter

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  Mawby, Ray

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

  George, Bruce

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Thompson, Donald

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Tinn, James

  Graham, Ted

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Trippier, David

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

  Greenway, Harry

  Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

  Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

  Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

  Hannam, John

  Morgan, Geraint

  Watkins, David

  Hardy, Peter

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Wellbeloved, James

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

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

  Haynes, Frank

  Morton, George

  Weish, Michael

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Neale, Gerrard

  Wheeler, John

  Hicks, Robert

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

  Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

  Home Robertson, John

  Palmer, Arthur

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

  Homewood, William

  Parker, John

  Winnick, David

  Hooley, Frank

  Parry, Robert

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Woodall, Alec

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Penhaligon, David

  Woolmer, Kenneth

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Prescott, John

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  John, Brynmor

  Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

  Wright, Shella

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Young, David (Bolton East)

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Race, Reg

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Mr. Kevin McNamara and

  Kerr, Russell

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Mr. Eric Ogden

  NOES

  Alison, Michael

  Cope, John

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Ancram, Michael

  Corrle, John

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Arnold, Tom

  Crouch, Cavid

  Jessel, Toby

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Banks, Robert

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Kelth

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Dover, Denshore

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Eyre, Reginald

  Lamont, Norman

  Bevan, Drvid Gilroy

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Latham, Michael

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Lawson, Nigel

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Blaker, Peter

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Body, Richard

  Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Forman, Nigel

  Luce, Richard

  Boyson, Dr. Rhodes

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Macfarlane, Nell

  Brinton, Tim

  Fox, Marcus

  MacGregor, John

  Brittan, Lean

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Ercoke, Hon Peter

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Madel, David

  Brotherton, Michael

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

  Gow, Ian

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Budgen, Nick

  Gray, Hamish

  Mather, Carol

  Butcher, John

  Grist, Ian

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Carlisle, R' Hon Mark (Runcorn)

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Mills, Peter (West Devon)

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Channon, Paul

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Moate, Roger

  Chapman, Sydney

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Molyneaux, James

  Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Henderson, Barry

  Monro, Hector

  Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Moore, John

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chesfer)

  Mudd, David

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Murphy, Christopher

  Rifklnd, Malcolm

  Thorne, Neil (llford South)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Neubert, Michael

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Vlggers, Peler

  Normanton, Tom

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast East)

  Wakeham, John

  Nott, fit Hon John

  Rossi, Hugh

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

  Parkinson, Cecil

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norrmin

  Waller, Gary

  Parris, Matthew

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Ward, John

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Wanton, Kenneth

  Pattle, Geoffrey

  Silvester, Fred

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Pawsey, James

  Sims, Roger

  Whltelaw, Rt Hon William

  Percival, Sir Ian

  Smith, Dudley (War. and Learr'ton)

  Whitney, Raymond

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

  Speed, Keith

  Wickenden, Keith

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Speller, Tony

  Wilkinson, John

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Splcer, Jim (Wast Dorset)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Raison, Timothy

  Stanley, John

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Stevens, Martin

  Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

  Stewart, Ian (Hltchin)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Stradllng Thomas, J.

  Mr. David Waddington and

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Tebbit, Norman

  Mr. Tony Newton

  Division No. 418]

  AYES

  [1.05 am

  Alton, David

  Field, Frank

  Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

  Ashton, Joe

  Forrester, John

  Morton, George

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

  Foster, Derek

  Neale, Gerrard

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Freud, Clement

  O'Neill, Martin

  Beith, A. J.

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Bell, Sir Ronald

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  Palmer, Arthur

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  George, Bruce

  Parker, John

  Best, Keith

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Parry, Robert

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Graham, Ted

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Penhaligon, David

  Brotherton, Michael

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Brown, Hugh D. (Proven)

  Greenway, Harry

  Prescott, John

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

  Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

  Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

  Hannam, John

  Race, Reg

  Buchan, Norman

  Hardy, Peter

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

  Buck, Antony

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Haynes, Frank

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Cartwright John

  Hicks, Robert

  Rodgers, Rt Hon William

  Churchill, W. S.

  Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

  Rooker, J. W.

  Clark, Or David (South Shields)

  Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  Home Robertson, John

  Sandelson, Neville

  Cohen, Stanley

  Homewood, William

  Scott, Nicholas

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  Hooley, Frank

  Sever, John

  Conlan, Bernard

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

  Shearman, Barry

  Cook, Robin F.

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

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

  Cowans, Harry

  John, Brynmor

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Cralgen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Crowther, J. S.

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

  Cryer, Bob

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)

  Cunningham, George (Islington S)

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Soley, Clive

  Cunningham, Dr John (Whitenaven)

  Kinnock, Nell

  Spearing, Nigel

  Dalyell, Tam

  Knox, David

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Davidson, Arthur

  Lamble, David

  Steen, Anthony

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Lamond, James

  Stevens, Martin

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

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

  Leighton, Ronald

  Stoddart, David

  Deaklns, Eric

  Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)

  Stott, Roger

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Litherland, Robert

  Strang, Gavin

  Dempsey, James

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Straw, Jack

  Dewar, Donald

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Tapsell, Peter

  Dixon, Donald

  McCartney, Hugh

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

  Dobson, Frank

  McElhone, Frank

  Tinn, James

  Dormand, Jack

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Trippier, David

  Dorrell, Stephen

  McKelvey, William

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Douglas, Dick

  MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Maclennan, Robert

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

  Dubs, Alfred

  McNally, Thomas

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  McWilllam, John

  Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

  Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

  Watkins, David

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

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

  Wellbeloved, James

  Durant, Tony

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

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

  Dykes, Hugh

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Welsh, Michael

  Eastham, Ken

  Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)

  Wheeler, John

  Eggar, Timothy

  Miscampbell, Norman

  White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

  English, Michael

  Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

  Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Morgan, Geraint

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

  Faulds, Andrew

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Winnick, David

  Wlnterton, Nicholas

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES

  Wollson, Mark

  Wright, Sheila

  Mr. Eric Ogden and

  Woodall, Alec

  Young, David (Bolton East)

  Mr. Kevin MacNamara

  Woolmer, Kenneth

  NOES

  Alison, Michael

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

  Ancram, Michael

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Osborn, John

  Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Parris, Matthew

  Banks, Robert

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Henderson, Barry

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Bendall, Vivian

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Pawsey, James

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

  Percival, Sir Ian

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Blackburn, John

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Blaker, Peter

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Body, Richard

  Jessel, Toby

  Ralson, Timothy

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Rathbone, Tim

  Boyson, Dr. Rhodes

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

  Bright, Graham

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Brinton, Tim

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Brittan, Leon

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Rifkind, Malcoim

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

  Lamont, Norman

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Latham, Michael

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast East)

  Budgen, Nick

  Lawson, Nigel

  Rossi, Hugh

  Butcher, John

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Butler, Hon Adam

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Luce, Richard

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  Macfarlane, Nell

  Silvester, Fred

  Channon, Paul

  MacKay, John (Argyll)

  Sims, Roger

  Chapman, Sydney

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Speed, Keith

  Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

  Madel, David

  Speller, Tony

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushclifle)

  Major, John

  Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

  Clegg, Sir Walter

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Stanley, John

  Cope, John

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Corrie, John

  Mather, Carol

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Crouch, David

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Tebbit, Norman

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Thompson, Donald

  Emery, Peter

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Thome, Neil (Ilford South)

  Eyre, Reginald

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Viggers, Peter

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Mills, Peter (West Devon)

  Weddington, David

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Moate, Roger

  Wall, Patrick

  Fietcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

  Molyneaux, James

  Waller, Gary

  Forman, Nigel

  Monro, Hector

  Warren, Kenneth

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Moore, John

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Fox, Marcus

  Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City ot Chester)

  Whitney, Raymond

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Mudd, David

  Wickenden, Keith

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Murphy, Christopher

  Wilkinson, John

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Nelson, Anthony

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Neubert, Michael

  Gow, Ian

  Newton, Tony

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Gray, Hamlsh

  Normanton, Tom

  Mr. John MacGregor and

  Grist, Ian

  Nott, Rt Hon John

  Mr. John Wakeman.

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  MINISTERIAL AND OTHER SALARIES AND PENSIONS

  Division No. 419]

  AYES

  [1.20 am

  Alison, Michael

  Boyson, Dr. Rhodes

  Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

  Ancram, Michael

  Bright, Graham

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushclifle)

  Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)

  Brinton, Tim

  Clegg, Sir Walter

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Brittan, Leon

  Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Cope, John

  Banks, Robert

  Brotherton, Michael

  Corrie, John

  Beith, A. J.

  Brown, Michael (Brlgg & Sc'thorpe)

  Dormand, Jack

  Bendall, Vivian

  Browne, John (Wincheser)

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Buck, Antony

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Best, Keith

  Burden, Sir Frederick

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Butcher, John

  Durant, Tony

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Butler, Hon Adam

  Dykes, Hugh

  Blackburn, John

  Carlisle, R Hon Mark (Runcorn)

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Blaker, Peter

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  Eggar, Timothy

  Body, Richard

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Emery, Peter

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Chapman, Sydney

  English, Michael

  Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

  Churchill. W. S.

  Eyre, Reginald

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  MacKay, John (Argyll)

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Madel, David

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Forman, Nigel

  Mather, Carol

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast East)

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Rossi, Hugh

  Fox, Marcus

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh

  Mayhew, Patrick

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Shersby, Michael

  Gow, Ian

  Monro, Hector

  Silvester, Fred

  Gray, Hamish

  Moore, John

  Sims, Roger

  Grist, Ian

  Morgan, Geraint

  Speed, Keith

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

  Stanley, John

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Mudd, David

  Stevens, Martin

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Murphy, Christopher

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Neale, Garrard

  Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Needham, Richard

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Nelson, Anthony

  Tebbit, Norman

  Henderson, Barry

  Neubert, Michael

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Newton, Tony

  Thompson, Donald

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Nott, Rt Hon John

  Viggers, Peter

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

  Ogden, Eric

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

  Wakeham, John

  Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

  Osborn, John

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Waller, Gary

  Jessel, Toby

  Parris, Matthew

  Ward, John

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Warren, Kenneth

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Pattie, Geoffrey

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

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Pawsey, James

  Wheeler, John

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Penhaligon, David

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Percival, Sir Ian

  Whitney, Raymond

  Lamont, Norman

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Wickenden, Keith

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Wilkinson, John

  Lawson, Nigel

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

  Le Merchant, Spencer

  Raison, Timothy

  Wolfson, Mark

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

  Luce, Richard

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Mr. David Waddington and

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton

  MacGregor, John

  NOES

  Alton, David

  Litherland, Robert

  Soley, Clive

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

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Spearing, Nigel

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Stoddart, David

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Straw, Jack

  Cunningham, George (Islington S)

  McKelvey, William

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

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

  McNally, Thomas

  Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

  Dobson, Frank

  Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

  Watkine, David

  Douglas, Dick

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Welsh, Michael

  Dubs, Alfred

  O'Neill, Martin

  White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

  Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

  Parry, Robert

  Winnick, David

  Eastham, Ken

  Prescott, John

  Woodall, Alec

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

  Young, David (Bolton East)

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

  Race, Reg

  Hardy, Peter

  Rooker, J. W.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Haynes, Frank

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee Wast)

  Mr. Bob cryer and

  Lambie, David

  Sever, John

  Mr. Andrew F. Bennott.

  Leighton, Ronald

  Skinner, Dennis

EMPLOYMENT
  Sheltered Workshops (North-West Region)
  Sheltered Workshops (North-West Region)
  19 to 24-year-olds
  19 to 24-year-olds
  Employment and Training Act 1973 (Review)
  Employment and Training Act 1973 (Review)
  South Kirklees
  South Kirklees
  Wool Textile Workers
  Wool Textile Workers
  Ethnic Minorities (London)
  Ethnic Minorities (London)
  Fort William Underwater Training Centre
  Fort William Underwater Training Centre
  Family Incomes
  Family Incomes
  Youth Opportunities Programme (Wolverhampton)
  Youth Opportunities Programme (Wolverhampton)
  Job Creation
  Job Creation
  Disabled Persons
  Disabled Persons
  Job Creation (Wolverhampton)
  Job Creation (Wolverhampton)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  North Sea Oil and Gas (Accidents)
  North Sea Oil and Gas (Accidents)
  Unemployed Persons
  Unemployed Persons
  Coalite
  Coalite
  LEGAL AID
  LEGAL AID
  STRIKES (CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS)
  STRIKES (CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS)
SCOTLAND
  Petrochemical Facilities
  Petrochemical Facilities
  List D Schools
  List D Schools
  Young offenders (Detention Costs)
  Young offenders (Detention Costs)
  Shrimp Imports
  Shrimp Imports
OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT
  International Development Association
  International Development Association
  Aid Expenditure
  Aid Expenditure
  European Development Fund
  European Development Fund
  Bilateral Aid Programme
  Bilateral Aid Programme
TRADE
  Imports and Exports
  Imports and Exports
  Asian Countries (Patent Infringement)
  Asian Countries (Patent Infringement)
  Zambia
  Zambia
  Hong Kong
  Hong Kong
  Motor Cars
  Motor Cars
  Petrol Filling Stations (Price Displays)
  Petrol Filling Stations (Price Displays)
  Share Acquisitions
  Share Acquisitions
  Minister (Overseas Travel)
  Minister (Overseas Travel)
  Company Law
  Company Law
  Underwriters' National Assurance Company
  Underwriters' National Assurance Company
NORTHERN IRELAND
  Voluntary Bodies (Funds)
  Voluntary Bodies (Funds)
  Deputy Electoral Officer
  Deputy Electoral Officer
  Chief Electoral Officer
  Chief Electoral Officer
  Service Personnel (Imprisonment)
  Service Personnel (Imprisonment)
HOUSE OF COMMONS
  European Community (Statements)
  European Community (Statements)
  Select Committee on Procedure
  Select Committee on Procedure
WALES
  Textile Industry (Flint)
  Textile Industry (Flint)
  Deeside (Employment)
  Deeside (Employment)
  Enterprise Zones
  Enterprise Zones
PALACE OF WESTMINSTER
  Cleaning
  Cleaning
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Family Income
  Family Income
  Personal Taxation
  Personal Taxation
  Minimum Lending Rate
  Minimum Lending Rate
  Herbicide 2,4,5-T
  Herbicide 2,4,5-T
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Value Added Tax and Public Spending
  Value Added Tax and Public Spending
  Competitiveness
  Competitiveness
  Overseas Aid and Investment
  Overseas Aid and Investment
  Parliament (Costs)
  Parliament (Costs)
  Fuel Oils (Tax)
  Fuel Oils (Tax)
ENERGY
  British National Oil Corporation
  British National Oil Corporation
  Natural Gas (Norwegian Sector)
  Natural Gas (Norwegian Sector)
  Energy Consumption (North-West)
  Energy Consumption (North-West)
  International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation
  International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation
  North Sea Oil
  North Sea Oil
  Phurnacite Plant (Aberaman)
  Phurnacite Plant (Aberaman)
  Naural Gas (Monopoly)
  Naural Gas (Monopoly)
  Coking Coal
  Coking Coal
  Petrol Supplies (Rural Areas)
  Petrol Supplies (Rural Areas)
  Reactor Development (Co-operation)
  Reactor Development (Co-operation)
  Natural Gas (EEC Imports)
  Natural Gas (EEC Imports)
  Coal Utilisation
  Coal Utilisation
  Coal Imports
  Coal Imports
  North Sea Exploration (Seventh Round)
  North Sea Exploration (Seventh Round)
  Coal Stocks
  Coal Stocks
  North Sea Exploration (Accidents)
  North Sea Exploration (Accidents)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Gas and Oil Pipelines
  Gas and Oil Pipelines
  European Community (Gas Consumption)
  European Community (Gas Consumption)
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
  Private Education
  Private Education
  Refugee Students
  Refugee Students
  Tuition Costs
  Tuition Costs
  Education Costs
  Education Costs
  Further Education
  Further Education
  Teachers (Pay)
  Teachers (Pay)
  School Buses (Passengers)
  School Buses (Passengers)
  University Teachers (Pay)
  University Teachers (Pay)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Class Sizes
  Class Sizes
  School Meals
  School Meals
  Trade Unionists (Training Grants)
  Trade Unionists (Training Grants)
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Immigration
  Immigration
  Deportation
  Deportation
  Prisoners
  Prisoners
  Diplomatic Immunity
  Diplomatic Immunity
  Deportation
  Deportation
  Guernsey (Immigration)
  Guernsey (Immigration)
  Foreign Security Staff
  Foreign Security Staff
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Prisons Board (Membership)
  Prisons Board (Membership)
  Citizens Band Radio
  Citizens Band Radio
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  New Hebrides
  New Hebrides
  Prison Department
  Prison Department
  Police Manpower
  Police Manpower
  Diplomatic Immunity
  Diplomatic Immunity
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  International Year for Disabled Persons
  International Year for Disabled Persons
  "Decade for Women"(United Kingdom Delegation)
  "Decade for Women"(United Kingdom Delegation)
INDUSTRY
  Advisory Council for Applied Research and Development
  Advisory Council for Applied Research and Development
  United Kingdom Assets (Overseas Ownership)
  United Kingdom Assets (Overseas Ownership)
  British Steel Corporation
  British Steel Corporation
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Ashfield
  Ashfield
DEFENCE
  Air-Sea Rescue
  Air-Sea Rescue
  Assisted House Purchase
  Assisted House Purchase
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Noise Insulation Grants
  Noise Insulation Grants
CIVIL SERVICE
  "Economic Trends"
  "Economic Trends"
  Civil Service College
  Civil Service College
  Foreign Travel (Expenditure)
  Foreign Travel (Expenditure)
  HMSO Bookshop, Birmingham
  HMSO Bookshop, Birmingham
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
SOCIAL SERVICES
  National Health Service (Structure)
  National Health Service (Structure)
  Battered Wives (Assistance)
  Battered Wives (Assistance)
  Means-tested Benefits
  Means-tested Benefits
  School Dental Service
  School Dental Service
  Smoking
  Smoking
  Hexachlorophene
  Hexachlorophene
  Community Health Councils
  Community Health Councils
  National Health Service (General Practitioners)
  National Health Service (General Practitioners)
  Maltese Nationals
  Maltese Nationals
  Redundant Hospitals
  Redundant Hospitals
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Fertility Clinics
  Fertility Clinics
  Birmingham (Eye Hospital)
  Birmingham (Eye Hospital)
  Lead Emissions
  Lead Emissions
  Shooter Report
  Shooter Report
  Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting
  Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting
  Social Security (Abuse)
  Social Security (Abuse)
  Promis
  Promis
  Over-80s (Pension)
  Over-80s (Pension)
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Farms (Financial Assistance)
  Farms (Financial Assistance)
  European Community, Fisheries Regulations (Court Decision)
  European Community, Fisheries Regulations (Court Decision)
  Horses and Donkeys
  Horses and Donkeys
  Herbicide 2, 4, 5-T
  Herbicide 2, 4, 5-T
  Sheepmeat
  Sheepmeat
  Poultrymeat
  Poultrymeat
  Eggs
  Eggs
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Turkeymeat
  Turkeymeat
  Fishing Industry
  Fishing Industry
  Cannabis
  Cannabis
TRANSPORT
  Fares
  Fares
  Rail Electrification
  Rail Electrification
  Hammersmith Flyover
  Hammersmith Flyover
  Midland Link Motorways (Deck Failure)
  Midland Link Motorways (Deck Failure)
  School Buses (Drivers)
  School Buses (Drivers)
  Tyre Sealants
  Tyre Sealants
  Rail Travel (Fare Concession)
  Rail Travel (Fare Concession)
  Road Construction Sub-units
  Road Construction Sub-units
  Humber Local Advisory Board
  Humber Local Advisory Board
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
ENVIRONMENT
  Water Service Charges
  Water Service Charges
  Water Authorities
  Water Authorities
  Housing (Homeless Persons)
  Housing (Homeless Persons)
  Housing Development Directorate
  Housing Development Directorate
  Gatwick Airport (Public Inquiry)
  Gatwick Airport (Public Inquiry)
  Planning Laws
  Planning Laws
  Litter Offences
  Litter Offences
  Whale Products
  Whale Products
  Council House Sales (Armed Forces)
  Council House Sales (Armed Forces)
  Nuclear Waste (Disposal)
  Nuclear Waste (Disposal)
  Vale of Belvoir
  Vale of Belvoir
  Local Authority Capital Expenditure
  Local Authority Capital Expenditure
  Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
  Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
  National Parks
  National Parks
  Housing Bill
  Housing Bill
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)
  Ministers (Overseas Travel)

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

JERUSALEM: UN RESOLUTION ON FUTURE STATUS
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what conclusions were reached by the United Nations Security Council on the future of Jerusalem.
The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (Lord Carrington): My Lords, Security Council Resolution 476, passed on 30th June, reaffirmed that no unilateral action should, or can, change the status of Jerusalem, and called for Israel to rescind all such unilateral actions. We voted in favour of the resolution, in line with the position that successive British Governments have taken on Jerusalem.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, while welcoming that Answer, may I ask whether the Minister is aware that many of us
2
who are deeply concerned about the security of Israel are fearful that, unless the Jerusalem problem is solved, there may be another war in the Middle East, with disastrous world consequences? Can the Minister say whether the Government support the authoritative proposal of my noble friend Lord Caradon that there should be Jewish and Arab regions in Jerusalem, with a joint co-ordinating council?
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I think that the Government are only too well aware of what the noble Lord said in the first part of his supplementary question. The Government's position is that there can be no unilateral solution to the problem of Jerusalem, and of course we should be prepared to look at any solution which met with the approval of the parties.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, when considering this problem, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will once again refer to Psalm 122 and verses 4 and 5 of Psalm 137, from which he will realise why the Jewish people in the world consider Jerusalem as Israel's capital? Will the noble Lord also consider the fact that for 1,000 years Jerusalem was open to all religions, and that people were allowed to worship in accordance with their own religion in the Temple, of all places? Thirdly, will he bear in mind the kind of thing that happened when Jordan took over—about which very few people, including our Government, said anything —when they desecrated 52 synagogues and used many as latrines? Does not the noble Lord consider that in those circumstances Israel is justified in wanting its capital to remain?
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I believe that all of us know the feelings that the Jewish people and the Israeli people have about Jerusalem. The view of Her Majesty's Government is that, if we are to find a solution to the Middle East problem —the Arab-Israel conflict—it is necessary that there should be agreement about the future of Jerusalem, not just by the Israelis, but also by the Arabs. All of us hope that such an agreement is possible, and that it can be arrived at in friendship.
The Lord Bishop of SOUTHWARK: My Lords, are Her Majesty's Government aware that there are those of us on this Bench who hope that the Israelis, in regard to the claims of the Arabs, will be as sensitive as many of us have been to the Israelis in times gone by? Are Her Majesty's Government aware that for that reason many of us on this Bench are wholeheartedly in support of their effort to bring about a reconciliation which will give a just settlement to both peoples?
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am most grateful to the right reverend Prelate, since he expresses quite clearly what is the object of Government policy. It is not to take sides with one or the other; it is to bring about reconciliation.
Lord GORON WY-ROBERTS: My Lords, may I support what the right reverend Prelate said and indeed welcome the tone and content of what the Foreign Secretary said? Is the noble Lord aware that this problem cannot be solved by unilateral action, whether it be political or otherwise, but can respond only to reconciliation, concession and co-operation by all those concerned?
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, the noble Lord opposite expresses exactly what I was trying to say to his noble friend behind him.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether the Government are taking steps to bring about some kind of international control of the old city of Jerusalem, and perhaps of East Jerusalem, too?
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, my noble friend will have seen the declaration issued by the Community at Venice some weeks ago. The purpose of that declaration
4
was to start a series of contacts with the parties concerned to see what common ground there was and to explore the question of whether negotiation was possible. Obviously in that context the problem of Jerusalem will come up.
The LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL (Lord Soames): My Lords, I think that, if there is a broad measure of agreement in the House, perhaps we should move on to the next Question.

FAO: APPEAL FOR FOOD AID
2.42 p.m.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what response they have made to the appeal by Dr. Edouard Saouma, director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, for action by the international community to avert a disaster of an unprecedented character by food shortages in many countries.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, we have recently announced special help for Cambodia, Somalia and Uganda, all of which are areas which the director-general mentioned. We already contribute to the World Food Programme. We expect our food aid obligations this year, both direct and through the European Community, to cost over £40 million. As my honourable friend stressed recently in another place, we very much want to see developing countries give greater priority to agricultural and food production in their investment plans. We shall continue to do what we can in answer to their requests, and shall encourage international agencies to follow suit.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Minister for that Answer. May I ask him: Did not Dr. Saouma say that 29 countries are now suffering from food shortage, and is this not particularly the case in Eastern Africa, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Northern Kenya and Tanzania, where hundreds are dying every day? Has not

5
the United Nations launched an appeal for a million or a million and a half tons of grain which are needed this year? I did not quite gather how far the Government have responded to that appeal.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I think that the facts which the noble Lord has stated are, broadly speaking, correct. I suspect that probably there is not so much a shortage of food in the world. Indeed, the FAO are now forecasting a 4 per cent. increase in world cereals after this harvest. The difficulty is very largely in distribution, and we must all do what we can. In my original Answer I pointed out that, this year, the Government will be contributing something like £40 million in food aid.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, while again thanking the Minister, may I ask him this question: Did not the United Nations World Food Council decide in favour of a food strategy linking developed countries with needy, developing countries? Have not 39 countries now joined that scheme? Has Britain joined? I understood there were negotiations with Sudan.
Lord CARRINGTON: Perhaps I ought to know that, my Lords, but I wonder whether I may write to the noble Lord, or tell him later. I am afraid I cannot give him the exact answer to that now.

NATIONAL PARKS ADMINISTRATION
2.45 p.m.
Lord UNDERHILL: 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 it is correct that there is a departmental survey which proposes to terminate the present administration of National Parks; and, if that is so, what is the view of the Government on such proposals.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I think the noble Lord may be referring to a discussion paper published last year by the Countryside Review Committee, which proposed that a review
6
should take place of the present system of landscape and nature conservation designations. The paper did not carry ministerial endorsement, and responses to it from interested organisations and members of the general public are now under consideration. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment expects to make a Statement on this before the end of the year.
Lord UNDERHILL: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Could he tell the House the organisations which were invited to make comments on this document, and could he comment on whether or not it is correct that some 35 organisations are stated to have made comments, including bodies such as the 11 National Parks authorities, the Forestry Commission, the National Trust and the National Conservation Council, but that only one of the organisations, the Forestry Commission, has declared in favour of the proposals?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, the list which the noble Lord would like to have is too long for me to bother the House with it, but I shall certainly write and give it to him. As to the comments or dissatisfaction expressed, I think, again, that is really a matter which is under review by the Government. There has been a certain amount of dissatisfaction in some circles, I would accept. Whether it is as great as the noble Lord is saying, I am not quite sure; but I will undertake to write to the noble Lord about the first part of his supplementary question.

VOLUNTEER RESERVES: RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING
2.47 p.m.
Lord SHINWELL: 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 progress has been achieved during the current year in the number of persons who have joined the auxiliary forces, and in the provision of satisfactory equipment and facilities for training, and to what extent.
The MINISTER of STATE, MINISTRY of DEFENCE (Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal): My Lords, we have made very good progress in recruiting for all the volunteer reserves, particularly since the announcement last August of increased rates of bounty and other measures recommended in the Shapland Report. In the case of the Territorial Army, almost 17,000 recruits joined between July 1979 and April of this year, the latest date for which figures are available. Recruitment to the other volunteer reserves, including the three new Regiment Squadrons of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force and the new Royal Naval Reserve Air Branch, is also going well.
On the equipment side, the current year has seen the introduction into the Territorial Army of Blowpipe and the 105 millimetre gun for the air defence and field artillery regiments; Clansman radios for NATO-roled units; and Larkspur radios for the General Reserve Battalions. For the Royal Naval Reserve we have announced plans to purchase a new class of minesweeper in the course of the next few years.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for that Answer. Is he satisfied that we have reached anything in the nature of the target which we sought to obtain, and is he satisfied that those in authority in this matter are as active as they might be? Furthermore, is he satisfied that the modern equipment, which is essential for adequate training, is now available to those connected with the auxiliary forces?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, the noble Lord poses the question whether we are satisfied. The answer, as I have said before in this House, is that we are never satisfied. We continue to do our best. We believe that the equipment becoming available to the Territorial Army represents an improvement. We do our best to keep the equipment for the Territorials analogous to the equipment that they would be using serving alongside their fellows in the event of a conflict, but we have to accept that any equipment allocated to the Territorial Army is inevitably equipment which is denied to the regular services, so there are limitations.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether it is not desirable now to make a very real drive in relation to the auxiliary forces? This would be of value to the armed forces, but it would also have a considerable social value. Is it not desirable that those who cannot gain commercial employment should at least have a vocation, and do not the auxiliary forces provide something of this sort, which is both interesting and valuable training?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl. I agree with him entirely. But we must be a little careful about going too far down this road. We must not start using the auxiliary forces as some direct means of alleviating unemployment, which is not their purpose although it is a useful side effect.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord to understand that, although I welcome the improvement, I am far from satisfied; and that my intention is to worry him, and all those associated with him and connected with the auxiliary forces, until we have reached the target that we have sought to achieve for many years?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that unremitting effort will be required. I can only say we have not done badly in our first year of office and that we intend to keep up the pace.
Lord NEWALL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether, despite the enormous additions to various complicated equipment, he can say more about equipment such as"B"vehicles—like the Land Rover—which are sometimes below standard in the auxiliary forces?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, the "B" vehicle situation is not a good situation anywhere in the forces. It is said, and I have said it before, that some of the vehicles being driven are older than the people driving them. This is not a desirable state of affairs. It is something that we shall rectify as soon as possible. Here, again, the main thrust of a re-equipment drive must be on the offensive, front-line weapons.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that there is a dilemma for those in industry in the junior management field between their responsibilities to their companies and their aspirations in being involved in the auxiliary forces? Is the Minister satisfied that there is sufficient relationship between the Ministry of Defence and the management of industry so that if young men and women wish to join the services they receive the encouragement of such management?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, the noble Lord's supplementary question shows a considerable understanding of an important problem. We talk as much as possible to all forms of industry. Government-owned industry tries to give a lead; the CSD tries to give a lead. There are two problems. One is the question of when it is convenient for industry to allow people to go off to attend camp; and the other is the possibility of actual, direct financial support by giving more holidays to compensate for the holidays given up through training in the auxiliary forces.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, the noble Lord has pointed to the problem, but what I was asking the noble Lord is this: Is there sufficient relationship and
understanding between the Ministry of Defence and industry to overcome this particular problem?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, whether there is sufficient, I do not know. It is something that we are trying to improve upon. It is not an unsatisfactory situation, but I dare say that there is room for improvement. We talk to people like the CBI about it.

BUSINESS
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 o'clock this afternoon my noble friend Lord Trenchard will repeat a Statement being made in another place on telecommunications monopoly.
It may also be for the convenience of your Lordships if I announce that dinners will be available this evening at the usual
10
time. The Report stage of the Housing Bill will be adjourned at approximately seven o'clock for about an hour, and the European Communities order will be taken during that adjournment.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT, PLANNING AND LAND (No. 2) BILL
Brought from the Commons, read 1a and to be printed.

