Sitting of 1 December 1981

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

    Assisted Places Scheme
    Mr. John Carlisleasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the cost to the Exchequer in the present financial year for the education of children under the assisted places scheme; and what would be the comparable cost if those children were educated in the maintained sector.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Dr. Rhodes Boyson): My Department expects to pay grant of about £3·2 million in this financial year in respect of the 4,185 pupils admitted to assisted places in September. The average cost of providing for that number of pupils to attend maintained secondary schools for two terms this year is also estimated to be £3·2 million.
    Mr. Carlisle: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Does he agree that the scheme has been an outstanding success, that it represents real value for money for the taxpayer and that it has been welcomed by thousands of parents throughout the land as widening the choice for their children's education? How many children are entering the scheme from the lower income groups?
    Dr. Boyson: I agree with my hon. Friend's comments. One-third of parents with children in the scheme have a family income which means that they pay no fees at all. Another one-third have an income which is below the average wage. Two-thirds of the children involved are therefore from families earning below the average wage. There is no doubt that the scheme is bringing into excellent schools, with good sixth forms, pupils from deprived backgrounds.
    Mr. Flannery: Cuts in education are biting so deeply that teachers are coming to the House this afternoon to complain bitterly that the public education system is suffering worse than ever before. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that public money is being used to help private education and to give favours to those who are already favoured at the expense of our children?
    Dr. Boyson: There is such a queue for private education that it does not need any help. The help is required to enable academically able pupils to go to those schools irrespective of family income. The cost of attending the Edward VI grammar school in Birmingham
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    is £756 a year. I explained in a letter sent to one of my hon. Friends yesterday that the cost of school education in the maintained sector between the ages of 11 and 16 is £1,004, and over the age of 16 it is £1,623. If the hon. Gentleman had listened to my original reply, he would realise that the overall cost would be the same as if the children involved were in the maintained sector.
    Mr. Montgomery: In view of the undoubted success of the scheme, has my hon. Friend any plans for extending it?
    Dr. Boyson: I shall pass that comment to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. It is nice to have that vote of total confidence given to the scheme by my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Dobson: What are the Government's educational priorities when they can give more than £3 million subsidy for private schools but are not prepared to give any extra money to implement the Education Act 1981 to provide better special education for handicapped children?
    Dr. Boyson: I should like to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his first appearance at the Opposition Front Bench at Question Time, but I am in slight disagreement with his question. I have already explained that the cost of educating these children in the State sector would be the same. Our priority in the education system is to give all children, handicapped or not, the maximum opportunity possible wherever they attend school.

    School Curriculum (Less Academic Children)
    Mr. Mylesasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has for improving the school curriculum for the less academic children in the last two years of compulsory schooling.
    The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Sir Keith Joseph): In these two years, the curriculum, without sacrificing rigour and without trying to provide initial training for specific jobs, should have a greater practical slant for all pupils, whatever their abilities and aptitudes, than it now has in most schools. I shall do what I can to bring about this change.
    Mr. Myles: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Will he ensure that practicality takes precedence over so-called equality so that the talents of students may be utilised in the best possible way in their future lives? Does he agree that it is stupid to try to make everyone equal when they are not?
    Sir Keith Joseph: Yes. We seek, and shall continue to seek, equality of opportunity, so far as that is practicable.
    Mr. Spearing: Does the Secretary of State accept that the introduction of a single examination at the age of 16, which he is thought to favour, would go against the aim of increasing practicality which he has just stated?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I shall try to study the implications of the hon. Gentleman's question. I am still learning the job in some subjects. The complex problem of examinations is one that I still have to master. However, I shall bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman said.
    Mr. Lyell: Is not one of the problems higlighted by the Scarman report that a large proportion of children in

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    Brixton leave school without being properly educated in the three Rs? Will my right hon. Friend give his attention to that problem?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I agree that is a crucial problem. We shall do all that we can do to help the teachers in what is often a difficult but indispensable task.
    Mr. Kinnock: In my usual spirit of generosity, may I help the right hon. Gentleman? The proposition put by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) was that a greater concentration on examinations would reduce the practical value of the curriculum for students in their last two years of secondary schooling. If the right hon. Gentleman is interested in the development of what the hon. and learned Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Lyell) call the three Rs, will he accept that—in the words of the secondary school inspectors' report of 1979—a reduction in the obsession with examinations will lead to the fruition of greater competence in the basics of education?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I do not believe that it is necessary to make a sharp dichotomy between a shade more emphasis on practicality in the curriculum and on examinations.

    Student Grants
    Mr. Altonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he plans to make any changes in the student grants system.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. William Waldegrave): My right hon. Friend has at present no plans for major changes in the structure of the awards system.
    Mr. Alton: How does the Under-Secretary intend to reply to the submission from the National Union of Students that the real value of the grant has been reduced by about 7 per cent. since 1978, and that some costs, such as hall fees, have risen by as much as 40 per cent. during the same period? Will he tell me what advice I should give to the welfare officer of the Liverpool students' union, whom I met yesterday, who says that many students are now facing grave financial hardship?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I recently met representatives of the National Union of Students and had a useful exchange of views on that occasion. Its arguments and those of the hon. Gentleman will be taken into account by my right hon. Friend when he settles the level of grants.
    Mr. Greenway: I congratulate my hon. Friend on the allocation of £500,000 to the Open University to enable unemployed people to study free of charge. Does he acknowledge that there may be difficulties in applying that money, because some people may get work as others leave work? Will he allow maximum flexibility in the way that the money is applied by the Open University in this excellent cause?
    Mr. Waldegrave: The scheme that has been developed by the Open University, in conjunction with my Department, is imaginative and will need to be flexible, as I am sure it will be.
    Mr. Christopher Price: How will the Secretary of State reply to the Public Accounts Committee's demand
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    that student grants should be cash limited? Is the Under-Secretary aware that, inevitably, if student grants are cash limited the Robbins principle will be completely eroded? In case the hon. Gentleman has forgotten that principle, he can read it on the Order Paper in question No. 20. Do the Government still believe in the Robbins principle, or will they redefine it?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has also now remembered the Robbins principle. The Department will take into account the considerations that he has mentioned, together with other considerations, in replying to the Public Accounts Committee.
    Mr. Rhodes James: In addition to the problem of student grants, will my hon. Friend give further consideration during the next few months to the problem of the parental contribution? I declare an interest.
    Mr. Waldegrave: I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend heard what my hon. Friend said.
    Mr. Whitehead: The Secretary of State said that he was still learning the job. May we take it that Ministers in the Department have learnt the lesson of their predecessor, the right hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle), and abandoned the pernicious notion of introducing a system of student loans?
    Mr. Waldegrave: My right hon. Friend and his colleagues in the Department are reconsidering student loans. The argument is not perhaps quite as open and shut as the hon. Gentleman makes it sound. Many countries operate loans systems. The effect that they have on students depends entirely on how they are designed.

    Burnham Committee
    Mr. Lawrenceasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will allocate a place on the Burnham committee for the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. William Shelton): As my hon. Friend stated in reply to a question by the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. O'Halloran) on 23 November, my right hon. Friend has written to the general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers to say that he does not propose to grant representation on the Burnham further education committee to the association.
    Mr. Lawrence: Why does not the Burnham committee in general, and the further education committee in particular, reflect more closely the representation of the teachers's unions and their strength in the country? Is it equitable and democratic that the National Union of Teachers, which represents only 50 per cent. of teachers, should have such a dominant voice on the Burnham committee?
    Mr. Shelton: As my hon. and learned Friend knows, the NAS/UWT is represented on the Burnham committee, but it is the Burnham further education committee that is in question. Two criteria are applied: first, the percentage of the total number of teachers in the sector which the union has; and, secondly, whether the membership is drawn from any particular description of teachers within that sector. According to those criteria, I am afraid that the NAS/UWT has no representation.
    Mr. Newens: Does the Under-Secretary recognise that an increase in the multiplicity of teachers' representatives on these organisations—particularly when, as he said, they do not have a membership which justifies representation—can only make it infinitely more difficult to allow the teachers to speak with one voice and reach decisions? Does he accept that, in the long run, any increase in representation from different organisations will only worsen labour relations in the teaching sector?
    Mr. Shelton: I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I do not entirely agree with him. What is important is whether the union meets the criteria.
    Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Does my hon. Friend agree that those criteria are too inflexible to meet the case in point? This is an important and influential union. Does he accept that the two criteria that he adumbrated are too narrow and should be reconsidered?
    Mr. Shelton: These criteria are in the Act under which the Burnham committee was set up. Of course, they can to some extent be at the discretion of my right hon. Friend. Should the situation change, no doubt these matters can he reviewed in future.
    Mr. Flannery: Does the Minister realise the complete confusion in the mind of the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence), who did not even know the difference between the Burnham further education committee and the Burnham committee? The reality is that on the further education committee—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Instead of giving information, perhaps the hon. Gentleman would put his words in the form of a question.
    Mr. Flannery: I asked the Minister a question. Is the Minister aware that the majority of teachers in further education are represented by the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education—whose representatives will be coming to the House this afternoon—and that the National Association of Schoolmasters has few members in further education and should not be represented?
    Mr. Shelton: I have no need to defend my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence), who has great knowledge of these matters. The National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers has at least 2,000 full-time members in further education.

    Manchester (Secondary Education)
    Mr. Charles R. Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will make a statement on his rejection of the Manchester local education authority plan for reorganising secondary education in the city.
    Sir Keith Joseph: My reasons for rejecting the city of Manchester's proposals are set out in the Department's letter to the authority of 12 November, a copy of which was sent to the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Morris: Is the Secretary of State aware that the delay involved in the rejection of the Manchester scheme will add to the anxiety and uncertainty facing both teaching staff and parents in the city of Manchester? Is he further aware that the city of Manchester's ratepayers will
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    be involved in £1 million of additional expenditure as a result of the rejection of the reorganisation scheme? Will he explain how one determines the proven worth of the three schools concerned?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I studied this subject profoundly before reaching such an important decision. I very much regret the delay involved for Manchester, its ratepayers, teachers, parents and pupils. That is why I hope that the city of Manchester will come back as soon as possible, when it has had time to reconsider the proposals. Many characteristics have to be taken into account when deciding proven worth. Academic results are not the only characteristics, but they are an important component.
    Mr. Silvester: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that many people in Manchester feel that it is better to suffer the delay that results from the decision than to be stuck with a scheme that will damage our schools for many generations?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I agree with my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Marks: Is the Secretary of State aware that the Manchester education committee will recommend to tomorrow's city council meeting that it accept all his conditions and that Whalley Range, Parrswood and Burnage high school be excepted from the scheme and that provision be made for single-sex education for those over the age of 16? If the council accepts that proposition tomorrow, will the right hon. Gentleman give the scheme immediate approval so that it can take effect next September?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I welcome the council's quick reaction. However, I still have a quasi-judicial function, and objectors to the new scheme must be given an opportunity to make objections in accordance with the statute. When that period for objection is over, I guarantee to give urgent consideration to the issues involved.
    Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Does my right hon. Friend accept that many people in the North-West welcome his statement that he is unwilling to weaken schools of proven quality which continue to demonstrate their success in sixth-form provision, and this could apply to other schools in the North-West, such as the Lancaster Royal grammar school and the Lancaster girls' grammar school.
    Sir Keith Joseph: Each case has to be decided on its merits. I am trying to carry out part of the Conservative manifesto.
    Mr. Beith: If the Secretary of State is not prepared to allow Manchester to develop on the basis of a sixth-form college system or to allow Liverpool to make proper use of the under-used Paddington school premises, what discretion has any local authority to achieve the reduction in school places that the right hon. Gentleman demands?
    Sir Keith Joseph: The hon. Gentleman is seeking to generalise about decisions that have to be made on individual merits, as I see them.
    Mr. Whitehead: What definition of proven need puts the case for three schools over the case for 23 schools, which costs an additional £1 million in delay and which is adopted—I understand—against the advice of the Department and Her Majesty's Inspectorate?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I think that the hon. Gentleman meant "proven worth", not "proven need". The answer to the question that he meant to put is "Educational quality for the children".

    Burnham Further Education Committee
    Mr. Lathamasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he is now in a position to announce a decision regarding the awarding of a seat on the Burnham further education committee to the Association of Polytechnic Teachers, following the exchange in the House on 21 May and the announcement of consultations by his predecessor on 22 June.
    Sir Keith Joseph: Strongly held views have been expressed for and against the proposition. I have not heard the arguments of the Association of Polytechnic Teachers, so I have invited its representatives to put their case to me before I take a decision.
    Mr. Latham: As this matter has been dragging on for a long time, and as it cannot be the most significant matter awaiting my right hon. Friend's decision, will he try to determine it as quickly as possible?
    Sir Keith Joseph: My hon. Friend's comments are valid, and the answer is "Yes".
    Mr. Newens: Will the Secretary of State make it clear that it is not his policy to recognise every small organisation? If he did, none of the representative bodies would be able to reach any agreement. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this organisation represents only a small group of teachers, who are admirably represented—for the most part—by the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I find this statutory function invidious. I have to take all the arguments into account.
    Mr. Cormack: Is it not a fact that my right hon. Friend's predecessor considered the matter carefully and decided that the association should be represented? Why is it necessary to consider the matter again?
    Sir Keith Joseph: My hon. Friend has not given the whole picture. My predecessor expressed an inclination in one direction, but decided that it was necessary to hold consultations. I must take the results of those consultations into account.
    Mr. Christopher Price: Now that the Secretary of State has set up a public sector body in which the polytechnics are only a minority shareholder, what arguments are there for giving that small minority body a seat when teachers across the whole range have been adequately and properly represented for many years by one trade union?
    Sir Keith Joseph: Strong arguments are put to me both for and against inclusion. I must resolve the arguments as soon as possible.

    School Meals
    Mr. Ashtonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the current number of meals being served in schools each day compared to 1978.
    Mr. William Shelton: The necessary information will not be available until the new year, by which time all the returns under the 1981 school meals census will have been received and analysed.
    Mr. Ashton: Is it not a fact that the Minister does not want to give the figures because they have decreased considerably? Is he aware that in 1978 the children of the unemployed qualified for free school meals? Why do they not qualify now?
    Mr. Shelton: I think that the hon. Gentleman is mistaken. The 1980 census was published in January 1981. The 1981 census will be published at the beginning of next year. If the hon. Gentleman asks this question in a few months' time, he will receive the answer. As the hon. Gentleman must know, there is a statutory obligation that the children of those on family income supplement and supplementary benefit should have free school meals. In addition, two-thirds of local education authorities give more free school meals than they are required to give under the statutory obligation.
    Mr. Haselhurst: Is there any evidence that the introduction of the cafeteria system—even in primary schools—has led to an upturn in the number of those eating schools meals?
    Mr. Shelton: Unfortunately, it is too difficult to say. We shall know the answer in January or February when this year's census is published. However, my hon. Friend is right. There are signs that the upturn has started.
    Mr. Carter-Jones: Will the Minister take it from me that there has been a distinct drop in the number of meals available to schoolchildren? Does he accept that the main concern of those involved in education is that, geographically, the poorest areas have suffered most? Will he please promise to discriminate positively in favour of the weakest in our society?
    Mr. Shelton: There is a considerable variation between one education authority and another. However, that does not seem to be based on the poverty or otherwise of the authority. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State plans to monitor the effect on nutrition of recent legislation. That will take place in the not-too-distant future.

    Nursery Education
    Mrs. Renee Shortasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proposals he has to expand the provision of nursery education within the State system.
    Dr. Boyson: There is provision in the Government's expenditure plans for modest capital expenditure to enable those authorities that wish to do so to increase their nursery accommodation, mainly by converting spare primary accommodation.
    Mrs. Short: Why did the Minister introduce new regulations concerning the attendance of children in nursery classes? Is it not essential to expand nursery education now, with the help of the Government, bearing in mind that such a large number of families, particularly in deprived areas, are living close to the poverty line, thanks to the Government's policies?
    Dr. Boyson: A total of 6,000 more children were in nursery education in January this year compared with

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    January last year. The hon. Lady may be interested in the figures for Wolverhampton. In 1980, 62 per cent. of 3- and 4-year olds were in nursery and primary schools, whereas in January 1981 the figure had increased to 65 per cent.
    Mr. Stokes: Is my hon. Friend aware that in present circumstances it may be no bad thing not to expand nursery education, so that more young children can be at home with their mothers?
    Dr. Boyson: We always welcome my hon. Friend's interventions, and we shall undoubtedly take his views into account.
    Mr. Kinnock: Is the Minister aware that we wish there had been nursery schools when the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) was young?
    Mr. Cryer: There is room for improvement; he was brought up in a cave.
    Mr. Kinnock: Is the hon. Gentleman further aware that the Select Committee, the Rampton committee and, most important of all, the Scarman committee, have put strong emphasis on the need to increase and improve nursery facilities? Instead of announcing modest capital expenditure, will he now announce an increase in current expenditure to facilitate that development?
    Dr. Boyson: I am sure that the House would be much poorer without the interventions of my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes). Had he attended nursery school instead of a home playgroup, and had his views changed as a result, we would all have been the worse for it.
    There is, no doubt, a case for nursery schools in certain circumstances. The hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) talked earlier about positive discrimination. It is good to know that of the 6,000 extra nursery places in January this year, 5,000 were in urban areas. Without doubt, nursery places are most helpful in areas with a large number of one-parent families, ethnic deprivation and inner-city problems.
    Mr. John MacKay: Does my hon. Friend accept that a vast expansion of nursery education would be equivalent to lowering the starting age of children at school? Would it not be far better to encourage the pre-school playgroup movement?
    Dr. Boyson: The pre-school playgroup movement has been the greatest self-help movement since the war. We should do all that we can to pump-prime it. I believe that it will celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1982 and is planning a special week. I trust that all hon. Members will take an interest in the movement at that time.

    Mathematics Teaching
    Mr. Madelasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if, further to his reply to the hon. Member for Wokingham (Sir W. van Straubenzee) on 12 November, Official Report, c. 160, he is now in a position to make a statement on the report of the Cockcroft committee relating to the teaching of mathematics in secondary schools.
    Mr. William Shelton: My right hon. Friend is arranging for the report to be published as soon as possible. We expect it to be of wide interest to parents and employers as well as to the education service.
    Mr. Madel: Does my hon. Friend agree that, whatever the conclusions of that report, local education authorities should use the advantage of falling rolls substantially to step up in-service training and retraining in this subject?
    Mr. Shelton: I recognise my hon. Friend's interest in this matter, and I entirely agree with him.
    Mr. Christopher Price: Can the hon. Gentleman give us a date for publication, as everyone wants to read the report, not least the Select Committee?
    Mr. Shelton: The report was received on 10 November. I assure the hon. Gentleman that it will be published early in the new year.

    Student Unions
    Mr. Nicholas Wintertonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will seek to alter the arrangements made for the financing of student unions so as to make subscriptions to them voluntary rather than mandatory.
    Mr. Waldegrave: With the exception of Oxbridge junior common rooms, there are no subscriptions to student unions, which are now financed through the recurrent income of their parent institutions.
    Mr. Winterton: Does my hon. Friend agree that a growing movement within SACUM—Students Against Compulsory Union Membership—believes that part of Tory philosophy is responsible freedom? Does he not believe that the case of Paul Soden, who was excluded from Manchester polytechnic because he was not prepared to pay that part of the annual subscription that was due to the students' union, is quite wrong, particularly as he qualified and was eligible for admission to the polytechnic? Will my hon. Friend give this case and the whole matter of voluntary membership his urgent attention?
    Mr. Waldegrave: The Department is indeed giving the whole matter urgent attention. I think that at the back of my hon. Friend's mind are worries about political and other activities that do not appear to be connected with the original purposes of student unions. I believe that Mr. Soden was unwilling to contribute to the students' union that part of the fees that he calculated to be necessary. That would be a difficult precedent to accept, because students might then regard themselves as free not to contribute that part of their fees which, for example, they regarded as covering other departments that they did not use.
    Mr. McNally: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it is worrying to hear that the Department is urgently considering this matter? Is he further aware that the "loony" Right of the Tory Party has been sniping at student unions for more than 20 years? Is he also aware that, apart from the odd tomato, the cultural, athletic and education benefits to be gained from such unions are part of a student's overall education? Does he agree that the student movement has produced at least as many distinguished Members of this House as has All Souls?
    Mr. Waldegrave: The hon. Gentleman has more direct experience of "loonies" in politics than I. Indeed, they have driven him out of the Labour Party. There is a real question to answer about ultra vires activities by student unions, and this is a more complex question than that of

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    mere membership of student unions, which are normally recognised in the charters of universities or the orders governing polytechnics. We are looking seriously into that question.
    Sir William van Straubenzee: Is it not a fact that in a large number of institutions of higher education the student union is, for example, an integral part of the feeding arrangements of students? Surely it would be as sensible to have voluntary subscriptions to unions as it would be to have voluntary subscriptions to chemistry laboratories or libraries of medieval French.
    Mr. Waldegrave: As always, my hon. Friend makes my point more elegantly. There is much to be said for his suggestion.

    Teachers
    Mr. Marksasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is his estimate of the number of teachers who (a) qualified in 1980 and 1981 and (b) obtained teaching posts.
    Dr. Boyson: About 21,000 persons successfully completed courses of initial teacher training in England and Wales in 1980, of whom 72 per cent. had obtained teaching posts in the United Kingdom by the end of October 1980. Corresponding figures for 1981 are not yet available.
    Mr. Marks: It is dreadful to think that 28 per cent. of qualified teachers have not obtained jobs. Does the Minister not realise that the mere maintenance of the present teacher-pupil ratio at a time of falling rolls means lower standards? Would it not be preferable to give those teachers real teaching jobs rather than other jobs, thereby forcing other people on to the dole?
    Dr. Boyson: The hon. Gentleman, who had a distinguished teaching career, rightly said that 28 per cent. of trained teachers had not found jobs. It is as well to remember that many of them have either taken other jobs or gone abroad. The 28 per cent. figure relates to 1980. Under the Labour Government, 31 per cent. had not found jobs by the end of October 1978, and in 1977 the figure was 40 per cent.
    Mr. John Townend: Will my hon. Friend confirm that there is still a shortage of mathematics and science teachers in many areas? Will he draw that fact to the attention of school leavers who are considering teaching as a career?
    Dr. Boyson: My hon. Friend is correct. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has sent a circular letter saying that attention is being paid both to the quality of the training and the subjects in which the teachers are being trained. There is no point in studying subjects for which there is already a surplus of teachers.

    Universities and Polytechnics
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennettasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what percentage of the age group 19 to 25 years he expects to be attending universities and polytechnics in each of the next 10 years.
    Mr. Waldegrave: The percentage of the 19 to 25 age group attending universities is expected to fall from about 3·6 per cent. in 1980–81 to about 3 per cent. by 1984–85.
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    A further 1·5 per cent. of this age group were attending polytechnics in 1980–81. It is not possible to give the projections requested for the polytechnics, or for the universities beyond 1984–85.
    Mr. Bennett: Which members of the Cabinet would have managed to get into university if they had been part of the "bulge" generation and had faced the cuts that the Government are now imposing on universities? Is it not scandalous that the Government are denying to the next generation the opportunities that many members of the Cabinet and of the House enjoyed?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I am sure that none of my right hon. Friends would have had the slightest difficulty in getting into university in any age. Many of them would have been in universities, even in the eighteenth century—[Interruption.] There will be a fall in the participation rate, which we all regret.
    Mr. Forman: Apart from the needs of people between the ages of 19 and 25, what encouragement does the Department intend to give to mature students going back to university or polytechnics on a continuing and optional basis?
    Mr. Waldegrave: My hon. Friend draws attention to an important subject. This year the University Grants Committee, for the first time in its distributions, tried to protect mature students specifically. It remains an important aspect of Government policy to do that.
    Mr. Whitehead: As we now know that the fall in the number of university student places will be about 20,000 in three years, is not it incumbent on the Government to state the equivalent fall in the number of polytechnic places?
    Mr. Waldegrave: Policy decisions remain to be taken after discussion with local authorities about the implications for polytechnics and other colleges in the maintained sector.

    University Grants Committee
    Mr. Rentonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will take steps to replace the University Grants Committee with another mechanism for allocating Government funds to universities.
    Sir Keith Joseph: No, Sir.
    Mr. Renton: Is not the University Grants Committee being asked to change overnight from being an elderly tortoise to a young tiger? Is it really equipped to deal with cutbacks and redundancies? Will it and the Secretary of State look specifically and humanely at individual universities that can show that the net cost to the public purse would be less if their costs were spread over five years rather than over three years?
    Sir Keith Joseph: We are ready to consider my hon. Friend's latter proposition if it is worked out in a way that will achieve savings for the taxpayer in the years desired. On the former proposition, the UGC has presided over expansion for many years and honourably undertook, and is equipped for, the peer reviews necessary for the allocation of funds.
    Mr. Kinnock: Following the exercise by which the universities try to establish by various means the savings

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    that would accrue as a consequence of delaying the cutbacks, when does the Secretary of State expect to make a final decision and response? Will it be before next February, when so many important meetings will take place in universities about arrangements for the following year against the background of quick and big cuts?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I am studying urgently the paper that I have received through the UGC from the vice-chancellors and principals relating to an important aspect of the subject. I understand the urgency.
    Mr. Rhodes James: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the problem is that no single body covers the whole of higher and further education. Is it not a great mistake to divide higher education between universites and the other aspects? Will my right hon. Friend consider that?
    Sir Keith Joseph: Yes. I agree with my hon. Friend. That is why my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is presiding over efforts by the local authorities to achieve a more coherent approach.
    Mr. Frank Allaun: Is it not crazy, when the country is crying out for better technology, to impose the worst blows on the technological-based universities such as Salford, Aston, Bradford and others? Is the Secretary of State aware that 700 engineering places are to go at Salford as well as 500 other students and 550 staff?
    Sir Keith Joseph: After the reductions there will be at least as many places as there were before for such training.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 1 December.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, including one with the Brazilian Foreign Minister. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today. This evening I hope to have an audience of Her Majesty the Queen, after which I shall attend a dinner given by Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Hamilton: Has the Prime Minister had time to read the article on the front page of The Guardian this morning about the Government's proposal to scrap the National Health Service as we know it? Does she recognise that the Health Service is the most popular public service that we have? Is she aware that any threat by her to undermine the basic principles on which it is based would create a revolutionary situation in the country? Will the Prime Minister, therefore, give a categorical assurance that not even she will stoop to such skulduggery?
    The Prime Minister: The principle that adequate health care should be provided for all, regardless of ability to pay, must be the foundation of any arrangments for financing the Health Service. Some time ago, on 30 July 1981, my right hon. Friend, the then Secretary of State, announced that a working party had been set up to examine different methods of financing the Health Service. [Interruption.] Only the minds of members of the Opposition are closed to new ideas. They will not even look at new ideas.
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    I am certain that the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) will welcome the fact that under a Conservative Government there are 1,000 more doctors and 21,000 more fully qualified nurses and midwives in the National Health Service than there were when his party was in power.
    Mr. Best: Will my right hon. Friend congratulate the leaders of the second largest trade union in Britain on having accepted yesterday a pay settlement of 5 per cent. that covers almost 2 million workers in the engineering industry? Does my right hon. Friend agree that workers who, in the national interest, settle for such moderate pay rises will have little patience with others with industrial muscle who seek to damage the nation at the expense of other people by putting in extravagant claims?
    The Prime Minister: I saw the report to which my hon. Friend refers. That settlement will help to keep prices competitive and will therefore provide a better chance of expansion and more jobs in the engineering industry. I congratulate all concerned.
    Mr. Foot: As the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) is of such crucial importance, and since great suspicion is bound to be aroused by any approach by the Government to the National Health Service, may we have an assurance that there will be a debate in the House before any further proceedings on this issue are allowed?
    May we have a direct answer about another report in the papers this morning, following the statement by the director of the British museum to a Select Committee?
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: The British museum is where right hon. Gentleman should be.
    Mr. Foot: All right, I know that the barbarians on the Government Benches are not interested in a great institution such as the British museum, but we hear with great alarm that the director of the British museum is saying that if nothing is changed the museum will have to close in two years. If Tory Members do not care about that, we do. May we have an undertaking that the Prime Minister will intervene today to put a stop to such barbarian nonsense?
    The Prime Minister: With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's first question, the setting up of the working party was announced in July. It is continuing its work and will identify alternatives for financing the Health Service. I expect that those alternatives will be looked at to see what details are required for further work. There was a debate on the National Health Service two weeks ago. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, if not his hon. Friends, will welcome the fact that there are now 1,000 more doctors and 21,000 more nurses and midwives than there were under the Labour Government.
    With regard to the museums, I gave a reception for the museum directors and members of the board yesterday evening. The grant in 1981–82 is 7 to 8 per cent. above that for 1980–81. The museums may look forward to an increase next year, but the precise amount will have to await the full public expenditure results.
    Mr. Foot: Will the Prime Minister take account of what is said by the director of the British museum? Does she agree with him—because he knows the facts—that if these conditions prevail the museum will have to be closed in two years? Will she intervene to stop that right away?
    The Prime Minister: I have already said that the grant for museums this year was nearly 8 per cent. above that for last year. Next year it will be above that for this year. That is reasonable under all the circumstances.
    Dr. Owen: Does the Prime Minister accept Chancellor Schmidt's recent statement that the British and French nuclear weapons will have to be discussed in the present intermediate missile negotiations that have just commenced? Will the right hon. Lady use this opportunity to reconsider her position on Trident? Will she also tell the House what her view is about a battlefield nuclear weapon-free zone?
    The Prime Minister: With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's first statement, alleged to have been made by Chancellor Schmidt, I do not know about it. He has never made any such statement to me. If that is what he thought, I would have expected him to make a statement to me, to President Mitterrand or to both of us together. With regard to Trident, I understand that the United States is going for D5. Until the United States has made a final decision, we cannot make a final decision. The right hon. Gentleman's third point was about a battlefield nuclear weapon-free zone. I always view with great suspicion suggestions for nuclear-free zones, particularly by a country that could easily withdraw its weapons behind the Urals and still have the capacity totally to destroy Europe.
    Mr. Robert Atkins: Will my right hon. Friend find time today to address a letter of congratulation to all those at British Aerospace who have achieved the major deal with the United States Government to supply £500 million worth of Hawks, to be used by the United States Navy? Is that not an example of yet another British company being a world beater?
    The Prime Minister: I give my warm congratulations. The contract has yet to be precisely defined, but the Hawk is an excellent aircraft. It is wonderful to see other countries recognising that fact and viewing the possibility of placing orders with Britain.
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 1 December.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some time ago.
    Mr. Allaun: Will the Prime Minister think again about tomorrow's announcement? Is it not hypocrisy to profess concern for the poorest in society and at the same time deliberately to inflict a third and savage increase in council rents, a further increase in prescription charges, an increase in the national insurance contribution and lastly a cut in the dole?
    The Prime Minister: As there is to be an announcement by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer tomorrow, it is possible that I shall be doing more thinking about it today. Without confirming or denying any of the points made by the hon. Gentleman, I hope that he will subscribe to the principle that those in work should make it their duty to look after those who are out of work.
    Mr. Kenneth Carlisle: Will my right hon. Friend today consider the new training initiative? Does she agree that it constitutes the most determined effort ever by any Government to tackle the grave problem of youth unemployment? Will she ensure that any schemes arising
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    from the initiative have a high vocational content so that the young people will have a practical hope of an effective job to go to?
    The Prime Minister: I hope that the House will warmly welcome details of the new training initiative when they are announced at about the turn of the year. They are designed to give more young people more training so that they have a better prospect of getting new jobs. Taking that together with the youth opportunities programme and the prospect of the scheme for young workers, which comes in on 2 January, I believe that there is a good deal of hope for young people leaving school that they will be able to get training, further education or jobs.
    Mr. David Steel: Did the Prime Minister notice that last Thursday the people of Crosby passed judgment on her Government, and as the new Member for Crosby will take her seat this afternoon, is it not the Prime Minister's turn today to feel jolly jealous?
    The Prime Minister: Hardly. I do not believe that there is anyone in the House to be jealous of.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Will my right hon. Friend consult her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland now that the decision has been given about the go-ahead for the NATO base in the Western Isles to ensure that that base, which is essential to the protection of the United Kingdom, and which will create many jobs in that area, is no longer held up?
    The Prime Minister: I shall do my best to comply with my hon. Friend's request. He is as anxious for the whole of the United Kingdom to be protected as I am, and that sufficient jobs go to Scotland.

    Earnings-related Benefit
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennettasked the Prime Minister if she will take steps to publicise the additional benefit that can be obtained by persons registering for earnings-related benefit in the last week of the current, compared with the first week of the following, year.
    The Prime Minister: The abolition of earnings-related benefit at the beginning of next month, and the transitional arrangements that accompany it, are being publicised through posters in DHSS local offices and unemployment benefit offices, through a new leaflet, and in the media.
    Mr. Bennett: If the Government's economic strategy is working, why is it necessary to abolish the earnings-related benefit, which will mean that new claimants will be £11 a week worse off?
    The Prime Minister: That matter was fully debated when it was put through the House. There was an opportunity to vote on it. I have nothing to add to the detailed discussion that took place.
    Mr. Paul Dean: Will my right hon. Friend also give publicity to the fact that pensions have been increased by 52 per cent. under her Administration? When the cost of social security benefits is increasing so rapidly, is it not common sense to give top priority to those most in need, including pensioner couples, widows and disabled people?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I wholly agree with my hon. Friend. That is exactly what we have done. In fact, retirement pensions have kept up with the cost of living.
    Mr. Donald Stewart: Is the Prime Minister aware that the imposition of the NATO base on the Western Isles is resisted by most of the people there—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman's question is not related to earnings-related benefit.
    Mr. McCrindle: Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to repeat that the Government's policy on the taking up of social benefits is to give publicity to what is available and to encourage the maximum take-up at the same time as the Government pursue their perfectly legitimate campaign against the fraudulent claims about which we are sometimes abused?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend has expressed it perfectly. I cannot improve upon what he has said. I can only endorse his remarks.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: Will my right hon. Friend take steps to ensure that when poor families apply for any benefit, the benefit office checks to see whether they are entitled to any other benefits at the same time?
    The Prime Minister: That is an administrative matter. It seems to be a good idea that that should happen. I shall, of course, convey the suggestion to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, who may have heard it, to see whether it is administratively possible.

Television Licence Fee
3.30 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department Mr. William Whitelaw: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement about the television licence fees. As right hon. and hon. Members will be aware, the BBC has made an application for an increase in the colour television licence fee to about £50 to last for three years. In considering that application it is my duty to ensure that the corporation's home services are adequately funded, and at the same time to have regard to what is fair to the licence fee payer.
I have therefore decided, and have today laid the necessary regulations, to increase the fee for a colour television licence from £34 to £46 and for a monochrome licence from £12 to £15. The new fees come into effect at midnight tonight. It is my intention that this level of fees should last for at least three years and I shall make it clear to the BBC that I shall expect it to pay off its current deficit and live within the revenue that these new levels of fees will produce until the end of the 1984–85 financial year.
My purpose in deciding on an increase to last for at least three years is to make the licence fee system work as it should. It is also my aim to fix the level of fees for a period that will enable the corporation to plan ahead more effectively. A three-year increase will require considerable financial discipline on the part of the corporation, and the extent to which it will be able to pursue its plans for new or improved services will depend crucially on its ability to keep down its costs, particularly labour costs.
In that context, the board of governors has announced that it has commissioned a wide-ranging review of the systems by which the BBC monitors its efficiency. I welcome that decision, which indicates how seriously the board of governors takes its responsibility for ensuring that the licence fee paying public get an efficient service and value for money.
I recognise that it is not easy for some people to find the licence fee in a single lump sum each year. I therefore intend to provide a range of means to enable members of the public who wish to do so to spread the cost of the licence fee over the year. To supplement the successful and widely used television saving stamps scheme, I have approved plans for the introduction of payments by instalments. We propose, during next summer, to start accepting monthly instalments towards the following year's licence fee by means of direct debit from bank accounts, and to introduce at least a pilot scheme for payment by credit cards. That will be followed, I hope by the summer of 1983, by a scheme for the payment of monthly cash instalments over post office counters towards the following year's fee.
I believe that the three-year increases that I have announced today, coupled with greater flexibility in the methods of payment, will do much to strengthen the licence fee system and preserve the independence of the BBC.
Mr. Roy Hattersley: Is the Home Secretary aware that Opposition Members believe that the BBC should be financed in a way that both preserves its independence and enables it to maintain the high level of its programmes? I therefore accept that an income of the sort that the Government propose is
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necessary, and that it should be obtained by means of a licence fee. However, is the right hon. Gentleman equally aware that a television licence fee of £46 will bear heavily on some members of the public, particularly retirement pensioners? The fact that the increase will be reflected in the retail price index is no comfort because, at best, the pension will be adjusted next November to compensate for tonight's new licence level and, at worst, next year's pension increase, like this year's, will not reflect the full change in the cost of living. Nor will the variety of easy payment schemes be of much benefit to most pensioners, few of whom—whatever may be said to the contrary—will ever possess credit cards, and all of whom will be required to pay instalments on next year's licence fee this year, in advance of receipt of programmes.
Therefore, I repeat to the right hon. Gentleman what my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) said in the summer, that we shall not support the proposed increase unless a concession is made for retirement pensioners and the chronically sick.
May I suggest one means of raising compensating revenue for that purpose? Is it not absurd that the Savoy Hotel, for example, with hundreds of television sets used for commercial purposes, should pay the same licence fee as a single pensioner? Should there not therefore be a separate and higher commercial fee, separate from and higher than the domestic licence? Should it not be levied on every set in commercial use?
Mr. Whitelaw: I am glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman accept that the licence fee is the best method of financing the BBC. I am also glad to hear him say that the sort of income that I have designed through the licence fee is what he believes to be correct for the BBC over the next three years.
I accept that the problems of pensioners cause considerable anxiety. The easy payment schemes that I have proposed to introduce supplement the television stamps, which are available to pensioners and are helpful. A large proportion of television licences are now taken out by that method, which shows that it is valuable and worth while.
I accept that there is a problem with hotels. We set up a working party on the matter, which recommended that hotels should pay more. I am prepared to consider how best we should implement that proposal.
Mr. Peter Emery: Does not my right hon. Friend accept that a 36 per cent. increase in the licence fee is steep but that people will accept it on the understanding that it is essential to keep the BBC independent of any political pressure? Therefore, will my right hon. Friend also ask the BBC to look particularly at those small areas of the country where reception is very bad? There are areas that have been promised improvements in their reception for five and six years—places in Devon where hills and coombs make ordinary reception difficult? That promise by the BBC has not been fulfilled. Is my right hon. Friend aware that people in those areas will find it unpleasant to have to meet this increase when they have had no improvements in reception over the last five years?
Mr. Whitelaw: On my hon. Friend's first point, it is fair to say that the proposal for an increase in the licence fee is to last for three years. It is important for the House

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and the country to appreciate that under the arrangement there will be no increase in the licence fees for three years from now.
I am acutely aware of the difficulties of reception in some areas, because my constituency has some of the same problems as my hon. Friend's constituency. The BBC appreciates that, and it will do its best to remedy the problems as soon as possible.
Mr. A. J. Beith: Is it not a fact that pensioners' money goes into Government bank accounts a year before it is needed? In other words, why can we not have a scheme whereby instalments are paid towards the current year's licence fee to help pensioners with the cost? If, as I agree with the Home Secretary, it is desirable to give the BBC three years' freedom from having to come back to the Government, will not the Government have to do better in controlling inflation than they have done so far in order for the scheme to work?
Mr. Whitelaw: In fixing the licence fee it was important to decide on many different assumptions. That has been done, and I have come to the conclusion that the figure which I have produced, which has not been disputed, meets the requirement of being fair to the BBC as it produces its programmes and at the same time is fair to those who pay the licence fees. I thought that I had produced many proposals to help pensioners. I shall be prepared to consider any others that fall within the instalment principle to which reference has been made.
Mr. Jack Ashley: Will the Home Secretary consider allocating a small proportion of the licence fee specifically for the subtitling of television programmes for the deaf? I have a special interest. Will he congratulate the BBC on the splendid work that it has done so far in subtitling programmes? Is he aware that far more subtitling would be appreciated by the deaf on the part of the BBC and that the IBA should do much more as well?
Mr. Whitelaw: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I will pass on what he has said to the BBC. I believe that it has made considerable efforts on behalf of the deaf. I know that it wishes to go further and that it will seek to do so. I will pass on also the right hon. Gentleman's views to the IBA, which I have no doubt it will convey to the television companies.
Mr. Patrick Cormack: Does my right hon. Friend accept that there would be enormous support in the country for a concessionary scheme for pensioners even if that meant the rest of us having to pay slightly more than £46?
Mr. Whitelaw: I entirely accept what my hon. Friend has said, but he must appreciate some of the problems involved. If we were to give a concession to pensioner households, which would mean any household of which a retirement pensioner was a member, the colour television licence fee would have to rise to £70 for those who paid it in full and the monochrome licence fee would have to be increased to £25. Such a scheme would help many households in which the pensioner members are not especially those whom the House would wish to help, including the Leader of the Opposition and, during the currency of the increased licence fee, myself.
Mr. Derek Foster: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his statement will be greeted with
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widespread dismay by pensioners throughout the North of England? Does he realise that the swingeing increase will put television out of their reach? When will he come forward—[Interruption.] I know that Conservative Members have no sympathy for pensioners. That is well understood. When will the right hon. Gentleman introduce a realistic concessionary scheme for all pensioners? It is pathetic to suggest, as the right hon. Gentleman did, that there is only one conceivable scheme. When will he provide a proper concession for pensioners?
Mr. Whitelaw: First, I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says. Secondly, my right hon. and hon. Friends have made it clear that we believe it right to provide help for pensioners through the retirement pension and not through benefits in kind. [Interruption.] Before Labour Members shout about that, I stress that the Government have honoured their pledge in full, and more, to ensure that pensioners are safeguarded against increases in the cost of living. Pensions have risen faster and further than the increase in the cost of living.
Mr. George Foulkes: That is not true.
Mr. Whitelaw: Yes, they most certainly have risen as I have described. What is more, the television licence fee is taken into account in the retail price index.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call five more hon. Members from either side of the House. That will be a good run before we turn to the next statement.
Mr. John Spence: May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the renewal of the BBC's capital equipment? I should like to know how much is included in the increase that he has awarded the BBC for that renewal as opposed to how much the BBC requested.
Mr. Whitelaw: The discussions about the level of the fee covered all these issues. A decision was made on the basis of all the considerations which were put before us and discussed with the BBC. I do not wish to single out any one consideration.
Mr. Bob Cryer: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the Government have cut the link between pensions and wages that the previous Labour Government established by law, and that pensioners are facing enormous difficulties? Does he understand that television is one means by which many pensioners keep in contact with the world? Surely he could and should consider a scheme for some modest flat rate charge to all pensioners to give them at least some compensation for the attack that the Government have made on pensioners as a whole?
Mr. Whitelaw: When the previous Labour Government were in office they never thought to introduce such a concession. They came to it in opposition. They did not implement the policy when they were in government. The hon. Gentleman must appreciate that what I said about pensions having risen more than the increase in the cost of living is true and cannot be disputed statistically. That is something that he will have to accept.
Mr. Charles Morrison: May I emphasise the point made by the right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley)? Is my right hon. Friend aware

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that there are more deaf people in the United Kingdom than there are Welsh people? Does he agree that even greater special regard should be given to the needs of the deaf?
Mr. Whitelaw: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It is true that the BBC has gone a long way to deal with the problems of the deaf. I hope that it will be able to go further. The licence fee was determined in consideration of what the BBC will be able to do in Wales with the Welsh programmes, which is an important issue. I take my hon. Friend's point about the deaf.
Mr. Barry Sheerman: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many people feel that he has missed the opportunity to take the BBC licence fee out of the political arena and that we shall see yet again the political intimidation of the BBC as we come, at the end of the three-year period that he has announced, to a general election? Is he aware that many Opposition Members believe that special arrangements should be made to improve the quality of service that is provided by the BBC for old-age pensioners? The increased licence fee should have been even higher and should have been linked to inflation.
Mr. Whitelaw: By establishing a clear position for the BBC for three years ahead the Government are surely doing exactly the opposite of what the hon. Gentleman said. Surely such action underlines the independence of the BBC, which is crucial. That is why I attached so much importance to fixing a licence fee for three years. On the hon. Gentleman's second question about pensioners, I have made clear my position and I wish to stand by it.
Mr. Paul Dean: Does my right hon. Friend agree that every increase in the licence fee, whether it is introduced by a Labour Government or a Conservative Government, increases the difficulties for pensioners and others on modest incomes? In view of that, will he give urgent attention to the many anomalies which exist within the licence arrangements and to the possibility of alternative sources of revenue for the BBC?
Mr. Whitelaw: My hon. Friend has long campaigned for pensioners and I applaud his efforts in so doing. I appreciate the difficulties that ensue from increasing the licence fee on the scale that I have announced, but I contend that the increases are fair to the BBC and to the country. We still have one of the lowest licence fees in Europe. That is important to accept. I accept that there are anomalies in the system. I do not wish to overcome those by taking away some of the concessions that are already made. That would be harsh and unreasonable. I shall consider the anomalies to which my hon. Friend has referred.
Mr. Edward Lyons: I appreciate the need for the BBC's profits to be funded, but will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the fact that an extra £1 a month in instalments for a retirement pensioner is an enormous extra impost? Secondly, as black and white television sets are largely in the hands of the poorest sections of the population, will the right hon. Gentleman at least freeze the fee for black and white sets instead of increasing it?
Mr. Whitelaw: I accept what the hon. and learned Gentleman says as being one of the anxieties of announcing any increase in this field. The increase in the fee for a monochrome set would be regarded as reasonable in the circumstances.
Mr. John Gorst: Would my right hon. Friend clarify the position about the people whose licences expired on 30 November and who have already paid the old rate? Will they be required to pay a supplement on it or will they be allowed to keep their new licences at the old rate?
Mr. Whitelaw: What I have said about the new fees comes into effect at midnight tonight. If anyone has paid before midnight, he gets his licence at the old fee and not the new one.
Mr. Ian Mikardo: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the concessions he has offered today will be warmly welcomed by all the pensioners in East London who have Diners Club credit cards?
Mr. Whitelaw: The hon. Gentleman enjoys such snide remarks, but there are many, other than pensioners, who may wish to pay fees in that way. It is perfectly sensible to provide a variety of ways of paying the licence fee. I do not see why that should be the occasion for snide remarks.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I direct my right hon. Friend's attention to the anomaly to which my hon. Friend referred—the concession now available to pensioners who live in warden-supervised accommodation. Is the Minister aware that many pensioners who do not have that advantage are often worse off financially than those who live in that accommodation and that they find the anomaly annoying and frustrating?
Would the Minister not consider removing the anomaly by raising the fee to all old-age pensioners but by less than the figure which he has announced to the House today, and funding it by the sort of proposal put by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley)—by increasing the charges to hotels and other commercial institutions?
Mr. Whitelaw: First, in answer to the right hon. Gentleman, I will certainly consider the position about hotels and see what further revenue we might get there. I am certainly prepared to consider that, but I must make it clear to my hon. Friend that any revenue from that source, if we decided to go forward with it, would certainly not meet the sort of increase he has suggested on the other front.
I accept that anomalies exist but I would not wish to remove them by taking something from people who already have it. That would be a very harsh decision.
Mr. Joseph Ashton: I discern from the mood of the House that there is now a great desire that television should be treated as a social service. Would it not be much simpler to collect the licence fee by adding £1 a week to the National Health stamp so that everybody who worked paid and so that when we all retire or are off work we get the concession?
Mr. Whitelaw: The simple answer to that is "No, Sir."
Mr. Hattersley: Since the Home Secretary has shown some sympathy for the idea of a commercial fee, which

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has been pressed on him from both sides of the House, does he propose to make a further statement about his examination before he lays the order, or does he expect hon. Members to vote on the present pattern and hear his views afterwards?
Mr. Whitelaw: Because I have to study the views of the working party on hotels, which could not possibly affect the broad basis of the decision I have taken today, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman and the House to approve the situation as it stands.
Mr. Speaker: Mr. Secretary Howell: statement.
Mr. Andrew Faulds: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. By, I am sure, a momentary oversight, you have forgotten that I have spoken on these matters from the Front Bench. I might have had a fairly valuable contribution to make—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. As usual, I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman. He has given me the opportunity to say that I do my very best to ensure that those on the Front Bench who run back up to the Back Benches, are not given the same preference as real Back Benchers. I think that is fair and I am quite sure that the hon. Gentleman's sense of fair play will lead him to agree with me.
Mr. Faulds: I am happy to yield to your suggestion, Mr. Speaker, because we are about to have the happy introduction of moderation, reason and true feminity in contrast to the tough aclamantine type that we usually have to suffer.
Mr. Speaker: We shall have the statement first. Mr. Secretary Howell—
Mr. Kenneth Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I simply draw your attention to the fact that some hon. Members, who are not in the happy position of being able to go from the Front Bench to the Back Benches, have difficulties in being called—never mind the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds).
Later—
Mr. Peter Snape: Without repeating the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds), may I ask you, Mr. Speaker, how you decide which Front Bench spokesmen can be called to speak from the Back Benches? Are all Front Bench spokesmen equal? Some of us regard the matter that has just been discussed as at least as important as Front Bench responsibilities.
Mr. Speaker: I believe that I called one of the hon. Gentleman's colleagues who is a member of his union, if that is what is worrying him. Otherwise, I am not anxious to make a firm rule that no one who speaks from the Front Bench can ever be called when he is on the Back Benches. If it were the will of the House, of course, I would respond to it, but I have not yet had any indication of that.

Lorries, People and the Environment
3.56 pm
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Howell): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement on lorries, people and the environment.
Heavy lorries have been the subject of continuing debate and controversy for over 10 years. The problems are complex and intractable, but decisions have to be taken. We need above all to end the present uncertainty about future lorry weights which is currently placing a handicap on investment in the commercial vehicle industry.
To clarify the issues, the Government appointed Sir Arthur Armitage in July 1979 to conduct an independent inquiry into the whole problem of lorries and their effects on people and the environment. Sir Arthur and his four independent assessors took evidence very widely, and reported in December 1980. The Government are very grateful to them for their wide-ranging report. It has aroused great interest. A large number of people and organisations have put their views to me, and there have been two debates in the House. The Government thought it right to take time to consider fully the many points that have been raised.
The effect of big lorries on people and communities is a matter of deep concern. The lorry is an offensive element in the environment, and it will make the environment progressively worse unless we take decisions now which will change the trend over the coming years. Our aim is to ensure a more civilised development of freight transport in the future, which will mean a better environment as well as a healthier economy.
The measures the Government will be taking to achieve this objective are outlined in a White Paper published today. These measures are directed to keeping lorries away from the places where people live, through the provision of more bypasses, to making the vehicles quieter and cleaner, and, in particular, to keeping their numbers down.
However, to keep costs down, road transport must be efficient and economic. Our present maximum weight limits on lorries place an economic handicap on much of our industry.
Mr. Norman Atkinson: Disgraceful.
Mr. Howell: Our regulations prevent many existing lorries from being loaded to their full technical weight carrying capacity. This is wasteful. It makes transport costs higher than they need be, which in turn feeds through into prices and makes our exports less competitive.
The Government agree with Armitage's rejection of the heavier axle weights proposed by the European Commission. We have also announced our rejection of a maximum weight as high as 44 tonnes, which was the heaviest vehicle recommended in the Armitage report. All the safeguards suggested in the report have been considered very carefully and the Government are now convinced that maximum lorry weights can safely be raised to 34 tonnes for four-axled vehicles, and 40 tonnes on five axles. These changes are set out in draft amending regulations which are being circulated today by my Department for consultation. Copies are available in both the Vote Office and the Library of the House.