HOUSING BILL
Report received.
Schedule 1 [Exceptions to right to buy]:
2.55 p.m.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 105, line 18, leave out from ("dwelling-house") to end of line 22 and insert ("is designed or specially adapted to make it suitable for occupation by persons of pensionable age, and which it is the practice of the landlord to let for occupation by persons of pensionable age").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I find it very appropriate that this should be the first amendment to he considered today. As noble Lords will remember, the question of safeguards for persons of pensionable age and their accommodation was one which was discussed at great length during the Committee stage and it is clearly an issue that raises great concern on all sides of the House. I must stress at the outset that I do not consider this to be a dive into party political waters. Whatever may be our feelings about the Government policy for giving a right to buy to council tenants, I am sure we are all in agreement that when it comes to the practical implications of that policy, with regard particularly to accommodation for elderly people, there must be safeguards to ensure that those in need of rented housing do not suffer.
During the debate in Committee, very widespread anxieties were expressed from all Benches about the serious consequences for people of pensionable age if there were to be, as a consequence of the right to buy, a serious erosion of the supply of the only suitable accommodation available to meet their needs. In Committee, I, with the

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noble Lord, Lord Hylton, advocated an amendment which would have excluded from the right to buy all accommodation normally used in practice for letting to elderly people. That, I believe, would have been the best safeguard. However, it was quite clear that the Government felt that this went too far and they also felt (and understandably so, looking at it from the stance of the Government) that this might be used by some local authorities as a device to get round the right-to-buy provisions of the Bill.
Therefore, in the time between Committee stage and today I have given serious thought to this issue, to the various points of view which were expressed during the Committee debates and have brought forward this amendment as (as I hope all Members of the House will consider) a sensible compromise. Firstly, it is much more tightly defined than the amendment I proposed in Committee. It will apply only to properties which were designed or specially adapted for elderly people and which it is the practice of landlords to let to such people. In this respect, it draws broadly upon the thinking of my noble friends Lady Denington and Lord Greenwood and also that of the noble Lord, Lord Evans, who put forward amendments which were designed to cover these circumstances. Where it differs from their amendments is that it excludes such properties from the right to buy rather than applying pre-emptions. The reasons for this are simple and, I believe, are of overriding importance. I understand that I now have the support of my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Evans, in this amendment.
My Lords, I think that we must also remember at this stage that this would merely give discretion to local authorities. There is no question of a compulsion on them not to sell, but in this area they would have local discretion. In the first place, the amendment follows the pattern which the Government themselves have chosen in respect both of accommodation for the disabled and of sheltered housing. There is no valid logic for applying entirely different criteria to properties designed or specially adapted for the elderly which are not part of sheltered housing from those which apply to houses which happen to be part of such a scheme. Both types of accommodation are essential to meet
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their needs. The supply of sheltered housing is known to be far less than required to meet the demand, a demand which is growing all the time with increasing longevity.
The cuts in public expenditure, which have resulted in severe cuts in housing, mean that we have to face the fact that, both now and in the foreseeable future, it will be very difficult—almost impossible —for local authorities to replace the housing stock and therefore to replace the housing for the elderly which, in the meantime, if these remain as they are, will be sold. In consequence, each available unit of sheltered housing is inevitably heavily over-subscribed. Many elderly people today, who would ideally wish to find accommodation in a sheltered housing unit, have to make do with the nearest alternative letting that they can find. This applies to a very wide range of elderly people. Very often they have moved from their own homes, where they have been owner-occupiers, either because they can no longer manage the stairs, or the houses are too large, or because they want to be near their close relatives.
In a recent Department of the Environment survey, Housing for Old People, it showed that out of 420,000 local authority dwellings suitable for the elderly, only 199,000 have warden services or some form of special facilities as outlined in the schedule to the Bill as it stands at present, and would be exempted from sale. This means the potential sale of 221,000 existing dwellings that are suitable for old people. Therefore it means it would be very wrong indeed if their prospects of finding somewhere to live when they are of pensionable age were to be seriously jeopardised by widespread sales of the present accommodation.
I must say here that it is true—and I appreciate the point that was made in Committee by the Minister—that old people should have the opportunity to buy their own houses, where that is possible; but the situation today is considerably different from the time when the Bill was originally drafted and the Conservative Party manifesto worked out. To give an overriding right to buy would seem to me to be quite wrong both in present and foreseeable future circumstances.
Secondly—and this is becoming more and more recognised—the incorporation of a pre-emption clause is a far less effective safeguard than the exemption of such lettings from the right to buy. The pre-emption of course applies only for the limited period of time—for 10 years. It is dependent—and this is one of the most important points—on the local authority having the resources to buy back the housing at a later date at the then current market value, which must of course be considerably greater than the price for which the property was sold. We have to take into account inflation and also the fact that when it was sold it was sold very often with a considerable discount. The trouble is that a pre-emption safeguard cannot prevent a lethal erosion of the stock of rented housing suitable for the elderly.
In some areas—I am thinking here particularly of rural and seaside areas, where bungalows are in very great demand and will command a high price—this could well result in the loss over a period of 15 to 20 years from the enactment or this Bill of the major part—if not all—of the rented accommodation currently available to meet the needs of the elderly. That would be a tragedy which I am quite sure none of us could possibly wish to see happen.
There is also another point regarding the area of abuse that I am afraid this opens. The rural community councils tell me that estate agents in Devon, Cornwall and Sussex are even now advertising their availability to assist elderly council tenants in purchasing their houses. In this way, through making some financial arrangements, they feel that both parties will gain some advantage. I cannot believe that any Government would wish this to happen. Therefore, this amendment is a sensible compromise which will safeguard accommodation that I have described—that is, houses, bungalows and some ground-floor flats which have been specially designed or adapted—which it is the practice of the local authorities to let to elderly people.
It will also help to keep the elderly integrated into the community. Their fears would be placated and they would have a chance to live in houses suitable to them because of special adaptation
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and design. It would have a further advantage of enabling people who are still mobile but who find it difficult to manage the stairs, difficult to bend to a low electric socket or who are in need of some of the special heating facilities that would be put in these dwellings, to continue being independent, living in the community and carrying on active lives. That is something everybody wants to see.
The Government have put down an amendment to be discussed later which is I imagine a desire to find some compromise to this problem. I hope I am right in thinking that the Minister would like to make the best effort he can on the part of helping the elderly to live in homes that are suitable for them and to stop the erosion of this stock. I appreciate that there are pressures from another place and all sorts of things go on over which he has not the control that he and we might like to feel he has. As often happens with compromises, sometimes they are all right and sometimes they turn out to be exactly what they were not intended to be. I am afraid that this amendment, which is the Government compromise, fulfils these unfortunate criteria.
The amendment is extraordinarily limited and will in no way safeguard the types of accommodation which I have been talking about. It applies only to dwellings which have features which are substantially different from those of an ordinary dwellinghouse. This is very imprecise and no doubt it will have to await the courts to decide what features make a dwellinghouse substantially different from an ordinary dwellinghouse, especially in this context. When we are talking about the disabled, that is an entirely different matter.
The Association of Metropolitan Authorities have taken legal advice. I received this letter this morning:
"After taking legal advice, we have come to the conclusion that the words ' substantially different from those of an ordinary dwelling-house' impose such limitations that in practice it does not add significantly to the exclusion that is already provided for in Section 4 of Schedule 1 to the Bill".
They go on to enlarge on a further point: there will be great areas of uncertainty if people are thinking of buying houses and are not sure whether they come

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within the pre-emption clause or not. They will not know exactly where they are. It is also extremely difficult, when this cannot be precisely defined, to see how it can be part of a piece of legislation and, at the same time, be made workable.
This is an extremely complex Bill as I think all of us who have had anything to do with it have mentioned on many occasions. If one is to increase the complexity in this area, which is a highly sensitive human area, then it can only do damage to the legislation and will not help at all to promote it. It will, I presume, cover sheltered housing, but this is already covered by paragraphs 3 and 4 of Schedule 1; otherwise, it will be extremely difficult for the people concerned to know where they are.
In the debate in Committee the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, said, at column 1799 of Hansard:
"the last thing that we intend is that we should make it more difficult for elderly people to be adequately and properly housed; that is not our intention at all. But what will have to be decided at the end of the day is whether what we propose does or does not have that effect".
I submit that what is in the Government's amendment has the effect of not housing the elderly as they should be housed and of being quite counter-productive, if the object is as set out by the Minister.
It is also true that the Secretary of State for the Environment, in his speech in the House of Commons on 21st February, stated:
"Needs and problems have become increasingly specific and local. The emphasis of public sector housing policy must be to meet particular needs, such as those of the elderly and handicapped".—[Official Report, Commons; col. 667.]
In other words, on that occasion some months ago he accepted and recognised the need for the public sector to be the repository of most of the rented accommodation for elderly people, as well as the disabled and other categories.
Age Concern, in their recent comments on the Bill, have said:
"Our original view was that all group dwellings for the elderly should be exempted, and other dwellings normally let to elderly people should be subject to a ten year pre-emption clause. This would have enabled elderly tenants in non-specialist schemes the right to buy, while allowing the local authority some control over its housing stock to respond to housing needs. However, in view of the recent public expenditure cuts in
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housing we have reconsidered our position, since it is likely that local authorities will not be in a financial position to buy back properties. We have therefore come to the view that all dwellings that are normally let to elderly people should be exempted. We feel that this would be the only way of creating a balance between individual and community needs".
I would point out that my amendment is even more tightly drawn and rather more restrictive than that, because, in my endeavours to try to find something that will be acceptable to the Government, I have used that phrase from another Act.
Finally, I would say that the Government's amendment can only result in a great deal of legal nit-picking, without providing any effective safeguard for the types of elderly person's housing about which we were all concerned in Committee. I hope that the Government and the House generally will accept that this is a sensible compromise safeguard, and that the amendment will have all-round support. My Lords, I beg to move.
3.15 p.m.
Viscount HANWORTH: My Lords, I should like very strongly to support this amendment from these Benches. My only doubt about it is that it is so moderate and does not go nearly as far as many of us—or, certainly, I—think it should do. It seems to me extraordinary, when there is this shortage of old person's accommodation, that we should allow it to be sold, particularly as it has been designed to help old people. I should have thought it was better if they were not able to buy it at all. This amendment does not go anything like as far as that. What it does do is to remove from the Bill a very restrictive provision which states,
…and a social service or special facilities are provided in close proximity to the group of dwelling-houses for the only or main purpose of assisting those persons."
Unless you fulfil that condition, the dwelling cannot be exempted. That is according to the Bill. So I very strongly support this amendment and, if it goes to a Division, I hope that other noble Lords will also do so, bearing in mind that a great many of those in this House are pensioners.
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, I was rather impressed with the arguments

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which the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, put, with, I thought, great moderation. I live in a rural area and I know very well how difficult it is to find accommodation for old people in areas in which they have lived all their lives. The housing stock in some of these villages is very small indeed. I thought that the proposal which the noble Baroness made would be, on balance, a good one and at this stage, not having heard my noble friend, I feel inclined to support it. If my noble friend does not agree, I hope that he will make very clear what he thinks would be dangerous or wrong about this amendment.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, may I add just a few words? Those of us who have been in close contact with constituencies will remember the number of people who came to us as Members of Parliament, in order that they might preserve their homes. This is not a problem only of houses. I am sure that the noble Lord who is to reply fully appreciates, and is wholly sympathetic towards, the fact that people do not want to go elsewhere and that they regard the house as being their own. Any step which prevents their continuing in that home is something which is a very serious action against persons who ought to be comforted in their elderly days.
I was going to say that this amendment goes much further than I myself would go, but, at the same time, I realise why it attempts to help by creating a position in which the requirements of elderly people are attended to. I strongly appeal to the noble Lord the Minister to consider this amendment as being a reasonable approach to the matter and to do what he can—f am sure that he himself must be persuaded, in his heart of hearts—to persuade those with whom he is associated to do the same. This is a very important matter.
3.20 p.m.
Lord HUNT: My Lords, I should like to follow the noble Lord, Lord Janner, in the plea which he makes in support of the amendment moved by the noble Baroness. It would be most unfortunate if as a consequence of this Bill more old people were constrained to be moved from their individual dwelling-houses, with all
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their treasured possessions around them, into old people's homes.
I have seen, at second-hand, I must admit, enough of life in some communal homes for old people—and I have heard a great deal more from my wife, who is greatly involved with this—to have a strong sense of the feeling of banishment, of the feeling of loneliness, even though they may be with a considerable number of other old people, and of the feeling of stagnation as a result of being in an old people's home. I think that it is most important, following a remark made by the noble Baroness, that this country, whose elderly population is becoming more numerous, should leave the provision of individual accommodation in the hands of local authorities or housing corporations, not only for those who are living there at present but for those who, when the present incumbents have unhappily passed away, will become old and who, in their turn, will need accommodation. On those grounds, and on the ground that unfortunately our ageing and more decrepit elderly population is unlike those inhabitants of the Caucasus whom I have met, who seem to possess the facility of continued vigour, virility and activity into ages beyond 100, I believe that we should retain this facility. I support the amendment.
The Lord Bishop of LONDON: My Lords, I have been very glad to be able to add my name to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, and I most earnestly plead with the Government to accept it. It is most important that in this Bill we should defend and protect the rights of old people. As I observed in my speech at Second Reading and as I am sure has been the experience of noble Lords in this House, I have received an enormous correspondence both from individuals and from organisations concerned with one aspect or another of the Bill. A great many of the representations which I have received have been from organisations that are concerned with the protection of the rights of old people, and a great many of the fears which have been expressed in letters have come from old age pensioners who are afraid that the places where they have lived and which they have secured by their savings may be in jeopardy. I believe that that danger

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will be removed by the amendment which the noble Baroness has moved. Therefore I shall support it, and I hope that the Government will accept it.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, this topic of special provision for the elderly was, I think rightly, the most important point to which the Committee gave attention at the earlier stage of this Bill. It is certainly something which the Association of District Councils, representing 300 of the housing authorities in the country—much the largest number—has been urging upon the Government from the moment that the Bill was first prepared in the department and throughout its passage through both Houses.
The House will recall that at tile Committee stage the whole question was canvassed from two different points of view and approached in two ways. The first was along the lines of this amendment, with a view to securing an exception in the case of elderly people from the right to buy. The alternative approach was to secure for the local housing authority a pre-emptive right to the repurchase of the property if it subsequently came on to the market. That proposal was
put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, and the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, in their respective amendments. My recollection is that after a full discussion of the amendments based upon the first method and the amendments based upon the second method, the Government undertook to take the matter away and come forward with something based upon the second. I venture to suggest that, on the whole, that was the method favoured by the Committee as a whole, although we had no vote upon it.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, when the Government offered to take the matter away the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, raised the point—if he had not I should have done so myself—as to whether it should be taken back, otherwise at that time there would have been a vote upon what was a wider amendment than this. All the amendments were taken back. There was no decision at that time that we had moved into the position that the noble Lord is talking about now.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I agree that there was no decision either way. Also, I certainly agree that the amendment which the noble
Baroness has now put forward is a great improvement on a similar amendment which she moved in Committee and that it is much more tightly drawn. Nevertheless, for my part I still greatly favour, and so do the ADC, the approach to the problem which is represented by Amendment No. 23 which stands in the name of my noble friend Lord Bellwin. It provides for the right to buy not to be taken away from the elderly—I should have thought that the case for that was very strong—but gives the right to buy to the local housing authorities. This is the amendment now favoured by the Association of District Councils. Therefore, I strongly recommend my noble friend to stick to his guns, and in due course to move Amendment No. 23, and the House to resist Amendment No. I which certainly attempts to deal with the problem but which deals with it in the wrong way.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: My Lords, first may I say that I very warmly welcome the amendment which has been moved by the noble Baroness. It is well thought out, and it is moderate and permissive. It is also very tightly drawn and would set very clear boundaries and distinctions as to the kind of properties which would he available for local authorities to retain as against those which could be sold. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has commended to us Amendment No. 23 which we shall debate later. I do not wish to rehearse those arguments now but my complaint against that amendment is not the right of pre-emption, which the noble Lord mentioned, but the wording to which the noble Baroness has referred your Lordships—"substantially different from those of an ordinary dwelling-house"—which, on a fairly objective assessment by the AMA and other authorities, is very difficult to define. My own amendment sought to retain the right of pre-emption. As I said during the Committee stage, I think that it is a pity that older people should not have some opportunity to make a profit in due course on the re-sale of their house.
However, I recognise now, for I have thought a great deal about this problem

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since having seen the Marshalled List, read the amendment put down by the noble Baroness and taken advice, that we should be confronted with the right of pre-emption. Perhaps the Minister will be able to reassure me about this, but I do not think that he will be able to. Local authorities at present and in the likely future climate will not be able to repurchase properties which were designed and built principally for old people. Therefore, on balance, I prefer the noble Baroness's amendment, although I must go on to say that I prefer my own amendment to the Minister's. But that, I suppose, is understandable. If we pass the noble Baroness's amendment the type of accommodation for which we are taking away the right of sale will at least be clear. But if, as I suspect your Lordships might be inclined to do at this moment, we pass the Government amendment, we would be left with a great area, a great miasma of uncertainty which would go on at least for 10 years until the matter was tested in court when the pre-emption came up.
I think it is vitally important, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt said, that the able-bodied elderly should be encouraged in every possible way to live in their own accommodation, unfettered by any restrictions. In this day and age the average old age pensioner, the elderly person, is not, speaking in general, going to be able to afford to buy his or her own house during retirement. Therefore, the overwhelming proportion of old people's accommodation available for able-bodied old people will have to come from the public sector, and if we are in fact saying, as the Government are saying, that there is going to be a massive cutback in local authority building of all kinds—it is already happening—then, unless we preserve the stock of houses specifically designed or set aside for old people, we shall come to a situation in five or 10 years where there is virtually no accommodation available for the able-bodied elderly people. I beg the Government, with the greatest goodwill, to accept this amendment and to make it part of the legislation. It would make a great improvement to the legislation and I believe we would be widely praised throughout the country if we were to take this generous line.
3.32 p.m.
Baroness DENINGTON: My Lords, it is quite obvious that in this Chamber there is very great concern on this subject. But it is not just in this Chamber. As has already been said, there is deep concern over this matter generally. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said, the local authorities are extremely concerned about the loss of accommodation for aged people through the sale of bungalows which might go to anybody in the open market because they are very desirable properties. The housing association movement is deeply concerned about it all, and there is an enormous responsibility—I hesitate to say this because I am sure your Lordships are fully aware of it—on us here this afternoon in the decision that we take in this matter. I cannot stress enough that there really is not enough accommodation available to meet the needs of our ageing population. The pressure on it everywhere is most acute.
Let us be quite clear what we are talking about. We are not talking about sheltered accommodation, where there is a warden and a bell system. The Government have already exempted that, quite rightly and properly, and we are glad it is exempted. We are not talking about accommodation specially adapted for the disabled. That, too, is already exempted, and we are grateful. We are talking about the hundreds and hundreds —did not the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, give us a figure of something over 200,000? —of units of accommodation, ordinary, mainly one-bedroom bungalows or flats, that have been provided and are now occupied by our elderly senior citizens. It is accommodation that is for fit people—not unfit people, but fit people, broadly speaking, between the ages of 60 and 8020 years of their lives. They move into it because their houses are too big for them. There is a great need for family accommodation, and so they are glad to release the accommodation they are in, whether it is in a private market or the local authority market, for a family who are wanting family accommodation.
So they move into the bungalow or flat, which helps them and helps a family. It helps them, because as one gets older and although one is fit, very often one finds it difficult to go up and down stairs.

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Elderly people do not want big accommodation, anyway, and a small, comfortable, cozy (if I can use that word) unit of accommodation is just what suits them, provided that they can get a home help. That is all they want. Very often at the beginning help is required for only one day a week, and as they get older it may increase even to five days a week. But they are living independently. Surely it is the need of this nation that we enable people and do everything we can to let them go on living independently as long as they are able to do so and not be dependent upon hospitals or the social services more than they need.
This is what we are talking about. Really there is not enough accommodation at all to meet this need. There is not nearly enough in the private sector. I have said this before, and I wish to goodness that the Government could in some way encourage the private sector to build suitable small accommodation for people who want it, who are selling a house, and have money to buy this kind of accommodation. But mainly it has been the local authorities and the housing associations who have tried to meet this urgent need for the nation. It is in order to preserve this that we are all stressing our concern this afternoon.
I thought the Minister listened to us with great sympathy the last time we discussed this matter, and I had great hopes that he would come forward with some suitable proposal. I looked up the words he used before. He said:
"I feel it was most likely that we should want to do something about it".
I am sure the Minister does want to do something about it, but I think at this stage we must draw attention to the amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, has down for later consideration. I was bitterly disappointed when I read that amendment because, quite frankly, it gives us nothing. There are the two words in that amendment--my Lords, I understand that a Statement is to be made. Shall I finish my speech or stop for the Statement? I must ask for the guidance of the House.
Several noble Lords: Finish.
Baroness DENINGTON: Thank you, my Lords. I shall try not to be too long.
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I must turn to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, which says that he will only exempt a place that is substantially different. What does "substantially different" mean if it is challenged in the court? It cannot mean that one has got a pole up by the bath; that is not substantially different, although that is the sort of thing that is put in as an extra in an old person's bungalow. It cannot be that one has got a special low bath—that is not substantially different—or that the taps are different. It could not stand up in a court of law; it is not possible that it could. These are ordinary bungalows, and therefore, much as we would like to if it were possible, I cannot see how we could accept the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin. So we are faced with the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, or that of the noble Lord, Lord Evans, and clearly it is the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, for which we all ought to go.
On the last occasion, I withdrew my amendment. Your Lordships may remember that even then I spoke to the original amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and I am doing the same now. If I am forced to vote because we do not carry this one—I do hope we shall carry it—then I shall support the noble Lord, Lord Evans. We are both on exactly the same wavelength, as I think most of your Lordships are, in that we want to support the noble Baroness, Lady Birk.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, I think I would have to begin by saying, first of all, that my concern and that of the Government is no less than the concern of anyone who has spoken in so far as both the rights of individual elderly persons and the needs of the community as a whole to be able to provide accommodation for the elderly are concerned. The amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, would greatly increase the scope of the exemption of elderly persons' dwellings from the right to buy provided in paragraph 4 of Schedule 1. I pay tribute without any reservation to the forthright and indeed humane way in which she and others have spoken on this subject, but what

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they propose cannot be reconciled with fairness and equality of treatment for the elderly and the right to buy. At the last election, the Conservative Party manifesto contained a promise that—
Lord STRABOLGI: Oh!
Lord BELLWIN: —council and new town tenants would be given the right to buy their homes. That promise did not leave out the elderly or any other class of tenant. The Government's policy is that as many secure tenants as possible in the public sector should have the right to buy and that exceptions to that rule should be kept to an absolute minimum. In the case of old people's dwellings, we concluded that the right and fair approach was to identify in the Bill the circumstances in which the right of individual tenants was outweighed by the need for their dwelling to be kept in the ownership of the community and to exclude the dwellings concerned.
Paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 imposes a triple test for exclusion. The first test is that the dwelling must be one of a group; the second is that it must be the practice of the landlord to let the dwelling for occupation by persons of a pensionable age; the third is that social service or special facilities must be provided in close proximity to the group of dwellings. In the view of the Government, this achieves the right balance. Because of the strength of the concern expressed in Committee on this subject, I said that with my colleagues I would consider further the amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk and the noble Baroness, Lady Denington.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, did the Minister not also say that he would also consider my amendment at Committee stage at the same time?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I am sure I did and I apologise to my noble friend for not mentioning his name. These amendments would have required the conveyance or lease to contain a covenant giving the landlord the right to first refusal at full market value if an elderly person's dwelling sold under the right to buy was resold within 10 years. I have fulfilled the commitment which I then
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gave by tabling Amendment No. 23, upon which noble Lords opposite have spoken and upon which I will reserve further comments because I am assuming that we are not taking this present amendment together with those and I will therefore come back to that subject on Amendment No. 23.
The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, has argued that pre-emption is not the answer because the landlord would have to pay the full market value of the dwelling if it was brought back. That was among the other points which she made and she also referred to local authorities' resources and asked what resources they would have to buy back. Indeed, I think other speakers as well suggested that local authorities would not be in a position to buy back because of the cuts in the housing investment allocations. We are speaking of a pre-emption right over a period of 10 years, and I suggest that the position of housing allocations at the present time does not have any great relevance to the ability or otherwise of local authorities to buy back in 10 years' time. Quite apart from the other aspects, I will not, unless pressed, speak upon the housing finances of local authorities because I could make a very strong case with regard to the extra finances that they will have available to them when other aspects of this Bill come into force and which will enable them to do far more in connection with the provision of accommodation, should they so wish. However, leaving that aside, the ability to buy back from resources is not relevant in so far as the present housing allocation position is concerned.
In tabling Amendment No. 23 we have endeavoured to meet the anxieties which many have expressed and when we come to that amendment no doubt we shall go over that ground. However, what we are not prepared to contemplate is any suggestion that an elderly tenant should be prevented from buying his home solely or principally on the grounds of his age. The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, must know that for that reason her amendment is unacceptable, although, as she said, the references to design and special adaptation do make it somewhat narrower than the one which she tabled at Committee stage. But it would exclude elderly tenants from the right to buy in many cases, even where the dwelling-house,

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in spite of minor design features or adaptations, was not genuinely sheltered for special needs housing in the sense of the exclusion in paragraph 4 of the schedule. They could be excluded, for example, if they lived in a development of smaller dwellings which, although they might have been built with the elderly in mind, and normally let to tenants of pensionable age, might have little about them which differed from ordinary housing suitable for occupation by tenants of any age.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, can we just establish, at the very beginning of this debate, that the elderly, by Act of Parliament, are persons over the age of 80? That has never been declared before, but it was in an Act of Parliament relating to pensions. If we continue to talk about "the elderly" it is very confusing. The amendment distinctly says, "persons of pensionable age", which is a different proposition, and I think it would be most useful if throughout the debate the Minister would refer to the group we are actually talking about.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, no doubt it would have been equally useful if perhaps the previous speakers had given the same definition. Nevertheless, the noble Baroness leads me on to the points that were made by various speakers and this in fact is one of the very points that I wanted to make. What are we talking about when we speak of "the elderly"? For that matter what type of accommodation are we talking about? The noble Baroness, Lady Denington, quite rightly talked of housing people who were—I think she said "accommodation for fit people". She referred to hundreds of thousands of units of accommodation which would be excluded. She is absolutely right. If this amendment were carried, that is exactly what would be the consequence: hundreds of thousands of people, elderly by any definition that we might care to put, and it would not be people who were 80 or over. Where would noble Lords start to draw the line of "elderly"? What is "elderly"?
Several noble Lords: Pensioners!
Lord BELLWIN: Pensioners of 60 or 65, my Lords? Are we saying then that anybody of that age must henceforth not
28
have the same rights and, because they are of that age, they have to be disadvantaged as compared with anybody else?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I must ask the Minister to give way. He seems to have forgotten that the amendment says that the houses have to be specially designed and adapted. That is the whole point.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, as it happens, speaker after speaker in no way referred to that. If I am answering on this amendment, I am equally entitled, so far as I am aware, to make reference to the points that others have made, and just about everyone who has spoken has referred to the elderly in the most general of terms. They have referred to housing, which if we think about it, goes way beyond even the 300,000 or 400,000 that the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, mentioned, because housing of one- or two-bedroomed accommodation—and that is what we are talking about—
Several noble Lords: Oh!
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, that is the accommodation to which one assumes we refer when we speak of housing for the elderly. We do not think of it as three or four bedrooms or more; we think of one or two bedrooms, and therefore by definition if we pass this amendment we should be excluding accommodation—I have given way several times and perhaps I may be allowed to finish my speech because there will be an opportunity for others to speak afterwards, I am sure. This is really the kernel of it. What we are talking about here is an exclusion of hundreds of thousands—indeed, it may be more—of one- or two-bedroomed units of accommodation. Either one believes in the right of people to buy or one does not, and this Government are committed to giving a right to buy, and we would be most concerned if there were such a broad massive exclusion of this kind, well-intentioned though it might be. The effect would be to go well beyond what many of those on this side of the House believe that it should mean.
Referring to some of the other comments that have been made, the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, said that it would be better that old people should not

29
be able to buy at all. That is fundamental. We believe that it is better that they should be able to buy. I repeat, because I believe that it is worthy of emphasis, we do not want old people to be in any way disadvantaged. I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Sandford for what he said. It is a fact that the ADC had expressed great concern, and we have tried to meet that concern by means of the pre-emption conditions. Pre-emption means (if I say it again for 10 years) that if the person concerned who has bought wishes to resell, then it is up to the local authority or the housing association; they will have the opportunity to buy back within 10 years. I think that is a considerable move.
My Lords, the right reverend Prelate, to whom I always listen very carefully, said that we must protect and defend the rights of aged persons. I suggest with the greatest respect that that is exactly what we are seeking to do by giving them these rights. He suggested that places secured in this way might be put into jeopardy. Then you have the debate, my Lords, about what happens to housing stock when a person occupies it as an owner rather than as a tenant. I would be the first to concede that there is a marginal difference between an elderly person occupying it as an owner rather than a tenant and the position when a younger person does so, because with a younger person—so far as I am concerned there is no question about it—there is no difference whatsoever. There is a marginal difference when elderly persons occupy it, but it is only marginal, and at the end of the day the effect upon the totality of housing can only be marginal.
My Lords, other noble Lords have spoken and have referred to their concern to allow people to go on living independently. In what way is this going to detract from their ability to live independently? In what way does this send aged persons into homes and hostels when they would not otherwise be going in?
I can only say, to conclude, that this is a difficult point. I said so when I talked about it before and no doubt I shall be saying so when I talk about it again
30
on Amendment No. 23; but what we have to do is to see that there is a balance to enable the community to provide one- and two-bedroom units of accommodation. This is quite apart from specialised accommodation for elderly persons. On the other hand, there is the necessity to ensure that old people or people of pensionable age are not disadvantaged. The decision is your Lordships'. So far as I am concerned, I do not see that by giving people the right that the Government are seeking to give them there would be disadvantage of this kind. At the most, it can only be at the periphery, and in the totality of what we are seeking to do I believe the case—and I have as much concern as anyone else—is an overwhelming case.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I think the time has come to round up the debate, as the Minister has now answered. only want to take about one minute, to say first that what I am going to ask the House to vote on is my amendment which refers to specially designed, specially adapted houses, which, by the DOE's own figures, refers to about 220,000 people. I am very grateful to all those who have spoken in support of it, but whether they went wider than the amendment is not relevant at this point.
The only other point I would make is that I think the question of resources is extremely relevant because the moment this Bill becomes law people who have been in their accommodation for three years will immediately have the right to buy. So we do not have to wait for 10 years. Furthermore, with inflation as it is, it is going to be very much more expensive to build specially adapted and designed houses. I think this should be kept in mind.
My Lords, I think we have had a very long and fruitful debate. I intend to press the Division, and I beg to move.
3.55 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 109; Not-Contents, 74.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Fulton, L.

Oram, L.

Amherst, E.

Gage, V.

Paget of Northampton, L.

Amory, V.

Gaitskell, B.

Pargiter, L.

Ampthill, L.

Gardiner, L.

Peart, L.

Ardwick, L.

Garner, L.

Phillips, B.

Aylestone, L.

Gifford, L.

Plant, L.

Bacon, B.

Gordon-Walker, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Balogh, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Reilly, L.

Banks, L.

Grey, E.

Rhodes, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Guildford, Bp.

Roberthall, L.

Beswick, L.

Hale, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Birk, B.

Hampton, L.

Seear, B.

Blease, L.

Hanworth, V.

Seebohm, L.

Blyton, L.

Hawke, L.

Segal, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Henderson, L.

Shinwell, L.

Brockway, L.

Hooson, L.

Simon, V.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Smith, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Hughes, L.

Spens, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Hunt, L.

Stamp, L.

Byers, L.

Hylton, L.

Stedman, B.

Clancarty, E.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Clwyd, L.

Ilchester, E.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Collison, L.

Janner, L.

Stone, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Strabolgi, L.

David, B. [Teller.]

Kinloss, Ly.

Strathspey, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Leatherland, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Leonard, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

de Clifford, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B. [Teller.]

Underhill, L.

Denington, B.

Wade, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Wallace of Coslany. L.

Eldon, E.

London, Bp.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

McCluskey, L.

Wigoder, L.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Willis, L.

Evans of Hungershall, L.

Milverton, L.

Wilson of Radcliffe, L.

Exeter, Bp.

Monson, L.

Wootton of of Abinger, B.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Moyne, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Fortescue, E.

Northfield, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Adeane, L.

Dundee, E.

Marley, L.

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Effingham, E.

Middleton, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Ellenborough, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Alport, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Auckland, L.

Faithfull, B.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Avon, E.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Newall, L.

Balerno, L.

Gainford, L.

Northchurch, B.

Barnby, L.

Geoffrey-Lloyd, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Bellwin, L.

Gisborough, L.

Orkney, E.

Belstead, L.

Glendevon, L.

Robbins, L.

Berkeley, B.

Grimstone of Westbury, L.

Sandford, L.

Bessborough, E.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Boyd of Merton, V.

Savile, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Halsbury, E.

Sharples, B.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Soames, L. (L. President.)

Carrington, L. (A Principal Secretary of State.)

Hatherton, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Cawley, L.

Ironside, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Cockfield, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Trenchard, V.

Craigavon, V.

Long, V.

Trevethin and Oaksey, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Lyell, L.

Vickers, B.

Daventry, V.

McAlpine of Moffat, L.

Vivian, L.

De Freyne, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Denham, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Westbury, L.

Derwent, L.

Mancroft, L.