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The proposals outlined in the White Paper will apply to Northern Ireland and, where appropriate, will be given effect through separate action under the relevant Northern Ireland legislation.
As well as bringing economic benefits to industry and ultimately to the consumers, through savings in industry's transport costs of around £150 million a year, there will be benefits to the environment. The heavier vehicles will be no bigger than the biggest vehicles on the roads today. Their higher load capacity will enable industry to meet demands for freight services with fewer vehicles than would otherwise be needed. There will be safeguards in the regulations on the design of the heavier vehicles to protect roads, bridges and underground services.
We cannot afford delay. To do nothing would help neither the environment nor the economy. Freight users, vehicle operators and manufacturers are unable to plan ahead while the present uncertainty lasts. It is through the decisions taken now, and the actions initiated, that we can achieve over the years ahead the improvements we are seeking.
Mr. Albert Booth: Does the Secretary of State for Transport recall that his predecessor, in the debate on the Armitage report, said:
"Whatever we decide on this issue,"—
he was referring to heavy lorry weights—
"I shall make a comprehensive statement on Armitage covering all of the main recommendations."—[Official Report, 17 June 1981; Vol. 6, c.1088.]
The Secretary of State's statement lamentably fails to measure up to that undertaking, as does the White Paper which it introduces. To that extent he will be judged as having reneged on his predecessor's undertaking.
The lorries that the Secretary of State is proposing will be more damaging to the roads of this country than the 44 tonne lorries proposed by Armitage, when measured by Armitage's own criteria. The Secretary of State is proposing to allow on the roads of this country a 38-tonne lorry with a 10·5 drive axle—a higher drive axle weight than any at present on our roads.
Why has the Secretary of State made no proposal whatever to allocate to heavy goods vehicles the higher costs that they impose on road building and maintenance, to which the Armitage report referred? Why is the Secretary of State ducking the heavy goods vehicle taxation issue, which Armitage highlighted very effectively?
Why is the Secretary of State ignoring 90 out of the 91 recommendations in the Foster report relating to lorry operator licensing?
The Secretary of State's offer to have a study made of the need for lorry action areas in a number of our cities—when compared with the clearcut Armitage proposal that the Government should make grants to local authorities to cope with some of these problems and recoup that cost by taxation of the heavy goods vehicles—is lamentably inadequate.
The bypass commitment in the White Paper, measured against the requirement, as acknowledged by the Government, for 400 bypasses, is like feeding a peanut to a hungry elephant. It recognises the problem but responds to it by a pathetic gesture. The minor amelioration of a
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major problem is a figleaf behind which the Secretary of State cannot hide a massive concession to the road freight haulage lobby.
Those who are now suffering from the effects of the present heavy lorries will be among those who are most disappointed or shocked by the Secretary of State's announcement.
Mr. Howell: I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's version and interpretation of what I have said this afternoon or of the White Paper. The proposals in the White Paper are comprehensive and cover—indeed, go beyond—the full range of points made in the Armitage report.
The overall effect of the proposals, as there would be up to 10,000 fewer lorries, would mean that there would be 5 per cent. less road damage for any given level of activity.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the question of higher taxation on the lorries which do the most damage. The White Paper makes it clear that we have taken the powers to prepare for that, and we propose to go in that direction. There is no question of ducking that. In the Department, we are making a new assessment of track costs to enable us to move along that path. I do not understand, therefore, why the right hon. Gentleman raised that point.
It is true that the Armitage report made several proposals concerning lorry action areas. We have already started to discuss them with local authorities. We are not shelving the idea, but it raises a number of sensitive and difficult local issues, as the right hon. Gentleman knows full well. He would be the first to criticise if we rushed into general undertakings before discussing matters properly and fairly with the local authorities.
The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the proposals as being a concession to the freight industry. He is totally wrong in that respect. There is a major advance for the environment within our grasp here, because there will be lorries which are no bigger and which will be greatly reduced in number. At the same time, they will benefit industry in terms of more investment and more jobs. If he is not in favour of that, it is a strange departure from what I understood his position to be.
Mr. John Peyton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that those who live, walk and push prams in the narrow streets of many of our towns and villages are likely to accord to his proposals a welcome that falls a good deal short of rapturous?
Is my right hon. Friend further aware that his observations on the environment and on keeping lorries away from people would carry a good deal more weight if the road programme were not at such a low ebb and if progress on bypasses were not so sluggish? Is he further aware that his proposals would be more palatable if some reference had been made to his preparedness concerning ideas on lorry routes? There appears to be nothing forthcoming there.
Mr. Howell: I am aware that the present lorry size and weight are very unpopular. If there were any suggestion about bigger lorries—apart from the 1½ ft. extra on the cab—and if we were talking about lorry trailers, I should be wholly against it. We are talking of the same size of

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lorry loads and about fewer lorries. While I certainly do not expect rapture, I believe that this is a move in the right direction, towards civilising the lorry.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to emphasise the need for roads suitable for our freight pattern, which has been inherited from the past, and for the road programme to be designed to meet it. That is why, in the White Paper, I announced four new bypasses; that seven others have been advanced into the reserve programme; that 38 communities are having bypasses started round them in 1981 alone; and that 215 out of 275 towns of over 10,000 people on trunk roads are being bypassed. This is not entirely satisfactory. but it is the right way to proceed. My right hon. Friend is correct in emphasising that.
Mr. Stephen Ross: Is the Secretary of State aware that on the Liberal Benches we would much prefer to see the former Minister of Transport, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), back in his place, because he was the person who rightly refused to go above 32 tonnes in 1972? We believe that the Secretary of State has been bamboozled by his own Department. Will he exclude the Isle of Wight from having 40-tonne lorries, which we do not want?
Mr. Howell: I know the hon. Member's wish to go back into the past. I recognise the much greater experience in these affairs of my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), but we are facing a deteriorating situation. We have to grapple with it. Decisions have to be taken and cannot be ducked.
Local authorities have considerable powers, under the "Dykes Act", to impose bans and restrictions. They are not at the moment seeking more powers from me. I hope that they will use their powers imaginatively and extensively, as with the Windsor cordon, with which the hon. Gentleman may be familiar.
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: If decisions have to be applied to Northern Ireland by a different legislative process, will the Minister give an assurance that they will take effect simultaneously in both parts of the Kingdom, since it would be absurd, in view of the volume of lorry traffic between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, if they were implemented at different times?
Mr. Howell: I shall do my best to ensure that that is so.
Mr. David Crouch: Is my right hon. Friend aware that some of us are appalled at his statement? I frankly do not believe that the lorries will not be bigger, heftier and more dangerous on the roads. I do not accept, either, that the existing regulations are sufficient to prevent the lorries from going away from the trunk roads and the motorways.
My right hon. Friend has said that he will be placing a statement in the Vote Office this afternoon. I warn him that I shall vote against the measure when it is introduced.
Mr. Howell: My hon. Friend should read the White Paper, where he will see that lorry loads will not be any bigger. They are the same lorry containers as we see on our roads today, but instead of being 80 per cent. full they will in many cases be full. That will be of great benefit to many industries. For example, the chemicals industry has recognised that it will benefit considerably in terms of costs and jobs if it is allowed to use existing containers to full capacity. That should interest my hon. Friend.
Mr. Ted Leadbitter: Does the Secretary of State understand that the House considers his statement to be a complete betrayal of the protection of the environment? Will he be frank with the House and admit that the White Paper on roads for the next 10 years shows an investment programme for repairs and new roads that does not even measure up to the Armitage package? We must have some honesty. Is the Secretary of State aware that the new lorry loads are a dangerous intrusion into urban areas, cause damage to historic buildings and will not be supported by the general public, or, I hope, by the House?
Mr. Howell: The hon. Gentleman exaggerates his case. Of course there are strong feelings on the subject, but the plain fact is that if there are fewer large and frightening vehicles around it is a step in the right direction. That must be accepted as part of the case and as part of the point on the other side of the argument. I ask the hon. Gentleman to read the White Paper. He will see that there are real benefits for the environment as well as for industry if we get the balance right. We shall then reach a decision on the regulations.
Mr. Terence Higgins: Is more money to be spent on the bypass building programme and, if so, how much? Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that enforcement will be improved so that lorries that do not conform to tougher environmental restraints on pollution and noise are not allowed to carry heavier loads?
Mr. Howell: On the question of expenditure, the additional bypasses that I have announced today in the White Paper will involve, during the years in which they are started, an extra expenditure of about £31 million in today's money. For next year, all the starts that are possible within existing public expenditure resources have already been announced. Will my right hon. Friend repeat his second question?
Mr. Higgins: Can the Secretary of State assure the House that tougher environmental restraints will be enforced effectively, so that lorries will not be allowed to carry heavier loads unless the restraints are conformed with?
Mr. Howell: We are determined to ensure that enforcement is extremely tough. At the same time, I wish that local authorities would use their powers vigorously to ensure that lorries are not overloaded illegally and do not travel where they are totally ill-suited to go.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call five hon. Members from either side, which I know is a very good innings. We must be fair to the hon. and right hon. Ulster Members who will follow.
Mr. Leslie Spriggs: Is the Secretary of State aware that many hon. Members, and millions of people who use cars and lorries on the roads today, know that motorways especially are reduced to single-lane traffic because heavy traffic is tearing the roads up? Is he aware that if the railways were used correctly and proper investment were made in the railway traffic industry for carrying freight, Britain need not have the sort of statement that we have heard from the right hon. Gentleman? Is he aware that Members on both sides of the House—from what has been said by his right hon. and

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hon. Friends—are tired of Ministers coming to the House and conning the House and the public with statements such as he has made today?
Mr. Howell: I must ask the hon. Gentleman to reconsider his last comment. I am setting out the Government's view as contained in a White Paper. There will be draft regulations and consultation and then a full debate. We must consider both sides of the arguments, which are familiar to many hon. Members. The Government have advanced their view about what they believe to be the best way forward. That is a fair and sensible approach to take.
I wish that what the hon. Gentleman said about the railways were true, but the reality is that with our geography—much shorter rail haulage and the non-availability of railheads in many areas, such as the West Country and Wales, from where many people send freight to the Continent—there is no opportunity for a major transfer to rail. I wish to see a transfer to rail, but there is no opportunity for a major shift.
Sir Anthony Kershaw: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his statement that lorry sizes will not increase is acceptable but that the damage done in Cotswold villages and small towns is mostly because of the weight of lorries, which shivers buildings and knocks them down? Will he also ensure that his Department is faster and more flexible when putting out notices and signs to forbid lorries of certain weights to travel on different roads?
Mr. Howell: We shall do what we can where it is our responsibility. As to lorry weights, the proposal in the White Paper is that there should be an additional axle on heavier vehicles so that the overall weight on each axle, which is what causes the damage, will, for the 40-tonne lorry, be less. My hon. Friend should bear that point in mind.
Mr. Roy Hughes: Has there been a study into the problems associated with the Severn bridge, which is a vital artery for trade to and from South Wales? For instance, could the bridge bear the additional weight, especially bearing in mind the fact that it is already plagued with lane closures and repairs of one sort or another?
Mr. Howell: The hon. Member is right that already, under the existing and I believe deteriorating position, there are problems with the Severn bridge. A study is being carried out with a view to making the Severn bridge secure for existing traffic, which will embrace any changes involved. It will also be safe for the 40-tonne vehicle.
Mr. Chris Patten: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that several Conservative Members agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) and do not believe that the limited environmental measures announced in the White Paper come anywhere near to justifying the introduction of heavier lorries? I wish to apply the point of linkage, which is more popular in international affairs. Will my right hon. Friend note that I shall be prepared to start to consider the question of heavier lorries the day after the completion of the Bath eastern by-pass and not a moment before?
Mr. Howell: The Bath eastern by-pass is one project that we hope to accelerate. I am aware that the Government's views have not been accepted with rapture by many hon. Members and that we face a difficult dilemma which must be resolved. When my hon. Friend reads those proposals in the White Paper, he will understand that they are to the benefit of the environment. I try to persuade the House about that, because I believe that we have a duty to help both the environment and industry in such difficult times.
Mr. George Foulkes: Is the Secretary of State aware that not only are motorways crumbling at the moment but sewers and basements of buildings are in danger of collapse? Would it not be much more sensible to redirect investment and redirect freight on to the railways, which would be to the benefit of all?
Mr. Howell: I am advised that the introduction of heavier weights will make no difference to the problem of pressures on underground services. As for the shift of freight on to rail, I have already stated my view. I wish to see that, but as the Armitage report made clear and we all know, there are limits to what can be done in an economy such as ours and with our vast reliance on road freight.
Mr. Roger Moate: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, at 40 tonnes gross weight, Britain's limits will be higher than in France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and Ireland? Even on axle weights, they will be higher than in Germany, Holland, Denmark and Ireland, so the proposals do not even have the saving grace of achieving greater freedom of movement over the Continent. Does the fact that my right hon. Friend is publishing the documents in a consultative form mean that he is prepared to think again about lorry weights?
Mr. Howell: The Government have an open mind to new evidence that may be brought forward on this difficult issue, but we believe that they are the right proposals on which to go forward. My hon. Friend has given some figures in making comparisons with overseas. He should also know that in France the single axle weight is much higher at 13 tonnes per axle instead of 10·17 in Britain. For the four-axle lorry the maximum weight in France is 38 tonnes. In Belgium and Luxembourg the weight is 13 tonnes per axle as opposed to 10·17 tonnes in Britain. The weight is higher in Italy, where the maximum for four axles is 40 tonnes and for five axles is 44 tonnes. The overall picture is a variety of different weights. We should reach our decision on the basis of our national needs, although that should help towards a more constructive European discussion.
Mr. John Cartwright: Does the Secretary of State accept that his aim of trying to keep heavy lorries away from residential areas will need a more ambitious bypass programme than that which he has discussed today? Does he also accept that in urban areas the lorry is a real menace to the environment—not only when it is moving, but when it is parked, often outside someone's home, and certainly not that of the driver? Will he do more to encourage local authorities to ban overnight parking of heavy lorries in residential streets?.
Mr. Howell: I ask the hon. Gentleman not to underestimate the considerable building of bypasses that has been, is and will be taking place as a result of

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Government measures and the proposals in the White Paper. The hon. Gentleman has a good point about the anti-social parking of juggernauts. That is one reason why I have accepted the Foster report proposal that licences for operators should be granted on a more stringent basis, taking into account the area from which the operator operates, which can cause unpleasantness for neighbours.
Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: Is my right hon. Friend aware that for a long time copies of the Armitage report have not been available in the Vote Office? Will he ensure that copies are available immediately so that hon. Members can compare the report with the White Paper? Would it not have been more seemly if, after becoming Secretary of State for Transport, he had listened to a debate in the House before arriving at any conclusions?
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the stress imposed on a bridge by a vehicle whose length is less than the span of the bridge is a direct function of the total weight of the vehicle and not only of the axle?
Mr. Howell: I was not aware that the Armitage report was not available. I shall investigate that matter immediately. On the question of bridges and bridge spans, all the evidence suggests that the five-axle vehicle and the heavier weights will have no impact on bridges beyond that of vehicles of existing weights. I must make it clear that there will be no additional impact.
My hon. Friend mentioned a debate. I have received a great many representations and have studied the two debates in the House. I am not proposing that the House reaches a decision; I am putting forward a White Paper. The Government have arrived at certain views. Draft regulations will be circulated for consultation, which will require a minimum of two months. The House will then need to reach conclusions. We must reach a decision on the matter. My hon. Friend must concede that we have debated it for a long time. It would be wise, democratically, to reach a conclusion.
Mr. Jack Straw: Is not the Secretary of State aware that, far from his proposed policy taking lorries away from people, the combination of his policy and the cuts in public spending will force more and more lorries into residential areas? Is he aware that his decision to cut the M65 motorway at Whitebirk—the vital Blackburn to Preston link—means that thousands of heavy lorries will be forced through the residential areas of Green Bank, Broonhill, Shadsworth and Pleckgate in my constituency, to the dismay and anger of residents? Will he undertake to review the decision to cut the vital M65 link?
Mr. Howell: We are going ahead with the building of the Calder valley motorway, so I do not understand what the hon. Gentleman is worrying about. I do not believe that he has any evidence for his other assertions, either.
Mr. Peter Fry: Will my right hon. Friend accept the congratulations of at least one of his hon. Friends—[Interruption.] As one who has read the Armitage report, I am fully aware of the implications of the White Paper. Will my right hon. Friend accept that it will be welcomed by industry, especially the commercial vehicle and building industry? [HON. MEMBERS: "Lobby".] That industry's interests are at a low ebb. Does he agree that the policy will need to be accepted by the
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public, and that that will depend greatly upon the building programmes of local authorities? Unless they can get on with the job of building bypasses—including the GLC, which is anxious only to spend transport money on subsidising fares—the policy will not prove acceptable. What steps does he intend to take to ensure that local authorities, as well as the Department of Transport, provide bypasses?
Mr. Howell: There is more money available for new starts this year than there was last year. No lobbies should prevail on this issue. We must try to strike a balance that benefits the environment, comes to terms with a position that is deteriorating—it is not standing still—and which helps our industry and our economy. If we can follow that path, we shall do so. The White Paper points the way.
Mr. Booth: I am sure that it was not the Secretary of State's intention to mislead the House when he said that the five-axle 40-tonne lorry would not increase axle weights. Would he consider the latest information published by his Department, which shows that the five-axle 40-tonne vehicle would involve an increase in axle weights on the steering axle of the tractor to six tonnes, an increase in the weight of the two trailer axles from 8·5 to 9 tonnes, and in the case of the 38-tonne four-axle articulated vehicle an increase in the drive axle weight from 10·17 to 10·50 tonnes? Will he acknowledge that what he is proposing means an increase in axle weight?
Mr. Howell: I sought to make it clear—if I did not, I do so now—that the proposed 38-tonner would mean an increase in the drive axle weight from 10·17 to 10·50 tonnes. However, I confirm that for the proposed 40-tonner the relative figures for the five axles are six, eight, eight nine and nine tonnes, which in no case is as high as the 10·17 tonnes on the existing 32·5 tonner, and also the spread would be better. I hope that I did not mislead the House in any way.
Later—
Mr. Straw: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member had better make his point of order as quickly as he can.
Mr. Straw: Within the hearing of the House, in reply to my question, the Secretary of State said that the M65 motorway was going ahead. I am sure that it was out of ignorance, and not deliberate, but the truth is that—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I gather that the hon. Gentleman disagrees with the answer that he received, but that is not a point of order.
Mr. Robert C. Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I hear the hon. Gentleman, perhaps I may say that I hope that it is a point of order, because I want the House to know that I always observe hon. Members who have not been called and who then rise upon points of order. I have a long memory.
Mr. Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I accept that you have a long memory. I make no criticism of the Chair for not realising that my constituents in Denton Road, Silver Lonnen and Springfield Road are now suffering misery and that they will suffer—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Many hon. Members have constituency points to make. It is unfair to abuse the rules of the House in that way.
Mr. Hugh Dykes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that hon. Members—
Mr. Robert C. Brown rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I understand that the hon. Gentleman's constituency is also affected, but he would let us proceed, it would be far better.
Mr. Dykes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I understand that point and I am grateful to you. It was not a constituency point, but reference has been made to the legislation that I introduced in 1973. In view of the enormous importance of the statement made today, I was wondering whether it would not have been convenient and appropriate, despite the fact that a new right hon. Member was being introduced, if you, Mr. Speaker, had felt able to—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot take that sort of point of order from anyone. It implies criticism of the Chair. It is just not acceptable.
Mr. Peter Snape: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am not taking points of order now. We must continue.

NEW MEMBER
The following Member took and subscribed the Oath: Right hon. Shirley Williams, for Crosby.
EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS
Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 73B (Standing Committees on European Community Documents).

STOCK EXCHANGE LISTING: INTERIM REPORTS
That European Community Documents Nos. 4356/79 and 8286/80, concerning Stock Exchange Listing: Interim Reports, be referred to a Standing Committee on European Community Documents.—[Mr. John Patten.]
Question agreed to.

Northern Ireland
Mr. Speaker: Before entering on the main debate, I remind hon. Members that the Estimates before the House are Supplementary Estimates and do not extend over the whole field of Northern Ireland administration. Matters that are not covered by them cannot, of course, be debated at all. It follows from this that security matters in Northern Ireland cannot and will not be discussed under these Estimates today. Of those matters that are so covered, the scale of the financial provision that is sought is sufficient to allow a wide debate on agricultural support, loans to industrial undertakings and industrial grant, and, in the context of non-contributory supplementary benefits, a reasonably wide debate on the question of unemployment.
4.33 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. John Patten): I beg to move,
That the draft Appropriation (No. 3) (Northern Ireland) Order 1981, which was laid before this House on 17th November, be approved.
The order, like its predecessors, is being made under paragraph 1 of schedule 1 to the Northern Ireland Act 1974. The purpose of the draft order is to appropriate the 1981–82 Autumn Supplementary Estimates of Northern Ireland Departments, which amount in total to £33 million. The 1981–82 Main Estimates, approved in July last, amounted to £2,311 million. The purposes of the supplementary provisions are described in the schedule to the draft order.
Before I touch on the main features of the Estimates, I should mention that, as is usual, more detailed information can be found in the Estimates volume, copies of which have been placed in the Vote Office, and in the explanatory memorandum, which has been sent to hon. Members who participated in the last Appropriation order debate. Additional copies of this have also been placed in the Vote Office.
The most important aspects of this draft order are those concerned with agriculture, industry and social security. I shall deal with each in turn.
I turn to the first of the main components of the Autumn Supplementary Estimates. Hon. Members will see that additional provision of some £7·3 million is being sought under Class I, Votes 1 and 2, by the Department of Agriculture. My right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland announced on 27 March 1981 that up to £10 million of special aid was to be provided for Northern Ireland agriculture, and in the Northern Ireland Appropriation debate that took place on 17 July 1981 my hon. Friend the then Minister of State asked the House to note that Supplementary Estimates would be presented in due course for measures to be borne on Northern Ireland Votes as part of this special package of assistance for agriculture in the Province. This was in recognition of the serious problems facing the agriculture industry following two years of rapidly falling incomes, and the intention was that the extra aid would be allocated through various schemes to different sectors of the industry.
It is important for the House to appreciate that some £2·3 million of the available assistance relates to the existing suckler cow subsidy, which is borne on a United Kingdom Vote rather than on a Northern Ireland Vote and is therefore outside the scope of this draft order. A further £7·23 million is likely to be taken up, and these

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Supplementary Estimates include provision for measures to develop beef cattle production, in particular, mainly through reductions in charges under the Department's artificial insemination service and its beef recording and performance testing scheme; and to aid silage production and the liming of grassland.
In addition, provision is also sought for a liquid milk subsidy that will benefit milk producers by enabling the Milk Marketing Board for Northern Ireland to fix a higher wholesale price for milk going for liquid consumption without Northern Ireland consumers having to pay a higher price. There is also provision for aid to the intensive pig and poultry industries which will take the form of payments to operators of pig and poultry meat processing plants and egg packing stations. It is designed to prevent a rundown in pig, egg and poultry industries of the Province, which could have serious consequences for employment.
Pending the approval of Parliament, the expenditure on the liquid milk, lime and silage subsidies and on the aid for the intensive livestock sector is being met by advances from the Northern Ireland Civil Contingencies Fund and a proportion of this supplementary provision under scrutiny now will be required to repay advances from that fund.
Secondly, passing on to the industrial development programme of the Department of Commerce, the net additional requirement of £6·2 million under Class II, Vote 2—General Support to Industry—brings total provision on this Vote to £187 million. This reflects the Government's commitment to sustaining a vigorous industrial development drive in the Province through the provision of financial assistance aimed at encouraging the establishment, development and the competitiveness of industrial undertakings in the Province. That is the thrust of the Government's policy. The Government believe that everything possible must continue to be done to maintain and to enhance the Province's industrial base. This is the only long-term answer to the serious unemployment problem that the Province faces.
I should like to go through the major items in the Supplementary Estimates. First, there is the additional provision of £2·9 million required under sub-head A1 to provide industrial development loans to assist Lear Fan, an American company engaged in Northern Ireland in the manufacture of a new fuel-efficient executive aircraft based on the application of carbon fibre technology.
An additional £2·4 million is required under sub-head A3 for industrial development grants, which are the major element in this Government's selective and job-related financial assistance programme. This programme, I think, is without doubt the most generous of any region in the United Kingdom. It reflects the determination of the Government to do everything possible to attract overseas development and overseas investment to the Province and also, equally importantly, to encourage local companies to expand and to maintain their employment.
We must depend both on investment coming from abroad and on the maintenance and expansion of the indigenous industrial base that exists in the Province. It is worth pointing out again that one Brussels-based consultancy has concluded that Northern Ireland has the best package of investment incentives in the whole of Western Europe. That is not to say that the Government are complacent about the situation. We shall constantly
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keep the incentives that are available under review to ensure their continuing competitiveness and cost effectiveness.
Under sub-head D1, the same amount of £2·4 million that is needed under sub-head A3 is required for capital grants. These grants are broadly comparable to those available in Great Britain under the regional development grant scheme and, like them, are aimed at encouraging manufacturing investment.
Mr. Stephen Ross: The hon. Gentleman has mentioned an interesting series of grants and loans available to industry. Is he satisfied that enough is being done to encourage local co-operatives, for which there is a demand in Northern Ireland, that is not perhaps fully met by the schemes that he has outlined?
Mr. Patten: The whole House is aware of the hon. Gentleman's interest in locally based co-operatives. The Government are taking action, as in the rest of the United Kingdom, through the business opportunities programme and other schemes brought forward under the aegis of the Secretary of State for Industry, to enable locally based cooperatives to be successful in the Province, as many are now beginning to be successful on this side of the water. What is available in the Province would make any dispassionate and objective observer of the economic scene, familiar with the concept of the enterprise zone, think that the economic help already available for the Province makes up the skeleton and some of the flesh of a full-blown enterprise region. This is not widely enough appreciated, particularly abroad.
Hon. Members will recognise, I hope, the priority for industrial development that underlies the provision which is now sought under the general support for industry Vote. I hope that the Opposition shares my sentiment when I say that there can be no hope of making significant inroads into reducing Northern Ireland's chronic unemployment problems unless we search everywhere for new employment opportunities, whether generated by indigenous companies or coming from abroad.
In spite of the adverse effect of the continuing world recession and the damaging image presented of the Province overseas, we shall continue to seek to create conditions that are conducive to attracting foreign investors. There is no point in beating about the bush concerning the importance of the image of Northern Ireland abroad and of the inhibitions that this image can sometimes put on people who might otherwise consider inward investment in the Province. My hon. Friend the Minister of State has returned recently from an industrial promotion tour of the United States and Japan, during which he has devoted a substantial amount of time, with his characteristic vigour, to trying to correct the misconceptions of Northern Ireland as a place in which to live and work for those who were considering investing in the Province.
We are taking as many steps as possible to refine and sharpen the overseas promotional effort by concentrating those efforts overseas on sectors selected for their growth potential and suitable to Northern Ireland location. There are many of them. My hon. Friend will doubtless draw attention to them later.
The Government have been accused in the past, I think wrongly, of concentrating their industrial development effort too much on attracting large, glamorous overseas

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investment projects and of overlooking the indigenous employment potential and the internal industrial vigour of the Province. I believe that such an accusation is false. We are equally concerned to maximise the employment potential of home-grown industry whether large, medium-sized or small.
Hon. Members may be aware of the recently published "Framework for Action" document that spelt out our commitment to local industry. The purpose of the document was to provide a statement of all the initiatives and schemes that the Government are undertaking in the industrial development sphere and to attempt to pull them altogether to demonstrate the coherence of the Government's strategy. Expenditure on this Vote is also aimed at maintaining as much as possible of the indigenous industrial and manufacturing base of the Province to provide a springboard from which we can take full advantage of an economic upturn.
I move now to social security. Under Class X, Vote 1, an additional sum of £5·6 million is sought in respect of the supplement to the Northern Ireland national insurance fund from the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund. The supplement is calculated by the Government Actuary and the increased provision now sought follows the Government Actuary's latest assessment of the amount that is payable in the present financial year. Among the benefits paid from the Northern Ireland national insurance fund, as is the case with the national insurance fund on this side of the water, are retirement pensions and invalidity, unemployment, sickness and widows' benefits. Total outgoings from the fund in 1981–82 will be in the region of £489 million. I welcome the opportunity at this stage of welcoming the Social Democratic Party spokesman, the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Sandelson) who has doubtless been detained elsewhere at local celebrations. More than half the sum of £489 million that I have mentioned will be in respect of retirement pensions.
Under Class X, Vote 2, the sum of £14·2 million is being sought in respect of non-contributory benefits. Some £14 million of this relates to supplementary benefits. The rest relates to other payments such as non-contributory invalidity benefits and others. The requirement of £14 million for supplementary benefits has arisen largely as a result of the increasing numbers of unemployed who have been out of work for periods in excess of a year and who have thus exhausted their entitlement to unemployment benefit.
It is a matter of deep regret to the Government, as I am sure it is to the House, that it is necessary to come to the House with a Supplementary Estimate that reflects the rising cost of unemployment-related social security benefits. It is difficult to find the right words that are not hackneyed through too much use on previous occasions. The words that I shall use are that the figures for unemployment in Northern Ireland represent a tragic human and economic picture. There are no other words to use.
I have already referred to the vigorous efforts that are being made by the Government in industrial promotion. We recognise, of course, that those efforts need to be complemented by shorter-term measures. They have to complement each other. It is our intention to present to the House a Spring Supplementary Estimate to provide for a package of employment measures similar to that
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introduced in the rest of the United Kingdom. In the meantime, most hon. Members—from the Province, at least—will know that the Northern Ireland youth opportunities programme is being expanded from 7,000 to 12,000 places during the current financial year. Further improvements are under active consideration, and in the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland they are regarded as having special priority.
Finally, I want to mention the report of the Select Committee on Procedure (Supply), as it relates to our considerations this afternoon. I understand that it is to be debated in the House in due course. While the Select Committee made no recommendations whatsoever relating specifically to Northern Ireland Supply arrangements, we shall carefully consider any changes introduced in Great Britain arrangements to see whether they can be usefully adapted to Northern Ireland Supply procedures, which have been a matter of concern in the past.
I have tried to refer in adequate detail to what I believe are the major aspects of the draft order. However, I know that right hon. and hon. Members will raise other matters. Perhaps we shall hear the voice of the newcomer to the Opposition Front Bench, the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley), whom we welcome to these debates. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, who is present, will attempt to answer as many questions as possible. As usual, those that remain unanswered—some always remain unanswered, purely through lack of time—will be answered later in correspondence, as is our practice. With that promise, I commend the draft order to the House.
4.52 pm
Mr. J. D. Concannon: I gather from the Minister's speech that this is a narrow Appropriation order. I thank the Department and the Minister for the explanatory memorandum.
I pay tribute to my ex-colleague on the Northern Ireland Opposition team. He was a Government Minister for some time and had been on the Opposition Front Bench for some time, always giving me great help. I refer, of course, to my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry), who is a great friend of Northern Ireland. As the Minister said, I have a new colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley), who will be introduced to the intricacies of Northern Ireland and the debating procedures as we go along.
However, we shall miss the presence of Robert Bradford, who was so foully murdered. He attended every Appropriation debate in which I took part, representing his constituents and doing what he could, both for his constituency and for Northern Ireland. We shall have a debate on security before Christmas, so we can leave that matter until then.
The Minister's speech reminded me of the same speech that I made in 1978, with the odd figures up-dated. Basically, it was the same as the speeches that I made in 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1978. It was none the worse for that. No one knows better than I and the Ministers who came after me the difficulty of selling Northern Ireland overseas. We know the completely false picture that is painted of industrial life and life as a whole in the Province. I accept the strictures of keeping closely to the Appropriation (No. 3) (Northern Ireland) Order, and I have no doubt that if I wander from it I shall be brought to order.

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Class I, Vote 2, authorises a further £6·4 million for agricultural support. The agriculture industry in Northern Ireland has declined with frightening rapidity since the Government came to power. Farm incomes plummeted from £33·5 million in 1979 to £9 million in 1980, and it is already anticipated that the 1981 incomes will drop even further. At the same time, the Government have systematically squeezed the fanning sector by reducing funds from Government for a whole range of grants, subsidies and support services. The net effect has been to depress the industry and push Northern Ireland farming towards a low-output, subsistence type of agriculture.
Last March, the then Secretary of State publicly recognised the plight of farmers and promised increased aid. Today's Vote is of marginal help. We find it especially ironic that the Government are to give £3·7 million for an extra-statutory milk subsidy to enable a higher price to be paid for wholesale liquid milk—less than two years after they abolished milk aid. It is a cruel deception to take away assistance in 1980 only to give it back on a smaller, more temporary scale in 1981, as though a great favour were being granted to the farming community in Northern Ireland. Even with that assistance, dairy farmers in the Province still receive 1p per litre less than do their counterparts in England and Wales.
The agriculture industry in the Province desperately needs a co-ordinated and reliable policy from the Government if the present decline is to be arrested. Looking at the content of this Vote, we see no prospect other than continued piecemeal attempts to hold the industry back from the brink of disaster. We sincerely hope that the Government will adopt a more rational approach to Northern Ireland's agriculture in next year's financial allocation, but we see little sign of that.
Class II, Vote 2, is for £6·2 million. It is referred to as general support for industry, and I know that it is a supplementary Vote. However, this Vote represents a miserable addition to support for industry in Northern Ireland. At a time when the official register shows that there are 19 per cent. of the working population out of a job—there are probably many more unregistered unemployed—all that the Government offer is a paltry sum of £6 million, which will hardly make any impression on the industrial scene in Northern Ireland.
We are deeply concerned about the economic depression in the Province. Over the past two and a half years redundancies have far outstripped job creations, and factory closures are now commonplace. The dedication and hard work of the last Administration have been squandered for the sake of an unproven and unworkable economic theory. What has been easily destroyed will take many years to rebuild at vastly more expense than if factories had been kept open. It would have been better if factories had been kept open by subsidy or any type of Government help rather than allowing some of them to disappear and hoping that at some time or other they could be bought back.
In desperation, we look at what the Government have done to arrest the economic decline in the Province. The "sit back and let things happen" attitude has had disastrous consequences. That attitude showed itself in the closure of the Belfast-Liverpool ferry. Jobs and tourist possibilities have been lost, and Ministers appear to sit back despite the vehement opposition of Labour Members, trade unionists and the vast majority of those in Northern Ireland. I hesitate to say it, but such indifference appears symbolic
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of the Government's entire attitude to the economic problems of the Province. Over the past few months we have seen little of consequence from the Government to lead us to believe that they have any genuine concern for the unemployed, either in Britain or in Northern Ireland. A glossy paper landed on my desk in September, entitled "A Framework for Action". My copy has all of my scribbled comments on the front. I doubt whether it would be in order for me to read them.
Mr. James Kilfedder: Read them anyway.
Mr. Concannon: I shall probably come to the substance of them. The well-meaning document was initially impressive, but in our opinion it missed the whole point about the problems of economic recovery in Northern Ireland. Private investment alone will never bring jobs to the Province. Even when investors and speculators decide to place their money in the Province, they often set up peripheral factories, which are the first to go when there is a financial pinch.
We firmly believe—the 1976 Quigley report supported this view and this document is virtually a rehash of Quigley—that only a strong and coherent regional policy, with public enterprises and planning agreements, will go any way towards helping the apparently unstoppable stream of factory closures and redundancies. One has only to look at the success of the De Lorean car factory to see a good example of how public money, in tune with private finance and expertise, can bring stable jobs to Northern Ireland.
At the end of October the company was making 400 cars a week and directly employed 2,507 workers in its Dunmurry factory. I understand that over 2,000 companies in the United Kingdom supply materials, components and services to De Lorean, in particular, British Steel in Sheffield, the Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company in Wolverhampton, General Motors in Milton Keynes, International Paints of London and Lucas Girling of Birmingham.
If we take the average payment made to an unemployed claimant in Northern Ireland and multiply it by the number of workers at De Lorean, it is possible to see how much it would have cost to keep those people out of work. By my calculations, it would cost almost £6 million a year and that figure does not take into consideration the loss of national insurance and tax contributions made by the employers and the extra spending power it produces within Northern Ireland. I am sure that shopkeepers and everyone else in Northern Ireland will confirm that. It is also important to bear in mind the effect of unemployment on jobs in those other 2,000 companies, which I am reliably informed can match at least, one for one, the jobs provided by De Lorean. If those jobs were not there or had to go, the cost to the Exchequer of keeping those people on unemployment and other benefits would be over £12 million a year, without taking into consideration national insurance, tax and other factors.
Our experience', and the De Lorean example, leads us to the conclusion that only State-led and State-directed investment can bring jobs to Northern Ireland on a large scale. It is evident, or should be evident—it is certainly evident to those who have been involved in Northern Ireland—that such action had a good effect on the political life and the security of the Province.

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The problem in the Province is now so serious that it requires radical and imaginative action. Such action is sadly lacking in the present Administration. Every step that they take serves to compound the evil of economic stagnation and unemployment. There have been several other cosmetic alterations in the last few months. While we welcome the decision to set up a single industrial development board for Northern Ireland, we stress that mere administrative rearrangements will not in themselves solve anything. The board must be able to act independently and be given at least as many powers as the Northern Ireland Development Agency had under the Labour Administration to take investment initiatives. Above all, it must be backed by sound and reliable financial resources and the political will to spearhead an economic improvement in the Province.
We look forward to the industrial development board's proposals in the new year. I hope that there will be a full opportunity to debate them before they become unalterable provisions of a statutory instrument. The Secretary of State has announced that he intends to call all Northern Ireland Members of Parliament to an economic advisory forum soon. I sincerely hope that it will not be just another talking shop. I am sure that those who represent Northern Ireland constituencies will concur when I say that they have made no secret of their views on the economic situation at home during our many debates in the House. I urge the Secretary of State to prepare a positive agenda for the meeting. The most sensible starting point would be to accept that Northern Ireland needs—indeed demands—a co-ordinated regional economic strategy, to discuss precisely what that strategy should be and how best to implement it.
I need hardly remind the Government that they have presided over a period of unemployment that is unprecedent in the history of Northern Ireland. From an unsatisfactory—it was always unsatisfactory to me—but stable rate of unemployment, at 11 per cent. in 1978–79, the rate now stands at 19 per cent. The underlying trend is upwards and all forecasts suggest a total unemployment rate of between 22 per cent. and 25 per cent. by the middle of next year. I thought that things were unsatisfactory when unemployment stood at 11 per cent. in 1978–79. However, the one thing that I can look back on with some pride is that at the end of that period more people were in employment in Northern Ireland than ever before.
More than 52,000 people have joined the unemployment register since May 1979. At least 67,000 workers have been affected by short-time working in that period. We should not forget that the official figures do not tell the entire story. A recent survey, carried out by Queen's university, suggested that about 20,000 recently employed women have not registered as unemployed because they do not qualify for any benefits. That thoroughly shameful record has been compounded by a lack of political will to do anything to solve the problem.
The Appropriation (No. 3) (Northern Ireland) Order gives the clearest evidence of the Government's approach to unemployment. Almost £20 million of the £33 million that we are voting will pay for benefits for the sick, poor, elderly and unemployed. I do not begrudge the money. Indeed, far more money should be made available. There would have been more money if the Government had not
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held back on increases to meet inflation. I marvel at the indifference. The sentence in the explanatory memorandum which was sent last week sums it up. It states:
"Most of the extra provision in this vote is for supplementary benefits for which an additional £14 million is required largely as a result of an increase in the unemployment register and the duration of unemployment".
That makes it sound as if the scale of unemployment is quite outside the Government's responsibility. It makes it sound as if it is a problem merely to be provided for, but not tackled. We need only look at the measures designed to cope with unemployment in Northern Ireland to see that the Government's philosophy is just that.
Last August, the Minister with responsibility for employment in the Province announced special measures to ease the problems of unemployment. One of those measures is a grant-aid scheme to help voluntary organisations to recruit unemployed people for voluntary work in the health and social services of Northern Ireland. There is no training or pay. Unemployed youngsters are simply required to work for nothing. At the same time there is a continuing lack of commitment to Enterprise Ulster, a well established direct labour organisation that is designed to provide a bridge between unemployment or school and employment. The Government have placed impossible cost per job restrictions on that body if it is to be considered favourably in the next financial round.
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Adam Butler): Which scheme is the right hon. Gentleman referring to that is aided by Government and for which people work without any pay or other recompense?
Mr. Concannon: The grant-aid scheme to help voluntary organisations was mentioned in our last Appropriation order debate. I think that I am right in what I have said, and no doubt the Minister will explain what has happened since that time.
Mr. Adam Butler: The right hon. Gentleman cannot lay this at the door of the Government. If people wish to work voluntarily, by definition that means that they do not wish to work for pay. This sensible sum of money was provided to help voluntary organisations in small ways—perhaps to meet administrative and other costs—and to allow volunteers to work voluntarily.
Mr. Concannon: So be it. I was trying to put this into the context of Northern Ireland as a whole and the Government's shabby treatment of some of the established forums of work for Northern Ireland's unemployed youth.
In addition, there has been the Government's disgraceful treatment of Enterprise Ulster. That is well established in Northern Ireland, but its slow strangulation has resulted in considerable redundancies, which is incomprehensible bearing in mind the type of community projects undertaken by Enterprise Ulster. We should also bear in mind that 25 per cent. of its work force is under the age of 19.
That is the kind of thing that I am trying to put into perspective. It seems that the Government are prepared to grant small sums of money while at the same time looking for odd jobs that people can do voluntarily. That makes it impossible for the Enterprise Ulster scheme to continue. I strongly urge the Government to look again at the role and contribution of Enterprise Ulster to see whether it can be expanded rather than undermined.
In my experience, Enterprise Ulster has played an important role in helping the unemployed. While help for

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that organisation may be only a drop in the ocean, it would be welcomed much more than voluntary work or piecemeal experiments such as "Action for Community Employment".
I need hardly remind the Government that there is a direct connection between the economic situation and the political problems of Northern Ireland. While the political and security situation provides an unstable environment for new factories and job opportunities, lack of jobs and unemployment fuel political discontent and contribute towards violent behaviour.
The Secretary of State acknowledged that self-evident truth when he addressed the RUC Superintendents Association in September. He said that unemployment was one of the complex factors leading to violence, and added that he attached the highest importance to tackling it. He continued:
"Lack of work is not, of course, an excuse for criminal behaviour but we must all recognise the part it plays in creating an environment in which disorder can grow".
That is not bad for a pre-Scarman Tory view of the connection between unemployment and criminal activity.
Soon afterwards, at the Conservative Party conference,
the Secretary of State spoke on the same theme. He said:
"Peace and stability must be a pre-requisite for progress in any nation. In Northern Ireland above all, political advance and economic recovery must go hand in hand. Poverty, lack of work, a sense of despair borne out of setbacks and tiredness all combine to increase the bitterness to feed the prejudices".
I am sure that Ministers do not need me to tell them what one of their colleagues is saying. I quote from those speeches merely to pose a simple question. If they recognise the problem, as they clearly do, and if they see the connection between social deprivation, unemployment and political alienation, why are they not taking immediate and drastic action? Why is there no regional policy for Northern Ireland? Where is the will to reduce unemployment? What possible explanation can there be for such Government indifference?
There have been renewed calls in recent weeks for tougher security measures in Northern Ireland, but merely increasing the number of soldiers and cancelling police leave will never solve the underlying cause of violence in the Province. Real security primarily lies in political action and in the will of parties in the North to move towards a mutual trust. It also lies in jobs, housing and good social services.
If the Government continue to preside over the destruction of Northern Ireland's scant social fabric, they must be prepared to accept the inevitable consequences of increased dissatisfaction with the instruments of direct rule.
Mr. John Patten: As the social and economic need of the Province is so great, does the right hon. Gentleman recognise, as we do, that, despite what he said, public expenditure per head in the Province is far higher than in any other part of the United Kingdom?
Mr. Concannon: I recognise that fact, but I also recognise the need for it. When I first went to Northern Ireland, it was like stepping back 30 years. I am the first to admit that I was shocked at the housing conditions, the road network and the state of industry. It was just like stepping backwards 30 years to my youth. I recognised straight away the difficult task that I faced.
Northern Ireland needs more Government finance. We should not be ashamed to admit that we are trying to bring
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Northern Ireland up to the same standard as the rest of the United Kingdom. All I am saying is that the Northern Ireland people will respond to fair, direct-rule government if it is seen to be trying to provide policies to alleviate their economic problems.
The year 1977 is a fair example of how the people of Northern Ireland can reject extremism. The "Better Life for All Campaign" for jobs received far more support than the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) had then. The economic situation is now far worse than at any time during our Administration. That is all the more reason why it is urgent for the Secretary of State to understand that Northern Ireland's economy is different and requires policies other than the policy of equal misery. It is no good trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted. I suspect that the problem for the Secretary of State is that he has recognised that the stable collapsed some time ago.
I shall not advise my hon. Friends to vote against the order, because that would only pile on the misery. I trust that in their contributions to the debate they will refer to the damage done to the economy over the last two-and-a-half years and demand an end to the disastrous policies that have played right into the hands of political extremists on both sides.
5.17 pm
Mr. James Molyneaux: One factor common to Classes I, II and X is the principle of parity—both of taxation and services—with the rest of the United Kingdom. That inevitably means that the United Kingdom Exchequer meets the cost of social services, security, measures to compensate for natural disadvantages and lack of natural resources. It is, therefore, true to say that the Exchequer subsidises Northern Ireland, just as it subsidises Scotland, Wales and regions of England.
This order, together with others debated earlier this year, makes it possible to illustrate the extent to which the Treasury is subsidising Northern Ireland, but there is no comparable procedure that enables Parliament or the press to identify the amount of subsidy for other parts of the United Kingdom.
It so happens that we have obtained from official sources figures that show that the differentials are nothing like as great as Northern Ireland critics would have us believe or as the Minister, perhaps inadvertently, tried to lead us to believe a few minutes ago.
In 1979–80, each Ulster citizen was subsidised to the tune of £1,637. In the same year, an Englishman was subsidised to the tune of £1,107, a Welshman by £1,302 and a Scotsman by £1,366. Presumably, the glib commentators want to get rid of Ulster on the ground that, for a temporary period at least, an Ulsterman is costing the Treasury £271 more than a Scotsman.
One could go further and assert that if the Treasury could get rid of England it could reduce public expenditure by over £50 billion. That would work wonders for the public sector borrowing requirement. The Minister might think it useful to convey that suggestion to his right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer who this afternoon will be playing about with his matchsticks in preparation for his statement tomorrow.
The House is accustomed to special pleas but the reality is that agriculture in Northern Ireland has never attained parity with the rest of the United Kingdom. The Quigley interdepartmental report said of Northern Ireland agriculture:

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"It is clear that since 1972/73 the stimulus to agricultural production in Northern Ireland has been much less than that in Great Britain, and as a result, the Northern Ireland industry has been unable to maintain as many people in viable employment on the farms and in the processing plants as would have been the case if spendable net income had grown at the same rate as in Great Britain. Unless special measures are taken, a further loss of jobs seems inevitable."
Some farmers exist on bank borrowing, which in 1980 increased to more than £38 million. Unless there is a speedy change in the profitability and prospects of agriculture, farmers will be forced to change from their present vigorous programme of operations to low investment, low risk, low output subsistence farming. That is not much like parity and does not sould like a special case.
Against that background we must view the disaster of the drop in net farm income from £53 million in 1973 to a mere £9 million in 1980. The consequence is that farming families are being maintained on money which should be set aside for investment.
Those who have large farms can make a living of sorts, but medium and small farms will go out of business. That will result in still further unemployment both in farming and the ancillary industries. If this were to happen, as seems likely, there could be real and permanent damage to the structure of agriculture and its enormous potential contribution to the economy would be forfeited.
There is always a veil of mystery over what part the EEC should play in coping with agriculture problems in Northern Ireland. Those who predicted that Britain's entry would be detrimental to agriculture, and Northern Ireland agriculture in particular, have unfortunately been proved correct. However, the damage inherent in membership is made much worse by the confusion, dithering and in some cases downright deceit which farmers and housewives alike have come to associate with the Common Market.
There is no shortage of pious platitudes from the Community. For example the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment considers
"that the special situation of Northern Ireland, and the particular difficulties with which the region has had to struggle throughout the years, justify special support and action by the community."
That is excellent stuff, but meaningless unless translated into action by the EEC, which is very short on action. That is one reason why United Kingdom citizens are turning away in their thousands from the EEC and questioning the so-called advantages of membership.
The Ulster Farmers Union was not hostile to British entry to the EEC but it now says:
"The EEC must be fully briefed on the unique problems in Northern Ireland and the need, therefore, for acceptance by the Community of special measures for Northern Ireland."
The union recognises that it has a responsibility to assist in that briefing. I hope that the Secretary of State and other members of the Government recognise that they have a duty to influence the Community in the right direction.
Ulster farmers, and the people of Northern Ireland generally, should ensure that the Province's three members of the European Assembly can represent them full-time. We should not expect our three representatives to dance attendance endlessly on enthusiasts for all-party functions, most of which have no relevance to the European Assembly.
In the EEC elections in 1979, it was understood and agreed that elected Members of the Assembly were
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committing themselves to a task which would require their undivided attention. We, the people of Northern Ireland, would render them ineffective and completely destroy their influence if we unreasonably expected them to be in two places at once. As long as the EEC retains its stranglehold on the industrial and agricultural life of Ulster, we must strive to ensure that our money is returned to us and used to best advantage. We can do that only if we ensure that our Ulster representatives are breathing down the necks of the Brussels bureaucrats who make the decisions.
The Ulster Farmers Union sums up its case by stating:
"The immediate concern of the Union is that the Government recognises the desperate need to restore confidence to farmers and vigour to the industry, and makes a firm decision to alter its priorities in public spending so that agriculture may be given the opportunity to make its full contribution to the economy and employment which the Province so desperately needs."
My colleagues and I share that concern and support that plea to the Government.
On Class II of the order, the management and unions of Short Brothers have been pressing the Secretary of State and the Minister responsible for commerce on the need for an early decision on the plans submitted several months ago. The company's SD360 airliner has a two-year start on rival designs. It would be a tragedy if that advantage were lost because of indecision by the Government. Indecision has been the company's experience on many occasions under successive Governments. I urge the Secretary of State and the Minister to act now to prevent that great asset to the national economy from slipping through their fingers.
The De Lorean project has come in for much unfair criticism in the House and outside. Whatever the initial reservations, my plea is that we should give every encouragement to the company, its management and work force. We should congratulate them on their achievements in raising production to its present level and on the provision of jobs at a critical time for Northern Ireland.
Some weeks ago, I visited the De Lorean factory, which is in my constituency, not in that of the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt). I was agreeably surprised by the obvious determination of all to prove their critics to be wrong. There was a keenness and a willingness to get on with the job. I had the clear impression that relations in the factory were extremely good between management and the shop floor and between people of different backgrounds. That was particularly gratifying.
On the other side of Belfast is an equally successful but less criticised undertaking, the Lear Fan aircraft company. I am delighted that the Government are giving the necessary support. The company is well ahead of schedule in production and employment targets. I welcome its practice of phasing out American experts once local indigenous work people have been trained. Already it is expanding its activities to Aldergrove airport and it has absorbed many skilled workers made redundant by the closure of the 23 Royal Air Force maintenance unit by the previous Labour Government.
I have no reason to believe that the Lear Fan company stands in any need of special assistance, but I should like to be assured that that outstanding American company can count on the full co-operation of the Government should it encounter any obstacles against development or expansion either at Carnmoney, or, perhaps more likely, at Aldergrove.

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We may assume that the final words in Class II in the order, "certain administration expenses", provides for the structural changes that have been foreshadowed and announced by the Department of Commerce. The Minister touched on some of them in his speech. Last week the Secretary of State was reported to be toying with various forms of an economic forum. I regret that we have not been greatly impressed by those suggestions. I hope that the right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) will find common cause with me on that matter.
I have already conveyed to the Secretary of State our view that there is no need for another economic forum. We already have the Northern Ireland Committee in the House in which economic policies and statements can be responsibly debated on the record. The Secretary of State and the Ministers will be conversant with the activities of the Northern Ireland Economic Council, chaired by Sir Charles Carter. That is an excellent body that does not labour under the handicap of being party political. It has produced a series of valuable reports contained in that collection. It is a shame and a scandal that the mechanisms provided by Parliament have not got around to making fuller use of that material and debating it at length. It covers practically every aspect of economic life in Northern Ireland. It is to that object that we should direct our attention.
There is a case for taking all that is contained in those volumes much more seriously. I hope that Ministers and their right hon. Friend the Leader of the House can be persuaded and assured that we will give our support to any moves to debate those matters in the Northern Ireland Committee. In that Committee Northern Ireland Members and hon. Members representing other parts of the United Kingdom can play their part in advising and assisting the Secretary of State and his colleagues in what we hope will be a determined drive by the Government to bring prosperity to all the people of Ulster.
5.34 pm
Mr. James Kilfedder: Naturally I very much regret that the House is not able to debate security within the confines of the Appropriation order. However, on the basis that that will be debated shortly, we must leave it for the moment.
I also deeply regret that the Appropriation order is so limited that I cannot raise the important question of the proposed hospital reorganisation in my constituency of Down, North. The proposal by the Eastern Health and Social Services Board, if implemented, would further damage the medical facilities of Down, North. There will be a protest meeting in my constituency this evening. I hope to get to it.
I echo the remarks by the right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon). The Appropriation order will make little impression on the grim industrial scene in Northern Ireland. The Government seem to be almost totally indifferent, despite their words, to the deterioration in the Ulster economy, and unaware of the feelings of the Ulster people.
Naturally I condemn the Government for their callous attitude towards the people of Northern Ireland. I watched the Under-Secretary who opened the debate exude smugness and complacency, yet the Government are presiding over policies that have encouraged an upsurge in the Provisional IRA campaign of violence. With bland confidence, the Northern Ireland Ministers are presiding
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over policies that have brought about record unemployment and have quickened the decline of the major industrial enterprises in Northern Ireland.
I do not know whether Bertie Wooster could have done worse. I recollect from reading P. G. Wodehouse that he and his excellent colleagues belonged to a club called the Drones club. The Northern Ireland Ministers, with their superior and languid air, could equally be said to have created a Drones club at Stormont Castle with the English civil servants there. They seem to be totally supercilious and unable to come down to earth to the same level as the people of Northern [reland.
One of the difficulties is that the Ministers, no matter what they may say, have no real commitment to Ulster and its people. They do not live in Northern Ireland and have no conception of how the average man or woman lives in the Province. Often when I ask to see a Minister I am told by his civil servants who must look after him that he is in the Province for only a couple of days a week. Working in the warm security of an office in Whitehall or Westminster will not teach Ministers much about the lives and difficulties of the people whom they govern in Northern Ireland. No wonder the Government are contemplating another swingeing increase in Housing Executive rents. If the Ministers lived in the Province and had to pay ever-increasing rates and spiralling fuel and food bills, they would understand the complaints. The Government have the unenviable record of having brought unemployment to an unprecedented level of 19 per cent. after only two years in office. That is a record of which they should not be proud.
In the Minister's speech and the Appropriation order, I would have expected a remedy to be provided for the industrial crisis in the Province. All that we have is the modest statement that the Government have added £6·2 million to the general support of industry. That figure is the equivalent to unemployment benefit for 7,000 people for 30 weeks. Harland and Wolff employs that number of workers now. Those first-class workers will all be thrown on the dole in a few months' time unless the Government take immediate and positive steps to avoid such a calamity.
The Minister gave the impression that, bad as the situation in the Province is, it is not too bad. He gave no hint that the shipyard was in such dire straits. I warn him that the closure of the Belfast shipyard will have repercussions far beyond the island. The whole area of East Belfast and part of my constituency of Down, North are heavily dependent on the wages of those who work in that shipyard. Many small businesses are indirectly dependent on the shipyard. Against the need of that great enterprise, the Government's petty sums in the Appropriation order for industrial development are ludicrous. They completely ignore the parlous state of the yard.
Nowhere in the Class II Vote can I see any evidence that the Government have begun to understand what is required. I met the shipyard works committee yesterday. It is the first to acknowledge the vast amount of money that has been put into the yard over the years. However, similar sums have been put into other yards in England and Wales and into what is now British Shipbuilders.
The Belfast yard, in particular, is the victim of circumstances outside the control of the work force. It looks with envious eyes, for instance, at the £800 million worth of orders secured by British Shipbuilders, and

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naturally wonders why the yard has not received some part of the Prime Minister's package that she successfully worked out with a South American country. Will the Minister tell us whether he will save the yard? I do not want to hear some carefully chosen meaningless words. Does he intend to save the yard? Will he obtain orders for it, because that is the only way in which it will be saved?
I recognise that defence spending has been reduced, but the order for the refitting and modernisation of fleet auxiliary ships must go somewhere. Only one ship, involving 21 days work, has been directed to the Belfast yard in the last few years. Surely, with the yard in such a state of crisis, the Northern Ireland Office should be hammering at the doors of the Ministry of Defence and ordering it to send some of the auxiliary fleet ships to be refurbished in the Belfast shipyard. I do not believe that the Government mind how many people become unemployed. They are just statistics in Ministers' minds. That is the feeling that I get from the lack of positive action by the Government. There will be serious unemployment consequences if the Government fail in directing work to the Belfast shipyard.
The works committee told me that an immediate order for a bulk carrier from British Steel of 170,000 tonnes is required. The yard has plans for such a carrier and its order would help the steel industry while providing the yard with work for about nine months and, unlike unemployment benefit for nine months, the country would have something to show for its money at the end of the day. Moreover, the expertise of the shipyard and its apprentice training scheme would be preserved to provide the necessary skills when the recession ends and the long awaited industrial upsurge occurs.
One other outstanding training centre for apprentices in Northern Ireland is Short Brothers. The Government have not yet accepted the crisis in that firm. They have completely underestimated the investment grants and credit facilities that must be made available to the aerospace industry in Belfast. Yesterday, I met trade union officials and shop stewards representing Short Brothers. It is clear from what they told me that the areas selected for extra funding by the Government under this order will have no effect whatever on the crisis in the aircraft industry. The position is compounded by different factors. There is unfair competition from American and other aircraft manufacturers, who have access to credit facilities that they can offer to potential customers. No such facilities are available to Short Brothers. I appeal to the Government to make sure that those facilties are available to the company so that it can sell the SD360 aircraft, in large numbers.
The Appropriation order provides £2·9 million to Lear Fan, which produces small aircraft. I congratulate the company on its success. I think that everyone is pleased with the way that it has been progressing. However, there is no financial recognition in the order of the greater financial investment that is immediately required by Short Brothers—approximately £20 million to enable the SD360 to go into profitable production. Firms such as Lear Fan have reaped the advantage of being able to recruit high grade technical staff, who received their initial training in the highly successful training school attached to Short Brothers. Sadly it has been reduced to an intake of 35 apprentices this year and 100 apprentices have been laid
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off but are still attending technical colleges. It would be extremely short-sighted of the Government to allow that centre of high technology training, which provides for so many essential skills, to fall by the wayside. I want to hear a clear assurance from the Government today that they intend to provide the financial assistance that Short Brothers needs to compete with foreign firms and to maintain employment at this important factory in Belfast.
The Government can help in other ways. If the Ministry of Defence would direct a number of Canberra aircraft—rather than just one at a time—to Short Brothers for refurbishing that would ease some of the problems at present. The missile unit at Short Brothers is highly succesful and the Ministry of Defence should restore the original order that it placed with that firm each year.
There are two sides of the unemployment equation in the order. There is an additional £14 million for supplementary benefits, largely due to the increase in unemployment to 19 per cent.—or over 109,000 people out of work—in the Province. There is also the extra cost of measures to boost the Northen Ireland economy. The order provides for £150,000 to meet expenditure on developing beef cattle production. The local Northern Ireland abattoir in my constituency, which has never operated at anywhere near its full capacity, is now limping along at around 30 per cent. of capacity.
Farmers in Northern Ireland are not pleased with the actions taken by the Government to help them. The Ulster farmers are not receiving a fair deal and they are far less well off than their counterparts in England, Wales and Scotland. The Government should, therefore, provide proper assistance to make sure that they get a decent income. Of course, the £3·7 million subsidy will help in regard to the wholesale price for liquid milk, but the need is greater than that and, as the right hon. Member for Mansfield pointed out, it is less than should be provided and it is a very temporary measure.
I know many dairy farmers. They are hard-working men with families, whose return for a year's hard work is little more than the rate of unemployment benefit for a man and his wife—about £2,000 a year. I hope that the Government will now recognise the needs of the Ulster farmer and make sure that he has a decent income, because agriculture is essential to Northern Ireland.
Many business men in Northern Ireland have been saying for years that the medium sized and small businesses should receive greater financial assistance. It is galling for the small business man, hemmed in with restrictions, VAT, high income tax, high rates, planning restrictions, slow bureaucratic procedures and the petty pinpricks of officialdom, to see the enormous sums that are given to firms such as De Lorean. Industrial and development loans are given to small business men only after the most searching inquiry, numerous visits by officials and a great amount of correspondence, disappointments and delays. Is it any wonder that they read with astonishment of the vast amounts given to the great international corporations?
The order brings the total expenditure for the year to £2,344 million, which means that this year the total payment to Northern Ireland from central Government funds is around £1,300 million. In other words, more than half of Northern Ireland's budget comes from outside the Province. Faced with those facts, how can any person advocate political independence? It is beyond my

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comprehension. Perhaps it is symptomatic of the sheer desperation that Ulster people feel as a result of having been left as sitting targets for Irish terrorists for 13 years.
How the Irish Republic could cope with an extra annual bill of £1,300 million is another unanswerable conundrum in the IRA's campaign to subjugate Ulster into an all-Ireland theocratic and confessional Republic. The truth is that there is no viable alternative for Ulster but union with Great Britain, except at the cost of a great downward shift in standards and Government services.
5.50 pm
Mr. Neville Sandelson: First, I thank the Minister for his kind reference to me when I entered the Chamber. I apologise to him for having missed his opening remarks. As he rightly observed, this is a rather special day for the Social Democratic Party, both at Westminster and in the country. On behalf of my party, I express its anger and sorrow at the wicked murder of Robert Bradford, which has resulted in a great loss to the House and to our debates.
As the economic and social problems in Northern Ireland grow apace with the increasing violence and the deteriorating political situation, the Government should be giving much more profound consideration to the long-term consequences if the crisis continues without the possibility of either abatement or solution. Normal investment has been undermined and business confidence demoralised.
The Government are entitled to claim some credit for their financial incentive schemes and the encouragement that they have given to small and new firms to set up in the Province. Any hope for the future can come only from a concentration of high growth and high technology sectors, which are obviously the most likely to create new jobs in the industrial wasteland that we have in Northern Ireland, and make possible a genuine return on the massive subsidies that are going into those sectors.
To that extent there is perhaps a glimmer of hope on an otherwise bleak landscape. Certainly there is a marginally improved sales outlook for some companies—those are really the major ones—with the recent depreciation of the exchange rate. The Government can take no credit for that. One wonders for how much longer the Government will continue their inflexible policy of maintaining an artificial pound to the continuing despair of British exporters and productive manufacturing industry throughout the United Kingdom.
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The hon. Gentleman, if I heard aright, criticised the Government for maintaining an artificial rate. Is it the policy of his party, if it has one on the subject, that the exchange rate should find its own level without being influenced?
Mr. Sandelson: No, but we believe that the present high rate of the pound is acting as a major deterrent to British export performance both here and in the Province and that the Government are showing an inflexible disregard for the position in which British manufacturing industry and exporters are finding themselves.
Every week brings its increasing sorry toll of more and more good companies under excellent management going out of business under the grindstone of the Government's economic policies. The consequence for Northern Ireland
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with its already decayed traditional industries is ever-increasing unemployment and dereliction, which no amount of Government-sponsored new enterprise can offset.
Let us consider the stark realities in Northern Ireland. I make no apology for restating them briefly. Unemployment is about 20 per cent. and rising. It is twice as high as the EEC average and the rural areas of the Province are the worst affected. Earnings for those with jobs are lower than anywhere else in the United Kingdom and welfare payments are correspondingly higher. High energy and transport costs add greatly to prices and produce, with the other factors, one of the lowest standards of living in Western Europe.
What could be more depressing than a recent survey that revealed that literally half the houses in Belfast, the main centre of population, were insanitary and that many of them were statutorily unfit for human habitation? Emigration figures have shown some reduction over the past five years but that is because of recession elsewhere in the world. Emigration still continues at a high level and every year Ulster loses thousands of young and skilled people.
We are dealing with what is virtually a vanishing economy. I received recently a letter from the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions in Belfast, which expressed eloquently the despair of its members. The Government seem to forget that companies such as Short Brothers and Harland and Wolff have been the hub of the economy and have provided skills and technology for other firms that have been prepared to start new enterprises in Northern Ireland. I hope that the Minister will say what assistance the Government are prepared to give to Harland and Wolff to obtain new orders for its empty yards. The Government have shown a strange and cynical indifference to the fate of the yards over a long period.
The real cost of subsidies to the Province will be £1½ billion this year. That sum will inevitably increase year by year. About half of it goes in the enormous grant-in-aid to cover the gap between internal revenues and public service expenditure. Several hundred million pounds are spent on law and order and protective services but that expenditure does not include the huge cost of keeping troops in Ulster. The overall cost of trying to keep peace and maintaining law and order is about £6 a week for everyone living in the Province compared with less than £1 a week for each person in the rest of the United Kingdom. The parity payments increase annually as the unemployment queues lengthen and when those payments are taken into account we arrive at the stupendous subsidy of about £20 a week per head of the population in Ulster.
At a time of serious economic recession and crisis in the United Kingdom, with low growth and rising unemployment, and when our own infrastructure and public services are in need of massive injections of public expenditure we must not shirk asking ourselves whether this great burden is sustainable by Britain on its own and whether, before long, the burden will become unacceptable to the British people. We give firm support to the strategy that is implicit in the all-important London-Dublin bilateral talks, but a political settlement is still a distant prospect and would not in itself resolve the economic situation in Northern Ireland. Should we not be studying that issue more realistically for the future rather than

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pursuing immediate and expensive palliatives, with no long-term assessment apparent on the part of the Government? It is therefore my view that Britain—
Mr. John Patten: Surely the logic of the hon. Gentleman's remarks is that, if there is any part of the United Kingdom to which there is a net transfer of funds, from the richer to the poorer part, he would wish to reconsider the position of that part of the United Kingdom within the Kingdom.
Mr. Sandelson: It is certainly my view that Britain must, in all circumstances, accept a high share of responsibility in regard to the position in Northern Iraland. However, I will try to answer the question put to me by the Minister. Britain on her own is no longer in a position to bring about a solution to the political issues or the deteriorating economic problems of the Province. The United Kingdom and the Republic must have a continuing role to play in all these matters—political and possibly economic—in the future. We shall certainly have a major role to play in the Northern Ireland economy—
Mr. Molyneaux rose—
Mr. Sandelson: For a long time ahead, Britain will have to shoulder the primary burden. However, I believe that in both areas—the political and economic—we should introduce a wider international dimension.
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Sandelson) may not have had the benefit of hearing Mr. Speaker's ruling at the beginning of the debate. I submit that the hon. Member is now going far beyond the limits that were laid down by the Chair, and that that is unfair to other hon. Members who, if there were a debate on the subjects that the hon. Member is raising, would wish to participate.
Mr. Sandelson: I take the point made by the right hon. Gentleman about—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): Order. The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) is correct. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Sandelson) has, from time to time, got himself a little off the track, but he has brought himself back to it. Perhaps he will try to remain on course.
Mr. Sandelson: I am most obliged, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As I am now back on course, I shall conclude with a statement of some importance concerning the enunciation of the basic principles of Britain's future relationship with the Province. Dealing with the industry and the economy of the area—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is not what we are debating tonight.
Mr. Molyneaux: Does the hon. Member realise that the figure of £20 that he has quoted tallies exactly with my estimate of the subsidy being paid by the Treasury to the average Englishman? If that is so, is he taking up my suggestion that the Treasury ought to get rid of England?
Mr. Sandelson: I shall not take up that point. It is a point of much wider debate and economic consideration. I shall stick to what I believe to be the important theme that I have tried to make in the debate. If I have
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overstepped the appropriateness of the occasion, I apologise to the House. Nevertheless, it is important that I conclude my remarks by maintaining the theme that I have been putting forward. I shall omit further reference, on your direction Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the matters I spoke about earlier.
A matter that arose early in the debate concerned the European Community and its regional policy. We know that the Community is now engaged in a restructuring of its regional policy, giving a greater role to regional authorities in the drafting of Community regional policy and the selection of projects and programmes for Community fund assistance. Will the Minister tell us how this will work when it comes into being? In the absence of devolved government or any form of representative economic council presently in Ulster, there is an anomalous situation. I hope that the Minister will say how the Government propose to meet the new EEC regional plan and its requirements. For example, how is the proposed economic forum to be constituted? What will be its powers and the scope of its responsibilities?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is now completely off course. He must relate his argument to the three matters under discussion.
Mr. Sandelson: Perhaps the debate has not been the appropriate occasion, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the kind of statement I have made. However, I believe it to be an important statement, and perhaps nothing has been lost.
In conclusion, my contention is that Britain alone cannot resolve the problems that are the subject of tonight's debate, or the problems of the the wider area. Britain's duty to the Ulster people lies in creating a wider and more powerful international framework within which solutions may ultimately be achieved.
6.7 pm
Mr. Peter Robinson: I trust that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Sandelson) will not be offended if I do not directly follow the line that he took. His remarks were as wide from the order being debated as they were from reality. That may be explained by a recent visit that he had, not to the SDP but to the SDLP, in Northern Ireland and he is now parroting some of its fallacies.
I shall concentrate on the part of the order that deals with industry in the Province, and particularly with the two main employers in Northern Ireland, which are both in my constituency—Short Brothers, a company which deals with aircraft, and Harland and Wolff, which builds ships. They have made an important contribution to the Northern Ireland economy. While we accept that there have been many difficulties in recent years, we must recognise that it would cost the taxpayer and the Government much more to try to close down such ventures than to try to continue their operations.
I was encouraged to hear from many parts of the House words of sympathy for the situation in which Shorts has found itself. There are roughly three sections within it. One deals with aircraft construction, another with aircraft components, and another with missiles. The aircraft construction section largely entails the Skyvan, the SD330 and the new SD360. There are great hopes and expectations in Short Brothers that its new venture will be

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most successful and profitable. The SD360 is 18 months to two years ahead of its nearest rival, and the SD330 has already proved itself across the world.
I do not intend to place all the responsibiliies at the Government's feet, because the United States Government have caused some of Shorts difficulties. The borrowing rates are not conducive to airline companies embarking on extensions to their fleets. That has naturally caused considerable difficulties and redundancies. I know that 300 members of the staff are now redundant, although 150 redundancies were taken up by early retirement and a few by natural wastage.
The Minister must accept that there is some Government responsibility here, because the two industries that I have mentioned—aircraft and shipbuilding—are industries which in almost any part of the world are not considered real profit makers. Therefore, they rely heavily not on Government funding but on Government orders. I do not believe that the Minister or the Government can wash their hands of the matter.
In 1979, Short Brothers produced a corporate plan for a five-year period. That plan was endorsed by the Government in November 1980. They agreed a figure of £17·9 million to get the company through the period and also that there should be an annual review. Both management and work force at Short Brothers have considered how to get the firm back on a profitable basis and their plan was submitted to the Government about six months ago. It has been updated since then.
The trade unions at Short Brothers refer to their present existence as keeping going on a drip feed system. It is a hand-to-mouth operation. Employers of the size of Short Brothers and Harland and Wolff cannot be expected to continue on that basis. We require urgent and immediate decisions from the Government on the corporate plan that is presently with them. The Minister will be aware that aircraft component companies rely entirely on the success of other aircraft engineering companies. We should be glad that Boeing has given work to Short Brothers, and that its success has been recognised by many other firms. Naturally, if Boeing, Rolls-Royce and other companies start to cut back at their ends, Short Brothers will suffer at this end.
It should also be pointed out to the Government that by holding back finance from Short Brothers, as is presently the case, that has an effect on other British companies such as the General Electric company, which does sub-contract work, as well as to those companies that supply equipment to Short Brothers. The Minister must give the matter urgent attention. I ask him to address himself to the subject today and perhaps cause some joy in Northern Ireland by stating that he is about to take an immediate decision on the matter.
The missile division has been the most profitable section of Short Brothers. The Minister will be aware that it requires orders from the Government. I believe that the orders have reduced considerably in number, and that orders originally intended to be taken over a one-year period have been extended to two years. That has an overall effect of reducing the orders by about 50 per cent. Can the Minister tell us what change there will be in the missile division, which is far in advance of any other firm, in not only the United Kingdom but perhaps the world, in technology and production?
As to Harland and Wolff, it has been recognised by the House for a long time that that firm, as British
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Shipbuilders and shipbuilding firms throughout the world, is suffering from a general dearth of orders. At present it has an order from British Petroleum that is likely to keep the yard occupied until 1983, but the men who start the work—the steel workers—will soon be redundant unless new orders are received. Will the Minister tell the House what efforts he and the Government have made to ensure that there is some work to keep the yard occupied, especially Ministry of Defence work?
Finally, I move from the class that deals with industry and turn to Class X, especially to the decreases, amounting to £500,000, in respect of certain benefits, including attendance allowance and mobility allowance. The document that the Minister forwarded to hon. Members sets it out well. It states:
"These increases are offset by decreases amounting to £0·5m in respect of Old Persons Pensions, Attendance Allowances and Mobility Allowance, due to decreases in the number of beneficiaries."
The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) and I have on many occasions raised the matter in the House. Indeed, it is apparent to us that to be successful in receiving the attendance allowance or some of the mobility allowances rigor mortis must have virtually set in. Unless the Minister is prepared to re-set the criteria for successful application, there will continue to be reductions in that section. Until there is a firm system of appeals for attendance allowances, many people will believe themselves badly done by. They will believe that their case merits the attendance allowances and the benefit thereof, but because there is no appeals procedure they do not receive that to which they are entitled.
6.15 pm
Mr. Gerard Fitt: I welcome the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) back to his usual position in the Chamber. When he speaks from the Government Benches he speaks much more sense than when he is up in the stratosphere of the Side Gallery. His case, when he is up there, is much less intelligent than that that he advances from the Government Benches. I disagree with very little of what he said today. The hon. Gentleman spoke, in remarks that he made to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Sandelson), of the reality of the position in Northern Ireland.
I limit my remarks now to Vote 2. The reality is that the Government have been in power since 1979. When they took office the number of unemployed in Northern Ireland was 61,000. That number has nearly doubled to at least 120,000. My right hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) said that there is a hidden figure, especially of married women who do not sign the unemployment register because they do not qualify for unemployment benefit. If we take that figure into consideration, 130,000 or 140,000 people are now unemployed, instead of 61,000 in May 1979. That is the reality about which we are talking, irrespective of all the promises that we have heard.
I have listened to the Minister this afternoon. Like his predecessors and the other Ministers in the Northern Ireland Office, the Minister who will reply to the debate will tell us how sorry he is about the tragedy of unemployment in Northern Ireland. However, he will say that Northern Ireland is receiving more in public expenditure, and that the Government are doing everything they can to attract industry into Northern

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Ireland. They must bear responsibility for the economic policies that they have carried out in Northern Ireland and in other parts of the United Kingdom, which have led to spiralling unemployment.
I cannot forget the supplementary budget that was given in August 1980 in a parliamentary answer. At that time it was called a reallocation of funds. The sum of £10 million was taken away from the Department of Education in Northern Ireland. That led to unemployment of schoolteachers and those employed in school meal kitchens. It led to the unemployment of caretakers, doormen and cleaners. The sum of £10 million was also taken away from the Department of Health and Social Services. That led to redundancies in the medical profession in Northern Ireland. It was deliberate. The Government knew what the effects of those cutbacks would be.
The Minister wrote to me recently about a controversy that is still raging about staff at Purdysburn hospital. I have received letters from the trade union involved which I shall give the Minister later. The trade union contradicts the figures that he gave me. It claims that many more people have been made redundant in the hospital, including 33 nurses since July. There are no jobs for them. The Minister may refute that claim if he so wishes. The redundancies have happened because of Government policy.
Mr. John Patten: This is not the time to debate statistics. However, to the best of my knowledge we have been recruiting, not laying off, staff at that hospital during the past six months.
Mr. Fitt: I shall cross the Floor and give the Minister the letter from the trade union.
The Budget provided for a £24 million reduction in the money available to the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland. That Department controls the Housing Executive. The reduction led to massive redundancies in the construction industry, yet that industry is the one way to rejuvenate Northern Ireland and put life into the business community. It is a home-grown industry, organised and managed by people who know it well. It is labour intensive, with many thousands of labourers, skilled workers and workers in allied trades who could all be re-employed if the Government changed their policy on public expenditure.
The housing position in Belfast is terrible. The Government would be justified if they broke out of their self-imposed chains. There is a crying need for an injection of capital into the public sector, not only to create employment but to create the lasting capital asset of housing both in Belfast and throughout Northern Ireland. That would attack two social evils, the terrible scourge of unemployment and the terrible housing conditions that are probably the worst in Western Europe.
I ask the Minister whether it is beneficial to Northern Ireland to remain a member of the EEC?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman must have heard my earlier ruling on that matter.
Mr. Fitt: I was deliberately restricting my remarks. However, we are discussing unemployment and housing, which come under the heading of commerce. Northern Ireland was told that it would receive £300 million or £400
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million. The Minister will reply to the debate on behalf of the Department of Commerce, which is a close associate of the Department of the Environment. If we are to build houses and create employment, these points come within the ambit of the order. We were told last week that Northern Ireland would receive £26 million to help create employment and build houses in the centre of Belfast. We were then told that at a meeting in Brussels the Government said that they could not spend that £26 million. Either the Government decided not to give us that money, or they were told by some committee of the EEC that they could not have the money. Northern Ireland is the loser. The Government can say that they had intended to spend the money on building houses and creating jobs, but that they were prevented from doing so by some edict from the EEC.
Northern Ireland was told that it would receive hundreds of millions of pounds. That sum was reduced to £26 million, and now it will get nothing. That has created a great deal of despair and discontent among the people of Northern Ireland who had been led to believe that the Government would exert all their energy to get money from the EEC.
The hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) said that Northern Ireland's three representatives at the EEC should be there at all times to request or demand from the EEC as much aid as possible. I think that he was really referring to only one Member. The other two Members are Members of the European Parliament only, but the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) is also a Member of this House. Perhaps the hon. Member for Antrim, South was calling for his resignation from the House. That is not wholly surprising in view of what has been happening in Northern Ireland.
I had hoped that the hon. Member for Antrim, North would be here today to add his voice to the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) about the financial position of the Belfast shipyard. Many of the workers there gave up half a day on 23 November to support the hon. Member for Antrim, North. He should have been here today as some slight recompense for that.
Mr. Peter Robinson: The hon. Member for Belfast, West made a disgraceful comment about my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley). He must know that my colleague is attending the funeral of Constable Coulter.
Mr. Fitt: I did not know that, but there have been occasions when similar debates have taken place in the House and the hon. Member for Antrim, North has been at funerals. I express my sympathy for the family of Constable Coulter. The hon. Member for Antrim, North should have been here to support the demand by the hon. Member for Belfast, East because of the frightening position at the shipyard. I do not exaggerate. Workers at the shipyard are frightened about redundancy. The Government have given the impression that they are not enamoured of the problems of the shipyard. Many Conservative Members regard it as a lame duck and would not be annoyed if there were some way to get shot of it.
The De Lorean project is not in my constituency, but on its borders. My right hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield deserves great credit for bringing that company to Northern Ireland. It has lived up to expectations and

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now employs 2,500. We had expected it to employ only 2,000. Some Conservative Members are unfair in their attitude towards the company, for whatever reasons. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) made an unwarranted attack on the De Lorean project. One can only hope that he never has the same unemployment problem in his constituency as we have in Northern Ireland. One would expect support from even his Government, with their Right-wing views, in seeking to create employment in Northern Ireland.
It has been said that this is a restrictive order. That is certainly so. We had hoped to debate the many problems affecting our constituents in Northern Ireland, and to endeavour to find a solution.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield said that Class X draws attention to the fact that an increase in public expenditure has been created in order to pay out unemployment benefit in Northern Ireland. That is the road to nowhere. It is not the way forward to economic recovery. It gives no hope to those who have been without jobs for so long.
The Minister should go back to his office and examine the statistics. He said that the order would affect people who had been unemployed for more than one year. That is the sort of terminology used when discussing unemployment in England, Scotland and Wales. The vast majority of the unemployed in Northern Ireland have been unemployed for more than two or three years. Some have been unemployed for five, 10, 15, 20, and even 25 years. The figure of one year has no relevance to the circumstances of the Province.
I tabled a series of questions to the appropriate Minister. It may even have been to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield who was the Minister at the time. The figures I received were astounding, astonishing and pitiful in the context of hundreds who have been unemployed in Northern Ireland for so long. That is an indictment of the present Government and of some of their predecessors.
When one considers the doubling, and near trebling, of unemployment since the Conservative Party came to power, it is not good enough for the Minister to tell us that the Government have done all they can. The reality is that this never ending spiral of unemployment is bringing with it all the untold tragedy that long-term unemployment brings. The people of Northern Ireland have a right to expect more from the Government.
6.34 pm
Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: I should like, first, to add my tribute to the late Robert Bradford and to say how much one misses him and his wise words in a debate such as this. I take this opportunity of offering my sympathy to his widow. His death underlines the security background to this debate. Violence in Northern Ireland has created a difficult dimension at a time when Northern Ireland has enough problems on its plate with its economy, and in restructuring that economy to bring it up to date and able to compete in the world around it.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary on his encouraging remarks and the robustness of his comments. I listened carefully to what he said and I am sure that all right hon. and hon. Members will agree with him on the need for an enhanced industrial base for the Province. The whole House will have been cheered up by his remark that Northern Ireland has the best package of
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investment incentives in the United Kingdom. Against that background we must wonder why Northern Ireland is not more successful in attracting investment.
I was also encouraged to hear that my hon. Friend the Minister of State has just returned from another mission to create inward investment. I hope that in his winding-up speech he will tell us something about his trip and whether there are any prospects of new firms coming to Ulster. When one looks at the state of the two traditional industries in Northern Ireland, engineering and textiles, one is sometimes inclined to conclude that as rapidly as we find new investment for the Province so its traditional industries shrink and the net gain is very much less than any of us would have liked.
To know that engineering employment has fallen by about 20 per cent. in the past four years, that the work force in textiles has decreased by about 25 per cent., and that both figures are still growing is to make one realise how serious is the industrial plight of Northern Ireland. In those terms, the two traditional industries of shipbuilding and textiles seem to take on a greater importance than they would if one could see a range of new industries growing, flourishing and increasing their work forces. But at present, that is not so. Therefore, perhaps I may concentrate my comments on the existing traditional industries.
I shall say only this about textiles. The reputation that Northern Ireland Irish linen used to enjoy was world-wide. I sometimes wonder why the Province has not concentrated on producing the highest quality product that anyone in the world could buy and then marketing that product in the rich and expensive markets of, for instance, North America, in New York and in California, and of France and Western Europe, to a greater extent that seems to have been the case. There is a market for very high quality products. I cannot see why Northern Irish linen should be exempted, particularly with the reputation that it built up and so jealously guarded and which was admired for long.
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I wonder whether the hon. Member would be interested to know that a textile firm in my constituency which specialises in exactly the way that he has been decribing has recently brought home, from the Middle East, an exceedingly large and valuable order exactly of a kind that he has in mind, which is a suggestion that what he is saying has not escaped the notice of those who are leading in the textile industry in Northern Ireland.
Mr. McNair-Wilson: I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I ought to have guessed that the clever Northern Irish would have thought as I was thinking. I am grateful to know that my words at least have some practical reality. I am very glad to hear that, because I believe that sometimes, in the United Kingdom overall, we make extremely good products but often market them badly and, consequently, see markets which should be ours taken by foreigners with less acceptable goods.
The second of the industries is shipbuilding. My words are bound to be about Harland and Wolff. During this debate, Harland and Wolff has been on the lips of everyone who has spoken. That is reasonable enough, since it occupies an almost key position in the industrial structure of Northern Ireland and since, apart from those who work in the yard, it provides so much employment through subcontractors.

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It is not unreasonable to say that Harland and Wolff has brought itself many of the problems that it is facing. It has had chronic labour problems. It has been guilty of far too many late deliveries of ships that it was selling. It has suffered from unnecessary industrial disputes that have ruined a once-famous name, to a point at which some may wonder whether it is possible for it to recover its fame and fortune. I still believe that that possibility exists. But if Harland and Wolff is to have a future, that future must be thought out with the greatest care by those responsible for it and by the Government, who will have to provide its finance for some time to come.
No one believes that Harland and Wolff will again be a super-tanker yard. Those days have gone. The real question that arises is whether we are prepared to restructure it as a yard with a viable future. Are we prepared to produce the finance to make it a yard that can build ships in the 60,000-tonne to 100,000-tonne category? This is the new size of ship, I am told, that the merchant shipping fleets of the world will be wanting. If Harland and Wolff does not at present possess the attributes to be such a yard, the question arises of the price of the restructuring and whether we are prepared to foot the bill.
A clear sight of the future for Harland and Wolff will enable us to attract to the yard the sort of management that, up to now—that is unfair; I should perhaps say in the recent past—it has been denied. Top management will go where a company has a future. Top management will not go to an ailing industry that looks sicker as the days go by.
Another question to be asked concerning the future of the yard is whether those who work in it—I am referring not to senior management but to those on the shop floor—are aware that industrial disputes and the days of having 16 trade unions and 158 shop stewards in one yard are past. Unless the labour side of the yard is restructured and streamlined, the yard is likely to continue to be inefficient and unable to meet delivery dates that are so critical. In those circumstances, Harland and Wolff will not regain its reputation but will simply become a continuing loss-maker until the point is reached where someone says it is not worth putting more money into the yard.
It took some nerve, I thought, for the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Sandelson) to suggest that the Government had starved the yard of funds. The hon. Gentleman is aware that this Government, like their predecessor, have put more than enough money into the yard. Anyone who suggests that present or former Ministers wanted to be rid of Harland and Wolff and were therefore killing it off by denying it funds should go and look up the records. They will not find that their statement is supported by the evidence.
There are many hard decisions ahead for those managing Harland and Wolff and for those Ministers who will have to reach decisions about finance. On the other hand, it is true, I think, that the yard can raise some of its badly needed capital itself. It has a 368-acre site on Queens Island, of which it is utilising only a small part. If that is true, there is clearly land available for sale and development. I should like to hear that such sales are in course of preparation.
It is also a matter of fact, I believe, that the yard may not be able to survive entirely on its own. If the
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opportunity is to be denied the yard to link with British Shipbuilders, which I have been pressing for many years, the question arises whether we are prepared to look to some other country—perhaps North America or Holland—to see whether unity could be created between Harland and Wolff and a foreign manufacturer. This would enable Harland and Wolff to develop its expertise in engines for ships while its counterpart, wherever it might be found, could concentrate on the hulls and other equipment. A link with another shipmaker would provide Harland and Wolff with the badly needed finance it requires and also perhaps give it marketing opportunities in a worldwide shipping market. It would not be based simply in Belfast, starved of funds and in a rundown state. Instead it would be a company bringing its expertise to another company that might be able to provide it with the orders that it seeks.
I believe that Harland and Wolff has a future. It will, however, be a difficult future to discover. It is one that I do not believe the yard itself will be able to discover until we are prepared to recognise the continuing need for financial assistance. To those who say that this sounds a peculiar doctrine to be coming from the Conservative Benches at this time, my answer is that circumstances in Northern Ireland are so unusual that we have to recognise that money spent in strengthening and, perhaps, rebuilding Harland and Wolff is money that will in the end produce a net profit for our nation and increase the viability of the Northern Ireland economy.
The hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) referred to Short Brothers, as did the hon. Member for Belfast East (Mr. Robinson). I have worked for that company and had the good fortune to visit it last summer. I was impressed by what I saw on the aircraft side, the SD330 and the newer SD360 air liners. I congratulate the company on discovering what so far has been an untapped niche in the airliner market.
All those who visited the company were impressed by Sir Philip Foreman and his team. We were particularly impressed that Short Brothers has managed to survive all the vicissitudes that have visited themselves upon the aircraft industry in this country and still remains a viable and going concern. What upset me most, however, was to hear that Short Brothers has virtually only one contract left from the Ministry of Defence procurement executive for the rebuilding of Canberra aircraft, of which the company made many hundreds in the 1950s and the early 1960s. I pressed, during the last defence debate, that a remaining contract for five Canberras that were originally built at Shorts should go back to Shorts for rebuilding. I do not know whether the contract did go back to the company. It is surely the case, however, that Harland and Wolff and Short Brothers and Harland, being wholly owned by the Government, deserve to be considered for Ministry of Defence contracts as much as any other company in the United Kingdom.
To think that Short Brothers, which made the aircraft, might not be given the job of refurbishing them seems an extraordinary decision, if that was the decision, and the company has not won the contract. This is one way in which the Government can give direct help to two vital industries in Northern Ireland. I wonder, therefore, whether some Ministry of Defence work cannot go to Harland and Wolff and to Short Brothers to ensure that both companies get their fair share of what is available.

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The De Lorean motor company has been mentioned during the debate. I have only one question. No one hopes more keenly than I that the £80 million that has gone into the company will produce jobs and profitable success for the company in Northern Ireland and a return to the British taxpayer. It was, therefore, with some disappointment that I read that 1,700 cars had had to be recalled to have some mechanical defect remedied. I hope the Minister will be able to say that the defect was of such a minor nature that the work could be done in North America. I would be sad if I were told that the car had to come back to Belfast, particularly at this crucial time in the inception of the car into the North American market. I look forward to any comment that my hon. Friend can give.
Mr. Adam Butler: This was a relatively minor fault. The House will be aware that cars are quite frequently called in by manufacturers. In this case, it was a nut to do with the front suspension. I understand that the work will be carried out in America by the distributors and that it will take 30 minutes, possibly 60 at the most, to be rectified in the case of each car.
Mr. McNair-Wilson: I am relieved to hear my hon. Friend's answer.
My next question relates to the Lear Fan project, which is very exciting and, if successful, could find a very large market. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would say whether the programme is on schedule. Is he able to tell us the total Government investment in it? When does he expect the aircraft to receive its certificate of airworthiness?
Lastly, I want to say a word about unemployment, which, as has been said so often in this debate, is about 19 per cent. overall in the Province. We all know that that figure hides a much larger figure in some towns, where I believe it can be as high as 40 per cent. The part of the unemployment total which worries me most is that of people who are under 25 years of age. I understand that, of the 112,224 people out of work in October, 45·1 per cent. were under 25. When will the Government bring forward a programme to do something to improve the marketability—that is not an inhumane word to use—of these young people?
I have searched the Library to see whether a consultation document has been published by the Government about youth opportunities in Northern Ireland, but so far I have found none. Yet, as the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) said, there are great problems in the construction industry in Northern Ireland. Any of us who visit Belfast can see the opportunities that exist for rebuilding large parts of the city. Surely a skill training programme is required. Surely we should not leave those young people unskilled and simply on the dole. Surely, more than just skill training, we should provide higher education, so that those young people can take advantage of the electronic revolution. Have the Government plans to provide those skills and that education?
As has been said so often in the past, unemployment is the breeding ground of crime and terrorism. Is it unreasonable to suggest that Northern Ireland, which, as I have already suggested, is unlike other parts of the United Kingdom in many tragic ways, might start a compulsory community youth service to run for at least a year? It could be open to those who have been unemployed
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for more than three months and who are over 18 years of age. If they find a job, they can of course come out of the scheme. If young people in the Province know that for a year they have a job to do, they will have hope and the feeling that when the recession finally disappears from the Western economy they will not have completely wasted their early years. Also, with skill training and higher education, they will be better able to take those opportunities which, God willing, will come to Northern Ireland. Thus they will help to build its economy both in a job, when a job becomes available, and doing community service when no work is available.
6.53 pm
Mr. Harold McCusker: I was impressed when the Minister introduced the Class II, Vote 2, support for industry and properly reminded us that the £6 million-odd that was being sought brought to £187 million the total budget for the Department of Commerce for this year. We in Northern Ireland do not want always to appear to be begging for more, although that theme tends to run through debates of this nature, but because of the circumstances that exist we always appear to come cap in hand looking for assistance. I do not like to do that unless I am convinced that we have properly and adequately used the money that has been made available to us.
After the Minister gave us that figure, he launched into an impressive sales pitch. If he had been selling me a secondhand car, I think that I would have bought it. He spoke with eloquence when he described the necessity of ensuring that everything possible was done to enhance our productive industries base, and said that the Government were indulging in a vigorous industrial development drive, that everything possible was being done at home and abroad, and that there was no hope unless the Government searched everywhere, because of the world recession and because of our damaging image abroad. He talked about our internal industrial vigour—I do not know what one does to encourage that—and he referred to the importance of the indigenous industrial manufacturing base in providing us with a springboard for success. Those are some of his comments that I managed to jot down.
Let us take the figure of £187 million and assume that roughly a similar amount was spent last year—perhaps slightly less. If we take an additional amount for the six months or so that take us back to the beginning of the two and a half years that this Government have been in office, we can assume that perhaps £350 million has been spent by the Government to achieve all those worthy objectives.
However, the Minister never told us what this is all about. Professor Black of Queen's university has told us. He says that since this Government came to office in 1979
"over 110 substantial manufacturing establishments have closed",
and he thinks that that might be an underestimate. The most worrying aspect, he says, is that the closure of many of these establishments means that the springboard is no longer there. It is not just that those establishments have gone into a slump or a recession, laid people off, but may well be able to take advantage of the upturn when it comes; they have closed. The springboard has been smashed. He said that the companies which had closed were the growth potential companies. He said that the technologically advanced companies that we attracted in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, such as ICI and Grundig, were closing, and that unfortunately—perhaps we should be

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pleased—the older indigenous industries, though still contracting, were still there. But they do not provide the springboard that the Minister mentioned.
Professor Black reminded us that in the 1970s, Northern Ireland had a potential increase in the labour force of 99,000 people, and that during that period 24,000 of them managed to find employment in the Province. Thirty-five thousand of them went on the unemployment register, and 40,000 had to emigrate.
We have been told that in those two and a half years unemployment has increased to roughly 120,000 and is running at 20 per cent. For all the great sales spiel from the Minister, there is nothing to show that Government policies are working. I want to ensure that the money is being well spent. If we can spend £350 million or £400 million on industrial development in Northern Ireland and finish up with the situation in which we now find ourselves, should we not ask "Are we spending money wisely? Is this to be the continuing situation?" Professor Black assumes that there will be a 9,000 annual increase in the labour market into the 1980s. He reckons that unemployment during the whole of the 1980s will never fall below 20 per cent. in the Province. Having had 10 years of tragedy and violence, with the likelihood that much of that will continue, although I hope not at the same level, are we now to look forward to 10 years of 20 per cent. unemployment?
The right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) spoke about the link between violence and unemployment. I do not accept a direct correlation, but there is obviously some relationship between the two. Even if one accepts that in part, how can one view 20 per cent. unemployment for another 10 years and not be extremely concerned about its side effects?
I intervene simply to ask: are we doing the right thing? Are we spending money wisely? Surely I am entitled to ask those questions. I understand the concern about the Secretary of State's proposals to get something going in Northern Ireland that is separate and different from what we do in the House in order to see what is required and to come forward with ideas to advise and help the Government. Things have reached such a stage in Northern Ireland that perhaps we should use the brains of the whole community in a way that we have not yet done. I do not necessarily wish to take anything away from the House, but to get together people with different abilities and with expertise in different areas. I should be happy to play a part in that if the Government would give me some assurance that, having played a part and having got others involved, our reports will not end up ignored in a corner of the Library.
My advice to the Secretary of State is that we must learn to spend £500 million better than we have done in the past two and a half years. If we are to learn to do that and to use what Northern Ireland has to offer, the Government must give us some assurance that when we make recommendations, or try to help, our contributions will not be ignored.
7 pm
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: As the debate approaches its end, it is right to recall something that my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) said at the beginning. He referred to the
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peculiar, indeed unique, nature of the document under discussion. Perhaps we have become so used to seeing Appropriation orders for Northern Ireland three times a year, that it has ceased to surprise us that one part of the United Kingdom, comprising only 1·5 million inhabitants, has a completely separate system for accounting and for voting money.
That is not a mere technical point, still less a constitutional point. It is of very practical effect. In several of the speeches today—most crassly in the speech made by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Sandelson)—it has been said that the Province is being hugely, uniquely, subsidised by the rest of the United Kingdom, and it has been asked whether we can continue to labour under such an Atlantean load. I guarantee that I could find in the United Kingdom a dozen blocks containing 1·5 million people, which—if accounts were kept for them separately, as they are kept for Northern Ireland, and if they faced Appropriation orders three times a year—would be described by those hon. Members who attended the debate as terrible burdens that the rest of us are carrying, burdens that raise the question whether we should labour under them any longer.
The figures disclosed by the Estimates and by the order are simply a statement of the fact that Northern Ireland is an integral part of the economy, administration and financial system of the United Kingdom. In the phenomena which are a result of that, it does not differ in any way from many other parts of the United Kingdom. In such a debate as this, when some hon. Members are ready to misrepresent the situation, it is important to keep that in proportion.
I wish to make a bid to respond, in a fairly narrow field, to the challenge thrown down by my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker). In opening the debate the Minister said that the order was concerned with enhancing Northern Ireland's industrial base. My hon. Friends and I have always contended that in the balance of expenditure incurred in that attempt to enhance Northern Ireland's industrial base, the main weight should, wherever possible, be placed on what is commonly described as "infrastructure". We have always contended that the risks are greatest and the dangers of waste at their highest when one concentrates on specific projects, which sometimes prove to have been inadequately studied. We have always contended that the chances of success and of securing perhaps unanticipated benefits are at their greatest when expenditure is incurred on providing for those general requirements which the economy will have, whatever form it may take. The subject that I shall press on the Government concerns that infrastructure.
Communications between the Province and the rest of the United Kingdom are clearly of crucial importance in economic as well as in other respects. A whole debate could be held about possible developments in air travel; but whatever the scope of air communications, economic values and requirements will turn overwhelmingly upon surface communications.
It is no new observation to say that Northern Ireland is dangerously under-provided in terms of surface communications with the rest of the United Kingdom. In 1979, the Northern Ireland Economic Council published a report on sea ferry services. I entirely agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh when he said that we should utilise all the thinking and experience that we can get hold

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of in the Province and knock it together: the Northern Ireland Economic Council is an example of an attempt to do that. After careful study it reached—among others—this conclusion:
"For reasons of consumer convenience, and to some extent for strategic advantage, we would urge the early introduction of a passenger ferry service with roll-on/roll off vehicle facilities from Warrenpoint to Holyhead."
That is part of the picture that the Northern Ireland Economic Council drew of the Province's insistent need for not two, but three major routes connecting it with the mainland. The council re-emphasised that point in the annual report that it published in 1980, which said:
"we continue to press for the establishment of a roll-on/roll-off service to make use of the facilities at Warrenpoint and provide a shorter route to the Midlands and South of England"—
though the council deplored the fact that,
"with the recession in economic activity, the introduction of new air and sea services is likely to be delayed."
This perception of the importance of the third link has not been restricted to the economic council. No less a person than the Prime Minister said at the beginning of 1978—almost four years ago—that the proposal for the Warrenpoint link was "interesting and important" and I was fascinated and much encouraged to notice that the new Secretary of State—taking his first view of the scene—said:
"These are commercial matters. From all that I have seen in a short time, the roll-on/roll-off operation from Warrenpoint would be very important."—[Official Report, 11 November 1981; Vol. 12, c. 538.]
The Estimates include finance for commercial studies that are necessary to establish a potential market. At the request of the Department, Warrenpoint harbour authority carried out last summer just such a detailed study of the potential demand for roll-on/roll-off ferry services to Warrenpoint. Having seen that study, as the Minister also has, I am prepared to say that it is a more than convincing demonstration of the ample traffic that will be available if such a new link is created. The link has the advantage of the short sea run to Holyhead. It has the advantage of an almost complete dual carriageway connection with Belfast. It taps the centre of the island, both the south of Ulster and the north of the Republic. It offers vehicular transit within the day from any part of England to any part of Ulster.
That being so, the question might well be asked "After all this, and with those opportunities and attractions, what are we waiting for?". By way of answering that question, I should like to read a letter. I shall not identify the firm from which it came, but it was a firm that took a close interest in the practicability of this new link. It wrote this letter to the Warrenpoint Harbour Authority as recently as August this year. It states:
"We are investigating the possibility of starting a roll-on/ roll—off ferry service from a United Kingdom port to Ulster, and our research has shown that the most suitable for the Ulster port would be Warrenpoint with its position midway between Belfast and Dublin and its proximity to the border at Newry for cross-border traffic".
Splendid. That is the first paragraph. We then come to these observations:
"However, for the type of service we would propose it would be absolutely essential to run a daily TIMETABLE service uninterrupted by tidal influences. At the present time we understand that you have a channel which is dredged to 13½ ft at low water. Experience tells us that a minimum depth at low water spring tides required would be 16 ft. This depth would also be required at Watson's Rock and also at the Carlingford Lough bar".
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That is a correct appreciation. If this is to be a viable link, it is essential that it should provide a timetable service that can be delivered on time at all states of the tide; and it is the fact that Carlingford Lough and the access to Warrenpoint at present do not offer, by a margin of about 4 ft at spring tide, the assurance of a timetabled regular service. So again I ask: "What are we waiting for?". We are waiting for two things. First, the deepening of the access channel that will make sense of Warrenpoint harbour, which is largely a creation of public capital, and of the abundant facilities provided there. Second, but as a preliminary to that, we require the geological survey that would enable such a work to be estimated, planned and costed.
It is a happy chance that the Minister in charge of the Department of Commerce is to reply to the debate; for he, and indeed the Government, have before them for decision the question of ordering the survey that is the necessary preliminary and condition to rendering this third link practicable.
I do not expect the Minister to give me the answer across the Dispatch Box in half-an-hour's time, but I do say to him that the time for decision has now come; for we have assembled all the materials on which the decision needs to be taken. It has to be taken now in a much more urgent environment than that which existed when I first troubled the right hon. Member for Mansfield and some of his colleagues with the same question five or six years ago. The interruption of the Belfast-Liverpool link has been a shock and a salutary warning to the Province as a whole. So it should be to the Government. It has been a reminder of the soundness of the assertion of the Economic Council that Ulster could not safely depend indefinitely upon the short link at the north, and the middle link between Belfast and Liverpool.
Like the right hon. Member for Mansfield, I hope that the Minister will have more to say about the future of the Belfast-Liverpool link. Incidentally, Liverpool—at any rate, in the earlier stages—would he an acceptable terminus for a Warrenpoint service, certainly until the full road development to Holyhead is complete, as it will be within the next few years.
The experience that we have had, and are still having, is a salutary lesson that ought to be learnt and carried into practice. The Government have now been warned that one of the economic essentials to
"enhance the industrial base of the Province"
is to provide it with the third surface link that has for so long been perceived to be essential. It is now known that it is commercially viable. It requires only the technical and exploratory work, upon which the decision lies with the Minister.
It might be thought that I have troubled the House with a constituency matter. During a debate on a Northern Ireland Appropriation Order one need not grovel to apologise for that offence. Yet I disavow it. This is only marginally the interest of any particular part of the Province. It is an interest of the Province as a whole. I go further: in these days, when references to economic cooperation between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic are in fashion, I do not mind saying that it is also an interest of a considerable portion of the adjacent Irish Republic. I hope that before long the Government will put that requirement of Northern Ireland's industrial base into position.
7.18 pm
Mr. Clive Soley: Like other hon. Members, I begin by expressing my regret at the untimely and unnecessary death of the Reverend Robert Bradford. As if we needed it, it is another reminder of the futility of believing that political problems can be solved by paramilitary killings.
Secondly, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) and the Minister for their kind welcome. I shall not claim that I do not have any illusions about the difficulties and depth of the economic problems facing Northern Ireland, because one of the first things I learnt about illusions is that one does not know one has them until they have been shattered.
I have sat through a number of these Appropriation order debates, and I have always been struck by the way Conservative Members, particularly Ministers, suddenly develop a sort of schizophrenia about economic policy. We had it from the Minister, the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) and the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux). All of them want to see, either explicitly or implicitly, a greater degree of public involvement in the economy.
I think back to May 1979 and to that great election campaign that was fought on the belief that by cutting tax rates to those on high incomes the money thus released would help to regenerate the sinking base of the British economy. That was the theory before we had 3 million unemployed, inflation remaining higher than it was in May 1979 and tax rates that are even higher than in May 1979. That theory failed and the problem is that it has failed even more desperately in Northern Ireland.
Therefore, the problem for any hon. Member on the Conservative Benches is somehow or other to make the case for greater economic involvement by the public sector in Northen Ireland and at the same time to justify the political philosophy on which they were elected.
Mr. John Patten: Is the hon. Gentleman attributing all the problems of Northern Ireland to the policies of this Government over the last two and a half years? Does he not recognise that in any economy there is such a phenomenon as structural change?
Mr. Soley: I certainly recognise structural change as being a particular problem for Northern Ireland and I do not attribute all the problems of Northern Ireland to the Government. I did not say that, nor did I imply it. We all know that a great deal of the recession has been of an overseas nature. Recession is not unique to us but it has been grossly aggravated by the Government. We had an interesting statement from the hon. Member for Newbury, who justified greater intervention on the ground that "circumstances in Northern Ireland are so unusual". I am not sure that with 3 million unemployed and riots in the streets circumstances are all that usual here, either.
The problem is not as simple as it seems. When the Minister says that we need to do more and implies that he would like to do more he is saying that there should be more public involvement in the Northern Ireland economy. That raises the immediate question why we have such a paltry piece of paper with so little in it?
One of the first things that occurs to me, as it does to every other hon. Member, is the problem of unemployment. Yet there is no mention of housing and increased expenditure on housing. I regret that. We all know that one
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of the ways to soak up the unskilled unemployed is by increasing the house building sector of the economy, which easily absorbs unskilled labour. The modernisation and maintenance of homes has been curtailed and new homes have not been built. The Housing Executive cannot even plan ahead and is not helped by cuts and moratoria. The same restrictions have been applied to housing associations and councils in this country. The problems of Northern Ireland are aggravated not only by the bad housing but above all by unemployment. Those factors do not in themselves cause crime and political violence but they provide a marvellous recruiting ground for both.
I am puzzled by the way that the Minister—and, I suspect, all the Northern Ireland Ministers—does not share the optimism of the Prime Minister and her closer colleagues in the Cabinet on the economy. They appear to believe that we have reached the trough of the depression and they are turning every little bounce along the bottom of the depression into a recovery. However, it is noticeable that the Northern Ireland Ministers do not seem to believe that. It may well be because they are aware that the Government's policy is not working and they see it not working in a far worse and deeper way in Northern Ireland, for all the obvious reasons. The Under-Secretary of State is aware of some of them and has just commented on that of the structural change.
If there is structural change at a time of rapid technological change the last thing to do is to cut some of the basic aid, whether it is to further education, higher education, high technology industries or loans and grants. Yet we have here a paltry sum in terms of loans and grants. The Minister and the Government could do better than that.
I was fascinated by the contribution today from the spokesman for the Social Democratic Party, the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Sandelson). The main thrust of his comments on the economy appears to be that the Government are creating a vanishing economy. On this day, of all days, the SDP could not afford to be upstaged so they immediately went one better and brought in the now famous SDP non-appearing policy. That policy seemed to be "we shall get rid of Northern Ireland because we cannot afford it but, on second thoughts, perhaps we shall not, because we cannot cope with that on our own". The policy seems to be that it is expensive to keep troops in Northern Ireland. At first I thought that that meant that it was cheaper to keep them somewhere else, but we might have been listening to another SDP policy to upstage the Labour Party, involving unilateral conventional disarmament.
I was reminded of James Joyce's headmaster in "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" who, when confronted with the political problem of Ireland, gave up in exasperation and said:
"It would appear that history is to blame."
That is probably why the SDP spokesman has made his contribution and has left the House.
The hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) was in favour of more public expenditure. I welcome that, but I recognise that one cannot pour out public money without thought to where it goes and without limit. On the other hand, the Government's policy of cutting public expenditure of all types, except to finance unemployment, which they cannot control, is doing devastating damage. I cannot get over the hypocrisy of the Government when they say that local authorities are spending too much and

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yet cannot bring their own public expenditure under control. Given that local authorities are spending less than they used to spend, one cannot but conclude that this is a case of the Government saying "Do not do as we do; do as we tell you."
There is an alternative economic strategy. That alternative strategy could benefit such places as Northern Ireland. As the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and others said, one can identify any part of the United Kingdom and say that it has specific economic problems. Our argument is that without sensible, planned public expenditure we shall not come out of the recession until the world economy recovers and pulls us up with it—and that seems to be many years away. We cannot afford to wait that long, not least because of the problems in Northern Ireland; not least because of the 20 per cent. unemployment rate, which is still rising. We cannot afford to wait because of the high inflation and high taxation rates. Expenditure for many people has increased, particularly on energy. That does devastating damage to certain areas of the United Kingdom and provides a breeding ground for crime and political terror.
I should like to think that the Government will reverse some of their more insane policies and give up their idea of selling off the British National Oil Corporation. I should like them to use some of that money to fund Northern Ireland projects. That could be done. This country is wealthy in energy. That is unique in the Western industrialised world at a time of recession. We should be using that wealth and not throwing it away. We should use it to resolve the problems of Northern Ireland. One must accept that the political problems there have deep roots that are not only in the political nature of the border but in the structure of the economy.
7.28 pm
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Adam Butler): I add my tribute to the late Robert Bradford. He contributed to our debates in the House on Northern Ireland matters always in an excellent way. He gave evidence of the manner in which he looked after the interests of his constituents by the fact that he, poor man, was murdered as he was undertaking that task.
I welcome the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley). I suspect from what he said today that my hon. Friends and I will not always agree with him. Possibly we shall never agree with him, but he certainly spoke in a pleasant manner. I can assure him that we shall always carefully listen to what he has to say, even if we dispute every word of it.
It is traditional to say that a debate has been wide-ranging. This one certainly has been. The main theme underlying everything that has been said has been the general anxiety of hon. Members about the appallingly high levels of unemployment in the Province. However one looks at it, 109,000 people out of work in a part of the United Kingdom with a population of 1½ million is a shocking figure. Hon. Members were right to draw the attention of the House to the grave economic situation in the Province, one that contributes to unemployment. The deep and anxious concern is rightly there.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) is not here to hear me say that the only remark that I resented in the whole debate was his suggestion that Her Majesty's Ministers take a callous attitude to unemployment, to the men and women who are out of
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work and the consequences for them and their families. That is an unworthy charge that I reject. There is no monopoly of concern anywhere in this Chamber.
I agreed with those who said that there is a strong and positive relationship between unemployment and violence. It is not just the violence associated with terrorism that we have regretfully seen increase and burst out on the streets from time to time. Normal crime—if one can call it normal—has also increased in the Province. That is equally to be regretted. That is why the Government attach the highest priority to strengthening the economy of Northern Ireland. That is why we are maintaining high industrial development expenditure in the Province.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary referred to the Vote 2 figure of £187 million. If we were to multiply that figure in the usual way on a population basis, on my calculations that would be the equivalent of £7½ billion in the United Kingdom. Perhaps that sets the figure in perspective. Even now we seek the approval of the House for some additional sums of money.
No one, certainly not those who have had the responsibility that I now have in Northern Ireland, underestimates the economic difficulties that we face. There must be restructuring. Many of my hon. Friends and other hon. Members referred to the textile industry, which has been one to suffer most. However, there are exceptions, and even now companies are doing well, taking on labour and expanding. Nevertheless, that overdependence in the past has brought about its own special casualties.
However, it is not possible to separate entirely the problems of Northern Ireland from those in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom as a whole has been suffering from world wide recession. As the United Kingdom recovers from that recession and benefits from the policies of Her Majesty's Government, the Province stands to gain because the Northern Ireland economy is tied to the British economy, and when that moves, so will the Northern Ireland economy.
The right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) charged Ministers with a number of things. With all respect, however, I do not believe that he felt that everything that he was saying was correct. When he said that what we needed was a co-ordinated regional economic development policy and at the same time waved in the air the booklet "A Framework for Action", I wondered whether he had read it because contained in that document is a description of exactly what we are about in industrial development policy.
I am not a great one for documents because documents of themselves do not produce jobs. However, in that document we outlined in what I believe was a clear, cohesive and realistic manner the way in which industrial development institutions will carry out their jobs and the many positive initiatives that the Government are taking in industrial development. The right hon. Gentleman tried to make out that we were tackling things in a piecemeal way, but we believe that it is important that not only the House but the Province and those who provide the money—the taxpayers of the United Kingdom—should know what we are doing with that money and how our policy runs.
First, there is the general Government aid and financial support for new investment undertaken by existing industry under the industrial development programme, to

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which my hon. Friend referred in his opening remarks. So far this year the industrial development institutions in Northern Ireland—the Department of Commerce, the Northern Ireland Development Agency and the local enterprise development unit—have between them promoted over 3,200 jobs in local industry and an additional 6,200 jobs have been maintained under the Department of Commerce selective financial assistance scheme.
Those figures do not include jobs maintained in Harland and Wolff and Short Brothers. If one considers that the public are supporting Harland and Wolff by paying more than the wages of every man, one can see that there is assistance in that area too. I mentioned the figures for job promotion, Harland and Wolff and Short Brothers in passing reference to show the Government's continuing positive commitment to the indigenous industry in the Province.
Secondly, we are continuing our efforts to attract new industry to Northern Ireland. That is a difficult task, made no easier by the statements and actions of some hon. Members. It is made no better by the violence on the streets or the terrorist activity, from whatever source. It is made no better by any apparent threat to civic order in the Province. We must look at those factors responsibly. If we are concerned, as I believe all those who are involved are, with trying to overcome the tragic social problem of unemployment, in everything that we say and do, we must have regard to that matter.
I have been travelling round, as has been said. I now speak with knowledge from a recent visit to the United States. I have had meetings with various industrialists from overseas. I know that the perception of the Province is the biggest single factor that works against inward investment.
In addition there are the effects of the international recession, particularly in America. However, our biggest problem is the impression that news reports give. They ignore the fact that we have a large pool of skilled labour, a good industrial relations record, and the productivity record and reputation for hard work that the Northern Ireland worker has rightly earned himself. Those things do not get across to the media. Therefore, we believe that we need to strengthen representations in that area so that the message can be put across face to face to would-be investors.
Mr. McCusker: If we cannot convince mainland British investors to go to Northern Ireland—I believe that most of them are investing their money in the Republic—how does he hope to convince people from North America to go there?
Mr. Butler: We have convinced those in North America to a greater extent than those on the mainland of the United Kingdom. I shall return to that in a minute. The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that a great deal more investment should come from the mainland.
We believe that one of the important ways of putting over the Province as an investment location is to talk face to face with people on their home ground and to get them to come to the Province and see the facts for themselves. They are doing that. I mention, as one example, a recent mission of industrialists from the Frankfurt area who visited the Province in October and were much impressed
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with what they saw and heard. We shall also seek to concentrate our overseas efforts in areas where success is likely to be achieved. My hon. Friend mentioned high growth and high technology. Those are areas in which the Province is lacking, and we cannot ignore them if we are to get a secure economic base for the future.
Much of that is encouraging, but we still have a great deal to do if we are to compete with other countries in attracting new investment. As the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) said, we need to do more in Great Britain, and we are already stepping up our efforts in that regard. We have increased our advertising and promotional activity. As the decisions are taken by a relatively small number of people, particularly with regard to big business, I have personally made contact with many of the major and influential companies, and I am also meeting groups of different industrialists and trying to persuade them of the advantages of coming to Northern Ireland and the benefits that are available to them.
Apart from attracting overseas investment—I have touched on only some of the increased and expanded activity in which we are involved—we shall continue our efforts to promote the development of small firms. We have spoken strongly again and again about the importance that the Government attach to small firms. The local enterprise development unit in Northern Ireland is continuing successfully in its work, and it can be commended. We are deliberately leaving it outside the new integrated industrial development institution so that it can operate independently in the market. I am glad to say that after some small, initial technical difficulties we have finally and fully launched the small firms loan guarantee scheme to which I attach special importance.
I have listed—I make no excuse for going through them in detail—the positive steps that the Government are taking to reduce unemployment in the Province. I referred to the integrated industrial development organisation. That organisation, like the document "A Framework for Action" cannot in itself create a job, but it will ensure that the resources available to it in manpower and finance are used as effectively as possible.
It is not just the Government who must make a contribution. I have been greatly encouraged by members of the local business community and the district councils, all of whom have been making a special effort to ensure—in the case of the councils—that their areas can offer what is best to would-be investors and to set out their plate as attractively as possible.
Much work has also been carried out by the local chambers of commerce, particularly the Northern Ireland chamber of commerce. I mentioned the Engineering Industries Association, which, under its theme of "Make it 82", brought to the attention of the Province a wide range of goods—over £10 million worth—that could be made in the Province and which were at that time being bought in. That sort of initiative in the private sector, in support of what the Government are doing, can help to overcome our problems.
The most important industry in the Province is still agriculture, and fanning concerns have been worse hit in the Province than in the rest of the United Kingdom. It was in recognition of the catastrophic decline in incomes that the Secretary of State decided that money had to be injected into the crucial sectors of beef, milk and intensive livestock. That £10 million gross—my hon. Friend