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Mansfield, E.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS MONOPOLY
4.5 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of INDUSTRY (Viscount Trenchard): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Industry this afternoon in another place on the telecommunications monopoly. The Statement runs:
"The present rapid growth of telecommunications and of information technology provides immense opportunities for the industries connected with telecommunications. Over the coming years the majority of British households will be affected. Whole new industries and sub-industries and many new jobs will be created.
"These developments have been under way for a longer time in the United States and have gathered more momentum there than here. I am sure that one of the reasons for America's greater success has been the freedom available there to entrepreneurs to develop new services and a wide range of equipment associated with telecommunications. The opportunities and the market are too great to be encompassed by a single organisation, however skilled and however great its resources.
"For these reasons I announced last September that the Government would be reviewing British Telecommunications' present monopolies over the supply of terminal equipment attached to the telecommunications network and over the provision of services to third parties using British Telecommunications circuits. Following widespread consultation with interested parties, the Government have reached the following conclusions.
"First, we are going to make it very much easier for equipment supplied by the private sector, including all private branch exchanges, to be attached to the network. Subject to a transitional period of about three years, there will be freedom to attach and maintain independently approved equipment which meets the necessary technical standards. The only exceptions will be
34
the supply, installation and maintenance of the first telephone and associated wiring connected directly to the main network, and the maintenance of private branch exchanges and associated wiring, for which British Telecommunications will remain responsible. This substantial change will give the business and domestic customer a wider range of equipment from which to choose and should remove many of the bottlenecks resulting from the Post Office's present exclusive privilege of supplying such equipment.
"Secondly, we are going to allow people more freedom to use British telecommunications' circuits to offer services to third parties which are not currently provided by British Telecommunications, for example in the data processing field. I expect this change to lead to a significant growth in information, data transmission, educational and entertainment services provided over telephone circuits and to the emergence of new businesses. I have also decided to commission an independent economic assessment of the implications of allowing complete liberalisation for what are commonly referred to as value added network services.
"Thirdly, I am exploring the scope for allowing the private sector to provide telecommunications transmission services such as satellite business systems.
"Legislation will be introduced next Session which will make provision for relaxing the monopoly. British Telecommunications will be free to compete with the private sector but to ensure fair competition the Government intend to take powers to require it, where appropriate, to create a separately accounting subsidiary or subsidiaries where it is in competition with the private sector. We shall welcome partnerships with private capital in these subsidiaries.
"I hope that the first fruits of these changes will be manifest within a year or so from now and that they can be fully phased in over the next three years. I look forward to seeing at an early stage approved extension telephones on sale in the shops, as well as greater com-

35
petition in the installation and wiring of currently approved apparatus on business premises. The changes will bring new opportunities and challenges both for British Telecommunications and the telecommunications industry and I hope both will respond positively to this greater freedom. They will have the opportunity to expand their range of products to compete successfully both at home and in world markets, and I look forward to the associated development of new enterprises and industries.
"I have today placed in the Libraries of both Houses a memorandum giving fuller details of these proposed changes."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement. In fact the Memorandum to which I have just referred is in the Printed Paper Office.
4.10 p.m.
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for repeating the Statement made in another place by the Secretary of State. I think it is true that the success of British Telecommunications will depend to a large extent on its ability to invest a considerable amount in itself, and, of course, for some time now this investment has been limited to the profits which it has been able to generate internally.
It is certainly true at the present time that France and Germany are investing roughly twice as much as the United Kingdom in the internal telecommunications system. If, as the Statement envisages, one is going to cream off some of the profitable sections of the telecommunications industry, it will be that much more difficult for sufficient money to be generated to enable there to be sufficient investment.
It is, of course, true that the greater part, shall I say?, or some of the most profitable sections of the telecommunications industry are the "add on" bits which it is proposed to hive off. One might well wonder and ask how the consumer himself would benefit if it is going to become that much more difficult for British Telecommunications to generate its own investment.
36
My Lords, the policy of the Post Office for many years has been to buy British, and what is envisaged in this Statement is that there should be much greater competition, which would let in a substantial amount of foreign competition. This could have severe effects on parts of the British telecommunications manufacturing industry. One could envisage a situation in which there might be redundancies and closures. But, my Lords, I was gratified to read in the Memorandum which the Minister stated was in the Printed Paper Office, that in fact it is proposed that this will be phased over a period of three years and that the Government will be seeking the provision of reciprocal trading opportunities for British manufacturers overseas. One would hope that the implication of that clause—and perhaps the Minister will be able to clarify this—would be that if in fact Japanese instruments are to be allowed into this country to be installed as the second and subsequent instruments, this will only happen if there is a reciprocal agreement so that we are in as favourable a position for exporting such equipment overseas.
When the legislation is brought before it in the new Session, I think the House will want to look very carefully at these proposals. Certainly there is a very great amount of detail in them, particularly the detail in the Memorandum here, and this will have to be scrutinised very carefully.
4.13 p.m.
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for repeating the Statement which has been made in another place, and to ask him to confirm what I take to be the fact from the Statement, that the monopoly in the provision of the network will be maintained intact. That seems to me an essential requirement. With that proviso, however, we would very much welcome the opportunity for private sector initiatives in the provision of equipment. The monopoly on equipment has without doubt slowed down the development of what should be a rapidly expanding industry. Those of us who have attempted, for example, to get an Ansaphone and have been told that the Post Office's charge would be £8 a week for what is a glorified tape recorder, must be very glad to hear that there is to

37
be private enterprise introduced sector.
I should like especially to underline how important it is that this move should give an impetus to a new developing electronics industry, the kind of industry in which jobs in the future are to be found. As the Minister said in the Statement, this should create new jobs and new businesses. This must be so. It is vitally important that we should get into this business now and not wait, as was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, behind a tariff wall to develop our new equipment, but get into it now so that our industry can compete effectively with the Japanese industry in the provision of these parts.
I should like also to add that this seems to me to offer opportunities for new jobs of a rather different order. That is to say, with the widespread use of equipment of this kind, far more people will he able, in their own homes, to undertake work which depends on telecommunications equipment of one sort and another. This facility already exists but it could be expanded very considerably with more equipment available. There are already many people, particularly women, who are using these devices to earn money in their own homes, and this is a good line which could he extended very considerably when this equipment becomes more readily and cheaply available.
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, if I may take first the very helpful Statement by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, she has done my job for me. It is for the reason which she explained so clearly that we have introduced this policy and believe in it very strongly indeed. I can confirm to her nevertheless that it is our intention to keep the integrity of the Post Office basic network intact, as it is, and that goes through to the first telephone and it goes through to the approval and in some cases the installation of complicated wiring with exchanges. I think this once again shows that after taking evidence from all parties we have introduced a sensible, practical and moderate approach to this problem.
My Lords, so far as the three years is concerned—and the noble Baroness encouraged me to speed it—an industry that has not been free to compete and to
38
supply the many forms of gadgetry which we intend to free up, is not immediately ready to supply where some other countries are ready. The three-year phasing programme is essential, in our view, to give British industry an opportunity to prepare for this.
Yes, I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, by "reciprocity" we mean exactly what he has described; that is our objective. He will know, as I do, that there are complicated international arrangements. We are not fully master of some of them, but our clear intention is to ensure that if we liberalise our market others will be asked to do the same.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, mentioned our lack of investment. I was not sure whether he was talking of private investment or Government investment. On private investment, to invest when there is a monopoly situation in your home market, and it is difficult to supply, is obviously a discouragement. So far as Government investment is concerned, this is something that I have looked at over and over again, and it is not so clear that in this area we are not by one means and another helping our technology to be pulled forward; the schemes that are available are considerable and will be there to encourage investment over the future period.
I would say to the noble Lord that we do not believe we are in danger of allowing a creaming off of the most profitable parts of the telecommunications network; indeed, the basic network stands. It is true that profits currently are greater on the long distance telephone calls than on the local ones. But both of those will stand as they are at present.
The added value services depend upon a leased wire whether they are for computers to communicate with computers or with other organisations. The rentals for the leasing of those wires must clearly be set for the Post Office and its new subsidiaries and for private enterprise at a reasonable level. So, at present, we see no risk of any substantial creaming off. We believe that British Telecommunications should he able to continue to develop the efficiency of its essential network.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, the users will be very pleased to hear that statement. If one asks for a telephone in the United States one gets it the next day However, in Oxford, it takes about 18 months. Meanwhile, if one wants a telex installed in London, at present it can take up to 18 months, during which time the business in question is not in proper communication. Can my noble friend say whether a business which is waiting for a new telex and which has been told that it will take about 18 months, can now expect to have the telex in a much shorter time, or are we to expect the complete sorting out of this problem to take perhaps three years?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, it is between the two. The legislation which this Statement heralds will be introduced early in the next Session and thus large parts of it, including all the supplying of instruments and extensions, will start to be able to be put into operation in about a year from now.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that although his Statement will be generally welcomed it must still be recognised that it is a very tentative and rather nervous step? Even as regards the first installation of the first telephone, why should the monopoly exist? There is the question of electricity: private enterprise, with the central board, could put in the lines which are needed. There is the same situation with water and other public services. Why should the telephone be kept under restrictive monopoly, which will keep down the enterprise which will bring about what my noble friend wants—that is, the extra business and the extra energy? It is a first step, and let us hope that it is only a first step and that this is not the end of the road.
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, my noble friend wishes us to go further. Most countries retain a monopoly situation as regards their basic network. The United States did go as far as liberalising the first instrument but it has run into a certain number of quite serious problems as a result. For example, it is difficult for a householder to know whether it is, in fact, the first instrument that has failed which has been put in by a private supplier and is due to be maintained by him, or
40
whether it is the network that has failed. No such problem will arise in the British situation. It will be clear to the householder either that the network has failed —in which case he can ring British Telecommunications—or that the instrument on the extension is not working, because the prime instrument will still be working. So I think that we have steered a middle road.
As regards added value services, the Statement made clear that my right honourable friend is prepared to consider going further than the first steps announced.
Lord AIREDALE: My Lords, can we be assured that the fair competition between the public and the private sector will also extend to advertising practices?— because BT will be in the position that the electricity boards are in at present; namely, of sending out bills four times a year to all their subscribers. There will be temptation to yield to what some of the electricity boards are doing now—that is, to include leaflets with their bills advertising equipment which they have for sale. That is very unfair competition because at present postage rates it would cost the private sector a fortune to indulge in direct mail advertising on this scale. I hope that this point will be borne in mind when the proposed Bill is prepared.
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, we shall bear the noble Lord's point in mind in the discussions which will be taking place with all parties.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, we sincerely hope that the noble Viscount will be able to give us some assurance in regard to the effect that these new peripherals, these new value-added services, will have on the central network itself. Quite clearly, if there is to be an extensive use of these items—and that, of course, is what the Government's statement envisages—then there will be some extra load on the central circuit system itself and also upon its equipment. We would like to have some assurance that that has been taken into account. because, if there are additional modifications and alterations that have to be made in the central system, particularly in its carrier system, it will need a considerable amount of money. We should like to be assured that adequate investment or

41
permission to invest will be given to the ordinary telecom system.
As regards frequency transmisson, will the noble Viscount give us an assurance that the implication of the existing wave allocation system has been taken fully into account?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, I think that both points have been taken into account.
Lord UNDERHILL: My Lords, in the Statement kindly read by the noble Viscount the Minister, he referred to the privilege of the Post Office telecommunications in supplying its own equipment. Am I correct in saying that the telecommunication side of the Post Office does not manufacture its own equipment and that it supplies equipment on design and safety provisions that it lays down? In view of the new outlook for private companies, do I take it that the telecommunications side will now be enabled to manufacture its own equipment, which it has requested over very many years?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, I am not entirely clear about the answer to that point. However, I undertake to write to the noble Lord on the matter.

HOUSING BILL
4.28 p.m.
Consideration on Report continued.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 105, line 22, at end insert—
("5. The dwelling-house has been provided under the Housing (Temporary Provisions) Act 1944 or the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1945.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 2. This amendment deals with the problem of temporary housing, the prefab type of housing, and it is supported by the AMA. The concern of the authorities is that accommodation originally constructed as a temporary measure at the end of the Second World War and intended to have a limited life, will be subject to the right to buy within the current proposals. The amendment is intended to exclude
42
dwellings commonly known as prefabs which at the time of construction were intended to have a life of 10 years. While the majority of temporary accommodation has now been cleared, there remains a small number of such properties throughout the country, although most authorities are gradually clearing them as they become vacant.
The Association and other organisations consider that it is inappropriate to extend the right to buy to accommodation which was built for a temporary life only and where the intended life has been exceeded, and where authorities are, in general, clearing such properties when the occupants move. It would seem that if they do get the security of ownership, then when the authorities want to re-develop, they will be put to considerably more trouble and expense. I beg to move.
Lord BELLW1N: My Lords, one would have to say that this, of course, is another amendment designed to chip away at the right to buy, because it would exclude all housing provided under the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Acts of 1944 and 1945. We have heard that there will be all sorts of problems for local authorities if these dwellings are sold. However, although prefabs in general have been remarkably popular with tenants over the years, let us remember that they are temporary dwellings which are now over 20 years old, and most of them will now be at or near the end of their useful lives.
Even bearing in mind that valuations might be correspondingly low, I wonder whether tenants will buy these dwellings. Anyone who considered it would certainly be wise to think very carefully and to take expert advice before doing so. For although there may be circumstances in which it might not be in the tenant's interest to exercise his right to buy, it would be neither fair nor practical to try to take away the right to buy from tenants of all the 1944 prefabs. That might ensure that none of them bought where it would be unwise for them to do so, but it would also prevent any of them from buying where it might still be perfectly reasonable to do so. I suggest that that would be unfair and unacceptable. For that reason, we cannot accept the amendment.
Lord PARGITER: My Lords, will the noble Lord consider the further point, that in many cases it will not be the value of the prefab but the value of the site that will be the attraction. Having regard to what single-house property sites cost these days, if there is a site of a reasonable size with drainage, road access, lighting and everything else provided, it would be a very great temptation to want to buy it? You would get the odd ones bought in particular places which very often would prohibit the local authority doing proper redevelopment of the area. I think that that in itself would be undesirable.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, by leave of the House, I do not think that in any way that does other than make the case for resisting the amendment. I was trying to be helpful to the point of saying that I had reservations as to the extent to which it would he used. I hope I also stressed that the key factor in the Government's objection to the amendment was that we did not want to remove the right to buy. As the noble Lord said, it may be that people will want to do it not so much because of the unit itself, but because of the worth of the land on which it is sited. Leaving aside the fact that most of them are rather small sites, even so, I still believe that it is the right with which we are concerned; it is the right that we have promised; it is the right to which we are committed, and that is why we cannot accept the amendment.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I do not think that the reply is very satisfactory and I think that my noble friend Lord Pargiter made a very good point. However, I do not propose to press my luck on this, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.33 p.m.
Lord MONSON Lord MONSON moved Amendment No. 2A:
Page 5, line 34, after ("years") insert ("or, in the case of a dwelling-house to which the exception in paragraph 11 of Schedule 2 to this Act applies, for such shorter term as is required by that paragraph.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 2A, and with the leave of the House at the same time I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 12A
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and 18, which are consequential. The purpose of these amendments is to remove from the Bill a grave anomaly—one which, unless rectified, will impose an extremely heavy burden upon local authorities in years to come. What is more, it will also impose a very heavy burden on certain of those tenants, or rather their heirs and successors, who opt to buy their flats, as I shall demonstrate in a moment.
The anomaly in question is the requirement for all local authorities to grant applicants leases of 125 years or more whenever the lease is granted, whether it be granted in 1980, 1985, 1990 or, for that matter, 2030. This means that in regard to blocks of flats with a demonstrably limited life—and, remember, many blocks of flats in existence today were built 50, 60, 70 and even 80 years ago—the leases could fall in, not all at the same time so that the local authority could redevelop efficiently by demolishing the out-of-date and possibly even structurally-dangerous buildings and replacing them with modern, purpose-built blocks; but instead the leases will fall in at widely varying dates, in theory possibly as much as 100 years or more apart.
In the private sector this would be considered sheer insanity. In the private sector the length of long leases of flats in a single block is always geared so that they all fall in at the same time. These amendments will ensure that when local authority flats are sold the same sensible, practical, financially-prudent practice is followed. This is why virtually every respected professional body in the country which has anything to do with
finance or with property supports these amendments. I would instance the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, the Association of District Councils, which is, of course, Conservative-controlled, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, numerous local authorities—Conservative local authorities just as much as Labour-controlled ones —and many distinguished and experienced estate agents and land agents.
There is a further point to consider. I mentioned that if the Bill is unamended, it could backfire upon the tenant who buys his flat, or perhaps backfire upon his sons and daughters, or grandsons

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and granddaughters. This is because those few lessees who remain in an old and crumbling block of flats which is well past its prime but which cannot be redeveloped, will find themselves paying a larger and larger sum each year by way of their share of the service charge in order literally to prop up the structure of an outdated and possibly dangerous building. There are, additionally, immense complications in the case of partnership schemes entered into by developers in conjuction with local authorities, where council flats have been built above shops with a limited life as a quid pro quo for getting planning permission in the first place. As the Housing Centre Trust has asked:
"How could local authorities cater with limited resources for a limitless life for a flat in a block already 50 years old, or difficult to let, or with newly-discovered design faults?"
We all know about the design faults—the alumina cement and the number of post-war council blocks that have already been demolished for one reason or another.
When objections were raised in the Commons to the Bill as drafted, the astonishingly frivolous reply that apparently came from the Conservative side was that it did not really matter which side got its way in the debate, as all those who were taking part would be dead by the time difficulties started arising. I am sure that on reflection noble Lords on the Conservative Benches will agree that such an attitude does not really conform with traditional Conservative values. Surely all serious and respected political parties in this country are united, in wanting to put the important, long-term interests of future generations above short-term political considerations. Not that I believe for a moment that to grant leases of 122, 119, 114, or 108 years would lose the Conservative Party any votes to speak of, particularly when people appreciate the sensible aspect of changing the Bill. It is rare indeed to find so many respected professional bodies united in favour of this series of amendments. I hope that the Government will, therefore, accept them. If not, I hope that your Lordships will support me in the Division Lobby.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, the intention of these amendments was to provide that where tenants of flats bought their flats under the right to buy, the leases
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of the flats in a particular block should all fall in at the same time. The Government now accept that it is right to provide for this. However, the amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Monson, has moved, seems to us to be unsatisfactory. I hope that the noble Lord will accept that the Government's amendments on the supplementary Marshalled List have the same effect and substantially meet the representations made on the need for coterminus leases in blocks of flats. With that assurance, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, I should like to say how much I welcome the Government's acceptance of the principle of co-terminus leases. This is something to which I drew attention earlier in the Bill, pointing out the rigidity of the 125-year requirement. Speaking as a chartered surveyor and as a trustee of a charitable estate whose property is almost entirely let out on long leases—both residential and commercial—I only hope that the Government's amendments are really watertight and will meet the case.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I have my name to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, because I felt as he did, that it was a quite anomalous situation and that in addition it would make great difficulties for the management and maintenance of flats, particularly the communal part. I am afraid that I have only just seen the supplementary Marshalled List, but if this covers the points raised by the noble Lord and if he is satisfied, then I am happy as well.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I, too, have only just understood—or half understood—the amendment set out in the list supplementary to the Marshalled List. If the noble Lord tells me that it has the desired effect, then there is nothing more to add and I am delighted that the Government have seen fit to accept this principle. Therefore, I am very happy to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.40 p.m.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 2B:
Page 5, line 35, at end insert ("(subject to paragraph 11(2) of Schedule 2 to this Act)").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I should like to speak to this amendment and also to Amendments Nos. 12AZ and 18B. First, I should like to acknowledge that these amendments are intended to achieve the same result as amendments already tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Monson. I am grateful to him and to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and, I suspect, also to my noble friend Lord Hylton, who is not here. Maybe I am wrong about that. The Government have been convinced that the Bill should include such a provision. As there were technical difficulties over the wording of the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, we felt it was right to table Government amendments even though it had to be done at the last moment.
The main amendment is to Schedule 2. This provides that once one flat in a block has been leased under the provisions of the Bill for a term of 125 years or more than any subsequent lease of another flat in that block under the right to buy may terminate at the same time as the lease on the first flat. This would apply whether the first flat had been sold under the right to buy or voluntarily under the powers in Part I of the Bill.
Amendment No. 2B to Clause 6 makes the necessary adjustment to the assumptions made on the valuation of the second or further flat. Amendment No. 12AZ is a consequential amendment to Clause 16, and the provision as to the term of the lease which a landlord is bound to grant on a flat. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord MONSON Lord MONSON moved Amendment No. 2C:
Page 5, line 38, after ("annum") insert ("for the first 33 years of the term; £20 per annum for the second 33 years of the term, £40 per annum for the third 33 years of the term, and £80 per annum for the remainder of the term.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 2C, and with the leave of the House I shall speak at the same time to Amendment No. 18A. First, I should like to apologise to the House on having so many of my amendments on a list supplementary to the marshalled list, which I appreciate makes them rather difficult to follow. It takes
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a great deal of time for those of us without the power of Government at our elbow or legal expertise at our fingertips to draft effective and, with luck, cast-iron amendments to such a wide-ranging and complex Bill.
Although I moved a slightly similar amendment in Committee I want to emphasise that this is not an attempt to bring in a supplementary service charge by the back door, since the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, has now more or less succeeded in convincing me that service charges are already adequately provided for in Schedule 2 to the Bill and elsewhere. Like the previous amendment, it is simply an attempt to make the Bill conform more with what one believes to be Conservative principles by making these provisions more businesslike and efficient and less wasteful, by providing some protection against inflation for the initial ground rent of £10. When we discussed the question of ground rent in Committee the noble Lord, Lord Evans, rightly pointed out that it might well be more economic to charge a peppercorn, and I must say that if this amendment is not accepted I am inclined to agree with him.
£10 in 125 years' time at 3 per cent, inflation would be worth only 25p. At 5 per cent, inflation it would be worth only 2¼p, and at 10 per cent. inflation it would be worth 0·00067p. My very modest amendment effectively indexes the ground rent to the extremely modest degree of 2 per cent. inflation. If, therefore, as we hope, inflation were by some miracle brought down to only 5 per cent. the 2¼p that the £10 would be worth at the end of 125 years would, as a result of my amendment, be raised to 18p, which would just about cover the cost of a stamp and envelope even if not the clerical cost of sending out the demand. Of course, it is possible to argue that we will not have stamps in 125 years' time and everything would be done by direct debit, but even so I cannot believe that the cost of getting the amount from the tenant would be less than 18p in real terms.
It is not I who am being radical or proposing anything out of the ordinary, but the Government if they fail to accept this amendment. Every single lease in the private sector today, and indeed for the past 10 years or more, has included

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provisions for the indexation of the ground rent, usually once every 33 years or sometimes once every 25 years. Therefore, by accepting this amendment the Government would be simply following normal commercial practice.
If the Government succeed in bringing down inflation over the next 12 months to 15 per cent., and then subsequently to 10 per cent. for the rest of their period in office—and I do not think realistically they expect any more than that—then by the latest time that the next general election can take place in April 1984, £10 will already have fallen to £6·71 in real terms, so it can be seen that already the value of the initial ground rent is being eroded. For that reason, I hope that the Government will look extremely favourably upon this amendment.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Monson, for bringing this forward. The Government are in a sense, the author of their own difficulties here. If they mean a nominal rent, even in these inflationary days £10 is not a nominal sum of money. If they mean a nominal rent it would be better if they were to say either a peppercorn or, if you come from the county palatine of Lancaster, one red rose, or possibly for the noble Lord the Minister one white rose. They ought to make their minds up whether they mean a nominal rent or a rent that represents value. If they do, I think the noble Lord's amendment should be supported. If they mean a nominal rent, why do not they say so?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I trust that the noble Lord, Lord Monson, in making his inflationary forecasts is speaking for himself. Certainly I must dissociate myself from any such forecast he makes. May I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Evans, that he might also have referred to the possibility of a leek being used. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, put down amendments at Committee stage designed to allow for inflation in the imposition of ground rents on flats sold under the right to buy. He has now modified his proposals. The suggested rent would rise from £10 to £80 instead of from £25 to £400. However, I still believe that it is unnecessary to provide for an increase in the ground rent. The noble Lord, Lord
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Monson, said at Committee stage that he thought it would be better if local authorities could impose a service charge on flats sold under the right to buy, but failing this he urged the Government to consider his amendments which would try to maintain the real value of the ground rent. Since then I have written to the noble Lord to assure him that local authorities may levy service charges on such sales.
I did in fact explain this in Committee, but I am afraid that the hour and the pressure we were under to make progress did not allow me to take this rather complicated point at a pace which made it easy to follow. Rather than repeat myself at length, perhaps it would be best if I give noble Lords the Hansard reference for my explanation, being 26th June at cols. 1859 and 1860. All I would add to this is that paragraph 14(1) of Schedule 18 applies the provisions relating to service charges to flats sold under the right to buy.
The noble Lord's amendments would make allowance for inflation in the ground rent of flats sold on 125
year leases under the right to buy. I said in Committee that the ground rent—and I think this is really the major point—is not designed to secure a continuing income for the ground landlord but merely to represent in a necessarily token way his continuing interest in the land. I resisted the noble Lord's amendments in Committee for this reason. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, has now indeed modified his amendment since Committee stage in such a way as to moderate the increase in the ground rent, as I have said.
My reason for rejecting them, however, was that there is no need for any sort of increase in the ground rent. I have to say that this remains the Government's view, and that these amendments are no more acceptable than the earlier ones. I was interested in the point that the noble Lord, Lord Evans, made about a ground rent, a peppercorn rent, or whatever, but I fear that on this point the Government will not want to move. I wonder if, in the light of that, the noble Lord, Lord Monson, in that I think he might concede that this is probably not one of the major points that he raises, is able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I concede of course that this is not one of the major

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points in the Bill, but I think the Government are being rather shortsighted over it. It is rather like the response in another place to the previous issue we were discussing; namely, we shall all be dead before the trouble becomes apparent. The noble Lord said this represents just a token payment. In fact, it is an uneconomic token payment because once the lease is about one-quarter the way through it will become more expensive to collect the ground rent than not to collect it, and that cannot be sensible. Auditors will not allow local authorities merely to wash their hands of it but will insist on reminder letters being sent out, and it will cost a great deal more to extract these sums from rather slow payers than the income itself. However, the House being quite thin and, without a great number of noble Lords to support me, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 [Discount]:
4.51 p.m.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 6, line 32, leave out from ("to") to second ("the") and insert ("the following provisions of this section").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I will, with permission, speak at the same time to Amendments Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. There will be occasions when a secure tenant dies and the surviving husband or wife takes over as secure tenant of the marital home. These amendments are concerned with the effect of such a change on the terms on which a surviving spouse can exercise the right to buy. Their intention is to help widows and widowers.
As the Bill is drafted, spouses' entitlement to discount may be taken into account under Clause 7(6)(a) only if the secure tenant and spouse are living in the same dwelling as their only or principal home when a notice is served claiming to exercise the right to buy. This clearly would prevent a deceased spouse's entitlement from being invoked. In many cases this would make little or no difference to the discount which the spouse who
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became a secure tenant on the death of a husband or wife could claim; time spent in secure tenancies with the now dead husband or wife could in any event be claimed under Clause 7(5)(a) as a period during which the new secure tenant was the spouse of a secure tenant.
But there could be a case, for example where the widow had been married to a now deceased secure tenant for only 10 years out of his total 20 years' secure tenancy, and her discount entitlement would as a result be lower than his would have been. Elsewhere in the Bill the principle followed has been that the right to buy is rightly to be regarded as the property of the marriage partnership rather than one particular partner who is a secure tenant. Thus, Clause 1(5) allows a widow or widower who becomes a secure tenant on the death of a spouse to count the spouse's period of entitlement under Clause 1(3) towards his or her own qualification to exercise the right to buy. We have concluded, following this principle, that a widow or widower becoming a secure tenant on a spouse's death should be entitled to discount terms which are no less favourable than those on which the couple would have been able to buy had they done so together before the bereavement, and these amendments will achieve that.
Amendments Nos. 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8 accordingly add to the period to be taken into account in determining discount under Clause 7 periods during which the secure tenant's deceased spouse was a secure tenant or the spouse of a secure tenant. The effect of this is qualified by Amendment No. 5, which restricts the circumstances in which such periods may be claimed to cases where the present secure tenant became a secure tenant on the death of his or her spouse. This is intended to ensure that the couple's right to buy was the joint asset of a genuine marriage partnership at the time when the deceased spouse died.
For the same reason both spouses are required to have been occupying the dwelling-house as their only or principal home at the time of the death. This helps to ensure that discount is not claimed, for example, in respect of a marriage which has actually ended with the partners living separately but not yet divorced. These are small but important

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and humane amendments which prevent hard cases which might otherwise arise over widows' and widowers' entitlement to discount, and I am sure your Lordships will be glad to see them in the Bill.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, these are complicated and technical amendments, except for lawyers. Even though the Minister explained them, I am sure, with clarity, may I ask if it means that under Amendment No. 5 the period is or is not taken into account? In other words, if a man dies and his wife then becomes the tenant and she has lived in the house with him jointly for a number of years, does that count towards her residence for the right to buy and towards the discount time? I gather from the nod of assent of the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, that it does. What, then, happens in the case of a common law wife or a live-in friend—or whatever expression one wishes to use—where two people have been in a stable relationship for many years?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, the answer to the latter question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, is that to the best of my knowledge I should not have thought that would have applied. I am, however, open to correction on that and I shall, if I may, confirm or otherwise my answer a little later. I am not absolutely sure, but I should not have thought it would apply.
Baroness PHILLIPS: I should like to know how far on in time this goes, my Lords. I have an example of a widow who was the tenant and remarried and then died, then the husband became the tenant and remarried and his wife became the tenant, and this has gone on for some time. They have been protected right through. Does the same rule apply? In other words, for how long in time does this situation continue?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I should have thought in the case the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, cites that if the husband had gone on marrying different people, as it were, for one reason or another (there may have been divorces, or nature may have taken its course, and so on) the wife who was living when he eventually died—which might be sooner rather than
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later in those circumstances—would acquire his time in occupation.
Baroness PHILLIPS: To the third or only the second, my Lords?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I should have thought it would go on. If he has had many wives—all legally entitled, of course—I should have thought they would all qualify on the back of his time of tenure for such discount as might apply. That would be my interpretation, but should the position be otherwise, I undertake to notify the noble Baroness.
Baroness JEGER: My Lords, supposing two spouses have been living together for about 40 years and then, just before the death of one or the other, one of them goes off for a bit of a party with somebody else. At what point does that disenfrancise the delinquent spouse from being regarded as eligible under the clause?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, it would depend on what kind of a party it was. If it was the kind of party which was just one of those things that comes and goes, then I think it would have no effect whatever. If, however, it was the kind of party which resulted in, say, the husband departing the marital home indefinitely, if he was then to die I should have thought the wife, who in our hypothetical case I am assuming remained in the house, would be entitled to his time of tenure as a qualifying basis. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, if I am wrong I will let the noble Baroness know, but I suspect I am not wrong on this one.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 6, line 35, after ("spouse") insert ("or deceased spouse").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have spoken to this amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendments Nos. 5 to 8:
Page 7, line 9, at end insert—
("(aa) no period during which the tenant's deceased spouse was a secure tenant or the spouse of a secure tenant shall be so taken into account unless the tenant became the

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secure tenant on the death of his spouse and at the time of the death both occupied the dwelling-house as their only or principal home; and").
Page 7, line 10, at end insert ("or deceased spouse")
Page 7, line 28, after ("spouse") insert ("or deceased spouse")
Page 7, line 29, after ("is") insert ("(or was)").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I spoke to these amendments when moving Amendment No. 3. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 8 [Repayment of discount on early disposal of freehold or lease]:
5 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 8, line 40, leave out from ("by") to ("for") in line 41 and insert ("a body specified in subsection (4A) below").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in speaking to this amendment I wish to speak also to Amendments Nos. 10, 90 91, 92, 101, and 102, all of which are minor amendments. Clause 8 of the Housing Bill makes provision for the repayment of discount where a purchaser, under the right to buy, resells the dwelling-house within five years. This liability for repayment of discount on early disposal is deemed to take effect as a legal mortgage. There are two further equivalent provisions in the Bill; one is in Clause 91, and covers the case where a local authority voluntarily sells a council house at a discount, subject to a discount repayment liability. Clause 120 makes similar provision on the voluntary sale of a dwelling at a discount by a housing association.
As Clause 8 is drafted, if the landlord, the Housing Corporation, or a building society grants the purchaser a mortgage to finance the purchase, this mortgage takes priority over the mortgage securing the liability to repayment of discount. However, as the Bill stands, any mortgage granted by any other lender to finance the purchaser would rank in priority after the discount repayment mortgage.
So far as possible, we wish to encourage those who purchase houses from local authorities or housing associations to get
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the mortgages they need from private sector lenders. In this way we seek to derive the maximum benefit to the public purse from the sale of council houses. Therefore, we have concluded that it would be right for certain other lenders' mortgages to be stated to have first priority under the Bill. Broadly speaking, these lenders are insurance companies, trustee savings banks, and banks as identified in the Home Purchase Assistance Act 1978, as recognised lending institutions for house purchase. Amendments Nos. 90, 91, and 92 achieve exactly the same result in relation to voluntary sales by local authorities.
It is also necessary to ensure, in regard to Clause 120, that a Housing Corporation mortgage will have first priority on a voluntary sale by a housing association. This is achieved by Amendments Nos. 101 and 102.
These amendments make the necessary changes to Clauses 8, 91, and 120. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 8, line 43, leave out from ("by") to end of line and insert ("that body.
(4A) The bodies referred to in subsection (4)(b) above are—

(a) the Housing Corporation;

(b) any building society; and

(c) any of the bodies specified in paragraph 6, 7 or 8 of the Schedule to the Home Purchase Assistance and Housing Corporation Guarantee Act 1978.").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have already spoken to this amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 13 [Change of secure tenant after notice claiming right to buy or right to a mortgage]:
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 12, line 29, leave out ("or the right to a mortgage").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 11 and 12 are procedural amendments to Clause 13, which governs what happens when there is a