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explained why we are dealing with £7 million or so—was injected as a result of my right hon. Friend's decision on agriculture.
I was asked about the future. I have been accused of making the aid temporary. The House—certainly those hon. Members who take an interest in these matters—will be aware of the inter-departmental review that has been carried out on Northern Irland's agriculture. That review is complete. The report is with me, and I shall shortly be discussing it with the Ulster Farmers Union. There was a need previously for the injection of additional money, and that need still remains.
Two or three companies were mentioned, including as always Harland and Wolff and Short Brothers, which feature so largely in the economy. They have roughly 7,000 employees each—14,000 between them out of a manufacturing labour force of 115,000. Over 10 per cent. of the working population in manufacturing industry' is employed in those companies, so, understandably, we pay attention to them. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) made a positive speech, stemming from his special knowledge, and if he wishes I shall have a word with him about the many suggestions that he made.
Only one thing matters at present for Harland and Wolff—orders. Unless an order is found in the next few weeks, those on the steel works side will be short of work and there will be a hiatus in production. I am told by the company that a number of orders are possible. I felt it right to draw to the attention of the chairman of the British Steel Corporation, for example, the urgency of a decision. It would be wrong—and I am not prepared to do so—to tell a company such as BSC where it should place its business. That is a matter for commercial negotiation between the customer and the supplier. If a decision is to be made, it should be made quickly, and that is what I have said to the chairman of BSC. Otherwise, the Government are continuing to support Harland and Wolff.
Mr. Concannon: With regard to orders for Harland and Wolff, I find the Minister's argument intriguing. Obviously we have different views. I am amazed that the Government are not prepared to lean a little on the British Steel Corporation to come to the aid of another nationalised industry, even though it may be "Ulsterised". Harland and Wolff is likely to close down just for the want of a quick decision. I am sure that if I were a member of the Government I would lean heavily on BSC to make sure that the order was forthcoming.
Mr. Butler: That may be an area in which the right hon. Gentleman and I fall out. If "leaning" means making the corporation take an uncommercial decision, that will merely transfer Harland and Wolff's problem to the corporation. That has happened far too often in the past. The Government have made it clear that intervention fund assistance and standard credit arrangements are available for orders if the company can get them. I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury when he said that perhaps the super tanker market is a thing of the past. Harland and Wolff is looking for bulkers, ships in the range to which my hon. Friend referred and certainly above 60,000 tonnes. That is much in line with the company's thinking.
Short Brothers is in a different category from that of Harland and Wolff. That is because Shorts has the
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potential of making a profit. I should like to think that shipbuilding in the United Kingdom had that potential, but it would be much harder for it to make a profit. Shorts is in a modern high technology industry and it must make money. Although the company has made some striking improvements in productivity, for example, and has increased its sales, it is still not making money. It has shown that it does not depend on the Government for its orders. It is selling overseas the same type of missiles that it sold to the MOD. It is doing first-class work in supplying the American aircraft industry. It is selling the SD330 and the Skyvan world-wide and it is hoped that likewise it will sell the SD360 in future. It is not dependent on the Government. Indeed, it has Queen's awards for exports.
The plan is before us and I hope that we shall be able to say something about it to the company. I appreciate the urgency that lies behind it. The plan contains various options and looks forward to 1984–85. It is only right that the Government should be satisfied that the sums involved are likely to be correct.
There are two facets to the De Lorean saga. In my view, there is no question but that the company has done a first-class job on the industrial and marketing side. In a relatively short time it has produced a car and demonstrated to the world that Northern Ireland is capable of producing cars. It has a long order book in North America and it should be congratulated on that success.
The other side of the picture is public funding. It is a proper procedure for hon. Members to query the use of public funds. I implore them to ensure that in so doing they do not damn the product and the company's marketing effort. Let them distinguish one from the other and Ministers will be happy to defend what has been done publicly to fund the company.
Lear Fan has an exciting development. It is an early stage to forecast what the future holds, but development work is progressing well. The first flight was on schedule. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury asked me about the airworthiness certificate. The company recently informed my Department that there will be some delay in applying for the certificate but that should not cause the House to be gravely concerned. It is very much an advanced technology product, and there are two or three peculiarities in its construction. Progress has been promising and we hope for no further delays. I cannot add to what has been said about the funding arrangements for the company.
There was one remarkable contribution to the debate to which the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North referred. It was made by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Sandelson). I hope that the hon. Gentleman will excuse me for saying what I am about to say in his absence. As he has been absent for three-quarters or seven-eighths of the debate, it has proved difficult for me to comment on his speech in his presence. I hope that his contribution will not he typical of that which we shall have in Northern Ireland debates from the new and exciting party. I hope also that it will not be typical of what we have in other directions.
The hon. Gentleman's speech was mainly out of order. When it was not out of order it seemed to be based on complete ignorance of the facts. That includes his accusation that the Government are starving Harland and Wolff of funds. As he knew personally that his party would not be able to cope with the problem he said, in effect, "Bring in the United Nations. It must be sorted out in an

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international framework." Let us hope that he takes my words and other criticisms to heart. We want every positive and constructive contribution that we can get as we try to resolve the problems of Northern Ireland. I shall not resent them whenever they come and from wherever they come.
The hon. Member for Hammersmith, North, in his first speech on Northern Ireland from the Opposition Dispatch Box, made some general reference to the approach that is adopted by Ministers in Northern Ireland compared with the approach of Ministers in Great Britain. He tried to suggest that in Great Britain Ministers are conservative and monetarist and that in Northern Ireland Ministers become profligate spenders of other people's money in the Socialist manner.
We are conscious that there are regions of the United Kingdom to which national funds should properly flow. The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and some of his colleagues drew attention to the way in which the affairs of Northern Ireland are distinguishable from others. He said that, when one considers the flows of money into other regions, the differential between those and the flow into Northern Ireland is not so great. Of the total flow about 30 per cent. more per capita goes into Northern Ireland compared with the flows into other regions of the United Kingdom. Certainly the flow to Northern Ireland is greater than to Scotland or Wales, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. Northern Ireland is the most deserving of the regions and, therefore, it does not conflict with Conservative policy to say that public money should flow into the region.
Mr. Soley: I am interested in the use of "deserving". Is the Minister using that word in a charitable sense or is he saying, as I suspect that he is trying to say, that public investment and the use of public money can help to regenerate the economy? If he is saying that, will he have a word with the Prime Minister and one or two of his colleagues?
Mr. Butler: I was not using the word in an undeserving charitable sense. The fact is that nearly one person in five is out of work in the Province. There are problems in housing and in many other areas. It is only proper that a disproportionate amount of the resources that are available to the United Kingdom should be spent on trying to redress the balance and on investing for the future. That is why we put such a heavy emphasis on investment in industrial activity so that dependence on the United Kingdom for funding can be removed over time.
The Government differ from the right hon. Member for Mansfield and the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North in realising that the expenditure of public money involves the use of other people's money. Every pound that is spent is at the expense of increased personal taxation or at the expense of funds that otherwise would be available to the private sector at lower rates of inflation. The expenditure of public money can be at the expense of other people's jobs.
In his opening speech the right hon. Member for Mansfield conformed to his old habit of saying "Spend your way out of trouble. The Government should not
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hesitate to spend." The right hon. Gentleman will not have regard to the consequences of so doing either for inflation or for other people's jobs. We are not prepared to adopt that approach.
Although I have not covered all the points that I should have, I hope I have been fairly comprehensive and that the House will acknowledge that. The priority that the Government attach to tackling inflation and controlling public expenditure, in the interests of a more competitive industry and a stronger United Kingdom economy, will be in Northern Ireland's interests in the long run. Moreover, the array of initiatives that I have outlined today, and the references made again and again to the substantial public expenditure, cannot be described as anything other than a full commitment by the British Government to resolving the economic problems of the Province. Taken together, they give the lie to the accusation that the British Government are engaged in a deliberate economic withdrawal from the Province. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Government are doing all they can to secure the existing industrial base in the Province and to draw its potential to the attention of overseas industrialists. The Government will continue to do that. The moneys for which we are seeking approval in the Appropriation order before the House tonight are important if we are to ensure that the Province has the funding which will enable those measures to be continued. I trust that the House will find the order acceptable and approve it.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Appropriation (No. 3) (Northern Ireland) Order 1981, which was laid before this House on 17th November, be approved

Statutory Instruments, &c.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): In order to save the time of the House, I propose to put together the questions on the four remaining motions to approve Statutory Instruments.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.)

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
That the draft Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Coffee and Coffee Mixtures) Order 1981, which was laid before this House on 19th October, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.
That the draft Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Dried Fruits and Vegetables) (Amendment) Order 1981, which was laid before this House on 19th October, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.
That the draft Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Grain and Farinaceous Products) Order 1981, which was laid before this House on 19th October, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT
That the Local Government (Supplementary Grants for Transport Purposes Specified Descriptions) (Wales) Order 1981, a copy of which was laid before this House on 5th November, be approved.—[Mr. David Hunt.]
Question agreed to.

Buckinghamshire Structure Plan
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr David Hunt.]
Mr. Raymond Whitney: I am grateful for the opportunity of initiating this debate and for the Minister's presence tonight, not least because this is the second time within hours that he has had the privilege of appearing at the Dispatch Box.
The Minister knows that we are discussing an issue of the greatest concern to my constituency, which is disturbing all those who wish to prevent further unnecessary damage to the environment and the quality of life in south Buckinghamshire, apart from the massive waste of public resources. He knows that the concern arises from the proposals that the figures in the Buckinghamshire structure plan should be increased to provide for additional population and housing growth in the south of the county.
The county council has been directed to submit plans before 31 December to accommodate 7,500 more people, which means 2,700 more houses than were allowed for in the original plan.
The proposal seems to be the brainchild of officials in the Department of the Environment. In my fairly long experience of Whitehall, it is one of the most extraordinary phenomena that I have come across. It has survived against changes of Government, changes in the Secretary of State for the Environment, and seemingly against all the odds. When Mr. Lloyd Jones and his colleagues made a study of the matter in 1979 and made the proposals on which the present directive is based in 1978, the case they made then was considered by many—I think with great justification—to be thin and unconvincing. I find it difficult to understand why the gentlemen concerned were moved to recommend such a major change in a plan which had been thoroughly considered by all the local authorities, and with a great deal of public participation over many years.
However, it happened, and the present Secretary of State was persuaded to accept their increased figure. It is of considerable significance to note that when he accepted the recommendation to alter the projected population figures, his finding was that he would not alter the figures for the districts concerned in south Buckinghamshire. The Minister knows that I have written to him and supported representations to the Department on many occasions over the past two years. When the Minister wrote to me on 7 May this year, he referred to the Secretary of State's failure to adopt this part of the recommendation of the examining panel because the Secretary of State
"lacked sufficient information to enable him to do so."
I am not in the least surprised, because such information was clearly not available to the Secretary of State when he made his decision in December 1979. Even more clearly, that information is not available today. The case which was so unconvincing when put again in 1977, re-run in 1978 and again in 1979, is today totally without validity. That is because it rests on two propositions. The first is that there would be a significant growth in the population in south Buckinghamshire over the period being considered—up to 1991. The second is that employers would continue to demand more and more workers in the area. That was the employment situation fundamentally in the Wycombe and Slough districts and at Heathrow.
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Considering the two general propositions, I am convinced that we shall quickly see—the Minister will find it difficult to disagree with this—that the proposition falls to the ground. In considering population, we must consider the south of Buckinghamshire. I am particularly concerned with the population projections of the Wycombe district. The population projections of Buckinghamshire as a whole are significantly affected by the prospects for Milton Keynes. It is neither profitable nor relevant to consider in the debate what may or may not happen in Milton Keynes. It is relevant to consider what will happen in south Buckinghamshire as a whole.
The review panel assumed that the figures would show, over the period being discussed, an increase in the south Buckinghamshire population. The latest figures available show many things which falsify the assumptions and projections of the review panel. There have been clear signs and indications that the population decline in south Buckinghamshire will continue. For example, I refer the Minister to the birth rate figures which are available from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. Using an index of 100 per cent. for 1971 it can be seen—referring to the three southern districts of the county: Wycombe, South Buckinghamshire and Chiltern—that for the rest of the decade there was a dip from 93 per cent. in 1972 to 72 per cent. in 1976. In 1977 it was 73 per cent. of the 1971 birth rate. I apologise to the House because, in my fairly brief remarks, I shall need to inflict a number of figures on hon. Members. The nature of the subject I seek to deal with makes that inevitable.
The bitter irony is that in the year when the review panel was reaching its conclusions about the remorseless growth of population in south Buckinghamshire, the people of south Buckinghamshire were not meeting their stak-hanovite norms and producing the children that the planners wanted them to produce. They were producing only about 73 per cent. of the birth rate that had obtained in the previous decade. Therefore, the prospect is that over the coming years the population of the south Buckinghamshire district will decline, and the other two districts, Wycombe and Chiltern, will have virtually a stable population.
The structure plan suggested that in 1981 the population of the Wycombe district would be between 159,000 and 166,000. The present population is 156,000–10,000 fewer than the optimum forecast in the plan a few years ago. The suggested figure for 1986 was between 163,000 and 171,000 people in the Wycombe district. According to the latest figures, there are likely to be between 150,000 and 154,000 people. Therefore, the whole case, inasmuch as it is based on population growth, has exploded already.
I turn to the other plank on which this very shaky edifice has been built—the employment prospects not only in Wycombe but in Slough and Heathrow. I say at once that I would not support for one moment anything which remotely threatened the economic prosperity of Wycombe or south Buckinghamshire, or of any part of the region. I would modestly claim that in the three and a half years in which I have had the privilege of representing the Wycombe district, I have come to know the industries there very well. I am confident that what the county council and the local authorities supporting it propose in the structure plan will not put artifical restraints on the industries of Wycome district; on the contrary, it will greatly strengthen them.

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What worries me is that if, by any awful chance, the proposals as they now stand in their revised form were to go through, the increased burdens which would be placed on the district—and which would inevitably show in the rates—would, far from increasing employment, greatly decrease employment in the area.
When the review panel conducted its studies there was in the Wycombe area pressure from the various manufacturers' associations for additional housing. The fundamental position has now changed, and that will come as no surprise to any hon. Member.
In November 1979, there was 2·1 per cent. unemployment in the Wycombe district. In September of this year there was 6·6 per cent. unemployment. In Slough—which is meant to be the feeder area for the additional growth proposed in Wycombe or in south Buckinghamshire generally—there was 1·9 per cent. unemployment in November 1979. In September of this year it was 7·1 per cent. There is, therefore, a great deal of slack to be taken up in that regard.
I would be the last to sugest that employment prospects will not improve but, knowing the resilience and enterprise of the local industries, my view is that they will be moving very much up-market towards the higher value added area. If they show the same sort of enterprise as they have shown over the last 20 or 25 years, they will change their products and techniques in significant ways. It is clear, therefore, that we shall not be able to look to them for really large increases in the labour force. That in a sense matches what I said earlier about the population projections.
The third part of the employment section of the package put together by the review panel concerned Heathrow. I could weary the House with quotations about employment prospects, but the general theme in the assessment was that Heathrow would continue to increase its labour force. As we now know so well, that simply is not the case. British Airways have set in hand a redundancy programme which may affect about 9,000 people. Pan-Am and other airlines are going through the same process.
I have here a letter from the British Airports Authority, dated 2 November 1981, which confirms that the figure of 52,000 people employed at Heathrow is being reduced because of the policies of various companies. The gentleman who signs the letter, Mr. Duncan, says:
"I cannot foresee any real change in the present level of staff at the airport."
I have had a number of conversations with those involved at very senior levels at Heathrow in British Airways and other airlines. It is clear that the peak employment figure was reached somewhere around 1980, and that, whatever happens about a fifth terminal at Heathrow, the best expectation in terms of employment is that by 1990–91 the figure might be back at that of 1980.
Many of the people at present working at Heathrow reside in the south Buckinghamshire area, so many of them are my constituents. Here, too, there is potential slack in the employment market. I am confident that it will be taken up, but it is a significant degree of slack. The population figures in the structure plan, as I have said, are highly questionable. When we consider also what has happened to employment prospects, it is clear that there is no case for the additional growth that has been proposed.
In the structure plan as worked out by the local authorities, with the appropriate public consultation, some
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growth is already envisaged. There is no question of a freeze or standstill. We referred to the three southern districts of Buckinghamshire. At present the Chiltern district has 34,000 houses and the county proposes an increase of 1,800. In the south Buckinghamshire district there are 23,000 houses and the county proposes an increase of 1,200 houses. In Wycombe district there are at present 55,000 houses with an increase proposed by the county of 3,700, which is about 7 per cent.
If one adds to the points that I have already made the other factors that will take effect during the years, clearly the case will continue, as the snowball on the stove to melt away. We should consider the effects of the Rent Act 1974, which the Government had the wisdom to introduce and also their policy on council house sales. Those measures will mean that more and more accommodation will become available within existing buildings.
Another development is what has happened in the Aylesbury district, where about 2,000 more houses than provided for in the structure plan have already been built. The development in Berkshire, which is relevant to employment in Slough and Heathrow, must be considered in its relevance to the housing requirements of south Buckinghamshire.
The final point deals with Milton Keynes, which is a subject on which I can assure my hon. Friend the Minister that everyone in Buckinghamshire feels strongly. They contributed so much of their rates to the development of Slough and then lost Slough to Berkshire. Now in Buckinghamshire we seem to bear a heavy burden for the development of Milton Keynes. Some residents resent that more strongly than others, but there is a strong feeling that it is a massive investment—the last available Government figure was about £600 million—intended for new industries. It is not a question whether an additional workshop can be created in Wycombe. We are talking about significant industrial growth in Milton Keynes, which is in the centre of Britain and meant to be well supplied with communication facilities. Many miles of north Buckinghamshire, which I knew well as a boy, will be carved out to become the new industrial city.
I am sure that the Minister will be familiar with the reduced projections for Milton Keynes. He may or may not regret that reduction, but it calls into question the enormous infrastructure that has been created already and the vast sums that have been spent. Surely the very last thing that we should do is anything that would increase the reduction in the prospects and growth rate of Milton Keynes.
My hon. Friend the Minister will accept that, by now, the snowball has disappeared, but somehow in the bureaucratic way it lingers on in the form of a proposition that would involve—infilling in High Wycombe is a matter of considerable debate—extremely serious erosion of one of the most beautiful areas of Britain—the Chilterns. It is officially listed as an area of outstanding natural beauty and is in the green belt. The proposal would mean that the character of High Wycombe and the surrounding townships and villages would be changed even more than it is now. We should be faced with yet another urban sprawl. If the planning process at the Department of the Environment has any responsibility, it must be to prevent further damage to our environment in that way.
More than the damage to the environment, what concerns me, my constituents and many people in

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Buckinghamshire is the incredible expenditure of public resources that would be at stake should the proposition continue. Building houses entails many different sorts of work, such as the whole infrastructure of new roads, water provision and sewers. Expenditure on that would be the sort of waste to which I referred earlier in my speech. It would inevitably, as well as destroying what is left of the attraction of that part of the Chilterns, rob Britain of some high grade agricultural land.
I have no expectation that my hon. Friend, wise and percipient man though he is, will, when I sit down, shout
"Eureka, I accept all that you say."
However, I move from my belief in his wisdom and percipience to the conclusion that, having heard the case, he will return to the Department of the Environment and re-examine the files. I recognise that we are at a difficult stage in the planning process, but it has been forced on the people of Buckinghamshire by the Department. What has been forced by the Department can be removed by it. I do not believe that bureaucratic juggernauts can never be stopped. I know that it is difficult and requires courage and Ministers who are prepared to consider all the facts, I have every confidence that my hon. Friend and our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment are the sort of people who will do precisely that.
8.28 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Giles Shaw): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Whitney) on the vigour and cogency with which he presented his case about the vexed problems of the adjustment to be made to the Buckinghamshire structure plan. I find it difficult to reply with the generosity and accuracy that I would wish. We are discussing a matter that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will shortly be called upon to consider in his quasi-judicial capacity, and I must neither prejudice that consideration nor appear to do so.
I hope that my hon. Friend will not think it remiss of me if I seek to show that there are counter-arguments to those which he advanced. It is, therefore, appropriate that all the matters should be considered under the formal statutory procedures. I believe that he is aware that the Buckinghamshire county council intends shortly to submit its proposals for alteration to the structure plan.
My hon. Friend has put forward strong arguments about the birth rate, the changes in the unemployment position, the growth at Heathrow, housing developments and the question of Milton Keynes—all of which, in his view, add up to a different package under which the review of housing capacity in his part of Buckinghamshire should be undertaken. My hon. Friend would be the first to accept that structure plans inevitably mean dealing with a fairly long projection, during which there would be a number of short-term fluctuations in fairly important indicators. In arriving at a judgment we must, at any given point, use the best possible information and statistical base. Eventually the decision whether an absolute given number of houses should be allocated to certain areas must be made by planning authorities. Whether such decisions result in houses being built is another matter. That may be substantially influenced by the current market and the projections given by house builders. We are discussing a long-term context in which various other planning mechanisms will change. My hon. Friend will not expect
206
me to be entirely persuaded that short-term changes in some indices necessarily invalidate the procedure that must be followed.
When the Secretary of State approved the county structure plan in December 1979 he had the benefit of the report by the panel which, under an independent chairman, had conducted an examination of the plan in public. The panel recommended, among other things, that there should be increased provision for housing in the southern part of the county—that is, in the districts of Wycombe, Chiltern and south Buckinghamshire—to meet essentially local requirements.
My right hon. Friend accepted that recommendation, but did not modify the plan because he did not have sufficient information to enable him to apportion the increase appropriately among the districts concerned. For that reason he directed the county council to prepare proposals for alteration of the plan for submission to him not later than the end of this year. The Government expect the council to meet the deadline.
The direction requires the county council to provide for the accommodation of 7,500 more people in south Buckinghamshire in the period up to 1991—that is, 7,500 in addition to those already provided for in the approved plan.
The broad strategy of the plan is still to restrain development in the southern part of the county, which includes an important part of the Metropolitan green belt and the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty. Urban growth is in general to be steered to selected areas elsewhere in the county. That strategy was accepted, and still stands. There was general agreement that the green belt should be maintained and the area of outstanding natural beauty protected. But those desirable restraint policies have their effect on the provision of housing in the area.
The plan stated that land available for building development in south Buckinghamshire would be insufficient to meet all local needs, even if building took place at higher densities than in the recent past. The plan envisaged that the shortfall would be made good in the growth area to the north of the county—that is, Milton Keynes—and in strategic plan for the south east area No. 8, that is, in the Reading, Wokingham, Aldershot and Basingstoke area. Local industrial, commercial and house building interests, as well as the Berkshire county council and Slough borough council, argued that the county council should make provision in south Buckinghamshire for more of its own needs. Local industry was especially concerned about the shortage of houses for key workers.
The panel which conducted the examination in public, under the independent chairman, was sympathetic to these arguments and linked the provision of housing with the strength of the local economy and the efficiency of public services. It thought it wrong to look at employment in south Buckinghamshire in isolation from that at the Slough trading estate and Heathrow airport. Information before the panel showed that many workers travelled from their homes in south Buckinghamshire to jobs at Slough and Heathrow. Thus, it would be right to have regard to these factors in looking at local requirements.
The panel accepted that, given the constraints of the green belt and the Chilterns AONB, it would not be possible to meet all the needs of south Buckinghamshire within that area; but it felt that a greater proportion of the need should be met. At the examination in public, the

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county council had given details of a survey carried out in 1977 which showed that in south Buckinghamshire there was land available for some 16,700 dwellings—11,000 on land already having planning permission or positively identified as suitable for housing, and the rest on land which, in light of previous experience, might be expected to become available. The housing provision in the plan as approved was, taking the mid point of the range, some 13,200 houses in the period 1976 to 1991.
There was, therefore, scope for provision of additional dwellings on land which the county council thought would be available. On the basis of the occupancy rate employed in the plan, the figure of 7,500 people, as my hon. Friend says, would require about 2,700 dwellings. This means that the total additional provision in south Buckinghamshire for the period 1976 to 1991 would amount to about 16,000 dwellings, of which, I understand, 7,400 have already been completed. Thus there would be a provision for the next 10 years of about 8,600 dwellings.
So the aim of the direction was to ensure that a larger proportion of the housing need in south Buckinghamshire, for people working there or in neighbouring areas, should be met within the area itself; and if housing demand generated by local industry proved to be less than was envisaged, then more houses would be available for workers at Slough and Heathrow.
I readily admit—my hon. Friend has been eloquent about this—that there have been some changes since the direction was issued in December 1979. It is true, as my hon. Friend suggests, that official population projections for the South-East outside Greater London have been revised downwards to take account of evidence of a reducing outflow of people from Greater London, but the scale and direction of migration in the region is subject to considerable uncertainty. In particular, the way in which south Buckinghamshire fits into the wider regional picture is far from clear. The Registrar General's mid-year estimates suggest that the area has been losing population by net outward migration during the past decade. It seemed that the outflow continued while the inflow was decreasing. However, the preliminary results of the census raise doubts on this view. I understand that they suggest that the Registrar General's mid-year estimates for Chiltern and Wycombe districts may have been too low.
The point that I made initially about these indices is that it is notoriously difficult to estimate the future population of an area with any certainty in the short term when there are constant fluctuations in the trends. In addition, and very importantly, as my hon. Friend will know, population forecasts for relatively small areas such as districts are difficult, and the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys does not produce forecasts below county level. It would, therefore, be misleading to make confident statements about demographic trends in south Buckinghamshire—or anywhere else, for that matter—until detailed results of this year's census have been published. Publication of the analysis at local level is, I understand, to begin next autumn.
The southern part of the county, to which my hon. Friend referred, has been affected by the recession. My hon. Friend gave the unemployment rates. These are extremely high in relation to historic levels in areas such as Wycombe or Slough but are clearly not rates comparable with those in many of the substantially
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depressed areas of the country as a whole. Unemployment rates remain well below the national average and the economy of the area is relatively buoyant.
The area looks set to play a valuable role in the recovery. There is evidence that firms are retaining their most skilled workers and as the recovery gets under way shortage of skilled labour is likely to become a problem once again. If that is so, the increased provision of houses envisaged in the direction will be welcomed by employers in the area. As I have indicated, there is also the demand for housing for employees at Heathrow but that was not a primary reason for the direction, although it was a consideration.
Mr. Whitney: On the question of housing for industry, the deputy director of the South Bucks and East Berks. chamber of commerce and industry whose area covers Slough and Wycombe, writing on 22 October, said that
"it would be virtually impossible for any firm to predict, in the current climate, what their workforce levels will be next year, let alone in 1991".
There is so much slack in the general work force figures, allowing for the original growth projected, that it will easily encompass what is needed by industry.
Mr. Shaw: I note what my hon. Friend says. A statement such as that made by the chamber of commerce must be taken as important evidence. My hon. Friend will agree, I think, that the changes in the unemployment position have come about in a relatively short period. I think he will also agree that the scale of industries established within the area to which south Buckinghamshire has always given domestic provision are likely to be affected over a short time either for better or worse. I understand that no company would willingly put its hand on its heart and project its requirements with accuracy.
Trends of this nature that clearly have reflected the national economic recession are not of such a scale in terms of breadth of change that they may not be equally corrected over a relatively short term. Our intention is to seek to provide a context over a decade or so of planning provision. In the context of 10 years or more, we may be dealing with a different order of projections than that reflecting the latest information on the results of the current deep recession.
Heathrow featured in my hon. Friend's remarks. The airport is now operating close to its existing capacity for handling 30 million passengers a year. As my hon. Friend knows, the fourth terminal that is under construction will provide additional capacity and ease the constraint on traffic growth by about 1985. It is not possible to be precise about the future increase in employment. I accept that the planning inquiry into the fourth terminal was held several years ago. The inspector at the inquiry thought that employment might rise from the figure of 54,000 to between 58,700 and 65,000 by 1987. This will obviously involve a number of factors such as improvements in productivity and reduction in staffing levels planned by British Airways, the main employer, but those were the figures used at the time in relation to the potential increase in employment that the planning development might bring.
I am prepared to say to my hon. Friend that the figures issued then may be revised substantially today. We shall have to take into account the consequential use of the

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fourth terminal and the number of people likely to be employed within the complex as a whole when the terminal becomes operational.
It is important to bear in mind, as I said before, the fact that we are trying to devise policies for 10 to 15 years ahead. In the case of the Buckinghamshire plan, we are concerned with the period up to 1991. Our plans have to be prepared in the light of the most reliable information about trends, not necessarily about information which deals with short-term changes.
This is not a matter on which we wish to prejudge the issues here tonight, but I do not believe that the weight of evidence so far adduced would justify my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in withdrawing the direction. Our debate this evening suggests that there are matters concerning the future of south Buckinghamshire which need to be looked at carefully. I give my hon. Friend the undertaking that what he has said tonight, and the trends and figures that he has given, as well as the issues which I have illustrated such as the position of Heathrow and the trends of employment there, will all be carefully weighed as and when the decision-making process moves on. The formal procedures will be gone through once the county council has submitted its proposals for alterations to the plan.
Under the town and country planning legislation, the county planning authority will advertise its submission. Following the advertisement, there will be a period of six
210
weeks during which objections and representations may be made to the Secretary of State. All concerned will then have the opportunity to express their views either for or against the proposals. From what my hon. Friend has said, it is clear which side he is on. I assure him that my right hon. Friend will consider carefully whether to have an examination in public on the issue. However, whether or not there is to be an examination in public, we shall consider all the proposals fully and objectively, together with all the representations that we receive, before arriving at a decision on the plan.
I fully understand the reasons which led my hon. Friend to raise this matter on the Adjournment. We shall soon be at the next phase of the statutory consultation process, which allows others to lodge their objections to these proposals. All that my hon. Friend said will be added to the evidence we have, and then we shall reach our final decision. We are concerned about the long-term establishment of those policies which are consistent with the structure plan's remit and which result in a context which is appropriate for housing and industrial development and for the preservation of those portions of south Buckinghamshire to which my hon. Friend referred.
I am glad that my hon. Friend raised this issue, and I am grateful to him for the manner in which he did so. I assure him that everything that he said will be fully taken into account in our further discussions.

Adjournment Debates (Applications)
8.49 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell: The Under-Secretary of State courteously sat through almost our entire debate on the report of the Public Accounts Committee yesterday. He will recollect that at considerable length—perhaps at too great length, in the view of some hon. Members who wished to speak—I raised the issues of the use of public money and the proposed sale of a tractor line at Bathgate.
In the past 24 hours another calamity has hit Bathgate, with the announced closure today of the Plessey factory, which I have been told about by Mr. Jim Quinn and Mrs. Ina Love. It means that a further 350 jobs will be lost in a town that is beset by the problems of the motor industry.
I understand that parliamentary time is a valuable commodity. I also recollect that on one of the last occasions that an hon. Member tried to get a second Adjournment debate I was the subject of Mr. Speaker's comment to the effect that notice had to be given. There was such an attempt admittedly at one minute past 8 o'clock this evening when it was clear that the Irish business would collapse. I cannot blame the business managers, because no one can tell what Irish Members will do. I have been in the House when Irish Members have complained bitterly that they have not had sufficient time. When they are given a whole parliamentary day, for some reason or other they do not make use of it. I do not blame either the Opposition or Government business managers, but my contention is that parliamentary time is a very valuable commodity. I think that the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. Wells), who is chairman of many Committees, assents to that proposition. When we have something of a windfall, on those rare occasions when time is forthcoming at the end of a debate, surely we are entitled to ask briefly and courteously—I am not asking Ministers for an answer off the top of their heads—particular questions.
I raised with the Scottish Office and with the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland—the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind)—the possibility of a Scottish Minister being in the Chamber. I wanted to ask him a very simple question—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): Order. The hon. Gentleman must not start a debate. I take it that he is raising a point of order.
Mr. Dalyell: I was explaining my efforts to get a Treasury or Industry Minister to attend the House. I understand that they have other commitments. I had hoped, in particular, to get a Scottish Minister who could tell the House when Scottish Office Ministers first knew of the British Leyland decision—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is arguing a case. My job is to protect the House and to ensure that its rules and procedures are observed. The hon. Gentleman knows that Mr. Speaker has ruled on previous occasions that, when a right hon. or hon. Member wishes to raise with a Minister a matter on a second Adjournment, notification must be made before 8 pm. Mr. Speaker's reasons for that will be well known to the hon. Gentleman, since he was the hon. Member who was then concerned.
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That is the rule and until the House changes it I have no power or authority to accept what the hon. Gentleman is saying.
Mr. Dalyell: May I take that as an absolute ruling as such, because normally I am absolutely obeisant to the Chair? I hope that the Chair will recognise that in 19 years it has had virtually no trouble with me—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Speaker on that occasion said that any application after 8 pm—he gave the reasons, which I need not reiterate tonight—was unreasonable for the House: hon. Members would not know what was being raised; Ministers would have no chance of receiving proper advice, and so on. Mr. Speaker said that he would stick to that rule until the House decided otherwise. The House has not decided otherwise, and so I must rule—I know how strongly the hon. Gentleman feels—that the hon. Gentleman cannot raise that matter on this occasion.
Mr. Dalyell: Normally I would not be unreasonable, but I am talking about what Ryder only two years ago called the jewel in Leyland's crown—the Bathgate factory—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. There are many matters which hon. Members consider to be most important and which are most important, but as the hon. Gentleman knows we are bound by the rules of the House. It is a matter of precedents and so on. Mr. Speaker has given a ruling. It is there and he says that it must be observed until the House decides otherwise.
Mr. Dalyell: There are other hon. Members who wish to speak. This matter is not only important, but desperately urgent. My reason for testing the patience of my colleagues and of the House is that this matter is urgent and Parliament may be the only source of redress. When thousands of jobs are at stake, even if it means infringing or trying to make parliamentary rules as elastic as possible, one ought to make an attempt to do so. I think that I see the Leader of the House. I certainly see my right hon. Friend the Opposition Deputy Chief Whip. I do not quite understand whether there is a ruling, or a recommendation. If there is a hard ruling, I shall test the patience of the House no longer. However, if it is a recommendation I am prepared to risk the Chair's wrath—although I do not take the Chair's wrath lightly—to argue the case of British Leyland—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I shall repeat what Mr. Speaker said to the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), when he raised a similar issue in November 1979. He said:
"Like my predecessor, I have followed the rule that if the application is made after 8 pm it is an unreasonable application … In the last Parliament, I declined to accept applications after 8 pm, as I have in this Parliament. Until the House resolves otherwise, I intend to continue to pursue that policy."—[Official Report, 16 November 1979; Vol. 973 c. 1661–2.]
That is my ruling. I am sorry, but that issue cannot be pursued further.
Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I understand that the submission of the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) is that he made the application early this evening in—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman might understand that, but it is not my understanding. The

213
application was made after 8 pm as far as the Speaker's Department is concerned. I have given my ruling and we cannot pursue it.
Mr. Bob Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Several years ago I raised an Adjournment debate in the Minister's absence. The then Speaker, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, made it clear that an Adjournment debate could take place—whether or not the Minister agreed—on the basis that Mr. Speaker would deprecate such an Adjournment debate, but could not prevent it from taking place. In those circumstances I had a very brief Adjournment debate and I recognised the difficulties involved in providing a Minister. However, the then Speaker did not attempt—nor did he say that he would attempt—to prevent an Adjournment debate taking place in such circumstances.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have heard what the hon. Gentleman has to say. However, the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), who originally raised a point of order because he wanted a second Adjournment debate, says that he does not wish to be unfair, or awkward. As the hon. Gentleman and the House know, the convention is that, although, technically, it is sometimes possible to discuss all matters on an Adjournment debate, subjects are chosen. Therefore, we are discussing an abuse of the conventions of the House, not of the rules. The ruling that I have given on applying for a second Adjournment debate after 8 pm was made by Mr. Speaker. He indicated fairly to the House that, until it decided otherwise, that was the rule. I am merely expressing Mr. Speaker's ruling.
Mr. John Wells: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My point borders on the fringe of the point of order that has been raised. I am anxious that the voice of a Conservative Member should be heard briefly in support of the principle that the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) set out. I refer to his observation that parliamentary time is very precious and that when we get a bonus or windfall of perhaps an hour it is unfortunate that we should have Mr. Speaker's ruling—to which we bow—when the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) has referred to an apparently contrary ruling from a former Speaker, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd. It would be unsuitable and unseemly to go into the details, but it is important that our procedure on the question of bonus time should be reexamined swiftly.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is a legitimate point, but it is not a matter for me to deal with now. I have stated the ruling that Mr. Speaker gave in 1979. We cannot debate the procedures of the House tonight.
Mr. Dalyell: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should hate to embarrass you in any way, but is it possible to refer this situation to Mr. Speaker? He may have a public engagement tonight, but there is some confusion between rulings and conventions. I candidly admit that, in returning to the question of Bathgate and the uses of public money, I am perhaps infringing the conventions. May wrath fall on my head for doing so, but this is rather different from the question of rulings referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) and other hon. Members. Things have moved on from yesterday. It is wholly to the credit of the authorities concerned that Mr. Gordon Downey—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman wants to argue his case. I know how keenly he feels and how serious the situation is, but I must protect the House and its procedures, as laid down. Mr. Speaker's ruling is quite clear. Application for a second Adjournment debate after 8 pm is unreasonable, and he is not prepared to accept it. I have made my ruling, and I ought now to put the Question.
Mr. Cryer: On a different point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, which concerns the protection of the House with which you are rightly concerned. Last night, I attended a meeting on the economy, and a questioner asked "What good is Parliament? Nothing can be done by Parliament". I wonder what your answer would be to the ordinary citizen who sees the protection of the House resulting in the exclusion of debate when thousands of jobs are being lost. That is the subject that my hon. Friend wishes to raise—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that I have grasped the hon. Gentleman's point. He knows that almost every day important questions are raised under Standing Order No. 9. I am talking about the procedures of the House. The matters that the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise are important. I should like to discuss them, but I have given the ruling about Adjournment debates. I must therefore put the Question.
Mr. Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, relating to Standing Order No. 9. When I learnt about these redundancies at Plessey, I consulted Opposition Front Bench colleagues, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme), about whether to make an application under Standing Order No. 9. My right hon. Friend's answer was simple. He said "This is happening to all of us. We are all experiencing closures. My advice is that in the case of Plessey, Bathgate, though it is desperately important and concerns the future of our technological industries, you should not raise it because it will be seen as an abuse of the House." I did not raise the matter at prime time.
You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, say that the House must be protected, but Parliament is here to be used for the protection of industries and jobs. Therefore, at the risk of testing your patience, I submit that there are only certain forums where key questions can be asked, of which this House is one. I have no other opportunity formally to put my views on record, and I should like to know when Industry Ministers and Scottish Office Ministers first knew that there were to be changes involving the tractor line at Leyland—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is once again arguing his case. We are talking about rules and procedure. My job is to carry out the procedures and rules that have been laid down in the House over many years. It is time that I put the Question.
Mr. Wrigglesworth: I in no way wish to seek to challenge your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in pursuance of Mr. Speaker's former ruling. Before you draw the proceedings to a close, I should like to support what the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. Wells) said earlier. When hon. Members are faced with lobbies of unemployed people day after day and wish to raise the unprecedented problems facing our country, it is harsh to see two hours 29 minutes of parliamentary time—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is arguing about the procedures of the House. It is for the House to change its procedures, and the Chair will then be bound by its decisions. It has been made clear by Mr. Speaker, and I have read what he said to the House. He said that an application for a second Adjournment debate after 8 pm is unreasonable and that he is unwilling to accept it. That rule will continue until the House has decided otherwise.
The situation could not be any clearer and I cannot allow what is becoming a debate on whether the procedures of the House allow hon. Members to raise all the questions that they want to raise. If the hon. Gentleman is proceeding with that debate he is abusing the conventions and the rules of the House.
Mr. Wrigglesworth: I do not wish to do that and I shall finish briefly. I simply hope that Mr. Speaker will take note of the comments made tonight and that some flexibility can be introduced at the margin so that, when two hours and twenty-nine minutes are going by the board, that is regarded as being rather different from an hour or twenty minutes. I hope that that will be recognised.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: If the House needs that assurance, I can assure it that tonight's proceedings will not only be read by Mr. Speaker in Hansard, but will be discussed.
Mr. Cryer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Are you saying that Mr. Speaker has said that no Adjournment debate can take place? As I said earlier, I have a very strong—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should have heard the first time. I have said that the second Adjournment application was made by the hon. Gentleman after 8 pm. That was the ruling to which Mr. Speaker referred.
I replied to the hon. Gentleman's comments on the conventions of the House. I agreed that everybody would deprecate—as Mr. Speaker would—hon. Members who, on an Adjournment on a structure plan in Buckinghamshire, raised what was happening in other parts of the kingdom. That would have no relation to the original Adjournment debate and would be deprecated both by the House and Mr. Speaker. That is all that I have said.
Mr. Cryer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should like to explain. In 1974, or 1975, I was speaking on a second Adjournment debate but no Minister could be obtained. It was not a case of having another Adjournment debate. Mr. Speaker then made it clear to me that if I proceeded he would deprecate that, in the absence of the Minister.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have repeated the ruling given by Mr. Speaker in November 1979. His concluding remarks were that that ruling would stand and would be sustained until the House decided otherwise. I am bound to follow that ruling.
Mr. Cryer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I would like to move that the Adjournment motion be taken and that the House vote on it, because if that is Mr. Speaker's ruling—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must put the Question.
Question put: That this House do now adjourn:—
The House divided:Ayes 72, Noes 32.

Division No. 13]

[9.8 pm

AYES

Alexander,Richard

Mather,Carol

Ancram,Michael

Mawby, Ray

Beaumont-Dark,Anthony

Maxwell-Hyslop,Robin

Benyon,W(Buckingham)

Monro,SirHector

Blackburn,John

Montgomery,Fergus

Boscawen,HonRobert

Morgan,Geraint

Bright,Graham

Morrison, Hon P.(Chester)

Brinton,Tim

Myles, David

Buchanan-Smith,Rt.Hon.A.

Nelson,Anthony

Budgen,Nick

Neubert,Michael

Carlisle,Kenneth(Lincoln)

Normanton,Tom

Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Clegg,SirWalter

RhysWilliams,SirBrandon

Cockeram,Eric

Roberts, M. (CardiffNW)

Dean, Paul(NorthSomerset)

Sainsbury,HonTimothy

Dorrell,Stephen

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Dover,Denshore

Shepherd,Colin(Hereford)

Dunn,Robert(Dartford)

Sims,Roger

Fairgrieve,SirRussell

Skeet, T. H. H.

Fenner, MrsPeggy

Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

Fletcher-Cooke,SirCharles

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Forman,Nigel

Stevens,Martin

Fox,Marcus

Thompson,Donald

Goodhew,Victor

Thome,Neil(IlfordSouth)

Goodlad,Alastair

Thornton,Malcolm

Gower,SirRaymond

Townend,John(Bridlington)

Greenway,Harry

Waddington,David

Hamilton,Michael(Salisbury)

Waldegrave,HonWilliam

Hayhoe,Barney

Watson,John

Heddle,John

Wells,Bowen

Howell, Ralph (NNorfolk)

Wheeler,John

Kilfedder,JamesA.

Whitney,Raymond

Kimball,SirMarcus

Wickenden,Keith

King, RtHonTom

Wiggin,Jerry

Lawrence,Ivan

Lee,John

Tellers for the Ayes:

MacKay, John (Argyll)

Mr. David Hunt and Mr. John Cope.

Major,John

NOES

Barnett,Guy(Greenwich)

Maxton,John

Callaghan, Jim (Midd't'n&P)

Maynard, Miss Joan

Campbell-Savours,Dale

Miller,Hal(B'grove)

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Mitchell,R.C.(Soton Itchen)

Dalyell,Tam

Powell,Raymond(Ogmore)

Davis, T. (B'ham, Stechf'd)

Rooker, J. W.

Dixon,Donald

Sandelson,Neville

Evans, John (Newton)

Spriggs,Leslie

Fletcher,Ted (Darlington)

Tinn,James

Ford,Ben

Wainwright,R.(ColneV)

George,Bruce

Wells,John(Maidstone)

Ginsburg,David

White, FrankR.

Golding,John

Wilson,Gordon (DundeeE)

Harrison,RtHonWalter

Wrigglesworth,Ian

Haynes, Frank

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Tellers for the Noes:

McNamara,Kevin

Mr. Bob Cryer and Mr. Christopher Price.

McWilliam,John

Question accordingly agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes past Nine o' clock.

PRIME MINISTER
  Engagements
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  Under-Secretary of State for the Environment
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ENERGY
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INDUSTRY
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ENVIRONMENT
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TRANSPORT
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HOME DEPARTMENT
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Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Norwich.

British Experts Overseas: Salary Supplements
Lord Hatch of Lusby: 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 changes they have made since 1979 in the supplementation schemes for British personnel serving in overseas countries and whether they intend to make further changes.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, rates of supplement have been reviewed annually. In certain countries for which recruitment and retention of staff present little difficulty the payment of an inducement as part of a supplement for serving overseas has been discontinued or reduced for new contracts. Regulations on advance of salaries at the beginning of new contracts have been relaxed to some extent. No major changes are planned.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, may I ask him whether he is aware that the supplements now being paid to British citizens serving overseas have been drastically reduced since the last general election? Is he further aware that in Zambia, which is the country I am mainly interested in at the moment, it is planned that the total number of recipients of supplements is to fall from 883 to under 700 by the beginning of 1983; and can he equate this with the pledge that the Government have made on a number of occasions to further the cause of the transfer of technology from the rich world to the poor?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, as I said in my original Answer, the reason for the payment of supplements is that they should act, in part, as an inducement, to persuade people to serve in countries overseas. What I did not say, however, was that these supplements are based on what are called analogues, the object of which is to bring the level of pay in the country to which they are going up to the corresponding level of pay in this country, assuming that the aid would be payable in some form for the job anyway. The noble Lord referred, particularly in the case of Zambia, to the reduction in supplementation schemes. This is likely to happen anyway wherever in the world they are paid, because the whole object of the exercise is to get the local people in the host countries to fill the jobs.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I am afraid I cannot accept that explanation and I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that, in order to get local people trained to do the technical and the academic jobs which British and other foreign experts are doing now, it is essential to have the experts there to do the training? Is he not aware that in many cases—in the universities, in the schools and in technical occupations—the performance of that operation is being run down because of the lack of foreign experts? Is this not completely contrary to the communiqués which have been regularly signed by members of the present Government promising to further the transfer of technologists? Is it not the case that more British young people, in particular, are needed in the developing world in order to help the developing people themselves to become trained so that they can do the job?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, of course I appreciate the need for experts, but, as I was saying just now, as the experts fulfil their role and create local experts the need for foreign experts must of its very nature be reduced. However, the increasingly specialised nature of many remaining posts will ensure that there is a need for external assistance of this kind for a number of years, and, to that extent, I would agree with the noble Lord.

Zambia: Aid for Transport Costs
2.42 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: 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 whether they are prepared to offer any assistance towards the transport problems of Central Africa and, in particular, of Zambia.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, we already provide a lot of assistance to Central Africa in the transport field. In the specific case of Zambia, we part fund the costs of some 60 British experts who work for the Government of Zambia in the transport sector, and are considering meeting the capital costs of a rail bridge over the Kafue River.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that as a result of the actions taken by the illegal régime in Rhodesia during the Rhodesian war there are still bridges and roads destroyed, which are handicapping the development of the transport system of the whole of Central Africa? Is he further aware that the Zambian people themselves have taxed themselves specifically to assist in the repair of this infrastructure? Would he agree that the British Government have a very special responsibility, in view of their responsibilities in Rhodesia at that time, to assist in the restoration of what was destroyed by the illegal régime?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I appreciate that

927
there are tremendous transport difficulties in Zambia as, indeed, there are in southern Africa as a whole—which is why we welcomed the southern African development co-ordination conference and why we have pledged money in this direction; but I am not convinced that the extra pressure is put upon us as a result of the illegality of the former régime in Zimbabwe.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, were we not informed during the days of the illegal régime that all the problems of Zambia's transport were going to be solved by the benevolence of the communists who were building a splendid road, bridges and a railway from Dar-es-Salaam? What has happened to it?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I do not think that we were told quite as much as the noble Lord would lead us to expect from his supplementary question. However, it is true that the Chinese offered tremendous aid and assistance, both technical and monetary, in building a railway between Tanzania and Zimbabwe. I know that both these countries have managed to reschedule their debts in this connection, but I cannot tell the noble Lord the details of such.
Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many of the donor countries even from the EEC have not yet fulfilled the pledges that they made about aiding transport in Central Africa? Is he further aware that this is short-sighted since we need the minerals, if nothing else, from Central Africa, and without transport we shall not get them?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords, I was aware of that. This is something which is currently under discussion during our presidency of the EEC. The point that is sometimes missed in all this is that, although as the noble Baroness has said the aid was promised, quite a lot of this is rescheduling of existing bilateral aid.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, would the Minister say whether the help that we are giving in transport to Zimbabwe covers also the development of internal civil aviation in that country?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lord, I regret that I shall have to write on that subject to the noble Lord. I have no information on that point.
Lord Hawke: My Lords, as there is a great shortage of rolling stock in southern Africa generally and in this country we are desperately short of jobs using steel, would Her Majesty's Government consider priming the pump by placing orders for locomotives in this country and hiring them out to those other countries, basing the rent on the price of copper?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, this is something that we could look at; but I do not think that it is practicable under current legislation because aid, by the direction of Parliament, must be given directly to the Governments concerned.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there have been excellent crops in Zimbabwe this year, particularly of maize, but they are unable to transport these food supplies to other parts of Africa because of the collapse of the transport system? Would he regard efficient transport in the area as a top priority in any aid programme he proposes to support?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords. Eleven years ago I was a volunteer in Zambia where I was advising on the growing of tropical fruit and vegetables. Transport was then one of the major problems and I understand from my advisers that it is so still; and it is one of the things which gets priority.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, while welcoming what the noble Lord has said regarding the co-ordination committee of central African and African countries in southern Africa, may I ask whether an essential priority in securing that economic co-operation is aid to the transport system? Further, in view of the fact that bridges and roads were destroyed by the illegal Government in rebellion against our Government, have not we a special responsibility to rehabilitate the transport system there?
Lord Skelmersdale: No, my Lords. I have already tried to explain that I do not hold that view.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will consider a practical suggestion which follows on the point regarding locomotives made by the noble Lord opposite? Would he consider not building new locomotives but providing the technical expertise to repair the steam locomotives which are still there in Zambia? Their use could drastically and constructively cut the oil bill if they were substituted for the present diesel engines. The locomotives are there—
Noble Lords: Order!
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Baroness Young): My Lords, the House has been very patient with the noble Lord. I should be glad if he would ask his question briefly and not put in so many supplementaries.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I am trying to explain the background of my question. The steam locomotives are there. They were made in Doncaster and Manchester—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, will the noble Lord consider the possibility of making a contribution by sending experts from this country in order to put these locomotives back into use?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, as always, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will consider any suggestion which comes from your Lordships' House.

The Emergency Services
2.51 p.m.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider taking steps to reorganise the emergency services into a single unit comprising the police, firemen, and ambulancemen.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Belstead): My Lords, responding to an emergency call is a vital part of the role of the police, fire and ambulance services. The Government have the highest regard for the work that they do. But the demands made of each service in responding to emergencies and to their other responsibilities are quite different and call for different professional skills in which each service is trained. The important thing is that these services should work together wherever necessary and the Government are satisfied that there is close co-operation between them.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his reply. May I ask him whether he is aware that under the heading of what we understand as an emergency, a riot, a fire, civil disobedience sometimes resulting in the need for the use of the police, the fire services and the ambulances, the situation has changed? Expertise has been increased among all three arms, and ought there not now to be consideration in view of the changes I have adumbrated over the past few years of more co-ordination among the three arms of this very vital service? This would show that we care for the magnificent work that the noble Lord has said that they are doing. I approve of this and give full praise. I hope that I can do something to help them in their request for further co-ordination.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, in the case of the types of emergencies that the noble Lord mentioned in his supplementary question, the police would be responsible for initial co-ordination. The fire service, in addition to its fire-fighting and fire prevention responsibilities, undertakes what is called special services, and ambulancemen are an essential part of the emergency services, although their work is part of the work of the National Health Service. Thus I agree with the noble Lord that the work of these three services is interrelated on many occasions, although they remain under separate organisation.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether something like this is already being done in connection with civil defence? If that is so, what is the difficulty in organising it?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, there is indeed initial co-ordination in civil defence in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, suggests. But still the services remain separately organised with separate skills and separate functions.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord this? In so far as he has acknowledged the work of these three arms of the emergency services—and I am most grateful that he has done so—would he be prepared, please, to ask the Government whether they would now consider one element that is causing some form of irritation; namely, that the ambulance staffs fall behind their colleagues in the police and fire services with regard to remuneration?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, with the best will in the world towards the ambulancemen, it is part of the separate organisations that matters of pay and conditions of service are also separately negotiated.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, could my noble friend confirm that he disagrees wholeheartedly with the efforts of many of the political friends of the noble Lord opposite who has asked the Question that civil defence expenditure and effort should be run down?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the expenditure on civil defence has been increased by the present Government. I believe very deeply that that is the right policy.
Lord Inglewood: It has been reduced in some counties!
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, may I ask whether the Minister would consider suggesting to Her Majesty the Queen that we should institute an ambulance medal on the same lines as a police medal for long, meritorious service?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I think that that interesting suggestion from the noble Baroness goes a little wide of the original Question.

UK Continental Shelf Exploration Wells
2.55 p.m.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many exploration wells have been drilled on the United Kingdom continental shelf this year, and are now being drilled.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, 33 exploration wells have been drilled this year. In addition, seven exploration wells were being drilled as at 12th November 1981, the last date for which there are figures.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that information. Could he tell us how that figure, a total of 40, compares with the figures for the last several years?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords. As I said, 40 to-date this year; 32 in 1980; and 33 in 1979.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, despite that situation, are the Government aware that the present excessive tax régime is a positive disincentive to exploration in the North Sea?
Lord Skelmersdale: No, my Lords, I do not think that we are aware of that at all. The indications are that, far from slowing down the number of exploration wells being drilled, they are increasing, as I said in my original Answer to my noble friend. We therefore have no reason at all to believe that the introduction of any new fiscal arrangements is having any significant effect.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, is my noble friend aware, in the light of his answer to the noble Lord's supplementary question, that the oil industry has made a submission to the Government—a united submission—and has said: "For heaven's sake, do not do any new licensing until we have got through the budget and see what conditions are"? Is he not aware that a whole number of companies have delayed their proposed developments and, in certain cases, are threatening to abandon them altogether?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am very much aware that there are two submissions from the oil companies currently being examined in Whitehall, both by my own department and by the Treasury. These are the UKOOA ones, which I think my noble friend has in mind in asking his supplementary question, and also the BRINDEX one. I rather think that this goes a little wide of the Question on the Order Paper which refers to exploration wells rather than production or any other form of well.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, is the noble Lord able to give us a breakdown of the wells drilled for exploration as between oil and gas? How many were drilled in the expectation of oil and how many in the expectation of gas?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give that breakdown. But of course, as the House will know, one is never quite sure which one will find, or indeed whether one will find both together.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, will the noble Lord comment as to whether the proposals for the sell-off of BNOC assets in the North Sea is a disincentive to new developments and new investment in that area?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I do not think that the admission of private capital into BNOC makes any difference at all. Each petroleum production licence granted carries an agreed work programme stipulating the minimum number of wells to be drilled in the initial term of the licence. We believe that the removal of BNOC privileges has helped to stimulate drilling activity, which we expect to see further encouraged by privatisation.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that in fact the chairman of BNOC has welcomed the proposal to introduce private capital
932
into that organisation and the corresponding relief from Treasury interference that will come? Can he also tell us this: Arising out of another exploration well drilled, is it the case—as has been widely rumoured—that the offshore supplies office has had very little opportunity this year to generate new North Sea jobs just because of the slowdown in drilling?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords, I am certainly aware of the views of the chairman of the BNOC in this connection. I must say I agree with him, and I would hope that other nationalised concerns saw the situation in the same light as he does. As far as employment prospects in offshore supplies are concerned, there are really two different points here which perhaps I ought to make. There is currently a shortage of rigs in the North Sea, meaning that foreign rigs may well come in. That might mean a decline in the United Kingdom's share of those rigs but not a decline in employment, since those people currently working will remain and, depending on the origin of foreign rigs, this could well mean an increase in employment of our own labour.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, when considering the representations made by the oil industry about the excessive tax régime, will the Government also bear in mind the question of the short-term fields?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords, I am sure that this will be considered.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lord Belstead, with the leave of the House, will repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on television licence fees. He will be followed by my noble friend Lord Bellwin, who will repeat a Statement on lorries, people and the environment.