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change of secure tenant after the service of a notice claiming the right to buy. When the change of tenancy takes place the landlord may already have served a notice under Clause 10 which tells the tenant about the price to which he is entitled and, among other things, about his right to a mortgage. In all cases however the size of a mortgage to which an eventual purchaser is entitled will depend on his own circumstances. Where the tenancy changes after the service of a right to buy notice it will be the new tenant's income that will be relevant. He must therefore fill in a form giving details of his financial circumstances if he wishes to take up the right to a mortgage. Amendment No. 12 therefore provides that where a notice has already been served under Clause 10, a new form is to be sent to the new tenant. The new tenant would then have the normal three months to fill in and return the form. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 12, line 39, leave out from beginning to ("or") in line 1 on page 13 and insert—
("(2) If a notice under section 10 of this Act has been served on the former tenant, the landlord shall serve on the new tenant a further form for his use in exercising the right to a mortgage and the new tenant may then serve a notice under section 12(1) within the period of three months beginning with the service on him of that form").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I spoke to this amendment when dealing with the last amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 16 [Completion]:
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 12AZ:
Page 14, line 20, at end insert ("(subject to paragraph 11(2) of Schedule 2 to this Act)").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I spoke to this amendment when dealing with Amendment No. 2B. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 12A not moved.]
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 14, line 40, leave out ("two years") and insert ("six months").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this amendment and the two following amendments are intended as attempts once more to do something about that rather outrageous creature, the option, which we very much dislike, since it comes on top of the discount, and the amendments provide different ways in which to minimise some of its extravagant effects. Amendment No. 13 seeks to reduce the period for which the option can be held from two years to six months. It appears that the Government are insisting on holding on to the option; they will not give it up, as I and many other people believe they should do. The object of the amendment is to ensure that the option is granted only in order to help people over a bridging period, which should be as short as possible.
I suppose that in those circumstances it could be argued that the provision is just about feasible, since it takes people about six months to organise their affairs in order to complete a sale. However, people should not be allowed a lengthy period of time that is not really consonant with the question of being able to find the small edge of the finance that they need. This matter is supposed to be clearly tied down, but our following amendments deal with it, since we do not accept the situation. The provision should be used merely to help people over the short bridging period.
The amendment would also avoid a situation which must arise if the Bill remains as it is at the moment. On certain occasions a number of people will take out options in a slaphappy fashion since, after all, they are not going to cost them anything. However, at the end of the two years' period, or even earlier, they may decide not to pursue the matter further. This may be because they still cannot afford to go ahead. The Minister may say that that point is covered in the Bill, but we do not accept that it is; hence the next amendment that we shall be moving. On the other hand, they may treat the matter almost as a status symbol, so that they can say that they have taken out an option to buy a house, even though after a period of two years they are not

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likely to be in a position to complete the purchase. This situation seems to me to involve a rather unpleasant method of encouraging people to aspire to things that are beyond their means.
On the previous occasion we discussed this matter I raised a point to which I do not think I received an answer. I realise that at that time many questions were asked of the Minister, who has entered into considerable correspondence, but I think that this particular point has been overlooked. I asked the Minister what will be the cost of processing these applications. After all, if people apply for an option, someone has to file the application, or otherwise deal with it. There has to be correspondence, and I feel that much unnecessary expenditure will be involved. I beg to move.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, having spoken at Second Reading as strongly as I could about the unsatisfactory consequences of a combination of the discount and the option period, I should like to support this amendment. In moving it, the noble Baroness has touched on the effect of the present option on local authorities, and particularly on local authority staffs. I think that if her amendment is accepted there will be a great deal of saving of unnecessary administration, and I hope the Government will accept it.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I, too, should like to support the noble Baroness in this amendment. I shall be happier still to support Amendment No. 15, which I think I am right in saying is an alternative to No. 13. In fact, I would have put down my name to Amendment No. 15 had I not suspected that the drafting may be imperfect. Noble Lords may be surprised to know that according to the Nationwide Building Society, in the two years from the autumn of 1977 to the autumn of 1979 house prices rose by no less than 63·7 per cent. Who can possibly deny that such a rise in house prices might not happen again? Suppose this were to occur between the autumn of 1980 and the autumn of 1982—and I am not trying to make a political point in saying that inflation and rising house prices occur only under one Government or another; I simply choose 1980 to
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illustrate what might happen. Suppose the house were to be valued by the district valuer at £20,000 in the autumn of 1980, and a tenant entitled to a 50 per cent. discount put down an option to buy that house for £10,000. By the time he came to exercise his option in the autumn of 1982 the value of that house would have risen to £32,740, so his effective discount would be not 50 per cent. but just under 70 per cent.—69·46 per cent., to be precise. Similarly, someone entitled to a 33 per cent. discount would effectively receive a 59 per cent. discount if the rise in house prices were to be of this magnitude.
I fully recognise that the figures 33 per cent. and 50 per cent. were included in the Conservative manifesto. We had a Divsion on the discounts at Committee. We were defeated, albeit not by a very large margin, and we accept that, although I must tell the noble Lord, Lord Beliwin, and his colleagues on the Front Bench that in the interim an amazingly large number of Conservatives in the country —Conservatives who are involved in local government, particularly—have come up to me or have written to me and said how much they approved of my amendment; but that is by the by. However, it was not in the manifesto that effective discounts should vary between 59 and 70 per cent., which would be the case if we have a similar rise in house prices in the future to what we have had in the past and one or other of the amendments of the noble Baroness is not accepted.
I prefer Amendment No. 15 because I think it is a little fairer to those who are not able to get their deposit organised within six months. It still gives a pretty handsome discount. Effectively, the man in the first instance, instead of being able to get his £32,740 house for £10,000, would have to pay £13,185 for it, but that is still a discount of 59·73 per cent.— a good deal better than 50 per cent. Similarly, a person entitled to a 33 per cent. discount would effectively get a 46 per cent. one; so they are still doing a lot better by having the option than by not having it, but the public purse is not being hit to quite the same extent as would be the case if one or other of these amendments is not accepted.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, may I just say that if the same people who had written to the noble Lord, Lord Monson,

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and expressed their concern had fully understood exactly what is being proposed in the Bill, they may perhaps have had less concern; and I shall try to make this point again, as I did at Committee stage. But before I do so perhaps I may comment briefly on one or two points that the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, made. She was concerned about people aspiring, as she said, to do things beyond their means, and then she went on to say that they will take out options in a slaphappy fashion. I have to remind your Lordships that one has to put £100 down, and if that is a status symbol, or whatever, it is one about the value of which there might be differing views.
One point I cannot answer her on—I should like to do so, but I cannot at this time—is her question about the cost of processing this. I do not have that information at the present time. But would suggest that in the context of what we are trying to do by giving this option it is not particularly important, and certainly I do not expect that it would be very significant. This is really the major point in this option matter, and I want to repeat it very carefully by saying that this is a tightly-drawn provision. It is not a wide open thing where anyone can come along and decide, "I will not buy now; I think T might do better, as the noble Lord, Lord Monson, said, by hanging around for a couple of years, so I will leave it for that time; but I will put my £100 down". They cannot do that, because the right to have an option for deferred completion will be available only in limited circumstances; that is, where a tenant's mortgage entitlement would not enable him to buy immediately.
I have written to noble Lords who were anxious about this aspect of these proposals explaining to them that the only circumstances in which the right to deferred completion will arise are those in which the calculation of a purchaser's mortgage entitlement has been made and has shown him not to be entitled to a mortgage large enough to enable him to buy at once. In any event, I consider that most people will want to do so at once so that they can start paying off their mortgage, and so that the five years for discount-sharing begins to run soon. In the case of those whose resources are so small that they cannot get the mortgage entitlement that they need, I would have thought it was
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very praiseworthy that they should then want to set about saving up, if you like, to get to the point where it was.
As to the life of the option, it must be long enough to fulfil its purpose; namely, that the tenant should know in advance the price at which he can buy while he saves the money to do so. As to what was said in election manifestos, I will not go into that now. If I have to come back further on this point I will quote what was said by different people, but I will not waste the time of the House in doing that now if it is not necessary. But the fact is that we were considering the possibility of whether the period should be two or three years, and it was said so openly. But after careful consideration we came to the conclusion that the two-year period was the right one—two years, that is, from when the tenant claims to exercise his right to buy. We believe that any shorter period than two years will be too short to make the option of any benefit.
Some time will inevitably elapse—and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Monson, touched on this—between a tenant's initial application and the date on which it becomes clear that he may have the option to complete at the fixed price within two years. If he is to be in any position to save or to take advantage of an improvement in his circumstances, the period of six months would be quite useless. I do not know, but there may be some who may feel that that would be a good thing; but, in any case, as I have said, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, has made it clear that it is really the principle of these provisions that she dislikes, not the precise form that they take. I hope that I, too, have made the Government's position clear. We are firmly committed to the principle of the provisions embodied in Clause 16, and that is why we cannot accept the amendment.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I am afraid that I not only dislike the principle, I dislike the way it has been done as well; I dislike it all. On the two years, I know the Minister said the same thing at Committee stage, that they had thought of three years and reduced it to two years. I am afraid that is rather like saying it was not an awfully big robbery, it is only a little tiny burglary—I mean on public funds; I am not talking about the Minister

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personally, of course. I find it very unsatisfactory. All these amendments are attempts to find alternative ways to deal with the same problem, so I will withdraw this amendment in order to enable us to go on to the other one. I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.20 p.m.
Baroness DAVID Baroness DAVID moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 15, line 3, leave out ("to be left outstanding or") and insert ("which he is entitled, or is treated as being entitled, to leave outstanding or have").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I make no apology for bringing forward this amendment again. I am not convinced that this is a tightly drawn provision, as the noble Lord said during Committee. He has used this phrase again today. He said it twice in Committee but even if he had said it three times I should not have believed it was true. It is clear from reading the Committee discussion on the £100 option, that many noble Lords were, to say the least, uneasy and fearful of abuse. The noble Lord undertook to look at it again and was good enough to write to me. In his letter he said he did not accept there was any danger of abuse of these provisions by those who may wish to delay completion, and he suggests that subsection (4)(b) of the clause, which is now Clause 16, ensures that only a tenant whose mortgage entitlement is too low to enable him to buy at once may defer completion. I cannot agree. I still think there is nothing in the clause as drafted which limits options to those who cannot afford to buy. It still appears to allow any purchaser simply to choose to delay for two years and thereby take advantage of the extra effective discount which would arise from avoiding house price rise over that period. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, has made very clear what an enormous extra discount that could give after two years.
As I said in Committee, it might be thought there would be difficulties in introducing the inherently subjective distinction between those who can and those who cannot afford to buy, but the Bill's existing provisions make exactly such a
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distinction in relation to the right to a mortgage. Clause 9, subsections (I) to (4), define the amount which a tenant is entitled to leave outstanding or to have advanced to him, and Clause 9(5) gives local authorities discretion to treat him as entitled to leave outstanding a higher amount. My amendment, by introducing these concepts from Clauses 9 and 16, would ensure that the £100 option could be exercised only where a tenant had failed to qualify in terms of the Bill's own provisions for a mortgage large enough to enable him to buy immediately. Not only the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, but Mr. Stanley and Mr. Finsberg in another place have said they wish this provision to be tightly drawn, and therefore I can see no reason for the Government to resist this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, when we said that we wanted it to be tightly drawn and that we believed it to be tightly drawn, we did, and do, mean just that. I wrote to the noble Baroness, Lady David, saying that we believed that what is now Clause 16 as drafted provides that the right to defer completion was open only to those who could not afford to buy at once. Since then, however, I have received further advice on this matter. I should hate it to be thought that the Bill as drafted was defective, but in the light of the noble Baroness's advocacy, and possibly to her not inconsiderable surprise though I hope not displeasure, I am happy to tell her that in fact I am prepared to accept this amendment, and by so doing I may even convert those on the opposite Benches to the policy embodied in the clause.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness DAVID Baroness DAVID moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 15, line 29, after ("price") insert ("that price to be determined by adding half the difference between the value of the dwelling-house at the time of completion of the transaction and the value at the time the notice exercising the right to buy was served.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I am encouraged, but I shall be rather surprised if I get support for this amendment, which is an attempt to do by price what my noble friend Lady Birk tried to do by time in Amendment No. 13. This amendment is an attempt to make a little

65
more realistic and sensible this option scheme and to prevent quite such a big present being handed to the prospective purchaser at the expense of the local authority, the ratepayers and the taxpayers; to make the "bonanza", as my noble friend Lord Davies of Leek described it, not quite so attractive, and the whole thing less open to abuse.
As I said before, the noble Lord, Lord Monson, has made clear what tremendous gains could be made if house prices went on rising as they have been doing. We are suggesting that the price the tenant would have to pay would be determined by adding half the difference between the value of the house at the time of completion of the transaction and its value at the time the notice exercising the right to buy was served. This seems still quite generous to the purchaser and slightly fairer to everyone else. It is a compromise which I hope will get the support of the House. I beg to move.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I should like to support this amendment, which I think in fact is rather fairer than Amendment No. 13. The noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, gave some good reasons why the six months' option period was a little bit too short. If I might follow on from some of the examples I gave when speaking to Amendment No. 13, if this amendment were accepted and assuming that the drafting is right—and if it is not it can surely be made right on Third Reading—that someone who is entitled to a 50 per cent. discount on a £20,000 house which rises by about the same percentage as has occurred between autumn 1977 and autumn 1979 would, instead of paying £10,000, pay £13,185. However, his neighbour who, for one reason or another, might have bought an identical flat at the same time and for some reason not taken out an option, would have to pay £16,370; so although he pays rather more than he would if the Bill is left unamended, he still does pretty well as compared with his neighbour. Again, if he were
entitled to a 33 per cent. discount, he would pay, instead of £13,400, £17,668. The same neighbour who again might have taken posession of his flat at the same time but again without an option would have to pay £21,281. So in each case the man or woman who took up the option would
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be gaining approximately between £3,000 and £3,500. I do not think this is at all a bad bargain. It is fairer, I think, as far as local authorities are concerned and I hope that the noble Lord will give the amendment very serious consideration.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I was about to say to the noble Baroness, Lady David, when she stood up having had her previous amendment accepted, "Steady, steady!" In fact I listened very carefully to what she said when proposing this amendment because it was none too clear, at least to me, from its terms precisely what it was supposed to achieve. However, I am now much clearer.
I feel that I cannot be helpful on this, in the sense that the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Monson, would wish. The fact is—although I do not want to repeat what I said when I spoke on Amendment No. 13—that the remarks I made then are really absolutely apposite to this as well. Perhaps I might say also that it is harder to save up when the price against which you are saving is in fact increasing as you save. Secondly, the two-year period during which completion may be deferred runs not from when the parties are first ready to complete except for the purchaser's lack of mortgage money, but instead from the date when the tenant claimed to exercise his right to buy. I have not heard anything additional said that could convince us that it would be right to give way on this point. It is a very fundamental part of the whole of the right-to-buy commitment which we made; and I will not, unless pressed, repeat when and how that was made because I do not think your Lordships would wish me to do that. But I fear I cannot accept this amendment.
Baroness DAVID: My Lords, the House will know how we on this side feel and I think there has been some general support for the opposition to the option scheme as it stands. We certainly do want to press this amendment.
5.29 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 15) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 90; Not-Contents, 86.

CONTENTS

Ailesbury, M.

Eldon, E.

Peart, L.

Amberst, E.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Phillips, B.

Ardwick, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Plant, L.

Aylestone, L.

Fulton, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.[Teller.]

Bacon, B.

Gaitskell, B.

Balogh, L.

Gifford, L.

Rhodes, L.

Banks, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Barrington, V.

Hale, L.

Seear, B.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Hampton, L.

Segal, L.

Bernstein, L.

Hanworth, V.

Shinwell, L.

Beswick, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Simon, V.

Birk, B.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Stamp, L.

Blease, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Stedman, B.

Blyton, L.

Hughes, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Hylton, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Brockway, L.

Janner, L.

Stone, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Jeger, B.

Strabolgi, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Kaldor, L.

Strauss, L.

Byers, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Leatherland, L.

Underhill, L.

Collison, L.

Listowel, E.

Wade, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Wallace of Coslany, L. [Teller]

Craigavon, V.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Longford, E.

Whaddon, L.

Darling of Hillsborough, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Wigoder, L.

David, B.

McCluskey, L.

Willis, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Maelor, L.

Wilson of Radcliffe, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Monson, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Denington, B.

Northfield, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Diamond, L.

Ogmore, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Oram, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Gainford, L.

Netherthorpe, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Gisborough, L.

Newall, L.

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Gowrie, E.

Northchurch, B.

Alport, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

O'Brien of Lothbury, L.

Ampthill, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Orkney, E.

Auckland, L.

Pender, L.

Avon, E.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Balerno, L.

Hatherton, L.

Sandford, L.

Bellwin, L.

Hawke, L.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Belstead, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Savile, L.

Berkeley, B.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Sempill, Ly.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Killearn, L.

Soames, L. (L. President.)

Bridgeman, V.

Kinloss, Ly.

Spens, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Strathclyde, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Long, V.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Lyell, L.

Strathspey, L.

Daventry, V.

McAlpine of Moffat, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

de Clifford, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Teviot, L.

De Freyne, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Trefgarne, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Malmesbury, E.

Trenchard, V.

Drumalbyn, L.

Mancroft, L.

Trevethin and Oaksey, L.

Dundee, E.

Mansfield, E.

Vaizey, L.

Eccles, V.

Marley, L.

Vickers, B.

Ellenborough, L.

Merrivale, L.

Vivian, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Middleton, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Faithfull, B.

Milverton, L.

Westbury, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mountevans, L.

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Fortescue, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Wise, L.

Gage, V.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Young, B.

Resolved in the affirmative and amendment agreed to accordingly.
5.37 p.m.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON moved Amendment No. 16:
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Page 16, line 2, leave out ("injunction") and insert ("an order for specific performance as if there were in existence a contract for the sale of the property by the landlord to the tenant on the terms prescribed by this Part of this Act").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, your Lordships might remember that I moved

69
a similar amendment at Committee stage because I felt that the Government were taking a heavy and blunt instrument to do what could have been done more subtly and much less messily by a different procedure of specific performance. I was told then by the noble Lord the Minister that since there was not a contract in the legal sense of the word in existence, the procedure of specific performance would not be applicable. Therefore, I re-drew the amendment so that the amendment would make what was not a contract into a contract for the purposes of applying the remedy of specific performance.
I have had a helpful letter from the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, in which he tells me—and I shall try to abbreviate what he has told me in the letter—that he has discovered that under section 47 of the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act 1925, a court can order the conveyance or lease under Part I of this Bill to be executed by a person nominated by the court when it is satisfied that the landlord has failed to complete under Section 16. I am obliged to the noble Lord for his letter.
Your Lordships will appreciate that what I was trying to avoid was a recalcitrant council which did not approve the concept of the sale of council houses making martyrs of themselves. We all have memories of occasions when councils have gone to great trouble to make martyrs of themselves to show how much they disapprove of the policy of the Government. Since the remedy for refusal to obey an injunction is imprisonment, I can see a number of council leaders in some councils—and I should not like to specify which—joyfully making martyrs of themselves in the style of the early Christian saints. I am somewhat reassured by the letter which the noble Lord has sent me. It seems to me that if what the noble Lord has said in his letter is the case, why, with great respect, have the Government bothered to insert this sanction saying that the remedy is to be enforced by injunction?
I should have thought that the Government, in the light of the evidence that the noble Lord has dug out from the 1925 Act, might want to consider, at least, changing "shall be enforceable by injunction", to "may be enforceable by injunction". Since the remedy is there
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that the court can sign a conveyance where the local authority refuses, I feel that we are using a very heavy, blunt instrument to do something which could be done more simply, with less publicity and with less difficulty. I should have thought that the Government might have welcomed the opportunity to get themselves out of a hole that they have perhaps unintentionally dug for themselves. I beg to move.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, for the way he has expressed gratitude for my letter. If the right reverend Prelate will not think it blasphemous, I was going to say the heavenly fruit machine under the conjunction of the stars, Clause 16, page 16, Amendment 16, has proved moderately fruitful to making the noble Lord's mind a little bit warmer to the Government's thinking, than it was before.
My Lords, I could read out a lot from my papers, but I would rather not do so. I would rather say that we still prefer the word "injunction" to his "specific performance". Having explained—and I am grateful to him for having done so—that it does not mean that we have martyrs and the courts have full powers, I should like to leave it at that. If noble Lords want it, I could read out more. With hat the noble Lord said, and under the benign blessing of the number 16, I should like to leave it at what the noble Lord has said.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: As I said before, my Lords, I was trying to seek the avoidance of confrontation. I have had a word with the noble Lord, Lord Janner, who kindly supported me at the Committee stage. Having drawn the Government's attention to this, if the Government gets into this kind of trouble we will not say "we told you so" but just point to the appropriate columns in the Official Report. I beg to withdraw this amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.45 p.m.
Clause 17 [Conveyance of freehold and grant of lease]:
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 17:

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Page 16, line 11, at end insert ("and Part IV of that Schedule applies in relation to certain charges.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in speaking to Amendment No. 17, I should also like to speak to Amendment No. 21. These two amendments make the necessary provision for cases where a dwelling-house on which a tenant is exercising his right to buy is subject to an existing mortgage, or rent charge or other charge. These technical amendments will be important in the cases affected.
So far as the mortgages and other charges except rentcharges are concerned, the amendments embody two basic principles. First, a purchaser should expect to take the dwelling-house free of any such charge. Secondly, as far as possible the mortgagee's position should be sufficiently protected. This reflects the normal expectation of a purchaser in the private market. Such a purchaser would expect to take the conveyance of the property free from mortgages or other charges, but not free from rentcharges. I will come to rent charges in a moment. Housing associations may well have raised mortgages on their property; often (but by no means always) such mortgages would be in favour of the housing corporation. However in practice it is unlikely that a dwelling-house belonging to a landlord which is a local authority, development corporation or the Development Board for Rural Wales will be subject to a mortgage.
New paragraph 18(a) of Schedule 2 deals with the case where property is subject to a mortgage (or other charge except a rentcharge) in the following way. First, the dwelling-house will be conveyed (in the case of a house) free from any existing mortgage or other charge (other than a rentcharge). Secondly, the release of a dwelling-house from a charge under these provisions will be without prejudice to the landlord's personal obligation under the mortgage. I turn now to rentcharges. The provision for rentcharges needs to be different from that for mortgages. In contrast to general practice with mortgages, it is the custom for the purchasers of property subject to rentcharges to take the property with the rentcharge.
In money terms, the rentcharge will normally be at most an irritant: it will
72
be no more of a financial burden on the purchaser than is a ground rent payable on a long lease. (If it was more a burden it would reduce the price which the purchaser paid). That is fairly obvious. Amendment No. 21 also amends Schedule 2 to provide that where a house—but not a flat—sold under the right to buy is subject to a rentcharge which does not affect other land, the conveyance of the house will be made subject to the rentcharge.
However, where the house is on a larger parcel of land which is subject to a rent-charge we need to make special provision which as far as possible avoids the need to make a series of apportionments of the rentcharge, following a series of sales under the right to buy. This would be a time-consuming and administratively expensive business. Therefore, Amendment No. 21 further provides that in these circumstances that although the dwelling-house will still be conveyed subject to the rentcharge, the landlord is to convenant to indemnify the purchaser and his successors in respect of the rent-charge. Also, if the rentcharge may be redeemed under the Rentcharges Act 1977, the landlord will be bound to redeem it.
The amendments make different provisions in the case of flats. They provide that where there is a charge (whether a mortgage or a rentcharge) on the freehold of the land on which there is a flat, a lease granted on that flat under the right to buy will not be affected by that charge. (It will remain secured on the landlord's residual freehold interest). Amendment No. 17 itself is a paving amendment needed to bring in all the above. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Baroness Wootton of Abinger): My Lords, I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Monson, does not wish to move this amendment, Schedule 2, Amendment No. 18. Does either the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, or the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, wish to move it?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, not moved.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: My Lords, Lord Monson, equally does not wish to move Amendment No. 18A which is on the supplementary list. We therefore pass to Amendment No. 19 in the name of Lord Bellwin.
[Amendment No. 19 not moved.]
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Amendment No. 19 not moved. Amendment 20, Lord Bellwin?
Schedule 2 [Conveyance of freehold and grant of Lease]:
5.50 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 109, line 24, leave out ("An agreement") and insert ("A provision").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a drafting amendment. Paragraph 16 of Schedule 2 refers back to the beginning of paragraph 15, which is in terms of a "provision" rather than an "agreement." This amendment will mean that the terms used in these two paragraphs are consistent. My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 109, line 34, at end insert—
("PART IV
CHARGES ON FREEHOLD
18. Where there is a charge (however created or arising) on the freehold which is not a tenant's incumbrance, then—

(a) if it is not a rentcharge, the conveyance of the freehold in pursuance of the right to buy shall be effective to release the freehold from the charge, but the release shall not affect the personal liability of the landlord or any other person in respect of any obligation which the charge was created to secure; and

(b) whether or not it is a rentcharge, the charge shall not affect a lease granted in pursuance of the right to buy.

19—(1) Where the freehold is subject to a rentcharge which does not affect other land the conveyance shall be made subject to the rentcharge.
(2) Where the freehold is subject to a rent-charge which also affects other land the conveyance shall be made subject to the rentcharge but shall contain a covenant by the landlord to indemnify the tenant and his successors in title in respect of any liability arising under the rentcharge.
(3) In a case falling within sub-paragraph (2) above the landlord shall, immediately after the conveyance and if the rentcharge is of a kind which may be redeemed under the Rentcharges Act 1977, take such steps as are necessary to redeem the rentcharge, so far as it affects land owned by the landlord (including land treated by sub-paragraph (4) below as so owned).
(4) For the purposes of the Rentcharges Act 1977 and of sub-paragraph (3) above any land
74
which has been conveyed by the landlord in pursuance of the right to buy, but subject to the rentcharge, shall be treated as if it had not been so conveyed but had continued to he owned by the landlord.
20. In this Part of this Schedule "rent-charge" has the same meaning as in the Rentcharges Act 1977; and for the purposes of paragraph 19 above land is owned by a person if he is the owner of the land within the meaning of section 13(1) of that Act.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have already spoken to this amendment with Amendment No. 17. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 19 [Dwelling-houses in National Parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, etc.]:
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 16, line 34, at beginning insert—
("the local authority with the consent of").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this amendment was discussed in Committee and it deals with the power and opportunity of local authorities to designate rural areas, which was previously covered in Clause 18. It was clear from the debate in Committee, which was not very conclusive, that many noble Lords on all sides of the Committee were concerned about these very great arbitrary powers—which, incidentally, run through this whole Bill—which are being taken by the Secretary of State. This amendment would enable local authorities themselves to designate rural areas, with the consent of the Secretary of State.
Many of us felt that the autonomy of local authorities, which has been seriously eroded throughout this Bill, is particularly in danger under this clause. But they are the people who are very much on the ground in the rural areas, and who should be in the position of designating them, with the consent of the Secretary of State. As I remember, the Minister said that local authorities could undertake an initiative, and there was no reason why they should not do that. But, later on, he was unable to say at which point the initiative could be taken and in what way. But he said that there were three good reasons why this decision should be left to the Secretary of State himself.
The first was that this was the only way of being sure that desirable consistency in the policy was maintained. The second was administrative convenience, though, he emphasised not, the convenience of the Secretary of State. The third reason was constitutional, which seemed to me to be making rather heavy weather of it. The alarming point about all these reasons is that they make for a far too tidy state. To have everything consistent is a miserable way of doing things, because areas are not consistent, local authorities are not consistent and, thank God, most of us are not consistent; otherwise, we should be more like automatons than human beings. Administrative convenience is a very bad reason for doing something, because such a reason should be tailored to the right policy and not the other way round. As I said, the constitutional point is making rather heavy weather of it.
I asked the Minister at which point the local authority would be brought in, since the Secretary of State would make an order. I said that there is no point in taking an initiative if nobody takes any notice, if one is not called in and if one is not treated as an equal partner. I said that if the Minister could not take the matter any further, perhaps he would come back on Report or write to me and tell me exactly what was the process. The Minister replied:
"I really do try hard to be understanding and helpful".
he does, and I agree with that—
"I cannot really see the point. The only thing I can suggest is that the noble Baroness might care to have a word with me afterwards, unless it is so late that neither of us is in the mood to do so "—[Official Report, 30/6/80; col. 125.]
Evidently we were not in the mood to do so. Nothing further has been said and we have not corresponded on this point.
But, to be serious, this is an important point. It is right that local authorities should come in at this point. Earlier on in the debate, the Minister said that if one designated an area it may turn out to be partly in the district of another authority, which might cause difficulties. I feel that these difficulties can be ironed out, and they usually are. Anyhow, I do not see any problem, because if one authority
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wanted to designate a rural area which was partly within the area of another authority, they could come to some agreement or could agree to disagree. It is much more healthy and virile to operate in that way, rather than to leave it to the centralist hand—I will not say equal hand—of the Secretary of State, which is much more remote. My Lords, I beg to move.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, this is a very important amendment. I and many others have been most concerned, and still are, about the impact of the right to buy in rural areas. It is for this reason that I wrote to my noble friend on the Front Bench immediately after the Committee stage, asking him what would be the criteria by which the Secretary of State would designate his rural areas. I also asked when these criteria would be published. He has very kindly replied to me, but I am sorry to say that all he has been able to put on paper is the following:
"The relevant orders would go through the normal parliamentary processes of the Negative Resolution procedure. Beyond this, I cannot commit my colleagues."
Therefore, we do not know what a rural area will be in the mind of the Secretary of State.
At the Committee stage, I quoted a number of areas in Somerset which are highly debatable. Some people could call them urban; others could call them rural. The noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, quoted a number of areas of a different character in Yorkshire where, again, there could be this difference of opinion. That is why it is right to give a local authority the initiative in defining a rural area, in its own context of circumstances. Moreover, it is entirely consistent with Conservative principles that there should he this initiative in the hands of the local authority, who know the area and who are elected to represent it. Of course, you need the consent of the Secretary of State as well, in order to get some kind of uniform national policy, but let the initiative be with the local authority. I very much hope that my noble friend will look very favourably upon and, if possible, accept, at this stage, this amendment.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I cannot accept this amendment. The noble Lord,

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Lord Hylton, made the important point of the initiative and the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, asked at what stage an authority would take such an initiative. It would be open to an authority to instigate steps to have an area so designated at any time after the Bill has been enacted. It could do so immediately. Indeed, most of the local authorities that I know are not backward in coming forward, when they feel they have something that they want to press. They will know precisely what it is that we are about. They will know all that is going on under the Bill, and this move will be entirely up to them. I have every confidence that they will do so. As my noble friend rightly said, it is then, quite properly, up to the Secretary of State to react to those initiatives. There is no more reason to suppose that the reaction will be less favourable than it might be to the opinions which anybody else might have.
The important point here, and one of very great significance, is the third, the constitutional reason, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, referred. Surely it must be right that orders of this kind should come under the scrutiny of Parliament, and that is what will happen under the Bill, as drafted. However, they would not do so under the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk. For that reason alone, I should have thought that the noble Baroness might not have wanted to pursue the amendment in this way. I am not sure whether she really appreciates the significance of that point. Possibly she does.
I do not know that there is much more that I can add to what I said at Second Reading without going over it all again, which I have no wish to do. I understand the concern, but I feel, for the reasons which I have given, that it should not be a matter of concern. Possibly the best safeguard of all is that there is parliamentary cover and every opportunity for authorities to take initiatives. There is also the position of the Secretary of State. I think that everybody is involved. In the light of that explanation, I hope
that the noble Baroness feels that she does not need to pursue the amendment.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, this is the second time round on this question. In Committee, apart from the Minister, nobody supported the line which he has taken. Concern was expressed all round. A point which I did not make when I moved the amendment concerns delay. If a local authority undertakes this initiative at some point and applies to the Government to declare a rural area, we do not know how long it will be before the Government department replies and everything is sorted out. We have to be realistic. We all know that these things take time. They will take even longer if we get, as we are getting now, cuts in central Government expenditure. Therefore, it will he understandable if things are further delayed.
I think that rather heavy weather was made of the constitutional point, and I am not entirely convinced about it. As it will be the local authority, with the consent of the Secretary of State, which will designate the area, I think because of the way in which it is drafted, that if something arises it will go to Parliament. On the other hand, nowadays there are so many areas in which local authorities take decisions that I am not completely horrified by the idea of it not having parliamentary approval. If there is great feeling about the designation of one of these areas, first it need not get the support of the Secretary of State and, secondly, the Members of Parliament for that area have every right to bring it up—and most definitely would do so—in the House of Commons. I find that the Minister's reply is very unsatisfactory. It has not taken us any further. I am afraid, therefore, that I shall press the amendment.
6.4 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 22) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 88; Not-Contents, 82.

CONTENTS

Ailesbury, M.

Balogh, L.

Beswick, L.

Amherst, E.

Banks, L.

Birk, B.

Ardwick, L.

Barrington, V.

Blease, L.

Aylestone, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Bacon, B.

Bernstein, L.

Brockway, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Hughes, L.

Seear, B.

Chitnis, L.

Hylton, L.

Segal, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Janner, L.

Shinwell, L.

Collison, L.

Jeger, B.

Simon, V.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Kaldor, L.

Stamp, L.

Craigavon, V.

Kilmarnock, L.

Stedman, B.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Leatherland, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

David, B.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B. [Teller.]

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Stone, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Denington, B.

McCluskey, L.

Strauss, L.

Diamond, L.

Maelor, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Milverton, L.

Underhill, L.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Monson, L.

Wade, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Mountevans, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Fulton, L.

Northfield, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Gaitskell, B.

O'Brien of Lothbury, L.

Whaddon, L.

Gifford, L.

Ogmore, L.

White, B.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Oram, L.

Wigoder, L.

Hale, L.

Peart, L.

Willis, L.

Hampton, L.

Phillips, B.

Wilson of Radcliffe, L.

Hanworth, V.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Winterbottom, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Hooson, L.

Rhodes, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Faithfull, B.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Alport, L.

Ferrers, E.

Newall, L.

Ampthill, L.

Fortescue, E.

Northchurch, B.

Auckland, L.

Gage, V.

Orkney, E.

Avon, E.

Gisborough, L.

Pender, L.

Balerno, L.

Gowrie, E.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Bellwin, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Belstead, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Sandford, L.

Berkeley, B.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Bessborough, E.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Savile, L.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Hatherton, L.

Soames, L. (L. President.)

Bridgeman, V.

Hawke, L.

Spens, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Strathclyde, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Killearn, L.

Strathspey, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Kinloss, Ly.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Craigmyle, L.

Long, V.

Teviot, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Lyell, L.

Trefgarne, L.

de Clifford, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Trenchard, V.

De La Warr, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Trevethin and Oaksey, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Malmesbury, E.

Vaizey, L.

Denman, L.

Mancroft, L.

Vickers, B.

Drumalbyn, L.

Mansfield, E.

Vivian, L.

Dundee, E.

Marley, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Eccles, V.

Merrivale, L.

Westbury, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Middleton, L.

Wise, L.

Elles, B.

Monk Bretton, L.

Young, B.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: My Lords, I have to call your attention to the fact that, owing to a misprint in the Procedural Orders, Amendment No. 18B was not called after Amendment No. 18. If your Lordships are agreeable, I will now call Amendment No. 18B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin.
Schedule 2 [Conveyance of freehold and grant of lease]:
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 18B:
Page 108, line 18, at end insert ("but subject to sub-paragraph (2) below.
(2) If a building contains two or more dwelling-houses and the landlord has, since the passing of this Act, granted a lease of one of them for a term of not less than 125 years, any lease granted in pursuance of this Chapter of the other or one of the others may be for a

81
term expiring at the end of that term and, if it is for such a term, the assumption stated in section 6(4)(a) shall be modified accordingly.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I spoke to this amendment with Amendment No. 2B. I beg to move.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: My Lords, we now revert to the main list: Amendment No. 23, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I withdrew Amendment No. 23. It was not moved.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not moved.
[Amendment No. 24 not moved.]
Clause 21 [Costs]:
6.13 p.m.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 25:
Leave out Clause 21 and insert the following new clause:
Costs
(21. The landlord and, if appropriate, the Housing Corporation may charge to the tenant the costs incurred by it in connection with the tenant's exercise of the right to buy and the tenant's exercise, if such be the case of the right to a mortgage but in either case only to the extent that they do not exceed such amount or amounts as the Secretary of State may by order specify.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Clause 20 as it now stands provides that a landlord may pass on to the purchaser only the cost of a mortgage and not the legal administrative costs of sale. These will amount to a considerable sum as the volume of sales increases following enactment of the Bill. Under existing arrangements, it is common practice for authorities to pass on to the purchasers the legal administrative costs of the transaction. It is my view and that of the AMA that it is unreasonable that ratepayers and tenants should pay for such costs, particularly in the light of the generous discount arrangements which will be available. Accordingly, we should like to see the insertion of this new Clause 20 whereby the landlord will be able to pass on to the purchaser legal and administrative costs up to a maximum prescribed by the Secretary of
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State. It seems to me not only to be legally right but to make economic good sense, because if people have the opportunity to buy the houses, and buy them at these rates of discount, then I think it is important that they themselves should carry the cost and that it should not be borne by the rest of the community. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I accept the point made by the noble Baroness that the prohibition of the recovery of the costs of a right-to-buy sale by the landlord from the tenant in Clause 21 of the Bill makes a departure from current practice in some local authorities when a house is sold under the general consent for council house sales. But circumstances are not entirely the same in both cases. The question of how the costs incurred by the parties to a sale under the right to buy should be met is not clear-cut, and called for a judgment to be made. The judgment that we came to is reflected in Clause 21. It was that each party to the transaction should bear its own costs arising from a sale under the right to buy. There are two reasons for this. First, it seemed a fair arrangement on general grounds, given that the Bill introduces a statutory right for the secure tenant to buy and a statutory obligation on the landlord to sell. Secondly, it corresponded to normal arrangements when a dwelling was sold on the private market.
I am sure that the noble Baroness, when selling her house, would not expect a purchaser to pay the costs she had incurred as vendor; nor would she expect to be required to pay the vendor's costs if she were the buyer. The landlord's costs incurred as a result of a tenant's right to buy are vendor's costs, and it is fair that the landlord, as vendor, should bear them. The tenant, in turn, will have to bear such costs as he may incur as a purchaser. He may decide that he wishes to be legally represented, for example, or that he wishes to have a structural survey carried out on the property.
It was to follow practice in the private sector, also, that we provided in subsection (2) of Clause 21 for a charge to be made to the tenant for costs that the landlord or, if appropriate, the Housing Corporation, incurs in connection with the tenant's exercise of his right to a mortgage. As your Lordships know, building societies

83
and other mortgagees normally recover their costs in this way. The main items are legal fees and the cost of the mortgagee's survey of the property.
I should like to make it clear that the prohibition in subsection (1) of Clause 21 applies only to the landlord's own costs; it does not prevent arrangements of the sort provided for in subsection (1)(c) of Clause 9, under which a tenant's costs can be defrayed by the landlord or the Housing Corporation on his behalf and then recovered. It seems to me that the arrangements in Clause 21 are entirely fair and reasonable. I cannot agree to the charging of the vendor's costs to the purchaser in the way suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, even with the safeguard of the maximum amount which her amendment would empower the Secretary of State to specify by order. I hope that she will accept this argument and maybe withdraw her amendment.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I am really not very happy about that. The Minister gave the analogy of my buying a house and how I would feel about the costs. If I bought a house that I had been living in for 20 years and got 50 per cent. discount, and if in addition I had also had the option, I do not think I would mind very much about paying my share of the costs. But this is not the point. The point is that that would be so if I were living as a council tenant and bought that house, because I would then be in the public sector area and be involved, and the people who would be helping to defray my costs would be ratepayers and taxpayers; so that is entirely different.
On this point, perhaps I could quote a case from Harrogate Borough Council, where they had a report from the housing property committee that a charge of roughly £130 a house would be made against the purchase of council houses to cover the administrative costs. It was then that the chief executive found that under the Housing Land Bill now going through the House a charge of that kind would be inadmissible when the Bill becomes an Act. It really looks as though this can lead to quite a considerable expense being laid on the landlord in the case of sales of houses. It is something that I certainly do not intend to press at the moment, but in spite of what the
84
Minister said I wonder whether he would take it back to look at it. It really is not a party political point. It just seems to me to be rather inequitable. Local authorities, again with more and more limited resources and the compulsion on them to give mortgages, are going to find themselves up against it as well with some additional expenditure which I really think in this case could be undertaken by the tenants.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, by leave of the House, I think we have here a fundamental difference really of what the impact on the finances of local authorities will be. I do not see it at all as the noble Baroness does, with her fears about the effect that it will have on the finances of local authorities. Indeed, quite the contrary, even with the discounts. Therefore, the main point upon which she makes her case, which she does so well, is obviously one on which we do not agree. For that and the other reasons I have already given. I fear that at this stage I am not able to take it back, although I entirely understand the point that she is making.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.21 p.m.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON moved Amendment No. 26:
After Clause 21, insert the following new clause:
("Conveyancing
Section 22 of the Solicitors Act 1974 (Unqualified person not to prepare certain instruments) shall not apply in relation to the preparation of a conveyance, mortgage or lease in pursuance of this Chapter, where the title to the land in question is, at the time when the notice under section 5 of this Act is served, already registered with an absolute title under the Land Registration Act 1925.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is an amendment which I move with some diffidence because it is one that I would normally have expected to come from the Government Benches. This is an amendment which seeks to break the "closed shop" in rather an important respect. Your Lordships will recall that under Section 22 of the Solicitors Act 1974—which was passed by a previous Administration not of the noble Lord's party, so I do not seek to make any particular point of it—

85
"any unqualified person who directly or indirectly—

(a) draws or prepares any instrument of transfer or charge for the purposes of the Land Registration Act 1925, or makes any application or lodges any document for registration under that Act at the registry, or

(b) draws or prepares any other instrument relating to real or personal estate, or any legal proceeding, shall, unless he proves that the act was not done for or in expectation of any fee, gain or reward, be guilty of an offence …".

That particular section of the Act establishes for an important part of the legal profession a complete monopoly of acting in this particular way. As I have said, from a Government who, rumour has it, are so completely opposed to the principle of the closed shop, I should have thought that this Bill presented an admirable opportunity (particularly since the vendors are either local authorities or housing associations and no particular complications are likely to arise) where they could easily have tabled this amendment themselves. The position, of course, is reserved,
"When any notice under Section 5 of the Act is served, already registered with an absolute title under the Land Registration Act …";
and other cases of course would normally be prepared and engrossed by properly qualified solicitors. I should have thought this amendment could easily have
been tabled by the Government in pursuit of their widely enunciated principles on the subject. Consider the amount of costs that would be saved not only to local authorities and housing associations but also to the individual purchasers themselves. I should have thought purely in the interests of economy this would have been an excellent provision for the Government to have inserted.
It has often been said that matters relating to the transfer of ownership of property or the conveyance of property are matters of immense legal complication and give rise to difficulties, and indeed may result in some defect of a title further down the line. But there are many more complicated transactions than the simple transfer of property, and if simplicity, or alternatively complication, were to be the guide surely the Government would have insisted on legal advice being taken before contracts of insurance were entered into. It must be within the noble Lord's experience on reading insurance policies and massive exclusion
86
clauses, which are virtually incomprehensible in any small print, that if ever legal advice is required then surely in some cases it should be required before a contract of insurance is entered into.
I think the noble Lord ought to take these matters into consideration and, in view of the well-known principles enunciated by his party, he should at least consider taking a step forward to free many tenants and landlords from what is frequently the onerous and costly responsibility imposed on them by law of employing members of the legal profession for this purpose. I beg to move.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: My Lords, may I say that the normal standards of politeness in your Lordships' House to which I have become accustomed are being strained in the extreme by the mover of this amendment. I must declare an interest, my Lords; I am a solicitor. I should like to suggest to the noble Lord that possibly we should also limit some of the monopolies which the accountancy profession enjoys. I do not think that this is either the time or the occasion to discuss the monopoly which the legal profession enjoys in the conveyancing field. It should surely be a matter for further legislation, if necessary, after consideration of the Royal Commission's report; and I would remind your Lordships that the Royal Commission—no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, would say "whitewashed" the legal profession, but those of us who are lawyers thought they gave a very fair and reasoned report on the way in which the legal profession exercises its conveyancing monopoly and the not unduly expensive means that is employed to do this. But may I point out that the legal profession and the provincial branches have agreed extra-statutory scales of remuneration for acting in this kind of transaction, which as your Lordships will realise is often cheaper and less onerous because of the nature of the way in which the title has been prepared by the local authority, and there is a very generously calculated extra-statutory scale of charges agreed between the local authorities and the local law societies. That is the first point.
The second point is that with the best will in the world these unqualified conveyancers are a very peculiar race indeed. In the part of the world where I practice

87
as a lawyer there is a gentleman who benefits from one of the loopholes in the law and practices as a conveyancer on the strength of being a notary public. He failed his Law Society finals only because he failed to pass his conveyancing paper at least eight or 10 times and now he practices as a conveyancer. If that is the kind of person that the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, wants to put in charge of the tenants who are trying to buy their council houses and change their style of life, and who often need considerable explanation about the complexities of the nature of the documents they are about to sign, I should have thought your Lordships would want to think carefully about it before agreeing with the noble Lord's proposal.
I should like to add that I speak only for myself. I do not speak for my noble friends, many of whom are as prejudiced against my profession as are many noble Lords in other parts of your Lordships' House, but I do hope that your Lordships will not support this amendment. If this matter were to be discussed it should be on a quite separate matter of an amendment to the Solicitors Act.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, may I declare an interest too? In my 60 years in professional life, I have come across attempts made by people who are not qualified which have landed people, their so-called clients, into very serious difficulties. Let me give a simple illustration. We are dealing at present with leaseholds. How many people have entered into leaseholds without seeking proper advice and later on have found themselves, at the end of a period, without the freehold and having to live and make arrangements with the landlord into whose hands this has fallen?
My Lords, this is not as simple a matter as it might seem to the average individual. It is terribly important that an unqualified person should not be in a position to advise on matters of a legal nature, any more than an unqualified person should give medical advice. A person needing medical advice ought to go to a doctor; in other words, a person holding himself out to be able to do what a doctor has been examined about and who has had experience is the only person who can
88
claim to be a doctor and to carry on that profession.
This is not just a matter of profession. A lot of us have given freely of our time. I am sure my noble friend Lord Evans will agree that in cases where people have been hard up, are really in a bad way or something of that sort, the Law Society and the lawyers themselves in the local area invariably give them a hand-out. This is factually the case, and I defy anybody who is in contact with solicitors to deny this. I cannot think of any of my colleagues who has found himself confronted by a person who is really poor who has not reduced the fees or has charged no fees.
The real point is this: how can an unqualified man know what the absolute consequences are of any advice that he gives? What compensation, what insurance, is there? I do not know whether your Lordships realise that it costs £1,000 a year, or something of that sort, for every individual, to cover insurance for any mistakes made in order to see to it that compensation shall be paid to anyone who has been wrongly advised and consequently suffered damages. This is a very interesting and, I think, a very important profession.
I do not know how many of your Lordships have been in the House of Commons, but if you go to a "surgery" in the House of Commons and anyone comes along to ask for advice, there are small committees in which the advice is given freely to the residents of a particular area. This is not a trivial matter; this is a profession in which it takes six or seven years before one can actually practise as a solicitor, and this profession has to be qualified to deal with whatever contingency may arise.
Your Lordships have heard the noble Lord, Lord Evans. The question of scales and things of that nature are under consideration. I think it is much better that one takes the advice of the Law Society and the law profession because they are the people who know most about this kind of thing. In spite of what a lot of people think of solicitors, barristers and lawyers, should they be in the House or anywhere else, the fact of the matter is that they are professional people who advise, and without advice very big

89
mistakes can be made. The profession itself is a reasonable profession which understands the needs of people who are not in a position to pay.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I was going to ask: can anyone join in? Perhaps I need not quite do that. I think the noble Lord, Lord Evans, in fact made the point I was going to make; namely, that the Government are it so happens, at the present time considering the report of the Royal Commission on Legal Services, and clearly until he had some views as to that he would not want to make any such moves. So, without my making too much of a do of it, I think I can leave the matter to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, I seen to have been a little misunderstood by members of the legal profession within your Lordships' House. This amendment did not in any way seek to prohibit solicitors from doing busines of this kind. The noble Lord, Lord Janner, did refer to cases where mishaps occur, and perhaps it is some commentary that all individuals—including members of the legal and, I should add, accountancy professions—are prone to make errors from time to time. Of course, there are professional indemnity policies which exist precisely for that purpose, and solicitors do insure themselves, thereby admitting the feasibility of error, as indeed we do in our profession.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting, but would the noble Lord be good enough to say whether any insurance company is prepared to cover a person who is not a professional man in these matters?
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, that is a matter for the insurance companies. I know of no one. Perhaps I could mollify the noble Lord by saying that if I intended to embark on a transaction of this kind I should not hesitate to employ the services of my own solicitor. All I wished to do was to allow people freedom under certain well-defined circumstances. But, as the noble Lord opposite has said, the report of the Royal Commission is to be considered. I would not wish to intrude on your Lordships' time any further and I will, with your
90
Lordships' permission, withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 23 [Secretary of State's power to intervene]:
Baroness BTRK Baroness BTRK moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 19, line 36, after ("so") insert ("and of his reasons for doing so").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is an extremely important amendment because we are once again, as we were in the previous amendment, dealing with the powers of the Secretary of State. The whole of Clause 23 gives the Secretary of State quite unprecedented powers to intervene with local government; and the object of this amendment, which in the circumstances is quite a modest little amendment, is simply in Clause 23(1) to say that the Secretary of State should give to the landlord or landlords not only notice in writing of his intentions but also "his reasons for doing so". We are only asking here for the reasons.
If I might just briefly review the powers that Parliament is being asked to give the Secretary of State, in the first place he can, after serving his notice, go even beyond the powers Parliament is asked to give to allow the right to buy. This is by virtue of subsection (7), which,
"may require the taking of steps different from those which the landlord would have been required to take".
In other words, he is going to be allowed to act in what I would call an extra-parliamentary manner. He can under subsection (5) require the landlord
"to produce any document or supply any information"
and require officers of the council to produce any document or any information even if they are not instructed to do so. That particular subsection is dealt with in a following amendment.
He can also take over on behalf of the council mortgage payments and refuse to return the money obtained to the council whose property was sold except at the pleasure of the Secretary of State; that is in subsection (4). By virtue of Clause 23 the Secretary of State can actually transfer the ownership of property, built and paid for in the main by local councils, to the

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tenant. Finally, the Secretary of State can charge the council such sums as he may determine for the cost of compulsorily seizing and selling its property over its head; that is in subsection (9).
What conditions are laid down for the exercise of such power?—which any Conservative Government would condemn as monstrous if it were applied to private property rather than that held in the public trust. Only that the Secretary of State shall believe that the right to buy may have difficulty in being exercised effectively and expeditiously. This is such a vaguely worded clause, with absolutely no checks on the powers of decision of the Secretary of State. This is again what I am afraid we keep coming back to in this Bill. It is another fundamental attack on the principle of local autonomy, of local councils managing their own property. This is an extremely modest amendment to deal with it.
I would point out to the noble Lord who is to reply that not only is there no precedent for this but there are precedents which have been brought in by Conservative Governments for doing the opposite. When the Conservative Government passed their last housing Act, the Housing Finance Act 1972, it included the power to require councils to put up its rents and it vested in central Government a power to impose its own authority in default if any authority was recalcitrant. It is true it gave rise to the Clay Cross affair which caused considerable heat. In that Act there was an advance notice provision which read as follows:
"It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State before making an order … to give notice in writing to the authority concerned that he is considering whether to make such an order and to have regard to any representations made to him by the authority within one month of the notification ".
This is exactly the sort of thing I am asking for in this Bill.
Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord that this was discussed in Committee. It is very interesting that on all these matters that were discussed in Committee there were practically no occasions, especially when these outstanding and fundamental problems were aired, on which there was any support for the Minister from the Benches opposite. At the end of the various criticisms that
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were rained on him from these Benches and from the Liberal Benches the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, said:
"I am not at all convinced; at the same time I recognise the point of view being put forward. I cannot accept the amendment. I do not agree with it and I do not think that it is necessary, but I am prepared to do the very thing that the noble Lord suggested and talk to my colleagues about it. Beyond that I cannot go. That I will undertake to do ".—[Official Report, 30/6/80; col. 149.]
I do not seem to remember receiving any illumination of any talks, if and when they took place, but hopefully the noble Lord who is to reply on this may have come back with the happy news that the Government are going to accept what I would call a very modest amendment in regard to what is a draconian list of powers the Secretary of State has under this clause. I beg to move.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I seem to have been plunged into this amendment rather at the deep end. When this question was discussed at Committee stage my noble friend said that he would talk about it to our colleagues, although he made it clear that he was not convinced by the case that the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, had put forward. I understood that he had had discussions, but if the noble Baroness says that he has not it is obviously an omission of memory on my noble friend's part. I do not know. I seem to have it in front of me that there were discussions. It may have been something which was halfway between this and something else. These matters are so complicated that it is easy for the noble Lord or noble Baroness to muddle up what they did discuss. I have done that myself before today, as your Lordships are aware. My noble friend, I gather, having re-read carefully what was said in this House, wrote to the noble Baroness and to the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, with his conclusions.
The noble Lord, Lord Gifford, was concerned that there should be a requirement on the Secretary of State to consult a local authority before serving a notice under what is now Clause 23(1). As my noble friend explained on that occasion, consultation is in effect already built in because of the nature of the events which would lead up to an intervention. I sincerely hope that matters will never go that

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far, but if they did it would first have been necessary for the case to have been brought to the attention of the Secretary of State as one where he might consider using his powers under this clause. It would be natural and normal for there to be contact by way of preliminary inquiries from the Department about the case or cases concerned at that stage. My honourable friend the Minister has also undertaken quite specifically that administrative steps would always be taken to notify any authority on which the Secretary of State was considering serving a notice. So in practice the consultation which the noble Lord wanted to take place is already provided for.
It is inconceivable, I would suggest, that with the Bill as it stands a notice should come, or could come, as a surprise to a local authority. The authority will always know that it had been in the offing and they will also know about the events leading up to it and the background to its service. It would simply not be possible to operate the clause in any other way. The noble Lord, Lord Gifford, implied in Committee that if some sort of advance consultation procedure could be considered by the department that would be an acceptable substitute for the amendment, which has now been moved again. But, as my noble friend said, consultation is in practice already assured. I do not accept therefore that this amendment is necessary, and I would urge the noble Baroness to consider withdrawing it.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I must apologise because recollection has suddenly come to me. I think the noble Lord will understand; he is always sympathetic. We have had such a shoal of letters from the department. The words "administrative steps" strike a bell, and I have a
feeling that I must have filed it under "turned down", and so it then got lost. I think I probably did get it, but, as the noble Lord will understand, I was not convinced by it.
If he says it is really already written in because consultations would take place, I still think we are not talking about informal meetings or just a briefing for a seminar. We are talking about what goes into legislation and I think we must have a great deal of respect for that and a great deal of care. I am always unhappy even if one says these things will happen and the administrative steps will take place and everybody will know about it in advance, that it still should not be written into the legislation.
I still believe it is important because we are dealing with very serious matters: personnel change in ministries, Governments change and it is very important to have what I feel are safeguards; whether they are safeguards for the individual, safeguards for the local authority or safeguards for other bodies, they should be written into the Bill. As I said when I moved it, I consider this an extremely modest amendment. All I am asking is that the reasons should be in writing as well as the intentions in the notice. It seems to me to be rather unnecessarily obdurate to resist something which I would think was as sensible as this. Anyhow, I will not take any more time on it because I intend to press the amendment.
6.52 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 27) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 80; Not-Contents, 74.
Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I beg to move that consideration on Report be now adjourned, so that we can deal with the next business. It is the intention that this Report stage will be resumed at 8 p.m.
EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (DEFINITION OF TREATIES)(ECSC DECISION OF 18th MARCH 1980 ON SUPPLEMENTARY REVENUE) ORDER 1980
7 p.m.
Viscount TRENCHARD Viscount TRENCHARD rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 23rd June be approved.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I beg to move that the draft European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (ECSC Decision of 18th March 1980 on Supplementary Revenue) Order 1980, laid before your Lordships' House on 23rd June 1980, be approved.
The order specifies as a Community treaty the decision taken at the Council of Ministers on 18th March 1980 to allocate supplementary revenue to the 1980 Budget of the European Coal and Steel Community. If the House approves this order, it will formally define the decision as a Community treaty under Section I of the European Communities Act 1972 thereby permitting the necessary sum to be paid to the ECSC as provided for in Section 2(3) of the Act.
I am sure that noble Lords will be acquainted with this procedure for allocating supplementary revenue to the ECSC since it was used twice last year in respect of both the 1978 and 1979 ECSC Budgets.

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Although there was some upturn in the European steel industry last year, the ECSC is still faced with weakness of demand, surplus capacity and heavy expenditure associated with steel restructuring. Indeed, 1980 will be a year of very great difficulty for the European steel industry. A high level of expenditure by the ECSC will continue to be needed in particular to assist redundant steelworkers with resettlement grants and to provide interest-subsidies on loans for projects designed to give alternative employment to redundant steelworkers and coal miners.
In these circumstances, inevitably revenue derived from the ECSC's normal source of income, the levy on production, will again prove inadequate to meet outgoings. The levy on coal and steel production has been raised by the Commission from 0·29 per cent. to 0·31 per cent. in 1980, but it would not be desirable, even if it were possible, to place an additional burden on these hard-pressed industries by raising the rate of the levy further. In the longer term, we want to see the ECSC self-financing once again, but we must recognise that at present that is not a realistic possibility.
Noble Lords will wish to know how this need for extra revenue became translated into the decision we are currently concerned with. By cutting expenditure
on some headings and raising the rate of the levy by 0.02 per cent. the Commission reduced the forecast excess of expenditure over income of 70 million European units of account shown in the first draft of the ECSC Budget for 1980 drawn up in October last year to 43 million European units of account. That still proved too much. The Commission proposed that this 43 million European units of account should be filled by extraordinary receipts. In discussing the form such receipts should take it soon became clear that there was a preference among member states for a further round of ad hoc supplementary contributions rather than a transfer from the EEC general budget, the legality of which is uncertain. The idea of transferring the proceeds of customs duties on imports of ECSC products, which has been suggested in the past, remains unacceptable to most member states, including the United Kingdom, as being unrelated either to member states' wealth and ability to pay or to the size of their
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steel and coal industries and as involving a fundamental change in the ECSC Treaty which, unlike the EEC Treaty, leaves customs receipts in the hands of member states.
The Commission proposed that the 43 million European units of account, should be used to finance interest rebates on loans for reconversion projects that is, on loans for new industrial projects in coal and steel closure areas which would provide new jobs for redundant coal and steelworkers. Although the United Kingdom was prepared to support a supplementary contribution of this size, some member states sought to reduce the amount and the compromise agreed for the March Council, subject to parliamentary procedures, was that the supplementary contribution should total 28 million European units of account—the same figure as in 1978 and 1979. It was also agreed that there should be a review in the autumn of the need for further supplementary revenue for the ECSC for this year and next. Of the 28 million European units of account the share to be paid by each member state will be the same as in 1979 and 1978, the United. Kingdom
contribution being 17.42 per cent. or about £3 million.
There is expected to be a clear net benefit to the United Kingdom from this ad hoc contribution; Commission officials have provided figures which show that in 1978 and 1979 the United Kingdom received 40 per cent. of the allocations for interest rebates on reconversion projects. Their preliminary examination of requests already in the pipeline suggests that this figure will almost certainly be maintained in 1980. We should remember that the money under this heading in the budget helps to provide new and permanent employment for former coal and steelworkers. And small businesses as well as major projects can benefit from the scheme; there is a scheme operated by ICFC which specifically enables small businesses to take advantage of these funds.
In fact the United Kingdom is receiving a net benefit from the ECSC Budget overall. In 1979 the United Kingdom paid approximately £15 million through the levy on coal and steel production and £3¼ million through the Government contribution making a total of £18¼ million. Against

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this the United Kingdom was allocated £14 million for resettlement aid to redundant coal and steel workers, £½ million in interest rebates for coal and steel modernisation loans, £7 million for interest rebates on reconversion loans, and £9¾ million for United Kingdom-based research projects, making £31¼ million in total against an £18¼ million contribution in total. Noble Lords will agree that that is a reasonably satisfactory state of affairs. I am therefore confident that the proposed contribution is fully justified and accordingly I seek approval for the draft order in council. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 23rd June be approved—(Viscount Trenchard.)
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for having introduced this order. I have before me an explanatory memorandum for the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments which refers to a number of documents which are very necessary indeed for this House to have in its possession before it considers the whole matter within its context. For example, the decision of the representatives of the Governments of the member states of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) meeting within the Council, of 18th March, is not available at present to Members of this House, even though the explanatory memorandum refers to it. Nor is the 1980 budget of the ECSC available to Members of this House to examine the matter within its context and nor—within the facilities at present available to us—can I obtain a copy of what is euphemistically referred to as the Treaty of Paris.
All of those documents are referred to in paragraph 2 of the explanatory memorandum. I do not think that this is particularly satisfactory. After all, EEC matters are of some concern to the nation as a whole because, by virtue of the Act of Accession 1972, various decisions and directives, together with regulations, become automatically incorporated in United Kingdom law. The ancient British maxim is that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Perhaps in some cases it is not, but at least it ought to be possible, within the
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facilities provided to this House, for any noble Lord to obtain documents to which reference has been made in an explanatory memorandum.
No one can complain about the way in which the noble Viscount has introduced this particular item. His explanations have been very adequate indeed; and I understand from him that the present purpose is to provide for budgetary assistance in connection with interest rebates. I think that this is very reasonable, but, of course, it is only part of the problem and remains to be considered within the context of the European Steel industry as a whole.
Very often in this House we have debated vast sums of money to be paid out of this country's Exchequer, in particular into the Common Agricultural Policy, which I believe is not universally popular on either side of your Lordships' House, certainly not in another place; indeed, dismay with it is already widespread on the continent of Europe, though not particularly among the beneficiary countries of France, Denmark and, of course, Eire.
However, iron and steel are the very sinews of European industry, and one would have thought that on the assumption that we are a European economic community as distinct from an agricultural club, the problems of the European steel industry in all the member states would have received far more consideration than they have so far. It is, indeed, indicative of the present mood of the Nine, who appear to accept all the ridiculous and insane consequences of the Common Agricultural Policy, with all the increases in domestic price levels and the rest, and with all the contributions that are made direct from the budget, and, indeed, from our own Consolidated Fund by our own taxpayers. However, when it comes to the steel industry, that becomes the Cinderella.
Why should that be? I have before me the draft budget for 1980, as approved on first reading. Under Title 5, Chapter 54 it says:
"Special contribution to the ECSC for temporary social measures in connection with the restructuring of the steel industry".
This is quite consistent with the often expressed desires of the Commission—and in particular of Count Davignon, the

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Commissioner who is in charge of this particular side of Community affairs—to put forward some degree of Community responsibility for all the ailing steel industries of Europe. So it put into its preliminary draft budget 100 million units of account for these particular provisions:
"Special contribution to the ECSC for temporary social measures in connection with the restructuring of the steel industry ",
which is a problem throughout Europe.
The European Parliament approved this sum, but when it went before the Council, the Council reduced it to nil. Indeed, in the Council's revised draft general budget for the financial year 1980, one finds under Chapter 54 "nil". So they decided not to do anything about it. In an explanatory memorandum issued by the Department of Industry on 20th May 1980 it says:
"Originally the Commission proposed that 100 million European Units of Account "—
that is, roughly £66 million—
"be granted to the European Coal and Steel Community from the General Budget … over a period of 3 years ".
then it says:
"It is intended that these funds will finance the Commission proposals to assist steelworkers adversely affected by the re-structuring of the steel industry ".
It then said that out of its own resources in the ECSC, despite the increased levy, there were no resources available for the new social measures proposed. Then at paragraph 7 it says:
"Funds would be transferred from the General Budget of the European Communities. Member States have not yet accepted the legality of the proposed transfer ".
I do not know where this question of legality arises. There are some views as to whether the transfer is permitted under Article 235 of the treaty. Someone must have been reading the fine print because I cannot see—and I agree that I am no European lawyer—any reason why this transfer should not take place under the normal provisions of the financial regulations. Perhaps if the noble Viscount is advised otherwise he can inform the House as to how he considers these would be illegal.
Finally, on the memorandum of 20th May, the Minister of State at the Department of Industry says:
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"No action can be taken on the proposed transfer of funds until the EEC 1980 Budget has been agreed, nor until the Council has reached a decision on the social proposals to assist steelworkers ".
We now know that the draft budget for 1980 has at last been approved. All we now await is a decision on the social proposals to assist steelworkers.
I have some questions to ask about this. The plight of the steelworkers of the United Kingdom is well known. The extent to which their troubles will be exacerbated or otherwise by decisions made by the Secretary of State for Industry himself—who has certain very pronounced ideas on this subject—is not, of course, yet known. We do not even know in what the MacGregor proposals, when they are formulated, will result. But one thing is certain. The plight of the steelworkers of this country is one of increasing gravity. Nor, is this confined in any way to the United Kingdom. Other steel industries in Europe—some of them state-supported in precisely the same way as the United Kingdom industry has been supported in the past—are also facing difficulties.
I am given to understand by Her Majesty's Government that they take their membership of the EEC very seriously. In fact, I have asked them many times to state in precise terms what economic, as distinct from political, advantages have accrued to the United Kingdom as a result of membership, and what advantages are apprehended in the future. So far I have received no reply. However, I take the point that come hell and high water Her Majesty's Government are firm members of the EEC and fully espouse its principles. I want to ask them what energy they will put into it to ensure that out of ECSC funds or out of the budget Britain receives a net benefit of a substantial size to deal with the very great problems that the steelworkers in South Wales, Corby, Scunthorpe and elsewhere will experience.
Even on the assumption—which I do not accept—that the funds in the United Kingdom at the moment do not permit of some state-aided expenditure, there is still no excuse, if we cannot do it, for not pressing with the utmost vigour, for the EEC to do something about it. I therefore hope that the noble Viscount will be able to tell us what steps he has in mind for this meeting that is due to take place in the

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autumn in order that out of the EEC budget there can be, via the ECSC, certain sums made available in order to bear part of the tremendous financial costs in terms of human lives, human incomes, and all the rest of it that will result from the mass closures that are envisaged.
If Her Majesty's Government cannot do it out of Treasury resources—and I do not admit that they cannot at a time when they are willing to spend £5,000 million on Trident—then there is still no excuse for them not using the maximum endeavour within the Council of the EEC, and indeed at all levels in the EEC, to make sure that our needs are made known and are satisfied. If the noble Viscount could give us some idea as to what plans Her Majesty's Government have for this autumn meeting, what demands they propose to put forward, what other alternative proposals they have in mind, I am sure that not only this House but the country at large would be greatly appreciative.
Nothing I have said detracts in any way from our satisfaction with the way in which the noble Viscount has presented this particular proposal. We complain that we have not had all the documents, and this must be a matter of some importance. The noble Viscount said that this country derives a small net benefit from its contributions to the ECSC, and we should of course be grateful for small mercies. We therefore are indebted to the noble Viscount, and we should not wish to resist the passing of the appropriate resolution.
7.23 p.m.
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, I am not going to follow the noble Lord into a debate on the EEC, its agricultural policy, or even a broad-ranging debate on steel itself, on which we have had a number of discussions in the past. On the question of this order, and to deal first with the point that the noble Lord raised on the availability of documents, the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1951, and I believe that copies would be obtainable from the Library if they are still there. But certainly this is not a secret document, it was published ages and ages ago. The decision of the 18th March,
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which I have before me, is published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 50p net, Cmnd. 7936. I cannot offhand give the noble Lord an answer in relation to the 1980 ECSC budget, but I undertake to write to him on that third document.
I do not think it is fair to say that the countries in the Community, either individually or collectively, are paying no attention to the serious conditions in the steel industry which, as the noble Lord observed, is a situation that exists in other countries as well as in this country. One has to look at the remedial measures for the difficult situations in the steel producing areas in the country, and in all countries, in the context of national measures and international measures. The biggest part is the national measures, which we have been over in this House on a good few occasions quite recently. Large sums of money are being spent on remedial measures in relation to the necessary cutback in steel production over the Community as a whole, and in Britain arising from the reasons which we have discussed so often but which lie in the past in relation to the competitive nature of the British steel industry.
In relation to the suggestion that perhaps 100 million European units of account extra should be budgeted and spent, this too has been discussed in this House and in the other place when discussing the steel remedials. I have previously informed the House, as has my right honourable friend the other place, that the support for the measures put forward, mainly under the auspices of Commissioner Vredeling, has not been at all universal. At the first round really only Belgium was in favour of those proposals, and even they had qualifications on how the money should be spent.
Within a community one has to respect the right of one's partners, as well as one's own judgment, and to understand that some things which are best handled nationally and some are best handled on a Community basis. I cannot follow the noble Lord into the legality of transfer from the EEC budget. He said that he was not a Community lawyer, and I am certainly not one. I can assure him that it is the advice of the legal departments of Her Majesty's Government that in all probability such a transfer would not be legal, and that appears to be the opinion of others as well.