Fire Service College Board (Abolition) Bill [H.L.]
Lord Denham: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Belstead, I beg to introduce a Bill to repeal Section 23(2) of the Fire Services Act 1947, to abolish the Fire Service College Board established there under and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be read a first time.
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

Agricultural Training Board Bill [H.L.]
3.2 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, I rise to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The House will have seen that there are two consolidation Bills in my name for this afternoon and although I will move them separately they happen to be connected with one another. So,

933
with the leave of the House, I will speak to them together.
Both are pure consolidation, consolidating the law relating to industrial training boards. The law relating to the Agricultural Training Board has developed separately from the rest and so it has been thought easier to consolidate in two separate Bills, the first dealing exclusively with the Agricultural Board, and the Industrial Training Bill dealing with all the rest. Unless any noble Lord objects, the Bills will, in the ordinary way, be referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills. I beg to move that the Agricultural Training Board Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

Industrial Training Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

Hops Marketing Bill [H.L.]
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment be discharged.—(Earl Ferrers.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Mental Health (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
3.5 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Elton): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Mental Health Act 1959 was a landmark in the development of care for the mentally disordered. It established many important principles. Among them are those which require that where care and treatment in hospital are needed, they are given upon a voluntary basis wherever that is possible and that, in those few cases where compulsion does prove necessary, it must be subject to strict controls. I doubt whether anyone would challenge those principles today; this Bill seeks to amend the 1959 Act but it does not challenge those principles. On the contrary, it seeks to ensure that they are more perfectly implemented. The Government still see the 1959 Act as the foundation of modern practice in providing for
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those few mentally disordered people for whom compulsory powers are needed. Some of those patients are offenders, detained as a result of court proceedings; others have been convicted of no offence but are admitted to hospital and there detained under applications made by those empowered to do so under the Act. These people comprise only a fraction of the mentally disordered in hospital. As for the number under guardianship at any one time, it is likely to be only about 130.
The numbers may seem small, but the importance of this Bill should not be judged solely upon the number of people it affects. It touches upon principles of profound importance affecting the liberties and rights of those of our fellow citizens who are, perhaps, least able of all to look out for themselves. The workings of this part of the 1959 Act have been under scrutiny in one way and another for a considerable time. If I go back no further than 1975, your Lordships will immediately recall the report of the Committee on Mentally Abnormal Offenders. This committee was chaired by my noble friend Lord Butler and I deeply regret, as I know will all Members of this House, that he is unable to be with us today. I hope it will not be long before we see him in full health in this House again. However, my noble friend was kind enough to write to me last week and in part of his letter he said:
"I would be perfectly happy if you would tell noble Lords that I support the Bill in its various aspects, including those referring to my own Report".
In the same letter he expressed in general terms a wish that we could go further in implementing the changes suggested in his report or in the Blue Book on the Mental Health Act 1959. I know that other noble Lords share that wish. Let me say at this stage that the Government's mind is not closed to any reasonable proposals. We are not bound to party lines on this legislation. There are none. This is a non-political Bill. There are, however, two considerations that will bind the Government. They are the interests of the people affected by the legislation and the question of practicability. Much of this ground will, I think, be suitably tested at Committee stage, but may I draw to your Lordships' attention one important consideration. The instrument that lies to our hand and for which parliamentary time is available is a Bill to amend the Mental Health Act 1959. Much of what some noble Lords wish to achieve can only properly be accomplished by the amendment of other statutes. Thirty-four of the recommendations made in the Butler Report relate, for instance, to the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964. This Bill is not an appropriate instrument for that purpose and a separate Bill would be needed to accomplish it.
On the other hand, I am glad to draw your Lordships' attention to our provisions, for instance, for remands to hospitals and for interim hospital orders. These arise directly from the Butler Report and are already in the Bill. There are others, such as the proposals on the treatment of patients without their consent, which have come into the Bill from Butler via the 1978 White Paper. By one route or another 17 of my noble friend's recommendations which require legislation have reached this Bill. It is also the Government's intention to implement a further 10 recommendations

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relating to admission to and discharge from hospital of offenders; but legislation is not necessary for these. It will be done by the issue of official guidance.
If I were asked to list briefly the most important and beneficial provisions in this Bill, they would be: the requirement that, except in particular circumstances, people should not be admitted to detention for treatment in hospital if their condition is not treatable; the provision of much more frequent access to mental health review tribunals; the more stringent regulation of the use of treatment without the consent of the patient; the institution of a special health authority, with particular responsibility to oversee the powers to detain and treat patients under the Act; the institution of interim hospital orders; the power to remand to hospital for assessment; and, I think, the limitation of the powers of a guardian to apply only to people over 16 years of age and their curtailment to what is strictly necesssry.
Legislation by amendment is never a simple matter, and the 51 clauses of this Bill provide no exception. For that reason, we published together with the Bill a White Paper which I hope your Lordships will have found, or will find, a useful aid to interpreting its provisions. That White Paper does not follow the sequence of clauses in the Bill. For the sake of clarity, it picks up a series of central concepts and draws to each the relevant provisions wherever they appear in it. In Committee, of course, we have to follow a different convention. We have to follow the sequence of clauses, and I will now try to summarise them briefly for your Lordships in preparation for the next stage. As there are 51 of them, however, and as the White Paper is available, I hope I may be forgiven if I by-pass a few and lump some of the others together.
Part I of the Bill contains two clauses and deals with definitions. Your Lordships will note that the term "mental handicap" is to replace the more familiar and the more pejorative term of "subnormality". I think I should, at this point, mention to your Lordships that I am aware of a body of opinion forcefully held by distinguished people that mentally handicapped people ought not ever to have been included in the principal Act and that one purpose of this Bill should be not to change the nomenclature but to take them out of the Act altogether. I certainly appreciate the strength of the conviction with which this view is held.
I know that it is held by my noble friend Lord Renton and that he has the very weighty support of MENCAP, of which he is the distinguished chairman. His views carry for us an extra interest and an extra weight, because he was himself Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office when the 1959 Act was passing into law. Indeed, I believe that he was actually responsible for the whole of Part V. I think that this concern springs from a desire, which I share, to make clear in the minds of all—particularly of those who administer justice and who keep the peace—that mental handicap is an unalterable condition, usually acquired before birth, whereas mental illness is a treatable condition acquired at any age. The conditions are not the same and to have them lumped together in one Act of Parliament obscures the difference.
Being aware of this view and of the strength with which it is held, I have tried to see what can be done,
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and it is not as much as my noble friend would wish. At present, to separate the two conditions within one Act of Parliament is practicable; to separate them into two different Acts of Parliament is not. We can make the distinction that many people want by consolidation. The rest of the 1959 Act has been much amended, and consolidation will, in any case, follow close on the heels of this Bill. Consolidation takes very little parliamentary time, but legislation takes a great deal; and time for two Bills on such closely related subjects is not in any sort of prospect. I earnestly hope that we can keep some such end in view, but we should not delay the passing of this Bill, which embraces so many objects which all of us want to see accomplished, by trying to use it for a purpose to which it is not suited.
It may, of course, be argued—though I hope it will not—that the provisions in the Act that we are now amending for the mentally handicapped and the severely mentally handicapped are unnecessary; that they can simply be deleted, rather than being transferred into a separate statute. I wish that were so, but it is not. Nor do I think that it would be in the interests of the people concerned if it were. Mental handicap leaves some people with the biological drives of adults and the minds of children which cannot dependably control them.
It simply is not the case that they can always be cared for in the community. Mentally handicapped people differ from one another very much. Some make very agreeable friends and delightful members of the family. Others are best cared for away from home and some are very much in need of detention and can, in fact, be very violent. I have a catalogue of cases which I may have to deploy in Committee, but which I shall not draw upon now. Suffice it to say that every case shows a person with no classifiable mental disorder other than mental handicap who should never go to prison. There are cases among them of such people eventually emerging from the stabilising influence of hospital to return and live in the community.
It may be argued by some that, when a mentally handicapped person becomes violent, he is suffering not only from mental handicap but also from some form of mental illness. I am not a doctor, but I can only say that the people who have made the diagnosis in the catalogue of cases that I have read were doctors, and they were convinced that the patients' condition amounted to mental handicap only and that they were not mentally ill.
There are, again, some who would say that it is axiomatic that no person suffering only from mental handicap can need to be detained in hospital, either for his own safety or for anyone else's, and that, therefore, the diagnoses must ipso facto be wrong. To test this axiom, I have to turn to a more expert authority than my own. The weightiest opinion that I can find is that of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. That is the professional body for trained psychiatrists and comprises a vast body of clinical experience. It is their expressed opinion that there is a very small minority of mentally handicapped people without any other mental disorder, who need to be detained in hospital. That opinion may be regretted; it may be questioned. My noble friend Lord Renton has questioned it in another place and I expect him to question it again here today. But the fact remains

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that it is the most authoritative opinion we have available to us and I have to accept it.
If we were to take mental handicap out of the Act, a few—a very few—people suffering from it would be denied the stabilising care which they need. What is more, on the appointed day a considerable number of other patients—some hundreds—would cease to be detainable anywhere and some of them would, I fear, without doubt constitute a considerable threat to the public. That is not an acceptable result.
I return now to the text of the Bill and to Part II, which deals with compulsory admissions to hospital and to guardianship. The power of compulsory admission in an emergency has become the most widely used of all the compulsory powers. In 1979, nearly 8,400 patients were admitted under this power. This frequent use was never intended, and the Bill suggests changes in prodecure to help ensure that the power is used only when there really is an emergency. Clause 3 (3) also restricts the right to make an emergency application to the nearest relative—rather than any relative—and the mental welfare officer. On the subject of mental welfare officers—if I may be forgiven for stepping, for once, out of sequence—the Bill provides in Clause 43 for their replacement by specially designated and specially trained social workers, who will be known as approved social workers.
The power of compulsory admission for 28 days for obversation is a power which has proved useful. However, we want to introduce an important new safeguard for patients subject to it, and Clause 3 provides that, in future, they will be able to make an application within the first 14 days of their detention to a mental health review tribunal.
Clause 4 provides for changes in the grounds for admission to longer-term detention under Section 26 of the Act. These are designed to make sure that this power is used only for the purposes of treatment. The clause makes a new special provision for those suffering from psychopathic disorder or mental handicap. It provides that no such patient may be admitted under this power, unless medical treatment is likely to alleviate or prevent a deterioration of his condition. We have taken to referring to this as the "treatability" test and we shall doubtless use this term in debate. It replaces the existing provision, that patients, other than offenders, suffering from psychopathic disorder or mental handicap may not be detained after they reach the age of 21. We now know that some people over that age and suffering from those conditions can benefit from treatment, while others under that age may not.
Under Clause 12(5), the conditions for renewal of detention are also strengthened. First, the treat-ability test, to which I have just referred, will be applied to all patients. Secondly, the same conditions will be applied as are applied to cases for admission. However, the Bill provides an alternative test for the severely mentally handicapped and the mentally ill, if the treatability test is not met. Such a patient may be detained if he is unlikely to be able to care for himself, to obtain the care he needs or to be able to protect himself from serious exploitation if he is discharged. This recognises the need that some of these severely handicapped people have for the care and support that can be given to them in hospital,
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even though little can be done for them in terms of improving their condition and even though they are not willing to stay there.
The changes we are making in Clause 12 should help to ensure that no one is detained for longer than necessary and that no one can simply be forgotten. For those detained under the longer term powers, the periods of detention are halved. Application for renewal of detention will have to be made at the end of each period and the patient will then be able to apply to the mental health review tribunal. This means that opportunities for access to a tribunal will be doubled. In addition, there will be automatic hearings for patients detained under Section 26. If patients do not themselves apply, hospital managers will have a duty to refer them to a tribunal after the first six months of their detention and, again, three years after any renewal of detention. This will afford protection to anyone who is too disturbed to apply and has no relative or friend to take the initiative for him.
The need to detain patients who are already voluntarily in hospital can cause difficulties. The patient may be in a distressed state and be quite unable to recognise the wisdom of staying in hospital, at least until the crisis passes. The Act already provides that in such cases the doctor responsible for the patient can authorise his detention for up to three days under Section 30. But the doctor may not always be there in an emergency. Clause 6 therefore provides safeguards for staff by stating that another doctor may exercise this power of detention if nominated by the patient's doctor to act in his absence. In addition, certain nurses are given a carefully controlled holding power for up to a maximum of six hours until the doctor can be brought.
The Act increases, in most cases to double, the frequency with which patients have access to mental health review tribunals. The main concern of mental health review tribunals must therefore be with their function of deciding whether or not a particular patient is properly detained within the terms of the Act. But the interests of detained patients go much wider than this, and they need to be carefully protected, too. There is therefore a need for a body entirely independent of those involved in the procedures of admission, detention and renewal to look after these wider interests. Such a body was suggested in the Boynton Report.
The Bill therefore proposes that a new special health authority be set up. It will be called the Mental Health Act Commission. The commission's duties will be delegated to it by the Secretary of State. It will therefore be directly accountable to him and will have his considerable authority. It will be concerned only with mentally disordered patients who are compulsorily detained in hospital under the powers of the Act. It will visit hospitals, examine records and its members will be available both to patients and to staff. It will bring to the attention of hospital managers and, if necessary, of the Secretary of State any case where the proper procedures for detention have not been followed. It will also take up on request any complaint about a patient's treatment which, in the view of the patient, has not been properly dealt with by the hospital managers. The commission will operate as a

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multi-disciplinary body from various centres across the country. It will be composed of about 70 people, including lawyers, doctors, nurses, social workers, psychologists and lay people. It will have important functions relating to the giving of treatment without a patient's consent.
The Bill provides in this matter that some sorts of treatment shall never be given without the patient's consent and that that consent must be supported by a second medical opinion. These drastic treatments, such as psycho-surgery, will be listed in regulations or in a code of practice. Other items of treatment which do not give rise to such special concern but which do involve physical intervention, such as medication or electro-convulsive therapy, may be given without the patient's consent but not without the support of a second opinion given to the decision of the responsible medical officer. The remaining forms of treatment, such as general medical and nursing care, may be given without the patient's consent, if that is possible, but only by or under the direction of his responsible medical officer. And often, of course, they cannot be given without the co-operation of the patient.
The second opinion to which I have referred in each case can only be given by a doctor appointed by the commission. Very often he will himself be a member of the commission. I have already emphasised the multi-disciplinary character of the commission. It is our intention to secure that there is a constant exchange of views between these doctors and the rest of the commission about the cases with which they deal. This will ensure that non-medical opinion is fully involved in establishing the principles and the criteria to be observed in the sanctioning or, let me emphasise, in the refusal to sanction treatment without the patient's consent. This is another area in which I expect penetrating debate at the Committee stage.
The commission will itself consider what treatments should be listed in the regulations as giving rise to special concern, and will advise Ministers accordingly. For other items, it will draw up a code of practice and keep it up to date. The commission will also monitor the procedures applied where patients do give their consent to treatment. This will be part of its protective function towards detained patients when its members visit hospitals and interview patients and staff.
The commission will be a separate body, independent of management, and I believe it will build up a body of knowledge and experience which can be applied effectively to help detained patients, and those who care for them, and to throw light on the whole field of mental health.
I turn now to the provisions in the Bill which deal specifically with patients who, before their admission to hospital, have been the subject of proceedings in the criminal courts. Part III of the Bill amends sections of the 1959 Act which give powers to the courts to order the detention in hospital of persons convicted of criminal offences and which give to the Home Secretary powers to transfer mentally disordered persons to hospital.
Clause 18(4) provides that the treatability test must be applied by the court before it can make a hospital order on any person who is suffering from a psychopathic disorder or who is mentally handicapped. The
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Home Secretary will have to apply the same test before he can transfer a prisoner who falls into either of these categories from prison to hospital. Both sorts of patient will benefit from the increased access to tribunals.
Clause 26 amends the criteria for the making of a restriction order so as to make it clear that such an order should be made only when it is necessary to protect the public from "serious harm". This is one of the changes recommended, again, by the Butler Committee. The most important provisions in the Bill as it affects offender patients are contained in Clauses 27 to 29. They provide that, if a person is suspected by the court of suffering from a mental disorder, he may be remanded to hospital for a report upon his mental condition. The court may also remand him to hospital rather than to prison if his condition warrants detention in hospital for treatment. A court may be in doubt as to whether a convicted offender's mental disorder is in fact such as to warrant detention in hospital for treatment. In that case, it can make an interim hospital order—again a new provision—and await the results of a period under hospital detention before deciding whether hospital or prison is the place for him to go.
The availability of a new power to make an interim hospital order will cause some small increase in the demand for hospital places. The creation of a new power for a court to make a remand to hospital will have a much more substantial effect on the demand for National Health Service resources. The service cannot be expected to meet this demand instantly. Additional facilities and more staff could well be required. The Government's intention is therefore that the operation of these two new provisions should be phased in gradually over a two- or three-year period after the main provisions of the Bill are brought into effect.
I must now refer very briefly to something which does not yet appear in the Bill. There is under the present legislation a small class of patients who cannot be discharged by any authority save that of the Home Secretary alone. In all other cases, the patient can have his case considered by the mental health review tribunal and the tribunal is free to order a discharge, if it thinks fit. Offender patients restricted under Section 65 of the Act may also have their cases considered by the tribunal, but the tribunal in this case cannot order discharge. It can only recommend discharge to the Home Secretary, who may or may not accept its advice.
Your Lordships may know that in a recent judgment in the European Court of Human Rights it was noted that restricted patients also should have access to a body of a judicial character with power to order discharge. I hope, therefore, to bring amendments before your Lordships to achieve this reform at Committee stage. Their terms are not yet finally decided, but I expect them to seek to give to mental health review tribunals a power to discharge in the case of restricted patients as well as others. As many of them will have committed very serious crimes, it is our intention to ensure that each tribunal panel shall include an experienced lawyer with experience at recorder level. There will be full opportunity for the House to consider the details of the new arrangements when the

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necessary amendments to the Bill are put before your Lordships.
I have dealt so far with patients detained in hospital. I turn finally to the small number of mentally disordered people who are received into guardianship in the community because they need a degree of supervision or control. Until now a guardian has had the same powers as a father has over a child of less than 14 years. The Bill proposes that the powers should be reduced to what is essential. They will consist of the power to require a patient to live at a certain place, to attend for training, treatment or occupation and to give access to doctors, social workers or otherwise specified persons. It will no longer be possible for patients under 16 to be received into guardianship. We feel that the children's legislation is much more appropriate for them. As with powers to detain in hospital, the duration of guardianship powers will be halved, and therefore applications to the tribunal will be more frequent.
Finally, there is implementation. The Bill specifies that all but three of its provisions should be implemented on 30th September 1983. We hope for Royal Assent by the summer of next year; thereafter we need to consolidate these and other amendments to turn the Act into a form in which it can easily be used. That opportunity may also be used, if your Lordships so wish, to separate the provisions which affect the mentally handicapped from those which affect the mentally ill.
The time before implementation will be needed also to draw up the regulations, to set up the Mental Health Act Commission, to strengthen the mental health review tribunals, to publish guidance and to make other administrative arrangements. Those will include arrangements to phase in gradually the provisions for automatic reviews by mental health tribunals of patients who have not recently been before the tribunal. We shall begin with those patients who have had the longest wait, and we want to do that as quickly as possible so that there will not be a monstrous backlog to be dealt with when the Bill comes into force.
This is a good Bill. I regret that because of the Second Reading procedure I have had to speak to it in such an analytical and dry manner, because it is a Bill in which I think we can all put our hearts. It is a good Bill, but it is a Bill which almost everyone here will have their own ideas about how they can make it better. I hope your Lordships will agree with me that it is a good Bill and that you will accept that the Government intend to make it better if that is practicable and in the people's interests. To that end I and my noble friend Lord Cullen of Ashbourne, who is to reply to this debate, will listen with the closest interest to noble Lords who have listened with such patience and such courtesy to me. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Elton.)
3.34 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, may I first extend a welcome to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, who is dealing, I believe, with his first Bill on his appointment to ministerial responsibility. The noble Lord has indeed taken on a tough task in following the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who set such a high standard and was a formidable opponent, but nevertheless was
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approachable, seeking a degree of co-operation. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, has already extended courtesy and co-operation towards me, and although tough exchanges lie ahead, particularly in the field of social security, I am sure that the atmosphere of reasonable co-operation will continue.
The noble Lord has outlined with clear detail the provisions of this very important Bill. It is a Bill of general appeal which is completely devoid of party political divisions, following in many respects the conclusions of the 1978 White Paper initiated by my right honourable friend David Ennals and debated in another place on 22nd February 1979, with unfortunately the probability of legislation being thwarted by the general election a couple of months later. I refrain from making political capital on that point, my Lords.
The Bill now before us differs to a major extent in the proposal to set up a Mental Health Act Commission and I will refer to this later. In addition, the Bill before us does not include the 1978 White Paper proposals to give patients information of their rights on entering a hospital, or to inform patients within 24 hours if their status is changed from formal to informal or vice versa. As patients' rights is almost the theme of this Bill it seems to me to be a regrettable oversight, but I am sure it will be capable of adjustment during the Committee and Report stages. The Government and the noble Lord, Lord Elton, have indicated the possibility of accepting or bringing forward amendments during the various stages before Royal Assent. This is a welcome change, may I say in passing, from our experiences of other legislation brought forward by the Government, who introduce their own amendments but steadfastly refuse to accept others.
The change indicated in Clause 1, to amend the 1959 Act by the replacement of "subnormality" by "mental handicap", is very confusing indeed. There is a considerable difference between mental handicap and mental illness. The all-embracing phrase "mental handicap" is completely misleading. The definition of "mental disorder" remains as in Section 4 of the 1959 Act, which includes the phrase:
"and any other disorder or disability of mind".
This remains an unsatisfactory and vague definition, which could bring into eligibility for detention on a compulsory basis many classes of people who could not be classified as "mentally ill" but who need care and treatment outside mental hospitals. A clearer definition of mental disorder is needed, but this is a complex and difficult matter. Perhaps it would be more direct and simple to delete the phrase:
"any other disorder or disability of mind".
I should like to repeat what I mentioned some years ago in another place, concerning an incident in which I was involved before the 1959 Act became law. During the 1945–50 Parliament a constituent who was a Justice of the peace had been called in to certify a young woman for admission to a mental hospital. The justice of the peace was not happy about the case but was persuaded to give consent and then went home and told his wife. She was a determined but motherly lady and was not at all satisfied and said: "That girl is crossed in love. Go and get her and bring her to

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me and I will look after her". The justice of the peace did as his wife told him; and then of course he was in serious trouble and came to me for help. Eventually I was able to persuade the authorities to let things stand and the young woman remained in the J.P.'s home in the care of his wife, where I am glad to say she fully recovered.
Because of that, my Lords, and other experiences, I have often felt, and still feel, that there are many people detained in mental hospitals who need not be there if adequate facilities for residential and day care were available. It is true that there have been welcome improvements over the years, but such facilities are still far from adequate and in some cases have been reduced because of financial restraints.
I accept, of course, that the situation goes outside the comparatively narrow scope of this Bill, but, on the other hand, if the Mental Health Act Commission does its job (and indeed I wish it well) then the demand for greater facilities such as those I have mentioned will increase. And there is of course the problem of discharge after care. Many patients who may be discharged, particularly when the commission gets to work, will in fact face discharge after some periods of detention in a mental hospital, and as such will face great problems in acclimatising themselves to the great world outside which has changed considerably since they went in. It is a problem we have to face as a result of this Act.
I can only quote an experience I had when I was the Member for Norwich, North—and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich may know this particular facility. A street of old houses had been taken over by a trust and converted to modern standards, and two of them were devoted to the use of people discharged from the nearest local mental hospitals in order to acclimatise them to the great world outside. They were supervised by an ex-nurse from the hospital. I had tea with them and they were very happy people. This is a problem which is bound to arise as soon as the commission gets to work; there will be people discharged who will have to face rehabilitation in the world outside, and rehabilitation of course would not be able to be achieved within the mental hospital.
There is a very big difference between mental handicap and mental illness. This is a field where I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Renton, will later speak with the authority and experience that he undoubtedly possesses, as indeed he did in another place during the debate on the 1978 White Paper. For those noble Lords who would like to read that speech, it is in columns 680 to 685 of the Official Report for 22nd February 1979. I will not draw any commission for that advertisement!
The position of the mentally handicapped is not dealt with within this Bill, but the Government have given a clear and definite undertaking to deal with this when they bring in a consolidation of mental health legislation very soon. Even on this point no one will accept that in this field the provision and services are at all satisfactory. Financial restraint has restricted or reduced facilities at a time when there is a need for expansion. Before I go any further I would draw attention to the fact that a number of
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complex legal points arise from the Bill, particularly dealing with appeals in mental health tribunals, access to the courts, and some others. I do not presume to attempt to deal with these, but my noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan will be winding up the debate from these Benches and he undoubtedly will extend to the House his experience and professional expertise in dealing with them.
On compulsory admission procedures, Section 29 of the 1959 Act is retained, but Clause 6 of the new Bill defines the emergency period as 72 hours for detention and determination. This, I feel, is too long. It is reasonable to expect that a hospital could obtain a second medical opinion within 24 hours, even at weekends when medical staffs—let us face it—are on a standby rota. In addition, there is a divergence from the 1978 White Paper, which proposes removal to a place of assessment in the community should emergency detention he necessary. As things stand under this Bill patients can only be detained in hospital, with, I may say, the prospect of probably a long stay. There is a view, shared by the British Association for Welfare Workers and MIND, that the provision on a wide scale of crisis intervention centres would reduce the need for emergency admission to hospital. I accept that it is perhaps too much to expect an acceptance of this view at this stage, but I must emphasise that this is a reform which must be given more detailed consideration in the future—and, may I add, the not too distant future at that.
Social workers have, particularly in recent months, been placed in some difficulty and sometimes subjected to criticism of the part they play in the mental health sphere of their work. The proposal is that the role now undertaken by mental welfare officers, which in effect is all social workers, should after two years after the coming into operation of this Bill be taken over by "approved social workers" specially trained in mental health matters. Such approved workers will have to interview any patient prior to admission to hospital in order to ensure that hospital is an appropriate form of disposal. This is indeed a welcome reform, but it raises a number of very criticial questions.
First, such social workers before reaching the status of "approved" will have to undergo a fairly lengthy period of training into all aspects of mental health legislation and all that follows from it. With all the high degree of responsibility that the new post entails, it follows that the test of approval of the candidates must be rigorous and searching indeed. Secondly, in consequence of the nature of the post, there will have to be an attractive salary scale if staffing levels are to be adequate. Thirdly—and this is a vitally important point—it is assumed that the training and provision of such workers will continue to be the responsibility of local authorities. This will be an added financial burden to local authorities at a time when they are enduring demands for severe financial restraint, and in some cases are reducing the number of social workers employed already. Detachment of selected social workers under such circumstances will not only add to the problem but will in fact reduce staff available for other social work.
Will the Government face up to this problem and grant additional finance to local authorities for the purpose? I can only say that failure to do this will

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reduce this desired reform to the status of pie in the sky. Certainly the two Secretaries of State and the departments involved must get together. Social workers apart, local authorities are involved in other important spheres in the field of mental health. It is no good introducing reforms on paper which are obstructed by financial considerations elsewhere.
There will be, I am sure, a mild welcome for the fact that the Bill clarifies the question of consent to treatment. This involves in the majority of cases the patient's consent and agreement of an independent doctor, or—and not all patients are capable of understanding this—giving consent on the advice of a doctor, backed by a second opinion of another doctor selected from a panel provided by the Mental Health Act Commission. This is a difficult and complex area where strong differences of opinion exist and where there is much public concern over some of the methods of treatment carried out. As the Bill stands the second opinion is medical, but there is a wide measure of feeling that a second opinion should not be medical alone, but what is required is a lay, social and commonsense judgment, for, after all, it is a question of imposing treatment on an adult against his will, or because of his lack of ability to give consent. The 1978 White Paper accepted that a second opinion should be multidisciplinary and not medical. This is a vital and complex matter probably best decided by the Mental Health Act Commission.
I come to the Mental Health Act Commission. The broad based membership of the proposed commission is welcome. The appointment of its 70 members is the responsibility of the Minister, who, I assume, will seek advice before making a final decision.
The responsibilities and powers of the commission, although not clearly defined in detail in the Bill, are on the surface an immense job for 70 part-timers. Apart from one or two visits a year to 300 or so local hospitals they have also the duty to visit four special hospitals at least every month, interview patients—and that can be a time-consuming process—study records and deal with complaints. But apart from that they have important duties regarding consent to treatment and drawing up a code of practice on treatment with regular revision and also to keep a watch on other regulations. My mind boggles. Even with a support staff of 14 this is a colossal job for part-timers to undertake, and indeed one wonders whether the professionals, the doctors and nurses et cetera, will find time even to carry out their normal professional duties.
I ask—because it is only implied in the Bill—whether there is a salary involved or an expense allowance because some of these professionals will be losing valuable time from their professional work and the right sort of people will not be obtained if they are to be financially penalised. We need the best and we must have the best and to get the best we must pay for the best. There is no argument about that whatever.
There are many other aspects of the Bill that I could deal with, but with so many experienced noble Baronesses and noble Lords to speak—and I am very much aware of that—I am sure that the points which I have mentioned and others will be well taken care of. This is an important debate with far-reaching consequences. The Bill, although welcome, only just touches the fringe of the problem of prevention, cure
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and treatment of mental illness. Mental handicap in the accepted sense is put to one side for the time being.
Let us look at the background. Despite valiant efforts mainly by voluntary bodies to brighten interiors and surroundings, many mental hospitals are old, institutional and decaying monuments, but staffed, let me add, by dedicated people whether they be doctors, nurses, ancillary workers or visiting, caring volunteers all of whom deserve and earn the highest praise.
An immense amount of effort must be made by the Government and people to eradicate those social evils which so frequently give rise to mental strain—unemployment, bad housing, loneliness among the aged and the young, the unremitting battle by the mother against poverty. All this and much else can upset the balance of the mind leading to mental illness. The Bill is a step forward and welcome, but much more needs to be done.

Television Licence Fees
3.54 p.m.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The Statement is as follows:
"Mr. Speaker, I will with permission make a Statement about the television licence fees. As honourable and right honourable Members will be aware, the BBC has made an application for an increase in the colour licence fee to about £50 to last for three years. In considering that application it is my duty to ensure that the corporation's home services are adequately funded, and at the same time to have regard to what is fair to the licence fee payer.
"I have therefore decided, and have today laid the necessary regulations, to increase the fee for a colour television licence from £34 to £46 and for a monochrome licence from £12 to £15. The new fees come into effect at midnight tonight. It is my intention that this level of fees should last for at least three years and I shall he making it clear to the BBC that I shall expect it to pay off its current deficit and live within the revenue which these new levels of fees will produce until the end of the 1984–85 financial year.
"My purpose in deciding on an increase to last for at least three years is to make the licence fee system work as it should.
"It is also my aim to fix the level of fees for a period which will enable the corporation to plan ahead more effectively. A three-year increase will require considerable financial discipline on the part of the corporation; and the extent to which it will be able to pursue its plans for new or improved services will depend crucially on its ability to keep down its costs, particularly labour costs.
"In this context the board of governors has announced that it has commissioned a wide-ranging review of the systems by which the BBC monitors its efficiency. I welcome this decision, which indicates how seriously the board of governors takes its responsibility for ensuring that the licence fee paying public get an efficient service and value for money.

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"I recognise that it is not easy for some people to find the licence fee in a single lump sum each year. I therefore intend to provide a range of means to enable members of the public who wish to do so, to spread the cost of the licence fee over the year. To supplement the successful and widely-used television saving stamps scheme. I have approved plans for the introduction of payments by instalments. We propose in the course of next summer to start accepting monthly instalments towards the following year's licence fee by means of direct debit from bank accounts, and to introduce at least a pilot scheme for payment by credit cards. This will be followed, I hope by the summer of 1983, by a scheme for the payment of monthly cash instalments over post office counters towards the following year's fee.
"Mr. Speaker, I believe that the three-year increases which I have today announced, coupled with greater flexibility in the methods of payment, will do much to strengthen the licence fee system and preserve the independence of the BBC".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.58 p.m.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for repeating the Statement. We on this side on the House believe that the BBC should be financed by a proper licence fee to ensure its independence and maintenance of proper standards. However, we are also concerned that the licence fees should be raised and that proper provision should be made for those who find television indispensable to any enjoyment of life, as indeed the Minister recognises in his Statement. We are particularly concerned about the old and the disabled. The increase of approximately 35 per cent. over a three-year period suggests that the Government do not see inflation falling into single figures during the remainder of their period of office. The increase will not reflect itself in the retail price index, on which old-age pensions are based, until next year's increase. So old-age pensioners will immediately find themselves in difficulty in finding the full amount of the new licence fee.
The Government's proposals for the payment of fees by instalments are inadequate. Both of the schemes outlined—the existing television savings stamp scheme and the proposed instalments scheme—involve paying money in advance for the licence and no interest or concession is proposed to be made for this money which the Government will hold in their kitty prior to the payment of the fee. Equally, the holder of the licence will not receive any discount for making payment earlier. I wonder whether the Government could consider a scheme for paying licence fees in arrears, as, of course, we currently enjoy with regard to the payment of rates. I should have thought that a deferred payment scheme would be of great benefit. As to the proposal for payment of the licence fee by credit cards, I shall leave others to comment on that.
The other matter at which I think the Government should take a look is the unfairness in the current scheme in that at present the same licence fee is paid by a large hotel, with 500 or maybe more television sets throughout the hotel, as is paid by an individual
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for a single set. I should have thought that this was an area at which the Government should look; indeed, if they could find a way of raising additional revenue in this direction, it might be possible, with the extra income generated, to give some concessions to old-age pensioners.
Until these matters can be resolved, we must oppose the increase in the licence fees. However, we should like to welcome the review instigated by the board of governers. Any large organisation needs to review its activities periodically and we welcome the fact that the governors have set this in motion.
4.2 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I join with the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, in thanking the Minister for repeating this important Statement. Arising from it I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, two questions, one specific and one more general. First, will he look again at the quite extraordinary anomalies which arise from the 5p concessionary television licence fee arrangement for certain elderly people, though not for a great many other elderly people? Secondly, and more generally, does the noble Lord agree that the whole purpose of the BBC Charter was to put the control of public broadcasting at a distance from Parliament? Does the noble Lord agree that for the BBC to have to come, cap in hand, to Parliament for an increase in the licence fee every three years really makes the BBC dangerously dependent on the Government of the day?
Is it recollected that when I raised this matter before in your Lordships' House, on 11th June 1980 (in the course of a brief debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton), the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, told us that discussions were taking place between the Home Office and the BBC on alternative methods for the future financing of public service broadcasting? Does this Statement mean that those discussions have borne fruit, or are those discussions continuing?
4.4 p.m.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their questions and replies. Although I recognise absolutely that the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, accurately put his finger on many of the difficulties which are attendant in fixing a licence fee which is both fair to the licence fee payer and also meets the needs of the BBC—the two main factors which my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has to decide upon—he was a little short on ideas as to how to help the old and the disabled, the first two sets of people whom he identified. The difficulty is that if those people were to be given absolute exemption, or even a considerable exemption, from the licence fee—something which no doubt in our hearts we should all like to see—it would immediately mean that for everyone else, whatever their needs, there would be a very much increased licence fee. If, for instance, there were a completely free retirement pension licence at the moment, it would immediately mean a £70 colour licence fee, so we assess, and a £25 monochrome licence fee. The only other alternative to bring such help to the people whom the noble Lord identifies is, of course, to raise the money

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by taxation. The difficulty there is that you undermine the independence which, in fact, the licence fee brings to the BBC.
To answer the last point made by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, at this moment I think that the introduction of a three-year licence fee will bring to the corporation a certainty which the governors will, I hope, recognise, and which I believe they will welcome. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, spoke about the uprating of pensions, Of course, the Government are committed to compensate pensioners for price increases over the lifetime of this Parliament, and since November 1978 pensions have kept up with the retail price index. Therefore, the Government have honoured their commitment. The increase in the licence fee goes into the retail price index and any shortfall on last month's uprating will be made good next year.
The noble Lord felt that the part of the Statement about instalments was inadequate. I should just point out to the House that the best known—in fact, at the moment the only—instalment system, which is the 50p savings stamp, astonishingly accounts now for one-fifth of all the licence fee revenue received each year. I do not think that the people who are buying savings stamps would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, that that is an inadequate system. Again, I hope and believe that when people read and think about the Statement they will agree that my right honourable friend is making sensible and compassionate provision for the future in the other measures which he has said he will bring forward.
The noble Lord mentioned the specific subject of hotels. The Administration of the Broadcasting Receiving Licence Working Party, which of course comprises both the BBC and the Home Office, has advised my right honourable friend that it is technically feasible for hotels to be licensed in respect of each guest room in which a television set is installed. My right honourable friend accepts that there are anomalies in the present arrangement, but he is still considering whether it will prove practical or desirable to implement any changes.
Finally, I come to the specific point which the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, put to me about the 5p licence for old peoples' homes. My right honourable friend accepts that there is indeed an anomaly here. The Annan Committee recommended that it was a form of concession which ought to be phased out. My right honourable friend would not he prepared to extend the anomaly, but he believes that it would be harsh to withdraw it.

Lorries, People and the Environment
4.8 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport. The Statement is as follows:
"Heavy lorries have been the subject of continuing debate and controversy for over 10 years. The problems are complex and intractable, but decisions have to be taken. We need above all to end the
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present uncertainty about future lorry weights which is currently placing a handicap on investment in the commercial vehicle industry.
"To clarify the issues, the Government appointed Sir Arthur Armitage in July 1979 to conduct an independent inquiry into the whole problem of lorries and their effects on people and the environment. Sir Arthur and his four independent assessors took evidence very widely, and reported in December 1980. The Government are very grateful to them for their wide-ranging report. It has aroused great interest. A large number of people and organisations have put their views to me and there have been two debates in this House. The Government thought it right to take time to consider fully the many points that have been raised.
"The effect of big lorries on people and communities is a matter of deep concern. The lorry is an offensive element in the environment, and it will make the environment progressively worse unless we take decisions now which will change the trend over the coming years. Our aim is to ensure a more civilised development of freight transport in the future, which will mean a better environment as well as a healthier economy.
"The measures the Government will be taking to achieve this objective are outlined in a White Paper published today. These measures are directed to keeping lorries away from the places where people live, through the provision of more by-passes; to making the vehicles quieter and cleaner; and, in particular, to keeping their numbers down.
"However, to keep costs down, road transport must be efficient and economic. Our present maximum weight limits on lorries place an economic handicap on much of our industry. Our regulations prevent many existing lorries from being loaded to their full technical weight-carrying capacity. This is wasteful. It makes transport costs higher than they need be, which in turn feeds through into prices and makes our exports less competitive.
"The Government agree with Armitage's rejection of the heavier axle weights proposed by the European Commission. We have also announced our rejection of a maximum weight as high as 44 tonnes, which was the heaviest vehicle recommended in the Armitage Report. All the safeguards suggested in the report have been considered very carefully, and the Government are now convinced that maximum lorry weights can safely be raised to 34 tonnes for four-axled vehicles, and 40 tonnes on five axles. These changes are set out in draft amending regulations which are being circulated today by my department for consultation. Copies are being placed in the [Printed Paper Office].
"The proposals outlined in the White Paper will apply to Northern Ireland and, where appropriate, will be given effect to through separate action under the relevant Northern Ireland legislation.
"As well as bringing economic benefits to industry and ultimately to the consumers, through savings in industry's transport costs of around £150 million a year, there will be benefits to the environment. The heavier vehicles will be no bigger than the biggest vehicles on the roads today. Their higher load capacity will enable industry to meet demands for

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freight services with fewer vehicles than would otherwise be needed. There will be safeguards in the regulations on the design of the heavier vehicles to protect roads, bridges and underground services.
"Mr. Speaker, we cannot afford delay. To do nothing would help neither the environment nor the economy. Freight users, vehicle operators and manufacturers are unable to plan ahead whilst the present uncertainty lasts. It is through the decisions taken now, and the actions initiated, that we can achieve over the years ahead the improvements we are seeking."
My Lords, that is the Statement.
4.14 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, your Lordships will be extremely grateful for the Statement repeated by the noble Lord today. Reference is made in the Statement to the fact that two debates took place in the other place. I must remind your Lordships that we have had no debate whatever in this House on the Armitage Report. We also on this side of the House give full praise and thanks to Sir Richard Armitage and his assessors for the valuable contribution made to this subject by their report. There are some excellent recommendations, but there are some questions left in doubt. I must draw attention to the fact that there are 58 recommendations in all, 159 pages of the report, that no fewer than 871 organisations sent written evidence and 963 members of the public also gave evidence. But your Lordships have had no opportunity whatever to debate this important report prior to the Statement being made today.
We are very pleased that the EEC proposals were rejected by the report and that the Government have now rejected the 44-tonnes maximum lorry as proposed in the Armitage Report. But you will note that the Government propose that the maximum shall rise from 32½ tonnes up to a maximum of 40 tonnes. In another place in January the former Secretary of State posed the point: Can the benefits—and the Statement says that the benefit to the industry will be £150 million a year—be received without paying an environmental price which the public would regard as too high? That is the important question which faces us in this Statement made today: What will be the costs to the environment?
The Government have stated that proposals are included in a White Paper issued today. Obviously, neither your Lordships nor I have yet seen that White Paper. But the Statement refers to proposals for the protection of roads, bridges and underground services. I must draw attention to a few points contained in the report. Time will permit these to be given only in shorthand. We find in paragraph 58 that the lorry traffic adds 15 per cent. to the costs of new construction and improvement of our roads. Paragraph 59 says that lorries account for over 90 per cent. of the damage on our roads. Attention is drawn to the fact that major motorway reconstruction has had to come much sooner than was anticipated when the motorways were built.
In paragraph 382 there is an important point:
"There is still much uncertainty as to how axles damage roads"
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Reference is also made in the report to the damage to pipes and installations under, or adjacent to, roads. Paragraph 60 says that there is no evidence that lorries are the main cause of damage. But I find in paragraph 390 of the report that little is known about the effects of lorries on underground pipes, and it is difficult to say precisely what would be the effects of heavier lorries. This is one of the anomalies in the report, and clearly far more research is needed before a definitive decision can be made.
It is clear that more research is needed on the question of the vibration effect on buildings and persons as a result of the passing of heavy lorries. This is not clear in the report. The report also deals at length with the damaging effects on bridges. It stressed that if the EEC proposals were carried through the greater effect would have been on bridges built before 1922. It states that the work to strengthen all the bridges to cope with the heavier lorries would cost £1,200 million. I should like to ask the Minister: What is the proposed cost, or the estimated cost, for the vehicles of 40 tonnes as opposed to the original proposals in the EEC draft directive?
The question of noise is to be dealt with, but the report states that the Noise Abatement Council estimate that £1·6 billion would be needed to insulate against noise for all traffic noise over an accepted level criterion. We all know the general complaint from the public about noise of lorry traffic. There appears to be doubt in the report also about the effect on pavements, verges, et cetera, when lorries leave the motorway. Noble Lords who drive will frequently see hopeless messes alongside the road where lorries have gone off a motorway. We do not know the effect on underground pipes, and so on. Far more research is needed, including the question of cost.
What will be the possible effect on rail freight? History shows that whenever heavier lorries have been introduced so rail freight tends to fall. This decision on behalf of the Government would appear to indicate the need for more integration and co-ordination between road and rail freight traffic. I make it clear from these Benches that we recognise the great importance of road haulage and road freight traffic to our economy. Therefore, we are not being critical on the question of road haulage.
I should like to know whether the Government are able to say how much further help will be given under Section 8 proposals to provide more freight terminals for British Rail, as is applicable in Germany, and thereby assisting in the task of taking off the roads and on to the rail a greater amount of traffic. The TRRL Report SR/572 published in 1980 stated that the average load factor fell from ·65 in 1967 to ·5 in 1976. What is the present position today about the average loads being carried by lorries?
Reference is made in the Statement to more by-passes. It has been estimated that by 1990 only one-half of the towns with populations of 10,000 or more will have by-passes, and I understand that about 100 important schemes are held up, that some will not be started until after 1984 and that others have been shelved. What actually is the programme on by-passes? Obviously this must have some bearing on the Statement. How many of the 58 recommendations in the Armitage Report are to be carried out?
Lord Denham: I suggest that we are slightly in danger of getting into a debate on this subject, my Lords. Could the noble Lord be a little briefer and more questioning on the Statement rather than on the report?
Lord Underhill: I apologise to the House, my Lords, but it will be appreciated that we have not debated Armitage and that the Statement really arises from Armitage. However, in deference to the Government Chief Whip I will draw my remarks to a close. How many of the proposals in the Armitage Report will be implemented? When is it proposed that the new limits will come into effect? Do the Government accept in particular Recommendation No. 50, by which additional powers and finance are proposed for local authorities in lorry action areas? If so, how much will be covered by that? Finally, as we have not had a chance to debate the Armitage Report, on which the Statement is based, will there be opportunity for the House to debate the White Paper?
4.22 p.m.
Viscount Thurso: My Lords, on behalf of my colleagues on these Benches, I wish to thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made in another place. Like the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, I regret that we have not had an opportunity to debate Armitage, but I do not propose to do so today. I shall however ask a few questions and make a few brief comments.
I note that the Government aim to ensure the more civilised development of freight transport in the future. I hope they will let us know what their intentions are with regard to rail because many of us clearly believe that more of our heavy freight should go by rail rather than in ever-heavier lorries. We welcome the measure to keep lorries away from places where people live and the provision of more bypasses, but wonder in these stringent financial times what provision will be made for these bypasses and whether we shall have the lorries before the bypasses instead of the bypasses before the lorries.
We welcome the dropping of axle weights to approximately eight tons, rather than the raising of them to the higher figure proposed by the EEC Commission, but we wonder about the enforcement of regulations. We know that overloading, lack of adherence to drivers' hours and the ignoring of speed limits are all widespread and we wonder what the Government propose to do to make certain that these heavier lorries do not continue to break speed limits, overload and commit the various offences which it is known that heavy freight commits on the roads.
We should like more information about the contribution to road costs. We feel that heavy lorries are contributing very little to the costs which they incur and we should like more information about how these costs will be recovered. We should like to know more about what is to be done to help protect bridges, roads and underground services both in the provision of funds to local authorities and in the new regulations and design.
Lord Bellwin: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, and the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, for commenting on the Statement and I shall try to answer their remarks. First, the issue of there not
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having been a debate and when will there be a chance for one. As for when there will be a chance, obviously a resolution will have to go through this House as well as the other place, and clearly there will then be an opportunity to debate more than, as it were, just the philosophy but the nuts and bolts as well, and I should have thought that was the best kind of debate to have, and that will come. It is a White Paper and it is there for consultation, and therefore that debate will be all the more informed because presumably it will be conclusive. Perhaps I should add, however, that I am told that there has been a Motion down for debate for most of the last Session which was not taken up through the usual channels. So, although I entirely take the point made by both noble Lords, I suggest that it should be a matter not so much of criticism but more of comment.
The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, asked what the cost would be to the environment. Clearly he needs the opportunity, as does the noble Viscount and others, to read the White Paper. When the noble Lord has done that I think he will be encouraged, as I was when I read it, because, for example, in terms of damage, it is estimated that the damage to the roads will be some 5 per cent. less than at the present time for the same freight carried. One needs to know exactly how and why that is, and that is explained by the way in which the weight is distributed in vehicles with the extra axle.
That picks up a point made by the noble Viscount when he referred to overloading. The problem with lorries today is that because of their construction, vehicles have to carry less than the full load that they are permitted to carry because they cannot load them in such a way as to enable the vehicle to take it. That will come out more clearly when the White Paper and other literature is available because that will illustrate the point clearly.
I know the noise factor concerns most people. There will be lower noise limits in 1983 and it is the intention to move, by research and other methods, so that perhaps by the end of the decade these heavy vehicles will be no noisier than are motor cars at the present time. That clearly requires some research, but emphasis is being put on that and I am sure the whole House will agree that that is a desirable objective towards which to aim. I am told that the effect on rail freight need not be adverse. Quite the contrary, because in the case of the freightliner, for example, the problem for the railways has been that they could always carry heavier weights, but the size of the containers has been a problem for them. British Rail have said they are not against the proposals we are bringing forward. I was asked when the new limits would come into effect. That depends on the consultation, and I think we are talking about March/ April time, but we shall have to see how that goes.
The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, in particular mentioned Recommendation No. 50. That, he will see, is referred to in the White Paper, which says:
"The Armitage Report suggested that some of the worst of these places could be designated as lorry action areas in which special steps would be taken to alleviate the effects of lorries. The Government considers that this proposal is well worth further study and will be inviting the co-operation of the local authorities and others concerned in studying it further".

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I think I have covered most of the points that were raised. I appreciate it is hard for your Lordships to deal with the details without having had sight of the documents and the time to study them, but I hope we shall have a good debate on this very important matter in due course.
Lord Walston: My Lords, I should like to put two questions to the noble Lord. The first follows the point raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, about by-passes. Clearly it will not be possible to build sufficient by-passes before the regulations come in, but will the Government be prepared, and be able, to take steps to prohibit to an increasing extent the heavier lorries from passing through particularly narrow streets of our small towns and villages, forcing them perhaps to make rather longer detours in order to preserve the environment and the amenities of these places? Secondly, the statement refers to the saving of £160 million. Can the Minister tell us what is the likely destination of that £160 million? Will it go to increase the profits of the hauliers, or will it be passed on to the ultimate consumer, whether in the form of cheaper exports or cheaper prices at home?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, with regard to the question of by-passes, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Walston, will obtain some useful information when he has a chance to look at the White Paper itself. Perhaps I ought to state for the record that already this year 38 new starts are being made on by-passes. In addition, the White Paper announces four more new by-passes, and it announces also the bringing forward of yet more from the previous programme; in other words, a phasing forward. I think that that would illustrate that, in so far as is at all possible, the Government are concerned to step up work of this kind within the resources available. I think that it indicates that priority is being given to the point that the noble Lord makes, and I hope that he will be pleased about that.
It is hard to break down the figure of £150 million—it was not £160 million—but perhaps I can give a very approximate indication. In the main the benefits will go not so much to road haulage operators as to the users of road haulage. In turn they will be enabled to be more competitive in what they are providing by way of goods, where they are delivered, or products, where they are sold. I am sure that the noble Lord will appreciate that those who will benefit most will be those who are farthest away from the ports to which they have to go to reach the EEC and the like. Anything that can be done to help in terms of costs can only be beneficial all round. But I should add that part of the saving will also be in general maintenance, too. So the savings are somwehat spread and it is difficult to give an exact sum, but the thrust of the savings will be made where I have indicated.
Lord Glenkinglas: My Lords, if I heard correctly, my noble friend said to the House that the new, heavier lorries would be no bigger than the biggest lorries at present in existence, but would he not agree that the biggest lorries in existence at the moment are already far too big for a great many of the roads which they are using? In my part of Scotland they are creating very
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real problems indeed. It is not a question of by-passes, but rather the fact that the lorries are too big for the roads.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I hear what my noble friend Lord Glenkinglas says about that point, and I think that it only illustrates the difficulty facing anyone who is trying to take on board all the problems mentioned in the Statement. There are complex and intractable problems in trying to find a balance, a way through. I am sure that there is much sympathy for what my noble friend says. However. I hope that he will find helpful what we are proposing. It is not intended to increase at all the size of the lorries as such, but rather to find a way to achieve greater capacity within vehicles of the same size without damaging road surfaces and foundations. Perhaps that will not completely satisfy my noble friend, since he might like to see more by-passes and other solutions to the problem of narrow roads. If he has any suggestions, I would point out that the White Paper is intended for consultation, and we should be very glad to hear them.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether the Government intended to keep down the speed of the heavier lorries?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I believe that the intention—and clearly this, too, is part of the discussion that must go forward—is to keep down speeds. I understand that a particular speed limit, is at present being considered. I do not have details of it, but I will gladly write to the noble Baroness with that information.
Lord Somers: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Lord whether due attention has been given to the fact that very heavy lorries are liable to cause damage not only to the roads, but perhaps to the valuable architecture by the side of the roads? In view of that fact, would it not be possible to prohibit lorries in the highest weight range from using roads alongside which there is such architecture?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I had hoped that what was said in the Statement, and what the White Paper brings out, would indicate that we are very conscious of the point that the noble Lord makes, as indeed we are of what I may call all the other environmental aspects of the matter. I ask your Lordships to await the details as to how the objective will be achieved through having greater capacity without the vehicles having to be bigger or being likely to cause more vibration. Indeed they will be less so, due to the fact that the lorries will be constructed with an extra axle, as suggested. I think that the noble Lord will be satisfied on that point. In view of the questions that are coming from different parts of your Lordships' House, I feel that there is a need to look at the matter in more detail to see exactly how it is proposed we should move in the desired direction.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, bearing in mind that a number of lorries are already very much overloaded, can the Minister assure the House that adequate steps

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will be taken to see that the new, heavier lorries are not overloaded to the same extent?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I thought I had made the point that one of the great complaints from the industry is not that they have to overload, but that they have to underload, if I may use the term. I am assured that one of the objects of the exercise—through increasing in terms of tonnes the weight that vehicles will carry, using an extra axle, yet without the vehicles being larger than at present—is to carry an additional amount, thus resulting in extra efficiency and economy, without the necessity for vehicles to be of the heavier type that was previously considered. It is interesting to note that the EEC, which previously had a limit of 44 tonnes, is now coming down to the 40 tonnes limit that we are proposing in the White Paper. If my noble friend Lord Swinfen wishes to pursue further that particular point with me, I should be glad to do so with him outside the House.

Mental Health (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
Second Reading debate resumed.
4.38 p.m.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, I wish to join with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, in welcoming the Minister upon introducing his first Bill to the House following his new appointment. He and I have met on I think at least one occasion in our different capacities at the Department of Health and Social Security, and I join him in regretting that the noble Lord, Lord Butler, is not here today. From these Benches we, too, very much welcome the Government's introduction of the Bill, as well as the time that they have seen fit to set aside for it in the House. It shows a recognition of the great need to increase the rights of detained patients in our mental institutions. As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, a large proportion of the recommendations are in fact proposals that were contained in the Butler Committee Report and in the White Paper of 1978, and as such I believe deserve the support of all Members of this House.
I shall not speak on every point regarding the Bill, since we have a large number of expert speakers, but there are one or two points that I should like to pick out in particular. We particularly welcome the safeguard introduced in relation to Section 29, that a time limit of 24 hours be introduced for both examination and admittance; and we do not object, I would have thought, to the extension to 72 hours in the case of emergency admissions under Sections 29, 30 and 136. I think it is perfectly reasonable that in the case of an emergency admission of that kind a longer time should be taken and should be given. I do not believe it is purely a question of having hospital staff ready to undertake the examination: it is the greater difficulty of deciding the case on an emergency examination. I therefore believe that the 72 hours under this particular heading is the correct time.
All of us, I am sure, welcome the more frequent recourse to the Mental Health Review Tribunal that will be available to patients, and the fact that the
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waiting time is cut in half. But there is in society a great cry for recourse to the courts in the final instance. One can see that there is concern among people that this should be possible, but I wonder whether we could not look at it in a different way and see whether the patient could be legally represented before the Mental Health Review Tribunal. That, I believe, would help to allay much of the concern that exists in society over that problem.
Another point which I think is particularly welcome—and this comes from someone who has a large number of psychiatric hospitals in her region—is the right that nurses have, as has been recognised in this Bill, to detain a patient for a period of 6 hours. This was essential, because nurses in hospitals have had this great problem of never having had their rights laid down, and they had always suffered from the fear that they were overstepping their jurisdiction. I believe it is a very good thing that this problem has been finally cleared up.
The question of consent to treatment and the clarification that the Bill offers are very important matters and are fully in line with the Butler Committee recommendations; but there is a widespread concern that the second opinion is purely medical. Anyone who has knowledge of, or has worked in, a psychiatric hospital realises that the treatment of a patient in such a hospital is a complete multi-disciplinary treatment, and that it is necessary to have the opinion of nurses, psychologists and social workers, all of whom put an enormous amount into the treatment of the patient. You have only to talk with some psychiatrists and they will freely admit that on many occasions the ideas that have broken through with a patient have come from the nurses, and not necessarily from the psychiatrist. So there is concern that the second opinion is purely medical.
In the Mental Health Review Tribunal we have a multi-disciplinary body capable of giving that multi-disciplinary second opinion and we recommend that their terms of reference be altered to enable them to take on this additional service. I realise that the proposed Mental Health Act Commission is a multi-disciplinary body, but under the Bill they are proposing to appoint a doctor to give the second opinion. I do not believe this is the right way to go about it, and I believe that, as we have the mental health review tribunal, which is multi-disciplinary, we should ask that body whether it can undertake these additional duties.
When it comes to the Mental Health Act Commission itself, the principle behind the commission appeals very much. What is aimed at by the Government in their statements, particularly in their White Paper, and what the commission is supposed to do, needs to be done; but we already have overlapping jurisdictions and bodies working in the psychiatric field. We have the mental health review tribunal, we have the health advisory service and we have the national development teams, all of which overlap somewhat and all of which have slightly different attitudes from which they are looking at this matter within the service itself. Is it not possible to streamline some of these organisations, change their terms of reference and make one or other of them take on the responsibilities that the Government want to place on the Mental Health

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Act Commission? I thought this Government were the ones which were absolutely against setting up any more bodies—more Quangos, if you like. I am not saying that the Mental Health Act Commission would be a Quango—it would probably perform marvellously well—but I do not believe it is necessary. I believe we can use the organisations we already have, and perhaps get a better result.
I very much welcome, in reading the Government's White Paper and also in what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, the increased responsibilities being placed on the National Health Service under the 28-day admission for observation. This will inevitably increase expenditure in the NHS, and it will also create some problems. Over the past 10 years or more in the psychiatric field we have been working on the open-door policy. We have also proceeded along the line of creating assessment units in district general hospitals. We would not want to jeopardise the open-door policy of the psychiatric hospitals. On the other hand, the assessment units in district general hospitals would not always be suitable for particularly difficult patients.
The Butler Committee's recommendation in 1975 for the creation of the regional secure units would provide the perfect place for a lot of these assessments to take place. The Butler Committee recommended this in, I believe, 1974, and the Government of the day decided to set aside special funds for the creation of regional secure units. Let me give the example of what happened in my own region, because I think it is illuminating. It is not so easy to set up a regional secure unit. I believe there is one fully functioning and two or three in the pipeline in the whole of the country. We set about it in the South-West Thames Region, and we produced a detailed report and a complete scheme for building the unit in the grounds of the Royal Earlswood Hospital, which has grounds of 150 acres. It was to be at one side of the grounds, and would be properly secure, with a secure wall. There was enough local opposition—and we were not helped by the fact that local MPs also joined that opposition—for us not to get permission from the Secretary of State to go ahead with this scheme.
We therefore looked round, and we put forward another hospital. We asked the Department of Health, "Will you give us agreement as to the siting of this place, before we do all the planning?" After a few months we received the aswer, "No; you must come forward with your scheme in a bit more detail—not just on a question of siting". That took some months, and we completed the submission in about July 1980. We finally got an agreement to go ahead in July 1981, which means that that unit might be ready by 1985. I am not blaming anybody; I am just relating this story because it shows how difficult it is to implement these proposals. It is all very well; everybody feels that we should have these places—the courts feel it, the probation service feels it, society in general feels that we should have them—"so long as they are not in my particular patch".
I would recommend that Members of Parliament and Members of this House should themselves go out and actively try to influence people to the view that it is not a danger to society; that, on the contrary, it is much more of a danger to society in many cases to have some
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of these patients in open-door psychiatric hospitals. We must do all we can to convince people that it is the right way to go forward. Unless we do that, the whole of this Bill, if it becomes an Act, will not function any more than the secure units have functioned in the past. We have an enormous job of persuasion to do.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, mentioned—and I was going to finish up with my regret at it—that the mentally handicapped had not been removed from the Bill. I understand his problem and understand that it would necessitate a second piece of legislation but, in view of the fact that we have had time for this Bill, I believe that as we have done nothing about the poor mentally handicapped within the Mental Health Act 1959 since 1959, we should have found the time to deal with them on this occasion. I know that the Government have promised a consolidation Bill which will put all this right; but the mentally handicapped people and their relatives have had promises. It has been a case of "This year, next year, some time, never!" I believe that they, and particularly their relatives, are getting very tired of being promised something in the future. I much regret that it was not thought possible by the Government to include that alteration to the Mental Health Act on this occasion.
4.52 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich: My Lords, with the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on the way he steered us through. He called his opening speech analytical but it was so full of facts that, in reading, I believe it will help us very much. This Second Reading has attracted so much attention, publicly and in the press, and with this long list of 23 Members of your Lordships' House wanting to speak it will probably produce an opportunity to clear our minds within the thickets of the whole problem of mental disability, which, I think, is at a very liberalising point. believe that underlying this Bill there is an emphasis upon opening tip society again more understandingly to welcome people of mental disability.
I give one instance which opened my eyes. In Lowestoft, in my part of the world, we hold mini-Olympics for those who are mentally disabled. To go there, as I did, on the closing day and to help give out the medals, with 800 to 900 people with mental disability from all over the country, many from adult training centres, and to see their enthusiasm and the way in which they work to the limit of their abilities—even at dressage at that mental disability Olympics—was to see how the work being done in this country to welcome into society in the fullest way we can those who suffer from mental disability is moving in the right direction.
I recognise that this Bill is a sincere and determined attempt to look closely at the 1959 Act and to see how it can be amended with improvements. Following what the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, has said, I am sure that we are right to work towards the end of a consolidation Bill; but it may be that, because there is so much work to be done here, to advance immediately on a narrow front within the very strict time limit that the noble Lord the Minister told us about in the aim to get this legislation through by September of

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next year, is the right step forward and this would open up the wider areas.
Lord Elton: My Lords, it is implementation—which I think is what the right reverend Prelate meant by getting through—by September 1983; Royal Assent in 1982; consolidation shortly afterwards. That gets us in a position for implementation with a consolidated Act, which is something you can hold in your hand, read through and work upon, instead of the jigsaw that we are producing at the moment. I did not want that to go unmentioned in case I had earlier misled the House.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich: My Lords, the noble Lord did not mislead the House. I did not write down what he said; I held it in my mind, but bishops' minds are not always as clear as they ought to be. We were all moved by the letter from Brian Rix in The Times this morning making the point that mental illness and mental handicap are different. The heading:
"Why call my daughter sick when she is sane?"
has something to say to us for the future. He was able to say that the Government share the concern over this confusion and for the needs of the two groups to be recognised. We are moving in that direction.
I see this Second Reading as partly a matter of general public education for all of us for whom these areas may be new in terms of detail. We have had the whole question of the Down's syndrome issue before us and it is not unconnected with the wider issues concerning mental disability. Time has shown us that mongol children are basically happy, and, given parental love and security, do well in life.
I want to make one point about that from these Benches for two reasons. I find that mongol children, as they grow up, are very spiritually perceptive. Noble Lords will have read that letter from a Member of this House about his little mongol son. When I read that some weeks ago, my mind went back to a comparatively short time ago when I confirmed that little boy in a Norfolk village church. As he came forward and knelt before me and put his two hands together and rested them on my knee it was almost like a child from the Victorian age taught to kneel at his mother's knee to say his prayers. It was a moving moment for me. When later, with other candidates, he received the sacrament, he received it with a quiet and simple joy and a gentle reverence that made me feel that anything we can do to liberate people who are mentally disabled, through the law, through this Bill, through the interest aroused in it, is something well worth while.
The second reason why I tell that story is that in the Green Paper Care in the Community: a consultative document on moving resources for care in England, from the DHSS, of July 1981, noble Lords will remember that in Annexe "A" paragraph 4, we read:
"NHS Act 1977 Section 26 requires the Secretary of State to make services, facilities and staff available to local authorities so far as is reasonably necessary and practicable to enable them to discharge their functions relating to social services, education and public health".
But it does not say "concerning spiritual care". Noble Lords will remember the exact date of the NHS Act—5th July 1948. I remember it because it
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was three days before my eldest son was born on the 8th July, so it is an easy date for me to remember. Since that date the work of chaplains in hospitals—chaplains of all denominations who are now working closely together in a very warm, ecumenical way—has shown the tremendous importance of the chaplaincy work within the regular health service.
My plea simply at this point is this. We should not forget that if we are seeking to move people out into the community again who have themselves been tremendously helped by the administration of chaplains within hospitals and chaplains who have learned over the years, with considerable expertise, how to minister to those who are ill and mentally ill and suffer from both mental handicap and psychiatric illness, then when they come out of hospital it would be good if in some way provision could be made for chaplaincy help. It is true that not every parochial clergyman is expert in this particular task. Statutory workers, whether hostel staff or social workers, will need to initiate links with local churches. If some provision could be made for the short training of Ministers of all denominations in this work, I believe that great things could come from this.
As I see it, as was already made clear in the opening speeches, this Bill is an amending Bill to the main 1959 Bill. The Church—if I may speak from these Benches—welcomes very warmly its general thrust. It seems to me that its main provisions are ones which, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, are very nonpolitical and are general, that hospitals should in future be more places of treatment and no longer so much of confinement and that patients will have many more chances to go before mental health review tribunals to seek release. I particularly liked the word that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, used when he said that no patient will ever be forgotten again because, with the review at least every three years, this will be done.
If I may descend to the realms of party politics for a brief moment—only to ascend—if we have to have Quangos (I do not quite understand who likes them and who does not) a Mental Health Act Commission is probably a very good, whitewashed, suitable and blessed-by-the-Church type of Quango. I hope therefore that the Mental Health Act Commission will receive the widest possible support.
I arise again after that above the level of party politics. I am so glad that the appointment of approved social workers is going ahead. This I believe will give chances for people who are enthusiastic amateurs to be trained in this particular and difficult area. Even such a small matter—apparently small to us in this House—of relaxation of censorship of detained patients' mail is I am sure a step in the right direction.
We seem so often to speak of the patients and not of the staff; but I believe that we ought to recognise that this Bill is going to do a lot to help the staff of our hospitals. It is so easy for them to be criticised and so difficult for them to do their work well. As I see it, there is here a balance between both freedom and control with some delicacy, particularly of course in the area of treatment without consent which no doubt will come in very much in the Committee stage when we talk in greater detail. I believe that the staff of our special hospitals deserve our support.

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I hope that the definitions in this Bill will help them to see what they can do and what they should do, and how they can do it.
I have a quotation from Martin Luther King which I will inflict upon your Lordships. I prepared it to give at the Cambridge Union a fortnight ago in a Homeric struggle between Mary Whitehouse on the one hand and Victor Lownes, ex- the Playboy show on the other. I was the supporting middleweight round with a famous poet who had produced the Penguin Book of Sick Verse. They had a bishop there to make for respectability. I was there behind the scenes as a type of No. 2 standing in on that Homeric struggle.
I had worked out for that the following quotation from Martin Luther King:
"Law cannot change the heart; but law can restrain the heartless".
Unfortunately, I lost it in the excitement of working among the young ladies and gentlemen of Cambridge. For the sake of your Lordships who do not follow these things, we won by 350 votes to 190 votes. I will tell noble Lords afterwards who "we" were. It was an exciting time.
I used it as a quotation simply to say that of course we cannot deal with all the problems that crop up within a confined community and with tremendous pressures on staff. But what we can do I believe—and I hope that in the Committee stage we shall do it in detail—is set the parameters within which staff work, to set the parameters within which patients can have as much freedom as possible and so to help those staff do their work carefully and well and patients to receive the very best treatment that is possible for them.
Therefore, without spending further time on that, may I simply say that we from these Benches warmly support the whole thrust of this Bill. I have to say to your Lordships that diocesan business unfortunately at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning means that I cannot stay through until midnight when the rest of you look forward to hearing the noble Lord, Lord Cullen, sum up after what will be a very good debate.
5.7 p.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, in view of the long list of speakers, I am proposing to limit myself to two points only. In particular, I am resisting the temptation at this stage to follow the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in discussing the recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights and the noble Baroness in what she said about mental handicap. I would just make the point that I think it is risky to place too much confidence in the prospect of consolidation. Consolidation cannot make fundamental changes in the law. I fear that it is basically cosmetic, but there will be other opportunities to discuss that in due course.
When a Bill of this kind appears, I suppose all of us look at it from the point of view of our particular interest. I confess that for my part I went through it to see whether there was any prospect of its providing an additional measure of relief to our overcrowded prisons by enabling rather more persons suffering from mental disorder to be treated in hospital rather than to remain incarcerated in gaol. The desirability of moving in this direction is a long and familiar story.
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We were reminded of it only just a week ago by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, in the debate on prisons, and earlier by the May Committee which had a particularly eloquent passage on this point.
I have been looking at the figures in the White Paper—in particular, Table 1.4. I have done my best to bring the figures up to date. I understand that in 1980 the numbers committed by the courts under Section 60 of the 1949 Act, with restrictions under Section 65, totalled only a little over 100. Ten years before the total had been nearly three times this, although there were then many fewer people appearing before the courts. Again in 1980 rather fewer than 100 prisoners were removed to hospital under Sections 72 and 73, with restrictions under Section 74. I am sorry if I sound a little technical on this but I suppose it is better to try and be accurate.
There must be a number of reasons for these rather small figures, but I suppose, given the frustration expressed from time to time by the judges in individual cases, one reason has been the problem of finding hospital accommodation with some suitable degree of security. That is a problem which for various reasons has got worse rather than better in recent years and it is one explanation of why so many of us have been gravely disappointed in the delay in setting up the regional secure units to which reference has been made, which it must be recalled were recommended as a matter of urgency by the Butler Committee well over seven years ago, following up an even earlier working party which had made a similar recommendation some years before that. The noble Baroness has explained some of the problems and difficulties involved in pressing on with these new establishments, and no one will underrate the difficulties. Nevertheless, the story has not been a very good one and I do not think so far that anyone can feel particularly proud about it.
Looking at the likely impact of the present Bill in the context I have been discussing, I take the point, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, explained, that tinder the Bill courts will not be able to make a hospital order in respect of a person suffering from a psychopathic disorder or mental handicap unless there is evidence that treatment in hospital is likely to benefit the individual. I cannot persuade myself that this provision of itself is likely to swell the number of those who go to hospital rather than to prison; but, in view of what has been happening in the last few years and of what has now in effect become accepted doctrine in the handling of psychopaths, I wonder whether it will have all that much practical effect.
Somewhat disturbing, to my mind, is what the White Paper says about the implementation of the Bill. I am afraid that the remarks made by the noble Lord the Minister have not altogether removed my feelings of anxiety. I particularly welcome Clause 27 of the Bill, giving Crown Courts and magistrates' courts the power to remand to a hospital for a medical report, and Clause 28, which gives the Crown Court the power to remand an accused person to a hospital for treatment, even though it is just a trifle obscure what happens if the treatment is of a nature requiring the individual's consent and he refuses to give it. Then there is another clause which gives the Crown Courts and magistrates' courts the power to make interim hospital orders. As has been explained, these are provisions

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implementing the Butler recommendations, and I take the point that quite a lot of what the Butler Report recommended would involve altering other Acts and not just the 1959 Act. I do hope, though, that these clauses are precursors of legislation implementing other Butler recommendations, and I will study with great care what the noble Lord the Minister said on this particular point.
Going back to Clauses 27 to 29, reading them in the Bill does buoy up one's hopes, but the White Paper then goes on to dash those hopes by explaining that they are likely to be brought into effect only during two or three years after the Bill is passed. Painful experience suggests that that estimate is not likely to exaggerate the length of the waiting period. But I hope the White Paper means what it says when it refers to two or three years after the Bill is passed because, as I understand it from what has been said, the Bill as a whole is not likely to be implemented until well into 1983, which is getting on for two years from now.
I suppose the additional hold-up contemplated for the particular clauses I have referred to must arise in part from the delays in setting up the Butler units, and relieving the overcrowding in the special hospitals. However, it looks as if there may be other factors, too. I am just a little puzzled by this because I would have thought that the provisions in the Bill, extending the opportunities for individuals to go to the mental health review tribunal, should mean that some of them would be released, whereas under the old regime they would have stayed in hospital—or, if not, I am not quite sure what we are discussing. If that were so, some of the resources in the hospitals ought to be made available for these new demands. Anyway, this is a very important topic which is dealt with a little cursorily in the White Paper. I hope that when the noble Lord comes to wind up he may be able to say a little more about the implementation of this part of the Bill.
Now I come to my much shorter second point. Here I suppose I must declare an interest, although certainly not a financial one, in that I am president of the Friends of Broadmoor Hospital. When the noble Baroness the Leader of the House announced on 11th November 1980—I have a note to say that the Hansard column number is 1291, but I would not guarantee that—that the Government accepted the Boynton recommendation to set up a hospital review board for Rampton and explained what arrangements were in force at Moss Side and the remarkably named Park Lane, she said the Government were looking at what suitable arrangements might be made at Broadmoor for bringing in some outside interests. Nothing more has been heard of these arrangements, so far as I am aware, and I should like to ask whether the new Mental Health Act Commission is intended somehow to fill this gap as regards Broadmoor. If it is, the consequential question arises as to how the new body will fit in with the Rampton board, which is already in existence and, I believe, working satisfactorily. On the other hand, if this new body is not intended to meet the special circumstances of Broadmoor, as I suspect it is not, I wonder whether we could be told what the prospects are now of our hearing about possible arrangements at Broadmoor. If the Minister
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cannot let us know when winding up tonight, perhaps he would be good enough to write to me about it.
In conclusion, could I say that I do greatly welcome this Bill, which cuts right across party lines and is intended to improve the lot of one of the least favoured sections of our community? We are grateful to the noble Lord the Minister for his clear exposition of the Bill, and I think it is remarkably appropriate that the Bill should be introduced and gone over in detail in your Lordships' House.
5.19 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, we on this Bench are glad to be able to extend a welcome, albeit with important qualifications, to a Bill which will be the first major revision of the law on this subject since the Mental Health Act 1959.
The history of the Bill is well known to your Lordships and was outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. It deals with a subject that has been the concern of both major parties—I should say now of all parties in the political spectrum. The Butler Report on mentally abnormal offenders was published in October 1975 and the same month saw the appearance of Mrs. Castle's White Paper, Better Services for the Mentally Ill. Those were followed by the last Government's White Paper, A Review of the Mental Health Act 1959, which was published in September 1978 (a very valuable document), and by the present Government's White Paper which was published last month and on which the present Bill is largely based.
The Government's White Paper refers to the proposals made by the Rampton hospital review team, chaired by Sir John Boynton, for the establishment of an entirely new body to inspect and monitor closed institutions such as Rampton, and to oversee the very sensitive and difficult area of the treatment of certain patients detained without their consent. Paragraphs 29 to 40 of the latest White Paper set out the Government's view of the role and scope of this new body, which they will call the Mental Health Act Commission, and which constitutes one of the major innovations of the Bill which is before your Lordships' House. But before looking at this new body in any greater detail, I should like to point briefly to those provisions which, it seems to us, constitute improvements to the principal Act.
First, with due respect to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, we find perfectly acceptable the changes in terminology. The replacement of the term "subnormality" by "mental handicap" may be little more than cosmetic, but it is in keeping with current concern for all those who are disadvantaged in our society; though I am inclined to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, and others, that the handicapped should not ideally be lumped together with the mentally ill in the same legislation. The replacement of the word "observation" by "assessment" is a distinct improvment, with its more positive implication of a first step towards diagnosis and, where appropriate, treatment.
Then, more importantly, come those measures whose general thrust is in the direction of better safeguards for patients. It seems to be right that a

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person making an application under Section 29 of the Act, to have a patient detained under the emergency procedure, should have to have seen that patient within the previous 24 hours, rather than three days as at present. The period within which the patient must be admitted is likewise reduced to 24 hours and the application is restricted to the person's closest relative or mental welfare officer, rather than left open to any relative. Obviously these provisions should only be used in cases where speed is of the essence and the proposals in the Bill, which derive from paragraph 16 of the White Paper, can therefore be welcomed.
Next, the general shift in the patient's favour of the whole appeal and review procedure is also to be welcomed. Paragraph 28 of the White Paper shows in tabular form the improved frequency of the right of application to the mental health review tribunals. These revised arrangements may be seen, in fact, as providing additional safeguards not only for patients, but also for staff. Long-term cases tend to get overlooked and to become resigned to their characterisation by the hospital staff, and from now on, or from the passing of this Bill if it becomes an Act, patients will be less likely to get stuck in this kind of rut. In effect, Clause 12, by halving the duration of authority for detention, doubles the opportunity for review by the tribunal.
I turn next to the Bill's main proposals concerning offender patients, which are contained in Clauses 18 to 30. This part of the Bill offers some modest but useful reforms, of which those contained in Clauses 26, 27 and 28, which were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, are the most important. On restriction orders, the Bill echoes the proposals of the Butler Committee, which recommended that such orders should only be imposed to protect the public from "serious harm", which is the phrase used in Section 26 of the Bill. There is little doubt that these orders were sometimes imposed in cases where their severity was inappropriate; for example, in cases of frequenting, soliciting, disorderly behaviour, petty theft and drunkenness. Their exclusive use for cases in which serious harm may be inflicted on the community is to be welcomed.
Clauses 27 and 28, on remands to hospital, also seem to be steps in the right direction. Hitherto the only possible forms of remand have been remand on bail or remand in custody. As remands in custody for medical reports are notoriously unsatisfactory, the new category is an improvement. But we have some reservations here. It would be preferable if two medical practitioners, rather than just one, had to advise the court under Clause 27(3)(a). Then, under both Clause 27(7) and Clause 28(7), 28 days seems an adequate time for an assessment and we question whether the 12-week maximum is excessive. In both these clauses, our concern is that safeguards should be stronger than the Bill provides, in order to prevent accused people from being remanded to hospital for longer than is absolutely necessary, and we shall want to look at this at Committee stage.
I come now to the proposed Mental Health Act Commission and the areas of the Bill where our serious disagreements begin. There is certainly a good case for arguing that very closed institutions, such as Rampton,
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would benefit from the scrutiny function which is to be exercised by the new body. However—here is our first caveat—what provisions will there be to ensure that it is properly and publicly accountable? And what about its composition? The Bill is rather coy about the composition of the commission. The White Paper speaks in paragraph 31 of,
"an independent body with members who will be eminent in their different fields; it will really be a safeguard to patients when they are detained".
So far, so good. But then in paragraph 32 we are told that,
"The Government intends that members of the proposed MHAC will be lawyers, doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers and laymen".
But it does not tell us in what proportions. And the Bill is even less explicit than the White Paper. Clause 42 simply tells us a little about the commission's functions and remuneration, but there is nothing about its composition. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, has simply told us that he envisages about 70 part-time members.
Then in subsection (3) of Clause 42 we learn—as it were, in an aside—that medical practitioners, empowered to act under the very important Clauses 38 and 39, may include members of the commission. Here I really must voice a sense of disquiet. We seem to be asked to accept a commission appointed by the Secretary of State, which may in turn appoint its own medical members to give the second statutory opinion specified in the Bill. Here I very much agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, said about the desirability of a multi-disciplinary second opinion.
I would question very seriously whether, in a free country, the Government of the day should ever be given power to decide, through their own appointees, whether someone should be treated who does not want to be treated—even though the White Paper states in paragraph 39 that these appointees,
"will take account of wider social and ethical"
matters. But these are areas in which they are surely no better qualified than anybody else. The whole question of the balance and composition of the commission, and, in particular, of the lay membership, is of the utmost importance, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Cullen, will be able to enlighten us more on this when he comes to wind up.
I want to say just a few words on Clause 38, which is by far and away the most controversial in the Bill. However good its intentions, it undoubtedly introduces a new principle into English law and triggers off, in me, at any rate, a whole battery of alarm bells. The tricky issue of consent to treatment by detained patients is very thoroughly discussed in the last Government's White Paper of September 1978, which was called Review of the Mental Health Act 1959—a most excellent document, in my view.
The first and most important point to grasp is that the 1959 Act, as it stands, confers no statutory right on a medical practitioner to treat a patient without his consent. The most that can be read into it is an implied authority in certain exceptional cases. And even this view—which, incidentally, has never been tested in the courts—has recently been increasingly questioned by bodies such as MIND and others. Because of these doubts, it was the last Government's opinion—and is, apparently, that of the present

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Government—that the power to impose treatment in certain circumstances needs to be made specific, rather than simply left implied as at present. But this immediately raises almost more difficulties than those its sets out to solve. As was admitted in the 1978 White Paper, in chapter 6, paragraph 17,
"… it is by no means easy to formulate proposals which will both provide safeguards for patients and sufficient flexibility to enable staff to deal with the variety of difficult situations which confront them".
How have the Government gone about it? They have, in broad terms, lifted the proposals made in the 1975 report of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, out of their original context—because it should be remembered that the Butler Committee was only concerned with offender patients—and are attempting here to incorporate them, with their safeguards, into the statute law of the land. The safeguards are, of course, important and they appear in subsection (7) of Clause 38. But they are hardly foolproof.
For example, subsection (7)(b) permits involuntary treatment,
"which (not being irreversible) is immediately necessary to prevent a serious deterioration of his condition".
But some would argue that this is open to such wide interpretation as to be either dangerously loose or almost meaningless, or, perhaps, both at once. Be that as it may, there is, without any doubt, one paramount respect in which the Bill, through this clause, makes a revolutionary impact on our law. At present, treatment without consent is both a civil and a criminal assault. The Government have set this important principle on one side, for in order to give their safeguards some validity they have had to come up with something to safeguard against. And this they have done in no uncertain or mealy-mouthed fashion by announcing in the very first lines of the clause that:
"Subject to the provisions of this section, the consent of a patient detained under the principal Act or this Act shall not be required for any medical treatment given to him for the mental disorder from which he is suffering if the treatment is given by or under the direction of the responsible medical officer".
Those are the words at the beginning of Clause 38. There it is in black and white, for the first time ever, subject of course to certain provisions.
But are these provisions going to be adequate? Once you have got the principle down in black and white, from which of course the safeguards are merely derogations, can one be certain that the safeguards may not be progressively whittled away or arbitrarily interpreted? And it is not only Clause 38 but the clause in conjunction with the proposed body for monitoring its application which gives rise to some alarm. We must be very vigilant, I suggest, in ensuring that something introduced, no doubt with the best of intentions, does not become the tool of future abuse. I shall not pursue this question any further in the present debate. I am simply putting down a marker for a later stage when, among other things, we shall also want to look very hard at the definition of "consent" which nowhere appears in this clause.
Another thing that is missing is any requirement for a detailed written record of the procedures leading up to and accompanying treatment. It is surely of the greatest importance that, if the state is to extend its power of administering medical treatment to its citizens without their consent and even, as is provided in
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Clause 38(2)(b), against their will, the most meticulous records should be kept and be accessible to independent scrutiny. I think I have now said enough to indicate that this clause gives rise, among us, to some very grave misgivings.
There are some other shortcomings in the Bill. It does not provide for any change in the eixsting restrictions on legal aid, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, referred, which prevent a patient who wants to be legally represented at a hearing of the mental health review tribunal from applying for legal aid. Without this reform, will not much of the benefit of increasing patients' access to the tribunal be undermined? We are also less than happy with paragraph 62 of the White Paper dealing with the position of restricted patients' access to court review of their detention. We feel that the necessary amendments to meet the strictures of the European Court of Human Rights should be incorporated in the Bill. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Elton, refer to this and tell us that the Government are proposing to bring forward some amendments on this point. And there is finally the question of the deprivation of 124,000 informal patients of the right to vote. How many of these are in fact unfairly deprived? This important matter is not touched on.
I said at the beginning that we give a qualified welcome to the Bill, and that remains the case, but the qualifications are very important ones and the more I think about them the larger they loom in my mind. I have said nothing about the financial effects of the Bill, referred to in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, but I think it is worth remarking that the cost appears to be in the region of £6.1 million in any one year. While applauding the Government's intention to spend such a sum in the area of health and social policy, for which their administration has, frankly, not been remarkable, I am sure they will agree that we must be very careful to get the Bill right if such a sum is to be warranted. I hope, therefore, that we shall have a constructive Committee stage and that the Government will accept that those of us who bring forward amendments will not be trying to wreck the Bill but to make sure that it goes to another place with significant improvements.
5.34 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I am glad to know that the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, joins the growing number of your Lordships who do not want the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill to be lumped together. My noble friend Lord Elton in his open-minded opening speech said that this Bill was a non-party measure. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, endorsed that. I think that this is a splendid way for us to approach this, from both sides of the House. I am so grateful to both noble Lords for the favourable advance notice that they gave of what I might now say. I must try not to disappoint your Lordships.
In the last session the Government did a splendid job, with the help of both sides of both Houses, in improving the Education Bill which we in the Royal Society for the Mentally Handicapped welcomed so much in its final outcome. I hope that the present Bill, in the capable hands of my noble friend Lord

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Elton, will receive similarly favourable treatment, as he said it might, for although it contains useful and welcome provisions it is not acceptable in its present form so far as the mentally handicapped are concerned—as I shall explain.
My noble friend mentioned that 21 years ago when I was Under-Secretary at the Home Office under my noble friend Lord Butler, who was then Home Secretary and whose absence we greatly regret today because his report was so valuable so far as mentally disordered offenders were concerned, I had the responsibility of piloting the criminal justice provisions through another place. My right honourable and learned friend Sir Derek Walker-Smith was the Minister of Health in charge of the Bill. Those criminal justice provisions are in Part V of the 1959 Act. In Part III of this Act they are improved in various useful but relatively minor—not unimportant but relatively minor ways. At the time, the 1959 Act was regarded as a progressive measure but the advance of medical knowledge and the experience gained both within the hospital system and within the prison system, and generally, of the way that that Act has worked have revealed that we made a serious mistake in lumping together the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill. They are now seen to be radically different. After all this time we should surely deal with them differently and if possible separately.
Even today, alas! it is not always understood by the police, by magistrates, by judges (even High Court judges), and by court officials that mental handicap differs fundamentally from all other forms of mental disorder. In trying to understand why this is so—I have asked many members of my own profession and those who still practise in the criminal courts—the nearest I can get is that in the 1959 Act definitions they are all lumped together. Such distinction as is made in the definitions is not clear enough to show their different condition. As it is possible that some others still do not understand the difference, I wonder whether I might very briefly amplify it.
Mental handicap is nearly always something with which people are born, just as some other people are born with a club foot, a withered arm, a cleft palate or some other physical disability. Mental handicap is mostly due to genetic factors, but not hereditary genetic factors. Indeed, so far as present knowledge shows, it is scarcely ever hereditary. But it can also be caused by brain damage either at birth or through an accident in later life. The main point about mental handicap is that it is incurable, with one very small, unpronounceable exception, and that has to be dealt with within a few days or weeks of birth. I shall not try to pronounce it but it is familiar to those who have some medical knowledge.
It is on this point of the incurability of mental handicap that I say with respect that the Bill goes wrong. In Parts II and III it assumes that mental handicap is curable. But it is not. Mental illness, on the other hand, can happen to any of us at any time. It is generally curable to a greater or less extent, with or without admission to hospital. So there is a real difference between those two conditions. Now there are cases in which mentally handicapped people become mentally or physically ill as well as having
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their mental handicap, and I suggest to your Lordships that that is the only time when there is any justification for sending the mentally handicapped to hospital. whether under the compulsion of a court order or under any other kind of persuasion.
This difference between mental handicap and mental illness was acknowledged in the report of Lord Butler's Committee on page 5, where it is said:
"Severe subnormality and subnormality, together generally referred to as mental handicap, are permanent disabilities. Care and training may, over a long period of time, to some extent improve the patient's level of performance but the disabilities are not, in the present state of medical knowledge, susceptible to cure".
If we send mentally handicapped people to hospital when there is nothing else wrong with them it is a sheer waste of time, effort, money and resources within the National Health Service. But, worse than that, if we shut them up in hospital, when they have been accustomed to living in the community, either in their own families or in a hostel or elsewhere in the community, we cause them frustration and unhappiness which can have a bad psychological effect upon them.
As has been mentioned, in September 1978 the Labour Government produced a departmental report, Review of the Mental Health Act, 1978 and that went only part of the way towards acknowledging this difference between mental handicap and mental illness. It is significant that when it was debated in another place in February 1979 every Member except two (who shall remain nameless) who spoke in that full day's debate, said that there should be separate provisions and indeed separate legislation for the two types of mental disorder. Since then the DHSS and the Home Office (in which I was proud to serve for 4½ years) have had nearly three years to get this right; it could be said that they have had longer. I was looking forward to this Bill in the hope that they would do so, but I must confess that I am disappointed. No change of real substance has been made in the stringent powers affecting the mentally handicapped. They can still even be sent to prison in exceptional circumstances. I hope they never will, but they can be sent to prison. I wonder whether my noble friend who is to wind up the debate can tell us how many people suffering only from mental handicap are in prison today? I hope the answer is, nil, but if it is two, it is pretty bad.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, I was listening to him with the greatest attention in his most interesting speech and there is one point which I think we shall agree with but that I want to have cleared up absolutely in my mind. It is the question of sending the mentally handicapped to hospital. Surely in the case of mentally handicapped children beyond a certain level the normal practice is to send them to an institution which is a branch of a hospital. I only wish there to be no confusion. I have been a governor of a hospital and we had a very fine institution for purely incurable mentally handicapped children. I think it should be made clear in what the noble Lord has said that he is not speaking against that practice.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for inviting me to amplify and clarify the position.

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I was coming to that, but as he has mentioned it I think I should tell your Lordships of the lamentable fact that there are no fewer than 2,000 children in large hospital institutions who are suffering from nothing but mental handicap and I am glad to say that it is the policy of the present Government to help the voluntary societies to provide alternative ways of life within the community for those 2,000 children. Only this week I am glad that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State was able to announce a pound-for-pound scheme whereby the Government will provide, over a period, a million pounds on the basis of a pound for pound spent by voluntary societies. That is partly the answer to the noble Lord, but I shall come to a further answer in a moment if he will be so good as to follow me.
The Bill makes no change of real substance in the stringent powers affecting the mentally handicapped. I have dealt with prison. There can still be compulsory hospital orders. It would help to know how many mentally handicapped offenders are compulsorily kept in hospitals of one kind or another. I think they are all in what are known as special hospital—anyway those who come through the courts are—and I understand that the number is about 600 or 700 of those just in special hospitals who have been sent there under Part V of the Act. That is in addition to the 2,000 that I mentioned just now. But surely we can do better than that, bearing in mind some of the cases—I will not give details now; I shall hope to do so at Committee stage—of children who should never have been sent to hospital. Trivial offences simply because the court did not know better and was not given better advice or opportunities.
The Bill merely substitutes a welcome change of name from "subnormality" to "mental handicap", and it redefines "treatment" and "treatability", but it does so in ways which are irrelevant and out-of-date so far as the mentally handicapped are concerned.
I was very surprised—and I must be frank with him and tell him that I was shocked—to hear my noble friend Lord Elton relying upon the report of a committee of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in about the New Year of 1979—a report which was discredited by many other psychiatrists as soon as it had been published. Indeed, I do not know of anyone outside the Government departments who now supports its conclusions, and it was even more reactionary in one important way than the DHSS because it said that there should be no change from the expression "subnormality" to "mental handicap", and I hope that in further discussion we shall not have this now discredited report foisted upon us.
In order to placate those many people inside and outside Parliament who want a separate and distinctive set of legislative provisions for the mentally handicapped, the White Paper (as has been mentioned) promised separation on consolidation, but as the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, with all his experience of the Government service so wisely pointed out, that would make no difference because on consolidation the law cannot be changed.
I do not blame my noble friend Lord Elton for the situation in which he finds himself. A few weeks ago when this Bill, which had not then seen the light of day, was placed on his table years of work had been
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done on it. It was all crystalised, I would think, not months before but probably two years before he was appointed. I suspect that in both the DHSS and the Home Office it was crystalised in September 1978 at official level—and it was an official's report in 1978—and they, for reasons perhaps of pride or sincere conviction or what have you, have committed themselves to this wrong attitude and have declined to pay heed to informed opinion in and out of Parliament since then. Administratively, of course, it is easy and convenient to leave things more or less as they are, always, especially if change involves some complication, especially in legislation. As the White Paper says in paragraph 9, only a very small minority are involved. But they are among the saddest of our people. They cannot speak for themselves. We must speak for them. The Government must get it right, with our help.
It is not only a question of further amending the Bill; it is a question of amending the 1959 Act as well. May I say that I agree with those noble Lords who have said it does not matter very much whether we have a separate Bill or not. If we had a separate part confined to the mentally handicapped in this Bill at the end of the day, honour would be satisfied. I come further to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson. If some few mentally handicapped people must unavoidably be detained, let it be with those of their own kind. I know from experience that they always get on better with each other than if they are pushed in with psychopaths, people suffering from various kinds of mental illness, or indeed with normal people. It is rather wonderful how they do. Bearing in mind that the numbers are not great, I would have thought it would not be beyond the wit of the DHSS and the Home Office to find some way of providing more or less secure accommodation, perhaps on the lines recommended by Lord Butler's committee in their interim report in 1974, which has never been acted upon, when they suggested that there should be in each region a secure psychiatric unit. This could be an annex to the psychiatric unit, but separate from it. As I say, the numbers are not great. Perhaps that should be considered.
I hope, when my noble friend, Lord Elton professes an open mind on the part of the Government, and when your Lordships volunteer that they think that the treatment of the mentally handicapped should be different from what it has been under the 1959 Act, that we shall as a result of a combined team effort somehow get this right; but it is going to need the co-operation of the Home Office as well.
5.54 p.m.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, having listened to the seven previous speakers in detail, it is quite clear that two things have emerged from the discussion that we have had so far. One is that there is a general opinion that the Bill is a good one and it has no party political implications at all; and, secondly. that there are a number of things which need to be done. I would subscribe to that, but, bearing in mind that there are still 15 speakers to go—and think it is fair to say that all that can be said about this Bill has already been said by the seven previous speakers—I do not intend to monopolise much of your Lordships' time. But I do want to make one or two comments.

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It is perfectly true that basically the Bill is a good one, but it is equally true that it has got to undergo a very real reappraisal, and obviously this is a matter for Committee. The Bill, as we all know, covers a very wide field, but perhaps it does not go far enough, and I hope the Government will be prepared to keep an open mind on this. If I may say so without giving offence, I think the most important thing that has been said today is the statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that the Government's mind is not closed—something new for this House, if I may say so; something quite new. We on this side of the House know that in the last two years, when we have had to fight a whole series of complicated Bills, not only was it closed but sometimes we wondered whether it existed at all. So I do ask, quite sincerely and without being too disagreeable about it, that the noble Lord will come to the House, not only at Committee stage but at Report stage, with an open mind, because it is of supreme importance that we get this Bill right, seeing that generally speaking we are in complete agreement with it.
The Government's willingness to consider amendments is very important indeed. I find myself in some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Renton. I can remember being in the same place as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, when I had to introduce into your Lordships' House the Medical Act 1978, and being told in no uncertain manner that there were certain things that could not be included and in no circumstances was I to give way. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Fawley, came forward with a whole series of amendments, and I had to tell him, "No part of the Bill at all; no resemblance to the Bill; I could not accept them". He accepted that. They came up again on Report stage, and I was told. "You must not accept them; you must not give way". And, of course, being the lowest form of ministerial life in the department, I did as I was told. But the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Fawley, had consulted a very eminent medical body, who established beyond all reasonable doubt that it could be done. So at Third Reading he put the amendments down again and we had to accept them—the first time. I believe, in the history of your Lordships' House that an Opposition Member had got everything he wanted.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Elton—and I want to be perfectly serious about this now—that I hope he will not be intransigent. I understand the position he is in; I understand the difficulties. But I hope that he and his friends will not be intransigent about this Bill; that they will read first what the noble Lord, Lord Renton, said, will look at it and find ways and means of seeing whether it can be done. Many of us believe it can be done.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I only wanted to say to the noble Lord that, while I accept his description of myself as the lowest form of ministerial life, I would not accept it for him, particularly in view of what he has just said. I endorse that my mind will be open. Perhaps I might take this opportunity to say that the earlier amendments come to us the easier it is to discover ways to accommodate rather than reject them.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, I am much obliged
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to the noble Lord I do not know whether he and or his friends have had any discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Renton. I imagine that perhaps they have. I hope that they will pursue this point because I think the noble Lord, Lord Renton, has raised an important point.
I wish to comment on two other matters. First, concerning the Mental Health Commission, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said that it would consist of 70 people. There is certainly no mention of that in the Bill. I cannot find the figure "70" in the Bill. I wonder whether this is a figure that they are aiming at, or whether in fact it is a decision that has been taken. The noble Lord mentioned the various classes of people in our society who would go to make up the 70, and he used the word "laymen". This is the first time that I have seen it used in any document that has been published on this matter. I hope, in point of fact, that it will not be left entirely or exclusively to representatives of the few professions which are usually involved in medical matters. I hope that there will be one, two or three balanced ordinary people who, perhaps cannot subscribe to the great heights that other members might be able to subscribe to, but who can bring an everyday common sense view to the matter. I think that it would be a great mistake if the commission were, in fact, bounded by professionalism in the academic sense.
I should like to ask at some stage how the commission will work. If there are to be 70 people, then presumably England must be divided up into areas. Does it mean that a certain number of the 70 will be appointed to each area and then there will be a kind of sub-committee of the commission? I cannot visualise the structure. I think it is important that, if we are to agree in principle to these matters, we ought to be able to see clearly the structure that the Government envisage. I should be grateful if at some stage the House could be given some indication as to how the 70 will work. They cannot all be running all over England. They must put down their roots deeply in a defined area or areas somewhere. But I cannot see how they will work, and so I should like to ask about that.
The other matter relates to the social services. Clause 43 on page 30 of the Bill says:
"After the expiration of the period of two years beginning with the day on which this Act is passed the functions conferred by the principal Act on mental welfare officers shall be discharged by officers of local social services authorities to be known as approved social workers".
I should not have thought that there was a possible chance of that coming into being in the next two years or the next three years.
Whatever we do, let us be realistic. If the noble Lord were to say that if we do not put this in the whole matter will drag on, then I could understand it. I think that it is desirable to express in an Act what we intend to do. But if we are going to say that it has got to be at the end of two years then a great deal must happen. Presumably the mental welfare officers will be transferred to the local authority social services, otherwise they may not have a sufficient number of qualified people to undertake the task. If they have to use approved social workers then the word "approved" in this case surely means qualified. It

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cannot mean anything other than qualified. There will not be that number of qualified social workers to deal with the mentally ill. I am sorry to keep on saying this to your Lordships, but more than half the social workers in the employ of the local authority social work services that we let loose on the public are themselves untrained. It is not their fault; they are willing to be trained, but the places are not there and the money is not there.
So I say to the Government that if they are seriously minded to do something about this, then I should like them to come to the House and to say what their plans are for training people within the next two years to undertake this very difficult task—and let us make no mistake about the difficulty—of dealing with the mentally ill. Some of your Lordships who have had experience in this field will know that it is a supremely difficult job. Therefore, again at the risk of repeating myself—and that is precisely what I am doing—I want to ask the noble Lord to give the House some assurance that the means will be found, and that they will really start on the day that the Act is passed, so that the mental welfare officers can be transferred at the earliest possible moment to the local authority social work service, and, what is more important, that each local authority social work service will have the means and the money to train social workers within the service to become mental welfare officers, albeit that they will be called "approved social workers". Do not let us use words which have specific meanings as the word "approved" does—it implies a trained person—if in point of fact, when the time comes, we are not in the position to do it. I can think of nothing worse than having somebody who is untrained trying to deal with the problems of the mentally ill.
I do not necessarily expect answers to these questions tonight, but I think that the House ought to know at the earliest opportunity what the Government's thinking is on these particular matters, because it will be very difficult to put down amendments unless we know the Government's intentions. I hope that the House will be informed even if it is only by letter, or perhaps by somebody being invited to put down a Question for Written Answer.
6.7 p.m.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, first may I thank my noble friend Lord Elton for the way in which he has presented the Bill and wish him every success in his new office. I feel that I must say a few words on this matter—although I suppose that I am the first amateur to speak tonight—because I was on the committee which dealt with the 1959 Bill. I should like to pay a tribute to a woman in the other House at that time—Bessie Braddock—because I think that she did a great deal to help these people; and, although she was in Opposition at the time, she worked very well with us and I think she would be very sad to see Liverpool at present. However, I think that we owe her some thanks tonight because she worked so well.
I personally think that the 1959 Act has worked well in view of the general progress of medicine and the better understanding, which is so important, of the general public in regard to mentally ill persons. Therefore, I hope that with the passing of this Bill more understanding will come in the community and more
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people will be able to receive care in the community, which I think is something we all want, and there will be less posssibility of detained patients. I notice in the appendix, Table 3.1 of the White Paper, that since 1974 the number of compulsorily detained patients has averaged every year about the same—7,000-plus. I think that we ought to look into this matter to see whether any action can be taken.
With reference to what the noble Lord, Lord Renton, has said as regards the mentally handicapped, he may be pleased to know that on Saturday I was in Plymouth, where we have just opened two special houses for these people and we now have an assessment centre with a fully qualified woman in charge. That may give him a little encouragement and I should like to add that I totally agree with many of the things that the noble Lord said. I think that it may be a little difficult to do all that he wants done in this Bill, but I am sure that he will get the support he needs.
As I understand it, when the 1959 Act was passed it was thought that it would provide new types of psychiatric treatment and research, and that the public would accept—as I think it has—psychiatric treatment, the use of ECT and tranquillisers; and it was hoped that every patient would have the right to refuse this type of treatment. Like the Nationality Act, which does not define "nationality", the Bill does not define "mental disorders". I hope that before we complete this Bill we shall be able to get some more definite understanding of what this implies.
I shall cut out many of the points that. I would have raised because they have already been spoken to. However, I should like consideration to be given to the appointment of a medical director or medical superintendent in each hospital. Before the 1959 Act there was the post of medical superintendent. It is absolutely essential that we have some officer to co-ordinate the work in these hospitals. A hospital may have as many as eight or nine consultants and, therefore, i think it is essential to have someone who can co-ordinate their work, to whom the patients can turn (if they wish) with their particular problems—not their medical problems, but their personal fears—and who can offer advice to the staff, which is very lacking at the present time. We used to have a medical superintendent and a matron in our hospitals. I personally think that they are very much missed both by the patients and by the staff.
Patients' friends sometimes have to travel a long way to visit them in these hospitals. Therefore, when relations ring up or come to see the consultant, he may not be present and they also sometimes cannot get the information that they desire.
I should like to turn to social workers. Are they to have any other work, or will they be simply approved entirely for this type of work? In 1959 I was very interested in a recommendation of the Younghusband Report for a generic social worker—a social worker rather on the lines of the French system. I have now changed my mind, especially in regard to the appointment of social workers who need special qualifications, because I think that they have far too much work to do and have to turn their minds to far too many different problems. If they are to do this type of work, I understand that they need to visit the hospitals and to see the patients, which will be a full-time job.

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One of the difficulties—and I hope that my noble friend Lady Faithfull will not mind my saying this—about child care is that too many burdens have been placed on social worker officers. Clause 16 of the Bill will put too heavy a burden on the approved social worker unless we make special conditions.
There is also a need to place a mandatory duty on local authorities to provide housing, care and support in their areas. Resources will be needed if we are to get people out of hospitals, either when they are cured of their mental breakdowns or the mentally handicapped, as previously mentioned. If people could be put in the care of local authorities, it would he very much cheaper than keeping them in hospital and would also give them a freer, individual life. I suggest that it would be possible to transfer some of the money from the National Health Service to local authorities to perform these duties. Regrettably, there are too many geriatric women in these hospitals. In one hospital I know there are about 50 or 70 of these old ladies. They should not be kept in such a place. In looking at this Bill, perhaps we could consider what else can be done for them.
I should like to know whether there will be a general practitioner on the commission. I think that general practitioners should be brought in much more than I anticipate, from the Bill, will be the case, because they know their patients. As regards abnormal offenders, Cmnd. 6244 says that the courts may remand an accused person to hospital for medical reports and treatment in cases of mental illness or severe mental handicap. That is why I should like general practitioners to be on the commission, because in all probability he has known his patient for many years and should have a real say in that person's future.
I should like to pay a tribute to the League of Friends, which has done so much in particular for the mentally handicapped. On Saturday, when I was in Plymouth, they were there collecting £10,000 for a new roof on a hostel (which they have already bought) for the adult mentally-handicapped whose parents do not know what will happen to them when they themselves unfortunately die. I have not gone into the details of the Bill, and I intend to study the Bill and consider amendments very carefully, but I hope that it will provide future happiness for many people. This is what we are all striving at in dealing with this Bill today.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank my noble friend Lord Elton for having introduced this Bill and explaining it so clearly today. The Bill aims at reforming the law in England and Wales applying to mentally disordered people who need special protection and control. I welcome these proposals to improve safeguards for those people; for example, to provide greater opportunity to appeal against continued detention. That is an area where there has been some public concern. I also hope that in future it will be more clearly visible that opportunities are available. I also commend the drawing up of a code of practice concerning special treatment; for example. electro-convulsive therapy—ECT as it is known, the electric shock treatment. That code
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would be a guide to individual doctors. Again, this should improve confidence where some sections of the public have had doubts about what is known as "hazardous" treatment.
One reason why I am taking part today is that most, if not all, of these mentally disordered people have a mental disability. They are some of the disabled for whom 1981 is the International Year and, as some of your Lordships know, I am the chairman for the Year in Scotland. Indeed, I flew from Scotland this morning, having taken part in two of the substantial events there in the year, in Inverness on Saturday and in Glasgow yesterday. The other three chairmen for the other three parts of the United Kingdom—England, Wales and Northern Ireland—are not in Parliament. I do not seek to speak for them; nonetheless I am sure that they would join me in expressing pleasure that this Bill has been introduced during the International Year.
Where we consider disabling mental illness we must recognise that prodigious progress has been made in medical science and treatment during the past 30 years. As a result, many more disabled people are, fortunately, able to live outside hospitals and institutions. Often this can be done with a régime of drugs and medical supervision. In some cases a protected environment is also required so that the disabled person does not need to be subjected to the hurly-burly of ordinary life. I suggest that this is all to be encouraged. It coincides with the similar aim that physically disabled people should, if possible, live outside hospitals and institutions.
In future this means that more severely disabled people, with various kinds of handicap, will be in circulation in the community. This is to be applauded and encouraged for several reasons. In almost all cases this is what they, the disabled people, want. They wish to be as independent as possible. It is also good for their condition, psychologically; and it is also the best use of the taxpayers' resources. It relieves burdens upon the Treasury rather than adding to them.
One can do more with the same money. Living in the community costs less, with a sensible range of allowances, benefits, and services, than occupying a place in a hospital or institution. So it is not necessarily a matter of asking for more public expenditure but of asking for imagination and flexibility in the ways in which the resources are used. In the case of mental disability it also relieves pressure on our scarce resources of mental nurses—and mental nurses who are qualified.
Many mentally disordered people 30 or more years ago were simply locked up or put in an institution for their own good, or for the good of the public. Now drugs can enable them to live ordinary lives. This means that there must be procedures for handling quickly situations which can arise from a relapse or failure to take the prescribed drugs. I am glad to note the new arrangements in the Bill which include a six-hour holding power for certain staff. In general, the clarification of duties of hospital staff in these matters will be helpful.
The fact that many more mentally disabled are now living in the community, and we hope that more will in future, requires a matching increase in knowledge and understanding on the part of the general public. This is especially so of those disabled people who are

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not obvious to strangers. For example, the deaf and dumb, as well as those suffering from a mental illness.
There is still a lot to be done in spreading knowledge about mental disability. May I give one example. There is a serious and disabling illness, schizophrenia, for which the cause and cure are still being sought. But it is widely thought by many of the public simply to be a Jekyll-and-Hyde phenomenon. The name of the illness is misused and does not evoke the care, sympathy and consideration which it should. Some parliamentarians are to blame. A number of achievements have already been obtained in this international year. Another which I should dearly like to see would be that Members of both Houses of Parliament should refrain from applying the word, "schizophrenia" when they are being derogatory about the behaviour of their political opponents. Such self-imposed restraint would be a very useful advance during 1981.
Mentally disabled, like the deaf and dumb, hope for improvement in public awareness. Most are not immediately recognisable to strangers. All of us hope that members of the public will be more ready to assume that someone who does not reply immediately or sensibly to a question or a remark may be disabled mentally. Then there will be fewer incidents where mentally disabled people are misunderstood or shouted at on the pavement or on public transport.
I should like to make comments on two points in particular in the Bill. First the commission to be set up under Clause 42 for England and Wales, and to be known as the Mental Health Act Commission. This is clearly part of a new system to improve the safeguards, which I welcome. There is already such a commission in Scotland. It is known as the Mental Welfare Commission. The 1978 White Paper referred to it on page 77, and suggested then that there should be a commission on similar lines established for England and Wales. That was discarded by the Government at that time, but it has now been accepted by the present Government and is in the Bill.
I would just contribute this, if I may, to your Lordships' House. It is generally agreed that the commission which has been operating in Scotland has been working well. I hope I can say this with appropriate modesty as someone who has been concerned with it over the years as a Minister and a Member of the other place. That commission was established in 1960 by the Mental Health (Scotland) Act, which was of course the counterpart of the 1959 Act for England and Wales, which has been referred to many times in this debate. From experience of the Scottish Welfare Commission I have high hopes that the new commission now proposed for England and Wales will contribute to safeguards and also contribute to confidence, which is so important in these matters.
The second point to which I should like to refer is the question of hazardous treatment, with or without the permission of the patient, and I would add also the question of such treatment for children when the parents have to give permission, or are consulted. I should like in particular to refer to the electric shock treatment, ECT. This is normally given under an anaesthetic. It can affect, and usually does, the memory of the patient for several weeks. Clearly people will also worry about other possible effects. But someone who is thoroughly disturbed, wildly
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suicidal, or in a very distressed and distressing state can be brought to a normal state, and this is often later accepted, I understand, by the patients themselves. They find that the burdens which had oppressed them mentally have either been removed or greatly lightened. But these are difficult decisions to be taken, especially for parents who find themselves facing this for the first time. The code of practice which the Bill proposes should be helpful and should reassure.
In supporting the principles in the Bill, I see them as trying to achieve a proper balance between the freedom of the individual to live a normal life and powers to detain, or control, someone in the interests of his treatment and safety. At the same time the Bill should be buttressing confidence in a revised system and its procedures.
6.27 p.m.
Lady Kinloss: My Lords, if I do not follow other speakers but confine myself to a few remarks I hope I may be forgiven, as I have rather severe catarrh and find it hard to speak clearly. My noble friend Lady Loudoun also regrets that she is unable to be here today to speak in this debate.
Of course there is very much to praise in this Bill. I am a member of the all-party Parliamentary Mental Health Group, and the National Association for Mental Health, MIND, have always been most helpful in keeping one up to date and informed on mental health matters. MIND applauds the Government's decision to devote parliamentary time to the subject of the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped, and warmly supports the recognition accorded in the Bill to the need for increasing the rights of the detained person.
I still think that the confusion caused by the 1959 Act needs clearing up. That Act tried to deal in a portmanteau fashion with both mental handicap and mental illness at the same time, as if these two things were the same. Mental handicap cannot be cured and therefore medical treatment does not arise, but on the other hand a mentally handicapped person can be helped to gain a certain independence where possible. Mental illness is an illness, like any other, and can be treated medically, which often results in a complete cure.
In answer to a Written Question in another place, in the Official Report of 19th November 1981, col. 50, the Government replied that they recognised,
"the need to distinguish between mental handicap and mental illness and intend to provide for the legal powers affecting mentally handicapped patients to be grouped separately in a consolidation Bill, to be introduced as soon as possible after the passage of the Mental Health (Amendment) Bill".
I wonder why mental handicap cannot be removed from this Bill now? Would it not save time and money? MENCAP has collected evidence that psychiatrists and psychologists have recognised the vast difference between mental handicap and mental illness. It is clearly a mistake to lump the two together, as they have only the word "mental" in common.
Last Friday I was able to visit Yearsley Bridge, an adult training centre in York for mentally handicapped people of all ages. I noted that many of those concerned were eager that mental handicap and mental illness should not be legislated for in the same Bill. In that centre, as I am sure in others, they are very con-