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If the noble Lord would like me to give him some expert opinions in writing on the main areas on which that view is based, I should be prepared to do so. But I have to accept that my colleagues with the legal qualifications have come to that conclusion, I may say not with any enthusiasm because in this area we have major steel problems and we might well have considered that this was a road that could be followed. It is not only a question of the transfer to the ECSC budget, but it might not have been possible to use the money from the EEC budget for the purposes of ECSC. This does not, however, mean that the EEC industries are badly looked after so far as the EEC budget is available.
The noble Lord asks what is going to take place in the autumn, and asks me to ensure that Her Majesty's Government will press with—I have forgotten all the adjectives he used—great vigour that the contribution from countries to the ECSC budget on the existing basis should be increased in order that we should be in a position to take more benefits. I gave him the overall figures of our net very large benefit; much larger than any other country in the Community. I have on previous occasions told him that we have had something like 40 per cent. of the loans and 30 per cent. of the readaptation monies.
My Lords, I ask the noble Lord just to consider the position of the EEC, in which I believe, and the question whether it would be right for Her Majesty's Government to press with the utmost vigour in the way that he suggested in relation to the system as it works at the moment, on a steel tonnage basis; and I ask him to think about this in view of the various industries' movements, the levy being on the sealed tonnage basis and the split being, as I outlined it, of the special contribution. I ask him to consider, about tactics, what would be the best way of going about it and to take into consideration the fact that we are getting a very considerable and major benefit at the present time. He will perhaps give us the credit of wanting to ensure that we get the maximum possible benefit. I think if he considers the tactics of the situation against the fact that many other countries are putting in large sums of money, have major steel problems of their own and are getting nothing like the percentage out that they are putting in—
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some others are beneficiaries, but overall that is the truth—he will perhaps give us the credit and leave it to us to negotiate in the autumn as seems most practicable in the circumstances; and perhaps he will welcome the continuation of this benefit to the United Kingdom, which is no more than a contribution to the remedial measures for the major problems which the Government are facing in the steel areas.
Viscount LONG: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8 o'clock.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.32 until 8 p.m.]

HOUSING BILL
Consideration on Report continued, on Clause 23.
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE moved Amendment No. 28:
Page 20, line 24, leave out subsection (5).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment is one which I regret was not tabled at Committee stage, but it was debated in Standing Committee "F" in another place. This subsection is most unsatisfactory as it stands and is causing considerable concern to local government officers and local government associations. The subsection enables the Secretary of State, by notice in writing, to require a public sector landlord to produce any document or supply any information which is specified in the notice. The subsection also imposes a statutory duty in the notice. The subsection also imposes a statutory duty upon an officer of a public sector landlord such as a local authority to produce such documents and information when able to do so without taking the instructions of the officer's employers. The Bill does not impose any penalty on an officer who commits a breach of the duty to be imposed by this subsection, but it would enable the Secretary of State to take civil proceedings against an officer and the legal expenses of such proceedings would

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inevitably be a heavy financial burden on the officer concerned.
The concern of local government officers is that they will be placed in an intolerable position in that, as a result of the Bill, it is their duty to obey the Secretary of State, and that could conflict with instructions they might receive from their employers. Even the Conservative-controlled London Boroughs Association has expressed its concern with this subsection and has expressed the view that the Secretary of State's powers to give directions should be limited to the local authority and not directly to any officer of the authority. Furthermore, one wonders how the Secretary of State will know what officer in a local authority will provide him with the necessary documents and how he will know which officer in a local authority has the document that he requires.
Again the subsection does not state what the penalites for non-compliance are. No penalties are stated in the clause and individual officers, for reasons of professional conscience, may well not wish to comply. Surely they have the right to know what the penalties might be. I do not think this subsection is satisfactorily drafted at the present time and I hope that the noble Lord will be able, before Third Reading, to have another look at the wording of it. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, this subsection allows the Secretary of State to serve on a landlord a notice requiring the submission of information that he needs to deal with a case over which he has intervened. The subsection provides that the officer of the landlord who has control of the information or documents required, or who is designated in the notice, is to take all reasonable steps to ensure that the notice is complied with. This is a power which is very plainly needed: without it, a hostile landlord would be able to block progress on the right to buy, simply by refusing to tell the Secretary of State the facts that he needs to know. The noble Lord has suggested, however, that the subsection could produce conflicts of loyalty for the landlord's officers. I fail to see how this can be so. As one who is not without some experience of working with local government officers, I accept that they would always normally
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look to elected members for their instructions, and that they would carry out those instructions faithfully and fully. I do not accept, however, that any conflict of loyalties or crisis of conscience is involved in this case, since the officer to whom a notice under subsection (5) was addressed would be under a clear, statutory obligation to comply. I do not believe that a reasonable elected member would be prepared to give, nor that an officer could accept, any instruction which purported to require him to break the law.
This amendment, as I have said, would remove a necessary element in this clause. I very much hope that we would never be in a position in which the powers given in Clause 23 would need to be invoked, but I am sure they must be available in a satisfactory form. I thought very carefully about this myself, based upon practical experience of what happens as regards the carrying out of statutory obligations, and so on, in practice regarding officers and members. I really see no conflict, because it has never been the case that officers have been other than anxious to point out to elected members—it has been pointed out in my experience many times—" you need to do this, because if you do not it will mean you are in breach of the law ". Nobody sets out to be that. I have as great a regard for the law-abiding attitude of local government officers as I have for local government members. At the same time, there is no doubt that there is, and has been, much made of what certain authorities or members would want to do to try to thwart the Government's intentions as regards rights to buy. Therefore, I think it is right that there should be at least a power of this kind which, first, one hopes would never be used and, secondly, which in practice will cause far less concern than the noble Lord may fear.
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE: My Lords, the noble Lord in his reply did not in fact deal with the question of penalties. The subsection does not include any mention of penalities and I hope, despite what he has said, that he will look at that particular aspect of the subsection before we come to Third Reading. In view of his remarks, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 25 [Statutory declarations]:
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 29:
Page 22, line 25, after first ("landlord") insert ("the Housing Corporation").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment No. 30 with Amendment No. 29. These amendments make it clear that the Housing Corporation, as well as the Secretary of State or a landlord, may accept statutory declarations for right-to-buy purposes. Housing association tenants will have the right to a mortgage from the Housing Corporation, who may want to make use of statutory declarations when working out a tenant's morgage entitlement. I invite your Lordships to accept these small but useful amendments. I beg to move.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 30:
Page 22, line 25, after second ("landlord") insert ("Corporation").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have already spoken to this with the last amendment. I beg to move.
Clause 27 [Interpretation of Chapter 1]:
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 31:
Page 23, line 26, leave out ("I") and insert ("II").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment corrects a tiny error which has crept into Clause 27. Housing associations are registered with the Housing Corporation under Part II of the Housing Act 1974, not under Part I. I beg to move.
Schedule 3 [Tenancies which are not secure tenancies]:
8.9 p.m.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 32:
Page 110, line 24, leave out paragraph 2.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is very complicated, because my
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amendments and the Government's amendments all seem to be intertwined—not in holy matrimony, but by sonic means or other! My Amendment No. 32 goes with Amendments Nos. 42, 44, 48, and 39. I have in mind another amendment, which I shall table later, and which had I put it down today would have been a manuscript amendment to Schedule 1; but I did not think that it would be extremely popular. This, too, is tied up with the other amendments. The purpose of these amendments, Nos. 32, 42, 44 and 48—
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, would not Amendment No. 48 also be suitable for inclusion in the discussion on these amendments?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I did say Amendment No. 48. The amendments are Nos. 32, 42, 44, 48, and 39. The purpose of these amendments is to give security of tenure to those in tied accommodation, but also to allow their eviction where the tenant is no longer in the employment of the landlord and the dwelling-house is needed for another incoming worker. In addition, Amendment No. 39 provides that if a tied tenant has had two years' continuous employment he is entitled to alternative accommodation. In contrast, the Government's approach in Amendment No. 33 is further to exempt from any security of tenure those occupying accommodation in
schools or social service facilities where that accommodation is linked to employment. I shall come back to that point in a moment. It is not that I am opposed to the Government's Amendments, but to me the missing link is that there is no provision for alternative accommodation when the tenant loses the tied accommodation.
Amendment No. 32 deletes the exemption to security of tenure of those who occupy accommodation for the better performance of their duties. This follows what I believe was discussed in Committee; it also follows what was said in the Rent (Agriculture) Act. Amendment No. 38 inserts a new ground, Ground 14, which allows eviction in the case of tied workers who are no longer in employment, thus otherwise giving them the same rights as others in the public sector.
At this point I should mention the amendment that I have not in fact tabled,

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since I believe that the picture is not complete if I do not refer to it. It is a consequential amendment to the other tied accommodation amendments, which give tied tenants security of tenure but allow eviction on certain grounds. As a result of that change those in tied accommodation would also have the right to buy as they become secure tenants. However, this would lead to a very difficult situation where the local authority could evict a tied worker if it needed the house for some other worker, but if the original worker served notice of the right to buy, he would gain de facto security. I have not tabled an amendment relating to that point, but I do not think that the overall case is clear unless I refer to the intention behind it.
Amendment No. 44 inserts a new ground for eviction, where a person who was a tied worker ceases employment and the local authority needs the dwelling-house for another worker. This means that the landlord does not have an absolute right to evict tied workers as in the Bill as presently drafted, but must show that the dwelling-house is genuinely needed. Amendment No. 44 is to be preferred to Amendment No. 42. I fear that these two amendments are fairly similar. The later amendment seems the better, but bearing in mind that the Government have down a number of amendments, I left in the earlier amendment in the hope that between us we could reach the best solution. Amendment No. 42 contains a less broad definition of a tied worker—
"for the better performance of his duties "—
which had created the worry that some tied workers would be given permanent security of tenure with no redress from the landlord. Therefore, I believe that Amendment No. 44 is the better alternative.
Amendment No. 39 provides that those workers evicted on Ground 14, if they have worked for two years, will have to be provided with alternative accommodation. This is similar to the period for qualification provided in the Rent (Agriculture) Act. However, it differs slightly from that Act in two aspects. First, the worker has a right to alternative accommodation (rather than providing only that local authorities use their best endeavours) but, on the other hand, the local authority has the absolute right of
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possession rather than being dependent on a judgment that is subjective. This seems sensible also because in most cases the rehousing authority will be the same authority as that which is seeking possession, and in this way the situation is not entirely similar to that under the Rent (Agriculture) Act. I believe that the Government amendments and one of my amendments are very similar to the AMA amendment, which also attempts to deal with this question.
This is a very complicated matter and probably I have said enough at this stage. Perhaps it would be useful if the noble Lord opposite spoke to the Government amendments covering this matter, so that perhaps we can try to sort it out together. I beg to move.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, the effect of Amendment No. 32, and Amendment No. 44 also tabled, would be to give security of tenure to tenants of local authorities when those tenancies are granted as a consequence of their employment. It would also expose the tenants to a ground for possession. Amendment No. 42 would do the same for accommodation occupied under a contract of employment. It is hardly clear from this duality which test the Opposition want to apply. Incidentally, if I may gently tease the noble Baroness's tail, I should add that her party's Bill did not contain any such provision, either.
This Bill as drafted excludes from security of tenure those who occupy their dwellings as a condition of their contract of employment. We believe that there is a basic difference between the circumstances of the tenant who has his house because of the job he does, and those of the normal run of tenant who is housed by the landlord as a function of the landlord's housing responsibilities. In the first case the housing is associated with the provision of a service, and the housing is provided to ensure that the service can be performed satisfactorily. In the second case the housing is provided from public funds in order to meet housing need. It is in those circumstances that security of tenure and the associated rights are appropriate. Where housing on the spot is vital to the job, as in the case of a caretaker of a block of flats or a warden of a sheltered housing scheme, for example, it is vitally important for management that

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they can readily obtain possession of the housing should the employee concerned leave the job.
Therefore, we do not believe that security of tenure is appropriate in these cases of genuinely tied accommodation, even with a ground for possession limited, as in Amendment No. 44. We also realise the special nature of residential social service and educational establishments. Amendment No. 42, however, would reduce the security of the local authority employee who holds his accommodation merely as a consequence of his employment by subjecting him, and those tenants covered by the present exclusion in Schedule 3, to a ground for possession. This the Government do not wish to do. Where a teacher, for example, is living in an ordinary council house provided as an incentive to him to take up a job, we believe that he should have the same right as any other tenant to be secure in that dwelling. I consider (with, I think, noble Lords sitting opposite me) that we should not deny or reduce security of tenure without good reason. I am therefore perhaps a little surprised that they should seek to introduce such a wide ground for possession. There is not even any provision for the tenant to be notified that the ground might be used against him.
The amendment requires that, whichever of the new grounds applies, suitable alternative accommodation is to be available if the tenant has worked for the employer for more than two years. This is a considerable burden to place on public sector landlords as a matter of course. The Government hope, of course, that they will look with sympathy at claims for the rehousing of those who have occupied tied accommodation, but this amendment would force them to give preferential treatment to people who in normal circumstances might otherwise come well down the list. It would also, I think, possibly open up the chance of abuse by encouraging people to take a particular job in the certainty that, whatever happens, they will be permanently rehoused after two years. This would occur regardless of whether the employee had performed his job satisfactorily, whether he had been dismissed for dishonesty and whatever his financial and personal circumstances.
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I am sure that in the normal course of events an employee in tied housing owned by a public sector landlord will be rehoused by his landlord when he leaves the job on retirement or for health reasons. Local authorities and others do this voluntarily in genuine cases. Beyond that, I do not think they should be required to go. Nor, apparently, did the Government of which the noble Baroness was a member, when they introduced their Bill. I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, can he say when he will speak to the Government Amendment No. 33; and would it not be to the convenience of the House if he did so now, before the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, made up her mind what to do with her amendment?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I am quite content to do that if that is what the House wishes.
Baroness BIRK: I agree that I said when moving my amendment that they were very complicated, and I think the position is very difficult. If I may say so on the assumption that the noble Lord has not sat down, there seems to be some misunderstanding because under the Act I am talking about, the Rent (Agriculture) Act —through, it is true, the operation of the A DHACs—i f your Lordships remember, the local authorities had to use every reasonable endeavour to try to find alternative accommodation. In fact, that is working out very well, so there seems to have been rather a mistake over that.
Furthermore, although I absolutely understand that this created a difficulty for the noble Lord when I had to do it at the last moment, I did mention an amendment that I might move which would prevent the person in the tied cottage then exercising the right to buy, which could create problems; but I did not table that amendment today because I thought it was too late to do so. But if we could deal with them altogether, perhaps we might be able to work something out.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I will speak, then, in effect, to Amendment No. 33 because I think that might be

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helpful. The Government have considered with very great care the problem raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, when he moved what was Amendment No. 87 in Committee. He spoke of the problems the drafting of the present exclusion, which deliberately covers only strictly tied accommodation, might create for social service and similar establishments. After much discussion with him and with my noble friend Lady Faithful!, I think it would be fair to say that we now understand the problems better, and I am very grateful to them both.
My Lords, we did not feel able to make a change as wide-ranging as that suggested by the noble Viscount. As I said during our debate on that amendment, we do not want to remove from security any more people than is really necessary. That is why this amendment is specifically restricted to dwellings forming part of buildings, or in the grounds of buildings, held for social services or education purposes. In addition, the tenancy must have been granted to an employee of the local authority concerned on terms providing that it shall come to an end when the tenant ceases to be employed by the landlord. This covers what are known, I believe, as service tenancies, in those particular circumstances.
I should like to make it clear to the House that we are not excluding from security of tenure houses which form part of the ordinary housing stock. The dwellings falling within this exclusion will be dwellings not held under Part V of the Housing Act 1957, though not all dwellings outside Part V, of course, will be within the exclusion. What we are seeking to exclude are tenancies of dwellings within establishments catering for those with particular special needs—that is, old people's homes, schools for disturbed children—where it might not always be reasonable, or possible, to require in a contract of employment that the employee should occupy that particular accommodation, under pain of losing his job. If secure tenancies arose in a flat within these establishments, we accept that there would be special difficulties—for example, when an employment came to an end—and it might be difficult for the local authority to regain possession of the flat.
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I am sure your Lordships will agree that we should do what we can to help the already difficult staffing situation in these special establishments. That is why we have introduced what I feel is a worthwhile amendment. I have no doubt that there will be some cases of merit which we have not succeeded in helping, but I believe that in this amendment we have dealt with the case of the problem as put to us, and I think this is as far as we can go bearing in mind our general wish to extend security and the right to buy to as many people as possible. I would beg to move that amendment when we come to it, and hope that my dealing with it now is helpful in the consideration of the previous amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Birk.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, I wonder whether I might take this opportunity to thank my noble friend the Minister very much indeed. The directors of social services throughout the country are very grateful indeed to the Minister for having effected this amendment because it will make very much easier the staffing situation, which, as the Bill stood before, would have been difficult.
I wish to ask the Minister a question. I know the answer, but perhaps I may ask him this question in order to give reassurance to the national child-care voluntary organisation, which comprise such organisations as Dr. Barnardo's, the Church of England Children's Society, National Children's Homes and Crusade of Rescue. I want to reassure myself and them that the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970, referred to in the amendment, refers to them, because, of course, they look after local authority children on behalf of the local authority, and I think they would be very grateful if it were possible to have that reassurance, particularly as it would be recorded in Hansard.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, I think the whole House will be grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, for having raised this question in the first place. May I say now that I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Bellwin for writing to me upon precisely the point that my noble friend Lady Faithful has just been mentioning, which is the voluntary bodies carrying out social service

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functions. ft is quite clear from that letter that they were not affected in the first place.
May I ask this one question: is paragraph (b) of the new subsection set out in the Government Amendment No. 33 wide enough to cover a housing association employing a warden in a sheltered scheme? A housing association is, of course, a landlord for the purpose of this Bill.
8.30 p.m.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, by leave of the House, so far as I am aware—and I have to put it that way because I think this is something that I should like to confirm later—unless the institutions to which my noble friend refers, Dr. Barnardo and the Church of England Children's Society, operate through a housing association (which I suppose it is always possible for them to do) the proposals in the amendment would not cover them. I put it that way carefully, because I am not certain whether that is the intention of the amendment. I think that is probably the exact position at the moment. I would have to try to ascertain if that is so and whether or not, if it is so, it is something we ought to think about. I am sorry I cannot be more positive on what is to my noble friend an important point. At the moment I cannot be more forthcoming on it but I recognise this is not as helpful as my noble friend would like it to be.
Viscount CRAIGAVON: My Lords, can I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, for giving what seems to be 98 per cent. of what I was asking for in my previous amendment and also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, for her significant influence in persuading the Government of the desirability of this move. Without this amendment, I think there would have been a risk of slow thrombosis in the social services in one or two years' time. This has now been avoided. To take into account the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, I think the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, is saying that we should trust to this extent the local authorities in their discretion in rehousing. I feel that the amendment as put down by the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, is sufficient. I should like to know from the noble
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Baroness, Lady Birk, to what extent if Lord Bellwin's amendment is accepted her other amendments cease to be relevant.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, is satisfied with the Minister's reply. It did not seem to me, as the amendments are drafted, that they take in all the organisations she mentioned. It is difficult to ask a question of the Minister through the noble Baroness. I should like to get that straight before I continue with my winding up.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, may I ask the Minister (if this is the way to do it) whether he would not agree that the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 in the first schedule covers all these voluntary organisations, because those voluntary organisations carry out for the local authorities the work which the local authorities are not themselves doing at the moment? The Minister has said that he will look into it. I would be quite happy with that.
Viscount GAGE: My Lords, I did not understand one thing my noble friend Lord Bellwin said. Is a flat constructed for the warden of an old persons' home for the aged, protected? Is it excluded?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, by leave of the House, on the latter point raised by my noble friend, it would depend on what were the objectives of the housing association if they were operating (if "operating" is the right word) within the social services content of the Act—which I am grateful to my noble friend for handing to me. Then the flat would be excluded in that way. If I can be helpful to my noble friend on this, she, with her great knowledge of the subject, refers to the Act and to what I said regarding the bodies included in them. I said I was not certain of this point. I went on to say that I recognise her great concern and I would certainly undertake to look at this point. She is probably right on it. I should not even question the possibility that with her specialist knowledge she might not be right. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, can enlighten us. In any case, I will undertake to look at that point.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I think this matter is much too serious to

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be left in the air. We must clear this up one way or the other. I understood the noble Lord to say when he was replying to his noble friend Lady Faithfull that four of the major voluntary organisations working in this field which were named by the noble Baroness, would be covered if they were working through (I thought the Minister said) a housing association. But they are not. The implication of that is that if he says they are covered if they are working through a housing association, and they are not; then they are not covered. We ought to get that clear.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, by leave of the House, to be helpful, I said that if they were a housing association they were covered; but I went on to say, on the assumption that they were not covered, I would still be willing to have a look at that. I think the Bill as we have it now before us and this amendment do not affect the position of those living in tied accommodation. These bodies are not landlord authorities—unless they are housing associations—so that security and the right to buy does not apply to them in any case. I think we are chasing ourselves in something of a circle. I think they are in any case not going to create a problem; they are excluded in any event. Therefore, I do not think we will have any problem with them at all. The right to buy does not apply. Therefore, I think that I can satisfy those who are concerned on this. Whether we get there one way or the other does not matter, so long as we get to the end position that we require. On this, I am glad to say all is well in the end.
Baroness BIRK: It is not all quite well. There are the amendments I moved and the noble Lord asked me how they fitted in. If I can be brief, I recognise absolutely the difficulty which the Government amendments seek to relieve. I believe the relaxation of security should only operate in relation to tenancies created before the commencement of the Act. Tenancies of this kind should be subject to security thus deterring local authorities from creating unnecessary tied housing. The Minister made the point clearly in the Committee on 30th June in columns 157 to 160, when he said that the authority should consider carefully before creating such accommodation and the relaxation
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in security should not only be limited to existing tenancies but to take the form of a ground for possession of a right after two years' employment to suitable alternative accommodation. This is preferable to a blanket exclusion, as the Government propose, although we recognise the need with our own amendments to detach security from the right to buy.
The problem of right to buy arises in my amendment and not in the Government's. All the amendments are aimed to deal with the problems of tied accommodation. Some of us feel—although the Minister said at the last gasp that he thought it was all right—that it is not all right enough. I do not think that he was quite as certain about it as he would like to feel. It would be helpful to the House if it were taken back, and if we could get it sorted out for Third Reading. If he does that, it would then give him an opportunity to look at the amendments that I have been moving. I should be very happy to write to him further if there is any other problem to see whether we can get this interlinked. I am not objecting to the Government's amendments. I am saying that I would rather they went further in one way and less far in another. We have reached the end of where we can deal with this across the House now. We want some further clarification on several points. I am still not happy with the reply that my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell received.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, by leave of the House, again, at the end of the day I was absolutely satisfied—I would not say so categorically unless I felt I was able to do so—that the institutions to which my noble friend referred are excluded. Therefore, the problem does not arise for them. I am most reluctant to take back anything that is not absolutely essential at this stage. We probably took back too much at the Committee stage in an endeavour to be helfpul and try to do things. Of course, I understand the attitude taken by the noble Baroness, and I am grateful for that. There are one or two things coming along which are special but we have brought forward the amendment to meet the situation and I have now confirmed that it meets it entirely. I would not say that if I did not think so. I hope that we can proceed on that basis.
Baroness BIRK: With leave, my Lords, I will say that in that case I will study Hansard carefully as so much has been said about this. If I want to put down an amendment on Third Reading I will do so. If I am worried about any query I will get in touch with the Minister in the meantime.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, it seems a long time ago but when I was answering Amendment No. 32 I made a slight mistake. In my first paragraph I correctly referred to Amendment No. 44 and Amendment No. 42. In the third paragraph of my speech I referred to Amendment No. 44 and Amendment No. 42 again. I have to make an awful confession: I should have referred to Amendment No. 42 first and Amendment No. 44 second. I therefore ask that noble Lords will take note of this in their records and accept my apologies.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 33:
Page 110, line 36, at end insert—
("Social service and educational premises
2A. A tenancy is not a secure tenancy if the tenant is an employee of the landlord and—

(a) the terms of the tenancy provide for the tenancy to terminate on the tenant ceasing to be employed by the landlord;

(b) the dwelling-house is held by the landlord for the purpose of any of its functions under the Education Act 1944 or under any of the enactments specified in Schedule 1 to the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970; and

(c) the dwelling-house forms part of a building held for those purposes or is within the curtilage of such a building.").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have just spoken to this amendment. I formally beg to move it.
8.44 p.m.
Baroness FAITHFULL Baroness FAITHFULL moved Amendment No. 34:
Page 110, line 42, at end insert—
("(2) A tenancy is not a secure tenancy if the dwelling-house has been acquired for rehabilitation and the dwelling-house is used by the landlord, pending rehabilitation, at temporary housing accommodation.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving this amendment I am now a split
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personality! I have had the opportunity—and I am very grateful—of having talked to the noble Lord the Minister and his advisers. In part they have convinced me that I could withdraw my amendment. I say that I am a split personality for this reason. I deeply believe in this Bill from the point of view of the sale of council houses. I deeply believe in this Bill from the point of view of a tenant's charter and security of tenure. On the other hand, I am still worried—and would therefore put it in the form of a question to the Minister—over temporary accommodation owned either by the local authorities or housing associations which are empty and therefore short term, and which are going to be rehabilitated.
I am very well aware of the fact—and I would be the first to agree with this—that to open the door to local authorities circumventing the principle of the right to buy would be wrong, because I believe in the right to buy. I would ask the Minister whether he would not agree that the three tests of insecure tenants are met: that is, that housing for rehabilitation—not development—is in the first place temporary accommodation. When I say "temporary accommodation" I am also looking at Ground 8 which, if people refuse to move, gives the landlord the right to gain possession of the property. The tenants would be temporary and would be short term. Such property is not the normal housing stock.
Therefore, I would ask my noble friend the Minister whether we can be assured that local authorities are not going to leave empty houses although they are going to be rehabilitated when there are a certain group of people without any housing accommodation at all. I know that under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act homeless people are covered. I know that under this Bill students are covered and mobility of labour is covered.
There are certain people not covered: for instance, the young couple whose points are very low on the housing list because they have been only recently married; they have no children and it will take a couple of years before they can get a council house and they therefore could not possibly be secure tenants. Another example is the young teacher and secretary whose parents move away from the city but they want to stay and they cannot

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find accommodation. Therefore, I would ask my noble friend whether he can assure us that the local authorities will be advised to use that property.
I withdrew an amendment at Committee saying that housing committees should be informed every quarter of empty properties. I withdrew that because I realised that was trespassing on the responsibilities of local authorities. I would further ask the Minister what housing associations will do if they purchase property or have property allocated to them by the local authority which they wish to rehabilitate—not develop—and whether the housing associations will be able to use those properties.
As I said at the beginning, I am in some difficulty having set down this amendment because I have seen the Minister and his advisers and I would be the last one to want to infringe the rights of tenants to be secure tenants or the sale of council houses. I therefore put this to the Minister and would be very interested to hear his reply.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I understand the fear that my noble friend has expressed, that landlords will find it harder to use shortlife property. I think, however, that she need not be as concerned as I know she has been about this matter. The exclusion from security of tenure in paragraph 3 covers all tenancies of property acquired for "development" within the meaning of the Town and Country Planning Act 1972. I should like to emphasise how wide this definition goes. It covers converting an old house into several flats or bedsitters. It covers any work which will substantially affect the external appearance of the building. It covers a change of use; for example, from individual units to a hostel. It also covers, of course, cases where there is to be demolition which will involve either a change of use or a different structure.
Even where the work does not amount to development, there will still be the possibility of using such property, which is available for only a short time, to house persons who fall within one of the excluded categories. It would not, I feel, be too difficult to match these people to those dwellings which do not fall within the exclusion, if it were really essential
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that a secure tenancy should not arise. Lettings to students, to people moving for employment reasons and seeking a permanent home, and to the homeless will all not be secure before a certain time has elapsed.
Where a dwelling which is scheduled for improvement has to be vacated for the work to be done, there is always a mandatory ground for possession available, provided that suitable alternative accommodation is provided. This, I believe, is the way ordinary tenants should be treated if they have to be moved, and the present exclusion is quite deliberately tightly drawn.
There is a further difficulty with this amendment, in that it would be extremely difficult to know what constitutes rehabilitation. In fact, much major work will fall within the definition of development "used in planning legislation. The Government do not want people to be deprived of security and the right to buy because relatively minor works—perhaps not even sizeable enough to justify seeking possession under Ground 8 in Schedule flare to be carried out at some future date. The definition of "development" is a tested one, and I submit that that in itself is a great advantage.
As on the last amendment, I am most anxious to he absolutely accurate in what I am saying, but I do not know whether I can give my noble friend the assurance that local authorities will not leave houses empty. Practice is this area varies so much from authority to authority. Some are seemingly not as concerned—I choose my words carefully—as others about keeping houses empty, in whatever condition. That is probably the fairest way of putting it. I know of many, however, who are most anxious about this. In some ways, perhaps they are anxious out of self-interest, because if a house is empty it is not only not helping the local housing situation, but it also means that the authority do not get rent, rates and all that go with them. While I recognise that shortlife accommodation is of a special kind, I could not give an assurance. I only hope that, with the emphasis which has been placed on what is happening in housing, there will be a much greater concern by local authorities about dwellings, of whatever kind and for whatever purpose, that are empty.