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cerned with their role of helping their trainees, as they are called, to reach the full potential of such talents as they have. They are determined to make them as independent as possible so that eventually they can live in sheltered hostels; that is, so that those who are able should stand on their own feet as far as possible. I cannot praise too highly the patience and dedication of the staff, and I should like to thank the manager and staff for their kindness to me. I wish your Lordships could have seen the joy and happiness of those persons of limited capacity in the achievements they are able to reach. One trainee took me round and introduced me to each group and the staff. He was kind and helpful and waited patiently while I was shown round the various groups. He was clearly not to be placed in the same category as a person who was mentally ill.
There are very many in hospital who need not be there, although there will always be a few who will need special care and attention. The DHSS has produced an estimate of the numbers who could be transferred from hospital to the community if there were sufficient hostels or some other form of sheltered accommodation for them, and adequate supportive help in the community. I hope very much that when we see the consolidated Bill it will show that steps have been taken in that direction. In the meantime, I wish this Bill a speedy and happy passage through your Lordships' House.
6.32 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, with others, I support this amending Bill to the successful Mental Health Act 1959. I am the twelfth speaker and all the points have been covered. However, not having the generous nature of the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, I propose not only to pursue my speech but to add briefly to it, and I hope I shall have the indulgence of the House.
Before coming to the four questions which I have to ask the Minister, I wish to take up the point of the separation of mental handicap from mental illness. In principle I agree with that, but there are difficulties over it. I see that my noble friend Lord Renton is not in his place, so I shall ask him about this at a later stage. While I see that mental illness and mental handicap are different, nevertheless the services are the same, but the point needs thinking about to appreciate it. I speak as an ex-director of social services. I look back and think of our services to the mentally handicapped and mentally ill. The same social workers dealt with the two groups of people. We did not, in certain degrees of mental handicap and mental illness, separate them, and the day centres which we ran accommodated all sorts of conditions of men; our day centres were not only for the mentally handicapped, mentally ill or physically handicapped or normal lonely people, but they were for everybody. That brought great wealth both to the mentally handicapped and to the mentally ill, in that they were at a centre where there were all sorts of conditions of people, and I should be sorry, so far as the services are concerned, if they were divided, giving a separate service of one group of people from another. Therefore, while in principle the point made by my noble friend Lord Renton is accepted, in practice when it comes to giving a service by a social services department and
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by voluntary organisations, I should be sorry to see the two sides separated. Indeed, I am not at all sure that we could afford it.
My first question concerns social workers (Clause 43). This aspect was dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and my noble friend Lady Vickers. Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to go into the history of this matter. In 1970, the Local Authority Social Services Act was passed, amalgamating the mental health department of the local authority, the welfare services department of the local authority dealing with the elderly and handicapped and the children's departments. At that time, when they were amalgamated—it was based on the Seebohm Committee Report—we all agreed with that amalgamation, setting up local authority social services departments, and I still agree with that law that was passed at that time.
As my noble friend Lady Vickers said, there was a move towards generic social workers which we have now recognised is simply an impossibility. However, I wish to speak briefly about the training. Before the passing of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 there were two forms of training for social workers. There were the Younghusband courses which trained for working with the handicapped and the elderly, and the mental health officers, and that was a two-year training. There was also, separately, two-year training for childcare staff and children's departments.
An extraordinary thing happened in 1970. Social workers were given a two-year course, but it combined all the departments so that they had to cram into two years what before had been done in two years separately. That really meant that the basic training of social workers has been very unfair on the social workers, very hard for the tutors and, I would add, unjust on our clients. I think it is now fully recognised, and thus my first point is that the basic training of social workers should be longer, even if we must train fewer of them. I would rather have fewer well trained social workers than a number of them thought to be trained but not well trained. I therefore believe that the Minister will be in a real dilemma because the approved social workers in mental health under this Bill will receive extra training on top of the basic social workers' training.
There are two points here: first, where will he find throughout the country enough social workers who have had the basic training? Secondly, would my noble friend Lord Cullen say what training it is proposed to give the approved social workers in the mental health field? Will it be in-service training or additional training? Inevitably one must ask: From whence are the resources coming? Quite definitely they will not come from the local authority. I think that is definite with the position as it is today.
In fairness to the other branches of social work, children's work, the work with the elderly and the work with the handicapped, it is fair to say that social workers in these fields must be trained also, and there are not enough trained social workers for all sides of the work of social services departments.
I look back on my own training long ago. I trained to be a social worker. I did not train to be anything else—a welfare rights officer or whatever else is sometimes done in social work departments. It was a

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disciplined training. For instance, I am bound to mention, particularly in the light of the Bill, that we had throughout my two year course at Birmingham University a lecture on law from a barrister brought from London, and we had a paper to write every week for two years. Nowadays social workers are fortunate if they have three lectures in two years on the law, and I believe that it greatly behoves us all to look at the quality of training that is being given at the moment, in fairness to everyone all round.
I should add that at the moment the Barclay Committee is sitting, looking into the role of social workers in social services departments. I very much hope that following the publication of the report of the committee we shall look into the training of social workers and this time get it right. But I must say that I believe my noble friend the Minister will have some problems over the training of approved social workers to administer the Bill when it becomes an Act.
My next point concerns Clause 43(3), which states that social services authorities,
"shall have regard to such matters as the Secretary of State may direct".
I wonder what that means. I should like to think it means that there should be a code for the structure of management. At the moment some mental hospitals have their own social workers based on hospitals. In those cases there is a relationship between the mental hospital staff, both nurses and doctors and the social workers. Work of this nature cannot be done well without a good relationship and understanding between the staff. But when it comes to night duty and to dealing with the different sections, in particular Section 29, the rota is such that social workers who have to deal with sections are not always those who work in the hospitals. Therefore, doctors find themselves sectioning a case, perhaps at two o'clock or three o'clock in the morning, with a social worker whom they do not know and with whom they do not have a relationship. I have done section work and I know what it is like to deal with a case which one does not know and to work with a doctor whom one has never previously met, in a hospital which one has not previously been in. Therefore, I very much hope that under the provision guidance will be given to local authorities, asking them to look at their structures.
My next point concerns the Mental Health Act Commission. I have kept a tally and I see that three noble Lords have spoken for the commission, two noble Lords have spoken against it, and the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, has asked questions about it. I have to ask: Will the setting up of yet another structure really solve a problem? I understand from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, that this has helped in Scotland, and therefore perhaps I am wrong, but consider—
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I apologise for intervening and I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. Perhaps I should have added a little more when I spoke earlier, to say that conditions and the system in Scotland are different and that there could be overlapping in England and Wales because there are more organisations already working in the field South of the Border. But what I wanted to
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say was that, on the whole, the commission has been regarded as doing a good job in Scottish conditions.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I could not be more grateful to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy for intervening because I was going to come on to the point about overlapping, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, referred. Consider, my Lords, the number of people with whom psychiatrists will have to deal. Are they ever going to be able to work? There will be the Mental Health Review Tribunal. There are the area, region and district health authorities and the hospital advisory service. Will there not be serious overlapping? Therefore, despite the Boynton Report, I question the setting up of the commission as another structure. I would rather see us get the grass roots work properly organised. I shall perhaps put down an amendment at the next stage of the Bill suggesting that the commission be set up for five years only, to be reviewed at the end of that priod; but I have yet to consider that.
My final point concerns mentally handicapped children in hospital. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers have already referred to these children. The deepest concern for these mentally handicapped children is that they are permanently being brought up in hospitals and this is less than worthy of our caring society. The children perforce suffer in silence. They cannot strike to make known their rights to a normal life. They cannot riot to make known their needs and because they cannot protest, our society acquiesces and allows them to be brought up in a hospital, away from a community setting, and very often away from emotional relationships so necessary to the development of personality.
That is not to say that the nurses who look after them do not look after them well but, judging from my experience and knowledge, the children cannot possibly lead a normal life. Many children who are mentally handicapped can make a great contribution to life, as was said by the right reverend Prelate. I would add that this point has been looked at by the King's Fund, and I would commend to your Lordships' House the project paper which gives all the details of the position of mentally handicapped children being brought up for many years in hospitals, when they could as well, as happily and more profitably be brought up in the community.
I am privileged to be the vice-chairman of the council of Barnado's. I am also a vice-president of the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering and I serve on the Committee of Parents for Children. I have worked in a social services department. I would suggest that with a partnership between the voluntary sector and the statutory sector it should be possible to get children out of hospitals, perhaps by adoption. Your Lordships would be astonished if you knew the number of people who in the last two years have adopted mentally handicapped children. It is possible happily to foster the children. It is possible for the children to be looked after in an integrated children's home, and it is possible, as is being done by Barnado's at the moment, to run community-based centres for the mentally handicapped. I ask the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Cullen of Ashbourne, whether, in order to deal with this position, we should

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set a time limit, and say that within two years every mentally handicapped child who is fit and healthy should be brought out of mental hospitals.
I would ask: what is the status of treatability? We heard earlier the noble Lord, Lord Elton, say that one of the principles of the Bill was that no one should remain in hospital, except under the status of treatability. Fit, healthy mentally handicapped children do not need treatment. Therefore, under the Bill would it not be illegal for children to remain in hospital and be brought up in such conditions? If the Bill means that many children at present being brought up in mental hospitals are moved into the community, to a richer life, where they can work, and live and have training and education, then indeed it will have been a great success.
6.50 p.m.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, a longstanding engagement at New Zealand House will mean my leaving your Lordships' Chamber almost immediately after I have spoken, but I shall try my utmost to return for the final speeches. I should like to add to the congratulations extended to my noble friend Lord Elton on his appointment to this important if relatively lowly office—an office which I think he will fulfil with distinction. It is certainly not going to be an easy passage for him; and, having been involved in a very small way with mental health legislation in your Lordships' House over a number of years, I cannot see this Bill presenting any less problems than any other Bill on the same subject, notably that which became the very important 1959 Act, which of course this Bill largely consolidates. Indeed, I remember that after my speech on the 1959 Bill—and I had been in your Lordships' House for only a short time—I was summoned to the Woolsack by the late Lord Kilmuir. I wondered what transgression I had committed. He said to me, "I enjoyed your speech very much, but would you please speak up in future?"
Since those days there has been a good deal of progress in the field of mental health. But, of course, one of the main problems is that there is still a great lack of knowledge, even among those who are really interested in mental health, as to the real difference between mental illness and mental health; in other words, the various degrees of severity among those who are severely handicapped and those who merely enter hospital for a short time, possibly for a nervous breakdown. Therefore, I think the amendment of the term "subnormality" to replace "mental handicap" may well be a good move. At least, this is the view of some members of the medical profession.
On Sunday night my wife and I spent some four hours with the chief nursing officer and administrator of one of the seven mental hospitals near the town where I live in Surrey. We went through this Bill (it was on a Sunday night, when one's brain is not as active as it might be) as far as we could. As a result there are a few points that I should like to make at this stage, because this a is Second Reading—an occasion for short speeches. When we come to Committee stage, bearing in mind that this Bill, laudably, is starting in your Lordships' House, we shall have some very detailed examination to do because there is much
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definition to confirm and a great deal of information which we shall need to know.
We shall need to know who does what and, above all, where the staff is going to come from and where the money is going to come from; because many of the schemes provided for in the Bill are in themselves totally praiseworthy but they are going to lead to expenditure; and it is my contention, and I think the contention of most of your Lordships, that even in these austere times there must be expenditure upon these people, or at least an improvement in their conditions. Because, my Lords, we are talking about people; we are not talking about inanimate objects. We are talking about people who, through no fault of their own, are mentally handicapped or mentally ill, whatever the case may be, some with Down's syndrome, another very distressing condition, and others who are able to speak and to work, albeit to a limited extent.
Clause 16 of the Bill has been discussed a great deal, and I think the question one must put to the Government is this. As I understand it, the mental welfare officer has to interview the patient to satisfy himself that detention in hospital is appropriate. But how many doctors, psychiatrists or other experts on the therapeutical side of mental health are going to be needed to confirm (or otherwise) this situation? I speak hearing in mind particularly an area such as where I live, where we have seven mental hospitals; and another such area is the St. Alban's-Watford area, where there are another seven mental hospitals. In some cases there is overcrowding and in some cases there may not be so much overcrowding but there are a very large number of patients who may have to be seen. One wonders just how many qualified people there will be to see these people in a reasonably short time, without intolerable delays.
Here we obviously have to come to a decision as to not only how far the Bill should serve the rights of patients—and, of course, this is the main object of the Bill, and an admirable object it is, too—but also how far it is to ensure that in the case of those patients who are not able to decide for themselves and who have no parents or relatives to decide for them, their rights are going to be protected. Not being a social worker myself or a magistrate, or any expert of that kind, I shall not, certainly at this hour of the evening, try to adumbrate upon that. But one thing is quite certain, it seems, from a number of the clauses in this Bill: the work which the courts face is going to be tremendous. Some very difficult decisions are going to have to be taken by magistrates—and here I declare an interest (a completely non-financial interest) because my wife is a magistrate and serves on a bench which, naturally, from time to time has to deal with cases which involve people from hospitals of this kind—and this is an important point to remember.
The other point we have to remember, I think, is that the mental handicap services remain the Cinderella services in 1981. In so many of these hospitals, still, not only is there a desperate shortage of staff to look after patients, some of them very severely handicapped, but salaries are often inadequate. This Bill does not deal with that specifically; that is a matter for negotiation. I completely accept that point; but we do have, perhaps, a cart-before-the-horse situation here, because

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unless and until we have really first-class staff and a sufficient staff, all these recommendations are going to be in danger of falling by the wayside.
One suggestion which I should like to put forward and perhaps develop in Committee stage is this. Many of these long-stay hospitals do not have such relative luxuries as a minibus, by which patients can be taken to the seaside or other places of entertainment and beauty or a swimming pool for therapeutic purposes. Many of these patients have funds of their own, but in many cases they are not able to administer them. I am not advocating the setting up of another Quango but there could, surely, be a committee set up to look at a situation where one or more of these amenities were needed, perhaps having a representative of the DHSS acting as chairman and representatives of the League of Friends. I would associate myself with all the tributes paid to the League of Friends who have contributed so much to the schemes; but in inflationary days even the League of Friends are not able to be as generous as they would like. This is an idea which the Government might think about. Funds could be raised without the taxpayer's pocket being hit too hard to provide amenities for these patients, particularly in hospitals in the greyer areas where they do not have minibuses, swimming pools and other things which are helpful therapeutically, not only for those who are what I might call high-grade but for those who are very much less fortunate.
My Lords, inevitably, the Second Reading of a Bill of this kind is an opportunity for discussing a large number of points. I have thrown a few, to so speak, to the House; but I submit that the value of your Lordships' House at the Committee stage of this vital Bill will be very substantial.
7.2 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I should like to contratulate the Government on bringing in this amending Bill. I should like also to add that I hope that your Lordships may be able to improve the Bill during its passage through this House. I was pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Elton, say that he was open to suggestions. I was moved some years ago while watching the remarkable film, "One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest". This was a film which showed how attitudes of staff in a hospital for mental patients can become so orientated to automatic treatment of patients not for their individual well-being but for the convenience of the staff and the system. Also, while visiting hospitals for the mentally ill and handicapped I have been made aware by patients who have called out my name; and I have realised that they need friendship and individual recognition. There are many desperately lonely people in our society.
The subject of this Bill is not easy. I hope that we can help to open up the real fear that often is connected with hospitals which detain patients. I know, too, that sometimes ill patients who might benefit from being in-patients for a time in hospitals refuse to go for fear that things will be done to them against their wishes. Some of the recent television programmes on this subject have been very revealing. The lack of privacy and being deprived of personal effects has always worried me when I have visited some hospitals, and also the mixing of ages and illnesses. Parliament
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now has before it a Bill which we have the great responsibility of being able to change and thus to help some unfortunate people who are not able to help themselves.
There are questions which I should like to ask the Minister. I have given advance warning of some of them to the noble Lord, Lord Elton. Because there is a lack of hospital secure places, I believe that some patients have been sent to prisons. Are these patients then classed as patients or prisoners? Under this Bill, when it becomes an Act will they have the same benefits as patients in hospital? Do they come under the care of the Department of Health and Social Security or of the Home Office?
I am going to visit a secure unit in Middlesbrough in two weeks' time. I believe this is the first such unit in the country. I believe that the North of England is further advanced than the South in building these units. Is it going to be possible to send patients from the South to the North if they need treatment in a secure hospital unit?—which might be better for them than the holding process and drugs which may be the only facilities that the prison can offer.
I should like to hear from the Minister on the matter concerning the mobility allowance which is paid to some patients in mental hospitals. I brought this up some time ago, and I believe Sir George Young is looking into the matter. Apparently some patients are not able to make use of this money and it mounts up in their accounts. As the law stands now, when they die it goes to whoever is their nearest relative. This may be someone who has never been near them or even visited them in hospital. I think this is a monstrous waste of public money. I gather that the total sum now accumulated is in excess of £25 million. It seems to me that if the money is not used to benefit the individual concerned, then if it were to be paid into a patient's "No. 2 Special Mobility Account" so that it would not be muddled up with any other money the patient might have, then, if the mobility money was not used by a certain time—and certainly when they die—the DHSS might claim back the money.
The DHSS keep on saying that they are short of money and yet the Government allow £25 million to lie idle and then not be used for its original purpose. I am sure that many of the hospitals dealing with mental illness or handicap could benefit from more money. When visiting one hospital I found the last meal of the day was sent to the wards at 3.30 in the afternoon. I do think that the quality of life could be greatly improved in many hospitals, even though great efforts in some hospitals have been made in the last few years. I was delighted this year to receive a cheque for £5,000 on behalf of one hospital. The money had been raised for upgrading a psycho-geriatric ward by the efforts of a police college. I think that the community often does care but, in many instances, raising money is the only way it knows how to help.
It has been found by research in America that many patients admitted for psychiatric treatment have been suffering from undiagnosed physical illness. This could well be found to be the same in Britain. Therefore, I think it seems wise and necessary that all patients detained under Section 25 should have a full

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physical examination by a consultant physician during the first three days. What is stated on page 6, paragraph 18, of Reform of Mental Health Legislation, (Cmnd 8405) is vague and inadequate.
When we are dealing with such a serious matter I will be very surprised if the Government do not agree with this suggestion and I would ask the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, to look into this carefully. I have met serveral psychiatrists from time to time and I have found some to be most excellent doctors; but on occasions I have seen some who were so tired, over-worked and drained of energy that they could easily miss some vital clue through their own exhaustion and not looking for what a general physician would look for in their complementary assessment.
Undiagnosed physical illness may cause or exacerbate patients' psychiatric symptoms. I think many people will welcome the provisions in the Bill by which patients have increased access and opportunities to be heard by mental health review tribunals. I think that these provisions should be improved upon. May I ask the noble Lord the Minister: Who will represent the patient? It may be very difficult or impossible for him to represent himself. Will the patient be able to have the benefit of legalaid?
I believe that the mental health review tribunals have the power to recommend either continued detention or discharge. People who serve on these tribunals have told me that it is an impossible choice. In many cases they do not want to detain the patient but the facilities for him to cope in the community are non-existent. The tribunal should have a third choice so they could indicate the type of resources the patient would need outside the hospital. For example, hostel accommodation, sheltered workshop, social worker support or day centre facilities. Mental health tribunals will then be able to pinpoint the lack of facilities and something may be done about improving the areas which are now inadequate.
There is considerable worry about Clause 38 which contains provisions for the involuntary treatment of patients. With the doing away of forced feeding in prisons is it not time that we did away with the indignity of patients being forced to have treatment that they do not wish to have and which may not benefit them? Many of the treatments such as psycho-surgery, ECT and heavy psychotropic drug treatments can be hazardous, experimental and irreversible. On a recent television programme that I saw it was said that patients now having electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) do so under a general anaesthetic. I should like to ask the Minister: Who signs the consent form for the patients who are having this treatment and other operations against their will?
I hope that we will have our questions answered if not at the end of this debate, before the Committee stage. I end by saying that many community health council members, when discussing the Mental Health Act, felt that mentally handicapped people should not come within the scope of the Act as they do not at present and that it should be concerned solely with mental health. No doubt there are grey areas where the two merge and some mentally handicapped people may be mentally ill, but this could apply to any of us at any time.
7.15 p.m.
Lord Hooson: My Lords, the Mental Health Act 1959 was in its day regarded as a thoroughly enlightened piece of social legislation. Its greatest achievement was to remove needless formalities in the admission process. But as the years have passed—as the noble Lord, Lord Renton, has mentioned already—its reputation for far-sightedness and liberalism has become to look a little exaggerated. It did not, after all, actually cause the fall in the use of compulsion; that trend was well under way in the years preceding it. Although it established mental health review tribunals, which at their best provide an admirable review, only those patients detained under the longer-term powers could apply to them. The very large number of patients detained for 28-day periods have had no remedy.
In so far as this Bill remedies that situation, it is very much to be welcomed. I extend the welcome which has been given to the Bill generally. It is high time that the 1959 Act was amended. Having said that, I want to come to a most important reservation that I have about it. It has already been touched upon by the noble Baroness who has just spoken and by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, in an earlier speech. The most worrying part of the Bill is its proposed scheme for the imposition of treatment on unwilling or non-consenting patients. It introduces an entirely new principle into our law.
This aspect of mental health law is clearly ripe for reform. At the moment doctors, nurses and patients are quite unable to obtain any authoritative legal guidance on their legal rights. On the crucial issue of whether a psychiatrist can impose treatment on a detained patient, practitioners have been forced to rely upon counsels' opinions. But opinions differ and those obtained by, COHSE and the Royal College of Psychiatrists have conflicted. Indeed, my information is that the two medical protection societies were also given conflicting counsels' opinions. Parliament must therefore accept its duty to enact clear principles into law in this amending Bill.
But the provisions set out in the Bill are inadequate, misguided and unbalanced. I do not think that Parliament should allow them to go through unamended. I freely accept that most psychiatrists dislike resorting to force majeure and would far prefer to have their patients' agreement to any treatment. It is probably quite rare for treatment to be given to a patient in the face of his or her implacable opposition and physical resistance. Of course, there are circumstances in which it is justified; that is not in dispute. In genuine emergencies there may be no other compassionate alternative.
However, if no emergency has arisen, the views of the detained patient should be respected if he or she is capable of understanding what is involved. That principle is vitally important; but the truth is that this Bill casually ignores it in Clause 38. That would allow a competent detained patient to be treated against his will—subject only to one qualification; a second psychiatric opinion—by ECT or long-acting phenothiazines or any other treatments likely to be listed in the code of practice. It ignores the principle of no treatment to the non-consenting despite the clear recommendation of the Butler Committee on Mentally

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Abnormal Offenders, which recognised that mentally abnormal offenders detained under the Mental Health Act were not necessarily unable to appreciate what a treatment involves.
What is true for patients detained under Part V of the Act (which provides the legal powers in respect of offenders) is just as true for patients detained under the civil powers contained in the Act. The Butler Report (in paragraph 3.54) quite rightly did not countenance the imposition of treatment on a competent patient except in emergencies.
A major defect of the proposed scheme is therefore that it fails to uncouple two concepts: the concept of detainability on one side and on the other competency to decide on treatment. Among the 7,000 patients who at any one time are detained under the Act there are many—a great many—whose faculties of reasoning and understanding are quite sufficient to comprehend a treatment proposal. For example, the diagnosis of psychopathy does not depend upon the observation of any intellectual defect—it is regarded as a moral or emotional defect—and the White Paper recently published shows that nearly 10 per cent. of detained patients are classified as suffering from psychopathic disorder.
Among the much larger number of patients diagnosed as being mentally ill (nearly three-quarters of all detained patients) there are undoubtedly many with quite adequate capacity to decide on treatment for themselves. Mental illness, after all, is manifested in almost every shade or gradation of insight. The fact that a person is properly diagnosed as mentally ill does not mean that he or she is disabled in all his or her powers of judgment. And, of course, detention may cover periods when a mental illness has gone substantially into remission. The Percy Commission, which reported in 1957, which was of course before the 1959 Act, recognised this fact when they said:
"We do not think it right that it should be assumed in law or in administrative practice that mentally disordered patients who are admitted to hospital under compulsory powers are necessarily incapable of managing their financial affairs".
What is true about a patient's ability to make financial decisions is just as true about treatment. Indeed, we should be more concerned about overriding a patient's wishes on treatment since it touches the core and essence of a person's right to be regarded as a self-determining human being.
The White Paper entitled The Review of the Mental Health Act 1959 (Cmnd. 7320) which the last Government put out in September 1978, accepted the Butler Committee's view which I previously quoted. It specifically noted that it had the advantage that—I quote:
"it distinguishes between patients who can appreciate what is involved and those who cannot".
Why, then, have this Government thrown this important principle overboard? I think the White Paper which has been published alongside the present Bill certainly does not provide any answer. I recognise of course, as the Butler Committee and the last Government must have done, that if a detained patient who is competent to understand chooses to refuse treatment he may suffer continuing detention without receiving the treatment which his doctor believes in. The decision to invoke compulsory detention under
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Sections 26 or 60 of the 1959 Act is made on the basis that the patient's condition warrants treatment; but this is now to be very broadly defined and will include nursing care or care, habilitation and rehabilitation under medical supervision.
Just because a person has been detained it does not follow he should be unable to refuse a particular treatment on a subsequent occasion when circumstances, including his own state of mind, may have changed. And it certainly should not mean that he has lost his right to refuse treatments which would constitute assaults at common law in the absence of consent. For better or worse, it is the patient's right to choose if he is capable of choosing. That seems to me to be a fundamental principle and we are faced with its abrogation in this Bill. I would therefore hope that the Government will be receptive to amendments to Clause 38 which would restore the position of the competent patient to that which the Butler Report and the last Government in their White Paper proposed. As it stands, I believe that this Bill provides unacceptably wide powers over a vulnerable group of people.
In my view, it will not be enough simply to amend the Bill to protect the freedom of choice of the competent detained patient. Inevitably one must ask: who will decide whether a patient is competent or incompetent to make the choice for himself? Is it to be the doctor whose proposal on treatment has been refused? I would hope not, because his judgment would be bound to be coloured by the reaction, and he may think the unreasonable reaction, of the patient concerned. No patient would have confidence in such a system. There must be a second opinion from a multi-disciplinary panel.
The 1978 White Paper discussed in some detail the form that second opinions should take, and noted that there had been considerable support for the idea of a multi-disciplinary panel, and I would entirely agree with that approach. I need not go into it now: I can go into it more at Committee stage. But one is hound to feel that the Government have stood in awe of psychiatric opinion on this issue and have discounted in the end all other views. I hope they will reconsider and that your Lordships' House will make them reconsider. The way in which society adjudges an individual to be in a state of mind justifying his subjugation to medical treatment is significant beyond the walls or the confines of psychiatric hospitals. Doctors alone cannot decide whether an individual is fit to plead to an indictment in court; doctors alone cannot decide whether somebody should be deprived of control of his or her property. The length of detention in mental hospitals is, by virtue of the 1959 Act, subject to review by tribunals and it is going to be subject to even greater review now. I would respectfully submit to your Lordships that the decision to compel treatment is quite as serious and solemn an issue as any of the three I have mentioned and should not be left to doctors alone.
I have already taken up a great deal of your Lordships' time and I will make the other points I wish to make on this Bill at a subsequent stage. Suffice it to say that, with one or two important reservations—and here I would entirely agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, about the clear distinction

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between mental handicap and mental illness, which one would have thought, as it is over 20 years on from the 1959 Act, should now be capable of separate definition and separate treatment—some of which have been dealt with in this debate, I would say that I generally welcome the Bill. But I think that the matter I have raised in relation to Clause 58 goes to the very root of a most important principle enshrined in our law.
7.28 p.m.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, at this late stage of the debate I put it to your Lordships that in this pressurised existence many of us find ourselves treading the tightrope of mental health, from which tightrope crashing falls too easily occur. What a blessing it is that over the last four decades such real progress has been made in breaking through the awful barrier that formerly surrounded these hazards. Then it really was a case of "them" and "us", where little publicly was done about the lot of, for example, the cerebrally palsied or spastic, except possibly to label them "the village idiot" The only refuge that could be offered to them was the old, gruesome asylum. Society was so patently mistaken about these people, and I am grateful that in this Bill the term "subnormal" is substituted by "mental handicap", for in today's more humane and emancipated climate we could not expect less. It is almost today's climb-down to concede how little we once knew about the troubles of our fellow men.
What worries me is the point which was put so strongly by the chairman of the Royal Society for Mentally Handicapped Children, my noble friend Lord Renton. This is that through the Bill as it stands a small minority of mentally handicapped people will continue to be detained in hospital despite the fact that their handicap cannot be cured. For them, treatment is irrelevant. Certainly forceful detention is of no benefit to them and can lead to serious psychological damage and physical deterioration, we are told. Research in many countries has shown that progress for them can be made through suitable education, social training and psychological support, geared to the specific needs of each mentally handicapped person. This, I am reliably informed, can best be given away from the atmosphere of a hospital ward. No other handicapped person, such as the blind, the deaf or the crippled, can by law be forcibly detained in hospital just because of his or her handicap. To me, it seems obsolete and wrong to hold a person in hospital solely because of his or her intellectual handicap.
This is not the kind of attitude that we look for in this International Year of Disabled People. The IYDP appears to have increased the public's understanding and awareness, not only of the problems of those of us who are so obvious and so easy to identify, with our sticks, crutches and wheelchairs, but also of those who suffer from the large numbers of unseen handicaps, distressing and isolating as they often are. Mental handicap and illness must rank high among these.
I believe that openness and frankness alone can improve the life situation of such cases. Yet even today there is still a bias and prejudice which can so damage the lot of ex-mental patients. For this reason, I want to relate that, pre-1957, I spent two nights on the
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wards of a mental hospital. The cause with me was difficulties and frustrations at work, which had left me sleepless and in a miserable mental muddle. But that short visit certainly taught me the anguish of being incarcerated in a ward, with just one nurse on duty and 14 other mentally disturbed patients. Let me repeat that this took place nearly 25 years ago, and my reason for encroaching on your Lordships' time with my experience is that I believe there should be no more shame attached to such setbacks and disorders than to any other illness.
I now turn to the much discussed Clause 38 in Part VI of the Bill. There is opposition to this, on the grounds that patients and lay people should be allowed more say as to the treatment administered to the mentally ill. I simply cannot go all the way with that view, because I have been in very close contact in the community with people who were so mentally confused that they were utterly incapable of making a sound judgment for themselves. What is more, despite the dramatic connotation of ECT treatment, I have seen those cases quite remarkably and successfully treated by those means.
Far be it for me to suggest what, if any, treatment could suit everybody, but it is my firm belief that decisions on treatment are beyond any doubt a matter for the psychiatric experts. Patients should not be denied this chance of escape from their intense misery, because of judgments made by frightened and unqualified people. My experiences have taught me that, when such advanced forms of treatment are given, there should be a uniformly high standard of equipment, accommodation and immediate after-care, so that cases may derive the fullest benefit.
Finally, the Bill does not deal with that all-important matter of the co-operation of statutory and voluntary bodies in mental after-care. This so much affects the person, the family and the results of the treatment. Perhaps most of all, provision through the voluntary organisations is needed for those unfortunate people who are not lucky enough to have friends and family to care for their welfare. May I hope that my noble friend the Minister will find it possible to include this aspect in the Bill, so that the whole unhappy situation is given the fullest support?
7.34 p.m.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, to those noble Lords who are not aware of the fact, may I say that I am the last speaker before the winding-up, at which some of your Lordships might breathe a sigh of relief. Listening to noble Lords this afternoon, there appears to be an enormous range of local variations in the quality of mental hospital care, and if "care" includes not only nursing and medication, but habilitation and rehabilitation, then there is a need to avoid inconsistency in what is a National Health Service.
I particularly noted the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, regarding television programmes, two or three of which I have watched and been horrified by, because they bore no comparison with the hospitals that I know near my home, in the environs of the City of Birmingham. I can quite candidly say that I am pleased with the very fine training facilities that there are and especially—I make

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this point because handicapped children have been mentioned so many times—with the excellent schools which are now being set up, or are in operation, and which come under the Act dealing with special schools.
We have to make sure that these inconsistences in the National Health Service are avoided, because only the highest standards are acceptable. Therefore, I should like to pay tribute to Professor Mittler and Dr. Simon on their involvement in the national development group, and on the work which they have been doing in mental hospitals throughout this country. With the encouragement of the Minister and the department, they have tried to lay down a basic national general policy of management and training in mental hospitals. I look upon this Bill as a furtherance of national general policy, but not encroaching upon the work of Professor Mittler or Dr. Simon, whose work has to do with administration and management. But this Bill will mean a furtherance of better services for the mentally handicapped, because it concentrates on the patient as an individual.
In saying that, one has to recognise that the Bill represents significantly new departures from existing procedures. Therefore, the Mental Health Act Commission will carry a very heavy responsibility in safeguarding and protecting the interests of detained patients, and in making quite sure that the spirit and the letter of the law are strictly operated, while recognising, quite clearly, that its responsibility will be to the patients or, as the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, said, to the patients who are people.
Therefore, I am particularly concerned with the composition of the commission, as other noble Lords have been this afternoon. I should like to ask the noble Lord the Minister whether he feels that any difficulties might arise between commission members who are not medically qualified and those who are? Can he foresee an occasion arising when the commission, because it was being guided by medical observations, would not, perhaps, act as impartially as we think desirable?
I have very mixed feelings about the commission, because I am not sure whether it is supposed to be acting as a policeman in the mental hospital, seeing that the law is upheld and protecting the patients' interests, or whether it will be judge and jury and be brought into play if the law is broken. Therefore, the work description will have to be spelled out clearly, because it is not sufficiently clear in the Bill at the moment.
The other point which I want to raise has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Allen, and the noble Baroness, Lady Masham. I should like to take it a little further. While I welcome the safeguards for patients detained in hospitals and their right and opportunity to apply to a tribunal for a review of their case, I am concerned, as are the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, about whether those safeguards will apply equally to mentally sick persons who are placed in prison because there is not available a sufficient number of secure hospitals. Just because there is not a sufficient number of secure hospitals and therefore we cannot classify them as patients, what will be their rights?
A recent newspaper article quoted from the judg-
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ment of Lord Lane in the Court of Appeal concerning a mentally sick person who came before him. According to this press report, the Lord Chief Justice observed:
"We are forced to do what we know to be wrong, put her in prison, because not enough secure hospitals are available".
He went on to say:
"We see this type of case every week and nobody has done anything about it".
Mr. Justice Taylor, sitting with him, is reported to have said that it was a public scandal that this mentally sick person who was before him in the Court of Appeal had to go to prison. I wonder whether noble Lords agree that it would be a public scandal twice over if that type of patient, committed by the courts, who is not allowed to have hospital treatment, whether medical or rehabilitation treatment, because there is no place in hospital for him should have to forgo the privileges, rights and opportunities that he would have if he were a patient in a hospital. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, said that no patient will be forgotten. But if you are a general practitioner, patients who cannot be admitted to hospital are still patients.
All Acts of Parliament are very difficult for the average person to comprehend. They are even difficult for Members of this noble House to comprehend. Therefore, I should like an assurance from the Minister that the patient's nearest relative, who is specified in many clauses of the Bill, will be issued with written information in easy to understand language and not, I beg the indulgence of learned Members of this House, in legal mumbo-jumbo—information that the nearest relative will hold on behalf of the patient which clearly sets out the protection under the Bill. This is most important. We have heard today that patients might not be able to make decisions for themselves. Therefore their nearest relative must know about all their rights and privileges under the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Hooson, illuminated in great detail the concern which I, too, feel regarding consent to treatment. At this late hour I shall not elaborate upon that point. All I would say is that I shall refer to it when the matter is raised in Committee.
It has been said today that the mentally handicapped, those who are mentally ill in society, and mental hospital provision have been the Cinderella of the National Health Service for very many years. For a decade or more there have been conferences, committees, blue papers, white papers, green papers—every-colour-of-the-rainbow papers—and Government reports without end upon this Cinderella service. Therefore I welcome the Bill. If, however, one looks at the White Paper which accompanies the Bill, the "meat in the sandwich" consists of those points which cannot be put into operation for three, four, five or six years. I feel, therefore, that the powers which the Bill will give and the progress made in putting those policies into operation must commence as quickly as possible after the Bill becomes law. There is no need for us to have to consider when to set up courses for approved social workers. One hopes that at the beginning of their next session at college or university a course will be provided for them, which would mean that immediately after their training they could put this into operation.

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I welcome the Bill. It is a non-party issue. Therefore we on this side of the House support the Bill. However, we want there to be more emphasis upon the resource implications in terms of manpower and buildings as well as money.
7.47 p.m.
Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, my first task—indeed, a pleasant task it is—is to join with all those who have extended their sincerest congratulations to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on the distinction with which he introduced his first Bill. It is his legislative baptism. Baptism in adult age is a time undoubtedly for conversion. We shall look forward with very great zeal to many conversions on his account at a later stage of the Bill.
There have been two themes which have totally dominated the debate. Everyone who has contributed has. I believe, endorsed both of those themes. The first, clearly, is the most genuine welcome for this humane and enlightened reform. I confirm what was said a moment ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher of Rednal, that this is in no way a political issue. It will be possible for everyone to commit himself and herself to the speedy passage of the Bill, provided that it is consistent with certain improvements which I believe all Members, to some degree or another, would wish to see brought about. This is the second attitude which has been voiced by many: that the Bill, though good, is most certainly capable of improvement. May I quote in the ancient language of Wales, which will be understood by one or two in this Chamber, an old Welsh proverb:
"Mid dâ Lle Ellir Gwell".
"Nothing is good that is capable of being improved upon"
I am sure that it will be in that spirit that we shall try to achieve for this Bill as speedy a passage as is reasonably consistent with the putting forward of those matters which we believe are utterly vital to its improvement.
I am sure that all Members of the House will agree that in putting forward these proposed improvements they will not be put forward in any spirit of carping or childish motivation but from a sense of the significant opportunity that will be presented to us at Committee and Report stage. It may well be that such an opportunity will not occur again for some decades. It is now almost a quarter of a century since the Mental Health Act 1959 was planned and drafted, and it may well be 25 years hence when again there will be a major review of this basic legislation. It is vital, therefore, that we should not only seek to interpret the progressive views that have developed over the last 25 years, but that we should also to a certain extent seek to anticipate their further development in the future.
I join with so many others in extending the warmest congratulations to all who have been concerned with the bringing about of this legislation: Ministers of the present Government, those who were concerned with the White Paper of 1978, particularly my right honourable friend David Ennals, who in addition to his work in the Department of Health and Social Security was in fact a national official of MIND for many years
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and indeed, if I may also mention Mr. Gostin, the legal director of MIND in his two volumes A Human Condition, which have proven to be an inspiration to many, and indeed of course the report of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden.
The Bill now presented follows honourably a path that was pioneered a long time ago. It was at the end of the 18th century that Pinel, the head of the Paris asylum for men, horrified his colleagues by removing restraints and shackles from hundreds of patients. His example was soon followed in England by Tuke, who led the Quaker movement in that noble direction. His example was paralleled in America by people like Benjamin Rush.
The weaknesses of the Bill have been dealt with fairly comprehensively by many, including my noble friend Lord Wallace of Coslany. I believe that future generations looking back at our efforts may well say that the most significant weaknesses of the Bill at this stage were weaknesses that were attributable to the Bill seeking to fly in the face of its own philosophies and to defy the conclusions of its own logic.
May I say that, like all other noble Lords, I greatly welcome the fact that Her Majesty's Government were so thoughtful as to publish concurrently a White Paper that has been most helpful in understanding all parts of the Bill. The White Paper stresses as one of its main themes, that of treatability; that mental hospitals are there to cater for people who can be treated or who can reasonably be expected to be treated by them for their sickness. It is on that basis therefore that, on the face of it, there must appear to be the severest condemnation for the inclusion of the mentally handicapped in mental health legislation.
In 1959, as the noble Lord, Lord Renton, has said, it was not thought incongruous to include the mentally handicapped in that legislation. He need not chastise himself. No doubt those decisions were made in the light of the medical knowledge then prevailing in relation not only to mental handicap but to mental illness as well. A great deal of progress has been made in the last two decades.
Now, with the benefit of hindsight—and we should all be Solomons of good judgment if we were always able to judge everything from that perspective—we can say that it is unfortunate that it should have been so included. In a debate in another place on the 16th November 1979—a debate which has already been referred to—it is noteworthy that two honourable Members of that other place, Dr. Gerard Vaughan and Mrs. Chalker, who since have suffered a sea change to be Ministers in Her Majesty's Government, and indeed in the Department of Health and Social Services—spoke very strongly for excluding those who suffered from mental handicap from the provisions of the Act of 1959.
In reply to a question by an honourable Member in another place a Minister, Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg, said these words in relation to mental handicap:
"I think that question in fact was answered a few months ago. The needs of the mentally handicapped cannot be served by the Mental Health Act 1959";
and he then went on to say that the Government proposed in a shortly forthcoming Consolidation Bill to remove mental handicap from mental health legisla-

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tion and to deal with it separately. That of course is not done in this Bill. Although there will be superficial cosmetic changes it will still remain part and parcel of that fundamental legislation.
I do not think that I need say anything at all to add to the arguments that have already been so splendidly put forward by so many, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, whose efforts in this whole field are the subject of admiration in this House as they were in another place; and indeed no one who read that powerful cri de coeur by Mr. Brian Rix in The Times of today can fail to be moved, not only by his own experience but, it seems to me, by the overwhelming and unremitting logic of his argument. It seems to me there is no earthly reason why a child or young person or older person suffering from mental handicap should be dealt with in any way in law that is different from a condition of blindness or deafness or the stunted growth of a limb. I accept totally what the Minister has said about the Government having an open mind on this matter, and I am sure that the Government will be prepared to give urgent reconsideration to this most vital part of the Bill.
Another dominant objective on the part of the Government was of course the protection of mental patients and to see to it that that protection should be real and that, above all, so far as the public is concerned, that it should be manifestly seen to be effective. It is in the light of such a principle that we look at the Mental Health Act Commission, and if I may at this late hour I will confine my remarks purely to its function in relation to non-consented treatment.
On the face of it, the case here seems to be a very clear one in favour of a decision being made by a multi-disciplinary body. Almost all the institutions and bodies that have been canvassed in this matter, I understand—and I am sure that the noble Lord who is to wind up the debate will correct me if I am wrong—have been unanimous in their view that it should be decided by such a body. The 1978 White Paper was strong on the question that the second opinion should be a multi-disciplinary one. It appears that the only dissentient voice of note was the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and they appear, at the moment at any rate, to have got their way. That, I suggest, is totally unacceptable.
The noble Lord, Lord Hooson, made a very pertinent point, that in many cases persons who are detained in mental hospitals will indeed still be able to exercise a balanced view in relation perhaps to financial affairs. I would not pose as an expert on probate—far from it—but I believe I am right in saying that the test whether a person has testamentary capacity or not is whether he is able to know who his family are, what his duties are, and what the effect of certain dispositions might be. So there may well be thousands of people under restraint who have testamentary capacity, the capacity to dispose of tens or thousands of pounds, but have not the capacity to make the decision as to whether they shall be subjected to certain treatment or not. That irony in itself, I believe, is a very crushing phenomenon in this particular connection.
This is not the way to gain confidence, the confidence that is utterly necessary for the success of the system. This is not the way to gain confidence from patients
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and from the public at large. If one may faintly parody the words of Clemenceau, "Medical treatment on certain occasions is too important to leave to the medics alone".
The decisions that would have to be made by the multi-disciplinary body, as the noble Lord, Lord Hooson, has pointed out, will not be different from decisions that have to be made by juries in relation to medical evidence, by judges in relation to medical evidence, day in and day out in our courts. And indeed the decisions that are made now in relation to treatment, in relation to the disposal of patients, are not confined to the medical profession but are made upon a multi-disciplinary basis. One does not challenge the integrity of psychiatrists, but on the other hand this House can never be blind to the fact that the community of psychiatrists is a very narrow and a very select and a very distinguished family. Most of them know each other well. That in no way affects their independent judgment, but it is asking a great deal to expect that a decision made or ratified by a so-called independent doctor in the context of Clause 38 will be manifestly seen by the public at large to be independent.
Lord Elton: My Lords, if the noble Lord would be kind enough to allow me, I do not want to anticipate the Committee debate, but equally there is a point which seems to be eluding us, or eluding me, every time this matter is raised. A second opinion to be multi-disciplinary presumably must embrace more than one person, and I envisage that the occasions when a second opinion is needed will very frequently be occasions of considerable emergency. I hope, therefore, that when the noble Lord comes to the Committee with an amendment, where we can thrash this matter out, he will consider the difficulty, if there is one, of getting together a multi-disciplinary second opinion—and how multi it will be remains to be seen—in the sort of circumstances where it will be urgently needed. That is the only point I wanted to intervene on.
Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, the point made by the noble Lord is a fair one. It is, however, qualified to some extent by the fact that there is already provision in the Bill to deal with situations where the patient's life is in danger. There are many situations covered in the Bill—I will not seek to quote them now at this late hour—where it is obvious that the commission, to do the work that the Bill requires it to do, will have to act within a fairly confined space of time; two, three or four days at the most. It is a point; but, with the greatest respect, I do not believe that it is a point that undermines the basic principle that concerns noble Lords in every part of the House. It may well be that the body that should exercise that multi-disciplinary decision should not be a body such as the commission itself. I know not; I am very prepared to be swayed by argument.
It may be that a body such as the present review tribunals would be more appropriate and avoid certain clashes and certain difficult areas of distinction. But of one thing I am certain, and it was very strongly put by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham; it is vitally necessary that there should be proper representation before these bodies. If the only way that basic human

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rights can be preserved is by an articulate presentation of a case, that case must be so articulated, and any funds required for payment must be provided out of public resources. One remembers the famous words of Mr. Justice Darling when he said: "The courts of our land are open to everybody, exactly the same as the Ritz Hotel". There is no point in saying that the tribunals which will have to decide will be open to everybody, unless there is provision for representation to present a case on its merits.
There are a number of other matters I would have wished to deal with—the treatment of offenders, questions arising out of the most informative speech, as one would expect of course, of the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, who comes to this House with a wealth of distinguished experience in the Home Office. May I quote what the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, said in this House on 22nd March 1978 in a debate which touched upon the condition of affairs, among other things, in Broadmoor:
"The situation concerning bed room, sanitation, and health is probably the most intolerable in the world. It is intolerable that this should be going on and on".
I ask the question, though I know what the answer will be, how better is the situation at the present moment, how much progress—this is not a political point for I well appreciate the difficulties spelled out by many who have taken part in this debate—has been made with the secure wings to be built in local hospitals, a plan that has now been in train for many years?
There are so many other matters that will have to be left to the Committee stage, and I know that every Member of this House looks forward immensely to that, for it will undoubtedly be a Committee stage that will bring out the very best from all parts of this House. Since this Bill is about the legal status and position of patients under mental health legislation, its terms do not allow us to discuss wider issues. Many of us would have welcomed the opportunity to look in some detail at such profoundly important matters as the massive needs of mental patients in general, whose number represents a high percentage of National Health Service beds but who receive a disproportionately meagre share of the revenue and capital resources. This is not a matter of political issue but stems rather from the condition of ignorance and complacency which has surrounded mental health in Britain like a fog for so long. The humane and enlightened proposals of this Bill, which the House will undoubtedly wish to improve upon, in addition to bringing about many changes that are much needed, will, I trust, also serve to quicken the conscience of the whole community and thus lead to the greater spiritual and material commitment that is demanded of it in this most deserving field.
8.10 p.m.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said just now, we seldom get the opportunity to debate this subject and it is very important that between us all we should get it as right as we possibly can. I am most grateful to the many noble Lords who have welcomed this Bill. It is, as many have emphasised, not a party political subject and I
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look forward to the opportunity for further and more detailed discussion and for working together to make this legislation as sound as it can be. From my own point of view it is rather refreshing to be involved in a non-political Bill of this kind after some of the social security Bills that we have had in the last two or three years.
We have heard from the widest possible range of expert opinions—from an ex-Minister, a former senior civil servant in the Home Office, and also from the chairman of the League of Friends of a special hospital to those who have administered such hospitals, those who care for the chaplaincy in them and a former patient. All agree that the Bill is a step, whatever its size, in the right direction. Even with a list of speakers impoverished by the departure of three of our number, a wealth of questions in matters raised by 16 noble Lords is before me. I can only, I fear, address myself to the larger issues and on the others I shall write to noble Lords as soon as possible.
Perhaps the principal issue raised today has been that of the feasibility of separating mental illness and mental handicap in legislation. My noble friend Lord Elton and I will read with the greatest attention and care everything that has been said by noble Lords and noble Baronesses on the subject. This is a matter of considerable difficulty, not for want of goodwill but for reasons of legislative complexity. The Act that we are amending itself places the various conditions of mental illness and the condition of mental subnormality—as it is there described—together and does so throughout. That naturally imposes a certain pattern on the Bill that amends it. However, in view of the opinions already expressed, so strongly, so carefully and so well on this subject, we shall examine very carefully whether we can break out of this situation. We stand by our undertaking not to close our minds to what is difficult; only to exclude what is not practicable. My noble friend has our goodwill, and our efforts to find a way forward will be genuine and urgent. How far we can go I cannot yet foretell.
A very wide range of points has been raised by the many noble Lords who have spoken and I cannot hope to deal with them all tonight. Much has been said about the details of the proposed Mental Health Act Commission—which has also been given the blessing of the Church—and about the thorny issue of consent to treatment. The amendments to the emergency powers in the Act and the introduction of the nurses' holding power have been welcomed, as has the increase in opportunities to apply to mental health review tribunals. Many of the points which have been raised will be more readily answered in Committee, but I shall try to answer some of them now.
The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, asked about the content of the code of practice to be drawn up by the Mental Health Act Commission and the membership of the commission. The code will set out certain treatments which in the commission's view give rise to special concern and which should, therefore, not be given without both the patient's consent and a concurring second opinion. The code will also provide a source of advice and guidance for staff on the complex ethical and other issues which arise in the care and treatment of detained patients.
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, also

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asked about the commission's membership. They will, as my noble friend Lord Elton explained, be from many disciplines. The membership will not, I recognise, be large, but then there are only some 7,000 detained patients in England and Wales. However, we agree that sufficient members should be appointed to enable the commission to work effectively. The Bill provides for remuneration for members of the commission—
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me for intervening but he just said—I think I heard him correctly—that the membership would not be large. At an earlier stage of the debate it was suggested that there might be 70 members. Can the noble Lord confirm that?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: Yes, my Lords, there will be 70 members for the whole country. The intention is that they should be split into five groups around the country. We can go into any detail on this matter in Committee. If I have in any way misled the House I shall certainly ensure that I clear the matter up before I sit down.
I was saying that the Bill provides for remuneration for members of the commission as well as for expenses and other allowances. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, also referred to the need for patients to be fully informed of their rights and legal position. That is a matter of crucial importance, but is not one which can readily be dealt with in legislation. We shall, however, be making clear to hospital managers and staff their responsibility to ensure that detained patients are given all the information and help which they need.
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, also asked about the provision of resources for the training of approved social workers. The basic principle is that details of training schemes and approval procedures should be determined locally over the next two years in the light of authorities' own assessments of the number of social workers requiring to be approved and the additional training which individual social workers may need in order effectively to discharge their legal responsibilities.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but there is a very important point here. Where is the money coming from? Are the local authorities to get additional grants?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I am afraid that I do not know the answer to that question. It is something that we shall have to go into during the later stages.
The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, referred to the problem of finding hospital places for offender patients. We fully accept that it is wrong that any mentally disordered person should be imprisoned when his condition permits his detention in hospital under the Mental Health Act. But there is a good deal of misunderstanding on this subject. The noble Lord, Lord Allen, explained that the number of hospital orders made by the courts had fallen in the last 10 years, but this fall is no greater than the fall in the use of the powers of the Act as a whole. It is almost wholly attributable to the drop in hospital orders in respect of the mentally handicapped, reflecting the view of
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the professionals who care for them that, with few exceptions, mentally handicapped people are inappropriately placed in hospital. This view has been echoed by many in this debate today.
The noble Lord referred to the drop in the numbers of prisoners transferred to hospital under the provisions of Section 72 of the Act. Again, this is part of the picture of reduction in the use of the powers of the Act overall, and it is, too, a reflection of the fact that on 30th June 1981 prison medical officers took the view that only 94 sentenced mentally ill prisoners needed transfer to hospital under Section 72 as compared with 201 on 31st December 1977.
I suggest that all of this must be seen in the context of the fact that over 2,000 of those in our hospitals at any one time have come there by way of the courts or prisons. As the noble Lord recognised, the provisions in Clauses 27 to 29 of the Bill will be of some help here, but we must allow time for the National Health Service to provide the facilities which will be required.
The noble Lord, Lord Allen, and the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, referred to regional secure units. The much speedier progress which we are now making in establishing regional secure units will help to expand the range of provisions available for the mentally disordered. The noble Baroness described, most helpfully, the difficulties which can arise in establishing regional secure units, but, happily, the programme is now well under way. She also referred to the question of legal representation for those appearing before mental health review tribunals. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, touched on many of the points which have attracted particular attention in our debate today. I have already referred to the position on mental handicap and consent to treatment, and what he has said makes it clear that we shall have a full consideration of these matters in Committee.
My noble friend Lady Faithfull and the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, referred to the training of social workers. The draft guidance which the department is preparing on the training needs of approved social workers is very nearly ready. It will be issued early in 1982 for consultation with professional bodies, local authorities and interested individuals. I hope that the draft will stimulate much interest and many comments. My noble friend will be most welcome to contribute her comments then and, indeed, I cordially invite her to do so.
My noble friend Lady Faithfull also asked whether resources would be available for the training of approved social workers. The basic principle is that details of training schemes and approval procedures should be determined locally over the next two years in the light of authorities' own assessments of the numbers of social workers requiring to be approved and the additional training which individual social workers may need in order, effectively, to discharge their legal responsibilities.
Noble Lords have referred to the Mental Health Act Commission and as to whether the Health Advisory Service could fulfil that role. There are certainly a number of bodies—for example, the Health Advisory Service, the Development Team for the Mentally Handicapped, community health councils and, of course, the ombudsman—which do valuable work in protecting patients and advising them. However, the