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I do not know whether I have answered all the points to satisfy my noble friend whose concern I appreciate, because we have talked about this matter. But I think I have been able to assuage many of her concerns about the whole matter. Certainly, the Bill gives considerable flexibility, and "flexibility" is really the key word here. If we give as much flexibility as possible, it is certain that authorities will, at least, have the opportunity to maximise the use of this kind of accommodation.
With that, my noble friend may, at least, feel sufficiently satisfied for the time being. As with so many of the other points that we talked about earlier, there is much more room as time goes on to talk about so many aspects of housing, even after this Bill is well put away, as it will be.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for what he has said, particularly about the broad construction of the word "development" in the Town and Country Planning Act. I am also grateful for what he said about the various categories of tenants who will not become secure by the fact that they have a tenancy. I am a little disappointed that he could not go a step or two further, and say that no local authority or housing association need board up a house which is empty for fear that if they put somebody in it that will become a secure tenancy, and that they will never be able to do the rehabilitation which they want to do. This is a very important amendment which has been moved by my noble friend, simply because for too long there has been a total scandal of boarded-up and bricked-up houses, which is something we all want to end.
8.56 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I am very concerned about this amendment and I cannot say that I am very happy at the Minister's reply. Unfortunately, this situation is something of which we have all been aware for a long time. Whichever Government are in power, it is terrible to see houses boarded up, longer and longer waiting lists and either squatters getting in or nobody being able to use a property. In the past, there has been some use made of shortlife property. The GLC have done a great deal in that field, particularly
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for charitable organisations, and when they start to rehabilitate a house people go somewhere else. But if the situation is left as it is, then I am afraid, as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, is afraid, that this practice will continue. There will be more and more boarded-up houses, especially as it will take longer for local authorities to get around to rehabilitation now that their resources have been cut.
If this amendment is not accepted, there will be two direct consequences. First, housing authorities will be extremely limited in their ability to let property on a shortlife basis in future, and they will revert to the practice of boarding-up houses until work can commence, which practice we are trying to break up. Secondly, before the Bill comes into force, many councils will be under pressure to terminate licences granted to shortlife users, so that they will not have the responsibility of finding permanent accommodation for these non-priority cases. This is very important, and in that case one can hardly blame an authority for taking pre-emptive action.
At the Committee stage, the Minister argued that this exclusion would remove a tenant's right to buy, but it must be remembered that the amendment would relate only to property specifically acquired for rehabilitation and not to a housing authority's permanent housing stock. It would also apply only to property pending rehabilitation and not to property that had been improved. Furthermore, it would apply only where a property had been let to tenants as temporary accommodation, and not to tenants who occupied the property as sitting tenants when it was purchased. In that case, I cannot see who would be denied the right to buy; the answer is no one.
If a tenant occupying a property awaiting improvement wished to exercise a right to buy, the public sector landlord could gain possession under Ground 8 in Schedule 4 and, as Ground 8 is mandatory, the court having granted possession, the right to buy could not be exercised under Schedule I, Part II, paragraph 1. Therefore, the argument is not about whether such tenants should be excluded from the right to buy, which could not be exercised, but whether housing authorities should be obliged to provide permanent housing for non-priority cases who have

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been allowed to occupy property on a shortlife basis.
The issue is a simple choice between whether housing authorities should be allowed to continue making good use of property which is awaiting improvement by letting it to shortlife tenants, or whether, instead, they should be compelled to revert to the former practice of boarding-up, inviting squatters, incurring a loss of revenue and, for several years, removing thousands of dwellings from the stock available for renting. It seems to me—and I have listened very carefully to what the Minister said, and to the questions posed by the noble Baroness—that this is an amendment of great importance and I think that it should be accepted by the Government. There is nothing else in the Bill which deals with a problem that Members on all sides of the House recognise. I put down my name to the amendment and if the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, is not prepared to press it, I am.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, by leave of the House, if the noble Baroness wishes to press the amendment, it is, of course, her right so to do, but I certainly cannot accept many of the points she has just made about what local authorities do or do not do, and what attitudes they take or do not take to people who are in this kind of accommodation. It has not been my experience that local authorities try to take advantage of any situation so as to get out of any obligations that they may have to house people. That is not so; it does not happen that way in practice, in my experience at least. While I cannot answer for every local authority, certainly I can speak for all those which I do know, and they are very many.
I do not have the concerns which the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, has expressed. I spent some time looking carefully into this matter, together with my noble friend Lady Faithfull, whose knowledge of this area is so specialised, and I was satisfied at the end of the day that what we are proposing will not have an adverse effect upon this kind of property and accommodation. Quite the contrary; it will have a beneficial effect. I just do not accept that all local authorities are waiting to take advantage of people in these circumstances. I am sorry if the noble
128
Baroness for her part wishes to press the amendment, but I have satisfied myself in an area which has given cause for much careful consideration.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I was not blaming local authorities. I was saying that, if left unchanged, the situation would put local authorities in this extremely difficult and anomalous situation. I was not saying that they would behave maliciously but that they would feel that they had no alternative. I want the amendment because I want to give local authorities a feeling of security in which they can go ahead and let this property on short tenancies. It was for that reason that I very much hoped the Government would accept the amendment. I do not want to press it, but if the Government do not feel that they can accept the amendment then I must do so.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his reply. I have no regrets about having put down this amendment because I think it is very right and proper that we should have aired this extremely difficult situation. I have been in the North lately, and in my own area there is evidence—indeed, there is evidence throughout the country—that local authorities are taking a different line from the one they have taken in the past, and that they are much more aware than before of their duties towards those who need housing and about using up stock in a way that can meet the problems in their areas. I am glad that we have had this debate. I am sure that local authorities and the housing associations will read Hansard with care. I bee leave to withdraw the amendment.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (The Earl of Listowel): My Lords, is it your Lordships' pleasure that this amendment be withdrawn?
Several noble Lords: No!
9.4 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 34) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 53; Not-Contents, 71.

CONTENTS

Amherst, E.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Fulton, L.

Ardwick, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Aylestone, L.

Chitnis, L.

Gifford, L.

Bacon, B.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Balogh, L.

Collison, L.

Hale, L.

Banks, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Hampton, L.

Barrington, V.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Hanworth, V.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

David, B.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Bernstein, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Hooson, L.

Beswick, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Birk, B.

Denington, B.

Hughes, L.

Blease, L.

Diamond, L.

Janner, L.

Blyton, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Jeger, B.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Kaldor, L.

Brockway, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Kilmarnock, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Rhodes, L.

Strauss, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

McGregor of Durris, L.

Seear, B.

Underhill, L.

Maelor, L.

Segal, L.

Wade, L.

Milverton, L.

Simon, V.

Wallace of Coslany, L. [Teller.]

Northfield, L.

Soper, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Ogmore, L.

Stamp, L.

White, B.

Oram, L.

Stedman, B.

Willis, L.

Peart, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Wilson of Radcliffe, L.

Phillips, B.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Stone, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Strabolgi, L.

Strathspey, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Faithfull, B.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Alport, L.

Ferrers, E.

Newall, L.

Avon, E.

Fortescue, E.

Northchurch, B.

Balerno, L.

Gage, V.

Orkney, E.

Bellwin, L.

Gisborough, L.

Pender, L.

Belstead, L.

Gowrie, E.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Bessborough, E.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Sandford, L.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Savile, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Hatherton, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Hawke, L.

Soames, L. (L. President.)

Cork and Orrery, E.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Spens, L.

Craigavon, V.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Strathclyde, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

de Clifford, L.

Long, V.

Teviot, L,

De La Warr, E.

Lyell, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

McFadzean, L.

Trenchard, V.

Denman, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Trevethin and Oaksey, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Mancroft, L.

Vaizey, L.

Dundee, E.

Mansfield, E.

Vickers, B.

Eccles, V,

Marley, L.

Vivian, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Middleton, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Elles, B.

Monk Bretton, L.

Westbury, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Young, B.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

CONTENTS

Ardwick, L.

Hanworth, V.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Beswick, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Birk, B.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Blease, L.

Hughes, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Janner, L.

Seear, B.

Chitnis, L.

Kaldor, L.

Segal, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Stedman, B.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Listowel, E.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Collison, L.

Llewelyn-Davies, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Craigavon, V.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B. [Teller.]

Stone, L.

David, B.

Strabolgi, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Strauss, L.

Denington, B.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Underhill, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Mishcon, L.

Wade, L.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Monson, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Foot, L.

Northfield, L.

Whaddon, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Peart, L.

White, B.

Gifford, L.

Phillips, B.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Hampton, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Gainford, L.

Orkney, E.

Avon, E.

Gisborough, L.

Pender, L.

Balerno, L.

Gowrie, E.

Sandford, L.

Bellwin, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Sandys, L. [Teller.].

Belstead, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Savile, L.

Bessborough, E.

Selsdon, L.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Hatherton, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Soames, L. (L. President.)

Bradford, E.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Strathcarron, L.

Cockfield, L,

Killearn, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Long, V.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Lyell, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Cranbrooke, E.

McFadzean, L.

Sudeley, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Teviot, L.

de Clifford, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Trefgarne, L.

De La Warr, E.

Mansfield, E.

Trenchard, V.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Marley, L.

Vaizey, L.

Denman, L.

Middleton, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Vickers, B.

Dundee, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Vivian, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Moyne, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Ferrers, E.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Westbury, L.

Fortescue, E.

Newall, L.

Yarborough, E.

Gage, V.

Nunburnholme, L.

Young, B

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
[Amendment No. 35 not moved.]
9.13 p.m.
Viscount HANWORTH Viscount HANWORTH moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 113, line 4, at end insert—
("13. A tenancy is not a secure tenancy if the landlord is a housing trust which is a charity within the meaning of the Charities Act 1960 or is a housing association which is a charity within the meaning of the Charities Act 1960 and the principal object of such trust or association is to provide short term housing accommodation for persons who by reason of domestic marital or similar problems are in need of short term accommodation for themselves or their families.").
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, there are a substantial number of charities who provide short-term accommodation for unmarried mothers and others in need. This is on a rehabilitation or temporary basis in order to help them overcome immediate problems or to provide a period for readjustment. There are nearly always very long waiting lists, and in one case I know there are 10 people waiting for one vacancy. The Bill as it stands gives secure tenancies to such persons, and they must be so informed. However, Ground 9 of Schedule 4 to the Bill allows the charity to go to the court for repossession if the continued occupation of the dwelling-house would conflict with the objects of a charity and alternative accommodation is available. This sounds quite reasonable, but it imposes

135
have done so. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 37 not moved.]
Clause 34 [Grounds and orders for possession]:
Lord GIFFORD Lord GIFFORD moved Amendment No. 38:
Page 27, line 25, leave out ("13") and insert ("14").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 38 which stands in the name of my noble friend Lady Birk. Amendment No. 38 looks innocuous enough, but it has to be read as a pair with Amendment No. 43; and what I have to say will make much more sense if your Lordships will look at No. 43, as the two go together. I will, if I may, speak to them together. The purpose of the two amendments is to grant to the courts an additional reason for granting possession of a secure tenancy in those cases where the accommodation has been inhabited by a husband and wife or by a man and woman living together and the relationship has broken down; the local authority either requires the accommodation to be occupied by one of the parties and their children, or the local authority has granted a tenancy to that party and her children and needs the accommodation for another family.
This amendment was moved in Committee and withdrawn. It covers what is today a very frequent situation where there has been a marriage breakdown, or breakdown of relationship, and the woman and children leave the matrimonial home, or the home where the parties have been living, and seek help, often at a woman's refuge; she then applies to the local authority and says, "Will you transfer the tenancy from my co-habitee's name or husband's name into my name? "Time and again up and down the country local authorities have done just that in cases where it is clearly the wife and the children, or the woman and the children, who need to be living in the home.
Under the Bill, if, for example, a man and woman are living together, with
136
children, and the woman and children have been forced to go, or have gone because of the strain of the relationship, and the man refuses to leave, he has a secure tenancy and there is nothing that can take it away from him; except, if he is a married man, the court can, maybe two years later, order the tenancy to be transferred to the woman. If it is not a married relationship that man can keep that home, designed for a family, as long as he wishes, and with it the right to buy. The woman and children will be homeless. The local authority will be bound to rehouse them as homeless persons. So the local authority will be using two family units to house one family.
The reply in Committee was entirely negative. It was said that it was objectionable for a local authority to be deciding about who should live in a council flat before questions of custody have been decided by a court. I fail to see the relevance of that reply because no one, so far as I know, has raised any objection by and large about the way in which local authorities have been exercising this power time and again in the past. No one is prejudiced if this ground for possession is inserted. The woman and her children—it normally is the woman; but it would work the same the other way round—will be able to go back into the home where they have been living. The man will be re-housed in accommodation suitable for him. The local authority will be able to use their stock to the full. I beg to move.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Bellwin recognised, when we discussed this amendment previously, that the principle behind this amendment is that on the break-up of a family a pubic sector landlord should be able to evict the tenant partner in order to reinstate the other, or because the other partner has been rehoused elsewhere.
I recognise that there is widespread support for the idea that the spouse or partner with responsibility for dependants should generally be the one to be given precedence if the occupation of the family home is in dispute. However, my noble friend explained her objection to the notion as embodied in this amendment, that the landlord should be able to make the decision about this before questions of

137
custody and property have been considered by the appropriate court at the time of the divorce or legal separation.
Legislation in this country governs the matter of rights to the matrimonial home on divorce. This legislation will apply to secure tenancies under the Bill, Schedule 24, paragraphs 14 to 16. I can see no case for giving either local authorities or other public sector landlords the opportunity to make a prior judgment—and I emphasise the words "prior judgment"—about who shall get the tenancy of a home in the context of managing their housing stock. This is rightly the province of the courts in the context of matrimonial law. In most cases, there will, I believe, be a settlement on a commonsense basis where the spouse who does not have the children will agree to leave the dwelling until the court finally awards the tenancy in the light of decisions on the custody of children. Where there is a genuine dispute, it is surely the court and not—I repeat, not—the landlord who should decide.
It is, I realise, the case that in England and Wales the matrimonial homes legislation, other than certain provisions of the Domestic Violence and Matrimonial Proceedings Act does not apply to people who are co-habiting. That argues, in our view, against our amendments which would treat cohabitees in the same way as the separated spouse for the purposes of this particular provision. We should be consistent, we think, in recognising the greater claim a legal spouse has on the matrimonial home.
I am, of course, aware that a similar ground has been included in the Scottish Bill. That is because there is as yet no equivalent to our matrimonial homes legislation in Scotland. If a landlord chose to use the ground for possession proposed in the amendment—and I am sure he would sometimes be put under considerable pressure to do so—it would fall under an obligation to provide suitable alternative accommodation for the displaced partner. Again, we do not accept that this further duty is always appropriate. Where the landlord and the parties concerned can agree voluntarily to settle the matter in this way and the accommodation is available, then of course it is up to them. But I do not believe it should be a further obligation on the landlord.
138
I do not accept either that there is any reason to adopt this proposed ground because it would simply enable landlords to do in future what they are perfectly entitled to do already. That possibility only arises at present because public sector landlords and their tenants have not so far been subject to any statutory rules about the tenants' security. Introducing these rules is a fundamental part of this Bill. When they exist it does not, I believe, make sense to incorporate in them what amounts to a specific power to decide between competing claims which ought to be settled elsewhere in the courts. In the light of all the circumstances, I do not think these landlords on the whole want that responsibility. Nor does it properly belong with them. I therefore urge your Lordships to reject this amendment.
9.35 p.m.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, I must say that I am very disappointed with the Government's reply to this amendment. I should have thought that there was rather a strong case for the landlord being able to anticipate the subsequent judgment of the court. Then, if the landlord happened to get it wrong, he could be put right by the court. In the interim period, which may be quite long, we would avoid the situation of a landlord having to keep on the husband as a secure tenant and finding extra accommodation for the wife and the children. It seems to me very undesirable that two units should have to be provided for the same family. Unless my noble friend can say something rather more helpful, I very much hope that the amendment will be pressed.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, am I really understanding my noble friend correctly? Is he saying that he wishes landlords to have the right to take decisions on these matters rather than the court?
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, I do not know whether I am in order to speak again, but I said that the court would have a later chance to correct anything that the landlord had done that was not legally correct.
Baroness DAVID: My Lords, the point is that very often it takes a very long time to get to the matrimonial court. I have

Fortescue, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Strathcarron, L.

Gage, V.

Mansfield, E.

Strathclyde, L.

Gainford, L.

Marley, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Gisborough, L.

Middleton, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Gowrie, E.

Mont Bretton, L.

Sudeley, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Teviot, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Moyne, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Newall, L.

Trenchard, V.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Vaizey, L.

Hatherton, L.

Pender, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Sandford, L.

Vickers, B.

Killearn, L.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Vivian, L.

Long, V.

Savile, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Lyell, L.

Selsdon, L.

Westbury, L.

McFadzean, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Yarborough, E.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Soames, L. (L. President.)

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
[Amendment No. 39 not moved.]
9.50 p.m.
Lord GIFFORD Lord GIFFORD moved Amendment No. 40:
After Clause 34, insert the following new clause:
"Distress for rent
(—(1) No distress for the rent of any dwelling-house let under a secure tenancy shall be levied except with the leave of the county court.
(2)Subsection (1) above does not apply to distress levied under section 137 of the County Courts Act 1959.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this raises the question of the remedy of distress for rents in respect of local authority accommodation. We debated this in Committee and I do not propose to go over the same ground now. The amendment is designed to see that it is no longer possible for local authorities to send bailiffs into the homes of those who are in default even of a small amount of rent without any sort of control by the courts. It is an old-fashioned remedy which has been roundly condemned by committee after committee, and even the Conservative Party about a year ago said it was in favour of abolishing it, or at any rate of abolishing it without the leave of the courts.
As was pointed out on Committee, the Conservative Party have gone back on that and they have changed their minds and still want distress. This amendment is very modest; it provides that if a local authority wants to go in and seize the goods of a rent defaulter it should have to go to court to get permission first. That is not very extreme. I wait to hear whether on this occasion the Government can give a better answer. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, this matter was discussed at some length in another place and in Committee here by your Lordships. I repeat that the Government do not lightly dismiss the concern expressed about the operation of the distraint system. On the other hand, we have strong representations from the local authority associations and from individual local authorities of all political persuasions that nothing should be done to alter the right of public sector landlords to take direct action and distrain on goods where this seemed the right course.
146
I appreciate that the amendment would not abolish distraint as a method of dealing with rent arrears, and I understand the reasons why it has been put down. However, we must recognise that the practical effect of the amendment would be to remove much of the value of distraint as a means of taking quick and early action, and tenants would soon become aware of this. The associations also argued powerfully about the extent to which the threat of distraint —not the actual use of the measure but the threat of it—could be effective in recouping arrears.
We all know that rent arrears represent a persistent problem for local authorities and the amount outstanding at the end of March 1979 was about £70 million. This is a sum we cannot ignore at any time, but least of all in the present climate. I think this should be stressed: there are already safeguards on the use of distraint, as your Lordships will be aware. Bailiffs have to be given a certificate by the county court under the distress for rent rules. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor last year increased the security that the court may require before a certificate is granted and has agreed also to look again at the distress for rent rules which regulate the granting of bailiffs' certificates, to see whether they need strengthening.
In addition, my honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Construction wrote on 29th April to the local authority associations, asking them if they would review the use of distraint and consider whether they should issue guidance to their members. He has already had replies from two of the associations and will be discussing with them the question of guidance. I am sure they do not want to see public sector landlords being charged with using distraint indiscriminately or insensitively. My honourable friend will continue to look at other methods of rent arrears recovery to see whether anything can be done to improve them so that less reliance need be placed on distraint. For example, the Lord Chancellor's office is considering recommendations made under the Rayner project for speeding up the attachment of earnings procedure.
There is considerable strength of concern about the value of distraint and, more

151
irritable and short-tempered and wants to get to bed. I am trying my best to be helpful, and I wonder whether the Minister might be able to help me.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I am always terrified at this time of night of expressing too much of what one has been told, but when this provision was discussed at Committee we discovered for our own satisfaction how many tenants might be at risk from this amendment, which I think is what the noble Lord is wanting to know. I gather it is not possible to give any reliable estimate. However, in only a small minority of cases—under 5 per cent.—does a family member succeed to a tenancy at present. Some of these will not qualify as succession under the Bill because the one succession will have already been used up. Not all will be seriously under-occupied and not all landlords will have a suitable alternative to offer. Only a very small number will be within the scope of the amendment and will be in the category of the most vulnerable. I hope that this may give the noble Lord the information he wants. I do not think it is a serious problem.
Lord TEVIOT: My Lords, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Evans, there are quite a lot of us who are not irritated and not bad-tempered and are quite happy for this House to go on for a long time on this Bill. Although the Opposition have done very well, there are a lot sitting on this side of the House and in all parts of the House who are happy to go on a lot longer.
Baroness DENINGTON: My Lords, perhaps on this occasion the Government could show us that they are flexible and not inflexible. If this is going to apply only to a very few people, why must we have this written into the Bill at all? Why not leave it to the good commonsense and management experience of the local authority and other people? Why do we have to have it? I suggest to the Government that here they can prove some of us wrong and show they are flexible. It is not only this point; it is the philosophy behind this particular measure that worries me profoundly because here are the Government pressing for the right to
152
buy—which, as I said earlier, I support. If you buy your house, you can be one person in it, you can under-occupy it, you are a good citizen, nobody quarrels with you, nobody wants you to move or go away even though you have four bedrooms and you are only using one or more. But if you are renting accommodation, that is another business and we will not have you renting accommodation and being under-occupied unless you are a widow or one of those who are exempted. It is the basic philosophy of this which is distressing—two nations, two sets of people, two sets of values. I suggest that it is not good enough. Will not the Government withdraw it?
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, I venture to suggest that the noble Baroness is making heavy weather over this. This ground for possession is something entirely permissive. Local authorities can act on it or not as they see fit. They can exercise their housing management discretion. The noble Lord, Lord Evans, was helpful; and, for once, I think the Government are right and that the noble Lord, Lord Evans, was right to be so helpful.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, with leave, may I say that I welcome my noble friend Lord Hylton back into the fold of the Conservative Party in realising that we are a Christian, philosophical party wishing to do good. I think that if the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, thinks about it she will find we are not as hard as she imagines.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: My Lords, with consent, and in view of the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, suggesting that the grounds will be humanely interpreted; and in spite of the invitation of the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, to go on forever. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 42, 43 and 44 not moved.]
10.15 p.m.
Baroness DAVID Baroness DAVID moved Amendment No. 45:
Page 35, line 17, at end insert—
("(3) The Secretary of State may by order place a duty on groups of local authorities to participate in any arrangements facilitating moves of the kind outlined in subsection (1) above that have been agreed to the appropriate local authority association or local authority associations.
(4) The Secretary of State may only exercise the power provided by subsection (3) above following a request made by the local authority association or local authority associations concerned that he should exercise the power.").
The noble Baroness said: This amendment has to do with mobility. There was a great deal of support for mobility of labour from all sides at Committee stage: the noble Lords, Lord Harmar-Nichols, Lord Sandford, Lord Evans, Lord Hylton, the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, have all spoken in support. Today I have another supporter in the shape of the Prime Minister. No doubt noble Lords have read what she said which was quoted in The Times today:
"She insisted that changes of home and changes of job were fundamental to the survival of the country … Frequently, investment goes where there are skilled people wanting work. But there must be some mobility of labour. If people today are not willing to move as their fathers did, the economy cannot thrive ".
I hope that with this good start I shall have a friendly reception from the other side of the House. At the Committee stage I withdrew this same amendment partly because it was after midnight when I moved it, and partly because I wanted to read what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said to see whether I found it as unsatisfactory as I then thought it to be. I am afraid that I did.
He explained the start of the voluntary national mobility scheme announced in March by Mr. Stanley in another place. He said this voluntary scheme had been
approved by the AMA, LBA and the ADC. What he did not say was what would happen to the scheme if some of the local authorities decided not to operate it, as has happened in London with the inter-borough nomination scheme, where Barking, Hillingdon and Redbridge have refused to take part. This IBN scheme was drawn up in April 1978. This has had two years in which to be tried. None of the authorities in the scheme has made lettings on the agreed scale: as I said in Committee, about 1,300 a year instead of the target of 4,000; and those three
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authorities that I have mentioned have not co-operated.
The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said that he wanted the national scheme to be given a chance. But if a similar scheme —a regional one—has been tried and found wanting in the London area, it is most unlikely that there will not be difficulties elsewhere. Some local authorities are bound to opt out. I understand so far that only three non-metropolitan counties and one conurbation have already drawn up proposals, so that does not look too good for a start.
There seems unanimity that mobility is devoutly to be wished for because of getting the right workers to the right place at the right time, and for social reasons, too. Here is our opportunity to make sure it happens. All this amendment seeks is to reinforce the effectiveness of the voluntary arrangements the Secretary of State is discussing and developing with the local authority associations. It asks for a statutory underpinning; a power which of course the Secretary of State would not need to use if all was going well, and he would not butt in unless asked to do so by a local authority association.
Considering the powers which the Government are handing to the Secretary of State in this Bill, this seems a very mild one indeed. We shall not know in the course of the next fortnight whether the scheme is being successful or not, and the Bill within that time will become an Act. So if we do not agree this amendment we shall have lost a very easy opportunity to make sure that we get what we all want. But I do hope in this case that the Minister can be helpful, because I think that it is an extremely simple and easy thing that we are asking. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I am becoming confused and it certainly is not by the hour because, as my noble friend Lord Teviot (who is not in the House now) said, as far as I am concerned we are here for a long session yet. There are important matters which need the maximum discussion. I do not think it is particularly late anyhow—by some standards it is very early, really. Even so, I confess to some confusion. On the one hand we are being assailed very much from the opposite Benches for our rigidity,

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would wish to detail some of the cases. However, the Minister has them, and they should make the case for legislation. One cannot provide full statistical material in this kind of time, but it is a problem which both sides recognise to be undesirable. I hope that the amendment can now be accepted.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, despite what the noble Lord has said, we as yet have no reason to believe that many local authorities in England and Wales now make it a condition that a spouse's rent arrears should first be repaid before a new tenancy is granted. This practice was understandably strongly criticised by the local ombudsman in two cases dating from 1976 and 1977. I referred also, as did my noble friend Lord Belstead, in our discussion of a similar amendment in Committee to the documents issued by the Department of the Environment—a circular on the housing of one-parent families, issued in 1977, and a report from the Housing Services Advisory Group, issued in 1978, which have explained why arrears should not be treated as a disqualification for housing in the circumstances of a family break-up.
The honourable Member for Holborn and St. Pancras wrote to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State shortly after our consideration of this matter in Committee, giving details of certain cases where he claimed the practice this amendment would stop had happened. I have also heard today from the noble Lord, Lord Gifford. The department will certainly look very carefully into the cases which he has submitted. I know he will understand that they arrived only today, and therefore we would hardly have had a chance to do with them that which I am sure he would wish and which I undertake we will do with them. The new clause would not, of course, bite in a number of circumstances. In accepting a joint tenancy, each of the parties has also accepted a responsibility for the obligations of the tenancy, such as paying rent; and in fact most authorities, even in these circumstances, do use their discretion in deciding how much is to be reclaimed from each of the parties. And, really, is a wife required to pay more than half?
I have before me quite a lengthy speech, if that is the right word, which sets out
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the counter-arguments, but I suspect that the most helpful thing I can do in this matter is to undertake, as I will, that we will go very carefully into the cases the noble Lord has submitted and see what they really show. If it should prove to be the case that in time action is called for, then he has to accept from me that we will be concerned in a way that one hopes would be helpful. The noble Lord knows that I cannot go further than that now. We do not want to run away at all from this matter.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, the practice at which this amendment is aimed appears to be a quite indefensible one. I am grateful for what my noble friend the Minister has said in reply. He mentioned a circular of 1977. Does this not show how, quite often, circulars do not get put into practice? Can the Government keep on drawing the attention of recalcitrant local authorities to the shortcomings of their ways?
Lord GIFFORD: My Lords, the reply by the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, shows a spirit which has been all too lacking so far from the Government Front Bench, but I wholeheartedly accept it on this amendment and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 47 not moved.]
10.33 p.m.
Lord MONSON Lord MONSON moved Amendment No. 47A:
Page 35, line 36, at end insert—
("(3) A licence granted in pursuance of section 3(4), 4(3) or 5(6) of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 is not a secure tenancy.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in the unavoidable absence of the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, I beg to move this amendment. The purpose of this amendment is to establish a clear distinction between, on the one hand, a tenancy granted by a local authority to a straightforward tenant, and, on the other hand, a licence granted to a person living in short-stay temporary accommodation who has been housed by a local authority

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under the provisions of the 1977 Housing (Homeless Persons) Act. A considerable problem has arisen in a number of local authority areas because persons housed in short-stay accommodation while awaiting rehousing in more permanent accommodation will become secure tenants under the provisions of this Bill after they have been in residence for one year—and surely that is contrary to the Government's intentions—unless a distinction is made between them and those who are allocated housing accommodation as tenants in the normal way.
An example of this problem occurs in the borough of Hillingdon, where a number of homeless families, who are also extended families with a large number of children, have been housed in temporary accommodation which comprises large houses compulsorily acquired by the previous council. It is very difficult for the council to rehouse these short-stay tenants in less than one year because very often there quite simply is no suitably large accommodation for them. Alternatively, it can take more than a year to settle them in permanent housing due to arbitration or to discussions with another local authority which it is thought may have responsibility for their welfare. Frequently, it is the case that the courts will not distinguish between a person who is a tenant and a person who occupies a home under licence, not, of course, because of any wilful wish to flout the intentions of Parliament but simply because they find the whole position rather unclear. Consequently, it seems to us to be vital to clarify the position by inserting this amendment into the Bill. I beg to move.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, has asked me whether I would speak to this amendment as I have had experience in this area. It is just a small amendment to clarify the difference between licensees and tenants. I know from my own experience that courts are not at all clear as to the difference between the two. If it is a tenancy it is often regarded as a secure tenancy and causes a great deal of trouble when people coming into an area as homeless under the Homeless Persons Act are given a secure tenancy and therefore keep other people off the waiting list. Of course they are entitled to great consideration
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and thought, but it causes difficulty if the difference between licensee and tenant is not made clear.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, we believe that this amendment would be unfairly discriminatory against people who have come to a public sector landlord as homeless. Clause 48 of the Bill puts licences granted by public sector landlords on a par with tenancies granted by them, except where the licence has been granted to someone who originally entered as a trespasser—a squatter, in other words. We believe this is right in all other cases, including that of homeless people.
Paragraph 4 of Schedule 3 already provides that a tenancy (and therefore also a licence) granted in pursuance of the sections of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act mentioned in the amendment shall not be secure until one year after the local authority has notified the tenant of its decision on the various matters to be decided. This period was extended in another place to one year from six months following requests from local authorities. Where a permanent liability for rehousing arises, this year gives sufficient time, I believe, for the landlord to make permanent rehousing arrangements. Once that period has elapsed, there really is no reason why the tenant should not have the same rights as any other tenant of his landlord. The fact that he was originally housed as a homeless person is no justification for leaving him without security and other rights. This is what the amendment potentially would do.
Where the decision of the authority is that there is no permanent rehousing liability, or that the tenant has a local connection elsewhere, it is only in the most exceptional circumstances that those concerned will still be in the same accommodation one year after its decision has been made. I do not think that these isolated cases justify a departure on a much wider front from the present rightly argued exclusion. Where the landlord continues voluntarily to house the family in question, the same arguments I advanced in relation to those to whom the authority does have a liability apply; there is no reason why security and the other rights in the Bill should not apply. My Lords, I fear we cannot accept this amendment.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his explanation of why he does not feel able to accept the amendment. It was not my impression that the Government had intended to treat tenants broadly in the same way as licensees, but now that he has explained that such is the case, of course there is no answer to it. However, it does appear that certain boroughs—Hillingdon in particular—have difficulty even in meeting the extended period of one year which has recently been granted and therein I think the difficulty lies. However, as the Government have obviously made up their minds on this, I can only beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 48 to 52 not moved.]
Clause 53 [Right of tenant to terminate protected shorthold tenancy]:
10.40 p.m.
Lord MONSON Lord MONSON moved Amendment No. 52A:
Page 38, line 26, leave out ("two years'') and insert ("thirteen months").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment I will, with the leave of the House, speak at the same time to Amendment No. 52B, which is a manuscript amendment. To add to the confusion, Amendment No. 52A on the supplement to the Marshalled List appears to be in the name of someone who comes from a long way north of the Arctic Circle, but it is in fact myself.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, if Amendment No. 52B is a manuscript amendment, I think the noble Lord should read it.
Lord MONSON: Indeed, I take the noble Lord's point. It is, in fact, exactly the same as Amendment No. 52A, except that it is "page 38, line 27". The words are precisely the same. It is simply a consequential amendment.
This amendment relates to shorthold tenancies, and when we were debating it I drew the Committee's attention to the fact that there appeared to be an anomaly whereby shorthold tenants who had tenancies of up to two years could give unilateral
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notice to their landlords of a mere one month, whereas those with short-hold tenancies of between three and five years had to give at least three months' notice. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, explained that the purpose was to cater for students, and also I believe he implied that it was normal in tenancies of over two years to pay quarterly, although I must admit I can find no evidence of the latter.
So far as students go, of course students do not want to rent accommodation for two years at a stretch. What they really want is accommodation for eight or nine months, so under the provisions of the shorthold tenancies they will rent a flat or accommodation of some sort for one year and then give their landlords or landladies notice in the seventh or eighth month. I certainly do not object to that. That seems perfectly legitimate: in fact, it is about the only way that students can make use of this valuable shorthold provision. But there seems no justification with tenancies of between one and two years for the tenants being able to give their landlords a mere one month's notice.
I have said 13 months rather than 12 months because there is a possibility that the landlord might, whether by accident or design, agree a tenancy for a year and a day and a student or young person might thereby be caught out accidentally and find himself having to give three months' notice when thinking he only had to give one. Thirteen months would get round that completely and solve the problem. I do feel if the Government are serious about wanting to arrest the decline in the private rented sector they would do well to accept this amendment.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, after that exciting display of calm and bravery on your Lordships' and your Ladyships' part—following that fall of debris—I think we can congratulate ourselves on our calm. No
bombs have exploded, no firearms have gone off. My only sadness is my noble friend the Chief Whip was about to wrap himself up in a blanket. He has got it out. I do not know what he is going to do with it.
This amendment, as the noble Lord said, follows up the amendments he

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moved in Committee. The amount of notice that the tenant should be required to give the landlord if he wants to leave before the end of the shorthold is a matter of judgment. I regret to say that it seems that the Government's judgment differs on this matter from that of the noble Lord.
What the noble Lord's amendment is designed to achieve is that any shorthold tenant who has a shorthold term that is longer than 13 months—that is, anything significantly longer than the minimum period of one year, should have to give three months' notice if he wants to leave before the end of the fixed term. The Government have provided that the short-hold tenant should only be required to give three months' notice in these circumstances if the original fixed term was for more than two years.
I think that two years is a more logical point at which to change this requirement than thirteen months. It also seems to me that a tenancy that lasts for 13, 14, 15—or even eighteen months—is still a relatively short-term letting where the tenant may not know three months in advance exactly when he would be leaving. On the other hand, a letting where it is agreed at the outset that it should last for at least two years seems to me to be a longer-term letting, where longer notice is appropriate.
I hope noble Lords will agree with this, and accept that what the Government are proposing is about right. As we said in Committee, it seems to me that any landlord who is abroad would have an agent in this country who would be able to arrange for a new tenant in his absence. Requiring the tenant to give three months' notice in these circumstances would not seem to me to help the landlord much. I would, therefore, ask the noble Lord to withdraw this amendment, and ask your Lordships not to accept it if my noble friend Lord Monson presses it.
Lord MONSON: The noble Lord says that it is a matter of judgment. I am afraid to say I think the Government's judgment is wrong. I wonder whether the Government have consulted with any organisations representing landlords or potential landlords; I do not think they can have done so. If they want to encourage the revival of the private rented
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sector, I think they should try to tilt the balance a little more in favour of the landlord; it is tilted so heavily against him at the moment. It may not seem an important point, but it is symbolic of the Government's attitude, and I do not think it is going to give landlords any encouragement at all. If I were contemplating becoming a landlord for the first time, I would be extremely reluctant to let on that basis, if I have to give a two-year tenancy and the tenant could give one month's notice at any point and leave me high and dry. I think the Government are right to encourage short-term tenancies: I know how difficult it is for students and young people to find accommodation. This is one of the few pieces of legislation, if it goes through, which will actually add to the sum of human happiness; one cannot say that about a lot of legislation that goes through Parliament. I may be alone, but I feel I cannot withdraw this amendment. It is a matter of principle so far as I am concerned.
On Question, amendment negatived.
[Amendments Nos. 52B and 53 not moved.]
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 54:
Page 42, line 26, leave out from ("where") to ("before") in line 28 and insert (",on the determination or confirmation of a rent by the rent officer, the rent determined by him is registered, or his confirmation is noted in the register,")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a minor amendment and of no substantive effect. The intention of the Bill is that the new two year minimum period between rent registrations will apply to all registrations after the relevant provision comes into force. The present drafting of Clause 60 is not as clear as it might be on this. This amendment seeks to remove any doubt. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 55:
Page 42, line 30, leave out from beginning to ("there") in line 36 and insert ("(3) In Schedule 6 to the 1976 Act and in Schedule 8 to the 1977 Act (phasing of increases in registered rents)")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is simply a paving amendment for a series of later amendments to Clause 61 concerning the "effective date" of rent

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registrations (Nos. 57 and 59 to 67). I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
10.50 p.m.
Lord JANNER Lord JANNER moved Amendment No. 55Z:
Page 42, line 35, at end insert—
"( )No rent shall be registered which increases the rent previously registered by a percentage in excess of the percentage increase in the Tax and Prices Index over the period since the last registration of rent.
( )In determining a fair rent in accordance with s. 70(2) of the Rent Act 1977 no account shall be taken of any evidence that the number of similar dwelling-houses in the locality on the terms (other than those relating to rent) of the regulated tenancy is greater than the number of tenants who are seeking dwelling-houses in the locality on such terms.".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am sorry that it is so late at night, because the amendment I have to move is one which affects a very large number of amendments of your Lordships' House, as well as the average citizen who has been living in premises for many years and who finds himself, in consequence of speculation by speculators, in a position where he cannot afford to pay the rents which are being assessed, in my view illegally, by land tribunals.
The position is an extremely serious one, particularly from the point of view of those whose incomes are not linked in any way with inflation or any other method of assessing how much increase there should be in relation to the expenses that individuals have to pay. It is a very shocking position and thousands of people in this country are being affected by it. Therefore, I make no excuse at all for raising it, even though it is at this late hour.
What has been happening? We are now facing a similar position as was faced at the time of the Industrial Revolution when an opportunity was taken of creating leaseholds which were intended to remain in the landlord's family after the tenants themselves had created a value, after they had built houses, after they had created a tremendous increase in value by paying the rates, by creating very fruitful districts, and at the end of the period having to hand over to the landlord finally the house including the whole of the advantages that had been obtained purely from the money
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spent by the tenant. My Lords, that was the position that produced the Leasehold Reform Act.
We have precisely the same thing here. We have tenants who have lived in a house or flat for 40 years and instead of their salaries or pensions being linked with an inflationary position, they are no longer able to meet the demands which have been created by the speculators. Let me give you a simple illustration. I must declare an interest; at present unfortunately I have not got that particular interest. But let me say at once there are people in places such as around the Albert Hall. the Albert Hall Mansions, the Albert Hall Court, where they are literally being forced out of their places; people of 95 in many cases are being forced out of their residences which they have been occupying all that time, merely because landlords have speculated on the property. They have purchased these properties at a certain price, they are obtaining millions of pounds in increases because of the sales. The rent tribunals were supposed to have taken into consideration the question of scarcity value, the scarcity value having been created by the very people who are demanding the higher rents. That has been interpreted in a manner which I, for my life, cannot understand at all.
This is one of the most atrocious—and I use very strong words—situations that has been created, not only by residents of this country, but by people who have come from abroad, who have offices in other countries, who do not pay taxes and who purchase these places and later sell them at enormous profit. I am sure that none of your Lordships can imagine that such a state of affairs could possibly exist or continue to exist.
What will happen to the thousands of tenants—aged people who have lived in these places for 20, 30 or 40 years—who have to turn out of houses because the speculators have managed to create a market value which is enormously high and exorbitant? I know that quite a number of Members of your Lordships' House live in flats, and this particular aspect of private tenants' occupation is a matter of enormous importance. It is a pity that they are not present to speak this evening. Like myself, they have to move out of such places because it is impossible to pay the

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rents that the rent tribunals are setting, rents which your Lordships must understand are created because the market value of the particular area has been increased by the speculators demanding very large profits. This cannot go on.
We are talking about a section of the community which must be protected. We have been talking about protecting the tenants under local authorities, but who will deal with a person whose rent has been assessed, in some cases, as much as 500 per cent. above what he was paying previously because of this speculative business?
This is not a simple matter. That is why it is very unfortunate that we do not have present, to speak for themselves, the people who are actually suffering this situation. I hope that when they read Hansard tomorrow they will realise that this is not a matter that can be neglected any longer. It is vital that some kind of restriction should be placed upon the rents that can be extorted from these tenants because of the profits that are being gained by those who buy today, and sell tomorrow at 100 per cent., and sometimes much more over their original price.
I have tried to put the matter in a form which I hope will be considered by the noble Lord the Minister. I am sure that the Minister knows that people, especially those living in fiats, are absolutely at their wits end to know what to do. They do not know what to do because they cannot find homes. They do not have the means to find homes, and I say that from personal experience. I have had to leave my home after about 30 years. I could not possibly afford to pay a 300 per cent. increase in the rent which I had been paying.
It is obviously too late at night to go into the details of this, but I should like the noble Lord the Minister to let me know whether he is prepared to consider these two points, which are preliminary points in regard to this matter, and whether he will take steps between now and the Third Reading to improve that position. Let him go to any residents' association, particularly in London, and ask them what their position is. He will find that what I have been saying is by no means an exaggeration; on the contrary, it is putting the position in a very minor form.
Probably some noble Lords have not had an opportunity of reading the amendment. It says that:
"()No rent shall be registered which increases the rent previously registered by a percentage in excess of the percentage increase in the Tax and Prices Index over the period since the last registration of rent".
Surely that is reasonable and would prevent people entering into speculatory buyings. The second part says:
"( )In determining a fair rent in accordance with Section 70(2) of the Rent Act 1977, no account shall be taken of any evidence that the number of similar dwelling-houses in the locality on the terms (other than those relating to rent) of the regulated tenancy is greater than the number of tenants who are seeking dwelling-houses in the locality on such terms".
I hope that noble Lords will take it seriously to heart, will speak to their tenant's associations and find out what it is all about. If on Third Reading some move has not been made by the Government to the satisfaction of those who are imperilled in their lives and homes by the situation as it stands at present, I hope that they will join me in passing appropriate amendments which will meet the position. I beg to move.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, apart from hearsay, I have very little knowledge of the large, impersonal, mainly foreign landlords described by the noble Lord, Lord Janner. From what I have heard I have little doubt that they are every bit as bad as the noble Lord claims they are. I can speak only as a small landlord. I can assure the noble Lord that on the first part of his amendment, every small landlord would be absolutely delighted if rents were to go up in line with the cost of living index. I would happily support him in his plea that rents should go up—
Lord JANNER: My Lords, if the noble Lord will excuse me for a moment, I should have mentioned—
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, we are on Report. Unless noble Lords—
Lord JANNER: My Lords, with leave.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I would gladly support the noble Lord in any plea that rents should increase no higher than the cost of living index, provided that he in turn would support an amendment of

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mine at Third Reading to ensure that they went up no less than the cost of living index, with annual adjustments; then we should all be happy.
11.5 p.m.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, with respect, this manuscript amendment was put down in the dinner break. How can one possibly be expected to consider this properly? Having said that, I would have to say that in fairness to the noble Lord all the points that he has raised were not new. He is not presenting something to us that we have not heard before. I do not know how many times I have tried to answer this at this Dispatch Box. I asked my noble friends who were answering the noble Lord before I arrived, because I am sure that the same questions were being asked. I say that in no disrespectful way; the noble Lord knows that I would not do that.
I fear that I cannot accept the amendment. First, to have what amounts to a review of the whole basis of the establishment of this section of the Rent Acts is something I cannot undertake to do as part of dealing with this Bill. I know that some of the problems that the noble Lord mentions have validity. Clearly they have. Conversely, I also know that when we talk about increases in rents as percentages, you need to know the base from which you start, because in many cases you start very low and 100 per cent. is still very little. I do not want to make a meal of it. I only want to say that at this time I cannot be as helpful as the noble Lord would like me to be. I cannot give him the undertakings he wants. There are so many involvements and complications. When we start talking of scarcity, and so on, it is a whole review of the Rent Acts. I am sorry to have to say that there is no way I can satisfy the noble Lord on this.
Lord JANNER: I need hardly say that I appreciate what the noble Lord has said. At the same time, he must realise that it was not just rushed on the House. As he said himself, he knows exactly what I have been driving at for a long time. In the circumstances, while I am going to ask noble Lords to allow me to withdraw this amendment, as I feel at present this matter must nevertheless be
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raised at Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.7 p.m.
Lord MONSON Lord MONSON moved Amendment No. 55A:
Page 43, leave out lines 13 to 17.
The noble Lord said: This amendment would have the effect of deleting paragraphs (a) and (b) of Clause 60(6). We discussed this briefly at Committee on an amendment which was to some extent similar and which was withdrawn. Since then I have had a look at it, and it becomes increasingly clear that there are no circumstances whatsoever in which the periods mentioned in paragraphs (a) and (b) could effectively be reduced. It just would not work in practical terms. They could only be increased.
Therefore, leaving these paragraphs in is going to give the green light to a future Government of the extreme Left as soon as it gets into power to increase the phasing period and the period between rent registrations by order before there is any question of waiting for a Housing Bill. In other words, leaving these paragraphs in the Bill has absolutely no use so far as the Conservative Party or anybody remotely in favour of free enterprise is concerned; it can only be of use to people who have a totally different political philosophy. I therefore hope that the Government will accept this amendment.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, this amendment would delete paragraphs (a) and (b) of Clause 60(6). These paragraphs empower the Secretary of State to make an order reducing or increasing the two-year phasing and registration periods introduced by Clause 60. The two-year period is appropriate for the present situation but it will not necessarily remain so in future. These subsections therefore provide a valuable element of flexibility—and I emphasise that word—which allows the Secretary of State to adapt the rent registration system to future situations more easily. This amendment would remove such flexibility—again I emphasise that word—and would leave the new system with no defence against changing

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circumstances. This would, I believe, be more unwise in the light of the fact that the registration procedures have so clearly failed to reflect the changes of circumstances which we have experienced since first introduced in 1965.
The noble Lord is perhaps concerned that the powers might be used by a future Government to increase rather than reduce the new two-year period between registrations. I do not share his pessimism on this matter. And I think that if we are to introduce greater flexibility for the future—as we must—it would be wrong for the power to be capable of being used in only one direction. I hope that, on reflection, the noble Lord will think about the matter again and will not press the amendment.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I have thought extremely clearly about this issue. Surely the Minister is not suggesting there will be enough rent officers to go round and review rents every year? It would be a wonderful thing if it happened and it would create much better relations between landlords and tenants, because people adjust much more easily to annual increases. It will be difficult enough for rent officers to cope with the 50 per cent. increase in their workload, with the registration period reduced from three to two years, let alone to treble their workload by reducing it to one year, and I do not see how that could happen.
As for phasing, does the noble Lord seriously suggest that the phasing period could be reduced below two years? Are we to have six months at one rent and then another six months at a higher one? I cannot see that happening in practice. I suggest the Government have not thought this out thoroughly. By leaving in paragraph (c) the Secretary of State still has power to abolish phasing altogether, as has been done in the equivalent Scottish Bill, and I should have thought that it was quite adequate for the Government. I believe that, if the Government put their mind to the matter before Third Reading, they might find themselves coming to agree with me; and, with that hope and prediction, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.12 p.m.
Lord MIDDLETON Lord MIDDLETON moved Amendment No. 55B:
After Clause 60, insert the following new clause—
("Schedule 12 to the 1977 Act is amended as follows:

(a) in paragraph 2(1) for the words "fourteen days" there are substituted the words "seven days";

(b)in paragraph 2(2)(a) and in paragraph 2(2)(b) for the words "fourteen days" there are substituted the words "seven days";

(c) in paragraph 5 for the words "fourteen days" there are substituted the words "seven days"; and

(d) in paragraph 6(1)(a) and paragraph 6(1)(b) for the words "fourteen days" there are substituted the words "seven days".")

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Government have written a number of safeguards into the Bill for occupiers under protected shorthold tenancies. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord Bellwin said in Committee, what more safeguards could one practically give without destroying the scheme before it starts? The Committee was then about to approve the additional safeguard now in Clause 52(1)(c) and this provides that fair rents will apply from the start of the tenancy by obliging an owner, where there is no existing registered rent of a dwelling-house, to get, before letting, a certificate of fair rent under Section 69 of the Rent Act 1977. He can then not charge a rent in excess of the rent officer's figure. After letting, the owner must apply within 28 days for the rent to be registered.
I am sure the procedure now laid down in the Bill will not destroy the scheme, but we are approaching the point when an owner would hestitate to embark on offering a shorthold tenancy, because he might think the procedure was too cumbersome or because he might think that he would have to wait a long time to get a fair rent certificate; and certainly there might well be delay at the outset of a scheme like this, which must entail now an additional responsibility for rent officers. When my noble friend introduced the amendment that is now Clause 52 in Committee, he referred to the registration of a fair rent after the start of the tenancy and he then spoke of the possibility of no fair rent being registered for perhaps three months; so your Lordships

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may wonder what kind of delay there might be in getting a certificate before a house can be let and how such delay can be minimised.
I fully support the desire of the Government to get shorthold tenancies off to a fair start. I have referred often enough in this House to the logjam that exists in the private rented sector. I know my noble friend is aware of the difficulties and delays that might arise and which might possibly deter owners from taking advantage of these provisions. I had hoped therefore that the Government might have tabled an appropriate amendment for this stage of the Bill, but it seems they have not been able to do so. Therefore, I tabled this amendment in the hope that it might provide an acceptable way of doing something to speed things up.
The fair rent procedure referred to in the Bill is set out in Section 69 of the Rent Act 1977, and Schedule 12 to that Act, which my amendment seeks to amend, is latched on to that section. Section 12 says how an application for a fair rent certificate has to be made, on the prescribed form and so on. It also sets out a timescale for a series of actions an owner can take where he is not satisfied with what the rent officer is doing. Each step in this series of actions has a 14-day time limit. It is a slight oversimplification in a rather complicated schedule. I am sure my noble friend will agree that this is substantially what Schedule 12 does. What my amendment does is to substitute, for 14 days for this procedure, seven days. It may do a little to speed up the process. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, we are anxious, as is my noble friend, that this important safeguard, the certificate of fair rent for shorthold tenants, should not impose undue procedural constraints on the landlord or cause any delay in getting property lets. Shorthold apart, there is a strong case for improving the certificate of fair rent procedures in Schedule 12 to the Rent Act, in the same way as registration of fair rent procedures in Schedule 11 to that Act have already been improved by amendments in another place. We have been discussing with the Institute of Rent Officers what can be done to streamline the certificate of fair
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rent procedures and have agreed with them a number of improvements. The rent officer will be given more flexibility in dealing with applications and in particular cases would not automatically be referred to the rent assessment committee simply because the landlord did not provide enough information in his application.
Unfortunately, except for very minor amendments to Schedule 25 to the Bill, it has not been possible to bring these changes before your Lordships' House in time for Report stage. I can, however, assure my noble friend that if it does not prove possible to do so during the remaining stages of the Bill—and that seems unlikely—we shall propose the necessary amendments by statutory instrument as soon as possible after Parliament returns from the summer recess. The Secretary of State already has powers under Section 74 of the Rent Act to make procedural changes of this kind. The regulations would be subject to Affirmative Resolution. Of course there is nothing to stop anyone applying for a certificate well in advance if he has an empty dwelling and is planning to let on shorthold once the provisions are in force. In view of the assurance I have given, and the fact that we share my noble friend's concern to streamline the certificate of fair rent procedures, he might on reflection agree not to press his new clause.
Lord MIDDLETON: My Lords, I quite understand the pressure of time and, in view of the assurances my noble friend has given, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 61 [Effect of registration of rent, etc.]:
[Amendment No. 56 not moved.]
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 57:
Page 43, line 34, leave out from ("(1)") to end of line 9 on page 44 and insert—
("The registration of a rent for a dwelling-house takes effect—

(a)if the rent is determined by the rent officer, from the date when it is registered, and

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(b)if the rent is determined by a rent assessment committee, from the date when the committee make their decision.

(2) If the rent for the time being registered is confirmed, the confirmation takes effect—

(a)if it is made by the rent officer, from the date when it is noted in the register, and

(b) if it is made by a rent assessment committee, from the date when the committee make their decision.

(3) If (by virtue of section 67(4) of this Act) an application for registration of a rent is made before the expiry of the period mentioned in section 67(3) and the resulting registration of a rent for the dwelling-house, or confirmation of the rent for the time being registered, would, but for this subsection, take effect before the expiry of that period it shall take effect on the expiry of that period.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, if, in speaking to Amendment No. 57 I inform your Lordships that I am also speaking to Nos. 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66 and 67, it might help to speed up the proceedings a little. Amendment No. 57 is concerned with the effective date of the rent registration. It is closely related to Amendments Nos. 59 to 67 and also to Clause 61, and it might be convenient if I speak to them all together. There will be later consequential amendments to Schedules 10, 24 and 25, which I shall mention very briefly when we reach them.
The main purpose of these amendments, which arise from further consideration of our proposals in Clause 61, is to simplify the effective date rules for rent registrations in cases which go to rent assessment committees on appeal. They provide that the date of the committee's decision will always be the "effective date". The new rent will be payable from then; the second phasing instalment will be payable a year later; and the rent cannot be reviewed until two years later. The amendments also ensure that proper transitional provision is made for the new rules and that they apply equally to housing association and Rent Agriculture Act registrations. I beg to move.
11.20 p.m.
Lord MONSON Lord MONSON moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 57, Amendment No. 57A:
Line 3, after ("registered") insert ("or the date three months after the date of application for registration, whichever is the earlier").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it seems that once more we have the same
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problem as previously of the Government not having consulted thoroughly the professional and other organisations representing those involved with property, as well as landlords generally. When Clause 61 was first introduced, it was claimed at Second Reading, and no doubt in another place, that it would help landlords; it would be an incentive to landlords to put their properties on the market and thereby fulfil the Government's intentions of making available more rented accommodation.
However, all the information that I have received from organisations representing property owners and landlords indicates that it will have precisely the opposite effect. The reason is that most registrations are not new registrations; they are re-registrations, and therefore by the nature of things they will nearly always be upwards. Clause 61, either as it stands, or as amended by the Government's amendment, No. 57, will effectively delay the date of re-registration.
With the leave of the House, I shall speak at the same time to Amendments Nos. 57B, 59A and 59B, because they are more or less consequential. The effect of the amendments would be to reduce the maximum effective delay in re-registration to three months. That still leaves the landlord rather worse off than he would be for the most part if Clause 61 had been deleted altogether, but it would be better than might otherwise be the case, given that the workload upon rent officers is to be so great. It is quite possible that rent revisions rather than taking place at two-year intervals, will take place at intervals of 2½ years or even 2¾years. So we would be back almost to square one, to the three-year period.
This is a question of the very heavy workload upon rent officers who are already very busy. They are particularly busy in London and in certain other parts of the country, and they simply will not be able to revise the rents at two-year intervals, as the Government intend. These amendments which I propose would limit the delay to a maximum of three months. That is not ideal, but it is certainly better than leaving the clause as it stands, or as it would be amended

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by the Government's amendment, No. 57. I beg to move.
Lord GIFFORD: My Lords, in speaking to these amendments may I also speak to Amendment No. 58, which stands in my name, and which I think would fall if Amendment No. 57 were accepted. What the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, said in relation to the block of amendments does not meet a very fundamental point that was raised in Committee by me and some of my noble friends. In fact, the point comes rather close to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, in his proposed amendments. The noble Lord said, quite rightly, that there will be delays in the registration of a rent which could cause hardship to landlords if the rent were increased. Equally, there will be delays in the registration of a rent which could cause difficulties to tenants on a first registration, if the rent is reduced, particularly since the delays can sometimes stretch over many months when there is an application to the court.
We raised this matter in Committee. We were told that these points would be carefully taken into consideration; yet there had been no response, either in writing or in debate in the House. It seems that unless provision is made to deal with the cases where there are long delays in registration, Clause 61, as it stands and as it is sought to be amended, will be seriously defective and will cause to tenants on first registration hardship which can amount to hundreds of pounds when they are charged exorbitant rents, which later are reduced on registration, but which have to be paid over the months which elapse. I think we shall have to come back to this on Third Reading, but I hope that some indication can he given that the points made on Committee have been taken seriously into consideration, or that, if they have not been, then they will be.
11.25 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I think that the purpose of the amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, to the Government's amendment is really basically the same. It is to provide that rent registrations will be effective retrospectively in those cases
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where the rent officer takes more than three months in dealing with an application. I have sympathy, obviously, with the noble Lord in wanting to avoid delay for landlords—and, indeed, tenants—in getting a fair rent registered. But I would suggest to him that his amendments are possibly not the best way to set about it. They would reintroduce much of the complexity which, in Clause 61, we are now trying to remove.
This is because they would alter the date on which the registered rent is theoretically effective, but not the date on which it is actually payable. Section 45 of the Rent Act provides that rent increases cannot be recovered without a notice of increase, and the notice of increase cannot take effect before the date of registration. The noble Lord's amendments would not alter this situation. So, in a case where the rent officer took, say, four months to register a rent, the landlord would still have to wait until the end of the four months before getting his increase. The only difference in such a case would be that the two-year period before the rent could be reviewed would commence from a date three months after the application, rather than on the date of registration. Thus we would keep the existing Rent Act problem, which the Bill removes, of the review period starting on a date which is different from that on which the rent actually becomes payable.
It might be that the noble Lord's intention was different, and that in cases of delay he intended the date of payment as well as the beginning of the review period to be the date three months after the application was made; but that also would be unacceptable to the Government, as it would involve retrospective payment of increases in the registered rent. Clause 61 gets rid of retrospection for rent reductions, and we do not want to reintroduce it, whether for increases or reductions. Far better that the rent is always payable from the date of registration.
However, as I have indicated, the Government entirely accept the need to avoid delay in rent registration procedures. Our aim should be to avoid there ever arising the situation dealt with by the noble Lord's amendment; that is, a situation where an application takes more than three months to process. This is

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what we wish to do. We do not want to have delays, and I am sure my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor is going to do everything he can to ensure that the courts speed up these procedures.
The present situation is by no means all that bad. On average, registrations are made by the rent officer 11 weeks after the date of application. But there are, I have to admit, a minority of cases which take rather longer, and we should certainly like, want and are determined to see an improvement. A working party of rent officers and Department of the Environment officials have examined what might be done. They produced a report in April, on which the Government have consulted the Institute of Rent Officers. As a result, a number of changes to existing registration procedures were agreed which should make them speedier and more flexible, while safeguarding the interests of both landlord and tenant. Some of the changes—for example, on inspections—will be introduced administratively, but others require statutory change, and the Housing Bill was amended by the Government in another place to give effect to these. The amendments are now Clause 59 and Schedule 6 to the Bill.
These are important changes which I believe do much to meet the noble Lord's concern about delays. In the light of them, and of the explanation I have given about the effect of his amendments, I hope that he will agree to withdraw his amendments. I hope I have given the noble Lord satisfaction. Our intention is to give the landlord as fair a deal as he would wish.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that detailed explanation. Clause 61 is an extremely complex one. I did not draft the amendments myself. I took professional advice and even they could not get it right, so extremely complex is the whole business. In view of the fact that these amendments would not have the effect intended, it would be ridiculous to go ahead with them. I am pleased to hear of the steps taken to expedite the rent registration procedure: I maintain that it is particularly bad in certain parts of the country. Eleven weeks may be the average but there are areas waiting a good deal longer than 11 weeks. This is
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where the injustice lies and these may be the areas where the need for more rented accommodation to come onto the market is greatest. Therefore it is all the more important to try to create incentives for landlords to let. With the assurances given, I beg leave to withdraw the amendments.
Amendment to the amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 57B not moved.]
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, indicated, if Amendment No. 57 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 58.
On Question, Amendment No. 57 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 58 not moved.]
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 59:
Page 44, line 25, at end insert—
("(1A)For subsections (4) to (6) of section 13 of the Rent (Agriculture) Act 1976 (effect of registration of rent) there are substituted the following subsections—
"(4) The registration of a rent in the said part of the register takes effect—

(a) if the rent is determined by the rent officer, from the date when it is registered, and

(b) if the rent is determined by a rent assessment committee, from the date when the committee make their decision.

(5) If the rent for the time being registered in the said part of the register is confirmed, the confirmation takes effect—

(a) if it is made by the rent officer, from the date when it is noted in the register and

(b) if it is made by a rent assessment committee, from the date when the committee make their decision.

(6) If (by virtue of section 67(4) of the Rent Act 1977, as applied by subsection (2) above) an application for registration of a rent is made before the expiry of the period mentioned in section 67(3) and the resulting registration of a rent for the dwelling-house, or confirmation of the rent for the time being registered, would, but for this subsection, take effect before the expiry of that period it shall take effect on the expiry of that period.
(6A)The date from which the registration or confirmation of a rent takes effect shall be entered in the said part of the register.
(6B)As from the date on which the registration of a rent takes effect any previous registration of a rent for the dwelling-house ceases to have effect."

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(1B) In Part VI of the 1977 Act (rent limit for dwellings let by housing associations, housing trusts and the Housing Corporation)

(a)in section 87 (registration of rent), in subsection (2)(a) for the words "and 70" there are substituted the words "70 and 72" and subsections (3) to (5) are hereby repealed; and

(b)subsections (1) and (2) of section 96 (effect of determination by rent assessment committee) are hereby repealed." ").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have already spoken to this amendment with Amendment No. 57. I beg to move.
[Amendment No. 59A (an amendment to Amendment No. 59) not moved.]
[Amendment No. 59B not moved.]
On Question, Amendment No. 59 agreed to.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendments Nos. 60 to 67:
Page 44, line 38, leave out ("by the rent office")
Page 44, line 42, leave out from beginning to end of line 2 on page 45.
Page 45, line 3, after ("In") insert ("Schedule 6 to the Rent (Agriculture) Act 1976 and in")
Page 45, line 6, leave out from ("from") to end of line 7 and insert (""means" to the end there are substituted the words "means—

(a) if the registered rent has been confirmed by a rent assessment committee, a period beginning with the date from which the registration of the rent took effect and ending one year after the date on which the committee took their decision; and

(b) in any other case, a period of one year beginning with the date from which the registration took effect." ")

Page 45, line 12, leave out from ("(iii)") to "there") and insert ("before the definition of service element")
Page 45, line 14, leave out from ("date") to end of line 31 and insert("means in relation to a registered rent—

(a) if the rent was determined by the rent officer (and whether or not it was confirmed by a rent assessment committee), the date on which the rent was registered by the rent officer; and

(b) if the rent was determined by a rent assessment committee, the date on which the rent officer registered the rent determined by him or, as the case may be, noted in the register his confirmation of the rent for the time being registered;

(c)for paragraph 4 there is substituted the following paragraph—

"4. Where the registration of a rent takes effect in a period of delay which began by reference to an earlier registration, then—

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(a)from the date on which the later registration takes effect the limitation under that period of delay shall cease to apply; and

(b)a fresh period of delay shall begin by reference to the later registration."; and

(d) paragraphs 7 (in Schedule 6) and 8 (in Schedule 8) are hereby repealed.")
Page 45, line 35, leave out from ("and") to ("was") in line 36 and insert ("of the date on which it").
Page 45, line 36, at end insert—
("(5A) Subsections (1) to (3) above do not apply in any case where, on the determination or confirmation of a rent by the rent officer, the rent determined by him is registered, or his confirmation is noted in the register, before the commencement of this section.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have already spoken to Amendments Nos. 60 to 67, with Amendment No. 57. With the leave of the House, I beg to move the amendments en bloc.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: My Lords, the Question is that Amendments Nos. 60 to 67 be moved en bloc. There is a minor alteration in Amendment No. 60: "by the rent office" should read, "by the rent officer".
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, it was agreed that this might be a convenient moment for the House to adjourn. If that is the case generally felt, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (MONEY) (No. 2) BILL
Reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee without amendment.
  MR. JEFFREY DUDGEON: COMPLAINT TO HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
  MR. JEFFREY DUDGEON: COMPLAINT TO HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
  CRIMINAL LAW ACT 1977: IMPLEMENTATION OF S.48
  CRIMINAL LAW ACT 1977: IMPLEMENTATION OF S.48
  THE EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES COMMISSION
  THE EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES COMMISSION
  THE COMMISSION FOR RACIAL EQUALITY
  THE COMMISSION FOR RACIAL EQUALITY
  INQUEST VERDICTS: RIGHT OF APPEAL
  INQUEST VERDICTS: RIGHT OF APPEAL
  COUNCIL HOUSES: DISPOSAL POLICY
  COUNCIL HOUSES: DISPOSAL POLICY
  UNRWA SCHOOLS IN SYRIA AND JORDAN
  UNRWA SCHOOLS IN SYRIA AND JORDAN