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Mental Health Act Commission will have a role which is quite distinct from these bodies. It will be a highly specialised body and will be able to build up a fund of knowledge and experience of considerable weight about mentally disordered detained patients. It will be able to attend to all detained patients. For example, a community health council meets only very few such patients at any one time and is not, therefore, able to build up a depth of experience in this specialised area. The MHAC will also be able to deal with all categories of mentally disordered detained patients. Other bodies, such as the Health Advisory Service, whose remit covers only the mentally ill or geriatric, or the development team, which is concerned only with the mentally handicapped, are not able to build up the same breadth of specialised experience and knowledge in this narrow area.
Another feature of the Mental Health Act Commission is that its organisation into regional panels will enable it to visit regularly and frequently all hospitals where patients are detained. Other bodies which visit patient in hospitals have to do so on a longer cycle, with bigger gaps between visits. The commission is not intended to usurp the role of existing bodies which have various advisory and executive responsibilities towards patients. Rather, it is intended to devote attention in depth to a small group of patients who are particularly vulnerable, and hence in need of a body like the commission to take a continued and informed interest in them.
I should like to add a few words to what I said previously about regional secure units. Sir George Young opened the first permanent unit at St. Luke's Hospital in Middlesbrough last November. Of the 14 RHAs in England, only one has yet to submit formal plans for an RSU. Four RSUs, providing 160 places, are already under construction and another two, providing a further 140 places, should be by the end of the year. By 1985 there are expected to be over 500 permanent places available. There are also increasing numbers of places in interim secure facilities which RHAs were asked to make available until permanent RSUs were available. I think that I have probably gone as far as I should at this stage. I shall certainly write to noble Lords on any points with which I have been unable to deal.
Lord Renton: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, may I say how much we welcome his statement that the Government will consider how far they can go in having the mentally handicapped dealt with separately. In the event of the Government deciding how far they can go, can he say whether they will then table the necessary amendments?—because they will have all the expertise at their command and it would make for better progress if that were done. Then, if we want to carry the Government a stage further, we can see what we have to build on.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I am sure that that is exactly what we should like to do if we were able to, but, of course, we shall have to have discussions with my right honourable friend and go into this matter. No doubt the noble Lord will join us in discussions after this debate.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Asbestos: Methods of Monitoring
8.30 p.m.
The Earl of Gosford The Earl of Gosford rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied with the methods of monitoring asbestos that are currently in general use and with the progress made in developing alternatives for asbestos.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I am sorry that this Question has come on so late, but I am consoled by the fact that it is not as late as we had anticipated earlier, as there are a few who have left. I should like to thank those who have stayed to speak on this Question. The reason for the first part of my Question is to draw your Lordships' attention to some evidence concerning asbestos that unaccountably failed to reach the Select Committee on the European Communities Sub-Committee G, and so does not appear in the Committee's 17th Report published on 17th March 1981, and therefore was not debated when the 17th Report was presented to your Lordships' House on 14th May.
The evidence I refer to is that of the Society for the Prevention of Asbestosis and Industrial Diseases, SPAID for short. I understand that Her Majesty's Government have been informed about SPAID's evidence, and I am sure when your Lordships have heard of its content you will join with me in asking the Minister not only to place a copy in the Library but also to bring it to the attention of the European Commission to be taken notice of in any further discussions which I believe will begin in early 1982. I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, whether he can confirm dates in relation to the Commission.
I should also like to ask him whether there is any way of adding SPAID's material as an appendix to the 17th Report. If I may remind your Lordships, the 17th Report is the response to the two EEC draft directives, the first restricting the marketing and use of asbestos, and the second concerning the protection of workers from risks due to exposure to asbestos. The nub of the argument brought out by the draft directive, and also the United Kingdom Government's policy, is that the amphibole group of asbestos containing, among others, crocidolite, known as blue asbestos, and amosite, known as brown asbestos, are more dangerous than chrysotile, known as white asbestos, which is of the serpentine group of minerals. That the import of blue should be banned altogether in the raw state, but may be used in certain products especially on the Continent. That if the United Kingdom goes ahead with more stringent regulations as advanced by the final report of the Advisory Committee on Asbestos, chaired by Mr. Simpson, which reported to the Health and Safety Executive and the Minister in 1979, and if it goes further than some other EEC countries are prepared to go, then there will be an industrial competition problem which may result in jobs lost in this country. That therefore white asbestos and brown can be used under controlled conditions until substitutes can be found.
This sounds like a simple solution. But simple for whom? I will leave aside the blue asbestos for a

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moment which I shall bring up under mining, and concentrate on all the others, especially the white. Nancy Tait, the Secretary of SPAID, has been single-mindedly pursuing and collecting evidence for a number of years, and all those involved must be indebted to her. The DHSS social workers, and chest consultants, refer people to SPAID to get advice on benefits, et cetera, as it is too complicated for the hospitals to deal with. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, will be enlarging on this aspect. The nub of SPAID's evidence—and I shall not go into detail, which can be found in their report along with extensive back-up material—is that the dangers of mesothelioma, cancer of the lung, and other cancers due to inhalation of asbestos fibres, have been underestimated, and unrecognised as being caused by the white asbestos, chrysotile, the most widely used asbestos.
SPAID maintains that the pneumoconiosis medical panels are failing to recognise that their methods of diagnosing asbestos diseases are out of date. The panels rely on the optical microscope to determine the levels of fibres in lung tissue, which readily show the larger blue crocidolite fibres but fail to see the fine white fibres. For instance, one of SPAID's cases shows one asbestos fibre was seen by this method, and using the electron microscope 8,600,000 fibres of asbestos of all kinds were found in one gram of dried lung tissue. In cases when blue and white fibres are present in roughly the same numbers and sizes, how can it be argued that the blue fibre was the culprit and the white was not?
SPAID believes that without the commitment to ban, both by the Government and by the EEC, things will continue to slide. After all, it was in 1898 that asbestosis was first noted by the Factory Inspectorate, and it was known in 1935 that lung cancer was caused by the exposure to asbestos dust, and as the Work Hazards Group of the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science states:
"Each year more is mined and used than in all the years before 1930".
SPAID believes that the weakness lies in the fact that industry plays a dominant role not only in the development of automatic systems which it is hoped will ensure uniformity in optical microscope observations in the counting of fibres on membrane filters when dust levels are sampled in the workplace, but also in the setting up, and running of, the Central Reference Laboratory in the United Kingdom. The proposed one fibre control limit by the old optical techniques will leave workers still exposed to these fine fibres that are found in the lung tissues of those dying now, and as these diseases take years to develop they will he causing cancer well on into the future.
The unions, and workers, in the industry have a right to know when they will get added protection from the introduction by the Government of regulations arising out of the recommendations of the Simpson Report of 1979. Simpson asked for tighter controls to be introduced by December 1980. As the unions rightly point out, it is hard enough to prosecute employers, and impossible if men and women on the shop floor, docks, demolition sites, decorators, carpenters, electricians and especially laggers, to name but a few, do not have hard legislation to protect them.
I have read with interest the opening speech, and reply, made by the Minister, the right honourable David Waddington, in another place, in the debate on these two directives on asbestos on 22nd October, and too his mention of the two explanatory memoranda of 15th October, which I believe the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, will refer to, and it seemed to me that he was not acquainted with the latest information, and may I ask him whether he has seen SPAID's evidence? He said he would review matters if further evidence showed dangers, and I believe SPAID's evidence does just this.
SPAID's researches when producing evidence for the Department of the Enviroment inquiry into industry's appeal against the decision of the Langbraugh Council, Cleveland, 28th April 1981, that planning permission should be refused for applications specifying the use of asbestos, has brought to light a lot of new information not available at the time of the Simpson Report in 1979, and I believe my noble friend Lord Plant will be mentioning something of this later.
All the new SPAID evidence directly contradicts what the Minister said in another place on 22nd October. Take, for example, the Minister's assertion concerning the handling of ready-cut sheets on a building site by building workers for a small time in part of a week, and that they would no longer be in danger, which highlights the assumption that small doses of exposure cannot kill. There is much evidence from home and abroad that this is not the case. Cases of disease following slight exposures highlight the serious dangers to the public from asbestos dust. Industry claims that fibres are locked into asbestos cement, but even this is disputed. Sheeting, even if it is produced using the wet process, will flake during the years, releasing fibres. The cases of men, women and children who have died due to slight contact with asbestos is growing, like the case of a man building an asbestos sheet garage in a couple of days, a bank manager warming his clothes overnight on his asbestos-cladded water heater or wives and children of workers in the asbestos industry who come in contact with fibres on clothing.
The problem is that because of former assumptions, post-mortems looking for asbestos have been carried out only on those who have had long histories of heavy exposure to asbestos, so these cases in the general public are only now being collected by SPAID. A particular revealing survey done by Nancy Tait on the voluntary labelling of the dangers of asbestos on cooking pads showed that many had no labels, and where one was stamped on, the asbestos did not hold the print. An article in the Hardware Review for August 1981 stated:
"It was a bit of a surprise to hear the sales manager of a company making ironing boards, say that since the asbestos scare had now been forgotten, his company has reintroduced ironing boards with asbestos iron rests".
It is not insignificant that the Department of Trade wrote to shipbuilders in September 1980 saying that asbestos as a fire preventive material would no longer be acceptable in United Kingdom-registered ships.
If it were possible to safeguard against the dangers of asbestos we would have no problem. For instance, even if foolproof controlled conditions could be guaranteed in manufacturing to safeguard the work-

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force, the deterioration and disintegration of asbestos materials and the release of fibres in the atmosphere from those products cannot be prevented. This is acknowledged by the Health and Safety Executive, and we must accept that we are dealing with a lethal component, a component which is most probably found within and around most households in the country. May I ask what steps the Government would be prepared to take for an advertising campaign pointing out the dangers not only of asbestos such as sheds, ironing pads and so on, but also of working with asbestos sheeting and the removal of old asbestos? I urge the Government, along with SPAID and others, that the warning label should specifically state the dangers of cancer.
The United Kingdom and the other European countries have a wider responsibility than to themselves. The bulk of asbestos used by the EEC is imported—in the region of 800,000 tonnes. Countries such as South Africa and Canada knowlingly expose their workforces to high risk during mining. Your Lordships may recently have seen the ITV World in Action programme "Dust to Dust" on South African mines, some of them United Kingdom owned. Concerning one, 900 deaths have occurred, from mesothelioma. The latest cancer death was that of a white woman of 45 who lived near the mine but had never worked with asbestos, and she contracted the disease from environmental exposure. In both Canada and South Africa the slag heaps rise from the ground like our coal tips, with asbestos floating about everywhere.
One South African company makes bricks for the black workers houses out of blue asbestos waste. In Quebec Province, Canada, when researchers began to take interest in the incidence of cancer in the area, the Quebec Government introduced a form of death certificate which ensured that only Government officers knew the cause of death. McGill University confirmed that in 1979 their researchers could not get information on cause of death. SPAID conclude that information on even major risks is not reaching those to whom this information is vital and that the
"strict control of all use of asbestos during a planned, phased changeover to alternative materials is the only sensible approach to the problem".
I have left little time for the second part of my Question, alternatives. This is because the facts are straightforward. With a substantial case for the dangers of asbestos, the alternatives must be a foregone conclusion. In the circumstances, it is a pity that it has been left to Holland to develop the material pioneered by the University of Surrey. The Dutch expect that the products can be marketed at prices that do not differ substantially from the current prices of asbestos cement products. Polypropylene is the substance used by Surrey University. The glass fibre product Cemfil is on the market and is being further developed in this country, and cellulose is being looked into. Can the Minister say how far it is known whether any of these alternatives could also be a health hazard? The World Health Organisation will hold a conference in Copenhagen from 20th to 22nd April 1982 to try to find out the answer to this question. It will be most interesting to hear the findings of that conference.
8.47 p.m.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, the noble Earl has done the House a service in raising this Question and enabling us, I hope, to extract some information from the Minister when he replies about the improvements in the methods of monitoring asbestos and the alternative materials that have been developed. In 1976 I first realised the full extent of the morbidity and mortality arising from the industrial uses of asbestos when I was concerned with the publication of a document entitled Asbestos Kills, the author of which was Mrs. Nancy Tait, whose name has already been mentioned, the distinguished secretary of the Society for the Prevention of Asbestosis and Industrial Diseases, and I declare my interest as a trustee of that organisation. I wish to take this opportunity of paying my tribute to Mrs. Nancy Tait for the immense amount of work she has done in the past five years to draw the public's attention to the risks of asbestos and to fight for the rights of workers and their families who have fallen victim to the diseases which the noble Earl mentioned.
The original paper published by Mrs. Tait dealt in two places with the use of the electron microscope to identify asbestos in lung tissue, and in the second edition, which appeared in 1977, Mrs. Tait referred to American and French research which used the electron microscope to see fibrils of chrysotile, one of the substances mentioned by the noble Earl, which had migrated to all organs of the body. So as long ago as 1977 the electron microscope was already seen as a very important aid to the diagnosis of asbestos-related diseases.
Undoubtedly as methods of monitoring asbestos in biopsies and autopsies have improved, so the extent of asbestos-related diseases has been found to be much greater than formerly had been imagined. But as these new techniques have been developed, so have the complexities of establishing claims for compensation in respect of disablement and death arising from exposure to asbestos, and it is to these problems that I now turn, as foreshadowed by the noble Earl, and I shall illustrate the difficulties by referring to some of the cases I have taken up at the request of Mrs. Tait and SPAID.
The first case is that of Mr. B, who died of mesothelioma on 24th July 1977. Both the death certificate and the coroner's report gave that disease as the cause of death, but the insurance officer refused the widow of Mr. B industrial death benefit on the grounds that there had been no occupational exposure to asbestos. When it was proved that the deceased had been so exposed, it appeared to Mrs. Tait, and certainly to me when I first took up the case, that the insurance officer changed his ground and queried the diagnosis of mesothelioma.
What actually happened, as it emerged later, was that the insurance tribunal had first to be satisfied that there had been a history of exposure before it could even look at the question of diagnosis, and because Mr. B had a very complicated work history, including spells in the Royal Navy, sometimes overseas (I think in New Zealand), and in self-employment, it was not until June 1980 that the evidence could be produced and the tribunal satisfied that Mr. B had worked in an occupation in respect of which mesothe-

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iloma was prescribed, and it accordingly allowed the appeal.
The first suggestion that I want to make to the Minister is that where mesothelioma or asbestosis are diagnosed the claimant should not have to prove a history of exposure. In many cases this would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, and yet these particular diseases can be caused only by exposure to asbestos. It is conceivable that some people would benefit when their exposure resulted from work in self-employment, or even in do-it-yourself activities, but I think that that would be preferable to denying benefit to persons with a legitimate claim that they cannot establish.
Returning to the case of Mr. B, after the first appeal was allowed the matter was referred to the Pneumoconiosis Medical Panel, which disagreed with the coroner's finding, though it did not suggest any alternative diagnosis. The tribunal had adjourned in the meanwhile, and the widow had the right of appeal to a medical appeal tribunal against its finding. It is very hard to say how a widow with young children to support can be expected to cope with these complex technical issues on which the experts themselves disagree. Dr. Elmes of the MRC Pnuemoconiosis Research Unit at Penarth has said that no infallible method of diagnosing mesothelioma exists, and therefore one would have thought that a diagnosis by the coroner's pathologist in favour of the claimant should be treated as conclusive. The second point that I should like to put to the noble Lord the Minister is that in a case where the coroner's pathologist has diagnosed this particular disease, it should not then be open to review and negatived by the Pneumoconiosis Medical Panel.
The second example that I want to give is that of Mr. C, who was given an x-ray examination by his employer's medical adviser in July 1978 and was informed, by means of a notice which appeared on the company's notice board, that in common with all the other employees screened he was clear. Two year's later, however, Mr. C received a letter from his own GP stating that the x-ray—which was referred to in the letter as "recent"—gave a suggestion of pneumoconiosis. Mr. C asked the company for an explanation, and the works manager apologised, saying that in future they would take more care to check the records.
Mr. C then claimed industrial injuries benefit for damage to his lungs caused as a result of his employment with the company, but the Pneumoconiosis Medical Board decided that he was not suffering from asbestos-related disease. In notifying him of the decision, the DHSS local office in Lichfield, Staffordshire, told him that he could appeal against it only if he had been examined by the board on at least four occasions. That was wrong. Since April 1979 the claimant has a right of appeal if there have been two refusals with a year in between them. The Secretary of State, Mr. Patrick Jenkin, apologised for the local office and said that although the DHSS does try hard to see that correct and up-to-date information is given, sometimes the effect of recent changes in the rules is overlooked. He also apologised, incidentally, for the illegible signature which appeared on the wrong letter, and said that normally the sender is identifiable by his or her printed name. I think that it ought to be
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an absolute rule—and I hope that the noble Lord the Minister will agree with this—that no letter is sent out by any office of any Government department without proper identification of the sender, as you would expect in any businesslike organisation. At this stage I should like to say that the Minister, Mr. Patrick Jenkin, was invariably extremely helpful when raised these questions with him. I have no complaint whatsoever about the examination which was conducted by the Secretary of State of any cases that were submitted to him.
The next case that I want to quote is that of Mr.H, who was admitted to Fazakerley Hospital in September 1979, and died there on 23rd September of that year of mesothelioma, which the coroner said was of industrial origin. Again in this case it proved extraordinarily difficult to establish the history of exposure. Protracted inquiries had failed to identify any particular employment in which exposure might have occurred, when at the very last moment two former workmates of Mr. H came forward and gave information which enabled the insurance officer to agree the preliminary matter of exposure.
Another aspect which arose in this case was that the hospital where Mr. H died omitted to tell his widow of the possibility of making a claim for industrial death benefit. When he replied to my letter on the subject, the Secretary of State told me that the responsibility for what is said to a patient or the relatives lies with the consultant. But medical social workers do quite often inform the relatives of patients of the possibility of claiming from cancer charities, presumably with the approval of the consultant, and I believe that they could be expected to do the same in regard to social security benefits.
In the case of Mr. J, he was originally refused his claim for benefit for diffuse mesothelioma, a prescribed industrial disease, on the grounds that the employment to which he had been exposed was not employed earner's employment. He had been self-employed from 1952 to 1957, but in the end was able to satisfy the officer that his occupation between 1946 and 1952 did involve exposure to asbestos. This illustrates another problem: that the diseases associated with asbestos might take as long as 20 or more years to develop, so that the burden of proof on the claimant might be very onerous. Mr. J's original claim for injury benefit was made on 2nd April 1980, and the Secretary of State finally wrote to me in November 1980, saying that it had been allowed, backdated to the original date of the claim, and that was reasonably quick as these cases go.
Turning to the case of Mr. P, he was first diagnosed as suffering from asbestos-related disease in April 1980, and a claim had been made for attendance allowance. On his death, which occurred on 23rd October last year, the DHSS Attendance Allowance Unit sent his widow a form letter, with the dead man's name filled in by handwriting, expressing sympathy and notifying her of the disallowance of the claim. By the way this letter, too, was signed illegibly, above the words "For Controller". Apparently some 9,000 letters of this kind go out every year, as I discovered from the Secretary of State.
I suggested that this would be an ideal application for the use of word processors, because that would enable

1015
the letters to be far more personal than they are at the moment. The Secretary of State mentioned cost, but the amount required would be minimal. A sum of around £2,500 would cover the annual cost of equipment, including maintenance, while the labour costs would he the same as the scruffy form letters that are now sent out. I suggested that this would be an excellent application for the DHSS to introduce as one of its modest contributions to Information Technology Year 1982. One might say that another answer to this problem would be to speed up determination of claims for attendance allowance. It rather shocked me to discover that as many as 9,000 persons who had submitted claims for this allowance in fact died before the claims could be determined.
Following Mr. P's death, his widow made a claim. This still had to go before the medical appeal tribunal, in spite of the diagnosis which had been made during the patient's lifetime and a favourable decision by the Pneumoconiosis Medical Panel in January 1981. It was not until 26th November that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, finally wrote to tell me that the claim had been settled in favour of the widow, with full payment of arrears—well over a year after the patient's death. This enables me to underline yet again the importance of trying to settle these claims far more promptly than they are settled at the moment.
There is one more claim that I would mention. It is that of Mr. S, who originally filled in claim forms in July 1979, after being found unfit for work due to asbestos-related disease in June of that year. He was not called for examination by the board until 18th December, some five months later. When I enquired about this I was told that the average length of time which elapsed between the receipt of a claim and the holding of an examination by the board is about three weeks. So clearly there are some circumstances in which it takes a great deal longer to process a claim, and this is a matter which I hope might be looked into.
On 31st March 1980 the Secretary of State wrote to me saying that the board had completed their examination and had concluded that Mr. S was indeed suffering from asbestosis. They had been unable to reach a decision immediately at their examination on 18th December, but had found it necessary to obtain several biopsy sections from the hospital and to seek reports on them from two pathologists; and it was not until 14th March that they were finally able to decide in favour of Mr. S's claim. It was subsequently maintained that the board did not ask for any additional biopsies to be carried out, in contravention of the advice which is given by the Department of Health in its own booklet of December 1979, which states (and I quote):
"Lung biopsy undertaken solely for the diagnosis of asbestosis for purposes of compensation is never justified",
because, of course, biopsies may aggravate the condition from which the patient is suffering. However, the correspondence shows that that was how the hospital interpreted the request, and I would suggest that proper safeguards should be built into the procedures rather than that reliance should be placed on doctors remembering the contents of the advisory booklet.
Mr. S died on June 6, 1980, three months after his claim was determined. In September his widow
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wrote to me asking whether her solicitors could be helped in extracting a report from the PMP which they needed in connection with an action against his former employer. I wrote to the PMP myself, but received no answer. I think that something should be done to see that prompt and full replies are given in matters of such great importance, where claims remain to be determined.
My Lords, I think I have said enough to show that the matter of submitting claims and of obtaining benefits for asbestos-related disease is indeed, as the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, has said, an extremely complicated and long-winded one. Methods of monitoring asbestos have improved, and more people may be receiving awards than have in the past; but much remains to be done to ensure that disabled persons are properly diagnosed and that claims are processed quickly and efficiently. I think that in this Year of the Disabled vigorous measures should be taken to see that people who contract these fearful diseases are fully and promptly compensated.
9.3 p.m.
The Earl of Cranbrook: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, for raising this matter tonight, and I am glad to take the chance to say a few words, in particular in my position as chairman of Sub-Committee G of the Select Committee on the European Communities in this House. I should like to clear up a little bit the matter of the SPAID evidence which was submitted to Sub-Committee G through the European Legislation Committee of the House of Commons. We received this paper in June 1981. The House of Commons Select Committee in fact reviewed the evidence of SPAID, and they referred to this in the 25th Report, which was published on 10th June 1981, in which, in order to save a little time for my noble friend on the Front Bench. I might as well inform the noble Earl he will see a foonote on page 6 saying that a copy of the SPAID evidence was placed in the Library of the House of Commons and is available to Members there. Since the evidence was directed towards me rather than towards Her Majesty's Government, it is appropriate that I should say here, too, that I am placing a copy of the same evidence in the Library of this House, where it will be available to your Lordships.
I also intend to place in the Library, alongside, SPAID's comments on the two council documents; that is to say, the document relating to the protection of workers, which is identified by the number 9953/80, and the other document, which relates to the restriction on the marketing of asbestos and is identified by the number 6582/80. If they had been received sooner, these papers would undoubtedly have been published with the report of your Lordships' Select Committee on the European Communities under the title Asbestos, which, as the noble Earl has noted, is the 17th for the Session 1980–81. I remind your Lordships that this was in fact published on 17th March 1981 and was debated on the 14th May 1981. On neither occasion did we have the benefit of this extra evidence. I therefore value the chance to draw your Lordships' attention to the SPAID contribution.
This brings further emphasis to bear on issues which had in fact, I think, already been identified and caused

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concern among Members of Sub-Committee G in their scrutiny of the two documents to which I have referred. I do not wish now to repeat at length the debate which we held last May, but I would draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that the Sub-Committee's report stressed the view that there can be no so-called "safe" level established for the exposure to asbestos dust. We also noted that there are differences of opinion on the relative dangers of blue and white asbestos; that further dissemination of knowledge of the hazards of asbestos are an essential part of control, and that the counting methods which are at present in use leave much to be desired.
Since these papers were received, since the debate of 17th May, time has passed. I am very glad to note that during this time there have been some useful and progressive changes in the proposals emanating from the Commission. These changes have been notified in two memoranda which have been circulated by the Department of Employment, as the noble Earl has already noted, on 15th October 1981. I shall place these, also, in the Library so that they will be available for consultation.
In relation to the revisions of the Commission documents which have occurred, I should like to ask my noble friend a number of questions of which I have in fact given him notice. I should like to ask him, first of all, whether he is satisfied on the following points. First, does the current draft of 9953/80 ensure that the United Kingdom will be able to implement in full any recommendations of the Health and Safety Commission based on the study by the Advisory Committee on Asbestos? I should also like to ask him: are the revised requirements for medical examinations and the retention of medical records satisfactory in terms of the benefits and protection they are expected to provide to workers either exposed or likely to be exposed to asbestos?
So far as the document 5682/80 is concerned, may I ask my noble friend whether he supports the addition of the clause stipulating a review of exemptions at the end of five years after the implementation of the directive, and does he agree that the progress in this direction ought to be subject to continuing reviews at similar intervals rather than, as appears at present, to a single review? Arising out of what was said by noble Lords who preceded me this evening, I should like to join the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, in asking the Minister if he is satisfied that the existing scheme for marking products containing asbestos (other than crocidolite; for there is no crocidolite marketing in this country) is working; or whether it is failing as badly as was implied by the noble Earl.
Finally, I should like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the World Health Organisation proposes to hold a conference on the biological effects of artificial mineral fibres; that is to say, the potential substitutes for asbestos; that this conference will be held in Copenhagen in April 1982 and I should like to ask if it is intended that the Health and Safety Commission should send delegates to the conference and whether the Health and Safety Commission are satisfied that there is adequate progress at present into the research for suitable and safe artificial mineral fibre substitutes for asbestos.
9.9 p.m.
Lord Plant: My Lords, I want to thank the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, for introducing this debate and to thank the previous speakers for having taken part in the debate on what I regard as an important subject. We know now why this debate is taking place. The evidence that was missing was based on the work of SPAID, (the Society for the Prevention of Asbestosis and Industrial Diseases) of which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and myself are trustees. I have had a lifelong interest in this subject as a trade unionist and some 25 years as chairman of the Post Office and Civil Service Sanatorium Society whose hospital is at Benenden in Kent.
Looking at the visitors' book the other day, I found that Lord Cranbrook's forbear was present at the opening of the hospital by Princess Helena of Schleswig-Holstein in 1905. I am very glad that his descendants maintain a deep interest in this question of chest diseases. SPAID aims at benefiting the community in two ways. We advise people who become sick and disabled because of their work and often represent them at DHSS medical appeal tribunals or advise their families when there is a coroner's inquest after a death.
In the course of this work, the society gains much information which we make available to doctors, scientists, researchers, administrators, legislators, trade union officials and anyone who is able to put it to good use. Mrs. Nancy Tait has been mentioned. She is a widow, a Churchill scholar. Her husband, a Post Office engineer, died of asbestosis. Since then, Mrs. Tait has devoted her whole life to examining this problem and helping others. She works for nothing. SPAID has no money. We have to go round with the hat; and it is significant that very few coppers get in the hat. Fortunately, recently the national press has been giving some publicity to SPAID. I see that the monthly paper for old people called Yours produced by Help the Aged is now giving a good deal of information about the work of SPAID and I dare say that Mrs. Tait will be inundated by requests for help from some of our senior citizens.
The importance of this work was recognised by Mr. Danby, inspector for the Department of the Environment and Transport, whose report to the Secretary of State for the Environment following the Langburgh inquiry at which SPAID reported its recent findings on asbestos included the words:
"… it is clear to me that developments in the use of the electronic microscope, which post-date the eminent Advisory Committee's Final Report, may call for changes in the recommended methods of handling and working asbestos cement sheets outside the place of manufacture; the pursuit of alternative reinforcements (to asbestos) is also an obvious priority".
So I feel it is important that this House should have the opportunity of considering these new developments reported by SPAID. The chairman of the Health and Safety Commission has written that the considered response to the recommendations of the final report of the Advisory Committee on Asbestos was made in April 1981. This advice has not been made public, but the asbestos industry's public relations body published, also in April 1981, that the Health and Safety Commission's advice to Ministers would include a recommendation that the control limit for amosite—brown asbestos—should be only half as

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strict as that recommended by the final report; that is, one fibre per millilitre instead of 0.5 fibres per millilitre; and that the introduction of safer controls for chrysotile and amosite should be delayed until January 1985, when the European Community limits take effect, although the advisory committee recommended that they should be introduced with legal backing by December 1980.
Those engaged in dangerous industries are rapidly becoming better informed by their trade unions and they will not easily forgive legislators if there is continued procrastination on this subject. Even more disturbing is that industry claims that Ministers have been advised that the obligation to consider substitution of asbestos by other materials should now apply only to manufacturers instead of to any person producing specifications or carrying on a process involving the use of asbestos, as recommended in the final report. SPAID's records show that there is more asbestos disease among workers in the asbestos industry than is reported, and even more disease among those using asbestos materials, as distinct from workers manufacturing asbsetos products.
To give some examples: an asbestos cement worker was told for 10 years that he suffered from bronchitis. A medical appeal tribunal accepted evidence that he is suffering from asbestosis, presented on his behalf by SPAID, and, assessing his disability at 50 per cent.. backdated benefits for five years. Yet we are asked to accept that asbestos cement is a safe material to manufacture and to use. This stems from the procedures for diagnosing asbestos disease used by the pneumoconiosis medical panel who rely on counts of asbestos bodies seen with an optical microscope. Yet these bodies rarely form on the white fibres used for asbestos cement and brake-linings, so that in the past, much disease arising from work in these industries has been missed.
When we look at brake linings, we find that Turner and Newall, when reporting in their 1980 Review on a study of workers at Ferodo who had at least 10 years' employment at Chapel en le Frith, claim that
"A preliminary report showed that the proportion of deaths in the factory workforce was no greater than of the general population".
Yet, the TUC Institute of Occupational Health has reported 13 mesothelioma deaths at the factory by the end of 1979. There is a discrepancy here.
Is industry claiming that mesothelioma, the untreatable asbestos cancer, is to be considered a normal cause of death? That their employment played no part in these workers' deaths? SPAID knew another worker at that factory, at Ferodo, who died early in 1980. The coroner's pathologist suggested malignant mesothelioma as a secondary cause of death. Although the pneumoconiosis medical panel's pathologist was able to photograph what was described as an early mesothelioma, the pneumoconiosis medical panel reported that they failed to find asbestos bodies in the 30 micron sections of lung tissue, and they decided that death was unrelated to exposure to asbestos.
SPAID arranged for examination of six lung blocks using the light microscope and the analytical transmission electron microscope. While the pneumoconiosis medical panel report no asbestos bodies, our investiga-
1020
tions found between 4,200 and 12,400 asbestos bodies per gram of dried lung—this was when the light microscope was used—and between 11 million and 52 million asbestos fibres per gram of dried lung when they used the electron microscope. In how many other cases would panel decisions be found to be wrong if more of their decisions were to be investigated by the methods recommended by SPAID? Mesothelioma deaths have increased almost three-fold over a decade but only one in five has received industrial death benefit from DHSS. Does this mean that the DHSS and their pneumoconiosis medical panels have decided that four out of five mesothelioma deaths are due to environmental exposure to asbestos? Or are they denying claimants money to which they are entitled?
Certainly, cases investigated by SPAID suggest that the general public is at risk as the amount of asbestos accumulates in the air we breathe. The following people have died of mesothelioma; a man who worked with asbestos sheets for two weeks to line a factory's walls and ceiling died 24 years later at the age of 46; a man who demonstrated an asbestos plugging compound for one year. A similar product is still sold for use by the home handyman—and you do not know you are using it—without any adequate warning on the packet. A man died who built one garage of asbestos cement sheeting. The number of carpenters developing this cancer is causing the building industry and the trade union movement a great deal of concern.
In 1973 the Department of Employment recommended the use of less toxic alternative materials in place of asbestos in new construction work. Yet we find that it is only overseas that an excellent alternative to asbestos cement, developed by the University of Guildford by 1978, is going into production. Why has the United Kingdom company which acquired the licence failed to keep pace with Holland. Italy and Australia when there is such a need for this product? Both the TUC and Labour Party conferences in 1980 and 1981 supported recommendations that the use of asbestos should be phased out and the evidence collected by SPAID that disease caused by asbestos has been seriously under-reported in the past makes it clear that asbestos is too dangerous to be used. So much is used and it is used so carelessly. Recent reports by our Medical Research Council concerning incidents in Turkey suggest that mesothelioma can occur where the exposure is only to very low Environmental fibre concentrations; even as low as one-hundredth of those encountered by workers in the asbestos industry today.
There has been much media interest in the 63 mesotheliomas in this Turkish village because the fibres are zeolite, not asbestos and the media like novelty. But about 200 kilometres further north. 122 mesotheliomas are reported, and in this area we find that the fibre is chrysotile and tremolite, otherwise known as white asbestos. Perhaps the Langburgh inspector would have been even more concerned had a recent Lancet article on these Turkish mesotheliomas been published before, rather than after, the Langbaurgh hearing. In this article, researchers report that they cannot explain how such low levels of fibres can be reconciled with mesothelioma rates at least as high as those observed among heavily exposed asbestos workers, and conclude

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by saying that this problem
"… may be relevant to the wider issue of mesothelioma in relation to long-term inhalation of low levels of mineral fibres (typically asbestos) by the urban populations of industrialised countries".
SPAID has been involved with eight DHSS appeals recently. In all but one case the appeal tribunal has agreed with SPAID and awarded benefit previously withheld by DHSS—that is, medical men recognised by the DHSS as eminent in their field are agreeing that SPAID has succeeded in identifying asbestos disease previously undiagnosed by the pneumoconiosis medical panels.
In two cases, both diagnosed as asbestosis by the appeals tribunal, work with asbestos had been intermittent and for short periods only; for example, weighing asbestos for only one day a week for about five years. Asbestosis is not dose-related. It is not only those who have worked with asbestos for years who develop asbestosis and cancer, but until recently there was no right of appeal against decisions of pneumoconiosis medical panels, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Avebury. So they have been able to impose their own criteria as to what should be recognised as asbestos disease, and were able to stipulate that there must have been heavy exposure to asbestos before a diagnosis of asbestosis could be made.
If exposure had been slight, other names were given to conditions which cannot be distinguished from asbestosis. In one case, a family pet budgerigar was blamed. The panel forms have a list of birds, from racing pigeons to turkeys. It is duly recorded if a claimant has kept them at any time, and then they argue that keeping birds is more likely to cause disease than is work with asbestos. How mean and stupid can we get? I suggest that it is time for investigation and reform of these Pneumoconiosis Medical Panels.
It is argued that workers benefit from the jobs which the asbestos industry provides, but the workers who are required to use asbestos products, often unlabelled—and this has been mentioned as another problem—pay for those jobs with their health, and the manufacture of safer materials would equally provide employment. Alternatives are now known for all uses of asbestos in this country. The change to alternative materials is making better progress overseas. Asbestos-free brake pads are marketed in Australia and asbestos-free braking systems are being developed in the United States. Perhaps their product liability legislation makes them more aware of the need.
In contrast, in the United Kingdom industry has apparently persuaded the Health and Safety Commission to allow the asbestos industry to control the pace at which any change is made in this country. It is necessary to take care that alternatives are not equally dangerous, but, too often, this is argued purely as a delaying ploy and without making any effort to compare or identify possible risks.
Meantime, workers are still working in levels of asbestos dust which the Advisory Committee on Asbestos said should not be allowed to continue after December 1980. The Advisory Committee on Asbestos considered a number of studies before recommending control limits of 0·5 fibres per millilitre for amosite (brown asbestos) and one fibre per millilitre
1022
for chrysotile (white asbestos). One, a study of American asbestos textile and asbestos cement workers using chrysotile, reported one death from mesothelioma. The authors now report 58 mesothelioma deaths associated with that factory: 41 were workers at the factory not included in the original study, and 17 were people not working there but living near the factory. This fully justifies the criticism made by many at the time when the final report was published, that there was no sound scientific basis for the proposed control limit of one fibre; that such a control limit would not protect workers from disease.
It is not surprising that the inspector of the Department of the Environment drew attention to new evidence post-dating the advisory committee's final report, which suggests that asbestos is more dangerous than was thought when the committee reported in 1979. It is surprising that the Health and Safety Commission is content to allow its recommendations to be watered down and shelved, and is content to allow workers to continue to put their health at risk. I hope that my friend, Bill Simpson, will take note of my criticism.
I said earlier that the claimant has been successful in seven of eight cases in which SPAID has given advice, which shows the quality of the work which this society is doing. In the one case refused benefit by the Medical Appeal Tribunal, the reason given was that asbestosis affects the lining of the lung (called the pleura), but not the lung itself, and the DHSS regulations do not recognise this as asbestosis. The Industrial Injuries Advisory Council recommended in 1973 that the regulations should be changed to allow benefit to be paid if a claimant was disabled by asbestosis of the lung or its lining. Researchers have demonstrated that disablement caused by pleural asbestosis can be identified but the regulations still remain unchanged. Again we see the continued procrastination. One pneumoconiosis medical panel doctor told an international conference in 1979 that he agreed with Mrs. Nancy Tait, however, that the rules to which the panels had to work were not all in complete agreement with current scientific opinion. The value of the society's work is recognised by eminent medical men in this country and abroad. It shows clearly that asbestos is even more dangerous than had previously been reported.
I apologise for the time I have taken in making this statement to your Lordships. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, for asking this question and for drawing attention to this important new evidence on the dangers of the use of asbestos.
9.31 p.m.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, first I should like, as other noble Lords have done, to thank the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, for raising this evening the subject of asbestos. Those who have spoken before me in the debate have gone into a great deal of detail. I do not intend to weary your Lordships by repeating it. However, it has presented your Lordships with a very effective case for the Government taking action.
The noble Earl, Lord Gosford, complained that SPAID's evidence did not get to the EEC Select Committee and should be added to their report. The

1023
noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, told your Lordships what happened and he has taken immediate action to see that the relevant documents which have been presented to him are placed in the Library. I am sure that your Lordships would like to thank him for taking such speedy action.
The noble Earl, Lord Gosford, pointed out that the new scientific developments to which he referred and which had been referred to the Select Committee have shown that multitudes of small white asbestos fibres which were not previously visible are present in diseased tissues and that the danger of asbestosis is much wider than had been previously suspected. Obviously we must be very concerned at this turn of events—and necessarily. This makes us more concerned as to whether the present methods of monitoring the presence of asbestos are adequate.
Monitoring is a highly technical question. I am sure that your Lordships' desire must be that it should be as effective as possible, consistent with the monitoring system being able to give speedy results. As always on monitoring, one must strike a balance between speed and effectiveness. However, our major concern this evening must be the eradication of these health hazards and whether adequate safety standards are being used—and where this is not possible, that in fact substitutes are brought in.
Asbestos has been widely used as an insulating agent for many years and has been put to many other uses. There is undoubtedly difficulty over a period of time in developing substitutes. Both the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, and the noble Lord, Lord Plant, have spoken about these substitutes, and in particular about the delay in developing them. We must be concerned that the substitues themselves do not involve health hazards. But even so, we must be concerned at the report in The Times yesterday about this delay, which was spoken to my my noble friend Lord Plant. In fact it seems that the delay has gone on rather longer than necessary. I hope on this general point, as opposed to some of the very detailed points which noble Lords have raised, that the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, will be able to give an answer as to why we have not been able to proceed faster with the manufacture of substitutes, as has been indicated.
I think in general your Lordships have shown in this debate this evening that this is an area of great concern. As I have said, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, detailed individual cases which he had investigated. The noble Lord, Lord Plant, detailed some of this history of the society. I do not intend to add to those details, but my fear is that the Government will be tempted to sit back and do nothing while further tests are made. I feel that the evidence which has been presented to your Lordships this evening from all quarters of the House is important evidence which should lead the Government to take action.
9.37 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I believe the whole House will be immensely grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, for raising this fascinating and very detailed and interesting, and in many cases very tragic, subject in your Lordships' House this evening. Your Lordships will be aware that many different and detailed
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points have been raised and many of those points have contained frank and detailed warning from Members of your Lordships' House who have taken part in the debate. I hope that I shall be able to give satisfactory answers. With regard to some of the other instant questions I shall do my best, and if there are any points that miss I trust that I shall obtain the usual indulgence from your Lordships and be able to write in detail, together with some of the scientific points, to noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. We shall all be conscious that Members of your Lordships' House and of another place have done much valuable work in examining all the developments in legislation on, and the control of, exposure to asbestos in this country, in other member states of the European Community, and indeed further afield.
The noble Earl, Lord Gosford, who asked this Question tonight took part in our previous and more general debate on the two draft European Community proposals which are now under negotiation in Brussels, and I would attempt to build on what my honourable friend said recently in another place, actually on the 22nd October, in replying to the more detailed questions which have now been asked by the noble Earl.
The Health and Safety Commission's Advisory Committee on Asbestos, as the experts in your Lordships' House will be aware, sat between 1976 and 1979 and took a very comprehensive review of the current methods of sampling and indeed of evaluating asbestos dust. In the report on the measurement and monitoring of asbestos in the air, published in 1978, the Advisory Committee concluded that for workplace monitoring there was then no practical alternative to the collection of airborne fibres on what we call a "membrane filter" and then counting these by means of optical phase contrast microscopy—or should it be micro-scoppy?
Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe: My Lords, the noble Lord was right the first time.
Lord Lyell: Clearly the noble Baroness is a Great expert, and we look forward to hearing her perhaps on another occasion. Although this committee acknowledged the limitations of this particular method, subsequent research and development has not yet produced a satisfactory replacement, and indeed the membrane filter method continues to be the one on which controls for occupational exposure are based, and which is at present routinely used for the protection in the workplace, for process control, and indeed for assessing legislative compliance by industry both in the factory inspectorate and in epidemiological surveys.
The advisory committee further recognised that there was an important need to devote further effort to reducing the variation which occurred in the evaluation of samples by this method and indeed to develop more sophisticated methods to replace or supplement manual counting. The Health and Safety Executive, in co-operation with industry, and indeed with other countries, have already done a great deal of work to implement these recommendations. The debate which we had in your Lordships' House—I think it was in March this year—looked at some length at research and development of automatic methods of counting and analysing the concentration of airborne fibres in the workplace, and I am happy to say that this work is

1025
continuing in co-operation with the manufacturers of the instruments, and that comparative trials are undertaken regularly to increase the reliability of these instruments which are in day-to-day use.
In addition the Government, as your Lordships will recall, are engaged in discussion of the draft European Community directive on the protection of workers from the risks which are related to exposure to asbestos, and this draft directive contains, among other things, provisions for monitoring asbestos in the air at the workplace; and, certainly from the background of our experience, we are discussing with other member states development of an agreed reference method to encourage more consistent comparisons of the techniques of monitoring this problem throughout the Community.
Various noble Lords who have spoken in the debate have raised the problem of alternatives for asbestos. In this regard the Government encourage the replacement of asbestos in particular uses by other suitable substances so far as is reasonably practicable. But, of course, we have to take account of current knowledge of the respective health risks of these substitutes, and also of the use of the substitutes in production, the effectiveness of the substitutes in the performance in place of asbestos and asbestos fibres, and the costs which are associated with the changeover from asbestos to various forms of substitutes. The Government very greatly welcome the efforts that have been, and indeed still are continuing to be, made by industry, and especially by research institutes, to develop substitutes for asbestos in an ever-widening range of applications.
I would remind your Lordships that, as was said by my honourable friend in another place, the unique combination of properties which has led to the widespread use of asbestos in general has made asbestos difficult to replace. By the same token, if other substances are to be effective substitutes, the very properties that make them suitable can also present potential, possibly as yet undiagnosed, risks to health. Therefore, in this respect the Government would advise prudence in substitutions.
The Earl of Gosford: My Lords, may I just add very quickly that men and women and children are also difficult to replace, and really there is quite an urgency to see that these old materials are now replaced by more modern methods.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, of course the Government agree totally with the noble Earl. But I possibly did not spell it out in my reference to alternative substances that we are operating at the limits of scientific knowledge, as we find it, and as the noble Earl will find later in my reply to a very valid point made by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, many of these diseases regrettably only become evident 20 to 30 years after the worker or, as the noble Earl points out, the men, women and children, have been exposed to this particular risk. But certainly, the Government take an urgent view of this matter and are doing everything that can be done within the limits of science.
I should like to attempt to reply in detail to the points which have been raised by those noble Lords who have taken part in the debate this evening. The noble Earl, Lord Gosford, began his interesting speech
1026
by mentioning evidence which had been offered by SPAID to, I think, the Select Committee in another place. Certainly I hope that the noble Earl and the House will be satisfied with the very full and valuable answer which was given by my noble friend Lord Cranbrook.
The first major question which was put to me by the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, was about the dates of the consideration by the European Commission. I am advised that further discussions on the draft directives are expected to take place in early 1982. The precise timing of these discussions will, indeed depend upon decisions which will be taken by the new presidency for the first half of 1982, which will be the Belgium presidency, of the European Community. However, we would hope that they would accord these discussions the utmost urgency and I have no doubt that, in view of the very valuable work which is done by your Lordships' European Community committees and, indeed, by my noble friend Lord Cranbrook, the remarks which all Members of your Lordships' House have made in the debate tonight will be very closely studied in the European Commission. That is the way that these things work and your Lordships' House is pre-eminent in its knowledge and I would pay tribute to the valuable work which is done by the European Community committees upstairs. We know that their reports and the debate tonight are taken seriously by the European Commission.
The noble Earl also made a brief reference to electronic microscopy and I thought that I might just turn briefly to this particular problem. As your Lordships will be aware, the Health and Safety Executive is evaluating several what we call automatic counting devices which are available commercially to monitor and check on the problems which we are discussing this evening. There are, I understand, three devices. One is called Magiscan. This is something which is beyond my scientific knowledge so far and it is called an automatic image analyser and this, we are very proud to see, has been developed at the University of Manchester and is manufactured in this country. There is another microscope which goes under the trade name of M88. The third is a fibrous aerosol monitor. I understand that the fibrous aerosol monitor has not proved as satisfactory, at least at present, as we would wish. The M88 microscope has been very fully assessed by the Institute of Occupational Medicine in Edinburgh in co-operation with the manufacturers Vickers Instruments Limited and, above all, with the asbestos industry. From the results which have been obtained, the Health and Safety Executive believes that the device would have very great advantages where samples were of a limited range of types or, indeed, for large numbers of low density samples of one particular type of fibre. But we wonder whether this particular machine would be suitable for routine enforcement.
I come lastly to the machine which is known as Magiscan. We understand that the results which have so far been obtained at levels which correspond to the present hygiene standard are usually well within the spread of the manual results, which use the systematic manual method, but further developments of monitoring methods and instruments are being pursued

1027
with great vigour in co-operation with other countries outside the European Community, and, indeed, with the European Commission.
The noble Earl raised one other point which, indeed, I think was also raised by a number of other Members of your Lordships' House; certainly by the noble Lord, Lord Plant, and my noble friend Lord Cranbrook. This was concerned with the problems of labelling. Following various discussions between the Government and representatives of the asbestos industry, there was a scheme, which we are happy to call the Voluntary Labelling Scheme, which was introduced in 1976 for all manufactured consumer products in the United Kingdom which contain asbestos of a form and of a type which could constitute a possible danger to health through the release of asbestos dust.
More recently the industry has had some success in persuading importers of similar products to participate in this scheme. But since the publication of the final report of the Advisory Committee on Asbestos, a research study has been carried out on behalf of the Department of Trade which shows that although there has been some improvement in the effectiveness of this voluntary scheme since 1976, regrettably it was still not fully observed. But the proposals on labelling, which are now under consideraton in relation to the draft Directive on Marketing and Use, would be based on the design of the United Kingdom label. The scope and wording of any safety instructions unfortunately remain to be agreed. But, if adopted, this directive would make labelling mandatory for all member states. The Government support this proposal in principal as a further means of achieving harmonisation on the use of asbestos throughout the Community, provided that the provisions of this directive are practicable and, indeed, are capable of effective enforcement.
The noble Earl, Lord Gosford, raised a particularly interesting point, as certainly did the noble Lord, Lord Plant, and another noble Lord. It concerned this substitute for asbestos developed with cement, which I understand is the result of work which has been carried out and is still under research at the University of Surrey. We are very much aware of the work which is done at this university towards developing a potential alternative to asbestos cement. This consists of a cement mixture with what I am told are reinforcing layers of stretched polypropylene netting. I am given to understand that an important aspect of cement made by this process is that, unlike asbestos cement, which is manufactured in several layers, the potential substitute at this university under this process is made in one layer during what is called "continuous manufacture". I have not had the opportunity of seeing this being manufactured, but I understand it means that new production machinery has had to be developed, making the product itself more complicated and, Indeed, more costly to produce.
This problem has created a potential difficulty in changing over from the manufacture of asbestos cement to that of this new material. But, of course, in this area of trying to find some particular or suitable substitute for asbestos cement we must take into account that the decision of any company whether or not to manufacture a particular product is for that
1028
company to take, bearing in mind the technical, social, medical and, of course, the economic factors in the case of each substitute and how that substitute will be relevant to the particular company's product.
The noble Earl, Lord Gosford, gave me notice of one other particular point, which he did not necessarily raise this evening, but I would hope that your Lordships would enable me to deal with it briefly. It concerned paints. The noble Earl asked me about asbestos fibres in paint, and especially in paint used for decorative purposes. I am advised that asbestos fibres have not been used in decorative paints for many years, although they were once used as what we call a binding agent in some specialised domestic paints for protection against condensation and indeed corrosion.
I am given to understand that there is still a very small and diminishing use of chrysotile fibres—they are complicated words; I believe this is the white asbestos in what I was told was the spectrum; I see the noble Lord, Lord Stone, nodding, so clearly at least I have the support of one in your Lordships' House—as a minor component of some industrial paints, but I would say that active steps are being taken to replace any form of asbestos fibres in these remaining uses.
The Earl of Gosford: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for being so conscientious in answering that "silent" question.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I had hoped your Lordships would bear with me. I have taken one minute, but it certainly was of interest to me and I am sure is of interest to your Lordships' House. The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, was very interesting indeed, but I would have to say to him, with all the courtesy that I can muster, that many of the cases—and the detailed cases—he raised are to a large extent outwith my brief this evening, and indeed many of the references that the noble Lord made were to my right honourable friend in another place, Mr. Patrick Jenkin, when he was at the Department of Health and Social Security.
I have to advise the noble Lord and the House that I do not have a second selection of notes on these particular detailed problems of claims and compensation. Any of your Lordships who have had to deal with questions and debates on Department of Health and Social Security problems and claims will appreciate that we could be here until very late at night if I, of all people, had to attempt to deal with the claims. May I attempt to answer as many as I can of the questions and the points that were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. I hope that I shall be able to do so, and I hope that he will hear with me.
One of the first points the noble Lord raised was what I called automatic counting. I hope I have covered that in my earlier comments in reply to the noble Earl, Lord Gosforth. So far as Mr. B, the first case, was concerned—and indeed it was fascinating to hear his complicated life pattern—I am afraid I could not comment on that particular case so far the Question tonight is concerned. Indeed, all these claims and the problems that have been associated with the claims are, I am afraid, outwith the particular Question I am attempting to answer, and this deals particularly with the actual disease, the conditions at the work place and the steps taken to attempt to monitor or, we hope, prevent the disease.

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Mr. C was found to have asbestosis. I am afraid the particular details of his claim are outwith any sphere of answer that I could give tonight. So far as the illegible signatures are concerned, first of all the department for which I am speaking this evening would have no special responsibility for signatures from another department, but in general the points that were raised by the noble Lord so far as illegible signatures, or "For Controller", are concerned, will be carefully read, and I hope diagnosed and acted upon in other departments.
So far as Mr. J was concerned in the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, I noted his lifestyle and how he was self-employed and how he was employed from 1947 to 1952. I would not be able to comment necessarily on the justification or not for his claim or the problem, but the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is of particular relevance to these appalling diseases we have been discussing this evening. Indeed, these diseases were spelt out in graphic detail in the report of the committee of my noble friend Lord Cranbrook.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, rightly pointed out that many of these diseases take 20 years or more to manifest themselves. The timespan between when workers—or, as my noble friend Lord Cranbrook pointed out, innocent members of the public—are exposed to risk and one of these diseases manifesting itself by whatever method (by electronic microscopy and so on) can be 20 or 30 years. Of course, technology is advancing all the time, so the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, was of exceptional relevance.
As for the other cases the noble Lord raised, of Mr. P and Mr. S, while they are most interesting, I am afraid I could not comment on the settlement or indeed justification of the claims, or the time between examination and the claim being three weeks or five months or whatever. While I could not comment on that tonight, I assure the noble Lord that his comments, and all the others that have been made in this debate by noble Lords, will be carefully read by the departments which have an interest in these diseases, and of course by the department for which I am speaking tonight. Thus, any points with which I am not able to deal will be noted by the relevant departments.
We had a notable contribution from my noble friend Lord Cranbrook. The whole House will be aware of the tremendously valuable work which he as chairman and his committee do, and have done, in examining the two directives, and I hope the House will bear with me when, on behalf of all your Lordships, I thank him and his committee for the expert and valuable work they have done and for their fascinating report, which I and noble Lords who have spoken tonight will have read. I was grateful for my noble friend's replies to the problems of the evidence presented by SPAID, and I hope that also dealt with the first problem raised by the noble Earl, Lord Gosford.
My noble friend raised a point of special reference to the Health and Safety Executive going to Copenhagen in April 1982. I am able to confirm that the executive will be well represented at the World Health Organisation's meeting on the biological effects of man-made mineral fibres to be held in Copenhagen in April 1982. The
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HSE representation consists, I am informed, of the factory inspectorate division, the scientific and medical divisions and representatives of policy. I hope that that massive representation demonstrates the great importance which the HSE places on the development of all safe alternatives to asbestos. My noble friend also asked about voluntary labelling, and I hope the answer I gave to the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, will satisfy him on that.
The noble Lord, Lord Plant, made a very interesting speech. However, I fear that much of it was beyond the scope of my reply this evening. The noble Lord asked about the final report from the Asbestos Advisory Committee. I am advised that the Government have generally welcomed the HSE's advice, and the Government have agreed that this advice should form the basis of the approach by the United Kingdom to Community legislation on asbestos and all the problems associated with it. But the development and the implementation of the policy of this country and of this Government on asbestos will need to be co-ordinated henceforward with that of the two draft EEC directives.
The noble Lord, Lord Plant, also raised two other points, one of which related to labelling, and I hope that on that I was able to satisfy him through my reply to the noble Earl, Lord Gosford. The noble Lord, Lord Plant, also raised the problem of the substitute material which is being developed continuously at the University of Surrey, and I hope that my previous remarks will have satisfied him on that particular score.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, raised one particular point which related to monitoring, and I shall try to answer this briefly. I understand that the word "monitoring" means maintaining a regular surveillance over something or someone. In regard to what we are dealing with tonight it applies to both the problem of asbestos dust as well as the human beings who are involved, either actively at their place of work, or, as the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, mentioned, as innocent bystanders or people otherwise in the vicinity. I hope that the Government have been able to show that by all kinds of methods, certainly by the electronic microscopy methods, and by attempting to fulfil our obligations under the workplace directive, we are meeting our obligations in this particularly important area.
There is of course another problem, that of the diagnosing of disease. The distinction between diagnosing and monitoring is a fundamental one, and certainly we should not want to blur the boundaries between these two concepts of diagnosis and monitoring.
Lord Davies of Leek: My Lords, I hate to interrupt the noble Lord, but I have had experience of pneumoconiosis, and I am concerned that a person who might have a disease arising from asbestos should have the legal muscle—which sometimes the trade union movement tries to give him—to get his case fought out properly before the tribunals, which overawe many a worker who goes before them.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I suspect that the noble Lord has experience of providing what he calls the muscle to assist the very unfortunate victims of asbestosis, above all, and the associated diseases. I hope that Government monitoring and diagnosis—

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the two concepts—are clearly drawn. Certainly my right honourable friend who is in charge of the Department of Health takes these problems very seriously. The department for which I am speaking this evening is concerned to take very seriously problems connected with prevention rather than hoped-for cure. We take the question of prevention very seriously, and I shall see that the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, are noted—
Lord Davies of Leek: I did not mean to be aggressive.
Lord Lyell: No, my Lords; I hope that the noble Lord does not think that I am attempting to be in any way aggressive in returning his volley. I shall certainly see that his remarks are noted, particularly in view of his undoubted interest in asbestosis, as well as the other diseases, including pneumoconiosis and byssinosis, which we have also heard about, though not tonight.
I promised to be brief, and I am very near the end in trying to reply to all the very detailed points, but the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and indeed others, asked about the substitution of asbestos. I would have to say that there is no apparent threshold below which any exposure to asbestos entails absolutely no risks to anybody's health. But, of course, there are very clear and obvious advantages in replacing it with alternatives provided that those alternatives are, in their turn, less hazardous. The Advisory Committee on Asbestos recommended that there should be an explicit obligation to consider the replacement of asbestos so far as it is reasonably practicable to do so—and I hope that this will marry in with the remarks that I made earlier—the Government and industry being very much at the limits of technology and science as we have the position today. The Government certainly support this particular view, and also the onward thrust of technology, but for practical reasons we believe that this obligation should be applied particularly and only to manufacturers of products which contain asbestos—and, of course, in the United Kingdom at the moment these are white and brown asbestos. I think that is chrysotile and amosite.
In conclusion, while I hope that I have shown this evening that the Government are by no means complacent about the progress which has been made so far, they believe that in the field of monitoring at the workplace of asbestos and the development of substitutes responsible advances are being made, and we hope that the United Kingdom will continue to play a leading role in seeking their realistic harmonisation with other countries.

British Railways (No. 2) Bill
The Queen's consent signified; Bill reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee with amendments.
  PAROLE: CATEGORY A PRISONERS
  PAROLE: CATEGORY A PRISONERS
  Ms. ERLINDA TIGLAO
  Ms. ERLINDA TIGLAO
  CONSERVATION AREAS
  CONSERVATION AREAS